Now more retiring than previously, he spoke to us in mid-January about his views and approach to the Craft.
Miriam: What do you think draws people to this path?
Leon: What I see is, people who are witches don't have any choice about it. They might try to delude themselves and believe they had some choice about it. But when it comes right down to it, what are they going to be if they're not that?
M: I was a dismal failure as a Christian, myself.
L: God knows I tried. I was raised in a Catholic-Mormon home. I was very much forced to deal with this early in my life. But I make a much better witch than anything else. As a witch, I'm much more of a loving presence toward myself and consequently toward the world. I believe that this was a choice that was made long ago, maybe even in another life.
In a lot of ways, we're the dregs; we're the people who've washed out of a lot of other things. But we've always felt compelled; we've always felt religious; we've always felt like we want to be effective and involved in the world. This is a way we can do all these things.
(Once you get into witchcraft), it's addictive. If you do it for 13 weeks (as in a class) go ahead, stop, if you can.
Sylvana: You're either going to fall down or you're going to keep going. I've had a few fall down.
L: People want everything to happen in 15-second commercial breaks; they want it spoon-fed to them; they want it to be instant and painless. As long as they can get everything they want and offer nothing, then they're for it. When they realize it's a lot of work, some of them are going to fall away for that reason, because they just can't fit it in their lives. This is why we always ask people, "How many groups are you in? Who else are you practicing with already?" That becomes really significant.
Some people find out it's too powerful, or it's too intimidating, or their self-esteem is too low, or they can't hack it, one or many of these reasons. Or they can't make adjustments fast enough. That's why it's helpful if you can present your material to the student in the order they need it. But it's really hard to predict that, unless you're teaching one-on-one.
S: Have you ever had anybody have a psychological break?
L: Oh, sure. You've got to be really vigilant to give people a self-supporting mind-set that's not critical. Most people enter this process with a self-deprecating, critical nature. It's really important to point out to people that they're pinching themselves really hard and if they'll quit doing that, it will quit hurting, after a while. You don't give them false hope; you actually show them what the mechanism is, but without turning it into a group therapy session. That's hard to do. You have to provide suitable distractions that are more juicy, something that pulls people along and makes them want to look beyond their own shit.
M: So what happens when somebody's really deep in their shit?
L: You recommend a therapist. About halfway through the first quarter, usually we don't do it right off, because it's a bad message to give a person we'll give them a psychologist list. We've bothered to compile a list of psychologists who won't immediately assume you're crazy because you're doing magic.
S: Oh, I would love to have that. We recently had a student who dedicated to Hephaestus and Aphrodite, and he went through that whole mythology of wanting a woman who he couldn't have and being very angry.
L: (Laughing) Gee, what a coincidence! Emulation! Do you suppose this magic stuff works? I've known an Icarus and a Prometheus.
M: Do people dedicate to Icarus?
L: Oh, absolutely. And they absolutely emulate. One hundred percent. This is why it's very important to introduce this concept to your students early on, that whatever you take on in terms of aspiring deities (you become).
S: But how do you make people believe it?
L: Don't worry about it. Your job is to tell them, and then you let them take their chances. You don't try to run it after that. You do giggle and point, however, and you say, "Well, if you decide you need a counselor, you let me know, honey." And you pat them on the head. Then you let them find out.
In a lot of ways, I think this is why they do it. They want to watch it blow up and change colors, because that's how they think it's supposed to work. Look at Bewitched. That's their model. It blows up and changes color regularly. We really do emulate right off the models that are available to us.
Better that than the poison apple, which is another way it might have gone, or the Hansel and Gretel story. There's all kinds of other ways you can go crazy.
(Another thing) that happens when people come to Outer Grove is that they're always surprised that we're not asking money. They're suspicious, a lot of times. They want to know: "Do we have to sleep with you? What's this about?" They can't understand it. They think there must be a catch.
They don't understand you want to be beyond reproach. This doesn't make any sense to them. We know it's an unequal power position, and so we don't ever want to be accused of power-over. It doesn't have to do with anything else.
It's important to notice, too, that in any gift you give, there's poison. I don't think a lot of teachers take this in initially, but it's really important to know this, because once you teach somebody something, they don't look at things the same way after that. It will change their life in some sense.
There is the catch, if you want to look at it that way. Magic is going to change your life. It's not just an intellectual exercise like learning chemistry.
I get around that by making them copy laws and follow them, the very first night they apply. Whether they get in or not, they have to agree to those laws. And the laws are basic Wiccan laws. They're right out of books on witchcraft law (King of the Witches by June John and Grimoire of Lady Sheba by Jessie Wickerball).
We also put them through a grueling interview, where we try to determine who they are, where they came from, whether they mean it or not. We're looking for long-term interest; we're looking for sincere attempts at practicing; we want them to be honest. If they can't muster any (one) of those things, we'll turn them away. No matter what a good connection they might be for some reason.
M: What kind of person do you think benefits the most from Outer Grove and similar classes?
L: A witch who hasn't been able to figure out (what god or goddess) they're worshipping, or can't seem to get themselves to do it as a daily practice. That's all the use there is to a group, really.
M: What do you think is the benefit of going through the degrees? What does it give you?
L: I think it depends on what your tradition you're in, what degrees mean, first off.
You've got a developmental process from the time when you first are born until you become a moldy oldie. Until you're about 13 or so at the earliest, you really don't know what you need to know about yourself to make the kind of commitments that you need to make. This is why, in ancient terms, you were not allowed to join the Craft until you were of that age. Nowadays, any prudent group will make you wait until you're 21, because of the way the laws are written around your rights.
The first purpose (the degree system) serves is to indicate who's an insider and who's an outsider. There are traditions that just have one initiation, and you've either been through it or you haven't. It delineates.
The other thing it does, it organizes the training into stepped periods that are designed to reflect your inner process. I've watched groups do it both ways. And I can tell you, there's grave danger in initiating anyone that's not of full age.
M: Do you mean in terms of personal danger or legal danger?
L: Both. You could easily lose your children; you could easily find yourself in jail, because the Craft is full of sexual information, it's full of intoxication information. This information is not looked upon gladly in youngsters. We have a war on crime in this country. Don't become part of what they're aiming at. It'll ruin your group; it'll ruin your family.
I'm not on a moral high horse saying, "Oh, don't ever do that." I'm saying you're foolish if you do that. No matter how sincere that 13-year-old is, you have to say, "Well, sweetie darling, I can't train you until you get to be a little older. But I can give you books to read, and I can recommend some things you might do on a daily practice level." In other words, help those youngsters.
(With adults), if you think of first degree as 13, second degree is when you're in that adolescent "the world is fucked" stage. The age of discontent has no boundaries, but you're at that point where you think you could just fix it if they'd let you. When you get that mental attitude toward your religion, that's second. It's time to elevate that person and give them some work. That's what that elevation is often about, is getting that person busy enough they don't have time to do that. Part of it is also giving them intelligent toys, toys that stretch their awareness, that give them the ability to move into the areas they have been reluctant to look at and to deal with.
M: What's your opinion of self-initiation? Is there such a thing?
L: Sure, there is. There's no other thing. But that doesn't discount the power of doing traditional ceremonies with informed practitioners.
But each person has to come to spiritual truth on their own. You're not going to significantly change; you never really listen to anyone. Perhaps you should, but you don't. The most intelligent thing you'll ever say to your teacher is, "Shut up, I'm interpreting."
If you're getting into witchcraft or magic thinking you're going to change yourself, hello! This is not about turning yourself inside out, or into something else. This is about discovering who you are, empowering that and not distracting yourself from growing.
M: What do you think people are looking for in a teacher?
L: They want somebody that they can ignore, they want somebody to blame, and they want somebody they think knows more than they do. Then they proceed to try to prove that that's not really the case; that's the next thing that happens.
When you've got somebody thinking you know more than they do, then they're putting you on a pedestal. They'll feel cheated at some point, and they'll start trying to throw you off. So it's very important, if you're the teacher, that you not buy into that. Because it's just crap. If you notice they're putting you on a pedestal, you come down, and you say, "Yoo-hoo. Not God yet. No crown. I'm a person, now. Remember?"
Wülfgar: All you need to do is let them see you screw up.
S: Oh, no. Then they get pissed!
L: Either that, or you're being so humble. You can't win.
When they do start throwing you off, you complain about it. Say, "You know, I don't like being treated that way. I didn't do anything to you. You knock it off." Hit it the first time it shows its ugly little head. Then every time it raises its ugly little head after that, you hit it harder. Have a measured response.
S: What would be good qualities in a teacher, if someone is looking for one?
L: Somebody who knows their material, somebody who's not on an ego trip. I think it's good to have a teacher who is willing to support you as a student, help you believe in yourself and who won't try to tell you how it is but instead help you discover how it is for you.
I think there is more than one kind of teacher. There are teachers who teach traditions and teachers who teach subjects. Early on, hopefully, you take some time with teachers who teach subjects, and decide what is juicy for you. Then you specifically go to the people who specialize in those traditions. That's when you're getting into initiatory lineages.
But you want to make sure you do this for the right reasons. You do this not because you think the teacher is a good teacher, you do it because the teacher is teaching information about the deity you want to worship. Otherwise, you've got the cart before the proverbial horse.
M: What would you tell someone who wanted to become a teacher?
L: Learn your matter. Whatever it is you're going to teach other people, make sure you know it really well before you start.
Then the next thing you need to do is to recognize that you don't know it all, and that your teacher's role will expose you to the information you don't have. Not only in other teachers, but in the students you take. A good teacher is learning from their students.
A lot of people try to read a book on witchcraft and form a coven. Bad idea.
M: What about people who really want to do circles and can't find anybody?
L: Form a working circle, agree that for a given date you will get together and do something for that date. That's fine. But don't call it by these legalistic names that mean something you don't understand. If you're going to be a practitioner, practice. If you're going to be a priest, you'd better master the priesthood of that practice. That's a different matter.
When you form a coven, it's for life. If you decide 10 years later that you'd rather not be with these people, well, too bad. It's like trying to get rid of your relatives.
M: I'd like to ask you more about teaching, but you'd said that a group you were training with didn't want you to present yourself as a teacher just now.
L: I'll tell you what that's about. I was initiated into witchcraft in 1973, in Victoria, B.C., in a group that was a bootstrap group called Heru-ra-ha. The name is Egyptian, and what it means is "The Sound and the Silence." Originally, there was no name for the group; this was a name that was given to the group by the group toward the end.
Lion Serpent Sun was the founder, and he had two high school friends, Judy and Gary, the other two members who initiated into the group. They were originally in a bike gang together in high school, and then they decided that this crazy man they knew in Seattle, Jeff, was an interesting guy and sort of emulated his housekeeping technique, which was curios an unusual collection of objects, on every surface. You know the type. Life-size statues of Saint Rita in the living room.
They were emulating people they knew; they really didn't have any training. Lion had read some books. There was a witch craze going on.
Then, in 1977, I came to the United States. I was a third-degree witch for one whole year, from this bootstrap group. Since our lineage didn't go anywhere, no one recognized me. I was just above the scum-suckers, as far as the lineage folks were concerned.
The only thing that was to my benefit was that I was somewhat charismatic as a person, and I was sincere. I had a big mouth, being a Sagittarian. I got in the press a fair bit, and I tended to say things that were actually reasonably rational. Compared to some of the voices that had been speaking on magic's behalf up to then in this town, I was a welcome voice, because the cultists thought of me as somebody representing something they wanted to be associated with.
Rather than I remember people telling me this story, about someone working in a local shop, call him Mr. X. Mr. X was standing there one day, and a person came in and asked about reincarnation. Mr. X pulled his Bowie knife and offered to show him.
It was because of a local store, Beltane Booksthat I came here. Ed Gothier bought Beltane and offered me the job of managing it on Rick Miller's say-so. Rick knew me through the Aquarian Anti-Defamation League (AADL). We were the Cosmic Cops. When they would show a movie that was defamatory toward witches, we would organize protests, get letter-writing campaigns going, make public statements to the press, things like that.
From that period, I have a letter from Laurie Cabot's teacher praising me in Sybil Leek and Elizabeth Pepper's name. They felt they could die now, because there was somebody to carry on in their stead. Talk about heart-warming, to get something like that in the mail!
So as the traditionalists began to embrace me like that, the whole scene changed for me. I began to meet people and make connections that I really needed to have.
The thing I was trying to do in '77, when I first came here, was to open myself and see who was in Seattle already. There was Lois Cooper, who is an incredibly accomplished occultist. I found out about the Love Family a little bit, got to know some of those people, and the Rainbow Family. Then there was the Oregon Country Fair; that's where I met Kirk Bergman, who does Nu Essence incenses.
Of the people who put out Aeon magazine, Denny Sergeant still lives around here. He also is a performance artist, which is something he and I shared. He did an altars exhibit in a bar downtown that was quite interesting.
Then I started Outer Grove in 1978, just a few months after I got here. There was so much demand to learn witchcraft that I knew I couldn't teach all these people if I didn't do something like that. I also wanted to embrace the skills of the people who I saw around me.
I knew some of them thought of themselves as witches. A lot of them thought of themselves as ceremonial magicians. We still have overlap in these communities.
But initially, you asked me why I didn't want to represent myself as a teacher. The reason I took you on that little tour was so you could see who I was coming into this. Then, not quite four years ago, I joined a local coven. I'm learning English traditional Craft material, and I am now a lowly second degree. I have to be careful in the way I portray myself, because I'm not fully initiated, even though I have all this history. It's a very fine line.
M: You're a famous incense maker. Do you have any incense making tips you would pass on?
L: Know your ingredients. The easiest way to do that is to burn a little bit of each ingredient outside, on the patio, or on the back porch, where there's lots of air. What does it really smell like?
It's important if you're using things like mace or pepper, to point it out to people you're giving it to, so they'll know it's an outdoor incense, not something you confine yourself in a room with. Sylvana can tell you about this. I got this frantic call one day. I felt so sorry for you. It was either Aries or Mars (incense being burned), because they both have cayenne pepper in them.
S: I thought I was going to die.
L: Notice, also, that when you use a little of something you get one effect, and when you use a lot of something, you get a different effect. Proportions matter, and there are two ways to do them; one is by weight. The other one's by volume. If you're going to do portions by weight, do them all by weight. When you do them by volume, do them all by volume. But don't mix measures, because otherwise you'll never reproduce it when you want to increase the amounts.
S: My problem is, I used to make them and not write them down.
L: That's the other thing. You have to keep records. I recommend having a recipe book. I found this to be the most practical. Card files are wonderful, but you lose cards out of them.
Make sure you leave room in the front and in the back. The front is for your table of contents; the back is for index of simples, of single ingredients. If you want to find what incenses use sandalwood, so that you know how much sandalwood to buy for your incense making class, you can go to sandalwood and you'll know by how many pages appear how many incenses that appears in. This can really help you.
The other thing is, grind your resins in a separate container from roots and barks and leaves. Get a coffee-grinder; clean it really well if it's second-hand or used. Don't try to use the one you're using for coffee.
Take your resins, reduce them to pea-sized pieces before you grind up the other things. If you're going to mix with your hands, it's important you mix the dry ingredients before you add any liquids. If you add too much liquid initially, you'll be adding dry ingredients trying to dry it out. It will be too moist. Let it sit at least two days before you use it.
When you add your liquid ingredients, add them only to the point where it begins to stick to your hands. Don't wait until it looks wet.
S: You leave yours fairly textured.
L: I like incense with integrity. I'm not that concerned about people (taking mine apart and) making it. Because I know the truth: Most people are lazy. That's why I can freely say what's in it. I've urged Kirk likewise to be forthcoming about what's in (his incense).
I have found that everybody eventually has a child in the house, and sometimes the children eat stuff, and it's really very comforting for the parent if they know what was in it. I'm tired of getting those phone calls. I'd rather tell them up front.
S: I like that, at points when different pieces burn, you get the different energies.
L: In Japan, they have incense-smelling parties; they're called ko. You invite people over for ko. They sit around, and they'll burn something, and everybody will smell it. It's like wine tasting. They all make comments about, "Oh, well, it's awfully sweet, isn't it?" "It's kind of dry." "Well, in the back of your throat."
M: What got you into incense making?
L: I was reading a book called Mastering Herbalism by Paul Huson, and I was feeling the urge to make some incense. I prayed about it. I said, "If you'll send me the money, I'll make you some incense."
You know where Jazz Alley is? I was living upstairs, in that building. It was the Casanova Discotheque in those days. I went down the back stairs and walked down the alley, and a $20 bill floated through the air.
So I reached out and grabbed it and went down to (Tenzing) Momo and purchased incense ingredients and came home and made my first incense. Medieval Apothecary was the name of it. I still make it; I still sell it; it still sells really well.
(Incense making) now occupies my garage and my basement. I need a store; probably at some point in the future, I'll do that again.
S: Since this is for our Imbolc issue, do you have any favorite purification techniques?
L: It depends on how severe (the purification needed) is. If it's just a matter of wanting to make a clean break of it for the year, that's what Imbolc ceremonies tend to be.
(For personal purification,) there's a few things that I recommend. One is to allow any sort of ceremonial occasions that you might be involved with to really be effective, setting your mind to letting go of the stuff that has accumulated. I think that's an important attitude adjustment to make.
I think it's really important to do this (hands across a copied magical record sheet). For every piece of work you do, make a record of what you did. When people ask for work (for example, healing work), I use this form. I won't do work on somebody unless they give me written permission to do the work: when somebody wants healing, when somebody wants protection, whatever it is.
I think a good thing to do is housecleaning. It's really important to go through and clean all the corners and do things like washing the cupboards off and cleaning all the drawers out, going through the closet, getting rid of things you haven't worn for a long time.
I think the other thing is making sure you've dealt with the loose ends in your life. Try to make sure that you've paid off debts, or you've returned things you've borrowed, because those obligations hang out psychically. If you're not doing anything to address them, and too long a period goes by, then you begin to feel resentment coming along the lines of connection from the people who own the stuff. That's not good, to retain something that's going to carry that kind of energy. This can contribute to this feeling of depression and overhanging doom and things like that that a lot of occultists complain of.
I think making yourself blameless is a big part of it. It's hard to say what that might mean for any given person.
(Hands over purification form.) This is what I use when people are really badly, horribly connected to something they don't want to be connected to any more, like a ghost or something like that, or they want to make a really major break. This is out of a book called The Witches Guide to Ghosts and Exorcism, by Robin Skelton.
Those are the thoughts I have right off. Set your wards once you get everything clean, and don't forget to fill the void. Go around and make wishes in the room, say "I want this room to be friendly and happy, and I want this room to be full of food
S: Full of money!
L: and I want this room to be full of sex"; go and fill those voids once you've banished, because otherwise it will just suck what's around. And the universe sucks enough; you don't need more.
M: What holidays of the year speak the most to you?
L: (Hands across his Wheel of the Year poster, other information.) I'm going to answer you in a cowardly way.
M: (Looks at the poster) So you like the whole process, I guess I would say.
L: Don't take my word for it. Just look at my planner. (Hands across planner, which has dates for rituals, workings and meetings nearly every day of the year.)
M: So how do you survive being so busy, Leon?
L: I make my rituals things I want to do. I make them simple enough that you can do one in a few moments, so it doesn't become a big project that I avoid.
Don't be afraid to let your desire pull you along. That way, you don't pinch yourself. I think it's really important not to use power-over types of motivating techniques; it's really important not to feel like you're being forced into things.
And know why you're doing what you're doing. Don't do stuff just out of habit. If you don't know what a symbol means, why are you copying it over and over again? Sometimes you opt to do that because you're trying to penetrate the mystery, and if that's what it is, fine.
M: But if you are in training, and somebody gives you something to do, then it's a part of the discipline of the training to do it, yes?
L: But there again, if you don't want to know what it means, why are you studying it? If your teacher doesn't question it, and you don't question it, and your students don't question it, pretty soon when somebody does ask what it means, nobody knows. There are traditions out there that have all the material but don't know what it is. And they dutifully copy it and hand it along to each other, and they all look at it, and they get kind of this puzzled look.
See, my problem is, I'm overcommitted. My goal with things like Outer Grove was to make it easier for people to know what was out there so they'd know what they were committing to, without having to join it to find out. Because that's the way it was, when I learned. You had to join a coven to find out what the coven believed and how they practiced it. And if you didn't like it, too bad! You could leave, if they decided to let you.
I saw a few groups try to keep members who didn't want to be there. When that happens, it gets pretty nasty. The courts get involved and things like that, and then you find yourself standing in court trying to explain. (In a nasal tone) "Well, what did you intend?" "Well, that was 15 years ago, sir. I don't exactly remember. Besides, I was stoned at the time. But I have their blood right here on the page!"
S: I thought you liked Samhain.
L: I feel called to the West, and to autumnal sorts of behaviors. But I'm connected all the way around the circle, you know. Asking me for a favorite is really hard, because I wouldn't dare have one. With all the deities I'm connected to, somebody would get really offended.
M: What rituals do you remember as being really effective in your life, that you can talk about?
L: I suppose Hecate's Night has been very influential in my practice. Hecate is the goddess of magic, and anybody who participates in magic, in my belief, has to do it through her. No matter what system you might think you're working, when you open the door of initiation, there is a guardian of the portals there, and I believe this is she. There are actually two; I believe Janus is the other one. He's on the hinge side of the door, and she's on the lock side. I've found ancient precedent for this piece of information, if you look in the Chaldean Oracles.
I was initially doing a ritual to her that I got from Valerie Worth, Crone's Book of Words, and I did that ritual for many years. I was the only man I knew of that would have anything to do with Hecate. It's important to know that Hecate is a Chaldean word, not a Greek word, and that Hecate, in Greek, starts with an E, an epsilon, not an H, because there's no H in Greek. That's why I keep saying "E-cah-tey," not "Heck-a-tey." But there are complete instructions in the Chaldean Oracles for making her shrine, her image and so forth, her incenses. All the appropriate supplications and prayers are right there. So it isn't as if you have to invent a bunch of stuff for Her. But I worked with Hecate for 20 years before I knew that.
I would urge you to not just read metaphysical books but to also read academic works. That's where I finally found it, in the University of Tennessee material, Analysis of the Chaldean Oracles, in Greek.
M: You read it in Greek?
L: Until you get back to the Greek original, you're not going to understand what you're looking at.
M: You're right, only I don't know Greek.
L: You can learn it in a day! You can learn the Greek alphabet in one day, and then you can sound out the words and use a dictionary and all the stuff you need to learn, over the rest of your life. The same with Hebrew; you need to get where you can actually read that alphabet. If you're interested in Gaelic, then you're going to have to learn some Gaelic. Same if you're going to learn Egyptian stuff, you're got to learn hieroglyphs. And you're going to need to know Greek, because everything else is translated into Greek.
If you really want to get right down to the material, you have to get to where you can read it without a lot of intervening translation. Plus, if you're dealing with something in Greek, there is a numerical value to each word. Once you translate it out of that language, you don't have that anymore. A lot of the subtext is gone.
M: What does your magical work give back to you?
L: It supplies everything. The way I look at it, if all magic practitioners in the universe quit doing their work, the sun wouldn't come up, the seasons wouldn't come at the right times. The elementals would be totally out of control, and it would be uninhabitable, this place. That doesn't mean there wouldn't be life here, but humans wouldn't have a place in it.
A lot of what we're doing to disrupt the environment is a magic we're doing a black magic spell we're thoroughly involved with. I got a postcard at Momo from this person, and they were saying that Hecate was trying to destroy the planet, and I think it's just the other way around. From my point of view, it's the Christian fundamentalists, or the No fundamentalists is more like it, that are out there trying to destroy the planet and wreck the government and social services. They're doing this because it really doesn't matter, because it's all going to be Armageddon soon, in their minds. So there's nothing to save the universe for.
It isn't Hecate. She's the goddess that maintains the universe. She doesn't want to destroy it. If she did, she'd just quit.
M: Do you do most of your work in groups, or solitary, or some of both?
L: I have my personal practice, which is personal maintenance rituals, daily devotionals. Every time I get in the car, I say, "Darksome Mother Hecate, smooth my path, make safe my way." I just do that. "Janus, protect me, going in and coming out." "Fortuna, bring me prosperity and abundance today." Before I even turn the key, this is standard procedure. Otherwise, could I keep that old car running? No way, it should have died years ago.
I'm not the only magical practitioner that goes through life like that. If you're really making it part of your life, the nature of the rituals you're doing is maintenance rituals; they keep your life moving. When you're in trouble, you appeal to the gods for help; when you're not in trouble, you give them praise for making your life possible.
If you go through your life like that, then you have something to offer a group. If you aren't already doing that, don't join a group! That's my advice, because you'll just find yourself in trouble. Then if something happens to the group, you're disconnected from God and Goddess. Is that ever a terrible situation to be in. It's like shooting heroin and then having to quit. It's no fun.
M: That's an interesting connection. One of the reasons I got into the Craft myself is because I thought, "I can get to these places without drugs." Do you think that's a legitimate connection I'm making?
L: Of course. The best drug on earth is intelligence. Because if you're not present, the best drug is lost on you. If you're not there to have the experience, what good is it? The whole trip in magic is how in the moment can you be.
If we've learned anything by going and looking at Eastern thought, it was that we need to look within for the answer, not without.
W: For me, drugs were really deceiving. I thought, through all my abuse, that I was becoming a more powerful magic worker, but I was really becoming more insane and twisted.
L: I would urge you not to be too hard on yourself, because sometimes peeking through into the other world gives you a sense of what's out there. Without that ability to see beyond this corporeal world, into those other realms a little bit, you wouldn't know to work to try to get there.
I think of drugs as one spoke in the wheel. They're not the only spoke, and it's really important to notice that.
I'm very unpopular for this view, I would point out as well. It's the only thing that really raises ire amongst some of my elders. Not everyone agrees with me about this.
Marijuana is very much a part of the Craft. You can establish that it was part of witch practice in the 1100s. It wasn't an indigenous plant in the British Isles, make no mistake, but it was being used in medieval magic; in Wiccan magic, I have good authority, as well.
In the '60s, when I got involved, this was standard procedure; it was one of the sacraments at our rituals. It has fallen out of use, much like the use of alcohol. Many covens are dry now altogether.
S: Have you encountered discrimination in the Craft over being gay? For years, the traditional line was that if you were gay, you couldn't be a witch. You couldn't be initiated unless you could have a transference of power from one sex to another, which implied sex.
L: Well, certainly the line I'm involved with is about as liberal as you could possibly be.
I think there's a misunderstanding. For a woman to act in the role of the priest is possible, in the oldest of material. For a man to act as the priestess is possible, but very disconcerting; even in the older material, you'll find references to that. I don't think that that's the problem. That should only be done if you have no qualified practitioners of the right sex.
I'll say why: for the same reason that you don't paint a portrait next to a portrait painter. You wouldn't want to undermine a priest who is an available, fully qualified priest by going to somebody who isn't qualified and making them the priest. That's rude. It's not wrong, it's rude.
M: So if you want female energy, you go first to female people.
L: To women! And if there's no women available, then you go, reluctantly, to a man who has a female energy. You don't intentionally take a silk purse and try to turn it into a sow's ear.
The easiest transformation I know to make magically is to turn a man into a jackass.
S: Was there discrimination based on the community being more English traditional?
L: No. It's just the other way around. I felt that I couldn't really act on my gay feelings in Victoria, and those people were pretty liberal. But it was a Victorian mind-set that I was up against, in Victoria a big surprise there, right?
When I came to Seattle, I was going to act on my feelings, and I immediately fell in love with a woman. Sometimes the universe has it planned differently than you do.
I have suffered more discrimination from gay people for having had a history as a straight man than the other way around. I've had feminists come to me and tell me that I couldn't possibly be a witch because I'm a man. That has happened to me much more than I have had any straight people tell me that I shouldn't do what I'm doing.
I think you're right, there is this perception that the English traditional Craft lines look down upon gay members. But this is more true of certain Alexandrian and Gardnerian lines than it is of the material itself. The material itself isn't of that nature.
M: What has it been like, being out as a witch so long?
L: Wonderful. It's really wonderful. There's nothing like going to Klamath Falls, Oregon, where my parents live, and walking through Safeway with my mom, and all of a sudden my mom says, "Hi, So and So, this is my son the witch!"
If you happen to be a person who has no children, if you happen to be a person who doesn't have a job that you'll lose because of it, it's a wonderful thing to be able to have out. That way, if you wind up on the national news some evening, or if you have your boss move in next door, it's not awful and terrifying.
W: How do you feel about people referring to you as the witch king of Seattle?
L: Well, it's fascinating, but it's bullshit.
It might have had a reality at one time. But I haven't had my own group for a number of years now. Those people just haven't been in touch. It's very flattering, but it's not real.
A lot of people assume that I have some great power and influence. If I have any power, it's because I don't use it. If I made any attempt to use my influence to control other people, I soon wouldn't have any influence.
If you want to have power and influence, don't use it.
M: Not even the least little bit?
L: There are exceptions. There was a situation where we needed to come together as a community and either support or deny support for some individuals who had been appointed to a council. In that particular setting, I was empowered to be the person who had the talking stick, which determined who could talk. That was a great support that the community at large gave me, because I was a person who everyone could agree would conduct the meeting fairly. How I got to be that person was by not using that power for or against anyone, but by being an egalitarian force, if possible. I know I don't always succeed, but that's what I'm trying for.
For that three hours or whatever it was, I was in the center of the cyclone. I think that if you talk to anyone at that meeting, anyone who wanted to say anything got an opportunity to. In other words, not only did I use my power, but I actually didn't make things worse.
M: What do you think needs to happen, if it can happen, to unify the community now?
L: Oh, my God, let's not do that.
S: Well, to unify it more. I don't see anything wrong with the looseness of the various groups. What I have a problem with is how fractured things get sometimes by people's issues.
L: Because we didn't study etiquette before we studied magic, and now we're acting like a bunch of people who don't know what the rules are. Well, what a surprise.
As outsiders, we're not going to affect other groups to do anything. It wouldn't be prudent, even if we could do it. Instead, you can be a welcoming influence and invite them to come to you as individuals and groups and connect to you.
What we need to do is to foster an environment of mutually beneficial tolerance and dialogue, and the easiest way to do this is to invite people to your group so that people can say, "Oh yeah, I was there at Full Moon. I saw what they did. And they don't sacrifice toads before dinner." One group can make the decision to do this. Then you become the glue that holds it all together. But you don't have to compromise your essential beliefs to do it.
I think we need to get away from this idea that there needs to be a community. I think that's a really dangerous idea, because what we're really talking about is monocropping. It isn't a good idea with corn; it isn't a good idea with radishes; it isn't a good idea with witchcraft. I don't want us all to become so alike that we can agree on everything. I don't think it would serve the Craft, and it wouldn't serve us as individuals.
Religions that aren't based on a solid body of material aren't flat. They're multidimensional; they're moving out in all directions all the time, many of which are contradictory. If you really want to be in touch with what's happening, you have to really reach out consciously to the different groups you know about.
I think about Buffy Sainte-Marie's song, "Magic Is Alive." You're not going to capture magic in a book; you're not going to capture it in a tradition; you're not going to capture it in a ceremony sorry, but that isn't how it works. But it is related to putting yourself in alignment and connection with deity; if you do that, you won't go that far wrong. So whether you're calling it Orisha, or whether you're calling it Seven Planetary Powers, these are all contexts for the same thing, glosses for the same thing.
What we need to do, though, is to become educated enough as individuals so we don't feel threatened when somebody else starts doing Umbanda when we were there to do healing circle. What we're really looking at is our own ignorance of each other's traditions, and that is directly fostered by our secretiveness and our inability to support each other.
This is what was so valuable in the '60s about cross-initiation. In the '60s and the '70s, a lot of traditions cross-initiated elders, and the reason they were doing that is they were compiling information that was stored in these other traditions and bringing it back into a tradition that had less information on that, and it was really valuable. I highly recommend it.
S: What do you think of the people in the community who have set themselves up as morality police?
L: In my opinion, those people need to learn to be quiet, because they don't know what they're talking about. I know that sounds like shut up, sit down, stay in line, keep your head down, but really what I'm advocating is that they not be so quick to say, "Oh, no, witches don't do that!" When the real truth is, they don't know what witches do. They know what they do. They should speak for themselves and quit pretending that we all got behind them somehow.
If you really want a building to go to and nice vanilla songs to sing that you can invite the Five O'Clock News to come and film, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But what part of that has anything to do with the gods? Are we doing what the gods want, or are we doing what we want? The gods I pray to don't tell me to go in a building and pray to them. The gods I pray to are everywhere. They're not in a building, and they're not in a liturgy, and they're not in a box.
W: That building and those vanilla songs can be a good place for people to go find their path.
L: Sure. Especially for people wanting to start on the road, to get a sense of what it is without joining.
But when we're talking about what you want to put first in your life, which is what we're really talking about, no one, I don't care who you are, is in a position to judge for everyone else. The people who are setting themselves up to speak for the rest of us should not give the impression that they speak for anyone but themselves and their group. So long as they're careful to do that, I fully support them. But they shouldn't assume that, because I hold different opinions in certain areas, that I'm bad or evil or I should be campaigned against or silenced or whatever.
I know what that fosters. I remember the witch wars. I remember a man in this town who answered his front door one day and was shot by a crossbow and pinned to his front door and died there. I know how nasty it can be, and I'll tell you, no one wants to go there. This is what disrespect fosters. If you really want to treat each other with disrespect, go ahead, be critical. Be intolerant and foolish, and make sweeping statements you don't understand about religions you're barely learning. This is where this goes.
I don't want to be an anatomically correct Barbie or Ken, thank you. I don't want to make myself acceptable to everyone. To do that, you have to lose your integrity, and I won't do that to myself. I tried that. If I could have done that, I could have been a Catholic, or I could have been a Mormon. That's why I'm not those things, because I had too much personal integrity; my nature did not fit in that context. I don't want to turn my religion inside-out to make it acceptable to others. I could care less whether they accept it or not.
Nor will I tolerate their attempts to interfere with my practice. That's where you'll find me yelling. And boy, do I have a pair of lungs, too. This is where I get very rigid and boisterous and aggressive, if you start trying to run my life. If I wanted that, would I have left Catholicism? I don't think so.
Do yourself a favor and learn the Hermetic Maxim: To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent. Know when to shut your mouth.
S: Along those lines, what happens if someone says something like, "We heard Leon's doing blood sports with his students; he's cutting them, and they're too young, and he's endangering them physically and psychologically. We think we should do something; we should call the police."
L: The first thing you want to ask is, what do you care what a cow heard? I mean, Moo. Hello! Has anybody checked with the students? Reality check here. You have to overcome your prejudice enough that you look at the facts. If you want to check with the students, you'll find no scars amongst them that can be attributed to me. Bottom line is, no empirical evidence.
I think the main thing is to notice it's not anything to worry about. Why do you care what somebody thinks of you? It's none of their business what you're doing, unless you're hurting them. If I wanted to do blood sports with somebody, I would have their written permission before I would do it. I won't even do a healing candle for somebody unless I have their written permission.
Basically, have your ducks in a row. That way they can't come back to you later and say, "I want my life back. You've stolen my life because you helped me last summer." You're wondering where this came from. Wasn't it that I was helping you? If you have written permission, it's a good reminder.
I recommend you keep initiation records too, legal documents that say that so and so was a member of this organization with these terms and these agreements. That way, if they decide to become a fundamentalist and show your picture on the Five O'Clock News every night and call you a Satanist, then at least you have some recourse. You can say, "Well, I only taught them for five years for free. They slept on my floor every weekend. Yeah, I really tormented my students. I did their dishes for 15 years. I was really a bad guy."
M: How would you counsel someone who wanted to be of service to the Seattle community right now?
L: There are some things we desperately need. We need old folks' homes; we need child care; we need food banks. Everywhere in the United States, everywhere in Europe, where witches are, these are needs. If we want to do something as collectives, now there's something that needs to be done. Probably if you were to run any of those ideas up the flagpole, there'd be a certain number of people who would support them. MiRobin proved that in this town; he had a food bank that he kept going for a long time.
M: You've been described as somebody who's very service-oriented.
L: I think that's accurate.
M: What does that bring you?
L: I get self-aggrandizement. Ask anyone.
To be a little less flip, I think the thing I get out of it most is a reputation as a person who will treat you seriously no matter what you're saying to him. Somebody can come to me and tell me about a ghost experience they're having, and I won't immediately treat them like they're crazy. I get to be a compassionate witness.
Imagine yourself as having that role in society. And then you'll understand what I get out of it. There's a lot of gratification. I am connected to people of many religious traditions, and they all treat me with respect, as an equal. A Tibetan monk will bang heads with me, which they only do amongst themselves in a receiving line, it's hell. When you have somebody that you think of as a high spiritual being treat you as an equal, this is very good for your self-esteem.
People of any religion can feel safe with me. I think you can ask just about anyone, and you'll find that to be the case. Then if I can help them, I try to do that. Out of that, I get a good reputation, mostly.
I also get certain burdens out of that, but they're burdens that I'm more than happy to carry, because they're burdens I would carry anyway, being a compulsive type. I don't like doing things by half-measures, and I have a tendency to jump in over my head.
I'm getting out of it that feeling of being needed. Needing to be needed is something that I had a very large potential for, because I was carrying a lot of guilt as a child over an accidental death of a friend of my brother's. There was nothing I could have done about it. But I felt responsible.
M: About how old were you?
L: I think eight years old. There was a kid, of course, right there selling guilt. "He killed him, he killed him!" You know. A lot of kids do that.
I felt really bad about that. And I think, due to therapy and things like that, I came to grips with understanding where that need to be needed came from. I needed to show that I was a good person. I needed to demonstrate that to the public at large, not just to my personal circle of friends.
This has stood me in very good stead for being a public spokesperson, that willingness to put myself out there, to be a compassionate witness and to intervene when I felt I could help.
But I don't want to push myself on anyone.
W: What sign are you?
L: Sag, with the Moon in Pisces, and I have Libra rising with Neptune on the ascendant, exact degree. I sound reasonable because Mercury's in Capricorn. But I'm not; I'm not practical.
S: With that Pisces Moon, you've got to be hopelessly romantic.
L: Oh, I am! I am totally. And religious.
M: With Pluto going into Sagittarius, what's that doing for you?
L: Pluto marks the generations one from another. To see Pluto going into Sagittarius means that there's a whole new mind-set to get used to. All these people that are going to be far-seers, they may not be able to clean their room, but they can clean the world tomorrow, that kind of attitude. You know what I'm saying? This is me, totally.
For the next 20 years, it will be really interesting to see what kinds of folks we get, because those are the kinds of folks who could really shake things up and make a change.
The way I think of it is, everybody's got all the twelve signs. You may not have any planets there, but they're all there. You're resonating with everything that's happening.
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