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Wicca and Paganism Explained

Wicca and Paganism


Gerald Gardner's Witchcraft Today

Wicca and Paganism

Wicca is a neopagan religion with distinctive ritual forms, seasonal observances and religious, magical, and ethical precepts. Wiccans practise a form of witchcraft, but not all witches are Wiccans other forms of witchcraft, folk magic and sorcery exist within many cultures, with widely varying practices.

Most Wiccans call themselves Pagans, though the umbrella term Paganism encompasses many faiths that have nothing to do with Wicca or witchcraft. Wicca is commonly described as a Neopagan faith though Isaac Bonewits, the influential Neo-druid has claimed that early Wicca (at a time when it was still called "Witchcraft") was in fact a Mesopagan path. Since there is no centralised organisation in Wicca, and no single orthodoxy, the beliefs and practices of Wiccans can vary substantially, both among individuals and among traditions. Typically, the main religious principles, ethics, and ritual structures are shared, since they are key elements of traditional teachings and published works on the subject.

As practised by initiates in the lineage of Gerald Gardner, Wicca is a variety of witchcraft founded on religious and magical concepts. As such it is distinguished not only by its beliefs, but by its practice of magic, its ethical philosophy, initiatory system, organisational structure and secrecy. Some of these beliefs and practices have also been adopted by others outside of this lineage, often termed Eclectic Wiccans, who generally discard the institutions of initiation, secrecy and hierarchy, and have more widely varying beliefs.

Some Eclectic Wiccans neither perform magic nor identify as witches. Within traditional forms of Wicca there are three degrees of initiation. First degree is required to gain membership of a coven; those who aspire to teach may eventually undergo second and third degree initiations, conferring the title of "High Priest" or "High Priestess" and allowing them to establish new covens. At initiation, some Wiccans adopt a craft name to symbolise their spiritual "rebirth", to act as a magical alter-ego, or simply to provide anonymity when appearing as a witch in public.


A ceremony at the annual Prometheia festival of the Greek polytheistic group
Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, June 2006.


Neopaganism

Neopaganism or Neo-Paganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by pre-Christian pagan beliefs of Europe.

Neo-Pagan religious movements are extremely diverse, with beliefs that range widely from polytheism to animism, to pantheism and other paradigms. Many Neopagans practise a spirituality that is entirely modern in origin, while others attempt to accurately reconstruct or revive indigenous, ethnic religions as found in historical and folkloric sources.[3] (see also List of Neopagan movements)

Neopaganism is a postmodern development in the industrialized countries, found in particular strength in the United States and Britain, but also in Continental Europe (German-speaking Europe, Scandinavia, Slavic Europe, Latin Europe and elsewhere).

The largest Neopagan movement is Wicca, though other significantly sized Neopagan faiths include Neo-druidism, Germanic Neopaganism, and Slavic Neopaganism.


Origin of the word "Pagan"

The word "pagan" comes from the Latin paganus, originally meaning "rustic" or "from the country", and later also used for "civilian". The pejorative meaning, "uneducated non-Christian", emerges in Vulgar Latin from the 4th century. Since Christianity first spread to the cities, the rural Europeans were the last to convert to Christianty. The term neo-pagan was coined in the 19th century in reference to Renaissance and Romanticist Hellenophile classical revivalism. "Pagan" and "Neopagan", when capitalized, refer to religions, or members of a Pagan or Neopagan religion, "in the same way as one would describe a 'Christian' or a 'Jew'." This usage has been common since the Neopagan revival in the 1970s, and is now used by academics and adherents alike to identify new religious movements that emphasize pantheism or nature-worship, or that revive or reconstruct aspects of historical polytheism.

The term "Neopagan" provides a means of distinguishing between historical Pagans of ancient cultures and the adherents of modern religious movements. The category of religions known as "Neopagan" includes syncretic or eclectic approaches like Wicca or witchcraft, Neo-druidism, and Neoshamanism at one end of the spectrum, as well as culturally specific traditions, such as the many varieties of polytheistic reconstructionism, at the other. Some Reconstructionists reject the term "Neopagan" because they wish to set their historically oriented approach apart from generic "Neopagan" eclecticism.

"Pagan" as a self-designation of Neopagans appeared in 1964 and 1965, in the publications of the Witchcraft Research Association; at that time, the term was in use by "revivalist Witches" in the United States and the United Kingdom, but unconnected to the broader, counter-culture Neopagan movement. The modern popularization of the terms "Pagan" and "Neopagan", as they are currently understood, is largely traced to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, co-founder of "the 1st Neo-Pagan Church of All Worlds" who, beginning in 1967 with the early issues of Green Egg, used both terms for the growing movement.

Increasingly, however, scholarly writers prefer the term "contemporary Paganism" to cover all new polytheistic religious movements, a usage favored by The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field. "Heathen", "Heathenism" or "Heathenry" as a self-designation of adherents of Germanic neopaganism (Theodism in particular) appeared in the late 1990s.


Wicca and Neopaganism

Wicca is the largest Neopagan religion in the United States. It was first publicized in 1954 by Gerald Gardner. Gardner claimed that the religion was a modern survival of an old witch cult, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe and existing in secret for centuries.

Various forms of Wicca have since evolved or been adapted from Gardner's British Traditional Wicca or Gardnerian Wicca such as Alexandrian Wicca. Other forms loosely based on Gardner's teachings are Faery Wicca, Kemetic Wicca, Judeo-Paganism or "jewitchery", Dianic Wicca or "Feminist Wicca" - which emphasizes the divine feminine, often creating women-only or lesbian-only groups.

The common denominator amongst all the variants of Wicca are a reverence for nature and active ecology, venerations of a Goddess with or without a consort, such as the Horned God, elements of a variety of ancient mythologies, a belief in and practice of magic and sometimes the belief in reincarnation and karma.

 



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