Two to Get You Mad
By Donald Michael Kraig
The Usurpation of Wicca
Although most people know me for my work with ceremonial magick, I have also been involved with Wicca for some time and have been initiated into three traditions. I consider myself Wiccan.
I defended and represented Wicca publicly—in newspapers, magazines and on radio and television—for over a decade. When someone unjustly defames Wicca I react.
But now something insidious, subtle and yet right out in the open, in my opinion threatens Wicca. To understand this, however, requires a brief bit of history.
From the rebirth of modern Witchcraft in the 1950's for three decades, Wicca was strictly an initiatory system, primarily composed of men and women dedicated to the Goddess and the God. The number of Wiccans was small but growing.
In 1979, the publication of two books changed all this, Drawing Down the Moon, by Margot Adler, and The Spiral Dance, by Starhawk, both came out in that year; and the practices of Witches became far more public than ever before. The number of traditions of Wicca, which you could have counted on both hands, suddenly burst forth and multiplied. New traditions were born and developed. It was good.
At the same time, however, people who read the books and wanted to become Witches without having to do anything like study or go through a period of preparation, popped up everywhere. After all, why should you have to spend a year or longer studying in order to worship the God and Goddess? Why can't you just do it? Suddenly it seemed that everyone had their own form of devotion to the Goddess and God. Some of it was good, but some was not so good. Like it or not, it happened and it is something we have to deal with. I think that all the different traditions and their activities led author Isaac Bonewitz to say: We're here. We're weird. Deal with it.
In the `60's, another movement began with the publication of The Feminine Mystique: the modern women's movement, derided in the media as women's lib (can you imagine the uproar if they had written about black lib?). It started with a bang but seemed to slow down with the disco `70's and early `80's, only to come back stronger than ever.
Some of the women in the movement realized that the movement needed a spiritual base, preferably one with a Goddess. This was the same time as the explosive growth of Wicca. It was inevitable that they should link together. Many feminists joined the Wicca bandwagon. Some members of the growing ecology movement hitched a ride, too.
The problem has developed, however, that some members of these groups want to make the primary focus of Wicca feminism and/or ecology. It is no longer Wicca: it is either women's spirituality or earth-centered religion.
Using those terms has always been and easy way to explain what you have been doing. If you use the W word people might think you are a Devil worshiper, so simply say you are a member of an earth-centered religion practicing women's spirituality. Unfortunately, the media is buying into this.
Take, for example, Fortune magazine for December 16, 1991. There is a scurrilous article entitled Bewitched that makes insulting fun of Wicca and Wiccans. Inside the article they quote the Times of London as saying this is the latest phase in women's rights. The article adds that Witches also do a lot of cuddling up with the environmental movement. In other words, the media is beginning to see Wiccans as being an offshoot of the women's movement and/or ecology movement!
To my mind, this is backwards. Wicca is a religion that in many instances supports the women's movement and the ecology movement. Wicca may be ideal for people in those movements. But it is an outgrowth of neither.
If Wicca evolves to be an aspect of the women's movement or ecology movement, so be it. Everything evolves. It simply would not be the Wicca into which I was initiated.
But rather than blame the media for this change (if blame is even necessary), I think we need to take responsibility. I realize that there is still religious persecution in this country and that not everyone can come out of the broom closet. Even so, no longer am I going to say I practice women's spirituality or an earth-centered religion.
From now on when somebody asks what religion I follow, I will answer: I practice a religion that worships a Goddess and God. It honors our planet and everything upon it. It treats men and women as equals.
I am a Witch.
The Not-So-Secret Plan
of the Religious Right
You may have thought that the defeat of many of the religious right's candidates, their inability to institute their religio-political agenda and the demise of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority marked the end of the power of the religious right. Nothing could be further for the truth. They simply have moved from arenas where they can't win into area where they feel they can't lose.
Perhaps the best model of the religious right's political agenda can be found right in San Diego, home base of this journal. What they are doing is going after small, local offices. And they are succeeding. According to Right-wing Watch, Ralph Reed, executive director of Pat Robertson's [head of the 700 Club and former presidential candidate] Christian Coalition, goes so far as to describe San Diego as a `model of what Christians and evangelicals and pro-family Roman Catholics are attempting to do around the nation' (I would note here that Robertson's Family Channel, formerly and more accurately the Christian Broadcasting Network, has no Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu of Pagan participation.)
The coalition went after 90 of San Diego County's elective offices in 1990—school boards, city councils, hospital boards, community planning districts, etc. Usually incumbents win elections, but a surprisingly large percentage—about two-thirds of the offices—have new people. They are putting their issues into the agenda—controlling what you do with your body, how you think, medical care, how you pray, etc.
The coalition's tactics, according to Right-wing Watch, are downright dirty. They have accused their opponents of being baby-killers, unchristian, racist and even called one woman a communist lesbian.
The coalition hopes to have 200 new candidates in 1992. Their goal is to take over the lower rung offices and develop experience to rise politically.
Pat Robertson's organization is sponsoring training sessions for candidates. Robertson claims that conservative and Christian forces control the Republican Party in California, Louisiana, Florida and a dozen other states. We are going to place Pat Robertson people on city councils, school boards, and legislatures all over this country, one neighborhood at a time.
If we want to worship as we will, we will have to get together and vote for candidates who support what we agree with wherever we live. Otherwise, we will be living under a group of people who, according to one of the successful religious right candidates, want to have it like it was 100 years ago?
For those who are interested, Right-wing Watch is a bimonthly newsletter available for $15 a year from People For the American Way, 2000 M St. NW, Ste. 400, Washington, DC 20036.
1992, Donald Michael Kraig. | 
