Antistoicus went onto a list for a would-be national Hellenic Pagan organization. Let's call it "Hellas". There, he found that the would-be organizers were even more stubbornly naive than he had been. Their notion was that they'd simply write a mission statement and a consitution, set out a mailing list and a sign up sheet in as many places as possible, and that the organization would just happen on its own. But, by fortunate chance, he was asked the right questions there, that forced him to think about things that he had wrongly taken for granted, even if the askers themselves did not know they had done so.

What we had to realize, is that while we weren't taking this mistake as far as some, we were still guilty of it to a degree. True, what we're trying to build here, is the social fabric that might underly a more formal organization, as opposed to such an organization itself. But there was too much of an effort to build it ex nihilo. Awkwardness was bound to follow.

The very concept of religion, is a little intimidating. Here one is, with all of one's failings and insecurities, coming to face the Divine, and the standards by which we are judged. That's a serious business. So, to make the occasion of the founding of the Shrine, or, really, any specifically religious activity, the first time people come together, makes for a guaranteed tense time.

The answer, was to go back to the earlier idea, of meeting people through shared social occasions, but unlike before, to not make them be Pagan, or other religious events. Instead, as he was to discuss in a letter in a that forum, in which he analyzed his own earlier failures in a leadership role, the answer is to meet through the kind of events, that the kind of people we're looking for, would be interested in, anyway, and at which ideas would be shared. At which a personal connection is built. Now, if we do this, we're not trying to create a social structure from scratch. Instead, our new semi-order inherits its initial structure, from the pre-existing social network which we draw our new membership from.

As Antistoicus kept saying, and some had trouble hearing, he did not invent semi-orders. They were around long before he existed. They are to be found in the semi-professional interactions of graduate students on every campus, in the Catholic Church, as people gather to form a new order among the laity, ... As usual, in such things, all that he did, was to attempt to analyze and describe what he had seen others do. Perhaps, to help people remember how society had conducted its business, before it was recently, and radically restructured by those presumptuous enough, to think that they were qualified to do so.

As it turned out, we needed to help ourselves do a little remembering of our own.

The discussion initially began when he made an offhand reference to "Shrine events" on the list, and was asked "What Shrine?". Well, as you've seen if you've read through this site, that's not a simple question to answer. What has come to be thought of as "the normal frame of reference", doesn't exist. So, he explained, as briefly as it could, what it was, and how it worked, and a little of its recent history. Its' current status, is part of what it is, and how it got there, says something about how it worked. "To be is to do", as some would say. It means nothing to say what an association is, unless one makes concrete, the notion of what it is that it does, and how.

This specific case raises more general cases to be addressed. How does one create such networks? How does does one maintain them? And, most crucially in an environment in which the most underhanded behavior is to be expected from would-be empire builders, how does one keep such networks from being hijacked? If one seizes control of the networks that form the social substratum of an organization (its orders, its unofficial social gatherings, and so on), one can effectively isolate and drive away one's opposition, and make democracy a facade, as one packs the assembly with one's allies, and takes over. If one kills the networks, the demise of the organization is nothing more than an agonizingly drawn-out, and foregone conclusion. It is like cutting the roots to a tree. The leaves may look nice and green, but nourishment is no longer coming, and the tree is doomed.

We are indulging in willful amnesia, if we think that the fear that the latter will be attempted, is paranoia. Such efforts were habitually attempted throughout the 1990s, whenever some group or another declined to go along with somebody else's notion of how the world was to be saved, this week. Isolating the "politically incorrect", and going after their personal and business associations, was so common as to be a cliche. At the time of this writing, the 1990s ended only 11 months ago. As a practical matter, they're still with us. 11 months, is not a lot of distance. The world has not radically changed.

So, it's not just a question of how to protect the Shrine, or even groups like the Shrine, but how to protect Hellenic organizations in general, from an attack of a particular sort. When there is serious controversy in the more aggressively visible parts of Wiccan community over whether or not non-Wiccan Paganism even exists, and further controversy over whether or not it can even be legitimate, and one has "reasonable" leaders proclaiming that to oppose the merging of all paths into one is "divisive", it is reasonable to fear such attacks. Historically, they have been carried out, in the usual post-modern, politically correct spirit of self-righteous zeal.

In response to the fiasco of the visit from "The Temple of Prima Nocturne", a Wiccan participant on the list expressed unhappiness and surprise that even the non-Wiccan groups were being subjected to this kind of intrusiveness. (It is good to remember that it is an obnoxious minority of the Wiccan population that has been a problem, not the whole group. It is also good to remember that those who wish to practice Wicca in their own way, have often been subjected to instrusions as disruptive as those seen in non-Wiccan groups).

She offered a piece in which the whole sad process, was described as a sort of ongoing conversation. She went on to ask for suggestions as to how to deal with this sort of situation.

This is not a simple question to answer. Many things have gone wrong. As Antistoicus pointed out, part of the problem is that the basic moral law of Wicca, while beginning from what could be a good principle (the Rede), had not been explored enough, with the result that two people could all to easily be on different enough moral ground to come to blows, and still be referring to the same rules. The only answer to this sort of problem is to realize that the adoption of the Rede, if one embraces it, is not the end of the discussion, but only the beginning.

Another participant on the list pointed out that there were basic political problems, quite independent of the character of Wicca itself, that lead to turmoil. Specifically, that anybody can declare himself to be a Wiccan elder, and so naturally, there will be some unsavory, power hungry individuals who choose to do so. It's a problem that decentralized religions will have to deal with, from time to time.

This lead to a certain amount of off-base ranting and raving by a Wiccan participant on the list, and a fairly gentle response from the other participant followed. He pointed out that Wicca had not been attacked, and, as gently as possible, stated that he would not censor himself, simply because somebody might be offended, or consider his remarks to be politicially incorrect. In other words, he wasn't going to let this "winning through intimidation" business work. Unfortunately, the moderators, in what was to prove to be an all-too-characteristic moment of cowardice, would.

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