Wicca in the United Kingdom

Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices.

Wicca has no central authority figure. Its traditional core beliefs, principles, and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and an early High Priestess, Doreen Valiente. The early practices were disseminated through published books and in secret written and oral teachings passed along to their initiates. There are many variations on the core structure, and the religion grows and evolves over time. It is divided into a number of diverse lineages, sects and denominations, referred to as ''traditions'', each with its own organisational structure and level of centralisation. Due to its decentralized nature, there is some disagreement over what actually constitutes Wicca. Some traditions, collectively referred to as British Traditional Wicca (BTW), strictly follow the initiatory lineage of Gardner and consider the term ''Wicca'' to apply only to similar traditions, but not to newer, eclectic traditions.

Wicca is typically duotheistic, worshipping and/or working with a Goddess and a God. These are traditionally viewed as the Triple Goddess and the Horned God, respectively. These deities may be regarded in a henotheistic way, as having many different divine aspects which can in turn be identified with many diverse pagan deities from different historical pantheons. For this reason, they are sometimes referred to as the "Great Goddess" and the "Great Horned God", with the adjective "great" connoting a deity that contains many other deities within their own nature. Some Wiccans refer to the goddess deity as the "Lady" and the god deity as the "Lord"; in this context, when "lord" and "lady" are used as adjectives, it is another way of referring to them as a divine figure. These two deities are sometimes viewed as facets of a greater pantheistic divinity, which is regarded as an impersonal force or process rather than a personal deity. While duotheism or bitheism is traditional in Wicca, broader Wiccan beliefs range from polytheism to pantheism or monism, even to Goddess monotheism. Others view them as the Universal God and Goddess Who proceed from the One.

Wiccan celebrations encompass both the cycles of the Moon, known as Esbats and commonly associated with the Goddess (female deity), and the cycles of the Sun, seasonally based festivals known as Sabbats and commonly associated with the Horned God (male deity). An unattributed statement known as the Wiccan Rede is a popular expression of Wiccan morality, although it is not universally accepted by Wiccans. Wicca often involves the ritual practice of magic, though it is not always necessary.

Definition and terminology

Scholars of religious studies classify Wicca as a new religious movement, and more specifically as a form of modern Paganism. Cited as the largest, best known, most influential, and most academically studied form of modern Paganism, within the movement it has been identified as sitting on the eclectic end of the eclectic to reconstructionist spectrum.
Several academics have also categorised Wicca as a form of nature religion, a term that is also embraced by many of its practitioners, and as a mystery religion. However, given that Wicca also incorporates the practice of magic, several scholars have referred to it as a "magico-religion". Wicca is also a form of Western esotericism, and more specifically a part of the esoteric current known as occultism. Academics like Wouter Hanegraaff and Tanya Luhrmann have categorised Wicca as part of the New Age, although other academics, and many Wiccans themselves, dispute this categorisation.

Although recognised as a religion by academics, some evangelical Christians have attempted to deny it legal recognition as such, while some Wiccan practitioners themselves eschew the term "religion" – associating the latter purely with organised religion – instead favouring "spirituality" or "way of life". Although Wicca as a religion is distinct from other forms of contemporary Paganism, there has been much "cross-fertilization" between these different Pagan faiths; accordingly, Wicca has both influenced and been influenced by other Pagan religions, thus making clear-cut distinctions between them more difficult for religious studies scholars to make.
The terms ''wizard'' and ''warlock'' are generally discouraged in the community.
In Wicca, denominations are referred to as ''traditions'', while non-Wiccans are often termed ''cowans''.

"Witchcraft" and "Wicca"

When the religion first came to public attention, its followers commonly called it "Witchcraft". Gerald Gardner—the man regarded as the "Father of Wicca"—referred to it as the "Craft of the Wise", "Witchcraft", and "the Witch-cult" during the 1950s. Gardner believed in the theory that persecuted witches had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion, but this has now been disproven. There is no evidence that he ever called it "Wicca", although he did refer to its community of followers as "the Wica" (with one ''c''). As a name for the religion, "Wicca" developed in Britain during the 1960s. It is not known who first used this name for the religion, although one possibility is that it might have been Gardner's rival Charles Cardell, who was calling it the "Craft of the Wiccens" by 1958. The first recorded use of the name "Wicca" was in 1962, and it had been popularised to the extent that several British practitioners founded a newsletter called ''The Wiccan'' in 1968.

Although pronounced differently, the Modern English term "Wicca" is derived from the Old English ''wicca'' and '' wicce'' , the masculine and feminine term for witch, respectively, that was used in Anglo-Saxon England. By adopting it for modern usage, Wiccans were both symbolically linking themselves to the ancient, pre-Christian past, and adopting a self-designation that would be less controversial than "Witchcraft". The scholar of religion and Wiccan priestess Joanne Pearson noted that while "the words 'witch' and 'wicca' are therefore linked etymologically, ��they are used to emphasize different things today."

In early sources "Wicca" referred to the entirety of the religion rather than specific traditions. In ensuing decades, members of certain traditions – those known as British Traditional Wicca – began claiming that only they should be termed "Wiccan", and that other forms of the religion must not use it. From the late 1980s onwards various books propagating Wicca were published that again used the former, broader definition of the word. Thus, by the 1980s, there were two competing definitions of the word "Wicca" in use among the Pagan and esoteric communities, one broad and inclusive, the other smaller and exclusionary. Although there are exceptions, among scholars of Pagan studies it is the older, inclusive use of the term which has gained wider usage. Conversely, in various forms of popular culture, such as television programs ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ''Charmed'', the word "Wicca" has been used as a synonym for witchcraft more generally, including in non-religious and non-Pagan forms.

Alongside "Wicca", some practitioners still call the religion "Witchcraft" or "the Craft". Using the word "Witchcraft" in this context can result in confusion with other, non-religious meanings of "witchcraft" as well as other religions—such as Satanism and Luciferianism—whose practitioners also sometimes describe themselves as "Witches". Another term sometimes used as a synonym for "Wicca" is "Pagan witchcraft", although there are also other forms of modern Paganism—such as types of Heathenry—which also use the term "Pagan witchcraft". From the 1990s onward, various Wiccans began describing themselves as " Traditional Witches", although this term was also employed by practitioners of other magico-religious traditions like Luciferianism.

Beliefs

Theology

Theological views within Wicca are diverse. The religion encompasses theists, atheists, and agnostics, with some viewing the religion's deities as entities with a literal existence and others viewing them as Jungian archetypes or symbols. Even among theistic Wiccans, there are divergent beliefs, and Wicca includes pantheists, monotheists, duotheists, and polytheists. Common to these divergent perspectives, however, is that Wicca's deities are viewed as forms of ancient, pre-Christian divinities by its practitioners.

Duotheism

Most early Wiccan groups adhered to the duotheistic worship of a Horned God and a Mother Goddess, with practitioners typically believing that these had been the ancient deities worshipped by the hunter-gatherers of the Old Stone Age, whose veneration had been passed down in secret right to the present. This theology derived from Egyptologist Margaret Murray's claims about the witch-cult in her book ''The Witch-Cult in Western Europe'' published by Oxford University Press in 1921; she claimed that this cult had venerated a Horned God at the time of the Early Modern witch trials, but centuries before it had also worshipped a Mother Goddess. This duotheistic Horned God/Mother Goddess structure was embraced by Gardner – who claimed that it had Stone Age roots – and remains the underlying theological basis to his Gardnerian tradition. Gardner claimed that the names of these deities were to be kept secret within the tradition, although in 1964 they were publicly revealed to be Cernunnos and Aradia; the secret Gardnerian deity names were subsequently changed.

Although different Wiccans attribute different traits to the Horned God, he is most often associated with animals and the natural world, but also with the afterlife, and he is furthermore often viewed as an ideal role model for men. The Mother Goddess has been associated with life, fertility, and the springtime, and has been described as an ideal role model for women. Wicca's duotheism has been compared to the Taoist system of yin and yang.

Other Wiccans have adopted the original Gardnerian God/Goddess duotheistic structure but have adopted deity forms other than that of the Horned God and Mother Goddess. For instance, the God has been interpreted as the Oak King and the Holly King, as well as the Sun God, Son/Lover God, and Vegetation God. He has also been seen in the roles of the Leader of the Wild Hunt and the Lord of Death. The Goddess is often portrayed as a Triple Goddess, thereby being a triadic deity comprising a Maiden goddess, a Mother goddess, and a Crone goddess, each of whom has different associations, namely virginity, fertility, and wisdom. Other Wiccan conceptualisations have portrayed her as a Moon Goddess and as a Menstruating Goddess. According to the anthropologist Susan Greenwood, in Wicca the Goddess is "a symbol of self-transformation - she is seen to be constantly changing and a force for change for those who open themselves up to her."

Monotheism and polytheism

Gardner stated that beyond Wicca's two deities was the "Supreme Deity" or "Prime Mover", an entity that was too complex for humans to understand. This belief has been endorsed by other prominent practitioners, who have referred to it as "the Cosmic Logos", "Supreme Cosmic Power", or " Godhead". Gardner envisioned this Supreme Deity as a deist entity who had created the "Under-Gods", among them the God and Goddess, but who was not otherwise involved in the world; alternately, other Wiccans have interpreted such an entity as a pantheistic being, of whom the God and Goddess are facets.

Although Gardner criticised monotheism, citing the Problem of Evil, explicitly monotheistic forms of Wicca developed in the 1960s, when the U.S.-based Church of Wicca developed a theology rooted in the worship of what they described as "one deity, without gender". In the 1970s, Dianic Wiccan groups developed which were devoted to a singular, monotheistic Goddess; this approach was often criticised by members of British Traditional Wiccan groups, who lambasted such Goddess monotheism as an inverted imitation of Christian theology. As in other forms of Wicca, some Goddess monotheists have expressed the view that the Goddess is not an entity with a literal existence, but rather a Jungian archetype.

As well as pantheism and duotheism, many Wiccans accept the concept of polytheism, thereby believing that there are many different deities. Some accept the view espoused by the occultist Dion Fortune that "all gods are one god, and all goddesses are one goddess" – that is that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are, respectively, aspects of one supernal God and Goddess. With this mindset, a Wiccan may regard the Germanic Ēostre, Hindu Kali, and Catholic Virgin Mary each as manifestations of one supreme Goddess and likewise, the Celtic Cernunnos, the ancient Greek Dionysus and the Judeo-Christian Yahweh as aspects of a single, archetypal god. A more strictly polytheistic approach holds the various goddesses and gods to be separate and distinct entities in their own right. The Wiccan writers Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone have postulated that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, tending to embrace a more traditionally Pagan worldview. Some Wiccans conceive of deities not as literal personalities but as metaphorical archetypes or thoughtforms, thereby technically allowing them to be atheists. Such a view was purported by the High Priestess Vivianne Crowley, herself a psychologist, who considered the Wiccan deities to be Jungian archetypes that existed within the subconscious that could be evoked in ritual. It was for this reason, she said "The Goddess and God manifest to us in dream and vision."
Wiccans often believe that the gods are not perfect and can be argued with.

Many Wiccans also adopt a more explicitly polytheistic or animistic world-view of the universe as being replete with spirit-beings. In many cases these spirits are associated with the natural world, for instance as ''genius loci'', fairies, and elementals. In other cases, such beliefs are more idiosyncratic and atypical; the prominent Wiccan Sybil Leek for instance endorsed a belief in angels.

Afterlife

Belief in the afterlife varies among Wiccans and does not occupy a central place within the religion. As the historian Ronald Hutton remarked, "the instinctual position of most iccansnbsp;... seems to be that if one makes the most of the present life, in all respects, then the next life is more or less certainly going to benefit from the process, and so one may as well concentrate on the present". It is nevertheless a common belief among Wiccans that human beings have a spirit or soul that survives bodily death. Understandings of what this soul constitutes vary among different traditions, with Feri Wicca, for instance, having adopted a belief from Hawaiian religion that the human being has three souls.

Although not accepted by all Wiccans, a belief in reincarnation is the dominant afterlife belief within Wicca, having been originally espoused by Gardner. Understandings of how the cycle of reincarnation operates differ among practitioners; the prominent Wiccan Raymond Buckland for instance insisted that human souls would only incarnate into human bodies, whereas other Wiccans believe that a human soul can incarnate into any life form. There is also a common Wiccan belief that any Wiccans will come to be reincarnated as future Wiccans, an idea originally expressed by Gardner. Gardner also articulated the view that the human soul rested for a period between bodily death and its incarnation, with this resting place commonly being referred to as "The Summerland" among the Wiccan community. This allows many Wiccans to believe that mediums can contact the spirits of the deceased, a belief adopted from Spiritualism.

Magic and spellcraft

Many Wiccans believe in magic, a manipulative force exercised through the practice of "spellcraft". Many Wiccans agree with the definition of magic offered by ceremonial magicians, such as Aleister Crowley, who declared that magic was "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will", while another prominent ceremonial magician, MacGregor Mathers stated that it was "the science of the control of the secret forces of nature". Many Wiccans believe magic to be a law of nature, as yet misunderstood or disregarded by contemporary science, and as such they do not view it as being supernatural, but a part of what Leo Martello calls the "super powers that reside in the natural". Some Wiccans believe that magic is simply making full use of the five senses to achieve surprising results, whilst other Wiccans do not claim to know how magic works, merely believing that it does because they have observed it to be so.

During ritual practices, which are often staged in a sacred circle, Wiccans cast spells or "workings" intended to bring about real changes in the physical world. Common Wiccan spells include those used for healing, for protection, fertility, or to banish negative influences. Many early Wiccans, such as Alex Sanders, Sybil Leek and Alex Winfield, referred to their own magic as "white magic", which contrasted with "black magic", which they associated with evil and Satanism. Sanders also used the similar terminology of "left-hand path" to describe malevolent magic, and "right-hand path" to describe magic performed with good intentions; terminology that had originated with the occultist Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. Some modern Wiccans, however, have stopped using the white/black magic and left/right-hand-path dichotomies, arguing for instance that the colour black should not necessarily have any associations with evil.

Scholars of religion Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge claimed in 1985 that Wicca had "reacted to secularisation by a headlong plunge back into magic" and that it was a reactionary religion which would soon die out. This view was heavily criticised in 1999 by the historian Ronald Hutton who claimed that the evidence displayed the very opposite: that "a large number f Wiccanswere in jobs at the cutting edge f scientific culture such as computer technology."

Witchcraft

Traditionally, the term "witchcraft" has meant the use of magic to cause harm and misfortune to others, as opposed to helpful "white magic" or " cunning craft". However, historian Wouter Hanegraaff noted that the Wiccan view of witchcraft was "an outgrowth of Romantic (semi)scholarship", especially the 'witch cult' theory. It proposed that historical alleged witches were actually followers of a surviving pagan religion, and that accusations of infanticide, cannibalism, Satanism ''etc'' were either made up by the Inquisition or were misunderstandings of pagan rites. This theory that accused witches were actually pagans has now been disproven. Nevertheless, Gardner and other founders of Wicca believed the theory was true, and saw the witch as a "''positive antitype'' which derives much of its symbolic force from its implicit criticism of dominant Judaeo-Christian and Enlightenment values".

Pearson suggested that Wiccans "identify with the witch because she is imagined as powerful - she can make people sleep for one hundred years, she can see the future, she can curse and kill as well as heal ��and of course, she can turn people into frogs!" Pearson says that Wicca "provides a framework in which the image of oneself as a witch can be explored and brought into a modern context".
Identifying as a witch also enables Wiccans to link themselves with those persecuted in the witch trials of the Early Modern period, often referred to by Wiccans as "the Burning Times". Various practitioners have made the historically inaccurate claim that nine million people were executed as witches in the Early Modern period, thus drawing comparisons with the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust and presenting themselves, as modern witches, as "persecuted minorities".

Morality

Wicca has been characterised as a life-affirming religion. Practitioners typically present themselves as "a positive force against the powers of destruction which threaten the world".
There exists no dogmatic moral or ethical code followed universally by Wiccans of all traditions, however a majority follow a code known as the Wiccan Rede, which states "an it harm none, do what ye will". This is usually interpreted as a declaration of the freedom to act, along with the necessity of taking responsibility for what follows from one's actions and minimising harm to oneself and others.

Another common element of Wiccan morality is the Law of Threefold Return which holds that whatever benevolent or malevolent actions a person performs will return to that person with triple force, or with equal force on each of the three levels of body, mind, and spirit,Lembke, Karl (2002
''The Threefold Law''
similar to the eastern idea of karma. The Wiccan Rede was most likely introduced into Wicca by Gerald Gardner and formalised publicly by Doreen Valiente, one of his High Priestesses. The Threefold Law was an interpretation of Wiccan ideas and ritual, made by Monique Wilson and further popularised by Raymond Buckland, in his books on Wicca.

Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate a set of eight virtues mentioned in Doreen Valiente's ''Charge of the Goddess'', these being mirth, reverence, honour, humility, strength, beauty, power, and compassion. In Valiente's poem, they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy. Some lineaged Wiccans also observe a set of Wiccan Laws, commonly called the ''Craft Laws'' or ''Ardanes'', 30 of which exist in the Gardnerian tradition and 161 of which are in the Alexandrian tradition. Valiente, one of Gardner's original High Priestesses, argued that the first thirty of these rules were most likely invented by Gerald Gardner himself in mock-archaic language as the by-product of inner conflict within his Bricket Wood coven – the others were later additions made by Alex Sanders during the 1960s.

In British Traditional Wicca, "sex complementarity is a basic and fundamental working principle", with men and women being seen as a necessary presence to balance each other out. This may have derived from Gardner's interpretation of Murray's claim that the ancient witch-cult was a fertility religion. Thus, many practitioners of British Traditional Wicca have argued that gay men and women are not capable of correctly working magic without mixed-sex pairings.

Although Gerald Gardner initially demonstrated an aversion to homosexuality, claiming that it brought down "the curse of the goddess", it is now generally accepted in all traditions of Wicca, with groups such as the Minoan Brotherhood openly basing their philosophy upon it,.

The scholar of religion Joanne Pearson noted that in her experience, most Wiccans take a "realistic view of living in the real world" replete with its many problems and do not claim that the gods "have all the answers" to these. She suggested that Wiccans do not claim to seek perfection but instead "wholeness" or "completeness", which includes an acceptance of traits like anger, weakness, and pain. She contrasted the Wiccan acceptance of an "interplay between light and dark" against the New Age focus on "white light". Similarly, the scholar of religion Geoffrey Samuel noted that Wiccans devote "a perhaps surprising amount of attention to darkness and death."

Many Wiccans are involved in environmentalist campaigns.

Five elements

Many traditions hold a belief in the five classical elements, although they are seen as symbolic representations of the phases of matter. These five elements are invoked during many magical rituals, notably when consecrating a magic circle. The five elements are air, fire, water, earth, and aether (or spirit), where aether unites the other four elements. Various analogies have been devised to explain the concept of the five elements; for instance, the Wiccan Ann-Marie Gallagher used that of a tree, which is composed of earth (with the soil and plant matter), water (sap and moisture), fire (through photosynthesis) and air (the formation of oxygen from carbon dioxide), all of which are believed to be united through spirit.

Traditionally in the Gardnerian Craft, each element has been associated with a cardinal point of the compass; air with east, fire with south, water with west, earth with north, and the spirit with centre. However, some Wiccans, such as Frederic Lamond, have claimed that the set cardinal points are only those applicable to the geography of southern England, where Wicca evolved, and that Wiccans should determine which directions best suit each element in their region. For instance, those living on the east coast of North America should invoke water in the east and not the west because the colossal body of water, the Atlantic ocean, is to their east. Other Craft groups have associated the elements with different cardinal points, for instance Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain associated earth with south, fire with east, water with west and air with north, and each of which were controlled over by a different deity who were seen as children of the primary Horned God and Goddess. The five elements are symbolised by the five points of the pentagram, the most prominently used symbol of Wicca.

Practices

The Wiccan high priestess and journalist Margot Adler stated that Wiccan rituals were not "dry, formalised, repetitive experiences", but performed with the intent of inducing a religious experience in the participants, thereby altering their consciousness. She noted that many Wiccans remain skeptical about the existence of the supernatural but remain involved in Wicca because of its ritual experiences: she quoted one as saying that "I love myth, dream, visionary art. The Craft is a place where all of these things fit together – beauty, pageantry, music, dance, song, dream." The Wiccan practitioner and historian Aidan Kelly claimed that the practices and experiences within Wicca were more important than the beliefs, stating: "it's a religion of ritual rather than theology. The ritual is first; the myth is second." Similarly, Adler stated that Wicca permits "total skepticism about even its own methods, myths and rituals".

The anthropologist Susan Greenwood characterised Wiccan rituals as "a form of resistance to mainstream culture". She saw these rituals as "a healing space away from the ills of the wider culture", one in which female practitioners can "redefine and empower themselves."

Wiccan rituals usually take place in private. The Reclaiming tradition has utilised its rituals for political purposes.

Ritual practices

Many rituals within Wicca are used when celebrating the Sabbats, worshipping the deities, and working magic. Often these take place on a full moon, or in some cases a new moon, which is known as an Esbat. In typical rites, the coven or solitary assembles inside a ritually cast and purified magic circle. Casting the circle may involve the invocation of the "Guardians" of the cardinal points, alongside their respective classical elements; air, fire, water, and earth. Once the circle is cast, a seasonal ritual may be performed, prayers to the God and Goddess are said, and spells are sometimes worked; these may include various forms of 'raising energy', including raising a cone of power to send healing or other magic to persons outside of the sacred space.

In constructing his ritual system, Gardner drew upon older forms of ceremonial magic, in particular, those found in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

The classical ritual scheme in British Traditional Wicca traditions is:
# Purification of the sacred space and the participants
# Casting the circle
# Calling of the elemental quarters
# Cone of power
# Drawing down the Gods
# Spellcasting
# Great Rite
# Wine, cakes, chanting, dancing, games
# Farewell to the quarters and participants

These rites often include a special set of magical tools. These usually include a knife called an athame, a wand, a pentacle and a chalice, but other tools include a broomstick known as a besom, a cauldron, candles, incense and a curved blade known as a boline. An altar is usually present in the circle, on which ritual tools are placed and representations of the God and the Goddess may be displayed. Before entering the circle, some traditions fast for the day, and/or ritually bathe. After a ritual has finished, the God, Goddess, and Guardians are thanked, the directions are dismissed and the circle is closed.

A central aspect of Wicca (particularly in Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca), often sensationalised by the media is the traditional practice of working in the nude, also known as '' skyclad''. Although no longer widely used, this practice seemingly derives from a line in ''Aradia'', Charles Leland's supposed record of Italian witchcraft. Many Wiccans believe that performing rituals skyclad allows "power" to flow from the body in a manner unimpeded by clothes. Some also note that it removes signs of social rank and differentiation and thus encourages unity among the practitioners. Some Wiccans seek legitimacy for the practice by stating that various ancient societies performed their rituals while nude.

One of Wicca's best known liturgical texts is "The Charge of the Goddess". The most commonly used version used by Wiccans today is the rescension of Doreen Valiente, who developed it from Gardner's version. Gardner's wording of the original "Charge" added extracts from Aleister Crowley's work, including ''The Book of the Law'', (especially from Ch 1, spoken by Nuit, the Star Goddess) thus linking modern Wicca irrevocably to the principles of Thelema. Valiente rewrote Gardner's version in verse, keeping the material derived from ''Aradia'', but removing the material from Crowley.

Sex magic

Other traditions wear robes with cords tied around the waist or even normal street clothes. In certain traditions, ritualised sex magic is performed in the form of the Great Rite, whereby a High Priest and High Priestess invoke the God and Goddess to possess them before performing sexual intercourse to raise magical energy for use in spellwork. In nearly all cases it is instead performed "in token", thereby merely symbolically, using the athame to symbolise the penis and the chalice to symbolise the womb.

Gerald Gardner, the man many consider the father of Wicca, believed strongly in sex magic. Much of Gardner's witch practice centered around the power of sex and its liberation, and that one of the most important aspects of the neo-Pagan revival has been its ties, not just to sexual liberation, but also to feminism and women's liberation.

For some Wiccans, the ritual space is a "space of resistance, in which the sexual morals of Christianity and patriarchy can be subverted", and for this reason they have adopted techniques from the BDSM subculture into their rituals.

Publicly, many Wiccan groups have tended to excise the role of sex magic from their image. This has served both to escape the tabloid sensationalism that has targeted the religion since the 1950s and the concerns surrounding the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria in the 1980s and 1990s.

Some Wiccan Traditions substitute a Communion style rite in honor of the God and Goddess rather than the symbolic Great Rite in their Esbat ritual.

Wheel of the Year

Wiccans celebrate several seasonal festivals of the year, commonly known as Sabbats. Collectively, these occasions are termed the Wheel of the Year. Most Wiccans celebrate a set of eight of these Sabbats; however, other groups such as those associated with the Clan of Tubal Cain only follow four. In the rare case of the Ros an Bucca group from Cornwall, only six are adhered to. The four Sabbats that are common to all British derived groups are the cross-quarter days, sometimes referred to as ''Greater Sabbats''. The names of these festivals are in some cases taken from the Old Irish fire festivals and the Welsh God Mabon, though in most traditional Wiccan covens the only commonality with the Celtic festival is the name. Gardner himself made use of the English names of these holidays, stating that "the four great Sabbats are Candlemass, May Eve, Lammas, and Halloween; the equinoxes and solstices are celebrated also." In the Egyptologist Margaret Murray's ''The Witch-Cult in Western Europe'' (1921) and ''The God of the Witches'' (1933), in which she dealt with what she believed had been a historical Witch-Cult, she stated that the four main festivals had survived Christianisation and had been celebrated in the Pagan Witchcraft religion. Subsequently, when Wicca was first developing in the 1930s through to the 1960s, many of the early groups, such as Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain and Gerald Gardner's Bricket Wood coven adopted the commemoration of these four Sabbats as described by Murray.

The other four festivals commemorated by many Wiccans are known as ''Lesser Sabbats''. They are the solstices and the equinoxes, and they were only adopted in 1958 by members of the Bricket Wood coven, before they were subsequently adopted by other followers of the Gardnerian tradition. They were eventually adopted by followers of other traditions like Alexandrian Wicca and the Dianic tradition. The names of these holidays that are commonly used today are often taken from Germanic pagan holidays. However, the festivals are not reconstructive in nature nor do they often resemble their historical counterparts, instead, they exhibit a form of universalism. The rituals that are observed may display cultural influences from the holidays from which they take their names as well as influences from other unrelated cultures.

Rites of passage

Various rites of passage can be found within Wicca. Perhaps the most significant of these is an initiation ritual, through which somebody joins the Craft and becomes a Wiccan. In British Traditional Wiccan traditions, there is a line of initiatory descent that goes back to Gerald Gardner, and from him is said to go back to the New Forest coven; however, the existence of this coven remains unproven. Gardner himself claimed that there was a traditional length of "a year and a day" between when a person began studying the Craft and when they were initiated, although he frequently broke this rule with initiates.

In BTW, initiation only accepts someone into the first degree. To proceed to the second degree, an initiate has to go through another ceremony, in which they name and describe the uses of the ritual tools and implements. It is also at this ceremony that they are given their craft name. By holding the rank of second degree, a BTW is considered capable of initiating others into the Craft, or founding their own semi-autonomous covens. The third degree is the highest in BTW, and it involves the participation of the Great Rite, either actual or symbolically, and in some cases ritual flagellation, which is a rite often dispensed with due to its sado-masochistic overtones. By holding this rank, an initiate is considered capable of forming covens that are entirely autonomous of their parent coven.

According to new-age religious scholar James R. Lewis, in his book ''Witchcraft today: an encyclopaedia of Wiccan and neopagan traditions'', a high priestess becomes a queen when she has successfully hived off her first new coven under a new third-degree high priestess (in the orthodox Gardnerian system). She then becomes eligible to wear the "moon crown". The sequence of high priestess and queens traced back to Gerald Gardner is known as a lineage, and every orthodox Gardnerian High Priestess has a set of "lineage papers" proving the authenticity of her status.

This three-tier degree system following initiation is largely unique to BTW, and traditions heavily based upon it. The Cochranian tradition, which is not BTW, but based upon the teachings of Robert Cochrane, does not have the three degrees of initiation, merely having the stages of novice and initiate.

Some solitary Wiccans also perform self-initiation rituals, to dedicate themselves to becoming a Wiccan. The first of these to be published was in Paul Huson's ''Mastering Witchcraft'' (1970), and unusually involved recitation of the Lord's Prayer backwards as a symbol of defiance against the historical Witch Hunt. Subsequent, more overtly pagan self-initiation rituals have since been published in books designed for solitary Wiccans by authors like Doreen Valiente, Scott Cunningham and Silver RavenWolf.

Handfasting is another celebration held by Wiccans, and is the commonly used term for their weddings. Some Wiccans observe the practice of a trial marriage for a year and a day, which some traditions hold should be contracted on the Sabbat of Lughnasadh, as this was the traditional time for trial, "Telltown marriages" among the Irish. A common marriage vow in Wicca is "for as long as love lasts" instead of the traditional Christian "till death do us part". The first known Wiccan wedding ceremony took part in 1960 amongst the Bricket Wood coven, between Frederic Lamond and his first wife, Gillian.

Infants in Wiccan families may be involved in a ritual called a Wiccaning, which is analogous to a Christening. The purpose of this is to present the infant to the God and Goddess for protection. Parents are advised to "give children the gift of Wicca" in a manner suitable to their age. In accordance with the importance put on free will in Wicca, the child is not expected or required to adhere to Wicca or other forms of paganism should they not wish to do so when they reach adulthood.

Book of Shadows

In Wicca, there is no set sacred text such as the Christian Bible, Jewish Tanakh

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