The Hierophant: There’s the Easy Way or the Hard Way

February 5, 2019 By John Beckett

I read Tarot – it’s the divination system I’m most familiar with, and the one that gives me the best results. Sometimes I do traditional readings, which I compare to turning on your headlights so you can see what’s in the road ahead of you. Other times I use Tarot to confirm UPG, with a 1-card, 3-card, or even a full 10-card draw.

I don’t do much with Tarot from an esoteric perspective – The Fool’s Journey and such. It’s helpful to some people, but it’s just not what I do. So deep philosophical debates on the meanings of a particular card mostly don’t interest me.

But a short time ago I heard someone talking about The Hierophant as a trickster figure, who’s just waiting to help you if only you’ll challenge him…

I’m not going to insist this person is wrong – mainly because I don’t have the time and energy to fight about it. If it works for them, so be it. But this is absolutely not how I see The Hierophant, and I think that’s worth discussing in some depth.

Universal Waite Tarot, Celtic Tarot, Tarot of the Pirates, Thoth Tarot, Tarot of the Trees, Robin Wood Tarot

A brief history of The Hierophant

Tarot began in late medieval Europe, first as playing cards and only later for divination and fortune telling. The card we know as The Hierophant was originally The Pope.

In a society that was thoroughly Christian and had yet to experience the Protestant Reformation, this card was a symbol of both divine and temporal authority. The Pope still rules the Roman Catholic Church. But parts of Italy were under the direct rule of the Church as the Papal States beginning in the 8^th century and continuing until 1870. All that’s left today is Vatican City, which is an independent nation despite being only 110 acres completely surrounded by the city of Rome.

At times the Church expressed disapproval of their supreme leader being depicted in something as profane as a deck of cards – and they still had the power to enforce that disapproval. Some decks substituted Jupiter or Bacchus for The Pope; others substituted a Moor or a figure representing Constancy.

According to the sources I can find, The Hierophant is an 18^th century name change. It kept the artwork of a Pope-like figure, but changed the title to that of the high priest at the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece.

Different decks, different Hierophants

I have a handful of decks I bought because I like the artwork, but I almost never read with them. I read mostly from three decks. I use Rider-Waite-Smith for those who want “the traditional cards” (never mind the fact that they only go back to 1910). The Robin Wood Tarot was my first deck and was my only active deck for many years. The Celtic Tarot became my new favorite deck when it came out in late 2017. Three different decks, three different Hierophants.

The RWS Hierophant retains the papal imagery, including the robes, the white shoes, and the keys. He (although the face looks rather feminine to me – early decks also included a Papess) sits in a position of authority, with tonsured acolytes kneeling before him. This is a card of harsh authority.

Robin Wood kept the indulgent vestments of the Pope, but her acolytes are children at prayer. In her book she says it’s because people like this Hierophant like to keep others dependent on them, like children. But when I look at this card I can’t help but thinking as soon as the artist packs away her canvas and paints this Hierophant is going to rape those kids. This is a creepy card.

Kristoffer Hughes changed The Hierophant to The Druid. The extravagance of the papal costumes has been replaced with a simple robe, and the three rays of the Awen make it clear that the Druid is a teacher who is channeling wisdom, not the source of the wisdom. He is still a figure of authority, but this is a much more pleasant card than the other two.

The meanings of The Hierophant

As most Tarot readers will tell you, the meanings of the cards are highly variable. Meanings can change based on the question, the position in the reading, combinations with other cards, and most importantly, what the spirits tell you.

Still, I had to learn the “standard” meanings of the cards before I could begin to read intuitively. The little white book that comes with most decks is a lousy way to learn Tarot, but it does provide a useful set of keywords for each card.

Google says The Hierophant means “Seeking counsel or advice, Marriage, Tradition, Religion, Learning, Spiritual guidance, Education” and reversed (I don’t read reversed, but context often dictates reversed meanings) “Breakdown, Rejection of family values, Abuse of position, Poor counsel.”

My Tarot notes (consolidated from several classes I took) say it means “religion as a set of rules, an authority figure, conformity, legality, lessons that must be learned with difficulty, a stern teacher because you won’t learn any other way. The outer forms of religion stripped from its soul. Rigidity, stubbornness, not open to changes.”

I’ll be honest – The Hierophant is my least favorite card. Death is part of life, and it rarely means physical death. The Tower destroys what is false and needs to be destroyed, and I’m getting used to Tower Time. The Devil is a trickster, and while I’m not fond of tricksters I’m mostly wise to them.

When The Hierophant turns up the first thing I see is arbitrary authority. And while I readily defer to the authority of expertise, arbitrary authority annoys me, and abusive authority pisses me off.

But sometimes The Hierophant tells us something we need to know.

Somebody has to drive the train

There is no Pagan Pope. Now, if you suggest that maybe, possibly, Pagans should do this or that, even if you provide plenty of logic it’s virtually certain that someone will scream “who made you the Pagan Pope?!” We are an anti-authoritarian lot, and often not without reason.

But leadership is not the same thing as authority. Good leaders are servants who are dedicated to the movement and to seeing its mission fulfilled. They’re our organizers, who make sure that things like Pagan Pride Days happen. They’re our teachers, who share their knowledge and experience with those who are new to our Pagan traditions. They’re our ritualists, who facilitate religious experiences in group settings.

These roles can be assigned based on experience and training, they can be turned into elected offices, or they can be rotated among all members. But somebody has to do them.

We don’t need The Pope. But let’s remember that The Hierophant comes to us from some of the best of ancient Greek Paganism. The Hierophant reminds us that somebody has to drive the train or it will never get out of the station.

You can do it the easy way or you can do it the hard way

Esoteric Tarot readers often talk about “lessons” you have to learn one way or another. I’m uneasy with that terminology. It implies some sort of grand cosmic design that I don’t think exists, and it sounds too much like surface-level Christians talking about “God’s plan” when bad things happen.

But at some point the cumulative effects of our environment and our decisions (both conscious and unconscious) start to look like fate. We repeatedly run up against limits, either hard or soft or self-imposed. We discover that actions have consequences, not because of someone else’s arbitrary rules, but because of the laws of Nature.

When I see The Hierophant it often serves as a warning: you can do the on-line class at your own pace or you can sit in a lecture hall for an hour every day and listen to somebody who’ll smack you with a ruler if you start to doze off. You can call an Uber or you can wreck your car and go to jail.

Maybe there really are lessons we have to learn. Maybe we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Or maybe we just find ourselves in difficult situations because of socio-economic structures and sheer random chance. Whatever the reason, we can do it mindfully, purposefully, and strategically, or we can do it The Hierophant’s way.

And sometimes the picture says it all

For all the many esoteric and metaphorical meanings in the Tarot, sometimes it’s surprisingly straightforward. Sometimes Death really does mean somebody’s going to die. Sometimes the 10 of Swords means somebody is going to stab you in the back, hopefully only figuratively. And sometimes The Hierophant means you’re at the mercy of an authority figure who isn’t particularly merciful.

While I’m fond of order, I don’t like arbitrary authority any more than any other Pagan does. I don’t like seeing The Hierophant show up in my readings.

But context, position, and the words of the Gods, spirits, and your own intuition make a difference. The Hierophant isn’t always a sign of abuse. Sometimes it just reminds us that we have to deal with reality, whether we like it or not.

Druid Reading Recommendations: A Revised List

February 3, 2019 By John Beckett

“Hey, I’m interested in becoming a Druid. Can you recommend a book or two?”

I’ve been getting this question ever since I started on the path of Druidry, informally in 2001 and formally (through the OBOD course) in 2004. In 2011 I put together a blog post of Druid Reading Recommendations and I’ve been sharing and resharing it ever since.

It’s time to update that post. There’s nothing I want to take off the list, but there are a couple I need to add. And I need to pull some material from other reviews into one post.

There are dozens if not hundreds of books that can be helpful to Druids in their practice of Druidry, and perhaps someday I’ll compile a reading list for Druidry as I practice it. These are the handful of books that are most helpful to seekers as they try to figure out if modern Druidry is right for them, and to beginning Druids as they learn the history and heritage of our 300 year old movement.

Introduction to Druidry

I’ve recommended the first three of these for years with good feedback. Now I’m adding a fourth, to represent a slightly different approach and also in response to those who ask “aren’t there any Druid books written by women?” Druidry has historically been a male-dominated thing (because it originated when men dominated everything) but that is changing rapidly.

Druid Mysteries by Philip Carr-Gomm (2003). This book by the Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids is the best single place to start. It’s short (186 pages) and easy to read. It provides a brief introduction to the historical Druids, the revival Druids, and contemporary Druids. It includes some exercises to help you begin a Druid spiritual practice. And it includes a recommended reading list far longer than this one. If you read Druid Mysteries and do the work it recommends you’ll be in good shape to figure out where you need to go next.

The Druidry Handbook by John Michael Greer (2006). Past Grand Archdruid John Michael Greer wrote this as a textbook for the Ancient Order of Druids in America. It follows the same general outline as Druid Mysteries – historical Druids, revival Druids, and contemporary Druids – but it covers them in considerably more detail. It includes a section on the Ogham (the Druid tree alphabet), rituals for each of the eight major Pagan holidays, and the First Degree curriculum of the AODA. It’s intended to be a textbook – read it in short sections, do the work recommended, review the section, learn it well, then move on to the next section.

Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism by Isaac Bonewits (2006). Isaac was the founder of ADF (Ár nDraíocht Féin) in 1983, and like ADF, this book takes a slightly different approach than most others. While it also covers historical and revival Druids, its contemporary section takes a reconstructive approach – it attempts to break with Western Mystery Tradition influences and return as closely as possible to the beliefs and practices of the ancient Celts. This book includes a very extensive recommended reading list, and just as helpful, a short list of books that are not recommended (because they contain material that is clearly inaccurate, or that is fabricated but presented as ancient).

The Path of Druidry by Penny Billington (2011). Penny is the editor of Touchstone, OBOD’s in-house magazine. Like the others here her book explains what Druidry is, but mainly it’s a guide to becoming a Druid without joining one of the major orders. Her method is grounded in the same tradition as OBOD and AODA, but it brings in some of Dion Fortune’s approach to spirituality. It’s not a substitute for the OBOD course – no single book can compare to three years (nominally) of weekly lessons. But for those who don’t want to commit to the time and expense of OBOD’s course, or who want a complementary approach to go with it, this is a good choice.

The Historical Druids

The important thing to remember about the historical Druids is that we know very little about them, and much of what we do know comes from questionable sources. That hasn’t stopped professional historians from making guesses about who they were and what they did. Some of those guesses are more likely than others.

A Brief History of the Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis (1994). This was one of the first books I read on the ancient Druids, and it remains one of the best. Ellis covers the general structure of the Celtic world in which the Druids lived and worked, the historical sources we have for them, and what we know or can reasonably guess about their beliefs, teachings, rituals, and work in their societies. Some of this involves speculation, but it’s reasonable speculation supported by evidence and logic. If you want a good guess at what the ancient Druids were really like, this is your best bet.

The Druids by Ronald Hutton (2008). This is another fairly short (240 pages) and easy to read book. Its premise is that while we can know very little about the ancient Druids with certainty, we do know how the Druids have been imagined over the last 500 years or so. They have been seen as patriots standing against the Roman invaders. They have been seen as priests of a bloodthirsty human-sacrificing religion – and thus convenient proxies in the Protestant-Catholic conflicts. They have been seen as peaceful elders with great knowledge of the natural world. Druids are portrayed in many different ways in the media and popular culture, and that has influenced how contemporary Druids see themselves. If you want to understand why people call themselves Druids, this is the book for you.

Blood and Mistletoe: the History of the Druids in Britain by Ronald Hutton (2011). Unlike the book discussed above, Blood and Mistletoe is long (491 pages, including 69 pages of notes and indices) and dense. Hutton is a professional historian and this book is intended to be a serious work of academic history. If you want the facts unglossed by speculation, this is the book for you.

Fair warning – there were many times when I found myself mentally screaming “I know we don’t know but what do you think happened?!” The bulk of the book concerns the Druid Revival that began in the 1700s and continues to this day. I did a full review of it here. If you’re serious about following a Druid path you should read this book at some point, but it’s not the best choice for beginners.

Professor Ronald Hutton at the Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes conference in 2013

The Revival Druids

There were no Druids for a thousand years. When people began to revive Druidry in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, they did so in a society that was thoroughly Christian. Few if any of them saw Druidry as a religion. Instead, they saw it as a cultural heritage that they tried to reconcile with their own mostly-Anglican Christianity.

Whatever form your Druidry takes (mine is Pagan and polytheist), the Revival Druids are our ancestors of spirit. We owe it to them – and to ourselves – to learn something about them.

The Book of Druidry by Ross Nichols (1990). This is a guide to Druidry by Ross Nichols (1902 – 1975), the founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. He wrote the book in segments over the course of his life. He finished it just before he died, but the manuscript was thought to be lost until 1984 when Philip Carr-Gomm collected the pieces. It was finally published in 1990.

As a book of esoteric teachings in the Druid tradition, it is invaluable. But some of its history is out of date, and at times Nichols makes definitive statements that can’t be verified and are unlikely at best.

This is not an easy book to read. Nichols’ writing changes lanes from historical to metaphorical to mystical and back again, all without using turn signals. The reader is never quite sure how a particular segment was meant to be understood. I read it in 2002 when I was just getting serious about Druidry and I really struggled with it. I re-read it after I finished the OBOD course in 2010 and it made much more sense the second time.

The Book of Druidry is not recommended for beginners, but if you consider yourself a Druid you need to read it eventually.

The Druid Revival Reader edited by John Michael Greer (2011). This is a better source for learning about the revival Druids. John Michael Greer compiled 12 essays on Druidry stretching over a 200 year period from 1743 to 1946. It includes writings from William Stukeley (the antiquarian who surveyed Stonehenge and Avebury), Iolo Morganwg (who would have been remembered in a very different light if he hadn’t tried to pass off his brilliant work as medieval Welsh discoveries), Rudolph Steiner, Lewis Spence, and Ross Nichols.

None of these Druids were explicitly Pagan. Most were Christians, though far from orthodox Christians (Iolo was a founding member of the Unitarian Association of South Wales). But they are our spiritual ancestors as Druids, and their ideas have influenced Pagan and Druid thinking from their time through today.

I did a full review of The Druid Revival Reader in 2013 that includes several excerpts.

Philip Carr-Gomm and John Michael Greer at the OBOD East Coast Gathering - 2012 — Philip Carr-Gomm and John Michael Greer at the OBOD East Coast Gathering – 2012

Avoid this book at all costs

The nine books listed above are my top recommendations on Druidry, but there are many other Druid books out there. Some of them are excellent, while others are good but unremarkable. Read as many as you like – the more the better.

But there is one book on Druidry you shouldn’t read: 21 Lessons of Merlyn by Douglas Monroe, otherwise known as 21 Lessons of Hogwash.

Subtitled “A Study in Druid Magic and Lore” this book is supposedly based on a 16th century manuscript called The Book of Pheryllt. Only problem is, that book doesn’t exist. Monroe’s book is fabricated, ahistorical, misogynistic, and if you take his mistletoe recipes seriously, hazardous to your health.

Don’t want to take my word for it? Here’s Isaac Bonewits’ review (and I believe it was Isaac who first retitled the book 21 Lessons of Hogwash). Here’s Celticist Lisa Spangenberg’s piece on The Book of Pheryllt. Also on the Digital Medievalist website is this page by page listing of errors by Ceisiwr Serith, author of A Book of Pagan Prayer.

So skip 21 Lessons of Hogwash. If you’re a beginner it will confuse you with inaccurate and potentially dangerous misinformation. If you’re beyond the beginning stage it will be a complete waste of your time.

Addendum: I’ve received some criticism for including Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism because of the serious charges leveled against Isaac last year.

Isaac died in 2010 and is not here to defend himself. As I said at the time, only two things are certain: 1) Moira Greyland had a hellish childhood that no one should ever have to endure. And 2) as a religious movement and as a society, we must do a better job of protecting children and other vulnerable people from predators and other damaged individuals who would harm them.

That said, Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism stands on its own merits as an introduction to Druidry, particularly for those who approach it in an ADF context. The royalties from its sale go to Isaac’s widow Phaedra, who can use every cent she can get.

If you’re uncomfortable reading this book, skip it and choose another.

The Morrigan Calls People In Different Life Situations

January 31, 2019 By John Beckett

Another year, another Call of the Morrigan…

I’ve been writing about the Morrigan and Her calls since 2012. Every time I think I’m done She pops in with something else She wants me to write. Apparently Her army isn’t big enough for what’s coming, at least not yet.

That’s a scary thought…

Last year it was The Morrigan Calls More Than Warriors. Just because you’re not a fighter doesn’t mean She made a mistake in calling you.

This year I’m hearing from people who say “what could I possibly do for Her with my life the way it is?”

After some divination and meditation, it’s clear that She’s calling people who are at different points in their lives. Even if you’re not young, healthy, energetic, and unattached; even if your ducks aren’t in the proverbial row; even if you don’t know what a Battle Goddess could possibly want with you – that may still be Her call you’re hearing.

Who is the Morrigan?

The Morrigan is the Irish Goddess of sovereignty, of battle, and of the aftermath of battle. She helped the Tuatha De Danann defeat the Fomorians in the Battle of Magh Tuireadh, after which She gave the Peace Prophecy (“Peace to the Sky…”). She fought with the Irish hero Cú Chulainn and indirectly caused his death – why She did is a question still debated by Celtic scholars. Her home is Oweynagat – the Cave of the Cats – at Rathcroghan.

She is one of the more active deities of our time. She’s been recruiting since at least 2011, calling people to reclaim their sovereignty and to prepare for a coming storm. Now that storm is here, and the Morrigan is still calling people to fight for Her causes and to clear the battlefield when the fighting stops.

If you want to learn more about the Morrigan, read The Morrigan – Meeting the Great Queens by Morgan Daimler. Then read The Book of the Great Queen by Morpheus Ravenna. There are other Morrigan books out there – start with these two. Once you read them, you’ll be prepared to separate the good books from the problematic books.

I am not Her priest, but I am Her sworn Druid. One of the things I swore to do is to be Her messenger and write things like this, for people who hear Her but aren’t sure what to make of what She tells them.

Oweynagat – the Cave of the Cats – Rathcroghan, Ireland

You’ve been drafted. No, the other draft.

Some people compare being called by the Morrigan to being drafted into the army. You get a notice saying to go fight and you don’t have any real choice in the matter. For some people, though, it’s less like a military draft and more like a professional sports draft.

I know, most Pagans are too cool for sportsball. But stay with me – this is important. I promise I’ll keep the sports metaphors as brief as possible.

Sometimes a team drafts a player expecting that he (or she – the WNBA and the NWSL have drafts too) will be a star. Sometimes they expect the player will be a solid contributor. Other times, though, a team will draft a player they know doesn’t have the skills necessary to play now. But they see potential, and so they draft them as a developmental project, hoping that over time they’ll grow into a player who’s good or even great.

I see the Morrigan drafting a few developmental players.

I see Her calling people who are young and inexperienced – and a few who are old and inexperienced – who’ve never been in a fight in their lives. But with study and practice they can grow into warriors, or people who support warriors.

I see Her calling people who are so busy trying to balance work and family and health concerns they feel like they have no time for anything else. And maybe they don’t – for now. But life situations never stay the same for long. And sometimes knowing a Battle Goddess is waiting on you is all the motivation you need to make some hard choices and start getting your life headed in the right direction.

I see Her calling people who have neither the desire nor the skills to be a warrior, or a priest, or anything of the sort. But there’s one thing they can do to further Her goals, and so She drafts them to do that one thing.

Just because you don’t look or feel like someone you think the Morrigan would call doesn’t mean She won’t call you.

Training for service – training before service

If you join the US Army, you don’t go straight from the recruiting center to Afghanistan – or any place else. You begin with Basic Training, which currently lasts 10 weeks. After that, you go to Advanced Individual Training for whatever job you’re going to do – that can last from a few weeks to several months. Training helps raw recruits become effective fighters or skilled support staff.

I think it’s safe to say that a Battle Goddess knows as much about the necessity of training as any military commander. She never sent me to polytheist boot camp (whatever that might be) but She’s had me reading, studying, practicing, practicing some more, writing, writing some more, and then practicing even more for the past nine years.

Am I “ready” for what She wants me to do? I don’t ever feel like I’m really ready. But I know I’m a lot more ready than I was 10 years ago, and a little more ready than I was last year.

If the Morrigan has called you but She hasn’t told you why, don’t sit there wondering. Start reading, studying, and practicing. Start learning. Start building new skills, or improving existing ones. Get your mundane life in order.

Your deployment orders will come soon enough – be as ready for them as you can be.

First group of Marine Corps Women’s Reserve officer candidates – 1943. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Maybe She wants you now

Maybe you were drafted as a developmental player. Maybe the Morrigan wants you to train and study for something She’s going to ask you to do five years from now. Maybe She wants you to clear some troublesome things – or some troublesome people – out of your life so you’ll be able to devote your full attention to Her when you’re done.

Or maybe She wants you today.

Honestly, I see that a lot more frequently. “Why do I keep dreaming about battles and battlefields?” “Why do crows keep popping up where crows aren’t supposed to be?” “Last week I didn’t know what sovereignty was and now I’m obsessed with it.”

If we lived in a polytheist society we’d be more prepared to recognize the call of a Goddess. I think She often tries to call people gently, but by the time they hear Her She’s gone from whispering to screaming. And whatever She wanted two months ago is now that much more urgent.

You may not have time to study and train and get your ducks in a row. You may be handed a spear and pointed toward the front lines. If so, blessings and good luck to you.

But if you’re given time to train and prepare, make good use of it.

If you want to go now, but you can’t

Being a part of something bigger than yourself never comes for free. There are always sacrifices to be made. Sometimes that means pouring a shot of whiskey into the fire instead of drinking it yourself. Other times it means letting something go from your life, not because it’s evil or harmful or impure, but because you have to make room for something more important.

But how do you “let go” of an aging parent you’re caring for? How do you “let go” of your obligations to your spouse or children? How do you “let go” of a chronic disease or condition that severely limits what you can do? In many cases the answer is that you can’t.

If your life situation prevents you from doing what you want to do, then focus on doing what you can do.

Read. Study. Practice. Train. Forget what you can’t do – do what you can do, even if that’s only one thing.

The Morrigan is a demanding Goddess. She wants what She wants when She wants it, and She rarely explains why. She values warriors and priests and people who devote their lives to Her values and Her work.

But She is also a shrewd strategist and a wise commander who makes use of all Her assets. I do not presume to know Her mind, but I feel confident in saying She values people in different life situations with different things to contribute – because I’ve seen Her do it.

If you feel the Call of the Morrigan, do not let your life situation keep you from saying “yes.”

For further reading

The Morrigan Calls More Than Warriors (2018)

Rathcroghan and the Cave of the Morrigan (2018)

When You Hear The Call of The Morrigan (2017)

An Oath to the Morrigan (2017)

The Call of the Morrigan is Louder and More Urgent (2017)

The Book of the Great Queen (2015)

Reclaiming Your Sovereignty (2013)

The Call of the Morrigan (2012)

Cooking a Spiritual Feast in a Potluck Community

January 13, 2019 By John Beckett

Late last month Canadian hedgewitch Juniper Jeni Birch had a Facebook post that really grabbed me. Juniper said:

People come to the table of the Pagan community like a starving man expecting a spiritual feast.

Instead, what they find is a small and loosely organized potluck. Along with the polite suggestion that they contribute a dish next time.

Some folks never quite reconcile the cognitive dissonance.

This is a metaphor. And it’s a high level, generalized metaphor – it isn’t universally true. People come into the Pagan community for all kinds of reasons, looking for all kinds of things. But it is generally true, and for some of us, disturbingly true. And so I think it’s worth exploring in more depth.

Why do we have so many small potlucks instead of spiritual feasts? And what can we do about it?

The Feast of Venus - Peter Paul Rubens (1637) - image via Wikimedia Commons — *The Feast of Venus* – Peter Paul Rubens (1637) – image via Wikimedia Commons

We had bad experiences at other religions’ feasts

Perhaps the hosts were demanding: give us your money or else. Love who we tell you to love, and even then only in the approved ways. And more subtly (most of the time, anyway) hate who we tell you to hate.

Perhaps you got spiritual food poisoning. New Atheist Christopher Hitchens was wrong – religion doesn’t poison everything. But bad religion can poison a lot of things. I certainly got spiritual food poisoning growing up in a fundamentalist church.

The power of association is a lot stronger than deductive logic. All we know for sure is that we got hurt at a spiritual feast. The problem wasn’t the idea of a feast – the problem was the dishes on the table and how they were cooked. But we want to be sure we don’t get hurt again, so we avoid feasts – even the ones that serve the food we’re craving most.

We need to get over our fear of religion. And then get to work building (or rebuilding) our own.

We’ve been told egalitarianism is better than excellence

In response to Juniper’s post, I said:

Too many of the participants get indignant if anyone suggests that a gourmet dinner is better than their green bean casserole.

There’s nothing wrong with green bean casserole. No, that’s not true – green bean casserole is disgusting. But this is a metaphor – there’s nothing wrong with spiritual beliefs and practices that are simple enough for beginners to handle with ease.

The problem is that some Pagans think that because not everyone can do deep spiritual work (or more frequently, wants to do it), none of us should. Or if we do, we should keep it to ourselves.

Last year we had a rash of Pagan elders behaving badly. Or perhaps, the practice of Pagan elders behaving badly stopped being overlooked (the first is a bad thing – the second is a good thing). But once again our association was stronger than our deductive logic and too many people decided rather than holding elders and leaders accountable, we should simply have no elders or leaders.

But we will never get beyond the green bean casserole level of Paganism if we don’t have people who are skilled and experienced, who practice and experiment and refine their beliefs and practices, and then show us what a spiritual feast can be.

Egalitarianism is no substitute for excellence.

Feasts are a lot of work

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. What’s not to like about a holiday centered on food, family, and football? But I wasn’t the one doing the cooking. When I was growing up my mother would cook a turkey, a ham, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, green beans, corn, rolls, and several desserts. She started prepping early in the week, then cooked all morning on Thanksgiving Day.

Spiritual feasts are a lot of work too. It takes years to learn how to cook in the kitchen of the Gods. And so many people settle for the spiritual equivalent of a baloney sandwich: quick, easy, and filling, but not particularly nutritious or satisfying.

Actually creating a spiritual feast requires as much work as my mother put into her Thanksgiving dinners. And as with cooking, much of that work is hot, dirty, and tiring.

But Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without all the great food, and Paganism isn’t the same without study and practice, and without rituals that are anything but easy and quick.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. This is where we are and why we’re here. Now, what can we do about it?

Learn what a spiritual feast looks like

The good news for all our Pagan uber-individualists is that there’s no one right way to have a feast. A gourmet French dinner looks and tastes very different from a Texas barbeque. But both make excellent feasts.

Like both of those culinary examples, a good spiritual feast stays within one tradition. If you want to be a Wiccan, set your sights on becoming a 3^rd degree Gardnerian. If you want to be a Druid, start the OBOD training program and work your way through Bard, Ovate, and Druid. Or do the training program in one of the other Druid orders. A spiritual feast requires spiritual depth, and you’ll never get spiritual depth if you keep sampling a bit of this and a bit of that from the all you can eat religious buffet.

The best way to learn what a spiritual feast looks like – whether we’re using “feast” as a metaphor for an individual ritual or for a whole spiritual tradition – is to see one first-hand. One of the best rituals I’ve ever been a part of was the main ritual at the 2012 Between the Worlds conference, presented by the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel. This wasn’t a ritual I’d ever lead: ASW is a Qabalistic Wiccan group – I’m a devotional polytheist. But I could see and feel the depth and the attention to detail in their ritual (not to mention the results that came from it) and that inspired me to keep adding more depth and attention to detail in my own.

Learn to cook

If you want more spiritual feasts in the Pagan community, more Pagans are going to have to learn how to cook.

This starts with mastering ingredients: the history and lore of your tradition, its cosmology and theology. In the case of magical traditions, this means mastering literal ingredients: herbs, stones, and other items that go into magical workings. As a Druid I studied Celtic lore, sacred sites, ogham and the trees it’s based on, and what we know about the ancient Druids. Among other things.

Then move on to learning cooking techniques – the practices we use to collect, assemble, and manipulate our ingredients. This is mediation, prayer, offerings, and all the many forms of daily spiritual practice. It’s ritual composition and all the things to take into consideration when composing special rituals.

This takes study and practice. Lots and lots of study and practice. Anybody can make a baloney sandwich and almost anybody can scramble an egg. Learning how to make a good chocolate soufflé or how to smoke a brisket is another matter entirely. Read the best books. Study with the best teachers. Practice again and again and again.

I wouldn’t call the first public ritual I ever led a spiritual feast, but it was pretty good. It should have been good – I put a ton of time and prep work into it. The rituals I lead now are far better, because I’ve been practicing for 15 years.

There is no substitute for dedicated study and practice.

Invite others to your feasts

If I’m alone I don’t hesitate to cook good food for myself, or go to a nice restaurant by myself. Fine food shouldn’t be restricted to couples. But all those Thanksgiving feasts wouldn’t have been nearly as good without the family to share them with.

Likewise, our spiritual feasts are better when shared with our co-religionists. Even two people in a ritual makes it stronger than with just one. Nine or thirteen or nineteen are better still. More than that and the nature of the ritual changes, but if they’re written for large groups, more is better.

Inviting others to our feasts enables us to practice hospitality, arguable the first among Pagan virtues.

And when you’re invited, support other people’s feasts. More participants helps them just as much as it helps you. And while their main dish may not be your main dish, you can learn something just the same.

Travel off the map

It’s fairly easy to move from a snack to a meal. Moving from a meal to a whole Pagan feast is harder. There is so much we lost when Christianity became the dominant religion in the West: temples, books, statues, priesthoods, liturgies, and more. Druidry disappeared for a thousand years. Magic was preserved better than anything else, but even that was mixed with the official religion.

Reconstruction brought back some of what was lost. Mainstream history, archaeology, and anthropology help build a scholarly foundation for our Paganism(s). But there are some things that will never be reconstructed. Those things have to be rediscovered.

Some of us regularly journey off the map. We experience the Gods and spirits first-hand, listen to what they have to say, and then do our best to manifest it in this world. And then we draw maps – or to continue the food metaphor, we write recipes – so those who come after us can follow in our footsteps, and then go farther on their own.

People who do this kind of work tend to not talk about it, and people who talk about it usually haven’t done nearly as much as they claim. But show you’re serious – show you understand what’s involved – and you may find yourself in a traveling party with nothing but the stars to guide you.

There’s a place for small, loosely-organized potlucks, both metaphorically and literally. They’re easy, they can be fun, and anybody can participate in them. But they’re no substitute for a real feast.

A common Pagan blessing says “may you never hunger.” That’s a noble sentiment. But in this case I prefer to say “may your hunger lead you to the feast you need, and may you prepare a true feast for those who hunger.”

Paganism As The New Civic Religion

January 3, 2019 By John Beckett

Back before the Solstice, New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat stirred up a bit of controversy with a piece titled The Return of Paganism. It was less about Paganism and more about Christian hand-wringing over their continued decline in numbers and influence. It’s one of those essays that’s mostly right but critically wrong.

Manny Tejeda-Moreno responded with a Wild Hunt editorial that pointed out Douthat’s misunderstanding of modern Paganism. Tejeda-Moreno focused on the failure of Christianity to accept responsibility for its own contributions to its decline – some of which (like the clergy sex abuse scandals) are literally criminal.

Chas Clifton had a good piece on his blog where he pointed out that Douthat wasn’t really talking about us. Clifton said:

We are just an afterthought. He is … concerned about the loss of Christian hegemony, a concern raised a couple of generations ago in western Europe but only more recently popping up in North America, where Christianity was always the 600-pound gorilla in the religion room. He sees the … “paganism” that is replacing it as a falling away from The Truth.

All three of these essays are worth your time to read and think about. In this post, I want to go in a speculative direction: what if Ross Douthat is right? What if Paganism is returning – not as the fringe religion(s) it is today, but as the new civic religion of the Western world?

The Civic Religion of the United States

Wikipedia defines civic religion (or civil religion) as:

the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols (such as the national flag), and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places. It is distinct from churches, although church officials and ceremonies are sometimes incorporated into the practice of civil religion.

The civic religion of the United States includes things like the Pledge of Allegiance, Memorial Day observances in National Cemeteries, and Presidential inaugurations. We saw it last month with the state funeral of former President George H.W. Bush.

President Bush’s funeral was held at the Washington National Cathedral. Did you know we have a national cathedral? A lot of people don’t. We have it because in 1791 President George Washington commissioned plans for “a great church for national purposes.” Construction didn’t begin until 1907 and it wasn’t finished until 1990. It was build entirely with private funds – no tax dollars were involved.

Unlike so many of the famous government buildings and monuments in Washington that resemble Greek temples, the National Cathedral built in Gothic style. It intentionally invokes Westminster Abbey in London. But while in the United States religion and state are separate (or at least they’re supposed to be) there will always be occasions that require ceremony and solemnity, and that appeal to higher powers… or at least, to higher values.

Ceremonial Deism

The National Cathedral is an Episcopal church. I’m old enough to remember when the Episcopal Church was called “the Republican Party at prayer.” Of course, that was the party of Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford, not the party of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The point is that those in power arranged for the National Cathedral to be managed by the church of those in power.

Washington National Cathedral – photo via Wikimedia Commons

The United States is an officially secular country. But President Franklin Roosevelt once said “this is a Protestant country, and the Catholics and Jews are here under sufferance.”

After World War II that changed. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews all fought to win the war. And when reports of the Nazi death camps came back and the country began to see just how far anti-Semitism could go if left unchecked, there was a general (though far from universal) sentiment that America’s civic religion needed to be broader.

That eventually became what Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor called “ceremonial deism” – the vague and non-creedal invocation of the God of Abraham as “the father of us all.” It’s intended to be inclusive and non-offensive.

Of course, it explicitly excludes polytheists and non-theists, as we see in the occasional court fights about who can offer an invocation before city council meetings.

I support ceremonial deism in public affairs. It’s a much better compromise than having atheism be the default religious position. I just want ceremonial deism to be inclusive of Pagans, Hindus, Muslims, and everyone else, including non-theists.

A Descent into Nationalism

Civic religion is religion in the religare sense of the word – it’s what binds us together as a nation, or as a supranational union. But civic religion is by nature a shallow religion – it’s more about culture and values than about any deep exploration of the Big Questions of Life. That’s fine. No one ever expected Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to start worshipping together on a weekly basis.

But the boundaries between individual religions, civic religion, and politics are rather flimsy. Sometimes this is a good thing, as when the African-American churches in the 1960s provided both infrastructure and inspiration to the civils rights movement. And sometimes it’s not, as we see in our time with many Evangelical preachers and their churches selling their souls to Donald Trump.

Trump is arguably the most un-Christian (or at least, non-Christian) President of all time. But he is not irreligious. Donald Trump’s religion is American nationalism – the belief that the United States is special and sacred. His campaign slogan “make America great again” calls back to an earlier, mythical era when straight white men ran the country and everybody else knew their place.

This is why Trump makes such a big deal about (mostly black) football players kneeling for the national anthem – it’s a rejection of his religious nationalism.

I applaud the attempts by many to make Protestant-Catholic-Jewish civic religion more inclusive. But Ross Douthat and others are right – we’re living in a post-Christian culture.

It’s time for a new civic religion – and Paganism can be its foundation.

Reverence for Nature as an alternative

In Dark Green Religion (2010) Bron Taylor explored the trend of viewing the Earth as sacred and acting accordingly. He defined dark green religion as “one where nature is sacred, has intrinsic value, and is therefore due reverent care.”

Dark green religion is essentially Nature-centered Paganism. It can be theistic or non-theistic, animistic or materialistic.

In 2013 I said “if your religion does not include reverence for Nature then I propose your religion is at best inadequate and may be detrimental to your life and to all life on this planet.”

I took a lot of flak for that post. I was accused of “telling people what to do.” It began a journey that would end with the loss of a very meaningful friendship. I’ve come to understand that tone affects how a message is received. My own religion has become more Deity-centered. But I still believe everything I said in that post is true.

Taylor said:

Even though I am a naturalist … I can think of no better term than ‘miracle’ to describe all I perceive. Even the bizarre fact that I am here to perceive it, reflect on it, and share my musing strikes me as nothing less than miraculous … What I have been long looking for is a sensible religion, one that is rationally defensible as well as socially powerful enough to save us from our least-sensible selves.

We need not all sing hymns to the Earth Mother and replace Christmas celebrations with observances of the Winter Solstice. But reverence for Nature in our civic religion would go a long way toward insuring the Earth remains hospitable for humans in the centuries to come.

The Polytheist Restoration

At their core, Western civic religions are monotheist. They appeal to unity by claiming we are all children of the same one God… even though conservative members of their religions insist otherwise, and even though many citizens do not worship their God in any form.

There is another way. Polytheism understands that different Gods call different people to worship Them in different ways. It does not expect your God to be the same as my God. It only expects you to respect my beliefs and practices, as it also expects me to respect yours.

Polytheism is a bridge too far for many otherwise-tolerant Christians. Yet the very concept of Trinitarian Christianity is polytheist in nature, and that’s before we get to angels and saints, or to demons and that very complicated figure called the devil. Or to the other Gods that are mentioned in the Bible.

When you look at the way people actually practice their religions, it is clear that polytheism is humanity’s default religious position.

We need not take over the churches and divide them up between Zeus, Odin, and the Morrigan. Henotheism (a position which recognizes many Gods while worshipping only one) is a perfectly valid religious approach. I have numerous Christian friends who acknowledge the validity of my polytheistic Paganism even though they only worship Jesus themselves.

At the end of the day, what people believe about the Gods is far less important than how they live their lives. I don’t care if you believe my Gods aren’t real or if you think They’re aspects of your one God. All I care about is if you respect my inherent right to believe and worship as I see fit – and that I do the same for you.

A new Civic Religion

A Pagan-based civic religion requires no creeds or doctrines. It is a religare that binds us together through shared culture and values.

It begins with reverence for Nature and a realization that while we are not the children of the same God, we are all the Children of the Earth, and that includes non-human persons too. Our fate and the fate of all our children is a common fate. If we understand at a religious level that we are part of Nature, we are far more likely to elect leaders who reflect Nature-supporting values and who will enact Nature-supporting policies.

Our theological diversity will be reflected as civic oaths are sworn to individual deities. The many Gods will be invoked by function and by relationship for blessings on affairs of state. It will take a while for people to get used to making offerings before important functions, but throwing barley and pouring whiskey (the waters of life) into a ceremonial fire are easy enough to understand.

It won’t take much effort to begin formal ancestor veneration – most of us do it now intuitively.

And what of the place of magic in a Pagan-based civic religion? Done well, it will add a layer of meaning to ceremonies we already perform that few understand. And since – from my observation, anyway – magic works based on action and not belief, doing the public rituals properly will have beneficial effects, even if the materialists among us still insist it’s all coincidence and confirmation bias.

We need not abandon our old civic holidays (except Columbus Day – that one needs to go, no matter what our civic religion is), but we can add the solar holidays and the fire festivals, and perhaps other days that are holy to a fair number of people.

Pagan civic religion will be an organic religion – who knows what else will arise?

A pinch of incense for the Emperor

The Roman Empire was the most religiously diverse society in the history of the world, until now. They had no theological issues with Christianity. They had serious issues with people they thought were trying to undermine the authority of the state (which is what led to the Druid massacre on Anglesey in 61 CE).

There are multiple accounts of Roman governors offering to free Christians if they would only offer a pinch of incense to the spirit of the Emperor – if they would show their loyalty to the state with a religious act. There’s a historical record of a Roman prefect named Probus who begged a Christian nine times to make sacrifice and avoid execution, finally crying “at least offer sacrifice for the sake of your children.”¹

But a coerced religion is a false religion, even for a civic religion. “Stand for the national anthem or be blackballed out of football” is wrong. Forcing school children to recite the pledge of allegiance is wrong.

Pagans must do better than Christians and Nationalists. We must never, ever require a pinch of incense for the Emperor.

I’m not running for Archdruid

One of the more disturbing images in Ross Douthat’s essay was his idea of “Jeff Bezos [founder of Amazon.com] playing pontifex maximus for a post-Christian civic cult.” The United States has gotten by for 242 years without an national Archbishop – it can get by just fine without a national Archdruid. And even if there was such a position, I wouldn’t want it… nor would the deities I serve allow me to take it.

Civic religion is a generic, 30,000 feet level religion. It’s broad, not deep – because that’s what’s necessary to bind a diverse nation together.

Everybody needs a civic religion, but a civic religion alone isn’t enough. Wiccans still need to be Wiccans. Kemetics still need to be Kemetics. I’m an ancestral, devotional, ecstatic, oracular, magical, public, Pagan polytheist. My calling is in devotion to the Gods I serve, in experiencing Their presence first-hand, in relaying Their messages, and in doing Their work in this world. That is my first priority in life.

But a better civic religion will make for a better country, and a better world. And according to at least one newspaper columnist who’s none too happy about it, we’re on our way to it.

¹ The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey (2017), page 74. A brief review is here.

Knowing Through Practice, Experience, and Results

August 19, 2018 By John Beckett

Last weekend an atheist left a very good comment where he took issue with my use of the word “to know.” The conversation went like this.

John: “I’ve always known the Divine has a feminine side”

MNb: “Unfortunately I only can guess what you mean with the word ‘to know’ here. But I’m pretty sure it’s not the same as what I mean with it.”

John: “I use ‘to know’ somewhat hesitantly here, likely for the same reasons behind your comment. There is a qualitative difference between ‘to believe intensely’ and ‘to be able to prove objectively.’ But I have no other word for the kind of deep, intuitive, experiential understanding that something is true even though I can’t prove it objectively.

Then the next day, I led the Sunday Service at Denton UU where I spoke on Becoming Invincible: Overcoming Fear Through Reason and Experience. Here’s a key excerpt:

Becoming invincible begins with reason … but reason alone is not enough … This knowledge does not come from reading books or even from diligent study. It comes from years and years of dedicated and consistent spiritual practice: meditation, prayer, and devotion.

Or, it comes from a one-time first-hand ecstatic religious experience so powerful it rewires your consciousness, changes your foundational assumptions about what is and isn’t possible, and basically turns your life upside down.

I didn’t go into details. A UU Sunday Service is not the place to discuss entheogens and the Headless Rite – particularly not in August when lots of people are church shopping.

Is it a contradiction – or even an outright error – to say we “know” in a religious context? I don’t think so or I wouldn’t use it. But it is a hard question that likely rises to the level of a mystery.

Believing is not the same as knowing

I grew up in a fundamentalist church where I constantly heard the preacher saying “I know this is true!” and “you can know this is true!” Meanwhile, I was biting my tongue and screaming inside my head “no, you believe it’s true!” Sacred texts and church doctrines may be deeply meaningful to followers of that religion, but that doesn’t make them factually true.

A quote of dubious origins often attributed to Mark Twain says “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” In an era of fake news and of the dismissal of inconvenient facts as fake, it’s important to know the difference between facts, theories, opinions, and lies.

We can never know the true nature of the Gods in the same way we know truth of the Pythagorean Theorem. But that doesn’t mean we can know nothing about Them.

Hold loosely but practice deeply

There is no certainty in matters of religion. If you must have religious certainty, your only honest option is to become an agnostic. But many of us – myself included – find agnosticism unfulfilling.

The solution is to hold our beliefs loosely. Never assume we know it all, never forget that we might be wrong, and most importantly, always remain open to new evidence and new lines of thinking. Our polarized political debates have shown that when most people are confronted with clear evidence that their beliefs are wrong, they deny the evidence and dig in defensively. Their fear of change (and their fear of admitting that they were wrong) is greater than their desire to actually be right. We must do better – hold loosely.

But while we hold a belief, we act as though it is absolutely true. Do you believe the Gods are real, distinct, individual beings? Then act as though They are. Speak to Them individually, pour offerings to Them individually, and think of Them as individuals, not as “aspects” or “faces” or some other metaphor that assumes or implies that They’re really all part of one God.

Do you believe in magic? Then stop trying to come up with a “rational” explanation for it, accept that it’s real, and start practicing magic as deeply as you can.

If you later find enough evidence to refute your beliefs, then change them. But while you hold them, act as though they’re true. You may be surprised how deep that approach can take you.

Mundane knowledge is still required

Like the problematic Mark Twain quote, the problem with those Baptist preachers was that much of what they “knew” was demonstrably false. The Earth is a lot more than 6000 years old. Noah’s flood is the cultural memory of localized devastations at the end of the last ice age, not a worldwide event.

Pagans aren’t exempt from this. It’s only been in the past 30 years or so that the majority of Pagans have understood that nine million witches weren’t burned in the “burning times” (it was under 100,000, and the vast majority of them weren’t witches). I still occasionally run into people who claim to be a “hereditary Druid” with roots in antiquity. We have to know our own history.

If you want to read omens and auguries in Nature, you have to know what’s normal animal and plant behavior. Yes, sometimes a crow is the Morrigan, but most times it’s a crow doing its own things for its own reasons.

Ground yourself in ordinary science and history and don’t pretend you “know” something that isn’t really true.

Foundational assumptions control your conclusions…

When materialists scream “you have no evidence!” what they mean is “you have no evidence that aligns with my assumptions that nothing exists except for matter and the interactions of matter.” Evidence that doesn’t fit those assumptions is ignored or rationalized away. If you assume that the Gods are abstractions and metaphors then Odin could appear bodily before you and all you’d do is wonder why that odd old man doesn’t have a glass eye instead of a patch.

Our experiences are undeniably real. Our foundational assumptions control which interpretations we will consider and which ones we will reject out of hand.

Holding loosely but practicing deeply allows us to “bracket” our foundational assumptions and suspend them temporarily. We don’t have to suddenly change our thinking about the nature of reality, we just have to be open to the possibility that reality may be bigger than we’ve always been told.

And then go experiment.

…But results add up

James Bond creator Ian Fleming had one of his characters say “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” Fleming served in World War II – he knew what he was talking about. If you jump at every noise you’ll never get anything done. But eventually, it becomes clear that something’s there and you’d better deal with it.

Do you have a need where magic would be helpful? Something you just can’t get through ordinary effort? Or something that’s so important you want all the help you can get? Then work magic. If you don’t know any other method, use sigil magic – it’s very simple and it’s very effective. Don’t think magic is real? Doesn’t matter – magic works on action, not on faith.

The first time your spell brings results, you’re likely to dismiss it as a coincidence. The second time you’ll dismiss it as confirmation bias. Throw in a time or two when it doesn’t work (likely because you chose the wrong target – more in that in the coming days) and your materialistic assumptions are still firmly in place.

But after the ninth or tenth or fiftieth time, those assumptions start to shift. The results add up. Now it’s easier to assume that magic is real than to assume it’s not.

After years of devotion, including multiple ecstatic experiences, it’s easier to assume the Gods and spirits and ancestors are real than to assume they’re not. If you follow your own experiences, the way you see the world will change.

Knowing through intuition

I told the commenter “I’ve always known the Divine has a feminine side.” This wasn’t an experimentally verified result. It wasn’t a logical inference. It was intuition – something I knew was true in the depth of my soul.

Sometimes intuition is your subconscious spotting cause and effect at a level your conscious mind ignores. Sometimes it’s the whispers of Gods and spirits. Sometimes it’s something we can’t explain even to ourselves, but there it is.

We have to be careful relying on intuition. Sometimes it tells us what we wish was true. Sometimes it tells us what we fear might be true. Many times it simply repeats what we’ve always been told is true.

But when we know ourselves, and when we practice good discernment, our intuition points us toward truths we would otherwise never see.

But do we really know?

Here’s what I know, by any standard of knowing there is:

When I work magic, I get favorable results far more often than I don’t.

The more I honor the Gods the more experiences I have of Them, and the deeper those experiences get.

My life is more meaningful, more connected, less fearful, and happier – though to be honest, not any easier – than before I started this Pagan journey.

That’s enough evidence to convince me that I’m doing something right. So I’m going to keep doing it.

What does it mean to know? Is it to be certain, in the way we can be certain the Pythagorean Theorem is true? Is it to be able to win arguments with atheists and fundamentalists? If that’s the standard then we can know nothing in the realm of religion. But experience shows that certainty is not necessary.

And at this point, I’m convinced it’s all true.

No, I can’t convert atheists or fundamentalists. I don’t need to – that’s not part of my religion.

This isn’t “my truth” – this is “truth as I understand it.” Those aren’t the same things, and that’s important. When people say truth is relative and this is “their” truth, 99% of the time they’re trying to deflect criticism – they’re not being open to new evidence and new experiences. “Truth as I understand it” says “this is where I am right now, but that may change.”

I know magic works. I know the Gods are real. I’m open to someone proving me wrong, but I don’t see how that can happen.

And that’s a very good place to be.

A Letter To Those Trying To Convert Me

August 5, 2018 By John Beckett

Here lately I’ve had more than my usual share of proselytizers. These are people who begin religious conversations not to learn or even to share, but to “win.” Their goal is to aggressively convert me to their religion, not by convincing me it’s a better way, but by insisting it’s the only way. Most are Christians, some are atheists, a few are Muslims.

I’m a public Pagan – it comes with the territory. And it’s not like there’s even a remote chance they’ll be successful. There is no Christian or atheist argument I haven’t heard, considered, and rejected at least a dozen times (the few Muslim arguments have been little more than simple assertions of superiority – I don’t think I’m getting the best Muslim missionaries). I like discussing religion, I can hold my own in a debate against anyone, and I can walk away any time I like.

But it’s getting annoying. Perhaps it’s because I’m trying to balance my usual paying work and Pagan work with trying to get the rewrites finished on my second book. Perhaps it’s because both Mars and Mercury are retrograde. Whatever the cause, I’m finding these would-be converters especially frustrating right now.

If you’re a Christian or a Muslim or an atheist who goes about your religion (or lack thereof) and respects everyone else’s right to do the same, this isn’t directed at you. If you promote your religion publicly, this isn’t about you – I support a free marketplace of religions. This is about those who turn their religion into a competitive sport, and especially those who try to win at all costs.

I have something to say to those folks.

No, you do not have the One True Way

Do you understand the sheer arrogance required to believe that your way is the One True Way and everyone else is categorically wrong?

Different people around the world followed hundreds of tribal religions for tens of thousands of years (and some still do) but your prophet did away with all that? The Indian religions are at least 3500 years old (and are likely much older) but you dismiss them without the first consideration? And we all have to follow your prophet exactly or we’ll end up in eternal torment, but we can’t be sure what your prophet said because he didn’t write anything down himself?

Gotta give the atheists credit here – they do write stuff down and they don’t claim you’ll end up in hell if you don’t agree with them. But they still don’t have the One True Way.

Most of you grew up in a Christian society and you never questioned what you were taught. Or you grew up in a Christian society and you threw the baby of religion out with the dirty bathwater of fundamentalism.

Believe what your heart and your mind tells you is true. Explore it as deeply as you can. Practice it as authentically as you’re capable. But these are mysteries that are ultimately unknowable. Have a bit of humility, which begins by admitting “but I might be wrong.”

You are not Socrates

The Socratic method of asking questions designed to lead students to a logical conclusion is a fine teaching method – one developed by ancient Pagan philosophers. But its proper use requires that the philosopher has examined their own foundational assumptions and is arguing from firm ground. The vast majority of proselytizers don’t even know what a foundational assumption is, much less which ones are controlling their thinking.

I’ve heard your arguments before. When I answer them, most of you respond by moving the goal posts. Or you respond with truisms like “the Bible says…” (for Christians) or “there is no evidence…” (for atheists).

It’s all rather boring, and I’m tired of playing your games. Debates require some common ground from which to proceed, and that can’t happen unless you recognize that your assumptions are assumptions, not facts (as are mine, and everyone else’s).

No, it’s not that I haven’t found the right one

“I’m sorry you had such a bad experience growing up – it’s clear you just weren’t in the right church.” The right church, of course, is whichever one you’re in right now. Independent fundamentalists are the worst about that… which is ironic, since the Baptist church where I grew up was damned close to that (choice of profanity intentional). But I occasionally get it from Catholics, as well as from more aggressive mainline Protestants.

I understand that different churches do things very differently. There is nothing inherently wrong with the teachings of Jesus; most of my family and many of my friends are Christians. I sometimes wonder how things might have worked out if I had grown up in a liberal, mystical, Episcopal church (which is never the “right” church the proselytizers are pushing).

But I didn’t. I found my home in the worship of the many Gods. And I’m happy here.

My Paganism is an orientation

Changing your religion is a commonplace thing in this culture, but the vast majority of changes are from one version of the same religion to another. How did I become a Pagan?

Back in March I explored the idea of Paganism as an orientation:

There has always been something inside me that said “Nature is sacred.” There has always been something that said “there’s more to life than what can be measured and quantified.” I’ve always known the Divine has a feminine side, that the world is full of spirits, and that magic is real.

I tried to be a Christian. I tried to believe the things I was told I had to believe. I couldn’t – they rang false. And I never considered becoming an atheist – something always whispered “there’s more.” I can be what I am, or I can be a liar.

I choose to embrace my orientation and be as devout and devoted a Pagan as I can be.

Religion and identity cannot be fully separated

The idea that religion is a choice of what to believe is a very modern, very Western, very Protestant idea. For most of history throughout most of the world, religion has been – and remains – about what you do, who you are, and whose you are. For many people, the question of “religion” is meaningless. These are our Gods. These are our ancestors. These are our festivals. This is what we do. This is who we are.

When you attack someone’s religion, you attack their heritage, their culture, and their very identity. If you cannot see how and why this is wrong, I doubt I can convince you.

Which is not to say anything goes. We can and must judge people’s behavior, and where their religion leads them to do evil things we must oppose them. I have no tolerance for Daesh, for the Westboro Baptist Church, or for racist religions of any variety including those that fall under the Pagan umbrella.

But where people just want to be left alone to worship the Gods who call to them, you have no right to try to take that away from them.

A coerced conversion is not a free conversion

I appreciate the disaster relief work done by some Baptist groups. Their numbers and their wealth give them resources Pagans will not have for generations, and I applaud their responsible and compassionate work. And I condemn the disaster relief work by some fundamentalist groups which is done as a pretext for evangelism. Preying on vulnerable people to “win” converts is despicable. So is child evangelism, which preys on those without the maturity and breadth of knowledge to make a free choice.

“Turn or burn” evangelism isn’t much better. Even if you honestly believe that’s true, scaring people into converting to your religion by insisting you know exactly what happens after death – which is perhaps the greatest mystery of life – is at best disingenuous.

Religion is in part about our highest values. If supporting the free religious choices of others isn’t one of your highest values, I question the integrity of your religion.

You can promote your religion without being obnoxious

We live in the most religiously diverse society in the history of humanity. This is a good thing – it gives seekers a better chance of finding the religion that calls to them. It also gives those of us who are curious about the world’s many religions a wonderful opportunity to learn. Certainly you are as entitled as anyone else to promote your religion.

Form groups, write books, keep blogs, and advertise to your heart’s content (or at least, to the extent of your budget). Engage in interfaith conversation, where such conversation is welcome and within the bounds of good hospitality.

I can’t speak for other Pagans, but I don’t mind one bit if you point out weaknesses in my logic or inconsistencies in my beliefs. I’m always looking to refine my thinking and I can’t do that if I ignore challenges. Just understand that a difference in foundational assumptions is not a logical fallacy, and that my refusal to continue a debate ad infinitum does not mean you’re right.

You aren’t going to win

With the exception of my college years, I have always lived a very religious life. Not just in doing the things I thought I was supposed to do, but also in thinking deeply about the premises, concepts, beliefs, and doctrines of the religions I was trying to practice. Whatever argument you’re going to make, I’ve heard it, examined it, contemplated it, and rejected it.

I have a Pagan orientation, but I grew up in a Christian world. I was thrilled when I discovered Paganism, but I floundered for eight years because I hadn’t dealt with all the baggage from my the religion of my childhood. On Thanksgiving Night 2001 I had an epiphany that changed all that. I worked through the baggage, killed my inner fundamentalist, and built a strong religious foundation based on reason and experience. It worked so well I wrote a book about it: The Path of Paganism.

My Pagan religion challenges me to live as virtuously as I can. It tells me that the greatest good is building and maintaining respectful and mutually supportive relationships. It gives me confidence to deal with the Big Questions of Life. It has been a good thing for me, and it will remain a good thing when I leave this world and move on to whatever comes next – about which I have some educated guesses but absolutely zero certainty (and neither do you).

So present your religion to the public. Let your God call who he will call. Welcome those who want to join you.

And leave the rest of us alone.

Awareness and Context in Contemporary Polytheism

June 19, 2018 By John Beckett

Last week there was a discussion of polytheism in the CUUPS Facebook group. This made me very happy.

While CUUPS is open to anyone who wants to explore Paganism from a Unitarian Universalist perspective, polytheists are rare. In my experience, most CUUPS members would describe themselves as pantheists or as non-theists – if they would describe themselves at all.

I try to raise the visibility of polytheism within CUUPS. When I was asked to contribute an essay to Pagan and Earth-Centered Voices in Unitarian Universalism, I gave it the subtitle “Why Unitarian Polytheism Isn’t An Oxymoron.”

I’m a polytheist because I’ve had first-hand experiences of mighty spirits (i.e. – Gods) who showed themselves to be real, distinct, and individual. If I was relying strictly on books I might be content to call this “the great Mystery” and leave it at that. But I’m not. I had my own experiences, and I was able to compare them to the experiences of contemporary polytheists and to what we know of polytheism in ancient times. And so I’m a polytheist.

When CUUPS National conducted a survey in 2014, we found that 82% of respondents reported some first-hand experience of spirits. I was part of that survey team and I had access to the free-form text responses. My conclusion was that while experiences of Gods and spirits are common, most people don’t have the context to make sense of their experiences, and they’re unsure what they should say about them. They worry about people making fun of them, or thinking they’re crazy. So they don’t explore the experiences they have, and they don’t work at the kinds of things that promote and facilitate further experiences.

And still, there is a hunger for the first-hand experience of the Gods. Last week’s Conversations Under the Oaks included a question about the best way to hear and communicate with the Gods. There was another question about journeying in the Otherworld, a related subject. People want to see and feel and do this themselves.

What’s stopping them?

In last month’s Toward a Common Polytheist Theology, I quoted from Morpheus Ravenna’s keynote address from the 2015 Many Gods West conference:

People often find it difficult to separate the psychological experience of an archetypal form from a spiritual experience of a God, because the knowledge of how to recognize the difference is a matter of not just subtle awareness, but also trained awareness.

There are two important points here: subtle awareness and trained awareness. And there’s a third point: context.

Subtle awareness

If you’re ever near Nashville, go to Centennial Park and visit the Parthenon. Inside is a re-creation of the statue of Athena that was in the original Parthenon in Athens. You climb a set of steep, narrow stairs to get to the temple level. When you reach the top of the stairs you turn around and there She is: all 42 feet of Her. She is NOT subtle – this is a Goddess presented in all the majesty that a human craftsperson can create. This is a beautiful work of sacred art, even though it is officially “cultural” and not “religious.”

But this statue and the various entertainment-driven depictions of the Gods can set impossible expectations.

Our first-hand experiences of the Gods Themselves are rarely so big. They are never so physical. They are subtle – a thought that could be yours, except it isn’t. Knowing something you had no way of knowing. Things out of place. Coincidences that defy the laws of probability. All things that are easy to overlook.

Why are They subtle and not obvious? Why do we not see Athena walking bodily down the streets in a robe of brilliant gold? I don’t know. I suspect that kind of visibility simply isn’t important to Them. Perhaps They’re not interested in the kind of attention it brings. They’re looking for people who will embody Their virtues and help with Their work, not who constantly hit Them up for favors. And so They approach us more subtly.

There’s a reason why mystics of every religion teach contemplative practices – they teach us how to see. When you can learn to block out background noise, your mental replay of today’s events, and your worries about what’s going to happen tomorrow and just concentrate on the image and values and virtues of a God, you’re a long way toward being able to recognize Their subtle presence.

Polytheist context

It is no surprise that people living in a culture dominated by monotheism have little or no context for polytheist experiences. And so they try to interpret their experiences in a monotheist context, or in an atheist context. That doesn’t work particularly well.

When the Gods of our ancestors stopped being worshipped as Gods, They lived on in human society as natural features, as characters in literature, as expressions in language, and as the principles They personify. We didn’t forget the Gods (most of them, anyway) – we forgot They are Gods.

We forgot the prayers and offerings we used to honor Them. We forgot the rituals we used to connect with Them. We lost the temples and statues and priesthoods. We lost the religious context for first-hand experiences of the Gods.

Or such things were stolen from us.

This is why I advocate for cooperation between polytheist groups and traditions of widely different backgrounds. Even if they worship different Gods from different places in different ways, they’re all promoting polytheist concepts. And that helps all of us create the context for understanding our own religious experiences.

Last year I spoke on “Religion and Bad Assumptions” at several Pagan gatherings, and also at Denton UU. The text of that last service is here. I talked about the need to recognize the unstated monotheist and atheist assumptions in our religions and how to replace them with a Pagan and polytheist context. This includes animism, ancestors, relationships, and the primacy of religious experience.

We must create a polytheist context for our religious experiences.

Trained awareness

I don’t know exactly what Morpheus Ravenna had in mind when she said “trained awareness,” but I know what that phrase means to me.

First of all, it means it takes practice. It’s fair to say I became a polytheist at the Summer Solstice in 2004. It was two years before my first ecstatic experience of a God. It was another three years before my second – I was a bit distracted with the ordinary world during that time. After that, though, I started working on it more regularly and the experiences started coming more frequently. The more you practice, the better you get at it.

It also means things will go better if you have help. For all that Denton CUUPS is a CUUPS group filled with Pagans of all description, for the past eight or nine years we’ve had a significant number of polytheists. I’ve had good, educated, dedicated support for my studies and practices. I like to think I’ve provided the same in return. It’s best if you have experienced priests and elders to advise you, but a group of peers can help each other figure things out as you go, particularly if you draw on more knowledgeable sources in books and on the internet.

Ancient polytheism was never a solitary thing. It was always something people did together as tribes and communities, as priesthoods and as orders. Different people took different roles, but they all played their parts. Our modern polytheisms will go better if we work together as well.

Conversations worth having

The CUUPS Facebook polytheist discussion began when someone asked a question: “I need some insight on polytheism…” There were quite a few responses from quite a few perspectives. Some of them I agree with, and some of them I don’t. The questioner will have to consider them and make up his own mind. If he or some of the people who read without commenting become polytheists, great. If they decide to go elsewhere, that’s great too.

Regardless, those of us who are polytheists will need to continue building a polytheist context for our practices and experiences, and we’ll need to continue to develop our subtle and trained awareness of the Gods.