Rise and shine, pornies! Today I come with an exciting interview! I don't think I need to introduce someone as Christopher Penczak, but in case any doesn't know who he is, this mas has worked in more than 30 books, has given countless classes, travels like there is no tomorrow (just the way we all should, if you ask me), and gained international praise and recognition. I got the chance to speak with him about Witchcraft, the Temple of Witchraft, the tradition he co-founded with Steve Kenson and Adam Sartwell, his husbands, and the re-editions of his popular Temple of Witchcraft series.
1. Which came first: Witchcraft or Queer Identity?
Well I knew I was queer before I really knew I was a Witch, but I came out as a Witch before I came out as Queer. I probably had conscious knowledge of liking boys from the 5th grade onward, but wasn’t safe to articulate it until I was in college. At the summer between high school and college I got introduced to Witchcraft, and by my sophomore year, was involved in Witchcraft community where I, and my mother, also now a Witch, met openly out gay men and lesbians as friends and peers. That gave me the courage for my own coming out process. But in a lot of ways, I think being both queer and being a Witch is an orientation to the world, so you have always been, but come out to yourself, or get the vocabulary for it, and the process unfolds over time and sometimes in community and relationship with others.
2. How would you describe your path as a Witch?
Crooked! In the sense that it always brings something unexpected around the bend and has been pretty diverse and non-linear, despite my penchant for study and process. I’ve swung widely and at times thought I was leaving Witchcraft for something else, but all the experiences have ultimately been synthesized in my Craft first and foremost. From more traditional eclectic Wicca influences and psychic meditative work I got deeper into herbalism and flower essences. Simultaneously I was learning yoga but also the yoga philosophy behind the exercise. When my teacher moved into Sikhism, I started to explore that too. From the herbalism and flower essences, I also got more experienced in core shamanic practices and found them complimentary to ideas in medieval Witchcraft. The flower essence world led to Reiki, light workers and New Age channeling, and in my search for those roots, to Theosophy, which led to a more practical and deeper study of ceremonial magick and alchemy and their influences on Witchcraft. Study of both Thelema and grimoires renewed and deepened my interest in Witchcraft and I found some mentors who could show me different things and speak to me on a different level.
3. Do you feel your sexuality has played a role in it?
Definitely. While Witchcraft has a strong aspect of sexuality in it, my original teachers were not specifically hetero-normative, but they weren’t specifically queer either. They were Hermeticists embracing the spectrum of polarity and gender blended uniquely in each of us.
As a polyamorous man with two husbands, both of which are Witches, our esoteric understanding and practices support our relationship, and we have what I believe is a greater support in community, than most polyamorous people.
Together we have explored, participated, and offered a variety of Queer Spirit space through festivals and in our own Temple of Witchcraft community. I ran a Gay Men’s Spirituality Group for many years that turned into a Witchcraft circle, for queer identifying men to explore queer myth, imagery, camaraderie and support.
4. You're currently working on updated versions of the Temple of Witchcraft book series with new content after 20 years. How do you feel when you think about all that time?
It’s a bit surreal. I’ve been formally teachings for about 25 years, but it doesn’t seem that long to me. I think about how much I still don’t know and look to some of my elders who have been doing it for thirty and forty years. I’m honored there is still interest in the work enough to generate new editions, and realize what a privileged position I am in being able to offer them again with a little face lift to a new generation.
Sure. I have a new introduction that frames what has happened since the publication of the first edition, and my first teacher,
Laurie Cabot, wrote the foreword, sharing some personal stories of our relationship and my early training. Throughout the book is interspersed material from the course I teach, and bits from the traditions of the Temple of Witchcraft which was less in the original books, focusing on the technique instead of the culture. There are also updates to our understanding of bits of history, science, and the growing pagan culture at large. In the online and in person classes, we have “wisdom lectures” which are daily posts in the general topic of the lesson, but might be references to past elders, expansion on an exercise or ritual, or simply new information citing a resource I didn’t have at the time of writing the first edition. It has helped keep the course as a living, breathing, growing entity. A fun one is that when the book was written, almost no one would call themselves a
warlock, but now we have fabulous people like
Storm Faerywolf using the word, so we talk a bit about that history and why it has changed, even though its not super prevalent. I still identify as a Witch myself.
6. Would you say writing this series changed you in any way?
Absolutely. If I had a life mission in the first phase of my career, getting that out and done was it. Afterword, I felt a freedom and made some drastic changes to my career as a writer and teacher. I was on a precipice of deciding I could either court a wider audience to help more people, but possibly have to become less focused on the Witchcraft to do that, or more deeply dive into my Craft. I love theology, self-help, and modern metaphysics, and enjoyed a reasonable amount of mainstream success, but at my heart, I dove deeper into the craft for a smaller, but more intense audience. We started the
Temple of Witchcraft nonprofit and really made in real life community building a priority, and I helped start a
small publishing company that focuses mostly on me and people in the general orbit of the Temple. With that level of control, I could keep my focus and not worry about pleasing larger goals of a larger company or audience. I know as I got more esoteric, and more tradition specific, I lost some of my readership, but that is okay. I gained others and got to focus on the things unique to me and my practice.
7. Why did you choose that name in the first place? What do "Temple" and "Witchcraft" mean for you?
The origin starts with the age old idea of the Inner Temple, the inner sacred space. I learned it from Laurie Cabot under the name of the “Majick Room” but in my further magickal studies, really resonated with the idea of it as an inner temple. That led to the idea of the rituals and altar as being an outer manifestation of the temple, and when
The Inner Temple of Witchcraft book was released, the second being
The Outer Temple of Witchcraft, the motif carried onward in the future books. Part of the growing reason for the tradition and organization to be called the
Temple of Witchcraft was to disassociate it from permutations of my name.
The work began as a series of classes, nothing more. The notes from the classes became the core of the books, and I was encouraged to publish them. The body of growing students stuck together, and attended events and public rituals, and began to form an identity of tradition together, though that was never my intention. Phrases like Penczakian or Christopherian, similar to Alexandrian, Gardnerian or Georgian, for Alex Sanders, Gerald Gardner and George Patterson. I did not like that, because to me, the universality was important. I was not coven based. I was not necessarily authorizing other teachers or initiators. Do as you will. But as I became more known, people in the community wanted something more, and I agree, and some others used my name in not the most reputable ways to get authority or attention, implying an endorsement I never really gave.
So in an effort to share authority and responsibility, work towards long term goals of community, and create something to outlast any one founder, the tradition of the
Temple of Witchcraft became the nonprofit “church” of the Temple of Witchcraft.
In the
Inner Temple book, I write about a controversial etymology of Witch going back to the concepts of temple and holy. The idea of the holy vessel, for that secret flame, the Witch Fire of magick and gnosis, is a huge part of my personal mythological understanding of ancient priesthood, Witchcraft, and our modern work. I find no better idea that the idea one can build it within, and bring it to the outer world. Much of our work in the Temple as an organization has been anchoring that magick into the land, with long term plans for stone circles, shrines, and other esoteric engines to reverberate their blessing and healing into the world.
We are a strange hybrid of many things that work for us. While we are rooted in a lot of traditional occultism, we are not coven based or linked to British Traditional Wicca. We respect and are certainly influenced, as most modern traditions are, but we look to a new formula of initiation based upon technique and relationship to the egregore of the tradition, that collective thought-spirit form of the tradition, rather than a lineage reminiscent of apostolic succession. We have a pretty wide definition of Witchcraft and encourage members to find their own way of relating to the word and identity.
We are both in person and online and have similar standards for both. Homework is due like a true school, with due dates, feedback and often requests to redo things to pass, but we are not solely academic. Very little of it is a multiple choice or true/false testing, but about expressing your experience with the material to the best of your ability to a mentor and guiding staff member, and getting personal feedback when needed. It’s a challenge. For the linear, pass/fail, might set our goals can be mysterious in the school, and yield some frustration, but those who enter with an open heart and mind, and engage to the best of their ability, usually do well.
We synthesize a variety of perspectives in modern occultism, with the idea upon graduation, you create your own practice, which will grow and evolve as an art as much as religious tradition. There is no set criteria for anything to be mandatory after you graduate a level. You can take different levels with different teachers and take breaks between levels with no penalty, but like a school, not everyone is accepted to every level if their previous work doesn’t indicate they are ready. We have a variety of non-degree classes, some with previous requirements and some without, to know that people stepping into things have the necessary experience and context for what is coming next.
Like my crooked path, the school models some similar radical swings for the student to explore new ideas and challenge expectations, including mysteries of the more psychic, operative, shamanic and ceremonial sides of magick. We have High Priests and High Priestesses, but that is not the focus of our structure. In the higher levels, a non-gendered working role of Sovereign, Seer, and Sorcerer are used, alone, or in part, aligned with teachings on Will, Love, and Wisdom. We have twelve ministries of service, and don’t expect people to become teachers, leaders and healers professionally unless they want to, but we do believe a lot of ministers serve and can volunteer in a lot of other ways, including community organizing, environmental education, mediation and conflict resolution, an emergency service relief.
9. What can readers expect in "Key to the Temple of Witchcraft", the final book in the series?
The Key to the Temple of Witchcraft will be a sampler of our Book of Shadows, the cosmology, mythology and history we work in, the flavor of things specific to the community that wasn’t a part of the technique heavy books. Our version of the Witch’s Runes will be included, along with core practices that involve our mythos and symbols for divinity, and the twelve spirits that oversee the twelve ministries of the Temple will be included. All the material is written and now it's in the process of getting it into a fun, usable order.
10. Looking back in time, let's say, five years ago, which is the most significant change for you and for the Temple?
I’d say the biggest change was probably ten years ago, when we went from renting office space to purchasing property and the responsibility of a mortgage payment. But in the last five years, I stepped down from being President of the Board of Directors to becoming a voting advisor, and was replaced by long time secretary, Alix Wright. Alix was also the first official teacher of the tradition after me, even before we became a nonprofit. It has allowed me to work on the advance teachings, still in process right now, and modeled that the Temple really isn’t the Temple of Christopher Penczak, but the Temple of Witchcraft, and can survive me with the amazing capable people. Though I have no plans to retire anytime soon, I know that is part of the plan, rather than hold the reins too tightly into my elder-hood.
11. What are your plans for the future?
I have quite a number of books in various stages to be released, with The Lighting of Candles to be out shortly after this sees print, if all goes well. After that I have the Goddess and the Cauldron for the fall, and somewhere in there reprints of
The Mystic Foundation and
Sons of the Goddess.
On a deeper level, I am looking forward to our now rescheduled holy pilgrimage to Scotland in 2022.
12. Which would be your advice for new and future Witches and Pagans?
To realize that Witchcraft is both a practice of doing, and a way of being. Both are necessary. It’s wonderful to talk about Witchcraft, or identify with Witchcraft, but it must be balanced with the experience of magick. It will literally change you. I often talk about how it magnifies whatever you have, so a lot of our reflective and self help stuff is to get you to be as clear as you can before the magnification process begins. It can unmake you and remake you, and the more you consciously participate in the process, the more profound and deep the process will be.
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Kinky regards, K!
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