By: Lady Rhiannon of Serpentstone, Lady Cassandra of the Temple of Hecate Triskele, Lady Grey Cat of Northwind, Lady Silver Ravenwolf of Black Forest and Grandfather Michael Ragan.
Today’s Craft community is ever-changing, and dynamic. However, many of its’ members are also mobile and the connectedness of a local Coven or Grove sometimes is lost.
Widely varying training requirements and ways of conducting affairs makes it difficult for both membership and Priesthood to function efficiently and effectively. As a result, the strength of a disciplined long-term training program is often unavailable to an individual. Further, a gaining Priest/ess may have difficulty in determining just what training an individual coming from another group has had and what further training is required. So it is that individuals are, at a seemingly increasing rate, being initiated and/or elevated without having a truly solid background in training or experience.
The loss of proper training and too-easy elevations and initiations has been of common concern to many of us in the leadership for some time. Because of this concern, Lady Rhiannon of Serpentstone, Lady Cassandra of the Temple of Hecate Triskele, Lady Grey Cat of Northwind, Lady Silver Ravenwolf of Black Forest and Grandfather Michael Ragan have put together a consolidated general guideline for training and coven administration, as well as a skeletal Law structure, that can be of considerable aid to the Priestesses and Priests of our community.
What we present here is not all-inclusive and we have tried to leave sufficient lee-way to satisfy individual Coven and Tradition requirements. However, what we have included is an amalgam of concepts and requirements that are fairly common throughout European and American Craft traditions. Not all traditions observe exactly the same standards, but the stronger more historical traditions are very similar in requirements. Thus, we have not tried to include everything, but have tried to include the more important items.
Our approach to requirements for the degrees is in accordance with the time honored Craft admonition of “To Know, To Do, and To Be.” As a 1st Degree, the individual should Know (especially his or her self). As a 2nd degree, the individual should Do. As a 3rd degree, the individual should Be.