Wicca - Factchecks and Mythperceptions

By Cernig

Yesterday, Mark Oppenheimer got all worked up about the supposed "ancient" origins of the Wiccan religion. Mark, who often speaks at synagogues according to his bio, might be more careful about throwing stones in mythological glass houses but seems to think his religion, like Christianity and Islam, "have access to higher, different emotional or moral truths."

He writes:

Wicca is not "a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres nature and its cycles." As I and others have explained, Wicca is a 19th- and 20th-century invention with a creative backstory invented to lend it historical legitimacy.

...taking Wiccans' claims at face value misses a chance to make an interesting point about religion: that religions can be valuable, and even metaphysically true, even if some of their origin stories are myths.

I'll try to remember that any time someone writes or speaks about Christianity, Judeaism or Islam. However, Mark seemingly won't. He wants to make an exception.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have patently absurd origin stories, and no wise, sane person accepts the literal truth of any of them. But they are all magisterial human (and perhaps divine) creations. They are not diminished because part of their stories are mythology, rather than fact. The same might be true of Wicca. But the great religions survive and thrive despite the un-truths on which they're founded...Reporters are reporters, and our job is to get at the facts. If Wicca is as powerful as its adherents believe, it can survive, and should welcome, the scrutiny.

Hmmm, I wonder if Mark, as a reporter, would like to talk about the facts of his sources? Any research he has done on the origins of Wicca will, pretty quickly, track back to debunks of the claims of Wicca's ancient antecedents by...well...Wiccans.

You see, long before there were enough Wiccans to make any kind of mainstream impression, Wiccans were already writing books and articles debunking the myths. All subsequent literature has been based upon that work because, to be quite frank, Wicca wasn't big enough for a long time for anyone but Wiccans to care. While Wiccans were writing these works, people not unlike Mark Oppenheimer were still denouncing us as Devil worshippers.

I speak with some authority on this one. I've been a Wiccan in what has now become (in the UK, at least) the combined Alexandrian/Gardnerian (AlGard) tradition for 24 years. My close friends included originals from both Alex Saunders group and from Gerald Gardners's as well as many from groups established by those originals. They were the ones who pointed me to the books, written by Wiccans for Wiccans, in which the creation myths of modern Wicca were debunked. In fact, I know several old Wiccans who claim, tongue-in-cheek, that Old Dorothy Clutterbuck was actually Aleister Crowley in drag.

I know of no group which teaches Wicca as undoubtably having a direct "line of descent" into pre-Christian times. Mark tells that he's had angry emails from Wiccans when he dares to speak about the subject. I can only think these emailers were new to Wicca or self-taught from the more fanciful books on the subject. What Wiccans sometimes refer to as Llewelyn-Lite. Wiccans tend to be free-thinkers - it's a non-heirachical and immanent religion - and any such claim would have scorn quickly poured upon it. So one wonders why Oppenheimer is trying so hard to set himself up in a one-man cottage industry as a debunker of the already debunked. Unless, of course, his other writings are just as obviously hyped and he thinks writing about Wicca is a "soft touch".

In the meantime, Wiccans will welcome the scrutiny because they do indeed feel their religion is "valuable, and even metaphysically true, even if some of their origin stories are myths." That opinion may even have some weight. Wicca is more than just surviving, it is thriving. Maybe that is because we are so open to thinking critically about our faith, relying upon enquiry and openess instead of dogma and fundementalism.