One of the reasons I fall so strongly on the "please call what you do something other than Wicca" side of things, beside the fact that it's the path I'm working on, is that so many of the most vocal on the other side of it suggest that "Wicca is whatever you want it to be - there are no rules to follow! I started doing this so that I'd have no one in charge of me."
If there are no standards for what Wicca is, then who is to say that praying to Satan isn't Wicca?
But of course it's not, they say ... but how do they justify that?
Sure, you can charge for education/training in "no rules Wicca" - which then creates a customer/seller relationship, given that there is no accreditation system for the no rules teachers. And then the teacher OWES the student, even if it later turns out the student is unworthy.
There is a history that few of the "no rules" people know about: from the first article - There are a few definite “fork in the road” moments when it comes to the use of the word Wicca. The first one occurred in the early 1970′s when the first “how to” books began to appear. Now nearly anyone could get their hands on a version of Gardner’s system, which was especially appealing in the United States, a country far too big to make an “initiation only” Witchcraft viable. (We are certainly not “Gardnerians All,” but the influence of Gardner’s system is impossible to ignore.) By 1975 there were complete collections of Witch Rituals available, most notably Raymond Buckland’s The Tree (which uses the term Seax-Wica in the title), Ed Fitch’s Magical Rites From the Crystal Well, and Lady Sheba’s Grimoire. It became completely possible to create your own Wiccan Tradition in the privacy of your living room, as long as you were willing to change the definition of the word Wicca.
There are, however, some points Jason fails to mention - if any copy of Gardner's system got out in how to books in the 70s, it was a violation of oath, so, how much is it to be trusted?
He is also conflating, likely intentionally, the word witch and the word Wicca: "complete collections of Witch Rituals available", and then lists a work on Seax-Wica (Saxon Witchcraft) and the Crystal Well book (Sheba's work is another case entirely, and falls into the oathbreaking issue, from what I have been told)
Seax-Wica was an intentional creation of a Witchcraft Tradition which was NOT like Gardnerian Wicca (to which Buckland was initiated) - he made that system so he wouldn't violate his oaths.
Similarly for Ed Fitch and Crystal Well - he and others with him realized there was no way for everyone in the USA who wanted to, AND was possibly worthy of, being initiated, it's too big an area, not enough teachers for worthy students.
So, what do they do until they find a way to join an initiates group?
Fitch designed a completely new magical system which utilized many of the same sources which Gardner used to flesh out his system, yet ensured that none of what he published was oathbound - thus everyone who wanted some training could get it.
That system was later adopted without attribution or knowledge of its history, and that was done again and again, until few knew the source of it, but many thought it was the same Wicca as the Gardnerians et al did.
Fitch himself attended public rituals wherein the supposedly ancient book of shadows which the group was using was photo copied or hand-jammed copies of Crystal Well ... passed off as original work.
These are the things which lead me to the concern over the CareBear-ing of religion.
It also results in many of the people in "neo-Wicca" (as some have taken to calling it) thinking it is all sweetness and light - that there is no darkness or danger.
It's a fertility religion that celebrates the cycles of life ...
That includes death. There is no rebirth of spring, in the Greek myths, without Persephone spending a winter in Hades.
no subject
If there are no standards for what Wicca is, then who is to say that praying to Satan isn't Wicca?
But of course it's not, they say ... but how do they justify that?
Sure, you can charge for education/training in "no rules Wicca" - which then creates a customer/seller relationship, given that there is no accreditation system for the no rules teachers. And then the teacher OWES the student, even if it later turns out the student is unworthy.
There is a history that few of the "no rules" people know about:
from the first article -
There are a few definite “fork in the road” moments when it comes to the use of the word Wicca. The first one occurred in the early 1970′s when the first “how to” books began to appear. Now nearly anyone could get their hands on a version of Gardner’s system, which was especially appealing in the United States, a country far too big to make an “initiation only” Witchcraft viable. (We are certainly not “Gardnerians All,” but the influence of Gardner’s system is impossible to ignore.) By 1975 there were complete collections of Witch Rituals available, most notably Raymond Buckland’s The Tree (which uses the term Seax-Wica in the title), Ed Fitch’s Magical Rites From the Crystal Well, and Lady Sheba’s Grimoire. It became completely possible to create your own Wiccan Tradition in the privacy of your living room, as long as you were willing to change the definition of the word Wicca.
There are, however, some points Jason fails to mention - if any copy of Gardner's system got out in how to books in the 70s, it was a violation of oath, so, how much is it to be trusted?
He is also conflating, likely intentionally, the word witch and the word Wicca: "complete collections of Witch Rituals available", and then lists a work on Seax-Wica (Saxon Witchcraft) and the Crystal Well book (Sheba's work is another case entirely, and falls into the oathbreaking issue, from what I have been told)
Seax-Wica was an intentional creation of a Witchcraft Tradition which was NOT like Gardnerian Wicca (to which Buckland was initiated) - he made that system so he wouldn't violate his oaths.
Similarly for Ed Fitch and Crystal Well - he and others with him realized there was no way for everyone in the USA who wanted to, AND was possibly worthy of, being initiated, it's too big an area, not enough teachers for worthy students.
So, what do they do until they find a way to join an initiates group?
Fitch designed a completely new magical system which utilized many of the same sources which Gardner used to flesh out his system, yet ensured that none of what he published was oathbound - thus everyone who wanted some training could get it.
That system was later adopted without attribution or knowledge of its history, and that was done again and again, until few knew the source of it, but many thought it was the same Wicca as the Gardnerians et al did.
Fitch himself attended public rituals wherein the supposedly ancient book of shadows which the group was using was photo copied or hand-jammed copies of Crystal Well ... passed off as original work.
These are the things which lead me to the concern over the CareBear-ing of religion.
It also results in many of the people in "neo-Wicca" (as some have taken to calling it) thinking it is all sweetness and light - that there is no darkness or danger.
It's a fertility religion that celebrates the cycles of life ...
That includes death.
There is no rebirth of spring, in the Greek myths, without Persephone spending a winter in Hades.
Okay, rant over.