There’s a reason we call Wicca ‘the Craft of the Wise’. It’s because it is a craft. You have to practice it in order for it to work for you. That’s why Wiccans are called practitioners. The reason we have such an emphasis on ritualized action and participatory experience – on things being done the same way by everyone over and over again – is not because it is the ‘One True Right And Only Way™‘ but because we’re building psychological and neurological responses to specific stimuli. Different traditions have devised different methods of doing this over the decades, but the underlying purpose remains the same. We use our religion as a framework to help each practitioner understand their unique spiritual identity and experiences and deepen their connection with Deity, the Cosmos, and this living planet and all of our fellow lifeforms upon it.
Practicing Traditional Wicca is a little like learning to ride a bicycle. As a seeker, you’re learning what a bicycle even is and how it works. As a dedicant, you’re practicing with training wheels. In our tradition, by the time you’re ready for your first-degree initiation, you are able to ride your bike without the training wheels. But as we advance, the terrain we’re riding on becomes more challenging, and we must continue to practice our craft in order to develop the experience, skill, and intuitive memory necessary to navigate those challenges.
Here’s the thing, though: the journey is the destination. There is no endpoint that we reach where we’ve learned all there is to know about the Craft. What we reach is an awareness of who we are and what we stand for and, ideally, how we interact with one another as we move around in spacetime together.
The titles of our Deities may change from group to group. We may call our observances by different names. Those observances may have different mythological cycles attached to them. Symbol sets may vary, even in the same tradition. The words and visualizations that we use to work magick may not be familiar to everyone. And all of that is okay. The point of all of these structures is to create a framework for understanding the spiritual world.
It took me a long time as a younger witch to realize that sitting around thinking about the Craft did not equate to actively doing the rituals and personal development that the Craft is all about. It is that activity, that practice, which allows us to know ourselves and our place in the grand scheme of things. It is also a powerful impetus for stepping beyond the psychological into the realm of the purely spiritual. Wicca has a rich mythology in its own right, and that mythology, though less than a century old, bears all the hallmarks of authenticity for those who feel called to Wicca as their long-term spiritual and religious path.
Traditional Wicca is a priesthood. Initiates are empowered to make direct contact with Deity and become Deity’s agents in the material world. That’s it. That’s the religion. There’s no requirement to lead a coven. There’s no requirement to teach students. There’s no requirement to get papered up and perform weddings. To be of the Wica is to serve the Gods and preserve the Craft. And working the rites is part of that charge. The format of those rites may have changed over the decades, but the purpose behind them remains the same: to ensure the fertility of the land, to safeguard the people against harm, and to empower the Divine through our worship and service. There are things we do as practitioners to keep the cosmic balance, and that looks different for each practitioner, but it is there and it is real and it is as powerful as it is ineffable.
But one cannot get there by philosophizing. It takes practice, it takes casting the circle and saying the words and doing the energywork and following through with appropriate actions in the ordinary world. Wicca is a self-limiting framework. You will only get out of it what you put into it. My advice to all types of practitioner is to get back to basics, quit worrying, and trust the process. Once you’ve passed through the Gate of Knowledge through study and the Gate of Wisdom through experience can you unlock the Gate of Understanding through intuitive awareness. And what you experience after that is one of the Great Mysteries of the Craft.