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A publisher contacted a certain writer that I know. Would he write them a book on Wicca 101?

To his credit, he told them: There are already too many Wicca 101 books in the world. What I will write you is a book on Wicca 501.

Great, said the publisher.

So my friend sent around to friends and colleagues to ask: What would a course in Wicca 501 look like?

Well, my friend, here's my answer.

But you're not going to like it.

Wicca 501

Final Exam

 There’s a New Moon just around the corner–Monday, September 2^nd, to be exact. It interestingly falls on Labor Day, or “do not Labor Day,” as I’ve always referred to it. This will fall in line with back-to-school or continuing education for some, ushering in the start of fall for others, and the final stretch seeing us through until the end of 2024 for all. So what does all this mean, exactly?

Getting Organized with Virgo

 Well for starters, the sun has astrologically shifted to Virgo, which makes it the perfect time to get all your ducks in a row and get organized. Finish up those outstanding projects on your to-do list, for Pete’s Sake! Please note that I am saying this as much to myself, as to all of you. I’m personally making up a point to tie-up summer lingering loose ends that need some completion. I’m nearly there, and even if I don’t get everything done that I want to by Labor Day, I’m confident I’ll meet my goals by the end of the month.

Like most tribal elders, I worry about my people. Is there a future for pagans?

In a group of, say, 50 pagans, one could make a case that, arguably, there are actually 50 different religions represented. How can so fragmented (not to mention self-obsessed) a group possibly have a future together? How can we possibly achieve anything lasting?

Well, something that I heard at a workshop at Paganicon 2024 gives me hope.

Hero Tales

His great-grandfather was a drunk.

He had recently moved back to the old family farm, land in-taken by said great-grandfather. According to family tradition, the old man had liked his booze, and then some.

So at Samhain, he'd take down the treasured bottle of 40-year old Scotch from the shelf and pour a dram or two for his ancestor-in-the-land.

After a year or two of this, one Samhain night, great-grandpa himself turns up in a dream and slaps him up side the head.

“What's this shit?” he says. “I want Blatz!”

(Blatz is a local beer that could charitably be described as a “beer-drinker's beer.”)

The man who told this story on himself was a respected local elder, founder of one of our regional pagan land sanctuaries.* When he told his tale, my heart leapt up and I thought: Ye gods, maybe there's hope for us after all.

I live in Minneapolis. Our sister-city across the river is named for Christianity's (arguably) ookiest saint: Miss Paul (né Saul) of Tarsus.* Ugh.

What's a poor pagan to do?

Across the New World, in repeated acts of verbal imperialism, places bear the imposed names of foreign religions. As we move toward a post-Christian America, what do we do with these irrelevant old names?

Well, I've heard pagan Califians refer to LA as Yangna, the name of the Indigenous village in the same location. That's one approach, if such a name is available.

In this particular instance, of course, St. Paul isn't the city's real (= original, pagan) name. The city was first called Pig's Eye, and the story sounds like something out of Celtic mythology.

Now, it so happens that the guy who built the original trading post in the area one day lost his prize sow. (Her name, alas, is lost to history.) She had a tendency to wander off anyway, and was about to farrow, so her disappearance was extremely worrying.

Finally he finds the sow lying by the Mississippi with her numerous new farrow suckling greedily. (How's that for an omen?) Giddy with relief, he looks around him at the place where she's chosen to give birth.

“Hmm....” he thinks.

Welcome to Pig's Eye, boys and girls.

All of the world's big-box religions—including, be it noted, Hinduism and Buddhism—have built their houses on pagan foundations.

As we rebuild the paganisms of the future, this fact has implications.

Let us be frank: much—most—of the Old Lore has been lost forever; there's simply no way ever to recover it.

So, when it comes to the intangibles—tunes, tropes, vocabulary—I would contend that, as pagans, it's our right to take from the Dispossessors whatever we might wish.

Think of it as Reparations: the making-good of that which has been taken from us. In the old Hwicce/Witch language, this would have been called a grith-geld (as in wergeld): payment to make peace between communities.

As for the tangibles: the places, the fungibles? All in good time, my little pretty: all in good time.

If we're wise, for now, we'll draw the line at intangibles. Remember that pagans are the Original People.

If there's one thing we know, it's how to wait.

For thousands of years, since the very advent of human existence, there has been an evolving trajectory of religious history in Western societies.

The story passes from the earliest animism and ancestor worship to the rise of belief in gods, the consolidation of authoritarian power under monotheisms, and the complete domination of Western societies by Christianity. It continues through the Enlightenment, the steady gains of science shattering the cosmological monopoly of the Abrahamic monotheisms, the increasing tension between orthodoxy and individuality splintering these monotheisms into thousands of sects, and finally, most recently, to the rise of the Nones: those who describe themselves as having no religious affiliation at all, which is well established in most of the rest of the developed world and advancing quickly in the United States.

In the line of work that I do, I have many opportunities to attend trade shows and fairs, setting up my business information and a small array of books and such for purchase.  Many times, given the titles of books on display and perhaps my brochure outlining services and modalities I provide, I have found myself facing the question “Are you New Age?”  Though some of what I do and what I offer does touch on aspects that are considered New Age, it is not a tag I have felt resonated with either my personal path or work.  But the question has often caused me pause.  Stymied on how to respond, I have pondered: What is New Age exactly?  What constitutes New Age practices?  What is different about what I do?  And, if not New Age, then what am I?