How is wicca categorized?

[MegaSchultz]

Our 17-year-old daughter’s friend announced on Facebook that he has rejected God & is now practicing wicca. Is wicca considered part of the occult? We are very upset because our family has had problems with curses, etc. being placed on us by homosexual neighbors in the past. These had to be broken by a priest. We don’t want to have to deal with anything like this ever again. Thank you for your help.

 

[Mintaka]

Wicca is mostly a religion or belief system, but most of its religious rituals are also occult rituals where people try to do magic. Wicca does have an ethical system that discourages evil acts, curses, etc. as prone to come back on the person responsible three times as much. However, since there’s no Wiccan pope, pretty much everybody Wiccan has his own version of Wicca.

So yes, it is part of the occult. No, it’s not likely that anybody will try to put curses on you, but it’s possible. It is possible that some demon hanging around the neighborhood playing with the Wiccan will also decide to play with people in the vicinity. But it’s a lot more likely for the Wiccan himself to suffer spiritual warfare, in the form of temptation to do drugs or other stupid sins. It’s also possible to have nothing bad happen so that he will be lulled into complacency. A lot of Wicca’s false ideas about prayer, European history, and the nature of the universe are dangerous and foolish.

I used to know some people who were Wiccans. Some people didn’t seem to be harmed - probably because they were coming from backgrounds so bad that Wicca was actually healthier, or because God gave them some reasonable powers of discernment to stay away from the worst stuff and find better beliefs after a bit. Others from decent backgrounds ended up getting into all sorts of crazy bedroom stuff, or becoming hardcore atheists out of frustration, or becoming Satanists because Wicca wasn’t occult enough for them. Others convert to Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism, and become very faithful.

So basically, some people are dabbling in the occult, some people are rebelling against “organized religion” or their parents, some people like candles and incense but don’t want to be Catholic, and some people just want to try out a religion where they can potentially run around naked in the woods. What happens to them depends a lot on personality and common sense. People who want to be destructive or self-destructive mostly do it to themselves, although I’m sure that demons think it’s funny and are glad to “help.”

 

[marlap2]

Well said Mintaka.

We should all keep your daughter in prayer.

Blessings

 

[1ke]

Our 17-year-old daughter’s friend announced on Facebook that he has rejected God & is now practicing wicca.

A baptized person who rejects the Christian faith for a non-Christian religion, or no religion, would be considered an apostate. We must pray for them. But certainly we must also minimize the influence of such an individual on our children. At 17, however, this could be a phase or just rebellion as much as true belief. Hard to know

Is wicca considered part of the occult?

In general yes. When one say “wicca” one could mean a number of things, especially when one is 17. But, at minimum it is pagan. At worst, occult.

 

[book_and_bead]

Well put, Mintaka. I was a Wiccan for 34 years before becoming Catholic this past July and I became Wiccan for some of the reasons you described. I rebelled against Christianity because it was used against me from a young age; my mom’s side was Russian Orthodox (I was baptized R.O.) and my dad’s side was Catholic. It’s a long story but there was much animosity on both sides that caused me to reject any form of Christianity.

One of the cornerstones of Wiccan belief is the Rede, which is a simple statement that says, “And it harm none, do what thou wilt.” Another is that whatever you send out will return to you threefold, good or bad. Most Wiccans will not practice magic or spells that harm another or interferes with someone else’s free will, even to cast love spells to bring two people together because that’s a violation of the Rede and it will come back somehow. Of course, that doesn’t cover all Wiccans, but I and many of my friends were like that. We mainly did workings for healing, spiritual abundance, prosperity, etc.

Wicca is very occult. Most use various forms of divination such as Tarot cards, runes, astrology, crystal ball gazing, etc. That alone can open you up to to some demonic forces, as I’ve since learned.

Another fundamental difference between Wicca and Christianity is that in Wicca, the person is god or goddess and the person has the ability to direct one’s life through magic as opposed to giving oneself over the the will of God.

With regard to curses, if this young man is the kind of Wiccan I described, he might not be inclined to curses but I pray that he finds his way back to the Church because in addition to the occult practices, it can be a lonely existence. Depending on where you live it can be very difficult to find like-minded others. There’s a lot of squabbling between groups and sects of Wicca. You can become isolated from family and coworkers because of a fear of being ostracized if someone comes over and sees your paraphernalia be it books, crystals, Tarot cards, statues, pentagrams, etc.

I’m the happiest I’ve ever been since becoming Catholic. I’m active in my parish, making lifelong friends, and rediscovered the joy in giving my will over to God instead of trying to push my life around like rolling a boulder uphill.

I will keep you all in my prayers!

 

[Mark86]

My brother considers himself a Wiccan and I know others who do too to some degree. This is usually because they hear that Christianity supposedly appropriated pagan festivals and converted them into our holy days, which is obviously an overstatement and a misunderstanding of the history of both ideologies (Wicca is actually more recent in its current form than they often suspect), but in any case, they say to themselves “well maybe there’s something to what existed before Christianity…”

Wiccans are generally much easier to evangelize to than atheists, I’ve found. Unlike atheists, Wiccans haven’t given up the quest to find substantive meaning in life and they are much more attuned to accepting the reality of spiritual, miraculous, and supernatural things. For instance, my brother admitted to me that he has no qualm with the idea of the “virgin birth.” He said something like “how do I know that didn’t happen?” He’s actually open to the idea, which amazed me.

As a Christian, I delight in the fact that I can actually can have meaningful dialogue with Wiccans… but I think that goes for anyone of any faith.