The Heterocentric Origins of Wicca by Donna B.

"The most holy sacrament in traditional Wicca is the Great Rite, a representation of the Hieros Gamos or Sacred Marriage of male and female. Done symbolically, a dagger representing the phallic male God and a chalice representing the Goddess are joined, the dagger dipped into the chalice in overt sexual symbolism. Wicca in its origins is based upon a thoroughly heterosexual theology."

Wicca has its ORIGINS in a "heterocentric" theology. It's ideal for heterosexuals who are longing to find a spirituality deeply linked to their sexuality, because traditional Wicca honors the Goddess as the Divine Feminine, and honors the Horned God as the Divine Masculine, and sees in their loving erotic union the sacred key to all the cosmic mysteries of Nature and spiritual evolution. 

If that's not your own personal cup of tea - great! You have hundreds of other neopagan religions to choose from, including quite a few forms of neopagan witchcraft.

Just stop with the blatant double standard whereby it's okay for gay people to have gay covens with a homosexual theology, but it's not okay for straight people to have straight covens with a heterosexual theology. That is where the real bias dwells these days: legions of politically correct left-wing eclectics bashing people who are deeply heterosexual and accusing them of "homophobia" just because they want and need a religion that reflects their own sacred sexuality.

I have always welcomed gay men and women into pagan open circles; and likewise I have always respected their right to form their own groups focused specifically on gay spirituality, if that's what they want to do. But some of them seem highly unwilling to reciprocate my tolerance. That hardly seems equitable and just.

We need to get over this idea that each and every pagan religion should strive to be equally appealing to every single person in the world. The reason why religious diversity is such a good thing is because people are very different, and are looking for very different things in a religion.

Traditional Wicca, based on the core idea of the erotic attraction and romantic love between the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine, is a religion perfectly suited for heterosexual men and women looking for a way to relate their sexuality to their spirituality. It may not be of much interest to gay men and lesbians; just as gay witchcraft ideas are not of much interest to straight folks.

But that's okay; no one religion can be everything to everyone; and if it tries to be, then it will be in danger of losing its original and distinctive flavor that made it so appealing to some folks in the first place. (Just like a Celtic trad could not start incorporating Egyptian and Asian and Native American deities without losing its distinctive character and the adherence of the people who were looking for a specifically Celtic path.)

For me personally, a religion that honors masculinity and femininity as sacred gender opposites was and still is an absolutely perfect fit. Before I found Wicca, I was drawn to Taoism for the same reason: the emphasis that religion put on the polar opposites of yin and yang, feminine and masculine. 

I encountered and appreciated the same idea in tantric yoga and in alchemy; but not until I came home to Wicca did the ideal of spiritual gender polarity reach its full flowering, with the Hieros Gamos or sacred marriage of the Goddess and the Horned God. That is the 'Conjunctio Oppositorum' as Jung and Eliade referred to it: the Union of Opposites or the 'Alchemical Wedding' that brings transcendent mystical oneness.

If Wicca in the future were to go all pansexual and gender-bending - and thus lose the essential heterosexual theology and practice that made it so appealing to me and many other straight people in the first place - then what? Then we might find it necessary to create another new pagan religion just like Wicca all over again, with a clearly defined heterosexual theology and ritual practice. But why should we have to do that?? Gerald Gardner already created such a religion, and that religion is Wicca.

So just leave traditional Wicca alone, if it's not a good fit for you; and go join or start another pagan religion that is a better fit for your own inclinations. I fail to see why that is not the most sane and reasonable solution to the supposed "problem" of the innate "heterocentrism" within traditional Wiccan theology and ritual practice. So, moving right along: which pagan group is the next to be picked on, for their perceived lack of Political Correctness?

 

 But the point remains that Wicca originated as a pagan religion that honors and celebrates the sacrality of heterosexual erotic spirituality; and that's why traditional Wiccan theology is firmly heterosexual -- or "heterocentric" -- and our God and Goddess are conceived of as straight divine lovers, and the dagger in the chalice, and all the rest of it. Wicca is originally and traditionally a decidedly heterosexual religion.

Wicca certainly did not "emerge in the 60's/70's, and it certainly did NOT "go hand in hand with homosexuality." Wicca "emerged" in the 40's/50's, with Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente. Wicca is a religion based on a core theology of gender polarity: the worship of a Great Goddess and a Great Horned God who are HETEROSEXUAL divine Lovers.

In traditional Wicca -- which means Gardnerian Wicca and a few other branches -- the idea of male/female gender polarity permeates EVERYTHING. Covens are led by both a priestess and a priest, who fill different roles. Covens want equal numbers of men and women, with "working partners" always being a male-female pair. Initiations are always from male-to-female or female-to-male; one is never initiated by someone of the same sex. 

The most holy sacrament in traditional Wicca is the Great Rite, a representation of the Hieros Gamos or Sacred Marriage of male and female. Done symbolically, a dagger representing the phallic male God and a chalice representing the Goddess are joined, the dagger dipped into the chalice in overt sexual symbolism. Wicca in its origins is based upon a thoroughly heterosexual theology.

The reason for all the heterosexual symbolism, as Doreen Valiente once explained it was "Wicca is a Nature religion, and there's a lot of sex in Nature." It was also common in alchemy and ceremonial magic - both traditions that Wicca borrowed from - to emphasize male/female union as an important tantric magical practice; gender polarity being a kind of electrical "battery" to generate magical energies. 

For that reason and others, Gerald Gardner and many other early traditional Wiccans did not believe that it was a religion for homosexuals. Because the core beliefs and practices all revolved around the sacrality of heterosexual eros, it was hard at that time to imagine where where gay men and lesbians could fit in.

However, as eclectic Wicca started pulling away from traditional Wicca - and that was in the 60's/70's - the core religious theology of Wicca was changed or 'adapted' by various individuals and groups who were drawn to witchcraft for the beauty and mystery and magic, but who did not relate to the core heterosexual theology. That included both gay men and radical lesbian feminists, who started to promulgate a very different and non-traditional form of eclectic witchcraft. 

  

 

The feminists tended to exclude the Horned God almost entirely - which is kind of like claiming that you're a Christian but you only honor Jehovah and not Jesus. Gay men went in various other directions with the theology, including the idea that the Goddess and the Horned God were not lovers, but rather just Mother and Son. (Even in traditional Wicca, the Goddess is seen as the mother of the God; especially at Yule. But their main relationship is that of Lovers.)

With these historical changes, even some of the more traditional covens found themselves feeling pressured to admit gay men and lesbians to their ranks. And many or most of traditional covens did welcome homosexual members within a very short period of time. But it was not always an easy fit, given the very heterosexual nature of traditional Wiccan theology and practice. 

The standard rule in most traditional covens is that they would accept gay members, but they had to adjust their "polarity" while in circle, to fit with the male/female workings, and not have same-sex partners in circle. Above all, traditional Wicca forbade any changes to the heterosexual theology: that is, "Don't try to 'gay' our Gods."

Some gay men and lesbians still felt they found a home in traditional Wicca. Sometimes they related to the Goddess and God as divine "parents" who were heterosexual. Other gay men and women, however, wanted a religion that reflected their own erotic inclinations. That's perfectly understandable, since for many pagans the connection between sexuality and spirituality runs deep and intense. 

So there was Herman Slater and Ed B., and the start of 'Minoan Witchcraft' - where they saw the Goddess as a lesbian mother and the Horned God as her gay son, and they started mostly gay covens with men in one coven and women in another. That's definitely NOT Wicca, clearly; but it's a valid form of neopagan religious witchcraft in its own right.

Meanwhile, many heterosexuals continued to find their own spiritual and sexual fulfillment in the traditional religion of Wicca as it first started out. And that is also perfectly fine, of course. We are each after a spiritual path that fits us, and often that means one that reflects our own sexual orientation. So it's fine that there are gay covens, and it's fine that there are straight covens, and it's fine that there are covens that don't care what your sexual orientation is. 

There is room for everyone in the neopagan community, of course. But one thing that IS disrespectful is to "steal" an existing religion and twist it around to where it is unrecognizable. And that's something that pagans seem slow to admit, when it comes to the eclectic hijacking of traditional Wicca.

When it's a Hopi elder complaining that these blonde New Age yuppies are stealing their religion and claiming to be practicing "Hopi religion" when it's really some eclectic mix of crystal-gazing and other new age practices - then everyone sympathizes and stands up for the Hopi's right to define their religion in the traditional ways. 

But when it's a traditional Wiccan standing up for the traditional theology of Wicca as it was originally founded by Gerald Gardner in the 1940's -- which was heterosexual to an extreme degree -- then everyone is so quick to toss around the charge of "homophobia" and start complaining that they're "victimizing" people. Even if they have a long history of supporting gay rights, have gay and lesbian friends, circle happily with gay and lesbian pagans, and etc.

No, it's not about "homophobia." It's about wanting to practice a religion that reflects our own deepest spiritual feelings and sexual identity. And that should be okay for heterosexuals as well as for homosexuals and bisexuals. What's crazy is thinking that gay covens are perfectly okay, but straight covens are some kind of "persecution." If it's okay to have gay covens, then it's also okay to have straight covens. To each their own.

By analogy, some pagan groups are drawn to Celtic pantheons, and others may be drawn to Norse or Egyptian or Greco-Roman pantheons. If you're drawn to an Egyptian pantheon, then it would be absurd to want to join a Norse group, and then complain that you're being 'excluded' or 'persecuted' because of your Egyptian leanings. Likewise, if a coven practices traditional Wicca in a way that is focused on worshiping a heterosexual God and Goddess couple, and honoring heterosexual eros and male/female gender polarity, then it's absurd to want to join that group and expect it to accommodate your desire for a gay religion. 

There is room for everyone in the pagan movement. Just respect where other people are coming from, and let them do their own thing.