Witchcraft vs. Wicca

[Firebird]

Love this outline by Issac Bonewits
is the organzation you are involved with or looking to join have the potential to be a dangerous group/cult? That's the important question.
http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html
These days, cults could be good bad or indifferent The word itself is a loaded one.
our good friends at Wikipedia have this to say,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult
bb,
Firebird

[Badgerstate]

I did not intend on offending anybody. The term 'witch cult' is used by scholars, as a descriptive term, because these covens are very small religious groups. It is not used to imply any of the negative stereotypes that people have associated with the term in modern times.

No worries. I still dont think the term, "cult" is the right one but that may just be me projecting my own perceptions onto it.

[Imperious]

Hi.

Unfortunately, separating Witchcraft from Wicca is intellectually challenging. When Gerald Gardner formally codified Wicca into an applicable religion, he did it with Witchcraft firmly in mind. I know some witches and warlocks that simply say "Wicca is something you believe, while Witchcraft is something you do"; unfortunately, that doesn't really stand up to much logical scrutiny.

Personally, I find Jeff Russell's view of the subject, in A New History of Witchcraft, to be the best:

Witchcraft is a set of practical superstitions that require a coherent world view in order to be realistic. Wicca, as a religious approach, attempts to provide that coherent worldview. As Witchcraft is something practiced by many under the Neopagan umbrella (such as Druidism, Adonism, Satanism, Shamanism, Freemasonry, or Stregheria), and they're all different, the explanation works.

Witchcraft is an art, and Wicca is the religious context it's framed in.

Both can exist independently of each other, but rarely do.

I hope that helps.