Contemplative Wicca

At the beginning of  Contemplative Wicca, Teresa Chupp argues that a lack of “real Pagan theology” means that Wicca lacks coherence and its practitioners lack the satisfaction that they would receive if they drew on “coherent theology.” If Wicca offered a “basic statement of belief,  [that] would go far in establishing Paganism as a real, legitimate religion to outsiders” (1–3). At this point, Chupp has already demonstrated several levels of misunderstanding. For one thing, although she uses “Wicca” and “Paganism” interchangeably, the two terms are no more synonymous than are “English” and “British.” Wicca is the largest manifestation of modern Pagan religion in the United Kingdom and North America, but not so in Eastern Europe, for example.

Second, Wicca has its theological thinkers—Starhawk (Miriam Simos), for example—but to the average practitioner, “belief” is a far less meaningful word than “relationship.” In this respect, Wicca shares with older indigenous spiritual traditions a focus on one’s actions and  one’s relationships with other beings, human and nonhuman, rather than on intellectual theology and dogma. Nor do Wiccans “worship” Nature in the sense that the deities of monotheistic faiths require worship. It its telling that her citation for Wicca’s lack of theology is sixteen years old; much has happened since that date.

That said, Chupp does credit “Traditional Wicca” (her term, used to differentiate it from “Contemplative Wicca”) and contemporary Paganism generally with viewing human society as “collaborative rather than hierarchical … part of nature [that] cannot be separated from it (4).  And she does approve of the ritual “wheel of the year” with eight major festivals that “celebrates the turning of the seasons and the oneness of all creation”(5). What she discards are “ecstatic practice … drumming, dancing, music and so forth” and polytheism, which, she claims, is merely “ritually expedient”(5–7). Despite Paganism’s oneness with nature, “if Pagans can separate monotheism from its historically associated results of hierarchy and persecution, perhaps there can be greater acceptance of monotheism in the Pagan community” (9). Elsewhere, she argues that polytheism leads to “tribalism and divisiveness,” whereas monotheism might (some day) produce universal harmony (9).

That distinction made, the rest of the book contains chapters on society, ethics, prayer, and the soul, much in the tradition of Unitarianism and/or a sort of nondenominational Western mysticism. At this point, the author no longer tries to form any connection with “Traditional Wicca,” except to note that “Wicca has a long history of solitary practitioners—those who live and practice alone. This is very similar to the Christian hermit tradition” (101).

The historic Unitarian movement against orthodox Christianity rejected trinitarian theology, the divinity of Jesus, the Eucharist, atonement,  original sin, biblical inerrancy, and so on, to the point where today many Unitarian Universalists are completely non-theistic. They do, however, typically meet on Sunday, sit in rows to receive spiritual instruction, and call their institution a “church.”

Chupp lays out an equally transformative path for Wicca, but she never answers the question of why? Why not label “Contemplative Wicca” as Unitarian Universalism, with which it would be a good fit, or even some sort of neo-Vedenta or Perennial Philosophy? Nothing in her book represents a significant break with those schools except perhaps the attention she pays to the sacred year of eight solar festivals. One could ask then if “Wicca” as a descriptor has become so widespread, with its connotation of edgy self-empowerment,  that it is the religious flavor of the month, or of the decade. Will “Wicca” in the title lead the prospective reader to pluck it from the shelf or to click “Add to Shopping Cart” where “Unitarian” would not?

Chas S. Clifton is an Independent Scholar from Colorado. He is the Editor of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies.

Chas S. Clifton

Date Of Review:

December 29, 2019