Hexagram Gematria - This is a series of short essays about the six-pointed star and what it means in the Wiccan religion. It also looks at the 666 symbolism.
Wiccan Yule - Here are several ceremonies and an essay about Wiccan Yule. If you'd like to contribute one, you may feel free to email to me to share..
Wiccan Wedding - This is one of many ceremonies we have for Wiccan hand-fasting ceremonies. We add to these regularly.
Witchcraft - This is an article discussing the differences between 'witchcraft' and that which is performed by Wiccan.
Wiccan Glossary - This is a glossery of Wiccan terms for those not familiar. If you have any you'd like to add or things you'd like to see added to these definitions, please feel free to email me at amy@ulcseminary.org
Wiccanning an Infant - This is one of many ceremonies that we have for Wiccanning an infant. Wicanning is a form of baptism or naming ceremony. Please feel free to share one of your ceremonies if you'd like.
Welcome to the Wiccan Training Pages. In this section, you will find several areas of interest to those who follow the Wiccan Path. Please look through these areas of training and see if any of them interest you. We will be updating these areas as appropriate. If you have any information you think would be appropriate for this section, please send them to amy@ulcseminary.org and make mention that you'd like to have it posted. We appreciate all input from our ministers.
The HexagramThese short essays were contributed by Rev. Dr. Kheti A. Sahure The Hexagram is a magickal geometric shape (hexagon) made up of a 6-pointed star; it is also known as or called the "Star of David". There are two overlapping (some interlocking) triangles, one up and one down. The upward-pointing triangle represents man and the downward-pointing triangle represents woman, thus representing the spiritual balance between masculine and feminine. The upward triangle corresponds with fire and the downward corresponds with water. A hexagram with a circle around it is known as the "Star of Solomon" or the "Seal of Solomon" (when used in ritual magick).
Gematria, Theomatics & Isopsephy
A Brief Gematria of 616 and 666
Gematria is the study of the numeric equivalents and relationships (Numerology) of the Hebrew language and Hebrew alphabet (and Greek) along with their spiritual associations. There are no numeric characters in Hebrew, just alpha characters; when someone wants to write a number, he or she would use the corresponding Hebrew letter associated with that number.
The Gematria of the number 616 equals (6+1+6 = 13 = 1+3 = 4) 4 and representative of the number and (spiritual) symbolic for Creation. This also relates to the pentagram along with the four quarters/corners/elementals of the Earth being North (earth, autumn), East (air, spring), South (fire, summer), and West (water, winter) and their correspondences. The alpha associations of 4 are the letters D, Delta (Greek, D), and Daleth (Hebrew, D). As for the number 666 = 9 and is the symbolic for Judgment. The alpha associations of 9 are the letters Th and T, Theta (Greek, Th), and Teth (Hebrew, T).
Moreover, there are the biblical associations between the Hebrew and Greek bibles and the many versions of the Old and New Testaments; for example, the “Book of Revelation” (a.k.a. “The Apocalypse of John”) generally considered to have been written by John the Apostle; Christians identify 666 as the mark of the Antichrist or the Beast and refer to the number 616 to be the Ancient Roman Emperor Caligula. From here, one can examine and analyze the information about the recent discovery of the fragment from the "oldest New Testament manuscript" found to allude in Revelation 13:18 that the number of the beast is supposedly 616 instead of 666.
In closing, there are the theomatic and isopsephic approaches that can be examined as well; according to the Wikipedia.com definitions: “Isopsephy (iso meaning ‘equal’ and psephos meaning ‘pebble’) is the Greek word for the practice of adding up the number values of the letters in a word to form a single number. The early Greeks used pebbles arranged in patterns to learn arithmetic and geometry. A Latin word for ‘pebbles’ is ‘calculi’, the origin of the word ‘calculate.’1 Theomatics is a numerological study of the Greek and Hebrew text of the Christian Bible, based upon gematria and isopsephy, that its proponents assert demonstrates the direct intervention of God in the writing of Christian scripture. It was invented by Del Washburn in 1975, who coined the name ‘theomatics’ as a combination of ‘Θεός’ (‘God’) and ‘mathematics’, and wrote several books and web sites espousing the hypothesis.2”
□ Rev. Dr. K.A. Sahure
1 "Isopsephy." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 21 Mar 2006, 14:50 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 Jun 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Isopsephy&oldid=44818551.
2 "Theomatics." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 14 Jun 2006, 03:22 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 25 Jun 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theomatics&oldid=58515903.
Q: What do Wiccans believe? A: While there is much variation, certain core beliefs are common to most Wiccans:
Belief in the God and the Goddess, the Law of Return (sometimes called the Three-Fold Law), the Wiccan Rede, and Magic. Most would also recognize the Circle, the Book of Shadows, the Pentagram, the Elements, the Wheel of the Year, and certain working tools such as the Athame, the Cauldron, etc.
In general Wiccans share a sense of personal connection to the divine life source, which is open to contact through "psychic power," mysticism, or "natural magic."
Wicca is very welcoming of women, but Wiccans are not exclusively female. Male Wiccans and Witches are called Wiccans and Witches, not Warlocks.
There are no universal Wiccan proscriptions regarding food, sex, burial, or military service.
Wiccans, as a rule, discourage proselytization.
Q: Do Wiccans believe in Jesus? A: Wiccans do not believe in Jesus as Savior since they do not believe that anyone is in need of saving in the Christian sense. The material world is not evil, sex is not shameful, and human actions are not judged by a god with the intent to categorize us for an afterlife, nor are we held accountable for the actions of our ancestors (as in belief in Original Sin).
Q: Can I be a Christian Wiccan? A: The Christian God claims ownership of the One True Way. To worship Him on another path in conjunction with the Goddess (as is the practice of Wicca) is not to worship Him but to disrespect Him and His teaching. While it is perfectly acceptable to choose the god(s) most suited to you, it is inadvisable to incorporate any monotheistic god into a polytheistic practice.
Q: How can Wiccans be ethical or even well-behaved if they don't follow God's laws and obey the Ten Commandments? A: Most non-Christians find this common query offensive. The notion that Christians have a corner on ethics and morality, and that no one can attain either without being pushed to it by the Christian God, is arrogant as well as ignorant. It suggests that Buddhists, Taoists, Confucians, Hindus, and all others who do not follow the Judeo-Christian God are unethical, immoral, and ill-behaved, which I think anyone of intelligence, given a moment's reflection, will surely realize is false. There are many, many non-Christians who behave well in all respects without knowledge of or concern for the Christian God's laws and Commandments.
However, in this case the intent of the question is to know how to regard Wiccan ethics and behavior, and although there is no legalistic codification of behavior for Wiccans, the Rede and the Law of Returns (or the Three-Fold Law) are usually given in response to this query.
For more information, see The Evolution of Wiccan Ethics.
Q: What are the Wiccan Rede and the Law of Returns or the Three-Fold Law? A: The Rede is a long poem attributed to Adriana Porter, but most people who mention it mean only the last eight words, which are most commonly quoted, "An it harm none, do as ye will." While this sounds, superficially, like carte blanche, the common practice of shortening it to "Harm none" gives some indication of how stringently it is generally interpreted. "None" is taken to include the doer, and "harm" is interpreted to include interference, impairment, or other disservice as well as direct physical, emotional, or psychic harm.
The Law of Return is the belief that any action will return like action in this life. This is not karma, not retribution in a future life. The return is in this life, here and now. Some believe the return is three-fold, hence the "Three-Fold Law." The Law is often repeated in a rhyme such as, "Heed and beware the Rule of Three: / Three times thy acts return to thee / This lesson thou must learn and mind / What ye put out returns in kind." Or more succinctly: "Any thought or deed you do, three-fold will return to you."
Some Wiccans regard the Law of Return as bunk and nonsense, a silly refashioning of Indian karma, while others believe in it implicitly. I say if it helps remind people to behave decently, there's no harm in it, at least in the simple "return" form, though I admit the threefold version is tough to swallow.
