When I asked Colorado College students to describe Wicca, “something witchy” was the most common explanation after “I have no idea.” In CC’s classically innovative style, community members hard pressed for a definition came up with guesses ranging from “a fun search engine” to “an innovative way to clean ears” to “similar to a wiki link.”

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So, what is Wicca? The oversimplified answer is modern-day witchcraft. However, Wicca is a complex and diverse religion that, despite its foundations in ancient and medieval times, has its roots in the 20th century. Wicca is the best-known form of Neo-Paganism, a term which encompasses a plethora of religious and spiritual values, but pays specific attention to honoring the Earth. Other commonalities among sects of Wicca are the practice of magic and worship of a female deity called “the Goddess.” Common uses of magic, sometimes spelled “magick” to distinguish from stage magicians, include incantations and symbolic ritual or ceremonial actions. Due to the lack of centralized authority and a focus on small covens, there is a great deal of variation in Wiccan practices. Because people are largely unfamiliar with Wicca, there exist a great number of misconceptions about it. One of the largest misunderstandings lumps the identity of the medieval witch together with the identity of modern witch. Despite this misconception, the origins and practices of each identity are vastly different.

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Wicca took off in England in the 1950s after the repeal of archaic witchcraft laws. A retired British civil servant named Gerald Gardner published “Witchcraft Today” in 1954 and formed a coven of followers. Prior to publishing the book, Gardner had been involved in occult practices during his time traveling throughout Asia and had worked extensively with more obscure readings of Western witchcraft. While he wasn’t necessarily a religious pioneer, he familiarized people with Wiccan values, initiated them into small, organized covens, and made sure the culture was known and could survive worldwide. The movement spread rapidly in the United States during the late 1960s when many subcultures held a high regard for nature, unconventional lifestyles, and spirituality independent of traditional religion.

Covens are typically small, with around 10 to 15 members who enter through an initiation ritual. A member who becomes familiar with magic and ritual can undergo further levels of initiation, rising through ranks that ultimately end in the authority of priesthood in the witch realm. Rituals vary between sects, but magic may include old folk healer practices and spells passed down generation to generation, or new spells and approaches to magical manifestation; Wicca magic is not static. Features of Wicca magic often incorporate herbs, candles, tarot cards, magical oils, incense, or crystals. Members conduct important rituals surrounding new and full moons, equinoxes and solstices, Halloween, the beginning of February, Mayday, and the beginning of August. The eight solar holidays, or sabbats, are all very important, comparable in weight to the 26 lunar ones (about two per 28 days), depending on the individual group’s tradition. Meditation, the sharing of a ritual meal, and rites involving ceremonial magic to invoke help from the deities are also important components. Some versions of Wicca are polytheistic, with collections of deities from around the world, many belonging to the Roman and Greek pantheons, while other versions are strongly monotheistic, worshipping only the Goddess. Some are duotheistic, worshipping one goddess and one god. Wicca can also be pantheistic, meaning that there is no individual God; rather, the universe as a whole is God, as the combined substances, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe. Many Wiccans abide by the ethical code called the Rede, which states, “If it harm none, do what you will.” Though medieval witchcraft was inextricably linked to Satan, the term “witch” in Wicca has different connotations.

While Gardner pulled heavily from the witch crazes and trials of medieval Europe, the modern witch or Wiccan presents much differently. In the past, witches were those who made a pact with the devil and practiced harmful magic on the world around them. When one thinks of a time period characterized by witchcraft, images of bubbling cauldrons and broomsticks may appear. The era is better characterized as one of rampant fear and hardship. The citizens of Europe were indeed terrorized, but not because of women’s supposed weak morals and subsequent susceptibility to the devil’s seduction. The severe weather patterns, droughts, blights, famines, and the spread of disease were caused by natural phenomena. People’s fear of the devil was very real, and witchcraft seemed like a logical way of explaining the cruel state of the world without the scientific information that exists today. Accused witches were women 80 percent of the time, and many were already alienated members of society who made easy scapegoats. The use of torture often brought about false confessions, and, in a cyclical way, these confessions provided more “evidence” that the devil was present.

Dr. Margaret Murray was a British folklorist commissioned to write the entry on witchcraft for the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1929. Instead of delving into the plethora of competing, though not necessarily comprehensive, accounts and works on the matter, she spun her own tale and presented it as if it were the leading mainstream theory. She accounted that “witches had been up to something of which society disapproved, but it was in no way supernatural; they were merely members of an underground movement secretly keeping pagan rites alive in Christian Europe.” Although her story wasn’t fantastical in its reductionist, rational approach, it forced the imagery of broomsticks, animal costumes, representations of the devil, and other coven gatherings into public consciousness. Once Murray’s work was reprinted and became influential to well-known authors of the time as well as filmmakers, journalists, novelists, and thriller writers, the individual reader or viewer’s imagination could run wild. And thus, with time, “Charmed,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” were born. Although Murray’s theories were later disproved, the modern witch became immortalized in popular culture. For whatever reason, we are pulled towards the supernatural and the unexplained. The disprovement of Murray’s theories left a vacuum in place of what was, for a short time, understood as an academic truth. And perhaps this excited people. Therefore, while Murray’s description of witchcraft lost credibility, the same witch now took on a host of potential identities and truths in the public realm of sensationalism.