Wiccan views of divinity

This page has been split from a larger and more general article on Wicca.

Triple Goddess symbol of waxing, full and waning moon

Wiccan views of divinity coalesce around a Goddess and God, with the Goddess sometimes given primacy. Some Wiccans are polytheists while others would believe that 'All the Goddesses are one Goddess, and all the Gods one God'. Some see divinity as having a real, external existence; others see the Goddesses and Gods as archetypes or thoughtforms.

The Goddess is frequently seen as having a triple aspect (maiden, mother and crone) and the God a double aspect (young, growing Oak King and older, declining Holly King.) A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests.

Gardnerian Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God. The Lady and Lord (as they are often called) are seen as primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet they are also familiar figures who comfort and nurture their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.

Goddesses and Gods

According to Gerald Gardner the gods of Wicca are ancient gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death and magic who rules over an after-world paradise (Often referred to as The Summerland), and a goddess, the Great Mother (who is simultaneously the Eternal Virgin and the Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth to souls of the dead and love to the living. Gardner explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches, just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and Osiris and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher than any of these tribal gods is recognised by the witches as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little concern to them.

Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since priests and priestesses develop their own relationships with the gods through intense personal work and revelation. Many have a duotheistic conception of deity as a Goddess (of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and the animal realm). This concept is often extended into a kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this pair (or of the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and goddesses to be separate and distinct. Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone have observed that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, and embracing a more traditional pagan worldview. Many groups and individuals are drawn to particular deities from a variety of pantheons (often Celtic, Greek, or from elsewhere in Europe), whom they honour specifically. Some examples are Cernunnos and Brigit from Celtic mythology, Hecate, Lugh, and Diana.

Some Wiccans, particularly in feminist traditions, have a monotheistic belief in the Goddess as One. Still others do not believe in the gods as real personalities, yet attempt to have a relationship with them as personifications of universal principles or as Jungian archetypes. Some Wiccans conceive deities as akin to thoughtforms. A unified supreme godhead (the "Prime Mover") is also acknowledged by some groups, referred to by Scott Cunningham as "The One"; Patricia Crowther has called it Dryghten.

According to current Gardnerian Wiccans, the exact names of the Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory secret, and they are not given in Gardner's books about witchcraft. However, the collection of Toronto Papers of Gardner's writings has been investigated by American scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion that their names are Cernunnos and Aradia. These are the names used in the prototype Book of Shadows known as Ye Bok of Ye Arte Magical.

For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as complementary polarities: male and female, force and form, comprehending all in their union; the tension and interplay between them is the basis of all creation, and this balance is seen in much of nature. The God and Goddess are sometimes symbolised as the Sun and Moon, and from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother" and "Crone" corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.

Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of her more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of the coven, wherein "the High Priestess is the leader, with the High Priest as her partner; he acknowledges her primacy and supports and complements her leadership with the qualities of his own polarity." In some traditions, notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not worshipped at all.

Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key understanding conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to the Hermetic understanding that "God" contains all things, and in truth is all things. For some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism, and plants, rivers, rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as spiritual beings, facets of a single life.

A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of the ritual of Drawing down the Moon (or Drawing down the Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the body of the Priestess (or the God into the Priest) to effect divine possession.

The elements

The classical elements are a key feature of the Wiccan world-view. Every manifest force or form is seen to express one of the four archetypal elements — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — or several in combination. This scheme is fundamentally identical with that employed in other Western Esoteric and Hermetic traditions, such as Theosophy and the Golden Dawn, which in turn were influenced by the Hindu system of tattvas.

There is no consensus as to the exact nature of these elements. Some hold to the ancient Greek conception of the elements corresponding to matter (earth) and energy (fire), with the mediating elements (water, air) relating to the phases of matter (fire/earth mixtures). Other exponents of the system add a fifth or quintessential element, spirit (aether, akasha).

The five points of the frequently worn pentagram symbolise, among other things, the four elements with spirit presiding at the top. The pentagram is the symbol most commonly associated with Wicca in modern times. It is often circumscribed — depicted within a circle — and is usually (though not exclusively) shown with a single point upward. The inverse pentagram, with two points up, is a symbol of the second degree initiation rite of traditional Wicca; some Wiccans have alternatively been known to associate the inverted pentagram with evil. In geometry, the pentagram is an elegant expression of the golden ratio phi which is popularly connected with ideal beauty and was considered by the Pythagoreans to express truths about the hidden nature of existence.

In the casting of a magic circle, the four cardinal elements are visualised as contributing their influence from the four cardinal directions: Air in the east, Fire in the south, Water in the west and Earth in the north. There may be variations between groups though, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, since these attributions are symbolic of (amongst other things) the path of the sun through the daytime sky. For example, in southern latitudes the sun reaches its hottest point in the northern part of the sky, and north is the direction of the Tropics, so this is commonly the direction given to Fire.

Some Wiccan groups also modify the religious calendar to reflect local seasonal changes; for instance, most Southern Hemisphere covens celebrate Samhain on April 30th and Beltane on October 31st, reflecting the southern hemisphere's autumn and spring seasons.

Deity and man

In order to define the relationship between deity and man (and woman, we shouldn't forget them), it's important to understand the previous sections wich variously describes Deity :

• First : as existant but non creational (the prime-mover is)
• Second : as a variant energy consisting of a personality
• Third : as a thought-form
• Finally : as a dead-living spirit

In such a way of thinking, a wiccan witch (pagan, etc) would consider obvious that each of them is a constituant of the main energy, but that the Godess and the God - are religious ruling spirits to be honoured and all : OR / AND : they are simply Jungian thoughtforms - who can offer their presence in numerous ways. There is indeed psychology in relationships with humanity, religion and / or (again) Deities wich makes it usefull to have a such special religious way of thinking.

According to this, the presence of the gods (to be simple) is a necessity in the relationship. When such a believer finds a presence in and most of the time unpredicted or unexplicated way of such an energy, their beliefs are to get something in exchange of the devotion they apply to the deity. This relationship that is installed in the process of learning the witche's way is defined in these simples rules (in the gardnerian way, by principle)

1-An' it harm none, do what you will. Known as the wiccan rede. (If you hurt nobody, you are free) 2-The threefold law (Everything you'll be doing will come back to the three times)

This means the goddess, god, energy, thoughtforms, (and so on), in order to be honoured should accomplish anything requested that is in her power. But if bad should be expected to outcome, the summoner / caster / invoker / magician (and so on) will be forced to received thrice the effect.

Psychology of the relationship

In this active relationship, it is way impartial to say : You should act for good in order to be loved by the gods for they will and probably should be "marketing" happiness with you. In such a way, it is a power synergy that is the relationship. It is also impartial to say, whoever you choose as a god (and in most occidental countries, everybody's free to do so), you should expect to choose a happiness marketer, be it the Christian God, or the Wiccan Godess. In such a perspective first, wiccans are generally liberals to the faith of other religious folks, and second that : choosing a new god/ess results in a different life bound with a new paradigm or point of view.

It is clear that from the wiccan movement, anybody can retract, but it is unclear actually if a wiccan, can truly forget the god/ess he claimed as his / her. And will "it" forget him? That is also unclear. Of course, we tend to think that forgetting the thoughtform makes the magic go away ; but as memory stays, we can not forget what was that magical life we had before, for those whose it was magical.

See also

• Wicca
• Magic (paranormal)
• Magick
• New Age
• Witchcraft

Bibliographical and encyclopedic sources

• Raymond Buckland, The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 2002).
• Anne Carson, Goddesses and Wise Women: The Literature of Feminist Spirituality 1980-1992 An Annotated Bibliography (Freedom, California: Crossing Press, 1992).
• Chas S. Clifton and Graham Harvey, The Paganism Reader, New York and London: Routledge, 2004.
• James R. Lewis, Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1999).
• J. Gordon Melton and Isotta Poggi, Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America: A Bibliography, 2nd ed., (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992).
• Shelly Rabinovitch and James R. Lewis, eds., The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism (New York: Kensington Publishing, 2002).

Academic studies

• Nikki Bado-Fralick, Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initiation Ritual (Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America (AltaMira Press, 2006)
• Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999)
• Laura Jenkins (Otago University press, 2007)
• Zoe Bourke (Otago University press, 2007)
• Helen A. Berger, A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999).
• Jon P. Bloch, New Spirituality, Self, and Belonging: How New Agers and Neo-Pagans Talk About Themselves (Westport: Praeger, 1998).
• Graham Harvey, Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth (New York: New York University Press, 1997).
• Lynne Hume, Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1997).
• James R. Lewis, ed., Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
• T. M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (London: Picador, 1994).
• Sabina Magliocco, Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)
• Joanne Pearson, Richard H. Roberts and Geoffrey Samuel, eds., Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998).
• Sarah M. Pike, Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001).
• Kathryn Rountree, Embracing the witch and the goddess: Feminist Ritual-Makers in New Zealand (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).
• Jone Salomonsen, Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).
• Allen Scarboro, Nancy Campbell, Shirely Stave, Living Witchcraft: A Contemporary American Coven (Praeger Publishers, 1994) [1]