Drawing Down the Moon (63 page)
Read Drawing Down the Moon Online
Authors: Margot Adler
Several articles in
Notes
underscored the idea that there was a non-exploitative European heritage, embodied, one article noted, in “the old tribal/peasant heritage of Europe (still not absolutely corrupted, even today),”
11
Many Neo-Pagans were searching in that “old tribal/peasant heritage” for their cultural roots. In this they were much like Native Americans who newly adopted traditionalist values. After all, as Leo Martello remarked on many occasions, “If you go far enough back, all of our pre-Judeo-Christian or Muslim ancestors were Pagans.”
Notes
underscored the idea that there was a non-exploitative European heritage, embodied, one article noted, in “the old tribal/peasant heritage of Europe (still not absolutely corrupted, even today),”
11
Many Neo-Pagans were searching in that “old tribal/peasant heritage” for their cultural roots. In this they were much like Native Americans who newly adopted traditionalist values. After all, as Leo Martello remarked on many occasions, “If you go far enough back, all of our pre-Judeo-Christian or Muslim ancestors were Pagans.”
It is striking how many of the
religious
values expressed in
Akwesasne Notes
were similar to the ideas of many Neo-Pagans. For example, in an article called “The Non-Progressive Great Spirit” a writer observed:
religious
values expressed in
Akwesasne Notes
were similar to the ideas of many Neo-Pagans. For example, in an article called “The Non-Progressive Great Spirit” a writer observed:
Our entire existence is of reverence. Our rituals renew the sacred harmony within us. Our every actâeating, sleeping, breathing, making loveâis a ceremony reaffirming our dependence on Mother Earth and our kinship with her every child. Unlike Christians, who dichotomize the spiritual and the physical, put religion in its compartment, and call the physical world evil and a mere preparation for a world to come, we recognize the “spiritual” and the “physical” as oneâwithout Westerners' dichotomies between God and humankind, God and nature, nature and humankind, we are close and intimate and warm with Mother Earth and the Great Spirit. Unlike Christian belief, which claims that our species is both inherently evil and the divinely ordained ruler of Earth, we know that, being of our sacred Mother Earth, we are sacred.
12
12
This statement is close to words I heard over and over again from Neo-Pagans.
But on matters that were
not
connected with religious values, most Neo-Pagans had fundamental differences with most of the positions taken in
Akwesasne Notes.
Many articles in
Notes
rejected much of Western technology, viewing it as “extractive” and therefore exploitative and disharmonious.
13
Neo-Pagans, in contrast, often expressed positive feelings toward modern technology, and almost everyone I talked to had astonishingly positive attitudes toward science, the scientific method, and Western modes of thinking.
Working and Living in the Worldnot
connected with religious values, most Neo-Pagans had fundamental differences with most of the positions taken in
Akwesasne Notes.
Many articles in
Notes
rejected much of Western technology, viewing it as “extractive” and therefore exploitative and disharmonious.
13
Neo-Pagans, in contrast, often expressed positive feelings toward modern technology, and almost everyone I talked to had astonishingly positive attitudes toward science, the scientific method, and Western modes of thinking.
Susan Roberts, in her book
Witches U.S.A.,
stated that Witches “are mostly middle-class Americans who, on the surface, live quietly and unobtrusively in the mainstream of American life.” But, she said, privately they are nonconformists. They defy categorizing and “can never be measured with any degree of accuracy.” Publicly, “most witches . . . appear to the world to be conventional men and women. They fit themselves into society as comfortably as they can.” Roberts said that all Witches do share one traitâthey have never lost the simple wonder and curiosity of small children. She also concluded that most Witches were not religious rebels; that is, they did not come to the Craft out of a rejection of a previous religious upbringing.
14
Witches U.S.A.,
stated that Witches “are mostly middle-class Americans who, on the surface, live quietly and unobtrusively in the mainstream of American life.” But, she said, privately they are nonconformists. They defy categorizing and “can never be measured with any degree of accuracy.” Publicly, “most witches . . . appear to the world to be conventional men and women. They fit themselves into society as comfortably as they can.” Roberts said that all Witches do share one traitâthey have never lost the simple wonder and curiosity of small children. She also concluded that most Witches were not religious rebels; that is, they did not come to the Craft out of a rejection of a previous religious upbringing.
14
In my interviews with all types of Neo-Pagans, including Witches, two statements of Roberts rang completely true: they defy categorizing, and they maintain a childlike wonder at the world. I found many religious rebels, and many who had made peace with their religious past. I found former Catholics who still took communion and others who had harsh words for all organized religion. I found every conceivable lifestyle, occupation, and financial position, and I found remarkably diverse political viewpoints.
But when asked, Neo-Pagans were adamant in insisting that they were “different” although often the differences were subtle and hard to express. “What
are
the common traits of Pagans?” I asked. The answers I received included, again, that sense of childlike wonder, acceptance of life and death, attunement to the rhythms of nature, sense of humor, lack of guilt-ridden feelings about oneself and about the body and sexuality, genuine honesty, and unwillingness or inability to play social games.
are
the common traits of Pagans?” I asked. The answers I received included, again, that sense of childlike wonder, acceptance of life and death, attunement to the rhythms of nature, sense of humor, lack of guilt-ridden feelings about oneself and about the body and sexuality, genuine honesty, and unwillingness or inability to play social games.
“We tend to include people who seem to be in touch with the essence of life,” Alta Kelly told me as she lounged on a sofa in her house in Oakland. “Witches may be frivolous in some ways. They certainly have their problems in day-to-day living, but they have a quality of eternalness about them. They feel comfortable with living and dying, and that's something I find lacking in folks who are non-Craft.”
Others told me that being a Pagan was simply a more comfortable, freer, friendlier way to be. “I can cope with loneliness and solitude, whereas most of my neighbors must surround themselves with noise,” said one woman who lived in a small town. “And psychic phenomena no longer seem supernatural,” she added. Feminist Witch Z Budapest told me, “Trees talk to me. My plants are telling me right now that they could use some more water. I am surrounded by my ancestors and by spirit friends. The sky kisses me. I can talk to stones, and sometimes clouds part if I ask them to.”
This feeling that Pagans have a friendly relationship to the universe, that they feel a vital contact with natural forces, came home to me most forcefully when I received a letter from a friend who had visited Z's little shop in Los Angeles, The Feminist Wicca. This friend was not a Pagan. In the summer of 1977 she had walked into the shop several times out of curiosity. She wrote:
It's my reaction to that place, those people, that's got me confused. On the one hand, the teachings seem a trifle silly and the rituals seem like just words, meaningless in themselves. My rational mind argues this way for hours. But then I feel a current when I am there, a force that surrounds us. It's alive, it pulsates, it ebbs and flows like the waxing and waning of the moon. . . . I don't know what it is, and I don't know how to use it. It's like being near an electric current, very near, so near you can hear it humming and crackling, but not being able to tap into it.
I know it must be a wonderful thing to be able to use it, or open oneself to it completely, for just being aware of it makes me feel wild and excited and very much alive, more alive than at any other time in my life.
And then I remembered, at various times in my life, having this same sensationâof being on the verge of something tremendous, but never quite knowing what it was, where it was coming from, or what to do with it. Stuck without a vocabulary to describe it, as it were, it slipped away from me again and again until I thought it a thing of childhood, which I'd put behind me forever. Quite a pleasant surprise to find that not only is it still alive in me, but that others feel it too! To know that there are people who, though they speak of it in terms my rational mind rebels at, have felt it flow like me.
Others expressed it more simply. The late Alison Harlow, a computer consultant, said, “I think we're a lot more fun. We use ourselves better. We're clear in how we want to live. We play fewer games determined by other people. We are free to choose our roles and find ways to live in accordance with our feelings.” She thought a minute, laughed, and added, “Paganism says I am alive and therefore I am good and the Goddess rejoices in my joy. The more I celebrate life, the happier She is, the happier I am.” Still others said that becoming Pagan had allowed their imaginations to flower. A successful scientist told me, “A few weeks after I had entered the Craft, I was driving home, looking at the mountains. I said to a friend, âThose mountains are alive. You can almost see the Indians marching through them.' My friend said, âWow, two months ago you would never have said a thing like that to me.'”
When
Drawing Down the Moon
came out in 1979, most Neo-Pagans were white and from middle-class backgrounds. That is still true today, but there is an enormous range of professions and lifestyles.
Drawing Down the Moon
came out in 1979, most Neo-Pagans were white and from middle-class backgrounds. That is still true today, but there is an enormous range of professions and lifestyles.
In the 1970s there was a great division between those who had an integrated identity and were fairly public about their beliefs while on the job and those who led separate lives, with two different sets of associates. While some found unpleasant discrepancies between their working life and their Pagan/Craft identity, others felt no sense of contradiction, and in a few cases accepted and even enjoyed the double life. What is different today is there are many more public Pagans.
Twenty-five years ago a striking number of Neo-Pagans worked in scientific and technical fields, and all felt there was absolutely no conflict between their scientific work and their belief in, or use of, magic. A doctor of physical chemistry, working at a major corporation in a high position, told me, “Science is the study of natural phenomena. Witchcraft is learning to live in this world on a natural basis. There is a lot in common. It's all one world. The energies we study in science are the same energies we work with in Witchcraft.”
This chemist was the priestess of one of the most active Gardnerian covens in the United States. She is a good example of someone whose work life and religious life were totally distinct. As she described it, her life was equally divided between the two occupations. She enjoyed her professional life; she enjoyed her Craft life. “I have found no way to integrate the two, at this stage of the game,” she said at one point. “I absolutely refuse to mix them,” she said at another. But another priestess, referring to this woman, put it more bluntly: “Despite her Ph.D. and successful position, she lives in mortal terror that her employers will discover that she's a Witch.”
I asked this scientist how her two sets of associates differed. She replied, “The Craft is a way of life. It's a way of being yourself, of feeling comfortable. You don't have to fight natural tendencies. People in the Craft appreciate you for what you are. They don't put guidelines and restrictions on you. I am constantly struck by how open and honest people in the Craft are about who they are and what they feel about things. Whereas in my mundane life as a scientist, showing your individuality is not really accepted.”
Alison Harlow was, in contrast, open and public about her beliefs. I asked her if she found any contradictions between her work and her religious life.
“No,” she said. “I am a systems analyst which, on one level, seems contradictory. But I feel that the work that I do is basically intellectual work. It does not put a drain on my resources of empathy, sensitivity, and magical perception. I have all of that available to me when I go about, in a sense, my “real” life of relating to people as a Witch and a priestess.” She added that science and magic were simply “subjective” and “objective” sciences, and that different sets of tools were needed for each.
Ed Fitch, who has written some of the most beautiful Pagan rituals ever publishedâthe Pagan Way ritualsâcomposed most of them on a bus that took him to work at a military base. “Didn't you find
that
a contradiction?” I asked him.
that
a contradiction?” I asked him.
“Not at all,” he replied. He told me that in his experience some of the best Neo-Pagans were, by profession, either technocrats or in the military. And today, in the twenty-first century, there are Pagan organizations that cater specifically to people in the military.
On the other hand, the late Craft bard and priest Gwydion Pendderwen spent many years working for the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Finding such work troublesome and filled with contradictions, he finally left those jobs to live a rural life in Mendocino County. He once said to me, “You get up in the morning, go to work for eight hours a day, turning off your psyche. The hardest part for most Witches and Pagans is that they have to lead two separate lives. They are doubly victims because they have the desire to be free, but most of them do not have enough trust in themselves, or in the gods, if you will, to get out.”
Aidan Kelly, of NROOGD, observed to me that the question of contradictions was often skirted by Pagans, and understandably so. “A lot of jobs in this society are life-denying. And anyone who has a strong sense of ethics is going to be faced with difficult personal problems about working in a great many jobs in this society. It's unfair to be too idealistic about this. What people generally do is compartmentalize. They set up a mental wall and refuse to look at the problem because it hurts and seems unsoluble.”
Others in the movement have been less charitable. New York Witch Leo Martello, now deceased, publicly stated that any Pagan who worked for the government or the military was hypocritical. “There were no Witches in Watergate,” he once wrote to me, years ago.
One issue that is often debated by Pagans is whether making money in the “magic racket” is ultimately corrupting. A machinist in St. Paul, Minnesota wrote this:
Like a lot of old-fashioned Anarchists and Communists, I'm a skilled worker who relates almost entirely to the work I do rather than to the employer I work for, and always refuse promotions that would force me to relate to the power structure.
w
If a significant number of my co-workers are political leftists, I'll work with them openly on various political projects, like radicalizing an existing union local, or founding one from scratch. If not, I keep my mouth shut on the job. (Not really a difficult thing to do, since my job requires me to bend over a machine at least three-quarters of the time anyway.)
w
If a significant number of my co-workers are political leftists, I'll work with them openly on various political projects, like radicalizing an existing union local, or founding one from scratch. If not, I keep my mouth shut on the job. (Not really a difficult thing to do, since my job requires me to bend over a machine at least three-quarters of the time anyway.)
I was originally trained in the biological sciences and worked in the field for a few years, but couldn't take the frustration of being forced into being an active participant in the “Rape of Nature,” knowing the whole time that improvements, when they came, wouldn't come from within the field but would be entirely political. (Also, that no significant improvements will come until ecological and economic necessity forces them, probably not in my lifetime.)
So I work at reasonably well-paid working-class jobs, the sort of thing where no one questions my background much when I apply for work (either you have the skill or you don't, and if they suspect you're faking your background, they just assume you're coming off a messy divorce or a stretch in the penitentiary for some barroom brawl, like practically everyone else).
I received a lot of criticism for this from my friends, but I still think my method of making a living is what's best for me. Sure, I could make my living through “the magic racket” if I wanted to, but I saw what that did to my aunt and uncle, and I don't think it's a good idea. The same goes for trying to make a living as a professional writerâmost of the writers I know don't make much money at it, work much harder than I do, and worse yet, end up compromising themselves. If you make your living by either magic or the arts, you have to go out of your way to relate to and please “straight people.” The longer you do this, the harder it is to keep these conscious compromises from influencing your thinking and the development of your personality. I prefer to keep my life compartmentalized doing work that can't very easily contaminate my personality because it's essentially neutral and without meaning, either positive or negative.
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