I keep finding people on message boards, and in real life who have the opinion that if a person is solitary and eclectic, they aren't really Wiccan and shouldn't claim the religion as their own. Instead, they believe a solitary eclectic Wiccan should label themselves as religious witch, neo-wiccan or simply pagan. How would you address this issue with someone?
When Wicca began, everyone was a Traditionalist: they were members of covens that trained them in the ways of the coven and put them through an initiation ceremony. Even the definition I use for Wicca lists initiation as a core value of Wicca. How then do I justify describing non-initiates and eclectics as Wiccans?
First, it is very common for Traditional covens to describe all members as Wiccans, including the Outer Circle members i.e. those not yet initiated.
Second, the use of the word Wicca to denote a follower of Gerald Gardner's religion does not date back to Gardner. In all of Gardner's writings, followers are called witches and the religion itself is called witchcraft or the witch-cult. The word Wicca was applied later, probably by Alex Sanders. Twenty years ago, as the Eclectic population started to boom, many Traditionalists staunchly insisted that these newcomers were Wiccans while the properly initiated followers were the true witches. Now some are arguing the opposite. Clearly, we can't make everyone happy.
Third, vocabulary is formed through common usage of the word. People who invent nonstandard uses of a term are likely to gain confused stares as they refer to felines as dogs or softballs as cheeseheads, for example. Whether the Traditionalists like it or not, Wicca has been commonly used in reference to both Traditionalists and Eclectics for several decades. The toothpaste is out of the tube, so to speak.
Fourth, it isn't just Eclectics who believe they have a right to the term Wicca. There are many, many Traditionally trained and initiated Wiccans today who also freely apply the word to Eclectics.
Fifth, Gardner's religion is in and of itself highly eclectic. He borrowed from Celtic holidays, witch folklore, Greek mystery religion, the magic of the Golden Dawn, reincarnation beliefs from the East, and the liturgies of Aleister Crowley, just as examples. It seems to me a wee bit arbitrary to suddenly say "the eclecticism must immediately stop after Gardner."
Sixth, Gardner appeared to have expected his religion to be an evolving one. Books of Shadows were not supposed to remain stagnant but were to change over time according to needs and understanding. It's arguably one of the reasons personal BoSs are supposed to be destroyed on the death of their owners.
Finally, there is a difference between an initiation and an initiation ceremony. The ceremony is what a coven puts you through when they judge you ready. They need to judge whether you are ready, however, because the unprepared are highly unlikely to experience the actual initiation, which is exposure and understanding of mystery. Initiation ceremonies are meant to evoke initiation, but they are not one and the same. You can experience mystery outside of a ceremony.
I can certainly accept that the experience of mystery should be a central goal of all Wiccans and that reaching that experience is probably much easier with the formal training and tested rituals of a coven. But Eclectics can certainly still pursue and experience mystery, and I see no reason why they should need a separate word to describe themselves simply because they're doing it on their own.
So how do you deal with someone who insists that Eclectics should not be called Wiccan? While you can explain the points above as to why you feel the word choice is valid, coupled with other core beliefs of Wicca that you agree with, don't expect to win over a lot of converts to your way of thinking. We have our reasons for thinking as we do, and Traditionalists have theirs. Their reasons, I feel, can be just as rational as ours, so in the end you may just have to agree to disagree.
(This response has now been posted as The Validity of Eclecticism and Non-Initiation)
Question of the Day: Who Gets to Be "Wiccan"?
2/08/2009 09:30:00 PM | personal views, Question of the day, Wicca | 5 comments »
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I'm surprised that we have come to the point that we are squabbling over labels in this manner. When we (as Wiccans, Pagans and Heathens) first came into the public light, we were proud of our diversity. Proud that we accepted people the way they were, no matter which label they attached to their beliefs. Now, it seems, we have stooped to the level that we see Christians at concerning their many denominations. The old "I'm a Real Christian and you're not".
What has brought us to this? personally some of the people I have met who use that tactic seem to be only pumping their egos. It's just as easy to say "I'm initiated into _____ (fill in the blank) coven." as it is to try to explain which beliefs the particular Wiccan and/or Pagan holds.
I understand that people want words to actually mean something. I personally have no problem telling people that "anything you want it to be" is not the definition of Wicca, for example.
I really do have a lot of sympathy of Traditionalists who feel their religion has been hijacked. But we don't all get what we want. If I got my way, "witchcraft" would solely mean malevolent magic, rather than the modern use which often includes all sorts of magic regardless of intent. But I accept that the new usage has become entrenched in our language. The best I can do is use it in non-confusing contexts.
To take your points in turn.
First: I will admit that, "very common," is a difficult expression in terms of any form of witchcraft, the degree of variety means that two people with a different consensus bias will believe the exact opposite to be "very common" based on perfectly accurate assessments of their respective experience.
However, it's certainly at odds to my experience of traditional Wiccans. An Outer Circle/Outer Court member, a dedicant, a preïnitiate, etc. wouldn't be considered Wiccan. Indeed, the very concept of Outer Circle, dedicants etc. wouldn't be seen as Wiccan but as ways that individual covens try to best deal with the situation of would-be initiates and perhaps other dealings with interested outsiders. It's a tool, a technique, adopted by those who find it useful, and nothing else. Even in Blue Star, which has formalised the position of dedicant considerably, while a dedicant is seen as being part of the tradition, they don't seem to be considered part of the Wicca (I will admit that the last statement is made on the back of very slight information on Blue Star, they are few in this part of the world and I have only met one once).
Second: Gardner quite definitely makes use of "Wica" at least in both "Witchcraft Today" and "The Meaning of Witchcraft" (and "wicca" in quoting the Anglo-Saxon usage in the latter, suggesting he did not think of one as the mere exact continuation of the other). He certainly does use the words "witch", "witches", "witchcraft" and "witch-cult" more often, but "Wica" is used repeatedly as a term for those particular witches he describes.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that Sanders is the source of "Wicca". It would seem strange for Gardnerians to so widely use it until recently, if this were the case, since many originally expressed animosity towards him. I've seen it suggested that the current double-C spelling may have been a "correction" by Stewart Farrar while he was with Sanders, but never anything actually demonstrating this (I doubt it very much, TBH).
I can't think of any case of Traditional Wiccans arguing that others were Wiccan but they were the true witches, though I'm certainly open to correction. I can certainly think of cases of Traditional Wiccans arguing that they were the either the only witches, or at least being quite dismissive about some others claiming to be witches if not quite naming names. I can also certainly think of cases of practitioners of Traditional Initiatory Witchcraft being dismissive of Wicca and from their perspective they are likely to lump both Traditional Wiccans and Eclectic together in such dismissal.
Third: I shall come back to, as it's more pleasant to end with the point we are most in agreement with.
Fourth: Isn't much of an argument. There are Traditional Wiccans who use "Wicca" in a looser sense (indeed, some who do so in a looser sense than you would seem to be comfortable, judging from what you have written elsewhere). There are also Eclectic witches who do not use the word in this sense. A perfect, but fruitless, counter. "I'll see your Traditional, and reply with an Eclectic" could be done forever. There are also Traditional-trained Wiccans who practise something other than that Traditional practice, who use the term, but their biases could be as much away from the Traditional as with them, depending on what led them to that other practice, no?
Really, this says that there is a disagreement that people don't correspond entirely to any sort of "party line" on the matter. It says nothing about the disagreement itself.
Fifth: I'll agree that "Eclectic" is not a good label. It's certainly the one most often used by Wiccans to describe those witches that are inspired by Wicca, but a very poor one indeed, IMO. Firstly, I'll agree that Traditional Wicca is eclectic in certain regards. I'll even add that the Mohsians used to call themselves "American Eclectic Wicca", and finally, "Eclectic" is a better label for some witches than for others, since some are, after all, more eclectic than others if we take the word at its dictionary definition. "Eclectic" seems to me to have come from some such witches themselves. I suspect it came from the more eclectic ones, or perhaps from the more happily-eclectic ones, and then to have been applied more widely. I won't myself use it of someone, unless someone cheerfully describes their practice as eclectic (I'm taking your use of it already as indicating you won't find it irritatingly inaccurate).
Sixth: Gardner does indeed appear to have expected his religion to be an evolving one, or perhaps more accurately, he considered it as an evolving one while he was still alive himself. This does not mean that certain things were not valued, or that there was no orthopraxy or traditions. The different denominations of Traditional Wicca are called "Traditions" for a reason; they are traditions in the dictionary sense.
Your final point differs in how it interprets "initiation" to just about everyone else except those witches to whom the applicabity of "wicca" is what we are discussing. This concept of initiation is part of your Eclectic Witchcraft’s dogma that is not shared with Wicca. It isn't really an argument of much value in terms of how we disagree with you on something. It's akin to an Islamic scholar arguing we're both wrong, because there's no evidence for our positions in the Qur'an; perfectly sensible to his perspective, but of no value outside of it. Outside of Eclectic Witchcraft, "initiation" is generally taken to mean a ceremony or ritual, like dictionaries suggest. It may well be held that the effects of said ritual are not one and the same as the words and actions, indeed I’d agree with that, but that is not quite the same thing as what you are saying here.
I'll agree with you that Eclectics can pursue and experience mystery, and that they should. I disagree in your equating the measured noun, "mystery" with the count noun "mystery" of which "mysteries" is the plural. You imply that to "experience mystery" is the same as to "experience a mystery" and more pointedly, that to experience one mystery is equivalent to experiencing another. I don't think this holds for any concept of mystery tradition. We have our mysteries, and whether they are similar, the same, or completely different, to those of another isn't something that could really be explored. Perhaps, even someone who had experienced both wouldn't be in a good position to generalise.
To come back to your Third point. Yes, the word is definitely in existence in the English language now as a word that means other than it means to Traditional Wicca. It does still also have the meaning it once had. There’s a regional aspect to this also, the older sense is still more current in Britain and Ireland, though like other American cultural influences, the latter is gaining ground.
Akin to what Shaw said about other differences between British and American forms of English, I think in quite a few ways Traditional Wicca and Eclectic Witchcraft are often two religions divided by a common language. As well as "Wicca", we also often differently understand "initiation" (as mentioned above), "tradition" (Eclectics sometimes talk about "starting a tradition" as if you can actively seek to do so, which makes no sense to our perspective), and "dogma" (Eclectics sometimes complain that Traditionals are dogmatic in their practices, quite how someone can be dogmatic in a practice is beyond me, since dogma refers to what you believe, not what you do. Similarly, Eclectics say that they are not dogmatic, and then talk about things as being "Wiccan beliefs", which makes them seem dogmatic where Traditionals aren’t, to me).
Ultimately, I don’t think either of us are going to change any time soon, though I do sometimes wonder if further separation of Traditional and Eclectic viewpoints will mean that we aren’t "Wiccan" by how the word eventually comes to be used! Strangely enough, this would be less confusing - there’d be less ambiguity - and might make all involved happier. I’d generally think it rude to say you weren’t Wiccan here (our differences on the word being relevant at this point makes things different) and think an Eclectic Witch who insisted that they were Wiccan in a Traditional Wiccan context similarly rude. I won’t insist others use the word my way, if they don’t try to insist I use it their way. (Okay, I'll bristle just a little, but not as much as when people use "literally" as an intensifier or "typically" to mean "usually"!)
It’s gotten to the point where there are just two different definitions to the word.
Talliesin,
I won't hit all your points, but there was one I thought I should really respond to.
The difference between initiation and initiation ceremony is an argument I have ONLY heard from Traditionally initiated Wiccans, which is a prime reason why I give the argument as much weight as I do.
What is this initiation, separate to the initiation ceremony, into?