Terrible Death of a Thelemite

Last month I had heard that one of my acquaintances from long ago was murdered in his home in Columbia, MO. That individual was Brian Daniels, who I had met during my interlude in Kansas City, back in around 1985 to 1986. His half-sister introduced us and told me that we had a lot in common with each other. When I spent some time with Mr. Daniels, I found him to be quite harmlessly demented, perhaps even a borderline psychotic. Brian implored me to invoke Satan so that he could meet him, because he believed that the Devil was his real father. I also heard that Brian had performed his own kind of Satanic Mass, blessing the wine and hosts in the name of the Devil and inviting demons to enter into them, and then at the climax of the rite, greedily consuming them. His reasons for doing this is that he wanted to become completely possessed by the Devil.

I found Brian to be something of a nut-case and refused to have anything further to do with him. Even though he was quite delusional, I thought that he was also quite harmless. Brian never hurt anyone, nor was he was ever violent or even vocal about his apparent off-putting mental problems. However, I didn’t invite him to be a part of the then forming Order of the Gnostic Star, and I also declined to either initiate or even ordain him, as he had apparently hoped. In fact, I tried to convince him to get out of the occult altogether and get some help for his obvious mental instability. He found that to be quite funny and still had hopes that I would relent.

Brian passed out of my life once he determined that I wasn’t going to enable his delusions, and from what I understood, he moved on to other pursuits. Once in while, one of my acquaintances would tell me something that they had heard about Mr. Daniels. I had heard, for instance, that he had moved to Columbia to study at the university there, but never pursued a degree. For those who might not know this little fact, Columbia is the capitol of the state of Missouri. Another time, I had heard that he had been involved in a terrible apartment fire and that he had barely escaped with his life. There had been some issue with the smoke alarm detectors not having been properly installed and failing to go off, and that Brian had received a considerable sum of money as a form of compensation. Apparently, the fire had left him disfigured and crippled one of his arms and one of his legs, making him rather incapable of either getting or keeping a job. As a disabled person, he earned disability coverage for life as well as being the recipient of quite a windfall from the ensuing lawsuit.

From what I understood, Brian pursued his passion for magical artifacts. He ordered artistically produced magical tools from various local artisans, and he also collected and sold valuable artifacts on Ebay. From what I had heard, he had grown out of being a diabolical seeker to one that was firmly in the Thelemic camp. I don’t know if he ever joined the OTO or received any initiations in that or any other organization, but he did delight in projecting a kind of creepy, occult image of himself in a town that was probably quite conservative, despite the presence of the State Capitol and the University. If anyone had ever asked me what I thought about Brian Daniels, I would have said that he was a harmless crank. So, that’s the most of what I remember about him back in the days when I lived in Kansas City; and that is all that I remember hearing about him since those days from folks with whom I have met whenever traveling up that way. 

Then I read in an April edition of the “Wild Hunt - Unleash the Hounds (Link Roundup)” a news item that Brian Daniels was found shot to death in his home in Columbia on April 10th. I was a bit shocked to read this news item, so I followed the links and verified that indeed, this was the Brian Daniels that I had known. You can find a newspaper article about the murder and its early investigation here. However, a few days later, Brian’s alleged lover, house-keeper and intimate friend (who even had the power of attorney) was accused of the murder. Two other suspects were also arrested for lying to investigators. You can read about the whole sordid affair here. Even despite the controversy associated with Brian Daniel’s life and his rather lurid public persona of being a Thelemite and a closet Satanist, the local newspaper wrote an op-ed on his life that was quite fair and open minded. That impressed me and it also gave me hope that maybe there is some degree of compassion in the world for those who are not normal, particularly in a part of the U.S., which is not known for its compassion to pagans, witches and occultists. Yes, they painted him as some kind of crackpot occultist, but at least the human behind the facade was also noted. I am sure that Brian Daniels would have relished the attention that he is posthumously getting, since it shows him to have finally achieved his desire of being one of those infamous forbidden left-hand path magicians and occultists. Yet part of me feels sad about the whole ugly affair.

However we judge Brian Daniels, he deserved to live out his full life without being murdered. It is an object lesson to all occultists that we need to ensure our own safety and well-being, despite the capriciousness of fate and that bad things do happen every day. It is also sad because even though Brian was one of those individuals who delighted in the “ooky-spooky” aspects of the occult, he was essentially harmless. Whether or not he was ever able to deal with his lifetime of mental problems and serious psychological defects will never be known. His story will remain basically untold, but one can assume that such troubles are never fully eliminated, and they may have contributed to the obvious poor choices that he made in regards to the affairs of the heart. Those poor choices prematurely ended his life; but I suspect that he was likely also lonely and without family support and care, and this can lead nearly anyone to make bad choices as far as friends and lovers are concerned. May whatever Deities were in alignment to Brian Daniels at the end assoil his troubled spirit and keep him in a place of peace forever. 

All of this is, of course, quite sobering to me, and it shows that human nature is fragile, relationships and trust must be given to those who are truly worthy, and that life is precious. We must guard ourselves from the iniquities of those who would do us egregious harm, and seek the blessings of the Gods to ensure that this state is maintained.

Frater Barrabbas

Update: Jefferson City is the Capitol of Missouri, not Columbia. My mistake.

A Literary Dream Come True

Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick - the Logo for this work is an Octagram with a sun and moon occupying the circular center. What this symbolizes is the overall magical discipline of the Lunar and Solar cycles, both of which are represented by the number eight. There are eight solar celebrations and there are eight nodes in the lunation cycle. The sun and moon (and their respective cycles) conjoined like the Yin and Yang is the key to forging a true magical discipline.

Twenty years ago this year, I embarked upon my career as an occult writer. I don’t exactly know when I started my first book project (1991?), but it was already in high gear by 1993. What pushed me to begin this writing project was a complaint informally delivered to me by two neophytes in our already formed Order of the Gnostic Star. It was, to use a paraphrase, that the lore we were using was too complex and difficult for a moderately experienced beginner to learn. We had nothing in print that could help the beginner other than our method of direct hands-on teaching.

Since these two students did not have access to me or other members of the group because they lived in Dallas (and we were in Tallahassee and Kansas City), they requested that I write up a manual for knowledgeable students. This wouldn’t be a manual for complete beginners who knew nothing, it would be just a primer for individuals who wanted some help mastering the lore of the Order.

I happily complied with their request since it seemed like a good idea, and instead of just writing up a simple manual, I decided to write up a book containing a comprehensive system of ritual magick that would function as an introduction to the lore of the Order. It would also serve Witches and Pagans to make that most difficult first step in their magical career, and that would be creating their own comprehensive magical system. Since I had done this myself more than a few times, helping others to formulate and build their own magical system seemed like a good idea for a book project. There certainly weren’t any other books already published that would fulfill this need, so I began to organize and outline what such a book might contain.

Anyway, this is how the book project, which I called the “Pyramid of Powers,” had its start. It was a giddy dream and a driving passion that I had discovered in myself, which led me to pursue my literary dream of being a published occult author. The literary bug had bitten me and there was no turning back now. I also erroneously thought that publishing a book could earn me some real money, too. Later on I discovered that idea to be quite a laughable fantasy, but the desire to be an author was realistic enough. It is amusing to note that previously I had been such a hard core, autistically focused ritual magician, and that magick had been more important than anything else. Now, I had a desire to share my knowledge with others, even with individuals who had never met me. That was quite a peculiar transformation.

Little did I realize that this project would consume around five years of my life, and it would challenge me to learn how to write in a clear and definitive manner. I didn’t have those kinds of writing skills back then, and often the first book project that an erstwhile writer attempts to write ends up in the rubbish bin. After quite a number of editing cycles that included hiring an editor, I had taken this project as far as I could take it without engaging a publisher. All three volumes were fully written, and the manuscript as a whole was well organized and structured, at least in my opinion. Even so, it was poorly written and executed and there was little that I could do to change that. Even my hired editor found the job of editing the manuscript quite onerous if not outright frustrating. I had even hired one of my friends, who was a professional artist, to produce a number of the diagrams, which I thought looked quite good.

Despite all that, I was so eager to move the project forward because I really believed that I had a good literary idea and dreamed of successfully publishing this book. So I put together a submission package and mailed it out to a dozen different occult publishers back in 1997, and then waited for some positive news. Months went by, and during that time all I got was a sequence of polite rejections. Well, some of them weren’t so polite, but I took them with a certain humble mind-set, believing that some publisher would be interested in my book. After waiting nearly 18 months, all of the publishing companies had finally replied to me, each one using the stamped and self-enclosed envelope that I had included in the package, and every one of them had declined to publish my book. After that, I managed to print up some copies of the book myself, hiring the skills of the local copying store to produce three ring-bound volumes. These I distributed to some of the members of my Order and a few friends. I gave up on the idea of ever publishing my book, the Pyramid of Powers, and felt that the personalized copies had satisfied my original intent, sans all of the glory of being a published writer. (Sigh.)

Some years later, I decided to try to publish another book. This one, I decided, would not be quite so ambitious, so I put together a scaled down version of the Pyramid of Powers. I even cannibalized some parts of the old book project to fill out the new, and in much less time, I had a completed a decent sized manuscript. By this time, several years had elapsed and I was much better at writing then compared to what I had been in the mid 90's.

I had just completed purchasing and assembling the artwork from another friend who was an artist (for the cover and other some other excellent illustration work) and I had crafted a proposal letter when a friend of mine named Nicholas suggested that I send my proposal to his friend who was opening an occult section for Immanion Publishing called “Megalithica Press.” That friend of his was, of course, Taylor Elwood, and he very quickly signed me on to publish my newest manuscript, to which I gave the title “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick.” After what seemed like just a few months of work, in May 2007, the book was released into print. I was now a pusblished author! Hazah! What a joy and a pleasure it was to finally experience seeing my words in print. (I have always been grateful for the opportunity that Taylor Elwood afforded me in getting my first book into print.)

However, my friend Nicholas, who had promoted the idea of getting my first book published by Megalithica, told me that I should also seek to publish the Pyramid of Powers. At first I was quite dubious, but then decided to give it shot. However, I had determined that the old title desperately needed to be changed. I also had to rewrite and fill in a number of chapters that I had gutted from the old manuscript in order to complete the new edition of this book. So I started to work on this project, and I got Taylor to approve the publishing of a three book set called “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick.”

This project took quite a lot more time to complete, since I had to rewrite whole new sections in the book, and the older text required some extensive editing in order to make it have the same readable quality as my previous book. It took me nearly three years to get all three volumes into print and my girlfriend Grace spent quite a bit of time going over and editing that work. I must confess that whole sections were eliminated and others were completely rewritten. In the end, the quality of writing in that book didn’t match the level that DGRM had established for me, but at least I had achieved the dream of publishing my very first book project.

As I have said, many writers are often forced to discard their first attempt, and some even have to discard their second and third attempts, so I considered myself quite lucky. The three volumes were a good addition to any comprehensive occult library, but the overall process had lost some of the original passion and luster that it had back in the 90's. The three books sold some copies here and there over the last few years, but bought together, they were indeed a bit pricey. Sales began to dwindle and I wondered if they would ever be even slightly popular with occultists.

Then, as fate would have it, something odd happened to breathe new life into this work. For some reason, two of the three volumes of MARM became unsearchable when searching the author’s name. Nothing that the staff at Megalithica or Immanion did could rectify this problem, and they did try to fix it. It was just really weird. Then late last year, Taylor Elwood recommended that perhaps the solution would be to pull the three volumes together into one large “omnibus” edition. He asked me if this would be OK, and I heartily approved. So after a few months of steadfast work, which was mostly done by Taylor Elwood, Storm Constantine (the owner of Immanion), and Andy Bigwood (the cover artist), a new version of the book came out in early April, and I got my first copies later that month.

Needless to say, I was really pleased by the look and feel of this book, and the layout was done quite well and cleanly, too. The cover art has a new illustration that incorporates the three previous covers of the old three volume set into one unified and colorful concept. I also really loved the matt finish of the book cover, and that appears to be a nice texture quality that is found in other books recently published. As I held the new omnibus edition in my sweaty hands, I felt a strange sensation occurring within me.

This book was once rejected by publishers and existed only in Xerox copied editions with ring binders. Then it was produced as three separate book volumes, which seemed to confuse a few of my critics who hadn’t bothered to read all three of them before commenting. But the new omnibus edition, which combined the Foundation, Grimoire and Greater Key into one large three-part volume seemed to make the MARM series reborn into a newer and better format. I was witnessing my book idea in its third incarnation, and the final version, at over 500 pages, seems much more like the comprehensive work that I had planned it to be all those years ago. Now the passion from the original work has been restored, and I am once again quite excited by it.

Anyway, many thanks to Taylor Elwood, Storm Constantine and Andy Bigwood for their excellent and good work. You can purchase a copy of this book at Amazon dot com at the following link. If you have waited until now to purchase this work, I can at last truly recommend it as a literary dream come true. I am quite pleased with this newly revised book, and I believe that you will find it very useful and economical as well.

Frater Barrabbas

Trouble with Duality for Pagans and Witches

Duality and dualism, as well as thinking and behaving in an opposing manner has pretty much saturated our culture and has become ironically something of a multi-faceted theme in our current world. This has become lionized by the statement “it’s Us against Them!” and it has given people a polarized and mythic prism in which to engage the world. We saw this in the second world war where the Axis powers were ultimately defeated by the glorious Allies, who soon afterwards had an inglorious falling out. Then the cold war with its theme of western capitalism fighting against eastern communistic aggression lasted for nearly 40 years. Now we have Christians against Muslim terrorists, liberals against conservatives, atheists against fundamentalist Christians, secularists against people of faith, Pro-Choice against Pro-Life, aggressive gays pushing their agenda for civil liberties against the strenuous objections of die-hard straights, blacks against whites against browns and everybody else, the list is nearly endless. Pick a side, and somebody will stake their life and its purpose on the opposing faction. It’s a carnival of human stupidity!

We can watch endless hours of so-called news TV and get sucked into this kind of political Kabuki theater, aligning ourselves with our favorite pundits and expressing outrage at the supposed insurgent antics of the opposition. In fact there doesn’t appear to be a loyal political opposition anymore, just the hated opponents. We now see those with opposing views as somehow imbued with “otherness” that seeks to contaminate us with their obvious and odious evil intentions. Our reflexive repulsion at the extreme qualities of this opposition is really nothing more than all of us seeing through the mirror very darkly, indeed.

We see ourselves allied with angels and fighting against the demonic hoards here in our own communities and homes. Such a pageantry is most distressful, but underlies something much more sinister and compelling. The public is being completely hoodwinked by the power elite who have disguised this mythic battle in terms that ignites people’s fears but not their minds. If we continue to idle away our time fighting these imaginary battles, then we will be easily led to our ultimate destiny, to be slaves of the corporatist machine. Instead of an epic battle between good and evil there is just a cold, ruthless grasping for power and a cynical tarring and pillorying of straw men and imaginary evil adversaries. These so-called enemies are actually figments of our imagination, but they serve to hide the business as usual activities of those in power.

Sometimes I find myself ignoring the news for days because I have found that the persistent noise and distraction is so pervasive as to be nearly unavoidable. I also try to ignore Face Book news stream postings for the same reason, since it pains me to observe so many obviously good people falling prey to malicious disinformation and maudlin mendacity. I have to sadly shake my head when I see how some people are so fixated on all kinds of idiotic conspiracies, but I also realize that critical thinking is often in short supply or non-existent. However, the way out of this terrible Manichean world catastrophe is to realize that there are never just two opposing opinions about any issue. To force yourself to think of a third, fourth or even more points of view to any given hot-ticket issue is to be liberated from this awful political and social dualism that plagues our post-modern world.

None of this is revelatory, as such polarizing sentiments and perspectives have been known to materialize at certain times in the past, and I might add, all too frequently. Yet to step outside of this pandemonium-like din even briefly is to find a kind of empty and peaceful solace, a place where one can think, rationalize and apply some critical thinking skills to the real issues of the day. Still, what this means is that we can all see the damage that duality is wrecking upon our media saturated world, and that duality by itself is the greatest vice and obstacle for all thinking and reasoning people. So, when I say that duality isn’t good for pagans and witches, I also mean that it isn’t particularly healthy for anyone. Taken to extremes, polarized thought can even temporarily cause a rational and sane person to become violent and dangerous, not to mention what it can do to a crowd of people. Before we slip over the edge from hotly opposing views to violent insurrection, let us pause, take a breath, relax, and let go of our ardent and cherished beliefs for just a moment.

Ah, that’s much better, isn’t it? You can feel the tension drain away, and the awful things that you were thinking are now quite plainly, awful. You can also see that such carrying on does nothing more than throw gasoline on a small fire, making it a much bigger fire. As you stand with a clear head and begin to philosophize, you will no doubt wonder how we got into this mess in the first place. I wonder that quite often myself. It makes me somewhat afraid for the future, and I am quite the optimist.

The source of all of this social polarization and sorting out is nothing more than a collection of media based corporations that are intent on selling themselves in the most sensational manner possible. It is, therefore, attributed to their greed that they amplify small inconsequential matters into huge crises, and this becomes the order of the day, every day of the week. Yet this is a theme that is all too familiar to anyone who has ever been forced to go to church and listen to some pastor rant and rave about the sinful world we live in. Having heard such sermons, we will undoubtedly know the source of this duality. It is a major and important part of Christianity, especially Protestant Evangelism. Nothing compells a sinner to be repentant and remorseful (and also cough up some money for the offering basket) than a good old fashioned verbal exhortation of hell-fire, wicked sinners, the blessed saved, and the end of days. But if you are a pagan or a witch and you are not a believer in this mythic tale, then certainly you should resist and even deny it as relevant.

If denying the whole mythic theme of guilt, redemption, eternal damnation, and the constant warfare of good and evil locked in mortal conflict is an important affirmation for pagans and witches, then the rest of the dualistic opposition that has so seduced our society should also be deemed irrelevant and emphatically dropped. There is no need to be sectarian about our pagan beliefs and practices, since that is a contradiction of what it is to be a pagan. To us, all Gods are valid and true, or they are all invalid, including our own. So, pagans and witches shouldn’t see the world as a constant war between good and evil. Instead, we should see the world as being a natural confluence of light and darkness, each blending into the other to create the harmony of day and night, and the perfection of the natural world. We accept Nature as it is, and we don’t try to color or taint it as something other than what it naturally is. Animals don’t need to know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, but we humans have had to adopt certain codes of conduct and behavior. Otherwise, as the most dangerous creature on the planet, we would destroy ourselves and all living things.

The natural way is what the Chinese call the Tao, the Way of Nature, which has no premeditation or contrived manner of being. It is the way of the uncarved block. Following such a path would cause us to judge things and events only when sufficient information has presented itself, otherwise we would remain neutral and uncommitted, silent but resolved. Thus, we would judge everything individually and would avoid heaping things into too generalized of a category. What this means is that we would no longer play into the games of polarizing beliefs and myths, but would instead try to independently judge a thing using our own reason and logic.

If someone were to say that gay men are an evil menace to our Christian values as a society, we would ask them to prove that all such men could be so generalized, and that our society is steadfastly secular (not Christian), and for good reason. If another person said that the secular society is engaging in a persecution of the Christian faith, we would respond that there is no proof. We still have churches where people are peacefully gathering on Sundays, there is still Easter and Christmas on our nation’s calendar, and people are behaving pretty much as they always have done. We would question these many false claims and find no evidence for them, and we would say that they cannot be facts - only hearsay urban myths.

If enough people did this, then the cable news channels would find themselves out of business. At least if pagans and witches took this kind of perspective to heart, then suddenly, we would no longer be one of the partisans in the ever-present social conflict. A real solution is to actively question everyone and everything, but quietly and internally, at first.

There was a cool saying that was passed around in the late 60's, almost to the point of it becoming a meaningless metaphor. It was supposedly first stated by Timothy Leary in 1967 (at the Human Be-in gathering), words of wisdom spoken by the Godfather of LSD and the High Priest of psychedelics. He said, “Turn on, tune in and drop out!” I would recommend that my fellow witches and pagans follow this advice. We should turn ourselves on to the many sacraments and joys of life, then tune in to nature and what is really going on in our world, and then we should drop out of the partisan rat-race that’s eating everyone else alive.

The actual quote was: “Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out”

Still, the most important thing to do is to remove yourself entirely from the polarizing media circus that is happening out there and focus on the simple and direct things that are really important. Whenever you come across a heated and polarized discussion, or two warring viewpoints at odds with each other, try to think of a third, fourth or even a fifth perspective. Bedevil your family, acquaintances and even strangers with these other perspectives whenever and wherever possible. Never lose your ability to remain a free thinker, capable of independent and deep critical insights, and empowered with the ability to know personal truth from social bullshit. And most importantly, never lose your sense of humor. Because in the end, all of this noise and cacophony is just the sound of change, and also the fear of change.

May you forever avoid the curse of duality!

Frater Barrabbas    

Nature of Spirits - Angels and Demons

Frater Rufus Opus recently wrote that demons are elementals, or that they have elemental qualities. This is in his article about demonic agendas, and you can find it here. While some might think that this is a neat and tidy way of defining the nature of these spirits, I have to disagree with what he has written. (I also hope that I have understood exactly what he has written, too.) It really has to do with the nature of Angels and Demons, and whether either can be considered as nothing more than simple, mindless intermediaries of the Godhead, or as the Greeks would call them, the Daimones.

I employ the term “mindless” because it is a defining adjective that I have used when talking about elementals. Even if one is using the supposed “Hermetic model” to define the natures of demons, my own personal experience (and that of many of my associates) has shown me that these supposed infernal spirits are quite intelligent. So, it would seem that either elementals are keenly intelligent (contrary to my experience) or demons are quite limited and dumb. That is, if there are any congruence between them at all. Allow me to explain my point.

Now just because some authors (or grimoires) have given an order to the Infernal Hierarchy that is elemental doesn’t equate those spirits identically with “elemental forces.” It is an ordering structure, and like all ordering structures (or maps, for that matter), the order is not to be confused with the identities that are being so ordered. These ordering structures are a kind of analogy, not an actual physically based taxonomic ranking. You could also organize the Goetic demons according to the astrological decans (which I have done), and probably would learn more about them (from an astrological perspective) than you would by assigning them an elemental hierarchy. Of course, this is just my opinion. Needless to say, however they are organized it doesn’t mean that the organizing structure is synonymous with that which is being organized. It is just a matrix or model structure that human minds use to understand the complexity of the spiritual world, which can’t really be intellectually grasped in the first place.

So, what are demonic spirits? For that matter, what are angelic spirits? Using the most simplistic perspective we should see them as embodying a force as well as a highly evolved intelligence. They are ultimately emissaries of the One that has no attributes or even a name, but more directly, the agents of various Godhead attributes, or what some would call the Gods. Like a living and activated symbol, they can be focused to a single point, multiple points simultaneously or effused into an overall general attribute of the Godhead. Actually, they exist as all three of these qualities simultaneously as well as other mysterious qualities, some of which might be altogether unknown to human nature. This is why a magician might summon one of them into appearance and then fully engage with that entity, even though what has been summoned is just an active link or a single (fractional) instantiation of the overall symbolic being. This whole matter is a profound paradox, as are all things that reside wholly within the world of spirit.

What I have stated above is true of both angels and demons; they are analogous beings to each other. The difference between them has to do with their specific loci, although that is not a particularly useful term when talking about the world of the spirit. We can project onto the world of the spirit the structures that we find in our own world, namely, the threefold domains of celestial spheres, the geographic structures of the earth, and the chthonic underworld. All of these domains are actually a kind of symbolic topology, which should be viewed as similes or analogies and not actual physical locations. The locus for angels are the celestial spheres, the locus for earth spirits (not to be confused with elementals, I might add) is the geographic domain of material place, and the locus of the demons is the chthonic underworld. Each of these loci have their own qualities, but neither should be given the value of good or evil (or any other limiting quality), since they are actually beyond both good and evil. All of these structures are just mental models to help us differentiate and distinguish what is, in reality, a formless unity known as the One.

Since many demonic names have within them the corrupted names of ancient pagan deities, then we can consider them to be demi-gods, and in some African Traditions, they are seen exactly in that light. Additionally, elemental spirits are below the influence of the planetary intelligences, while higher spirits, such as angels, demons, and sect-based intermediaries have the aspect of intelligence to crown their beings. I have joking referred to elementals as “dumb” or “mindless” because they operate below the level of intelligence and function as animated forces to be imprinted and directed by the magician and then allowed to operate on the simple goal to which they have been applied. They are incapable of thinking about that directive or mitigating it if something changes. They will therefore either hit their mark or miss it entirely. Elementals represent the emotional and passionate energies that all higher creatures are subjected to, but without any of the guiding forces of rational thought or intellect that can direct and control them. That controlling attribute is represented by the will and the assumed godhead of the magician.

(A useful analogy of the basic four-fold Elemental Spirits can be found in the court cards of the Tarot. There are 16 cards within the matrix of an element base being qualified by an element crown. However, there are other elemental systems, such as the 64 Hexagrams of the I-Ching, or what I call Elemental Gateways. If one were to apply the concept of broken and solid lines (like the I-Ching) to Geomancy, then 256 individual Octagrams would be produced. Anyway, you get the idea - elementals consist of the four elements and nothing else.)

This is the quixotic nature of the elemental spirits, and since I have worked extensively with them for so many years I believe that I can make some important judgements about them. They are quite useful and simple to generate. They can be assembled like building blocks, but the are not overly effective, particularly for long term workings. However, no angelic or demonic being that I have ever summoned has been quite as one-pointed and lacking in intelligence as an elemental. For this reason, I have to reject Frater R.O.’s theory that demons are elementals. If that were so, then the magician wouldn’t need to take such great care when establishing the binding agreement with demons.

However, I believe that such care should be taken no matter what spirit is being invoked. Still, this means that the magician is dealing with an entity that has quite an evolved intelligence and is able to not only reason as we do, but also deal with ambiguities quite effectively , often to our ultimate dismay. How we are able to summon such an entity has more to do with the fact that there is a Deity residing in our core, and that Godhead within us is analogous to the Absolute Deity. (Some would say that they are equivalent.) Since spirits are, by definition, emissaries of the One, they are also emissaries to each of us who has realized, however briefly, our inner Godhead. Yet to treat spiritual entities with a respectful attitude is nothing less than treating one’s own inner Godhead in a respectful manner, too.

Magicians should deal with chthonic spirits in a respectful and careful manner particularly since the underworld is the source of all material wealth and material potential. It contains the essence of transformative evolution as well as the mysteries of life and death, good health and material well-being. These qualities (provided by chthonic spirits) are even more important to life in the material world than what the celestial spirits might provide. Yet just as angels give a powerful perspective of the higher celestial domains and its visionary and prophetic potential, the demons wield the powers and wisdom of the underworld.

Magical workings that incorporate either angels or demons will produce a powerful spiritual transformation within the magician, and this should be a sign that all such spirits are an active embodiment of the One. They are agents of the challenging ordeals (demons) and ecstatic visionary insights (angels) of a magician’s progress from his or her individual nature to the ultimate reality of the final Godhead ascension. These spirits and this kind of magick is far beyond the workings of the elementals, so we can dispense with any claims that they are one and the same. I might be breaking with tradition in making these definitions and building this view of the spirit world, but it is based on many years of continued praxis and an even longer period of study.

Frater Barrabbas

Whence Cometh Spring?

April has come and there are only a few indications that anything much has changed from winter to a verdant spring. It is a cold and lifeless spring so far, which is probably just as confusing for the returning geese as it is for the humans and creatures that have endured the long winter. While the snow is slowly receding, the lakes and ponds are still iced up, and only the brilliant sunshine seems to indicate that the season has indeed changed. We got an early spring last year and this year we get to experience a very slow transition, which will likely extend winter like conditions into May. This is not unusual for this part of the country, but it is somewhat depressing. The receding snow only reveals a brown and lifeless undercoat with no indication of any kind of new life. Also, the spring peepers are mostly silent, although I have heard, from time to time during the sunny afternoons, some singular croaking somewhere in the fields.

(Of course, as I was writing this article, Mother Nature dropped a couple of inches of wet sloppy snow on the land, and it looks again like a winter-scape. Well, so much for spring! I guess we’ll have to wait a few weeks for warmer temperatures in order for all of the snow to completely disappear. It is depressing in a way and also a slight shock to one’s sensibilities. The supposed end of winter had many starting to come out of their months long hibernation, but now they have receded back into the winter-like torpor. Welcome to the tundra-like experience of the northern Midwest plains.) 

The long harsh winters make all of us here in Minnesota avid seekers of any sign of spring, sometimes even desperately. Some will even wear shorts when the temperature gets into the late 40's or early 50's. My career workload has finally dropped down to just maintenance, and I am now contemplating a period of self-study and training to assist me in making the transition from my current project to future projects once this one has lapsed. I have also put together my resume and sent it to the corporate leaders as requested so that they can find new prospects for me to be assigned, and I have also indicated that I am willing to relocated, provided that the relocation package is reasonable and helpful.

This means that my tenure in the tundra is nearing an end, since my company has now indicated that they are open to relocating key employees once again. This is how I managed to move every few years back in the 1990's and into the early 2000's. I have decided that I will pursue employment possibilities in other locations by undergoing yet another corporate move. I have endured six corporate relocations, but this time I am a home owner and not a renter. It will obviously be more complicated than previously. Since I have proven my value quite dramatically in the last several months to my corporate overlords, I am quite certain that I will be getting a new project to work on in the months ahead, and also, a relocation deal.

Over the course of the last few months I have still not engaged in any ordeals or extensive magical workings. It has been a period of reading, research, pondering over the meaning of this or that, and a lot of self-examination. Lately, this has become very productive indeed, since I seem to have stumbled upon a mother lode of insightful and thought provoking treasures.

Two lines of thought have guided my steps recently. These thoughts have produced two different directions for research, and they have both now converged together. The first thought was that if the Chaldean Oracles would represent an actual sacred book, at least for the late Classical period of Neoplatonism, then having the original Greek language version would be very helpful. I wanted to find this text because it would fit in with my thoughts about building up a completely Greek version of the Qabalah. To build a Qabalah, one needs to have sacred writings in the basic language proposed - in this case, Greek. So, I began to search for a book that contained the original Greek language version of the Chaldean Oracles. It turns out that there was only one book that fit this requirement and it was long out of print.

My other line of thought was that somehow Neoplatonism could be completed by adding some strains of Indian Philosophy to it. I have long felt that there was something very important missing from Neoplatonic philosophy, and that “something” can be identified by a simple concept. As a practicing ritual magician and witch, I have long known of the fact that there is within me (and every other human being) a Deity, which I have called the God/dess Within. This concept is analogous to the Indian concept of the Atman. However, according to Advaita Vendanta, there is no difference between the Absolute Godhead and the Individual Godhead, where it is said that Brahman and Atman are one (and indivisible). (I have discussed this idea previously in an article, and you can find it here.)

What that means is that we all have within us a direct path to the realization of our own Godhead as revealed in the One. Assumption of the Godhead is one mechanism to developing this realization, but what it means is that there is no complete separation and distinction between the Absolute Godhead and the Godhead within each and every human being. This is quite a profound realization and, I might add, it doesn’t appear in the various Neoplatonic writings where the distinction between humanity and the Godhead is quite rigorously enforced. This is why Neoplatonism talks about the theurgy of  “ascension” as a method of returning to the One. However, it would seem that returning to the One is actually not possible for anyone but a very small minority. In Indian Philosophy the concept of “returning” doesn’t exist. It is more of an internal revelation (a transformation and a spiritual evolution); it is, in a sense, discovering what was a fact inside of oneself from the very beginning. I believe that this distinction between Indian and Neoplatonic philosophy is also to be found in the practice and experience of modern witchcraft and paganism, or at least where Godhead assumption (as the Draw) is central. 

So over the course of the last few weeks I have been very busy reading and studying the books "Chaldean Oracles" by Ruth Majercik and the anthology "Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy" edited by the late Paulos Mar Gregorios, which I might declare is very heady stuff. Yet the combination of these two perspectives is helping me to make a breakthrough of sorts.

I believe that Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy are both monist systems developed within a pagan religious environment. However, Indian Philosophy has had a much longer and continuous evolving life-span. In fact, I suspect that Indian philosophy made breakthroughs that Neoplatonism might have made as well if only it had continued in the same spirit and direction over the course of centuries instead of being uprooted from Athens and Alexandrian and then slowly waning in the remote fastness of Harran.

Another distinction is that Indian Philosophy is, for the most part, a living religious and philosophical tradition, where the praxis that represents its foundation is still being worked today. This is so unlike Neoplatonism, which has had to be reinvented based on a lot of fragmentary lore. I believe that it might be possible that certain schools of Indian Philosophy, such as the Indian Tantras, could be used to help complete and evolve Neoplatonic philosophy to a more complete and mature form, and perhaps even help to formulate a comprehensive praxis. That is my belief and the intention behind my work, however, we will see how it works out in the months ahead.

One thing that is tragic about the Chaldean Oracles as they exist today (and it’s something that I hadn’t fully realized) is that this work exists only in fragments. The complete text has never been found. What we have are the quotations that other late classical authors have written about it and these quotations were preserved to the present times. However, at least now I have those remaining fragments in their original Koine Greek. Ms. Majercik's book has been out of print for years and is only available as a scanned copy that can be downloaded from the internet. I realize that downloading a copy (as I have done) is to facilitate a process that I can’t fully condone, but the only copies that are available are being sold for over two thousand dollars. I could also maybe get a copy through inter-library loan and then wait for weeks if it does show up, but this was the quickest way to get a copy. I am hoping that someday the author or publisher will deem to reprint a new version and make it available to everyone who wants a copy.

Yet I am once again quite taken with this mysterious work. If ever there was a book of sacred writings for Hermetic Pagans, it was the Chaldean Oracles. This book was produced through a form of magical skrying, where the senior Julian acted as the magician, and his son, the skrier. As quoted from Ms. Majercik’s introduction, “The Chaldean Oracles are a collection of abstruse, hexameter verses purported to have been ‘handed down by the gods’ (theoparadota) to a certain Julian the Chaldean and/or his son, Julian the Theurgist, who flourished during the late second century C. E.” She goes on to say that the oracle verses were derived from the theurgic techniques of calling and receiving. It is, therefore, quite singularly amazing that these verses derived from theurgic rituals were regarded as authoritative from Porphyry to Damascius (3rd to 4th centuries). Even so, what has come down to us today are just some of the verses, or at least the most important or profound of these. We also don’t really know the sequence that these fragments originally occurred in the original work, and it can only be hoped that some future discovery will locate a complete copy of this work.

Still, what fragments we possess have always astounded and perplexed me, but Ms. Majercik's commentaries are the most illuminating that I have ever read. The Gnostic sect, the Sethians, particularly were engaged with this work and its inspirations can be found throughout those Naghamadi texts that have survived. We can see the effects of this work in the magical texts of the Greek Magical Papyri, too.

With these books in hand, I feel like I have some pretty profound answers to some questions that I have been asking for quite a long time. I will write all of these musings up in my blog in the very near future.

Frater Barrabbas

Pagans and Christians

Recently, Sam Webster wrote an article on Patheos where he said that basically, you can’t worship Jesus Christ and also be a Pagan. It would seem that he believes them to be mutually exclusive. What he means is that if you are a Christo-Pagan then you are behaving in such a manner where you are not being true to the spirit of either religious tradition. It does remind me of a saying in the New Testament, where the visionary Jesus declares in Revelations 3:16 “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” This, of course, is a warning to those who would pose as Christians but not be passionate or true about their faith; that such individuals are even worse than out-right deniers. It is a harsh unequivocal declaration that would pose a kind of terrible sorting of Christians nearing the mythical end-times. Curiously, I have found Sam’s article of a similar nature, seeking to sort out true Pagans from the pretenders. You can find Sam’s post here and read it for yourself.

On the surface it would seem reasonable to request, or at least address the issue, that Pagans worship as Pagans and Christians worship as Christians. It would also seem to address the issue that Paganism and Christianity are strategically different enough that they should not be mixed. I have known a number of Witches and Pagans who feel strongly that those individuals who, for whatever reason, still adhere to the actual worship of Jesus Christ cannot in all good conscience consider themselves witches or pagans. Superficially, I would have to agree with this perspective, but only if we are talking about the idealized traditions of Christianity (of the Evangelical mind-set) and Modern Pagan reconstructionism.

Of course, when you consider the wide and massive variety of beliefs and practices that actually exist, the idealized perspectives become nearly useless. In the end it doesn’t really matter what anyone believes as far as organized traditions are concerned, particularly if that belief is based on authentic religious experiences. Another problem with this perspective is that it doesn’t take into account that there are quite a few versions of Christianity and even as many different perspectives on Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, the Saints, Angels, and every other attribute of that faith as there are individuals practicing it. This is also becoming quite true of Modern Paganism as well, and it just becomes nearly impossible to establish borders and generalized definitions if the population of the faithful doesn’t fit at all within those definitions.

What seems to be driving Sam Webster is a phenomenon that is quite local to the United States, where there is a united and seemingly threatening religious political faction that is bent on making all members of the population conform to a single theological and politically conservative mind-set. Of course, this faction represents many individuals who are frightened of any social changes as well as inimical to the basic freedoms of religion accorded to everyone in a secular political society. However, this faction only appears to be united, and in fact, it is itself quite fragmented.

Additionally, this faction represents only a small minority of overall Christians living and practicing their faith in our country. It is doubtful that this highly conservative faction of Christians will ever hold sway over the nation and they will likely remain an ever dwindling part of the population over time. This is not to say that there isn’t any danger to our society from the actions of Christian right-wing religious fanatics and their apparently misguided beliefs and political machinations, so we should be diligent in enforcing our right to worship as we see fit without any outside interference. I also don’t agree with Mr. Webster that belief is central in Christianity, since there are a number of levels of religious experience and participation in Christianity (as there are in other religions), and that belief by itself represents only the most basic and superficial level. I would have to say that faith is much more powerful in Christianity than belief, especially if it is faith based on authentic religious experiences.

The chief problem that I have with what Sam Webster is saying is that he is holding up a model of Christianity and saying that it is a religion of oppression, and that its Triple Deity is somehow malevolently disposed towards non-believers. Christianity is not a monolithic religion, and its various spiritual attributes are defined quite differently, depending on the sect, organization, time-period, geographic location, etc. The Roman Catholics of antiquity, or the middle ages, or the Reformation are not the same Catholics of today; these are different groups of people operating under different time-periods who espoused a different set of overall values. While the majority of people in the U.S. today are mainstream Christians, a much smaller percentage belongs to what would be considered the most conservative and fundamentalist of religionists. To equate the whole population of Christians with the beliefs and activities of this small minority is analogous to making prejudicial judgments about Islam based on the actions of a handful of Salafi jihadists.

 

Time changes everything, including very orthodox religious organizations. If anything, the religions functioning in the world today are actually a lot more tolerant and peaceful than they have been for quite some time, despite the villainous activities of a small minority. There are heinous crimes committed by religious groups and institutions that go against the sentiments of world justice, just as there are with nations and their actions. The world is not perfect and religious persecution still exists in pockets of our world, although it has diminished considerably over the centuries. Mr. Webster seems to have taken the slights and the inconvenient events of living and working in a nominally Christian U.S. society and amplified them to point where it would seem that we are living in a nation that is persecuting and is overtly hostile to non-Christians. Are there certain levels of discrimination experienced by Pagans and Witches living in the U.S.? Yes, but what they have endured hardly matches what Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, Women or the LGBT community have experienced over the course of the last several decades.

In regards to my own religious and magical practices, I am not a Christian. I don’t, for instance, worship Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, or pay homage to any of the Saints. However, I have appropriated Christian liturgical rites and adapted them for my own use. I also work extensively with the Qabalah and the entire hierarchy of Angels, as well as Demons and other spirits, although certainly not in the same manner as either Christians or Jews. So, Sam Webster could judge that I am behaving like a creditable Pagan should behave, but he would have to overlook the borrowing and appropriation that I have made from Christian beliefs and practices. Since I happen to know that he is a Thelemite then I wonder if he is also against the Gnostic Mass, since its basic structure and function was also appropriated by Crowley from the Christian Mass.

While I might agree with some of what Sam Webster has said, I don’t feel that anyone can place boundaries on what is definitive in regards to Paganism or Christianity. Our world seems filled with heterodoxic adherents who have taken beliefs and borrowed them from nearly every tradition and sought to build something for themselves that is meaningful and spiritually fulfilling. As time goes on, this blending will probably only get worse, profoundly blurring the boundary between creeds and sects to the point that any kind of sociological definition would have to be considered absurd.

Where does this mixing up of religious traditions lead us? Who can say with any authority today who is a true Christian or who is a true Pagan? As a ritual magician, I believe that ultimately we end up at the point of being religious and spiritual individuals, practicing our own personal creed and belonging to a sect of one. Where we find points of unity, then these should be considered the foundation for a greater re-unification, and the newly emerging sodality would not be recognizable as any of the traditional religious organizations that are now being engaged. 

We live in a Christian-based culture with national holidays that are suffused with Christian themes, so it almost seems impossible to be able to completely exclude oneself from the traditions and heritage that are endemic in our culture, and this despite the fact that we are supposedly living in a secular society. While what Sam wrote did strike a cord within me, it also demonstrated that what we don’t need is to formulate any kind of sorting process between true pagans and the rest of the syncretistic masses who would happily join us in our public rituals and celebrations.

If there must be a definition of Paganism then it must be made in such a manner that it includes everyone who wants to be included, and that it discriminates against no one. If we have learned anything in the last millennium or so, it is that tolerance and mutual understanding should be our principle values in dealing with our own pagan diversity as well as the diversity of other faiths. What we don’t need is sectarian sorting, discrimination, or absolute definitions of how and whom a Pagan or Witch should worship as their attributes of Deity. We are still working out the details of our theology and practices, and establishing harsh limitations at this point makes little sense to me.

I do applaud Sam Webster for publishing his opinions for everyone to read and ponder, and some of what he says does resonate with me. However, the harshness of his judgments against a single monolithic faith is nothing less than counter productive. If we want other religious communities to respect and give us credit for being an authentic religious creed, then we need to accord them the same respect and credit. If someone wants to engage in a syncretistic search for personal spiritual truth, then who are we to either criticize or denigrate that approach? Obviously, within Modern Paganism, there should be room in the temples of our hearts for all Deities, creeds and spiritual perspectives, since that is the way of paganism from ancient times.

Frater Barrabbas

What I Don’t Like About Wicca

This article will undoubtedly upset some people, but I felt that I needed to clearly state my opinions and insights on this topic so there is no confusion as to where I stand. While I am a member of a lineal tradition of British Traditional Witchcraft, also known as Wicca, I feel that there are definite pros and cons to engaging with this tradition. Perhaps what I have a problem with has more to do with how covens and groups are managed than with the actual lore that is practiced by them. My readers should be aware by now that even though I am a member of this tradition, I believe that it should be reformed, revised and constantly updated. My reasons for believing this is because Wicca is a very new religion and it has not yet achieved a level of development or depth required in order for it to take its place with the other world religions. I don’t see that as a bad thing, in fact I see it as an opportunity for the Witchcraft movement as a whole to continue its evolution and development. There is still so much more to know and experience in regards to defining witchcraft and linking what we do know about the past with the present.

First of all, I would like spend a few paragraphs detailing what I like about Wicca and why I think that it is worth reforming and evolving. I haven’t given up on this tradition, but I suspect that my ideas and insights are probably contrary to the way that it is practiced or adhered to in the present times. I don’t disparage my tradition and I don’t like other writers referring to it as the McDonald’s of Witchcraft, or “McWicca,” as some have decided to call it. There is more than enough that is good and useful in Wicca to build a greater foundation over time, but other practices and traditional lore deemed erroneous or irrelevant should be changed, modified or discarded to help further its evolution and deepening its religious significance. Instead of discarding the whole tradition as some in the Old Craft Tradition would have it, I believe that reform, revision and adding new lore would go a long way to making Wicca into a continuing, viable and cutting edge religious tradition.

Here are some of the points that I would like to make in defense of Wicca, showing that there are some things which are very useful and good to be found in that religious tradition. Let me list them here for your consideration.

1. Everyone has to start somewhere. Since the magnitude of books and materials that are available to the general public is quite massive, it would seem that anyone who wishes to engage with a nature-based spirituality as popularly defined in our culture would find themselves involved in Wicca. Many of the people now engaged in Wicca are either solitary practitioners or informally involved in a group. These groups and individuals represent the uninitiated or self-initiated masses who likely represent the larger proportion of the total adherents. Sometimes these individuals will form groups and declare themselves to be a coven, but whether or not they receive recognition from the formal groups and traditional lineages is another matter altogether.(More about this later.)

2. There is a certain consistency within the beliefs and practices that make up Wicca, whether in formal or informal groups. Since much of the general lore of the Book of Shadows (and other sources) is either published or available online, then if a group of practitioners desire to form a coven and practice as a group there is more than enough material to help them build a basic foundation. They might not have an initiatory pedigree to establish their legitimacy, but their overall practices are consistent with vetted individuals and groups within the legitimate coven-based traditions. What this means is that Wiccan training has a certain consistency and conformity whether or not individuals and groups are practicing within an initiatory lineage. The difference, in my opinion, is that those witches who are operating within an initiatory lineage will have a bit more depth, intensity and (hopefully) the advantage of experienced and mature teachers. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

I have found over the years that to discredit a practicing witch because he or she lacks a proper traditional initiation seems more like a terrible conceit and a means of discrimination than really evaluating what that person has actually accomplished. Instead of basing an evaluation of a practicing witch on talent and merit, they are judged by who initiated them and from what lineage, if any. I have met both competent and incompetent spiritual leaders (High Priestesses and High Priests) in my own and ancillary traditions, and I have met some truly gifted individuals who are wholly outside of the traditional initiatory lineage structure.

So, it would seem that having a good pedigree and an iron clad vouch doesn’t determine whether a witch is capable or competent. I sometimes think that pedigrees appear to be more of a status symbol or a place to harbor the markings of an elitist cadre within the larger group of adherents rather than an indication of any amount of actual superiority. Having access to great teachers and working within a coven of experienced and spiritually mature individuals would doubtlessly further any beginner’s spiritual growth. Yet there is no guarantee that any traditional coven operating within a verifiable lineage will be more capable of providing this kind of quality guidance than a group that is outside of any verifiable lineage. One the best covens that I have ever had the grace to work with consisted of individuals who were not part of any established lineage-based tradition whatsoever. They managed to make traditional lineage based witches and covens look poor by comparison.

3. Classical witchcraft establishes a good foundation for the acquiring and adopting of both high and low forms of magic. Even though some religionists within Wicca are seeking to erase magical practices from their liturgical work, witchcraft is fundamentally a system of working magic as well as a system of pagan nature worship. They seem to go hand to hand. I have found that witches make really good ritual magicians once they are able to make the transition from performing initiations, esbats and sabbat rites to experimenting with different kinds of energy based or spirit based ritual formulations.

4. Wicca is grounded in earth-based religious beliefs and practices. Witches learn to love and venerate nature, and they have an innate grounded-ness that is often missing from ceremonial magicians. Nature is also the source from which they acquire an understanding of the meaning of life and the mysteries of birth and death, whether in plants (and the seasons), animals or humans. The cycle of light and darkness represents the changing diurnal cycle of night and day, the lunar and the solar cycles, and the oceanic tides. These cycles represent the basic and most fundamental pattern that is used to establish an overall spiritual and magical discipline, and this pattern is likely the oldest known to humanity.

5. Feminine based spirituality has its natural roots in classical witchcraft, and a woman’s power to create human life is regarded as one of the greatest and miraculous occurrences in nature. Thus, women in witchcraft are given a special honor and veneration that is rarely found in other western religious organizations. There seems to be a natural connection between women, the earth, the cycles of the moon, tides and the seasons, and the magic of sustaining and maintaining all life where required. Life and death are seen as just parts of the greater cycle. The concepts of evil, sinfulness, or that nature is somehow bad or corrupted, causing the modern stigma of conscious duality are completely absent from this creed. There is no devil nor is there any hell. Worshipers are not held in ransom to otherworldly punishment, and that all of the positive elements of life are seen as the grace of the earth perfectly balanced and imbued with spirit.

6. Believe it or not, Wicca does offer an authentic portal into the earth-based mysteries of life and death, light and darkness, and the spiritual evolution of all living things. This earth-based spirituality defines life and the greater world as a living part of the manifestation of the Deities who are fully invested and integrated into the material world. Spirit and matter are joined together to formulate the powerful mysteries that operate in the earth. Sacred sexuality and sacral nudity are the required tokens for admittance into this domain. Darkness is the veiled shroud of the mysteries and the underworld, marked by the Stang, is the place where they are depicted in myth and ritual allegory. The key that opens the gateway of the mysteries is, of course, ecstasy, and there are an unlimited number of ways of achieving that sublime state (and all of them are holy). In that underworld are to be found all of the treasures of the earth, the potentials of individual and collective fate, the revered ancestors and their hidden teachings, and the source of all life, which is known as the well or grail-cauldron of our spiritual and material beings.

Now that I have covered all of the things that I consider to be important and authentic in Classical Wicca, let me now discuss those things that I consider to be either erroneous or counter productive. From the list of six things listed above you can see that there is a great deal which makes Wicca relevant, beautiful, inspiring, and also empowering. However, we have just started our journey and there is so much more to this religious and magical tradition than what has been determined so far. Obviously (at least to me), we have many more discoveries and advancements to make before Wicca becomes a fully matured religion.

What I don’t like about Wicca:

1. Covens are usually organized into a hierarchical structure where one or more individuals rule (whether benignly or tyrannically) over the rest. In traditional lineage based covens, these positions would be held by a High Priestess and a High Priest. However, this traditional structure was put into question (in the late 1970's) by the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft, and also by many individuals who are currently working through informal groups or as individuals. There is something to be said for an egalitarian approach to organizing a group, where consensus rather than rule by fiat is practiced. Since I have been really burned in the past by having to deal with either incompetent or power-crazy coven leaders, I have decided that the only group structure that I will tolerate is one that is based on consensus. I have defined how such a group would function, and I have given it a name - a Star Group. (You can find where I have previously defined this kind of group in one of my articles here.)

2. Classical Witchcraft, or BTW Witchcraft, tends to be conservative and inflexible in regards to managing and maintaining their lore. While it’s good and marginally useful to document one’s core tradition and distinguish it from additions and modifications, ultimately, this historical exercise fails to keep a rigid distinction between core based lore and innovations. Also, considering that the supposed “core” was someone’s innovation developed at some time in the recent past, religiously maintaining that core becomes an exercise wholly irrelevant and prone to errors. I know for a fact that many of the witches of late 60's and early 70's weren’t really very careful when it came to documenting their lore, especially the Alexandrians, so what is being conservatively maintained now was someone’s innovation just a mere 40 years ago or less.

However, what I think is really important is based on authenticity rather than legitimacy. Does the lore work and is it sensible? Can you explain it simply and easily to others. Does it require some convoluted narration or has to be bolstered by the excuse “we have always done things this way - it’s our tradition.” If the lore works, where it can be easily explained and there isn’t a better way of doing it, then it should remain as part of the core; but if it doesn’t work, then it should be replaced or discarded. You can keep an extensive record of everything that is kept or put aside if that is your desire, but what is practiced should be powerful, elegant, useful and relevant. In this guise, revisionism and reform are not only possible, they are most desirable.

3. High Priestesses and High Priests for life. In the BTW, when someone is elevated to the third degree and becomes an officiating priest or priestess, then it is expected that they hive off and form their own coven and group. Their elders have vested in them the privilege and the responsibility to be a spiritual leader over their own group. Now, whether those elders made this judgement based on a real insight into their students’ personalities, or ensured that they would behave appropriately through rigorous testing and training, or that the elevation was merely given due to excessive flattery, obsequiousness or forms of bribery would be completely unknown to those individuals who decided to be members of that coven. It’s often like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’ve got until you take a bite, and by then it’s too late to put it back. You either chew it up and swallow or spit it out.

According to the by-laws in Classical Wicca, coven members are supposed to vote with their feet if they find their coven leaders to be wanting. Yet no one seems to talk much about the pain that they have endured, the overall bad feelings they have towards the system, or even that they can get black-balled out of their tradition by vengeful and unscrupulous leaders. In my opinion, hierarchy should be abandoned in Wicca for consensus and the flexible role of facilitators acting for the group instead of authority figures. Mentors or teachers should be temporary arrangements, and every member of a group should be considered equal regardless of their achievements.

4. Part of the theology of Classical Wicca is dependent on a Goddess and a God, and this can be quite limiting. This is a religious formulation that has been called a Duo-theological system. Some have tried to argue that this deity pairing is quite ancient, but it is actually a very recent and modern rendition. Ancient pagans believed in many deities, both named and even unnamed. Their religious practices had three levels of activity that consisted of state sanctioned deities and rites associated with the city-state or mystery traditions, family deities, ancestors and spirits associated with the home and hearth, and personal deities associated with the individual. A pagan might be devoted to one specific deity (called henotheism), but seldom was he or she strictly devoted to two deities, or a male and female pair. Additionally, the triple goddess was never mother, maid and crone, and there is no ancient record of the oak king battling the holly king to mark seasonal transitions. 

These are modern adaptations, and while they might serve a useful purpose, the more ancient and historically verifiable facts of western paganism are more compelling and likely more powerful. I have found the duo-theology of wicca to be a useful model for defining a kind of monism, which consists of the union of all being. This is because the Goddess and God are in perpetual sexual union and thereby through their ecstasy, they are perfectly emulating the One. However, the ancient pagan deities were typically omni-sexual, representing a richer and more complex model that more accurately emulates nature and human behavior. What modern witches need to do, in my opinion, is to incorporate more of the actual ancient practices into their modern core praxis.

5. When I started my religious career of becoming an initiated witch back in the 1970's, the historical gospel was that Witchcraft was the “Old Religion.” We believed that we were engaging in an ancient practice more venerable and legitimate than Christianity itself. We saw the burning times as the attempted unsuccessful conquest and persecution of pagan witchcraft, even though it was much more complex than that. Yet over the years, this belief in an ancient providence has been pretty much shown to be erroneous by historians, especially in regards to British Witchcraft. Ronald Hutton has shown in his book “Triumph of the Moon” that witchcraft in the U.K. is a recent creation, and that witchcraft as a religion didn’t exist in the previous ages. What did get transmitted down from antiquity to today are the artwork, folk traditions and the occult and magical practices, but even these have been modified and revised over the long centuries.

Wicca is a modern religion although it has pretensions of being based on antique pagan spirituality, but in some cases, actual antique lore is only now finding its way into the modern practices. What I would like to see is a lot more of this activity occurring, perhaps even rivaling what has been going in Heathenry for the last 20 years. Also, if Wicca is a modern religion, then witches acting as conservative religionists in these still formative times would seem to be highly misplaced and misdirected. In my opinion, our work has only just begun, and there is much that we can learn from studying and researching history as well as experimenting with new lore in a coven setting.

6. In the BTW, coven politics, self-glorification (Queening), and divisive inter-coven witch wars have marked the community pagan turf of a number of large cities. All of this can be shown to be rooted in the cult of personality that lies in the foundation of the hierarchical coven structure. When there is one or two absolute rulers in a group, then the members of that group jockey with each other for status and power. It seems like a common behavior amongst us hominids, and Classical Wicca tends to bring out the worst in some people. Over time, I found that I learned to hate the internal politics of such groups because it always got in the way of getting anything done. This was true even when I was supposed to be the High Priest, since like parenting, it required the consistent agreement between the two leaders in order for something to get done. Decisions from the defacto leader were usually ram-rodded into place regardless of the opinions or feelings of the members, which the leaders could ignore if they thought it prudent to do so. Believe it or not, ruling by consensus is actually so much easier because everyone is eagerly united in the work that must be done.

In some traditions of Wicca, it is proper for a High Priestess who has hived off at least one coven from her own to wear a garter with two buckles, representing her own coven and the one that hived off from her. Over time and with the accumulation of more buckles, a High Priestess could be elevated to a Witch Queen, and such an elevation included a kind of coronation, called a Queening. Of course, there is always a lot of politics involved in a coven hiving, such as strings attaching the new coven to the old coven hierarchy. In the domain of a chain of seeming ownership, no one is free except for the highest ranking Queen, and the individual initiates in any of these linear covens don’t even own their initiatory grades and spiritual progress.

The High Priestess has become a surrogate mother who coddles or punishes her brood as she sees fit. She has the habit of treating her initiates as children regardless of their previous knowledge or experience. Of course, what goes along with this overweening pride is a greater estimation of personal worth and authority. Ironically, when such egotistical individuals deal with each other in the greater community outside their organizations then the potential for conflict is greatly magnified, since each is striving to be a greater power and authority than the other. At some point something has to give, and the results are often an acrimonious exchange occurring over many months or even years. This conflict is called a “witch war” and it is often a sad and tragic event in the life of any community. Yet such conflicts occur only because of the oversized egos of the local coven leaders.

Some of the towns that I have previously lived in had a history in its pagan community of some witch war that had occurred between the leaders of different groups. What remained afterwards was a splintered and shattered community of opposing groups who would never have anything to do the other factions. Pagan community gatherings were segregated by faction, and each would spend a lot of time vilifying the other faction. It was all a terrible waste of time and effort, and instead of having a wonderful unified pagan community, that town had instead two or more bitterly opposed factions. Still, the source of the conflict was usually just a few individuals or less, and I believed at the time that if the rest of the community rejected them, then there wouldn’t be any conflict or factions. It was all based on self-glorification, which I think is inherent in hierarchical organizations that don’t have any kind of accountability to its members. If there was anything that I would change in BTW Wicca, it would be this fascination with hierarchy and self-glorification. In my eyes, all witches are equal, and all witches are just witches, nothing more.

Self-glorification can also create a barrier between a coven of initiates and a group of students who are studying and preparing to be initiates. I am referring to the so called inner and outer court structure, which seems to be a way of extending and glorifying the grade of initiate. Back in the 1970's there was no inner and outer court as far as I am aware. You were either initiated into a coven or you weren’t. Uninitiated members could be invited to attend sabbats and lore sanitized esbats; but usually a person was either elected to be a member or rejected within a lunar cycle. The first degree was a trial initiation, and if someone found that Wicca wasn’t their cup of tea, then they could leave with no harm being done.

From what I understand, an outer court is a holding area used for training dedicants and keeping an eye on them for a year and a day to make certain that they will turn out to be proper witches. Someone could spend a year and a day preparing themselves and then get deferred or rejected when it came time to be initiated into the coven, perhaps just because of politics or someone’s ill will. I have heard arguments from some High Priestesses that the outer court is necessary to ensure that an initiate doesn’t embarrass or shame the coven leadership with bad judgment or outrageous behavior. Of course that assumes that the reputation of the coven leadership was a sacred commodity to be maintained at all costs, and that the initiate wasn’t capable of being responsible for themselves.

What it really says is that the initiate doesn’t even possess his or her own initiatory process. They are treated as children, and in the case of an outer court, there is even a kindergarten or pre-school level to undergo. Needless to say, if I were starting all over and was presented with an outer court requirement in order to join a coven, I would just tell them thanks but no thanks. If they didn’t think I was good enough to be an initiate, then I would find some group who would want me to be a member of their tradition. I could also remain solitary and not experience any huge loss or missed opportunity. Being solitary is far better than being in a bad coven, and trust me, I know this to be true. This might also explain why so many witches are solitary and self-initiated, since there is little to be gained by the possibility of being degraded and dis-empowered by some overly self-important coven leader.

Anyway, I have discussed in detail what I don’t like about Wicca, and I have balanced that assessment with those things that I do like. I still consider myself a Witch in the BTW arena, but I greatly doubt that I would ever be a member of a Classical Wiccan coven. I would be happy to help facilitate a Star Group anywhere and anytime, but not a hierarchical coven structure. I believe that human nature being what it is, there is just too much temptation to abuse the absolute authority inherent in the priest/ess role associated with Classical Wicca. These are, of course, my opinions, and you are free to agree or disagree with them. However, these opinions are based on many years of experience as well as experimenting with different kinds of group structures. Since I am at heart a revisionist, I have felt that experimenting with different group structures and dynamics was just as important as trying out new magical techniques. I believe that I have profited by these experiences, and I seek to share them with you so you might profit as well.

Frater Barrabbas