This history is divided into three parts for easier reading. The first part is Ancient History and looks at the pre-Christian and early Christian era. The second is called the Burning Times and
deals briefly with the dark and Middle Ages. The last section is Modern Wicca, and goes over the revival of the Pagan religions and the creation of Wicca. Please note, it would be impossible to enter
all of the information available here, so from necessity this is only a brief summary of the history of Wicca. Many sites
cover different aspects and times, depending on which era interests you, but we have done our best to give a brief overview.
According to most historians and archaeologists, the roots of the Pagan religion are as old
as civilization itself. Ancient man was dependant on the earth, and nature, for survival. If the hunts were unsuccessful,
or if the crops failed, starvation and death followed. These ancient peoples had to be attuned to nature and her rhythms.
As civilizations developed, they sensed a Divine Power, and sought ways to understand and use
this power. Imagine them studying the world around them, seeing the natural cycles of life and the seasons, becoming
aware of the movements of the planets, and trying to understand. If they could understand these natural movements, if
they could predict the cycles; then they knew when to plant and when to harvest. They could predict when the sow would be
fertile, when the game would return, when to expect bad weather, and all sorts of vital information. Is it no wonder
that they built Stonehenge and other sites like it, to help them calculate the changing of the seasons? These would
have been some of the most important tools ancient man had.
Initially humans did not understand the relationship between sex and having children, only that
women of the tribe could produce offspring. So the early creator Deities were female. She was typically displayed
as a womanly figure with huge breasts and wide hips, representing her fertility and ability to create and sustain life.
Because the first food gatherers and farmers were mainly women, this Goddess also represented the earth. In early human
societies, this left the other duties to the men: like hunting for food, and protection from invading tribes of humans
and other carnivores. A Deity of the Hunt was created and typically was represented by a male figure with animal features
such as horns, hoofs, pointed ears and sometimes a tail. Eventually man discovered the relationship between sex and
pregnancies and realized that it took both man and woman to create life. They then looked around and discovered that
all of nature required male and female to reproduce.
As the early tribes grew and diversified, so did the Deities they used to represent their developing
environment. In societies where women hunted, a Huntress Deity arose. In societies where men farmed, nature Deities
such as the Green Man developed. All the world’s different cultures and societies had some things in common.
All early Deities were nature oriented; the Gods and Goddesses interacted with man in this lifetime; and each served the needs
of the society that worshipped them. Men and women who understood the Deities and the natural rhythms of the world were
prized. They became the priesthood and initiates: the advisors, judges and important people in their communities.
In native American traditions, they were the Shamans; in India, the Brahmins. In developing
Britain and Ireland, some became the Druids (early Druids were male, there was a female sect at the time called Dryads.)
There is evidence that Merlyn was a Druid and advisor to kings. In Eastern and Northern Europe they were known as Witan,
(some believe this word was later to become “Witch”). In every corner of the world, belief systems were
developing and being practiced by the native populations.
This almost universal view of the Gods and Goddesses (yes, I include eastern religions) lasted for many eons. It was based
in the sensible and natural concept of Deities in our image, male and female, who worked with us, and changed with us. And
mankind was changing and developing. In the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and on the flood plains
of the Nile River, the hunter gatherers stopped their wandering and started founding farms and villages. These later
became towns and then cities, and finally the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Egypt were founded. These cultures
were old when the Greeks arrived. Still this concept of Gods and Goddesses continued, from Greece to Rome, and throughout
the Roman Empire. But within, it carried the seed of its own downfall.
It was in ancient Egypt, long before Greece and Rome, that a new concept developed. It started with a Pharaoh, Amenhotep
IV when he renounced the multitude of Gods worshipped by the Egyptians and abolished the priesthood of Amun and the polytheistic
worship of many Deities. Amenhotep established a new monotheistic order to worship the Sun God Aten and changed his own name
to Akhenaten, meaning "Servant of the Aten." Interestingly enough Akhenaten was the father of King Tutankhamun (King
Tut). Akhenaten's rule only lasted 17 years, and when it was over, the Egyptians thankfully went back to the old ways. But
he did influence one group of slaves, the Israelites, who gave up their many Gods for just one God. It is not the concept
of just one God that is revolutionary: it is that this one God is the God of all, and that everyone must worship this
God alone. This intolerance for other religions and beliefs would be passed on to the Christians and Muslims, and these two
groups would spread throughout the western world.
Then, in the fifth century C. E., a group of priests and monks gathered together
and created the New Testament - and with it, the modern concept of Christianity. Initially adopted by the Roman Empire, the
spread of Christianity - and the assertion of the church's power - would spell the violent and bloody end to the Old Religions.
The holocaust that followed came to be called the Burning Times.
One of the basic tenants of Wicca is to be tolerant of others' beliefs. However, no discussion
of the history of Wicca can be complete without chronicling the dark deeds of the medieval Church and other agencies in the
name of Christianity. I will attempt to not "bash" the Christian belief, but rather give an account of its rise in power
and the subsequent effect on today’s religions. Christianity is an aggressive religion where their God must be
the only God, and their religion must be the only religion. Christians are taught that they must convert, or "save,"
all the non-believers.
Christianity developed and was spread by the Roman Empire. So the religion was initially centred
in towns or cities that had Roman garrisons. As it spread, Christianity ran into the nature-based religions of the rural
areas, where it met stiff resistance from the population who had been practicing pagan beliefs for centuries. While Christianity
promised rewards in the next life and a God you had to believe in, (despite the evidence), the old Pagan Gods and Goddesses
had worked with the people in this life. In fact the word “Pagan” originally meant “country
dweller”, and was a slang word like "hillbilly." When the populations of the towns and cities were mostly converted
to Christianity, the term “Pagan” came to represent a non-believer.
At first, the Church attempted to absorb the Pagan religions into the new Christian faith, by
claiming that the pagan Gods and Goddesses were "saints." This had limited success, and so the early Christian rulers
started to demonize Pagan Gods, denouncing them as evil. The Horned God of the Hunt became the Christian personification
of evil: Satan. Because sex was the original sin to Christians, the Pagan fertility festivals were also portrayed as
evil and the women as temptresses, leading to sin. The Pagans were not alone in this persecution; Christians destroyed
anything and everything that didn't support their belief system. Western civilization was plunged into the dark ages.
When these measures didn't work, Pope Gregory the Great ordered that all Pagan temples and places
of worship be destroyed and replaced by churches. However, because many of the artisans and builders of the time were Pagan,
they incorporated images of the Gods and Goddesses into the new churches. By the 15th century, the church realized
that a thousand years of persecution still hadn't gotten rid of those pesky Pagans.
In 1484, with the endorsement of Pope Innocent VIII, the Roman Catholic Church began “The
Inquisition”, to hunt down and destroy pagans and the pagan traditions. The Malleus Maleficarum, (“The
Witches Hammer”), a book written by Dominicans Kramer and Sprenger in 1486, was adopted by the Catholic Church as a
guideline for identifying and prosecuting Witches. This publication became the justification for the torture and death
of anyone who continued to practice the Old Religion, or who didn't believe as the Church decreed, or those who might support
non-believers. This Witch-hunt directly resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of people, many of them women.
Village healers; people who were skilled with herbs and potions; midwives; anyone who was a free-thinker or outside of the
norm; even those who were left-handed or had a prominent birthmark or mole, were tortured and killed. Whole villages
were destroyed in the Church’s zeal to eradicate pagans and the Old Religion; millions of innocent people lost their
lives, property and loved ones in this purge.
These events served to push the Pagan religions underground. Rituals and ceremonies that
should be celebrated in daytime, in a natural setting, had to be hidden inside and held at night. Written records of traditions
or rituals would be used to incriminate pagans, so many writings were destroyed, and the traditions were passed down by word
of mouth, often to family members. Covens disbanded, as members were afraid to be seen together or to risk meeting.
Traditional village celebrations were banned and the backbone of the community was broken. So strong was the people’s
belief, even despite the terror of the Inquisition, that some traditions were impossible for the Church to abolish completely,
and Christianity was forced to incorporate these into the new religion. Pagan traditions survived in the decorating
of the tree at Yule and the burning of Yule logs; May Day (Beltane) and the dancing of the Maypole; and the decorating and giving of eggs, symbol of fertility, at Easter (“Oestre”
or the Spring Equinox), to name a few.
It wasn't until the middle of the 1900's that Pagans could safely come out of the broom closet,
in a few countries. The word “Witch” still carries with it the taint of the Inquisition, with unfair connotations
of evil, or "devil worship", as defined by the Church. Make no mistake - the misconceptions, prejudice, intolerance
and violence that started in the dark and Middle Ages, have left a deep mark and still exist today.
While based on the old traditions and lessons learned in the past, Wicca is a modern, living religion. This is to be expected.
We are not the early farmers or hunters who first began to understand the Divine Power. These early Pagans were attuned to
nature, and were searching for means to manipulate their environment. We, on the other hand, know all to well how to manipulate,
but we have lost our connection to nature and the Divine Power.
Modern Wicca was born out of a hermetic order called Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn was a society formed in late 19th century
England. It's purpose was the study and practice of magic and the occult, applied in ways to bring about enlightenment.
Presumably the organization emerged from a chance event. A master mason named A.F.A. Woodford purchased a second
hand book, in which he found a document written in a 15th century cipher. His friend W. Wynn Wescott, a brother mason, recognized
the code and had it translated. To their delight, the document turned out to be the framework for some curious initiation
rituals and a letter from a supposed Rosicrucian adept named Anna Sprengel. One of the followers of the Golden Dawn was Aleister
Crowley.
In 1904 British poet, magician, and philosopher, Aleister Crowley received the channelled dictation of a book called Liber Legis, or "The Book of the Law". The angelic intelligence dictating the Book declared its name to be Aiwass, and identified itself
as "the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat" - that is, the minister of the Egyptian God of Silence, virtually the "Voice of the Silence"
itself. The Book of the Law declared the dawning of a new spiritual era for humanity, governed by the God Horus, Child of
Isis and Osiris, rather than by the "slain god" archetype of Christ which had governed, in different forms, the few thousands
of years preceding. From this work, Crowley created the Temple of Thelema, the first modern group of witches. The Thelema
order is still practicing today, carrying on many of the traditions formed by Crowley.
In 1921, Dr. Margaret Murray, an anthropologist, published "The Witch Cult in Western Europe", and followed it up
with "The God of the Witches" in 1931. This was the first time anyone publicly challenged the hysterical ranting of
the Church. She described two aspects of Witchcraft: ritual Witchcraft (the religious aspect) and operational Witchcraft (magick).
In 1954, in England, Gerald Gardner published "Witchcraft Today", the first positive book about Witchcraft. Gardner
was the first to call this form of Witchcraft "Wicca", and its practitioners, "Wiccan". He reinforced the description of Witchcraft
as published by Dr. Murray, and went further to claim that he himself was a witch. Gardner was a press- hound; his coming
out made headlines around the world and drew a lot of interest from people. Raymond Buckland was one of these. He was initiated
by Gardner's High Priestess and in the early 1960's, brought Wicca to the United States. With freedom of religion guaranteed
by the Bill of Rights, the US was fertile ground for the revival of the old ways. In 1971 Buckland followed up with his own
book, "Witchcraft from the Inside". In Europe too, Wicca was flourishing. In the late 60's and early 70's, a Witch
named Alex Sanders made headlines and started his own Wiccan tradition in Britain, now known as "Alexandrian Wicca".
Written in the 80's -“Wicca, a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner” by Scott
Cunningham is considered by many to be one of the most influential works on modern Wicca. Cunningham gave accreditation to
those who practiced without a coven. The old belief was that it took a Witch to make a Witch, and that initiation into
the Craft was conferred within a coven. Cunningham showed that being Wiccan was a matter of the heart and between the
practitioner, and the God and Goddess. Scott Cunningham, among others, showed that Wicca was not just about following
old rituals, but that a Wiccan can invent their own rituals, should investigate the Divine Power for themselves, and
should do what is right for them.
In the past twenty years, interest in Wicca, Witchcraft and pagan beliefs have enjoyed massive
growth, and today there are many books available on the subject. Authors such as Margot Adler, Stewart and Janet Farrar,
StarHawk, Raymond Buckland and others have paved the way for the growth of information available about pagan beliefs. The
boundaries of traditional beliefs are being pushed, and new covens and belief systems are being born every year – perhaps,
as in ancient times, created to reflect our environment and unique needs today. Possibly the most attractive aspect
of these beliefs is their ability, unlike other religions, to grow with the times, to adapt and to meet the needs of its worshippers
… while enabling our own growth and spiritual satisfaction.
