Wiccan Church of Canada

The Wiccan Church of Canada is one of the pioneering organizations of the modern Witchcraft movement in Canada. It was founded by two Wiccan priests, Tamara James and Richard F. James, who had their initial contacts with Neo-Paganism while in California in 1977. They moved to Toronto two years later, where they founded the Wiccan Church of Canada and opened an occult store that catered to Pagans and witches. By 1983 the community had grown to the point that an initial regional Pagan festival could be held. In 1984 the first of several covens formed within the church.

It is the belief of the church that many of the important ultimate questions of life are unanswerable. Humans cannot know about the origin of the universe, the reality of life after death, or the mechanics of the miraculous. Thus, the religious answers that are given to such questions carry a large element of subjectivity. They must be held with some reserve and must not become the basis of intolerance and judgmental attitudes toward those who believe differently. Morality also falls into the same category. It is a human creation. However, the church believes that society has a right to organize and pass laws that protect individuals from violence and the land from outside forces.

Its ignorance asserted, the church believes that the universe is self-aware, and that elements of that awareness have been differentiated as the deities. The number of deities is unknown. Awareness is genderless and individual deities may be either male or female. There is also an ordering among the deities and it is proper to speak of the greater and lesser deities. The Wiccan church follows primarily a European format with worship centered upon the eight annual festivals common to Pagans and also the small coven gatherings at the new and full moon (esbats ). The church also has its own rituals to designate important moments in the life cycle, from the naming ceremony for the new born (wiccaning) to the passing from this incarnation (funeral). It performs both weddings and handpartings (for couples that are separating).

All of the priests and priestesses of the church constitute a ruling Priesthood Council. Their job is to train members and any new priests. The church is headquartered at 109 Vaughn Rd., Toronto, ON, Canada M6C 2L9. Most of its several hundred members reside in Ontario. Its webpage may be found at http://www.wcc.on.ca/.

Sources:

Hopman, Ellen Evert, and Lawrence Bond. People of the Earth: The New Pagans Speak Out. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1996.

James, Richard. The WIC-CAN Handbook. Toronto: Wiccan Church of Canada, 1987.

Rabinovotch, Shelley Tsivia. "The Institutionalization of the Wicca in Ontario via the Wiccan Church of Canada." Unpublished paper in the American Religion Collection, Davidson Library, University of California—Santa Barbara, 1991.