The History of Wicca, or, Who Came Up With All This???
by Jezibell and Bejornkin Frievalkyr

Many Wiccans today believe that they are practicing the pre-Christian nature religion of ancient Europe, as it was handed down in secrecy, survived the persecutions of the Burning Times, and is now emerging to heal the world--a beautiful, powerful, inspiring story with no substantial evidence.

Many peoples migrated and merged across Europe, including the Picts, the Celts, the Slavs, the Balts--all possessing different deities, myths, and customs. Religion was very region- specific, and folk honored their local nature spirits as well as their tribal ancestors and deities. Among the Northern Europeans, the most organized of the sacredotal classes were the Celtic Druids, who were priests and priestesses, bard, judges, teachers, and prophets. These men and women underwent an extensive twenty-year training program and wielded great power politically as well as spiritually.These European peoples were considered barbaric by the more "civilized" Greeks, for whom religion, by the time of Alexander the Great (who died in 323 B.C.E.), had become mostly a social and municipal function. However, Alexander's conquest of the Near East led to an incredible exchange of information and ideas as the ever-curious Greek philosophers encountered the magical traditions of Egypt, Asia Minor, and Persia.As their world became larger and more complex, the Mediterranean peoples seem to have had a need for a more personal, experiential spirituality. Along with the formalized rites of the Olympian deities, the mystery cults of Isis, Mithras, Dionysos and Demeter/Persephone at Eleusis provided profound initiations and ecstatic rituals, developing devoted followings among those who could afford their hefty fees, and their popularity continued through Roman times, until the fourth century C.E.Also out of this period evolved the esoteric path known as Hermeticism, a synthesis of Near Eastern (especially Egyptian) mysticism and Hellenic reason, as supposedly taught by the philosopher Hermes Trismegistus. Hermeticism developed into a very secretive and rigorous discipline of intellectual and magical study (which would later incorporate features of Zoroastrianism, Gnostic Christianity and the Hebrew Kabbalah), that was practiced only among a learned minority of the upper classes. This type of practice is known as "high" or "ceremonial" magic, involving elaborate and complicated rituals and an array of costly tools and regalia.Rome (whose dominon was firmly established by Augustus' defeat of Cleopatra in 31 B.C.E.) was the first true Empire, imposing Roman law, Roman roads, Roman discipline, and Roman cities upon a diverse populace (at one time Roman territories extended from Britain to North Africa, from Spain to Mesopotamia). Overall, Rome was more concerned with people's obedience to imperial government than their religious beliefs, but since the Druids (like some Jewish religious leaders) encouraged rebellion among their people, the Romans cut down their sacred groves and annhilated their priests and priestesses, thus striking the first blows against indigenous Northern European religion. Also, as a move towards political unification, the Emperors deified themselves and insisted that they be honored as part of the local pantheons, which later led to contention with the Christians. Ironically, many features of early Christianity--the meeting in small, autonomous groups, the mingling of upper and lower classes, the acceptance of female leadership, the importance of the personal experience--are similar to those of Wicca today. However, as the Pauline branch of Christianity established itself as the official religion of Rome by 391 C.E. (by deliberately making its doctrines palatable to Roman authorities-- the Emperor Constantine presided over the Council of Nicaea in 325--and borrowing much of its structure from Roman administration), it fossilized into the Catholic Church--a monolithic, patriarchal, and proselytizing entity that began to force its beliefs upon other Christians and followers of other faiths. (The Alexandrian philosopher Hypatia epitomized much of what the Church hated--a brilliant female mathematician/magician who taught and wrote, she was dragged from her chariot and torn to pieces by a Christian mob in 415.) The Church insisted upon strict adherence to its doctrines; most pernicious were its concepts that both women and nature were evil and dangerous and were to be subjugated by man. The city had been a mainstay of Hellenic and Roman intellectual culture, providing a place for the establishment of libraries and museums and the development of artistic and philosophical communities. Spreading across the Roman Empire, Christianity also gained its most converts in the cities, and the term Pagan (Latin: Paganus) originally used derisively for those who lived in the country, became the umbrella term for those who were not Christians. The Church did not acknowledge the different and distinct religions of Europe, but lumped them all together as Paganism, considering it a single religion in opposition to Christianity (as it viewed Judaism--the orthodox Church highlighted Jesus as a spiritual rather than political leader, and blamed the Jews rather than the Romans for his death).At times the Church sought to absorb aspects of various Pagan religions, adapting holidays (especially Yule and Ostara) and transmuting Pagan deities into saints (the Irish Goddess Bride became St. Bridget, who in some myths is Jesus' midwife). Augustine of Hippo (354-430) argued not for the destruction of Pagan temples but for their rededication to the Christian God.As the Roman Empire slowly deteriorated, the surrounding Germanic tribes (Goths, Lombards, Saxons, etc.) who had been Rome's subjects and allies now became its masters, first taking control of Roman territories and then officially deposing the last emperor in 476. The conquerors adopted Christianity for political purposes--assuming the mantle of Roman civilization and establishing their rule over Romanised peoples. Throughout the early Middle Ages, the power of the Church grew and expanded--sometimes winning converts by adapting itself to regional customs, sometimes by using brutal force.The Frankish king Charlemagne waged a genocidal war against the Ango-Saxon tribes of what is now southern Germany, massacring tens of thousands of Pagans and destroying their sacred pillar Irminsul, a wooden column representing the World Tree. For his efforts, Charlemagne was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope on December 25 in the year 800.By 1300 C.E., all of Europe was nominally Christian. However, folk practices still survived, and the rural people, especially in the poorer and more remote regions, preserved their knowledge and application of herbs and natural magic. Originally the Church did not seek to destroy magic entirely, only those practices and beliefs that threatened Christianity. In 1258 Pope John XXII declared that witchcraft was a dementia common in women, and that belief in it was heresy.Eliminating opposition would be the focus of the Church for many more centuries. The Office of the Inquisition, created in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX, was meant to instill terror and force conversions (especially in Spain, which had a large Jewish and Moorish population--these "infidels" were not driven out until 1492). The Inquisition was greatly feared, but it did allow "heretics" to recant and be "forgiven", with the payment of huge sums to the Church.Many modern Pagans see this period as the suppression of the "Wiccan" religion. In truth, Wicca was not a religion at all until recently. The Anglo-Saxon word wicca (pronounced wee-cha) means sorcerer, not "wise one" as is popularly claimed. The feminine form is wicce, sorceress (pronounced wee-chay). These terms had no religious connotations; the wicca and wicce were regarded with a mixture of reverence and dread, depending on the type and results of the magic they performed. (The worship of the Teutonic goddess Freya, highly sexual in nature and involving trance magic, was considered more and more disreputable even among Nordic Pagans, as the misogyny of the Church especially targeted female practicioners.)In contrast to such "peasant superstition", the high magic of alchemy, developed by Neo-Platonic philosophers and mages, not only enjoyed the protection of bishops and nobles, but sometimes was even practiced by them as well. The alchemists were the inheritor and preservers of the ancient Hermetic arts--an educated and disciplined elite, they continued their mystical/intellectual pursuits in Christian form. The popular concept of the alchemist as a sort of "mad scientist" attempting to turn lead into gold provided an explanation and a cover for the magical processes of spiritual transformation from lower to higher aspects of self--although some really did want to turn lead into gold. The Rosicrucians, a socio-political fraternity, was a clandestine organization of alchemists and Hermetic magicians, founded in the early 1500's.The late Middle Ages brought major socio-economic changes throughout Europe--the Crusades, the Hundred Year's War, the bubonic plague, peasant revolts, counter-religious movements, and the printing press. Mercantile expansion led to the "discovery" of new lands, races, and cultures--destroying Augustine's argument that because these peoples had not been recorded in Church Scripture, they could not exist. Beginning in Italy, the Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in the art and culture of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and poets, painters and playwrights began to use mythological themes in their art. In Northern Europe, the Protestant Reformation sought a simpler, more personal faith without the rules and trappings of Catholicism.Yet this brilliant, vibrant era of creative and intellectual growth was also the time of the witch hunts, as the Church desperately attempted to restore its waning authority. In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII reversed John XXII and decreed that not believing in witchcraft was heresy, and that witches were the enemy of the Church because they recieved their powers from the Devil (even if they only used their powers for healing and other good works). The purpose of the witch trails was to root out heresies and claim the victim's property.In 1486 the Malleus Maleficarum, a manual of how to discover and punish witches, was written by two Dominican priests, Henrich Kramer and Jakob Spengler, at the Pope's instigation. This book told the Inquisitors what questions to ask and what tortures to apply, and allowed acceptance of testimony from children, the insane, and known perjurers. The Protestants also used this manual, and by 1639 it was the most widely read book in ecclesiastical circles next to the Bible.In some countries witchcraft became a civil as well as religious offense. (When an accused witch was convicted, the victim's property was divided in thirds between the accuser, the Church and the state.) By the seventeenth century, the witchcraze had reached epidemic proportions--no one (even among the clergy) was safe from inprisonment, torture, or death. This period is referred to by modern Wiccans as the height of the "Burning Times", when some claim as many as nine million victims, yet historical records indicate that the number was actually closer to 150,000.The major targets were herbalists, midwives, gypsies, homosexuals, and the insane, and the most striking fact is that 85% of those killed were women. The Catholic Church had long maintained a policy of misogyny, and the (supposedly reformationist) Protestant sects used the same arguments against women that had been formulated by the Catholic authorities eight centuries earlier. However, modern claims that the victims were really Pagans is dubious at best and totally fabricated at worst. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, most of Europe and the colonies had had their fill of the witch trials an the atrocities perpetuated by ecclesiastical authorities. Slowly the tide was turning towards the Age of Reason. Fed up with the excesses of both the Catholic and Protestant churches, many people consciously sought detatchment from spirituality, preferring the rational over the mystical. The Industrial Revolution brought a shift from growing crops to manufacturing products, and material progress became the ideal. Europeans became fascinated with other cultures, particularly the Middle Eastern, and the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, history and sociology began to develop as sciences.Freemasonry, a quasi-religious/magical fraternal order, was founded in the early 1700's, influenced by the Rosicrucians and taking its name from the medieval guilds. Many of its ideals and beliefs reflect the Age of Enlightenment concept of building a "more perfect society". The Masons call their order "the Craft"; they have many degrees of initation in which the initiates are "properly prepared", "brought in" and presented with "working tools". Although similar sororities developed in the later part of the century, men and women did not meet together in the Masonic lodges.As the Western nations developed into their modern forms, the agrarian life became idealized, and there was a resurgence of interest in rural customs. Many Europeans were also tired of the emphasis on Mediterranean cultures and began looking to their own Germanic and Celtic roots. In 1844 Jakob Grimm published Teutonic Mythology, a vast and extensively-researched collection of epic and folklore, and Richard Wagner based many of his operas upon Germanic legends.

French historian/sociologist Jules Michelet (1805-1885) proposed several ideas that became core to many current Wiccan teachings--chiefly that witchcraft was a surviving, nature-based fertility religion which pre-dated Christianity. His theories were espoused and expanded upon by Dr. Margaret Murray in The Witch-Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches, but her work finds little favor in academic circles today. Certainly Pagan folk customs persisted, but Murray's claims of an organized, universal religion complete with covens and sabbat rituals derives from stories fabricated under torture.

Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), linguist, ethnographer, and world traveller (he lived among the gypsies and several Native American tribes, among others) met a woman in Italy called "Maddelena", who claimed to be a sorceress and follower of la vecchia religione, supposedly rooted in the culture of the ancient Etruscans. As described in Aradia, Gospel of the Witches (1899), the Christ-like Aradia, daughter of Diana and Lucifer, appeared in the 14th century to teach magical arts and wisdom to humanity and was captured, tried, executed and resurrected. Initially regarded as a quaint collection of Italian folklore, Leland's book was a core source for the beginning Wiccan movement and contains the earliest known version of the Charge of the Goddess.Perhaps the greatest occult organization was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1887-1915). Using Greek and Egyptian god-forms, tarot and astrology, the Golden Dawn sought to "scry in the spirit vision" by extensively researching, practicing, and synthesizing the elements of Western ceremonial magic. Members included idealistic artists and social revolutionaries, and the Golden Dawn was one of the first magical lodges to allow the equal participation of women. One of its most famous members was William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), whose effusive, mythologized poetry (known as the "Celtic Twilight") romanticized the Celts as being mystical and ethereal. Several offshoots of the Golden Dawn still continue today.Aleister Crowley (1874-1947), known as "the wickedest man in the world" for his excessive lifestyle and open bisexuality, was expelled from the Golden Dawn and founded several occult groups, including the Astrium Argentiun and the Abbey of Thelema. A prolific and often incendiary writer, he developed his own system of magic, synthesizing Eastern and Western mysticism. He was also a leader in the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), a society originally founded by Theodore Reuss in 1902, which practiced tantric yoga sex magic.Certainly the founder of the modern witchcraft movement (which he named "Wicca") is Gerald Brousseau Gardner (1884-1964). Born in northern England, he travelled extensively and was a tea plantation overseer in Ceylon and Burma. In 1939 he claimed to have met and become an initiate of a coven of hereditary witches (the "New Forest Coven"), and compiled their rituals and practices. In 1951 the anti-witchcraft laws in Britain were repealed, and he wrote several books on witchcraft establishing the tenets of traditional Wicca--the celebration of the eight sabbats, the format of a coven led by a High Priestess and High Priest with three degrees of initiation, and uses of symbols and tools--much of which was "borrowed" from Freemasonry and the Golden Dawn--to which he added a "back to nature" slant, a focus on Celtic deities, and a few of his own personal peccadilloes (working "skyclad"--i.e. naked--and frequent use of ritual scourging). Gardner was among the first to practice witchcraft as a religion rather than a form of sorcery, and created Craft laws and ethics (the Wiccan Rede, Threefold Law, the Ardanes).He also adapted some concepts from Aleister Crowley--"an it harm non, do what you will" sounds remarkably similar to the Thelemic "love is the law, love under will", and his emphasis on male/female polarity in magical workings (and especially the Great Rite) hearkens back to the tantric practices of the OTO. Also, the term "Book of Shadows"--used to describe a witch's compilation of spells and rituals--is taken from the name of an ancient Sanskrit manuscript (referring to a system of divination by measuring someone's shadow), descriptions of which were published in 1941.At first, Wicca was not so much a Goddess religion as one which included the Goddess but at first placed more emphasis on the God; most of its founders and adherents were male. One person outside of Wicca who did honor the Goddess was also a male-- the poet/historian Robert Graves (1895-1986). He describes his book The White Goddess (1946) as "a historical grammar of poetc myth" (emphasizing poetic "truth" over historical fact). He idealized the grace, power, and wisdom of the Goddess yet viewed Her as a Muse to inspire men rather than as a source of female strength. Seeing the Moon as a universally female symbol (beautiful, mysterious, changeable and capricious), he established the concept of the Triple Goddess as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, in accordance with the waxing, full, and waning lunar cycle, and felt that man's spiritual salvation was to be found in worship of the Goddess.The person most responsible for shifting Craft emphasis towards the Goddess was poet/occultist Doreen Valiente. Initiated by Gardner in 1953, she became his High Priestess and with him created much of the Wiccan liturgy, removing a lot of the Crowley-influenced material. She later split with him, for she disagreed with many of his "laws" (such as the High Priestess having to be young and beautiful), and she established the High Priestess as the spiritual leader of the coven. Her adaptation of the Charge of the Goddess is the version most commonly used today.Alexander Sanders (1922-1988), an expelled Gardnerian initiate, developed his own version of the Craft--surprisingly similar to Gardner's for someone who would later claim to have been initiated by his grandmother. Calling himself "King of the Witches", he was a notorious media hound, and his exploits (including televised rituals) brought many people into the Craft. His best-known students are Stewart and Janet Farrar, well-respected witches and writes, who have published much of the Alexandrian material along with their own extensive research.Gardnerian Wicca came to America in 1963 with Raymond Buckland (born 1934, initated 1962) who ran a Witchcraft museum on Long Island [a suburban/rural area outside New York City--ed.] from 1972-1977 and initiated many Americans into the Craft. He is a prodigious write on Witchcraft and the occult, and most of his books are still in print. As described in his book, The Tree, his branch of the Craft called Saxon Wicca provides a training system for those with no access to covens.Seemingly out of left field (or able to have his secrets kept!) was Victor Anderson in San Francisco in the 1960's. Inspired by voodoo and Hawaiian maic, he originated Fairy Wicca, a free-form, create-your-own pantheon tradition. The other major influence on the formation of Fairy Wicca was Gwydion Pendderwen, a mystic and bard (one of the first Neo-Pagan songwriters to record his works) whose meeting with Stewart Farrar brought in elements of Alexandrianism. However, Fairy Wicca was geared towards solitaries with an apprenticeship system of training, and no further degrees or hierarchies after initiation. One of its most famous initiates was Starhawk, whose Spiral Dance angered many traditional Wiccans (for revealing too many "secrets") and opened the path to many new practitioners.In the early 1970's the version of Wicca known as "Dianic" developed, as many feminists saw a spiritual connection to a religion that honored the Goddess; Dianic proponents include Z. Budapest and Ann For freedom (as opposed to the initiations and hierarchies of earlier traditions, many Dianics feels that a woman becomes a witch simply by stating that she is one). Some brances of Dianic Wicca simply seek to restore the balance from centuries of male-dominated monotheism; some want to provide safe, women-only space for lesbians, and others are viciously and proudly anti-male. Many Dianics base their work on feminist scholarship--some serious researchers such as Marija Gimbutas and Merlin Stone have discovered evidence of Goddess-worship and ancient societies were women held power, but their theories (certainly significant and worthy of futher exploration) have been preposterously distorted (in books like The Great Cosmic Mother) into a concept that the ancient world was a great matriarchy that worshipped the Goddess exclusively.Today Wicca is perhaps the most diverse and diversifying of religions--some people dedicate themselves to years of rigorous study and practice; others make up whatever "feels right".

The work of a modern coven depends on the needs, skills, and desires of its members--some undertake serious magical work; some reconstruct ancient ethno-religious traditions (Celtic, Norse, Sicilian, etc.); some try to incorporate Native American, Afro-Caribbean, and Asian aspects. Some groups are active politically, socially, and environmentally; some focus on creativity and ritual arts; some function as aspiritual support group, and some just want to have good parties. Many people, by necessity or by choice, are solitaries.

Wicca is one of the fastest-growing spiritual movements in America--there is an abundance of books and information available now, and many practitioners feel that efforts to make Wicca more acceptable to the public have led to its being watered down and "white-lighted"-- especially with the influence of the politically-correct and ultra-sensitive New Age types. A great deal of misinformation and misunderstand still exists, especially in the media. However, as Doreen Valiente stated in an interview about her work in the Craft, "We are here, and no matter what anyone says, we are not going away ever again. So there!"