: Janet Farrar, Gavin Bone
: The Inner Mysteries Progressive Witchcraft and Connecting with the Divine
: Robert Hale Non Fiction
: 9780719831614
: 1
: CHF 15.20
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: Parapsychologie, Grenzwissenschaften
: English
: 272
: Wasserzeichen
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: ePUB
A look into the underlying principles behind modern magic in witchcraft, The Inner Mysteries provides an integrated training system (Liber Actios) for both solitary witches and coven-based trainees in the form of magical energy practice and cosmology. By fully explaining how magic works, this volume makes numerous Wiccan practices approachable, including Circle casting, Raising energy, Elemental work and Drawing down the moon Illustrating how Wicca is a modern, nondogmatic and dynamic tradition still in a state of evolution, The Inner Mysteries outlines the tenets of progressive witchcraft, putting connection with the Deity at the forefront of witchcraft practice. In addition, this book also covers the history, spirituality and metaphysics of witchcraft, and how to form a coven.

JANET FARRAR is best known for writing with her late husband, journalist and author Stewart Farrar, some of the classics of modern Wicca, including the best-selling A Witches' Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook.

Introduction

God[dess], grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

—REINHOLD NIEBUHR

It has been over fifty years—bridging two centuries and a millennium—since the Witchcraft revival began. This is quite an achievement for a new religious movement, especially when one of its founders believed it would only manage to survive another decade. Doreen Valiente related how Gerald Gardner, the “father” of modern Witchcraft, said to her in the early 1960s that “the problem with this religion, Doreen, is that it has too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” He strongly believed this would be its downfall as a religious path, and that it would not survive beyond the 1970s. Luckily for many of us, he was wrong. Gardner failed to take into account one of the most important factors that has allowed Witchcraft to survive: its ability to change with the times: to change and adapt culturally and socially. There is, of course, a scientific word for this type of change—evolution.

This is why we used the wordsProgressive Witchcraft in the subtitle of this book. We know we are not the only ones within Wicca who have used the termprogressive to describe themselves. The termprogressive Wicca was used for the first time in the 1980s, as far as we know, to describe a diverse and eclectic movement originating in the United Kingdom (see footnotes onpage 22). Others may think of “eclectic” disparagingly, but it is the nature of evolution to encourage diversity and variety. A look at Wicca’s history shows there is nothing more eclectic than Traditional Wicca, with its blend of Italian-Etruscan lore, ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and possibly even Sufi teachings! For us, the use of the termprogressive does not indicate a specific tradition, but rather a way of seeing the spiritual truths that underlie all nature-based religions—especially the truth that they must be able to adapt if they wish to satisfy the spiritual needs of the individual.

Wicca is a religious movement with its roots in nature and in natural law. Evolution is at the core of its philosophy whether its practitioners realize it. It is important to note that evolution affects not only physical and social development, but also spiritual growth. Nearly all practices in Witchcraft have changed over time. This is mainly due to a better understanding of the origins of such practices and their true meaning. Generally, most Wiccans now have a better understanding of such things as magical practice and the Wheel of the Year than the practitioners of Wicca did in the 1950s and ’60s; and (of specific importance with reference to this book) of change within the self—that is, initiation and the mechanisms that cause it. In the spiritual cultures of the ancient past, these changes and their causative actions came to be called themysteries.

In the last few decades, we have seen many changes in the way Wicca has been viewed, both publicly and internally. What was once a small group of individuals secretly trying to recreate the past has now become a large movement trying to embrace the future. Because of this, it has become more noticeable. All Witchcraft was once viewed by the public with suspicion; the wordWicca was unknown and rarely appeared in the lurid stories of Witchcraft in the tabloid press. Now the wordWicca