---
title: "Exploring Modern Witchcraft: An Interview with Christopher Penczak"
url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/exploring-modern-witchcraft-an-interview-with-christopher-penczak/
date: 2024-11-13
modified: 2026-07-03
lang: en
author: "Perseus Arcane Academy"
description: "Introduction Christopher Penczak’s journey into Witchcraft began with a natural curiosity and a series of influential mentors who helped him uncover his spiritual path. Growing up with a Catholic foundation,..."
categories:
  - "Interviews"
  - "Western Traditions"
tags:
  - "Kabbalah"
  - "Magic"
  - "Witchcraft"
image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Christopher.png
word_count: 8399
---

# Exploring Modern Witchcraft: An Interview with Christopher Penczak

## Introduction

Christopher Penczak’s journey into Witchcraft began with a natural curiosity and a series of influential mentors who helped him uncover his spiritual path. Growing up with a Catholic foundation, Christopher’s early questioning and search for meaning eventually led him to Witchcraft, where he found a spiritual home. Today, as a co-founder of the Temple of Witchcraft, he blends personal experience with community and teaching, creating a unique tradition that honors both ancient practices and individual growth. His work reflects a dedication to exploring and sharing the mysteries, bridging tradition with modern spiritual needs.

If you enjoy this interview, then please let us know in the comments and consider sharing it with others who may also find it interesting. If you would like to learn more about Christophers work, then we have provided links at the end of the post.

---

[![Christopher Penczak](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Portraits-0029.webp)](https://christopherpenczak.com/)Christopher Penczak

## Personal Journey and Influences

**PAA: Can you share the pivotal moments in your early life that led you to the path of Witchcraft?**

Really my first mentor gets all the credit for guiding me towards Witchcraft specifically. After twelve years of Catholic education, I left agnostic. My first mentor, Lynne, who was my art teacher from ages seven to about sixteen, then my first employer in her art studio as an office helper, revealed to me that she was a Witch as she saw me struggling with meaning and belonging. I arrogantly thought she joined a cult, and I was going to “save her” from the cult. Ah the assumptions of eighteen year olds. Back in that time, before the popular Witch media of the 1990s, before The Craft movie, there were few open Witches or Pagan families, and practitioners feared the accusations of “corrupting a minor” so she waited to tell me until I was a legal adult. Hard to understand today in the social media world of Witchcraft, but as a single mother of two girls and local business owner, she was super secret. Her altar was in a closet that could close and be hidden from view. Lynne made me read a few books before we talked, including *Stalking the Wild Pendulum* by Itzhak Bentov, *The Kybalion* by Three Initiates, and *Power of the Witch* by Laurie Cabot, and once we talked, I realized that if it was a cult, it was in the classic sense of secret practices, not a mind control guru oriented group that I feared, and I started studying meditation and tarot with her, and then was introduced to her coven, and got to be a guest at an esbat. 

The esbat was my first consciously pivotal moment. Under the full Moon, she called the Moon Goddess and the clouds parted, and the full Moon hung in the air. I’d like to say it was deep in the woods around a bonfire, but it was in her suburban back yard, with someone’s dog barking. Years later, I would realize that was a good sign, an omen of Diana, and not a distraction, but I didn’t know that at the time. We prepared a spell before the circle, a simple written petition. I didn’t want anything, but a good friend was pregnant, eight months, and in dire medical shape. Also in Catholic school, she hid the pregnancy from her family, actually losing weight during the pregnancy, not gaining it, and the doctors said her life and the baby’s life was in danger at this late stage as the baby was also precariously positioned. She did a divination before the petition, to make sure this intention was in alignment with her soul, and that she would accept the help, and after looking at a series of cards, she said we had permission. My petition was that “Mother and child survive the labor with full health and well being, and the labor be as easy as possible.” In the four short weeks of nutrition and medical aid before the birth, she gained a significant amount of healthy weight, but the part that made it irresistible Witchcraft for me was that the labor period was about an hour, and the baby was fine, mother was fine, and she was walking around soon afterwards like it was no big deal, baffling the doctors and family. She thought the labor was easy, which is pretty unheard of for a first child, and particularly for her lack of prenatal care. Modern medicine and her Italian Catholic family’s prayer might have brought survival, but Witchcraft brought the hour pregnancy. It was just too weird. But I haven’t been able to repeat that again with other pregnant friends. 

Looking back on it at the time, the Witchcraft paradigm helped me frame my two most psychic childhood experiences, one which was scary, and the other comforting, and both experiences all the adults around me at the time told me I was making up with an overactive imagination. In the fourth grade, in watching some movie in science class on medicine and surgery, I got queasy and passed out, falling backwards. I remember watching myself fall back as if I was high up in the corner of the room, out of my body. I clearly remember the teacher picking me and soothing me, and snapping back to my body with her hand on my back. All the classic images of a spontaneous out-of-body experience, though I had no idea at age nine. 

The second was my sophomore year in high school. It was in January, and my great aunt Mary had just passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. Besides my mother, she was the person I was most close to, and her death got me in a depression and questioning life, and God while also struggling with my sexuality. Being winter in New England, we were in school well before the Sun was up, and the classroom lights in homeroom period reflected upon the dark windows, akin to what I would later learn as a dark scrying mirror. The reflections shimmered and soon took the form of my aunt’s face, healthy and looking good. I remember her speaking to me, in my mind, and me speaking back, but thankfully not out loud, as she told me she was okay and not to worry about her. That she would see me again, but to be happy. She wasn’t in pain anymore and she would always be there for me. 

Witchcraft helped me remember and realize those profound moments were real, and the world was a bit stranger than my analytical side wanted to admit. Just before my Witchcraft mentor revealed her status as a Witch to me, I surprisingly switched majors from Chemical Engineering, to Music Performance, shocking everyone among my family and friends, but I was already on the road realizing that math and science alone didn’t have all the answers and experiences I wanted, so I dove deep into my artistic side, and while I was training in Witchcraft, I was getting a Bachelors in Performance and Music Business. 

**PAA: Who have been the most influential mentors in your spiritual development, and what key lessons did you learn from them?**

I like to say that I while I’ve had a lot of mentors, I have five wise women who have really guided me. The first was my mother Rosalie, who always supported my explorations on about everything – education, religion, and even my sexuality. She gave me a strong foundation in Catholicism from her Italian culture but also lessons in rebellion. While she insisted on the sacraments until confirmation, technically I violated it, as she also insisted no man is qualified to hear your sins, and had me omit, and lie, about going to First Confession. We practiced what might be folk traditions, which others have misinterpreted as formal strega, saying that I was raised a Witch, which I was not. It was the charm made from the palm at Palm Sunday placed around the house, and learning how to break the evil eye on Christmas Eve, with water, oil, and a needle. Her own god mother was a famous “curse breaker” in the Italian communities of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Rosalie would also do it as needed, and eventually passed the practice on to me, which she and I both adapted to our Witchcraft. Later she joined taking classes in Witchcraft with me at Laurie Cabot’s shop, and only ten years into the practice revealed that she initially did it to protect me from any cultish abuse, as she was disenchanted with the abuse of the Catholic Church by then. She feared movie stereotypes like goat or baby sacrifices, and wanted to be present to pull me out, knowing if she simply forbid me, I was eighteen and would want to do it all the more. And soon after those first classes, she gave up Catholicism to be a Witch, and encouraged me to continued my studies, and my vocation and writing career. She was the teacher of balance in both valuing tradition and in rebellion and innovation, and being able to break away from the norms. 

Laurie Cabot was the biggest magickal influence upon my life as she was the teacher of my first mentor Lynne and when Lynne ran out of answers, she took me to study with Laurie in Salem, Massachusetts. She is still a big influence as we’ve maintained a friendship still and I visit her often in Salem. Without her, I’m not sure I would identify as a Witch or see my practice as Witchcraft, but because I did, I have the three strands of science, art, and religion as my definition of the Craft. I think if I fell into a non-religious magickal tradition, if there is such a thing as I think all have a spiritual mystical dimension, I wouldn’t have had as much to do in terms of social service and pastoral care, and that has been important in my own growth and understanding of the mysteries. She gave me the format of being a priest, and later high priest, of the mysteries. Her roots to England, through her teacher Felicity and the Kent tradition of south east England, and enigmatic tradition with little proof of its existence, gave me a lens of British Occultism is a root, and how it came to the United States, but also the encouragement that one expands upon what is received from a teacher, as Laurie took the foundations of what she learned and put her own understanding as a modern woman in the United States upon it, using the languages of science and psychology as well as magick, and as I have done adding my own experiences to this Cabot Tradition foundation in creating my work. 

My Reiki teachers Joanne was instrumental in working with people in a healing capacity – learning from her how to really listen to those in pain and be present. I credit her with a lot of my pastoral skills and listening to people, their experiences and their bodies. While I was a professional tarot readers when I met her, I was still really young, but she treated me like a peer and valued my opinion, which really helped me in working with others. She also openly talked about the business of doing healing work, and the reality of business plans, advertising, marketing, group dynamics, and not being a path to instant success or fortunes, but a rewarding and viable career path for those called to it. 

My yoga teacher Stephanie who also taught deeply about Vedic philosophy and modern psychology provided the underlying framework how I interpret things. Her passion is the interfaith connection with the truth that is common to all religions. She would interweave her own Christian background, yogic philosophy, and later Sikhism and Sufism, though her study of Kundalini Yoga, and the Dances of Universal Peace. I probably studied with her consistently for almost twenty years. One of my most challenging years, beyond the yoga, was a year she taught on *The Bhagavad Gita*. The intent was to deepen whatever your religious identity was, your own understanding of the divine, through a study on the concept of selfless service as found in the Gita. I struggled with the war imagery and metaphor of service as war and violence and yet felt the need to stand like a spiritual warrior in another class context. I remember her support when a classmate in what was seemingly a casual discussion group reading chapter by chapter each month, stood up and said, “I am wholly uncomfortable there is a Witch in our midsts! Who else feel this way?” It was my first most direct experience with that kind of Witchcraft paranoia from someone who I ultimately became quite friendly with, but it was my face to face with the fear that Witchcraft can cause in someone. I try to take that lesson with me into these troubling times of uncertainty and fear about the “other” in this world. Stephanie went on to found the Gifts of Grace Foundation before her later interfaith seminary, and I served as secretary for a year, so it was nice intro to the world of nonprofits and nonprofit dynamics as well, before founding the Temple of Witchcraft as a nonprofit. 

My herbal teacher Wendy Fogg had the wise women spirited approach to herbalism, and as a Witch herself, didn’t shy away from the Witchcraft and herbalism. The approach to being empowered to make your own health decisions, and make your own medicine for yourself and your family, was life changing. Learning more about the body systems, actions of organs and chemicals, herbs that aid and balance, and wildcrafting what is local to you, and growing what is not, continues to be a key teaching for myself and what I hope to pass on when I teach what little herbalism I do teach in the context of Witchcraft and alchemy. Her deep relationship with the local land inspires my own relationship with the land. Communication with the herbs, intertwined with actual pharmaceutical knowledge of the plants and their actions, was the bedrock of the program, with a healthy dose of practical folk medicine and esoterics, like the astrology of herbs. While really a detailed intro apprenticeship, it aided in my own deepening herbal studies.  

As for the wise men in my life, I was really privileged to have a strong friendship and mentoring from Raven Grimassi, and his wife Stephanie Taylor, learning a lot of both Witchcraft and the publishing world of Witchcraft. And though I was never a formal student, just taking some weekend workshops, R.J. Stewart has been a tremendous influence and he has very kind to me.                                          

## Personal Practices and Spiritual Development

**PAA: Can you describe your daily spiritual practices and how they have evolved over time?**

My practice is a mix of ritual and meditation, to the point where its hard for me to see the difference between the two beyond the more overt movements. Since I was eighteen or nineteen, I have tried to do at least five or ten minutes of meditation a day that includes a hypnotic style countdown, a key feature of both the Cabot Tradition and now the Temple of Witchcraft Tradition, and either some sort of energy work, spirit contact, or mantra/affirmation work. Doesn’t always happen daily, but most days. I usually preface it with what I teach as an altar devotional, a short ritual to attune before sitting down to meditate or do any other deeper work. These devotionals often include lighting a candle to start the day and snuffing it to end the day, lighting incense, and aligning my intentions for the day and having gratitude to the divine for all that I am, have, and experience. They are not devotion to a specific diety, but to all in the most cosmic and personal sense, Goddess, God, and Great Spirit. At the moment, my altar devotional has returned to the five elements, mixing salt and water, and blessing the seven chakra points and my body, then lighting a candle and incense, and smudging the four direction, above, below and center, ringing a bell and then lighting my central oil lamp. I also make taking my tinctures and homeopathy, applying my oils and perfumes, and wearing my jewelry or carrying my crystals a part of that devotional. Each one carries an intention. Then I sit for a deeper practice. 

While sitting, I usually align the three souls with breath, do a short poetic invocation of the four tools within me – stone, blade, cup, spear, along with a meditation upon a twelve pointed zodiacal crown. The energy work consists of an invocation of the three rays embodying Will, Love, and Wisdom. Then I’ll either do mantra meditation, mindfulness with breath work or visit my inner temple and commune with inner allies and guidance unless there is something specific to be done magickally or meditatively. 

Beyond my daily practice in this form are the various rituals of the full and dark Moons, and eight sabbats, some special days in community, like the Feast of Hecate on August 13th, divination usually through Tarot, or doing healing work for myself or others, depending on the circumstance. And of course life itself, and the daily chores of home and land are part of my practice. Particularly for me is the watering of plants, and the outdoor gardening and harvesting, and making of medicines. 

> Blocking out time for myself and my practice, interests, family and friends, and that is as important as any time scheduled for clients, students, and community. That’s another huge lesson. Otherwise, I would be empty, putting everything before my own needs and have little left to give. 
>
> Christopher Penczak

**PAA: How do you maintain a balance between your personal spiritual development and your responsibilities as a teacher and community leader?**

Number one lesson was learning, the hard way, that my public practice is no substitute for my private practice. What I do for people in service does not advance my own understanding. So if I am leading a public sabbat, I am not always experiencing the sabbat, and either should do something solitary, in a smaller group of peers where I am supported, or go to someone else’s event too, where I have no responsibilities in running it and can just participate and experience. 

Blocking out time for myself and my practice, interests, family and friends, and that is as important as any time scheduled for clients, students, and community. That’s another huge lesson. Otherwise, I would be empty, putting everything before my own needs and have little left to give. 

Also realizing the rituals I do for the overall egregore of the community spirits is not the same as a personal practice. While it is service and deeply meaningful, I can’t neglect my own personal introspection and journaling, and healing relationships. I have a dual duty, with others in maintaining the overall larger temple and also keeping my own altar and practice in a personal way. Otherwise I’ll over identify with the temple and community and again, neglect myself. 

## Influence of the Golden Dawn and Western Occultism

**PAA: How has the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn influenced your teachings and the curriculum of the Temple of Witchcraft? - In what ways do you integrate ceremonial magic practices from the Golden Dawn into modern Witchcraft?**

I don’t think anyone working in a Western Occult paradigm and speaking English can lose sight of how important the Golden Dawn is upon what we do today, even if you don’t like it or practice it. As a Witch, the work of the key leaders of the Golden Dawn, Samuel MacGregor Matthers, Moina Mathers, Wescott, Woodman, Yeats, Florence Farr, and particularly Dion Fortune and Aleister Crowley certainly influence our ideas of magick, mystery, group dynamics and initiation. They certainly influenced figures like Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, and Maxine and Alex Sanders, all early public pioneers of the modern Witch cult in the mid twentieth century. Lesser know but nonetheless a huge influence are figures like William Sharp, aka Fiona Macleoud and their strange history with the faery realm certainly magickally in helping the Celtic Revival; Arthur Machen and the influence of Pan upon the modern magickal psyche; and Charles Henry Allan Bennett bringing forms of Buddhism to the western world before it was stylish to do so. Waite’s influence, along with Pamela Coleman Smith, upon how we see and use Tarot has touched most Witches I know today. The image of the beautiful Moon priestess found in Wicca with a crescent crown owes much of its popularity to the work of Dion Fortune and her novels *Sea Priestess* and *Moon Magic*, and her own magickal work to reintegrate the divine feminine in her Rites of Isis and Pan.                                                                           

My partner Steve Kenson, fellow co-founder of the Temple of Witchcraft, along with our other partner Adam Sartwell, was deeply involved in the practice of Qabalistic Ceremonial Magick, and brought that to our initial conversations and teaching in the Temple. The study of Hermetic Qabalah is the focus of our fourth degree. We both did the daily practices of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, as well as the Rose Cross, and rituals of the Hexagram. We teach students to learn the original forms and deconstruct/reconstruct them using symbols more expressive to their practice, much like Crowley did with the Star Ruby and Star Sapphire rituals for the pentagram and hexagram rituals. Alex Sander’s work with *The Holy Magic of Abramelin the Mage* and Crowley’s earlier rendering of the Bornless Rite are key rituals we work in a Witchcraft format in the fourth degree of our mystery school. Bearers of these ceremonial lineages still influence us today, with teachers such as Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, former director of the Servants of the Light, visiting us in New Hampshire to teach on her experiences of Village Witchcraft, yet always through the frame of the Hermetic occultist. We have several members who have double membership in the Temple, and other Hermetic orders such as the Fraternity of the Hidden Light or the Ordo Templi Orientis.     

## Educational Programs and Teaching Philosophy

**PAA: Can you provide an overview of the five-year program covered in your books and how it prepares students for advanced studies?**

So unlike most Witchcraft traditions in the three degree craftsman guild format of apprentice, journeyman and master, or Witch, Priest/ess/ex and High Priest/ess/ex, we have five degree system not unlike the lower levels of the Golden Dawn/Tree of Life format. Instead, our elemental degrees are fire, earth, water, air, and spirit. With the first degree you are an initiate upon completion, and with the completion of the fifth degree, a High Priest/ess/ex and Ministerial Member, and welcome to apply for ordination, but it’s not required, nor is it automatic. We see each level of a mystery, and frame it as the oracular, fertility, ecstatic, gnostic and rebirth mysteries respectively. 

The first degree is similar to my experience in the Cabot first degree, with a focus on meditation, philosophy, energy work, introduction to spirit work, psychic skills and culminating in the inner astral temple. The second degree, akin to my Cabot second degree, is the classical Wiccan and Witchcraft training including the elements, gods, magick circle, spells, potions, charms, and the Wheel of the Year. The third degree is shamanic, with healing and the often overused term of of shadow work, but essentially facing what we have repressed through a very specific ritual format, and then using the techniques of core shamanism to commune with it. The fourth degree is Hermetic Qabalah, and really then challenges people with their own sense of cosmology, asking them as a final project to make their own reality map. The last of the five levels is dual, based on both the Descent of the Goddess as in the tale of Inanna, and the Journey of the God, based on Hercules Twelve Labors and expressed in a modern era in the Hero’s Journey as described by Joseph Campbell. It’s a mix of heavy introspection and the introduction to ministerial training. Ideally by the end of the fourth but truly by the end of the fifth, you have all the material to have a strong detailed foundation of occultism and magickal theory, and communion with your own inner contacts, to make your own practice and traditions from here. But there are options of other topics and teachings in our school, from more on things like astrology and tarot, to tradition specific teaching like the Year with the Nine Mothers, to our nine year program. We are also growing classes for more ministerial training and support, including courses on mediation and conflict resolution, community preparation for disaster relief, psychological overviews, ethics, leadership, and pastoral care. 

> The thing that really sets the Temple of Witchcraft apart from other traditions was the reception of The Three Ray of Witchcraft teaching before we officially founded as an organization.
>
> Christopher Penczak

**PAA: What inspired the creation of the nine-year modular program focusing on the Three Rays teachings, and how does it differ from the initial five-year program?**

The thing that really sets the Temple of Witchcraft apart from other traditions was the reception of The Three Ray of Witchcraft teaching before we officially founded as an organization. While the five year program had its nucleus in the first classes starting in 1997, the Three Rays came later, a symbol in meditation that unfolded into a system that synthesized a lot of these ideas in a Witchcraft mythos and theology. It fused the Theosophical ray system popular in occultism with many tripartite systems like the three souls, three worlds, three kingdoms of animal, vegetable and mineral, and the three races of human, faery, and angel. The key words are Wisdom, Love, and Will. They key images are the Sorcerer, the Seer, and the Sovereign. A lot of the character of the tradition, the roots in folklore of the blacksmith, faery doctor, weaver, miller, potter, and horseman to ancient temple images and mythos like the king and bard and temple priest, from the British Isles to ancient Egypt, appear in this program, encouraging each student to reforge these pieces in their own practice and draw upon common imagery, and new mythos for the collective community, such as our own tale on the fall from heaven, and the sinking of Atlantis, called the Procession of the Fallen Light. 

Over the years we worked out the material amid myself, my partners, and the leaders of the Temple, to create a nine year program that is modular, referred to as the Society of the Temple. Unlike the five year Mystery School, there is no homework and feedback is based on the questions you ask and your participation with your classmates. The society has three levels of three rays each. Each level has a day long teaching on the Three Rays in general, and variations of the Merkaba meditation I learned from the light worker community, a practice many Witches find helpful in the deeper work. Then a first degree of Red Ray/Will, Blue Ray/Love or Yellow Ray Wisdom. You can complete all three, or stay in one ray and move onto the next level. It’s flexible, so some only want to focus on one ray. Those who graduate Witchcraft III in the five year program are eligible for the first degree of the rays. Those who graduate Witchcraft IV in the five year program are eligible for the second degree of the rays. Those who graduate Witchcraft V in the five year program are eligible for the third degree of the rays. 

Ideally one would rotate, as the three founders do, between Red, Blue, and Yellow, but some will focus on one ray entirely. At that point, it is up to you as a practitioner and your own interests. In a lot of ways, we can see the Mystery School is corresponding on the Tree of Life to the four lower sephira on the Tree of Life, for the four elements, with the fifth being Tiphereth, and the bridge to the Society of the Temple, which is akin to the adept training program of the Ethical Triangle on the Tree of Life. I am sure some of the mystical work we are exploring now will correspond to the higher spheres in some way, just to follow that pattern. 

**PAA: How do you incorporate experiential learning and direct gnosis into the Temple's curriculum?**

We are a tradition of technique, ultimately. That can be something that confuses people who study with us, as while we have foundational rituals and guiding language, nothing like that is set in stone, and evolves over time. Our training is based on experience of the technique, repeatedly, and recording the results. No real belief is required, just an open mind and a willingness to practice. In the degree programs, you report on your experiences and get feedback. Most of it is simply “Good job” or “have you tried this way?” or “have you thought about that experience in the context of this?” When you struggle with a technique, ideas of how to experience or adapt it are given. Once you get it, how you go about it, or how you frame it is up to you. The techniques open you to more and more direct experiences of your own guides and gods and higher, deeper self. We have no specific cultural pantheon we work with. In rituals of spirits and deities, we go by function or title, and allow who will show up for you, show up for you, In our second degree rituals on the four tools, we work with a Master of the Forge, but don’t say who that it is. Some see Bridget. Some see Vulcan. Some see Tubal Cain. As long as they help you with the tools, we are open to your own individual experience. There are no beliefs, or demands on belief. If we do a ritual with angels and you don’t believe in angels, you don’t have to, but be open to experience and see what you experience. Perhaps the phenomenon of angels is not what your preconceived notions of it are. When a new member has a strong connection with a deity, and they get involved in the initiatory material, often that deity will start participating more in the egregore, and show up for more people who might not have direct contact with that student.  Freya is not a goddess I have a relationship with, but a deeply involved minister does, and suddenly Freya starts showing up in a lot of student’s experiences, unconnected to that minister. I love to see the participation of new beings in the community. 

## Community Building and Tradition

**PAA: What strategies have you found effective in fostering a strong sense of community within the Temple of Witchcraft?**

Hands down shared experience, but with the open format I discussed before. Going through similar experiences, but not the same experience is key. Many greater overarching Pagan communities don’t work out because no one has common language, understanding, or experience, even if they think they do. We use the same words, but don’t have the same understanding of them, and while we have more in common than with most mainstream religions, we make a lot of assumptions. And when you get mystical enough, you have more in common with the mystics of all religions, so some of my closest friends today, fellow peers and practitioners, are Christian or Buddhist. 

Though when something is too similar, too close to each other, say, everyone is devote to a specific god in one group, things can also get weird, at least for Witches who prize a level of individuality and autonomy. Finding the balance of shared experience but eventually autonomous practice has been vital to things working better for me here than most other groups. Like any other, we have our up and downs  still too, but hopefully the mechanism to address them. Sometimes I feel like we have too much policy, too many rules as Witches, but it also helps prevent any on person, myself included, from running rough over everyone else, playing favorites, or changing the rules midstream. Having things written out provides precedent so everyone is treated fairly and expectations have been spelled out. 

**PAA: Can you discuss the role of inclusivity within the Temple, particularly regarding gender and sexuality?**

While like most Witchcraft traditions we acknowledge gender as a magickal principle, we don’t frame ourselves exclusively as a fertility religion or have any strict gender roles. Most of us are solitary practitioners in many cases, and play the “role” energetically of both priest and priestess if there is any implied gender in the ritual at all. In the Great Rite in token, the ritual of the blade and chalice, often one Witch holds the blade in one hand and the chalice in the other, fulfilling both traditional roles. We also have mixed expressions of this mystery with other elements and tools, including the stone to chalice, chalice to chalice and wand and blade crossing. We explore and experiment with the mixing of elements and powers. 

Gender as part of the generative force to create is both cosmic and human, but we are not focused on specific individuals expression of gender or sexuality but the magickal expression. We acknowledge that sexual energy is part of the energetic system of the body, and can be directed in other ways to manifest our magick and mystical experiences. No sexual acts with another is required, though in the training, exploring sexual energy on your own or in the context of a trusted partner is encouraged to better understand the inner forces in relationship to spell casting and trance. The teachings will introduce you to concepts of deity as manifest as Goddess and God, from cosmic to cultural expressions of divinity. We also find concepts of deity that are mixes of genders and concepts of deity that have no gender expression. Beyond working through the program, you are not required to have any long term practice of devotion to any form of divinity as part of the tradition, or required to use sexuality or gender imagery in your personal practice. 

The tradition is founded by three queer polyamorous men, but even queerness is not a specific focus of the tradition. Some assume this is a gay tradition, like the Minoan Brotherhood, but most of our members identity as female and straight, though we have a pretty high percentage of bisexuality. We also have a number of trans students and priesthood.  

Otherwise we welcome everyone in all identities and orientations. While some ritual spaces or events might be outdoors, we try to make they as accessibly for those with mobility challenges as possibly, including greater handicap access to our Templefest retreat site held at an education camp. If a request is made, we do our best to accommodate. We have robust scholarship programs for our training for those with financial issues, though we can’t make all events available through scholarship. While most of us tend to lean pretty liberal, there is no political ideology or requirement as long as you are respectful to all members. We have no focus on any culture or ethnicity, but a focus on occultism, even though our practices are through the currents of Western occultism. 

## Sacred Structures and Land Work

**PAA: Can you elaborate on your current projects involving the construction of sacred structures using geometry and dowsing?**

Building a temple has always been both an inner and outer process, from the inner astral temples to the ritual circle and home temple spaces, but our ideal has also always been larger community physical spaces. In 2012 we obtained a location in Salem, NH, with plans of building a community center out of the current barn space to accommodate building codes for our town, and five acres where were are developing sacred sites in the form of stone circles, and at the moment, wooded post temples, as well as  sacred paths and wells on the land. 

In studying with the teachers of Energetic Geometry, Dominique Susani and Karen Crowley-Susani, both living in France and coming out to the Temple land to teach and help us build the patterns, we are learning more about the landscape, energy of underground water and fissures, and how to build patterns that balance and enhance these sites, and around homes, buildings, and gardens. Other systems of geometry and dowsing have come to influence us as well, and we are looking for building upon what we know of ancient practices and now modern influences to create a new art of physical temple building for the modern Witchcraft movement. 

**PAA: What significance do these physical temples hold in the context of modern spiritual practice?**

They have become a big part in the physical relationship with the land, working with the solar and lunar rhythms of our latitude, where the sun rises and set in the solstices and equinoxes. Currently we have build a small but powerful stone circle, with perhaps one to two foot stones, for transformation, aligned to the rhythms of the land. We have done a large stone circle with small stone, three ringed, for deeper spirit contact. We have created a Temple of the Nine Mothers in wooded posts, a temple akin to an Earth Mother temple with shrines for many goddess manifestations, a special teaching in the Society of the Temple. Our hope is to remake it stone, akin to a grotto to the blessed Virgin common in Catholicism, and eventually place statues and bury votive offerings. It’s a heavily wooded area, so building is a challenge when digging is required. We have also created a Temple of the Sky Father, based upon a Jupiter temple with wooden posts, with a small stone circle inside it, and four corners sacred to the four elements expressed through Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. 

**PAA: How do you select locations for these structures, and what considerations are involved in their design and construction?**

We learn to dowse for the natural land energies are look to find a primary spot for all the sites. The overall pattern of the land is in the form of the constellation of the Pleiades, to open the heart. In each site there is a spot that embodies one of the nine stars, with four more spots (triple circle has two stars in it) to be built, which will most likely be simple post for energy balance and devotion, such as a hecation, sacred to Hecate, and a herm marker, sacred to Hermes. The design pattern is based on the angles of the sunrise and set for the solstices and equinoxes, generating a mandala in this system with rings and measurements that express the elements and other powers.  Stones and posts are arranged in a distance to embody certain measurement to evoke the energies of the element, much like how a Greek or Roman temple might have the columns in a certain distance, creating their own energetic rhythm to an element for that location. Such structure are in alignment with the rhythm of the place by latitude, and build on specific formations of energy in the land at that location. 

I’m fascinated with the experiments in this process and look forward to the day where time and money affords us to work on a larger scale.                         

## Integration of Various Spiritual Traditions

**PAA: How do you approach integrating elements from different spiritual traditions into your practice without appropriating them?**

I think in the definition of Witchcraft as science, we see different paradigms and philosophies as methods to search for, and explain the underlying truths as we can understand them as part of the human condition. Philosophers and mystery teachers have always shared and learned from each other, and become more skillful in the understanding and expression of those mysteries through such exchanges. There has always been cultural appreciation, cultural and religious exchange, and syncretism and synthesis. You see that throughout the ancient world. One examples that always staggers me is carvings of Hercules as a protector of the Buddha, as we are not always aware of the ancient connections between India and the Mediterranean. I feel the greatest danger is when there is misrepresentation and outright fraud. The key is being clear and being respectful, while also acknowledging these influences and exchanges. 

My own experiences started with a very modern Witchcraft with roots in a very folkloric Witchcraft, but honestly it was the modern aspects that made it make sense to me as a modern person. But then I hit what I sometimes have referred to as the “Wiccan Wall” because at the time, once you read a good foundation of books, say in the early 1990s, after a while they all said the same thing. So, as someone always asking questions, when I didn’t get more answers, particularly about deepening healing, as some of my most profound magickal experiences were with healing, I delved outward. 

My quest for healing brought me to Reiki, and other forms of hands on energy healing. Work with spirits guides in Reiki, not a new concept for me, but deepening my experiences, brought me to the world of the New Age, specifically the Light Workers and practices like the Merkaba, and what at the time was called Shamballa Reiki. While the techniques were amazing in tangible results, no one could give me theory or history, stating everything was channeled or “found in your heart” which was not a satisfactory answer even if its true. Research led to studying Theosophy and Spiritualism, and its ties to the Victorian Era, the occultism of Europe, and brought me back to the world of the Golden Dawn and a deeper practice of their ritual, and deepening my tarot, something I started with, as well as my understanding of astrology. Astrology, tarot, and underlying but not overt Hermeticism was a part of my early Witchcraft. We were all encouraged to get our astrology charts done, and learn more for both spell casting and personal development. My astrology teacher, Jan Brink, was the owner of a Boston area bookshop, and offered me my first public teaching event outside of private circles, asking me, “Do you Beltane?” when their local Witchcraft teachers fell ill unexpectedly and they needed a celebrants for their Beltane celebration at the shop. 

I had been taking yoga for quite a while and delved into the core philosophies with my teacher, going beyond the poses and athletics. She focused on the body, the states of meditation and concepts of karma and dharma, but also the unbroken polytheistic practices fasciated me, the altars and devotion, the yantras and mantras. A friend introduced me to devotional work with Ganesha and Lakshmi, deities I still revere today. Looking to India for greater information on Indo-European root words and practices help. Today there is great recognition that the Celtic traditions and Hindu traditions have more in common than most would realize. 

My Light Worker friends introduced me to flower essences, like the Bach Flower Remedies, and I took a training in that to deepen my healing practice. That led me to both more herbalist, taking a seven month training with my first herbal teacher Wendy. 

The Light Workers were also adjacent to a lot of Native American and Native American-eque practices. At this time, there was a bit more exchange and crossover between 1980-1990s Paganism with Native America traditions, with many Pagan practitioners meeting and learning things like smudging from indigenous people. I know I used to read and teach at a crystal shop here in New Hampshire, and met a Native teacher who graciously shared a lot of information and welcomed me to ceremonies he held, feeling that we all needed to help each other and find our medicine. I tell folks who weren’t around then and don’t understand that in the 1970s, none of my teachers heard anything about smudging, but by the time you get to the 1990s, it popped up in many regions of American Pagan and Witchcraft community simultaneously, as these relationships were more common. Many native teachers sold their goods in metaphysical and occult shops. Even my first circle I was both asperged with salt water, and smudged with burning herbs in a shell before entering the ritual space. It was an exchange and something encouraged by Native teachers, to use the technique of burning herbs and the directions, but in our own language and prayers. No one had any issue with the term or practice until much later. While there is a movement to redefine it as “smoke bathing” I think that does a disservice to the many who shared it with us, using the word smudge with us. 

Likewise in the Temple, we have had ministers who are initiated priesthood in African Traditional Religions, and sharing the spiritual technology of ancestral reverence while not necessarily infringing upon any cultural practice or imagery. But the idea of year long ancestral altars, glasses of water upon a white cloth, and weekly offerings got integrated into our community. Other members have studied and trained in the Dagara traditions, specifically in the practices taught by Malidoma Patrice Somé, who deeply encourage their sharing, use, and adaption by others. Dagara concepts of the elements and ancestors also influence our membership in the context of modern Witchcraft. 

Wanting to learn more of the spirit practices, specifically the techniques, but not necessarily based in any one culture, I took workshops, as did many at the time, in the style of Michael Harner’s Institute for Shamanic Studies, and there learned how much of the material was related to much of the misunderstandings of the Witchcraft Trials in Europe, with the mystery of the sabbat. The idea that the sabbat gathering was in spirit, astral travel, was growing more popular through work like mine and other authors of the early 2000s. Soon after we had the early public rumblings of what is now called the Trad Craft movement of Witchcraft, which really went back to Robert Cochrane’s time, and before, a rival to Gerald Garnder in the 1950s in England, started to catch on in the greater Witchcraft world. I had some friends involved in that world, and they gracious shared with me some ideas and experiences. I remember asking a guest who also attending one of their rites, someone far more educated than me, “That was a séance with a Witchcraft aesthetic, right?” and she agreed. Since my original Cabot training had what I would describe as a Pan-Celtic influence, I wanted to learn more about these practices from a more traditional Celtic perspective, and studied for a few years with Sharon Paice MacLeod, at the time writing as Sharynne MacLeod NicMhacha, particularly studying *The Mabinogi* and seeking a better understanding of its influence on modern Witchcraft and Paganism. 

 It all led me back to fundamental truths of the mysteries expressed in many different cultures and times.                                                                   

## Future Vision and Legacy

**PAA: What are your aspirations for the future of the Temple of Witchcraft and its role in the broader spiritual community?**

I would like to see the Temple continue to grow in both the inner levels and outer levels. I think having physical spaces and roots to landscape are important. Every place where I learned Witchcraft coming up in the practice is now gone. Covensteads and meeting places dissolve away when key people die or leave. Having something that can outlast any one person, or any one generation is key in our greater Pagan community, and our challenge on the horizon. I think anchoring in places where power can build and relationships can build is important, but we must also have growth and creativity in education and ritual, deepening the art aspect of Witchcraft. The community itself of people grows, developing more skills on a ministerial level, and having more outreach with both other occult groups, and becoming more active and accepted in our general, non-occult communities. We have quiet a few people knock on our door for help outside of office hours and classes, not knowing where else to go, but they do so in secret, almost embarrassed to visit with the Witches on the hill. We were told by a priestess in the Temple who works in town that some people refers to us as The Witches on the Hill.

Of course I want to see the current plans of community center complete here in Salem, N.H. I’d also love to see us have a more urban Temple, perhaps with a library or museum, but making a real place of practice and ritual. I’d also love to see us obtain land as a retreat area. My fondest wish combines all of these ideas into a little Witchcraft village somewhere, where we can have deeper learning, artists in residence, culture, community and magickal living, and have it not be based in the history of the Witchcraft persecutions. I never wish to forget that aspect of our history, but no longe want to see it be the foundation of our identity or community. I’d like us to focus on the joy, on the mystery, and on the relationship between people, land, spirits and the cosmos. 

Thank you so much for this opportunity to go down memory lane and remembers so many wonderful people who influenced me, and helped me on the path. We believe strongly that what is remembered lives, and I love seeing some of folks who are not public, and often don’t want their last names or any names used, get a little more credits for the tremendous influence they have had on Witchcraft here in the New England area. 

**PAA: Thank you, Christopher, for sharing so much with us.**

* * * 

## Useful Links 

##### Christophers Website 

##### Temple of Witchcraft 

##### Mystery School 

##### Society of the Temple 

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