Bringing olden ways to modern days for Wiccans,
Witches,
Pagans,
And all who honor a nature-based path.
This is Desert Magic with Crow Moon.
Marry me,
And welcome back to another episode of Desert Magic,
Coming to you from the beautiful and magical desert of Southern Arizona.
My name is Crow Moon,
And I'm your host.
I've shared the story of how I discovered Wicca many times.
Without recounting the entire saga again,
By way of introduction for this episode,
I'll just say that I was not in search of a spiritual path when I found it.
More accurately,
When Wicca found me.
And when this happened,
I simply could not turn away.
Again,
I won't be repeating the whole story now on this episode.
Instead,
I think it's just as important to share what transpired after that discovery was made.
For a large part of my life,
I have been teaching in one capacity or another,
And I was doing just that at this time.
Also at this time,
I,
Along with so many of us,
Found myself suddenly working from home.
So I made the decision to also begin teaching Wicca.
My motivation for doing so was quite simple.
It was because I discovered Wicca later in life,
Meaning that the reality of the fact that I had more years behind me than I did in front of me was beginning to kick around in my mind.
As much as I wished,
And still wish,
That I'd found my true spiritual path much sooner,
There was simply nothing I could do about that.
But with this realization came what I firmly believed to be my true calling,
Sharing Wicca with others,
And especially those who came to it in their later years.
Simply put,
I didn't want another person to feel compelled to experience their discovery in a way that might seem rushed.
I didn't want another person to have to scramble for information,
Although there isn't really all that much scrambling to be done with so many resources on this topic available both in print and online.
The resources are plentiful,
And the vast majority of them are both accurate and extremely helpful.
But depending on one's personal preference,
Some sorting through things might become necessary.
My motivation was never to write and record teachings because I felt as though what was available was in some ways substandard,
Or that I was capable of doing it much better.
It wasn't that at all.
My intention was,
And remains,
To be there for someone else,
Particularly late bloomers,
And those who struggled with summoning the courage to even explore Wicca because they were raised to believe that it is wrong.
Access to information about Wicca and paganism is much easier now than it has been throughout time primarily because of the advent of the internet.
It's been my experience that the popularity,
If you want to call it that,
Of Wicca didn't necessarily just explode overnight as many might perceive.
It's certainly more widely accepted now,
Although not nearly to the degree which it should be,
But the pursuit of it is not quite as challenging as it has been before.
Generally speaking,
Though,
The interest has always been there.
Perhaps the biggest difference now is that those who feel uncomfortable with openly discussing the topics of Wicca and paganism are not so much feeling the need to cloak their research or even feel some level of apprehension when pursuing the one shelf of a local bookstore that is dedicated to writings about the occult.
Those who are concerned about feeling shame or embarrassment with learning more about Wicca are able to pursue such with a higher degree of privacy.
Just as I believe that an interest in the occult has always been there,
So too has the need for a feeling of anonymity in regard to such.
Those of us who have ever used a rotary telephone or have listened to an album on an 8-track player will no doubt be at least somewhat familiar with correspondence courses.
The concept of correspondence courses has more or less changed forms into what we now know as online learning,
But the essence of it remains,
And,
In both cases,
I'm a big fan of it,
Both as a teacher and as a student.
Correspondence courses used to abound in a variety of subjects,
Very much including Wicca,
Paganism,
And the occult in general.
An article published by the public domain review,
Magic by Return of Posts,
How Mail Order Delivered the Occult,
By Alan Johnson,
Details some of the history behind what the author refers to as a blossoming of the occult in the United States at the turn of the 20th century.
Johnson writes that,
In the early 20th century,
After the rationalizing forces of the Enlightenment had supposedly recast spiritual life through reason,
Curious advertisements began to appear in popular periodicals,
Ranging from popular mechanics to weird tales,
Offering arcane occult knowledge sent directly to the reader's door.
Sending away for the secrets of the ages was,
It seemed,
Disarmingly simple,
Part and parcel of the colossal mail-order industry that had emerged during the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
With paper becoming more inexpensive,
Advancements in printing machines,
And improvements in postal delivery systems,
The stage was set for success,
With correspondence courses in general,
Including those offering the study and mastery of occult sciences.
Further adding to the popularity of these courses was the ability for prospective students to choose the disciplines that were of most interest to them,
And even combinations of such.
One of the examples shared by Johnson is that lessons from Psycheana,
One of the largest esoteric correspondence schools of the 1930s by subscriber numbers,
Cost around $1 each – about $20 in today's currency – and were purchased in groups of 10 or 20 lessons,
With one lesson posted weekly.
Aside from affordability and convenience,
And perhaps a certain level of anonymity,
One of the reasons why occult correspondence courses grew in popularity was because they offered an avenue to personal development through spirituality.
To this point,
Johnson adds that,
And by the early 1930s,
At a time when economic upheaval had left many Americans searching for stability,
The authors and organizers of occult correspondence schools were offering a reassuring path toward inner contentment and outward success beyond the confines of the Christian Church.
This,
I feel,
Demonstrates that the interest in and pursuit of spirituality,
Outside of the mainstream,
Is not a new concept.
And,
If one of the catalysts of spiritual quests is an upheaval of any type,
It is no wonder that people are,
To this day,
Reaching out in search of ways to go within.
That was Witchcraft,
By yours truly,
The name of which is an Anglo-Saxon word translating to witchcraft.
In the world of Wicca,
One of the most well-known correspondence courses was one which was offered by Raymond Buckland,
A prominent author in the field of Wicca and Witchcraft.
Buckland,
After forming his own Wiccan tradition,
Which drew upon Anglo-Saxon paganism,
More or less spearheaded lifting the veil of secrecy around witchcraft.
His course was started,
At least in part,
To make the craft available to all who wished to practice it,
Especially those who were not able to do so through coven initiation.
Buckland's form of Magic by Mail was a correspondence course in the truest sense,
In that it was done completely by the post,
And he personally reviewed and graded all student submissions.
The home study course in Saxon Witchcraft took off in a way quite similar to something going viral in the modern world.
The popularity of,
And demand for,
His course eventually became too much for Buckland to keep up with.
As a result,
He published the book,
Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft,
Which is referred to by many as the Big Blue,
Because of its extensiveness and the color of its cover.
There are a number of similarities with all of the examples I just shared,
Including that of my own,
And with the many online and distance learning opportunities for various spiritual and esoteric disciplines that still exist today.
To me,
The commonality that stands out the most is the absence of recruitment.
At the height of the popularity of print periodicals,
There were,
Of course,
Advertisements for these courses.
But there is a huge difference between an announcement that a course exists and rabid door-knocking campaigns.
In both cases,
An element of sales is involved.
With the former,
It's information,
And what one does with that information is strictly up to that individual.
With the latter,
What's being sold is typically salvation.
Further,
The first is focused on the here and now,
While the second is almost exclusively geared towards the afterlife,
To,
In many cases,
Such a degree that real meaning in this existence is largely overlooked.
Distance learning for any form of spirituality falling outside of the category of mainstream has the constant of availability.
Such learning is available to both seekers,
As well as those such as myself,
Who I term as happen-uponers.
The information is available to those who are actively searching for it,
And it waits patiently for those who develop an interest in it on their own accord,
And without any sort of prompting.
Some seekers are motivated by a desire for personal growth,
Or an elevated form of self-help,
While the journey for others begins because of disenchantment with other belief systems.
In the end,
The reasons for looking beyond the perceived norm are unimportant.
The uplifting takeaway in all of this,
As I see it anyway,
Is the sheer beauty of the desire to continue learning.
The desire to grow and expand.
Such is human nature.
The same question,
What if,
Fueled some to invent and perfect the wheel,
And others to go on to discover the wheel of the year.
Until next time,
The crow flies from me to thee,
To send the message,
Blessed Be.
