I originally created this website in 2001 as a response to my own experiences with the neopagan community. For a long while I added to it, but over the past several years it has sat available but not expanded upon.
My focus has changed over the years as I found my work commonly being used as reference material for seekers as well as non-Wiccans simply looking for information. Rather than being a reaction to the neopagan community, this new site is much more tailored to providing quality, basic information.
“Concerns about Wicca” is for those who have heard various rumors about who we are and what we do. It’s written in particular for parents concerned about what their child is investigating.
“Wiccan Basics” is just that: coverage of the basic ideas and practices of Wicca.
Despite the fact the concept of an ancient witch religion has been 40 years debunked, there are still those who claim Wicca is an ancient religion. The “History” section discusses the origin of the idea, what is wrong with it, and the real, modern history of Wicca.
Facts and opinions about facts are not the same. The “Opinion” section addresses issues I consider important but also recognize as a personal perspective.
I am regularly asked about book recommendations, so “Books” gets its own section. unfortunately, I have not read any new books in several years, so there are all repeats of the reviews on my original site.
“Offsite Articles: History, Interrupted” contains a number of articles I wrote on my blog, History, Interrupted. While they do not specifically address Wicca, they are topics which are relevant to many Wiccans and other neopagans.
I’m so excited you working on this site again! It has remained my favorite resource to share with others. I’ve also enjoyed your other projects. Looking forward to the refresh!
Thank you! I always appreciate sharing, and I’m glad you’ve continued to find it a valuable resource. I am *hoping* to have an FAQ eBook out this year to make material easier to share, although I’m reluctant to promise such things because I know how often I finish such projects.
YES!! I have referred people to this site for a good 8-9 years now!! I’m so glad its being worked on again!!
!!! I’ve been reading your websites since I first discovered Wicca for the Rest of Us in 2002. I’m really enjoying your History, Interrupted (wishful history major here but I’m going for an English/Business degree) blog but I have to say I’m really excited for the “revamp.” I’ve always appreciated your no BS information-I know I’ve certainly needed it!
History, Interrupted will still be my major project. I pretty much said what I wanted to say when I made this site. But it does need an update, at the very least, and I probably have some additional info floating around my various that would be applicable here (a few of which I’ve already included under the offsite articles tab.
Your book ratings were top notch. Hope you’ll get back to doing that.
Are you meaning reviewing books? I haven’t read a new book on Wicca in ages. Sorry.
Yes, I was referring to your reviews. Sorry to hear that, but at least keep your old ones archived and accessible.
Yeah, my approach to Wicca has changed a lot over the years. I don’t find getting yet more books useful, particularly since so many continue to be poor and others say the same things I’ve seen in other place over and over again.
When I see other people recommend books, I don’t see them recommending anything newer than Thea Sabin’s Wicca for Beginners (which I also recommend), so I feel like I’m not missing much.
I had Llywellyn sending me review copies for a while, but what I got were often so terrible I wanted to shoot myself.
I would also be interested in reading your negative reviews of more modern publications, for what it’s worth. I think of you as kind of an authority on the subject.
Shame this website was updated 10 years ago but at least I found a semi updated version of your old site
I am exited to see an update, as this site is my go to for those interested in Wicca!
I am so glad you are taking this up again- “Wicca For the Rest of Us” has been invaluable to me as a member of the Indianapolis Pagan Prison Ministry- your “Outsider’s Guide” (for which I donated!) particularly helping me with the Christian chaplains and prison administration.
Glad it’s helpful. At some point I’m going to (theoretically) make a much expanded outsider’s guide available as an eBook, and maybe as a print-on-demand. I really need to stop editing it and declare it “good enough.” I’ve been doing it for years.
I’m looking foward to the new site
I hope I’m posting in the right place. I recently made an erroneous comment concerning Margot Adler because I confused her with Margaret Murray. I would be interested in reading your thoughts on Ms. Adler. Have you already discussed her somewhere on this site and I just can’t find it?
I haven’t said anything about Adler. It’s been ages since I read Drawing Down the Moon. The general opinion of it is it was a very helpful resource when it first came out, but it’s outdated.
Hi Cassie, I’m reaching out with a resource on the history of witchcraft (really, the persecution of witches) that I thought you might be interested in adding to your “Historical Sites” section. Can I send it over for you to have a look?
Thanks!
Marie
Sorry, kind of lost track of this project when school started up. Which resource are you referencing?
Glad you are back, I have bought books and rejected buying them based on your websites reviews!
I’m glad this is being updated, it was definitely one of my go-to websites, I only was checking it because I was thinking that a lot of the teens I’ve seen on tumblr should take a look here.
Catherine,
Am writing a BBC News piece about new religions. Are you around to talk asap?
Tom
tom.decastella@bbc.co.uk
It is nice to find people who are open to the exploration of alternative religious experiences. When I wrote The Natural Theology of a 21st Century Christian, the idea of a”force” was often present. Feel free to browse it here (it is free) http://naturaltheology.blogspot.com/
Comments are welcome.
No country is more powerful in Wicca then Haiti! Because of Wicca practice in Haiti, Haiti manage to beat three superpower country Spain, France & England! Because of that insult white Europe & America refuse to help Haiti the way it needs to.
LITTLE BIT ABOUT HISTORY, IN 1797 HAITI CROSS THE OCEAN CAME TO AMERICA BEAT THE FRENCH IN THE ENGLISH! HAITI DECLARED HIS INDEPENDANCE 1804 NOT ONLY FOR HIMSELF BUT ALSO FOR ALL WICCA PRACTIONERS. VOUDOU, SANTERIA, WITCHCRAFT PRACTICE PEOPLE! THE ONLY PEOPLE IN AMERICA THAT WERE ALLOWED TO PRACTICE WICCA WAS PEOPLE WHO HAD MONEY. THE SLAVES WEREN’T ALLOWED TO PRACTICE IT, WHEN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WAS DECLARED THE WICCA PEOPLE DIDN’T DECLARE FREEDOM OF RELIGION. AMERICA LIED MAKING EVERYONE BELIEVED THEY FREED AND GAVE FREEDOM TO AMERICA WHEN IN FACT HISTORY CAN PROVE IT WAS HAITI WICCA WHO FREE THEM.
That’s the most ludicrous things I’ve heard in a good while. Wicca is about 70 years old.
Voudou and Santeria are their own distinct religions. They are much older than Wicca. Attempting to bundle them into Wicca does a huge disservice to everyone involved.
Slaves didn’t have freedom of religion because they were property, not people. Non-slaves, rich and poor, had freedom of religion.
Hatti Wicca? That scream a gross misunderstanding of what Wicca is…. honestly now….
Hey guys please,I need your help…I’m very new to Wicca,I know about circles and that’s about it. I got into Wicca but reading the book series “Sweep” and yesw,I know real life Wicca is not the same as the one in the book. But I’m not exactly sure about even converting to Wicca yet,I still need learn more. I told my mom about Wicca and I don’t know what to do,she said she doesn’t want me worshipping with witches or something. Please I need some help and guidance,kik me at: kitkat4556
Thankyou
The best way of communicating with other Wiccans in connection with this site is the groups.yahoo.com/group/WiccaForUs group. It’s pretty quiet, but if you ask questions, people will answer.
My short answer is: explain to your Mom what Wicca is. Let her ask questions. let her voice her concerns and then address them in an informed and mature manner.
If you don’t feel you can do that, it definitely means you have more studying to do before you dedicate yourself to it, and you can *say that to your mom*. Assure her you’re just studying to better understand it at the moment. That you are not “worshipping with witches or something.”
Thank you for your research and sensibilities (common sense). I have been trying to oust the fluffy bunny from the CIrcles that I have attended for many years. I have been calling the fairy tales about Wicca “the Wiccan Lie”. Being challenged by others on this is frustrating since at first all I had was common sense to quote. Now so many more Pagans are using their brains and encyclopedias to kill the bunny I’m so glad that I am not the only one calling for its death). May the Gods continue to bless you.
Hey, just a quick heads up: the mobile version of this site has problems on Android, specifically the default browser. I’m not able to access articles except for a link to the old blog on my phone.
I tried viewing the full site, which also does not work for navigation. I’d love to be able to read this somewhere other than at my PC, so I hope that it’s something you’ll consider working on. In the meantime, I’ll try downloading a better browser. Thanks!
Hi! I just found this site and i loved reading the comments and replies of the members. Most of the topic are what i have been asking myself but looking through all your conversations i don’t have to ask anymore. Maybe someday if i have a question and no one is talking about it yet i will ask it and i hope somebody answers. To the author, continue being great. and to everyone..Blessed Be
I’m only just really feeling a pull in this direction. Although it’s been in the back of my head for years,now I feel confident in finding out as much as I can and comfortable talking about it. This is the first site I’ve clicked on and although I’ve only done a quick sweep so far,I’ve found it very informative and welcoming. Thank you. I look forward to reading and learning more. Xx
Thank you so much for your site it’s not often I get to read someone’s Journal about facts that are usually based on fact whereas people who tend to read these things tend to think of wicca in the Hollywood version which can be devastatingly harmful to our culture. Example given I remember the first time my friends saw one of my Wiccan books and thought I was into devil worship. Boy— that still hurts. It just saddens me deeply to see how warped a culture can make our religion look just to stand corrected I don’t like to call it a religion but it is a belief and I believe very deeply in the wiccan rede if only more people would follow it the world would be a better place
agree completely.
Thank you for showing me this , it’s really cool
For most of my life I have dreams and .most come true why do I do this is there a site I can look up to help me understand plus for last 6 years I am drawn to wica why is this
Thank You.
I just found this site…and I am recommending it to all three witchlings I am tutoring….!
Jade Gryphon
I found this information on Wicca (and related movements) while browsing the web:
http://www.templeoftheola.org/druidry-wicca-oto-origins.html
What is your opinion and what do you make of this?
Good afternoon, Ms. Noble,
I wrote to you a long time ago that I believed that there was a connection between mathematics and religion, and I wrote to you different that I noticed different patterns in things that showed that they were connected, but you replied, surprisingly, that the two are not related. I thought about this in the years since you replied to me with that, and I agree, they aren’t; the problem is that there are people who connect them. There are those who believe that maths is somehow connected to the sacred, that it is somehow sacred, and I realized that I ran into their dealings while going about my interests in the sciences, as I intend to make them my career. The point here is that I would like to thank you for presenting to me the direct opposition to that perspective because it took me a long time to understand just what that meant due to the spiritual insanity I was experiencing. So thank you for being a voice of reason. Even though I consider myself no longer Wiccan, your voice was important to keeping it within a reasonable and acceptable light, and I suppose that’s how it is. Those fields might be the world to some people, but they cannot be the basis for society, nor for society’s moral compass. I suppose what is scary, and what scared me, was that there are people who see success in those fields as intellectual achievement, countries pride themselves in having success in those fields and base their own value, and the value of others, on the relative success in those fields, turning it into a competition and into a race. There are those willing to kill and cheat for those achievements because they think it somehow gives them value. That’s ironic; it deals in the concept of value, but it gives no value, but is valued in how it is regarded and the framework within which the information is handled. The ethics around how those people handle such fields, however, is wrong. I say this to you because I left Wicca to dedicate myself to Science, not as a replacement for religion, but because religion has too much connection to the world’s problems, and I was more wholly involve in the STEM fields before I ever explored religion. I would rather not be connected to bad things via a religious identity when I find spirituality and religion to be separate things. I suppose I felt obligated to have a religious identity at one point, but I realized that it isn’t necessary. I disagree with Einstein’s assertion that religion and science are dependent upon one another when they are not. It’s too dangerous. There are those who deal in religion who guard such information, sometimes violently, behaving as though it is for everyone’s good that they do what they do, when it isn’t. If they understood, they wouldn’t do it. I say this because I ran into the idea that whoever makes the next big discoveries in science would somehow either be a religious figure, or regarded as a religious figure, and I stand against such labels. I went insane because I felt that assertion. Religion has too much abuse and greed for me. Good behavior, moral, conscientious, respectful behavior is seen as a mockery of morality and goodness when understood outside of a religious context, as though people like me are somehow “taking” morality from them, and though it is absurd, it is no surprise that behaving as such could and likely would be met with violence because, to them, “there is no morality outside of religion.” They couldn’t trust an “immoral” person with such information, when really, it belongs outside of religion and always has. It is my view that those who combine religion with the STEM fields are looking in the wrong direction; if they cannot find solace in their religion as for truth, and be transparent and honest about their involvements in other fields, then how can ‘they’ be trusted? If their religion doesn’t provide enough satisfaction for their spiritual needs, and if they live in the hypocritical way that they denounce this world while laying claim to it in secret via the STEM fields, then they’re the criminals killing good people for the sake of their cults.
Thanks for reading, and thank you for what you do.
With peace.
Thanks for this. I found it really informative <3
Hi, I read your article about the Sonnerad and thought you would be interested in this article :). Namaste
http://esotericawakening.com/esoteric-meaning-of-the-black-sun
I remember doing research on Wicca in general some 10 years ago (2012-13 or so) and this was one of those sites I picked up on along the way. The ‘no BS’ and ‘think for yourself’ way of approaching the subject and the religion as a whole is what I love most about this website. Today, as I am in the process of revisiting the wiccan faith again after years of exploring what did and didn’t work for me, I find myself back here, revisiting this site again. And the same information that was key and important to me back then still rings true today. Super glad this is still here.