{"id":2636,"date":"2011-02-22T15:27:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T15:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/?p=2636"},"modified":"2011-02-22T20:29:16","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T20:29:16","slug":"wiccas-widening-spell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/?p=2636","title":{"rendered":"Wicca’s widening spell"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Mavericks Bar on Rideau Street, it\u2019s dark and people are masked. Intricately detailed, glittering masks hide many female faces. Some men wear Merlin-like hats. Decked in cloaks, robes and other attire reminiscent of centuries past, people form a circle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Centered stands an altar, with an athame<\/em> (a double-edged dagger<\/em>) symbolizing the element air, and a cup of water representing the element water. Quiet drumming sets the mood and individuals of all ages hold hands with their neighbours. A suited man wearing a top hat beats his cane in harmony with the drumming. Skeletons made of p\u00e2pier-mach\u00e9 and chicken wire hang, swaying above the bar\u2019s stage, reflecting the room\u2019s energy.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Samhain, one of the biggest Wiccan holidays.<\/p>\n

Samhain is based on the ancient Celtic tradition of honouring the dead on Oct. 31, the marking of winter, when the veil between our world and the spiritual was believed thin. During this time, the Celts\u2014who occupied Britain and other parts of northern Europe in the centuries before the Middle Ages, and whose descendants still inhabit Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and parts of Scotland\u2014would dress up and feast. Scary costumes were believed to frighten the bad spirits. This is where our holiday Halloween comes from.<\/p>\n

While Wicca\u2019s origins date back to Europe\u2019s prehistory, Wicca as a modern pursuit was popularized by Englishman Gerald Gardner in the 1940s and 50s. It is based on an ancient Celtic framework, borrowing many Celtic traditions\u2014for instance, nature worship and the use of lunar cycles to chart time. \u201cWicca\u201d is an Old English word, which connects etymologically to our \u201cwitch\u201d and \u201cwicked.\u201d Some practitioners of Wicca call themselves Wiccans, but others may call themselves witches.<\/p>\n

According to a 2007 New York Times<\/em> article, Wicca is the fastest growing religion in the United States, based on a survey by the City University of New York that discovered 130,000 Wiccans in the United States in 2001 as compared to 8,000 in 1990.<\/p>\n

By now there may be more, especially as such surveys may under-report: Not all individuals are open about religious affiliations.<\/p>\n

Professor Shelley Rabinovitch, a Wiccan, teaches courses in religion, women studies and anthropology at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa.\u00a0 She says it\u2019s important to note that Wicca is the fastest growing religion outside of immigration in North America. She says Wicca is growing largely because it\u2019s empowering for women and because of its \u201cautonomous\u201d nature\u2014meaning that Wicca employs no scripture, clergy or institutional body.<\/p>\n

‘The idea of Wicca is that every person is their own priest.’
\n \u2013 Bart Cormier<\/p>\n

The majority of Wiccans believe in at least one God and one Goddess. Individuals can relate to this divine feminine, which many other religions don\u2019t worship, Rabinovitch says, adding that some individuals find it hard to connect with one-male-God-based religion such as Christian denominations offer.<\/p>\n

Says 33-year-old Mary Pletsch, an Ottawa Wiccan, \u201cToo much university English has taught me that if you\u2019re constantly using the pronoun ‘He, He, He,’ you get a subconscious bias towards the male.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pletsch
\n Mary Pletsch with the Wiccan pentacle: a five-point star, with magical associations, also known as a pentagram. <\/span><\/p>\n

Wicca\u2019s autonomous nature helps worshippers understand and connect with divine figures more personally, Pletsch says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of Wicca is that every person is their own priest,\u201d says 34-year-old Bart Cormier, a Wiccan of Kanata.\u00a0 He adds that it\u2019s healthy to take charge of personal spiritual growth.<\/p>\n

Autonomous as Wicca is, its moral code\u2014\u201cAn [If] it harm none, do what ye will\u201d\u2014is what unites all Wiccans. Basically, Wiccans may do as they want as long as their actions don\u2019t hurt anyone or anything.<\/p>\n

People are asked to fill the chairs that form a circle. \u201cAll the cool kids are doing it,\u201d shouts Bart. The crowd laughs. The hooded high priest, who\u2019s leading the ceremony, \u201cdraws the circle\u201d by walking its perimeter with the athame to create protective, sacred ground. With a broom, a blonde woman sweeps the perimeter of the circle to symbolically remove unwanted negative energy. The high priestess, another leader of the ceremony, calls the \u201cquarters\u201d<\/em>\u2014spirits of the East, West, South and North. The drumming intensifies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wicca is a form of paganism (an umbrella term for non-mainstream, polytheistic religions). Like Christianity, for example, Wicca has many denominations: Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Georgian, Odyssean and more. They undoubtedly share similar values but may have different rituals, says Rabinovitch.<\/p>\n

There are also many Wiccans, such as Pletsch, who may not necessarily belong to or identify with a denomination and who choose to customize.<\/p>\n

Raised as a Lutheran, Pletsch says she felt little connection to God growing up. But looking back on her childhood, she says she had instinctive knowledge that the jackal meant something to her. She would carve the jackals out of ivory soap bars and keep them in her room.<\/p>\n

This made sense when she researched the ancient Egyptian god Anubis, the masculine jackal-headed gatekeeper between life and death, and began to connect with and worship him. She also began to worship the ancient Egyptian feline goddess Bast, a figure that for her symbolizes protection.<\/p>\n

\"Pletsch's
\n Mary Pletsch’s wand: a stick of wood, decked with symbolic colours and items, used in magical workings. <\/span><\/p>\n

Reached for comment, several Ottawa mainstream religious leaders differed in their views of Wicca. Father Alexander Pihach of Ottawa\u2019s Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral says that customizing one\u2019s religion doesn\u2019t work in the long run.<\/p>\n

He says it leads to new denominations; disagreements happen and people leave to start another. That\u2019s why there are between 30,000 and 40,000 denominations of Christianity, he says, and the downfall is the loss of needed unity.<\/p>\n

Wicca may be popular now, but Pihach says religions come and go. \u201cIt will function for a long time,\u201d he predicts. \u201cBut then it will fade out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pastor James Drennan of Ottawa\u2019s Alta Vista Baptist Church describes religions that cherry-pick religious elements or religions that amalgamate others as \u201csyncretistic\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe [syncretism] is valid,\u201d says Pastor James Drennan, of Alta Vista Baptist Church in Ottawa. He says people can follow whatever path they want, but it comes down to truth\u2014an objective standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cCategorically, [Wicca is] what they call a false theological system. Wicca does not represent truth,\u201d he says. He clarifies that any syncretistic religion is not valid.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n Wicca’s perception problem. In an unknown painter’s rendering of the famous 1790 Robert Burns poem “Tam o\u2019 Shanter,” the terrified Tam barely escapes a coven of malicious witches.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Rev. Dr. Dana Fisher of the Anglican Church of St. John the Evangelist in Ottawa says that all religions borrow things from other religions.<\/p>\n

For instance, she says the story of Noah and the flood found in the Hebrew Scripture, and respected by Christians, was a story from the Babylonian Empire long before the Jews had it. \u201cEach group cuts and pastes stuff whether it be doctrinal or ritual,\u201d says Fisher. Therefore, Wicca is hardly the only syncretistic religion, she says.<\/p>\n

Although Pastor Drennan criticizes the cherry-picking of religious elements, Rabinovitch says this is neither good nor bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it means it\u2019s a challenge when you start talking about things like pagan community. The concept of community is what unites religions around the world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She says witchcraft is misunderstood, as there are positive and negative connotations associated.<\/p>\n

The girl to my right, new to Wicca, dips her popsicle stick into the bowl of steeped mugwort<\/em>\u2014an herb associated with the unconscious, said to increase psychic abilities<\/em>\u2014that\u2019s being passed around, and tastes it. \u201cWhat does it taste like?\u201d I ask. \u201cBitter,\u201d she says. The girl to my left laughs at us. \u201cIt\u2019s a plant,\u201d she says. A bowl of honey is then passed around to return to consciousness.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cormier says because of the negative connotations, Wiccans are often portrayed as Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer-style lunatics.<\/p>\n

Rabinovitch disputes the emphasis on syncretism or cherry-picking in certain criticisms of Wicca.\u00a0 What\u2019s important is the difference between good and bad people, she says, not the fact that someone is a witch.<\/p>\n

For example, she says that just because former colonel Russell Williams is a bad person doesn\u2019t mean that everyone in the military is bad.<\/p>\n

They repeat a song that finishes with \u201cThey will know that we are pagans by our love, by our love; yes they know that we are pagans by our love.\u201d By now, the skeletons are really swaying.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some First Nation natives have accused neo-pagans of taking their spiritual components in a colonialist manner, says Cormier.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Wiccans need to do their research, he says, to respect the traditions the elements come from.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Wicca in its current form is an attempt to reconstruct a face that has since ceased to be practised,\u201d Cormier says. \u201cThere\u2019s always an attempt to look backwards to things that we find resonate with us today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ceremony ends, and it\u2019s time to dance. Everyone is invited to sign the Book of the Dead, used to commemorate deceased relatives. A red pentacle flashes on the brick wall as the congregants get their groove on to Michael Jackson\u2019s <\/em>Thriller.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fastest growing non-immigrant religion in North America is Wicca, derived partly from pre-Christian paganism.\u00a0 Here, a look at a new faith’s drive for acceptance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,126,127,130,125,129],"class_list":["post-2636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","tag-celtic-tradition","tag-religion","tag-samhain","tag-syncretism","tag-wicca","tag-witchcraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2636"}],"version-history":[{"count":102,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4408,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions\/4408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}