Covens

skateing dragon

Hey i was wondering are there any Covens in Rahfarnham or is it against the rules for me to ask?

Talliesin

It's not against the rules, but it's not necessarily the most productive way to find one either.

Firstly, if anyone responds immediately saying "hey, yes, we've a coven just around the corner from you, why don't you join?" run, don't walk, way. Covens should be hard to join and easy to leave.

Secondly, the age on your profile is 15. Run very very fast indeed from any coven that would consider you before the age of 18 at the very least. Most traditional covens would be wary even at that age (I know of some High Priestesses who strongly prefer applicants to have made it through their first Saturn Return - which hits at around 29½). Even the looser of the ecletic groups aren't going to consider a minor and I'd be very wary of any group that would.

Why the age limit?

Firstly, right now you're working out a lot of stuff about who you are. If you have a brain in your head (a prerequisite for a witch) you aren't ever going to stop that working out, but right now is particularly key for that. Coven work happens best when you're over the first rush of that, have direction in your life, have a job or are otherwise making productive use of your time, are reasonably together psychologically or at least getting yourself there. The Craft is a priesthood and not a salaried priesthood - so the option of going straight from school to a seminary isn't there. If you can't hold your own in your mundane life you won't be able to do so as a Priestess. Consider the fact that you are having to restrict your search to Rathfarnham. Some people travel miles to be with their covens, if you wouldn't even be able to make it to the other end of the city.

Secondly, right now you have enough studies to do in school. What's more I'll bet every single subject you can learn in school will stand you in stead for training (the number of times I wish I'd worked harder on foreign languages in school...).

Third you have to be legally able to make your own decisions as to what you do with your life. For a start nobody wants to be explaining to anyone's parents "why yes, we do dance around naked with your fifteen-year old daughter, but it's okay, it's just part of how our fertility religion works" (okay, one can be more diplomatic than that if needs be, but who wants to have to). More importantly initiation is something that cannot be undone. Pretty soon you're going to be picking college courses or deciding on what else you're going to do with your life. That's a big decision. Seeking initiation is bigger. Pick a totally inappropriate college course and you can transfer, mess up your leaving cert and you can retake, get initiated and your initiated and the kickback is quite heavy. That also affects your initiator as well, so only a fool will initiate anyone unless they are 100% sure that they're ready for it.

Fourthly, coven relationships are pretty tight. You certainly don't need to have a lot of things in common, but as a rule children aren't going to fit in very well in any working coven.

But above all, children don't really make for good priests.

In the meantime I'd recommend you read a lot (not just Pagan and Wiccan books [if anything, a lot of the crap out there is better lelf unread, especially the stuff Llewellyn churns out like it's printing money] but everything), live a lot, think a lot. You could try setting up an altar in your bedroom (if your parents are going to freak out about that, then don't - don't make the Craft something that is a personal warzone for you before you've even begun). Go to the moots when you're a bit older (if you want to attend before the age of 18, give the organiser a call, though they'll want to be sure it's okay with your parents) and get to know people, explore other paths (including the one you were raised in - are you 100% sure you are really unhappy with it rather than reacting against some aspects of it), note the passing of the year (you've at least 2 full turns of the wheel before you're 18 - you therefore have two opportunities to pay attention to what's going on before then).

Try to spend as little time as possible saying "I know..." or "I believe..." and as much saying "I wonder..." and "I'm going to explore...". Do you know what I meant by "Saturn Return" above? If not, don't ask, go find out (by all means do ask if that leads you to other questions you can't answer yourself, or if you want other people's opinions on what you have found out - but develop the ability to work things out for yourself as much as you can [especially if you're a victim of the Irish points-based education system]).

In a previous post you said "i discovered paganism and believe all of it". Taken logically, that means you already know about this age restriction and agree with it. Clearly you don't believe in all of it, because you don't know all of it so you can't possibly believe all of it. That's okay, I don't know all of it either.

Pay more attention to your spelling and puctuation! Seriously, endevour to take care over little things like capitalising the word "I" and spelling and the attitude of expressing your intentions clearly will stand by you when you are trying to express your intentions in working magic. Dyslexia is one thing, so's rushing a post because you've got a dozen other things to do and at the end of the day posting something on boards.ie really isn't all that important, but not bothering at all indicates mental laziness, and that's a killer in magical work.

skateing dragon

I apologize for my bad spelling and bad punctuation. I will wait until Im 18 and attend some moots.
I got a list of books off an organiser(of moots) and i will check them out.
Yes I am 100% certain I do not believe in my former religion. I have been questioning it since the age of 11.
Thank you for the advice you have been a great help.

Talliesin

No need to apologise for the punctuation. Even a quick scan over my own post shows quite a few errors. It's not my place to criticise someone for something like that (though people who deliberately write l1k3 th1z coz itz mad l33t n dey fink dey r kewl get kicked out), rather my point is that endevouring the express yourself clearly is in itself something that will stand you in good stead.

Regular meditation is also a good practice.

As for books, there's been a couple of threads on what people did and didn't find useful and why in this forum. Change your settings to show all posts (down at the bottom of the forum page is a selection box labelled "From The..." change the option to "The Beginning") and take a look at that.

Also, read at least one book from a sceptical point of view, The Skeptics Dictionary is a good one and has an online version at http://skepdic.com/