A Deed without a Name: The Complexity of Witchcraft Traditions

Macbeth:
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags.
What is’t you do?

The Witches:
A deed without a name.

Act 4, Scene 1 - Macbeth, Shakespeare.

(Also - A Deed without a Name - is the title of my dear friend Lee Morgan’s first non-fiction work. Go read it.)

If you are a dedicant of European-derived/influenced forms of contemporary witchcraft you will likely have comes across the notion that in the “early days” (the 50s and 60s… maybe the 70s) there wasn’t a lot of delineation between forms of witchcraft. It’s likely true that people did speak like this - reflectively, at least - but did folks think and act like this? According to the evidence - the magazines, the periodicals, the correspondence, the literature - it is likely that witches were quite clannish back then and each thought very highly of their own ways of witchery. At times this was the cause of great conflict and woe: one such story of course is recounted by Doreen Valiente regarding Robert Cochrane’s loathing of the Gardnerians (a term he may have coined and used pejoratively). I have encountered this sectarianism myself and I was born in the late 80s, coming to the Craft in the year 2000. However it’s also true that initiates of various Craft lineages and witches belonging to private family threads did occasionally share spells, recipes, lore, and myth with each other. Sometimes they would initiate or adopt each other into one another’s groups.

I have had the great privilege and pleasure - met with a great deal of hard work on my part - of travelling in five continents teaching, enacting, and honouring Witchcraft. In my travels I have met, befriended, done ritual, and stayed with witches from a variety of traditions. Some of these traditions I didn’t even know existed until I met people from them! I have very close friends - beloveds - who are initiates of Gardnerian and Alexandrian Traditions, of Kingstone and Central Valley Wicca, of Anderson Feri/Faery, Anderean, Wildwood, Reclaiming, unnamed hereditary-family based lineages… I know folks who have been initiated into groups connected to the Clan of Tubal Cain, Obeah witchcraft threads, and Dianic Wicca. I have friends amongst the West Coast Eclectic lineages, the Unnamed Path, the Tower Family Tradition, and the Temple Tradition of Witchcraft… the list goes on - it really does. I have personally participated deeply in the Mysteries of four Craft traditions: they all mean something significant to me and I carry deep respect for each. I also know something of what it means to be raised with magic and spirit-work, to descend from generations of folk magicians, village priests, and ecstatic wielders of life-force… This shit is complex.

I don’t think of or story primordial witchcraft - which I perceive as a Story-Spirit with great agency and profound sovereignty - as broken into Traditions. Witches are witches are witches. I accept as well that it requires profound desire to be a Witch, to go through the experience of Initiation, and to know the Spirits as ourselves - our family - and to wield power and change through and with Fate. There is something known as the Witch Mark - some relate it to the Mark of Cain that God cursed-blessed him with - which is known to other Witches. The ways in which this presents are myriad so I am not going to list any examples. Suffice it to say witches often know one another. So then, why Traditions?

What is a tradition of witchcraft, really?

My working definition might go,
A witchcraft tradition is a sorcerous and mystical conclave of witches who participate within and are engaged by specific powers, spirits, and mysteries passed via rites of initiation. A tradition of witches might emerge when a body of knowledge, a series of mysteries, rites of initiation are passed and inherited in three initiatory generations.

Origins and histories of traditions are often very complex and filled with unsaid things and things that can never be said. They usually involve groups of witches - covens - that are called to work together, sponsored by other groups or folk, mighty spirits (some will call these “contacts”), and often by red threads of magic and spirit-work charging the group with links to something else, something beyond and through the human maze of life and death. It is very common for propounders of Traditions of Witchcraft to speak of the person who initiated them in veiled terms, or the covens who brought them in… and just as often various pieces of information may be passed post-initiation that can not or should not be passed beforehand. Sometimes traditions emerge from other groups or lineages. Sometimes this is a break or a branching or simply a different stream. Sometimes there’s pain and heartache, resentment and conflict. It’s all very human.

At initiation into a Witchcraft tradition several things might occur:

the witch themself becomes a locus - the centre to the circumference - in which the Virtue of the Tradition becomes focused and anchored. This happens to and with each initiate.

the witch becomes linked as kin to the witches present in that rite and to those who have been present with those witches and to those who have been present with those witches, including the witches who have died.

the witch is gifted certain sacred knowledge that is considered key to the Tradition and must not be shared with non-initiates.

the witch is empowered.

the witch undergoes serious transformation which may have already begun and may continue post the rite of initiation itself. The rite however may help to anchor and contain these harrowing, dismembering, deeply healing and transformative powers.

There are implications for each of these things. The implications are part of the Mystery of the unfolding of that Initiation. One of the gifts and strengths of undergoing initiation in an established Tradition of the Craft is that you have others who have gone through the same things, who were passed the same knowledge, who speak the same names, and cherish the same lore as you. Thus, there is a greater context beyond human relationships to stretch into and drink from. There is a collective beyond your own individual experience that does not just concern human happenings and agendas, but vaster ones… we have the Ancestors, Spirits, and Gods of the Tradition as Family and Teachers.

Some traditions will extract oaths and others will not. In some traditions, the oaths are implicit rather than explicit and the challenges are subtle in the moment, but hugely potent in the long-term. I have sworn oaths in my initiations, I have made vows witnessed by the Gods. These bind me even more so to the human community of initiates as held by the more-than-human Great Ones who inspire, provoke, initiate, and keep us.

Therefore I need to tel you the truth. Working in Witch Traditions is hard. My behaviour and conduct is accountable to many different people. Some of these people are my closest friends and confidantes, some I barely know, others I might not even engage with. There are of course vastly differing opinions and perspectives on what is considered proper conduct and behaviour within Traditions. Some initiates would rather that no one write about the Craft, that no one teach any workshop, intensive or course (regardless of whether it’s part of the Tradition or not) publicly, that no one speak to non-initiates about the Craft at all. As a published author and professional teacher of techniques, processes, and ways of witchery and spirit-work I am already stepping on people’s toes. However I do not belong to any Tradition in which any of that is banned or considered necessarily bad to do. I draw certain lines in the sand however. I will not and have never charged for any training that leads to initiation into a witchcraft tradition; I do not charge for witchcraft initiation. There are certain things I will never publish, say in a class, or even bring up with a student of the Craft. And there are complexities always in these relational realities. It’s important for me to continue to participate in community processes and navigate with others even when I don’t always agree. I know many witches who are initiated into Craft Traditions (because being initiated into a Craft Tradition does not make a witch) who have taught classes, conduct professional magical business, and who write books, or record podcasts, or make art. We each have our ways.

I co-authored a book on the Iron Pentacle practice within the Reclaiming Tradition. The Iron Pentagram (Pentacle) was once considered - by some - secret lore in Anderson Feri and not shared with people outside the Tradition. It was published in a variety of ways in the 70s, but most certainly by Starhawk in her 1979 book The Spiral Dance. Since then it has become a known quantity to anyone paying attention in the wider witchcraft world in the so-called west. The thing about what is private and what is secret may also shift. If it’s truly secret then you wouldn’t even know about it. If something is private, you may know of it and respect that it is so. Of course there are quite a few folks who demand that all knowledge is given freely, that what is held by Witch Houses is transmitted to those desirous of it. The thing is, if you are desirous of it, then do the work. Forge the relationships, commit to the disciplines, surrender to the Mystery, and be transformed. That is how we might come to Know.

Initiation is only the beginning. Sometimes years may precede the formal initiatory rite. Seven and a half years of “mostly on-sometimes off” training preceded my formal initiation into Anderson Feri, but it wasn’t until I was initiated - and a little after - that I went “oh…!” I was teaching and priestessing in Reclaiming for 6 years before my Reclaiming Initiation. This rite of passage deeply affirmed for me my family-ness with my initiators, with the profound undercurrent of Reclaiming, and with myself as a divine human animal as my beloved Ravyn would say. Other times I have been brought through rather quickly, but the hard work came after catalysed by the power of the initiatory working. Different traditions work… differently! This is true even within branches or lines of that Tradition. We can never really assume how it’s going to go. I have promised myself however that I will listen to my vulnerable, fragile, complex humanity as much as I listen to the Spirits.

So… what is all of this about really?

I can’t answer that for you. What it will be about for you is specific and contextual to the landscape of the being that is You. But here are some things I know will likely-probably unfold if you choose to walk the Crooked Road and exalt the Flame between the Horns as your origin and destiny…

You will fall in love and you will experience heartbreak and it will hurt…

You will feel profound connection and experience monumental shifts in perspective…

You will be utterly transformed and you won’t even notice until years later…

That which is not substantial, not rooted strong and solid, will be stripped from you and life as you know it will change…

You will, hopefully, become more of you who really are and experience great pleasure, intimate knowing, and feel held by the Infinite…

And Initiation does not end.

Be aware.
Be aware.
Be aware.

I dedicate this to One who I witnessed undergo Wildwood Initiation this past Friday night - the Lady’s night - with the roaring of the ocean and sacred Country as our accomplices.

Art: Race of Hero Spirits Pass, Walter Crane (1845-1915)