The Advanced Witch
and the Craft
In the beginning of your journey into the many worlds of Witchcraft, you
probably looked upon the Witches who were teaching you with some measure of awe.
You were just embarking on a journey they had enjoyed time and again, and everything they said or did fascinated you. Like a sponge in the Sahara, you just couldn't soak up enough water from the well of knowledge they had to offer. You may even have embarrassed a few of your teachers with your adoration because their vast experience made them seem so competent, so knowledgeable, and so holy that you almost confused them with your own spiritual goals.
Then, to your ultimate confusion, you discovered that even the most elder among them still considered himself to be a humble student of the Craft, a servant of his patron deities, and a friend to the elements rather than their master. He might have had more experience than you, but he never claimed to be better. If he was the right kind of teacher, he refused to be idolized and he never talked down to you. No question you wanted to ask was too silly or so simple that he wouldn't give it serious thought and an
honest reply-even if that reply was "I don't know."
He may have surprised you even more by referring to you as
his teacher.What a head rush! It was as if the world had just turned inside out and everyone was now upside down. There was so much information to be filed in your mind, so many myths to hear, so many related areas to explore, so many exciting ideas to dissect, and you wanted to do them all at once. Yet your teacher took you one step at a time, not only sharing and
teaching but also listening and learning from you as well.
Chances are about 99.999 percent that not all your first efforts succeeded, at least not at the lightning-fast pace you would have liked. Like the title of one well-known metaphysical book, you may have categorized your initial studies as an experiment in Rick Field's
Carry Water, Chop Wood (J. P. Tarcher Publishing, 1985). You wanted to know when the "real" magick would begin, still ignorant of the fact that it was already in motion around you and within you. You were learning the essential lessons of patience
and self-discipline, enjoying and appreciating the process of the Craft rather than valuing only the end results.
This was maddening to you at first, but if you stuck it out-and you apparently did if you're reading this-you discovered Witchcraft was a religion that required self-discipline and hard work from the individual, a coordination of body, mind, and spirit that can't be taught or learned overnight. Before any lessons would stick in your head, your wise teachers knew two things had to happen. Number one, the swelling of said head
had to be brought under your control, and number two, you had to learn the hard lesson that Witchcraft is a
process, a verb rather than a noun. It might have had a markable beginning, but it has no end. Those who can't learn to carry water, chop wood, cast circles, call quarters, evoke deities, etc., with patience and a love for the process itself would never become or remain a Witch.
In some cases, even that first year and a day was not enough to learn all the basic tenets, concepts, and practices at the journeyman's level, and definitely not long enough to master more than one or-if you were really gifted in a special area-two.You also discovered that, unlike the religion into which you were probably born, no single leader was going to step forward and do all the ritual and magickal work for you, or even explain to you after showing him your ten blistered fingers from wood chopping,
and your thirty-third trip to the well, what all the water and wood were for. If you still didn't get it, you might even have been asked to move the water and wood back where you found them, either literally or metaphorically.
Screwy religion, eh?
At this point you might have questioned your commitment to the Craft.Whether you were aware of it or not, it was expected that you would question just what you were getting yourself into. You were the only one who knew the answers to the questions your teachers were trying to provoke you to probe:Would you have the courage to stick out
your entire initial training, or would you decide you knew more than your teachers and the deities and strike out on your own? Or would you realize that you wouldn't be doing all this for no purpose and stick with it even if everything didn't make sense yet? Were you sensing anything spiritual happening in your life, or were all you could see those ten blistered fingers? You might have begun to feel like a lackey, not a student, and suddenly
your teachers didn't seem so idyllic anymore.
Things may be starting to seem a little less screwy now. The aforementioned frustrations were signs that you were learning, testing, thinking, feeling, and growing, whether you knew it or not. You were starting to catch on, but there was still much work to be done.
You might also have been frustrated to madness that lessons in magick were not as forthcoming as you'd like. You were anxious to cast spells, light candles, chant, drum until dawn, call out the elementals, and evoke deities. All manner of witchy things were itching to pop like flames from your anxious fingertips (blistered or not). Yet your teachers held this knowledge back until much later in your studies
.
Even though you were starting to catch on, there was one important semantic distinction you had to understand: the difference between
wisdom and
knowledge. They are not, never have been, nor ever will be the same animal, even though they can appear asidentical twins. They are the beginning of our transformation from form into spirit, governed by the cerebral element of air.Within air we learn to connect all parts of our
minds to expand our thinking, helping us transfer our thoughts into magickal actions.
Just like Dorothy Gale in
The Wizard of Oz had to figure out the answer to her own problem, you also had to gain the wisdom, not just the knowledge, that your answers were within you all the time. Finding and recognizing it is the hard part, but the process you take to get there is as important as any end result. You had to attain the wisdom that your commitment to learn was ongoing, the eternal learning curve of an ancient mystery faith.
Knowing is easy, wisdom is hard.
So you kept carrying water and chopping wood as, one by one, bright rays of enlightenment began illuminating your mind and soul.
Baby Steps to the Next Level
As an intermediate student of Witchcraft, you began to appreciate all the
hard work your teachers insisted on having you do; well, maybe not the ten blistered fingers, but the other stuff was okay. All your efforts-not theirs, but yours-disciplined not only your body but also your mind and spirit, and your hours of meditation and visualization practice was now paying off. Your broader view of how all these pieces fit together as a whole was making you a stronger Witch, both spiritually and in your magick
and ritual practices.
As Nin-Si-Ana, a longtime priestess friend of mine, is fond of saying, "Well, whop me upside the head with the great frying pan of enlightenment."
Boing!
"And, by the way, bring me another bucket of water."
As you continued upon your chosen path, wisdom was replacing knowledge. You began to progress more rapidly. You could see the results of much of your training and so you read, and listened, and spent lots of time contemplating cosmology and eschatology to form your own theories from the thousands of others already hypothesized. You did the same with concepts of reincarnation, the web of being, the deities, and magick.
You blessed the foresight of your teachers for withholding lessons of specific skills until you were ready to handle them responsibly. You understood now that they weren't being dictatorial for the fun of it, but that all life is one and that they, too, would bear the karma your magick created, being as responsible for your errors in judgment as would you because they were showing you the way.
Folk magick is owned by the common people, and it always will be, but when it becomes part of a larger religious practice you must first be well grounded in that faith's ethics and ideology before you can handle the magick with wisdom. Then it not only becomes more powerful, it centers you in the web of being from where you can draw great power. It takes experience to turn knowledge into wisdom, and there's not one of
us who can claim not to have singed a fingertip or two in the beginning.
Overall, as an intermediate, you were satisfied with your progress and, as those who have climbed the tree to knowledge before you, you yearned for more. Terms such as mage, elder, adept, sage, crone, avatar, wise woman, cunning man, master, third degree, priest, and priestess danced in your head. You knew they were synonymous with advanced practitioners of the Craft, and you desired to sort them out in your mind and find the path you needed to forge your way ahead.
Which Brings Us to Mystery #1. . .
You have learned by now that advanced Witchcraft is not synonymous with
greater complexity, but with becoming a greater person. To do that requires both bold daring and humility.
Huh?
Where'd that frying pan go? At this point you may feel like giving yourself a few whacks just to enjoy the process.
All Are Students, All Are Teachers
No one's definition of advancement in the Craft is going to be the same as
anyone else's, as we shall soon see, but our ideas of the many things that comprise advanced practice may change, expand, or contract over time. This is good. It shows we're still thinking, still questioning, and still growing as bo...
