Well this is more of a transcript – thanks Katy it is very complete and we are looking forward to seeing you at a Day For Gerald.
Americans have what they call Big Name Pagans. Here in Britain we
don’t have such things, partly because the initialism “BNP” stands for
something altogether more sinister, and partly because we on this side
of the herring-pond don’t believe in encouraging people to give
themselves airs. We do have a few esteemed elders, people who’ve been
around rather a long time, but if they’re rash enough to start making
pronouncements you can be sure we’ll make a point of disagreeing with
them.
Quite a few of the BNPs we don’t have were at the Day for Doreen
Valiente in Conway Hall on Sunday 13 September.
Ronald Hutton was the first speaker, and he revealed that back in the
1990s he was asked to submit a couple of names to be considered for
the revised edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
He suggested Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders, but they were turned
down because the compilers didn’t believe they had contributed to the
national life of Britain. So (as he tells it) he went away and wrote
“Triumph of the Moon”. Not long after it was published, the ODNB
people were back. They’d read the book. They agreed that they must
have GG and AS – but they must also, they said, have Doreen Valiente.
(Since Oxfordshire libraries subscribe to the online ODNB, I looked
her up when I got home, and there she is – a splendid article written
by Ronald Hutton himself.)
Why was she so important?
Firstly, he said, because of her strength and her style. The
disadvantages she faced were many. She was embracing Paganism and
witchcraft at a time when it was the very thing that British society
had defined itself against for the past 500 years. She was a woman at
a time of male domination, when what mattered were “founding fathers”.
She clashed with Gerald Gardner and with Robert Cochrane when she
asserted herself. She was self-educated, and she lacked the radiant
physical beauty of Maxine, Patricia, Janet and Vivianne (and since
Ronald expected us all to know who they are without adding their
surnames, I’ll assume the same. Three of them were there on the day).Despite these obstacles, Doreen towered over everyone.
Her second strength was her amazing poetic talent. She wrote seasonal
rituals for the solar festivals; she wrote the Charge of the Goddess;
she wrote the Dryghten Prayer; and she wrote a complete Book of
Shadows, containing the invocation which starts “Black spirits and
white ..”. She was very modest about all this: she rested, she said,
on older sources such as the Carmina Gadelica. Certainly there are
echoes, but what she wrote, Ronald pointed out, was actually very
different. The Charge of the Goddess may have been inspired by
Apuleius, but her words are completely original. “Dryghten” is an
Anglo-Saxon word for “God”, but all the rest is hers. The first line
of “Black spirits and white” is a quotation from Dekker, but
everything else is pure Valiente.Thirdly, she was a pioneer of the history and the sources of
witchcraft and Wicca. In 1962 she published “Where Witchcraft Lives”,
about current and medieval witchcraft in Sussex. Later she wrote a
history of contemporary witchcraft, “An ABC of Witchcraft Past &
Present”, which traces its links with Hinduism and other
spiritualities. In collaboration with Janet and Stewart Farrar she
explored the literary sources which inspired Gerald Gardner, and she
tracked down the elusive “Old Dorothy”. Meanwhile she re-invented
herself as a country lady, complete with the Dorset accent which she
kept throughout her life.Doreen continued to explore the dangerous and the counter-cultural.
She introduced new rituals and she wrote a liturgy for Robert
Cochrane. In 1978 she published “Witchcraft for Tomorrow”, which
included a ritual for self-initiation. This was in tune with the
spirit of the times, ushering in a decade of self-discovery during the
1980s, with second-generation feminism, and, exemplified by Starhawk
in America, a new strain of female power. She encouraged people to
explore for themselves and to write their own liturgies.Doreen was born a witch and a poet, said Ronald Hutton, and she was
made a Wiccan by Gardner and a traditional witch by Cochrane.
Finally, her influence has spread beyond witchcraft and Wicca: she set
out the cycle of eight festivals and the circle-casting procedure
which is largely followed (in many different ways) by all the current
Pagan paths.Making notes on Ronald Hutton’s talks always takes it out of my
writing hand, so I missed most of the next speaker, the Portuguese
witch Isobel Andrade, whose practice was inspired by Doreen Valiente’s
book “Natural Magic”. Isobel and her husband Jose Ferreira helped to
develop the project of an international Pagan Federation, and became
co-ordinators for Portugal, Spain and Brazil. So widely spread the
ripples cast by Doreen Valiente!Marian Green, who spoke next, is well known to all of us for being
completely down-to-earth, often literally. She entertained us with
scurrilous stories of Doreen and others. One of her stories had
Doreen wrapping all her ritual equipment in the then newly-invented
plastic bags, and the whole coven chasing after them as they blew away
in the pitch dark. This attracted the large number of cows which
lived in Doreen’s chosen field, who gathered round the witches, their
eyes gleaming green and their breath rapidly becoming a
not-very-mystic fog. Doreen, Marian said, didn’t like cows very much.The point, though, was that she and Doreen and the rest of the coven
were doing their rite for the living earth: magic lived in the woods
and hills and wild places. The worked in the dark, so everything was
unscripted: you couldn’t read in the dark, you had to act from your
spirit and connect to the power of the land, or on a seashore to the
power of the ocean.Marian regaled us with the occasion when the occultist Bill (W.G.)
Gray was invited. He thought he should sort out the weather by
conjuring up a foggy evening, for privacy and security. Doreen, who
knew these hills and knew there was no likelihood of interruption,
wanted a clear starry sky. Up the hill they went. At the top, thick
mist lay on the ground … up to four feet high, with the starry sky
above it!Bill swung the thurible vigorously, but being unused to outdoor
working he hit a tree, showered himself with hot ashes, hit himself on
the forehead with the rebounding thurible, and decided he didn’t like
witches. He went back to working in basements.For Marian and Doreen in those days the power of the elements was
really there: they inspired us, she said, and they brought such power
- she seldom experienced anything as powerful as the evenings with
Doreen in the Sussex hills. Doreen has left a legacy of books and
words of magical power, linking to the Goddess of land, sky, trees,
and bringing that power through to share with others. When Doreen
held these meetings they included witches, Druids, Christians, all
varieties: there was no need to have any particular path or practice,
all came together to celebrate and honour the power of the land.Oh, and Bill Gray, Marian added, made a brilliant pantomime dame …
Ralph Harvey, who was next on to the platform, was also entertaining
in his uniquely bizarre and wacky way, but I took no notes, so he’ll
have to be left to the imagination.After lunch, Maxine Sanders spoke on keeping the Craft “secret and
sacred”. She recognised, she said, that within the Mysteries there
was room for all opinions, and began by saying that it is actually
impossible to reveal the real secrets to people who are not in a
mental or spiritual place to understand them. The Mysteries are
hidden for a reason: being hidden means that not everyone will seek
for them; but a true vocation will never be denied. Through
initiation, the witch moves out of the mundane into the priesthood,
into a commitment to the magical journey and movement out of the
ordinary. Nonetheless, there are always exceptions to the rule of
initiation.Since the early 1970s, new lines and traditions are being introduced
all the time. Over time, though, they often revert to the originals,
mainly because this is what works. Modern or “progressive” witchcraft
is different from the earlier 1960s version: there has been a
transition from fear-based secrecy to a more open practice. The Craft
does acknowledge sincere developments: the true witch is open to
adventure.However, Maxine said, she wanted to challenge irresponsible initiators
who cause harm and/or give no training or support. Not all High
Priestesses are good at teaching or at supporting initiates on their
life-long experiential path. A few initiators travel around, visit
places and initiate people and then go, leaving them to fend for
themselves, and this is irresponsible. And some High Priestesses
leave out magic altogether. Without magic one can be a Pagan and
worship the Goddess, but to be a witch it’s necessary to worship
through the practice of magic. Doreen Valiente’s philosophy was that
everyone was capable of magic, some more than others.Some parts of Wicca, Maxine continued, have lost the mystery and
gained ordinariness, partly because they publish details of the
mystery of initiation (and here, I hardly need to add, she was having
a thinly-veiled dig at one or two of the other speakers in the
programme). In this respect, the Craft is the victim of its own
success: the books are in demand because there are not enough covens
or initiators. But people who learn only from books can miss out on
the necessary discipline. Self-discipline and work over time are
needed; people are disappointed if they believe that results are
possible without commitment and work. In some cases, in consequence,
Wicca has lost power, and moved towards a purely intellectual
exercise. The effects of real ritual, however, are not ordinary, and
can be very scary. A pre-requisite for this work is mental stability.Finally, it would be good to concentrate on our own development rather
than criticising the paths of others – unless what they do is actually
harmful. We all need a touch of self-mockery and great
self-awareness, she said. The “evoked ego” is there to perform the
magic and create the desired effect, but it’s not for personal glory.
We keep the magic secret in order to maintain the sacred.Mary Rands was next, but I’ve only noted one point of hers – but that
a telling one. Initiators, if any, she said, are only the channel of
the Gods: it is They who initiate.Next (it was a fast-paced, packed day) was one of Gerald Gardner’s few
surviving initiates, Fred Lamond. He talked about his early
experiences of Gerald’s coven, into which he was initiated in 1957 by
Dayonis, as Doreen wasn’t there. At that time there were tensions
within the coven over Gerald’s willingness to be interviewed for the
Press, and it split shortly afterwards, with most of the coven members
choosing to go with Doreen while Fred and a few others stayed with
Gerald and Dayonis – although Doreen’s part disbanded a year later.Fred had no contact with Doreen for the next thirty years. Later,
when he asked her about the split, she said that she couldn’t bear to
take an oath of secrecy only to see Gerald telling everyone all about
it. To Gerald the oath was high drama; to Doreen it was a proper
promise, to be taken seriously. Fred himself, he said, believed that
secrecy is essential for new initiates, but the more experienced come
to know what they can and can’t talk about.Robert Cochrane, Fred said, invented the term “Gardnerian”, and ran
them down because they were not “hereditary”. Gerald, Alex Sanders
and Robert all had a lot of ego and display, whereas this was not at
all true of Doreen, whose contribution was crucial, and indeed has
kept going long after Gerald’s and Alex’s claims of unbroken
initiations are forgotten. Doreen had very little time for “lineage”.
A Long Island coven which gave out “pedigrees” to their initiates were
not pleased when Doreen found this ridiculous and said so.Fred’s only quibble is over Doreen’s claim that people can
self-initiate: he holds that the term “initiation” implies admission
into a group, and that self-initiation would be more appropriately
called a dedication. Such people would still need to be initiated
into a coven when and if they joined one, even if they needed no
further initiation into the service of the Gods.Following Fred, there was a panel which discussed questions from the
floor. It was an impressive line-up: the panellists were Gavin Bone,
Janet Farrar, Lois Bourne, Marian Green, Ronald Hutton, Zach Cox, and
Jean Williams. A great deal of ground was covered, and the questions
came thick and fast. In answer to the first, Janet said that being
given her second and third degrees together, when she was in her
twenties, was rubbish: she didn’t have the necessary experience, and
she doesn’t agree with it. The next question and answer were very
short: is the internet a help or a hindrance? Answer: both!The next question was about “hyphen-Wicca ” – “Christian Wicca”,
various fictional-character-Wiccas. Gavin replied that the real
question is “Will it work?” He once saw a Klingon ritual in
California, devised on the spur of the moment in response to a
feminist objection to a straight “exclusive male” ritual; it worked.
Jean answered, in relation to Christian Wicca, that there was some
meeting-ground: there have been instances of women dancing circles in
cathedrals, and there are increasing numbers of multifaith dedications
and a general movement towards a greater honouring of nature. Much of
the religious side of Wicca is very meaningful to meditative and
mystic Christians. Where they part company, however, is over magic
versus prayer. But the conflicts are on the whole not between the
ideas, but at the level at which they’re applied: there is no “one
true way”. Lois added that Gerald Gardner believed it was possible to
be both a Christian and a Wiccan. There were a couple of further
questions about the compatibility of Wicca with different cultures and
nationalities: Janet replied that Wicca and its equivalents was the
Old Religion of every culture in the world, and it’s your own Deities
who initiate and teach you: no man or woman can teach you the Craft.Responding to a question about current developments, Marian was glad
that Paganism has become acceptable, no longer gets a bad Press, and
that the Police Federation can have its own Pagan group, Halloween is
widely celebrated, and Scotland now has the validity of Paganism
written into its constitution. Gavin, as the “new guy” who had
arrived at Paganism in the 1980s, saw a repeating pattern over the
years, with peaks of new ideas and new people, and troughs of
consolidation: the ideas that are found to work are kept, there’s a
period of stability, then something else new happens. In the 1980s it
was Shamanism; in the 1990s it was Buffy. We are currently in a
stable phase, but there will be another wave of new ideas along in a
year or two. Paganism evolves: if you believe in Mother Nature, you
believe in evolution.Next, a question about cyberpagans and youngsters: has Paganism become
too mainstream? Ronald said that cyberspace represented the open
frontier: it was good to have a measure of respectability, but Wicca
and paganism also still represent revolution, and we shouldn’t become
just another stream in the supermarket: we should always progress.
Zach saw cyberspace as part of the mythos of the 21st century, with
God the Game Designer: Buddhism was at one end of the spectrum and
cybernetics at the other. In Hebrew, he noted, “W” and “V” are the
same letter, and the numeric values for the letters www are 666:
perhaps the US fundamentalists will notice this one day! For Gavin,
cyberspace is magic, pure energy, and it’s the younger generation’s
medium: we all need to accept that, or we cannot pass on our
knowledge.Should we be teaching children the Craft? Yes, said Janet, teach them
about all the religions, and they’ll choose. Yes, said Gavin – all
the other religions do, why can’t we? We shouldn’t teach them magic,
but we should certainly introduce them to the festivals. The rest of
the panel agreed.One questioner had met a coven of “fundamentalist” witches who
rejected anything “non-Wiccan”, such as meditation, which they saw as
belonging to an alien tradition. Jean replied that the Wiccan way was
to teach, and learn, about everything that might be valuable:
one-true-wayism is anathema. Gavin added that the first law of the
Craft is “If it works, use it”. Janet said that if a teacher forbids
things and doesn’t give a good reason, walk away from that teacher.
Ronald cautioned that there can be practical problems for children,
for instance at school or with friends, and that there sometimes need
to be boundaries. He saw the current Craft as a series of concentric
circles, starting in the centre with Gerald Gardner, moving out to his
initiates, next to Wiccans who have learnt from Doreen Valiente’s
books, then to self-initiated covens in the US, and then to the new,
self-invented traditions.In response to a question about oath-bound material, Janet said that
the original Book of Shadows was very thin: she and Stewart devised
and put together the rituals which were eventually published in what
became “A Witches’ Bible”. These rituals were meant as guidelines,
and people were expected to work out their own: as a result, what
Gerald Gardner started has been amplified year on year. Gavin agreed:
Gardner and Alex Sanders simply gave frameworks. The Oath in Janet’s
and Gavin’s practice relates to secrets within the group, just as in
any therapeutic group: the secrets are to do with people, not pieces
of paper. Ronald’s take on this question was that there can be no one
rule: each group or coven must interpret it for themselves Gerald’s
own “Witchcraft Today” published two full-scale rituals. In the US,
however, particular groups have their own defining liturgies. As
ever, if it works for you, do it.Finally, a questioner asked whether there might ever be a specifically
“Valientean” tradition of the Craft. Ronald spoke for everyone when
he said that this was the last thing she would have wanted: Doreen’s
work is in all the strands of the Craft: don’t let us tie her to just
one!The panel session was something of a marathon, and as a result I
missed most of the talk by a charming young American, Will Kale (the
only person there who was wearing a tie). He has been working with
John Belham-Payne, Doreen’s last working partner, to archive her
legacy, under the auspices of the Centre for Pagan Studies.The last speakers were Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone. Gavin had put
together his own spiritual path, taking nature Gods from Hinduism,
reincarnation from Buddhism, polarity from Taoism, before reading
Doreen Valiente’s “An ABC of Witchcraft” and immediately getting that
“coming home feeling” of realising that he was a witch. In due course
he met Janet and Stewart: Janet took him to meet Doreen, and he was
immediately struck by how unassuming she was, as she told them to sit
down while she went to make a cup of tea. Gerald Gardner’s Book of
Shadows, he said, was propping up one leg of her bed. Doreen never
called herself a High Priestess outside the circle: she said that
there were no lords or ladies in witchcraft except the Lord and the
Lady.Janet first met Doreen through Alex Sanders, who said that she was
“reclusive and crotchety”: she wasn’t, except when she was interrupted
while watching the World Cup. Janet and Stewart published some of
Doreen’s rituals, under the belief that they were rituals which had
been handed down to Alex from his grandmother, and were criticised for
revealing Craft secrets: however, Doreen wrote to Stewart telling him
that she had written them, and was perfectly happy for them to be
published.In another letter, Doreen wrote that she hated the fact that her
version of the Charge of the Goddess was being used all the time, when
it had been intended only as a back-up if a priestess’s own
spontaneous invocation failed to materialise. The original Charge was
a mixture of Leland and Aleister Crowley: Doreen re-wrote it, cutting
out Crowley’s phraseology, but found that she had still left echoes of
Crowley, whose poetry she very much admired. She certainly never
considered the Charge to be oath-bound, and wanted it published: she
wanted people to read Janet’s and Stewart’s book rather than Lady
Sheba’s.A further letter from Doreen addressed the “Craft Laws”, which Gerald
was said to have written and which Lady Sheba had produced in a
much-expanded version. Gerald’s “laws” had actually been written by
Doreen. She was fed up with Gerald constantly giving interviews and
sending material out. The coven tried to get a set of rules agreed,
and Doreen typed them out, but Gerald said this was unnecessary since
laws already existed. He then produced them, but Doreen and the
others had never seen them before, and were sure Gerald had simply
made them up on the spot. No laws existed, Doreen said, before 1957.
Gerald was just as bad as Alex for publicity and invention.Doreen herself, said Janet, was happy to curse if the occasion
required it, as when there was a rapist at large in Brighton, where
she lived. She wanted Wicca to be honest, and her approach to the
Book of Shadows was either to track down the original or to write it
herself. In doing so, she drew on the literature of the time.Finally, summing up, Janet said that Doreen brought groundedness and
reality to the Craft, as well as poetry, prose and liturgy.The last part of the programme was a video of Doreen herself. It was
a joy to see her again, if only on a screen. As John Belham-Payne
said in his introduction, she was always smiling.It was an excellent day, and a stellar cast of speakers (except of
course that we don’t have stars here). And there were others, not on
the platform but simply being there: I was delighted to catch up with
Vivianne and Chris Crowley, and to see Philip Heselton, to name but
three. Congratulations and thanks to the organisers, the Centre for
Pagan Studies and John Belham-Payne.
–
Katy Jennison
19
Nov
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