Religion and the Return of Magic: Wicca As Esoteric Spirituality
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RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC: WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD March 2000 Joanne Elizabeth Pearson, B.A. (Hons.) ProQuest Number: 11003543 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11003543 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION The thesis presented is entirely my own work, and has not been previously presented for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. The views expressed here are those of the author and not of Lancaster University. Joanne Elizabeth Pearson. RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC: WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY CONTENTS DIAGRAMS AND ILLUSTRATIONS viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix ABSTRACT xi INTRODUCTION: RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC 1 CATEGORISING WICCA 1 The Sociology of the Occult 3 The New Age Movement 5 New Religious Movements and ‘Revived’ Religion 6 Nature Religion 8 MAGIC AND RELIGION 9 A Brief Outline of the Debate 9 Religion and the Decline o f Magic? 12 ESOTERICISM 16 Academic Understandings of Esotericism 17 Characteristics of Esotericism 18 The Importance of Historical Continuity 21 WICCA, MAGIC AND ESOTERICISM 22 Three‘Types'of Magic 22 Esoteric Characteristics of Wiccan Magical Practice 25 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 26 CHAPTER ONE: DEMARCATING THE FIELD 29 INTRODUCTION 29 A BRIEF HISTORY OF WICCA 30 PAGANISM 34 Interpretation 1: ‘Country-dweller’ 35 Interpretation 2: ‘C ivilian’ 37 Interpretation 3:‘Locality’ 40 WICCA AND PAGANISM 42 Wiccan/Pagan Relations, 1970-1999 42 ‘W itch’ and ‘W iccan’ 46 Some Distinctions 49 WICCA AND WITCHCRAFT IN THE 1990s 51 Etymology and Connotations 51 The Image of the Witch 55 CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF WITCHCRAFT: THREE IDEAL TYPES 57 Wicca 58 Feminist Witchcraft 63 Hedgewitchcraft 69 CONCLUSION 70 ii CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCHING WICCA 73 INTRODUCTION 73 PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON WICCA 73 North America 73 Australia 80 Europe 81 Britain 84 THE PRESENT STUDY 89 Studying Wicca: Access and Limitations 90 The ‘Insider/Outsider’ Dichotomy 93 THEORY AND METHODOLOGY 102 Theory 102 Use of Texts 104 Methodology 108 The Survey: Distribution, Aims, Results 109 Fieldwork 114 The North-West Covens: A Case Study 118 Some Sociological Conclusions 123 CONCLUSION 125 CHAPTER THREE: WICCA S MAGICAL HERITAGE:MYTHOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES 127 INTRODUCTION 127 MYTHS OF CONTINUITY 130 Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: The Burning Times 131 The Golden Age of Matriarchy 143 The Use of Myth 148 HISTORY: STREAMS OF CONTINUITY 150 The Fin de Siecle and the Occult Revival 153 The Golden Dawn 158 Aleister Crowley 161 Dion Fortune 165 WICCA & THE WESTERN ESOTERIC TRADITION 168 CONCLUSION 175 CHAPTER FOUR: THE MAGICAL COMMUNITY: RECOGNITION AND TRANSMISSION 179 INTRODUCTION 179 COMMUNITY AND ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE OF WICCA 182 A North American Example 182 Tradition and Lineage: The Structure of Wicca and Ritual Integration 186 Diversity Management 187 Liminality and Initiation 189 The ‘Wheel of the Year’ 192 Lineage 198 ACCESS TO WICCA: DIVERSITY AND CHOICE 200 Finding Wicca, Finding a Coven 201 Growth 201 Origin of Members 203 Entry Points 205 ‘Conversion’ or ‘Confirmation’? - Joining Wicca 206 Conversion motifs 206 Chapman’s findings 207 Recognition 214 Descent, Assent and Recognition 216 THE COVEN: CORE COMMUNITY 219 Cohesion 219 Coven Structure 224 Female Leadership 226 Rules and Codes of Conduct 230 CONCLUSION 233 CHAPTER FIVE: THE EXPERIENCE OF ’MANY REALITIES’: COMMUNITAS, AND THE RITUAL FRAMEWORK OF W ICCA 236 INTRODUCTION 236 RITUAL AND COMMUNITY 237 MOVING BETWEEN ‘MANY REALITIES’ 241 THE RITUAL FRAMEWORK OF WICCA 244 Pre-Ritual 247 Preparation 1: fasting, drinking, and preparing 248 Preparation 2: the temple 253 Preparation 3: the body and ritual nudity 254 Creating Sacred Space 261 Within Sacred Space 268 The experience of the divine 271 Returning to Everyday Reality 279 TRAINING 282 The Art of Memory 282 Correspondences, Living Nature, Imagination 284 Application 287 CONCLUSION 289 CONCLUSION: WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY 291 CHARACTERISATION OF WICCA 296 Revived Religion 296 Nature Religion 298 WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY 300 The ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ Model 300 Wicca, Esotericism and the Hierarchy of Needs 302 IMPLICATIONS OF THE THESIS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 305 vi LAST WORDS: RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC 310 APPENDICES: 312 APPENDIX 1: THE SURVEY 313 APPENDIX 2: THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR 317 APPENDIX 3: THE CHARGE 323 BIBLIOGRAPHY 330 FILMOGRAPHY 356 vii DIAGRAMS & ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1.0 The Development of Gardnerian/Alexandrian Wicca p. 59 Fig. 1.1 The Development of Feminist Witchcraft p. 68 Fig. 1.2 Influences on Hedgewitchcraft p. 70 Fig. 2.0 The Insider/Outsider Position p. 98 Fig. 2.1 Respondents According to Pagan Groupings p. 112 Fig. 2.2 Age Range of Wiccans p.l 12 Fig. 2.3 Religious Background of Wiccans p .112 Fig. 2.4 Witchcraft Types: Survey Against Fieldwork p.116 Fig. 2.5 The North West Covens p .121 Fig. 3.0 The Wheel of the Year p.317 Between pages 275 and 276: Plate 1 Selection of deity statues used in Wicca Plate 2 Statues of Wiccan goddesses Plate 3 Statues of Wiccan gods Plate 4 Shrine to Venus/Aphrodite Plate 5 Eastern deities Plate 6 Egyptian deities Between pages 285 and 286: Plate 7 Elemental Correspondences ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As is so often the case with projects such as this, there are too many people for me to thank individually. I would therefore like express my thanks to all the Wiccans, witches and Pagans with whom I shared so much during the course of this study and without whose input and support the thesis could not have been written. Though they will not all agree with my conclusions, I hope they will nevertheless find the results of this work of interest. A few individuals must be singled out. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Richard Roberts, for his perceptive questions, unstinting support and encouragement, and for bearing with the thesis through a process of considerable transformation. Thanks are also due to Professor Geoffrey Samuel, who read and provided extensive comments on early chapter drafts, and to the staff and students of Lancaster University Religious Studies Department with whom I had many informal insightful and critical discussions. My colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at the Open University gave me generous support during the first months of my appointment in order that I might complete the thesis. Thank you. Dr Nick Freeman of the University of the West of England encouraged my interest in the literature of the fin de siecle, and gave of his valuable time to read the final draft. Any remaining mistakes are, o f course, entirely my responsibility. Mark Pomfret offered hours of meaningful discussion throughout the course of this thesis, and I am deeply grateful to him for his unending support and encouragement without which I might have given up long ago! Thanks also to Litsa Andreas, who patiently read and discussed certain chapters, particularly chapter two. Lastly, this study would never have been begun, let alone completed, without the constant support of my parents throughout my life. Their influence, and my gratitude to them cannot be expressed in words - they were the people who first taught me the meaning of ‘perfect love and perfect trust’. RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC: WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD November 1999 Joanne Elizabeth Pearson, B.A. (Hons.) ABSTRACT Keith Thomas' celebrated theory of the decline of magic during the seventeenth century, and its disappearance by the twentieth century, stands in stark contrast to the magia naturalis of the Renaissance and the later occult revival of the fin de siecle from which Wicca developed. In this thesis we contend that in the ferment of Renaissance Europe, magic remained an integral part of western esotericism, of which Wicca in the 1990s is a current manifestation. Using Antoine Faivre's characterisation of esotericism and Wouter Hanegraaffs historical emphasis on esoteric connections, we construct a framework to enable us to assess Wicca as an esoteric religious tradition in the 1990s. Within this framework, and running throughout the thesis, we investigate an apparent transformation in the understanding and practice of magic. We argue not only that Wicca is a specific religion and part of the Western Esoteric Tradition, but that the use and understanding o f magic in Wicca is not divorced from, but part o f religion; rather than a contra-religious, instrumental means o f control utilised by individuals, magic may thus instead be understood as a participative group religious practice. This thesis thus seeks to go beyond the conflation of Wicca with other forms of witchcraft and paganism in order to uncover Wicca as a specific form of spiritual expression. The seemingly ever-increasing popularity of Wicca in the Protestant world suggests that Thomas' theory, whilst accurate for the restricted historical epoch with which he engages, in fact requires revision as a consequence of the development of Wicca as a religion in the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, instead of religious changes causing a decline in magic, as we approach the twenty-first century it may in fact be more appropriate to speak of religion and the return o f magic.