Dancing Down the Moon 4.0 Archive

The Seeker's Triangle

What All Beginning Wiccans Need to Know

When I started out in Wicca there were very few resources--the Internet had just been born and wouldn't come to my hometown for half a decade; the book explosion was just beginning; Wiccans in south Texas are thin on the ground. (thin in the air) I wonder, however, how much better off people are now--there are so many conflicting ideas and opinions, so much crap mixed in with the good, that it's no wonder seekers' heads get screwed on all askew. Therefore, here are my ten cents (I always have more than two) worth of advice for the newcomer.

There are three vital resources for any spiritual path, each one equally important: Study, Experience, and Common Sense.

Study

This includes anything you find in books and on the Internet--research into ancient cultures, books on modern Paganism, websites on just about anything.

Books

Read everything you can get your hands on, then read some more. Having a wide knowledge base will help you tremendously when you step out into the Community, whether you're looking for training, a group, friends, or whatever. It's also a lot easier to disagree with a book than with a real live teacher; you can digest what's written, think to yourself, "That's a load of manure," and discard it if necessary.

Important point: Read Critically. Don't assume that an author knows what he's talking about, has the credentials he says, or has done his homework. This is doubly important when you're reading into the "history of Wicca." First off, look at the bibliography--is it made up of nothing but other Pagan books written after 1990, or does it include scholastic works, archaeological research and journals? Anyone trying to tell you they know the "real history" or the "ancient traditions" of Wicca should be read with a grain of salt--although Wicca's roots go back millennia, Wicca itself only dates back to the 20th century.

The theories of Marija Gimbutas and Margaret Murray have been systematically trashed by the historical/archaeological communities. Does that mean they're worthless? Not at all. Is the Bible worthless to Christians even though the vast majority of its history can't be proven? No. People tend to confuse empirical history (history with facts and dates and tangible evidence) with mythic history (what might have been, should have been, but can't be verified either way); both are vital to a religion's development. What it does mean is that anyone claiming the "peaceful matriarchy" or "great Goddess culture" myths are fact hasn't done his research, and is merely swallowing and regurgitating bad scholarship.

Also, be careful not to fall into the "Scott Cunningham said it, I believe it, that settles it" trap wherein an author's word is infallible simply because it's in print. Speaking for all the writers I know, myself included, we're human. Blessedly imperfect. Just like you--we put our underwear on backwards in the dark and lock our keys in the car. The difference is a level of experience, a gift with words, a passion for our religion, a big mouth--but not necessarily a higher degree of enlightenment. If you disagree with something you read, in other words, don't automatically think it's you that has the problem.

The Internet

Here's the most important thing you need to know about websites: anyone can have one, even me. To get a book published someone has to think you know what you're talking about; people have edited, pored over, scrutinized your work enough that they decided it was worth putting money into. That's not much of a screening process, but it's something. Anyone with a computer and a geocities account can have a website regardless of how stupid or biased or pointless their content is. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good website review places out there, and sites appear and disappear so often it's hard to keep up.

By and large, a good rule of thumb is, the more "professional" a site looks, the more you can trust it, because that usually means it wasn't thrown together by some 14 year old that read one book and declared herself Queen of Witch Mountain. Spinning pentacles and imbedded MIDI Enya aren't good signs. Good signs are well-placed graphics (not so many it takes ten years to load), easy to navigate pages in a color that doesn't hurt your eyes, more articles than graphics, and more articles than links. Note that I said "generally." There are no hard and fast rules on the Internet. Beware of a site that looks suspiciously like someone else's, or whose content sounds familiar--outright theft is rampant, and not only will people cut and paste entire books, but entire sites, calling it their own work. My site says clearly that the articles are copyrighted and not to be used without permission; if you see theft, report it to the site's webhost. It's illegal to quote more than 250 words of someone else's work without permission.

Another important Internet rule--don't go on a message board asking for spells. You'll get flamed, laughed at, and booted off. Don't ask a website owner for spells. We're not going to give them to you. A good many of us have an ethical problem with handing out such things, and besides, making your own is way more effective. There's no shortage of books and sites that have spells in abundance. Hopefully if you're here, you're looking for more than that anyway.

Experience

Wicca is not a hobby; it's not a role-playing game. It is an active, organic spirituality, and above all not a spectator sport. To understand it, to truly become a Wiccan, you have to live it. Don't just read the exercises and rituals and meditations and think, "Oh, that sounds cool"--do them! The gods will make as much effort to commune with you as you do with Them.

Tools

Really want to piss off half the community? Call them "toys." That's exactly what they are--neat objects that have no more power than we give them, that help transport us into a place and time where we know magic is possible, that prod our imaginations so we can get to the serious business of being Witchy. They are wonderful, helpful, a way to connect our spirituality to the world of form--Wicca is a religion of the Earth, of the real world, so using tools and other magical goodies serves as a bridge between the lofty and the gritty. They take us to our inner eternal childhood, where My Little Pony and GI Joe action figures opened doors to a new world--but just like those figures, tools are only as necessary as you make them. You didn't always need dolls to play make believe, and you don't always need tools to hold a ritual.

So, if you can't afford that $300 athame, or the only tools you can have without your parents throwing you out of the house are your hands and heart, don't fret. Get to the heart of our religion--go outside. Speak to Deity directly; cast your magic to the wind and the sun. Ritual tools are just that; use them, don't let them use you. The magic isn't a black-handled knife. The magic is the Witch holding it. I've always said that if you need a duffel bag full of stuff to either have sex or cast Circle, you're trying too hard.

Practice

I'll tell you straight out: it's not easy being a Wiccan. Aside from prejudice and idiocy out in the Muggle world, there's the fact that spiritual progress and connection to the Divine do not come without effort. We live in a place and time that doesn't foster spirituality--it fosters commerce. The media exist to tell you what to think and wear and dress and be; big religions have their own ideas. Politicians want to legislate our morality. It takes time, work, and persistence to create and maintain a spiritual life in the face of all of that.

The first and most important thing you need to do is set aside some time every day for your relationship with the sacred. Whether that's prayer, meditation, ritual, chanting, morning, evening, in the bathtub, it's up to you--there are a hundred ways to meditate, as many as there are people. Don't let the rules set down by dead men from countries and centuries far removed from your own tell you that there's one way to commune with the powers that be. If your way of meditation is walking your dog, so be it. If the Goddess speaks to you when you're painting, washing dishes, or clipping your toenails, perfect! Whatever you do, give yourself wholeheartedly--that's what meditation is. It isn't clearing your mind of everything; it's opening your mind to everything, and then choosing which voices to heed. Eastern meditation techniques work very well for some people, but remember: Wicca is not a religion that demands we transcend the body or the physical world. If anything it's the opposite. Engage all of your senses in your spiritual practice, not just your mind.

The second important thing you will want to do is a self-dedication. Why? It's your way of saying, to yourself and the Lord and Lady, "Okay, you're on." It's how you let the universe know you're serious, that you intend to apply yourself to finding and keeping to your path. There are plenty of published sample rituals out there, but a dedication doesn't have to be any more complicated than sitting down with the Moon and the stars and speaking your commitment aloud. If you want you can add details, like dedicating yourself to the traditional year-and-a-day of study before you undertake a full-out Initiation.

Two Things to Avoid:

1 - Being too hard on yourself. No path has ever led straight up the mountain. It's steep and rocky going, and occasionally you're going to trip or stub your toe. Try again. Think of your life as a microcosm of the Wheel; the seasons, hours, lives return, each time with new knowledge and experience. If you learned something from it it can't be a total loss.

2 - Go-fast disease. Reading one book does not make you a Wiccan. Studying for two months does not make you a Wiccan. No title, degree, or number of books in your library makes you a Wiccan either. What does it is how you behave, what's in your heart, how secure you are in your hiking boots. If you really are serious that means you're in it for the long haul, and being a 3rd degree tomorrow will be meaningless if you haven't learned anything to get there. Besides, degrees and titles don't mean jack outside the tradition you earn them in, and they mean even less if all you did to earn them was show up or pay $50. In my experience, degrees mean less about what you've done or what authority you supposedly have, and more about your level of commitment to your path. The journey is a lot more important--because the destination is back where you started, only older and wiser and more complete.

Common Sense

Please, oh please--when you enter the Pagan Community, don't check your brain at the door. There are common assumptions people make about becoming Wiccan or joining the Community that you have to get out of your head right away.

Mistaken Assumption #1 - Calling yourself Pagan means you are one, or that you're nice, or that you're trustworthy. As the worldwide Community grows, so does the number of people of ill intent who are willing to exploit those who don't know better. You've probably seen the Cult Danger Evaluation Frame by now, and if you haven't, look for it (I believe it's on Witchvox.com, as well as Isaac Bonewits' site, search for it on Google) to get some idea what to watch out for. Because our initiation standards are...well, nonexistent, the great freedom we have can be a curse; you have no way of knowing that the High Priest Mucketymuck has your interests at heart, except through your common sense.

Mistaken Assumption #2 - We'll all get along. We're fools to believe that just because we have one thing in common, which we really don't (there being so many kinds of Pagan), we'll all be friends and adore one another. Know what? A group of 10 people, regardless of affiliation, breaks down like this:

4 will be indifferent
1 will be a complete asshole
1 will just want to shag you or the person you came with
4 will be genuinely good hearted and cool
and of those 4, 1 will become your friend.

Given that the average festival has upwards of 100 people...you get the idea. Don't despair--just don't worry if you don't immediately click with everyone you meet, or if you have trouble getting into the swing of things. The Pagan Community is different from any other group of people you will ever know; there are different rules, different taboos, and different prejudices.

Mistaken Assumption #3 - Being Wiccan or Pagan or whatever means you have to be bisexual, polyamorous, walk around naked, liberal, white, or female. Sexuality in the Community is complex and often annoying, either because it's so in-your-face, or because instead of being homophobic people become heterophobic and try to tell you that pinning yourself to one mate or even one gender is being "oppressed by the patriarchy." That's a load of nonsense--we love whom we love, whatever two or three or ten consenting adults want to do in their tent is their own affair, mind the Rede, and that's that. Look them in the eye and say, "I'm not going to sleep with you--not because I'm oppressed, but because you haven't bathed in three days."

I could go on at length about sex in the Community, but I won't--instead I'll give you the only rule you need to start with. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't do it. Trust the inner guidance of the Goddess and the dictates of your own heart. A caring person, the kind you would want to associate with, won't make undue demands on you. If somebody tries to pressure you into anything that makes you feel weird, whether that's in the bedroom or the Circle, run screaming and don't forget your clothes.

By the same token, however, don't write checks you don't plan to cash--if you say you're going to do something (and this applies to all arenas of life, not just sexuality), you better have a damn good reason why you change your mind midstream. This isn't just because no one likes a cocktease; your personal integrity is at stake. Habitually letting people believe you're one thing, then refusing to follow through, isn't going to win you any friends. In fact, it can land you in very dangerous situations. No means no, but yes and then no and then maybe and then no often translates into date rape.

Mistaken Assumption #4 - You have to be in a coven to be properly trained or Initiated. Just when I think this old chestnut has been exorcised from the Community, someone asks me, "Where can I find a coven so I can be a real Witch?" A good 60% of American Wiccans (or at least the ones I know) are self-initiated, self-taught, and solitary. Group experience is valuable; at the very least it helps verify that you're not alone, that there are like minds out there, people as freaky as you are. It's great to have others to bounce ideas off, to learn from--and solitary ritual can get pretty boring. But in the beginning it's always a good idea to work a few months by yourself, so you can get some idea what you want in a tradition, a teacher, a coven, or yourself. If you're after a group thing, try a study group or general 101-type class that doesn't lead to a coven, something designed to help you stand on your own two feet. Even if you join a coven, you'll continue to practice as a solitary--a lot of magic is really personal, and if nothing else you will keep up your meditation practice and study on your own regardless of group work.

And finally:

Mistaken Assumption #5 - You're being psychically attacked. No, you're not. The strongest magical protection of all is disbelief. Faced with someone who's telling you they're going to curse your family and rot your crops and hide your penis in a bird's nest, the best thing you can do is laugh. Now, if that "psychic attack" becomes physical, your best weapon is a restraining order. Actual incidence of black magic, cursing, hexing, and so forth, is really rare; it's about as good for you--and as effective for dealing with your problems in the long term--as smoking crack.

The more someone talks about their Great Magical Prowess, the less they tend to have; those who are truly powerful rarely talk about it, and save their energy for what really counts, not smiting people willy-nilly. Most of the folk who go around attacking others or going on and on about so-and-so who's a "psychic vampire" or so-and-so who caused whatever great disaster are playing too much Everquest.

I suppose Mistaken Assumption #6 should be that I have any sort of Community authority, other than experience and an earnest desire to keep you from making the sort of blunders I've made and seen made. Apply everything I've said here to this website and me as well. As I said before, I'm only human--and come to think of it, I think my underwear are on backwards.