The Principle of Least Effort

We are repeatedly amazed and puzzled that many people (self-styled "witches" or "magicians") are apt to cast some kind of imaginary circle with a fancy sword or some other comic-book hoodoo paraphernalia. Students of the School of Wicca's international student body have cast thousands upon thousands of circles; and we have tested the effectiveness of the circles both as (a) a container of intentional psychic energy and as (b) a shield excluding extraneous psychic energy (noise) from outside. In serving this two-fold need, such circles provide a safe area in which to work--though only when accurately cast.
As part of our work, we have used a hypersensitive magnetometer to detect the presence or absence of psychic influences. We have tried to encourage other people to do the same, because independent verification or lack thereof is instructive. The results of the experiments have consistently shown that effective circles must be (a) cast in electrically conducting materials and (b) of a very definite specific size.
We have found too that magnetic materials interfere with psychic reception. (You may remember Julius Caesar's report that before rituals, all iron and steel objects were stored away under lock and key.)
Regrettably, the Principle of Least Effort manifests itself all too often. The Principle of Least Effort is a polysyllabic way of describing simple laziness. When it relates to the casting of circles, it implies a certain self-enchantment and an inaccurate assumption that the self-appointed worker has not done his/her homework or is simply too lazy to follow techniques defined through generations of hard and even dangerous work.
In casting circles and in doing most magical work, you will do well to keep the Principle far away from the actual work. If you do sloppy work in an attempt to achieve whiz-bang hoodoos, you are insulting those who have gone before. If you want to play dress-ups or do claw-and-fang thumb games, that's all well and good--but don't call it Witchcraft, let alone Wicca. Lazy witchy-play and comic-book games do no honor to those who have gone to the effort to do the research. Our proud heritage deserves better.

Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne

Russian Spring

The two witch hazels that bracket our front door are very confused right now: They came into full bloom a couple of weeks ago, complete with the classic scent so familiar from those old drug-store bottles. Yet today they're covered with snow because we're having a Russian "spring" here in climate zone 6. For over a week now temperatures have been below normal--and we're promised that this will last at least another week. Indeed, temperatures are way below the normal for this time of year--and of course the self-appointed prophets of doom are gloating while they trumpet that global warming is a myth.
We're glad to report that Yvonne will never see 81 again. We had a quiet lunch out to celebrate.
Gavin's health seems to be improving though progress is terribly slow. We're sure that all those people who have sent energy have really helped the healing process. Let's recall that his surgeons thought he'd never walk again.
We had a good presenter at the Unitarian-Universalist fellowship last Sunday. He's a Russian exchange student and smarter than two or three whips. Whew. He's kind enough to say he likes it here but will be happy to get back to Russia where people don't wear meaningless smiles all the time.

That's all we know right now. Blessed be Y'all

Gun Control

After the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the whole queston of gun control in the United States has once again become a cause celebre; and once again everyone seems to be throwing up their hands in helpless dismay, giving up the battle before they have really begun to fight.
We had already been invited to give a presentation on the topic to our nearest (Beckley WV) Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. In researching for that presentation, we have now come across a very good article--an eye-opener--which we recommend that everyone read. It is contained in the March/April 2013 issue of Mother Jones, the independent investigative journal that repeatedly leads us to say "Hoo boy." Some of the conclusions from the article are worth repeating. Example: The number of guns owned by this nation's military and law-enforcement bodies is estimated to be four million (4,000,000). The guns owned by civilians is three hundred ten million (310,000,000). In the two weeks after Newtown, more than a million guns were sold.
Gun deaths by state came as a shock: Wyoming led with 18 deaths per 100,000 per annum. And of all things, Massachusetts was lowest with 4 per 100,000 per annum. The other thing that was pretty startling to us was that in 2008 there were 11,030 gun deaths in the United States. Contrast that figure with 11 in Japan. The commonly held idea that video games produce gun homicides is sunk by this statistic: In Japan $55 per person is spent on video games per annum; whereas only $44 is similarly spent in the United States. Also everyone believes that the NRA controls gun legislation--and indeed that is true. But when polled, 74 percent of NRA members say (note: they say) that they support background checks for all buyers of guns. You might like to know that 40 percent of guns are sold without background checks, mainly at gun shows and on line. Also 67 percent of NRA members would support background checks for buyers of ammunition. And 45 percent say they support a ban on assault weapons.
After we looked at these (and a lot more) statistics in the Mother Jones article, we came up with the talking points below for discussion at the Fellowship. We thought we would share them with you to get your opinion on these and other things that could be done to reduce gun homicides.

Can we act as a group?
Ban assault weapons
Require background check for all sales
Require background check for purchase of ammunition
If you want to purchase a gun or ammunition, you must prove you own a safe in which to store it
Develop a black list naming criminals and mental patients
Install and use more metal detectors at schools, stores, bars, churches, restaurants
Toughen up requirements for permits to carry weapons include handguns, shotguns and rifles
People who buy/own guns must consent to warrantless random searches of vehicles and homes
If loaded gun found not in a safe, first offense confiscation of all weapons and $10,000 fine;
second offense, 10 years in jail with no option, no appeal

Travel Plans, Spring and Summer 2013CE

Greetings Y'all.
Gavin's health is sufficiently recovered that we now feel able to travel. At present our travel plans include Florida Pagan Gathering in Ocala National Forest early in May (see below).
         Additionally we plan to go to Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood Folklore Center outside Sherman, NY, 30 miles east of Erie, PA. We expect to be away a little more than two weeks for this one, because we are committed as well to a prison visit in the Finger Lakes district of NY State.
         Students who have been a while with the School of Wicca will see that once again their mail will be delayed while we are on these adventures. We don't know how many more such annual trips we'll be able to accomplish, but we plan to continue as long as we can, in case there are people we haven't yet offended. We feel it is especially important to meet again with other old-timers while they too are still able to travel. Example: We are most pleased that Margot Adler has agreed to come to Sirius Rising. We've known and admired her since the days when we were running our pig farm (the early '70s) in rural Missouri.
     We'd love to cross paths with all of you at one or both of the gatherings, Florida and/or New York. We believe sincerely that single voices speaking out for the Craft can do a lot of good; but if we could form real alliances, then the groups could speak with more authority and be genuinely taken note of.
    Gathering Dates, and Location Details

  Florida Pagan Gathering  May 1 - 5 Ocala Nat'l Forest see: flapagan.org
  Sirius Rising  July 15 - 21 Brushwood Folklore Center, Sherman NY
  SummerFest July 22 - 28 Brushwood Folklore Center, Sherman NY
For both Sirius Rising and SummerFest see: brushwood.com/index.html

See y'all there.            BB Gavin and Yvonne

Ethics Morality and "Sin"

Recently we heard a member of the NRA (National Rifle Association) address a group of students and parents on the subject of gun control. After the usual blah-blah-blah reasons why every American should pack an automatic weapon with a magazine of at least 20 shots to kill off the lethally homicidal deer population, he wrapped up with this thought:
"If someone breaks into your home, shoot to kill. Do not shoot to wound:
If the criminal lives, he or she will sue you."
Naïve fools that we are, we had imagined that most of the members of the NRA, and certainly of the audience of which we were a part, were Christians and thus would subscribe to the commandment, "Thou shall not kill."
The question that occurs to us is this: Was the speaker being ethical? Was he being moral? Or was he committing a sin by suggesting that we the audience break a "sacred" commandment?
Let us deal with the "sin" first. The commandment was written, we are given to understand, by a man (Moses), presumably at the behest of "God" or "Jehovah" himself. Should one regard written commandments as an absolute law? Should a religious law apply to all taxpayers in a nation founded by Enlightenment thinkers honoring absolute separation of church and state?
This is probably a good commandment, even though it is honored more in the breaking than in the usage. Mostly we obey the laws of the nation. We do not excessively exceed the speed limit on the highways or molest one another. Such laws are developed for the benefit of the whole of society.
We don't consider breaking them a "sin", though: It's merely a risk: the risk of being punished. So the arbitrary labeling of an act a "sin" probably has very little effect on our selection of the ethical set by which we choose to run our lives.
The question then becomes: When we recall the speaker who urged that we break the sacred law "Thou shall not kill", was he being moral? In our opinion the answer is "Of course not!" though in his own weird twisted way he probably thought of himself as a very upright, even exemplary citizen.
The killing of someone has a lower pain threshold for the killer than being sued. Where then do ethics come into this question? Are you "ethically" going to shoot the criminal--and shoot to kill, not to wound? It depends, of course, on what your ethical set really is. If you were brought up in a neighborhood of criminals, you will have an entirely different set of ethics than someone who was brought up in a good, friendly, "Christian" area. (Of course the two adjectives may be mutually exclusive.)
In America the murder rate is approximately 1000 times the murder rate in Japan and 100 times that of France; we are conditioned to think of life as being very cheap. So the ethics of American society permit acts which in those foreign societies would be anathema--unthinkable ... and memorably punishable.
If I go to the dictionary and look up morality and ethics, I find myself directed from ethics to morality and from morality back to ethics. Apparently the writers of our tomes don't know the answer either. The derivation of ethics in the etymological dictionary concludes with "a placing of oneself, hence self-assertion, self will, and habit relating to custom" and moral under "excellent in conduct"--and it is noted that the root of moral is "uncertain". So both ethical and moral relate to the way we conduct ourselves, but it is apparently up to each individual person to define their own level of "morality" and what is "ethical" behavior.
For most of us the dictionary definition is nothing like satisfactory. Many of us alternative individuals cannot and will not turn to the "bible" and St. Moses to improve the dictionary definition. We Frosts can suggest only that you try working out a definition for yourself. The thought of the Wiccan Rede might fleetingly cross your mind.
If it harm none, do what you will.

Sharia Law

Let's imagine we're back in 1600 CE, and let's believe for a moment that being a Witch and having a deviant view of "god" (or goddess) is legal in England--but we're in New England!, and in New England people are being murdered for holding "deviant" beliefs. Would it be reasonable to suppose that England would declare war on New England to prevent more people being murdered in the name of religion?

Now let's move forward to the present day. Let's think about a country, something like, say, Iran, where they have sharia law, where women get murdered if they are caught in public without a male member of their family to escort them (make that chaperone them). Would it be reasonable for America to go to war to enforce US ways on Iran?
We may assume consensus from our US perspective, ostensibly democratic, that sharia law is not something we can agree with. First of all, the US purports to separate church from state: That is, official enforcers (ostensibly) do not inflict one franchise's tenets and/or practices on the whole population.
Should we go to war to change it? What right does the United States have to impose its standards on another nation? We all agree--at least we Frosts hope we all agree--that the killing of people who are trying to advance women's education or to improve the health of people is not desirable. But how far are we entitled to go in forcing a whole nation to change its law system just because we don't like it?
Around 500 BCE in a time known as the Axial Age, give or take some centuries, men began to dominate women; Goddesses were universally overrun by male gods. From the Axial Age on in history, society has been subjected to laws designed for one purpose only: that is, to control women and to resist their advancement through education and even to prevent their benefitting from advances in medicine. Again: How far are we justified in going to war against those people who refuse to allow women what we perceive as their rightful place in society?
We Americans boast of how "good" our democratic law system is ... or is it? Really? Two examples come to mind.
1. Let's consider the position of pregnant women. Is a pregnant woman not a person? We attribute personhood (woo hoo) to the zygote. Does a woman give up her personhood when she becomes pregnant? If a zygote is a person and should not be "killed" through abortion, what is the pregnant woman? I guess she must have stopped being a person when the pregnancy happened.
Surely every woman has the right to govern her own uterus. She has the right, and indeed sometimes the duty, to terminate, especially if the father's DNA carries undesirable traits. Only she can decide when she wants to exercise her right. Only she can decide when she will follow through on her duty.
2. In many places in this nation, carrying a concealed weapon is legal.
      If a foreign country disagrees with our law, should its leaders go to the United Nations and get sanctions against the United States? Why, then, is it all right for us to interfere with the laws of other nations?

Circles and ?

In creating safe sacred space, it has been traditional to cast a circle of three concentric rings. These circles serve to protect the people within them from any malevolent influences that might be near.
When we founded the School of Wicca, we were puzzled by references to circles of various sizes: diameters of 9 feet and 11 feet were popular. So we decided we would ask students of the School (who by and large had not been exposed to the texts, whether ancient or contemporary) to cast circles of various sizes in order to decide which worked the best in a modern setting. The test was simple: Cast a circle. See whether you could (a) feel any negative influences while you were inside it and (b) send information to a third party from within it. We chose the idea of sending love or red roses to a friend.
After casting many circles in many different materials and of many different dimensions, we decided that the best materials were those that were electrically conducting. They could be anything from heavy copper tubing, to coal (that is, carbon), to sulfur, to salt that had been dampened, and copper sulfate. We simply chose three of them for our circles, basically because the colors of the materials seemed to match the idea behind the specific circle being cast. Thus for an outer protective circle, we used sulfur. For a circle on a higher plane we used bright blue copper sulfate, and for the healing protective circle we used salt. The sizes of the circles were difficult to pin down but finally realization came through that the outermost circle must be indivisible; i.e., the circumference must be a prime number. Working this back to the diameter, we found much to our surprise that the number had been well known when the ancients built their stone (megalithic) circles. So for many years, using only a piece of string and a pivot in the center, we could cast our triple circle with ease. We had to be careful of the copper sulfate, though; because if people had cuts on their feet, it might cause them problems: copper sulfate is a poison.
Recently we've been trying to figure out a slightly different arrangement: One of our students noted that the stone circles are not accurate circles: They are in fact closer to an ellipse. Casting ellipses is not all that difficult--and the big advantage is that they have two focal points. An elliptical shape provides a location for the priest (flamen) and for the priestess (flamenca), allowing a balance that had not been available in the single center point of a true circle.
If this was not enough, it has recently been pointed out that instead of an ellipse, it might be better to think of two parabolas facing each other. The advantage of this arrangement is that energy from the one focus would be transmitted to the other and thus could be multiplied. Casting parabolas is quite tricky. You will have to go back to your high school geometry book to figure out how to do it. We would very much like some of you more dedicated workers to try it and tell us about your experience.
For more information on casting of basic circles and ellipses, you can refer to Appendix III of the Solitary Wiccan's Bible by Frost and Frost, Samuel Weiser. York Beach, ME