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We are going to be studying Celtic Wicca and this is merely an introduction to discuss the origins of Celtic Wicca versus the Ancients and to discuss an ongoing argument that I've been hearing. (Is Celtic Wicca a fraud?) Your first few lessons actually begin at the bottom of this page. So if you're not interested, then just hop on down there. I have studied many religions, two of them being, The Craft of the Celts & Wicca. I was raised up in both Christianity & The Craft due to a family conflict & if you have ever seen a bunch of Irishmen go at each other, fist to face, then you will understand why. lol! Religion has always been a very big deal to the Celtic People and my own family was & is no different. My family on one side were Christian Celts of Irish descent, yet had some roots in the Ancient Craft of the Celtic People (not Wiccan for it was not yet in effect), while my family on the other side was exactly opposite, so when my mother & dad married too young, they were forced to promise to allow each grandmother time with their grandchildren in each religion. Otherwise they would not have been approved for marriage. And if you can believe this, I thought this was normal until I was around 11 when my little Irish grandmother was killed in a fire, set by christians. She was my great-grandmother actually & a kinder, sweeter soul has never lived, but she worshipped "false gods" & "demons", none of which actually existed. Hopefully times have changed. But I wonder... Now as to Wicca, since I no longer was allowed to attend the meetings because my parents were too afraid that bad luck would follow me as well, then I went out on my own & began at age 14 to study Wicca. I was too involved just to drop it altogether & such has always been the way of the Irish. lol! I studied many things, Christianity (Holy Rollers, otherwise know as the Church of God. My grandfather was the minister.), Catholicism, Wicca, The Olde Way (just my word for it), Episcopalian, Methodist, Orhtodox Jews, Lutheran plus many more. It all boils down to one thing in the end. You must find your own way. It is your choice, depending on your beliefs & I am only hoping to educate you a bit in what you seem to be seeking if you are here. Personally I like a group that call themselves Celtic Wiccan, even if it is being said that they could not possibly be descended from the celts. And now we come to one of the main reasons I decided to include this page. I have been reading a lot on the internet of late that has been written criticising "Celtic Wiccans" because they claim descendance from the Ancient Celts. Several articles stated that "Wiccans could not possibly be descendants of the Celts or Druids" & that's just all there was to it. It was written that there were simply too many differences between them & I had to laugh at this.(Now wouldn't you know that being both Irish & Scot, I just have to put in my two cents worth here. lol!) Isn't it strange that the "father" would question the origins of the child? Ah yes, did I forget to say that most of these critics came directly from Ireland? Well, first of all, "descend" means: "to pass from a higher to a lower place; to pass, move or climb down along; to pass by inheritance." Ah yes, that third one seems to be the one we are looking for. Inheritance is a funny thing. I inherited my father's forehead and demeanor, but I received my coloring from my mother. I would have much rather had my father's black hair and blue eyes (black Irish) but then we don't get to pick and choose now, do we? Well, I decided when I was younger that I'd much rather look like my dad, so I decided to exchange the red hair for black by using a bottle of haircolor. So I went around for awhile as a brunette because I thought it suited me better. lol! It didn't really, but that's not the point here. It could have, & not once did either parent claim that I wasn't one of their children because I was a bit different. (*whispers* unfortunately it wasn't only a little*) lol! So yes, it is true that there are differences inherent between The Ancients and Celtic Wiccans but I tend to see that all "descendant" religions are "descendants" because they came from a certain group but didn't totally believe every little teeny-tiny thing that the first group laid out before them. I mean, please, show me an agreeable Irishman or Scot and I'll help you to buy his casket. Now let's take a couple of their arguments into consideration just for the heck of it. Although Wicca honors much the same Gods as the ancient Celts, they view each god as a different aspect of the Creator, thus they believe in only one true God. The Ancients however, made no bones about it. Theirs were Gods & Goddesses in many forms and each one was an individual. They were polytheistic and Wiccans are not, at least for the most part. So the problem with Celtic Wicca here seems to be that they think of all the Gods as being One God. This seems to me as simply a restatement of the microcosm and macrocosm. The Sefirotic Tree from the Kaballah , in its representation of the universe is the Macrocosm. If you are familiar with the tree of life, it could be said that any single sefiroth has its own separate qualities or aspects, it remains, nonetheless, a part of the whole tree, and a part of the macrocosm. The same could be said of christianity. God, Jesus Christ, & the Holy Spirit are supposed to be one and the same & this makes up the Trinity, yet each is talked about separately as individual beings. Does it really matter as long as this energy given in worship is directed towards the Cosmos in a good and loving manner? Oh sure, I know, I know, don't tell me now. If the person reading in is christian, they are thinking, "Yeah, but one of the Commandments says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It surely does,and for one thing, I doubt that God would have even mentioned this unless there were other "Gods" out there in the first place, don't you? What did He have to be jealous of if there were none but He? Why bother? Why not just flat out say that there is no other God out there, save Himself? But He didn't say that, did He? He said, "No other gods BEFORE me." Hmmm? (Check in here if you need a refresher on those ten commandments & I promise I didn't edit them.) And if Wiccans are viewing these aspects as One God, then they aren't any more guilty of this crime than most christians that speak of the Holy Trinity. Okay, let's move on. So what about magick? No arguments there? Both Celtic Wicca & the Ancients still practice magick in much the same way, so they are quite similar, at least as much as anyone can tell. And for that matter, who can tell? I seem to recall that the Druids and Celts were not much in the way of writing down their history, so I sincerely doubt that anyone is going to produce an old Celtic or Druidic ritual from out of his back pocket. (Keep rocks in your pocket, do ya'?) (Heh... that must be heavy.)And if you are not into Irish history, just ignore those comments. Any trueblood will understand them completely. Otherwise, they couldn't possibly be descendants themselves, so they have no business criticising. And christianity can be taken care of in one sentence: Miracles or Magick, what's the difference? Now let's look at another reason that all this has been said. (And you decide whether you believe it or not.) Wicca, the "religion", could not have descended from the Celtic people, because the Celts were a Gaelic People. This language (gaelic) has no "W" in it, so the word "Wicca" or "Witte" could not have possibly come from any Celtic Order. Many have remarked that it could be Saxon in origin but do not know for sure. For a moment, lets pretend that this word did come from the Gaelic/Celtic Language. It would be spelled similar to this: Mhiccan or Miccan or Mican (most likely with one "C"), depending on the form of the word. Than it would be said "Wiccan". When another race actually says a gaelic word that starts with an M, it is usually mispronounced, as in "MacBride". This actually means, "son of Brigit", the "mac" being the word for son is pronounce with a "W" & not an "M" & is often spelled "Mhic". This is why the Irish were called "Micks" by the way. When my grandparents use to say it, it always sounded more like "Wock" than "Wack" because of the consonant sounds of the Celts. But, lol, this was not intended as a language lesson, at least not today. Now before I take you any farther, I would like to say that I have absolute repect for Wiccans & followed their ways for many years. I have no clue as to whether they are actual descendants or not & neither does anyone else I'm sure. This is just not something that one can prove on hearsay. Many of them probably had and have Celtic forebears and in my mind, that is all that matters. It had to have been an Irishman or Scot to start this up in defiance of the Church, don't you think? Who else would have been that crazy? Would you continue someone else's religion during a time of intolerance if you didn't have to? Although some would say differently and have already done so, I do realize that many Wiccans may consider themselves to be descendants especially if they are like me. I am Celt. My family a frenzy of the Irish & Scots. I could say that I was Celtic Wiccan, if I chose to follow the Wiccan path. True? lol! Just keep this in mind when reading here please. I just had to comment on this though because I have seen it criticised in so many places, and my thoughts on this were that many people descend from one culture and yet take up new things from another. Isn't that what we did right here in America? Learn from each other and borrow customs from many other nationalities? Well, who knows, maybe some stubborn Irishman just got tired of not having a "W" in his language and borrowed one from the colonials. Or perhaps he was using the gaelic at some deep southern cowboy bar. Who can tell? I know of one such instance where this happened. I mean, take the word "Uisge Beatha", for example. It was changed once it reached America but.... I can make a personal comparison here, now that I think about it. I had a little black dog that I named "Uisge Beatha". lol! Now come on. There's not an Irishman out there that doesn't know what this word means because as I mentioned above, it was mutilated once it came to America. And guess what folks? This Gaelic word came from the language of the Celts, which means no "W", but in it's American form, it does indeed start with a "W". I would really like to see if you can guess it. lol! Gaelic speakers don't count. For my pup, who was such a little runt, the name was way too long, so my daughter mangled it into a nickname. She called him, "Ishkey". Yet the beginning of this word comes out sounding more like a "W" than an "I". Got it yet? That's right. "Uisge Beatha", which actually means "Waters of Life" to an Irishman is the gaelic word for Whiskey. Now I wonder why my daughter mangled up the word that way? Could it possibly have happened this way as well back in the old days of saloons and long talking cowboys? Well, I'll be damned! A word descended from the Gaels that starts with a "W"?
How about that? Now just watch some hardheaded Irishman come along and tell me that this word -whiskey - didn't come from the Celts. lol! Then I'll know exactly what he's been drinking. heh...Poteen, maybe? So what do you think, guys? Could Celtic Wicca possibly be descended from the Ancient Celts? Do you suppose that another stubborn, hard headed Irish man or woman, like me for example, just simply did not completely agree with all the other stubborn, hardheaded Irishmen? Hmmm?
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