Difference between celts, witches, wiccans, druids, pagans, neopagans and devil worshippers?

Question

I havent even heard of celts or wiccans... What?

Answer 1

CELT--a descendent of the northern Indo-European culture of peoples known as the Celts, who at their height in the mid-2nd century BC ranged from Ireland to Southern Germany to all of Spain and into Northern Greece. Celtic peoples are now largely limited to the British Isles and a small portion of France.

WITCH--one who practices witchcraft (i.e. the casting of magic spells). Not all witches are Pagans, nor are all Pagans witches.

WICCAN--one who practices "Wicca", a modern Pagan religion first documented by Gerald Gardner in the mid 1950's. In short, Wicca is a duo-theistic religion honoring a God and a Goddess that places a high reverence on the cycles of nature and generally embraces the practice of magic.

DRUID--one of the ancient "wise folk" prominent as priests in the ancient Celtic world up until approximately the 5th century AD. While their practices are scarcely documented (the Celts were an oral culture that failed to write things down), Druids were nature priests of sorts, also serving as healers, seers, and judges.

PAGAN--Old definition: one who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew. A newer definition: a polytheist; one who reveres the pre-Christian gods of various world cultures; a Neo-Pagan (most dictionaries have updated their definition of "Pagan" to reflect this more modern usage of the word).

NEO-PAGAN--A modern Pagan worshipper. All Wiccans are Neo-Pagans (Wicca is a modern Pagan religion), but not all Neo-Pagans are Wiccan.

DEVIL WORSHIPPER--one who worships the Devil as portrayed in the Christian Bible.

Answer 2

Sigh
I can't believe you have all these folks in the same sentance.

Celt is a language group, a race if you must, of people in Europe. They used to cover much of peninsular Europe and the British Isles. Welsh and Gaelic are part of the Celtic language group. Celts are people who speak those languages or are decended from folks who once did.

A witch is someone who is able to make certain things happen through the power of his or her emotions. The old word for it Wicce, from which the word Wicca (see below) has been taken, was probably more along the lines of a Shaman. Dispite the insistance of many, the word has no actual religious connations in either sense.

A Wiccan is a follower of a religion publicized by one Gerald Gardner a little more than half a century ago. It is a synchretic religion blending Celtic, Eastern, Egyptian and some Biblical concepts.

A Druid was once the spiritual elite of some Celtic societies. Now the word refers to people who attempt to recreate and practice the pre-Christian religion of the ancient Celts in a modern form. I rather like Druids.

The word Pagan refers to anyone who is not Christian, Muslim or Jewish.

Neo-Pagans are folks who practice modern or recreated Pagan religions, as opposed to Hindu, Shinto, and traditional tribal religions that have been practiced since the dawn of time.

Devil worshippers are those who worship the Christian God of Evil. (I assume that's the devil you're talking about).

Answer 3

Pagans, technically, are anyone who isn't Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. However, common modern usage of Pagan typically means neo-Pagan, which is modern practicioners of generally European-derived, generally non-monotheistic, pre-/post-Christian religions. (Yes, I realize that's somewhat vague - it's a very diverse group, even we have problems with that sometimes.)

Wiccans are practicioners of Wicca, probably the most common of neo-Pagan religions. Many people use Wiccan and Witch interchangably, though there are a number of non-Wiccan Witches as well (which often results in some scuffles over terminology.) In either usage, witchcraft typically refers to European-based folk practices that share some similarities with both Ceremonial Magic and Shamanism.

Druids were, historically, members of the intelligensia of the ancient Celtic tribes, a cultural group that covered significant portions of Europe, but are most associate with the British Isles and France. Druids filled a community religious role, but that was not their only function. In modern times, some people call themselves Druids to denote that they practice a revitilization of ancient Celtic beliefs, though others prefer other terms such as Celt or Celtic Reconstructionist (due to several issues including training and societal function.) Strictly speaking, per modern definitions, a Celt is anyone who speaks a Celtic language (such as Gaelic or Welsh).

Devil worshippers can mean many things, depending on the person using it - some folks call any non-Christian "devil worshippers", for example. At its most specific, it refers to a type of Satanist that practices the distinctly anti-Christian religion that gets portrayed in common usage of "Satanism" - Black Masses, praying to the Devil, etc. It should be noted that most people who self-identify as Satanists are no devil worshippers, but something different that simply carries the same label.

Answer 4

I think twiceborne sums things up fairly well. I would add that the Celts did not have one culture. Celt and Celtic are terms that relate large number of IE tribes that have common linguistic traits in fact the term Celtic was first used by a linguist.

Answer 5

Most of those terms define religious beliefs---except Celts. The term "Celtic" is a linguistic term for those who speak/spoke a branch of an Indo-European language.

The term "witch" may or may not denote a religion. Some witches are religious and some are not.

Answer 6

Please don't lump Celts in with all the other nonsense. The Celts were a Germanic tribe that settled in Ireland and many people there claim to be their descendants. They are not a new age/ mystical religious sect, they are an ethic group. Different.

Answer 7

Devil worshippers worship the devil. All the others are nature-oriented. Think old school mythological gods and goddesses.

Answer 8

I really wanted to answer this, but twiceborne has such an excellent answer that I have nothing to add except Thanks twiceborne!

Answer 9

There isn't really a difference. It's all offensive to The Almighty God. THey all get you sent to the same hell in the end.