Etymology of Wicca Stewart Farrar, describes "Wicca" as "the witches' name for their Craft" in his book "What Witches Do" (1971). The widespread adoption of "Wicca" in reference to Pagan Witchcraft would have brought benefits to its practitioners, who were widely maligned and faced persecution for their practice of "witchcraft"; an emotive term often associated with Satanism that had negative connotations in the Western imagination. Doyle White argued that the practitioners' presentation of themselves as Wiccans rather than witches removed some of the social stigma that they faced. From 1970 onward, increasing numbers of books teaching readers how to become Pagan Witches were
Central Valley Wicca Central Valley Wicca Central Valley Wicca, sometimes abbreviated as CVW, refers to a particular group of traditions within the Neopagan religion of Wicca which trace their roots to a group of Wiccan practitioners who brought their practice from England to the Central Valley of California at some point in the early 1960s. It is one branch of British Traditional Wicca, alongside Gardnerian, Alexandrian Wicca and Mohsian, as defined by New Wiccan Church in California. There are several theories about the origins of Central Valley Wicca, leading to a degree of debate among researchers. Some speculate that CVW is an early