Proquest Dissertations
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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher qualify 6* x 9* black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Ball & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeab Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMT COMING TO THE EDGE OF THE CIRCLE: A WICCAN INITIATION RITUAL DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Nikki Bado-Fralick, MA. ***** The Ohio State University 2000 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Thomas P. Kasulis, Adviser Professor Patrick B. Mullen, Adviser Professor Daniel Barnes, Emeritus Professor N an^ A. Falk Adviser Interdisciplinary Ckaduate Program UMI Number 9971510 Copyright 2000 by Bado-Fralick, Nikki All rights reserved. UMI UMI Microform9971510 Copyright 2000 by Beil & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Artx)r, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Nikki Bado-Fralick 2000 ABSTRACT This paper is a thick ethnographic description and exploration of an initiation ritual performed by a small coven of Witches located in Ohio. Members of this religious community, called either Wiccans or Witches within this paper, practice a contemporary nature religion variously called Wicca, Witchcraft, the Old Religion, or the Craft by its practitioners. Wicca is an extremely diverse and decentralized religion with a great deal of local autonomy in membership, practices, and organizational structure. Within this particular religious community, initiation is both a ceremony through which an individual becomes a member of the community and a central, significant transformative religious experience that is expressed through ritual performance and bodily praxis. An examination of how Wiccans express and use ritual may, in turn, give us a clue about how such performance and praxis might fimction in other religions as well. In addition to exploring ritual performance and bodily praxis, I hope with this work to challenge traditional notions of initiation as a tripartite process of transformation with sharply defined movements of separation, liminality, and reincorporation. This model of initiation has been prevalent in the scholarship since Arnold van Gennep first publishedThe Rites of Passage in 1909. The etlcally derived tripartite model and its ii variations usually employ a unidirectional spatiality and a linear understanding of the process of transformation. However, when approaching the ceremony from the dual perspective of a scholar- practitioner, a linear and spatial analysis proves inadequate to describe particular emic aspects of the ceremony. As a practitioner and an interdisciplinary scholar, my approach to initiation is necessarily reflexive and pluralistic. Within a broad philosophical framework, I draw upon the insights and methods of ethnographic folklore studies, somatic theories, the feminist critique of androcentrism, metacommunication theories, and especially a performance approach in order to access meaningful aspects of the initiation within both the immediate and the larger process of a particular ritual performance. Key to understanding this process is a concept of ritual as a somatic praxis, a repetitive discipline that engages both the body and the mind in learning. Ill Dedicated to my loving husband, Eric T. Fralick, who always believed in me, even when I didn't IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In addition to thanking my husband Eric Fralick for his unwavering confidence in me, I must express my deepest and most heartfelt thanks to the four committee members whose patience and gracious support enabled me to complete this project. First, I must thank my two advisers, philosopher Tom Kasulis and folklorist Pat Mullen, who were not only willing to take a chance on an admittedly unusual project, but whose guidance and firm, but gentle, criticism helped me to develop my ideas across at least two very different disciplines and enabled me to grow as a scholar and a teacher. Additionally, I am incredibly fortunate to have both folklorist Dan Bames and Western Michigan University professor of comparative religions Nancy Falk on my committee. Dan Bames’ encouragement and unflagging support have helped give me the confidence to continue in circumstances that have been less than ideal. As one of the sharpest and most articulate scholars on women and religion, Nancy Falk has both inspired and challenged me firom the very first moment that I met her. I am today incredibly luclqr to know her as both a mentor and a firiend. It should go without saying that this project could have been neither started nor completed without the support of my covenmates and my Craft students over the years: Gita, Smike, Brian, Karen, John—and especially “Lauren,” “Dot,” and “Sandy”—you three will always be true sisters and part of my heart. My thanks and blessings to all of you, wherever the path takes each of us in the future. I must also thank our families: my brother George Bado for his cheerhil confidence in me, and my husband’s parents Charles B. and Mary E. Fralick for their encouragement and support and for the Apple laptop computer that made this technologically possible. Additionally, I would like to extend a special thanks to the following persons: Félicitas Goodman for her kind fiiendship and for graciously suggesting an Hungarian name for the coven; Elizabeth Collins for her warm friendship and enthusiastic support; my dear colleagues in the Midwest AAR, who, over the years, have contributed their comments on my work and encouraged me to continue; Gary Ebersole, who got me back into the Academy; and the late Marilyn Waldman, whose administrative cunning figured out how to make this possible. A very special thanks to my physician and acupuncturist Dr. Doug Diorio, whose sharp wit and sharper needles kept tendonitis at bay and stitched my bodymind energy back together with warmth and good humor. T hanks also to the tm anng heroes of the Graduation Services, who helped me at every step of the way with practical advice and encouragement. VI I m ust thank those many Mends with whom I have been blessed over the years, who helped me through this most difficult process with their patience, encouragement, jokes, chocolate, occasional shopping sprees, sympathetic ears, and their willingness to see and hear endless drafts of this work. Finally, let me thank my students in my religious studies classes, who are—ultimately—the reason why I do this at all. I also must note that some of the material within this dissertation has previously appeared in my article "A Turning on the Wheel of Life: Wiccan Rites of Death,” published in Folklore Forum 29.1:3*12. The author gratefully acknowledges the permission of the editors of Folklore Forum to reproduce this material in whole or in part. vu VITA October 14,1954 ................................. Bom—Steubenville, Ohio 1988.....................................................MA. Philosophy, Ohio University 1996 -1999 ......................................... Program Assistant and Lecturer Religious Studies Program The Ohio State University 1999 — present.....................................Lecturer Religious Studies Program The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS A rticles 1. "A Turning on the Wheel of Life: Wiccan Rites of Death,” in Fo/fe/ore Forum, Vol. 29, Number 1,1998:3-22. 2. “The Dynamics of Ritual, Part H. Training Wheels,” in Mezlim, Vol. 6.3 (1995): 42-44. 3. “The Dynamics of Ritual, Part I. The Rules of the Road: Shifting into C3ear,” in MezUm, Vol. 6.1 (1995): 24-26. 4. “Folk Magic in the Academy,” in MezUm, Vol. 4.3 (1993): 3-7. 5. “Neophyte’s Niche: Ihe Purpose of Ritual,” with Donna Stanford- Blake, in. Mezlim, Vol. 3.4 (1992): 34-37. 6. “Changing the Face of the Sacred: Women who Walk the Path of the Goddess,” in Explorations, Fall 1989, Vol. 8, No. 1:5-14, reprinted in Mezlim, Vol. 2.3 (1991): 24-29. viii R eview s 1. Listen to the Heron's Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India, by Gloria Goodwin Raheja and Ann Grodzins Gold. Berkeley: University of California Press. In The Middle East and South Asia Folklore Bulletin Vol. 15, Nos. 1-2, Winter/Spring 1999:8-10. 2. Millennial Markers, edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathem.