The Gardnerian path is walked in three steps. Each is entered by its own rite of initiation, each carries its own duties, and none of them can be hurried.
The system of three degrees is one of the features that the Craft shares with the fraternal lodges and magical orders that flourished in Britain in the century before it appeared. In the Craft the degrees are not ranks in a hierarchy so much as stages of responsibility. Each is conferred by a rite of initiation. Among Gardnerians the second and third are called elevations.
The signs of the degrees
First degree
Priestess or priest, and witch
Written as a triangle with its point downward.
Second degree
High Priestess or High Priest
Written as a pentagram with its point downward.
Third degree
Full and independent standing
Written as an upright pentagram with a triangle above it.
These signs are the ones initiates have traditionally written after their names in letters to one another. The inverted pentagram of the second degree has, in the Craft, none of the sinister meaning that films have since attached to it.
The first degree
The first initiation makes a person a witch. It admits them to the coven and to the priesthood together, for in the Craft there is no laity: every initiate is a priestess or a priest. The new witch swears the oath, is shown the working tools, takes a Craft name, and begins to copy the Book of Shadows.
A first-degree witch takes a full part in the coven's circles. Their task is to learn: the rites, the skills of the circle, the lore of the tradition, and above all the habit of regular practice. It is the degree of the apprentice, and there is no shame in remaining in it for many years. Some witches never seek to go further, and are valued members of their covens all their lives.
The second degree
The second degree confers the title of High Priestess or High Priest. It marks the point at which a witch stops being only a learner and begins to be responsible for others. A second-degree initiate helps to teach, may lead a circle, and in some covens may initiate others under the eye of their own elders.
The rite includes the telling of a myth, the Legend of the Descent of the Goddess, in which the Goddess goes down into the realm of Death to learn its mystery. Gardner published the legend in Witchcraft Today, and we say something about it on the page about death and rebirth. It is fair to say that the second degree asks the initiate to face something in themselves, and that those who have passed it do not speak of it lightly.
The third degree
The third degree is the completion of the path. Its central mystery is the Great Rite, the sacred marriage of the Goddess and the God, which in nearly all covens today is celebrated in token, with the athame and the cup. That is all we shall say about it.
A third-degree witch has full standing in the tradition. They may found a coven and lead it without reference to anyone, initiate through all three degrees, and pass the tradition on entire. With that freedom comes the whole weight of the tradition's future, since every coven that will exist in fifty years' time will have been founded by someone who holds this degree now.
How long it takes
The traditional least interval is a year and a day: between acceptance for training and the first degree, and between each degree and the next. In practice it is nearly always longer. In our own coven, two or three years between degrees is ordinary, and nobody initiated here has yet reached the third in fewer than seven years.
The intervals are not a rule about time. A degree is given when the High Priestess and High Priest judge that the person is already, in everything but name, doing what the degree describes. Some people are ready soon. Some are never ready for the second or third, and that is no reflection on them as witches.
| Degree | What it confers | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| First | Membership of the coven and the priesthood. A Craft name. The beginning of the Book. | To learn, to practise, to keep the oath. |
| Second | The title of High Priestess or High Priest. The right to teach and to lead a circle. | To take responsibility for others. |
| Third | Full standing. The right to found and lead an independent coven and to initiate in all degrees. | To carry the tradition and hand it on whole. |
What the degrees are not
They are not a measure of spiritual attainment. A third-degree witch is not holier than a first, and may well be less wise. They are not a ladder that everyone is expected to climb. And they are never to be had for money, for favours or for the asking. A coven in which degrees are handed out quickly, or sold, or used to bind people to its leader, has lost the thread, and a seeker who meets one should walk away.
The degrees also give no authority outside a witch's own coven. A third-degree High Priestess visiting another coven is a guest. The Craft has elders, whose advice is sought because they have earned it. It has no bishops.