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SECOND DEGREE INITIATION
This will normally be granted a year and a day after First Initiation, but before doing so, your coven mistress will want to know that you are reasonably proficient in certain areas. After all, if you are not, then it must be assumed that you are not serious about progressing in the Craft. So, having taken First Initiation, you will want to be working towards the requirements. Here are some thoughts on what you might be doing.
PART ONE You should study the ritual as it is practised in your coven and be familiar enough with it to conduct a ceremony on your own. After all, many witches are self-initiated and conduct their own rituals all the time, so there is nothing startling about this. Also, in your capacity as a Priestess of Wicca, there may be times in your private life when you will be called on to help a friend, relative or acquaintance. From the outset you should be competent enough to be able to
These are just the basic requirements for creating a safe working space, which every witch must be able to do. What you do with that space once it is set up is your business. You might want to create a protection for a person; cleanse them and banish evil influences from around them; defuse an evil spell; bless and consecrate an object or person. Or you might want to indulge in private meditation in a protected space.
You will need to demonstrate your competence in doing this to your coven. Don't let this make you nervous: it is better to gain confidence among your friends. For this reason your High Priestess will sometimes call on you to perform parts of the ceremony so that you become familiar with it.
PART TWO As a High Priestess, when you become one, and as a Senior Member of your present coven, you need to be able to write ceremonies. You will be asked at some point to write a ceremony for the coven to perform. This is not to test you, it is to give you the experience of researching and writing something uniquely your own. You can be thinking about this, and begin at any time.
PART THREE Choosing a Witch Name. Every Witch has her own personal witch-name she has chosen for herself. Choosing the name requires some study of witch lore and history, in order to decide which characteristics you most identify with. You need not confine yourself to Wicca or British Paganism, all studies from every country are available to you, or you can choose the name of a legendary figure. You need to have this name ready for your Second Initiation.
PART FOUR Casting spells. You need to know how to formulate and cast spells, and this also will involve you in some research, unless you are highly intuitive and can do them off the top of your head. Certain rules need to be followed if you want to stick to White Magic. Here we remind you that the Whole of the Law is 'An it Harm None' and if you remember that you cannot go far wrong. Anything that directly harms another person, or interferes with his or her free will, is forbidden. There are of course those who go against this Law, but that is another branch of Magic, and if you wish to follow this path you need to know how to protect yourself from the backlash. Since we do not practise this in our coven you will have to do this without help.
Love As a witch, by far the most frequent request to you will be 'Can you make so and so fall in love with me' or 'Can you make my girl/boyfriend return'. The answer to this is no, as this would be interfering with Person B's free will. The inquirer will always assure you that they are, or were, in a loving relationship and that there will be no bad consequences. You must still say no, as you have only one person standing before you, and you cannot know whether they are speaking truth.
What you learn as a witch is that you can turn any request into positive magic, and you then explain to the Inquirer how it might be possible to achieve what he/she wants by other means. For instance, casting a spell to make the Inquirer more desirable - it is still up to Person B whether he or she falls in love though!
I have been asked to 'seal' a couple together, and have done this twice. It is a step not to be taken lightly, and requires that both parties be present and obviously consenting (not one being forced by the other). Even then this is a very serious step and you need to know the reasons why they would want to do something so drastic. You also need to explain to them that once sealed it may not be possible for them ever to part, and that, should their relationship change, this could cause them great misery. Even when you are convinced, you must make them WAIT. Waiting is often practised as a magic technique. You do not tell them they are waiting, you just keep on denying their request. Only after you are quite convinced to go ahead should you say yes.
Returning Evil Whence it Came The next most frequent request is to harm someone - their enemy, or someone they are convinced is doing them harm, ex-partner and so on. Remember again you have only the word of one person. You cannot be sure that what you are hearing is true. Anyway you must not do direct harm to anyone, so you have to use the law of returns. Explain to the inquirer that the most you can do is turn back the evil that is being directed at them. In this way no one who is innocent is harmed. If no evil has been done, none can be returned. However if it is true that evil has been done, then the perpetrator will suffer.
Binding Another technique that can be used against a (supposedly) evil person, but more often in cases of personal knowledge, is to 'bind' them. This prevents them from doing further harm, but does not interfere with their life in any other way. However it is quite funny when this is applied to an evil person, as they generally go to pieces when they can no longer do harm. The binding is done with a physical object representing the target. We use a clean new clothes peg, the old fashioned kind called a 'dollypeg'. These can be personalised elaborately (hair, clothes, stuck on photo for face) or simply (write the name and date of birth, and anything else you know about the person). In the context of a magic circle, 'birth' the idol and give it life, baptise it, and then taking a piece of natural twine, wrap it round and round the idol saying a binding spell as you do so. Put the peg away somewhere safe until the object is achieved. Then you can bury it.
Money Money does not come up as frequently as the other items. When asked to bring a person wealth, I give them a good spell which they can do for themselves. Explain to them that magic works best when devoutly wished for, and that you really cannot get interested in making them wealthy.
Passing the Buck There will be lots of times when you will feel that you do not want to do magic for a person. You have several options at that point. You can refuse. Or you can say to the person that you will give them a personalised spell that they can work themselves. Tell them that this spell will only work for them, and that if it is passed to another person it will have the opposite effect. That should stop them making a fortune out of your magical abilities!
Giving Them the Means If you have refused a person magic, for very good reasons, for instance if intended to cause harm, there is a special getout clause that can be applied. If the person continues to ask for a year and a day at the end of that time you can reconsider your decision. You will still never perform negative magic yourself, but you may consider whether you can give them the means to perform it themselves. If you still disapprove very strongly of what they want to do, it is up to you to make the magic as difficult to fulfil as possible, so that they must be very, very determined to do it. Explain to them that any consequences are not on your head but on theirs, and that it is only as a result of their persistence that you are obliged to grant their request.
Charging a Fee Whether you charge a fee for magic or not is up to you, and you should follow your own inner feelings on the matter. You will find that there are times when you will charge and times when you feel it would be very wrong.
Location Magic There will be times when you will have to leave your comfortable place of ritual and journey to someone's house in order to perform protection or cleansing or other purposes. This is part of your duty as a neighbourhood witch. Only go to places you feel are safe to go to, and take friends and colleagues with you. Don't put yourself in danger and don't do anything you feel unhappy about.
PART FIVE Studying a craft. Witches usually specialise in some branch of the craft. Though it is not compulsory, I feel that working in one of the disciplines increases your power and intuition. You know what they say, use it or lose it. It is good for a coven if the members have a spread of skills. We can all help each other. |
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