Witchin’ and Relitchin

August 23rd, 2007

As discussed in previous articles, Witches and Wiccans aren’t interchangeable terms. Wicca is a form of Witchcraft; Witchcraft is more of an umbrella term, encompassing a broad spectrum of approaches to metaphysics and comprising practitioners of an impressive array of magical activities. Witchcraft doesn’t have a homogeneous theology, and, since it is a Craft rather than a religion, one can be a Witch within many religious frameworks (or outside the lot of them), just as an atheist, a Hindu, a Buddhist and a Wiccan may all practice Yoga without compromising their spirituality.

Wicca, however, does have its own theology. Or, more accurately, it does according to most introductory books on the subject. Many even refer to it as the religious aspect of Witchcraft (which it isn’t – at best, it’s a religious aspect of Witchcraft). Taking a beginner’s guide at random from the shelves (you’ll have to trust me), I see in Jeremy Kingston’s Witches and Witchcraft [Danbury Press, 1976] that: “Modern white witches worship the Great Mother, the Earth Mother … [and] also the Horned God … god of the hunt.” Kingston was writing a goodly while back, but that sort of categorical statement can still be found on any number of Internet introductions to Wicca.

Most modern Wiccan primers, however, are more understanding of the path’s diversity. In Tony and Aileen Grist’s The Illustrated Guide to Wicca [Godsfield Press, 2000], the picture is painted less brashly: “Most Wiccans believe that divinity is both male and female. For some that means acknowledging a single goddess and a single god. For others it means worshipping a number of gods and goddesses selected from Pagan pantheons.” The authors go on to mention that Wiccans, being pragmatists, don’t tend to get hung up on the issue of how “real” – if at all – these invisible friends are.

Perhaps, though, Wiccans can get a trifle too blasé about such matters. Like Douglas Adams’s philosophers trying to explain to Deep Thought what the Ultimate Question actually was, Wiccans often get hazy on who they think this Goddess and God pair actually are. Are they a personified Yin and Yang, complimentary halves of a single supreme deity, or even Platonic ideals of humankind? A common opinion is that they represent the true entities behind all lesser Goddesses and Gods, all of whom are aspects of the divine pair. If this is so, why then do we give them certain specific attributions – lunar, earth and triune aspects for the Goddess; solar, horned and dual aspects for the God – to the exclusion of others? (A reasonable answer to this is that we are dressing them in the imagery of what we deduce were humanity’s very earliest Goddess and God.)

Perhaps our pragmatism towards the nature of divinity – the subject considered of paramount importance by many of history’s most sophisticated thinkers (and, yes, rather a lot of total muppets) – can lead us into bad magical habits. Literalist Wiccans might be in danger of basing their lives on beliefs as little questioned as those of the most buttoned-down fundamentalist. Subjectivists might be treating actual entities less respectfully than they would characters in a fantasy role-playing game.

More importantly, though, neglecting theology may be a teensy bit of a cop-out, intellectually and spiritually. It’s both an oddly apathetic response to forces we claim to revere and an unexpectedly unadventurous attitude for Witch to have towards the oldest and deepest magic of all. In one of his better moments in The Equinox, Aleister Crowley reminded his readers that: “Our Method is Science, Our Aim is Religion” (of course, being Crowley he had to sabotage himself with the flamboyantly naff preceding lines: “We place no reliance On virgin or pigeon”). If so, theology – or perhaps “thealogy” in a Goddess-favouring path – is to magic what the Hubble telescope is to astronomy, a device through which to bring us more closely into the source of mystery.

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Initiations Initially

August 21st, 2007

If we view pre-20th century Witchcraft as a form of shamanism, it’s improbable that it didn’t involve initiation. Little evidence of a convincing nature, though, has survived in print. Professed Witch-finders did, of course, often extract from their victims accounts of initiations, packed with the sort of Goya-esque grotesquerie that made the Malleus Maleficarum the feel-good read of 1486. However, given how readily most of us would cave in to the promptings of a psychotic sadist wielding spiky metal things and full Papal approval, these are about as reliable as historical evidence as Matthew Hopkins’s Jumbo Book of Fibs.

As for post-Witch-craze Witchcraft, historian Ronald Hutton writes in The Triumph of the Moon [OUP, 1999] that surviving documents suggest that Witchery was then more commonly inherited than conveyed by initiation. There’s no telling, though, whether this reflects more on a paucity of records or the decline of Witchcraft’s shamanic essence in the era of the Cunning Folk.

But if rituals of induction did indeed fade from surviving enclaves of Witchiness for a time, by the Craft’s mid-20th century renaissance they were back with a vengeance. Inspired by a hoard of influences – from Apostolic Succession and Classical mystery religions to the initiatory rites of secret societies such as Rosicrucianism, Illuminism, Freemasonry and the inevitable Golden Dawn – Gerald Gardner and associates brewed up a new form of initiation using a wide variety of tried and true ingredients. Purification, challenges, minor ordeals, oaths of secrecy and degrees all made it into the final mix. As Gardner was never adept at camouflaging his sources, this has given Craft historians and assorted anoraks many diverting hours playing “Spot the Plagiarism”.

This hasn’t in the least diminished the effectiveness of the ritual, variations of which remain the most common form of Wiccan initiation. The following outline of a representative initiation retains many ingredients that would seem perfectly familiar to a typical Coven of the fifties and sixties. (Note that while it sketches an initiation into a small group, one-to-one initiations are also common.)

The initiation takes place only at the end of suitable period of training – a year and a day is typically the minimum – and at the request of the would-be Witch rather than the invitation of an initiate. Traditionally, and more often than not, men are initiated by women and vice versa, though for much of the Craft this is now more a matter of preference than doctrine. In some traditions, the postulant may also require an initiate as a sponsor.

Ritual cleansing is usually the first item on the agenda – the postulant may be sent off for a lengthy soak in a candle-lit, scented tub while the Circle is being cast. Once all is in readiness, the sponsor or another Witch (or two or three) will be sent to summon and prepare the postulant. This involves binding the hands behind the back and blindfolding, symbolising the darkness and restriction before a reawakening. Whether it also involves robing will vary from group to group, though many Covens which usually work clothed make an exception for initiations. Other Covens have a tradition of allowing non-initiates to attend some robed Circles but keep skyclad workings for initiates only, thus making being skyclad for initiation doubly meaningful. The central idea is that new initiates ought to be no more adorned for their first moments as Witches than for their first seconds outside the womb.

(A caveat here: I know of one Wiccan who reached the moment in her initiation where her blindfold was removed and discovered herself to be – you’re probably ahead of me – the only naked person in a room full of robed Witches. She wasn’t used to being nude in company, but had braved it on the assumption that the whole Coven would be working skyclad. Finding that wasn’t the case was an unwelcome jolt that both undermined her trust in the group and made her decide to work skyclad again only once Hell was a skating rink. Initiations do need some elements of surprise, but they also need a sense of well-deserved trust. This particular form of surprise is more the stuff of tacky practical jokes than of magical camaraderie.)

The postulant will then be led to a gateway cut in the Circle, where he or she will be challenged. There usually ensues a brief questioning as to name, purpose and commitment. A sword or athame will be lightly held to the postulant’s heart or throat with the warning that to step forward into the blade would be preferable to continuing the ritual in fear or mistrust. (I can reassure non-initiates that not a single fatality arising from this has ever come to my attention, though several inadvertent, athame-related, minor casualties certainly have.) The soon-to-be-Witch usually manages to talk his or her way into the Circle with one of the worst-kept secret password sequences ever: “Perfect love and perfect trust.” It’s pleasing that this potent phrase is still widely used in the Craft and just as pleasing that some of Gardner’s semi-Lovecraftian bombast about “the terrible domains of the Lords of the Outer Spaces” has been turfed.

The initiatrix or initiator will now greet the postulant with a welcoming kiss (fivefold or otherwise) and present him or her to the Quarters and other assembled spiritual dignitaries. A measure (a cord tied with knots recording the postulant’s height and the breadth around the head and breast – traditionally the measures of a coffin or shroud) may be taken at this stage. It was originally kept by the Coven until that was decided to be a bit too power-over-ish. It is now usually presented to the new initiate. An oath will then be spoken by the postulant, confirming his or her determination to be remade as Witch and Priest/ess.

At this point, in old-guard Gardnerian Craft, the postulant accepted a light scourging, symbolic of a willingness to suffer to learn. This isn’t commonly performed these days, partly since most of us are perfectly well aware of how much suffering is necessary to learn and would rather our co-Coveners were part of the cure than part of the pain. Other gentler “ordeals” are sometimes performed at this point instead, such as spinning the bound postulant about, threatening a trial but substituting a treat, or something of that sort. Disorientation and surprises are very useful here, but I’ll leave you to think up your own methods. This is (a) more fun, and (b) means I won’t have to think up too many new ones next time I’m involved in an initiation.

At last, the postulant is released from the ropes and blindfold to be anointed and proclaimed a Witch. Traditionally, his or her magical tools were presented at that point with instruction as to their usage. These days the instruction has usually been handled well in advance, but I’m reliably informed pressies are still welcome! Naturally, the Circle continues as a celebration of one more freshly made Witch.

Posted in Becoming a Witch, Rituals, Wicca | 3 Comments »

The Seen and the Real

August 19th, 2007

In the Craft, we often encounter the phrase “solitary workings”. For many who have read about or engaged in Witchery, though, this notion might seem something of a contradiction in terms. Certainly a Witch’s Circle can and often does contain just the one living, breathing human, but if we give any credence to the effectiveness of invocations, the Circle is also a meeting place for an array of less readily perceived beings, from elementals and other well-intentioned spirits to divinities of varying degrees of seniority and clout. If the Witch wanted solitude, he or she might just as well have trotted off to a football grand final.

Whether this concept rings true to us depends on how we view the matter of invisible friends and their propensity for accepting invitations. Even in the most formalized religions, beliefs about this vary, and so when looking at the amorphous mass of Witches and Pagans (collectively speaking – I’m not referring to individual Witches and Pagans as “amorphous masses” since that would be very rude), we encounter a spectacularly broad range of opinions.

At one end of the theological spectrum, we have the literalists, who accept the existence of their unseen invitees as confidently as they do other phenomena undetectable to the human eye due to size (sub-molecular particles, for instance) or the limitations of our optical sensory receptors (as in the case of x-rays). Some literalists believe that the range of visual perception is broader in the case of gifted individuals and may be extended through intention. Thus, some may be born with the capacity to see ghosts, faeries or related phenomena such as auras, while others may acquire this skill. To others, such expanded perception is considered to be more a matter of mentally translating information perceived through other senses into the “language” of the visible (or any of the other senses).

At the other extreme is subjectivism. This can express itself in the belief that all entities and occurrences the reality of which wouldn’t get a materialist’s seal of approval are purely constructs of our minds. Alternatively, it may describe the broader notion that objective reality is unknowable since all natural phenomena must be filtered through our limited perceptions (in which case, even the materialists would be barking not so much up the wrong tree as one which may very well not actually exist).

This thinking quickly gets us snookered by the “no one can possibly know anything” argument, which makes all subsequent discussion a bit pointless, and so many inclined to subjectivism get off before that stop and stick with the opinion that the material is the “really truly real” and the not-demonstrably-material isn’t. That in turn leaves the door open for physicists to validate things matters such as telepathy, hauntings and Uri Geller’s wilting cutlery, and also allows that what goes on in the mind can be as significant as what goes on in the body. Certainly, mental illness (which may be, as Kurt Vonnegut insisted in his 1973 novel Breakfast of Champions, merely the result of “bad chemicals”) has the potential to be quite as dangerous as physical illness.

This form of subjectivism is often thought of as Jungian, but Jung would be the first to dispute that usage. “This is certainly not to say that what we call the unconscious is identical with God or is set up in his place,” he stated in The Undiscovered Self [American Library, 1959]. “It is the medium from which the religious experience seems to flow.” For “God” in this context, we can read the entire world of the allegedly supernatural, from the holy to the downright spooky. The “G” Word, however, deftly steers us towards a good starting place for our investigation of the Wiccan’s invisible friends: the Goddess and the God of the Witches.

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Crossing the Threshold: The Magic of Initiation

August 19th, 2007

Rituals of initiation have been with the human race for what anthropologists and historiographers might justifiably refer to as bloomin’ ages. Wherever we have gathered, bred and pondered the nature of our lives, initiation rites have been integral to our cultures. Broadly speaking, they can be divided into two classes: general rites of passage, especially of maturation; and more specialised inductions into professions and vocations. The two can coincide – for example, in some cultures, a teenage boy might be simultaneously transformed by initiation into both an adult and a hunter or warrior – but more often the ritual’s purpose is more single-minded.

Initiation is essentially a ritual of death and rebirth. The death of the old self is sometimes downplayed and sometimes so amplified that it involves genuine grief (as in cultures where families noisily mourn the loss of the boy who has symbolically died to be reborn as a man) and physical ordeals (such as scarification, circumcision or the whacking out of perfectly good teeth). Some initiations go further and introduce the very real possibility of death. To qualify as a shaman in certain societies, you might need to subject yourself to potentially lethal snakebites or whacking great doses of hallucinogens. If you survive, you’d be in.

Fortunately initiation into modern Witchcraft isn’t as big on the maiming and dying business, despite some colourful myths on the subject. For instance, many will recall the sharp stab to the boy bits featured in Alex Sanders’s dippy claims of childhood initiation by his grandmother, who, he insisted, followed it up years later with a further initiation involving sexual intercourse. (Sanders was an enthusiastic promoter of Wicca, so we can only speculate about why he felt sex with an elderly relative and a slight pruning of the family jewels might be considered incentives to give Wicca a whirl. He may as well have gone totally mediæval and printed posters reading: “Join the Craft and you too can kiss a goat’s bottom!”)

Despite the lack of physical danger in a Wiccan initiation, it remains a ritual of challenge, transformation and commitment central to many a Witch’s Craft. It is the moment at which the broomstick becomes airborne and the flight begins.

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