Drawing Down the Moon (4 page)

I use
Pagan
to mean a member of a polytheistic nature religion, such as the ancient Greek, Roman, or Egyptian religions, or, in anthropological terms, a member of one of the indigenous folk and tribal religions all over the world. People who have studied the classics or have been deeply involved with natural or aboriginal peoples are comparatively free of the negative and generally racist attitudes that surround the word
Pagan.

Isaac Bonewits uses the term
Neo-Paganism
to refer to “polytheistic (or conditional monotheistic) nature religions that are based upon the older or Paleopagan religions; concentrating upon an attempt to retain the humanistic, ecological and creative aspects of these old belief systems while discarding their occasional brutal or repressive developments, which are inappropriate. . . .”
¹⁰
Another Neo-Pagan writer, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart of the Church of All Worlds, has written that Neo-Pagans see divinity manifest in all the processes of nature. According to his view, Neo-Paganism is a constantly evolving philosophy that views humanity as a “functional organ within the greater organism of all Live. . . .”
¹¹

Since many of the groups I interviewed for this book consider themselves to be Witchcraft covens of one description or another, it will be impossible to understand their nature if one is burdened by stereotyped notions about Witches. There mere words
witch
and
witchcraft
unlock a set of explosive associations that inspire unease if not fear.

Dictionaries define Witches as (primarily) women who are either seductive and charming (bewitching) or ugly and evil (wicked). In either case, the women are supposed to possess a variety of “supernatural” powers. The lexicographical definitions of
witch
are rather confusing and bear little relation to the definitions given by Witches themselves. Participants in the Witchcraft revival generally use
Witch
to mean simply an initiate of the religion Wicca, also known as the Craft.

Followers of Wicca seek their inspiration in pre-Christian sources, European folklore, and mythology. They consider themselves priests and priestesses of an ancient European shamanistic nature religion that worships a goddess who is related to the ancient Mother Goddess in her three aspects of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Many Craft traditions also worship a god, related to the ancient horned lord of animals, the god of the hunt, the god of death and lord of the forests. Many Neo-Pagan Witches, and Neo-Pagans generally, see themselves as modern-day heirs to the ancient mystery traditions of Egypt, Crete, and Eleusis, as well as to the more popular peasant traditions of celebratory festivals and seasonal rites.

The word
Witchcraft
comes from the Old English
wicce
and
wicca,
referring to female and male practitioners, respectively. Many Witches have said that these two words derive from the root “wit” or wisdom. Others (including myself, in a previous edition of this book) have said the word derives from the Indo-European roots “wic” and “weik,” meaning to bend or to turn. According to this view, a Witch would be a woman (or man) skilled in the craft of shaping, bending, and changing reality. This definition would apply well to what happened with the fish in Colorado. Although this definition emphasizes the flexible and non-authoritarian nature of modern Wicca, most dictionaries say something quite different.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,
for example, says that the word “witch” is derived from the Indo-European root “weik
²
,” which has to do with religion and magic, and this differs from “weik
⁴
,” to bend. Many Wiccans define
Witchcraft
as the “Craft of the Wise,” and anyone who reads the literature of modern Wicca will come across this definition. Whether or not this idea is etymologically correct, it is understandable since Witches identify with village elders and healers—those skilled in healing and the practical arts.
^d

In this book
Witch
refers to the followers of the Craft unless otherwise stated. Neo-Pagan Witchcraft is seen here as one of a number of modern polytheistic religions. I use the word “religion” broadly, to refer to any set of symbolic forms and acts that relate human beings to ultimate conditions of existence, cosmic questions, and universal concerns. Most people in the West tend to associate the word
religion
with the type of religion they are used to. They assume that religion must contain “beliefs” and “dogmas” and must involve a remote and transcendent deity, usually male, though occasionally neuter, and often removed from human interaction. The idea of a “nature religion” seems a contradiction in terms.

Neo-Pagans look at
religion
differently; they often point out that the root of the word means “to relink” and “to connect,” and therefore refers to any philosophy that makes deep connections between human beings and the universe.
¹²
The science fiction writer Joanna Russ once told a convention that science fiction was a “religious literature.” Many Neo-Pagans would agree. Similarly, the literature of ecology—for example, the work of writers like Loren Eiseley, René Dubos, Marston Bates, John Muir, and Henry David Thoreau—is seen by many Neo-Pagans as religious. Also, Neo-Paganism returns to the ancient idea that there is no distinction between spiritual and material, sacred and secular. We generally think of spiritual concerns as apart from mundane concerns. This idea is entirely opposed to the Pagan perception. A group of women in a feminist Witchcraft coven once told me that, to them, spiritual meant, “the power within oneself to create artistically and change one's life.” These women saw no contradiction between their concern for political and social change and their concern for “things of the spirit,” which they equated with the need for beauty or with that spark that creates a poem or a dance. Mirth and reverence coexist as they do in many indigenous cultures.

People who want a convenient box to place these groups in frequently ask me whether they are “occult.” Usually this question is asked by people who do not wish to consider them at all, and if I say yes, they feel relieved that they don't have to. The real answer is yes or no, depending on the definition of occult. Yes, because many of these groups deal with hidden or obscure forms of knowledge that are not generally accepted, and no, because a number of groups regard themselves as celebratory rather than magical or occult.

Harriet Whitehead, in an article on Scientology, science fiction, and the occult, makes the point that, contrary to the popular assumption, most occultists have an intellectual style, “a process of sorting, surveying, analysing and abstracting.” One of the hallmarks of that style is lack of dogmatism. “The occult world,” she writes, “offers to the individual a ‘free market' of ideas. . . .” What this resembles, “and not by coincidence, is the intellectual democracy of the scientific and academic communities.” She writes that the difference between these two communities and the occult world is that occultists refuse “contentment with the finite” (the phrase comes from William James). Occultists continually affirm that “certain experiences do not cease to exist simply because there is no place for them in our customary order.” Occultists display an extraordinary ability to shift from one dimension of reality to another with ease, feeling that the whole world “hangs together in one unified piece.”
¹³
While some Neo-Pagans consider themselves occultists and others do not, Whitehead's characteristics seem to hold true for the groups I've observed. So, as you read, I hope your customary stereotypes will dissolve.

HOW DO PEOPLE become Neo-Pagans? Neo-Pagan groups rarely proselytize and certain of them are quite selective. There are few converts. In most cases, word of mouth, a discussion between friends, a lecture, a book, an article, or a Web site provides the entry point. But these events merely confirm some original, private experience, so that the most common feeling of those who have named themselves Pagans is something like “I finally found a group that has the same religious perceptions I always had.” A common phrase you hear is “I've come home,” or, as one woman told me excitedly after a lecture, “I always knew I had a religion, I just never knew it had a name.”

Alison Harlow, a systems analyst at a large medical research center in California, described her first experience this way:
^e

“It was Christmas Eve and I was singing in the choir of a lovely church at the edge of a lake, and the church was filled with beautiful decorations. It was full moon, and the moon was shining right through the glass windows of the church. I looked out and felt something very special happening, but it didn't seem to be happening inside the church.

“After the Midnight Mass was over and everyone adjourned to the parish house for coffee, I knew I needed to be alone for a minute, so I left my husband and climbed up the hill behind the church. I sat on this hill looking at the full moon, and I could hear the sound of coffee cups clinking and the murmur of conversation from the parish house.

“I was looking down on all this, when suddenly I felt a ‘presence.' It seemed very ancient and wise and definitely female. I can't describe it any closer than that, but I felt that this presence, this being, was looking down on me, on this church and these people and saying, ‘The poor little ones! They mean so well and they understand so little.'

“I felt that whoever ‘she' was, she was incredibly old and patient; she was exasperated with the way things were going on the planet, but she hadn't given up hope that we would start making some sense of the world. So, after that, I knew I had to find out more about her.”

As a result of her experience, Harlow began a complex journey to find out about the history and experience of goddess worship. This search led her, through various readings, into contact with a number of Craft traditions, until she ended up writing a column on feminism and Witchcraft for the Neo-Pagan magazine
Nemeton
(now defunct). It is perhaps only fair, at this point, to describe my own entry into this same world.

When I was a small child, I had the good fortune to enter an unusual New York City grammar school (City and Country) that allowed its students to immerse themselves in historical periods to such an extent that we often seemed to live in them. At the age of twelve, a traditional time for rites of passage, that historical period was ancient Greece. I remember entering into the Greek myths as if I had returned to my true homeland.

My friends and I lived through the battles of the
Iliad;
we read the historical novels of Mary Renault and Caroline Dale Snedeker
¹
and took the parts of ancient heroes and heroines in plays and fantasy. I wrote hymns to gods and goddesses and poured libations (of water) onto the grass of neighboring parks. In my deepest and most secret moments I daydreamed that I had become these beings, feeling what it would be like to be Artemis or Athena. I acted out the old myths and created new ones, in fantasy and private play. It was a great and deep secret that found its way into brief diary entries and unskilled drawings. But like many inner things, it was not unique to me.

I have since discovered that these experiences are common. The pantheons may differ according to circumstance, class, ethnic and cultural background, opportunity, and even chance. There are children in the United States whose pantheons come from
Star Wars,
while their parents fantasize about
Star Trek
²
and their grandparents remember the days of Buck Rogers. The archetypal images seem to wander in and out of the fantasies of millions of children, disguised in contemporary forms. That I and most of my friends had the opportunity to take our archetypes from the rich pantheon of ancient Greece was a result of class and opportunity, nothing more.

What were these fantasies of gods and goddesses? What was their use, their purpose? I see them now as daydreams used in the struggle toward my own becoming. They were hardly idle, though, since they focused on stronger and healthier “role models” than the images of women in the culture of the late 1950s. The fantasies enabled me to contact stronger parts of myself, to embolden my vision of myself. Besides, these experiences were filled with power, intensity, and even ecstasy that, on reflection, seem religious or spiritual.

As I grew up, I forced myself to deny these experiences of childhood. At first I missed them; then I did not quite remember what I missed. They became a strange discarded part of youthful fantasy. No one told me directly, “People don't worship the Greek gods anymore, much less attempt to become them through ritual and fantasy,” but the messages around me were clear enough. Such daydreams did not fit into the society I lived in, and even to talk about them was impossible. It became easier to discuss the most intimate personal, emotional, or sexual experiences than to talk of these earlier experiences. To reveal them was a kind of magical violation.

Religion had no official place in my childhood world. I was brought up in a family of agnostics and atheists. Still, feeling that there was some dimension lacking in their lives, I embarked on a quasi-religious search as a teenager. I felt ecstatic power in the Catholic mass (as long as it was in Latin); I went to Quaker meetings and visited synagogues and churches. Today it seems to me I thirsted for the power and richness of those original experiences, though I found only beliefs and dogmas that seemed irrelevant or even contradictory to them. I wanted permission for those experiences, but not if it would poison my integrity or my commitment to living and acting in the world.