An open invitation to solitaries.

Welcome to the CUEW website!
CUEW is the organizational body of Universal Eclectic Wicca. Unlike a lot of groups, who just don't seem to understand that the solitary is the heart and soul of Wicca, UEW is a tradition that has always been open and accepting of its many solitary practitioners. That being said, we recognize that the concept of a solitary practitioner is quite a different thing now than it was when Scott Cunningham wrote Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner or when Raymond Buckland wrote that his Complete Book of Witchcraft could stand in for the presence of a teacher. Both books are artifacts of a pre-digital age, a time when you could not log in and find Wiccans across the country, of all ages and social classes.

Ten years ago, when Coven of The Far Flung Net was just beginning, the Internet was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Now, it really is almost everywhere, at work, at school, and more often than not, at home. This means that even if you are a solitary you're not completely solitary, because you have access to virtual sources of learning and community, at all levels of quality, quantity and access. This makes things a little more difficult for groups like UEW, which has always been accessible to solitaries, because we are now much more invested in our solitary practitioners than we ever were before.

The solitary model of the past basically worked like this. You found a book, you read it, you did some stuff and you were a defacto member of a tradition. Authors like Cunningham and Buckland didn't worry that you'd go out and teach a dozen people, or a hundred people, because if you were in a location that had access to a large Pagan community you weren't likely to be attracted to solitary practice, and even if you were the rare predatory type who would use Wicca to achieve bad ends (for example, scamming people out of money) you were going to be constrained by the strength of your Pagan community. In a city with a big community, a bad Pagan teacher would be promptly shot down, and in a place with a community of only two or three people the bad teacher would be limited in effect size as well as their and interaction with the broader community.

Today, however, distance and isolation have vanished. You can find Wiccans and people calling themselves Wiccan with a few clicks of the mouse, and they range in quality from the best people on earth to the absolute worst. It is for this reason that UEW offers opportunities for solitaries that no other traditions do, although if the future is like the past, we can be sure others will follow our lead again and start offering the same benefits. In short, UEW offers (and has always offered) affiliation with the tradition completely free of charge to those who believe in the tenets of the tradition and practice within them.

The easiest (but most limited) way to join UEW is as an unaffiliated solitary. This follows the solitary model from before Wiccans stormed the net. In essence, an unaffiliated UEW solitary is a person who reads UEW books and websites, practices what those websites and books teach and keeps it to him/herself. S/he has no standing in UEW or CUEW, does not hold a "circle" (degree) of UEW and cannot (ethically or legally) teach UEW to another person. We have no way of knowing how many such unaffiliated solitaries there are, because they don't talk to us, and we don't talk to them (unless they want to email us and say "howdy" or whatever :-)). All we can do is hope they are good people who are actual solitaries, not the types who'd set themselves up as heads of covens or such and act as if we speak on their behalf and they speak on ours. We can't do that with people we don't know! If we find you doing this, it may not be pretty. Anyone who wishes to join UEW as an unaffiliated solitary MAY, if they desire, also ask to be added to our mailing list for solitaries, UEW-S@googlegroups.com and interact with other solitaries there. We simply ask that you practice good netiquette and common sense. If you would like to join such a list, write to cffn1@cuew.org and remove the 1 before sending so we don't get spammed.

The next easiest way to join UEW for a solitary is to join an online group. The Coven of the Far Flung Net, Coven of Non-Fluffy Wicca and Vircle are all teaching groups that operate online with the assumption that you, the solitary, are practicing Wicca offline, on your own, as well as participating in lessons or activities. These groups accept people of various levels, and have the major benefit of bestowing circles upon their members. With the addition of Vircle to the line-up, all three circles of UEW are now available online to qualified students. If you have dozens of years of experience, but cannot provide adequate evidence of that experience, you should strongly consider joining Coven of the Far Flung Net as a beginner, as there is no shame in doing so, and learning from the beginning is often a way to find things you missed. Furthermore, if you go through the circles of a group like CFFN with a lot of experience, you can be sure that your lessons will benefit from the experience and that your unique eye and abilities can help us improve them. Even better, the interaction with the UEW community is a good way to decide whether UEW is the right tradition for you!

A little harder, or not (depending on where you live,) is to join an offline group. UEW has the concept of both covens and teaching circles, and part of being in a UEW coven or teaching circle is being a solitary as well. No Wiccan who only participates in their faith when in a group is "really getting" their faith. In UEW we're Wiccan 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not just in the circle. The CUEW links section lists groups that are taking members or students. If you know of a UEW group not listed there, please ask them to contact us so that we can add them!
Hardest of all, although some people have an easy time doing it, is finding a mentor who has gone through at least the first two circles of UEW and is willing to either provide a vouch for your training or train you themselves. Members of the Third Circle, few though they be, are especially good mentors, because they've gone through the whole ball of wax and know what it's like. Some mentors will even review the materials you've collected and allow you to skip the first circle altogether, provided you can demonstrate a strong understanding of all of that material.

The majority of members of UEW are in the Second Circle or have completed the Second Circle but felt no need to go into the Third. This is because our Second Circle people are the equivalent of many other tradition's Third Degree, without as much of the specialized community leading training that many good traditions provide to those in their Third Degree. We recognize that many Wiccans only want to be their own priest or priestess, not the leader of a group or coven, and we neither assume nor require that people take that responsibility, although a leadership responsibility is often required to complete the Second Circle, just so that everyone can know what it feels like.

Your experiences as a solitary may allow you to join UEW as a member of the Second Circle, but more importantly than that, you gain the ability to not only be a member of the anonymous community of the Internet but also to be member of a real, living tradition, a real, legal church and a group with a physical, as well as virtual, existence, free of charge, as always.
The ball is in your court, now, if UEW is the tradition for you. Our doors are open, and all those who come in honesty and openness, with a love for Wicca in their hearts, are welcome.

But I Want a Group!

Good news - we have both online and offline groups that are growing and being added to all the time. Our online groups are the Coven of the Far Flung Net (CFFN), the Coven of Non Fluffy Wicca (CNFW) and Vircle. The in-person groups are growing as we speak, and are listed in our links section. Keep checking back as people become eligible to start their own groups.