Fluffy Bunnies.

Wicca's popularity of course was a good thing in general but let's face it. It's not for the masses, it's not for stupid, immature people and it's not for people that talk too much and brag about it. It has been designed for small groups - and NOT solitary - that practices it in SECRECY for reasons I don't want to discuss here even though I took no oath of any kind yet.

I know pretty much and discovered even more by myself but no, I took no oath of secrecy nor initiation. But I don't need the oath to understand that some dangerous secrets are not for the public. They will be both abused and used against us by the rest of society we live in. It's not anything "evil" or "satanic" as the christian majority uses to babble about but it can be considered so by these guys anyway. Secrecy protects us from defamation, scapegoating, hate talk and just another witch hunt by monotheist patriarchy.

(The real reason they hate us is that we have female leaders for our clergy. That 's the real reason of their hatred against the witches and absolutely nothing else. It's not ok to spread our secrets but it's ok to spread theirs....  )

New-agers that just heard of Wicca and are simply wearing a pentacle and going around telling everybody "Blessed Be" are NOT Wiccans. These are fluffy bunnies and wanna-be-witches. To be a Wiccan is a VERY DIFFICULT and very rare thing to happen and actually means that:

a) A person that is already Wiccan - from a magical line of initiations that drives back to a guy like Buckland, Cunningham, Sanders or Gardner - accidentally met you and liked you and so after FIVE YEARS of simple friendship chose you to be his student. No, it's neither democracy, nor votes, nor equal rights here.

b) That person then told you that he is a Wiccan and asked you if you would be interested in that. You answered "Yes." Then he gave you some books to study for A YEAR. After that he gave you A DAY to decide if you really want to be a Wiccan. You answered "Yes".

c) That person initiated you to the first degree of Wicca.

If all this happened to you then you can rest assured that you are a Wiccan. Else you MAYBE are NOT. It depends on traditions and definitions.

Some church-like traditions keep the three degrees for their "clergy" and keep their "crowd" at the step (b) which they call their outer circle while their clergy is called inner circle. The crowd can be present in rituals but they sit outside the magic circle and do not participate in the ritual.

The reasons for doing that are two-fold.

a) Money, subscriptions and donations. That shouldn't be needed but we live in the material plane and not exclusively in the astral... As long as there is nothing mandatory it is okay.

b) Energy. The ritual has stronger results when is faithfully watched by more people and the thought forms of the coven are stronger when faithfully worshiped by a larger crowd. As long as you keep the crowd outside of the "control centre" it is okay.

That way they keep unworthy people "away from their legs" and also have a use for them. This is actually the future of Wicca as it grows more and more. So these fluffy bunnies aren't actually a bad thing and they are pretty useful after all. Each one contributes with what he is able to and everybody is happy.