I want to learn about Wicca

All you have to do is watch the documentary Charmed every morning on TNT and read a few D&D books and you will get the gist of Wicca.

Anyone whos ever told me they were Wiccan IRL told me that they were in it because there was a lot of group sex involved. Granted that was only 3 people and doesnt represent the majority. But it does prove to me that 100% of people who tell me they are wiccans will also be in it for the group sex.
 
uberrogo said:
All you have to do is watch the documentary Charmed every morning on TNT and read a few D&D books and you will get the gist of Wicca.

Anyone whos ever told me they were Wiccan IRL told me that they were in it because there was a lot of group sex involved. Granted that was only 3 people and doesnt represent the majority. But it does prove to me that 100% of people who tell me they are wiccans will also be in it for the group sex.
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I was a teenage Wiccan because I hated being brought up Catholic.
 
My duaghter is Wiccan, so I'll share a little of what I've learned.

It is NOT the same thing as witchcraft. Wicca is really a NEW religion which combines some New Age/ Eastern ideas with Judeo-Chritian ethics. They do NOT worship the devil, they don't even BELIEVE in the devil. They are not even remotely close to the OLD paganism that predated Christianity, although try telling that to a Wiccan.

There is no unified system of belief. Some Wiccans believe in the goddess, others in the god and goddess, and yet others maintain a more judeo-christian idea of a creator G-d.

The spells do not work. Some Wiccans do believe they work. Other Wiccans see the spelling more as a symbolic request of G-d (prayer). A good book on how people raised in a scientific materialist culture can come to believe in Magick is "Drawing Down the Moon." This is a must read for anyone considering any form of Neo-Paganism.

Wicca is best when it is used as a highly creative, intuitive religion for self reflection and self growth. Wicca is at it's worst when it's adherants become superstitious and imagine they have all sorts of powers that they don't have. The most serious hole in the fabric is moral challenge -- in most modern religions, a pracitioner is required to examine his life and try to become a better person, but this is lacking in Wicca, where there is no morality except "If it harm none, do what you want."

In my very personal opinion, Wicca is a shell religion. It's all about feeling special. As far as personal growth goes, it's just not in the top ten. However, it is not the evil thing that most Christians worry about either.
 
RecklessDreamer said:
I've never really figured out how I feel about religion in general, and I grew up in a Mormon household. But now I'm beginning to take an interest in Wicca. Does anybody know some good books or websites I could check out to help me learn more? Or any tips for me as I begin my learning? Are any of you Wiccan and would like to help me through this journey? :)
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I have some pdfs about wicca that could help you, if you want to send me a private message with your email and ill send them to you!
 
Incarnate said:
Slightly off topic, I remember being very curious about the esoteric when I was 19-- I went to my province's capital city to the only Wiccan bookstore, and ordered a book by Israel Regardie on the rituals of the Golden Dawn. I shilled out $ 25.00 and waited a week for them to get back to me, they never did. Fed up, I called them: 'I'm sorry Sir, we can't bring those kinds of books here.' This particular store also sold a lot of women's clothing, and the mood was light indeed. Far to light for the Golden Dawn.
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I'm off-topicking too: I went to look for Regardie's The Golden Dawn at the local new age store (mostly inspirational angel books and self-help...which I read too by the way ;D) and was lead by a scared looking lady to the dingy dark corner of the shop where a tiny shelf labelled demonology was... I have never felt so looked at by an entire store in my life. This includes experiences at high end boutiques when I was a blue haired punk as a kid, back when it wasn't fashionable yet. :m054:
 
Haha, glad to see I'm not alone in this experience. High Magick seems far more interesting than the usual Mother Goddess stuff, communing with demons and archangels sounds fun. Now I'm getting curious again, once I get some disposable cash, I'll finally get a copy of 'The Golden Dawn'.
 
[MENTION=3933]Incarnate[/MENTION]
I'd love to tell you I studied it and so forth but it really actually just made me realize I needed some more background information to even start. It's not really a studybook, it really is the rituals, so if you have no background knowledge in Qabalah, astrology, tarot etc It's can be a little gibberish-ish. ;D I was recommended other books to start with :
The Essential Golden Dawn: An Introduction to High Magic
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703109/?tag=infjs-20
Modern Magick
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738715786/?tag=infjs-20
and an introduction to Qabalah.
I love Dion Fortune and her's was recommended earlier in this thread http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578631505/?tag=infjs-20

My personal path didn't take me to study ritual magick and the related subjects...i think I'm some kind of spiritual minimalist so emptiness seems to be the in thing for me because I relate to it more, but for a charming description of what being a demon summoning magi is like in reality I'd recommend Lon Milo Duquette's autobiographical Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738719242/?tag=infjs-20 it's a wonderful light read ;D

Edit: I just wanted to add that I really loved Duquette's soberminded approach. Sometimes people get into things like summoning demons to do their bidding to become rich and popular and yadda yadda, while to me that's always sounded like you've got to not look far to find one sitting on your back riding you if that's the case... ;D He has the Solomon approach to tame them to do work in accordance with the highest (whatever you wish to call it, God/tao or psychological approach for scientific materialists to tame the "demonic" harmful aspects of yourself, though as the title suggests Mr. Duquette's notion of self is a little larger than textbook psychology... ;D ). Tibetan buddhists might relate to the story of Padmasambhava converting the evil demons of Tibet to become protectors of dharma. I think it's all fascinating.
 
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In response to the OP, Wicca itself is a religion that focuses on, usually, a female godhead, either alone or along with a usually equal male one. The main tenet, that of "and it harm none, do what you will" does not imply to me, as it seems to for others, that not moral or personal accountability is involved. Soneone who knows about abuse that is going on and refuses to report it out of cowardice or indifference is, in my opinion, almost as guilty as the abuser. If what I want can be gained only through manipulation, degradation, or any other kind of physical, emotional, or psychological harm, my doing these things to acquire what I want is in direct violation of Wicca's main principles. Concerning magic and its application, I believe, personally, that this is more in the direction of witchcraft itself, as I do not believe that this is necessarily linked with one's relation to Deity. I also found the previous comment regarding the three Wiccan-wannabes and group sex to be not only highly inaccurate and offensive, but ignorantly dismissive and judgmental. The same goes for the person whose post proclaimed there so-called Christianity while at the same time consigning any non-Christian to their proverbial Hell and condoning their own narrowness of mind. Now that that's out of the way, there are several books I would recommend for getting started with Wicca. Some of these Are:
Philosophy of Wicca by Amber Lain Fisher
The Practical Pagan: Commonsense Guidelines for Modern Practitioners by Dana D. Eilers
The Wicca Handbook by Eileen Holland
The Spiral Dance by Starhawk
The Circle Within as well as The Body Sacred by Diane Sylvan
For books on Goddess Wicca:
Diane Stein's Guide to Goddess Craft by Diane Stein, as well as Casting the Circle: a Woman's Book of Ritual by same
The Goddess Path by Patricia Monnaghan

Hope this helps.
Chenoa
 
at a young age I began reading a series of novels called, The Circle of Three by isobel bird. Though these novels are targeted for a younger audience.. I had no idea reading them in my early teens that everything you're reading in these books is truthful to wiccan religion. The books subject three young girls becoming involved with the study of wicca. Sort of interesting to read, it gives a good insight to how different of a path each person takes in their studies. It could be cool to take a look at, gain perspective on others also deciding to begin with the craft.
 
My daughter is Wiccan, so I'm going to respond from the POV of a mother of a Wiccan.

PRO_WICCA:
The various spells and ceremonies used are largely made up out of the creative imagination, and are often quite beautiful. My daughter was always the artsy fartsy sort, and she felt sort of "shmooshed" by the practicalness of institutional religion. In Wicca she can spread her creativity wings and fly anywhere she wants to go.

ANTI_WICCA:
Unlike most religions, Wicca does NOT have a strong sense of raising ones self up to meet a higher moral standard. It is essentially a naval-gazing religion where you are fine just the way you are, so there is no need of improvement. The word Vaccuous comes to mind. I worry that my daughter will forever be morally mediocre because she is unchallenged.

FWIW:
Wicca is dishonest about its origins. It is NOT the old paganism or the old witchcraft. It is basically a brandspanking new religion of the 20th century. It does borrow occaionally from older religions, and it fails to notice just how much it is still influenced by judeo christian ethics -- indeed, try pointing that out, and most Wiccans feel insulted. LOL Secondly, most Wiccans really DO think that magick works, when in fact magick does NOT alter external reality. If a person could alter reality with thought, we'd all head to Vegas.
 
I have a high degree of respect for Occult/Wiccan/Witchcraft/Pagan/Neopagan ideology, but I personally dislike the level of flamboyance associated with their rituals.

The Greek goddess associated with witchcraft, Hekate, was known as the triple goddess. Her Roman equivalent was Trivia. They were associated with crossroads, the meeting of three pathways. The prefix 'tri' meaning 3. Trivia literally meaning three way and hence a crossroad. Witch doctors, sorcerors, and shamans were all regarded with ambivalence due to their liminal status. They were capable of both good and evil. They could heal or hurt; strengthen or subdue. As a liminal figure, she has a lot of overlap with Hermes (a trickster figure, psychopomp, traveler, and transgressor of boundaries), and her powers of apotropaic magic (turning away evil) lends her association with Athena (a defender and shield bearer with the head of the gorgon Medusa) and Apollo (a healer and bringer of disease and plague).

In terms of logic, liminality would be referred to as the fallacy of the excluded middle. When someone uses black and white thinking to put forth a proposition, which in turn can be trivialized (the crossroad or the middle ground) by demonstrating alternative reasoning or gray areas in their reasoning.

I hope [MENTION=4576]GracieRuth[/MENTION] doesn't mind (since it's your daughter) that we demonstrate a middle ground in your argument by playing down the conflict between the two positions and acknowledging the circularity inherent in the premise, i.e. petitio principi. It begs the question because the lack of challenge is itself posited as a challenge by listing it as a premise of 'Anti-Wiccan'.

If there really was no challenge, then it'd go unchallenged and be unquestionably true or false. The converse of this is that by 'trivializing' black and white reasoning we do in fact lose some of the potency that acceptance/enforcement of an excluded middle brings, i.e. a game of chess may end in draw rather than won or loss and arguments make concessions rather than winning or losing and hence becomes trivially true or trivially false depending on preference.

The rules for what constitute success or failure have already been predetermined, so circular logic will prevail. If success is doing x, do x, thus success. By changing the rules of what determines success, it will inevitably be deemed failure by a different set of rules or axioms. In the same way that playing a game of chess using a different set of rules cannot technically be called chess (because the rules have changed) but it can still have challenging gameplay as a variant form even if less challenging by comparison.

This sort of reasoning doesn't alter external reality but may certainly alter perceptions, which can be powerful.
 
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I agree with what Matt said. As far as magic and spellwork go, I'm not sure how it can be automatically invalidated by most people, when, in reality, some Catholic religious rituals are somewhat similar in intention. There is also too much flamboyance and drama given to something which, if looked at on a daily and mundane basis, isn't meant to be either flashy, dramatic, or spectacular. I am also in agreement that Wicca itself is new, consisting of the original ideas of Doreen Valiente and others, as well as several basic principles of most organized religions, such as the "golden rule" in the "law of three" and honor and respect for living things. At risk of rambling, I'll jump off now. Thanks.
Chenoa
 
Personally, I disagree with the view that it is morally unchallenging. Sure, there's no belief in an eternal hell or some other form of punishment after death for wrong doings, aside from perhaps the next life you're reincarnated into. But the "as it harm none" in Wicca also includes the "Threefold Law", which says that whatever you put out, comes back to you three times as strong. So if you believe in spells, and cast a spell that would intentionally harm someone, the belief is that whatever happens to that person, you get worse. This, to me, isn't any less challenging than the Christian version of the same morals.
 
Chenoa27 said:
In response to the OP, Wicca itself is a religion that focuses on, usually, a female godhead, either alone or along with a usually equal male one. The main tenet, that of "and it harm none, do what you will" does not imply to me, as it seems to for others, that not moral or personal accountability is involved. Soneone who knows about abuse that is going on and refuses to report it out of cowardice or indifference is, in my opinion, almost as guilty as the abuser. If what I want can be gained only through manipulation, degradation, or any other kind of physical, emotional, or psychological harm, my doing these things to acquire what I want is in direct violation of Wicca's main principles. Concerning magic and its application, I believe, personally, that this is more in the direction of witchcraft itself, as I do not believe that this is necessarily linked with one's relation to Deity. I also found the previous comment regarding the three Wiccan-wannabes and group sex to be not only highly inaccurate and offensive, but ignorantly dismissive and judgmental. The same goes for the person whose post proclaimed there so-called Christianity while at the same time consigning any non-Christian to their proverbial Hell and condoning their own narrowness of mind. Now that that's out of the way, there are several books I would recommend for getting started with Wicca. Some of these Are:
Philosophy of Wicca by Amber Lain Fisher
The Practical Pagan: Commonsense Guidelines for Modern Practitioners by Dana D. Eilers
The Wicca Handbook by Eileen Holland
The Spiral Dance by Starhawk
The Circle Within as well as The Body Sacred by Diane Sylvan
For books on Goddess Wicca:
Diane Stein's Guide to Goddess Craft by Diane Stein, as well as Casting the Circle: a Woman's Book of Ritual by same
The Goddess Path by Patricia Monnaghan

Hope this helps.
Chenoa
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To all Christians on this topic, who are OK with Wicca I quote the Bible:


  1. Divination and magic
    1. Lev. 19:26, ‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination or soothsaying.
    2. Isaiah 44:25, "Causing the omens of boasters to fail, making fools out of diviners, causing wise men to draw back, and turning their knowledge into foolishness."
    3. Acts 8:9,18-22, "Now there was a certain man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city, and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great . . .[SUP]18[/SUP]Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, [SUP]19[/SUP]saying, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” [SUP]20[/SUP]But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! [SUP]21[/SUP]“You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. [SUP]22[/SUP]“Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you."
    4. Acts 13:6, "And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus."
  2. Mediums
    1. Lev. 19:31, "Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God."
    2. Lev. 20:6, ‘As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people."
    3. Lev. 20:27, ‘Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.’”
    4. Isaiah 8:19-20, "And when they say to you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? [SUP]20[/SUP]To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn."
  3. Necromancy - contacting the dead
    1. 1 Sam. 28 where Saul uses a medium to contact the dead. <- Creepy if you read it (entire chapter)
  4. Sorcery - attempting to influence people through occult means
    1. Exodus 22:18, “You shall not allow a sorceress to live."
    2. Isaiah 47:12-14, “Stand fast now in your spells and in your many sorceries with which you have labored from your youth; Perhaps you will be able to profit, perhaps you may cause trembling. [SUP]13[/SUP]You are wearied with your many counsels;
      Let now the astrologers, those who prophesy by the stars, those who predict by the new moons, stand up and save you from what will come upon you. [SUP]14[/SUP]“Behold, they have become like stubble, fire burns them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame; there will be no coal to warm by, nor a fire to sit before!"
    3. Rev. 9:21, "and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts."
    4. Rev. 21:8, "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
    5. Rev. 22:15, "Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying."
  5. Witchcraft
    1. Deut. 18:10-14, “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, [SUP]11[/SUP]or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. [SUP]12[/SUP]“For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you. [SUP]13[/SUP]“You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. [SUP]14[/SUP]“For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.
    2. 2 Kings 21:6, "And he made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and used divination, and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord provoking Him to anger." (see also 2 Chron. 33:6)
 
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