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Wicca is an occult-pagan religion that draws heavily from other sources.
Wicca was created by the New Forest Coven, and then heavily altered by Gerald Gardner,
and then its recitations were further altered by Doreen Valiente.
Other altered versions of Wicca were created thereafter.
In its original form in the New Forest Coven, the word "wica" was a plural term that applied to the members of the coven, and was not a term used to denote the religion or practices. It wasn't until 1959, with the publication of Gerald Gardner's book The Meaning of Witchcraft, that the term "wicca" became popularized, and shortly thereafter it started to be used as the name of the religion, rather than its practitioners. Practitioners of Wicca are now called "wiccans".
The following are the beliefs, rules, and practices of Wicca:
Beliefs[]
The Goddess and The Goddor[]
Wiccans believe in a moon goddess and a horned goddor. In the original Gardnerian Wicca, the goddess is Aradia (a character from the 1899 book Aradia), and the horned goddor is Cernunnos (a celtic pagan deity, going by its roman name). In Alexandrian Wicca, Aradia is replaced with Cerridwen (a mythological witch, who was never considered a deity prior to Wicca). The Gardnerian and Alexandrian books of shadows (the original books that describe the religion of Wicca) state that wiccans should worship the gods. However, some wiccans do not worship the gods, but rather, describe their relationship with the gods as "working with" him/her.
The Watchtowers and their Lords[]
Wiccans believe that there are multiple supernatural 'watchtowers', of an unspecified quantity, in each of the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west), and that those watchtowers are manned by powerful but unspecified supernatural beings, who are referred to as 'lords' or 'mighty ones'. Those lords are believed to bear witness to the wiccan rituals.
Reincarnation[]
Wiccans believe in reincarnation. The recitations in various wiccan rituals state that after death, people become reborn into new bodies.
Rules[]
The Wiccan Laws[]
The wiccan laws are various rules (they are not actual laws, as they are not enforced by a government) that were created by Gerald Gardner, and are written in the Gardnerian and Alexandrian books of shadows, and in Ye Bok of ye Art Magical which preceded them. Wiccans are expected to follow these rules to some extent, but some of the rules are deliberately anachronistic (to give the false impression of an older origin), applying to the time when witches were hunted, interrogated, tortured, and killed, or at least considered criminal, so some of such rules are disregarded by most wiccans.
For more information, see the article wiccan laws.
The Wiccan Rede[]
The central ethical principle of Wicca is the wiccan rede. The wiccan rede is: "if it harms none, do what you will".
For more information, see the article wiccan rede.
Diet[]
Wicca does not have any explicit dietary restrictions, but many wiccans are vegetarians as a result of applying the wiccan rede to animals.
The Rule of Threefold Return[]
The rule of threefold return states that a witch should return three times the good that another person does to them,
and return three times the bad that another person does to them. In other words, it is three times reward and three times revenge.
That rule blatantly contradicts the wiccan rede, as well as the statement 'harm none' that repeatedly appears in Gerald Gardner's wiccan laws.
It especially contradicts sentences from the Gardnerian wiccan laws that state:
"So it is ordained that none shall use the art in any way to harm any, however much they have injured us.", and
"No one, however great an injury or injustice they receive, may use the art in any way to do ill or harm any.".
Those statements are also present in the Alexandrian wiccan laws 108 and 109.
It is likely that the rule of threefold return was invented by the New Forest Coven rather than Gerald Gardner,
which would explain why it contradicts Gardner's wiccan laws and wiccan rede.
The rule of threefold return was first mentioned in chapter 17 of Gerald Gardner's 1949 book High Magic's Aid,
and in the second-degree initiation ritual which is described in Gardner's book of shadows.
The wording of the rule in High Magic's Aid and in Gardner's book of shadows is identical, and in both cases it applies to scourgings.
That wording is: "Learn, in witchcraft, thou must ever return triple. As I scourged thee, so thou must scourge me, but triple.
... But mark well, when thou receivest good, so equally art bound to return good threefold."
In 1986, Raymond Buckland published the book Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft,
in which he falsely portrayed the rule of threefold return as being a karmic law of the universe rather than a rule of conduct.
That false threefold rule states that whatever good or bad a person does to others will karmicly return to them threefold.
Due to the popularity of Buckland's book, his lie about the threefold rule became widely believed.
Practices[]
Rituals[]
Rituals play a very important role in Wicca.
The wiccan rituals include the initiation and elevation rituals, the sabbat rituals, and the esbat rituals.
Ritual Objects[]
Ritual objects, which are often called "tools" in Wicca, are a major aspect of wiccan rituals.
Information on this subject is at the article ritual objects.
Initiations[]
Wicca has three levels of initiation: the first-degree initiation, the second-degree initiation, and the third-degree initiation.
The second- and third-degree initiations are sometimes alternatively called 'elevations', though that term was not used in early Wicca.
In the first-degree initiation, the initiate is given the title of "priest/ex/ess and witch".
In the second-degree initiation, the initiate is given the title of 'high priest/ex/ess".
In the third-degree initiation, depending on tradition, the Initiate may receive the title of "Elder". In other traditions, this may be an honorary title or only used for those who lead their own covens.
Historically, a person may be initiated only by a member of the opposite gender, with an exception that a parent may initiate their child, regardless of the gender of the parent and the child. However, this has undergone a more recent evolution in many British Traditions and SSI/SGI (Same Sex Initiation or Same Gender Initaition) is very often recognized and practiced.
British Traditional Wiccans claim an initiatory lineage to the New Forest Coven on the southern coast of England,
and the subsequent Bricket Wood Coven ,north of village of Bricket Wood, Hertfordshire, in southern England.
Sabbats[]
Wiccans celebrate 8 holidays, called sabbats.
The sabbats are spaced at approximately equal intervals throughout the year, roughly every 6 weeks.
In order, those 8 sabbats are as follows, going by their original names:
1. febuary eve, 2. the spring equinox, 3. may eve, 4. the summer solstice,
5. august eve, 6. the autumn equinox, 7. november eve, 8. the winter solstice.
Some time in the 1950s, Gerald Gardner renamed febuary eve to Candlemass,
renamed august eve to Lammas, and renamed november eve to Halloween.
Other, later wiccans have made additional alterations to the sabbat names.
Esbats[]
In addition to the sabbats, there are group rituals called esbats, which may be done on any day, but are preferentially done during a full moon, in which case they are called 'full moon esbats'.
Magic[]
Although some self-identified wiccans claim not to practice magic, those of a more traditional background and training will argue against this as it has traditionally been seen as a fundamental aspect of practice and necessary for development.
Dress[]
Wiccans are permitted to wear any form of clothing, but for ritual practice it is important to have robes worn only for this occasion as part of the shift into a magical state. It is also more traditional for rituals to be performed without clothing, known as being skyclad, which has an important symbolic meaning and other spiritual benefits when working within a coven.
Sects[]
There are several different sects of Wicca.
The original and oldest sect of Wicca is Gardnerian Wicca, which was created by Gerald Gardner in or around 1946,
and underwent modifications during the 1950s, in large part due to Doreen Valiente.
The second-oldest sect of Wicca is Alexandrian Wicca, which was created by Alex Sanders starting in the mid 1960s,
and does not deviate much from the original Gardnerian Wicca.
Various new wiccan sects were created during the 1970s, including Dianic Wicca in 1971, Algard Wicca in 1972,
Seax-Wica in 1973, Blue Star Wicca in 1975, and Odyssean Wicca in 1979.
Elements taken from other sources[]
Wicca is a highly syncretic religion that combines elements from several different sources.
Those sources include, but are not limited to:
the two witch-related books by Margaret Murray (The Witch Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches),
the book Aradia by Charles Leland, the black mass, The Druid Order, the Key of Solomon, Freemasonry,
the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and BDSM practices.
A full list of all of the specific elements of Wicca that were taken from other sources is at:
www.occult-reference.0catch.com/about_wicca.html
Update:
The NSA (National Security-violating Agency) used its DDoS'ing system called QUANTUM to perma-DDoS the entire 0catch webspace website
out of existence, as well as the wikifarm website referata.com on which a back-up file of about-wicca.html was located.
You can tell that those sites are under a DDoS attack because they over-tax your CPU when you try to access them.
Consequently, the file about_wicca.html has been combined into a very large html file that contains all of the
html files that were at occult-reference.0catch.com, and which contains page-jumps to the specific files.
That combined html file is located at:
upload.run/byigqp
-That file will be auto-deleted in two years after its upload.
It was uploaded on August 22nd 2020, and will therefore be auto-deleted on August 22nd 2022.
Update #2:
It turns out that the NSA's DDoS attack upon referata was not permanent, but lasted for only 12 days. They instead opted to hack referata's MySQL code, so that new referata wikis can no longer be created anonymously (resulting in a MySQL error). The NSA did, however, in mid-october of 2020, launch a perma-DDoS attack upon upload.run, which means that the aforementioned file at that site is no longer accessible. Due to the fact that referata is running again, the file about Wicca therein has been updated, and is viewable at sapientissimus.referata.com/wiki/wicca_elements . The copyright policy is shown on the wiki's main page.
Update #3:
In response to that Referata webspace URL being posted on Wikia, the NSA launched another cyber-terrorist DDoS attack upon Referata, beginning in early January of 2021, so that webspace is not accessible.
That DDoS attack has lasted for around a month, and is therefore most likely a perma-DDoS attack.
...You may be wondering why Paul Nakasone (the head of the NSA, who grants approval for perma-DDoS attacks, and can also initiate them) is so batshit obsessed with these files. Well, here's why:
One of the files or pages (depending upon what form it's in) is called "critical_facts".
That file or page contains damning information about the NSA, and also thorough information about PSSD (post-SRI sexual dysfunction)- a condition which very disproportionately afflicts people who value privacy, due to neuropsychological reasons (thus, the NSA desires to suppress knowledge of it; they even perma-DDoS'd the pssdforum website in January of 2020; also done by Nakasone).