graveyards; many suspect things. There is also the image of the Witch as a vampire: a strong woman using her sexual energy to lure men into her power; just as in Greek myth the Witch Circe turned the hero Odysseus’ men into swine.
Positive images of the Witch are more difficult to find, but they are there in folklore and children’s stories. There is the user-friendly granny – a nice elderly lady with silver-grey hair who lives in a cottage in the middle of the wood with a big black cat curled up by a warm fire. She is the fairy godmother whose magic wand heals all ills. There is the occasional TV Witch. Some people may remember or have seen re-runs of the television series Bewitched. This was one of my favourite television programmes as a child, but I could never see why the lovely Witch Samantha had married boring Darren or why she objected to doing housework by nose twitching. It seemed a very sensible idea to me.
Some Witch images are positive, others negative; but they have common threads. These give us the first clues on our quest to discover who and what Witches really are: the Witch is a magic-maker and Witches worship a Goddess – the Great Mother Goddess. They also worship the Horned God. In Greek mythology he is Pan and, to the Celts, Herne or Cernunnos. In other words, Witchcraft is a religion. It is a pre-Christian religion originating in the mists of time. It is based on remnants of simple Pagan traditions handed down in folklore and country custom. Onto these have been grafted more sophisticated beliefs from the more formal Paganisms of Rome, Greece and Egypt, and from the initiatory mystery traditions. Wicca involves the development of magical psychic powers, but hand in hand with the wisdom to use them. An initiatory system of spiritual development is an intrinsic part of the tradition.
WHO ARE TODAY’S WITCHES?
Who are they, these people who call themselves Witches, who walk the ancient ways, who work the traditional magics, who speak once more to long-silent Goddesses and Gods? They are men and women of all nations and races. They are young, old, rich, poor. They are those who have woken up to the fact that material creation is not the be all and end all; that science does not have all the answers; nor do the so-called world religions. They have remembered something which many of us have forgotten. Partly it is ancient wisdom; partly it is common sense.
People come to Wicca for many reasons. Some seek occult power and knowledge. Some are drawn to Wicca by feminism and the role of the Goddess; others by ecological awareness and reverence for Nature; still others seek spiritual transformation.
Magic is an attraction for some. Gerald Gardner, one of the ‘founding fathers’ or revivers of modern Wicca, once wrote:
Witchcraft was, and is, not a cult for everybody. Unless you have an attraction to the occult, a sense of wonder, a feeling that you can slip for a few minutes out of the world into the world of faery, it is of no use to you.1
Many people come to Wicca because they already see themselves as Witches. We may have had a sense of an inner power that had no name; a sense that just beyond the realm of sight and sound and touch there dwelt another kingdom – the Land of Faery. Perhaps we went there in our dreams.
Some of us were aware that some of this Faery Power dwelt within us. Perhaps we had precognitive dreams. Sometimes we knew the future. We may have tried to develop this by working with tarot cards and telling the fortunes of our friends. Perhaps we were scared when our predictions came true and stopped looking into the misty glass of the future. Perhaps we found we had the power of small magics. We could wish for something very hard and it would come true. Perhaps we found books of spellcraft on the shelves of our library or bookstore and tried them. Maybe when we talked to our relatives we found that some of our family had the sight. Perhaps our grandmother told fortunes using tea leaves, or our grandfather dreamt the family deaths the day before they occurred. Perhaps we had an aunt who was a medium, a grandfather who was a spiritual healer, a great grandmother who was a herbalist and cured the community in days when no one could afford a doctor unless someone was at death’s door.
This heritage of power and sight may have been manifest in us from childhood, but we may have had no outlet for it; or perhaps it was discouraged. Perhaps it manifested in our teenage years, when often teenagers have what is called psychokinetic energy. Lights flicker when we walk by, photocopiers grind to a halt; vases mysteriously leap off shelves and smash themselves at our feet. Often our families have no explanations for these things, so we have to seek explanations elsewhere. Perhaps we come upon books of magic, tarot, astrology, divination, healing. We may find that the religious framework we were taught as children has no place for these arts, but there is a religious framework that does.
This is the religious framework of Wicca. In the early years of the Wiccan revival, most people came through the occult route; perhaps because other important aspects of Wicca were less well known. Today things are very different.
For women, Wicca is a spiritual path in which we can worship the Divine in its female form – as Goddess. Many women come to Wicca from feminism. They have re-evaluated the word Witch and realized that it involves the use of the innate powers of the Wise Woman. The Wise Woman was the traditional village midwife. (In French, midwives are still call sages femmes, wise women.) For those of you familiar with the tarot, the Wise Woman has affinity with the Queen of Pentacles – a very Earthy lady! Other women might consider the role of the Wiccan priestess attractive, allowing them to fulfil a spiritual role usually denied them in Western society today.
It is not only women who seek the Goddess. Men, too, are attracted by Wicca’s vision of deity as both Goddess and God. In the popular mind, Witches are female and this can be a barrier to men interested in Wicca. However, both men and women are Witches. A male Witch is simply that – not a warlock or a wizard. The idea that Witches are always women is a relatively new one. At the height of the Witchcraft persecutions in Europe and America, both men and women were killed and when I came into Wicca in England a quarter of a century ago, there were more male than female Witches. It is more difficult for men to identify with the word Witch, but here are some ways of thinking about it. The traditional male Witch is a countryman. He is one who is in touch with the elements, who has worked the land, healed a bird’s broken wing or the illness of a child; one who loves the Goddess and knows both Goddess and God, whatever any church might tell him.
Another route to Wicca is through the growing environmental awareness in society today. Wicca honours the Divine as manifest in Nature. The Earth is our spiritual mother and we sense that the Divine is not ‘out there’ but all around us. Nature itself is sacred and holy, a manifestation of the Divine Life Force. Greenpeace, environmental action, vegetarianism, animal rights, are all manifestations of a reawakening spirit of reverence towards the Earth. This was natural and instinctive to our ancestors, but recent centuries of urban living have suppressed it.
Initiation, in the sense of a personal transformatory experience of the Divine, is undoubtedly an attraction of Wicca for some. Some Wiccan traditions have three or more initiation ceremonies that mark transitions through spiritual change. Such rites can be powerful spiritual and psychological events that are life-enhancing and life-changing.
COVENS AND COMMUNITY
Unless you live in Salem, Massachusetts, site of the worst Witch persecutions in the United States and today centre of a thriving Witch tourist industry, you will not see Witches in black robes and pointed hats in your local supermarket. This is not because Witches prefer a diet of eye of newt and toe of frog, or that they do not do mundane things like shopping. However, for the most part, Witches today are much like everyone else; although they tend to be better educated than average. Some Witches are authors and teachers and spend all their time writing about and teaching the Craft; others are full-time healers or tarot readers. However, most Witches have conventional jobs. Certain professions attract Witches more than others. In the United States, information technology is popular; ironically the followers of the Old Religion are at the leading edge of high technology. In Europe, health care and social workers; artists, musicians and actors; and teachers and lecturers are the three biggest groupings.
Some