{"id":92,"date":"2017-05-20T10:20:14","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T22:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mooncrowned.com\/?p=92"},"modified":"2017-05-20T10:20:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T22:20:14","slug":"1-1-wicca-witchcraft-paganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/?p=92","title":{"rendered":"1.1 Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Notes made while reading &#8220;Towards the Wiccan Circle&#8221; by Sorita d&#8217;Este.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Witchcraft is a folk magic practice that utilises spells of various forms to make manifest one&#8217;s Will.<\/li>\n<li>Paganism is term used to describe a range of pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices.<\/li>\n<li>Wicca is a pagan witchcraft religion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My introduction to paganism and witchcraft was through books on Wicca, and although I&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoy the poetry of the word &#8220;witch&#8221;. It symbolises many things to me; power, rebellion, independence, strength in otherness, attunement to the natural world, a mytho-poetic worldview. The word &#8220;pagan&#8221; shares some of those things, and more: distinction from the monotheistic Middle Eastern religions that most people think of as &#8220;religion&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Campbell favoured the Latin etymology of religion that meant &#8220;to reconnect&#8221;, 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notes made while reading &#8220;Towards the Wiccan Circle&#8221; by Sorita d&#8217;Este. Witchcraft is a folk magic practice that utilises spells of various forms to make manifest one&#8217;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&#8217;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 &#8220;witch&#8221;. It symbolises many things to me; power, rebellion, independence, strength in otherness, attunement to the natural world, a mytho-poetic worldview. The word &#8220;pagan&#8221; shares some of those things, and more: distinction from the monotheistic Middle Eastern religions that most people think of as &#8220;religion&#8221;. Joseph Campbell favoured the Latin etymology of religion that meant &#8220;to reconnect&#8221;, 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28,29,32,34,36,37],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-paganism","tag-religion","tag-sorita-deste","tag-towards-the-wiccan-circle","tag-wicca","tag-witchcraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witch.mooncrowned.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}