Feri Tradition

Template:Short description Template:About Template:WiccaThe Feri Tradition is an American neo-pagan tradition related to Neopagan witchcraft.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It was founded in the West Coast of the United States between the 1950s and 1960s by Victor Henry Anderson and his wife, Cora Anderson.<ref name=":0" /> Practitioners have described it as an ecstatic tradition, rather than a fertility tradition. Strong emphasis is placed on sensual experience and awareness, including sexual mysticism, which is not limited to heterosexual expression.

HistoryEdit

Anderson met Cora Ann Cremeans in Bend, Oregon, in 1944; they married three days later, on 3 May, claiming that they had encountered each other many times before in the astral realm.Template:Sfnm Born in Nyota, Alabama, in January 1915, Cora had been exposed to folk magic practices from childhood;Template:Sfnm reputedly, her Irish grandfather was a "root doctor" who was known among locals as the "druid".Template:Sfn The Andersons claimed that one of their first acts after their marriage was the erection of an altar.Template:Sfn The following year, a son was born, and they named him Victor Elon, with the latter being the Hebrew word for oak; Cora stated that she had received the name in a dream.Template:Sfnm After the birth, a ritual was held to dedicate the infant to the Goddess.Template:Sfn In 1948, the family moved to Niles, California, later that year purchasing a home in San Leandro.Template:Sfnm There, Anderson became a member of the Alameda Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and he subsequently remained so for forty years.Template:Sfn Victor earned his living as a musician, playing the accordion at events,Template:Sfnm while Cora worked as a hospital cook.Template:Sfn It has been claimed that Anderson could speak Hawaiian, Spanish, Creole, Greek, Italian, and Gothic.Template:Sfn

In the mid-1950s Victor and Cora read Witchcraft Today, a 1954 book by English Wiccan Gerald Gardner,Template:Sfn with Cora claiming that Victor corresponded with Gardner for a time.Template:Sfn The Pagan studies scholar Chas S. Clifton has suggested that the Andersons used Gardner's work as a "style guide" for the development of their own tradition of modern Pagan Witchcraft.Template:Sfn Similarly, Kelly stated that the Andersons' tradition "began to more and more resemble that of the Gardnerians" as the couple learned more about the latter, adopting elements from it.Template:Sfn Anderson was in correspondence with the Italian-American Wiccan Leo Martello, who encouraged Anderson to found his own coven.Template:Sfnm Circa 1960, the Andersons founded a coven, naming it Mahealani, after the Hawaiian word for the full moon.Template:Sfnm Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Andersons initiated a number of individuals into the coven.Template:Sfn One of these was Gwydion Pendderwen, a friend of their son who shared their interest in the esoteric.Template:Sfnm Pendderwen contributed to the development of what came to be known as the Feri tradition, with some members of the lineage viewing him as one of its co-founders, along with Victor and Cora.Template:Sfn Pendderwen noted that he had first met the family when, aged thirteen, he got into a fistfight with Victor Elon, although the two later became friends.Template:Sfn Pendderwen was particularly influenced by Welsh mythology, and on a visit to Britain he spent time with the Alexandrian Wiccans Alex Sanders and Stewart Farrar, subsequently introducing various Alexandrian elements into Feri.Template:Sfn In the early 1970s, the Andersons established a new coven with Pendderwen and his initiate, Alison Harlow.Template:Sfn After Pendderwen married, his wife also joined this coven, although it disbanded in 1974.Template:Sfn

Andersons' teachingEdit

Over the next four decades, the Andersons would initiate between twenty-five and thirty people into their tradition.Template:Sfn Anderson has been described as the "founding teacher" and the "seminal voice" of the Feri tradition.Template:Sfn The original word that the Andersons used for their tradition was Vicia, which Cora was known to say was Italian.Template:Sfnm She added that "the name Fairy became accidentally attached to our tradition because Victor so often mentioned that word in speaking of nature spirits and Celtic magic.”Template:Sfnm Early initiates alternately spelled the name of the tradition as Fairy, Faery, or Faerie, although Anderson began using the spelling Feri during the 1990s to more easily differentiate it from other Wiccan traditions of the same or similar names; not all practitioners followed his example.Template:Sfnm Cora claimed that Feri was the word's original spelling, adding that it meant "the things of magic".Template:Sfn Anderson also referred to it as the Pictish tradition.Template:Sfn In their writing, the Andersons mixed terminology adopted from Huna, Gardnerian Wicca, and Vodou, believing that all reflected the same underlying magico-religious tapestry.Template:Sfn It drew heavily upon the huna system developed by Max Freedom Long.Template:Sfn According to one Feri initiate, Corvia Blackthorn:

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According to Kelly:

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According to one initiate, Jim Schuette, Anderson was "a taskmaster. He took pride in testing his students."Template:Sfn One of those initiated into the Andersons' Feri tradition was Starhawk,Template:Sfnm who incorporated ideas from the Feri tradition when creating Reclaiming.Template:Sfnm She also included aspects from it in her 1979 book, The Spiral Dance, including mention of the Iron and Pearl Pentagram and the three souls, all of which originated within Feri.Template:Sfn Another prominent initiate was Gabriel Carillo (Caradoc ap Cador), who in the late 1970s developed a written body of Feri teachings, and began offering paid classes in the tradition in the 1980s, generating the Bloodrose lineage; doing so generated controversy among Feri initiates, with critics believing that it was morally wrong to charge for teaching.Template:Sfn