Not Every "Red Flag" Is Actually A Red Flag ... Sometimes Something's Just About The Context.

I see it said a lot in this community that "They use the terms 'witchcraft' and "Wicca" interchangeably" is "a Red Flag" in Witchcraft, Pagan, and Occult spaces and materials. But it's not a "red flag" at all. It's also ridiculous.

For one, it turns the phrase "Red Flag" into a useless buzzword instead of the necessary phrase it is: One intended to convey a real and accurate warning about legitimate potential danger to our person or psyche. And I'm sorry, but someone "using Wicca and Witchcraft interchangeably" poses absolutely no danger to anyone in any capacity. Though it can be a sign that you're reading a book from a very particular decade of the revival, or from a very specific tradition.

Which brings me to point two: Calling it "a Red Flag" rally only proves exactly how far we've moved away from not only understanding the basic history of the 20th and 21st century Witchcraft Revival that gave birth to all of Modern Witchcraft Traditions in the first place ... But also our understanding of those various traditions themselves; it's a signal of ignorance and lack of research.

In reality, at best, the use of "the Craft" or "The Old Religion" is just a sign of a text's age and origin situated within the greater Revival; and the use of "the craft" and the use of "Wicca and Witchcraft" interchangeably is just a sign you're reading texts from a very specific tradition from that Revival. Neither are inherently bad, and merely need to be recognized in context. Overblowing it by calling it a "Red Flag", and insinuating it is a legitimate danger to our person or psyche, is nothing short of fearmongering bullshit that takes away from the serious of actual, legitimate Red Flags that can be found in plenty of Pagan, Occult, and Witchcraft oriented materials (like Nazism, Homophobia, Transphobia, severe religious intolerance, and more).

Back to the point of "If it's a concern you have, then it's merely a sign you're possibly reading the wrong material for you at best", though. Because the fact of the matter is that "the use of 'Wicca' and 'Witchcraft' interchangeably" is a tradition dependent distinction that's highly contextual- nothing more, and nothing less. And that's an incredibly important point most miss, here. And it's specifically what I want to focus on- all issues of significantly downplaying important phrases by turning them into useless buzzwords aside.

In Wicca they are interchangeable. Because Wicca is a Witch Cult religion; to be Wiccan you must practice Witchcraft by default, because it is an integral portion of the religion's methods of worshipping the Divine. And, more specifically, the rite of Wiccan Initiation explicitly initiates one as both "witch" and "Wiccan" together.

Ergo, all Wiccans are Witches. There is no distinction between the two within the faith. Thus you may call us either Wiccan or Witch, and you may call it either Wicca or Witchcraft- all depending on the specific portions of the religion and its practices you are speaking about in that specific moment. Additionally, early history did consider it a revival of an old, Pre-Christian Pagan religion with specific etymological meaning (though now we know this to be inaccurate thanks to better Archaeology that exists now, and which did not exist then)- ergo it is also interchangeably called "The Craft of the Wise" and "The Old Religion" (though these have now fallen out of favor and are no longer used as often anymore). Regarldess, all of these names are traditional for the Wiccan faith and its 3 established denominational forms, and the various traditions these denominations have given birth to over the decades.

Ergo, if you are reading a book or speaking to a person who is using them interchangeably? The person is very likely a practicing member of one of the 3 Wiccan denominations — in which case they are using them correctly; the interchangeability is correct according to their tradition. And you actually need to learn to sit down and stop complaining about us using our own jargon properly within the specific contexts of our own practices and traditions, just because it doesn't include you, and you use those terms differently outside of these contexts; jargon is allowed to exist, and sources and people are allowed to be tradition-specific.

However, that being said: 99% of all modern Pagan, Witchcraft, and Occult traditions either directly descend from, or are heavily influenced by, Gerald Gardner's version of Wicca, in one form or another. Likewise, language has a way of "filtering out". Thus, you get a lot of people who use the two interchangeably because that's how they learned to speak about Witchcraft in the olden days of the Revival when we didn't have so many "types" of Witchcraft, and the boundaries between traditions weren't so "clear cut or dry".

With these boundaries being more established and defined today, you tend to see a second (or third, depending on if you count the old folks who got in the habit and never got out of it) group using the two interchangeably as a result ... And that group is Eclectic NeoPagans- which is not a Wiccan denomination but which is known for coopting the language and title of Wicca.

In which case yeah. Eclectic NeoPagans should and do need to actually stop doing that ... But the reason they need to stop doing that? Isn't because they're using it wrong ... It's because they're incorrectly using the name and title of a religion that's not actually theirs to use or identify with in the first place. And that, in and of itself, is (and always will be) wrong of them to do.

So no. Not all Witches are Wiccans. That much has always been very clear, even when the boundaries were much thinner than they are today. No one has ever questioned that fact even when we were actively fighting for better separation and individualization from Wicca ... It's just tradition dependent jargon that's sometimes co-opted and used incorrectly by other groups- predominantly based on the basic history of the Witchcraft Revival of the 20th century and its mainstream fallout (all of which people'd actively know if they'd stop being rude about our forbearers and actually just read the decent books).

So please. For the love of the Gods and all that is Holy and Sacred ... Calm down, and stop unnecessarily fearmongering "baby witches" over nothing. And stop shitting on us every opportunity you get based on nonsense and actual lies.