Wicca, Witchcraft And Paganism

Wicca: An inside Look

Since the beginning of time, religion has proven its importance amongst mankind with each passing decade. Beginning with a small number of religions, the branches of these religions continue to grow along with the number of religions available. Amongst these new movements is the religion of Wicca; a pagan religion that started a mere fifty years ago. Despite being a new religion, its newfound exposure through various media platforms has sparked new interest in the origin and practices of the religion.

Beginning in Great Britain, Wicca is a fairly a new religion as it was first founded in the 1940s by Gerald Gardner. From Gardner’s work, a new ear entitled “Modern Wicca, Witchcraft and Paganism” has manifested itself

However to achieve this, Wiccans need to practice in many rituals throughout the wheel of the year. As stated earlier, magic is one of the most used and possibly most widely recognized Wiccan practices; and often has been seen as the trademark for the label of the “witch” and acts as important part of Wicca’s ritual dimension of religion coined by Ninian Smart. However, magic is not the only ritual that Wiccans undertake. In fact, for Wiccans, the year is split up into 8 major holidays, which occur every six weeks corresponding with the God and Goddess mythology whose ever-changing relationship ultimately explains the changing of the seasons. While this is important, other celebrations however celebrate the cycle of the moon, with special emphasis on the new moon and the full moon. Yet magic is amongst the most prominent of Wiccan rituals. Similar to how practitioners of other religions participate in prayer, magic instills hope into Wiccans who wish for a non-mundane intervention in life. It offers control as well as an opportunity to bond and become one with nature and the divine. And despite popular belief, magic and other rituals are not always done to benefit the individual Wiccans life, they can also be done in celebration of certain lifetime accomplishments such as marriage and the

"The World of Teenage Witchcraft." In Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for the Self, 23-48. Rutgers University Press, 2007. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hj9jq.9.

Pearson, Jo. "“Going Native in Reverse”: The Insider as Researcher in British Wicca." Nova Religion: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 5, no. 1 (2001): 52-63. doi:10.1525/nr.2001.5.1.52.

Pearson, Joanne. "Wicca, Paganism and History: Contemporary Witchcraft and the Lancashire Witches." In The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories, edited by Poole Robert, 188-203. Manchester University Press, 2002. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155jb7v.19.

Simpson, Jacqueline. Folklore 106 (1995): 122.