Paper short abstract:

This paper examines, through qualitative interviews with Wiccan practitioners, psychological aspects of ritual, in the context of the Covid pandemic and migration to online platforms by practitioners normally resistant to online practice as "inauthentic" and "not real".

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines psychological aspects of ritual in contemporary Wicca and how practitioners adapted their practice during the 2020-2022 Covid pandemic, when most European countries instigated restrictions on the numbers of people who could meet indoors and outside. One solution was to create online ritual, a practice that has been common among young witches, but has not been the practice of initiatory covens, whose practice is strongly ritual-based and who typically meet for such rituals as small groups of stable membership, in-person, in members' homes or outside in nature. Rituals are created in Wicca for a variety of purposes, including venerating deities, attuning with the seasonal cycle, inducting participants into initiatory mysteries, and for magical purposes such as healing. Meeting on platforms such as Zoom raised questions for practitioners about the purpose of ritual, what constituted "real" ritual, and whether "real ritual" and, if so, what types of "real ritual", could be successfully held online. An underlying issue was the difference between ritual participation and "performance". Could a ritual that was filmed be carried out in the same state of consciousness and could the synchrony and shared consciousness shifts of the covens' normal ritual practices be achieved without close proximity and shared physical space. The paper explores through analysis of qualitative interviews carried out with Wiccan practitioners who moved to online ritual, exploring the extent to which they were able to successfully transfer their practice to remote participation, whether such rituals were able to fulfil the primary psychological functions of rituals in regulating emotions, performance goal states, and social connection, and the implications of the participants' for the psychology of ritual.