Traditional NeoWicca «vs» Standard NeoWicca

What I've personally come to consider Traditional NeoWicca is specifically the system that was eventually unified into a cohesive system by Scott Cunningham's authorship between the late 80's through early 2000's. Including those works published both while he was alive, and posthumously- but especially traditions influenced heavily by his books 'Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner', and 'Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner'.

Cunningham certainly didn’t invent the concept of the Self-Initiated or Solitary Wiccan tradition. But what he did do was take what he learned, combined with what was already being done by Solitaries and the Self-Initiated at the time, and turned it into a more stabilized and cohesive system than was previously available in publications; one which people could use as a baseline system through which to apply a much stronger foundation of self-initiated ethics and ritual to their practice. And in following with earlier opinions established during the Codification Era, he intentionally wrote and released these books for largely rural and non-covened practitioners who would otherwise not have access to such practices, materials, or communities.

Cunningham's material was in direct contrast to the guiding material already released by people like the Farrars in 'A Witches' Bible', which had retained the emphasis on creating traditional Covens in the traditional manner despite Self-Initiation being viewed as a viable and valid means to establish the High Priest/ess' of said Covens. And by doing so, he ultimately engendered the quintessentially NeoWiccan tradition: An Open Court, non-oathbound denomination of Wicca whose practices were based on information and traditions from Traditional Wicca's Outer Court system, and which was specifically intended to be solitarily practiced by individuals (or sometimes in small pseudo-Covens).

This form of NeoWicca is directly contrasted against what would be further built or modified from the 2000's onward by far more controversial figures like Silver RavenWolf through publications such as 'Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation' (simply NeoWicca); I do believe that figures such as Silver RavenWolf did genuinely practice NeoWicca. However, I also believe that you can see a distinct difference between the work of Scott Cunningham's generation of NeoWicca, and the works of Silver RavenWolf's generation.

In regards to these differences, Scott Cunningham's works, and the works of those like him, toe the line much closer to the Traditional Wiccan structure, what was taught in the Outer Court at the time (and through into his era), and how the more traditional Transitional Wiccan denominations functioned. And while he acknowledges the need for adjustments and personalization, this modification tends to occur in a much more controlled manner according to a specific structure of belief laid out in his works.

By contrast, Silver RavenWolf and similar authors are more eclectic in nature and draw more heavily from outside religions (Silver is famous for her supposed use of so-called "Pow-Wow" for instance)- as well as from influences like the later Festival Movement; there is more freedom in terms of ritual structure, more emphasis on Folk Magic and the "folk feeling" of things, and the intuitive nature of doing and being. Adaptation is much more intuitive, and things can be very "fly by the seat of your pants" by comparison.

Thus I consider Scott Cunningham to be the progenitor of the "Traditional" NeoWiccan era, and Silver RavenWolf to be the progenitor of the "Standard" NeoWiccan era; neither are inherently better than one another, mind you. The methodology, overall structure, and general feeling is merely different and will resonate with different people.

Silver RavenWolf's methodology, however, would itself eventually give rise to the Eclectic NeoPaganism of the current era- something which now falsely continues to market itself as "Wicca" in the mainstream despite having little properly left in common with any form of Wicca at this point; while Wicca does have plenty of room to continue growing and developing more denominations? Eclectic NeoPaganism is not one of those denominations for numerous reasons.