TAKE YOUR SECURITY BLANKET, LINUS, AND GO HOME!

It seems there is a thumbsucking attitude afoot nowadays, in that

certain outspoken individuals feel they out to be given carte 
blank entry into any occult group, just because they demand it.

Upon receipt of the news that the occult group which these jokers

intend a forced entry has decided to resist them, we are all 
subjected to the spectacle of a heel-pounding tantrum, printed if

possible, and usually bulwarked by a myriad of phone calls, in-
person complaints, gibing letters, plain and fancy character 
assassination, and a reprise of the Hallelujah Chorus in a minor 
key.

There is no way in this world or the next that any Lodge (to use 
Fortune's good old-fashioned term) can be all things to all 
people.  The medieval Catholic Church tried this, and to their 
vast surprise, found an explosion in their faces they are still 
trying to mop up.

People are too individual for concerted togetherness.  And if the

common denominator ever served anybody anywhere on a practical 
basis, it is more in line with a national patriotism or loyalty
to  some sport, and even there you have anarchists, and people
who  just downright dislike sports.

Is there some reason why anybody's tradition, coven, or pagan 
group should be forced to be everybody's?  Or why any struggling 
coven or group should be forced to open their doors to every 
cockamaimy who comes down the pike, regardless that the applicant

is totally unsuited to the philosophy, structure, and aims of the

group?

Now, I'll be tripleyedamned if I can see the point in accepting 
some Linus who totes the security blanket of Accept Me or I'll 
Scream!  Or who says in effect, "Give me access to all your 
esoteric writings and oral tradition or I'll throw a fit!"  Or
who  demands to be taken into the bosom of the brethren when the
same  would heave with revulsion upon contact.

You bet your posterior that any occult lodge is an in-group.  It 
has to be, to survive and pursue its aims without such a lot of 
internal bickering that no one else gets anything done.

Where the lodges go wrong is in publicly laying down their life 
concepts as the path all out to follow or the bugabear will get 
you.  In that case, they ask for it.  It simply follows that the 
broader the base for acceptance, the broader the common 
denominator, the lower the final quotient of quality.  Proctor
and  Gamble is in the business of quantity; but then they aren't 
training occultists.

Could this just be the reason for the old-timey traditional small

group-coven-lodge?  Well?  Maybe the forefathers knew something 
after all.

We've all met people from other groups and soon knew damn right 
well there is no way on Earth we are going to make it with that 
group...but is it sane and logical to expect them to open their 
arms with glad cries, nonetheless?  Oh, come on!

There are groups who find ________ (pick one) unacceptable and 
this Thing may well be a cherished Tenet of some other group.  
That does not make either group a many-headed monster, but simply

states the parameters of their personal and group working 
philosophy.  And when Linus finds this a thorn in his little 
buttsy, it's this writer's suggestion to the "offending" group to
not only shut the door, but slam it and bar the goddam thing, and
let Linus use his own tweezers and buy his own salve.

In the interim, Linus may either grow up from the friction of 
sudden experience, or decide to go another route, or quit 
altogether.  But that's Linus's karma; let Linus work it out. 

by Lady Roth, a Gardnerian