My oldest friend has agreed to partner with me on all of the research. So I don’t have to always write “my oldest friend,” we’ve decided to give him a nickname. He didn’t like me calling him Floppy – that was his actual nickname when we were younger for his long, floppy bangs that always fell in one eye. Instead, I went with something he did.
The night before my 7th birthday, I got sick. To cheer me up, his mother drove him over to give me my present early. They gave me a Paddington Bear. I can’t even tell you how much I love Paddington so moving forward, we’re going to call him P.
P and I weren’t sure where to start with Wicca. We had a comment from someone called Ramsay who said the two original books written about Wicca were mostly fabricated. We had never even heard of those books. Since we didn’t know who to go to locally, we started our research online.
We were immediately confused about Wicca.
We both thought it was another name for witchcraft. Weren’t all the witches burned at the stake women? Okay, some men were also killed, but barely any next to how many women were murdered. Yet this religion was created by a British man, Gerald Gardiner, in the 1930s?
P thought that was weird. If women were usually the ones accused of witchcraft, shouldn’t the founder of Wicca be a woman?
Wicca was created in the 1930s and then made public in the 1950s — that’s not exactly ancient. Although from what we dug up, it’s based on earlier belief systems that are far older.
This is no shade on Wicca. The things we read about it make it seem like quite a lovely belief system tied to nature. It has dual gods, one male and one female. P liked that.
We just also mistakenly thought Wicca was witchcraft. We were wrong.
According to HearthWitch — who gives an amazing definition of Paganism, Wicca and Witchcraft — witchcraft isn’t tied to any particular religion at all. Witchcraft is a practice, a craft, something that can be learned over time. Some witches are Wiccan, others are not. You can practice any religion as well as witchcraft. Or you can practice no religion and still practice witchcraft.
She says Paganism is an umbrella term covering many religions, mostly nature based and polytheistic, so Wiccans are all Pagans, but not all Pagans are Wiccans.
Paganism is also used as a derogatory term by many. You’ve probably heard them referred to as heathens. HearthWitch does a good job of giving the multiple definitions of Paganism so watch her video for more on that. From what we’ve learned so far, that carving is probably Pagan, but there are loads of options within Paganism.
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