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The word wicca was originally the Old English word
meaning "a male witch"; "a female witch" was a wicce; the craft of
witches, or "witchcraft", was wiccecraeft; and "to bewitch" was
wiccian. Just as the Old English words wicca and wicce evolved into the modern English
word "witch", so too the word wiccecraeft evolved into the modern English word
"witchcraft".
Our modern English word "witch" is the correct term for anyone who practices
witchcraft, the magickal arts of a witch. Nevertheless, there are people who practice the
magickal side of witchcraft but not the religious; such folk may be called witches, but
they are not Witches. The use of Witch as a proper noun denotes a religious practitioner,
of whom Wiccans are a proper subset: "All Wiccans are Witches, but not all Witches
are Wiccan."
The word Wicca refers to British Traditional Witchcraft, also called English
Traditional Witchcraft: a specific magickal Mystery tradition that evolved down
through the centuries along with the evolution of the English people and the English
language. The use of the Old English word Wicca distinguishes British Traditional
Witchcraft from the many other forms of religious Witchcraft that exist.
While it might seem odd that the Old English word for "male witch" is used today
for a kind of Witchcraft, the English language has often used the masculine gender for a
mixed gender plural. For example, the word brethren is used of a mixed-gender group of
people related by blood, faith, philosophy, or other affiliation; in other words,
"brethren" is used as a synonym for "brothers and sisters". The Wiccan
Law of the Craft speaks of "the Brethren", "Brothers and Sisters",
"the Craft", and "the Wicca"; clearly, all of these terms are
mixed-gender plurals including both male and female. So while the Old English form was
"wiccecraeft", the modern usage has become "Wicca Craft": the Craft of
the Wicca.
TYPES OF WICCA ...
There are folk who claim to be Hereditary Witches,
with an unbroken family tradition, passed down through the generations by their ancestors
from the ancient Pagan Mysteries; many of these do not consider their traditions Wiccan;
some others have admitted that they only began using the term Wicca to describe their
family traditions because what they'd read about Gardnerian beliefs and practices fit more
or less closely with their own beliefs and practices. Hereditaries are also often referred
to as FamTrad, or Family Traditionalists - a Tradition passed down within the family and
hence by hereditary descent.
There are folk who call themselves Traditional Witches, that claim
unbroken descent from the ancient Pagan Mysteries either by Initiation into a surviving
magicko-religious Tradition or by having been "adopted" into a Hereditary Family
Tradition (that "adoption" itself being a form of Initiation); some of these
consider themselves Wiccan, although some of them agree they only began using the term
Wicca to describe their traditions because what they had read about Gardnerian beliefs and
practices fit more or less closely with their own beliefs and practices.
The Gardnerian Tradition is the name given to the body of ritual, belief,
magickal practices and training techniques inherited by the initiatory descendents of
Gerald B. Gardner. Gardner told of having been initiated into a surviving Coven of
Traditional Witches in the New Forest by "Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck in 1939;
which makes Gardnerian Wicca a branch of Traditional Witchcraft. There are those who claim
that it was Gardner who revived the use of the word Wicca; Gardner claimed otherwise,
stating the word was used by the New Forest Coven into which he was initiated. (1) In his
book The Meaning of Witchcraft, first published in 1959, he wrote,
The Alexandrian Tradition was hived off from the Gardnerian by Alex
Sanders; Alex claimed to have been initiated as a Hereditary Witch by his grandmother,
when he was seven years old. While this is a romantic story, the fact is that Alex wrote
to Gardnerian High Priestess Pat Crowther saying that "To be a witch is something
that I have always wanted - and yet I have never found anyone who could help me." (3)
Crowther refused to initiate Sanders; but a letter from Pat Kopanksi to Gerald Gardner
exists, in which she informs Gardner of Alex's initiation. (4) Kopanski, initiated by the
Crowthers, had split away from them over personality conflicts.
British Traditional Witchcraft refers to those Traditions tracing descent
from a Hereditary, or Traditional, British source and includes not only the Gardnerian and
the Alexandrian Traditions and their branches and offshoots but also several others
derived from British sources such as Sybil Leek's Horsa Coven in the New Forest, Plant
Bran, and the Clan of Tubal Cain of "Robert Cochrane". Some Brit Trad Witches
consider the term Wicca a synonym for British Traditional Witchcraft, while others reserve
the term Wicca for the Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions and their offshoots and
consider Wicca to be a wholly-contained subset within British Traditional Witchcraft. (5)
The term British Traditional Wicca is sometimes used, more commonly in
the U.S. than Britain and elsewhere, to refer specifically to the Gardnerian and the
Alexandrian Traditions, and those Trads that have hived off from them (who thus claim
initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner, or from Alex and Maxine Sanders, or both) and
whose body of ritual, belief, magickal practices, and training techniques derives directly
from the body of Lore passed on by "Old Gerald". Brit Trad Wiccans experience
the same Mysteries, using substantially the same rituals and techniques. Variations may
exist between individual Covens, Lineages and Traditions but it is the same Initiatory
Mystery Path. From a Brit Trad Wiccan viewpoint,
There are groups that have no initiatory connection to Gardner or Sanders, but who have
based their rituals and practices on what has been published about the Gardnerian and
Alexandrian Traditions; they therefore follow a basically Gardnerian/Alexandrian system.
These groups are also sometimes described as British Traditional Wicca, although this
usage is generally found only in the U.S., and that term is rarely used that way by
British Traditional Witches themselves, who regard descent, whether by birth, or by
Initiation or Initiatory adoption, as essential to being "of the Blood", and
therefore to being "of the Wicca". For some of these groups the name American
Traditionalist Witchcraft may be more accurate while others would be more accurately
called American Eclectic Witchcraft.
American Eclectic Wicca is sometimes used to refer to a broad range of
individuals or groups that have based their philosophy, rituals and practices on the
published works of such modern American Witches as Scott Cunningham and StarHawk. Often
American Eclectics take the curious and contradictory position that Wicca is a completely
modern religion created by Gerald Gardner but that the beliefs and practices of Wicca are
completely individualistic, and therefore nobody can define "Wicca" for others.
(6) In general, American Eclectics emphasize spontaneity and tend to downplay the
importance of such concepts as Oaths, Initiations, Lineage, and Tradition, or even to
discard those concepts altogether. For most of these people and groups, the name Wicca is
inappropriate; American Eclectic Witchcraft is far more accurate.
Welsh (or other ethnic or cultural group) Traditional Wicca or Witchcraft
refers to the many Traditions claiming to descend from, or claiming to have revived, the
forms and symbolisms and lore of the various ethnic or cultural sources around which they
base their practices. Many of these seem to be a "Brit-Trad Wicca" format with
an ethnic/cultural veneer; though that "Brit-Trad Wicca" format may be a recent
development grafted onto genuinely surviving lore and practices, which is in fact what
some have described as having occurred.
Notes:
It has been argued that Gerald invented this story to support his "invention" of
"Wicca"; but Gerald actually used the word very infrequently in his published
works; and when he did do so, he used it with the meaning of "British Witches".
Gardner habitually spelled it "wica", with only one "c", perhaps
because he only heard it rather than read it, perhaps only a variant spelling. Although
the "c" or "cc" should actually be pronounced "ch",
pronouncing the word "wick-uh" has become most common.
Quoted by Doreen Valiente in The Rebirth Of Witchcraft
This letter is now in a private collection.
Some Brit Trad Witches (both Gardnerian and non-Gardnerian) hold that only the Initiatory
Descendents of Gardner are "the Wicca", having inherited that name, and the
Initiatory Lineage, directly from the Wicca of Old Dorothy's New Forest Coven. It is worth
noting in this regard that Sybil Leek, who spoke of there being four New Forest Covens
including her own Horsa Coven, also used the word "Wicca" (as did Gardner) to
mean Brit Trad Witches/Witchcraft.
This argument that "Since Gardner created the word, nobody has the right to define it
for anyone else" is contradictory indeed, since surely those who inherited the
practices from the alleged creator have the right to define what they inherited. To claim
"Anyone who identifies her/himself as Wiccan is really Wiccan" lacks definition;
in fact, it would allow any definition whatsoever and thus would effectively render the
word "Wicca" meaningless and therefore incapable of conveying any real
information about someone who thus identified themselves.
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