The wheel of the year turns; the Goddess and God turn with it.
The largest modern Pagan religion, publicized by Gerald Gardner in 1954: the divine as Goddess and Horned God, ritual in cast circles at the moon's phases and the year's eight festivals, and one widely shared law — an it harm none, do what ye will.
Why it is filed this way
Founded in England in the 1950s from folk material, ceremonial magic and its founder's own composition, and now carried by adherents in the third generation with initiatory lineages of their own. Filed as a tradition on that basis rather than as a new movement.
DeitiesThe Goddess and the Horned God; for many, all gods as faces of these two
Founded1954 CE · England
FounderGerald Gardner
AfterlifeReincarnation, with rest in the Summerland between lives
TextsThe Book of Shadows — each coven's own
The map
Wicca’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →
An it harm none, do what ye will.
The Rede: one line of ethics with a whole cosmology of consequence behind it — many add the threefold return.
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The divine is Goddess and God.
Polarity at the center: the Great Goddess of moon and earth, the Horned God of sun and wild — most Wiccans read all deities through these two.
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The circle is the temple.
No buildings needed: cast the circle, call the quarters, and any ground becomes sacred for exactly as long as the rite lasts.
held by most
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T
The Goddess.
Maiden, mother, crone — the moon's phases worn as faces; in the circle she is not discussed but drawn down.
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T
The Horned God.
Antlered lord of the wild and the harvest, who dies with the year and returns with it — the Goddess's consort in the wheel's long story.
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The sabbats.
Samhain to Mabon, the wheel's eight spokes: the circle cast, the season's story enacted, cakes and wine to close.
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