War Goddess.net - Diluting Wicca, by Enyo Perseus

Diluting Wicca, by Enyo Perseus

If you've read my first essay, "Why I am Not a Wiccan", then you've found how the traditionalist views Wicca. How, you wonder, did the word Wicca get so muddied and polluted?

There are two authors published by Llewellyn whom I hold the most responsible for the present dilution of the word Wicca. This is not to say that all books by Llewellyn are bad, nor is it to say that all works by these authors is bad. However, they are part of the problem.

Scott Cunningham Yes, Scott Cunningham was an initiated Wiccan. Yes, Scott Cunningham wrote some very useful books. But I believe that his two books Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner and Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner are actually, in its present forms, huge disservices to the Pagan community.

The books have some useful information. I recommend them to newbies, if I think they can handle the less-than-ideal way that the information is marketed. If the books were called something other than Wicca, I'd probably think that they're great. Unfortunately, Cunningham, a traditionalist, started the bastardization of Wicca when he declared in A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner that Wicca is whatever you want it to be, as long as it involves two deities and magick.

Cunningham oversimplifies to a fault, and focuses strictly on the light, fluffy, cotton-candy aspects of dealing with the occult, and markets it as Wicca. He denies the importance of tradition by saying that you can initiate yourself. He glosses over things and gives an incomplete picture. To be fair, there was a limit to how much the departed Mr. Cunningham could publish without violating his oaths. While I respect that he did not violate his oaths, I cannot respect his fathering a watered-down version of what Gerald B. Gardner began fifty years ago, referred to as Eclectic Wicca. Scott Cunningham failed to teach his readers what Gardner founded: an initiatory, mystery-based priesthood and tradition. To imply otherwise is, I feel, a disservice.

I do firmly believe that Scott Cunningham's books are good things and should have been published, but I do not believe that they should have been published under the subject heading of "Wicca". It's something new, and something different. Perhaps it should have been, upon publication, recognized as such. Had it been given the title of "Eclectic Paganism" or "The Modern Pagan" or something else, I think the results would have been equally far-reaching, but certainly less divisive among the pagan community.

Silver RavenWolf Silver RavenWolf is another one whose books could be such wonderful, helpful things, if not for the marketing and other despicable things that came with it. Essentially, Silver RavenWolf sold out her craft. In my own opinion, she used her religion for profit with the release of Silver's Spells for Prosperity and other such spell books. She went too far with the release of the Teen Witch Kit.

The problem that I have with the little spell book series by RavenWolf is that she's doing more than marketing her religion; now she's just giving away magick spells to all and sundry... At least, she's giving them away for the low price of $7.95. A spell is a personal thing. A spell that you write yourself will always do more for you than one that someone publishes in a book. Something in a book is one that is written for use by the author. How can something written by someone else with different purposes and different belief structures work as well for someone else who doesn't have the same motivations and thoughts? I don't feel that it can.

Why, you ask, do I denounce the Teen Witch Kit so vehemently? It's going beyond selling religion. It's pimping out your faith. It's prostituting your beliefs in order to serve another deity, The Almighty Dollar. And it's attempting to sell divinity to children. Buying a box with a pentacle and a bit of string cannot make a witch. Yet, this is what the kids that buy the Kit often believe.

The horror of Silver RavenWolf is not so much her words, but how her words are received by the newbies who pick up her books. Her writing style is so very easy to follow. Her word choices are vivid, her explanations are relatively simple, and her information focuses primarily on the here and now, as opposed to the historical value. Without that historical information, the newbies that pick up her book are given incomplete directions to seeking divinity, and shoddy mythology based on "Remembering the Burning Times" in order to promote unity where we should be celebrating diversity. Those same newbies trot out on the pagan mailing lists and mindlessly quote those books without looking beyond the surface of those words. Rather than thinking for themselves, rather than analyzing the information presented, rather than doing the extra research that RavenWolf recommends at the end of each chapter, these people accept it at face value, internalizing the words proffered in her books.

These newbies then trot out onto some mailing list somewhere and often try to tell traditional Wiccan initiates (I seem to notice it primarily being the Gardnerians, but perhaps that's because I'm more familiar with certain Gards on the 'net than other traditional groups) that they are wrong, because Silver says so.

Many of those newbies learn that Silver RavenWolf is not the Pagan Gospel. But more of them withdraw from the Pagan community, bitterly disappointed with what they find, bitterly disappointed when they find that not all of us greet the "Paperback Priestesses" with open arms as they'd envisioned. For the most part, the only thing these newbies do that is terribly wrong (and bloody irritating) is start off an email with "But Silver says..."

Eventually, a newbie who sticks around will learn, but how much hurt feelings will that newbie experience before he or she figures out that Silver RavenWolf is not the representative of the Pagan community? Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a while. Again, this is not to say that RavenWolf is of no value, but that value is, in my opinion, diminished with each petty spell book, each disgusting teen fiction novel with "a real spell in the back of each book!", and each instant-witch-in-a-box that is sold with her name on it.

My disgust over the Teen Witch Kit goes beyond RavenWolf using her religion to make money. That's not something that's expressly forbidden, though it's not something that is held in high regard. The very thing that I find so offensive is that it is marketing witchcraft to children. Children, I believe, are not ready for the responsibility of witchcraft without being brought up in a witchcraft-oriented family. While some critics have touted RavenWolf's Teen Witch Kit as revolutionary and groundbreaking, I detest the entire idea of attempting to sell magick and divinity in a box. Some teens that I'd spoken with in my time at a bookstore that sold the product felt that the kit made them an instant witch.

Yeah, right. Instant Witch Kit. Just add misguided teen. That these children are buying the kits and thinking that it puts them on the same level as a traditional witch does not speak well of Silver's target audience.

Most of the time I think the pagan community would have fewer problems if Silver RavenWolf had stopped writing after To Ride a Silver Broomstick and had not included the statement that witch and Wiccan are interchangeable.

These authors have helped make Paganism and Wicca-Lite more acceptable in the mainstream. Because of the awareness that these two authors, and other authors of the same caliber, have brought, Wicca is recognized. But are these recognitions worth the bastardization of a religion?

I don't think so. If a person wishes to follow the path as laid out by Scott Cunningham and Silver RavenWolf, that's a wonderful thing... for that individual. But, please, don't dilute another path in your own quest for validation.