Wicca is not a Box, it's a Circle

Stewart and Janet Farrar

There are a lot of people who choose not to use the word Wicca, because they see it as too restrictive and dogmatic. A dogma is an official system of belief held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. But who has the authority to decide what the official beliefs of Wicca are? I would suggest that Wicca as a whole is not dogmatic, but that some Wiccan groups may be. In Wicca it is generally agreed that every coven is autonamous, independent and self-governing, not subject to anyone else's laws. No Wiccan has the right to tell another coven what they can or cannot do. We can give each other advice, sure, that's what the Rede is after all, a piece
of advice. This is what makes Wicca so difficult to define, and I think the difficulty makes some people very uncomfortable. Other religions seem more than willing to offer up official creeds, rules and regulations by which they may be recognised. Other religions have sacred texts, but Wicca has none. There are many texts which we may take inspiration from, but none are held sacred or infallible by the religion as a whole. This is not an organised religion.

Wicca can be practiced in a coven setting, with a partner, or alone. The coven may operate democratically, or it may be more of a dictatorship, with the High Priestess always having the final say. The coven may have inherited a book of rituals and rules, or they may set about writing their own Book of Shadows. Some covens take care to note a lineage of initiation, others have no lineage to speak of. Some covens may be a collection of solitary witches who have no elders to seek advice from, other than popular authors and bloggers. When certain customs and techniques are passed down from initiator to initiated, this is known as a "Tradition" and to belong to a Tradition is to inherit an initiatory lineage. Wiccans who do not belong to a Tradition are often referred to as "eclectic" because they draw their practices from several different Wiccan Traditions.

The solitary witch is always their own boss. They may hold certain witches in high regard, they may follow the advice of certain authors to the letter, but at the end of the day, they make their own rules. Whenever I hear solitary Wiccans describe themselves as "eclectic" I can't help but shrug and wonder "aren't all Wiccans eclectic?" don't we all pull from many sources and have a variety of influences?  Because Wicca lacks the rigidty of dogma, it allows the individual witch to draw upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas, to gain complementary insights into their spirituality. Every Wiccan Tradition is formulated using material selected from various different sources, such as the many grimoires of the early modern era and magical societies such as the Golden Dawn and Co-Masonry, just like Gerald Gardner did with his coven. 

Laurie Cabot

A friend asked me to comment on a video by Laurie Cabot, in which she states "there is no such thing as a Wiccan" and that there is no such thing as a religion called Wicca, because the word "wicca" is simply Anglo-Saxon for "a male witch". I can agree with Cabot that the word "wicca" is Anglo-Saxon for "a male witch" and so it's use for a religion seems odd. This was a development of the 1960s, fuelled by a poor comprehension of the Old English language. The fact remains that the adoption of the word "wicca" for Neopagan Witchcraft did gain popularity, particularly because it helped avoid misconceptions, due to the "evil" connotations of the word "witch" in popular culture. I can fully understand why someone would prefer to use the word "wicca" (mispronounced with a hard "ck" sound) in order to avoid the common stereotypes that people have of witches. We have had a very hard job trying to change peoples minds about what it means to be a witch. If we look back to the original use of the word "wicca" (correctly pronounced with a soft "ch" sound) we find that it was used to refer to soothsayers, prophets, healers, and augurs of the Anglo-Saxon world.

One thing is clear, the practice of the modern day witch has developed significantly from that of the Old English witch. We have been exposed to a wealth of new philosophies and practices. To me, the modern use of the word "Wicca" is a way to distinguish between what witches did in the past and what witches do now. We are not practicing the same religion as the Anglo-Saxons. What we are practicing now is a 20th century development, taking inspiration from our pagan past. In summary, Wicca to me is synonymous with Neopagan Witchcraft, which is a kind of disorganised religion, or you might say a self-organising religion. Many have repeatedly tried to draw a box around Wicca, to neatly define what it is and isn't, often for tax purposes, but ultimately this is an impossible pursuit. Wicca is not a box, it's a circle that we draw around ourselves.

You may be interested in a related blogpost by my friend CricketSong at www.lunarwisdom.net