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Drawing down the Moon (also known as drawing down the Goddess) is a central ritual in many contemporary Wiccan traditions. During the ritual, a coven's High Priestess enters a trance and requests that the Goddess or Triple Goddess, symbolized by the Moon, enter her body and speak through her.
The Wiccan Web: Surfing the Magic on the Internet is a 2001 book by Patricia Telesco and Sirona Knight published by Citadel Press, an imprint of Kensington Publishing.The book focuses on online Wiccan culture in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and is structured as a how-to guide for users new to technology.
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.
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. [1] The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884–1964), a British civil servant and amateur scholar of magic .
The masculine form was wicca ('male sorcerer'). [33] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, wicce and wicca were probably derived from the Old English verb wiccian, meaning 'to practice witchcraft'. [34] Wiccian has a cognate in Middle Low German wicken (attested from the 13th century). The further etymology of this word is problematic.
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 Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism.The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities.
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.