New traditions and styles of craft practice are emerging every day, especially in our social media age. Instagram, Facebook, Tik-Tok and whatever else is currently trending are great platforms that allow information to be easily shared and folks to connect with each other around the world. Unfortunately, it also means that there is a lot of inaccurate information floating around out there, including our collective history. It is important for witches, of any caliber, to understand their history. Why is Wicca a religion instead of just a practice? What is initiation? These are topics that are explored below.
There has been a belief in the supernatural, or some greater force or forces beyond that of physical man and the natural environment, since the Stone Age. There was a god or spirit that controlled the weather, that assisted with hunting and ensured the fertility of both the herds and the tribe. From this emerged two primary deities - that of some kind of great mother goddess that presided over fertility, of which countless stone figurines collectively called "Venus figurines" have been found, and that of some kind of great god who ruled over the hunt, depicted in cave paintings with antlers/horns and/or of being half man, half animal. Along with these great deities developed special practices, rituals, to commune with them and gain their favor, who would then use their supernatural powers to help. This is where see the first stirrings of religious belief and magic, and usually one or two members of the group that specialized in these rituals. After all, everyone had their role to play.
As humankind spread across the world and went from nomadic, hunter-gathers to semi-permanent and permanent agrarian societies no longer faced with the same threat of extinction, they had more time to devote to philosophy, education and religious belief. Soon these societies were exploring disciplines such as mathematics and astrology. They religious beliefs expanded from just a focus on fertility and the hunt to other contemplations such as death, protection, weather, war and love. Not just were there deities that encompassed these concepts and just about every other aspect of life, but there were also the spirits and energies of places, plants and stones.
Religion and magic became a specialty in its own right and so the priestly caste developed - people trained to commune with these entities, perform rituals and/or other religious duties. They acted as mediators between their tribe or community and the divine and performed special religious ceremonies and rites. These wise men and women were often consulted by community leaders when contemplating important decisions and by the local farmer for a bountiful crop alike. Their role was that of selfless service; service to their gods and service to others of their society. Depending on the culture, these people were known by different names - druid, medicine man, shaman, monk, priest, priestess - but regardless of the name, they served similar functions.
In faster growing and more populous societies, we see the development of full on priesthoods and orders, sometimes referred to as mystery schools, mystery religions or cults. The word "cult" gets a bad rap because of more modern, especially Western, associations of fanatical beliefs and/or the worship of say a person rather than the divine, but in truth the word simply means "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object." In essence, any kind of religious organization is a cult, so you can see where the terms can be used interchangeably.
Joining the priesthood, however, was not such an easy feat. It wasn't like you just decided one day to be a priest and signed up. The priesthood had to select you. Most of those selected came from an aristocratic background. The office of a priest or priestess was seen with great prestige. Typically, the cults/priesthoods of goddesses were served by females only and gods by men only. Furthermore, they were usually very selective with who they allowed in and had specific requirements. For example, with the virgin goddess, Artemis, only young virgin girls were admitted into Her priesthood, typically only serving a year or less until they reached the age of marriage. On the other hand, the cult/priesthood of Hera was formed by adult married women who typically served for life.
Once you were accepted into the priesthood you started training and at some point you usually were initiated. Initiation, according to good ole' Webster, refers to the rites, ceremonies, ordeals, or instructions with which one is made a member of a sect or society or is invested with a particular function or status. Once initiated, the intricate knowledge and ritual practices specific to that priesthood were taught. Secrecy was a common aspect of most initiatory priesthoods, so this was NOT public knowledge, and as such, was commonly referred to in general as "The Mysteries' (i.e. Eleusinian Mysteries). The mysteries in one cult/priesthood may not be the same mysteries taught of another, which only makes sense. There might be some universal knowledge that was shared, but as noted above with the cults of Artemis and Hera, they operate differently. Even to this day, much of what was taught in these ancient cults remains a mystery.
Throughout the ages, the essence of these mystery cults/religions and secret religious societies have survived in one way or another, if only in fragments. While much of the direct knowledge of these ancient cults has been lost, a wide range of schools of thought emerged from them or that were inspired by them, during Late Antiquity, the period leading up the Middle Ages roughly between the 3rd and 8th centuries. Such examples are Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, which were distinguished from mainstream Christian thought. These broad beliefs are the first stirrings of what later would collectively become know as Western Esotericism or the Western Mystery Tradition. Esoteric is a word that refers to something intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest; the initiated.
During Renaissance Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, there was a revitalized interest in these older schools of thought and some started to merge older pagan traditions and beliefs with the Cabala and Christian philosophy, creating different esoteric movements. In the 17th century, we see the development of secret initiatory societies of esoteric knowledge, such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, and newer forms of esoteric thought during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. This all paved the way for even newer forms of esoteric thought to develop in the 19th century, which collectively would be called occultism; occult meaning "hidden", as in "hidden knowledge". As we can see, the terms may be different throughout history and surely there are differences in schools of thought, but it's still all centered around the same ideals.
Along with this idea of occultism, we see the formation of new mystery traditions such as the Theosophical Society, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis and Thelema, among others. From those occult-related mystery traditions, there was a renewed interest in Paganism and the neo-pagan movement, or Modern Paganism as it is also referred to, was born. This included religious movements such as Wicca and by the 1970's, the New Age movement was in full swing! New Age is a reference to the fact that we have just entered into a new astrological age, the Age of Aquarius, which is thought to bring about an expansion of consciousness and enlightenment bringing about much needed change on a global scale. Fitting, isn't it?
Gerald Gardner joined the Rosicrucian Order, Crotona Fellowship when he settled in the New Forest area of England later in his life. It was a neo-Rosicrucian group that practiced both neo-masonic and neo-Rosicrucian values and whose ritual practices were limited to a small group of family and friends. Through this group, Gardner met members of the New Forest coven and through them, a woman named Dorothy Clutterbuck, who he claimed initiated him into the coven in 1939. He recalls hearing the words "wicce" and "wicca" during the ceremony, and knowing this to be the old English words for female and male witch respectively, became convinced that this was a surviving witch cult which he had read about in Margaret Murray's The Witch Cult of Western Europe and felt it was of utmost importance to preserve this knowledge.
Gardner incorporated not just teachings from the New Forest coven, but also drew from other sources such as freemasonry, magical orders such as The Hermetic Order of the Golden and other occultists such as Aleister Crowley, to form his religion of Witchcraft. In 1949, he published High Magic's Aid, which detailed some of the religion, but had to be categorized it as fiction due to laws which made witchcraft illegal still being in force. In 1951, however, the last of these laws was repealed and in 1954, he published his first non-fiction work on the subject, Witchcraft Today.
The religion of Witchcraft centers around a great Horned God and Mother Goddess and celebrates the cycles of life and fertility through eight solar festivals per year, drawn from varying cultural traditions. It also includes reverence for the moon and it's cycles and consists of a three-degree initiatory priesthood similar to those found in older esoteric schools. Initiates gather in tight-knit groups of no more than 13 called covens to observe their rituals and work magic as needed. In this sense, the religion of Witchcraft, which would later be called Wicca, is both based on ancient beliefs and practices, but is also a relatively modern construction.
Wicca spread throughout England and eventually to other parts of the world. Many offshoots or denominations formed, called traditions, especially as Wiccan beliefs and practices started to merge with other forms of Paganism. Most of these traditions still followed the initiatory structure laid out by Gardner and the varying iterations before him. There was such an explosion of interest, however, that by the 1980's and 1990's there were many more people interested in Wicca than initiatory covens could accommodate. Solitary practices started to develop, such as those described by Wiccan authors Scott Cunningham and Silver Ravenwolf, which incorporated the same "spirit" of Wicca, but without the need for a coven or initiatory system. This opened up the doors to many, especially those in smaller towns or religiously conservative places, and Wicca, be it traditional or eclectic (drawing from various sources), is thriving more today than any point in recent history.
Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton
Crafting the Art of Magic by Aidan Kelly
Initiation into Witchcraft by Brian Cain
Traditional Wicca by Thorn Mooney