How it is Supposed to Work

[Angrboda]

Wicca is a candidate for exception, showing that religions didn't have to be about othering, that's a choice that abrahamic monotheists made and continue to make.  If we wanted to insist that othering occurs in wicca we would have to acknowledge that wiccans other themselves in order to empower marginalized identities.  Polytheism..while ridiculous and often downright unwell in it's own right, actually has that as a broad trait distinguishing it from monotheism.  Probably bound up in the psychology of the whole thing..where...when you can conceive of more than one divine authority or guarantor, it's difficult to insist that such things are or should be singular in the mundane world.

Not just a contemporary pagan thing either.  Pre-christian romes idea of how to deal with christianity was to put up a statue of the new christian god in their temples.

Wicca has a tendency toward "paranoiaizing" reality. Wiccans spells are fundamentally about controlling their environment with the result being an adversarial mindset.

On the outside of Wicca, witchcraft has often served as an excuse for persecuting minorities and disfavored groups, thus an us v. them dynamic results from outside pressures.