Gardner's claim on the term "Wica"

[MaddLlama]

I ran across this article today while randomly google searching. I know there's been a lot of discussion on what is and what isn't Wicca, and I thought this would be interesting to bring up.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/msg0017.htm

Quote:

Gardner also insisted that there were other Wiccans out there that he did not know about who had been practicing before he was initiated. He did this partially to promote the debatable claim that he was merely passing on an intact ancient religion. One consequence of this is that it left the door open for others to come forward and claim they were witches or Wiccans too from a common mythical ancestry and Gardner could not really insist they were wrong. Even if these other Wiccans practiced things differently, Gardner's "old laws" clearly made it acceptable for variety in the way covens and practitioners did things. He might not have intended to do so but Gardner's decisions regarding how to handle things in his own group had set the stage for Wicca to become much more than just his own teachings in his own groups.

The result of all this was that Gardner essentially gave away the right to exclusive ownership over the label Wicca for his groups and those directly descended from them. He might not have anticipated this possibility but in any case it is what happened. Many groups, sometimes with conflicting philosophies and ways of doing things, have come forward under the banner of Wicca. New groups have been created and old ones have splintered into other quite distinct groups. Autonomy was there so of course it was exercised!

Does the fact that Gardner was essentially lying when he claimed to have simply made public an unbroken religious tradition invalidate the idea that he gave up exclusive ownership of the word?  

[Starlock]

Wait a sec here...

Exclusive ownership? Aside from legally establishing trademarks and copyrights, how in the blazes do you have 'exclusive ownership' over any word in the English dictionary? Either there's something absurd going on here or the author of this quoted article actually meant something a tad different... confused  

[MaddLlama]

Starlock

Wait a sec here...

Exclusive ownership? Aside from legally establishing trademarks and copyrights, how in the blazes do you have 'exclusive ownership' over any word in the English dictionary? Either there's something absurd going on here or the author of this quoted article actually meant something a tad different... confused

It has to do with the term "Wicca" or "Wica" applying only to traditional Wicca as Gardner created it.  

[MaddLlama]

Aaaanybody? I'm interested in hearing other perspectives on this. smile  

[TeaDidikai]

ninja  

[MaddLlama]

TeaDidikai

ninja

pirate  

[TeaDidikai]

I think it is fair to say that the Wica are entitled to full claim on the term Wica.

I do not extend the double C spelling though. I think that was more of Cardell's baby.  

[MaddLlama]

Then, would it be unfair/incorrect to say that "Wicca" is a different entity from "Wica" as a religion?  

[TeaDidikai]

MaddLlama

Then, would it be unfair/incorrect to say that "Wicca" is a different entity from "Wica" as a religion?

Dafo and Doreen seemed to think so.  

[scorplett]

Gardner did tend to use Witch and Wica in seemingly interchangeable way's. That is not to say that they were actually being used interchangably. It is important to understand that he was using terminology that was relevant only to insiders, such as he was. Terminology that he was familiar with and his audience were not. Where a person is speaking of themselves it is still the case that initiates will simply refer to themselves as 'Witch' and especially amongst themselves. Wic(c)a is used when speaking formally and when speaking outside of the Wica. This can be seen to be the case even in Gardner's writings and in the interviews he gave.

There were a number of covens that were active working in way's that gardener believed to be the same as his through the 50's. There are correspondence letters between those groups and Gardner which provide some understanding of them. These he would have referred to as also being 'The Wica'.

From the correspondence he received following the publication of High Magic's Aid, there were some who wrote to him that, on a magical level, he identified with and others who he did not. This is were there may have come about confusion.

He did interact with other 'witchcults' and 'witches' after the publication of his book High Magic's Aid, however there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that these groups and individuals used the same terms that Gardner did although most would indeed have used the term Witch.

He did tend to use 'other witchcults' when referring to groups that were outside of his own and removed from his tradition or groups that were considered not of the Wica.

It can seem very conflicting and in certain ways it does seem that way. But if you look to even some of the public domain versions of the Book of Shadow's there are various points where other witchcults who are not of the Wica are discussed and of course there are many places in which those of the Wica are discussed.

As far as the second 'C' being used in the spelling, I think that is a matter of semantics. Cardell used a two c spelling when he publicized the Book of Shadows in 1965 which he got from Olwen. He was a friend and possibly even an initiate of Gardner's for some time before publishing either his article ‘The Craft of the Wiccens’ in the late 50's or the Book of Shadows i the 60's. I don't think the use of Wiccen can be said to be the source for the two 'c' although the two c spelling of Wicca as appeared in the pamphlet which published of chunks of the Book of Shadows may be. If that is the case then the publication which it appeared in which was denigrating Gardner, Valiente and all those who to that point are noted to have used 'wica' as their spelling, could be argued to be taken in the same way that most public nomenclature regarding Wic(c)a has been derived. If it is to be said that Wicca as a spelling can not be said to only refer to those with initiatory lineage to Gardner, then the names of Wiccan traditions would also be void as they came about by the very same means.