At Samhain 2009, Ian Corrigan stepped down as the Clergy Council Preceptor, and Rev. Skip Ellison appointed me to replace him. I had been fortunate to work through the Second Circle of the Clergy Training Program by then, and to have also completed the Initiate Path.
Now, I am in charge of these two programs.
It is rather strange to look back on what I have done and where I have come to with this work, but because there is still confusion about the difference between the two programs, I thought it would be good to provide some first-hand explanation about how the paths differ and what each will require of those who complete them.
This essay is meant primarily to clarify the differences, from a very first-person perspective, between the Clergy Training Program and the Initiate Path. I encourage all our members to remember that there are many other training avenues available as well: Guilds, Orders, and the Generalist Study Program are all good possibilities for our students. Please ensure that you consider them as well.
Leaving the Dedicant Fold: Choosing a Path
Much has been made about how the IP and the CTP are similar: most people look at the coursework and assume that each one will basically treat the student the same way, and that doing one leaves you "naturally" completed with the other. In some sense, this is true. In others, it is simply not even close to the truth.
It is true that by the time a student has completed the Second Circle of the CTP, he or she will likely have completed all coursework required for the IP. But at this point, the student will not be an ADF Initiate: the paths diverge at some point, a point that will be different for every student, but which will always occur prior to the end of the work. The courses are the same, but the experience is vastly different, and it even surprised me to learn that. While you can travel both paths at the same time, I do recommend focusing on one at a time: it is in the act of focusing on a path of study that the meaning of that study truly becomes apparent.
So, which way do you go when you reach the fork in the road? A lot of that decision rests entirely on your intentions with moving forward in training in ADF.
The Two Paths
Both the Initiate Path and the Clergy Training Program will give you a set of skills and learning that will aid you on your path. Originally, the two programs were designed with very different aims.
The Clergy Training Program is an outgrowth of a promise that Isaac made in the Vision statement that many of us often return to: that we would have the best program for training clergy in the Neo-Pagan movement (and, we hoped, one that would rival mainstream training programs). Isaac hoped that the training we provided for our clergy would be a benefit to the community, not to individuals, and that our Priests would be in demand in the general Neo-Pagan community as well as within ADF. He hoped that persons of other Neo-Pagan faiths would join ADF and undertake study with us. From this original Vision we have a notion of an ADF Priest as being a trained member of the community who has an obligation to use the training he or she has received for the benefit of all and to train others with it.
The Initiate Path is an outgrowth of the desire to balance our worldly scholarship with otherworldly vision and wonder, to plumb the depths of our own nature as human beings and understand how we, ourselves, relate to the cosmos around us. This is the path of keeping the hearth fires lit and brightly shining, of pushing and challenging ones self in order to understand who we are and where we fit, and of learning how to forge ourselves into shining beings who have deep connections with the forces at play in the cosmos. The Path of an ADF Initiate is built on individual devotion and work, even while it is designed, in the end, to provide service in the form of skilled diviners, magicians, and tranceworkers to the community of ADF.
As Clergy Council Preceptor, I hope that all our Priests will one day be Initiates, but know that not all Initiates will be clergy. The obligations of being an ADF Priest will not (and should not) appeal to all our members, but I do think that the deeper personal challenges and commitments that Initiates encounter will appeal to a much wider group of our members. I also believe that there will be a great deal of interest in those challenges and commitments from those who answer the call to the larger obligation of being an ADF Priest.
Neither the Initiate nor the Priest will ever be a truly solitary practitioner: both are tied to the community in different ways, whether that is through a Grove or through doing work that will further our goals at their hearth shrine. Both the ADF Initiate and the ADF Priest will be expected to serve their communities, but they will serve in different ways; additionally, their obligation to service is granted in different ways as well.
The way that these members will be expected to serve their communities is one specific way that the two paths are different. The Initiate is asked to define his or her own vision of service when he or she embarks on the IP, meaning that Initiates define their own community, their own service commitment, and their own path to providing that. An ADF Priest will find that his or her vision of service is tempered strongly by the organizational vision, meaning that an ADF Priest serves everyone in ADF; is obligated to train and perform service for that community; and must always live up to the expectations that the larger body of Priests, the ADF Clergy Council, places upon them.
To be more exact about these differences, let's talk for a moment about the act of "becoming" either an ADF Priest, or "becoming" an ADF Initiate, focusing on the ritual aspects of each.
Becoming Clergy in ADF: The Public Oath
It is always possible to complete the Clergy Training Program, even all the way through Third Circle, and be denied clergy credentials by the Clergy Council: completion of the CTP only makes one eligible for Priesthood; it does not make one an ADF Priest automatically. Despite this possibility, a denial of credentials also requires the CC Officers to provide specific reasons and clear recommendations to address the CC's concerns. So long as a student works on those recommendations, he or she can, eventually, become an ADF Priest.
Once the student has been granted credentials, he or she is then Consecrated or Ordained in ritual, and presented to the community. This involves a public ritual (usually at a place and time chosen by the candidate), and a public oath.
I pledge to love the land, serve the folk, and honor the Gods.
To this I dedicate my hands, my heart and my head.
The oath of an ADF Priest, whether Consecrated or Ordained, is indicated above. This is an oath taken before the watchful eyes of the Folk and the Kindreds, addressing our obligation to the Earth, the Folk, and the Gods. In addition, we dedicate our hands (our work), our heart (our understanding, compassion, and drive), and our heads (our thoughts and dreams) to the community that accepts us as Priests.
Our Consecrated Priests also swear:
I further dedicate myself to complete the work of our clergy training in Ár nDraíocht Féin.
This further dedication, made in the breath after the common Priestly oath above, is designed to show that our Priests are dedicated to continuing the work, that they are not simply ceasing their studies as a result of their consecration as an ADF Priest. An ADF Priest may not "rest on his laurels" and retain the title of "Rev."
All this is done in public ritual; most often in the presence of other ADF folk (a recent trend has been to take these oaths at ADF festivals, which is appropriate as it seals our commitment to all of ADF, rather than just our own hearth or Grove). The oath and the ritual are designed to both create an obligation for the new Priest and to create a pair of relationships, one to the Folk and one to the Kindreds, which involves the skill they have and the training they receive and provide.
In this ritual, the new member of the clergy is given to the Folk as well as the Kindreds: though all Priests do solitary work, even those without Groves or geographical proximity to another ADF member are no longer truly "solitary." Likewise, a Grove member ceases to belong to his or her Grove, even though they may attend Grove rituals and work primarily within their Grove, as they now belong to the greater community of ADF (and, likely, beyond) in a brand new way.
Becoming an Initiate in ADF: The Three Tests
When you have completed coursework for the Initiate Program, you will become a Candidate for Initiation. At that time, it is up to the Candidate to request Initiation from three Initiates, have those Initiates agree to become initiators for that Candidate, and then schedule the actual Initiation. We encourage students to form relationships with potential initiators early in their studies, but a pre-existing relationship is not required: some initiators may be very willing to work your Initiation even if they do not know you well. Please do not feel you cannot approach an Initiate to ask them, or let such a feeling stop you from approaching them.
This is very different from the process of consecration or ordination for ADF Priests: Priests are voted on by a body within the confines of bylaws and standard operating procedures; Initiate Candidacy may be authorized through the process of submission of work and approval, but Initiation itself is done without approval of any major body or external bureaucratic control. Initiation is simply left up to those who have passed the tests. (As of this writing, six ADF members, the past- and present-serving Archdruids and I, make up the body of ADF Initiates. As time goes on, additional Initiates will be listed on this page.)
Initiators may come to the Candidate, or the Candidate may go to them. Initiation may be done with a Candidate's Grove, family, or hearth around him or her, or it may be done with only the Candidate and initiators present. The Candidate, in consultation with the initiators, will determine what is right for him or her. The center of the Initiation, the Test, will be done by the Candidate and the initiators alone, however.
Initiation in ADF is not about the work you have done, for that has only made the student into a Candidate; Initiation is about how you apply that work and where you can take it. It is not about obtaining tools, but about how you use them. To that end, each Candidate is faced with three tests prior to Initiation.
- The Questioning tests the wit and wisdom you have gained as you have worked through Initiation.
- The Working tests your piety and ritual work, requiring you to draw on a storehouse of ritual and liturgical knowledge gained through experience, and on the relationships built at your hearth.
- The Test tests your vision, requiring you to undergo a demanding initiation and bring back knowledge.
The Candidate will find that the tests put both physical and mental strain on the candidate: they are not easy, and they become harder as the student works from test to test. We assume that all Initiates will have done the work and will be able to complete these tests (your initiators will have a discussion with you regarding the tests to ensure that you are capable of taking and passing them prior to your Initiation).
It is important to note that Yes, you can fail Initiation. It is possible to complete all the book work in the IP, but to not become an ADF Initiate. Unlike the process of becoming clergy, where you are told specifically where to improve yourself in order to be voted in if you do not pass, a Candidate may not always receive such direction from his or her initiators: there is a point in the Initiation where the Candidate must pass or fail on his or her own, and at times only the Candidate will know why. Still, the initiators will work with any Candidate who fails Initiation, and will try and help prepare the Candidate when they are ready to undertake these tests again.
The Experience of One Initiate-Priest
In a lot of ways, the rituals that mark the change from ADF Dedicant to either ADF Initiate or ADF Priest sum up the differences quite nicely.
My consecration was a highly public affair, taking place in a ritual of about 100 people at one of the major ADF festivals. My parents were there, many people witnessed everything that occurred, and I had a very small part in the ritual itself.
My Initiation, however, was one of the most personal rites I have ever participated in. The ritual was intimate with about 10 witnesses, I did a great deal of the ritual, and the central actions of the rite are known only to myself, my fellow Initiates, and my initiators.
You can also see a difference in how clergy and Initiates are approved: clergy are approved by a body external to themselves, while Initiates are approved based on their own internal tests, and in the end they pass or fail on their own merits. Where my consecration basically gifted me to the community, the initiation gifted me to myself. Both gave me the same set of tools, but both showed me different ways to use those tools.
Yes, you do the same work for each of the two courses (though there are one or two additional requirements for the CTP in some courses that deal in group work specifically), but the path each course sets you on will be different (and certainly not mutually exclusive. . . they are actually mutually supportive). The path of the Initiate is very much oriented toward the self and serving folk on a one-on-one basis with the tools you are given. The path of clergy is very much oriented toward serving the community.
Both these paths balance each other out in a beautiful way. But I cannot begin to stress just how different they are. Where is it that the paths truly begin to diverge? I can tell you only where they diverged for me: it was the moment that I ceased to look at the programs as, "Assignments to complete," and began looking at them as, "Ways to serve the Folk and the Kindreds."
And that is when I found that my feet were already set upon those paths.
