Back from the Underworld

It's been a hel of a long time since I posted to this journal. Since my last post a great many things have happened. Trying to go over all of them would be the work of days and perhaps I'll have a chance to fill it all in.

What I think I will look at is again the Admission process. We've looked at Initiation and now it behooves to start looking at Admission. The difference between thw two is most pronounced at the outset, although they are tied together. Quite frankly, the one should not be possible without the other. The attempt to combine or to blur them is a mistake that a great many groups make. It is also the source of the bizarre notion of "self initiation" that has been packaged and mass marketed by various unscrupulous and irresponsible individuals over the years.

The main challenge in Admission to a given current lies with the candidate. It consists of a mutual affinity between the candidate and the clan or cuveen spirits. Quite frankly, it is possible to have an initiate who is not a fit for admission. Of course it is just as easy to have a complete failure at Initiation who gets - under some misguided sentiment - admitted. In some currents, such an individual will tend to weed him or herself out rather quickly. The current's Robin will reject the individual and the Clan Spirits have nothing to do with them. This, of course, does not prevent said individual from pretending to access that he or she does not have, but to the eye and ear of someone who does possess the affinity, the poseur will become apparent rather quickly. Unfortunately, to the public, who will likely form such a person's "court of appeal" the falsehood will not be so readily visible.

So, given my penchant for work alone, as well as group work, why am I addressing Admission? Because I am a member of a current, and because human beings are pack animals. Face it, we are social carnivores. One of the funniest sights I have ever seen was a crowd of some fifteen or so "solitary wiccans" at a public event, banding together to loudly proclaim their "aloneness." What came across most clearly to me from that display was the fact that in all of their proclamation of social phobia, not one of them had an inkling of the inner loneliness that a Witch, or indeed, any successful Occultist, must face and learn to work within. Ultimately, despite the existential connections that we know operate essentially to magic and to existence itself, at the still, small center we will first contend with a place in which we are, each one of us, at first encounter, utterly alone.

So, back to Admission, at first glance it appears merely a "welcome to the club" or an adoption into the Clan. This, of itself, represents a major change of worldview from that of the Seeker, or the Solitary Cunning Person. Anthropologists have studied and written about tribal groupings - clans and villages - whose members shared a "common dreamscape" where all who were "of the People" could share in both benefits and dangers, while those were not, did not.

In today's neopaganism, infected as it has become with absurd political illusions, the very idea of this sort of shared, inner awareness between members related by clanship gets decried as "anathema" and "elitism," simply because it appears to rub someone's nose in the basic truth of: "I am this, and you are whomever, and whatever you are." Neopaganism, infected as it is by the dogmas of politically inspired fundamentalism, cannot stand the idea of a "noninclusive" diversity is simply a matter of "who is whom." Remember, by definition, Fundamentalism operates in a forcibly inclusive manner, demanding that it be the "one rule for all," and "forward the revolution." "Inclusive / exclusive" become meaningless labels when we respect each others' space and mind our own business - and I can hear the shades of Cochrane and Crowley laughing at this. Once again, the implications of "Do what thou wilt" and "Do what is needful" come surging to the forefront. We are interested here in revolt, but not in revolution, if one can make the fine distinction.

So, having winnowed out the chaff and smokescreen of public and politicized perception, we turn again to the concept of admission. We now have two points to consider, both of them functional and meaningful only within the context of the admission. The implications are staggering, of just these two points. Mutual acceptance of and by the Clan Spirits marks one for all time as of their Kindred, and demands that one carry the growth of this Kindred forward within one's own Self. This is a daunting task in and of itself. When we consider the implication therefore of "Accept all that you are given, give all of yourself" in this light, the task of the Admission Holder appears staggering.

Next we add the attachment within and interaction with the Clan and Cuveen shared "other consciousness" or "dreamrange" or whatever you want to call it. My personal preference is "Robin, the Childe of Arte" This is to say, the consciousness and magical entity that is produced by our interaction. When we look at Heisenberg, for a second, we realize that the Robin changes everyone with whom it comes into contact, and it is likewise changed by them. Each contact, each work, each clan member causes motion, and motion causes evolution. No wonder the admonitions not to bind ourselves to scripts or "group prayerbooks." The very interaction of the Robin renders these tools of very limited, and ultimately of no, use!

The well-written and concise "book of instructions" ultimately serves as nothing more than a tool for deception.