Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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No ordination; authority rests on learning or on the whole body

This page groups denominations by how they recognize a member as a minister. Wikipedia notes that Jehovah's Witnesses "consider an adherent's qualified baptism to constitute his ordination as a minister," a markedly different practice from a seminary-trained clergy. Browsing this way lets a visitor compare how differently denominations of the same religion set someone apart for ministry.

Facts
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
The traditions of Wicca, differing over initiation and lineage, over degrees of structure, over coven practice against solitary practice, and over the balance struck between the God and the Goddess. The initiatory lineages descend by traceable initiation; the eclectic and solitary forms do not, and the distinction is the movement's own. 2
Attestation
Era of Attestation
First attested in the 1950s: no Wiccan tradition is documented before the publication of Witchcraft Today in 1954, and every lineage grouped here descends from that beginning or reacts to it. 2
Directory
Category
Denominations 1
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The traditions of Wicca

This group gathers the traditions of Wicca, a modern Pagan witchcraft religion that emerged in mid-twentieth-century England, chiefly through the writings of Gerald Gardner, and has since diversified widely. Wicca is a new religious movement; the atlas presents it as such, distinct from the historical folk practices it draws imagery from.

The browser will find the initiatory lineages such as Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca alongside the many eclectic and solitary forms that developed later, especially in North America. The entries describe each tradition's structure, practice and relation to the founding lineages.

No ordination; authority rests on learning or on the whole body
Filter Results2 entries
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
Ronald Hutton, Oxford University Press, 1999View the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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