In Wicca, there is a line in what we call The Charge of the Goddess, that says ” An ye shall be naked in your rites”. A lot of those who are new to Paganism and Wicca interpret that to mean that everyone who attempts to join a Wicca group or Coven is automatically in for a chance to be naughty and perhaps get involved in an orgy of sexual delights with other members of the group. It is certainly a titilating consideration! Well, nothing could be further from the truth.

As a practicing witch, I know that there are covens who practice “skyclad”. (Nothing between you and the sky). And the reason that they do that is they feel that clothing restricts the energy of magnetism surrounding the human body, and hinders the magical working from succeeding. While I agree that that is a concern, I don’t feel that the wearing of clothing or not matters much. If you have done your magickal homewrk and are adept at what you are practicing, your ritual attire should not interfere with anything, at all. Again, I feel that this all stems from the idea that if you get a bunch of people naked, then interesting events might follow naturally. Unless you are preforming a ritual of sex magick, (Using sex as a way to increase the physical energy and applying it to the proceedure), then the point is mute.

What the line really means is, that as a magickal practioner, it is pure Wisdom to expose your True Self to the Universe, and not hide you feeling and attitudes, which would hinder your magickal opperation,in any way. By keeping your emotional baggage hidden and internalized, you are allowing the natural negative emotions to cloud your judgement, hinder your intent, and stiffel your intuition and psychic abilities. In extream cases where one may have a problem with a difficult emotion like anger, the magickal working could backfire and cause serious harm, not only for the practioner but to others in the group. We all have emotional baggage from our human, childhood conditioning. Unfortuatly, many people who come to the Wicca don’t get down to the nitty gritty of Self Examination and Knowing Yourself, and clear away a lot of the emotional bullshit that keeps one from being an effective witch or magician.

While you should never be ashamed of your physical bodies, it is another thing to flaunt your “stuff” around, trolling for sexual favors and manipulations. This isn’t good for serious Coven work, and causes a lot of jealousies and drama within the group and may speard out into the Paga/Magickal community as well. In this way, no real magickal work could be preformed successfully, until all maters could be resolved. And no seasoned Witch would ever become intangled in such drama.

Being naked is sometimes a pleasure, and should be experienced, within ones life time ,in approperate settings (Nature,perhaps, or personal ,solitary work in the home), It really isn’t a ,”must do”, to be a good Witch.