Can a wicca really call themselves a Wicca if they dont practice their religion?

Question

A friend of mine is like, all talk with wicca, sayin shes a non practicing wicca. she butts her opinion into everyones conversations and yells at people all the time who just try to help. Someone asked a friend to pray for them cuz they were goin through a rough time and this girl just started yelling and screaming at her about the praying thing. how is this justified? sh doesnt practice any of wicca. can she really call herself one?

Answer 1

It's all just an ego trip anyway. No one who calls themseleves a "Wiccan" actually has magic powers.

In 1897 Godfrey Leland wrote "Aradia Gospel of The Witches". The book was plagiarized from two of his other books, Etruscan Remains and Gypsie Sorcery. Leland claimed he was given an ancient manuscript, which is the same story he used about one of his other books. This is the same era when Joseph Smith Jr., was finding “gold plates”, so maybe it sounded possible. The manuscript was never produced for examination, like Smith’s plates. Even though the book doesn't mention "wicca", it was the inspiration of what was to come. "Aradia" deals with Diana and her brother Lucifer, a being "banished from paradise for his pride" and was obviously the Christian devil. Diana and Lucifer have a daughter named Aradia, who was supposedly a witch avatar who lived in Sicily in the 14th century. No witch cult like Leland's was ever found, and the document is obviously fake.

Next came Margaret Murray. A quack anthropologist, Murray hatched her own witch theory inspired by Leland's hoax. Murray invented the idea that witches of medieval witch-hunts were actual part of a Pagan cult that survived into 1600's or so. Murray wasn't above lying as her writings about Joan of Arc bear out. If she had actually read the trial transcripts from St. Joan's trial as she claimed, there are no way she could have drawn the conclusions she did about the devout Catholic Joan being a witch. Murray tests the limits of the reader's patience with ideas like an poor accused witch being tortured crying "Queen of Heaven help me!" as an incantation to a Pagan goddess, rather than the obvious St. Mary. But Murray's books inspired (and continues to inspire) others.

Wicca was started by Gerald Gardner in New Forrest England circa 1950. He was a nudist & masochist and basically created Wicca as a sex cult. Followers nowadays like to forget that part, and instead fantasize they have magical powers. Many American Wiccans deny Gardner's sexual fetishes, but they're commonly accepted as fact in the U.K. Gardner was a member of Crowley’s O.T.O. and plagiarized his writings for his Book of Shadows.

Adian Kelly wrote a book on the history of Wicca called "Crafting The Art of Magic" in the 1980's. Wiccans had a fit when it was published, and pressured Llewellyn to take it out of print. It was supposed to be the first in a series of books. I think Adian Kelly probably summed it up best when he said this about the Gardnerian "Book of Shadows", the closest thing Wicca has to a sacred book:

" [M]any of the Book of Shadows rituals did not exist in 1954 (when Witchcraft Today was published) but instead were still being written. [T]he major sources from which the rituals had been constructed included: (a) Mather's edition of the Greater Key of Solomon; (b) Aleister Crowley's Magic in Theory and Practice; (c) Leland's Aradia (d) some Masonic rituals akin to those described by Duncan and those of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (aside from those transmitted by Crowley; and (e) Margaret Murray's The Witch Cult in Western Europe. There were also bits and pieces from other works by Leland, Jane E. Harrison, Gilbert Murray, James Frazier, and other great classicists from the 19th century. That accounted for EVERYTHING in the rituals! There was nothing left that differed in any important way from what you can find in those sources- - but that is NOT at all what Gardner had claimed!"

Wicca a religion where anything can be added in, where the followers mistakenly think they have magic powers, and it's not older than rock and roll, even though it's called the "Old Religion". Authors like Gavin and Yvonne Frost, Silver Raven Wolf, Raymond Buckland, Scott Cunningham crank out books about how to get love, money, and above all else "protection". The Frost's Magic Power of White Witchcraft says "Witchcraft Can Make You Rich in a Ghetto" according to the title of chapter 11. However, the Frosts themselves aren't rich. Coincidentally, they claim to have taken a "vow of poverty" according to one of their webpages, to explain why they apparently can't make their spells work either.

Eventually Ronald Hutton wrote his own history of Wicca, called "Triumph of the Moon". Hutton is a history professor at Oxford, so he is not easliy dismissed. Even though some Wiccans have realized their history is a sham, they still want to cling to the "witch" fantasy (like Kelly for one, he calls himself a "Christian Pagan") by calling it a "reconstructionist movement". But you can't reconstruct something which never existed in the first place. Even so, these types still seem to allude to their religion being thousands of years old.

Answer 2

She can call herself whatever she likes. I can call myself a princess but that doesn't mean that I am one.

All of the Wiccans that I know pray to their deities. As a neo-pagan, I see nothing wrong with prayer. Wicca is a religion. A religion will generally honor at least one deity. Speaking to a deity is called prayer.

I don't understand why she would try to deny others the right to worship (pray) as they see fit. She sounds very immature and ignorant. And she doesn't sound like the kind of friend that I'd want to have. If you are interested in continuing the friendship, perhaps you can talk to her and find out why she is so angry and help her work out her problems.

Please don't judge other Wiccans by her actions---she isn't an accurate representative of the religion of Wicca.

Answer 3

First off I'll say she was wrong jumping in when the friend asked for a friend to pray for them. Other people have beliefs. It sounds like she is young and trying to find control somewhere in her life.

If she isn't a practicing Wiccan then I guess she is saying she doesn't celebrate any of the sabbaths. That doesn't mean she is less a Wiccan but well it's her choice. It doesn't mean that she may not light candles and do her own form of prayer though.

It's nothing more than a christian who decides not to go to church on certain holy days for them.

Answer 4

Yeah, it's just like the millions of people who don't go to church, or pray but call themselves after some Christian affiliation.

Even though Wicca really is a full-blown lifestyle that is hard to separate out, your friend can still call herself Wiccan. Whether she's genuine witch or shock-value spark, is another question.

Answer 5

Wicca is a way of living, and you can be wiccan and not go through rites and such. Its a choice. However you friend was being exceptionally rude to the people around her, she should have more religious tolerance. But I bet she is just a wana-be wiccan to show off to her friends. *sigh, it is a shame we have so many people out their like that these days*
P.S. She was wrong to yell at her friends like that, but I think you need to talk to her about her attitude problem.

Answer 6

Not to be picky but most Christians don't practice theirs either.

Some people are offended by your idea of praying. If this situation happened like it did then she is wrong and shouldn't be a jerk about it. However, I am a very intelligent person and I know you are either purposefully leaving something out or have missed some details.

Answer 7

So do you think that someone has to cast spells to be Wiccan? No not at all. It's a belief system. I don't cast that many spells, but I'm totally Wiccan. You don't have to cast spells with fan fare and ritual to be a Wiccan.
We walk a magickal path everyday.
We, unlike the religions that pray to God or Gods, do not need to cast spells to appease our Deities. Magick is used to better oneself not to please ones

I don't think you are able to judge whether another is truly a Wiccan if you yourself are not aware of what it is to be Wiccan.

Answer 8

No, she's in the group of people who give Wicca a bad name. There are people who might honestly think they're wiccan, but they're uneducated and ignorant.

Answer 9

Even though she doesn't practice it she can still call herself one. Look at people who are a certain religion even they don't practice it. It isn't justified for her to yell at people..she should have respect for their beliefs.

Answer 10

Well she can but that doesn't really mean that she is. It's like a person who calls themselves christian but doesn't really practice their religion, well I guess that would be most people in Chistendom.

Answer 11

You don't need to "practice" to be a member, any more than someone needs to go to church to be a Christian.

Mind you, she does sound like she's a bit of a prat, but that's not necessarily related. Personally, sounds like she needs to calm down a bit and learn a little serenity.