| The History of Modern Wicca |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
~Article by Julia Phillips - Used with Permission by the Author
Click Here to Read The History of Wicca in England 1939-Present
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
~Article by Julia Phillips - Used with Permission by the Author
Click Here to Read The History of Wicca in England 1939-Present
