A little over a week ago, Meghan Crozier offered the following cheeky comment1 over on Twitter:
While Meghan’s tweet was cheeky, a lot of us in the deconstruction community tend to have complicated feelings about small groups as we experienced them within the evangelical church (and possibly in other related authoritarian religious settings). Such small groups can often be another mechanism of control over members of the church and religion. They can also force a sense of intimacy between members of the group that they are not ready for and may not feel safe with.
And yet, as always, I’m the kind of person who is not ready to just throw the baby out with the bathwater2 and when I typed up my own response to Meghan’s tweet I came to a realization: In witchcraft, covens are more or less small groups.3
Granted, there are a lot of witches and other Pagans that don’t like the thought of being in a coven. And I do have to wonder how many of them feel that way because they’re applying their baggage from past experiences in Christian churches to their perception of covens. But neither covens nor small groups have to be for everyone.
At its core, a coven is simply a small group of witches that get together to collectively work magic, explore whatever spiritual mysteries they might embrace, and serve any powers they might believe in. Also, coven members also meet together to learn and develop their witchcraft practice together. To my mind, this mirrors my experiences in church/Christian small groups.4
Personally, my experience with covens has been greatly positive, and think that kind of comradery comes with great benefits. I also think that there are a few key features of covens that typically prevent them from having the same problems as church/Christian small groups.5
The biggest difference is that the evangelical church (and similar churches) tends to be quite authoritarian in structure and outlook, and that tends to get replicated in their small groups as a matter of course. Such small groups have leaders that tend to be able to exert a certain amount of influence and power over the other members of the group. Then the group itself is typically under the authority of the pastor (and other members of leadership) of the church itself. In most churches, a pastor or the elders can pressure small group leader about how they run the group and even disband the group altogether.6
Covens tend to be far more autonomous. Indeed, most covens are an island unto themselves. Even in an initiatory tradition like Alexandrian Wicca, once a Witch7 is elevated to the third degree and establishes their own coven, that Witch is free to run that coven independently.8
Similarly, individual coven members are given the autonomy to stay or leave as they please. So even if a coven leader has ultimate authority on coven matters (and they often do), members who don’t like the direction being taken are free to “vote with their feet” and leave.9 Typically, since a coven with no members ceases to exist, this leads most coven leaders to at least listen to other members’ input and seek out ways to keep them around. (Though there is such a thing as a coven and an individual not being a good fit, and parting ways really is the best and only option.)
In my experience, the way that intimacy and vulnerability is encouraged and developed tends to be different between church small groups and covens. Many church small groups feel to me like they force the members to become vulnerable to and intimate with the rest of the group. The moment you join such a small group, it’s expected — and those expectations are often explicitly stated — that you will start sharing deeply personal details about yourself, experiences you’ve, and even “sins” you’re “struggling with.” This is a level of intimacy and vulnerability that could be weaponized against you (and many have experienced exactly that) and you’re expected to submit to it before there’s been any effort to build any assurance that it won’t be.
Covens also tend to require a similar level of intimacy and vulnerability,10 but much more time is typically spent building up the sense of trust and safety between members before then. To illustrate what I’m saying here, I want to talk about my own past a bit.
Back in the 2000s, I joined a Yahoo Group where initiates and seekers discussed British Traditional Wicca. I had learned about non-initiatory (“eclectic”) Wicca and had decided it wasn’t for me. At that time, I had also discounted initiatory Wicca, assuming it was basically the same thing. As I joined the list, I learned that the assumption was incorrect and found out that in many ways, the Wicca the initiates and elders of the group discussed seemed far more similar to the kind of witchcraft I practiced. So I became a fairly involved member of the group, posed questions, and even shared my own thoughts. As a result, I ended up making friends with a number of members in the group.
One of the people I made friends with was an Alexandrian High Priestess who was living in the province of Ontario in Canada. We began to exchange emails outside of the group and after about a year, she invited me to a public Pagan event in Ontario. I accepted and had a great time, not least of which because I got to finally meet a Witch I had come to admire and respect.
After that first in-person meeting, we continued to converse via emails and I think we even met in person in public a couple more times. Eventually, though, she invited me to come visit her and her husband at her home and even spend a weekend with them. I accepted and made the six hour trek on the appointed Friday. While there, I met her husband, and a couple of members of both her coven and her outer court. I even had the opportunity to attend one of her outer court rites, which was a deeply moving experience.
It was during this trip that we discussed the possibility of me training with and eventually becoming an initiate in her coven.11 Note that it took one to two years to even get to that first conversation. During that time, we had talked frequently, met a few times, and had already started building a relationship. And while the idea of joining an Alexandrian coven was still scary, I felt that if I was going to join one, this was the one I’d probably be able to trust.
And my would-be High Priestess was okay with my trepidation. She expected it. She did not chide me for it, but took it in stride. At one point during that weekend, the topic of ritual nudity came up once. Like most people, the thought of being naked around other people made me uncomfortable. She acknowledged that and simply said that it’s something we could work on in time if I wanted to pursue membership in her coven.12
I think this slow build-up without a sense of pressure to join, fit in, or become immediately intimate with a small group is vital to healthy small group dynamics.
I’d be interested to hear what thoughts my readers have on this topic. Do you think my comparison is a fair one? Do you think there are other ways that covens demonstrate ways to create and maintain a healthy small group? Do you think there are potential pitfalls that are unique to covens? If so, how would you recommend preventing them from arising or mitigating them? Let us know in the comments.