Wicca is a modern pagan religion. Its people call themselves witches, honour a Goddess and a God, keep the festivals of the turning year, and practise magic within a cast circle.
That short description is accurate, and it leaves almost everything out. Wicca is at once a religion, a craft and a mystery tradition. It is a religion because it has gods, festivals, rites of passage and a way of looking at the world. It is a craft because it is practised with the hands and the voice: its people cast circles, raise power and work magic. It is a mystery tradition because, in its original form, it is entered by initiation and understood by experience, and some of what its initiates share is not told outside the circle.
This page is the short introduction. Each part of it is treated at greater length elsewhere on this site, and the links will take you there.
A religion of the living world
Wicca is a nature religion in the plainest sense. It does not teach that the world is fallen or that the body is a burden. It holds that the divine is present in the land, the weather, the turning seasons and in living things, ourselves included. The moon and the sun are its clock. Its holy days are not anniversaries of events in a sacred history but moments in the natural year: the solstices and equinoxes, the first stirring of spring, the first cut of the harvest.
It has no prophet, no scripture and no central authority. No Wiccan can speak for all the others, and that includes us. What is written here describes the Craft as we received it and as we practise it.
The Goddess and the God
Wiccans honour a Goddess and a God. She is seen in the moon, the earth and the starry sky, and is often spoken of as Maiden, Mother and Crone. He is the Horned God of the wild places, of the hunt, of death and of rebirth, and he is seen also in the sun as it waxes and wanes through the year. The two are equals and partners, although in the Gardnerian tradition the Goddess takes the first place, and with her the High Priestess who represents her.
Wiccans differ on what the gods finally are. Some are firm polytheists, some see every goddess as a face of one Goddess and every god as a face of one God, and some think of them as the two poles of a single mystery. The Craft does not require a witch to settle the question. You can read more on the page about the Goddess and the God.
What Wiccans do
Wiccan worship takes place in a cast circle, a sacred space made for the occasion and dissolved when the rite is over. A traditional coven meets in such a circle at each full moon, a meeting called an esbat, and at the eight seasonal festivals called Sabbats, which together make up the Wheel of the Year.
Within the circle the gods are invoked, the season is honoured, power is raised by chant and dance, and magic is worked, most often for healing. Every circle ends with the blessing and sharing of cakes and wine. Much of this is solemn. A good deal of it is merry. The best known text of the Craft asks for "mirth and reverence" together, and a circle with no laughter in it is thought a poor one.
Why we call ourselves witches
Wiccans are witches, and say so. For most of European history the word was an accusation, and tens of thousands of people who were nothing of the kind died because of it. The founders of the modern Craft took the word up deliberately. They believed, with the scholarship of their day, that the witches of the trials had been followers of a surviving pagan religion, and that they themselves were its heirs. Historians no longer think the first of those things is true, as our page on the history of Wicca explains. The word has stayed, and has been given a new meaning by those who carry it.
The word Wicca itself is Old English. It meant a male witch, was pronounced roughly as "witch-a", and had the feminine form wicce. Gerald Gardner used the spelling Wica as a name for the people of the Craft. As a name for the religion, Wicca came into general use in the 1960s. The difference between the words witch, Wiccan and pagan is set out on its own page.
How Wicca is organised
The original unit of Wicca is the coven: a small group, traditionally of no more than thirteen, led by a High Priestess and a High Priest. Each coven governs itself. Covens that share a body of rites and a line of initiation form a tradition, of which the Gardnerian is the oldest. The others are described on the page about the traditions of Wicca.
Since the 1970s, books have made it possible to practise a form of Wicca without ever joining a coven, and most people who call themselves Wiccan today are solitary or belong to informal groups. Initiatory covens such as ours are now a small part of a much larger whole. We have a page on solitary practice too.
How Wiccans try to live
Wiccan ethics are summed up in a single line known as the Wiccan Rede: an it harm none, do what ye will. It is a counsel, not a commandment. It gives a great deal of freedom and asks for a great deal of thought, because it makes each person answerable for the results of what they do. Wiccans do not seek converts, do not regard other religions as false, and do not believe that anyone needs to be saved from anything.
What Wicca is not
- It is not Satanism. Wiccans do not worship the Devil and do not believe that he exists. He belongs to Christian theology, and the Horned God of the witches has nothing to do with him.
- It is not a survival from the Stone Age. Wicca draws on very old material, but as a religion it took shape in England in the middle of the twentieth century.
- It involves no sacrifice. Nothing is killed or harmed in a Wiccan rite. The offerings are wine, cakes, incense and effort.
- It is not a business. In the Gardnerian tradition nobody may be charged for teaching or initiation. A person who offers to initiate you for a fee is not offering the Craft.
- It is not a fashion or an aesthetic. It is a religion with duties, and its people keep them in all weathers.
How many Wiccans are there?
Nobody knows exactly, because many Wiccans are private about their religion and the census question on religion is voluntary. In the 2021 census of England and Wales about 13,000 people wrote in Wicca as their religion, and about 74,000 wrote Pagan, a wider term that many Wiccans prefer to use on official forms. The numbers in North America are a good deal larger. Initiates of the Gardnerian tradition are a small minority within those totals.
Where to go next
If you want to know where all this came from, read the history of Wicca. If you want to know what marks out our own tradition, read What Is Gardnerian Wicca? If you have a particular question, it may well be answered in Questions and Answers, and unfamiliar words are explained in the glossary.