In my opinion, the internet is ruining Wicca. I know that a lot of people, even my own students are very excited about the community we have on the net, but Wicca is getting ruined by its popularity and by the net. When I was 15 years old, I ran away from home. My parents, both post-war transplants from Wales, really were very strict. When I was 9, they had decided that not having any religion was detrimental to a young man and they whent to a Catholic Church and became catholics. First you have to understand what it is like to be brought up agnostic non-active Church of England and suddenly thrust into devout catholics. My uncle who is a clergyman in C of E would come by our house every few years and tell us stories of the girls he chaced and the funstuff he did. This new Catholic church was really anti-everything, and my mom, who has since moved out of the states and to London, was swept up into it. I had sunday school, catechism, even a private catholic school in a rich suburb of New York City. When I ran that last time, at 15, I met a priestess in the woods. We'd studied Greek mythology and i thought she looked like Hera. She was too tall to be human, both old and beautiful, and had bright red hair that was waist high.... and she was nude. i was quickly spirited away, yelled at (it was private property) and taken to a youth hostel nearby. My Hera was the righteous, flaming mother, and she was POed at me for sure. I don't remember why I was running away that time, but the hostel thought that I had reason to be away and they let me stay for the 6 months I needed to be 16 and leave home. (My dad, who had started to drink, used to beat me, and while I don't remember much that night, I know i was bruised because I always was) There was a big satanic scare going on at the time (this was 1980) and that Christmas, right after John Lennon was shot, my Hera took me from the hostel and to a large party. There were people dancing, singing, of many ages, and they were SO damn happy that it sends chills up my spine. After about 10pm, me and the other minors were led downstairs (they probably were having an orgy upstairs!) and one of the other youngsters, I don't remember which one, started telling me all about Wicca. What she said resonated so clearly, and i found out that Lady Beth, my hera, was their High Priestess. The next day I asked to join her coven and she said no. She told me I had too much going on with my parents and all and as a minor, no way. The next year, after my parents gave up custody of me to the state (which my mom regreted, but probably saved my life because my dad's drinking got worse and he beat my mom hard enough to be in jail for 6 weeks, and if I'd been there one of us would've been killed, and as I have a foot on my dad, it would probably be him.) The next year, Lady Beth (Jayne) let me join her coven "provisionally" I was learning, and that involved visualization and meditation, learning theban and Ogham runes, reading Albertus Magnus, Crowley and Gardner, and writing out entire books of stuff by hand to commit it to memory. Jayne had a fair amount of moeny, so that fall she let me go back to my posh school, and I graduated on time (I would of graduated early if things hadn't gone weird). Since I spoke Latin (Church Latin) she had be translating the great works, and reading them for people. I worked my *ss off learning Wicca, I would be given a question and told to go out into the barn (our library) and answer it three different ways. I was reading translations of Socrates, gardening, learning hard core ceremonial magick and thelema, and being held to an ethical standard my dad would call "militaryistic" And I LOVED EVERY MINUTE. It took me 8 years to go from noviate to priest, and another 10 to high priest. I worked every minute. I lost friends and had to work alone at times, and even lived through Jayne's death when almost everyone either took off or were so heartsick they couldn't go on. I fought and scraped and worked for my degrees, and I live them. And now, you can be Wiccan by joining an online coven, and spending a few minutes each day, and I'm sure that maybe 1-2 percent of the people doing this are getting what it is all about, but the rest are just getting titles and it is all crap. I worked and learned and I've met "high Priestesses" that were 13..... that's not a typo, thirteen years old. so it's unpopular, but I think that Wicca is being wrecked by the net, and by our elders who try to make it easy and spoonfeed it to you. OH, you might get it, from the web, but you don't live it from the web. I know this hurts people to hear, and I'm telling you that some of the people I respect most have online teaching centers, but I feel that they are screwing their students and hard, because they can't prove they are learning, and they are screwing themselves, too, because you can't pick up a motive from an email. So I think what I think, and if you disagree, so be it.
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