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Why does newWitch cover religions other
than Wicca?
 We
recently received the following letter from a reader who had a bone to
pick with us. It read:
Dear newWitch,
I am an Odinist, incarcerated in Michigan Department of Corrections.
I'm writing about what I believe is "mis-direction" in your
magazine. Why does newWitch cover religions that have nothing
to do with Wicca or our ancestral heritage? Isn't that just watering
it down?
-
Mike
Dear Mike,
In answer to your question, "Why does newWitch cover religions
other than Wicca?" the answer is simple: because newWitch
isn't only for Wiccans. We chose our title with care: we aren't newWiccan
but newWitch. The difference is subtle, but real. We believe that
Wicca is religion, while witchcraft is practice. And therein lies a crucial
difference. Wiccans have a (relatively) standard set of beliefs and rituals
while witches range quite widely in almost every respect ranging from
the deities they worship to the ethical guidelines they follow. While
most Wiccans are also witches, not all witches are Wiccan. I know Asatru
witches, Wiccan witches, Voudon witches, Buddhist witches, and people
who do witchy things with their spice cabinet and wire whisks. So newWitch
doesn't confine itself to the realm of Wicca alone - we are free to cover
a much broader range of material. Some of it is Wiccan, and by far most
of it can be loosely defined as Pagan, but we don't have a theological
litmus test for what is included in our pages.
Our "true community" is made up of people who
believe that the world can be a larger, more open, and more welcoming
place - who are willing to get their hands dirty and do something to make
it so. In short, newWitch is all about the fundamental heart of magick
- changing the self, changing the world. Oh, and, by the way, Mike - we
welcome LGBT Pagans to our pages, and on occasion write articles specific
to them because they are part of our audience, and we respect their participation
and support for our magazine. As we respect yours.
Sincerely,
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