The Bright Movement (Dennett)

[Vibecrewangel]

Actually it doesnt......

Wicca does not mean "wise one" nor does it mean or stem from "witch"
It actually means "to bend"
Wyche, wice, wic, wican all originally referred to plants and trees with pliant branches.
It is only recently that the word has been used in conjunction with witchcraft. Wicce being the most common "witch" word steming from wicca witch meant...."to bend"
It does make sense that the word came to be associated with witch later as during the rise of Christianity as anyone who practiced herbalism, shamanism.....was believed to be a witch.

I may be mistaken, I'll have to to a bit of research, but many of the words such as witch and pagan came about through Christianity. Prior to that there were shamans and midwives and healers......word meanings changed quite a bit as Christianity took hold. Mind you I don't see anything wrong with this. It is the way of things. I do however take offense to people who claim to practice something but don't even bother to learn how old it is and how different it is pre and post-christianity.


This is why I loath most neo-pagans. They tend to propogate information that is completly incorrect. And most never even bother to learn the truth themselves. Too happy to feel superior by wearing crystals and pentagrams without knowing that the meanings they attribute to them are quite recent. For example most of the "celtic" knotwork seen today is actually Christian. It was used to decorate the margins of religious texts. However, at some point the neo-pagans jumped on it and claimed it as their own creating meanings for each of the knots that really have no basis in anything remotely "old tradition" other than that the Celts drew some too. Most pre-Christan knotwork is tribal in origin. This does include the Celts and the Norse, however the knots had no meaning.
Many of the modern Celtic meanings are derived from similar looking knots found in other tribal cultures who did have meaning for their knots.
I've seen 1000's of books/sites/classes that teach that Wicca is the "Old religion" That simply isn't true. It is based on old traditions, but in and of itself is in no way even remotely old. Many wiccans including Gardenian Wiccans do parctice "witchcraft" (in other words, herbalism, spell casting, divination ) however, it is not a requirement. And that belief that Wicca is a "good" religion is the biggest load of crap ever. F'n Llewellyn books making it all fluffy for the masses. It's no wonder anyone who practices any old tradition is thought of as being full of shit.