Llewellyn's 2012 Witches' Companion by Llewellyn (chrome ebook reader TXT) 📗

each day—but the hours from five o’clock to eight o’clock are missing, assuming that Pagans simply aren’t awake or functional during those parts of the day.

But here’s the thing: although this is all tongue-in-cheek and elbow-poke-in-the-ribsey, PST really isn’t that funny. Fritz Jung, co-founder of the well-known WitchVox website, says, “Many witches, Wiccans, and Pagans have a cute little phrase that they like to banter about called Pagan Standard Time. This means they show up to whatever, whenever they please and completely oblivious to the time that they have ‘committed’ to. Personally, I loathe this convenient little phrase.” When a circle mate plans a gorgeous ritual and you show up an hour late, it’s not cool or casual or rebellious—it’s just plain rude. When one of your grove members plays a key role in the local Pagan Pride celebration, only to find that most of the people who agreed to help disappeared in the last two weeks, leaving a scramble to fill in the holes they’ve left, their behavior is thoughtless. When a coven’s year-and-a-day planners work for months to create a schedule and members repeatedly show up half an hour late for every class or unprepared to teach the sessions they agreed to lead … Well, you know.

Let’s take this a few steps further and consider several reasons why competent, practical, and ethical magick users should give up the practice or acceptance of PST.

First, for those who follow the Wiccan Rede as a core ethic, reflect on “And it harm none, do what ye will.” Showing up late or blowing off commitments arguably causes harm by leaving fellow group members feeling frustrated or disrespected. I think everyone would agree that good magick is not borne from a cauldron of annoyance.

Then there’s the magickal Law of Cause and Effect, which concerns the nature of action and reaction. Strings of poorly planned or chaotic magickal workings tend to produce fragmented, choppy results. This isn’t what most of us aspire to in our magickal workings. It also leaves one subject to the idea of magickal rebound: send something ill-conceived or uneven out into the Universe, and you’re going to get the same thing (or worse) back. A group that does not begin, work, and end together also tweaks the Law of Sympathetic Magick, which addresses affinities and interactions between people, materials, and intentions.

Speaking of intention, the Law of Positive Attraction says that like attracts like. In a group setting, creating a desired reality requires a conscious, coordinated effort between like-intentioned folks. How can a ritual or magickal effort raise energy or muster focused intent when it must continually stop and start to admit late arrivals or when it lacks the strength of a full coterie of members? Ill-planned magick may also backfire through the Law of Association, which suggests that the more commonality acts of magick share, the greater their influence. If one has a full coven working to work magick or raise energy, the commonality of pattern and intention has a much stronger influence and result than does a working that is fractured or splintered by late arrivals or missing members.

If one has a full coven working to work magic or raise energy, the commonality of pattern and intention has a much stronger influence and result.

Let’s talk ethics as well, specifically, having respect for others and an awareness of basic ethical tenets—and of time. If you’re invited to an event that others have planned, simple courtesy requires you to respect their efforts and comply. To be carelessly or intentionally late is akin to telling the planners that you don’t care. As for practicing PST, it may threaten one’s accountability, leaving people to believe the planner-without-a-schedule cannot keep a promise, fulfill an obligation, or be trusted. It’s hard to create relationships this way, and repeat offenders may end up paying the ultimate price: those who are habitually late and don’t seem to care may find they’re no longer invited to events, festivals, rituals, or other celebrations.

In his WitchVox article, “Unchecked Pagan Standard Time (PST) Erodes Pagan Community Viability,” Aldous Tyler points out a potential image problem associated with PST, namely the negative view that it may present to the public. Tyler remarks, “What begin as habits turn into norms, which in turn become standards, and these can affect how the community is perceived both from within and without.” The human is a highly adaptive creature, and when patterns of lateness recur, many communities adapt to the repetitive time shift—the PST—rather than resisting it. It’s the Law of Negative Attraction in action. Over time, this can snowball to a state where there is little or no order, leading many to give up rather than participate. In today’s setting, where Pagans work for recognition and credibility from the non-Pagan community and where public ritual is a great way to attract potential members, the disorganization spawned by PST isn’t doing us any favors. Simply said, Pagans don’t need the bad press.

Is PST always a bad thing? No, not always. We’ve all attended über-casual events where there was no schedule and everything happened when it happened. Sometimes there’s joy in setting aside the clock and simply going with the flow. Good organizers are always “flegid”: flexible + rigid. They know that it’s sometimes important to color outside the lines, but they still keep an eye on the schedule to ensure that the event proceeds as it should.

Let’s consider the organizer: the person who steps up and says “I’ll be in charge,” volunteering his or her time to make an event happen. This wonderful person has earned the right to make the decisions. If you volunteer to plan a major Sabbat event, for example, and you’re a person who absolutely adores the loosey-gooseyness associated with PST, you have every right to avoid a rigid timetable—or any agenda at all, if that’s your choice. But you’re ethically obliged to let your participants know that the schedule is non-existent and/or likely to change. Likewise, if you’re a