Shit They Don't Teach You In Books, Part I: The Magickal Persona...

...And My Experiences Therewith.

By now most people in the greater "Pagan"* realm have heard of the "Pagan Name Generator." There are actually a variety of "Pagan Name Generators" out there,  all of which jokingly purport to help the "noobie" find a Cool Pagan Name that sounds great in circle and around bonfires. Cool names like Lady NippleRing HeatherHawk or Lord Phloppy Antler. You know. 

We take on these names within our "Pagan" subculture usually because its fun to ditch our real identities; because they are part of the "brand" we want to identify with; or because we don't want our mundane associates to know what we're up to. Or, all of the above. Which is fine; it's part of the fun.  Occasionally we'll take on a magickal name because the group we're working with asks us to, and because we want to recognize and/or cultivate particular qualities within our magickal life.

Such was the case with me when, 12 years ago, I swore into Eternal Harvest and began my journey with them. Eternal Harvest asks its dedicants to take two "Pagan" names, one for use only in circle, and one for use around the bonfire, etc. Thus was GreenFlame born, the Inner Circle name I carried for years. When my inner circle name changed, I took on GreenFlame as my generic "Pagan" name and became known as such through Eastern North Carolina.

Now, I am not one of these people who are content with doing something sacred simply because it's custom. No, I have to find the Deeper Meaning of it all. If it doesn't have five layers of symbolism woven together like Celtic knotwork, I am not happy; I don't get the point of doing something in a sacred context unless there's something that at least purports to be meaningful behind it. So I discovered that GreenFlame was not just a name. It was a path. It defined a way that I ought to be; green healing energy. The same way with the initiatory title "Lady." If "Lady" did not mean something other than "you are now a Third Degree" (whatever that meant), then otherwise the title "Lady" was just pseudo-Ren Faire bullshit. And my Craft meant more to me than that.

Thus was "Lady GreenFlame" born. And I decided that if "Lady" meant Third Degree, then Third Degree must mean more than "been a Second Degree for a year and a day," which is basically how EH defined it before I got hold of it. Somewhere between my ponderings and readings and conversations with others, I decided that a Third Degree must be someone who has grown enough spiritually in the Craft to have some sort of regular contact with THE Lady (the Goddess) and The Lord, and that it was contact with one's Higher/Divine Self that triggered or manifested that initiatory level, and that's why it was appropriate to use the term "Lady" (or Lord for guys). In other words, like Martin Luther King, Jr., you've seen the Mountaintop.

So that's how "Lady GreenFlame" was born. A Being of Divine-Goddess-High Self Green Healing Energy. Since my first name, Anna, means "Grace," stick that concept into the mix as well. Lady Anna GreenFlame = Divine-Goddess-High Self Green Grace Healing Power.

Therefore, since I was the senior priestess of a Wiccan Tradition, I had to mediate Divine-Goddess-High Self Green Grace Healing Power. Whenever that name was used. Whenever I was teaching. Or counseling. Or doing healing work. Or representing Eternal Harvest, which means every time I was on Facebook, or at the Sojourner's, or Truely Unique, or Compass Rose. Whenever I was in public space with other "Pagans."

Add all that time together, and the only time I was NOT Lady GreenFlame was when I was alone or with Doug. I expected him and other members of my tradition to do the same.

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Here's the shit-they-don't-teach-you part (you thought I forgot, didn't you?). Whatever you bring into Sacred Space gets empowered and magnified. *You* get empowered and magnified. Your personality (good, bad, whatever) gets empowered and magnified and so do all the cords and attachments and shit you have floating around in your aura, your "sphere of sensation" as some schools call it. That's why you are supposed to meditate and journal and do chakra work and the LBRP and what-not as a student -- 'cause you want to rid your sphere of bad crap like your shitty marriage or unstable financials or fear of abandonment because that will get magnified. 

That magickal name you pick for yourself gets magnified, too. It takes on Power. This is largely a good thing; you *want* that Power, that's why you're becoming a Witch and not a Presbyterian.

So, to quote Elmer Fudd, you want to be VEWWY VEWWY CAREFUL what name you take into circle. It WILL take on a life of its own. So if you call yourself LaserBeam Shitstorm, be VEWWY VEWWY prepared for shit to hit your life in focused, precise upheavals someday.

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Also, you want to be VEWWY VEWWY CAREFUL how you *use* your magickal persona. If you stay in magickal persona too much, everyone will think that's who you really are, all the time, 24/7. They'll think it's YOU. Hell -- YOU'LL think it's You, and that's one of the reasons we've had so many problems with ego in the "Pagan community." 

If you have been a Witch for a while and you've done your share of coven or public work, your persona is real. It is a valid thoughtform, a valid entity in its own right. It's a lovely, beautiful thing composed of the best that you have to offer; the magickal energy you've put into it deliberately and through circle-use; the love and attention it's received from others; and, yes, cords or energetic links to your Higher Self and even the Divine. But make no mistake: it's a TOOL (albeit a living one). You put it on like your cord, cloak, crown, and athame. A seer can see this. If you're experienced, you can feel it. I know the precise moment I stop being Anna H. and start being Lady GreenFlame. Orion Foxwood saw that transition take place before ritual at the last ShadowHarvest; we talked about it.

Yes, it's an energetic tool, the purpose of which is to step-down Divine energy into this realm more efficiently. It's yet another way the Gods can send energy our way. 

You don't need a "Pagan" name to have the magickal persona. You can be Jane Smith but if you are a public Witch/healer/teacher/leader, you've got a magickal persona. It has the same name YOU do, which surely makes it even harder to wield.

The same thing happens to celebrities, to doctors, to healers, to public school teachers. Think about your first grade teacher. Now think about her dressed in some hot BDSM leather, bent over a stool getting spanked. EEEEWWWWWWWWW! YUCK! You see? For all you know, Miss Smith might've gone to a dungeon and done the dirty every Saturday night. But *you* still see her as the Miss Smith. You still identify her by her persona, not who she really is. 

These personae get created and empowered all the time just by having ordinary people pay extraordinary attention to someone else. Ours, however, get juiced up with Magick.

There is a lot that could be said at this point about projection, and "dual relationships" and transference and  counter-transference and all kinds of valid psychological concepts. I am not taking the time. Google it, or maybe I'll blog about that stuff later. 

Lady Anna GreenFlame is an *AWESOME* tool. I can close my eyes and see Her and damn, I'm really impressed. She's beautiful. She's wonderful. I can see why folks love Her. But She is not me. Part of me lives in Her - the best part of me -- but there are other parts of me, too - Rage. Pain. Sloth. Indifference. Narcissism. Hypocrisy. Unreliability. There are some really murky and ugly parts to Anna H. I'm not being hard on myself -- because I love myself unconditionally, regardless of whether I am being a shit or being awesome. No, I'm being honest. Most of us have these parts. Our Shadow work is to come to terms with them and purify them, or redeem them, so that they become tools themselves, and not liabilities. That's hard work and it. never. ends and when you've worked on one beast to the point where you think you've tamed it, another thing flares up. But our faults are often masks themselves for strengths. And there's a Mystery for you, if you'd like.

When you wear your magickal persona 24/7, you become its slave. It binds you. You have to maintain others' expectations of you all the time. You swallow what you really want to say and invoke that magickal persona to Do The Right Thing, Say The Right Thing. You defer activities you might find amusing or rewarding out of duty. You lose your right to self-determination. 

I have actually considered buiding an effigy of Lady Greenflame and burning Her, but it's not her fault. It's nobody's fault. This is something I had to learn on my own, because again, it's Shit They Don't Teach You in Books.

So, word to the Wise, or would-be Wise: (a) choose any magickal moniker carefully. (b) Set limits as to how you use it. (c) cultivate the ability to monitor how your magickal persona may be growing and taking on power, and how much of your life it is taking over. It's a tool, not a lifestyle. (c) Your teachers, your leader, your authors, anyone you look up to, all have these personae. It's okay. Enjoy the goodness of the Persona. But do NOT make the mistake of thinking that's all there is to that person. The persona is not the person. Hell, that needs saying again: The Persona is not the Person.

*The term "Pagan" is in quotation marks throughout because no one knows anymore what the fuck "Pagan" means, so I'm treating it as if it were theoretical or hypothetical. Yes, there will be several blog posts on that coming up.

*** The sticker images in this post were invented by my friend, Srini Kumar, and formerly published by his company Unamerican Activities. Now they are sold by http://www.stickergiant.com/truth-hurts_bu_pg1  . Srini is now working with a great app for your phone called TinyVox -  http://tinyvox.com/