Wiccan/Pagan Glossary

A

• Akasha: The fifth element, the omnipresent spiritual power that permeates the universe. It is the energy out of which the elements formed.
  
  
• Amulet: A magically charged object which deflect specific, usually negative energies.
  
  
• Asperger: A bundle of fresh herbs or a perforated object used to sprinkle water during or preceding ritual, for purificatory purposes.
  
  
• Athame: a Wiccan ritual knife. It usually has a double-edged blade and black handle. The athame is used to direct personal power during ritual workings. It is seldom (if ever) used for actual, physical cutting.
  

  B

• Balefire: A fire lit for magical purposes, usually outdoors. Balefires are traditional on Yule, Beltane, and Midsummer.
  
  
• Bane: That which destroys life, which is poisonous, destructive, evil, dangerous.
  
  
• Besom: Broom.
  
  
• Blessing: The act of conferring positive energy upon a person, place, or ting. It's a spiritual or religious practice.
  
  
• Bolline: The white-handled knife, used in magic and Wiccan ritual for practical purposes such as cutting herbs.
  
  
• Book of Shadows: A Wiccan book of rituals, spells, and magical lore.
  

  C

• Censer: A heat-proof container in which incense is smoldered. An incense burner. It symbolized the element of Air.
  
  
• Charge, to: To infuse an object with personal power.
  
  
• Circle Casting: The process f moving positive energy from the body and orming it into a large, non-physical sphere of power in which Wiccan rituals usually occur. Circle castings usually begin each Wiccan ritual. The process is also known as "laying the Circle" and "creating sacred space", among other terms.
  
  
• Consecration: The act of conferring sanctity. In Wicca, tools used in religious and magical rites are consecrated with energy during specific rituals.
  
  
• Coven: A group of Wiccans, usually initiatory and led by one or two leaders.
  
  
• Conscious Mind: The analytical, materially-based, rational half of our consciousness.
  
  
• Craft, the: Wicca, witchcraft. Folk magic.
  

  D

• Deosil: Clockwise, the direction of the Sun’s apparent motion in the sky. Symbolic of life, positive energies, good.
  
  
• Divination: The magical art of discovering the unknown by interpreting random patterns or symbols through the use of tools such as clouds, tarot cards, flames, smoke.
  
  
• Divine Power: The unmanifested, pure energy that exists within the Goddess and God. The life force, the ultimate source of all things.
  

  E

• Earth Power: That energy which exists within stones, herbs, flames, wind, and other natural objects. It is manifested DIVINE POWER and can be utilized during magic to create needed change.
  
  
• Elements, the: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. These four essences are the building blocks of the universe. Everything that exists contains one or more of these energies. They can be utilized to cause change through magic. The four elements formed from the primal essence or power–akasha.
  
  
• Energy: A general term for the currently unmeasurable power that exists within all natural objects and beings--including our own bodies. It is used in folk magic.
  
  
• Esbat: A Wiccan ritual, usually occurring on the Full Moon.
  
  
• Evocation: Calling up spirits or other non-physical entities, either to visible appearance or invisible attendance.
  

  G

• Grimoire: A magical workbook containing ritual information, formulae, magical properties of natural objects and preparation of ritual equipment.
  

  H

• Handfasting: A Wiccan, Pagan, or Gypsy wedding.
  

  I

• Invocation: An appeal or petition to a higher power, such as the Goddess and God. A prayer.
  

  L

• Labrys: A double-headed axe which symbolized the Goddess in ancient Crete, still used by some Wiccans for this same purpose. The labrys may be placed on or leaned against the left side of the altar.
  
  
• Law of Three, the: A Wiccan belief that our actions, both positive and negative, will be returned to us three-fold.
  

  M

• Magic: The movement of natural energies to create needed change. Energy exists within all things. Magic is the process of rousing or building up this energy, giving it purpose, and releasing it. Magic is a natural practice.
  
  
• Magic Circle, the: A sphere constructed of PERSONAL POWER in which Wiccan rituals are usually enacted. The term refers to the circle that marks the sphere’s penetration of the ground, for it extends both above and below. It is created through visualization and magic.
  
  
• Meditation: Reflection, contemplation, turning inward toward the self or outward toward Deity or nature. A quiet time in which the practitioner may dwell upon particular thoughts or symbols, or allow them to come unbidden.
  
  
• Megalith: A huge stone monument or structure. Stonehenge is perhaps the best-known example of megalithic construction.
  

  N

• Neo-Pagan: Literally, new-Pagan. A member, follower or sympathizer of one of the newly formed Pagan religions now spreading throughout the world. All Wiccans are pagan, but not all Pagans are Wiccan.
  

  P

• Pagan: From the Latin paganus, country-dweller. Today used as a general term for followers of Wiccan and other magical, shamanistic and polytheistic religions.
  
  
• Pentacle: A ritual object upon which a five-pointed star (pentagram) is inscribed.
  
  
• Pentagram: An interlaced five-pointed star (one point is at the top) that has long been used s a protective device. Today the pentagram is also associated with the element of Earth and with Wicca. It has no evil associations.
  
  
• Personal Power: That energy which sustains our bodies. It ultimately originates frm the Goddess and God (or rather, the power behind Them). We release personal power during stress, exercise, sex, conception, and childbirth. Magic is often a movement of personal power for a specific goal.
  
  
• Polarity: The concept f equal, opposite energies. The Eastern yin/yang is a perfect example. Other examples of polarity: Goddess/God, Moon/Sun, birth/death. Universal balance.
  
  
• Projective Hand, the: The hand that is normally used for manual activities such as writing, peeling apples, and dialing telephones is symbolically thought to be the point at which personal power is sent from the body. In ritual, personal ower is visualized as streaming out from the palm or fingers of the hand for various magical goals. This is also the hand in which tools such as the athame and wand are hel. Amidextrous persons simply choose which hand to utilize for this purpose.
  
  
• Psychic Mind: The subconscious or unconscious mind, in which we recieve psychic impulses. The psychic mind is at ork when we slep, dream, and meditate.
  
  
• Psychism: The act of being consciously psychic, in which the psychich mind and conscious mind are linked and working in harmony.
  

  R

• Receptive Hand: The left hand in right-handed persons, the reverse for left-handed persons. This is the hand through whic energy is received into the body.
  
  
• Reincarnation: The doctrine of rebirth. The process of repeated incarnaions in human form to allow evolution of hte sexless, ageless soul.
  
  
• Ritual: Ceremony. A specifc form of movement, manipulation of objects or inner processes designed to produce desired effects. In religion, riual is geared toward union with the divine. In magic it produces a specific state of consciousness which allows the magician to move energy toward needed goals. A spell is a magical ritual.
  
  
• Runes: Stick-like figures, some of which are emnants of old Teutonic alphabets. Others are pictographs. These symbols are once again widely being used in magic and divination.
  

  S

• Sabbat: A Wiccan festival.
  
  
• Scry, to: The process of gazing at or into a shiny object, flame, or water for the purposes of contacting the psychic mind. A form of divination.
  
  
• Shaman: A man or woman who has obtained knowledge of the subtler dimensions of te Earth, usually through periods of alternate states of conciousness. Various types of ritual allow the shaman to pierce the veil of the physical world and the experience the realm of energies. This knowledge lends the shaman the power to change her or his world through magic.
  
  
• Shamanism: The practice of shamans, usually ritualistic or magical in nature, sometimes religious.
  
  
• Spell: A magical ritual, usually non-religious in nature and often accompanied by spoken words.
  
  
• Spirits of the Stones, The: The elemental energies naturally inherent at te four directions of the Magic Circle, personified within the Standing Stones tradition as the "Spirits of the Stones." They are linked with the elements.
  

  T

• Talisman: An object, such as am amethyst crystal, ritually charged with power to attract a specific force or energy to its bearer.
  

  V

• Visualization: The process of forming mental images. Magical visualization consists of forming images of needed goals during ritual. Visualization is also used to direct personal power and natural energies during magic for various purposes, including charging and forming the Magic Circle. It is a function of the conscious mind.
  

  W

• White-Handled Knife: A normal cutting knife, with a sharp blade and white hanle. It is used within Wicca to cut herbs and fruits, to slice bread during the Simple Feast and for other functions--but never for sacrifice. Sometimes called the bolline.
  
  
• Wicca: A contemporary Pagan religion with spiritual roots in Shamanism and the earliest expressions of reverence of nature. Among its major motifs are: reverence for the Goddess and God; reincarnation; magic; ritual obervances of the Full Moon, astronomical and agricultural phenomena; spheroid temples, created with personal power, in which rituals occur.
  
  
• Widdershins: Anti-clockwise motion, usually used in the Northern Hemisphere for negative magical purposes or for ispersing negative energies or conditions such as disease. Widdershins and deosil motions are symbolic; only strict, close-minded traditionalists believe that accidentally walking around the altar backwards, for instance, will raise negativity. Their use in Wicca stems from ancient European rituals practiced by peoples who watched and reverenced the Sun and Moon in their daily revolutions. Widdershins motion within the ritual context, is still shunned by the vast majority of Wiccans, though others use it once in a while, for instance, to disperse the Magic Circle at the end of a rite.
  
  
• Witch: Anciently, a European practitioner of the remnants of pre-Christian folk magic, particularly that relating to herbs, healing, wells, rivers, and stones. One who practiced witchcraft. Later, this term's meaning was deliberately altered to denote demented, dangerous, supernatural beings who practiced destructive magic and who threatened Chrisianity. This change was a political, monetary, and sexist move on the part of organized religion, not a change in the practices of Witches. this later, erroneous meaning is still accepted by many non-Witches. It is also, somewhat surprisingly, used by some members of Wicca to descibe themselves.
  
  
• Witchcraft: The craft of the witch--magic, especially magic personal power in conjunction with the energies within stones, herbs, colors, and other natural objects. While this may have spiritual overtones, Witchcraft, using this definition, isn't a religion. However, some followers of Wicca use this word to denote their religion.