Rick Johnson 
Desert Henge
PO Box 40451
Tucson, AZ 85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
Return to the Miscelleneous Materials Page
This page is still and
always be under construction!
As with all new concepts, people have questions which they feel have not been answered
in the body of the WebSite. What we will try to do here is to answer some of those
questions that people have asked. If you have questions of us and don't see the answer in
the WebSite or here, please feel free to write and ask and we'll try to answer in this FAQ.
In most cases, the question will be answered by one person who will sign their
name, but in some cases, more of us will respond so you may get a half-dozen apparently
conflicting answers to the question. Don't worry, this is perfectly normal with a religion
that has no absolute dogma.
QUESTION: A lot of the links on this site didn't work and suddenly you changed the IRL and they work? What happened? Did you hire someone who knew what he was doing?
ANSWER: It's a simple answer to a complicatd problem.
I am a self-taught HTML person and whenevr I want to do something that isn't in the "Dummies" book, I find a website that has something similar to what I want to do, save the page, open it as a WPS file, dissect it to see what makes it work, then I figure out how to change it to what I want.
The buttons on the Vocabulary pages are a result of this. I coudn't find anything like it in the books so I visited a porn site, found some buttons, figured out how they worked and changed them to what you see here.
Well, when Geocities got bought by Yahoo, somehow when I tried to update this site, I got shifted to a NEW and empty webpage called RikJohnson69 which I never made.
So, as an experiment, I decided to keep it so I could have fun and then started to think... If Geocities can create a site under my name, WHY can't they change the name of this one to something easier to remember than http://www.oocities.org/athens/oracle/6992?
So I put the question to the problem list and someone called Richbloomdahl told me how to do exactly what I wanted.
Thanks Rich, it worked!!!
So I changed the name of the site (thus screwing up all my business cards) and decided that since it was raining out and a weekend and I'm single, why not go over every page and fix every problem?
Unfortunatly, the major problem that I discovered is that somehow all new files had their case changed to upper and it appeas that HTML is case sensitive soI am re-doing every page to change the html codes to lower case which makes them work. And with 5 pages of files on this site... it is takeing some time. (-Rick)
QUESTION: Why did it take so long to see the promised changes here?
ANSWER: I ran out of hard drive space. I know it's difficult to believe
but I had a 1.5 gig hard-drive and no games and somehow the thing filed up with wps
progams (or maybe I didn't delete stuff properly) and I couldn't add anything more. So I
piggy-backed a 13 gig hard-drive to this one, transferred files to the new hard-drive and
promptly lost a lot of stuff.
Maybe I should put an ad in the paper, "Geek wanted! Will teach magick in
exchange for computer training." or maybe, "Girl friend wanted, must be fluent in
computers."
The final result was that 3 discs of HTML files got lost and corrupted and had to
be rebuilt almost from scratch. (-Rick)
QUESTION: Recently I read a question on another board which asked if a
Gardnerian Initiation performed Robed was valid. One Gardnerian responded with an
emphatic "NO!", another said that the answer was secret and only those who were
Gardnerians needed to know and a third said that he had done a Robed Initiation.
But since each of these people was a Gardnerian High Priest or Prestess, and the
answers each gave contradicted each other, how can I or anyone else know what the truth
is?
ANSWER: Gardnerianism was formed or evolved from one man's
interpretation of Witchcraft, Gerald Gardner. And over the years he Initiated and trained
a number of High Priestess' from Doreen Valiente (the first) to Monique Wilson (the
last). To each of these he gave the same basic Core material and to each he gave
additional material specific to the situation of that articular HPS.
And each of these HPS' added to the material and interpreted that material in her
own unique fashion just as Gardner did when he branched off from The Fellowship
of Crotona which was his coven.
Over the years, each of these HPS' trained others and in some cases, what
the HPS learned came to be considered by their Initiates to be LAW instead of simply a
guideline. Then when this HPS trained another, what she interpreted was passed on as
ABSOLUTE UNADULTERATED AND UNCHANGEABLE GARDNERIAN LAW
AND PRACTICE. And the situation worsened when these Down-lines decided that the
way that "They" practiced must be universal and so anyone who was different must, by
their own definition, be wrong.
But not all Hp & HPS' were this way and some considered the workings to be just
that, workings.
With all the different High Priests and High Priestess' who have been trained and
hived off since the 1950's (and there are hundereds of them), it is no wonder that one
HPS who believes in a LITERAL interpretation of the BOS will have a
different view than another HPS who has a liberal and symbolic interpretarion of the
BOS. And when their downlines meet, they argue as to who is right.
Organizing witches is like herding cats. (-Rick)
QUESTION: Why is there no activity on this site for months, then a lot of
strange material added?
ANSWER: Simple. I'm lazy. Actually, I am a single father who had a
breakdown a few years ago over my divorce. It's been hard for me to overcome the
depression enough to actually do any work here.
And as I get no child support from my ex and my last child is 17, I spend a lot of
time with her and this site has to suffer as a result of working two jobs and being a full-
time mother/father.
But I am finally getting to the point where I have to make a decision. Am I going
to be A Priest of the Gods or just another flake. Once I decide what that means,
Feel free to let me know the answer, I'm still seeking the question. (-Rick)
QUESTION: I've asked a question on some of the Gardnerian Boards based on
my readings and either have been told "That is a secret and anyone who answers it is
either an oathbreaker or a lier" or I've received answers that contradict each other. What
gives?
ANSWER: Organizing Witches is like herding cats. When you get two
Witches together, you get four different answers.
Despite what you may be led to believe from the literature or the internet,
Gardnerianism is NOT some monolithic entity like the catholic church that has an
irrevocably established dogma.
Rather, Gardner did exactly what he claimed to have done, taken the fragments of a
religion from the Coven in which he was Initiated, fleshed them out and adapted them to
modern times.
While he was doing this, he initiated and trained a number of High Priestess' from
Doreen Valiente (the first) to Monique Wilson (the last) and with each High Priestess, he
gave the same basic material plus some material that was specific to them.
Each of these High Priestesses then interpreted this material in their own unique
manner and these interpretations were passed down as dogma.
In reality, there are as many forms of Gardnerianism as there are covens. In some
covens, the members are encouraged to think and experiment. In others they are
expected to follow blindly.
But the basic core of Gardnerian workings remains similar in every coven. If you
were to compare my core Gardnerian BOS with the core BOS from a
coven in the Netherlands or England or Canada or America, it would be almost eactly the
same. But, like many Gardnerians, I have added material from various sources to
enhance the flavor. Writings by various Grdnerians are included in my BOS as
well as from published books.
The basic rule is that we can add to but never subtract from the Book of
Shadows.
Unfortunatly, although we all take the same oath (one would imagine) we also
interpret that oath differently. One person believes that mentioning the work 'Skyclad' is
a violation of their oath. And I respect their view. Another will believe that if Gardner
or Buckland published it, it was never oathbound. And another believes that once it is
published in common usage, it is no longer secret or oathbound. And I can respect their
views as well.
But, like any religion, we have conservatives and liberals. And each person will
respond to the same question differently based on thier own personal view and
interpretation of their oath. (-Rick)
QUESTION: I've asked to be put in contact with a Gardnerian, or any other
coven, in my area but after months, I havn't heard anything. What's going on?
ANSWER: The problem is that there are a number of people who are
'whatever religion' on Friday, discover some book on Witchcraft on Saturday and by
Sunday they show up at the local Pagan gathering posing as "Lord/Lady Pixie Moondrip,
HP/S of this secret coven who will now initiate you for no good reason."
And there are people who buy into this farce.
Gardnerians and other Traditionals tend to be more careful. To us, a coven is a
family and so we want only honest people with us. So we ask ourselves a few questions
when we get a letter from you.
#1) Is this person dedicated? If do, they will continue to ask. If they are a flake or
chasing a fad, they will drop away.
#2) Is this person the type we will be willing to trust with our lives? So we tend to
look you over for quite some time to be certain.
So, if you are truely dedicated and meant to be a Gardnerian, or even any other
Traditional Witch, then you will keep bothering us and expect a long wait. (-Rick)
QUESTION: Can you tell me if there is a Gardnerian Coven in or near my city?
ANSWER: Maybe. There are Gardnerian Covens around the world,
mostly centered in England and the East Coast of the United States. However we do
have contacts with some Covens here and there to which we will forward a letter from
you. For more information, refer to our Gardnerian page
and thento the contacts section page. (-Rick)
QUESTION: Why do I get these update messages when there isn't anything
new?
ANSWER: The notification program isn't perfect. After all, the Goddess
isn't All-Powerful or even All-Good and All-Perfect, what can we expect from a
computer geek who would rather create an interactive program about Charro?
What happens is that every time you or someone else enters the site, the Geocounter
clicks up one number. The page notification program sees this as a change and sends out
the notification. It simply cannot differentiate between a major and minor change. I'm
sorry but I'm just a nerd and not a geek so I can't fix it.
However, on the HomePage I am adding the change dates as I update the site. Scroll
down to the NEWS or OTHER PAGES sections and look for a recent update notice that
looks something like this: *new as of October 10, 1998. (-Rick)
QUESTION: Why do Gardnerians still claim that their Book of
Shadows is secret when anyone near a bookstore can buy one?
ANSWER: I started with Wicca in 1971 when you could count the number
of Witches in Arizona on your fingers and still have fingers left over. With no one
around to celebrate or practice with, I was forced to create my own Book of
Shadows from the published fragments.
In 1976 when I met my first Gardnerian Coven in Tucson and joined the next year, I
discovered that the Book of Shadows I had created as similar to, but not the
same as, the ones handed out to my fellow coveners.
Then in 1978 when I got my Second Degree, I was handed material that I never
knew existed. This material hadn't ever been published.
Then when I got my Third Degree, I was given even more material that I had never
seen in any published work, not even by Farrar.
And when I became a Witch King (i.e. a Magus) I was given more material the
existance of which I was told to deny except to other Queens and Magi.
Was this additional material real or made up by those who were trying to look more
valid than I? I did make contact with other Gardnerians in other states and countries and
they had much of this material as well so I must conclude that what was given to me was
authentic.
So, in a round about manner, here is an answer. Anyone can create a psudo-
Gardnerian BOS of the First Degree. And because of the variations in the
different Lineages, it can easily pass as authentic to non-Gards. But there is material
there that has never been published and possession of this material is just one indication
that you are a valid Garderian and not a fake. So long as this material is still secret, this
method of determining validity works.
Also, we, as Gardnerians, take certain oaths in Circle before the Coven and the Gods
to keep the secrets of the Art. To admit that this book is a valid Gardnerian Book of
Shadows is generally interpreted as a violation of our oaths of secrecy. If we are to
be ethical people in the eyes of the Gods and of our Tradition, we MUST keep these
oaths, even if it seems rediculous.
This does cause some problems with unethical people who create a fake BOS and
try to pass themselves off as Gardnerians as some sort of ego trip or insecurity thing...
and although I can look at their BOS and state it is a fake and so is that person, my oaths
forbid me from proving it... or even pointing out what is fake and what is not.
So to answer the question, two reasons are to keep our oaths and to determine the
validity of those people who possess one.
For more information on the Book of Shadows go to the Book of Shadows section under the Writings Page. (-Rick)
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
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