Accidie

Today a few thoughts on a subject which is better known amongst Christian monastics than amongst witches. Accidie was an affliction identified among the early monks and nuns in the desert. Living a totally monotonous life, this is what happened to them:

AND whenever it begins in any degree to overcome any one, it either makes him stay in his cell idle and lazy, without making any spiritual progress, or it drives him out from thence and makes him restless and a wanderer, and indolent in the matter of all kinds of work, and it makes him continually go round the cells of the brethren and the monasteries, with an eye to nothing but this; viz., where or with what excuse he can presently procure some refreshment. For the mind of an idler cannot think of anything but food and the belly, until the society of some man or woman, equally cold and indifferent, is secured, and it loses itself in their affairs and business, and is thus little by little ensnared by dangerous occupations, so that, just as if it were bound up in the coils of a serpent, it can never disentangle itself again and return to the perfection of its former profession. (John Cassian: Institutes, book 10, chapter 6. http://www.osb.org/lectio/cassian/inst/inst10.html#10.0 Accessed 21.8.12)

This may appear to have nothing to do with witchcraft, but think about the behaviour described above and how it would actually look. Then think about witches we have known, and you can be sure you will see this pattern of behaviour! In witches it manifests more as the pursuit of numerous initiations into different traditions, witch wars, and so on. Maxine Sanders described Alex Sanders as having a sort of restlessness which often afflicts male occultists. This is nothing other than accidie. Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone describe it as 'second degree syndrome'; this need not be a negative thing however, but is more like the children of the coven growing up and getting into conflict with the high priestess.
I think Robert Cochrane's description of 'the roebuck in the thicket' is useful here. The point is that the roebuck is stuck in the thicket. It doesn't know what the future holds or whether it will ever get out. This is exactly what accidie feels like: there is no 'carrot' in front of you, so you end up in irritation and boredom, and cast around for something of interest.
For John Cassian the remedy to this is work, work, work. He also has this to say:

WHEN I was beginning my stay in the desert, and had said to Abbot Moses, the chief of all the saints, that I had been terribly troubled yesterday by an attack of accidie, and that I could only be freed from it by running at once to Abbot Paul, he said, "You have not freed yourself from it, but rather have given yourself up to it as its slave and subject. For the enemy will henceforth attack you more strongly as a deserter and runaway, since it has seen that you fled at once when overcome in the conflict: unless on a second occasion when you join battle with it you make up your mind not to dispel its attacks and heats for the moment by deserting your cell, or by the inactivity of sleep, but rather learn to triumph over it by endurance and conflict." Whence it is proved by experience that a fit of accidie should not be evaded by running away from it, but overcome by resisting it. (John Cassian: op. cit. chapter 25)

Of course the early Christians understood it as a demon, one of many to afflict monks. Nowadays we can recognise the symptoms of this without having to accept the personification of it. What Abbot Moses is actually telling him to do is not to try to escape from the feeling. For us as witches this highlights the magical importance of knowing yourself first and foremost. An important living skill is to be able to sit with the presence of yourself and tolerate it without running away. So much of our life involves business, noise, distraction, all of which allows us to escape from some of the less desirable things we find inside ourselves. Hence the importance of a meditation or divination or grounding or even banishing practice. This is of course another reference to the hedge. We as witches have a problem with a lack of control, but when we find ourselves stuck in a thicket or hedge, sometimes it's best not to break out of it, but to stay there for a while, and see what the hedge has to offer.