Most closely related to the older Gardnerian Wicca are the Alexandrians, followers of Alexander Sanders (1926–1988), termed by his biographer “The King of the Witches.” According to Sanders, in 1933, as a seven-year-old, he surprised his grandmother, who was nude and standing in a circle in the kitchen. She ordered Sanders into the circle and had him strip and bend over with his head between his thighs. She took a knife, nicked his scrotum and declared, “You are one of us now.” Sanders realized that he was a witch. He was later initiated by her as third-degree witch. In actual fact, all indications are that Sanders was an early member of one of the Gardnerian Wicca covens, and that he took the Gardnerian rituals, modified them slightly, and began his own work independently. In any case, in 1967, after the failure of several marriages, Sanders settled in London with his third wife, Maxine Sanders (b. 1951).

In 1969 a sensationalized article on Sanders in a Sunday London newspaper led to a meteoric rise. Other papers and media turned him into a celebrity, and his biography was released during the year. He also made a film, Legend of the Witches, which further boosted his popularity; he was a frequent guest on television talk shows. His text of the Witchcraft rituals were among the first to be published and become publicly available.

The Alexandrians ritually resemble the Gardnerians, upon whom they base their practices. Like the Gardnerians, their rituals are skyclad (i.e., in the nude), and the coven in London became one of the most photographed in all the craft. Alexandrians have become noted for the culmination of the third-degree initiation in the Great Rite, that is, sexual intercourse, also used at handfasting (marriage) ceremonies. Ideally the rite is held for two people about to leave and form a new coven. The rite may be symbolic or actual.

The situation of Alexandrian witchcraft as a distinct tradition has been greatly altered by attacks within the Witchcraft community questioning Sanders’s credentials and by the defection of a leading member, Stewart Farrar (1916–2000), who, with his wife Janet Farrar (b. 1950), began an independent coven. He emerged as an important author and ritual innovator. Much of the attention that once came to Sanders now flows to the neo-Alexandrian system of Farrar. However, rather than creating a new lineage of covens, Farrar’s work has tended to be absorbed into the larger Pagan-Witchcraft community as another source for eclectic covens to draw upon.

Membership

In North America a few Alexandrian covens still exist, but their number has steadily decreased.

Sources

The Alex Sanders Lectures. New York: Magickal Childe, 1980.

Farrar, Janet, and Stewart Farrar. Eight Sabbaths for Witches. London: Robert Hale, 1981.

———. The Witches’ Way. London: Robert Hale, 1984.

Farrar, Stewart. What Witches Do. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971. Johns, June. King of the Witches. New York: Coward-McCann, 1970.

Algard Wicca

Current address not obtained for this edition.

Algard (from “Alexandrian”and “Gardnerian”) Wicca was formed in 1972 by Mary Nesnick, an Alexandrian Wicca high priestess, in New York City. Nesnick was initiated into the craft in 1964 by a college professor. She was a freshman at the time. The intent of Algard was to lead to a more independent sect of Wicca that would allow more latitude in ritual and action. As the name implies, both Alexandrian and Gardnerian rituals were sources for Algard practices (Alexandrian Wicca and Gardnerian Wicca are discussed in separate entries). Combining the two was relatively easy, since they were similar and at many points even identical. Algard covens worship both skyclad and robed, at the coven’s discretion. All initiation ceremonies are skyclad.

The Algard covens are governed by the grand high priestess (Nesnick) and a grand high priest, who oversee the covens and settle intercoven problems and who speak for the craft. Each coven is headed by a high priestess and high priest. Twenty elders assist the ten neophyte priestesses and priests in learning craft ways. A one-year waiting period is required before initiation. Homosexuality is grounds for rejection. Members must be 18 years of age. Screening before initiation was a point at issue with Alexander Sanders, who felt that the first degree was the place for strict screening. Worship is centered on the eight festivals and 13 esbats (full-moon observances). Only initiates attend.

The Algard Wiccans were one of the most highly organized bodies of covens. An Algard Newsletter, issued only to members, tied the leaders together. However, in the flux of the Wiccan community during the late 1970s, the tradition seems to have been largely dissipated.

Membership

Not reported. In 1973 there were a reported 48 covens with affiliated groups in England, Canada, and Greece. There was no verification of those claims, and there is good reason to doubt them. By the early 1980s, the tradition had been reduced to one or two covens in the New York area.

Ammonite Foundation

Current address not obtained for this edition.

The Ammonite Foundation is the modern expression of ancient Egyptian religion. Though recently becoming visible in western Europe and North America, it traces its origin to the reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamun and the city of Thebes. The current head of the foundation is Her Grace Sekhmet Montu. According to the foundation, the Ammonites were the original people of Egypt, and their religion, now commonly treated as simply “mythology,” was the Ammonite Faith. It is, according to the foundation, the oldest still-practiced religion in the world, religion being considered the whole range of codes of conduct (morality, diet, dress) and the psychological and philosophical aspects of living in the world. Its approach has both a monotheistic and polytheistic theological perspective in that it affirms belief in one God as the root of faith, which finds expression in a multitudinous or multifaceted God face—in other words, a polytheistic expression of belief. It is comparable to modern systems in which the work of the one God is carried out through angels and/or saints. The Ammonite Faith has many obvious parallels to Hinduism and Native American faiths but also to Christianity because, it is believed, Jesus Christ borrowed many of his teachings from Egypt.

Individual believers are urged to work out a personal code of behavior based upon their acquisition of facts and the exercise of their free will. There are no commandments. The foundation also rejects the practice of tithing (the payment of a designated amount of one’s income to the religion’s centers) but survives from the voluntary offerings of members.

A complete presentation of beliefs and practices is offered to prospective members through a correspondence course available from the foundation’s headquarters. It is believed that after successfully restoring the deity Ammon (also spelled Amon or Amun) to his temples, Pharaoh Tutankhamun decreed that the ancient religion of Egypt be preserved intact so the worship of Ammon could continue throughout the ages. Thus it was that Horemheb (the last pharaoh of the 18th dynasty) created the Ammonite Way to preserve the knowledge for future generations. The Ammonite Foundation claims to possess the book commonly referred to as the Book of Tehuti or Book of Thoth in its complete form. The first half of that book, found on tomb walls and published as The Book of the Dead, is readily available to anyone. It deals with death and resurrection. The second half, that part not found in the tombs, deals with creation and life. It was kept secret to preserve the faith. The correspondence course prepares the believer for what is contained in the second part of the Book of Tehuti.

The foundation recommends a variety of books on Egyptian religion to those who wish to identify with the Ammonite Faith. The list includes the writings of E. A. Wallis Budge, Joan Grant’s Winged Pharaoh, Isha Schwaller de Lubicz’s Her-Bak, and Elizabeth Haich’s Initiation.

Membership

In 1995 the foundation reported 50 lay members and four clergy members in the United States but 270,000 lay members and 9,000 clergy worldwide. Members are found in Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, India, Germany, and Great Britain.

Ancient Keltic Church

PO Box 663, Tujunga, CA 91043-0663

The Ancient Keltic Church is a pagan organization that is attempting to revive the ancient mystery faith of the Celtic peoples and integrate it into modern life. It began as an experimental group, the Roebuck, put together by Ann and David Finnin. The Roebuck included people from various Wiccan traditions. Of particular importance in the formation of the Roebuck were the writings of Robert Cochrane, the pseudonym of Roy Bowers (d. 1966). Cochrane was the head of the Clan of Tubal Cain, a Wiccan group in the Gardnerian tradition that emerged in England in the 1960s and became public through articles that appeared in various Wiccan and occult publications in the mid-1960s.

In 1976, the Finnins began a revival of the Clan of Tubal Cain. In 1982, they contacted William G. Gray and Evan John Jones, former members of Cochrane’s original group. After two years of study, the Finnins were adopted into the clan by Jones who empowered them to lead the tradition in the United States and to teach the various methods of personal magical development. In 1989, the Roebuck incorporated and became the Ancient Keltic Church, a modern day Celtic mystery school. Membership is concentrated in a group of devotees who study the mysteries and an initiate priesthood who lead rituals, teach, and offer oracles. This core group guards the rites and teachings against anyone who might dilute or corrupt them.

While many of the teachings are not available to nonmembers, the church practices a form of magic that includes the invocation of unseen forces and the use of natural materials (stones, herbs, animals, etc.) to that end. It places spiritual development ahead of magic in its priorities. One method for spiritual development is contact with what are termed “inner plane guardians,”also known as gods, shining ones, or fairies, which derive from the primordial forces of nature described in Irish, Welsh, and Gaelic folklore.

These guardians, along with the Father God and Mother Goddess, constitute the church’s pantheon. The goal of spiritual and magical development is service to the people. Service by church members is offered in the form of healing, counseling, and rites of passage.

The church operates primarily in southern California, where the Finnins lead various public festivals and workshops that give an introduction to the church. The church differs from much of the pagan and Wiccan community in that it is self-consciously an elitist group that believes only a minority of pagans have “the intelligence, imagination and will to study the mysteries.”This stance is opposed to the majority of the pagan and Wiccan community who espouse a more democratic and egalitarian approach. The church also differs in that it is, by its own ascription, antifeminist, meaning it does not focus upon women’s (and, by extension, the earth’s) fertility cycles, and homophobic, in that the church’s teaching assumes the different ways of generating magical power in men and women and that does not change with sexual preferences. The church is also committed to traditional sexual mores concerning marriage and sexual behavior.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Ancient Keltic Church. www.ancientkelticchurch.org.

Aquarian Tabernacle Church

48631 River Park Drive, PO Box 409, Index, WA 98256

The Aquarian Tabernacle Church was founded by the Rev. Pierre C. Davis and other pagans in 1979. Davis had been a pagan for several years when the decision was made to organize independently and incorporate the group as a church. The incorporation was completed in 1983. Since that time, the church has emerged as an aggressive and assertive proponent of neopaganism. In 1988, the church received tax exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service. Subsequently, in 1991, the church was granted a group exemption letter covering affiliated congregations. Davis and Deborah K. Hudson serve as the archpriest and archpriestess of the ATC tradition.

Paganism is defined by the church as the set of common beliefs held by most pagans. These include the following: the idea that divinity is both imminent and transcendent, and likely to be manifested as both male and female; a multiplicity of gods and goddesses; a respect for nature; a distrust of monolithic religious organizations; life as joyful, loving, and pleasurable; ethics based on the avoidance of harm to others; magic; celebration of the solar and lunar cycles; eclecticism; faith in the ability of people to solve their own problems; commitment to growth, evolution, and balance; human interdependence and the need for community cooperation; and the need for consistency between one’s lifestyle and professed belief.

The church operates both a church and retreat house in the Cascade Mountains. The church’s purpose is to re-treat the body, mind, and spirit. Near the church is the Moon Stone Circle, a ring of menhirs used for worship and meditation. They also have a shrine dedicated to the goddess Hecate located nearby. The church annually sponsors a Spring Mysteries Festival (Eostre), Hecate’s Sickle Festival (Samhain), and the Pagan Church Conference. The church operates a phone service that features a two-to-three minute recorded message on some aspect of neopaganism. It is also affiliated with the Interfaith Council of Washington State. Davis was elected president of the Interfaith Council in March 1995, the first Wiccan priest ever to hold such a position in the United States. He served two terms. He also serves as a member of the Religious Advisory Commission of the Department of Corrections in Washington State.

Membership

In 1995 the church reported 1,894 members in 36 congregations in the United States, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, and Australia.

Educational Facilities

The Woolston-Steer Theological Seminary, Index, Washington.

Periodicals

Panegyria • Looking Upward • Hecate’s Horn.

Sources

Aquarian Tabernacle Church. www.aquariantabernaclechurch.org/.

Ar nDraiocht Fein: A Druid Fellowship, Inc.

PO Box 17874, Tuscon, AZ 85731-7874

Ar nDraiocht Fein: A Druid Fellowship, Inc. is a neopagan druid community founded in the mid-1980s by Isaac Bonewits. The attempt to reconstruct and revive a form of druidism began at Carleton College during the 1962–1963 school year. It spread from there to become the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA). Bonewits became a druid in 1969. The following year he attained some degree of fame when he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in Magic. He published his survey of the field, Real Magic, in 1971. Through the 1970s, Bonewits took a prominent role in druid affairs. He published a newsletter and edited The Druid Chronicles (Evolved) (1976), but toward the end of the decade he withdrew from leadership and kept a low profile for several years.

Bonewits reasserted his position as an archdruid in 1984 with the publication of the first issue of The Druids’ Progress and the announcement of the founding of Ar nDraiocht Fein as a specifically neopagan form of druidism. The order maintains a contemporary faith based upon the most current academic research and assessment of ancient druidism. While reviving the best aspects of the past, this approach advocates self-consciously living in a modern, scientific, artistic, ecological, and holistic context. Like other neopagan groups, it is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic faith.

Bonewits also designed the new druidism so that it was not limited to Celtic traditions but also included pan-Indo-European traditions to allow a broad intercultural participation. Though neopagan druidism is considered to be very close to Wicca, it is distinguished from Wicca by its emphasis upon polytheism rather than the two major Wiccan deities (the Sky God and the Earth Mother), its large group orientation as opposed to small covens, and its public, inclusionary character.

Neopagan druids are organized into groves that meet twice monthly and celebrate the common eight pagan festivals. Bonewits (with the assistance of other members) has written The ADF Grove Organizers Handbook, The ADF Members’ Guide, The ADF Study Manual, and the ADF Liturgical Manual. Recently Bonewits retired and was named archdruid emeritus. Ian Corrigan was named acting arch-druid in the interim before a new archdruid was designated. The current archdruid, Rev. Skip Ellison, was first elected in 2000, then reelected in 2004 and again in 2007.

Membership

As of 2002 there were 43 groves in the United States and one grove in Ontario, Canada.

Periodicals

Oak Leaves.

Remarks

It appears that most, if not all, of the various druid groups that were functioning in the 1970s and 1980s have disbanded with their work now surviving through the ADF. However, at last report there was a former group of the Reformed Druids of North America still functioning in California.

Sources

Ar nDraiocht Fein: A Druid Fellowship, Inc. www.adf.org.

Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.

Bonewits, Isaac. Real Magic. New York: Coward, McGann, and Goeghegan, 1971.

———. What Do Neopagan Druids Believe? Newark, DE: Mother Grove, 1991. Tract.

———. What Is Ar nDraiocht Fein? Newark, DE: Mother Grove, 1991. Tract.

Artemisian Order

c/o Oriethyia, PO Box 7184, Capitol Station, Albany, NY 12224

One expression of the feminist emphasis in Neopaganism in the 1990s, the Artemisian Order, founded by Oriethyia, a feminist poet, is a clan of sisterhood, a society of women who protect one another while serving nature. Oriethyia was a Dianic Wiccan who decided to start a new Wiccan tradition with the goddess Artemis (the Greek equivalent of the Roman Diana) at the center. Artemisian faith affirmed the female image of god in opposition to the primary male image with which she had grown up, and, unlike most Wicca, Oriethyia saw no need to balance male-female energies by providing the goddess with a consort. The balancing of energies comes from asserting the feminine in a masculine-dominated culture.

Artemisians see themselves as Amazons, the moon women, the fierce fighters whom even the bravest of male warriors fear and respect. In describing their roots, they state, “We are proud, capable women who firmly worship the goddess Artemis. We bow to no man for any reason. If you believe we are war-like and man-haters, consider that men of strictly patriarchal cultures persecuted and killed us for our beliefs. We refuse to submit to the loss of our freedom and rights; therefore, many consider us to be dangerous and unnatural.”The modern Artemisian Order consists of the Sisterhood, Philos, and Gargareans. The Sisterhood maintains the workings of the order on a day-to-day basis; goddesses are seen as the order’s patrons. The women form the council of the Sophias, who lead with their wisdom, the High Priestesses who keep the rituals, the Amazons who defend the way of life, and the Maidens who assist with their strength of mind and spirit. The new Initiates learn from their elder sisters. The Gargareans and Philos, males, assist the Sisterhood by protecting their sacred ways. Present-day Gargareans and Philos are descendants of the men who once existed solely to serve the Amazon women as mates and slaves. Only females may become Initiates. Males may apply, but they will only be allowed to follow the ranks of Gargareans and Philos.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Hopman, Ellen Evert, and Lawrence Bond. People of the Earth: The New Pagans Speak Out. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1996.

Avalon Isle/Order of the Royal Oak

PO Box 6006, Athens, GA 30604

Avalon Isle is the covenstead for the American branch of the Order of the Royal Oak, a chivalrous order established in 1660 by King Charles II to honor the men who had supported him during his exile from the throne. According to members, Charles II was widely regarded as sympathetic to the ways of the wise (witches), and he created the Order of the Royal Oak as a defiant gesture against the Puritans who had run the now discarded Commonwealth. The original symbol of this order was a young oak growing from the cut stump of the old. Members claimed that the old Pagan religion was kept alive for over 300 years, hidden from hostile eyes, and a new modern version of the order was revived.

Lady Amythyst, a direct ancestor of Sir George Carteret, a knight of the Order of the Garter and an original member of the Order of the Royal Oak, leads the new order. Amythyst’s family came to America in 1663 from the Isle of Jersey. The High Priestess of Avalon Isle, she affirms that she has been a student of the Ancient Ways since her earliest childhood, and began to teach the Craft of the Wise (Wicca) in 1976.

Located in the hills of East Tennessee, on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, Avalon Isle provides a center for higher esoteric learning and a gathering point for Wiccans of all traditions. Avalon Isle has hosted the annual Highlands of Tennessee Samhain Gathering (HTSG) since 1991. It also offers workshops and programs throughout the year.

Lady Amythyst also operates one of the largest Wiccan-owned nonprofit charitable organizations in North America, a transitional home for men reentering the mainstream of life, and a shelter for battered women and children. These facilities admit residents regardless of race, creed, religion, or national origin.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Avalon Isle. www.avalonisle.org/.

Brothers of the Earth

c/o Church of the Earth, Box 13158, Dinkytown Sta., Minneapolis, MN 55414

The Brothers of the Earth is a male-oriented Neopagan fellowship composed of groups and individuals interested in exploring, creating, and celebrating a positive male, earth-centered, life-affirming spirituality that is nurturing, nonhomophobic, and nonsexist. It was founded in 1983 by Gary Lingen (aka Earthkin), founding elder and priest of the Church of the Earth, a Neopagan aquarian age church of nature in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

Lingen saw the emergence of men who had developed a new consciousness in response to the emergence of the feminist movement of the previous decade, but who had become isolated in a world of dominant patriarchal male values. Such men sought not only support, but participation in spiritual consciousness-raising for healing and empowerment, and in rituals that celebrated a new vision of manhood. Earlier attempts at male-oriented groups had emerged in the Neopagan community through the Radical Fairies (a gay group) and in all-male activities at pagan festivals. Brothers of the Earth differs in that it seeks to involve gay, heterosexual, and bisexual men of all ages and cultures.

As pagan men, the Brothers of the Earth affirm their link to the Earth, sun, moon, and all the elemental forces. The feminine principle in nature is worshipped as the Goddess, and the male principle as the Horned God (One). The Horned God is worshipped as an aspect of Son, Lover, and Co-Creator and equal to the Goddess (who tends to take precedence in most Neopagan and witchcraft groups). The Horned God is neither effeminate nor a representation of machismo; he is the expression of positive male qualities of creativity and power within, rather than power over, and of natural regenerating potency inseparable from the Goddess, the prime and nurturing force.

Membership

In 1988 the fellowship reported 125 members in the United States, 8 members in Canada, and 12 in other countries. Membership in the fellowship network comes from all parts of the United States and includes several witchcraft and Neopagan groups.

Periodicals

Brothersong.

Church and School of Wicca

PO Box 297-IN, Hinton, WV 25951-0297

The Church and School of Wicca was founded in 1968 by Gavin Frost and his wife Yvonne Frost. It was among the earliest organizations to develop in the United States out of the Neopagan revival. In 1972 it earned IRS tax-exempt status, the first Wiccan organization so recognized. It became known internationally because of the widely advertised correspondence course it conducts. Since its founding, the church has received more than a half-million inquiries and accepted more than 50,000 students.

The church has eclectic teachings that draw on a variety of religious and magical beliefs and practices. It has what is described as a Celtic flavor because of the personal history of the founders in that tradition. The current teachings of the church rest on what are thought of as its five supports: 1) Old masters and new texts: the church members, many of whom possess specialized linguistic and scholarly skills, have examined its beliefs and have offered insights from many ancient and modern religious texts. 2) Experimental work: a continuous process of research on beliefs and practices, both undergoing change and modification. 3) Research into modern remnants of pre-technological cultures: especially as studies by social anthropologists continue, this research forms one of the expanding areas of new insight for the church. 4) Family traditions: the church began with a family tradition passed to Gavin Frost that has largely been discarded because if its patriarchal tone. 5) Students and other Wiccans and Pagans: as dialogue is had with Wiccans and Pagans outside the church, especially those who come to the church after years of practice elsewhere, new insights are brought into the church’s teachings.

The church’s present philosophy, called the Spiritual Path, can be summarized in five basic tenets resting on a central affirmation of an unnamable deity, postulated as an impersonal reality. From this affirmation other ideas flow, including: 1) The Wiccan Rede: “If it harm none, do what you will.” 2) Reincarnation as an orderly system of learning: reincarnation is not so much an accounting of sins and punishments, as it is a means of guiding learning, with death regarded as a graduation. 3) The Law of Attraction: what I do to other living creatures, I will draw to myself. 4) Power through knowledge: it is assumed that each living creature has power or energy within its body and that the skill to direct that power can be taught and learned. 5) Harmony: it makes sense to live in harmony with the perceptible rhythms of the sun, moons, and seasons of the year.

Over the years, the church has chartered 28 subsidiary churches worldwide. All of these subsidiaries have completed their training period and have become independent entities.

The Church continually works for Wiccan rights and recognition in the public sphere. This has involved them in supporting religious freedom for incarcerated Wiccans and for gays, and in assisting the military in becoming informed about Wicca. The church also sponsors special interest groups for gay Wiccans, military Wiccans, solitary Witches, and other Wiccan groups founded around a particular interest or concern. A milestone in the church’s history was Dettmer v. Landon (799 F.2d 929, 4th Cir. 1986), an appeals case involving an inmate in a Virginia prison who was a member of the School of Wicca. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed that Wicca was a religion, the first time a court had so ruled.

Members of the church adhere to a complex set of doctrines relating to the spiritual aspects of their lives. The church’s teaching arm, the School of Wicca, offers a full range of courses on alternative topics, requiring considerable independent study and reading. Approximately 250 students graduate from the school annually.

Membership

The church reported that it limits its active student body (enrolled in correspondence courses) to 5,000.

Periodicals

Survival.

Sources

Church and School of Wicca. www.wicca.org/.

———. Good Witch’s Bible. New York: Berkley Publishing Company, 1976.

Frost, Gavin, and Yvonne Frost. The Magic Power of Witchcraft. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing Company, 1976.

———. A Witch’s Guide to Life. Cottonwood, AZ: Esoteric Publications, 1978.

———. Who Speaks for the Witch. New Bern, NC: Godolphin House, 1991.

———. The Witch’s Magical Handbook. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000.

———. The Solitary Wiccan’s Bible. Newburyport, MA: Weiser, 2004.

Church of All Worlds

PO Box 758, Cotati, CA 94931

Among the largest and most influential of all Neopagan religious groups during the 1970s was the Church of All Worlds (CAW). The church traces its history to April 7, 1962, when a “water-brotherhood,”called Atl, was formed by Tim Zell and Lance Christie at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. During the mid-1960s, the group was centered on the University of Oklahoma campus at Norman and operated under the name Atlan Foundation. A periodical, The Atlan Torch (later The Atlan Annals), was published from 1962 to 1968. Following a move to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1968, the Church of All Worlds was legally incorporated. In March of that year, the Green Egg appeared. From its inauspicious beginnings as a one-page ditto sheet, it grew into a 60-page journal over 80 issues, becoming the most significant periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970s and making Zell, its editor, a major force in Neopaganism (a term that Zell coined). It was also the major instrument in the church’s expansion.

The Church of All Worlds took much inspiration from the science fiction classic Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. In the novel, the Stranger, Valentine Michael Smith, is an Earthman born on Mars and raised by Martians. Among his adventures after being brought to earth is the formation of the “Church of All Worlds.”The fictional church was built around “nests,” a combination of a congregation and an intentional community. A basic concept was “grokking” (literally, “drinking;”the ability to be fully empathic). CAW also emphasized the experience of nonpossessive love and the joyous expression of sexuality as divine union. The nests were places where this grokking and joyful sexual love could find expression. The common greeting was, “Thou art God,” a recognition of divinity immanent in each person.

The nonfiction Church of All Worlds is organized around a central office where master records are kept. Autonomous nests are composed of at least three members of “2nd Circle” or “inner” located in the same area. There are nine circles of inward progression, named after the nine planets, divided into three RINGs (Seeker, Scion, and Beacon). Each circle includes study, writing, magical training, personal actualization work, connection to the CAW tribe, and service to the organization and the community. The clergy, consisting of legally ordained priests and priestesses, is separate from the RINGs training program, and is made up of longtime members of the church who have undergone personal and leadership development, religious training, and completed the church’s other ordination requirements. The board of directors is elected by the Beacon Council from candidates recommended by the general membership. Communication between the church hierarchy and the broader membership is facilitated by annual, regional, and special curias, where membership feedback is sought and group consensus is gauged.

BELIEFS

The basic theology of the CAW is a form of pantheism that focuses on the Divine as being immanent in every human being, expressed, as in the Heinlein book, in the common greeting, “Thou Art God,” or “Thou Art Goddess.”The most important theological statement came in the form of revelatory writings by Zell in the years 1970 to 1973, on the theory that later came to be known as the Gaia thesis. This concept is a biological validation of an ancient intuition: that the planet is a single living organism—Mother Earth (Gaia).

As pantheists, CAW holds as divine the living spirit of Nature. Thus, the CAW recognizes Mother Earth, the Horned God, and other spirits of animistic totemism as the Divine pantheon. In this manner, the Church of All Worlds became an early forerunner of the Deep Ecology movement. Through its focus on Mother Nature as a goddess, its recognition and ordination of women as priestesses, CAW can also rightly be held to be the first Eco-Feminist church. CAW is “dedicated to the celebration of Life, the maximal actualization of Human potential, and the realization of ultimate individual freedom and personal responsibility in harmonious eco-psychic relationship with the total Biosphere of Holy Mother Earth.”

With the third reincarnation of CAW in 2005, the church undertook the task of elucidating its doctrine by restructuring its old by-laws as religious canons. The new canons define the non-creedal doctrine established by long-held traditions of the church. That doctrine holds as central CAW’s mission: “to evolve a network of information, mythology and experience to awaken the Divine within and to provide a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaea [Gaia] and reuniting Her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and the evolution of consciousness.” The other points of established doctrine are 1) the aforementioned theological position on imminent Divinity; 2) commitment to being a non-creedal, eclectic faith; 3) honor for dissent and respect for the value that “heretics”have to the examination of faith and spiritual growth; 4) reverence for the Earth; 5) the sacramental experience of “sharing water”; 6) nondiscrimination; and 7) affirmation of and support for the freedom of expression in intimacy and family.

Worship in the church involves weekly or monthly meetings held usually in the homes of nest members on a rotational basis, and often also includes the observation of Neopagan holidays such as the Wiccan Wheel of the Year. The basic liturgical form is based on a circle where members take turns sharing their creativity. A chalice of water is always shared around the circle either as the opening or closing of the ceremony. Other events are celebrated at festivals around the country, as well as at the church sanctuary, a 55-acre parcel of sacred land called Annwfn, in northern California. Annwfn has a two-story temple, a garden, an orchard, and a small pond. It has solar-powered electricity, propane hot water, and a cellular telephone. In addition to the eight seasonal festivals commonly associated with Wicca, the church holds handfastings (marriages), vision quests, initiations, workshops, retreats, work parties, and staff meetings.

HISTORY

Incorporated in 1968, CAW was the first of the Neopagan/Earth Religions to obtain full federal recognition. However, the church had some trouble being recognized as a legitimate religious body and was originally refused recognition by the Missouri Department of Revenue for purposes of state sales tax exemption. The rejection was on the basis of its lack of primary concern about the hereafter, God, the destiny of souls, heaven, hell, sin and its punishment, and other supernatural matters. The ruling was overturned as unconstitutional in 1971.

In 1974 the church reported nests located in Missouri, California, Illinois, Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Wyoming, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio. It was publishing two periodicals, Green Egg and The Pagan. Two years later, Zell, having established the church, moved from St. Louis to northern California with his new wife, Morning Glory, an ordained Priestess, for a rural life more centered on writing, research in some areas of particular interest, and the practice of the religion he had developed. They left the administration and the publication of the Green Egg in the hands of other church leaders. After only a few more issues, the magazine ceased to appear and many of the church nests dissolved in the wake of intense internal conflicts.

By the mid-1980s, CAW survived only in California, focalized around the sanctuary land bequeathed to the church by its bard, the late Gwydion Pendderwen. On and around this rural retreat, a pagan homesteading community formed that included the Zells (Tim Zell had changed his first name to Otter in 1979 following a vision quest) and other long-time church members who moved to the community, as well as many new people. Two new clergy, Orion Stormcrow and Anodea Judith, were ordained and became significant leaders in the church; Anodea served as president for seven years.

In the late 1980s, following Otter and Morning Glory’s emergence from eight years of living in the wilderness, the Church of All Worlds began a reorganization and revivification. The community on the land broke up as the other people moved back into civilization. The membership program was radically upgraded to include intensive training courses and new responsibilities, along with a new members-only newsletter, The Scarlet Flame.

The first issue of the revived Green Egg (The Next Generation!) appeared in May 1988 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its original publication, and it once again rose to a position of prominence among the 500 or so Pagan periodicals then being published. In 1991, with 52 pages and a four-color glossy cover, Green Egg won the Silver Award from the Wiccan/Pagan Press Alliance for “Most Professionally Formatted Pagan Publication.”

By February 1992 the church had six chartered nests in California, with others in Florida, Illinois, Arizona, and Minnesota, and was growing in other areas as well. Otter worked with other prominent pagans to form the Universal Federation of Pagans, a worldwide association that he hoped would unify the global Pagan community. A Grand Convocation was held in August of 1992 to mark the 30th anniversary of the church.

In September 1996 changes in the configuration of the board of directors initiated a series of events that led to radical changes within the group. Zell (now Oberon Zell, another name change inspired by a spiritual experience), was replaced as editor of Green Egg and then underwent a one-year sabbatical from his duties as Primate. Green Egg experienced financial difficulties, and by 2001 the board of directors had decided to cease publication.

By late 1998 the central office had moved to Toledo, Ohio, and administrative operations were overseen by Jim Looman as executive operations manager. Over the next several years, conflicts intensified resulting in the resignation, retirement, or disassociation of many members, including Zell and a large portion of the clergy. During this period, in recognition of the many diverse paths developing out of the tradition of CAW, Liza Gabriel wrote a proposal defining the Church of All Worlds Tradition, an acknowledgment that CAW accepted this diversity. This proposal was endorsed by Oberon and Morning Glory Zell and many of the membership, but was rejected by the Ohio board of directors as violating CAW’s “trademark” as an organization.

In September 2004 the Ohio board of directors, now headed by Looman as president, citing legal and financial problems as their justification, passed a “Resolution to Implement the Dormancy of CAW,”which declared their intention to cease operations and resolve all business matters of CAW by June 2005. They also announced to the online membership that they had incorporated a separate organization named the International Church of All Worlds (iCAW) in 2000 in Ohio, and that they were cancelling all Church of All Worlds, Inc., memberships but would honor those memberships for any members who wished to leave CAW and join iCAW. The entire board then resigned before completing the actions outlined by this resolution. Jim Looman passed away, and all records of the organization, both physical and electronic, were reported by prior board members to have been “accidentally destroyed.” CAW nests either associated with iCAW or disassociated with CAW and became independent CAW Tradition Nests.

In 2005 Zell and his co-founder, Lance Christie, along with other longtime members of the church, bonded together once again to initiate what they called the Third Phoenix Resurrection of CAW. They filed amended articles of incorporation to return the central office to California, appointed a new board of directors, and resumed operation of the original California religious nonprofit. The next few years were spent attempting to reconnect to the CAW nests, which had been dispersed in the years of turmoil. The Church of All Worlds now recognizes both formal nests (those formally associated with CAW, Inc.) and CAW Tradition nests as valid members of the Church of All Worlds tribe. As of 2008, the organization was being revived and restructured, and an organizational structure that was designed to honor both the consensus of the membership and the guidance of the Church Elders was being adopted in hopes of preventing future division.

Over the years, the Church of All Worlds has chartered a number of subsidiary organizations through which it practices and teaches its religion. These subsidiaries have continued to function even while the main body of the church went dormant. These subsidiary orders and addresses, as of 2008, are as follows:

Forever Forests: PO Box 559, Redwood Valley, CA 95470. Founded in 1977 by Gwydion Pendderwen. This is the ecology branch. Sponsors tree-planting events and rituals.
Lifeways: [email protected]. Founded in 1983 by Anodea Judith. The teaching branch. Offers workshops, classes, healing rituals, recovery programs, and training for the priesthood.
Nemeton: PO Box 758, Cotati, CA 94931. Founded in 1972 by Gwydion Pendderwen and Alison Harlow. The marketing branch. Tapes, records, songbooks, t-shirts, philosophical tracts, and books. Catalog available.
Ecosophical Research Assn. (ERA): PO Box 758, Cotati, CA 94931. Founded in 1977 by Morning Glory Zell. Branch devoted to research and exploration in the fields of history, mythology, and natural sciences. Produced the the New Guinea Mermaid expedition, a Peruvian Pilgrimage, a series of replicas of ancient God and Goddess votive figurines (sculpted by Otter), and the Living Unicorn project. The Zells claimed that their research showed that the unicornwas originally created by ancient pastoral people in the Middle East by means of an operation on baby goats. An animal that had undergone this surgery was temporarily leased by the Zells for exhibition by the Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Holy Order of Mother Earth (HOME): PO Box 758, Cotati, CA 94931. Founded in 1977 by the Zells and Alison Harlow. Magical and shamanic branch open only to trained initiates of this religious discipline. Creates and conducts the church’s rituals and ceremonies.

Membership

In 2008, during restructuring, the church reported a membership of approximately 75.

Periodicals

The Green Egg. Available from www.greeneggzine.com/.

Sources

Church of All Worlds. www.caw.org/.

Guiley, Rosemary. Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. New York: Facts on File, 1989.

Judith, Anodea. Wheels of Life. Illustrated by Otter Zell. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1987.

The Living Unicorn. Los Gatos, CA: Living Unicorn, [1980].

Oberon and Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart. Creating Circles & Ceremonies: Rituals for All Seasons and Reasons. New Page Books, 2006.

Zell, Tim. Cataclysm and Consciousness: From the Golden Age to the Age of Iron. Redwood Valley, CA: Author, 1977.

Church of Pan

114 Johnson Rd., Foster, RI 02825

The Church of Pan was founded in 1970 by Kenneth Walker (d. 1987) and members of a nudist campground in rural Rhode Island. The church’s founding was occasioned by the request of two members to be married in the nude and the inability of the group to locate a minister to perform the ceremony. They decided to form a church, and Walker became the minister.

The Church of Pan espouses naturalist principles. Reverence and devotion is directed toward the Creator, and actions follow patterns discerned to be in concert with the Creator’s designs and purposes. While engaged in altruistic actions that attempt to modify the harshness of nature, in line with the destiny of creation, the church denounces human actions that have destroyed life-supporting systems and polluted nature. Humans have the task of maintaining the balance of life on the planet. The church also opposes the distortion of human society by what it views as an erroneous treatment of sexuality. Forgetting the naturalness of sex, society tends to view it either as sinful or something to be marketed.

The church is headquartered at a nudist campground managed by Beulah A. Rathbun. Members are active in the promotion of environmental concerns. As might be expected from the nature of its beginning, the church has experienced difficulties over its status as a tax-exempt religious organization.

Membership

In 1988, the church reported 30 families, all members of the one “congregation”in Rhode Island.

Church of Seven Arrows

PO Box 185, Wheat Ridge, CO 80034-0185

The Church of Seven Arrows was founded in 1975 by the Revs. George Dew and Linda Hillshafer who serve as the shamans of the church. In 1977, the church was established in Wheatridge, Colorado, a Denver suburb, and began publishing the monthly periodical Thunderbow. While functioning within the larger neopagan movement, the Church of Seven Arrows derives its system of beliefs and practices from a variety of sources, including contemporary western occultism, Hinduism, and, most prominently, the traditions of the Hopi and Plains Indians as expressed in the writings of Frank Waters and Hyemeyohsts Storm. The basic worldview and practices are described in two sets of books produced by the church, Basics of Magic and Shaman’s Notes.

The beliefs of the church are expounded in terms of mythos, dogma, and doctrine. The church’s mythos (its overall perspective on the nature of life and the universe) states that in the beginning, Creator existed as a State of Being. Creator acted, creating Nephew, who in turn created nine realms, one for Creator himself, and seven others. Spirits were created to populate the realms and the worlds. The world of humanity was given to the charge of “She Whom We Call Grandmother.” She first created the body-forms of the animal and plant kingdoms and then the human species in which the spirit resides. The human spirit is special in that it is the only spirit that may choose whether or not to fulfill its place, and it is the only one that must learn its place. Humanity’s function is to lead all the beings of Earth in raising a harmonious sound to the Creator’s realm.

Eventually, the original harmony was lost and the sound arising from earth became a cacophony. At that point, Nephew and Grandmother cleansed the world with fire, and the first world gave way to a second. The second world proceeded like the first, but added to the growing cacophony was a mistreatment of the earth for purposes it was never intended for. A second cleansing by ice was followed by the third world, its disintegration, and a cleansing by means of water and a geologic shift. We now live in the fourth world, which is progressing toward the time of another cleansing cycle. Those in touch with the harmony of Earth, Grandmother, and the original purpose and function of humankind will survive and pass through the cleansing activity.

Among the dogmas of the church are the following affirmations: each being is a spirit and mirror of the Creator; a being cannot be destroyed; the universe exists in a state of patterned change; each being has a right to exist (but each form of existing may or may not be acceptable); bodies are masks of the spirit; no one path is proper for all people at all times; and the same basic principles are manifested in both the spiritual and material realms.

The more ephemeral beliefs of the church are called doctrine and summarized in nine statements as a “Guide for Daily Living on the Path of Seven Arrows.”These statements call for members to know themselves, live in harmony, study the sciences (including the ancient science of magic), avoid self-destructive agreements, and live in such a way that joyous sounds arise to the Creator’s ear. The ancient sciences should be used in a manner that avoids harm to anyone. The church offers a set of rituals for both personal and group use.

The church is headed by a board of directors. A variety of classes on basic magic and shamanism are taught at regular intervals. Most members live in the Denver metropolitan area, but the periodical has a national audience. Rituals follow the solar and lunar cycles. Thunderbow, a popular pagan periodical for a decade, was discontinued in 1987. Since 1990 the church has sponsored the Earth Home Society, which networks among holistic healers in the Denver metropolitan area.

Membership

As of 1997, approximately 50 participants attend church activities in the Denver area during any given period. Currently, approximately 500 “graduate-practitioners”of church training from around the country keep in communication and retain some informal ties with it.

Periodicals

Earth Home Society Resource Directory.

Sources

Basics of Magic. 2 vols. Wheatridge, CO: Church of Seven Arrows, 1980.

Shaman’s Notes. 3 vols. Wheatridge, CO: Church of Seven Arrows, 1983–1985.

Storm, Hyemeyohsts. The Song of Heyoehkah. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981.

Waters, Frank. Book of the Hopi. New York: Ballantine, 1963.

Church of the Eternal Source

PO Box 2778, Mission Viejo, CA 92690-0778

The Church of the Eternal Source, the most substantial of the several Egyptian neo-pagan bodies, was founded in 1970 by the late Donald D. Harrison (1931–2004) and Harold Moss. Harrison (a former Roman Catholic) and Moss were converted to paganism through the study of the Greek and Roman religions and their attraction to the fine arts of ancient Egypt. In 1967, Harrison founded the Julian Review, which became the organ of the Delphic Fellowship, an early pagan fellowship based upon Greek motifs. Moss organized a social group professing the Egyptian religion after seeing a movie, The Egyptian, that focused on Akhenaten. In 1963, the group held an Egyptian costume party. The Church of the Eternal Source combines aspects of a number of Egyptian temples. Each priest and priestess acts autonomously in supervising ritual and initiation procedures for his or her temple. The church currently has four consecrated temples and congregations in California, Idaho, and Oregon. Continuing its tradition of public rituals, in 2006 the CES drew a capacity crowd of over 250 (50 latecomers were turned away) at the Pantheacon in San Jose, California. The ceremony included recitations in the ancient Egyptian language and a number of reconstructed sacred wands and staffs.

The two basic principles of the Church of the Eternal Source are polytheism and authentic Egyptianism. The church teaches that divinity is a balance of distinct divine vectors. The diversity of the gods and their transactions produces reality. Man’s task is to achieve balance in his soul in the divine vectors. Authentic Egyptian religion relates to the early period when Egypt was relatively untainted by non-Egyptian ideas. This period became a source for all later religious insights. The mastery of Egyptian history is stressed. Many of the church leaders have made pilgrimages to Egypt.

Religious practices center on personal shrines, the study of theology, divination, the fine arts, and personal worship with wide variations. Group worship is manifest in the festivals, which are dramatic reenactments of a holy myth. The Egyptian pantheon forms the basic content of faith. A typical myth is the story of the rebirth of Osiris. Osiris was killed by Set, the god of darkness. Isis, the wife of Osiris, sought him, her tears causing the Nile to overflow. She found the body and buried it, but not carefully. Set exhumed it, dismembered it, and scattered the pieces through the land. Isis then carefully sought and assembled each piece. Osiris was then resurrected. Osiris and Isis are accompanied in the pantheon by Horus, their son; Bast, the beneficent solar goddess represented as a cat; Thoth, the god of wisdom; and Ra, the sun god often represented as Khepera, the beetle (believed to be self-generated). The myths are described in ancient literature such as The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Important festival days are held each full moon and during the equinoxes and solstices. The birthdays of the deities are also celebrated, generally in mid-July, although various temples may use different dates for the Egyptian new year. Ritual magick is performed and ancient texts are recited both in English and the ancient language, although no set ritual is prescribed. A typical Egyptian ritual is found in Magic: An Occult Primer by David Conway.

Membership

The church does not keep congregational membership records.

Periodicals

Kephera.

Remarks

The late Don Harrison, one of the church’s founders, is the author of several novels emphasizing both ancient religions and sexual themes.

Sources

Church of the Eternal Source. www.ceswebhq.org or www.home.earthlink.net/~ceswebhq/.

Conway, David. Magic: An Occult Primer. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1972.

Frankfort, Henri. Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Interpretation. New York: Harper & Row, 1961.

Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca

PO Box 1, Center Valley, PA 18034

The Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca (CUEW) is a Web-based Wiccan community that began in 1997 as a means of helping solitary Wiccans find materials to assist them in learning about Wicca and pursuing their solitary rituals. It continues that basic purpose, but has matured and changed, especially in reaction to the ubiquity of the Internet, which was just beginning to permeate the Wiccan community in 1997.

The Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca operates out of a general Wiccan consensus, but with an emphasis on universalism (believing that truth exists in a multitude of places) and eclecticism (the practice of taking religious resources from many places). The CUEW believes that the solitary is central to the vitality of the Wiccan community, an essential concept behind its original structure, the Coven of the Far Flung Net.

Individuals may have a number of different relations to the CUEW. First, they may relate to the church as an unaffiliated solitary Wiccan. This is a person who reads Universal Eclectic Wiccan books and Web sites and practices what those Web sites and books teach, but keeps it to him or herself. Such a person has no standing in Universal Eclectic Wicca or the CUEW and is not authorized to teach Universal Eclectic Wicca to another person.

Second, an individual may join online teaching groups such as the Coven of the Far Flung Net, the Coven of Non-Fluffy Wicca, or Vircle, which all assume that their solitary contacts are practicing Wicca offline while also participating in lessons or activities.

Third, a person may actually join an offline group. Universal Eclectic Wicca allows for individuals to combine being a part of a coven or teaching circle with being a solitary.

Fourth, some solitaries may want to seek out a mentor who has gone through Universal Eclectic Wiccan training and who would vouch for the individual’s accomplishments or assist in a person’s instruction. Universal Eclectic Wicca is taught in three levels called circles. Most members are in or have completed the Second Circle. Most mentors are in the Third Circle.

Finally, some people, after completing their study, decide that they would like to be part of an offline group. As it has grown, the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca has begun to found such groups.

The CUEW’s view of Wicca is contained in its basic textbook, All One Wicca by Kaatryn MacMorgan-Douglas, available online at the church’s Web site. That Web site also contains many other pieces of teaching material. One particular item unique to the CUEW is the Affirmation of Acknowledgment, which covers its relationship to other religions, especially Christianity:

I: I acknowledge the presence of other faiths on my planet, indeed, right here in my city/town/village. I acknowledge that the followers of these faiths feel as strongly, maybe more so, than I do about mine.
II: I forgive the other faiths and wipe clean the slate between us. I cannot hold a person responsible for the acts of their faith, I cannot hold a faith at fault for individual practitioners. It is not my place to convert, or otherwise alter a person’s religion. I invite discussion of beliefs without judgment of those holding them.
III: I acknowledge that I may be wrong, and I have found comfort in the fact that I may be right.

CUEW is led by the Association of Universal Eclectic Wiccan Clergypersons (AUEWC). Membership in AUEWC is open to elected Universal Eclectic Wiccan leaders, lay ministers, and ordained priests, and single representatives of egalitarian covens. Persons may attain clergy status through study with an accredited Universal Eclectic Wiccan teacher (either online or offline).

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca. www.cuew.org/.

Circle Sanctuary

PO Box 9, Barneveld, WI 53507

Circle Sanctuary (also known as Circle) began in October 1974 when Selena Fox (b.1949), its founder, received the central concept, logo, and name in meditation. Shortly after this event, she and her partner at the time, Jim Alan, began to host informal gatherings of people interested in Paganism, Nature religion, Wicca, magic and mysticism in their home in Madison, Wisconsin. In June 1975 they moved to a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. This site, known as Circle Farm, was the meeting place for Circle’s first group, a Wiccan coven, and later for the beginning of Circle’s spiritual community, comprised of individuals and several groups. Through their writings and music, Fox and Alan began to meet and correspond with Pagans around the United States, Canada, and England. In 1977 their first book, a songbook, was published, as well as an album of their spiritual music. Fox also founded Circle Network that year. The following year Fox began to devote her efforts full time to the expanding Circle ministry which was incorporated as the Church of Circle Wicca in October 1978. In May 1979 Fox compiled and released the first Circle resource guide, a networking directory and sourcebook, which contributed to the growth of the developing Pagan movement.

In November 1979, after being evicted from their first farm because of their religion, which became known after Fox had received national media attention, Circle’s headquarters moved first to a farm near Ashton, Wisconsin, and then to another rented farmstead outside of Black Earth. In 1983 the church relocated to a 200 acre site it purchased near Barneveld, Wisconsin. Circle changed its incorporated name to Circle Sanctuary and named its land Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve. This site serves as church headquarters and it includes a variety of ritual sites and meditation places, including a stone circle, outdoor shrines, a cemetery, and an indoor temple.

Circle Sanctuary became the focus of an ever-widening network of contemporary Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, and other Nature religion practitioners throughout the United States and other countries. In 1980 Circle began publishing Circle Magazine (initially known as Circle Network News), in a quarterly newspaper format. Also that year, Circle began forming specialty networks within the larger Circle Network, including an international and interreligious Pagan friendship network. In 1981 the first of the annual week-long international Pagan Spirit Gatherings was held.

In 1985 Circle Sanctuary’s Wiccan-Pagan religious freedom work became widely known through its leadership in a nationwide action that defeated anti-Wiccan legislation in the US Congress. This battle and victory led Fox to form the Pagan Strength Web which later became the Lady Liberty League. In 1988, after a four-year legal battle over the right to use its land for religious activities, Circle Sanctuary land won local zoning as a church, and Circle Sanctuary began being listed alongside churches of other faiths in worship directories in the greater Madison, Wisconsin area. Circle Sanctuary is active in local, regional, national, and global interfaith organizations, projects and conferences.

Rev. Selena Fox and others from Circle Sanctuary and the Lady Liberty League have continued to be in the forefront of Pagan religious freedom work. They have been consulted on a variety of cases involving discrimination against Pagans in schools, workplaces, child custody cases, prisons, and government. In 1999 they helped lead a nationwide campaign that defeated federal legislation and upheld the rights of Wiccans serving in the US Armed Forces relative to their practice of their religion at military installations. In 2007 Circle Sanctuary, represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, successfully concluded a decade-long battle on behalf of Pagan veterans and their families with the settlement of its lawsuit against the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) filed in the US District Court of Western Wisconsin in November 2006. On April 23, 2007, the VA finally added the Pentacle, symbol of faith for Wiccans and many Pagans, to its list of emblems of belief that can be included on government-issued grave markers for deceased veterans. VA pentacle grave markers are now at public and private cemeteries throughout the nation, including at Arlington National Cemetery and Circle Sanctuary’s church cemetery.

The spiritual foundation of Circle Sanctuary is rooted in a form of shamanic Wiccan spirituality developed by Fox. Known as “Circle Wicca” in the 1970s and “Wiccan Shamanism”in the 1980s, it has evolved as the “Circle Craft Tradition.”This synthesis of Wiccan spirituality, Pagan folkways, nature mysticism, multicultural shamanism, and transpersonal psychology, emphasizes communion with the “Divine in Nature.” Since the 1990s, Circle Sanctuary has increasingly used the terms “Nature Spirituality” (a term coined by Fox in 1981) and Nature religion to describe its multifaceted networking and spiritual focus.

Circle Sanctuary has emerged as one of the most visible and public centers for ecospirituality, contemporary Paganism, and the Wiccan religion in the United States, and Fox is regularly called upon by the media, the government, and other churches to speak for the broader Pagan community. Through the variety of periodicals and festivals sponsored by Circle Sanctuary, it has built one of the largest networks currently existing within contemporary Paganism. It has also been the seedbed for other Pagan groups, festivals, and land projects, some of which have had their beginnings among those who have studied and worked at Circle Sanctuary headquarters.

Currently the church is headed by Fox, who serves as Senior Minister. The multifaceted local, regional, national, and global ministry of Circle Sanctuary is carried out by volunteers and full-time staff members. Fox, who is a professionally trained psychotherapist, does counseling and spiritual healing as part of her ministry. In 1995 Fox and her husband, Dr. Dennis Carpenter, a psychology professor, co-founded the Nature Religions Scholars Network, which a decade later became the Pagan Studies section of the American Academy of Religion. Fox and Carpenter supervise Circle Sanctuary’s academic research and networking efforts, including the Pagan Academic Network, which has its national meeting each year at the Pagan Spirit Gathering. Circle Sanctuary sponsors Pagan groups at several universities and at military installations. In addition, Circle Sanctuary and its ministers are active in hospital and hospice chaplaincy work, prison ministries, and interfaith endeavors. Circle Sanctuary operates Circle Cemetery, a national Pagan cemetery and one of the first Green cemeteries in the USA.

Membership

In 2008 Circle Sanctuary reported a membership and constituency of 60,000 inclusive of the United States and internationally.

Educational Facilities

Circle Sanctuary, Barneveld, Wisconsin, and online.

Periodicals

Circle Magazine (in-print) • Circle Guide to Pagan Resources (in-print) • Circle Times (e-bulletin) • Community Circle News (e-bulletin).

Sources

Circle Sanctuary. www.circlesanctuary.org/.

Alan, Jim, and Selena Fox. Circle Magick Songs. Madison, WI: Circle Publications, 1977.

Carpenter, Dennis D. Spiritual Experiences, Life Changes, and Ecological Viewpoints of Contemporary Pagans. Mt. Horeb, WI: Circle Publications, 1994.

Fox, Selena. Goddess Communion: Rituals & Meditations. Mt. Horeb, WI: Circle Publications, 1989.

———. When Goddess Is God: Pagans, Recovery, & Alcoholics Anonymous. Mt. Horeb, WI: Circle Publications, 1995.

Fox, Selena, et al. Guide to Pagan Groups. Mt. Horeb, WI: Circle Publications, 2003.

Congregationalist Witchcraft Association

PO Box 2205, Clearbrook, BC, Canada V2T 3X8

The Congregationalist Witchcraft Association was founded in the late 1980s by members of several Neopagan Witchcraft covens across Canada, after several years of discussion regarding its bases of agreement and constitution. When it was finally chartered in 1992 by the Canadian government as a nonprofit corporation, the association began life as a confederation of self-governing groups (covens) in several Canadian provinces (initially in Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia; in 2008 it also has members in Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.). Groups share a common statement of belief and ethical principles, but member groups control their own administration and worship. The association was formed to accomplish tasks that member groups (all of which tend to be small covens) could not accomplish alone. For example, it represents members to the government, promotes festivals and gatherings, and assists the growth of Wicca.

The association holds that divinity is multifaceted, and as such can be given a variety of names by which the many gods and goddesses are known. There are also levels of divinity. Thus, it is appropriate to speak of lesser deities such as guardian spirits. The divine is primarily immanent rather than transcendent, and it is thus ever-present and active in the world. Every woman and man is an embodiment of divinity, and all acts of love and pleasure are acts of praise of the Goddess. All forms of sexual expression that are noncoercive are considered legitimate by the association. Members also practice magic and believe that through petition, action, and ritual the world may be changed according to their will.

Members of the association agree not to practice animal sacrifice, promote coercive activities, or charge fees either for teaching the craft or for initiation. Priests and priestesses are expected to keep pastoral confidences.

The association is headed by a national council of officers chosen by vote of the member covens.

Membership

In 1994 there were five full-member congregations (one each in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia) and seven associate-members congregations (found in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia). There were also 17 individual members.

Periodicals

Duck Tales

Covenant of Gaia Church of Alberta

PO Box 1742, Sta. M, Calgary, AB, Canada T2P 2L7

The Covenant of Gaia Church of Alberta (COGCOA) is a Neopagan Wiccan church founded in Calgary, Alberta, in 1989. The church is congregational in structure, being composed of autonomous covens and solitary practitioners. It honors a multiplicity of female and male deities and follows the worship cycle of the eight common Wiccan festivals by celebrating community cycles. The church offers many different clergy services to its community, such as weddings, funerals, and coming-of-age rites. The church is headed by a board of directors who are elected annually.

Membership

In 2002 the church reported having 30–60 members.

Sources

Covenant of Gaia. www.cogcoa.ab.ca.

Covenant of Gaia. What Is the Covenant of Gaia? Calgary, AB: Covenant of Gaia, 1991. 5-page tract.

Covenant of the Goddess

PO Box 1226, Berkeley, CA 94701

The Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) was formed in 1975 by members of approximately ten covens in California. It is a confederation of autonomous covens whose purpose is to facilitate cooperation between covens and secure legal status and tax exemption for Witchcraft groups. Largely confined to California in its first years, by the end of the decade it had accepted covens in the East, and during the early 1980s it became a national organization and shifted a significant amount of its activity to the Midwest. The CoG now has covens in seven regional groupings across the country.

Membership is open to witches, both covens and individuals practicing as solitaries. New members must be recommended by two active CoG members and follow the worship of the Goddess and/or the Old Goddess and the Gods. A code of ethics binds members to the Wiccan Rede, “An ye harm none, do as ye will.”It also espouses guidelines on finances, the sovereignty of the individual covens, secrecy, and respect for diversity.

Annually members of the Covenant of the Goddess gather for the MerryMeet, an annual festival at which the Grand Council meets and the officers are elected.

Where three or more covens exist in close geographic proximity, they may organize a local council for the accomplishment of specific projects and general cooperative endeavor.

Membership

In 1992 there were 65 covens.

Periodicals

The Covenant of the Goddess Newsletter.

Sources

Covenant of the Goddess. www.cog.org.

Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982.

———. The Spiral Dance. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS)

PO Box 3128, Durham, NC 27715-3128

The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPs) emerged in the mid-1980s among some Unitarian Universalists who had come into contact with the Neopagan Movement and had concluded that the two had much in common and much of value to share with each other. At the 1985 Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in Atlanta, Georgia, a spontaneous and spirited summer solstice ritual led to an exploration of the possibility of an ongoing organization. A newsletter was begun, and Margot Adler a writer, scholar, and Wiccan priestess, was invited to address the 1987 assembly, at which time CUUPS was formally organized. The interim steering committee became the first board of directors.

The possibility of such a group within the UUA came about as the UUA shifted from a primarily liberal Christian body to one that sees itself as a confluence of the world’s religious traditions and insights. The association also places a great deal of emphasis upon individual freedom of belief and worship, intellectual inquiry, and the toleration of differences. Religious pluralism has become an established way of life within the association.

CUUPS has developed a formal program of providing networking among Unitarian Universalists who identify themselves as Pagan, promoting dialogue among Pagans and those of the dominant western religious traditions, and serving as a liaison between Pagans and the larger UUA. In practice, CUUPS has provided the Pagan community with a means for Pagan clergy to gain a theological education and credentials, as well as a spiritual home for many Pagans who otherwise have no relation to the UUA. Thus, CUUPS operates as both a caucus within the association and as a growing and increasingly important Pagan grouping in its own right. In 1995 the UUA Assembly voted to acknowledge the “earth-centered spirituality”in the association by-laws as a major source of UUA beliefs, thus indirectly acknowledging the beliefs of CUUPS. It was the first such recognition of the significance of Neopaganism by a major American religious body.

CUUPs is headed by a board of directors cochaired by the Revs. Lesley Rebecca Phillips and Linda Sophia Pinti. It holds a national meeting in conjunction with the annual UUA Assembly, and numerous chapters have been formed around the United States and Canada.

Membership

Not reported. There are approximately 80 CUUP chapters in North America.

Periodicals

Pagan NUUS.

Sources

Covenant of the Unitarian Universalist Pagans. www.cuups.org

Church of Y Dynion Mwyn

PO Box 672125, Marietta, GA 30006-0036

Originally known as Y Tylwyth Teg, the Church of Y Dynion Mywn is a Celtic traditional witchcraft group founded in 1967 in Washington, D.C., by Rhuddlwm Gawr. In 1966 founder Gawr was initiated in North Wales, and was given the name Rhuddlwm Gawr by the elders of the Welsh Tribe of Dynion Mwyn. The Church of Y Dynion Mywn received its laws and traditions from Great Britain through Rhuddlwm. They are contained in eight volumes in manuscript form. In 1973 the group moved its headquarters to Georgia.

The Church of Y Dynion Mywn has three deities: the Goddess, the Horned God, and their son, the Child of Light (corresponding to the Egyptian Isis, Osiris, and Horus). Celtic names are employed by the Church of Y Dynion Mywn. Worship is both skyclad (naked) and robed, and both inside and outside the circle, depending on the occasion. Reincarnation is stressed. The major focus of the Church of Y Dynion Mywn is on becoming attuned to nature and its forces. Drugs are forbidden to members.

The Church of Y Dynion Mywn differs from other Wicca groups in that it is organized on seven levels. Each probationer is given a level name and a secret name, both in Welsh. Movement through the levels is occasioned by initiation ceremonies. The first level, the “naming,”is coincidental with the members’identification with the coven. The church is organized into autonomous covens. There is no witch king or queen, but there are elders who render binding decisions on questions put to them.

Covens of the Church of Y Dynion Mywn were most active in the mid-1970s. In 1974 there were approximately 15 covens located in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia. As of 2008, there were many sister covens throughout the world, including in Africa, Australia, and Western Europe. Rhuddlwm Gawr compiled two editions of the Pagan/Occult/New Age Directory, which includes broad segments of the American Wicca and Neo-Pagan community.

In 1968, in upstate Georgia, the group hosted the first of several Gatherings of the Tribes, a conclave of Witches and Neopagans from a wide variety of traditions and perspectives. In its early U.S. history in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the group focused on growing quietly, sometimes resorting to secrecy to avoid interference. Beginning in the latter half of the 1970s, public relations seems to have become a focus, resulting in stories in local newspapers, and the publication of the Sword of Dyrnwyn Newsletter. During this same period, the group received the first IRS Group Tax Exemption ever awarded to a Pagan or Witchcraft church assembly. (Senator Jesse Helms later attempted to take away federal church status from Wiccan churches.)

In the mid-1980s, another court case was heard over ownership of a church post office box in Athens, Georgia. As a result, the judge declared the Church of Y Tylwyth Teg a legal church, Rhuddlwm Gawr a legal minister of that church, and Witchcraft a bona fide religion. Beginning in the early 1990s, the group began to have an online presence, and branched out into numerous study groups on Yahoo. In February of 2003, Rhuddlwm Gawr retired as CEO of Y Tylwyth Teg, Inc. That same year, Dynion Mwyn and Y Tylwyth Teg diverged, with Y Tylwyth Teg falling under the leadership of Cerridwen Gawr and Dynion Mwyn falling under the leadership of Rhuddlwm Gawr. The group held its 40^th Gathering of the Tribes in 2007.

Membership

Not reported.

Periodicals

The Sword of Dyrnwyn.

Sources

Celtic Church of Dynion Mwyn: Who Is Rhuddlwm Gawr? www.tylwythteg.com.

Church and Coven of Dynion Mwyn. www.dynionmwyn.net/tylwyth.html.

Gawr, Rhuddlwm. Pagan/Occult/New Age Directory. Atlanta: Pagan Grove Press, 1980.

Gawr, Rhuddlwm, with Marcy Edwards. The Quest. Smyrna, GA: Pagan Grove Press, 1979.

Dianic Wicca

c/o Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1, Box 11363, Oakland, CA 94611

Dianic Wicca is a name given to those Witchcraft covens that have developed a strong emphasis on feminism and the role of Witchcraft as the religion of females (wimmin). Whereas most Wiccans recognize their origins in the work of Gerald B. Gardner and the new form of Witchcraft he developed in the 1940s, the Dianics claim a tradition independent of Gardner, in the worship of Diana, the ancient Greek Goddess, from Central Europe. It is the belief of Dianic witches that the worship of the Goddess in a primeval past co-existed with a period of peace on earth that was destroyed by the rise of men and patriarchal deities. In Dianic covens, worship is focused on the mother Goddess as the Source of Life and as the Source of both sexes, and seen as including both sexes already. Individual covens vary from all-female separatist groups, to all female groups, to mixed male-female groups with a strong feminist emphasis.

Within the Dianic coven, the high priestess represents the Goddess and facilitates a ritual based on the circle. She is assisted by a maiden, and occasionally (where men are allowed) by a high priest. They represent the consort and the child. Some all-female covens operate in the nude, weather and inclination permitting, and some Dianic covens believe in parthenogenic birth, that is, birth not requiring male assistance.

Dianic Wicca began to emerge in the United States in 1971 when at least two different Dianic groups began. In southern California, Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest developed a coven associated with the Feminist Wicca, a matriarchial spiritual center in Venice, California. That original coven, known as the Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1, continues under the leadership of Ruth Barrett, a High Priestess trained by Budapest. It has been renamed the Circle of Aradia. In the early 1980s, Budapest moved to Oakland, California, and began a second coven that eventually took the name abandoned by the first one. In Oakland, Budapest has led in the formation of the Women’s Spirituality Forum, an organization dedicated to bringing Goddess consciousness into the mainstream of feminist, earth conservationist, and peace and justice work in the United States. It has held a number of conferences featuring leading feminist Wiccans, such as Merlin Stone, Starhawk, Diana Paxton, Margot Adler, and Budapest. It also holds a biannual Goddess festival.

Also in the early 1970s, in Dallas, Texas, a Dianic coven was founded by Morgan McFarland and Mark Roberts. High Priestess McFarland was a freelance photographer, writer, and feminist who began to explore the Craft in her early teens. She published a short-lived Neopagan periodical, The Harp, before going public in 1972. High Priest Roberts was also a freelance writer and photographer. Their group had originally been established as an occult group called the Seekers. In 1972 that group began to publish The New Broom. One of the articles published therein described the Dianic aspect as a blending of monotheism and pantheism. Dianic witches were monotheistic in that they worshipped the Goddess as the essential creative force. They were pantheists in their consideration of every creation in nature a child of the Goddess.

Withstanding attacks from those who complained that Dianic Witchcraft had lost the balance implied in the acknowledgment of the God and Goddess, the Dianics have become recognized as an important part of the Goddess tradition in North America. Besides the separate Dianic covens, Dianic Wicca has found strong advocates within otherwise non-Dianic groups. For example, Starhawk, the popular feminist Wiccan writer, is the leader of the Compost Coven, a coven within the larger fellowship of the Covenant of the Goddess (see separate entry), as is the Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1.

“Dianic”is a designation describing a number of covens and Witchcraft groups. Their inclusion under that label does not imply any organizational connection or even mutual recognition. They are united only in their sharing and emphasizing a generally feminist perspective within the larger Neopagan community.

Membership

Dianic Wicca reports an estimated 20,000 Dianic Wiccans in the United States.

Periodicals

Of a Like Mind.

Sources

Z Budapest. www.zbudapest.com/.

Budapest, Z. The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows. Venice, CA: Luna Publications, 1976.

———. The Rise of the Fates. Los Angeles: Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1, 1976.

———. The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries. Berkeley, CA: Wingbow Press, 1989.

———. Summoning the Fates: A Guide to Destiny and Sacred Transformation. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2007.

Christ, Carol P. Diving Deep and Surfacing. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1980.

Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1982.

———. The Spiral Dance. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.

Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

Discordian Society

Current address not obtained for this edition.

The Discordian Society appears to be a comic or satiric takeoff on the Neopagan movement. As described in Principia Discordia, the “bible”of the group, Discordians worship Eris, the goddess of chaos. The society’s founder was one who called himself Malaclypse the Younger. In 1958, upon evoking the Lady in the Erisian aspect, he was told, “We Discordians must stick apart.”Among the prominent Neopagans who identified themselves with the society was Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007), also known as Mordecai the Foul. Wilson was a popular writer and advocate of the Illuminatus conspiracy. He coauthored, with Robert Shea, a three-volume fantasy novel Illuminatus!, describing the Discordian world, including its sister organization, the John Dillinger Died for You Society.

Members in the Discordian Society are initiated as popes. Being infallible, they have the power to excommunicate everyone. As pope, a member is in the Fifth House of Discordia, popularly known as the Out House. The member can then proceed to higher orders—bishop, knight, castle, priest, dupe, and finally clown.

The Discordian movement has not in fact functioned as an organization but rather has been perpetuated as an inside joke and means of relieving tension within Pagan groups. As stated at its Web site, “As you learn more you will understand less.”Periodically, individuals publish material in the name of the Society. The most well-known literature, apart from Principia Discordia (which has been kept in print), was a periodical, St. John’s Bread, that enjoyed a brief life in the mid-1970s.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Discordian Society. discordiansociety.org/.

Malacylpse the Younger. Principia Discordia. Mason, MI: Loompanics Unlimited, 1978.

Divine Circle of the Sacred Grove

Box 1737, Fontana, CA 92334

The Divine Circle of the Sacred Grove was founded in 1985 by Janette Gordon, a priestess who has a long history of participation in Druidism as well as training in Wicca and a broad mastery of occultism in general. In 1965 she founded the Order of Druids, School and Church of Drunements, which was incorporated into the Divine Circle. The church holds weekly religious services and the school offers a full course of study on Wicca, magic, ritual, healing, occultism, and related topics. The school operates as a correspondence school under the tutelage of Janette and her husband, Norman Gordon. She has authored all of the curriculum and lesson material.

The church teaches the balance of nature affirmed in ritual activity, the polarity of Goddess and God, and a way of life based upon personal empowerment through magic. While operating out of a single center in Fontana, California, the church has extended its influence to Wiccans across the United States through its school, which offers master’s and doctorate degrees to its graduates. It also offers special training for the priesthood and provides an opportunity for graduates to become initiates and priests of the church.

Membership

Not reported.

Egyptian Temple of Fitness

158 N Hill Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106-1950

The Egyptian Temple of Fitness was founded in the mid-1980s by Master Gamal Selim as a center of Egyptian religion, language, culture, and healing. It strives to teach the universal knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, which it believes can be of benefit to all. The temple offers a weekly round of activities, including worship services each Sunday afternoon. Ongoing classes are held on the Egyptian sacred sciences, hieroglyphics, natural healing techniques, exercise, and oracle reading (with an Egyptian version of the tarot cards).

Membership

Not reported.

ESP Laboratory

PO Box 2883, Durango, CO 81320-2883

The ESP Laboratory was founded in Los Angeles in 1966 by the late Al G. Manning (1927–2006). Manning was a certified public accountant who, during meditations, was contacted by a “Professor Reinhardt,” his spirit teacher and guide. With Reinhardt’s help, he wrote his first book and founded the ESP Laboratory, which functions as both a psychic interest center and a church. Manning became a minister of Spiritual Science and wrote several books. Manning’s approach to the psychic focused on results. An early program made use of color to aid attunement to the living light in its differing shades, so as to attain personal goals of success, power, prosperity, and healing. Instruction in the mystic light was offered in a twenty-lesson correspondence course, and healing was also a major emphasis in his teaching.

Divination and the occult steadily became more important parts of the laboratory’s work. In 1970 a course on the I Ching was first offered. In 1971 a course titled “White Magic and Witchcraft”was offered, and a new book, Helping Yourself with White Witchcraft, appeared the following year. Emphasis was placed not so much on the religion of Wicca but rather upon “magick,”control, and the rituals to use for various purposes. One of the members of the laboratory who completed the course later formed the Astral Coven.

The ESP Laboratory moved its headquarters from Hollywood to Texas in the early 1980s. Members, via correspondence, are found in all 50 states and some foreign countries. Ordination as a minister is offered after the passing of required courses. A monthly newsletter contains announcements, reports on research, a monthly light exercise, and an astrology column.

Membership

Not reported.

Periodicals

E.S.P. Laboratory Newsletter.

Sources

ESP Laboratory. www.esplab.com.

Manning, Al G. Helping Yourself with White Witchcraft. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing Company, 1972.

———. Helping Yourself with the Power of Gnostic Magic. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing Company, 1979.

Fellowship of the Spiral Path

Box 5521, Berkeley, CA 94701

The Fellowship of the Spiral Path grew out of the early stages of the Goddess movement in the Bay Area of North California. In 1977 a small group of women, some of whom had a background in Neopaganism, gathered to perform a ritual for a friend who felt the need for a rite of passage into womanhood to complete the transition that had begun at puberty. That first ritual also proved to be a meaningful experience for the participants, who decided to continue meeting to explore goddess-centered worship and express their own developing sense of community. They began to meet each new moon and called themselves the Darkmoon Circle.

The group developed in stages but soon moved to a renovated carriage house in Berkeley, California, where they developed rituals to celebrate various events in women’s lives, such as motherhood and the onset of menopause. In 1981 the Center for Non-Traditional Religion was opened to host various groups and activities, including the Darkmoon Circle. That same year, Diana Paxton authored the Liturgy of the Lady, which became the focus of a monthly open ritual for the public. In 1982 the first priestesses were consecrated. At about that same time, the circle joined the Covenant of the Goddess. In 1986 the center transformed into the Fellowship of the Spiral Path.

The Fellowship of the Spiral Path sees itself as a center of the Old Religion. The Old Religion includes the indigenous religions of tribal cultures from Africa to Europe and North America, which bear a close relationship to Hinduism and Shinto in the East. The fellowship views European and American Old Religionists as engaging in a process of reestablishing themselves after a millennia of disruption by Christianity.

Old Religionists believe that the purpose of life is to live in harmony with nature, and that creation is a continuum of consciousness from inanimate objects to the pantheons of gods and spiritual beings, which are all aspects of a single Divine principle. Since sacredness is in all things, no single form of deity can or should predominate. Old Religionists worship the Divine Energy as both male and female, Goddess and God. Life is essentially good, but evil results when natural processes are perverted or unbalanced. The moral life is based upon a reverence for all life, love and trust within the religious community, personal responsibility, respect for the free will of others, and an understanding that what is done to others will react upon the doer. Salvation is dependent upon one’s own life-affirming decisions.

A respect for differences means that worship and leadership styles and forms will vary. Most traditions celebrate the rites of passage, and most acknowledge holidays marked by the astronomical and agricultural years, such as the solstices, the equinoxes, and the cross-quarter days halfway between the two.

In Berkeley, the fellowship sponsors several circles, a monthly celebration of the Liturgy of the Lady, and various outreach activities. There is also a fellowship center in Sacramento, California. Among the leading members of the fellowship is the popular fantasy novelist Marion Zimmer Bradley, many of whose novels reflect her own Neopagan beliefs.

Membership

Not reported.

Periodicals

Newsletter.

Sources

Fellowship of the Spiral Path. www.thespiralpath.org.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley. Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1985.

Feraferia

12318 Shady Ln, Nevada City, CA 95959-3255

Feraferia, one of the oldest Pagan groups in North America, derives from the Fellowship of Hesperides, founded by Fred Adams in 1957. As early as 1951, Adams had become involved in ritual magic and enactments of the Eleusinian mysteries, first studied at Stanford University and later at the University of Southern California. In 1956 Adams had a vision of the Goddess and became a staunch believer in the worship of her. By 1958 he had become fully paganized. He began to seek a purified paganism of the highly sacramental culture of Minoan Crete, and he believed that humankind could develop a utopian, paradisiac life on earth by basing its culture on horticulture. In 1959 he established an open-air temple in Sierra Madre.

Adams and Lady Svetlana met in 1963. Together, they delineated the foundations of Feraferia, which were in place by 1965. Feraferia was incorporated as a church in 1967. Svetlana and Fred met and conferred with Robert Graves, the author of The White Goddess, on the island of Majorca early in 1968. As the Pagan Movement developed, Adams became a significant leader as a poet and artist. His stylized presentations of the Goddess circulated widely through the movement, as did his calendars of archetypal ecosystems.

Feraferia is somewhat unique among Pagan groups in that it centers upon Kore, “the Maiden,”rather than the Great Mother. Kore is also identified with Persephone in the Eleusinian mysteries, as well as with Aphrodite, the ruler of the Golden Age. Feraferia’s Maiden Way includes an emphasis on earth mysteries; organic gardening; a reverence for all life, especially trees; a vegetarian diet; outside living; the realization that health, vitality, and rejuvenation are basic to spiritual growth; handicraft technology; the dissolution of coercive structures and the elimination of artificial conditions; natural safeguards against overpopulation; a maximum of free, creative play and erotic development in the tradition of refined and romantic love and devotion; the veneration of beauty, desire, and creativity; the affirmation of the divine mystery of sex as the central polarity of the cosmic process; and the ultimate fusion of the immortal soul with the transmuted body in the living landscape of paradise.

After being headquartered for many years in Southern California, Adams moved to Nevada City in Northern California in the early 1990s. In Nevada City, Adams’s consort wife Svetlana conducts her versions of Feraferia ceremonies nine times a year. For many years, Adams published a newsletter, but it has been discontinued. Ten Feraferia texts were published as booklets in Holland in 2000 and 2001, with more to be published at some future time.

Membership

Feraferia reported 21 initiated members plus associates in 2002.

Sources

Feraferia. www.phaedrus.dds.nl/fera.htm

Free Spirit Alliance

PO Box 94, Lambertville, NJ 08530-0094

The Free Spirit Alliance (FSA) is an association of Neopagan and Witchcraft groups that emphasize a shared belief in a pantheistic worldview. The alliance was founded in 1985. FSA member groups represent a wide variety of Pagan beliefs and practices, including traditional Wiccan traditions, non-Wiccan Pagans, and Druids. These groups accept a basic belief in the many deities of Paganism within the divine universe of nature. Most of the groups follow the eight festivals common to Paganism, and some meet biweekly (on the new and full moon) or monthly.

The alliance emphasizes the ethical standards for pantheist groups and has published a code of honor to which its members must ascribe. It asserts a belief in human freedom and the need to follow the Wiccan Rede (“An it harm none, do as ye will”). Members are admonished to consider their pledged word sacred, to respect the rights and freedoms of others, to respect all life on the planet, to seek to undo any harm done to another, and to value honesty. Each summer the FSA sponsors a Free Spirit Gathering, which is attended by approximately 700 people. It has other seasonal gatherings attended by 100–200 people.

Membership

The FSA has approximately 100 members and more than 1,500 “friends”on its local mailing list.

Sources

Free Spirit Alliance. www.free-spirit.org.

Gardnerian Wicca

No central address.

Gerald B. Gardner (1884–1964) did more to revive modern Witchcraft than any single individual. With the assistance of a few others, including Doreen Valiente, he composed rituals that became the source of most rituals used by both Witches and Neopagans. Several members of his British covens (for example, Alexander Sanders and Sybil Leek) took copies of his rituals and published their own edited versions of them as the basis for a new form of Wicca. However, the single largest group of Wiccans are those who continue to use the rituals as finally developed by Gardner in the 1960s.

Gardnerian Wicca was brought to America in the 1960s. It came through several individuals who traveled to Great Britain for initiation in one of Gardner’s covens. Most of these revised and rewrote the rituals upon their return. Such was not the case with Raymond Buckland (b. 1934) and his wife, Rosemary Buckland, who operated the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick on Long Island. Reared as good members of the Church of England, they began dabbling in occultism and were attracted to Gardner after settling in New York in the early 1960s. They corresponded with him and visited his home on the Isle of Man, where he operated a witchcraft museum. While there, the Bucklands went through a three-week crash program and were initiated in the second degree before they left. (The usual time between any of the three degrees of witchcraft is one year and a day.) Upon their return, they began to organize Gardnerian covens, which spread across the country. This growth was due in part to the widespread media coverage of the museum and the then unique religion espoused by the Bucklands.

Each Gardnerian coven is headed by a high priestess and a high priest. Without the former no ceremonies are held. Membership in the covens is primarily by couples, and the size of the coven is limited only by the space available in the nine-foot circle. New covens are usually formed by a witch’s leaving a full-size coven and beginning a new one. The high priestess of the original coven becomes the “witch queen” of the new coven. Within Gardnerian covens there is a form of apostolic succession from Rosemary Buckland (who is no longer associated with the Gardnerian covens) through a lineage of witch queens to presently functioning priestesses.

Gardnerian witches worship in the nude, and by so doing have given to the craft a new word, “skyclad.”The female witch does wear a necklace, a symbol of reincarnation. The high priest and priestess wear bracelets symbolic of rank, and the witch queen wears a crown and garter.

In 1973 the Bucklands, known in the craft as Robat and Lady Rowen, were divorced. They turned over the leadership of the Gardnerian covens to Judy Kneitel and her husband Tom Kneitel, known as Lady Theos and Phoenix; they published Gardnerian Aspects as a magazine within the Green Egg, but discontinued it with issue No. 63 (1974) in favor of an intracoven The Hidden Path, begun by Lady Dierdre of the Coven of the Silver Trine in Louisville, Kentucky, continues as a semi-public periodical. Buckland developed an alternative Wicca system called SeaxWica. On May 1, 1985, Judy Kneitel retired and turned over leadership to Roberta Faillace, known as Lady Rhiannon, and her partner Martin Fleischman, known as Theseus.

Membership

Membership in covens and numbers of people who consider themselves Gardnerian not reported.

Periodicals

The Hidden Path. c/o Windwalker, Box 934, Kenosha, WI 53141.

Sources

Gardnerian Tradition. www.gardnerian.org/.

Proteus Coven. draknet.com/proteus/proteus.html.

Bracelin, J. L. Gerald Gardner: Witch. London: Octagon Press, 1960.

Gardner, Gerald B. Witchcraft Today. London: Karrolds, 1968.

Valiente, Doreen. Natural Magic. New York: St. Martins, 1975.

———. Witchcraft for Tomorrow. London: Robert Hale Limited, 1978.

A Witch. The Devil’s Prayerbook. London: Mayflower, 1975.

The Georgian Church

1908 Verde St., Bakersfield, CA 93304

The Georgian Church—originally called the Church of Wicca of Bakersfield—was formed by George E. Patterson (d. 1984) in 1970. Patterson claimed to have been initiated in 1940 by a Celtic group. After World War II, he settled in California, and in the 1970s began to gather a coven. The group was eclectic, combining rituals from Gardnerian Wicca, Alexandrian Wicca, and other sources, and was termed “Georgian.” In 1971 a charter was granted by the Universal Life Church, and Patterson obtained a doctor of divinity degree from the American Bible Institute.

As with most such groups, there is belief in the Gods and Goddesses, magick, the unity of life, and reincarnation. The group does not accept satanism, black magicians, or groups organized only for sex. There are three degrees in Georgian Wicca. These degrees acknowledge attainment of knowledge and time devoted to the craft. The church publishes a periodical, noteworthy for its size, quality, and longevity. Jean M. Davis succeeded Patterson as president of the church.

Membership

Not reported, but in 1987 the Georgian Newsletter reported a circulation of 250 copies. By 1973, there were four affiliated covens in Southern California. By 1978 there were associated covens in Missouri, New York, and New Jersey. As of the mid-1980s, there are loosely affiliated covens (many of them led by priests and/or priestesses trained by Patterson) across the United States and in several foreign countries. According to the website there are covens found in British Columbia, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington.

Periodicals

Georgian Newsletter.

Sources

The Georgian Tradition. Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions www.georgianwicca.com/index.htm.

Hawthorn Grove

Box 706, Monticello, NY 12701-0706

Hawthorn Grove is an independent congregation for witches, Druids, shamans, deep ecologists, and Neopagans. It was founded in 1990 and incorporated two years later. It serves people in the Upper Delaware and mid-Hudson river valleys. The grove is very eclectic in its beliefs and practices but it is united in the acceptance of the basic Pagan ethical principle, the Wiccan Rede, “An ye harm none, do what thou wilt.”It also looks for inspiration to the “Charge to the Goddess,”a passage from a modern sourcebook for Witchcraft, Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches (1899) by Charles Leland. It reads:

Now when Aradia (the daughter of Diana) had been taught, taught to work all witchcraft, how to destroy the evil race (of oppressors), she (imparted to her pupils) and said unto him:
When I shall have departed from this world, Whenever you have need of anything, Once in the month, and when the moon is full, Ye shall assemble in some desert place Or in a forest all together join To adore the potent spirit of your Queen My mother, great Diana. She who fain Learn all sorcery yet has not won Its deepest secrets, then my mother will Teach her, in truth, all things as yet unknown. And ye shall all be freed from slavery, And so ye shall be free in everything; And as a sign that ye are truly free, Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men And women also; this shall last until The last of your oppressors shall be dead.

In order to encourage its diversity, the Hawthorn Grove has remained organizationally independent of other Pagan groups. It is headed by a board of directors consisting of a Secretary, Pursewarden, and Summoner. There is no permanent designated High Priestess or Priest, and leadership in worship rotates among the members. There is a Council of Elders consisting of from 3 to 13 of the ordained clergy (elders). Elders are trained by the grove.

Membership

In 1995 the grove reported 50 members and 3 elders.

Periodicals

The Hawthorn Spinner.

Sources

Hawthorn Grove. hawthorngrove.faithweb.com/toc.htm.

Leland, Charles G. Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches. 1899. Reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974.

Mental Science Institute

Current address not obtained for this edition.

Barney C. Taylor (known as Father Eli and Grandmaster Eli), the grand master for the United States of what is termed druidic witchcraft, was a descendant of Thomas Hartley, a healer and herbalist who was burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft in England in the early 1550s. Others like Hartley fled persecution to settle in America in the mountain country of the Appalachians and the Ozarks, where Taylor grew up. The Mental Science Institute, founded in 1971, was designed to foster Taylor’s brand of herbal magick. He traced his particular kind of witchcraft to the druid. It is also a robed tradition, in contrast to both the modern “naked ones” (i.e., the practitioners of Gardnerian Wicca), and the clothed ones who emphasize magick. The robed ones emphasize healing.

The membership of the Mental Science Institute is divided into covens of no more than twelve individuals, meeting under a wizard. Wizards in turn meet under a magi; the magis under a master magi; and the master magis under the grand master. Apprentices are those studying in order to join the group. There are three degrees in the craft: a first degree, a basic member; a second degree, a wise leader; and a third degree, the wise doctor.

Worship is conducted in regular esbats and the four grand sabbats. The institute is the most male-oriented of all the Wiccan groups and has a theology closely related to Christianity and to ritual magick. The universe is seen as a series of levels—celestial, terrestrial, and telestial. The celestial is divided into sublevels at the top of which is God the Father, followed by the Lord of Lights, archangels and angels. Man, animals, and plants are on the terrestrial level. At the lowest level, the telestial, are the mineral, chemical, and electrical elements and creative thought. Just as there is a Father, there is a Mother of all people.

In a concept very close to Mormonism, the institute teaches that God the Father was at one time a child. The children will, in like measure, become gods. Reincarnation is part of that process. A complete cycle lasts for approximately 142 years: from birth to death, a year in purgatory, 70 years to integrate the life experience, and a year waiting for rebirth.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Mental Science Institute. www.geocities.com/Athens/4239/msi.html.

Eli [Taylor]. The First Book of Wisdom. Author, 1973.

———. The Second Book of Wisdom. N. p., n. d.

New, Reformed, Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn

c/o The Trine, 48 Page St., San Francisco, CA 94102

The New, Reformed, Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD) began in 1969 in the San Francisco, California, area when a group of friends assembled to help one of their number with a term project for a class on rituals. The original rituals were based on research in a variety of books by authors on witchcraft and magic such as Gerald B. Gardner and Margaret Murray and magical texts such as the Greater Key of Solomon. They decided to become a coven in late 1969, and by the early 1970s other covens had emerged, all governed by a Red Cord Council. During these years, NROOGD published a magazine, The Trine.

NROOGD disbanded as a formal order in May 1976, when the Red Cord Council decided that henceforth NROOGD would be a craft tradition rather than a general pagan religious society. It continued in this form, with covens in the San Francisco Bay area and along the West Coast. Because there is no longer any formal organization, it is unknown how many covens are practicing in the NROOGD tradition or where they are located. Over the years, a few thousand people have attended NROOGD events and many have incorporated NROOGD elements in their rituals.

The Bay Area covens hold biannual ingatherings for those belonging to the order. They hold rituals open to the Neopagan and craft communities, with responsibility rotating informally among them. Most of the eight sabbats are celebrated, and there is an annual September ritual based on the Eleusinian mysteries. Attendance ranges from 50 to 300. The esbats (held at the new and full moons) are closed, celebrated privately by individual covens and their invited guests. The rituals continue to evolve; sometimes old sabbat rituals are revised, sometimes completely new ones are written. The basic form of the esbat and many of the sabbat rituals are quite similar to the original ones written in 1968.

In July 2008 the NROOGD planned to celebrate its 40th anniversary with an ingathering at a retreat center north of Napa Valley.

Membership

Not reported.

Periodicals

The Trine.

Sources

New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn. www.nroogd.org/.

Scott, Gini Graham. Cult and Countercult. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.

New Wiccan Church International (NWC)

Box 162046, Sacramento, CA 95816

Established in 1973, the New Wiccan Church is an international association of individual members of British Traditional Wicca (Witchcraft). The NWC defines British Traditional Wicca as an initiatory Pagan Mystery faith, which has ancient roots that originated in the British Isles. The members of the NWC consist of an oath-bound priesthood, which differentiates the NWC from the popular Pagan/Wiccan movement that grew significantly in the late twentieth century.

MWC membership is open only to initiated witches of legal age who are in one or more of the following traditions: Kingstone, Silver Crescent, Daoine Coire, Majestic (all derived from Central Valley Wicca or CCW), Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Mohsian, and related traditions. The NWC limits itself to traditions that have similar structures and practices, some of which include a three-degree structure, cross-gender initiations, and the tenet that Wiccans are not permitted to charge money for initiating or teaching their religion. Wiccans also have an obligation to maintain the privacy of others who are initiates by not revealing the name, identity, or residence of another initiated witch without that individual’s expressed permission. All members agree to observe and uphold the tenets and bylaws of the NWC, and all members are responsible for the common-sense application of the oaths of initiation that they took as members of their respective traditions.

The objectives of the New Wiccan Church are to preserve and sustain the Craft by: 1) Providing a communications and mutual aid network among members of British Traditional Wicca; 2) Providing avenues through which members may share teachings and other material, in a licit and honorable manner; 3) Allowing members to experience the different styles of practice that fall within the British Traditional Wicca; 4) Encouraging the teaching of British Traditional Wicca and aiding those who teach; 5) Preserving and maintaining the heritage of Wiccan traditions, and promoting study and research in all related fields; 6) Promoting and maintaining a high ethical standard within the Wiccan and Pagan community; and 7) Promoting mirth and reverence and joy in the activities of the members of the association.

As Wiccans, members acknowledge that all of creation stems from an unknowable Source, which is beyond human comprehension. Many members view this Source as both immanent and transcendent. Wiccans honor and worship the Old Gods of Nature: the Great Mother and her consort, the Horned God. Members also work with other additional deities as they see fit. Wiccans seek to experience and understand the cycles and tides of birth-life-death in their daily lives through a personal relationship and a direct connection with their Gods, their ancestors, and the local spirits of the land. They believe in the power of magic, and use both traditional and experimental techniques to achieve their personal goals as well as to help others in an ethical manner. Actual rites are confidential, but published accounts of Gardnerian or Alexandrian-derived rituals are similar. Teachings focus on the development of a personal relationship with Deity, and a keen awareness and attunement with the cycles of nature through ritual and daily life. Members use traditional Wiccan techniques to gain self-mastery and develop their skills as witches to help themselves and to help others. Experimental methods may be used, for their traditions provide them with a firm foundation on which to build and improvise.

The New Wiccan Church holds periodic meetings to discuss business and religious matters concerning the church and its members. Other events include various social gatherings, ritual events, and workshops. Some events are for members only, while others may be open by invitation. The church has a lending and research library of books available to members only.

The NWC works with other Pagan organizations such as Covenant of the Goddess. Various branches of the church have also been active in Pagan Bride Day and at various Pagan festivals. Educational materials about British Traditional Wicca area available at the NWC Web site or by mail.

Membership

Membership figures are confidential, but most members are in the western United States with some overseas.

Sources

New Wiccan Church International. www.newwiccanchurch.com/.

Omphalos

Current address not obtained for this edition.

While Greek Neopagan groups were among the first such groups formed in the 1960s, Greek and Roman mythology have been a relatively minor theme in the developing Wiccan and Neopagan community, which has centered more on the ancient deities of western and northern Europe. Omphalos is a Neopagan organization established in the mid-1990s to bring together Pagans who find their inspiration and format in ancient Greek or Roman religion. It was formed by John Opsopaus, also known as Apollonius Omphalos.

At present, Omphalos has its primary existence on the Internet, where it has established a networking presence and a large group of informational links to publications, organizations, festivals, and relevant files on rituals, hymns, and other texts useful to Hellenic Neopagans. A major goal of Omphalos is providing contact information for Pagans living in the same geographic area, and a number of member homepages are listed on the Web site.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

The Stele: Home Page of the Omphalos. www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/OM.

Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis

c/o Ormus, PO Box 96, Clinton, IA 52732

The Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis (O.A.G.) is an eclectic fellowship drawing on Gnostic, Wiccan, and Arthurian themes. Members of the order seek wisdom (gnosis) and the enlightenment it brings. The roots of the church can be traced to ancient sites such as the caves at Liseaux, France, and Stonehenge, England, and it weaves a path through history to the Gothic cathedrals and Jewish Kabbalah to modern paganism. It is unique in its view of the legends of King Arthur, seen from both pagan and esoteric Christian perspectives, as serious teaching material relevant to worship, mysticism, and personal conduct. The heart of the Arthurian mythos is the Holy Grail, the focus of the order’s spiritual quest. The grail is the orienting point that guides members through the complexities of the western mysteries.

The O.A.G. is a fellowship organized as a religious order, a union of assemblies and individuals, both lay and clerical, who gather for worship. Worship is centered on the Great Goddess and her consort, the God. The ritual cycle follows the seasons of the year with the eight major festivals common to Wiccans and the movements of the moon. The primary rite is the Grail Mass, also known as the Mass of the Goddess, in which the communion of bread and wine unites the worshipper with the Goddess. Participation in the mass is open to all, although the central mystery of the mass is reserved for the priests and priestesses.

The life of the order is summarized in its affirmation:

We embrace the primordial Unity of the Holy, and the eternal epiphany of the Ineffable, reflected in the revelation of Sophia and the Logos; through Whom the ages were framed, the galaxies fashioned, and the world brought forth into being.
We adore the Mother of All Mysteries, Mistress of Magick and the Moon, crowned with the horns of Isis; and Her celestial Consort, the Lord of Light, clothed in the splendor of the Sun.
We worship the Great Goddess, Queen of Nature, adorned with the beauty of the Earth; and Her Son, the Dying and Rising God, Lord of the cycles of Life.
We affirm our reverence for the ancient rites, our respect for timeless Tradition, and our responsibility for the stewardship of the Sacred.
We proclaim our Quest for the Gnosis of the Numinous as a priesthood in the service of the Grail; seekers of the Spirit, Templars of the Truth.
So we have sworn, so shall it be.

The O.A.G. was originally organized in the late 1980s as the Tradition of Grail Quest Wicca. Rituals for the ordered are contained in the Missale Mysteriorum, a book published on the group’s web site. The basic perspective of the order is contained in another book, The Crafted Cup (1994), authored by one of the group’s founders, Rev. Shadwynn (Murray Johnston). Some of it is available on the web site, and a complete copy may be obtained from the order. It is required reading for all prospective members.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis. www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/2310/Welcome.htm.

Plummer, John R. The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement: A Study of Its Liturgy, Doctrine, and Leadership in America. Dallas, TX: Newt Books, 2005.

Shadwynn. The Crafted Cup: Ritual Mysteries of the Goddess and the Grail. St Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1994.

Ossirian Temple Assembly

Current address not obtained for this edition.

The Ossirian Temple Assembly/Order of Osirus was founded in 1979 by Kara Apu, the Guardian-Chief of the Ossirian religion. The assembly is dedicated to the restoration of this ancient Egyptian religion, with the goal of creating a new age of harmony between deity, entity, and humanity. The religion is based upon the sacred law of Mayet (or Maat), which is carved upon the inner walls of pyramids and temple columns. The message of the religion was made available to the modern world through the instrument of the Rosetta Stone, which has allowed access to the ancient writings.

Ossirians believe in one eternally existing Creator God, Ra, who is identical to the same God recognized in all religions worldwide. Ra sent his message to humanity through the instrument of Lord Osiris, the same Son born in all ages to bring humanity back into fellowship with God. All who accept the Creator God become divine children of God, and all who seek to serve God receive his divine spirit, called Heru. Through Heru, who lives in the inner mind, each person can work toward the state of Ka-djed, a state of stability of mind and spirit. One must enter this state before entering the ultimate state of union with the Creator. Reincarnation affords additional opportunities to enter Ka-djed.

All people who worship the Creator and seek to follow Mayet (justice, truth, and cosmic order) will be acceptable to Ra. However, the Egyptian rites open the way of understanding the mysteries of God and applying the divine power to energize the inner mind. All people can become Ossirians.

Ossirians find meaning in the story of Osiris, who with Lady Isis ruled in ancient Egypt via Mayet. Osiris was killed by Set out of envy, and his body was cut up into 14 pieces. At Isis’s imploring, Ra restored Osiris and made him Judge of all souls. Meanwhile, Isis had lost her throne and bore her son Horus in the marshes of the Nile. When Horus reached adulthood he fought and reclaimed the throne from Set, and he now rules with Isis at his side. Osiris, Isis, and Horus are a holy family serving as a contemporary model of harmony that will bring in a new age of peace and prosperity for body, mind, and spirit.

Members of the Ossirian religion agree to maintain a daily adoration of the Creator, share the concept of living according to Mayet, sacrifice a portion of their earnings to support the temple, and observe the teachings and rituals of the temple. Individuals wishing to join first become shenit (seekers) and then shemsu (full members). Shemsu may become either scribes of the temple or priests. The priest-hood has three degrees, and there is also a high priesthood of four degrees. The temple/order is headed by a high council (consisting of scribes and priests) and a great council (consisting of some members, scribes, and priests).

Major festivals commemorate the death of Lord Osiris (November 13), his resurrection (December 26), the birth of Horus (December 25), the solstice of Ra (December 21), and Lady Isis’s blessing of the sea (March 5). The temple also holds regular services at the full and new moons.

Membership

In 1985 there were 108 members.

Educational Facilities

Ossirian Theological College Seminary

Periodicals

New Horizons.

Our Lady of Enchantment, Church of the Old Religion

39 Amherst St., PO Box 1366, Nashua, NH 03061

Our Lady of Enchantment, Church of the Old Religion was founded in 1978 in Danville, California, by Lady Sabrina. In 1980 the church and school moved to New Bern, North Carolina, and in 1982 it moved to the New England area. Our Lady of Enchantment offers public classes, regular worship services, and degree-training programs for priesthood and ministerial credentials. Our Lady of Enhantment is recognized by both the state of New Hampshire and the federal government as a legally established church and educational institution with nonprofit status.

Our Lady of Enchantment teaches various forms of Wicca, which it describes as not exclusively a religion, but rather as a teaching derived from a time when religion, art, science, and magic were part of an inclusive whole. Integral to Wicca is the practice of magic, a system of working with the powers of nature in order to bring about change and manifest desire.

The church is centered around a Wiccan Metaphysical Center, which houses the seminary, administrative offices, library, chapel, and a gift shop. Both church members and seekers gather for regular Friday night church services and campus classes. They also gather for a variety of other activities, mostly presided over by Lady Sabrina.

Membership

In 1997 Our Lady of Enchantment reported more than 25,000 students in more than 30 different countries and republics.

Periodicals

Outer Court Communications.

Sabaean Religious Order

Current address not obtained for this edition.

The Sabaean Religious Order is a continuation of an Afro-Mediterranean religion that dates back to ancient Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt in prehistoric times. Frederic M. de Arechaga (now Odun) and his mother opened the Sabaean Center and the Temple of Amn in Chicago in the late 1960s. The center’s purpose is to study and research Sabaeanism, as well as to celebrate its festivals and rites as a means of preserving it. This was the first Sabaean temple to be opened since the Temple of the Moon, in the city of Harran, was closed in the sixth century by the reigning Islamic leaders.

Saba is both the name of an ancient city and an ancient Egyptian word found in hieroglyphics and in Arabic. The Arabic word Sabaa means “a star, rising or coming forth.”The Egyptian hieroglyph means either “star” or “to emanate from a center point of light,”like a star.

The Sabaeans believe in the concept of Amn, an idea that can be either plural or singular and implies the “hidden.”Therefore, “divinity”to a Sabaean is both genderless and awesome. The religion is described as “henotheistic”—or rather, “kathenotheistic”—which is the belief in a “personal god without the exclusion of any other, sometimes emphasizing one supreme at a time without denying the rest.”

In symbolic or poetic imagery, Amn is referred to in the feminine and in four different colors. It is also associated with the four races of humanity, the seasonal stations, and the major colors of the spectrum. Thus, in the winter Amn is the White goddess; in the spring, the Blue goddess; in the summer, the Yellow goddess; and in the fall, the Red goddess. There are two “new year’s days” acknowledged by Sabaeans: the autumnal equinox, which is the pontifical beginning, and the vernal equinox, which is a secular celebration. Following the ancient Roman tradition, the common New Year’s Day (January 1) is also celebrated, though not as the beginning of a new year, but rather as the ending of the Saturnalia that starts December 17 and continues through midnight, December 31.

Beside the main body of “four”symbols, there is also the image of the warriors, a trinity headed by the “trickster,”the two-faced, Janus-like god who is the means of communication between gods and men, whose celebration always begins the year. The festival of this god is usually around January 6 during the perihelion of the Earth, when the planet is closest to the Sun.

Astronomy and astrology are very important to the Sabaean system, not so much as divinatory tools but as relevant positions. Sabaean temples and shrines are usually sidereal oriented, particularly with the rising and passing of the sun and the moon, but sometimes with other stars as well. The precession of the equinoxes is observed and the zodiacal calculations are corrected to this phenomena with true sidereal composition.

Like some other ancient religions, Sabaeanism still observes the ritual of animal sacrifice that originally served to supply food for a celebration, making the food ritually pure. But other offerings of fruits, vegetables, and grains are made to Amn, as well as incense and flowers, which are more frequently given.

Marriages are called “eclipses” and are designed to last for a specific period of time, at the end of which the couple can either re-eclipse or part ways. The standard marriage contract is considered a partnership of possessions, and it is imperative to sign a contract at an eclipse. However, if the couple part at the end of their eclipse, this contract must be fulfilled through courts of law.

Sabaeanism is inherently matriarchal. However, unlike its predecessors, it primarily identifies with brothers and sisters, as they are truly of the same blood. The mother is considered the matrix, or source, and is certainly honored for that function. However, it is easy to see who the mother of an individual is, but it is very difficult to prove who the father is.

The Sabaean Religious Order is headquartered is in Chicago, where the Temple of Amn is located. The group has run an occult store, El Sabarum, since 1968. For several years the group has also published a periodical, Sabaean Chronicles, which superseded previous periodicals titled Iris and Janus. The Sabaean Chronicles is usually printed on a quarterly basis, relative to the passing of the seasons.

The Sabaean Religious Order occasionally writes and produces pagan mystery plays, and the order sponsors and trains a troupe of dancers, called “hierodules” (temple servants), who perform different dances and pantomimes that use ancient Egyptian dance movements. There is also a small group of musicians that perform on drums, bata and other instruments at festivals.

Membership

Not reported.

Periodicals

Sabean Chronicles.

Sources

Sabaean Religious Order. www.sabaean.org/index.htm.

Seax-Wica

PO Box 892, Wooster, OH 44691-0892

After his divorce in 1973, Raymond Buckland moved to New Hampshire, remarried, and emerged as the founder and spokesperson (along with his second wife, Joan Buckland) of a new tradition, Seax-Wica. Seax-Wica differs from other Wicca groups in that it claims no relation to previously existing covens. A Saxon background has been adopted as an alternative to the Gardnerian Wicca tradition, with all new rituals written by Buckland. (Buckland and his first wife, Rosemary Buckland, brought Gardnerian Witchcraft to America in the early 1960s.) Woden and Freya are the names chosen for the male and female deities of Seax-Wica.

Seax-Wica covens are headed by a high priest and priestess, who are chosen annually by a vote of the coven, thus precluding any power plays or ego trips by the leadership. Members, including priests, are termed Ceorl before initiation and Gesith afterward. Those outside the craft are termed Theow. There is only one degree of initiation. The Book of Shadows, the traditional book of rituals, is called The Tree.

Seax-Wica differs from other groups in several ways apart from its new traditions. For example, the male deity and the high priest are raised to a level of equality with their female counterparts in Seax-Wica. In addition, ritual scourging and binding have no part in the rites. Worship is either skyclad or in a short simple tunic, and There is no sexual activity in the rituals. Finally, Seax-Wica accepts self-initiation and solitary practice, in addition to coven practice.

By 1974 autonomous covens had been established in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. A decade later there were covens in most states and several foreign countries including Russia, South Africa, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Facilitating the rapid spread of Seax-Wica was a home study course in Saxon Witchcraft, which was written by Buckland. Seax-Wica Voys was published for several years as the official journal.

Membership

In 1992 Seax-Wica reported approximately 5,000 members in the United States, with an additional 2,000 members in foreign countries.

Sources

Seax-Wica. www.seaxtradusa.org.

Buchland, Tara. Beauty Secrets of the Ancient Egyptians. Scottsville, VA: Taray Publications, 1982.

Buckland, Raymond. The Tree. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974.

———. Practical Color Magick. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1983.

———. Scottish Witchcraft: The History and Magick of the Picts. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1991.

———. Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft. 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2002.

———. Buckland’s Book of Saxon Witchcraft. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2005.

SM Church

c/o SMC Sanctuary, PO Box 1335, El Cerrito, CA 94530

The SM Church emerged in the mid-1970s in Berkeley, California, among people who defined themselves as being interested in sadism and masochism and who also had come to believe in the ancient historical practices of Goddess worship (which had appeared in the previous decade throughout the San Francisco Bay area). Discussions of the SM experience led to questions of spiritual meaning associated with intense SM fantasy, beyond simple sexual gratification. Early positive explorations led to the establishment of the Temple of the Goddess of the SM Church.

The SM Church opposes the male father image that has dominated Western religion and encourages members to focus on the feminine aspects of God, which it seeks to uncover in ongoing research into periods and cultures that emphasized Goddess worship. The church differs from many other Neopagan groups in that it believes in a powerful female deity, equivalent to the male monotheistic God. The church is feminist in orientation and from the beginning excluded male dominant–female submissive patterns from its organization. It allows both homosexual and heterosexual patterns of female dominance within the church’s philosophy.

The church believes that Western culture is undergoing great transition: society could collapse, and in that event females would have to take control. The church plans for that possibility.

Ritual life, initially adopted from other Neopagan group patterns, includes a unique emphasis on the use of controlled pain and mortification experiences as a sacrament of penance. On occasion, such rituals are designed to allow both males and females to experience the extremes of female dominance fantasies, though the church denies that female rule in the envisioned postmodern society would be vindictively harsh. Further, the sacramental atmosphere of the rituals attempts to separate them from any identification with commercialized exploitation of SM practices.

The church published a set of purposes that includes the following: the purchase and/or construction of church facilities; the continuance of the seminary, which trains women for the priesthood; the development of ordered communities as models of a matriarchal society; and assistance in improving the image of the SM community (through various charity projects).

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Budd, Russell. “Interview: The SM Organizations of San Francisco.” Woman/Slave no. 14 (October–December 1982): 30–37.

Green, Gerald, and Caroline Green. SM, the Last Taboo. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.

Scott, Geni Graham. Erotic Power: An Exploration of Dominance and Submissions. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1983.

Temple of Isis

c/o Crow Haven Corner, 125 Essex St., Salem, MA 01970

The Temple of Isis is a Wiccan center founded in 1988 by Laurie Cabot (b. 1933), who became one of the more famous practitioners of Witchcraft in America when Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts named her the “Official Witch of Salem” in 1977. She was introduced to Witchcraft in high school in Boston by a teacher who revealed herself as a witch. According to her own story, she was initiated in 1949, at the age of 16, but it was not until 1965 that she decided to live totally as a witch. Since that time she has dressed in black, and worn a pentacle (a five-pointed star) and heavy black eye makeup. A short time later, at the suggestion of a friend, she moved to Salem.

In Salem she began to teach a class called Witchcraft as a Science in local adult education programs. She also started to work as a psychic and tarot card reader. She opened The Witch Shop, which was soon succeeded by Crow Haven Corner, a book and supply house and teaching center. This shop became her center of activity in the 1970s. The Witchcraft as a Science classes were still being taught in 2008, with an emphasis on psychic development and elementary magic. In the advanced class, students are introduced to ritual.

Cabot has also added a class called The Religion of Witchcraft, in which students are prepared for initiation into the Temple of Isis. Cabot was ordained by the National Alliance of Pantheists, which also officially chartered the temple. The temple centers its teaching upon an understanding of a basic creative force underlying and permeating the universe, rather than the Goddess and God of Gardnerian Wicca.

Cabot is also the founder of the Witches League for Public Awareness and Project Witches Protection, activist groups that fights for the civil rights of Wiccans and increases public awareness of Witchcraft. The league was founded in 1986 as a forum to protest the film version of John Updike’s novel The Witches of Eastwick, which Cabot felt misrepresented Witchcraft to the general public.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

About Laurie. www.lauriecabot.com/About_Laurie.html.

Cabot, Laurie, with Tom Cowan. Power of the Witch. New York: Delacorte Press, 1989.

Triskellion

Current address not obtained for this edition.

Triskellion is a traditionalist Wicca group, in the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions. It has incorporated elements of ritual magic, which are placed in the service of Wiccan theology. The divine energy is mediated by three principles: the Masculine (god), the Feminine (the goddess) and the Collective (the community). Ultimately, all three principles merge into one and serve the growth of sentient beings. They operate together, with ritual duties being passed through the group as different skills are needed. Triskellion rituals are based upon a cooperation between coven members, the Gods and Goddesses, and the particular energies raised in each ritual.

Triskellion sees itself as a second-genesis fertility religion. First-genesis fertility religions invoked divine energies for fecundity on the physical plane. Having no need of large families, Triskellion members leave the energies called forth on the astral plane and then draw upon them as needed for various creative activities.

Triskellion is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and offers a 29-week course in basic Wicca training, which may be followed by a 29-week course in ritual. The group is active in the Heartland Spiritual Alliance, a cooperative Wicca and Pagan fellowship in Kansas City, Missouri.

Membership

Not reported.

Sources

Triskellion. www.usfamily.net/web/triskellion1/index.html.

Venusian Church

Box 95, Redmond, WA 98073-0905

The Venusian Church was formed in 1975 by Ron Petersen, a Seattle businessman, and chartered the following year by the Universal Life Church. During the 1960s and early 1970s Petersen, a former member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, followed a spiritual pilgrimage that centered on the release of sexual feelings repressed by the strict sexual code under which he was raised. He found assistance within the human potential movement and became an advocate of helping others who wished to confront their sexual feelings. Meanwhile, he had also become a professional pornographer.

Petersen gathered around him a group of interested people, including several sex therapists and human potential counselors, and began to explore the realm of sex and sexual experience in releasing human creativity and opening the realm of the spiritual. For a short while, the church operated a Temple of Venus in downtown Seattle that featured pornographic films and sexually explicit presentations that attempted to communicate the church’s attitude about open sexuality to the general public. In 1977 a retreat center, Camp Armac, was opened and became the focus of church activities. A variety of seminars, workshops, and sexual experimentation was condoned and encouraged.

The leaders of the church resisted any attempts to systematically build a belief system or pattern of worship, and the life of the group slowly emerged out of the spontaneous experiences of various gatherings of the members. First came the worship of nature in the form of the Goddess and the acknowledgment of Her at communal feasts and in the celebration of the solar equinox and solstice. Then in 1979 church members discovered the preexisting Neopagan movement. Having found Neopaganism a larger movement that already possessed a complete religious system toward which the Venusian Church seemed to be heading, the church began to absorb both thought and practices from their new acquaintances, especially from the Church of All Worlds. In 1979 Camp Armac closed, and for several years the church conducted its programs in the homes of members. In 1981 the church purchased a large tract of land near Redmond, Washington. A former warehouse was converted into a church center named the Longhouse, and a stonehenge was erected for outdoor rituals.

Because of its strong opinion that sex was divine, the church began to provide public events in Seattle’s First Avenue pornography district. The programs, some of which featured nudity and overt sex acts, placed the church in the center of a storm of controversy. Several members were arrested and a lengthy but futile battle with the Internal Revenue Service ensued. As a result, the facilities in Seattle were closed and all activity was restricted to members and their guests only. Later, the church sponsored workshops and seminars for its members and the public emphasizing personal growth and the aspects of consciousness that expand the wholeness of humanity. These programs were also offered to inmates in local penitentiaries and to several sex-offender programs.

The Venusian church describes its theology as centered on a unique sacred space technology, meaning it is a “spatial” system rather than a “conceptual” one. The church’s focus is on achievement rather than attempting or trying to create sacred space to be experienced rather than sacred beliefs to which assent is given. Essential to the experience of this sacred place is both inner and outer freedom. The individual’s divinity is experienced only in an environment where people have the freedom and the opportunity to be whole and complete. The presence of such an environment would make the experience of a Venusian Paradise possible.

The church has as its immediate concern several steps that will allow for the emergence of the Venusian Paradise. It attempts to realign members’ attitudes toward their own sexuality so as to undo the damage that society and religion have caused by their repressive opinions and rules. This realignment is accompanied by efforts aimed at healing the individual’s damaged spirit. The church also works to remove any present outside interference from either church or state with the member’s religious freedom.

To implement its goals, the church launched a program called “Paradise Now” through the Internet, which according to the church has become a physical reality beyond simply a cybercommunity. Paradise Now presents a simulated version of a visit to the Isle of Eros. The Internet version of the Isle of Eros has become the basis for a correspondence curriculum called the “Apotheosis Course.”Members are taken through the steps of preparation for entry into the Venusian Paradise under the leadership of a priest or priestess as a guide. The individual is led through several steps of purification, deconditioning, and pleasuring as a prelude to their induction into the spiritual/erotic arts (presented as the “Sacred Pleasures Course”); introduced to Venusian technology; and given knowledge on maintaining legal rights and living the spiritual life free of government interference.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, the church kept a low profile and limited its activities primarily to its members. However, the church developed greater visibility by means of the Internet.

Membership

Not reported.

Remarks

In the mid-1980s the church failed to reclaim its tax-exempt status; members who had contributed had their deductions disavowed. The resulting financial reverses greatly hindered the progress of the fragile group.

In January 1997 the Church of Ecstasy merged into the Venusian Church. The Church of Ecstasy was founded by its high priest, Rev. Michael, out of a vision he had experienced on June 27, 1992, on the beach in San Francisco. After having consumed a brownie laced with ganja (marijuana), he fell into a mystical oneness with the Earth and Universe and heard a voice within him say, “Cannabis is the sacrament, and your body is the temple.” He interpreted his vision as a spiritual directive to become an advocate of sensually based spirituality through the sacraments of cannabis and nudism. He summarized the beliefs of the new Church of Ecstasy in statements affirming that nudity is a form of meditative yoga that assists in sensitizing people to their environment, that Nature is the highest Power and that humans should live in harmony with it; that the right to expand spiritual consciousness is limited only by the violation of the rights of others; that the primary goal of the spiritual path is the development of sensitivity, kindness, and love toward others; and that members celebrate the vast diversity of human form, culture, and experience. The church existed as a network of like-minded individuals who accepted its basic spiritual perspective and were tied together by Ekstasis, the church’s periodical.

After leading the church for several years, Rev. Michael concluded that he lacked the resources to properly administer it and promote its vision. He took the lead in guiding the members of the Church of Ecstasy into the larger, better-organized Venusian Church, in which he became an active leader.

Sources

Venusian Church. www.venusianchurch.us/.

Wiccan Church of Canada

c/o The Occult Shop, 109 Vaughan Rd., Toronto, ON, Canada M6C 2L9

The Wiccan Church of Canada is a Neopagan Witchcraft group incorporated in 1979 by High Priestess Tamara James and High Priest Richard F. James. They had their first contacts with Neopaganism in 1977 in California. In 1979 they moved to Toronto, where they founded the Wiccan Church and opened an occult store catering to witches and pagans. With the expansion of their network, in 1983 they organized the area’s first Pagan festival. The following year, the first of several covens formed within the church.

The church believes that the universe is self-aware; portions of self-awareness within the universe have been differentiated and are properly designated gods. The number of gods is unknowable, since self awareness is without gender, and deity may be personified as male or female. There are greater and lesser orders; thus one may speak of the gods and goddesses and also of angels, nymphs, fairies, and spirits.

The Wiccan Church espouses the idea that much about the universe is unknowable. We are ignorant ultimately of the origin of the universe, life after death, or the mechanics of miracles and prayer. In the face of such ignorance, the church asserts that religious expressions are purely subjective. Tolerance and nonjudgmental attitudes should hold sway when approaching another’s religious life. Awareness is also amoral. Morality is a human creation, and society has the right to assert itself and legislate so as to be protected from violence and outside forces. Among the things that are knowable is that human life is interrelated and linked by karmic ties. Such ties may carry into the future.

The church follows the eight annual festivals common to witches and pagans and also normally gathers on the new and full moon every two weeks. It has developed a full set of rituals to mark the rites of passage from wiccaning (the naming and blessing of a child), to handfasting (marriage), and passing the veil (funeral). They also mark the coming of age (physical maturity) of men and women, bless pregnancies at each trimester, and hold handpartings for couples who are separating.

The church is led by its priesthood council, which includes all of the church’s priests and priestesses. The council members lead ritual, train new members, and set qualifications for the priesthood.