Tag Archives: hermeticism

Revisiting Initiatory Wicca: Are They Still Scourging?

As you can see, this conversation was recorded last spring, but I got around to listening to it only this month.

Both Rufus Harrington and Judith Noble come from initiatory British Wiccan traditions. A psychotherapist by profession, he is also a trustee of the Doreen Valiente Foundation, which protects and preserves many of the original Books of Shadows belonging to Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente.

Nobel herself is an artist and professor of Film and the Occult at Arts University Plymouth (UK). “She began her career as an artist filmmaker, exhibiting work internationally and worked for over twenty years as a production executive in the film industry, working with directors including Peter Greenaway and Amma Asante. Her current research centres on artists’ moving image, Surrealism, the occult and work by women artists, and she has published on filmmakers including Maya Deren, Derek Jarman and Kenneth Anger.”

A lot of the interview deals with “What is initiatory Wicca?” and “How has it changed since they were brought in?” — forty years ago in Harrington’s case. So it’s not like nothing has changed since Stewart and Janet Farrar, who were Alexandrian initiates, were discussing these issues.

Esoteric Crossroads: Scholars Meet Practitioners is a spin-off from Stephanie Shea’s main podcast, Rejected Religion, created in collaboration with the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices. Shea herself has studied at Amsterdam Hemetica, the university’s center for “Hermetic philosophy and related currents.”

You can find episodes of Rejected Religion listed at its site, at the usual places such as Apple podcast, or on her Academia.edu home page. There is a Patreon site too, with the usual “the more you pay, the more access you have.” (Some content is free; other content becomes free after a time.)

Wines for Esotericists

The Alchemist, a blended red from the Winery at Holy Cross Abbey.

What has been happening over at the Winery at Holy Cross Abbey, down in Cañon City, Colorado? They have gone hermetic!

M. and I celebrated equinox season today by attending the winery’s Harvest Festival. It was packed. SInce the focus is on wine, many attendees turned it into a picnic in front of the music stage.

It’s not the first time we have attended this festival as an alternative to the much bigger Chile & Frijoles fest in Pueblo. (The latter was much shrunken in 2020, but back this year with beer, bands, and vendors — and some excellent roasted Pueblo chiles in there somewhere.)

But this year we were ready for something smaller and leisurely, more focused on the grapes than the grain and hops — but with roasting green chiles too, of course!

Picnickers at the 2021 Harvest Fest, the Winery at Holy Cross Abbey, Cañon City, Colorado.

I was wandering though the tasting booths and craftspeople’s booths when I saw one tasting booth labeled “As Above, So Below.”  Every occultist knows that phrase, but what was it doing at a wine-tasting? Had I stumbled into a John Crowley novel?

This was the sort of event where you pay your money, get a glass and some tickets, and trade tickets for tastes. And I was out of tickets.

No matter, I asked some questions, then went to the “express” tent and bought a bottle of The Alchemist: “Perfectly balanced and sustainable, as the universe intended. Syrah and Verona grapes come together for a wine that is sure to enlighten. Have a drink, it’s your destiny.”

I might have been just as happy with The Theurgist: “Fun and approachable – magically delightful.” Well, no one ever called the Emerald Tablet “fun and approachable,” but wouldn’t “Emerald Tablet” be a good name for a vinho verde?

The Astrologist, meanwhile, is a riesling-sauvignon blanc blend: “Fun and refreshing in a way Nostradamus would never have predicted.” But M. and I drink more reds, so . . .

I should point out that despite the name and the cross on the label, it’s the Winery AT Holy Cross Abbey, not OF.

“The abbey,” as everyone in the area calls it, was indeed started by Benedictine monks in the 1920s. They operated a respected high school for boys, both day students and boarders, until the 1980s, when it closed due to the lack of vocations — not enough new monks, and the existng brothers all elderly. It’s the same problem that hit many Roman Catholic institutions around then. Eventually the order sold the whole complex after renting out the school buildings for a while for a satellite community college campus and other uses.

So no monk ever touches the wine today — although the Benedictines planted the first grapes. Here is the current management team. But apprently some esotericists do enter the picture. I need to follow up on this. Research might begin at the winery shop, where I can buy The Theurgist for research purposes.