posted June 25, 2014 09:26 AM            

the first person who came up with the rule of three was aleister crowley, as a matter of fact, much of wicca comes from aleister crowley...unfortunately, many neowiccans want to ignore this part of history.

then, high magic's aid by gardner had this:
"Thou hast obeyed the Law. But mark well, when thou receivest good, so equally art bound to return good threefold"

that's it.
the popular threefold law didnt appear until the 1970s and got into neowicca...so in reality, many gardnerians and alexandrians dont consider the threefold law as part of wicca

posted June 25, 2014 06:50 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by hikoro:
virgolotus

what do you mean by Wicca?
are you interested in traditional Wicca? that is, Gardnerian Wicca or Alexandrian, etc? this is Wicca, as invented by Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, an initiatory and orthopraxic mystery religion...
or, NeoWicca, that is, the outer court Wicca that is mass-marketed in books? this one is based on outer court elements of Wicca (thanks to Scott Cunningham's book) with other eclectic elements such as karma (which you dont find in traditional wicca)...this branch is mostly recognized as being Wicca, popWicca, neoWicca, New Age Wicca...

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The problem in this assumption is that Wicca is decentralized and trying to get Wiccans to agree on anything is like trying to herd cats. Even the Council of American Witches who came up with their 13 statements quickly dissolved over disagreements about further clarification and what they'd already said meant. There is no great guru, not even Gardner, and not intended to be a middle man. And just as Gardner ran with what worked, many have taken what he created and took what worked and left the rest so that all sorts of traditions formed. And they're not all compatible with the books published by Llewellyn, let alone based on them.

One of the appeals of Wicca is that it's experimental and encourages people to learn on their own rather than memorize script-ure or formalize rituals. Sure, covens can form their own traditions, but even they tend to shift.

There is simply no such thing as neo-Wicca (if we're going to apply that then every religion that's more than a generation old is going to become "neo" and even the Greek Orthodox that brags about being the same as when it started has drifted significantly from their origins of practice and beliefs). If there is then many Gardnerians, Alexandrians, and Algardians who have broken off to form their own ways or change their old are also new, even if they tend to stick closer to their roots. As for mass marketed in books, I recall that Gardner himself falls in that description. And as much as the new kids on the scene sometimes annoy the "old school" who wish they'd get off their lawn, it doesn't do them justice to dismiss them all as just reading too many pop new age books.

posted June 25, 2014 07:29 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
The problem in this assumption is that Wicca is decentralized and trying to get Wiccans to agree on anything is like trying to herd cats. Even the Council of American Witches who came up with their 13 statements quickly dissolved over disagreements about further clarification and what they'd already said meant. There is no great guru, not even Gardner, and not intended to be a middle man. And just as Gardner ran with what worked, many have taken what he created and took what worked and left the rest so that all sorts of traditions formed. And they're not all compatible with the books by Llewellyn, let alone based on them.

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pixiejane....

virgolotus asked for a wiccan mentor....
wicca, for the most part has two main branches..wicca as initiatory wicca
and wicca, as solitary without no initiation into a coven. here, self initiation suffices....
then....it breaks further down from here.
that is all i wanted to clarify with her since she didnt divulge much as to what she meant.
maybe she wants to be solitary....but maybe, she would like to join a coven too, and if that is so, what is wrong with that?
and, it is true that neowicca is very much experimental...regardless, there are still core beliefs that modern wicca shares. contrary to popular belief, it is not whatever you want it to be (this is eclectic neopaganism, which is often conflated with neowicca) otherwise, it ceases to be something. i mean, it is a religion after all.

as to the council of witches, i dont understand this example because the council of witches was not wiccan , the council was formed by wiccans, witches and reconstructionists...so, obviously, things would fall apart.
the problem back then is that wicca was often conflated with witchcraft and neopaganism...so people tried to place everything under one category...until people realized that one size didnt fit all. this is what happened to the council, members of different neopagan traditions trying to create a one size fits all.

as to the traditional wiccan versus the neowiccan debate...
neowicca is a valid path, and many traditional wiccans view so. if there are trad wiccans looking down on neowiccans, maybe they're referring to popwiccans or fluffies. there are plenty of serious and intelligent neowiccans out there.
but, it is happening that as time goes by, less people are identifying as wiccan, or are leaving wicca behind because unfortunately, wicca has gained a reputation as being the baby/silly step to a more "superior and intelligent" pagan path, it has also gained a reputation for issues of cultural misappropriation with blatant disregard for native cultures which has angered many members of the native american communities, vodou/santeria priests and so on, and, with time, becoming more dogmatic, members flaunting the rede and the threefold law to witches who have no qualms with casting a self-defense or a justified hex, forgetting that the rede is merely an advice and not an excuse for not thinking for yourself...all of this is unfortunate to see

on the other hand, plenty of traditional wiccans worked very hard to reach where they are at, thus, their point of view is understandable when they happen to come across a 12 year old high priestess who thinks she knows it all...

i must add, that some traditional wiccans consider only those initiated into traditional wicca as witches....thus even some wouldnt consider traditional witches 'witches' at all...and some neowiccans think the same, because apparently, just like some christians, some think that not following the rede means the non-wiccan witch will be cursing rampantly anybody on his or her way. no different than chrisians who think that atheists cant be ethical because they dont follow the 10 commandments, lol

i dont understand what you mean by gardner and mass-marketing, are you implying that gardner mass-marketed wicca? because even gardner had restrictions as to what he could publish by his coven. he definitely liked the publicity...but he was no mass-marketer.
he only published two fiction books and then, the two books on wicca, which were high magic's aid and witchcraft today, where he omitted many things due to the oaths.

perchance, much of our misunderstanding has to with a usa-uk conflict. unlike in the usa, traditional witchcraft did exist before and during wicca, and even wiccans knew about it, trad craft groups were known as old craft or robed covens....and, although things are changing in england, for the most part, if you are wiccan, then you are initiated. this is totally different in the usa, where many assume that traditional witchcraft is a modern phenomenon and wicca, witchcraft and neopaganism often get conflated. even when discussing witchcraft with americans, it usually turns into a wiccan-oriented discussion because in the usa, witchcraft is very much wiccaish.
also, im aware that for some, me being knowledgeable about this topic can come across as uppity...but that is not what is intended.

posted June 27, 2014 01:40 PM            

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Originally posted by Randall:
Why are you no longer Wiccan?

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I suppose at that time in my life, I really enjoyed some of the ritual and tradition involved with Wicca.

Eventually, I started to feel like there was a lot of dogma (and internal fighting, disagreements, people struggling for power, etc.) involved which is part of what I had been trying to escape with more traditional religions.

I just consider myself a spiritual agnostic now and have for some time. I can really appreciate aspects of a lot of different religious paths - and disagree with many aspects as well.

posted March 28, 2015 08:40 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by MoonWitch:
I suppose at that time in my life, I really enjoyed some of the ritual and tradition involved with Wicca.

Eventually, I started to feel like there was a lot of dogma (and internal fighting, disagreements, people struggling for power, etc.) involved which is part of what I had been trying to escape with more traditional religions.

I just consider myself a spiritual agnostic now and have for some time. I can really appreciate aspects of a lot of different religious paths - and disagree with many aspects as well.

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And that's why I like good old Master Therion, so much freedom...unfortunately I'm too busy and lazy at the same time to do meaningful progress in Thelema (sigh) And I don't do groups. They ruin everything for me.

posted March 30, 2015 12:36 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Soltze:
And that's why I like good old Master Therion, so much freedom...unfortunately I'm too busy and lazy at the same time to do meaningful progress in Thelema (sigh) And I don't do groups. They ruin everything for me.

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