Do Wiccans
believe in GOD?
Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the
priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God.
The Lady and Lord (as they are often called) are seen as
primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet
they are also familiar figures who comfort and nurture
their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.
According to Gerald Gardner the gods of Wicca are ancient
gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death
and magic who rules over an after-world paradise (Often
referred to as The Summerland), and a goddess, the Great
Mother (who is simultaneously the Eternal Virgin and the
Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth
to souls of the dead and love to the living. Gardner
explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches,
just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and Osiris
and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher
than any of these tribal gods is recognised by the witches
as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little
concern to them.
Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of
the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since
priests and priestesses develop their own relationships
with the gods through intense personal work and revelation.
Many have a duotheistic conception of deity as a Goddess
(of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and
the animal realm). This concept is often extended into a
kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and
goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this pair (or of
the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and
goddesses to be separate and distinct. Janet Farrar and
Gavin Bone have observed that Wicca is becoming more
polytheistic as it matures, and embracing a more
traditional pagan worldview. Many groups and individuals
are drawn to particular deities from a variety of pantheons
(often Celtic, Greek, or from elsewhere in Europe), whom
they honour specifically. Some examples are Cernunnos and
Brigit from Celtic mythology, Hecate, Lugh, and Diana.
Some Wiccans, particularly in feminist traditions, have a
monotheistic belief in the Goddess as One. Still others do
not believe in the gods as real personalities, yet attempt
to have a relationship with them as personifications of
universal principles or as Jungian archetypes. A unified
supreme godhead (the "Prime Mover") is also acknowledged by
some groups, referred to by Scott Cunningham as "The One";
Patricia Crowther has called it Dryghten.
According to current Gardnerians, the exact names of the
Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory
secret , and they are not given in Gardner's books about
witchcraft. However, the collection of Toronto Papers of
Gardner's writings has been investigated by American
scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion
that their names are Cernunnos and Aradia. These are the
names used in the prototype Book of Shadows known as Ye Bok
sic of Ye Arte Magical.
For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as
complementary polarities: male and female, force and form,
comprehending all in their union; the tension and interplay
between them is the basis of all creation. The God and
Goddess are sometimes symbolised as the Sun and Moon, and
from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple
Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother" and "Crone"
corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.
Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she
contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of
her more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly
described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the
spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously
her lover and her child. This is reflected in the
traditional structure of the coven, which is led by a High
Priestess and High Priest in partnership, with the High
Priestess having the final word. In some traditions,
notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is
seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not
worshipped at all.
Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life
within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key
understanding conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of
the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to
the Hermetic understanding that "God" contains all things,
and in truth is all things. For some Wiccans, this idea
also involves elements of animism, and plants, rivers,
rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as
spiritual beings, facets of a single life.
A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest
in personal form, either through dreams, as physical
manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and
Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of
the ritual of Drawing down the Moon (or Drawing down the
Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the
body of the Priestess (or the God into the Priest) to
effect divine possession.