by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
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Witchcraft is a religion that includes people. And because people are involved, arguments ensue and the results of these arguments is change. This change is inevitable and there is nothing that we can do but accept it.
Consider that when Buddha died, his deciples gathered and one stood up to tell
everything that the master had taught. When he was finished, another disciple stood
up, stated that Buddha had taught nothing of the sort and walked off in a huff. Thus
forming the two main schools of Buddhist thought.
Consider that when Mohammed died he willed his religion of islam to
his adopted nephew whom he had designated as his successor. Another relative disputed this
claim, walked off and so was formed the two main schools of islam.
Consider that the same thing has happened in Modern Witchcraft.
Let us consider the following 'history'.
In the 19th century, a Grand Master of Witchcraft named George
Pickingill saw Witchcraft as dieing. He realized that for his religion to survive, it
needed to adapt to modern times. So he formed a coven, made a few adaptions to the
religion and sat back to see what happened. Some things worked and some did not.
So Pickingill formed a second coven, kept what worked, dropped what
did not, made a few more changes and sat back to watch.
He repeated this again and again until he had formed The Nine Covens.
One of these covens was the ancestor of Sybil Leek, another was the ancestor of the
Whitecroft Line and another was the ancestor of Gerald Gardner.
Please note that in the absence of any hard evidence, the story described
above is disputed by some and supported by others. Thus it may or may not be true in
whole or in part.
The same thing happened when Gerald Gardner was Initiated into the Craft in
1939. He saw the Craft as dieing and sought to revise it so he formed a coven, added
and changed a few things with the assistance of his Priestess, formed another coven
with another Priestess and so on over the course of some 15 years repeated the actions
of Pickingill a half century before.
Please note that there is considerable hard evidence to support this story
though the exact details are in dispute.
What I am going to do is to 'create' a "history" to illustrate some of the differences in the various Lines of what we, today call Gardnerian Wicca and how they came to be. I have changed the names and details to protect myself from those involved. So although the exact details and names are fictional, the general actions and changes are illustrative of what happened.
Charles was Initiated into a coven but saw that the coven was dieing. One of
the reasons for this as the fragmentary state of the rituals and beliefs which he felt was
a result of the Burning Times when those who knew the religion intimately had been
killed off, thus leaving alive to pass on the knowledge, people who knew less than
everything.
In an effort to encourage his religion to survive, Charles collected
whatever material that he could find from folklore, history and other magickal systems
and added this material to his own workings in an effort to encourage the Craft to
survive. Later he branched out on his own and formed a coven by Initiating Alice as
his first Priestess.
Now the Coven that Alice was Priestess of celebrated the Solstices and the
Equinoxes and the Full and New Moons. They recognised the sacrament of sex at all
Initiations and Sabbats and when they cast their Temple, they did so in the manner
found in the Key of Solomon. Also the magick that they did was for the betterment of
their own lives and the nation. In fact, they even participated in a death spell to stop
Adolf Hitler from invading England. They also utilized ritual nudity and flogging, and
allowed Second Degrees to form covens and Initiate though the coven was generally
ruled by the Priest. And because the religion centered around Nature worship,
homosexuality was forbidden.
Unfortunatly, Alice as old and had difficulty performing the Rituals in
the best of times though Winter as the worst and so many of the Sabbats were not as
spiritualy pleasing as they could have been.
Eventually Alice died of age and the coven broke up so Betty was chosen as the new Priestess. To prevent the problem of the Priestess having to skip rituals, Charles added a rule that required the Priesthood to be young enough to fulfill all ritual functions and actions. Betty, however, disliked the judeo-xian terms used in the ritual and so insisted that these be re-written to exclude that religion and more reflect the Pagan heritage of the Craft. She also felt that sacramental sex should be reserved for the Priesthood so this change was also made.
For whatever reason, Betty moved and took half the coven with her so Charles chose Cathy as his new Priestess. Cathy as a very moral woman who felt that it was wrong to harm people so she and Charles developed a Rede that allowed individual freedom but prevented harm. And to enforce this, they created a Law that said that anything that a Witch did would return to them three-fold. She also insisted on adding the Greater Sabbats of the Celts so now Eight Sabbats were celebrated.
Eventually Cathy resigned and Doris took over as Priestess. Doris was a very strong-willed woman who insisted that as the Goddess was the First God, the Priestess should be First in the coven so a new rule was made that gave the coven to the Priestess. In addition, Doris disliked both flogging and sex and insisted that they be reserved only for the higher Initiations. She then refused to take the final Degree and so it was accepted that the Third Degree wasn't needed to form a coven but could be taken at a later time if desired. She also felt that it was prejudical to exclude gay so allowed them in but still required mixed gender pairings.
Eventually, Doris left and Ellen took over as Priestess. Ellen was more open than was Doris and decided that the Priesthood should be as well trained as possible and so made a rule that stated that only Third Degrees could form a Coven and Initiate. She also returned flogging to the rituals but reserved sex for the higher Initiations and for all Sabbats, but only for the Priesthood.
So now we have Five different Lines, each with slightly different rules which can be illustrated as below:
ALICE:
1) Celebration of the Solstices and the Equinoxes
2) Celebration of the Full Moons
3) Celebration of the New Moons
4) Sacramental of sex at all Initiations
5) Sacramental sex at all Sabbats
6) Circle casting in the manner of the Key of Solomon
7) Magick is for the betterment of their own lives and the nation
8) Ritual nudity
9) Ritual flogging
10) Second Degrees can form covens
11) Second Degrees can Initiate
12) Coven is generally ruled by the Priest.
13) Homosexuality is forbidden
BETTY
1) Celebration of the Solstices and the Equinoxes
2) Celebration of the Full Moons
3) Celebration of the New Moons
4) Sacramental of sex at all Initiations
5) Sacramental sex at all Sabbats
7) Magick is for the betterment of their own lives and the nation
8) Ritual nudity
9) Ritual flogging
10) Second Degrees can form covens
11) Second Degrees can Initiate
12) Coven is generally ruled by the Priest.
13) Homosexuality is forbidden
14) Priesthood must be young
15) Circle casting in a pagan manner
16) Sex reserved for Priesthood
CATHY
1) Celebration of the Solstices and the Equinoxes
2) Celebration of the Full Moons
3) Celebration of the New Moons
4) Sacramental of sex at all Initiations
5) Sacramental sex at all Sabbats
7) Magick is for the betterment of their own lives and the nation
8) Ritual nudity
9) Ritual flogging
10) Second Degrees can form covens
11) Second Degrees can Initiate
12) Coven is generally ruled by the Priest.
14) Priesthood must be young
15) Circle casting in a pagan manner
16) Sex reserved for Priesthood
17) Rede to prevent harm to others
18) Three-Fold Law for witches
19) Celebration of the Greater Sabbats
20) Gays allowed to join
21) Mixed gender workings
DORIS
1) Celebration of the Solstices and the Equinoxes
2) Celebration of the Full Moons
3) Celebration of the New Moons
7) Magick is for the betterment of their own lives and the nation
8) Ritual nudity
9) Ritual flogging
10) Second Degrees can form covens
11) Second Degrees can Initiate
14) Priesthood must be young
15) Circle casting in a pagan manner
16) Sex reserved for Priesthood
17) Rede to prevent harm to others
18) Three-Fold Law for witches
19) Celebration of the Greater Sabbats
20) Gays allowed to join
21) Mixed gender workings
22) Coven generally ruled by the Priestess
23) Ritual sex for higher Initiations only
24) Ritual flogging for Higher Initiation only
24) Third Degree is voluntary
ELLEN
1) Celebration of the Solstices and the Equinoxes
2) Celebration of the Full Moons
3) Celebration of the New Moons
5) Sacramental sex at all Sabbats
7) Magick is for the betterment of their own lives and the nation
8) Ritual nudity
9) Ritual flogging
10) Second Degrees can form covens
11) Second Degrees can Initiate
14) Priesthood must be young
15) Circle casting in a pagan manner
16) Sex reserved for Priesthood
17) Rede to prevent harm to others
18) Three-Fold Law for witches
19) Celebration of the Greater Sabbats
20) Gays allowed to join
21) Mixed gender workings
22) Coven generally ruled by the Priestess
23) Ritual sex for higher Initiations only
25) Third Degree is required to form a coven and initiate
The question becomes, "Which of these Lines is the REAL religion?"
Why not ask, "Which is the real xian religion, catholicism,
protestantism, lutheranism or baptist?" The answer is that all are real, just different
ways of approaching their religion (though some baptists still insist that catholics are
frauds) despite what a few fundamentalist say about themselves being the only 'real' xians.
So the answer to our question is that they ALL are real. Each Line is as
valid and real as the other. Each is a reflection of the founders of that Line and so is
equally Valid. So when Ellen complains that Alice is a fraud because she uses the Key
to draw her Circle and so is a closet xian, that comment is more of a reflection on Ellen
than on Alice.
Now let's complicate matters a bit. Because Doris is a strong-willed woman, she tends to Initiate only equally strong women. No cheerleaders need apply. And one of her Initiates is Flora who decides that many of the old rules are useless in todays world. So Flora drops the voluntary nature of the Third Degree and makes it mandatory. She also decides that restrictions on anyone is wrong so allows gays to work in same-gender partnerships. And as Flora doesn't want any power struggles in what she sees as a female-religion, she severely restricts the power of men to require that only women can rule a coven. And she drops the age requirement as equally wrong.
So Flora's rules are:
1) Celebration of the Solstices and the Equinoxes
2) Celebration of the Full Moons
3) Celebration of the New Moons
7) Magick is for the betterment of their own lives and the nation
8) Ritual nudity
9) Ritual flogging
10) Second Degrees can form covens
11) Second Degrees can Initiate
14) Circle casting in a pagan manner
15) Sex reserved for Priesthood
16) Rede to prevent harm to others
17) Three-Fold Law for witches
18) Celebration of the Greater Sabbats
19) Gays allowed to join
21) Coven ruled by the Priestess
22) Ritual sex for higher Initiations only
23) Ritual flogging for Higher Initiation only
25) Third Degree is required to form a coven and initiate
26) Same-gender working allowed.
27) Coven MUST be ruled by a woman.
Now, the question is "Is Flora's Coven valid because she made changes that
were forbidden by the founders of the religion?" and "Can Flora still call what she
does the same religion because she made these changes?"
There is no easy answer to these questions. Just as some people will
accept what each Line does and respect the workings of each Line, others will draw a
line in the sand and say, "No more! There HAS to be a point where you leave the
religion!" And although we all agree with these statements, we also will draw that line
in a different location.
Some will say that because the founders expressly forbade same-gender
workings, Flora has crossed that line and can no longer be accepted as a member of that
religion. Others will simply see Flora's action as a natural evolution which was
inevitable but that her rules limiting men are too excessive.
The bottom line though is that the only views that matter are those of the Gods.
and They aren't speaking so we do the best we can and accept each other's decisions.
If you, as an individual, dislike what Flora or Ellen or Alice did, then
simply choose to not Circle with them. That is acceptable and polite. Attacking them
is not for religion is and must not be static. It evolves or change and some changes are
good and some bad. But just as there are many different styles of clothing for people to
wear, insulting the woman who wears pants instead of a skirt is not right but reflects
upon the immaturity and insecurity of the attacker.
There are many people in this world and each of us different. As such,
our religious beliefs reflect those differences as they should. Since we don't know what
the Gods want, we can only do our best and hope that what we do is pleasing in Their
eyes. It is obvious that the Gods like diversity in their Traditions simply because They
have the power to enforce uniformity and choose to not do so.
Thus the Craft has evolved and changed and will continue to do so. All we can do is to hope that the changes we make are acceptable to the Gods as well as to ourselves.
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
Return to the Home Page.
Return to the Gardnerian page.
