Path: shell.portal.com!shell.portal.com!not-for-mail From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (Lorax the Unencumbered by Degree) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.religion.wicca,alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc,alt.religion.shamanism Subject: Wiccan Credentials?? (Was Re: What if ANYBODY can be a Witch?) Date: 15 Jan 1996 18:47:25 -0800 Organization: Portal Communications (shell) Lines: 170 Sender: tyagi@shell.portal.com Message-ID: <4df3jt$p39@jobe.shell.portal.com> References: <4db5u1$o3f@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (Lorax) NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com Xref: shell.portal.com alt.magick.tyagi:6212 alt.religion.wicca:20448 alt.pagan:140887 talk.religion.misc:199341 alt.religion.shamanism:2994 kaliyuga 49960115 mlk telijjd@ioe.ac.uk (Jem Dowse): |>As far as I'm concerned, a Wiccan is someone who has trained with and |>been initiated by a Wiccan High Priest/ess. No initiations by the gods? Okee, to each their own evaluation criteria. |>Wicca contains much much more than one can learn from books - I think this will be generally applauded and agreed, yes. |>experiential stuff that you can only be taught one-to-one in the Circle. Well, depending on what one means by this I tend to agree, yes. I mean by 'in Circle' a fairly mystical or open-ended concept which can include the solitary (since the gods may enter into our personal circle/cone of consciousness/magick) and often instruct one-on-one. I wonder if more than one could instruct, however. |>If you've read a book by, say, Buckland that says that you too can be |>a third degree Wiccan High Priest/ess if you follow these simple (and |>usually very fluffy) steps, sorry my friend, you are being misled. Really? Hmmm, I tend to agree with you here, which is what makes it hard to come off sounding like my usual gruff self, but I tend to think the structure is less important than the intent and ability. Some people were born witches/Wiccans and through self-acceptance/-acknowledgement may 'qualify' in some people's eyes as 'legitimate Wiccan Hps' (the last rhymes with 'chicken lips' :>). |>If you have worked out your own path through effort on your own behalf, |>then you may be a witch, but you ain't a Wiccan. Wicca is an initiatory |>tradition, whether back to Alex, Gerald, or further back through a |>family tradition or whatever. Big 'whatever'. This is what I usually point out as the calcification of the Wiccan religion, in that credentials become important and rank becomes more important than perfect love and perfect trust (as these are increasingly only offered to the 'properly initiated'). Compare this with Christians who go through life learning of love and acceptance as the Christian way and then ostracize people from churches because they are practicing homosexuals (I admit this is an extreme comparison of course, but I find parallels). novasolo@aol.com (Nova Solo) (Yummiest Of Wikkunz - YOW) writes: |I'm very glad to see that you're aware this is your opinion only. Oh no it isn't. It is a very important and increasingly widespread notion of orthodoxy within the Wiccan religion (quickly rivalling the Roman Catholic Church in Authority ;>). Honestly, I think that there is a very important mystical teaching here if we don't take what she say completely literally (equating 'initiation' with experience and 'instruction' with learning from such experience). |...How do you answer when they say "I'm a solitary Wiccan, self-initiated"? My guess: "I'm sorry, but I don't accept your claim of being 'Wiccan'." It takes a certain amount of self-importance, and yet these types of boundaries are important in a magical/religious/ceremonial tradition. |And just how did you decide that someone who doesn't care about Wicca, |someone who plays headgames, someone who manipulates, uses, cheats and |lies but *was* initiated by High Priestess Goldenmoon WhisperSong of |Dragon Oaks coven is a more valid Wiccan than the person who has no |initiation but worships and believes devoutly? That is likely the exception. Remember, just because someone is given the title doesn't make them initiated. What Jem is saying (as I under- stand it) is that the rite is the *minimum*. We presume that there may be other qualifications (competence, not being an idiot, etc.). |...Wiccan is not a stamp you earn by passing third grade. Wiccan is |a belief, a love, a heart, a soul. It's not a measure of success. It's |not about "North HAS to be THIS color and with THIS element". It's not |about doing things because that's how they've *always* been done. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOh yes it is! Try to work magick with the solitaries what don't accept the rigid and traditional symbolic associations. It is a horrendous headache! Might as well have Kaos Mages on your front porch! C'mon, we're talking ceremonial traditions here! You can't just willy- nilly accept anyone who takes the name 'Wiccan' into your rites. They'll likely upheave the whole coven with their weird ways! Be reasonable! |Great God and Goddess, how many initiated Wiccans do you know that can't |tell you why certain directions are associated with certain elements, other |than that's how they've been taught? WHY isn't important. It is like playing a certain kind of sport with professionals. If they come to the field with all sorts of stupid or 'home' rules and can't coordinate, then the result is a fiasco! |'cause that's the way they always did it". Thank you just the same, give |me passion and awe and honesty and SELF, not rote recitation of things |that have no personal meaning! The 'that's the way we've always dun it' crowd are the newbies to the Wiccan Creed. As they mature of course they'll come to know the TRUE significance of the Wiccan symbolic association schema (something which is reserved for those who have been initiated into the Craft). The SELF they bring will come of its own, but ONLY AFTER THEY LEARN THE ROPES. We can't pottie-train every newbie 'Wiccan' who comes to our covens and at the same time expect them to operate the forces of magick like an Adept Third Degree! |Things that can only be taught one-on-one in the circle? Like what? The MYSTERIES, Nova! Those things which aren't meant to be known except by those who are deep within the Wiccan tradition and know it, those who have been admitted to the complexity of consciousness-force which is the *Current* of the Wiccan Law (compare '93 Current' :>). |You're telling me that if I use an athame without a black hilt, it doesn't |count? Oh not *that* lesson, *this* lesson! It isn't that it 'doesn't count' but that it ISN'T Wiccan, not by orthodox standards and not within the main such that we might easily coordinate rite (not just about one athame handle either, but a whole range of possible conflicts). |The Goddess and God will not hear me if I don't make my altar to |Gardnerian proportions? Poppycock. Now you're going to far. Jem said she might be a *witch*, just not a Wiccan. To be Gardnerian one need achieve the praxis of Gardnerites, after all! |Shake off your chains, Wiccans. Tradition without passion is as false as |a lie and as heavy as hypocrisy. And tradition with commonality of structure and recurrence of form is not tradition at all! |Nova Lorax of the Evul Wikkunz (Unencumbered by Degree) (Dedicated to the Formalization and Calcification of Wiccans Everywhere) tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com --------------------------- ...those who surround themselves with darkness and speak most of death are probably the most life-loving of all.... we keep our death close to us; we don't cushion and insulate ourselves from reality. Satanists keep constant reminders of our own mortality around, *momentos mori*, to spur us to enjoy each moment as if it were our last. Anton LaVey -- To ensure my response CC all public replies to email (READ alt.magick.tyagi) (emailed replies may be posted) * http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi/nagasiva.html INTENTIONAL .SIG PROTEST: FUCK SHIT PISS COCKSUCKER MOTHERFUCKER TITS CUNT