WitchCon 2023

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be giving an online workshop at the upcoming WitchCon Online 2023. WitchCon Online has classes by dozens of Witches and Conjurers from across the globe. According to the official website, “WitchCon Online presenters are the preeminent masters of the magical arts and hail from across a rainbow spectrum of occult and spiritual practices.”

My class will be on March 5th at 3:15 CT and is titled "Exploring Dark Paganism." The course description:

"In this workshop, I introduce Dark Paganism, a deeply personal and individualized philosophy focusing on transformation and shadow work. I guide the participants through the nine Dark Pagan principles, which help develop a version of yourself flourishing in all you do. From self-knowledge and acceptance to magick and environmental mastery, these principles show how to build confidence, trust yourself, and create a meaningful life. I’ll also delve into Dark Pagan ethics and building a Dark Pagan lifestyle."

Benefits of registration include access to all live video classes, rituals, performances, and recordings of every class after the event has ended. There will also be a Virtual Vendorium where one can purchase ritual tools, signed books, jewelry, and more. Attendees will also be able to participate in a Virtual Meet and Greet where attendees and fans meet and chat with presenters live on Zoom.

Registration for WitchCon is limited to only 1,000 attendees. So register now and reserve your spot!

A Time of Darkness

“Hello darkness, my old friend.” – The Sound of Silence, written by Paul Simon

As I wrote in my previous blog, the Winter Solstice is known as Yule in Northern European Paganism as well as neopagan Wicca. Because of the Earth’s changing tilt, its North Pole reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun on that day. The result is the longest night of the year in the Northern hemisphere.

People have mixed reactions to nighttime and darkness. For some, the reaction is negative. This feeling isn’t unreasonable, for the night can hide many dangers. The darkness of night can also bring on a sense of sadness and loneliness. Others find great beauty in the darkness. The world at night takes on mystical air. The shadows and the moon’s eerie glow create a sense of magic at night.

If you have a dark allure, which is a passion for the night and the dark, as I have, relish this time of year. However, if you find this dark time disturbing, know it won’t last forever. Days will shorten as the tilt of the Earth gradually moves back towards the Sun.

Remember, everything changes, and the darkness never lasts. 

Saturnalia and Yule

December 17th through the 23rd is the ancient Roman Pagan festival season as Saturnalia. And December 21st, the winter solstice, is Yule for the Germanic Pagans of Northern Europe. While Saturnalia and Yule have festive elements, both have dark aspects.

Saturnalia was a Roman festival dedicated to the god Saturn as evidenced by the name. Saturnalia began with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn and was followed by a public banquet, private gift-giving, gambling, and a week-long party resembling the modern Carnival or Mardi Gras. The poet Catullus called it “the best of days.”

However, Saturn was a complex god with chthonic aspects. Saturn was connected to the underworld, with 3rd-century sources recording that the bodies of dead gladiators were offered to Saturn during Saturnalia. There’s further evidence of Saturn’s chthonic nature in an Estrucian artifact that may bear his name. This artifact places Saturn in the north, a direction associated with the realm of the dead. Saturn ruled over winter lightning, unlike Jupiter, who ruled the lightning of Summer storms.

Yule was a winter solstice festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples. For the Yule festival, locals would assemble at the temple. They would bring food, ale, and livestock for sacrifice. The priest would splatter the blood of the sacrificed animals over the altars, walls of the temple, themselves, and the locals. They would toast to the god Odin. The Yule festival lasted for three days. 

The Germanic people believed that a supernatural event called the Wild Hunt occurred during Yule. In the Wild Hunt, the god Odin would fly through the night with an army of undead warriors. If someone was unlucky enough to be outside at just the wrong time, they could be swept up, transported far away, or killed.

So enjoy Saturnalia or Yule (or, like me, both). Go ahead and party like it 99 B.C.E. But remember to watch your back, for it's not all fun and games.

Exploring Polytheism – Part 3

In the two prior posts, I showed how polytheism, which is a belief in multiple gods or forms of divinity, is the form of Theism that makes the most sense. This begs the question of what is meant by gods in polytheistic thought?

Disclaimer: I’m a hard polytheist, meaning I believe that the gods are independent entities with their own personalities. This viewpoint, therefore, colors what follows.

Regular readers will recognize some of what I’ve written here. I covered gods in a series of blog posts back in September, 2022.

According to Stephen Dillon, author of The Case for Polytheism, a god or goddess has three defining characteristics. The first characteristic is disembodied consciousness, meaning that all gods are spirits. However, while all gods are spirits, not all spirits are gods. The second characteristic is that gods are more knowledgeable than we are. This isn’t unique to gods because many spiritual entities have greater knowledge than humans. The third characteristic of gods is that they have what Dillon calls “remarkable greatness.” 

The best way to understand remarkable greatness is the awe and wonder one experiences in a god’s presence. It’s common for people to report feeling both fear and attraction simultaneously when encountering a god. It’s this experience that distinguishes gods from the other spirits.

Many people often consider the word “god” synonymous with “deity.” However, they’re not the same. A deity is any entity one considers sacred and worthy of veneration. Not all deities are gods; not all gods are deities.  

These three posts barely scrape the surface of the subject of gods. You can find more of my thoughts about this and other subjects in my book, The Philosophy of Dark Paganism.

Exploring Polytheism – Part 2

In my previous post, I showed how monotheism conflicts with what we find in reality. Therefore, the claim of the existence of a One True omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God is proven false. However, if we stopped there, we would be atheists. While I’ve never found a satisfying argument from logic for divinity, I believe it exists. However, I base this belief primarily on personal experience and nothing more. 

Working on the assumption of the existence of divinity, I, along with most contemporary Pagans, contend that divinity is best conceived in multiplicity, at least on the level humans can interact with it, rather than unity. The term for divinity as multiplicity is polytheism.

Statues of gods from the Greek pantheon

There are several good arguments for polytheism. Because I like to keep these blog posts short, I’ll briefly cover one argument. 

Argument from Nature

Contemporary Paganism is often described as a “nature religion.” Such a term carries many implications. One implication is that we look to the world around us for assistance in great metaphysical questions. Known as the Hermetic Principle, this is often summarized as “As above, so below.” The Hermetic Principle, therefore, states that the natural world can assist us in understanding divinity. 

The natural world is awash with multiplicity and diversity. Our sun, for example, is only one star out of 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. And there are over 20 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. All of the stars differ from each other. There are red dwarfs, white dwarfs, blue giants, yellow mainstream stars like ours, and many more. Observations show that most stars have at least one planet and that each of these exoplanets is unique. In all of the observable universe, random chance dictates that life most likely evolved on at least one planet other than our own. Indeed, the biology of each exoplanet would itself be just as distinctive as the planet.  

Just as multiplicity and diversity are found throughout the Cosmos, the same goes for life on Earth. It’s estimated that around 8.7 million species of plants and animals exist. And within each species is a fantastic display of diversity. Darwin’s famous observation of the  beaks of finches is an excellent example of the differences that can occur within a species.  

In Shinto, it is said that there are eight-million kami, or divine beings. Eight million is a symbolic number which means it’s impossible to count. This saying isn’t surprising since Shinto, an indigenous religion of Japan, is very much nature-based. 

Just as we find enormous diversity and multiplicity on Earth and in the Cosmos, we should expect the same with divinity. Divinity must be understood in multiplicity and diversity.