Church of the Earth of NC

Reprinted from the Beltane 2006 newsletter

Once insatiable curiosity runs headlong into matters of faith a spiritual journey is born.

In the Olde Days, when our pagan ancestors were going through the persecutions we now invoke to justify various kinds of current silliness, witches took craft names to conceal their identities and avoid those annoying visits by the Inquisition. In the course of years, it was noticed that these aliases could also be used as a foundation for building up a magical personality, carrying out various kinds of transformative work on the self, and the like. It's clear, though, that these were mere distractions from the real purpose lying hidden within the craft name tradition. It took contact with other sources of ancient, mystic lore -- mostly the SCA, role-playing games, and assorted fantasy trilogies -- to awaken the Craft to the innermost secret of craft names: they make really cool fashion statements.