AboutAlayne Grey Expertise I am a Druid and a scholar of Wicca and other forms of Paganism - I can answer people's questions about Wicca, Witchcraft, Druidry (specifically), how to begin Pagan studies, Asatru, Shamanism and so on. I also feel myself competent to deal with the questions of teenage seekers looking to be Pagans, as I am a teenager myself.
Experience I've been a Druid for almost a year, write essays for Witchvox, and I am currently writing a book on controversial Pagan issues. I am widely read about Wicca and other Pagan paths and about the best foundations for beginning such a rewarding spirituality.
Publications I am listed under "Alayne Grey" on Witchvox and have written several essays, including one about my own beginner's experience.
Education/Credentials I am a Pagan teenager completing my A-Levels, having achieved high GCSE awards the previous year in 2005.
In what way is Wiccanism related to ancient pagan religions? I have heard that in Wiccanism there are only two gods: the mother goddess, and the father god. But in my research concerning paganism I have come to discover that there are many many gods. How does this fit in with modern Wiccanism? If Wicca has only 2 gods, then what happened to the other gods?
I used to have a friend who was a Wiccan. At the time I was a Roman Catholic and she would insult my religion to no end, accusing it of the most horrible things. But she was my friend and I just let it all go. But whenever I would ask any questions about Wiccanism which didn't present her elevated views she would get incensed and angry because she could not stand the tiniest bit of disagreement with her beliefs, while the whole time she just loved to tear my faith to shreds. Therefore my second question is how does Wicca view other religions, and how does it view Christianity? My friend used to hate Christianity, I mean literally hate it. According to her Christianity was the most evil religion which ever existed, while Wicca was perfect. We are no longer friends because even though she would horribly ridicule every thing I held dear, she at the same time, could not stand to hear the slightest downplay of any of her religious philosophies. I did not initially wish to downplay her faith, but when she would rant on and on about how evil Christianity was, I could not help but try to poke holes in her accusations. She would go on and on about how many witches the Catholic Church had executed, and about all the evils it had committed against women, but when I asked her about how paganism performed human sacrifices, she didn't like that question, because she knew that the answer was yes, paganism did have human sacrifices, especially when referring to Celtic paganism, where people were put in wicker baskets and burned to death as sacrifices.
I know that many Wiccans claim that the Christian Church murdered 6 million witches during the Church's 2000 year history. My third question is, where did this number come from? I have heard of this number many times, but no historical evidence or facts to base it on or back it. I was wondering if the number came from the fact that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, so therefore a claim was created that the Church also killed 6 million witches. Anyone can come up with a number out of thin air, so I ask, do you know where this number comes from and if it has any basis in history? The number which most professional historians claim is that less than 50,000 witches were killed during the Middle Ages. I agree that this also is a high number, but it is no where near 6 million. If 6 million is an actual factual number, then that would mean that the Christian Church was on a genocidal hunt to exterminate women in Europe. I say this because the population of Europe until recent times was really not that big, especially during the middle ages, when the infant mortality rate was 50%, up to the first year of life, and people died of the simplest diseases.
My forth question deals with the Wiccan maxim: "Do what you will, but hurt no one..." I have been told that this is the epitome of perfect morality. On par with the golden rule. It appears to be rather politically correct. But where did this saying come from? Does it have any basis in ancient paganism, or is it a creation of modern day 20th century paganism?
My fifth question concerns the history of Wicca itself. Wiccans claim that Wiccanism has been a historically underground movement which has always existed in hiding for centuries, starting in the Middle Ages, up until the present modern day. The idea is that Wiccanism had to go underground because it was oppressed by the Church, but that it never died out. When the Wiccan movement began in the 20th century, did pagans around Europe come out of hiding (out of the closet, so to speak) and proclaim that they had been practicing paganism all along, and that their ancestors had done the same for centuries, and that now they can finally practice their religion in peace because we live in the modern age? If so, then who were some of the big names that came out of hiding? How many practicing witches/pagans came out of hiding and said that they and their ancestors had been practicing paganism for centuries?
Finally, what similarities exist between the different forms of paganism around Europe, and around the world? Do pagans in Russia have similarities to pagans in Ireland, etc.? Do they worship the same gods?
I am sorry if my questions seem a bit harsh, but I am asking them because I heard a lot about Wiccanism, and have heard a lot of Wiccans mock Christianity to my face, knowing full well that I was a Christian, and I just want to know what the facts are. I have tried asking Wiccans these questions, but none of them have ever been willing to answer them.
Thank you: A.J.
Answer Hi AJ,
Firstly, “Wiccanism” is an incorrect term. The religion is called Wicca; its followers are called Wiccans. Only inaccurate sources will refer to it as “Wiccanism”. Wicca is made up of numerous “traditions,” rather like the denominations of the Christian church – all have tenets in common, but variations on the religious beliefs or practices of the followers. For example, Gardnerian Wicca is the most orthodox, keeping as closely to the religion created by Gerald Gardner in the 1940’s as possible. This tradition of Wicca believes in the Goddess, who is tripartite (Maiden, Mother and Crone), and the God, who is the Consort of the Goddess (duotheism). The feminist traditions of Wicca, like Dianic Wicca, worship only the Mother Goddess and do not believe in the existence of a God or male counterpart (a variant of monotheism). Other traditions still are polytheistic, which means they believe in “many gods” – these traditions are usually eclectic, worshipping Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Roman or Celtic deities. Other eclectic Wiccans still may not believe in Gods at all – just an impersonal Creator (monism), are unsure (agnosticism) or simply worship nature.
As a general rule, Wiccans are a tolerant lot – so there are not many disagreements about whether there is one god, two gods, or many gods. Those who believe in just the Goddess and the God believe that all other gods from history are simply “faces” that the Goddess and the God have worn to worshippers of different cultures across the globe. Some theorize that there are many gods who each have different names: for example, the thunder god Thor goes by that name amongst the Norse, but the name Taranis amongst the Celts. Others still think that the gods are conduits through which the unnamed Creating force of the universe is worshipped. Some people may think that the Norse Gods and the Celtic Gods both exist. I’ll try and explain it this way: a god is not necessarily conceived of as omniscient and omnipotent. Perhaps gods are simply great and powerful spirits limited to particular places on earth or particular peoples; or gain power to influence things from being worshipped. So the god who could affect the sun in Egypt was Ra, but nobody worshipped him in ancient Britain so he had no power there; instead, there was a different sun god, Belenus.
There are so many different Pagans that nobody has a definitive answer. As our beliefs are based on the ancient religions of our forefathers, much has been destroyed by Romans and missionaries, so we rely on archaeologists and historians to help us piece things together. Paganism – and thus Wicca, which is one faith under the umbrella of similar religions – is not a revealed religion, where there is a sacred text where all the answers are written down and the questions must be found, but a mystery religion, where we start out with the questions and find the answers for ourselves.
Secondly, your friend was a bigoted fool. She was young and new in her faith, and had probably found a religion where Gods actually spoke to her and she felt connected; perhaps, like me, she had spent her childhood sitting in staid churches, unmoved by hymns and prayers, and seeing grave faults in the Bible that made it impossible for her to believe it. The way she reacted to your faith was typical for many people who leave a religion they have been brought up with – she was on the defensive, determined to protect what she had found that was so sacred to herself, and internally justifying why she left your religion.
Most Pagans understand – or should – that Christianity is not a religion that tolerates. In the New Testament, Jesus charges his followers to go out and preach the gospel, as it is only through believing he is the saviour of mankind that human beings are saved. So, I expect my Christian friends and my parents to question my beliefs, as theirs is at odds with the idea that other religions could be considered to have some validity. Your friend was in the wrong.
I would be wary, if I were you, of stating that the Celts burned people in wicker baskets. It IS true that they practiced human sacrifice, in all probability, as did most ancient Pagans. In Japan, there’s a story that they used to bury people alive under the foundations of new buildings. The Aztecs cut out human hearts. The Romans flung people to the animals in the arenas. There have been archaeological finds suggesting human sacrifice, like I believe the Lindow Man who was buried ritually strangled in a peat bog. But the popular mythology of the “wicker man” is from an account by Julius Caesar, who was a commander justifying his conquest of barbarian lands to his civilized people back home, so it is likely his account is simply propaganda. Also bear in mind that ritual human sacrifices were executions: criminals and prisoners of war – not the men, women or children of the tribe. Human sacrifice is generally an irrelevant subject, though. You would no doubt object if people repeated to you the ancient Roman slander against the Christians that they drank blood and murdered children; there is no real proof it ever happened, and certainly no one does it now. Likewise, Pagans’ ancestors may have sacrificed people, but it hasn’t been done for two millennia.
Thirdly, it is true that there were witch-hunts in Europe, but the deaths numbered in the thousands, not millions – it was not a Holocaust – and included as many men as women. The exaggerated figures of the “burning times” are a creation of feminist propaganda in the 1960’s and 70’s. Women like Z Budapest and Starhawk and Silver Ravenwolf tend to be responsible for breeding this nonsense. The Christian church was not on a genocidal hunt, either. As you quite rightly pointed out, medieval Europe was rife with plagues at the time, and as no one knew of the existence of germs, being a superstitious lot they blamed it on witchcraft; encouraged by a few spurious clergymen in Germany and Spain, and by King James in Britain, who was obsessed with witches. It is also a fact that witches were generally hung, not burnt. A “holocaust” the size suggested by the propaganda would have wiped out the entire populous of Europe! There’s no way it could have happened.
Fourth, I will address your question about the Wiccan Rede, as that’s what you refer to as “An it harm none, do thy will.” This originated with either Gerald Gardner or his co-founder, Doreen Valiente – I believe the latter, who composed it as part of a long poem of instructions. It is this part that gets repeated most. It is definitely a creation of the 20th century, though it has similar counterparts in other religions, like Christianity and Buddhism. It doesn’t have any basis in Celtic Paganism (I am a modern Druid, so I ought to know), or in any other ancient Paganism that I know of from my research. Assume it is a modern invention.
Fifth – your question about Wicca’s history. It is true that some Wiccans have claimed Wicca to be an underground movement for centuries, but this has been proved false. Wicca as a religion has existed since Gerald Gardner created it in the 1940’s. However, some of its tenets or concepts are very old. For example, tripartite gods and goddesses are Celtic in origin; as is the idea of many gods and goddesses; the use of incense and candles in rituals has been done since the earliest “organised religion” times e.g. the Greeks and the Romans. Some of eclectic Wicca has been injected with New Age ideas, like auras and crystals; some Western mystery traditions, like the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians and the Order of the Golden Dawn have had some influence on Wicca as well, as Gardner and his associates were involved with some of these groups, along with Aleister Crowley (who was an occultist not a Satanist, though he was flamboyant and irreverent).
Paganism had mostly died out by the first and second centuries A.D. The Druids were almost gone by the time Christian missionaries came to Britain, stamped out by a Roman campaign as they were a seditious element inciting the tribes to rebellion. Rome, and Greece as well, converted slowly to Christianity and the old pagan ways were abandoned. There were still bastions of paganism in Northern Europe in the medieval ages, as Christianity took quite some time to settle in Scandinavia. Fragments survived in history and architecture, and in folklore traditions, though over time the pagan origins were forgotten or irrelevant.
Who, then, were the “witches” persecuted by the church? To be honest, it is likely there were so actual pagans amongst them at all; the majority were old people who lived on the edges of towns, with some contempt for the Puritan fervour of their neighbours, people who could be easily blamed for spreading the evil eye. Some may have practiced herbal remedies, but these were folklore cures, like that dock leaves cure nettle stings, not religious in nature.
Isaac Bonewits is a modern Pagan who has tried to track these eras of change, so you might find his terms useful. The ancient pagans were “Paleopagans”. The beliefs of modern Druids, Celtic Reconstructionists, followers of Asatru and Greek or Roman Reconstructionism are based upon the beliefs of the Paleopagans, omitting the unsavoury aspects like human sacrifice. In the 1700’s, when science kicked off, there was a revived interest in occultism that grew into the great Western mystery traditions like Freemasonry and the Rosicrucians, and the first new Druid orders created in Britain in the same period (though these were not necessarily religious in nature either, and some were Christians as well as “druids”). This period is called the “Mesopagans”. The influences of this period culminated in the creation of religions like Wicca; and alongside it, modern Druidry, Asatru, Celtic Reconstructionism etc, though New Age and occultism haven’t influenced them much. These are the “Neopagans”.
There weren’t pagans coming out of the closet when Wicca took off, though some people had inherited folklore beliefs from ancestors who were cunning men and knew herbal cures. (It was usually the cunning men, though, who pointed out who was meant to be a witch to inquisitors and witch-hunters!) I don’t know of anybody who can prove their grandiose claims to have inherited a family tradition. Take all these ideas with a pinch of salt! Most people distinguish between Wicca and Witchcraft, which is considered to be more of a monist folk belief system akin to Shinto in Japan than an organised religion – e.g. tie a red ribbon around the first ear of corn on the full moon and the harvest will be good, put rock salt by the door to keep out evil spirits. That kind of thing.
Finally – Paganism varies, because all religions develop in the climate of their cultures. Feminists like to accuse Christianity of being patriarchal, but it did originate in the Middle East where women are inferior to men and are meant to be wives and mothers. Of course Jesus’ disciples were men: it would have been improper in Jewish or Arabic cultures for women to be running around without chaperones. Norse Paganism, for example, came from a warlike culture. Scandinavia doesn’t have much by the way of natural resources, so the Vikings raided other countries and journeyed into Russia for food and spoils. Their gods, then, are warlike who go around fighting and feasting and boozing, and getting up to mischief; just as the Vikings did, and believed that dying “a straw death” in one’s own bed rather than in battle was dishonourable.
The Celts were far more agricultural – the festivals of the Celtic year celebrated by Celtic Reconstructionists and Druids mark seasonal changes. Imbolc marks the first lambing; Samhain, the gathering in of the harvest and the driving of cattle between fires to rid them of disease (Samhain was a minor god of cattle). The gods of the Celts were elemental, related to the earth, or the people e.g. Esus, god of the wood and the fields; Taranis, god of the storms and rain; Belenus, god of the sun. I don’t know of a Celtic god of winter or snow, and that’s because these times of year weren’t important for people who were primarily farmers.
There ARE links between different kinds of Paganism. The Celts spread from Ireland to Britain to a little way into Turkey, as the Ephesians were supposed to have been Celts; therefore, Pagans in those areas would have worshipped the same or similar gods. The Vikings were all over Scandinavia and Russia, so those areas would have worshipped Odin and Thor. The Greeks and the Romans had empires, so their paganism would have spread wherever they went.
Don’t worry about your questions being harsh – there’s a lot of nonsense out there, and you just have to cut through the fat sometimes. I’m surprised that you have asked Wiccans and they have been uppity about it, but maybe they’re just not willing to discuss their faith because they think you are trying to convert them (and Christianity IS an evangelistic faith, so I suppose there is some foundation). Also, some Wiccans subscribe to the nonsense ideas in the face of historical fact, so you must be wary of that!
I hope I have answered all your questions to the best of my ability, as you have already been fobbed off and that is annoying. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask!
