Wicca, Witchcraft, Whatzawhozit?
The Rede of the Wiccae (The Wiccan Rede)
Wicca: Here’s where I get blunt and don’t sugarcoat. Wicca is an initiatory, oathbound, lineaged religion that was created in the 1930s-1950s by a man named Gerald Gardner. If you are not initiated into a lineaged coven (lineaged means that your High Priestess can show you that coven’s “lineage” back to the first Wiccan coven, Gardner’s), you are simply not Wiccan. You can still be a Witch or a Pagan though, and there is NOTHING WRONG with ANY of the paths you choose, but please call them what they are, because Wicca is already being used.
When Gardner first started creating Wicca (he was already initiated in a lot of Ceremonial Magic orders, such as the OTO, and because of this Wicca is VERY heavily influenced by the CM style), witchcraft was still illegal in England. In the 1950s, when these witchcraft bans were repealed, Gardner went public with Wicca; there is a lot of controversy surrounding its origins, and he falsified a lot of documents, so we really don’t know how much of it is true… we do, however, know what ISN’T true.
Gardner claimed that he had been initiated into a coven that practiced Wicca back all the way to the stone age; not only has this been completely unproven (to date, no one has been able to track down a member of the New Forest Coven, or any mention of them, and to this day not a single member has spoken up, although all the members are likely long since dead by now), the “stone age religion” theory was put forth by an archaeologist of Gardner’s time, a woman named Margaret Murray. Soon after she published her theories, lack of evidence (and new evidence surfacing that proved contrary to hers) discredited her theories. Her follow-up, Marija Gimbutas, had no sense of archaeological integrity, and has falsified, invented, and twisted facts to extremes just to prove her pet theory. As you can see, even if there WAS one stone-age religion (which is doubtful), we don’t know about it. Wicca, as we know it, was started with Gerald Gardner; therefore, Wicca is about 50-60 years old. End of story.
Wicca is ALSO oathbound; what this means is, unless you’ve been initiated into a lineaged coven, almost all of the Wiccan teachings will remain closed to you. Many people have claimed that they stole a Wiccan Book of Shadows, and will sell you the contents for such and such a price, but how do you know they aren’t lying if you don’t know for sure what the real Wiccan teachings are? You don’t; so, since you can’t know what Wicca is without being initiated (did you know that Wicca has three gods, not just a Lord and Lady? This is basic info given to people studying for their initiation. Think of how much we AREN’T told.), why try to cheat?
witchyways