Monday, April 28, 2014

Possibe other projects

Is it possible that Wiccans could come together and work together on a single project? The way things are, it seems very unlikely. Still we persist in believing--hoping--that it might just be possible. Self-appointed detractors of the Frosts have united behind negative causes, but all we see are words--no actions. Surely within all the Frost books and all those pages there must be other passages besides the current hot topic that they could find obnoxious. Try, people! Pay attention! So what could such a project be? Well, the most popular project these days seems to be to save our Mother the Earth. The easiest kind of such a project, one sadly neglected, is recycling. The two specific areas of recycling that are in sad need of help are (a) canning and (b) glassing. (Yvonne notes, I won't even lift the lid on the topic of roadside paper/plastic/styrofoam, nor on contraception ...) In many areas of the country there are more and more miles of highway / roadside lined with millions and millions of cans that could be collected and turned into ready cash. Any group can ask the local highway authority for a piece of road--and ask for a sign telling the world who is keeping this stretch of road clean and picked up (the Coven of La-de-Da, maybe; or the Baby Bambi Coven). Then they can indeed clean up--and make a profit doing it. It takes probably one day a month at most. There is potential here for a two-fold gain: money and advertising. Or, publicity or not, just go get the cans. You don't need a sign! The question of glassing is an interesting one because many American communities do not recycle glass, whereas the rest of the world outside our own borders does. In European recycling centers you will find separate bins for glass of each color. In the United States it is difficult to find a bin for glass of any sort. This nation recycles only at large centers, where there's enough population to support the effort. So processing glass will take work. You'll have to get your own community to add a glass recycling bin to their setup. In southern West Virginia at the present time we have to take the glass we collect across the state line into Virginia if it is to be recycled. So find out where the nearest glass recycling center is, and collect glass. Can you do it? Yes, you can. The time you spend playing the latest thumb-game could well be spent more productively. BB G and Y

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Always Positive Paganism

Over the many years we have run the Church and School of Wicca, we have seen the "Pagan Community" unite under various war cries of "My tradition is better than your tradition." Because we believe in "Walk in Balance on The Earth we feel strongly that there is too much negativity in the Pagan Community. Therefore, in order to find balance, we hereby ask that you enter into a covenant -- that when you feel anger that you direct that strong emotion towards positive goals. As such, this is a place for posting positive actions that help -- your home community or the Pagan Community that suggests positive growth.

Always keep in mind the Law of Attraction, therefore what you do good will come back to you and build our community.

Posts on this page indicate that you agree with and support this mission.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Beltane

It's that time of year again when celebrating the return of Spring occupies pagan minds. In Europe and the western hemisphere, indeed all around the globe, many festivals are based on Beltane, the ancient Irish fire festival. Two need-fires were lighted on Beltane among the Gael, between which they drove their cattle for purification and good luck. Bel = bala = blaze; tane = teni = warm.* At this time of year too the stubble in the fields was burned to kill off vermin and crop diseases. An alternative timing is based on the end of seeding. Scheduling depends on your distance from the north pole or, in the southern hemisphere, from the south pole. All this means that the dates of celebration vary from place to place. Which date is the appropriate occasion in modern life, when so few people in North America live truly rural lives? In the past we Frosts, as Wiccans, have simply assumed Celtic tradition and have said, "Celebrate on the full moon nearest 1 May." However, on reflection such an assumption may not be valid. Is full moon indeed the most fitting time? Since Beltane is a fire festival, it might just as appropriately be scheduled by the apparent movement of the sun. When Gavin lived in a Tantric house in the Punjab, its residents emphatically suggested that the full moon was not the right time for any festival; because, as they rightly observed, the delay in the tides caused by the hysteresis effect meant that the forces were at their highest level three days after the full moon crossed the zenith. One way would be to celebrate when the sun is crossing the zenith on the day of new moon, because that is one of the times when the moon's influence would be maximized. Another way would be to do the festival at dawn. This is recalled in other religions' dawn festivals at their Easter/ Ishtar/ Astarte/ Eostre observances. (Note here the cluster of goddess names and their clear relationship to our word estrogen. " In your estrogen bonnet, with all the frills upon it ...") Wiccan groups might prefer to do it at sunset, in case getting up at the crack of dawn is anathema to them. The Roman church held to its normal plagiaristic pattern, usurping the original Beltane and labeling it a saint's day: Saint Joseph the Worker was declared the patron of workers. From that beginning, Mayday on the Roman calendar became a day to honor workers, especially celebrated in communist nations. So we hope that we have summarized at least some of the choices. We encourage Wiccans to keep these in mind when you're picking your date for the celebration of Beltane. As you may know, we Frosts have habitually used the moon calendar. Remembering that Christian Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after spring equinox**, let's follow that pattern and say we could celebrate at sunset on the first weekend after the full moon nearest to May 1. It behooves all Wiccans to make their own decision as to when and how they will observe this most ancient of festivals. What say you? * Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Oxford Clarendon Press ** Yvonne has to count forward, not backward, so she says: Start with spring equinox. Find the next full moon. Never mind the Roman calendar's "Sun"-day.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Referencing "Child"

It wasn’t until yesterday, April 6, 2014 CE, when we read the post on our blogsite from Blackbird, that we realized how our words could be misconstrued by those wanting to push their own agenda or wanting an excuse to denigrate more than forty-five (45) years’ work by the Frosts in promoting Wicca. Thank you, Blackbird, for your post; but please note: The text reads: sponsor or father.

The regrettable problem that has bugged us for forty (40) years now is this: Everyone concentrated on the word phallus instead of on the possible problem of misinterpreting the word child. We truly are sorry that people did this. If someone had told us what their real objection was, we could have corrected it.

In writing the chapter, we started out naturally enough talking about the sealing and blessing of children, and carried on then to the next step of first initiation. Unfortunately, we continued to use the word child through both those sections of the chapter. It was never our intent to say that anyone under eighteen (18) years of age should be initiated. In the preface to the revised version of Good Witch’s Bible we clearly stated that fact--in English.

The chapter was rewritten in June, 1969 CE, as Lecture IV of the School’s Essential Witchcraft course. That lecture deleted mention of the phallus. The School also does have a study relationship with parents of young adults. They have a special contract asking both the young adult and the parent to sign stating that the parent will supervise the student's progress every step of the way. This is to honor the special need that young people have to express their personal identity through exploration, in a healthy manner, and to honor the requests of modern marketing. Modern marketing is something most of you are painfully aware, given that one of you making regular comments uses our writings to link to his books and another one of you brags of the enormous increase in traffic to her blog postings because she has chosen to discuss this current negative controversy. So much of this nonsense is internet marketplace driven, because you somehow imagine that you launching yourself based on a negative platform will do something beneficial for YOU, not your spiritual path. Are you enjoying your hubris, thinking you have something new to add? Growing your business or website traffic based on people's pain? Really? How exactly do you believe you are honoring the Rede with that mess?

As things stand now, we will modify the extant copies of Good Witch’s Bible remaining on our shelves so that no further people can be misled.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

How to Kill Wicca

The most recent series of attacks on us Frosts has become farcical in its wild accusations. Talk about creative fiction!

For those many of you who have defended us: We believe we owe you a "THANK YOU" and an explanation -- as if there were any explanation for current events, which are reaching new heights of weirdness.

Good Witch's Bible, that most-quoted and least-read book, has again become the basis for a flap and a furor in the Wiccan community, especially in Florida. It is mis-directed attention from a legitimate crisis in New Orleans whose victims deserve positive, healing energy. Nothing new there. For many years the book has served as a pretext to demonize the Frosts nationwide -- served people who have wrought precisely nothing in furtherance of the Craft, much less read GWB carefully with an open mind.

In recent weeks we Frosts have been accused (yet again) of pedophilia and sexual misconduct. There is no evidence to support either accusation. No social-services agency (eg. child protective services) or civil authority has ever accused us of any pedophilia. In fact, we say again: We are not pedophiles; nor do we endorse, encourage, or condone pedophilia in any form; nor do we support any pedophile who attempts to use Wicca as an excuse for any form of illegal behavior in any form.

At the time of New Witch's Bible's publication, we had the opportunity to review its contents with Carl and Sandra Weschcke of Llewellyn Publishing. The Weschckes were upset at charges brought by Herman Slater of the Warlock Shop in Brooklyn, New York. Basically Herman was using the Frosts, as so many have done before and since, to further his own agenda. After the conference with the Weschckes and the "trial" of the Frosts (attended by nearly four hundred [400] pagans), we agreed to change the book's title and to add those explanatory notes that the group meeting in Minneapolis thought advisable. "Change" here meant the removal of the definitive article (The) in the title, to be replaced by Good.

In Good Witch's Bible as it was first published and as it stands today, there is a clear statement on page 61 (a direct quote here):

    No formal initiation into the a group that practices the Great Rite should be done before the candidate attains the age of eighteen (18).

And we recommend that for female candidates the hymen be broken surgically by a physician rather than being a cause of pain during a first sexual experience.

If your group practices the Great Rite, then surely it is better to state that fact plainly than to hide behind euphemisms and try to blame others for things that those others have not done. And, surely, you do not have active members in your group under the age of 18. Living in the Craft means that you work daily to realize how sick and twisted are the "norms" of the culture in which you find yourself.

The claim that the Church of Wicca would not teach females by mail until those same females had given sexual favors to Gavin as a partner are simply salacious, hysterical fantasies. The School also has a strict no student under 18 policy. When the Church of Wicca was getting started up, Gavin was an international sales manager for Emerson Electric. He traveled extensively in Europe and in the far east. In fact, in one year he crossed the Atlantic 33 times. Why the odd number? He returned to the continental U.S. through India or Japan 9 times. In that period the School was run by Yvonne, mainly by herself but occasionally with the aid of a a (female) secretary.

After that period, when Gavin "retired", the School was given over almost entirely to the management of a capable secretary while the Frosts divided their time between writing books and the nearly full-time operation of running a feeder-pig farm in Salem, Missouri. Following that time, we continued with the practice of having the School run by a series of managers under close supervision. We have also had a couple of short-timers where that role was filled by a male, but about 99% of the time the manager was a female, hence the lack of legitimacy to any accusation that Gavin asked for sexual favors as an admittance requirement. At no time was the staff wholly pagan; in fact for the longest period of time (in New Bern, North Carolina) the lady who ran the School was a dedicated Roman Catholic. Of course all these staff regularly referred to the Frosts to help answer questions in the student mail.

Recently when the volume of mail had decreased and we had moved to Hinton, West Virginia, at first we continued with the female executive. Only in the past four years have the Frosts been back in full charge of its management. During the past three years Gavin has frequently been in and out of hospital beds for surgeries on his spine. Now he seems to be recovering from a situation in which the surgeons said he would never walk again.

The very mention of the phallus has always seemed to bug people, although such phalli are seen in every anthropological museum worldwide. We do not know why originally a phallus was used to break the hymen. Perhaps those ancient peoples were smart enough to know Perhaps those ancient peoples were smart enough to know that young women tend fall in love with -- to imprint on -- the mail who shares their first sexual experience. Whatever the reason, it is clear that a baton de commandment was historically used.

The decoding of the marks on the ishango bone, a 6000-year-old piece of bone showed how someone, presumably a woman, carved symbols on it representing moon times. The realization by Dr. Marshack that there were thousands of such carved bones in southern France and northern Spain, as well as hundreds scattered across Europe and even into Russia, revealed their widespread use. (Marshack, A. [1972] The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art, Symbol and Notation. St. Louis: McGraw-Hill Book Company)The figures linked below shows the cyclical nature of the carvings on the bones. If you look at the top line of the picture, you can see the full moons and, below, the cyclical markings on the bone/baton itself, which clearly shows cycles -- and are the earliest known form of writing. This fact alone qualifies to be a matter of pride to women everywhere.

Thus when we Frosts put the phallus into Good Witch's Bible we were memorializing as a part of Craft heritage a practice considered to be 20,000 years old. The Cornwall coven that initiated Gavin in 1950 followed the practice. Again on Page 61 we clearly state: "The use of the phallus is usually dropped."

We keep records of everyone who has ever contacted the School, recorded for posterity every since those prehistoric days of KayPro computers. We have in folders information on who has been a student, and at least 90% of the letters they wrote are also preserved. Of course it has amused us over the years to look at the many spiritual descendants of the School who now claim their own unique "ancient" tradition. Of course we have never allowed anyone, not even the most qualified researchers, access to our files. For your amusement, when we recently moved the School's premises, the man who helped us move has had nightmares that he's being chased by filing cabinets; there were just so many to move!

A last thought occurs: Inmate plaintiffs called on the Church of Wicca in the Dettmer-v-Landon case in which Judge Butner reaffirmed the Frost version of Wicca as deserving all the rights, responsibilities and status of any other religion within the United States. Denigrators, please recall that the book you are denigrating was used to get us (and maybe you) that status of Federal recognition. The reason that we have not sued our detractors is quite simple: If we were to sue, the whole question of the religious status of the Wiccan community would naturally be revisited -- but remember that 90% of the population at large in this purported Christian nation would like to see Wicca and Wiccans gone.

Do you really want to risk that? We don't. That is the simple fact for our holding back, for our never having sued anyone ... YET ... for slander or for defamation of character or for libel.

For further resources on the Ishango bone, look here: http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/xpage/IshangoBone.html

http://www.sudaneseonline.com/cgi-bin/esdb/2bb.cgi?seq=print&board=12&msg=1283356463&rn=

As a final thought, and a parting post script, why not turn your anger and frustration towards building community and helping others? There are so many ways that you could practice "An it harm none,...." without resorting to personal, false attacks. Here is a short list we came up with in a 5-minute brainstorming session:

1) Volunteer at the local animal shelter;

2) Foster a child or children;

3) Volunteer with the elderly;

4) Volunteer at hospice;

5) Adopt and clean your local roads;

6) Recycle;

7) Spend time reflecting on lunar cycles;

8) Teach children about the sun, the moon, and the stars -- help them learn to read a compass;

9) Begin a community watch program;

10) Dance!

11) Support local artists and artisans, and

12) Support a living, unsigned musician.

Click here for more information about the Frosts and their teachings.