Born into an elite family in India with a diplomat for a father and royalty for mother, I have been a part of the establishment and yet a rebel. I spent my early years in Canada and the US where my father was the India 's representative to the Council of the ICAO of the UN. It was there that I did my early education. It was there also that I was allowed into a very select and secretive group of women who were studying ancient cultures of the world and the old ways. These were people who were lawyers, diplomats, politicians and showbiz people - part of the very worldly and material, and yet scholars, researchers and ascetics.   There in Canada , at a chalet monastery in the Laurentians, I along with a few others learnt the ways of the ancients and the forgotten crafts. It was there that I turned to Wicca. Or Wicca chose me.

This was many, many years ago. The walls of the old chalet have by now crumbled. Some of my teachers are in another dimension. A few of those who had studied with me are still there, living in other parts of the world and following Wicca in their own ways. They are successful erudite women. And I am still here. Perhaps I should teach a chosen few a little of what I had been taught of a forgotten craft. This knowledge is rare and exclusive. Not for everybody – specially in this day and age. But maybe it is this day and age which needs it the most.


Ipsita and Elvis

I believe that I came with a purpose. As Nietzsche said “One does not reckon with natures like these, they arrive like fate …they arrive as lightning arrives, too terrible, too sudden, too convincing, too ‘different' to even make it possible to hate them.”

Once long ago I met another man who had a nature like mine. Electric, volatile, almost as if he and I were from another planet. We loved each other for a while.and then we went on to explore other adventures. He used to call me his ‘devil in disguise'. And I just called him ‘Elvis'. I have written about him in my autobiography ‘Beloved Witch'. He once told me that if he weren't a rock star he would have been a psychic healer. I told him he healed through his music. He said I was beautiful. I believe I am. But maybe that's because I am a Wiccan, or a ‘witch'.


Ipsita's Wicca

I have been a sceptic and yet after years of research into the unexplained, I am now a believer who has found many a proof.

Even though I studied Wicca in the West, I believe at one time it was a global movement. In India , I have researched Dakini Vidya which draws its strength from the Goddesses Kali and Durga. Just as I have wrapped myself in the black cloak of Isis and stood like a queen among my peers, arrogant and beautiful, so also I have walked with bare feet on the cold grey stones of the Yogini Temple in Orissa , India , and felt them warm with a sudden pulsation under my feet. The same Goddess force which goes by the name of Isis, Athena or Minerva in the West, manifests as the Yoginis in the East.
I believe in order to be a Wiccan or a Yogini, you do not need to have a coven leader or a guru in an ashram. You yourself are at one with the Power. If the Power chooses you, you will know what to do. But remember, Wicca will choose you only if it so wishes so be ready and be warned.

So who is a witch?

She is somebody who is wise. Who knows ‘Wicca' or the craft of the wise. In ancient times, Wiccans, mostly women were the first leaders of the community. They were the healers, the lawgivers, the settlers of disputes, and the ones who knew. Answers came to them not only from within themselves but from higher sources. They were the Priestesses of the Goddess. They were the Pagans who blended with nature and aligned with it. They were women of tremendous intelligence, energy and strength. They stood apart. Queens amongst the commoners who revered them and looked up to them.

Luciana and Ipsita

But sometimes the rabble rises against the monarch. That is why Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake. That is why the establishment suddenly felt threatened and led the herd to believe that these women were getting too powerful. Was that why between the 11th and 17th centuries in Europe alone, 8 million women were burnt at the stake or suffered worse torture?

The 16th century beautiful Austrian scholar, aristocrat and Wiccan Luciana was one of them. Victim of court intrigue, she was brought to trial, persecuted and escaped to a castle on the Rhine . But Wiccan lore does not give us a complete picture of what happened to her thenceforth.
Even though Wicca does not believe in fortune telling or divination, Luciana left a few quatrains like Nostradamus, prophecying about generations to come. I was the one who sat at a chalet monastery in the Laurentians years ago and translated them from an ancient dialect to English. I knew I had to. That was my purpose. For I was Luciana returned. To take revenge for the wrongs she had suffered, to vindicate all women who are battered and bruised as witches in India till today. I have a purpose – I know that. Through the eyes of Luciana I see this world.

I am She - I rise with the storm
I was killed – now I am born
On the winds of revenge
Blood, lust and greed, I will avenge.

(Quatrain written by me, ref pg 90 ‘Beloved Witch', HarperCollins Publishers India, 2000)


India 's Wiccan Face - Ipsita

India has known me as the face of Wicca for the past few decades. I have healed and cured, I have helped people with spinal injuries walk with a stick. I have brought to the fore the healing and electric power of crystals. I have counseled hundreds and thousands who have reached out to me at times of need, be they film stars, prime ministers or peasants. I have contested Parliamentary elections and seen politics at eye level. I have glittered with diamonds and been feted at the richest drawing rooms in London , Delhi and New York .
But I have also walked on parched ground in the most remote villages of India, trying to bring succor to women branded ‘witches' or ‘dayans' who are still today being molested and killed for what they are believed to practice. I have brought their cases before the authorities and the press in an attempt to show up the hypocrisy of their persecutors – mostly men – who are trying to denigrate this ancient branch of learning in order to wreak revenge on these women for some very personal motives.

Books by Ipsita

Beloved Witch (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2000)
Sacred Evil: Encounters with the Unknown (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2003)

Films

Sacred Evil (Sahara One Motion Pictures)– released June 2006 - Based on the title story of Ipsita's book ‘Sacred Evil: Encounters with the Unknown'. Ipsita has functioned as Creative Director, overseen the script and has lent her persona to this true-life story. She has also seen that the story stays as authentic to her real life experience as possible.

Ipsita's Wiccan Brigade

If you are interested in what Ipsita had to say and would like to be a part of this movement which seems to have been designed centuries ago, join Ipsita's Wiccan Brigade.

- Information regarding events relating to Ipsita
- Meetings at cities
- Contact through e-mail.