The Wiccan religion has its roots in the basic beliefs from several areas of the world from about 3000 years or longer ago. The religion is a matriarchal based religion, and believes in both a God as well as a Goddess. While in the current form for about 50 years or so, as best as most people can determine, the roots for the system of beliefs do extend back thru the pre-Christian era. I tease most of my students that this is not a democracy but instead is a benevolent dictatorship. And Yes... I am the dictator.
In the Wiccan religion, the High Priestess is the final authority on matters. The reason for this has to do with the nature of the concept of universal energies. Man or male energy is seen as active, force and female as receptive, form. Therefore the female takes the active male energy and transforms it into receptive or creative form. Just as in real life, the female takes the seed from man and creates new life. In the beginning of man's understanding, all new life came from the woman, and while they were not aware of how it got there, they knew that life did not come except thru woman. Today we do understand how this new life was placed there, but even so, new life comes from the woman. So we do strive within the Wiccan religion to place emphasis on balance and we do use a duality of male and female.
At one time, the pagan religions or dual deity religions were the most prevalent on the earth. During the coming of Christianity, the Clergy of the pagan religions and the clergy of the Christian religion in some areas, would fill in for each other when necessary. A lot of the current Christian holidays and celebrations were derived from the pagan holidays and celebrations. The officials of the Christian religion felt and rightly so, that it would be easier for the people to change over if the celebrations were similar. Some of the old pagan power points for worshiping were used by the Christians as well. Indeed, some of the major churches and cathedrals were built on these areas.
In many of the older Christian churches, some of the Pagan symbols are still seen and often they also had a separate altar room for the pagan people to worship at. These were frequently called the horned altars for the horns that represented the Horned God, or Pan or Cernunnos as he was called. This should not be confused with the Christian concept of the devil or Satan. In fact, the stereotype of Satan is much different than he was mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible and is basically an archetypal creation of the Christians. The Wiccans did not have such a figure as with the belief in Karma and reincarnation, there was no need for a "boogie man" to scare the people into acceptable behavior. The attempt to transfer the Horned God into the form of Satan was to try and root out the remaining influence of the pagan religion. Many of these people also had land that the church officials desired and it was also an effective way to remove what they could then call undesirable persons and take their land and possessions.
This was the beginning of the burning times when it was estimated that 9,000,000 people were starved, hung, burned, drowned or otherwise killed by the religious persecution of the Christian church. The Bubonic Plague was also attributed to the pagans and did more to further reduce the population as well as frighten the people into the supposed protection of the Church. It was indeed a dark time for the human race as a whole. Most pagans today, or Wiccans as most of us are called, have experienced in some form a continuance of persecution and misunderstanding. This is the reason that most of us keep quiet about our religion and why Wiccan groups are difficult to locate.
The word Wicca is said to derive from wicce, an Old English word meaning wise. So the followers of Wicca are said to be Witches and practice wise craft or witch craft. Most of us call it just the Craft. The word witch had been used in a very derogatory manner for a number of years as can be evidenced thru literature and Hollywood productions. One of the few well known "good" Witches is that of Glenda in the Wizard of Oz. So we must endeavor to overcome all of this very bad P.R. and try and enlighten our fellow man when possible so that we are removing the burden of fear and misunderstanding from ourselves as well.
This course is designed to cover all of the material that is needed to be learned for First Degree Initiation into the Craft or for a simple Pagan Dedication. However, Initiation is also based on the maturity of the person and their knowledge of self and how they handle their self in other areas of life. A student cannot just come to class on Sunday evenings and then be a drug dealer or ax murderer the rest of the week. I also do not allow any of my students to associate with known Satanists or black magic users. And I do expect courtesy. If one can't attend class or a ritual, have the courtesy to call and say so, rather than just not show up. We are stressing responsibility here... for your own life.
We do also operate as on energy exchange. I give my energy to
help and teach you, to counsel and advise when necessary and tho I
do not charge for lessons, I do ask that that energy is returned in
some form. As a normal person myself, I may need a favor some day
too. We do ask for donations when you have a bit of spare change,
to cover copying, candles, charcoal, incense, our P.O. Box that we
maintain and such things. So if you can give, please do... if you
can't... that's ok too. You can do the dishes instead I remove all of these lessons from the laws of cause and
effect for my self and my Grove. So Mote it be.
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