Wicca: A comprehensive guide to the Old Religion in the modern world. Vivianne Crowley

I found it impossible to cast a clockwise Wiccan circle in Australia and to me the flow of the power seemed to be definitely anti-clockwise, the Australian direction of the sun.

      Since 1939 when Gerald Gardner was initiated and the early 1960s when Alex Sanders launched the Alexandrian branch of the Craft, thousands of people have been initiated into Wicca all over the world. People often ask me how large Wicca is and I have to reply that I have no idea! Wicca has no central organization which can do a headcount, but it is certainly large and growing. So how is this religion practised today?

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       The Circle of Being

      The rites of Wicca

      In Wicca, we contact the Divine through ritual and through the enactment of ancient myths which express eternal truths about human beings and the universe we inhabit. Some Witches worship alone, but those who belong to a coven will generally meet for the eight sabbats, the major seasonal festivals, and also at the 13 Full Moon esbats. Some covens, and particularly those which emphasize training, will meet more frequently.

      Where possible, Witches like to perform their rites outside, close to the world of Nature; for it is in the Goddess and God’s creation that it is easiest to feel their presence. Outside working is not always practical. Climate and the fact that not all covens have access to private land mean that often Witches will create a temple in their houses in which to honour the Gods. For those who do not have the luxury of spare space, then a room will be cleared for each rite.

      What takes place in a Wiccan rite? The main function of the rites is to worship the Gods. A second function is to perform magic. Divination and spells for healing and to help people with their life problems are an integral part of the work of a Witch. Magical working takes place principally at esbats. These are seen as the most appropriate time to ask the Gods for their help. The sabbats emphasize not so much receiving, but giving back. They are acts of thanksgiving to the Gods who give us life and being. The sabbats take place at eight roughly-equidistant points around what is often called the Wheel of the Year.

      The wheel of the year

      The rites, and in particular the sabbats, are also celebrations. Sabbats frequently end with a feast which takes place in the sacred circle which has been made for the rite. This is not considered to be separate from the rite, but an integral part of it. We eat and drink of the bounty of the Goddess and God to celebrate and honour what they have provided for us. In Wicca, this is considered pleasing to the Gods; for we are taught that our Gods love us and are pleased when we are happy.

      The idea of worshipping Gods through ritual can seem strange to us in the modern world. For our ancestors, ritual functioned to mark the transitions between different life stages. Birth, sexual maturation, marriage, giving birth, kingship, war and death were all marked by rites of passage. These rites contained powerful symbols which helped us to understand the meaning of each part of life’s journey. We were taught that each stage of the life cycle was but part of the Spiral Dance of life and death, of which we and all Nature are a part. Our griefs, pains and sorrows were transient. Like the ever-changing wheel of the seasons, they would pass, transmute; death would become life once more. Thus we were taught courage, endurance, and to look with objectivity on our own individual concerns, which were part of the greater whole. Myth and ritual touch on our deeper inherited levels of consciousness. This is why so many people entering Wicca feel that they have been Witches before. Somehow, they know instinctively the form of the rites and, in entering the Wiccan circle, they feel that they have come home.

       The world of the circle

      Whether indoors or outdoors, the rites of Wicca always take place within a sacred and consecrated space called the circle. However, a Wiccan circle is not necessarily exactly circular. Outside, natural wooded clearings do not grow to such convenient shapes and, when working Wiccan rites indoors, the priestess will often cast the circle around the perimeter of the whole room so that the physical barriers of the walls and the psychic barrier of the circle coincide. Traditionally, the circle was nine feet in radius and one of the uses of the nine-foot cord in Wicca is to mark out the circumference of the circle. The nine-foot radius is a comfortable size for a coven of thirteen, but a circle can be made to any size that is appropriate for the group.

      The Wiccan circle differs from that of ritual magic. Readers of occult novels will be familiar with the preparations of the white magician. Considerable effort is expended in marking out a chalk circle on the floor of a room from which every speck of dust has been removed. The magician draws strange symbols around the circle and sometimes a barrier of salt is poured along the edge. Some Witches do create a physical barrier when they cast their circles. Alex Sanders had a portable wooden circle painted with esoteric symbols that could be neatly folded into quarters for easy transportation, but this was not used for the majority of rites. Sometimes Witches who cannot keep a separate room for a temple will paint a ritual circle on their floorboards and then cover this with a carpet when not in use. When working ritual outside, some Witches will draw a physical circle in the earth, but the usual custom is to draw the circle not upon the ground, but in the air. The circle is not a physical one, but a mental one.

      Why do Witches work within a circle? The circle is an archetypal symbol of wholeness that has been used for millennia as a sacred place of healing and refuge. In Wicca, the circle is said to exist between the worlds. It is poised between the world of men and the realms of the Mighty Ones, between humankind and the Gods, between the astral world and the physical, between the psychological and the spiritual, in a space where those who are in the physical body can meet with non-physical forces in a safe and harmonious way. It is like a clearing in the jungle of everyday life where we can rest from its clamour and demands. The circle is a place of peace where our sometimes warring conscious and unconscious minds can meet and work in harmony. By entering the sacred precincts of the circle, we are not only clearing a physical space (if we have to clear the living room of furniture), we are also clearing a space in our own minds. This is a space where something can happen and the disorganization of our psyches can be made whole.

       The altar

      Within the circle will be an altar. This is placed either in the north of the circle or at the centre facing north. Certain directions have always been considered more sacred than others. In Islam, which functions without an altar, this is not a set direction, but instead prayer is oriented to a sacred place, Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet. In Christianity, the sacred direction is east, the direction of the rising sun.

      In Wicca, the north is traditionally considered to be the home of the Gods and the most sacred direction. This is a reflection of the influence on Wicca of our European ancestors. The Pole Star in the north was considered particularly sacred in the mythology of Norse and German peoples. It was also the direction of the Spiral Castle of the Celtic Goddess Arianrhod, Caer Arianrhod, where the dead heroes of the Celts went to dwell. The north is also the direction through which the Sun passes at night and the point at which the Moon’s influence is strongest in relation to the Sun. The north therefore represents the deepest part of the unconscious mind. The differences in altar orientation between Wicca and Christianity reflect their Dionysian and Apollonian leanings: the religion of the night versus the religion of the day, of unconscious versus conscious.¹ The north is not necessarily used in the Southern hemisphere. In the Southern hemisphere, the Sun is in the north at Noon and in the south at midnight. A good case can therefore be made for placing the altar to the south, oriented towards the Southern pole.

      Regardless of whether we use north or south, having the altar on the north/south axis is significant in that it aligns the circle with the Earth’s magnetic currents. Traditionally, this has been considered important both in magic and in another important human activity – sleep! In the Northern hemisphere, in order to align the electro-magnetic field of the body with that of the Earth, traditionally we are told to always sleep with our heads to the north and our feet to the