What is a Witch?
Contrary to many widely-held myths, witches are quite normal, engaged in the sorts of activities that are common to people in any culture or civilization. We work in a variety of professions, we live in all climates, we drive cars, raise families, tell jokes, and in most ways come across as perfectly normal people. This, however, doesn't answer the question, so let's approach it from a different angle:
Technically, witches are initiated members of a Celtic-style nature religion. In this sense which is, strictly speaking, the proper one), a witch is a person who has demonstrated a firm understanding of the principles of the Craft, has been trained in the meaning and purpose of ritual and the performance of ritual, and in all ways seeks to live a life that is in harmony with Nature and the cycles of the universe.
What are Warlocks, then?
The term 'warlock' specifically means 'oath-breaker'; it is used to describe one whose word cannot be safely trusted. To call someone a warlock is a serious matter in Pagan circles, as we hold integrity and trustworthiness in very high regard. Warlocks are generally outcasts, and may be either male or female. Just so, the term 'witch' is correctly applied to both male and female.
You've mentioned Paganism twice; I thought Pagans were godless heathens!
'Pagan' comes from the Latin pagani, which means 'country-dweller'. During the Middle Ages, when the Roman church began to consolidate its influence in northern Europe (and specifically in the British Isles), they concentrated their efforts around the noble courts, which were generally centers of population. As members of the court began to accept the new Way of Christianity, others began to see advantage in being on the new team, and followed those with money and power into the fold.
The new religion was not so popular among the common people, who were more inclined to tend their flocks and crops than to curry favor with the nobility in town. The courtiers, educated by Latin-speaking clergymen, referred to these un-Converted masses as pagans, or 'hicks', as might be said today.
'Heathen', that all-purpose accusation, is just the old English translation of 'pagan'; both terms simply mean that the fashionable people of the Dark Ages didn't think much of the arrogant rubes who wanted to hang on to their own ways rather than disbelieve the evidence of their lives and experiences. As far as 'godlessness' is concerned, only repetition has given these words that connotation.
That doesn't tell me much about Paganism.
Paganism is a broad group of traditions that share a more-or-less common world-view, and in that way is similar to Christianity. This world-view is marked by several elements:
- Creation as an on-going process (as distinct from an event);
- Time as an ever-repeating cycle or spiral (no start or finish);
- Universe as an organism becoming conscious (as distinct from a machine produced by a celestial engineer);
- Love as the essential nature of the Universal organism;
- Experience as the means by which the Universe becomes conscious;
- Incarnation as the means by which experience is forged into wisdom;
- 'God' as a description (as distinct from a name or title).
Although there are differences between them, Wicca, Shintoism, Hinduism, Polynesian Kahuna, Taoism and American Indians are among those groups who substantially share this world-view. Many of these concepts are espoused as well by some 'New Age' groups. In essence, Pagans hold that spirituality and divinity are inherent in the Universe, that we live to experience, and through that experience we gain wisdom and increased awareness.
Do witches Believe in Jesus?
Some witches believe in a historical Jesus while others believe in the symbolic or mythic Jesus; others believe in neither, and for many, the question of Jesus is irrelevant. I have heard many of my brothers and sisters voice the opinion that Jesus was a genuine Divine Being who taught a path of love and service, and who in his role as the Sacred King gave his life that the lives of the people would be renewed. For these things we honor him, yet we do not believe in messiahs, and I know of no Witch who worships him as the 'only son of god'.
Then how do Witches propose to Escape Hell and Attain Salvation?
This dual question has no real meaning for us; we see life as a school, not a lottery. In this school, we learn from the mistakes we make as we thread our ways through the world, and the lessons we learn are of love, tolerance, humility, understanding and joy. We believe that we learn these lessons, in common with all life every-where, through face-to-face interaction with the 'way things are'; and we believe that, though these lessons are often accompanied by feelings of sorrow or loss, they are worth the learning.
On the subject of salvation, we believe that Hell (so-called) is the result of becoming attached to things and people (being 'of the world', as Christians might say), taking the lessons of life personally and perceiving them as troubles and blaming ourselves and others for the problems in our lives. On the same note, the closest we get to an idea of Heaven is through accepting the pains and frustrations of day-to-day life as lessons, and learning how we have caused ourselves and others pain through our errors, thereby freeing us to go on with our lives stronger, wiser, and more balanced.
Where do you think you go when you die, then?
We tell stories of a place we call Summerland, which we think of as a place of welcome rest after the rigors of life on Earth. We expect to be rejoined with friends and loved ones who went before us, to digest and understand the lessons we have learned during our time 'incarnate'. From there, we will return to life on Earth after a time, to learn and teach until we achieve perfect knowledge and understanding of this cycle of existence. Honestly, we don't much occupy ourselves with thoughts about afterlife, as we believe there is nothing to fear.
I guess you don't believe the Bible is the 'word of god'...
No we don't; the ways it teaches are not our ways, although we respect them as we respect all the many ways that people use to 'touch the heart of God'
What do you use, then, for a Bible?
The world is our 'bible' (Latin for 'book'), and all that is on it, in it, and around it. For us, the Earth is our mother, our teacher and our provider. From her, we learn to survive, to sing, to create, to rest and to believe. The Sun for us is a symbol of the father, from whom we learn to dare, to question, to heal, to dance and to dream. The seasons teach about birth, death and rebirth, and about the need to live in harmony and balance with the rest of creation. For us, the Divine is all about us, befriending us, teaching and guiding us.
Are Witches Pantheistic or Polytheistic?
Both. Yet the truth is not reached by so simple an answer. We are pantheist in the sense that, for us, the gods are everywhere. This is essentially what Judeo-Christianity refers to in speaking of God as omnipresent. The gods are also within us (the Kingdom of God within, as Christians would say), because we contain the Divine Spark ('Holy Spirit') in common with all that exists. Because we perceive this ever-present spiritual manifestation around us, we are also polytheistic, meaning that the attributes or characteristics of perfection and divinity take on many forms; therefore, they can be understood in many different senses and deepen our comprehension of the Truth that is behind and beyond all Ways and all religions.
To put it another way, we are Polytheist because (for us) the Absolute (which roughly equates to the Christian concept of 'God') manifests as male and female, and so we worship both God and Goddess. We are Pantheist because this primary dual manifestation is reflected throughout creation and so, everything that is tells us about some aspect of the Absolute (and is therefore holy).
Tell me something about the Gods you worship.
Please bear with me on this, as the question requires some groundwork. In common with the monotheistic religions, we believe that there is a single Source of all things, beyond our observation and comprehension. In our conception, the Source is neither a thing nor a Being, but instead transcends such limited human concepts. It serves the same role, conceptually, as that of a 'Supreme Being'. We do not worship the Source (also referred to as 'the All' and as 'the Absolute'), as such, because in our view, one can only approach a relationship with the Source by becoming mindful of its characteristics and qualities as they manifest themselves in the world in which we live. These characteristics and qualities, over the years, have become personified as 'gods'. In such forms, they appear in the myths and teachings of many cultures, including the antique world of Greece, Rome, Egypt, etc.
The names of these gods are not of particular importance, because the gods themselves are only important as symbols of various aspects of existence. Through them, we are able to see ourselves as part of the universe, as manifestations of the Source in our own rights. We believe it is the destiny of all things to return to the Source through true understanding. Having said all this, let me now show you how it all comes about for us.
We believe that the Source is made manifest in the Creation that surrounds us; and we see this manifestation as being made up of dualities, which are linked in a meaningful way. The most obvious of these polar pairs are male/female, heat/cold, light/dark, sky/earth, and sun/moon; there are, literally, thousands of such pairs of complementary opposites, and each plays its own role, but for our purposes here, these are enough.
This profusion of paired opposites suggests to us that duality is the essential character of creation, and to humans, the most significant of these pairings is that of male and female. From this primal pair emerges the concept of god and goddess. In this light, the pairs we listed just now are categorized by their apparent natures: God - male, light, heat, sky, sun; Goddess -female,dark, cold,earth, moon; and from these categories, it is derived that the overall character of god is active, and that of goddess is passive. At the risk of oversimplifying, I will leave this part of the discussion, with a word that these qualities of god and goddess are archetypal, rather than literal absolutes.
We refer to god and goddess, generally, as the Lord and the Lady. The Lord is the Father of all, and his qualities of light, warmth, and energy are most often symbolized by the sun, and whose nature is most often represented by the sky. The Lady is the Mother of all, whose patience and receptivity is symbolized by the earth, and whose adaptability and steadfastness is represented by the moon. Our bodies are the sign of her love and creativity.
We see this endless chain of dualities reflected in our interactions with the world in which we live, and with our fellow creatures, who are also the children of the Lord and Lady. We see this chain in the eternal cycles which move the universe around its unknown center. There is more to male and female than mother and father: the Lord also represents our Brother, our Friend; and likewise is the Lady Sister and Friend to us. Like each of us, they have many names, many faces, many roles, yet they remain themselves. Our gods have grown, in a sense, as our understanding of ourselves and the creation around us has grown; and yet they are just as they have always been. "As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be" is true to us, as well.
As we learn more about the divine creation around us, we learn to move in harmony with it and with the creatures that share it with us, just as sailors learn to work in accord with the winds, the currents and the tides in order to reach their destination. As we learn about ourselves, we learn to rise above the fear and frustration that can accompany life, and learn to accept ourselves and others as we are, to experience joy and love in our lives. As we learn about the gods, we draw closer to them and learn under-standing, tolerance, humor, andthankfulness. And, for us, doing any one of these is doing all of these.
Do Witches worship the Devil?
NO! In fact, for many centuries, Wicca (as we call the indigenous paganism of northern Europe) and Christianity co-existed peacefully: the Christians did not claim to be the sole access to God, and the Wicca offered sincere reverence to Jesus as a great Sacred King whose sacrifice touched everyone. However, as the Roman church grew in power and influence, it became jealous of the very large number of Wiccans who - though acknowledging the divine role of Jesus and respectful of the Path walked by those devoted exclusively to his message - still steadfastly refused to render obedience, wealth and land to Rome (and its emissaries); for northern Europe was almost entirely inhabited by those who held to the 'Old Religion'.
This jealousy was the beginning of the Roman church's deliberate attempts to discredit the old ways. These attempts included the creation of a 'devil' that was deliberately designed as a caricature of the Horned God worshipped (though not exclusively) by the Old Religion; the attribution of any and all natural calamities, and any source of distress, to the practices of the Wicca, which, it was claimed, invoked this 'Power of Evil' the church had created; and by accusing women (who lacked sufficient maleness to have been created in 'God's' image) of being inherently demonic temptations, drawing men away from the church and into the natural world of life and death.
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