Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Defining Wicca

Much confusion reigns about what constitutes the religion (or more properly the spiritual path) of Wicca. As the younger sister of Witchcraft, in popular thinking Wicca is still burdened with all the negative crap that the Abrahamic faiths loaded onto it so that they could use their Eternal Trinity, their three favorite sheep-controlling methods (guilt, shame, and fear) to increase their congregations. In fact, today's Wicca has two main ingredients: 1) From the elder sister it inherited rituals that were directed toward what is loosely called cosmic maintenance. That is, people prayed to maintain the cycle of nature and to ensure that (for example) the sun would rise predictably and the volcano wouldn't destroy the worshipers. When people moved from the gatherer-hunter mode to settled communities, a period called the Axial Age began, tentatively dated as 800 BCE. (We use the terminology gatherer-hunter because most of the tribe's nutrients came from gathering done by women.) 2) During the Axial Age, thoughts turned more toward attempts to understand self and spirituality. Questions arose such as: Why are we here? and What happens after "death"? and What is god? Rituals now began to concentrate on keeping the juju happy and benevolent. To do this, the maximum possible number of adherents had to praise the particular juju favored by the local priesthood and submit to the juju's will as spelled out by the priesthood. Wicca blends pre-Axial- and post-Axial-Age thoughts. It does cosmic-maintenance rituals as well as rituals aimed at understanding the reality of self and spirit. Today with the Green movement, many people are turning back to thoughts of cosmic maintenance; thus Wiccans find themselves at the forefront of religious and spiritual thought. Blessed be Gavin and Yvonne

20 comments:

thirdeyespinning said...
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thirdeyespinning said...

Well we decided to have a neighborhood Ouija board meeting that was going to be lead by Hayley Bop the current head witch. It was full moon after the soupy valentines day on the same e night. So what happened I am now being influenced by spirits believe it or not. Poltergeists are here. When we did the Quija board and mentioned Anastasia Romanov things happened. A television that had no power flashed on and off this freaked me out and I didn't know what tot believe. We summoned Anastasia and the blinds in a bedroom flew up for no reason and other things happened in a poltergeist nature.

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thirdeyespinning said...

I make this invocation to my friend Haley Bop my Freya the wise and wonderful

Freyja,
Golden one,
Exquisite, beautiful, and charming,
You open me
And set me free.

Fruitful and sexy,
You give of yourself
Without hesitation,
Without bounds,
Knowing the love of all.

Mail-clad and strong,
You gather the warriors
Of your choice,
Honoring their sacrifice
In your hall of hosts.

Secretive and sly,
You divine the future,
Bending will,
Bending fate,
Bending wyrd.

O Golden Lady,
Lady most blessed,
Teach me your skills.
Honor me with your gifts.
Allow me to become one with you.

So I may fly.

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thirdeyespinning said...

Just signing in and will be transferring posts to my own blog and will only make comments that refer to the Frosts posts from now on.

MysticalMundane said...

Although I agree with the majority of the sentiments in this post, and think it sums up Wicca very well - I feel that - "Wicca is still burdened with all the negative crap that the Abrahamic faiths loaded onto it so that they could use their Eternal Trinity, their three favorite sheep-controlling methods (guilt, shame, and fear)"Is very harsh. I know of many Christians (granted they are of the 'Progressive Christian' variety) that are not like that. I could say that in all the Christians I know - and I work at an Anglican church - none are like that.
Reason, asking questions and spiritual growth are the three keys that are talked about the most. Not 'sheep controlling methods'.
Blanketing all Christians with that statement is like saying that all Wiccans dress in black dangling huge pentagrams and carry about black cats making poisons.
It's simply not true. I am Wiccan and I am also an ordained Reverend in an interfaith church.
Hearing the sort of stereoptyping statement as you used above sounds very fundamentalist, inclusive and does little to rise above the negativity you are speaking out against.
Blessings.