by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
Gardnerians place a lot of emphasis on what we like to call Oral Lore as if this were special and secret training that only we possess.
Yet no one can adequately explain exactly what this ‘Oral Lore’ is.
People who ask too many questions tend to NOT be Initiated so being quiet and believing what you are told produces a better chance of being a Gardnerian.
Here is the problem, Without knowing what ‘Oral Lore’ is, we cannot properly judge it’s value.
In reality, Oral Lore is whatever your teachers told you but could not prove by written records.
When Judy took over the LI-Coven, she questioned her predecessor, Rosemary, about everything she could and took copious notes. These notes contained information that, unfortunately, was not only unique to the LI-Coven but also to the opinions of both Judy and Rosemary at that time and so are slanted towards their current views of what Gardnerianism should be instead of what it really was.
In other words, if you had a bad experience with a situation, then you will tend to avoid that experience and rather than facing the truth, insist that ‘it isn’t important’ and refuse to repeat that uncomfortable situation.
Consider that you are, for whatever reason, a vegetarian. The thought of consuming rotting and charred animal flesh is as unpleasant as is the thought that a living being was murdered for this. Knowing how livestock are treated and pumped full of garbage and abused then tortured to death only encourages your vegetarian ideas.
So now it is a Sabbat and the Book of Shadows insists on a Ritual Meal to be shared. Now it does not tell anything about this Ritual Meal, no details at all, so you are allowed to decide for yourself what this should contain.
So you insist that the Ritual Meal be vegetarian! If you are an honest person, you will explain, “Well I am a vegetarian and cannot stand being around meat for the following reasons…”.
If you are not all that honest or if you assume (ass-you-me) that the Coven knows that you are a vegetarian, you may forget to explain why.
Now all your meals are vegetarian but no one knows why. And no one asks. It becomes a ‘tradition’ to have only vegetarian meals at the Sabbats.
Eventually your Coven are Elevated and Hive off to form their own covens and these people also insist that the Ritual Meals be Vegetarian. “Why?” you may ask. The answer is “Because that’s the way we always did it and I never thought to question it or I might not get Elevated.”
Well, that sounds kind bad so you explain, “Not everything is written down and this is just one of those things that we do. I guess you would call it Oral Lore.”
When your coveners talk to the other Gardnerian Covens that they know, all derived from your own High Priestess, they find that all of them also share a Vegetarian Ritual Meal and so they believe that ALL Gardnerians eat vegetarian Ritual Meals so this becomes concrete Oral Lore. Never to be questioned.
They have confused personal beliefs with religious beliefs.
Funny how the Gods usually tell their Priests exactly what their Priests want to hear.
Ok, here is what Oral Lore should be!
I am a Martial Artist. I can break a board with the side of my hand. I can easily teach you how to do the same. It’s not as difficult as we want you to think. We just like to keep you impressed with our skills so you won’t try to beat us up.
Here is the problem. Whenever I try to write down instructions on how to break that board, I leave out things. No matter how carefully I rewrite the instructions, if you follow what I wrote, you will break your hand.
So I read everything I could on Breaking and somehow, everyone has that same problem. There are things that we simply do not know how to explain in words. It’s like trying to describe Swan Lake on paper in such detail that anyone with no musical or dance experience can duplicate the play. It simply cannot be done. So what do I do?
I write down as much as I can. I read and copy the best instructions that I can find then I add a caviet “do not do this without a good teacher at hand.”
Why? So I can demonstrate everything I do, so I can stop you and suggest, “No, move your wrist like this, no this! Yes better…”
The verbal instructions that I am giving you to SUPPLEMENT the written instructions are the Oral Lore of Karate. They are there to help and to add to the written word because we do not know how to fully write things down. Remember that 75% of all communication is visual. That’s why we invented emoticons, to enhance our written communications.
Even with diagrams, pictures, films etc (all non written) people still need hands-on instruction in many fields. And they still get it wrong.
I recall one CPR class I attended in the Air Force. No matter how we tried, Costano STILL tried to grope the breast of the dummy. We tried and tried and we demonstrated and such and he could never get it right and would press the breast, not the sternum (btw, try to do CPR based on what you see on TV and you will kill the victim).
Some people simply cannot learn no matter what you do. And if this is so, then how can you expect the average person to learn when 75% of the instructions are missing.
Oral Lore is to supplement the written instructions, not replace them.
So what IS Oral Lore anyway?
Well, it is verbal and physical instructions on how to do anything from stand to breathe to invoke to whatever we do to assist you in doing it right.
It is additional explanation why your coven does this but other covens do that.
It is trying to make you understand a situation when the teacher sees your mind go blank when everyone else gets the idea.
Oral Law is NOT:
Rules that are specific to your Tradition or Line such as who can cast a Circle or who owns what Tools.
It is NOT a fake history that cannot be proven.
It is NOT the personal hang-ups of your own HP/S or their HP/S.
So how do you tell what is and is not Oral Lore?
If it can be written down, it probably isn’t Oral Lore but a justification of that particular Coven’s ways.
But this isn’t a hard rule either. Some things we simply do not want to write down because they are embarrassing to know… unless you know the background.
So in this case, Italian Witches wouldn’t tell the seeker “We worship Diana and Lucifer” for fear that they’d run screaming back to the xian churches screaming “Witches really do worship the devil!” So here, the Name of the God would be Oral Lore until you could explain to the new Witch who Lucifer really is.
It’s difficult sometimes to determine what is real Oral Lore and what is made-up. But remember this one rule and you won’t go wrong.
It is the ABSOLUTE LAW of Oral Lore that it cannot be passed on accurately. That is why writing was invented.
Experience for one.
If your teacher tells you ‘because All Gardnerians do it this way’ then it probably is not true.
One example is a paper by a former Alexandrian Witch who returned to xianity insisting that Witches really DO worship the devil.
How could he say this?
Because in Italy, the Goddess is referred to as “Diana the Moon Goddess” and the Sun God is referred to as “Lucifer the Light Bearer”.
Now in Italy, Lucifer is Latin for Prometheus (more or less) just as Jove is Latin for Zeus. Lucifer was the old Italian God (not a major one that made it into the coffee-table books) who gave man fire and knowledge that brought them from being beasts to becoming men.
But to xians, Lucifer is satan. No argument allowed. Fundamental christians are as bad as Fundamental Gardnerians.
Oral Lore is NOT Law! It is generally help, assistance and explanation.
Oral Lore changes! If I tell you “The great gray-green Limpopo River all surrounded by fever trees,” you will hear “The grey-green Limboboo surrounded by fever trees” and you will tell the next person “The greenish limbo surrounded by feverish people” who will pass on, “The green fever that sends people to limbo.”
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
