[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Was New Age/Wicca (among other things) really around when you were a kid?

Wicca is a modern form of the pagan nature religions of northern Europe. The beliefs called New Age originate in the Theosophy and Spiritualist movements of the Victorian period.

[AnAmericanMother]

To be more accurate, Wicca WISHES that it was "a modern form of the pagan nature religions of northern Europe."

It was invented out of whole cloth by a dude named Gardner, who just wanted to meet chicks.

Naturally, like everybody in England does, he claimed an ancient origin for his new religion, asserting that it had been passed down in secret from Ye Olde Tymes. But there's absolutely no support for that proposition, and if you do a little textual analysis it's clear that he picked up a mish-mash of his predecessors Stukely, Williams, Price, and Crowley.

It's just not possible for anyone with a solid historical education to take Wicca seriously. (That's not to say that they don't get in trouble messing with things they don't understand . . . )

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Wicca is a modern form of the pagan nature religions of northern Europe. The beliefs called New Age originate in the Theosophy and Spiritualist movements of the Victorian period.

Aleister Crowley loved them both... Are we to assume that the only "good" witches in the world were European witches?

Can you guess my source for the follwing???

Controversy over the origin of the word witch is valid when one considers the etymology of the term in other languages: venifica (Latin), hexe (German), streghe (Italian), etc. Only in it's English form has the word assumed a benign origin: wicca, purportedly meaning "wise."

Any debate must center on recent claims that advance a positive and socially acceptable meaning for a term that has in all ages and most languages meant "poisoner," "frightener," "enchanter," "spell-caster," or "evil woman."

Anthropologists have shown that even in primitive societies, notably the Azande, the definition of witch carries malevolent connotations. Therefore, are we to assume that the only "good" witches in the world were English witches? This, however, becomes difficult to accept when one considers the term wizard, which stems from the Middle English wysard = wise, versus the Old English wican = to bend, from whence witch is supposedly derived. All in all, it seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to legitimize a word that probably originated by onomatopoeia - the formation of a word that sounds like what it is intended to mean!

[lepton]

Wicca is a modern form of the pagan nature religions of northern Europe. The beliefs called New Age originate in the Theosophy and Spiritualist movements of the Victorian period.

More or less agreed, but they were much less prominent 40-50 years ago than they are now.