years ago I came to believe that I was, at my core, Wiccan. At the time, I understood little about where it came from, who else was involved, or even what it entirely represented. Like most others I've since encountered, who have come to Wicca after I did, "it felt like home." Every time a new person comes in the door, and we say to them, "So, how did you come to paganism?" Why do we ask? We know the answer, "it just felt like coming home." I cringe at the cliché, but the fact is, it's true.

Months would go by, and sabbats would come and go, as I struggled to understand what they meant. I had no idea how to celebrate them, heck I didn't even know that they WERE celebrations. For years, at least 3 maybe 4, I didn't know of a single other Wiccan in the world. But I stuck with it, assured only by some niggling voice in the deeps of my head telling me I was onto something bigger than just myself. Over time, my cheap paraffin candles and dollar store incense would find themselves pushed further and further to the bottom of my shoe box of occult goodies. But that was surface change; A small step in the right direction.

The real changes were rooted in philosophy, source material and authors. I remember what used to sit on my bookshelf; Scott Cunningham's a further guide to the solitary practitioner, Gerina Dunwich's (Isn't it neat how her last name sounds like witch?) Wicca Craft, And that really big book on the Faery Tradition. It took a long time before I realized that, they're all the same. And they're all crap. Beware of any book on Wicca that mentions the burning times. BE WARE. In fact, just throw it out. But there is something I still don't fully understand; I never had a teacher, the Gods never spoke to me, in words, and told me which books to toss; So how did I manage to stay Wiccan years into my adult life? Or what's more, why do I still like the word Wicca anyway?

Every new person that comes through the door and opens their mouth and says something, I cringe and mutter inaudibly, "Good, Gracious, Goddess! Show them the way." Every new person is confronted with the same junk that I was confronted with. Every person who has to survive to be our descendants, must wade through the confusion, and the misdirection, and misinformation. Somehow they have to figure out everything that each of us has struggled to understand, all over again, right from the start. It gives one pause to wonder, how the hell are we gonna make it? And with llewellyn stacked against us, the tough odds just keep getting taller.

But we will survive. We have so far, and I've got every confidence that we will continue to. So that's the intro, that sets the stage. But it isn't really what I wanted to talk about. There is one misconception, one misdirection that I want to focus on in particular. And it's important. Because, at the end of the day, it's easy to identify crap and second rate fluff, but there is something else on our path that I think is much harder to identify. And that is what is known as "Ceremonialism." As the title of this article says it best, Wicca is not Ceremonialism. And an extension to that might be, Ceremonialism is not Pagan. "Well why not?" says the newbie. "It looks like they are related to me."

There is a site, http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos a compendium of well written articles on many facets of paganism and Wicca. But, what should we find scattered casually throughout the list of articles? "O.T.O. Samhain Ritual," "Notes on Kabbalah," "Gnosticism," "Hidden Codes in the Torah," and "On the Number 451 (Ordo Argentum Astrum)." Tell me, what exactly are these articles doing in a pagan section? Chances are who ever allowed them be included just doesn't realize that they are in no way pagan, but even more so, they are in absolutely no way Wiccan. Let's look at them one at a time, and discuss them in relation to modern (eclectic) and traditional (Gardnerian) Wicca.

O.T.O. Samhain Ritual. This is like an oxymoron. Ordo Templi Orientis, which literally means, The order of the eastern temple, has absolutely nothing to do with Celtic tradition, on which Samhain is entirely based. Even the name. The O.T.O. doesn't celebrate the changing of the seasons, or the turning of the wheel. They don't even acknowledge or care about the interplay between the Wiccan God and Goddess. They don't think that Samhain is the start of the new year. What exactly IS an O.T.O. Samhain ritual? In the opening of the ritual, the "hierophant" (a Greek priest) chants out "TETRAGRAMMATON, TZABOATH," and "AGLA" And then has everyone else repeat him. And later says, "In thy name: IHVH"... Is this a pagan ritual, or a Jewish ritual? The Tetragrammaton is Greek for "Four letter word." The four letter word being "IHVH" the Jewish mystical name for God. An acronym from what God tells Moses from a burning bush in the old testament. And AGLA another acronym of the hebrew phrase from the old testament, "The Lord Ever Powerful." No offence intended, I don't really care who uses the name of the Judaeo-Christian God, but the bottom line is that it isn't pagan. No ancient European, heath dwelling, nature worshipping pagan would have ANY connection or understanding, so-ever, about the Jewish bible or its myths. So, my only real complaint is, why should this ritual be found on a website, in a section about Paganism and Wicca?

This situation is indicative of a common misunderstanding in the Pagan community, not known for its historical education, about the difference between "Ceremonial Magic", "High Magic", or for that matter, "Magick," and Paganism/Wicca/Shamanism/Earth Based Spirituality. Let's look at another one of the above listed articles.

Notes on Kabbalah. In the area of 2000 years ago, mystical Jews thought to themselves, "The Pentateuch (5 books of Moses) is the literal word of God." What this meant to them was that, more than just being prophesy or interpretation of God's meaning, it was actually the literal words of God spoken directly to Moses which he wrote down word for word. Moses, they believe, didn't even necessarily understand what it was he was writing. Being mystical, and creative, and contemplative, they, understandably, came to the conclusion that if God was capable of providing literal truth through "flawed" words, that somehow the words themselves, and even the characters in the words must have a sacred or mystical nature about them. That in order for there beliefs to be true, certain other things about the text itself Must be true. With this, they began to explore the intricacies of the relationships between words and sentences and even characters trying to unearth a hidden mystery, or a hidden nature of God, concealed within the fabric of the text. A mystery invisible to those who merely read the words at face value.

And they made some pretty cool discoveries! You can read all about it in many places on the web or at your public library. You can even take University courses on the Mystical Kabbalah as part of Jewish studies. It is a very prestigious and serious branch of study. However, it relies on an underlying, fundamental "faith," that the five books of Moses were in fact written down by Moses, and were in fact the literal word of a Single All Powerful God. When, in reality, the Pentateuch is a composition from numerous authors that had an editor who clipped and selected and modified the stories and put them together at some later date into a single volume. The story fragments themselves are largely accepted by scholars today to have been inspired by the surrounding cultures that influenced early Judaism. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, Summerians and Assyrians to name a few. The early Jews were entirely an oral tradition, and they were semi-permanently occupied by some external culture or another. But of course, there was no way for 3rd century Jewish mystics to know that what they had been taught was the origin of the books of Moses was not factually true.

So, the Kabbalah is the "study of secret or hidden divine meaning." That pretty much defines the word "occult." The idea of magical power, amongst Kabbalists, began primarily with the tales of Solomon the King. However, his magical power, wisdom and ability, were granted to him specifically by the power of God. And he used his magic to bind and control demons. Pagan magic on the other hand, developed as a form of folk magic or sympathetic magic. In which dirt poor, uneducated, peasants developed a system that allowed them to influence the natural world, which they did to help themselves in their mundane lives. Such as to ward off drought, and to cure diseases or to assist in the fertility of their crops and livestock, or to hamper their enemies. Alternatively the Classical Pagans philosophized and practised in ways that were in no way hidden. Paganism was a lifestyle that had, and has, precious little to do with the Jewish framework that Kabbalistic understanding is entrenched in. Again, why tell us about Kabbalah on a website in the Pagan section? Can't we surely navigate over to the Jewish Mysticism section if we were interested in that topic? The same of course can be said for the article, "Hidden codes in the Torah."

What about "Gnosticism?" These were a sect of early pseudo-Christians, around the time that Jesus was supposed to have existed. It was a time of great turmoil. The Romans were bastards, and many of their actions are left as a permanent stain on the history of Paganism. The Gnostics had some pagan influences, but, who didn't? They were, for the most part, Judaeo-Christians, not pagans. Their core philosophy would seem completely contrary to what Pagans today, or even Classical Pagans believed, metaphysically.

So, one has to wonder, why are modern Paganism and Ceremonialism so mixed up together?

Before the Protestant reformation, Ceremonialism was legal in the eyes of the Roman church. It was practiced by priests, and it was powered by the goodness of God and the hierarchy of his angels, employed for the use of commanding and banishing demonic forces. The Roman Catholic church commanded demons, in the form of exorcisms, as a measure of course; Commanding and binding demons was considered an acceptable practice. Witchcraft and paganism, on the other hand, was far worse. Its followers worshipped and used the old gods and spirits of the material world. The old gods were demonized (or beatified), and therefore to worship them, to use them in magic was to use the powers of evil. (For what ends was usually not relevant). A conceptual difference primarily, but also a philosophical difference between the practitioners themselves. The Ceremonialists believed in the efficacy of the one true God! But the pagans thought, why worship a god we can't feel? However, both Wicca and Ceremonialism share a common desire for the mystical experience of the divine, and both employ ceremony, and props, and rhyme and rhythm, and poetry. After the reformation however, the church (now split) outlawed Ceremonialism as well. Not too surprising, they outlawed dancing and singing in some areas too. But what came next, we could blame on Gardner, or we could blame on his descendants for not educating themselves enough; I'm not sure where the blame lies.

When Gardner found the witch cult, it was fragmentary, according to what is written in his published works. (Whether you accept what he wrote as being honest or not is an issue outside the scope of this article.) An oral tradition handed down that was dying out. It's well known that Gardner borrowed from Ceremonialist sources to flesh out the ritual ceremony of Witchcraft. Not at all a bad idea. However, in "The Meaning of Witchcraft," he discusses the differences between Ceremonialism and the Witch cult. Philosophical differences, historical differences, and practical differences. He quotes Sallustius, from 4th century Rome, who wrote what can essentially be regarded as a Pagan Creed. It was written a long time ago and matches uncannily my own understanding of pagan and Wiccan philosophy of today. And it doesn't include the Tetragrammaton at all.

If the tetragrammaton were four letters that represented something symbolic, like, if the letters represented the elements, or the directions or four levels of consciousness, fine, then I could accept that it might have some usefulness to us. But it doesn't. The Ceremonialists have attributed it to meaning things which it does not. It was a simple acronym for a phrase. Nothing more. The letters repeat themselves, they can't possibly be four distinct aspects. YHVH, if the H's are female, the Y and V are not the same so they can't both be male. If YHVH represented NWSE, they can't again because there are two H's. Systematically, they don't do a very good job of representing any magical formula. Yes the ceremonialists have tried, because they are hell bent on figuring out a way to incorporate them into their system, because their system is, in the end, based on Jewish mythos.

But Gardner borrowed from them. So now we have not only a mixed history of persecution by Protestant Christians, but we have a mixed history of borrowing symbols. But that's it. Don't take it too much further. If you're going to use Kabbalistic symbolism, know first exactly what it means and where it comes from, and why you are using it. And this is what I fear most for new people, that they won't study enough, and that they won't realize the fundamental distinction between Wicca and Ceremonialism. And that they will use Ceremonialist symbolism uncritically in their Wiccan practice.

What more can I say? But, do your research. And read Gardner's books, even if you aren't ever planning on becoming Gardnerian.

- Greg Nacu, age 23, Kingston Ontario Canada.
- Email me with comments or questions.