I’ve said this before, and I’ll *always* get backlash for it, so let me expand upon this a little bit for my followers who are new to the circle of pagans and have no idea what I’m talking about:
In the 1940′s (ish), a man named Gerald Gardner decided to start a religion. So he wrote some books. But who was going to join if he admitted that he’d just come up with it? So he claimed it was old, ancient, even. That his religion was all about primal, venerated knowledge. To make this *seem* legit, he started cherry picking from religions, including closed ones, and throwing names and terms around for good measure. He appropriated a ton of cultures, taking them out of their context and just making stuff up about them. (example: Cernunnos was NEVER once depicted sexually in history, but wicca conflates him with pan and “the horned god” so all of the wiccan resources call him a fertility god.) He even wrote a book about Aphrodite worship despite... not following any of the beliefs of the Greek pantheon, and claiming his religion was a different one altogether.
So let’s talk a little about Gerald Gardner. He was openly homophobic, claiming that same-sex relationships made his Goddess angry. He popularized the “skyclad” ritualistic thing of doing witchcraft in his circle naked to see his priestesses without clothes.
His Great Rite, a staple of his religion, is an interesting thing in and of himself. He basically decided that a man and woman needed to let the gods possess them and then have sex to perform his rite, thus giving him, a priest, an excuse to have sex with his fellow clergy. This wasn’t an optional rite, either. For many, (read about BTW, British Traditional Wiccans), it’s *required* to rise in rank within wicca. Some wiccan groups also requite sexual whipping to rank up as well.
Gardner was also a known associate of Aleister Crowley. If you don’t know who he is, I’m not gonna heavily detail it here because google will provide far more than I could ever type, but he’s a prominent figure in modern pagan circles! And also a massive racist and nationalist.
If you don’t know much about wicca itself, it’s a duotheistic religion, meaning it has two gods. Or rather, a God and a Goddess. Everything in wicca is split in this way, actually-- masculine and feminine-- because it was based around his sexual predation. More on that in a moment, but for all of the nonbinary followers I have reading this post, note that wicca is highly binary and not historically friendly for those who don’t fit in one of the two boxes.
So let’s talk a little about Gardner and his predation, yes? He advocated this Great Rite between himself, the High Priest, and High Priestesses. Alright. So as the years went by, and he became a more powerful leader, he claimed that the rite was symbolic of the deities (as always) and added that the God is dominant over the Goddess. Thus, he wanted younger women for the rite. This really shows how his religious practices were more cultish, for personal gain, than genuine.
Gardner is far from the end of this creepiness, though. Wicca has always attracted predators because it’s a part of the inherent rhetoric. You simply cannot split that from it-- the religion is based on it. And on appropriation. On a gender binary, too. None of these things can be removed from the beliefs, which all started a lie (claiming a long line of tradition to gain followers), to begin with.
I’m sure a lot of you will unfollow me. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of threats, like usual. But I feel very strongly about this. Young followers, especially, be wary about your path. You deserve to know the history behind your practice.
