It is needless to say that I understand the need for a spiritual home. No one coming into the Pagan Community is the same. We have a vast number of people, with a vast array of beliefs, and a vast array of needs. And it’s such a positive thing that we have a beautiful mixing bowl of beliefs and cultures wrapped up into one community. I feel that is the beauty of the umbrella of Paganism. Druid, Asatru, and Wicca are all only the tip of the iceberg. There are as many pagan spiritualities and religions out there as there are pagans.

All that being said, in our hunt for spiritual homes that fit our specific needs, how do we know that the path we are choosing to follow is not a cult? How do we know that our spiritual home is safe, and fits our needs without trying to harm us? There are so many predators out there who want to prey upon the vulnerable seekers, so many people who say they have your best interest at heart. And, maybe they do. Maybe they truly believe they are the second-coming. In the end it’s up to you to keep yourself safe, but it helps to have someone to tell you what to look out for.

For this article, I’m going to use two groups I have personally observed to show you the difference in them. One of them is a cult, one of them is not, both are Druid groups.

Let’s first define a cult, which is a difficult feat. A cult, not to be confused with Occult, is a religious group where the members are subjected to fear, abuse, or other methods of reprogramming that forced them to believe in the ideas and religious ideals of a centralized leader(s). These leaders are often charismatic, zealous, and full of fear-mongering. They want you to be so afraid of not believing in what they have to say that you devote yourself to only listening to them. Cults will tell you how to think, what to fear, and how to act. They will make an enemy, and martyr themselves against anyone who says they’re wrong, for example, “this person says I’m wrong, therefore that is proof that I am right.” They may ask you for money, they may shame you for anything you question, say, act like, etc.; they may eventually ask you to move onto a lot with them.

I, personally, am a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. This group works for me because they don’t try to force anything down anyone’s throat. They are an open, understanding Druid order that accept’s anyone who find themselves there. And they don’t ask you to give up your beliefs to fit theirs, instead they try to expand your understanding of your own spiritual path through meditative studies. Any one of any religion, or lack thereof, is welcome.

So, are they a cult? No. The Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids is not a cult. The leadership of the group is more of a democracy ad the Chieftain of the group is voted in, and everyone has room to speak in the group. The group encourages free thought, and does not ask you for your devotion. They do have a course that is paid, however that is to help members get the course printed. They are not secretive, they are not controlling nor will they shame you, if anything they are a spiritually focused ‘poet society’.

Now we will look at a group called The Druid Circle, run by a man named Nicolás Deaglás out of Pennsylvania. His website is well and good, claiming to not be judgemental, but he does claim that his way is the only way to Druidry. He tries to discredit other Druid groups by calling them, “Fake, SJW”, excludes people who are not of Irish descent, and tells people that anyone who doesn’t follow his circle is an enemy that is out to get them.

This group called “The Druid Circle” is a cult. Nicolás is trying to make everyone feel that his way is the only way, and tries to shame everyone who disagrees with them, even going so far as to post someone’s vulnerabilities on his own page after he disagreed with him. He tries to make people fear others, he shames people who think differently, and puts down everyone around him.

The biggest difference between a spirituality and a cult is that a cult will make you want to follow only one leader, they will make you fear the world around you, and they will make you hate yourself. A spirituality will lead you to finding things out for yourself. They don’t want your undying devotion like a cult does, and they don’t want to make you feel like everyone around you is out to get you. A spiritual group will only help you grow within yourself, and if you don’t feel like they’re the right fit, they will never shame you for going somewhere else that suits you. Don’t fall for cults, the only thing they want from you is your money and your undying loyalty or shame should you not agree.

Nobody asks to be transgender. We often find ourselves trying to explain our lives away, trying to justify our existences to people that question who we are and why we are about and around. There are a lot of ways to go about it, potentially explaining the science, or the anthropology, or even the psychology to people, and yet they have a tendency to not listen, to close their minds off for one reason or another. And in the end, you simply cannot convince them one way or another.

I had such an experience just today, I had my heart broken by one of my favorite authors who I had always looked up to and admired. I even thought about applying to her druid order. This person I had looked up to for so long didn’t even realize that her books helped me through some of the toughest times of my life. I went through an abusive relationship when I purchased my first ever book on druidry by her. It called out to me and I bought it even though I couldn’t feed myself that day, and I consumed every word. I looked to that book during my transition, in helping me grow to my spiritual self, and even just last week when I was doubting who I was. Her writing always brought me back to reality, really grounded me.

Well, to my surprise, this author who I dearly loved posted this article on Facebook today. Unfortunately, the culprit is Ellen Evert Hopman, author of A Druids Herbal.

Now, there was a few problems with this post that I would like to address… The first thing is that she shared this from a conservative Christian website that is known for being transphobic. Cauldronpool.com is not a pagan website, even though they look very much like one.

After reading the misinformation this article had written, I suspected that Ellen didn’t look into the article at all or look into the scientific research behind the subject, and only shared it because she agreed with the title. Maybe the name of the website attracted her and she thought that it was pagan based. Who knows. But the article itself isn’t what I found to be transphobic from her. After all, this particular subject is vastly unstudied, and while my opinions differ from hers, I’ll be the first to admit that sports aren’t of great interest to me.

No, instead what struck me as transphobic was this:

This is offensive for the simple fact that she is assuming that trans women are ‘men’ and she makes it seem like they’re out to get her. That ‘women’ are biologically weaker therefore the trans women are threatening their sports, which not, nor has ever been, the case. That because people are rallying for transgender rights, that it somehow undermines woman’s rights, which is ridiculous. Transgender people just want to be treated as humans, we just want respect and rights.

Then there was this, where she agreed with a woman who didn’t even pretend to not be transphobic:

This seems like a thinly guised attempt to get the heat off of her when two other people, one who claimed to be a transman, tried to get her to answer to her claims. I imagine she is trying to somehow reconcile what she said by making the claim that trans woman’s rights are somehow different than woman’s rights.

And though there was quite a bit more, this one I wanted to include because it really makes me worry:

For those who don’t know, TERFisaslur.com is a website that takes screenshots of violent tweets threatening TERFs and tried to make the case that, based on those tweets, that it is discriminatory. What Ellen is seeming to misunderstand is that the people who are labeled TERFs are people who want to stifle or segregate the rights of those who are transgender. TERF is not a slur, it is a political position. This, however, does not mean that death threats against anyone are in any way, shape, or form, are okay. The people wishing violence and death to TERFs are frankly just as bad.

But I’m more concerned about the comparing it to the ‘n’ word. What the individual below said was also how I felt about it. How can you, in good conscience, take a word with that kind of history and compare it to what people call a political position? People disagreeing with you is hardly comparable to the hundreds of years and thousands of lives that word has suffered through. You being someone who excludes transwomen from the feminist movement is no where near compatible to that kind of suffering, and quite frankly you should be ashamed of yourself.

This reminds me of Z Budapest from not that long ago, and her entire campaign to wipe transwomen out of the helenistic community.

So, what should we, as trans pagans do? Is there anything we can do? The answer to is no, we can do nothing and should do nothing.

If you go to Ellen’s page, as of now, you’ll notice that she’s either blocked or removed any comments that had any shred of evidence in opposition of her, claiming them to be as ad hominem attacks, which a good majority were, but most of those that were not were still removed. This simply tells us that she is unwilling to learn more on the subject or make any further attempt to discourse. You’ll see she liked or loved many transphobic comments, and removed anyone she thought of as “haters”, which, of course, she had every right to do.

Facing facts, however, her books have done a lot for the pagan community in general. I won’t throw the ones I have out because I still find them to be very helpful and I recommend her work to anyone interested in druidry. However, I will also not be purchasing anymore due to this dispute. I encourage you to look at her work from an unbiased position, as I said they have a rather valuable amount of well researched content (though I’d double check everything because we see from this that she can have poor judgement in sourcing material).

But, this whole issue really broke something inside of me that made me very disappointed in her. I do not believe her to be ‘transphobic’ in the way that she is purposefully mean to trans people, but I do find her to be very ignorant of the issue and very unwilling to learn more. She has proven to be exclusionary in her feelings towards transwomen and very, for lack of a better term, privileged when it comes to racial sensitivity. I do not believe her to be racist, but I do think she needs to really look at who she’s affecting, where she’s getting her sources, and have a more open mind about subjects she’s not personally affected by.

@adityaries at unsplash

As a regular listener to Atheistic channels on YouTube, I came across a channel who has a friend who is pagan, and holds many of the same philosophical views that I do on it, by the name of Ocean Keltoi who you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClC1XBsPtjKMry-3iDLr2Zg needless to say, I was stoked, as most of the pagans I know try to stay out of political and philosophical conversations for fear of retribution or mockery. So having a pagan insert himself into these conversations is something that really makes me feel like there’s hope yet.

Ocean made a video talking about the gods, Defining the Gods, that I got about three minutes into before I decided to put it down and write my own opinion before finishing his video, which may be very similar, or may be completely opposite to his stance, either way it will be interesting to see once I’m done how this turned out…

Disclaimer, this is my own view as a druidic polytheistic pagan, and I do not speak for other pagans. I also use the terms ‘God & Gods’ as gender neutral terms.

When you think about polytheists, what comes to mind first? Often times, I get the question, “so you believe that ‘Gods’ are real?” As though I believe they are these corporeal beings that are pissing around disguised as old wizards. Or, as if I’ve said the most blasphemous thing on the face of the universe, how dare some of my Gods be horned? Often times when Atheists talk about it, the use it as a joke to compare Christianity to something as ‘silly’ as Zeus, which is quite honestly it’s something that not only offends me, but makes me want to further explain pagans position in the world, and quite simply our philosophical standpoint and why it simply should not be used as a mocking of Christianity. Because you see, we’re not that similar.

First off, to define the gods we must compare them to the popular god name, the Christian god, who is seen to be omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omni-benevolent. Simply put, he is all-knowing, capable of anyting, is everywhere, and is all good. There’s a lot of debate over this, especially in apologetic Christian circles and Atheistic circles.

But what do pagans hold as their beliefs? Are our gods omni -everything? Are they just silly mythological specters that exists only in the books of history?

To myself, our gods are not omnipotent, for instance, when we think about Ceridwen in the story of Taliesin, we recognize that she in fact made a mistake by asking Mordra and Gwion Bach to tend her fire. As a polytheist, I recognize that each God has its purpose, and that I could not call upon one God that simply does not represent the same kind of things as another God.

Our Gods are not omniscient, for the same reasons stated above. For instance, I would not ask Arianrhod to help me with my garden as she would probably not know what to do with it, instead I might ask Creiddylad, goddess of flowers. and again in the example above, we see that the Gods are not above mistakes.

These Gods are not omnipresent, in my practice they usually require to be called upon and given something before they work with us.

The Gods are not omni-benevolent, by any means. Going back to the story of Ceridwen and Taliesin, we recognize that if she were to be omni-benevolent, then she would not have chased poor Gwion Bach and then ate him out of anger and frustration, nor would we expect Blodeuwedd to not have tried to have murdered her husband, these are not kind deeds.

Let’s look at another claim, that the Gods are living, breathing, beings. That they have a physical presence to them and that they are in fact wandering around the earth disguised as old wizards. In my practice, what I believe, the gods are representation or manifestation of a universal energy that is simply the energy of nature. Our Gods and Goddesses are not physical beings, they’re not corporeal. That may or may not have their own conscience, but in essence they are just representations of energies that we manifest as practitioners. Are they apart of one universal being? Perhaps, perhaps not, I won’t pretend to have all the answers. To me, my gods are both part of an universal energy and are separate from it at the same time, they are independent yet apart, much like how we are with nature.

My gods are not above nature, they are part of it.

Awen Inspire You /|\

If you would like to see Ocean’s video, you can see it here https://youtu.be/CVyq7US_08E

I finished it after I finished this blog, and I must say, we took very different routes. 🤣