Admission: The Way In

This post will be relevant to potential seekers along the Crooked Path who are both in our local area (South-Central Indiana) and those who are not. As we've been receiving requests for more information about how one goes about joining the coven, messages of regret from cunning folk who live too far afield to come circle with us, and a wild boost of page-views for our "admission requirements" post, we feel that we would serve our readers best by sharing one or two of the (many) paths "in."

It All Begins with a Request ...

However it may work in other groups, we hold to an old tradition of expecting potential students to ask us for admission at each step of the process. Even if we know you personally and really think you'd be great, that choice -- and the leap of faith & fear that goes with it -- must be yours and yours alone. We've been there. (Laurelei's initiating coven even had the practice of denying potential members at least three times before granting admission, which added a whole other "gulp factor.")

Do not wait for an invitation from us. Even if we know, love and see you regularly, that personal invitation will not come. If you're not asking for what you need and want, it's because you aren't ready yet; and, honey, that's okay with us. You take your time. We've been sitting on this Tradition -- nesting and hatching -- for years.

Near and Far

If you live close to us, you'll probably be asking to join us through the first admission, which means Greening. That's a trial period for both you and us to figure out how well we work together, if you really want to walk THIS path, and for you to learn some of the very basics. You don't need much: a couple of binders and a flash drive. We need to have met you in person, since you'll be coming into our home and interacting with our family (including our children, who are at the Greening and Adoption stages, respectively). And, of course, that "formal request" mentioned in the requirements is a reminder that you need to have actually asked us to take your green cord.

What if you don't live close to us and you still want to walk THIS specific path, learn from US, etc? If you lived close, you would ask right now, but you don't. You live on the South Coast. What then?

Here's the thing: We can't really take vows with you from a distance, and there ARE vows at the Greening and Adoption. However, we feel certain that we can teach green- and red-cord materials at a distance, and we can offer you self-led variations of the Greening and Adoption rituals, as well. So, through the basic levels, anyone who wishes it can be taught, we feel, at the same level as a student we would take on here locally.

We would teach you individually. If there are truly several authentically interested individuals in pursuing this option, we might start a private e-mail group or something to facilitate communication, file-sharing, and camaraderie. Both Glaux and I would be your teachers and guides, just as we are for students in-person.

But then we come to the Raising ritual -- the point at which you become a full-fledged Witch. After all the time spent together on-line, we would probably have developed a sense of family, and Glaux and I feel that we would be willing to raise any Witches that we taught in this way. But we'd have to do it in person. The Raising involves trials and tests -- and Mysteries -- that we simply cannot convey except in person. Luckily, we have access to wonderful sacred ground in Southern Indiana (with our own cabin on it), where we can go to perform the Raising, if no other site presents itself.

How Long?

The time-frames suggested in the requirements document are a rough estimate. The Greening requires a "getting to know you" time, but it really shouldn't last too long, either. If you haven't decided, for instance, within a year to ask for Adoption, you probably have reasons NOT to ask that you should heed. (Think of Greening as being akin to childhood within a family structure. It's over in a flash, and by the end of it, you have a good sense of your own mind -- and skill.)

On the other hand, you may spend significantly longer than a year and a day wearing your Adoption red cord. There is a lot of material to cover, and we won't be surprised if it takes you more than a year to do it. It just can't take less than that. (Adoption is like young adulthood in a family/tribal setting. You are learning vast amounts of knowledge, gaining independence, discovering what draws your interest, making significant bonds with your peer and family groups.)

Once you've been Raised, and you have red, black and white cords, you will govern your own studies and perhaps begin your own coven. You don't have to jump right out and hive off. Feel free to stick around for as long as you need. Forever, if that's what you choose. (A "Raised Witch" is like a full adult in a family unit -- completely independent, held by bonds of love and kinship, a contributor to the internal workings of the clan.)

Getting in Touch with Us

Laurelei -- laurelei@asteriabooks.com  www.facebook.com/laureleiblack
Glaux -- nataliewitch@yahoo.com  Glaux on Facebook

Requirements for Admission

After years of working this path, tweaking it, living with it, and loving it, we have decided to open ourselves up to those who would like to walk the crooked path with us locally (within the South-Central Indiana area).  Here, then, are our requirements for admission.


Greening – green cord

• For children of the family at the age of reason, and for potential new members to the coven.
  
• Creates an informal bond between teacher and student.
  
• Before Greening the student should :
  
  • formally request to join the coven
  • obtain a binder for handouts and personal research notes
  • obtain a flash drive
• During Greening the student should:
  
  • learn to raise, form, move, and ground energy
  • create or obtain a stone bowl
  • begin their personal crane bag
  • choose a coven symbol
  • begin a personal home altar
  • attend at least 2 rituals (Sabbats or Esbats)
  • obtain a ritual robe (either white or black, depending on the time of year)
• Greening lasts through a 6 – 12 month period, or until the age of puberty.
  
  

Adoption – red cord, bone ring

• For children of the family at the age of puberty, and for formally joining members to the coven.
  
• Creates a formal bond – the Red Thread – between the student and all members of the coven.
  
• During Adoption the student should:
  
  • Memorize the year wheel
  • Obtain the three knives
  • Read:
    
    • The Robert Cochrane letters
    • The White Goddess by Robert Graves
  • Read two of the following:
    
    • Masks of Misrule, Call of the Horned Piper, & Pillars of Tubal Cain by Nigel Jackson
    • Mastering Witchcraft by Paul Huson
    • The Witches’ Bible by the Farrars
    • Sacred Mask, Sacred Dance by Evan John Jones
    • The Roebuck in the Thicket by Robert Cochrane and EJ Jones
    • Witchcraft: A Tradition Renewed by Valiente and Jones
    • The Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton
    • The Witching Way of Hollow Hill by Robin Artisson
  • Perform a link cutting
  • Write a statement of personal ethics
  • obtain an ancestor skull
  • create a staff
  • obtain a cauldron
  • make an incense
  • make and amulet and talisman
  • make a scrying mirror
  • design and make a Witches’ Glove
  • become proficient in three forms of divination
  • create a totemic fetch
  • acquire a familiar (plant, animal, or spirit)
  • perform contact and possession with a Deity
  • lead a ritual
  • complete red cord checklist
• Adoption lasts a minimum of a year and a day, or until the age of majority.
  
  

Raising – red/white/black cord, witches mark

• For children of the family at the age of majority, and for naming the student as a witch.
  
• Marks the student as a fully-fledged witch.
  
• During Raising the witch should:
  
  • obtain tools, weapons, and other paraphernalia related to the compass
  • read and study as suits their interest

Cords as Markers of Admission

One of the Robert Cochrane (Roy Bowers) "writings" that  you'll want to read is titled "On Cords." It first appeared in issue 3 of The Pentagram in March 1965. In it, he discusses two aspects or uses of the traditional Witch's Ladder.

The first is the piece of magical craft that we'll be covering soon. It involves using the cord for spellwork.

The second use of cords is that of the devotional ladder. While many of us will make and use multiple devotional ladders for trance and meditation work related to a variety of focal objects, a great many Witches receive their first ladder as a cord (or set of braided cords) that marks their admission to a curveen.

The cords are usually a length of silk or wool rope, braided yarn, or upholstery cord, whose thickness, length and color vary by tradition. They are versatile, as they are used for cinching ritual robes, indicating rank or degree, measuring the circle, and sometimes for binding blood flow in certain circumstances. When used to control blood flow, they may also be called the cingulum.

Cords used as a cingulum help alter consciousness and they are often employed in initiation rites. There are a few different ways to tie the cords to act in this capacity, but the most common is shown below. However they are used, a cingulum should be administered with care to avoid causing damage or harm.

Cords can also be used as a meditational or trance tool in much the same way as a Catholic rosary. Because they are usually braided and knotted, often with multi-colored fibers, they bind together symbols and imagery that is important to the Witch who wears them. Meditating on a particular knot, strand, or other element of the cord will produce a focused experience on the symbol set contained therein, while working through all the knots (climbing the ladder) produces a transcendent state.

The Spiral Castle Tradition uses a specific progression of cords as markers of admission to the curveen. Each strand of cording that we use is made of a 3 hand-braided strands of wool yarn.

Greening -- single green cord -- This cord represents new growth, the beginning of the learning process and the budding interest of the green Witch in the curveen and Tradition. The purpose of the ritual is to form a magical link with loose bonds between student and cuveen and to establish the beginning of a learning period of at least three months. The Green Cord serves as a physical reminder of that link. Aside from interested adults coming to the Tradition, children of the curveen are eligible to wear the Green Cord (and thereby to acknowledge their relationship to the Craft of the Family) at the Age of Reason. This cord is cut and burned at the time that a Witch progresses to Adoption.

Adoption -- single red cord -- This cord represents the umbilical cord, the blood of birth, and the fire of Tubal Cain. It is a manifestation of the Red Thread. The purpose of the Adoption Rite is to forge a formal magical link between the student and the coven and to establish a formal training period of at least a year and a day. Again, the Red Cord serves as a physical reminder of the link between the Witch and the curveen, but it also reminds her of her link to all Children of Qayin. Children of the Family may be adopted within the Craft at the Age of Puberty.

Raising -- single black and single white cord braided together with existing red cord -- This set of cords is the final set that a Witch within our Tradition will use. The cords are fashioned so that there is a loop on one end, and a long set of tails on the other where the cords remain unbraided. The knot that hold the loop fast is the White Goddess knot. The knot closest to the tails (which somewhat resemble three flails of a scourge) is the Black Goddess knot. A knot is tied in the middle of the braided section -- the Tubal Cain knot. A Raised Witch is a full member of the curveen and Trad, and she wears the most potent symbols of our Craft when she dons her cords. Children of the Family are eligible for Raising, provided that theire knowledge and practice of the Craft is sound, at the Age of Majority.

The Red Thread (and the Initiatory Process)

I have the sense that the Red Thread is one of the deeper Mysteries of the Craft as we are coming to know it. This sense is based on the fact that both Glaux and I find ourselves referring to it regularly in symbolic ways and during Craft discussions, but I am having difficulty putting my thoughts together in any coherent manner in this blog entry. The fact that we are able to point to the symbol as a deep point of connection for our magic, but verbalization seems to fail on some level, tells me that "here be a grave Mystery."

Perhaps in order to approach the Mystery, we should only look at one aspect of it in this post. The Red Thread and the Initiatory Process. 

The "Red Thread" is the moniker we use to refer to the line of Witch Blood that connects us to Tubal Qayin. A few of us come to this Tradition with ties to Qayin, bonds or possibly even Witch Marks that we reinforce through charms or the process of admission into a curveen. Many create that link through specific ritual.

Our system of admission is actually quite simple. We have a beginning level which we call Greening. I'll reserve full discussion of this level for another post, but I'll say here that this is the level for "children" within this path -- whether literal or figurative.

Next is Adoption, and it is at this time when the Red Thread is linked. This Tradition is linked very intimately to flow and nature of the family, so the Adoption corresponds to the time of puberty. When a child has come into physical, mental and emotional maturity sufficient for the study of basic magic, she may be brought into her Craft family. When a Seeker, regardless of physical age, has passed the period of initial giddiness and done some serious work and review of his aims as a Witch, he too is eligible for adoption into the Craft family.

The goals of the Adoption Rite (which you can also think of as a Dedication) are to forge a formal magical link between the student and the coven and to establish a formal training period of at least a year and a day. (This period is until the age of adulthood, in the case of family trad practitioners performing the Adoption with teens and tweens.)

This rite can happen at any of the Gates or Castles. In other words, it can happen at any Sabbat.

During the course of the ritual, the candidate is challenged and queried by the curveen members. Provided that she meets with approval at the end of all challenges, she will take blood oath on the anvil. There are two points to make note of here: 1) participation in the ritual doesn't guarantee success; and 2) the anvil is the "oath stone" of the Tradition and is intimately linked in symbolic terms to Tubal Qayin. 

The candidate is given a Red Cord to wear at the waist, which is a reminder of the Red Thread itself, the umbilical cord, and the fire of Qayin's forge. He is also given a bone and silver ring, which is symbolic of the bone soul (intimately related to the Red Thread and the Ancestors). The ring should be fitted to the Witch's index finger in his power hand, as this is the ultimate location where he will be tattooed with the Stang (or Witch's Mark) at his Raising.

Orkney Charm for Becoming a Witch

Standing stones in Orkney

While recording the rapidly disappearing folklore and traditions of Sanday in the 1880s, folklorist Walter Traill Dennison documented the ritual carried out by aspiring witches to gain their magical powers.

The witch had to first wait for a full moon. Then she would go to a solitary beach at midnight where she had to turn widdershins three times before lying prostrate on the ebb - the area between the limits of high and low tide.

She then had to stretch out her arms and legs, and place stones beside them. Further stones were also placed at her head, on her chest and over her heart.

Once enclosed by the circle of seven stones, the witch spoke aloud:

O' Mester King o' a' that's ill,
Come fill me wi' the Warlock Skill,
An' I shall serve wi' all me will.
Trow tak me gin I sinno!
Trow tak me gin I winno!
Trow tak me whin I cinno!
Come tak me noo, an tak me a',
Tak lights an' liver, pluck an' ga,
Tak me, tak me, noo I say,
Fae de how o' da heed, tae da tip o' da tae.
Tak a' dats oot an' in o' me.
Tak hare an hide an a' tae thee.
Tak hert, an harns, flesh, bleud an banes,
Tak a' atween the seeven stanes,
I' de name o' da muckle black Wallowa!

"The person must lie quiet for a little time after repeating the Incantation. Then opening his eyes he should turn on his left side, arise, and fling the stones used in the operation into the sea. Each stone must be flung singly; and with the throwing of each a certain malediction [unrecorded] was said."

Here is a rough modern interpretation of the Orkney charm.

Oh Master King of all that's ill,
Come fill me with the Witches' Skill
And I shall serve [you] with all my will.
Troll take me if I sin!
Troll take me if I fly!
Troll take me when I cannot!
Come take me now, and take me all,
Take eyes and liver, organs and feet
Take me, take me, now I say!
From the brow of the head, to the tip of the toe.
Take all that’s out and in of me.
Take hair and hide and all to thee.
Take heart and brains, flesh, blood and bones
Take all between the seven stones!
In the name of the great black Witch Goddess!