titles, misnomers, nomenclatures, and personal roles
What does it mean to be a priest or priestess? This is a rhetorical question but one that I would like people to stop and think about for a minute.
For me the function of the clergy is service to the community. “Clergy” meaning priests, priestesses, bishops, et al. “Community” referring to a religious body of people. “Service” meaning exactly what it sounds like.
The clergy, in my opinion, should be able to, and willing to, provide counseling, personal guidance in accord to stated religious beliefs, rites (i.e. communion rituals, marriages, last rites for the dying, and whatever else might be needed for the spiritual comfort of the community). No one can simply say they are a member of the clergy and successfully perform these duties. Training and experience is required. If this were not true then everyone would be of the clergy and ministering to a congregation of zero.
As most who read this journal are well aware, my ecclesiastical training is based in the OTO and EGC. The first being a fraternal order with no clergy and the latter being a church within that order whose clergical ordinations are tied directly and irrevocability to the invitational degree structure of the former.
Out of my 11 years in the OTO and EGC I served as priestess in the Mass for more than 9. I was ordained a deacon but because of my corresponding OTO degree I was not eligible to be ordained a priestess. Since I was not ordained, I was not allowed to officiate at weddings, baptisms, confirmations, and such. The biggest insult was being called a “novice” priestess when there are many ordained priestesses who know far less about the office than I do. I personally referred to myself as a “non-ordained” priestess. In addition to my roles as ordained deacon and non-ordained priestess, I held the positions of chartered initiator and local body master for several years. I consider these positions to fulfill certain roles that the EGC clergy does not (i.e. rites of passage (initiations), and counseling, mediation, and advisement for body members). It was through these roles and my personal study of psychology, religion, and magick that I was trained and prepared to be a priestess. I have often held a sincere compliant against the EGC and OTO for ordaining clergy with no prior training and not giving training to those whom to ordain. I have seen members who have never performed the Mass as a priest be ordained (only to never perform the Mass a priest thereafter). I have seen people ordained deacon after their first, and quite miserable, performance of the role. I have seen LBM’s girlfriends and wives doled out degrees and titles conferring these leadership roles solely based on who they are fucking. All with no training, little support, and quite often no follow through on expectations. I believe ordination should be the confirmation of achievement and dedication not a token of appreciation, a bribe, a meaningless title to tack on the wall, or the first step of training that may or maybe not ever be completed.
Well, after a couple of years of waiting I was finally invited to the degree required for priestess ordination - KEW. Two years before, when I became eligible to be invited to this degree, I really wanted it more than anything. I wanted to be recognized as a priestess because I believed the position was there as a means to serve the community. I believe that in this role, I would be able to lead the community and offer the people spiritual guidance. I believed that I was properly trained and prepared to fulfill the duties that I expected the clergy to perform. However, through those couple of year, as a waited, several new regulations were passed by the OTO, a few other people were ordained and I was allowed to witness their oaths, some issues were dealt with publicly for the congregation to witness, and through all of this I came to view the offices of the clergy within EGC as ineffectual, unprepared, and untrained puppets of the Order. (This is by no means an insult to any of the fine people serving the Order as clergy but more an observation of the way the Order confers ordination and the lack of training that I find utterly distributing.) I made a very hard decision - I declined KEW, and with it any chance of becoming an ordained EGC priestess. My reasons: I want serve a community of fellow travelers in the role of priestess. I do not think that role should be tied up in bureaucracy, bullshit, back-biting, or lawyerese. If I had wanted to be a servant of the bureaucrats I would have saved myself the time and effort, strapped on a silicone dildo, dressed in drag, and become a Roman Catholic priest.
These statements are undoubtedly going to piss some people off. Let me save you time and just say - these are my opinions, nothing more and nothing less. If you disagree - fine but save it because you will not change my position.
Why this tangent today? Because Saturday night I was ordained a priestess by means of Apostolic succession. I was imbued with the energy passed down from bishops and priests/esses past. I officially accepted the responsibilities and duties of this office. I consider myself to have long been an acting priestess and so this is more or less a conferring of the title to which I already held myself but through the Apostolic line I, in addition to my training, have been plugged into a larger egregore from which I can draw strength to fulfill the duties required of me. I imagine there will be some who consider this ordination invalid because it was performed “outside of the church” - save it. This was a personally affirming experience and one that I take very seriously. It is not an attempt to hang a certificate on my wall or be held above others - it is a pledge of service, a confirmation of my calling, an acknowledgement of many years of hard work and dedication, and, in a round about way, a statement of my sorrow (sorrow, not resentment or spite) over the condition of the EGC. I am not a priestess of the EGC or the OTO - and now I realize that truly I never wanted to be. I am a High Priestess of Magick. I do not bow to a dark church overlord or lawyers with sticks shoved up their asses - but humbly offer myself, my service, and my knowledge to the larger community, that community beyond the Order, beyond Thelemites, beyond labels. I offer myself to the larger commuinty of magicians - those who strive, through magick, to know themselves.
For me the function of the clergy is service to the community. “Clergy” meaning priests, priestesses, bishops, et al. “Community” referring to a religious body of people. “Service” meaning exactly what it sounds like.
The clergy, in my opinion, should be able to, and willing to, provide counseling, personal guidance in accord to stated religious beliefs, rites (i.e. communion rituals, marriages, last rites for the dying, and whatever else might be needed for the spiritual comfort of the community). No one can simply say they are a member of the clergy and successfully perform these duties. Training and experience is required. If this were not true then everyone would be of the clergy and ministering to a congregation of zero.
As most who read this journal are well aware, my ecclesiastical training is based in the OTO and EGC. The first being a fraternal order with no clergy and the latter being a church within that order whose clergical ordinations are tied directly and irrevocability to the invitational degree structure of the former.
Out of my 11 years in the OTO and EGC I served as priestess in the Mass for more than 9. I was ordained a deacon but because of my corresponding OTO degree I was not eligible to be ordained a priestess. Since I was not ordained, I was not allowed to officiate at weddings, baptisms, confirmations, and such. The biggest insult was being called a “novice” priestess when there are many ordained priestesses who know far less about the office than I do. I personally referred to myself as a “non-ordained” priestess. In addition to my roles as ordained deacon and non-ordained priestess, I held the positions of chartered initiator and local body master for several years. I consider these positions to fulfill certain roles that the EGC clergy does not (i.e. rites of passage (initiations), and counseling, mediation, and advisement for body members). It was through these roles and my personal study of psychology, religion, and magick that I was trained and prepared to be a priestess. I have often held a sincere compliant against the EGC and OTO for ordaining clergy with no prior training and not giving training to those whom to ordain. I have seen members who have never performed the Mass as a priest be ordained (only to never perform the Mass a priest thereafter). I have seen people ordained deacon after their first, and quite miserable, performance of the role. I have seen LBM’s girlfriends and wives doled out degrees and titles conferring these leadership roles solely based on who they are fucking. All with no training, little support, and quite often no follow through on expectations. I believe ordination should be the confirmation of achievement and dedication not a token of appreciation, a bribe, a meaningless title to tack on the wall, or the first step of training that may or maybe not ever be completed.
Well, after a couple of years of waiting I was finally invited to the degree required for priestess ordination - KEW. Two years before, when I became eligible to be invited to this degree, I really wanted it more than anything. I wanted to be recognized as a priestess because I believed the position was there as a means to serve the community. I believe that in this role, I would be able to lead the community and offer the people spiritual guidance. I believed that I was properly trained and prepared to fulfill the duties that I expected the clergy to perform. However, through those couple of year, as a waited, several new regulations were passed by the OTO, a few other people were ordained and I was allowed to witness their oaths, some issues were dealt with publicly for the congregation to witness, and through all of this I came to view the offices of the clergy within EGC as ineffectual, unprepared, and untrained puppets of the Order. (This is by no means an insult to any of the fine people serving the Order as clergy but more an observation of the way the Order confers ordination and the lack of training that I find utterly distributing.) I made a very hard decision - I declined KEW, and with it any chance of becoming an ordained EGC priestess. My reasons: I want serve a community of fellow travelers in the role of priestess. I do not think that role should be tied up in bureaucracy, bullshit, back-biting, or lawyerese. If I had wanted to be a servant of the bureaucrats I would have saved myself the time and effort, strapped on a silicone dildo, dressed in drag, and become a Roman Catholic priest.
These statements are undoubtedly going to piss some people off. Let me save you time and just say - these are my opinions, nothing more and nothing less. If you disagree - fine but save it because you will not change my position.
Why this tangent today? Because Saturday night I was ordained a priestess by means of Apostolic succession. I was imbued with the energy passed down from bishops and priests/esses past. I officially accepted the responsibilities and duties of this office. I consider myself to have long been an acting priestess and so this is more or less a conferring of the title to which I already held myself but through the Apostolic line I, in addition to my training, have been plugged into a larger egregore from which I can draw strength to fulfill the duties required of me. I imagine there will be some who consider this ordination invalid because it was performed “outside of the church” - save it. This was a personally affirming experience and one that I take very seriously. It is not an attempt to hang a certificate on my wall or be held above others - it is a pledge of service, a confirmation of my calling, an acknowledgement of many years of hard work and dedication, and, in a round about way, a statement of my sorrow (sorrow, not resentment or spite) over the condition of the EGC. I am not a priestess of the EGC or the OTO - and now I realize that truly I never wanted to be. I am a High Priestess of Magick. I do not bow to a dark church overlord or lawyers with sticks shoved up their asses - but humbly offer myself, my service, and my knowledge to the larger community, that community beyond the Order, beyond Thelemites, beyond labels. I offer myself to the larger commuinty of magicians - those who strive, through magick, to know themselves.