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- This is an article I wrote for PROTEAN SYNTHESIS, a semi-private
- newsletter after it was solicited by the editor:
-
- DIANISM IN A NUIT-SHELL
-
- Recently, I got back in touch with my teacher after nearly two
- years and dropped a couple of bombshells on her: I had changed gender
- identity and had come together with two other women to form a Dianic
- coven. When the initial shock wore off, Rita sent me a complete run
- of Protean Synthesis and a solicitation for this article.
- Several years ago I subscribed to several stereotypes regarding
- "those peculiar Dianics". They were thealogically unbalanced, they
- hated men, they denied that men had souls, they were all lesbians,
- they couldn't spell (in the orthographic sense; no one has yet accused
- Dianics of inability to work magick), etc. etc. When I came together
- with my covensisters, I realized that these notions were at most
- partially true and some cases were patently false.
- I believe there are only three valid generalizations that can be
- made about Dianics: 1) We are all feminists. 2) We all look to the
- Goddess(es) far more than to the God(s). 3) We are all eclectics.
- Note well that there are plenty of non-Dianic feminist Witches,
- non-Dianic eclectics, and non- Dianics who are primarily
- Goddess-oriented. There are also doubtless a good many feminist,
- Goddess-oriented eclectics who do not choose to call themselves
- Dianic. In my own case I use the "If it quacks like a duck, it
- probably is a duck" argument, as well as the fact that my HPS learned
- the Craft as a Dianic and runs Dianic rituals.
- Some of the stereotypical generalizations I can dismiss out of
- hand. I don't know of a single Dianic who denies that men have souls.
- Even Z Budapest doesn't believe that piece of tripe anymore! It is
- true that Dianism is particularly attractive to separatists, and many
- separatists actually hate men. Many Dianics are lesbians. Some
- misspell words like "woman", women", "egalitarian", and "holistic" on
- purpose. Not all fit these, however, and I think that Z Budapest in
- her younger, or spiritual bomb-throwing, days represents an extreme
- and a small minority. There are a number of males involved in
- Dianism, and some of those are men [NB: I use the terms "man" and
- "woman" to indicate gender identity, that is, how one's heart, mind,
- and/or soul are configured. I use "male" and "female" to indicate
- physical sex, that is, how one's plumbing is configured. I hope this
- dispels confusion.].
- Thealogical and magickal imbalance is not so easily dismissed and
- needs to be addressed further, as that is the most valid objection
- that thoughtful Witches have to Dianism. The apparent imbalance comes
- from the Dianic emphasis on Goddess-worship, often to the complete
- exclusion of God-worship. This upsets many Witches' sense of polarity
- balance. The resolution of this apparent imbalance lies in the
- consideration of other polarities than sexual and/or gender as the
- primary polarity. There are indeed many other polarities to consider:
- true-false, life-death, dark-light, rational- mystical,
- creation-destruction, order-chaos, and good-evil, to name but a few.
- One problem with the masculine-feminine polarity is that there is a
- strong tendency to express all other polarities in terms of it. The
- Chinese were particularly fond of this, and mapped everything they
- liked into the yang side, and everything they disliked or feared into
- the yin side, the patriarchal no-accounts!
- One thing I have discovered is that if you look hard enough, you
- can find goddesses to fit both ends of most polarities. Some even
- occupy both ends simultaneously. Inanna, my matron goddess, is a good
- case in point. She is the Sumerian goddess of love, war, wisdom
- (which she won in a drinking bout!), adventure, the heavens, the
- earth, and even of death (in the guise of her dark aspect,
- Ereshkigal). A very busy lady indeed is Inanna. At this point it
- becomes largely a matter of personal preference rather than of
- polarity, whether one chooses a god or a goddess to occupy a
- particular place in a ritual.
- No Dianic I know of denies the existence of the God. Indeed, He
- gets mentioned as the consort of the Goddess with some frequency in Z
- Budapest's HOLY BOOK OF WOMEN'S MYSTERIES, which is close a thing as
- there is to a Dianic version of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows. He is
- there, and sometimes we will invoke Him, when it is appropriate. He
- makes His own path, and we follow our own, and when they cross
- naturally we honor Him and do not avoid Him. We also do not force the
- paths to cross simply to lend an artificial balance to a ritual where
- none is really needed.
- Now that I have spilled a good deal of ink over what Dianism is
- not, I should now say a few words about what it is: a movement of
- feminist, eclectic, Goddess-oriented Witches.
- Feminism: This covers a vast multitude of virtues and sins. I do
- not think the stereotypical radical lesbian separatist is as common as
- is believed. Moderate to liberal feminism is probably far more
- common, even among Dianics. Certainly my own coven contains no
- separatists! There are too many nice men out there, even though
- surveys have shown that 70% or more of all men are potential rapists.
- The nice ones are found among those who are not in that repulsive
- majority; you just have to look to find them. One of the places you
- might find such nice men is in Dianic covens! Some are mixed groups,
- at least some of those of the branch founded by Morgan McFarland. My
- own is something of a mixed up group, I suppose. While we do not
- currently have any men in the coven, two of the three of us were born
- male and still have original-equipment plumbing. The Goddess and our
- HPS accept us unreservedly as women.
- Eclecticism: If there is one dictum of Z Budapest's that bears
- repeating to everyone in the Craft, and which gets followed by many,
- it is "When in doubt, invent." Dianics tend toward creative ritual,
- drawing from any and all possible sources. I have yet to see a Dianic
- equivalent of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, nor do I ever hope to
- see one.
- Goddess Orientation: I've discussed this at some length while
- talking about polarity. There are some wags who have said that
- Dianics are nothing but matriarchal monotheists. I tell you three
- times: The Dianic Goddess is NOT Jehovah in drag! The Dianic Goddess
- is NOT Jehovah in drag! The Dianic Goddess is NOT Jehovah in drag! A
- much closer analogy would be that Dianics have taken the Classical
- pantheon and reclaimed most of the roles. This, too, is
- oversimplifying, but it is not nearly as wide of the mark as the usual
- criticism. At some point I may write up a long exegesis on the Dianic
- Goddess, but not here. My own personal involvement with Her comes
- from a great feeling of comfort I do not find elsewhere. She feels
- right. I have a great deal of difficulty accepting known rapists
- (most of the Olympian males are this, especially Zeus, Hades, and
- Pan!) into my personal pantheon. I also feel a personal vocation from
- the Mother; it is rather incongruous to me to embrace a male deity
- wholeheartedly when the Goddess comes to me and calls me Her daughter.
- This goes doubled, redoubled, in pentacles, and vulnerable for lovers
- of women.
- I hope this little discussion of Dianism-in-a-Nuitshell has
- proved enlightening to you. It is not a path for everyone, but it is
- a valid path for some, and in considering it I hope that you can now
- ignore the garbage that has been put forth in the past as "data"
- regarding it.
-
- Inanna Seastar
- Birdsnest Coven
-