We have been looking at old information in an attempt to get all the dates accurate on the School of Wicca.
In December 1968 Gavin and Yvonne Frost, then resident in Ferguson, Missouri, founded The Church and School of Wicca. The School began advertising courses in March 1969 in Avant Garde magazine. That advertisement and the associated mailing piece were the first recorded use of the word Wicca to name an alternative spirituality. In all his writings, Gerald Gardner used the lower-case wica (sic) one time. He did not use it to describe a religion or a spiritual path. In 1969, Leo Martello used an acronym, W.I.C.C.A.
The Wiccan path which the Frosts articulated bore little resemblance to either the Gardnerian or the Alexandrian "traditional" Witchcraft paths. Instead, it was based on the practice of the Penzance Coven that initiated Gavin in 1951. That practice was and is a system of spiritual development based on Tantric Yoga. Since its founding, the Church has used
a. psychic gender differences to power its rituals and
b. the endorphines produced by orgasm to reach altered states without the use of quasi-legal substances.
The official formative date shown on the Articles of Association and the Bylaws of the Church and School of Wicca (a religious association) is December 13, 1971.
On August 31 1972 the IRS issued a letter of determination granting 501.c.(iii) status to the Church of Wicca. Also late in 1972 the Church helped the IRS establish their criteria for the recognition of a church.
There is a problem with the dates of the change from Gardnerian Witchcraft to Gardnerian Wicca. So many people are using secondary and tertiary sources. Please do not quote Wikipedia or Ronald Hutton or any other secondary source. Our source is a conversation with Doreen Valiente in 1991. If you have a primary written or printed source, please let us know. We want to keep our records correct.
Blessed be those who resist confusion between hearsay and evidence. Gavin and Yvonne
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Friday, November 9, 2007
A Foot in Both Worlds?
The question today is an old one revisited; that is, can a Wiccan use a Christian pantheon in his/her spiritual life? Time and again we have pointed out that in working with lower-level stone gods, as they are often called, people can use any pantheon they wish. We have knowingly made no exclusions. Don't overlook the 283 named deities in the Celtic pantheon alone; and it is said that in the Hindu pantheon/s there are over 30 thousand. Aren't those enough to choose from?
The real drawback, though, is that Christianity is a dominator cult-of-the-book, whereas we ourselves tend to articulate and pursue a partnership religion based in Nature. Those individuals who want to omit the red-in-tooth-and-claw bit may do so, of course, though we acknowledge that aspect as part of the real world.
Therefore if you are a Christian, ipso facto you cannot be a Wiccan. The cult of Christianity is not compatible with the spiritual path of Wicca. The Wiccan Ultimate overarching unknowable Deity (or perhaps Spiritual Focus) makes Wicca a religion in the temporal dimension, and in the spiritual dimension a spiritual path. At heart it is henotheistic. (Whoa! What a big word. Look it up, though. Surprise--it's been there all the time.) Yet it is not quite even that. In our terminology it is syncretic monotheism that also offers the option of using hearth god-esses. Differences are slight but worth exploring.
So you can use any pantheon you like--but don't drag in the non-win moral values of another religion such as, no sex until a pimply-faced clerk issues you a $10 license to Do It, or other so-called moral values. Many of western culture's "moral values" drive most people straight to the loony bin or onto the path of walking one walk while they talk another talk.
Of course there are other important questions that we can't address in this blog. Examples:
* When does a tampon with its attached nylon cord become a dildo?
* When is a hip not a crotch to someone who has a crotch fixation?
Show of hands : Is there anybody we haven't offended yet?
Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
PS Rhiannon: If you are serious about acreage, come visit us in West Virginia. We'll talk.
The real drawback, though, is that Christianity is a dominator cult-of-the-book, whereas we ourselves tend to articulate and pursue a partnership religion based in Nature. Those individuals who want to omit the red-in-tooth-and-claw bit may do so, of course, though we acknowledge that aspect as part of the real world.
Therefore if you are a Christian, ipso facto you cannot be a Wiccan. The cult of Christianity is not compatible with the spiritual path of Wicca. The Wiccan Ultimate overarching unknowable Deity (or perhaps Spiritual Focus) makes Wicca a religion in the temporal dimension, and in the spiritual dimension a spiritual path. At heart it is henotheistic. (Whoa! What a big word. Look it up, though. Surprise--it's been there all the time.) Yet it is not quite even that. In our terminology it is syncretic monotheism that also offers the option of using hearth god-esses. Differences are slight but worth exploring.
So you can use any pantheon you like--but don't drag in the non-win moral values of another religion such as, no sex until a pimply-faced clerk issues you a $10 license to Do It, or other so-called moral values. Many of western culture's "moral values" drive most people straight to the loony bin or onto the path of walking one walk while they talk another talk.
Of course there are other important questions that we can't address in this blog. Examples:
* When does a tampon with its attached nylon cord become a dildo?
* When is a hip not a crotch to someone who has a crotch fixation?
Show of hands : Is there anybody we haven't offended yet?
Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
PS Rhiannon: If you are serious about acreage, come visit us in West Virginia. We'll talk.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Old Stuff - Our Spiritual Heritage
Trial records show that in the 1340s CE, trials of "heretics" almost ceased, to resume only after publication in 1376 CE of Nicholas Eymeric's "Directorium inquisitorum". That book replaced Bernard Gui's "Practica officii inquisitoris heretice pravitatis" of 1324 CE. Bernard Gui was a competent lawyer. It is thought that his book and the legal requirements it contained slowed the trials. To our knowledge, no other reason for the slowdown has been suggested.
-- Kieckhefer "European Witch Trials" pub University of California Press, 1976
The Black Death slots neatly into the middle of that period. The first cases occurred in southern France and northwestern Italy in December 1348, and it reached Scotland and Scandinavia two years later.
-- Ziegler "The Black Death" pub Collins 1968
1315 - 1320 were the first 5 famine years of the Little Ice age, involving continual rain and the ruin of cereal crops. An estimated 2 million souls died. In the following 300 years, there were 111 of total famine. In France an estimated 7 million died. All death statistics in this whole period are SWAGs (scientific wild-assed guesses), though the few extant birth records reveal that the women were trying to repopulate Europe. Many women formed beguinages, mainly female towns/villages/communes. Such population centers were easy targets for later genocidal murders ordered by the church.
-- M. Kolbenschlag "Eastward unto Eve" pub Crossroads 1996
The plague was made more virulent because people were (a) starving and (b) huddled together in hovels for warmth--along with heat-seeking rats that bore the fleas that carried the disease.
The 1350-81 time period saw continuous peasant revolts against civil and church laws. In England the 1351 revolt is well documented. It was caused by the church's backing of the Statute of Laborers, which attempted (a) to fix wages back to pre-plague levels and (b) to reintroduce serfdom and forced labor.
The first serious mention of Witches comes from the Council of Constance, 1414-16 CE :
"Witches are real and are the cause of the bad weather."
This was a reversal of the previous position of the church in the Canon Episcopi, which decreed the death penalty for anyone who burned supposed magicians. St. Boniface's encyclical declared : "Belief in magic and werewolves is unchristian."
Only in 1428 CE was the classical definition of "witch" tortured out, in trials held in the canton of Valais (Switzerland). The definition allows hair-splitting Christians to claim that none of the "heretics" murdered earlier were Witches and that anyone who doesn't exactly fit the Valais definition is not a Witch and thus doesn't count.
-- G & Y Frost "Who Speaks for the Witch?" pub Godolphin House 1991
-- H. C. Lea "Materials toward a History of Witchcraft" (3 volumes) pub Yoseloff 1957
-- H. R. Trevor-Roper "The European Witch Craze" pub Pelican 1969
It appears to us that this period, say 1315 through 1376 CE, should be studied in more depth to correlate information from various disciplines. Maybe a doctoral thesis ... ?
By the way, any time you get a chance to hear Professor Skip Clark at one of the festivals, do it! He is a genuine expert on the subject, not just a guy on a crusade, and has no axe to grind.
-- S. Clark "Mythhistory of Witchcraft" / VHS tape pub Godolphin House 2005
-- Kieckhefer "European Witch Trials" pub University of California Press, 1976
The Black Death slots neatly into the middle of that period. The first cases occurred in southern France and northwestern Italy in December 1348, and it reached Scotland and Scandinavia two years later.
-- Ziegler "The Black Death" pub Collins 1968
1315 - 1320 were the first 5 famine years of the Little Ice age, involving continual rain and the ruin of cereal crops. An estimated 2 million souls died. In the following 300 years, there were 111 of total famine. In France an estimated 7 million died. All death statistics in this whole period are SWAGs (scientific wild-assed guesses), though the few extant birth records reveal that the women were trying to repopulate Europe. Many women formed beguinages, mainly female towns/villages/communes. Such population centers were easy targets for later genocidal murders ordered by the church.
-- M. Kolbenschlag "Eastward unto Eve" pub Crossroads 1996
The plague was made more virulent because people were (a) starving and (b) huddled together in hovels for warmth--along with heat-seeking rats that bore the fleas that carried the disease.
The 1350-81 time period saw continuous peasant revolts against civil and church laws. In England the 1351 revolt is well documented. It was caused by the church's backing of the Statute of Laborers, which attempted (a) to fix wages back to pre-plague levels and (b) to reintroduce serfdom and forced labor.
The first serious mention of Witches comes from the Council of Constance, 1414-16 CE :
"Witches are real and are the cause of the bad weather."
This was a reversal of the previous position of the church in the Canon Episcopi, which decreed the death penalty for anyone who burned supposed magicians. St. Boniface's encyclical declared : "Belief in magic and werewolves is unchristian."
Only in 1428 CE was the classical definition of "witch" tortured out, in trials held in the canton of Valais (Switzerland). The definition allows hair-splitting Christians to claim that none of the "heretics" murdered earlier were Witches and that anyone who doesn't exactly fit the Valais definition is not a Witch and thus doesn't count.
-- G & Y Frost "Who Speaks for the Witch?" pub Godolphin House 1991
-- H. C. Lea "Materials toward a History of Witchcraft" (3 volumes) pub Yoseloff 1957
-- H. R. Trevor-Roper "The European Witch Craze" pub Pelican 1969
It appears to us that this period, say 1315 through 1376 CE, should be studied in more depth to correlate information from various disciplines. Maybe a doctoral thesis ... ?
By the way, any time you get a chance to hear Professor Skip Clark at one of the festivals, do it! He is a genuine expert on the subject, not just a guy on a crusade, and has no axe to grind.
-- S. Clark "Mythhistory of Witchcraft" / VHS tape pub Godolphin House 2005
An Extremely Different Subject
As we drove from the mountains of West Virginia into the flatlands of Ohio, the trees were turning, and beautifully so. Mountainsides were swathed in green, orange, and red. As we approached Columbus and the flatlands of the prosperous state of Ohio, at first we enjoyed the open farmland with a scattering of trees and farmhouses and the browning corn ready to be cut. Then about 25 miles from Columbus, we ran into urban sprawl. "Planned" communities clustered around golf courses where sprinklers kept the lawns green and beautiful.* What we call the house machine had been running at full throttle in the area, as it has around many of the nation's large cities.
We believe very strongly that there are two types of communities that genuine pagans should invest in.
1. A farming community where a group gets together to run a farm. We have spent hours upon hours advising pagan/Wiccans on the challenges entailed in such intentional communities. Gavin is a country boy brought up in rural England, and we had our own farm in Missosuri in the early 1970s. We do know the problems, and we know a lot about shortages in cashflow.
2. In another trype, the ashram, a group gets together and cooperatively buys a larger old downtown mansion that can be rescued and turned into several spacious apartments. Such a cooperative does a lot to save inner cities, especially in smaller communities, in what is called infill housing. The infill approach recycles land within urban areas instead of paving over yet more farmland or woodland just for the sake of conspicuous consumption. The apartments made from such older homes usually have spacious rooms and high ceilings and make much nicer living space than modern crackerboxes. A good sound group can share such things as the kitchen and the laundry room, enabling its members to put in high-quality commercial-style equipment that requires very little maintenance. The cost-effectiveness of such an infill arrangement is obvious, and of course it saves a few acres of contryside from the all-devouring house machine.
P.S. This is not a flame of Columbus. Columbus is only a typical example of what is going on over the entire nation. Every year a new area the size of Indiana is paved over. Many pagan/ Wiccans dream vaguely of buying their own piece of unimproved land. If that is your dream, to make such a commitment and to run a small farm, we strongly suggest that you place an ad in the local paper of the nearest easily accessible farming community, something to this effect :
"Volunteer free labor on your farm on weekends."
Most farmers work 24/7. A little extra help and a little time off is a real bonus for them. In this way you will get, as they say in Missouri, your boots into the pig muck (on the coast of North Carolina it's getting your oars into the water) without a huge painful outlay of cash and a lifetime's commitment. Doing this may save you a great deal of heartache later, because you will get a glimpse of what modern farming entails in the real world. It will offer (one of Yvonne's current favorite phrases) a reality smack.
- - - - - - - - -
* See S. Steingraber's "Living Downstream" for a nightmare description of what golf courses do to the planet's health. At least a million gallons of water per day per course ... and the incidence of prostate cancer in greenskeepers is six times as high as in the general population, because of the lawn chemicals that go into the land to keep it picture-perfect. Aren't you proud to be a taxpayer?
We believe very strongly that there are two types of communities that genuine pagans should invest in.
1. A farming community where a group gets together to run a farm. We have spent hours upon hours advising pagan/Wiccans on the challenges entailed in such intentional communities. Gavin is a country boy brought up in rural England, and we had our own farm in Missosuri in the early 1970s. We do know the problems, and we know a lot about shortages in cashflow.
2. In another trype, the ashram, a group gets together and cooperatively buys a larger old downtown mansion that can be rescued and turned into several spacious apartments. Such a cooperative does a lot to save inner cities, especially in smaller communities, in what is called infill housing. The infill approach recycles land within urban areas instead of paving over yet more farmland or woodland just for the sake of conspicuous consumption. The apartments made from such older homes usually have spacious rooms and high ceilings and make much nicer living space than modern crackerboxes. A good sound group can share such things as the kitchen and the laundry room, enabling its members to put in high-quality commercial-style equipment that requires very little maintenance. The cost-effectiveness of such an infill arrangement is obvious, and of course it saves a few acres of contryside from the all-devouring house machine.
P.S. This is not a flame of Columbus. Columbus is only a typical example of what is going on over the entire nation. Every year a new area the size of Indiana is paved over. Many pagan/ Wiccans dream vaguely of buying their own piece of unimproved land. If that is your dream, to make such a commitment and to run a small farm, we strongly suggest that you place an ad in the local paper of the nearest easily accessible farming community, something to this effect :
"Volunteer free labor on your farm on weekends."
Most farmers work 24/7. A little extra help and a little time off is a real bonus for them. In this way you will get, as they say in Missouri, your boots into the pig muck (on the coast of North Carolina it's getting your oars into the water) without a huge painful outlay of cash and a lifetime's commitment. Doing this may save you a great deal of heartache later, because you will get a glimpse of what modern farming entails in the real world. It will offer (one of Yvonne's current favorite phrases) a reality smack.
- - - - - - - - -
* See S. Steingraber's "Living Downstream" for a nightmare description of what golf courses do to the planet's health. At least a million gallons of water per day per course ... and the incidence of prostate cancer in greenskeepers is six times as high as in the general population, because of the lawn chemicals that go into the land to keep it picture-perfect. Aren't you proud to be a taxpayer?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Our Fabulous Trip
Fabulous! Wonderful! Or (as the Brits might say), Wizard! Bril! (that's brilliant)
What other fulsome, overblown adjectives can we use? It sounds pretty gushy, but mere words fall short of our pleasure in recent travel experiences. We've just put in something over 2,000 miles on the road, in something over a week. It was a great trip, thanks to Ronn (Roy) and Raven of Fireheart, and to Patty of Greenleaf.
The weather was more than kind, affording us dry roads all the way, as well as the Mother's beautiful autumn color scheme. The storms that were supposed to happen missed us somehow. An enormous heartfelt "thank you" to the Guides for all that. The magical site at Fireheart took our breath away. Praise and gratitude beyond words to the Two who steward and cherish the site for the pleasure of the rest of us. It is a world apart, where people felt safe to circle, to dance, and to visit the Underworld at the turn of the year.
A couple of images stay with us : the amazing skills that gave us the gift of carved pumpkin guardians; indeed the wonderful attitude of all participants; the feathered ones in the trees who felt safe enough almost to mingle right in with us featherless ones; the generosity and kindnesses without number of Roy and Raven.
Our hosts had arranged an open meeting at Toledo's Unity Temple and had well publicized the meeting and its address. Attendance there was all we could have hoped for, both in number and in openness. An image from that meeting will remain long with us : the blonde lady who couldn't believe that she could make the Crooks radiometer spin at law-breaking speed when she pointed her right hand at it, yet couldn't make it move with her left hand. Sic semper in mundo, we suppose. Who says the magic doesn't work? Our gratitude too to Reverend Lynn for the use of the church's chapel and for her enthusiastic welcome to us.
Then off at the crack of dawn for the long drive to Springfield, Missouri, through countryside just beginning to show its autumn colors. In Terre Haute, Indiana, we stumbled across one of the best (east) Indian restaurants in the United States, the Taj Majal. Namaste. Then it was on around St. Louis and into Missouri proper. The Witches' Ball there included a handfasting that was also a marriage recognized in the civil/legal dimension of life. Our warmest and best wishes go to the handfasting couple, and to the minister who shared words from a beautiful and moving script. What an evening. The Ball's organizers brought us a karaoke interlude. Many, many people attended from all over. Costumes were creative and picturesque--and that's an understatement. Three generations of families attended, gladdening our own hearts at the continuity they represented. Our thanks here go to Patty and the Greenleaf Coven group for all their work and preparation. Yes, we had a few American Legionnaires bug-eyed (it was their hall that Greenleaf rented), but they suffered no harm.
At the Annual General Meeting of the Church of Wicca, also held in Springfield, many topics were discussed. Attendees agreed not to change our first-degree initiation but to make it plainer to neophytes that it very closely resembles the third-degree rite of the Gardnerian tradition. Attendees also want to put out some kind of friendship certificate. Various groups would volunteer and commit to be f r i e n d s of other groups; that if they disagreed with other groups they would do so only in private, that they would do no public washing of dirty linen because such washing only weakens our Wiccan position and has already cost a couple of people jobs.
Redaers of this site are probably aware already of the fact that bringing religion into situations of employment, divorce, housing, and the like constitutes religious discrimination and instantly makes the discussion a federal case.
In this regard too, many self-appointed Christian reformers--current-day Cotton Mathers, no less--are changing or editing Wiccan writeups on the web. When you see such a thing happen, please, please change them back. A typical example : A job applicant says, "I'm Wiccan," and the personnel staff say, "Oh, I'll look that up. We'll call you." Then the staff sees some scurrilous comment about the Craft ... and it's all over with.
Rhiannon, in the course of our hegira we had several discussions about theories on the baton de commandment. One remark of note: "Well, I was always convinced that archaeologists can't tell the difference between a cave and a hole in the ground." (We apologize to any readers who are archaeologists.) "I'll give you the idea of notches for animal husbandry if you'll give me the idea that the animals included humans."
Blessed be those who keep their minds open. Blessed be those who live ethically.
Gavin and Yvonne
What other fulsome, overblown adjectives can we use? It sounds pretty gushy, but mere words fall short of our pleasure in recent travel experiences. We've just put in something over 2,000 miles on the road, in something over a week. It was a great trip, thanks to Ronn (Roy) and Raven of Fireheart, and to Patty of Greenleaf.
The weather was more than kind, affording us dry roads all the way, as well as the Mother's beautiful autumn color scheme. The storms that were supposed to happen missed us somehow. An enormous heartfelt "thank you" to the Guides for all that. The magical site at Fireheart took our breath away. Praise and gratitude beyond words to the Two who steward and cherish the site for the pleasure of the rest of us. It is a world apart, where people felt safe to circle, to dance, and to visit the Underworld at the turn of the year.
A couple of images stay with us : the amazing skills that gave us the gift of carved pumpkin guardians; indeed the wonderful attitude of all participants; the feathered ones in the trees who felt safe enough almost to mingle right in with us featherless ones; the generosity and kindnesses without number of Roy and Raven.
Our hosts had arranged an open meeting at Toledo's Unity Temple and had well publicized the meeting and its address. Attendance there was all we could have hoped for, both in number and in openness. An image from that meeting will remain long with us : the blonde lady who couldn't believe that she could make the Crooks radiometer spin at law-breaking speed when she pointed her right hand at it, yet couldn't make it move with her left hand. Sic semper in mundo, we suppose. Who says the magic doesn't work? Our gratitude too to Reverend Lynn for the use of the church's chapel and for her enthusiastic welcome to us.
Then off at the crack of dawn for the long drive to Springfield, Missouri, through countryside just beginning to show its autumn colors. In Terre Haute, Indiana, we stumbled across one of the best (east) Indian restaurants in the United States, the Taj Majal. Namaste. Then it was on around St. Louis and into Missouri proper. The Witches' Ball there included a handfasting that was also a marriage recognized in the civil/legal dimension of life. Our warmest and best wishes go to the handfasting couple, and to the minister who shared words from a beautiful and moving script. What an evening. The Ball's organizers brought us a karaoke interlude. Many, many people attended from all over. Costumes were creative and picturesque--and that's an understatement. Three generations of families attended, gladdening our own hearts at the continuity they represented. Our thanks here go to Patty and the Greenleaf Coven group for all their work and preparation. Yes, we had a few American Legionnaires bug-eyed (it was their hall that Greenleaf rented), but they suffered no harm.
At the Annual General Meeting of the Church of Wicca, also held in Springfield, many topics were discussed. Attendees agreed not to change our first-degree initiation but to make it plainer to neophytes that it very closely resembles the third-degree rite of the Gardnerian tradition. Attendees also want to put out some kind of friendship certificate. Various groups would volunteer and commit to be f r i e n d s of other groups; that if they disagreed with other groups they would do so only in private, that they would do no public washing of dirty linen because such washing only weakens our Wiccan position and has already cost a couple of people jobs.
Redaers of this site are probably aware already of the fact that bringing religion into situations of employment, divorce, housing, and the like constitutes religious discrimination and instantly makes the discussion a federal case.
In this regard too, many self-appointed Christian reformers--current-day Cotton Mathers, no less--are changing or editing Wiccan writeups on the web. When you see such a thing happen, please, please change them back. A typical example : A job applicant says, "I'm Wiccan," and the personnel staff say, "Oh, I'll look that up. We'll call you." Then the staff sees some scurrilous comment about the Craft ... and it's all over with.
Rhiannon, in the course of our hegira we had several discussions about theories on the baton de commandment. One remark of note: "Well, I was always convinced that archaeologists can't tell the difference between a cave and a hole in the ground." (We apologize to any readers who are archaeologists.) "I'll give you the idea of notches for animal husbandry if you'll give me the idea that the animals included humans."
Blessed be those who keep their minds open. Blessed be those who live ethically.
Gavin and Yvonne
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
responses to responses
As Yvonne holds her head and says, what have we spawned?, we offer something of a roundup of our responses ... to responses .. to one or another of our rambling blogs. We roughed it out in the car on the way to do self-directed aquarobics, our geriatric effort to stay ahead of things if even a little.
You may all know we rae soon going on the road, so we'll be away for about two weeks.
Let us address first the incoming comments that are the easiest to respond to which.
Pagan Temple: If we inadvertently flamed you, we apologize. We don't profess to eb sophisticated in the ways of the Net (gasp). Just to show our ignorance, what specific book and burn do you have in mind?
We were glad to see mention of the Little Ice Age and the Black Death. Personally we think that Catholic efforts to reestablish authority in the years following the Black Death set the scene for most of the later burnings. During the plague the Church and its priests lost their authority because prayers and burning candles were so visibly ineffective.
Rhiannon, what's your take on that? Thank you so much for your long piece on the law. It was fantastic and fascinating. How on earth did you put that much material on the blog? Is it a matter of seven fingers on each hand? Our mind is reeling.
Of course like Brehon law, most of the old law was passed down orally and codified by Christian monks only much later. The Welsh law, also relatively late, was at least put onto parchment at the White House on the River Taff -- a law which "shall endure until a better be written." So far as I can tell, neither the Brehon law nor the law of Hywel Dda included much in the way of judicial murder. The Welsh which I read many years ago in a Penguin (Pelican?) translation spent a lot of time on what should happen if the cat you bought didn't perform catching mice, for instance, or in a case of rape, who got the testicles.
Anyway, as I remember it I found very few cases of judicial murder.
The odler we get, the more important history seems to become. We're only sorry that we probably won't have time to complete our own studies of it -- as if such a thing were possible. The misinformation in history staggers the mind. Way too much of it is what Piggott calls history-as-wished-for. Every historian has an agenda; that comes as no surprise. Typical examples:
1. The claim that in the Burning Times most women who were burned were the community's midwives. They weren't. It was the lying-in maids or wet nurses, who were called in to prop up the new mother and the household when mother was weakened by childbirth and who knows what else. They didn't know diddly, of course, about prenatal care, about nutrition, about hygiene adn sanitation, about anything. Why was the easiest target? The lying-in maid, of course. She was the stsranger in the house; she often had no one to act in her defense; she would have been the easiest to replace.
2. The claim that the "Malleus Maleficarum" was used to burn "witches". Inquisitors had far better and more detailed texts, frequently updated form headquarters. Sso what was the Malleus? It was what the publishing industry calls today a one-hander for the monks and priests. Made literacy worth while.
3. The claim that Torquemada caused the burning of hundreds of "witches". He didn't. His record shows zero witches burned. He was after conversos who had slid bacward into Jewish religious practices.
4. The claim that the church provided sanctuary for those who could get into the building. It didn't. Five thousand innocent people -- well, guilty of speaking Oc -- wre dragged out of the church in Beziers and killed because they spoke Oc, on the orders of the pope's legate Arnaud Amaury. His is the line:
"Kill them all. God will know his own."
The bodies were thrown down the hill from the church onto the road and into the river. We Frosts walked that hillside and wept.
We are also amazed continually that people have no conception whatever of the modern history of Wicca in the 20tha nd 21st centuries. Gerald Gardner did not invent Wicca. In fact there wree as many as a hundred covens running in the British Isles in the 1930s, according to Dame Sybil Leek's feisty mother Louisa.
Childoffire, we don't choose supporters. They choose to espouse or not to espouse our ideas. "Choosing supporters" makes Yvonne think of hiring mourners for a funeral.
The garden and canning: We normally freeze the snow peas and the bush beans (excuse the four-letter word) and can tomatoes and make salsa using the tomatoes and the chilis. (Note: not chiles or chillies or any other variant. The edible is chili; the nation is Chile. Chilly is a physical response to temperature. But let's move on.) We're drying the left-over peppers this year. Gavin will be doing a rant on this site on canning. He calls it bottling in his cunning British way.
Hey, guys adn gals -- we think we have the beginnings of a good thing going here, but we have a problem; so help us, please.
When someone asks a question, if we can we will answer to the bests of our long experience and our very biased view of inner and outer worlds. If we are wrong, correct us with fact and references. Some of our answers will inevitably cause some to think we are flaming someone or some group. This seems to be especially true of the ladies, Goddess bless them. From the beginning we have had a partnership-path, equality bias. Please understand this. When we think it warranted, we always send querents to other groups that may well be more appropriate groups that suit their quest better than the Church and School of Wicca may do. We realize only too well that occasionally individuals choose to respond to our blogs and to the comments of othere readers in a deliberately negative and flaming way. That's their problem. What if we ignore tham and get on with exchanging good information? We ourselves already feel enriched by the interest and scholarship of responders to this site.
Blessed be until anon. Gavin and Yvonne
You may all know we rae soon going on the road, so we'll be away for about two weeks.
Let us address first the incoming comments that are the easiest to respond to which.
Pagan Temple: If we inadvertently flamed you, we apologize. We don't profess to eb sophisticated in the ways of the Net (gasp). Just to show our ignorance, what specific book and burn do you have in mind?
We were glad to see mention of the Little Ice Age and the Black Death. Personally we think that Catholic efforts to reestablish authority in the years following the Black Death set the scene for most of the later burnings. During the plague the Church and its priests lost their authority because prayers and burning candles were so visibly ineffective.
Rhiannon, what's your take on that? Thank you so much for your long piece on the law. It was fantastic and fascinating. How on earth did you put that much material on the blog? Is it a matter of seven fingers on each hand? Our mind is reeling.
Of course like Brehon law, most of the old law was passed down orally and codified by Christian monks only much later. The Welsh law, also relatively late, was at least put onto parchment at the White House on the River Taff -- a law which "shall endure until a better be written." So far as I can tell, neither the Brehon law nor the law of Hywel Dda included much in the way of judicial murder. The Welsh which I read many years ago in a Penguin (Pelican?) translation spent a lot of time on what should happen if the cat you bought didn't perform catching mice, for instance, or in a case of rape, who got the testicles.
Anyway, as I remember it I found very few cases of judicial murder.
The odler we get, the more important history seems to become. We're only sorry that we probably won't have time to complete our own studies of it -- as if such a thing were possible. The misinformation in history staggers the mind. Way too much of it is what Piggott calls history-as-wished-for. Every historian has an agenda; that comes as no surprise. Typical examples:
1. The claim that in the Burning Times most women who were burned were the community's midwives. They weren't. It was the lying-in maids or wet nurses, who were called in to prop up the new mother and the household when mother was weakened by childbirth and who knows what else. They didn't know diddly, of course, about prenatal care, about nutrition, about hygiene adn sanitation, about anything. Why was the easiest target? The lying-in maid, of course. She was the stsranger in the house; she often had no one to act in her defense; she would have been the easiest to replace.
2. The claim that the "Malleus Maleficarum" was used to burn "witches". Inquisitors had far better and more detailed texts, frequently updated form headquarters. Sso what was the Malleus? It was what the publishing industry calls today a one-hander for the monks and priests. Made literacy worth while.
3. The claim that Torquemada caused the burning of hundreds of "witches". He didn't. His record shows zero witches burned. He was after conversos who had slid bacward into Jewish religious practices.
4. The claim that the church provided sanctuary for those who could get into the building. It didn't. Five thousand innocent people -- well, guilty of speaking Oc -- wre dragged out of the church in Beziers and killed because they spoke Oc, on the orders of the pope's legate Arnaud Amaury. His is the line:
"Kill them all. God will know his own."
The bodies were thrown down the hill from the church onto the road and into the river. We Frosts walked that hillside and wept.
We are also amazed continually that people have no conception whatever of the modern history of Wicca in the 20tha nd 21st centuries. Gerald Gardner did not invent Wicca. In fact there wree as many as a hundred covens running in the British Isles in the 1930s, according to Dame Sybil Leek's feisty mother Louisa.
Childoffire, we don't choose supporters. They choose to espouse or not to espouse our ideas. "Choosing supporters" makes Yvonne think of hiring mourners for a funeral.
The garden and canning: We normally freeze the snow peas and the bush beans (excuse the four-letter word) and can tomatoes and make salsa using the tomatoes and the chilis. (Note: not chiles or chillies or any other variant. The edible is chili; the nation is Chile. Chilly is a physical response to temperature. But let's move on.) We're drying the left-over peppers this year. Gavin will be doing a rant on this site on canning. He calls it bottling in his cunning British way.
Hey, guys adn gals -- we think we have the beginnings of a good thing going here, but we have a problem; so help us, please.
When someone asks a question, if we can we will answer to the bests of our long experience and our very biased view of inner and outer worlds. If we are wrong, correct us with fact and references. Some of our answers will inevitably cause some to think we are flaming someone or some group. This seems to be especially true of the ladies, Goddess bless them. From the beginning we have had a partnership-path, equality bias. Please understand this. When we think it warranted, we always send querents to other groups that may well be more appropriate groups that suit their quest better than the Church and School of Wicca may do. We realize only too well that occasionally individuals choose to respond to our blogs and to the comments of othere readers in a deliberately negative and flaming way. That's their problem. What if we ignore tham and get on with exchanging good information? We ourselves already feel enriched by the interest and scholarship of responders to this site.
Blessed be until anon. Gavin and Yvonne
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Ateh Malkuth
Ateh Malkuth, Ve Geburah, Ve Gedullah, Le Olam. Amen.
(Yours are the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.)
In the days when we Frosts first trod the Wiccan path, we used that affirmation daily to greet the dawn. And yet ... "kingdom"? "power"? "glory"? The more Yvonne thought about the frame of mind that prompted such an affirmation, the more she felt it was unbalanced. How about equal time to acknowledge a female aspect of deity? She created for her own use the version below--not to be inflicted on anyone else, but maybe to be shared among people who felt it expressed something of their own feelings--and she has used it at each dawn since.
Lady Queen, Lady Queen, Lady Queen : (1)
Shining Maiden, strong Woman, wise Crone :
Yours are dominion, power, glory. (2)
Yours are grace, nurturing, justice. (3)
Thus it is. Thus let it ever be.
(1) Because She is Three.
(2) Fair enough, but there's another whole half of life to be acknowledged.
(3) An attribute approximating the way a human mind can perceive Her maidenly grade, Her womanly nurturing, Her justice born of age and wisdom, to balance the dominator-alpha-male attributes of the original version.
On general principles, we have made the affirmation below our shared expression of gratitude for the Guides' letting us tread the path of the Craft. Use it if you like.
We are grateful for yesterday. We are grateful for today.
We honor all the things that make our life possible and pleasant.
So let it be.
Does anyone else out there have a favorite dawn affirmation that you'd like to share?
While we are considering ritual and morning and evening activities, consider these ideas.
The full moon occurring closest to November 1 (whether before or after that date) is Samhain, the great festival of change from the Lady of Spring and Harvest to the Horned Lord of Winter and Hunting. It is the night when the Veil between the Worlds is at its thinnest. The almanac says October 26 '07 is full moon. Delightfully, during 2007 the moon will be at its closest point to this planet on the night of October 26. What a gift from the Elder Ones! Rejoice with us, in reverence and gratitude. And stay off the roads.
Full moon is a genuine and objective fact. To schedule Samhain on any other night is meaningless--indeed, irreverent. Such a travesty would make no sense, scheduling this holiest night according to some arbitrary date inflicted by Pope GregoryXIII's calendar of 1575 CE; or inflicted by Congress; or scheduling on some date that will avoid conflict with Gomer's bowling night. This is not to say that Samhain balls and other more mundane festivities should not be held on more convenient dates.
When it comes to your personal dedication and spiritual time of reverence, please do it this year as the moon reaches its zenith on October 26. We may see you on the astral.
A final word, for what it's worth : The Celts counted not days but nights.
Blessed be those who live examined lives. Gavin and Yvonne
(Yours are the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.)
In the days when we Frosts first trod the Wiccan path, we used that affirmation daily to greet the dawn. And yet ... "kingdom"? "power"? "glory"? The more Yvonne thought about the frame of mind that prompted such an affirmation, the more she felt it was unbalanced. How about equal time to acknowledge a female aspect of deity? She created for her own use the version below--not to be inflicted on anyone else, but maybe to be shared among people who felt it expressed something of their own feelings--and she has used it at each dawn since.
Lady Queen, Lady Queen, Lady Queen : (1)
Shining Maiden, strong Woman, wise Crone :
Yours are dominion, power, glory. (2)
Yours are grace, nurturing, justice. (3)
Thus it is. Thus let it ever be.
(1) Because She is Three.
(2) Fair enough, but there's another whole half of life to be acknowledged.
(3) An attribute approximating the way a human mind can perceive Her maidenly grade, Her womanly nurturing, Her justice born of age and wisdom, to balance the dominator-alpha-male attributes of the original version.
On general principles, we have made the affirmation below our shared expression of gratitude for the Guides' letting us tread the path of the Craft. Use it if you like.
We are grateful for yesterday. We are grateful for today.
We honor all the things that make our life possible and pleasant.
So let it be.
Does anyone else out there have a favorite dawn affirmation that you'd like to share?
While we are considering ritual and morning and evening activities, consider these ideas.
The full moon occurring closest to November 1 (whether before or after that date) is Samhain, the great festival of change from the Lady of Spring and Harvest to the Horned Lord of Winter and Hunting. It is the night when the Veil between the Worlds is at its thinnest. The almanac says October 26 '07 is full moon. Delightfully, during 2007 the moon will be at its closest point to this planet on the night of October 26. What a gift from the Elder Ones! Rejoice with us, in reverence and gratitude. And stay off the roads.
Full moon is a genuine and objective fact. To schedule Samhain on any other night is meaningless--indeed, irreverent. Such a travesty would make no sense, scheduling this holiest night according to some arbitrary date inflicted by Pope GregoryXIII's calendar of 1575 CE; or inflicted by Congress; or scheduling on some date that will avoid conflict with Gomer's bowling night. This is not to say that Samhain balls and other more mundane festivities should not be held on more convenient dates.
When it comes to your personal dedication and spiritual time of reverence, please do it this year as the moon reaches its zenith on October 26. We may see you on the astral.
A final word, for what it's worth : The Celts counted not days but nights.
Blessed be those who live examined lives. Gavin and Yvonne
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