New Age Theology
Eclectic Wicca has many “new age” concepts within its canon that simply have no place in the historical or cultural context of European Old Craft. Some of these are listed below:
KARMA: this hindu/buddhist concept was carried into Wicca by Gardner, probably from a theosophical source. In traditional Craft, “Fate” is an important concept…but “karma” is unheard of. There is no belief in Traditional Craft of “karmic debt” or of “karmic weight” to actions. The actual Traditional Craft belief on these matters was and is very different than the eastern concept of “karma”.
THREE-FOLD LAW: This strange notion has no basis in history, nor does it hold up to sober reality well. While many peoples in many times and places have poetically threatened people with ideas of their actions returning to visit them “many times over”, Wicca accepts this as an immutable, physical law. The truth is, while most wiccans have given up the belief in “hellfire and damnation” as a deterrent to their negative actions, they have replaced it with this “three fold law”, which threatens three-times retribution for negativity. No belief such as this exists in historical Traditional Craft, or in any surviving native European metaphysical system.
DUOTHEISM: The Wiccan belief system states that there are only two divine beings, A “god” and a “goddess”. The many different gods and goddesses worshipped by our European ancestors, or anyone else on earth for that matter, are thought to be “aspects” or “manifestations” of these two beings. Thus “All Gods are one God, and All Goddessses one Goddess”. This divine reductionism is referred to as “Duotheism”, and it is not a Traditional Witch Belief. It is, in fact, a very modern belief. Furthermore, many Wiccans believe this “God” and “Goddess” to be themselves aspects of an unknowable divine unity, or a great being sometimes called “The One”… leading us essentially straight to a new version of Monotheism, well suited to ease the consciences of the usually ex–christian converts to Wicca.
Our European ancestors were Polytheists. They believed in many Gods, or in local Gods. This is true for most Traditional Witches. There are some beliefs now (and in ancient times as well) of some divinties being “greater” than others, almost to the philosophical point of transcendence, and universal power. This sometimes appears in Traditional Craft as well, but in the form of mysteries, and not everyday devotion, or new-agey monotheism.
BOOK OF SHADOWS: In Wicca, maybe the “BOS” is a real thing, but in the Old Days, amongst Traditional practicioners of the Secret Craft, to have written evidence of what you were doing was a death sentence if you were caught. Also, most people back then were quite illiterate. The Old Craft was mostly passed down orally, and if it was written down, it would have been written down sparingly.
