Wicca is a modern revival of traditional European and Mediterranean pagan religion, especially as associated with ancient European Goddess worship.
This has taken many forms through the millennia: Minoan Goddess worship, the Greek Elusinian Mysteries, innumerable ideas in Greek, Egyptian, Celtic and Norse mythology that are reflected in modern Wicca and other revivals of traditional pagan religion.
If you want to see where they are coming from, read up on the mythology of Artemis, Isis, Astarte, and any of the traditional myths of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Norse.
This is not 'Devil Worship'. This is a modern revival of the ideas of many ancient traditions that all influenced each other over the years, ideas that are beloved by many who love Greek and Egyptian and Norse mythology.
Wiccans identify with witches because, well, witches were something that the most ignorant of the Christians of isolated Western Europe, in the chaos that followed the fall of the Roman Empire in the West (but Not the East!), became scared of. Naturally, what the isolated Christians of the Western European frontier of the early Middle Ages were afraid of almost certainly had something to do with pagan priestesses.
Hence modern pagan priestesses identify as 'witches'- pagan priestesses whose spiritual ancestors were persecuted as witches by ignorant Christians who did not have the knowledge of Greek mythology and the Pagan past that the Christians of Byzantium did in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.
So come to know the truth- Wicca has nothing to do with 'Devil Worship', but is a modern revival of the ancient wisdom of the pagan worship of ancient times, and has more to do with Greek and Egyptian Goddesses like Artemis, Athena, and Isis and a thousand little bits of wisdom hidden in the myths of the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Norse.
When you fall in love with Greek or Norse or Egyptian mythology, you are falling in love with the source that Wicca draws from- a survivor of some of the oldest religious traditions in all of civilization, the divine light that guided the ancient Minoans and the Egyptians in civilization's first Golden Age so long ago!
In fact, Wicca has cut through 3,200 years and extracted the pre-Bronze Age collapse form of paganism, Minoan and Mycenean Goddess worship, focusing on the Great Goddess Herself and Her consort, cutting through 3,200 years of confusion caused by the great catastrophe of the Bronze Age Collapse of 1200 BC, back before all these dark stories came to be told by the Greeks to the pure source of Athena, Artemis and the Three Graces! To the light and beauty of Minoan Goddess worship and the light of ancient Egypt! To the light of Isis and Osiris and Ptah! No more petty gods hurting people- back to the original light of the Great Goddess in Minoan Crete before the catastrophic events of 1200 BC!
Look up the art and architecture of Minoan and Mycenean civilization to see where they are taking us!
And Wicca is associated with support of feminism and environmentalism. Ancient European and Mediterranean pagan mythology celebrated the connection with nature, so the old pagan mythology is a natural way to support environmentalism. And with such powerful goddess figures as Athena and Isis (the Egyptian goddess), pagan mythology is a natural place to turn to to support feminism- and not only feminism, but the deeper feminism of recapturing the divine view of the feminine that many Catholics still know well and associate with the Virgin Mary- but which is more easily recaptured if God Herself can be seen as female, after the example of Goddesses such as Athena.
And the old pagan mythology teaches the same moral ideas- in different words- as Christianity.
Jesus would approve, as they are teaching the same light He did! (only in different words!)
Learn knowledge and see the light!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. Jesus loves you, and so does the Great Goddess Gaia, Mother Nature Herself! (As She was known to the Greeks!)
P.P.S. I am coming to this from the point of view of a history writer who knows only a few basic things about Wicca, but knows all about the ancient pagan traditions and civilizations that Wicca obviously draws from. I know a lot of history, of the Greeks and Egyptians and Minoans and Myceneans and others, and I recognize what it is that Wicca draws from, what it is a revival of. It is not Wicca that I am an expert on, but rather the history of the old pagan civilizations and their culture. (See Part 1 of my 'Song of the age of Wonder', 'Atlantis, The Purple Shores and the Black Land Half As Old As Time' for more!)
P.P.P.S. It is nice to see that the old traditions are still so alive! I love ancient Egypt, Minoan Crete and Greece! And we could use all the sources of wisdom and mythological thinking we can get in today's world!