(^116) A Wiccan Bible
other like organizations. Maybe you want a dog and don’t care that there are several
available from the Humane Society or other like organizations. How much is that coven
in the window?
- You realize that your family and friends are what a coven is.
This is similar to realizing that the relationship between an animal and a human is
what is important. It does not matter where that animal came from, but that there are
plenty of folk who will purchase an animal and few who will adopt.
Again, I stress that it is possible for someone to select their family and friends from
an advertisement on the Internet or the wall of a bookstore. It is possible for that to be
a very sincere union between the folk of a coven and yourself, but it is not likely be-
cause they are drawn together not by the things that bind finally and friends, but by a
common religion. So what does this have to do with the Book of Marriage?Marriage
Whose Holy Formula is (-1) + 1 = 2 = 3
The word marriage is most often used to note the marking of legal union between
lovers. However, the idea of marriage is not based on romance in the least. In nautical
terms, when one ties two ropes together, that person is said to ‘marry’ the ropes by
interweaving their strands, effectively making the two ropes as one. Indeed one of the
definitions of the word marry is ‘to unite.’
While I have no issue with the modern use of the word, it is important to recognize
its original meaning. Without that understanding, two people who enter into the sacra-
ment of marriage might think they remain nothing but two separate entities. This is not
the case in what I see as the Wiccan view of marriage. Instead, in my view of Wicca, the
union of two people in the sacrament of marriage is magick. In mathematical notation,
this is 1 + 1 = 3. Again, like in the first section of this book, we see a mathematical
equation that does not seem to make sense. How is it that 0 can equal 1 and how is it
that 1 + 1 can equal 3? The answer being that it is magick.
A whole person (masculine) unites with a whole person (feminine) in the sacra-
ment of uniting as one, and the result is greater than the union of those two whole
people. Now, I am not only speaking of physical flesh and blood children. As I have
said, religion is a construct, so in Wicca as a fertility religion there is no mandate to
have children. Instead, while children born to a Wiccan couple are most assuredly a
blessing, anything that comes from such a union is the Magickal Child.
So too is the coven/household Initiation a rite of marriage. Now, let us get one
thing absolutely clear right from the start. I am not stating that Wiccan covens/house-
holds are group marriages. While there are many fine Wiccans who are involved in
group marriages and while several of those group marriages consider that marriage to
be the base of their coven/household, they also have children and friends who are not a
part of the group marriage.o WB Chap 07.p65 116 7/11/2003, 5:52 PM