My spell book

about wicca

Wicca is a pagan religion which uses and incorporates witchcraft rituals and spells in its practices. It was developed in the first half of the 20th Century in England, getting introduced to the public by Gerald Gardner in 1954. Wicca draws its ritual practice and theological structure from 20th Century hermetic motifs and ancient pagan practices. Wicca is an open religion and it doesn't have a defined leadership structure or hierarchy. The divisions fall into various denominations and lineages referred to as 'traditions'. Each tradition is independent and has a distinctive level of centralization and also a different structure built into it. Owing to this decentralized structure there is some considerable disagreement and debate as to which denomination is actually a real genuine Wiccan tradition to follow. Certain traditions referring collectively to their denominations as the British Traditional Wicca consider the term Wicca to be exclusively applicable to their own lineages and not to other eclectic traditions. They strictly adhere to Gardner's initiatory lineage. But anyone can be a Wiccan. You too can be a Wiccan even today!Deeper Insight Wicca is at its core a way of life and a belief system that draws upon the restructuring of pre-Christian norms originating in Ireland Scotland and Wales. It is a travesty that a great deal of the information of how our ancestors lived and worshiped in daily life has been lost due to the attempts of the church of the time to wipe out all traces of these traditional religions from history to avoid a resurgence. This lost wisdom has now been reconstructed as much as possible in part thanks to archaeological discoveries that give glimpses as to what Witchraft was all about. From these discoveries there is now a basis to believe that the Wiccan practice traces its origin right back from the worship of a Hunter God and a Fertility Goddess by the Paleolithic people. Archaeologists have discovered cave paintings estimated to be approximately 30,000 years old. The paintings depict a pregnant woman and a man having the head of a stag, standing in a circle alongside eleven other people. This evidence shows that witchcraft has been around a long time and is one of the most ancient belief systems known to the world! From these findings and great discoveries we Wiccans obtain a clear understanding of the god and the goddess, the supreme motive and all the creative forces that reign over nature. There is so much misunderstanding around the world of the witch being portrayed as associated with cruelty, evil and wrong doing. These misconceptions and misunderstandings can be traced to a couple of separate sources. One notable source is the 15th through to 18th Century medieval church of the time. They concocted a number of misleading myths against these ancient beliefs and the old nature-based religions to convert local people to Christianity. By wrongly painting a picture of the witchcraft practitioner as an evil satanic person and using paintings to depict the deities as devils they found a clever way for the missionaries of the times to attach hatred and fear of these practices and therefore convert followers to their religion more easily. Another cause of misunderstanding was when medical science begun to take shape. The men involved in the initial studies of female physiology had a very poor and wrong understanding especially in the knowledge of women's monthly cycles. This brought rivalry with the traditional women healers, which played a big role in promoting credentials for the early churches' agenda of Witch Hunters. The fledgling profession of medical practice benefited immensely from this by taking all power from the hiding and vulnerable women healers and allowing a way for male physicians, letting them inherit all the respect and power they yearned for. It is a great shame that these misconceptions and misunderstandings about what real Witchraft is. The resulting fears, doubts and worries from this misunderstanding have persisted through many centuries right up until the present day. This has resulted in the followers of these nature oriented beliefs and religions to adopt the name Wicca instead of its real and deserving name witchcraft. The reason is to escape all of the harassment, persecution and misunderstanding that these ancient witches also had to endure and not to mention the bad image society and Television and the press has created to profit out of it.

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