I shouldn’t speak for actual Wiccans, my experience was mostly love spells and giggling. I did sit in a circle once and “call” the air element after which people did the same for fire, earth and water. Then someone stole some of my hair to make me fall in love with them and we all smoked cinnamon sticks.
One great virtue of this dual explanation is that it removes the need for
what William James, in his remarkable “The Varieties of Religious
Experience”, called the “objective correlative”. By identifying the Gods with
shared features of our psychological and inter-subjective experience, but
being willing to dance with them on their own terms in the ritual circle, we
can explain religious experience in respectful and non-reductive ways without
making any anti-rational commitments about history or cosmology. Scientific
method cannot ultimately be reconciled with religious faith, but it can get
along with experiential mysticism just fine.
I’m a somewhat casual Neo-pagan—I enjoy the rituals.
As far as I can tell, the four elements are viewed as a convenient source of symbolism, but not believed in literally.
I don’t know about Wiccans, but Neo-paganism is a community of practice, not belief. Neo-pagans cover the range from atheism to literal belief.
I shouldn’t speak for actual Wiccans, my experience was mostly love spells and giggling. I did sit in a circle once and “call” the air element after which people did the same for fire, earth and water. Then someone stole some of my hair to make me fall in love with them and we all smoked cinnamon sticks.
Another example: I don’t know if Eric Raymond would self-describe as atheist, but he is a neopagan with, as far as I can tell, a naturalistic worldview.
Edit—a key quote: