Wicca/Witchcraft
Wicca is an Old English word that means 'The Wise Ones'; or 'Keepers of Knowledge';. Wicca is one of the most ancient followings. Wicca is a Neo-Pagan following with many traditions that date to pre-Christian times. It is based on a deep respect for nature and the knowledge that we should not exploit it for our own gain. Wicca is not recognized as a religion by anyone other than its followers. Wicca is not a cult. Many Wiccans are independent and worship on their own or with a group of Wiccans, but they do not follow any one person.
There are many types of Wicca, as many as 13 different traditions have been founded. One of the oldest unchanged traditions is the Strega Witchcraft. A witch named Aradia founded this tradition about 1353 CE. Two other large traditions include Gardnerian and Celtic forms. The Gardnerian tradition is based on the works of Dr. Gerald Brosseau Gardner. He researched much of the history of witchcraft and wrote The Book of Shadows with that knowledge. The Book of Shadows is used as the basis for ritual practice in the Gardnerian tradition. The Celtic Wicca is also a very old form. It is based on Celtic/Druidic practices and uses many of the Celtic deities, elements, and nature.
Wiccans believe that both animate and inanimate objects possess a spirit, which forms part of the Whole, or 'The Cosmic Web';. The term spirit does not mean ghost, it means that which links something to nature so that it is rec...
As David Hufford said, in Beings Without Bodies, much of folk belief about spirits is found to be reasonable. This account is reported under his experience-centered theory. Hufford said much of the belief of spirits is reasonable as it is established on logical understanding from a person’s own experience. However, Hufford said not all beliefs are backed up by experience or even evidence. Some beliefs are made purely on faith. (Hufford p.11)
What images come to mind when you think of witches? Many people immediately imagine a black pointy hat, bubbling cauldron, green warty skin, and Halloween. Usually the image that comes to mind is something scary and evil. Real witches do exist. Most modern witches go by the label Wiccan now. Wiccans practice Wicca, which is a nature-based religion with many different branches or denominations. The basic tenant of all Wicca is called the Three Fold Law. The Three Fold Law states that whatever you do will come back to you times three, good or bad, so do not cause harm or, in other words, “harm none”. It is kind of like the concept of karma in one lifetime. There is debate over how old the religion actually is with some saying that it is an ancient religion that pre-dates Christianity and some saying it is more modern, starting in the 1950’s with Gerald Gardener. Regardless of how old the religion is, Hollywood’s portrayal of witches often does have some kernel of truth, albeit sometimes it is hard to find.
Witchcraft had always fascinated many people and been a very controversial topic in North America during (seventeenth) 17th century. Many People believe that witchcraft implies the ability to injure or using supernatural power to harm others. People believed that a witch represents dark side of female present and were more likely to embrace witchcraft than men. There are still real witches among us in the Utah whom believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion dealing with the occult. However the popular conception of a witch has not changed at least since the seventeenth century; they still caused panic, fear and variety of other emotions in people…………………….
The term “Widdershins” (deriving from the Old High German words widar meaning “back/against” and sinnen, “to travel”) means “counterclockwise”, “anticlockwise”, “left-handed direction” or even “coursing in the opposite direction of the sun, in the Northern Hemisphere”. The earliest use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, shows up in 1513 in the form of the phrase ‘widdersyns start my hair,’, in other words, ‘my hair stood on end,’. ‘Hair standing on end’ or ‘wild/disorderly hair’, was the meaning of the term until the late 16th century, when its current meaning became particularly popular in the Lowland Scots and Scottish Gaelic.
Wicca is an old religion, having begun “more than thirty-five thousand years ago” as stated by Starhawk, a Wiccan (qtd in Allen 18). Even though it had started long before him and many events involving witchcraft had happened, research has shown that a man named Gerald Gardner was the one who brought the religion of Wicca to the public eye in the 1950s (Allen 19). Gardner said it was thought to be the pre-Christian religion of Europe called the “old religion” (Adler 637). ...
Wiccan Religion: The Goddess and Gods of the Wiccan Religion. "Wicca is the most prevalent form of reconstructionist neo-paganism in the United States and is the pre-Christian spirituality of the Celtic peoples who resided in the British Isles and Brittany and on the western coast of France. " Wicca is a religion based upon a deep personal understanding of oneself and the multi-verse in which one resides. They work with the Gods and Goddesses that call to us, and we develop relationships with them that help and support them in their evolution. Wicca is a spiritual path, a way of seeing the world and Divinity, and our relationship to it.
It starts out with some kind of cosmic force from darkness. When I watched the video “Wiccan Creation”, I realized that many religions start off with the creation in darkness and then there is that spirit or force that ignites. “The world was in darkness and from this nothingness, a spirit created our lady. The lady dance and give birth to the stars and planets and with her joy and love she created trees and flowers (“Wiccan Creation, 2011). The Wicca’s creation story does not stop there. The spirit created the Lord for the lady’s soulmate. The lord is half spirit and half animal and together with the lady they will populate the planet (“Wiccan Creation, 2011). In other stories of Wicca’s creation, they called the lady and lord the Goddess and God. The Wiccan Goddess is the mother of all things, the moon is the symbol of the Goddess. She also represents death in which is necessary for rebirth. The Wiccan God is a horned God and the sun is his symbol. He is also the lord of the underworld who tends souls until they are reborn (Sabin, 2011,p 235) Wiccans pray to the Goddess and God (Sabin, 2011, p233). These Gods created witches for the soul purpose to help heal. The witches were taught to communicate with spirits and to communicate with the energies such as earth, air, fire, water and spirit (“Wiccan
The term possession is widely accepted as being "influenced or controlled by something (as an evil spirit, a passion, or an idea)". (Merriam-Webster) There have been numerous cases of spiritual possessions that causes harm to peoples. According to the Spiritual Research Foundation, to be possessed by spirits means that "the physical, mental, intellectual or spiritual functioning of a person if affected or altered" by such spirits. In both definitions, there is a common ground that spirits take control of whatever they inhabit. Throughout history, there have been occurrences of spiritual possessions of mostly toys or humans. Due to the media's over exaggeration of these "true stories", our minds are warped into believing that we are paranoid over toys, mainly dolls and humans who act abnormally. These spirits still linger in our world because of their refusal to “crossover” to the otherworld. They are an enigma beyond our capability of controlling. We cannot see them, we can only feel their presence. Popular portrayals of spiritual possessions from media and literature are Chucky from Child’s Play, The Exorcist, Dead Silence, The Conjuring, and the Supernatural series. All of these forms of media share a commonality in which the spirits inflict violence towards people surrounding them. Evil spirits are commonly portrayed through the possession of a suitable vessel. These spirits are wicked and angry beings who try to return from the dead, causing chaos and mayhem. Whether it be possessing non-living objects or a body, we are afraid of these things due to our inability to take control over them. Our lack of control causes us to be vulnerable to threats from possessed objects. The more afraid we are, the stronger the spirit...
The controversies that surround Wicca start with its exact origin. There are some who believe that it has its origins in Witchcraft due to the similarities between the two. Witchcraft itself is a Pagan practice [polytheistic and non-Christian, Muslim and Jewish in origin] that began with the Celts around 700 B.C. As the movie The Burning Times depicts, the region during this time period was primarily a rural culture so the Celtic traditions were based completely on Nature. Their months were even named after trees and their festivals revolved around the solstices and equinoxes (Steiger). A polytheistic religion, they worshiped a host of female and male deities and are most notably associated with the concept of Goddess worship, a strong belief in the divinity of the female (Burning Times). These paganistic beliefs and rituals gradually over the centuries combined with other European religious practices, such as magic, potions, and ointments for healing, to form what we call in modern times Witchcraft. Groups who did not hav...
4.]Internet Book of Shadows at sacred-texts.com,Beltane: Its History and Modern Celebration in Wicca in America,Rowan Moonstone,http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos032.htm
One first hand account is that of someone that could be said to have been born into Paganism, Daphne B, a 49 year old, who feels she is not Wiccan nor technically a Witch, but more Episcopagan,considering herself as a nature based but starry eyed mystical type stated, “ I come from a long line of traditional wise woman healers and herbalists from Appalachia.My ancestry are mixed from the British Isles, France, Germany, Shawnee and Cherokee, my personal motto pretty much sums up my attitude,,hold all sacred”
The religious beliefs and the rituals of the Indians of southern New England were in many ways how the Puritans thought the devil and witches to act. English observers Edward Winslow, Roger Williams, and other Puritans found out that the Indians believed that spirits would speak directly to mortals through dreams and visions. William Simmons stated, “A powerful spirit known as Hobbamock was said to enter certain persons and to remain in their bodies as a guardian and familiar.” Hobbamock was the Native American creator. The spirit of Hobbamock was the “souls of the dead” that would take the shape of the human body and animals.
Witchcraft is a term which sprouts many different meanings. As stated above, it is attributed to witches. But what is a witch? Probably an evil haggish-like women who has signed a pact with the devil if we think of it in the English sense. So witchcraft must be evil doings; putting curses on people to make their life miserable, using wicked spells to transform humans to frogs etc. But does this hold true to everyone's idea of what witchcraft is.People's believes on the subject of witchcraft might differ between different cultures.
We start with Animism. In animism, spirits are considered to inhabit familiar objects in the landscape. There are traces of animism in the Judeo-Christian and Jewish religions. For instance, Satan was represented as a serpent; Jehovah, like Osiris(Deity in ancient Egyptian religion), was worshiped as a bull; Christ was the lamb of God, and the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove. However, these are only symbols themselves and are not worshiped themselves.
...ches and witchcraft have been passed down through generations to generations. From way back to the 1200’s to today in the present times, that is how long witches have been around. As of the history of witches and witchcraft, stories were used to keep the history alive inside the stories written in ancient mythology to Walt Disney’s movies. Check your family history. What and who were they. Were they witch hunters or were they a witch? There’s more to the story of Halloween or All Hallows Eve than meets the eye. What story or legend will come next?