How to Become a Witch (6 page)

Hecate is an ancient goddess, old before the Olympian pantheon came to Greece. Her origins may lie in Turkey, Thrace, or even Egypt.
She came to be known as Queen of the Witches—the goddess of wisdom, magick, night, and the crossroads.

Black hounds were sacred to her, and folklore has tales of giant black dogs with glowing eyes appearing to travelers on dark, lonely roads. Sometimes these hounds were fierce and threatening, but just as often, they seemed friendly and might even guide the lost to safety.

The meaning of the pentagram

The pentagram is a five-pointed star drawn with a single line, sometimes within and touching a circle (see page 61). It has been used for millennia as a symbol of protection, balance, and the Goddess. The points represent earth, air, fire, and water, under the guidance of spirit.

Its possible origin: if you carefully watch the apparent motion of the planet Venus in the sky, it produces a pentagram over eight years’ time. Venus is named for the goddess of love and life.

Today the pentagram, usually crafted in silver, is revered and worn by many Pagan folk, especially Witches.

The Universe According to Wicca
Common Beliefs

Witches live in a complex, beautiful, and multilayered universe—a very big universe. Not only is it billions of years old, with a hundred billion galaxies or more, but it has levels of reality superimposed and co-existing—different worlds, planes, or parallel universes. These other worlds have names such as the astral plane or the shamanic Underworld. Each has its own rules and its own inhabitants: elementals; discarnate humans; faery folk; guides, allies, and guardians; animal spirits; plant devas; and others who are even less familiar. Many Witches visit these places and meet the entities who dwell there. (We will explore this more in chapter 10.)

If this seems like pure imagination or fantasy to you because you haven’t seen it, then we would ask: when was the last time you saw a quark, or gamma radiation, or, for that matter, love or justice? Just because you cannot sense something with your standard senses doesn’t mean it’s not real.

We also model the universe as formed of five basic elements: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. Everything we know can be categorized as one of the first four, and spirit pervades them all. (We will explore this more in chapter 3.)

Everything is energy in different forms or flavors, and everything is connected to everything else. Magick works by manipulating this energy to change things.

As we’ve seen, Wiccans tend to see the universe as entirely sacred—even the bad parts are there for us to learn from, so that we can avoid repeated pitfalls in our own spiritual growth.

Where did it all come from? Witches don’t care very much about creation myths; we care more about how the world works now. So in that respect, we have no quarrel with the scientific view that the universe is billions of years old and humans only developed into our modern form a few thousand years ago. The innumerable creation myths found around the world are all equally inventive attempts to understand something fundamentally beyond our comprehension. Central to all these stories is the basic truth of magick: that an idea, with will behind it and focused energy to make it happen, can create anything. That’s how the universe was created, and that’s how Witches do magick today.

Witchcraft, or Wicca, has no single sacred text, no Bible or Koran, but there is one text that most Witches cherish, called the “Charge of the Goddess.” The Charge has become the closest thing to “gospel” that Witches have. A version first appeared in Charles Leland’s book
The Gospel of Aradia
, which explored the history of Strega, or Italian Witchcraft. Gardnerian priestess Doreen Valiente expanded it, and Starhawk has published a modernized version. We have blended all three and added a few touches of our own, resulting in this version:

The Charge of the Goddess
[2]

L
isten to the words of the Great Mother, who of old was called Danu, Freya, Gaia, Inanna, Isis, Quan Yin, Pachamama, Tara, and by many other names:

Though I am known by a thousand names, the whole round world honors me. I am the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Mistress of the World Ocean, and Ruler of the Realms Beyond Death, and I say to you:

Whenever you have need of anything, and at least once each month, and best it be under the open sky when the moon is full, you shall gather and adore the spirit of me, the Queen of all the Wise. You shall be free from slavery, and as a sign that you are truly free you may be naked in your rites. Let my worship be in the heart that rejoices: sing, feast, dance, make music and love, all in my presence, for all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals and my gift of joy on earth. Nor do I demand any sacrifice, for I am the mother of all the living; my law is love unto all beings, and my love is poured out upon the earth.

My body encircles the universe: I am the beauty of the living earth, the radiant moon among the stars, the mystery of the waters, and the divine fire within your heart. I am the soul of nature who gives life to the universe, and I call to you, for thou art goddess and thou art god. Unleash the coiled splendor within you, spread wide your wings, and come unto me. Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, laughter and reverence within you. Keep pure your highest ideals, and harm none. Seek your true will; strive ever to fulfill it, let nothing stop you or turn you aside. And you who would learn all magick, yet have not won its deepest secrets, to you will I teach all things as yet unknown. To you I will teach the great mystery: what you seek you must find within yourself, for you will never find it without.

I am a gracious goddess, the cup of the wine of life, the cauldron of woman’s womb; and mine is the holy gift of rebirth. In life, I give the delight of my constant presence and knowledge of the spirit eternal. And beyond death, I give peace and freedom and reunion with your beloved who have gone before. From me all things are born and to me they must return; for I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire.

names:

egyptian
Isis
celtic
Danu
norse
Freya
chinese
Quan Yin
south american
Pachamama
middle eastern
Inanna
greek
Gaia
druid
Tara

Most key Wiccan ideals are there: how to worship, how to live, the promise of life after death, freedom, the equality of all people, the sacredness of
all
expressions of love and pleasure, the joy of this life, the love of the Goddess and the God, and more.

What are the other principles of Witchcraft? The Council of American Witches was a short-lived group—only active in the mid-1970s—but their 1974 statement still holds true today. The Principles of Wiccan Belief are a good summary of most Witches’ beliefs and practices.

Council of American Witches
Principles of Wiccan Belief

1. We practice rites to attune ourselves with the natural rhythm of life forces marked by the phases of the moon and the seasonal quarters and cross quarters.

2. We recognize that our intelligence gives us a unique responsibility toward our environment. We seek to live in harmony with nature, in ecological balance offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept.

3. We acknowledge a depth of power far greater than that apparent to the average person. Because it is far greater than ordinary, it is sometimes called “supernatural,” but we see it as lying within that which is naturally potential to all.

4. We conceive of the Creative Power in the universe as manifesting through polarity—as masculine and feminine—and that this same Creative Power lies in all people and functions through the interaction of the masculine and feminine. We value neither above the other, knowing each to be supportive of the other. We value sex as pleasure, as the symbol and embodiment of life, and as one of the sources of energies used in magickal practice and religious worship.

5. We recognize both outer and inner, or psychological, worlds—sometimes known as the Spiritual World, the Collective Unconscious, Inner Planes, etc.—and we see in the interaction of these two dimensions the basis for paranormal phenomena and magickal exercises. We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary for our fulfillment.

6. We do not recognize any authoritarian hierarchy, but do honor those who teach, respect those who share their greater knowledge and wisdom, and acknowledge those who have courageously given of themselves in leadership.

7. We see religion, magick, and wisdom-in-living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it—a worldview and philosophy of life that we identify as Witchcraft, the Wiccan Way.

8. Calling oneself “Witch” does not make a Witch—but neither does heredity itself, nor the collecting of titles, degrees, and initiations. A Witch seeks to control the forces within her/himself that make life possible in order to live wisely and well without harm to others and in harmony with nature.

9. We believe in the affirmation and fulfillment of life in a continuation of evolution and development of consciousness that gives meaning to the universe we know and our personal role within it.

10. Our only animosity toward Christianity or toward any other religion or philosophy of life is to the extent that its institutions have claimed to be “the only way” and have sought to deny freedom to others and to suppress other ways of religious practice and belief.

11. As American Witches, we are not threatened by debates on the history of the Craft, the origins of various terms, the origins of various aspects of different traditions. We are concerned with our present and our future.

12. We do not accept the concept of absolute evil, nor do we worship any entity known as “Satan” or “the Devil,” as defined by Christian tradition. We do not seek power through the suffering of others, nor do we accept that personal benefit can be derived only by denial to another.

13. We believe that we should seek within nature that which is contributory to our health and well-being.
[3]

The Witch’s Values

What qualities of character do Witches cherish? You may have a pretty good idea from what has been said so far, but let’s sum it up.

First, there is
harmlessness
. One of our core principles says “harm none”—no one, including yourself. (So much for the stories about Witches flinging curses at anyone they dislike!)

respect
for all nature and every being is essential. If Spirit is embodied in all—if we look at someone and think “Thou art God, Thou art Goddess”—then disrespect becomes unthinkable. Most Witches celebrate diversity; matters like race, sexual orientation, lifestyle, etc., interest us but don’t divide us.

Our desire for
harmony with nature
and its cycles logically follows. We are part of nature; we cannot transcend or control it, but we seek ways to live in balance and sustainably.

We cherish
will
: our true will, our destiny, our highest purpose, what we are on this planet to accomplish.

We need and demand
freedom
. Call it autonomy—the right to manage our own lives as long as we don’t harm others. Witches are an independent bunch and don’t tolerate control by others. “You shall be free from slavery,” says the Charge.

Another goal is to give and receive
love
. As the Goddess “pours out her love upon the earth,” we hope to do the same. “My law is love unto all beings.”

We seek
wisdom
. After all, we are called the Craft of the Wise, and we try to live up to that name. Wisdom is a combination of understanding, clarity, insight, experience, and judgment.

You cannot have too much
knowledge
. Witches are lifelong learners, and it’s a rare Witch who doesn’t have a stack of books next to the bed. Of course, knowledge also comes from other people, experience, experimentation, and, perhaps most of all, from nature.

Then there is
power
. Witches are neither power-mad nor allergic to it. We don’t seek power over others, but we do aim to develop our own inner strength and power, and to empower others.