What Should You Know About Our Community? or What Our Community Should Know About Itself

In this episode of Pagan Coffee Talk, Rowan sits down with Lord Night, Elder and Third Degree High Priest, to dive into a question that sparks curiosity both inside and outside the craft: what do people misunderstand about the Wiccan and Pagan community?

This candid, unscripted discussion explores the real structure of the witchcraft community, from open practitioners to more traditional, initiatory paths. Lord Night breaks down how trust, shared knowledge, and earned connections shape relationships within the craft—revealing a side of Wicca that most outsiders never see.

The conversation also sheds light on the differences between solitary practice and guided training, emphasizing the value of mentorship, hands-on learning, and community support in spiritual development. Listeners will gain insight into how experienced practitioners identify each other, how networks within the Pagan world operate, and why authentic traditions prioritize respect, discretion, and personal growth.

Additionally, this episode tackles important topics such as:

• Common misconceptions about Wiccans and witches
•  The reality behind “exclusive” or “secretive” practices
•  How to recognize cult-like behavior and red flags
•  The role of gatherings, elders, and lineage in traditional Wicca

If you’ve ever wondered what truly goes on within the Pagan community—or want a deeper, no-nonsense perspective from a seasoned practitioner—this episode delivers honest insight without the Hollywood myths.

Join us on
Discord:  https://discord.gg/MdcMwqUjPZ
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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Welcome to Pegging Coffee Talk, a traditional Wiccan podcast where we will discuss topics affecting the Pegging community from a traditionalist perspective. The topics we discuss are picked from our magical hat and the discussions are unscripted. The talk will be led by Lady Keegan, second degree priesthood. She's joined by Lord Chase Knight Smith, Elder and High Priest of Third Degree. Pegan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Silver Mary Meat and welcome to Pagan Coffee Talk. I'm Rowan, and as always, Lord Knight is with me as well. Hi. Hi. How are you? I'm fine. And you? I'm doing okay. So what's our subject today? Alright, let me reach into the magical hat here. Oh, she let you use the magical hat? Well, it's really a baggie. The hat is off limits. Okay. What do you wish people would understand about your community? The which community? In general? I mean, it could be it as in general or as specific as you want to make it, as long as it takes 30 minutes, I guess. Oh no, come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Let's see. I guess it depends on which part of the community you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Okay, so let's think about it this way. The which community encompassing all of us is pretty open. Right. Some of them will be glad to tell you stuff you never wanted to know. And continue to talk about it. Then you do have the sort of another community in there that is a little bit more close niche. Right. For those within the know, I guess, we often help each other out. We're very cordial to each other. Um I've heard stories from high priestesses that have gone down to other areas, other states than what they lived in. And after talking to certain shopkeepers and stuff like that, uh they get access to stuff that the average person would get access to. So like VIP status. Sort of, yeah. Because when I say this, I'm not being, you know, racist or anything like this, but this is the same that's in a lot of different religious communities. And what we are talking about is the fact that if you're a Freemason, you doing business with other Freemasons, you get special access that you probably wouldn't have gotten before. Because you're a Freemason. And this is even true among religious organizations. Does that make sense? Yeah, so it's just like some perks. There's some perks there, yeah. There are certain stores, yeah, that we can that certain members of craft can go to, and yeah, we might have access. I know there are certain times, uh uh certain events I can go to where I can meet other people of craft, and just by giving them my quote unquote grocery list, the prices are a little bit cheaper, and you know, they might throw in a little extra or something here or there.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

It's because you're knowledgeable enough to know what to ask for that other people wouldn't, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Right. When we go to certain places, we know what to ask for. Or we wouldn't be asking for it if we didn't know it exists. Right. Any of that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

There's other ways that subcommunity identifies themselves. Any examples that you can talk about? No. I'll put it to you this way. I know there are several questions that I could be asked by other traditionalists that will identify me as a traditionalist. And vice versa. It's not so much to know the questions. The questions to know the questions ain't that big of a deal. It's the answers that are more important.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

It's like old spy movies or something where somebody comes up to you and they're like, the sun is shining, and you have to reply, but the ice is slippery.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah, but the ice is slippery, or it does look like there's a little bit of rain. I need my umbrella. Do you happen to have one?

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Like, ah, you're my contact.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yes, you know. Oh, oh, what's that one from Fallout? Yes. But mine's in the shop. My Geiger counters in the shop. Basically, yeah. I know a lot of people get mad at, especially a lot of us traditionalists for saying this, but it's a mystery. You know, we are a mystery of religions, and yes, there are some perks, but they're not the perks that most people think about. We're not getting, you know, special tones or spells or stuff like that. We just might get access to people of certain traditions or degrees and stuff like that to where we can sit down and talk to them in a way that most people couldn't.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

It's probably the same with any type of, you know, niche area, like, you know, even like a hobby or something that you might be into. If you meet a couple people and then you start talking about it, then through through that conversation, you can find out that you know each of you is really into it and knows things that maybe someone on the surface doesn't. And then because of that, you have someone that you can link up with maybe for for more obscure topics or uh supplies or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

And a little bit more candor, too. Right. Yeah, it's kind of like the vape community. All the people who vape know each other. Just like everybody who drives a Jeep. They all know and wave each wave at each other.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

It's like the the motorcycle guys that throw the hand signals to each other when they pass on the road. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I know it sounds funny and stuff like this when you talk about it that way, but yeah, it is. I'm not sure about nowadays. I haven't heard anything, but I do know when my elders were around that they even had access to where they could go to the reservations and talk to people, certain people, and would get access to the shamans, their spiritual leaders. Well, that the average tourist or whatever couldn't. Right. They would just tell them, you know, oh yeah, yeah, here. He's right here, and it's you know, the old man that they keep out in front of the store that really don't know his ass from a hole in the ground. That sounds like a pretty deep level of trust. It it is. We're not gonna go around spilling their secrets, they're not gonna go around spilling ours. Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Not gonna film anything there for a TikTok video or anything. No, no, not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

And nowadays, yeah, if I was to go into a meeting like that, I would actually probably let them see me pull out my phone and like turn it off. Right. And then and then set it down face up.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

You should probably do that before you get there so the government can't track you.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Well, yeah, I really don't worry about the government. If the government's watching me, God, they are boring. Because of my religious belief, I'm probably I'm a subversive. You got a couple of files open on you. Uh it would not surprise me. There's somebody sitting back, you know, in some dark room looking at this file, going, oh my god, this guy is so boring. You hope. I hope. I mean, otherwise, as far as our community goes, we're actually pretty boring. I remember Lord Min. Lord Min one day had um him and some others that he worshiped with, they decided to do their um rituals outside. And that's uh even a longer story, but there was some trouble to start off with. But they had contacted the police department before they started to do this and their um occult division. And when they sat down, the uh officer of the cult division pulled out a big old file on that temple. Wow. And basically said, and this is in South Carolina, and basically said, Hey, this is what we already know about y'all. Wow. Now, now, with that said, you know, there was some other stuff that happened there. It was not pretty, you know. They were harassed and a lot of other things. He was telling me one time after all the harassment stuff went down, and you know, the neighbors pretty much got used to them. They were out one day doing ritual, and some kids were in their backyard. They sat out there, watched what they did in the whole nine yards, then ran up to uh to them and said, Okay, what are y'all gonna do now? And the answer by those elders were, okay, now we're gonna go in and we're gonna eat and go home and go to bed. The kids are like, Well, that's boring. It's religion.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Yeah, you got the anticipation of things being a little bit more malefic, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Well, yeah, I mean, that's kind of like sitting out there and listening to people. Okay, you know, I don't want to join a traditional group because I don't want to have to have sex with pe, you know, with the high priest or priestess or whatever. And I'm like, uh-huh. I I missed out on something there. Maybe it's a fourth degree mystery. Right. Otherwise, yeah, we're we're pretty civil to each other on a certain level. We actually show respect and tolerance to each other, even though our beliefs might be different. Well, and that's because of the protocols basically built into the tradition, right? Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some battles between some Gardnarians and some Alexandrians, some old guards and stuff like that. That could pretty much get hot and heavy, but at the end of the day, they'd also just kind of went, okay, whatever. During the debate, you were thinking, okay, these guys are gonna go to blows, and then they don't. Right. Because I mean, at the end of the day, we do respect each other's beliefs. Don't get me wrong, we're just like anybody else. We can piss off each other real fast, too. Right. There are some people in the community in which I run that don't like me, and I don't like them. But we still do show respect to one another. Kinda necessary. Well, I mean, their station still demands respect. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. You're not gonna like everybody, not everybody's gonna get along. Right. Anything else you'd like to know about our communities? Um, we do have a sense of humor. Especially when you talk about traditionalists, we are respectful to one another. Uh, we do have a sense of humor. We can joke. Uh I know a lot of people think a lot of times that we're especially the traditionalists are more controlling. But we're not as controlling as everybody thinks we are. Why why do you think that is? The majority of times I think it's because either a movies and popular books, movies and stories that people have heard. Preconceived notions. Preconceived notions that really aren't true. Other things, you know, to where, you know, some temples might act certain ways, but there's reasons for that. And it's not quite as bad as you think it is.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Okay, well, here's a good question for you. Okay, so if you think about like the Christian community, that there's been examples from time to time where, you know, something that would be way off, maybe in the gray area, the edge of the Christian community, for example, like the branch Davidians, um, you know, they end up becoming newsworthy because they're they're effectively a cult. And I'm guessing there's probably a bunch of cults out there that we never find out about because they never become newsworthy enough. You know, where they're killing people or killing themselves or or whatever. Right. Do you think that there's any cults in the witch community? Oh god, yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Do you know of any? I do not know of any. But I mean to sit there and go, no, there ain't is ridiculous. That's just that that would be stupidity upon our part right there. To think that we're somehow above it. Right. We're not. Because I could actually see where it would almost be easier for us to do such things.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

Why?

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Because of the preconceived notions that once you jump join a coven or something, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Yeah. So it it'd be really easy to find people that have certain beliefs already about what it entails, and then just never correct them on it. And never correct them on it.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yes, and give them supposed opportunities for powers for other things. Right. And then those actually never materialize. I can see where that would be easier in this, where people are promising, oh no, I'll teach you how to do spell work and all this other stuff. All you gotta do is just sign your home over to me and everything you own.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Continue to have sex with your high priest and things are coming, but they're all mysteries.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Right. And yeah, we gotta watch out for those. That's when you hear a lot of the you know, traditionalists trying to put out, I guess, red flag videos where, hey, this is what you gotta watch out for. Here's when you know you're getting into the danger zone. This is not us. When they're sitting there saying, you know, sex and sign in over your home, and this is the only way.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

You're only gonna hang out with with you know fellow witches, or you know, you can't be you can't be friends with muggles anymore.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Or you you you can associate with this group or that group. There was an incident in which a member of our temple, some personal stuff happened to her, and she reached out, and there was a community out there that supported her during this time. It she needed some emotional support, trying not to get too much into her personal business here. Absolutely. But anyway, after she pretty much got over it and all this, you know, this group turned out to be pagan that she talked to on a regular basis because one of their members understood what in the world she was going through, which is always a great thing to have, that emotional support there. Anyway, they invite her over. You're meeting a stranger online and they're inviting you over to their house. Right. All right, so anybody in the right mind is not gonna go, oh yeah. You know this is a great idea. This is a great idea. I'm gonna go over to the stranger's house all by myself and not know who they are. Okay, and I'm not gonna let anybody know I'm going. And I'm not gonna let anybody know I'm going. So what she does is she asked everybody in our temple. She goes around and everybody happens to be busy that day. And I happen to be the last person on her list. She's like, look, I want to go. They were real supportive and all this, and they seem to understand. And I I sort of want to go and say thanks to them and blah, blah, blah. And I have nobody left. Everybody's busy. So I was like, okay, I can go with you. So I go with her and didn't think nothing about it. You know, I hang out with the and I happen to actually know the people that they went to, which made her feel a whole lot better, like, okay, yeah, I know who this is. Right. You know, I've known them off and on for a couple of years, and I they're they're great, good people. If I'd known it was these people, I would have told you, hey, yeah, they're they're not going to, you know, drag you down to the basement, tie you up, and rename you Spot or something. What? Where's that group at? I have no idea. Um, but it was the aftermath that got me because suddenly there's rumors about our temple that I don't allow my neophytes or first degrees to go anywhere without me.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

And I'm sitting back going, uh, what you you did what they asked you to do.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Right. And again, I was at the bottom of the list. You know, I asked everybody else except you.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Well, I mean, to be fair, in like a hierarchical, you know, system, um like, you know, military training, the the uh command structure, you know, the chain of command, you're not gonna go to the top brass until you've gone through everybody else. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And I just thought it was funny, but now we're that to certain people, we were, ooh, they're that group. They're high priests and priestesses don't let them go out without them there.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

It's like, hey, hey, Lord Knight, I I need to go to Walmart.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

And I'm kind of like, okay, that isn't what that was about. And you know, maybe if you would have asked her what was going on, she would have told y'all.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Hold on, I got dogs barking like crazy. I don't know how much it's picking up, but I don't either. Okay, so you rule with an iron fist and you don't allow people to go there without you.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Uh yeah, that's right. And you can only worship with us, and you're not allowed to do anything on your own, and oh. Those are all lies, ain't they? Yeah. A lot of people don't realize, you know, good temple or good traditionalists, first thing they're gonna say is I'm gonna teach you a way, not the way. And what you practice in your own, what you do at your own home and on your own time is your business, not mine. Right. Just like, you know, Lady Keegan loves the joke. The fact is, is, you know, as soon as you become a first degree, you're allowed to sink into the pool. And completely ignored. Right. Right, yeah. Let's see, what else do other people get wrong about our community? Or don't know about our community. I remember going to gathers. Gathers now the gathers I've been to recently, they're weird uh compared to what I'm used to. The gathers I used to go to when we had them, everybody would show up. It would be for a weekend. So most people would try to show up Blake Friday. And here's how this would go is at some point or another, all the elders, all our elders, Lord and me and Lady Alice, all of them, would gather up onto the porch. All right, and start drinking coffee. And they would drink coffee the majority of the day and just sit up there and chit-chat. Normally there were some first degrees and some neophytes that had some brains to them, would sit there and listen to them quietly. Oh my god, you would not believe the mysteries you would learn just by sitting there listening. Right. The funny thing is, when we talk about mysteries, the majority of us could do it in public, and those in not the know don't have a clue what in the world we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Kind of like an edge of how you have to interpret it to really understand it instead of it being just straight out.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

No, no, no, no, no. We're actually being, to me, we're being actually quite blatant. But because you don't know certain things, you haven't been trained for certain things, there's complete oblivion there. You don't have the prerequisites to. Understand it. Right. I mean, because you go to gathers and stuff like that now, and it's class this and class that and class this. We used to do this whole entire thing where you had to gather, and what you would do is you did your opening ritual, and then that was it. There was no classes or anything like that. There might be activities. There might be a drumming circle. There might be the morning yoga exercise class. Yeah, you know what I mean? Right. It's the equivalent of going to summer camp stuff. That sounds pretty awesome. It's not, ooh, here we're going to have a class on metaphysics, we're going to have a class on this. It's no, here, we're going to do a dance thing. We're going to practice some dance moves. We're going to do some yoga. We're going to do this. And that was it. It was activities. It was fun activities.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Kind of like more interactive learning than like a seminar. Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

But nowadays you go, right. Now, nowadays you go and it's like seminar this, seminar that, seminar this. If you didn't want to go, and again, like I said, all the elders would hang out on the porch or whatever, you can go up there and talk to them. Now, I do know at some point or another, um, all the elders would have a meeting. So these are all the local covens and groups and stuff like that. They would have a meeting, they would sit down and they would just discuss certain things, but they would run everybody else out. You were not allowed, nobody was allowed to go in there unless you were the head of a uh coven or something like that. You had to be third degree, you had to be this to even get into the meeting. And even then, there was sort of a hierarchy there. Mainly who was ever running the coven would run the meeting, and they would have conversations about stuff. This was them networking. Sometimes this was nothing more than defining certain areas in which they're still at, how far their reach was. That way, if another group, if two groups were pretty much the same, they would try to make dividing lines there to go, okay, anybody calls you from here, send them to us. If anybody calls us from there, send them to you. If there was like a uh a different group, uh, you know, if you had like Gardnarians and Alexandrians in the same thing, they would actually communicate, okay, anybody getting that thing that I think they're going to be more Alexandrian than Gardnarian, we'll send them to each other.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

It sounds like uh one of those meetings with the mob bosses where they're defining where their territory is.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

It does, but it's not at the same time because you did have groups that overlapped in the same place. Right. And the the thing was is when you sat down and met with them, it was kind of like, hey, you know, uh, we understand what you do, and if somebody contacts us instead of you, we might push them your way because we think they're a better fit over there. Right. Versus us. And I mean there's nothing wrong with that, it's just, you know, the difference in teaching and tradition. And then there would also be those conversations, hey, you know what, we had to banish such and such for this. Here's their here's their mundane name, here's this. Everybody hands off. You do not want to mess with this person. Because, you know, you did not want certain elements back in the day to be associated with your with your group. Does that make sense? Yeah. So that way, you know, if you had someone who was being charged, you know, as a big time drug dealer, you could get them out of your temple, be f and in all all other covens and stuff like that, so it wouldn't reflect bad on the community.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Well, do you think that um those those gatherings have changed because they're trying to be more legitimate by giving seminars and stuff instead of just being some ad hoc meeting? Or is it the number of people that are going to be there that have kind of prompted that change?

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Oh no, I mean, we used to have hundreds of people show up for these. This, you know, these were not no small gathers by any stretch of the imagination. Understand that now. So it's not the amount of people. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's the difference between craft and this Wicca open stuff you have nowadays. If the elders were to go to some of these gathers and try to have this meeting, you're gonna have a lot of people that are coming up going, but but we need to know. No, you don't. You've already declared yourself a a solitary and you can't be a religion of one. And it's irrelevant to you, some of the stuff we're discussing now.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Because you don't have the training, you don't know this stuff. You know, I know people that used to come to these gathers to find teachers, to find covens, because it was more an open air, and you could sit down and talk to the elders and stuff like that. So they would get to know somebody and then come in and do this. But nowadays it's a free-for-all. I know people say, okay, I don't want to join a religion, you know, an organized religion, because then they're going to be telling me what to do, what not to do, instead of seeing the positive side. Okay, I got someone to guide me to maybe help me along. Instead of watching a YouTube video where you have this cookie cutter thing of it, you got somebody else sitting you got a teacher now standing in front of you going, Oh, you're not understanding. Here, stay after class and we'll talk about it some more.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

And trying to personalize that to you versus trying to teach hundreds of people all at one time.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

Well, there's a lot to that, like, you know, if you're if you're solitary and you're you're teaching yourself from a book, you may not notice, you know, the areas that you're failing where if you have a teacher, they can identify specifically the areas that you need to work in.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Right. I mean, again, we all have biases. Most of the people I teach like cannot read their card, their own cards, because they start to understand they are biased and they start doubting their own reading. Am I seeing what I want to say or am I seeing what I need to see?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Does that make sense? Yeah. So, I mean, with that in your head, it it's understandable how in the world you can start going, um, why can't you do that in your own religious studies?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Because, you know, that spiritual teacher, while you might not understand what in the world they're teaching you, might be trying to get you down paths that you wouldn't have thought of before.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

I've had many a student sit there and go, oh no, no, no, I don't think I need to do that. Giggles. I'm fine just the way I am. No, you're not. Because I'm looking at you as an outside person. I'm seeing this and this.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

No, it would take a lot of it'd take a lot of self-reflection to be able to really look at yourself and be able to identify your problems and accept the fact that you have them and then actually work the proper path to correct them.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Right. I mean, even us third degrees, we do the same thing, but we do it with each other. And normally by the time you get to that status and you've been working with somebody, you know, like you may with me with the high priestess and stuff. We can be a little bit more blunt with each other.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Because we're not really worried about hurting each other's feelings. Like, you know, a you know, you talking to a coworker or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

So even at this level, we're not exclusive from that. That's one thing we do in our community a lot. All right, I think we've about done with this, and I'm about done with my cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Thank you for listening to Peggy and Coffee Talk. I hope you join us next week.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

We travel down the strode in pastone fire. Just hold my hand as we pass by the way to the same.