Spirited (12 page)

Remember that going public may not be received well in your area, and you might have to consider a private place away from the masses.

If your congregation is a private gathering, then you should be fine; however, you need to consider what ritual tools you will be using and whether they could potentially be viewed as a threat. Avoid using athames, swords, or anything an innocent bystander would find threatening or dangerous. Wands, cauldrons, flower wreaths, and the more natural items are preferable. If you intend to use candles, make sure they are safely contained or within a fireproof container. On that note, rather than lighting a fire within the cauldron, light a few pillar candles and place them inside the cauldron.

Once you have thought things through, it's time to spread the word, advertise, and ultimately pray that people attend your open circle. For your first time, you need to be aware that several adult Pagans will also see the advertisements, and that if you are uncomfortable with an adult presence you need to make it clear that the open circle is for teens only. Obviously it's not a good idea to have
OPEN CIRCLE—TEENS ONLY
in bold capitals across the top of the poster, as that is directly exclusive, whereas something like
OPEN CIRCLE FOR TEENS
would not be.

Advertising is a matter of time and attention. Unlike with a Teen Pagan Network, it is not possible to patiently wait until you attract attention, as the sabbats only come once a year and it's bad organising to post-pone one event after the other.

When the day of your open circle arrives, mentally and spiritually prepare yourself by relaxing, focusing, and keeping it real. You need to have fun and at the same time remember your duty to provide a safe and enjoyable day to open, interested, and curious people who may never have experienced Pagan ritual before.

Arrive half an hour early to set everything up. Don't worry about how many people will turn up, just make sure that you are relaxed and that you keep a positive frame of mind. When people start turning up, greet them and initiate conversation. When the time comes to start the ritual, you can begin to explain how the ritual will run and what the significance of the specific day is. If anyone has any questions, make sure that you answer them to the inquirer's satisfaction. After the preliminary stuff, you can begin the ritual. Remember to keep things running smoothly and to concentrate. Ask for volunteers to help call the quarters and cast the circle.

If you have opted for a simple circle, then simply join hands, ground and centre, and visualise a brilliant sphere of white light around you as you walk deosil. Chant something to affirm the circle's boundaries:

Casting circle as we run

Powers of the moon and sun

Hear our voices one by one

This circle's cast and be it done!

When you reach the climax of the ritual and the energy is peaking, open your intuitive faculties and hand over your mind to divine inspiration. When the time comes to release the energy, you will feel it, and you should shout “Release!” or something to that effect. At the shouting of the keyword, everyone should fall to the ground in dramatic fervour. Allow everyone time to recuperate.

Once everyone is composed, pass around food and drink. Here, you can either choose to discuss the ritual within the circle or open the circle and chat afterwards. Ask how everyone felt during the ritual and make sure to share some of your own thoughts. Accept constructive criticism and take in everyone's comments. Stay as long as you want. Talk, laugh, and swap contact details. Who knows, this may be the start of a new study group or coven!

Pagan Meets:
A Note on Cat
Herding

We Pagans have a famous saying: “Getting Pagans together is like herding cats.” It's true! Unfortunately, the implications of this proverb are that there are times when our attempts at meets, study groups, gatherings, and networks result in hopeless flops. Never give up, though! It takes perseverance, devotion, and patience to organise Pagan gatherings. I've turned up to meets where there's only been me, and I go home angry, disappointed, and sweaty.

Ultimately, it is up to the individual to add to the numbers attending Pagan gatherings. If you feel frightened, anxious, or nervous about putting yourself out there, remember that, above all, a Pagan is an advocate for freedom and diversity. Don't feel as if you should close yourself in simply because you haven't had the training or feel you will appear incompetent and foolish before the older Pagans. You are at your own point and pace of growth, and you need to accept and embrace the path you are on. Remember, you are one more person, and you have the power and presence to radiate your personal energy.

We Pagans are a highly individualistic bunch, and for that reason it's hard to understand how events such as Pagan Pride are such a success! However, Pagan gatherings are the future of our community. They provide friendly and open environments where Pagans can get together, discuss issues of importance, have fun, and get to know each other without feeling an obligation to commit to anything. You can be a part of our vibrant community if you take a chance and visit a local Pagan group or form your own. Pagan meets and gatherings are what you make of them!

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Pagan traditions are generally ethically sound belief systems. For instance, Wiccans adhere to the Wiccan Rede, which advises them to act as they will as long as no harm is done. As a Pagan who is not Wiccan, I do not abide by the Wiccan Rede; however, I do seek to live by a code of conduct. I also live by my spiritual creeds, which highlight the importance of treating others fairly and embracing diversity as a primary strength within humans and all of Nature. There are certain ethical codes intertwined with most Pagan traditions.

The current revived Pagan traditions all have their roots in ancient practices and beliefs but adapt these for the modern practitioner. Many scholars view the NeoPagan movement as an extension of the occult revolution that flourished in Victorian England. While Paganism may have benefited from the leverage of interest in occult philosophies during the early 1900s, Paganism in and of itself is a unique blend of ancient and modern spiritual philosophies.

To survive in the modern world, Paganism has had to adapt to current lifestyles and attitudes while at the same time retaining its magickal identity. To do this, notions of sacrifice, drug use, and other ancient Pagan customs have disappeared, and Paganism in general has developed a sound ethical foundation.

Society has changed radically since ancient times, and what is considered the norm nowadays may have been perceived as revolutionary in the ancient cultures. Therefore, there is the slightest chance that historians, raised within highly organised democratic societies, interpret evidence of ethical practice noncontextually because of cultural unfamiliarity.

Hypocrisy runs rife when organised religion abuses its imposed regulations. The Catholic Church has suffered considerably from the controversy surrounding priests committing pedophilic acts. The media's frenzy with fundamentalist Islam has done a great deal of damage to the faith itself. Religion in its orthodox sense is based on a constrained relationship with the divine, facilitated by specific moral institutes. If this is so, Paganism is not a religion but a spiritual expression of connection with the divine through a love of Nature and all that is within it. This love and compassion is the foundation of Pagan ethics.

Harm None: Ancient Pagan Creed
or Modern Public Insurance?

Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfil:
An' ye harm none, do what ye will.

—The Wiccan Rede

As Wicca gained popularity in the Western world, several individuals and groups came out, claiming lineage to centuries-old traditions that had secretly kept the Old Religion alive and well. The Anti-Witchcraft legislation in Britain had been repealed, and Witches were free to “go public” and spread the news that Witchcraft was a Nature-loving religion that had remained intact since the medieval Witchcraft hysteria. Unfortunately, those early years of empty claims have affected how the educated public view Wicca and the other NeoPagan traditions. We are only now climbing out of those self-imposed pits to actively promote our community's understanding that we are a new people looking to the past for inspiration.

The Wiccan Rede is testimony to the awareness that the public is a cynical critic who wishes to destroy any notion of alternative revolution and avoid change as best it can. Unfortunately for it, the Wiccan religion—and more broadly the NeoPagan movement—is one of the first “alternative” groups to succeed in gaining rapid support in today's culture. How does Paganism manage to stay afoot in the modern world when it has been described as a “non-prophet disorganisation”? The reason, of course, is the adherence to our ethics.

The Wiccan Rede, in its essential form, was first quoted as a concrete fragment of wisdom during the inaugural Witches' dinner on October 3, 1964, by Doreen Valiente in promotion of benevolent relationships between covens and, of course, between Witches and non-Witches. However, the general inclination to accept such an attitude as a Witch's basic morality was propounded much earlier by Gerald Gardner himself in his book
The Meaning of Witchcraft
(1959). The context in which this suggestion is made does not appear to be overly stressed; in fact, the second point Gardner makes in the text concerns the usage of Magick in terms of “harm none” and is given more emphasis (from page 108 of Gardner's
The Meaning of Witchcraft
, 2004 edition):

“[Witches] are inclined to the morality of the legendary Good King Pausol
,
14
‘Do what you like so long as you harm no one.' But they believe a certain law to be important, ‘You must not use magic for anything which will cause harm to anyone, and if, to prevent a greater wrong being done, you must discommode someone, you must do it only in a way which will abate the harm.'”

The Craft Laws believed to have been written by Gerald Gardner and put forth to his coven in 1957 also contain fragments of prose that concern the “harm none” creed. It is evident, however, upon reading through these laws, that wherever this creed is mentioned, it is always in reference to the usage of Magick—though there is also a sense of spiritual morality that is implied by such phrases as “But, they may, after great consultations with all, use the Art to prevent or restrain Christians from harming us and others. But only to let or constrain them and never to punish.” Then again, it seems that if any of the “Brotherhood of Wica” happened to place fellow Witches under suspicion, then may the curse of the Goddess be upon them. Willing the curse of the Goddess on your fellow Witches doesn't make for an amiable sense of morality, does it? In fact, there is also mention of a time when the Wica held “power” (assumedly political, within the context) and magick could be used against any who interfered with the Brotherhood. This sounds nothing like the peaceful nature of many Wiccans today who would prefer to shield rather than directly curse or bind. So while these laws may hint at an early form of Wiccan ethics, they have no consistency and do not denote any form of a cohesive “harm none” creed.

After the publication of the aforementioned sources, the Rede appeared in several publications both in Britain and the United States, and it grew to become a significant tenet of the Wiccan faith, as illustrated by both Alex Sanders' and Doreen Valiente's summation of Wicca.

The “Rede of the Wiccae,” a twenty-six-line poem that first appeared in the 1975 edition of
Green Egg
magazine, is probably the first instance of a fully fleshed, esoteric litany that made mention of the Wiccan Rede. This poem was submitted by Lady Gwen Thompson (1928–1986), a hereditary Witch who resided in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Thompson claimed that the poem was originally written by her paternal grandmother, Adriana Porter, who she said had died in 1946. The truth and accuracy of Thompson's account of the history of the Rede is still under scrutiny.

Over time, other versions of the Rede found their way into the community through various publications and individuals who either embellished or embraced the original wording of the Rede, or who, like Doreen Valiente in her book
Witchcraft for Tomorrow
(1978), scripted entirely new pieces that contained the quintessential meaning of the previously quoted Rede (i.e., “
The Witches' Creed”
).

This fascination with such a pure spiritual law reveals the sincerity and conviction of the early Wiccans to establish a firm ethical ground. The popularity of the Rede was fostered by the influx of keen students who were unable to make contact with covens and who practiced the Craft alone. Therefore, the personalised and structured training involved in covencraft was left to those who took time to seek out groups, and the passing on of ethical advice and guidance by experienced Witches to the newly initiated manifested within the pages of the increasing number of published Wiccan manuals.

However, the Rede has its roots in the philosophy of the ancients, as claimed by Doreen Valiente. Saint Augustine decreed, “Love and do what you will,” and the Pagans of both ancient Egypt and Greece were adamant in their belief that all things are pure and holy to those who have risen to such a state. Therefore, it is the refined instinct of such spiritual people to commit to the will of love, or that which is sacred. This parallels nicely with the infamous Aleister Crowley's own philosophies. In his
Book of the Law,
Crowley channelled the following from the being who made himself known as Aiwass: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law … Love is the Law; Love under Will.”

The Rede offered a sense of community and cohesion to an other­wise autonomous and decentralised religious group. It paved the way for acceptance of self-initiation as a valid entry to the Craft and introduced solitary practitioners who couldn't or had no desire to join covens to a straightforward ethical precept.

The word
rede
is said to mean “advice,” and therefore it is immediately apparent that the things outlined in the Rede are merely expressions of guidance and common sense. It is, of course, impossible to live in this technological age without harming
something
. The massive use of electricity is polluting the atmosphere and destroying our resources. Leather products are part of a slaughtering industry that expends no sliver of respect to the lives taken in the process. This unconscious destruction of life has reached such a point that it is unavoidable.

“Harm none” is not a commandment that we must live by or die, so to speak; it is a mantra of peace and life in a world where both are forgotten in favour of a robotic existence. Wiccan or not, “harm none” is a tenet that honours the path of the individual and celebrates a love of life. It gives us room to live freely, without fear of abusing an ancient law, and allows us to imbue our philosophies with that inner, divine spark.

Black and White: A Myth

True magic is neither black nor white.
It's both because nature is both
loving and cruel all at the same time.
The only good or bad is in the heart of the Witch.
Life keeps a balance on its own.

—Lirio,
The Craft

Magick
is
. It is not a collection of various colours. So where did all this “black Witch/white Witch” stuff come from?

In the past, many Wiccans chose to identify themselves as “white Witches” when being interviewed by the media. Their choice to label themselves as such wasn't seen as fluffy back then, but as a necessary step to indicate to the public that the majority of modern Witches were benevolent. There was also a spiritual need to categorise themselves as such, as the belief that there were “black” covens in existence was common among the Wiccan community. The integration of the Wiccan Rede and the Threefold Law into Wiccan tradition was also seen as an attempt at reinforcing the central pillars of Wicca and to defend against public criticism.

We could go even further back in time and look to the European wise
woman or cunning man. It has been said that the village cunning folk helped inspire the European Witch hysteria through their avid promo
tion of the realities of both black and white Magick and the need to protect oneself against the malice of the “black” Witch. The cunning folk, whose own magickal systems had become influenced by Christian prayer and icons, allegedly identified themselves as white Witches and were trained in counter-cursing and the reversal of “black” Magick. Of course, without solid evidence to back up these theories, this is all merely speculation.

In the twenty-first century, is there any plausible motive to specify the colour of Magick? What is the difference between white and black Magick? Do they even exist as discrete sources of energy?

Pagans actively reject the tendency to define life through strict opposition (dualism). The monotheistic faiths believe that because God exists, an adversary (an embodiment of evil) must also exist. In this way, dualism can often become a tool of control (religious insurance). Good and evil become psychologically instilled in the mind and are constantly reinforced by social dichotomies. This has influenced the way people treat each other in our society.

As Pagans, we have abandoned what we see as an outdated form of expression. Black and white are overgeneralised delusions in a world where nothing is absolute. Life is not an embodiment of social perception but of truth.

“Black and white” is also affected by socio-economic and cultural conditions. For example, if a relatively educated, well-off American Witch sought to self-advertise as a “
white Witch,”
I would be instantly wary. However, if a poor, widowed Italian woman defined her practice as “white,” the cultural context would support it. It has nothing to do with how well-off either is that determines their right to the label, it is their motives in applying it. The American Witch has access to bookstores overflowing with modern Witchcraft texts; therefore, the idea that Magick is not black or white should be apparent to him. Also, there is no imminent threat of isolation or physical harm. However, for the Italian Witch whose only income comes from providing the villagers with herbal medicine, divination, charms, and spells, there is motive enough. The reasoning behind this would be that the majority of her clients are Roman Catholic (at least nominally) and need assurance that her magickal knowledge does not come from Satan. What motive does the American Witch have? If he is visible to the media as a representative of the Craft, then he should be honest and accurate in his portrayal of the spirituality.