Priestess of Delphi (1891) by Hon John Collier

Modern day paganism, or Neo-Paganism, is a set of religions among which include Ásatrú, Druidry and Reconstructionist traditions such as Hellenismos, Kemeticism and Religio Romana, just to name a few. The largest and perhaps best-known Neo-Pagan religion is Wicca, a revivalist religion that recognises Goddesses as well as Gods, honours nature as sacred, and encompasses practises of magic. I was a practising Wiccan for seven years of my life and its influences are inevitably present in what I write. On this website, you may see me refer to modern day paganism as “Neo-Paganism” or simply “Paganism” (with a capital ‘P’). You will not however, see me refer to it as “the Old Ways”. Seeing as my parents were born around the time when Gerald Gardner first introduced the ideas that would later become Wicca, they wouldn’t appreciate it if I referred to it as an “ancient” religion.
A familiar saying among Wiccans on the subject of defining Wicca is if you ask 10 Wiccans for the meaning of Wicca, you will receive 10 different answers. I am not particularly fond of this saying as it appears to me to overemphasise the plurality inherent in Wicca, while inadvertently suggesting that other religions are single-minded in comparison. We can just as easily say that an adherent of any other religion perceives their own faith and practice in unique and different ways.

The Role of Witchcraft and Magic

Gone are the days of wart-covered old crones bent over a bubbling cauldron. Witchcraft is now recognised as a creative and relatively easy to learn style of magic practised by some Wiccans. It was originally conflated with Wicca, as if the two went hand-in-hand, but we ought to remind ourselves that the former predates the later. Witchcraft refers to practices of magic (or more precisely, ‘low’ magic) that can involve spellcasting, sympathetic magic and kitchen witchery. A witch is a person who practises witchcraft, and like witchcraft itself, needs not be related to Wicca or Neo-Paganism at all. Practitioners of witchcraft up until the 20th Century have included the ‘cunning folk’ of Europe, wise men and women who made charms or divined the future of others is one example of witches who have little to do with Wicca. Around the time I first began to delve in Wicca, it was synonymous to use Wiccans and Witches (with a capital “W”), but the rhetoric has become more sophisticated since then and we, as a community, have begun to realise that they can be two very different individuals.

I mentioned that witchcraft is relatively easy style of magic to learn, which leads me to the pain-in-the-butt styles of magic to learn. Many Wiccans also perform rituals, which are heavily influenced by ceremonial (or ‘high’) magic. Ceremonial magic is a slightly newer phenomenon than its low counterpart, popularised by 19th Century orders such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Its practices are often elaborate and filled with arcane symbolism and correspondences and encompass studies and systems such as alchemy, Chaos and Enochian magic. Practitioners of ceremonial magic are referred to as magicians. Many of the original Western scholars of ceremonial magic were Christian, not unlike the rest of the Western world at the time. Thus like witchcraft, Wiccans do not hold a monopoly on magic either.

The Unnamed Path

I mentioned in my definition of Paganism that I came from Wicca. When I entered my second year of university, I encountered scientific knowledge that led me to drastically question paranormal experiences that were frequently promoted as empirical ‘proof’ that magic exists. As a student of Psychology, I found the lack of distinction between aura reading and optical illusion, divination and hindsight bias, and spellcraft and self-serving bias disconcerting. My spirituality, while still a seedling, has begun to forge its own path through rigorous study and practice. I feel the need for truth, recognising that Wicca and Neo-Paganism are not the surviving remnants of a continuous, prehistoric tradition of matriarchic Goddess worship and in acknowledgement of its youth, encourage innovation in both thaumaturgy (magic for the material) and theurgy (magic for transcendence). I vehemently believe that truth is the foundation on which Neo-Paganism must be erected, where innovation are the pillars to ensure its endurance and relevance well into the future.

My path, for the time unnamed, explores alternatives to aspects common to Wicca, including, but eventually not limited to, the relationship of practitioner with the gods, and the practice of magic and ritual. However, the conscious decision to walk it has already broadened my mind on my religious practice; becoming more cognizant of how magic is utilised as a medium to commune with deity, and less preoccupied with the incantations to recite, redes to espouse, and ritual tools to accumulate.