Young Tradition? Part One: What is 1734?

With everything I’ve written, I realized I have never explained what is being done here, in my own practice, and what form of Craft it is that I practice. What is Young Tradition? Well, firstly, it is 1734, and that isn’t saying much, except that 1734 was developed in America in the 1970’s by Joe Bearwalker Wilson who was no high priest, no Gerald Gardner, no Alex Sanders, and not interested in building his own cult or setting up his own rules or tradition. The 1734 site is in the link on the border of this page, and Wilson declared 1734 a combination of one man called Sean. A welsh wise woman, Ruth Wynn Owen and the writings of Robert Cochrane, the alias of Roy Bower. Cochrane is supposed to be only a third of the influence on 1734, but he is the most famous, with the biggest paper trail, and he is also the founder or a more cohesive tradition, the Clan of Tubal Cain. His often inscrutable letters have the quality of a bazaar scripture and people love to pour over them. Some who practice 1734, therefore, very often like to compare themselves to the Clan of Tubal Cain and seize upon their relation to that group. I respect that group, and there are SOME similarities, but Robert Cochrane is only ONE source of 1734.

            1734 does,in fact, have a sister, and it is the Tribe of Toteg, also founded by Joe Wilson. But back to 1734. one third of it is Robert Cochrane but the other two thirds, like the Father and the Holy Ghost, are Ruth Owen a man only called Sean, are less explicable. Luckily there is a book by Lyn Webster Wilde who seems to have been involved in something like what Gwen was in, or even the same thing, and it seems as many people have heard of her as have heard of Ruth. Indeen, she used the same terms, House of Arianrhod, the Spiral Castle,  that find themselves in Ruth Owen and in 1734. Regarding Sean, Wilson says this teacher taught him more or less honesty and a way to move through life where his magic was not simply silly rituals, but something that moved practically into an earnest effort to do right in the world and affect a change. So 1734 is vague. It is a system more than a dogma, and there are people practicing it who are doing something very different from what I do.

Much like the Welsh tradition followed by Ruth Owen and Lyn Webster Wilde, and much like Clan of Tubal Cain, 1734 veers away from the words pagan and neopagan and, to some extent,  the pagan community. In fact, 1734 veers away swiftly from calling too much attention to itself, this is not a matter of fear, but of the conservation of power and wisdom, of not letting the focus on the work be diluted by trappings, frivolity or, for that matter, the search for society and belonging. It is a system, not a dogma. It is religion in the oldest of forms, a real Way of doing things with no fixed form. It is made of, on one leg, Pellercraft as represented by Robert Cochrane, but also Gemma Gary and other Cornish practitioners. It is made of the British or more specifically, Welsh Mystery Traditions with ties to the Mabinogion, and it is possessed of an American spirit, linked to the land and the elements which have blessed the land as well as the various magical traditions of all the people who have settled in it. 1734 is possessed of a spirit for true effectiveness in the world. It made known in wisdom, justice, and the search for truth. It veers from the legalism and dogma of Wicca and, in some ways, even walks away from the amorality represented in some forms of pellercraft. It is a way where magic is practiced, but magic is not the point, where one may be called a witch, but witch means far more than sorcerer. In the end, Robert Cochrane may have stated it best.

A 'driving thirst for knowledge' is the for-runner of wisdom. Knowledge is a state that all organic life possesses, wisdom is the reward of the spirit, gained in the search for knowledge. Truth is variable - what is true now will not be true tomorrow, since the temporal truths are dependent upon ethics and social mores - therefore wisdom is possibly eternal truth, untouched by Man's condition. So we come to the heart of the People, a belief that is based upon eternity, and not upon social needs or pressures - the 'witch' belief then is concerned with wisdom, our true name then is the Wise People, and wisdom is our aim.

Now that we've touched on 1734, though there is certainly more to learn at the links on the side, we shall next touch upon exactly what is going on in Young Tradition.