Many pagans consider Samhain a time to honor ancestors. This Samhain, Widdershins looks at the community's ancestors, our pagan elders, a topic connected with the paper since its birth.
In early 1995, the year Widdershins was born, the topic "Where are the elders?" was the subject of an editorial in a Seattle pagan paper, The Northwest Magickal Times. Somewhat querulously, the editorial asked for community leadership, hinting that certain elders were abusing their power. A meeting of the pagan community was subsequently held about the topic. Or I should say a meeting of the pagan communities was held -- one point discussed was that Seattle and its environs hold many different pagan communities.
The event drew out people who could be considered Seattle-area elders, so in a way it answered the editorial's question. A lot of riled pagans had their say on elders and their place in community. More than anything else, the editor of The Northwest Magickal Times succeeded in making a lot of people angry.
She also succeeded in starting a rival paper. Around the time of the meeting, she wrote in an editorial that if anyone thought they could put out a better paper, they should. Sylvana Silverwitch, a few other volunteers and I picked up the gauntlet at Beltaine 1995, and Widdershins began.
In the 1995 Mabon, Samhain and Yule issues, Widdershins took up this hot topic of elders, though not in the same fashion. Writing under my then-given name Miriam Harline, I interviewed certain area elders: Pete Pathfinder, then pastor of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC); Haragano, a leading high priestess of the Kingstone Tradition; Blacksun and Shadowhawk, of StarWyrm Coven (Blacksun also later worked with the ATC); and Changing Woman, then archdruid of the Greenwood Grove. In Imbolc 1996, Sylvana and I interviewed Leon Reed, another Seattle-area elder, later a founder of the Bards of Caer Pugetia. Those interviews, online at www.widdershins.org, contain these elders' still-engaging thoughts on the Seattle-area pagan past, present and future.
Looking at the topic of elders again after eight years, we sent a different list of questions to a different set of elders:
Most have worked with other groups as well as those listed.
Widdershins: When did you first enter the Seattle-Tacoma pagan/magickal community? How has the community changed since you first entered it?
Dana Corby: I'd hesitate to use the term "Seattle-Tacoma pagan community"; what I see is two communities that have good relations.
I came to Seattle in 1985 from a six-year stint in Idaho (Southern California before that). At that time, the community pretty much revolved around Haragano and Leon, but shortly thereafter things started changing -- lots more new people, few of the Brit trad, for one thing, so the community diversified fast. Community Full Moons led to a lot of other activities including the founding of ERCA -- the Earth Religions Cultural Association -- which put on Sabbats and Full Moons, mostly at the Longhouse, for a couple of years.
My husband and I came to Tacoma in 1997 against the advice of all our friends in Seattle -- we were told there were no witches down here. Every witch or pagan we met here told us they and perhaps a small group of friends were the only ones here; it soon became obvious that there were lots of us. [People] just didn't have any way to find each other.
Moondancer: Our family moved to the Puget Sound area in June 1987. [The community has] become a lot more splintered and isolated, in many ways. There are fewer people actually talking with each other from different segments of the overall community, outside of their own groups/organizations.
Zanoni Silverknife: 1988 -- my daughter and I started attending NRDNA Druid Greenwood Grove and Full Moons in Bellevue. The community has gone through metamorphoses many times since then. There are several venues within the greater community that give a person options to participate on different levels.
Robert Reeder: [I entered the community] 14 years ago today, more or less. It was Columbus Day weekend of 1989.
In some sense, our own little corner of the community looks very much like it did then, because OLOTEAS is now in the same venue that ERCA was back in the late '80s and early '90s. There are differences, though. For starters, there does not seem to be anything like the amount of bickering that used to happen between different groups. I imagine that this is largely the result of the total number of local pagans now being rather greater than it was then, so each group is able to be more comfortable in their own autonomy, and they also have less time to trouble themselves about what other groups are doing. This is good. It allows for each group to grow and evolve by their own lights, and as the Lady dictates.
Another change that seems to be happening is a drift away from the "coven" model. Fourteen years ago, the larger groups in this area tended to be confederations of covens; that doesn't seem to be the case as much these days. Traditional Wicca generally seems to play a much less preeminent role in paganism today than it did then. There was also some sense then of paganism being a "religion of clergy"; today, it seems much more of a "religion of individuals who have very little use for clergy." This is also good, in my estimation.
We have become larger, more visible, more diverse, in some sense more mature as a community and definitely more critical and scientific in our thinking. We're growing up. But not yet growing old, I think.
Stephanie Raymond: I've always lived here, but when I made up my mind to look for some pagans here it was harder than I thought it would be to find them! After reading about them in Drawing Down the Moon, I first made contact with the ATC in the autumn of 1989. They sent me a bunch of information, including the old "LA-PAGAN" phone event list, from which I heard about a free class on magickal herbalism being taught near me the following January. That class was run by one of the ERCA folks. That's where I first met Bobby.
It seems to me [the community is] much larger, much easier to find, and with a lot more and varied activities than when I entered. I agree with Bobby on a lot of his points on this. I think as a community we have come to value the contributions of our youngest and oldest members more than was true when I entered, and that's a good thing.
James Nobles: I first moved up here in 1994. I see a lot more serious and professional practitioners [now].
W: What is your definition of an elder? What does an elder do?
JN: Hmmm, that's a tough one. An elder is a big tree with... oh wait, that's an alder.
Seriously, an elder is someone who is mature (and not necessarily old) and enjoys working with individuals to help them on their path.
M: I define an elder as a person of authority (in their area of concern/expertise), who is entitled to respect for that expertise and experience. Among tribal cultures, the elder, or elders, are the highest authority in the tribe. However, in our magickal community, we are not a single tribe, but at best a loose confederation of tribes, each with its own elders. Elders should advise and lead by example, not command (as if anyone could realistically command the magickal community!). They also need to be active within the community.
DC: I make a distinction between a coven elder, who is simply a senior member who is in service to the coven, trad and Craft; a tradition elder, who is the upline for several covens and is a source not only of learning but of authenticity; and a community elder who is a teacher, an organizer, an activist and in many ways a states(wo)man. I "had words" with a young man in TERRA not long ago who made the remark that what was important to him about an elder was not what they knew but what they did, and I rebutted that that was what elders do -- know things and share them.
RR: I would consider an "elder" to be someone who has celebrated the Saturn return of their original third-degree initiation, in the Wiccan or equivalent sense of that. So if someone were "red roped" at the age of 30, they could be considered an "elder" at the age of 59 or 60, assuming that the individual had been actively teaching and studying during that time and not just sitting on their laurels admiring the lovely red rope around their waist. And by that definition, an elder should "do" pretty much whatever they please. If that means retirement, more power to them; they've earned it.
SR: My definition of an elder is someone who has reached the point in their lives of being a crone or sage. It has much less to do with the idea of being a community activist or attaining a particular level of magickal training, and much more to do with fulfilling the traditional role of elderhood -- keeper and teacher of old knowledge, one who is able to offer the perspective of the years, etc. -- that exists in traditional communities. If I may make a huge generalization, I think modern America has lost the type of community structure in which elders are valued, or even in which elders exist. It is very easy for us to spend most of our time around only the generation of our birth, and apart from others. I think neo-paganism has grown in recent years as a part of the neo-tribalism that anthropologists and sociologists have observed happening to compensate for the very transient, socially isolated overculture that exists in America today.
Back to topic: Elders know things and can look at things with a long eye of experience in ways that younger people are not always able to do. Elders share their knowledge and experience where they think it will help. Which is not to say that younger folks can't do that, too; goodness knows everyone in the community shares knowledge and experience where they think it will help! But in the case of crones and sages, I think that knowledge and experience has a depth and comes from a place of more consideration than perhaps it does from younger folks. When I think of it, there is little that an elder does that someone younger can't do -- impart knowledge, lend assistance, be a mentor or role model -- but to me there is somehow more of this from an elder than from someone younger.
Maybe I can illustrate by example: If I have a question about gardening, if I ask a gardener friend I know who is my age, she will likely recommend that I come over to see how she does it, check out this Web site and maybe call these people from the university cooperative extension master gardener's program. If I ask my grandmother, she will think about it for a while, then tell me what she did, what her mother did, and what her grandmother did. Either way, I'm getting information that will help me, but to me the quality of information I get from my elders is a bit richer and more personal. It feels like a gift, so I will hold onto it and remember it as something precious, instead of just bookmarking a Web site in case I need to go back to it. My elders won't always be there to answer my questions, so what they give me now becomes much more valuable to me.
ZS: The short list: Be a mature adult in all aspects of your life.
The much longer list, copyright Zanoni Silverknife:
W: When was the first time someone called you a community elder? What was your reaction?
ZS: 1990 -- I was bemused, thinking: "Are they talking about me?" Then I realized I had been practicing the Craft for 20 years at that point, and I guess maybe I could be considered an elder. Still seems a little odd at times, for all ages have their own brand of wisdom; elders have just had time to collect more.
DC: Probably when I was on the board of ERCA. It felt a little odd at first, but then I decided to claim it because it's so useful. I do a lot of public education and pagan civil-rights work. Since we don't have clergy in the same sense other religions do, "elder" is a good term to get across to nonpagans that my words have weight.
M: Originally? About 1980. Locally? Probably 10 years ago. The first time -- I laughed in their face. Later -- I just accepted it and went on from there.
JN: 1994, and I laughed. I honestly feel that the older I get, the more I don't know.
SR: Sigh. It was in the swimming pool at the Longhouse. I was talking with a woman who was going to the University of Washington and mentioned the pagan group I started while I was there (the Pagan Culture and Spirit Web). She said out loud how happy she was to meet one of the elders of the community! Now, to put it in perspective, this happened a couple years ago (2000?) and I started that group in 1992 or so, when I was a 22-year-old college junior. My reaction at the time? Why in the world would anyone consider me an elder when I'm barely 30?
RR: Yesterday, when I read your e-mail. I laughed myself sick. I'm not yet 40.
W: Do we need elders in a pagan/magickal community?
RR: Do we need grandparents?
SR: If we are using my definition of elder, and if by community we mean a cohesive group or groups of people joined by common faith identity and forming a social support network for each other (that's my definition and I see it happening), then yes, we need elders. We need people of all ages, because each has a unique contribution to the community, and all are important. Otherwise, we aren't really a community, we're a cohort. There's nothing wrong with that, but cohorts don't usually have the same resources to help each other, because they don't have access to the information/knowledge/inspiration/wisdom that comes from elders. Elders can, if we listen to them, prevent us from having to reinvent the wheel all the time, because they know how things were done before. Even if we don't want to do them that way now, having that knowledge can inform us of how and why we want to do them differently.
ZS: It depends on whom you are speaking to. There are those persons who realize the vast resource elders can be; all they have learned and seen and done can be shared. I happen to belong to that segment of the community. I have been graced with knowing some of the more prominent elders in the United States and England from the late '60s and early '70s. I have garnered much from association with these people. On the other hand, you have people who are driven to reinvent the wheel with each succeeding generation.
M: Yes, I believe that we do. Elders are among those who have lived for many years in the area, participated within the community (and in many instances, left it for long periods of time.) They are familiar with what works and what doesn't within the region. When they absent themselves, for whatever reason, the community loses that resource and guidance/advice.
DC: I think every community needs elders! Without elders, we have no continuity, no roots and no way to look back the way we've come to see if we're still on the path we set out to walk. Without elders, we don't learn who and what we really are, and our lore becomes mere fantasy.
JN: I actually prefer the word "mentor." Again, [we need them] to show by example and help those not to make the same mistakes some of us did.
W: Do you think that this area is well-served by its elders?
M: No, I don't think that it is. The elders do not seem to be actively communicating with one another, and with little cross-participation between the various aspects of the community, the entire community is lessened.
JN: I suppose so. I would like to see some of the younger members get into positions of authority to help some of us "old-timers."
ZS: It is a case of six of one and a half-dozen of the other. It is hard to "serve" when the wheel-inventors don't want to hear what you have to say and will only accept your words if they are praise; God/dess forbid any elder should have a real opinion about how a person's circle went (smile). I do know that we have many elders from whom people can learn; these elders come from diverse backgrounds and traditions and can be quite helpful. We are here if one really wants to find us and [that person] will take the praise with the constructive criticism.
DC: On the whole, I think we are. There's a lot less ego-tripping by the elders of this community than in many others, and a lot more willingness to roll up one's sleeves and get things done. We fight, of course we do. A wise friend of mine once referred to it as "sibling rivalry." But unless the offense is completely over the top, we tend to make up and focus on the work at hand.
RR: I don't think service is or should be required or expected of elders. That's not their job. It's not our job, either. We aren't that kind of religion and don't have that kind of clergy.
There is only one magickal teacher who is really worthy of that name, and that is the individual's "Holy Guardian Angel," "Tutelary Deity," "Higher Self" or whatever you want to call that. The only thing a physical teacher can do is help prepare the student to be able to communicate effectively with that entity. Any physical teacher who promises, or even suggests, that they can teach more than this is a fraud. It is not the place or purpose of pagan churches to intercede (or set up a toll-booth!) between the human and the Divine. We can only create, temporarily, an environment which may be more conducive to direct communication between an individual and their HGA than, say, sitting in rush-hour traffic would be. To the extent that any physical teacher can be said to help prepare the individuals in any community for this relationship with the Divine, I think that the elders and teachers in this community do admirably well.
SR: This is an interesting question. I agree with Bobby that it is not the job of elders to serve, unless that's what they want to do. But the definition I am using for "elder" by that response is not, I think, the one used in your question.
I think there are parts of the magickal community who define "elder" as "the ones who should be doing all the work" -- i.e., teaching, leading public rituals, etc., or at least telling other people how to do that. What I have observed is that many of the folks who have been in this community for a long time -- those who are identified by themselves or others as elders -- have spent a lot of time and energy on their segments of the community, gotten pissed off and/or burned out by various situations, and as a result have either left the community or drastically reduced their role in it. This is a loss to us all, because those with more experience in doing the work the community does have valuable knowledge to share with the rest of us, and in some cases that knowledge is no longer accessible because people have taken their toys and gone home.
I think it is frustrating to some people entering the community that there are not more experienced folks willing to be individual teachers, and I think that this is a role that this definition of elder may be expected to fill. On the other hand, I have observed people who go through formal training, get three initiations and suddenly seem to feel entitled to a degree of respect and deference that is pretty out of proportion to what they have earned.
W: Do you think the Seattle-Tacoma area appreciates and treats its elders well?
JN: I don't exactly know how an elder should be treated.
RR: I would imagine that such elders as are in our community and who chose to continue to participate in the community as teachers are probably well-appreciated for that. I don't know; ask me again in 20 years!
SR: Again, depends on your definition. At OLOTEAS, I observe that all ages get along pretty well, and the elders (using my definition) seem to be treated with respect and appreciation for what they offer. Using the more accepted definition of "pagan community elder," I know that the OLOTEAS community, and myself in particular, are very appreciative of the many gifts of time, knowledge and insight provided by those who have been leaders in the community longer than I have.
Since I don't consider myself an elder, I can't say how I feel about this personally. I know there have been times when I felt like everything I had to give was not enough, and the community asked for more without saying "thank you." And then there have been many times when the community has overwhelmed me with love, support and nurturing for myself and others in need. Which feels very similar to my experience of being a mother, rather than what I anticipate as the experience of being a crone.
M: No. The community cycles fairly often, with an influx of new people and energy; while this, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing (growth is necessary), it often has the effect of ignoring the advice and experience of the elders. There's nothing like reinventing the wheel every 5-10 years. Individual segments of the overall community treat their elders somewhat better, but there is a personal stake in that.
ZS: Again, this depends on whom you are speaking to. Some elders have been treated very well and are respected, largely due to the fact that they hold themselves with dignity and give respect to others. Some have not been so well-received, largely due to personality issues and political infighting. While this latter batch may be "elders" by dint of fact they have been in and around the Craft for 20 or more years, time in rank alone does not make an elder. Spiritual maturity as well as personal maturity means more than how long a person has been around.
DC: I can't speak for Seattle, but here in Tacoma those of us who function as community elders are give a level of respect and affection that borders on embarrassing. A TERRA member even nominated me for Puget Sound Inspirational Woman of the Year this year -- I didn't win, of course, but it was pretty amazing.
W: What do you feel your group does best for the community?
SR: I think we provide one of several hubs and gateways for the larger local community. Through OLOTEAS, information gets out to folks looking for it, and newcomers have a place that caters specifically to the needs of someone entering the pagan community from the overculture for the first time. I will admit it's been a long time since I've seen a ritual done by another pagan organization (and that's nothing personal, just the reality of time commitments), but from the feedback I get I think we do a good job of pushing some boundaries that need a little pushing.
DC: [TERRA] provides venues for pagans to meet each other and for the pot to boil. The board is no longer having to plan all the activities; we have folks who offer workshops, dance classes, jam-session nights and so on within the community, all on their own. This is the sort of thing we were working toward from the beginning, and this is in my mind the definition of a fully functioning community.
ZS: I am a freelance elder at this point. Having been co-progenitor of the Georgian Tradition and StarBornSothis, I feel I don't need to limit myself to any one group. I do assist a bit with COG (of which I am a Charter member) and continue to help shape the Georgian and SBS traditions. I work in other traditions as elder and in the Native American community as well. As for what COG provides for the community: a good place to meet and greet others, to find out about various traditions and ways, to get to attend ritual with others (this is great for people who are not initiated into a tradition or have no coven at the moment).
M: [COG tries] to play nice in other peoples' sandboxes, and ask that people play nicely in ours. Anna Korn said it probably best: "Cooperation is a major concept in COG. We are witches who choose to work together. We do not claim to represent all of witchdom, just those who can agree to adopt a set of bylaws that has been working with reasonable success for a quarter-century, and who can cooperate for the good of the witch community." COG, however, is only a part of the overall community, and while anyone is welcome to COG events, membership within COG is restricted only to those who are witches.
RR: I think that what OLOTEAS does best for the community is to not try to do a damned thing for the community. We pretty much do whatever it is that strikes our fancy to do, and people who want to come along for the ride are welcome to join us in whatever that happens to be on any given month. We create, each month, the sacred space and sacred drama that we, ourselves, want to create. We just create it with the thought in mind that it has to work for 100 people instead of 12. This is not a trivial point. If we were to try to "create a sacred experience" for 100 people we don't necessarily even know, it would fail, because we would be inclined to create rituals and classes which were "comfortable" for the lowest common denominator of "comfort" within the community. And the rituals and classes would suck for this.
Good magick is not a consensus process.
JN: [My OTO lodge] brings Thelema to the community.
W: What would you like to do more of?
DC: I'm stepping down from the TERRA Board as of Samhain to concentrate more on hands-on Craft and (I hope) some music.
JN: [I'd like to do more] outreach.
ZS: [I'd like to] host and/or attend peaceful gatherings for elders of all traditions for information exchange and general support; to build and nurture a true community of pagans/witches who believe it is more important to present a united front to our detractors than to participate in petty squabbles over whose tradition is "right" or most correct.
M: I'd like to visit more with other groups. The past several years, most of my energy has been directed at our own coven and the work we do with COG, which hasn't left a lot of time available to do that communicating and visiting with other parts of the community that I feel is needed.
SR: Me, or OLOTEAS? I can answer for myself: Do more work with gender mysteries, work in my garden more, study more about magickal healing techniques and spend more time outdoors, in wild places, communing with my gods.
RR: More teaching, on more levels; I'll probably always have a bit of a Dumbledore complex, and I would love to see a well-run, interdisciplinary pagan college be established in the Seattle-Tacoma area (no, that's not the sound of Bobby volunteering!).
W: What do you think the local community needs less of?
RR: I don't know; it seems to be pretty self-regulating as far as separating the chaff from the wheat.
JN: [I think it needs less] egotism and power plays.
DC: As always and in every community, trolls. I refer the reader to www.trollspotting.com for the definition and handling of these pernicious troublemakers in the pagan world, subspecies of which are known as drama queens. whiners, manipulators and sociopaths.
ZS: Let us have no more gossip, backbiting, anger, witch wars, silly politicking and in general being a microcosm of the current administration of our country. People need to come together in tolerance and willingness to let others be who and what they are without judgmentalism and ostracism. Everyone is important and needed.
M: [I think it needs less] isolationism.
SR: [I think it needs less] racism, sexism and homophobia. As the community has grown, I have observed a dilution of the earlier feminist leanings I saw in it, and in fact have heard and seen some really gross sexist stuff going on -- on both sides of the fence, not just men being nasty to women. But I feel like some of the overculture sexist norms are creeping in, and I don't like it.
Same with homophobia. I am sadly aware that gay men have left OLOTEAS events feeling very unwelcome by our community, more than once, because of comments they have overheard in conversations taking place there.
As for racism, our community is not very racially diverse, and maybe given that many of us are seeking our ethnic roots in northern and western European cultures that's not surprising. But I think we could do a far better job of building bridges with other ethnic magickal communities, and of recognizing racism and other prejudices as elements that contribute to an atmosphere of intolerance that could come back to hurt us as religious minorities. There's also the issue of cultural mining -- I think modern pagans need to be very, very careful about incorporating other cultures' spiritual practices in our own just because we think they're "cool."
W: What do you appreciate most about this community?
SR: The overall acceptance, generosity and respect I see in it. There are times when I am literally in awe of our community discussion e-mail list, seeing how people care for each other in times of trouble. Or during our community announcement period, when someone needs something, more often than not someone else can help them right then and offers the help ungrudgingly. That's beautiful to see.
And I also appreciate how many of us there are, and the courage of the community founders to be out of the broom closet so that now the rest of us can be too.
RR: What's not to appreciate? It's open, adventurous and self-motivated, and we party well. Last month, I was talking to a group of kids, mostly younger than my oldest daughter, about a class I'm going to be guest-teaching for their study group. They brought out three-ring binders of class materials they had done over the previous two years to show me an example of what they were looking for and handed me a specification sheet on what a lecture should be. I frankly expected to find the sort of fluff that, well, I was doing as a teenager. But no, these kids (and they are kids, I think the youngest is 13) are teaching each other things like qabalistic correspondences straight out of the Golden Dawn Adeptus Minor curriculum, and debating and correcting the correspondences. And I'm supposed to teach these kids what?!
M: [I appreciate the community's] diversity -- almost every aspect of magickal practice can be found in this region, from "I just read a book" neo-paganism to centuries-old Shinto and just about everything in between.
JN: It's very diverse and growing.
ZS: I appreciate the fact that it is so diverse and complex. I can find something to do to fit whatever mood I may have, from playful to serious.
DC: That most of us aren't trolls! No, seriously, I find a level of openness and maturity in most of my pagan kin that is great to be among, and a genuine affection for each other truly wonderful. You meet people you haven't seen in five years, and it's like no time has passed.
W: Whom would you consider to be Seattle-Tacoma community elders?
ZS: Since I can't possibly know everyone in the Puget Sound region who is an elder, I would have to pass commenting on this.
M: Oh, that's a loaded question. Off the top of my head, for that area specifically, I'd have to list Leon, Haragano, Zanoni, Dana, Bjoern and Stuart, Erynn, Sylvana, Valkyrie/Susan, Robert and Stephanie, Priya, Corby, Anne-Marie, Lisa L., Aidan and Melinda, Pete, Raven and Rhea -- I know there are others, especially in the ceremonial contingent, but I don't know a lot of them personally.
RR: Anyone in their sixties or older who has been a third-degree initiate longer than 30 of those years, who has been teaching consecutively since their third degree. Obviously, anyone old enough to be considered an "elder" now was practicing the Craft when it was still a much more risky thing to practice, and may well still harbor concerns about being publicly "outed," so it would not be appropriate to name them in this forum. But they know who they are!
SR: Going back to my original definition, the sages and crones in our community are who I consider my elders. That is not to disregard the many respected priestesses and priests who have put so much work -- and in many cases still do -- into laying the building blocks of this community and continuing to nurture it. I think -- I hope! -- they know who they are and how appreciated they are. But I agree with Bobby that I don't feel it appropriate to name names, if only because I risk forgetting to mention someone and that could lead to hurt feelings.
JN: I am sorry to say that I don't personally know a lot of people in the elder community except Robert and Stephanie, Blackcat and Sylvana.
DC: I can't speak for Seattle very well, as I've hardly been back since we moved to Tacoma, but Lady Zanoni for sure, Leon of course, and it's looking like the local COG Council is functioning in that capacity these days; good for them! Here in Tacoma, the No. 1 elder is without doubt Fran, owner of Magical Garden, who has kept her shop open and serving the community for something like 16 years. There are many others who were here long before I arrived -- Dian and Mike, Mahlora and Chuck, Carmen... my husband, though he's deeply modest and doesn't seem to notice the respect he's given. And since everybody says so, me.
W: Any parting thoughts?
SR: I think maybe the time has come to examine how we use the term "elder" in the pagan community. The fact that I was asked to participate in this interview means that somebody out there thinks I am one, but it is a designation I do not accept because I do not think I meet my own standards for elderhood in terms of age, experience or certainly wisdom! But I understand it is meant as a respectful designation, and I am honored to be recognized in that way.
DC: While it's obvious from my answers that I believe elders are important in the community and should be treated like the nonrenewable resource they are, I also believe that mere longevity doesn't make elderhood, nor mere knowledge, nor the collecting of titles. Elders must serve, one way or another.
ZS: MYOB (mind your own business) shall be the whole of the Law. If you are paying proper attention to developing and improving your own life and magick, you won't have the time or inclination to meddle with the lives of others. Doing thus, everyone will be happier.
RR: Whether or not there has ever been any virtue to "dumbing down" magick and paganism for mass consumption in the past, I think the world is now pretty ready for some pretty frank discussions of what magick and paganism are and can be. I think the days of "it's okay for them to be pagan as long as they act Christian" are long gone. We are the daughters and sons of Pan, Aphrodite and Babalon. It's okay for us to be a little disquieting to those religions that have always opposed these godforms and currents. It is important to be ecumenical with other faith communities, but if what we are doing is seen as completely palatable by all other religions, we're doing it wrong. For most of the world, and certainly most of this country, "loving is good, killing is bad" is a damned radical notion. We see homicides depicted regularly on Saturday morning children's television, but one is supposed to be 18 in order to see a movie which overtly depicts sex. We can't (and shouldn't) change all of human culture to suit our biases any more than any other religion can. But we can present a viable alternative, if we're willing to.
It is also time, I believe, for those who have been genuinely successful magickally to come forward and begin tearing down the limits which have been artificially built around these disciplines. To pretend that magick is incapable of working outside of the limits of elementary physics does no service to the student. By definition (at least, everyone's definition but Crowley's) all magick operates outside the realm of elementary physics, or we would just call it "physics." It is important to recognize this, and to in turn recognize that the "more advanced" magicks are in reality merely extensions of the mechanisms that are being activated by simple spellcraft, albeit more directly.
I'm inclined to believe that much of the rationale for this façade is simply more of the same mindset as the "palatable paganism" thing. If we say that a "spell" is just the same thing as a "prayer," that's reasonably nonthreatening; if we say that a spell "allows us to cut and paste reality at whim, like this," then suddenly a "spell" starts to look a lot like a "weapon of mass destruction" to the sort of people who are prone to perceive tools as weapons. The reasoning behind the circumspection, then, is not invalid, but it is important to remember that earnest magickal students are not the intended targets of the ruse, and that anyone else who goes looking for WMDs will find them regardless. So the best service that we can provide for students of the Craft is to simply acknowledge that magick is in fact essentially limitless, and to encourage them to explore that potential to the best of their ability unfettered by the paranoia of their teachers.
Okay, that's probably more in the way of "parting thoughts" than you ever intended!
M: Happy Hallows!
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