Håkan wrote:
> Sex-cuse me, but what is a Wiccan?
Wicca is a modern neo-pagan reconstruction of the supposed pre-
Christian religion of witchcraft. It comes in fact from the writings
of Gerald Gardiner who wrote that he came across a coven of "witches"
still practicing pagan relion in the New Forest before the end of
World War II. Margaret Murray, the Egyptologist, wrote how the
worship of the "horned god" religion survived into the Middle Ages to
influence Witchcraft (and Christian conceptions pof Satan) and
Chaqrles Leyland writing at the end of the last century, early part
of this century created some imaginative reconstructions of
the "strega" in their worship of "Diana" and "Herodias".
All of this has become assembled by Alexandrine, Gardnerian and other
varieties of modern self-proclaimed witches into a full blown post-
Christian religion. The chief written works for reference are by
Margot Adler "Drawing Down the Moon" (Adler is the grandaughter of
the early psychiatrist Adler), and Starhawk "Spiral Dance"
and "Dreaming the Dark: Sex, Magic and Politics". Starhawk's
novel "The Fifth Sacred Thing" gives some exposition of the belief
set too. It seems that this grew up in the attempt to distance
themselves from the OTO, Spiritual, Theosophical and Golden
Dawn "Western Mystical Tradition" found in John (Julianus)'s
Thelemite beliefs.
Hope this helps
Regards
John