Feri and Wicca: so what's the difference?

For the purposes of this paper, I use Wicca to mean the commonly understood popularization of British Traditional Witchcraft that is found in popular books derived from an (often faulty) understanding of Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions. I have found that the disconnect between what these traditions transmit initiatorily and how they are perceived from an external point of view has sometimes been great. But it still remains that the popularization of these traditions has been the cause of rapid growth of modern witchcraft as a movement, and nowadays, many use the terms Witch and Wiccan as synonyms.

So, just what are the differences between what is commonly understood as Wicca and that Tradition of the Craft called Feri? In an effort to delineate the contrasting elements for clarity of discussion, I have come up with the following points of distinction:

1. Common understandings of Wicca posit a duality of godhead, a Mother Goddess and a Father God, "the" Goddess and "the" God. Some have suggested that this goes back to Dion Fortune's postulate "All Goddesses are one Goddess, and all Gods are one God, and there is One Initiator." Some traditions of Wicca go so far as to posit that in the union of Goddess and God is born The One, the Divine Monad. The pattern here illustrated is a heterosexual one, and stresses physical fertility and polarity.

Feri, on the other hand, interacts with a plethora of Gods and Goddesses, not merely a divine dyad of heterosexual coupling. Feri deities often appear of indeterminate gender, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes hermaphrodite and sometimes subtly shifting combinations of all the above. The pantheon with which Feries most commonly interact is made up of a Divine Matrix, called the Star Goddess, or God Herself, from whose womb springs all the gods and goddesses who walk the starry way. There are three major aspects of the Female Divine: the maiden goddess Nimuë, a mother goddess Mari, and a crone goddess Anna, also called Annys; as well there are three major aspects of the Male Divine: a youthful and effeminate blue god called Dian-y-Glas, a warrior/father/horned hunter called Krom, and a curmudgeonly god of death known as Arddu (pronounced AR-thee). Each of these primary deities show different aspects to the devotee at different times, for example the fecund Green Mari or the fierce protectress Red Mari, etc.). In addition, it is taught that we have 72 Bright Spirits, also deities, about whom and from whom we continue to learn until well into our dotage.

Read the whole essay