Wiccan Traditions
If you’re looking for Wiccan traditions, that can mean one of two things, depending on how you use the word “traditions”.
For most people, you are probably looking to find out more about certain habits and practices in Wicca. I have other pages like that all through the site, particularly the pages on Wiccan religion and Wicca for beginners. Basically, the main Wiccan traditions are:
- Celebrating the 8 Sabbats (holidays) of the year
- Honoring nature and the seasons
- Practicing magick or witchcraft
- Worshipping a God and/or Goddess (possibly several of them)
- Being part of a coven (sometimes)
Wiccans aren’t all identical, so these are just a rough list of things that generally are similar from one person to the next. The coven membership part is probably the least typical Wiccan tradition since so many people are solitary these days.
But like I said, this is just one way of looking at Wiccan traditions because the expression actually has another meaning. Within the Wiccan community, the word “tradition” usually means the specific path you are following. You can think of a tradition as similar to a Christian denomination. There are two many of them to list these days.
The two biggest traditions are Garderian and Alexandrian (founded by Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders, respectively). These are also the 2 oldest, with Gardnerian really being the original form of Wicca founded in the 1950s. But over the years, various other traditions have been born including Dianic, Georgian, Reclaiming, Feri, Seax, Blue Star and a whole lot more. Each one has its own set of rituals and beliefs that make it unique, but still is part of the general Wiccan faith.
Some of them are easy to define, like Dianic Wicca is very female-oriented and Reclaiming has a heavy political and activist approach. Gardnerian and Alexandrian are a little more formal and require coven membership to learn what they’re all about. The others can be a little more subtle and would require a bit more study to see their unique ideas.
I’m going to be covering each of these Wiccan tradition in more detail with future articles, but the links above will take you to what pages I have so far.
