FROM WIKIPEDIA – SEPTEMBER 2010
What is the difference between the terms: Witchcraft,
and Wicca or Wiccan?
"This is a huge problem -so many people use these words so very differently, that it is
difficult to speak clearly. There are some who regard witchcraft as being the use of
magic, independent of one’s religion, there is Religious Witchcraft which refers to those
Pagans who identify their religion as Witchcraft, and there is Wicca -a term used by
several forms of religious Witchcraft some of whom originate with Gerald Gardner and
others whom are unrelated to Gardner and his work but use the term "Wicca" to identify
themselves, such as Correllians, Dianics, Eclectics, and others. There are also Satanic
Witches, who are one reason that so many different movements in the US adopted the
term "Wicca" in preference to "Witch"."
Donald Lewis, High Priest
Correllian Wicca
Witchschool.com
Neopagananism
Neopaganism, sometimes referred to simply as Paganism, is an umbrella term used to
identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by
the pre-Christian pagan beliefs of Europe. Neo-Pagan religious movements are extremely
diverse, with beliefs that range widely from polytheism to animism, to pantheism and
other paradigms. Many Neopagans practice a spirituality that is entirely modern in origin,
while others attempt to accurately reconstruct or revive indigenous, ethnic religions as
found in historical and folkloric sources.
Neopaganism is a development in the industrialized countries, found in particular
strength in the United States and Britain, but also in Continental Europe (Germanspeaking Europe, Scandinavia, Slavic Europe, Latin Europe and elsewhere). The largest
Neopagan religion is Wicca, though other significantly sized Neopagan faiths include
Neo-druidism, Germanic Neopaganism, and Slavic Neopaganism.
The term "Neopagan" provides a means of distinguishing between historical Pagans of
ancient cultures and the adherents of modern religious movements. The category of
religions known as "Neopagan" includes syncretic or eclectic approaches like Wicca,
Neo-druidism, and Neoshamanism at one end of the spectrum, as well as culturally
specific traditions, such as the many varieties of polytheistic reconstructionism, at the
other.
Neopagan witchcraft
Modern practices identified by their practitioners as "witchcraft" have arisen in the
twentieth century, generally portrayed as revivals of pre-Christian European magic and
spirituality. They thus fall within the broad category of Neopaganism.
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FROM WIKIPEDIA – SEPTEMBER 2010
Contemporary witchcraft takes many forms, but often involves the use of divination,
magic, and working with the classical elements and unseen forces such as spirits and the
forces of nature. The practice of herbal and folk medicine and spiritual healing is also
common, as are alternative medical and New Age healing practices.
The first groups of neopagan witchcraft to publicly appear in the 1950s and 1960s, such
as Gerald Gardner's Wicca and Roy Bowers' Clan of Tubal Cain, operated as initiatory
secret societies. Other individual practitioners and writers such as Paul Huson also
claimed inheritance to surviving traditions of witchcraft.
Wicca
During the 20th century interest in witchcraft in English-speaking and European
countries began to increase, inspired particularly by Margaret Murray's theory of a panEuropean witch-cult originally published in 1921, since discredited by further careful
historical research. Interest was intensified, however, by Gerald Gardner's claim in 1954
in Witchcraft Today that a form of witchcraft still existed in England. The truth of
Gardner's claim is now disputed too, with different historians offering evidence for or
against the religion's existence prior to Gardner.
The Wicca that Gardner initially taught was a witchcraft religion having a lot in common
with Margaret Murray's hypothetically posited cult of the 1920s. Indeed Murray wrote an
introduction to Gardner's Witchcraft Today, in effect putting her stamp of approval on it.
Wicca is now practiced as a religion of an initiatory secret society nature with positive
ethical principles, organized into autonomous covens and led by a High Priesthood. There
is also a large "Eclectic Wiccan" movement of individuals and groups who share key
Wiccan beliefs but have no initiatory connection or affiliation with traditional Wicca.
Wiccan writings and ritual show borrowings from a number of sources including 19th
and 20th-century ceremonial magic, the medieval grimoire known as the Key of
Solomon, Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis and pre-Christian religions. Both men
and women are equally termed "witches." They practice a form of duotheistic
universalism.
Since Gardner's death in 1964 the Wicca that he claimed he was initiated into has
attracted many initiates, becoming the largest of the various witchcraft traditions in the
Western world, and has influenced other Neopagan and occult movements.
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is
the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. Historically, it was widely believed
that witchcraft involved the use of these powers to inflict harm upon members of a
community or their property. Since the mid 20th century, the term witchcraft has
sometimes been used to distinguish between bad witchcraft and good witchcraft, with the
latter often involving healing. The concept of witchcraft as harmful is normally treated as
a cultural ideology, a means of explaining human misfortune by blaming it either on a
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supernatural entity or a known person in the community. A witch (from Old English
wicce f. / wicca m.) is a practitioner of witchcraft.
Beliefs in witchcraft, and resulting witch-hunts, are found in many cultures worldwide,
today mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. in the witch smellers in Bantu culture), and
historically notably in Early Modern Europe of the 14th to 18th century, where witchcraft
came to be seen as a vast diabolical conspiracy against Christianity, and accusations of
witchcraft led to large-scale witch-hunts, especially in Germanic Europe.
The "witch-cult hypothesis", a controversial theory that European witchcraft was a
suppressed pagan religion, was popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the
mid-20th century, Witchcraft has become the self-designation of a branch of
neopaganism, especially in the Wicca tradition following Gerald Gardner, who claimed a
religious tradition of Witchcraft with pre-Christian roots.
Wicca (pronounced [ˈwɪkə]) is a Neopagan religion and a form of modern witchcraft. Often
referred to as Witchcraft or the Craft, its adherents are commonly referred to as
Wiccans, or as Witches or Crafters. Developing in England in the first half of the
twentieth century, Wicca was popularized in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan
High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and
"witchcraft", and its adherents "the Wica". From the 1960s onward the name of the
religion was normalized to "Wicca".
Wicca is typically a duotheistic religion, worshipping a Goddess and a God, who are
traditionally viewed as the Triple Goddess and Horned God. These two deities are often
viewed as being facets of a greater pantheistic Godhead, and as manifesting themselves
as various polytheistic deities. Nonetheless, there are also other theological positions
within the Craft, ranging from monotheism to atheism. Wicca also involves the ritual
practice of magick, largely influenced by the ceremonial magick of previous centuries,
often in conjunction with a liberal code of morality known as the Wiccan Rede, although
this is not adhered to by all Witches. Another characteristic of the Craft is the celebration
of seasonally based festivals known as Sabbats, of which there are usually eight in
number annually.
There are various different denominations within Witchcraft, which are referred to as
traditions. Some, such as Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca, follow in the initiatory
lineage of Gardner; these are often collectively termed British Traditional Wicca, and
many of their practitioners consider the term "Wicca" to apply only to these lineaged
traditions. Others, such as Cochrane's Craft, Faeri and the Dianic tradition, take primary
influence from other figures and may not insist on any initiatory lineage. Some of these
do not use the term "Wicca" at all, instead preferring to be referred to only as
"Witchcraft", while others believe that all traditions can be considered "Wiccan".
Ceremonial Magick
Ceremonial magick, also referred to as high magick and as learned magick, is a broad
term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide
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variety of long, elaborate, and complex magical rituals. It is named as such because the
works included are characterized by ceremony and a myriad of necessary accessories to
aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an extension of ritual magick, and in most cases
synonymous with it. Popularized by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it draws on
such schools of philosophical and occult thought as Hermetic Qabalah, Enochian magick,
Thelema, and the magic of various grimoires.
The term Ceremonial Magick originates in 16th century Renaissance magick, referring to
practices described in various Medieval and Renaissance grimoires and in collections
such as that of Johannes Hartlieb. Georg Pictor uses the term synonymously with goeteia.
James Sanford in his 1569 translation of Agrippa's 1526 De incertitudine et vanitate
scientiarum has "The partes of ceremoniall Magicke be Geocie, and Theurgie". For
Agrippa, ceremonial magick was in opposition to natural magick. While he had his
misgivings about natural magick, which included astrology, alchemy, and also what we
would today consider fields of natural science, such as botany, he was nevertheless
prepared to accept it as "the highest peak of natural philosophy". Ceremonial magick, on
the other hand, which included all sort of communication with spirits, including
necromancy and witchcraft, he denounced in its entirety as impious disobedience towards
God.
Starting with the Romantic movement, in the 19th century, a number of people and
groups have effected a revival of ceremonial magic.
Among the various sources for ceremonial magic, Francis Barrett's The Magus embodies
deep knowledge of alchemy, astrology, and the Kabbalah, and has been cited by the
Golden Dawn, and is seen by some as a primary source. But according to Aleister
Crowley, perhaps the most influential ceremonial magician of the Modern era, much of it
was cribbed from Cornelius Agrippa's Libri tres de occulta philosophia.
Eliphas Lévi conceived the notion of writing a treatise on magick with his friend BulwerLytton. This appeared in 1855 under the title Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, and
was translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite as Transcendental Magic, its
Doctrine and Ritual.
In 1861, he published a sequel, La Clef des Grands Mystères (The Key to the Great
Mysteries). Further magical works by Lévi include Fables et Symboles (Stories and
Images), 1862, and La Science des Esprits (The Science of Spirits), 1865. In 1868, he
wrote Le Grand Arcane, ou l'Occultisme Dévoilé (The Great Secret, or Occultism
Unveiled); this, however, was only published posthumously in 1898.
Lévi's version of magick became a great success, especially after his death. That
Spiritualism was popular on both sides of the Atlantic from the 1850s contributed to his
success. His magical teachings were free from obvious fanaticisms, even if they remained
rather murky; he had nothing to sell, and did not pretend to be the inititate of some
ancient or fictitious secret society. He incorporated the Tarot cards into his magical
system, and as a result the Tarot has been an important part of the paraphernalia of
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Western magicians. He had a deep impact on the magic of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn and later Aleister Crowley, and it was largely through this impact that Lévi
is remembered as one of the key founders of the twentieth century revival of magic.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the Golden Dawn) was a
magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and
spiritual development. It was probably the single greatest influence on twentieth century
western occultism. Some aspects of magic and ritual that became core elements of many
other traditions, including Wicca. Thelema and other forms of magical spirituality
popular today, are partly drawn from the Golden Dawn tradition.
English author and occultist Aleister Crowley often introduced new terminology for
spiritual and magical practices and theory. For example, he termed theurgy "high
magick" and thaumaturgy "low magick". In The Book of the Law and The Vision and the
Voice, the Aramaic magical formula Abracadabra was changed to Abrahadabra, which
he called the new formula of the Aeon of Horus. He also famously spelled magic in the
archaic manner, as magick, to differentiate "the true science of the Magi from all its
counterfeits.
A grimoire (pronounced /ɡrɪmˈwɑn/) is a textbook of magick. Books of this genre,
typically giving instructions for invoking angels or demons, performing divination and
gaining magical powers, have circulated throughout Europe since the Middle Ages.
Magicians were frequently prosecuted by the Christian church, so their journals were
kept hidden to prevent the owner from being burned. Such books contain astrological
correspondences, lists of angels and demons, directions on casting charms and spells, on
mixing medicines, summoning unearthly entities, and making talismans. "Magical" books
in almost any context, especially books of magical spells, are also called grimoires.
Enochian magick is a system of ceremonial magick based on the evocation and
commanding of various spirits. It is based on the 16th century writings of Dr. John Dee
and Edward Kelley, who claimed that their information was delivered to them directly by
various angels. Dee's journals contained the Enochian script, and the table of
correspondences that goes with it. It claims to embrace secrets contained within the
apocryphal Book of Enoch.
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