Discussions on Wicca

The person was banned so their comments are moot, still as a Trad Wiccan I would like to offer some clarity towards various comments that have been made. Most of the time what people complain about as "Wiccan taint" influencing other polytheisms is more precisely Neopagan eclecticism and not Wicca itself. Contrary to common misconception Eclectic/Solitary practices are entirely different from traditional Wicca.

There is no evidence that the practice Gardner wrote about discovering in New Forest dates back any earlier than the early 1900s, at a stretch perhaps the late 1800s, it being one of the many practices to develop out of the interest in Western esotericism and folk practices. Researchers like Ronald Hutton and Philip Heselton postulate that the New Forest coven formed in the early 20th century, which falls within this time of esoteric renaissance.

Also, Gardner did NOT refer to his Craft tradition as "Wicca". He referred to it as "the Craft" and, according to him, the coveners who initiated him were "the Wicca" (or as he originally spelled it, "the Wica"). It's common among initiates to still use the word in that manner (amongst each other).

Gardner never used the word "witta". "Witta" is the faux-"Irish tradition" Edain McCoy fabricated in the 1990s.

Hutton acknowledges the feasibility of the coven into which Gardner claimed initiation. Gardner subsequently founded his own coven in the 1940s prior to publishing his books in the 1950s. Doreen Valiente also published research in the 1980s, locating vital records and locating the house out of which the coven practiced. Philip Heselton was able to identify the majority of the original coven. Gardner registered his 1940s coven for legal protection as a place of worship by joining a fringe spiritualist church. The anti-witchcraft laws had not yet been repealed and he joined the "Ancient British Church" created by a friend who'd been excommunicated by the CoE in order to gain status as a priest which then enabled him to register the covenstead as a place of worship. 

Unfortunately, the dictionary fails to state the most central aspect of actual Wicca: that it's orthopraxic and initiatory priesthood of a mystery cult. It's not a mass religion but a religious order. The multitude of varying practices that exist today which often claim to be "Wicca" are not actually the same thing as "the religion founded by Gardner."

If the etymology is of sufficient interest to anyone, there is research by an etymologist and initiate that was done a few years ago that I should be able to relocate.

Wiccan initiates do not publicly name their gods. The confusion of Wiccans honoring various gods stems from a combination of eclectic misinformation and the fact that a) initiates will use certain other names in public situations and b) initiates are not restricted from being devotees of other gods outside of the priesthood which is sometimes misconstrued as there being a mixed-bag of deities in Wicca. It's not uncommon for initiates who are devotees of other gods to practice forms of Reconstructionism; and initiates are quite clear on the fact that Wicca itself is not ancient or a reconstruction.

As for Gardner, what he published about the Wiccan gods is that they are tutelary.

From "The Meaning of Witchcraft":

"That which has influenced the Group-soul of this country once can do so again. I have already told of the belief of the Wica in the Ancient Gods of these islands.

The divinities of the Craft of the Wica are the Ancient Ones of Britain... I must not, however give the impression that the people of Ancient Britain worshipped only one God and only one Goddess, who were exactly the same in all parts of the country. In early early times the country was split up into many different tribes, which, of course, lived in localities differing from each other as to the type of country the were..."