The word witch comes from Old English wicce "female magician, sorceress," fem. of Old English wicca "sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic,"which in turn is of uncertain origin. Kleins Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language suggests connection with Old English wigle "divination," and wig, wih "idol." Ernest Weekley, a British philologist best known as the author of a number of works on etymology, notes possible connection to Gothic weihs "holy" and German weihan "consecrate," and writes, "the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents." In Anglo-Saxon glossaries, wicca renders Latin augur (c. 1100), and wicce stands for "pythoness, divinatricem ." In the "Three Kings of Cologne" (c. 1400) wicca translates magi, plural of magus "learned magician" which originally referred to a member of ...

I have had the pleasure of speaking with the author Nimue Brown, who is herself a modern druid. She lives with her husband and son near Stroud in England, where she enjoys long walks in the countryside and visits the many prehistoric earthen mounds or barrows. She is a member of the druid organisation OBOD and meets with them regularly for chats and meditation. Her approach to spirituality is quite solitary however, and she believes it's important to live your spiritual path in your every action. For her, this means adopting an environmentally friendly lifestyle, and taking time to connect with the natural world. She works from home as an author and publicist for Moon Books, across the desk from her illustrator husband Tom Brown. The creative energy in the house seems to be very fertile, as Tom and Nimue collaborate on a web-comic, and Nimue writes an inumerable number of books on a variety of themes. She finds great pleasure in concocting fantasy worlds, but is also a dilligent w...

I remember very clearly a beautiful day in May, when I was 12 years old. I was walking to school and the sun was shining bright and warm and all the trees and bushes were bursting with greenery. I thought about how much pleasure I got from this. I agreed to myself that appreciation for nature was very important to me, and I considered this to be the foundation of my spirituality. I had been reading about this thing called paganism, which my mum told me about. She said that a pagan was someone who worshipped the Earth and the Sun and the Moon. This sounded like a good thing to me. A few of my friends were Christian and one of them had persuaded me to go to church with her. They were singing and clapping their hands and it all seemed very strange to me. I thought I better give it a try, just in case I went to Hell otherwise. After the singing and clapping, some kids were talking about how they were going to do a play about Noah's ark. This sounded like fun at first, but then I r...

It was in May 1997 that I decided to myself that I was "pagan". As far as I understood, this meant having an Earth-based spirituality, a connection with Nature, reverence for the Earth. I figured these sounded like lovely things, and it was at that time of year when Nature really comes to life and everything is wonderfully green. I knew that I felt a strong connection with all this Earthly stuff, and that this was what fed my spirit. The word "pagan" derives from Latin "paganus" which means “rural”, “of the countryside” or “outside the city”. It inherently has connotations of the uncivilised, the peasantry, the wild. In reference to religion, we are talking about the diverse temples and holy sites of country folk. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion, it was out in the wilderness that the ancient folk religions continued. Paganism referred to those practices outside the control of government officials. Before the...

I remember when I was at school we had a text book that covered all the major world religions, and there was one section of the book called "Earth-based Religion" which covered neopagan spirituality. The phrase "Earth-based" amuses me because it suggests that some religions are based on other planets. Many religions speak of worlds that are separate to this planet, heavens and hells which exist in different dimensions. An Earth-based religion would be concerned with the here and now, rather than other worlds. It also suggests to me a religion which is well "grounded" in reasonable ideas, and is "down to earth" in the sense of being practical, straightforward, and sensible. I asked some friends what "Earth-based" and "Nature-based" spirituality and religion meant to them: "To me; It means a spirituality brought about by an awareness, born of the Wonders of Nature and of the Planet, the elements and the c...

What is the difference between religion and spirituality? Paganism and New Age? This is something I wanted to make a video about but I'm finding it difficult to put my words together. When I think of the word religion , I think of how people say that they do something "religiously". Do you go to the gym, religiously? Do you mow the lawn, religiously? It seems to mean dedication to a strict routine. So if you are religious, it seems to mean that you are someone who is faithful to a tradition. If you have a set of rituals that you practice on a routine basis, I would call this a religion. You might also have a certain dress code or dietry restrictions. Religion is not necessarily something imposed upon you by someone higher up. It is not necessarily a set of instructions in a book. It could be something you have decided for yourself, you could create your own religion. You don't need permission from the state to call what you do "a religion". So long as yo...

Some people have very narrow definitions of what it means to be pagan. Over the years, my understanding of what it means to be pagan has broadened to become virtually all-inclusive. A lot can be gained from looking at the etymology of the word. Pagan : late 14c., from L.L. paganus "pagan," in classical Latin "villager, rustic, civilian," from pagus "rural district," originally "district limited by markers," thus related to pangere "to fix, fasten," from PIE root *pag- "to fix". Applied to modern pantheists and nature-worshippers from 1908. ( source ) To me, a pagan is anyone who feels a pull toward the wild, a desire to connect to the land, to grow your own food, and to live a simple life. To be pagan is to be peaceful, as the word was at some point used to mean civilians, those people who are not of the military. A pagan delights in flowers and trees, knowing the best things in life are free. A pagan knows that mater...

My last two blog posts spoke of the Horned God and the Great Goddess, but there is a third concept of deity in Wicca, known as Dryghten, the One, or the All.  This monistic impersonal ultimate pantheistic divinity is acknowledged but not worshiped, and is not to be confused with the monotheistic idea of a single supreme personal deity.  Unlike religions that place a divine creator outside of Nature, Wicca is pantheistic, seeing Nature as divine in itself. I first came across the term pantheism when I was in my early teens. The word was constructed from the Greek pan "all" and theos "god" by the English mathematician Joseph Raphson, in his work De spatio reali , published in 1697. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers a contemporary definition: Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) “God is everything and everything is God … the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expressi...