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A.D.F.
and Keltria, along with
other offshoots of Neopagan Druidism, have developed in unexpected
ways, diverging from my original vision as they have grown. I
still think it worthwhile, however, to describe what that original
vision was and how it has grown in my own mind over the years.
Hence, the renaming of this essay from “The
Vision(s)” to “My Vision.” You
will still, of course, find many within the Neopagan Druid community
who would agree with most of the following, so I will retain
the plural pronouns for much of this.
What makes the Neopagan Druidism that I envision
different from other Neopagan as well as other Druidic traditions
— and how is it similar to those that have gone before?
To a great extent, both the differences and the similarities
are rooted in my vision of the past, the present, and the future.
That vision leads me to express it much of it in terms of a commitment
to achieving excellence.
Excellence in Scholarship
The Earth Mother and the other Goddesses and
Gods do not need us to tell lies on their behalf, nor can we
understand the ways of our Paleopagan predecessors by indulging
in romantic fantasies, no matter how “politically
correct” or emotionally satisfying
they might be. So we should promote no tall tales of universal
matriarchies, of Stonehenge being built by Druid magic, nor of
the ancient Druids originally having been shamanic crystal-masters
from Atlantis. We need not whitewash the occasional barbarism
of our predecessors, nor exaggerate it. We should use “real”
archeology, history and comparative mythology — by which
I mean current (within the last ten years or so) academic research
and theory which reflects the highest aspirations of honest scholarship.
We should be willing to change our opinions when new information
becomes available, or more sensible interpretations are offered,
even if to do so damages our favorite theories. This approach
is rare in the history of both Druidic revivals and the Neopagan
community, but is vital if we are to avoid the sorts of doctrinal
traps that conservative monotheisms so often fall prey to, which
force them to suppress whatever new learning contradicts their
dogmas.
Artistic Excellence
The Gods and Goddesses deserve the very best
that we can give them, so we should encourage each other to develop
our creative skills to the highest levels that each can attain.
Our bards, painters, woodcarvers, needleworkers, smiths, and
dramatists should be among the best in the Neopagan community,
and their artistic skills should be available to our liturgists,
teachers, temple builders and grove keepers.
Excellence in Leadership
Good leadership is vital for any healthy,
growing religion. To that end Neopagan Druid groups should create
leadership training programs equal in difficulty and superior
in results to anything done by the world’s other religions.
Unlike many alternate religions, we should be willing to spend
the necessary years becoming clergy, bards, diviners, teachers,
or other sorts of religious leaders. We don’t have to assume
that every member of our communities will have a genuine vocation
to a leadership role, though it’s likely that a high proportion
will for the first few decades. Instead we can expect that eventually
the vast majority of our people will be Neopagan laity, and that
there is nothing “wrong” with that status.
Spiritual Excellence for All
Nonetheless, everyone should be expected to
communicate with the Goddesses and Gods in her or his own way
— spiritual growth should never be a monopoly of those called
“leaders.” Every
lover of the Earth needs to learn how to contact the divine fire
within, how to communicate reliably with plant and animal spirits,
and how to unleash the power of magic to save the Earth.
Liturgical Excellence
Excellence in religious ritual is rooted in
these other forms of excellence. Sound scholarship (especially
historical and mythological), beautiful art, genuinely competent
clergy and bards, and people who are ready, willing, and able
to channel divine energies are all crucial to creating the powerful
religious and magical ceremonies that we and the Earth so desperately
need.
The Future of Neopaganism
I believe that Neopaganism is becoming a mainstream
religious movement, with hundreds of thousands (and perhaps
millions) of members, and that this is A Good Thing, both for
the individuals involved and for the survival of the Earth Mother.
Many people who grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s are
discovering us at about the same time that they are realizing
both the desperate state of our planet and the eternal relevance
of our youthful ideals. Younger people, even teenagers, are flooding
into our communities, eager to learn what we have to teach them,
as well as to do their own research and perhaps teach some of
us! Membership in the Neopagan community is growing at a geometric
rate, both through word of mouth and the many do-it-yourself
books now available, giving us an ever-greater impact on the
mainstream culture as a whole.
Many, if not most, of these Neopagans want
publically accessible worship, teaching, counseling, and healing.
Before 2020 c.e., I expect to see Neopagan temples and/or sacred
groves throughout North America, Europe, and Australia, many
of them staffed by full-time paid professional clergy. They’ll
provide the full range of needed services to the Neopagan community,
with no more “corruption”
than the Unitarian Universalists, the Buddhists,
or the Taoists usually experience. I foresee globally televised
Samhain rites at Stonehenge, and Beltane ceremonies attended
by thousands in every major city. Neopagan clergy will take part
as equals in international religious conferences with clergy
from other faiths. Our children will be able to wear Pagan religious
emblems to school as easily as others now wear Jewish, Christian
or Islamic ones.
I see talented and well-trained Neopagan clergy
leading hundreds of thousands of people in effective magical
and mundane actions to save endangered species, stop polluters,
and preserve wilderness. I see our healers saving thousands of
lives and our bards inspiring millions through music, video,
and drama in other media not yet invented. I see Neopaganism
as a mass movement, changing social, political, and environmental
attitudes around the world and stopping the death-mongers in
their tracks.
Small Groups versus Large?
This vision is very different from that of
most previous Neopagan traditions, as well as most previous Druidic
movements, almost all of whom have focussed on small esoteric
groups as their ideal. Those small groups will always be an essential
part of both the Druidic and the Neopagan religious communities,
operating both within and apart from larger organizations, just
as their equivalents have throughout human history. As I see
it, the future of both Neopaganism and Druidism will require
a wide variety of different group sizes, structures, and ritual
styles. To lose any of the currently existing approaches risks
impoverishing our spiritual “gene
pool.” So Neopagan Druids have no
need to “replace” other Neopagan or Druidic traditions, even though
we think that we have some unique and wonderful things to share
with the world.
If Neopagan Druids are going to have large
congregations with inclusive ceremonies and other services, how
do we integrate those people who have needs for smaller, perhaps
exclusive, groups? Imagine a Druid grove twenty years from now,
with three to four hundred people as regular attendees. Such
a grove might include several closed lunar circles (which might
consider themselves “covens”),
healing circles, bardic groups, an ecology action committee,
a scholarly group, a lodge of ceremonial magicians, artistic
and craft guilds, a liturgical committee, a grounds-keeping committee,
etc., all with overlapping membership and all joining together
for major events. They would have to work out their own etiquette,
internal membership requirements, etc., but the emphasis would
be on fellowship and cooperation, rather than on exclusivity
and competition.
Public Paganism
Such sharing requires “going
public,” something that many Neopagan
traditions have been reluctant to do, though most Druidic groups
have done so throughout their histories. Granted, it may remain
necessary for another decade or two for some Neopagans to remain
in hiding in places where hatred and fear of minority belief
systems is common. Even for those of us in publically-oriented
Neopagan groups, it will take courage and caution for some of
us to safely “come from the shadows.”
Yet if we can follow the lessons learned by the
civil rights movements of our generation, we can eventually exercise
our full freedom to practice our beliefs. Accepting and encouraging
our community’s growth while avoiding missionary fever will
be a vital tool in achieving that task.
To have publically accessible ritual, lecture,
counseling, and performance locations, Neopagan Druids will need
to have our own real estate. That means that money is going to
have to be collected, spent, and administered carefully. We need
to learn about ethical fund raising methods, safe and ethical
investment techniques, laws and procedures for buying real estate,
mortgages and loans, health and building codes, zoning laws,
and a host of other mundane details that every mainstream congregation
deals with on a regular basis. Arguing that “property
is theft,” and that “nobody can own the Earth,” may be perfectly correct politically or spiritually,
but from an economic point of view these objections simply mean
that those objecting will never have a safe, beautiful, and dependable
location in which to practice their religion. Other liberal religious
traditions, such as the Unitarian Universalists and Quakers,
manage to handle all of these annoying financial details without
betraying their ideals (many of which are the same as ours),
so why can’t we?
Professional Clergy
The U.U.’s also manage to pay their ministers
a living wage (at least in some congregations), without feeling
that they are “selling spirituality.”
If we have congregations the size that I’m
talking about, can we really expect our clergy to work part-time,
for free? Most clergy with large congregations work fifty or
more hours every week — should they also be required to
hold down secular jobs? If we do pay our priests and priestesses,
or other local leaders, how do we decide their salaries? Should
there be a standard rate in every nation or one that varies with
local economic factors? Should Druid clergy be paid a salary
equal to the average income of the other members of their congregation?
Or should congregations be able to compete for the clergy they
consider best qualified by offering higher salaries along with
other benefits? What about medical, dental, and life insurance?
Should lodging and utilities for the priest/ess and his/her family
be considered part of, or in addition to, his/her salary? All
these details must be considered and wisely decided.
Druidic Colleges
As mentioned earlier, being a professional
clergyperson requires a great deal of specialized training in
dozens of areas. Some Neopagan Druid groups may provide that
training at long-distance, using the students’ local resources,
while others might prefer a system of correspondence courses,
or one-on-one mentoring. Eventually we are going to need to set
up real Druidic (and other Neopagan) Colleges, with classrooms,
scientific labs, art studios, and all the other facilities of
a fully accredited academic institution. To get that accreditation,
we are also going to have to hire faculty with real degrees from
mainstream colleges and universities. Fortunately, we have a
lot of genuinely talented and degreed people in Neopaganism,
some of whom might be willing to take a cut in potential earnings
just for the sake of being able to participate in such an endeavor.
But they will still need a living wage, we will still need to
buy or rent real estate to house our Colleges, and all the problems
and issues I’ve mentioned in the last few paragraphs will
combine with those of academic customs and civil laws in the
locations we have in mind. Obviously, we’re looking at something
that’s still twenty years in the future, but it will soon
be time to start raising money and doing the necessary legal
and academic research.
One approach to solving our educational needs
would be to purchase old bankrupt church colleges out in rural
areas. That would give Neopagan Druids inexpensive lots that
are properly zoned, with buildings already in place (though probably
in need of repairs) to be used as classrooms, dormitories for
live-in students and faculty, church buildings that can be converted
to Druidic temples, grounds to plant sacred groves on, and office
space in which to set up group headquarters. We could gradually
phase in full-year teaching by starting out with week-long and
month-long residencies for Druids studying particular arts and
sciences. In the summer, we’d have places for festivals
and other gatherings. In short, we could put many of Neopagan
Druidism’s most important activities in a few locations.
This same approach could be used to purchase temple buildings
in towns and suburbs.
Paganizing the Mainstream by Mainstreaming Paganism
If Neopaganism is ever going to become more
than just the hobby of thousands of exclusive cliques, Neopagans
are going to have to drag it — no doubt kicking and screaming
— into the mainstream religious arena. There we can have
a hundred times the influence that we’ve had so far, and
make a pretty good effort at saving the Earth. The hard part
will be learning to separate the useful from the oppressive in
mainstream religious organizational structures and operating
procedures, avoiding tyranny and corruption
while keeping our ideals. I think it can
be done. But first we are going to have to start thinking and
talking about all the issues involved, both spiritual and mundane,
without sweeping any of them under the rug because they’re
not “politically correct”
or “spiritually evolved.”
The Earth Mother’s survival is too important
to be subordinated to ideological purity or countercultural naivete.
I believe that Neopagan Druidism has an important
role to play in the future of the Neopagan community as a whole,
and in the survival of the Earth. Already, other Neopagan traditions
are imitating Neopagan Druid training programs, our liturgical
techniques, and our emphases on the arts. If we can attract enough
people who are willing to dedicate their time, energy, and money
to achieving these goals, this vision can be manifested. We can
save the Earth Mother, create a global culture of prosperity
and freedom, and usher in a genuine “New
Age.”
Achieving such grand goals is going to require
the Neopagan community in general, and Neopagan Druids in particular,
to begin wrestling with many difficult social, political, economic,
and spiritual issues — most of which we’ve been avoiding
for the last thirty years. Becoming a Neopagan Druid means supporting
and working towards this vision and beginning the wrestling process.
Together we can do it. But we’re going to need as many co-conspirators
as possible. If this vision excites you, share it with your friends
and family. Then become part of Druidism’s future by joining
a Neopagan Druid group or by starting your own.
The rest is up to you!
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