Tag: theology
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Healing and Protection: The Two Essentials in the Craft
Categories: ArchiveMarcy Young was my very first witchcraft teacher, and one of the things she taught eighteen-year-old me was that I always had permission to work magick for healing and for protection – as long as I did it in such a way as to not infringe on the free will of the person I was…
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The Work: A Tale of Two Wiccas
Categories: ArchiveIn Traditional Initiatory Wicca, there are working rituals and celebratory occasions that have a distinct pattern, symbolism, and lore attached to them. And then, there is the other stuff. And the other stuff, at its heart, can really only be defined as purpose-driven and intuitive ecstatic practice.
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Wiccan Belief: One Tradition’s Teachings
I can hear the detractors already: “Wicca doesn’t have beliefs!” Well, that’s true and it’s also not. Wicca doesn’t have a single, unified set of beliefs that practitioners are required to adhere to in order to practice. Attempts have been made for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with codifying the
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Multilayered Realities: Walking In Many Worlds
The Kingdom of Heaven is in this very moment, properly understood. I don’t remember now whether I heard that in a college religion course or at a sermon one Sunday as a child, but it has stuck with me for decades. I’ve interpreted it in various ways over the years, but I’ve come to understand
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Endarkenment: Seeing The World As It Really Is
Many years ago, when I was a plucky young religious studies student at a private liberal arts college in Arkansas, I had the privilege of listening to a guest lecture by a traveling Buddhist monk. The monk’s name, I can no longer remember. What I do remember is the overwhelming serenity of his presence and
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The Magick of the Coven: Understanding Shared Connection
For a long time, I thought a coven was a group of people who practiced magick together. It didn’t occur to me until embarrassingly late in my practice – in a coven, mind you! – that there was more to the coven than people getting together a couple of times a month for celebration and
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The Agency of Spirits: Getting Uncomfortable About Noncorporeal Beings
Categories: ArchiveOne of the questions that I am routinely asked is whether or not a practitioner can be called to the service of a deity outside their cultural context. There’s a lot of concern in the Pagan world these days about cultural appropriation and the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and it is an
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Sybil Leek’s Six Tenets of Witchcraft: Words from the Original Witch Queen
Before Laurie Cabot was the “Official Witch of Salem”, there was Sybil Leek, “Britain’s most famous witch”. Sybil Fawcett Leek (1917-1982) was called “Dame Sybil” by some and “That Damn Sybil” by others. A colorful character by any stretch of the imagination, she was a Witch, psychic, and occultist. She grew up in the New
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Sci-Fi Parables: Teaching the Craft through Storytelling
Jesus wasn’t the first teacher to ever use stories to teach moral or spiritual concepts. Aesop – famous for his fables – lived in Greece six hundred years earlier. Before him, in the 8th Century BCE, Homer wrote down orally-transmitted epic poetry, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, that illustrated spiritual themes while also entertaining
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Esbats and Sabbats: Methods and Tools for Timing Observances
Wiccan practice is based on eight solar observances, called Sabbats and known collectively as the Wheel of the Year, and 26 lunar observances, called Esbats, each year. Some people hold very strictly to celebrating the moment, or at least the day, of the observance. Others are more relaxed about the time of the gathering, factoring