By Laura Holmes ("Portsmouth Herald," October 29, 2001)
Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/9430/?§ion=occult
Debra Wiley says she cringes every time someone asks her, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" "I don't walk around asking people, 'Are you a good Christian or a bad Christian?'" says Wiley, a self-proclaimed Wiccan witch from Dover.
Maybe if people were better educated about her religion, she says, they would know better.
Wiley and her friend, Scarlett Ridgway, a Wiccan witch from Portsmouth, have been "out of the broom closet" for many years. Neither of them hide the fact they are witches, but because of 500 years of persecution in Europe and America, and decades of negative stereotyping, many others are not so public.
The possibility of harassment, verbal abuse and, in extreme cases, violence make many witches afraid to take advantage of one of America's most prized possessions — freedom of religion — "all because of misunderstanding," says Rebecca Murphy, a Wiccan witch and licensed pagan minister from Manchester.
"Look up the word 'witch' in a dictionary and you'll read, 'A person who practices black magic,' or something similar. Even though it's in the dictionary, that definition is not accurate. And that's because the dictionary follows popular culture, not the other way around. Until the word 'witch' and its correct definition is in general use for, I believe, 10 years, it won't change," says Murphy.
Witch, witchcraft, Wiccan, pagan; these words are not interchangeable, but try to define them, and that, says Murphy, is a problem.
"We're still trying to define some of them ourselves," she says.
Historically, a "witch" was the wise woman of the community, the person to go to for healing, advice and matchmaking. But through political and religious attacks, that image has been twisted into an evil, old hag with a green, warty face.
So what is a witch today? It depends on whom you ask, says Murphy, but generally speaking, a witch is any person who practices the "science of witchcraft." This includes herbalism, astrology, color therapy, gemology and other ways in which witches believe they can influence the physical and spiritual planes.
"You can be a witch and a Wiccan, and you can be a witch without being a Wiccan. You can be a witch of voodoo. You can also be a Satanic witch. You can even be a Christian and be a witch — I've met some.
"African medicine men and women use witchcraft; they're called witch doctors. The core of it is each one of those means something different to each one of those witches," says Murphy.
On the other hand, defining paganism is simpler. It describes any faith other than Christian, Muslim or Jewish.
"Pagan encompasses a lot of different groups — Druid, Native American, Strega or Italian witchcraft and Wicca are the more familiar ones," says Murphy.
So, what is Wicca? Again, it depends on whom you ask. It's a religion, but it has no dogma and no scriptures. It has values and morals, says Murphy, but no Bible.
"A Catholic can say, 'You have the 10 Commandments, you have to go to church once a week, you get communion, you're supposed to do this and this and this, and in this order because this is how it was written, this is how it's supposed to be.' You can't do that with Wicca. There is no Holy Book of Shadows," she says. "And there's a reason for that — we don't need one."
Instead, says Murphy, Wiccans learn from nature and its cycles of birth, death and rebirth as an example of divine perfection and as a basis for their value system. "As above, so below" is a phrase many Wiccans use to remember the divinity's presence in nature.
Even though Wicca is open to interpretation, there are tenets. They include male and female aspects of divinity; the sacredness of the earth and its seasons; and that "magick," or spell-casting, can influence reality. Other than that is personal preference.
"It's a very personal, choice-centered path," says Wiley. "You can take what you like from other studies, like the Celtic path or the Fairy path, and combine them. You can even add aspects of Native American or Judeo-Christian religions into your ritual or prayer; like calling on angels. I use angels quite often and believe in them strongly," says Wiley.
Ancient lore, modern practice
Made a legally recognized religion in 1986, many aspects of Wicca are ancient in origin. Its practices were adopted from the beliefs and rituals of earth-based pagan societies of old Europe, which were passed down verbally through families.
This lore, combined with ritual from other religions, and the more "recently" adopted practices, such as crystal-healing, Tarot cards and candle-magick, make today's Wicca a hybrid.
"We're building a new foundation on bits and scraps of what we found and what we know. Wicca is, in and of itself, a paradox. It's a very ancient religion that's learning how to be new. We have an ancient background, but we have a whole new set of rules we're working by. You can say, 'OK, on the morning of the solstice you should go out and watch the sunrise and dance for hours.' Well, hey, most of us have day jobs and I don't think I can call in to work with that excuse," says Murphy.
But modern-day Wiccans have learned to merge their "mundane" lives with their "magickal" ones. As solitary witches, or within a coven, they cast circles and spells in their living rooms or backyards, at the beach or in a forest, even online.
"We're a very low-overhead religion. We don't need churches, we don't need priests, we don't need ministers, because we are that ourselves," says Wiley.
Focusing on the spiritual, whether solitary or in a coven, witches, including men (they are not called warlocks or wizards) embark on a road of religious study.
Very few have the benefit of being born into a family of witches, so most rely on personal research or apprenticeship for their knowledge.
And like any other religion, the degree to which witches practice varies. Some, like Murphy, Wiley and Ridgway, incorporate Wicca into their day-to-day lives. Others may only perform rituals during the pagan holidays or for specific need.
Either way, a focal point for all Wiccan witchcraft is the "wheel of the year," the eight holidays, or Sabbats, of the seasonal calendar: Samhain (Halloween), Imbolc (Candlemas), Beltane (May Eve), Lughnassad or Lammas (August Eve), Ostara (spring equinox), Mabon (fall equinox), Litha (summer solstice) and Yule (winter solstice).
Sabbats and their associations define the core of the religion's rituals, as well as its spiritual shape.
"We celebrate the changing seasons — the gift of Mother Nature bringing forth the springtime and the harvest, and then the awakening of the God who is actually the opposite of Mother Nature. He is the time that the earth sleeps, the time of winter, the time of quiet reflection.
"He stands in protection of the earth while the Goddess sleeps, and then in the spring when she awakens, he brings forth the blooming flowers. So it is a very beautiful religion," says Wiley.
Dispelling myths on magick
More so than the belief system of Wicca, it is perhaps the ritual aspect of the religion, the how-to part of Wiccan witchcraft, the magick — so spelled to discern it from the work of theatrical magicians such as David Copperfield and Penn and Teller — that seems to be the most misunderstood. From Hollywood movies such as "Practical Magick" and "The Craft," and television programs like "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" and "Charmed," to American culture throughout, magick has been portrayed with only minimal accuracy.
First, witches can't fly. Nor can they turn someone into a toad, or anything else. They certainly can't point a finger and make things "happen." And contrary to almost every horror movie, simply reading a spell from a book won't make it work. Even Harry Potter is way off the mark.
What's missing from every depiction of witchcraft in our culture, says Murphy, is the spiritual aspect, the divine connection.
"Words are just words. They can describe the feeling and they can describe how to do a spell, but until you can will your spiritual self to connect to your higher power, be it God, Goddess or whatever, nothing's going to happen."
Witches and Wiccans do cast spells. That's how they hope to influence the outcome of their lives and the lives of those who seek their help. A spell is just another word for prayer, says Wiley, and ritual and ritual tools simply make the prayer more effective.
"We set up our prayer space or sacred circle, we acknowledge the four compass points and bring them together, and we call the Lord or the Lady. We do these things because it is the best way that we know how to bring as much conscious, positive energy to a table, to a prayer circle as possible," says Ridgway.
No devil for witches
Another depiction that Wiccans wish would stop is, of course, devil worship. In the history of religion, the devil, or Satan, is actually a recent Christian concept, says Murphy.
"When the Roman Empire invaded the Celtic Empire, Christians changed the nature god revered by the pagans into an evil god — Satan," she says.
That association continued and found its way to America via the Spanish Inquisition of the 14th and 15th centuries, when witches were falsely accused of devil-worshipping and then tortured, burned, hanged and drowned.
Then and now, says Ridgway, devil worship is part of Satanism and never had anything to do with Wicca.
"We don't have a devil. We do believe in positive and negative aspects, but they deal with nature and people, not something in a divinitory realm," says Ridgway.
Wiccans, she says, can't blame the Devil for doing bad things. "We believe that if we do something, we need to take full responsibility for it," says Ridgeway.
Part of that responsibility stems from the two Wiccan laws that help foster good behavior: the Wiccan Rede and the three-fold law. The Wiccan Rede reads: "An' it harm none, do as thou wilt," which basically means don't do anything that will harm anybody. The three-fold law is a universally accepted belief among Wiccans that whatever is sent out, be it negative or positive, comes back to the sender three-fold.
Both laws remind Wiccans that their thoughts and their deeds affect them as much as they do others.
"Debra and I both have had people come up to us and say 'I want to make so-and-so fall in love with me. Give me a spell.' It doesn't work that way. If someone came to me in that kind of pain, I might be able to help them cast a spell of healing, or a spell of peace, to help them find their own path to the person they're truly supposed to be with," says Ridgway.
Wiccans also need the permission of the person they want to help before attempting any kind of spell.
"Say you're going through a difficult time and I wanted to pray for strength for you. I have to get your OK first," says Ridgway.
Like witchcraft, Halloween has been totally reinvented by popular culture, Wiley says. Compared to its origins as the end of the agricultural year, it's been completely disguised as a children's holiday or a festival of fear for adults. For Wiccans, Halloween is a celebration of a good harvest and a time to give thanks, as well as a time to reflect on the past year and plan for the year to come.
In witchcraft lore, says Wiley, it's also the night when the veil between the physical world and the spiritual world is the thinnest.
"Like the Feast of the Dead, All Saints Day and All Soul's Day, it is a time to call on your ancestors for guidance, to pray to them, and thank them, even give them an offering," says Wiley.
Wicca — like Halloween, witchcraft and witches — is centuries old and shares many similarities with other religions. Upon true scrutiny, says Murphy, people will find that Wicca really isn't that different.
"Eventually, all religions had their roots in the same place," she says. "We deviated, we splintered, we even changed the entire concept a time or two, but we all began from the same starting point and we're all going to end at the same finishing point — we just took different paths to get there."
