This episode is all about witchcraft and wizardry. Starting in the 1950s Wicca takes inspiration and teachings from English folklore and uses ancient symbolism.
It’s important to understand that witchcraft and paganism are not the same things. Pagan means rustic rural folk, typically used to refer to anyone who isn’t Christian. If you’re not a Christian, you’re a pagan.
It doesn’t have a faith system associated with it. In the last 150-200 years people have started to self-identify as pagan and are reclaiming the title.
Gerald Gardiner started working on the Wiccan religion as early as the 1930s, and it is the only fully-formed religion that developed in England. Gardiner referred to Wicca as the “Cult of Witchcraft” and referred to practitioners as Wica (no N).
Wicca grew in popularity during the 1960s counterculture movement as young adults rebelled against longstanding institutions like the government and church.
Wiccan might use spooky-sounding terms like “coven” to talk about their religious organizations, but it’s not a scary religion. Wiccans believe magic is not supernatural, but rather a natural force that you can learn to harness – just like we’ve learned to harness wind and solar power. There is a saying in Wicca, “If it harms none, do what you will”. They believe any magic you perform will come back to you threefold, so it behooves you to be kind.
There is no Satan worship in this religion! Wiccans don’t believe in Satan at all, that’s a Christian thing. It is, however, a duo-theistic faith. They believe in the Horned God and the Triple Goddess.
We promise it's not nearly as spooky as you may think!
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Katie Dooley 00:09
Hello preston
Preston Meyer 00:20
makes a good episode name no
Katie Dooley 00:22
because there's no context. Okay, either No, I would just say wicker wicker and people can get that.
Preston Meyer 00:33
Yeah, it does need a little bit of a graphic assistance Yeah.
Katie Dooley 00:35
Anyway so that's what we're talking about today on the holy watermelon podcast is Wicca not DJing?
Preston Meyer 00:51
Witchcraft and paganism Well, mostly witchcraft, they're not the exact same thing.
Katie Dooley 00:56
Well, we'll get into that I, we have some progressively spookier episodes heading into Halloween. But much like Satanism most of these aren't actually spooky once you know what they're about. So
Preston Meyer 01:10
they're things that when you name them, people will often come up with spooky imagery. That's about it fair. Like, would you talk about witches? People are probably they're gonna think of Harry Potter or the Sanderson Sisters, or mad mad a meme? Or who knows what something spooky or really awesomely fantastical.
Katie Dooley 01:33
Right? So I just want to get this out of the way. Right now. They do not worship Satan.
Preston Meyer 01:39
Yeah, that's, that's the thing that people say all the time. And if you remember, a few months back, we talked about Satanists, and how very few of them even worship Satan. And none of the witches that are at all part of the mainstream of witchcraft. even believe that there is a Satan Yes,
Katie Dooley 02:00
just like atheists, they don't even believe in Satan to be able to worship him. You'll see here that for the next couple episodes, they don't believe in fate. And do you want to talk about the semantics between Wiccan and paganism and how they do actually interchangeable?
Preston Meyer 02:16
For those of you who have been paying attention? I like words, that's my thing. paganism is a it has a weird history. Today, it's used a little differently than it was originally, the word is derived from the Latin Parganas, which literally means just rustic rural folk, as opposed to the developed city folk. This especially came to be a problem when Christianity was growing really effectively in the cities in the country folk had no use for Christianity. So that became the easy pejorative for those bumpkins. Don't believe in Jesus, those silly pagans, and then it just kind of stuck as if you're not a Christian. You're a pagan. But that's the broad, pejorative title thrown on anything non Christian as paganism is pretty much the equivalent of the Jews calling everybody who's not Jewish, a Gentile. Yeah, that's about it.
Katie Dooley 03:12
So, so pagan, doesn't have anything to do with witchcraft. Inherently, it's sort of adopted that but it's not the original meaning of the word
Preston Meyer 03:21
the last 150 200 years, more or less people have started to self identify as pagan, because they have come to understand its meaning in a Christian context. And so now people are now reclaiming the title, which is a fun thing to watch, I guess. Yeah. I
Katie Dooley 03:40
was really surprised by Wicca because it's a fairly new religion. And we'll talk about this it's based off of older folklore, but Wicca developed in the 1950s. Yeah,
Preston Meyer 03:55
going back to that word thing, just remembered wika old word, new pronunciation
Katie Dooley 04:08
times today, I'm so sorry, everyone.
Preston Meyer 04:10
So that double see a much for some reason Old English has a couple of little things that we see in common with good old Italian, where it'll make a chest sound in most scenarios. And so a wicker as it's commonly pronounced today, the spelling gives us something a little more familiar sounding of the witches. Are you the Witcher? The Witcher was a good show.
Katie Dooley 04:39
I was gonna say it but that ties into this somehow that I didn't research. I
Preston Meyer 04:43
don't know enough about the Witcher. I don't. I enjoyed the TV show. I don't know any of the lore beyond the TV show.
Katie Dooley 04:49
I know. If you know what I mean, right?
Preston Meyer 04:53
Henry's a handsome Henry Cavill
Katie Dooley 04:57
where we can and go down that road. So yes, the founder, I guess of modern day Wicca is a gentleman by the name of Gerald Gardner. And he started forming the religion in the 19, sort of 30s to 50s. Yeah,
Preston Meyer 05:17
he put a lot of study and thought into organizing this religion, it's the only fully formed religion to actually have originated in England. So maybe it's more English to be Wiccan and to be Anglican. Oh, since Anglican, of course, is just Catholic light songs Pope.
Katie Dooley 05:39
I actually think that's really interesting in that JRR, Tolkien really wanted to create a, that's what he wanted to do with Lord of the Rings was create this truly English creation myth. But I think he did a great job he did. And I'm sure there are, there's some peril, religion based off Lord of the Rings, probably. But it's interesting that Gardner was really successful in basing it in stories from the Middle Ages, and, you know, centuries of witchcraft.
Preston Meyer 06:10
He was a great anthropologist, and he really knew what he was talking about when he put this together, reviving some old traditions. But it's interesting to me that the way he used the labels for the organization was kind of interesting to me, that he would talk about the organization as a witch cult or the cult of witchcraft. And never use the generic term Wicca to describe the tradition or the practice. But he did call practitioners of the craft, Wicca, spelt with only a single C, which is conspicuous. And the spelling has since evolved as other people have taken to writing on the subject.
Katie Dooley 06:52
Yes, and now I think most people will refer to themselves as weekends. Yes,
Preston Meyer 06:56
that's a lot more common in my observation as well.
Katie Dooley 06:59
So Wicca is a form of Western. So terrorist ism, esoteric, esoteric esotericism? Is that how you say, that's how you say, all right. Which is a mouthful, a and then also a terrible definition. So basically, the western part means it was developed in England. But so terrorism is a lot harder to define.
Preston Meyer 07:28
Yeah, there's a variety of definitions. And I mean, they kind of work together, but they don't all actually mean the same thing. It's kind of interesting, I found three different almost definitions of esotericism. The
Katie Dooley 07:46
first one says, a matter of a secret internal tradition entrusted to a selected group. Fairly straightforward. I mean, that's kind of any religion.
Preston Meyer 07:56
Some of them are a lot more open than others. But not all.
Katie Dooley 07:59
Members Only stuff. Yeah, a tradition of an enchant. Sorry. The second one is a tradition of an enchanted world view, opposed by increasing disenchantment in the surrounding world.
Preston Meyer 08:12
Look at all this science and people saying, Oh, the world is so easy to explain. And then it's like, actually, no, the world is actually awesome and a little mysterious. I'm on board with that. I like it.
Katie Dooley 08:24
I don't disagree with it either. And the third one is a tradition of preserving knowledge and sensitivity that is rejected by both empirical science and dogmatic orthodox religious authorities.
Preston Meyer 08:35
So this is one that gets up on a lot of people's nerves. You come up with all these things that, like, you got an awful lot of people who will reject one of those extremes for the other. It's either just science or just organized religion. And there's this kind of, I don't want to say middle path between the two because it doesn't take the common secular point. It's like a third point stretching this line out into a triangle. Yeah. Which is actually kind of cool. But it offends a lot of people. And I don't see why that's necessary, but that's the world we live in. Right. And so esotericism is in like you said, an awful lot of religions. It's weird that also a lot of religions really kind of try and shut it down. Especially the way you see in mainstream Christianity. They're really not terribly friendly with Arrow esotericism.
Katie Dooley 09:34
I feel like and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like, it's because it's embracing that you can't explain it or the entire point of Christianity is to be able to say no, this is true. Or any religion, right?
Preston Meyer 09:46
Yeah. Most religions really like being able to latch on something and like be really dogmatic about it. Where right yeah, so So I just think it's it's really interesting to see this group really embrace what is so unpopular in So many other groups.
Katie Dooley 10:01
I was pretty intuitive actually. Yeah, the research for sure. I could get on board.
Preston Meyer 10:10
So Wicca rapidly grew in popularity in the 60s and 70s, especially with the help of the boom of the counterculture movement that we've talked a little bit about before, when a lot of people, especially young adults rebelled against pretty much every form of authority, especially state and church. And so the esoteric ideas that came with Wicca really appealed to a big chunk of the population. Absolutely.
Katie Dooley 10:38
And I think we were, you know, that was a time where we're getting more worldly. That's where Hinduism and Buddhism also really started to take root in North America as well. So big exchange of ideas and people being open to something other than air quotes. Normal, right?
Preston Meyer 10:56
Just being tired of your pastor, your priest or whatever. I mean, I can feel that today. So I get it. And at the time, it was a huge social push to really go out and explore everything. And today, there's still distrust, but there's not as much push to go and explore. I
Katie Dooley 11:18
think we'll see that with Gen. Zed. Yeah. That way, we'll come with them. You might be right. We're overdue. So time will tell. But I think so. Weekends, organize themselves in Kevin's. So pretty common witch lingo, but they don't really organize it all. They don't really organize at all. So there is like an overarching body, but you can just be a self practicing Wiccan. A lot like I just mentioned Buddhism, right? You can just be a Buddhist on your own or you can go to your Buddhist temple every week. Same kind of goes for Wiccan.
Preston Meyer 11:55
Yeah, there's an awful lot of independent practitioners. But there's also a fair size of the Wiccan population is sort of organized into covens. And usually that's how information is passed from one generation to another when you're not picking up a book in a store. I really liked the word coven. I think it's cool. As much as a lot of the world likes to, especially Christians would like to feel uncomfortable with the word coven. I think more people should refer to Christian congregations as covens. I think one it sounds way
Katie Dooley 12:35
cooler in a way.
Preston Meyer 12:37
On one hand, it will aggravate many Christians. But on the other hand, it just might remind them that they're supposed to be a covenant community, which a lot of Christians seem to have a hard time with. We'll see.
Katie Dooley 12:50
He's allowed to say that he's a Christian. Yep. I feel like we haven't reminded our listeners of that in a minute. Maybe I'm gonna get hate mail Preston.
Preston Meyer 12:59
I remember when we first started this, I was asking for hate mail all the time. And we still haven't gotten any.
Katie Dooley 13:06
I mean, I'm really impressed when we do our first year anniversary episode. I think we'll talk about that. I'm really happy actually, that we haven't anyway.
Preston Meyer 13:16
It's almost like our audiences actually clever and enlightened and understands what we're sharing. I love it. It's awesome.
Katie Dooley 13:24
So as I mentioned earlier in Wicked, although a new religion is based off of older English folklore, witchcraft, modern shamanic magic, and it has ancient symbols that might look a little scary, like the pentagram, which has also been adopted by the Freemasons and others.
Preston Meyer 13:46
Yeah, it's a it's a cool symbol. The symbol of the pentacle is certainly not exclusive to witchcraft or the Freemasons as you mentioned. In the same way, the five pointed star is used in Christianity to denote divine light as the source of life and power given to mankind and used directly connected to Jesus in the New Testament. The pentacle is a symbol of power to Wiccans. Each of the five points stands for one of the four elements or the four material states. And the fifth is spirit or ether being the power to bind the others into something useful.
Katie Dooley 14:22
And while it's like semantics there, pentacle is the correct way up, and a satanic pentacle is the opposite. Yeah, pretty much if you see someone wearing a pentacle, they might not be they're not a devil worshiper at all, but you can now identify if they're Wiccan or Satanist. Yeah, so
Preston Meyer 14:46
something practical that you can take out with you into the street right,
Katie Dooley 14:49
just when you see somewhere and pentacle point at them and shout at them what they are saying,
Preston Meyer 14:58
I spy with my I little something that worship Satan or doesn't which is more likely the case.
Katie Dooley 15:10
So we've talked about the history of Wicca What the heck do these witches even believe in besides a little bit of magic or a lot of magic?
Preston Meyer 15:19
Well definitely need to restate not Satan it's it's weird that so many people still are convinced and it's mostly Christians let's be real mostly Christians like to accuse wage worshipping smile and
Katie Dooley 15:39
Abraham I'd Sani Abrahamic but being in Canada we see mostly Christians. Yeah, but I'm sure if you asked a Jewish person or Muslim witches they go to Satan. That's you could be right. I usually am Preston. That's good.
Preston Meyer 16:00
Which is a gender neutral term, and can apply it to men or women. That's what that means. About Warlock which is usually thrown around just at dudes is considered derogatory. It's kind of rude because the word itself actually means oath breaker or sometimes a liar. But really more truthfully, it's an oath breaker, someone who's actually betrayed a trust.
Katie Dooley 16:26
So yes, so boy, witches are witches and girl witches are witches. They're witches ease on binary witches are witches. Right? Very easy.
Preston Meyer 16:35
Yeah. It's one label for so many people who have such a hard time with these extra labels and how do we handle them? Now so easy, there's just one.
Katie Dooley 16:48
So, sociologically, Wicca is primarily a duo theistic religion. Now there are people who are who believe in a more polytheistic Pantheon or a monotheistic Pantheon, your
Preston Meyer 17:05
mileage may vary.
Katie Dooley 17:06
But generally, the majority of Wiccans have a duo theistic pantheon? Yeah, I don't know if that's the best word.
Preston Meyer 17:17
Having Pantheon as a word. Sounds funky. Yeah. Does
Katie Dooley 17:20
duo theistic sky family?
Preston Meyer 17:23
Their theology is nice and simple. Yes, we have one goddess and one God. And that's easy to handle.
Katie Dooley 17:32
Yes. So the man, the male is the horned God. And he's often associated with animals, the natural world, the afterlife, and is supposed to be an ideal role model for men.
Preston Meyer 17:49
Like that, you know, what's the dudes need a better role model than what they've got?
Katie Dooley 17:55
The female also known as the triple Goddess is associated with regular lady things like fertility live springtime, and she's supposed to be an ideal role model for women. One thing I looked into and couldn't find anything on, I think we'd actually have to find a real which is what this looks like now that we're moving away from the gender binary.
Preston Meyer 18:15
That's an excellent question.
Katie Dooley 18:17
I found like one Okay, article, but not right. So cool. Like you have an ideal role model for men and you have an ideal role model for women but but the non binary or gender fluid people, and I feel like Wiccan is progressive enough that they've probably address that within their own Kevin's,
Preston Meyer 18:35
but what you like about either one of them, and you're gonna be okay.
Katie Dooley 18:39
Yeah, but I'd be curious to actually, like, get some research or some actual empirical data on how they, how they handle that now,
Preston Meyer 18:50
right? I think the triple Goddess is really interesting that hecka tea is the name that's, I think, most often, at least really, really often applied to this goddess. But she is revered in three forms, as the maiden, the mother, and the Crone, a young woman, a middle aged woman, and an old woman to kind of appeal to each of the three stages of life and yeah, it's definitely not just for women, which is pretty cool. Yeah. As
Katie Dooley 19:26
I mentioned, just like any other religion, there's lots of denominations in Wicca. They're called traditions, as opposed to denominations. And they vary on what their do a theistic god and goddess look like there's also variations. So the oak King instead of the horned horn, King, horned God, and a boon goddess instead of the triple goddess,
Preston Meyer 19:49
I think it's really cool that the emblem that's used for them, or well, specifically, the emblem that is used for the horned God is Some full circle and like a crescent, like a crescent moon turned upwards right on top of the circle to look kind of like horns. Yeah. And then the symbol for the triple Goddess is that exact same symbol turned 90 degrees, and bring that Crescent over to the opposite side where it is. So you've got three in a line. Yeah, crescent, whole circle, crescent. And it's nice and simple, and yet so easily recognizable. It's kind of cool. It's great. Gardner also spoke of a God beyond the primary duo, whom He called the prime mover, and the supreme god who was too complex for the human mind. Easy enough idea to get a hold of a lot of
Katie Dooley 20:44
religions talk about this Gnostic sort of, yeah.
Preston Meyer 20:47
And so some Wiccans see the supreme god as pantheistic. And therefore, the God and Goddess are just aspects of that supremum God. Some others see him as a prime mover in a more deistic way, that he created the lesser gods, and then just kind of left his creation indefinitely. And there's loads of diversity in between, like Christians, there's just so many different ways you can interpret the ideas that are going around. And unfortunately, there are a few too many Wiccans who are like Christians, too happy to tell others that they aren't real Wiccans when they believe something slightly different. It's, it's not as much of a problem as it is in Christianity, but it's a thing that I
Katie Dooley 21:35
feel like covens are few and far between.
Preston Meyer 21:39
They're not huge parts of the population.
Katie Dooley 21:43
We'll talk about this more when we get into prac the actual practices that happen in Wicca but magic plays a huge role in in Wicca, but it is not believed to be supernatural, which is why this point is in our belief section. So it's considered a force of nature. So you're just wielding it like we control the wind or the water or fire. They use magic.
Preston Meyer 22:12
Yeah, it's, it's a complicated, but natural thing. I mean, we didn't understand the formula for how to describe gravity for a long time. But we're there now. And then we're still questioning it.
Katie Dooley 22:25
There's loads of still stuck in this chair.
Preston Meyer 22:32
You're not stuck. I mean, you've chosen to sit down, you're not tied down. You're not glued down. I
Katie Dooley 22:37
know. But I didn't feel good or float or fly or anything cool.
Preston Meyer 22:40
This is true. I really like the Wiccan read, I've heard it a few times and variations on it over the years as I've had dealings with a couple of wiggers here in the city. And the Wiccan read or advice states, if it harms none, do what you will. Kind of easy, solid. I kind of akin to the golden rule.
Katie Dooley 23:06
But that's like, exactly the same as long as you're not hurting anyone else do what do you want? Yeah, that's my motto. Yes. So this comes up more with the practice of magic is, you know, black magic inevitably comes up. And if you believe in magic, and what it can do, then, you know, obviously can cause harm or just like it could cause good. So that's where this comes in to, you know, yeah, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you can perform magic that make sure you do good stuff. I also, I don't. I had a note somewhere now I gotta find it. Maybe I didn't write it down. But basically, it said that whatever you do with magic, we'll come back at you three fold. Yeah,
Preston Meyer 23:57
you got that here. And then I
Katie Dooley 23:58
don't see it. But I won't scroll through everything so that we don't lose our spot. But basically, yeah, that's what it says that whatever you do with your magic will come back at you three folds. So basically do good stuff. Yeah.
Preston Meyer 24:16
And it's kind of interesting that people like to talk about black magic versus white magic, as you kind of mentioned, and some witches will talk about a distinction there, or the left hand path versus the right hand path. But more and more we're seeing that that's less of a popular way to look at magic now which is kind of interesting
Katie Dooley 24:38
and only enough I think we'll talk more about Black Magic next episode. Spoiler
Preston Meyer 24:45
are teasers attached to a very different magical philosophy. Very
Katie Dooley 24:52
physically spooky,
Preston Meyer 24:53
but more spatially more spooky, for sure more spirit.
Katie Dooley 24:56
From my research. I'm already
Preston Meyer 25:00
For the vast majority of witches the shedding of blood is abominable. And animal sacrifices are outright forbidden. Dropping rat tails and frog's eyes and real potion is absolute nonsense. Sorry to disappoint your
Katie Dooley 25:17
nonsense.
Preston Meyer 25:21
I thought the the idea of afterlife was really interesting that the Wiccans Alright, well, not all Wiccans, but an awful lot of Wiccans believe in that there is an immortal spirit that lingers after death. And that an awful lot of witches hold the simple belief that if you focus on making the best of this life, it should probably have a positive effect on the next life. But otherwise, specific doctrines of an afterlife don't tend to hold much importance and can vary greatly from one group to another. There's really no consensus on what what constitutes a spirit or a soul even. So it's kind of an interesting thing. But Gardner did believe in reincarnation, which is interesting, we don't see a whole lot of new religions talking about reincarnation, but this is one of them. And he taught that witches would come back as witches, again, as opposed to any lesser or Well, actually, based on the model that we have from Gardner, there is no greater state to come back then as a witch. But they wouldn't come back as a lesser thing at all, after, and this would be after an indefinite rest in what he called the summer land. You could be resting in the summer land for a short time, a long time, who knows. But it would be pleasant. And that's kind of nice. Summerlin does have a nice ring, right. And this belief is not adopted by all Wiccans. But it is by those people who really stick to Gardner's doctrine. And there's also variants on the nature of the life cycle, what it means to have a reincarnation cycle. Some of them do adopt an idea similar to what we saw in Hinduism, others vary a little bit more. And
Katie Dooley 27:14
I saw in some of the articles I read that they do have this idea of karma, similar to what we see in Hinduism. So what's it like being a witch?
Preston Meyer 27:26
I don't know. You're asking the wrong question.
Katie Dooley 27:30
I was trying to segue in. But thinks, so day to day practices of witches. They don't really have they don't have a religious book, Gardner wrote a book of shadows, which is part religious texts, part notebook part, how to do magic rituals. And so that's revered in some groups of or some covens, I guess, some witches will make their own book of shadows are also known as a Grimoire. Or you can have a Grimoire passed down to you. So there is, that's pretty standard to have something that dictates different magical rituals. It just depends on who is you have and where you got it from.
Preston Meyer 28:18
I've really liked that they're typically treated as a really great recipe book, which is an oversimplification, but I think it's useful to get the idea across that, you know, if you're making pancakes, you don't need tons of yeast, for example, you're gonna have not pancakes if you had yeast. And so these, these grimoires are part of them. Part of them is that you are taking notes on what has been working for spells and what has not. And that's, I think it's really nifty that it's a living text that can change from generation to generation not and not be a problem when it makes those changes. Absolutely. I think it's super cool. For many Wiccans the importance of practice is a lot more important than belief. Ritual is 100% more important than theology. Because what you do affects the world around you. It affects the people you deal with. And your theology is mostly going to be affecting you unless you've decided to be dogmatic about it and start hurting people because of it. Which isn't really a thing and Wiccan Yeah, we
Katie Dooley 29:26
can secure, particularly evangelical
Preston Meyer 29:30
Oh, no, either, in my experience, typically pretty open to hanging out with people of all faiths and inviting them to some events that are appropriate to have guests, but they're not going knocking on doors saying, Hey, have you heard the good news? Makes it easy to be neighbors with them. Unless of course you're sticking the ask Christian who decides to Hate Everything that's different. Then you're the one being hard neighbor,
Katie Dooley 30:04
you're the drum.
Preston Meyer 30:06
It's actually really interesting. I noted in my studies that many Wiccans are actually reluctant to accept the belief in magic. And it doesn't help that there's one single definition of magic that varies from one school to the next. But even these doubting, Wiccans all value, the power of participation in a ritual that brings about a powerful religious experience. And
Katie Dooley 30:30
this is going to be more interesting. Next episode, too. Sure. So next episode, we're talking about voodoo. Absolutely. So as we get closer to Halloween, so I would say that I am reluctant to believe in magic, but there is this energy, right? That I mean, it's like mob mentality, I guess it's like the easiest way to explain it that we'll see this in voodoo rituals a lot next week, where something happens to our psyche, when we're around a lot of people thinking the same thing. And so I can see how that could be interpreted as magic or, like you said, next week as spiritual experience of some sort.
Preston Meyer 31:09
And yeah, it's kind of nifty. Like I don't believe in hypnosis. And that's this kind of plays into how we see voodoo played out.
Katie Dooley 31:19
Have you ever been to a hypnotist? I have, and you still don't believe it. You think people just act like that?
Preston Meyer 31:27
Because I'm such a skeptic by intellectual mechanism that permits hypnosis is complicated and funky. And it's not fair to say I don't believe that hypnosis is a thing and because it absolutely works, but it's not mystical or magical or anything. It's a semi conscious choice. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Which is, itself kind of funky and weird to study,
Katie Dooley 31:53
I think. Yeah. Because I've only been to one or two hypnotist shows and a good hypnotist will put like, pull from the line and be like, No, you have to get off the stage because they know that it's not going to work on you. Yeah. And they know real fast. I think that person because I don't want to embarrass myself and people do really embarrassing stuff.
Preston Meyer 32:13
Absolutely. So slight deviation.
Katie Dooley 32:19
But an important deviation. No kidding. It wasn't even a little bit back
Preston Meyer 32:22
to the belief in Wicca, that ritual is more important than theological belief. Really, the best argument for that kind of position is that there's an awful lot of reasons to do good. Doesn't really matter why we do good. Not as much I think now,
Katie Dooley 32:41
but you have to understand why it's good. And what good is yeah, let's go back a few
Preston Meyer 32:45
complicated as we have addressed, generally, yes, I
Katie Dooley 32:50
see what you're saying.
Preston Meyer 32:53
If what you're doing is good, then it's good.
Katie Dooley 32:58
Perfect. Love it.
Preston Meyer 33:01
People are gonna argue about that forever. Oh, well.
Katie Dooley 33:04
So magic takes the form of spell casting as a ritual practice. So if you watch who I mean, I watched a bunch of documentaries on Wicca. They'll talk about casting a circle. They'll mix things in mortar and pestle. And that's how they worship. They dance around the fire.
Preston Meyer 33:26
They gather energy and send it out into the universe to do good. Love it. Ultimately, it's the the short and sweet summary of it. Which I think is kind of cool. And there's some great times of year where people really put some effort into that.
Katie Dooley 33:45
Yeah, so wicker and I celebrations or holidays are called Sabbats. Which sounds kind of similar to
Preston Meyer 33:54
Shep at It does, doesn't it? Yep.
Katie Dooley 33:57
They come I think exclusively from Celtic or German Germanic paganism. So some of these are very similar in old Celtic and old German religion. So the big one, Salin or Halloween is to celebrate death and the ancestors you will tie in is at the winter solstice or to celebrate the sun's rebirth. A lot of these are on the solstice is the for the eighth fall
Preston Meyer 34:25
to Solstice. Okay, thank
Katie Dooley 34:26
you. We all need to have these falling Equinox, two of these fallen souls This is and then there's extra and then there's ones in between. Imbolc is the first signs of spring so this one happens in like February ish. Ostara is the vernal equinox and I think we touched on this in a previous episode. That sounds a hell of a lot like the word Easter.
Preston Meyer 34:50
Sure does.
Katie Dooley 34:51
So here's your pagan origin for Easter everyone. Beltane is Mayday happens In May, celebrating the fair folk and the full spring like spring is here. litho is the summer solstice. Then we have Luna casa, which celebrates the first roots are, it's a late summer celebration, so about this time of year, because the apples are on my tree. Mm hmm. And then we have Melbourne, which is the autumnal equinox and celebrates the harvest. So that is their holiday celebrations, but they have a lot of other rituals and practices.
Preston Meyer 35:37
And an awful lot of us have a thing called the cone of power, which sounds a little bit like sci fi, I guess.
Katie Dooley 35:47
Did you hear about the Hitler Chrono power? In your research? No. Okay, well, let's explain what kind of power come to power. All right.
Preston Meyer 35:57
So the cone of power is a ritual method of focusing energy, using it to accomplish magical goals by sending that energy out into the world or out into the universe. It's done by witches assembled in a magical circle, focusing on a single point above the circle, thus, a cone which is then elevated by raising the point of collective focus higher and higher until you've just kind of got a beam out into the universe, which is kind of cool.
Katie Dooley 36:28
So in world during World War Two, apparently, the Nazis were coming in boats towards England. And to prevent that a bunch of witches got together and created a massive cone of power. And they did this ritual all night long. And the Nazis never crossed. Is that the channel then the Nazis never crossed the channel. And some of them died. Because that's how much energy they put into it. So I mean, did it work?
Preston Meyer 37:07
I mean, it sure sounds like it did. Yeah,
Katie Dooley 37:08
the Nazis didn't cross the channel. So and they were on their way. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
Preston Meyer 37:15
That's awesome. Great. The practice of performing sky clad, which means in the nude fully nude. No clothes at all, has been sensationalized plenty over the years. And there are some great reasons for its persistence in the craft. I think.
Katie Dooley 37:33
I feel like we should start by saying that Gerald Gardner was a naturalist. Yeah, you did, in fact, run a nudist colony. So I'm sure that influenced some of this. He was adamant that none of it was overtly sexual. Right people naked people?
Preston Meyer 37:52
Yeah, it's, we'll get to that. So the one of the explanations that's given is that clothes are said to impede the flow of energy, which sounds like a pretty elementary level excuse to get people naked. But licking a nine volt battery will get you a better shock than putting it against your shoe. So there's some solid logic to this. Clothes also also signify and reinforce class distinctions. And it's important to have the group unified as much as possible. And the equality of nudity is incredibly humbling for the average person, while simultaneously empowering. So there's some advantages there. I'm
Katie Dooley 38:38
more comfortable in my nudity. Now that I'm older. Is that weird? Stay on a podcast.
Preston Meyer 38:47
Maybe not. It's not a visual medium.
Katie Dooley 38:48
And I am fully clothed right now. Right?
Preston Meyer 38:57
It's, well, like I said, for the average person, nudity is humbling. And for a lot of people who really like to get bent out of shape on this because it's so terribly opposed to our culture. And just don't, a lot of people find nudity offensive for some reason. There's an awful lot of cultures throughout our history that have been AOK with public nudity. In fact, the Olympic games used to require nudity for their events. And, honestly, I'm glad they've made this I mean, I tell you what, if they hadn't made the switch, the men's events would not be as popular as the women's events. Speak for
Katie Dooley 39:53
yourself. Isn't that I made this So you know, that says, well, orgies probably happen because let's be honest they happen in every religion.
Preston Meyer 40:06
So you say every religion I have never even heard of an orgy in any Abrahamic faith
Katie Dooley 40:12
to children of God.
Preston Meyer 40:15
I really don't feel comfortable qualifying that as an Abrahamic. Let's
Katie Dooley 40:19
just be real. For a minute, okay, I'll accept Okay. Four G's happen. But a lot of people think for some reason that orgies are a foundational piece of Wicca and it's not. Oh, a little bit Oh, and the other eye because I knew you were going to come back with this.
Preston Meyer 40:40
I've never been invited to an orgy. And at this point, I don't think it's gonna happen. After
Katie Dooley 40:46
this episode, knowing your interests you might be surprised. I watched a and I watched a documentary on the Vatican and the sex abuse in the Vatican and a reporter went undercover and he ended up at a gay priest orgy. So I wanted my rebuttal. I was just about to be like, suck my dick, but that's just like, extra inappropriate for the content. So yes, orgies happen in every religion.
Preston Meyer 41:16
Okay, I want to I want to qualify this a little bit of what we're about to talk about in Wicca is actually a legit part of the faith tradition. orgies are straight up forbidden in all of the texts that are accepted by Christians, Jews and Muslims. But anyway, DNS will always exist. My point is
Katie Dooley 41:42
that a lot of people think orgies are like, that's what you do and Wicca and it's really not. It's not at all that was my point. So that if you're worried about Wiccan sex orgies, worry about your odds.
Preston Meyer 42:00
Yeah. It shouldn't be noted, though, that some few groups do perform what is called Sex magic. Only a small number of those have an actual sexual event. Instead of that, instead, the vast majority of witches who do have sex magic as part of the ritual, incorporate a symbolic act of placing a ceremonial knife in a chalice.
Katie Dooley 42:31
I don't get it. I saw one of the ceremonial knives and the handle was a phallus.
Preston Meyer 42:41
I mean, yeah, some people get away into it. Yeah. And this is done to invoke the energy of the god and the goddess for their spells. Most just do a symbolic thing. Very few have an actual sex event in public. And for the very few that do it is actually a deliberate subversion of the Christian morality that's forced on everybody all the time in our western culture. And so sometimes these events get really kinky and take it an extra step to really subvert this cultural norms that we enjoy and sometimes adopt techniques from BDSM dungeons, which I thought was an interesting thing to learn. Wow,
Katie Dooley 43:28
I didn't find those articles.
Preston Meyer 43:33
You're not as committed to the research. Wow. Throwing Shade
Katie Dooley 43:45
Preston's a pervert.
Preston Meyer 43:49
Okay, sure. Whatever. I find things because I've researched
Katie Dooley 44:01
So lastly, on our weekend practices, is the wiccaning. Well, you sound I mean, when you say I like that sounds so much scarier than it is. It's like a christening. You call upon the god and the goddess to protect your child throughout their lives.
Preston Meyer 44:20
It's not a religious commitment, though. Like it isn't Christianity where it's like you're now expected to be a Wiccan for the rest of your life, which is a thing I appreciate because Wiccans appreciate and value individual choice and free will. It's just a here's some protection for a while. I like that. I did, too.
Katie Dooley 44:40
You added this whole section. Yeah, I did. Tell me let's talk about it.
Preston Meyer 44:44
All right. So wicker by its very nature, fending Christians because Christians like to be offended. It wasn't recognized as a religion in America. For several decades after had really become an organized, established thing. And what's interesting is what precipitated that in the United States. A fellow named Herbert Daniel Detmer was incarcerated for something entirely different. And while in prison, he was told that he could not obtain the ritual objects he required for worship, which I mean, we've talked about one of those items is pretty often a weapon. In a prison scenario, this is not friendly. So he sued. And in 1986, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals established that Wicca is a genuine religion, and is therefore entitled The First Amendment protection.
Katie Dooley 45:50
There's, I mean, that makes sense. Yeah. Makes
Preston Meyer 45:55
me wonder, did I couldn't find, did they actually give him a knife? Or did they just allow him to obtain other materials?
Katie Dooley 46:03
I don't know. But that reminds you to other things that I found in my research is, and this is especially a big deal in England is because knife crime is huge. Kind of, I won't say like gun crime in the States, it's nowhere near that level. But their problem crime is knife violence is how do you know differentiate between a weapon and a religious object? So that was something that they had to like, one
Preston Meyer 46:33
seeks having, being armed for when they're, like fully decked out, and there's not a shortage of Sikhs in England?
Katie Dooley 46:44
No. And then the other. This goes to Wicca being recognized as a religion, there was a army widow, and they wouldn't put the the it's the pentacle. They wouldn't put the pentacle on her husband's grave, because they wouldn't recognize it. Eventually, they did. But how sad is that?
Preston Meyer 47:04
Yeah, it's kind of rough. But when the state doesn't want to admit that your religion is valid? Well, at least you get to put up a fight. And thicken a little bit more locally to our Canadian audience in our Canadian home. The last Canadian to be arrested for witchcraft was Tiffany Butch in December of 2018. Wow. Yeah. She's a psychic who was charged for asking a protection fee from somebody who she'd convinced was in spiritual danger. So basically, she was ring running a hankie protection racket. But she was charged for pretending to practice witchcraft, fortune telling contrary to Section 365 B of the Criminal Code of Canada. This, this charge was thrown at her less than a week before the law was repealed for being stupid and outdated.
Katie Dooley 48:03
I mean, the fact that we have a law for pretending to practice witchcraft, right is more concerning than if we had a law for against practicing witchcraft, like, right. What did they do with all the kids that thought they were Harry Potter for two decades? Right. Lazarus pretending to practice witch crusher is like, just the wording of that is so ridiculous. Yeah. So pretending to practice witchcraft causes no harm.
Preston Meyer 48:37
Well, okay. So from the legal perspective, I guess the law that is written here, or was part of 365 B in the Criminal Code of Canada, outlined how it counts is a criminal offence to practice or to pretend to practice witchcraft. If you are deliberately deceiving somebody, and pretending to be Harry Potter doesn't usually come up all the way to pretending to or attempting to deceive somebody keep
Katie Dooley 49:07
it into belief, right? Does this lady who was in spiritual danger, believe that witchcraft was real, then how are you pretending? You know what I mean? If you believe, how do they know she was pretending if they don't believe in it, of course, they think she was pretending.
Preston Meyer 49:30
And that's, unfortunately how the law even came to be, is the belief that all people who practice witchcraft are pretending which is a pretty good reason for the law to be taken off the books, especially when pretending to practice practice witchcraft. We already have laws that make fraud illegal. So having laws against fake magic is redundant. Yeah, just enforce fraud laws won't be okay in theory.
Katie Dooley 50:06
Well, that makes more sense because then it's like, this feels very, like anti Wiccan.
Preston Meyer 50:12
It definitely was seen that way by the entire community. And it was celebrated when I was taken off the books three years ago. So
Katie Dooley 50:21
yeah, absolutely. If there is a, I mean, obviously, this falls on whatever spectrum of you believing in magic, but if you Yeah, then it doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't believe in. Right, and it protects people who do believe that dumb.
Preston Meyer 50:44
Our lawmakers are not always working in the best interest of the whole public. That's probably going to be our reality for longer than I'm around, unfortunately. Yeah, witchcraft is really interesting to me.
Katie Dooley 51:00
I found it. I found this one very enjoyable to research. As
Preston Meyer 51:04
I've learned a few things that I didn't know before. And I've learned more about a few things. I knew a little bit about Sabrina. Sabrina's chilling adventures, or whatever it's called on Netflix. Good, fun, terrible representation of witchcraft. For the first little while, they're extremely Satanic and like, a really weird flavor of parody satanic. But towards the end, it actually starred. They switched from worshipping Satan to worshipping Haggerty so things get better as the show goes, okay.
Katie Dooley 51:42
Yeah, like I said, I was I had a pretty, you know, general idea. I basically thought it was the English folklore not based in English folklore and such a baby religion. This is probably one of the newest religions. It's forever covered until we get to Scientology in the new year. No, they're probably about the same age. Actually. Not I say now that I say that, so yeah, surprised by how young it was. But I think they're sort of foundational. String, but doctrine is pretty, pretty solid, pretty good.
Preston Meyer 52:17
I think they get points over Scientology for being older based on just having drawn from older ideas. Where Scientology is a great new science fiction religion. Ashley Mortimer, former director of the Center for pagan studies in England, said that Wicca is a central tenet is to discover happiness through the truth, find your own individual truth or will, and practice that as hard as you can without bringing harm to others. I like that, in fact, a lot more people need to adopt this specific philosophy, whatever your religion is, apply this philosophy to your religion, and you're gonna have a much better time.
Katie Dooley 53:03
I mean, not even your religion just like anything you do in life. Yeah, that's an if you're approached university like that, practice that as hard as you can without bringing harm to others. Yeah, that's just a good way to live your life. Yeah,
Preston Meyer 53:17
I like it. And do you imagine if everybody held themselves to that high of a moral standard?
Katie Dooley 53:25
I think yeah, a lot better place. Absolutely.
Preston Meyer 53:29
It would. Well, that's wicker. I liked it.
Katie Dooley 53:38
We might call this episode like
Preston Meyer 53:42
don't forget check us out on Facebook Instagram.
Katie Dooley 53:49
Discord, yes, discord and Patreon. We have great conversations on our Discord. Lots of laughs great meme sharing. Patreon. We have bonus episodes in early release. And we have some really cool bonus episodes coming up.
Preston Meyer 54:04
Yeah, we do. And some good fun with those. Yeah, we're
Katie Dooley 54:07
having some great fun. So check out our Patreon for that and to help keep us going with some support. And if you don't like a subscription and want to still support the podcast, check out our Spreadshirt it is our merch store spreadshirt.com/holly waterman and get some exclusive holy watermelon merch.
Preston Meyer 54:29
Yeah. So much fun.
Katie Dooley 54:32
I think so.
Preston Meyer 54:34
Thanks for joining us, everybody. Peace be with you.
