Paganism is a religion of joy and celebration, a dance with the mysteries of Nature and journey of self-realisation. Paganism has its roots in the traditions of ancient Nature religions. It is a vital and living religion, an answer to the needs of those many people increasingly alienated from the natural world by the pressures of modern living. Pagans seek to commune ever more deeply with the powers of nature and to live in harmony with the rhythms and cycles of existence.

Pagans follow a nature-based spirituality and worship the Old Gods – the deities of pre-Christian times. Pagans see all life, the turning wheel of the seasons, the lives of women and men, the cycles of life and death and love, as part of the Divine. For Pagans, all of creation, both animate and inanimate, is seen as aspects of the Divine Force. Nature is sacred and should be treated with reverence and care. Pagans have a strong sense of guardianship of the earth and ecological awareness is strongly emphasized within the Pagan community.

Paganism teaches that many answers to the problem of the present lie in the forgotten wisdom of the past, but that is our understanding of the Divine is ever - unfolding. In Paganism, there is no, once and for all revelation of the right way to approach the Divine. The choice of spiritual path is one of personal preference. Since there are no ultimate revelation in Paganism, there is little dogma. Pagans believe that truth is revealed to each of us from deep within ourselves. It is found through meditation and inner reflection.

The Pagan vision of the Divine is personified as both female and male, as Goddess and God. Both are known by many names and worshipped in ways inspired by the practise of our Pagan ancestors. Most Pagans worship the Triple Goddess of the waxing, full and waning moon and the Horned God of the forests and animal powers. For many, the Goddess is seen as the fertile Earth Mother and the God as the life giving Sun Father; but whatever forms the God and Goddesses are seen to take, they are revered as aspects of one Divine power.

It should be stressed that the Horned God is not the Christian Devil or Satan. The concept of the Devil, the personification of a supreme spirit of evil, is completely alien to Pagan belief. Pagans do not believe in the Christian Devil and do not offer homage to it. Satan worship is a Judaeo-Christian hearsay and forms no part of Paganism. Paganism is characterized by its tolerance and respect for other religious paths.

The word paganism and pagan come from the Latin "paganus," meaning "country dweller." Pagans hold a reverence for the Earth and all its creatures, generally see all life as interconnected, and tend to strive to attune one's self to the manifestation of this belief as seen in the cycles of nature.

Pagans are usually polytheistic (believing in more than one god), and they usually believe in immanence, or the concept of divinity residing in all things. Many Pagans, though polytheistic, see all things as being part of one Great Mystery. The apparent contradiction of being both polytheistic and monotheistic can be resolved by seeing the God/desses as masks worn by the Great Divine. Other Pagans are simply monotheistic or polytheistic, and still others are atheistic.

Some people believe Paganism to be a religion within itself; others see it as a belief system (such as monotheism) that can be incorporated into religions like Wicca or Druidism; others see it as a broad category including many religions. The fact that we are re-creating religion for ourselves after centuries of suppression makes us very eclectic and very concerned with the "rightness" of a particular thing for the individual. So when you see some people calling it a religion and others not, when you see it capitalised in some instances and not in others, don't be confused -- we're all still basically talking about the same thing.

Pagans may be trained in particular traditions or they may follow their own inspiration. Paganism is not dogmatic. Pagans pursue their own vision of the Divine as a direct. We have selected four major Pagan traditions and have described them very briefly in the following pages. These traditions are:

Wicca (Witchcraft); Druidry; Odinism (Asatru) and the Northern Tradition; Shamanism

There are many more, but these four traditions provide a good overview of modern Pagan practice.

Most Pagans call themselves simply - Pagans. Those whose orientation is towards the Great Earth Mother and the preservation of her domain, planet Earth, may call themselves Eco-pagans. Others may define themselves as followers of a particular Pagan tradition: Wiccan, Witch, Druidry, Odinist, Shaman, Goddess-worshipper, etc. Some may call themselves pantheists; meaning that they believe the Divine is immanent or in dwelling in Nature.

People come to Paganism in many ways: through reading the myths of our ancestors; through experiencing a sense of the Divine in Nature - a feeling that spiritual forces inhabit the trees, forests, fields and hills; through an awareness that their inner response to the Divine is not to a male God but to a female deity, the Great Goddess; or through both male and female aspects; or through participating, sometimes purely by chance, in a Pagan festival.

There are no particular admission ceremonies that make people Pagans. People consider themselves Pagans if their beliefs match those of pagan thought. Particular Pagan denominations may have entry through a ceremony of dedication, profession or initiation; but people can be Pagans without any formal rite.

Paganism is not administrated by a hierarchical bureaucracy. The Pagan movement is made up of individuals and small autonomous groups linked by common traditions.

Wicca is one of the most influential traditions of modern Paganism. Also known by the name Witchcraft or the Craft, it began to emerge publicly in its modern form in the late 1940's. It is an initiatory path, a mystery tradition that guides the initiate to a deep communion with the powers of Nature and of the human psyche, leading to a spiritual transformation of the self. Women who follow this path are initiated as Priestesses and men are initiated as Priests.

Wicca does not seek converts and initiation is never offered. Initiation must be asked for and is only given to those who have proved themselves suitable. It is tradition to wait a year and a day before being accepted into the Craft, although in practice this varies.

Wiccans celebrate eight seasonal festivals called Sabbats. Wiccan rituals, like all Pagan rites, are often conducted out of doors and involve simple rites to celebrate the seasons and the gift of life. Wiccan ritual is a means of contacting the Divine beyond our individual lives, but also a way of understanding our inner psyche and contacting the Divine within.

The Wiccan Way is a path of magic and love, the movement of a deep poetry of the soul, a sharing and joining with the mysteries of Nature and the Old Gods.

Modern Shamanism is perhaps the most diverse of all the forms of Pagan practice and is less clearly defines as a tradition than other Pagan paths. Shamanic practices are an underlying aspect of all expressions of Pagan religion and there are those who would describe themselves as Wiccan, Druidic or Women's Mystery Shamans. Bearing this in mind, there are, however, a growing number of men and women who see themselves on a specifically Shamanic Those who see themselves as Shamans place great emphasis upon individual experience. Shamans may sometimes work together in groups, but the ethos of this way of working is more of a solitary path. Shamanic practice is characterized by seeking vision in solitude and is deeply rooted in the mysteries of Nature.

Shamanism is an ecstatic religion with an essential belief in the reality of the spirit world. The Shaman, through training or calling, is one who is able to enter that world and work with the unseen powers. The Shaman acts as an intermediary between the spirit world and the everyday lives of men and women.

He or she may also guide others to experience the spirit world for themselves and so deepen their spiritual lives. Through contact with the spirits, the Shaman can work acts of healing, divination, and magic - revealing by way of vision, poetry and myth the deeper reaches of the human spirit. The Shamanic practices of today ranges from those trained in the paths of traditional societies such as the Native American tribes, to those reconstructing Shamanic practice from historical accounts and from their own experience. Shamanism in its pure form, as practised in tribal society as a part of tribal religion, is less accessible than other Pagan paths, but modern reconstruction’s are growing in popularity.

The Druid branch of Paganism, largely spearheaded by Isaac Bonewits, is a reconstruction of the ancient Celtic oral tradition. Druids of old were the teachers, the Bards (musicians), the Scholars, and the travelling Priests who spread knowledge of traditional wisdom, theology, and moral philosophy throughout the Celtic lands from perhaps as early as the 5th century BCE until the 4th century CE, not to be revived again until the 16th and 17th centuries.

They were of the higher classes and stresses the mystery of poetic inspiration and explores divination, herbal medicine, ritual implementation, astronomy, the construction of calendars and music. However not all Druid orders are Pagan. Some are charitable organizations. Others follow particular esoteric teachings not necessarily sympathetic to Pagan beliefs.

Odinism is a modern revival of the pre-Christian Pagan traditions of Northern Europe. These Traditions take many forms, but are centred around two distinctive groups of divinities - the Aesir and the Vanir.

The Aesir, as described in Scandinavian myths, are sky Gods and include Odin, often seen as the High God or All-Father principle, his wife Frigga, and Thor, Tyr, and Balder, amongst others.

The Vanir are Gods of the Earth, agriculture and fertility. The best-known Vanir deities are Frey and Freya.

Today, Pagans following the Northern tradition often worship Gods from both the Vanir and Aesir, although some specialize in working with one or the other. Some Pagans practising the Northern Traditions prefer to use the word Asatru to Odinist. Asatru, meaning 'belief in the Gods' or 'loyalty to the Aesir', is a more general term and also more accurate, given that Odinists do not only worship the God Odin.

Modern practices of the Northern Tradition are rapidly evolving. It explores the mythologies of Northern Europe and the mysteries of the runes. It is a way of life embracing values of loyalty, honour, courage and good fellowship. It emphasises communing with the Divine as well as embracing the practice of magic for healing and spiritual developments. Followers of Asatru celebrate seasonal festivals and are deeply concerned with environmental issues. Until recently, the role of woman has been less well develop in Asatru than in other Pagan traditions. This should not be surprising given the strong influence of Odin, often seen as the most important of the Gods. The Predominantly male orientation is now being remedied by the work of a number of women and men taking their inspiration from the Goddess of Northern mythology and the role of women in Old Northern societies. The work of Freya Aswynn is particularly valuable and gives a clear account of the role of the Volva or Seidkona who were the Priestess-Practitioners of magic and divination in the Northern Tradition.

Followers of Asatru organize themselves into small groups and form a community of their own which interacts with other parts of the wider Pagan movement.

It is a fundamental need of the human condition that we express by way of sacred or secular ritual those moments that have greatest meaning and influence upon our lives. Like all religions, Paganism uses ritual in the celebration of its mysteries. Ritual is used to commune ever more deeply with the wisdom and love of the Old Gods and the Divine forces of Nature.

Rituals take many forms in the different expressions of Pagan tradition and are the least understood aspect of the Pagan religion. Below are described three main expressions of ritual practice employed by Pagans.

Celebrations of Nature

Paganism sees the Divine as manifest in all Nature. For Pagans, the turning pattern of the seasons is a mirror in which to see reflections of the many changing faces of the Old Gods. Pagans celebrate seasonal festivals to commune with Nature's mysteries. By way of myth, poetry and ritual drama, Pagans enact simple rituals as acts of worship and joyful celebration.

Rituals used to create magic are a means of contacting the deeper powers of consciousness and wider spiritual powers that may assist in resolving life crises or in working acts of healing. Often Pagans use their understanding of Nature to work magic for the healing of the Earth. Magic may also used for divination and as a tool for spiritual growth. All magical work is guided by a fundamental ethic that it should in no way be of harm to others. Rituals with a more magical intent will usually be held to coincide with particular phases of the Lunar cycle.

Rites of passage form an important part of the ritual practice of the Pagan religion. There are rituals for marriage, for blessing new-born children and requiem rites for those who have died. Rituals of initiation are another example of the rite of passage used by Pagans and often those who join a tradition will pass through such a ceremony. Not all Pagan tradition practice initiation, but those which do may also give further initiation to mark new stages in spiritual growth.

These three strands of ritual practice may be woven together. For Pagan, all rituals are acts of magic and celebration; rites of passage leading to ever deeper communion with the mysteries of Nature and of a Divine. Each of the Pagan tradition uses a particular symbolism and has its own preferred methods of working ritual. However, Pagans are highly creative and ritual forms are often change to reflect personal needs and a deepening understanding of the natural world. Paganism is not dogmatic and sees ritual as a means to an end and not an end to itself.

All Pagan traditions are founded upon a vision of Deity manifest in Nature. Drawing upon the traditions of our Pagan ancestors, Pagans celebrate this vision in seasonal festivals. Nature is the keystone of an understanding of the seasonal rites, which are, times of joy and celebration in deep communion with the powers of natural forces.

The turning pattern of the seasons is seen as a wheel. Each aspect of seasonal change is understood as a mystery of the Divine. As the wheel turns, so Nature reveals the many faces of the Gods. Pagans shape rituals to express what they see and feel in Nature. In doing so, they share in the mystery of the turning cycle and join more closely with the vision of their Gods. Paganism sees humanity and the seasons as part of a single whole. Paganism teaches that true, well-being for ourselves an for the world in which we live can only be achieved by understanding our relationship with nature. The rate of the Earth's resources, the devastation of the rain forest, the exploitation of the Earth's natural wealth - these to Pagans are acts of madness.

In their seasonal rites, Pagans pass on a deep vision of human life as part of the natural cycle. Pagans take delight in their vision and reach out to embrace ever more deeply that whole of which they are a part. Just as Nature is both male and female, so the seasonal celebrations describe the dance between Goddess and God throughout the Wheel of the Year. Paganism celebrates what is natural. Birth, life and death are a pattern of which all are apart. Just as great empires rise and fall, just as Spring gives way to Summer, so men and woman are born then die. So the wheel turns a dance of light and dark and of God and Goddess throughout the wheel of the seasons.

Pagans celebrate the cycles of sowing and reaping, the passage from Winter to Summer then to Summer and Autumn. Pagans learn to accept that there are times of growth, but also times of old age and death. In all things, there are wisdoms to be learnt, not just in what is bright and new: there is also deep knowledge and vision in those things old and dark.

The seasonal festivals are mysteries, yet they are so simple a child might understand. They are times when Pagans remember the cycle of life of which they are a part and touch a simple Pagan truth that humanity and the world are one - part of a whole bound of love.

The Wheel of the Year is celebrated in a myriad of forms in the different Pagan traditions. Most Pagans celebrate eight seasonal festivals each year, but are variations between traditions and between geographical regions with different climatic conditions.

It is not possible to look at all these variations, but some idea of the underlying themes celebrated during seasonal rites can be described. If we look at the cycle of eight seasonal festivals as being the most typical, then four are marked by the equinoxes and solstices while four are Celtic festivals: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine and Lughnasadh. The dates given are those for the Southern Hemisphere.

May 1st: Samhain (pronounced 'sow'in') - This is the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. It is the time when the barrier between the worlds is at its finest, the dark, silent time at the onset of Winter.

June 22nd: Yule - Winter Solstice The days cease to grow shorter and the Sun Child is reborn. It is a time for present giving, festivities and rejoicing. In our rites, we honour the Goddess as Mother and welcome her newborn son.

August 1st: Imbolc -It is a time for turning inward to clear the way for personal spiritual rebirth. The feminine principle of inner power is manifest at this time.

September 22nd: Ostara - Spring Equinox - Day and night are equal as Spring begins to quicken the environment with revived growth and newborn animals emerge to explore the world.

October 31st: Beltaine - This is the Rite of the Goddess in Her aspect as Mother of all Living. As such it is considered Her time of Greatest Beauty. This Rite is the usual period for Handfastings to be held. It is the time of melding of forces between male and female in Force as well as Form - the Festival of Spring.

December 22nd: Litha or Midsummer - Summer Solstice - In this, the longest day of the year, light and life are abundant. We focus outward, experiencing the joys of plenty, celebrating the fullness of the season.

February 2nd: Lughnasadh - This is the Ritual of the Greater Magic of the Goddess. The God of Light pays homage to the Goddess. Its time of first fruits, being the time when the very first bit of grain from the harvest season can be baked into a loaf and shared.

March 21st: Mabon - Autumn Equinox - This day sees light and dark again in equal balance, before the decent to the dark time. A harvest festival is held, thanking the Goddess for giving us enough sustenance to feed us through the winter.

Q) What kinds of people are pagans?

People from all walks of life are pagans -- computer programmers, artists, police officers, journalists, university professors – the list is endless. Many people, no matter what their mundane occupation, find solace in the life-affirming aspects of paganism.

Q) What God(s) do you believe in?

Pagans believe in a great many Goddesses and Gods. However, not all Pagans believe in the same ones, or even in any at all. Many Pagans believe in a Goddess and a God that are manifest in all things. Some follow particular pantheons (e.g. Greek, Irish, Norse, Yoruban, Welsh), others don't stick to any one culture, and still others see the Divine in more symbolic terms. Many ascribe certain qualities to different Goddesses, such as Athena as the Goddess of wisdom; Aphrodite as the Goddess of love; Artemis as the Goddess of the hunt, so on. Many Pagans see the Goddess in three aspects, those of Maiden, Mother and Crone; and the God in two, the Young God and the Old God.

Other pagans do not believe in any gods at all, but instead honor spirits and/or totems in various forms such as animals or trees, as in many of the native American religions. As is usually the case, defining "God" is a very slippery idea. But these are some of the more common among modern Pagans.

Q) How does one/do I become a Pagan?

Most followers of Pagan beliefs feel that, if someone is meant to find the Pagan path, s/he will eventually. Usually, it is not a case so much of "becoming" a Pagan as it is of finding a vocabulary for ideas and beliefs that you have always held. Good ways of investigating if this path is for you are to frequent Pagan or New Age bookstores, attend open Pagan gatherings when the opportunity arises, and look for contacts. Most importantly, read read read!

There are plenty of good books out there and most can be ordered.

Q) What one thing would most Pagans probably want the world to know about them?

The answer included here comes from Margot Adler's excellent book _Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America Today_ (the revised edition). If after reading this info-pack, you want to learn even more about modern Paganism, we highly recommend this book.

"We are not evil. We don't harm or seduce people. We are not dangerous. We are ordinary people like you. We have families, jobs, hopes, and dreams. We are not a cult. This religion is not a joke. We are not what you think we are from looking at T.V. We are real. We laugh, we cry. We are serious. We have a sense of humor. You don't have to be afraid of us. We don't want to convert you. And please don't try to convert us. Just give us the same right we give you – to live in peace. We are much more similar to you than you think"

Q) What do you feel most Pagans have in common regardless their tradition?

We're all children of the same Mother. Most of us work in a Circle, call upon the four directions as Elemental Spirits Beings, and celebrate a seasonal round (the Wheel of the Year) of eight main Festivals (Sabbats), aligned with the Solstices, Equinoxes and cross Quarters. We also tend to celebrate at the full Moon, and we're not afraid of the dark! Most of us regard Divinity as immanent ("Thou Art God/dess") and our theology tends towards polytheistic pantheism. We honor and value women as Priestesses (only Pagan religions have Priestesses!). We draw our values from nature, we regard life as sacred, and we believe in and practice Magic (probability enhancement). We regard sex as a Sacrament, and rape in all forms as the primal "sin." We are a part of a seamless whole with all of Nature, and we believe in a living cosmos, as opposed to the inanimate clockwork of the Christian worldview. We are brought together by our innate longing for tribal community; reverence for all life; celebration of diversity; intellectual curiosity and honesty; magic; feminism, environmentalism; recognition of non-human sentience; good stories; great parties; much love; noble friends and worthy companions; splendid rituals; wondrous festivals; magnificent Priests and Priestesses.

Q) What is the distinction between Pagan "magickal" and "religious" practices?

It is impossible to separate out the magickal from the religious, as it all seems a continuum. Magickal practices run the gamut from simple "Kitchen Witch" spells and charms -- mostly concerned with individual healings, blessings, transformations, and other small workings; through "Circle Work" involving raising energy for healings, community service, weather working, etc.; to larger group workings to save the planet, --protecting endangered forests, peoples and species, etc.

The religious aspects include maintaining households altars and shrines (in a Pagan household, every horizontal space becomes an altar, just as every wall becomes a bookcase!), meditations, conversations with the Gods, to rituals and celebrations, especially those of the greater Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. These latter often include great theatrical productions, with sets, costumes, props and music, wherein people take on the personas of the Gods, Elementals, and other Archetypal Beings. Much of our Festivals include the revival of various ancient traditional customs and rites, such as the May Games, May Queen and King, Maypole Dance, Morris Dancing, Mummers Plays, Ostara Egg Hunt, Yule Tree & Log, and acted-out storytelling. These is a lot of political Paganism, especially in the area of environmental activism, as with Earth First!. This involves going out into the wilderness, holding circles in sacred groves, and perhaps chaining ourselves to trees to thwart the logger; or blockading a nuclear power plants with circles and chants.

Q) Are Pagans Witches?

Wicca or Witchcraft is but one of the many different paths of Paganism. So Most Witches are Pagans, but not all Pagans are Witches.

Q) What advice would you give to newcomers?

Cherish diversity! Find fascination in the strange and unusual. Live passionately. Explore everything, especially things forbidden. Read voraciously. Grow a garden. Establish and maintain altars in your home. Go camping and hiking in the wilderness. Work on yourself. The great strength of our evolving community is the love and dedication of Her people, as She calls forth from each of us our best and highest service. This service can unite us all, children of the same Mother, that we might finally find our long-elusive unity through diversity!

Q) What do you see as Paganism's role in modern society?

To heal the alienation between humanity and Nature, between man and woman, between spirit and matter, between the Darkness and the Light. Thus shall we save the Earth, and ourselves as well. This is, after all, what religion is supposed to do, isn't it?

Q) What do you see as the most important issues facing Paganism in the coming years?

How to deal with an increasing public awareness of our existence: will we be hailed as a viable alternative to the crumbling madness, or perceived as a threat? How to come together in a worldwide religious community with power and influence. How to handle our inevitable success: we have been so used to being outsiders and underdogs that we will have to undergo a major attitude change as our basic paradigms become more mainstream.

Q) Why must you create another religion?

Pagan religions, unlike philosophical religions, are not exactly "created," but swell up from the hearts of a people to fulfill a need. Paganism is re-emerging today because natural religion is a spontaneous evocation of the spirit of Life, and will inevitably find expression in human cultures. The practices of the ancient Pagans occurred during a different era in culture, when we lived closer to the land and were more directly connected with farming. Much of what was practiced has been lost, due to the persecutions from the onset of the Bronze Age, through the Inquisition and Witch burnings, to the present day. Therefore, we cannot accurately say we practice ancient Paganism, but a form we are "remembering and re-inventing".

Q)What's different about Paganism?

Paganism may be the first religion to draw as much of its inspiration from the future as from the past, embracing science fiction as mythology with the same enthusiasm as we embrace the classical embracing science fiction as mythology with the same enthusiasm as we embrace the classical myths of ancient times. We are future-oriented, meaning we care about how we evolve and change, not only about how we got here and how we will come to an end. We embrace evolution, and in embracing the planet as a living organism, we embrace the evolutionary changes of the planet by bringing human consciousness into direct contact with the growing web of planetary consciousness through such things as the worldwide computer Internet. Unlike nearly all other religions, we are not focused on nostalgia for a Paradise Lost; we are actively involved in helping to save the present world as well as working to actualize a visionary future.

With roots deep in the Earth, and branches reaching towards the stars, we evoke and create myths not of a Golden Age long past, but of one yet to come.

SUGGESTED READING

1. Drawing down the Moon - Margot Adler
2. The Truth about Neopaganism - Anodea Judith
3. Phoenix from the Flame - Vivianne Crowley
4. Fundamentals of Paganism - Vivianne Crowley
5. Spiral Dance - Starhawk
6. The Pagan Path - Janet & Stewart Farrar

For a modern history of English Wicca, the reader can most profitably consult the works of Janet and Stuart Farrar and Doreen Valiente.

Up until recently, the earliest known remnants of human society that give us any clues to the spiritual dimension of prehistoric man are those belonging to the Gravettian-Aurignacian cultures of 2500- 1500 B.C.E. This is called the Upper Paleolithic Period. Though most of the sites so far discovered have been found in Europe, a very important site in Anatolia (modern Turkey) has also been found and is the (so far) the first or oldest City of Catal Huyuk (pronounced chatal Hoo-Yook),they form a conjectural foundation for the religion of the goddess as it emerged in the later Neolithic Age of the Near East. There have been numerous studies of these Paleolithic cultures, including extensive explorations of the sites occupied by these peoples, including the apparent rites connected with the disposal of their dead.

The earliest remains of ancient civilisation indicating some form of Goddess worship were in the caves in Lascaux, France. Here, the first and earliest non-anthropomorphic divine figures were symbolised by the horse for female Divinity and the Bison as the male divine influence. This portion of the cave was painted in approximately 17,000 B.C.E. and sealed approximately 10,000 B.C.E. The anthropomorphic Goddess figures appear sometime approximately 7,000 B.C.E. The earliest remains in Catal Huyuk have been reliably carbon dated to 6,500 B.C. and show some interesting parallels in that the horse was replaced with an anthropomorphic goddess and the Bison (an ice age animal) has been replaced with the aurochs bull, ancestor of modern cattle. The anthropomorphic Goddess is an Earth Mother and the nearby volcanoes (then active) were considered her breasts. One major conjecture has been that the concept of the creator of all human life may have been formulated by the clan's image of women.

The reasoning behind this conjecture lies in the observations in this century of the few remaining Paleolithic type cultures. These Paleolithic cultures tend to be woman entered since it is from the women that babies come and the women are absolutely essential for the continuation of the tribe or clan.

Current information also indicates that it is also probable that the mother was regarded as the sole (or at least primary) parent of children in this culture, and that there was a definite pattern of ancestor worship. It is also very probable that ancestry was atrilineal.

The most tangible evidence that these very ancient cultures and their predecessors worshipped a goddess is the numerous sculptures of women found throughout most of Europe and the Near east. Some of these sculptures date as far back as 25,000 B.C.E.! Small female figurines, made of stone, bone and clay (most seemingly pregnant) have been found throughout the widespread Gravettian-Aurignacian sites as far apart as Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia spanning an apparent period of at l east 10,000 years. Erich Neumnann, in "The Great Mother" (p.95) says- "Of the Stone Age sculptures known to us, there are fifty-five female figures and only five male figures.

The male figures, of youths, are atypical and poorly executed, hence it is certain that they had no significance for the cult. This fits in with the secondary character of the male god head, who appeared only later in the history of religions and derived his divine rank from his mother, the Goddess."

Johannes Maringer, in his book the "Gods of Prehistoric Man" says- "it appears highly probable then that the female figurines were idols of a Great Mother cult, practiced by the non-nomadic Aurignacian mammoth hunters who inhabited the immense Eurasian territories that extended from Southern France to Lake Baikal in Siberia." It was from the Lake Baikal area in Siberia that tribes are believed to have migrated across the Bering land bridge to North America about this time period, and formed the nucleus of what was to become the race of North American Indians. In some primitive societies known to history, the male role in procreation was not known.

Intercourse and pregnancy both begin with puberty, and there was no evident reason to regard one as the cause of the other. Women were believed to conceive from the light of the moon or from ancestral spirits. Neolithic cultures have left a bit more evidence for study and the images are a bit clearer and less speculative. One good instance of this is the stone age painting of a priestess officiating over a group of worshippers along with a male wearing a horned headdress. An interesting point here is that the priestess pictured is wearing a garter and wielding a ceremonial dagger, much like the ones used in modern witchcraft.

The beginnings of Roman religion are sure to have been based on the Etruscan culture. Ancestor worship was the earliest form of religion in Rome. Another interesting fact relating to ancient Matrilineal forms influencing present society is reflected in the Jewish custom current today that membership comes from the mother's side of a marriage.

The above mentioned goddess images, some as old as 7000 BC, offer silent testimony to the most ancient worship of a great goddess in the land that is most often remembered today as the homeland of Judaism and Christianity. In exploring the influence and importance of the worship of the Goddess in Canaan in biblical times, we find that as Ashtoreth, Asherah (perhaps the origin of the tribe of Asher?), Astarte, Attoret, Anath, or simply as Elat or Baalat, she was the principal deity of such great Canaanite cities as Tyre, Sidon, Ascalon, Beth Anath, Aphaca, Byblos, and Ashtoreth Karnaim.

In Egypt, the Hebrews had known the worship of the Goddess as Isis or Hathor. For four generations they had been living in a land where women held a very high status and the matrilineal descent system continued to function at most periods.

Judging from the number of Hebrews who emerged from Egypt in the Exodus, as compared with the family of the twelve sons who supposedly entered it four generations earlier, it seems likely that a great number of those Hebrews known as Israelites may actually have been Egyptians, Canaanites, Semitic nomads and other Goddess-worshipping peoples who had joined together in Egypt. Archaeological records and artifacts reveal that the religion of the Goddess still flourished in many of the cities of Canaan long after the Hebrews invaded.

What are some of the modern day applications of this long history of Goddess worship? For an answer to this, let's look at an encapsulation of the "her story" of the legend of the Universal Goddess as taught to the new entrants to the Faerie Traditio n in 20th Century America. According to the legends of the Faerie, Witchcraft and magick began more than 35 thousand years ago, when the last ice age in Europe began and small bands of nomadic hunters followed the free-running reindeer and bison herds. They were armed with bu t primitive weapons ( Stone Age, remember?), and had to lure or chase the animals over a cliff or into a pit to kill and eat them. As Starhawk says,"...some among the clans were gifted, could "call" the herds to a cliff side or a pit, where a few beasts, in willing sacrifice, would let themselves be trapped."

As the last ice age retreated the tribes of nomadic hunters worshipped the Goddess of the Wild Things and Fertility and the God of the Hunt. Semi-permanent homes were set up in caves carved out by the glaciers. Shamans and Shamanka conducted rites wi thin hard to reach portions of the caves, which were painted with scenes of the hunt, magical Symbols and the tribes totem animals.

The transition from Hunter-Gatherers to agriculturists was reflected in the change of the "Lady of the Wild Things and Fertility" to the "Barley Mother" and the "God of the Hunt" to the "Lord of the Grain". The importance of the phases of the moon a nd the sun was reflected in the rituals that evolved around sowing, reaping, and letting out to pasture.

Villages grew into towns and cities and society changed from tribal to communal to urban. Paintings on the plastered walls of shrines depicted the Goddess giving birth to the Divine Child - Her son, consort and seed. The Divine Child was expected t o take a special interest in the city dwellers, just as His Mother and Father had taken an interest in the people who lived away from the cities.

Mathematics, astronomy, poetry, music, medicine, and the understanding of the workings of the human mind, developed side by side with the lore of the deeper mysteries.

Far to the east, nomadic tribes devoted themselves to the arts of war and conquest. Wave after wave of invasion swept over Europe from the Bronze Age onward. Warrior gods drove the Goddess' people out from the fertile lowlands and the fine temples , into the hills and high mountains, where they became known as the Sidhe, the Picts or Pixies, and the Fair Folk or the Fairies.

The mythological cycle of Goddess and Consort, Mother and Child, which had held sway for 30,000 years was changed to conform to the values of the conquering patriarchies.

In Canaan, Yahweh fought a bloody battle to ensure that his followers had "no other gods before me." The Goddess was given a masculine name and assigned the role of a false god. Along with the suppression of the Goddess, women lost most of the rights they had previously enjoyed.

In Greece, the Goddess in Her many aspects, was "married" to the new gods resulting in the Olympic Pantheon. The Titans, who the Olympians displaced were more in touch with the primal aspects of the Goddess.

The victorious Celts in Gaul and the British Isles, adopted many features of the Old Religion and incorporated them into the Druidic Mysteries. The Faerie, breeding cattle in the stony hills and living in turf-covered round huts preserved the Craft. They celebrated the eight feasts of the Wheel of the Year with wild processions on horseback, singing and chanting along the way and lighting ritual bonfires on the mountaintops. It was said that the invaders often joined in the revels and many rural families, along with some royalty, could claim to have Faerie blood. The College of the Druids and the Poetic Colleges of Ireland and Wales were said to have preserved many of the old mysteries. ***

In the late 1400's the Catholic Church attempted to obliterate its competitors, and the followers of the Old Religion were forced to "go underground." They broke up into small groups called Covens and, isolated from each other, formed what would later be known as the Family Traditions. Inevitably, parts of the Craft were forgotten or lost and what survives today is fragmentary.

After nearly five centuries of persecution and terror, came the Age of Disbelief. Memory of the True Craft had faded as members who could remember how they once had met openly died, and those who came after never knew of them. All that was left we re the hideous stereotypes which were ludicrous, laughable or just plain tragic.

With the repeal of the last Witchcraft Act in England in 1954, the Craft started to re-emerge as an alternative to a world that viewed the planet as a resource to be exploited.

Janet and Stewart Farrar, in the introduction to The Witches Goddess say of the modern re-emergence of the Goddess " ..may well prove to be one of the most significant spiritual, psychic and psychological developments of our lifetime". They have since done a wonderful job of presenting an overview of the ascendancy and history of the expression of the masculine principle of deity as expressed by Male God-forms and Gods with their book The Witches' God. What do the Farrars consider this "masculine principle" to be? "...it represents the linear-logical, analyzing, fertilizing aspect, with its emphasis on Ego-consciousness and individuality, while the feminine principle represents the cyclical-intuitive, synthesizing, formative, nourishing aspect, with its emphasis on the riches of the unconscious, both Personal and Collective, and on relatedness."

As mankind started to develop his cultures in directions that were more male dependent in the nature of the cultures, the emphasis in religion shifted to become more male god than female goddess oriented. As this happened, the Goddess(es) lost ground to the God(s). At first, the female aspect merely became secondary to the male, but eventually the male took over and dominated to the total exclusion of the female, particularly in western society as we know it today. "The first major god-form to claim a monopoly of divinity was the Hebrew Yahweh, from which in due course sprang the Christian and Moslem forms." "Dr. Raphael Patai, in his books Man and Temple and The Hebrew Goddess shows that the Goddess Asherah was worshipped alongside Yahweh as his wife and sister in the Temple at Jerusalem for 240 of the 360 years the temple complex existed, and her image was publicly displayed there." There is also evidence that the Jewish community at elephantine in egypt acknowledged two goddess-wives of Yahweh, and also there still remains in Ezekiel (xxiii)a metaphorical reference to a pair of wives, where Yahweh condemns the "whoredom" of two sisters who "became mine and bore me sons and daughters".

In order the understand the nature of the All-Mother, we must first understand our own origins. Each of began our individual life as a single, fertilised cell or zygote. In the process of its innumerable divisions and multiplication’s, 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 w hen 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. But we know them to be in fact minute components of the far vaster living beings that we ourselves are. Over four 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 re-divided 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 fission’s 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 beat the pulse of Her blood. That 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 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 ...... Out of man and woman......and wild-beast and bird....... Before God was, I am" ...These three streams of spirituality -- Deep Ecology, Goddess Spirituality, and Neo-Paganism--have met and mingled with Native American, Hawaiian and other ancient spiritual teachings and fused somewhat with the more nebulous New Age Movement. What is struggling to be born from their blending of pathways is a truly planetary religious metaphor, that will transcend all the traditions- 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 1960's and 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 -Gaea, Herself; Mother Earth. It is said that it is a wise child that knows it's own Mother! A brief digression on etymology here: Who is Gaea, that we would name a movement after Her? The name Gaea 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, Gaea gave birth to all the plants, animals, gods and goddesses and of course the human race. So Gaea 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 or 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. Gaea 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 Gaean. A Gaean movement would be deeply committed to communication and education. Many tribal people and many of the old nature-based fold 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 of their tribes. Others have realized the need to become more eclectic if they are to survive. The Gaean 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 Gaean renaissance are inertia and apathy...the watchwords of the 70's and 80's. 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 nought, Unless 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. " 

BLESSED BE.