Gamma portrait

Magick or Wicca?

Contrary to the voices of a small minority, they aren't really the same thing. Maybe I'm different? I mean, I studied magick and then studied Wicca, and when I studied Wicca it was under a teacher who wasn't afraid to go "Okay, this is Wicca. This is Magick. Here is where magick and Wicca differ. Here is where Magick is used by Wiccans, and here is where it isn't. From day one, I was told that there WAS a difference, and also told that the magick in Wicca, once you knew why it was there and how it got there, was something you could forget about. I teach my students Wicca without much magick, directing them towards instructors of magick when their interests and talents make it seem prudent.

Only in weak Wicca is magick all that important. I know that that seems like a really powerful statement, but it is true. When Wicca first came into being, it was the religion of the gods of magick, and performing magick was like a sacrament. Within 3 years of Wicca's creation, these gods of magick had gained fertility and agriculture as their sphere as well. The cognitive dissonance here, which is obvious, as fertility gods and agricultural gods are not the same thing, was commonly resolved in two ways:


The Jungian (Pseudopantheistic) Way:
  • All gods are actually one big god OR
  • Aspects of the divine OR
  • Thoughtforms we use to understand the divine OR
  • Creations of man to explain our condition OR
  • faces we put on the unknown AND
thus, gods of magick and agriculture can be worshipped
at the same time, because they are the same thing,
and worship of one is worship of another.
Therefore, magick to honor a fertility god is okay, and 
fertility magick to honor, say, Hecate, is okay, too.
 The Polytheistic Way:
  • All gods are existing deities
  • These deities have real differences between them 
  • Worship of these deities should be tailored to them.
  • The deity's historic worship should be taken into account.
thus, gods of magick and agriculture can be worshipped at
the same time, but not in the same manner. While a spell
might be appropriate worship for Hecate, it doesn't work
for Apollo, and thus the Wiccan must tailor his/her practice
to the god(s) that speak to them. Therefore, some Wiccan
practice is used for all gods, and some is inappropriate
for others.   

Oh! Pseudopa-an-an theistic really is atrocious! If you say it loud enough you'll always sound pre- SMACK!
(Once again, Gamma finds it hard to hide the fact that she really Is Mary Poppins! Practically perfect in every way!)

Wicca goes one of these two ways, and you can see which way I lean. The Polytheistic way says that the circle, for example, which is an act of mental work or personal magick (it's root of power is the "caster"), but not ceremonial magick, works well in all Wicca, but that, for example, the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, which has at its heart the god YHWH, is not appropriate for someone whose primary deity is Odin.

Likewise, a god to whom grain was abhorrent would not be properly worshipped with the consumption of grain based cakes, a god to whom alcohol was anathema would not be worshipped with wine, and a god to whom silver was not for the touching of mortals would not be prayed to in a circle by a silver bedecked priestess.

But back to magick and Wicca. Starhawk describes the circle as an "enacted meditation," Kat MacMorgan describes it as "a method... by which remind our mind that now is the time to pay attention completely" and other people describe it as something psychological we do to themselves. Now, admittedly, I believe MacMorgan and Starhawk both have degrees in psychology, but Starhawk's more Jungian and MacMorgan's more behavioristic, so this is a pretty balanced idea of what Wiccans believe the Wiccan Circle means.

To the initiate of Magick, the idea that the circle is not magickal because it is making a change in ourselves is nonsensical. Magick is about the philosopher's stone, about turning the lead of the individual into the gold of a magus (to those who'd yell I'm giving away a secret: the fact remaind those who think it literal aren't gonna change their views from MY statements) but I'm making that distinction because Magick in Wicca  is seen as something OTHER than that!

So, if the circle is not magickal, but a behavioral or mental change, it allows the entire Wiccan ritual to be non-magickal, an act of Faith, not Will.  This allows people who do not follow gods of magick out of choice to purify their practice as one all about their relationship with the divine.


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