While SoulCraft adopts Wiccan form, it differs from nominal Wicca in several important respects. In the introduction, we mentioned the shoddy scholarship and false historical claims that infect many Wiccan and other neopagan traditions. Some are beginning to back off from claims that Wicca's roots hearken back to a wide-spread Palaeolithic religion, but this is still a common assertion among many Wiccans. Some general attitudes, like reverence for the Great Goddess as a creatrix and cosmic mother figure may resemble common Paleolithic world-views (as far as we can infer from the archaeological evidence), but that is a far cry from showing that the beliefs and practices of neopagans bear more than a superficial kinship with the beliefs and practices of Paleolithic cultures. While some form of worship of a (the) Great Goddess was wide-spread in Paleolothic times, and it appears that religious wars and persecutions were rare or non-existent then, we do not know enough to assume that this worship represented a large, multi-cultural organized religion, as Margaret Murray claimed. It seems unlikely.
Outside of some family traditions that claim (but show no documentary evidence to prove) ancient lineage, and a handful of "traditional" paths like the Italian Strega, which can trace their history no farther back than the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, it is safer to assume that claims to the unbroken history of Wicca (or any other neopagan path) to ancient times are false than to give them credence. Not only is there a lack of documentary evidence for the ancient origins of Wicca or modern Witchcraft, the beliefs and ritual practices of modern pagans reveal an almost total ignorance of the beliefs and practices of ancient pagan religions and the cultural contexts and structures that gave rise to them.
The basic elements of Wiccan ritual, and the typical teachings about them, are clearly derived from neo-Platonic philosophy, Gnosticism, Hellenism and Christianity. No other sources are necessary to reproduce the ritual casting of a circle, calling the elements, invoking deities and raising and grounding power that constitute the major aspects of Wiccan ritual. As far as we can determine, there are no reliable sources that document the ritual casting of a protective circle for worship or magical work prior to the middle ages, when Christian magicians and alchemists began the practice. The Wiccan use of Earth, Air, Fire and Water as the basic elements in magic are directly attributable to medieval interpretations of Greek philosophy. The dualism of Wiccan teachings is a direct descendant of Christian dualism, which has its roots in early Gnosticism and classical Greek philosophy. Raising and grounding energy for magical purposes has its origins in Gnosticism, Mediterranean mystery cults and Hellenist interpretations of Egyptian and other magical religions. Most, if not all of the methods Wicca employs for divination, magic and healing are derived from sixteenth- to eighteenth-century folk magic, which was largely based on Christian superstition. The overall structure and procedures of Gardnerian and Alexandrian Witchcraft, the progenitors of most Wiccan traditions, are clearly Masonic. Freemasonry, as a ceremonial magical system, began in the late seventeenth century as an expression of the marriage of medieval magic and alchemy with Romantic idealizations of Egyptian, Greek and Roman culture and religion.
Gerald Gardner (a Freemason), who is truly the father of modern Wicca, assembled the Gardnerian tradition in the mid-1950's with the help of Aleister Crowley (a former Freemason who founded other magickal orders along the same lines after being expelled from the Order of the Golden Dawn), Dion Fortune (a member of the Eastern Star, the women's auxiliary to Scottish Rite Freemasonry) and others who had extensive knowledge, training and experience with Masonic ceremonial systems. An avid practitioner of sadomasochism, Gardner introduced the whip or flail as a ceremonial tool and ritual flogging as part of initiatory rites. An enthusiastic nudist, he made ritual nudity compulsory in the Gardnerian tradition.
Although the ritual flogging in Gardnerian initiation rites is symbolic, and not meant to inflict pain upon the initiate, Gardner rationalized it as a carry-over from initiations of witches during the Inquisitions, when they had to–he says–show their willingness and ability to sacrifice themselves and suffer the tortures of the Inquisitors for their faith, preserving the secrets of the Craft and the identities of their compatriots from the evil minions of the Church. No such initiations have been reliably documented.
The Wiccans and Witches who hold on to the claims that the history of Witchcraft goes all the way back to pre-Christian times also hold on to discredited distortions of the history of the Inquisitions. In SoulCraft we call these people fundamentalist Wiccans (or Witches). Not that the Inquisitions did not happen, or that they were not completely reprehensible. But they did not happen as these fundamentalists say they did, nor were there as many victims as they like to claim. And there is no evidence at all to show that any of the victims of the Inquisitions were witches in the modern sense of the word. Witchcraft, as it was represented by the Church at that time, was the invention of slanderous and sadistic liars who worked on behalf of the Church (even if the authors of the infamous Malleus Mallificarum forged the imprimatur of the college of Cologne, which was the Church's stamp of approval and guarantee that the material contained in an approved work conformed to Church doctrine.). Medieval Witchcraft, the Satanic cult described in the manuals of the witch hunters and by officers of the Church, never existed. Still, certain Christian factions and politicians employ the cultural remnants of these lies to manipulate an undereducated public with naked bigotry and baseless fears of the shadowy Satanic conspiracies of baby-eating cults in order to promote their political and social agendas.
Like all fundamentalists, fundamentalist Wiccans are not particularly concerned with high standards of scholarship or the relationship of demonstrable facts to their teachings. Their traditions say such-and-such is so, therefore, at least among themselves, it is so. Fundamentalist Christians adhere to the Bible (at least they claim to) as the ultimate authority in all things. Fundamentalist Wiccans similarly cling to the tenets of their favorite author(s) and their tradition's Book of Shadows. Tradition and dogma supersede truth. Significant change generally comes slowly and reluctantly.
To be fair, most present day Wiccans do not share these dogmatic attitudes. At least in regard to history, lineage and many of their teachings. They do, however, tend to hang on to certain attitudes and, for lack of a better word, orientations in regard to their beliefs and practices. These are the main points of departure between Wicca and SoulCraft.
The main issues are:
• Dualism
• Theism
• Pseudo- and anti-intellectualism
• Cookie-cutter approaches to magic and ritual
• Quick-fix Wishcraft
Not all Wiccan traditions are guilty of all of these things, but they are prevalent enough that they creep into classes, books, workshops, rituals and covens (or groves, nests or whatever other terminology a group might apply to itself) all over the country. We could say all over the world, but there are some differences in different places (Being better educated at undergraduate levels, European groups are less prone to anti-intellectualism, for instance.), but as we are in the US, we will confine the bulk of our observations to domestic practitioners.
• Dualism – Pick a book on Wicca or modern Witchcraft, or go to an open workshop and you will quickly be immersed in a world of dualism. After a few obligatory remarks about how Wicca is not Satanism, nor do Wiccans believe in Satan or Christian notions of good and evil, you will encounter an introduction to the Wheel of the Year, ritual circles, the Neo-Platonic elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water, sometimes with Spirit [the Greeks called it quintessence] included as a fifth element as they are represented on the points of the pentagram) and the idea of a God and a Goddess.
Almost immediately, you are learning about correspondences, lists of characteristics that are associated with each of these aspects of Wicca. Correspondences are typically introduced as lists of opposite qualities: light/dark, hot/cold, wet/dry, masculine/feminine, active/passive, etc. From this point on, you will be conditioned to think of these correspondences (and of the elements, the seasons, the cycles of the moon and countless other phenomenon) in terms of contrasts. Things become either/or, and too much of one thing must be balanced by an approximately equal amount of its opposite. Lack of balance is bad, and it will lead to unfortunate, or even catastrophic consequences.
The people who teach these things assert that Wicca is a nature religion. But nature is not dualistic. Either/or thinking does not reflect the natural order. It is unnatural thinking, derived from inadequate observation of natural phenomenon and influenced by Christian and Gnostic notions of good and evil. A close examination of natural processes, and of our best models of natural laws, shows that one would be hard-pressed to identify anything in nature that is dualistic.
No matter how carefully and precisely the experts define life, for example, they have to qualify themselves when it comes to things like viruses and prions, which exhibit some of the qualities of living things but are not considered technically alive. Among macro-organisms there are life-forms that confuse the boundaries between animal and plant, male and female, fruit and vegetable.
Non-living systems (by scientific standards) also exhibit this penchant for confounding categories. Pluto is the ninth planet in our solar system. Or is it? Astronomers are trying to settle the question of what a planet is, as opposed to a large asteroid or something else. Pluto seems to be an intermediary body, and so it is often referred to as a planetesimal, and debate continues as to whether we should reclassify it, thus reducing the number of known planets in the solar system to eight. (Note: Since this was written, astronomers determined that Pluto is a planetesimal. So it is no longer regarded as a planet except in New Mexico, where Pluto is declared to be a planet by law.)
Few places in the universe exhibit total light or darkness. Total darkness is possible only with the complete absence of photons–the particles of light. If even a single photon is present darkness cannot be total. This leaves out any place in the universe that is exposed to the surface, as photons have been streaming from every direction to every direction for billions of years. Conversely, total light would be the presence of nothing but photons, and there are no known structures in the universe that are composed exclusively of photons except the photons themselves. According to the Big-Bang model visible light has been evident in the universe since about 100,000 years after the beginning of its creation, when the electromagnetic plasma that was the universe became thin and cool enough to allow photons to travel freely.
It gets worse. Planets, rocks, trees and people seem like solid objects to us, but upon close inspection we find that they are all made up of atoms, which are more than 99% nothing. And the particles that make up each of those atoms blink in and out of existence trillions of times every second. Can such particles be said to be real? If they are nowhere half the time, is it not as valid to say they are not, as to say they are?
Quantum physics informs us that existence is a matter of probabilities. Nothing is there so much as it is potentially there. According to the most popular interpretation of the theory, everything exists in a cloud of probability. This cloud of probability is spread out over everywhere and throughout all time, and it includes every condition whatever you are looking for can possibly be in. The probability cloud of existence is called the quantum wave function. Nothing exists (in the way we think of existence) until an observation causes the wave function to collapse and all of the variables that determine an object's location and condition become fixed. Another interpretation of the quantum wave function is that everything exists in every possible state simultaneously in different universes, and that an observation does not cause the wave function to collapse so much as it simply reveals which universe one lives in.
So everything, from light and dark to life itself, and all of it's qualities (animal/ plant, male/female, etc.), to the very laws of being, exist on a spectrum. The universe is not a place of either/or–a struggle between opposing forces– but a dynamic blend of possibilities, a didactic dance of all possibilities along the myriad spectrae of an ongoing creation.
We use the same correspondences in SoulCraft that other traditions use. The difference is in our attitude toward them and our view of their (and our) nature.
• Theism – In Western culture we are conditioned to think of spirit or deity in terms of an embodied personality. Even if we do not subscribe to the idea that there can be only one deity, we think of spirits and deities as beings much like us, only (perhaps) living on another plane. But when we look at other cultures and times we find a variety of viewpoints about the nature of deity.
Some cultures apparently thought of their gods and goddesses as living, breathing, physical beings–sometimes even mortal beings–that lived and walked among them. The Sumerians and ancient natives of South America talked about their gods in this way.
The ancient Greeks saw the gods as capricious forces and states of mind that they personified in order to make sense of the world, and the Egyptians had similar views. Many native cultures around the world have a more distant concept; the deities and spirits are the forces of nature, disembodied and not personified so much. Although this latter concept is intellectually more removed from the anthropomorphic idealizations of other viewpoints, the native people's relationships with these spirits or deities often appear more intimate.
When people personify their deities, and especially when they are embodied, they are practicing a form of theism, be it monotheism or polytheism. Theism is rooted in the dualistic notion that matter and spirit are of two different and often contradictory natures. The universe is a created stage upon which spirits and deities act out their dramas. A soul is a spirit that inhabits a body. When the body dies the soul moves on to another (usually "higher") plane of existence; heaven, hell, the summer lands or simply the spirit world.
Some people view creation (including all matter) as the body, if you will, of the creator. God is the universe, and everything that happens in the universe is a direct expression of the nature of God. This is pantheism. The Deists of the Enlightenment period believed in God as an absent landlord or architect. He created the universe and then withdrew, leaving it to run on its own.
In theism, creation is separate from the creator, and God is discovered by revelation. Polytheism is very similar, only with more than one god. Most polytheistic systems have a single creator god that my be male, female or androgynous, with the other gods on a slightly lower level of the cosmic organization chart. Nevertheless, polytheism still carries the dualistic concept that the creator is separate from creation itself. Revelation may still be present, but it generally plays a smaller role in polytheism. In theism and polytheism, God (or the gods) may stay completely out of human affairs or history (the Newtonian clockwork universe, for example), or he/it may intervene to varying degrees. In polytheism the gods are generally more active in human concerns, even to the extent of meddling and mischief-making. In theism and polytheism, happiness and prosperity are achieved by aligning one's self with the capricious will of (whichever) God.
In pantheism, God does not intervene in history. Humans determine their own fates through the powers of rational intellect and will. There is no need for revelation except through observation and intellectual pursuit. Pantheism does not depend on myths of the personal exploits of one or more gods, and the only book of revelation is the "book" of Nature. Happiness and prosperity are achieved by acting in accordance with the harmonious laws of nature, which in an abstract sense may be interpreted as expressions of God's will, but which are never capricious.
Most Wiccan traditions are polytheistic. They follow classical pantheons of various cultures, or, if they are eclectic traditions, they pick and choose among them. Some prefer to use generic labels, Lord and Lady, for their deities. But the majority of Wiccan traditions carry on the dualistic ideas of separation of matter and spirit that theism does. Even when they incorporate elements from Native American paths, for instance, their approach to and understanding of the deities and spirits they work with are basically dualistic. Where the Native Americans do not conceive their deities in an anthropomorphic mold, the Wiccans generally do, and the relationships between them and the spirits are most often quite different.
SoulCraft is more aligned with the largely unpersonified, unanthropomorphic views of the native cultures. Theism views God as separate in nature from creation and transcendent to it. Polytheism shares this transcendental belief, whereas pantheism views deity as immanent in creation. The native cultures are panentheistic. Deity, or spirit, is both immanent in creation and transcendental. Ultimately, there is one source of creation or being, but it is not different in nature from anything that is created. The term in SoulCraft for this source of being is Spirit.
In SoulCraft, Spirit is the source and the substance of all being. It is important here to emphasize that Spirit is not a being. Rather, it is simply beingness, and the potential for being. The dualism of spirit and matter is only an appearance, a convenient illusion of sorts, but as matter and spirit originate from the same source–Spirit–they both share in its nature. The dualism only exists at our level of experience. It is not indicative of the nature of reality.
As the source and substance of all being, Spirit is immanent in the universe, and vice versa. But there is also a transcendent aspect of Spirit that lies outside of what is created. It lies outside of space and time or geometry, beyond dimension.
Theologically, SoulCraft can be described as a form of animistic panentheism. It is animistic because everything is believed to have its own level of consciousness–in a sense, its own soul. It is panentheistic because Spirit is regarded as both transcendent and immanent.
Philosophically, SoulCraft is consistent with Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy, wherein creation is seen as an ongoing process and as an inside job. Creation flows from within, it is not conjured by some supernatural being from "out there". There is no end to creation, and perhaps there was no beginning. It is also recognized that there is far more to creation than puny human egocentricity. Humans are only one small part of creation, not it's reason for being or it's ultimate expression. Neither the universe or Spirit is anthropomorphic.
• Pseudo- and anti-intellectualism – We will deal with anti-intellectualism first. It is alarmingly common in the neopagan world for people to claim that all paths are equal and equally valid, and that the differences between paths are not important. There is also a common attitude that one's faith need not have rational grounds or be connected to history or any systematic thought. In other words, if you believe that the sky over your city is full of literal (but presumably invisible, or there would be no debate about it) fire-breathing dragons, that's fine. One can make any claim about their beliefs, their abilities or their magick and not have to document it or back it up in any way. When pushed to the wall such people will defend this attitude with an "argument" like, "If it is true for ‘X' then it must be true. Their reality is just as real to them as yours is to you, so it is just as valid. Who are you to say your reality is the right one and they are wrong?"
This is so vacuous it should not need attention. The fact that anyone over the age of six can say something like that with a straight face, and that others will nod in agreement, is one of the strongest possible indictments against what passes for our educational system.
The intellectual climate in this country is so impoverished, however, that it seems an answer to this too-often heard defense is necessary.
First of all, consensus has its weak points, and it is no guarantor that one is in possession of ultimate truth, but it is a powerful starting point. Consensus is built up from the collective experiences of people over long periods of time. One reason consensus is so powerful is that it has proven accurate enough long enough for entire cultures to have functioned quite well with it. Consensus adjusts with the inclusion of new knowledge, so that over time it becomes self-correcting. This heuristic aspect of consensus has not only helped us to develop things like scientific method and all of the nifty technology most of us are so impressed with, if not addicted to, it has also helped (most of) us to let go of false, and often harmful beliefs. For example, we no longer bleed people half to death to treat a fever because we know better. And with the discovery of vitamins we now easily prevent conditions like rickets and scurvy that were common debilitating afflictions in previous centuries. Where those conditions do exist, sane people recognize them as nutritional deficiencies, not as infestations of demons or the judgment of a sadistic, vengeful God.
Consensus is not perfect, but it eventually adjusts when new knowledge becomes common knowledge. Often this new knowledge comes about through simple discovery and observation, or through the extension of what is already known. But sometimes new knowledge is obtained by a culture only when commonly held beliefs are successfully challenged. Challenges of the status-quo are difficult, but they are also inevitable. They become successful only when they amass enough evidence, and enough documentation, to overthrow the prevailing views. On rare occasions a new model proves so useful that it replaces an older one simply out of utility. But knowledge is not advanced, and consensus does not adjust on the basis of unsupported claims or wild beliefs.
Consensus alone is not enough. Simple reason is also necessary. With little effort, one should be able to figure out that thousands of religious systems that make wildly different claims and that have enormously differing sets of beliefs simply are not compatible with each other. Therefore, they cannot be equivalent, or equally valid. It is ludicrous to suggest that theistic paths are the same as non- or anti-theistic ones, or that monotheism is the same as polytheism. A path that acknowledges the existence of fire-breathing dragons flying above our cities is certainly not the same as or equally valid with one that says people who follow such a path are evil and/or doomed to eternal damnation. There are real differences between traditions, and between classes of traditions. They cannot all be "right."
So what makes SoulCraft right? We do not claim to be right in the sense that we possess ultimate truth or have exclusive access to the one-and-only anything. We simply believe our path is reasonable, and we strive to make it as consistent as we can with the knowledge that is available to us. We do not say SoulCraft is for everybody, we just offer it as an alternative.
Pseudo-intellectuals are most often attracted to intellectually demanding complex ceremonial traditions. They are not really pagan or neopagan in their philosophy, but instead they study gnostic or perverted Christian ceremonial magic. They like to claim special status for themselves in a variety of ways. Most often they will assert that they possess special knowledge. They have secrets, and they know "the real stuff." Or they try to legitimize themselves by claiming false lineages that are often based on historical distortions or lies. When pushed to support their claims, they resort to denial (that knowledge is not for outsiders), misdirection (showing false or faulty documentation) or obfuscation (if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit).
Denial is easy to spot. They simply refuse to offer anything to support their claims. Supporting knowledge or documentation may be only for members (or even only for the inner circle of the group), or it might be deemed too dangerous to share with the uninitiated or uninformed. They also might tell you that they could answer but you would not understand. It is a fairly safe bet that when you are confronted with these strategies the people you are talking to have nothing to back up their claims.
Misdirection involves the presentation of false information. It may require some knowledge to detect this. For instance, if you are not aware that there were no Mystery Schools in Egypt before the Greeks imported them in the 4th century b.c.e., you might fall for the explanation that the tradition in question is based upon or descended from the ancient Egyptian Mystery Schools. This kind of historical distortion and misrepresentation was common in the Enlightenment period among secret societies who thought such pretensions gave them credibility, while at the same time they emphasized an aura of mystery that impressed the gullible. Pseudo-intellectuals often enjoy being mysterious.
Obfuscation is similar to misdirection, but it usually involves more elaborate arguments or information. The more elaborate the better, because that makes the pseudo-intellectual look very smart, highly trained and sophisticated. After bludgeoning you with more arcane information than you could possibly handle, you walk away shaking your head and thinking, "Boy, so-and-so sure knows his stuff." Anybody who has obviously spent a great deal of time learning massive amounts of cryptic information like medieval alchemy, ancient Greek, Hebrew and other old languages, obscure texts from a bewildering array of authors, cultures and times, is certainly well-read. One has to concede that such a person knows a lot. To refute them one typically has to acquire a lot of specialized information.
Two characteristics stand out as aids to identifying obfuscation in our present context. First, The elaboration of arcane knowledge is a complex mishmash of methods and philosophies that were, in their time, often incompatible with each other. Jamming sundry unmatched techniques together into a monolithic system creates distortions and elements into the practices of the new system that are untried and cannot be regarded as reliable. In short, it creates hidden blinds and dangers, many of which cannot be anticipated.
The second identifying characteristic of obfuscation is that the evidence pseudo-intellectuals offer to support their paths constitutes an elaborate tautology. Their path turns out to be a system of circular reasoning. Its validity is asserted by invoking the longevity of its parts even though the system as a whole has not been around that long and the blinds and dangers mentioned above that were created by concatenating those parts into a larger system have not been exhaustively cataloged and systematically examined. Validity is also claimed by the purported success of the path in advancing the personal and spiritual development of its practitioners. Inasmuch as we have no generally accepted ways of measuring spiritual attainment, how are we to accept this assertion? A cursory examination of the people who remain involved in these paths for very long seems to reveal a preponderance of arrogant, self-absorbed, egotistical personalities that are more concerned with the acquisition of occult knowledge and personal power than they are with personal improvement and alleviating the suffering of others.
SoulCraft makes no wild claims about the existence of fire-breathing dragons in our skies, or similarly vapid things. We are not anti-intellectual, and we do not accept the equality or validity of all religions and spiritual traditions. As we pointed out before, there are real, intractable differences among the various religions and spiritual systems. They simply cannot all be "right". Not that it is impossible that most religions and spiritual traditions contain some spiritual truth. But we maintain that all religions and spiritual paths–including SoulCraft–are human constructs that are distorted by human frailties, prejudices and perceptions.
We acknowledge the reality of revelation, but we agree with Thomas Paine that revelation is personal, a matter between the individual and his or her revelatory experience. A book–even an allegedly divinely inspired one–cannot convey revelation to the masses, though it might indicate that some people had revelatory experiences that changed them for the better. Accounts of the lives and actions of inspired people may incompletely reveal some aspects of Spirit. Study and contemplation on the lives of inspired people can bear fruit in showing us how Spirit might be more clearly and constructively manifested in the world. The quintessential example in Western culture is Jesus. In SoulCraft, we recognize Jesus as a significant example of one whose life can be regarded as a revelation of Spirit, though necessarily an incomplete one that is distorted and obscured by the myth-making of those who came after him and used his name, if not his teachings and the example of his life, for political gain.
Stripped of doctrine and dogma, Jesus is just one of many people who lived an inspired life, and studying the various threads of inquiry into the "historical" Jesus can be quite enlightening. But so can the study of the lives of Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Guatma Siddhartha and a host of other mystics and great spiritual teachers.
SoulCraft is not pseudo-intellectual. We do not shun intellectualism, but we also try not to overvalue it. We make no claims to lineage. We keep the tradition of SoulCraft as transparent as possible. We have no secrets and we do not wrap ourselves in an aura of mystery to manipulate the gullible. We draw from many wells of knowledge, and we may apply knowledge from some of the same sources that are popular with the pseudo-intellectuals, like alchemy, for instance, but we do not jam multiple systems of arcane knowledge into a monolithic ceremonial tradition. When we do draw upon knowledge from various sources, we try to use what we do appropriately. We borrow from other cultures, but we believe it is important to respect those cultures, their beliefs and their contexts. So when we borrow elements from Native American tradition, for example, we do not simply steal them and insert them into our work. We acknowledge that we are inspired by Native American spirituality, and we take the principles involved and adapt them to fit what we are doing, but we do not claim to be doing authentic Native American ritual.
If one is inclined in such directions, there is room in SoulCraft for what some in the neopagan community call High Episcopagan ceremonialism. Done correctly, flashy ceremonial rituals can be fun and deeply moving. Intricate ceremony is an excellent vehicle for training one's mind to be sharp and focused. But we do not believe it is necessary, and we strongly discourage involvement with traditions that practice the bloated and distorted ceremonial magic we alluded to above. Among other things, when we practice ceremonial ritual, our underlying attitudes are quite different from those of Thelema, for instance, where it is believed that attainment in their system confers the power and the right of a person to dominate others, be they incarnate or not. That attitude is contrary to our ethics. It is tantamount to rape. When we do ceremonial ritual, we seek cooperation in aid to our purposes, not forced compliance.
• Cookie-cutter approaches to magic and ritual – It is disheartening to see how many people in the neopagan community give little or no thought to what they do. They read a book or two, attend a few workshops and classes and learn the mechanics of casting circles and something of the structure of ritual. Like compliant sheep, they attend or perform "rituals" that consist mainly of people reading parts from scripts and/or repeating chants and songs with little or no connection to the significance and meaning of the words that are coming out of their mouths.
One might half-heartedly observe a holiday in such an empty ceremony, but this is not ritual. Ritual entails purpose, and respect for that purpose. It demands focus, concentration and understanding of what is being done. And it requires heart and commitment from those who perform it or take part in it. At best, reading from scripts or memorizing from them, singing and chanting constitute theater. At worst, it is mere recitation or mockery.
In SoulCraft, even a simple ceremony to observe a minor holiday takes preparation. Frankly, if you do not care enough to contemplate the meaning of the occasion and put in a little work for it, why bother? Especially in a spiritual path, where every holiday has significance and a lesson.
That is how holidays start. Something happens, or something significant is learned about that particular time and/or place. Something important enough that the community decides to commemorate it. Holidays reflect the history and values of a community. The happier ones give occasion for people to interrupt the routine of daily life and celebrate. The more somber holidays are occasions for people to reflect on the value and nature of sacrifice through heroism, war, community service or tragedy. Even most secular holidays have a spiritual lesson about honoring motherhood or commemorating early colonists' surviving their first harsh winter in a strange land with the generous help of the natives.
One of the functions of spiritual leadership is to help the community engage these occasions in a meaningful way. This is unlikely if the holidays are marked with listless reading from prepared scripts. A ceremony observing a holiday should have content about what the holiday means, its history and the spiritual lessons it contains. If possible, there should be activity that everyone can take part in. Ideally, it should inform, entertain and engage the people's minds, bodies and spirits.
The same goes for ritual whatever the occasion is, full moon, initiation, wiccaning, handfasting, memorial, etc.
The organizers, leaders and primary participants in any ritual or ceremony should be prepared, and that means they should know what it is about, understand what is going to be done and know their parts without needing to read from a script. Reading from a script divides one's attention and weakens one's focus. Instead of concentrating on the meaning of the words and their purpose in context of the occasion, one is often focused on the words on the paper, getting the pronunciation right, and so on. When one is supposed to be invoking the elements or calling the deities, all of the focus and energy should be directed to those ends, not towards trying to be a good public reader.
Knowing one's part means knowing what one is to say, and when, and being able to say it with conviction, energy and authority. It means knowing every part of the ritual and how it should flow. And it means having the confidence to do it competently. All of that requires time and effort to learn and practice before it is time to perform the ritual. It is like preparing for any other kind of performance. Ritual is theater up to a point, but it is more than simple performance. It must be fueled by awareness and understanding of the spiritual purpose at hand and backed by the knowledge, experience, belief and commitment of those who are to take part in it.
Part of the preparation for any ritual is for those who are going to be there to prepare themselves beforehand through cleansing and meditation. Each tradition has its ways of accomplishing this, and these details for SoulCraft are given elsewhere. But it is important that the participants in a ritual are physically clean, psychically ready and mentally balanced, focused and receptive when they step into the ritual space. Smudging, anointing and similar processes can be part of the pre-ritual routine before people enter a circle. They can be incorporated as part of the ritual, for that matter, but they should not be substitutes for each individual taking personal responsibility for preparing themselves prior to that.
Everything that has been said so far also applies to magical work, only triply so. Magic is not to be taken lightly or approached casually. It is serious work, and the preparation for it should be as exacting as it can be. An unfocused or unprepared individual will most likely translate into sloppy or ineffective work. Hopefully it will translate into nothing; that is, into work that accomplishes nothing and evokes nothing. Nobody needs unwanted or unpredictable energy around magical work.
The concern here is not only for the quality and effectiveness of the magical work. The environment in a working magical circle is highly charged, and the people in it are extremely vulnerable. Undesired, unfocused or stray energies can trigger any number of reactions in a vulnerable person, so it is critical that everyone is properly prepared. It is also vital that everyone present is adequately trained and experienced to do the work. These issues are also addressed elsewhere.
• Quick-fix Wishcraft – This refers to all of those people who believe that by simply lighting a candle, or performing some other trivial mechanical process, they can change their luck, get a boyfriend or girlfriend, get a better job, heal the earth or whatever. This kind of idiocy is a byproduct of anti-intellectualism, laziness and gullibility. Frankly, these people have seen too many stupid movies and acquired to many superstitions. The only remedies for this insidious disease are education, training and hard work, but people who fall into this category are not likely to be willing to invest the time and energy necessary. They have no sense of commitment, and they are looking for instant answers or for someone else to fix their problems for them (For many of these people, it is even better or more powerful if the "help" comes from a disembodied spirit.). In our experience, most of them will not even meditate for five minutes a day. When such people approach us, wanting training or wishing to join a group we either send them elsewhere or load them down with so much to do their eyes glaze over and they never return.