Coming to the Edge of the Circle: A Wiccan Initiation Ritual (American Academy of Religion Academy) [Hardcover]

Nikki Bado-Fralick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0195166450 | ISBN-13: 978-0195166453

Imagine yourself sitting on the cool damp earth, surrounded by deep night sky and fields full of fireflies, anticipating the ritual of initiation that you are about to undergo. Suddenly you hear the sounds of far-off singing and chanting, drums booming, rattles "snaking," voices raised in harmony. The casting of the Circle is complete. You are led to the edge of the Circle, where Death, your challenge, is waiting for you. With the passwords of "perfect love" and "perfect trust" you enter Death's realm. The Guardians of the four quarters purify you, and you are finally reborn into the Circle as a newly made Witch.
Coming to the Edge of the Circle offers an ethnographic study of the initiation ritual practiced by one coven of Witches located in Ohio. As a High Priestess within the coven as well as a scholar of religion, Nikki Bado-Fralick is in a unique position to contribute to our understanding of this ceremony and the tradition to which it belongs. Bado-Fralick's analysis of this coven's initiation ceremony offers an important challenge to the commonly accepted model of "rites of passage." Rather than a single linear event, initiation is deeply embedded within a total process of becoming a Witch in practice and in community with others.
Coming to the Edge of the Circle expands our concept of initiation while giving us insight into one coven's practice of Wicca. An important addition to Ritual Studies, it also introduces readers to the contemporary nature religion variously called Wicca, Witchcraft, the Old Religion, or the Craft.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Competent, persuasive, and succinct, this book is effective both in questioning ritual studies theoretical standard and in presenting a balanced case study of a Wiccan ritual. Highly recommended." --Choice

"In this fascinating study of membership in a Wiccan community, Bado-Fralick combines first-hand records of religious experience with analysis on insider-outsider problems in the study of religion. An excellent resource for undergraduate teaching that students will want to read and discuss."-- Amanda Porterfield, author of Healing in the History of Christianity

"Coming to the Edge of the Circle is an account of the Wiccan religion as it is practiced and lived in modern America, but the book offers much more than a simple description of faith and practice. Throughout, the author has much worthwhile to say about the dilemmas of being an academic observing and participating in religious ritual, and in the process, she raises many good questions about how religion and ritual can be taught in the contemporary academic world. A real contribution to the scholarly study of ritual." -- Philip Jenkins, author of Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality

"For all the generalized talk about ritual, there are few sustained studies of actually performed rites. In Coming to the Edge of the Circle Nikki Bado-Fralick offers a lively narrative account of Wiccan initiation into the Merry Circle. Her stories become occasions for reflection on crucial topics -- bodiliness, intimacy, ritual learning, group formation, and group dissolution. Too many studies of ritual activity are either conducted awkwardly by outsiders peering in at the dancers or written desperately by insiders courting the approval of doubting critics. Bado-Fralick's interpretive dance is of another ilk. She crisscrosses the circumference of ritual and academic circles with remarkable alacrity, performing candidly and playfully." -- Ronald L. Grimes, author of Deeply into the Bone: Reinventing Rites of Passage

About the Author

Nikki-Bado Fralick is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Women's Studies at Iowa State University. She is also a High Priestess within the Merry Circle coven.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195166450
• ISBN-13: 978-0195166453
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.8 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,780,642 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Sure Why This Was Published April 23, 2013

By Garnet

Format:Paperback

I got this book to read and was confused by it. Clearly, it was written as a thesis for academia, and then the author revised it in order to try and make it more readable as a work that non-academics might buy. However, perhaps it was this process that made the book no longer what it was supposed to be about since it seemed that the meat of the subject was supposed to be the actual initiation itself (or so the book implied), but it talked a lot about the individual practice of her intial training group and the group she was involved with starting and internal coven politics and her own personal experiences. (She argued about why personal subjective experiences were or should be okay in an academic thesis, which actually is another whole topic in and of itself.)

The author was one of the leaders of Merry Circle, an Ohio-based coven and other off-shoots of that coven. She discusses their process of teaching students, dedication rites, and finally the initiation rites. She also relates her own experiences with "Sam," a High Priest who trained her and a few others, but never made them "Seconds." There is some confusion here about what Sam was teaching, but the implication was that it was supposed to be some form of British Traditional Craft (NOT Gardnerian or Alexandrian, however). This was back in the 1970's.

The book delves into a rather dry academic debate at different points and then jumps back into personal history. Again, not sure if the original work stuck closer to the academic aspect of the thesis or not. Because of this back and forth between focus, this book likely won't really appeal very much to the average pagan on the street OR to strict academics, as one might find parts of it boring and the others find it too non-scholarly. One other issue is that, as it is based much more off of the author's personal experiences than, say, the results of interviews or surveys with other groups or lines, the things she talks about and explores may or may not apply to common Wiccan practice. As an exploration of the whys and wherefors for HER particular group, it makes interesting reading...but you can't really extrapolate from there.

For example, in regards to the author taking issue with only having one Priest and one Priestess "channel" the God and Goddess in the circle...instead, they started having the God and Goddess energy being drawn into everyone/the circle. It wasn't clear from that then if actual possession-work was involved in their group or not. The only argument about why they chose to change this practice was due to not liking the Priest and Priestess channeling the Gods to "lord it over" everyone else. It seems that the author didn't get or takes personal issue with the idea that, at that time, they are NOT the Priest and Priestess, but that you are paying respect to the God and Goddess through their bodies. She talked about this solely on the basis of her own experience, rather than adding in what others might have to say about the topic.

Overall, the book is not one I would recommend to any newbies. It is definitely "A" Wiccan initiation ritual...and not meant to be reflective of most Wiccan initiation rituals. But it might be confused that way, especially by outsiders, including the academics it was originally aimed at. Too bad.

Perhaps, a second re-write might have made this better. It's hard to make a book be both acceptable to academia (say, for fulfilling her thesis work) and appeal to a wider audience, so I can't blame the author entirely.

I'm not likely to keep this book, though, or care to read it again. A book about Wiccan Initiation in relation to common themes of initation (say for shamanic cultures and other religions, etc) might be a good idea, but this book is not really that book.

3 of 14 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth reading October 20, 2010

By LadyDawn

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I found this book boring and not worth reading. I have about 50 books on Wicca and this one was a dud. Sorry. I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone to read.