CHAPTER 1

Echoes of Time and the River (Prologue)

One of the most striking features of the history of all religion is theway in which people have clung to the holy places of their far-offancestors. It appears that once a site was sanctified through worship,an incoming people whether aggressive invaders, or the peacefulmissionaries, gained prestige by occupying the site. When this wasdone, the old religion could be overthrown and the area purified withnew ritual and religious observance.

Readers Digest, Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain

When we read about ancestral British paganism today, moreoften than not, it is tinged with the rosy hue of the noble savageand wishful thinking, rather than based on progressive archaeologicalor anthropological discovery. For the first half-millionyears after our pre-human ancestors slowly morphed into arecognisable form, they were still primitives who left relativelylittle evidence of their existence except for a few bones andPalaeolithic tools. The emergence from the hunter-gatherer era tothe development of agriculture, the domestication of animals,pottery and weaving, is a mere 10,000 years ago; while 'civilisation'as we understand it, only dates back some 5,000 years.

Unfortunately, in the rush to establish the many differentforms of 20th century revivalist paganism, the element ofcuriosity has often been suppressed in favour of historicalignorance. Anything that is non-Christian in origin is immediatelyembraced as 'pagan', despite the fact that much of it hadlittle to do with the indigenous people of the British Isles. It alsoleads to the acceptance of 'fakelore and fantasy' as the basis for aconsiderable amount of contemporary thinking. Reviewing oneof these pseudo-history books in White Dragon magazine someyears ago, the editor wrote: 'Books like this pose more of adanger to paganism than the Christian Right will ever do,because they are the enemy within, subverting the Mysteries anddumbing down for spirituality's equivalent of the day-timetelevision audience.' Ouch!

Never before, however, in the entire history of religion, haveancient beliefs been so popular, or so socially acceptable. Forsome time now, there have been organisations campaigning forgovernmental recognition of 'paganism' as a legitimate form ofreligion or worship, despite the opinions of many of the oldbrigade, that paganism per se is not a religion but an umbrellaterm for a wide variety of loosely linked modern revivalist 'traditions'or 'paths'. In The New Believers, a book covering 'sects, cultsand alternative religions', David V. Barrett is not wide off themark in describing the contemporary esoteric pagan scene in thefollowing terms:

Some are a synthesis of Western (Judaeo-Christian) andEastern (Hindu, Buddhist or Sufi) thought; others could bedescribed as mystical, magical, Judaeo-Christianity. Manybelieve in Secret Masters who have tremendous powers andwho have guarded the true religious teaching ... Some are, inone way or another Gnostic, in that they emphasise secretknowledge, restricted to a select few ... Because nearly everythingthat can be called neo-Pagan is eclectic, borrowing fromseveral sources, there are overlaps between the various formsof neo-Paganism. There are links between some forms ofWicca and Druidry, and between both of these andShamanism ...

From a 21st century standpoint, however, much of what nowpasses for pagan belief has jettisoned its former labels of'occultism', 'witchcraft' and 'eccentricity', and now boasts adiverse doctrine, suitable for pre-pubescent schoolchildren tovenerable pensioners, from all walks of life and cultures. On thetraditionalist's side, this hard-won respectability means that, inmany cases, both the genuine magical and Mystery aspects of theOld Ways have been abandoned in favour of a wholesome imagemore reminiscent of the fictitious 'Oxo family' than of the real-lifeLancashire Witches.

It must be said from the onset that there is nothing wrong inanyone embracing a neo-pagan life-style. What we should try todo, however, is put into some kind of perspective the impact ofthe magico-religious links with our ancestral roots when wechoose to follow a path or tradition that is alien to our own geniusloci – the collective or natural spirit of old Pretannia. Whatevernumerous contemporary authors may tell us, the Celts were notthe indigenous people of these islands; modern Wicca is notsynonymous with traditional witchcraft; traditional British OldCraft is not a myth; and subsequent invading cultures did notimpose blanket religious conversions on a conquered people.

But what of the witchcraft, magic and Mysteries of whatpeople today refer to as the Old Ways? They have existed forthousands of years, so can they really be so easily replaced in theCollective Unconscious? Is it true, as occult author Colin Wilsonregularly maintains, that no one believes in magic any more? Is ittoo late to re-connect with the Old Ways?

The answer to those questions is, of course, a resounding; 'No!No! No!' – but we need to go back to our roots for the key. Or,more precisely, to the roots of the path or tradition to which wefeel instinctively drawn. As the editor of White Dragon went onprophetically to observe, the real enemy of the Old Ways wasnever modern Christian (or even Islamic) fundamentalism, butthe introduction of a contemporary eclectic, pick-and-mixapproach that maintains that all universal god/desses are one,and that any permutation will do when it comes to supplication.At the advanced academic, theological, or higher ritual magicend of the spectrum this may be the case but at grass roots level,where most of us operate, it is essential to understand whichdeity (or force) represents a particular psychic energy ... when,where and why ... and how to tap into it.

In purely magical terms, Aphrodite is not compatible withArtemis and Athene; Isis does not equate with Diana or Freya – noneof whom are indigenous goddesses to these islands. It isalso important to accept that Names of Power do not representreal people, semi-divine or otherwise: this is a Christian conceptthat God is sitting there just waiting for our call. It is also detrimentalto effective magical thinking. In magic, we use thesemind-pictures, or correspondences, as a means of invoking (orevoking) the conceptualised power of individual energy-sources.

* In ancient times, the priesthood understood this – even ifthe common man did not.

In simple terms, imagine for a moment that we are faced by ahuge bank of colour-coded electrical sockets, all having differentstrengths of electrical current running through them. Thesesockets represent the source of this elusive 'god-power'. In ourhands we have a selection of colour-coded plugs representingthe nature of the magical working we wish to undertake. If wemake the wrong choice and connect, say, the red plug to a bluesocket, it could result in:

• insufficient current coming through to power the magicalworking, or

• overload, in which case we blow a fuse and the wholeworking is either negated or incinerated.

This bank of sockets can also been seen as representing theQabalistic Tree of Life, because each sphere (sephirah), is poweredby different types of energy that are essentially both male andfemale, i.e. androgynous. To perform successful magicalworkings we must know exactly what we are plugging into beforewe start. In popularist teaching the goddess is All – and, as aresult, the channelling of magical energies is knocked out ofkilter, because in magical terms, Pan is All (Pan Pangenetor, theAll-Begetter, represented by the 'Devil' in the Tarot). The experiencedpractitioner, however, isn't bothered about gender – he orshe is bothered about getting on the right contacts and obtainingresults. This is not denigrating anything; it is attempting to showthat the modern witch or magical practitioner needs to think inpurely abstract terms about magical energy and its application,not in religious or gender-specific ones.

Magic, of course, works best when there is a genuine magicalpartnership between god and goddess, man and woman. Incertain kinds of rite, the woman knows that for it to be performedeffectively, she remains passive/receptive, while her partner hasthe active/dynamic role. In other rituals it will necessitate thewoman taking the active/dynamic role, while her partner remainspassive/receptive. It's all a question of the energies being used inthe correct manner for a particular ritual and nothing to do withgender superiority.

* In ancient times, the priesthood understood this – even ifthe common man did not.

Even if we work as solitary practitioners, we still need to understandthat equilibrium is necessary to kick-start a magicaloperation – whether it be a simple healing charm, or a full-blown,bells and smells ritual. By mixing and mingling the energies ofdeities from different cultures, we negate not only their magicalpower, but also their spiritual influence, if we allow them toneutralise each other. And what many mistake for divinepresence is merely an endorphin rush, caused by the transmissionof chemical messages from the brain, which have thecharacteristic properties of opiate compounds such as morphine.

It has been medically acknowledged that there is a naturallyoccurring opiate in the human nervous system that can beinduced by the clever use of music/rhythm/dance and languagetechniques. These naturally occurring endorphins produce theeffect of 'spiritual mainlining' and those who experience the feel-goodfactor resulting from it are often convinced that deity hasindeed touched them. The various priesthoods, pagan andotherwise, have been exploiting this reaction for years; whilemany solitary worshippers can induce it in themselves withrepetitive chanting or dancing.

This, of course, explains where the 'Well, it works for me!'reasoning comes into the equation, that is so prevalent in manypagan responses, should they be criticised for their eclecticapproach, or advised that a technique is wrong. Others claim tobe expressing their own feelings in relation to their pagan belief,but perhaps we should ask ourselves, how can we expresssomething unless we know what that something is, or if wehaven't learned the basic canon for expressing it?

* In ancient times, the priesthood understood this – even ifthe common man did not.

Exploring Spirituality, co-written by myself and Aeron Medbh-Mara,pointed out that over the past few decades the focus ofreligion has moved from being of benefit to the group, to beingthe tool of the individual. Self-help psychology has played a largepart in this shift, since it teaches that all the individual needs iswithin ourselves and, as a result, many of those following such'experts' have subsequently become divorced from their spiritualroots. For practitioners of pagan ideologies, the thought processesare a little more insidious. Whereas the psychologist denies theexistence of external deities, the modern pagan priesthood has atendency to embrace the notion of every deity in existence,irrespective of its background, preference or allegiance.

What Exactly is Modern Paganism?

If we turn to contemporary publishing for the answer, we willfind a veritable torrent of titles encompassing the 'mind, bodyand spirit' classification. Very little, however, offers up an eruditeexplanation for the here and now, about the cultural influences ofthe dim and distant past, without muddying the waters furtherdownstream for the future. One publication defined the termpaganism as 'nature worship that embraces the wider influencesof other cultures, including Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, etc.,' in aform of 'eclectic paganism as it is increasingly becoming known'.Another popular release, jumping on the recent Tolkien-revivalbandwagon, repeatedly talked about the Celts being theindigenous peoples of these isles – probably the same author whofailed Michael Howard's (of The Cauldron) famous Celtic Potatotest!

What You Call Time offered up a broad overview of howgenuine Old Crafters saw themselves in terms of contemporarypagan labelling. What was immediately obvious was that eventhen (1998) the gulf between the various pagan, Wiccan and Crafttraditions was immense, and many of these drastic changes hadoccurred within the previous three decades and for reasons wewill discuss in a later chapter. Three traditional Old Craft witchesgave their responses:

As a witch of long standing, I refuse to compromise my ownintegrity by pandering to the current demand for the politicallycorrect, neo-paganism that is now passing itself off asCraft. It's time people understood that Craft isn't for everyone.

It's about harnessing the natural energies in a time-honouredway. This is our way of life, it's being going on for centuriesand we know the magic works. We have no intention ofchanging our ways and would rather go into the shadowsthan compromise.

We will continue to refuse 'initiation on demand' in order tosatisfy the 'gimme, gimme' mentality of the modern generationof would-be witches, who seem to think it their right toclaim kinship on the grounds that it is now fashionable to belabelled a Wiccan or pagan.

Unfortunately, a great deal of modern pagan worship is aneclectic cross-pollination of different cultures, which means thatcontemporary British paganism is indeed shot through withCeltic, Druidic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norse influences, notforgetting a frequent Roman, Greek, Egyptian and Orientaloverlay. 'Which is not conducive to successful magic,' addedanother witch. 'It might appear to be a broad-based view ofreligious thinking but from the magical perspective, it iscompletely self-defeating.'

We can see that things have evolved a long way from theprimal applications of traditional Old Craft, through the highlyformalised rituals of the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions,to emerge as the informal, eco-pagan worship of modern Wicca.In fact, a large majority of pagans are adamant that they do notpractice any form of magic despite buying thousands of books oncharms and spellcasting for the purpose of attracting a mate,divination, crystal lore, gaining wealth and healing. A growingnumber admit to not knowing the name of Gerald Gardner, the'Founding Father' of the belief they profess to follow, and tantamountto a self-proclaimed Christian not knowing who Jesuswas! They make their claims on the grounds that the focus oftheir devotion is centred on the goddess/mother figure and thatthis way is open to all; even though a large number of the ritualsgiven in popular books on the subject are thinly disguised ritualmagic and Freemasonry served up as goddess worship.

Fortunately there are always those whose curiosity promptsthem to dig deeper and discover the true Old Ways – but this isnot always as easy as they would wish. Magical tutors are oftenconfronted by the situation whereby if the student has not beenadmitted to the Inner Secrets of the Cosmos by Lesson Four, theybecome disgruntled. Then, taking what little information theyhave managed to ingest, they go off to start a group of their own,thereby perpetuating the watering down of Craft-lore every timethere is a division of interest. Magical development can belikened to learning a new language. We may have a smattering ofwell-known phrases and colloquialisms at guidebook level, but ifwe wish to become fluent speakers, then we need to go back tobasics to learn the lesser mysteries of grammar and syntax.

As experienced magical practitioners know, these LesserMysteries are in themselves merely the next level of basicteachings that are available to all, whether in book form or byelementary tuition. What many choose to ignore is the existenceof the Greater Mysteries, which can only be understood throughpersonal quest and experience: they cannot be taught in words.As Alan Richardson points out in his Introduction to the MysticalQabalah, 'Books and teachers can only give a few inadequatemethods to reach the wisdom that is nowhere else but within theseeker. That is why it is a pointless exercise searching throughbooks for any Universal Secret. It does not exist.'

This is not, of course, what would-be seekers wish to hear,despite the fact that this is the only explanation any genuinetradition or teacher can possibly give. It is probably a bitter pill toswallow, as we have all, in our time, assembled an impressiveworking knowledge of other people's rituals and correspondences– but for what purpose? The more we learn, the more weexpect to be the recipients of higher or advanced information inorder to progress magically or mystically. But to go back to AlanRichardson: 'The rest is up to us, for there is no dogma, no secretteachings, no mysterious Adepts, nor anything which can help usavoid doing a great deal of work ...'

Neither should the seeker be fooled by a tradition that claimsto trace its antecedents back to medieval or even pre-historictimes. Even archaeologists and historians cannot provideinformation as to how the paths to these ancient Mysteries werestructured, so it is pointless for a 20th century revivalist organisationto claim that it does! In all reality, the tracing of anygenuine Old Craft coven back more than 150 years is a challengein itself. That said it is still possible to honour the gods as theywere honoured within their own time and place within Britain'slong history of religious and cultural development.