The formal traditions of modern Witchcraft are quite fond of them. They sound so romantic and mysterious: assembled in some secret place obscured by darkness, the performance of arcane rites of induction into a hidden world of magical orders, ceremonialist lodges, and Witches’ covens. I’m talking about initiations, and our cultural obsession with them.
There are numerous types of initiations, depending on the particular group or culture that practices them, and they can serve many different and even multiple purposes. Like steppingstones upon a path, initiations have the ability to quicken our progress, to guide us along the way by giving context to the otherwise mysterious, and to offer us sure footing, in that we are stepping on a path that has (usually) been trod by countless others. Initiations can contextualize certain rites of passage as seen by the officiating group. They can be the formal entry into a groups’ social structure. They can provide a ritual perspective for the sharing of certain “inner” knowledge or lore, and in some cases, of spiritual, magical, and authoritative power.
Candidates may be relocated from one place to another, sometimes blindfolded or otherwise disoriented. There is usually the telling of a myth or story, which characterizes the particular group’s philosophy. There is frequently some sort of challenge or task that must be performed and often a promise or pledge of loyalty, secrecy, and the like. In magical settings there may also be a formal “passing of the power” in which specific spiritual powers are invoked and directed into the candidate in various ways.
Witches outdoors performing an initiation.
Image credit: DepositPhotos.
While some might consider the formal initiations into the Craft to be an end-result unto themselves, we would be wise to consider that the name itself is the very definition of a beginning and not an end. These types of ceremonial initiations are the “launch” of something new; the mark of a personal origin story in which the new initiate is reborn into a new life, often taking a new name in the process.
Various cultures, systems, and traditions pass such time-honored rites, often requiring the experience of them in exchange for secret knowledge and authority within the culture or system. Each group adhering to certain rules and tapping into various mythological streams and powers in order to bring about a fundamental change in the candidate, essentially helping to usher them through a metaphorical threshold in which new knowledge is gained and an old life is shed. The death of the old and the birth of the new is a very common pattern, independently manifesting in many different cultural practices, both ancient and modern.
Challenge and Transgression
Many of the initiation ceremonies associated with modern Witchcraft adhere to a pattern which poises some sort of initiatory challenge: the facing of a fear, either specific or in general, and then the bestowal of specialized knowledge or influence. Psychologically, to face one’s fears grants us an opportunity to recover our personal power which is otherwise trapped in them; our fears serving as effective prisons, locking away parts of ourselves and leaving us diminished and weakened. Only by confrontation are we able to claim the prize of power and wisdom that is the promise of conquering one’s fears and of integrating their shadows. This challenge may be a specific task carried out as a preliminary requirement for the initiation to take place, or it may be symbolically and ritually enacted in some form as part of the ceremony itself. The edge of a knife pressed against the chest of a blindfolded candidate, for example, is just one fairly common element in such initiation rites, perhaps standing in as a symbol for one’s fears and challenges of a more personal nature.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.
Organic Initiations
Formal ceremonies are not the only initiations that govern our lives or even our magic. Life itself is one grand ongoing initiation which we experience each and every day. Each natural rite of passage that we experience draws us deeper into the social fabric and reveals to us increasingly deeper layers of ourselves. These events happen organically, without the necessity of human direction. The largest of these events are recognized universally, births, coming of age, marriages, deaths. Add to this list: getting a driver’s license, getting a job, graduating high school, moving out of one’s childhood home, getting a college degree, divorce, etc.
The initiations that we experience as queer people should not be underestimated. While it may be more socially acceptable to speak of the rites we have received in a magic circle, they are no less important or powerful than those we garner just by living our queer experience. My Craft self-dedication I performed at fourteen, for example, was a powerful catalyst for my own magical growth, but you want to know what was even more powerful? The first time I ever had sex with another man.
Initiation into Queerdom
I was seventeen. There were no invocations, and no magic circle, but it was a powerful initiatory experience, nonetheless. It had all the necessary elements that we might come to expect from such a ceremony: There was the sense of anticipation leading up to it (he invited me over to “see his posters” but somehow, I knew what he really meant). There was a “prepared ritual space” consisting of his (tidied) bedroom with his mother conveniently away for the afternoon. He told a couple jokes to put me at ease, made some small talk, put on some music, thus putting us in the right head space (who needs invocations?) and finally, there was the act itself, an act that dredged a lot up from my shadow that had to be dealt with right then and there. The initiatory challenge –in this seemingly mundane act– was front and center.
Consider that I grew up in the 70s and 80s and talk of homosexuality was largely regulated to condemnation or pity. The only examples of homosexual men that I had ever seen were those that embodied the negative stereotypes presented on TV and in the movies (so basically tragic figures and serial killers). I had never even seen two men kiss before and when I was finally in that intimate space a lot came bubbling up to the surface. I was not raised in a religious home, though I would argue that simply being raised in a Christian-dominated society is enough to indoctrinate a child with all the of the self-hating rhetoric by which they tend to live their lives. While I knew in my heart that my attraction to men was not morally wrong or “evil” there was still some part deep inside myself that secretly believed those hateful lies, and when I was in the act of being sexual this first time, those negative thoughts flooded my brain. “If they’re right, I’m going to Hell” I distinctly remember thinking to myself as I finally indulged in that for which I had been secretly hoping. “Well… there’s no going back now.”
“Well… there’s no going back now.”
Image Credit: DepositPhotos.
And that, my friends, is the telltale mark of an initiation: you step through a threshold into a new way of being. In a very real sense, there can be no “going back”. I was changed. Sure, I could have pretended that it never happened, but I knew that it did. I would always know. Even denial couldn’t erase that fact. I had confronted my fear. Even the promise of hellfire wasn’t going to deter me from that thing for which I had craved for so long. And when it was over, I was different. No longer a theoretical, my practical experience had afforded me the wisdom of someone who had actually lived.
Sex is but one of the initiatory rites that we commonly experience as queer people. Coming out of the closet is a common rite of passage for our kind that has gained cultural and political significance. And while we can often point to a specific event in our personal histories that is our own “coming out story” in reality, like most of life’s initiations, it is actually ongoing. I didn’t just come out when I was seventeen. I come out continuously, all the time; every time I go to the grocery store or the post office, I am reaffirming my “outness” especially if I am with one of my partners, but even just being alone out in the world I run the risk of being perceived as queer by someone whom I do not know. Having been on the receiving end of anti-queer violence, I have had a somewhat difficult journey learning how to be more comfortable in public. Each time I interact with a new person it can be a form of coming out all over again. True initiations never end; they keep unfolding into eternity.
Consider some of the other initiatory experiences that are unique to the queer life. Going to our first queer-specific space, such as a bar or a retreat. Just being in the presence of only other queer people can be a surprisingly powerful and liberating experience, allowing us to drop our psychic shields in ways that can reveal to us just exactly how guarded we may be in our normal lives. These are the experiences that really show us what has been going on in our shadows and grant us opportunities to begin to do that personal work.
Initiations are happening all the time in all our lives. It is when we formally recognize them that they truly take on a momentum of power, a momentum into which we may tap, so as to help quicken our own evolutionary process. Whether they come to us in a magic circle by the hand of another, or in a vision, or dream, or simply those formative experiences we have while living life, to recognize the initiatic power of these experiences is paramount to maximizing their potential as catalysts for real change in our lives. For queer people it is vital that we see these experiences for the spiritual markers that they truly are. Even the frivolously mundane can be a catalyst for the divinely fabulous.
THE WILD HUNT ALWAYS WELCOMES GUEST SUBMISSIONS. PLEASE SEND PITCHES TO ERIC@WILDHUNT.ORG.
THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY OUR DIVERSE PANEL OF COLUMNISTS AND GUEST WRITERS REPRESENT THE MANY DIVERGING PERSPECTIVES HELD WITHIN THE GLOBAL PAGAN, HEATHEN AND POLYTHEIST COMMUNITIES, BUT DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE WILD HUNT INC. OR ITS MANAGEMENT.
The Wild Hunt is not responsible for links to external content.
To join a conversation on this post:
Visit our The Wild Hunt subreddit! Point your favorite browser to https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Wild_Hunt_News/, then click “JOIN”. Make sure to click the bell, too, to be notified of new articles posted to our subreddit.