newtype_alpha

True. Most people speaking of the "definition of Wicca" generally fall into a semantical trap of looking for a specific set of dogmas that all Wiccans agree on. I guess it can't be helped in the west -- especially in America -- where your religious preference can be defined as...
- Christian
- Atheist
- Other

Haromonizing of religious doctrines is something people in the west think of as fairly common, but in fact the majority of non-western religions (especially most pagan systems) have a great deal of variation on minor details and never seek any form of harmony for the most part, and any attempt to do so would probably result in a confusing, self-contradictory system that creates more questions than it answers. :devil3:

Shven

It is narrowly defined. But again, people ignore the definition because it doesn't suit them.

Shven - who is something of a fundamentalist when it comes to the word 'wicca'

badger3k

By "narrowly defined" I think they mean in the Judeo-Christian way. Most definitions of Wicca do not have:

a) a set dogma that everyone follows (ie - the Bible, 10 Coms, etc)
b) a set cosmology that all agree on (ie - the same gods/goddesses)
c) a set belief in the afterlife (heaven, summerlands, direct reincarnation, etc)

To me Wicca appears to be similar to Shinto, a cover term for a group that shares many similarities in the basics, but the details might differ from subgroup to subgroup, and individual to individual.

Zagadka

Oh? Define Wicca then. Not just the (vaguely worded) Rede. What are the list of gods and goddesses? Which trads are most faithful to Wicca? How many people can be in a coven? Who can lead one? What are the ritual practices? Is your definition of "Wicca" that laid out by Gardner last century?

None of this is standardized. It varies pretty much literally from group to group, or even from individual to individual. You have some loosely defined concepts (the Rede, the Triple God/Goddess pair (or just the Goddess in some circles), the ritual varies around some basic symbols.

If you want to be a strict Gardnerian, that's fine, but most "Wiccans" aren't. There are tons of people like you who think that it is "defined" and they are the ones who know the only definition, and everyone else's practices are wrong. That's the same mindset as Christians. Part of the good part of Wicca is that it is so flexible and individualized.

I'm not Wiccan, but I've studied it enough to know that there is no one set of principals, rules, guidelines, or practices that you can call "Wicca" and exclude the others.

Zagadka

Oh, and as a side note, every time someone says "Merry meet" I want to punch them in the face.

Zagadka

And to add onto that side note, in all of my studies of Wicca, raising the dead is never brought up (except maybe by posers with Ouija boards)

jordansc

I've been working on my senior thesis on puppetry and I stumbled on some discussion of witchcraft, puppets, and women in "Puppets and 'Popular' Culture" by Scott Cutler Shershow (a nice x-mas gift). And that made me think of this thread.

The book argues that puppets and image magic have been denigrated since Plato's time and up through the Judeo-Christian tradition. What's interesting, though, is how puppetry & magic's detractors associated them with women. The idols of pagan gods were mocked as dolls and toys. One of the Latin words for puppet was "pupa," originally meaning "little girl." (And a Greek word for puppet was "thauma," meaning wonder - see any relation to "thaumaturgy"?)

Anyway, I guess what I'm wondering that, since image magic was originally associated with women so as to insult its (largely male) practictioners, is it useful to embrace witchcraft as some sort of feminist religion? It seems to me that the charge of witchcraft was always placed on the shoulders of women not necessarily because they practiced it but because they were second class citizens. The patriarchs assumed that women were foolish and dissimulating and therefore they would want to practice something as silly and fake as playing with images to effect magical changes.

Granted, it's possible that women eventually embraced witchcraft as a means of resistence but, at least initially, it looks like witchcraft was just a patriarchal bogeyman.

There isn't much evidence for the accused witches as some sort of representative of pre-christian pagan religion. Even if we're to assume that the witches did what their accusers said they did (not bloody likely), their religious practices were mostly parodies of Christianity or vague & uncodified superstitions ("Religion and the Decline of Magic" by Sir Keith Thomas or "Witchcraft in the Middle Ages" by Jeffrey Burton Russell). It could be argued that they were actually hiding their REAL beliefs or that the REAL witches all dodged the Inquisition and other witch-hunters but I think that underestimates the ability of the various powers to root out and describe heresy. If there was some substantial tradition out there, they would have snatched it up.

Anyway, I understand that a religion that embraces the feminine would be useful for feminist purposes but how is magic? It seems to be, if anything, disempowering because of its negative associations.

Shven

[QUOTE=Zagadka]Oh? Define Wicca then. Not just the (vaguely worded) Rede. [quote]
Wicca - a nature/fertility centred mystery tradition started by gerald gardner

The Goddess and the Horned God - two modern deities not dating back beyond the 20th century

the gardnerian initiatory tradition. the rest aren't Wicca in the strict sense - merely based on wiccan ideas.

ideally thirteen

A high priestess of second degree or higher, who can trace their initiation back to Gardner

Yes

thats not Wicca - merely based on Wicca

bullshit. Gardnerian wicca is wicca. anything else isn't. That doesn't mean that its any less a valid or meaningful faith (I'm not a wiccan and have no interest in being one), merely that wicca is a particular tradition. Its nothing to do with christians claiming the one true way. Its the claim that other ways are just as good, but are just different.

I'll stick with the definition of the founder thanks. In the same way that you cant just declare yourself to be a mason or a catholic priest or a golden dawn initiate or a member of the knights templar, saying that you are a wiccan does not make you one. It doesn't mean you cant be a magical practitioner, and it doesn't mean you cant honour the God and Goddess. In fact it doesn't prevent you from doing anything that a Wiccan can do. It just means you're not one. And if stealing somebody elses tradition is the only way somebody can validate their spiritual journey then I pity them.

Oh and by the way, not many 'wiccans' know this but a key tenet of Gardnerian Wicca is that there are certain ineffable mysterys which cannot be conveyed in any form but introduction to them through initiation. That is what the mindset is about and that is why not everybody who claims to be a wiccan actually is one.

brighid

The negative associations are those created by outside forces that wish to demonize people who are "different". Why should we accept those negative connotations, especially since the Inquisitors claims were all BS anyway?

If you haven't yet read it, read the Malleus Maleficarum as it will outline what the Inquisitors clearly thought "witches" and "witchcraft" were, how to "question" and torture a suspected witch, etc.

As far as the feminist purposes behind Wicca, et al. it actually works quite well as compared to patriarchal, monotheistic religions that have little or no divine feminine aspects or what they have is the demure, sanitized, virginal ... rather worthless example of what it is to be female.

The pagan pantheon has a plethora of various archetypes that women can call upon (within themselves.) The warrior, the hunter, the seductress, the keeper of the hearth, the harvester, the protector of children, the destructress, the wise one, the creator, the reaper ... etc. We have none of this in the Abrahamic faiths, or what we have is so vague as to be unusable.

And why would magic be negative either? Because the Christians turned something natural and beautiful into something ugly like they have with all other indigenous religious practices?

Many neo-pagans feel their practices helps them reclaim something that has been destroyed, buried or "sanitized" by the conquering Christian hordes. Christianity has spent centuries demeaning, oppressing and repressing the female psyche as well as the body and spirit and one way they did this was by demonizing and destroying "pagan" practices that celebrated and worshipped the important part the female plays in all aspects of life. (Doesn't it seem odd, when one looks to nature, that the male alone is the "creator"?)

Take the removal of the depiction of the Sheila-na-gig over temples in Celtic culture?

It's time to remake those superstitions, misnomers, and demonized claims of things that never were in order to keep non-Christians and women in a subjugated state.

B

jordansc

But my point is how can we be sure that the feminization of witchcraft and witchcraft as we know it aren't just inventions of Christianity? As far as I can tell, the only access we have to pre-Christian Celtic paganism is through its detractors. There's been no equivalent Nag Hammadi find.

It also seems to me that most of the pagan goddesses, in their original conception, probably weren't very feminist friendly. Venus of Willendorf is a faceless, handless, and pornographic looking thing. The Grecco-Roman pantheon had its share of virgins (Diana, Vesta) and whores (Aphrodite). And, as far as more vague archetypes go, of "maiden, mother, and crone," two of them describe women largely in relation to men (virginity and then bearing men's children). But, yeah, I can see how paganism can be useful for feminist purposes if it generates its own mythology or at least chooses mythologies selectively, but magic seems to miss the point. Women shouldn't be encouraged to play with images to get their power but instead to take power itself. And I'm not talking about spiritual or psychological power but real economic, social, and political power. That's what's ultimately useful.