Non Fluffy Wicca

I made a grievous mistake. I posted a comment to the nonfluffypagans list on Live Journal, calling into question the statement that one cannot be a Wiccan unless one has been initiated into a coven with lineage. The claim, of course, being that Gardner was initiated into the "New Forest Coven" and all that is Wicca must come directly from him. Therefore, by "BTW" (British Traditional Witchcraft") standards, there is this strange definition of Wicca that doesn't really make too much sense, and they get to decide who is and is not a Wiccan. I started asking questions (stupid me), and the whole thing kinda dissolved into a "you're a poopy head" match so quickly that I quickly decided it wasn't worth any more effort. Interesting for a group that considers itself "non fluffy."

Anyway, it got me to thinking. We have a religion here that was basically "created" by a guy named Gardner in the late 1940s, drawing upon already existing theology, heavily influenced by Alestair Crowley and Dorothy Valiente. Gardner claims he was initiated by Dorothy Clutterbuck of the New Forest Coven. There is no evidence that she, or the coven, ever existed prior to Gardner's claims. Therefore, there is no evidence that Gardner was ever initiated into "Witchcraft" (which they use interchangeably with Wicca), nor any evidence that he was from a coven with "lineage."

None of that withstanding, Gardner's claim that he merely revived an ancient religion also has no basis in fact. He was the first to use the term "Wicca" to refer to any type of religion, so I suppose it would be like taking something that already existed, say Mormonism, and suddenly deciding to call it "New And Improved Salamander Babble" and declaring it ancient. Just doesn't seem to make much sense.

So who can call oneself Wiccan? Who is a "real" Wiccan? And who gets to decide? If BTWites have their way, only the would be Wiccan. They seem to call the rest of us either "fake" or "Neo-Wiccan" which is rather amusing given a religion that is just over 50 years old. (Please note, I'm not saying there is no such thing as a traditional witch or traditional witchcraft knowledge that may have been passed down over the years in one form or another, but that is not Wicca.) Using BTW as a distinction from, let's say UEW, is not quite good enough, and the label must be tweaked into superior and inferior levels of Wiccanness.

I seem to have a rather strange view of who is and who is not Wiccan. Although there are many different definitions, to me, Wicca is a polytheistic religion (one that truly believes in multiple Gods, not "three that are one," not "all are facets of one big diamond" or "all Gods are one God") that believes in at the duality of Deity, consisting of a male and a female, AND identifies as Wiccan. UEW defines Wicca as any religion that calls itself Wicca, AND believes in a god/force/power/whatever that is either genderless, both genders or manifests as a male/female polarity that we agree to call "the Lord and Lady." AND upholds the Five Points of Wiccan Belief. Those Five Points are the Rede, the Law of Return, the Ethic of Self Responsibility, the Ethic of Attunement, and the Ethic of Constant Improvement. More about that on the UEW Website

What I am trying to point out is that the whole idea of what is and is not "real true Wicca" and who can and cannot call themselves a "real true Wiccan" is a rather strange mishmash. The BTWs seem to say that you can't be Wiccan unless you were initiated (which they can't prove their founder was) into a coven with some sort of lineage (which they can't prove their founder was) regardless of your belief system, regardless of what you believe Deity is, and regardless of how you live your life. I don't understand this. Perhaps I'm missing an important point.

This calls to mind the old Ken-L-Ration commercials where the kid sang "My dog's better than your dog cuz he eats Ken-L-Ration" regardless of whether it makes him fart up a storm and leave dog pooh on your carpet. Some use of "better" I'm not familiar with.

And so, in closing...you BTWs are poopy heads. So there!