Wicca (2 page)
Wicca as a religion is changing too. This is necessary if it is to be more than a curiosity of an earlier age. The heirs of Wicca must point their religion firmly to the future if it is to have something to offer coming generations.
Since we have arrived at the point where one mishap could end our planet as we know it, there has never been a time when Wicca as a nature-reverencing religion has had more to offer.
This book breaks many Wicca conventions. It has been structured so that anyone, anywhere in the world, can practice Wicca. No initiations are required. It is designed for the solitary practitioner, since finding others with similar interests is difficult, especially in rural areas.
Wicca is a joyous religion springing from our kinship with nature. It is a merging with the goddesses and gods, the universal energies that created all in existence. It is a personal, positive celebration of life.
And now it is available to all.
SHAMANISM HAS BEEN defined as the first religion. It existed prior to the earliest civilizations, before our ancestors took the first steps down the long journey to the present. Prior to this time, the shamans were the medicine people, the power wielders, male and female. They wrought magic and spoke to the spirits of nature.
The shamans were the first humans with knowledge. They created, discovered, nurtured, and used it. Knowledge is power; women and men who possessed it in those far-flung days were shamans.
How did shamans capture or discover this power? Through ecstasy— alternate states of consciousness in which they communed with the forces of the universe. Early shamans first attained this state through the use of such “tools” as fasts, thirsts, self-infliction of pain, ingestion of hallucinogenic substances, concentration, and so on. Once mastered, these techniques allowed them to gain awareness of other, nonphysical worlds.
Through such “awareness shifts,” all magical knowledge was obtained. Conference with spirits and deities, plants and animals opened up new vistas of learning. Among their own people, the shamans often shared some of this knowledge but reserved the rest for personal use. Shamanic lore wasn’t for public consumption.
Later, shamans advanced in the use of tools to facilitate these awareness shifts, marking the advent of magical ritual. Shamans around the world still use tools such as drums, rattles, reflective objects,music, chants, and dance. Indeed, the most effective shamanic rites are those that utilize both natural and artificial tools—a sighing wind, roaring ocean, flickering firelight, steady drumbeat, hiss of rattle. These, combined with darkness and chants, eventually overwhelm the senses, forcing a shifting from awareness of the physical world to the vaster realm of energies. Such are shamanic rites that exist to this day.
From these primitive beginnings arose all magic and religion, including Wicca. Despite current controversy as to the “antiquity” of Wicca, it is spiritually descended from such rites. Though refined and changed for our world,Wicca still touches our souls and causes ecstasy—awareness shifts—uniting us with deity. Many of the techniques of Wicca are shamanic in origin.
Wicca, therefore, can be described as a shamanic religion. As with shamanism, only a select few feel compelled to enter its circle of light.
Today,Wicca has dropped the ordeals of pain and the use of hallucinogens in favor of chanting,meditation, concentration, visualization, music, dance, invocation, and ritual drama. With these spiritual tools, the Wicca achieve a state of ritual consciousness similar to those attained by the most brutal shamanic ordeals.
I deliberately used the term “alternate states of consciousness.” Such changed consciousness states aren’t unnatural, but are a deviation from the “normal” waking consciousness. Wicca teaches that nature includes a broad spectrum of mental and spiritual states of which most of us are ignorant. Effective Wiccan ritual enables us to slip into such states, allowing communication and communion with the Goddess and God.
Unlike some religions, Wicca doesn’t view deity as distant. The Goddess and God are both within ourselves and manifest in all nature. This is the universality: there is nothing that isn’t of the gods.
A study of shamanism reveals much of the heart of magical and religious experience in general, and Wicca in particular (see bibliography for recommended books). With ritual as a means to enter ritual consciousness, the shaman or Wicca constantly expands his or her knowledge, and knowledge is power. Wicca helps its practitioners to understand the universe and our place within it.
At present, Wicca is a religion with many variations. Because it is such a personally structured system, I can only state generalities about its creed and form here, filtered through my experience and knowledge, to create a picture of the nature of Wicca.
Wicca, in common with many other religions, recognizes deity as dual. It reveres both the Goddess and the God. They are equal, warm, and loving, not distant or resident in “heaven,” but omnipresent throughout the universe.
Wicca also teaches that the physical world is one of many realities. The physical is not the absolute highest expression, nor is the spiritual “purer” than the base. The only difference between the physical and the spiritual is that the former is denser.
As in eastern religions, Wicca also embraces the doctrine of reincarnation, that much-misunderstood subject. Unlike some eastern philosophies, however,Wicca doesn’t teach that upon physical death our souls will reincarnate in anything other than a human body. Also, few of the Wicca believes we began our existence as rocks, trees, snails, or birds before we evolved to the point where we could incarnate as human beings. Though these creatures and substances do possess a type of soul, it’s not the sort we humans have.
Reincarnation is accepted as fact by many millions in the east and west. It answers many questions: what happens after death? Why do we seem to remember things we’ve never done in this life? Why are we sometimes strangely attracted to places or people who we’ve never before seen?
Surely, reincarnation can’t answer all these questions, but it is there for those who wish to study it. This isn’t something that should be believed. Through contemplation, meditation, and self-analysis, many come to the point where they accept reincarnation as fact. For more information on this subject see chapter 10, “The Spiral of Rebirth.”
The Wiccan ideal of morality is simple: do what you want, as long as you harm none. This rule contains another unwritten condition: do nothing that will harm yourself. Thus, if you as a Wicca abuse your body, deny it the necessities of life, or otherwise harm yourself, you’re in violation of this principle.
This is more than survival. It also ensures that you’ll be in good condition to take on the tasks of preserving and bettering our world, for concern and love for our planet play major roles in Wicca.
Wicca is a religion that utilizes magic. This is one of its most appealing and unique features. Religious magic? This isn’t as strange as it might seem. Catholic priests use “magic” to transform a piece of bread into the body of a long-deceased “savior.” Prayer—a common tool in many religions—is simply a form of concentration and communication with deity. If the concentration is extended, energies are sent out with the thoughts that may in time make the prayer come true. Prayer is a form of religious magic.
Magic is the practice of moving natural (though little-understood) energies to effect needed change. In Wicca, magic is used as a tool to sanctify ritual areas, and to improve ourselves and the world in which we live.
Many people confuse Wicca and magic as if the two words were interchangeable. Wicca is a religion that embraces magic. If you seek only to practice magic,Wicca probably isn’t the answer for you.
Another fundamental point: magic isn’t a means of forcing nature to do your will. This is a completely erroneous idea, fostered by the belief that magic is somehow supernatural, as if anything that exists can be outside of nature.
Magic is natural.
It is a harmonious movement of energies to create needed change. If you wish to practice magic, all thoughts of it being paranormal or supernatural must be forgotten.
Most Wiccans don’t believe in predestination. Although we honor and revere the Goddess and God, we know that we’re free souls with full control and responsibility of our lives. We can’t point at an image of an evil god, such as Satan, and blame it for our faults and weaknesses. We can’t blame fate. Every second of each day we’re creating our futures, shaping the courses of our lives. Once a Wiccan takes full responsibility for all that she or he has done (in this life and past ones) and determines that future actions will be in accord with higher ideals and goals, magic will blossom and life will be a joy.
That perhaps is at the core of Wicca—it is a joyous union with nature. The earth is a manifestation of divine energy. Wicca’s temples are flower-splashed meadows, forests, beaches, and deserts. When a Wicca is outdoors, she or he is actually surrounded by sanctity, much as is a Christian when entering a church or cathedral.
Additionally, all nature is constantly singing to us, revealing her secrets. Wiccans listen to the earth. They don’t shut out the lessons that she is so desperately trying to teach us. When we lose touch with our blessed planet, we lose touch with deity.
These are some of the basic principles of Wicca. They are the true Wicca; the rituals and myths are secondary to these ideals and serve to celebrate them.
The Standing Stones Book of Shadows
(ritual book) included in section III is a guide to constructing your own ritual. Because these rituals are outer form only, you needn’t be chained to them. Change rites as the mood strikes you. As long as the rite attunes you with the deities, all is fine.
Don’t shut out the physical world in favor of the spiritual or magical realms, for only through nature can we experience these realities. We are here on the earth for a reason. Do, however, use ritual to expand your awareness so that you are truly at one with all creation.
The way is open. The ancient Goddess and God await within and around you.May they bless you with wisdom and power.
ALL RELIGIONS ARE structures built upon reverence of deity. Wicca is no exception. The Wicca acknowledge a supreme divine power, unknowable, ultimate, from which the entire universe sprang.
The concept of this power, far beyond our comprehension, has nearly been lost in Wicca because of our difficulty in relating to it. Wiccans, however, link with this force through their deities. In accordance with the principles of nature, the supreme power was personified into two basic beings: the Goddess and the God.
Every deity that has received worship upon this planet exists with the archetypal God and Goddess. The complex pantheons of deities that arose in many parts of the world are simply aspects of the two. Every goddess is resident within the concept of the Goddess; every god in the God.
Wicca reveres these twin deities because of its links with nature. Since most (but certainly not all) nature is divided into gender, the deities embodying it are similarly conceived.
In the past, when the Goddess and God were as real as the moon and sun, rites of worship and adoration were unstructured—spontaneous, joyous union with the divine. Later, rituals followed the course of the sun through its astronomical year (and thusly the seasons) as well as the monthly waxing and waning of the moon.
Today similar rites are observed by the Wicca, and their regular performance creates a truly magical closeness with these deities and the powers behind them.
Fortunately,we needn’t wait for ritual occasions to be reminded of the Gods’ presence. The sight of a perfect blossom in a field of bare earth can instill feelings rivaling those of the most powerful formal rite. Living in nature makes every moment a ritual. Wiccans are comfortable in communicating with animals, plants and trees. They feel energies within stones and sand, and cause fossils to speak of their primeval beginnings. For some Wiccans, watching the sun or moon rise and set each day is a ritual unto itself, for these are the heavenly symbols of the God and Goddess.
Because the Wicca see deity inherent in nature, many of us are involved in ecology—saving the earth from utter destruction by our own hands. The Goddess and God still exist, as they have always existed, and to honor them we honor and preserve our precious planet.
In Wiccan thought, the deities didn’t exist before our spiritual ancestor’s acknowledgement of them. However, the
energies
behind them did; they created us. Early worshippers recognized these forces as the Goddess and God, personifying them in an attempt to understand them.
The Old Ones didn’t die when the ancient pagan religions fell to Christianity in Europe.Most of the rites vanished, but they weren’t the only effective ones. Wicca is alive and well and the deities respond to our calls and invocations.
When envisioning the Goddess and God, many of the Wicca see them as well-known deities from ancient religions. Diana, Pan, Isis, Hermes,Hina, Tammuz,Hecate, Ishtar,Cerridwen, Thoth, Tara,Aradia, Artemis, Pélé, Apollo, Kanaloa, Bridget, Helios, Bran, Lugh, Hera, Cybele, Inanna, Maui, Ea, Athena, Lono, Marduk—the list is virtually endless.Many of these deities, with their corresponding histories, rites, and mythic information, furnish the concept of deity for Wiccans.