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Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999], at sacred-texts.com
Wiccan History
Wicca is a relatively modern attempt (approximately 50 years old)
at reviving and reconstructing the old pre-Christian religions of
Europe. In a mythopoetic sense it is many centuries old. However,
the Witch of 200 years ago would not recognize what is called "witch-
craft" today. Modern Wicca may have some of its roots in some of the
local folk-magic and "family witchcraft" of mid 20th Century England.
It does have traceable roots in the Golden Dawn magical society of
late 19th century England, some of Aleister Crowley's magickal work
and some Ceremonial Magic dating back to Elizabethan times. For a
modern history of English Wicca, the reader can most profitably
consult the works of Janet and Stuart Farrar and Doreen Valiente.
PREHISTORY
Up until recently, the earliest known remnants of human society
that give us any clues to the spiritual dimension of prehistoric man
are those belonging to the Gravettian-Aurignacian cultures of 2500-
1500 B.C.E. This is called the Upper Paleolithic Period. Though most
of the sites so far discovered have been found in Europe, a very
important site in Anatolia (modern Turkey) has also been found and is
the (so far) the first or oldest City of Catal Huyuk (pronounced
chatal Hoo-Yook),they form a conjectural foundation for the religion
of the goddess as it emerged in the later Neolithic Age of the Near
East. There have been numerous studies of these Paleolithic cul-
tures, including extensive explorations of the sites occupied by these
peoples, including the apparent rites connected with the disposal of
their dead.
The earliest remains of ancient civilization indicating some form
of Goddess worship were in the caves in Lascaux, France. Here, the
first and earliest non-anthropomorphic divine figures were symbolized
by the horse for female Divinity and the Bison as the male divine
influence. This portion of the cave was painted in approximately
17,000 B.C.E. and sealed approximately 10,000 B.C.E. The anthropo-
morphic Goddess figures appear sometime approximately 7,000 B.C.E. The
earliest remains in Catal Huyuk have been reliably carbon dated to
6,500 B.C. and show some interesting parallels in that the horse was
replaced with an anthropomorphic goddess and the Bison (an ice age
animal) has been replaced with the aurochs bull, ancestor of modern
cattle. The anthropomorphic Goddess is an Earth Mother and the nearby
volcanoes (then active) were considered her breasts.1
One major conjecture has been that the concept of the creator of
all human life may have been formulated by the clan's image of women.
The reasoning behind this conjecture lies in the observations in this
century of the few remaining Paleolithic type cultures. These Paleo-
lithic cultures tend to be woman centered since it is from the women
that babies come and the women are absolutely essential for the
continuation of the tribe or clan. Current information also indicates
that it is also probable that the mother was regarded as the sole (or
at least primary) parent of children in this culture, and that there
was a definite pattern of ancestor worship. It is also very probable
that ancestry was matrilineal.
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The most tangible evidence that these very ancient cultures and
their predecessors worshipped a goddess is the numerous sculptures of
women found throughout most of Europe and the Near east. Some of
these sculptures date as far back as 25,000 B.C.E.! Small female
figurines, made of stone, bone and clay (most seemingly pregnant) have
been found throughout the widespread Gravettian-Aurignacian sites as
far apart as Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia spanning an
apparent period of at least 10,000 years. Erich Neumnann, in "The
Great Mother" (p.95) says- "Of the Stone Age sculptures known to us,
there are fifty-five female figures and only five male figures. The
male figures, of youths, are atypical and poorly executed, hence it is
certain that they had no significance for the cult. This fits in with
the secondary character of the male godhead, who appeared only later
in the history of religions and derived his divine rank from his
mother, the Goddess."
Johannes Maringer, in his book the "Gods of Prehistoric Man"
says- "it appears highly probable then that the female figurines were
idols of a Great Mother cult, practiced by the non-nomadic Aurignacian
mammoth hunters who inhabited the immense Eurasian territories that
extended from Southern France to Lake Baikal in Siberia." It was
from the Lake Baikal area in Siberia that tribes are believed to have
migrated across the Bering land bridge to North America about this
time period, and formed the nucleus of what was to become the race of
North American Indians. In some primitive societies known to history,
the male role in procreation was not known. Intercourse and pregnancy
both begin with puberty, and there was no evident reason to regard one
as the cause of the other. Women were believed to conceive from the
light of the moon or from ancestral spirits.
Neolithic cultures have left a bit more evidence for study and
the images are a bit clearer and less speculative. One good instance
of this is the stone age painting of a priestess officiating over a
group of worshippers along with a male wearing a horned headdress. An
interesting point here is that the priestess pictured is wearing a
garter and wielding a ceremonial dagger, much like the ones used in
modern witchcraft. Of course much has been made of this, including a
lot of unfounded speculations on the "ancient connections" of modern
witchcraft, but that is a topic beyond the scope of the present work.
The beginnings of Roman religion are sure to have been based on the
Etruscan culture. Ancestor worship was the earliest form of religion
in Rome. Another interesting fact relating to ancient Matrilineal
forms influencing present society is reflected in the Jewish custom
current today that membership comes from the mother's side of a
marriage.
The above mentioned goddess images, some as old as 7000 BC, offer
silent testimony to the most ancient worship of a great goddess in the
land that is most often remembered today as the homeland of Judaism
and Christianity. In exploring the influence and importance of the
worship of the Goddess in Canaan in biblical times, we find that as
Ashtoreth, Asherah (perhaps the origin of the tribe of Asher?),
Astarte, Attoret, Anath, or simply as Elat or Baalat, she was the
principal deity of such great Canaanite cities as Tyre, Sidon, Asca-
lon, Beth Anath, Aphaca, Byblos, and Ashtoreth Karnaim.
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In Egypt, the Hebrews had known the worship of the Goddess as
Isis or Hathor. For four generations they had been living in a land
where women held a very high status and the matrilineal descent system
continued to function at most periods.
Judging from the number of Hebrews who emerged from Egypt in
the Exodus, as compared with the family of the twelve sons who sup-
posedly entered it four generations earlier, it seems likely that a
great number of those Hebrews known as Israelites may actually have
been Egyptians, Canaanites, Semitic nomads and other Goddess-worshipp-
ing peoples who had joined together in Egypt. Archaeological records
and artifacts reveal that the religion of the Goddess still flourished
in many of the cities of Canaan long after the Hebrews invaded.
What are some of the modern day applications of this long history
of Goddess worship? For an answer to this, let's look at an encap-
sulation of the "herstory" of the legend of the Universal Goddess as
taught to the new entrants to the Faerie Tradition in 20th Century
America.
According to the legends of the Faerie, Witchcraft and magick
began more than 35 thousand years ago, when the last ice age in europe
began and small bands of nomadic hunters followed the free-running
reindeer and bison herds. They were armed with but primitive weapons
( Stone Age, remember?), and had to lure or chase the animals over a
cliff or into a pit to kill and eat them. As Starhawk says,"...some
among the clans were gifted, could "call" the herds to a cliff side or
a pit, where a few beasts,in willing sacrifice, would let themselves
be trapped."
As the last ice age retreated the tribes of nomadic hunters
worshipped the Goddess of the Wild Things and Fertility and the God of
the Hunt.Semipermanent homes were set up in caves carved out by the
glaciers. Shamans and Shamanka conducted rites within hard to reach
portions of the caves, which were painted with scenes of the hunt,
magical symbols and the tribes totem animals.
The transition from Hunter-Gatherers to agriculturists was
reflected in the change of the "Lady of the Wild Things and Fertility"
to the "Barley Mother" and the "God of the Hunt" to the "Lord of the
Grain". The importance of the phases of the moon and the sun was
reflected in the rituals that evolved around sowing, reaping, and
letting out to pasture.
Villages grew into towns and cities and society changed from
tribal to communal to urban. Paintings on the plastered walls of
shrines depicted the Goddess giving birth to the Divine Child - Her
son, consort and seed. The Divine Child was expected to take a
special interest in the city dwellers, just as His Mother and Father
had taken an interest in the people who lived away from the cities.
Mathematics, astronomy, poetry, music, medicine, and the understanding
of the workings of the human mind, developed side by side with the
lore of the deeper mysteries.
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Far to the east, nomadic tribes devoted themselves to the arts of
war and conquest. Wave after wave of invasion swept over Europe from
the Bronze Age onward. Warrior gods drove the Goddess' people out
from the fertile lowlands and the fine temples, into the hills and
high mountains, where they became known as the Sidhe, the Picts or
Pixies, and the Fair Folk or the Fairies. The mythological cycle of
Goddess and Consort, Mother and Child, which had held sway for 30,000
years was changed to conform to the values of the conquering patriar-
chies.
In Canaan, Yahweh fought a bloody battle to ensure that his
followers had "no other gods before me." The Goddess was given a
masculine name and assigned the role of a false god. Along with the
suppression of the Goddess, women lost most of the rights they had
previously enjoyed.
In Greece, the Goddess in Her many aspects, was "married" to the
new gods resulting in the Olympic Pantheon. The Titans, who the
Olympians displaced were more in touch with the primal aspects of the
Goddess.
The victorious Celts in Gaul and the British Isles, adopted many
features of the Old Religion and incorporated them into the Druidic
Mysteries. The Faerie, breeding cattle in the stony hills and living
in turf-covered round huts preserved the Craft. They celebrated the
eight feasts of the Wheel of the Year with wild processions on horse-
back, singing and chanting along the way and lighting ritual bonfires
on the mountaintops. It was said that the invaders often joined in
the revels and many rural families, along with some royalty, could
claim to have Faerie blood. The College of the Druids and the Poetic
Colleges of Ireland and Wales were said to have preserved many of the
old mysteries. ***
In the late 1400's the Catholic Church attempted to obliterate
its competitors, and the followers of the Old Religion were forced to
"go underground." They broke up into small groups called Covens and,
isolated from each other, formed what would later be known as the
Family Traditions. Inevitably, parts of the Craft were forgotten or
lost and what survives today is fragmentary.
After nearly five centuries of persecution and terror, came the
Age of Disbelief. Memory of the True Craft had faded as non-members
who could remember how they once had met openly died and those who
came after never knew of them. All that was left were the hideous
stereotypes which were ludicrous, laughable or just plain tragic.
With the repeal of the last Witchcraft Act in England in 1954, the
Craft started to re-emerge as an alternative to a world that viewed
the planet as a resource to be exploited.
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Janet and Stewart Farrar, in the introduction to The Witches
Goddess say of the modern re-emergence of the Goddess " ..may well
prove to be one of the most significant spiritual, psychic and psycho-
logical developments of our lifetime". They have since done a wonder-
ful job of presenting an overview of the ascendancy and history of the
expression of the masculine principle of deity as e pressed by Male
God-forms and Gods with their book The Witches' God. What do the
Farrars consider this "masculine principle" to be? "...it represents
the linear-logical,analyzing, fertilizing aspect, with its emphasis on
Ego-consciousness and individuality, while the feminine principle
represents the cyclical-intuitive, synthesizing, formative, nourishing
aspect, with its emphasis on the riches of the unconscious, both
Personal and Collective, and on relatedness."
As mankind started to develop his cultures in directions that
were more male dependent in the nature of the cultures, the emphasis
in religion shifted to become more male god than female goddess
oriented. As this happened, the Goddess(es) lost ground to the
God(s). At first, the female aspect merely became secondary to the
male, but eventually the male took over and dominated to the total
exclusion of the female, particularly in western society as we know it
today. "The first major god-form to claim a monopoly of divinity was
the Hebrew Yahweh, from which in due course sprang the Christian and
Moslem forms." "Dr. Raphael Patai, in his books Man and Temple and
The Hebrew Goddess shows that the Goddess Asherah was worshipped
alongside Yahweh as his wife and sister in the Temple at Jerusalem for
240 of the 360 years the temple complex existed, and her image was
publicly displayed there." There is also evidence that the Jewish
community at elephantine in egypt acknowledged two goddess-wives of
Yahweh, and also there still remains in Ezekiel (xxiii)a metaphorical
reference to a pair of wives, where Yahweh condemns the "whoredom" of
two sisters who "became mine and bore me sons and daughters".
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