A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: Witches Gather by Elvenking

So, you’ve stumbled across Wicca, paganism, and witchcraft. You’re curious, maybe because you want to practice, maybe because you have a more academic interest in it, maybe because you’re a fundamentalist Christian and want to discredit those pesky demonic heathens who are just mad at your god. (I don’t judge, just remember to play nice.)

Either way, welcome. This is the first in a series of posts on the similarities and differences between the three things. I will be trying my best to separate my own beliefs from the more formal academic parts of these, but as I am a pagan and have my own beliefs in this area, that will play into anything I write on these topics and will almost certainly come through.

Now that the disclaimer on my own biases surrounding these topics, I want to remind everyone who may read this to be kind to each other. This isn’t the place to be rude about anyone else’s religion. This is just a basic overview on the topics of Wiccan beliefs and practices, pagan beliefs and practices, witchcraft, and the differences between them.

Alright, all that out of the way, let’s get into the actual meat and potatoes of this topic and start with some definitions.

Merriam-Webster defines Wicca as “a religion influenced by pre-Christian beliefs and practices of western Europe that affirms the existence of supernatural power (such as magic) and of both male and female deities who inhere in nature and that emphasizes ritual observance of seasonal and life cycles.”

Wicca – Merriam-Webster

They define paganism in three (3) different ways:

“1: spiritual beliefs other than those of Judaism, Islam, or especially Christianity: such as

“a: the spiritual beliefs and practices of ancient polytheistic religions

“b: the beliefs and practices of contemporary religions or spiritual movements based on ancient paganism

“2: the religion based on paganism

“3: the quality or state of being a pagan”

Paganism – Merriam-Webster

To give the above definition a bit more context, they define “pagan” (noun) as:

“1: a person who practices a contemporary form of paganism: Neo-pagan

“2 a (old fashioned and offensive): a person who is not religious or whose religion is not Judaism, Islam, or especially Christianity: heathen

“b (history): a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome or Greece)

“3 (literary): one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods: a nonreligious hedonistic person”

Pagan – Merriam-Webster

Witchcraft is often defined in pagan circles as the following:

“Rituals and practices that incorporate belief in magic and that are associated especially with neo-pagan traditions and religions”

Witchcraft (definition 2) – Merriam-Webster

With that chunk of definitions out of the way, what are the differences and similarities?

Paganism, as an overall category, covers a wide variety of practices and beliefs form a wide variety of cultures, like the veneration of gods like Venus and Mars among ancient Romans and modern Roman pagans, or the celebration of Midsummer in Scandinavia originating as a pagan celebration of the summer solstice and traditional midpoint of harvest (Midsummer – Britannica).

Wicca is a type of paganism and the largest of the neo-pagan religions. One of the most common practices is the belief in and veneration of a male god and a female goddess, with some only believing in the goddess (Washington State Department of Corrections). As an aside, some trans pagans I’ve spoken to have been personally deterred from looking into Wicca as a religion due to this duality, as have I, though by my understanding, most Wiccans are very accepting of queer people in general.

The main difference between paganism in general and Wicca specifically is that Wicca, while still a form of paganism, is a lot more specific in its beliefs and practices than the rest of paganism, due to its dualistic practice (having the God and Goddess) where paganism as a whole, especially outside of Wicca, will look very different from person to person, from specific pantheons or deities the person works with, to the specific high days they consider more or less important, even to how they celebrate each high day and which ones they celebrate. Not celebrating all of the high days or placing more importance on certain high days over others is more common in parts of the world like Scandinavia or potentially even parts of Canada, where the difference between the summer solstice and the winter solstice is far more drastic than it would be in other parts of the world.

So what’s my personal perspective on it?

I’ve already given bits of my opinion throughout up to this point, but I want to be more direct about it here. So here’s my opinion on Wicca: it exists.

I feel a little weird about it overall, especially considering there have been some controversies surrounding stealing from closed practices, but that also exists within the broader pagan community, as well as the broader witchcraft community, and should be called out whenever possible.

However, when it comes to Wiccans themselves, I do the same as I would with people from any other religion; I judge them on an individual basis and treat them with respect.

Closing words

As I am not an expert on religions and am just some guy on the internet, this post shouldn’t be taken as full facts and should instead be taken for what it is: an overview on a specific religion from someone whose religion is similar.

That being said, I hope this was helpful and let me know if you want to see more things like this in the future.