Wicca, Witchcraft, Whatzawhozit?
The Rede of the Wiccae (The Wiccan Rede)
Neo-Wicca: I’m going to be very honest with you (the reader or readers of this thing) when I say that I simply don’t understand why this term exists. Neo-Wicca is, essentially, Eclectic Paganism or Eclectic Witchcraft. Nine times out of ten, it has nothing to do with Wicca AT ALL, unless you follow a single God and Goddess… then you’re using the Wiccan duohenotheistic principle. Other than that, Neo-Wicca usually has nothing to do with Wicca. So why is this word used instead of just “Eclectic Paganism”?
Exploitation, that’s why. It all started slowly enough; an initiation ceremony listed here, a few words listed there. Eventually, Scott Cunningham published a great book called “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner”. It was a beautiful and well-written intro to Outer Court (Outer Court is a term used to denote the non-oathbound Wiccan teachings that people who haven’t been initiated are allowed to know) material, with one very real flaw: he said you could initiate yourself. The only real reason this chapter was in the book is because his publisher (Llewellyn; they have a VERY bad reputation in the Pagan community for their “publish anything that will make money, even if it’s complete bull” attitude) refused to publish the book unless he said you could do it yourself. After all, won’t more people buy a book that says you can do it yourself as opposed to a book that says “For the rest of this book, go join a coven”? And gee, the latter kind of takes away the possibility of a sequel (a second Cunningham book on Wicca was later published; this book was written by Cunningham and a Llewellyn co-author, and Mr. Cunningham was very ill at that point in his life, so who do you think did most of the writing?).
From then on it only got worse, degenerating into authors like Silver RavenWolf, who blatantly lies about the Craft and will do or say anything to make money. Anyone who challenges her on her lies gets told that they “Aren’t a REAL witch.” She also, on her website, belittles the parents of the teens who read her books. She says, and I quote, “Oh, and for parents who don’t like this statement? You may not care about your childrens’ spirituality, but I do.” WHAT?! That was one of the most commonly-used lines by cults in the ’60s: your family doesn’t care about you, but we do. I’m still not sure why people get mad when you tell them they aren’t Wiccan. Why is being a Pagan or Witch somehow less to them? For me personally, Wicca is NOT my path. I don’t believe in just two gods, I don’t like working in a coven, and I don’t like the initiation rite. I’m also not a big fan of Ceremonial Magick. Does that mean I’m less of a person because I don’t call myself a Norse Wiccan? Of course not! I just call myself an Asatruar or a Seidhkona (you probably won’t understand these terms, but I figured I’d use them as an example), which is what I am (or rather, what tradition I’m studying in). That’s far less confusing.
witchyways