Plainness

Become aware of what is in you.
Announce it, pronounce it,
produce it and give birth to it.
~  Meister Eckhart

I have been thinking recently of an unexpected parallel between an aspect of modern witchcraft and an aspect of the Quaker testimony of simplicity, which has sometimes been called plainness:

'The testimony of simplicity is a shorthand description of the actions generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) to testify or bear witness to their beliefs that a person ought to live a simple life in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or play down what is least important.' (Source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_of_Simplicity from whence further quotations will come in this post if they have no further attribution)

We witches are unaccustomed to the idea of witness of testimony, at least as it is practised in the missionary religions. We do not seek converts, in fact my personal practice is actively to discourage anyone who wants to 'become a witch', & so if we have a message for the world it tends to be given in more subtle or individual ways.
Nonetheless is seems to me that we share some values with the Society of Friends, particularly in terms of plainness. The difference lies in what we are witnessing to - in comparison to ceremonial magicians we tend to play down the idea of the Great Work, but I feel we each actually have our Great Work, & our witness to the centrality of this in our lives may perhaps show others that magical people are not merely self-pandering hoodlums.
Another similarity between us & the Quakers is that their plainness has not usually been a uniform, but a reflection of values: they would not be distracted from the voice of 'that which is God' within them. The question for us as witches is what values our appearance reflects. I have posted before on wearing black & the reasons for it, & also on how 'hoodies' may be a modern parallel of the witch figure. Since we draw on the fairy-tale figure of the witch so much for inspiration, & on so much pseudo-history, we may prefer reflecting values of marginality, liminality & creation of realities through magical thinking.
Nor is the Quakers' testimony less uncomfortable for others than ours. Ours could be phrased as something like 'the witch is here to heal you, even if it means open heart surgery,' theirs is more of an overt criticism of the way other people live:

'Traditionally, wearing plain dress was an answer to a number of Friends' concerns. Expensive styles were used to show social inequality and make statements about wealth. Only a select few could afford expensive adornments, which could then be used to exacerbate differences between people based on class, where people in fancy clothing would not want to be seen socializing with others dressed tattily. This was part of the inspiration for the Quaker testimony to equality. In addition, the frequent buying of expensive new styles and discarding what had recently been bought, was considered wasteful and self-seeking, where Friends instead aimed to focus on simplicity, and the important things in life. Notably, Friends did not consider it right to judge people on their material possessions, but this could not be achieved in a society which placed an emphasis on keeping up to date with inconsequential but expensive new trends. At the time, this practice of plainness meant Friends were obviously identifiable.'

I was astonished to discover that there are Quakers today who are setting out to look like, well, Quakers. The Quaker Jane website by one such explains why & introduces the history & modern phenomenon of this practice of plainness.
The obvious rejoinder to this is 'To what extent do we look like witches?' I suppose the question ought really be, 'Do we look like that which we seek to represent?' Don't get me wrong, if it's your will to wear a pointy hat & red shoes I will in no way try to stop you. However for witches dressing the part may be seen as part of the all-important acting in accordance. If our magic is to happen we have to believe that it has already happened, & act as if it has. So we are actually part of the fairytale world that we are creating, & we must look as if the world we seek to create is as good as done.
The dressing bit was news to me, but I have myself heard Quakers call people 'thee', an aspect of plainness which was better known to me personally:

'Early Friends practiced plainness in speech by not referring to people in the "fancy" ways that were customary. Often Friends would address high-ranking persons using the familiar forms of "thee" and "thou", instead of the respectful "you". Later, as "thee" and "thou" disappeared from everyday English usage, many Quakers continued to use these words as a form of "plain speech", though the original reason for this usage disappeared, along with "hath". In the twentieth century, "thou hath" disappeared, along with the associated second-person verb forms, so that "thee is" is normal.[13] Today there are still Friends that will use "thee" with other Quakers.'

Of course 'plain speaking' has a more down to earth meaning of being up front with what you have to say. I have always been glad that my father was a bluff northener, & from him I inherit all my tact " subtleness.
For Quakers it also has this second meaning, & is reflected in them not taking oaths because they expected that they would speak the truth all the time. There is another blogspot blog, Plain in the City, unfortunately not updated recently, in which a plain Quaker addresses the undesirable behaviours of other members of his meeting.
Which brings us back nicely to the witch figure. Surely any regular reader of this blog cannot be surprised that I would value plainness in speech very highly for a witch?
------------------