I haven't read the rest of the posts, but I have read up on Wicca a bit and find it very interesting. Perhaps my thoughts will help you. For one thing, the word "wicca" is Old English and means "to bend or change in accordance to will". From the outset this means that you yourself should be able to cause outward things to bend or change in accordance with your own will. But I think that this definition goes much deeper. In actuality, for me anyway, this is a description of ANY religious path. When you yourself choose to allow your inner spirit to bend or change in conformity with divine will, then you have chosen the path which is called "wicca" in Old English. Wicca is a word that describes the path of the religious, the path of the one choosing to be set apart to listen to the all-spirit, the spirit of ages. In this regard, I personally think that any person choosing to follow any spiritual path and allow that spirit to lead him or her takes a path toward "wicca" - a path toward "bending or changing in order to conform to divine will". When this occurs, then that spirit can work through you, and you begin to be a vessle that can access the divine will, have that will projected through you, and from that spirit inside you, changes will not only occur in your own life, but in things around you: you become a vessle to pour out that spirit around you, thus affecting change. You become spiritual and therefore enabled to bend your world.
Therefore, for me, wicca is not a specific religion per-say, although it can be. Wicca is "the religious path" inside any religion, including, but not limited to any of the pre-christian pagan European religions.
Wiccans use spell crafting and prayer crafting to affect change in their own lives and in their own world. Is this so different from other faiths? The only real difference is the lingo used from one faith to the next. People of eastern religions meditate, western monotheists pray, and western pagans perform spells. Are there any similarities? I believe there are. Meditation teaches people to focus on the important and disregard the unimportant inside their minds. This is the loosest form of spiritual connection, yet it is very powerful. Prayer comes next, when people focus on specific requests and ask the divine to make change, help, comfort, and assist. In both these systems, specifics may or may not be listed, and often times there is no real "game plan" on the part of the requestor. Spell crafting and casting takes prayer one step further, because when crafting a spell, one must make a decision about what the actual need is, and what must be changed. One must write that request out so that all aspects of the need are covered as well as the changes necessary to correct things, and then represent what is needed with concrete objects that have symbolic value to the request, and may or may not have spiritual power attributed to them. Think of spell crafting and casting in the same way you might make a presentation to a CEO of a large company - you must present the problem and it's solution in a well thought out format that is short yet all-inclusive, and you must bring a working model of your solution before that CEO. Because you have already done all the preliminary "work", the solution is much easier to execute by the CEO because mistakes in your plan can be quickly pinpointed by the CEO and it can be carried out that much faster in the spirit realm. To me, spell crafting and casting is a more intricate way of assessing problems and their solutions, so that you can work in "partnership" with the divine, and because you are very specific with what you need and how you want to solve it, you yourself streamline that request, and it gets answered that much faster. Because it is called "spell crafting" or "spell casting" does not mean that it is specifically owned by that religion. ANY religion can choose to identify a problem, think through the best solution and then present that idea to their perception of the divine realm.
Religion, on the other hand, divides WHO one contacts in the divine realm. As you may have noticed, most, if not all religions, appear to have some miraculous or magical figure who can do "all", can contact the divine better and so forth. In this way Wicca is a religion, and has a pantheon of beings that can be contacted - each being doing their own divine job, each being having charge over some earthly realm. Monotheism streamlines this by giving one divine being charge over all earthly and heavenly things, however the "things" are still the same because human beings, no matter what their faith, still have the same basic needs and desires. Moses was the first to streamline the many deities into one deity, and he may have partially done this for political reasons, i.e. everything Egypt did, he wanted no part of. Hence the 10 plagues may have been, on one level, political statements against Egypts many deities, as well as all the physical attributes of the country, such as land, water, air, health, food, drink, weather, and so forth. This assessment does in no way do away with the divine intervention, but adds to it. Combining many deities into one streamlines religion in the same way as combining the butcher and the kobbler, and the baker, who all have separate shops into a "walmart" type setting. It makes life easier on a religious level, and instead of going to many different deities for answers, you now can go to one - you don't have to remember who does what, or how to approach them. The ancient greeks faced this "problem", and cults developed under the main pantheon because no one group could carry out rituals all year for more than one deity since there were so many. Monotheism solved this problem by declaring that there was only one being who had a set of rituals and could answer all requests. The rituals remained intricate however. Christianity erased the intricate rituals, instead requiring memorials to the two most sought after magical desires of the era: resurrection of the body, and resurrection or renewal of the world. Magicians and sorcerers could do many things, but to bring back the dead in health was something that could not be executed easily, and the promise of doing this on a mass scale, and the actual sighting of this through Christ was the biggest magical event of that era, and possibly all eras. The promise of a renewed and healthy earth is the other promise Christ brings, and this appears to be one of the hopes of the pagan community as well. It has been taught that Christ answered, through his many miracles, most of the things that the pagan world in his era sought. He was accused of witchcraft and sorcery, and being in league with the devil by his own religious leadership for bringing about the very things that pagans and wiccans strive to do: heal others, negate "bad energy" (called demons by his culture), and cause physical and spiritual changes all around, including levitation, aportation and deportation, healings, clairvoyance, psychic abilities and so forth. Just read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible) and you will see that Jesus was able to do the things that many pagan communities consider magical. But the term changes to "miraculous" in Christian lingo. Other religions also report events that are magickal/miraculous under their "most important" person, who ever that is for them. In this way the term Magick and Miracle must be compared - I personally think that they both mean the exact same thing, and that religious groups are divided on no more than linguistics.
The other thing that strikes me odd is how most of the pagan and world religions have the same stories/histories/myths: Every group out there seems to have a "Christ-like" figure, whether it be man or woman, there is someone who does what Christ does. Does this make Christ a sort of "poster-child" for the miraculous/magical? For example, Odin is crucified on a tree, and his spirit goes into the land of the dead to rescue the runes, the "holy word" - the language of the All-Father to the world. Many who comment on this story find it is uncannily related to Christ's crucifixion, though the story surely pre-dates Christ. Balder is another Christ-type figure, pure and good, he is prophecied to meet with death, and though protected from death by many around him, Loki the trickster, locates his one vulnerable spot, and uses the one object, mistletoe to bring about his innocent death. In this case Balder equates with Christ while Loki equates with the Christian idea of Satan. Ragnarok, the Teutonic end of the world is similar to the Christian Armageddon, where the world ends and the "gods" die. It is interesting to not that in Hebrew the word "god" with a small g referrs to human beings who are "rulers, magistrages, governors, priests, and kings" - we are all gods. The gods of antiquity, were no doubt Noah and his family, for Noah has a heritage of the "Sons of God" (Heavenly beings) in his ancestry, making him and his sons men or "renown, heroes of old" (see Genesis Chapters 5,6,7,8). Noah was human, but had an angelic parentage through his mother whose geanology is not mentioned - but Noah's is, and included in that story is the mention of the "Sons of God" whose children became the men of renoun, the heroes of old - i.e. noah. Once settled on Ararat, the family lived out of the ark, which was also their temple. This scene was a mountain top surrounde by water, an island, and may be the history that became the memory of Atlantis, and Avalon. Later, when the water receded, these "gods" were remembered to reside on a mountain top, and this is displayed in Greek mythology, Teutonic mythology and possibly many other myths, including some Asian myths. Right after this world-known story (many religions of that era retained the flood story, not just Judaism and Christianity), the Tower of Babel story occurs, where the languages of man are divided, and shortly thereafter, "during the time of Peleg" the land is divided, and the supercontinent of Pangea divides into the continents we now know. This explains how so many cultures revere the same "types" of deities, yet they all have very different names - they all revered the family of Noah, who had miraculous powers, but when the language changed, so did the names of their "dieties". Noah claims to have his powers, not only from his gene pool, but because he walked with the divine - the "All-Father". Christians recognize that this being is the pre-existant Christ, because when Christ compares with Jehovah in the Christian scriptures, they do the same types of miracles. This religion teaches that Christ was the "first born of creation", and held his position, completed his crucifixion, and his other 'tasks' "from the foundation of the world". If this is true - if Christ really was born physically prior to all other creation, and really did do everything, including his crucifixion at the foundation of the world, it would explain why so many "pagan" myths have the same stories as Christianity does, only prior to the Christian era. For me this ties paganism and Christianity together because Christ made a visitation upon all people, and taught and did the same things for them all, so that everyone might recognize him when he made his final first century sacrifice, and eventually comes back. Many european cultures practiced ritual human sacrifice - why. Did they see this before? Did they recognize that one person had to cover up sin in some way, or appease the divine in some way? This is an echo of the Christian message as well. There are to many similarities for me to ignore the connections.
Christ himself said that "to him that believes will I give power to do greater things than I did while on this earth." For me, this is the Key to magick, miracles, and wicca - to bend or change in accordance with will- if you make the divine connection through Christ, you will not only bend or change in accordance with divine will, you will be used as a vessel to bring change around you externally - you will be endowed with that power.
Have I tried this? Yes I have. My spells and my prayers work. They work well for me. I just use the elements of complete faith in my deity (who happens to be Christ), and I pre-design (craft), and bring forth (cast) my prayers and spells. I heavily rely on faith that they will work, and they do. Most wiccan sights encourage you to do a spell and then believe that it will happen. This is faith; belief. I believe that we all have the power to believe and contact the divine in a specific and systematic way, and then watch the results. As the definition of Wicca explains, we can all bend or change in conformity with (divine) will, and when we do, we will know what to will a change in here on earth, and will be used by the divine to make that change. It does not really matter "what" religion you are, the "All", the Highest power, the First being, the Primal energy, that force will connect with you and allow you to change your world. From this standpoint, you do not need a special ritual, you need a personal connection with the divine being. When you connect personally, only then can you bring about "change in conformity with will" and this, in my opinion, is "wicca" in it's purest form.
in tow*