Symbols in Wicca

Introduction

Delving into the world of Wicca has been a confusing journey, to say the least. Books like her hidden children by Chas S. Clifton or Modern Wicca by Michael Howard, and online sources including wikipedia and religioustolerance, agree on some very basic history, beliefs, and symbols. But beyond these, the opinions feather out infinitely. This dispersion of beliefs and practices in itself can be considered a trait of Wicca.

“Its scheme is more horizontal than vertical, with no central organization and no hierarchy. […] Someone telling the history of a broad movement will be tempted to focus on leaders and groups. […] The problem with Wicca in particular is that most Wiccans are not in groups but are “solitaries” who may join with other Wiccans only occasionally...” (Clifton 11)

To further complicate the issue, many of the words used to describe Wicca and Wiccans are contested – so much so that Clifton dedicates an entire chapter to discussing definitions. Pagan and neopagan, witch, witchcraft, Craft and Wicca all had to be defined or redefined for the public, since they bore (and still bear) many negative connotations. Not all Wiccans, witches or practitioners of the Craft call themselves by all the other terms, adding to the confusion.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Wicca is “a religion influenced by pre-Christian beliefs and practices of western Europe that affirms the existence of supernatural power (as magic) and of both male and female deities who inhere in nature and that emphasizes ritual observance of seasonal and life cycles.” The use of the term “pre-Christian” is significant – it is not so much to provide a date (B.C.?) or a cultural origin (Egypt? Greece?) but rather a declaration of validity next to Christianity, or superiority over it. (For an extreme case, see http://www.wicca-spirituality.com/christian-wicca.html).

Wiccans recognize Gerald Garner as the inventor or reformer of Wicca. While he himself claimed to be reviving prehistorical (pre-Christian) beliefs and practices and fleshing them out with material from other religions, the connection to antiquity is highly disputed. (wikipedia - Wicca - origins)

This is not a study about Wicca itself as much as a look at the plentiful symbols and paraphernalia associated with it. The focus will be on online sources. These are numerous, since the isolation of witches and their tendency toward written word has fueled a large online community (Howard 296).

This image on the homepage of wicca.org brings us our first two symbols. The cross with a ring-like head is the Egyptian ankh, adopted by Wicca as a symbol of life. The other symbol, better known and central to Wicca, is the pentagram. It can cause confusion as it is frequently mistaken for the inverted pentagram of the "Church of Satan". In Wicca, it represents the five classical elements Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit, which unites the other four. The elements (understood in a metaphorical sense) are important to rituals and magic, symbolizing different seasons, cardinal directions, powers, times, colors, plants, and more (see this in-depth list). Both of these symbols show the tendency of modern Wicca, since its beginnings with Gardner, to freely adopt symbols from other religions and cultures - the ankh from Egypt and the elements from Greece.

Books

This website has its own definition of Wicca, which tells us that there is no official text of Wicca. Despite this, Wicca is a heavily textual religion (Clifton 13), and all the online stores I found had large collections of books (Such as here). The books teach us several things. First, the plethora of topics and authors reveals some of the aforementioned horizontal structure of the religion. Next, they show a desire to determine methods, or rules or structures of some degree. One can find...

 - books on tarot card reading. Divination with tarot cards began in the 18th century. Some occultists trace its origins to Egypt, though there is no documented evidence for this.

 - books about talismans. The description of this book says that "Here is a multitude of talismans, charms, seals, and other magical figures from many ages and cultures, representing just about every desire of mankind."An organization of dispersed information, and again, a free adoption of beliefs from other cultures.

 - guides and self-help books. These are quite abundant, probably because so many Wiccans are isolated and learn most of what they know from books.

 - And in the midst of all of this, a book on the Psalms (?!). Here is the description they offer: "This small concise book includes 375 different ways to use psalms for love, power, revenge, success, blessings, prosperity, protection, and much, much more. It includes purposes, rituals, and prayers. In addition all 150 psalms are included." I found it curious, having stumbled repeatedly on a general loathing of Christianity among Wiccans, to find them using the Psalms. As we can readily tell from the description, they have little to do with their original function of collective worship and individual communication, prayer, and reconciliation with God.

Altar Items

Altars are important for many Wiccan rituals. They are heavily symbolic.

Typically, an altar is arranged either in a right/left structure - the left side representing the goddess and all associated symbols and the right side the god and his symbols, or in accordance with the four cardinal directions, which each have an element associated with them, the elements also having a gender association.

A left-right arrangement. Note the statues of the god and goddess.

A simple layout following the cardinal directions. Usually combined with the first layout to some degree.

Let us take a closer look at some of the items on the altar:

Candles: They represent the presence of the god and goddess and the four elements. The above silver candle represents the goddess, gold represents the god. In rituals, lighting and extinguishing candles marks the opening and the closing of the ritual. Some believe that the smoke carries prayers and wishes to the gods.

Statues: Usually a statue of the god and goddess are placed on the altar as well. The above statue is of the goddess, and also the Norse goddess of fertility, Freya.

Pentacle: It is common to have the pentacle represented strongly on the altar, in various forms. Besides the sliver-plated one above, they can be wooden, or printed onto the table-cloth, and are often inscribed on many  other items; candles and candle-holders, statues, the athame (ritual knife), etc.

Cauldrons: Often made of cast iron, cauldrons are used to burn incense or written petitions and to mix herbs. They are a symbol taken from Celtic mythology and represent their goddess Cerridwen, the womb, and the earth.

Wands: A common symbol used in Egypt, Greco-Roman mythology, and not least, Freemasonry. (Gardner freely borrowed from the Freemasons). It often corresponds to the element Air. The wand is occasionally associated with yang energy, taken from the Asian philosophical concept of yin and yang.

Chalice: The chalice is another feminine simple, used in conjunction with the athame to represent procreation and universal creativity. It is a common symbol of Christianity, Unitarian Universalism, and also Rastafarianism (where the term refers to a water-pipe or bong).

The sign on the handle of this knife represents the moon phases and the goddess.

Athame: This ritual knife is used to channel psychic energy and to cast a circle at the beginning of a ritual. It is practically never used for actual cutting. It is a masculine symbol as well as a symbol for fire.

The last four items mentioned - the athame, chalice, wand and pentacle, represent the four elements (athame - fire, chalice - water, wand - air, pentacle - earth), but also derive from the Celtic mythological weapons of sword, cauldron, spear and shield. Furthermore, the four tarot card suites are swords, cups, wands, and pentacles.

Bumper Stickers

Bumper stickers play a central role in Wiccan practices, and are derived from an ancient Mesopotamian tradition of carving proverbs into the back of chariots. No, not really. But because bumper stickers were more or less jokingly referred to in this assignment, here are some interesting ones I found (all from www.witchstore.net).

"That old-time religion" - three things that we have seen previously: An intentional distancing from Christianity, a pentacle, and the claim of being an "old" religion.

Again, the theme of disliking Christianity.

On a slightly different note, there are quite a few "love" bumper stickers with a Wiccan twist.

Quite a few show a degree of pride in being a witch, a pagan, a feminist, or a homosexual.

Wicca has also become popular as a "nature-religion", an image that was first associated with them during the sixties.

Lastly, the moral code that most Wiccans follow. It is called the Wiccan Rede (rede is an archaic term for advice).

Conclusion

This was not meant to be a comprehensive examination and definition of Wicca, but a look at some of the most common symbols associated with it. They are extremely pervasive (especially the pentacle), almost all thoroughly interconnected, and borrow from a plethora of other traditions. I hope that this article has has demystified some of the dense symbolism one might encounter in a Wiccan setting - and perhaps given you a better idea of what Wicca is.

My critical approach: Wikipedia

For the week 10 blog post, read the Book of Abraham passed out in class (which you could also find online I'm sure). Then discuss how you might go about assessing a document like this. Are there any fine points in this text that lead you to think it is not from the supposed time of Abraham (2000BC?). In studying religion we have been surrounded by all kinds of claims about the world, and I am curious if there is any kind of critical approach that you can define through a discussion of this text.

Alright, so I admit that my title is a little bit tongue-in-cheek. But a little reading up on wikipedia does give an impression at least of one does not know. Here's what I mean:

I read the Book of Abraham, with a critical mindset of course - that is, not taking its authenticity for granted. In fact, because of our assignment, I was specifically searching for indications that the book is not in fact written by Abraham. The book has some differences to the Hebrew Bible, including the near sacrificing of Abraham by the Egyptians, Abraham's priesthood, and the details of astronomy laid out in the third chapter. But all of these did not seem impossible - after all, Mormon's claim that the Bible has been corrupted, so these discrepancies could just as well be errors on that side as in the Book of Abraham. The one anachronism that jumped out at me was in Chapter 2, Verse 11: "...even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal." That sounds very much like the New Testament, and I don't know how Abraham could have had knowledge of the Gospel. It was devine revelation, but in that case, I would still wonder how and whether the knowledge of the Gospel so early in history would have influenced the Isrealites.

After reading the article, I perused what others had written, and saw mostly very strong opposition to any claims of authenticity (which may have been due to reading an unfortunate selection of blogs). While I don't have a problem with strong positions per se, I do think that one needs to realize how much is involved and how much one really knows (I am guilty of ignoring this myself rather frequently). When I went to the wikipedia article, I saw the most common criticisms listed - but also Mormon apologetic responses.

I was not convinced by their responses, but I think that, when arguing about the historical authenticity of a text, it would be wise to include the proponents in the discussion. If I were to write a public, strong statement against a specific religious (or other historical) text, I would first want to read both what others have criticized and how it has been defended.

Why did Jesus visit America?

Assignment: Read the Third Book of Nephi in the Book of Mormon. Within this book is narrated the visit of Jesus Christ to the people of Nephi. Consider the way this event is presented and write about how it might be received by Americans living in the 19th and 20th centuries. What in their world might be challenged or better understood after reading this. Make sure you cite and comment on at least one passage.
To be clear, I don't want a laundry list of points, but find one area in which this past event could throw an interesting light on later times.

The Third Book of Nephi from the Book of Mormon gives us an interesting dramatic account of the risen Christ visiting the Nephites - a people group native to America, though not the Native Americans that were in the land when the European settlers came. These where at least partially Lamanites, who destroyed the Nephites.

A passage that seemed quite central to me was in chapter 5. When Jesus appears to the Americans and declares who He is, they react in a curious manner: "And it came to pass that when Jesus Christ had spoken these words, the whole multitude fell to the earth, for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should shew himself unto them after his ascension into heaven." (p. 485)

As we discussed in class, knowing (or thinking) that Jesus had been in America would have been encouraging to early settlers. But I think more can be seen in that when Jesus visited the Nephites, they recognized Him because it had been prophesied among them. Coming from a strongly Christian viewpoint, we see Christ's visit to America as a curious and doubtful addition or side-tangent to His life. But I think that the picture we get in the Book of Mormon is bigger than that: If Jesus had been prophesied among the Nephites, that means they had a good deal of interaction with God on their own, unrelated in some ways to the Israelites.

I am not convinced that 18th- and 19th-century immigrants would have used this as a defense for the genocide of Native Americans. They would have felt responsible to spread their message whether the Native Americans had at one point known Jesus or not. Either way, they didn't now. Also, it seems to me that earlier encounters and knowledge of God would be a reason not to show violence toward the native people. I think more significant is the comfort it would have given people to know that Jesus had been there.  For immigrants who had left their home and familiar countries to come to the 'new world', knowing that it has the same roots as theirs, including Jesus, as well as prophesies and all that, would have given them a sense of familiarity and comfort in a very foreign world.

Dead men telling

We touched on the subject of martyrdom briefly in our last class, and it has stayed on my mind. We observed how members of the Baha'i faith were persecuted and killed for their beliefs. It reminded me of a book I've read, titled "Tortured for Christ", written by Richard Wurmbrand about the imprisonment and severe torture he received for being a Christian in Romania. While he wasn't killed, many where - Christian persecution is thought to be higher now than at any other time in history.
I don't have the time to do in-depth research here, but there are, I think, two ways in which observing martyrs can help us. First, it shows us to what extended people believe in a religion. To call it a 'worldview' can lead us to a deceptively shallow idea of what a faith consists of.  A person does not die for trivial matters. Thinking about people dying for it may help us to understand the seriousness of the matter.
In a more specific way, torture and persecution puts extreme stress on a human, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Under these conditions, a lot of our deeper nature is revealed, and we can learn how people of a religion apply their beliefs not just in the comfortable setting we are so used to, but when they are living in the most extreme situations.

I wonder what one would find by comparing the reactions that religions have when they experience persecution - how do Baha'is, Christians, or Muslims react? And what do we learn from that about the core of their belief?

universal compassion

Read the next chapters on Baha'u'llah and also watch the short video posted of Karen Armstrong discussing her vision of compassion as a theme that unites religious traditions. Does the faith developed by Baha'u'llah reflect this vision, or contradict it? Give specific passages from the biography that give some idea as to how Baha'u'llah might relate to the ideas of Karen Armstrong.

If we simply compare the main statements of this video to some of the main teachings of Baha'u'llah, we find that they agree very well. The video supports compassion and global peace and unity. We find support of this in Baha'u'llah's writings as well. For instance, we find him "laying down the conditions of peace for the world" (Momen, p. 80). His message is about the unity of all religions, and that his is the one for this age.


I was not very impressed with the video. Maybe it is just my own life experiences, but I have grown up seeing people supporting world peace, tolerance, and unity... and still behaving just like humans always have in history. I have seen the cruelest treatment toward others, on a personal level, from the same people who have peace stickers on the back of their car. It seems that, when we are dealing with people we know, it is a lot harder to always be compassionate.


Tell me one religion or philosophy that does not support justice. I do not think it is possible. Tell me one that does not want to see the world united. Tell me one that does not in some way support peace. Tell me one that never gives compassion.


I think it is easy to find a support of all these things in any belief-system, because they are fundamental to what we are seeking as human beings. However, this does not indicate a real similarity in beliefs, in fact, it emphasizes how little these words or goals define a religion. The way one defines and understands justice can differ hugely. The amount of compassion that should be given can differ largely - we all like the idea, but even the most compassionate in our class, I would suspect, have been in situations where they were not compassionate because they thought a person deserved whatever their misfortune was. Are we compassionate to those who are actively opposed to us? And is that just? Is world peace defined the absence of physical and verbal war, or is it the eventual agreement on what good ethics are? (For those are quite possibly mutually exclusive.)


The quest for peace and compassion is absolutely nothing new, and to claim it as one's own (and to have the solution) shows crass ignorance of history and different worldviews.

Curses for Christmas

A passage in our readings stood out to me as rather bizarre, and somewhat different from most of our studies: The Burru people in Jamaica go from house to house at the end of each year, singing about the sins that the residents (or the business, or whatever it may be) have done. I'll comment on this practice itself in a moment, but first, I would like to draw attention to something else: It parallels a practice that is still continued in West Africa today, according to our textbook (Edmonds, p. 101).
It is quite remarkable that such a tradition would last so long. Most of the Rastafari culture, it seemed, was "recreated" to be as African as possible, but this practice never ceased - showing impressive cultural perseverance.

The practice itself is disturbing, in my view. It is said, at least in Africa, to be a way of "purifying" the town for the next year, but it seems to me more like a broadcast of gossip - especially because (at least in Africa), the residents are forbidden to retaliate. (It would be an ugly sight indeed if someone were wrongly accused).

Fire of Life?

Q: Watch the video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZs4QMOsCEc] that gives a view of life in a small Rastafari village. Write in your blog about how this village participates in the system of symbols that we see reflected in our textbook. Don't give a laundry list of every kind of symbol, but pick out an element that you find striking. Interact also with what our textbook has to say about the symbol you have chosen. Is the symbol used in a surprising way or is it what you would expect from our book?

 Since I'm writing this blog rather late, I have the advantage of getting to see what others wrote.

There were a few symbols that got picked out and inspected quite well by others, I'll briefly summarize the main ones:

The turbans - these aren't mentioned in our book, but we do know that dreadlocks play an important role. It was interesting to see the dreadlocks covered up, and seemed to indicate that the tie to Ethiopia (represented by the turban "crown") is set higher than the rebellion against "Babylon", or western society (symbolized in the dreadlocks).

Another obvious case of symbolism is the scattered signs throughout the village. The editors of the movie chose to show three signs more specifically - probably to highlight a contrast they saw - one sign says "equality and justice for all", but the next sign has the word "black" written over the word "white", and as if to emphasize this, the last sign has a black "R for righteousness" (and maybe for Ratsafari?) over a white X which stands for wrong, or evil. I didn't see any other evidence, but the way this is presented implies the possibility of racism toward white people.

Thirdly, we saw a widespread use of the Ethiopian colors red, yellow and green. This was expected and is explained in our book, but the presence of the colors was almost overwhelming - even the houses were painted in them.

The symbol I would like to point out is the "fire of life". Apparently, these Boboshanti keep a fire lit at the top of the mountain at all times. This intrigues me, since it isn't a practice mentioned in a book, nor is it explained in this video. Wikipedia told me nothing about it, and google searches gave me two things: First, a book by Salman Rushdie titled "Luka and the Fire of Life", which has nothing to do with this, and second, a blog post by someone who took this class in 2008 (!).
I wonder how much work it is to keep this fire running, what symbolic purpose it serves (a fire on a mountain would be highly visible from a distance), and how it connects to other religions - like the continuously burning lamp in the ancient Jewish tabernacle and temple (“And you shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure beaten olive-oil for the light, that a lamp may be set to burn continually”. Exodus 27:20). Catholics and Jews generally continue this tradition and have a permanently burning oil lamp, called the "sanctuary lamp" or "everlasting flame". Is there a connection?

Curious.