The term witchcraft literally means the craft of the wise.. In it's original usage, witchcraft was practied by those person, generally female, who had knowledge of herbale lore,, the law, psychology and physuology. It is important to note that not all Wiccans consider themselvers witches, and not all witches are Wiccans.
Wiccan is centerd around the use of positive thought, positive action and love of nature to create an atmosphere of positive engergies which are then sed for our own benfits. Wiccan teaches that there is certainly a higher power, namely the Goddess and God, often refered to solely as the Goddess, but that the Goddess is always attainable, for She is everywhere: in the trees, in the leaf, in the ant, within outselves, In this sense, Wiccan is pantheistic reglion. (Pantheism is the belief that God can be found in all things: "pan" meaning "Everything", "Theism": having to do with Denity) Wicca teaches that there is mch more in our universe than we can see or understand. The central law of Wiccan is: "An It Harm None, Do What Ye Will" which means exactly what is says: as long as you don't do anything that will hurt anyone (ibncluding yourself) it is allowed. Many people use this rule as it applies strickly to magick, but i believe that the rule applies to every aspect of the Craft and to every aspect of life. This would include doing unto others as you would want done unto you, abstaining from drugs, alcohol to excess and smoking, learning to hate and learning tolerance. This rule is reinforced by a secound major aspect of Wiccan : Everything you put comes back to you Three fold. This means that every good deed you do, every terrible thing you do, every good spell you cast, every harmful spell you case will come back to you thrice what you put out. Therefore, the punishment for breaking the law of Harm None is a threefold return of whatever you did.
Wiccans belive in a Horned Lord, many people believe that we worship Satan. The truth is that the Horned God represnts the animal side of nature, and the Horned God has exised long before Christianity--- in other words, long before Satan was ever "invented". The flaw of modern times is to think that Paganism and Witchcraft/Wicca are the same things as Satanism. This is enterlyy unture. Satanism is highly egotistical reglion, focused around greed. hedonism,, social Darwinism, Self worship and indulgence. The most important person in the Satanist reglion is the indivdual, and by doctrine their relstionship with the most hedonistic character of all reglions: Satan.
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