Revival of Freedom Continues By Replacing Religious Dogmas With Feelings (1700 to Present)

(July 6, 2022) Freemasonry was a Manifestation of the Freedom Stage of the Enlightenment. It was not meant to replace any existing religion but became popular because it was a place for free thinkers to associate in a private club atmosphere. Its popularity was due to doing ceremonial royal-like rituals together and working towards gaming-like level advancements in regards to those rituals. Its members were free to work out and choose their own religious path. This desire for freedom from the repressive state and religious authorities of the time led to most of its workings being secret.

Freemasonry also provided much of the ritual structure for later Nature based magical practices. Many modern Nature Pagans still use the Freemasonry ritual practice of calling the cardinal directions, using its closing phrase of "so mote it be" and its original three degrees of advancement in education schemes. Also the 1950's founders of the British Wicca (Gerald Gardner) and the more nature based Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (Ross Nichols) were members of a Freemason inspired organization called the Ancient Druid Order.

Freemasonry's first informal lodges were formed in London starting around 1680. In 1717 the remaining members of these lodges came together and formally formed a grand lodge (Morris 2013). Consequently, their rise paralleled that of the 3rd and last stage of the Enlightenment which focused on social freedom. By joining a Freemason lodge its members were making more of a personal statement about being anti-authoritarian instead of seeking a nature based religion.

The ancient tradition most in line with freedom and which was adopted by these new Freemasons was that of stone-craft masonry which was in steep decline at the time due to the rise of brick as a building material. Brick had been of poor quality until the time of King Henry VIII (ruled 1509 to 1547) who build several palaces out of it. By the mid 1600's it was the building material of choice, especially for the conversions of old stone houses into houses having the new invention of fireplaces.

The governing guild charter of stone-craft masonry goes back to 1390 CE with the Regius Manuscript. It shows an egalitarian organization of traveling masons having a legendary ancient history. This fake history has the craft masons going back to the time of Babylon and then having the guild associated with Abraham and the Greek geometer Euclid in ancient Egypt at the same time.

Freemasonry invented "secrets" for itself. These secrets consist of passwords, various secret signal, and most of the rituals themselves. Over time most such secrets have been exposed. Why they did so can only be guessed. Perhaps it was to insure security against a misunderstanding and hostile world, perhaps it was to give it an aura of mystery and exclusivity. Yet by claiming to have these "secrets" Freemasonry has generated much hostility to itself. Many people think that they must be doing something nefarious if they have such deliberate secrets. 

Freemasonry's rituals in their temples (also called lodges) have been their most important gift to Nature Paganism. These rituals are done around a central altar.  The ritual room is orientated along the cardinal directions. Yet these rituals are done without the aim of generating feelings. They involve a lot of rote memorization. Often they are done to illustrate some ethical principle. While the initiation rituals can generate feelings that is not their goal. Instead, Freemason's seek to connect to the Divine with prayers thinking words are somehow transmitted across the veil (the material-spiritual barrier).

 Freemasonry is generally segregated by gender. It is also composed of many different organizations which are open to all Master Masons (3rd degree Masons) which belong to a Blue (Symbolic) Lodge. Some of these higher level male organizations are: York rites, Scottish Rites, Shriners, Grotto, Tall Cedars of Lebanon, and Knights Templar. The male African American Masonic orders are Prince Hall

The groups for the female relatives of male Masons are the Order of the Eastern Star, Order of the Amaranth, and the White Shrine of Jerusalem.

References

 Morris, S. Brent (2013) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry (2nd edition) Alpha books

(July 6, 2022) The first attack on Freemasonry was a 1698 leaflet published in London. This attack occurred even before the formation of the Grand Lodge there. It is reproduced below:

The earliest Freemason statement on the religion of Freemasonry was made in 1723 by Freemason and Reverend James Anderson in his book Constitution of the Free-Masons. He imagined some common natural religious framework as the "religion which all men agree" with some natural "Moral Law" without stating what that was or how to find it. Beyond that all sectarian religious opinions were not to be discussed within Freemasonry. His important section of text is as follows:

The Catholic church under Pople Clement XII issued its first encyclical against Freemasonry in 1738 called "In Eminenti." The Catholic church did not argue against it on doctrinal grounds since that would mean promoting their own doctrine and condemning all other Christian denominations. Instead they seized upon it as being a secret society and assumed it like all secret societies was plotting against the state and the church. They also commanded the inquisition to go after all Catholic members:

This has continued to be the position of the Catholic church through it new Code of Canon Law of 1983:

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger who soon became Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013) issued a clarification on this:

The Southern Baptists also do not find Freemasonry compatible with Christianity. The following is a report from their missions board which was approved at the 1993 annual session of the Southern Baptist Convention. It's eight reasons of incompatibility are reproduced below:

1. The prevalent use of offensive concepts, titles, and terms such as "Worshipful Master" for the leader of the lodge; references to their buildings as "mosques," "shrines," or "temples;" and their use of words such as "Abaddon" and "Jah-bul-On" the so called secret name of God. To many these terms not only are offensive but sacrilegious.
2.  The use of archaic, offensive rituals and so called "bloody oaths" or "obligations" among these being that promised by the Entered Apprentice: "All this I most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear swear ... binding myself under no less penalty than that of having my throat cut from ear to ear, my tongue torn out by its roots ... should , in the least, knowingly or wittingly violate or transgress this my entered apprentice obligation." ... (more examples)
3.  The recommended readings in pursuance of advanced degrees, of religions and philosophies, which are undeniably Pagan and/or occultic, such as much of the writings of Albert Pike. Albert Mackey, Manley Hall, Rex Hutchins, W.L. Wilmshurst, and other such authors; along with their works such as Morals and Dogma, A Bridge to Light, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, and The Meaning of Masonry.
4.  The reference to the Bible placed on the altar of the lodge as the "furniture of the lodge" comparing it to the square and compass rather than giving it supreme place in the lodge
5.  The prevalent use of the term "light" which some may understand as a reference to salvation rather than knowledge and truth.
6.  The implication that salvation can be obtained through good works, implicit in the statement found in some Masonic writings that "Masonry is continually reminded of that purity of life and conduct which is necessary to Obtain admittance into the Celestial Lodge above where the Supreme Architect of the Universe presides." Even though many Masons understand that the "purity of life and conduct" can only be achieved through faith in Jesus Christ, others my be led to believe they can earn salvation by living a pure life with good conduct.
7.  The heresy of Universalism (the belief that all people will eventually be saved), which permeates the writings of many Masonic authors, which is a doctrine inconsistent with New Testament teaching.
8. The refusal of most lodges (but not all) to admit membership of African Americans. (https://www.chick.com/bc/2011/mason_report.pdf)

References

(July 6, 2022) The romantic poets made the spiritual/emotional responses to nature respectable again. Prior to this time the only proper spiritual expression was within church defined mental frameworks. This is why the rituals of Freemasons are emotionless and based upon recitations of memorized passages.

The romantic movement began about 1800 in Britain and 40 years later in the United States.  The British poets are represented by William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. In the U.S. the movement was represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. They all saw Nature as a source emotional/spiritual strength and insight. For example:

The word “pagan” started to become something more than a derogatory insult as shown in this passage about the poet Walt Whitman made by William James in his lecture “The Varieties of Religious Experiences” written in 1901. (James, 1987):

References

(July 6, 2022) The revival of the emotional magic began with the discovery of two of its components, the placebo effect and perceptual confirmation bias (we perceive what we want to perceive) by Anton Mesmer (1734 - 1815) of Vienna, Austria. He was granted a doctor of medicine from the University of Vienna at age 33 after studying theology and philosophy.

Mesmer’s doctoral dissertation proposed that the gravitational attraction of the planets affected human health by influencing an invisible fluid found in the human body and throughout nature. In 1775 Mesmer revised his theory of “animal gravitation” to one of “animal magnetism,” wherein the invisible fluid in the body acted according to the laws of magnetism. This meant magnets could be used to redistribute certain body fluids and and so restore people's health by bringing them into balance. 

Many clients reported amazing recoveries after his magnetic treatments but the results were inconsistent.  Accused by Viennese physicians of fraud, Mesmer left Austria and settled in Paris in 1778. There he continued to enjoy a highly lucrative practice but again attracted the antagonism of the medical profession because of inconsistent results.

Later investigations of his successes led to the discovery of the placebo effect and confirmation bias (that is, we perceive what we want to perceive). Mesmer also seems to have been the discoverer of hypnotism which was called Mesmerism until about 1840.  

(July 6, 2022) The means in which physical matter can interact with the realm of consciousness (the spirit realm) and vice-versa turns out to be quite limited. No where was this shown more conclusively than in the failure of Spiritism to communicate via words with dead spirits. This invalidates word based prayers and only leaves the possibility of interaction via more indirect means like feelings, visions, and perceptual biases (emotional magic).

 In 1857 "The Spirits Book" was published by Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail of France under the codename Allan Kardec. He combined the animal magnetism of Anton Mesmer with the new eastern ideas emerging out of western contact with India. He coined the term "Spiritism." Its two main points were:

1. Spirits were essentially humans without physical bodies living a spirit realm. They could be "drawn down" with the right rituals which came to be called seances. They were not trapped in heaven.
2. Spirits were reincarnated and so could be perfected (idea from Buddhism).

The possibility that dead relatives could be contacted during a ritual caused Spiritism to become popular during the mid to late 1800's.  Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln, was a big fan after the loss of her child, William, in 1862.

Spiritism was eventually discredited as people realized that most of these effects were due to fraud or human self-delusion. The great escape artist and magician Harry Houdini even gave his wife a secret code that he would use if he died before her in order to test the possibility of communicating with the dead. He died and she never received that code despite constantly trying to reach him via seances.

(July 6, 2022) Today most people view the realms of consciousness and matter as co-equal each having their own purpose in the scheme of existence. In contrast materialists view matter as the only realm which exists or, at least, is superior to the conscious spiritual realm. In contrast Monists think only spirit realm exists while Transcendentalists simply think the spirit realm is superior. Transcendentalism was an important stage on the way to the equality of matter and spirit.

In the United States the romantic era poet Ralph Waldo Emerson  (1803 - 1882) took Mesmerism in a different direction when he started the movement known as transcendentalism in 1863 with his anonymous publication of an essay entitled Nature. 

His father was a Unitarian minister and Emerson was a Harvard trained minister who left Christianity after sensing that Jesus’ teaching about developing heaven on earth was contradictory to the apocalyptic dogmas of Christianity. In Emerson’s view, the kingdom of God (more properly translated as "Divine space" ) could only be manifested on earth if everyone emotionally and spiritually connected with the Divine realm. Emerson was ahead of his time in that he had actually discerned the real teachings of Jesus and linked them with a nature tradition before any objective way existed to do so. Emerson said this in his essay:

God, according to Emerson, was a cosmic consciousness network, an interconnection of spirits (Logos) which existed prior to physical humanity. Emerson knew his classical Greek! Out of this eternal spiritual network came the universe:

The various examples of spiritual power represent the remaining power of spirit over matter, that is the power of magic:

References

 Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1836) Nature​

(July 6, 2022) The transcendental superiority of the spirit realm was put into practice with the spiritual healing of Christian Science. This both shows the effectiveness of magical placebo healing and its limitations.

Mary Baker Eddy was born July 16, 1821 as Mary Baker in New Hampshire and died December 3, 1910 in Newton Massachusetts. She founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning secular newspaper in 1908 whose mandate was fair news reporting in contrast to the biased sensationalism of the day. She wrote numerous books and articles with the most popular being Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures which had sold over nine million copies as of 2001.

In her book she identified the deep reality of nature as "Principle" which seems to be her word for the Greek concept of Logos, the conscious interconnection of all things. She also uses the word "metaphysics" instead of theology because she is arguing from nature and not the Bible. She is also a dualist in that Principle is good and matter is evil. She says this on the first page of her book:

But being the dualist she does not make the mind (consciousness) equal to matter but insists it is superior and that will eventually cause her movement to fail because it encourages ignoring the findings of medical science.

Mary Baker married Dentist Daniel Patterson in 1853 after the death of her first husband. On October 14, 1861, Daniel wrote to mesmerist Phineas Parkhurst Quimby asking if he could cure his wife Mary of some undisclosed illness. Quimby replied that he had too much work in Portland, Maine to leave but if Patterson brought his wife to him he would treat her. Before going they first tried the nearby water cure at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute but her health deteriorated even further. A year later, in October 1862, Mary and Daniel visited Quimby where she improved and publicly declared that she had been able to walk up 182 steps to the dome of city hall after a week of treatment. The cures were temporary, however, and Eddy suffered relapses.

Despite the temporary nature of the "cure," she attached religious significance to it, which Quimby did not. She believed that it was the same type of healing that Jesus had performed. From 1862 to 1865, Quimby and Mary engaged in lengthy discussions about healing methods practiced by Quimby and others.

On February 1, 1866, Mary slipped and fell on ice while walking in Lynn, Massachusetts, causing a spinal injury:

In 1968 she separated from her husband and became a spiritist for a short time before becoming disillusioned with the practice. Her first advertisement for her healing services appeared in the Spiritist newspaper, The Banner of Light in 1868.

In the 24th edition of Science and Health, up to the 33rd edition, Eddy admitted the harmony between Hindu Vedanta philosophy and Christian Science. She also quoted certain passages from an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, but they were later removed.

Mary was aware of the dark side of spiritual energy work which she called Malicious Animal Magnetism  of M.A.M. As there is no personal devil or evil in Christian Science, M.A.M. became the explanation for the problem of evil. Eddy was concerned that a new practitioner could inadvertently harm a patient through unenlightened use of their mental powers, and that less scrupulous individuals could use as a weapon. At first she was paranoid about this. In 1882 Eddy publicly claimed that her last husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy, had died of "mental assassination". Daniel Spofford was another Christian Scientist expelled by Eddy after she accused him of practicing malicious animal magnetism. This gained notoriety in a case irreverently dubbed the "Second Salem Witch Trial."  

As time went on Eddy tried to lessen the focus on animal magnetism within the movement as she came to understand that mental healing or mental cursing (placebo effect) only worked if a person's deep emotions were open to it. 

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy

Eddy, Mary (1875) Science and Health    https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Science and Health

(July 6, 2022) Occult and faith based practices come from claimed divine revelations to certain people. This is in contrast to nature based practices which are based knowledge coming from observation and subsequent theory crafting. The Occult had a brief revival during and after the Spiritism era.  

In a reaction against the fraud of Spiritism, the Theosophical Society was formed in New York City in September 1875 with Henry Olcott as the president and Ukrainian émigré Helena Blavatsky as the theorist. Helena was born in what is now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Its purpose to help free “the public mind of theological superstition and a tame subservience to science” by rational investigation into the spiritual powers. (Lavoie 2012, page 141). Earlier Blavatsky had claimed that lower form elemental spirits were deceiving the mediums based upon the medium's own biases. This idea was rejected by the Spiritists which motivated her to form the Theosophist Society with Olcott.

In 1877 Blavatsky published the founding book of the movement entitled “Isis Unveiled.” She adopted Emerson’s Transcendentalist metaphysics that matter was a manifestation of the Divine and combined that with eastern religious ideas from India entering the West for the first time. 

Although Isis Unveiled attracted attention, the society dwindled. In 1879 Blavatsky and Olcott left New York and went to India. Three years later they established the Theosophical Society headquarters at Adyar near Madras and began publication of the society’s journal, The Theosophist, which Blavatsky edited from 1879 to 1888. Here she changed the society's focus from observation and investigation to promoting revelations coming to herself. In order for her ideas to get noticed she claimed that they were transmitted to her via automatic writings from “mahatmas” in Tibet. The society soon developed a strong following in India among the English speaking community. Branches of the Theosophical Society were soon formed in the U.S., London, and India. 

This was a time of revival for all sorts of occult groups using rediscovered ancient mystical texts which were then being translated into English. Collectively these texts are broadly called Rosicrucian and Hermetic. Most of these texts claim to represent more ancient revealed traditions.

In 1888 a ritualistic occult society inspired by these trends was formed in Britain by Freemasons William Wescott, Samuel Mathers, and William Woodman. They modeled it on the Freemasons but women had full equality. It was called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn which is an important part of our story.

The Golden Dawn consisted of three main levels (Orders) with many sublevels. Its first Order taught personal development through study and awareness based on the four classical elements, as well as the basics of astrology, tarot divination, and geomancy. The second Order got members ready to work with revelations by teaching scrying, astral travel, and alchemy. The Third Order was working with the Secret Chiefs (the Mahatmas of Blavatsky) who directed the activities of the lower two orders by spirit communication with the Third Order members. 

For some reason William Wescott quit in 1897 At that time his partner Samuel Mathers, claimed that on a visit to Paris he was contacted by the same mahatmas (called the Secret Chiefs) as Blavatsky and they ordered him to establish an inner secret order to the Golden Dawn. This allowed Mathers to eventually take over the whole group in 1897 which he took in the direction of recreating the Egyptian derived Roman mystery religion involving the goddess Isis. Their goal was to gain mystical power by temporarily uniting themselves with various classical divinities. This new direction caused various people to leave the society such that it effectively ended in all but name in 1903. This included Aleister Crowley who desired to experiment with a variety of approaches for gaining spiritual power (Hutton 1999, p 72-83).​

In time Cowley came back and took over the then defunct Order of the Golden Dawn. Crowley was an egotistical, self-centered showman who popularized this group's magical rituals for the growing British tabloid press which loved to print sensationalistic news (Kaczynski 2010). Yet this publicity kept magic in the British public consciousness and was one source of inspiration for Gerald Gardener and Ross Nichols who rejected the whole revealed approach of the occult to found the more nature and ancestral based Wicca and Druidry during the 1950s.

References

(July 6, 2022) In the 1880's Charles and Myrtle Fillmore of Kansas City, Missouri became impressed by the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy after they themselves were healed and desiring to spread that knowledge they launched a newsletter entitled "Modern Thought" in April 1889. Their ideas were further refined by the teachings of a former student of Mary Baker Eddy's named Emma Curtis Hopkins who rejected Mary Baker Eddy's view of Jesus. Mary Baker viewed Jesus as perfection incarnate, the Savior and Messiah. In contrast Hopkins and the Fillmores saw Jesus in Christian Gnostic and Buddhist terms as a man being born mortal but who perfected his divinity over several lifetimes. 

The Fillmores published their praise of Emma Hopkins in their January 1890 edition of Modern Thought magazine shortly after they attended their first public lecture with her:

The Fillmores adopted the magical healing practices of Mary Baker Eddy is shown by this statement from Charles:

This dualist idea that the divine is good and the material world is bad continues to be central in the modern day Unity Movement:

The Unity movement's view of the Divine shows that it has adopted the soft, Buddhist form of dualism in which the material world is imperfect. This view is not the hard dualism of fundamentalist Christians in which the material world is evil and at war with the good divine forces. Still, all dualist thinking leads to the unsolvable conundrum of why a good and perfect God would create an evil or imperfect world allowing pain, and suffering. Unsolvable conundrums are a clue that the metal framework in which the question is posed is wrong.

 During the 1890's H. Emilie Cady, a homeopathic physician, began writing for the Unity movement and her 1901 book "Lessons in Truth." It became the theoretical foundation for the movement. She says this about evil which shows she was struggling with dualism and the differences between soft and hard dualism. Her solution was to treat evil as a delusion. She cannot bring herself to admit that so called negative conscious feelings also represent the Divine:

 The Fillmore's came to view the Unity ideas as "practical Christianity" but by the 1960's the Unity Movement was considered by all other Christian churches to be non-Christian and even heretical. Yet even today, the Unity movement keeps one foot in traditional Christianity with its use of the Bible as an authority and the other foot in mystic Gnostic Christianity with its reliance on direct spiritual insights for knowledge. They always quote a Bible passage in their Daily Word lesson. They make no distinction between personal spiritual knowledge and collective community knowledge as do Nature Pagans. For Nature Pagans, the source for community knowledge is nature which because it is communal knowledge is authoritative. In contrast personal spiritual knowledge is not authoritative but is instead inspirational and motivational. Authoritative knowledge constrains inspirational knowledge.

H. Emily Cady and subsequent Unity teaching have de-emphasized the bodily regeneration part of coming to  highest consciousness as being too Christian. She says, "The possibility of living in these bodies indefinitely seems altogether foolish and shortsighted."

The primary spiritual practice of the Unity movement is opening up emotional/spiritual channels via meditative (prayer) affirmations which in eastern religious traditions are called mantras. Early in the movement they offered such prayer affirmations via phone and by letter which was called Silent Unity. The leader of Silent Unity was James Freeman between 1971 and 2000. He says this about their practice and compares their approach with the typical Christian prayer of petition, Nature Pagans adopted this same self-reliant approach:

One of Freeman's most memorable times on the Unity prayer phone lines is recounted below:

References

 Unity Daily Word Online at http://www.dailyword.com/about

Vahle, Neal (2002) The Unity Movement - Its Evolution and Spiritual Teachings. Templeton Foundation Press

(July 6, 2022) The year 1900 saw the publication of the book Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum in the United States which began the rehabilitation of witchcraft with Glenda the good witch of the north.  In 1902, a musical loosely based on the book debuted in Chicago which went on to Broadway in New York during January 1903 where it played for nearly two years. In 1939 the famous movie came out. (Good video history at: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/american-oz/)

Frank Baum's mother-in-law was the amazing theoretical and activist suffragette, Matilda Joslyn Gage. In 1893 she published Woman, Church, and State. In that book she argued that the institutional Christian church was responsible for women’s oppression throughout history. Gage believed that the church's resistance to women's equality was foundational to other church beliefs and that the church gained power through influencing marriage and education laws. 

This became the "radical" wing of the suffragette movement which led in 1890 to the creation of the more conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association whose less controversial views actually achieved the women's vote in the United States in 1920. Yet, the NAWSA was forced to officially repudiate Woman, Church, and State in 1913 when it was banned under the Comstock laws. This was a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1873 which had the stated purpose of suppressing "Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.”

 While federal anti-obscenity laws existed for some time, censorship itself was not mandated by federal or state governments. What codified censorship was the 1873 Comstock Act, which called for the banning of literature deemed sexually arousing, even indirectly. The man for whom the act is named, Anthony Comstock, was the leader of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and a special agent for both the U.S. Post Office and the New York state prosecutor’s office. The Comstock Act banned the mailing, importation, and transportation of any printed material (even private letters) that contained lewd or lascivious material. It also banned the transport of any sort of contraceptive drug or device, as well as literature describing contraceptive devices. What this meant was that a book that in any way made mention of any sort of birth control could be considered lewd and subject to confiscation. Individuals convicted of violating the Comstock Act could receive up to five years of imprisonment with hard labour and a fine of up to $2,000.

Other books that were affected by the Comstock Act included The Decameron (written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the fourteenth century), Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Beginning in the 1950s, a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases helped change the scope of censorship laws in the United States. In 1971 Congress removed the language concerning contraception, and federal courts until Roe v. Wade (1973) ruled that it applied only to “unlawful” abortions. 

Gage died in the Baum home in Chicago, in 1898. Although Gage was cremated, there is a memorial stone at Fayetteville Cemetery in Illinois that bears her slogan "There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home or Heaven. That word is Liberty." 

The Chapter Summaries of Women, Church, and State As Listed in the Front of the Book:

Chapter One—The Matriarchate

Tendency of Christianity from the first to restrict woman’s liberty. Woman had great freedom under the old civilizations. The Matriarchate; its traces among many nations; it preceded the Patriarchate. The Iroquois or Six Nations under reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Government of the United States borrowed from the Six Nations. To the Matriarchate or Mother-rule, is the world indebted for its first conception of “inherent rights,” and a government established on this basis. Malabar under the Matriarchate when discovered by the Portuguese. The most ancient Aryans under the Matriarchate. Ancient Egypt a reminiscence of the Matriarchal period. Authority of the wife among the most polished nations of antiquity. As Vestal Virgin in Rome, woman’s authority great both in civil and religious affairs. Monogamy the rule of the Matriarchate. Polygamy, infanticide and prostitution the rule of the Patriarchate.

Chapter Two—Celibacy

Original sin. Woman not regarded as a human being by the church. Marriage looked upon as vile. Celibacy of the clergy; their degrading sensuality. A double Code of Morals. Celibacy confirmed as a dogma of the church. Many notable consequences followed. Wives sold as slaves. Women driven to suicide. Influence of the church unfavorable to virtue. Women of wealth drawn into monastic life. The church in Mexico. President Diaz. Protestant Orders.

Chapter Three—Canon Law

The church makes the legitimacy of marriage depend upon its control of the ceremony. Change from ancient civilization to renewed barbarism at an early age of the Christian era, noted by historians, but its cause unperceived. The clergy a distinct body from the laity; their rights not the same. A holy sex and an unholy one. Rapid growth of Canon law in England. Alteration in the laws through the separation of Ecclesiastical courts from the Civil, recognized by Blackstone as among the remarkable legal events of Great Britain. Learning prohibited to women. The oath of seven persons required to convict a priest. Husbands prohibited by Canon law from leaving more than one-third of their property to wives; might [Pg xi]leave them less. Daughters could be disinherited; sons could not be. The Reformation effected no change. Governments catering to Pope Leo XIII, at time of his Jubilee; the President of the United States sends a gift.

Chapter Four—Maquette

Feudalism; its degradation of woman. Jus primae noctis. Rights of the Lords Spiritual. Peasants decide not to marry. Immorality of the heads of the Greek and the Protestant churches. Breton Ballad of the Fourteenth Century. St. Margaret of Scotland. Pall Mall Gazette’s disclosures. Foreign traffic in young English girls. West End. Eton. Prostitution chiefly supported by “Heads of Families.” Northwestern Pineries. Governmental crime-makers. Rapid increase of child criminals. The White Cross society. Baptism of nude women in the early Christian Church.

Chapter Five—Witchcraft

The possession of a pet of any kind dangerous to woman. Black cats and witches. The fact of a woman’s possessing knowledge, brought her under suspicion of the church. The three most distinguishing features of witchcraft. Opposition of the church to the growth of human will. Persecution for witchcraft a continuance of church policy for obtaining universal dominion over mankind. The Sabbat. The Black Mass. Women physicians and surgeons of the middle ages; they discover anaesthetics. Their learning; their persecution by the church. The most eminent legal minds incapable of forming correct judgment. Three notable points in regard to witchcraft. Persecution introduced into America by the “Pilgrim Fathers.” First Synod in America convened to try a woman for heresy. Whipping half nude women for their religious opinions. Famine caused persecution of women.

Chapter Six—Wives

“Usus.” Disruption of the Roman Empire unfavorable to the personal and proprietary rights of woman. Sale of daughters practiced in England seven hundred years after the introduction of Christianity. The Mundium. The practice of buying wives with cattle or money regulated by law. Evil fame of Christendom. “The Worthier of Blood.” Murder of a husband termed petit treason; punished by burning alive. Mrs. Sanio decapitated in Finland, 1892, for crime of petit treason. Husbands control wives’ religion. The “Lucy Walker case;” Judge Dodge decides a husband has a property interest in a wife. Davenport’s Rules for his wife. Assaulting wives protected by law. The Ducking Stool; its use in England; brought to America by the “Pilgrim Fathers.” Salic law. Gavelkind. Women not permitted to read the Bible. “Masterless women.” Women not admitted as a surety or witness. The Code Napoleon. Morganatic marriage. Ibsen’s “Ghosts.” Strindberg’s “Giftas.” Ancient Slavs. Russia under Greek Christianity. The Domstroii Marriage forms. Burying wives alive. “Darkest England.” Advertising wives. An English clergyman offers £100 reward for the capture and return of his wife. Civil marriage is opposed by the church. Action of the Chilian Republic.

Chapter Seven—Polygamy

Polygamy sustained by the Christian Church and the Christian State. The first Synod of the Reformation convened to sanction polygamy. Favoring views of Luther and the other “principal reformers.” Favoring action of the [Pg xii]American Board of Foreign Missions. Favoring action of a Missionary Conference in India. Mormons compared to the Puritans. Mormon theocracy similar to that of other Christian sects.

Chapter Eight—Woman and Work

God’s “curse” upon Adam. Opposition of the church to amelioration of woman’s suffering as an interference with her “curse.” Man’s escape from his own “curse.” The sufferings of helpless infants and children because of woman’s labor. Innutrition and the hard labor of expectant mothers the two great factors in physical degeneration and infantile mortality. Woman’s work in Europe and the United States. Woman degraded under Christian civilization to labors unfit for slaves.

Chapter Nine—The Church of Today

Sin killed by sin. Woman’s inferiority taught from the pulpit today. A Pastoral letter. The See trial. Modern sermons on women. Lenten lectures of Rev. Morgan A. Dix. The Methodist General Conference of 1880, reject Miss Oliver’s petition for ordination on the plea that woman already has all the rights that are good for her. Resolves itself into a political convention. The General Conference of 1888, rejects women delegates. The Catholic Plenary Council of 1884. Mazzini’s prophecy. The opposition of the church to woman’s education has killed off the inhabitants of the world with greater rapidity than war, famine or pestilence. The present forms of religion and governments essentially masculine.

Chapter Ten—Past, Present, Future

The most important struggle in the history of the church. Not self-sacrifice, but self-development woman’s first duty in life. The protective spirit; its injury to woman. Christianity of little value to civilization. Looking backward through history; looking forward.

References

(Dec 23, 2023) Matilda Joslyn Gage's book and the rehabilitation of the witch's image set the stage for Margaret Murray to propose in 1921 that remnants of a European wide Nature religion were preserved into historical times as witch covens whose characteristics could be discovered from the transcripts of witch trails. Her 1921 book, “The Witch-Cult in Western Europe” was based upon witch trial evidence gathered between 1550 and 1700. She also notes that the first witch trails occurred in Britain during the early 1300's and that Joan of Arc was burnt as a witch in 1431. 

Chapter 1

Murry starts in chapter 1 by providing evidence from ancient sources that some sort of Pagan religion existed prior to the arrival of Christianity:

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 introduces the witch's god (called the devil by Christians). He was seen usually a handsome man but sometimes a woman (probably in proportion to the witches sexual orientation) or an animal. In rituals this god was usually played by some man dressed up as an animal. She says in section 4:

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 covers the admission ceremonies. 

A witches mark in some places and times was considered proof that a person had been ordained as a witch although it was not proof at other times and places:

Chapter 4

In chapter 4 Murry describes the witches assemblies and their magical means of travel. Their main assemblies were their sabbaths or in French “sabbats.” 

Some witches reported that they were magically transported to their sabbats via applying magical oils 

From these magical but ambiguous beliefs came the idea that witches rode on broomsticks for as Murry says:

In contrast to attending sabbats, other witches just rode around at night. These nocturnal reports associate witches with the goddess Dianna:

(Murray's source here was incorrect, this quote did not come from that council so it must be considered to be from the European 800's) Diana was the Roman moon goddess and the main feminine deity of the Latin west. She was probably in the line of Sumerian Inanna, Mesopotamian Ishtar, Mediterranean Ayu, and Greek Artemis. Herodias seems to be a temptress goddess based upon Herodias, the woman who causes John the Baptist to be executed by King Herod Antipas of Galilee back when Jesus was living.

Chapters 5 and 6

Chapters 5 and 6 describes the Sabbat proceedings. A French source, Boguet (1589), describes the "typical" Sabbat as revealed by the witch trials (translated into English): 

Chapter 7

Witch hunters were motivated by the fear of organized conspiratorial groups which could corrupt the social order. In some cases the prosecutors found or more likely invented what they were looking for. Murry says this:

Appendix

In an appendix Murray links fairies and witches:

Murray's 1933 Sequel

In 1933 Murray brought out a sequel entitled “God of the Witches” aimed at the more casual reader. She continue to claim that the fairies originated out of a race small people and that they originated the witch religion.

But the big difference is that Murray now linked the Devil with the Goddess Diana instead of a fertility god in a convoluted and fraudulent linkage which goes as follows:

She claimed that the Devil derived from the nature god Pan who was the two horned god representing the masculine aspect of nature (the imagery was certainly borrowed).

 She further claimed that Pan was the same as the god Janus who was the god of gateways and transitions who was often represented as two heads facing in opposite directions (we get the month of January from Janus in a representation of the yearly transition). Sometimes one of the heads of Janus is horned in a representation of the transition from the divine to the material realms.

Next Murray claimed without any evidence that Janus was the same as a male version of the goddess Diana whom she called  Dianus (such a god does not exist in the classical texts). She got this speculative linkage from chapter 16 of the book The Golden Bough by James Frazier. The Golden Bough was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; and in twelve volumes in the third edition, published 1906–1915. While those books popularized anthropology they were full of speculation and short on facts.

Murry now claimed that Diana was the original Goddess of the witches before the rise of Christianity.

Initially these books had little impact with the first book only selling 2,020 copies while the second book was pulled from publication and discounted in price after two years (Hutton, p 200). Yet due to the increased interest in witches due to the Wizard of Oz movie, the second book was republished during the late 1940’s and it became a bestseller. 

References

(July 6, 2022) Perceptheism is a mental framework which claims the details of the divine realm are objectively unknowable so all conceptions of the divine are personally valid as long as such conceptions are not claimed as something which others should believe. Monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, and atheism all assume the divine can be known in an objective sense and claim the other theisms are wrong.

This concept is found as specific examples throughout the ancient Druid rune texts and also in Greek philosophy in which a principle like wisdom (sophia) could be optionally perceived as the goddess Sophia. Yet Alcoholic's Anonymous seems to have been the first in history to state it as a general principle in opposition to the various  dogmatic concepts of the divine. For this organization's founders, the establishment of a strong connection to Divine along with peer pressure was an essential aid in overcoming the power of addiction.   

This conceptual freedom to view the Divine in a way most natural for each person is called Perceptheism. The importance of divine connections in the recovery of the alcoholic was well stated by George Little who wrote in 1948:

References

(July 6, 2022) The idea that witches represented the remnants of the pre-Christian nature religion motivated Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) of Britain to found Wicca. He sought to recreate the original witch fertility cult proposed by Margaret Murry.

Gardner himself was flawed and used his Wicca to gain access to young women yet his later followers stripped Wicca of these flaws while keeping its important spiritual core. These traditions later became known as British Traditional Wicca.  

During his working life Gerald Gardner managed tea and rubber plantations in Ceylon, North Borneo, and Malaya until 1923 when he became a government inspector. During that time he was exposed to tribal level spiritual practices. In 1936 at age 52 he was able to take an early retirement due to an inheritance. He then settled in a suburb of Bournemouth, England and joined the local mystical esoteric society called the Fellowship of Crotona at nearby Christchurch.

Right after WW 2 Gardner's interests became more focused on spiritual things. Consequently, he rented an apartment in London so he could participate in the Ancient Druid Order. He was elected to their governing council in 1946. This Druid organization was a Freemason type of organization which used the Druid as its icon. Gardner soon found out the organization had no interest in developing a more nature based magical focus.​

The Ancient Druid Order was founded around 1900 in London. They drew mostly on the fake Druid documents of Iolo Morganwig and the occult ideas of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Significantly, the founders of both Wicca (Gerald Gardner) and Druidry (Ross Nichols) were members at one time and both left for the similar reasons. They both found the organization to be too stagnant in its rituals and ideology. In 1961 Nichols left to found the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids​.

In 1947 Gardner visited old Aleister Crowley who led the Order of the Golden Dawn. At that time Gardner was looking to revive a spiritist organization called the Ordo Templi Orientis which had originated in 1904 in Germany as a mystical offshoot of Freemasonry. In 1912 this organization had made Crowley its head in England due to the similarity of their approaches. (Hutton, p 222).

 Failing in that, Gardner decided to go his own way. In 1948 Gardiner published a novel called “High Magic’s Aid” which was a story mixing Murray’s portrait of witchcraft with the magical ritual approach of the Golden Dawn. The book presented witch rituals which he was probably already doing with a woman friend known to history as Dafo. These rituals included nudity which the novel justified as bringing the witch into a more powerful mystical unity with nature. Gardner himself was a nudist (naturist).

The real name of “Dafo” has not been published out of respect for her family’s privacy because she later was  ashamed of her part in this affair. In any case she was with Gardiner during 1947 in his witchcraft revival project called Ancient Crafts, Ltd.

Gardiner and Dafo bought some land next to a naturist (nudist) camp just north of London. Upon this land  they built an imagined sixteenth century witch cottage and it was there that they established the first modern witch coven and worked out its rituals with other mystical minded nudists (Hutton, p 214).

 In 1951 Britain repealed its witchcraft acts which had made practicing witchcraft illegal. In 1952 Dafo broke up with Gardner. In 1954 Gardner published his book “Witchcraft Today” with a foreword by Margaret Murray herself and began publicizing witchcraft as a religion, which he called “Wica” in the book. With that he began  initiating other members into his “secret” movement. Wican covens grew slowly at first but his publicity and the publicity generated by others inspired others to form covens of their own.

References

Eller, Cynthia (1993) Living in the Lap of the Goddess, the Feminist Spirituality Movement in America. Beacon Press, Boston

Hutton, Ronald (1999) The Triumph of the Moon. Oxford University Press​

(July 6, 2022) Near the end of his life in 1964 Gerald Gardner made public his rituals in what is known as the "Gardnerian Book of Shadows." This was the time  when alternate religious practices were starting to be noticed and invented. His rituals continue to be at the core of Traditional British Wicca groups. What follows are excerpts from his book.

How to Cast a Circle (1949)

It is most convenient to mark the circle with chalk, paint or otherwise, to show where it is; but marks on the carpet may be utilized. Furniture may be placed to indicate the bounds. The only circle that matters is the one drawn before every ceremony with either a duly consecrated Magic Sword or an Athame. The circle is usually nine feet in diameter, unless made for some very special purpose. There are two outer circles, each six inches apart, so the third circle has a diameter of eleven feet....

Gardner's Theory of Spiritual Power (1953)

This section on spiritual power shows that Gardner was biased by his naturist (nudist) desires and so assumed spiritual power was some sort of invisible material fluid created within the body which can only come out through the skin and orifices. This spiritual power could then be stored in items. This contradicts his other idea that spiritual powers come from focused emotions.

Skyclad Magic with a Lover (1953)

 Gardiner was a Naturist (Nudist).

The Working Tools (1953)

This section is a list of the magical tools Gardner used and it also indicates Gardner was rediscovering the emotional magic of the ancients as evidenced by the statement "magical operations are useless unless the mind can be brought to the proper attitude, keyed to the utmost pitch."

Gardner's Ideal Coven Organization (1961)

Priestesses were to rule the Coven but  they must resign once their beauty fades with age because her power actually comes from the masculine god and not the goddess.

(July 6, 2022) Modern Druidry has several organization but this discussion will center on its earliest organization called the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD at https://druidry.org). OBOD includes the core elements of witchcraft but is more focused on experiencing emotional resonances with nature, emotional healing, developing wisdom and awareness, and being creative. OBOD is a spiritual path making no claims to being a religion. Instead it provides a kitchen full of nature spirituality practices to use as needed.

As originally conceived by druid revival groups, "Druids" were assumed to be the priests of the people of Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments around Europe. Stonehenge was older then the Romans and so were the Druids of Gaul and Britain mentioned by the Roman geographer Strabo (63 BCE - 21 CE) and Julius Caesar. Strabo says this: 

But the Germans were more barbaric than the Celts because they had no Druids and no zeal for sacrifices. This indicates their  Indo-European religion had not yet been corrupted by lordification in which deities as people had to be appeased and bribed. Julius Caesar says this:

Late Greek historian Diogenes Laertius (sometime between 220 and 300 CE) draws on other accounts referencing a respected book by Sotion (about 200 – 170 BC) to say this in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 1, Prologue:

"Chaldaea" is a Latinization of the Greek Khaldaía (Χαλδαία) which is similar to "Akkadian." The book "Magicus of Aristotle" is not believed to have been written by Aristotle but only attributed to him.

While Strabo and Caesar were referencing a late Indo-European  (Dualist, Lordified) religious culture which has nothing to do with Stonehenge builders the name "Druid" and Ovate actually are connected to Stonehenge because they are Akkadian.  

The word "Druid" means "Eternal-Form.Channelers" from the compound word DR.ID (duru-id). Eternal forms are the invisible "platonic" forms into which matter flows to manifest itself as a physical object. Thus they were the priests of the life-growth powers for the European Neolithic farmers and analogous to the life priests called abu (meaning father) in the Levant.

The word 'vates or 'wates or 'uates (depending on the translator's native language) is similar to the Greek ouateis which is assigned the meaning of "soothsayer" or "prophet." Both actually derive from a compound Akkadian word meaning "Motion Magic-Crafter" from 'W.T. (’û-tû) or the earlier (a'û-tû). This word has the letter ayin as the first letter which does not exist in Latin or Greek where it is either ignored or replaced with the letter "O."

The founder of OBOD was Ross Nichols. He was the principal of a cramming school in London during the 1950s. He started contributing articles on Druidry and the occult to magazines in his younger years. In 1954, probably at the suggestion of his friend and fellow naturist Gerald Gardner of Wicca fame, he joined the Ancient Order of Druids. He even edited Gardner's book  Witchcraft Today. He left the Order in 1964 after three of his core friends there died including Gerald Gardiner. Ross wanted to form a more authentic Celtic spiritual practice less focused on supposed fertility witchcraft rituals. He did this by combining Celtic mythology with Occult practices. Yet Ross remained a Christian not viewing the spiritual practices of OBOD as a full replacement for Christianity despite having many personal reservations about Christian theology. He probably saw the nature spirit elements in the teachings of Jesus.

After Ross died in 1975 leadership of OBOD passed to Philip Carr-Gomm, a psychologist and long time student of Ross Nichols who started out by taking photos of their ceremonies when young. At this time OBOD was not doing well so Phillip refocused OBED on nature and emotional healing distancing it from the occult. He also developed OBOD's popular correspondence course.

References

Carr-Gomm, Philip (2002) Druid Mysteries-Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century. Rider Publishers

(July 6, 2022) Star Wars presented a magical divine/spiritual realm not populated with people like gods but with the "Force" generated by conscious experiences. Jedi were the magic crafters and some were more talented at it than others. Yet in order to make a simple adventure story it divided that divine realm into good and evil taking the dualist religious position. Yet this simplicity shows how dualism is so seductive on the human mind. Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977.  

Quotes on the Force in Star Wars

References

Quotes from: https://screenrant.com/star-wars-best-quotes-force/

(July 6, 2022) Neo-Pagan or simply Pagan became a general catch-all term for the many non-Christian groups which emerged at this time. They were unified simply by being non-Christian. This resulted in their fundamental differences being overlooked, especially those between the reconstructionists who sought to revive ancient Pagan religions by deriving authority from surviving ancient texts and the New Age approach of people who refused to be grounded in anything (feelings defined their reality).

Other Pagans started calling themselves by various names such as eclectic wiccan or kitchen wiccan (home and herbal based) leaving Gardiner's original style to be called traditional British Wicca. The more extreme feminist Wicca came to be called Dianic Wicca.  Others started calling themselves witches and claimed authority from familial traditions. Finally there were the nature based Druid groups who went looking for grounding but failed doing no better then scattered Roman era texts (see Druid Source Book by John Matthews 1997).

One of the first statements of Neo-Pagan principles occurs in the founding papers of the first Druidry group in the United States called the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA). This group was founded in 1963 at Carleton college in Northfield, Minnesota as protest against the requirement that all students attend a certain number of religious services “of one’s own religion.” Their founding statement is listed below (Adler 2006 p 337):

The Carleton religious requirement was abolished the following year but much to the chagrin of some of the original founders, the RDNA continued on as a real alternative religion. This example is paralleled throughout the Pagan movement. What started out as one thing became another as people discovered spiritual liberation in something more personal.

An early statement about grounding Wicca as a religion was made in 1984 by Janet and Stewart Ferrar. In this statement they define for Wicca a purpose as an alignment with the spiritual (divine) powers (1984, Part 2, p 146):

In 1995, the alignment with nature became the sixth recognized religious root for the Unitarian Universalist church. This root is presently represented by the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. They stated this sixth source as follows in their source list :

In 2002 realizing the limits of magic on the physical realm, the chief of the Nature-Pagan religion of Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids, Philip Carr-Gom said this about magic:

 Pagans at the turn of the millennium did not yet have a solid intellectual foundation for their beliefs and practices. As a result, the Neo-Pagans of the time mostly defined themselves by what they were not. This is shown by this summary from Margot Adler’s book “Drawing Down the Moon”:

As a practicing Nature Pagan herself she added this insight about Pagan rituals as a means of promoting connection:​

References

Adler, Margot (2006) Drawing Down the Moon, Penguin books, U.S.A​

Carr-Gomm, Philip (2002) Druid Mysteries, Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century. Rider: London

Ferrar Janet & Stewart (1984) A Witches’ Bible, The Complete Witches’ Handbook, Phoenix Publishing

Matthews, John (1997) The Druid Source Book. Blandford