I read this book when first published, and am enjoying reading it again. I love Ruth’s writerly voice, and I have also listened to her sing and speak at conferences. She feels like a big sister to me, although I think we’re around the same age. She has a strength that comes from a lifetime of living a sovereign life.

As I read, I remembered that my Dianic practice pre-dates Ruth’s lifetime of practice and teaching and coven formation. I was first in a coven that was founded by women who had been taught by Z Budapest in Los Angeles, and the Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows was our only book. Back then we created rituals around the 8 holidays, and the full and new moons. We knew about the Maiden, Mother, Crone stages of life, but the “Five Blood Rites” wasn’t a thing yet. I have a feeling this is more important to non-lesbian Dianics.

Regarding The Western Mystical Tradition

Ruth quotes; According to the Matthews, “the real secret about the mysteries is that they cannot be communicated by one being to another,” and “while keys and guidelines to this knowledge can be given, the actual knowledge is revealed to the initiate by personal experience and revelatory realization”

Her point is that we must experience, we can’t hear about it in a sermon, or study it in a book. This is true. (Her citation of the proverb about leading a horse to water isn’t accurate. That proverb means you can’t make someone do something they don’t want to.) What is accurate is that when women learn about women-only ritual, centered on female as creatrix, we become thirsty. We discover a font of wisdom, joy, and healing within us.

What Ruth doesn’t say, and I think we may have a difference of opinion here, is that at the heart of the Western Mystical Tradition is a culture of ritualized, shared, psychedelic experiences. There is no other part of human life like a psychedelic experience, and humans have likely known this for thousands of years.

While I have had many, many experiences of personal gnostic revelation that did not involve sacred elixirs such as psilocybin mushrooms, the evidence that the Western Mystical Tradition has a psychedelic secret at its core has convinced me that there once existed women-centered institutions of mystery offering healing and connection. Eventually, these institutions were taken over by men, as we know.

(I suppose I need to say here that I do not encourage anyone to violate men’s laws, and that in much of the world psychedelic substances are highly illegal to possess. I’ve gotten in trouble on Ovarit for suggesting activities that are normal for me, such as taking your shirt off at the beach.)

I will likely write more about the Western Mystery Tradition as we read the book together.