Thursday, May 27, 2021

Connected and Disconnected Qualities on the Wheel of Virtue.

 

In my previous work, ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Meditations on Mapping the Wiccan qualities onto the wheel of the year’, I outlined the scheme linking the Qualities to the sabbats and described their progression in a dynamic cycle. I stated that it was not possible to work the WoV in reverse, and not possible to use the opposites of the qualities either, as they do not make for progression. There is, however, a different form of variation which can be made to work for the duration of one cycle, although it does not lead to a renewal of the cycle at its termination, for reasons which will become apparent. This variation is made by considering whether the root of the Quality of the sabbat is expressed as a connection of the God with the rest of the world (or the king with the community) or if there is no such connection and the round is being worked for the sole selfish ends of the God/king without reference to the world/community. The sabbats/connected qualities/disconnected qualities are as follows:


Sabbat              Connected Quality      Disconnected Quality

Yule                   Compassion                  Indulgence

Imbolc                Humility                         Indifference

Ostara                Mirth                              Mockery

Beltane              Beauty                           Narcissism

Litha                   Power                           Tyranny   

Lammas             Honour                          Conceit

Autumn              Reverence                     Idolatry

Samhain            Strength                         Brutality

 

The connected and disconnected Qualities can appear to be quite similar on the surface in some cases, but they lead to the opposite outcome. The connected Qualities are essential for the healthy development of the interconnected community served by the Gods. The disconnected qualities are perversions of these, compromised to the service of the individual embodying the God role, and inimical to the greater good. The disconnected wheel proceeds as follows:

 

Yule/Indulgence:

The motivation of Compassion should lead to the formation of a fresh cycle of the God’s rule, addressing and correcting the problems of the prior cycle. Unwillingness to do this leads instead to the decay of compassion to indulgence. Rather than being an active quality seeking to improve on previous practices and correct the flaws of the previous rule, Indulgence is oblivious to the flaws and instead turns a blind eye to the injustices of that rule. Both qualities address the issue of justice, but whereas Compassion transcends justice, Indulgence suppresses it.

 

Imbolc/Indifference:

The Quality of Humility allows a proper formulation of the situation which the God is moving into. It is, in a sense, passive, but it is not static. There is an ongoing absorption of information and establishment of context in preparation for active consideration. With Indifference there is no novel consideration to be made. The details of the situation are instead irrelevant, as there is no intention to change anything or to act in accordance with new data. Rather than being informed by the truth of the situation, there is a wall protecting the ongoing ignorance of the operator from any hint of a need for things to change.

 

Ostara/Mockery:

The Quality of Mirth is an activation of the faculty of perceiving value and discerning the good as a precondition for the pursuit of that good and its enactment. Mockery is a perversion of that faculty in the service of actively rejecting the fresh good, preferring to retain the old. Mockery focuses on any and all perceived or imagined faults and inconsistencies in the good in a hyper-critical rejection of any possibility of change to the status quo.

 

 

Beltane/Narcissism:

The Quality of Beauty points to the path that needs to be taken to establish the new paradigm of the reborn God. It is an embodiment of that which is fittest to grant the necessary agency to found the new order. In the case of the disconnected Quality, there is no new order to be established. There is just the continuation of that which has gone before, and the image which embodies that sort of stasis, the image of one’s highest ideal, is the image of the self. There is no path beyond what is, no love higher than self-obsession and a dread of change and anything which might lead to it.

 

Litha/Tyranny:

The Quality of Power is the capability to act in the service of the world and the community which you embody and represent. It is used to create and manage the sort of world and the sort of order which has been mandated as an improvement on or the next step from the previous cycle. The disconnected quality is Tyranny. There is no thought of service toward the world or the community. Power is wielded for the sake of the wielder. No general improvement in things is contemplated. The general good is instead diminished as resources and activity are devoted to satisfying the personal and private demands of the tyrant.

 

Lammas/Conceit:

The Quality of Honour is essential for the acceptance of the need for sacrifice and the termination of the reign of the God-king. It is a recognition of the true nature of One’s function and purpose and of the proper limits of One’s authority and agency. The God incarnated for a purpose, and when that purpose is achieved, He must relinquish His hold on the world. The disconnected Quality recognises no such limitation. What should have been Honour, a principled recognition of the appropriate limits of action becomes Conceit, a limitless self-regard which will accept no restriction ever on what has become rulership for its own sake, divorced from any concept of the common good. The duty of sacrifice is eschewed, and the rule of the King becomes predatory, consuming His own people.

 

Autumn Equinox/Idolatry: (Flattery).

The Quality of Reverence gives proper acknowledgement to the accomplishments of the God after his passing. If this does not occur, the disconnected Quality is Idolatry, honouring outward form of the virtues which the King should have embodied but failed to do. This Idolatry is demanded by authority, but the object of veneration is an empty shell. None may acknowledge the truth lest the illusion be shattered. The mantle of virtue resting upon His shoulders is a lie, but it must be maintained as part of the machinery of Power.

 

Samhain/Brutality:

The ‘connected’ Quality of Strength is similar to Beauty insofar as it is a Quality imposed on us from outside rather than displayed by ourselves, but as with Narcissism, the disconnected Quality is one which is displayed by us. The disconnected Quality of Samhain is brutality. Death’s overwhelming Strength not only draws all things into its realm in the end, it also offers reflection, healing and renewal. In order to fulfill the final function of commencing a new cycle of the wheel, the Descent of the Goddess is a necessary element. Beauty performs the same function in the Underworld as in the manifest world. It points to the direction of renewed life and betterment of that which has gone before. The new cycle is not the same as the old. The experience gained provides new material from which to fashion the new paradigm for the founding of the new order of things. Beauty opens the capacities of Strength beyond what Strength alone can achieve. What happens in a round informed by the ‘disconnected’ Qualities? Beauty cannot point to the external good when the only good recognised is narcissistic self-regard. The elements of the cycle which were deemed not useful to the selfish purposes of the ‘disconnected’ God remain rejected. They remain ‘damned’ in the underworld, with no possibility of redemption and new creation. The system is locked in stasis, and for all practical purposes, the wheel turns only once with no path leading beyond. The Strength which should be wielded in the service of new creation is instead locked into the perpetual persecution of whatever is rejected, and is thus properly recast as Brutality. The disconnected Qualities thus lead to a one-shot universe of the Christian sort, with eternal damnation as the chief feature of the Underworld, rather than the healing and renewal in preparation for new life which is the feature of the Summerlands of the craft.

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