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6 December 2018 16:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonOne good thing about a period of time away from the web, is it does force you to develop ideas more slowly: they can't be immediately shared, and this allows them to mature and be tested.
I think I am close now to having a workable trad outline. The goal is a universal generic framework for tradcraft - which includes a bit of nature work, a bit of techy ceremonial stuff, a bit of liminal stuff, and a lot of pop culture.
The frameworks that exist have a couple of problems:
1. They're heavily Judeo-Christian in origin, and don't feel "Pagan"
2. They're very specific at doing a single thing: Gardinarian Wicca, or Celtic Reconstructionism.
3. They're secret. People hint, but there's nothing one can use out of the box.
So I'm hoping to share what I've been working on as a bridging system:
1. It has a theoretical/technical background, replacing the Kaballah, the 4 Elements, and other ceremonial ideas which persist into Paganism. One can still do noodly ceremonial magic, but it isn't underpinned by alien ideas.
2. It's not specific, and umbrellas a lot of other traditions. One can do Wiccan gods or ancient pantheons or pop culture under our brolly, without having to do Wicca, reconstructionist polytheism, or eclectic magic. If you're too eclectic to fit an existing group, but still want the lore, history and detail of a real tradition, this is for you.
3. It's not secret, but it is a Mystery tradition. Available notes will walk a line between sharing the basics, but leaving room for individuals to fill in the gaps and do the experiential stuff of which Mystery is made.
4. It comes with an optional deity set one can use out of the box, but a lot of room to fine-tune and develop over time, or slot in your own names.
5. It's explicitly gender-blind - one can use or ignore gender as preferred - and anti-authority - I encourage people to develop their own blends and flavours. I will, of course, continue to develop it; but you can return to the trunk or define your own branch at will.
6. Fairies, witches, land spirits, old gods, things which were possibly once gods, trees, seas, storms, dead things in barrows, Tolkien, Syd Barrett, Boudicca, Jim Henson and Little Red Riding Hood. Is the kind of thing we do, and the kind of experience the system is designed to facilitate. However, it's very flexible.
I'm currently sorting the core, open content from the idiosyncratic/personal/secret stuff. I'm also wrestling with the urge not to put it online, but to send it to the interested by post.
Is this weird, perverse, deliberately difficult and obstructive; grasping at a thing which could be made truly open online; and a failure against which the system will be no good to anyone, remaining too small and private to gain traction, and inaccessible to those who don't wish to share their address? I don't know. But I *really* like the idea of sending written correspondence to people, and them receiving something strange in the mail; and especially considering the importance of not-being-online to the Landweird. I really like the idea of writing up note sets one at a time, to be mailed out to interested parties; and rumours of a hidden tradition circulating, unseen but perceived. I like the idea of conversations happening that I am less aware of, instead of it all going through my blog and maintaining a strong level of authorial control. Letters are copied and copied and copied into personal grimoires, and quickly assume a strong local flavour.
The Gerald Gardener factor: far more fun to feel like you've joined an ancient, secret coven, than to read all available documentation for a tradition in a day then say - is that all there is? I think this is where Scott Cunningham went wrong as a writer, and where I went wrong with Wicca generally. I encountered it as a complete, rather boring, middle-of-the-road description, rather than a living tradition. No doubt, actual Wiccans do the fun stuff too - but you wouldn't know it to read Cunningham. So there's a chance that, Mysteries-by-mail prevent a putative tradition from being over & old hat before it's had the chance to draw breath.
I don't know.
I think I am close now to having a workable trad outline. The goal is a universal generic framework for tradcraft - which includes a bit of nature work, a bit of techy ceremonial stuff, a bit of liminal stuff, and a lot of pop culture.
The frameworks that exist have a couple of problems:
1. They're heavily Judeo-Christian in origin, and don't feel "Pagan"
2. They're very specific at doing a single thing: Gardinarian Wicca, or Celtic Reconstructionism.
3. They're secret. People hint, but there's nothing one can use out of the box.
So I'm hoping to share what I've been working on as a bridging system:
1. It has a theoretical/technical background, replacing the Kaballah, the 4 Elements, and other ceremonial ideas which persist into Paganism. One can still do noodly ceremonial magic, but it isn't underpinned by alien ideas.
2. It's not specific, and umbrellas a lot of other traditions. One can do Wiccan gods or ancient pantheons or pop culture under our brolly, without having to do Wicca, reconstructionist polytheism, or eclectic magic. If you're too eclectic to fit an existing group, but still want the lore, history and detail of a real tradition, this is for you.
3. It's not secret, but it is a Mystery tradition. Available notes will walk a line between sharing the basics, but leaving room for individuals to fill in the gaps and do the experiential stuff of which Mystery is made.
4. It comes with an optional deity set one can use out of the box, but a lot of room to fine-tune and develop over time, or slot in your own names.
5. It's explicitly gender-blind - one can use or ignore gender as preferred - and anti-authority - I encourage people to develop their own blends and flavours. I will, of course, continue to develop it; but you can return to the trunk or define your own branch at will.
6. Fairies, witches, land spirits, old gods, things which were possibly once gods, trees, seas, storms, dead things in barrows, Tolkien, Syd Barrett, Boudicca, Jim Henson and Little Red Riding Hood. Is the kind of thing we do, and the kind of experience the system is designed to facilitate. However, it's very flexible.
I'm currently sorting the core, open content from the idiosyncratic/personal/secret stuff. I'm also wrestling with the urge not to put it online, but to send it to the interested by post.
Is this weird, perverse, deliberately difficult and obstructive; grasping at a thing which could be made truly open online; and a failure against which the system will be no good to anyone, remaining too small and private to gain traction, and inaccessible to those who don't wish to share their address? I don't know. But I *really* like the idea of sending written correspondence to people, and them receiving something strange in the mail; and especially considering the importance of not-being-online to the Landweird. I really like the idea of writing up note sets one at a time, to be mailed out to interested parties; and rumours of a hidden tradition circulating, unseen but perceived. I like the idea of conversations happening that I am less aware of, instead of it all going through my blog and maintaining a strong level of authorial control. Letters are copied and copied and copied into personal grimoires, and quickly assume a strong local flavour.
The Gerald Gardener factor: far more fun to feel like you've joined an ancient, secret coven, than to read all available documentation for a tradition in a day then say - is that all there is? I think this is where Scott Cunningham went wrong as a writer, and where I went wrong with Wicca generally. I encountered it as a complete, rather boring, middle-of-the-road description, rather than a living tradition. No doubt, actual Wiccans do the fun stuff too - but you wouldn't know it to read Cunningham. So there's a chance that, Mysteries-by-mail prevent a putative tradition from being over & old hat before it's had the chance to draw breath.
I don't know.
