Tag Archives: Wicca

Wiccans mark Halloween as start of new year

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — Halloween is an important time for Wiccans, practitioners of a fast-growing polytheistic religion who recognize the day as the start of their new year.

Followers say the holiday, which they call Samhain, is when the veil between the living and dead is the thinnest.

“It’s a time to let those who have passed know we appreciate your time here and want you to know you are not being forgotten,” said Nicole Ross, 19, of West Bloomfield.
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Catherine Sanders on Wicca

Wicca has become incredibly popular in the past ten years,” one witch in Salem, Massachusetts, told Catherine Edwards Sanders, author of Wicca’s Charm : Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality. In her book, Sanders tries to find out just how big Wicca is (you’ll find them in Salem but also in Topeka), what the attraction is, and what others can learn from them.
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Wiccans bewitched by nature

Allhallow’s Eve, a night of ghosts and goblins kids in costumes, going door to door, yelling “trick or treat,” pumpkins carved into jack-o’-lanterns – this is Halloween.

Wicca is a polytheistic, nature-based religion. I worship a Goddess and a God or one of the many aspects thereof.

Nature has male and female aspects; I believe the gods do, too. The God is a dying and rising God. The Goddess is eternal.

In one aspect, the God represents the grains, fruits and meat we eat. The Goddess is the mother that nurtures us and helps us grow. We celebrate eight Sabbats (holidays):
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Myths about witches: Pagan roots behind Halloween never were meant to be spooky

Like urban legends, the symbols of contemporary Halloween festivities make great theater, but bear little resemblance to their less fanciful origins. Malevolent ghosts, leering jack-o’-lanterns, witches plying the skies atop broomsticks — when it comes to embodying authentic traditions, they’re no more accurate than chocolate bunnies and plastic eggs in mirroring the Christian roots of Easter.
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Under their spell

Far below nature’s magic show, I stood outside an old white house on a stretch of freshly cut grass, bemused at the sight of 12 modern witches moving across the lawn in scattered unison, occasionally smiling at one another as they passed. The youthful, contented expressions on their faces as they cast their spells reminded me of something I had seen in movies, but the Hollywood comparisons would end there.

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