Request: Wicca

16 February 2009

Video | ZJ on YouTube | Subscribe

ZJ: Yuki Damon wanted to know what I think about Wicca. Well, I'm an atheist, so obviously it's not something I believe in. But I also realized that I didn't really know that much about what Wicca is. Usually I'm just focusing on the more popular religions like Christianity. I thought Wicca was about worshipping the earth or something, and that's really all I knew about it. So I figured, why not start learning about Wicca? If you're going to not believe in something, it's good to know exactly what it is you don't believe in.

And it turns out, Wicca is pretty interesting. It was founded in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, who called it Witchcraft. Wiccans generally consider themselves to be witches. And Wicca is very unstructured and flexible, so Wiccans can have different beliefs. They don't always agree on everything, and there's no governing body that determines what Wiccans are supposed to believe in.

They don't have holy books or anything, but there are some beliefs that are shared by most Wiccans. They consider the Divine to be present in everything: in nature, animals, trees, rocks, and in every one of us. They do think it's important to respect and honor nature. They believe in multiple gods, at least two, a goddess and a god, which represent the feminine and masculine aspects of divinity. This can be a generic goddess and god, or they might worship specific gods from Celtic, Greek or Egyptian mythology.

Wiccans are not Satanic; they don't worship Satan because they don't believe in Satan. They don't see the gods as being malevolent or judgmental. And they don't consider the gods to be perfect or all-knowing either, they have their flaws just like all of us. If you want a certain god to help you out, then you have to pray to them, because otherwise they won't know what you need.

Wiccans don't believe in heaven or hell, but they do believe in a generic afterlife. They don't believe in the concept of sin, but your fate in the afterlife is influenced by how you conduct yourself in this life. They believe that there is a spirit world, and our ancestors are watching over us, so it's important to honor them. It's also possible to interact with the spirit world, and sometimes even communicate with the dead by conducting seances.

Wiccans have their own congregations, which they call covens. Since Wicca honors feminine and masculine divinity, both men and women can become priests or priestesses. Some of them think you're only a real Wiccan if you've been initiated into a coven, but others say that Wicca is accessible to everyone. Anyone who wants to communicate with the gods or the spirit world can do so; they don't need any clergy to mediate this.

They do believe in magic, but they don't consider it to be something supernatural. They think magic is part of the natural world, and using magic is a skill that you can work on improving, just like anything else—like juggling. They do cast spells, and you can even come up with your own spells. They use herbs with magical properties, incense, candles, magic wands. They have brooms, but they don't fly on them. They use them to sweep away negative energy. And they do not sacrifice animals.

Sometimes they use the pentagram as a magic symbol that represents the four elements of earth, air, water and fire, plus the spirit. Instead of gathering in churches, Wiccans can just cast a magic circle pretty much anywhere, which holds positive energies inside and keeps out negative energy.

They celebrate eight festivals throughout the year, which are called sabbats. The solstices and equinoxes are considered minor sabbats, and the major sabbats are about midway between them. Samhain is the most significant sabbat, which coincides with Halloween on October 31. They believe this is a time when the veil separating this world from the spirit world is very thin, so it's much easier for the dead to communicate with us. They also celebrate the phases of the moon, and covens usually hold a monthly meeting called an esbat during the full moon.

So, those are the basics of Wicca. Personally, I don't think any gods exist, and I don't believe there's an afterlife. Dead people are, unfortunately, dead for real—they're not residing in a spirit world that we can communicate with. It's very sad, but they're gone.

I don't think magic is real, although I haven't tried it for myself, but the Wiccan concept of magic is much more nuanced than what most people would imagine. They see it as something that has limits—it can't contradict the laws of physics or anything, and sometimes magic just needs to be accompanied by non-magical efforts. They recognize that there's no point to casting a spell to get a new job if you're not going to bother filling out a job application.

Wiccans also don't try to convert people to Wicca. They figure that if someone is meant to be a Wiccan, then they'll find their way on their own. And if they don't, that's okay. Wiccans recognize that there are many different spiritual paths, and Wicca isn't the one true religion.

They don't really have any arbitrary moral injunctions, like "don't eat pork" or "don't do anything on Sundays". They're generally accepting of gay people, and even polyamorous people. Morality in Wicca is centered around the Wiccan Rede, which basically says: as long as you're not harming anyone, do what you want to. Wiccans have different interpretations of what's meant by harm; some of them would make an exception for self-defense, others think it means you shouldn't eat meat. And this also leads them to consider the ethical implications of using magic. For example, casting a spell to make someone fall in love with you would mean violating their free will, and some Wiccans would disapprove of that.

Wiccans also sometimes follow the Rule of Three, which is similar to the popular version of karma. It states that whatever you do, positive or negative, will come back to you three times. If you do something positive, positive things will happen to you. If you behave badly, bad things will happen to you.

And I've talked about karma before. Basically, it's not an actual law, because you don't see it happening reliably in the world. Bad people don't always have bad things happen to them. And some Wiccans actually agree with this; they don't think the Rule of Three is an actual law, because it just doesn't play out in reality. Instead, they treat it as an ethical guideline. Sometimes it's a warning to new Wiccans that they shouldn't use magic for just anything, they need to consider the consequences of their actions. Personal responsibility is what's important.

Anyway, as far as religion goes, Wicca seems a lot better than the predominant religions nowadays. Of course, I don't see any reason to believe in a god and goddess, or magic, or a spirit world, just like there's no reason to believe in the Abrahamic God, and heaven and hell. But Wicca's general attitude towards the world seems much more positive, flexible, and even a little bit rational and freethinking at times, which usually isn't very common in religion. It's refreshing to see a religion that has no problem acknowledging that it's not the only way, and people are free to believe whatever they want. If more religions were as respectful and tolerant as Wicca, I think that would improve the world.

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