for about the past couple of decades, the old religion of wicca has been the center of the mystical world. why is that? is it because people got tired of depending on a god to do all of their bidding and decided to take matters into their own hands? or is it because the darkness and the mystical mysterious attitude and manner is the new fad?

every one person has individual views on wicca and why they practice it (if they do). what are your thoughts and opinions?

well, 'wicca' isn't very old really. Some of the ideas presented in wicca are old, but its a 'new' religeon (if 19th century can count as new).

I'm not sure its at the center of the mystical world either. But then maybe it would seem more like it is if i were wiccan. It IS in the news more, mostly asssociated with all the scary shit teens are getting into these days :P (I say that sarcasticly i hope ya know)


actually wiccans depend on utilizing 'higher powers' in their magic(k) pretty often, so there's no major change there. Personally thats one reason i'm not wiccan, i'm *very* independant.


I must admit, that does seem to be the most prevailing trend for new wiccans. Or so it seems to me.


I practice magic(k), i'm not wiccan though. so i'll share why i'm not wiccan. I do not believe the foundational principals used in their more ritualizaed styles of magickal workings are effective.

They 'can' be effective... but the focus is all messed up. If "YOU" practice magick, then its 'you' who does the magick, and chants and rhymes and candles and other such things are just props to help you focus on the magick. Most wiccan's I have met, seem to think that the rituals themselves make the magick, and they are passive participants to the magick working. a message written on a piece of paper is meaningless unless someone reads it, the power of it is unleashed in the mind of the perciever.. magick is like this. if you just go through the motions but don't understand or feel the magical working, if you don't use your will, then you're not getting anywhere.

Then again, to be fair, plenty of people who use visualization based magick working run into the same problem if they focus too much on the nonliteral visualization and not enough on the act of manipulating energy.

Personally, i most strongly favor both a psionic and a sorcery styled apprach.

Another reason, is that i'm mostly agnostic. I don't really believe in dieties, they may exist, but also i do not feel that I should in any way act like they are superior. by this i mean no praise, worship, serving, kneeling, etc. to any diety or spirit, if they exist. if a diety has a problem with being looked in the eye, then they're not worth my time.

I do commune with a 'diety like being' i've met durring AP, but its hardly a religeous relationship. more like a sexual friendship.

lastly, i do not wish to limit myself to any one single belief system, any single method of magickal working, any single dogma... i study pretty much everything. There are good and bad ideas in every pile.

I do have numerous friends who are wiccan, I like wiccans generally, but its not for me.

Kath

i agree on most of the things you have said in your post.

Wicca is a fairly new religion that was based on ..Aleister Crowley`s ideas of witchcraft, i believe? if i am wrong, please feel free to correct me. anywho, the whole idea of witchcraft is to find the energy within to make something happen. in my opinion, if you are in a coven and you have no will to perform an incantation and you are in that coven by birth, that might make you a witch by association but you will not be 'valid' [my way of putting it].

there are no actual organized spells written down that are "the only ones you can use" and there are no secrets. there can never be a one "pure" or "true" form of Wicca and there are no prophets. it is a religion for the solitary practitioner. a coven, i believe, is only there to raise more energy for the incantation to work.

witchcraft isn`t evil, persay. it`s just how you use it. anybody could make things happen as long as they really want them to.

I had a great post thought out, on my opinions of wiccan and organised worship/spellcasting in general. But then Kath posted it, so all I can say on that topic is, I concur.

On the subject of wiccans though:

Wicca is, in parts, based on the old Celtic beliefs, the God and the Goddess, and the Horned one. It was created as we know it today in the 1950's by Geral Gardner, but some of its sources pre-dates the Christian era by centuries. This, however, does not make wicca a purely Celtic religion, rather a faith based on a Celtic religion.

As SilverRavenWulf puts it: Wicca, as you practice the religion today, is a new religion, barely fifty years old. The techniques you use at present are not entirely what your elders practiced even thirty years ago. Of course, threads of 'what was' weave through the tapestry of 'what is now.' ...in no way can we replicate to perfection the precise circumstances of environment, society, culture, religion and magick a hundred years ago, or a thousand. Why would we want to ? The idea is to go forward with the knowledge of the past, tempered by the tools of our own age.

The modern wiccan religion is based on a number of books and publishings, the most prominent ones being:

Aradia: Gospel of the Witches - Charles Leland (1899)
The Witch Cult in Western Europe - Margaret Murray
The God of the Witches - Margaret Murray
High Magic's Aid - Geral Gardner
Witchcraft Today - Gerald Gardner
The Meaning of Witchcraft - Gerald Gardner

As for the Gardner/Crowley link, there was a definite rumour. In 1946 Crowley was introduced to Gardner. They had several meetings, where they discussed magic, practiotions, etc. There was a huge controvercy later on about these meetings, regarding Gardners 'Book of Shadows'. Rumours had it Gardner paid Crowley to write the book for him.. This was later discounted, Gardner insisted the similarities, and the proved writings of Crowley in the book came from him and Crowley comparing notes on rituals used in 'Old George Pickingill’s' covens in the New Forrest area.

Wicca is one of the largest of the minority religions in the United States. There are no reliable estimates of the number of Wiccans in this country. Our best estimate is on the order of 750,000. That would make Wicca about the 5th largest organized religion in the United States, behind Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism.

Shamelessly stolen from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

The conventional wisdom is that the term wicca derives from the Indo-European root word of '*wic' & '*weik', meaning "to bend or shape." In Old English, wicca meant necromancer or male witch. Some contend that the term wicca is related to Old English witan, meaning wise man or counselor, but this is universally rejected by language scholars as false etymology. Nonetheless Wicca is often called the "Craft of the wise" as a result of this misconception.

It appears that the word may be untraceable beyond the Old English period. Derivation from the Indo-European roots '*wic' or '*weik' is seemingly incorrect by phonological understanding.

Though sometimes used interchangeably, "Wicca" and "Witchcraft" are not necessarily the same thing. The confusion comes, understandably, because both practitioners of Wicca and practitioners of witchcraft are often called witches. In addition, many, but not all, Wiccans practice what they call witchcraft and vice versa.

Wicca refers to the religion; the worship of the God & Goddess (or just Goddess), and the Sabbat and Esbat rituals. Witchcraft, or as it is sometimes called "The Craft”, on the other hand, requires no belief in specific gods or goddesses and is not a specific spiritual path. Thus, there are Witches who practise a variety of religions besides Pagan ones, such as Judaism and Christianity. It is considered to be a learned skill, referring to the casting of spells and the practice of magic or magick (the use of the "k" is to separate the term from stage magic). To add to the confusion the term witchcraft in popular older usage, or in a modern historical or anthropological context, means the use of black or evil magic, not something Wicca encourages at all.

i like this thread

Wicca is not about getting tired of a god, if one believes that they really aren't wiccan. It's a natural thing, you are born with a certain control over magick, ever think about wanting something really bad, and then get it? Sure, it could be coincidence, but what if it keeps happening, over and over again, it could still be coincidence, but every religion requires faith, that's why they are sometimes caled faiths. As for the mystery, yes, that is a reason why it is popular. Science and God, and quite a lot of religions try to explain away the world. We like to believe the world is less known than it is, and maybe it really is less known. The point is that Wicca isn't a fad, unless you count christianity as one as well. But it is a reanimated religion. Which I find extremely interesting.

First of all, Wicca is an ancient religion. It is about becoming in tune with the "energy" of the universe. Also it is a very flexible religion that does nott necessarily worship the god and goddess. There are many paths inside of it that you might be on and you can even create your own. Wicca allows for much freedom and individuality.

Wicca is based on ancient religions...that does not make it in itself ancient. It sounds to me like you may be confusing it with paganism. But please share more, it's always nice to hear other's versions.

hmm. clearwitch, if i know my wicca well, then i must say that i thought The Horned One was the God himself. it was because he was the one that communed with animals and wanted to be seen as if they were a part of who he is.

actually, wicca is not an ancient religion. it is a religion that was based on ancient shamanism. also, it does require you to believe in a god and goddess, otherwise it would not be a religion. if you are in it to just practice magic, do not call yourself a wiccan.

I'd just like to say one thing in favor of Wicca.

many people criticize it because it is so new, and is not 'ancient', even though many aspects of it are modernized tidbits from older pagan belief systems.

but the thing is, the age of an idea is not what makes it valid or invalid. A new religeon could be invented next tuesday which could be the most accurate and inspired religeon ever. huddling around a stone hut 4000 years ago does not make one omnisentient ;)

Kath