When Other People Do Wicca Wrong

Wicca is an experiential religion, and there is an extraordinary amount of variation not only in how people practice, but also in how people interpret and understand those practices. Confronted with that diversity (especially with regard to something that has such deep personal significance), it's easy to feel like other people are doing Wicca wrong or are misinterpreting something obvious and essential. It is much harder to embrace Wicca's theological and ritual diversity, but I think we do the mysteries a disservice if we try to take perspectives off the table for everybody just because we didn't like them for ourselves.
Buy QUEEN OF ALL WITCHERIES:
bookshop.org/p/books/queen-of...
Check out my Tarot blog:
jackofwandstarot.wordpress.com/

[@MasterPoucksBestMan]

I have enjoyed the few videos I've watched of your channel so far, and the word that comes to mind regarding your content is "ecumenical", which is a breath of fresh air at this point in history.

[@tyson7687]

The buble craze of Utah... you're falling more and more into the mysteries of SLC :p

[@JackChanek]

It's unflavored seltzer. 😂 I cannot get behind Utah's obsession with sugar

[@ddeangelis152]

Hi, Jack. My experiences with Wicca have been far less “experiential” and far more academic than yours, however there are parallels. Up until recently, after having read many books on Wicca and Paganism and associated beliefs among more flavors of neo paganism than Baskin Robbins has of ice cream, I wondered where the center was, so to speak. It wasn’t until this past year, having stumbled on KZbin into a channel of coven of the open mind, that I found an approach that is leading me to a solid grounding in my own beliefs. While the lecture series on KZbin is excellent, her book is astonishingly complementary and far deeper than the lectures, and I highly recommend picking it up (Open Minded Wicca). The difference in the author’s approach is the level of depth behind, say, the elements, or shielding, or tools, or circle casting, and such. By understanding the “why’s” behind everything, in other words, by understanding the pieces of LEGO’s, it’s easier to understand how many shapes you can make with them. That is to say, by focusing on the details behind each practice or belief that underlies Wicca, it becomes easier to see how they can take so many shapes, and in so doing, become so many different things to different people. But like looking at a lego tree and a lego house and a lego helicopter, by realizing that these things are all coming from the same box of legos, the differences become more a matter of focus than actual differences. It becomes less of “so what are legos, a house or a helicopter,” and more of “it can be what you need it to be, to the point that its nature allows.” I’m not sure it’s an approach you haven’t focused on, but for me, this one different approach has been the Rosetta Stone that made all of the disparities fall into place, and despite their disparities, form a whole.

[@YvonneAburrow]

This was definitely not a pointless video-you knocked it out of the park. Very good indeed. There are things that are super important to me that other people don’t care about, and vice versa. But as you said, that’s okay. I think we can learn from each other - we might find an interesting new perspective on something or a new bit of ritual - but in order to do so, we have to set aside our feelings that the thing should be the same for everyone, or should be important to everyone.

[@Mathew_Carter]

What exactly is a mystery as it pertains to Wicca, and how do we determine what is or is not a valid interpretation of said mysteries? If a mystery is just a technique for understanding reality through experience, then objective reality should be the standard metric for its interpretation (not each individual's subjective experiences).

[@ddeangelis152]

I don’t know, Matthew. For me, objective reality and the scientific method are highly valuable, I absolutely agree with that - they are crucial for understanding the how’s and what’s of our physical universe, but objective reality is so, so limited. It cannot answer fundamental questions, like “does consciousness originate in the brain,” “what is consciousness,” “why does the universe exist.” It cannot discern a correct answer if different people see different things in the same cloud they’re all staring at, yet it is each person’s experience. It can explain harmonics but not the experience of music on people’s emotions. It cannot mathematically determine which person is having the correct response when one person looking at a sunset is sad, and another is comforted. Objective reality is terrible at validating mysteries of human experiences - emotion, discernment of interpretation, and vast sectors of the human experience (art, poetry, music, dance). I don’t think it’s up to the task of discerning the validity of one human experience over another. So if Wicca as a mystery religion and an experiential one, it follows that the hidden and esoteric knowledge (mysteries) is/are gradually revealed to practitioners through personal experience, self-exploration, contemplation, and ritual. All of those elements are filtered through emotion and the lessons of individual, lifetime experiences. It’s that process or journey, rather than having all knowledge accessible from the outset, that is valuable. The mystery aspect helps maintain the sense of wonder and can be a motivator to keep having more experiences and to dive deeper into the practice.

[@YvonneAburrow]

Can you define love? If not, that’s a mystery that everyone experiences. You can describe it, you can probably pin down the biological basis for it-but you can’t pin down every way in which people experience love, or why they act as they do in response to it. Can you explain to another person how it feels to swim in the sea or ride a bike or make love, if they’ve never experienced it? They can listen to your explanation, but the only way for them to understand is to experience it for themselves. A mystery is something which can be experienced but not fully defined or described. The Ancient Greeks called the Mysteries “aporrheton”, that which must not be spoken of (because the mysteries had to be approached carefully), and “arrheton”, that which cannot be spoken of.

[@Mathew_Carter]

Of course we can define love. The ancient Greeks had 8 different ways of describing it. And we can certainly put it into words and even invoke the feeling through storytelling; authors have been doing it since the beginning of time. The same goes for the other things you listed. If all mysteries are ineffable, then how is it possible to standardize them in Wiccan ritual? And once we do experience them, how do we confirm that what we experienced is the Truth? Even if there is shared personal gnosis, it can still be factually unverifiable in relation to objective reality. Our perception (including emotion) in conjunction with reason should be how we interpret the mysteries, not by only using emotion as the standard. I appreciated the reference to the Greek origins of mysteries and would also like to add: "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao."

[@YvonneAburrow]

@@Mathew_Carter you can define it, but can you describe it to someone who has never experienced it and cause them to have the same experience as you? And then there's the issue of qualia - experiences that can be referenced (like seeing the colour red) but where you cannot be sure that the other person is actually seeing the same thing as you are.

[@Mathew_Carter]

I think that people are capable of empathy and/or sympathy based on a certain level of description. They may not fully grok something without first-hand experience, but that isn't required for a basic understanding. For example: a single father can still help his daughter go through puberty even though he will never experience what a period is like. Or a single mother raising a son and teaching him how to shave his face. These are important mysteries that we all go through, but shared experience isn't necessary to guide someone towards them. I think this may be how Wiccan rituals could work to reach the mysteries; reality then validates it upon our success. Your appeal to qualia would suggest that you don't believe that an objective reality can exist. Are you a phenomenalist?