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.