One of my favorite non-fiction books published this year was Rob Young’s “Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music,” a wide-ranging, adventurous, and  deeply pleasing work that traces the beginnings, rise, and legacy of British folk music. Not content to merely provide discographies and musical influences, Young digs deeper into the romanticism, yearnings, and spiritual dimensions of making a “British” music, mapping an “Other Britain” or “Albion” that exists as an ideal, a repository of the nation’s constructed hopes and aspirations. Young also makes connections between folklore, folk music, and the then-emerging Witchcraft revival. I was lucky enough to conduct a short interview with Young recently about the book, quizzing him about everything from Cecil Sharp to Nick Drake’s “pagan” tendencies.

Rob Young, author of "Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music."

You seem to touch often on the theme of there being a Britain, and an “Other Britain.” The “Electric Eden” or “Albion” created by “fragments and survivals” from a distant and often romanticized past. The thing that links Cecil Sharp to “The Wicker Man” to modern artists like Sharron Kraus, Julian Cope, or Kate Bush in your book. Could you talk a bit about how this Other Britain came to be?

I feel it’s something that has slowly, organically formed itself over decades, even centuries, mainly through a very particular seam of cultural artefacts and artists. A figure like William Blake is crucial here – in poems like ‘Milton’ and ‘Jerusalem’ he invoked a Britain of the Druids, and painted ancient monuments like Stonehenge (without actually having seen it), and a spiritual lineage in Britain that connected with the pre-Christian era. For him that would have been a way of evading the strictures of the organised church which was an anathema, and of course he was fascinated with the myth of Adam and Eve, the pure state of mankind before the Fall, which seems to underlie much Romantic nature writing of the same period. Blake’s distrust of the ‘dark Satanic mills’ of capitalism was taken up by the likes of William Morris, another figure very important to the opening pages of my book, with his passionate opposition to the destructive forces of Victorian industry and ‘improvement’.

It’s a very complex question, but really I think the industrial revolution has much to do with it – beginning around 1760, when a Parliamentary act called ‘Inclosure’ forcibly removed common lands from the folk and scooped them into private ownership. That pushed many agricultural workers towards the new cities and factories where the only remaining employment opportunities lay. This displacement is at the bottom of so much of the British empathy with the countryside, I believe, as so much utopian thought and music here seems to desire to tap into folk memories of an unsullied rural state of mind which now appears like a golden age. Surviving relics from the world before that industrial ‘Fall’ are revered: old buildings, texts, songs, etc, are like talismans to be treasured, as a connective chain to the past. A lot of the artists you mention in the question have made work which seems to reach back to this mythical age – the fantasy/fairytale aspects of Kate Bush; Julian Cope’s interest in prehistoric megaliths, The Wicker Man which is like an encyclopedia of British folk customs and costumes, imagining a fully functioning British pagan society, one untouched by the later Catholic/Protestant schisms.

You connect folk music in Britain with “the cyclic revolve of the seasons and the ritual year,” with each generation drawing its own interpretations and meanings from folklore. How relevant do you feel this emphasis on the ritual year is today? Where do you see this impulse’s strongest embodiment in modern British music?

Unfortunately I don’t see it all that much in music except in very tiny micro-scenes of ‘wyrd folk’ made by people who appear to genuinely crave a kind of return to an idealised, medievalist, Anglo-Saxon way of life. The experimental band Coil made a highly successful series of ‘Solstice’ records, recorded actually on each solstice, sometimes out in the open air, and released as soon as possible after the event. I thought that was an interesting exercise that actually produced some great music. More generally I think there are some artists – like Sharron Kraus, who you mentioned above, and Alasdair Roberts, who are very aware of the magical aspects of rural song and their set lists are accordingly loaded with appropriate material, either traditional or self-written. In the world of modern composition people like Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Finnissy, Harrison Birtwistle and Judith Weir are a few names whose music has connected with occult aspects of the landscape and folkloric traditions.

I found your sections dealing with the intersections of folk music, folk artists, and the revival of Pagan Witchcraft to be very interesting. You state that the two are “strikingly similar?” Could you expand on this a bit for my audience?

This was one of the most fascinating sections of the book to research. Throughout the process I was very aware of the ideas – often conflicting – of ‘authenticity’ that always come into play when folk music and culture are discussed, and as I went on I realised how much of what’s popularly thought to be ancient and sanctioned by time is often an invention of more recent provenance. From reading people like Ronald Hutton you begin to realise that the same applies to the history of Pagan Witchcraft in Britain – current practice seems to be a patchwork of texts and rituals collated by the likes of Gerald Gardner. I met people who had been studying folklore of witchcraft in the late 60s, a couple called Dave and Toni Arthur, and who befriended Alex Sanders, who I’m sure many of your readers will know as the ‘King of the Witches’ in the UK at the time. Dave was loaned Sanders’s Book of Shadows to copy and study, and he found that much of it was cobbled together from older books like Aradia and even bits of Shakespeare. (As an intriguing aside, Toni is famous here as a former presenter of kids’ TV programmes in the 70s).

For them, it simply proved that the Witchcraft rituals were inauthentic in the usual sense. And you can apply the same logic to the main body of folk music, when you learn that much of what’s considered medieval or even dating back to pagan times was often printed on Broadsides in the 18th and 19th centuries. But for me, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that these survive as genuinely useful traditions, which are still being passed on and mutated, in a folkloric process of transmission. Hundreds of thousands of pagan witches practise with these things all over the world, so how can that invalidate the tradition? Similarly with folk music, I don’t really care how the stuff was gathered, or whether things are 50 or 300 years old – the music is there, its materiality is undeniable and it’s put to use in all sorts of ways by all sorts of musicians with all sorts of contrasting agendas. That for me is what makes these sectors of culture so exciting and robust – that they persist and endure with or without the permission of the media, State-sanctioned culture and all the usual gatekeepers and tastemakers.

How overt was interest in the occult, magic, and Witchcraft among the British folk singers and folk-rockers? You mention Synathesia’s planned odes to Roman gods, Nick Drake being described as a “modern pagan,” a folk duo collaborating with Alex Sanders, and a member of Pentangle noting experiences with the “lighter side of the occult” in America. How much do you think the two scenes interacted and influenced the other?

A lot of it was anecdotal. Obviously the late 60s was a time when the counterculture and underground movements were pretty open to the rich world of mythology, fantasy, magick and so on. John Renbourn of Pentangle named the band after the shield design in the medieval Arthurian poem Gawain and the Green Knight and he told me he was reading Jessie Weston’s From Ritual To Romance around the same time. Slightly aside from folk-rock as such, the keyboardist Graham Bond was one of the most overt at the time, into a very Crowleyan vibe on albums like Holy Magic and We Put Our Magick On You, which are kind of funky stews of Dr John-style groove with magickal chants and spells invoked over the top. He killed himself in 1974, but not before, as I mention in the book, teaming up with a former member of Yorkshire folk group Mr Fox for an unrecorded project. Mr Fox – the duo of Bob and Carole Pegg – also had a witchy view of things, their track ‘Pendle’ was inspired by the Lancashire covens and they described some very uncanny experiences to me which you can read in the book. Carole made a great solo track called ‘A Witch’s Guide To The Underground’, which sounds kind of proto-Kate Bush. And then of course there was Jimmy Page installed at Crowley’s former lodgings in Scotland. And so it goes on. The Incredible String Band were probably the other really significant group here; a band who in their quest for a genuinely usable religion (which ended with Scientology), dabbled with the Tarot, Wicca, mystical Christianity and a variety of Eastern religions, all reflected in various ways in their albums of 1967–69.

But I don’t think there was much systematic infiltration of each other’s scenes, if you want to look at it like that. I think it was more about a lot of this stuff being in the air around the late 60s and available to any creative person who wanted to pick up on aspects of it. The Nick Drake thing was a quote from a former friend of his, and I’m not sure how reliable that really is – it’s certainly the only reference I’ve ever found to Drake being into ley lines, UFOs, etc, and it somehow doesn’t ring convincingly. But in other ways, his music is perhaps the profoundest expression of a genuinely other, possibly pagan state of mind, in the sense that he seems to be aiming at an organic sense of time and to escape the human realm that’s dominated by the clock, by responsibilities, by what he saw as the terror of romantic relationships. His tracks like ‘Way To Blue’, ‘Northern Sky’ and ‘River Man’, for me, are songs of deep longing to project into the being of a tree, or the sky, something other than the city life. Which all sounds very cliched hippyish when you say it, but the seriousness and the beauty of the way he does it force you to take these ideas seriously.

Finally I’d like to direct people to the chapter in Electric Eden on the great British outdoor festival, which goes into detail about the incredible origins of the Glastonbury Festival, which was originally designed along very clear geomantic and ‘Earth Magic’ lines (why do you think the main stage to this day is the ‘Pyramid Stage’? The original organisers  in 1971 were influenced by, and even friends of, the late great John Michell and his book The View Over Atlantis which was published shortly beforehand. It’s possible to view the prevalence of the outdoor festival in the UK as the point where paganism meets rock ‘n’ roll meets countercultural forces.

While your book has a generous wealth of information about the formation of Other Britain, of England’s various folk revivals, and how different artists interacted with these threads, there isn’t too much (comparatively) about the modern era past the mid-1970s (I’m assuming due to space considerations).  Are you planning a follow-up? If not, what resources would you recommend for those wanting to further explore the territory you’ve mapped?

There are plenty out there who disagree with me, but in my opinion on a musical level, the folk tradition as a well of inspiration had largely dried up by the mid-70s; although there were plenty who still drew from it, few were sonically innovative. That’s the cyclical thing – there are always going to be periods when something like folk is going to feel more useful to musicians and artists as a springboard, followed by a more fallow time (we happen to be in one of the more fertile periods right now, especially in the States).

Lessening space and, to a certain extent, deadline time were certainly factors in my stepping more lightly over the territory post-1975, but also, by then most of the story I’d wanted to tell had been enacted and many figures who remained making interesting work (Nic Jones, Spriguns, Peter Bellamy, Martin Carthy, John Tams and Home Service, etc) were by and large keeping something alive rather than massively innovating. I’m not sure a follow-up would do much more than fill in such gaps and I simply am not enthusiastic enough about the generic folk music of the 80s and 90s to really want to sit down and tell it in detail.

But – and this is kind of an exclusive – I AM beginning work on a follow-up; or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a companion. That is, I’m trying to write an alternative history of Britain’s film and television culture, looking at ways in which British moving pictures – cinema and domestic TV – have expressed the kind of tensions between progress and nostalgia, past and present, country and city, conservatism and radicalism, etc, which I explored through looking at music in Electric Eden. I do make a lot of passing references to various relevant films in the book – The Wicker Man, A Canterbury Tale, The Owl Service among them – and as I was writing Eden I began thinking there could be a whole book there – it’s an angle surprisingly seldom taken in studies of British film. So I’m shifting the focus from Electric Eden to… celluloid Albion! (That’s not the title, though…)

Otherwise, for further research. my blog at http://electriceden.net has a mass of links to sites musical and beyond, which all reflect my interests in these areas.

Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire and author of books that specialize in subjects relating to witchcraft and the practice of magic, including “Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History”, “Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736-1951″, and “Grimoires: A History of Magic Books”. His most recent work is part of Oxford University Press’ Very Short Introductions series, in which he tackles the subject of Paganism, both ancient and modern. I was lucky enough to conduct an interview with Davies about “Paganism: A Very Short Introduction,” in addition to asking some questions relating to his research into grimoires.

Owen Davies

Oxford recently published “Paganism: A Very Short Introduction,” part of their growing “A Very Short Introduction” series. In it you summarize the current scholarly consensus on the subject, from pre-history to the Roman Empire, through the conversion of Europe, missionary interactions across the world with “pagans” in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and finally to the contemporary Pagan revival. At just over 100 (small) pages, it’s an excellent starter on the subject. How did you come to be their “pagan” writer, and what was the process like for putting this together?

The idea for adding Paganism to the list of topics in the popular Very Short Introduction series came from the Oxford University Press team. Considering that the series already including books on most of the major religions, and covered ancient forms under Druids and Egyptian Myth, there was a real gap for a survey that covered the idea of Paganism from antiquity to the present. They probably approached Ronald Hutton to do it first! But came to me as someone with a broad-ranging expertise, and having recently covered the same period and similar territory for Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (2009). In terms of putting the book together it followed nicely on from researching Grimoires, and I was very keen to provide coverage on how and why, in the period of colonialism and Empire building, the label of ‘paganism’ was applied to the religions of peoples beyond Europe and the Middle East. I also wanted to draw upon all the latest archaeological research to revise older surveys of paganism in prehistoric and medieval Europe.

Things that struck me while reading “Paganism” was how long the process of converting Europe to Christianity took, how “unfinished” that process still is on a global scale, and how much continuity between our “pagan” past and our present there is. This is also touched on in your 2009 book “Grimoires,” where “pagan” books of magic had a profound effect on our world: From the rise of the printing press, to the formation of African diasporic and modern Pagan religions. Do we still, in our modern Western society, undervalue our pre-Christian roots?

This question raises a lot of very interesting issues about how we interpret the past, what versions of history or prehistory we choose to read, and how it is presented. It is certainly true that most people have only a hazy view of European pre-Christian religions and practices, and to be honest, when it comes to any period before the sixteenth century the evidence of popular religious notions and practices is decidedly sketchy and open to wide-ranging interpretation – which is what makes it such a contested but fascinating area of debate. At the same time, most people have only a vague understanding of the various manifestations of Christianity and their relationship to, and influence by, other contemporary religions during the early centuries of the Church.

There are still a lot of misconceptions about pre-Christian and indigenous religions. As you note, the achievements of pagan cultures had “a profound influence on the forging of modern society.” Yet many people, including some scholars, still parrot old stereotypes about what “paganism” is. Or if they do give credit, it seems rather backhanded, often repositioning great pagan philosophers and thinkers as proto-monotheists or even proto-atheists. Do you see this book as something of a corrective? Are you hopeful it will influence the larger narrative regarding the “p-word”?

Well, my job with the Very Short Introduction was primarily one of synthesis, and I make no claims to provide a profound new revision of the subject. I hope that it introduces some modern Pagans to issues and areas of debate, some uncomfortable, that they might not otherwise engage with regarding the meaning and use of paganism as a symbol. Likewise, I hope that it will provide those new to the topic with a clear and fair account of the relationship between and heritage of ancient and modern manifestations of Paganism in contemporary Europe and beyond. In short, that paganism is not just about pre-Christian religions – or even religion per se. It is, in part, an invention of negotiation between and subjugation of different cultures.

In “Paganism” and “Grimoires” you explore the fascination that some members of Germany’s Third Reich had with certain occult philosophies, but your books make the case that the Nazis actually worked diligently to suppress individual interest in magic, astrology, and the occult. Could you elaborate a bit on this point? Why did the Nazis see folk-magic and other belief systems as a threat to them?

There is a lot of misinformation about Nazism and occultism in its various forms. From the beginning, the Nazi regime was concerned by what it feared might be destabilising and non-conformist elements within German society. Freemasonry, religious sects, and, of course, any non-Nazi or non-Arian (as defined by the Nazis) political or social organisation were targeted. The various small groups of ritual magic practitioners that had formed and disbanded since the late nineteenth century came under this umbrella. Tied with this was a deep concern about the work of astrologers, whose predictions could undermine or challenge the propaganda machine. So it was primarily the middle-class world of occultism and esotericism that concerned the regime. Popular belief in magic was not much of a concern because it was in no way an organised threat to political control – the emphasis being on organised. Elements of folk magic were also interpreted as being survivals of an honourable Arian prehistoric past, rather than some foreign or corrupted intellectual thesis or religion. So while the astrologers and esotericists were rounded up, the cunning-folk carried on their business with apparently little interference.

I’d like to touch on the issue of pagan survivals a bit. In ”Paganism” you run through the issue, noting the different figures who claimed to have found evidence of pre-Christian religion, often erroneously. That said, your work, and the work of scholars like Ronald Hutton have posited streams of transmission from our pagan past to modern times, like magical books. Could you explain, in your opinion, what elements modern Pagan religions can and do accurately claim as truly ancient?

Many elements of modern Paganism can lay claim to be truly ancient – as uncovered or interpreted by historians, archaeologists, folklorists and anthropologists. Such literary sources of actual and interpretive evidence were the inspiration for the creation of new religions in the modern era, just as the tenets and stories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were based on or influenced by pre-cursor texts and beliefs, or Rastafarianism was born from an amalgam of literary influences. While evidence for the unique oral transmission of pre-Christian knowledge down to the present, untouched by any literary linkage, is very difficult to prove, and often highly dubious or downright duplicitous, that is not to say that some knowledge of folk medicine and folk magic has not survived in this way. It certainly has in some parts of southern Europe, and some of these notions and rituals clearly have pre-Christian origins. But I have not seen any convincing evidence of the continuous oral transmission of pre-Christian worship surviving beyond the medieval period in Europe.

In “Grimoires” you posit a sort of “counter-Enlightenment” that ran alongside the 18th century Age of Enlightenment and spawned a modern Freemasonry movement steeped in ritual magic and alchemy. Would you say that a similar movement exists today? Is the “reenchantment” of the West, that some scholars write about, a new counter-Enlightenment? Are grimoires and ritual magic at odds with the values of the Enlightenment?

I often refer to the ‘so called’ Enlightenment, in that there was no intellectual big bang in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, but more a continuous development of intellectual ideas about human existence and the natural world, albeit with obvious step changes. The Enlightenment, and the scientific revolution that is often portrayed as underpinning it, did not lead to a great conversion to atheism. Neither did it lead to a mass rejection of the place of magic in the world. The notion of the disenchantment of the world, which Weber identified in relation to Protestantism, could also be pushed back to the intellectual world of medieval science, where the likes of Roger Bacon were trying to disenchant magic by teasing apart the ‘natural’ from the ‘demonic’. There have been continual phases of reenchantment in intellectual thought since the seventeenth century, whether in the guise of mesmerism, odic force and spiritualism, or modern forms of ritual magic. Science itself can also be enchanted- after all it is often expressed in terms of an awe-struck BELIEF in its future potential to answer all the questions of existence, material and metaphysical.

Could you briefly touch on the role of grimoiries, and the people who used them, during the Early Modern witch hunts? It seems that grimoire collectors and users mostly escaped these persecutions, barring a few exceptions. Was there some sort of distinction made that saved them from the scrutiny of witch-hunters?

No real distinction was made; it just proves that it is impossible to truly suppress illicit writings. The Italian Inquisition tried and failed in its own back yard, and other Inquisitions were no more successful. The French authorities utterly failed to control the rise of popular (and demonic) grimoires in eighteenth-century France. The desire for literary magical knowledge was too great, even in societies where the majority of people were illiterate. The media is full of talk about the revolutionary power of web-based social networks to communicate illicitly in dictatorships today, but manuscript and print has proven equally effective over the centuries in subverting and undermining authority.

In your closing in “Paganism” you stress the relevance paganism, both ancient and modern, still has. That it “continues to excite.” Where do you see the modern Pagan movement, and the broader conceptions of what “paganism” is, going in the near future?

Absolutely no idea! The various modern Paganisms, and branches of magical practice, that have developed over the last century or so, were inspired by the creativity of a few people that went on to inspire a whole lot more. Will these established forms continue and expand? Or will new expressions of paganism come to the fore? Nationalist forms of Paganism will wane perhaps but not go away. I do see the grave environmental issues facing the planet being an increasingly important source of Pagan inspiration, and perhaps the well-spring of new developments in terms of what it means to be a Pagan in a global context.

Finally, now that “Paganism” is out, what’s next for you?

Following on from Paganism: A Very Short Introduction, I have written Magic: A Very Short Introduction, which is, in some respects, a companion publication. It will be out early next year, and looks at how different religions, cultures and scholarly disciplines have theorised about magic, and also how magic has and is practised. Again, I have tried to broaden out the discussion, with considerable attention to magic in Islam for example. So much to cover in so little space! I am also just finishing a major book on witchcraft in America from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, which will also be published by Oxford University Press.

In October, The Pagan Federation, an international organization that was founded in 1971 to provide information on Paganism and counter misconceptions, celebrates its 40th anniversary. What was originally started in Britain now has branches throughout the world, including Mexico, Russia, and the United States. While the Pagan Federation (PF) is a vibrant force in Europe and the UK, many Pagans in America might not know of their work or understand the importance of this organization, so I’ve turned to Council member Vivianne Crowley to help us understand the PF’s accomplishments and future challenges. Vivianne Crowley is author of “Wicca: A Comprehensive Guide to the Old Religion in the Modern World,” and a Jungian psychologist. She recently joined the faculty of Cherry Hill Seminary.

Vivianne Crowley

Why was The Pagan Federation necessary? How did it first come together?

Forty years ago there was little understanding of Paganism and many people thought ‘Pagan’ meant ‘Satanist’. The Pagan Federation was established to provide accurate information about Pagans and their practices and to ensure that Pagans were not discriminated against. The Pagan Federation also acted as a contact point for Pagans to find others. In pre-internet days, finding others of like mind wasn’t easy and we can easily forget how hard it was for people and how isolated many people felt from people of like mind.

At 40, what do you think The Pagan Federation’s greatest accomplishment has been? How successful has the PF been in fulfilling its mission to “support all Pagans to ensure they have the same rights as the followers of other beliefs and religions?”

There have been many successes in establishing Pagan ministry in healthcare settings, in prisons and other state institutions, but there is still a long way to go. The Pagan Federation is an international body, so the situation varies across the world. In some countries, the Pagan revival is only just beginning. Despite 40 years of the Pagan Federation, we still have problems with the tabloid press, though not quite as extreme as in previous decades. But nowadays, it’s not always Wiccans and Witches that are targeted. One of our UK tabloids seems to loathe Druids, which is strange in a UK context. Most British people love their Druids.

You joined the Pagan Federation as Secretary in 1988 (Ronald Hutton calls it a “refounding”). Could you talk a bit about the work you’ve done with the organization? What’s your current involvement?

I sit on the Council of the Pagan Federation, which is the body gives guidance and advise to the elected Committee. I’m involved mainly in talking about the work of the Pagan Federation to government bodies, universities and the media. I also represent the Pagan Federation at interfaith events. Unofficially, currently I’m also the President’s part-time PA and fielder of his media calls. My husband Chris is in the second year of his three year term as President.

In October the Pagan Federation is holding a celebration for its 40th anniversary, marking “the achievements of the past and seeking vision, energy and new inspiration for the challenges to come.” What challenges in the future do you feel are the most pressing?

One of the main challenges is what I call ‘mainstreaming’ Paganism – embedding Pagan thinking in the everyday life of wider society. Many of today’s ideas about sexual equality, freedom of lifestyle choices and environmentalism were once seen as Pagan and radical, but they can rapidly become the norm of generations. I see Pagans as people at the leading edge of where social and cultural thinking are going. Our challenge and task is to contribute to shaping the future of our societies so that humankind can survive and adapt to the planetary challenges ahead.

As a Pagan academic and psychologist, what do you feel are the most significant changes and advances made within the realm of modern Paganism in the past 40 years? How does The Pagan Federation fit within that?

The Pagan Federation’s role is to create an international community of like minded people who can support and encourage one another in the development of a Paganism that is vibrant and meaningful to our generations and those that are to come. While our roots are in ancient tradition, we are creating a spirituality for the future that can sustain people when the monotheisms wither and fall away, as inevitably they will. As a psychologist, I remind academic colleagues from other disciplines that monotheism is just a short blip in the history of human religious practice and one that we are now outgrowing. The challenge ahead is to create a meaningfully spirituality that helps create a sense of common purpose across diverse societies and ethnicities, and between nations.

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I’d like to thank Vivianne Crowley for taking time out of her busy schedule to do this interview. For more information on The Pagan Federation’s 40th anniversary celebration, a two-day event in London that will feature speakers like Ronald Hutton, Emma Restall-Orr, Graham Harvey, Philip Carr-Gomm, and Caitlin Matthews, check out the Pagan Federation website.

Pagan scholar Caroline Tully has just posted a rare interview with historian Ronald Hutton, author of “The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft”, in which he takes the time to answer a recent resurgence of criticism regarding his work from within the Pagan community.

Ronald Hutton

“I have no interest in contesting the claims of modern Pagans to represent a secretly surviving tradition, as long as the practitioners do not attack me or offer any actual historical evidence for scrutiny. If they do neither, then they are effectively standing outside history and are not the concern of a historian. I regularly read articles by contemporary witches, expounding one system or another which they say has been passed down through their family or their initiatory tradition for centuries, and offering no evidence to support this claim. They are no concern of mine, and it is open to others to believe or disbelieve them as they will. Gerald Gardner’s Wicca was, however, based on specific historical evidence, above all the early modern trials, and academic framework of interpretation of it, which were very much the business of historians.”

I encourage anyone with any interest in Hutton’s work to head over and read the entire thing. There’s really too much to easily summarize, and quite a bit of insightful commentary concerning history and modern Paganism. In addition, Hutton generously lays out his plans for future books that may be of interest to modern Pagans, including works on witchcraft, and Britain’s pagan heritage. Thanks to Caroline Tully at Necropolis Now for making this happen.

At The Wild Hunt I strive to engage with and report on issues affecting adherents to African diasporic religions like Santeria/Lukumi and Vodou because I feel that their struggles for equal treatment are setting important precedents for modern Pagans, and because I feel we’re part of a larger theological “family” with a growing number of Pagans seeking training and initiations from these faiths. However, despite my efforts and good intentions, my perspective will ultimately be that of an outsider. So I was very pleased when presented the opportunity to interview Morgan Page Iyawo Odofemi, a Lukumi iyawo made to Oshun. She is a writer, artist, and a feminist activist, working extensively around queer, trans, and sex workers’ rights issues in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In our interview we discuss Santeria/Lukumi, whether Lukumi is Pagan, what it means to be an Iyawo, and misconceptions about the faith.

Morgan Page Iyawo Odofemi

Before you came to Lukumi/Santeria were you involved in other Pagan religions or esoteric practices? If so, did involvement in those traditions help fuel your interest in Lukumi?

I was raised by New Ager parents who were Christian on paper, but in reality they believed in a lot of things that aren’t particularly Christian. Reincarnation, tarot and playing card divination, psychicism, and Welsh folk magic were part of the fabric of my childhood, especially from my mother. When I got into my teens, I explored a lot of different religions (including Buddhism and Hinduism), and spent some time studying Hoodoo, witchcraft, and ceremonial magic. I wasn’t getting what I needed out of any of those traditions and religions, though, and when I found Lukumi something just clicked.

I find your phrasing of this question really fascinating. You locate Lukumi as a Pagan religion (“other Pagan religions”). I’ve seen this a lot from Neo-Pagans, and I always find it really interesting. The Oloshas (priests) I have known almost never refer to our religion as Pagan, or in any way associated with the Neo-Pagan movement(s). Afro-Diasporic Religions tend to be categorized as something completely different and separate, probably in part because Paganism and Neo-Paganism are almost exclusively European-derived. The point has also been made before (the name of the person escapes me) that Pagan, quite literally, doesn’t actually apply to Lukumi, as Yoruba culture is urban and Pagan refers to rural people.

How did you find your Godmother’s House? Was it difficult to find a teacher/guide/parent? Was there a period of searching and learning before a connection was made?

It all started because I was looking for information on Haitian Vodou. I read a book about queer and trans people in Afro-Diasporic Religions, intent to get more info on Vodou, but instead I read the description of the Orisha Yemoja, and I fell head-over-heels in love. Quickly, I got my hands on more books on Lukumi, and eventually sought out a Santero – Shloma Rosenberg Afolabi (iba’ye). I was too shy to call him more than once, so after an initial contact, I didn’t speak to him again for months. Finally, one of his other Godchildren put a call out saying that his health was in bad shape and there was no one to check on him, so I packed a bag, got onto a bus to Detroit and showed up on Shloma’s doorstep. He marked my head for Oshun, and I became his Godchild. Several months later, when I received my Warriors (one of the early initiations in the religion), his friend Sarah came for the ceremony and was my Ojugbona (sponsor, or secondary Godparent). After Shloma passed away, Sarah took me into her House – thank God! As a trans woman, it’s not always easy to find Godparents in this religion, and if she hadn’t taken me in, I don’t know how I would’ve made Ocha!

Could you explain a little about what it means to be an Iyawo? I’m given to understand that this is a year-long period of growth (incubation?) after an initiation, and that there are several restrictions and rules that one must follow.

Iyawo in Yoruba means “(junior) bride.” When a person is initiated as a priest of their Orisha, they are called an Iyawo for the first year in Lukumi. During this time, they are treated like a baby who must be protected. We wear only white clothes, and my understanding of this is that we wear white to stay cool. Coolness is a very important concept in Lukumi. To be cool (pele) is to be calm, gentle, and pure, whereas to be hot is to be dangerous, rough, and dirty. White is a symbol of coolness, and especially of Obatala, the Orisha of coolness. We also live by a very large number of taboos governing everything from where we can go, when we can go there, what we can do or say, and even what we can eat and drink. In addition to the standard taboos followed by most iyawos, each priest receives additional taboos specific to them to be followed for the rest of their lives. They might be told that they are never allowed to eat pork again, for example. I, personally, got away pretty lightly on the taboos. Not too many lifelong ones – Modupe Oshun!

During the iyaworaje, an iyawo is supposed to stay as cool as possible while everything in our lives changes. We are also supposed to spend this time learning as much as we can from our elders.

Lukumi/Santeria is a very decentralized faith, with different autonomous houses and initiatory lines. I would assume that an initiate might have different experiences depending on where they were taught, and where their teacher is from. How much diversity is there within Santeria/Lukumi? Do different houses sometimes find they have little in common, or is there enough at the core that each recognizes the other as Santeria?

As an iyawo, I’m pretty inexperienced in the religion, but from what I have seen and been taught, there is some variation between lineages. However, due to a really interesting historical event in the early 20th century called la division de la Habana (which an Oriate named Willie Ramos wrote an amazing paper on), our ceremonies were standardized to a large extent. So while some iles (houses) may do things slightly differently, for the most part it’s all the same at the end of the day. Maintaining orthodoxy has become very important in this religion, and some iles and priests are marginalized if elders consider their practices too divergent.

What does it mean to be a Daughter of Oshun and Shango?

This is such a big question! In this religion, everyone is considered to have an Orisha who owns their head. This Orisha has a really massive influence on who you are as a person, and what the major themes of your life will be. We learn who this Orisha is through dilogun divination, or through Ifa divination. My head was marked to Oshun – the Orisha of the River, love, sexuality, beauty, art, and survival. Orishas manifest differently through their children, but they are always there somewhere. Oshun shines through in me, not just in my vanity, but in my ability to survive and thrive despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Each person also has a secondary parent Orisha, and this is determined during the initiation ceremony. This Orisha also has a big influence on the person, but usually less so than their Head Orisha. My father is Shango, Orisha of Thunder, fire, masculinity, dance, and kingship. I am still learning more about how Shango influences me. I can see him in my temper. I can see him in my flashy personality. I can see him in my leadership skills.

Animal sacrifice is always the number one misconception. The idea of animal sacrifice was actually what held me, a vegetarian of over ten years, back from getting involved for a couple of years. I’ve come to understand it on a few different levels. Firstly, animals are food. Orishas are living beings, in a way, and like all living beings, they eat food. Orishas are fed not just with animals, but with a variety of foods and other sacrifices as well.

Secondly, I came to understand that my hesitance toward animal sacrifice was rooted in my privilege as an urban North American. In urban North America, we are completely divorced from any conception of how our food ends up on our plates – it seems to just suddenly and plentifully arrive, neatly wrapped in plastic at the supermarket. We don’t have to deal with the blood and dirt and excrement of the farm, so we forget that what we’re eating was alive, and when confronted with this, many of us feel protective over the poor animals we would normally eat without a second thought. Though Yoruba culture is and has historically been an urban culture, food is not so divorced from its source in everyday life there as it has become here.

Though many animals are sacrificed as forms of food, and their bodies are cooked and eaten by the community, from what I’ve seen this is not always the case. Sometimes we are not allowed to cook and eat the animal after the sacrifice because it has been used to cleanse us, or for any number of other reasons. Sometimes the animal is to be left with the Orisha in nature (often by or in rivers, crossroads, cemeteries, etc.). I’ve come to understand this form of sacrifice through something my Ojugbona (second godparent) said recently, “It’s you or the chicken.” We do not do sacrifice because it’s fun, or because it’s spooky – we sacrifice so that we may live, so that we may be cleansed, so that we may receiving blessings to sustain us. The animal dies so that we do not. If it’s the chicken or me, I know who I’m choosing.

Another major misconception is the idea of “syncretism” between Lukumi and Catholicism. Many people make a lot more out of the syncretic aspects of the religion than they should, which seems to me to be mostly thanks to poor scholarship by early ethnographers. From what I have learned and observed, beyond having Catholic kitsch around our homes, Lukumi in practice features very little Catholic elements. The saints, especially in the United States where many houses are African Nationalist or attempt to be closer to Yoruba culture, play little to no role in the religion outside of kitsch.

The real syncretism that I’ve seen is between Lukumi and Espiritismo and Palo Mayombe. There’s been a really big influence between these religions in some houses – to the point where some people view them all as a single religion. Almost all of the Santeros that I know are also Espirtistas, and some of them are also Paleros. In Cuba, this becomes even more complicated with some people also being members of Abakua lodges, initiates in Arara lineages, and occasionally initiates in Cuban Vodou and Haitian Vodou – and at the end of the day, due to the cultural dominance of the Yoruba and for convenience, they’ll simply call themselves Santeros, or just Catholics.

Practitioners of Lukumi, along with most other Afro-Diasporic Religions, have faced an incredible amount of persecution – including being murdered and having our religious altars desecrated. This ongoing oppression, combined with class issues, race issues, immigration status, and language barriers creates a climate where many elders (who are generally people of colour, lower-income, Spanish-speaking, etc.) do not feel comfortable speaking about the religion out of a very real fear of persecution. There are also some priests who are given taboos against being public about their religious beliefs. I don’t think that our lack of public spokespeople necessarily hurts practitioners. I think racism, classism, and xenophobia hurt practitioners. Secrecy is what helped our ancestors to survive and thrive. Ashe to those who want to take on the burden of being public, but I don’t think it’s something we necessarily “need.”

Everyone is different, and attitudes vary greatly between houses on this sort of thing. My house is run by a priestess who is also an initiate of Haitian Vodou, and many of my Godsisters are involved in Hoodoo. Our house seems to be very celebratory of all Afro-Diasporic Religions. It is fairly common for Santeros to also be Paleros, Espiritistas, and sometimes even Vodouwizan, Hoodoo rootworkers, or Candomble initiates. Personally, I have a deep love and interest in Vodou and Candomble – though I’m not currently feeling the need to be involved in either.

From my small understanding of the Florida issue, what seems to be creating tension is the competition between orthodoxies (and initiations) in Orisha religion. Yoruba Traditionalists maintain that their orthodoxies are correct and see ours as bizarre, and vis versa. And this seems to have led each camp to try to discredit the other. I was extremely fortunate to have the chance to listen to some elders discuss this issue in person, and the elders I listened to seemed to favour creating mutual respect while maintaining different traditions. And I think that seems like the most reasonable way of handling it.

Everything about my life has changed. I’m not exaggerating at all. Maferefun gbogbo Orisha for all of the beauty in my life now. Orisha have given me stability that I lacked before.

I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on my beautiful religion with your readers. My perspective should be contextualized as that of an iyawo – a very young priest who has so much to learn about the religion. I’m by no means an authority about Lukumi – especially given that knowledge and information varies between houses and lineages. The information I’ve shared here is what I’ve been taught in the two houses I have been involved in, and does not necessarily represent all viewpoints.

I know that there are many Pagans who feel a strong draw to Afro-Diasporic Religions. My best advice for those who want to worship Orisha, Lwa, Nkisi, and other spirits, is to seek out a competent diviner (in Lukumi, this would be a dilogun reader, or an Ifa priest). Afro-Diasporic Religions are community-based and cannot be practiced solitarily or “eclectically.” They are often strict and require a great deal of personal sacrifice and commitment – which can be very beautiful. Not living near a priest isn’t a reasonable excuse – I committed to saving my money and traveling regularly to the United States (I live in Canada) when I first became involved in the religion, at a time when I worked minimum wage on sometimes very few hours. I did this while also supporting myself with stable housing.

If you are not descended from the culture which the Afro-Diasporic Religion is from (ie, Cuba for Lukumi, Haiti for Vodou, etc.), I would also recommend spending some time reading about how cultural appropriation works, and also about racism and colonialism. You may want to check your privilege at the door, before knocking on it, you know? That’s something that I did before becoming actively involved, and it was really worth it.

Before there was The Wild Hunt, there was simply “patheos.com,” my personal web site, and its host was DrakNet. Knowing very little at the time about web hosting, I decided to fiscally support a Pagan-owned and operated hosting company. This turned out to be a very good move on my part because DrakNet, and its owner Jen Lepp, provided me with excellent customer service that was responsive and accessible to a degree that I was to learn later was very rare in the world of web hosting. As The Wild Hunt went through its many growing pains, I shudder to think at what would have happened to me had Jen not been there to oversee things, and when Drak.net was recently acquired by A Small Orange I followed along primarily for the promise that Jen would be an ongoing part of ASO. Since DrakNet was the first web hosting company that I know of to bill itself as a Pagan-owned and operated company, I decided to interview Jen about the history of DrakNet, the perils of running a Pagan business, and its recent acquisition by A Small Orange.

Jen Lepp

When DrakNet first started in 1997 it was billed as a Pagan-owned and run company, and many of your oldest clients were Pagans (including me!). You even provided free hosting to various worthy Pagan organizations (and in some cases, still do). Could you talk a bit about that? What made you decide to make the Pagan-owned element a selling point? How did that evolve?

Before DrakNet started, I actually had no intention of owning a web hosting company, and DrakNet really was a bit of an accident.

I originally started out as a representative for the Witches League for Public Awareness, and then Laurie Cabot made a decision to “fire” all the Representatives that worked as volunteers for religious tolerance. In Texas, our state Representatives chose to start Texas Pagan Awareness Online independent from any national organization (though we did work with national organizations and folks frequently), and it was through a need to financially support TPAO that DrakNet was born.

Originally, TPAO offered hosting instead of asking for donations as a way to support its endeavors. After it had about 10 people hosted on it’s Reseller’s account, I realized that these poor folks really could use some documentation other than just constantly emailing me, and I created a more formal hosting site with some How To’s and some order forms. I never truly understood how it happened, but it took off and we got orders at a very, very steady clip until I woke up one day and realized that I was a business owner, and DrakNet was an actual business.

Because of how it was “born”, the Pagan element was never really a question, at least in the early years. DrakNet owed it’s entire existence to the Pagan community, and the religious tolerance movement within it. I felt a responsibility to give back to to the community that helped birth it with what I was able to do. I hoped we did that with our non-profit program, which was one of the few hosting non-profit programs that did not require a 501c3, did not preclude religious groups, and did not preclude politically active sites from applying.

Over time, your own personal life journey led you away from Paganism, to Unitarian-Universalism, and ultimately to Judaism. How has your personal faith journey shaped your business and work? Did you get a lot of flack from the Pagan community when you moved away from being a “Pagan company”?

There are some folks in the community that know why my own path, and DrakNet’s, “evolved”, and to some extent I became an example case of what I was fighting against as an activist. But many people were not aware, and so yes, as we “de-Paganed”, there were some people that were very angry. They felt, and were very vocal about, the fact that they felt we had sold out. It was a very difficult time for me.

This question, actually, has lead to the long lag in my response to this interview, as I wrestled with how public I wanted to be in answer to this question.

The fourth year I owned DrakNet, my husband and I got a divorce, and the following year (for a variety of reasons I won’t go into), we entered into a highly acrimonious custody battle. The suit stated outright in it’s initial filing that the basis was the fact that I was Pagan. I hired an attorney who dismissed it as a concern, stating my religion could not be used against me. While I have no doubt the attorney believed that when he told me, he was wrong and his objection was overruled. The county this lawsuit was in was extremely right-leaning, and the Judge in the case relieved me of custody temporarily while my beliefs and their affect on my ability to parent was investigated.

Those I knew in the community did offer to rush to my defense, have protests on the courthouse lawn, call the press, and make the case into a circus, but I strongly felt then, as I do now, that a child cannot choose to be at the center of a public controversy. Though I was very, very careful in my answers not to establish any precedent or disclaim or lie about anything I was in the final trial, once I fought back and defended myself and won, I chose not to tempt fate a second time and I left Paganism so that it could not be used against me
again.

Once I did that, I had to “de-Paganify” DrakNet. That was a difficult thing to do both because of how it came about and how much devotion some segments of the community felt towards us, and some people left the service angry. Many stayed, and many continued to “claim” both me, and the company, regardless of what I said to the contrary. To them, we were always Pagan and Pagan friendly.

But, yes, some people didn’t understand, and some people felt betrayed. Perhaps those that were angry may read this, and understand a bit better why I couldn’t answer “why” at the time.

As for my personal faith journey, I’m not sure I ever truly changed other than my tools and my circles – the Goddess was welcomed at the UU Church, and I became a Sunday School teacher teaching the lessons I had once been taught as a neophyte to children. When my son became curious about his Jewish heritage, we found a Jewish Renewal synagogue that spoke of Asherah and who’s congregation would turn each Friday to an opened the door to the Sabbath Bride and bow to Her.

Once you know the Goddess (and, more importantly, She knows you know Her), it’s honestly very tough to get away from Her.

One thing that never changed in DrakNet’s history was its commitment to the environment, free speech, equal treatment towards all faiths, and very personal customer service. Do you think that your ethos is still uncommon among web hosting companies, or is it one on the rise?

I actually joked with my husband that it was finally ok to sell because actually listening to customers was in vogue. What the Pagan community was way ahead of the curve on was social networking – The Witches’ Voice was doing it before Facebook, hooking people up into a tribe. The Pagan WebCrafters Association gathered the geeks. Pagans have always been incredibly net-savvy, utilizing the tools to build circles and webs wherever they need them.

What Pagans were doing in the early 90′s everyone is doing now, including businesses and corporations. Views of customers and their power and their voices have changed with the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and other mediums and tools that make it easier for people to speak their minds about their experiences with companies. Companies have had to adapt and as a consequence have become much savvier about communication with the audience they wish to reach and, ultimately, to sell to.

Once they were listening, they realized people actually cared about company ethics, honesty, transparency, the environment. People will make decisions to do business with a company based on their company values and how well they communicate these company values. As a consequence, there’s a new movement in companies that actually puts customers before profits – at least for the companies that “get it”.

In web hosting, though, I do still think it’s uncommon – web hosting is somewhat of a unique industry in that it’s almost constantly in flux, and it’s customers are the savviest of the tech savvy, heavily utilizing internet mediums to complain, to praise, and to communicate. When your customer base lives in the same sphere you do, you have two choices – you can either do really great and engage with them and listen and be responsive, or you can ignore them and arrogantly dictate the rules. In my industry, it honestly seems that companies fall very much on one side or the other.

What made you decide to sell DrakNet to A Small Orange after 12 years of being in business? What’s the reaction from your customers been?

I was approached informally to sell DrakNet at HostingCon to HostGator. They had introduced me to Doug Hanna, the CEO of A Small Orange, to demonstrate that the founder of HostGator could buy small companies and not actually kill what was special about them. It was the first time I had heard ASO had been sold, and as a hosting owner the idea that all these special, unique companies were getting bought up just infuriated me. I felt like the industry was getting homogenized.

In response, I literally went ballistic outside the cPanel Party on 6th Street in Austin, naming all the reasons I was better, why the mega-behemoth couldn’t give the service I could. I truly did shoot them with both barrels. It affronted me on so many accounts, not the least of which was that I was one of the very few female owned hosting companies and I had a very idealistic notion of web hosting and what was owed customers that I felt they didn’t get. I came home, and wrote a blog post blasting them again, just to make sure they got the message.

It did get me to thinking, though, about how much I could accomplish with DrakNet as it was – I was a small fish in a very large pond. I was not large enough to get asked to speak and although I was fairly well connected in the industry, my revenue was not the type that would get me invited to share my pearls of wisdom anywhere about the hosting industry and my views on it. The idea of changing things “from the inside”, of trying to accomplish a coup d’état from within kind of appealed to me, so I decided to give them a call and see if they were really serious and what they had in mind.

In the end, I wound up connecting with Doug first, and he stated that he was never more surprised by any phone call for any potential deal than he was by mine. If there was a person he was sure would never, ever sell, it would’ve been me.

As we talked, we both realized that DrakNet customers meshed better with ASO’s philosophy, and I was honestly surprised at what extent ASO already focused on customers first, and exceeding customer service expectations. They were environmentally conscious, progressive in their thinking about employees and customers, and very focused on free speech. I was surprised at how much I liked them as I was so conditioned to be suspicious of a larger company, and so a deal was struck.

Our customer reactions, initially, were pretty stunning. Roughly 15% of customers took the time to express extremely, extremely strong opinions. Since the sale, however, I’ve heard 99.9% positive, and everyone seems very pleased with the move.

Do you have any regrets? Anything you wish you could have done differently? Looking back, how do you picture DrakNet?

I ran DrakNet for 12 and a half years, and I watched it do a lot of good. We hosted things that had been kicked off other hosts because the host didn’t understand the site and nuked it, we had transgendered people that could call and not have to explain why their name was male on their credit card and go through justifying who they were and what they wanted to be called. We didn’t balk when two covens started DMCA-ing each other because this person wrote that ritual and were able to help explain it in a way that everyone understood.

I hope that people that hosted with us felt that they were respected for who they were – a lot of people moved to us because they had been places where they weren’t being treated with much dignity because of who they were, or their site’s content.

If I have any regrets at all, it’s those times that we couldn’t help, and couldn’t get involved – we got DMCA notices from some very large, very powerful corporations and entities that sent them for no other reason than to squelch free speech, and it was obvious that’s what they were doing. It never failed to make me angry that my hands were tied.

Now that DrakNet has been absorbed into A Small Orange, what’s in store for the future?

I was “acquired” along with DrakNet, and am now the Customer Experience Manager for ASO. I hope that in this position I can apply some of what made DrakNet unique to a multi-million dollar company and for a wider number of people.

That would be a neat legacy.

I wanted to point out a couple of recent Pagan-themed interviews that I think are worth checking out. The first is with Ben Whitmore, author of the book “Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft,” conducted by Star Foster at Patheos. This self-pubished study/critique of Ronald Hutton’s “Triumph of the Moon” has generated quite a bit of notice, and respectable amount of criticism from Pagan academics, so this opportunity for Whitmore to make his case seems very appropriate.

“At first, I hoped it would make Triumph a more useful resource for pagans and Wiccans. As I started talking with others about what I was doing, though, I discovered that Triumph had become something of a cult, and I risked getting a dressing-down for even questioning it. A fairly typical response was condescension followed by condemnation, and being told that I obviously hadn’t read Hutton very carefully, and only fluff-bunnies still cling to the old myths. Pointing out that I wasn’t clinging to the old myths didn’t seem to make any difference. In fact, “Wicca” seemed to be turning into some sort of derisive joke, with “Ronald Hutton” as the punch line. Some people were quite vicious about it. I started to feel that my critique might help restore some dignity to the Craft, and turn Triumph back into just a book; a book with no greater claim to infallibility than any other.”

Whitmore also notes recent criticisms of his work by Peg Aloi (who is currently working on a longer-form criticism for Pagan academic journal The Pomegranate) and Chas Clifton, saying they make “a big fuss about me not being an academic,” and accused him of “being too lazy to write a proper critique.” One academic in Whitmore’s corner is Max Dashu, who recently penned a lengthy and glowing review of “Trials.” Then again, one could argue that Dashu isn’t exactly a fan of Hutton’s work to begin with, making her positively predisposed to a Hutton critique. In any case, it seems that this renewed debate isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

The second interview I wanted to bring your attention to is with musician Arthur Hinds, a member of the popular Celtic-American folk rock band Emerald Rose, and a longtime fixture on the Pagan festival circuit. Laura LaVoie from The Juggler interviews Arthur about being an “out” Pagan musician in honor of International Pagan Coming Out Day (May 2nd, 2011).

“The idea of a formalized pagan coming out day I think I has two edges. First of all, I hope that, for many people, it may give them strength or the moment to speak of who they are. I also hope that they have the wisdom not to speak it where it doesn’t belong. I do not believe in rubbing it in people’s faces anymore that I enjoy having another faith splashed in mine. I also hope that eventually the purpose for the day will simply fade away entirely and Pagans need not feel imprisoned by the secrecy they fear is necessary.”

Hinds is planning to release a new single “about the path of being Pagan” on May 2nd in honor of IPCOD. For more about Arthur Hinds’ work, check out his 2008 solo album “Poetry of Wonder”. Arthur is an extremely talented individual, and a friend, and I’m extremely pleased to see him throw his support behind this new effort. Be sure to read the entire interview!