Non-Wiccan Wicca

At some point in the past few decades, someone drew a line in the sand, a line that runs right down the middle of the Witchcraft community. Unlike a line drawn in the soil on the eve of battle, however, this line does not dare people on either side to cross. Rather, it walls them in, keeping them in hard and fast positions. In short, it is a line of categorization. The distinction the line makes is best summed up in a question many readers have probably been asked: “Okay, so you’re a Witch. But do you practice Wicca?”

Once upon a time, the system of practices that we now refer to as Wicca was the only system of Witchcraft most people in the western world had ever heard of. For many westerners, this is still true. This is largely due to Gerald Gardner, who had no problem drawing public attention to himself and his tradition of Witchcraft. To be sure, however, there were other traditions of Witchcraft extant in the British Isles at the time.

Take for example Robert Cochrane’s tradition, which is now generally called 1734 in the United States (though technically “1734” refers to a daughter tradition) . Both Cochrane and Gardner claimed not to have created their traditions, stating that their practices were pre-Christian survivals. Incidentally the two hated each other, partly because Gardner chose to court public attention, while Cochrane preferred to remain obscure. But the historicity of these traditions is irrelevant to the topic at hand, the perceived distinction between Witch and Wiccan.

So how can we understand this dichotomy? We would do well to begin with etymology. Most pagans have read at least one of two etymologies for the word Wicca. The first suggests that Wicca comes from the same root as “wisdom.” By this logic, Wicca-craeft (or Witchcraft) would mean something like “the Craft of the Wise.” A nice thought certainly; unfortunately, this etymology is now known to be erroneous.

The second etymology suggests that Wicca is derived from a root meaning “to bend/twist/change.” Therefore, a Wicca (as the term originally referred to a person, not a practice) would be a person who bends or changes something. Humorously, many Wiccan authors seem to bend and twist this etymology to fit their personal perspectives on the Craft!

Some say matter-of-factly (and with no evidence) that the term referred to a person who could change his/her consciousness at the drop of a hat. Others suggest that the term was only applied to early Witches by outsiders who believed Witches could turn people into animals. Monty Python, anyone?

“How do you know that she’s a Witch?”
“She turned me into a newt!”
“A newt?”
“…Well, it got better….”

Unfortunately for us, even this etymology has not been proved definitively, despite being the more contemporary of the two. So how do we understand the meaning of the term? As Mike Nichols points out in his excellent essay “A Witch by Any Other Name, ” we can take our clues from how it was applied. Wicca (or Wicce, in the feminine gender) appears to have been a general label for practitioners of magico-religious systems, regardless of whether these systems were based in Anglo-Saxon lore. Hence, even many people who probably would have called themselves “Druids” would have been labeled Wiccan (the plural of Wicca) by the Anglo-Saxons, both before and after Christianization.

Even this does not give us a full understanding of what Wicca means in the modern sense. To twenty-first century Pagans, the distinction between Wicca and Witchcraft basically comes down to this: Wicca is a religion that employs magick. Witchcraft is a system of magick, not a religion.

As Nichols points out, this categorization doesn’t work because magick and religion are not in fact wholly separable entities. But the modern usage of the term Wicca goes even further. In contemporary usage, Wicca is taken to denote a specific type of witchcraft, the basic formula for which can be found in any of a thousand “Intro to Wicca” books.

The formula goes something like this. All goddesses are one Goddess; all gods are one God. Therefore you have two deities: the God and Goddess, call them what you will. (Many Wiccans tend to view the Goddess as primary, though there are more egalitarian traditions.) The Goddess has three aspects--Maiden, Mother, and Crone. She corresponds to the moon, while the God is linked to the sun.

There are eight Sabbats. Witches use four main tools: athame, wand, chalice, and pentacle. There are four elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) and four directions (North, South, East, West) . These three groups of four are usually linked together in a system of fixed correspondences. Though these correspondences vary from tradition to tradition, a common example would be Pentacle-Earth-North, Wand-Air-East, Athame-Fire-South, and Chalice-Water-West. I could go on, but you get the idea. Though the system has grown since Gardner’s day, most of it is built upon the structure that Gardner put forth. And here is where I encounter my problem.

Over the past year, I’ve been sporadically watching ‘Living the Wiccan Life’, a YouTube series created by the Corellian tradition, and hosted by Rev. Don Lewis. Many of the interviews he conducts are very interesting, as he often speaks with great Pagan authors like Margot Adler, Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, and Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits. Among the great authors he has interviewed is Raymond Buckland, who is largely responsible for making Wicca accessible to the American public.

While I respect Mr. Buckland greatly, I found one part of his interview offensive. In answering Lewis’s questions, Buckland seems to be saying that only practitioners of traditions like Gardnerian, Alexandrian, and Saxon Wicca (in other words, those traditions arising directly or indirectly from Gerald Gardner) have the right to use the term Wicca. In fact, he goes so far as to say that they are the only people who should be allowed to call themselves Witches. All others, Buckland states, should just call themselves magicians.

Excuse me?

I don’t want to attack Mr. Buckland personally, as he is only expressing the same opinion that many others have put forth. What I would like to do is point out to my readers that the words Wicca and Witchcraft both predate Gardner (and Cochrane and all the others) by centuries. Though they may want to, no one can claim a copyright on either term. At best, we can surmise that Wicca was originally used as a label meaning “person who participates in occult magickal practices.”

I fully understand the human desire to label, codify, and categorize everything. Fitting everything into neat and tidy boxes makes us feel secure in a world of insecurity. The problem is that often the only way something fits into a rigid category is by someone making it fit. Forcing something into a box thusly is a foolproof way to break off many important pieces. But if we don’t have a rigid definition for Wicca and Witchcraft, what then? Does this mean that just anyone can call herself a Witch? That anyone can say he practices Wicca?

In short, yes.

We have all encountered those people we like to call “fluffy bunnies.” You know the stereotype: the rebellious teenager in dark eye makeup, who broadcasts to the entire world that he/she is Wiccan, just to shock parents and teachers. The bored person who reads one book on Wicca and declares herself Lady Athena, Grand High Priestess of blah blah blah. I don’t like these people any more than most other serious Pagans--I much prefer intelligent, well read Pagans like Mike Nichols and Raymond Buckland (even if I don’t always agree with them) .

Am I saying fluffy bunnies should have the right to call themselves Wiccans and Witches? Actually, I wish they wouldn’t, but I’m saying that neither I nor anyone else has a copyright on those names, so no one can tell them not to use them.

In closing, I’d like to remind my readers that there are many Witchcraft traditions that don’t fit the formulaic definition of Wicca, but are nonetheless meaningful and powerful traditions. In Andanti, for example, we acknowledge a host of gods and goddesses, not just two. And as far as correspondences, if you say to an Andanti Witch “East corresponds to Air and the wand, ” s/he will probably answer, “Yes…except when it doesn’t.” Andanti is not the only example. What about Cochrane and all the other non-Gardnerian teachers active in Britain in Gardner’s day? What about the longstanding English tradition of the cunning men? Have we all forgotten about Feri Witchcraft, an American tradition that is at least as old as Gardnerian, if not older?

We’re all humans, even if we don’t all look the same. We’re all Witches, even if our practices don’t look the same.