Very shortly after finding the Blue Bible, another name for Buckland's most popular book, I decided to move back to the city and find work for awhile. I ended up moving back to Southern Maryland where I still had family living and within 3 days of getting there I was working. After being in Waldorf for a few weeks I drove to Indiana and brought my best friend from childhood back with me to find work and live in Maryland.
Shawn, my girlfriend, and myself were all working and within a couple of weeks after getting back from Indiana we rented a townhouse together within walking distance of our work places. I spent my days working and my evenings studying and researching more thoroughly the practices and beliefs of Witchcraft, Paganism, and the Occult. I met a few other Pagans in the area through my old Mentor, as well as through my work place, and had many in-depth and spirited discussions to help stimulate intellectual growth and to keep an open mind to more than just my personal views of Wicca and Paganism as a whole. I had found this book of Raymond Buckland's before moving back to Maryland and I had been seriously digesting its contents since the day I picked it up. I discovered that Buckland was the first Witch to come out of the closet so to speak here in America back in the 70's. He had been initiated and trained in the ways of British Traditional Witchcraft by Gerald Gardner, the father of Wicca, whom had supposedly sent him over here to teach the religion, and that after a couple of years and a divorce with his wife, he created his own new version of Wicca. The Seax-Wica Tradition, also know as Saxon Wicca. He has published over 40 books on various occult subjects since then. Over the next little bit I delved into this book and devoured it completely, as well as a handful of other books that I had acquired dealing with the same topics. I am a heavy reader and a fast learner, I always have been, and it didn't take me long to finish the books, and to re-read key sections multiple times to help retain information. I had already been introduced to the Faery Wicca Tradition a year or two earlier and had spent many hours thinking, practicing, and developing various skills and beliefs so after coming to understand the history of Witchcraft and Paganism more fully it was no surprise that I felt as if I had at long last found the religion that actually made sense to me. I had come home. I put together my first true Grimoire, or Book of Shadows, out of a black 90 page spiral notebook. It was basically notes taken from Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft and various others, mainly tables and lists, as well as few basic Wiccan staples such as the Wiccan Rede and the Thirteen Principles of American Witchcraft. I also recorded my own personal thoughts and ideas about most everything that I had put down into the book. After some time had passed, and my B.O.S. continued to grow (I don't think a Grimoire is every truly complete), I felt as if I was very close to being ready to dedicate myself. Not only to be faithful to my chosen God and Goddess but to declare my desire to walk the pathway of the Pagan Priesthood. A promise to be forever devoted to learning living and growing in the ways of a the wise. In the fashion of what I called myself at the time, an Eclectic Pagan and initiate of Seax-Wica, I put together my first Altar and planned my dedication ritual.
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December 2018
AuthorWriter, nature lover, poet, pagan, occultist and blogger. Categories
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