Self-Initiation and Open Practice

Seax-Wica and eclectic solitary Wiccans affirm self-initiation and open, non-secretive practice, that a person may dedicate themselves to the craft on their own, without initiation by an established coven, and that its teachings need not be kept under oath of secrecy. Raymond Buckland built these principles into Seax-Wica in reaction to the closed, lineage-guarded model of earlier Wicca, publishing its rituals openly, and the wider eclectic and solitary movement has embraced self-initiation as a legitimate entry into Wiccan life.

Raymond Buckland had himself been initiated into Gardnerian Wicca in England by Gardner's high priestess Monique Wilson before bringing the tradition to the United States in 1962, so his later departure from lineage-based initiation was a considered break from a system he had personally undergone rather than an outsider's alternative; he founded Seax-Wica in 1973 and set out its rituals openly in his 1974 book The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft, explicitly designing a tradition that required no initiator and no secrecy, a deliberate rejection of exactly the closed, oath-bound structure that had governed his own entry into the craft a decade earlier.