I’ve been thinking about what
lineages mean and don’t mean in Wicca. 
In a world where the Sacred can be approached from almost any direction,
what does being Faery or Gardnerian or Alexandrian or Reclaiming mean compared
to being self-initiated?

After all, traced back far enough,
every lineage leads to someone who was “self-initiated.

I think lineages provide a
“scaffolding” within which a person makes his or her own connection to the
Sacred.  They introduce you to a
community which may or may not be spiritually aware, and almost certainly will
have some people who are wise and some people who are fools.  They introduce you to people who have
been where you are at one point, and presumably have accumulated considerable
knowledge to make your own path a little bit easier – at the cost of being
tempted to think there may be only one right way to do something.

Lineages give us a sense of
connection through time – as long as the lineage extends.  This can feel really good.  They can provide a fund of collective
experience that has been passed on. 
Some of this experience reflects wisdom hard gained, and some, to me,
reflects puffed up self-importance by those doing the passing.

Some lineages have special
knowledge they pass to their initiates. 
Most have special ways of doing things that are in essence well known by
being done in other ways in other lineages.  Some of these things are closely guarded secrets.

Whether a person is a part of a
good coven is to my mind vastly more important than to what lineage they
belong.  Second in importance is having a good teacher (unless the person gets deeply involved in the shamanic or occult aspects of Pagan practice, in which case reverse the order.)  Last, and by comparison not all that important, is whether the lineage is old or new  or the group is self-initiated.

I‘m in a grumpy mood regarding
lineages at the moment.  An initiate in a respected lineage, and whom I know, was deeply disrespected  by other
lineage holders in a new town to where she moved.  They wanted to reinitiate her after she studied with
them – to make sure she was up to whatever kind of snuff that mattered to them.  I won’t mention identifying details because
it might cause her difficulties with idiots in the Pagan community there, but
she wisely said “Forget it” and now circles with some Druids.  Their gain, and in retrospect I doubt she lost anything important at all.