Wicca: a religious practice for edgy teens
March 28, 2017
If you didn’t know, Wicca is a spiritual practice of Pagan Witchcraft and is a relatively new religious movement.
Who actually practices Wicca without being some kind of emo teenage girl?
Now, before anybody calls me a bigot and sends their crone to put a hex one me…actually do just that. I’d like to see somebody try to put their lame little chant on me. Oooh, so spooky, you get extra candy on Halloween for this.
The surplus of teenage people (in my experience it’s females) who need new identities and spiritual practices overflows like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. You’re not witches, you haven’t been given some special power, although everybody wishes they had something like that to help them along with finding themselves.
I get that people feel the need to belong to a group, but these people worship the cycles of the moon, goddesses, and basically only have the moral value of what-goes-around-comes-around from the Wiccan Rede, pretty much just influenced by karma. As an outsider, I really wouldn’t know though.
They’re not Satanists, although most Satanists are actually just atheists who praise the human characteristics of Satan. LaVeyan Satanists practice this, although they also believe in like magic and were both formed sometime in the 60s.
How does someone just start a religion, like, is it really just so simple?
This is ridiculous. People get so bored or upset with the god of the Abrahamic religions that we get… what? a bunch of people dressing in black and playing make-believe in the forest, excuse me, I mean witches and crones that are totally rational and would never do that?
I mean, in the end I support the fact that there is freedom of religion and you can practice whatever you want without being harmful, but young, impressionable teens are like hopping in and out of this likes it’s something when it’s really not. I don’t think these people should be leaning on this to find their identities. I just don’t think it’s healthy even if they say they’re vegan and claim to just burn lots of incense, have lots of essential oils and hoard gems and stones.
Cianna • Oct 29, 2020 at 3:20 pm
“Who actually practices Wicca without being some kind of emo teenage girl?”
The vast majority of wiccans are adults both men and women, I’m guessing you’ve never heard of them?
“Now, before anybody calls me a bigot and sends their crone to put a hex one me…actually do just that. I’d like to see somebody try to put their lame little chant on me. Oooh, so spooky, you get extra candy on Halloween for this.”
You kinda are being a bigot since you stereotyped all wiccans to be “edgy/emo teen girls”. Also, you trying to somehow act like “a macho tough guy” to anger wiccans into hexing you is ultimately pointless since the vast majority of wiccans who even read the title have no intention on cursing you. The worse they could do is dismiss you as ignorant, immature. or even laugh at you, if you read about Wicca you should know by now that hexes are heavily frowned upon in the religion. Also wiccans celebrate Samhain, Halloween is a Christian holiday.
Now I get that some people, often teens enter Wicca for the wrong reasons, but a couple of teenagers trying to act hip or cool or the like doesn’t represent the religion as a whole. And more research needs to actually be done as this article is full of ignorance and is just another wiccan bashing fest.
Quinn ____ • Oct 23, 2020 at 12:01 pm
This is badly researched, so I’m going to go through each quote one by one.
“If you didn’t know, Wicca is a spiritual practice of Pagan Witchcraft and is a relatively new religious movement.” This is incorrect, as it’s actually the other way around. Every Pagan is a Wiccan but not every Wiccan is a Pagan, easy to mess up though so I can excuse it.
“Now, before anybody calls me a bigot and sends their crone to put a hex one me…actually do just that. I’d like to see somebody try to put their lame little chant on me. Oooh, so spooky, you get extra candy on Halloween for this.” First of all, we do our own spells. Also you misspelled “on” somehow. Hexes are not just chants, and also (this is kind of nitpicky but so is this article) Halloween isn’t exactly a holiday for Wiccans, instead we have Samhain.
“Who actually practices Wicca without being some kind of emo teenage girl?” Many people, myself being one of them. I am a 30 year old non-binary person. I also know many 30+ year olds who practice Wicca as well.
“The surplus of teenage people (in my experience it’s females) who need new identities and spiritual practices overflows like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. You’re not witches, you haven’t been given some special power, although everybody wishes they had something like that to help them along with finding themselves.” You are making an article to complain about teenage people trying to discover themselves? We are witches, and no we haven’t been given a special power. I personally believe that everything has energy (obviously, we learn this in 6th grade) and that people are apart of this energy, and with practice, can harness this energy for spells and such.
“I get that people feel the need to belong to a group, but these people worship the cycles of the moon, goddesses, and basically only have the moral value of what-goes-around-comes-around from the Wiccan Rede, pretty much just influenced by karma. As an outsider, I really wouldn’t know though.” Most Wiccans aren’t a part of another group of Wiccans. I am, but that’s out of the ordinary. We don’t worship the cycles of the moon, we appreciate the power the moon has. Many people who practice Wicca worship Deities, but some don’t. You can be exclusively Wiccan, but you can also be a Christian Wiccan, a Hellenistic Wiccan, etc. (Also I want to be clear, this isn’t a cult, as there is no one person in charge of Wicca, however, there is many cults inside of the religion unfortunately.) The “goes-around-comes-around” thing is just karma. If you do good things, you have good things happen to you. If you do bad things, you have bad things happen to you. However, not every Wiccan believes this. Also, if you wouldn’t know as an outsider, then why did you mention it?
“They’re not Satanists, although most Satanists are actually just atheists who praise the human characteristics of Satan. LaVeyan Satanists practice this, although they also believe in like magic and were both formed sometime in the 60s.”
This started out related but went on one hell of a tangent.
“How does someone just start a religion, like, is it really just so simple?”
Anybody can start a religion. You don’t have to apply for a form or something to make a religion. Somebody at some point began practicing Wicca, and it just spread.
“This is ridiculous. People get so bored or upset with the god of the Abrahamic religions that we get… what? a bunch of people dressing in black and playing make-believe in the forest, excuse me, I mean witches and crones that are totally rational and would never do that?”
I believe in multiple Deities, so the Abrahamic religions just don’t match my worldview. Also, there are many religions that don’t believe in the Abrahamic God, including but not limited to, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shintoism. Again, like I said, most Wiccans aren’t in a group. Color has power to it. If I were to go into the forest for a spell or something of the sort, I would probably wear purple and blue. I don’t play make believe in the woods, in reality, the woods are a space to calm myself down and meditate. Maybe even let go of a worry or a regret or talk to a Deity that is connected to the woods. (Again, I want to be clear. Most of the time when I’m talking to a Deity, I don’t hear anything. I ask yes or no questions and usually I get a feeling of one or the other. If I ever hear words, it’s in my dreams.)
“I mean, in the end I support the fact that there is freedom of religion and you can practice whatever you want without being harmful, but young, impressionable teens are like hopping in and out of this likes it’s something when it’s really not. I don’t think these people should be leaning on this to find their identities. I just don’t think it’s healthy even if they say they’re vegan and claim to just burn lots of incense, have lots of essential oils and hoard gems and stones.” What do you mean by “likes it’s something when it’s really not.” I have a hard time believing that with the amount of people practicing as there are, that (at least in your eyes) this isn’t a religion yet. Also, even though many young people may be interested in Wicca, that means almost nothing, as it may just be their way of figuring themself out. Why don’t you think teens exploring different areas of religion is a good thing? As a teen, I was confused about almost everything about myself, and it was only recently I realized I was non-binary, so I think teens realizing stuff about themselves is important so that they can be a more productive person. I’m not vegan, I eat meat on a regular basis. I realize many Wiccans are vegan, but being vegan has nothing to do with Wicca, and has everything to do with personal choice of diet. Also, burning incense is mostly a way to calm yourself down whilst meditating or a way to cleanse an area of harmful energy. Essential oils are mostly for spells, but some use it for cleansing objects as well. Gems and stones have energy, as everything does, but they have an energy that’s more specific than many other things.
I hope you realize how poorly this article was written, and maybe stop stereotyping every Wiccan. Blessed be, and please actually research your articles from now on. Also work on grammar, spelling, and capitalization.
Vertigo • Nov 28, 2018 at 8:32 pm
And here’s where we see a misinformed person. Wicca has been a sidebranch of paganism since the 50s’ or 60s’, and isn’t ‘new’ persay, many of its beliefs are pulled from Paganism itself. Let me take this article quote by quote.
“Who actually practices Wicca without being some kind of emo teenage girl?”
So many people, actually. I myself am, albeit being a teen, am not emo or a girl. There are covens who practice wicca, adults, males, etc. So.
“…now, before anybody calls me a bigot and sends their crone to put a hex one me…actually do just that. I’d like to see somebody try to put their lame little chant on me.”
You are seriously misinformed if you think the purpose of wicca, or even a large part of it, is hexing and cursing.
” You’re not witches, you haven’t been given some special power…”
Anyone and everyone can practice wicca and do magick if they’d like
“…but these people worship the cycles of the moon, goddesses, and basically only have the moral value of what-goes-around-comes-around from the Wiccan Rede…”
-we dont ‘worship’ the cycles of the moon, and we see gods/goddesses as more friendships, depending on the person
-it seems we have more moral value than you, article writer, because we have the basic human decency not to insult an entire religion
“They’re not Satanists, although most Satanists are actually just atheists who praise the human characteristics of Satan.”
Congratulations!!! You finally got one thing semi-right!!! good job!!
“This is ridiculous. People get so bored or upset with the god of the Abrahamic religions…”
We’re not bored, we don’t believe in that god, thanks.
“…that we get… what? a bunch of people dressing in black and playing make-believe in the forest, excuse me, I mean witches and crones that are totally rational and would never do that?”
In fact we f*cking don’t, thank you very much. We seem to be more rational then you in your thinking, and we don’t dress in black unless it’s a style preference.
“…but young, impressionable teens are like hopping in and out of this likes it’s something when it’s really not.”
i cant even make grammatical sense of this, but yes, it is, in fact, a thing.
“I just don’t think it’s healthy even if they say they’re vegan and claim to just burn lots of incense, have lots of essential oils and hoard gems and stones.”
ha ha all wiccans being vegan.
tl;dr
just because you dont understand the religion, as you have shown all throught this poor misinformed article, does not mean you can make assumptions. stop being a dick, and go read before you do something like this again.
Blessed Be and with all regards,
Vertigo
Jane Doe • Nov 19, 2018 at 9:47 pm
Frik you, frik you, annnddddd frik you. You can’t go around saying Wicca is for “edgy teens”. Full ass ADULTS will practice Wicca. And saying we “dress in black and play make-believe in the forest” is downright disrespectful. And I don’t know who told you that we “hex” people, but consider finding better sources for your information. And we aren’t given “special powers”. I’m SURE if I tried to explain it you would call me a little edgy teen who is desperate to be that one special snowflake, but I’ll explain it anyway. You don’t use magick to just get what you want whenever you want. And Wicca is not centered around magick, but mostly meditation and being in tune with nature. Magick, I believe, is enhancing your mind and bettering yourself to make a change. Most Wiccans do not, in fact, curse people. The closest thing to that would be Black Magick, which is defined as any magick that alters someones free will in any way. I know a few adults who you couldn’t call edgy, much less a teen that practice Wicca. As for the burning incense and “hoarding gems and stones” part, I mentioned earlier that I believe all the power comes from the earth. This means that things like oils, stones, and incense have a lot of things that come from the earth. I mean, what are we without the sun, the water, the air, and fire? I understand there are some “Wiccans” who pretend like they do curses and make people break there arm and claim that Satan himself rose up from the firey pits of hell to grant them the magick ability to read minds and crap like that. There are some people who in fact ARE edgy teens who want to seem special, but then they quit Wicca like it’s some sort of game. You need to pull yourself together and learn to be respectful towards people. What if I assumed you were some 40-year-old woman who thinks they are all knowing and knows what is best for teens even though it has been like 27 years since they have been a teen just because of the way you’re acting? See? I assumed your age and gender. That is very similar to what you are doing by calling us all edgy female teens. Get it together.