A coven is an organized group of witches, and it is pronounced ‘kuvv’n’ (not ‘koe-v’n'). Its original meaning was simply a meeting or gathering; its root was the Latin convenire, ‘to come together’ (from which we also get convene, convention and convent).
The traditional full membership of a coven is thirteen, but in fact an effective working coven can consist of anything from three members upwards, though four is a more practicable minimum. The leader-plus-twelve unit is a very old tradition found in many other magical or religious fields beside witchcraft; Jesus, Arthur, Robin Hood, Ireland’s Crom Cruach and others often follow this pattern. It is probably Zodiacal in origin, suggesting an ideal balanced unity of aspects encircling a central leader. It is interesting that the lunar complement is often to be found, too, in single or multiple form: Virgin/Magdalene, Guinevere/Morgana, Marian and so on.
Most covens today regard thirteen as the workable maximum, for two reasons. First, it is about the most that the traditional nine-foot-diameter Circle can comfortably contain. Second and more important, a larger group than that tends to become depersonalized. The essence of coven working is the building up of a group mind, a Gestalt to which each member makes his or her own unique contribution, and in which each is continuously aware of the individuality and unique contribution of every other member. Few people could build or maintain that kind of interpersonal awareness in a group larger than a dozen or so.
A fair parallel is a good jazz combo, which depends on a delicate balance of individual spontaneity, mutual awareness and a shared feeling about the kind of music they want to produce. It can only work with a few instrumentalists; if there are too many, the group enters the big-band category, which is something quite different. Mutually aware, and mutually supportive, spontaneity is replaced by the prepared score and individually focused attention on a single conductor.
A coven which grows too large tends to alter its nature in the same way.
The normal process when a coven becomes (or is about to become) too large is for a suitable couple to ‘hive off, taking with them any members of the parent coven who wish to join with them, and to form a new coven under their leadership as High Priestess and High Priest. As we explained, any second-degree couple may do this with the agreement of the parent coven’s High Priestess and High Priest (strictly speaking with that of the High Priestess alone, but any coven whose leading partnership could not agree on such an issue would be in sore straits anyway). In that case, the infant coven, though working separately, remains under the guidance of the original High Priestess and High Priest until they judge its leaders ready for their third degree, after which it becomes autonomous.
Strictly speaking again — any third-degree couple could hive off without the High Priestess’s permission, but one hopes that such a situation would seldom arise. It is obviously better for the Craft, and for the friendship and understanding which ought to exist between witches, for hiving-off always to be by mutual agreement. This may sometimes mean acknowledging the existence of differences; but a divergent view which causes friction within a coven may turn out to be constructive when it is away ‘doing its own thing’ with others of like mind.
A third-degree hive-off is autonomous from the start. (When we say ‘second-degree couple’ or ‘third-degree couple', this may of course also mean a partnership in which only one holds that degree, because he or she is entitled to give it to the other.)
Once a new coven has hived off, it is advisable to observe the rule of ‘voiding the coven’ which we explained.
Back to the coven itself, and a summary of its structure.
The High Priestess is the leader, with the High Priest as her partner; he acknowledges her primacy and supports and complements her leadership with the qualities of his own polarity. Leadership is required from him, too, in his own way; and in the kind of harmonious partnership that is needed to run a good coven, they will find their own natural balance. The one thing he should not do is to assume the primacy himself. This is not a dogma imposed to put shackles on natural gifts; it is observed experience. We have known at least three covens — two English and one Irish — which were dominated by the High Priest, with his partner staying quietly in the background. Two of them were well-intentioned and hard-working, though we had our doubts about the third; but in due course all three of them disintegrated. Two of them sank without trace, and in the other one the High Priestess picked up the pieces and began again successfully with a new High Priest. However much drive and enthusiasm a High Priest has, he must channel it through the leadership of his High Priestess.
A third function in most covens is that of the Maiden. She is a kind of assistant High Priestess, but mostly for ritual purposes; she may or may not be the High Priestess’s and High Priest’s lieutenant in leadership. Whether she is will depend on the personalities involved and on the needs of the coven. Often it is her job to allot coven chores such as cleaning the Temple, polishing candlesticks or preparing food, or to summon everyone to the Temple when the High Priestess is ready. This is not because the High Priestess and High Priest are too lofty to do this allotting and summoning themselves; in our experience, on coven nights, there are always several members who want a quiet word with either or both of the leaders outside the Circle, and they are usually too busy with these to run around like sheepdogs seeing that everything is in order.
Talking of summoning, there is one other functionary who was very important during the undercover centuries, and is sometimes still needed today. He is the Fetch (sometimes called the Summoner or Officer) and he is usually a man. His job is to act as a courier, and sometimes an escort, between covens or between a coven and somebody who for one reason or another must remain ‘unlisted’. He is a High Priestess’s confidential messenger, used particularly on formal occasions or where discretion is called for. (This use of the word ‘Fetch’ must not be confused with its other meaning — that of a projected astral body or thought-form deliberately sent out to make its presence known to a particular person; or with its dictionary definition, ‘the apparition, double, or wraith of a living person’.)
Ideally, a coven consists of equal numbers of men and women in working partnerships, though of course this ideal is seldom achieved. Even when it is not, as far as possible the man-woman polarity should be observed in coven working. For example, when the coven is circling with linked hands in the Witches’ Rune, they will arrange themselves alternately, man and woman, without being told; or if for example there are more men than women, the women will so place themselves that if possible each man at least has a woman on one side of him. Again, in cord magic, each cord should have a man holding one end and a woman the other; or if the numbers are uneven, then (say) a man may hold two cord-ends, with two women holding the other single ends. And so on. This may sound over-fussy; but the point is to make the principle of male-female polarity in magical working second nature — almost a conditioned reflex — in every member.
Although in a coven where the sex-numbers are uneven (or, as often happens, where not every member can attend every Circle) members get used to working with a variety of members of the opposite sex, established working partnerships are to be encouraged where they arise naturally, because they usually develop greater effectiveness (just as established dancing-partners do). Husband and wife are an obvious example, because their polarity is already mutually attuned; and if it is inadequate, then working magic together is a very healthy way of improving it.
(A word of warning here: if a husband and wife are members of the same coven, it is asking for trouble to allow one of them to form a magical working partnership with someone else. We once had a male witch who worked particularly well with one of our female members, and continued to do so as a regular working partnership after his wife joined the coven, claiming that there need be no conflict. We, being then very inexperienced, allowed this to continue. Witches are human, and before long came the explosion we should obviously have foreseen. That was a long time ago, and we are happy to say that the married couple are now running their own coven and the other lady is running hers.)
We are sometimes tempted to think that the almost-perfect working coven consists of three married couples1 who are all closely in tune; a self-contained hexagram, combining the essence of even and odd numbers, and the two bonds of sexual love and friendship; a unit small enough for each member to be fully aware of all the others, on several levels, throughout the working … So almost-perfect as to be almost-selfish; Wicca lives in a real world where the honest seeker may not be turned away just to preserve some self-contained ideal.
Which brings us to the next problem, often an acute one in this time of Craft expansion and growing interest: how to achieve a balance between the working effectiveness of a coven of trained witches and the training of newcomers.
The problem will vary with the nature of the coven. Many covens — perhaps most — are quiet and even secret, often for necessary reasons such as job protection. When such covens take on new members, it is likely to be one or perhaps two at a time. The balance is not upset, nor the coven effectiveness weakened, because the newcomers are a small minority, in some ways more easily trained and absorbed into the whole.
But some covens are publicly known — not necessarily because they are publicity-seekers. Writers on Wicca, for example, can hardly hide themselves. Their books are reviewed, newspapers interview them, they are invited to take part in television and radio programmes. They sometimes (and you can believe us on this!) wearily wish it were not so; but that’s how it is, and they have to make the best of it.
We have been in Ireland ourselves for six and a half years; in that time we have been featured (often more than once) in every national daily, three Sunday papers and two local papers, have appeared three times on television, including the Saturday-night Late Late Show and have been on radio more times than we can remember. Not one of these interviews or appearances was sought by us — it is always the media who approach us. Fortunately, with the exception of one single article, we have always been treated remarkably sympathetically. We are now, quite simply, ‘Ireland’s witches', recognized wherever we go; not because we are the only ones, or even necessarily the best ones, but because we are the only known ones. And Ireland loves eccentrics.
We are not boasting about this — it is simply a by-product of our profession as writers; and we often think how peaceful life would be if it were otherwise. But one inevitable result is that people who are interested in the Craft or in allied subjects (and there are many such people) have no one else to turn to, even if it is only to ask questions and go away again. Among these, there are quite a few who are seriously interested and want to become active, and it is from these that we have built our coven. More than half of them are in their twenties, and more than half of them at this moment have been initiated for less than a year. Average attendance at regular meetings is ten or twelve people, but if everyone was able to be present on the same night it would be about twice that. Although there have been hive-offs, none of the present group feel ready to form their own groups yet, although a handful of them are certainly potential leaders.
Admittedly we are in a strange position, as the only known representatives of the Craft revival in a country where that revival was non-existent, or at least unnoticed, until we came here. But there are many public or semi-public covens in Britain, the United States, Australia and Canada who have similar problems.
One way of dealing with it, of course, is simply to say ‘No'; to write, speak, be interviewed, explain yourself — but only very rarely to accept recruits, however promising. You have every right to do that if you wish, but if too many covens react that way, where is the genuine seeker to turn? He may well fall into the hands of one of the less admirable groups on the fringes of occultism whose doors are always open — and we have seen that happen more than once.
Another very practical way is to divide your group into an inner and an outer coven. The inner coven consists of experienced witches, used to working together, with the emphasis on work rather than training (though the latter must never be neglected, however experienced you think you are). The outer coven consists of new initiates and postulants, plus one or two volunteers from the inner coven to help you train them. As the outer coven members advance, they can be admitted to the inner coven; and of course the possibility of hive-offs will be always borne in mind, to keep the overall numbers reasonably stable. Typically, the inner and outer covens might meet on alternate weeks.
The other solution (which is the one we are following at the moment) is to accept the situation and keep everyone together — again, with one eye open for suitable hive-offs. This is a livelier and in many ways a more productive system, especially in places where the Craft revival is new on the ground.
But one trap to be avoided, either with an outer coven or with a mixed and relatively fluid one, is that of thinking that it is ‘only’ a training group, from which not much effective magical work can yet be expected. It must learn by doing, and in the confidence that what it is doing will produce results. This attitude must be instilled from the start. Every coven, however raw, is a working one.
One way of maintaining the emphasis on working is to keep a coven record. This helps you to judge honestly how successful your healing and other work is, and even to check for yourself such things as the traditional preferability of certain phases of the moon for certain kinds of working, and the helpfulness of certain incenses or music.
You can also note any interesting phenomena, such as when two or three people have the strong feeling that ‘someone in that direction is very curious about what we’re up to', or are aware of a perfume which cannot be explained by anything which is physically in the room. Such experiences are always cropping up, and if they are noted, very often they tie in with something which you discover later; if they are not noted, they are apt to slip by without anything having been learned from them.
As an example, let us look at one night’s coven record of the (fictitious but typical) coven of Mary and John Smith. It might run something like this:
Saturday 5 June 1982 At Mary and John’s house.
Present: Mary, John, Susan, Andrew, Bridget, Harry, Brian.
Drawing Down the Moon was performed.
Cord magic was worked for the following purposes:
Mary and John For Mary’s brother Phil, depressed by a threat of redundancy. (Not told.)
Susan For a neighbour, Mrs White, suffering from rheumatism. (Request.)
Andrew For his forthcoming exam.
Bridget and Harry To find a missing document.
Brian For a friend Anne, who suffers from migraine. (Not told.)
John gave a talk on the meanings of Tarot Major Arcana O and I-IV. Bridget and Brian made some interesting points.
Bridget and Harry consecrated a necklace of Bridget’s, and Susan and Brian a pentacle which Brian had made for himself.
Mary reported that the South Side coven had invited us to hold a joint Midsummer Sabbat with them, and everyone agreed to accept.
Music: Sinfonia Antarctica.
Incense: Silver Lady.
Moon: 4 days before full.
P: 27/2 (PM).
Over the following days or weeks, notes would be added on the success or failure of the five objectives for which cord magic was worked.
One or two explanations. ‘Drawing Down the Moon was performed’ (or ‘was not performed') is noted because many experienced High Priestesses maintain that to do it at every Circle can be very draining on the woman concerned, and recommend a safe maximum of once a month. This does seem to be a matter for personal experience to confirm or refute, so Mary and John are experimenting to see how its frequency affects her, if at all.2
‘Not told’ or ‘Request’ after the various cord-magic entries indicates whether or not the person worked for knew that he or she was being worked for. This is a help in adjudging the real effectiveness of the work, because if it succeeds without the person knowing it was done, there is no question of a ‘placebo effect’. (The placebo effect occurs in witchcraft as well as in medicine. In both cases, it is a matter of ‘thy faith hath made thee whole’. More than once, when we have been asked for help and have promised to get the coven to work on the problem at our next Circle, we have been profusely thanked for the success of our work before the coven has even met!)
‘P: 27/2 (PM)’ is a private experiment of Mary’s. She is interested in the phenomenon which we explained in Section XV, of the different psychic quality of the ovulation and menstrual peaks. So every time she presides over a Circle as High Priestess, she notes her point in the cycle.
‘27/2’ means that she is in the twenty-seventh day of her menstrual period, and two days before the onset of her next (the second figure of course being added later). The paramenstruum — from two days before onset to two days after — is considered to be the most clairvoyantly sensitive time; so if the first figure is 1, 2 or 3, or the second figure 1 or 2, she adds ‘ (PM)', for paramenstruum. She has been making this note for five or six months now, and the results so far do seem to indicate that her paramenstruum is indeed a peak of her psychic power.
A good High Priest will keep an eye on his partner for signs of overstrain, because the High Priestess’s job is a very demanding one, particularly in a growing coven. She is expected to be a combination of teacher, psychiatrist, nurse, mother-confessor, referee, scapegoat and reference librarian. She is expected to be omniscient and tireless. New young witches especially tend to put her on a pedestal, and to over-react when they discover that she is human after all. She is sometimes tempted to cry, with Hamlet:
The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Her High Priest should never allow all this to get out of hand. If she is over-tired before a Circle, he might suggest that tonight would be a good night to let Bridget and Harry preside while she relaxes. He will also be wise to have one or two training talks, or group exercises, up his sleeve which he can conduct himself at short notice or no notice at all, to shift the burden off her for a while. He should never neglect her psychic defence, remembering that all the sensitivity and psychic openness that are required of her make her especially vulnerable. An important part of his job is to be her psychic bodyguard and always to be ready with the Circle-round-the-bed, the appropriate Banishing Pentagram, the Openings of the Body ritual or whatever is called for. If he is not married to or living with her, he must achieve an even more delicate balance — being as alive to her situation as circumstances permit, but without invading her privacy or breathing down her neck. (Even a husband should remember that one; his High Priestess-wife should feel protected but not stifled or coddled.)
A publicly known High Priestess — particularly if she has a vivid and outgoing personality — is likely to arouse a certain amount of jealousy, with its resulting malicious rumours. Among the ones which have come back to us are, that Janet has a string of lovers, some of them named and some of whom she has never even met, and/or that Stewart has a small harem (in fact we have been completely faithful to each other from the start, and have no intention or wish to be anything else, ever); that Janet entertained some of these alleged lovers in our castle in the middle of a lake in Co. Mayo (in fact our Mayo home was a two-bedroomed cottage on a bog); that Janet’s figure is largely silicone (in fact it is entirely as Nature made it); that we are rich (in fact, like most freelance writers, we live hand-to-mouth); that Janet has had a sex-change (!); that we are not legally married (in fact we were married at Woking Register Office, Surrey, on 19 July 1975, as anyone may check); and so on and so on.
Doreen Valiente has her own list of stories she has heard about herself. ‘The one I like best,’ she tells us, ‘is that I’m the illegitimate daughter of Aleister Crowley. My mother is supposed to have been a dashing 1920's deb of high family, and I am said to have been farmed out to foster parents who brought me up as their own because their own child had died. Unfortunately, it clashes with the other story that I am a Polish Jewess who came here in wartime as a refugee, having been initiated into the darker secrets of the Qabalah in my own country. The New Forest gypsies took me in, and that is where Gerald Gardner found me. (I’ve had this one told to me in total solemnity by someone who didn’t know whom he was talking to — and I didn’t let on!) Moreover, I am supposed to be a secret agent for Scientology, of all things — someone was quite actively spreading this one around Brighton a few years ago. And there was another one about my having organised a Black Mass or a Sabbat orgy or something in Chislehurst Caves — I’ve never been there in my life! The really funny one is fairly recent. It confuses me with Doreen Irvine, and says that I’ve become a Christian convert and gone over to the United States, where I am making pots of money lecturing against witchcraft. I hope she won’t sue!’
Such gossip would be funny if it were not sometimes distressing. The consolation is that it comes from a small minority of warped minds, and that most people are civilized and friendly if one is civilized and friendly to them. A chip on the shoulder is the very last thing a publicly known witch should carry.
Tradition has it that an expectant mother is Queen of the Circle, and she is especially honoured whatever her degree. But she will find that she cannot run the Circle, or lead the work, as effectively as before. A pregnant woman’s psychic antennae are withdrawn to concentrate on the new life within her. If she is normally gifted in astral projection, she will almost certainly find that she cannot do it at all while she is expecting a baby (and Nature’s reasons for withdrawing the gift at this time are pretty obvious). Her psyche consolidates itself around her pregnancy, so that she is not really equipped to lead, and be the focus for, the coven’s psychic work. A pregnant High Priestess would be well advised to appoint a suitable deputy to act for her until after the baby is born — or more probably a working partnership to act together, since it is likely that her own High Priest will wish to withdraw with her. During those months they can of course still take part in Circles, but as elder statesmen rather than as active leaders. The only exception might well be the festival Sabbats, which are celebratory rather than working occasions; for example, a pregnant High Priestess is ideally suited to enact the Mother at the Imbolg Sabbat (see Eight Sabbats for Witches, Section IV). ‘Every man and woman is a Star', and every woman, like every man, is unique; so there may well be women witches with a special quality of power which, mysteriously, enables them to continue as active High Priestess through part or all of a pregnancy. But any woman who feels so able must be very honest with herself, and be sure that she is not merely rationalizing a desire to keep the reins in her own hands.
Banishment from the coven should be a very rare necessity, and in many covens it may happily never arise at all. But there are times when it is the only course. If a member has deliberately betrayed the confidence of the coven, or lied to its leaders, or carried on hidden activities which he or she knows to be incompatible with the trust which the coven places in him or her, or flagrantly broken a fundamental law of Wiccan ethics, or is causing continuous dissension within the coven, then action has to be taken.
Mere disagreement is not enough reason for banishment. Opinions honestly held and expressed must be thrashed out; the coven and its leaders may even learn from them, or the holder be persuaded of error. What is not acceptable is underhand sabotage or devious lobbying.
Unless the offence is obviously so gross that immediate banishment is imperative, the first step should be confrontation of the culprit, first by the High Priestess and High Priest, and then if necessary by the whole Council of Elders. If the culprit genuinely sees the point, and the matter can be resolved at this stage, so much the better. One possibility to be borne in mind is to tell him or her to stay away from coven Circles, say for a month, for some personal heart-searching and reappraisal, or for private study to correct whatever was the weakness. This can often work wonders.
But if the culprit is stubborn and unrepentant, and banishment becomes the only answer, then it must be done formally and properly and the culprit must know his or her rights. In the time-honoured formula of democracy — not only must justice be done, it must be seen to be done.
The actual banishment may be pronounced either by the High Priestess or by the High Priest. The culprit must be told at the same time that he or she may ask for readmission after a year and a day — and also told that he or she remains a witch even though banished, because that is something which can never be taken away.
If (as we have known to happen) a culprit refuses to face the High Priestess or High Priest and accept banishment, then it may be done by letter; but personal confrontation should be managed if possible.
In very special circumstances, the High Priestess may decide to readmit the culprit before the year and a day is up, but this should not be done lightly, as it weakens the respect in which banishment is held. If the culprit does apply for readmission at the proper time, it must only be granted if he or she has genuinely understood and regretted the offence and made any practical amends that are necessary.
It goes without saying that a banished witch may not try to join another coven while the banishment is in effect, and that any High Priestess who knowingly accepted such a witch would be breaking the Craft code, unless of course she were satisfied that the banishing coven was corrupt, irresponsible or black — and her conviction would have to be very well founded. Mere belief that the banishment was unfair would not be enough.
A place of occult working, it need hardly be said, acquires a psychic charge; and if the workers move elsewhere without thinking about what they are leaving behind, it may well become ‘haunted’. Later users of such a place for ordinary purposes may encounter phenomena which puzzle or alarm them, particularly if they are psychically sensitive and at all nervous — even if the activities of which those phenomena are after-echoes were benign ones.
So when we leave a covenstead, our last Circle is entirely devoted to ‘closing the Temple’ and to working to ensure that no one who lives in the house after us will receive anything but helpful ‘vibes’ from our having been there, or will experience any phenomena which might puzzle or distress them.
That, we feel, is only good manners and good discipline, and just as important as leaving the house physically clean and tidy for the next occupants.
There are other arguments in favour of it. If you leave astral loose ends in an abandoned covenstead, you are also leaving open astral links to yourselves, and may thus be affected by any negative emotional or psychic factors which later occupiers may bring into your old home. Having no personal involvement with them, you may not even realize where these negative influences are coming from.
For these and other reasons, we strongly recommend a deliberate closing-down ritual when you leave an old covenstead. The form of the ritual should be a matter of your own devising; what matters is the strongly envisaged intent. But it is a good idea psychologically, and it emphasizes that intent, if the whole coven sets to and strips the Temple entirely and packs its contents ready for moving, immediately the ritual is over and the Circle banished.
It is hardly possible to leave no influence behind — or even no manifestations; but if you have done your closing-down properly, such manifestations will be defused, so to speak. For example, we have had the strange experience of becoming ‘ghosts’ ourselves. We had left a covenstead where we had built up a strong coven and had done a lot of psychic work, much of it relating to our immediate natural surroundings. Much later, we learned that neighbours were quite convinced they had seen us visiting the house, though in fact we had not been within miles of it since we left. We are an easily recognizable couple, and country people have sharp eyes; so we are satisfied that their belief was genuine. But if we had neglected the closing-down ritual, our after-echoes might have been disturbingly ‘supernatural', instead of being mistaken for natural happenings.
This Section has naturally talked a lot about structure, leadership, generally accepted rules and so on; just as the first part of this book has dealt with detailed rituals and (largely for reasons of historical interest and putting the record straight) has delved into sources, textual variations and so on.
But we would not want anyone to misunderstand this and get the impression that Wicca is a formalized religion. Rituals which are widely accepted as norms, and rules which have been found to work, are a useful basis of operation — but a basis, not a straitjacket. Wicca, being a growing and creative religion drawing on ancient roots, embraces a wide spectrum from time-honoured forms to complete spontaneity. Our own practice (which we think is fairly typical) ranges from the precise observation of loved rituals to the unpredictable inspiration of the moment — often within one evening’s Circle. And that is how it should be. Similarly, covens vary greatly in which part of the spectrum they tend to emphasize.
For an intelligent and articulate exposition of the spontaneous (one might almost say Charismatic) end of the Wiccan spectrum we recommend the American witch Starhawk’s two books The Spiral Dance and Dreaming the Dark. Some of the things that she and her friends get up to would make a traditionalist’s (with a small ‘t') hair stand on end; but they are a healthy corrective to over-formalism.
And for a breath of the poetry of witchcraft, the light-dark mystery of it, read Erica Jong’s Witches, with its haunting paintings by Joseph A. Smith. (It is the kind of book of which you may well want to buy two copies, so that you can cut one of them up and frame the pictures.)
Every coven must find its own character and its own area of emphasis within the spectrum. But it should be wary of missing out altogether on any of the spectrum’s wavelengths. If pure white light symbolizes the fulfilment and the psychic integration which we all seek, it should be remembered that light is never white unless it includes every colour there is — including some which are invisible to the ordinary sight.