On Wiccan theology.

The Wiccan Book of Shadows (BoS) refers to four different levels of perception of the divine: - on the first level, we speak of the divinity. On this level Wicca can be called monotheistic. In the rest of this text, this will be called Level I. The Monotheistic Level. - on the second level, Wicca distinguishes between the God and the Goddess. On this level of perception/experience/interaction Wicca can be called a bi-theistic religion. In the rest of this text, this will be called Level II. The Bitheistic Level. - On the third level, Wicca studies/works with the many different aspects of the God and the Goddess, which can all be given a name and description as complex individual archetypical entities. On this level, Wicca can be called a poly-theistic religion. In the rest of this text, this will be called Level III. The Polytheistic Level. - On the fourth level, Wicca recognizes the presence of a divine spark in everything created, be they part of the animal, vegetal and mineral kingdom. This level is a level that in an African context would be called animistic (anima=soul), but is more properly called pan-theistic. In the rest of this text, this will be called Level IV. The Pantheistic Level. Now it is a fact that every theology has to situate itself somewhere between the One and the All, and therefore provide for at least one of these Levels of divine reality. It is however also a fact that most religions strive to restrict themselves to only one of these Levels denying and often outright rejecting the others. The human soul on the other hand, feeling the need at some moment or other for each of them will in such a situation will grow dissatisfied when this inner need and experience is denied. This will subject most other religions to an inner stress and imbalance, as well as it will cause stress in the psyche of the individual member of the congregation. The uniqueness of Wicca lies in that it openly recognizes the coexistence, interoperability and intrinsic value of all four Levels. The clergy of Sacred Well will be aware of this and capable of offering guidance to members of the congregation who experience needs on any of these Levels of divine reality. Transcendent and immanent character of the divine. Level I clearly illustrates the transcendental character of the divine, while Level IV illustrates its immanent character. Level II and III are in between and exemplify the characteristics of the divine which are closest to the human psyche. In an opposite direction from Level III to II one can see how an originally historical figure can become a heroic figure, then a legendary figure and finally evolve as a myhical figure into a god or goddess. In the direction from II to III, a god or goddess can be exemplified through myth into a mythical figure and and evolve into something interpreted as a lengendary figure with possible historic roots. It si impossible to say for instance whether king Arthuror king Bran or king Lear originally were gods and there was a historic king who used the name of this god or whether they originally were kings who afterwards grew into mythical dimensions and became a kind of gods. Also, one sees how Level II is reflected in the human psyche by what is called animus and anima in Jungian psychology. Level II is usually considered as the most typical for Wicca as a religion and used to

differentiate Wicca from other religions, which may have the other Levels but where the Level II is never explicit as a gender based polarity. Two essentially different forms of bitheism. Bitheism is essentially a system with two divinities having a specific relationship. - In a gender-oriented bitheism the relationship is synergetic. Both divinities aspire a form of mystical union or re-union. The central concept is love (eros) and the polarity is a creative one. - In an ethically-oriented bitheism the relationship is antithetical. Both divinities try to destroy one another. The central concept is death (thanatos) and the polarity is a destructive one. Since a bitheism is a Level II feature, it is situated on the level most closely related to the human psyche and both forms find their parallel in the human psyche in what Freud called Eros en Thanatos. Furthermore a psychological analysis of the first kind of bitheism can be found in Jungs concept of animus en anima. While a psychological analysis of the second kind of bitheism reflected in the human psyche can be found in Robert Louis Stevensons Dr. Jekyll en Mr. Hyde. Examples of gender-oriented bitheisms: Apart from present day Wicca, there are plenty of old pagan systems where this level was central. - Greece. The classical period has largely stabilized around the polytheistic Level III where under the influence of the classical philosophers the pantheon has largely gone through the stages of a political religion (a religion of the polis, the State) to become an ethical religion where people generally believe (like today in Western civilization) that the belief in the gods is the sole garantor that people will be behave morally. Thats why Socrates form of atheism is seen as threatening to the state and considered immoral. In the original myth however, we are reminded of an older state of affairs where the central deities were Ouranos (Uranus) and Gaia and all the younger gods are children and grandchildren of this original divine couple. Now, the Greek word Ouranos also meant heaven and the word Gaia meant earth: so we have Father Heaven and Mother Earth. Obviously this refers to a more ancient period where the central divine paradigm was on Level II and was a gender-oriented bitheism. We also see in this example (Greece) that the names of the divinities on level II are very abstract and non-specific. In an early stage, the religion will develop into Level III, the original divine pair will have children and the next generation of gods and goddesses will allow the religion to develop into Level III. When a tribe or set of tribes conquered a neighbouring tribe or country, the local inhabitants were usually absorbed (be they of lower status) rather than exterminated. The same happened to their Level III (or even Level II if they hadnt developed into Level III yet) gods: both the original population and their gods were forced into a lower status. Just as the Achaean kings for instance derived the acceptance for their kingship from their marrying the local queens, their Zeus raped the local goddesses. And many of the Achaean kings found,

when they came back from the Trojan expedition that their royal spouse had taken back the throne, sharing it with their lover. Gradually, both, Zeus and the kings established their supremacy. The pantheon became larger and larger and myths had to be incorporated explaining all the different Level III deities. Simultaneously we see here another Level III characteristic: by itself Level III is never entirely stable, the pantheon is never flat. There is always a tendency for one of the deities to become the leader. Well come back to this later. Egypt. Traces of the bitheistic Level II can be found in the old myth of Geb and Nuit. Here the polarities are reversed, Nuit is the Heaven Goddess and Geb the Earth God. In a later stage, the Egyptian religion evolves a polytheistic Level III with the typical rivalries between the different castes of priests. The rivalries in heaven are usually the result of more earthly rivalries between different priest castes for richess and power. Religion becomes a political matter, the affair of the State (all the real estate and the harvest belonged to the priests of Amoun, and Akhenatons religious revolution badly backfired at the end of his reign). That segment of the population that grew dissatisfied with the State religion, went in search of the deeper religious experience offered by a mystery religion, and found it in the myth of Isis and Osiris. Although we have three deities here: Isis, Osiris and Horus, Horus is an incarnation of Osiris and the Isis/Osiris cult is an example of the evolution of a Level II from Level III.

In virtually all the oldest gender oriented bitheisms one of the divine couple is associated with the Earth, the other with Heaven. In newer gender oriented bitheisms, one is associated with the Moon, the other with the Sun. Polarities may vary. Usually also the four divine entities Heaven, Earth and Sun, Moon are associated with the four elements Air, Earth and Fire, Water which also form the same gender polarity between them. The concept of gender oriented bitheism is so strongly anchored in the human psyche that we even find it, albeit in a hidden form, in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The church is often portrayed as the bride of Christ. And theres the bit of erotic poetry in the Old Testament which is usually interpreted as a love song where JHVH is the male and the human soul the female. Examples of ethically oriented bitheisms: - Zoroasterianism - pseudo monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. - Yezidi-religion and Satanism. When Zarasthoestra/Zoroaster preached in Persia, he talked about Angra Maniou, the Man of Evil en Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Good. The Jews returning from exile brought these concepts with them and this lead to the most important religious reform in their history which was ruthlessly forced upon the local population. From this time on Judaism is a de facto ethically oriented bitheism with JHVH and Satan as destructive opponents. Both Christianity and Islam inherited this. In Islam of course the two opponents are called Allah and Iblis. Well discuss the Yesidi and the Satanists further on.

Good/evil oriented bitheisms usually develop only in extreme patriarchal societies. In such societies both opposing forces, the Man of Evil and the Lord of Good are usually thought of as male entities. The destructive nature of this form of bitheism usually leads to a similar destructive pattern when neighbouring tribes or land is conquered. The conquerors will usually go to great lengths to massacre the conquered population as devil-worshipers in order to destroy their gods which are seen as aspects of the devil and the war on Earth is seen as a natural consequence of the war in Heaven. The paradox in ethically oriented bitheisms. Because of the antithetical nature of an ethically oriented bitheism, both opponents strive to destroy each other. They have no choice but to hate and abhor each other and each must try to eliminate the other party. Now, there are only two possibilities. - Either both are equally strong, which makes it very hard for the human worshiper, who would prefer to be on the side of the winner in this war. Since history is always written by the winner, the winner will ultimately be revealed as being the good guy and the looser will have been the bad guy from the start. But if both are really equal in strength, the war will never end making it impossible to determine who is the good guy and who is the bad, and more importantly, whose side one wants to be on. - Or, one party is more powerful than the other, in which case he would have destroyed his opponent right after the first nano-second of the creation of the universe. The first possibility is highly undesirable. The second is contradicted by the facts. All ethically oriented bitheisms, strangely enough, will opt for the second hypothesis, trying to solve the contradiction through weird and complex mechanisms, trying to explain why, the Lord of Good being more powerful than the Man of Evil, it takes so long before he finally eliminates his opponent somewhere in the distant future. This leads to a situation where Good is more powerful than Evil, will eventually destroy Evil and the faithful have a vested interest in taking the side of the Good. The reason for postponing the final victory of good over evil is then explained through concepts like Free choice and Suffering. The faithful have to prove that they are able to freely choose the side of the Good, without the comfort of knowing the outcome. They also have to suffer, because the Good tolerates the Evil to apparently create the impression of an equality in power, or worse, an impression where Evil appears to have more power especially (since the ethically based bitheisms are always strongly patriarchal) in the female aspects of the created universe: matter/earth/emotions/water/woman/nature. The archetypal example in Christianity is Job who makes the right choice against all evidence to the contrary. The destructive character of the ethics of an ethically oriented bitheism. The destructive character of this battle between personified and divinified good and evil which is supposed to continue for ever (i.e. it will only stop at the end of the universe as we know it) is mirrored in the human psyche of the faithful. Robert Louis Stevenson has demonstrated this admirably in Dr. Jekyll en Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll strives to distill all the evil components from the human psyche of Jekyll and bundles them with the aim to remove them and only succeeds in creating Hyde. The moral being that the peron striving

to be a perfect and purely good Jekyll will end up lapsing more and more into the equally perfectly evil Hyde. Christian church fathers like Paul and Augustine had made similar discoveries, stating: I strive with all my heart to do the good and continuously am confronted with the fact that I do the evil met mijn ganse hart het goede na, en breng voortdurend het kwade ten uitvoer. This confronts us with two questions: 1) Why does one always choose the evil in stead of the good? 2) Why does the evil always seem to win? The answer to the first question is again a paradox. It is impossible to want to do what is bad, since the person who wants to do it, obviously thinks this is somehow a good idea. Pure and perfect evil is beyond human nature. Even the torturers of the inquisition were convinced that what they did to their victims was good. The answer to the second question is also a paradox. Whichever stratagems one uses to codify good and evil, by elevating them into the divine dimension one cannot escape the destructive character of the ethically oriented bitheism. The end result will be destructive and destructive will always have been codified in the category of evil. We must not forget, when dealing with Level II, how closely the Level II of the divine is mirrored in the human psyche. The more fanatically one strives for the supremacy of the good the more irrevocably one achieves evil, the more desperately one tries to be Jekyll the more irrevocably one becomes Hyde. The arbitrary character of the ethics of an ethically oriented bitheism. Every ethically oriented bitheism inherently is arbitrary. How can one be sure which of the two opposing divinities is the Good. Lets take Christianity as an example. On what criteria can one base the decision that JHVH is the Good guy? What if he is the bad guy? This problem is the central paradigm in the religion of the Cathars, the Yezidi and the Satanists.
1)

The Cathars. In gnosticism, the abstract Platonic concept of sophia (wisdom) ultimately leads to the concept of Sophia as a divine entity, as a Goddess. Since wisdom can be the only ultimate criterion to define which is good and which is evil, Sophia must be the supreme Good and therefore the creator-god of the Old Testament, JHVH, has to be the lesser god, the demiurgos and therefore the Evil. He is the creator of the material universe, the Rex Mundi, the King of the World, and therefore creation itself is tainted by his evil. The originally ethically oriented bitheism of the Ctahars therefore evolves into a gender oriented one, in which the Goddess Sophia is the Good and JHVH is the Evil. The gender oriented part introducing the gentle Goddess, explains the essentially gentle nature of the Cathars who were brutally persecuted and murdered by their christian neighbours. The ethically oriented part with the inherent taintedness of creation, made the Cathars into people who were hostile to the continuation of creation (by JHVH) and pro-creation. They were advocates of the end of procreation as the only means to stop the evil work of the demiurgos. What is so remarkable about Catharism is the fact that the good guy is a She. This shows how in an otherwise strictly patriarchal environment the morphic field of the Goddess could locally become so powerful as to lead to the spreading of the

Cathar religion over large parts of Europe before being eradicated by patriarchal christians. Actually, in the final anaysis, and seen from a Cathar viewpoint, the Cathars were proven right by being exterminated. The Satanists. Originally the Satanist is the Christian who, re-reading the story about the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament and the story of the Speech on the Mountain in the New Testament, revolts. He revolts, believing that the Jews and the Christians chose the wrong side, the side of Evil. He sees JHVH as a jealous, tyrannical and oppressive force standing in the way of human evolution and development. While the Serpent is seen as stimulating development. Since Christians identify the Serpent with Satan, obviouly the one called JHVH must be the Man of Evil and Satan must be the Lord of Good. Likewise, in the New Testament, they see this confirmed through their belief in social Darwinism. Reason dictates that the survival of the fittest can be translated into blessed be the strong. Anyone advocating blessed be the weak goes against evolution and is bound to loose the War. Therefore the prophet Jesus must be an advocate of the looser, the Man of Evil. And if Christians declare modesty as a virtue, they will conclude the real virtue must be pride. This again stresses the destructive nature of an ethical bitheism. Satanists are bound to hate and despise Jews and Christians and vice versa. Striving for the ultimate modesty can only be proof of a pride gone mad. How could a being respect others without any respect of self, that is a certain amount of pride. The effort of reducing either modesty or pride to their ultimate pure and crystralline form leads inevitable to the Jekyll/Hyde syndrome. Where Christians of course will see Jekyll as the good guy and Satanist will admire Hyde. Since the development of psychology in our culture, there has been a tendency to stress the Level II and III aspects of the divine and therefore some people will try to explain the divine in terms of Level II and III only. Some Satanists therefore will claim to be atheists, saying that Satan is nothing but a part of their own psyche. It would be more correct to state that they consider Level I as completely irrelevant and reduce Level II to strict human proportions.
2)

The Yezidi. The Yezidi just as the Satanists are usually seen by their environment erroneously as worshippers of evil. Their religion originated in Kurdistan under the influence of both Christianity and Islam. The Man of Evil, which the Christians call Satan, and the Muslims Iblis, the Yezidi call Jazid. In their belief however, the War between God and Jazid, ends in a reconciliation. Since Jazid, ultimately, just like every being, also can only want the good (as we demonstrated before), he repents and is forgiven. After which God withdraws from the created universe and gives the government into the hands of Jazid and six other angels. Jazid is worshiped as the Peacock-king, the Proud. The Jezidis are unique in that they solve the problem of the destructiveness of the ethical bitheism by eliminating Level II and reducing it into a Level I monotheistic situation for all practical purposes. It should be obvious from these three examples that neither of them really worships evil. We should be aware however that whereas Christianity and Satanism from a theological viewpoint are equivalent, from an ethical they are not. Where Christianity is probably utopical and unrealistic in claiming one should offer the other cheek to ones enemy, and
3)

therefore often does exactly the reverse of what it preaches, satanism adheres to a form of social Darwinism which excludes all form of human compassion on principle in a way which is totally unpalatable and emotionally unacceptable. In any religion that has a prominent place for the Goddess, the rational will be tempered by the emotional. Which explains why Wicca, where the heart is concerned, is much closer to Christianity than to Satanism. No Wicca, faced with the choice between the prophet of Nazareth and his opponent would hesitate which of them would fit better in our coven. The reality of good and evil. All ethical bitheisms are by nature destructive, therefore auto-destructive and unstable. They will ultimately eliminate Level II and strive to reduce their religion to a Level I form of monotheism. We see this also in modern day Christianity where many new age christians who experience the whole idea of the endless War and its accompanying horrors of hell and damnation as so repulsive that they try to erase the existence of the devil from their religion. They strive for a form of Christianity where the devil is no longer real. This can lead in a new age context to the negation of the reality of evil also on the human level. One should be conscient that Wicca does not negate evil. It is not however because Wicca denies the usefulness of the concept of ethical bitheism on Level II, that Wicca denies the reality of good and evil. Good and evil are part of our experiental reality. Wicca rather holds that, as in the Chines concept of Yin and Yang, it is impossible to raise good or evil to a Level II dimension, which would necessitate the removal of the white spot from the black making it totally white and vice versa. This is not only impossible, it is also extremely destructive on the divine levels as well as in the human psyche. Many anthropologists believe that there has been a period in human development without demons. It should be obvious that this must have been: 1) before patriarchy 2) before the develoment of the ethical bitheisms Wicca also, knows no demons in the christian meaning of the word. The ethics of Wicca are not reflected on the Level II of the divine. They are firmly based in the human level on the principle of harm. The future of Christianity. There are reasons to believe that since the second half of the twentieth century, Christianity as a basically bitheistic religion has arrived at a turning point in its history. First of all, in Western Europe, the ages of absolutistic Christianity belong to the past. The times when christian doctrine tried to influence and rule peoples lives to the minutest detail are gone. There are some who dont take this graciously. They are the more dangerous because they fight for a lost cause, they strive for a power that belongs to the past. These fundamentalist born-again christians are the more dangerous because of the potentially extreme destructive character of a frustrated ethical bitheism. They would not hesitate to reinstate the burning times if given half a chance. On the other hand, large numbers of people in countries that still have a nominally christian majority, have achieved an almost monotheistic version of Level II Christianity. Without in so many words negating the reality of hell, eternal damnation and the devil, they try

to avoid the question whether they still believe in them. They may still believe in them but this has no longer practical consequences. They strive to do good, knowing that, not being perfect, they may fail. They accept their own fallability and imperfection and therefore the fallability and imperfection of institutions like the church and religious authorities. This allows for new developments. The possibility of female clergy has become a reality for some, a matter of time for others. They are more tolerant and less hostile against other religions. This makes them less and less patriarchal, less and less hostile against sex, against women and against nature. These forms of christianity can coexist peacefully with forms of gender based bitheisms. Of course, fundamentalists and bornagainers will consider them as traitors, and seen from a purely ethically based bitheism they are. This has the inherent danger that they may retract were the fundamentalist to gain in power and influence. The morphic field of gender based bitheism has so much gained in strength however that for the first time in the last millennia there seems a real possibility of dialogue between at least some christians and the pagan and Wiccan community. Hierarchical and non-hierarchical forms of polytheism. The study of Western and Middle Eastern pagan and religions from the past leads to the conclusion that the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, German and other religions including even Catholic religion are forms of hierarchical polytheism (their Level III is hierarchical). In most hierarchical polytheisms the Level III is dominated by one or two of the entities (usually there is a pair of divinities, a chief-god and goddess) who tend to shift the religion towards a Level II situation. In that sense hierarchical polytheism as such is basically unstable. Wicca on the other hand has a Level III which is non-hierarchical. 1) The Egyptian, Greek, Roman and German pantheon. Most polytheisms have castes of priests who specialise in one of the Level III entities. The rivalries between castes of priests specialised in one specific deity from the pantheon usually lead to one of the castes gaining the upper hand. As below, so above and the rivalry on earth was usually codified into a myth explaining the rivalry in heaven. Thus in Egypt the temple of Amun (that is the priests) and therefore Amun himself became so powerful that it became a threat to the State (that is the pharao). Akhenaton tried to break the power of the priests of Amun by building a new capital where Aton was the supreme deity. He ultimately paid with his life and after a coup under supervision of the priest of Amun, the supremacy of Amun was restored, which is reflected in the name of the next pharao: Tut-ankh-amun whose tomb and sarcophagus was discovered this century by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. In a later phase of its evolution the primal worship shifted more and more towards Isis and Osiris (Isis and Osiris had always been important, especially for the pharao, but the cult of Isis developed into a mystery cult for initiates and was, as such, imported into Rome) . In Greece Zeus evolved from an originally pastoral deity into a leader of the pack position. This was translated into myth where the original divine pair of Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth) was replaced first by Kronos (Saturn) and Rhea and ultimately by Zeus and Hera. Hera originally was a principal goddess in her own right, before she was (forcibly) married to Zeus. The Zeus/Hera pair (Jupiter/Juno in Rome) gradually gained an almost Level II

position. And at the end of the classical period, two other candidates for the top honcho position were Hermes on the one hand, Apollo (Sun) and Artemis (Moon) on the other. In the German myth we see both Odin/Frigga and Thor in competition for the top honcho position, though the rivalry follows caste lines, warrior caste versus farmer caste. Thor is much more the Heracles (Hercules in Latin) type of popular hero, whereas Odin is the leader of the Aesir warriors. There are many references to a war between two families of deities, the Aesir versus the Vanir, which ended in a kind of exchange of hostages where Freyr and Freya, who originally are Vanir deities, join the Aesir in Walhalla. We see from the various examples that in a hierarchical forms of Level III polytheism there is an inherent instability that responds to the need for a Level II which tends to be gender oriented: the pair of supreme level III deities develop Level II qualities. The advent of Christianity effectively makes it impossible to see what the end stage of such an evolution would have been. But it should be obvious that where the many polytheistic deities fulfil a need for someone with a specific complaint or wish/hope/fear, people need a Level II deity which they can address if the need or complaint is non-specific: I just want to talk to God, not the god for hunting or war or toothaches, just God or I need to talk to the Goddess, to eternal She . Only Level II can provide for this. It seems that the druids of the Celts were aware of this (at least on a philosophical level) and knew that all goddesses are one goddess, all gods are one god and may have been conscious of the Level II and even the Level I of the divine (this is certainly what Celtic christians claimed). 2) The catholic pantheon. Since every religion closely follows the evolution of the society in which it grows and develops the Level III of the christian religion developed into a hierarchical polytheism along two different paths. Angels and demons.

Already in the Judaic religion, different Level III deities (el-ohim) after the return from exile (the Zoroastrian reform) had been reduced to the status of angels. The names of these angels usually ending on el (which originally stands for god in Hebrew), like Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel etc which enables us to recognize their original identy as Level III deities. Society in medieval Europe was organized as a feudal system where kings were assisted (or plotted against) by dukes, earls, barons etc. all organized along strict hierarchical rules. It is not surprising therefore that this is mirrored in medieval Christianity. The two Level II deities JHVH and Satan used all kind of archangenls and angels, Serafim and Cherubim, archdemons and lesser demons to do the actual fighting. In medieval writings based on Quabbalistic concepts like the Lesser Keys of Solomon, these hierarchies were described in the minutest detail. Some demons had the rank of duke others were archdukes, princes or even presidents. They were even characterized by smells they spread or insects like flies or other vermin they seemed to attract. To the medieval magician this was all very serious business and no laughing matter. If your enemy sent you an extremely unpleasant and noxious demon you wanted to know whether this was a chap with the rank of duke so that you could counter the spell by sending at least an even nastier smelling archduke in

return. If he sent you an archduke on the other hand, replying with a duke would be ridiculous, you needed at least a prince (the rank of president in the order of things seems a bit uncertain). Saints.

The second path was the invention of saints. In many cases these saints were nothing but pagan Level III entities, dressed up as christian holy boys and girls. The church usually tried to eradicate worship of pagan Level III entities first, if this didnt work, it was accepted policy to incorporate them under the guise of saints, by which tactic the worship was legitimized and could be more or less controled by the church. This was a very elegant solution for people in need of a specific kind of healing for instance. Their was a saint for every possible complaint from toothaches (St. Appolonia formerly known as Apollo) to cholics (St. Cornelius formerly known as Cernunnos). Even the milk production of cows or the growing rate of pigs could be greatly enhanced by selecting the appropriate saint. Christianity at the end of the middle ages had developed a polytheistic Level III fauna and flora that in richness greatly surpassed anything its pagan predecessors could offer. Yet the distance between Level II and III in christianity remained greater than in most pagan religions for two reasons, one being that the christians saints were lesser gods than is usual on Level III, the other that the divine couples of leading divinities in the Greek, Roman, Celtic and German pantheon had never really succeeded in achieving Level II status. The position of the magician in a christian environment during the middle ages and renaissance. Basically the magician in those days was very pragmatic. He can be compared to a present day arms dealer who has no qualms about doing business with both sides in an armed conflict. The christian magician was convinced of the ultimate victory of the JHVH-ic forces, but it looked like this victory was a far way off. In the meantime, why not use this angel or that demon for ones own private purposes. Of course one prefered to play safe (especially in view of things like the Inquisition) and every invocation of demons was duefully concluded with the phrase in the name of the father and the sun and the holy spirit at the end. Like a modern arms dealer the magician had to face ruthless competition and needed detailed knowledge of all the ranks and smells and habits of demons and all the special spheres of interest of the different saints. Then as now, there were no real black magicians or white magicians, every magician was white in his own eyes and black in the eyes of the competition. As above so below and so the War in heavens like the wars on earth went on for ever and it was a great time for the average magician as long as he could steer clear of the Inquisition. As every Wicca knows however there is a simple way to distinguish between white and black magic rather than between white and black magicians. This is not achieved by asking whether the magician is fighting on the side of Good or Evil (as we said before even Satanists are convinced their side is the Good side), but by asking of that specific act of magic is in accordance with the Wiccan rede and applying the harm principle.

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Wicca as non-hierarchical polytheism. Since priests and priestesses of Wicca do not form castes dedicated to one specific deity, there is no competition between castes of priests and therefore there is no need for a hierarchy among gods and goddesses. Besides it would be rather strange to try and impose a hierarchical relationship between Isis and Gaia, or between Artemis and Cerridwen who are from different pantheons. The real meaning of religion in a Level III context being to re-link or re-establish the resonance between a part of our inner self and a part of a morphic field which we call for better or for worse Rhiannon, Thor, Gaia etc. Each of these fields has its own characteristics, but they dont know ranks and hierarchies. Furthermore, the Celtic pantheon is one of the more frequently used in Wicca, but Celtic myths very seldom portray their characters in a hierarchical relationship. Actually such a relationship would arise if the name for one of the polytheistic archetypes were to be used on the bitheistic level. Now, there is among the many gods and goddesses of Level III one particular God and Goddess who apparently could claim this. Both have a messianistic character. The first one Aradia, is mentioned by Charles Leyland in The gospel of Aradia where she is portrayed as the daughter of the Moongoddess Diana, sent by her divine Mother to the earth as a kind of female messias. This myth gives Her a very special and priviliged position among the Level III deities: She is that aspect of the Goddess that shows compassion on mankind and descends to teach the hidden children the secrets of magic. This makes it logical for witches when in need of anything to call upon the spirit of Her, Who took this special task upon Herself. This does not, however, make Her THE Level II Goddess. She remains an aspect of THE Goddess. In the same manner, Cernunnos/Karnayna plays a special role in the emancipation of the male priests. Just like Aradia shows the daughters of the Moon how they can be free, Cernunnos, the Horned One, can teach the male priests how they can be free, horned and wild again. Cernunnos is the gate to male emancipation, to the rediscovery of the role of true masculinity. During rituals my High Priestess will usually say in the name of the God and the Goddess, of Karnayna and Aradia. She first addresses the God and the Goddess, that is the Level II divine, and after that, Karnayna and Aradia as the prime helpers in the Alexandrian Level III pantheon. If neophytes are present she will usually ommit the specific mentioning of Karnayna and Aradia as Level III deities, because neophytes in their training should concentrate on the unique bithesitic level in Wicca before later on, learning to use the more specific Level III archetypes. Among these, Karnayna and Aradia take precedence, without the implication however of a higher rank or status: all Level III deities should be treated as of equal level, though one may feel drawn more by one particular archetype than by the other. The Ethics of Wicca. One can not enough stress the importance of the difference between the ethics of Wicca and the ethics of ethically oriented bitheisms. Ethical bitheism always has concepts like

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sin, guilt and repentance where Wicca almost exclusively uses the harm principle. Lets look at a few typical examples. A christian gets hit and is faced by the choice of either hitting back, explaining his choice as the good choice by referring to the text in the Old Testament, saying an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Or he will present the other cheek, likewise explaining this as the good choice by referring to the text in the New Testament. Both approaches are extremely inefficient. The last approach in no way contributes to the minimizing of harm, on the contrary, it invites the other party to double the damage and is usually more advocated than actually put into practice. The first also mainly strives at radically doubling the damage, albeit with the former victim in the role of perpetrator and vice versa. Even from a Buddhist viewpoint, both methods simply lead to a doubling of bad karma. Furthermore the examples show the complexity of the codex that will be used by ethical bitheisms in striving to incorporate all possible situations and thereby allowing the sly individual to always find an explanation why how he/she reacted was good. The individual presented with a choice of actions always has to search the holy codex to find the good response that will permit him/her to avoid sin. This usually implies asking the advice of people specialised in interpreting the holy codex. Lets look at another example. In most cases, the holy codex of an ethical bitheism contains a clause like thou shallt not kill which at first glance seems rather sensible. But how about someone threatening to kill your family, how about threatening your country, how about self defense? The originally simple rule has to be qualified by subrules specifying the good way of reacting in all these exceptional circumstances. And then theres the exceptions on the exceptions etc. The Wiccan rede on the contrary just says do what thou willt an it harm none nothing more, nothing less. And none just means that: none: not yourself, not any other of the many Children of the Goddess. If A tries to kill B in the presence of C, the problem for C is: what course of action will lead to the least damage for all involved. There is a chance that no course of action will lead to zero damage, and the time to think may be extremely short. But the more one has succeeded in making the Wiccan rede a kind of reflex, the greater the probability that the course of action taken will be among those leading to the least damage being done. It should be obvious that if A is a professional killer and the action undertaken by C leads to the death of A, the probability of further harm to human society as a whole has been greatly reduced. Furthermore, again assuming A to be a professional killer, if A is apprehended it is completely irrelevant whether A is punished by society for trying to kill B, for being evil, for having sinned. What matters is that action be taken to prevent A from going on, causing more harm. How? Well, in such a way that causes the least harm to all participants, including also A. It may very well be that in all honesty, and in all modesty, the best society can offer is the death penalty for A. This is regrettable, but turning him loose again or even putting him away for life, may cause more harm to others, including A. The Wiccan rede offers no easy solution, just a different perspective. Good and evil are real in my personal perception, but they are very poor criteria in religious or ethical matters. In queen Victorias days a law was passed making homosexual behaviour a criminal offense. Why? Because it was sinful. Obviously when a young boy is raped by an adult male, this should not be condoned, not because it is a sin, but because it causes harm. Society gradually, but without really acknowledging it explicitly has moved away from the concept of sin toward the principle of harm. Openly

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acknowledging the principle of harm as the main criterion for our legal systems would enormously enhance their efficiency. The principle of harm also stresses the personal responsibilty. When A causes an accident putting B for five years in a wheelchair, its nonsense when A thinks Ive got a good insurance, my insurance will pay B and therefore my sin is already paid for. No way, A has cause harm, A should try to repair the harm. By checking whether the amount paid by the insurance was reasonable, by paying A a visit, by assuming the harm and by doing whatever A can do that will repair the harm, but by not resting before being sure there is nothing else to do to minimize it (going still further would not help B but start harming A and therefore be inefficient). Conclusion: Through the concepts of the four levels and their interaction Wicca unites the concepts of monotheism, bitheism, polytheism, pantheism and animism. For this system to remain stable the following principles are important: 1) the ethical principle do what thou wilt an it harm none 2) the fallibility principle: the goddesses and gods of Level III are morphic fields linked to parts of the human psyche. As such, they are fallible, i.e. they are not perfect, not all powerful, not omniscient, not all good, etc. (just like the divine archetypes in the myths are imperfect, etc.) 3) the non-hierarchical principle: all goddesses and gods of Level III are on an eaqual footing they are not of different rank or status. 4) the bitheism of Level II is gender oriented. The Goddess and the God of Level II cannot be identified with any of the archetypes from the polytheistic Level III. Note: 1) There is a curious example of a Level II phenomenon in early christianity. Although being essentially an ethical bitheism with God and the Devil as opposing deities, christianity, in its early development, introduced a Level II concept for its God which was assumed to be the Level I entity. They inventing the Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as three personae of the Level I divine entity (being strongly patriarchal, all three were seen as masculine). Eastern Christianity which was strongly philosophycally oriented really saw the Father as the Level I entity and the Son and Spirit as two Level II aspects or emanations of this Father Level I entity. In their concept JHVH of the Old Testament really was the Son as the material creator, where the Spirit was the spiritual creator. Jesus then was the human incarnation of the Son. The early schism in the Roman Church between the eastern and Western part of the Empire was caused by the filioque incident. The Western Roman church wanted to include the word filioque in the Latin text of the Credo, claiming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sun (qui ex patre filioque procedit). To Eastern Orthodox theologians this was blatant nonsense: how could the Spirit simultaneously be to some extent the father of the son (impregnating the virgin Mary) and proceed from the father AND the son. In the Western Christian church however the prophet Jesus gradually came to be seen as the Son (rather than the

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incarnation of the Son) and the JHVH entity from the Old Testament as the Father. The Father persona was perceived as leading to the Son, which in its turn lead to the Spirit. 2) Trinities are also common in many pagan religions. They are usually female trinities however. They really present a sublevel in between Level II and Level III. This is the case for instance in Wicca with the Triple Goddess: as soon as one concentrates on one of the aspects of the Triple Goddess, one moves closer to Level III, as long as one concentrates on the essential oneness of the three aspects, one moves toward Level II.

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