The following piece was
originally published in The Heart of the Initiate: Feri
Lessons by Victor and Cora Anderson (posthumous collection),
copyright © 2010 Victor E. Anderson.
Foreword
THIS BOOK IS A VALENTINE from Victor and Cora
Anderson to you. For those of us who are their initiates, the
Andersons live on through the many personal recordings and letters
we hold close and treasure. We’re grateful for this opportunity
to share rare insights into the Andersons’ teachings, and
offer you an intimation of what it was like to be their student.
Victor Anderson was a taskmaster. He took pride in testing his
students. I recall him grilling me on the meaning behind a story
he told about a missionary who visits Tahiti and refuses flowers
from a beautiful woman. After carefully considering Victor’s
words, I finally spoke up that it was about the missionary declining
to make love to the woman, and thus refusing her the gift of
a child. Victor beamed. I was always happy to please him with
a correct response.
I’ll never forget the sensation of Victor putting me under
the protection of Oro. Victor directed me to create a small spear
and tie bright red feathers to its dull end. When I had completed
this task, he held the spear, sharp tip up, and declared it was
time for the ceremony to begin. I knelt before him as he leaned
forward in his rocking chair, carefully aiming the spear above
my head. The ceremony was brief but powerful. I could feel heat
radiating from the core of my body. When I told him how warm I
felt, he laughed. “It means it worked,” he said.
The vision that Cora had that rainy afternoon was equally powerful.
During the ceremony, she said she saw a beautiful man standing
in a tree, with brilliant, long feathers dangling from his torso.
Victor smiled and said that that was Oro. Cora was delighted by
this vision, and I felt privileged to be in their company and
under Oro’s protection.
The details of that memory were nearly lost until last month,
when I transcribed the recording we have of that afternoon. Listening
closely, I was transported back to their living room, felt their
presence, and heard the rain pattering outside.
When Victor passed away in 2001, Cora was devastated, yet she
endured, found her inner resolve, and faced her challenges with
a sharp wit and a delicious sense of humor. Although Cora was
bedridden as a result of a stroke she suffered in 1998, she was
determined to see her husband’s poetry back in print. She
had a keen insight few possess. I quickly learned to turn to her
for advice on life, the Craft, and how best to present their literary
works. I still feel like I can consult her, and I am confident
she helped inspire this book’s production in her own way,
from the other side of the veil.
I hope The Heart of the Initiate offers its reader a taste
of what it was like to study under the Andersons. It’s often
said that the difference between what they taught their initiates
and what they taught the occasional visitor was distinguished
by the depth of the material the Andersons delivered. As witness
to them teaching both parties, I can say that this is true. This
book provides a glimpse into the heart of Feri as Victor and Cora
Anderson knew it. Gaze carefully, for as Victor often said, we
are a martial tradition. And remember Cora’s advice: never,
ever give your power away.
—Jim Schuette
February 1, 2010
Jim is an initiate of Victor and Cora Anderson and a founding member
of Mandorla coven. He and his partner operate Acorn Guild
Press.
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