Question for Gardinarian wiccans

[David19]

I have a question for Gardinarian wiccans, but if anyone else wants to post, then please do. I know that Gardinarian's take an oath of secrecy, but what keeps people from breaking those oaths, since they would still be human and it might be tempting to sell those secrets (hope that made sense).

Also on several sites, like www.whywiccanssuck.com, which i think was created by a Gardinarian wiccan, say that the magic that people see in the books is only the 'tip of the iceberg', compared to Gardinarian wiccans, is this true (although i know that you have oaths of secrecy so maybe you can't say anything).

And just one more question, again going from www.whywiccanssuck.com, do all or most Gardinarians agree with the author that Gardinarian (& Alexandrian wicca) are the only pure forms of wicca.

Thanks for any help you can give me

BTW, hope this doesn't offend anyone, it's just i'm curious about Gardinarians.

[Nacken]

I have a question for Gardinarian wiccans, but if anyone else wants to post, then please do. I know that Gardinarian's take an oath of secrecy, but what keeps people from breaking those oaths, since they would still be human and it might be tempting to sell those secrets (hope that made sense).

Also on several sites, like www.whywiccanssuck.com, which i think was created by a Gardinarian wiccan, say that the magic that people see in the books is only the 'tip of the iceberg', compared to Gardinarian wiccans, is this true (although i know that you have oaths of secrecy so maybe you can't say anything).

And just one more question, again going from www.whywiccanssuck.com, do all or most Gardinarians agree with the author that Gardinarian (& Alexandrian wicca) are the only pure forms of wicca.

Thanks for any help you can give me

BTW, hope this doesn't offend anyone, it's just i'm curious about Gardinarians.

1. In the publicly published Gard BOS it says that oath breakers would go to the Christian hell, but I don't think that most of us take that seriously. I think that we keep our oaths because of personal integrity rather than fear of punishment.

2. Gards and Lexies are generally much better trained than solitary eclectics, but I have met some solitaries who have been very wise and masters of the craft. I'm not sure if you are asking whether we have secret techniques that we don't share with others? If so, I can't confirm or deny it.

3. Gard and Lexies being the only pure form of wicca. Hmm I'd say that you don't have to be a Gard or a Lexie to be wiccan. You do have to be a Gard or a Lexie to be a Gard or a Lexie though.
The subject has been brought up here and elsewhere about the dilution of Wicca by adding various new age techniques. I'd have to say that wicca has been diluted. Most wiccans don't really know what is and what isn't wiccan anymore. Generally that leads into whether or not these new added methods are valid or not. I would say that some are perfectly valid and useful, while others aren't. They also generally get into the arguement as to whether British Traditional Wicca (Gardenerian and Alexandrian) is becoming stagnant because of doing things the same way all the time. The eclectics argue that it must be getting stagnant and ossified and that adding new elements is necessary to the growth and vitality of the craft. My answer is that we don't do everything the same way all the time. A system like Gardenerian or Alexandrian creates a framework within which we work, but still provides for enough freedom or leeway that things don't lose their vitality. I don't feel bored doing ritual.

[David19]

Can i ask one more thing for Gardinerian wiccans (or anyone else), is it true that in strict Gardnerian covens, you are expected to marry your magical partner (i read that you would go up to the Akashic(sp) records and see who it was) and make sure you would marry them in each life, regardless of sexual orientation or what.

Hope that made sense.

[Nacken]

Nope. A lot of working partners are involved romantically, but there isn't any rule about it.

[Kudzu]

Looks like you already got your questions answered by a Gard! I'm a Seeker of British Traditional Wicca (though a different trad than Gard) who is about to take those oaths tomorrow, so I'm going to go ahead and add my perspective, whether you like it or not!

What keeps people from breaking those oaths, since they would still be human and it might be tempting to sell those secrets (hope that made sense).

Hopefully, by the time one makes it into a Traditional coven through Initiation, one has bonded with their coven members and has been thouroughly scoped out to make sure that they're serious about everything. Many Traditional groups spend at least a year getting to know the person who wants to be Initiated. So, if all goes well, that sort of improper person would never make it to the oaths. There may be other spiritual and... "social" consequences if one does break their oath, I believe.

And just one more question, again going from www.whywiccanssuck.com, do all or most Gardinarians agree with the author that Gardinarian (& Alexandrian wicca) are the only pure forms of wicca.

I've read the statement of one person who claimed to be Gardnerian who thought that, but I've met many Gardnerians who do not believe that. As a Traditional Wiccan, I do personally believe that one only becomes Wiccan through a lineaged Wiccan coven. However, though the group I am with can trace their lineage to Gardner, they are not Gardnerian. There can be enough changes in a line's practices and/or interpretations to make them change their name. One can only become a Gardnerian through a Gardnerian Initiation, regardless of the lineage of their Initiator.

[shuvanilu]

[QUOTE=Nacken]1. In the publicly published Gard BOS it says that oath breakers would go to the Christian hell, but I don't think that most of us take that seriously. I think that we keep our oaths because of personal integrity rather than fear of punishment.


I'm not Gardnarian, but I have read the published book of shadows a few times here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gbos/index.htm

Great site all around, btw. Nacken, would know better than I about how seriously Gards take these Oaths, but they sound pretty serious to me. As in, they scared the crap outa' me...Call me fluffy. Actually, no---don't call me fluffy. I'll get crabby. _wedgie_ In the 2nd degree initian you say: "I.....(name)....swear upon my mother's womb and by mine honour among men and my brothers and sisters of The Art, that I will never reveal to any at all, any of the secrets of The Art, except it be a worthy person, properly prepared, in the center of the Magic Circle such as I am now in. This I swear by my hopes of salvation, my past lives and hopes of future ones to come and I devote myself and my measure (the cord you wear that is the length of your height plus the curcumference around head, heart and sex) to utter destruction if i break this solemn Oath." And in the Chapter called The Old Laws, it states: "And if any break these laws, even under torture, The Curse of the Goddess shall be upon them, so they're never reborn pn Earth, and may remain where they belong, in the Hell of the Christians." Woah! I wouldn't spill the beans either! I read this Gardnarian BOS a few years ago, and it was why I chose not to follow a traditional Wiccan path. It may be great for some, but if I wanted to here threats like that, I'd go back to church..lol. I'm certainly not trying to judge any Gardnarians...quite the contrary. You all must take your Craft *very* seriously. Peace!----shuvanilu

[DebLipp]

I have a question for Gardinarian wiccans, but if anyone else wants to post, then please do.
Okay, first, it's Gardnerian, not Gardinarian.

I know that Gardinarian's take an oath of secrecy, but what keeps people from breaking those oaths, since they would still be human and it might be tempting to sell those secrets (hope that made sense).
I'm really not sure I understand the question. Whenever you make a serious promise, or take a serious oath, there is at least a theoretical risk that you will fail to live up to your oath. Do you stand at weddings and say "But what's to keep them from cheating?"

That said, remember that if anyone offers to sell you oathbound secrets, they either aren't really secrets, and the person is a charlatan, or they are really secrets, and the person is an oathbreaker. In either case, the source cannot be trusted.

Also on several sites, like www.whywiccanssuck.com, which i think was created by a Gardinarian wiccan, say that the magic that people see in the books is only the 'tip of the iceberg', compared to Gardinarian wiccans, is this true (although i know that you have oaths of secrecy so maybe you can't say anything).
It doesn't violate the secrets to say there is much more to the tradition than what is written down.

And just one more question, again going from www.whywiccanssuck.com, do all or most Gardinarians agree with the author that Gardinarian (& Alexandrian wicca) are the only pure forms of wicca.
"Pure" is an odd word. I think most people say "true" or "real."

What you need to understand is that the use of the word "Wicca" has changed. Nowadays, most people use it to include both Traditional Wicca and Eclectic Wicca, as well as to include invented Traditions that have some similarities with both Eclecticism and Traditionalism. Thus the majority of Wiccans here on Mystic Wicks are not Gardnerians, Alexandrians, or any of the other original Traditions. However, that usage is quite new.

Twenty plus years ago, when I started in Wicca, an Eclectic was just called a "Pagan" and only initiates were considered Wiccan. That's not because Pagans weren't "good enough," it's just that the word meant an initiated member of a Tradition. It had no other meaning. Only books published in the past ten years, primarily Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner have shifted that meaning.

Many Gardnerians and Alexandrians insist on sticking with the original meaning of the word Wicca. They don't wish to invalidate what others do, they just want the language to reflect its original meaning.

[David19]

Thanks for the answers, they've cleared up a lot of things. I have one more question though, i've heard that Gardnerian wiccans aren't supposed to reveal their book of shadows (or secrets), but i've seen a Gardnerian Book of Shadows (http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gbos/index.htm) on the internet and was wondering, how the person got a hold of it if it's not supposed to be revealed, and would it be a real one or a fake one?.

[KEishin]

Either this person who has posted a BOS is a fraud or an oathbreaker. You can't trust the words of either type.

[Elderbush]

This is one of the things Gardnerians have been saying for years - you can't trust the things published because the people who published them are oathbreakers or lying. I'd advise you to look at what their motivation might be to say it.

Some of the stuff has been out there a long time and is pretty legitimate for its time. On the other hand, Gardnerian groups may have added things in the next day or year and it may or may not be verbal or may or may not be passed along as it was meant. If you want to learn the Gardnerian tradition, I suggest you join a Gardnerian tradition. But if all you want to do is a general idea of how they do things, you can find enough on the web that is pretty close.

Ed. to add. The Scott Cunningham book I think was from closer to 20 years ago, wasn't it? In the 80s? And the big bust up between Gardnerians and the US Wiccans went down in the early 70s I believe. The split between BTW and everyone else is not a new thing.

[DebLipp]

This is one of the things Gardnerians have been saying for years - you can't trust the things published because the people who published them are oathbreakers or lying. I'd advise you to look at what their motivation might be to say it.Quite true. In which case...

Some of the stuff has been out there a long time and is pretty legitimate for its time.how can this also be true?

Anyone who says they can verify whether or not a published secret is real either has questionable sources (i.e. don't know) or questionable integrity (i.e. shouldn't say). So any claim that published stuff is legitimate has to fall into that category. I'm not saying you are either of those things, just that the statement will fall into that category in general.

Ed. to add. The Scott Cunningham book I think was from closer to 20 years ago, wasn't it?1993.

And the big bust up between Gardnerians and the US Wiccans went down in the early 70s I believe.US Gardnerians are Wiccans. There is no "bust-up" between Gardnerians and US Wiccans. There has been a gradual shift in the definition of the word "Wicca," especially since 1993, to include Eclectic and self-created traditions. This isn't a "bust-up." It's a change in terminology. Some Traditionalists are very angry about the use of the newer terminology, but that isn't a problem between people.

The split between BTW and everyone else is not a new thing.The term "BTW" wasn't even coined until the 90s.

[Dawa Lhamo]

Only books published in the past ten years, primarily Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner have shifted that meaning. lol, don't you mean in the past 20 years? ;) It *was* first published 18 years ago, you know. ^_^

----

On oathbreakers: If the person has taken such an oath and broken it, then yes, what they say is suspect. You shouldn't blindly trust *anyone*, especially not people who are known to be untrustworthy. If they'll break trust with others, what makes you think that they won't break trust with YOU? Just something to consider.

Whether the "Gardnerian BOS" that is published is real or fabricated doesn't *really* matter so much. Because Gardnerian Wicca is a Mystery religion. The secrets could be written in 6 inch letters on the side of the Sears Tower, but that doesn't mean that people would understand the message.

(Though geraldgardner.com has some scanned letters from Doreen Valiente to T. Allen Greenfield in which she states that Aidan Kelly's published BOS is different in certain key ways from the BOS that she received.)

The way I understand it, it isn't the words or intellectual knowledge of secrets that makes a Mystery a Mystery, it's the deep understanding of it, on several different levels. Gardnerian training, then, prepares you for understanding. It doesn't *force* you to understand, but brings you to a place where you're ready to understand.

One might also question the understanding of a person who's willing to break their oaths...

Tashi delek!
Dawa Lhamo

[Dawa Lhamo]

lol, don't you mean in the past 20 years? ;) It *was* first published 18 years ago, you know. ^_^ I've read several places that list 1988 as the first publication. 1990 is a more common date cited. Scott died in 1993. Llewellyn doesn't list the publication date. Hmmm....

[Elderbush]

Picky, picky! But that's a good thing to be.:) Cunningham's Wicca copyright is from 1988 I believe. Was it only first published in 1993?

Replace Gardnerians for BTW - or the Gardnerian/Alexandrian traditions, although when did those groups decide they were more alike than not? There was a bust up between
British based Gardnerians and American based groups, that occured in the 1970s and produced the American Witches Council which in turn produced before disbanding The Principles of the Wiccan Belief. My own tradition which was formed by Gardnerians came out of that era. They were non-Gardnerian Wiccans in 1979. You may not be aware of it, Deb, but it is not a new thing. There were Wiccans who were non-Gardnerians long before 1993.

The BoS thing can be and has been argued forever. You may believe whatever you wish and so will everyone else - and do.

[Dawa Lhamo]

Replace Gardnerians for BTW - or the Gardnerian/Alexandrian traditions, although when did those groups decide they were more alike than not? There was a bust up between
British based Gardnerians and American based groups, that occured in the 1970s and produced the American Witches Council which in turn produced before disbanding The Principles of the Wiccan Belief. My own tradition which was formed by Gardnerians came out of that era. They were non-Gardnerian Wiccans in 1979. You may not be aware of it, Deb, but it is not a new thing. There were Wiccans who were non-Gardnerians long before 1993.Yep, bastard and umm... mutated... lineages such as my own were cropping up everywhere in the 70's. And I know we were in existence as early as 1972... ^_^ (Before then is a black hole of no return!) But AFAIK, we called ourselves Wiccan the entire time (though we often used "Witch". We also used "Craft" interchangeably with "Wicca"... most of us still do, at least amongst ourselves)...

Now, if we want to talk about self-started Wiccans (not just bastard lineages and mutated offspring, but actual groups that started based solely on published works and their own experimentation) then perhaps Scott Cunningham's "Wicca" is a good start for the *popular* movement in that direction. Though I would conjecture that Buckland's "The Tree", with it's self-initiation into Seax-Wica resulted in at least a few people who were not initiated by a Wiccan calling themselves a Wiccan (even in a general sense).

Maybe that's really the discrepancy. There were a number of non-BTW (though of course they didn't call themselves BTW or non-BTW) Wiccans and Wiccan groups, but the sudden spike in such groups only happened relatively recently (in the past 15 years). Hence, it's been going on far longer, but it's only become an *issue* more recently...

Meh. I dunno.

Tashi delek!
Dawa Lhamo

[Ben Gruagach]

My copy of Scott Cunningham's "Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner" was published in 1990 when I bought it, although with the copyright date stated as 1988 I'm not sure when the first publication of the book actually was. But it was at least as early as 1990.

The version of Gardner's magickal workbook that Aidan Kelly worked with was primarily the first draft we have so far, which was actually called "Ye Bok of Ye Arte Magickal." (http://www.newwiccanchurch.net/articles/ggowol.htm) The version that Doreen Valiente copied from was at least a second draft of Gardner's book, which he had renamed "Book of Shadows" by that point. So it's not really surprising that Doreen Valiente would notice there were some differences between the version she copied and the (older) version Aidan Kelly was examining.

Personally I feel a bit uncomfortable with the insistence that the term Wicca only refers to Gardnerians and Alexandrians and the denominations that they approve of as direct descendants. When Gardner was alive he and pretty much everyone else in the community used the word Wicca as a synonym for witchcraft, not as a term to distinguish what they were doing from other types of witchcraft. The insistence on denominations didn't really come around until Alex Sanders' teachings started to be called "Alexandrian," and Robert Cochrane (who thought Gardner and Sanders and their students were all fakes) started using the label "Gardnerian" (which Cochrane intended to be an insult -- whoops! Didn't quite work out that way.)

So if we look at the historical timeline for when the term Wicca was used to mean a specific subset of witches, primarily Gardnerians and Alexandrians, then it would have started sometime in the 1960s, and would have had to fight the constant use of Wicca as a synonym for witch that was already entrenched in usage. And then when Cunningham's book came out in 1990 (or perhaps a year or two earlier) the emphasis on Wicca as a particular religion incorporating witchcraft was reinforced but left out the Gardnerian and Alexandrian emphasis on formal initiation. So even if we're being generous the era when Wicca meant strictly Gardnerian and Alexandrian (and even then it was not a universal usage) only lasted maybe thirty years if we're being generous.

The idea of lineage and formal initiation was clearly not considered to be important as it wasn't included as one of the Principles of Wiccan Belief (http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_stat1.htm) back in 1974. In fact, point #8 makes it pretty clear that formal initiations aren't necessarily the be-all and end-all. So I think it's safe to say that Scott Cunningham was not really responsible for the idea that you can be Wiccan without a Gardnerian or Alexandrian formal initiation -- although he was certainly a popular author who promoted the idea.

(Edited to add in some links to relevant webpages.)

[arianrhods_daughter]

The publically published BOS is missing a lot of vital info in some parts a word or two in others a whole paragraph, especially in regards to the specific ritual acts and words.

[DebLipp]

I've read several places that list 1988 as the first publication. 1990 is a more common date cited. Scott died in 1993. Llewellyn doesn't list the publication date. Hmmm....
You're quite right! I remember his death so well, I had that date fixed in my mind. So sorry!

[DebLipp]

Picky, picky! But that's a good thing to be.:) Cunningham's Wicca copyright is from 1988 I believe. Was it only first published in 1993?

Replace Gardnerians for BTW - or the Gardnerian/Alexandrian traditions, although when did those groups decide they were more alike than not? There was a bust up between
British based Gardnerians and American based groups, that occured in the 1970s and produced the American Witches Council which in turn produced before disbanding The Principles of the Wiccan Belief. My own tradition which was formed by Gardnerians came out of that era. They were non-Gardnerian Wiccans in 1979. You may not be aware of it, Deb, but it is not a new thing. There were Wiccans who were non-Gardnerians long before 1993.
Sorry, I meant BTW then; the term was coined later but there were certainly Alexandrians and NWC, as well as Mohsians, Kingstone, at the time.

Whatever happened between the British & US Gardnerians in the 70s, there is no bust-up. Doesn't exist. I and many other US Gards are in communication with British Gards. We are friends, we circle together when the opportunity arises. No schism. No division. We're separated by culture to an extent, just as any other Americans and Brits are.

[Elderbush]

I did not mean that there are any problems between British and American Gardnerians today. I was talking about the 1960s and 70s when a lot of groups splintered off because of differences with them.

I must correct something I wrote. My tradition began in 1969 rather than the 1979 I wrote. Sorry about that.