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For those who walk their own path and express their inner nature while honoring nature and living harmoniously with the earth, Wicca is increasingly their religion of choice. In May 2005, the New York Times noted that Wicca is the fastest growing religion in North America, and it has not stopped since. Whether they consider themselves “white witches” or “dark Wiccans,” something is calling to people on a profound level, something that spiritually feeds them in a way nothing else does. Perhaps it is that Wicca does not preach a prescribed path and rules. Hey—it does not preach at all! There is only a bond of honesty and the golden rule of Wicca that holds true for all Wiccans. In our lifetimes, we have seen suppressed traditions such as Wicca and other traditions of witchcraft enter into the mainstream. Wicca has a wonderfully straightforward approach with a strong ethical code based on moral and personal responsibility.

The Three Principles of Wicca

“An ye harm none, do as ye will.”

—Gerald Gardner, The Meaning of Witchcraft

THE WICCAN REDE

This tenet of witchcraft encourages the individual’s freedom to do as she or he sees fit as long as it does not affect anyone negatively. So, while you pursue your own interests, think of how your actions affect others. This applies to all aspects, especially ritual and spell work, because you are working with energies that have wide-ranging powers to affect everyone and everything. This rede, or wise teaching, requires real attention and a high degree of consciousness in terms of assessing the impact of any action in regard to all the possible physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological consequences that result from all ritual work.

THE THREEFOLD LAW

“What you do comes back to you threefold” is much like the Buddhist principle of karma. The Threefold Law is a directive to always think of the consequences of personal actions, including rites, ceremonies, and spells. Negativity comes back to you three times over, so attention to attitudes and thoughts is absolutely essential. The flip side of this law is that the positive comes back to you threefold as well. Kindness, love, and generosity are all magnified. This is a great guideline for all of life. This is also a reason to do ritual work for long-distance healing and for global issues such as peace, the environment, and world hunger. Send good works and helpful intentions out to others and you yourself will benefit.

THE GOLDEN RULE

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” People may find it amazing that both Christians and many pagans share this same basic rule of morality. It places personal responsibility at the highest level. In other words, the “right action” is up to you and is of ultimate importance. The few simple guidelines are universal in nature and can apply to any walk of life and spiritual practice. It is also vital to respect the diversity of religions. Do not judge, in the same way that you do not wish to be judged. In their ability to have an impact on others, creating ritual and working magic are very serious. If you guard your thoughts, intentions, and actions with regard to others, you should be a happy, highly accountable ritualist.

One website worth checking out early and often is that created by someone who calls himself “Dark Wyccan,” who has been serving a community of what he calls “Dark Pagans” since 1994. John Coughlin’s website at www.waningmoon.com is a marvelous resource for anyone looking to learn more about this philosophy and wanting to join in with a likeminded community. Waningmoon.com beautifully defines dark Wicca and explains why it is so appealing to those whose spiritual hunger falls outside the margins of our rigid society. “Wicca is a nature-based mystery religion. As a mystery religion, it is not something one can learn in books or even from teachers—its mysteries must be learned through experience. Typically deity is perceived as a male and female (God and Goddess) that are anthropomorphic manifestations of the forces of nature. As with other aspects of the Craft, one does not ‘believe’ in deity, one KNOWS them, from experience.”

Lunaria—That Which Is Under the Power of the Moon

The origins of Dark Moon magic include some ancient and quite historic philosophies. My favorite delineation of “darkling” and night-ruled beings comes from H.C. Agrippa, who wrote the following in the early 1500s:

Amongst plants and trees, these are Lunary, as the selenotropian, which turns toward the Moon as doth the heliotropian toward the Sun; and the palm-tree, which sends forth a bough at every rising of the new Moon. Hyssop, also, and rosemary, agnus castus, and the olive-tree, are Lunary. Also her herb chinosta, which increaseth and decreaseth with the Moon, viz, in substance and number of leaves, not only in sap but in virtue—which, indeed, is in some sort common to all plants, except onions. Lunary animals are such as delight to be in man’s company, and such as do naturally excel in love or hatred, as in all kinds of dogs. The chameleon also is Lunary, which always assumes a color according to the variety of the color of the objects—as the Moon changeth his nature according to the variety of the Sign which it is found in.

Cats also are Lunary, whose eye become greater or less according to the course of the Moon, and those things which are like nature, as ceremonial bloods, which are made wonderful and strange things by magicians. The civet cat, also, changes her sex with the Moon, being obnoxious to divers sorceries, and all animals that live in water as well as land, as otters, and such as prey upon fish.

Of the Lineage of Heresy

One usually hears the word martyr used in terms of Catholic saints, but many multitudes were martyred among the pagan healers and wise women of old. It is important to remember and honor those who came before and to celebrate the freedom of religious expression we now have.

One of the major examples of this is the Spanish Inquisition. Witches and those of the Jewish faith were hunted down and killed in droves after the seemingly insecure Pope Innocent III began a crusade against what he called “heretics” in the twelfth century. These heretics were most often women healers and elders of communities and villages whom local folks turned to as authorities instead of the Catholic Church. Charges leveled against these so-called witches were that they “consorted with the devil,” oftentimes accompanied by descriptions of lewd sexual acts with Satan conjured up by the twisted imaginations of the clergy of the day. I say let this be a lesson about what happens with the Catholic Church’s concept of enforced celibacy for the clergy.

Then in the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory IX was caught up in a political dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor over the Inquisition and issued papal orders that this judicial investigation into heresy would be under the special restricted jurisdiction of the church. Pope Gregory IX was also pursuing so-called freethinkers in Germany and France; but once the pope’s lust for blood was roused, his fervor was such that he could not be stopped, and the Inquisition spread throughout all of Europe. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV gave his blessing for the inquisitors to use torture. The pope and his henchmen certainly were theatrical and knew how to manipulate the public to suit their ends. Sentences were declared in public squares, establishing the circumstances for civic judgment and instantaneous punishment, which could range in severity from a pilgrimage to a holy place, to a high fine of money and goods, to a public whipping. The church officers could and did seize property, but their power ended at life imprisonment—they did not have the power to inflict capital punishment, even though they came extremely close with their use of torture. The inquisitors discovered a way around that, however, and began using it immediately. They could hand over certain prisoners and sentenced heretics to the local civic authorities, and in many thousands of such cases, those accused were killed.

Inquisitors set up offices anywhere they liked and probed into the lives of locals, making sure the locals knew of all the tools for torture the inquisitors had in their arsenal. With the arrogance only found in those who believe themselves to be righteous, the inquisitors issued proclamations requiring any heretics to present themselves. Heretics then had one month’s time to confess before such time as a trial. Without a confession, trial proceedings began, and they could go quite quickly, since the testimony of only two witnesses was considered irrefutable proof. Accused heretics had no chance for asylum or sanctuary. Many times, under threat of torture and extreme pain, villagers agreed to say anything about their friends or neighbors just to end the agony.

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” is a line forever inscribed in popular culture consciousness by the brilliant comic minds of Monty Python. It refers to the very worst of all the Inquisitions. The Grand Inquisitor of Spain was an ingeniously cruel man named Tomas de Torquemada. He personally undertook and oversaw the torture, persecution, and murder of thousands of accused heretics. His brutality knew no bounds, and he took the art of torment to its apex with instruments such as hot iron chairs, chairs with sharp nails, and the insertion of devices into any and all orifices, which were then twisted open while inside the accused. Other special Torquemada torture tools were the Iron Maiden, which was essentially a metal coffin with sharp iron spikes inside, and the rack, a frame on which the prisoner was tied by the arms, legs, and head and stretched until their body was torn apart. Drawing and quartering was a means of death during which each limb was tied to one of four horses and the horses were then driven in four different directions, while the body was torn apart into four pieces.

The inquisitors were phenomenal record keepers, so there are many firsthand accounts and ledgers for modern historians to study. While historians differ on the exact span of time during which these crimes committed by the church took place, the best estimates show that a million people died over a period of some 500 years. The majority of those who confessed to heresy made their confessions under the duress of extreme torture. It is also important to remember that the majority of those who died were women.

The Inquisition was the Vatican’s best effort to wipe out pagans and anyone they viewed as “heathens,” as in not Christian, even Jews and Muslims. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we have “taken back the night” and our rights to religious freedom. To be a Dark Moon Wiccan is not to be a heretic, it is being really and truly yourself, an authentic individualist. Thousands of witches died in the Inquisition. Remembering and knowing is an important way of honoring those who died.

We must remember our own who died.

Honoring Our Pagan Past

In 1992, on the 300th anniversary of the Salem witch trials, the largest number of witches in history congregated to “reclaim” Salem. Many stayed and have become model citizens and business people with retail outlets, bookstores, workshops, and all manner of successful enterprises. This footnote to our pagan history reflects our high regard for our religious history and how it matters today more than ever.

Another dramatic time in what I call “Witchstory” or “Witch history” took place in colonial America. When two preadolescent girls began having seizures and screaming out, the local doctors immediately declared the ailing girls to be Satan’s handmaidens and said that the entire community needed to fast and pray for the two fallen girls. One of the cures for this affliction was “Witch Cake,” a hideous concoction of rye meal mixed with the urine of the two girls. This supposedly would cause the girls to reveal the origin of their misfortune. With the entire village of Salem putting pressure on for a confession, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams broke down and named three women they knew to be witches who had them under a spell: Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good, and Tituba, the Caribbean Indian slave of the Parris family. While both Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good pled their innocence, Tituba was tortured and “confessed” that there was a coven of witches at work in Salem.

A trial was convened that went on for weeks, and many of the villagers confessed to having been under the spell of the witches. In 1692, community leaders declared the need for a “witch hunt,” and while they were at it, they took the opportunity to clean up the local riffraff. Again, women were under special scrutiny, and even those not under any suspicion at all were at the mercy of the judiciary, especially women with property ripe for confiscation by greedy public officials. As always, the desired confession was gained under pain of torture. The first to be found guilty of witchcraft was Bridget Bishop; the sentence was hanging. A sort of “witch fever” spread throughout New England, followed by the Andover witch trials. Fortunately, people began to gather round to protect each other and signed petitions asserting the innocence of the accused. Finally, the newly established superior court, founded one year after the hanging of Bridget Bishop, put a stop to the conviction of witches. Unfortunately, the superior court did not act until twenty people had been executed on trumped-up charges.

Donna Read, in her masterful documentary film The Burning Times, explores the history of the Dark Ages, when an estimated three million women were burned as suspected witches. This ongoing torture and murder of millions of women begs the question: Why are women so threatening to men in power? We have seen it time and time again over the millennia, beginning with Eve being blamed for the introduction of evil (read: knowledge) into the world. The sacred feminine is mysterious, with a dark and unknowable aspect that can be threatening to those in power. Women’s wisdom, born from women’s intuition, springs from the well of the sacred feminine. This frightens people who don’t understand or embrace it. Women who spoke their mind, who challenged authority, and who espoused a spirituality outside the codified rules of any church were considered a danger to strict social order. The unknown and unknowable intimidates and is a menace to the status quo. Thus, it had to be silenced. This silencing cost millions of lives.

While we have progressed in so many ways since 1692, persecution can still happen. In May 2005, a young woman in England was dunked repeatedly in the river and nearly drowned because her family and neighbors believed she was practicing witchcraft. So while we believe these dark times are over, we must be ever vigilant. We must never forget.

I meant to find her when I came

Death had the same design.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,

One need not be a house;

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place.

—Emily Dickinson

Dark Moon magic embraces women’s wisdom, and in its essence is a celebration of the Dark Sacred Feminine. If you look at magical culture, men also embrace their feminine sides and fully express them. Dark Moon magic remembers the “Burning Times” with their torture and negation of the female spirit. Dark Moon magic expresses what was once made silent.