DT - When is a group a Tradition

One of the questions that I see come up periodically is that of when a group or practice becomes a Tradition. So I thought it might be interesting to discuss the idea.

I do not believe that one can simply start out a new group and call it a Tradition. To my mind, the word "Tradition" implies something which has been done consistently over time. A new group might come up with a specific set of practices that it will be using, but until those practices are passed down through time they are not "traditional".

I have seen a number of different ways of looking at what sort of track record there needs to be before a group becomes a Tradition.

Witchvox requires that a Tradition have at least three working groups within it, and that it must be at least a year old before it is considered valid.

Brock wrote an essay on forming Traditions which can be found at http://www.tangledmoon.org/traditions.htm

My personal outlook on Traditions is that they must...

1. Be identifiably different in their practice from other groups.

2. Have a means for passing on their unique lore and practice to newcomers to their group.

3. Have passed down a consistent body of practice and lore through at least 3 generations of students. (ie: Founders form the group and teach one group of students to initiation. Then those students teach their own students to initiation.)

4. Survives the death, retirement, or other loss of the Founder.

I'd be interested to hear others input on this topic.

-Lark-