Just thought I'd better clarify who or what I meant by the term "Pop-Wicca".
I do not mean initiates of Gardnerian or Alexandrian Wicca, or derivatives
thereof. I mean (mostly) girls / women who have adopted the practice of
spells, sometimes also adopting the observance of full moons and the
sabbats, but not necesssarily. They use the word "Wicca" to describe this
practice when perhaps this is not entirely accurate. This is also the type
of "Wicca" that is being taken advantage of by commercial interests. In
Australia this type of practitioner started to become numerous after the
film "The Craft" which came out back in 1996. The book, "Pop! Goes the
Witch", edited by Fiona Horne (that I, by the way, have a chapter in)
www.disinfo.com/pop is probably a good representation of exactly what I mean
here. I must admit to being a bit dismissive of "pop-Wicca" because I think
most practitioners (that I've come across both socially and during the
interaction I had to do while working for the recently defunct 'Witchcraft
Magazine' www.witchcraftmagazine.com.au (don't know if that link still
works) are irritatingly uneducated and simple-minded - both of which
irritate the hell out of me. I'll try not to make value judgements on
people, simply because I don't personally like them, but if my disdain of
"pop-Wicca" is at all obvious in my posts, this is why - it's just personal
distaste. Are such practitioners ultimately "bad"? I could say "no,
obviously not, indeed we all must love one another", but I'm going to say
"probably not". Who am I to judge one way or the other really (although of
course secretly I'm doing serious judging!)... I must admit, disdain aside,
I kinda like watching the phenomenon of rising polularity of what is
probably, in a round about way, some sort of neo-folk-pagan-religion.
~Caroline.
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