This page is devoted to helping people understand the wiccan culture and belief system better, many people see wicca as a satanic religion, which is completely untrue. Hopefully anyone who does have that opinion will change their minds after reading this page and those who do not think that will simply understand a bit more about the culture.

Their beliefs include:


Wiccan Deities: Most Wiccans believe that a creative force exists in the universe, which is sometimes called "The One" or " The All". Little can be known of this force. They regard the Goddess and the God as representing the female and male aspects of the All. Most regard various pagan Gods and Goddesses (Pan, Athena, Diana, Brigit, Zeus, Odin, etc.) as representing various aspects of the God and Goddess.

Respect for Nature: Wicca is a natural religion, grounded in the earth. All living things (including stars, planets, humans, animals, plants, rocks) are
regarded as having spirit.

Gender Equality: Wiccans celebrate the sexual polarity of nature: the fertilizing rain is one manifestation of the male principle; the nurturing earth symbolizes the female. Females are respected as equal (and sometimes at a slightly higher rank) to males. They aim for a female-male balance in most of their covens (local groups), although men are typically in the minority. Sexuality is valued, and regarded as a gift of the Goddess and God, to be engaged in with joy and responsibility, and without manipulation.

Three-fold Law The law states that:

"All good that a person does to another returns three fold in this life; harm is also returned three fold."


The Wiccan Rede: This is the main rule of behavior:

"An' it harm none, do what thou wilt."

This means that a person should feel free to do what ever they want to, as long as it does not harm themselves or anyone else. This and the three-fold law obviously prevent a Witch/Wiccan from doing harm to themselves or to others, or attempting to manipulate others, or taking harmful drugs, etc.

Historically, in Europe and North America, the term Witchcraft has been used to refer to two unrelated and often mutually exclusive religions which have no relationship to the practices called "Witchcraft" in Africa:


Wicca, a modern reconstruction based on elements of a pre-Christian religion of Northern Europe,

and

Satanism, reverence of the Christian devil, Satan (as either a living entity or principle).


The roots of this confusion can be traced back to Europe during the Witch burning times of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Witches were accused of worshipping Satan and selling their soul to him. This false belief continues today, and is still being actively promoted by some Christian individuals and ministries, even though the Christian Bible does not mention Wicca.

This paper will deal with the religion of Wicca only. It is unrelated to Satanism or to black magic. There have been many references in the books, media, etc. which attempt to differentiate among very different religions and practices which have been lumped together under the term "Witchcraft".

The first missionary to the Celts may have been St. Paul. He sought converts to Christianity in the Celtic land of Galatia as recorded in his Epistle to the Galatians of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). Later Missionaries and the Roman army gradually spread Christianity across Europe, easily converting the rulers and the Druidic priesthood, but having less success in bringing the common folk to the new religion.

Much of Christianity was derived from Pagan sources; this includes the sites of many cathedrals, the lives of many Christian saints (who were really pagan Goddesses and Gods), and many Christian holy days. There are many vestiges of Paganism which remain a part of our culture; e.g. Groundhog Day, Christmas, May Day, Halloween, the names of the days of the weeks and months of the year, common sayings, numerous traditions associated with holidays, etc.

In order to gain a complete religious monopoly, the Christian Church decided during the 15th century to hunt down and exterminate what they believed to be Satan-worshiping Witches, and other heretics. The Church created an imaginary evil religion, and said that Wiccans were evil Witches who followed that religion, kidnapped babies, killed and ate their victims, sold their soul to Satan, etc. Many suspected witches were exterminated during these "burning times" which lasted
until 1792 in Europe and into the 1830's in South America. Some estimates run as high as 10 million and as low as 3,000. An accurate number cannot be determined; it was probably between 100 and 300 thousand. The Roman Catholic church preferred to burn witches; they were hung in Protestant countries. Some believe that followers of the Old religion went underground, and stayed out of sight until the middle of the 20th century.

Wicca, is a religion with roots in an ancient Pagan religion of Northern Europe which pre-dates the Christian era. Most Wiccans do not believe that their religion is a direct, continuous descendent of this earlier religion. They see it as a modern reconstruction. It can be directly traced back to the writings of:


Margaret Murray who authored The Witch Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches. These books promoted the concept that some of the Witches who were exterminated by the Christian Churches during the "Burning Times" (circa 1450-1792) were remnants of an earlier, organized, and dominant pre-Christian religion in Europe. Her writings have not been well received by anthropologists.


Gerald Gardner, a British civil servant, who:

has written that he joined an existing Wiccan Coven in 1939, taking the (then) usual vows of secrecy

persuaded the coven to let him write a book in 1949 about Wicca in the form of a novel, High Magic's Aid. He carefully revealed a few of the Old Religion's beliefs and the historical persecutions that they endured.

wrote Witchcraft Today in 1954 in which he described additional details about the faith.

wrote The Meaning of Witchcraft which described in detail the history of Wicca in Northern Europe.

added many rituals, symbols, concepts and elements from ceremonial magick, Freemasonry and other sources to "flesh out" the coven's beliefs and practices, most of which had been long forgotten.



There are many beliefs concerning the origins of Wicca:


According to Gardner, Wicca:

began in prehistory, as ritual associated with fire, the hunt, animal fertility, plant propagation, tribal fertility and the curing of disease.

developed into a religion which recognized a Supreme Deity, but realized that at their state of evolution, they "were incapable of understanding It" . Instead, they worshipped what might be termed "under-Gods": the Goddess of fertility and her horned consort, the God of the hunt.

continued their predominately Moon based worship, even as a mainly Sun-based faith of priests, the Druids, developed and evolved into the dominant religion of the Celts. By this time, Celtic society had gradually spread across Northern Europe into what is now England, France,
Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland etc. They never formed a single political entity, but remained as many tribes who shared a common culture and religions.

survived the Roman, Saxon, and Norman invasions by going underground

suffered major loss in numbers during the active Christian genocides, which continued into the 18th Century

reached a low ebb by the middle of the 20th century. Much of the theology and ritual had been lost; Wiccan covens had become so isolated that they had lost contact with each other.

was revived in the UK by himself, his high Priestess Doreen Valiente, and others, who took the surviving beliefs and practices, and fleshed them out with material from other religious, spiritual and ceremonial magick sources.



Gardner has claimed that after he wrote his books, he received many letters from members of isolated covens who believed that their groups had been in continuous existence for generations or centuries.


Other individuals discount this belief system and maintain that there was no continuous Wiccan presence from Celtic times to the 20th century. They maintain that present-day Wicca was created by merging a few ancient Celtic beliefs, deity structure, and seasonal days of celebration with modern material from ceremonial magick, the Masonic Order, etc.

Still others trace Wicca back to a little known faith group in New England in the early 20th century.


There is general agreement that Wicca was first popularized in England in the 1950's with the publishing of books by Gerald Gardner. It has expanded at a furious rate in North America and Europe. They total perhaps 250,000 in North America, where they have surpassed in numbers such established religions as Buddhism, the Quakers, and Unitarian-Universalism. The Canadian Census of 1991 recorded 5,530 Neo-Pagans, which would be mostly composed of Wiccans. However, the actual number is believed to be much greater, as many Wiccans are known to lie to the census taker rather than expose themselves to physical harm in the event that their faith became publicly known.

Wicca is the 8th largest religion in the United States, behind Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and the Baha'i World Faith. However it is virtually unknown by the general public. This is because almost all Wiccans hide their religious beliefs and practices. Those who allow their faith to be known publicly are very heavily persecuted in North America; on a per-capita basis, they are believed to be victimized more often than members of any other religious
group. Many assaults, arson, economic attacks are reported yearly. There have even been shootings, one public mass stoning and one lynching in recent years! Reports circulate frequently of misinformed child protection officers seizing children from the homes of Wiccans because they feared that they would be killed or abused in some Satanic ritual. The perpetrators of this religious hatred are usually very devout, very concerned but terribly misinformed people. They believe the
misinformation that has been spread about Wiccans continuously since the Middle Ages. It is only in Eastern Massachusetts, Southern California and in a few cities elsewhere in North America that most Wiccans feel secure while coming out of the (broom) closet. In other areas, they tend to avoid persecution by keeping their religious faith secret. Unfortunately, this policy can have negative results, as people speculate that because Wiccans remain underground, they must
have something to hide. This is a "no-win" situation with no obvious solution.

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