In
her teens Elizabeth Dodd delved into the world of Wicca, casting spells
and conjuring ‘spirits’.
Then one day she went to Mass in secret.
My
parents bought me a cauldron for my 16th birthday.
Providing no
explanation, I had asked for that and a chalice.
At a loss, mum
suggested it would look nice outside with the geraniums.
My
interest in Wicca began as I entered my teens. W
icca and Witchcraft:
Understanding the Danger, the booklet I wrote recently as part of the
Catholic Truth Society’s Explanations series, condenses – after some
factual basics about the philosophy and practice of “white” witchcraft –
the conversations I had with a Catholic friend and her family that
eventually led to my conversion to the Catholic faith.
The booklet has
caused controversy on the blogosphere: it sold out on Amazon.com and
cropped up on the websites of the Telegraph and Daily Mail.
What began
as a small document to inform Catholics about the realities of Wicca –
eg that it isn’t Satanism – appears to have re-ignited the persecution
complex among Wiccans that I was hoping to diffuse.
I am concerned
that as a culture, perhaps as a Church, we can too easily dismiss the
spiritual needs of young people.
In my family, religion was something to
explore and debate. Both my parents are Oxford graduates and
historians, my father a Doctor of Maths and Philosophy. His atheism
prevailed over my mother’s Anglicanism, and neither I nor my sister were
baptised.
One day I came across the Teen Witch Kit by Wiccan
author Silver Ravenwolf. It comprised a thin introduction to witchcraft,
a pop-up cardboard altar, charms (from a small bell to a pentacle
necklace, the five-pointed emblem for Wicca).
The book laid out the
basic tenets of witchcraft and, crucially, the practice of “magick”.
Wiccan spell casting is governed by two ethics: karma (that what you
send out will return threefold) and “an’ it harm none, do what you
will”.
I cast my first spell, for protection, when my mother travelled
abroad for a work trip: it was the first time she’d been in an
aeroplane.
As a teenager, with only a limited amount of say in what I’d
have for dinner, for example, the idea of unmitigated supernatural
power, coupled with such a self-governed morality, was very appealing.
My
interest in Wicca increased, even in the face of frequent magickal
failure.
In the booklet I suggest that Wicca can be an important stage
in spiritual growth for a young person. Like many of my generation, I
was looking for a religious home.
Wicca is far removed from mainstream
western religion; it has no hierarchy or clergy, no central texts or
commandments.
It is a framework upon which young, spiritually hungry
people can construct a religious identity independent of their parents.
Wicca suited me because it was, quite literally, an unorthodox religious
choice.
I embraced the Wiccan “holy days” and the duotheism – belief in
a goddess and god – that underpinned them. I lobbied my school to
include “Wicca” as an option on their registration database; I gave
presentations in Religious Studies classes about the heroines of modern
witchcraft.
But within a year I had exhausted the canon of
literature marketed to teenage Wiccans. An innate respect for history,
if not tradition, led to an uncomfortable awareness that the religion as
I knew it had existed for little over 20 years, and had manifestly been
created by people.
I began to study Wicca’s older literature: books
written by Gerald Gardner, the witch who ostensibly re-introduced
Britain to witchcraft and others of his circle (literally and
figuratively), including the notorious Victorian occultist Aleister
Crowley.
I learned about ceremonial magic, branched out into the Jewish
Kabbalah and familiarised myself with H P Blavatsky’s works on
Theosophy. I bought a book about self-initiation into the Golden Dawn
tradition – a quasi-Masonic occult order – and began to follow the steps
toward its first grade.
But my interest in politics, environmentalism
and feminism had expanded beyond the questions Wicca could address.
If
the earth was a deity, did earthquakes suggest she was malicious? Worse,
despite some feminist trappings, the occult witchcraft I was studying
was at core misogynistic.
Crowley wrote some unpleasant things about
women; in the works of Anton LaVey, the self-appointed Satanist and a
friend of Crowley’s, I encountered rants about women’s intellectual
inferiority.
Finally, inevitably, about three years into my study
of witchcraft – like any teenager who has ever played with a Ouija board
– I became convinced I had communicated with a “spirit” whom I had
failed to banish.
The accompanying sense of dread lasted for weeks. A
Catholic schoolfriend wrote out the Hail Mary for me – I’d never heard
it before – and suggested I say it when I felt spiritually threatened. I
stopped practising witchcraft soon afterwards.
My subsequent
conversion to Catholicism was gradual.
I had been exposed for years to
the best means of evangelisation in the Church: the example of a
generous, loving Catholic family (the parents and siblings of my
schoolfriend) who were ready to argue philosophy over the dinner table.
I
had always known my friend was a better Catholic than I was a Wiccan.
She took my foray into witchcraft with a seriousness that I didn’t,
challenging me intellectually and morally.
She lent me books to explain
her Christianity; out of loyalty, I fought her side in the RS lessons in
which she was the only vocal Christian. I went to Mass with her family
on the eve of a school trip we were taking together.
Finally, I sent her
a faltering, confused email about where I was, spiritually.
Her
discretion and her patience were inspiring: it took another three years
until I was received into the Catholic Church.
By then I was a
fiercely Left-wing, politically active Buddhist vegan: rumours of my
conversion would have startled most of my schoolmates.
Recognising this,
we kept the process low-key. I would accompany her family to the Easter
Vigil, amazed by the beauty of the liturgy. I began attending Mass
after school, in secret. My life was turbulent. I’d sit in the peace of
the Church until the last person was leaving.
I realised that the
spiritual core of the Buddhism I was trying to practise was Catholicism.
I believed in God.
From the example of the Catholic family I had grown
up around, I believed that Catholicism made you a better person, that it
increased your capacity to love.
Soon after leaving school, in my
gap year before university, my schoolfriend put me in touch with a
wonderful priest.
We met almost every week; I studied the Catechism and
he, somehow, managed to handle the demands of an intellectually stubborn
teenager about to leave to study Theology at Cambridge.
After a year’s
catechesis I realised that nothing intellectual or spiritual separated
me from a faith to which I had never imagined I would subscribe. I was
baptised and received into the Church at the Easter Vigil – my
schoolfriend was my sponsor and “fairy godmother”.
My experience
of neo-pagans had in fact been largely positive: many Wiccans are
intelligent, kind, sincere people.
Wicca attempts to meet the needs of a
generation terrified of hypocrisy: if even our coffee is Fairtrade, a
faith needs to be outstanding to convince us.
I was now surrounded by
outstanding Catholics; as a Catholic, I know the example I should be
setting.
Wicca was an important step in a spiritual journey that
led me to Catholicism, but when I was asked to write about it in a
booklet, written by a Catholic for Catholics, I felt it would be
irresponsible not to mention its inherent dangers – not least the lack
of a real support structure.
Wicca may be adaptable and relevant; but
ultimately I found it intellectually and spiritually unfulfilling.
I
still struggle with and face challenges in my faith; I know there are
areas I need to better understand.
But you can love a work of art
without translating every reference.
If it is beautiful enough, you can
accept that there are elements you won’t understand until you meet the
artist.
The values that brought me into Wicca – ecological, feminist,
pacifist – are addressed more deeply by the Catholic Church.
It is our
responsibility as Catholics to let young people know that these are
issues we care about, questions which are posed and answered throughout
salvation history.
I passed the cauldron on to my sister: she stores magazines in it.
Wicca and Witchcraft: Understanding the Danger by Elizabeth Dodd is available from the CTS, priced £1.95