{"id":380,"date":"2009-09-23T12:14:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-23T12:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-first-wicca-101-session.html"},"modified":"2009-09-23T12:14:24","modified_gmt":"2009-09-23T12:14:24","slug":"the-first-wicca-101-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-first-wicca-101-session.html","title":{"rendered":"The First ‘Wicca 101’ Session"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had our first Wicca 101 class last night, on Mabon, the
\nEquinox.  <\/span>Along with the Priestess
\nwho is co-teaching, we had five students: two with previous experience, the
\nothers without.  <\/span>A sixth, also a
\nnewbie, will join us at our second meeting.  <\/span>After that, the class will be closed.  <\/span>It’s a nice size: big enough to have
\nsome coven type experiences later on and small enough for us to attend to every
\none individually.  <\/span>Plus we fit
\ncomfortably into my living room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nWe discussed what Paganism was, and what distinguished
\nWiccan Paganism, especially the British Traditional sort, from other kinds of
\nNeoPaganism.  <\/span>We covered this
\ninformation fairly briefly but will return to it from time to time.  <\/span>         <\/span><\/p>\n

We then moved
\non to basic Wiccan ethics, the Rede<\/a> and the law of Threefold Return<\/a>.  <\/span>We discussed how these principles
\ndiffered from a list of rules, how they would encourage us to think deeply abut
\nthe ethical consequences of our actions when another was hurt, for in many cases
\nthat is inevitable.  <\/span>        <\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, along these
\nlines, we covered basic magickal etiquette: How to conduct yourselves around
\nmagickal instruments, others and your own.  <\/span>Again, we’ll return to these issues from time to time.        <\/span><\/p>\n

I
\npassed out a short list of books from within our traditions that are good for
\ngetting oriented.  <\/span>Stuart Farrar’s
\nWhat Witches Do<\/i><\/a> is a classic in my view.  <\/span>We also
\nrecommended  <\/span>two books by Stuart
\nand Janet, Eight Sabbats for Witches and The WitchesWay,  <\/span>that have been combined into the
\nbizarrely named The Witches’ Bible<\/i> <\/a>, the ABC of Witchcraft<\/i> <\/a>and The Rebirth of Witchcraft <\/a><\/i>
\nby Doreen Valiente, and Wiccan Roots<\/a><\/i> 
\nPhillip Heselton.  <\/span>We did not
\nrequire that people read them, but we encouraged it if they are interested in
\nmore book learning.  <\/span>      <\/span><\/p>\n

While I am
\na fan of learning by doing, some things just need to be said.      <\/span>Then we started
\nthe experiential side.  <\/span>         <\/span><\/p>\n

We started by
\nlearning some basics about energy. 
\n<\/span>First how to see it around your own hands<\/a>, which most accomplished on
\ntheir first try. 
\nThen we explored one way to feel it,<\/a> which I explained in this blog earlier. 
\nAlmost everyone, I think everyone, could feel it rising off the top of
\nanother’s head.        <\/span>
More interestingly for
\nthe skeptics, almost everyone could feel when a person passed their hands
\nrather far over the top of their head. 
\n<\/span>These exercises demonstrated better than any book could that we are
\nenmeshed in fields of energy that come from everyone and every thing.        <\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nPriestsess and I explained  <\/span>that a
\nmajor dimension of Craft work involved being able to sense and manipulate this
\nenergy, and encouraged them to familiarize themselves with it on their own
\nbefore the next meeting.  <\/span>              <\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nfinal exercise was to breathe in a beautiful peaceful blue light, centering it
\nin their hearts.  <\/span>Once it was
\nstrongly there, they were asked to move it throughout their upper torso,
\nthrough their shoulders, and down one arm and through their hands.  <\/span>Once they could feel it flowing through
\ntheir hands, the passed the other hand pam to palm slowly across the energized
\none, keeping at least several inches apart. Again, our students could all feel
\nthe difference.          <\/span>Everyone
\nthen was asked to pay attention to how the feeling within where we met had
\nchanged due to the difference in the quality of energy people were deliberately
\nworking with.            
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Good stuff. Everyone left happy with their first Wicca 101 class.  <\/span>We will meet again in two weeks.            <\/span><\/p>\n

Why
\ndo I relate this story?  <\/span>To show
\none way such a class could be conducted. 
\n<\/span>There is no one right way any more than there is one right Wiccan or
\nPagan or Religious tradition.  <\/span>I
\nhope other teachers will relate their own experiences that might inspire or
\nguide the rest of us.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had our first Wicca 101 class last night, on Mabon, the Equinox.  Along with the Priestess who is co-teaching, we had five students: two with previous experience, the others without.  A sixth, also a newbie, will join us at our second meeting.  After that, the class will be closed.  It’s a nice size: big…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-culture","category-pagan-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nThe First 'Wicca 101' Session - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/the-first-wicca-101-session.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The First 'Wicca 101' Session - 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