The Parts of The Soul: A Greek System of Chakras, by John Opsopaus 2

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qualifications to be determined by combined Councils of all Rings;
A. First Circle (identified with the planet Pluto and its symbols.)
B. Second circle (identified with the planet Neptune and its
symbols.)
C. Third Circle (identified with the planet Uranus and its
symbols.)

ARTICLE V Scions
Section l:
The second Ring shall consist of Scions, to be identified by the color
red, as used on membership cards, newsletters, and in ceremonial
vestments. They shall be grouped into the following three Circles by
qualifications to be determined and amended by the Board of Directors:

A. Fourth circle (identified with the planet Saturn and its
symbols.)
B. Fifth circle (identified with the planet Jupiter and its
symbols.)
C. Sixth circle (identified with the planet Mars and its symbols.)
Section 2: Duties of Scions shall include management of various
Church programs, functions, and activities, as well as studies directed
toward qualification for the Clergy, determination of qualifications for
advancement through First and Second Rings, and any other such duties as
may be determined by the Board of Directors.
Section 3: In the event no Priest or Priestess is available to
serve an established Nest, the Scion who takes on major responsibility
for coordinating that Nest shall be designated High Scion by consensual
agreement of the members of said Nest. The High Scion shall assume the
administrative and organizational functions normally assigned to Clergy,
until such time as said High Scion or any other member of said Nest
shall become ordained. If members of the Nest desire, the position of
High Scion may rotate among qualified members of the Nest.
Section 4: In areas where no Nest exists, Scions may, with the
approval of the Board of directors, establish proto-nests of the Church
of All Worlds, Inc.; such proto-nests shall conduct meetings in
accordance with the Bylaws and principles of the Church of All Worlds
and shall forward monthly reports of activities to the Board of
Directors via the Membership Officer.
Section 5: In special cases the Church may license a Scion of 6th
Circle as a Minister and iissue Ministerial Credentials, which shall
consist of a Ministerial Certificate and wallet-sized ID card. Licensed
CAW MInisters shall function as the equivalent of Chaplains, and be
authorized to perform such sacraments as authorized by the Council of
the Third Ring. In order to qualify for this special status, the Scion
must present a Ministerial Proposal to the Board of Directors indicating
the nature of the Scion's intended Ministry and his/he qualifications to
fulfill it. Examples of such Ministries shall include (but not be
limited to): Prison Ministries, Hospital Ministries, Armed Services
Ministries.

ARTICLE VI Clergy
Section 1:
The Third Ring shall consist of Priests and Priestesses, to be iden-
tified by the color purple, as used on membership cards, in newsletters,
and in ceremonial vestments. They shall be grouped into the following
three Circles, by qualifications to be determined and amended by the
Board of Directors.
A. Seventh Circle (identified with the planet Earth and its
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symbols.)
B. Eighth Circle (identified with the planet Venus and its
symbols.)
C. Ninth Circle (identified with the planet Mercury and its
symbols.)

Section 2:
Duties of the Clergy shall include hosting and officiating at various
ceremonies and services, administering the sacraments, writing and
preparing rituals, arranging meetings and councils, supervising the
training of Seekers and Scions, sponsoring and aiding postulants to the
Clergy, voting for and serving as members of the Board of Directors,
maintaining communications with other Nests, and any other such duties
as may be determined by Councils of the Third Ring or the Board of
Directors.
Section 3:
The Priest and/or Priestess establishing a Nest or assuming respon-
sibility for an established Nest shall be known as High Priest or High
Priestess of that Nest. The duties of High Priest or HIgh Priestess
include primary responsibility for all Church activities in that Nest,
including reports to the Board of Directors, and any other such
functions as they themselves shall determine, subject to approval by the
board of Directors. The term of office for High Priests and High
Priestesses shall customarily be for a period of not more than seven
years, during which time it shall be the duty of such persons to select
and train their successors. Any High Priest or High Priestess who does
not step down before this seven year period is up may, at any time after
the seven years, be summarily eliminated at the consensual agreement of
the rest of the Nest.
Section 4:
Ordination into the Priesthood may be bestowed upon Scions who have
completed all the currently stated qualifications of the Sixth Circle
and have been recommended for the Seventh by any sponsoring member of
the Clergy, provided the candidate has first been approved unanimously
by the Board of Directors through the submission of such data as the
Board may choose to require.

ARTICLE VII Primate
Section 1:
The primary authoritative and not authoritarian spokesperson for the
Church of All Worlds shall be known as the Primate, and shall hold this
position for as long as he or she can adequately demonstrate his or her
capability to perform its duties and functions, or until successfully
challenged for the position by a would-be successor, or for life, or for
as long as he or she desires to hold the position. Any of the foregoing
conditions may serve to limit the term of office of the Primate.
Section 2:
Duties of the Primacy shall include all appropriate duties of a general
spokesperson, coordination and integration of programs, activities,
information and input included in the Church gestalt, and coordination
of relationships with other groups within the larger Pagan and Neo-Pagan
community. It shall be the responsibility of the Primate to keep well
informed enough on all phases of both the Church of All Worlds and
Paganism/Neo-Paganism as a whole that such duties may always be
competently and effectively performed.
Section 3:
As the Primate is largely an honorific position awarded by the member-
ship in respect for a person's years of service to the Church of All
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Worlds, a successor may or may not be chosen upon the discontinuation of
one Primate's term of office. Should it be desired, a successor shall
be chosen by the same method as any other elected official.
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ARTICLE VIII Directors
Section 1:
Management of the Corporation shall be vested in a Board of Directors,
consisting of not less than three nor more than thirteen persons,
consisting of a representative of each chartered subsidiary and the
following officers: President, Vice-President in charge of Membership,
Treasurer, and Secretary. A minimum of one-third of the Board of
Directors shall be members of the Clergy. The Board can approve the
calling of qualified persons among the membership to the positions of
Secretary and Treasurer by unanimous decision. An individual may hold
the position of an officer and a representative of a subsidiary group,
if necessary. Decision-making shall be by consensus, but if agreement
cannot be reached, decisions will be made by two-thirds majority vote.
In such a case, the votes of all members of the Board of Directors are
equal, regardless of the Ring status of the person voting.
Section 2:
At the first annual meeting of the Board of Directors, the Board shall
elect from its own number, a President, one or more Vice-Presidents, a
Secretary and a Treasurer, who shall serve as officers both for the
Board of Directors and for the Corporation. At the discretion of the
Directors, the same person may serve in more than one office. The
President and Vice-President in charge of Membership must be members of
the Clergy.
Section 3:
The powers of the Board of Directors shall be those usually assigned to
such Directors. They are subject to limitation or specification at any
meeting of the Board or the Third Ring. They shall specifically include
the following powers:
A. To call regular or special meetings of the Directors, the
Councils, or of the membership, on initiative of the President, or by
mutual agreement of two or more of the Directors.
B. To make rules and regulations not inconsistent with the laws of
the State of California or the Bylaws of this Corporation, for the
guidance of officers, Directors, and members.
C. To make rules and regulations for the use and management of all
Church property, whether real or personal, and to change such rules and
regulations at such time and in such manner as to said Board of
Directors, or Directors of subsidiary groups, shall seem right and
proper.
D. To accept, review, and approve or reject applications for
Priesthood, and to issue certificates of ordination to those applicants
who shall have fulfilled their qualifications and shall have complied
with the requirements of the rules, Bylaws, and Articles of Incorporat-
ion, and who are recommended by their High Priests or High Priestesses,
to serve as Clergy or for other special purposes recognized by act of
the Board of Directors.
E. To issue certificates of Charter to members in other areas when
they wish to establish a local Nest, or to establish Subsidiary
Organizations, upon conditions to be determined by the Board.
F. To determine what shall be due and reasonable compensation to be
paid any member of the Corporation for services rendered to or for the
Corporation, affecting one or more of its purposes.
G. To maintain, at the Central Nest, confidential files on all
members, active and inactive, and such other records as may be deemed
necessary adequately to carry out the purposes of the Corporation. Section 4:
The Board of Directors shall have full power and authority to borrow
money on behalf of the Corporation, including the power and authority to
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borrow money from any of the members, Directors, or officers of the
Corporation, and to otherwise incur indebtedness on behalf of the
Corporation, and to authorize the execution of promissory notes, or
other evidences of indebtedness of the Corporation, and to agree to pay
interest thereon to sell, convey, alienate, transfer, assign, exchange,
lease, and otherwise dispose of, mortgage, pledge, hypothecate, and
otherwise encumber the property, real or personal, and the franchises of
the Corporation to purchase, lease, and otherwise acquire property, real
and personal, on behalf of the Corporation; and generally to do and
perform, or cause to be done and performed, every act which the
Corporation may lawfully do and perform.
Section 5:
The Board of Directors shall have summary power by vote of a two-thirds
majority of its members to suspend, or to expel and terminate the
membership of any member of the Church, including the Priesthood and the
Board of Directors, for conduct which in its opinion disturbs the order,
dignity, business or harmony, or impairs the good name, popularity or
prosperity of the organization, or which is likely in its opinion, to
endanger the welfare, interest or character of the organization, or for
any conduct in violation of these Bylaws or of the rules and regulations
of the Corporation, which may be made from time to time.Such action by
the Board of Directors may be taken at any meeting of such Board upon
the initiative of any member or members thereof. The proceedings of the
Board of Directors in such matter shall be final and conclusive, unless
overruled by majority vote of the Council of the Third Ring, acting as
a Board of Appeal. It is expected that any Clergy serving on such a
Board will absent themselves if s/he is unable to be impartial, or is
affected personally by the decsions of such a Board.
Section 6:
The Board of Directors shall constitute a nominating committee for
Directors to serve on the Board. Their recommendations shall be
presented by the Secretary to the Council of the Third Ring at any
regular meeting. Other nominations may be made by any member present at
the said meeting.

ARTICLE IX Officers
Section 1:
The officers of the Corporation shall be a President, a Vice-President
in charge of Membership, a Secretary, and Treasurer. Other officers may
be created by resolution of the Board, not to exceed thirteen. Doubling
of roles is permissible with the agreement of the Board.
Section 2:
The term of all offices shall be one year.
Section 3:
The President shall be the chief executive officer of the Corporation,
and shall preside at all meetings of the Board of Directors. S/he shall
have general charge of the business of the Corporation, and shall
execute, with the Secretary, in the name of the Corporation, all deeds,
bonds, contracts, and other obligations and instruments authorized by
the Board of Directors. The President shall also have such other powers
and shall perform such other duties as may be assigned by the Board of
Directors.
Section 4:
Unless the Board of Directors shall specify otherwise, the Vice-Preside-
nt shall be the regularly designated authority to act on applications
for membership and ordination, and may head a committee which performs
this task. It shall be the responsibility of the Vice-President to keep
addresses and other information relating to membership up-to-date. The
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Vice-President shall be vested with all the powers and shall perform
all the duties of the President, in case of the absence or disability of
the President. The Vice-President shall also have such other powers and
shall perform such other duties as may be assigned by the Board of
Directors.
Section 5:
The Secretary shall keep records of all regular and special meetings of
the Board of Directors, and forward these records to the members of the
Board and the Third Ring. The Secretary shall also mail notification to
members of the Third Ring and the Board of the time, place, and planned
agenda of the regular Board meetings. Subsidiary representatives are
asked to send the secretary a record of the quarterly business of each
subsidiary three weeks prior to the regular meeting, for inclusion in
the quarterly meeting notes. Notices should be sent at least two weeks
prior to each regular meeting, and as early as possible before a special
meeting. The Secretary also serves as the correspondent of the Corpora-
tion with persons representing the State of California, and files
whatever reports and forms may be required by the State on an annual or
ongoing basis.
A. In case of the absence or disability of the Secretary, or
refusal or neglect to act, notices may be given and served by the
President, or by the Vice-President, or by any person authorized by the
President or the Vice-President, or by the board of Directors. Section
6: The Treasurer shall receive and safely keep all funds of the
Corporation and deposit same in such bank or banks as may be designated
by the Board of Directors. Such funds shall be paid out only on the
cheque of the Corporation signed as directed by the Board of Directors.
The Treasurer shall also control the keeping of the books and accounts
of the Corporation, and is responsible for the filing and payment of any
monies required by the State of California. Subsidiary representaives
are responsible for the forwarding of quarterly financial records of
each subsidiary to the Treasurer in advance of each quarterly Board of
Directors meeting.

ARTICLE X Councils
Section 1: Seekers of the First through Third Circles shall be
the general laity, and shall relate peripherally to the Inner Circles,
members serving on committees, participating in open meetings, and
fulfilling any other such functions as shall be designated by members of
the Second and Third Rings.
Section 2:
Scions shall constitute the Council of the Second Ring, or the Scion
Council, which shall function in the interest of the Corporation in such
matters as cannot conveniently be brought before a regular or special
meeting of the First Ring. This council shall have one representative
sit on each meeting of the First Ring as Chairman. This Council shall
fulfill any other particular functions as shall be designated by members
of the Third Ring, and may hold such regular or special meetings as
shall be found necessary adequately to carry out the purposes of the
Corporation.
Section 3:
Clergy of the Seventh through Ninth Circles shall constitute the Council
of the Third Ring, or the Clergy Council, which shall function in the
interests of the Corporation in such matters as cannot conveniently be
brought before a regular or special meeting of the First or Second
Rings. This Council shall have one representative sit on each meeting of
the Second Ring as Chairperson. This Council shall fulfill any other
such functions as shall be designated by the Board of Directors, and may
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hold such regular or special meetings as shall be found necessary to
adequately carry out the purposes of the Corporation.
Section 4:
The officers of the Board of Directors shall constitute the Executive
Council, which shall function in the interest of the Corporation in such
matters as cannot conveniently be brought before a regular or special
meeting of the Board of Directors or of the Ring councils. This Council
may hold such regular or special meetings as shall be found necessary
adequately to carry out the purposes of the Corporation.
Section 5:
Each Nest shall establish a Nest Council, which shall function in the
interest of that Nest in such matters as cannot appropriately or
conveniently be brought before meetings of any of the other aforemen-
tioned Councils or the Board of Directors.The Nest Councils shall deal
with all those matters which are the exclusive concern of the particular
individual Nests, rather than of concern to the Church or Corporation as
a whole. Such Nest Councils shall consist only of Second and Third Ring
members of such Nests, in number not to exceed thirteen. Application for
membership on a Nest Council must be made in person before the assembled
body of the Council, during which the applicant should be questioned on
his or her reasons for wanting to serve on the Council and his or her
understanding of the principles and purposes of the Nest and the Church.
Acceptance to the council must be by unanimous vote or consensus of the
current Nest Council membership. Candidates for Priesthood must first
have served at least six months on a Nest Council, and that Council must
unanimously approve the candidate's application for ordination before it
can be submitted to the Board. The advancement and training of members
of each Nest through the Second Ring shall be under the supervision of
the Priesthood of that Nest, who may consult the Nest Council if such
consultation shall be found useful or necessary. Second Ring members who
are not affiliated with a particular Nest shall be trained under the
supervision of the Priesthood of the Central Nest. At meetings of the
Nest Councils, the High Priest, High Priestess, or High Scion shall be
Chairperson, and shall be familiar with the rudiments of parliamentary
or consensus procedure.
Section 6:
Any of the aforementioned Councils are authorized to appoint such
committees as shall be found useful in the conduct of the activities of
the Corporation.
Section 7:
Each of the aforementioned Councils and Committees shall elect or
appoint, for any term necessary, such officers as may be found necessary
to the conduct of the Councils. Such offices shall include a Secretary,
whereby minutes shall be taken and notices of meetings disseminated. Section 8:
General membership shall have the prerogative of vetoing any action
taken by the Board of Directors, which it finds objectionable. Such veto
to be taken by two-thirds majority at the Annual meeting.

ARTICLE XI Nests
Section 1:
The basic local organizational/congregational unit of the Church of All
Worlds shall be the nest. A nest is a group of Church members, with at
least one member 4th Circle or above, organized in a local area to learn
about, discuss, and creatively practice the purposes of the Church.
Nests shall be largely autonomous units which have agreed to adopt and
practice the values and purposes of the Church and have, after applying
to the Board, been granted a charter by the Board of Directors pursuant
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to a recommendation of the Nest Co-ordinating Council.
Section 2:
In order to form a nest, a group of at least three Church members of at
least 2nd Circle must apply to the Nest Co-ordinating Council for a
charter as a proto-nest, or Chapter. Chapter charters are issued a the
discretion of the Nest Co-ordinating Council. In order to be granted a
full Nest Charter, a group must function for at least a year and a day
and have at least one member who has reached the level of Scion (4th
Circle). Granting of a Nest Charter will be by vote of the Board of
Directors.
Section 3:
Nests chartered by the Board of Directors shall be legal subsidiaries of
the Church of All Worlds as incorporated under the laws of the States of
Missouri and California. Nest shall not have the power to incur debt in
the name of the Church of All Worlds.
Section 4:
The Board and Clergy of the Church of All Worlds do not wish to impose
any doctrinal restraints upon local nests beyond the requirement that
their activities be in accord with the purpose of the Corporation as
stated in Article II of these bylaws. The board and Clergy in fact
encourage creativity and innovation on the part of all local nests and
groups in the lawful pursuit of the goals of the Church of All Worlds.
Section 5:
The Board of Directors does, however, reserve the right to revoke either
a Chapter or Nest Charter on the recommendation of either the Council of
the Third Ring or the Nest Co-ordinating Council for one of the
following reasons:
A. The conduct at its meetings and public functions or in its
public statements is found to be incompatible with the purposes of the
Corporation as stated in Article II of these Bylaws, or contrary to the
laws of the United States or the State of residence of the Nest or
Chapter;
B. The conduct or statements of the Nest or Chapter in its
meetings and public functions or in its public statements, in the
judgement of the Board of Directors, reflects unacceptable discredit on
the Church of All Worlds, its purposes, members and Clergy;
C. The Board of Directors has reason to believe -- on recommenda-
tion from either the Council of the Third Ring or the Nest Co-ordinating
Council -- that the chartered group is not truly functioning as a Nest
or Chapter in that the contact person of that Nest or Chapter does not
respond to queries, show evidence of membership or the holding of
regular meetings or other evidence that the Chartered Nest or Chapter
is, indeed, functioning as a viable organizational unit of the Church of
All Worlds.

ARTICLE XII Meetings
Section l:
General meetings of the Corporation shall be held in conjunction with
the first yearly meeting of the Board of Directors. Regular meetings of
the Board of Directors shall be held quarterly, approximately three
weeks before cross-quarter Sabbats. The first annual meeting shall
propose the meeting dates for the remaining quarters of the year.
Special meetings may be held whenever deemed necessary.
Section 2:
Notice of the Annual Meetings of the General Membership shall be made
each year at least one month in advance of the date of the meeting by a
special mailing to all registered members of the Church of at least 2nd
Circle. Notices of regular meetings of the Board of Directors, together
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with quarterly subsidiary reports and proposed agenda items, shall be
sent to members of the Board two weeks prior to such meetings by the
Church Secretary. Notice of special Board meetings shall be made as
early as possible. Notice of regular meetings of other councils shall be
sent to relevant members two weeks in advance by the appropriate council
secretary, and notices of special meetings, as early as possible.
Meetings of Nest Councils shall be held at least quarterly, the
frequency and dates to be determined by said councils.
Section 3:
The privelege of decision-making at any meeting shall be limited to
those present who are actual active members both of the Church and of
the particular Council or Ring convening the meeting. If the number
present is thirteen or less than thirteen, all decisions must be made by
consensus, and if consensus cannot be reached, by a twothirds majority.
If the number present is greater than thirteen, all decisions must be by
a two-thirds majority vote. In meetings where more than thirteen voting
members are present, the number of votes carried by each member shall be
equal to the ring (1,2, or 3) that member has attained. Section 4: A
quorum to conduct business shall consist of a number of voting members
equal to two-thirds majority plus one of the members of that particular
council.
Section 5: The fiscal year of the Corporation shall be from
January l to December 31, inclusive.

ARTICLE XIII Subsidiary Operations
Section 1:
The Corporation, acting through the Board of Directors or their
delegated authority, may organize, charter, establish, and operate such
subsidiary operations, agencies, groups, and institutions as may be
found necessary or expedient adequately to carry out the purposes of the
Corporation.
Section 2:
Each subsidiary shall send a representative to serve on the Board of
Directors. The subsidiary representatives shall be responsible for
reporting the activities of the Subsidiary to the Board, and for
relaying information from the Board to each subsidiary. In addition, the
subsidiary representatives shall submit reports to the Secretary and the
Treasurer detailing the activities of each subsidiary.
Section 3:
Chartering and serving as Directors of subsidiary organizations is open
only to active members of the Church with Scion or Clergy status. Under
exceptional circumstances, and by special dispensation of the Board of
Directors, a project or provisional subsidiary may be approved for
inception by a Church member of only 3rd Circle status, conditional upon
that person's attainment of 4th Circle within a year from the date of
approval, or the appointment within that time as a Director of the
aforesaid subsidiary of another active Churcdh member of at least 4th
Circle. Subsidiaries should begin as projects or provisional sub-
sidiaries and be considered for full subsidiary status if they have been
active for two years and two days. Provisional subsidiaries should send
a contact person to the Board of Directors' meetings.
Section 4:
The governance of subsidiaries shall be by Directors and Councils, the
combined total number of which must always be an odd number, from one to
seven, of whom one to three shall be designated Directors. Should the
subsidiary be authorized to open a bank or checking account, there shall
be three approved signatories on the account, at least one of which must
be a Scion or Clergy. Directors of subsidiaries must be Scions or
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Clergy, but other members of the subsidiary councils may be any active
members of the Church that the subsidiary Directors wish to delegate.
Section 5:
Decision-making in subsidiary councils should follow the procedures
outlined in Article XI, Section 3 above.

ARTICLE IV Amendments
Section 1:
Amendments or changes in these Bylaws may be made by recommendation of
the Board of Directors at the Annual meeting, by unanimous vote or
consensus of voting members present.
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A Pagan Sacrament of Holy Communion
(as performed in the Church of All Worlds)
by Morning Glory Zell

The Priestess, Priest and Congregation sit in a circle, with the
Priestess to the right of the Priest, on the ground outside or the
carpet indoors.

An altar is set in the center, with Bread and Water and either fresh
flowers and greenery (when outdoors) or a potted plant (indoors).

When everyone is settled and silent, the Priestess begins the blessing:

P'ess: Blessed be this Bread, the body of our Lord,
And Blessed be this Water, the blood of our Lady.
As our bodies are nourished by Their divine energy,
So let Them ever nurture our spirits.
We are the conscious product of Their eternal passion,
And so do we give Them our gratitude in celebration of Life.

The Priest takes the Bread from the altar and raises it aloft in
consecration:

Priest: Seed fallen on the wet Spring table,
embryos bedding in the night.
The Sun is joy on the Earth in the morning,
And the wheat reaches up for the food that is Light.
He holds his child to the Sun and would free him to the wind.
Then we take them both, Father and Son, both still young.
We fold them into tight brown loaves, Rocks of Sun for the tables of the
People.

The Priest takes a piece of the Bread and places it into the mouth of
the person on his left with the words: "May you always have sufficien-
cy". He then passes the plate on to that person, who does the same
actions and gives the same blessing to the next person to the left, and
so on round the circle. When the loaf comes around to the Priestess
sitting on the Priest's right, she gives him his share while taking a
small piece and crumbling it onto the Earth , if outdoors, or into the
potted plant if indoors, saying:
"Mother Divine, take back what is Thine."

The Priestess then takes the chalice of Water from the altar and holds
it aloft in consecration:

P'ess: Ice in the North will melt into the Earth.
She will soften and breathe again.
Water, sweetened by the lungs of the Earth, our Mother, runs
South To the houses of the people, and the clouds give birth and
die.
They tremble on beds of air giving birth.
Their trembling rocks the Earth with thunder; all their life is
gone.
Their last breath is in our cup,
Let us drink the rain.

The Priestess then holds the chalice to the lips of the Priest on her
left, who drinks as she says:
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"Water shared is Life shared."

He then holds the cup and repeats the phrase for the person on his left,
and so it goes, clockwise, around the circle. Other phrases may be
spoken, such as "May you never thirst", or "Drink deeply". As the
chalice passes from each person, they link hands with those who already
shared the water, until, as the chalice completes its round, all hands
are joined. Finally the person to the right of the Priestess gives her
back the chalice and the blessing, whereupon she pours out the remainder
of the water onto the ground or the plant as a libation to the Earth,
speaking again the words:
"Mother Divine,take back what is Thine."
She places the chalice back onto the altar, then returns to her place to
link hands and complete the circle. Then may follow a silent medita-
tion, a chant or song, a breathing exercise to raise energy,
or whatever is desired. When the exercise or meditation has reached its
conclusion, the Priest pronounces the Benediction:

Priest: O Gracious Lady and Laughing Lord,
We would ever have Thee here with us.
Now the time is come to break the circle and return to the
world.
May Thy love be ever with us and Thy wisdom guide our steps.
Blessed Be.

Everyone repeats the words "Blessed Be" simultaneously dropping the
hands they are holding, thereby breaking the link and ending the Rite.

"Earthmom"
"Well, for instance, who is this All-Mother you're always talking
about?"

"Why, you are, Edward. . . The All-Mother. You're the All-Mother,
I'm the All-Mother, that little bird singing out there, it's the
All-Mother. The All-Mother is everything. The All-Mother is life..."
The primal and supreme deity of the ancient world, the oldest and
most universally worshipped, was the Great Mother, Mother Earth. Images
of Her date back to Aurignacian Cro-Magnon peoples, from 27,000 years
ago, and are found all over the Eurasian continent from Spain to
Siberia. For thousands of years before there were any male gods, there
was The Goddess, and Her worship continued unabated clear up until its
violent suppression by Iron Age patrism. When and where worship of the
Mother prevailed women and Nature were held in esteem. The Chinese
called Her Kwan Yin; the Egyptians knew Her as Isis; the Navajo call Her
Changing Woman. To the Greeks She was Gaia, and to many black peoples
She is Yemanja. She is Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, and She says:
"All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals." She is also the ancient
Crone Hecate,who gives us both wisdom and death. The Goddess is
diversity. She represents both darkness and Light and Her worship is
the reconciliation of opposites. There can be no such thing as a "Good
Goddess" or an "Evil Goddess". Death is part of the natural cycle as
night follows day and we accept it with grace as Her final gift. The
search for Balance is the goal of Her people, and it is achieved by the
acceptance of multiple paths and truths. Dion Fortune once commented
that all goddesses are manifestations of the One Great Goddess whose
identity is as the universal feminine spirit of Nature.

The eldest and greatest aspect of the Goddess is as Great Mother
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Nature, the all-encompassing energy of Universal Life. Her womb is the
Quasar, the white hole through which all energy pours into creation, and
Her all-devouring mouth is the Black hole itself through which all
matter is consumed to be reborn once again as between Her thighs the
universe is squeezed from spirit. Her energy then coalesces into
Matter-Mater:the Mother of all forms. She ignites, becoming the Star
Goddess Nuit, whose galactic breast is our Milky way. Of Her are born
star systems and planets including, of course, our very own Earth
Mother, Gaia.

Because of the diversity of the Goddess, She is seen as manifesting
in many different aspects. She is often called The Triple Goddess,
which refers to Her link in the fertility cycle where She appears as
Maiden, Mother and Crone. Some ancient cultures personified this
Triplicity as the waxing, full, and waning Moon, and other three-faced
Goddess aspects are familiar to us as the Fates, the Graces, the Furies,
the Muses, or even as Faith, Hope and Charity. Another familiar
division of Her aspects is into Mother and Daughter (Demeter and
Persephone), or as Sisters/Lovers (Fauna and Flora). Such polarities
are also important in Her worship. Sometimes the polarity can exist
with two different aspects of the Goddess representing both poles, but
more commonly it is the great gender polarity, for the Goddess is a
deity of sexual loving.

She is Ishtar or Aphrodite, the eternal Lover who awaits with eager
arms the mortal man brave enough to risk Her immortal favor. Many men
have worshipped Her as a lover, but she may never be possessed, for She
belongs only to Herself. She is Parthenos, the eternal Virgin (in the
prepatriarchal meaning "of her own household"). She represents the
Strong Woman : not dominant, but independent. Her lovers are not truly
human but divine. She has been the Beloved of many gods, and though
jealous male gods eventually suppressed Her worship, She shared the
co-rulership of Heaven and Earth for thousands of years of marital
bliss. She is the inescapable Yin necessary for the cosmic balance of
Yang/Yin. Symbols associated with Her (the Tree of Life, the Sacred
Serpent, the Labryrinth) are found in all parts of the globe, at the
heart of all the Mysteries, and underlying all the later accretions of
successive religions. The search for Her is the search for our deepest
ancestral roots.I am the star that rises from the twilight sea.I bring
men dreams to rule their destiny.I am the eternal Woman; I am She!The
tides of all souls belong to me-Touch of my hand confers polarity-These
are the moontides, these belong to me.

Honor Thy Mother
In all the cultures where She is still worshipped, there is no
confusion over Her identity : She is Nature, and She is the Earth. She
is not an atavistic abstraction, not a mystical metaphor, not a
construct of consciousness. Her body is of substance as material as our
own, and we tread upon Her breast and are formed of Her flesh. "Walk
lightly on the bosom of the Earth Mother," says Sun Bear, and tradition-
al Native Americans agree. Cherokee shaman Rolling Thunder emphasizes
that "It's very important for people to realize this: the Earth is a
living organism, the body of a higher individual who has a will and
wants to be well, who is at times less healthy or more healthy,
physically and mentally."3 Frank Waters, author of Masked Gods and Book
of the Hopi, makes the same point::. . . To Indians the Earth is not
inanimate. It is a living entity, the mother of all life, our Mother
Earth. All Her children, everything in nature, is alive: the living
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stone, the great breathing mountains, trees and plants, as well as birds
and animals and man. All are united in one harmonious whole.4 Renowned historian Arnold Toynbee, writing on "The Religious Background
of the Present Environmental Crisis," also observed that:For pre-monoth-
eistic man, nature was not just a treasure-trove of "natural resources".
Nature was, for him, a goddess, "Mother Earth," and the vegetation that
sprang from the Earth, the animals that roamed, like man himself, over
the Earth's surface, and the minerals hiding in the Earth's bowels, all
partook of Nature's divinity.5 Before ever land was, before ever the
sea, Or soft hair of the grass, or fair limbs of the tree, Or flesh-
coloured fruit of my branches, I was : And thy soul was in me.

The Gaia Thesis
In order to understand the nature of the Earth Mother, we must
first understand our own origins. Biologically, unisexual organisms are
always considered to be female, since only the female brings forth life
from her own body; in the act of reproduction single cells are referred
to as mothers and their offspring as daughters. Each of us began our
individual life as a single fertilized cell, or zygote. In the process
of its innumerable divisions and multiplications, that cell kept
dividing up and redistributing the very same protoplasm. That
protoplasm which now courses through all of the several trillion cells
of your adult body is the very same substance which once coursed through
the body of that original zygote. For when a cell reproduces, the
mother cell does not remain intact, but actually becomes the two new
daughter cells. And this is why, no matter how many times a cell
fissions in the process of embryological development, all the daughter
cells collectively continue to comprise but one single organism. We
may imagine that, should our cells have consciousness akin to our own,
they may very well fancy themselves to be independent entities living
and dying in a world that to them would seem to be merely an inanimate
environment. Blood cells race along our arterial highways, but we know
them to be in fact minute components of the far vaster living beings
that we ourselves are. Over three billion years ago, life on Earth
began, as do we all, with a single living cell containing a replicating
molecule of DNA. From that point on, that original cell, the first to
develop the awesome capacity for reproduction, divided and redivided and
subdivided its protoplasm into the myriads of plants and animals,
including ourselves, which now inhabit this third planet from the
Sun. But no matter how many times a cell fissions in the process of
embryological development, all the daughter cells collectively continue
to comprise but one single organism. All life on Earth comprises the
body of a single vast living being:Mother Earth Herself. The Moon is
Her radiant heart, and in the tides beats the pulse of Her blood. The
protoplasm which coursed through the body of that first primeval
ancestral cell is the very protoplasm which now courses through every
cell of every living organism, plant or animal, of our planet. And as
in our own bodies, Earthly life was biologically female for the first 3
billion years, before sexual reproduction, complete with males, evolved
around 600 million years ago. In evolutionary theory we say "ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny" (the development of the individual repeats the
development of the ancestry); ancient people anticipated such scien-
tific ideas when they intuitively conceptualized our planetary Divinity,
like that first single cell, as feminine: our Mother Earth.
The soul of our planetary biosphere is She whom we call Goddess.
First life on my sources first drifted and swam. Out of me are the
forces which save it or damn.

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Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird. Before God was, I
am.6". . . Be the terror and the dread of all the wild beasts and all
the birds of heaven, of everything that crawls on the ground and all the
fish of the sea: they are handed over to you." (Gen. 9:2-3)

Since the time of the Exodus, 3,500 years ago, Western Civilization
has been pursuing a course that has taken it farther and fhree great
monotheistic religions of the West, Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
have from their beginning activity suppressed the worship of the
Goddess, and have tortured and brutally murdered millions of Her people.
Today, she is all but forgotten in the hearts of Her children, and Her
body lies raped and ravished in the wake of human progress. The Goddess
is the concept of feminine divinity incarnate. The denial of feminine
divinity results in the oppression of all women, including Mother
Nature. As Toybee says:The thesis of the present essay is that some of
the major maladies of the present-day world:for instance the recklessly
extravagant consumption of nature's irreplaceable treasures, and the
pollution of those of them that man has not already devoured:can be
traced back in the last analysis to a religious cause, and that this
cause is the rise of monotheism. 5

This is not to say that all non-monotheistic religions have a
perfect track record for the treatment of women in those societies.
Certainly Hindu cultures revere various goddesses and yet are among the
more sexist and female-suppressive societies in the modern world.
Nevertheless, there is abundant archeological evidence to indicate that
things were not always as they are now, especially in truly ancient
societies like India. Before the Aryan Indo-European invasion around
1,500 BCE many Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures, including the Harrapan
culture of the Indus Valley and the Minoan people of Crete, had
societies that appeared remarkably egalitarian. These societies were
universally characterized by the worship of a powerful Great Mother whom
the Hindu people still call Maha Devi Ma. She was later broken into a
multiplicity of minor goddesses which were demoted to the position of
wives or concubines of the gods. By the time sacred writings were
codified in the Vedas, the Primal Goddess Maha Devi in India had been
divided into a triplicity of goddesses characterized as Creator,
Preserver and Destroyer: Saraswati, Laksmi and Kali; respectively the
consorts of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. In Greece, a similar process led
to Kore, Demeter and Persephone (or Hecate) created from the original
Cretan Rhea. Once the Great Mother had been married off She became
easier to control and the way was paved for Her dowry of natural wealth
to be handed over to the financial control of Her divine consorts.
Whether this new mythical development was a simple mirror of the social
diminishment of women's rights or whether it preceded it and was invoked
as a justification is really a moot point. But the land, formerly tied
to matrilineal territorial clans, passed into the hands of patriarchal
kings and princes who began to treat it as their private property and to
lay waste to the forests in order to build vast temples and palaces to
house their harems and other slaves. The Goddess of Nature went from
the position of being the body and soul of all that lives to that of a
wife, mother and household servant. Many traditions have given lip
service to the so-called "Female Principle," either in the form of a
divided identity like the Hindu Shakti or as a semi-divine emanation.
But the power of the Goddess of Nature has gradually lost its ability to
inspire the necessary respect and reverence once accorded to the Source
and Bearer of Life.

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Where are You, then, Mother, whose strength was before All
other powers? Your name is the only freedom.8 Pantheism is the view
that everything in Nature is alive, and that all living is Divine. In
that context, then, the simplest explanation of Divinity is as "an
energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it
penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together." (Star Wars: "The Force")

Thus a pantheistic theology of Immanent Divinity ("Thou Art God/dess")
contrasts sharply with the theology of Transcendent Divinity ("God is
Out There") presented by most of "The World's Great Religions." Unlike
the God worshipped by Christians, Moslems and Jews, the Goddess is not
an all-powerful, indestructible, non-physical being who created the
world and exists apart from it. Though Mother Nature is Life on the
universal scale, Gaia, the Earth Mother is the very soul of this living
planet, and she lives or dies as all life on this planet lives or dies.
. . Mother, not maker; born, and not made. Though her children forsake
her, allured or afraid, Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, She stirs not for all who have prayed.O my children, too dutiful
towards Gods not of me, Was not I enough beautiful? Was it hard to be
free? For, behold, I am with you, am in you, and of you: Look forth
now and see!6 "Earth Mother, Your Children Are Here!" Current environ-
mental crises are legion. Chlorofluorocarbon chemicals are destroying
the ozone layer in the atmosphere; industrial pollution is creating the
greenhouse effect which will melt the polar icecaps, drowning the
coastal regions; and the destruction of the rainforests and the
pollution of phytoplankton in the seas is causing worldwide droughts.
The problems are so vast and the politics of greed and corruption are so
complex that it will truly take a miracle to reverse such global
destruction. The only thing that can save us is a total and electrify-
ing change of consciousness. Nothing short of a worldwide realization
of our planetary awareness will bring home the desperation of our
plight. We must activate our Gaian identification so that we regain our
shattered empathy with the Spirit of Nature. We must become one with
the Earth Mother in order to feel Her pain/our pain and make it stop
before the cancer we have become reaches the terminal phase.

The word religion derives from the Latin re-ligio; "relinking."
The very purpose of true religion, then, is to heal the rifts and
alienations which have caused us to become separated from the divine
Source of Being: the rifts between humanity and Nature; between matter
and spirit; between mind and body; between man and woman; between our
own egos and the Soul of Nature. Recent books analyzing the trends of
our wayward world have, with increasing frequency, been calling for a
return to the worship of the Mother. So many wistful comments made by
writers such as Merlin Stone, Mary Daly, James Lovelock, Judy Chicago,
Dolores LaChapelle, Rene Dubos, Daniela Gioseffi, Paolo Soleri,
Elizabeth Gould Davis, Arnold Toynbee, Joseph Campbell, Marija Gimbutas
and Riane Eisler reflect a craving for such a religious revival. The
truth is that such a revival has been going on for some time now:since
the early 1960's:in the form of what we call the Neo-Pagan movement
(from Latin paganus:"peasant" or country dweller:Paganism now refers
to all nature religions). To the several hundred thousand Neo-Pagans
who have been actively practicing and publishing for more than a quarter
of a century, the greatest mystery of this religion is its continuing
obscurity and invisibility to those such as the above-named writers, who
continue to publish books advocating such a movement as this, while
remaining ignorant that it is already in effect. The new Paganism
encompasses many Nature-oriented groups such as Feraferia, Church of All
2517

Worlds, Madrakara, Bear Tribe, Venusian Church, Pagan Way, Church of the
Eternal Source, Odinic Fellowship, Reformed Druids, Earth Church of
Amargi and Children of the Earth Mother. The largest contingent of
modern Goddess-worshippers, however, is found in Witchcraft, or Wicca.
Wicca is a pre-Christian European Pagan magical tradition; European
Shamanism. The violent suppression to the point of eradication of the
followers of Wicca by the Inquisition can only be compared to the Jewish
Holocaust of Nazi Germany (estimates of the number of martyrs run as
high as nine million!), but today the Craft is making a powerful
comeback on the wings of the re-emergent Goddess.

The Neo-Pagan movement, and especially Feminist Witchcraft, has
recently been joined by increasing numbers from the Women's Spirituality
movement and lately also by many thinkers from the Deep Ecology movement
and even such radical environmental activists as Earth First!. These
are some of the forces which form the core of the movement to restore
the Earth Goddess to Her rightful place; a movement which has its roots
in the combined studies of feminism and ecology and is the logical
spiritual application of such studies. If Witches can be priestesses of
feminism, then Neo-Pagans are the chaplains of the ecology movement. The
overall movement, though variously called Eco-feminism and Ecosophy, is
truly an attempt at expressing Gaian Spirituality. These three
streams of spirituality:Deep Ecology, Goddess Spirituality, and
Neo-Paganism:have met and mingled with Native American, Hindu,
Tibetan, Hawaiian and other ancient spiritual teachings and fused
somewhat with the more nebulous New Age Movement. What is struggling to
be born from this blending of pathways is a truly planetary religious
metaphor that will transcend all the tradition-specific patterns in the
same way the idea of Neo-Paganism absorbed and united a multiplicity of
wildly differing but basically polytheistic religious groups in the
1970's. Perhaps what we are looking for could be called Gaean
religion, because at the heart of our Unity is our identity as children
of the same Mother:Gaia Herself; Mother Earth. It is said that it's a
wise child who knows its own Mother! A brief digression on
etymology here: Who is Gaia, that we would name a movement after Her?

The name Gaia is the Greek name for the Earth Mother Goddess, She who
was created by Light and by Love from the primal cosmic chaos. Pierced
by the arrows of Eros, Gaia gave birth to all the plants, animals, gods
and goddesses and of course the human race. So Gaia is the Mother of us
all according to ancient Greek mythology.

From the moment that the people of Earth achieved the ability to
observe the image of our planet spinning in all Her radiant blue-and-
white splendor through the black velvet night, we have been impelled
towards planetary identification. We must inevitably begin to think of
ourselves as one planet, one people, one organism. The power of that
image alone unites us, not to mention the concept that the past
three-and-a-half billion years of terrestrial evolution resembles one
vast embryogenesis. Something is developing, hatching, unfolding as a
self-reflexive mind capable of contemplating its own existence. Gaia
developed increasingly complex eyes and extensions of Her eyes/our eyes
in order to contemplate Her own image. And now, having seen Herself
through our satellite eyes, She is awakening to consciousness. She has
a face, an identity and now even a name, and so we inevitably come to
identify ourselves through Her as Gaian.

A Gaian movement would be deeply committed to communication and
2518

education. Many tribal people and many of the old nature-based folk
religions such as native Australians, Hawaiians, Siberians, Tibetans and
Americans have come to the brink of extinction rather than to allow the
mysteries of their sacred rites to pass outside their tribes. Others
have realized the need to become more eclectic if they are to survive.

The Gaian movement is presently small and largely unrecognized,
since it is anarchic and not evangelical, but it has tremendous
potential in having no single head and presenting a genuine answer to so
many of the world's problems. Its vision is, in fact, an idea whose
time has come. Yet there are still many obstacles, and revolutions in
consciousness rarely happen overnight. The greatest forces operating
against a new Gaian renaissance are inertia and apathyษ the watchwords
of the ิ70s and ิ80s. But winds of change are blowing, and by the time
the century turns we will see that once again Goddess is Alive and
Magick is Afoot!And you who think to seek for me -Know that your seeking
and yearning will avail you naughtUnless you know the Mystery:That if
that which you seek you find not within you,You shall never find it
without.For behold: I have been with you from the beginning,And I am
that which is attained at the end of desire.9

Footnotes:
1. Mack Reynolds, Of Godlike Power, 1966, pp. 146-1472.
2. Dion Fortune, "Charge of the Moon Goddess"
3. Doug Boyd, Rolling Thunder, 1974, p. 51
4. Frank Waters, "Lessons From the Indian Soul," Psychology Today, May
1973
5. Arnold Toynbee, "The Religious Background of the Present Environmen
tal Crisis," International Journal of Environmental Studies, 1972,
Vol. III
6. Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Hertha"
7. Tim Zell, "The Gods of Nature; The Nature of Gods," Gnostica #15,
1973
8. Ramprasad Sen, Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair; 18th Century Bengal
9. Doreen Valiente, "Charge of the Star Goddess"
(This article was first written in 1978; revised and updated in 1990.)

The Church of All Worlds, a Brief History

It all began on April 7, 1962, when, after reading Stranger in a
Strange Land, Tim Zell and Lance Christie shared water and formed a
water-brotherhood called "Atl" at Westminster College at Fulton,
Missouri. During the mid-1960s the group was centered on the University
of Oklahoma campus at Norman under the name Atlan Foundation. A
periodical, The Atlan Torch (later The Atlan Annals), was published from
1962-1968. Following a move to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1968 the Church
of All Worlds was legally incorporated. In March of that year, the first
issue of Green Egg appeared and over the years made Tim Zell, its
editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism, a term which Zell coined. CAW was
the first Neo-Pagan/Earth Religion to obtain full federal recognition,
although it was initially refused recognition by the Missouri Department
of Revenue 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. The Church of All Worlds took much
inspiration from the science fiction classic, Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert Heinlein. In the novel, Valentine Michael Smith was a human
being born on Mars and raised by Martians. Upon being brought to Earth,
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he established the Church of All Worlds, built around "nests", a
combination of a congregations and an intentional communities. A basic
concept was "grokking", i.e., the ability to be fully empathic.
Heinlein's CAW emphasized non-possessive love and joyous expression of
sexuality as divine union. Their greeting was "Thou art God" or "Thou
art Goddess", a recognition of immanent divinity in each person. The basic theology of the CAW is a pantheism focused on immanent rather
than transcendent divinity, which is worshiped in female as well as a
male form.

The most important thealogical statement came in revelatory
writings by Zell in 1970-73, on a theory which later came to be known as
the Gaia Thesis, a biological validation of the ancient intuition that
the planet is a single living organism, Mother Earth. Pantheists
hold as divine the living spirit of Nature. Thus the CAW recognizes
Mother Earth, the Horned God, the Green Man and other spirits of
animistic totemism as the Divine Pantheon. Church of All Worlds was an
early forerunner of the Deep Ecology movement. Through its focus on
Mother Nature as Goddess and its recognition and ordination of women as
Priestesses, CAW can also rightly be held to be the first Eco-Feminist
Church. Its only creed states: "The Church of All Worlds 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."

In 1974, CAW reported nests in Missouri, California, Illinois,
Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Wyoming, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
New Jersey, New York, and Ohio. It was then publishing two periodicals,
Green Egg and The Pagan. Two years later Zell moved to Oregon with his
new wife, Morning Glory, an ordained Priestess, for a rural life of
writing, research and the practice of the religion he had developed.
They left the administration of the CAW and the publication of the Green
Egg in the hands of other Church leaders. After only a few more issues,
the magazine ceased publication. Subsequently many Church Nests
dissolved due to internal conflicts.

By the mid-1980s CAW survived only in California, focused around
the sanctuary land bequeathed to the Church by its Bard, Gwydion
Pendderwen. On and around this rural retreat, a Pagan homesteading
community grew which 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 had moved to California, as well as many new people.
Two new clergy were ordained during that time, Orion Stormcrow (a Church
member since 1969) and Anodea Judith. (In 1991, Deborah Hamouris was
ordained, bringing the present number of active clergy to six.) 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
reorganizing under the leadership of Anodea Judith. The membership
program was radically upgraded to include a Progressive Involvement
Program (PIP), intensive training courses and a new members newsletter,
The Scarlet Flame. Activities and membership increased dramatically
during this period as CAW emerged from its slumber. The first issue
of Green Egg (The Next Generation!) appeared in May, 1988, the 20th
anniversary of its original publication. It has risen to a position of
prominence among Pagan periodicals. Diane Darling, who joined the Church
in the mid-'80s, is its editrix, Otter its publisher and designer. In
1991, with 52 pages and a four-color glossy cover, Green Egg won the
2520

Silver Award from the Wiccan/Pagan Press Alliance (WPPA) for "Most
Professionally Formatted Pagan Publication". In 1992 Green Egg won the
WPPA Gold Award for "Readers' Choice" as well as the Dragonfest Awards
for "Most Attractive Format" and "Best Graphics". Diane won the Pentacle
Award for "Favorite Pagan Editrix", and Otter for "Favorite Pagan
Writer".

The non-fictional Church of All Worlds has grown far beyond
Heinlein's dream. There are nine concentric circles of member involve-
ment, named after the planets and grouped into three rings. Each
circle's activity includes study, writings, magical training, sen-
sitivity and encounter-group experience, as well as active participation
in the life of the Church. The First Ring, Circles 1, 2, and 3, is for
Seekers, those who are only participants. Second Ring, Circles 4 through
6, is made up of Scions, members who help run the church. The clergy,
Council of the Third Ring, consists of legally ordained priests and
priestesses; longtime members who have worked through the other circles,
undergone personal and leadership development, religious training, and
completed the Church's ordination requirements. There are two
governing bodies in addition to the Clergy: the Board of Directors,
which determines policy and business matters, and the Fun Committee,
which implements the activities and functions of the Church. The Fun
Committee is made up of a Board member, a clergy member, and one
representative from each of the church functions, such as Rites and
Festivals, Publications, Membership, Communications and each subsidiary.
There is an annual General Meeting to elect officers and make changes in
the Church's ever-evolving Bylaws. Worship involves attending weekly or
monthly Nest meetings usually held in the homes of Nest members.
Autonomous nests are composed of at least three members of 2nd Circle
meeting monthly or more often. The basic liturgical form is based on a
circle where a chalice of water is shared around as part of the ritual
part of the Nest meeting. Longer events are celebrated at the Church
sanctuary, Annwfn, a 55-acres of land in northern California. Annwfn has
a two-story temple, cabins, garden, orchard and a small pond. It is
maintained by a small community of resident caretakers. In addition to
the eight Celtic seasonal festivals, the Church holds handfastings
(marriages), vision quests, initiations, workshops, retreats, work
parties and meetings on the land. As of 1993, the Church has ten
chartered nests in California, with others in Florida, Illinois,
Arizona, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Australia (where CAW has
become the first legally-incorporated Pagan church in that country). A
number of proto-Nests are in the process of forming. Current President
is priest Tom Williams (a member since 1968). Otter is presently
engaged in the formation of the Universal Federation of Pagans (UFP), a
worldwide association with which he hopes to unify the global Pagan
community. 1992 was the 30th anniversary of the Church. A Grand
Convocation was held in August, with an attendance of nearly 300.
Membership at the end of 1993 was around 600.

The Mission Statement of the Church of All Worlds is as follows:
The mission of the Church of All Worlds is to evolve a network of
information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and
stimulus for reawakening Gaea, and reuniting Her children through tribal
community dedicated to responsible stewardship and the general evolution
of consciousness. Over the years, the Church of All Worlds has
chartered a number of subsidiary branches through which it practices and
teaches its religion:

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* Forever Forests : Box 212, Redwood Valley, CA 95470. Founded in
1977 by Gwydion Pendderwen; the ecology branch. Sponsors tree-planting
events and rituals.

* Lifeways : 2140 Shattuck #2093, Berkeley, CA 94704. Founded in
1983 by Anodea Judith; the teaching branch. Offers workshops, classes,
healing rituals, recovery programs, wilderness excursions, and training
for the priesthood. Handles the Progressive Involvement Program.

* Nemeton : Box 610, Laytonville, CA 95454. Founded in 1972 by
Gwydion Pennderwen and Alison Harlow; the marketing branch. Tapes and
CDs, songbooks, T-shirts, philosophical tracts and books. Catalog
available.

* Ecosophical Research Assn. (ERA) : Box 982, Ukiah, CA 95482.
Founded in 1977 by Morning Glory Zell; devoted to research and explora-
tion in the fields of history, mythology and natural sciences. Produced
the Living Unicorn, the New Guinea Mermaid expedition and a Peruvian
Pilgrimage.

* Holy Order of Mother Earth (HOME) : Box 212, Redwood Valley, CA
95470 Founded in 1977 by the Zells and Alison Harlow; magical and
shamanic branch open only to trained initiates. Creates and conducts the
Church's rituals and ceremonies.* Peaceful Order of the Earth Mother
(POEM) : Box 5227, Clearlake, CA 95422. Founded in 1988 by Willowoak
Istarwood; dedicated to children and child nurturing. Provides
enriching activities for children at gatherings, summer camps and a
quarterly magazine for Pagan youth, How About Magic? (HAM) :$7 per year.

* Green Egg : Box 1542, Ukiah, CA 95482. Award-winning quarterly
journal of the New Paganism and the Gaian Renaissance, founded in 1968
by Otter Zell. Sample $6; subscription $15/yr US bulk mail; $21/yr
US/Canada 1st class/envelope; $27/yr trans-Atlantic; $30/yr trans-Pacif-
ic.

* Annwfn : Box 48, Calpella, CA 95418. CAW's 55-acre land sanctuary
and retreat in the Misty Mountains of Mendonesia. Write for Visitor's
Policy.

* CAW Membership and General Correspondence :
(Australian Headquaters) PO Box 408, Woden, ACT 2606.

References:
Further information on the Church of All Worlds may be found in the
following books:

Adler, Margot, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-
Worshipers and other Pagans in America Today, Beacon Press, 1979;
revised and updated 1987. (essential!)

Ellwood, Robert, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America, 1973.

Gottleib, Annie, Do You Believe in Magic? The Second Coming of the
Sixties Generation, Times Books, 1987

Guiley, Rosemary, Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, Facts on File,
1989; (extensive!)

2522

The Perennial Encyclopedia of Mystical and Psychic Experience, 1990.

Jade, To Know, Delphi Press, 1991.

Martello, Leo Louis, Witchcraft, the Old Religion, University Books,
1973.

Melton, J. Gordon, The Encyclopedia of American Religions, from the
Institute for the Study of American Religions, POB 90709, Santa Barbara,
CA 93190 1979 ( 3rd edition, 1988); The Essential New Age, 1990.

Wilson, Robert Anton, Coincidance, Falcon Press, 1988
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Neo-Paganism: An Old Religion for a New Age
by Otter G'ZellFounder, Church of All Worlds

As founder and priest of a Neo-Pagan church, I have often been
asked to explain exactly what we mean by the term "Pagan". We find
ourselves in the peculiar position of having a public image that was
created not by ourselves, but by our persecutors. It is much as if the
Nazis had succeeded in eradicating Judaism to the extent that, genera-
tions later, the common opinion of what the Jewish faith was all about
was derived solely from the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Third Reich.

In Europe alone, from tens of thousands to millions (the figures
are still in dispute) of Pagans were martyred by the Christian churches
during the Inquisition and Witch trials. Those figures do not even
count the millions of other Pagan peoples in North and South America,
Africa, Polynesia, Melanesia and Asia who fell before the advancing
plague of Western Christendom.

Today, the conception most people have of Paganism is the lurid one
drawn by the Christian church to justify its own reign of terror, and
bears about as much relation to reality as the similar propaganda
Christianity once fostered about Jews. In the 13th century the Church
opened its long-drawn-out conflict with Paganism in Europe by declaring
Witchcraft to be a 'sect' and heretical. It was not til the 14th
century that the two religions came to grips.

All through the 16th and 17th centuries the battle raged. The
Pagans fought a gallant, though losing, fight against a remorseless and
unscrupulous enemy; every inch of the field was disputed. At first
victory occasionally inclined to the Pagans, but the Christian policy of
obtaining influence over the rulers and law-givers was irresistible.
Vae victis was also the policy of the Christians, and we see the priests
of the Papacy gloating over the thousands whom they had consigned to the
flames while the ministers of the Reformed Churches hounded on the
administrators of the law to condemn the 'devil worshipers'.

What can have been the feelings with which those unhappy victims
regarded the vaunted God of Love, the Prince of Peace, whose votaries
condemned them to torture and death? What wonder that they clung to
their old faith, and died in agony unspeakable rather than deny their
God. (Margaret Murray, The God of the Witches, 1931, Oxford GB 332, pp.
21-22)

'Pagan' does not mean "irreligious" or "barbarian". It is the
correct anthropological term to describe indigenous folk religions,
being derived from the Latin paganus, "peasant," which derives in turn
from pagus, "village". The Latin comes from the Greek pagos, "standing
stone," and paga, "sacred spring," representing, respectively, the male
and female generative powers. Paganism is basically Nature worship.
'Pagan' is a proper noun or adjective denoting the name of a religion,
and as such, is properly always capitalized, as is 'Jewish' or 'Hin-
du'.

Religions can be roughly divided into two distinct categories: the
naturally evolving, indigenous "folk" religions of particular regions
and peoples (the Pagan religions), and on the other hand the "revealed"
religions: those religions owing their existence to a "revelation"
taught by some great "prophet" and formulated in various creeds and
2524

dogmas. The latter category, of course, includes most of the "Great
Religions of Mankind:" Judeo-Christian-Islamic, Buddhist, Confucian,
etc. Though articulated by a great teacher, Lao-tsu, Taoism is
essentially Pagan in philosophy and attitude, while Hinduism and Shinto
are Pagan in origin and essence even though they have become institu-
tionalized as State religions.

Pagan religions are characterized by being "natural," both in
origin and mode of expression, as opposed to the artificiality of
constructed revealed religions. Paganism emerges out of the processes
of Life and Nature, and continues to evolve as a living, growing,
organic entity.

Revealed religions are like buildings: an architect (prophet) get
an inspiration (revelation) and lays down his vision in blueprints
(prophecy; scriptures). Then contractors, carpenters, masons, etc.
(disciples and followers) build the structure more or less according to
his specifications. It is made of non-living materials, and does not
grow naturally; it is assembled. When it is finished, it cannot grow
further, and begins to deteriorate, until it is eventually so outmoded
and rundown it is demolished to make way for new buildings. A world of
revealed religions is like unto a city, with all the problems (hunger,
war, hatreds, crime, pollution, dis-ease) of a city, and for much the
same reason: alienation from the life-flow.

A Pagan religion, on the other hand, is like a tree: it emerges
alive from the Earth, grows, changes (both cyclically through the
seasons, and continually in upward and outward growth), bears flowers
and fruit, and shares its life with other living beings. It is not made
or designed according to any blueprint other than genetic. And when,
after many thousands of years, perhaps, it should come to the end of its
time, it does not pass from the world entirely, for its own progeny
have, in the interval, begun to spring up all around, again from the
Earth, and again, similar yet each unique. A world of Pagan religions
is like a forest.

Paganism includes Animism, Pantheism, Shamanism and Totemism.
(Witchcraft is the survival or reconstruction of European Shamanism;
i.e., the magical arts of tribal peoples.) Pagan are the native
religions of the American Indians, the Africans, the various Island
peoples, many peasants in the mountains of Asia, the Aborigines of
Australia, and, at one time, the Gauls, Teutons, Norse, Celts and
Faeries (as the invading Saxons called the pygmy neolithic race they
encountered in the British Isles). Long before they encountered
Christianity, the Faeries (known to archaeologists as Pretani, or Picts)
had been forced by the Saxons onto the inhospitable Heaths of Britain,
later to be called "Heathens" by the Church. By 1500 CE, they had been
virtually exterminated, save for those who managed to intermarry or
exchange their infants for those of the invaders ("changelings").
Moreover, as it was later to do in the case of the Witches, who
inherited much of the Faery lore and religion, the Church began a
campaign to convince the world and future generations that these people
had never existed in the first place, but were merely imaginary! The old
Pagan religions were never "created". They had no founding prophets and
no saviors. They grew up with their people, and their origins are lost
in the mists at the dawn of humanity. What little we can trace
indicates a descent from paleolithic and neolithic "fertility cults,"
hence the common symbols of the Earth Mother Goddess, the Green Man and
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the Horned Godัthe fecund embodiments of living Nature. We find them
therefore unanimous in their veneration of Nature and their sensual
celebration of life, birth, sex and death as expressed in the seasonal
Festivals of the Sacred Year. All these Great Festivals of Paganism,
wherever they may be found, correspond in common with the Solstices,
Equinoxes, and other natural annual cycles of life (animal mating and
birth seasons, planting, harvest).

Most of these remain with us today in more-or-less disguised form
as the so-called "Christian" holidays of Christmas (Yule), Easter
(Ostara), May Day (Beltane), Thanksgiving (Mabon or Harvest Home),
Halloween (Samhain) and even Groundhog's Day (Oimelc). In addition to
these six, there are two others, Litha (Midsummer) and Lughnasadh,
comprising a total of eight Festivals (or Sabbats, as they are known,
sometimes under different names, in Witchcraft). Thus it is obvious
that the rich heritage of Paganism forms a solid foundation for the
spontaneous emergence of a Neo-Pagan revival today. In the midst of our
current spiritual and ecological crisis, it is highly appropriate that
natural religions are once again finding a place among the children of
Earth.

Modern Neo-Paganism, however, is somewhat distinct from the Old
Religion, in that it is to a large measure a relatively new phenomenon.
Neo-Pagan religions are many and diverse. They range from the sublimely
artistic Paradisal vision and reconstruction of old Pagan Mysteries of
Feraferia to the astrological divination and ancient Egyptian religion
of the Church of the Eternal Source, and from the Wiccan-oriented myth
and ritual of the Pagan Way to the transpersonal psychology, science-
fiction mythology and deep ecology of the Church of All Worlds. All of the dozens of Neo-Pagan religions now in existence, and most of
the countless sects of Witchcraft, however, do hold certain values in
common, and it is these values which relate them to Paganism in the
older sense.

One of the key values of Neo-Paganism is its insistence on personal
responsibility. The Church of All Worlds expresses this in the phrase,
"Thou art God/dess," implying total personal freedom and individual
responsibility on the part of every one of us. Paganism has no concept
of "original sin," and hence has no need of saviors. Neo-Pagans do not
expect Divine retribution for breaking social taboos. Rather, concepts
of "sin" and "atonement" are restated in the framework of ecological
awareness and karma. If our actions are discordant and in opposition to
the evolutionary flow of Life, we suffer the ecological consequences, in
much the same way, and for exactly the same reason, as diseased cells in
the body are attacked by the antibodies and other natural defenses.
Whatever energy we put out returns to us multiplied threefold. Love
returns love; hate returns hate. Robert Ingersoll observed: "In Nature
there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences". The
total responsibility (and hence the total freedom) rests in our
hands.

As in the Old Religion, Neo-Pagans conceptualize Divinity as
manifest in the processes of Nature. Indeed, in a very literal sense,
Mother Nature, Mother Earth, is "Goddess," and She has been recognized
as such since time immemorial. Thus ecology is seen as the supreme
religious study: "Nature is Divinity made manifest...It is creativit-
y, continuity, balance, beauty and truth of life. "Everything we
encounter in the Biosphere is a part of Nature, and ecology reveals the
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pattern of that is-ness, the natural relationships among all these
things and the Organic Unity of all of them as a Biospheric Whole. Thus
ecology shows the pattern of man's proper and creative involvement with
Nature, that Nature which encompasses his own life and on proper
relation to which his survival and development depend: Of all man's
secular studies, ecology comes closest to bringing him to the threshold
of religious relationship to his world. Ecology not only confirms the
wonders of form and function that other secular studies have revealed,
but it brings these into organic union with each other as one dynamic,
living Whole; and it points out the conditions for the wellbeing of both
this overall Unity and the parts that comprise it.

An intensive realization of these conditions, and of one's own
immediate role in their sustainment and development, brings one to the
threshold of religious awe. To worship Nature, therefore, is to
venerate and commune with Divinity as the dynamically organic perfection
of the whole. (Council of Themis, from Green Egg #43)

Neo-Paganism is a recent mutation of the Old Religion which had its
earliest emergence during the European Renaissance with the rediscovery
of the ancient Greek philosophers via Arabian texts brought by traveler-
s. However, this was also the time of the Burnings, and the budding
Neo-Pagan emergence was suppressed until the late 1700's, when it found
expression in the Romantic Period of art, music and literature,
especially in Germany.

This Romantic flowering of Neo-Paganism, especially the element
known as the Bavarian Illuminati (whose mottoes were "eternal flower
power" and "eternal serpent power"), greatly appealed to a visiting
American named Benjamin Franklin, and upon his return to the colonies,
it became a major spiritual force in the post-Revolutionary America of
the 1780s, where its influence continued to shape the new nation through
the presidencies of the Adams family. It was Monroe and the War of 1812
that managed to suppress this movement for a time, but it re-emerged 60
years later in the form of the Transcendentalist Movement, exemplified
in the poetry and writings of Whitman, Thoreau and Emerson, and the
overnight mushrooming of the commune movement in the 1840's. The Civil
War, Reconstruction, the conquest of the West and the Gold Rush drained
the Nature-oriented spiritual energy from the people of America for
another 60 years, but it blossomed again through the Art Nouveau
movement in the 1900's. Then came the World Wars, the Depression,
McCarthyism...60 more years had to pass before the gathering impact of
Eastern religious philosophy, especially Zen, and Existentialism gave
birth to the "hip" "underground" counter-culture of the Beatniks, whose
experimentation with drugs, sexuality, music, poetry, communal living
and alternate lifestyles paved the way for the Hippie phenomenon of the
1960's (which spontaneously resurrected the old Illuminati motto of
"flower power").

The seeds of Neo-Paganism which had again lain dormant for three
generations took root in such fertile soil, and emerged once more into
the light, to be joined in the '70s by the heirs of Wicca, the last
vestiges of the Old Religion of Europe. The New Religion is still very
much Paganism, for its inspiration and orientation today is based, as
was that of its predecessors, upon an understanding and relationship of
Humanity within the larger perspective of Life, Nature and the Universe.
Fred Adams of Feraferia coined the term "eco-psychic" to describe the
type of awareness that permeates the New Religion.
2527

Revealed religions, especially of the monotheistic variety, tend to
see man as a special creation, exalted above all Nature, and the epitome
of God's handiwork. Thus the Biblical injunction to Man to "have
dominion over all the Earth" is not seen by Judeo-Christians as
outrageously presumptuous; nor is God's destruction of all life on Earth
in the legend of the Deluge seen as insanely immoral ecocide. Both God
and Man are considered to have a "divine right" to desecrate the Earth
at their pleasure. This is in direct opposition to the view of
Paganism, which sees humanity's duty not to conquer Nature, but to live
in harmony and stewardship with Her. Every revealed religion claims
to have its own direct pipeline to the Divinity, and its own essential
precepts from direct, unassailable revelation. Neo-Pagans, on the other
hand, have outgrown egotistical and temperamental gods, and expect no
intervention from some Big Daddy in the Sky to solve the problems of our
times. Instead, we look to Nature (through the clear glass of ecology)
for inspiration and direction, and to ourselves as the instrumentality
for all that needs to be done.

Thou art God/dess!
Otter G'Zell, 1970 (revised Jan. 8, 1991)
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2528

Neo-Pagan Witchcraft vs. Satanism:Confusions and Distinctions
by Otter and Morning Glory Zell

It seems to be necessary to preface every discussion of Witchcraft
with an explanation that, no, Neo-Pagan Witches aren't Satanists. The
Christian anti-God, Satan, has no place in Pagan pantheons, either
mythologically or theologically. Plainly and simply, Satanism is the
dark side of Christianity, and Satan is nothing other than the collec-
tive Id of Christendom.

Even today, Witchcraft is frequently misrepresented by being
confused with Satanism. Often the word Witchcraft is used to represent
two wholly opposite phenomena: the survival of ancient Paganism in one
instance, and the inversion of Christianity in another. Let us make it
clear: a Satanist is a renegade Christian, who, in his rebellion
against the authority of the church, worships Satan rather than Christ.
Such people are at times called witches and warlocks in popular books
and movies but they have little to do with Pagan Witches. Satanists,
for one thing, accept the Christian duality between good and evil;
Pagans do not. Satanists may choose to worship evil rather than good:
but they have utterly bought the Christian world view".1

The word Pagan derives from the Latin paganus, meaning "peasant" or
"country dweller". It is correctly applied to indigenous (native)
pantheistic folk religions and peoples. The term "Neo-Paganism" is
applied to the current revival of ancient Pagan religious values,
including the sacredness of all Life and the worship of Nature. Modern
Witchcraft has been a major component of the Neo-Pagan resurgence since
England repealed its anti-Witchcraft laws in 1951.The Goddess and the
God of Witchcraft The many traditions of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft have few
universal theological precepts, but one of them is certainly the
veneration of the Moon Goddess, known most commonly by her Roman name,
Diana. She is perceived as manifesting in triple form: as Maiden,
Mother and Crone. These triple aspects are identified respectively with
the waxing, full, and waning moons. Witches gather at esbats every full
moon, to sing and dance in Her moonlight, share cakes and wine, and work
magic to heal each other, their friends, and the Earth. Many modern
Witches expand the concept of the Goddess considerably, and see Her also
as Mother Earth and Mother Nature.

Most traditions of Neo-Pagan Witchcraft also honor the Consort of
the Goddess in the form of the Horned God, who is seen as Lord of
Animals as well as seasonal ruler of the Underworld. The most familiar
version of the Horned God is the Greek Pan, goat-horned and goat-hooved,
playing His panpipes, guzzling wine from His freely-flowing wineskin,
and seducing nymphs in the woods. He is regarded as lusty and jovial,
epitomizing masculine attributes of ideal father, brother or lover. As
the Goddess of Witchcraft is closely identified with the Moon, so the
God is identified with the Sun. In this way He may be seen mythologi-
cally as the lover both of the Moon and of the Earth. Another of His
many epithets is "Lord of Light". Every light casts its shadows, and
the Lord of Shadows is the other face of the Lord of Light. Lord of the
Underworld is the title of the God in Winter when He goes underground
with the animals to hibernate. Some traditions had Him alternate with
His brother as husband to the eternal Goddess. Others, as in the Greek
Hades, had a year-round God of the Underworld, "The Devil."

It is essential to clarify the historic relationship of Pan and the
2529

Devil, as Christianity has tended to confuse the two, giving rise to the
accusation that Pagans are Devil-worshipers because some Pagan gods have
horns. Once and for all, the Christian Devil is not the God of the
Witches! The genesis of the Devil comes from a merging of two concepts:
Satan and Lucifer. The original meaning of the word satan is "adve-
rsary", and his inclusion in the Bible represents an attempt by later
apologists of the Old Testament to justify the more negative actions of
a benevolent God (such as the persecution of Job) by attributing the
actual dirty work to a testing spirit; the original "devil's advocate".
This entity was not considered evil until after the Persian conquest
introduced the Hebrews to the Zoroastrian dualism of Ahura-Mazda (the
good God) vs. Ahriman (the evil God). This later manifested in Chris-
tianity as Manichean dualism. The Manichean equation was brutally
simple: God=Good; Devil=Evil. But it was not until the year 447 CE
that the Council of Toledo declared the legal existence of the Devil as
an actual entity, though he was still not thought of as necessarily
manifesting in human form.

The Lucifer story is a mish-mashed retelling of the Canaanite myth
about the overthrow of Baal by Mot and the usurpation of Baal's throne
by Athar, the god of the morning star. The original Hebrew name for
Lucifer was helel ben shahar meaning "son of the day star" (the planet
Venus). The name Lucifer ("light bearer"), a Romano-Etruscan title of
the Sun God, was erroneously used when the Bible was first translated
into Latin.2

Various shadow gods or divine adversaries contributed to the
creation of the Devil, including the Canaanite Moloch or Mot, the
Egyptian Set or Suteck and the Roman Saturn.

Judeo-Christian theologians placed all Pagan gods and goddesses in an
adversary position to Yahweh, the god of Israel, who, as a monotheistic
deity, cannot share a pantheon. This is a profound cultural difference
from Pagan pantheons and polytheistic peoples who co-existed together,
whether or not in harmony. Also since unbridled sexuality, especially
for females, was defined by Judeo-Christianity as evil, Pagan gods and
goddesses who were especially sexual or sensual garnered the new sect's
particular hatred. Pan (who instills panic) and Dionysus were neither
evil nor adversary deities, but because of their riotous celebrations
the Devil acquired Pan's horns and hooves and Dionysus' ambiguously mad
and bibulous nature. This final equation of the Pagan Horned God with
Satan was not established, however, until the year 1486, when the
Dominicans Kramer and Sprenger published the Malleus Malificarum, or
"Hammer of the Witches", wherein they gave the first physical descrip-
tion of the Devil as he is commonly depicted today, declaring that this
was the god worshiped by those they wanted to call "witches", thereby
justifying the centuries of terrible persecution inflicted upon those
who clung faithfully to their worship of the elder gods.
Witchcraft and Shamanism Witches were the shamans, or medicine men
and women, of the tribal Celtic peoples of Europe, and they functioned
in the same fashion as shamans of any other tribal culture, be it
American Indians, Africans, or Australian Aborigines. In fact, and in
time-honored tradition, shamans are still commonly referred to as "Witch
Doctors".

Shamans are specialists in herbal lore, and the Witches of Pagan
Europe were no exception. Usually, but not exclusively, women, they
practiced herbal medicine, midwifery, augury, spellcasting, and
2530

counseling. Often dwelling alone out in the woods, Witches lived close
to Nature, and attuned to Her cycles. Their gardens grew not only food,
but also many kinds of herbs, including those valued for their medic-
inal, anesthetic and hallucinogenic properties. In a period of time
when good Christian folk maintained only those domestic animals that
could be considered "livestock" (i.e., useful to humans), Witches
frequently kept wild animal pets: foxes, ferrets, owls, ravens and of
course, the ubiquitous cats. Such became known, appropriately enough, as
familiars. When Witches came to be persecuted, so did these familiar
animals, and the brutal capture, torture and burning of millions of cats
that accompanied the Witch burnings begat the horrible Black Plague that
devastated Europe in the 14th century, for the cats had kept the rat
populations under control, and it was rat fleas that were the carrier of
the bubonic plague bacillus."The Burning Times"

It is sadly ironic that, though the practitioners of Witchcraft
have historically suffered real abuse and persecution, the Witch has
somehow continued to be misrepresented as the villain. Christianity did
not become the world's dominant religion by peaceful conversion, but by
the sword and stake. As the legions of Caesar had forged the Roman
Empire over the dead bodies of countless tribal peoples of Europe, so
did its heir, the Holy Roman Empire, continue the tradition. Declaring
them "heresies", agents of the Holy Inquisition hunted out and ruth-
lessly exterminated every religion, sect or tradition that would not
convert to "The One True Right And Only Way". Witches, however, lived
outside of any organized religious structure and were largely ignored
until the 13th century, when the Church had finally gained enough power
to deal with grass-roots Paganism. "In the 13th century the Church
opened its long-drawn-out conflict with Paganism in Europe by declaring
"Witchcraft' to be a "sect' and heretical. It was not til the 14th
century that the two religions came to grips. . . In 1324 the bishop of
Ossory tried Dame Alice Kyteler in his ecclesiastical court for the
crime of worshiping a deity other than the Christian God. . .

"The 15th century marks the first great victories of the Church.
Beginning with the trials in Lorraine in 1408, the Church moved
triumphantly against Joan of Arc and her followers in 1431, against
Gilles de Rais and his coven in 1440, and against the Witches of Brescia
in 1457. Towards the end of the century the Christian power was so
well-established that the Church felt the time had come for an organized
attack, and in 1484 Pope Innocent VIII published his Bull against
"Witches.' All through the 16th and 17th centuries the battle raged.
The Pagans fought a gallant, though losing, fight against a remorseless
and unscrupulous enemy; every inch of the field was disputed, but the
Christian policy of obtaining influence over the rulers and law-givers
was irresistible. Vae victis ["woe to the conquered"] was also the
policy of the Christians, and we see the priests of the Papacy gloating
over the thousands they had consigned to the flames while the ministers
of the Reformed Churches hounded on the administrators of the law to
condemn the "devil worshipers.' What could have been the feelings with
which those unhappy victims regarded the vaunted God of Love, the Prince
of Peace, whose votaries condemned them to torture and death? What
wonder that they clung to their old faith, and died in agony unspeakable
rather than deny their God".3 It should also be pointed out that the
court recorders at the Witch trials were specifically instructed that,
whatever gods or goddesses the accused actually claimed to worship, what
went into the record was "Satan" or "The Devil". And what wonder if
some of those who had come to believe the Biblical history taught them
2531

by the missionaries, monks and priests of the conquering faith,
concluded that the story must have gotten it wrong somehow? That if
there had indeed been a rebellion in heaven, it was clearly evident that
the winner had not been the God of love and peace, as his propagandists
claimed, but rather a God of cruelty and evil; of war and violence,
wrath and jealousy. (This had, in fact, been an old Gnostic tradition.)

The clear implication was that the defeated Lucifer must have been
the good guy, and surely many must have swarmed to his allegiance in
this belief. While true adherents of the Old Religions certainly knew
better, and continued their faith entirely distinct from Christianity,
there were surely, then as now, many ignorant people who were simply too
unsophisticated or too illiterate to question the Christian paradigm
once it became established. And thus did Satanism as a belief and a
practice come into being, spawned by the Church, and forever to be
locked together with it in a fatal embrace of mutual antagonism.

Whether or not the persecuted peasantry who came to side with Satan
against their oppressors thought of themselves as "Witches", the Church
and the authorities of the Holy Inquisition certainly identified them as
such: "The heart and centre of the persecution of Witches was that
they were Satanists, that they had rejected the rightful God and given
their allegiance to his arch-opponent, and that in their "sabbaths' or
meetings they worshiped the ruler of evil, carnality and filth. Some of
those accused as Witches do seem to have taken the Devil for their god,
worshiping him as an equal opponent of the Christian God, over whom he
would eventually triumph. They looked to Satan for power and pleasure
in this world and for a happy future in the next, and they vilified
Christ as a traitor and a cheat, who had made promises which he did not
keep, and who had gone away to live in heaven while Satan remained with
his faithful on earth".4 "The Witches and sorcerers of early times were
a widely spread class who had retained the beliefs and traditions of
heathenism with all its license and romance and charm of the forbidden.
. . in their ranks every one who was oppressed or injured either by the
nobility or the church. They were treated with indescribable cruelty,
in most cases worse than beasts of burden, for they were outraged in all
their feelings, not at intervals for punishment, but habitually by
custom, and they revenged themselves by secret orgies and fancied
devil-worship, and occult ties, and stupendous sins, or what they
fancied were such. I can seriously conceive: what no writer seems to
have considered: that there must have been an immense satisfaction in
selling or giving one's self to the devil, or to any power which was at
war with their oppressors. So they went by night, at the full moon, and
sacrificed to Diana, or "later on' to Satan, and they danced and
rebelled. It is very well worth noting that we have all our accounts of
sorcerers and heretics from Catholic priests, who had every earthly
reason for misrepresenting them, and did so. In the vast amount of
ancient Witchcraft still surviving in Italy, there is not much anti-
Christianity, but a great deal of early heathenism. Diana, not Satan,
is still the real head of the Witches".5

Since Witchcraft is still little understood by the general public,
whose images are shaped mostly by the popular media, Witches continue to
be easy targets for persecution. It must be remembered that, in the
previous episodes of Witchcraft persecution hysteria, it was the Witches
who were the victims, not the Christians. Witches, and those con-
veniently accused of being Witches, died by the millions during the
terrible centuries of the holocaust they remember as "The Burning
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Times". They do not wish to repeat that experience today.6

Notes and References:

1. Jong, Erica, Witches (New American Library, New York,1981) p. 52
2. Zell, Morning Glory, "The Lord of Light", Green Egg, Vol. XXI, No.
82; Aug. 1, 1988 (POB 1542, Ukiah, CA 95482) p. 12
3. Murray, Margaret, The God of the Witches (Oxford Univ. Press, NY,
1931) pp. 21-22
4. Cavendish, Richard, "Satanism", Encyclopedia of Man, Myth and
Magic, Vol. 18 (Marshall Cavendish, NY, 1970) p. 2479
5. Leland, Charles Godfrey, Legends of Florence, (David Nutt, London,
1896)
6. Guiley, Rosemary, Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft (Facts on
File, NY, 1989)
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WHERE THE HELL IS THE CHURCH OF ALL WORLDS

WHERE WE'RE AT:
The Church of All Worlds offers a religious position uniquely suited to
the enlightened, inquiring modern mind. In harmony with the principles
and conclusions of science, receptive to the values and wisdom of the
ancients and the great religions of humanity, sensitive to the deep
psychological and spiritual needs of all people, the Church of All
Worlds aspires to be the kind of free, growing and unifying religion
that today's and tomorrow's world so urgently needs.

The Church of All Worlds is Neo-Pagan : a modern Earth Religion - an
orientation chosen because of its traditional associations with Life and
the processes of Nature, which we consider an appropriate religious
orientation for the emerging Aquarian Age. As Western civilisation has
been to a great degree the product of the past two thousand years of
Piscean Age Chrisianity, so do we envision a new whole-Earth culture of
transformative religious ecology to become the product of the next epoch
of Aquarian Age Neo-Paganism. In common with many other Neo-Pagan
religions, CAW presents a life-affirming religious philosophy for the
joyous unification of eros, ethos and ecos; of cult, culture and
cultivation.

We consider the Church of All Worlds to be radically evolutionary in
concept, rather than revolutionary. We see the evolution of Life on
Earth as moving towards a point of actualisation whereby the entire
planet will come to share a single vast global consciousness. We see
humanity being instrumental in the course of that evolution. As humans
seem to be the only creatures on the planet capable of disrupting entire
ecosystems, it becomes our manifest responsibility through our unique
freedom of choice to prevent such systems from being disrupted. We are
not anti-technology or science, for we recognise that certain scientific
and technological advances, such as ecology, geology, astronomy,
psychology, archaeology, cybernetics, astrophysics, communications
and the technology of the bio-renaissance can be positively evolutionary
and in harmony with the accelerating advance of planetary consciousness.
What we oppose is the senseless use of industrial technology to wreak
havok with the planetary ecosystem, often in the name of the Biblical
injunction that Man is to have "dominion over the Earth." We percieve
our not as dominion, but as responsible stewardship.

Applying evolutionary concepts to each individual, we agree with Erich
Fromm that the purpose of life is "to become what we potentially are."
We identify strongly with the concepts of human self-actualisation
identified by Abraham Maslow and found in transpersonal psychology and
ethics. Rejecting utterly concepts of predestination and inherent sin,
we affirm the ultimate freedom and responsibility appropriate to
conscious entities, which we express in the phrase "Thou Art God/dess,"
derived from Robert Heinlein's novel, 'Stranger in a Strange Land.' This
implies that each one of us must define our own specific purpose. There
is no excuse; no shelter from the awesome responsibility of total
freedom.

Recognising that all Life on Earth comprises a single vast living
Entity, which has been intuitively conceptualised as a feminine from
time immemorial, we are in harmony with our Pagan ancestors who
worshipped The Goddess: Mother Earth, Mother Nature. Thus we also affirm
2534

mystically and mythically the pantheistic conceptualisation of immanent
divinity inherent in all living entities, as synergic living Nature, for
we define divinity as the highest level of aware consciousness acces-
sible to each living being, manifesting itself in the self-actualisation
of that being. Hence, "Thou Art God/dess" applies equally to a person,
a tree, a grasshopper or a planet.

As Neo-Pagans, we are concerned, not with life after death, but with
life after birth. We have no dogmas of immortality, considering that
whatever one believes about an afterlife, may very well be what one
gets. We view death as an evolutionary prerequisite for the emergence of
new life, and so we return the dead to the Earth, from which the
elements of their energy and matter will eventually be recycled and
reconstituted into the energy and matter of other life forms. Other than
our ecological responsibility of returning to the Earth that which we
have taken from Her, we are not concerned with dying, but with living.

We are deeply concerned with improving the quality of that life, to
which end we agree with population ecologists that its quantity (in
sheer numbers of people) must be drastically reduced. Thus we are
strongly supportive of the various measures of birth control advocated
by such agencies as Planned Parenthood, including full legalisation of
abortion. We greatly fear that if humanity does not choose to limit its
numbers by reducing births, Nature will do it for us by increasing
deaths.

WHERE WE'RE GOING:

The word 'Religion' means "re-linking." The basic committment of the
Church of All Worlds is to the re-integration of people with themselves,
their fellow humans, and with the whole of living Nature. In company
with all other Pagan peoples, we create no artificial demarkations
between the sacred and the secular, for we recognise that religion must
ultimately be an entire way of life, not merely some ritual acts
performed once a week. We are committed to developing an organic,
vitalistic philosophy of life and its expression in an organic culture.

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To this end, then, the Church of All Worlds devotes itself to those who
need or want the help and understanding through the processes of
unlearning and learning. It is our aim to offer assistance through any
personal expansion programs found to be effective. Furthermore, we
intend to remain openminded and receptive to new ideas, interests and
goals, and learn to live responsibly and responsively with each other.

We advocate envolvement with every conceivable aspect of the emerging
Gaian culture, from religious service and mythology to family relations
and child rearing; from education to ecology; from psychic development
to space travel; from the sensual to the sexual; from intentional
communities to planetary government and world peace. "Nothing short of
everything will ever really do." We are engaged in the eclectic
reconstruction of ancient Nature religions, combining archetypes of many
cultures with other mystic and spiritual disciplines. But we are not
just trying to re-create a Paradise Lost; we are actively working to
actualise a visionary future. With roots deep in the Earth and branches
reaching towards the stars, we evoke and create myths not only of a
Golden Age long past, but also of one yet to come...

Since we are concerned with the emergent evolution of a total new
culture and lifestyle, and since we perceive no distinction between the
sacred and the secular, we consider every activity to be essentially a
religious activity. For us, taking our cans and bottles to the
recycling centre is as much a religious duty as prayer and meditation.
And so are composting our garbage, growing organicl vegetables,
practicing birth control, using bio-degradable products, boycotting
tuna, training and study, protecting animals and celebration of the
seasons. We recognise that the essence of a religion is in the living of
it.

WHERE WE CAME FROM:

The Church of All Worlds traces its history back to 1962, when a "water
brotherhood" called "Atl" was formed by Tim Zell and Lance Christie at
Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. During the mid 60's 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 1962-1968. In 1968, following a
move to St. Louis, the Church of All Worlds was incorporated, becoming
the first of the Neo-Pagan/Earth Religions to obtain full federal
recognition. In March of that year, the Green Egg appeared. From its
inauspicious beginnings as a one page ditto sheet, it grew over 80
issues into a 60 page journal, evolving into the most significant
periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970's. After a 10 year
hiatus while the original staff moved to northern California to
experience a life of homesteading in the mountain wilderness, the Green
Egg resumed publication in 1988 with its 81st edition.

The Church of All Worlds took much inspiration from the 1961 science
fiction classic, 'Stranger in a Strange Land' by Robert Heinlein. In the
novel, the stranger, Michael Valentine Smith, was an earthman born on
Mars and raised by Martians. Among his other adventures upon being
brought to earth was the formation of the "Church of All Worlds". The
"Church" was built around "Nests," a combination of congregation and
expanded family. A basic concept was "grokking" i.e. the ability to be
fully empathic. It also emphasised the experience of co-equal love
2536

between sexes. The common greeting was "thou Art God;" as recognition of
the immanent divinity in each person.

The basic theology of the real-life Church of All Worlds is a form of
pantheism which focusses on immanent rather than transcendant divinity.
The most important theological statement came in the form of revelatory
writings by Tim (now Otter) Zell in 1970-1973, on the theory which later
became 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). Pantheists hold as divine the living
spirit of Nature. Thus to CAW recognises Gaia, Pan and other nature
spirits as the Divine Pantheon. In this manner, the Church of All Worlds
became a forerunner of the Deep Ecology movement.

Though the Church maintains an egalitarian rather than matriarchal
social structure, nevertheless, through its focus on Mother Nature as
Goddess, its recognition and ordination of women to the priesthood, and
the important central policy making positions held by women in the
Church, CAW can rightly be held to be the first Eco-Feminist Church. We
are not a secret or members only organisation, and we welcome partici-
pation by all who are sincerely interested in our path regardless of
race, sex, national or cultural origins or sexual preference. We support
unity through diversity. Our only creed states: "The Church of All
Worlds is dedicated to the celebration of life, the maximum actualisa-
tion of human potential and the realisation of ultimate individual
freedom and personal responsibility in harmonious eco-psychic relation-
ship with the total Biosphere of Holy Mother Earth"

Worship in the Church involves weekly or monthly meeting which are held
usually in the homes of nest members on a rotational basis. The basic
liturgical form is a Circle where members take turns in 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 the Church retreat sanctuary, a 55 acre parcel of land called
"Annwfn" in Northern California. It is maintained by a small residential
community of caretakers. In addition to various campfire and ritual
areas, the land has several hand-built buildings including a two-storey
temple, plus a garden, an orchard and a small pond. It has limited solar
electricity, propane hot water and a radio telephone, but no TV. In
addition to the eight Celtic seasonal festivals, we hold handfastings,
vision quests, rites of passage, workshops, retreats, work parties,
summer camps and staff meetings on the land.

As in "Stranger in a Strange Land", congregations of the Church of All
Workds are called nests, and quite a few are currently in existance
around the world. See the latest issue of Green Egg for listings to
find the nest nearest you.

Over the years, the Church has founded a number of subsidiary branch
orders through which we practice and teach our religion. These include:

NEMETON - Founded in 1972 by Gwydion Pendderwen and Alison Harlow, this
is the publishing arm. Tapes, records, songbooks, T-shirts,
figurines, jewelery and philosophical tracts. Catalog $US 1.

FOREVER FORESTS - Founded in 1977 by Gwydion Pendderwen, this is the
Churches ecology branch. Sponsors tree planting rituals and
environmental actions. Has stewardship of Annwfn, the Church
2537

land.

ECOSOPHICAL RESEARCH ASSN - Founded in 1977 by Morning Glory Zell, the
ERA is devoted to research and exploration in the fields of
history, mythology, and natural sciences.

LIFEWAYS - Founded in 1983 by Anodea Judith, this is the teaching
order. Offers workshops, classes, healing rituals and
training for the priesthood.

PEACEFUL ORDER OF MOTHER EARTH - Founded 1n 1988 by Willowoak, POEM is
dedicated to children and child nurturing. Provides enriching
activities for children at gatherings, summer camps,and a quarterly childrens magazine, 'How About Magic?'

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Director of Australian Operations,
PO Box 408,
Woden, ACT, 2606,
AUSTRALIA.

FAX (06) 299 4100
PHONE (06) 299 2432

What is Myth?
This article appeared in Web of Wyrd #10, and is by Anna from Canberra.

Mythology can be approached from various perspectives, such as anthropo-
logical, sociological, folk-lorist, psychological and metaphysical. Our
understanding of what myth is depends on the perspective we use. The
folk-lorist is interested in the variety of myths and their spread with
migrations of peoples. The anthropologists study myth as part of a
peoples' culture. The sociologist is interested in how it helps society
to function. The psychologist studies its effects on peoples' perspec-
tives, and how it helps them cope with the world in which they live. The
occultist and mystic regard it as a tool to help them achieve their
aims, whether that be union with the divine, or a greater understanding
of themselves and the divine within. Myth occurs in the history of
most, if not all, human traditions and communities, and is a basic
constituent of human culture. It occurs both with and without associated
rites (though not all rites have myths associated with them). This paper
discusses the purpose of myth, and how we may use myth more effectively
in the magical context.

Some definitions of myth:
"Myth is the secret opening through which the
inexhaustible energy of the cosmos pour through into human
cultural manifestation."
(Campbell: The Masks of God - Primitive Mythology)
"Myth is a psychic phenomenon that reveals the nature of
the soul."
Jung: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious)
"Myths are accounts about how the world came to be the
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way it is, about a super-ordinary realm of events before (or
behind) the natural world."
(Keesing: Cultural Anthropology - a Contemporary
Perspective)
"A myth is a statement about society and man's place in
it and the surrounding universe."
(Middleton: Myth and Cosmos)
"Myth is a collective term used for one kind of symbolic
communication and specifically indicates one basic form of
religious symbolism, as distinguished from symbolic behaviour
(cult, ritual) and symbolic places or objects (such as temples
and icons). Myths are specific accounts concerning gods or
superhuman beings and extraordinary events or circumstances at
a time that is altogether different from that of ordinary
human experience."
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
From these definitions it can be seen that myth has two functions,
esoteric and exoteric. The exoteric function is to: "...bind the
individual to his family's system of historically-conditioned senti-
ments, as a functioning member of a sociological organism." (Campbell:
ibid)

In this role myth is exploratory and narrative. An example is the North
American tale: Old man saw a circle of cottontail rabbits singing and
making medicine; they would lie in the ashes of a hot fire and sing
while one of their number covered them up; it was lots of fun. Old Man
asked to be shown how to do this, and was covered in the coals and ashes
and was not burnt. Then he wanted to be the one to cover up the others,
and all the rabbits jumped into the fire. Only one got out, who was
about to have babies; Old Man let her go so that there would continue to
be rabbits. She went off with a dark place on her back where she got
singed, which all rabbits since have had. The others he roasted and laid
on red willow brush to cool. The grease soaked into the branches and
even today, if you hold red willow over a fire, you will see the grease
on the bark. This myth is explanatory; it explains two observed
features of the natural world.

Another myth explains not the natural world, but the use man puts it to.
This is an Ojibway myth explaining the origin of maize and man's use of
it. To summarise this myth: a young man went to the forest to fast for
seven days and search for his spirit guide or guardian. During this
period he was visited by a richly-dressed handsome young man, sent by
the Great Spirit, whom he had to wrestle, despite his weakness from his
fast. Before the last time the visitor told him he would prevail this
time, and gave him instructions: how to prepare the ground, how to bury
his body, how to care for the ground after, and how to harvest the maize
that would grow. This he did, so his people now have maize. This myth
not only explains the origin of maize, but also gives instructions for
planting, care and harvesting, thus ensuring that all the tribe know how
to grow it, as well as learn where it came from. Other myths are
justifying and validating, answering questions about the nature and
foundation of ritual and cultic customs.

An example is the Blackfoot myth about the origin of the Buffalo Dance.
The Blackfeet hunt buffalo by chasing them over a cliff, but at one time
they could not induce the animals to the fall, and the people were
starving. A young woman, seeing a herd of buffalo near the edge of the
fall said, "if you will only jump into the canal, I shall marry one of
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you." The buffalo did so, and a big bull came and carried her off. Her
father came looking for her, but was trampled to pieces by the buffalo.
The woman got a piece of his backbone and sang over it until his body
was restored and he was alive again. The buffalo allowed the woman and
her father to go, on condition that they learn the dance and song of the
buffalo, and not forget them. For these would be the magical means by
which the buffalo killed by the people for their food should be restored
to life, just as the man killed by the buffalo was restored. This myth
tells the people why they do the dance, and the consequences if they
don't. It is also a piece of sympathetic magic designed to increase the
fertility of the buffalo herds when the dance is performed. As such it
gives them a sense of control over some of the important factors of
their environment and indicates appropriate action if the buffalo do
decline.

Myths also have a descriptive function, explaining facts beyond normal
reason and observation. Creation myths are an example. The Norse
creation myth describes Niffleheim forming out of the Abyss, with ice to
the north and fire to the south.

From the melting ice where these two realms met formed a giant, Ymir,
and a cow, Audmulla, who became the wet-nurse of the gods. From Ymir
came the frost giants, and Audmulla's licking of the ice freed the
progenitors of the gods, Odin, Vile and Ve. And so the myth goes on,
describing the creation of the world, the gods and mankind. This myth
does not describe or explain the world as it is, but how it came about
in the first place. It is an explanation of something that man couldn't
see or comprehend, that is beyond his knowledge and experience.

One purpose of myth is to help tie a community together. When
myth is expressed in ritual, it builds the community, or
specific segments of it, together. An example is the
Aborigines' use of myth in boys' initiation rites. Myths are
revealed to the boys as part of their initiation to manhood;
since the women and children do not know these mysteries, they
serve to bind the men together, and important factor for a
group that needs to hunt together.

Myth gives a community a common framework, a common view of
the world. The whole community has the same understanding of
why the world is the way that it is. It also tells them how to
behave in certain circumstances and why they should do so; why
their society is structured the way that it is, and what will
happen if they break cultural taboos.

An example in our cultural context is the myth of David and
Goliath. This myth tells us how to behave in a situation where
we are faced with overwhelming odds. It teaches us courage
rather than running away, and suggests an approach that can be
used to cope with the situation.

Myth provides the moral values of the culture. Many of our
moral values, for example, come from the Christian myths. The
story of David and Goliath is one reason why we revere
courage. Murder and theft are regarded as wrong, evil, as the
myth of Moses teaches us. The myth of Noah and the Ark tells
us of the consequences of evil and righteousness. To summarise
then, myth provides a guide for the individual throughout his
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life; one that aids him to live in health, strength, and
harmony in the particular society in which he was born.

Myth also has an esoteric function, which is almost the opposite of the
exoteric function. Myth transforms the individual, detatching him from
his local historical and cultural condition, and leading him to some
kind of ineffable experience. It provides a bridge between an in-
dividual's local consciousness and universal consciousness. Myth and
rites constitute a mesocosm, a mediating middle cosmos through which
the microcosm of the individual is brought into relation with the
macrocosm of the all, the universe. Myth, "... fosters the centering and
unfolding of the universe in integrity with himself (microcosm), his
culture (mesocosm), the universe (macrocosm) and finally with the
ultimate creative mystery that is both beyond and within himself and all
things." (Houston: The Search for the Beloved)

Myth bridges the gap between ourselves and godhead, providing a path
that we may use to become aware of the cosmos, the godhead. In this
context, R J Stewart describes creation myths not as explorations but
as, "... resonant re-creations that echo the original creation... an
organic timeless flow of images and narrative within which such
questions [of the nature of the world] were by-passed altogether, for
the 'answers' of such mythology come from deep levels of
consciousness, in which universal patterns or intimations are
apprehended." (Stewart: The Elements of Creation Myth)

When we imagine a creation myth, irrespective of our belief or
disbelief in the myth, we re-create or re-balance ourselves. Another
function of myth is to act as a filter. The full, unadulterated
experience of the universal consciousness is more than our minds are
capable of holding, and there are those who went too far and fell into
psychosis and other imbalances as a result. Myth provides a way of
experiencing universal consciousness or godhead without it overwhelming
us to the point where we cannot return to ourselves.

There is an alternative way of looking at the esoteric levels of myth.
C G Jung considers mythological processes to be, "symbolic expressions
of the inner unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to
man's consciousness by way of projection." (Jung: ibid.) He views the
unconscious as having two levels; personal and collective. The personal
unconscious contains experiences that have been forgotten, whereas the
collective unconscious has contents and modes of behaviour that have
never been through consciousness, and are more or less the same
everywhere and in everyone. The contents of the collective unconscious
are called archetypes.They are expressed in myth and fairy-tale in a
specific form, but can also be experienced by the individual in a more
naive and less understandable form as dreams and visions.

An archetype is a memory deposit, derived from endless repetition of a
typical situation in life. It is the psychic expression of an anatomi-
cally physiologically determined natural tendency. Archetypes are
normally referred to as figures; the wise old man, the mother, the
trickster. However, they also include experiences, of which an example
is the birth experience. Everyone goes through this experience, so it
has made a strong imprint on the collective unconscious. As a result,
rebirth experiences are a very powerful mythic image, and form the core
of initiation rites and the process of becoming a shaman.

2541

For example, as part of his initiation into manhood, and Arandan boy,
after the trauma of circumcision (which mirrors the birth trauma),
stands in the smoke of a fire, a repetition of the smoking he underwent
as soon as he was born. Similarly, many shamans, ind escribing the
experience that made them a shaman, report being swallowed or eaten by
an animal or spirit person, then being reborn. Taking on a new name at
initiation is an outward symbol of the rebirth that has occurred.

Archetypes have given rise to the eternal images in myth and religion.
These are meant to attract, convince, fascinate, overpower. They give
man an experience of the divine, while at the same time protecting him
from being completely overwhelmed. In this sense, archetypes and mythic
images are the same; they are both the gateway for this experience of
the divine. They are an image or a reflection of a god or goddess,
but are not the divine itself.

In the Greek creation myth Gaea is the archetype of the earth mother,
the image of that aspect of godhead; the image that allows us to reach
out and touch that aspect of godhead.

However the mythic image of Gaea, the archetype image from the myth, is
not actually godhead itself. Both are filters, not the actuality.
Jung sees archetypes as having psychological as well as metaphysical
significance. In our daily lives our attention is focused outwards to
deal with the world, and we lose contact with our inner world, powers in
our psyche such as creativity. Myth is a means to bring us back in touch
with these inward forces. When archetypes are activated in our lives we
have two choices: either let the archetype have its way irrespective of
other factors, or block it, producing a conflict that leads to neurosis.

Jung sees the symbols of modern psychology analogous to those of myth,
and considers that we have replaced myth by psychology. We have done so
as a result of a growing impoverishment of symbols; as our culture has
become more scientific and rational, we have analysed our cultural
mythic symbols until they have appeared to die, leaving us with a
culture that seems superficial to many.

Some individuals have coped with this by turning to the myths of other
cultures, leading to the popularity of eastern philosophy in western
culture. Others haven't coped at all, hence the increased violence,
crime, despair, suicide, and so on, of our culture. Some are developing
new modern myths, imspired by visions such as the blue-green jewel of
the earth seen from space.

Because myth is a means of regeneration for both the individual and the
group, this turning to old myths, to myths of other cultures and to new
myths coming out of our culture is seen by people such as Campbell as
the beginning of a new age, a rebirth of mankind. Whether this is so
remains to be seen.

What does this teach us about the use of myth in magic? What we often do
in Wicca is to take an old myth and apply it or adapt it in some way for
our use in ritual. Understanding the distinction between the two levels
of myth, exoteric and esoteric, aids in this adaptation. To modify a
myth for use in ritual, those as