Since stepping into a leadership role in the Kansas City Pagan community, I have been asked one question more than any other. Though I have stepped back from that role, the question still follows me. It rings loud in every digital venue where Pagans gather.
“How do I join a coven?”
There are variations, of course: “Where do I find a coven?” “Are there any covens looking for new members?” “Where can I get an initiation?” “Will you initiate me?”
Responsible leaders always give the same answer: go to public gatherings and meet people. Go to New Age stores. Go to Meet-Ups. Go to classes and workshops. Go to festivals and Pagan Pride Days. Meet people. Make friends. Engage in the community at large. Wait for an invitation.
People don’t like this answer. Probably for a variety of reasons. And, to a point, I understand. I, too, once dreamed of joining a coven. Sometimes I still do.
The dream of a coven runs deep in modern neo-Pagan Witchcraft. It is, in fact, central to our founding mythology: Gerald Gardner, intrepid veteran and amateur archaeologist, initiated into New Forrest Coven by “Old Dorothy” and taught the old ways of magic and the Goddess. Gardner, in turn, recruited, initiated, and instructed his own students, and sent them out in the world to do the same. (1) Semi-public teaching covens tracing their lineage back to Gardner (and his rivals and imitators, such as Alex Sanders) then came to the United States to spread their traditions. (2)
From the very beginning there have been far more people who wanted to be in a coven then there have been covens for them to join. Books like Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft and Ed Fitch’s Grimoire of Shadows (originally distributed as hand-typed and photocopied manuscripts) invented the notion of the Outer Court to bridge that gap. In many ways the entire movement of Pagan festivals exists for the same reason. (3) In the process, an idealized image of witchcraft came into being: a handful or a dozen of beautiful, naked people, dancing and feasting and fucking in the moonlight, high on magic and religious ecstasy. And the word for that image became “coven.”
Now, the thing of it is, most US Witches and Pagans come from Protestant backgrounds. Even those from other backgrounds — particularly Catholic — grew up saturated in Protestant culture. Half the time a Protestant says “religion” they really mean “denomination”, and don’t really have a concept of how different non-Christian religions are from the church they grew up in.
So, with that in mind, it is my observation that many Witches in the United States mistake a Tradition for a denomination and a coven for a church. They expect to find them in abundance, with neon signs and open doors and waiting arms. They expect initiation to come without effort or cost.
Now, to be clear, before we go any further: I am not Wiccan. I have never been initiated. I have never been a part of a coven. Nor am I speaking ill of either covens or the desire to be a part of one. What I am is a student of the history and culture of the modern neo-Pagan movement, its origins and its offshoots. What I am is a member of the community for more than long enough to have seen some shit go down. The disconnects between the above expectation and the reality I describe below are features not bugs.
A coven is not a church home. You don’t shop around, Sunday to Sunday, for one that you just kinda like better. Initiation into a Wiccan coven bears more resemblance to marriage than to baptism. Finding a good, strong, healthy coven is like finding four to twelve spouses. It is hard. It is messy. It is deeply relational. It requires growth and compromise and hard-won intimacy on the parts of everyone involved.
Teaching covens do exist, but you can’t just walk in and take a seat. They have class cycles, and applications, and fees. And when you’re done, they send you back out into the world on your own.
A coven which is truly open to all comers … Well, firstly, it’s not really a coven in the traditional sense of that word. More importantly, it’s going to be as sketchy as a non-denominational church in a strip mall. The turnover rate will probably be high. The leaders may be seducing or assaulting their students. There is even a chance that it will be an honest-to-goddess cult.
And if they’re willing to recruit you because you posted to a Facebook group about how you’re new to the area, or to witchcraft, and how lonely you are and how eager for validation and acceptance? Double the risks. There are predators in every community, and Paganism is no exception.
And so the mods of whatever group you’re in invite you to come out in public, to join the community.
Let me join the chorus: Come on out. Join the community. Take some classes. Make some friends. If you can’t find a coven, maybe you can find a family and make one of your own.
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1 – This is absolutely mythology, not history, utterly unsubstantiated even by Gardner’s own accounts. Please consult Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon for an accurate origin story.
2 – Again, consult Hutton. See also Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon.
3 – Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon covers this very well.