A friend of mine has recently had a disturbing experience. My friend (let's call her Erica) had a string of personal successes which she was quite proud of. Now Erica is a member of a coven; and also in this coven was a woman-let's name her Madge. Madge is quite a bit older than Erica, has a financially secure lifestyle, and is generally thought to be quite fortunate.

After each of Erica's successes, Madge would suddenly find something wrong with the way Erica had been treating her recently. The last of Erica's successes ended with Madge conducting a nasty gossip war and leaving Erica shut out of her coven and circle.

Erica is, needless to say, quite upset. :ol_devil: She's currently recovering, and part of her recovery was bringing the whole problem to me and dumping it in my lap. (I am afraid I was only thinking of what great material this would be for a short story.)

My question is: is this sort of thing common in covens? I've heard about small groups and covens going haywire. Does anyone know how often this happens? Based on my experience of open Pagan groups, I'd say it's frequent enough to be depressing.

Any thoughts/comments/personal stories?

Note: Names have been changed to protect both the coven and the parties involved.

Jealousy in covens is just as likley to occure as in outside life.

Its natural.

Me and my best mate, (weve known each other since day 1) we still get jealous of each other... We still fight...

No one can be friendly to each other 100% of the time... It will happen at one time or another.

I agree with Blut: I don't think this is a coven-specific thing. It happens in bands, on girls' nights out, in school, in the office, with siblings....and it appears to be a pretty much exclusively female trait.

One way to deal with it might be to talk to Madge in this way:

"Wow Erica's doing well, isn't she? I'm glad for her but you know what. It's making me feel like I'm not living up to my own potential. Do you ever feel like that?"

But maybe that only works on Ricki Lake, I dunno. I just reckon Madge could do with someone to listen to her once in a while.

I did talk to Madge directly (so I'm an idiot, I think things can be solved with honesty, LOL) and she refused to even tlak about Erica. Looking from the outside, I'd say that coven's imploding.

I should do up a Letterman Top 10: "Top Ten Signs Your Coven Is Imploding."

Hey, Lili......
I pretty much agree with what's already been stated. People will be people. Witches included.....we try to be good, but sometimes......

I don't know. I find it strange when I see people who have largely seemed to have stepped out of many of the current constraints and then see them argue about what seems like petty things. Especially among each other. I do not really understand it - the pettiness about things that don't seem they should matter much considering the grand scheme of what they know.

I understand people are still human (and I too am far from perfect), but still, it is wierd how sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. It is nice to see it when people do not act petty any longer about silly things and when they learn to get along first before the silliness.