Week 1 - History

Fundamentals in Witchcraft
Week 1. Terms History and a Warning Recent Developments essay Some traditions compared

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PLEASE NOTE: There is a saying; "Ask three witches a question, and you will get six answers." I will be teaching what I know, or believe, or have pieced together, or culled from the mysteries. You can expect to find other teachers who disagree with me on various pointsyou yourself will probably disagree with me on somegood. There's an awful lot of truth out there, and you're not going to get it all from me or any one individual. When all else fails, trust your heart.

TERMS
Before we get into our study of Wicca and witchcraft, I think that I need to define a few terms, as I see and understand them, so we can all be on the same page. There is a tendency in todays paganism to blend and blur terms. The result is that there is a lot of confusion in Neo-paganism and Wicca as it is practiced. Wicca: a relatively modern religion first put forth by Gerald Gardener in the early part of the 20th Century. He supposedly got his information from Old Dorothy, a witch that he had encountered in the New Forest in Britain. Her and her coven supposed practiced a tradition that had been handed down for ages. The facts tend to point in a different direction. No one who was associated with Gardener ever met Old Dorothy and a lot of the rituals she gave to him were heavily influenced by Masonic and Golden Dawn materials. Is it a surprise to learn that Gardener himself was associated with the Golden Dawn? This is not to say that Wicca is an invalid religion because it is new. It is a beautiful and powerful religion. Its tenets are focused on worshipping the Divine as seen through the dualism of the natural world. This dualism is expressed as a God and a Goddess. Most Wiccans worship this duality and have a reverence for nature and the natural rhythms of life. Wicca is usually very eclectic, using a lot of different things from different cultures, mixing and matching them. This does blur a little into Neo-Paganism when a coven focuses on one culture, lets say the Celts, and uses Celtic deities exclusively in Wiccan rituals Wiccan: someone who practices Wicca.
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Paganism: any religious worship or practice that is not based upon the Abrhamic tradition; i.e. Judaism, Islam, Christianity. This could be Buddhism, Wicca, Astaru, etc. Pagan: someone who practices paganism. Neo-Paganism: the practice of worshipping deities from different, usually ancient cultures. This is different than Wicca as Neo-Paganism normally focuses on just one culture and practices/worships as close as possible as that culture did. Lets take Greece as an example. You can have a Hellenic Pagan, who is close to Wiccan practices or the other extreme is a Greek Reconstructionist who tries to worship as close as possible as the Ancient Greeks did which is far different from Wicca. Neo-Pagan: someone who follows Neo-Paganism. Witchcraft: this is the practice of magick. The magick used and practiced in witchcraft is termed Low Magick; not because it is inferior, just that this is the type of magick practiced by the every day man or woman. It consists, or can, of candles, herbs, poppets, knots, colors, crystals and/or gems, etc. It is different from High Magick which was the magick practiced by learned men and women. High Magick consists of calling on various spiritual beings, using planetary hours, sigils, evocations, etc. Witch: someone who practices witchcraft. The reason that I wanted to take a moment and define these terms, again, as I see them, is that there tends to be a romanticized ideal about our pagan ancestors. There seems to be this trend to think that they were witches, who always seems to be an elder, usually a woman, who were noted for their wisdom. They were respected, they were advisors, etc. The truth, as I see it, is probably far different. Our ancestors didnt use Guardians of the Quarters, I doubt seriously that they drew down the Sun and Moon, their altars looked far different than ours no athame, salt, cup, wand or incense. These are the elements added by Gardener drawing from his past association with the Golden Dawn. Also, they wouldnt have had the same notions of the elements as we do. That came from mediaeval writings, by Paracelsus and Agrippa I believe, who were drawing on Ancient Greek philosophies.

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I want you, as a student, to have a clear understanding of our pagan past. Religions today take what is told them at face value and do no research to verify things. Did you know that the ancient Hebrews had a Moon Goddess? They had several deities who over time became merged with their One God. Today, Jews and Christians both follow under the misconception and have never looked at their religions roots. Another example from the Bible; in Genesis, it is translated as God created the world. The actual Hebrew word used for God is Elohim. This word is interesting in that it is the feminine form of the word (Goddess) which is Eloah with a masculine plural ending im. Put together, you get that the Gods and Goddesses created the world. I want you to have a clear picture of our past and not go through life with rose colored, pagan/wiccan blinders. Dont just take my word, do your own research.

HISTORY AND A WARNING

According to Aidan Kelly1, there is no traceable Wiccan tradition beyond Gerald Gardner, roughly the late 1930's. This is exactly correct. Before Gerald Gardner, Wicca in its present form did not exist. But that is historical "proof" of a single pagan tradition, Gardner's, which later becomes the basis for modern-day Wicca. Things like witchcraft must have always existed and they did, in the form of all the ancient pagan religions: Greek, Norse, Egyptian, etc. However, these ancient pagan traditions WERE NOT Wicca. Please, do not get them confused. You will hear some Wiccans claim that we are practicing the worlds oldest religion. This is only true in a very limited sense. As has been pointed out, Wicca is a relatively new religion. What these Wiccans should say is that paganism is the worlds oldest religion. Paganism is the worship, basically, of any deity not of the Judao-Christian or Muslim belief (Abrahamic religions). These claims stem from archaeological findings such as the Venus of Willendorf statue or various cave paintings showing either a Horned God or a shaman dressed in a horned animal pelt. They claim that this is proof of the antiquity of Wicca. It is not, it is proof of the antiquity of paganism. These finds are Paleolithic mans first questing after the Divine; their attempt to identify, understand and honor the forces of the universe that they could sense. Oddly enough, no one had heard of this supposedly ancient religion (Wicca) until Gerald Gardner came along and started selling books about it, after the repeal of the antiWitchcraft laws in Britain in 1951. His first (rather vague) books sounded suspiciously similar to Margaret Murray's descriptions of what witch covens are supposed to be like in her Witch Cult in Western Europe, published several years earlier. (Historians find Murray's "facts" not only dubious, but outright dishonest.) Gardner's description of Wicca soon turned away from intellectual, masonic-type rituals (oh, by the way, he had previously been a member of the Golden Dawn) to a simpler version which sounded more suited to ordinary peasants.

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Gardner's info on this ultra-secret cult supposedly came from his membership in a mysterious coven run by "Old Dorothy," who has conveniently vanished into the mists of time. So, at most, we can believe on Gardner's word that there was one pre-Gardnerian "Wiccan" coven. There is absolutely no evidence of earlier "Wiccan" traditions (although there's plenty of records of other secret occult groups, such as the Knights Templar). When Gardner started his own public coven, the first and purest form of the religion of "Wicca" was born. But just as the Christians are made up of several different sects (the Protestants breaking away from the Catholics, the Mormons breaking away from the Protestants, etc.) Wicca has evolved into several different traditions in the past 50 years. The most well-known branches are Alexandrian, Dianic, and Seax Wicca. But just because they're "pagan" beliefs doesn't make them heretical or magical. It doesn't mean they have anything to do with Wicca, at all. You're kidding yourself if you think these old "pagans" had anything in common with neopagans.. For example: "Diana" and "Demeter" were Greco-Roman goddesses, not Wiccan ones. This was its own unique religion, with its own beliefs and rituals, which everyone believed in - not just some weird old lady on the edge of town. Aljust, a High Priest of Between Worlds coven, says: But there was a space of five and a half centuries in Europe and America where practicing these techniques could get you burned. Or immersed in boiling oil. Or, if you were lucky, quickly strangled. Part of the Inquisitions pogrom, called, erroneously by modern pagans "The Burning Times", was a Christian ecclesiastic institution of the Catholic Church, dedicated to finding and destroying "witches", and incidentally confiscating their lands and possessions. This latter actually seemed to be the primary goal. If you didnt like someone, you were jealous, you wanted their land, etc., just raise the charges of Witch! Also, since a lot of the Witch Finders were more secular than religious, most of them could be bought. The hysteria was unbelievable, the warped logic of the witch hunters simply insane. A woman (it was nearly always a woman depending on the locale. In Iceland, it was almost exclusively male) could be accused of witchcraft if she said 'good morn' to her cat, or acted as a midwife, administrated herbal remedies, or happened to be irksome to someone of influence, or was just different, or, more likely, had something someone wanted. Torture was used and conviction once accused was taken for granted (the confiscation of property occurred at the time of the arrest.) - depending if this was local or national court and how secular they were. Anyone who declared the cruelty and insanity of the system risked, and often suffered, its wrath. Per Aljust, The Catholic edicts, which made the Inquisition possible, have never been repealed. The office of Grand Inquisitor, under a different name, still exists. In a way, it is possible to see what function the Inquisition fulfilled, and why most governments went along with its atrocities. It has to do with power2.
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The following excerpts were found on the internet. For the complete article, I direct you to the following website http://www.cog.org/witch_hunt.html. Jenny Gibbons has an M.A. in medieval history and minored in the history of the Great Hunt. This article originally appeared in issue #5 of the Pomegranate (Lammas, 1998).

Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt

by Jenny Gibbons Since the late 1970's, a quiet revolution has taken place in the study of historical witchcraft and the Great European Witch Hunt. The revolution wasn't quite as dramatic as the development of radio-carbon dating, but many theories which reigned supreme thirty years ago have vanished, swept away by a flood of new data. Unfortunately, little of the new information has made it into popular history. Many articles in Pagan magazines contain almost no accurate information about the "Burning Times", primarily because we rely so heavily on out-dated research. Beyond the National Enquirer What was this revolution? Starting in the mid-1970's, historians stopped relying on witch-hunting propaganda and began to base their theories on thorough, systematic studies of all the witch trials in a particular area. Ever since the Great Hunt itself, we've relied on witch hunters' propaganda: witch hunting manuals, sermons against witchcraft, and lurid pamphlets on the more sensational trials. Everyone knew that this evidence was lousy. It's sort of like trying to study Satanism in America using only the Moral Majority Newsletter and the National Enquirer. The few trials cited were the larger, more infamous ones. And historians frequently used literary accounts of those cases, not the trials themselves. That's comparable to citing a television docu-drama ("Based on a true story!") instead of actual court proceedings. 400 In One Day: An Influential Forgery Another, smaller breakthrough also profoundly altered our view of the early history of the Great Hunt. In 1972, two scholars independently discovered that a famous series of medieval witch trials never happened. The forgery was Etienne Leon de Lamothe-Langon's Histoire de l'Inquisition en France, written in 1829. Lamothe-Langon described enormous witch trials which supposedly took place in southern France in the early 14th century. Run by the Inquisition of Toulouse and Carcasonne, these trials killed hundreds upon hundreds of people. The most famous was a craze where 400 women died in one day. No other French historian had noticed these trials.
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In the early 20th century, the prominent historian Jacob Hansen included large sections of Lamothe-Langon's work in his compendium on medieval witchcraft. Later historians cited Hansen's cites, apparently without closely examining Lamothe-Langon's credentials. Non-academic writers cited the writers who cited Hansen, and thus Lamothe-Langon's dramatic French trials became a standard part of the popular view of the Great Hunt. The Inquisition but then what of the Inquisition? For many, the "Inquisition" and the "Burning Times" are virtually synonymous. The myth of the witch-hunting inquisition was built on several assumptions and mistakes, all of which have been overturned in the last twenty-five years. First, the myth was the logical extension of 19th century history, which blamed the persecutions on the Catholic Church. If the Church attacked witches, surely the Inquisition would be the hammer She wielded. Second, a common translation error muddied the waters. Many records simply said that a witch was tried "by inquisition". Some writers assumed that this meant "the" Inquisition. And in some cases it did. But an "inquisition" was also the name of a type of trial used by almost all courts in Europe at the time. Later, when historians examined the records in greater detail, they found that the majority did not involve the Inquisition, merely an inquisition. Today most historians are careful about this, but older and more popular texts (such as Rossell Hope Robbins' Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology) still have the Inquisition killing witches in times and places where it did not even exist. Third, the only witch-hunting manual most people have seen was written by an inquisitor. In the 1970's, when feminist and Neo-Pagan authors turned their attention to the witch trials, the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) was the only manual readily available in translation. Authors naively assumed that the book painted an accurate picture of how the Inquisition tried witches. Heinrich Kramer, the text's demented author, was held up as a typical inquisitor. His rather stunning sexual preoccupations were presented as the Church's "official" position on witchcraft. Actually the Inquisition immediately rejected the legal procedures Kramer recommended and censured the inquisitor himself just a few years after the Malleus was published. Secular courts, not inquisitorial ones, resorted to the Malleus. In fact, in Spain the Inquisition worked diligently to keep witch trials to a minimum. Around 1609, a French witch-craze triggered a panic in the Basque regions of Spain. Gustav Henningsen ( The Witches' Advocate) documented the Inquisition's work in brilliant detail. Although several inquisitors believed the charges, one skeptic convinced La Suprema (the ruling body of the Spanish Inquisition) that this was groundless hysteria. La Suprema responded by issuing an "Edict of Silence" forbidding all discussion of witchcraft. For, as the skeptical inquisitor noted, "There were neither witches nor bewitched until they were talked and written about."
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In 1973, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English suggested that most witches were mid-wives and female healers. Their book Witches, Midwives, and Nurses convinced many feminists and Pagans that the Great Hunt was a pogrom aimed at traditional women healers. The Church and State sought to break the power of these women by accusing them of witchcraft, driving a wedge of fear between the wise-woman and her clients. And there was worse to come. Feminist and Pagan writers presented the healerwitch as the innocent, enlightened victim of the evil male witch hunters. Trials showed that as often as not, the "white" witch was an avid supporter of the "Burning Times." Diane Purkiss (The Witch in History) pointed out that "midwives were more likely to be found helping witch-hunters" than as victims of their inquiries. How did witches become witch-hunters? By blaming illnesses on their rivals. Feminist authors rightly lambasted male doctors who blamed unexplained illnesses on witches. Trial records suggest that this did happen, though not terribly often. If you look at doctors' case books you find that in most cases doctors found natural causes when people thought they were bewitched. When they did diagnose witchcraft, doctors almost never blamed a particular healer or witch. They were trying to explain their failure, not to destroy some individual. Traditional healers and "white" witches routinely blamed diseases on witchcraft. For a doctor, diagnosing "witchcraft" was admitting failure. Medicine could do nothing against magick, and doctors were loathing admitting that they were powerless against a disease. However baneful magick was the forte of the helpful (or "white" witch). Folk healers regularly blamed illnesses on magick and offered counter-spells to cure their patients. Many were even willing to divine the name of the cursing witch, for a fee. From Nine Million to Forty Thousand The most dramatic changes in our vision of the Great Hunt centered on the death toll. Back before trial surveys were available, estimates of the death toll were almost 100% pure speculation. The only thing our literary evidence told us was that a lot of witches died. Witch hunting propaganda talked about thousands and thousands of executions. Literature focused on crazes, the largest and most sensational trials around. But we had no idea how accurate the literary evidence was, or how common trials actually were. So early death toll estimates, which ranged from several hundred thousand up to a high of nine million, were simply people trying to guess how much "a lot" of witches was. Today, the process is completely different. Historians begin by counting all the executions/trials listed in an area's court records. Next they estimate how much evidence we've lost: what years and courts we're missing data for. Finally they survey the literary evidence, to see if any large witch trials occurred during the gaps in the evidence. There's still guess-work involved in today's estimates and many areas have not yet been systematically studied.

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But we now have a solid data-base to build our estimates from, and our figures are getting more specific as further areas are studied. When the first trial record studies were completed, it was obvious that early estimates were fantastically high. Trial evidence showed that witch crazes were not everyday occurrences, as literature suggested. In fact most countries only had one or two in all of the Great Hunt. Why It Matters These changes make it critically important to use up-to-date research if you're investigating historical witchcraft. We have perhaps 20 times as much information as we had two decades ago. Witchcraft studies have also become an inter-disciplinary field. Once the domain of historians alone, it now attracts anthropologists and sociologists who offer radically new interpretations of the Great Hunt. Anthropologists point out the ubiquity of witchcraft beliefs, demonstrating that the Great Hunt was not an exclusively European phenomenon. Sociologists draw chilling parallels between the Great Hunt and recent panics over satanic cults, evidence which hints that we're still not out of the shadow of the Burning Times. We Neopagans now face a crisis. As new data appeared, historians altered their theories to account for it. We have not. Therefore an enormous gap has opened between the academic and the "average" Pagan view of witchcraft. We continue to use of out-dated and poor writers, like Margaret Murray, Montague Summers, Gerald Gardner, and Jules Michelet. We avoid the somewhat dull academic texts that present solid research, preferring sensational writers who play to our emotions. For example, I have never seen a copy of Brian Levack's The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe in a Pagan bookstore. Yet half the stores I visit carry Anne Llewellyn Barstow's Witchcraze, a deeply flawed book which has been ignored or reviled by most scholarly historians. We owe it to ourselves to study the Great Hunt more honestly, in more detail, and using the best data available. Dualistic fairy tales of noble witches and evil witch hunters have great emotional appeal, but they blind us to what happened. And what could happen, today. Few Pagans commented on the haunting similarities between the Great Hunt and America's panic over satanic cults. Scholars noticed it; we didn't. We say "Never again the Burning!" But if we don't know what happened the first time, how are we ever going to prevent it from happening again?

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Aljust defines a witch as, "A witch is one who studies and pursues the complete utilization of the Self, regardless of social convention or custom, but with strict attention to the Real." Aljust has these thoughts and asks these questions regarding the burning times: What can a government do with such people? People who trust their own judgment, who have no need of rank, who believe in a cycle of reincarnation and don't believe in eternal punishment, whose modest pleasures include direct contact with Deity, and who revere and relish life? These people can't be panicked, won't placidly join armies, won't buy indulgences from the church, and know that a social contract is negotiable. What's a government to do? Gather firewood. Aljusts opinions go on to say, I mention all of this just in case you think that the modern study of witchcraft is a safe, amusing pastime, and a sort of spiritual Halloween party. Forget it. The structures of power that upheld the Inquisition are still in place, the governmental mindset that says, "We have the right to destroy our citizens." It is still in place. If you would grasp your heritage among the Wise, whose decisions are deeply moral you will encounter great pleasure, awesome vistas of existence, loads of work, thankless obligations, and personal danger. Not to get too far off track, but as to the government. The government can only do what we the people allow it to do. Could the US turn into a totalitarian or fascist state say, like, Nazi Germany? Only you can answer that. Would you allow it? As to the personal danger, I think that he is referring to possibly dealing with a religious bigot. Say, a boss at work who is a Protestant Christian fundamentalist or zealot. If he may, upon discovering you are pagan or Wiccan, may cause you grief. This type of person would probably cause grief for a Muslim, a Jew, a Catholic, etc. Also, as in life, the qualities that Aljust speaks of do not apply to all pagans. You have good and bad, spiritual and material, peace loving and warriors in all classes, religions, walks of life, etc

SOME TRADITIONS COMPARED

Today's witches practice a wide range of different traditions, of which the oldest acknowledged is the Gardnerian, named after Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into a coven in 1938. How can something be called a Tradition if it is only fifty years old? Well, unlike classic cars, there is no time limit on religions. How can there be? Everyone had to start somewhere, and the oldest ones are no exception. This is one of the (very few) tenets of modern North American mainstream witchcraft - we are not just allowed, but almost required, to build it ourselves, and that is just what we are doing.

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It's a tremendously freeing concept, and has led to the creation of dozens of forms, sharing only the bare bones of paganism - The First Law, the Threefold Law, Immanence of Deity, Holiness of Creation, and Personal Power and Responsibility. This variety is a strength and a weakness - it has enabled each group to accomplish its own work in a way that suits it best. The resultant richness is a great treasure. It also has resulted in some very weird and strange beliefs and practices see the Dianic tradition below for an example. GARDNERIAN Gardnerian Wicca is the tradition created Gerald Gardner' It has spawned many other traditions. The rites are done "skyclad" (ritual nudity), and initiations can include token bondage (of one ankle) and token whipping (with knotted yarn). Gender-balanced, with first, second, and third degrees of initiation. Formal and hierarchical. From the Metareligion website (http://www.meta-religion.com): Wicca is a relatively new religion. A man named Gerald Gardner was mainly responsible for bringing it out from the shadows. Gardner supposedly discovered a traditional craft coven in England and was initiated into the coven- and oaths of secrecy prevented him from going public with his practice. Eventually, Gardner did go public with his supposed practice, but was forced to fill in, embellish, and write in occult practices to make up for what he was not allowed to reveal. His "creation" became what is known as Gardnerian Wicca- a practice that combines goddess reverence, ideas borrowed from the Ordo Templi Orientis of Aliester Crowley, the Golden Dawn, and some ideas found within Eastern philosophy and Freemasonry. Many others have contributed to the beliefs and practices of the many traditions of Wicca, but most give Gardner credit for being the first to bring it to public attention, and being the "creator" of this modern religion. I will also add there is much debate and skepticism concerning the coven with which Gardner said he was a member....whether or not it truly existed, etc. Even so, Wicca was successfully established in the early to mid-twentieth century.

ALEXANDRIAN (also from the Metareligion website) Founded by Alex Sanders and his wife Maxine in the 1960's, the Alexandrian Tradition originated in England. Alex Sanders was often referred to as the King of the Witches, and with the help of his wife Maxine, they were instrumental in opening up Wicca to the general public. During the 1960s and early 70s, they were responsible for initiating many hundreds of newcomers into the craft, amongst whom where Stewart Farrar and Janet Owen.

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In the early days the original rituals of the tradition are thought to have been Gardnerian, plagiarized by Alex and embellished with a few of his own amendments. These he then used to found his own coven from which emerged the Alexandrian Tradition. Today although still similar to Gardnerian in terms of its hierarchical structure, the Alexandrian Tradition tends to be more eclectic and liberal, focusing strongly on ceremonial magick. Some of Gardnerianisms strict rules, such as the requirement of ritual nudity, have been made optional by Alexandrian Wicca. DIANICS AND GODDESS SPIRITUALITY Dianic covens (named after the Goddess Diana) and some are composed entirely of women. I see this as an over reaction from being raised in a Judao-Christian culture that is so super-paternalistic that they have eliminated (for the most part) the feminine from Divinity. As the old saying goes, two wrongs dont make a right. I turn again to the Metareligion site: Another form of Wicca, Dianic, also began to emerge in the United States in 1971. Unlike other traditions, Dianic focuses on the worship of Diana, the ancient Greek Goddess and consequently, a higher percentage of women and feminist beliefs are found in Dianic covens. The Dianic tradition formed in two separate locations; first in Venice, California by Zsuzsanne Emese Budapest and in Dallas, Texas by Morgan McFarland and Mark Roberts (Melton, 782). The California Dianics are separatist feminist Goddess worshippers, founded by Budapest. The Texas Dianics are polytheists, with no particular emphasis on either Goddess or God, according to initiates. By far, the largest number of modern pagans are not members of Gardnerian type covens -- the term "Dianic" was used by the Gardnerianbased groups to identify the groups not based on Gardnerian or Alexandrian initiations. It has been used as a term of derision toward the goddess worshippers by others, rarely does someone self-identify as Dianic, except in the case of initiates of the Texas Dianics, who use the term to describe themselves, largely because Diana was one of the tutelary deities of the group. SPIRAL-ECLECTIC No, you won't find this term anywhere else. Starhawk's The Spiral Dance revolutionized North American Witchcraft. Her influence cannot be overestimated. Together with another book Truth or Dare, she has set forth exercises, meditations, and suggested methods of getting off our asses and saving the world and ourselves. The form is often referred to as the Reclaiming Tradition, after the Reclaiming collective, which began as a Starhawk coven. The Rituals are variable - from formal and practiced to completely spontaneous. Dancing, trance work, singing, drumming whatever works. Politically aware and (usually) active.
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VARIOUS SMALLER GROUPS How many splinter groups, newborn traditions, and personal visions of Deity can dance on the head of a pin? As many as there are people with a will to maintain them. Reform Druids, Egyptian and Babylonian ritualists, Animists ("all things are alive and aware"), Pantheists ("all things are forms of Deity"), Bambi-pagans ("all things are just wonderful"), and unnamed forms of worship living in someone's heart and growing there the variety is astounding. There is a growing movement called Reconstructionsim. This is the practice of trying to rebuild and practice the ancient pagan religions as they were practiced in their original cultures. Allowances are made for the modern times as some practices dont go along with our modern society, such as ideas on a womans place in society, slavery, sacrifice, etc. I know that there are four main Reconstructionist groups, for the Greek, Celtic, Norse and Egyptian pantheons. The idea is appealing somewhat, worshiping as our pagan forbearers did. THE OTHERS (SECRET) I don't know them, I infer them. Working covens are more common than I ever expected, and there must be many, rural or urban, who watch us newcomers indulgently or impatiently and solemnly gather to exercise their power and observe the cycles of the Earth. SHAMANIC The Shamanic practices are not Wiccan, but some Wiccans use them. They are becoming well known in North America through workshops and books. They hold a strong appeal particularly for men, but many women also work as shamans. Shamanic practice involves trance journeys to Lower and Upper worlds, to gain the aid of power animals, to ask advice from wise elder spirits, and to learn from things seen in these journeys. Shamans often work as healers. The beating of a drum generally induces the trance, which can go on for 15 minutes to over 60 minutes. The journeyers lie down while a designated drummer provides a fast, monotonous beat (similar to a heartbeat). Much more impressive than it sounds. Earthy.

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CEREMONIAL MAGICIANS Also appealing to the discipline of Ceremonial (or Ritual) Magic. There have been claims that this is not a religion, and that is true. It can be pure magical practice. There are many paths under the heading Ceremonial Magician. Some of them are almost a religion. They deal with the spiritual improvement and advancement of the practitioner and his or her union with the Divine. Since a Magician practices, almost daily, they can be closer and more in tune with the Divine than the followers of a religion. Here is also where all the trappings of Magic show up - clouds of incense, herbs with weird names, staffs and robes and chalked designs in dead languages, and deep-throated rolling invocations to spirits both Supernal and Infernal. Many of the structures and ideas of ceremonial magic were lifted into Wiccan practice, including the idea of a "magic circle", the knife called the athame and the restriction that it never be used for cutting, a lot of the invocations. OTHER PAGAN, MAGICAL AND SIRITUAL TRADITIONS There is much to be learned from the many other surviving pagan religions. The Native practices can teach us about respect and patience, for example. Voudoun (usually mispronounced "voodoo"), the folk religion of Haiti derived from African pantheons mixed with Catholic practices, can remind us of true ecstatic possession by the Gods, and the "fear of God" that some of us seem to forget. The Australian and New Guinian aboriginals have a lot to tell us about being imbedded in nature - living and dying by Her rhythms. Other spiritual teachings are also useful. Tai Chi, The graceful "martial art" so kind to the body that even the very old do it, is called meditation on motion by some. Principles of Zen Buddhism can be illuminating, as are the teachings of the Qabbala (ancient mystical Jewish writings), the Taoist "Tao Te Ching", and, of course, the Christian Bible. I include this last deliberately. There is wisdom and beauty in here, poetry and teaching. But go to it, as to all other sources, with your brain in gear. Judge it; don't just swallow it whole.

1 Aidan A. Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magick: Book I, A history of Modern Witchcraft, 1939-1964. c.1991 Llewellen Press, St. Paul. Scholarly and readable, an uncommon combination. 2 This is one interpretation (mine) only - historical events seldom have a single cause. See "The Witch Craze of Western Europe" for a non-magical and non-feminist approach to persecutions of the time that included witches, Jews, Muslims, and 'heretics' of all sorts. And I'm sure there are others that failed to be mentioned. Note: This class is based on a course initially created by Aljust, a High Priest of Between Worlds 13 Fundamentals in Witchcraft