Giving a paper at Mystic South 2023

 The annual Mystic South conference is coming up in July. I'm thrilled to report that I will be giving a paper at the conference entitled "Reimagining Gender Polarity in the Gardnerian Tradition". Here is the abstract:

On July 18, 2022, 47 Gardnerian Elders electronically published “A Declaration of the Traditional Gardnerian Wica”, representing a schism in the tradition related to the 21st-century transformation in the Western conception of gender. This paper will examine the schism through the lens of ritual studies, exploring liminality, group unity and egregore, identity formation, and ideology; and suggest possible solutions to the conflict. If the Gardnerian tradition is to survive in a World of Form where cisgender heterosexual female and male are only two of myriad possibilities, and where inclusivity is the norm, fundamentalism and a literal reading of Gerald Gardner’s words is not the answer. Rather, it is time for a new chapter in the history of the Gardnerian tradition, a new understanding of polarity, and a new identity for the Witch.