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There's been much making of words down the years over the question of self-initiation into the Craft, and whether or not such a thing is even possible.

Well, I'm here to tell you that not only is self-initiation possible, but that you cannot be a witch without it.

Life is a series of initiations, but no matter how many rituals you've undergone at Lady Such-and-so's hands, you cannot truly count yourself a witch until the moment when you look yourself plain in the face and say: I am a witch.

That is your deepest, truest initiation.

Witchdom is not so much conferred, as claimed. Someone who has undergone every ritual initiation from Azarak to Zamelak, but has never said to herself, I am a witch, is no witch.

At the Midwest Grand Sabbat this summer, four people will be taking their oaths and receiving their Marks, and in this way joining the Tribe of Witches.

Since the Middle Ages, this thedish (tribal) initiation has traditionally begun with three questions, given here in their contemporary formulations:

Do you reject Yahweh, and all his lies, and all his empty promises?

Do you renounce the waters of baptism?

Do you give yourself body and soul, whole and all, to the Horns and the Wandering Moon, and take the Craft to be your home?

It's always a powerful moment, the more so by the very nature of the questions involved.

Here's the clincher: Only one of these questions has a right answer.

What is written in Earth, endures.

What the Lake receives, she keeps.

At 14, he climbed down the cliff. On the beach, he built a fire.

He stripped off his clothes.

I AM A WITCH, he wrote, in capitals: in the wet sand between shore and water, for the Lake to take.

He swam out, into the wind, as far as he could. Then he turned and swam back to shore.

He dried himself at the fire. He dressed and climbed back up.

He went back home.

How do you become a witch?

Soon told.

On Friday night, you go up to the old Indian graveyard at the top of the ridge.

You take off all your clothes, and you dance for the Devil.

Then you put your clothes back on, and go back home.

The next Friday, you do the same, and the Friday after that. Seven Fridays in a row you do this.

 What no man may tell, nor woman know.

My father once said, What do you want for your children? You want them to have what you never did.

I had presided at G's Naming, so when it came time for his Man-Making, it was natural that his foster father should give me a call. We got together with G's godfather, and together the three of us planned a nice, tight little ritual, the rite that we all wished we'd had for ourselves.

Later that night, as I was writing up the outline that we'd crafted, I realized that we'd left out something important. Actually, what we had left out was the single most important thing of all.

It's 1966. A little tow-headed boy is sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, reading the Sunday supplement of the Pittsburgh Press.

He doesn't know that his life is about to change forever.

There are real witches! There are real witches right here in Pittsburgh! Real witches doing real magic!

One detail from the article hit hard enough to stay with me 50-some years later.

 “In Latgalia [a region of Latvia] they say, 'Oh, as soon as the missionaries left, we all just jumped in the river and washed it off, anyway.'” (Sean McLaughlin)

It's the first of the traditional Three Questions asked by the Horned at an initiation (and later repeated during the Renewal of Vows):

Do you renounce the waters of baptism?

Old Craft initiations are very different from Wiccan ones. They're not secret at all. Those who wish to take the Oath must first know the Oath. How can you swear to something that you haven't had the chance to think through thoroughly? You need to know what you're letting yourself in for. One cannot join the Tribe of Witches all unwitting.