Witchvox Article

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Posted: February 20th. 2005
Times Viewed: 6,594

People are asking about online schools and how good they can be. I mean, Wicca and Paganism is a faith of ritual, practices and study. It certainly can’t be taught over the web, can it? The questions that we need to ask are:

Is there a need for online schools?
Are they for real?
Is the accreditation offered legal and valid?

Is There A Need For Online Schools?

Wicca is a faith of study and personal commitment, and it is one of dedication and initiation. Today the most common Wiccan membership is solitaire, and the lack of qualified and accredited teachers of Wicca is abysmal. There is no central clergy standard or even one that is loosely recognized. Basically Wicca is a lay faith, with a mostly a self-recognized clergy generated from the laity itself. Very few of our organizations deal with clergy training and standards while providing accreditation and recognition of clergy. Even fewer groups take up their services. While for the last forty years we have discussed what it takes to create a true and open faith including clergy and community centers, few have taken the actions needed to get any form of consensus on clergy status. In fact, public education and education of the Wiccan and Pagan communities are left up to local groups who have the least resources and practically no training.

There is a huge rift between the growing laity and the Elders and clergy of the traditions. For most young Wiccans, training is simply impossible to find. The older groups are unseen or unapproachable. It has been this way since at late 80’s. Fortunately, publishers such as Llewellyn and Samuel Weiser have provided a growing stream of material for an ever-increasing number of Pagans and Wiccans. The Pagan and Wiccan community of today is largely self-taught and trained, with a handful of classes and courses dealing with clergy skills, and only a handful of accrediting organizations. As one traditionalist has recently commented publicly “you must be desperate to attend an online Witch school.” The answer is yes because the average Pagan has virtually no training or opportunity to receive any formal training and there are many hundreds of thousands who want to become recognized and dedicated Wiccans.

Are They For Real?

When dealing with online schools, one must consider the fact that they are the newest and best tools of the Internet to provide structured information. Far beyond a simple book, an online school combines features that allow a reader/student to pursue a structured course of study. When they get caught on a phrase or idea, they can look it up in a glossary or library. They can email a mentor, look at a list, or check a bulletin board. They can attend a chat room to test and discover answers. The idea of school features combined with access to Wiccan and magickal educational content is far beyond simply reading a book. It is a melding of the material and a network of human beings that provide real answers. No one is striving alone to learn material in the way that you would if you had just a book or two to read and practice from.

Yet, there was a time when we didn’t even have a book to read to learn this faith. The greatest accomplishment of Gerald Gardner was that he took Wicca and Witchcraft and put it in a book. He said here is the secret of the Witches themselves and if you read this you can begin to become a Witch. He made our faith publicly accessible. He challenged us and the world to say “Are Witches truly among us?” Today we know the answer is a resounding yes. His works still reverberate and shake the very foundation of the religious structure of the Western world. He published books that guided us and gave us access to the mass media and mainstream consciousness. He did not create a religion but gave rebirth to an agricultural and persecuted faith by establishing a mass-marketed set of books and providing ways for industrialized humanity to understand what it had lost. Because of Gardner and others who followed him, Wicca was made comprehensible for the modern age and accessible to the general public. He used the best possible communication tool of his age to create an enduring impact. He published hardcover books.

Gardner may have broken the silence of the Witches, but he was not the most influential Pagan of the 20th Century. Before considering if an online school is valid or not, you need to look at the fact that there are literally thousands of books on magick, Wicca, and Witchcraft. After the passage of the beloved Gardner, another grasped the tools of mass media and publication, and that is Carl Weschcke of Llewellyn books. He made great early Pagan and Wiccan leaders and writers available to the public in a big way. Through the 60’s and up to the present day, Carl Weschcke and his company have faithfully and continuously printed books that propelled the communities to even greater and more rapid growth. You were not considered a serious Pagan leader unless you were published and Llewellyn was the best chance of being published. If Gardner broke the silence, Carl Weschcke and his company Llewellyn created the language we needed to speak again. The Pagan community spread because it became possible to publish books and share them widely without them being destroyed. They gave us something we could study and share, and share we did. Growth continued at a record pace.

In 1997 the community changed again and it began to colonize cyberspace. The Witches Voice (www.witchvox.com) opened on the Internet, and suddenly the Pagan community saw itself. It was as large as it had ever been said. As a result, resources are shared, and more classes are available - yet never enough of them at the right time. We find Pagan teachers and Priest/esses can barely make ends meet, but the demands of education strip them bare and burn them out at an incredible speed. Witchvox changed the Pagan world by utilizing the best tools of mass media. It helped us reach real people, beyond the books and writings, and beyond our own backyards. It helped manage some of the growth in the Pagan community and continues to create ways for the community to build through shared experiences and information. We also became a global movement because of the creation of Wren Walker and Fritz Jung.

At each step of the Pagan community, we have seen growth of media and communication tools to the best we can have. We have seen radio shows, videos, television interviews, music, newspapers, magazines, as well as books, as ways to build and communicate the ideals of the Pagan community. At no point since the community began, has it backed away from any medium of teaching and sharing. Online schools are of that tradition within the community to use any form of mass media to communicate.

The 20th Century ends, and Pagan growth is phenomenal. In one report from Canada we hear there was a 17-fold increase in the community between 1990 and 2003. No one really knows for sure, but there is a chance we have more than a million Pagans, maybe even two million, or possibly far less. No one is sure. What we do know is that a few million books and publications have been sold and distributed during the 20th Century, and we see a growing interest in our community by television and Hollywood. Growth of Wicca is considered out of control and no one is sure how to provide adequate training. Pagan summits were called and Pagan leadership conferences convened, and yet no more training was provided.

In direct answer to that need for training, on September 4th, 2001, Ed Hubbard and Lisa Tuit took the Correllian Tradition writings of Rev. Don Lewis and created Witch School.com, the first online public school for Wiccan and Pagan education. By agreement, it would administer a system for delivering unique educational materials, providing tests, and creating transcripts for people who wanted to take the Correllian First Degree Course. The online version of the course had grown from the Daily Spell Study Group started in 1998. People who completed the course were eligible to be recognized as clergy of the Correllian Nativist Church International, Inc. The first six Mentors and the small administration of Don, Lisa, and Ed discovered a way to share and create an experience that provided a needed service. They provide structure and advice in a universe of text and words. They created the first public Wicca school online.

What Do The Online Schools Offer?

The best that online schools offer to prospective student is accessibility to some form of training. That training can be in many forms and be used to advance several different purposes. The most common purpose is that of clergy training and accreditation. Other schools offer knowledge in a structured environment and with an understanding for those who may have no other means to obtain any form of personal training. Each school offers a unique approach.

Cherry Hill Seminary offers training in two primary areas: Public Ministry and Pagan Pastoral Counseling. Areas of study within the Public Ministry program include: Community Ritual, Interfaith Development, Leadership and Administration, and Pastoral Care as a Public Minister. The Seminary is committed, in general, to the mission of building connections between all faiths of the world, and specifically, to train and ordain qualified ministers who are dedicated to the philosophy of building community within their particular Pagan denominations.

The Grey School of Wizardry is an outgrowth of the Grey Council, an assembly of two dozen mages and sages. Included in that Grey Council are the leading names in the Wiccan, Pagan, and magickal communities including Ray Buckland, Oberon Zell, Frederic Lamond, Amber K, Nybor and more. Designed for students of all ages over 11, the Grey School of Wizardry provides an extensive program of studies in all areas of wizardry and magick, at an apprenticeship level. Graduates will be certified as "Journeyman Wizards."

Witch School offers two forms of training, the first being basic and general Pagan and magickal studies for the purpose of learning the first steps to a magickal life. The second is First, Second and Third Degree Wiccan Clergy Training that is extensive and detailed to include all areas of educational needs including Public Ritual, Life Passage Rites, Theology, Philosophy, Ethics and Morality, Magick, Spellcraft, and the understanding of how to develop your temple and/or shrine. Upon completion of training students can become legally recognized clergy of the Correllian Nativist Church.

DragonMagic School is an Australian online school, completely devoted to an open-minded and uniquely uninhibited journey into all forms of magick. The DragonMagic School forum is totally student-oriented, providing various interactive techniques to study the magickal world we live in. They offer Ceremonial Magick, Wicca, and other forms of magickal study.

Is The Accreditation Offered Legal And Valid?

The second question for an online school is: Is the accreditation offered legal and valid? Do they really have the authority and ability to offer legal clergy standing as they claim? Each school has a statement about the source of their authority. You do need to look for it. Each school is different, but, like everything else in the Pagan community, standards for clergy and the limits of their accreditation depends on the steps they have taken to be legally recognized. As an example, Cherry Hill works through several groups and organizations that help promote clergy and support them with graduate level Pagan studies. In the case of Witch School, their cooperative agreement with the Correllian Nativist Church International, Inc. makes their education a training program for developing fully legal and recognized clergy. The Correllian Nativist Church International, Inc. is a registered 501(c)3 church and public charity of the United States of America. Cherry Hill and Witch School offer fully recognized studies that lead to accreditation as Pagan clergy.

So - are online schools for real? They are an answer and a solution to the overwhelmed teachers, terrible schedules, and lack of available training locally that we all face. Online schools represent the Pagan community tradition of embracing the best communication tools available to help those who want to be part of the fastest growing religion in the Western world. They provide a service that is much needed and extends to the community to many hundreds of thousands and possibly someday millions of people who may have never had a chance to become part of our community. They are a valid path to legal ministry and are part of the Pagan community today.

And the answer is: Yes, Paganism can be taught anywhere and anyplace that the true student appears, including on the web.

Blessed Be!

Footnotes:
www.llewellyn.com
www.geraldgardner.com
www.witchvox.com
www.witchschool.com
www.cherryhillseminary.org
www.greyschool.com
www.dmschool.org

Copyright: 2005 CNCI, Inc

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Bio: Ed Hubbard is an explorer of educational and informational transformation, having been on every major medium we have for mass communication today, and has developed systems of communication through Telepathic Media and WitchSchool.com, as he waits for his cosmic bus to the future.

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