covenrochester

I recently had an interesting exchange with a Seeker. She asked me:

Q: What's the coven's mission statement?

I answered:

Magister: I'm sorry, I've never heard of a coven having a mission statement. The Craft is a religious and spiritual path.

She replied:

Q: Yes, I know that. I was just wondering what you stand for as a coven, and what you hope to accomplish?

Magister: All traditional or lineaged covens do the same thing. We meet for Sabbats and Esbats and honor the Gods. We do healing and divinatory work for ourselves, others, and the world. We preserve the knowledge of traditional herbalism, and spells and spell-forms. We train serious men and women to be priests and priestesses of this whole earth, and to help ease the burdens of a suffering humanity with the powers that we have been passed and developed.

Q: I love that.

Magister: Me, too.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I ever heard of a coven having a mission statement, my first thought would be that it was a fake coven and not part of the Wica. Ever since more books have been published on the Craft, there have been many people that simply read books, start their own groups, call themselves witches and priests and priestesses (high or otherwise), and basically practice out of published material and their own creativity. That's great, and it fulfills a need for many people. These self-started book-based pagan groups are not, however, of the Wica. When you are around them, you will not feel that you are in the presence of the Wise Ones. My old Witch Mother in England told me that such people actually hate the Wica and do great damage to it out of their egos, and to be prepared for it.

In my own mind, I think of them as pagan groups, not covens, not of the Wica, and not Wiccan. In almost all of them, there will never be any mention of the Horned Father or the Great Rite, or other hallmarks of the Old Religion. In many such groups, there will be a tutelary deity of some far-off place. Perhaps Brighid or Morrighan of the Irish, or Hecate of the Greeks, or Isis of the Egyptians. But the Goddess of the Witches is not any of those and, in fact, is older and more omnipresent BY FAR than any of those. They will mix cultures and names indiscriminately, using an Irish word for Hallows, and an Anglo-Saxon word for the Summer Solstice. If you are of the Wica, these pagan groups will either despise you or give you a wide berth. Ask yourself why.

There are other people who falsely call themselves "witches" on the ground that they have been "initiated by the spirits" or "accepted by the spirits," or something like that. This *does* in fact, occur. But it is extremely rare, and the occult powers granted to such people by the spirits are wondrous and phenomenal. Most people I have met in the present day who claim this type of witchcraft do not, in fact, manifest any such powers for healing, clairvoyance, telekinesis/levitation, or control over animals or the four elements.

There is also a gift of witchcraft that runs through families, genetically. This is also rare, and your mother, grandmother, and aunts will be the first to recognize it and train you. Unless they are all deceased, you don't need the Wica. And when I mean "gift," I don't mean "grandma refused to wear a brassiere, smoked cigars, 'knew things,' and drank scotch with a shot of peppermint tea (as opposed to peppermint tea with a shot of scotch)." We all love those grandmas, of course, but I mean things like finding your seven-year old son in a trance, levitating a foot off the ground in the backyard garden. It happens. Don't worry, though. Your grandmother, mother, and aunts will know what to do. They've seen this before. :D This usually happens to daughters, but occasionally a son will inherit the gift of witchcraft, and he will usually be gay. The last one I heard of was gay, of Italian and Russian descent. When finding him in the midst of an act of power, his mother and grandmother exchanged a knowing look and shrugged. They knew what to do.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester