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? 

Let’s explore what polytheism actually is briefly and then we’ll look at whether we really do it or not. Polytheism’s manifesto says that Wiccans honour many different deities, often across many different pantheons. Thus dependent on the circumstances, or indeed just how you may feel on that particular day, you might choose to honour or invoke a Roman God. But on another day you might work with a Greek Goddess, or maybe a Celtic God, or a Norse Goddess. The point is that you have the ability to choose from a broad range of deities depending on what divine attributes you need or that suits the event. A veritable smorgasbord of options or to use our political analogy, you’re faced with a broad range of presidential nominees from whom you can pick and choose dependent upon your political desires on any given day. 

None of those Gods or Goddesses are the President by the way because if there was a single “President God or Goddess” then, we’d be back to monotheism and the honouring of a single, all important deity. Obviously that’s not what Wicca is a about. We do not honour a single God or Goddess and if we did so, we’d place ourselves in the same “theism” boat as monotheistic Christians in terms of having a single divine presence. So that’s not our campaign manifesto, or is it? 

I’m going to upset the campaign trail here and suggest that far too many of us tend to favour the “Presidential” version, or at least one similar to it. Many Wiccans support the notion of the divine President and the First Lady concept or to be more precise, the President and Consort. We talk about the “Lord and Lady” in our rituals frequently and we often develop a relationship with a patron and matron God and Goddess and these two deities become our favourites. Nothing wrong with that at all… until we get so used to the routine “Lord and Lady” and get so focused on our patron and matron deities that we forget that it’s not a pair of divine beings we’re supposed to be honouring but a whole range of them. That’s duotheism, not polytheism.  

Now, just to confuse matters slightly, there’s also pantheism, (and in fact quite a range of “theisms”) and I challenge you to go and learn a little about that definition in the light of this entire concept to broaden your understanding of this whole campaign debate. But I digress (the smoke screen candidates use to divert people from the real issue!) 

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use the term “Lord and Lady” or that we shouldn’t have patron and matron Gods and Goddess. Far from it. What I am saying is that in terms of “Lord and Lady” we need to always remember that this is a phrase that’s supposed to represent not just a male and female divine pair but the broadest range of Gods and Goddesses. It’s a term that asks us to consider that we are honouring all Gods and Goddess, both female and male and that “Lord and Lady” is just an easier way of addressing and talking to the entire realm of Wiccan deities.  

With reference to patron and matron deities, while it’s wonderful to have favourites, we must never forget that there are a whole range of candidates out there who deserve out attention and who have some fantastic manifestos of their own that can support our spiritual agenda.  

So in conclusion, let’s not forget as we walk this campaign trail of a spiritual life, that the Wiccan manifesto clearly states we’re polytheistic, not duotheist or heaven forbid monotheistic. Let’s not forget that we honour, we invoke and we work with a huge variety of divine candidates and that our ongoing votes should be deposited in the ballet box of the God or Goddess with whom we need to work that day and that tomorrow we can vote for another, equally as valid and important deity.

Smiles and blessings, Amethyst