You hear the word Wiccan and you automatically think devil worship. Today's stigma on Wicca is completely wrong, today's stigma on Wicca is what gives us a bad name. I promise it's not devil worship, it's not turning a human into a frog or riding on a broomstick. It's not even close to that.

Wicca is defined as, the religious cult of modern witchcraft. You can be Wiccan and not practice witchcraft. You can be Wiccan and you can be Christian. It is OK. I promise. Wicca is a religion of the elements and of the earth herself. Wicca is an earth-bound religion. We celebrate the earth and her beauty.

We worship the God and the Goddess. Sometimes, there are Wiccans in our community that think of the God and the Goddess as concepts, not beings. There are people who believe that Earth is divine and should be reserved. There are other concepts that some people in our community believe in. Wiccan's do not believe in the devil.

This is important to know. We are not about devil worship. We do not believe in the devil. We believe there is no hell and that you just stay in the spirit world. Some of us believe you are reincarnated into a newborn. We believe in the three-fold law which states,

This is important to us. This reminds us not to cause harm, manipulate, dominate, or control another human being. We do our best to remember this every time we practice our magic.

I generally get asked a series of questions when people ask me what my religion is.

"What is that?"

"Do you worship the devil?"

"Tell me more about it."

"That's interesting, do you harm people?"

My all time favorite is:

"Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" I promise you, I am not from The Wizard of Oz.

I have even been told, while wearing my pentical (the five pointed star with a circle around it that is our symbol of protection, most people do associate it with our religion), that I need to get myself a Star of David instead of a pentagram. I laughed at the lady.

There is white magic and there is dark magic. Most witches you come in contact with will practice white magic. There are some who practice dark magic and those people are not people you want to be friends with. Dark magic (black magic) is used for selfish purposes or harming people. White magic is used for unselfish purposes and worshiping the earth. Some witches and wizards practice magic in a coven or by themselves.

We are misunderstood people. We get mistaken for evil. There are still people who want to harm us. We keep our religion hidden for fear of being cast away. We do not openly show our religion.

I am Wiccan. I practice white magic. I started reading about Wicca after my dad died. I ended up turning to it to help me cope with my dad's death. In all honesty, Wicca saved me from myself, sort of. I became very mad at God for my dad's death and I decided I wasn't going to follow the Christian faith anymore. I had lost my dad, my great grandmother and my aunt Bernadette in a matter of two weeks. Wicca spoke to me clearer than anything. It was my savior. I officially started practicing magic in seventh grade and found my coven in ninth grade. I've been Wiccan ever since and I am forever proud.