Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy & Practice by Thea Sabin

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

What's Wicca?

Recently my husband and I went to a coffee house to meet a man who was interested in becoming a student in our Wiccan study group. Like many Wiccans who lead teaching groups, we always arrange for our first meeting with a seeker-someone searching for his or her spiritual path-to be in a public place, for everyone's safety and comfort. Over tea, we asked the seeker why he wanted Wiccan training. We ask everyone who talks to us about training this question. If they tell us they are looking for a nature-based religion, a path of self-empowerment, a way to commune with deity, or something along those lines, we continue the conversation. If they tell us they want to hex their ex-lovers, brew cauldrons full of toxic stuff, make others fall in love with them, worship the devil, or fly on broomsticks, we tell them they're out of luck and politely suggest that they seek out a therapist.

When we asked the question of this seeker, he told us about how he had searched for information about Wicca in books and on the Internet, attended public Wiccan rituals, and visited metaphysical bookstores, but there was so much information available on the topic that he wasn't sure what was Wicca and what was not. He was also at a loss about how to separate the spiritual stuff from the rest. As he put it, I know there's got to be a religion in there somewhere. He decided to find a teacher to help him sort it all out.

It was easy to understand why he was confused. During the last several years, Wicca and magic have stormed the American pop culture scene. We've been watching Bewitched for quite a while, but Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the Harry Potter films, TheLord of the Rings, Charmed, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have spurred a new wave of seekers, despite the fact that most of these shows and films have precious little to do with real Wicca. It's gotten to the point where someone has coined the term Generation Hex for all of the teenagers and twenty-somethings who have been turned on to Wicca by the current magical media blitz. There are more Wicca books on the market than ever, and more than 6,000 Wicca-related Web sites on the Internet. There are Wiccan radio shows, Wiccan umbrella organizations, and state-certified Wiccan churches. And there's even Secret Spells Barbie, complete with glittery costume, cauldron, and magic powder. Okay, technically she's not Wiccan, but she definitely contributes to the confusion.

With all of this sudden popularity, you'd think that Wicca and magic had finally made it into the mainstream. For better or worse, this isn't true. The Wicca media glut has only given people more false, confusing, and contradictory ideas about what Wicca is. Although it's probable that more people are familiar with the word Wicca than ever before, there is no cohesive, accurate image of Wiccans in pop culture. Thanks to films and prime-time television, Wiccans may have graduated from the green-faced hag with the pointy hat to sexy women with navel rings in scanty clothes who help others with their powers, but this is not a more accurate portrayal (there are plenty of male Wiccans, for one thing), and it's not an improvement.

Even Wiccans get confused about what Wicca is sometimes. In the Wiccan community there is a lot of discussion (okay, arguing) about what makes a Wiccan. I'm not going to jump into that fray here. Instead, I want this book to give you a broad-based understanding of Wicca so you can decide what the truth is for yourself.

For the purpose of this book, here are some definitions:

A Wiccan is a person who is following the Wiccan religion/spiritual path and has either undergone a Wiccan initiation or has formally and ritually declared him- or herself Wiccan.

Some Wiccans use the words Wiccan and witch interchangeably, but there are witches who do not consider themselves Wiccans. Wiccans are a subgroup of witches.

Wiccans and witches are both subgroups of a larger group: pagans. Pagans are practitioners of earth-based religions. Most Wiccans and witches consider themselves pagan, but not all pagans are Wiccans or witches. Christians sometimes call anyone who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew a pagan, but we're not going with that definition.

In this book, when I use the term witchcraft, I'm referring to what Wiccans and witches do: religious ritual and spell work. I use the term Wicca to refer to the religion itself.

So, just what is Wicca? There are a lot of answers to that question. Here are a few of the more widely accepted ones.

Wicca Is a New Old Religion

Wicca is a new religion that combines surviving folk traditions and more modern elements. It is loosely based on Western European pagan rites and rituals that have been performed for centuries-before, during, and after the time of Jesus-such as reverence of nature, observance of the cycle of the seasons, celebration of the harvest, and doing magic. Some of the structure of these old rites still survives in most of the religion's structure and many of its practices are more modern. Some of the framework of the religion is culled from medieval grimoires (books of magic), occult organizations such as the Golden Dawn, and techniques that today's Wiccans make up on the fly because they suit their purposes or the situation. Wicca is a living, evolving religion.

Wicca isn't the same thing as the kind of witchcraft you...(Continues)