The Rantin’ Raven: Faith, Hope, and Clarity

The Rantin’ Raven: Faith, Hope, and Clarity October 3, 2015

Among the tenets of British Traditional Wicca (BTW) is the statement that our Gods offer us “certainty, not faith.” The idea is that we don’t need faith because we have ways of directly communicating with our Gods, as well as gaining empirical knowledge of things that in mainstream religions must be taken “on faith.”

young woman opening curtains in a bedroom
lzf / Shutterstock.com

Questions like what the Otherworld is like, what our Gods expect of us, why we’re who we are in the here and now, and many other questions get direct answers. We’re expected to seek and find our own answers to these life-questions through personal experience, and no authority figure will tell us we’re wrong, damned, and by-gawd better change our way of thinking before it’s too late. The worst judgment we’re likely to get is of being ‘not a good fit.’

But having certainty doesn’t mean that we don’t need faith. It means don’t need blind faith, the kind that places our lives and the responsibility for our own spiritual fate in another’s hands. And, it is in this sense, I believe, that the “certainty, not faith” statement was included in the foundations of the Craft, short as it was otherwise on statements of belief. We’re not expected to take a dogma or gospel on faith and internalize it, though we may accept another’s idea as a working hypothesis. There’s an old saying in the Craft: “If it works, it’s true.” By which we mean, true enough to get results.

So what kind of faith do BTW’s have, and how do we exercise it?

At bottom, faith is confidence in the future. For the Witch, it includes confidence in oneself. Faith is the basis of all magic. Without confidence in a future, one that can be shaped by action taken now, there’s really no point in taking action at all. Without confidence in oneself, the temptation and most likely course is to simply let things take their own course, or to hope someone else will deal with them. But, a Witch’s faith is based on personal experience, not second-hand tales.

a key with a label on which is written the word "hope"
Orla / Shutterstock.com

Which brings us to the precursor of faith:  hope. The first few — or several — times we attempt magic, all there is to go on is hope; we follow the ritual script and hope it works. And, then we feel something; if we’re lucky, we may see something. And, a while later we get that job or our friend gets well, and we haven’t been able to shake the euphoria. And, the next time we do that ritual we don’t need hope. We know it works; we have faith.

Faith is what leads us to work now on a project that will bear fruit years from now, whether a PhD or working through the Wiccan degrees. But, to accomplish anything you have to have one final quality: clarity. You have to examine your motives, your methods, and your goals. You have to be prepared for the outcome. You have to clearly see the path ahead and how you’re going to negotiate it. You even need to have clarity about the basis for your faith, which is not easy.

The monotheistic religions discourage clarity, teaching that to have faith is to follow blindly, to accept uncritically. Wicca and other Pagans like to question authority, which seems antithetical to faith but upon examination is far from it. With faith, hope, and clarity we can change our world.

So mote it be!


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