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  • "There's no evidence of earlier Wiccan covens because we had to hide!" From who? The Christians?
    Okay then, for the sake of argument, let's say that you're right, the Wiccans were just hiding.
    Let's also say that Wicca really was around for thousands and thousands of years before Jesus was born.
    Who were the Wiccans hiding from then?

  • "But 'Wicca' is an old word! That means the Wiccan religion has always been around!" The word "Christ" has always been around, too (from Greek khristos, "to anoint.") Does that mean there was Christianity hundreds of years before Jesus was born?
    Take a look at The Derivation of the word Witch by Doreen Valiente. (Valiente was Gardner's HPS until she was forced to step down; the part of a young, beautiful Goddess can't be played by a woman getting wrinkles.) "'Wicca' does not mean 'witchcraft' and never did," she explains.
    "Wicca" means "male witch" (with an "evil" connotation) in Old English. "Wicca" does not mean "wise one" (although if you call yourself that often enough, you might start believing it).

  • "Our predecessors, who were persecuted in the Burning Times, were poor old wise women who used herbs to heal!" While the ever-present field of medicine makes a convenient (if asinine) argument for the longevity of any so-called tradition, using herbs to heal didn't make anyone a witch. Since no one could buy a bottle of painkiller at their local pharmacy, home remedies were commonplace.
    Did you have chickenpox as a kid? Did your parents smear you with oatmeal or give you milk baths? If you think that makes them healing shamans, then you need a serious reality adjustment.

  • "But pre-Christian 'country dwellers' had pagan traditions and customs! They hung horseshoes over doors for luck, and they thought that the hair from a seventh son of a seventh son could cure warts. They even had holidays and harvest festivals in hopes of fending off hungry spirits." News flash: That did not make the local community a bunch of witches. It made them superstitious.
    Repeat it with me:
    S - U - P - E - R - S - T - I - T - I - O - U - S.
    (Now, if they threw these parties for the sole purpose of summoning spirits of the deceased into geometric figures with numerology, then you could call them witches.)

  • "But in the olden days, some religions worshipped goddesses, some religions revered nature, and some religions had female clergy." You're absolutely right. But just because they're "pagan" beliefs doesn't make them heretical or magical. It doesn't man they have anything to do with Wicca, at all.
    You're kidding yourself if you think these old "pagans" had anything in common with neopagans. They worshipped golden cows, for goodness' sake. Or to use another example: "Diana" and "Demeter" were Greco-Roman goddesses, not Wiccan ones. This was its own unique religion, with its own beliefs and rituals, which everyone believed in -- not just some weird old lady on the edge of town. Digging up old cultures and using dead gods' names, just because they sorta fit what you're going for, is a sacrilege to the people who actually worshipped them many years ago.

  • Along those same lines....
    Many other "History of Witchcraft" webpages, such as this one, point out that "The information on witches prior to 1750 seems to leave the context of reality and border more on myth," as if earlier, flashy references to witchcraft aren't really valuable unless they have something to do with a religion -- Goddess-worship, mundane rituals, or anything else that promotes simple-and-sober "wicca" as THE definition of witchcraft. Who was it that first started thinking this way? Why, the authors who wanted to validate how "ancient" their books are, of course! Where better to look than calling praying priests "witches"? All of that stuff about having amazing powers while using mind-altering drugs, nasty substances like urine, and the body parts of animals sounds way too scary to be Wiccan...

  • "The Christians wiped out all evidence that Wicca ever existed!" Christianity did not kill the practice of witchcraft; on the contrary, it had tremendous influence on occult techniques. Even Wiccan ritual is based on Christian mysticism, via the Masons, the Golden Dawn, and that nasty-black-magician Crowley. Casting a circle, evoking with incense, and calling quarters all came originally from various Xian mystics. If you've ever seen any pre-newage books on witchcraft, you'll know that they're absolutely packed with references to God, Jesus, Lucifer, demons, angels, and the like. It's quite the opposite of what you've been led to expect by "Wiccan" authors, who insist that the stealing was the other way 'round. (See a few examples here.)

  • "Regardless of how old Wicca is, Wiccan magick is based on older traditions."

    Really? Below are some classic examples of older forms of pre-Crowley witchcraft.

    •   N A Q I D  
    A Q O R 1
    Q O R O Q
    I R O Q A
    D I Q A N

    "The NAQID-DIQUAN Square Is effective in winning the love of a woman who is promised to another." Published here with thanks to The Magic Square.
    This example comes from The Sacred Magic of Abramelin The Mage, written in 1458. There are much older squares available on the site.

    (Note that this doesn't give dire warnings about the threefold law. That's a Wiccan thing. Most ancient magicians would have laughed their ancient butts off if you told them that magick should not be used to bend the will of another person.)

     

    The Qabalistic Tree of Life,
    an occult system stemming from
    old Hebrew/Jewish mysticism.

    Of course, no study of the older arts (however cursory)
    would be complete without mention of the Key of Solomon.

    Front & back of a talisman for a protective barrier. Note:
    the instructions do NOT include imagining an egg of light.
    Check out more images from his Lemegeton & other authors here.

    There are dozens of other examples I could give, but you catch my drift.

    My point here is that magick didn't always mean picking the right color of candle. Ancient witchcraft didn't keep on truckin' right down into to modern Wicca, as everyone seems to think (else those pretty, airbrushed paperbacks would include instructions on skinning goats and mixing toxic chemicals). For other examples of olden Craft, check out the recommended reading list on the links page.

    As an additional note, classic witchcraft's main uses were to selfishly gain power, sex, and wealth. "Don't use magick for personal gain"!?!? Why do you think people started using magick to begin with? Read, people, research. And overall, THINK! Think for yourself -- don't take Llewellyn's word for everything!