Secrecy in the Old Craft

By Niklas Gander
April 3, 2005

Hey, let me show you what I got just the other day, my friend of 16 years
told me in his living room. Its really complete, and its been edited with
footnotes by this guy named Niklas!
Oh, yeah? I asked. My mind was racing, as I knew there were precious few
traditional Crafters that shared my name.
Yeah! Here. Check this out, he said. I thumbed through pages that I was all
too familiar with, since I was the person who had originally compiled the
version of the (non-Feri) Book of Shadows that he was exhibiting to me. How
did this Book get out of my control? How did it make it into lineages that Im
not even connected with? How did it even make it out of my own personal
coven? Questions for another day, Im afraid. It seems in this day of
information technology, this kind of situation is endemic. Books of Shadows
can be downloaded from the internet by folks who arent even initiated, never
mind affiliated with the traditions that I have worked.
But, you may ask, whats the big deal? Arent we past the days of persecution,
when having someones personal Book of Shadows would incriminate both the
holder and the writer? Isnt it wonderful to be able to share freely the lore that
we have, to enrich the greater Craft community?
Thats what Id like to address in this little missive to my Feri community. If we
are indeed past the Great Persecution, then why not share our Secrets widely?
If the True Mysteries cannot ever really be told, only experienced, then whats
the big deal about sharing rituals, initiations, transformative rites with anyone
who happens to show an interest? On the other hand, who does it serve to
share lore indiscriminately with people ill-equipped to handle that lore, and
unable to appreciate the years of work and ritual intimacy that it takes to
prepare one for that lore? How can we be certain that those we share lore with
are of the type of people that we can trust with it, that we can trust that they
will know how to hand it on with integrity and respect for its power, who can
truly even understand its power apart from wherever else they may have
read it?
I remember when Janet and Stewart Farrar published the dual volumes The
Witches Way and Eight Sabbats for Witches. I thought at the time that it was
tremendously daring that traditional Witches would publish what they claimed
were secret passages from their own Book of Shadows. At that time, it was
purely from a perspective of oath-keeping that I held this attitude.

Then I saw the result it was having in the larger Craft community. People were
reading these books and thinking that they indeed understood the experience
of this material without ever having undergone any of it. It was all based on a
cursory reading of it, and not an experience of it. As a result, many eclectic
(book-based) practitioners were left with the idea that they knew enough
about Traditional Craft that the experience of it was left redundant. They
already had the idea of what the ritual was all about. Why bother to
experience it in a larger traditional context, when they could rewrite it and
create an all-new and improved version that no one had ever seen? As a
result, many have adopted traditional material without the experience of
traditional ritual to inform it. Many have developed such overwhelming
confidence in their knowledge that Wicca and Witchcraft generally threaten to
become just as monolithic as Christianity has been during the last millennium,
when doctrinal knowledge squelched the mysteries to be found in personal
ritual experiences.
Im troubled. I feel I can no longer share my secrets, my passages from my
Book of Shadows, with someone with whom I do not share an initiatory and
instructive tie. Why? Because too often (read: Always) it becomes a file folder
or a section in a three-ring binder, a curiosity, that then gets handed on
without any attempt to understand either the experience or the spirit in which
it was handed on: from closely-held and treasured tradition to profaned,
commercial-grade curiosity.
And what about those folks whose interpretation of their oaths permit them to
share more liberally than I would myself? How long does it take for me to get
to know someones intention before I can actually share in good conscience?
How long does it take to prevent my friend (who has no Craft initiatory
connection with me) from having a closely held BoS carefully redacted by me
and showing it to me in all ignorance?
Then theres that sticky wicket called ego-gratification. How many times are
we tempted to share with others something that is just so cool? Do we wish
to impress someone by sharing with them lore that we might have created, or
perhaps that we might have redacted? I remember talking to a Craft High
Priestess in New York who once told me that she wanted to share traditional
material with a particular someone only because he was a Big Name in the
community, and wanted his adulation. She regretted it later, just as I have
regretted sharing material with some folks before I knew thoroughly their
intention.
What is it that is to regret? The loss of the opportunity for someone to
experience a rite without preconceptions about what it is supposed to be; the
misunderstanding of the written word when the experience within ritual would

have clarified its intent; the revelation of lore outside of a training context,
thus making that lore just one more piece of lore for a file cabinet or three-ring
binder, not even grasping its original meaning or intent. And finally there is
regret at making a chance for the satisfaction of real intimacy into some kind
of intellectualized informational commodity.
Perhaps more than any other tradition, Feri is an Oral Tradition. Whats that
mean? I personally think that it means that in order to really grok the
information youve got to undergo the experience. Thats not something
that is possible just by reading a book, or some poetry, though that might
help. Ultimately, theres a relationship with the lineage that is made with the
connection to a teacher, one whom youve evaluated and found wise and
careful.
So, Im thinking that sharing lore is vastly overrated. The real truth comes
from our interactions with God Herself, and with our own Holy Guardian Angel,
our personal Muse. If we find that we have connections with Feri brothers and
sisters, then we can circle together and get to know each other and share
accordingly. But I no longer feel any expectation to share the lore that I have
won through hard work and sweat with someone just because they claim
kinship or just because they ask. That is not helping my brothers and sisters of
the Craft. That is only harming them.