Another view on the origins of witchcraft and Wicca

In 1890 Charles G. Leland wrote the book "Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches". Reputed for being the first book to ever examine witchcraft seriously, Wicca draws heavily from its pages. The majority of this book was provided by an Italian witch whose family had long since kept their ways alive. The strega (Italian witch) folklore tells that Diana, goddess of the crescent moon, fertility, and the hunt, fell in love with her brother Lucifer and used witchcraft to seduce him into fathering to her a child, Aradia, or Herodius. Diana’s followers were the poor, wretched, crippled, and enslaved (to the Roman), as it was generally thought that only the wealthy deserved the Christian God. They believe that Diana heard the cry of the slaves and sent her daughter to earth (a female messiah) to teach witchcraft to these people so that they might overthrow their oppressors. This book agrees that witchcraft contains certain elements of folk satanism, as witchcraft can take on many incarnations, just one being anti-Christian. Aradia’s alternate name, for instance, is she who was thought, in the Holy Bible, to have ordered John the Baptist’s head severed and brought to her on a plate. But, modern occultists see even this as a memory of Lilith, the demon queen and Adam’s first wife in Jewish mythology. Adam and she were created equally, but Lilith was banished from The Garden of Eden when she refused to assume an “inferior” position in intercourse. God then created Eve from Adam. Doom would soon fall, though, as a serpent (a phallus symbol, thus Adam’s penis) tempted Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit (sex). They then knew the curse of mortality. But, Lilith, already escaping, did not suffer such a curse and was viewed as immortal. She is, today, sometimes venerated by feminists. Interestingly, serpents are seen as sacred creatures in witchcraft, as they bring knowledge; and apples are commonly used in love spells, all because of this very tale. Many occultists separate Lucifer (“light bearer”) from the Christian Devil. But in Italian folklore it cannot be denied that the two were one in the same, as the first passage of the book Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches, unedited, reads: Diana greatly loved her brother Lucifer, the god of the sun and the moon, the god of light, who was so proud of his beauty, and who for his pride was driven from Paradise. Still yet, in a piece of early Christian text, The Book of Enoch, it is told that a group of angels lusted after mortal women, and that by fathering children to them, they became bound to the earth. The children grew into giants (Middle Eastern fairies). This is the earliest appearance of the fall of angels from Heaven, and such being taught witchcraft to the people: Chapter 8:3 were led astray, and became corrupt in their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root cuttings, ‘Armarus the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal astrology, Kababel the constellations, Ezeqael the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to Heaven. Yet another incarnation of witchcraft is Wicca, a new religion which claims to be the resurrection of ancient, western European paganism; created by the 1940’s by Gerald B. Gardner. Wicca is a compilement of certain Eastern philosophies (Hinduism and Buddhism), Native American shamanism, pagan and witchcraft folklore, and certain de-Christianized, ceremonial practices. Wicca also draws from a man, Aleister Crowley, who was a self-respecting Satanist.