The Temple of Witchcraft is divided into three primary areas of service:
Mystery School
As our tradition is one of experience, the best way to experience the path is to actively train in its magickal and spiritual lessons. Four levels of the Mystery School are divided into the Oracular, Fertility, Ecstatic, and Gnostic mysteries. Training emphasizes the ability to look within, awaken your own gifts and abilities and perform both lesser and greater magicks for your own evolution and the betterment of the world around you.
Seminary
Available to graduates of the Mystery School, the Seminary trains future High Priestesses and High Priests of the Temple. Teachings include the fifth inner mystery of Descent through the lessons of the seven gates of the Goddess and the outer mystery of Service through the Journey of the God, or hero, through the twelve zodiac signs. Seminary graduates are ordained as legal ministers.
Ministerial Church
The mission of the Ministerial Church is to provide support, structure, and mentoring for individuals who seek to manifest their Will—their own work—in the world. Services include but are not limited to: public ritual, education, spiritual counseling, environmental education and activism, prison ministry, children’s ministry, civil rights outreach, community-building and support for Neopagan arts and culture. The Ministerial Church is divided into twelve ministries, although Temple ministers are free to work with as many ministries as they wish.
Students of the Mystery School and Seminary are advised to look at the areas of service and seek out additional mentoring to serve our community both in the physical and spiritual worlds.
The organization structure of the Temple looks like this:
The Future of the Temple
As our community grows, our long term plans for the Temple of Witchcraft include expanding from the main “trunk” of the Temple created in Salem, NH to “branches” of local community in various U.S., and possibly international, locations. Currently individual ordained ministers can offer official Temple of Witchcraft events such as Mystery School classes, seasonal sabbats, and lunar esbats rituals. When an area has more than one ordained minister willing to work together, they can move to establish a more permanent form of local community in the form of a branch of the Temple. Guidelines and the process for this can be found in our Temple Handbook. Individual minister’s events, and eventual branch events, are listed on our website, and officially ordained ministers are listed under our ordained minister section.
The Long Term Vision of the Temple of Witchcraft
In our 2022 Leadership Retreat, the leadership of the Temple discussed a proposed vision from the Temple Founders on the expansion of our community over a multitude of generations, and what initial steps are now being taken.
The vision is divided into three parts, reflecting our understanding of Witchcraft as a religion, science, and art simultaneously, as well as our teachings on the Three Rays of Witchcraft as Will (Red Ray), Wisdom (Yellow Ray), and Love (Blue Ray). Each of the three major sections has an expression among the three rays, the four elements, and the twelve zodiac signs.
The first phase of what has been founded in 2009, including the Mystery School, Seminary and the twelve ministries that comprise the Ministerial Church, would all fall under the Religion of Witchcraft, and in general termed the Ministerial Church. This is our most public aspect, devoted to the education, culture, and social service within the community. This focuses on our ministers, ritualists, and students, providing places to learn and to serve, within the Temple and the greater community. The mutable sign of Sagittarius serves a key role as the ministry that oversees the core education of the Mystery School and Seminary. Together they comprise of a five level, five degree tradition that can take a minimum of seven years to complete. One goal of this section of our community is the establishment of at least one physical community center, school, and “mother” temple, and has succeeded in part with obtaining our New Hampshire property and the fundraising for the construction of the community center.
The second phase of this vision is in the establishment of the Society of the Temple of Witchcraft in 2020, with the release of a new three to nine year esoteric program of deeper study. The Society of the Temple embodies the science of the Craft, and the occultists quest to understand the nature of the universe, consciousness, and initiation, in the context of Witchcraft and the Temple itself. The curriculum expands beyond the core degree courses of the Mystery School, offering supplemental courses to each level aligned with the Three Rays of Witchcraft for each core course reflecting the elements of the Astral Triangle of the Tree of Life, as well as the three level, nine year program of the Three Rays of Witchcraft as individual ray paths reflecting the Ethical Triangle of the Tree of Life. Beyond that will come advanced courses reflecting the work of the Supernal Triangle of the Tree of Life.
Solitary practitioners working alone or in small groups, in common cause, are the key to the Society, though they might be simultaneously serving in the Ministerial Church. The maturation of those serving in ministerial roles in the Ministerial Church leads to guilds and groups to teach the deeper magickal skills supporting each ministry from those experienced in those mysteries. We look to the establishment of three rays courses for each of the twelve zodiac ministries. The cardinal sign of Capricorn plays an important role in the Society level of community, for Capricorn Ministry oversees elder and mentors, and it is the elders and mentors guiding the guilds and groups. One goal of the Society of the Temple, in cooperation with the Ministerial Church, is the eventual establishment of a physical space serving as library, museum, healing center or hospice.
The third phase of the Temple is the currently called the Fellowship of the Temple, embodying our understanding of art and culture. The work of this phase is to support those visionaries creating and sharing esoteric art for the betterment of the community and the word, be it graphic, musical, or movement based. Through this, we foster support for those deeply immersed in psychic and mystical vision to express that work. We also seek to deepen the understanding of the literal “crafts” of the Craft, the life skills of the village Witch that also have deep magickal significance. We see their development as an outgrowth of the work of the Church’s and Society’s formal classes, to foster apprenticeships and shifts in our way of life, integrating the old ways into the new world. The fixed sign of Leo and the Leo Ministry as the ministry of craft and art plays an important role in the work of the Fellowship. One goal of the Fellowship is the establishment of a physical space to serve as artist’s retreat, nature preserve, and possibly “retirement” village where are ways can be shared and passed on to those interested.
This is all simply an expressed vision and other than the structures already created, not a policy or true organization chart. Our vision is a way to express what is possible, and to dream a dream together.