Farrar / Bone The Inner Mysteries

Progressive Witchcraft and Connecting with the Divine
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-0-7198-3161-4
Verlag: Robert Hale Non Fiction
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 272 Seiten

A look into the underlying principles behind modern magic in witchcraft, The Inner Mysteries provides an integrated training system (Liber Actios) for both solitary witches and coven-based trainees in the form of magical energy practice and cosmology. By fully explaining how magic works, this volume makes numerous Wiccan practices approachable, including Circle casting, Raising energy, Elemental work and Drawing down the moon Illustrating how Wicca is a modern, nondogmatic and dynamic tradition still in a state of evolution, The Inner Mysteries outlines the tenets of progressive witchcraft, putting connection with the Deity at the forefront of witchcraft practice. In addition, this book also covers the history, spirituality and metaphysics of witchcraft, and how to form a coven.

JANET FARRAR is best known for writing with her late husband, journalist and author Stewart Farrar, some of the classics of modern Wicca, including the best-selling A Witches' Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Farrar, Janet

Bone, Gavin

Leseproben

Introduction

REINHOLD NIEBUHR

It has been over fifty years—bridging two centuries and a millennium—since the Witchcraft revival began. This is quite an achievement for a new religious movement, especially when one of its founders believed it would only manage to survive another decade. Doreen Valiente related how Gerald Gardner, the “father” of modern Witchcraft, said to her in the early 1960s that “the problem with this religion, Doreen, is that it has too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” He strongly believed this would be its downfall as a religious path, and that it would not survive beyond the 1970s. Luckily for many of us, he was wrong. Gardner failed to take into account one of the most important factors that has allowed Witchcraft to survive: its ability to change with the times: to change and adapt culturally and socially. There is, of course, a scientific word for this type of change—.

This is why we used the words in the subtitle of this book We know we are not the only ones within Wicca who have used the term to describe themselves. The term was used for the first time in the 1980s, as far as we know, to describe a diverse and eclectic movement originating in the United Kingdom (see footnotes on page 22). Others may think of “eclectic” disparagingly, but it is the nature of evolution to encourage diversity and variety. A look at Wicca’s history shows there is nothing more eclectic than Traditional Wicca, with its blend of Italian-Etruscan lore, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and possibly even Sufi teachings! For us, the use of the term does not indicate a specific tradition, but rather a way of seeing the spiritual truths that underlie all nature-based religions—especially the truth that they must be able to adapt if they wish to satisfy the spiritual needs of the individual.

Wicca is a religious movement with its roots in nature and in natural law. Evolution is at the core of its philosophy whether its practitioners realize it. It is important to note that evolution affects not only physical and social development, but also spiritual growth. Nearly all practices in Witchcraft have changed over time. This is mainly due to a better understanding of the origins of such practices and their true meaning. Generally, most Wiccans now have a better understanding of such things as magical practice and the Wheel of the Year than the practitioners of Wicca did in the 1950s and ’60s; and (of specific importance with reference to this book) of change within the self—that is, initiation and the mechanisms that cause it. In the spiritual cultures of the ancient past, these changes and their causative actions came to be called the .

In the last few decades, we have seen many changes in the way Wicca has been viewed, both publicly and internally. What was once a small group of individuals secretly trying to recreate the past has now become a large movement trying to embrace the future. Because of this, it has become more noticeable. All Witchcraft was once viewed by the public with suspicion; the word was unknown and rarely appeared in the lurid stories of Witchcraft in the tabloid press. Now the word appears regularly in all the media as a modern, fashionable kind of Witchcraft, and has become one of the fastest growing spiritual practices in the Western world.

Witches embrace positive change, and when this change does not occur, they create it. Witches are, and probably always have been, irrepressible rebels by nature. They challenge the status quo, not just within their own sphere of practices, but also in the wider world. It may be for this reason that witchcraft was seen to be a challenge to established authority in the past, particularly by the Christian church. In the twenty-first century, corporations and governments have become the authority challenged by the Witch. These institutions put materialism over spirituality, while threatening the environment. Witches know that both materialism and spirituality need to be in balance if there is to be a positive future for ourselves and the planet we live on.

Materialism has seen a market in Witchcraft, and herein lies the paradox of this book. The market has been flooded with books on Witchcraft due to the increasing need and desire for a spirituality that challenges the doctrines of consumer society. The paradox is that now spirituality can be purchased from your nearest bookshop, just as fast food can be purchased from your nearest fast-food chain. Or this is what modern society would like to have us believe. Many of these books contain substantially the same information, rewritten and regurgitated for mass consumption. But Witches, being rebels, know differently; they know that true spiritual connection comes from the soul, and that books can only give us ideas— and, of course, the experiences of the author. This is a book about the quest for the spiritual experience that is the path of Witchcraft, but it is the quest itself, only a guide to help the seeker along this path.

Witchcraft has reinvented itself several times since the 1950s because of the need by those within it to revolt against the dogmatic practices that seeped into it. Such dogmas and doctrines go against the true nature of the Witch: there are and always have been rebels, and there always will be. This was the factor that Gardner, himself a rebel of his time, did not pencil into the equation when he made that statement to Doreen Valiente about Wicca not lasting beyond the 1970s. Without the rebels, Gardner’s prophecy would have come to pass: for change, evolution, and revolution would not have happened.

We were both part of this process: Janet, in a more direct way, by being involved with the king of Wiccan rebels—Alex Sanders, and Gavin by being part of an organization that rebelled against the doctrine that you could only be a Witch if you were part of a traditional lineage. We were both rebels, as was Janet’s late husband, Stewart. Likewise, the need to rebel against dogma encouraged other authors such as Starhawk, Ray Buckland, Phyllis Curott, and Raven Grimassi to put pen to paper to cause change and to cause Wiccan evolution to take a leap forward.

How people face the evolution of new ideas is very different from person to person, but generally people either embrace or reject it. Witches are no different. As we try to show in this book, Witchcraft has never been slow to accept the inevitabilities of time. Evolution and the will of the Goddess eventually win through. Modern Witches know that time, evolution, and spirituality are indivisible, so Witchcraft as a spiritual path will always embrace changes as they occur. Unfortunately, there will always be those who feel differently. These are the people who are comfortable where they are, or who are scared of the effect change might have on the personal power that they have obtained for themselves. For them, the leap across the void of the mysteries is too large a journey to contemplate. They sit in spiritual stagnation. They are—regardless of a string of initiations with validated lineage and heritage—not what we would consider true Witches.

The mysteries, the central theme of this book, are about change. They are about the transformation of the self for the benefit of all. When you change the self, you change the world. This is inevitable, for the macrocosm (the whole of the world) and the microcosm (the individual self) are intertwined like the two snakes on the staff of Hermes. This is a book about shaping Witchcraft into a spiritual path for this new millennium. Microcosmically, this is done by first changing the individuals who call themselves Witches. This can only occur when change is first accepted as inevitable, and then the strength for change is found in spiritual connection.

The need for spiritual union is at the core of all living spiritual paths. This was forgotten somewhere along the line by many within Wicca. The form of ritual became more important than its actual purpose; words became more important than intent. It is time to right this; it is time for Wicca to take its rightful place alongside the other contemporary spiritual paths that encourage connection and union with the Divine—alongside Santeria, Vodoun, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto.

The authors have also changed over the years. We have embraced the need to look at new philosophies as part of our spiritual growth. We have looked into the past for inspiration—into the ancient Celtic, Norse/Anglo-Saxon, and Greek worlds. We have drawn what we can from them, but in recent years have found more inspiration from living religions than from the fragmented remains of dead ones. Others feel the same. We have noticed that many Witches have become drawn to contemporary spiritualities that are alive and vibrant and offer one-on-one spiritual connection— particularly Vodoun and Santeria. This is because some Wiccan practice has become lacking in such connection. It is our hope that we can encourage Witches to take their experiences of such living religions and infuse them into Wicca, thus boosting its next evolutionary leap forward. Wicca can become a vehicle for the return of the old gods and goddesses—not just into Circle, but into the everyday personal life of the Witch.

When you approach Wicca from this direction, you come to a realization—an epiphany, if you will. As Wiccans, we like to say that...