Wicca & Witchcraft
Please Note: Our Wicca and Witchcraft section is deliberately streamlined as all things witchy are covered in depth at our sister web site Wiccan World.
The exact origin of Wicca is unclear. Wicca is a belief system as well as a way of life. Wicca requires a belief in the God and Goddess (unlike Witchcraft which requires no belief in God or Goddess but is simply a learned craft and is often referred to as "The Craft"). As practitioners of both Wicca and Witchcraft are called Witches there is understandably a lot of confusion to the uninitiated. Male Witches incidentally, are still Witches and are not referred to as Warlocks.
Wicca itself has its roots as a very simple "homegrown" religion the origins of which date back several thousand years long before the term Wicca came into being. It was a faith for those who not only lived close to the earth but knew it intimately. Practitioners were wholly in tune with its ebb and flow.
Most practitioners of that time were solitary Witches, who from choice, chose to do their worship and spell work on their own. Others worked within their close-knit family groups. Magick was usually performed with simple items that were readily available. The approach back then was far more simplistic than it is nowadays. Gathering many herbs and using elaborate or complex tools to perform a particular spell was just not practicable.
Modern Wicca (possibly started in the 1930's by Gerald Gardner) has become far more involved and complex. Nowadays many modern Witches choose spells and rituals which are extraordinarily elaborate and complex. Not all, however, some still choose to use the more simple and basic spells and rituals and find them to be just as effective.
It is entirely your choice whether to simplify (as in times gone by) your magical spells and rituals, or to use a more elaborate approach. There is no right way and wrong way.
The information contained within our Wiccan pages has been gathered from a variety of sources. Some of it was provided by our Wiccan visitors, some gathered from the Internet and/or various books and texts.