{"collection":"bos","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bos/bos493.htm","path":"bos/bos493.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bos/bos493.htm","text":"Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999]\n \n \n The following article appeared in issue #8 of Web of Wyrd magazine.\n \n Searching \n by Carol Neist\n \n It has always bothered me that there seems to be an abnormally large\n lunatic fringe in Wicca; people who threaten others with curses from a\n \"Council of Witches\"; people who claim qualifications they haven't\n got; people who are so fundamentalist in outlook they put Fred Nile to\n shame. For despite the comments of Hawkeye (WOW #6) and Khaled's\n letter (WOW #5), there is, I believe, a strongly fundamentalist\n element within Wicca. It seems to be found mainly amongst those who,\n in Hawkeye's words, \"believe in the objective reality of faery\", and\n those who see the Gardnerian Book of Shadows as Holy Writ. Now I have\n no objection to people believing in anything they want to, but if they\n try to tell me that my more psychological approach (to say nothing of\n my cynicism regarding the aforementioned Holy Writ) is wrong, I\n naturally question whether I want to be classed under the same banner.\n \n Whilst I wholeheartedly concur with the premise that worship is a\n private matter between the practitioner and his/her deity, in actual\n practice it just ain't so, even in Wicca. \"You have to do it our way,\n or you aren't one of us\", seems to be a common attitude. The argument\n that formal teaching or a recognised clergy would destroy the right of\n each individual to approach the divine in her/his own way therefore,\n just doesn't hold water, since as things stand at present, a prac-\n titioner who doesn't agree with the mainstream viewpoint will very\n quickly find him/herself on the outer anyway. The \"free form eclec-\n tism\" touted by Peregrin (WOW #6) just doesn't happen outside the\n books, as far as I can tell. \n \n I'm certainly not suggesting that we ought to rush out and set up\n seminaries and parish councils, but I do think we have to accept the\n fact that we do already have a de facto clergy, largely self-appoin-\n ted, most of whom have no training in counselling or teaching. Like it\n or not, if you are leading a group of any kind, no matter how informal\n or unstructured, you are going to need both those skills. It's all\n very well for Michelin (WOW #6) to compare coven leaders to parents\n who \"receive little or no training beyone that which they received\n in the family in which they grew up\". It's actually a sad fact of life\n that we were all fucked up by our natural parents, thus creating the\n need for us to clear away the shit through spiritual practice. I don't\n want to be stuffed around by any more amateurs, thank you very much -\n my family of origin did a pretty good job already!\n \n It's obvious that hierarchic structures don't work, but what do we do\n instead? What we've got at present isn't really working either, and in\n many cases it is, in fact, very hierarchic anyway! It's a really hard\n one, and I don't think there are any easy answers. But, sadly, we have\n a situation where unsuspecting neophytes run the risk of being conned,\n robbed, threatened or subjected to various power trips, and even those\n of us who condemn such behaviour run the risk of being tarred with the\n same brush in the eyes of the public.\n \n 2258\n \n Whilst Pagan organisations (such as the Pagan Federation, Pagan\n Alliance or Church of All Worlds) could be an excellent clearing house\n for people seeking groups, and groups seeking members, who is to\n decide which groups are \"kosher\"? Supposing a bright-eyed bushy-tailed\n tyro from Upper Woop Woop approaches an organisation, and asks to be\n put in touch with the nearest Wiccan coven. The organisation knows\n damned well that the only coven within coo-ee of Upper Woop Woop is\n run by a couple of dickheads who shouldn't be in charge of a street\n stall, let alone the vulnerable psyches of others. What do they do? If\n this particular pair of dickheads are paid up members of said organ-\n isation, how can enquiries not be passed on to them? It really isn't\n possible without some sort of formal screening system, to keep the\n lunatic fringe out of an umbrella organisation, especially when some\n of them are already well established in the Craft.\n \n Of course many people don't see teaching as a relevant function of the\n coven. But new members are going to look to the leaders for guidance,\n even if only at an unconscious level. Everyone who starts a spritual\n practice does so because they see life to be a mess, and they need to\n know how to get out of that mess. Personally, I think teaching is very\n important, and I will seek teaching on Love and Trust wherever it is\n offered. Over the last couple of years, I have found it mainly within\n Tibetan Buddhism. Similar to the Craft in many ways, the practice is\n more structured and the teachers have all been practitioners for\n twenty years or more. None of the teachers attempts to dominate the\n students; in fact they go to a lot of trouble to discourage guru-trip-\n ping. Teaching is offered by a variety of visiting teachers, so\n students get a range of opinions and practices, and they can ask for\n specific teaching as they need it. I've seen less power-tripping and\n ego-flaunting in this movement than in any other; they really do go\n along with the premise, \"an it harm none do what you will\". Their\n methods, having been tested for over a thousand years of unbroken\n lineage, really do work: I learnt more about magic from those guys in\n a month than I learnt in five years with the Rosicrucians and some\n twenty-odd years of private and group Craft-style practice. It isn't\n surprising that Tibetan Buddhism is currently said to be the fastest\n growing \"new\" religion in the west. Incidentally, I thought Hawkeye's\n comments on Eastern religions a bit sweeping: I know little of Taoism,\n but the Hindu and Buddhist faiths don't claim to be based on Absolute\n Truth. Rather, they are based on the belief that there is an Absolute\n Truth and that it is possible for the individual, without mediation\n from Priest or Guru, to find it. Quite a different proposition.\n \n All any teacher or group leader can do is point out ways and means;\n it's up to the individual to find her/his own way to the Divine, call\n it Goddess, Christ, Krishna, Bliss-Void or whatever. But finding\n suitable friends is the first step along the path - you really can't\n do it all by yourself. Whether you go in for counselling, therapy or\n spiritual training, the idea is the same - find someone who's been\n there already, and who knows how to give you a hand over the rocky\n bits. It is this which lies at the basis of the guru/disciple relat-\n ionship, not, as some would have it, a need to dominate or be domin-\n ated. The system is, like any other, open to abuse, but we only have\n to look around and see the same abuses and worse within the Craft,\n despite its supposed \"free form eclectism\". (Good phrase that, thanks\n Peregrin!)\n \n \n I still believe that the Craft is a beautiful path in theory, and\n could be so in practice, were it not for the large numbers of near-\n sighted people presuming to lead the blind. However, perhaps I'm\n expecting too much - maybe the Craft really is just a celbratory\n religion which offers a U-beaut party eight times a year and a chance\n to run around starkers once a month. Perhaps I am expecting too much\n in asking that it provide tools, teaching and example for personal\n growth as well? Nevertheless, this is what many people, including me,\n seek in a spritual discipline. I would like to think that somewhere,\n somehow, sometime, I might find it in Wicca.\n \n 2259","title":"Internet Book of Shadows: Searching (Carol Neist, W.O.W. #8)","type":"page"}