Your Beliefs and Identifying Them:

The Wiccan Rede

Are you familiar with the Wiccan Rede? It's the moral sytem of Wicca, but not considered to be a law or commandment because it's more of a guideline. The word rede is derrived from Middle English that means "counsel" or "advice," which is a principle to avoid causing harm to anyone. Gerald Gardner (1884 - 1964), in his 1957 groundbreaking Wiccan book called, The Meaning of Witchcraft, he introduces his set of laws or "Ardanes," which includes: "You must not use magic for anything which will cause harm to anyone, and if, to prevent a greater wrong being done, you must discommode someone, you must do it only in a way which will abate the harm." 

However, the most famous version of the Rede is in a poem written and published in 1975 by Lady Gwen Thompson (1928 - 1986) titled The Rede of the Wiccae, and can be found in the American Pagan magazine called Green Egg. Lady Gwen is known for the long version of the Wiccan Rede and credited her grandmother, Adriana Porter, with the original work. Unfortunately there's no scholarly evidence that was able to confirm this claim, this Rede remains one of the most popular writings in Wicca today. Below is a small excerpt from her writing:

Eight words ye Wiccan Rede fulfill:

An' it harm none, do what ye will.

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947), creator of the religion Thelema, mentions, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" verse (1:40) in his book titled The Book of the Law, written in 1904. All of these writings have a similar message, which is universal to all Wiccan Redes today: Harm none. One of the pillars of Wicca stands for respecting others, being free, and having no judgement. As a practioner, you decide whether to follow the Rede, or construct a personal code of ethics into your practice that you feel resonates best with you. Although not all Wiccans include the Wiccan Rede into their own personal Book of Shadows, you will find that many do. Does the Wiccan Rede resonate with you? Comment below this post about whether or not the Wiccan Rede resonates with you, and what your personal beliefs are. I'd love to hear about the many different beliefs and how similar and different everyone's personal beliefs are!

Blessed Beliefs

Next, I'm going to talk about the blessed beliefs of Wiccan practice and what they consist of. They consist of working with nature, ethics, harmony and deity. Each of these can be customized and tailored to your own specific beliefs and align best with your practice so that they resonate with you.

Nature:

As an Earth-centered religion, Wicca cares about the environment and respects all forms of life.

Ethics and Harmony:

"Harm none" is an extremely important part of ethics that can be found throughout Wicca. Free will is another important part of Wicca. As you are able to decide the road in which you take on this journey through Wicca and Witchcraft, others also get to decide on which way they're going to go as well. We should be able to do so without any manipulation, either. When it comes to balance and harmony, the rule is: if you take, you should give. In my opinion, I believe that this is very important and not just in regards to Magick, but also when it comes to life in general. When you're working with magick, spells, rituals, and more, you want to make sure that you take the time to create your own personal code of ethics that not only outline the boundaries you want to make for yourself and your practice, but also which lines you're not going to cross and the very rare exceptions that may occur where you will take other measures. My ex-girlfriend had a very good point when she said, "You can't fight evil with rainbows and unicorns!" Therefore, I think it's a good thing to study and have some black magick at your disposal, but only when you REALLY NEED to use it!

Deity:

When it comes to working with deities, you have many options to choose from. When it comes to Wicca, many beliefs can be put into practice. For example, Animist, Deist, Theist, or Atheistic beliefs are all different subcategories in which you can put into your practice. There's no one right way for you to practice, and only you can decide which one is best and works for you. As you progress through your journey, your beliefs may change, alter or blossom, which is natural. Sometimes it takes trial and error to find what works best. Below, you will find many different subcategories from which you can choose from as a form of belief system.

Animism: The belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. These beliefs are most commonly found in indigenous practices and shamanism.

Deism: The belief in supreme beings or a creator that does not intervene in the universe. Deism rejects Supernatural aspects of religion, such as rituals or events. (The words desim and theism are both derived from words meaning "god" and until around the 17th century, they were considered synonymous.)

Theism: The belief in deity. However, it's often divided into more categories underneath it, which are pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, duotheism, and monotheism.

Pantheism: The belief that the natural world and God are the same. When we break down the words, we find that "pan" means "all" and "theism" means "God." This is representative of God as "all-encompassing" and that the universe is a manifestation of God. This is seen in the common Wiccan practice of honoring Lord and Lady or God and Goddess, who are supreme deities. In Pantheism, Wiccan deities are often also referred to as the Horned God, and the Thriple Goddess.

Panentheism: The belief that deity is in everything. and that the deity is greater than the universe. When you make the "en" addition in Panentheism, which means "in," this makes it different than Pantheism.

Polytheism: The belief in multiple Gods and Goddesses, including many different deities taken from various pagan pantheons. As a result, a multitude of different pantheons and religions are able to be included.

Duotheism: The belief in two equal deities, such as the God and Goddess, and is often combined with Pantheism, Panentheism, and / or Polytheism.

Monotheism: The belief in only one God or Goddess. You can find this in Dianic Wiccans, who tend to only believe in the Goddess aspect of divinity, or Christian witches, who practice witchcraft within a Christian framework and honor Jesus and Mary as God and Goddess together. Despite the fact that there's been controversy within the magical community about Christian witches, at Wicca's core, there is no judgement for self-identifying as one path over another.

Atheism: Believing that there is no god or existence of deities, which is the complete opposite of Theism. You can find this most commonly in secular witches.

So, after learning about all of that... How would you self-identify as your beliefs? As for me, I'd have to say that I identify most with a combination between Atheism and Animism, if that makes sense? I believe in life and nature, itself. Everything has energy. Not to mention, us as people have an energy, or "soul" as some people call it. I don't believe in a creator, or god(s) / godess(es), nor do I believe in satan / the devil; in order to believe in one, you must believe in the other. I feel like there is "good" and "evil," but also  "grey area" for the in-between section that cannot fit in the black and white, due to there being free will and us unable to fully control everything that happens to us.

I believe that "Nature finds a way" and we hve evolved over a very long period of time. I also believe that our energies or "souls" are repurposed or "recycled" if you want to call it that. Even as a small child, I have always been called an "old soul." Not to mention, when I first heard about reincarnation as a child, I just KNEW it to be true! I could "feel it in my bones" that it was REAL and I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but I just knew it to be definite and true!

Since then, I have realized two of my previous lives... One of which is Sarah Winchester, the wife of the creator of Winchester rifles, and the creator / designer of the Winchester mansion in San Jose, Calilfornia. As a child, I used to have dreams about that house, but yet to this day, I still have not set foot into San Jose, let alone visited the Winchester Mansion! I had very vivid dreams of this house, and had reoccuring nightmares that I now realize had to do with being Sarah Winchester in a past life. As you may or may not already know, when you're a child, it's easier and more common for you to remember things about your past life. Unfortunately mine was subconciously remembering and I didn't put things together until I saw a special on tv about the Winchester Mansion and quickly realized that was the house I had reoccuring dreams and nightmares about... I promise to get more into this topic later on!

The second past life that I realized I was, is Lizzie Borden. When I went on vacation to the Lizzie Borden house, they told me the people that were there, and before hearing ANY of the story, I IMMEDIATELY knew it was the uncle! Again, I promise to get into this more later. Especially since this one is the one that I have more to say about, given the wrongful conviction and acquital of her trial. It's funny, because there are SEVERAL theories out there, but yet nobody has put two and two together... I was gonna give a hint, but I decided that I didn't want to give any spoilers!

Anyways, that's my post for right now... Don't want to make one that's too long, but want to make sure that I was about to write about my basic point and the information that was important, as well as give a little bit of a spoiler about future topics. Also, I decided that I'm going to introduce a Paranormal Page to my blog, since I started studying and learning about both topics together. As a matter of fact, over 16 years ago, I had many theories that I was positive were correct, but had no way of proving them... However, with all of the technology and shows that are on nowadays, all of my theories have been proven to be correct, and even the one that I wasn't completely sure about... This is what I will be working on next, by the way.