Pagan Fire 2013

I’ve just returned from Columbus, OH, and the weekend at the second Pagan Fire Seminar, hosted by Three Cranes Grove, ADF. The folks at TCG are friends, and L and I had a very nice time hanging and chatting, all questions of actual content aside : ). Thanks, Cranes!

 

Pagan Fire is a one-day intensive (so far). It was held in a metropark facility with a nice kitchen, gas fireplace and carpeted floor. Quite comfortable, though it will get pretty full as the attendance grows. I know the organizers have other irons in on that. The event price included three meals if one counts the plentiful continental breakfast, and everything was handled quite nicely by the Grove staffers. While the target audience was certainly local, folks actually came from Michigan and even Mass!



Lovely rustic setting...



The event is arranged as a seminar, with good AV support, and a nice 30-page book of notes and follow-alongs that covered each of the programs presented. Later this spring a proceedings book will be available, with the copious stuff I provided as well as further notes and articles from the presenters. You can see last years book, on moving from private spiritual practice to leading public ritual, here. Last year’s event featured our Archdruid, Kirk Thomas, who brought his theater training to bear on the work of public ritual. I’ve found that small book useful, and I’m sure the next will be as well.

 

The topic of the day was magic, and the development of a magical practice inside of a Pagan Druidic system. Our Druidry was developed primarily to serve community gatherings as religious ritual, and it has been a gradual process to develop practical magic workings inside of our format. We’re really getting there now, and various results were displayed on this program. I  was one of four presenters at the event. The other workshops included  Ethical Sorcery,  Applying Magical tech to Druidic Liturgy, and an exposition of a traditional Hellenic house-warding charm. I learned something new at each one. 

 

I did two sections of teaching – the first on general magic leading to techniques of consecration and a practicum on using our Two Powers model of energy-working for magical work. The second was on classifying the spirits, leading into a discussion of summoning and intending a practicum on Threshold Vision and perceiving the spirits. I am only so satisfied with either.

 

The last several years have been a time of active ferment in my brain. Stuff that had been slowly soaking for a while has been sprouting and blooming. However I am as yet not very able to arrange it all in hour-and-a-half units. Since the event I have had several “I coulda done this…” moments. Nevertheless the practicums were well-received, and I sold a nice pile of books, which usually indicates that folks were interested. I just have to get a tighter grip on dividing the material into useful and focused chunks. More this summer…

 

Finally, I just want to shout out to Michael and Seamus at The Magical Druid. This time it’s for turning my little drawing into a beautiful fire-ring altar-piece made of granite! For years we have been using a ring of candles surrounding a censer as an indoor Fire of Sacrifice. We’ve had items and versions of various levels of quality, including our classic one made from a craft-store clock-face. Now this lovely and handy indoor fire-implement will be available to all, in an affordable wooden version from MD. 

 

 

Trancework Teaching at Aradia’s Garden

Coming up next month (April 11^th) I’ll be giving a one-shot talk at Aradia’s Garden in Eastlake. It will be called ‘Celtic Trancework – Seeking Vision’ and will be a general introduction to trance in a Pagan context, intended especially for those who have been struggling with printed instruction. I’ll have more on that soon.

Initiation in Modern Paganism

Well, only two posts in February. Sorry you lot. I can't even claim busy-ness, particularly, though I have kept myself busy. Really, It was that hibernation thing I wrote about. In the meantime some decisions were made and directions chosen, so I know what I'll be writing about - that's an improvement. Also, a couple of fun essays in the pipe.
Later today I am off to speak at the Pagan Fire Seminar, so I'll have a review and pics on that as well.
If we stand on tip-toes we can see spring from here...

Initiation in Modern Paganism 

I had the pleasure, last month, of being interviewed by Candelo Kimbisi on his blogtalk radio show. I enjoyed the conversation very much, but in retrospect there was one topic that rather took me by surprise. I’m unused to not having a rap prepared on most Pagan topics, so I thought I’d better sort out my thi­nking at least a little. We’ll see how that goes...

 

Candelo works in a Palo system, and in those ways initiation is central. Each dedicated worshipper is blooded to a specific lineage of initiation, and receives spirit-contacts specific to that lineage. (At least that’s my understanding, limited as it is.) I’m uncertain of the place of non-initiate ‘congregations’ in Palo Houses.

 

The topic came up because I still list my Wiccan initiation in my bio. Back in the 1980s I took initiation in a non-Gardnerian traditional coven. That was a very formal matter, and I was blooded and sworn in a traditional way. I worked in that system for about ten years, and that was when I first became a devotee of the Gaelic gods. I became a 3^rd Degree, and thus entitled to initiate, and then founded a coven and initiated others.

 

For me, ‘initiation’ was a goal that I had cherished since my first days as a teen occultist. Reading alone in my industrial backwater town, the shining dream (or midnight vision) of lineages of sorcerous and wise adepts stretching back into time was a powerful one for me. I steadfastly refused to refer to myself as a Witch until I had been initiated, using terms like ‘Pagan magician’ when asked.

 

However I was also reading the real accounts of the history of initiatory orders such as the GD, and watching the various gyrations of Wiccan coven leaders and initiators. Being a skeptical sort it was apparent to me that even real attainment and occult skill didn’t relieve the masters from the dangers of being assholes. It seemed, back in the 1970s, that anyone whose opinion I respected was busy publishing material that had previously been kept secret behind the veil of initiatory oaths. So I was conflicted. I both valued initiation for the connection it gives to lineage and a battery of power and wisdom, and I disdained the notion of secrecy that allowed leaders and organizations to control access to information.

 

Do I find that contradictory? Not really. While the insistence on secrecy can help build a current in an initiatory lineage I think that it mainly serves to enforce the power and authority of the leaders of the system. There are also socio-economic issues. I have always operated in a world in which information is readily available for a few dollars, by buying a book. There’s no doubt that being taught *any* subject by a living teacher has advantages over learning from books alone. However a great deal can be learned by reading and diligently applying what one reads. I always recall the derisive words of Crowley, who described swearing awesome oaths of secrecy only to have the revealed secrets begin with the Hebrew alphabet. Thanks to the availability of modern magical publishing so very much of what was once proprietary has become public.

 

Two things about that - first, the above simply isn’t true of ATR systems like Palo or even Quimbanda. In those cases, as with some kinds of traditional witchcraft, the initiate is introduced to spirits and practices specific to that system, and even to the house’s specialized mysteries. In order to keep a current like that straight, secrecy is an important technical tool.

 

Secondly, books in no way substitute for a living teacher. I had read about trance, vision and meditation for a couple of years before I found someone who could talk me through the basic states. A live teacher moved me further in two or three sessions than I had gotten by myself in years. Likewise during my initiatory work; the magical tasks set before me by my tradition were not new to me, not great revelations of secrets previously unknown. The culture of practice, the peer observation and the goals set before me by others certainly provided motivation, feedback and guidance that I couldn’t have gotten from my library.

 

All in all I in no way regret my work in an initiatory system, and still value the focus and commitment that is required to actually complete the better initiatory training programs. I do not believe in concealing one’s participation in modern Paganism or witchcraft as a matter of policy, nor of concealing the basics of one’s system. Even most technical magical methods and ideas can be published plainly. The chances of inappropriate persons actually having the juice to use them are slim.

 

As a side note I must say that I suppose the dynamic is different in cultures where magical skills can be sold for good money. One of the advantages of the no-cash-exchange ethic with which Gardner saddled Neopaganism is that it reduces the tendency to view the mysteries as commodities. When one makes a living based on one’s magical reputation, then the ‘trade secrets’ of one’s work become a different matter indeed. The turn of the 20^th century scholar Charles Leland amassed a huge collection of spells and charms. He told of poor Italians trying to break into his house for the express purpose of stealing or copying that material, knowing that they could then set themselves up as conjurors. To be clear, I stand for the creation of permanent institutional Paganism in modern western society, and that will require money. The possibility of Pagan priests and other occult practitioners making a living on the work is a step toward the kind of world I want to live in. Let us just be aware of what we may have gained by our cashless ethic, and what we might live with if we set it aside.

 

These days the world of English-speaking neopaganism and occultism is a patchwork of different kinds of teaching, different levels of group commitment. Traditional initiatory work continues in BTW covens and the various revivals of the Golden Dawn, OTO etc. Once again ATR is providing models of how such systems can work for those trying to escape the post-Masonic elements of the western tradition. However the modern reality of freedom of information in large part prevent some of the sillier efforts to restrict access to lore and method, and help to prevent unscrupulous teachers from trading in bullshit.

 

A great deal of Pagan religion is now non-initiatory. People ‘join’ conceptually, self-defining based on reading and social groupings. That’s fine with me – that’s how religions grow. However it won’t help us produce powerful spiritual effects. If we’re to bring the Old Gods back into western awareness we will need much more powerful and concentrated efforts than are commonly produced by new Pagans who have decided to ‘believe’. The question, to me, is how to encourage the new Pagan to take up the level of work that we were encouraged to do in the old coven-training days.

 

I’ve done my best to push or pull ADF toward a couple of angles for this. Every new member receives a reasonably thick book of lore and training, with guidance for a year-long introductory course in our work, which encourages basic experiments in meditation, ritual and trance. Our Groves act as reliable public temples, where even casual students can participate in effective rites and approach the spirits. From there we offer various paths of training. Many who want esoteric work and focused spirituality choose the priesthood training, but we have also defined a path toward Initiation. That path doesn’t lead to ‘ordination’ – it doesn’t require the joining of an Order. Rather it is an initiation of the magical career of a Druidic magician, propelled by the current of those gone before. This new effort is very small thus far. We don’t know what it will be or mean in the longer terms. The spirits and those who come after us will make it what it will be.

 

Our priesthood is also quietly developing a current of vision and private work that resembles an initiatory current of sorts. It is perhaps already more fixed than the newer and less populated ‘initiates’ lineage. We’ve been plowing that field a while, and I expect some new growth soon.

 

The advice I’d come to for the modern movement (my opinion, etc… like folks need my advice… doesn’t stop me though…) My advice to the old initiatory traditions would be to look at their work and see what powerful methods could actually be offered to the public. Initiatory groups can be labs of magical and religious technique, and the results of that science could be/ought to be applied as engineering, to make ‘products’ of magical tech that can be offered to the modern movement at large. My advice to eclectics, new students and casual groups is to take the business of spiritual practice seriously. There are a variety of good training outlines available. A dedicated group of new students with a good training guide can learn plenty, and gain real experience of magic. There’s little difference between that and the sort of coven-based initiation of many dedicated groups. (Continuing my exhortation…) Do not think that ‘believing in’ the Gods will gain you their attention or gratitude. It is ritual worship – real deeds, not just thoughts – that open the way and make the link. Likewise for those who prefer an energy-magic model; believing that you could manipulate the subtle energies of the world through will and vision will get you little. Exercise and application will produce much more. From this angle, the primary value of an initiatory path is the work that it leads one to do.

 

 

From another angle, we must look at those initiatory systems that do generate and preserve mysteries. A mystery is a spiritual event or current that transforms and empowers the receiver by its own power.  When one enters an existing lineage of such a system one makes pact with specific spirits, learns specific patterns of energy-flow that are unique and secret to that system. Such paths are not for everyone. Any sensible initiator will closely question applicants, and initiate only those who seem proper to the work. Such systems were the womb of neopaganism, and they continue as powerhouses within the movement. I hope that new lines of such initiation continue to form, and I hope that they can percolate inside the growing public, congregational Pagansim just as the mystery cults did inside the village religions of the ancient world.

 

Have I clarified my thinking? I suppose so. I admire and respect the work of initiatory groups, and recommend a disciplined path for anyone who wants to really learn spiritual arts. I don’t think such paths are for everyone, and there is plenty to be gained from less formal work. Magic can be learned a la cart, to some degree, and even casual spirituality is entirely better than none at all.

Candelo's Corner Interview

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be interviewed by Tata Candelo Kimbisa on his internet radio show Candelo's Corner this coming Monday, 2/18 at 8 pm.

(The show went great, and if you missed it, you can hear the podcast here.)

 

I've always been interested in  African Traditional Religions, having made a youthful study of Voudoun and later learned a bit about Ifa and Santeria. In recent years a bit of information about the Palo systems has begun to be accessible to English-language readers and I've been diving in. I greatly admire the continuity of the African systems in the New World. Despite various cultural interruptions and opressions it seems to me that the connections with the spirits have been well-maintained.

 

The longer our Paganism  makes the offerings to the spirits, our clockwork seasonal rites bringing our gifts to the Fire and Well, the more ready I think we become to experience them more directly, to hear and see them, and to bring them to our rites in ways beyond the merely conceptual. The spirit-arte techniques that I've been working with are just the start.

 

I intend to talk about some of that with the Tata, along with whatever topics he's interested in. Do tune in!

A Gaelic Four-Quarters Warding

A Druid's Circle, with the Four Airts in their traditional colors,

East to the top. The four aicmes of the ogham script surround it.

 I was going to put the forfedha in the center figure, but they

are all really there as it is...

Celtic Reconstructionist systems have largely abandoned the notion of stationing the four classical elements at the four quarters of a magical circle. I’ve written before about Celtic Triadism and the archaic triple cosmos, etc. However that doesn’t mean that there’s no place in Celtic lore for the quartered landscape.

 

Celtic lore divides the land or the horizon into the Four Airts (as the Scots say). To these are attributed the four winds, and various other meanings, though attaching the four ‘elements’ to them is a modern notion. Nevertheless they are an important category of symbolism.

 

This warding charm draws on the symbolism of the Four Provinces of Ireland, abstracted into general categories. It intends to call upon the spirits in the four categories of human social life understood by the Ancients: The Laborers, The Landowners, the Warriors and the Wise. These are, again, abstract categories that would have influenced, if not rules, the life-choices of the ancients. The ancient Dead know and understand these symbols, and respond to their call.

 

The charm uses four symbols for the four directions – the Plough in the east, for the Landowners, and the power of bounty; the Harp in the south, for the Laborers, of which players of musical instruments were numbered; the Cauldron in the west, for the Wise Ones, Poets and Druids, and the Sword in the north for the Warriors. In other arrangements I might use the Wand for the Wise, but I liked the four Cs that the Irish words produced.

 

The Charm

• Let the Druid prepare an offering of good ale, or other proper drink, and have it ready to pour in each direction.

• If possible, it is best if the Fire is lit and the Water blessed, and the usual hallowing of the ground and opening of the Gate worked. If the Druid has made regular offerings to the spirits and knows them well, then this charm might be used in an informal way. It is, however, best done as the work of a sacrifice.

• When all is complete, and the blessing has been given, then take up the cup with the special offering and raise it over the fire, saying:

The Ward-Rune,
to be drawn in each
direction as the
charm is chanted.

• By the Fire and the Well and the Tree

I call to the host of spirits

From the Land and the Sky and the Sea

I call the host of spirits

To the Gods, to the Dead, to the Sidhe,

 I call the host of spirits

 

• All you who will come to my aid, I raise this offering to you. Receive this gift and ward this place, turning aside all ill from every directing and of every kind. By the Hammer and the Harp, by the Cauldron and the Sword, let this place be warded well!

• The Druid will then turn to the four aits and give the call, make the offering and draw the Ward Rune in the air toward that direction as the irish words are chanted.

 

• I turn to the east, and remember the Lords of the Plough. Oh Mighty and Noble Ones who keep the Land, Makers and growers, receive this offering, and let your bounty join with ours in this spell:

The offering is poured, and all chant, three times, as the rune is traced:

An Casúr, An Clairseach, An Coire, An Claíomh (ahn kasoor ahn klahrshahkh, ahn cwiruh ahn klee)

• So let every ill that approaches from the east be turned away! Let the power of the hammer be on this land, to ward us with joy, diligence and bounty. Bíodh sé abhlaidh

 

• I turn to the south, and remember the Lords of the Harp. Oh Mighty and Noble Ones who are harpers, wanderers, laborers who sustain the world, receive this offering, and let your wilding join with ours in this spell:

The offering is poured, and all chant, three times, as the rune is traced:

An Casúr, An Clairseach, An Coire, An Claíomh (ahn kasoor ahn klahrshahkh, ahn cwiruh ahn klee)

• So let every ill that approaches from the south be turned away! So let the power of the harp be on this land, to ward us from chaos, danger and those outside. Bíodh sé abhlaidh

 

• I turn to the west, and remember the Lords of the Cauldron. Oh Mighty and Noble Ones who keep work of the Wise, magicians and priestesses, receive this offering, and let your sorcery join with ours in this spell:

The offering is poured, and all chant, three times, as the rune is traced:

An Casúr, An Clairseach, An Coire, An Claíomh (ahn kasoor ahn klahrshahkh, ahn cwiruh ahn klee)

• So let every ill that approaches from the west be turned away! So let the power of the cauldron be on this land, to ward us with vision, law and magic. Bíodh sé abhlaidh

 

• I turn to the north, and remember the Lords of the Sword. Oh Mighty and Noble Ones who are warriors, warders and protectors, receive this offering, and let your courage join with ours in this spell:

The offering is poured, and all chant, three times, as the rune is traced:

An Casúr, An Clairseach, An Coire, An Claíomh (ahn kasoor ahn klahrshahkh, ahn cwiruh ahn klee)

• So let every ill that approaches from the north be turned away! So let the power of the sword be on this land, to ward us with strength, honor and courage. Bíodh sé abhlaidh

 

• So we have worked the work. Now, where there are warriors, let there be peace.

Where there are harpers, let there be generosity,

Where there are ploughmen, let there be merriment,

Where there are the wise, let there be justice.

 

• Let the Hosts of Spirits ward it from every ill from  from the four airts, from above and from below!

• In every thing, let this place be warded, made a rampart of protection, a harbor of receiving, and a beacon of announcing to all who would come with good will, and let every ill be turned away.

• Draw the rune in the center, over the Fire, chanting the Irish three times:

An Casúr, An Clairseach, An Coire, An Claíomh

And finishing:

Bíodh  sé abhlaidh

The Great Book

I am pleased to announce a special project, undertaken almost completely for my own amusement, but offered to you, readers, because, why not?

The Great Book (An Leabhar Mór) is an edited mega-grimoire of my rituals and teaching, prepared in an artful style and offered in two full-color hardback bindings. Six-hundred-and-sixteen pages of text and art combine material from Sacred Fire, Holy Well, The Book of Summoning, The Book of Vision and Draiocht with a measure of new material. The core rites and works of the Court of Brigid are also included, making this my most complete Druid Grimoire to date. While the bulk of the work is composed of ritual scripts and texts there are many chapters of teaching as well, from the basics of Irish polytheist symbolism to the secrets to gathering and using magical power.

Part 1: Seanchas – Lore & Symbols

Part 2 Iobairt – Basic Rites, and Sacrifices

Part 3: Imramma – Meditation and Trance

Part 4: Thogairm – Evocation and Spirit-Arte

Part 5: The Court of Brigid

Part 6: Draiochta – Works of Magic

With fifteen full-page illustrations and dozens of symbolic drawings, magical diagrams and sigils, the Great Book is a rich and inspiring trove of magic – a tome fit for a wizard’s oratory!

The book is offered in two cover designs (so far) - The Black Book and the Antique Tome. Both feature a synthetic pantacle of Druidic magic, surrounded by Ogam-sigils of power and magic.

This special edition will be offered only between Imbolc and Beltainne of 2013. Further editions or compilations may be possible, as the content grows and changes with my understanding, however this typeset and art will be retired at the Hinge of Summer. Purchasers are always welcome to have a copy signed at any of my public appearances.

The Black Book edition is available now.

The Antique Tome is also now available.

 An Apologia

Weelll… why wouldn’t I do this? 

Blog readers will know that I enjoy making books, and am totally hooked by the image of the Mage and his Book.   Read here and here for a little history of my mild mania with personal grimoires and spellbooks. I still have an agenda, which will include some sort of high(er)-quality publication, but in the meantime I’ll proceed as I may.

One of the fun things about staying alive and actually improving one’s access to resources is that one gets the chance to manifest a few things that previously existed only in one’s mind. I’ve been in that business for a long time, really, with things like Starwood, thanks to my luck in being associated with a wonderful gang of creative manifester types. (Is that a word… Uncle maniFester?) However it’s one thing to create scenes that blossom and vanish, and another to create artifacts.

Now, this is no Brahm’s book (nor does it cost like one) it’s just a color-printed case-wrap, but it is an artifact with some actual weight. (3.2 lbs according to the printer : ). I’ll just have to try to avoid stalking around the house with the book raised before me, muttering and the like. My wife will forgive me, at least for a while. I may have to get a podium.

Whether or not any of you lot want one, I have one now!! Bwahahaha… sorry…

Winter Speaking

DDtRH and Pagan Fire

I’ll be speaking and teaching in two very different venues over the next weeks. 

 

Next Tues, 1/29 I’ll be appearing on Deeper Down the RabbitHole with Andrieh Vitimus and Jason Colwell. If you haven’t been listening to this excellent interview and discussion program on modern magic, try to find some time to catch up on past episodes that interest you.

 

I was on DDtRH last year, and I recall that it turned into a walk down Pagan-history lane, with only some discussion of actual magic. This time I hope to focus on my Pagan Spirit Arte material, and do some more detailed theory-and-practice discussion.

 

Then on March 2^nd I will be down in the Columbus area, teaching at the Pagan Fire Seminar.

 

 This is the second year for a regional Grove event, and they are trying to build a strong, tight program in a one-day intensive. I’ll be doing two presentations, the first on Sacred Fire & Water & The Shrine of Magic, with a practicum on the use of the Two Powers energy-model. The second will discuss working with the Spirits inside a Pagan system, including classification of the spirits and how to work with allies once you’ve got ‘em. The practicum will teach the Threshold Vision entrancement, intended to open the inner vision to the spirits.

 

That evening I'll be facilitating a larger group exercise/ritual/working that will apply some of the day's skills and ideas.

 

I’ll post a spring/summer schedule soon. I’m still kind-of waiting for the next wave of inspiration, as to both writing and Magical work. There is a publishing surprise in the works, though, so watch this space ; ).

Ol’ Wassisname and Paganism

Bless their robotic little hearts, eblogger isn't letting me upload pics just now... Here's this anyway.

“You can’t worship Jesus Christ and be a Pagan.” So sayeth Sam Webster in his provocative new blog. Sam is proposing that we consciously take up the mission of restoring the worship of the many gods and spirits to the modern world. He feels, as do I, that a dose of polytheism, respect for the human spirit and celebration of embodied reverence would be good for the ol’ culture. He asserts that a part of that process will involve the growth and clarification of just what in the Three Worlds ‘Paganism’ actually is. That will involve making some yes-and-no choices, which will inevitably make some folks feel less identified with the results. (To me that is simply the eggs for the omelet.) It is in context of what Paganism is and is not that Sam made the above rather direct statement. 

Of course many folks objected to the assertion. Objectively, lots of pretty-obviously Pagan people occasionally worship Jesus. Jesus is a name to conjure by in various folk-magic, and some folks come out of a Christian upbringing with a fondness for the figure. The problem, of course, is the cultural and theological baggage that is part and parcel of the god Jesus.

I am skeptical that gods have a true nature separate from their cultural construction (humans either, really). I see no use in looking for a ‘historical’ Jesus separate from the figure in the Gospel tales – those tales are certainly the best source concerning his history. Gnosticism doesn’t appeal to me and my Pagan path has pretty much led me to discard the whole notion of ‘salvation’. At this point even ‘enlightenment’ seems like a spiritual option for certain sorts of specialists, not something that everyone needs. The world is a good enough place to just dwell in blessing for most folks.

Many people seem to think that there’s a huge difference between the ‘real’ Jesus and the figure worshipped by Christians. I disagree. I do reject the idea that jesus is a literary construct made in imitation of Pagan mystery cults. The evidence plainly indicates an existing historical figure. WE can agree, perhaps, that the gospel tales are mythologized, however let’s realize that the only materials we have to base a historical Jesus upon are the Gospels. The gnostic books show a slightly different figure, certainly a different set of doctrines, but they are universally admitted to be later and more derivative than the canonical books (Barring perhaps a couple of things, like Thomas and the unedifying Gospel of Peter). So if we are going to look at the historical Jesus we must look at the guy in the Bible. I think he looks like the sort of guy who would invent Christianity.

I’ve never been that impressed by the person Jesus seems to have been. First, let’s just discard the idea that he was a man with a special line to the divine. Of course in my polytheism there is no ‘God the Father’ in the biblical sense, and so no ‘son’ of that figure. I don’t really deal with the notion of prophets, instead preferring systems that teach each member how to have a line to the gods and spirits on our own.  So, I have nothing invested in the idea that Jesus had some special authority or voice. I must examine his words and works on their merit.

I agree with Morton Smith that Jesus was what has been called a ‘wonder-working rabbi’. Smith makes a good case for Jesus as a user of magical methods related to the PGM. The type wasn’t uncommon in the first-century century Roman world. A mage or mystic would arise, combining a body of doctrinal teaching with magical powers of healing and the mastery over demons. Those methods were among the most important healing modalities available in those days, and a new healer with successes would always draw a crowd. What seems clear, if the outline of the Gospel accounts is to be credited, is that Jesus was good at both the preaching and the healing. In any case the ability to do real healing remained central to the appeal of Christianity through the early centuries.

As a preacher the most common topic of Jesus’ discourse, by number of references, is to righteousness and punishment. More ‘verses’ of his words concern those topics than any other. To me it is plain that as a mystic Jesus expected the world of his day to end promptly, being rescued and remade by ‘God’ into the image of righteousness. I would guess that his preaching regularly contained admonitions to be prepared for end-times and judgment – to ‘get right with God’.

A great deal is made, sometimes, of Jesus ministry to the poor, and his willingness to ignore taboos and eat with the unclean. I’m sure the sense of righteous mission that would lead one to break taboos to spread one’s message is admirable, in a way. However I think it is clear that the reason Jesus went among the poor was to preach to them; again, not so different from his inheritors. He didn’t forgive sin without the admonition to ‘go and sin no more’. Jesus seems like the sort of guy who would do you a favor and then use your gratitude to tell you what to do.

He certainly was high-handed and insulting to those whose beliefs he disagreed with. He was a Pharisee of a sort, himself, doctrinally. However he plainly had issues with the temple priesthood, and was publically insulting to them. One suspects they were in turn unimpressed by the unregulated desert mystic.

On the good side, Jesus was a follower of the school of Rabbi Hillel. Hillel, who died approx. 10bce, taught that compassion and reciprocity were more valuable than the letter of the Torah law, and encouraged the replacement of sacrifices with ritual prayers. Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness, the spirit of the law, and ‘agape’ love can all be found in Hillel before him. Jesus seems to have translated Hillel’s cautions about the spirit of the law into a disdain for the keepers of that law in his time, and combined it with a millennial (as we might say now) vision of the destruction and rectification of the world.

Now, what about the whole “Jesus-as-Tiferet” thingy? Many modern mystic freethinkers seem to find inspiration in the figure of Jesus as the ‘divine descended to mortality, then sacrificed for the sake of its own immortality’. When Christianity manages to focus on those mysteries I think it can approach the sublime. However there isn’t anything that unique or unusual in it. In many ways it simply reprises the core mystery of sacrifice and blessing that is the heart of Pagan ritual religion. We give, so that the spirits may give.

On a more history-of-Paganism level, I think that Hermetic Qabalah is of little value to modern Pagan theology. I know it is practically doctrinal in some sectors, but my own opinion is that GD Qabalah is a confusion of bad mythography, renaissance Neo-Platonism and Jungian reductionism. I am quite certain that it cannot assist in understanding and worshipping the gods and spirits of the Pagan Celts or Germans. I am almost as sure that it distorts and confuses understanding of Hellenic and Egyptian pantheons as well.

In the same way scholarship doesn’t take the Frazerian notion of the ‘Dead-and-Risen-Corn-King’ very seriously anymore. In general the scholarship upon which Crowley based his aeonic model has all been deflated and left behind with Margaret Murray. So there is really no more need in Paganism for the Salvific Son than there is for the Great Adversary. (That simplistic statement ignores all kinds of specific examples of gods who save this group or that from this enemy or that. Many gods are called ‘soter’ – savior – but I think you knew what I meant…) In any case the ‘center’ of most Euro-Pagan pantheons isn’t at all like the ideas contained in the HQ Tiferet.

For me it comes down to asking what point the Jesus-god would have in my pantheon? If I feel a need for unconditional love or compassion, I turn to the Mother of All, not to some prophet type. If I need magic power I appeal to the Lord of Wisdom; for healing to a healing god. Of course one can often get all those things from whichever of the gods and spirits one is in close relationship with.

I don’t usually feel a need for a ‘god of rescue’ – someone I can call upon if I’m in trouble. For immediate things that’s what my familiars are for, and I’ve asked various gods for various emergency aid over the years. I don’t have an eschatology in which I need the special favor of a particular god to get the best deal in the afterlife, so that doesn’t enter in. If I want an iniator and psychopomp, I know who to ask.

I know of some magicians who approach Jesus as a powerful ‘saint’ – an ancient spirit who will answer prayers and offerings with blessings. Certainly I might number him among the Wise Dead, in the way we Druids formulate such things. I’m far from certain he would enjoy sharing my Shrine with the Dead and the Goddesses. If he was a man of his time he seems to have been a righteous and observant Judean, within his understanding of the spirit of the law and his own authority. If we modern Pagans are to be careful to avoid putting the wrong two gods of the same pantheon together on a Shrine (Is it Oya and Yemaja?) it seems equally sensible to avoid placing deities from hostile systems together. Judaism was a system hostile to its neighbors’ polytheism (and actively proselytizing against it in the Roman empire) and Jesus was a player in that Judaism. So, as one of the Dead, he isn’t exactly a spiritual ancestor of mine.

Categorical statements of what Paganism is or is not are premature at this time. However, I see no use for Jesus in Paganism, and plenty of ways in which his presence makes no sense. I agree with Sam in the mission of creating institutional polytheism in modern society, and that will require some more concrete statements of identity. It’s fine with me to leave Jesus outside of them.