Important note:We are not at any point suggesting that you go outside the law of the country you are living in. Neither are we suggesting you try to challenge the law, it may not be ideal, or just daft in places, but we do not want you or those who you are in any way involved in to be harmed. |
Conceptually, the human rights act protects your right to choose and practice your own religion. However with no judges known to be witches, and many a part of less tolerant religions, plus the high cost of getting involved in law, makes this far more a theoretical protection than real one. In practice within the UK, individual senior police officers pick and choose which laws to enforce and who to persecute. Many forces have Masonic temples, with their three headed god, but none are known to have covens. A number of chief constables have recently been known to be Christian fundamentalists, some with quite extreme views.
In Britain we don't have a set rule of law, but a vast amount of overlapping legislation going all the way back to 1066, common law and test cases. Because of this no one has any idea as to what the law is and people if concerned have to get barristers to give an opinion, and it has been shown that different barristers can often take different views and justify fighting expensive test cases to get a ruling.
Witchcraft was illegal, but this was repealed in 1952, and replaced with an act that does not make witchcraft illegal, but does make it illegal to make money by claiming to be able to perform witchcraft.
You therefore find no evening courses or similar as an introduction to practicing witchcraft, or even correspondence courses on this topic. You may find individuals who offer some kind of personal instructional service, but often under another title. We do find specialty course that make up sections of the witchcraft knowledge, such as healing with crystals, homeopathy, herbal course, relaxation and trance under many titles, and of course a range of psychology and self improvement topics.
There is nothing as far as we can see to stop you having a club, with members paying subs towards cost to cover the cost of rituals etc. As workings of the coven is secret of course the arrangements that coven has is not open to interpretation by the less tolerant who may like to criticize.
What may be classed as indecent assault, is a risk factor, some people have been charged recently on the flimsiest of excuses, such as a photographer rearranging the hair of a model, or holding their hand to move them to a new direction. One problem is that the law does not allow that wide consent before can be given, even in writing. Therefore technically it is necessary to get consent before making each and every contact, not only within a coven but everyday life. We all will have committed many indecent assaults in the last week.
The problem is made worse by police officers who are remote from people who live a more tolerant and open and healthy view on the human body. Many will have been transferred recently from trafic or routine patrols to investigate with enthusiasm, what are classed as sexual crimes. We hear of young men, hardly able to control their excitement, studying photos and questioning those who will become witnesses, who play up to the attention they get. The details and photos eventually get handed on to prosecution barristers who have to pass them all around their office and get everyone else's view although they don't need to with other alleged crimes.
A further problems, a form of mental illness, that is recognized by the medical profession, prevalent and untreated in our society, this is the compulsion some have to find items to investigate and search out facts that will disgust or allow them to criticize others. You get people who will purposely watch programmes with bad language or nudity in order to count the occurrence and complain, and the interest and way any alleged sexual crime is treated. It is the only cases in the British legal system where the person is considered guilty until they can prove their innocence and even then many will never accept that they were unjustly persecuted.
Society has a different view of consenting adults to children, and although the law and media will call 18 and 19 year old teenagers, implying they are children when it suites them, generally people who are 18 or over are considered able to make up their own minds as to what they wish to do.
The age of consent, not only relevant for intercourse but also interpreted as being able to consent to what may be seen as an indecent assault is 16 in Britain, 15 in France and various other ages in other countries. This was introduced to stop or reduce very young people involved in prostitution at the beginning of the 1900's. There was no age of consent historically. Many people, including recently high court judges have asked for this to be updated to reflect society where at least half of all 15 year olds are sexually active. Logic and the general opinion being that 14 would be a sensible age to recognize people as young adults, with rights, responsibilities and able to make some decisions for themselves. However at the moment this is not the case and we have to operate under the legal and social conditions that exist.
For this reason, just about all covens including ours are reluctant to admit people to the inner circle until they are 18. This may seem indefensible as no one would ever suggest a person under 18 should not enter a Christian church and in fact most schools and youth organizations involve it. You may rightly therefore say that young adults who know their own mind should be able to choose other paths. Even although persecution of witches has largely died out, most covens are concerned about the potential or risk of media exposes misrepresenting their activities, and the risks of persecution to individual officers.
Outer circle members of covens do not attend all coven rituals, although they may be invited to seasonal calibrations that are deemed suitable. Younger members of families involved in a coven or hereditary witches, often are members of the outer coven, however even this may be dangerous as they may tell teachers or others where they have been and this could cause or be used to justify child protection investigations. Secrecy in not only your best defense as it is also a risk factor, and some, when it suits them will suggest that secrecy is there to hide misdeeds.
The ideal arrangement within the Water Witches, would be for young people under 18 is to form their own rings, made up of a few friends under 18. They cannot technically be full covens as we cannot create a high priest or priestess and without this there is no way for them to create full witches. What they are is a circle of apprentices who can go on experimenting, and learning so that they are ready when they are old enough to enter a full coven. We also have a separate virtual coven that never meets called the Mediterranean coven that they can join. In practice they usually have a simpler self produced ritual, that allows them to take on a promise and class themselves as witches, although they will later still need to undertake the full ritual.
The other option is within new groups where a person first becomes a part of the study group.
Added to this the size of the problem varies with the age of those running it, so a young high priest of 20 to 22 would be unlikely to have any sanction within the UK for initiating a 14 year old witch to become a high priestess, where a similar one over 24 may find they are locked up, however this may vary from force to force. See more on age of consent below.
It is possible for a very experienced and senior Witch, within a ritual, to advance a persons age, for the period they are within the magic circle. This is achieved via a semi trance state, they then become fully awake and they will act, make decisions as and react as a person of greater age. This is often referred to as the wisdom spell, and used to help people search for a decision that perhaps they at present are unable to make. It would therefore theoretically be possible to advance a 16 year old to become a 19 year old, and by this means for them to become both a witch and in a later similar ritual a high priest, and then to return to a ring of younger members their own age and form it into a coven. Their are several problems with this, the young high priest will outgrow the group and the exercise need to be repeated, unless they have created enough younger witches in time, and risks we have discussed before.
As we have mentioned before, the age of consent varies between countries, therefore circles held in other countries may come under the age rules of the country they are in. This is defiantly the case of citizens of that country, but a coven taking a young group from their outer circle abroad, may find that there are still legal problems within the UK.
Another alternative is for them to form their own self installed coven, but as little magic will work and what does may scare them, it is likely to produce a negative effect and cause them to loose the confidence to move on and get the full benefits that the craft could offer them.
Clearly each new coven or group of younger potential witches should be helped and advised as best we can, but keeping within the law.