How Have I Offended Thee, Let Me Count the Ways

When I was a young man there wasn’t the plethora of books on magic and the occult and there wasn’t the internet to search for topics or contact other like-minded individuals like there is today. There were libraries that had little or no books or information about the topics that I wanted to know about. Some of the more popular occult books in the library were stolen or lost and seldom replaced. The few occult bookstores that existed were stocked with either prohibitively expensive books or cheap or almost useless paperbacks. As a youth with limited resources, I was left for the most part to the ministrations of my limitless imagination, and in the early years it functioned in an almost unbounded manner.

What I had to do in order to practice the art of magic was cobble together the various bits and pieces that I found in the sparse book sources available to me and fill in the gaps with a great deal of imagination. In those beginning years my magical system was more imagination than actual magical facts, and its effectiveness suffered accordingly. Over time, as I acquired more information, most notably from the Golden Dawn and Crowley’s writings, I was able to assemble together a very workable system of magic that was quite effective and worked for me. It was very individualistic and personalized, but it did allow me to begin to explore the magical world as I understood it.

I had very few teachers at that time, and except for a four-year stint in the coven from hell, I didn’t belong to any traditional groups or orders. I was, for the most part, self-taught and self-directed. By the mid 1980's I had developed a system of magic that was capable of achieving a full invocation or evocation of a demigod or spirit, although the mechanisms were cumbersome and laborious. I had managed to bring together the energy and spirit models of magic, adding some elements of the psychological and informational models as well, to produce a magical system that I considered unique at the time.

A few years later I was asked by some friends to write up the operant rituals for a magical order based off of the personal magical system that I had already developed. This new magical system was like the old one except all of the personalized and idiosyncratic elements were replaced with the elements and themes that the group as a whole had agreed to. I continued to work on this new depersonalized system of magic and pushed it to a number of directions that I though prudent, although I did receive the affirmation and buy-in from the members of my group. When the magical temple group dissolved I continued to develop this system of magic and it’s what I use today.

Because I had started my magical avocation in a time of limited resources, I had gotten into the habit a long time ago of appropriating lore and techniques from other magical traditions to build up my own magical system. Of course, if someone asked me where I got this or that particular technique or lore I would tell them instead of pretending that I had invented it myself. There were plenty of elements of this magical system that I had invented, but I never tried to take credit for something that I didn’t invent myself. I was happy to appropriate techniques and lore from other traditions, but I didn’t feel the need to lie about it. I just naively assumed that what I was doing was natural for anyone who practiced magic. I believed that we were all, more or less, thieving magpies when it came to the cool stuff that we encountered in our studies. 

My course work and study path was also motivated by what I might be able to appropriate and make usable in my own system of magic. What I didn’t know at the time is that there were quite a number of people who were devoted to their external traditions of occultism and magic, and who would take a very dim view of anyone who appropriated their lore to pad their own personal system of magic. I was truly innocent and I felt that most of this lore was antique, part of the common domain (if it was published or publicly posted), and available for me to use or not as I wished. Since I was generous with my knowledge, to a point, I felt that everyone else would be as well. I gave copies of my ritual lore to friends and associates and never thought that this material was my exclusive property nor part of some traditional edifice that I had to protect.

Extracting lore and magical techniques and ritual structures from the Golden Dawn didn’t earn me any criticism or demerits from the members of that tradition because back in the 1970's there wasn’t really any official Golden Dawn order that was functioning. Regardie had published the rituals and initiations of the Golden Dawn decades ago and I happily pillaged that lore to figure out how magic really worked and how I could develop and produce my own rituals. Later on, what I developed was far enough removed from the Golden Dawn that there were only some remote similarities to that lore and my own. I certainly deviated from that tradition when I adopted the septagram as my emblem for planetary magic. I was also developing a system of magic that had as its foundation the magical practices and methodologies of witchcraft, so I was following a path that was contrary to the one of ceremonial magick and unique to my own situation.

During my early years I had been exposed to the Protestant Christian church in the Midwest, and I recall that it was a church devoid of magic and supernatural emanations. The liturgy was dull, monotonous, and had little or no artistry. It had wonderful music, but it was only the gigantic pipe organ and the trained choir that elicited any kind of artistic appreciation from me. The congregation sang hymns together (some loudly out of tune) and the pastor monotonously preached his meaningless and banal sermon. The whole religious travesty lasted around an hour or two, grinding through a predictable schedule of events, depending on if there was a special religious holiday (and there were few of those) or if it was just another boring Sunday like all the others. Because I was a kid with a very over-active imagination, my church experience was as bland, dismal and forgettable as any other enforced activity. It is no wonder that I abandoned the church as soon as I was old enough to do so. I sought out other forms of religious experience later on when I realized that I had a powerful sensory ability to “feel” and “sense” spiritual occurrences, unlike many of my friends and acquaintances. I was drawn to the gothic media displays of supernatural fantasy at a young age, and when I entered my mid-teens I discovered Witchcraft, much to my joy.

Since I was raised a Protestant, I had always been curious about the Catholics who went to other churches that appeared more exotic and seemingly magical than what I had experienced. They even had their own schools to teach their children all about their religion and other obscure topics. I always sort of envied my Catholic friends, and for the same reason I had envied my Jewish friends, even considering at one point to convert to Judaism. However, once I got into Witchcraft, I had spurned all things Christian and particularly the Christian youth movement that I called “Jesus Freaks” or “Hippies for Jesus,” which had left me cold. I verbally sparred with them and acted the antagonist because I found that their aggressive attempts to convert me were both insulting and demeaning. I had left Christianity behind me, or so I thought. Still, it was hard to be deaf to Christianity when you lived in a society that was so Christian in its bias and perspective.

Later on, when I was in the coven from hell, my teacher and mentor, Christopher Synn (Bill Schnoebelen), pursued a religious and magical path that coopted Catholic liturgy for its magical practices. When I was exposed to Michael Bertiaux at the same time, he too used Catholic and Orthodox liturgy as part of his magical workings. Christopher took the Tridentine Mass and rewrote it for his own purposes and the resultant ritual working was very impressive, so I followed his example. He also bestowed on me an Old Catholic ordination, and later on, one of his woman students who had received a consecration from him, conferred upon me the consecration of a bishop. Christopher had been consecrated by Michael Bertiaux, so I now had that lineage as my own. I developed my own set of Mass rites and used them to establish a sacramental system of magic. I used this magic to charge and empower my temple for the greater ordeals that I sought to perform within that sacralized space.

Over time I had mixed selected and rewritten Catholic liturgy into my magical system and had made it friendly to my Wiccan, Pagan and Gnostic sensibilities. I considered myself to be a gnostic pagan bishop with a heavy slant towards the magical use of sacraments to empower my tools and working space, and also to declare my higher spiritual perspectives and insights. I was using the Mass rite and the benediction rite for specific magical purposes, and my overall magical perspective was quite medieval in its use of sacraments, reliquaries and sacramental tools. I even blessed my parchment sigils used for invocation and evocation with the sacramental wine produced in the Mass rite, and I offered to my personal deities and tutelary spirits the consecrated host and wine.

My first experience at outrage against what I was naively doing was when I met one of the foremost gnostic bishops operating in the country at that time. I won’t reveal his name, but he was also an author and was involved with the Theosophical Society. We met and seemed to get along quite well, but when we were alone in my car while I was driving him to our order’s temple, he asked me if I followed the horrific practices of Michael Bertiaux, using semen and blood to charge and bless talismans. I assured him that I didn’t engage in that kind of practice, and he seemed quite relieved and happy. Then I told him that I had written my own Mass and benediction rites and used the sacramental host and wine to do the things that Bertiaux had been doing. He turned white as a sheet and gave me a look of complete horror. We didn’t talk about it for the rest of that evening and he seemed to have gotten over what I had shared with him. Later on, long after he had left to go back to his home, he wrote a missive against anyone who either wrote their own unsanctioned Mass rites or who used the sacraments for anything other than what they were intended, to communicate the congregation. I had outraged him with my heterodoxic  practices and my allegiance to (what he had called) magical superstition. He was only the first of many people that I had outraged with my magical system, but he would not be the last.

I have always approached my magical study and work with an idea of expanding what my magical system was capable of achieving. I was following a system and a regimen that was quite plain to me, and also to those few who had been part of the temple work done years ago. I have always approached a problem with the knack of trying to resolve it with what I already had, and to use my well developed techniques and lore to build a working or a series of rituals that would accomplish what I needed them to do.

In this way I had decided to apply this expertise that I had developed for many years to achieving the Knowledge and Conservation of my Holy Guardian Angel, or what I had conveniently perceived as my Atman or Higher Self. Since the Bornless or Headless Rite had been appropriated to work this kind of ordeal, and the Abramelin ordeal had been promoted as a more arduous alternative, I decided to combine them together. However, what I was going to produce was not only a hybrid, but it would likely produce a different effect and impact than the original workings. I understood this, yet I believed that I could achieve the same outcome, which was the vaunted K and C. I didn’t want to approach this ordeal in a passive manner and spend 3 months unemployed to successfully completed the Abramelin working. So, I chose instead to use the cycles of the moon, since the Abramelin working called for at most (in the German edition) 1.5 solar cycles, or 18 months. I would instead formulate my working using lunar cycles, and 1.5 lunar cycles is 90 days. I also would seek to invoke the four Cherubim and Seraphim consecutively as part of the ordeal and crown it with an elaborate Bornless Rite. It worked quite amazingly well and it did powerfully transform me. It gave me the ability to establish a connection with my HGA, Atman or Higher Self, and as far as I am concerned, that was the objective.

However, my joy was short-lived, because there were a cadre of individuals who had performed the Abramelin ordeal exactly as it was written in the grimoire, and who spent enormous amounts of time and resources to accomplish it. The fact that I was saying that I did it in 90 days without having to retire from the world for a few months was quite galling to them. I had written up all my experiences and techniques into a series of blog articles and I had maintained that what I did was indeed different, but I knew that it had at least achieved for me the same overall goal. Their opinion was that I couldn’t have accomplished anything other than self-delusion, and I was an obvious fraud for suggesting that anyone could come up with a replacement methodology on their own. I had violated a tried and true tradition, and I was something of a upstart or worse. That was the second group that had I offended, and I am sure that even today when one of these stalwarts discovers my blog articles on this subject that they will continue to be offended. (I do get emails from time to time to let me know how wrong or evil I am for crafting this alternative proposal.)

The next outrage was when I put together my own version of the Portae Lucis working, as formulated and written by Jean Dubuis. I had found some of his translated material on the internet and I was greatly intrigued by what he had written. I also bought one of his translated books and I steeped myself for months in his writings. Based on my studies, I determined that the Portae Lucis was a powerful and very valid working. However, there were a number of elements in it that either didn’t interest me or I felt was incompatible with my own system of magic. I understood what needed to be done and how Mr. Dubuis had done it, so I took that working and translated it into a specific talismanic working with strong Qabalistic overtones. 

I understood the objective of the rite, but I found that I had other resources that would get me there. What I left out were the Spagyric alchemical operations producing specific magical medicines that would aid in the physical component of the working. I also used an active method of charging the talismans, and expanded the working to include all 28 of the lunar mansions deployed into charging seven metallic talismans, four of which would be used in the operation. Because I was using planets and elements, I felt that the combination would be magically potent enough to replace the alchemical medicines. In my opinion, the revised method worked, even though I couldn’t (and didn’t) declare that they were the same. What I achieved was different than the traditional method, and the effect was different as well. But I believed that the objective achieved was similar, and the results of the magic that I experienced are still being felt and processed by me to this day, four years later.

However, when a group leader of a Yahoo group dedicated to the Portae Lucis working asked me to join his group, I happily agreed. He had wanted me to join because he felt that my different approach might be valuable to the group. I thought that this kind of openness to other techniques and alternative approaches was very broad minded, and I foolishly believed that I would be welcomed and treated as an equal. 

When I joined the Yahoo group, introduced myself and then posted links to my blog articles where I described what I had done to accomplish this ordeal, I was astonished at the outrage that I experienced from its members. I was verbally savaged by a few members of this group! They declared that I had no right to take this material and adapt it to my own needs. They thought that I was audacious and delusional to think that something that I had developed could even be considered as an alternate to what the great occultist Jean Dubuis had laid down for his followers. Who the hell did I think I was to even consider modifying this great traditional working? I quickly left the group, with apologies to the group leader, and I didn’t look back. (I felt the door slam on my butt as well - poor innocent fool that I was.)

Now I understand that not everything I do or say is right and perfect, nor do I have any kind of monopoly on truth when it comes to magic. I am first and foremost a student of the occult and magic, and also religiously, a Witch and a Pagan. I have written things in the past on my blog that are either wrong or based on incomplete information. Over time my opinions have evolved and changed, and I have left a record of these changes over the last several years in my various writings. I am not ashamed to be either schooled by others or shown to have made erroneous or incorrect statements. It is in my nature to acquire lore and information from any and all applicable sources, so I have no problem being shown something new or given a more accurate perspective on something. I have, if nothing else, developed a certain resilience and adaptability in the many years that I have matriculated my own way of working magic and worked on my particular system of ritual magic.

However, the fact that I am able to perform the same kind of magical evocations as others who are vested in the nascent tradition of grimoire magic seems to have annoyed some people. Add to that my propensity for appropriating materials from these same grimoires to serve my personal magical system seems to them cavalier, unsanctioned and disrespectful. That I have stated my opinion that many magicians (having no other recourse) seek to pull together their own system of magic because the various grimoire sources are incomplete, incompatible to current religious perspectives or no longer part of the social-cultural context has also gained me some rather intense condemnation and even personal attacks. From my perspective of having spent decades building up my own magical system from very sparse occult and magical resources (until recently), such a pathway seems intuitively obvious to me, but seemingly highly untraditional and unorthodox to them. According to some, I appear to lack the requisite qualifications to have any opinions on the grimoire tradition, so it would seem that there is another group that I have offended with my magical workings and associated opinions.

Perhaps the only group that I haven’t offended yet are the chaos magicians. I have picked up a number of useful techniques from that group, most notably the methodology of sigil magick, and I continue to find their perspectives and insights both refreshing, baffling and intriguing. I am not crazy about some of their operating philosophies and I would never mix and match deities and demigods from disparate religious traditions. I would also never bother to invoke Cthulhu or Yog Sothoth, since I consider them fictitious entities produced by the neurotic nightmares and racist insinuations of the author H.P. Lovecraft. I have a strong and intimate connection with the entities that I work through and with, and I would never approach them in a cavalier and dismissive manner. However, I understand that the anti-tradition of Chaos Magick consists of a series of working ideas and suggestions, and that each chaos magician pursues their own path and develops their own magical system replete with paradigms based on personal experience. I probably have more in common with them than any other group, including the hosts of the BTW and Wiccan groups that I have met and know.

What can I deduce from all of this outrage and anger that I appear to have caused in some folks in the various occult and magical traditions? I have steadfastly proceeded on my path without any malice, greed or egotism. I am nothing more or less than a student, and my knowledge, even based on years of experience, is decidedly imperfect. Do I insist that I am always right in whatever I do or say - absolutely not! Do I listen to others even when they shower me with disdain and disapproval, of course, how can I not?

Regardless of what others may think, I am still working with the system of magic that I have matriculated and built up over the decades, and I am loath to drop or discard it for the next new shiny thing that others are infatuated about, however compelling. Instead, I will look it over, and if it looks useful or fills a need that is lacking in my own system, I will shamelessly appropriate, modify and mutate it so that it fits seamlessly with my existing magical system. Some may think that I am just being a pirate or a magpie, but because I do spend time altering the lore to fit into what I am already doing then I think that I am more than just an occult or magical-lore thief. I am an artist, but more like a spray-paint graffiti artist, perhaps. However, it still angers and outrages those who consider themselves the arbiters of a sacred tradition and the defenders against revisionism. I just think that nothing really is sacred or forbidden for me to purloin if I find it needful unless it is oath-bound material, and if it is published by someone then it is no longer oath-bound.

To all of those magician magpies out there who see some merit in what I am doing, if nothing else than justifying their own eclectic approach, I make common cause and solidarity. For those who are outraged by my activities and who condemn my unorthodox approaches I can only wonder at their emotional insecurity and baseless complaints, and they are quite baseless as far as I am concerned.

You could say that I am naive and stupidly innocent in my piratical approach to occult and magical lore because I don’t understand how my actions are a cause for outrage and dismay among the proper adherents of these traditions. Crossing these boundaries is just asking for trouble, you would probably declare, but still I am steadily proceeding with the activity of building up my magical system and will continue this work until the day I die. If you have a problem with what I am doing then you can either seek to school me, guide me with additional and important insights or just get out of my way. Otherwise, I am pursuing what I deeply and passionately believe I need to pursue, and I will not be stopped by what I see as puffed up posers who think that they are proper representatives and information marshals of an imperious and perfected tradition. To them, I will make my braying donkey call and scornfully but inexorably move on.

Frater Barrabbas - the Lone Donkey, braying in the wilderness.       

A Few More Thoughts About Christianity

Someone didn’t particularly care for the article “Thoughts About Christianity” which I recently wrote. She didn’t leave any comments on my blog article, but gave me quite an earful on my Face Book page. She also didn’t like the fact that I disagreed with her statements criticizing my article, and even though I was also doing my day job, she insisted that I engage in some kind of dialogue with her about her opinions. I really don’t have a lot of time to engage in long conversations on the internet and I avoid it where possible. I figure that if someone wants to comment on my article they can leave a comment through the online blog. This person, whose name was Susan, appears to be retired (according to her FB page data) and probably has a lot more free time than I do. So, I decided to air her comments on a blog article and respond to them when I had the requisite amount of time. She does make some valid points, even though the tone of her arguments are the kind of whining “both sides do it” sort of logic that sets my teeth on edge.

First of all, she said that I seemed to be bashing Christianity or somehow being insulting to Christians by writing a culturally opposing perspective regarding what I think is the blatant sectarianism found in aspects of Christianity. Let’s keep in mind the fact that the culture of this country is Christian dominated. If you want a definition of vested privilege, then being white, male and Christian, not to mention wealthy, are four parts of the overall equation. Those of us who are not Christian get to deal with public perceptions and media exploitation that are quite overall negative and even at times, nasty. If you are a Jew, then you’re a greedy, grasping Christ-killer. If you are a Muslim, then you’re a terrorist. If you are Mormon, then you are a cultist. If you are an atheist, then you are a secular oppressor of good Christians. And if you are a witch or a pagan, then you are a Satanist, child molester, ritual murderer, drug dealer, and whatever else is foul and evil. Granted, there are many Christians who are religiously tolerant and they might even be in the majority. As I said in my article, I respect anyone’s religious activities and beliefs so long as they don’t impinge on my own rights. What I have a problem with are those sectarians who believe that their religious beliefs and practices are the only true ones, and the rest are either due to tragic ignorance or diabolical instigation.

Does it seem that I have a chip on my shoulder or that I am somehow biased and poisoned regarding the faith of Christianity? Well, I have had to deal with quite a lot of cognitive dissonance in my career as a witch and a pagan. I have been preached at, called names, temporarily held against my will while others fervently prayed over me, and even threatened by supposedly good and faithful Christians. Perhaps they were just doing their religious duty as they saw it, but as long as they interfered with my right to worship, then they were decidedly and completely in the wrong. Even the couple who initiated me into witchcraft, Bill and Sharon Schnoebelen, became fundamentalist preachers and Bill wrote a book entitled “Wicca: Satan’s Little White Lie” that continues to be quoted and used as evidence that witches and pagans are actually an evil cult.

All you need to do is check out Witch Hunts on WitchVox to see the list of current lecturers and authors who are telling lots of Christians that witches and pagans are evil worshipers of Satan. I even have the misfortune of living in the congressional district represented by Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and I have to deal with her embarrassing rants about paganism and the evils of witchcraft. Others might find her to be a champion of Christian virtues while others just laugh at her idiotic statements. I don’t find her funny at all. Instead, I find her sentiments to be a chilling reminder that our religious freedoms cannot be taken for granted.

This is a cultural battle and instead of being too generous to other side (or turning the other cheek) we should at least stand up for our own rights and beliefs. We shouldn’t be idle when others are actively defaming us. Other faiths respond to bigoted attacks and so should we. We don’t seek to proselytize or convert others to our faith, we just want to be allowed to worship in peace and security. That doesn’t seem to be much to ask for in our so-called free society, but it can’t be depended on or maintained unless we are vigilant against those who might try to take our religious freedoms away from us. This is a real social issue in our post-modern times and to ignore it or pretend that there is equality, by saying that both sides do it, is terribly misinformed.

So, Susan starts out accusing me of being one of many who are hurling insults and bashing the other side without any significant point being made. In fact, she felt that my article was, for the most part, irrelevant and pointless.

“Christians bashing Pagans, Pagans bashing Christians. Each scorns the other for limitless reasons. And though I am not on the proverbial fence [whatever that means], I am weary of the contrasts and comparisons, insults, and rhetoric hurled at different belief systems.”

My only issue with Christianity, or for that matter, any religion, is when it promotes itself as the exclusive truth. A Monotheistic Deity is universal, and that means that it excludes all other Deities. It also paints atheism as a rejection of that truth. When I meet Christians, particularly Esoteric Christians, I have no problem with them or their faith. They don’t judge me or consider me an infidel. I see them as pleasant religious people engaging with their faith, and how they worship is no concern of mine. Of course, if they make it a point to defame members of my religion, then I have a problem, and all it really takes is to just ignorantly deny the validity of what I believe. Certainly, I don’t deny the validity of what anyone else believes, even if they happen to be an atheist and don’t believe in any religious creed whatsoever - it is their right to do so. 

“Although I enjoy educational discussion, I prefer to not impugn either faiths to explain my understanding of what it means to be the creature that I am.”

Not only was my previous article educational, but it didn’t impugn Christianity. It only decried sectarianism. That was the whole point of the article! Obviously, it was something that Susan missed when she read it. Some people pretend to be neutral and fair, while I don’t see any need to disguise what I believe for the sake of appearances. 

“The question of magic and Christians enjoying elaborate displays of its practice is not a subject important enough to address, however, those people who choose to worship as they will, ‘an it do no harm’, are considered, according to the Apostle Paul, ‘a law unto themselves’.”

The actual quote that Susan took from the New Testament was from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter 2, verse 14 through 16. Quoting it in full gives that phrase which she used a much better context.

“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

When you examine the entire passage then it becomes more problematical. Paul isn’t excusing people who work magic as long as they are not harming others, or who choose to worship differently than others. They all get judged in the same manner when the end-times are nigh. Additionally, the term “Gentiles” that he uses was actually about non-Jewish pagans who were ignorant of Christ, and anyone in our epoch who is or once was a Christian doesn’t at all count as a “Gentile.” Susan quoted this biblical passage out of its very important context, naturally.

Perhaps a clearer quotation from that same work would be from Chapter 2, verses 11 and 12: “For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;”

This statement is obviously highly sectarian. It doesn’t matter if one is a Christian or a pagan, all will get judged in the same manner by the same universal God. Of course, I would reject such an idea since I strongly believe that it doesn’t apply to me. Even so, there’s lots of sectarian opinions in that epistle (just as there are in other books of the New Testament). Quoting from it is a real problem if you are not a follower of the One True Religion.

While Susan might state that the question of whether Christians can legally work magic within the tenets of Christianity is irrelevant; it was a topic that others in the blogosphere commented on recently. I was just adding my opinion to that of others.

“Belief in the Holy Spirit is a bit tricky. My personal belief is we are all connected by a spirit which lies dormant in some while others have a personal relationship with this masculine/feminine phenomenon known as spirit or spirits, however you please. This unforgivable sin against such spirit is ambiguous in the various scriptures as they are written, but to not acknowledge the devine [sic] in one’s self would be death, bodily and spiritually. Either way, a mortal infraction.”

While I might agree somewhat with Susan’s statement that everyone is connected to each other and everything else in the world (including animals, plants and rocks, etc.), those who don’t believe in anything spiritual are not spiritually or bodily dead. That is absurd, and it does show an unwitting contempt for those who don’t believe in religion. It is better to state something as part of one’s experience and to leave it at that, instead of implying that others are not as “enlightened” who don’t also believe it to be true. Therefore, it can’t be a “mortal infraction” unless there is a universal truth or sectarian premise that is actually valid. I know quite a number of atheists and they are often more thoughtful and ethical than those who are supposedly governed by their religion. Thus, the concept of Spirit must have a very wide definition, much wider than anyone currently knows.

I admit that I responded to her critique with a certain brevity and then informed her that I disagreed with her opinion. At that moment, I just didn’t have any time to elaborate all of my points. Susan responded with a certain umbrage at my supposed unwillingness to have a dialogue with her. It was kind of like a temper tantrum. Here’s what she wrote in reply.

“Are you often misinterpreted, sir? According to you, your last article ruffled a few Christians.”

My last article, written some years ago, floated the idea that the historical Christ was a myth and that there wasn’t any actual evidence that he existed. I still think that this is a valid point, and I backed it up with the scholarly work that I found online written by another author. I have since let this whole matter drop because I can’t prove it to be a fact. (Scholars have pretty much dismissed this line of reasoning, but I still have my suspicions.) Anyway, a couple of people strongly objected to it and left their comments on the blog article.

“And throughout this article, I detected a certain amount of sarcasm veiled in defensive passivity.”

I’ve never considered myself as “passive” anything. I think if you read the article you will find that I am quite passionately and aggressively against sectarianism. And for good reasons, too.

“Perhaps some residual resentment for those who read your previous article. But your paper, 'Thoughts About Christianity', was a bit scathing.”

Scathing, if one is an ardent sectarian, but to an Esoteric Christian, probably not at all critical. And resentment, how can I be resentful with comments posted about an article written over three years ago? Holding a grudge that long takes way too much energy. I have better things to do.

“Read it again and you'll see it. I meant no personal disrespect; just an observation on the intensity of your convictions, and a contribution of my take on Jesus' meaning of the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.”

The tone of Susan’s comments are actually scathing and harsh towards me and maybe even a bit passive-aggressive, too. (She does mean to be disrespectful, but she doesn’t want to be responsible for appearing to be so.) I don’t see an open and objective examination of my written article, just a bunch of complaints and groundless criticism. I do have a certain passion in my convictions, but then again, I have often been complimented for that. I also found very little of substance in Susan’s rebuttal about the definition of a sin against the Holy Spirit. I believe that I captured it quite well in my article by stating that it is most aptly used as a judgement against apostasy. Of course, Susan has to round out her umbrage with a final insult, and I quote it in full.

“If you are a sinner and should be shunned by the Christians for your beliefs, perhaps they should choose different reading material, or, you could hand them the first stone.”

I am already shunned by sectarian Christians for my beliefs and practices, as I have previously stated. I also doubt that anyone who is sectarian will bother to read my article, but you never know. I wrote this article for witches and pagans to demonstrate to them the inherent hypocrisy that it is alright to practice magic and occultism if you are a Christian, but it is not OK to switch religions and then practice occultism and magick. Or for that matter, to practice occultism and magick as a pagan or witch in a Christian society supposedly surrounded by the truth.

As for handing them the first stone to clobber me with, I won’t give any sectarian the opportunity to do so. I am also not bound by any ethical rules that says I shouldn’t either defend or avenge myself on someone who threatens me or my loved ones. I am a full fledged witch in that regard, and I don’t have a problem with working malefic magic on someone when it is justified. I hope that revelation doesn’t shock anyone (especially Susan), but then again, welcome to the real world. There are a lot of ugly, brutal and evil people in the world, and I would hopefully keep them from storming the gateway of my home and world. There are also a lot of good people, too, but I don’t need to protect myself from them. (At least, I hope I don’t.)

Think my viewpoint is too extreme or prejudiced? Just to give you an idea of how crazy right-wing fundamentalists are, how about examining this recent quote from the spokesperson of the American Family Association.

“Upset that the AFA was included on an Army training session’s list of hate groups, AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer on Friday charged that the Armed Forces will use ‘lethal force’ against Christians and Tea Party activists, and may even ‘surround’ the hotel hosting next year’s Values Voter Summit.

‘The military is being conditioned to use weapons on the American Family Association. The soldiers are being conditioned in their brains to think of evangelicals, Tea Partyers, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council as domestic enemies that may have to be neutralized by lethal force,’ Fischer maintained. ‘The people you got to watch out for, you may have to turn your tanks on, are American Family Association.’”

Based on the above rhetoric, it is quite likely that a few of these inflamed Christian sectarians might actually start some kind of armed insurrection in the not too distant future. Those who are Pagan and Wiccan authors would be easy and tempting targets, indeed.

Nuff said about this issue.

Frater Barrabbas

Remembering Michael Bertiaux

 (Bertiaux and Allen Greenfield - 1980's)

It was back in the summer of 1977 on a sweltering Sunday afternoon in Chicago that I got to meet the notorious Michael Bertiaux. I had traveled with my teacher and High Priest, Christopher Syn (Bill Schnoebelen) and selected members of our group from Milwaukee (the infamous “coven from hell”) to attend one of Michael’s lectures. Michael was giving a lecture to a quasi theosophical group consisting mostly of elderly women (who seemed to adore him), and it was so philosophically banal and boring that I can’t remember today what it was about.

I do remember buying a copy of Kenneth Grant’s newest book “Nightside of Eden” from him, which had Michael Bertiaux’s signature and date on the front inside cover, and certain colored pencil tables and other writings in the back inside cover. Those tables and writings were from the supposed “Choronzon Club” lore, and represented the methodology of path working for the back side of the Tree of Life. (It took me nearly seven years later to figure out what it meant and how it worked.) This book was part of a collection of books, recorded cassette tapes and other paraphernalia that Bertiuax was selling to those who had attended his lecture. I talked briefly to Michael after purchasing the book, showing him the colored pencil notes in the back, and seeing that Michael really regretted parting with this book and offered to buy it back, which I smugly declined. Yet it was after we had left the lecture hall and went out to dinner that I got to hear more of the kind of strange and bazar occultism that was Bertiaux’s hallmark perspective, which he applied to nearly everything!

(As a side note, one of Bertiaux’s cassette tapes that Christopher had bought contained an impromptu lecture on the Chaldean Oracles, which is probably one of the more important writings from antiquity. I borrowed it from Christopher, and popped it my cassette player, expecting to hear a lot of amazing revelations. I was truly astonished at how superficial it was. I learned nothing from it, and it would seem that when Michael recorded it, he was also quite ill, and had to stop the tape whenever a coughing fit overcame him. That was an important lesson - not everything that Bertiaux did was worthy or valuable.)

I found Michael to be highly creative, intellectually facile, extremely imaginative, charming, in an old world sort of way, and full of outlandish occult tales of power, horror and secret lefthand path societies. From his perspective, the world had a definitive Lovecraftian taint, mixed with the musty scent of long dead corpses and the exciting thrill of true evil. But who was Michael Bertiaux and what was he really like? I can answer these questions, although what I learned about him happened so many years ago. Yet it made such an impression on me that I have not forgotten any of it. Meeting and interacting with Michael Bertiaux was certainly not something that anyone would ever forget. (I do believe that people change and no one stays the same, but after my experiences with him, I never had any desire to see if Michael himself had actually changed.) 

Why am I writing about this weird occultist and what happened between us over thirty years ago? Why indeed!

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about a supposed classic work written by Bertiaux, entitled “The Gnostic Voudoun Workbook,” a creepy favorite tome for collectors and afficionados of the ultra-obscure. This book is as famous now as its notorious author, a white Midwestern American who blended the traditions of Haitian Voudoun and various systems of Western occultism long before others in the U.S. had ever thought of doing it. Yet Michael Bertiaux crawled out of complete obscurity into the black light of occult notoriety not by his own skill or enterprise, but by the efforts and gratuitous attentions to the dark side of occultism propagated by Kenneth Grant in his numerous books.

Kenneth Grant made Michael Bertiaux famous within a small community of ceremonial magicians and occultists. If it wasn’t for Kenneth Grant, I doubt that Michael Bertiaux would have been known outside of his Chicago community, and even within that locale, Michael was very, very obscure. His fame was wholly spread by the books written by Kenneth Grant, and since then, some have believed the hype and stories spread about him. Michael himself has helped to spread a lot of rumors and tall tales about himself, and delighted in the effect that it had on others. Scandal and controversy were always a part of what Michael did and said, so I suppose his greatest curse would have been to be ignored or dismissed. 

While it is true that I have a copy of his book in my occult library, and I have attempted to read it through a few times (only to give up), having known Michael Bertiux in the late 70's (which would have been considered his “hay days”), I can truly say that I don’t take him, his book or his methodologies very seriously. I would also advise others not to seek any nuggets of wisdom from Bertiaux’s writings, because honestly, I truly believe that there aren’t any. I also believe that there are a lot of better sources for all of the topics that his book attempts to cover. Michael’s writings are tainted by his disguised brutal sense of humor and by his own astonishing imagination, which he tended to liberally use to fill in the blanks or make something far more interesting or sinister than it might have been. Michael is, therefore, something akin to a pulp fiction writer and a tabloid publisher. It’s probably an impossible task to distill his writings to determine the actual traditions and practices from which they are derived, so I have given up attempting to do so.

Additionally, to have a serious conversation about the book “The Gnostic Voudoun Workbook” is to give far greater credence to Bertiaux than what he really deserves. I will maintain that he was a capable occultist and could work fairly malefic magick if he so desired, but he never represented any kind of traditional teaching or initiation. Bertiaux was a creative huckster who had very little respect for any tradition. He used magickal and occult lore to paper his world much like a child would use the beautiful photographs in a slurry of magazines to create amusing collages.

Therefore, when I read about occultists giving Michael Bertiaux’s writings a serious critique, I found it quite ridiculous. I am almost certain that Michael would find such discussions to be very amusing, too. Like Aleister Crowley, Michael believed that any PR was good PR, and after all, it only helps to sell more books. I have even heard through the grapevine that Michael is planning on publishing more books (“Cosmic Meditation” and “Vudu Cartography”), and why not? His first book is a classic that has sold for hundreds of dollars on the internet, but most would find it to be a confused mishmash of hoodoo, Haitian voudoun, Thelema, Shintoism (?) and every other obscure religious or occult system pasted together in a curious but delirious manner. To me, this book is a sinister joke, but you would have had to know Michael Bertiaux to appreciate the punch line.

I knew Michael Bertiuax from around the summer of 1977 through the summer of 1979. I have recounted in a previous article the story about the last time I visited him in his Chicago lair, where he demonstrated to me the art of Megapolisomancy. You can find that article here, just in case you missed it. I also visited Michael with my teacher, Bill Schnoebelen, and was off-handedly initiated into the cult of Baron Samedi as a fully vested priest or houngan, you can find an article describing that event here. Do I feel different because of this event? Does this mean that I have a valid Haitian initiatory lineage included with everything else that I am working and doing with my occultism? The answer to these questions is a very solid “no.” This initiation was done as a way of attempting to gain access to me, and since I never let Michael in, either physically or magickally, I would have to say that nothing significant happened to me, luckily. I was forced to quickly drink a large goblet of Jack Daniels Wild Turkey, but for some odd reason I remained stone cold sober, probably because I didn’t trust Michael and was very much on my guard.

This sounds like a juicy tale and a bit of gossip, so I will satisfy the curiosity of my readers and briefly relate it. As an object lesson, it says everything that anyone needs to know about Michael Bertiaux. I found him to be cruel, manipulative, ruthless, and completely without any human compassion whatsoever. This is not the kind of person that you could trust, believe in, nor would you place yourself into his hands for any reason. I would rather offer my head to the gaping jaws of a crocodile than give myself into the hands of this man. Anyway, I am digressing here, so let us get back to the story.

Back in the summer of 1977, I was quite taken with Michael Bertiaux. Having read and reread the book “Cults of the Shadow” written by Kenneth Grant, I was eager to meet him. Michael was a big deal for our coven, so we all began to study and engage with various African Traditional Regions, particularly with the Haitian diaspora variations. We weren’t really interested in the outer court religious beliefs and practices of the common man, and we had little respect or understanding for the Haitian culture. We were, in a word, occult pirates who were trawling for new thrills and supposedly forgotten dark practices, and Michael served us up a bounty of these beliefs and practices, being a pirate himself. We sought out the practices of the bokor or black magician, and the various obscure occult orders where such individuals met and congregated. It’s likely that these traditions and occult systems were mostly invented by Bertiaux, or based on some facts mixed with rumors and legends, and he also filled them out with his own concoctions. It’s hard to say what was authentic and real, and since we were steeped in our fantasy associated with those beliefs and practices, we really didn’t care. Besides, who had the time and money to travel to Haiti and actually perform the proper kind of research to verify what Michael was telling us?

At first, only two members of our extended coven periodically went down to Chicago to work with Michael. Those two members were Christopher and a senior member named John, yet after the first trip, only Christopher went down to see Bertiaux. It seemed that John’s first experience was too traumatic to be repeated. I thought this strange, but John regaled us with his frightful experiences with Bertiuax. It would seem that Michael used a form of sexual terrorism to get his students into the right frame of mind for his various occult and magickal operations. He would select an approach that was guaranteed to frighten and unbalance his subject, acting as either a homosexual or a heterosexual lover, as it suited him. His unwanted advances would be rationalized as being the only manner that such occult knowledge and initiatory mysteries could be communicated. It was an excuse to sexually abuse and exploit individuals who came seeking knowledge and special teachings, and Bertiaux had no problem obliging those foolish enough to accede to his desires.

Michael was around middle height, portly, with a dark Mediterranean complexion and features. He was bald, bearded and hirsute, having hairy knuckles and even hairy toes. His back and shoulders had a pelt of coarse hair, so he had a kind of beast-like quality when naked, except for the top of his head. He wore glasses, except when working magick and not needing to read. How do I know such intimate details about this man? I am sure you can guess - I saw him nude on more than one occasion during my short two adventures working magick with him.

Michael often performed his Voudoun ceremonies completely nude, or sometimes he would wear a mask. This was quite a departure from Michael the wandering bishop, who would wear beautiful handmade silk and satin vestments and perform private masses using the Greek Orthodox rite (of St. Basil). In his mundane habits, Michael would wear rather drab and even ill fitting clothes - he looked a bit like a slob. He was much more comfortable wearing exotic outfits than fitting in with the urban masses. Since he worked for the State of Illinois in the capacity of a bureaucrat in the government aid services, he probably wore a nice suit and easily fit in with the grey masses of fellow bureau workers. I never saw him wear a suit, since the few times I visited were during weekends.

My initiation consisted of first being completely naked, presented to the various spirits and lwa of the dead, then being forced to drink a third of a bottle of Wild Turkey, and finally, being sexually accosted by this man. I remember distinctly lying naked on the floor of his temple, with this rather flabby fury man laying on top of me, pinning me down while attempting to french kiss me (as I gritted my teeth) and thereby arouse me. Yet all it did was bring out in me a sense of complete revulsion and a stubborn willpower to keep myself from being violated in any manner. I succeeded in that, but then probably didn’t receive the full blessing of being magickally affected or transformed by Michael’s operation. I was given a title and an accolade later, but I actually felt little changed, and I was just relieved that I had avoided any spiritual contamination. My teacher just accepted all of this without a single complaint, and didn’t intercede for me when it was obvious that I was resisting Bertiaux with all my efforts. I was also restrained out of courtesy and some degree of openness to Michael, since otherwise, I would have become violent towards him.

I now know why Christopher didn’t interfere with Michael when he was assaulting me, and that is, he had hopes to receive the many blessings of Bertiaux’s initiations. Indeed, he underwent many initiations, got his bishop’s consecration and other titles, and much of this is actually documented in his books. Christopher, or Bill Schnoebelen, which was his real name, completely cooperated with Michael Bertiaux for a couple of years. He probably had to endure quite a bit of sexual abuse at his hands. I have heard that others who have sought out initiations from Michael Bertiaux received far more than they bargained for, having to forbear him with the favor of anal sex as a certification of the transmission of legitimate occult initiations. Although I had been offered such enticements myself, after just one episode, I tactfully demurred any further accolades. I found Michael’s admission price for initiation into his dubious mysteries much too high to pay, and I knew that I could get the same lore and initiations (if I really wanted them) from other less exploitative sources.

Michael’s history, or how he came to acquire all of this knowledge, was not really a secret. Michael freely told the story about how in the early sixties (1963), he was sent to Haiti as a Christian missionary (in the Anglican church), and I believe that he was, at the time, not a Catholic, but with Catholic sympathies. However, after spending a short time in Haiti, and meeting the man who would become his teacher and mentor (Dr. Jean-Maine), Michael supposedly aborted his missionary job and stayed in Haiti for a number of years. It was there that Michael became an old Catholic bishop (although there is some question about his actual lineage) and acquired a lot of his Voudoun initiations, including learning to be a bokor and gaining access to some of the more obscure and secret occult organizations. 

Keep in mind that this was during the time when Duvalier Sr. was running the country. It’s even rumored that his teacher had to leave Haiti in the last years of his life during Baby Doc’s reign. How much of this was factual is subject to debate. I did see pictures of Michael’s teacher, from older black and white photos to more recent color pictures. Michael also appeared to know a lot of people, including French and European occultists, and others from South America as well as the Carribean. He talked on the phone to some of these individuals during my visits, sometimes in French, and he also talked with his mother at least twice, which made Michael seem more human. I can say that he loved his mother fiercely, and acted as the dutiful son when talking to her on the phone. (I found this to be quite comical, because while talking to his mother, he was sitting in an apartment full of things that she would probably find abhorrent.)

While I stayed with Michael for that one full weekend (and there was another brief weekend some months later), I had to fend him off constantly - he saw it his duty to keep me on the defensive the entire time. However, I also had time to look over Michael’s voluminous papers, notebooks and other materials. Some of what was published in Michael’s book consisted of loose type-written papers back then. I even got to play around with a device that Michael had crafted which he used to travel back and forth in time. It was an old metal lamp cover for a reading light tree which had wires attached to it, connecting it to a flat piece of wood, brightly painted with silver and gold paint on a black background. It was voudoun magickal micro-circuitry (according to Michael), and the lamp shade part, which was shaped like a cone, fit over the head. I never got to try it out to see if it actually worked.

Other devices that Bertiaux had was a black box with a black light in it, which he used for a kind of Voudoun seance, and various African fetishes, some of them authentic. He also had an electrostatic massage wand, which he threatened to use on my privates. Michael’s furniture was ornately painted and decorated with bright colors depicting snakes, scorpions, centipedes, spiders, vevers, sigils and anything else that was spooky or ooky. His walls were covered with hundreds of paintings, depicting either Voudoun or even Lovecraftian horror themes (some of these are shown in Kenneth Grant’s books). At night, these variously primitive horrific paintings and garish furniture seemed to come alive and move and quiver of their own volition, since they were often painted in Acrylics using pure electric or complimentary colors. In a sense, Michael’s home was like sorcerer’s toy box, full of papers, notebooks, magickal implements of various kinds, strange books, paintings, luxurious Persian carpets, Greek Orthodox icons and the images and regalia of black magick - it was a highly cluttered large apartment full of beauty, strange wonder and horror. This is what attracted poor souls to Michael, all of them somehow hoping to gain some of this knowledge. He took from them whatever he could get, mostly in the way of sexual favors, psychic access and various forms of vicious manipulation.

 

During my two visits to see this man, Michael Bertiaux had moved his residence from one location to another on the east side of Chicago. He had at first lived in a large basement flat that had little light to illuminate it during the day. It was a gloomy and tenebrous place, with walls painted a dingy green pastel that seemed to fit Michael quite well. Some months later, he moved to a lofty penthouse apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. This apartment was well lit and actually bright and luminous during the day, with bright white walls and many colorful carpets, yet at night it became the same shadowy place full of nameless things skulking around that his old apartment had been. Spending the night in Michael’s home, although considered an honor, was neither peaceful nor pleasant, at least for me.

Michael was a heavy drinker when I knew him, although alcohol never seemed to have much of an effect on him. He told us that the alcohol served to feed the spirits who drained it from his body, thus freeing him of its influences. I believe that I had experienced the same thing while working with him. He was a gracious host, always serving various exotic mixed drinks to his guests, but I always supposed that he did it to get his guests inebriated so as to make them more amendable to his manipulations. Michael once joked that he wanted to take the various bottles of liquor in his liquor cabinet and remove their labels, replacing them with planetary, Qabbalistic and zodiacal symbols. Then he could mix together various liquors to create what he called Qabbalistic cocktails. To this day I wonder if he actually did that - it seemed like a very creative and amusing idea. While sharing drinks with his guests, Michael would engage in his most favorite pastime; he would gossip about other famous occultists that he knew. Michael also expected his guests to supply him with gossip and dirt on the occultists that they knew. I often wondered if Michael was in the business of blackmailing other occultists, or at the very least, helping to spread rumors and reveal the improprieties of others.   

I found all of Michael’s fetishes, magickal toys and volumes of occult lore to be fascinating and highly alluring - but the price was too high, so I passed on obtaining any of it. I knew that I could be nearly as creative as Bertiaux. I would prefer to know the various sources that I had gathered information from as well as freely admitting to others that I had created or invented something. Michael never admitted to creating or inventing anything. It was all from his various teachers and contacts, and even spirits or lwa, and all of it, according to him, was from traditional sources; but those sources were never cited nor indicated anywhere. After my last harrowing visit, I decided that I would cease having any further contact with him.

Since those times I have met other occultists, Thelemic magicians of various stripes (like Allen Greenfield) who have fully engaged Michael Bertiaux to gain his knowledge, acquire some of his voluminous papers and receive initiations. I also know that they paid a very high price for that knowledge or those initiations. Being made a bishop by Bertiaux was something of an inside joke for me and others who had personally known him, since we knew that the recipient of such an honor had to give himself or herself to Michael in a very intimate way. Yet I never had any regrets about disconnecting myself from Bertiuax, and never sought to reconnect with him.

As an object lesson, I believe in sharing my occult knowledge with others and in engaging with groups in a completely egalitarian manner.  I would never exploit a student or take advantage of them. In short, my brief adventure with Michael Bertiaux and Bill Schnoebelen taught me to respect and honor anyone who came to me for knowledge or experience. I learned a priceless lesson from these two men about how not to teach and engage with other people.

Frater Barrabbas

More Baloney from Bill Schnoebelen Rebutted

This is a response written by me to the blog article “Freemasonry: The Witchcraft Connection” pathetically penned by William J. Schnoebelen. You can find the article here.

I thought that I had already written the final chapter about my arch nemesis and former teacher, the ever self-propagandizing, ridiculous and all-around hypocrite, half-assed minister of With One Accord Ministry, Bill Schnoebelen. But alas, he continues to scribble his lies, half-truths and religious bigotry throughout the internet. The latest diatribe would be quite amusing if weren’t so profoundly stupid and annoying. So I am drawn back into a brief one sided skirmish with the ultra-conservative Christian Fundamentalist who was once a member of the Wicca and a Mason.

It’s really like doing battle with the torso of the Black Knight (as fondly remembered in Monty Python’s Holy Grail movie). He has teeth, but no arms or legs left to do battle, and can be easily defeated. I guess Bill makes a great straw man, since his positions are based on Christian myth and imagination rather than real facts. I apologize in advance to mainstream and esoteric Christians who must be quite embarrassed by this clown.  Anyway, let the battle begin!

“Rebellion is a sin of sorcery, presumption a crime of the teraphim.” - 1 Samuel 15:23 (The Jerusalem Bible)

Bill starts out his article with this quote, although he uses the terribly antiquated and much rightly criticized Kings James Version, where the word “sorcerery” is substituted by the word “witchcraft”, which changes the whole meaning, of course. That King James had an obsession with witches and witchcraft bordering on insanity is besides the point - it did, however, influence the translation of the bible into English.

This sentence is part of larger section of the chapter that contains the dire pronouncements by the prophet Samuel used to denounce King Saul. Samuel was apparently livid with Saul and his decision to disobey Yahweh, so instead of ensuring that the Amelikites were completely annihilated and all of their possessions destroyed, Saul allowed the Israelites to keep the prisoners as slaves and their belongings as booty. The word “teraphim” in the sentence refers to household idols, so it represents false gods and their worship.

The key point is that King Saul rebelled against the commandments of his god and presumed to make decisions for him. What this quotation has to do with modern witchcraft and Masonry seems pretty obscure to me. I think that Bill used it out of context because the KJV bible uses the word “witchcraft” instead of “sorcery”, even though the point is really disobedience and presumptuousness. The irony of Bill using this statement is pretty hysterically funny, since presumptuousness is very much his mode of doing business. So we start out with a sentence taken completely out of context from the Old Testament, and somehow this will make the rest of the article sensible and erudite? Right!

First of all, Masonry is not a religion. It is a fraternal organization with some biblical themes and obscure symbolism based on those themes. While one could make occult interpretations of the various Masonic rituals and lore, those same interpretations are not held by either the rank and file Mason, nor the esteemed members of their ruling bodies and their studied intellectuals. Masonry is not an occult organization nor would any of its members consider themselves to be occultists or members of some kind of alternative religion. So when Bill says the following in his article, we can easily refute him. The Lodge of Masonry is not a religion, nor is its underpinnings theological, occultic or rooted in ancient forms of paganism - those underpinnings are actually philosophical in nature. We can look at the foolishness of this claim, and I quote it in full, because it is the keystone to Bill’s entire argument.

“Thus, the Lodge is not just ‘another religion’ like the Muslims or the Buddhists—although that alone should be enough to keep Christians from involving themselves in it. The nature and character of the Lodge's deepest theological underpinnings are rooted in Witchcraft and Paganism.”

Of course, we are to presume that modern Witchcraft has an unbroken line going back to the paleolithic past, and that somehow Masonry borrowed heavily from those sources. However, both Ronald Hutton and Philip Heselton have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that modern Witchcraft can’t be traced back further than the early 20th century. That would mean that modern Witchcraft is considerably younger than Masonry, which itself only dates back to the early 18th century. If modern Witchcraft shares many common features with Masonry, then one would have to conclude that the reason this does in fact occur is because Gerald B. Gardner (who was himself a Mason) put them there. While some witches may argue this amongst each other, scholars have shown that much of the lore of modern Gardnerian witchcraft was cobbled together from other sources. What this means is that there is no conspiracy and the linkages between one tradition of witchcraft and Masonry can be easily explained - it was a matter of creative plagiarism and not some kind of Satanic conspiracy, as Bill would have it.

The reason why this is so transparently obvious is the fact that only Gardnerian witchcraft (and it’s various offshoots) have these points in common with Masonry. Other non-Gardnerian traditions of witchcraft are quite different and have few if any points in common with Masonry. How does one explain that troubling little discrepancy to Bill’s over-arching theory? Why it’s elementary, my dear reader! Bill is making an argument that is quite fantasy based and profoundly dramatic - it is, in a word - a great lie! This is even more curious when one considers that some of the more traditional non-Gardnerian forms of witchcraft may actually represent older systems from the previous epoch, although the proof for that supposition has yet to be verified.

Cunning folk considered their magickal works to be their “craft,” just like anyone else who had a skill for hire. They made things for their paying clients (spells, talismans, amulets, herbal remedies, tonics, etc.), although none of them ever professed to be adherents of an alternative or “old” religion. Likewise, craftsmen were individuals who worked with their hands, used tools in a skillful manner and made things, unlike the ruling classes and the church. To call Masonry a craft is to hearken back to the days when Masons were builders and architects, or at least that is part of the theme of following the Masonic path. There is nothing sinister or esoteric about this phrase, just as one would assume - since we still use it today without any theological pretensions.

We will pass over Bill’s definitions, since we have shown that witchcraft is much too varied to apply one definition to the entire movement. Bill is using definitions that were put together in the late 19th century (about paganism in general), so they don’t reflect the modern perspectives of historians and archeologists. Bill has obviously not read anything about witchcraft since he left the craft in the early 1980's, and even then, he spouts the old arguments and lines that most folk, whether from within the movement or outside it, no longer hold as true. Suffice it so say that for every supposed fact that Bill states in his article, there are modern witchcraft and pagan groups who don’t adhere to it or where it isn’t even relevant.

A case in point is one of Bill’s arguments, which is flawed and really a terrible generalization.

“Essentially, a Pagan believes most everything the Witch believes, but is kind of a lay person, whereas a Witch is more of a Priestess or Shaman.”

I think that the above quote has more fallacies in it than anything that I ever seen written by anyone with any amount of knowledge. Modern witches and pagans represent very different traditions of belief and practice. Even within these generalized categories there is quite a bit of difference, based on the fact that every witch or pagan calls upon different traditions within that generalized group. While some could find some very broad points in common between them, they are quite distinct. Also, a member of a specific witchcraft tradition would not be an elite amongst a group of neopagans, since there isn’t any really defined hierarchy between all of these divergent traditions in the first place. Each group has its own leaders, and often there is a fair amount of squabbling about even that obvious point. You will also notice that Bill conflates a priest or priestess with a shaman, which is a completely different category altogether. It just seems that Bill doesn’t really know what he is talking about, so it would seem that his entire thesis is based on utter and complete nonsense.

Deeper into his article, Bill does concede that Wicca is modern, and that if there are resemblances between Masonry, then obviously one would have been the model for the other. Such an admission almost destroys his entire thesis, but then he saves it by proposing some more ancient (and sinister) source for both Wicca and Masonry. Although there isn’t any proof for this statement, it does represent the foundation of Bill’s thesis. I quote his damning admission, with the merest caveat that saves his thesis from nullifying itself.

“As it is currently constituted, Wicca is barely a century old. This is not to say that it doesn't draw on elements from the ancient mystery cults. To be certain, it does—to a high degree. However, it is a difficult task to ascertain whether contemporary Wicca so strongly resembles Freemasonry because two of its principle architects (Aleister Crowley and Gerald B. Gardner) were Masons; or whether that similarity is a derivation of more ancient practices.”

Historians have shown that the supposed ancient mystery cults passed away without leaving very much evidence behind. Christianity was quite thorough in its destruction of all of the pagan practices of antiquity. What we have today is a mere conjectural reconstruction, drawn from many different sources and completed with a lot of creative imagination. Masonry and witchcraft are modern creations, and they have very little in common with the older mystery cults, since that knowledge passed away long before either of these two organizations were invented. Masonry was a product of the Age of Enlightenment, and Wicca, a product of Victorian England. There is no unbroken lineage spanning the ages of antiquity to the present time.

Another point, Aleister Crowley didn’t have anything to do with writing the corpus of the Gardnerian Witchcraft Book of Shadows. This has been proven quite definitively, since Crowley and Gardner didn’t meet until the year of Crowley’s death, and then only a couple of visits occurred. It may be a difficult task to ascertain the resemblances between Gardnerian Wicca and Masonry if you are looking for some kind of satanic connection, but of course, the simpler explanation is just a form of plagiarism.

Then comes the really nail gripping and ghastly supposition, that (oh my!) Wicca somehow has engulfed the evil source of Masonry, making the rites more sanctified and less (still my beating heart!) blasphemous than their original form. What this amounts to is the belief that Masonry is evil and satanic, so if some group has modeled itself on those rituals and beliefs, then that group, too, is tainted and satanic. This belies the known fact that Masonic organizations spawned a plethora of analogous organizations and institutions, both in England, the European continent and the U.S. One could even go so far as saying that a number of democratic countries, such as our own, are powerfully influenced and saturated with Masonic beliefs, symbolism and philosophies. If you are a citizen of the U.S., Italy, France, England, and others too numerous to mention, you are an unwitting pawn influenced by the evils of Masonry. I guess the whole world should be so lucky!

Here’s Bill’s altar stone for his article -

“If Masonic rituals were engrafted into Witchcraft in the late 19th and early 20th century, and if that melding was so seamless and effortless—even to the point that in some cases, the Wiccan rites were less bizarre and blasphemous than there[sic] Masonic counterpart, then what message does that send about Masonry? As a preacher friend of mine, Jim Spencer, observed, ‘If the devil can preach my sermons without changing them much, what does that say about my sermons?’”

I suppose you could say that it really says nothing at all, since lots of organizations around the world have modeled themselves on Masonry. I would also say that the Devil has been preaching Mr. Spenser’s sermons, and Bill’s as well. Anyone who preaches bigotry, religious intolerance and advocates sectarian hate crimes against others is really doing the work of the Christian devil. How illuminating for Bill to show us who his mentor really is.

From this point on in Bill’s article, things get completely silly. The merest suppositions become embedded and obvious facts, and from them the world turns into a dark gothic negative image of itself, with ravens cawing in the background and bats flitting overhead, while the world is wrapped in a sinister stygian mist that hides the supposed real truth. Bill goes on and on with his arguments, building them up to a crescendo, like listening to Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” or reading a story by H. P. Lovecraft. Even the list of satanic members of witchcraft and masonry is pretty astonishing. I am sure that Arthur Edward Waite would have been horrified to be considered a member of the witch cult, just like many of the other members of the infamous list. Only Gerald B. Gardner and Alex Sanders belong there, and the fact that at least one of them was also a Mason really proves nothing.

One of Bill’s final arguments is totally inane and even laughable, so I shall present it here for our amusement.

“The Masonic temple is a temple of Witchcraft! There can be little doubt about that. Veiled within its symbols are the deities and even the working tools of Witchcraft! As has been shown, the square and compasses are representations of the generative organs—the ‘sacred altar’ of Witchcraft! The blazing star at the center of the lodge is the Witch’s pentagram, symbol of the god of Satanism, Set! The Letter ‘G’ stands for generativity[sic], sexual potency.”

Anyone who has ever been a Mason (or has read Masonic material) will know what the mysterious “G” symbolizes. It represents the first letter of “God” and “Geometry,” both of which are quite prosaic and tame. Bill has outdone himself, becoming a laughing stock in the process. I am certain that his audience, the credulous and the ignorant, will find his article illuminating (no pun intended). They will undoubtedly lose sleep over it and have many nightmares about Masons and witches cavorting together in some satanic grove, dancing merrily and obliviously around the hooves of the big “D.” I do feel sorry for them and wonder at the foolishness of their critical thinking, but I have little further to say about Bill except to shake my head and wonder how he is able to make up all of this crap. He must be ingesting some potent hallucinogens in order to come up with these obvious fantasies.

Perhaps some day Bill will be rewarded for his virulent punditry. Maybe he can get a day job as the pastor exemplar for the Fox News Network. However, I doubt if other and wiser Christians will ever appreciate his work, since it is so far down in the gutter and living in the sewer of popular thought.

Frater Barrabbas

The Mask is Finally Removed From Bill Schnoebelen - Concluding Remarks

This is final part and conclusion taken from my long article, “Are Witches Dupes of Satan”, which I wrote as a response to a book published by my ex-high priest, Bill Schnoebelen. The book was entitled “Wicca; Satan’s Little White Lie,” and it has bedeviled the witchcraft community ever since it was first published by Chick publications. This is where I examine Bill’s real motives for writing his book. I reveal the real person behind the edifice - a person who is deeply flawed, troubled, and even mentally disturbed. This is a person that we should pity if it were not for the damage that he has wrought upon the occult community.

When I read Bill’s book, it became obvious that he was very bitter and even angry about his past failings as a Wiccan High Priest and occultist. He portrayed himself as a man who was betrayed and corrupted by the dark agencies within the Witch Cult. No matter how altruistic or righteous he behaved in his role as a spiritual elder, guide and teacher, he was bound to fail. He now believes that the true faith was lurking behind that failure, that God had brought him through the darkness, despair and the evil corruption of his Wiccan and Satanic adventure for the sole purpose of making him an instrument of persecution and accusation against the adherents of a threatening and pernicious creed, which even today is corrupting young people and leading them into the uncompromising embrace of the Devil. Bill’s message is very clear, if you’re a Witch and you aren’t a deliberate devotee of Satan, then you are merely the unwitting dupe of a terrible Satanic conspiracy. Bill’s Christian ministry specializes in bringing one time members of the craft back into the fold of the faithful. He and his wife have assisted hundreds of individuals to cope with their broken and destroyed lives, rebuilding them with the salvation, love and grace of Jesus Christ.

Of course, I myself have never met anyone who had ruined their lives and their families by being involved in an earth based religion. In fact, I would find it rather strange if such things happened. What Bill is saying is that people who get involved in Wicca or Neopaganism also become drug addicts and criminals in a cavernous underground of human suffering, malicious deeds and dark soulless activities, too horrible to even mention (even though he mentions them at every opportunity). Yet there is absolutely no proof that any of Bill’s accusations are true. In fact, most of what he relates in his book either didn’t occur or has been so exaggerated and distorted as to be barely recognizable. Bill is telling a very dramatic tale, one that Stephen King would surely envy. The truth is far more humbling, boring and sad. That tale is how one individual who was gifted with so many talents, failed at everything that he tried to accomplish. However, Bill’s path should be an object lesson to us all, so we can now discuss the fatal mistakes that destroyed his dream of a Wiccan Camelot.

Bill is very bitterly opposed to Witchcraft, Paganism, magick, and the host of New Age occult practices and beliefs, as well as the perennial philosophy itself. Bill has turned his back on the adventure of self-discovery and the revelation of his own divine and spiritual heritage - one that all of humanity shares. In fact, Bill has become the nemesis against all forms of liberality, whether it be the so-called liberal press or the liberal political establishment, which supports a social agenda of secular humanism as a means to protect individual rights and religious practices from government interdiction.

He identifies secular humanism as the lax and overly tolerant social malaise that allowed dangerous forms of liberality to be promoted, including Witchcraft and Neopaganism. Bill has taken it upon himself to be the guardian of the new moral force in our society, one that will over-turn the rot instigated by secular humanism. However, this is really a rejection of liberality based upon Bill’s personal, spiritual and moral bankruptcy. It’s a way to explain that failure in a manner that allows him to deny any responsibility (“the Devil made me do it!”).

Bill and Sharon were responsible for exploiting and hurting the people who followed them. Because of their corrupting influences, they actually caused a few of them to fall into ruin and self destruction. It took Bill’s former coven members years to shed the stigma and the bitterness of the fall. I know this to be true, for I was one of them. Bill, himself, also reaped some of the bitterness that he sowed. Perhaps that may have changed him if he had taken full responsibility for it all.

However, Bill responded to this fall from grace by seeking a quick solution, so he first sought out the Mormons. Then when that did not deliver him from the crushing demands of his own petty ego, he found the one path where he could enjoy the status of a superstar and cash in on all of his years of occult study and practice. The earth based spiritual traditions could not give Bill the respect he required nor support him in the kind of lavish life style that he would feel was due to someone of his lofty rank, so he switched his spiritual allegiances until he found an organization that gave him what he required in life. This was no dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus as Bill would like us to believe, but a purely calculated move to accomplish and fulfill his material ambitions.

Such notoriety as Bill has acquired has its costs, as a reformed spiritual pervert, the leaders in Bill’s adopted spiritual community will certainly keep him under scrutiny in case of any observable relapses. Bill will never be wholly trusted by his new partners, since his list of infamous crimes and practices makes him tainted in eyes of good Christians, who never wavered in their faith to the exceptional degree that Bill did. He will be a controversy and will never really be accepted by these people. This is because they believe that no matter how dramatic a conversion to the true faith one experiences, the crimes of the past must still be accounted for. There is no guarantee of complete forgiveness by the Lord, no matter how pious one is from the moment of conversion to the end of one’s life. This also has all of the characteristics of the life story of a traitor, a person who, for whatever reasons, has cashed in on his former allies. He is never wholly accepted by his new allies and he is despised by his own people. For the rest of his life, he is never trusted nor wholly believed by anyone. Such a life is a lonely one and it’s a good thing that Bill has his faithful wife Sharon to keep him company for the long years ahead.

The final lesson in the tragedy of the life of Bill Schnoebelen is one that is both profound and deep, one that requires a great deal of wisdom to understand. Perhaps if Bill had spent more time trying to understand the spiritual wisdom of his own path in Witchcraft, he would have matured past the point of his own egoic excesses. But it is more likely that Bill would never have learned this subtle point, even if he were still involved in Witchcraft today. Bill’s most egregious failing is that he mistakenly believed that in order to grow and become enlightened, he had to submit himself to the darkness, in other words, he had to abrogate his will and open himself to whatever dark influences moved him. Bill believed that this was the only way to master his spiritual path. Because there was no one around to show him his error or dispute this aspiration, Bill got to experience the full measure of bitterness, perversity, darkness and despair that such a foolhardy act ultimately achieves.

We are taught that when we practice magick and intense forms of occultism, we should never practice alone. That a person should be subjected to the judgement of his or her peer group and in this manner, avoid the pitfalls of ego obsession and the distortion and bias caused by one’s inherent imperfections. Through others, we learn to objectify our own spiritual process and keep it from falling prey to dark unconscious motivations and personal power trips. The greatest lesson in Bill’s fall is that we do not submit ourselves to darkness. We should always submit ourselves to the highest spiritual love and instead, master the darkness and translate its fear and ignorance into acceptance and insight. What is sacrificed when an occultist gains the subtle domain of nondual consciousness is the petty ego, its infantile needs and false idols of selfhood. These are the things that the true aspirant renounces, offering them up to the ultimate and unknowable spiritual truth.

Bill was never able to give up his egoic pursuits. Even now, he continues to build an empire for his empty and shallow self to occupy. He has failed the ultimate test of adepthood, and for him, there will be no further growth until he is ultimately humbled and experiences the long overdue death of his petty ego. I, for one, will not wait for that day, since I believe that it will be very long in coming, if it ever comes at all.

Frater Barrabbas

Those Most Troubling Points of Darkness - Part 4b

This is part four - the second half - of a four part series taken from my long article, “Are Witches Dupes of Satan”, which I wrote as a response to a book published by my ex-high priest, Bill Schnoebelen. The book was entitled “Wicca; Satan’s Little White Lie,” and it has bedeviled the witchcraft community ever since it was first published by Chick publications. This is the fourth part, which discusses and analyzes Bill’s book, particularly those accusations that are most difficult to explain to outsiders and most troubling.

Bill says in his book, “If it quacks like a Satanic duck, then it is a Satanic duck!” - and he is referring to several characteristics of Witchcraft that would seem to lend a little credence to his accusations. We, who are practitioners of the new earth based religions, know that we don’t worship Satan, but we also know that aspects of our mysteries appear to be shrouded in darkness and that they take place in an underworld, the Lord of which, seems to bear a superficial resemblance to the Christian Devil. The Horned God as the Lord of Darkness, whose emblem is the inverted pentagram, seems to be a simulacrum of the Devil, despite whatever spin we might want to give him. He appears as a man and goat joined into a composite creature, who is animal, man and also a god, and although this is an archaic image of proto-man that is older than recorded history. It is also a new image for a new God. The animal-man-god is an archetype for a higher than normal state of human consciousness, called by Ken Wilber, the centauric state of conscious development - signifying the mind state of the Body-Mind (Sanscrit - Tanamana).

The Horned God is also represented as the cycle of living, dying, and being-reborn-again aspect of the Deity that sympathizes and identifies with the ephemeral condition of all life, which is within and beyond life, emerging as the transcendental Spirit. Thus the God of the Witches is both old and archaic, but also very new and emblematic of the coming age of (truly) spiritual  humanity, (as opposed to religious humanity - our current phase). We have become ourselves an image of God. We must discover this image and know it as the source of spirit within us.

The images and meanings that I have presented above about the Horned God would seem to represent something altogether different than what we know about Satan, the Christian Devil. And that is only the beginning of the differences between Christian Evil and Neopagan Mysteries. It’s the difference between those who fear and avoid the darkness and those who cautiously learn to master it. This act requires some courage and even daring, a very centauric quality.

Everyone who is even moderately spiritual knows that the highest state of being is empowered by love and that hatred, anger and violence are the destructive forces that negate and dispel all forms of conscious union. The Horned God represents the heroic, mortal and immortal quest of all humankind, the quest for the source of our spirit and its awakening and revelation through us. The centauric aspect of God is represented as the sacrament of life itself, fully blessed and fully lived in the bliss of eternal love. And that is the God of the Witches!

In the underworld, where all the mysteries take place, we encounter the divine Mysticon, and through it, we are initiated (transformed) and return to the world of light, reborn and regenerated. The cycle of light and darkness are the transformations that occur in our life, but our darkening times are not to be confused with times of despair and dissolution, nor do they obscure any guilt or malfeasance. As we progress through life, we alternately open and close ourselves to the world around us. The times of opening up are times of light and the times of closing off are the times of darkness. It is only in the times of darkness, when we are closed off from the outside world, that we may experience the mysteries of our own soul and spirit. And also, it is an error to remain in the darkness, for we must enter into the light and translate our newly acquired wisdom into life affirmations and aspirations.

The underworld ordeal is only half of the equation, since it requires an entrance into the world of light and love to complete it. The cycles of conscious evolution are easily stimulated by the cycles of nature, the light and dark phases of the Moon and the stations and seasons of the Sun. So it is that physical life itself initiates us, and our spiritual connection with the Absolute guides us to that ultimate and great event; where the Goddess as archetypal woman and the God as archetypal man join together in the sacred union that expresses the Union of All Being - the origin of all Divine Emanations (as the Qabbalists would say). The eternal cycle of light and darkness in the spiritual and physical domains becomes like the House of God. It is the symbolic Temple of the Human Spirit and all things perceived and realized within it are the dreams of the gods. It is astonishing to me that anyone could ever consider such a domain as this one composed exclusively of evil and sin. Such a mental bias boggles the mind! But then knowledge has always been the enemy of religious fanaticism. So the taint of evil is removed from the underworld where the mysteries are revealed!

The inverted pentagram, depicting the face of the goat, has long been associated with Satanism, and indeed, it was used as the emblem of the Church of Satan. The name Leviathan (actually a demonized Tiamat, the World as Goddess) is emblazoned on the emblem. Lurking within the symbolism is the visage of the Templar God, Baphomet. There is undoubtably an overlap between what would be considered Christian Satanism and another discipline, Chthonic Paganism. There is a striking difference between them, although to the eyes of a Christian, the differences are subtle. It’s far easier to lump them all together as being Satanic.

The Christian Devil is not an ancient deity that goes back to the beginning of time, as Elaine Pagels has demonstrated quite ably in her book, “The Origins of Satan.” The concept of the Devil as adversary to God has evolved over the last two millennia. Only Islam and Hasidic Judaism share this theological concept with Christianity. Bill states that the Devil is as old as time itself and he points to what he calls the oldest book in the Hebrew Bible, which is the Book of Job, to reinforce his arguments. Bill places the age of the Book of Job at 1,500 B.C.E., but this is quite absurd and very poor scholarship, for the Book of Job has been dated to no later than the 6th century B.C.E., during the time of the Babylonian captivity. Bill is off by a mere millennia, as are a lot of his arguments.

According to scholars, the Devil evolved from an angel who acted as the tempter and tester of mankind and was an instrument of God, not an adversary. It was not until Judaism was exposed to the dualism of Persian Zoroastrianism that the concept of fallen angels, powerful daemons and the Devil began to be developed into a by-product of the Hebrew religion. Nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures is the concept of Satan as a deadly adversary of God supported, since God is one and indivisible. In Islam, Satan is seen as the great trivializer, a being who is comically depicted as always trying to ape God, and who does a poor job of it; so he is consigned to engaging in minor mischief. It would be a grave error to give too much importance or power to Satan in the various practices of Islam. Only in Christianity is the Devil given so much importance and power. His role has been the primary justification for the incarnation of Jesus and the bestowal of the powers of the Holy Ghost, to cast out demons who are sent against humanity by the Devil. Yet there is even a false Christ, known as the Anti-Christ, who forces the final conflict between evil and good, which is the Apocalypse of the Book of Revelations.

But the forces of evil are always at a great disadvantage and the scales are tipped considerably to the side of God, since he is considered omnipotent and omniscient and incapable of being defeated. One has to wonder why there is even a character like Satan to defy and antagonize the one true God, unless God himself had made it so, creating and deploying the Devil like some amusing side story to keep the common crowd interested in the evolving narrative of the Gospels. It is without any doubt that those who actually give homage and worship to Satan must also be engaged in the eternal dialectic of good and evil within the context of Christianity, since the concept of Satan as imperfect adversary only exists in Christianity. It could only be the seduction of perversity that would cause anyone to ally themselves with a being and a force that was so obviously going to be defeated, and whose works are easily overturned by the faithful and by the will of God. Only a Christian could find any value in worshiping the Devil in this manner, and then, usually hedging his bets with forgiveness and absolution before death makes a present of his soul to the Evil One. This is a reoccurring theme in Christian stories depicting the plight of individuals who are tempted by Satan.

To us pagans or witches, such a context of beliefs and theology about the Devil would be meaningless, since we don’t subscribe to the dual world view of Christianity and we don’t believe in a unified force of evil. How we interpret the world from a spiritual stand-point represents how we operate in that world.

One could deduce that all of the evil perpetuated in the world comes from a common source, which would be supernatural and embodied in an almost godlike being, acting against the authority of God and the common good. One could also deduce that evil in the world is perpetuated by humanity, not as a unified whole, but as isolated chaotic instances of mankind’s ignorance and brutality; the animal aspect of humanity without the quality of the god aspect to enlighten and ennoble it.

The Devil is an immortal angelic being who has fallen from grace and acts as God’s adversary. The Horned God is not immortal, since he dies and is reborn each year and represents the life of the land. These two beings could not represent two more different aspects of godhead, and so we must consider them as distinct and part of two completely different theologies and world-views.

Christianity has used their definition of the Devil as a kind of scape goat, placing all the dark aspects of their Deity, including the mysteries, into the hands of the adversary of God. In this fashion, they have made their highest deity the principle source of all good and light and taken from him any blame for the evils of the world. So the God of the Christians is the God of light, love and compassion; the Devil is the repository of all that is gross, dark and negative. This is quite different than Chthonic Paganism.

Chthonic Paganism is the realization of the dark side of the deity as an aspect of the mysteries. It consists of the transformations and the power of death itself, the cessation of all life, but also the amplification of the domain of spirit. In Neopaganism and Witchcraft, there is no need to split the deity into light and dark, good and evil, since all of these represent the common cycle of human existence. So to the Neopagan, the deities are the source of light and darkness, life and death; but humanity and also the chaotic nature of chance (fate) take the blame for accidents and human engineered calamities. There is no evil entity driving these cataclysms, only the folly and tragedy of human existence. Since there is no Devil in Neopaganism and Witchcraft, the concept of deity is not split between light and darkness, so there is a possibility for such an adherent to experience the unified aspect of the Deity, which would be impossible in protestant Christianity.

Also, since we believe in the immanent aspect of the Deity, we are also not barred from merging our own minds and spirits with that of the Gods. However, the Christian Devil is also a convenient device that keeps Christians from getting too close to their deities, and acts as a profound divisive power that allows some to claim that they are saved while condemning others as unbelievers and unredeemed, planting the seeds of fear that urges religious conversion and persecution. We who follow the earth based spiritual traditions have no need for such a device, since we are content to live in peace with our neighbors, who may or may not share our faith. We don’t seek to change the world and we don’t proselytize our faith. We believe in a world of plurality, so we see deities everywhere and use tolerance and compassion to guide our dealings with others who worship differently. Therefore, to us, either all religions are correct or none of them are correct, since they all seem to stem from a common experience of the spiritual dimensions of consciousness.

We should also write a small paragraph to dismiss the analogies between Lucifer, the Devil and the Solar God of the Witches, which appear many times in Bill’s book and represents one of his primary theses. He has stated that Witches and Nepagans worship a solar deity called Lucifer, who is really the Devil. It is easy to cast this aspersion on the followers of Wicca before a Christian audience, who use the name Lucifer as an alternative to the name Satan, although once again, they are not even remotely the same being.

The name Lucifer is a Latin appellation, which means Light-Bearer (Latin - lucifer), and is a title given to Helios-Apollo, the Sun God of the Greeks and the Romans, as well as an appellation of the Morning Star, Venus. How this name came to be confused with the Devil is an interesting tale, but it is based on an error of translation. The source of this mistranslation is found in the book of Isaiah, who poetically describes the fall of a great prince (Isa. 14:12-15), as a euphemism for the day star, son of the dawn, who is cast from heaven. The word luminous falling star was translated from Hebrew into Latin (of the Vulgate), as Lucifer, so this appellation became the name of Satan, who was cast down from heaven after failing in his rebellion against God. However, Isaiah never meant to confuse the fall of an arrogant prince, filled with his own self importance, with something of greater theological importance, such as the fall of the Devil.

Ever since that translation error, Lucifer has become another name for Satan, but we can see the error and the misuse of this appellation. All of the Witches I have met use the name Lugh to name their solar god or some other Celtic or pagan variation, and I have never met any witches or neopagans who have used the name Lucifer for their solar deity. Micheael Bertiaux used the name, so do a lot of Theosophists, who have corrected the translation error and use it in its literal definition as Light Bearer. Michael also used it to classify Satanists who were more progressive and Promethean in their philosophy, calling them Luciferians. Bill also uses this term in his book, but he is unable to really stick the name Lucifer to the practicing witches of his tradition (we used the name Lugh), so his entire argument about this name, that it is the “smoking gun” or proof that witches worship the devil, is completely erroneous.

The final and most disturbing theological argument that Bill uses in his book is that we who have converted to earth based spiritual traditions from various forms of Christianity are still subject to its rules and judgements, irregardless of our present faith and beliefs. This, of course, is based upon the supposition that Evangelical Christianity is the only true faith. If one has not declared Jesus Christ as his true savior, then that person is destined to a final spiritual perdition.

It appears that Bill’s numerous previous conversions do not affect him in any way, since he is now on the one true spiritual path. Yet there is a great flaw in this argument. On the one hand a person may convert to Evangelical Christianity, all other previous faiths that one might have followed before are wiped out and they do not cause any kind of adverse judgement on that individual. On the other hand, if one converts to another faith, particularly non-Christian, then one is in grave error, but even so, according to Bill that conversion doesn’t count. We are either followers of the one true faith (and saved), or we are damned to perdition. Once again, Bill has to have it both ways! His conversion is valid and mine is invalid because I did not convert to the one true faith. Of course, we have dealt with this issue previously and it’s ridiculous to even consider Bill’s flawed argument that his faith is the only one that is correct and true.

So we need to examine his logic that conversion wipes the spiritual slate clean. If we accept this logic, then not only are conversions to Witchcraft and Neopaganism valid, but so is Bill’s conversion. So we can say with confidence that all conversions are valid, from one religion to another. This would mean that Bill cannot be judged as an apostate and oath-breaker in regards to Wicca, since he is no longer a witch. It would also mean that we can’t be judged as apostate Christians, since we are no longer following the Christian faith.

However, we can judge Bill for the spreading of lies and the instigating of hatred between followers of his own branch of Christianity, and those of us who are following the earth based spiritual traditions. Bill is also spreading lies about Mormonism, Catholicism, Masonry, and other various legitimate systems of the occult. For these crimes against us, we can judge him most harshly; for we have not in any manner either attacked Bill and his faith, nor have we spread lies about him and his religious practices. Yet Bill attacks a great many people and their faiths in a premeditated and vicious manner. Bill uses the false logic that his faith is the correct one. Even when using lies to condemn us, he is not perjuring himself, since to combat the Devil, all methods and tactics are reasonable.

We have proven that this logic is egregiously in error, so can question the nature of Bill’s faith, his truthfulness or lack thereof, and the motives that drove him to persecute us. We have shown that his motives are quite selfish, since they are wholly about his own self aggrandizement, that Bill aggressively seeks power, authority and wealth within his community. This is all done at the expense of a people who represent a small harmless minority, who at one time were his spiritual peers. Bill has shown that he is not only grossly distorting the truth, but he is also helping to create divisions in our spiritually heterogeneous society. This alone is a great and terrible act of spiritual treason. The fact that these dubious works are also materially rewarding for him, makes Bill and his business partners seem like an evil force of selfish callousness infecting our society. Perhaps the public should look for Satan hiding amongst the money, power and greed in Bill Schnoebelen’s With One Accord Ministry. 

To be continued....

Frater Barrabbas