1.1 Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism

Notes made while reading “Towards the Wiccan Circle” by Sorita d’Este.

• Witchcraft is a folk magic practice that utilises spells of various forms to make manifest one’s Will.
• Paganism is term used to describe a range of pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices.
• Wicca is a pagan witchcraft religion.

My introduction to paganism and witchcraft was through books on Wicca, and although I’ve investigated other spiritual paths over the years, it is to Wicca that I am inevitably drawn. I see it as a form of traditional witchcraft that makes the most of what modern paganism has to offer.

As a panentheist (I have experienced the essence of Divinity in all things, and that Divinity has experienced me too), I believe that God/dess is this immanent in this reality as well as existing outside of it, and that we can contact, or join consciousness, with God/dess in ways to improve our lives. Wicca is one way to achieve this.

I enjoy the poetry of the word “witch”. It symbolises many things to me; power, rebellion, independence, strength in otherness, attunement to the natural world, a mytho-poetic worldview. The word “pagan” shares some of those things, and more: distinction from the monotheistic Middle Eastern religions that most people think of as “religion”.

Joseph Campbell favoured the Latin etymology of religion that meant “to reconnect”, and that to me is the purpose of my pagan religion: to reconnect with old ways and the numinous in nature, to balance myself, to build a foundation, to give meaning to life.