Wicca is a nature based religion, a peaceful and empowering religion with a proud history. We worship nature, the seasons, the elements and the universe. Our deities are ancient Gods and Goddesses that predate other religions by thousands of years. Most modern things in today’s society were built and invented by Pagan civilizations, including architecture, roads, lavatories, the wheel, wine making, language, writing and even religion. In fact the concept that there is a God or Gods was also a Pagan notion. Wiccans today still live by numerous Pagan ideals such as using a calendar. Pagan civilizations invested a lot of their time sky watching and season watching and built their lives around the cycles they observed. It helped them survive and prosper. It helped them turn into us, a modern society that, with the help of newer and more oppressive religions, now believes humans are more important than the rest of mother earth. It’s time to turn the clock back. Wiccans believe earlier people on earth had a closer relationship with the divine. We want to learn all we can from ancient civilizations and their peoples as well as their Gods and Goddesses.
Every day ‘ordinary’ people live by Pagan ways without even knowing it. Many people call themselves ‘spiritual’ but would not admit to being Pagan because of negative connotations fostered by an oppressive Church and an ignorant media looking for an easy stereotype or cutting cliché. And yet, look around and you will see Paganism everywhere. The days of the week are named after our Gods and Goddesses. The twelve months of the year are named after Pagan Gods too, and that’s not all. The planets of our solar system are all named after Pagan Gods, as are many stars, galaxies and constellations.
Many holidays that modern religions observe were once Pagan, such as Christmas, which is Yule when the Sun is born in the Winter Solstice. These holidays predate Christianity by thousands of years. Easter used to be known as Ostara which was celebrated in Spring when the Sun had risen again after a long Winter. It is the time of the earth being fertile, which is why it is represented by rabbits and eggs - fertility symbols. Samhain (Halloween) became All Saints Day. When the Christians were trying to convert Pagans to Christianity they kept many of the holidays Pagans celebrated to ease them into being Christian, but they changed the name and meaning to represent Christianity instead. Pope Gregory understood that the Britons and Angles in these lands were steeped in a Pagan way of life and that conversion by force and the destruction of Pagan festivals and holidays would be foolhardy and only cause resentment. His letter to St Augustine, dated 12 July AD 594, tells him “not to destroy the pagan temples, but rather to replace the idols with the relics of saints; to sprinkle the old precincts with holy water and rededicate them, because people come more readily to the places where they have been accustomed to pray. At festivals the people shall be allowed to build their booths of green leaves and to slay their bulls.”
Of course, this holistic, non-judgemental approach didn’t continue; it was simply a way of enticing the people in a slow and careful way. Before long the Christian church was demanding the destruction of sacred groves and insisting the worship of trees and stones was in fact demonic. Next came the persecution of the wise or cunning women, those who understood the healing power of plants, yet were killed for being ‘evil witches.’
Many rituals performed by other religions are steeped in Pagan history too. Catholics use incense to bless an altar before mass. This is a pagan custom of clearing energy from an altar and setting shields of protective energy before ritual. Candles are lit upon church altars to beckon the presence of Jesus. Again, this is a Pagan custom, going back thousands of years, honouring and calling upon the God and Goddess. Holidays are named after the Holy Days of Pagan descent. Weddings, funerals, baptisms and circumcisions all are of pagan origin, and so the list goes on.
There are many Pagan monuments too, such as the Washington Monument in Washington DC, an ancient Egyptian worship temple called an Obelisk, erected to worship the Sun Gods in ancient Egypt. There’s another one in the centre of the Vatican City. The Statue of Liberty is a statue of the Roman Goddess Libertas, who is the Goddess of Liberty, Truth and Justice. There are Pagan monuments all over the world and there are still many being built to this day. See if you can find some near you; you might be surprised.
Contrary to popular belief, Wiccans are not evil or bad, and nor do we worship the devil or Satan. The devil is a Christian concept and so you must first be Christian to believe in him. Wiccans do not believe in the devil; he was a fallen angel of the Christian God. And Wiccans do not worship any other evil or bad demons whatsoever. We understand that we all have dark and light inside us and we work on keeping the two in balance. We do not blame any outside source for bad behaviour; instead we blame ourselves if we do something wrong and we understand it will come back to us in a karmic way as is the laws of nature and the universe.
Throughout modern history, witches have been portrayed as evil, or as old hags or whores of the devil, mainly because of ignorance capitalised on and fuelled by religious dogma, media, books and fairy tales. In reality, witches were the wise elders of country villages, healers, midwives, philosophers and spell casters. If you had a problem you would go the Wicca or Witch as the name is now better known. Early Christian stance on this practice was to simply dismiss it all as superstition, but in the early medieval period the church recognised the power these women had and that their previous more passive stance had not been successful. And so consequently, they set out to destroy them. Throughout Europe and the European colonies of North America mass hysteria was created, alleging that witches were worshippers of the devil. Prosecutions peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries but also continued afterwards. In three centuries it’s reckoned that between 40,000 and 100,000 people, mainly women, were killed, usually by drowning, torture, hanging or being burned alive at the stake. Thankfully, although negative stereotypes of paganism and witches continue today, we don’t have to suffer such terrible consequences. In fact, nowadays the axis is turning, with many people realising there is a void in their life that can only be filled by the beauty and power of nature and spirituality.
Now is the time! Embrace the change and come back to the old ways. You don’t have to give up everything that is modern. The internet and smartphones are wonderful tools that can help us connect with each other. All I ask is that you learn, understand and respect the beauty and power of nature and use it wisely and without harm.
Some consider Wicca to be a new age religion started in the 1950s by a man named Gerald Gardner. This is not true. Even though Gardner had a massive influence on Wicca and helped make the religion as well-known as it is today, he did not invent Wicca. The word Wicca comes from an ancient Old English word meaning Witch. Wicca and Witchcraft have been intertwined since ancient times and it is not a new age religion of the 20th century. If anything, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are new age religions as Paganism and Wicca outdate them by thousands of years.
Wiccan religion today is based on ancient witchcraft, but also lends ideas from many other ancient civilizations and cultures. To put it simply a Wiccan is a Witch who is also a Pagan. Not all witches are Pagans though; some go by their own rules, good or bad. Witches come from all walks of life and follow many different religions. A Wiccan is a certain type of witch that lives by the law of the land and in conjunction with nature, hence making them Pagan.
Some people can find all this a little confusing, so below is a brief description of the difference between a Pagan, a Witch and a Wiccan.
Paganism
Paganism is an umbrella term to mean a person who follows any nature-based religion. A pagan therefore, is someone who worships nature. They follow a set of religious guidelines drawn out by natural occurrences including the seasons and the phases of the moon and sun. Nature, it could be said, is a pagan’s church in which to worship in. A pagan usually believes in both a God and a Goddess, with an emphasis on balance, much like nature itself. In several beliefs of Paganism there are numerous Gods and Goddesses that represent a planet, a celestial