What the Craft is to me...

Wicca is a form of paganism, "the Old Religion". Wicca is an ancient form of worship whereby people worship the earth from whence they came, and celebrate the cycles of the earth. We recognise that there cannot be a "great father" without a "great mother" and the balance of male and female energies is important..

Belief

Most Wiccans perceive the "divine force" of the universe as a Goddess and a God. The Goddess and God are known by many names, which may seem confusing, but each name is an aspect of the one divine being. All Goddesses are one Goddess, and all Gods are the one God. The God and Goddess can be found in everything, their essence is in us and everything else they created.

The Goddess is represented by the moon, and the God by the Sun. The "Triple Goddess" can be seen in the cycles of the moon; that is, the maiden is seen as the moon is waxing, the full moon represents the mother, and the crone can be found in the waning moon. Each cycle of the moon represents the death and rebirth of the Goddess. Reincarnation is an accepted part of most Wiccan belief.

The cycle of the seasons represents the birth, death and rebirth of the God. The Goddess gives birth to the God at Yule (midwinter). Through the year he grows and strengthens, then at midsummer begins to weaken. At Samhaine he dies, to be reborn at Yule.

The Wiccan Rede

There are very few "rules" with witchcraft; the wiccan rede, and the threefold law are the major ones. The wiccan rede states: An' it harm none, do as thou will. Therefore there is no such thing as an "evil" or "black" witch, as this would contravene the main law of witchcraft. People who perform magick to harm others are not witches.

A problem I believe that is prevalent in Christianity is that a lot of people say they are Christians, but they do not live the life of one who follows the words of Christ. They may turn up to church every Sunday, and for all the holy days, but unless they live their life by following the teachings of Christ, I don't believe they have the right to call themselves a Christian. Likewise with Wiccans. There are many people who call themselves Wiccans who break the first rule, "An it harm none". These people may consider themselves to be "black" witches, or even "grey" witches, but in truth they are not witches at all. Of course I am not perfect, I do make mistakes, a lot I might add, but it is never my intention to harm anybody or anything else in this universe, and this is how I live my life. I do not litter the earth, I do my best to conserve it's resources, I try to live in harmony with my fellow human beings, and brothers and sisters of the animal world, and I always consider the consequences of my actions.

This leads on to the threefold law, which states that what one gives out returns threefold. Therefore, if you do good, you receive that back threefold, and if you do harm, it returns to you threefold. Naturally one may unintentionally do harm whilst practising magick, and therefore you must be very clear in what you ask for, and it doesn't hurt to add "....provided it harms none" to your spells and magick work.

Wicca is a nature-loving religion. It is not our intention to recruit new members, we realise that all people must find their own path. We do not intend to overthrow Christianity or any other religion. We enjoy peace. We do not have a priest who preaches to us of what me must and mustn't do, instead each one of us is a priest or priestess, and we follow our heart and soul for what is right and what is wrong. And most importantly we harm none.