All Wicca is Eclectic, a word which Webster's New
World Dictionary defines as meaning, "Selected or selecting from various
sources." Some "Trads" claim not to be eclectic at all, citing unbroken
lineages and untainted family traditions, or "Fam-Trads," dating back to
the Stone Age, but I doubt anyone, except the members of said Trads, themselves,
of course, takes such claims very seriously anymore. That is not
to say one should not take the individuals involved in such Trads seriously,
or that the Wicca they practice is somehow lessor than the Wicca outlined
in these pages. As author Kaatryn MacMorgan, Priestess of the Church
of Universal Eclectic Wicca, phrased it in the title of her top-notch book
on the subject, we are, indeed, All One Wicca.
The real question of eclecticism in Wicca is less
one of if, than it is of when. "Non-eclectic" Trad practitioners
surelly hold as fast as they can to the exact structure, rules, rituals
and beliefs handed down to them by their nearest known ancestors – but
what about their ancestors? And theirs, and theirs...? Somewhere
down the line, somebody, somewhere, gathered a disparate body of know-ledge
together, worked it into a coherent system of belief, and began the "Tradition"
of initiating new members into that system. That person, the one
who initially "rediscovered and reconstruct-ed" (or flat-out constructed)
the Tradition, who decided what information from family, village, cultural,
mythological or other source materials available would be accepted and
passed on, or to reject for being too "out there" or for contradicting
the compiling individual's personal beliefs or morals, and who filled in
the gaps in that material with bits and pieces of the "unproven but reasonable"
beliefs or writings of others was doing exactly what the average Wiccan
Solitary practitioner does every day right here and now in the 21st Century
– building a living tradition out of the best fragmentary source materials
available, and beginning the arduous task of refining it all into a workable
system through trial and error experience. Now that's eclectic!
It doesn't matter whether the act of "selecting from various sources" occurred
in 1660, 1960 or 266017, it's still eclectic, there's just no escape from
that reality. All Wicca must be eclectic because it is a religion
that is by nature both Gnostic and scientific – it is never enough for
a Wiccan to accept statements about the nature of reality "on faith," and
stop there, as is the rule in many non-Wiccan religions. The Wiccan
practitioner, before accepting any belief, practice, code of conduct etc.,
must personally experience those concepts to hold true or be of value in
reality. What does not work, what does not prove to be true in experience,
must rightly be jettisoned, and a new theory taken on to replace the one
disproved, itself to be put to the same rigorous test. This style
of eclecticism – which bears a striking resemblence to the scientific method,
and is, in fact, western physical science's true spiritual counter-part
– and the constant personal change and growth it engenders, is indicative
of Wicca and any other truly living religious tradition. By this
definition, I would go so far as to say that any religion which is not
eclectic, whose beliefs are "set in stone" by encasement in unchanging
and unchallengeable books of revelation – the "Holy Books" that define
and confine so many of our present world religions – are dead things, mere
caricatures of the living religions they might have been had their followers
been more experiment-ally courageous.
True eclectisism is neither a belief system in
its own right nor a sign of failure or refusal to commit to any one socially-sanctioned
version of "religious truth." Conscious eclecticism, when securely
coupled with intentionally-developed intelligence, intuition and will,
transcends belief altogether, becoming a reliable "hands-on" method for
sampling, testing and verifying reality, in both its visible and its unseen
dimen-sions.
The task of every Wiccan is to evolve past the
limitations imposed by mere "belief," toward real, personal union with
the Great Cosmic Goddess. A playful attitude of conscious eclectisim
in relation to all beliefs is a primary tool by which we are enabled to
accomplish this great work.