Teen Covens

Terribly sorry that this is late again, haha =) I've been so busy lately. Work, plus babysitting, as well as an online college psychology course paired with regular high school work! And tonight I'm going to the Winter Ball. I don't really know why I'm going, really. At first it was because the guy I like is going to be DJing, but now that I've discovered he likes someone else, I really don't have a reason to go. Besides, of course, the fact that my friends are going.

But let's get back to that opinion post! This one is an article I posted on Witchvox, with a few edits.

Teen Covens.

Sally: “Hey, Annie, wouldn’t it be a kick-arse idea to make a coven?”

Annie: “You know, that does sound cool. I bet a lot of people would join.”

Sally: “Yeah, let’s start planning. We could do the creation ceremony this full moon!”

Jill: “I don’t know, guys. It sounds a little too ‘The Craft’ to me. Maybe we should think about it a little more.”

Annie: “Don’t be so lame, Jill. You’re either in, or out.”

Sally and Annie are psyched to create a coven. They are already envisioning nights under the moonlit sky, lighting the bonfire and dancing, working powerful magick and taking control of their lives, instead of their lives being in the control of others. Coincidently, The Craft happens to be one of the favorite movies.

But Jill isn’t so sure. She’s been a Witch for a bit longer than her two best friends, and she seems to be much more grounded in reality than them. She knows wrong from right, and she knows that you have to be cautious when it comes to such things as magick and covens.

Jill tries to convince her friends to do more research on the topic, but they go ahead and create their coven anyway, dragging a couple more Wiccans in to it, and giving it a cheesy name that they hope makes them sound powerful and mysterious. Jill decides not to join, because she knows that this little coven of theirs will end badly. Her friends soon stop hanging out with her, and she goes on to make new, more rational and grounded friends.

After a couple months of happy and powerful magick-making in the new teen coven, fights break out over things like who gets to do what, who gets to be the High Priestess, etc, etc. They disband. They never talk to each other again.

It would be nice to say that Annie and Sally went crying to Jill, but they didn’t. They separated in to different groups after having a jealous fight, thinking they could be a coven of two.

For many teens who have been in covens, this sounds remarkably familiar.

Of course, I’m not saying that all teen covens end up this way. I have been in contact with a couple who did work out wonderfully, but had to disband mostly because of things like members moving away, graduating, going to college, travel, etc. But many teen covens do end up like this.

That little introduction will probably not deter a few of you from making a teen coven. What I ask of you few is to read this entire article, check out a book or two, and then make your decision more rationally.

Here are some, just a few really, pros and cons of having a teen coven. Read them, think about them, and heed them if you will.

Pros

Having a teen coven is a great way to celebrate your beliefs with other people your age. Sometimes there aren’t many teen Wiccans in your area, and the few Wiccans there are probably hide their spirituality pretty well, so advertising for a teen coven on sites like Witchvox is a great way to meet like-minded people.

I’ve done rituals with my friends before, and I have had a coven myself. One of the things I love about it is the feeling of being able to share my experiences with people my age, who understand me. I sometimes find it difficult to share my experiences with older Wiccans because a lot of the time they dismiss them as false fantasies created by a fluffy-bunny teenager. So having people I can share things with is wonderful.

Having a teen coven also strikes up interest by other people. And when they get interested, they start researching, and even if they don’t become Wiccan, they at least have good knowledge of it so they don’t end up being ignorant.

Cons

Not always do you find a teen Wiccan who is responsible, mature, and serious when it comes to their religion. Sometimes all they are is on a power trip, and want to get more people in on it. Sometimes, when they create a coven, all they want is to be in control, and it gets to the point where the coven seems more like a cult than a coven, with the leader wanting to control every aspect of your life.

As I mentioned in the example at the beginning of this essay, fights can break out over small things, even after a few months of peaceful, happy coven get-togethers. A few examples? Jealousy of the leader, the leader being angry that no one is following their orders, difference of opinions, one or two people not wanting to choose sides but being forced to… Sometimes it can go as far as even after they disband, they still lash out at each other.

Remember when I said having a teen coven is a great way to share your ideas and experiences? Oftentimes, especially if the people aren’t exactly close friends, their ideas won’t really go together all that well. One person will think the other person is making everything up (even if they are telling the truth) and the other will think the person is on a power trip, and the whole fighting thing happens again. It’s not a pretty situation. Even I have been skeptical of some of the things that my covenmates have spoken about, although I know that they may actually be true and I do my best to remain open-minded. But that’s just the thing: sometimes the people just aren’t open-minded.

And last of all, to be in a coven, you have to have perfect love and perfect trust for the other people in your coven. And if you don’t have perfect love and perfect trust for them, then you know right then and there that the coven will not work.

For you teen Wiccans planning to create a coven, I suggest that you first create a study group. You could study Wicca and Paganism for a while, get together every week to discuss a different topic, and maybe occasionally do rituals. After a few months, if you and your study group feel that you are all dedicated and mature enough to organize something as difficult as a coven, and keep it going, then do so. But I highly recommend that before you do it, that you get the book Inside A Witches Coven by Edain McCoy, as well as a few other books like it. It outlines exactly how to form a coven, what to plan, how to organize the structure, etc.

Believe it or not, it takes a lot of planning. It took three months before my friends and I were finally prepared enough to officially create the coven. The friends who, at the end of the planning period, weren’t so sure of joining the coven anymore (they didn’t expect it to be so formal, or that it would be such hard work) didn’t end up joining, and that is perfectly fine. The ones who were dedicated enough stuck with it, and created the coven. Unfortunately, this summer the coven disbanded. What reasons? Well, for one, all the members but me lost interest and dedication. Plus, one of them moved away. So I suppose my coven was not one of those that lasted a long time.

Thank you for reading!

Your Alaskan Witchy,

Celeste Airdancer