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The Feri Tradition is an American neo-pagan tradition related to Neopagan witchcraft. [1] [2] It was founded in the west coast of the United States between the 1950s and 1960s by Victor Henry Anderson and his wife, Cora Anderson. [1] Practitioners have described it as an ecstatic tradition, rather than a fertility tradition. Strong emphasis is placed on sensual experience and awareness, including sexual mysticism, which is not limited to heterosexual expression.
Anderson met Cora Ann Cremeans in Bend, Oregon, in 1944; they married three days later, on 3 May, claiming that they had encountered each other many times before in the astral realm. [3] Born in Nyota, Alabama, in January 1915, Cora had been exposed to folk magic practices from childhood; [4] reputedly, her Irish grandfather was a "root doctor" who was known among locals as the "druid". [5] The Andersons claimed that one of their first acts after their marriage was the erection of an altar. [5] The following year, a son was born, and they named him Victor Elon, with the latter being the Hebrew word for oak; Cora stated that she had received the name in a dream. [6] After the birth, a ritual was held to dedicate the infant to the Goddess. [7] In 1948, the family moved to Niles, California, later that year purchasing a home in San Leandro. [8] There, Anderson became a member of the Alameda Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and he subsequently remained so for forty years. [9] Victor earned his living as a musician, playing the accordion at events, [10] while Cora worked as a hospital cook. [5] It has been claimed that Anderson could speak Hawaiian, Spanish, Creole, Greek, Italian, and Gothic. [11]
In the mid-1950s Victor and Cora read Witchcraft Today , a 1954 book by English Wiccan Gerald Gardner, [5] with Cora claiming that Victor corresponded with Gardner for a time. [12] The Pagan studies scholar Chas S. Clifton has suggested that the Andersons used Gardner's work as a "style guide" for the development of their own tradition of modern Pagan Witchcraft. [13] Similarly, Kelly stated that the Andersons' tradition "began to more and more resemble that of the Gardnerians" as the couple learned more about the latter, adopting elements from it. [14] Anderson was in correspondence with the Italian-American Wiccan Leo Martello, who encouraged Anderson to found his own coven. [4] Circa 1960, the Andersons founded a coven, naming it Mahealani, after the Hawaiian word for the full moon. [4] Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Andersons initiated a number of individuals into the coven. [5] One of these was Gwydion Pendderwen, a friend of their son who shared their interest in the esoteric. [4] Pendderwen contributed to the development of what came to be known as the Feri tradition, with some members of the lineage viewing him as one of its co-founders, along with Victor and Cora. [5] Pendderwen noted that he had first met the family when, aged thirteen, he got into a fistfight with Victor Elon, although the two later became friends. [15] Pendderwen was particularly influenced by Welsh mythology, and on a visit to Britain he spent time with the Alexandrian Wiccans Alex Sanders and Stewart Farrar, subsequently introducing various Alexandrian elements into Feri. [16] In the early 1970s, the Andersons established a new coven with Pendderwen and his initiate, Alison Harlow. [5] After Pendderwen married, his wife also joined this coven, although it disbanded in 1974. [5]
Over the next four decades, the Andersons would initiate between twenty-five and thirty people into their tradition. [5] Anderson has been described as the "founding teacher" and the "seminal voice" of the Feri tradition. [11] The original word that the Andersons used for their tradition was Vicia, which Cora was known to say was Italian. [17] She added that "the name Fairy became accidentally attached to our tradition because Victor so often mentioned that word in speaking of nature spirits and Celtic magic.” [18] Early initiates alternately spelled the name of the tradition as Fairy, Faery, or Faerie, although Anderson began using the spelling Feri during the 1990s to more easily differentiate it from other Wiccan traditions of the same or similar names; not all practitioners followed his example. [5] Cora claimed that Feri was the word's original spelling, adding that it meant "the things of magic". [19] Anderson also referred to it as the Pictish tradition. [20] In their writing, the Andersons mixed terminology adopted from Huna, Gardnerian Wicca, and Vodou, believing that all reflected the same underlying magico-religious tapestry. [21] It drew heavily upon the huna system developed by Max Freedom Long. [22] According to one Feri initiate, Corvia Blackthorn:
The Andersons' teaching method was very informal. There were no classes in an academic sense, only conversations and the occasional ritual, usually followed by a home-cooked meal. Discussions with Victor were non-linear and overflowing with information. Someone once aptly remarked that talking to Victor was like to trying to drink from a fire hose. Often the connecting threads and underlying patterns in the information didn't become apparent until later on. There was also a non-verbal component to Victor's teaching. He was a true shaman, and had the ability to shift the consciousness of his students on a level well below the surface of conversation. [5]
According to Kelly:
Studying with Victor presented some unusual problems. He demanded as much respect as any working-class grandfather might. One could ask for clarification, but to even hint that one disagreed with him, or worse yet, to contradict him, would result in an immediate and permanent order to leave. One was tempted to ask such forbidden questions because Victor lived in mythic time and was totally uninterested in other people's concepts of logic or consistency;... Another student told me that when Victor read a new book and believed it was true, then he considered it to have always been true and would rethink his history accordingly. [23]
According to one initiate, Jim Schuette, Anderson was "a taskmaster. He took pride in testing his students." [24] One of those initiated into the Andersons' Feri tradition was Starhawk, [25] who incorporated ideas from the Feri tradition when creating Reclaiming. [26] She also included aspects from it in her 1979 book, The Spiral Dance , including mention of the Iron and Pearl Pentagram and the three souls, all of which originated within Feri. [5] Another prominent initiate was Gabriel Carillo (Caradoc ap Cador), who in the late 1970s developed a written body of Feri teachings, and began offering paid classes in the tradition in the 1980s, generating the Bloodrose lineage; doing so generated controversy among Feri initiates, with critics believing that it was morally wrong to charge for teaching. [5]
Wicca, also known as The Craft, is a modern neo-pagan syncretic religion. Scholars of religion categorize it as both a new religious movement and as part of occultist Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices.
Alexandrian Wicca or Alexandrian Witchcraft is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Alexandrian Wicca is similar in many ways to Gardnerian Wicca, and receives regular mention in books on Wicca as one of the religion's most widely recognized traditions.
Faerie Faith is a Wiccan branch from the "Old Dianic" tradition through the work of Mark Roberts and his high priestess, Epona.
Leo Martello was an American Wiccan priest, gay rights activist, and author. He was a founding member of the Strega Tradition, a form of the modern Pagan new religious movement of Wicca which drew upon his own Italian heritage. During his lifetime he published a number of books on such esoteric subjects as Wicca, astrology, and tarot reading.
Victor Henry Anderson was an American priest and poet. He was co-founder of the Feri Tradition, a modern Pagan new religious movement established in California during the 1960s. Much of his poetry was religious in nature, being devoted to Feri deities.
Reclaiming is a tradition in neopagan witchcraft, aiming to combine the Goddess movement with feminism and political activism. Reclaiming was founded in 1979, in the context of the Reclaiming Collective (1978–1997), by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk and Diane Baker, in order to explore and develop feminist Neopagan emancipatory rituals.
Kenny Klein (1955-2020) was an American folk and country musician and a published author. He was an elder and high priest in the Blue Star tradition of Wicca. Klein was a fiddler, playing styles ranging from British folk to jazz and swing. He was convicted in April 2017 of 20 counts of possession of child pornography. He died while serving his sentence in prison.
Aidan A. Kelly is an American academic, poet and influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Having developed his own branch of the faith, the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn, during the 1960s, he was also initiated into other traditions, including Gardnerianism and Feri, in subsequent decades. Alongside this, he was also an important figure in the creation of the Covenant of the Goddess, an organisation designed to protect the civil rights of members of the Wiccan community in the United States. He has also published academic work studying the early development of Gardnerian Wiccan liturgy, primarily through his controversial 1991 book Crafting the Art of Magic.
Philip Heselton is a retired British conservation officer, a Wiccan initiate, and a writer on the subjects of Wicca, Paganism, and Earth mysteries. He is best known for two books, Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival and Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, which gather historical evidence surrounding the New Forest coven and the origins of Gardnerian Wicca.
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray. It also is based on the beliefs from the magic that Gerald Gardner saw when he was in India. It was subsequently founded in the 1950s by Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into the Craft – as Wicca is often known – by the New Forest coven in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses Doreen Valiente, Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone into other parts of the British Isles, and also into other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, new figures arose in Britain who popularized their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, and organizations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association. It was during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734 and Dianic Wicca in the ensuing decades, and where organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess were formed.
Wiccan views of divinity are generally theistic, and revolve around a Goddess and a Horned God, thereby being generally dualistic. In traditional Wicca, as expressed in the writings of Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, the emphasis is on the theme of divine gender polarity, and the God and Goddess are regarded as equal and opposite divine cosmic forces. In some newer forms of Wicca, such as feminist or Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is given primacy or even exclusivity. In some forms of traditional witchcraft that share a similar duotheistic theology, the Horned God is given precedence over the Goddess.
Chas S. Clifton is an American academic, author and historian who specialises in the fields of English studies and Pagan studies. Clifton currently holds a teaching position in English at Colorado State University-Pueblo, prior to which he taught at Pueblo Community College.
Neopagan witchcraft, sometimes referred to as The Craft, is an umbrella term for some neo-pagan traditions that include the attempted practice of magic. These traditions began in the mid-20th century and were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis, a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion. Traditions classed as neopagan witchcraft include Wicca and the various movements that describe themselves as "Traditional Witchcraft".
The Witchcraft Research Association was a British organisation formed in 1964 in an attempt to unite and study the various claims that had emerged of surviving remnants of the so-called Witch-Cult, such as those of Gerald Gardner, Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek, Charles Cardell and Raymond Howard.
In Modern English, the term Wicca refers to Wicca, the religion of contemporary Pagan witchcraft. It is used within the Pagan community under competing definitions. One refers to the entirety of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, while the other refers explicitly to traditions included in what is now called British Traditional Wicca.
A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States is a sociological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the Northeastern United States. It was written by American sociologist Helen A. Berger of the West Chester University of Pennsylvania and first published in 1999 by the University of South Carolina Press. It was released as a part of a series of academic books entitled Studies in Comparative Religion, edited by Frederick M. Denny, a religious studies scholar at the University of Chicago.
Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revisited is an anthropological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the United States. It was written by the American anthropologist Loretta Orion and published by Waveland Press in 1995.
Living Witchcraft: A Contemporary American Coven is a sociological study of an American coven of Wiccans who operated in Atlanta, Georgia during the early 1990s. It was co-written by the sociologist Allen Scarboro, psychologist Nancy Campbell and literary critic Shirley Stave and first published by Praeger in 1994. Although largely sociological, the study was interdisciplinary, and included both insider and outsider perspectives into the coven; Stave was an initiate and a practicing Wiccan while Scarboro and Campbell remained non-initiates throughout the course of their research.
Modern paganviews on LGBT people vary considerably among different paths, sects, and belief systems. LGBT individuals comprise a much larger percentage of the population in neopagan circles than larger, mainstream religious populations. There are some popular neopagan traditions which have beliefs often in conflict with the LGBT community, and there are also traditions accepting of, created by, or led by LGBT individuals. The majority of conflicts concern heteronormativity and cisnormativity.
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