Conversion and Christ & Pagans and Witches

Nine months ago a book I wrote in a very difficult and deeply contemplative time of life (three years ago now) was published. The Witch Belongs to the World. This is not about that book, but I am a witch who is drawn to thinking deeply about many things to the point where - in my persuasion, anyway - I am drawn to write about it. And yes, I’m a witch who belongs to the world. So I am trying my best to pay attention to the world around me and the stories being told.

It has just come to my attention tonight that Martin Shaw, famed and beloved “pagan storyteller” (as Paul Kingsnorth, fellow recently converted-come home Christian named him) had a powerfully intense and Old Testament-style experience that led him to realise he was probably Christian all along. I wrote this post on Facebook as I was watching the first 10 minutes of the interview:

I'm listening to this interview with Martin Shaw who has gone through what seems to be a pretty profound conversion to Christianity. I have never read a Martin Shaw book but I have often enjoyed his sharings, postings, and articles. I know some of you do too.

What I have read of his is always profound, sensuous, and connecting.

Conversions to Christianity by incredibly erudite, humble, self-reflective folks like Martin Shaw don't bother me, though they do intrigue me. We are mainly sold (in my neck of the woods anyway) really gross caricatures of conversion to incredibly ignorant and conservative forms of Christianity.

(You can read the full post and emerging thread here.)

By the end I was still deeply fascinated by Martin Shaw’s storytelling of his experiences and his awakening to Christ and God, to the point where he joined an Eastern Orthodox Church, but unfortunately for me (maybe not for you), he began to indulge in what a friend on the thread named “Christian exceptionalism.” And I agree with them, this is one of the more annoying traits of Christianity.

I then - because I’m endlessly fascinated in what people have to say if they feel it deeply and profoundly - started watching Paul Kingsnorth’s conversation with the same two people who had interviewed Martin Shaw. I only discovered who Paul Kingsnorth was tonight. People - especially excited Christians - are pairing the two together as recently-converted, ex-Pagan/Wiccan/pantheistic/Nature-worshipping writers, poets, mythologists. This makes sense, it is a resonance and their conversions did appear to happen parallel. In Paul Kingsnorth’s interview they ask him about his previous experience with Buddhism and Wicca. Paul talks about Buddhism and how he felt it was missing worship, devotion, and God (tell that to the Tibetan Buddhists) - which he was disgruntled and annoyed to admit at the time upon reflection - and then he talked about his experience in an initiatory Wiccan coven in which he acted as a priest to witch gods. He declaims Wicca as made up. In fact he calls it a false religion and indicates that perhaps well-meaning people are playing with sinister forces they do not understand. Ah, there we go, there it is. The age-old Christian taking an ancient word out of its context and inventing a new meaning for it based on their agenda… that’s how we have the word ‘demon’ by the way, oh those poor daimons.

As I respect Martin Shaw and his art and contributions to the world I was anticipating some reflective, deeply personal, mystical, world-affirming, Christ talk from two erudite and skilful thinkers and writers. Certainly the majority of Martin Shaw’s interview that I watched was that, but even he utilised the word ‘pagan’ to essentially refer to a self-absorbed, spiritual narcissism that does not grasp the true wisdom or ultimate reality. Unfortunately most of the time, this is where this kind of conversation goes. Back to that Christian exceptionalism where either there are sinister forces at play or pre-Christian or non-Christian myths are just pale reflections of the true glory and power. This is honestly tired and boring rhetoric for those of us who are actually deeply interested in discussing and sharing mystical experience, cosmology, mystery, and teaching with people of all kinds of spiritual traditions. Be obsessed with Christ and redemption and the incarnation of God as human (as if God is not human and human is not God?) to bring us into truth or freedom or grace, but perhaps it’s also important to consider that despite the fullness of this feeling and perception you have, you might not be the only folks who have access to Mystery. Perhaps as my friend Pandora says, there are infinite doors to the infinite.

Something that came up for me regarding what these two men were saying, especially reflexively and specifically about religious Pagans and Witches (even if only in passing), and long one of my own bugbears is that I encounter a lot of historical and religious illiteracy, ignorance or arrogance amongst many witches and pagans when it comes to traditions and stories other than our own. For instance, a knowledge of how Christianity evolved and where it has come from, who Jesus may have been historically (if he existed as a singular person which most historians agree he did), and what that meant for that time and place, is sorely lacking in many of our own discourses. I mention Christianity specifically because it has deeply impacted most of us and most of the world. So, you know, something to know something about.

I get it, colonialism and Christianity (or the Church/es) are pretty much wed as co-conspirators (which I agree with Martin Shaw, is fucking weird when you think about it) and therefore land-honouring, ancestor-venerating, Old Gods-worshipping Pagans and Witches are going to be all “fuck off with you Christianity, you’re a piece of poo” and this is absolutely a valid critique and I think that’s utterly fair. And at its roots Christianity also clearly caught the attention of the impoverished and marginalised of the Greco-Roman world, it gave legitimacy to the downtrodden and so-called meek when the Roman Empire (who by the way I hate too - oh wait, doesn’t it still exist? or is that British Empire, or American?) cared nothing for women, children, the enslaved, those we would now acknowledge as disabled.

Christians were also annoying and arrogant even then regarding other Gods, Spirits and Cosmovisions. I reiterate the daimons into demons situation that also led to a lot of pumped-up people smashing a lot of statues, which is really just a shitty thing to do. Rome then endorsed one particular cult above all other cults; Rome endorsed the Church in its various factions and outlawed the public and then the private practice of paganisms. Before the advent of Christianity by the way, Rome also expelled magicians, spirit-workers, astrologers, and those we’d call witches now, a few times - also there were book-burnings! Roman Pagans burning magic-books. Look it up.

Christianity emerged in a horrifying time. Perhaps that part of the world really needed it. I mean, it was inevitable. Christianity was inevitable. And this is not, in my view, ‘a’ or ‘the’ problem. Messianic times call for messianic measures I guess? I mean Rome was being awful to everyone, invading their ancestral lands and killing Druids. There was trouble in the Roman ‘province’ of Judaea, well, there was trouble everywhere then. There still is. The Empire strikes back was all the time. And yet it was always collapsing in on itself. So mystical, visionary, messianic, healing, restorative, everyone-come-in cults like Christianity (and I use cult in the old sense, I’m also in witch cults) were bound to spring up. Seriously. Just like contemporary witchcraft was bound to spring up and become the social force that it has. Gotta say, nothing wrong with a movement that uplifts women, the feminine, honours the Earth as sacred, connects you to ritual that connects you to things beyond yourself, and suggests you are able to - via your own agency and responsibility - co-create with the Creative Force(s) as an incarnation of said Force… and that’s just the currently popular and eclectic forms of witchcraft!

Terms like Pagan and Witch are tricky too. They are generally terms that people called you. The early Christians named everyone around them who wasn’t a Jew or one of their own a pagan because these p-word people were adhering to their ancestral customs and practices that involved the worship of multiple Gods and did not consider Christ to be the centre of their experience of the cosmos. It’s more than that of course and it’s inherently cultural and land-based and myriad, but let’s just say Christians invented Paganism as an ‘ism’, as a slander and as something to defend by those so-called Pagans later on when shit hit the fan for the p-words (look up Julian the ‘Apostate’). Some witches I know would rather not call themselves witches at all because of the acknowledgement that the term has largely been used to accuse someone of being a malevolent sorcerer who is doing evil things in the world with their nefarious magic. I have always held that it’s actually far more grey and complex than that, not only in the root of the term but also in the various ways in which that has been seen, contextualised, understood not only historically and culturally but transgressively and mythically. It does annoy me when modern Pagans and Witches fire loose with history, folklore, and culture and get way revisionist with our own story-telling about who we are and where we come from. There’s poetry and then there’s performativity and persecution-complex, let’s not dally where we aren’t and let’s also not pretend the practice of witchcraft is still not uncomfortable or scary for a vast majority of Christian-raised folk in Christian-informed societies. It will always be that way because of the presupposition of Christian ideas around sorcery and magic as inherently sinister.

What is interesting to me in all of this is that (and I encourage you especially to listen to all of Martin Shaw’s interview that I linked above) something is buzzing in me around this. I shared in my Facebook post about the times Christ has come to me:

I mean I once had a full on epiphany of Christ while I was laying in bed contemplating an Aphrodite intensive I was to teach the next day...

Christ floating down through the ceiling, bleeding, crucified and gave me immense and visceral visions of what exorcism could mean, where demons really come from (patterns of abuse and fragmentation in humans mostly), and what "Forgive them, they know not what they do" might mean... After he 'downloaded' on me I directly asked Him "Does this mean I have to worship you now?" He seemed almost shocked, and said, "No". Now that's a Being I can trust. I guess it didn't impress me more than any other encounter I've had with all manner of Mysterious Ones... I also once sat in a Church that was built as part of a Mission in Ramaytush-Ohlone lands (so-called San Francisco) and told Christ off for his Church and what they had done and how he needed to XYZ... the Vision I had of Him in that Church was that he swelled with deep compassion and sadness at what I was telling him and that he was immensely okay to be chastised by a Witch.

That’s the thing, as a mystic, as an initiate of (the) Mysteries, as a witch and spirit-worker, Christ appearing to me was profound, but not more profound than a/the Goddess sculpting Herself out of moonlight and telling me Her Name. No more profound than casting hundreds of spells and most of them working in very specific ways. No more profound than all the premonitions I have had, all the times I have acted as a medium of the dead for people and given facts and stories I could never have known. No more profound than feeling with every inch of me the powerful, worlds-birthing orgasm of the Star Goddess split me open and put me back together. No more profound to me than the Prince of Paradise bringing me to my knees and desiring me as I desire Them. No more profound than the Sabbatic bliss of the witches…

It can all exist together, I have no issue with Christianity existing, but I do have an issue with the pointed arrogance of the exceptionalism of it, because if you’re paying attention theres nothing more unique about the Christ story than other Sacred Story.

Mary and Christ and the Saints are so welcome with me, in my practice, in my heart, as themselves and as roads or aspects of Older Powers. I may be more at home at the Crossroads or in a Circle in the bush or chanting with witches on the cliffs than in a human-built church paid for by colonisers. I am aware that the way that I as a witch engage Christian icons and figures would not be okay with many Christians, but that doesn’t mean the same power and grace you feel is not what I am also feeling. I guess I’ll always be a heretic minister then.

As a closing thought, I do want to offer to my Pagan and Witch kin and communities that that these identifiers/realities/ways of being are better as poetry (and I mean that in the substantial, magical, life-affirming, worlds-transforming way), magic, art, and legacy than they are as Protestant-informed denomination style religious categories that section us off into multi-faith ensembles (no shade interfaith, I did some training in it, and spent some time there, and I guess I still do). What I mean is, pagans pagan and witches witch and that inevitably means we encounter the Spirits, Gods, Mysteries and are changed and transformed. If that means you find Christ, that’s great, just try not to be a revisionist, exceptionalist dingbat about it, and that goes for the rest of us too. x