There is so much confusion here! People claiming that Wicca is a religion and witchcraft not.
Let me make it absolutely clear. Wicca and witchcraft are the same beliefs! I will explain.
Many years ago (actually only a few years!) witchcraft was very traditional, and very secret. It was also illegal. In England you could be sent to prison for up to two years.
People such as Gerald Gardner, Aleister Crowley, Alex Sanders, were trying for years to get witchcraft recognised as a religion. It was not until 1947 that the British Government started to listen to their pleas. This was because of the thousands of immigrants,from all over the world, who came to settle in Britain. First from the West Indies. Then India. We had Sikhs, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese. All with different religious beliefs. The Christian bishops were "up in arms" over it all. But the immigrants insisted on being able to practise their own "Pagan" religions. The Christian Churches had to back down. The Government had no choice. They simply could not put thousands into prison because of their "Pagan" beliefs! So up strode the witches! "Why is our belief against the law, when people who are not even British are allowed to practise, and build Mosques, and Temples, and their own type of Churches. When we who believe in witchcraft are persecuted?"
So, the Government made it "lawful", in 1951, for the "practise" of witchcraft. It was then that we had the published writings of Gerald Gardner, who "modernised" witchcraft, and called his followers "The Wica"; from the old word "wicce" (Wise!). Witchcraft became more open. And condemned by the "Established " Church of England, and every other Christian church. The Government simply could not, or would not, declare that witchcraft could be accepted as a religion. There had to be a compromise. The government decided that it was the name "witchcraft" that was really causing the problems. It was decided that the word "Wicca" might be used to describe the Pagan religion; as written about by Gardner. And so Wicca was recognised by Britain as a religion; in 1969.
But make no mistake! Witchcraft and Wicca are two branches of the same tree! Slightly different in practise; but the same beliefs, the same religion.
Here endeth the lesson!