Stranger Than Fiction

Society in the west has become secure in the comforts of logic and reason, secure that they've overcome the supposed darkness and superstition of the distant past. Where churches once salved the frightened minds of people facing the uncertainties of an older world, science today creates brilliant modern myths that allow people to remain safely distant from themselves and from some of the most important questions we should be asking. Our true heritage is not a simple matter, and it's far beyond belief or reason- no simple religious myth suffices to explain the emergence of humankind, nor any scientific theory. What we really are defies explanation, because what we really are is even stranger than the fictions we have invented to give our imagination flight.

Mankind and his societies are parts of a natural and perpetual whole that contains all of the mystical or extraordinary power that we've ever accorded to a "God" or to any other such explanation. Ancient peoples had a deeper understanding of this world, understanding it in many ways that our sciences have not begun to match- and the fund of their common wisdom has passed into the things we call "myth" and "folklore" today. Those same myths and folktales often contain keys to important realizations that can show us a way through the modern materialistic daze that imprisons us and leaves us feeling disatisfied with our lives.

The World Through Eyes of Fire

 Alongside our "ordinary" materialism, an even more subtle and ominous threat exists- spiritual materialism. For too long we've had the deepest mysteries of the universe chopped up and fed to us in the most shallow terms, wrapped in promises of eternal youth, happiness, and materialistic gain in the sky. We've been seduced with promises of "conditional eternity" in exchange for unquestioning obedience to churches and religions who themselves were born from the strange and violent myths of foreign peoples- peoples whose cultural values and ideas of "wisdom" and "right living" were quite distant from our own ancestral cultural ways.

To think that one tiny group of people on the planet "got the right God" and everyone else "got it wrong" is the most absurd story anyone has ever told. And this "we are the elect" story- and the other stories that spun off it- is the true root of human suffering. Those who see with eyes of fire see clearer: we are all equal and necessary within the great web of powers that is our true parent and origin. We all belong here.

Instead of helping us to understand the truth about ourselves or this world, "religion" in the West has helped people to get attached to new objects of greed and desire- in most cases, their "mansions in the sky"- and it has conditioned people to become fearful and fanatical, unwilling to extend basic dignified treatment and tolerance to others who are different. It has tainted us with a myth of "human exceptionalism"- a devastating myth of elitism that has led to terrible ends for this world. It also lends itself quickly to myths of "cultural exceptionalism" and "religious exceptionalism", both of which lead to war, genocide, tyranny, and stupidity beyond measure.

All of these forlorn paths that we have wandered- leaving us lost in the wilderness, quite unable to see basic sanity or real morality- have finally come to their natural time of fading. The people of the West, along with people from other parts of the world, are beginning to understand that the wisdom and stories of their traditional cultures were things to be treasured, not to be thrown away in favor of the myths and stories of other people.

Every society in the past originally had a consciousness of both the natural sacredness of this world and the presence of the unseen world, and a larger awareness of the fullness of things. Certain men and women in those societies- including ancient European societies- had the ability to "see" the world with different eyes than other people, and they were able to mediate to their fellow man a greater vision for what it meant to live in this world and to be a human being. And anyone with enough courage or wisdom could share in their vision.

From the words of these original sorcerers and mystics, great tales of Gods and spirits arose, tales of heroes and journeys to other worlds, all containing enormous wisdom that is still largely relevant to people today. Sadly, most write it all off as the 'foolishness of ancient people' who were bereft of our luxurious modern technologies and our "privileged" religious revelations. From the activities of these earlier wise people- their ways of dealing with spirits and even doing extraordinary things that we remember now as "magic"- deep and familiar patterns of religion and ritual sprang up that are still with us today, in many surprising ways. As expected, mainstream religions refuse to see the truth of the origin of so many of their beliefs and practices in earlier times. The original power of what cultural treasures they managed to preserve is all but lost in their oceans of denial. This situation, however, is now beginning to change.

The Witching Way

 These ancient sorcerers and people of vision were not just ignorant savages from our dark past- they were the people who laid the inner hidden foundation for our present society. They gave names to our dreams and fears, and names to our fantasies. They spoke the language of the soul. Many modern people around the world, whose traditional cultures have not been destroyed in the name of financial exploitation and monotheism, still have such men and women, people who are masters of consciously entering unseen worlds and mediating tangible powers for healing and insight to others.

Some are certainly crazy- by mainstream western social standards- and others can be dangerous to the stability of mind that "ordinary folk" tenuously grasp every day of their lives. But all of these strange people embody the needful wildness that always accompanies the human attempt to build order. They are the messengers of one world to another, the people who straddle the boundaries between all that is seen and predictable, and unseen and chaotic. They are guides to the strange territories that most people only ever get to see after they die.

Throughout history, witches and sorcerers- like any human beings- have been given to the same flaws and failures that we know mankind is sometimes prone to; not always was their art or craft about lofty goals, but also sometimes about survival, power, or greed. But the fact that these sorts of people exist at all shows a capacity in man that most people don't want to believe is there- and which some don't want other people knowing about.

The eye of history has turned back on us, as we look for our own origins. Now the once-maligned sorcery of Europe- long ago sunk far beneath the surface of society, hidden here and there in secret groups of brave people or in the bedrock of folklore- is beginning to re-emerge and take its place among the many good and powerful expressions of human spiritual questing. Folklore's ghosts have come to life again- and the world once reserved for campfire stories and fairy tales is being re-discovered as a living part of this world.

The Hidden World

 When a person realizes the true vastness of things, and the unfathomable web of powers that stands behind all people, beings, and events, that person has a deep taste of the truth about our lives. The "creatures of myth" that populate our ancient and modern stories are not idle fantasies; they are expressions of an ancient truth- that more orders of sentient life exist than we have ever imagined. The spirit-world- one of the many names given to extra-sensory reality- is populated by throngs of strange forms of life and sentient beings. We men and women are one expression of life among many, citizens in a strange community that extends into our dreams and beyond. It extends into the forests and hills and city streets of our everyday world.

All societies in the past- including those of our own ancestors- were familiar with these strange realities. They knew that the unseen world, like our own, had the same sort of diversity and wonders, the same sorts of dangers and promises. Some of the spiritual powers therein were wiser and more intelligent than the sharpest humans. Some were honored as Gods of old, and others feared. Whatever the ancients thought, they uncovered certain basic rules and principles governing interaction between the worlds- the very same "rules" that modern sorcerers seek to utilize in their own explorations of our amazing world. Those "rules" have come down to us in many ways, some heavily adulterated with the symbols and perspectives of Christian and Jewish ceremonialism; others have come down in a more pure and powerful manner.

It is wisdom to know what is there, and interact well. It is wisdom to know who we are, and live as our true natures require. It is the hope of this world, with all its modern problems born in feelings of alienation and ignorance of the larger picture in which we are painted, that we will reclaim the older ways of seeing and use them in our lives today to create the greatest "magic" of all: the magic that will guide us to wholeness and peace with ourselves.

From The Shadows

 In the West, our sorcerers- the witches of legend- were historically condemned as servants of "devils" and either murdered or silenced in other ways; entire cultures that believed in the benevolence of the spiritual presence of ancestors, ancestral Gods, and the spirits of nature itself were destroyed- and with them, wiser, better ways of seeing the world were all but extinguished. However, now that the ages of conquest and darkness are over, retrospective vision- and the freedom we now have to safely look with eyes not shuttered by fear and censorship- has shown that the true story of human spirituality (and humankind itself) is very different from what we have been taught to expect. Our ancestors weren't misguided; they knew how to live in this world, and they were free of the harmful modern myths taught to us as "unquestionable truths".

And now, our own once-forbidden sorceries- long ago sunk far beneath the surface of society, hidden here and there in secret groups of brave people or in the bedrock of folklore- are beginning to re-emerge and take their place among the many good and powerful expressions of human spiritual questing.

The "Witch" of European history has come a long way, from healer and wise-person, to servant of demons, and finally to a marginalized cultural agent of spiritual and metaphysical exploration and uncommon forms of power-mediation. The "hidden folk" of the spirit world have gone from nature spirits to "demons" and finally to obscure inhabitants of the inner dimension of a world- our world- that is no longer seen as "fallen" or "evil", but naturally mysterious. The making of charms, potions, and talismans are all crafts that are still with us; they've been with us all the time, actually, just heavily altered and controlled- but now, even the inner sides of those arts are being rediscovered. The lid is off the cauldron, truly, and the character of this age will never be the same again.

From Holiness to Wholeness

 To "be whole" as a person, to feel perfectly at home in this sacred and beautiful world and to live in harmony with the many powers seen and unseen that surround us, is the greatest blessing of the Old Ways. To be whole is to be holy. Those who follow the path of the sorcerer or witch- the path of exploring and utilizing non-ordinary states of consciousness that reveal new and deeper perspectives on life- and those who follow the Old Ways (the animistic religion of spirits and nature-veneration) find a great source of holiness within the rites and ancient stories of either path. While most people have their own modern understandings of what "holiness" is, a short study of the word's origins reveals much.

The pre-Christian meaning of the word "holy" is not easy to determine, but it was probably "that which must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated". It was connected with the Old English hal (implying health) and the Old High German heil which meant "health, happiness, good luck". The word "holy" as we know it now derives from Old English halig which means "holy" and was adopted during the times of conversion to be equivalent to the Latin word sanctus.

The goal of any wise person is to discover holiness in the world and in the self, and to live in "wholeness"- which means, on one level, to be happy, healthy, and blessed by good luck- but also to experience oneself as a part of a whole- the sacred whole that we call this world. Such an experience breathes new hope and power into the lives of people who for so long have felt "cut off" and afraid of the uncertainties of modern life. This sort of health is the true goal of all healing, on any level.

The Memory of the Land

 The nature of the Land itself is the root and source of the mysteries that gave rise to the most ancient human mysticism and sorcery, and has always been so, in every era of history. Across cultures, everywhere in Europe (and the rest of the world) indigenous peoples held their land in sacred reverence, and it embodied for them the body of the divine power that gave their people food, life, and nurture. The Land, for the ancient peoples of Europe, was the body of a Sovereign divine being, the Mother of the people, and it is still experienced in this manner for those who live the reconstructed and regenerated ways of the various Indo-European peoples.

The Land is a sacred reality, a powerful conglomeration of spiritual powers which guard and protect natural locations, and which mediate the life-giving power of the fertile ground to humans and animals that rely on it. It is the body of a spiritual presence that is rightly called a "Goddess", the first Mother of humankind and all other living creatures, and a positive, respectful relationship is needed with her if any human culture is to thrive and be whole. The pre-Christian Germanic peoples worshipped the Goddess Earth under the ancient name Nerthus- our origin of the word "earth"- and held her in great awe and respect.

The Land's spiritual dimension cannot be separated from it's material existence; furthermore, the Land has a memory, a memory of all ages that have passed. Ancient peoples knew that the dead came to rest in the inner reality of the Land, where they were able to contact their living kin through certain holy places. Through the body of the Land, a perpetual intercourse with the unseen world was and is possible. These simple and ancient truths are still available to men and women today, and they can help us to live better lives, and find a deeper identity for ourselves that is tied to the Land we live on, and our ancestral cultures.