NeoNotes — Origin of Wicca
Here's some background information on Wicca and Gerald Gardner that I wrote at another site. I'm including it here as general background. I've not really written in depth on either.
❝Here's where I offend some of my fellow pagans.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
In very broad terms, there's a difference between a revealed faith and an experienced faith. One approach is not necessarily better, but they are different in their approaches. A revealed faith is based mainly in what has been written and interpreting those writings.
An experienced faith requires people to do, to act. And there is also going to be at least one moment where you get a glimpse of what the Divine really is. That's something I really don't have the words for and it seems to be different for every person. Some embrace it. Others run from it. And others are so afraid of what they see that they go all Sweetness and Light and Candycorn.
What they become depends on their response to facing the Divine. Some drift off to other paths, something more "hardcore." Others try to find a way to cope. Some turn away from their path all together and embrace the "faith of their fathers" or atheism or something completely different.
Wicca, particularly in it's post-modern form, is very much a gateway, a transition. Most people grow beyond it. That's why you won't find many "system" books beyond the 101 level. At some point you should go out and find your own way.
Technically some pagan trads draw in part from fertility cults. So some misguided people see joining a pagan group as a way to get their rocks off. They could meet Hot Bisexual Pagan Chicks and have mind-blowing Ritual Sex under the Full Moon!
It doesn't work like that.
Those are the ones who soon "wash out" or spin off to form their own sex-based group. When they can't attract members to the new group, they blame everyone but themselves. After all, they're open about sex. Why wouldn't people line up to have sex with them?
I know you've blocked me, but Wicca probably originated in the late 19th or early 20th Century. Parts were older, but parts of Christianity predate Christ.
Well through the 19th Century, it wasn't unusual for a Christian sermon to last for hours. Some of the early 20th Century tent revivals lasted hours. In our time, I don't think you could keep an American congregation still for a half hour even with a gifted preacher. That's what the hymns are for.
Religion changes.
I'm not about to give up my clean sheets and my hot running water.
There's no "unbroken line" running back to prehistory.
The origins of Wicca are snarled, Gerald Gardner liked being the mysterious wise man.
There are four distinct threads. One was the folk tradition that Gardner was initiated into. This tradition was incomplete and placed the emphasis on practical magick rather than Deity and worship. There was the stuff that Gardner researched from pagan sources, which focuses more on Deities and worship. There was the stuff that Gardener "borrowed" from Freemasonry, the O.T.O. and the Golden Dawn. Finally there was the original stuff which tried to make everything cohesive. This last bit probably mostly came from Doreen Valiente. Gardner didn't give her credit for years, that almost certainly led to their falling out.❞
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