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W I C C A – I

The paganism was the religion of the Greeks and Romans, while the witchcraft was the religion of Europe.

Both were persecuted and destroyed by the Christian.

The Old Religion was more linked to the Nature, to the agriculture and accomplished great festivals commemorating the change of stations, the harvest and the  gods of the time.

On those times nobody knew about the immensity of the Universe with their billions of  galaxies, the Earth  was everything.

The Universe it summarized in the Earth, the Moon, the Sun and the visible stars, although it knew some planets visible to naked eye.

The word pagan comes from of “paganus” = person of the field, peasant.

While the Christianity grew in the cities, the ones that lived in the field continued for a long time celebrating the Nature and their gods.

The witches were women who knew the herbs that cured the diseases, which tried to guess the happenings for several ways, etc.

The witchcraft was not a religion of the demon, the Christians that searched related her with the satanism.

It is the satanism that does black masses, pacts with the demon and other badness.

The devil, demon or satan only exists in the Christianity where is reminded mainly by the pastors to scare and to keep the followers to his  church, usually people of simple mind and to increase the Church-rate.

The Christian turned the words pagans and witches heathens words and so pejorative that they  now prefer to denominate itself as wiccan.

But many do not matter and they want same being considered pagans  or witches.

The Modern Witchcraft took pulse with Gerald Gardner who created a new rites and concepts.

He used the term wicca, of the archaic English: wicce = rotate, to mold  for his new witchcraft.

The word wicca or rotate reminds the Wheel of the Year, in other words, the seasons rotating during the year.

For wicca is very varied, each author presents his version: Greco-roman (paganism), Alexandrine (kaballah), Celtic, Dianic (more feminine),  the Goddess), shamanism, European witchcraft, etc.

The witches or wiccans meet itself in covens, of “conventus” = gather itself; whenever they can try to keep the ideal number of 13 people.

Although the new witches meet itself in the homes, closed places, the old pagans and witches accomplished the rites in Nature, in the forests or fields.

The wicca places the man again in touch with nature giving him an ecological conscience.

The new pagans reverence the Sun, the Moon, the Nature, the mountains, the trees, but they are very intelligent to know that they are worshiping the energies, the spirit behind the objects of  his veneration.

The wicca attracts more the women because after centuries of oppression for the new religion that took the importance that had in the society and in the old religion; the goddess' religion is them more favorable.

In the Antiquity God was a woman, He was the Earth Mother, the Mother of all the beings, the Moon goddess.

Today still there are hundreds of Catholic churches, worshiping the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Maria, Our Lady

This way, in all the countries, we found names as Or Lady of Paris cathedral (Notre Dame of Paris), Our Lady of... and so on

After all the Catholicism has more than 2.000 years and it comes from the summit of the paganism, also passing by the European witchcraft, conserving a little of those religions.

The old peoples worshiped more the Goddess, the creator mother than the masculine God.

The mother who gives the light, the life, and the Moon that governs women's menstruation.

In the Christianity the Goddess was replaced by the Virgin Marie, the mother of Jesus Christ.

The Goddess had several personifications in Greece:

= Aphrodite, goddess of the beauty and of love (it is the Venus goddess of the Roman).

= Athena, goddess of the arts, of the sciences and of the industry (Minerva of the Roman)

= Demeter, goddess of the agriculture, mother of Persephone (Ceres of the Roman).

= Artemis, goddess of the hunt, sister of Apollo (Diane of the Roman).

= Hecate, goddess of the enchantments (Hecate of the Roman).

Besides the Goddess also existed the God that was the masculine part of the Creation, symbolized by the Sun.

In the Antiquity it was represented with horns, being called of the Hornifere God or Boughed God, because it was god of the hunt, of the animals and of the abundance.

Whenever we want to give can more power to someone we put on his head a symbol: crown of the kings, cockade of  the caciques, quepe of the militaries, miter of the bishops, cap of the cooks, etc.

The old placed horn in your God as power symbol, royalty, superiority; in those times there were no supermarkets and as for the animals, the hunt occupied all your day to survive.

The Christian placed horn in his devil to revile the God of the pagans and of the witches.

The witches use several magic instruments that of common objects become magnetized through the rites.

= Athame – is knife of black cable, of double cut; it is only used in the ritual to trace the magic circle, address energy, expel the bad spirits.

= Bolline – is a knife of white cable used to almost everything: to pick  and to cut herbs, do talismans, cut food of the ritual, etc.

= Stick – done usually of wooden it is used in same manner of the magic rod of the ceremonial magic in the evocations; it addresses the energy of the witch.

= Chalice – is the symbol of element water; it is used to place wine, water and other liquids. Give preference to the glass chalice, because the ones of metal can react noxiously with the wine.

= Pentacle – is the pentagram the ceremonial magic, generally placed inside of a circulate. It represents man's power with a high spiritual development acting on the elements and the Nature.

= Candles – are the lights of your altar and help, with the smoke of the incense, to create a propitious atmosphere to the contact with the Invisible. Practice: Fixed the light of the candle for some seconds for interiored   itself.

Look out: if the candle fall in the towel, in the rug or even in the wood of the table can cause fire!

If the altar is next to lots of objects, wardrobe, bed, curtain, etc. it is better to use a lamp shade or candlestick of Christmas, both to the battery, that to run risks.

= Incensory – where is placed the incense of several types. If use rods, place salt or sand for to fasten them. 

The incense purifies the environment and the smoke symbolizes our prayers ascended itself to the  gods.

= Book of the Shadows – is where the witch registers the magic rites, sorceries, prepared with herbs, talismans, etc.

= Magic circle – is a sacred space created by the visualization and the witch's ritual.

It serves to concentrate the energies, attract downwards the forces of the Moon, of the Sun and to protect the priestess from negative energies.

They were already used there are millenniums as prove the stones circles and mainly Stonehenge.

The magic circle can be traced with a chalk, rope, stones, with the athame or even visualizing it.

= Altar – is the focus of all activity ritualistic. The altar can be mounted or dismounted in each ritual or to be kept permanently in a closed small wardrobe.

The altar and the priestess shall stay rather inside the magic circle.

The Buddhists' stores sell artistic oratories (Wicca is eclectic), but they are expensive; visit a store to do an idea of them.

The witches and mainly the pagans always accomplished festivals to homage the Nature, according the seasons and to thank the harvests.

The Shabbats are the eight main celebrations of the seasons, and they follow the agricultural calendar of the Old Europe and the cycle of the Sun.

The word Sabbath comes of the Greek, sabatu =  to rest.

The Shabbats commemorate the changes of seasons, the equinoctials (periods in which days are alike to nights) and the solstices ( periods in that the day or the night is longer), because they were alterations of the Nature very important in a time in that the agriculture and the hunt was the main activity those civilizations.

In Sabbaths, or great days, also worshiped the gods conforms the  date.

The Sabbaths can be divided into eight: both equinoctials, both solstices and the four intermediary.

They are represented by Wheel of the Year, in other words, the incessant cycle of the seasons

For the pagans the time was cyclic, circular and not lineal or cumulative.

The time was cyclic: phases of the Moon, seasons (winter-spring- summer-autumn... and so on

The pagan calendar was based on agricultural activities and of the hunt.

The new year started in the winter, thus the Sun God was born in the winter, reached the maturity in the summer and died after the last harvest.

Esbat  is the commemoration of the ceremony of the Moon Goddess every 28 days, in the Full Moon.

The Moon represents the Goddess for the witches, and it has great influence in the tides (high-low), in the menstruation, in the agriculture, in the fishing, etc.

The old already had the intuition that the Sun and the Moon was the habitation of gods.

Beings of spiritual body, no-material, inhabit planets and stars –  there is no emptiness in the Universe, but much life.

The seasons in Southern Hemisphere are opposite to the one of the Northern Hemisphere, but most prefers to commemorate in the dates of the Old Europe, of the same mode that Christmas is commemorated in an universal date.

Actually the countries nearby of the Equator nor it has seasons, it is summer the whole year, on the other side of the countries nearby of the polar region: it is a white winter or a green winter.

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Live does not consist in breathing, but in acting.

                                                             J.J.Rousseau

Noisy party and anarchies – a party at the neighbor’s house, for which we were not invited.

                                                             Anonymous

I would like to pass all my life traveling, if it could have a second life to pass at home

                                                             William Hazlitt

The impunity generates the audacity of the bad.

                                                              Anonymous

The best doctor is the one that more hope infuses.

                                                              S.T.Coleridge

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