August 6, 2025 • 27 mins
Two pagan elders unpack the daunting inheritance of spiritual archives in this candid, thoughtful exploration of tradition management.
The podcast hosts share their personal struggles with determining what deserves preservation versus what should be respectfully set aside. Unlike religious traditions that treat founders' words as infallible scripture, most pagan paths acknowledge their elders were human - not prophets or deities. This creates freedom but also responsibility: when documents lack citations (as they often do), arduous research becomes necessary to separate original content from borrowed material.
Perhaps most provocative is their candid discussion about historical accuracy within traditional witchcraft. As scholarly understanding evolves, many foundational claims about ancient lineage face increasing scrutiny. From Margaret Murray's contested theories to controversies surrounding Gerald Gardner and Aleister Crowley, we are forced to confront uncomfortable questions: What happens when a tradition's origin story doesn't withstand historical investigation? Does acknowledging this diminish its spiritual value?
As current stewards of their tradition, they wrestle with breaking the cycle: Should they continue adding to the overwhelming pile of material their students will someday inherit, or streamline what exists into a more accessible foundation? The digital revolution wasn't something their elders could anticipate - from floppy disks to cloud storage, the very medium of transmission has transformed dramatically within a single generation.
Listen and consider what responsibility we all have to those who follow in our footsteps. What legacy are you creating, and how will it be received by those who come after?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome to Pegan Coffee Talk.
If you enjoy our content,please consider donating and
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our socials.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
So I am currently knee deep in working on our
lecture series and what we callthe temple archives.
This has brought about thequestion, or, I guess, the
discussion of.
It's up to us to figure outwhat to do with what the elders
have left for us, so we can onlyreally talk about our elder.
But we're not alone in this.
No, lord Min is what I lovinglycall a digital pack rat.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, that man saved, transcribed, wrote volumes on
every subject imaginable.
We have as a church so muchcontent from him that we.
(01:29):
So let's put it this way, let'sput it genealogically right If
he is our spiritual father,right.
Right, Our spiritual children'sgrandfather right our spiritual
(01:51):
children's grandfather right, weas his children are still
trying to sort, collate,organize and figure out what to
do with that information beforewe proceed with adding new
material.
It's wild now, obviously.
Of course we're adding newmaterial anytime we write a
lecture, anytime you or Iperform a ritual and you write,
(02:12):
it's all being added, but wewere actually discussing this,
so this was a.
This was a joke between you andI the other day that I think is
worth sharing because it's great.
I said I cannot wait to see theold man again.
I cannot wait I cannot wait tobe in the summerland and to see
him again, so that when he looksat me and he has the because he
(02:35):
was a very he would look.
He was a very loving teddy bearof a man, but he was also when
it came to craft, right.
He was very um quick to tellyou exactly what he wanted and
what he expected, right?
Yeah, and I have no doubt in mymind he's going to look at me
and say, why didn't you expandupon the lecture series?
(02:57):
And I'm gonna look at him andgo.
I would have loved to.
I was too busy reading andsorting the volumes that you
left me, that would take threelifetimes to get through.
I'm so sorry, I didn't havetime.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Let's explain about, give an idea of how much
information we're talking about.
I remember one time looking athim going hey, it would be nice
to have a standard weddingritual.
Yes, you asked for a wedding,it would be nice to have a
standard wedding ritual.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, you asked for a wedding.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I asked for a wedding that I could use to.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The template, the template Right.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
What I got, on the other hand, was this freaking
thick ass file with every singlewedding from every single
culture across the world.
And he's like there you go.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, he effectively wrote a book on wedding rituals,
and that is only one subject.
We have hundreds of them.
So, yes, we are still very muchsorting through and working
with his digital legacy.
Now, how do I know we're notalone in this?
(04:09):
Um, when lady santana was stillalive at ravenwood and I used
to go visit her in herretirement home, which was here
in north carolina a few hoursaway, she at one point showed me
the filing cabinet which Ididn't fully understand at the
time.
Basically, it was a five drawerfiling cabinet as tall as a
(04:36):
grown man right standard width.
It was so packed I don't thinkyou could slide another single
piece of paper into it if youneeded to.
It was effectively Ravenwood, itwas the church.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
It was there.
It was the church book ofshadows.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Basically yes, In yes , a filing cabinet, a filing
cabinet.
Yeah, again same problem.
Right, her spiritual childrenare now figuring out what in the
heck to do with all of this andwhat you know it's, it's a lot.
There are two things thathappen to any tradition when
(05:18):
this takes place.
So number one you have todecide what is sacred text and
what is not.
And this is a bit of an issuebecause, on one hand, we're very
upfront, we're not afraid tosay no, our elders are not
(05:39):
prophets, they're not deities,right, they're not.
We don't see what they write asthe word.
It's not like that, for us,it's not our gospel right.
So we don't see it as some kindof doctrine or gospel and we
don't, um, we don't feel that itneeds to be protected like that
(05:59):
.
Like I, I laugh when, um, theScientologists, anything,
anything that L Ron Hubbardwrote, right, they won't change
a comma, nothing, it is the word, it is what you do not, and the
fact that he misspelled thatone word.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
that word doesn't matter, Doesn't?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
matter Anything it is .
It is absolutely sacred to them.
It is to be unaltered,uncouched.
We're not like that.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So there's another issue that comes about which is
very common with pagantraditions in the modern age.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
No citations.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
We don't know where some of this material came from.
Could some of it?
And?
And we usually we can tell bythe way our elder writes and you
start to get a sense of theirvoice in the page.
Yeah, but there are some things.
I don't know if he wrote it orsomeone else wrote it and it was
(07:07):
given to him with permission,or if he just copied and pasted
it from somewhere.
I have no idea.
There are documents and things,diagrams, uh, all sorts of
historical information.
Again, I don't know where allof it came from.
I don't know what's fact orfiction.
Sometimes I have to dotremendous amounts of research
(07:30):
to figure it out.
And then often we have to makethe decision of if we're
questioning its origin, we getrid of it, right, because it
we're not going to taint thetradition with information that
we cannot verify, right?
So there's that piece of things.
(07:50):
And then something else thathappens with your elders when
they, when they, get up there.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
They go on ramps.
Oh God yes big annoyingbeautiful, long rants about
anything and everythingeverything he pages, yes, and as
he got older, uh, more and moreand more and more.
(08:21):
I mean it would just be arandom thought.
So, to put this in perspective,right, we have a podcast now.
Right, this is, this is usranting this is this is
effectively what.
This is right, but we didn'thave this when he was alive.
Now he passed away in 2011.
Okay, so it hasn't been thatlong, but long enough that this
(08:42):
kind of technology has evolvedsignificantly.
Yeah, trust me when I say hadwe been able to put a microphone
down in front of that man andlet him go, holy shit I'd hate
to think of what we couldn't putout on web he would have.
Basically it would have beenlord the lordman channel.
He would have just talked everyday, all day, on any subject,
(09:07):
on anything.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Oh, trust me, I would .
I would have loved to put himon a live feed.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Just go here, just yeah just go, just talk just
talk I mean, and he would haveloved it, he would have also
insisted on a transcript, whichwould have driven us bonkers, um
, um.
But yeah, so it's not easy tosort, it's not easy to collate,
(09:34):
it's we don't.
Sometimes we just don't knowwhat to do with it.
Sometimes I run across adocument and I go, wow, this is
a really interesting point thathe's making.
This is a really viable concernabout the future of craft.
(09:55):
Well, what do I do with it?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
what that?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
yeah, I can't put it in a lecture series no I can't
hand this to a bunch ofneophytes and go this is what
you should be doing.
I can't I mean you know, like Ican't, yeah we still do this so
some of this stuff just getsfiled away in never looked at
(10:19):
folder for future clergy to gosee, you're not alone, you're
not the only one.
We've been going through thisfor eons and, and with any group
, when you're dealing with thefounder, when you're dealing
with the tradition head, oh,there's so much about our origin
(10:44):
that we don't know that eventhey didn't know.
No, this is the big.
You know.
It's such a bizarre concept thatwe have to defend or that we
even have to talk about, but wedo the reality is, a traditional
coven is nothing more than theunderstandings, or one person or
(11:10):
a group of people'sunderstanding of craft, based on
the knowledge they had at thetime.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Based on the historical information they had
at the time and their agreementto do things in a particular way
.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, if you just look at the fact of the whole
burning time numbers, of howmany they've been refined so
many times, and it keeps ongetting.
Some people keep on making itlower, some people keep on
making it higher.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh, yeah, but the problem is we have so many
authors, we have so many peoplethat, unfortunately, have become
very, very popular yes, inwitchcraft that have made
startlingly big claims, right,right, that we're a
pre-christian religion.
(12:00):
We date back tens of thousandsof years.
We're potentially the oldestreligion on the planet.
There's historical evidencethat we existed as various cults
across the planet.
Um, cult, not meaning themodern day word, by the way,
cult meaning the older versionof, again, a like, a like a
(12:21):
religious organization or beliefsystem, system.
Um, none of it's verified, no,none of it, none of it.
And it's difficult because, onone hand, traditionalists are
very proud.
We're very proud of ourfounders, we're very proud of
(12:43):
our origin, we're very proud ofthe effort and the, the sheer
sacrifices that they made tomake what we do possible and to
give us the foundation.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I mean, don't get me wrong.
We appreciate the fact that ittook him a lot of time to write
this stuff, and collect this.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, it's a lifetime .
Speaker 3 (13:03):
It's a lifetime of work.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And and we're very, very we're fiercely proud of
that and we're fiercelyprotective of it.
But at the same time, we haveto be honest, we have to be
realistic about where did ourstuff originate?
It's one thing to say, well,lord min was initiated in the
1970s.
Therefore, right, that's ourorigin point.
(13:28):
But then do we believe in theclaim or the idea that it was
even older than that and olderthan that?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
and older than that.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We don't know, we don't know.
So some people have abandonedthe term traditional to mean uh,
or have turned it intoreclaiming right, they call it a
reclaiming religion and otherpeople just don't use it at all,
because traditional has becomea bad word, it has become
(14:01):
something to debunk, it hasbecome something to try to I
don't know, it's kind of likethey've made it, I don't know,
traditionalist.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Somehow the word has become the rigid, rigid or the
um this harper valley pta yeahsituation where we're too busy
telling you how yes, that we're.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
We're too far in your business.
We have too many rules.
Right, it's our way or thehighway, and some of these
things are correct.
Some of these things areabsolutely correct, but in our
case, right, it is a decidedattempt to structure something
(14:44):
in a way where a group of peoplecan function simultaneously and
with a set of order.
That's it.
I don't claim that what I do orwhat I know is thousands of
years old.
How could I?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
but see, the only thing I claim is that the stuff
I know happens to be about about54 years old.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Interesting, because I happen to be about 54 years
old.
Interesting, because I happento be about 54 years old.
How funny.
Oh my god.
That's hysterical.
That's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I mean that's it.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I mean, yeah, and I think that that's part of it is
that traditionalists have had toreally kind of face the music
of.
Are we going to keep trying toclaim some origin that we don't
know?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That's so.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
And this is the problem, like we see, with the
Gardnerians, right, theGardnerians, really many of them
, wholeheartedly believe thatthis is pre-Gardner, that what
they're doing existed longbefore their founder, and
there's so many contradictionsand so many stories, some you
know we don't know.
(15:53):
We just don't know what's rightor what's wrong or who made what
up, or you know, we don't know.
We just don't know what's rightor what's wrong or who made
what up, or you know, we know.
Look, we know that MargaretMurray has been debunked Right
Countless times over.
We know that many of the thingsthat Gardner stated, especially
with regards to the burningtimes, were debunked and were
wrong.
We know that there is a lot ofcontroversy surrounding gardner
(16:19):
and alistair crowley and whetheror not they shared information
and or potentially stole fromone another, borrowed from one
another or made shit up togetherright we know that raven
grisami, who is the supposed uhagain founder, is not the right
(16:40):
word, but the, the uh originatorof strega.
It's all made up right, it'shistorically and it's completely
inaccurate.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Uh, we know that oh, you are going to piss off some
people today.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, it's fine I know I know we, we
just we have too much evidenceto support, where a lot of this
stuff is just not accurate.
And it's like what werepeople's motivations back then?
I don't know.
Maybe margaret murray thoughtthat what she was writing was
(17:19):
correct.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Yes, I truly believe that when she was writing, she
believed it, she was correct.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Maybe, and maybe that's the case for a lot of
these folks, and maybe it's justwe've become smarter, we've
become more knowledgeable, we'vegot better research at our
fingertips, I mean, that's it.
So now we can kind of correctsome of the incorrect
information.
Um, maybe some people did havea more nefarious idea.
(17:47):
Maybe they were trying tocreate something and in order to
do so, they believed they hadto create a history to support
it.
Right, it was greater thanthemselves.
Okay, I kind of get that.
It doesn't make it right, but Ican understand why they thought
(18:08):
it was necessary and I do tooyeah, it's.
It's really, really hard to saysometimes.
I also know that one of thethings that we see a lot or at
least we do as our church goesis we see content throughout our
material that is contributed toother authors right and some of
(18:32):
these folks are still alive andwell and kicking, yes.
And it leaves us with thedesire I don't know what you
want to call it, or just theunderstanding that we could
reach out to them and say howdid our elder come about this
material?
Was it something that you gaveto him willingly?
(18:53):
Was it something that you putout publicly and said, hey,
y'all are free to use it?
Or is it potentially stolen anddo we need to take it out?
You know, and sometimes we haveto again go down that pathway.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Let me ask you this question.
Because, me and you are notgetting any younger.
No, all right.
So that means that one day thatour students, our kids, will be
sitting here listening to thepodcast going hey, we need to
take some of these ideas down,yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Should we as elders, should we continue the same
pattern like them, put up withthe headache that we did, or
should we fix the problem?
Are you with sort of what I am?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I don't think, but my motivation, you know, and I
think we agree on this is that Iwant to be able to put the
material into the most usableformat possible, purge a lot of
the things that are unrelated toour tradition right and present
(20:01):
them with a platform that,hopefully, they can be the ones
to focus on adding to, insteadof having to sort subtract
rehash our exactly, exactly Imean, I guess that's the real
reason to bring this up is, yeah, we as a community, since we're
(20:22):
all going through this, do weneed to look at our steps that
we're doing, or is this patterna part of craft itself?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
yeah, are you with what I'm asking?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
oh, I am absolutely.
I mean because you think about,look Gerald Gardner alone, a
vast amount of the origins ofGardnerian or the things that
that church, that traditionwould consider sacred.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Are owned by Ripley's , believe it or Not.
It was sold to the museum inquotes with a question mark the
sideshow attraction yeah, andit's up for sale.
Like you can buy originalmanuscripts, documents, items.
There's a whole story of loreabout whether or not ripley's
(21:16):
owns gardener's original book ofshadows.
Yeah, and I'm like, if thatstuff is particular, is out
there, I can only imagine thatsomebody with the responsibility
of that temple, someone with adirect connection to him,
probably has a storage unitright full of material and
(21:40):
content and who knows what else.
And that's one of the thingsthat I fear for our people is, I
don't want us to be in aposition where in two or three
more generations right, you know, with every elder, we're adding
more debris and we're addingjust an excessive amount of shit
(22:01):
to the pile, right, I thinkthat that's unnecessary and we
just we have to be very carefulabout you know, what do you
absorb into your tradition andwhat do you leave behind, right?
I mean, there's a lot ofinformation we have that we just
don't even teach, or exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
What do you absorb into your tradition and what do
you leave behind, right?
I mean, there's a lot ofinformation we have that we just
don't even teach, or Exactly,but we have it on hand.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, we have.
So Lordman had a very deepconnection with a number of
members of the Native Americancommunity.
We had a couple of elderpriests who were natives.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
By blood, sewer natives right by blood.
And we have and I do meanobnoxious amount of material
about various native americantraditions just sitting in a
folder because we aren't goingto incorporate it into our
practice nothing.
So I would hope that one day wewill have someone that we can
(22:58):
give that to and let them dowith it what they see fit, learn
from it, glean from it.
You know, take what they need,leave the rest, sort of
situation.
But for us it holds no bearingon our day-to-day no.
So to give that to our kids, Ithink again we're just kind of
handing them a problem of likewhat do you do with those?
(23:20):
What do you do?
Yeah, it's a lot.
The elders, they foresaw a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
They force what?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
They foresaw.
They foresaw they foresaw a lotof things, but they did not
foresee everything, and thedigital age is one of those
things.
They didn't foresee the abilityto search and transcribe.
They didn't foresee AI in manyinstances.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And how would you use this?
I'm sorry, a terabyte ofdocuments in real life is scary.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
If you only knew how much, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
For sure.
I remember the floppy disks.
Yeah, you remember the floppydisks.
Yes, the original temple washanded to you On floppy disks.
Yeah, and it was like floppydisks.
You used to have holders forthem and like it was funny
because it was like floppy disksyou used to have holders for
them and, like it was funnybecause it was like a rolodex,
you could flip through them andgo clack, clack, clack, clack,
clack, clack, clack, and youcould literally like, put the,
(24:23):
you know, like flip through thediscs.
You had what?
Three of them?
Yeah yeah, each, I mean we'reit, it sounds.
It doesn't sound like a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Oh my God, it is.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Each disc could hold.
I don't even remember.
I think it was like a quarterof a terabyte.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Something like that, because they had a limit.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
They weren't that big .
It was like 444 megabytes.
Yeah, there's something in that.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Something in that neighborhood.
Let's say, between three and400 megabytes was about what
they held.
So to have three full reams ofthem, oh my god, yeah, and and
then.
So you had the fun task ofactually putting them into a
computer.
Yes, yeah.
And then dare I ask do youstill have them?
(25:11):
No oh, thank god.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Okay, no matter of fact, I think that well, once we
got everything onelectronically, yeah, I believe
that the magnetic you magnetizethem yeah we magnetized them in
because they were they werestarting to lose their magnetize
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, anyway, yeah, that makes sense.
So, yeah, he, so you, youbasically magnetize them,
rendering them unreadable.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, and now we have it in the computer files.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, it is a whole lot easier to carry that thing
around in a little thumb drive.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
But we also still have the physical Book of
Shadows, we have the physicallecture series.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah, yes, it's all fun, it's all fun and games
until they start to write it is,it is, it is even just pictures
.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I mean, there's so many groups that have volumes of
photographs from sabbats andrituals and days past and, like
you, don't even know who some ofthe people are.
No, some temples have beenaround that long yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Have they been around long enough for some?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
coffee.
Oh well, we've come on.
We've always had coffee, weknow that.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Thanks for listening.
Join us next week for anotherepisode.
Pagan Coffee Talk is brought toyou by Life Temple and Seminary
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Speaker 4 (26:47):
Maze of stone and mire Just hold my hand as we
pass by A sea of blazing pyres.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And so it is the end of our day.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
So walk with me till morning breaks.
And so it is the end of our day.
So walk with me till morning.
Welcome to Pegan Coffee Talk.
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
So I am currently knee deep in working on our
lecture series and what we callthe temple archives.
This has brought about thequestion, or, I guess, the
discussion of.
It's up to us to figure outwhat to do with what the elders
have left for us, so we can onlyreally talk about our elder.
But we're not alone in this.
No, lord Min is what I lovinglycall a digital pack rat.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, that man saved, transcribed, wrote volumes on
every subject imaginable.
We have as a church so muchcontent from him that we.
(01:29):
So let's put it this way, let'sput it genealogically right If
he is our spiritual father,right.
Right, Our spiritual children'sgrandfather right our spiritual
(01:51):
children's grandfather right, weas his children are still
trying to sort, collate,organize and figure out what to
do with that information beforewe proceed with adding new
material.
It's wild now, obviously.
Of course we're adding newmaterial anytime we write a
lecture, anytime you or Iperform a ritual and you write,
(02:12):
it's all being added, but wewere actually discussing this,
so this was a.
This was a joke between you andI the other day that I think is
worth sharing because it's great.
I said I cannot wait to see theold man again.
I cannot wait I cannot wait tobe in the summerland and to see
him again, so that when he looksat me and he has the because he
(02:35):
was a very he would look.
He was a very loving teddy bearof a man, but he was also when
it came to craft, right.
He was very um quick to tellyou exactly what he wanted and
what he expected, right?
Yeah, and I have no doubt in mymind he's going to look at me
and say, why didn't you expandupon the lecture series?
(02:57):
And I'm gonna look at him andgo.
I would have loved to.
I was too busy reading andsorting the volumes that you
left me, that would take threelifetimes to get through.
I'm so sorry, I didn't havetime.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Let's explain about, give an idea of how much
information we're talking about.
I remember one time looking athim going hey, it would be nice
to have a standard weddingritual.
Yes, you asked for a wedding,it would be nice to have a
standard wedding ritual.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, you asked for a wedding.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I asked for a wedding that I could use to.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The template, the template Right.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
What I got, on the other hand, was this freaking
thick ass file with every singlewedding from every single
culture across the world.
And he's like there you go.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, he effectively wrote a book on wedding rituals,
and that is only one subject.
We have hundreds of them.
So, yes, we are still very muchsorting through and working
with his digital legacy.
Now, how do I know we're notalone in this?
(04:09):
Um, when lady santana was stillalive at ravenwood and I used
to go visit her in herretirement home, which was here
in north carolina a few hoursaway, she at one point showed me
the filing cabinet which Ididn't fully understand at the
time.
Basically, it was a five drawerfiling cabinet as tall as a
(04:36):
grown man right standard width.
It was so packed I don't thinkyou could slide another single
piece of paper into it if youneeded to.
It was effectively Ravenwood, itwas the church.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
It was there.
It was the church book ofshadows.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Basically yes, In yes , a filing cabinet, a filing
cabinet.
Yeah, again same problem.
Right, her spiritual childrenare now figuring out what in the
heck to do with all of this andwhat you know it's, it's a lot.
There are two things thathappen to any tradition when
(05:18):
this takes place.
So number one you have todecide what is sacred text and
what is not.
And this is a bit of an issuebecause, on one hand, we're very
upfront, we're not afraid tosay no, our elders are not
(05:39):
prophets, they're not deities,right, they're not.
We don't see what they write asthe word.
It's not like that, for us,it's not our gospel right.
So we don't see it as some kindof doctrine or gospel and we
don't, um, we don't feel that itneeds to be protected like that
(05:59):
.
Like I, I laugh when, um, theScientologists, anything,
anything that L Ron Hubbardwrote, right, they won't change
a comma, nothing, it is the word, it is what you do not, and the
fact that he misspelled thatone word.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
that word doesn't matter, Doesn't?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
matter Anything it is .
It is absolutely sacred to them.
It is to be unaltered,uncouched.
We're not like that.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So there's another issue that comes about which is
very common with pagantraditions in the modern age.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
No citations.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
We don't know where some of this material came from.
Could some of it?
And?
And we usually we can tell bythe way our elder writes and you
start to get a sense of theirvoice in the page.
Yeah, but there are some things.
I don't know if he wrote it orsomeone else wrote it and it was
(07:07):
given to him with permission,or if he just copied and pasted
it from somewhere.
I have no idea.
There are documents and things,diagrams, uh, all sorts of
historical information.
Again, I don't know where allof it came from.
I don't know what's fact orfiction.
Sometimes I have to dotremendous amounts of research
(07:30):
to figure it out.
And then often we have to makethe decision of if we're
questioning its origin, we getrid of it, right, because it
we're not going to taint thetradition with information that
we cannot verify, right?
So there's that piece of things.
(07:50):
And then something else thathappens with your elders when
they, when they, get up there.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
They go on ramps.
Oh God yes big annoyingbeautiful, long rants about
anything and everythingeverything he pages, yes, and as
he got older, uh, more and moreand more and more.
(08:21):
I mean it would just be arandom thought.
So, to put this in perspective,right, we have a podcast now.
Right, this is, this is usranting this is this is
effectively what.
This is right, but we didn'thave this when he was alive.
Now he passed away in 2011.
Okay, so it hasn't been thatlong, but long enough that this
(08:42):
kind of technology has evolvedsignificantly.
Yeah, trust me when I say hadwe been able to put a microphone
down in front of that man andlet him go, holy shit I'd hate
to think of what we couldn't putout on web he would have.
Basically it would have beenlord the lordman channel.
He would have just talked everyday, all day, on any subject,
(09:07):
on anything.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Oh, trust me, I would .
I would have loved to put himon a live feed.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Just go here, just yeah just go, just talk just
talk I mean, and he would haveloved it, he would have also
insisted on a transcript, whichwould have driven us bonkers, um
, um.
But yeah, so it's not easy tosort, it's not easy to collate,
(09:34):
it's we don't.
Sometimes we just don't knowwhat to do with it.
Sometimes I run across adocument and I go, wow, this is
a really interesting point thathe's making.
This is a really viable concernabout the future of craft.
(09:55):
Well, what do I do with it?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
what that?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
yeah, I can't put it in a lecture series no I can't
hand this to a bunch ofneophytes and go this is what
you should be doing.
I can't I mean you know, like Ican't, yeah we still do this so
some of this stuff just getsfiled away in never looked at
(10:19):
folder for future clergy to gosee, you're not alone, you're
not the only one.
We've been going through thisfor eons and, and with any group
, when you're dealing with thefounder, when you're dealing
with the tradition head, oh,there's so much about our origin
(10:44):
that we don't know that eventhey didn't know.
No, this is the big.
You know.
It's such a bizarre concept thatwe have to defend or that we
even have to talk about, but wedo the reality is, a traditional
coven is nothing more than theunderstandings, or one person or
(11:10):
a group of people'sunderstanding of craft, based on
the knowledge they had at thetime.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Based on the historical information they had
at the time and their agreementto do things in a particular way
.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, if you just look at the fact of the whole
burning time numbers, of howmany they've been refined so
many times, and it keeps ongetting.
Some people keep on making itlower, some people keep on
making it higher.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Oh, yeah, but the problem is we have so many
authors, we have so many peoplethat, unfortunately, have become
very, very popular yes, inwitchcraft that have made
startlingly big claims, right,right, that we're a
pre-christian religion.
(12:00):
We date back tens of thousandsof years.
We're potentially the oldestreligion on the planet.
There's historical evidencethat we existed as various cults
across the planet.
Um, cult, not meaning themodern day word, by the way,
cult meaning the older versionof, again, a like, a like a
(12:21):
religious organization or beliefsystem, system.
Um, none of it's verified, no,none of it, none of it.
And it's difficult because, onone hand, traditionalists are
very proud.
We're very proud of ourfounders, we're very proud of
(12:43):
our origin, we're very proud ofthe effort and the, the sheer
sacrifices that they made tomake what we do possible and to
give us the foundation.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I mean, don't get me wrong.
We appreciate the fact that ittook him a lot of time to write
this stuff, and collect this.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, it's a lifetime .
Speaker 3 (13:03):
It's a lifetime of work.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And and we're very, very we're fiercely proud of
that and we're fiercelyprotective of it.
But at the same time, we haveto be honest, we have to be
realistic about where did ourstuff originate?
It's one thing to say, well,lord min was initiated in the
1970s.
Therefore, right, that's ourorigin point.
(13:28):
But then do we believe in theclaim or the idea that it was
even older than that and olderthan that?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
and older than that.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
We don't know, we don't know.
So some people have abandonedthe term traditional to mean uh,
or have turned it intoreclaiming right, they call it a
reclaiming religion and otherpeople just don't use it at all,
because traditional has becomea bad word, it has become
(14:01):
something to debunk, it hasbecome something to try to I
don't know, it's kind of likethey've made it, I don't know,
traditionalist.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Somehow the word has become the rigid, rigid or the
um this harper valley pta yeahsituation where we're too busy
telling you how yes, that we're.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
We're too far in your business.
We have too many rules.
Right, it's our way or thehighway, and some of these
things are correct.
Some of these things areabsolutely correct, but in our
case, right, it is a decidedattempt to structure something
(14:44):
in a way where a group of peoplecan function simultaneously and
with a set of order.
That's it.
I don't claim that what I do orwhat I know is thousands of
years old.
How could I?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
but see, the only thing I claim is that the stuff
I know happens to be about about54 years old.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Interesting, because I happen to be about 54 years
old.
Interesting, because I happento be about 54 years old.
How funny.
Oh my god.
That's hysterical.
That's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I mean that's it.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I mean, yeah, and I think that that's part of it is
that traditionalists have had toreally kind of face the music
of.
Are we going to keep trying toclaim some origin that we don't
know?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
That's so.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
And this is the problem, like we see, with the
Gardnerians, right, theGardnerians, really many of them
, wholeheartedly believe thatthis is pre-Gardner, that what
they're doing existed longbefore their founder, and
there's so many contradictionsand so many stories, some you
know we don't know.
(15:53):
We just don't know what's rightor what's wrong or who made what
up, or you know, we don't know.
We just don't know what's rightor what's wrong or who made
what up, or you know, we know.
Look, we know that MargaretMurray has been debunked Right
Countless times over.
We know that many of the thingsthat Gardner stated, especially
with regards to the burningtimes, were debunked and were
wrong.
We know that there is a lot ofcontroversy surrounding gardner
(16:19):
and alistair crowley and whetheror not they shared information
and or potentially stole fromone another, borrowed from one
another or made shit up togetherright we know that raven
grisami, who is the supposed uhagain founder, is not the right
(16:40):
word, but the, the uh originatorof strega.
It's all made up right, it'shistorically and it's completely
inaccurate.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Uh, we know that oh, you are going to piss off some
people today.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, it's fine I know I know we, we
just we have too much evidenceto support, where a lot of this
stuff is just not accurate.
And it's like what werepeople's motivations back then?
I don't know.
Maybe margaret murray thoughtthat what she was writing was
(17:19):
correct.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Yes, I truly believe that when she was writing, she
believed it, she was correct.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Maybe, and maybe that's the case for a lot of
these folks, and maybe it's justwe've become smarter, we've
become more knowledgeable, we'vegot better research at our
fingertips, I mean, that's it.
So now we can kind of correctsome of the incorrect
information.
Um, maybe some people did havea more nefarious idea.
(17:47):
Maybe they were trying tocreate something and in order to
do so, they believed they hadto create a history to support
it.
Right, it was greater thanthemselves.
Okay, I kind of get that.
It doesn't make it right, but Ican understand why they thought
(18:08):
it was necessary and I do tooyeah, it's.
It's really, really hard to saysometimes.
I also know that one of thethings that we see a lot or at
least we do as our church goesis we see content throughout our
material that is contributed toother authors right and some of
(18:32):
these folks are still alive andwell and kicking, yes.
And it leaves us with thedesire I don't know what you
want to call it, or just theunderstanding that we could
reach out to them and say howdid our elder come about this
material?
Was it something that you gaveto him willingly?
(18:53):
Was it something that you putout publicly and said, hey,
y'all are free to use it?
Or is it potentially stolen anddo we need to take it out?
You know, and sometimes we haveto again go down that pathway.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Let me ask you this question.
Because, me and you are notgetting any younger.
No, all right.
So that means that one day thatour students, our kids, will be
sitting here listening to thepodcast going hey, we need to
take some of these ideas down,yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Should we as elders, should we continue the same
pattern like them, put up withthe headache that we did, or
should we fix the problem?
Are you with sort of what I am?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I don't think, but my motivation, you know, and I
think we agree on this is that Iwant to be able to put the
material into the most usableformat possible, purge a lot of
the things that are unrelated toour tradition right and present
(20:01):
them with a platform that,hopefully, they can be the ones
to focus on adding to, insteadof having to sort subtract
rehash our exactly, exactly Imean, I guess that's the real
reason to bring this up is, yeah, we as a community, since we're
(20:22):
all going through this, do weneed to look at our steps that
we're doing, or is this patterna part of craft itself?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
yeah, are you with what I'm asking?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
oh, I am absolutely.
I mean because you think about,look Gerald Gardner alone, a
vast amount of the origins ofGardnerian or the things that
that church, that traditionwould consider sacred.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Are owned by Ripley's , believe it or Not.
It was sold to the museum inquotes with a question mark the
sideshow attraction yeah, andit's up for sale.
Like you can buy originalmanuscripts, documents, items.
There's a whole story of loreabout whether or not ripley's
(21:16):
owns gardener's original book ofshadows.
Yeah, and I'm like, if thatstuff is particular, is out
there, I can only imagine thatsomebody with the responsibility
of that temple, someone with adirect connection to him,
probably has a storage unitright full of material and
(21:40):
content and who knows what else.
And that's one of the thingsthat I fear for our people is, I
don't want us to be in aposition where in two or three
more generations right, you know, with every elder, we're adding
more debris and we're addingjust an excessive amount of shit
(22:01):
to the pile, right, I thinkthat that's unnecessary and we
just we have to be very carefulabout you know, what do you
absorb into your tradition andwhat do you leave behind, right?
I mean, there's a lot ofinformation we have that we just
don't even teach, or exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
What do you absorb into your tradition and what do
you leave behind, right?
I mean, there's a lot ofinformation we have that we just
don't even teach, or Exactly,but we have it on hand.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, we have.
So Lordman had a very deepconnection with a number of
members of the Native Americancommunity.
We had a couple of elderpriests who were natives.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
By blood, sewer natives right by blood.
And we have and I do meanobnoxious amount of material
about various native americantraditions just sitting in a
folder because we aren't goingto incorporate it into our
practice nothing.
So I would hope that one day wewill have someone that we can
(22:58):
give that to and let them dowith it what they see fit, learn
from it, glean from it.
You know, take what they need,leave the rest, sort of
situation.
But for us it holds no bearingon our day-to-day no.
So to give that to our kids, Ithink again we're just kind of
handing them a problem of likewhat do you do with those?
(23:20):
What do you do?
Yeah, it's a lot.
The elders, they foresaw a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
They force what?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
They foresaw.
They foresaw they foresaw a lotof things, but they did not
foresee everything, and thedigital age is one of those
things.
They didn't foresee the abilityto search and transcribe.
They didn't foresee AI in manyinstances.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And how would you use this?
I'm sorry, a terabyte ofdocuments in real life is scary.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
If you only knew how much, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
For sure.
I remember the floppy disks.
Yeah, you remember the floppydisks.
Yes, the original temple washanded to you On floppy disks.
Yeah, and it was like floppydisks.
You used to have holders forthem and like it was funny
because it was like floppy disksyou used to have holders for
them and, like it was funnybecause it was like a rolodex,
you could flip through them andgo clack, clack, clack, clack,
clack, clack, clack, and youcould literally like, put the,
(24:23):
you know, like flip through thediscs.
You had what?
Three of them?
Yeah yeah, each, I mean we'reit, it sounds.
It doesn't sound like a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Oh my God, it is.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Each disc could hold.
I don't even remember.
I think it was like a quarterof a terabyte.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Something like that, because they had a limit.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
They weren't that big .
It was like 444 megabytes.
Yeah, there's something in that.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Something in that neighborhood.
Let's say, between three and400 megabytes was about what
they held.
So to have three full reams ofthem, oh my god, yeah, and and
then.
So you had the fun task ofactually putting them into a
computer.
Yes, yeah.
And then dare I ask do youstill have them?
(25:11):
No oh, thank god.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Okay, no matter of fact, I think that well, once we
got everything onelectronically, yeah, I believe
that the magnetic you magnetizethem yeah we magnetized them in
because they were they werestarting to lose their magnetize
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, anyway, yeah, that makes sense.
So, yeah, he, so you, youbasically magnetize them,
rendering them unreadable.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, and now we have it in the computer files.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, it is a whole lot easier to carry that thing
around in a little thumb drive.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
But we also still have the physical Book of
Shadows, we have the physicallecture series.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Yeah, yes, it's all fun, it's all fun and games
until they start to write it is,it is, it is even just pictures
.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
I mean, there's so many groups that have volumes of
photographs from sabbats andrituals and days past and, like
you, don't even know who some ofthe people are.
No, some temples have beenaround that long yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Have they been around long enough for some?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
coffee.
Oh well, we've come on.
We've always had coffee, weknow that.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Thanks for listening.
Join us next week for anotherepisode.
Pagan Coffee Talk is brought toyou by Life Temple and Seminary
.
Please visit us atlifetempelseminaryorg for more
information, as well as links toour social media Facebook,
discord, twitter.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Maze of stone and mire Just hold my hand as we
pass by A sea of blazing pyres.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And so it is the end of our day.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
So walk with me till morning breaks.
And so it is the end of our day.
So walk with me till morning.
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