The Order of Scáthach

The Order of Scáthach offers training both at the Motherhouse in Surrey, British Columbia and associated Preceptories and on line.  Courses are free.  On line students access their lessons, notes and rituals from an Order of Scáthach Training Blog and submit their "homework" on line.  All members, both local and on line, are welcome at any time to attend at the Motherhouse and Scáthach events, wherever they are held.

Scáthach’s training and degree system in part reflects the progression of the Medieval knight from novice through page to squire and knight.  At the age of seven boys in Medieval society were fostered, learning manners, letters, arithmetic, music, basic weapons skills and horsemanship.  Pages eventually became squires at the age of 13 when they became apprenticed to a knight.  Squires served their mentor and further developed their martial arts skills.  As their skills increased squires began to follow their mentor into battle.  Between the ages of 18 and 21 the squire in Medieval society went through a ceremony to make him a knight. 

Scáthach’s novices learn to work with energy (chi), learn to focus their wills to do magick and do exercises to develop their psychic skills.  Upon completing this training, Scáthach’s novices pass through an Armoring ritual that makes them Squires.  Scáthach’s Squires learn to use the power of ritual.  They also study how to use the Greater and Lesser Magickal Weapons.  Scáthach’s Squires eventually pass through an Arming ceremony to become Knights.   Scáthach’s third level of training prepares our Knights to teach and lead:  Scáthach’s knights must prove that they can write and conduct rituals.  They must mentor Squires and novices and teach classes, passing their insights on to others.  They must also engage in charitable work for the community.  Upon proving their abilities in this area they go through a proving ceremony where they demonstrate their mastery of their chosen Magickal Weapon and then undergo a Mastery initiation to become Masters.  In effect, a Master becomes a Magickal Weapon.

In Scáthach training, the novice starts with classes on energy, magick and psychic abilities.  We don’t go near ritual in any meaningful way until our novices get to their second degree.  In this we are inspired by one of the precepts of Gichin Funakoshi’s “20 Rules for the Dojo”:   “Spirit first, technique second.”  This approach is taken partially because we want the novice to realize that it isn’t the ritual or the ritual paraphernalia that creates the magick.  It is them.  It isn’t the ritual that creates the energy.  Energy is all around all of us waiting to be used.  All that one needs to do magick is oneself.  All that you need to do with energy is learn to set it in motion. 

Another advantage to this approach is that ritual is much more effective if the people doing it have this grounding in energy and magick.  So we teach them the magick and energy work first.

When we get to teaching ritual, we do include ritual paraphernalia like Magickal Weapons.  Scáthach recognizes two groupings of Magickal Weapons:

The Greater Magickal Weapons:

·       Spirit

·       Sword

·       Spear/Staff

·       Cauldron

·       Shield

The Lesser Magickal Weapons:

·       Mind

·       Dagger (Athame)

·       Wand

·       Grail

·       Stone

Each of the Greater Magickal Weapons is paired with one of the Lesser:

·       Spirit/Mind

·       Sword/Dagger

·       Staff/Wand

·       Cauldron/Grail

·       Shield/Stone

These categories are discussed in chapter seven of Kerr Cuhulain’s book Full Contact Magick.  These Magickal Weapons have been adopted from Celtic mythology.  Steve Blamires grouped these Weapons into four double groups in his book Glamoury.  Scáthach recognizes five double groupings.  This is because Blamires did not include mind/spirit as one of the elements in his list. 

In Scáthach’s system, each group of Magickal Weapons is associated with an element.  The Magickal Weapon of Spirit is the Warrior’s mind.  The other correspondences are as follows:

·                   Sword/Dagger (Athame) – Air

·                   Spear/Staff/Wand – Fire

·                   Cauldron/Grail – Water

·                   Shield/Stone – Earth

Unlike a lot of Wiccan groups, Scáthach puts a lot of emphasis on teaching our students how to master the Magickal Weapons.  We do not just teach magick of the mind.  We use martial arts techniques to help the student feel the energy flow and learn to respect these Weapons.  They are not just ritual props, they are working tools.

Most Wiccan traditions incorporate a lot of aspects of Occidental Ceremonial Magick into their ritual and magick.  Scáthach has largely discarded these, since they treat energy and personal power as something external.  Instead, as you saw in my earlier books, we incorporate the latest discoveries in Noetic science and concepts from quantum physics into our magick.  Unlike many Wiccan traditions, we don’t always cast Circles for ritual.  For example:  Our initiations are not done in Circle.  When we do cast Circles, we use methods that would be entirely familiar to people who practice arts like Chi Kung or Tai Chi, but would possibly raise eyebrows in Wiccan groups elsewhere.  Also, we do not ever cut “doors” in Circles, as is the common practice in most other Wiccan traditions.  We consider this an unnecessary practice.  If we have to enter or leave a Circle for some reason, we “slip through” the wards by adjusting our energy.  These techniques are discussed in Kerr’s book Magickal Self Defense.