by Don Lewis
Why does the world need a
Common Book of Wicca and Witchcraft?
The Common Book of Wicca and Witchcraft is a compendium of copyright free materials dealing with Wicca and Witchcraft. All the materials within it may be freely shared without the need for any further permission. These materials have been created for the world, and are explicitly intended to be shared. Why? Because we believe that sharing knowledge can create a better world.
But why Witchcraft? Why Wicca?
Why Witchcraft ? Witchcraft is the art of manipulating reality. Through magic the Witch uses internal powers to shape the external world. But Witchcraft is more than this — implicit in the shaping of reality is the idea of taking responsibility for your own life and doing what you need for yourself, rather than waiting for others to do it for you. To know that you can shape reality, frees you from dependence upon others. This is one reason so many people fear Witchcraft. Most people have been taught from birth to believe in being dependent upon the actions of others, whether governments, “experts”, charities, churches, or Gods. Most other movements teach dependency, and fear independence above all else. Most organizations have also been taught from time immemorial to use people’s dependence upon them as a means of control. Dependence is a powerful tool of social control that Witchcraft disrupts, because when you know that you can shape reality through magic, you have a means of resisting any attempt to make you dependent. The Witch need not sit and wait for the crumbs from the table of others — the Witch can make their own table. Not that magic is a simple art or easy to master, but even a little magic opens the door to freedom.
Why Wicca? Wicca is a new religion based upon a number of older religious movements. Eclectic Wicca has diverse origins, and blends many metaphysical ideas and practices of the past into a religion for the future. Why do we need a new religion for the future? Well, look around the world and that answer should be an easy one. The planet is soaked in the blood of religious warfare, as ancient enemies repeat the same religious wars over and over again. Accused “Witches” are being burned in Africa, and “Witch Children” tortured or murdered in horrifying ways. Religious minorities are being beheaded and otherwise murdered throughout the Middle East, while religious extremists battle at the election booth for the control of Western governments. It is a bad situation. Meanwhile the planet itself reels from the effects of long-term abuse and pollution, while Western religious leaders deny that there is or could be a problem, and insist that the “Jesus will take care of it,” or that that any of various apocalyptic scenarios override the need to take corrective action. If the world ever needed a new religion, surely now is the time!
We live at a crucial moment in history. We stand at the crossroads, a place long sacred to the Witch. It is a crossroad between the failed policies of the past vs. the potential for a better future. It is a crossroad between destroying the planet vs. saving it. A crossroad between scorning the poor and empowering a tiny oligarchy vs. building a better society that allows social justice for all its members. It is a crossroad between eternal religious wars based on ancient hatreds mandated by supposedly holy books vs. the freedom to overcome the past make a more peaceful future. Magic gives us the freedom to shape a new reality, and Wicca gives us the intellectual freedom to envision a better reality free of the ingrained and often unconscious prejudices of the old religions. Instead of spending our time suppressing religious minorities and enforcing a bronze-age orthodoxy, Wicca frees us to take the needed actions to save our planet as well as to move forward into space.
Wicca is based in nature, and this includes the understanding that nature includes all of existence, not just our own back yard. The Witch studies and seeks to understand all things, knowing that all things are sacred. Our knowledge is based in the spiritual, but also embraces the scientific. We do not reject scientific ideas, though our views on some things may differ from those of atheistic mainstream science. The future we seek to craft is one of Magic AND Science, knowledge ancient AND modern, side-by-side.
And we know that we will see that future. We will return, for we know that death is but one side of a coin that is eternally flipping. We MUST be concerned about the future, because it is our future, not just our descendants, for we will be reborn into it. It is easy for those who think that they live but once to lay waste to the planet and destroy its resources, for they think this will not impact them and they have little care or concept for what will come after. But we who practice the incarnational sciences know that we return, and that what we leave behind us when we die is also what we inherit when we are reborn. The knowledge that the Soul is eternal and leads many lives transforms our relationship to the earth and our relationship to the future, for we know that there is no convenient exit from the consequences of our actions and no apocalypse to reset the game. The Witch knows that WE must take responsibility and build the world we wish to live in — for we will be reborn into the world we have built.
Because we know these things, we cannot stand idly at this crossroad. We must choose our future and we must build it — OR we must live this life and lives-to-come in a future built by others. We can build a future of love or we must suffer a future of fear. It is as simple as that. The choice is ours — and because we have the knowledge of magic, the ability to build the future of our choice is also ours.
Wicca and Witchcraft offer the world a future different from the apocalyptic dystopia so actively sought by so many of the old religions. A future of hope, a future of beauty, a future of promise.
M. Rev. Donald Lewis is the Chancellor and First Priest of the Correllian Tradition (http://www.correllian.com), cofounder of Witch School (http://www.WitchSchool.com) the world's largest school of metaphysics, and Production Head for Magick TV (http:// www.Youtude.com/MagickTV)
Rev. Don is the author of the Witch School series of books available from Llewellyn (http://www.Llewellyn.com), as well as numerous other works including Rev. Don's Omnibus of Invocations and Incantations for All Occasions and the Tarot of Hekate available from http://www.WitchSchoolStore.com and the Video Lessons for the First Degree available from http://www.RevDonLewis.com