Going Deeper

Lesson 6 of 12 ยท 9 min

Wiccan, witchy, or both?

Four useful markers

Part of Wicca: in the religion's own structure. Common in modern Wicca: widely practised, not required. Wider magical tradition: older or broader than Wicca, borrowed into it. Not inherently Wiccan: entirely separate, however often the two appear together online.

Traditions vary

Divination, tarot, scrying, pendulums

Divination generally: common in modern Wicca. Tarot: wider tradition, an Italian card game from the fifteenth century, given occult meanings from the eighteenth century onwards and popularised by the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of 1909. Scrying: wider tradition, well attested in early modern magic. Pendulums: not inherently Wiccan; modern, and demonstrably driven by the ideomotor effect, which does not stop people finding them useful as a way of surfacing their own answers.

Folklore

Ancestors, spirits and familiars

Ancestor remembrance: common in modern Wicca, especially at Samhain, and central to many other traditions. Spirit work generally: wider tradition. Familiars: in witch-trial records a familiar was an attendant spirit, often in animal form, described in confessions extracted under pressure. The modern use, meaning a beloved cat who sits on the altar, is affectionate and recent. Both are real; they are not the same thing.

Worth knowing

Correspondences, herbs and crystals

Correspondences: wider magical tradition, inherited by Wicca from ceremonial magic. Herbal magic: wider tradition and folk practice, common in Wicca. Crystals: common in modern witchcraft, not inherently Wiccan and not required. Crystal practice as sold today largely dates from the twentieth-century New Age, and claims of ancient unbroken crystal lore are invented. Sourcing is also a genuine ethical issue.

Historical context

Astrology

Used by some Wiccans, particularly for timing, and its symbolism is embedded in ceremonial magic. Astrology itself is a separate ancient discipline with its own history and is not Wicca. You can be a serious Wiccan and know nothing about your rising sign.

Why sorting this matters

Not to police anyone. Mixed practice is normal and always has been. It matters because knowing where something came from is the difference between a practice you can explain and a shopping habit with candles.

In plain English

Lots of witchy things are not Wicca. You can still do them; just know which is which.

Worth remembering

Label what you practise honestly, and mixed practice stops being muddle.

Use this in the app

Next: Cultural borrowing & closed traditions

Where historians disagree, this app says so. Where traditions differ, no single one is presented as the correct Wicca. Our approach

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