Drawing Down the Moon (57 page)

One of the most important aspects of Ár nDraíocht Féin was its training system, which was based on a series of levels or circles, somewhat like the organization of the old Church of All Worlds. You can move forward and (if you lose knowledge or skills) backward! Since the Indo-European clergy were supposed to be the intelligentsia of their culture—the poets, the musicians, the historians, and the astronomers, the training for each level included drama, music, psychic arts, physical and biological and social sciences, counseling, communications, and health skills. Languages were also emphasized.

Bonewits has always been extremely opinionated and often difficult, even egotistical, but he remains one of the most interesting Pagans around. In talking about Druidism, he says flatly that there is no indication that the Druids used stone altars. They did not build Stonehenge, the megalithic circles and lines of northwestern Europe, the Pyramids, or have anything to do with the mythical continents of Atlantis or Mu. What's more, he will not accept what he considers to be the questionable scholarship of Louis Spence, Margaret Murray, Robert Graves, H. P. Blavatsky, and others.

While the local druid groves would have lots of autonomy, Bonewits made no apologies for the fact that this group would have a structured hierarchy and that Bonewits would be the Arch-Druid. He told me, “I'm being extremely out front about running it as a benevolent dictatorship. I get a lot of feedback, but I make the final decision. These are the rules of this game. You can criticize them, but the rules of the game are the rules of the game. If you don't want to play by them, you should probably start your own Druid group, and I hope you succeed. Some people will think that makes me autocratic,” he laughed, “and they're probably right.”

Reaction to this approach in Pagan periodicals ranged from attacks: “Bonewits has come out with
his
plea in the wilderness. ‘Support me and I'll be your Guru.' Give me a break Isaac” (
Pegasus Express
) to great praise: “This is actually a good approach for a young organization whose founder wishes it to proliferate and generally be successful” (
Paneg yria
). Appearing at major Pagan festivals, Isaac had a rousing response. Clustering around him on an evening, you might find an intense discussion, or three Celtic harpists playing for each other and exchanging information. His training program got many people talking.

By 2006, Ár nDraíocht Féin was thriving, and many other Druid groups had come into existence, often going in a slightly different direction from either ADF or RDNA. These groups included the Henge of Keltria—which goes in a more Celtic direction than Ár nDraíocht Féin, the Order of the White Oak, and many other organizations (at least a dozen are listed in the Resource guide). As for the Reformed Druids of North America, they are still going strong. And they illustrate something important: When one combines a process of inquiry with content of beauty and antiquity, when, even as a lark, one opens the flow of archetypal images contained in the history and legends of people long neglected by this culture, many who confront these images are going to take to them and begin a journey unimagined by those who started the process.

 

If a number of Neo-Pagan groups began in a spirit of play and, while remaining true to that spirit, grew more serious, there is one Neo-Pagan phenomenon that will never become too serious: the Erisian movement and groups connected with it that have been engaging in absurdist and surrealist activities for many years.

In a way, it's ridiculous even to talk seriously about the Erisians, a group, or collection of groups, that has called itself a “Non-prophet Irreligious Disorganization” that is “dedicated to an advanced understanding of the paraphysical manifestations of Everyday Chaos,”
¹²
and at other times has stated, “The Erisian revelation is not a complicated put-on disguised as a new religion, but a new religion disguised as a complicated put-on.”
¹³

The Discordian Society was founded (if one can call it that) in 1957 (or 1958—even this primary confusion has never been cleared up) by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) and Kerry Thornley (Omar Ravenhurst). After the initial “Erisian Revelation” (see below), Malaclypse the Younger went on to start an Erisian Neo-Pagan Paradox Cult called the Paratheoanametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric (POEE), and in 1970 POEE published the
Principia Discordia, or How I found Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her.
The first edition—there have been five—was five photocopies; the second was quickly offset in New Orleans, and the third was printed in Tampa. By now, at least several thousand have been distributed. Omar Ravenhurst went on to form his own Erisian organization, the Erisian Liberation Front (ELF).
The Principia
puts the story of the beginning of the Erisian movement this way:

The
Principia
was composed from articles and ideas that Greg Hill (Mal) collected during communications with co-conspirators. In 1969 Mal started the Joshua Norton Cabal. (Emperor Joshua Norton lived in the late 1800s in San Francisco. He declared himself emperor of the world and issued his own money, and, proving that one
can
often create one's own reality, much of San Francisco humored him—accepted his money in bars and so forth. It is said that thousands came to his funeral.) Other Erisian cabals formed. At one point there were rumored to be more than twenty, although some may have had a membership of only one. Since radical decentralization is a Discordian principle, it is impossible to know how many Discordians there were and are, or what they are doing. Most of these cabals engaged in various nonviolent, absurdist, revolutionary, magical, and surrealist endeavors. A number of these “actions” were done under the name of the supposed “Bavarian Illuminati,” a rather mysterious organization founded by Adam Weishaupt in 1776. The Erisian “Illuminati” have mostly been the inspiration of someone known as Thomas Gnostic. Similar actions were initiated by ELF. Omar Ravenhurst, for example, invented a Do-It-Yourself Conspiracy Kit, complete with assortments of stationery bearing dubious letterheads. Robert Anton Wilson, a leading Discordian (sometimes known as Mordecai the Foul), described one such action.

A number of these Discordian actions found their way into the underground press in the late sixties and early seventies. They were not, Wilson told me, “hoaxes,” for “a hoax suggests something that's done out of adolescent perversity. I regard them rather as educational projects. We are teaching people that there are alternate realities.”

Discordianism is an anarchist's paradise. One of its mottoes is “We Discordians Shall Stick Apart.” And all you have to do to become a member of the Discordian Society is (1) decide it exists and (2) include yourself in it. Greg Hill has described himself as a “Transcendental Atheist” who has always been interested in absurdist religion and, discovering that the ancient Greeks had a goddess of confusion, decided it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. But POEE is a priesthood of sorts, and you can become a priest by (as you might expect) declaring yourself one. POEE has thousands of wallet-sized “Pope Cards.”

Wilson (Mordecai) has described himself as a “Transcendental Agnostic,” although, he added whimsically, “There are many me's.” He once told an interviewer from a science fiction magazine: