The Basics Of Wicca
First, let me give you my Basics of Wicca write-up, which is my own take on Wicca based on 13 years of practice. It will suggest a couple of truly informative books for you to read. Wicca is a very complex faith, which embraces widely varying practices and many different Traditions. The following, however, is what I consider to be “the basics”. Wicca is about 60 years old, with roots in Masonic practices, ceremonial magic, and the Romantic era’s ideas of classical religions. Its founder was a British civil servant named Gerald Gardner.
It is in many ways a postmodern faith, embracing religious relativism, and one that resonates powerfully for increasing numbers of people.
The central tenet of the Wicca religion is the Wicca Rede: “If you harm none, do what you will.” This is a deceptively simple “commandment” which can take a lifetime to contemplate and to master. Many Wicca’s also believe in the Law of Threefold Return, sometimes called the Rule of Three: “Whatever you do, for good or ill, will come back upon you three times over.”
Wicca”s honor Deity as both male and female, god and goddess or at the very least as goddess. Many Wicca’s believe that the universe is the body of god/goddess, and therefore that all things contain divine energy and that the world itself is sacred. Some Wicca’s are polytheists, many god /goddesses, others are duo theists, god and goddess, of whom all other gods and goddesses are simply aspects, others are monotheists, god and goddess themselves are simply aspects of an unknowable Source.
Wicca’s generally do not believe that god/goddess is separate from the world; therefore, we have no concept of salvation, since god/goddess is