Wicka: The Chronicles of Elizabeth Blake

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Baby witches—a term you might have seen frequently used on WitchTok—are simply beginner witches. They may start out following a certain doctrine, depending on their teacher/s, and then, over time, experiment with other ones. You gotta go your own way! Kitchen Witch

Another major deity in Wicca, the Horned God is the male counterpart of the moon goddess. He is represented by a full moon topped with a crescent moon that resembles a pair of horns and is sometimes portrayed as a man with a horned helmet.Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration: An Investigation into the Sources of Gardnerian Witchcraft. Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann. The greater sabbats or cross-quarter days fall approximately halfway between the greater sabbats and have origins in Celtic traditions. They include: Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain. The deities of Wicca are the Goddess and the God , who are the feminine and masculine essences of the all-encompassing life force responsible for all of creation, including the cycles of life and death on Earth. Wiccans believe that these deities are multi-fold; in that sense, it is a duotheistic religion, rather than traditionally monotheistic religions like Christianity.

The reasons for creating an eclectic practice are many, but it often has to do with being a solitary Wiccan with no immediate community to reach out to and learn from. Indeed, most Eclectics are solitary practitioners, though there are certainly covens and plenty of Wiccan circles that fit into this category. Choosing Your Wiccan Tradition: Follow Your Heart In 1971 Wiccan activist Z. Budapest started the Susan B. Anthony coven, which practiced Dianic Wicca, a form of matriarchal lunar worship. Budapest wrote the Feminist Book of Shadows. A number of feminist covens were outgrowths from Budapest’s coven. WICCA AND THE LAW Julia Phillips, "History of Wicca in England: 1939 – present day." Lecture at the Wiccan Conference in Canberra, 1991 The original and most well-known form of the Dianic tradition was founded in the 1970s by a woman named Zsuzsanna Budapest. Another form of Wicca sharing the name “Dianic” was later started by Morgan McFarland and her husband, Mark Roberts. This latter tradition does admit men into covens, as do other traditions inspired by the original Dianic Wicca. However, those initiated through Budapest’s lineage remain female-only. Seax-WiccaLaurie Cabot, “the Witch of Salem,” began to gain attention in the United States in the late 1960s teaching classes at Salem State College and helping police solve cases. In 1971, a Hungarian-American named Zsuzsanna Budapest, who had no connection to any Gardnerian or Alexandrian covens, mixed Wiccan practices with feminist politics, forming Dianic Witchcraft (although now it is better known as "Dianic Wicca"). She began this with a coven in Los Angeles, that she named the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One. [47]

Finally, Wicca does not have a holy building, like a church or mosque, and although some branches may have specific, designated Priests or Priestesses, organized religious hierarchy is rare and most members believe that all participants are equal, with equal connection to the gods and spiritual power. Written in the 1940s and 1950s, initiates were required to make their own copy by hand. The origin of the title is unknown, but some believe he borrowed it from the work of Scottish children’s author Helen Douglas Adams. DOREEN VALIENTE Just like the name sounds, a hereditary witch is someone who inherited their powers or their practice through their family line. Think Practical Magic. Crystal Witch As implied by the name, Celtic Wiccans work with deities of the Celtic pantheon—whether Irish, Welsh, Cornish, or even Gaulish—and use Celtic names for Sabbats, such as Lughnasa instead of Lammas. Most of what we know about the ancient Celts comes from a Christianized lens, through monks recording the lore in medieval Ireland, and a solid amount from Celtic Wales has also survived. Therefore, Celtic and Druidic Wicca tend to have distinctly Irish and Welsh influences. In Wiccan tradition, the Goddess (in her Mother aspect) gives birth to the God on the longest night of the year (the winter solstice) and then, like the Earth during winter, rests.A length of cord tied with thirteen knots, the witches’ ladder is used in modern Wicca during meditation or chanting. Leek transformed her Wiccan practice into celebrity status centered around astrology, writing numerous books and a regular column in Ladies Home Journal. ALEX SANDERS

The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. [a] Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray. It also is based on the beliefs from the magic that Gerald Gardner saw when he was in India. It was subsequently founded in the 1950s by Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into the Craft – as Wicca is often known – by the New Forest coven in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses Doreen Valiente, Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone into other parts of the British Isles, and also into other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, new figures arose in Britain who popularized their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, and organizations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association. It was during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734 and Dianic Wicca in the ensuing decades, and where organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess were formed. Kelly, Aidan A. (1991). Crafting the Art of Magic, Book I: A History of Witchcraft, 1939–1964. St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn. A relatively new path within the Wiccan community, Norse Wicca is infused with the beliefs, practices, and deities of the ancient Norse traditions of Scandinavia. Accounts of would-be Wiccans who compiled rituals out of published sources together with their own imaginative reconstructions, without formal initiations, appear in Hans Holzer's The New Pagans (Doubleday, New York: 1973) Rooted in ancient Celtic beliefs, it was first suggested by mythologist Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology in 1835 and fixed in its present form by the Wicca movement in the 1960s.As Wicca has grown in popularity, many innovations have arisen out of the original tradition, which was developed in the aftermath of the late-19th century British occult revival. Below are several of the most commonly practiced Wiccan traditions, including Gardnerian, Alexandrian, and Dianic Wicca, as well as other, newly emerging forms and solitary and eclectic paths. The Most Popular Wiccan Traditions The rituals of modern Wiccan practice can be traced to famed first-wave feminist, Egyptologist, anthropologist and folklorist Margaret Murray. The modern English word witchcraft has three principal connotations: the practice of magic or sorcery worldwide; the beliefs associated with the Western witch hunts of the 14th to the 18th century; and varieties of the modern movement called Wicca, frequently mispronounced “wikka.” Alas, by the 16th century, a Christian-led obsession with the power of the devil and the need for vigilance against sin brought these wise people under the spotlight and deemed them guilty by association. All of it was “witchcraft”! Thus began a shameful chapter of witch persecution and execution through the 16th and 17th centuries (think: the Salem witch trials).