First off, Wiccans do not engage in devil worship or human sacrifice, celebrate Black Masses, or even recognize Friday the 13th as special.
“We don?t believe in Satan. He doesn?t exist. That?s Judeo-Christian,” said Pam Griffith, Baltimore witch and priestess of Dundalk?s Temple of Mystic Light. “[For us], it?s all good. There are our gods and goddesses. We believe in the pantheons.”
“Human sacrifice has never been part of witchcraft,” Griffith added. “Witches always sacrificed the first fruit of the harvest and the last fruit of the harvest. The Black Mass is Satanism.”
Wicca is a subset of Paganism, which encompasses such earth-based, pre-Christian religions as Druidism, Voodoo, Faerie Faith, Appalachian Granny Magic, and native American worship ? with all of their variations. It venerates the rhythms of life, gods and goddesses, one?s ancestors, and the agricultural seasons.
Wicca?s profile ? and likely its following ? has lately been raised by popular books ? like the “Harry Potter” series ? on the subject, and by TV shows such as “Charmed” and “Buffy, the Vampire Killer.”
“We honor nature,” said Caryn MacLuan, a Druid priest of Baltimore?s Cedar Light Grove. “It?s all about being in balance, recognizing that everything is sacred.”
City University of New York?s 2001 American Religious Identification Survey estimated some 300,000 Wiccans and Pagans nationally. Regional estimates range between 10,000 and 25,000.
“It?s anearth-based, natural worship,” Griffith explained, stressing similarities between Wiccan and Christian traditions “which includes different pantheons of deities — from the Norse, the Germanic, the Celtic or the Graeco-Roman sides.”
Wiccan holidays are called sabats or esbats, Griffith said, and are celebrated in either open or closed (limited number) “circles” ? some of which are conducted in the nude. They commemorate eight yearly calendar events and a host of lunar changes, which often consist of god or goddess worship, divinations and spell-casting, and a ceremonial meal of cakes and ale.
The religion?s moral code is highly individualistic, but tempered by belief in a “threefold law”: Whatever one does ? good or evil ? rebounds threefold.
“Wicca is a modern attempt to revive ancient Celtic, pagan religions, which involve earth worship,” said the Rev. Bill Au, pastor of Sts. Phillip and James Catholic Church in Baltimore. “Obviously the Christian Church would differ [theologically] with that. But that [form] would not be condemned, [unlike] the witchcraft that is defined as communing with demonic spirits.”
