Hello everyone. I’m Angela and welcome back to my channel.
Today I’ll introduce Wicca to you focusing on its historical starting points and early developments. I intend on making other videos on other aspects of Wicca such as its different branches and Wiccan practices and rituals. Please do let me know in the comments if you’d like to see more videos on Wicca and what kind of topics you would enjoy the most.
Wicca sees its origins in the first decades of the 20th century amongst those esoterically inclined Britons who wanted to revivify the belief of their ancestors. Wicca then entered the public sphere in the 1950s and 1960s. Thanks to a few followers who decided to publicly share their religious beliefs to a world that was rather hostile to such a different belief system. Wicca is the name given by its practitioners to the religion of Witchcraft. The word ‘wicca’ derives from the Anglo-Saxon word for witch and has been used, with this connotation, since the 1950s. It is important to highlight that within Wiccan communities Witchcraft is used with a specific meaning. That is to mean a Pagan mystery religion and nature religion that worships the Goddess and the God and is open to both women and men. This is why you can find it sometimes capitalised so you may find that Witchcraft and Witch may be capitalised by practitioners because they want to intend this specific meaning.
The founding father of modern Wicca is Gerald Gardener. A colonial administrator who was rather interested in naturism and Witchcraft. When he returned in England in the 1930s because he retired Gerald Gardner claimed he had encountered a coven of Witches in the New Forest in Hampshire. According to him, this coven of Witches basically had three degrees – quite similar to those found in Free Masonry. The group practised activities normally associated with Witchcraft such as casting spells for example. Although in this case, these spells were only altruistic and for beneficial purposes to others. Interestingly these Witches also worshipped their Gods through seasonal rites. Gardner makes a strong difference between the Witchcraft of this kind, Witchcraft practised by Wiccans and Satanism. This is because the kind of Witchcraft that Gardner talks about is not an anti-Christian cult as its practitioners claimed and still claim to be pagans, worshippers of the pre-Christian Gods and somehow keepers of what they called the “Old Religion,” whose ancestors had practised Witchcraft and Paganism for centuries trying to keep it underground because, of course, they had to coexist with Christianity.
Although it is debated whether Gerald Gardner actually encountered the coven of Witches in the New Forest, his book “Witchcraft Today” was essential in the spread of the Wiccan tradition. In England first and then in other English-speaking countries next, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Then Wicca also entered other countries such as Scandinavia and the Netherlands where, even though English is not the first language, it is still a widely spoken one. And then later, in the 1980s, Gardner’s books were translated and so the Wiccan tradition entered other countries such as Germany. European countries with a stronger Catholic culture saw the translation of Wiccan books later on. So for instance, in Italy, Wiccan books were translated and started to be found in book stores around the late 90s, early 2000s.
When Wicca started spreading to the United States in the 1960s it really found a fertile environment in the counter culture that was taking root in the country. It became particularly popular among the women’s and gay liberation movements, seeking spiritual liberation from the Christian hegemony. After reaching a wider audience as an alternative to the dominant religious system it came to target teenagers through books and TV shows which captured the attention of the younger audience. The lively history that Wicca has had in less than a century makes it an extremely fascinating new religious movement which keeps growing and evolving having a significant impact on other nature-worshipping, Witchcraft-oriented religions.
Let’s now address where Gardner took his inspiration from. Gerald Gardner was heavily influenced by a folklorist called Margaret Murray, Anthropologist and Egyptologist at the University College London. Two of her books were extremely influential in the formation of the modern Witchcraft movement, which became Wicca. “The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: a Study in Anthropology” first published in 1921 and the “God of Witches” published 10 years later. Margaret Murray’s books are not considered nowadays good history books but rather an interpretation taking into account selective aspects of history. The thesis she upholds and Gardner endorsed was that the Witches persecuted in the 16th and 17th century Europe and the United States were not devil worshippers, nor victims of a societal paranoia but were actually Pagans who worshipped the Horned God and practised Magic. Murray believed that that was a form of Paganism who had existed and coexisted with Christianity in secret, underground but had never died out. It is interesting to notice that for Margaret Murray Witchcraft was mainly involved with fertility cults and rain-making rituals. Witchcraft was, therefore, quite similar to other tribal cults which she would have studied as an Anthropologist. She writes of familiars, the Horned God, leadership and discipline in covens which she sees as mainly man led and the mythology surrounding death and rebirth for Witches, for Witches worship a dying and resurrecting god. Another key figure in the early development of Wicca was Doreen Valiente who read a piece on Wicca in Illustrated, which led her to meeting Gardner in 1952. The meeting must have gone pretty well because Doreen Valiente was initiated just a year after their first encounter. The two started a fruitful partnership and she became an influential member and a popular writer who contributed significantly to the spreading of Wicca.
In just a few decades Wicca has seen massive changes and has branched out into many ramifications ranging from traditions mainly focused on women’s spirituality to those embedding shamanic components to their practice. Wicca has also moved from being solely a ceremonial tradition to include an eclectic, exoteric movement which incorporates selective elements based on the inclinations of the individual practitioner. In future videos, I will be tackling Wicca addressing more the practical and ritualistic elements, its belief system and the various traditions stemmed from its original root. So stay tuned if you are interested in the topic.
This is it for today’s video. Hope you liked its content and if you did, SMASH the like button, subscribe to the channel, activate the notification bell so you won’t miss any video out and stay tuned for all the Academic fun.
Bye for now.
REFERENCES
Crowley, Vivianne (1998), ‘Wicca as Nature Religion’ in Pearson, J.; Roberts, R. H.; and Samuel, G. (eds.), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 170-179.
Doyle White, E. (2016) Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft, None edition., Brighton, Chicago, Sussex Academic Press.
Hutton, R. (2019) The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Oxford University Press.
First uploaded 4 Jan 2020