difficulties of being wiccan in australia
...place of great joy and beauty. We can be released from the Wheel of Rebirth, not because material existence is drudgery, but because the soul has gained all the earthly experience it needs and moves on to other realms. *Belief in Goddess and God= balanced idea of divinity. Empowering to both sexes. These two deities have a multiplicity of names and titles, using deity forms from various pantheons, but that does not imply that Wicca venerates a number of deities. The various names are simply epithets of the Great Mother Goddess and Father God, who are universal and present in all cultures and at all times. *Creation= the first principle was sexless and neutral – “Ere time began, the One who is All / looked inward on itself, / and behold itself as though a reflection in a pool, / and so came to self-awareness. / And in that coming to awareness, / the One was made Two, / subject and object, / that which looks and that which is looked upon, / and it divided from itself. / And as the One was made Two, / so the Male and the Female became separate…” The Universe is seen as being created through the first union of the Goddess and the God, so sex is not seen as unclean, but a sacred re-enactment of creation. *Belief in magic= human beings have innate powers to cause change through the mind and energy fields of the body. Wiccans perform spells for healing and protection, or to help with general life problems. There are a lot of ethical rules for practicing magic. Also, the laws of space and time that apply to matter do not apply to consciousness. Consciousness can travel backwards and forwards and be aware of thing s happening in other places. The interconnected nature of the world is important, so correspondences between elements, directions, days, dates, seasons, plants, planets, moon cycles and intents etc are an integral part of spell work. Different forms of magic include candle magic, knot magic, herbal magic, animal (familiar) magic, chant magic and the many forms of divination. The power of the circle as a sacred space for ritual is also important. -Wiccan Life In Australia CASE STUDY Name: Charlotte Stevenson Age: 19 Occupation: Creative Arts student at UOW Found Wicca at age: 15 Wicca may have pre-Christian origins, but in its modern form, it is a very young religion, and there are few followers of the faith who were raised Wiccan. Most find the religion themselves or are introduced to it by a friend. “I was raised Anglican. My mum is Catholic and my dad is Anglican, but we were never churchgoers. I always knew Christianity wasn’t for me and I went on this big spiritual journey from about 13 onwards. I toyed with Buddhism, Hinduism, Romani Gypsy Shamanism, American Indian spirituality, and ended up at Wicca and it felt right. It took me two years, but I got there. Funnily enough, all those religions have a lot in common. I knew two other Wiccans when I was at school. One found it on the Internet like me, and I introduced Wicca to the other one.” – Charlotte Many Wiccans who find their spirituality in their teenage years face problems of acceptance by their parents. “Of course my mum didn’t approve. She thought the philosophy was fine, but as soon as I put up an altar in my room, she freaked. Said it was evil and dangerous. My dad thought it was all lies and that I was stupid for believing in magic. It was pretty hard to be open about my faith at home.”- Charlotte Wiccans also face stereotypes of witches from the media and negative connections people create between witches and Satanists. “It was hard to talk about religion with my friends in high school. None of them were really spiritual. When I told them, they were like, “Oh, are you gonna chuck an energy ball at me, or turn me into a frog?” They were ok. I remember talking to a teacher about it once. She was shocked She was saying, “But your not really into it are you? I mean, you don’t wear pentagrams and all that, do you?” When I showed her my pentacle necklace she didn’t know what to say. I told her about the philosophies and that it was nature worship and that people just got the wrong idea about Wiccans. She said, “But they bring it on themselves, going around wearing devil signs and worshipping the devil and wearing black and killing animals.” There really wasn’t much else I could say to make her understand that Satanists and Wiccans are completely different, that Wiccans don’t believe in the devil, that the pentagram is the symbol of life, that Wiccans don’t sacrifice animals and they dress like anyone else does. “- Charlotte In small towns in Australia, the Wiccan population can be very small, and if they don’t network and reach out to other Wiccans in the community, they can sometimes feel quite alone. The lack of contact with older, more experienced Wiccans also makes it hard to st...