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by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com

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WAER LOGGA-- (Old English) One who breaks a covenant. See Warlock.

WALPURGIS NIGHT-- See Beltane.

WAND-- A Wiccan Tool and symbol of air and the Horned God. A wooden stick, generally phallic shaped, that is a symbol of air and is used as a low-power or subtle Athame (I can't tell you when it is to be used in place of the Athame, but it is VERY important and dangerous if they are used wrongly). Many Eclectic Witches prefer the Wand (despite the Phallic symbolism) to the Athame. The Wand should be one ell long. Some Witches will establish extremely complex rules about the care and making of the wand, others will simply buy a piece of dowel from a hobby store.
Because of the Golden Dawn misinformation campaign as represented in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, far too many modern Witches believe that the Wand represents fire and will invent almost any implossable explanation to prove this.

WANING-- The cycle where the year or day or month is growing shorter such as the year from the Summer Solstice to the Winter Solstice. This is a time of introspection, rest, and gathering within your rewards of your actions.

WANING MOON-- The phase of the Moon as She travels from Full to New. In magick, it is a time of destructive spells like cursing to death a cancer tumor or selling my car.

WANNA-BE-- A person who pretends to be a wiccan or Witch after reading a few books on the subject but has no clear idea of exactly what Wicca is and so mixes Wicca, paganism, psudo-Native American and new age into one incompatable hodge- podge. The wanna-be is one step above the insta-witch.

WARD-- 1) To protect with magick.
2) (Gardnerian) A guarded place or a person who guards a place.

WARLOCK-- (Saxon) 1) A traitor, a Witch who betrays the Craft, the Gods or another Witch to the christians. The worst insult one Witch can give another. Xians call a male Witch a warlock which is, as usual, incorrect.
The word comes from the Old English 'waer logga' which means literally a covenant breaker. It may be derived from the Icelandic vardlokkr which refers to a person who can summon spirits.
2) An oath breaker. A Witch who violates their oaths to the Gods.
3) (xian) A male witch. Some pagans accept and use this term, most do not.
4) (Gardnerian) To bind. To properly prepare as by warricking. This definition is rarely used now.

WATCHER-- A familiar or Mighty One.

WATCHTOWER-- A symbolic representation of the Four Quarters, the entrance to their respective realms, the Guardians or the abode of the elemental rulers.

WATER-- One of the basic elements. It is liquid, and is related to the west.

WAX DOLLS-- A poppet made of wax or parrafin to be used as an object link tothe target of a spell.

WAXING MOON-- The phase of the Moon as She travels from New to Full. In macick this is a time of constructive magick like healing a broken bone or attracting a buyer for my car.

WHEEL-- In Wicca, a symbol of the Eight Sabbats and the Eight Paths to power.

WHEEL OF THE YEAR-- One full year generally marked by the seasons or the Sabbats. Called the Wheel because the cycle is never ending and always repeats itself.

WHITE-HANDLED KNIFE-- One of the lesser Tools in magick and witchcraft. It is a knife which is used to make other tools or to do any cutting or carving in a ritual or spell. As a result, it must have a strong handle and sharp blade which should be short. It has a white handle to differentiate it from the Athame and to show that it's use is utilitarian and not magickal. Traditionals use it only in the Circle. See Kirfane.

WHITE MAGICK-- An obsolete term used mainly by christians to denote magick that is negative in design and used for ill ends .

WICCA-- (Saxon) 1) A Witch.
2) The religion of Witchcraft .
3) (Traditional) Any follower of the Witch religion who has not been Initiated as a priest/ess.

WICCAN-- To a Traditional Witch, any one who follows the Religion of Wicca. All Witches are Wiccans but not all Wiccans are Witches. See Wicca and Witch.

WICCAN REDE-- The major moral law of the Wiccan religion. It goes:

WICCANING-- A baptism of a Wiccan child where the child is presented to the God and Goddess for Their blessings and where the Witches in attendance give to the child a gift (generally with a spell to make it come true) such as the gift of beauty or laughter or wisdom. The three fairies in the story Sleeping Beauty were originally Witches performing a Wiccaning on Beauty.

WICKER MAN-- 1) According to a couple of Roman writers (Tacitus and Caesar) the Druids performed human sacrifies by placing people in giant wicker cages formed in human shape and then set them afire, allowing the victims to roast slowly as a sacrifice to the Gods.
Tacitus was a Roman who thought that anything non-Roman was bad and Caesar needed an excuse to invade and conquer the Celtic Lands of Gaul and Britain. Thus by using stories of barbaric human sacrifice (unlike the Romans who performed civilized human sacrifice) he was able to convince the Empire to allow him to devide Gaul into three parts with the Gladius (a short sword of wicked and effective use. My personal weapon/tool of choice that I carry with me whenever I hike. After all, as a Celt/Irishman/Witch, you never know when you may need to climb a cliff, cut a log or kill a saxon).
I have been able to find no archaeological evidence to show that anything like the 'wicker man sacrifice' ever existed. And Archaeologists are so thorough that they can identify the type of flowers placed in a grave 20,000 years ago by the remains of a few specks of pollen.
2) A popular by Anthony Shaffer movie starring:Edward Woodward, Britt Eckland and Christopher Lee. The plot revolves a missing girl on an island where the pagan religion holds sway and the attempts of a British policeman to find her. Although the ending leaves much to be desired, every Witch I know loves the film. It currently exists in three lengths, 84 minutes, 97 minutes and 127 minutes.

WIDDERSHINS, WIDDER-SHINS-- In a Wiccan Circle, to move in an anti- clockwise direction. Also withershins.

WIGLIAN-- (Saxon) Divining by the Moon.

WILD HUNT-- (Wicca) At Samhain, the Horned God travels the land searching for the souls of the recent dead. As this is a time between the worlds and outside of time, He sometimes gets carried away and neglects to differentiate between the living and dead souls. Thus, when you hear Him blow His horn and the baying of His hounds, it is best to take precautions against an accident. Some Witches reenact the Wild Hunt in the Winter as a Divine Play to remember our ties to the Gods.

WILLENDORF VENUS-- One of the oldest Goddess images found. She was carved in Central Europe about 32,000 years ago.

WILLIAM PENN-- See Penn, William.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR-- (11th century) (xian) During his life he was called 'William the Bastard' but his most important event was the conquest of England in 1066. William's father took William into a temple to the Horned God and made him swear loyalty in return for help in taking England. William did this willingly but his father realized that his christian son would not keep a vow made in a Pagan temple so also took him into a church and made him repeat his vows to his own god.
In return for this vow, the Witches of England assisted William with magick and information to take England from the hated Saxons.

WINTER SOLSTICE-- See Yule

WISE WOMAN or WISE MAN-- The village healer.

WITCH-- 1) One who follows the Old Religion, that of the worship of the Horned God, the Mother Goddess, believes in reincarnation and celebrates nature through the Eight Sabbats. It is also called: The Old Religion, Wicca, Witchcraft.
In Traditional Wicca, only a Wiccan who has been properly Initiated into the Priest/esshood can be called a Witch, prior to that time, they are called Wiccans. See Wicca.
2) (Anthropology) Any of a menber of a less technical people who practices any form of magick or psychics. Anthropologists tend to combine the Siberian Shaman, the African 'Witch Doctor', the Voo-Doun Hungan, the American Indian 'Medicine Man' and such with the modern European Wicce under this term despite the profound religious and philosophical differences.
3) (law enforcement) Sometimes it appears that to the avarage cop be it city police or FBI, anyone who has ever looked at a tarot deck or read an astrology column is classified as a witch. This is born out by many incidents of a good christian who attends church services regularly and wears a cross with a bible prominatly displayed and read going crazy and killing someone because "god told me to do it". The local cop then sees that the person owned a tarot deck and imediately reports that the suspect was into witchcraft and satanism.

WITCH BALLS-- Spheres of colored glass (usually fishing floats found on shore) that are used as amulets or speculums..

WITCH BOTTLE-- A small bottle filled with broken glass, bent nails and other damaged bits of material which can cut and pierce. They are a protective spell which is often sealed into the walls of a house or buried under the poarch or hearth to absorb evil. If s curse is suspected, they will also be filled with urine and destroyed in a specific manner to reverse the curse. The proper term for them is bellarmie jar.

WITCH KING-- In Gardnerian Wicca, the consort and working partner of a Witch Queen.
It is a purely honorary title and is retained only as long as that man works with the Queen. Some Traditions, however, treat the Witch King as a separate entity with all the respect of the Witch Queen. See Magus.

WITCH QUEEN-- A term of reverence to denote a High Priestess who has Initiated people who have been Elevated to the Third Degree and have branched off from their original Coven to form Covens of their Own. Generally, as Traditional Witches take years to work themselves from Prospect to Third Degree High Priest/ess, it is clear that few Witch Queens will be young. In many Traditional Covens, if you see a Witch Queen below middle age, and/or with a number of buckles on her Garter, it may mean that she is somewhat lax in her training and Elevations.

WITCHCRAFT-- The religion of Wicca. The art and practice of magick in a Wiccan religious context.

WITCHING HOUR-- Midnight or the time exactly halfway between sunset and sunrise which varies according to the season. Witches believe that it is a time of the greatest power that can be tapped to do magick. To find the exact time requires a bit of mathematical calculations and a good newspaper with a weather sextion.

WITHERSHINS-- See widdershins.

WITHOUT TORTURE-- A term used by the xian inquisitors to indicate that the confession of the 'witch' was given freely and willingly.
In reality, 'without toture' meant that they didn't break any bones or cut off any important limbs. The use of the Bodkin was not considered to be a part of torture, neither was Dunking, slapping, preventing sleep, yelling, pinching, rape, burning off the hair and so on.
If you examine current police practices, a modern interrogation sounds a lot like this with the supposedly innocent suspect being imprisoned with no hope of release while they are kept awake for up to 72 hours without sleep, being yelled at, insulted, lied to and even physically abused until they confess to a crime they didn't commit. And as they have not yet been charged, they cannot go home or call an attorney or family member who knows only that their loved one has vanished. It is known that at least nine innocent people have been executed in America based on a confession 'freely given' under these conditions.

WIZARD-- A male magickian who does simple magick comparable to Witchcraft's Low to Middle Magick, but Wizards do it without the religion.. Compare to Sorcerer, Sorceress.

WIZARDESS-- The supposed feminine form of Wizard, except there is no such word. A Female wizard is called a Sorceress. Modern politically correct people tend to invent 'feminine' words out of epicine terms to differentiate between genders in certain fields, thus mucking up the language and making things harder for those of us who are faced with learning a new and awkward term or looking like male chauvinist pigs. Consider the terms: wizardess, authoress, murderess. Don't those look stupid? Some words can be devided into Masculine and Feminine ( male-female, sorcerer- sorceress, priest-priestess, chairman-chairwoman, stallion-mare, etc), some can easily and properly be made neuter in gender (police officer, mail carrier, etc) and others are simply epicine in nature (Witch, writer, equistrian, etc).

WORDS OF POWER-- Those names of divinities that when spoken properly, can cause a change to occur in the fabric of reality.

WORK-- A term meaning any magickal operation done by a Witch or Coven.

WORKING PARTNERS-- In Traditional Wicca, a male and a female Witch who worship and practice magick together for the purpose of sharing polarity and therefore become greater than either alone. There is a trend to allowing male-male or female-female working partners simply because gays are doing it and no ne can give a real good reason for them to stop which anyone will obey.

WORKSHOPS-- A short, intensive class in a subject designed to teach the basics of a subject. Generally they are a hands-on class where you learn by doing and hopefully, to encourage you to study further.

WORT-- Any plant or herb. A wortcunner is an Herbalist.

WORTCUNNING-- The use of herbs in magick.

WRATH-- A thoughtform .

WYRD-- A saxon word that is pronounced 'word'. It means Fate, fortune, or luck. It is similar to the Three Fates of Greek Mythology. The three 'witches' in Macbeth were originally the Wyrd. Also wierde.
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To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717

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