10 Modern-day Myths about Wicca

Okay, so there's a lot of information out there about Wicca today. And there are a lot of pieces of MISinformation that get tossed around as the truth. Some of them I'm sick of. I've made a list of them so people can inform themselves.

  1. "Wicca is an Ancient Religion."

    Wicca itself is not ancient. It was created by a man named Gerald Gardner back in the 1940s. While Wicca works with ancient Gods and Goddesses and stresses a return to celebrating the traditional cycle of the seasons, there is no reason to believe that anyone in Pre-Christian Europe practiced the way we do today.

  2. "Nine Million Wiccans were burned at the stake during the Burning Times."

    See (1) above. Wicca does not date back to the witch hunts and the Inquisition, so therefore no Wiccans could have been burned. Most of the people killed were innocents who were too beautiful, had too much land, had gotten into a fight with the wrong person, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time (for example, any small town in England that a paid witch hunter decided to visit.) While it's true that some practitioners of older folk religions were likely burned/tortured/killed for their beliefs, they were not "Wiccans" or "Witches" as the Neo-Pagan movement defines it. And while no real numbers are known, 9 million is an exaggerated figure at best.

  3. "You have to be initiated to be a Real Witch."

    If anyone tells you this they are lying (alternately, this person has been lied to and is repeating this lie). There are two things that initiating into a coven will do: (1) it will start you working with the energy of a group (2) it will connect you with that particular tradition of Wicca. It is not a requirement to work with a group in Wicca, there is no "Power of Three" (as in the television show "Charmed") or "Power of Four" (as in the movie The Craft) necessary for practice.

  4. "The three-fold law is exact."

    The three-fold law is not to be taken as literal truth. If you steal three apples from Bonnie, it doesn't mean that Bob is going to steal nine apples from you later on. Energy just doesn't work that way. Basically what the three-fold law means is that if you send crap out, you get crap back. Conversely, if you send out good energy, you get energy back. There are many debates as to the degree the energy comes back. I've heard three times, one, nine and ten. The debate rages on.

  5. "Wiccans only practice white magic."

    Put simply, there is no such thing as "white" magic, or "black" magic, or magic of any colour. To practice magic is to move energy to create a desired result. Think of it as electricity -- you can use it to power a toaster or light a room or electrocute someone, but there's no "black" or "white" electricity.

    Some people might argue that the intended result is "black" or "white", but normally the result is not so clear-cut. If I do a spell to bring love into my life, the effect could most certainly be bad if the relationship sours in a few years. A spell asking for more money would be terrible if the money came because a loved one died and left an inheritance.

  6. "Wicca is all about harming nothing and no one."

    The Wiccan rede does state "An it harm none, do as ye will". However, this is an absolutely impossible goal to live up to. If I do a spell to cure a friend of cancer, I'm killing the cancer. If I move energy to get myself a job, I'm taking the job away from someone else -- maybe even someone who needed it more than me. Anything you do can -- and does -- cause harm without you even realizing it.

    Then there's the issue of greater harm -- sometimes it's impossible to not hurt anyone, ever. For example, if I witness a murder and my testimony puts the murderer in jail, I may have "harmed" that person by helping to take his or her liberty away. However, I've acted toward the greater good. This person is not free to kill again.

    Most Wiccans of my acquaintance regard the rede as a guideline reminding them to consider the potential consequences of their actions rather than acting on impulse.

  7. "You need to cast spells to be Wiccan."

    In fact, there are some Wiccans who don't cast spells at all. Wiccans work to attune themselves with the energies of the world around them. Casting spells is not necessarily part of this.

  8. "Wicca is the fastest growing religion in North America."

    I see this one in a lot of newspaper articles. The trouble is, I have yet to see any evidence that this is so, or the study that this factoid came from. It's one of those facts that everyone "just knows". It sounds really good, but that doesn't make it true.

  9. "You have to be given your tarot cards or they won't work."

    This one isn't Wicca-specific but I ran across it enough times in my studies that I feel it's worth a mention here.

    Folks, your cards come off an assembly line unless you draw them yourself. That's a fact. Whether they're given to you or not, they're still plastic-wrapped cards in a plastic-wrapped box until you make them otherwise. The best thing you can do is pick a deck that you like. What makes it yours is using it, and any spellwork you do to attune it to your particular energy.

  10. "The Goddess is more important than the God."

    For the most part Wicca venerates the God and Goddess equally. They are two parts of a universal energy. Neither can exist without the other, just as none of us could exist without having a mother and a father. The universe is divided into opposites. Male/Female, Yin/Yang, Light/Dark, Day/Night, Left/Right Up/Down. Neither is more important than the other. All of them must be kept in balance.

    There are some traditions which honour the Goddess to the near or complete exclusion of the God but these traditions don't represent all of Wicca.

Ten is actually an arbitrary number. There are lots of silly statements out there about the Craft and about Wicca. These are just the ones I've heard the most, that really bothered me. The trick is to use your brain. If it sounds like it shouldn't be true, generally it isn't.

If you'd heard something about Wicca you'd like clarified, or there's a myth you'd like to see included in this list, please e-mail me.

 

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