Read any material on Wicca and it will tell you that Wicca is a polytheistic religion and its practitioners honour many different Gods and Goddesses. That’s the party line but do we all tow it? 

With Paganism as the second fastest growing religious group in the world, it’s no wonder that there’s so many enquiries from Seekers. But as a person new to the Wiccan and Craft community, how do you determine what coven or group is right for you? 

Ok, so visualisation isn’t always an easy skill for the beginner to get to grips with that’s true, but there are some simple tricks and tips that can help you become a visualisation expert faster and easier. Let’s just make sure you understand first though exactly why visualisation is so important.

Summer Solstice/Midsummer’s Eve/Litha

A Lesser Sabbat and a Sun Quarter Day

So you want to learn about Wicca and you can’t, or prefer not to, join a coven to do so. Can you learn to ‘be’ Wiccan without training under a teacher? This is a really good question and you’ll get a variety of answers depending on who you talk to.

So you’ve decided to go and find a teacher, good on ya!

It’s often wonderful to get a group of people together (or even for the solitary) to conduct a ritual or three in a beautiful public area like a forest, the beach or even the local park. Sabbats in particular a wonderful occasions to get out and about and share the ritual with friends and loved ones at a park close to everyone or a peaceful patch of farmland or whatever.

I have had several enquires about the relationship/difference between O & M and CCIWI (www.cciwi.org). I have deliberately not "marketed" CCIWI until now because quite frankly there wasn't a need but as we work toward online graduates of the first degree program and more and more students grow in expertise and ask to teach, it will now become much more prominent.

There are numerous books, articles and web sites devoted to the creation and use of magickal workings and I’m not about to add to that plethora. However, I do have concerns that there’s a popular misconception that the best spells workings incorporate words that rhyme, tools that are ‘special’, strange herb concoctions and all manner of odds and ends.

The answer to this might seem obvious but it’s a little fuzzier when you really examine the question. Let’s take a look at why.

This is a volatile yet very important question for people looking for companionship and teaching from reliable sources. As the leader of both the face to face and the online Oak and Mistletoe covens, I have to say that the face to face companionship and learning will always be the preferred method. Having someone sit beside you, work physically with you and even to have a cuppa and chat with you is always more beneficial than a distant relationship. But it’s not always that easy.

The athame (pronounced a-tha-me) is probably the most important tool of any for a Wiccan or Witch and certainly the most sacred tool in a collection. Traditionally, it’s a black handled, double edged dagger, usually no more than about 12 inches long and often has runes, Craft related or personal symbols engraved or burnt into the wooden handle.

So you've decided you’re a Wiccan or a Witch and you feel ready to tell the world, or at least your trusted family and friends? My first question is why? Let’s think this through...

A Lesser Sabbat and a Sun Quarter Day

Northern Hemisphere March 21st

Magick is a beautiful thing and something I not only have immense respect for but also use in one way or another almost every day of my life. However, I thought I’d pass on these three simple tips that I use which help me significantly strengthen the magickal workings I perform.

For me, magick is a way of harnessing my own inner energies and those of the universe around me to bring about a specified outcome. The key is having the specified outcome.

In order to understand the language, the symbolism, the imagery of our dreams, we need to first look more deeply until we find the hidden nature; and to understand the hidden nature of our dreams, we need to learn something about the nature of the dreaming self.

 

I see it a lot on web sites and in book stores. The title of the article, book, or question is choosing my Gods. The question is how do I select my Gods? There are so many and I don't know about this one, or I think I might have Mayan roots with ten cc's of ancient Babylonian blood is there a cross over? What if I want more than two? What if I feel a close connection to one out of a fictional book?

It’s quite true that many Wiccans conduct their main Esbats on the full moon but many also celebrate the new or dark moon with as much celebration and joy. The question for new students is often, “why?’ Let’s look at the differences between the full and new moon so we can see why the new moon can be as important as the full moon.

This week's InfoCircle is again a contribution by one of our very talented senior students, Harry. Harry has written for InfoCircle a few times and judging by the resultant comments, his thoughts are very popular!

Ok, so we've all seen the Wheel of the Year dates (depending on whether we live north or south of the equator) and there's a fairly well accepted calendar for that, give a day or two for the equinoxes and so on. But the debate about exact dates has many facets and for some Wiccans this poses a source of some fierce debate. There's debate about whether you should celebrate some Sabbats on the day or in the case of Samhain, on the night before when the year changes during the passage of darkness.

The Wheel of the Year is an important construct in Wiccan practice and essentially it’s the liturgical calendar for our religion. However, while sticking to the original dates for the northern hemisphere folks is easy, the real problems come about for the southern hemisphere practitioners. Depending on where you live and your approach to your own, personalised practice, the dates for each of the Wheel’s celebrations may well be different. We’ve thus defaulted as a global Wiccan community into three main groups.

This week's entry comes from one of our students, Harry.

So I was talking to this little green dude the other day, or maybe it was the bowl of chilli I had before bed, not sure. But anyway we were discussing energy manipulation, magick, and the universe. He said "know you magic, and know the force you will!" little dude is nice enough but talks a little strange.

Ok, so visualisation isn’t always an easy skill for the beginner to get to grips with that’s true, but there are some simple tricks and tips that can help you become a visualisation expert faster and easier. Let’s just make sure you understand first though exactly why visualisation is so important.

Anthropology and Sociology have traditionally defined ritual (including Wiccan ritual) as a function of religion and a function of society. Hmmm... All very well and good until we look a little further at ritual and its purpose and see the context in which Wiccans actually use it.

I’m often asked this question and there definitely seems to be some confusion between the content and indeed, intent, of the two. So let’s play at being dictionaries first and make sure we have our definitions clearly defined.