Joseph Bearwalker Wilson
Encyclopedia
Joseph Bearwalker Wilson (1942–2004) was a shaman and witch, founder of the 1734 Tradition
of witchcraft, toteg Tribe, Metista, and a founding member of the Covenant of the Goddess
.
Wilson was born December 11, 1942 and raised just inside the city limits of St. Johns
in Clinton County, Michigan
. He grew up with some Christian influence but developed an early interest in the occult, and in fully utilizing the powers of the mind, which he felt were barely tapped. During his early adult life he studied comparative religion
, and encouraged such study in his teaching: "What they all have in common must be close to the truth".http://www.heartjinart.com/a_little_background.html He died August 4, 2004 from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
, and is recognized for his contributions to modern spiritual practice.
. Sean also recommended readings to him, of which the most influential were The White Goddess
by Robert Graves
, The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain by Lewis Spence
, and The Golden Bough
by Sir James George Frazer, however Wilson found Sean's practical teachings more valuable than these written works.
In 1964 Wilson started a four page newsletter he called The Waxing Moon which was "a journal of the old religion" or "a witchcraft newsletter". In 1965 an advertisement for Pentagram in The Waxing Moon put him in contact with Roy Bowers
, alias 'Robert Cochrane', with whom he studied by mail until Bowers' death in 1966. Copies of their letters can be found online. Wilson founded the "1734 Tradition" late 1973 and 1974 when he compiled the Flags, Flax and Fodder booklet. He also participated in the formation of the Covenant of the Goddess
, eventually leaving following their insistence that he adopt the Wiccan Rede
.
, spying upon his fellow servivicemen who were working from within the military to protest American involvement in the Vietnam War
. Wilson's testimony against Air Force Captain Thomas Culver http://www.shadowdance.org/toteg/warts18.html led to the latter's court martial; subsequently, writers in the Neo-Pagan and Wicca
communities of the time branded Wilson as a "warlock" or traitor to paganism.
As Wilson describes it, he spent most of 1971 and 1972 in a "blur" caused by alcoholism. After his testimony against captain Culver, he received "hate mail" from the pagan community, "literally hundreds of letters from people throughout the United States and England. [...] 95% of those letters condemned me. [...] People [...] wrote to tell me what a traitor I was and how much they hated me. Some of the letters threatened my life and the
lives of my family. [...] I think this is when I started serious drinking. Tim Zell of the Church of All Worlds
and Green Egg wrote something like, 'Joe, how could you. This is terrible. You could have gone down in history as an important founder of the pagan movement. Now you are nothing but a traitor.'"
during late 1973 and early 1974 http://www.shadowdance.org/toteg/warts26.html by Joe Wilson, who based it on the practices and philosophies of Robert Cochrane
, a British witch with whom Wilson had corresponded, Ruth Wynn Owen, the matriarch of the Plant Bran, and his first teacher whom he calls Sean.http://www.1734-witchcraft.org/ There is also a manifest influence from his own shamanic experiences, as well as some deep magic connected with Luciferian, Hermetic, and Kabbalistic traditions. Joe was careful to identify the Tradition as "Traditional Witchcraft" while still disdaining those ideas of people who had "their great-granny's grimoire" and were "an unbroken line of Witches back to the Ark". (His own words in letters to one of his students). His own definition of Traditional Witchcraft includes the following ideas:....(partial quote) " (it is...)a Craft, a calling, a set of Keys to unlock a particular cosmology that is borne, and born, in the blood of the practitioner, and sets the Work to be done with which one may commune with those who hold the patterns and keys of the life of the practitioner and hir stream. The Work is to be done, and we are to do it."
The "masculine mysteries" of this tradition are associated with fire, the forge, the walk of the Hunter, and the Bone in the Stream. The "feminine mysteries" are associated with the crossroads, the Cauldron, the Hearth, and the Witch Blood as manifested in the flow of creation and destruction. The inner Mysteries are beyond gender and reference a deep Cosmology, the Inner Planes, the Shape of the Universe.
Some have suggested that the term "1734" refers to the year 1734, and that Cochrane traced his "Witch-Blood" back to that date, however this claim has been refuted by a number of 1734 adherents, who claim that the number does not refer to the year. Some claim that it is a cryptogram referring to the name of the Goddess, though others have said that it is a joke by Cochrane. For current practitioners of the Stream of 1734 which is Joe's legacy, the number has layers of meaning which are disclosed to the practitioner, not as a "secret" (Joe disdained any "secret" teachings whatsoever) but as an inner gift, a manifestation of understanding of mystery which can neither be given nor taken but only encountered and comprehended. The number itself is encountered in layer upon layer of lore, and its permutations are still being discovered and deepened by current practitioners of the Tradition.
The numerological number '1724' (a possible misprint in the book), was explained by Doreen Valiente in her 1989 book The Rebirth of Witchcraft. Valiente claimed that Cochrane had given the American witch Justine Glass a photograph of a copper platter with '1724' printed on it for her 1965 book Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense - and Us. He had told Glass that it depicted a witch's ritual bowl that had been in his family for many centuries. Valiente revealed that this was a lie by Cochrane - she had herself, in fact, bought that very item for him only the year before in a Brighton
antiques shop to be used in a ritual.
, studying African American
hoodoo folk magic, and recommending this tradition to his own students in the Toteg Tribe. The Toteg Tribe website may be found at Toteg Tribe The entire text of Joseph's book, "Nature Religion..." is contained on the page, and the book itself is in the process of reprint and will again be available through Amazon in early summer of 2010. His more recent work, "So You Wanna Be A Shaman, Eh?" which was in the process of being edited at the time of his death in 2004, is expected to be released late in 2010 or early in 2011.
http://www.1734-witchcraft.org/riddles.html"The first question had to do with the symbol that I later adopted to represent the 1734 tradition. The symbol consists of three lines \|/ atop an equal armed cross + and the question was phrased: "This breaks down into 7. Work out what it means." That was a fairly easy one for me. I responded to Roy that what I saw was that it was 1 symbol, made up of 7 parts, of which 3 were the slanted lines above and 4 were the four short lines that met together and made a cross below. So the answer was that the symbol means "1734". I also pointed out that separately the symbols rather graphically depicted the female \|/ and male + (another form of .|.) genitals, and that when symbol was combined rather than separated it showed the union of male and female forces—God the Totality. In commenting upon my correct understanding of that meaning Roy gave more information about the mysticism he associated with that grouping of numerals.
In order to encourage people to study The White Goddess more thoroughly I told them that among the mysteries of the number 1734 was also hidden "a secret name of The Goddess" and that it could be found in that book. Thus a new riddle was born, though in some circles it came to be accepted as a dogma rather than as a means to understanding the poetic language".
1734 Tradition
The 1734 Tradition is a tradition of Traditional Witchcraft founded by the American Joseph Wilson, who developed it between 1964 and 1972 and founded the tradition in late 1973 and early 1974. It was largely based upon the teachings which he received from an English Traditional Witch namedRobert...
of witchcraft, toteg Tribe, Metista, and a founding member of the Covenant of the Goddess
Covenant of the Goddess
The Covenant of the Goddess is a cross-traditional Wiccan group of solitary Wiccan practitioners and over one hundred affiliated covens . It was founded in 1975 in order to increase co-operation among Witches and to secure for Witches and covens the legal protection enjoyed by members of other...
.
Wilson was born December 11, 1942 and raised just inside the city limits of St. Johns
St. Johns, Michigan
As of the census of 2000, there were 7,485 people, 2,994 households, and 1,999 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,909.1 per square mile . There were 3,148 housing units at an average density of 802.9 per square mile...
in Clinton County, Michigan
Clinton County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 64,753 people, 23,653 households, and 17,976 families residing in the county. The population density was 113 people per square mile . There were 24,630 housing units at an average density of 43 per square mile...
. He grew up with some Christian influence but developed an early interest in the occult, and in fully utilizing the powers of the mind, which he felt were barely tapped. During his early adult life he studied comparative religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
, and encouraged such study in his teaching: "What they all have in common must be close to the truth".http://www.heartjinart.com/a_little_background.html He died August 4, 2004 from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , also known as chronic obstructive lung disease , chronic obstructive airway disease , chronic airflow limitation and chronic obstructive respiratory disease , is the co-occurrence of chronic bronchitis and emphysema, a pair of commonly co-existing diseases...
, and is recognized for his contributions to modern spiritual practice.
Air Force career and spirituality
Wilson joined the Air Force in September 1961, and in autumn 1962 he met another airman called Sean who introduced him to ritual practices designed to bring mental focus. Sean's wife also taught Wilson the use of roots and herbs to perform magic spells. Sean coached in a type of spiritual awareness which Joe felt was similar to, but not the same as, witchcraftWitchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. Sean also recommended readings to him, of which the most influential were The White Goddess
The White Goddess
The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, based on earlier articles published in Wales magazine, corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961...
by Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain by Lewis Spence
Lewis Spence
James Lewis Thomas Chalmbers Spence was a Scottish journalist, whose efforts as a compiler of Scottish folklore have proved more durable than his efforts as a poet and occult scholar....
, and The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer . It first was published in two volumes in 1890; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes...
by Sir James George Frazer, however Wilson found Sean's practical teachings more valuable than these written works.
In 1964 Wilson started a four page newsletter he called The Waxing Moon which was "a journal of the old religion" or "a witchcraft newsletter". In 1965 an advertisement for Pentagram in The Waxing Moon put him in contact with Roy Bowers
Roy Bowers
Robert Cochrane , who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English Neopagan witch who founded the tradition known as Cochrane's Craft, which is seen by some to be a form of Wicca but is sometimes considered distinct from it due to Cochrane's opposition to both Gerald Gardner and Gardnerian Wicca.Born...
, alias 'Robert Cochrane', with whom he studied by mail until Bowers' death in 1966. Copies of their letters can be found online. Wilson founded the "1734 Tradition" late 1973 and 1974 when he compiled the Flags, Flax and Fodder booklet. He also participated in the formation of the Covenant of the Goddess
Covenant of the Goddess
The Covenant of the Goddess is a cross-traditional Wiccan group of solitary Wiccan practitioners and over one hundred affiliated covens . It was founded in 1975 in order to increase co-operation among Witches and to secure for Witches and covens the legal protection enjoyed by members of other...
, eventually leaving following their insistence that he adopt the Wiccan Rede
Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede is a statement that provides the key moral system in the Neopagan religion of Wicca and other related Witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is An it harm none, do what ye will....
.
OSI agent
In 1971 Wilson was a staff sergeant stationed at Lakenheath, England, who became a "secret agent" for the Air Force Office of Special InvestigationsAir Force Office of Special Investigations
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations , is a Field Operating Agency of the United States Air Force that provides professional investigative services to commanders throughout the Air Force...
, spying upon his fellow servivicemen who were working from within the military to protest American involvement in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Wilson's testimony against Air Force Captain Thomas Culver http://www.shadowdance.org/toteg/warts18.html led to the latter's court martial; subsequently, writers in the Neo-Pagan and Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
communities of the time branded Wilson as a "warlock" or traitor to paganism.
As Wilson describes it, he spent most of 1971 and 1972 in a "blur" caused by alcoholism. After his testimony against captain Culver, he received "hate mail" from the pagan community, "literally hundreds of letters from people throughout the United States and England. [...] 95% of those letters condemned me. [...] People [...] wrote to tell me what a traitor I was and how much they hated me. Some of the letters threatened my life and the
lives of my family. [...] I think this is when I started serious drinking. Tim Zell of the Church of All Worlds
Church of All Worlds
The Church of All Worlds is a neopagan religious group whose stated mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaia and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and...
and Green Egg wrote something like, 'Joe, how could you. This is terrible. You could have gone down in history as an important founder of the pagan movement. Now you are nothing but a traitor.'"
The 1734 tradition
The 1734 Traditionhttp://www.1734-witchcraft.org/index.html was founded in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during late 1973 and early 1974 http://www.shadowdance.org/toteg/warts26.html by Joe Wilson, who based it on the practices and philosophies of Robert Cochrane
Roy Bowers
Robert Cochrane , who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English Neopagan witch who founded the tradition known as Cochrane's Craft, which is seen by some to be a form of Wicca but is sometimes considered distinct from it due to Cochrane's opposition to both Gerald Gardner and Gardnerian Wicca.Born...
, a British witch with whom Wilson had corresponded, Ruth Wynn Owen, the matriarch of the Plant Bran, and his first teacher whom he calls Sean.http://www.1734-witchcraft.org/ There is also a manifest influence from his own shamanic experiences, as well as some deep magic connected with Luciferian, Hermetic, and Kabbalistic traditions. Joe was careful to identify the Tradition as "Traditional Witchcraft" while still disdaining those ideas of people who had "their great-granny's grimoire" and were "an unbroken line of Witches back to the Ark". (His own words in letters to one of his students). His own definition of Traditional Witchcraft includes the following ideas:....(partial quote) " (it is...)a Craft, a calling, a set of Keys to unlock a particular cosmology that is borne, and born, in the blood of the practitioner, and sets the Work to be done with which one may commune with those who hold the patterns and keys of the life of the practitioner and hir stream. The Work is to be done, and we are to do it."
The "masculine mysteries" of this tradition are associated with fire, the forge, the walk of the Hunter, and the Bone in the Stream. The "feminine mysteries" are associated with the crossroads, the Cauldron, the Hearth, and the Witch Blood as manifested in the flow of creation and destruction. The inner Mysteries are beyond gender and reference a deep Cosmology, the Inner Planes, the Shape of the Universe.
Some have suggested that the term "1734" refers to the year 1734, and that Cochrane traced his "Witch-Blood" back to that date, however this claim has been refuted by a number of 1734 adherents, who claim that the number does not refer to the year. Some claim that it is a cryptogram referring to the name of the Goddess, though others have said that it is a joke by Cochrane. For current practitioners of the Stream of 1734 which is Joe's legacy, the number has layers of meaning which are disclosed to the practitioner, not as a "secret" (Joe disdained any "secret" teachings whatsoever) but as an inner gift, a manifestation of understanding of mystery which can neither be given nor taken but only encountered and comprehended. The number itself is encountered in layer upon layer of lore, and its permutations are still being discovered and deepened by current practitioners of the Tradition.
The numerological number '1724' (a possible misprint in the book), was explained by Doreen Valiente in her 1989 book The Rebirth of Witchcraft. Valiente claimed that Cochrane had given the American witch Justine Glass a photograph of a copper platter with '1724' printed on it for her 1965 book Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense - and Us. He had told Glass that it depicted a witch's ritual bowl that had been in his family for many centuries. Valiente revealed that this was a lie by Cochrane - she had herself, in fact, bought that very item for him only the year before in a Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
antiques shop to be used in a ritual.
Toteg Tribe
The bulk of Joseph's work in his later life had to do with his shamanic walk, which produced first Metista, a spiritual system for non-native people which introduced the concept of interaction with the spirits of ancestry and land which belonged, not to an indigenous tribe, but to the actual familial stream and current geographical location of the practitioner. Metista developed into Toteg Tribe, which is a fully enabled spiritual system consisting of interaction with Mother Earth, Father Sky, the genus loci of a person's geographical location, one's own familial ancestors, and ancestors of culture, heritage, and artistic and intellectual teachers. He also became a student of Catherine YronwodeCatherine yronwode
Catherine "Cat" Yronwode is an American writer, editor, graphic designer, typesetter, publisher, and practitioner of folk magic with an extensive career in the comic book industry....
, studying African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
hoodoo folk magic, and recommending this tradition to his own students in the Toteg Tribe. The Toteg Tribe website may be found at Toteg Tribe The entire text of Joseph's book, "Nature Religion..." is contained on the page, and the book itself is in the process of reprint and will again be available through Amazon in early summer of 2010. His more recent work, "So You Wanna Be A Shaman, Eh?" which was in the process of being edited at the time of his death in 2004, is expected to be released late in 2010 or early in 2011.
By Joe's own hand
In the original Flags, Flax, and Fodder:http://www.cyberwitch.com/1734/ 'Those pesky Riddles'http://www.1734-witchcraft.org/riddles.html"The first question had to do with the symbol that I later adopted to represent the 1734 tradition. The symbol consists of three lines \|/ atop an equal armed cross + and the question was phrased: "This breaks down into 7. Work out what it means." That was a fairly easy one for me. I responded to Roy that what I saw was that it was 1 symbol, made up of 7 parts, of which 3 were the slanted lines above and 4 were the four short lines that met together and made a cross below. So the answer was that the symbol means "1734". I also pointed out that separately the symbols rather graphically depicted the female \|/ and male + (another form of .|.) genitals, and that when symbol was combined rather than separated it showed the union of male and female forces—God the Totality. In commenting upon my correct understanding of that meaning Roy gave more information about the mysticism he associated with that grouping of numerals.
In order to encourage people to study The White Goddess more thoroughly I told them that among the mysteries of the number 1734 was also hidden "a secret name of The Goddess" and that it could be found in that book. Thus a new riddle was born, though in some circles it came to be accepted as a dogma rather than as a means to understanding the poetic language".
External links
- http://www.heartjinart.com/a_little_background.html Heart jin.art Inc website
- 1734 website
- Toteg
- http://www.shadowdance.org/toteg/warts26.html