What Is Wicca? A Plain Guide to the Wiccan Religion

Wicca is a modern Pagan religion. Wiccans honor a Goddess and a God, celebrate the turning of the seasons and the phases of the moon, and practice magick as part of their spiritual lives. The religion became public in England in the early 1950s and has since spread around the world.

Ask ten Wiccans to define their religion and you may hear ten different answers. Wicca has no central authority and no single holy book, and every coven and solitary practitioner shapes the details. What follows is the common ground.

What Wiccans believe

The divine is present in nature. Wiccans do not picture a creator standing outside the world. The sacred is here, in the land, the sky, the seasons, and in people.

The divine is both feminine and masculine. Most Wiccans honor a Goddess, often linked with the moon and the earth, and a God, often linked with the sun, the forest, and wild animals. Some treat them as two real beings, some as two faces of one source, and some as the sum of all goddesses and gods. Our guide to the Goddess and the God goes further.

Life moves in cycles. Birth, growth, death, and renewal repeat in the year, in the moon, and in a human life. Many Wiccans believe in some form of reincarnation, and some speak of a place of rest between lives called the Summerland.

Magick is natural. Wiccans regard magick as a normal part of how the world works: the practice of focusing intention to bring about change. It is not seen as supernatural, and it is not a way around ordinary effort.

You answer for yourself. There is no confession and no priest to stand between you and the divine. With that freedom comes full responsibility for what you do.

What Wiccans do

• Keep the sabbats. Eight festivals, about six weeks apart, mark the solstices, the equinoxes, and the points between them. Together they form the Wheel of the Year.
• Keep the esbats. Most Wiccans hold a ritual at each full moon, and some at the new moon as well. See our guide to esbats.
• Cast a circle. Ritual usually takes place inside a circle that is cast for the occasion, with the four elements honored at the four directions. See casting a circle.
• Work at an altar. A small table or shelf holds candles, symbols of the elements, and a few tools. See altar and tools.
• Practice magick. Spellwork, divination, and healing work are common, although some Wiccans do very little of them.

Wiccan ethics

The best-known statement of Wiccan ethics is the Wiccan Rede: an it harm none, do what ye will. In modern English, that means that as long as it harms nobody, you are free to follow your own will. It is advice and not a commandment, and it asks you to think hard about consequences.

Many Wiccans also hold to the Threefold Law, the idea that whatever you send out returns to you three times over.

Covens and solitaries

Wicca began as an initiatory religion. In the oldest traditions, including the Gardnerian and Alexandrian lines, you become Wiccan by being initiated into a coven by someone who was initiated before you, and much of the ritual is kept private.

Since the 1970s a second, much larger stream has grown up alongside the first. Eclectic and solitary Wiccans learn from books, teachers, and their own experience, and many mark their commitment with a self-dedication ritual. The two streams sometimes disagree about who may use the name. In practice, both are a settled part of the modern Wiccan world. Our guide to covens and solitaries explains the difference and how to stay safe when looking for a group.

Common misunderstandings

Wicca is not Satanism. Wiccans do not believe in the devil, let alone worship him. The Horned God of Wicca is a god of woods and wild animals whose imagery is far older than the medieval picture of the devil.

Wicca is not an unbroken ancient religion. It draws on very old material, but the religion itself took shape in the twentieth century. We tell that story in our short history.

Not all witches are Wiccan. Wicca is one religion that includes witchcraft. Plenty of witches follow other paths or no religion at all.

The pentacle is not sinister. The five-pointed star in a circle stands for the four elements and Spirit, held in balance. You can read more on our symbols page.

Is Wicca for you?

Wicca tends to suit people who want a religion and not only a practice: regular ritual, named deities, a shared calendar, and an ethical frame. If you love the idea of the Goddess and the God and the eight sabbats, you may well be at home here. If you want to work with herbs and candles without any religious structure, you may be happier simply calling what you do witchcraft.

You do not have to decide today. Wicca has a tradition of studying for a year and a day before making any commitment, and that is good advice for everyone.