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Wicca (English: / ˈ w ɪ k ə /), also known as "The Craft", [1] is a modern pagan, syncretic, earth-centered religion.Considered a new religious movement by scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esotericism, developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant.
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. [a] Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray.
Wiccan views of divinity are generally theistic, and revolve around a Goddess and a Horned God, thereby being generally dualistic.In traditional Wicca, as expressed in the writings of Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, the emphasis is on the theme of divine gender polarity, and the God and Goddess are regarded as equal and opposite divine cosmic forces.
The 2014 Pew Research Center's Religious Landscapes Survey included a subset of the New Age Spiritual Movement called "Pagan or Wiccan," reflecting that 3/4 of individuals identifying as New Age also identified as Pagan or Wiccan and placing Wiccans and Pagans at 0.3% of the total U.S. population or approximately 956,000 people of just over ...
However, it is still common for Wiccans to feel solidarity with the victims of the witch trials and, being witches, to consider the witch-craze to have been a persecution against their faith. [42] There has been confusion that Wicca is a form of Satanism, despite important differences between these religions. [43]
"Wicca is a religion whose beginnings go back to the UK in the 1930s," Berger tells TODAY.com. "There is a ritual calendar of the 8 sabbats that denote the beginning and height of each season."
This made the Church of Wicca the only federally recognized Wiccan church to have its status as a religion upheld in a federal appeals court. [4] Within the American Wiccan and wider modern pagan community, the Frosts have been at the center of various disputes, particularly surrounding issues such as homosexuality and theology. [10]
None of these specifically referred to the Pagan Witchcraft religion as Wicca. [25] The earliest known published reference for the word Wicca is within an advertisement published in a 1962 issue of Fate magazine; in this, a Cardiff-based group of Pagan Witches advertised a tradition as "Wicca–Dianic and Aradian". [26]