Thanks for the further references on the Yezidi,  Robert. My daughter came home excited from a college class wherein each student had been asked to share" something from their culture" (this was in Palo Alto, California, where 57 different languages had been spoken in the homes of her middle school class). In the college class, one young lady had brought a peacock feather and explained, "This is a symbol of my people's God." My daughter wasn't able to speak to her after class because of time constraints, but planned to try to talk to her next class meeting. Unfortunately, the girl had dropped the class, and my daughter hasn't seen her again. I don't know how many Yezidi are around here: I have heard of no others. I have been told the largest American Yezidi community is in Wichita, Kansas. There are (thankfully) few books written about the Feri tradition. Those by the Andersons are the best (the last of them, "Heart of an Initiate", is a collection of letters, edited by a senior initiate). Starhawk's books, though good, are not strictly Feri: more Reclaiming, which is eclectic with heavy Dianic and Feri influences. I haven't read Thorn Coyle's books, but I'm told by several fellow Feri folk that they are also good: Thorn is well-respected in the Feri community, and very open about the different influences (such as Sufism) that inform her perspective. There are, by my count, 12 people who are both traditional Feri initiates and also Gardnerians (all 3rd degree Gards: Feri has no degrees, though some lineages use a quasi-degree system for training purposes). My personal observation is that Gards as a group are heavier on the air side: lots of scholars (pro or amateur). Feris, on the other hand, are largely watery: mostly artists and/or helping professionals (therapists, etc.). Few of us  are eager to see more books written, as we feel that maybe 5% of anything important can be approached in words (note "approached", not "expressed"). Books can be useful, but they can also give the impression that handed-down knowledge is more important than personal experience of the Divine. Of course, in a group like this one, a historical (rather than practice-oriented) book would be more to the point; and, as was pointed out, that book has yet to be written. Should anyone wish to take on that project,  the first person to interview would be Anaar, who has mentioned communication with the children of Victor's old group in Oregon; after that, probably Victor's son, and the senior initiates, who have begun to die off. My 2 cents. Regards, Valerie Voigt Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android From:"Robert Mathiesen" <[log in to unmask]> Date:Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:58 Subject:Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] BOOKS: The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion I do not know enough about Feri to offer more than a small suggestion, but among William B. Seabrook's many books is one called _Adventures in Arabia_ (1927), which contain in its last two chapters an interesting account of Yazidi teaching about the Peacock Angel as told to him by a priest of the principal Yazidi shrine of Sheikh Adi at Lalish.  (The book can be read on line gratis through the good offices of the Hathi Trust.)  From the very little I know about Victor Anderson's views, I suspect he would have found these chapters to be of great interest.  I would be interested to know whether Pitch and Valerie would find echoes of Seabrook's account in Victor's teaching, even if hey are not permitted to be more specific than a bare acknowledgement of similarity. More generally, many of Seabrook's books reflect his long-standing interest in figuring out how to make magic work.  His _Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today_ (1940), which clearly had a heavy influence on both Gardner and/or his initiators and Maria de Naglowska, is the best known of these books, but by no means the only one that merits the attention of any practicing magician. Robert On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 11:45 AM, Pitch313 <[log in to unmask]> wrote: On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 00:57:56 -0700, Caroline Tully <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Hi Sabina, How interesting! Right... I'm a bit vague on Feri, so while I knew there was some sort of peacock deity in there, I don't know much else about it. Or should I say "them" as apparently many Feri initiates taught directly by Victor have found that he presented Feri to them all completely differently, so it doesn't seem to be one of those Witchcraft Trads that can be smoothed out into it "canonical" characteristics. The current of the Feri Tradition that I learned does include The Peacock Angel as a member of its pantheon. I'd say that few claims are made about direct linkages with Yezidi culture, even if the deity's origin there gets recognized. Both groups enjoy a relationship with the same deity, but that relationship is different for each group. I certainly have no idea how or when The Peacock Angel entered the Feri pantheon, but I favor Valerie Voight's suggestion that the deity entered as a result of practice and ritual contact. Let me add that post WII world events have re-located once exotic cultures and folkways across the globe. Yezedis are no exception. This sort of cultural contact adds to the continual cultural jostling that all of us experience. My sense is that, somehow, the appearance of a Yezidi deity in a Neopagan pantheon primarily recognized on the North American West Coast is a small part of this cultural jostling. Musing Yezidis On The Internetz! Rose, Pitch -- Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com