Headscratcher: Nevermind the misspelling man behind the curtain

It really is annoying when ever I hear or see the red herring terminology like this little gem I found online, by someone in my area who promotes himself as a local leader and is taking students, for a minimal fee, to teach Craft:

"I call what I teach, a modified form of Gardinarian Wicca. What that means is that I use traditional methods for teaching, and very traditional forms for ritual. Any Gardinarian coming to my ritual would immediately recognize it... The difference is that I have modified some elements in ways that work better for me. This is the basis of Witchcraft..."



Yeah.  That.

So my fellow pointy-hatted scholars....how many things are wrong with this diatribe?  Let's count, shall we?


ONE:  This guy charges for training in the Craft --- this in and of itself tells me that he hasn't had British Traditional Training, because if he had, he'd know we don't ever charge for training.  It is bad form, bad juju, bad manners.  If he is teaching his own form of the Craft, he can do what he likes in so far as charging for it ---although as a potential student, how would you know the value of the teaching is worth the cost of the class?--- but his stuff isn't BTW-based then, since he's ascribed a financial value to it.


TWO:  Spelling it 'Gardinarian' is a sure-fire way to say you are either too lazy to spell-check Gerald Gardner's name and thus the namesake tradition....or else you were being purposefully sneaky by not using the correct spelling, thereby giving yourself the ability to say "I used a variant of old Gerald's name to denote my stuff is a variant of the real Garderian tradition."

That latter bit then brings us to...


THREE:  Saying your stuff is a variant of something to which you are not privy is ridiculous.  It is impossible to truly know what encompasses Gardnerian traditional Craft practice unless you are an initiate of that tradition....so how can you say yours is a variant of something you do not know first hand??!?  Moreover, you wouldn't be exposed to all of the teachings of a Gardnerian tradition unless you were brought all the way through to 3rd Degree, and then given permission to teach it, with duly made oaths to not expose what you've been foresworn in your practice and revelatory experience to others, unless they too are proper people, given similar initiation into the tradition and likewise foresworn to protect it?

Thus, what we have here is someone once again wanting the "pagan street cred" of claiming knowledge of things he may only have barest gleanings about, then making assumptions and suppositions about those little bits and then "making it his own" in some fashion and claiming his is a "modified version" of the whole encompassing reality of a tradition to which he isn't a member.


DOES THAT SOUND LIKE SOMEONE TRUSTWORTHY ENOUGH TO TEACH YOU THINGS ABOUT SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION AND GRACE?  LET ALONE CHARGE YOU MONEY FOR THE PRIVILEDGE OF HIS DEIGNING TO SHARE HIS INSIGHTS WITH YOU?

I think not.

But there are folks like this out there, gang.  Still.  They think people like me --the people who call them out on their verbal slight-of-hand and dubious integrity in Craft teaching--- they think I AM A BIG MEANIE POOPYHEAD.


With all due respect, I'm just protecting my tribe, my tradition, good sir.  I'm doing what my oaths say by shining a big spotlight on you.


And if you DID have the initiation you claimed to have, you'd know this.  You'd know better.

Go do you your own Craft thing.  Go teach others, and do so with all good intention and aplomb.  I applaud you and wish you all good success.


Just stop trying to ascribe some vague notion of that my tradition, however you may bastardize its spelling, is a "stamp of approval" toward what you're doing.

Deja Broom: "So you want to be a Gardnerian?"

"DEJA BROOM" denotes a blog repost from my old site.  Feel free to read anew, or refresh your memory to re-live the ranty goodness.  Otherwise, skip this repeat and await more modern mayhem.

So you want to be Gardnerian?

If you are seeking to become a Gardnerian witch, the only way to do so is to become an initiate through a vetted, properly lineaged Gardnerian group. That is not to say you cannot be a perfectly wonderful witch of an eclectic stripe, but being a part of the Gardnerian tradition, or any lineaged tradition for that matter, denotes some very specific things.

Gardnerians are one of the various types of British Traditional Wica (BTW), that is to say one witchcraft variants whose origins stem from the New Forest area of the UK. Other BTW groups may include Alexandrian, BlueStar, Kingstone, Mohsian, Central Valley Wicca, Georgian, Protean and others.

Gardnerians, specifically, are of an initiatory mystery religion with various, traceable lines of initiates who are all linked with a common ancestry back to Gerald Gardner. Gardnerians all share a core set of materials --- written, demonstrative and oral --- which have been taught to every member of the tradition in a somewhat standardized method of hands-on/directly communicated, experiential and relevatory practices. These practices include certain rituals and techniques which can only be transmitted from teacher to student, in person, and via an alternating male-to-female, female-to-male fashion.

Ok, now that we've gotten the "legal mumbo jumbo" of our rough definition out of the way, I do have to stress that one cannot become a Gardnerian without being initiated by an existing member of the opposite sex, most often by being adopted into an existing coven. You cannot "pick it up" through reading books written by known or purported Gardnerian authors, nor by following along with one of those alleged copies of the BOS found in the public domain.

There is a word common to all BTW folks....that is the notion of "vetting."

Vetting is a means of vouching for or otherwise fact-checking amongst each other so that we can avoid frauds in our midst or so that we can confirm which level of attainment (degree) a person has reached and therefore not prematurely disclose teachings to which the person may not yet be privy. It is essentially the tracing of one's initiatory family tree showing the links of the claimant in the tree and up through their "who begat who" all the way back to Gerald Gardner, and at each level, the named people in the tree can verify their predecessors and antecedents in the transmission of initiations and subsequent elevations to prove that the claimant is a legit practitioner.

Know that such "avoidance of premature disclosure" is not designed for the purpose of higher-level members to lord things over those who are not of similar attainment or degree to receive the knowledge, but to ensure that the person who has not yet reached that degree may have the opportunity to fully experience the revelation directly and for themselves, without the influence of another's opinions. In short, we don't want to "ruin the surprise" of letting everyone come to the same epiphanies as we had done back when we were being trained using the same tried-and-true techniques and exercises.

Vetting is standard practice for BTW folks. Every tradition keeps records of who its initiates are, who is upline or downline from everyone else. And so we can do these periodic checks of folks claiming to be members so that we may: (1) confirm if a claimant was indeed initiated into the tradition as s/he has professed by verifying such attainment with his reported initiators and upline, (2) that the claimant has indeed been passed the requisite material (written, demonstrative and oral) which further verifies his/her understandings of the essential standards/core common to all other members of the claimed tradition and as befitting his/her professed degree and (3) as a method of recordkeeping so that when claimants are proven liars about being a part of a tradition as a deliberate act to defame or otherwise cause negative influence under the auspices of the tradition, we can confront such individuals and counteract their influence.

So it is important to note that as a seeker of any BTW trad, you too have a right to some level of vetting to ensure you aren't being led astray by someone claiming to be of a tradition that they may not be affiliated with.

If you are sincere in seeking out BTW training, I encourage you to join the Yahoo chat group called "Amber and Jet" but also to warn you that it is NOT your typical public pagan atmosphere. It is a group where various factions of BTW teachers, scholars and students come together to answer honest seeker's questions.

I strongly recommend before you jump right in with whatever questions you have there, that you read through the archives since most questions have been asked countless times before you. Speak little and listen much....get to recalibrating your understanding about how a traditionalist thinks versus how an eclectic person thinks about the styles and methods of practice. They are VERY DIFFERENT, VERY DISTINCT paths and not merely a dip of a different pantheon or the changing of a few words of poetry which separate the two.

Also, get to know the other styles of BTW beyond Gardnerian. It may well be that one of these other varieties appeals to you and you may not have known it existed. It is usually far more important to find a coven family that you connect with than it is to try for a specific BTW tradition. In the end, you'll see that the match more than the means makes all the difference.

Lastly, be prepared to have to actually seek out training for awhile. Do not hold the expectation that simply because you've expressed and announced your desire for it, that it should be given to you. BTW folks are selective about whom they are willing to take as students. This isn't an open cattle-call whereby we take anyone and everyone just because they say they want it. Like schools of higher education, we look for the best and the brightest ---you'll hear the term "proper personhood" bandied about--- before we consider passing on the tradition that we have grown to know and love, who will take care of it after us.

And be prepared that in some cases, you may have to travel to study with a group. There may or may not be a BTW group near you. Folks have been known to drive for hours or take flights several times a year to undergo training.