The Philosophical History and Gnostic Mission of Contemporary Paganism

by Rev. Jeva Singh-Anand, M.A.

As Wiccans, we struggle with the terms with which we identify ourselves. The meaning of the word 'witch' has become diffuse to the point of meaninglessness. The website www.religioustolerance.org lists sixteen mutually exclusive definitions of the word. The word pagan' has become similarly vague, especially when the word is used to describe contemporary pagan movements.

Gerald Gardner is the acknowledged father of this religion, which was originally said to have been a surviving strain of mankind's oldest faith. Gardner, Sanders, and others relied on the theories of Egyptologist and feminist Margaret Murray. Later, Murray's theories were disproved, as other scholars successfully argued she had not been able to establish proof of an uninterrupted tradition. Aidan Kelly, in Crafting the Art of Magic, produced several successive drafts of Gardner's Book of Shadows, pointing out that genuinely ancient material is not subject to revision. Gardner's apologists were quick to redefine Wicca as a reconstructionist attempt to recover Europe's nearly lost indigenous mysteries. I would like to offer another perspective: that Wicca is actually a recent incarnation of the Gnostic tradition. While not the continuation of an ancient religion, it is the continued preservation of the mysteries underlying all faiths.

Gnostics have never been well-liked among the power elite of any religion, and Gnostic populists have always been particularly despised by both factions. Religious power mongers prefer to cultivate fundamentalism. After all, reducing the sacred teachings to their lowest common denominator and robbing the plebs of its last hope of critical thought, ensures that the coffers of the powerful remain filled while minimizing the risk of the deity running interference. Eliphas Levi, in his book Transcendental Magic: Dogma and Ritual, decried the cruel treatment of Paracelsus and Apollonius, while Machiavelli grimly presented Savonarola's fate as a dire warning of what happens to those who place their faith in God above their fear of the powers that be. All three men led their earthly existences ostracized by society, only to end them in poverty or at the hands of executioners. But if the Son of Man could not win against the Pharisees, what hope dared these noble souls nurture?

Is it any wonder that those who understand the universal truths shared by all faiths

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