Post by KittyLane on May 18, 2007 7:39:34 GMT -5
Kinds of Witchcraft
There are folk who claim to be Hereditary Witches, with an unbroken family tradition, passed down through the generations by their ancestors from the ancient Pagan Mysteries; many of these do not consider their traditions Wiccan; some others have admitted that they only began using the term Wicca to describe their family traditions because what they'd read about Gardnerian beliefs and practices fit more or less closely with their own beliefs and practices. Hereditaries are also often referred to as FamTrad, or Family Traditionalists - a Tradition passed down within the family and hence by hereditary descent.
There are folk who call themselves Traditional Witches, that claim unbroken descent from the ancient Pagan Mysteries either by Initiation into a surviving magicko-religious Tradition or by having been "adopted" into a Hereditary Family Tradition (that "adoption" itself being a form of Initiation); some of these consider themselves Wiccan, although some of them agree they only began using the term Wicca to describe their traditions because what they had read about Gardnerian beliefs and practices fit more or less closely with their own beliefs and practices.
The Gardnerian Tradition is the name given to the body of ritual, belief, magickal practices and training techniques inherited by the initiatory descendents of Gerald B. Gardner. Gardner told of having been initiated into a surviving Coven of Traditional Witches in the New Forest by "Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck in 1939; which makes Gardnerian Wicca a branch of Traditional Witchcraft. There are those who claim that it was Gardner who revived the use of the word Wicca; Gardner claimed otherwise, stating the word was used by the New Forest Coven into which he was initiated. (1) In his book The Meaning of Witchcraft, first published in 1959, he wrote,
"I realised that I had stumbled upon something interesting; but I was half-initiated before the word, 'Wica' which they used hit me like a thunderbolt, and I knew where I was, and that the Old Religion still existed. And so I found myself in the Circle, and there took the usual oath of secrecy, which bound me not to reveal certain things." (2)
Gerald B. Gardner, The Meaning of Witchcraft
The Alexandrian Tradition was hived off from the Gardnerian by Alex Sanders; Alex claimed to have been initiated as a Hereditary Witch by his grandmother, when he was seven years old. While this is a romantic story, the fact is that Alex wrote to Gardnerian High Priestess Pat Crowther saying that "To be a witch is something that I have always wanted - and yet I have never found anyone who could help me." (3) Crowther refused to initiate Sanders; but a letter from Pat Kopanksi to Gerald Gardner exists, in which she informs Gardner of Alex's initiation. (4) Kopanski, initiated by the Crowthers, had split away from them over personality conflicts.
British Traditional Witchcraft refers to those Traditions tracing descent from a Hereditary, or Traditional, British source and includes not only the Gardnerian and the Alexandrian Traditions and their branches and offshoots but also several others derived from British sources such as Sybil Leek's Horsa Coven in the New Forest, Plant Bran, and the Clan of Tubal Cain of "Robert Cochrane". Some Brit Trad Witches consider the term Wicca a synonym for British Traditional Witchcraft, while others reserve the term Wicca for the Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions and their offshoots and consider Wicca to be a wholly-contained subset within British Traditional Witchcraft. (5)
The term British Traditional Wicca is sometimes used, more commonly in the U.S. than Britain and elsewhere, to refer specifically to the Gardnerian and the Alexandrian Traditions, and those Trads that have hived off from them (who thus claim initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner, or from Alex and Maxine Sanders, or both) and whose body of ritual, belief, magickal practices, and training techniques derives directly from the body of Lore passed on by "Old Gerald". Brit Trad Wiccans experience the same Mysteries, using substantially the same rituals and techniques. Variations may exist between individual Covens, Lineages and Traditions but it is the same Initiatory Mystery Path. From a Brit Trad Wiccan viewpoint,
Wicca is an Initiatory, Oathbound, Magick-using, Pagan Mystery Priesthood celebrating the Mysteries contained in the
Legend of the Descent of the Goddess and in the Charge of the Goddess.
There are groups that have no initiatory connection to Gardner or Sanders, but who have based their rituals and practices on what has been published about the Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions; they therefore follow a basically Gardnerian/Alexandrian system. These groups are also sometimes described as British Traditional Wicca, although this usage is generally found only in the U.S., and that term is rarely used that way by British Traditional Witches themselves, who regard descent, whether by birth, or by Initiation or Initiatory adoption, as essential to being "of the Blood", and therefore to being "of the Wicca". For some of these groups the name American Traditionalist Witchcraft may be more accurate while others would be more accurately called American Eclectic Witchcraft.
American Eclectic Wicca is sometimes used to refer to a broad range of individuals or groups that have based their philosophy, rituals and practices on the published works of such modern American Witches as Scott Cunningham and StarHawk. Often American Eclectics take the curious and contradictory position that Wicca is a completely modern religion created by Gerald Gardner but that the beliefs and practices of Wicca are completely individualistic, and therefore nobody can define "Wicca" for others. (6) In general, American Eclectics emphasize spontaneity and tend to downplay the importance of such concepts as Oaths, Initiations, Lineage, and Tradition, or even to discard those concepts altogether. For most of these people and groups, the name Wicca is inappropriate; American Eclectic Witchcraft is far more accurate.
Welsh (or other ethnic or cultural group) Traditional Wicca or Witchcraft refers to the many Traditions claiming to descend from, or claiming to have revived, the forms and symbolisms and lore of the various ethnic or cultural sources around which they base their practices. Many of these seem to be a "Brit-Trad Wicca" format with an ethnic/cultural veneer; though that "Brit-Trad Wicca" format may be a recent development grafted onto genuinely surviving lore and practices, which is in fact what some have described as having occurred.
Notes:
1. It has been argued that Gerald invented this story to support his "invention" of "Wicca"; but Gerald actually used the word very infrequently in his published works; and when he did do so, he used it with the meaning of "British Witches".
2. Gardner habitually spelled it "wica", with only one "c", perhaps because he only heard it rather than read it, perhaps only a variant spelling. Although the "c" or "cc" should actually be pronounced "ch", pronouncing the word "wick-uh" has become most common.
3. Quoted by Doreen Valiente in The Rebirth Of Witchcraft
4. This letter is now in a private collection.
5. Some Brit Trad Witches (both Gardnerian and non-Gardnerian) hold that only the Initiatory Descendents of Gardner are "the Wicca", having inherited that name, and the Initiatory Lineage, directly from the Wicca of Old Dorothy's New Forest Coven. It is worth noting in this regard that Sybil Leek, who spoke of there being four New Forest Covens including her own Horsa Coven, also used the word "Wicca" (as did Gardner) to mean Brit Trad Witches/Witchcraft.
6. This argument that "Since Gardner created the word, nobody has the right to define it for anyone else" is contradictory indeed, since surely those who inherited the practices from the alleged creator have the right to define what they inherited. To claim "Anyone who identifies her/himself as Wiccan is really Wiccan" lacks definition; in fact, it would allow any definition whatsoever and thus would effectively render the word "Wicca" meaningless and therefore incapable of conveying any real information about someone who thus identified themselves.
www.starkindler.org/witch.html
There are folk who claim to be Hereditary Witches, with an unbroken family tradition, passed down through the generations by their ancestors from the ancient Pagan Mysteries; many of these do not consider their traditions Wiccan; some others have admitted that they only began using the term Wicca to describe their family traditions because what they'd read about Gardnerian beliefs and practices fit more or less closely with their own beliefs and practices. Hereditaries are also often referred to as FamTrad, or Family Traditionalists - a Tradition passed down within the family and hence by hereditary descent.
There are folk who call themselves Traditional Witches, that claim unbroken descent from the ancient Pagan Mysteries either by Initiation into a surviving magicko-religious Tradition or by having been "adopted" into a Hereditary Family Tradition (that "adoption" itself being a form of Initiation); some of these consider themselves Wiccan, although some of them agree they only began using the term Wicca to describe their traditions because what they had read about Gardnerian beliefs and practices fit more or less closely with their own beliefs and practices.
The Gardnerian Tradition is the name given to the body of ritual, belief, magickal practices and training techniques inherited by the initiatory descendents of Gerald B. Gardner. Gardner told of having been initiated into a surviving Coven of Traditional Witches in the New Forest by "Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck in 1939; which makes Gardnerian Wicca a branch of Traditional Witchcraft. There are those who claim that it was Gardner who revived the use of the word Wicca; Gardner claimed otherwise, stating the word was used by the New Forest Coven into which he was initiated. (1) In his book The Meaning of Witchcraft, first published in 1959, he wrote,
"I realised that I had stumbled upon something interesting; but I was half-initiated before the word, 'Wica' which they used hit me like a thunderbolt, and I knew where I was, and that the Old Religion still existed. And so I found myself in the Circle, and there took the usual oath of secrecy, which bound me not to reveal certain things." (2)
Gerald B. Gardner, The Meaning of Witchcraft
The Alexandrian Tradition was hived off from the Gardnerian by Alex Sanders; Alex claimed to have been initiated as a Hereditary Witch by his grandmother, when he was seven years old. While this is a romantic story, the fact is that Alex wrote to Gardnerian High Priestess Pat Crowther saying that "To be a witch is something that I have always wanted - and yet I have never found anyone who could help me." (3) Crowther refused to initiate Sanders; but a letter from Pat Kopanksi to Gerald Gardner exists, in which she informs Gardner of Alex's initiation. (4) Kopanski, initiated by the Crowthers, had split away from them over personality conflicts.
British Traditional Witchcraft refers to those Traditions tracing descent from a Hereditary, or Traditional, British source and includes not only the Gardnerian and the Alexandrian Traditions and their branches and offshoots but also several others derived from British sources such as Sybil Leek's Horsa Coven in the New Forest, Plant Bran, and the Clan of Tubal Cain of "Robert Cochrane". Some Brit Trad Witches consider the term Wicca a synonym for British Traditional Witchcraft, while others reserve the term Wicca for the Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions and their offshoots and consider Wicca to be a wholly-contained subset within British Traditional Witchcraft. (5)
The term British Traditional Wicca is sometimes used, more commonly in the U.S. than Britain and elsewhere, to refer specifically to the Gardnerian and the Alexandrian Traditions, and those Trads that have hived off from them (who thus claim initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner, or from Alex and Maxine Sanders, or both) and whose body of ritual, belief, magickal practices, and training techniques derives directly from the body of Lore passed on by "Old Gerald". Brit Trad Wiccans experience the same Mysteries, using substantially the same rituals and techniques. Variations may exist between individual Covens, Lineages and Traditions but it is the same Initiatory Mystery Path. From a Brit Trad Wiccan viewpoint,
Wicca is an Initiatory, Oathbound, Magick-using, Pagan Mystery Priesthood celebrating the Mysteries contained in the
Legend of the Descent of the Goddess and in the Charge of the Goddess.
There are groups that have no initiatory connection to Gardner or Sanders, but who have based their rituals and practices on what has been published about the Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions; they therefore follow a basically Gardnerian/Alexandrian system. These groups are also sometimes described as British Traditional Wicca, although this usage is generally found only in the U.S., and that term is rarely used that way by British Traditional Witches themselves, who regard descent, whether by birth, or by Initiation or Initiatory adoption, as essential to being "of the Blood", and therefore to being "of the Wicca". For some of these groups the name American Traditionalist Witchcraft may be more accurate while others would be more accurately called American Eclectic Witchcraft.
American Eclectic Wicca is sometimes used to refer to a broad range of individuals or groups that have based their philosophy, rituals and practices on the published works of such modern American Witches as Scott Cunningham and StarHawk. Often American Eclectics take the curious and contradictory position that Wicca is a completely modern religion created by Gerald Gardner but that the beliefs and practices of Wicca are completely individualistic, and therefore nobody can define "Wicca" for others. (6) In general, American Eclectics emphasize spontaneity and tend to downplay the importance of such concepts as Oaths, Initiations, Lineage, and Tradition, or even to discard those concepts altogether. For most of these people and groups, the name Wicca is inappropriate; American Eclectic Witchcraft is far more accurate.
Welsh (or other ethnic or cultural group) Traditional Wicca or Witchcraft refers to the many Traditions claiming to descend from, or claiming to have revived, the forms and symbolisms and lore of the various ethnic or cultural sources around which they base their practices. Many of these seem to be a "Brit-Trad Wicca" format with an ethnic/cultural veneer; though that "Brit-Trad Wicca" format may be a recent development grafted onto genuinely surviving lore and practices, which is in fact what some have described as having occurred.
Notes:
1. It has been argued that Gerald invented this story to support his "invention" of "Wicca"; but Gerald actually used the word very infrequently in his published works; and when he did do so, he used it with the meaning of "British Witches".
2. Gardner habitually spelled it "wica", with only one "c", perhaps because he only heard it rather than read it, perhaps only a variant spelling. Although the "c" or "cc" should actually be pronounced "ch", pronouncing the word "wick-uh" has become most common.
3. Quoted by Doreen Valiente in The Rebirth Of Witchcraft
4. This letter is now in a private collection.
5. Some Brit Trad Witches (both Gardnerian and non-Gardnerian) hold that only the Initiatory Descendents of Gardner are "the Wicca", having inherited that name, and the Initiatory Lineage, directly from the Wicca of Old Dorothy's New Forest Coven. It is worth noting in this regard that Sybil Leek, who spoke of there being four New Forest Covens including her own Horsa Coven, also used the word "Wicca" (as did Gardner) to mean Brit Trad Witches/Witchcraft.
6. This argument that "Since Gardner created the word, nobody has the right to define it for anyone else" is contradictory indeed, since surely those who inherited the practices from the alleged creator have the right to define what they inherited. To claim "Anyone who identifies her/himself as Wiccan is really Wiccan" lacks definition; in fact, it would allow any definition whatsoever and thus would effectively render the word "Wicca" meaningless and therefore incapable of conveying any real information about someone who thus identified themselves.
www.starkindler.org/witch.html
