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Voices of Change
The Changing Face of Wicca
The religion Gerald Gardner re-discovered in the 1920's, the religion he called Wicca, is changing.
That statement is almost guaranteed to raise the ire of many older and traditional practitioners, particularly those who came into the Craft through the British Traditional avenues. To many of those Traditionalists the very concept of Wicca being eclectic, and of changing, is an abomination. They see the Craft as they were initiated into it, the same Craft of Gardner and Crowley, the same Craft today as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century.
They look on many of today's new practitioners with disdain because they see in these new followers of the Craft a break from the old traditions and values they learned. They see a break from acceptable paths of initiation, a break from the process of learning the Craft through various degrees and levels, a break from learning the mysteries as they themselves were taught, a break from the very esoteric original nature of the Craft as they understand it. They see the new arrivals as not being of Their Wicca, not really earning the name Wiccan, of being instead something new, of what they may even denigrate as neo-wicca. And in so doing they see many of us as not their equals in the arts of the Craft, as somehow not deserving of the title "witch" because we have earned that title in ways they may even find abhorrent.
But the truth is that today's Wicca really is dynamic and fluid, amassing new members with new ideas, and in that process it is indeed enriched. True, many will come into the Craft after reading books by Buckland, Cunningham, Fitch, Farrar and others, and in some cases without the in-depth training gleaned during the multiyear degree processes of many Traditions. But none the less it is this influx of new practitioners that makes our Craft the growing and exciting thing it is today.
Our religion has, to some extent, moved beyond its esoteric beginnings towards a new and exoteric form. A form where many of the mysteries have become public knowledge, no longer the lone province of Elders or Third Degree Initiates. A form where all the rituals and mysteries are learned early on, where those who must practice alone can indeed self-dedicate to the God and Goddess and self-worship in any manner so chosen, in any manner that connects them to the Lord and Lady and to our heritage. A form that, in many cases, may eventually develop its own set of mysteries and rituals, becoming in time yet another new Tradition of the Craft.
Today as we stand at the threshold of a new century we also stand at the threshold of a new beginning for the Old Religion. The Wicca of today is most assuredly not the Wicca of twenty years ago nor of fifty years ago, it is not the Wicca of Gardner or Crowley, it is indeed a new Wicca that is growing and evolving. It is a Wicca that is stretching its muscles to embrace and endorse those new members, those newcomers who must inevitably bring change. And those changes, by definition, will produce differences between our newer Wicca and the old Wicca, changes that sometimes make Elders in traditional covens cringe almost with anger. But it is that very growth and change that simultaneously brings in those new adherents and yet reflects them and their attitudes. It is that very change that makes us stronger. Yes, the Elders of some traditions may refer to us a neo-wicca, not of the Old Wicca, not understanding their definitions of the mysteries nor being initiated in a suitable way. But be that as it may because the Wicca practiced by those same Elders is surely not the same religion practiced by those who worshipped in the temples of our Classical Ages, nor in the great stone circles, nor in the painted caves.
As the Wicca practiced by the Traditionalists has evolved from some earlier rendition that was not even called Wicca, in many cases so has the Wicca practiced by many of the new adherents evolved from the Wicca of Gardner and Crowley. Our Craft of the Wise has indeed evolved through the eons of time into what we see and practice today. Evolved yet remained unchanged. Evolved with new rituals and rites, new forms of initiation, new invocations to the deities, yet unchanged in our worship of those deities.
Yes, the rites and rituals may have changed but the basic concepts of worship have not. We still honor the God and Goddess at the planting and harvest festivals, we still honor the Lady at the lunar esbats, we still cast our circles invoking the protection of the four elements, and we still embrace the magick. Wicca, and that nameless religion that preceded it, has changed yet not changed. The age-old love and awareness of earth and sky, of sun and moon, of night and day, of life and death that began in the caves of the Early Paleolithic is still with us today. And that awareness, by what ever name you choose to call it, is the basis of the Old Religion, the Craft of the Wise, of the religion most of us today elect to call Wicca.
It is at least partly because of this new influx of adherents, of an evolving Wicca, that many of us now turn our thoughts backwards in time to seek our beginnings. We are not content to be told that Wicca is only a name invented by Gardner et al. We are not content to be told by Elders that we are not doing it the right way, their way, and that we are not Wiccans. We are not content because we know the Old Religion long preceded the advent of twentieth-century Wicca and even preceded the oldest traditional covens because the Old Religion was here long before there was Wicca. It is this Old Religion that we seek. It is this Old Religion that we now look to for our roots, our spiritual heritage. It is this Old Religion that calls to us across the gulf of tens of thousands of years. It is this Old Religion that calls to us from the dawning mists of antiquity, saying clearly and unmistakably, "Welcome home."
- Gary Cantrell
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Goat and Candle is pleased to be able to present pieces by independent writers, who are working to change the popular view of Paganism. Their views, however, do not necessarily reflect the views of the G&C editorial staff.
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