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Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999], at sacred-texts.com
History
(c) 1988, by Weyland Smith and
The Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal
"Mommy, how old are we?" Does our faith come down to us in
Apostolic succession from "that time whereof the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary", or was our religion dreamed up in
the nineteenfortiesbyaretiredBritishcivilservantwiththe
collaboration ofa dyingheroin addictandpoet? Does itreally
matter?
To
whatextent
themodern
practitionersof
paganismmay
lay
ajust claimto themantleof theirpredecessorsfrom thetwelfth
centuryhas beena matterof greatdebate bothwithin andwithout
the Craft community almost from the moment Gerald Gardner
published _Witchcraft Today in 1954.*1* Though the debate is
continued with somewhat less fervor today than it was in the
1960s,ithasnever whollyceasedanditcontinuesto beaCrisis
of Faith which besets many practitioners of paganism every year.
Itcan
beatroubling
questionto
face,especiallyif
one's
early teachers tried to justify their credentials by claiming
that what they taught had great antiquity. The question isn't
any easier to answer with truth or objectivity when there is a
bunch
ofradicalfundamentalistsrunningaroundseekingtoclaim
that we aren't really a religion and so of course we aren't
entitled to protection under the First Amendment.
It is a sign of progress, I think, that there seems to be
less of that sort of teaching today than there was when I began
my studies. Today most of the teachers that I know are secure
enough in their religion that they can face the staggering
thought that the ethical and philosophical system that guides
their lives may indeed be younger than some of them are. The
plain fact is that we simply don't know.
Gerald
Gardnerand
CharlesLeland*2*
mayhave
triedto
palm
fiction off on the world as fact. It's certainly been tried
before--and since. On the other hand, they may each have been
reporting the truth as they found it. It certainly is a fact
thatnoone Iknowhasever comeacrossany BookofShadowsthat
dates before the beginning of this century. Presumably, if one
exists,sayintheBritishMuseum, itwouldhavebecomeknownto
scholars looking into the subject over the last half century.
GrantedthattherewaslessburninginEnglandthan elsewherein
Europe, but there was enough that surely some physical evidence
would have survived in the hands of the government if nowhere
else.
The
VaticanLibrary,of
coursemayyet
turnup
sucharelic.
Theirfailure todosoat thistimecanbeexplained aseasilyby
the lack of such a document as by a possible desire to suppress
it. We may never know that one, but when push comes to shove,
does it really matter?
Thomas
Jefferson,
speakingon
the
questionof
whether
black
colonial slaves were Americans or not is said to have remarked
788
"They're people and they're here. If there's any other
requirement,Ihaven'theardofit."Perhapswemightparaphrase
Jefferson a bit and remark that the modern practitioners of
Witchcraft are undeniably here and a large number of them are
sincere intheirbeliefs. Thatinitselfshouldqualify usasa
religion.
Perhaps as important as the legal question is our own self
image. Would a "real witch" from the middle ages recognize or
disownone ofhersisters oftoday? Wouldshewant togowith a
"New Age" circle, a Dianic grove, a Gardnerian coven, or would
she laugh hysterically at the bunch of us and walk off into the
sunset?
While the antiquity of our current practice of witchcraft
shouldn't be a matter of serious concern, to us _or to our
detractors,itsauthenticityshouldbe.Thesearchforourroots
must continue to be pursued by serious scholars and magicians
alike in order that we may come as close as possible to the
ideals andpurposesofourancientpredecessors.Thereisavery
practical reason why this is so. That reason is tied up in
somethingcalledan_egregore. Onthesubjectofan egregore,I
would like to quote extensively from a recent article in _Gnosis
by Gaetan Delaforge:
..."An egregore is a kind of group mind which is created when
peopleconsciouslycometogetherforacommonpurpose.Whenever
people gather together to do something and egregore is formed,
butunlessanattemptismadetomaintain itdeliberatelyitwill
dissipaterather quickly.Howeverifthe peoplewishtomaintain
it and know the techniques of how to do so, the egregore will
continue to grow in strength and can last for centuries.
An egregore has the characteristic of having an effectiveness
greater than the mere sum of its individual members. It
continuously interacts with its members, influencing them and
being influenced by them. The interaction works positively by
stimulating and assisting its members but only as long as they
behaveand actinlinewith itsoriginalaim.It willstimulate
both individually and collectively all those faculties in the
groupwhichwillpermittherealizationoftheobjectivesof its
original program. If this process is continued a long time the
egregore will take on a kind of life of its own, and can become
so strong that even if all its members should die, it would
continue to exist on the inner dimensions and can be contacted
even centuries later by a group of people prepared to live the
livesoftheoriginalfounders,particularlyiftheyarewilling
to provide the initial input of energy to get it going again.
789
If the egregore is concerned with spiritual or esoteric
activities its influence will be even greater. People who
discoverthekeyscantapinonapowerfulegregorerepresenting,
for example, a spiritual or esoteric tradition, will, if they
follow the line described above by activating and maintaining
suchanegregore,obtainaccesstotheabilities,knowledge,and
driveofall thathasbeen accumulatedin thategregoresince its
beginnings. Agroup ororder whichmanages to dothis can,with
a clear conscience, claim to be an authentic order of the
tradition represented by that egregore. In my view this is the
only yardstick by which a genuine Templar order should be
measured."*3*
Mr.
Delaforgewas
writingabout
theKnights
Templarand
the
various groupsclaimingto representitin moderntimes, butthe
parallel with ancient witchcraft and the many diverse groups
claimingto representittodayisobvious. Ihopethebenefitto
be gained by reconstructing as faithfully as possible the
attitudes and goals of our ancient brethren is equally obvious.
In her books "The Sea Priestess" and "Moon Magic", Dion
Fortune was demonstrating this technique. Vivien LeFay Morgan
wasattemptingnothinglessthanthe
reactivationoftheegregore
of the Atlantean priesthood.
When Gerald Gardner published "Witchcraft Today", he
embarked upon the outward steps of his part of the reactivation
of the egregore of the old witch cult in western Europe. The
inward steps were probably begun by one or more of the magical
lodgesof
theearlytwentiethcentury,mostlikelyDionFortune's
Society of the Inner Light during its "pagan phase" in the late
twentiesandthirties.*4*Gardner'spublic
worksservedtobring
the reactivated egregore into contact with an increasingly
receptive populace where it could gather unto itself the
additionalpsychicenergyitneededtobecomeonceagainaviable
force in the world. How well it has achieved this end is to be
observed by anyone with the eyes to see.
I personally think that our job in this generation is to
deepen and strengthen our ties with this newly reawakened force
in the world; to learn from it and to draw inspiration from it,
and to bring the Craft back from the status of a "cult" to that
of a genuine religion. To do this we must learn more of the
goals,ideals,andambitionsofourbrothersandsisterswhohave
gone before--as they really were, not as we would like them to
have been.
790
Please
notethat
theidea
isnot
necessarilyto
recreatethe
_practices of our predecessors, particularly if we are talking
about things like blood sacrifice. One should note that this
practicewasfollowedby thejewsinbiblicaltimes,but thatin
moderntimes theydon't doit. This doesnot keepthemodern jew
frominteracting withthe egregoreof hisancient faith. Judaism
has surely progressed since the time of the Ceasars, so has the
Craft. The idea, when activating and interacting with an
egregore is to re-create the _goals and _attitudes of the
founders. That doesn't freeze the practitioner into practices
which have long since been outgrown.
WhatI
thinkweneednow
ismorerealscholarship.
Whatdid
Samhainreallymean toourpredecessors;or Beltane;orImbolc?
Not only howdid theycelebrate it,but how didthey _feelabout
it? Platitudes about"fruitfulness and fertility"are simplytoo
superficial. This is not madeany easier by the factthat these
observances were pastoral and agricultural while most of us are
city dwellers who do well to keep a potted plant alive through
one summer.
An attempt in this direction was made by the Holy Order of
SaintBrigitnearFortMorgan,Coloradoabout tenyearsago.The
farm is gone now and its residents are scattered, yet it cannot
be said to have entirely failed of its purpose. Many of the
former participants in the experiments can be found today,
quietly practicing the Craft.
This is not to say that we all should sell our goods, quit our
jobs, and move out into communes somewhere, but we must at the
leastestablishcloseenoughcontactwiththeharshrealitiesof
this world that we can appreciate how frightening the onset of
winter must have been to those who had no central heating, food
storesorwelfare tofallback upon.Whenwe havedonethis, we
will,perhaps,be ableto recapturethemindset ofthePriestess
at Samhain.
These truths are not to be found in the Fantasy fiction
sectionofB.Dalton's,butinthehistoryandanthropologylibr-
aries of our local universities. The reading is much dryer and
lessfun,but ittalksaboutthe peopleasthey reallywere.It
isn't afantasy worldto hidefromreality in,but neitheris it
a dead end. It can take us back in time and forward in our
understandingsothatwemayreallycontacttheancientreligion
of witchcraft as it was, learn from it, and pass it on,
rejuvenated and strengthened to our children.
791
Notes
1. Gerald B. Gardner, _Witchcraft _Today, (London: Rider and
Company, 1954) reprinted (New York: Citadel Press, 1971)
2. Charles Godfrey Leland, _Aradia, _or _Gospel _of _the
_Witches, (London: David Nutt, 1899; reprinted (New York:
Samuel Weiser, 1974)
3.GaetanDelaforge,_Gnosis,"TheTemplarTradition:
yesterday
and today", No. 6, (Winter 1988), pp 8-13.
4. Alan Richardson, _Dancers _to _the _Gods, (London: The
Aquarian Press, 1985)
792