To all of you Witches and Wiccans

[lady Amalthea]

BIde the wiccan rede ye must
in perfect love and perfect trust
eight words the wiccan rede fulfill
an harm ye none do what ye will
follow this with mind and heart
and merry ye meet and meery ye part.

This is a shortened version of the wiccan rede.

[lady Amalthea]

Bide ye Wiccan laws ye must,
in perfect love and perfect trust.
Live and let live, fairly take and fairly give.
Form the circle thrice about, to keep all evil spirits out.
To bind ye spell every time, let ye spell be spake in rhyme.
Soft of eye, light of touch, speak ye little, listen much.
Deosil go by the waxing moon, singing out ye Witches’ Rune.
Widdershins go by the waning moon, chanting out ye Baneful Rune.
When the Lady’s moon is new, kiss your hand to her times two.
When the moon rides at her peak, then ye heart’s desire seek.
Heed the North wind’s mighty gale, lock the door and trim the sail.
When the wind comes from the South, love will kiss thee on the mouth.
When the wind blows from the West, departed souls may have no rest.
When the wind blows from the East, except the new and set the feast.
Nine woods in ye cauldron go, burn them fast and burn them slow.
Elder be ye Lady’s tree, burn it not or cursed ye’ll be.
When the wheel begins to turn, soon ye Beltaine fire’ll burn.
When the wheel hath turned to Yule, light the log the Horned One rules.
Heed ye flower, bush and tree, by the Lady blessed be.
Where the rippling waters flow, cast a stone and truth ye’ll know.
When ye have and hold a need, harken not to others greed.
With a fool no season spend, nor be counted as his friend.
Merry meet and merry part, bright the cheeks and warm the heart.
Mind ye threefold law ye should, three times bad and three times good.
When misfortune is anow, wear the blue star upon thy brow.
True in love ye must ever be, lest thy love be false to thee.
In these eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill,
‘An ye harm none, do what ye will.

Here is one interpretation of the full Wiccan REde

[CelticScryer]

I have a very "unpopular" opinion on what is Wiccan. Very popular among those who agree with me, however

A Wiccan is a member of an initiatory, oathbound tradition where these traditions are passed down from the originator of the tradition and practiced intact. And these traditions are passed only to a "proper person, properly prepared" usually by a third degree priest or priestess.

I've been saying that for years! (and getting bashed for it on the pagan boards because of it, lol)

[Mayden]

Hey I know the feeling! I've gotten over it however. Rather proud of being called "elitist" and "uppity" now.

[Roberto Phoenix]

Thanks for the info. I always enjoy learning about other beliefs systems. Which brings me to this part. I have to do two research papers (8 to 10 pages each-yuuch) for my Faith & Culture class. Since I run into alot of people in the ren faire cummunity who are Wiccans I decided to do a paper to both learn more about you're beliefs and to challenge my own beliefs. So I got major questions to ask. These are more in the area of sociology for this paper but please bear with me. I have Jesuits making up the asssignment so you can understand what I have to deal with.
1st question. What do you think are the life chances for wiccans in the USA. Life chance have to do with the rage and quality of choices to which a person has access. By this I mean are there any barriers to unemloyment, what are the levels of eduation that most of you are at. What are the kinds of area where you live (city, country, high crime-low crime)?
2. What are you're primary bonds and relational qualities meaning what sociol groups do you belong to, what bonds do you have with each other, to persons who are wiccans and not wiccans, and to other groups and institutions? What links the various people and groups together? What mediating structures and by this I mean the web of relationships to family, cultural groups, organizations, etc in society affect Wiccans in one way or another?
3.What are some of the values or issues do you see or would like to see Wiccans exerting more sociol control over in the wider public arena?
What means and straegies do you see being used or would you like to see used to gain more sociol control to champion Wiccan values, issues and ideas? ( How can the current and potential mediating struxctures help to voice the wiccan concern's in the public arena?).
Ohter questions on mostly on methodolgy and beliefs and that is all over the internent. I wanted to get up to the date material (no names will be mentioned in my paper). As I said, this is more a sociology paper on the effects of Wiccan beliefs on society and vice versa than it is about what the belief system actually is. If you don't feel like answering any of this or you are uncomfortable about this that is fine. No problem here. I came here because my local bookstore has plenty of books on spellcasting, charms, methodolgy etc, but nothing on Wicca and its relationship to todays society and how they affect each other. Library had only one book with a half page paragraph. Small town, what can I say. Thanks for any help.

[Mayden]

1. Honestly, I don't feel that being Wiccan could or should affect a person's ability to get or hold a job. Being a dumbass, however, could. In what job have you worked where your religious affiliation had any bearing on your job at all? Most bosses avoid talk of that kind. But I've seen time and time again pagans and Wiccans who are so obnoxious about spewing about their religion that it made ME sick.

2. Wiccans commonly belong to progressive social groups with (sometimes) a bit of a left lean. I think it has a lot to do with a Wiccan's world view..the feeling of interconnectedness that we all share. So we seek out others of a like mind. I don't feel that being Wiccan is necessarily a pre-requisite to being friends with a Wiccan, but being open-minded and accepting usually is.

3. While I don't think there are necessarily "Wiccan values" I do wish that more Wiccans would show that our concerns are the same as theirs in a lot of ways. We may be more non-conformist and progressive in our thinking and behavior, but we still worry about education, the environment, etc. and have the same concerns as the rest of society.

We do ask very much for a live and let live mentality in the general populace, but we aren't going to get that if they keep viewing us as "freaky" or "weird" Goddess knows, I'm not condoning conformity, but being completely batty isn't the answer to getting people to do what you want.

[Roberto Phoenix]

Thanks for the input. Got my papers finished and sent off. I'm so glad that is over with cuz I have a hard time starting papers but I'm fine once I get that first page typed. Go figure. I really like your answer to the first question. I worked in a now bankrupted record store where I got railroaded into being fired cuz I was Catholic. The "born again" manager found every excuse to write me up untill I had a stack high enough to fire me. I thought it was me at first untill later when I realized I had never goitton any write up on any job berffore or after that. Turns out he didn't like my belief system (since the Catholic church is the home of the antichrist) and the other dumb bunny they put in my place, cuz he looked like the rock and roll type and sucked up big time, got fired two weeks later because he couldn't handle it. Now the whole chain has gone under du to mismangement. Imagine that.

[Roberto Phoenix]

And once again,thanks for the help people. That paper was one I really enjoyed doing. Learned a lot and found some really cool, informative websites. But gotta get ready cuz tomorrow is the big antichrist day and I hear that my own Catholic church is a big sponsor. Yeah right, and monkees might fly out of my butt