Drawing Down the Moon (74 page)

Sometimes I think the whole movement has been in Wicca 101, almost as if the spirits or the gods said, “Let's ease the culture into it.” For example, there is now much more direct contact with the spirit world. And Paganism is becoming more and more like traditional Witchcraft. For example, last night, everyone is around the fire, and going to these ecstatic places, and calling to the spirit world. And people are being fed, and watching the food and alcohol going around the circle, it was almost like white Voudoun, and you notice that more and more Voudoun and Native American folk are beginning to come to these gatherings, and they are saying, “These folks are beginning to do something.” I was talking to a Wampanog who was here at the festival, and he said, “You don't know it, but you are defining your tribal tradition for the generations to come. Fifty years from now what you are doing will be traditions.”

Real spiritual work is not fluff bunny stuff, it often means changing how you think, changing how you live, how you eat. And one of our real challenges is to acknowledge we have elders and listen to them. Real tribal cultures look at us, and I will tell you what one tribal elder, a Voudoun priest once told me. He said, “I am not interested in the white boys Pagan movement. Until they value their elders there must not be anything important there, so why should I waste my time.” But I am beginning to notice that elders
are
being acknowledged, and it bodes well—because when you care for the roots, you care for the tree.

So, on the one hand there is a new sense of Pagans becoming multigenerational, and creating serious roots and stability, at the same time that a whole new influx of Pagans are entering the movement through the Internet. So there is a new deepening and a new superficiality at the same time.

It is tempting to connect through the Internet, but to never sit down and hold hands, and touch the spirit of another—to never see the body language. As people connect to lists, they think that is where they
live,
but they don't really live there. There are so many Pagans who have never been to a gathering; they have never seen a real teacher teach; they have never sat down with an elder in the community to listen to what they have learned in thirty or forty years. There are people coming into the community who have never seen a fifty-year-old or sixty-year-old Witch. And it is sharing that kind of knowledge that will help us deepen as a community.

• Paganism growing as a World Religion—increased awareness by Pagans that they are part of a multifaceted global community; increased awareness of Paganism in the world and in the field of religious studies; increased contact between traditional animists and contemporary Pagans.

• Pagan studies—increased numbers of courses and departments at institutions of higher learning. More understanding and respect for Pagan world views. Attention to this in health care and counseling situations.

• Pagan chaplains—More full-time, part-time, and volunteer Pagan chaplains working in hospitals, birthing centers, hospices, the military, prisons, emergency services, and other institutions. An increase in training programs within Paganism that train people for this kind of work.

• Pagans in politics—Pagans as elected representatives, Pagans in both major parties in the United States as well as in a variety of political parties in countries around the world; Pagans being able to run for office without their religion being a liability.

• Increased numbers of Pagans who are in the world as authors, musicians, scientists, or sports figures, or are in business, industry, and other fields, and the development of business and professional networks for Pagan professionals.

• Landed Pagan churches and institutions—development of multigenerational Pagan church communities that sustain these land projects; development of libraries, retreat centers, seminaries, and schools, with physical locations.

• Pagan green cemeteries

• Winter Solstice—celebrations grow in prominence as a part of Yuletide celebrations. Solstice is mentioned alongside Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanza.

• Paganism in space—development of new Pagan traditions as humankind lives off planet; shift from referring to Paganism as Earth religion to Nature religion in order to be more inclusive; adaptation of Pagan practices to living in space stations, lunar outposts, spaceships, space settlements; increase in the use of sacred sphere casting instead of circle casting; new forms of seasonal and sabbat celebrations developed that work with different lunar and solar cycles.

For years, since my early youth, I have tried to find out what the facts were. Hope against hope was spent against the lack of monumental evidence; the belief that inscriptions would be found on which the Hierophants had recorded their ritual and its meaning has faded completely; the discovery of a subterranean room filled with the archives of the cult, which dominated my being in my days of youth, is proved an unattainable dream since neither subterranean rooms nor archives for the cult exist at Eleusis; the last Hierophant carried with him to the grave the secrets which had been transmitted orally for untold generations, from the one high priest to the next. A thick, unpenetrable veil indeed still covers securely the rites of Demeter and protects them from the curious eyes of modern students. How many nights and days have been spent over books, inscriptions, and works of art by eminent scholars in their effort to lift the veil! How many wild and ingenious theories have been advanced in superhuman effort to explain the Mysteries! How many nights I have spent standing on the steps of the Telesterion, flooded with the magic silver light of a Mediterranean moon, hoping to catch the mood of the initiates, hoping that the human soul might get a glimpse of what the rational mind could not investigate! All in vain—the ancient world has kept its secret well and the Mysteries of Eleusis remain unrevealed.
³