We call them Formalization/Founding Documents, because the Establishment of the Garden of Life Temple as an Open Organization recognized under Federal, State and Local Statute is a Formalization of an Organization that has represented the same Spiritual Current since formulation (in the current Incarnation, anyway) on the Winter Solstice of 1973ce. A consensus reality concerning the timeliness of open recognition started emerging within the Temple in l994ce. Gradually, the annoyance at what an Organization was supposed to do, and submit in the way of Documentation, for recognition of legal status from the Government, gave way to fascination with the Process.
Did we have a Creed?
Did we have Sacraments?
What would our 
Structure be?
What was the Intent of our Organization?
What was our Charter?
What would we submit as a working Document to Organize our Organization, not only for now, but for the Future?
Frankly, we would recommend the process to any Organization, whether seeking legal recognition or not. The Knowledge we acquired about Ourselves and the World we live in, by going through this process (not that we're actually completely finished yet, but close) is irreplaceable, and probably unobtainable in any other fashion.
When a Group that has been doing Circles together for twenty years, sits down and defines what it is that keeps them together, and that they Believe together, it is a fabulous thing. There are Tears and Laughter, Terror and Joy, Passion and PsychoDrama, and that's just determining the Name. But we hammered out a Creed, (as well as a Name) and in so defining it, Strengthened our Belief. That sort of delineation is one of the Goodnesses that we must keep from the passing Patriarchal Linear age, else the World endured it in vain. The emerging Aeon is that of the Crowned and Conquering Child, and to the Ancient Sumerians and Ægyptians, who looked ahead, past the Patriarchy to it, what was meant was many things. First the Child, Ideally: the Actualization combining the Best of the Characteristics of the Mother and the Father (in this case the Matrifocal Age and the Patriarchal Age). Also, as the Child is the beginning of the Individual, this Heralded Aeon was seen as the beginning of that uniquely Human Civilization which will go to the Stars.
Putting down Words on Paper to define our Sacraments was a much more difficult and more rewarding task. To actually come up with terminology for Experiences, that are Real to the Core, yet beyond the Imagination. Read ours, and see what you think. Whether you are Solitary or part of a Group, probably some of yours are the same as ours, and some are different. Correspond with us about these things, if it be your Will.
We defined our positions on Membership and Leadership with an eye toward avoiding the basic problems of Organizations that had to be Secret for so long for safety's sake. Basically to avoid the Membership by whim of the Leader or Leaders problem, and to keep the Leadership broad enough to avoid the widespread problem of perfectly wonderful Circles deteriorating into Personality Cults (never pretty, no matter who the personality, and certainly no way to build for tomorrow).
The discussions delineating our Intent in becoming an Open Organization, were difficult because it was in these discussions that we faced the "Fear of the Burnings". (We might as well talk about it, every Pagan Group deals with it) The reality of these fears can't be dismissed, each Individual has to decide what they are willing to do. For some it is the relatively minor fears of pressure at work or from family if one suddenly finds oneself "out of the broomcloset", and with no broom. It escalates into fear of losing one's employment and the concomitant fear of making ends meet. And at the end there is the fear of actually being burned or killed as we were in the Dark Ages (Let's just call them that, its what they were, enough equivocation about Medieval Period or Middle Ages. Until the essentially Pagan Renaissance and Enlightenment arrived; the Christists were reinforcing the Feudal System and Killing every Individual and Burning every Book that disagreed with them. It was the Dark Ages) But like so many other Groups in the past twenty years or so finally most (not all) of us decided it was just: time.
We wrote a Charter, with Intentional Resonance with the Declaration of Independence of these United States, both because we felt the situation was similar, and felt an admiration for those Men who contributed toward and wrote it.
Most of those Men were Deist, Transcendentalist, Atheist or Agnostic, and they viewed the Christist abuses of power in the Old World with disdain.
Then we signed it.
We started putting together the Articles of Organization
with a desire to make a document that would hold up for the next several
hundred years. We don't need all the structure now but we probably will
in time, and if not we can always change it.
We are, after all:
NeoPhiles.
Garden of Life Articles of Organization Basic Table of Contents
(Linked by Article Number.)
Garden of Life Articles of Organization Comprehensive Table of Contents
(Linked by Article Number, we will add detailed links to the Comprehensive Table of Contents and the Index, so that it will be possible to go to any subject directly, however, that will take some time.)
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