The Astral Pilgrim

Having just finished another year of my studies I am faced with a vast sun filled (here’s hoping) void of summer that needs to be filled and boy do I intend to do just that. I plan on reading lots of fiction, something I don’t get much chance to do whilst studying, I plan on delving deeper and deeper into my photography and I also plan to get more work done on my book which is what I wanted to talk about today. Many have wondered in the past on just what my book will be about and the response is always the same, the clue is in the title – Pagan Theology. That said there have many doubts raised as to the validity of the subject with various reasons to not develop a pagan theology being cited at me and this is what I wanted to look at.

Just what is a theology, and I ask this in a that specific way – not ‘what is Theology’, but ‘what is a theology’. Theology is the science of religion – the analytical process of asking the questions beyond the believer, to ask those awkward questions and seek out an answer. So what do I mean by saying it a different way? What I am looking to do is to make pagans THINK! So many people now have become fixed in the neo-pagan writings of the last 30 years that they don’t ever stop to think, to question, to consider beyond what they have learnt and burnt in their minds. My questions asks – ‘what is a theology’ and in this case a theology is a means of clarifying shared commonalities across traditions. The goal of this is NOT to find a unified singular point to which all pagans can rally as some people have feared. I understand that part of the beauty of neo-paganism is it’s vast diversity and I am not trying to delineate that. We have to accept though that many traditions that are springing up today are eclectic offshoots of traditions which DO share common ground and my book is aimed to highlight the core of this shared ground. Gardnerian / Alexandrian Wicca, the Druid movement and even the Asatru share huge volumes of common tradition which are lacking in cohesive backing, with a practical principle to keep the tradition itself grounded. When a theology is applied to it it starts to make absolute sense, it stops being an idea, something we do without obvious reason, and changes into something that is as harmonious with ourselves as the rising and the setting of the sun. Theology is about sense, reason and it’s fusion with raging inspiration – it is not a cold scientific principle that sets out to make the divine banal.

My book is an attempt to analyse and delve deeper into areas of paganism which I believe are the very rock and foundation of what the neo-pagan movement is destined to become. these include and complete analysis of the wheel of the year, for there is so much more to it than I have read in over 30 years worth of texts. The same can be said of the elements, of geographical principles and over the nature of deity itself. There is so much that can be covered that has never been covered, or at the very best when it has been touched on it has been done in a very half hearted and inconsistent way. There are many pagan authors out there who are writing some really good material but they struggle to see it published in a way that can reach a wider audience because all the mainstream publishers (the awful Llewellyn publishing being the worst for this) often commission non pagans to write a text – now you tell me how a person such as that can write on the nature of pagan deity in a way that would do it justice? I wouldn’t expect an atheist to write a treatise on Catholicism and it be academically useful and the same can be said here.

So – a lot to do this summer! I hope you will join me here as I throw ideas, concepts and possibly some flat our heresies your way over the coming months. For those who may be interested in where I am going with some of the ideas for the wheel of the year why not come along to the Radcliffe moot on June 8th where I will be giving a talk on some of the principles of my revisions of the wheel – and there will be diagrams this time to help people along!

Lughnasadh has passed us like a swift wind through the cornfields – it came and went with much less impact on me personally than is usual and this has left me feeling a little odd. These things often occur for a reason, and that reason is not yet ready to present itself to me.

That being said when I look ahead to the impending autumn equinox I do so with a slight tinge of fear – the dark is creeping in, and not the dark caused by lack of light but the dark in the soul caused by lack of nourishment. I have spiritually sat on my laurels a little too much and by now I know just how my my mind and body deal with these situations – through doing things in extremis blowing both consequence and causality. My mind is craving intellectual sustenance and is receiving none, I have become disparate at the whole social networking element of the internet – it is a time consuming leech, the new opiate of the masses that serves nothing but to distract people from actually doing anything constructive, creative, rebellious or at all interesting.

It is a time sink, a thought sink and mental void into which the entire connected world is buying into.

Think on these little tidbits of information

Twitter is free for you and me to use
Twitter is free for developers to create applications that use it
Said Applications are free
Twitter contains no advertising
3rd party applications that connect to twitter do not use advertising

Now think of the sheer server power both twitter and the applications that use it must need.

How is it free?

Anyhow, small rant aside it is very late and I should get to bed before it gets too late to be bothering with. My mind has been feeling very erratic lately and so expect more of these more spontaneous and less planned posts for now. You never know, it may give you a little insight when all is said and done, I will certianly try to write things with at least some modicum of meaning and to not rant on too much.

That said, bye for now )

For a long time now I have pondered the thought of writing a book. I have had ideas on various works of fiction that I would like to pursue, but I have always felt that rumbling in my mind that a book on paganism was in there waiting to come out. When I have sat and thought about what I would write it became blatantly clear that I did not want to just add to the endless plethora of reiterations that can be found in every book store, in every online shop and in all honesty on every pagans bookshelf, myself included. I wanted to either write something relevant, that needed to be written, or to not bother at all.

I found I have a whole ream to write, some material just about ready to be written, some still very theory in development and a lot of what I call “astral theory” that would likely have that section 7 that hovers over me finally thrown at me. Maybe one day I will simply announce to the world I simply don’t care any more and just write it, but until then I have started this book, a retelling of the wheel of the year.

Now I can imagine what some will think, “hang on, what happened about not redoing that which has endlessly been done”

My response? I’m not.

In my opinion the wheel of the year is fundamentally flawed in so many ways it goes beyond a simple correction here or there, the wheel needs reinventing and so that is what I am currently writing, my reinvention of said wheel. A bold task? An egotistical task? Possibly, either way my belief is that is desperately needs doing and so that was motivation enough for me. This book will not be me traversing the wheel round, giving a new angle to the 8 festivals – through cultural influence and neo-cultural desperation it has been inflated, twisted, distorted and blindly accepted without question as one of the most integral basic tenets of the pagan faith, a prerequisite of unquestionable character.

I very much differ on this opinion and my book will address that in earnest. I’ll be sure to keep you posted!