Taking our witchcraft extremely seriously

'Yet like Cain's daughter thou shalt never be,
Nor like the race who have become at last
Wicked & infamous from suffering, [...]
Who are all thieves & knaves; like unto them ye shall not be...'
Aradia, Gospel of the Witches, Chapter 1.

Perhaps first I'd better comment that I've removed the words about Jews & what we would now call Roma from the above passage: I don't want them in as they would give the wrong impression, & I don't want to pretend they were never there, so I'll settle on removing them & commenting that I've done so. This is really nothing to do with the subject of this post.
Instead the subject is how while witches definitely have more fun, we also know when to take things extremely seriously. In case anyone is new to this blog, I am a homosexual, & I think sometimes the queeny, bitchy tone in which I write can make it difficult for people unacquainted with my milieu to know when I am being serious. This, darlings, is the point: the whole point of camp is that one can say the most outrageous things & leave your hearers unsure whether you're serious. The point of camp is being very serious & very silly at the same time.
I have been reminded twice recently of the importance of taking things seriously. I had a run-in with someone at work who was doing something which, for privacy reasons, is forbidden to the service users. It was very galling, having put much effort in the previous week into reinforcing with a service user how respect alone is sufficient reason to stop doing something when someone tells you they don't like it, to have some dickhead pissing away my work with that person & our integrity as a professional team.
This may seem an over-reaction, & the connection with witchcraft may not be immediately apparent, so here it is spelled out. The whole point of thaumaturgy is to make things the way you will them to be. Read that sentence again & let the full importance of all its implications echo down the centuries through generations of sorcerers. If I am to make things the way I will them to be, I *must* make sure that everything in my world is in alignment with my goal. A magical person must live with total integrity: everything in your life must be in accordance & the instant they are not you are pissing your will down the drain & the magic won't work.
Of course this is also one of the scary things about the pursuit of magic, since this almost monastic pursuit of only one thing means the excision of so much junk from our lives. I say almost monastic, because monastic paths in world religions lead the person away from the 'marketplace' to the pursuit of the one thing; magical paths always, despite the tradition of 'magical retirements' lead the person to the pursuit of this one thing in the midst of the market place. I don't like terms such as left-hand or right-hand, but this definitely places us in a different paths from the majority.
Despite the emphasis I like to put on witches having more fun, the pursuit of magic will also lead us into the way of initiation. 'Ceremonial' magic aside, this requires the confronting of our own demons, & will require us to do the one thing that we do not want to do. This is formalised in the initiations of, say, Gardnerian witchcraft, where you will be challenged before you enter the circle, but is fucking terrifying when it happens in your own life & is both unsolicited by you & the very last thing you want to do.
This was the occasion of the second reminder I've had recently. Yesterday I travelled to Southampton to meet someone I've only ever met online before, & who I knew to be a powerful witch, & whom I am pleased to call my Goddess mother. She read the tarot for me, & it totally confirmed something that I've known for some time: my magical future is contingent on my losing my relationship with my mother. I knew this, I feared it, I didn't really want it, I hoped I could make it up with her. However I knew that psychically she is still smothering me. I must lose any delusion I have of 'if only' with her, & move on to become myself. Yes she will die, but I myself have to cut the psychic chains in which she holds me, this is the only way ahead, there is literally no alternative. This is the real-world parallel of being challenged on the edge of the circle: if I don't go ahead I will remain for ever on the edge of the circle. There's no comfort in this, I have to do it, people will shake their heads & tut, this is about as 'left hand' as you can get, & I have to do it for me only, because the alternative is be smothered by her forever.
You can tell a real witch's reading: if I'd been paying for that reading I'd've wanted my money back. Don't worry, there's another way this reading was characteristic of a real witch: I'm looking forward to the shag that was also in there!
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