Is Wicca the Oldest Religion?

#wicca #paganism #witchcraft

Is Wicca the most ancient religion in the world? Academic historical overview of Wiccan claims of being an ancient surviving witch cult. Gerald Gardner, Margaret Murray, Doreen Valiente and the History of Wicca.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

REFERENCES
Crowley, Vivianne (1998), 'Wicca as Nature Religion' in Pearson, J.; Roberts, R. H.; and Samuel, G. (eds.), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 170-179.
Doyle White, E. (2016) Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft, None edition., Brighton, Chicago, Sussex Academic Press.
Hutton, R. (2019) The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Oxford University Press.

MY SET UP

00:00 Introduction: Is Wicca the Oldest Religion
00:42 The founding of Wicca
01:39 Margaret Murray
04:34 Wicca the term and usage
05:37 Gerald Gardner
07:54 Doreen Valiente
8:13 Wicca spreads to US
10:20 Support Angela’s Symposium

⚠️ Copyright of Dr Angela Puca, in all of its parts ⚠️

Music by Erose MusicBand. Check them out!

[LaneMaxfield]

The invention of Wicca often makes me think about the invention of Kabbalah. Moses De Leon was inspired to write the Zohar around 1280, and, believing nobody would take it seriously if it was his own work, claimed to have exclusive access to ancient sources that taught him this lost, ancient wisdom. It was a lie, but it worked, and now Kabbalah genuinely is a tradition with hundreds of years behind it. Wicca, I suspect, is on the same path, just a few centuries behind.

[TravisLee]

Love the crescent moon necklace the whole look just works extremely well.

[FraterRC]

Our high school coven was just three of us, with resources hard to find pre-internet...I wonder how many more people would have been keen do participate if we'd had the wealth of inspiration you bring here, thanks as always for all your Great Work! :D

[williamturner]

The Triumph of the Moon by historian Ronald Hutton covers, excellently, the role of Gerald Gardener and Margaret Murray in creating modern Wicca.

[rowandoyle]

To anyone in the Ohio area, Raymond Buckland's personal collection is now a one-room museum in Cleveland, featuring stuff from the Golden Dawn and early days of Wicca, it's a neat way to spend an hour or so!

[phrynejames]

Nearly had a hernia laughing at the title! Good video to do, there's a lot of misinformation going about

[brianhenderson]

Thank you Angela. Another great video. Two thumbs up!!

[julians]

Alwas encouraged by you to always delve deeper.

[MAGIAECORPUS]

Great episode Dr Pucca and great postulates. I don’t think that it matters how old Wicca is. Older religions change and become different all the time. What matters is the value that we are able to draw from our beliefs and religions. Thank you for being awesome. Ciao❤

[Jarozila]

Great video. Thanks for making and sharing it.

[StregaMystica]

Wonderfully and accurately presented as always.

[justsomeperson]

I hope you don't get a lot of angry feedback by affirming that Wicca is not an ancient religion. I've known a few people that would ruffle the feathers of. Though I agree with you. From what I found in my decades as a Wiccan, it is very much a revival and reworking of old religions. That in no way diminishes it. There's something to be said for iterative improvements. And I still incorporate some of Wicca in my current faith. (Which I can only classify as generic paganism, mostly practiced as a kitchen witch.) I didn't transition from Wicca because it was bad. If anything I held on to it for too long because it was so good. It's just that the more religions I learned about and came to respect, the less I felt pulled to honor only one path in my own life.

[craigdelaney]

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Interesting, and informative. Thank You!🤗👍🏾

[geraldmeehan]

Thank you for brief history and wonderful video

[steveenglehart]

I study religion to get to know the viewpoints of people and see life through another's eyes!

[kashinewell]

As a practicing solitary Wiccan, I want to say thank you for making this video. While I dont think Wicca is an unbroken tradition from the ancient times, I see the world view that it comes out of as connected to the animist ways of ancient human cultures in hunter-gatherer times. While the expressions of this differ around the world, it is academically verified that the oldest cultral evidences are often showcasing animistic world views. Beliefs that the world is sacred and alive, in magic and of the intercennection of all things in life and death. Wiccan theology of God and Goddess is an attempt to connect to the natural experiences which inspired the rise of deities from this sigular experience of an animistic world view as humanity developed towards civilization. Being that life became more deep and centered around concepts of society and not just the natural world, there was need to see divinity in various new ways, to guide us through new evolitions and stages of growth. And so the attempt to see God/Goddess as many deities who are really one is not meant as enforcing gender role stereotypes or as taking from other traditions practice as a way of appropriation, but rather a way of saying religion and all these different faces of the divine come from the same religious impulse and may all be expressions of ultimately the same human desire to experience the divine in some way. And so as a wiccan, I really do accept the validity of all spiritual paths and their right to any beliefs that further them on their spritual journey. However, am also grumpy about beliefs that encourage forcing belief on others or that lead to acts of violence or opression that affect the physical world we all share and each ondividuals right to respect. To other's who have felt infringed upon by Wiccas use of aspects of your traditions, I apologize for that to whatever small degree that could mean from a stranger on the internet. Going from learning Wicca, Druidry, and witchraft from books 20 years ago to being part of an extremely varied online witchraft community has been😊 eye opening and i believe more than ever in the rights of each path to exist and be respected. It has come to my attention that since wicca has grown and become more ainstream in some ways, people really have used Wicca in some cases to step on toes or to not be careful in how they treat others views of deity or their traditions. What i would like to see among Wiccans who do believe similarly to me is to show respect for all traditions and if working with specific faces of the divine or traditional practices to be mindful about how they share this with others who may have different practices and not nessicarily understand where we are coming from either. To me, Wicca is about respect for the religious mystery itself, which has always been some part of humanties way of experiencing the world. And the attempt is to honor and respect this universal source of spirituality and have a personal worship that actually acknowledges this. Some people do not have much access to their cultural heratage as a lot has been lost to time and destruction. But this impulse inside that makes so many want to be pagan or witch, especially those who feel that centers around our connection with nature, is something we all share even though on different paths. Wicca is a path of honoring that and i hope that as it keeps growing in the future we can keep the ideas of respect while also not having our own beliefs scoffed at either. I can see how, for certaim gender or sexual identities, its not appealing to see the divine as based on the interaction of male and female energies. But something curious to me is that the yin yang symbol has been used in LGBT community to subtly communicate bisexuality. And when I was a teenager I wore a yin yang ring as a symbol of the unity and ebb and flow of God and Goddess to be something that was more socially acceptable and personally appealing than Wiccan looking jewelry. And was confused why so many bisexual people were giving me hints until one of my friends explained it haha apparently there are many LGBT who are Wiccan and i am very happy for this. I hope all Wiccans who still have judgment to people over things like that will become more educated and welcoming, and that people on the outside dont use oldfashioned gender beliefs as 'call out' to invalidate our interpretation of deity which i do see as somewhat relating to very ancient beliefs. Though, as clarified in the video, not an ancient tradition per say. Blessed Be and thanks if anyone decided to read!

[Obsidian_Iris_]

I was taught that Wicca is a modern religion based on ancient Celtic mythology, Golden Dawn teachings, and Gerald Gardner’s imagination. I personally believed he was inspired by the Divine Feminine to do so to help begin to balance the severely lopsided influence of the masculine perspective in most religions that were current in the 1960s and 1970s when Wicca went public.

[Arkonsblake]

Amazing new video, love the new setup

[kevanhubbard]

From my readings Wicca seems to date back only as far as the 1930's but it probably contains elements of earlier pagan religions but then so do all religions including Christianity.

[gregcampwriter]

I wonder if there's something akin to the attitude about religions in ancient Rome. Some were attracted by the new mystery cults, while others were suspicious of any religion that didn't have the endorsement of tradition.

Any religion has to have its early days, but when we can see a religion being created now, it's easier to see its invented nature.