I'm sorry this is coming so late, but I didn't read the article in Mother Jones that prompted this piece until after work on Monay night (and I work until Midnight).
I first must apologise for being so absent as of late...I've been busy working on two book projects, running a coven, changing jobs, and looking for a new house. I really don't have the time to write this piece (a chapter on Wiccan theology is sitting, waiting for me while I do this) either, but I thought this issue so important that I'm taking a few minutes to bang this out before bed.
Like many feminists (ie, people who ascribe to that crazy notion that women are, gasp, human!), I was excited by the prospect of a female candidate for president that was viable, with a real chance to win. Too long has the US been lagging behind the world in female political leaders, but the '08 election cycle seemed like an opportunity at last.
Not the I was a hige Hillary Clinton fan, mind you...her record since entering the Senate has been troubling (voting to authorize the Iraq war, voting to fund the ominous "Real ID" Act, which paves the way for a national ID card and unprecedented government spying powers, and the "Patriot Act", which has done more to erode civil liberties than any other law in the history of the USA...to name a few), but I was open, and willing to be convinced. However, I eventually opted for Obama (at least after John Edwards dropped out) because I liked his grass-roots strategy. Besides, Hillary had surrounded herself with people stuck in a 90's mentality of elections, where the philosophy was that to beat the Republicans, one had to become more like them. I rejected that mentality then, and I reject it now. People want a clear choice...duh!
As the primary has worn on, I have found myself happy in my choice...Obama is inspiring a whole new generation of young activists, while Hillary's campaign has descended into wierdness...race-baiting, Karl-Rove tactics, sucking up to FOX (faux) news, etc. Recently, I found an article on the Mother Jones website which raises serious concerns about what a Clinton administration may mean for Witches and other Pagans.
The whole article merits a read-through, but I have included a few choice exerpts for thought. My comments are in italics.
***************************************
"Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)(who is against abortion even in cases of rape and incest while voting against sex ed that mentions controceptives) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) (rabidly homophobic and in favour of domestic spying on Americans) grow in part from that connection. "
"When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker founder of the censorship advocacy group PMRC) , wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.
Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan."
(She first encountered) Fellowship leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, the Fellowship's majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, "is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
"The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance."
Cells like (Clinton's), Nelson added, exist in "parliaments all over the world," with all welcome so long as they submit to "the person of Jesus" as the source of their power.
"Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living History her autobiography, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was right where God wanted her. "
"That's how it works: The Fellowship isn't out to turn liberals into conservatives; rather, it convinces politicians they can transcend left and right with an ecumenical faith that rises above politics. Only the faith is always evangelical, and the politics always move rightward."
"With Santorum, Clinton co-sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act; she didn't back off even after Republican senators such as Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter pulled their names from the bill citing concerns that the measure would protect those refusing to perform key aspects of their jobs—say, pharmacists who won't fill birth control prescriptions, or police officers who won't guard abortion clinics."
"Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons' approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act (which is, essentially, an anti-Gay marraige bill) a measure that has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with the Christian right."
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Taliesin here again - All in all, Pagans have dodged a bullet for these past 8 years. While a theocratically-inclined Republican congress (for 6 years) and an arch-conservative administration (packed with graduates of Pat Robertson's fundie college), our lives could have been made much, much more difficult. Only the combined bugaboo of Islam and gay rights has occupied the extreme right to the point where they haven't had much time to worry about us heathens. That, however, could change anytime, and we have to be cautious about our leaders. This article raises important questions about Hillary Clinton, ones that Pagans who haven't voted yet should consider before casting a very important vote.
I hope to be back without the soapbox soon. For now, good night, and Blessed Be.
- Taliesin
Important Information For Pagan Voters
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 02:25 AM EST [General]
Tags:
CLassic Texts - The Coven Spell
Wednesday, September 12, 2007, 12:59 AM EST [General]
I first read this in Witchcraft For Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente. It's yet another wonderful piece the can add real magick to a rite (though I often change one repeated part to "So Mote it Be!"). Enjoy!
The Coven Spell
by Doreen Valiente
O ancient ones of heaven, earth and sea,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
To music of the night-wind blowing free,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
The owl hoots within the hollow tree,
The black cat runs by night silently,
The toad beneath the stone dwells secretly,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
To moon that draws the tides of air and sea,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
To god that bides beneath the greenwood tree,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
By witches' garter bound about the knee,
By staff and cauldron and all powers that be,
We will the thing in our minds we see,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
(Pause...)
The Spell is flowing like the sea,
The spell is growing like the tree,
Like flame that burns and blazes free.
We chant the spell, thus shall it be!
We chant the spell, thus shall it be!
We chant the spell, thus shall it be!
IT IS!
The Coven Spell
by Doreen Valiente
O ancient ones of heaven, earth and sea,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
To music of the night-wind blowing free,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
The owl hoots within the hollow tree,
The black cat runs by night silently,
The toad beneath the stone dwells secretly,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
To moon that draws the tides of air and sea,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
To god that bides beneath the greenwood tree,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
By witches' garter bound about the knee,
By staff and cauldron and all powers that be,
We will the thing in our minds we see,
We chant the coven spell, thus shall it be!
(Pause...)
The Spell is flowing like the sea,
The spell is growing like the tree,
Like flame that burns and blazes free.
We chant the spell, thus shall it be!
We chant the spell, thus shall it be!
We chant the spell, thus shall it be!
IT IS!
Tags:
The Fallacy of the Fam-Trad
Thursday, September 6, 2007, 01:46 PM EST [General]
The Wiccan/Pagan community can be a trusting lot. This isn't bad, because it's nice to partake in a community where, for all of our doctrinal differances, people feel a sense of unity and fellowship. And yet, it is tragic when this trust is violated by fraudulent scams masquerading as spirituality.
The chief scam, and one that seeminly refused to die, is the story of the fam-trad. Sort for "family tradition", the fallicy of the fam-trad used to be prevelent throughout the Wiccan world, only to (seeminly) die out during the 80's. The fact that it has found new life on the internet is why I call fam-trads the "herpes of the Pagan community...just when you think it's gone, it pops right back up again".
The scam is as such: someone claims to be from a "family tradition" that goes back an unbelievable number of generations (usually at least in the teens). They claim that their tradition is therefore more valid than more modern varieties (because it's "older" and hasn't been contaminated by modern "fluffiness"). They claim to have been initiated into the fam-trad by a relative who is usually dead, making it difficult to verify their claims.
Before I go further, let me clarify one point: Those who say that they have a heritage of folk magick and/or herbal healing knowledge that they learned from their family are NOT part of what I'm talking about here. If they want to incorporate their family knowledge into their personal traditions and pass that along to others, that's not only fine, it's encouraged. It enriches the collective knowledge of modern Wicca. But an initiatory, ritualized system from um-teen generations back? Not likely.
(Note: the ironic thing is that, in the present day, we are seeing genuine family traditions being born. People who got invlved back in the 60's and 70's, had children and then raised them in a Wiccan way, are now seeing grandchildren born into their Pagan families. Thus, theree are now kids with genuine Wiccan grandmothers, but it's a recent phenomenon, and much more verifiable.)
What is the harm, you might ask, in indulging in a (seeminly) innocuous fantasy story? After all, isn't the occult world replete with difficult to verify claims? Even with that being the case, fam-trad fantasies tend to cause more trouble and heartache than any other Neo-Pagan mythology, and more than one community has been negatively affected by these tales. It's not just the fantasy that's the cause of the trouble, it's the results that inevitably follow.
Before we get into details, let's look at how this particular fallicy came to be. In the 1960's, when coven lineage was considered all-important, a man came along named Alex Sanders. He couldn't point to an established Gardnerian coven as his source (Gardnerian was the only game in town then), but he said his brand of Witchcraft was valid anyway, because he was initiated by his grandmother into his family tradition when he was 12 years old. He claimed that his was one of the families that guarded the secrets of Wicca through the burning times, and that he wanted to bring his family's form of the Craft into the public eye.
In reality, Alex was an intiate of Pat Kopanski, who had hived from Patricia Crowther's coven (Patricia having been initiated by Gerald Gardner). He hadn't gone through the requisite three degrees before hiving off...actually he copied as much as he could from the Gardnerian Book of Shadows and then disappeared for a time. When he resurfaced, he claimed to be the head of 107 covens in England, and to have been awarded the title "King of the Witches" by them. His BoS was 90% Gardnerian, butthe Gardnerians couldn't come out and call him on it. The secrecy oaths they had taken precluded them fom calling him out on this, because acknowledging his (semi-published) rituals as Gardnerian would have, by association, been revealing Gardnerian secrets. With no-one to challenge him, he quickly gained noterity.
Not everything about Sanders was bad...he was great with the media, and got Wicca the kind of good press relations that Gardner could never manage. He also brought some great people into the Craft, like Janet & Stewart Farrar, who have contributed much. Unfortunately, his biggest legacy is the fam-trad fantasy, which refuses to die.
It gained more adherants in the 70's, when self-styled Wicca was considered invalid. "Only a Witch can make a Witch", they used to say, so those who cobbled together their own methods used the fam-trad story to give themslves cover in the community. It got a little out of hand...with so many Wiccan grandmothers running around, our country would have been a vastly different place. Once Sanders' story was exposed in the 80's (along with the legitamacy of self-made Wicca), the fam-trad fantasy seemed to die out.
With the advent of the internet, with it's anonymity and it's "easy-to-make-but-unverifiable-claims" tendency, the fam-trad has made a comeback. Some self-styled "grand pooh-bahs of the cyberverse" have found this a great way to pump up their egos, and to build up their magickal resumes beyond their experience. And with the vast ignorance of Wiccan history that's all too common these days, their claims have gone largely unchallenged.
If this was confined to the internet world, then it would not be such a problem. However, it continues to spill out into real life, and this brings things into the local community.
Now that the history lesson is done, here are some of the tendencies of these fam-trad people/groups, and how they negatively impact the local community in which they reside.
One: They claim to be older, and therefore better, than any other method or tradition. Sanders started this when he disparaged Gardnerians. He said that his family still considered them Witches, but only of the first degree. Thus, the most experienced Gardnerian Priestess was only a beginner in his eyes.
Two: They claim great antiquity, but their rituals are mostly Gardnerian/generic Wicca, much of which wasn't written prior to the 1950's. This isn't a big problem, except for it's dishonesty.
Three: Because their tradition is "ancient" and "heretofore unknown", they can mix in whatever strikes their fancy. This also isn't a problem in theory (many of us do this all of the time), but because their "tradition" predates any Wiccan Rede, their practices can often get bizarre and/or downright unethical.
Four: Because their system is so "old", and therefore "better", they expect everyone else in the community to give them defference and respect that they haven't earned. This is an outgrowth of symptom # 1, but it has dire consequences for the local community. In their quest for influence, they often engage in bitchcraft and witch wars to defeat their competitors. And woe be to thee who call them on their game...they're regarded as the devil incarnate.
Five: They often discourage independent study. They claim that, because their tradition isn't taught in books, there's no need to read them (Sanders never did this...it's a more recent phenomenon).
Here's an example, and one that hits close to home. Just such a fraud was perpetuated on the Akron community a few years ago. It wound up sabotaging a promising Pagan church, and has left a trail of emotionally scarred people in it's wake.
The Church of Spiral Oak (in Akron) started as a Pagan activist organization, and later became a church. I was involved in the early stages, before it even had a name, but moved away for a time before it really got going. After I left, a couple came to town and worked their way into the organization.
The story was just as I discribed above. They claimed to be part of a family tradition, going back at least 16 generations, and even said that they could produce a list of names going back that far (of course, I can give you a list of my family members going back several generations...but a list doesn't prove that they were Witches!). They were quite charasmatic, and ingratiated themselves to the local people quickly. They claimed to be a combination of Celtic and Strega fam-trads (two trendy styles at the time), and, with so few in the area being hip to their game, quickly gained influence.
They just as quickly opened their "family" to others, and their coven ("White Willow") rapidly grew. After a while, they hived so many times they called the collective "The Clan of the White Arrow". With shrewd political maneuvers, they eventually siezed control of the church, and forced out any not part of their fam-trad.
They exhibited all of the classic symptoms of a dysfunctional fam-trad. First, they had an extremely condecending attitude to any who did not practice their system. They claimed to be "non-Wiccan Witches", and said that all Wiccans were "fluffybunnies", and therefore hopeless amateurs. Other covens and experienced people were degraded (not always openly, but in whispers behind the scenes), and their system heralded as genuine over all others.
Two: Having witnessed several of their private circles, as well as discussing their system with several of their initiates, I found it was nothing more than re-warmed post-Gardnerian Wicca...with a few startling differances that I'll get to below.
Three: They said that they were Witches, not Wiccans, and thus had no need for any rede. Their ethics were deplorable, and they had a "curse first and ask questions later" policy, and reveled in their "dangerous" reputation. They also eventually incorporated practices such as blood-drinking into their system, and other unsavoury practices.
Four: In their quest for influence, they quickly moved to force out (or make extremely uncomfortable so that they would leave) anyone not affiliated with their party line. This drained the Church of vital knowledge and experience, and left it in the hands of those who pretended to great wisdom without actually having it. They eventually allowed a few "outsiders" into the church's clergy program, but did their level best to freeze out anyone with experience (or who didn't but their line). Those who they did let in they eventually tried to pressure them to join their "family", to the point of being obnoxious.
Five: They actively discouraged independent study, because they knew that reading would turn up "secrets" of theirs that no one "outside of the family" should know. Those that did just that made them dance very fast, and they eventually came up with the story that their fam-trad had other, "lost" branches...and that perhaps the books people found were written by members of those other branches.
Beside these five attributes, the group as a whole was unhealthy. They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely...well, this coven had gained absolute power in the largest public Pagan church in Akron pretty much absolutely, and their corruption followed suit. Of course, when one's history is based on lies and deceptions, then the entire ediface is shaky because the foundation is rotten. This has proven true again and again for these "fam-trad" types, and the White Wollow people were no exception. After a while, they started engaging in downright cult-like activity (besides the blood-drinking) like mucking about in their members' love lives. A person joining that sham who's partner (spouse, lover, etc) chose not to join would, after a time, be pressured to end that relationship so that they could be paired off with someone else in the fam-trad. Sometimes it would be obvious, other times it would be a whisper and innuendo campaign to build distrust to wreck the relationship from within. Not even couples who both joined were spared the partner shuffle game, and after a while the only people who escaped with their relationships intact were the ones who ran screaming.
Eventually, the whole house of cards came down. Crow and Raja, the people at the centre of the charade, split up and the whole thing collapsed (this is typical...once Alex and Maxine Sanders divorced, neither really had the same noteriaty again). Unfortunately, the Church of Spiral Oak, once a promising ecumenical organization, has been torn down with them. In their zeal for "trad" purity, they manipulated the church's structure, it's ritual form, and it's leadership until they were pleased...but nobody else really was. The resulting fallout and bitchcraft associated with the fam-trad's implosion has reduced attendance at it's Beltane rite from 40-50 (in it's heyday) to less than a dozen (according to reports I got from people who were there last year...I stopped going years ago). Their iron-grip on the ritual form stifled creativity, and made most feel like spectators. Paganism is supposed to be a participatory religion...the Church of Spiral Oak definately wasn't.
So, as we can see from the above example, fam-trad frauds aren't just harmless fantasies. They can be, and have often been, highly destructive shell-games that leave communities in ruins and lives shattered. I only went into such detail because I wanted to show just how malignant these stories really can be on a large community. On the individual scale, they're just sad...people trying so hard to convince others of their wisdom and superiority that they rarely get around to real spiritual growth.
We must arm ourselves with knowledge, to recognize these frauds the second they surface. We must also gird ourselves with the will to do something about it before another person is suckered by a fast line and seductive fantasies. As Issac Bonewitz said: "If someone comes up to you and says that they're part of a multi-generational fam-trad that goes back um-teen generations, then there's a complex anthropological term for what they're doing...it's called LYING to you!"
Blessed Be,
Taliesin
The chief scam, and one that seeminly refused to die, is the story of the fam-trad. Sort for "family tradition", the fallicy of the fam-trad used to be prevelent throughout the Wiccan world, only to (seeminly) die out during the 80's. The fact that it has found new life on the internet is why I call fam-trads the "herpes of the Pagan community...just when you think it's gone, it pops right back up again".
The scam is as such: someone claims to be from a "family tradition" that goes back an unbelievable number of generations (usually at least in the teens). They claim that their tradition is therefore more valid than more modern varieties (because it's "older" and hasn't been contaminated by modern "fluffiness"). They claim to have been initiated into the fam-trad by a relative who is usually dead, making it difficult to verify their claims.
Before I go further, let me clarify one point: Those who say that they have a heritage of folk magick and/or herbal healing knowledge that they learned from their family are NOT part of what I'm talking about here. If they want to incorporate their family knowledge into their personal traditions and pass that along to others, that's not only fine, it's encouraged. It enriches the collective knowledge of modern Wicca. But an initiatory, ritualized system from um-teen generations back? Not likely.
(Note: the ironic thing is that, in the present day, we are seeing genuine family traditions being born. People who got invlved back in the 60's and 70's, had children and then raised them in a Wiccan way, are now seeing grandchildren born into their Pagan families. Thus, theree are now kids with genuine Wiccan grandmothers, but it's a recent phenomenon, and much more verifiable.)
What is the harm, you might ask, in indulging in a (seeminly) innocuous fantasy story? After all, isn't the occult world replete with difficult to verify claims? Even with that being the case, fam-trad fantasies tend to cause more trouble and heartache than any other Neo-Pagan mythology, and more than one community has been negatively affected by these tales. It's not just the fantasy that's the cause of the trouble, it's the results that inevitably follow.
Before we get into details, let's look at how this particular fallicy came to be. In the 1960's, when coven lineage was considered all-important, a man came along named Alex Sanders. He couldn't point to an established Gardnerian coven as his source (Gardnerian was the only game in town then), but he said his brand of Witchcraft was valid anyway, because he was initiated by his grandmother into his family tradition when he was 12 years old. He claimed that his was one of the families that guarded the secrets of Wicca through the burning times, and that he wanted to bring his family's form of the Craft into the public eye.
In reality, Alex was an intiate of Pat Kopanski, who had hived from Patricia Crowther's coven (Patricia having been initiated by Gerald Gardner). He hadn't gone through the requisite three degrees before hiving off...actually he copied as much as he could from the Gardnerian Book of Shadows and then disappeared for a time. When he resurfaced, he claimed to be the head of 107 covens in England, and to have been awarded the title "King of the Witches" by them. His BoS was 90% Gardnerian, butthe Gardnerians couldn't come out and call him on it. The secrecy oaths they had taken precluded them fom calling him out on this, because acknowledging his (semi-published) rituals as Gardnerian would have, by association, been revealing Gardnerian secrets. With no-one to challenge him, he quickly gained noterity.
Not everything about Sanders was bad...he was great with the media, and got Wicca the kind of good press relations that Gardner could never manage. He also brought some great people into the Craft, like Janet & Stewart Farrar, who have contributed much. Unfortunately, his biggest legacy is the fam-trad fantasy, which refuses to die.
It gained more adherants in the 70's, when self-styled Wicca was considered invalid. "Only a Witch can make a Witch", they used to say, so those who cobbled together their own methods used the fam-trad story to give themslves cover in the community. It got a little out of hand...with so many Wiccan grandmothers running around, our country would have been a vastly different place. Once Sanders' story was exposed in the 80's (along with the legitamacy of self-made Wicca), the fam-trad fantasy seemed to die out.
With the advent of the internet, with it's anonymity and it's "easy-to-make-but-unverifiable-claims" tendency, the fam-trad has made a comeback. Some self-styled "grand pooh-bahs of the cyberverse" have found this a great way to pump up their egos, and to build up their magickal resumes beyond their experience. And with the vast ignorance of Wiccan history that's all too common these days, their claims have gone largely unchallenged.
If this was confined to the internet world, then it would not be such a problem. However, it continues to spill out into real life, and this brings things into the local community.
Now that the history lesson is done, here are some of the tendencies of these fam-trad people/groups, and how they negatively impact the local community in which they reside.
One: They claim to be older, and therefore better, than any other method or tradition. Sanders started this when he disparaged Gardnerians. He said that his family still considered them Witches, but only of the first degree. Thus, the most experienced Gardnerian Priestess was only a beginner in his eyes.
Two: They claim great antiquity, but their rituals are mostly Gardnerian/generic Wicca, much of which wasn't written prior to the 1950's. This isn't a big problem, except for it's dishonesty.
Three: Because their tradition is "ancient" and "heretofore unknown", they can mix in whatever strikes their fancy. This also isn't a problem in theory (many of us do this all of the time), but because their "tradition" predates any Wiccan Rede, their practices can often get bizarre and/or downright unethical.
Four: Because their system is so "old", and therefore "better", they expect everyone else in the community to give them defference and respect that they haven't earned. This is an outgrowth of symptom # 1, but it has dire consequences for the local community. In their quest for influence, they often engage in bitchcraft and witch wars to defeat their competitors. And woe be to thee who call them on their game...they're regarded as the devil incarnate.
Five: They often discourage independent study. They claim that, because their tradition isn't taught in books, there's no need to read them (Sanders never did this...it's a more recent phenomenon).
Here's an example, and one that hits close to home. Just such a fraud was perpetuated on the Akron community a few years ago. It wound up sabotaging a promising Pagan church, and has left a trail of emotionally scarred people in it's wake.
The Church of Spiral Oak (in Akron) started as a Pagan activist organization, and later became a church. I was involved in the early stages, before it even had a name, but moved away for a time before it really got going. After I left, a couple came to town and worked their way into the organization.
The story was just as I discribed above. They claimed to be part of a family tradition, going back at least 16 generations, and even said that they could produce a list of names going back that far (of course, I can give you a list of my family members going back several generations...but a list doesn't prove that they were Witches!). They were quite charasmatic, and ingratiated themselves to the local people quickly. They claimed to be a combination of Celtic and Strega fam-trads (two trendy styles at the time), and, with so few in the area being hip to their game, quickly gained influence.
They just as quickly opened their "family" to others, and their coven ("White Willow") rapidly grew. After a while, they hived so many times they called the collective "The Clan of the White Arrow". With shrewd political maneuvers, they eventually siezed control of the church, and forced out any not part of their fam-trad.
They exhibited all of the classic symptoms of a dysfunctional fam-trad. First, they had an extremely condecending attitude to any who did not practice their system. They claimed to be "non-Wiccan Witches", and said that all Wiccans were "fluffybunnies", and therefore hopeless amateurs. Other covens and experienced people were degraded (not always openly, but in whispers behind the scenes), and their system heralded as genuine over all others.
Two: Having witnessed several of their private circles, as well as discussing their system with several of their initiates, I found it was nothing more than re-warmed post-Gardnerian Wicca...with a few startling differances that I'll get to below.
Three: They said that they were Witches, not Wiccans, and thus had no need for any rede. Their ethics were deplorable, and they had a "curse first and ask questions later" policy, and reveled in their "dangerous" reputation. They also eventually incorporated practices such as blood-drinking into their system, and other unsavoury practices.
Four: In their quest for influence, they quickly moved to force out (or make extremely uncomfortable so that they would leave) anyone not affiliated with their party line. This drained the Church of vital knowledge and experience, and left it in the hands of those who pretended to great wisdom without actually having it. They eventually allowed a few "outsiders" into the church's clergy program, but did their level best to freeze out anyone with experience (or who didn't but their line). Those who they did let in they eventually tried to pressure them to join their "family", to the point of being obnoxious.
Five: They actively discouraged independent study, because they knew that reading would turn up "secrets" of theirs that no one "outside of the family" should know. Those that did just that made them dance very fast, and they eventually came up with the story that their fam-trad had other, "lost" branches...and that perhaps the books people found were written by members of those other branches.
Beside these five attributes, the group as a whole was unhealthy. They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely...well, this coven had gained absolute power in the largest public Pagan church in Akron pretty much absolutely, and their corruption followed suit. Of course, when one's history is based on lies and deceptions, then the entire ediface is shaky because the foundation is rotten. This has proven true again and again for these "fam-trad" types, and the White Wollow people were no exception. After a while, they started engaging in downright cult-like activity (besides the blood-drinking) like mucking about in their members' love lives. A person joining that sham who's partner (spouse, lover, etc) chose not to join would, after a time, be pressured to end that relationship so that they could be paired off with someone else in the fam-trad. Sometimes it would be obvious, other times it would be a whisper and innuendo campaign to build distrust to wreck the relationship from within. Not even couples who both joined were spared the partner shuffle game, and after a while the only people who escaped with their relationships intact were the ones who ran screaming.
Eventually, the whole house of cards came down. Crow and Raja, the people at the centre of the charade, split up and the whole thing collapsed (this is typical...once Alex and Maxine Sanders divorced, neither really had the same noteriaty again). Unfortunately, the Church of Spiral Oak, once a promising ecumenical organization, has been torn down with them. In their zeal for "trad" purity, they manipulated the church's structure, it's ritual form, and it's leadership until they were pleased...but nobody else really was. The resulting fallout and bitchcraft associated with the fam-trad's implosion has reduced attendance at it's Beltane rite from 40-50 (in it's heyday) to less than a dozen (according to reports I got from people who were there last year...I stopped going years ago). Their iron-grip on the ritual form stifled creativity, and made most feel like spectators. Paganism is supposed to be a participatory religion...the Church of Spiral Oak definately wasn't.
So, as we can see from the above example, fam-trad frauds aren't just harmless fantasies. They can be, and have often been, highly destructive shell-games that leave communities in ruins and lives shattered. I only went into such detail because I wanted to show just how malignant these stories really can be on a large community. On the individual scale, they're just sad...people trying so hard to convince others of their wisdom and superiority that they rarely get around to real spiritual growth.
We must arm ourselves with knowledge, to recognize these frauds the second they surface. We must also gird ourselves with the will to do something about it before another person is suckered by a fast line and seductive fantasies. As Issac Bonewitz said: "If someone comes up to you and says that they're part of a multi-generational fam-trad that goes back um-teen generations, then there's a complex anthropological term for what they're doing...it's called LYING to you!"
Blessed Be,
Taliesin
Tags:
The Need for a Comprehensive Occult Education
Wednesday, August 29, 2007, 04:08 PM EST [General]
The ways that people come to the Craft are many and varied...these days. Books, videos, magazines, TV shows, open circles, workshops, friends who happen to be Witches...the ways that people can make "first contact" with the Craft could cover a book in and of itself.
However, it hasn't always been this way. Many of the ways listed above have only come about in the last 15 years or so. In the days before home videos, when TV shows were almost always sensationally gaudy in their depiction of the Craft, when magickal magazines were few and far between, when open circles and public workshops were considered "too risky" for so many
broom-closeted Witches, and Witches revealed themselves to few friends save the closest...there was but one way that was common for people to come to the Craft...the occult.
The earliest modern Witches had one thing in common: an occult background. They were people with a lifelong interest in the occult, and (in many cases) had been exploring its secrets for years. After exploring a myriad of occult topics, they would stumble upon modern Witchcraft, most often through books. They would find that it filled a void in their lives, one that would enrich their studies of both the occult and the world.
This common background in the early days of the Modern Craft would shape its future. Ceremonial magick, elabourate divinatory systems, and scientific parapsychological terms and ideals that were never a (common) part of the ancient Craft would gradually take a place in it's modern practice. The very Craft we practice today is a result of the paths that our predacessors took to get there.
Today, however, things are different. As I mentioned before, the ways that people can make their "first contact" with the Craft...the thing that piques their interest, drives them to find out more, and eventually leads to their walking the path of the Old Ones...are as wide and as varied as Witches themselves. No longer does the initiate have to stumble in the mysted and shadowed underworld of the occult to dance in the moonlight. And, turgid and traditional as I sometimes can be, I am not entirely disappointed by this turn of events. After all, the world of the occult community is littered with marginal personalities that I would wish on *no-one*, lest of all a future sister/brother in the Craft. Different types of contact produce different types of Witches, and diversity enriches us all.
However, there is one thing that this change has effected for the worse, and that is the state of occult knowledge in some areas of the Modern Craft. The current state of occult scholarship within the Craft is sadly lacking. There are more and more new Witches who have studied little of the arcane arts outside of their current spirituality. Indeed, I have met those who's first brush with the occult at all was an open Wiccan circle. This is not that bad in and of itself...after all, we all start somewhere...but many never seem to go beyond this point. They willfully ignore thousands of years of occult study and evolution in favour of whatever "feel-good" booklet they're raiding for circle chants this week.
The reasons are many. One thing that amazes me is just how many people we've got calling themselves Witches/Wiccans these days who are AFRAID of the occult! Yes, they may be dancing under the full moon tonight, but they'll be trembling under their bedsheets tomorrow if they think they see an earth-bound spirit (commonly called a "ghost") in their house. And some are positively puritanical in their admonisions against traditional areas of the occult. Ouija boards, spirit contact, enochian workings, various ceremonial magickal practices...throw these subjects out into any open pagan arena these days, and you will probably get a multitude of advisories against looking into any of them. Some will even go beyond the verdict of foolhardy, calling them evil.
People, what the hell have we become here? Closet Christians? Did someone find a secret part of Gardner's Book of Shadows talking about a Wiccan Devil when I wasn't looking? The finger wagging that I see sometimes makes me feel like I'm back in Sunday school. Any first-year student in the Occult should be able to remind you that tools and techniques are NOT evil, ONLY the intent behind their use.
Take the often-maligned Ouija board, for example. To listen to some people, you'd think that you'd be swept away by evil spirits into the abyss the moment you pick one up at you local Toys-R-Us. This is absurd. Now, do I think that they should be sold at a toy store? Of course not. Do I think that people who misuse them may get some results that they don't like? Sure. Those who come to a Ouija board with cocky attitudes, a body filled with alcohol, fear, or pre-concieved notions of possible (which, in a fear-filled mind, become probable) negativity, may very well get a nasty knock.
But should we use the hangups of others as an reason to shoo people away from that unique blend of paper and plastic that is a commercial Ouija board? I think not. Warn cowans away if you wish, but do not poison the minds of other Witches against this innocuous tool. It is a tool, with things one should (and should not) do in its operation. If one approaches it with respect, clarity, and a little common sense, then there is no reason why it can't be used with wonderful results.
Ah, but it is no wonder that some would have a knee-jerk reaction against using this tool. After all, we have all "heard" some awful stories about people fooling around with Ouija boards and having dreadful results. And with no other experience, what we've "heard" is all we have to go on. Now, when you consider just how hostile the mundane world from which we come is towards the occult in general, its no wonder that some in our community have such baggage about areas of the occult that aren't immeadiately relevant to the day to day workings of the Craft.
However, shed this baggage we must. Not only can we gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of our own Craft by understanding archaic and modern occultism, but we will also be in a much better position to provide assistance to the community as clergy by a deeper understanding of occultism. (And yes, Witches are clergy to any who wish to call on us, Pagan or cowan.)
For example, what are we to do if someone comes to us with stories of a poltergeist infestation? It's not common, but a possibility nonetheless. Would we be ready to help the person deal with the problem, or would they have to go running to a Catholic priest, no matter how much they might not wish to do so? What about peoples' delusional fantasies of demonic possession? If you're ignorant of the basics of demonology, then you will be in a sad position to help this unfortunate person stop abusing themselves in this way.
Outside of delusional mundanes, there is also another excellent reason to study occultism. Like it or not, the unseen world extends outside the bounds set by modern Pagans. In fact, we take up a very small corner of the magickal community. If the Craft and Paganism are to evolve, we must look without for new areas of inspiration. To be a true student of the mystic, a partial education will not suffice.
Likewise, there needs to be a vast overall improvement in the study of Witchcraft history. I'm not talking about just the pre-burning and the duration of the burning times, but also of the history of the modern Craft.
A culture, religious or ethnic, that does not know of it's history is a doomed culture. Doomed to repeating past errors. So many of the Witch Wars I see today look like carbon copies of the Witch Wars of the past. How many of these could have been avoided had the potential combatants known the cost of such conflicts in the past? How many times have conflicts started over the same stupid misunderstandings and fears? We are a growing religion. We have no time or energy to waste on beating each other about the head and neck. If we are ever going to grow up as a formidable religious force, then we are going to have to stop acting like adolescents! We must live and learn. But how do we learn from the past if we do not know the past?
A culture that is ignorant of it's history is also doomed to forget past glories. There has been
much hard work done in the Craft, and in the larger world of the Western Occult Tradition, already, and it is waiting to be tapped. If we have the glories (and lessons) of the past at our disposal, then looking towards the future will be much more
exciting. How would our ancestors have ever invented the horse drawn cart if every generation had been expected to re-invent the wheel?
We need to encourage (and, if we are running a coven, make sure that the coven training includes) a comprehensive Occult and Historical Witchcraft/Pagan education. If we want to have a literate, evolving Craft instead of some fad for bored college students, then we must not be afraid to learn.
However, it hasn't always been this way. Many of the ways listed above have only come about in the last 15 years or so. In the days before home videos, when TV shows were almost always sensationally gaudy in their depiction of the Craft, when magickal magazines were few and far between, when open circles and public workshops were considered "too risky" for so many
broom-closeted Witches, and Witches revealed themselves to few friends save the closest...there was but one way that was common for people to come to the Craft...the occult.
The earliest modern Witches had one thing in common: an occult background. They were people with a lifelong interest in the occult, and (in many cases) had been exploring its secrets for years. After exploring a myriad of occult topics, they would stumble upon modern Witchcraft, most often through books. They would find that it filled a void in their lives, one that would enrich their studies of both the occult and the world.
This common background in the early days of the Modern Craft would shape its future. Ceremonial magick, elabourate divinatory systems, and scientific parapsychological terms and ideals that were never a (common) part of the ancient Craft would gradually take a place in it's modern practice. The very Craft we practice today is a result of the paths that our predacessors took to get there.
Today, however, things are different. As I mentioned before, the ways that people can make their "first contact" with the Craft...the thing that piques their interest, drives them to find out more, and eventually leads to their walking the path of the Old Ones...are as wide and as varied as Witches themselves. No longer does the initiate have to stumble in the mysted and shadowed underworld of the occult to dance in the moonlight. And, turgid and traditional as I sometimes can be, I am not entirely disappointed by this turn of events. After all, the world of the occult community is littered with marginal personalities that I would wish on *no-one*, lest of all a future sister/brother in the Craft. Different types of contact produce different types of Witches, and diversity enriches us all.
However, there is one thing that this change has effected for the worse, and that is the state of occult knowledge in some areas of the Modern Craft. The current state of occult scholarship within the Craft is sadly lacking. There are more and more new Witches who have studied little of the arcane arts outside of their current spirituality. Indeed, I have met those who's first brush with the occult at all was an open Wiccan circle. This is not that bad in and of itself...after all, we all start somewhere...but many never seem to go beyond this point. They willfully ignore thousands of years of occult study and evolution in favour of whatever "feel-good" booklet they're raiding for circle chants this week.
The reasons are many. One thing that amazes me is just how many people we've got calling themselves Witches/Wiccans these days who are AFRAID of the occult! Yes, they may be dancing under the full moon tonight, but they'll be trembling under their bedsheets tomorrow if they think they see an earth-bound spirit (commonly called a "ghost") in their house. And some are positively puritanical in their admonisions against traditional areas of the occult. Ouija boards, spirit contact, enochian workings, various ceremonial magickal practices...throw these subjects out into any open pagan arena these days, and you will probably get a multitude of advisories against looking into any of them. Some will even go beyond the verdict of foolhardy, calling them evil.
People, what the hell have we become here? Closet Christians? Did someone find a secret part of Gardner's Book of Shadows talking about a Wiccan Devil when I wasn't looking? The finger wagging that I see sometimes makes me feel like I'm back in Sunday school. Any first-year student in the Occult should be able to remind you that tools and techniques are NOT evil, ONLY the intent behind their use.
Take the often-maligned Ouija board, for example. To listen to some people, you'd think that you'd be swept away by evil spirits into the abyss the moment you pick one up at you local Toys-R-Us. This is absurd. Now, do I think that they should be sold at a toy store? Of course not. Do I think that people who misuse them may get some results that they don't like? Sure. Those who come to a Ouija board with cocky attitudes, a body filled with alcohol, fear, or pre-concieved notions of possible (which, in a fear-filled mind, become probable) negativity, may very well get a nasty knock.
But should we use the hangups of others as an reason to shoo people away from that unique blend of paper and plastic that is a commercial Ouija board? I think not. Warn cowans away if you wish, but do not poison the minds of other Witches against this innocuous tool. It is a tool, with things one should (and should not) do in its operation. If one approaches it with respect, clarity, and a little common sense, then there is no reason why it can't be used with wonderful results.
Ah, but it is no wonder that some would have a knee-jerk reaction against using this tool. After all, we have all "heard" some awful stories about people fooling around with Ouija boards and having dreadful results. And with no other experience, what we've "heard" is all we have to go on. Now, when you consider just how hostile the mundane world from which we come is towards the occult in general, its no wonder that some in our community have such baggage about areas of the occult that aren't immeadiately relevant to the day to day workings of the Craft.
However, shed this baggage we must. Not only can we gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of our own Craft by understanding archaic and modern occultism, but we will also be in a much better position to provide assistance to the community as clergy by a deeper understanding of occultism. (And yes, Witches are clergy to any who wish to call on us, Pagan or cowan.)
For example, what are we to do if someone comes to us with stories of a poltergeist infestation? It's not common, but a possibility nonetheless. Would we be ready to help the person deal with the problem, or would they have to go running to a Catholic priest, no matter how much they might not wish to do so? What about peoples' delusional fantasies of demonic possession? If you're ignorant of the basics of demonology, then you will be in a sad position to help this unfortunate person stop abusing themselves in this way.
Outside of delusional mundanes, there is also another excellent reason to study occultism. Like it or not, the unseen world extends outside the bounds set by modern Pagans. In fact, we take up a very small corner of the magickal community. If the Craft and Paganism are to evolve, we must look without for new areas of inspiration. To be a true student of the mystic, a partial education will not suffice.
Likewise, there needs to be a vast overall improvement in the study of Witchcraft history. I'm not talking about just the pre-burning and the duration of the burning times, but also of the history of the modern Craft.
A culture, religious or ethnic, that does not know of it's history is a doomed culture. Doomed to repeating past errors. So many of the Witch Wars I see today look like carbon copies of the Witch Wars of the past. How many of these could have been avoided had the potential combatants known the cost of such conflicts in the past? How many times have conflicts started over the same stupid misunderstandings and fears? We are a growing religion. We have no time or energy to waste on beating each other about the head and neck. If we are ever going to grow up as a formidable religious force, then we are going to have to stop acting like adolescents! We must live and learn. But how do we learn from the past if we do not know the past?
A culture that is ignorant of it's history is also doomed to forget past glories. There has been
much hard work done in the Craft, and in the larger world of the Western Occult Tradition, already, and it is waiting to be tapped. If we have the glories (and lessons) of the past at our disposal, then looking towards the future will be much more
exciting. How would our ancestors have ever invented the horse drawn cart if every generation had been expected to re-invent the wheel?
We need to encourage (and, if we are running a coven, make sure that the coven training includes) a comprehensive Occult and Historical Witchcraft/Pagan education. If we want to have a literate, evolving Craft instead of some fad for bored college students, then we must not be afraid to learn.
Tags:
Binding And Scourging
Monday, August 27, 2007, 01:09 PM EST [General]
The binding and scourging of candidates for initiation are longstanding traditions within the Traditional Craft community, and yet they are also some of the least understood. To truly understand just why they're still a part of so many Wiccan Traditions, we have to start with some historical background.
Binding
The binding method used in Gardnerian Wicca and it's Traditional offshoots is very easy to trace...it's virtually the same method used in Masonic initiations (and Gardner was an advanced Co-Mason). Compare the digram found in Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft to the one in any book about Freemasonry, and you'll find little divergeance. This has led some to conclude that the binding of a postulant for initiation is simply a Masonic borrowing of Gardner's with little other meaning.
This attitude overlooks both the historic and spiritual signifigance of binding, as well as the challenge before entering the circle. The restrictive binding of one about to be initiated, and thus transformed, has been with us throughout history. Countless cultures and societies used this as a symbolic re-entering of the restriction of the woumb before birth. The initiatory experience has almost always been a re-birth, into a new position in the community or into a new phase of spiritual growth. To leave the candidate in a bound position, usually in a dark place, while the circle was being prepared has been Traditional Wicca's way of symbolising gestating in the Mother's woumb. The ceremony, then, is the birthing process, and the end marks the initiate's entry into a new life...that as a Priest or Priestess of the Old Gods.
Likewise, the challenge...where one is stopped at blade's point and asked if they dare continue...is the symbolic last chance for a candidate to not go through the re-birthing process, and it's a symbolic way of confirming that the one about to go through the rite is truly doing so of their own free will. No-one can ever say that they were rail-roaded into Wiccan initiation, or initiated without a chance to say "no". The bond of initiation is a strong one, and one not to be undertaken lightly. Neither the life of the initiator nor the initiated will ever be quite the same, and it's best to do something like this with no doubts.
Scourging
This is perhaps the most misunderstood piece of Wiccan ritual regalia. The Traditional ones are quite often wicked-looking affairs, with long knotted leather strips. Even the modern Gardnerian version of an embroidery silk scourge (or a "Gardnerian Party Favour", as some call it) can leave an improper impression on the skittish.
And yet, the use of the scourge as a sacred, mystical tool also has it's roots in antiquity. A favourite illustration in older Witchcraft books was of a fresco uncovered at Pompeii that showed an initiate being scourged near the end of the experience. Of course, Christian monks have used a scourge as a method of purification for centuries, but they in fact picked up the practice from other, older sources.
In Wiccan ritual the scourge is often used as an agent of purification. One old adage is that "salt purifies the body, but the scourge purifies the soul". When it was considered that the three-fold law applied only to Witches (as opposed to a general natural law, as many regard it today), the scourge was used to shed the karma of the previous life in preparation of one's new life as a Witch.
Today, the scourge is primarily used as a symbol of the willingness to suffer to learn. This is vital, and something that is criminally absent in much of today's mall-bought, "feel good" Wicca. The fact of the matter is, the path of the initiate is not one for everybody. To undergo the experience of initiation (whether at the hands of another or at the hands of the Gods) is to put oneself "out there", in an astral sense, as one seeking greater spiritual illumination and growth. The spirits that guide us (Gods and Goddesses, Lords of Karma, etc) see this as a kind of neon sign amongst the din of humanity, and give us special atention. This can be a blessing that *feels* like a curse sometimes. This is because we grow through both positive and negative events in our lives, and will get both in our quest to grow spiritually. To walk the path of an initiate is to speed up one's karma, to grow faster and recieve illumination...and this isn't always pleasent. One must be willing to suffer to learn. It won't be all unpleasentness, but unplesent experiences *will* be a part of the path, and we can't delude ourselves into thinking that it's all going to be rainbows and Beltane shagging.
Some covens still scourge to test this willingness, and others find more creative ways of bringing the point across.
Thus, though they are (outwardly, at least) lurid in appearance, binding and scourging have both tradition and purpose behind them, and are not something to be discarded lightly. Though part of group experience more than solitary work, meditating upon their importance is recommended for all who walk the path.
Blessed Be,
Taliesin
Binding
The binding method used in Gardnerian Wicca and it's Traditional offshoots is very easy to trace...it's virtually the same method used in Masonic initiations (and Gardner was an advanced Co-Mason). Compare the digram found in Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft to the one in any book about Freemasonry, and you'll find little divergeance. This has led some to conclude that the binding of a postulant for initiation is simply a Masonic borrowing of Gardner's with little other meaning.
This attitude overlooks both the historic and spiritual signifigance of binding, as well as the challenge before entering the circle. The restrictive binding of one about to be initiated, and thus transformed, has been with us throughout history. Countless cultures and societies used this as a symbolic re-entering of the restriction of the woumb before birth. The initiatory experience has almost always been a re-birth, into a new position in the community or into a new phase of spiritual growth. To leave the candidate in a bound position, usually in a dark place, while the circle was being prepared has been Traditional Wicca's way of symbolising gestating in the Mother's woumb. The ceremony, then, is the birthing process, and the end marks the initiate's entry into a new life...that as a Priest or Priestess of the Old Gods.
Likewise, the challenge...where one is stopped at blade's point and asked if they dare continue...is the symbolic last chance for a candidate to not go through the re-birthing process, and it's a symbolic way of confirming that the one about to go through the rite is truly doing so of their own free will. No-one can ever say that they were rail-roaded into Wiccan initiation, or initiated without a chance to say "no". The bond of initiation is a strong one, and one not to be undertaken lightly. Neither the life of the initiator nor the initiated will ever be quite the same, and it's best to do something like this with no doubts.
Scourging
This is perhaps the most misunderstood piece of Wiccan ritual regalia. The Traditional ones are quite often wicked-looking affairs, with long knotted leather strips. Even the modern Gardnerian version of an embroidery silk scourge (or a "Gardnerian Party Favour", as some call it) can leave an improper impression on the skittish.
And yet, the use of the scourge as a sacred, mystical tool also has it's roots in antiquity. A favourite illustration in older Witchcraft books was of a fresco uncovered at Pompeii that showed an initiate being scourged near the end of the experience. Of course, Christian monks have used a scourge as a method of purification for centuries, but they in fact picked up the practice from other, older sources.
In Wiccan ritual the scourge is often used as an agent of purification. One old adage is that "salt purifies the body, but the scourge purifies the soul". When it was considered that the three-fold law applied only to Witches (as opposed to a general natural law, as many regard it today), the scourge was used to shed the karma of the previous life in preparation of one's new life as a Witch.
Today, the scourge is primarily used as a symbol of the willingness to suffer to learn. This is vital, and something that is criminally absent in much of today's mall-bought, "feel good" Wicca. The fact of the matter is, the path of the initiate is not one for everybody. To undergo the experience of initiation (whether at the hands of another or at the hands of the Gods) is to put oneself "out there", in an astral sense, as one seeking greater spiritual illumination and growth. The spirits that guide us (Gods and Goddesses, Lords of Karma, etc) see this as a kind of neon sign amongst the din of humanity, and give us special atention. This can be a blessing that *feels* like a curse sometimes. This is because we grow through both positive and negative events in our lives, and will get both in our quest to grow spiritually. To walk the path of an initiate is to speed up one's karma, to grow faster and recieve illumination...and this isn't always pleasent. One must be willing to suffer to learn. It won't be all unpleasentness, but unplesent experiences *will* be a part of the path, and we can't delude ourselves into thinking that it's all going to be rainbows and Beltane shagging.
Some covens still scourge to test this willingness, and others find more creative ways of bringing the point across.
Thus, though they are (outwardly, at least) lurid in appearance, binding and scourging have both tradition and purpose behind them, and are not something to be discarded lightly. Though part of group experience more than solitary work, meditating upon their importance is recommended for all who walk the path.
Blessed Be,
Taliesin
Tags: