Wicca, Witchcraft, Whatzawhozit?
The Rede of the Wiccae (The Wiccan Rede)
Witchcraft: Witchcraft is a really tough thing to define. To some people, it’s a religion; to others, it’s a skillset. If you continue researching Paganism, you will find many many definitions, far more than there are books on the subject. What I’m going to TRY to do, however, is give you the most commonly agreed upon definition; the one that tries to cover all the others, in essence. Just remember that you WILL hear other definitions, and they may or may not be right.
Witchcraft is a collection of folk practices, often called “low magick” or “practical magick”. It is, in effect, the stereotypical image people have of witches; it involves the use of herbs, candles, straw dolls, what have you… all that “witchy” stuff. Some people call it a religion, and use it as such: I don’t know much about these people, and can’t presume to speak for them, but I assume whatever they do works for them. Most commonly, however, witchcraft is simply a skillset that you add into your religion (i.e. two people can use the exact same ingredients and procedure to do a spell for love, but one will petition Aphrodite and the other will petition Freyja). Does this mean you HAVE to worship a god or several gods to use witchcraft? Not at all.
witchyways