CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM

It is now almost like a tradition to find a great antagonism and conflict between Christianity and Paganism, this is not surprising given that history is full of religious conflicts and since the Christian religions began to spread throughout Europe there were many persecutions on both sides.
Early Christians were persecuted by the then dominate religions such as that of he Romans, the Jews and so on. Later on once Christianity had become dominant there were great persecutions of non Christians. We can mention the crusades, the inquisition, the witch hunts and so on.

In recent times there has been a resurgence of the "old religions" under many banners, including Wicca, witchcraft, druidry, neo-paganism and many more and in these currents it is normal to find a resentment and even outright hostility toward anything remotely Christian.

If we look, however, beyond appearances we can see that within the ancient traditions that get called "pagan" there are many positive currents of light as illustrated by the legends of the Tuartha De Danan (the people of the Goddess Danu) or in the stories of the welsh bards like Taliesin.
Merlin is another example of a supposedly pagan figure who embodied divine elements and practiced shamanic magic whilst also being associated with esoteric or Gnostic Christianity.
Some would say that even figures such as these have been christianised and therefore tainted in some way but if we are more objective we can understand things differently.

In Britain and in Europe as a whole it is clear that there existed a Solar cult that studied the cosmos and all its movements, invoking the Solar Logos. The Celts in particular were a race that had their solar myths and Lugh of the Long Arm, leader and king of the Tuartha de Danan was a figure of light and wisdom, being a Solar Deity, a civilizer and saviour of his people, similar in many respects to Quetzalcoatl the great teacher of the peoples of ancient Mexico or to Krsna in the Hindu mythology.

At the same time within the Celtic traditions and myths there are negative currents. The Tuartha De Danan had to overcome a negative race of ¨Sea Demons¨called the Formorians that practiced sorcery and black magic, in order to install a kingdom of light and superior teaching in Ireland.
Eventually their teaching and wisdom stretched across all of Europe and the name of Lugh or Lu can be found in many place names around western and central Europe (eg Lucerne, Lundinium, Lyon)

In all these mythological stories we see what is the traditional battle between the Solar and Lunar currents.

The natural order of the Solar system is that the Sun rules all. The Sun is like the King around which the other planets revolve. Clearly the moon has a different role and on our planet she rules the waters, influences cycles of growth and germination etc. Everything has its role and purpose but when the lunar currents dominate there is an imbalance, for in this sense the Lunar domination affects the psychology of the people making them slaves to the unconscious, to the animal instinct and thus they act as if they were asleep, following illusions and impulses of which they don't have consciousness. This lunar influence, when it is imbalanced, leads mankind into acts of tremendous folly such as wars and senseless destruction of countries, races, cultures and even, as we now see, the planet itself.
When the Solar current is in its rightful place and in balance with the waters of life and the Lunar element, consciousness rules and the light of the spirit is evident in all. Mankind is capable of co-ordinating acts of great significance and beauty that instruct and help all beings.
The pre-Christian cultures of Europe had their moments of great wisdom and glory, as we have mentioned, but they also had their moments of decay and negativity. This was due to the entry of the lunar currents into the culture and the use of negative practices such as human sacrifice, orgies, sorcery etc. In Greek pagan tradition we can see very clearly the contrast between the original cult of Dionysius which was an ecstatic and inspirational tradition that used sacred plants, music, sexual and other elements in order to elevate the spirit and the later degeneration into orgies, drunken-ness and chaos.

When Christianity began to spread across Europe, initially it was a positive influence and it wasn't always in a state of conflict that the early "Gnostic Christians" met with their "Pagan" counterparts.
In the years just after Christ was crucified and resurrected Christians arrived in Ireland and met with Druids and Druidesses that were still working with the Solar initiatic traditions taught to the first Celts that arrived in Ireland by the Tuartha De Danan.

The Gnostic Christians of that time formed alliances with those Druids and thus was born an interchange that led to the expression of a Celtic Christianity that honoured both the sublime wisdom of Jesus Christ and the ancient teachings of the Celts with their shamanic rites performed at sacred wells and springs and in woodland groves where the Oak trees were venerated along with the magic of the mistletoe and many other elemental spirits of the forest. This was not strange to these people that received the light directly due to their esoteric knowledge.
In parts of County Clare in the west of Ireland there are still the remains of the caves and small churches where communities of early Celtic Christians lived close to nature.
It is interesting to note the old stories that say the Celtic Monks lived each with a female companion hidden away in the magical valleys of the rocky hills of The Burren in County Clare.

It is also worth reflecting that it is to many of those early Celtic-Gnostic Christian communities that we owe great thanks because they preserved intact and wrote down the stories of our Gaelic ancestors – a preservation of ancient Pre-Christian wisdom that has few parallels around the world, so those early Pagan-Christians were hardly folks that abused or showed disrespect to that which has gone before thus demonstrating that it is not the Christian teaching per se that has lead to all the wrong doing, prejudice, persecution and cruelty against “non-christians” but more the product of the inherent lack of balance and the psychological illness of mankind caught up in the never ending battle of the opposites, identified with one side or the other and thus in conflict… Christianity seems to have suffered much from this plague and perhaps when we look at the nature of some of the stories with the sudden conversions from being “sinners” to zealous missionaries (eg. Paul with his epithany on the road to Damascus) we can see certain underlying psychological traits that repeat themselves.
We were sinners and then we saw the light!!!! And now everyone must see the light we saw.
This is a typical reaction of our immature psychologies.. So maybe now has come the time for us to grow up a bit???


Even today we can still appreciate something of that celtic inspiration in the illuminated manuscripts such as The Book of Kells that tell the story of Christ with the beautiful art of the Celts.

The cross is not only christian for it appears in many traditions and esoterically symbolises the union of the Male and Female elements in harmony. With the cross as their symbol, the early christians that arrived in Ireland harmonised with the celtic cult of nature worship and showed the example of how in reality the old religions in essence are completely compatible with the Christic teaching.

The other side of the coin, however, was that later there arrived a cult that worshipped a dead man on a cross and lived in the darkness of religious fanaticism, persecuting all those that didn't bow before their dogmas, guilt ridden, self loathing, repressed psychologies etc. This was the Lunar Christianity that had imprisoned the light of Christ's message within the morbid minds of people that insisted on repressing that which they didn't know how to transform. These people even persecuted the Celtic Christians despite the fact that they believed in Christ. The tyrants of that dogmatic interpretation of Christ´s message couldn't feel comfortable with people that had real freedom. The Celtic Church was soon repressed and outlawed as the political power of the Roman Church was imposed upon the British people.

It is a historical fact that the dark version of Christianity manifested through the Catholic Religion and later the Lutherian and puritanical version called Protestantism. These became the dominant forms each claiming to have the final word on all that pertains to Christ and his teachings. This has confused many people and led also to resurgences in the old religions as an attempt to escape the psychological repression that has stifled so many lives.

In this respect the licentious and libertine aspects of “Lunar paganism” are like the opposite and give an outlet to the repressed desires. On one hand we have the puritanical repressive regime of fanatical Christianity and on the other the libertine currents of the "new age", "neo paganism" etc. that are only the alter ego of the repressed fanatics. The two are apparently in conflict but in reality they are both collaborating to keep people in ignorance. Many youths today reject the boring and grey image of Christianity, changing it for varieties of paganism, psychedelia or plain materialism.

They say that "If this is religion I don't want to know" and thus they are driven toward the currents of degeneration, materialism etc. Into the space left by their rejection of the traditional religions there
steps a large variety of gurus, cults, philosophies etc. that give licence to the repressed egos and justify many acts of degeneration as acts of liberation.

People such as the infamous "magician" Aleister Crowley were the forefathers of the modern degeneration and reaction to the stuffy and repressed atmosphere of christian society.
Later on figures such as Jim Morrison of the Doors embodied a return to what were perceived as "pagan" ways with his pseudo mysticism and his "Dionysian" poetry and revelry. For many young people in the 60's cultural icons like Jim Morrison gave a false idea of the Dionysian vibration with his abuse of LSD and other drugs with his constant allusions to literary figures and claims of being a shaman. (We say he was a pseudo shaman because Morrison was giving a stage version of so called Shamanism in the modern “American style” for the modern youth. Perhaps for some it led to a deeper exploration and served as a starting point but Morrison and others of his generation did not end up as wise men or woman they died painful deaths and showed themselves to be as confused as the rest of us.)


The rebirth of "paganism" however was and is more than these famous and theatrical anecdotes and so a wider revival has occurred making claims to be a "witch" or "wizard" fashionable and paganism was deemed once more to be acceptable.

Since then there has been an ever wider cultural explosion of literature and art that relates to the so called "pagan" experience.

For different people this can mean many things and each has his own subjective take on what is the "true paganism" but our wish is to be objective and look at these cultural changes with consciousness of the principles that define any current or "vibration." For this reason we say that we should learn to look beyond mere appearances and discern the values behind the manifestations.
In reality it doesn't matter if one calls oneself a Pagan or a Christian because neither in itself is a guarantee of spiritual transformation, what is important is the essence of your practice and the interior values.. it is not what you call yourself, it is what you are that counts.

What is clear is that in any tradition it is possible to find the Solar and Lunar currents.

The Solar current is that which seeks conscious awakening in the light. It is that which seeks to shine the light of the spirit in the darkness of the unconscious in order to comprehend the path toward awakening… to fecund the darkness, animate it and bring it to life. This was something that was also observed and expressed by the greatest modern psychologist Carl Gustav Jung who had the perception and discernment to be able to interpret the symbols of the collective sub-conscious and their meaning. Indeed we could say that Jung was a representative of the Solar current within the world of psychological study and Freud personified the Lunar current given that he proclaimed that we humans are mere slaves only to the Sub-conscious and to the sexual energy. The difference he had with Jung was that Jung observed that there is a transcendent current in human psychology. This observation led Jung to comprehend the inner nature of alchemy which seeks to activate this transcendent function. All the Solar expressions of the religious impulse are transcendent and offer a path of psychological and spiritual healing by means of a transformation of the inner values by which we live. Mental illness is a result of a breakdown in the natural capacity for self transformation and indicates a need to activate this.

In truth we can say that light is light and crosses all cultural boundaries. Those that are of the light recognise each other because the light knows the light and there is always affinity, friendship and understanding where there is light.

The Lunar currents are those that are always stuck on and identified with the external appearances. Under the Lunar influence the psychology is obsessed with its own reflection. It is subjective and easily subject to illusion. In the times that we are living practically all the world is under this Lunar influence and this is what keeps us trapped in the Maya of this material world, identified as if this were all and everything.
Lunar man has created a "civilization" full of the shine of false hopes, the trick of mirrors and the glint of neon. It is this lunar current that causes such confusion and contradiction in the minds of the people, obscuring the light and creating conflict.
Thus the Lunar mind perceives that which is, in essence the same, as something opposed. (The light of the moon is not the opposite to the light of the Sun… it is the reflection of Sunlight…!!)
But instead of seeing the “other” as part of itself, it inverts everything. For this reason country fights country, brother fights brother and all is an illusion designed to keep us from uniting and returning to the light where we would see all objectively and once more be able to live in harmony.

(NOTE- Given the sensitivities that are present in our modern age even to make statements of this kind that frame Solar as "good" and Lunar as "bad" is something that perhaps some people would object to.... so to explain we are not donating the Moon as "inferior" in any way... The Moon has her place and function as a satellite that revolves around our planet Earth which is also donated as a Feminine element of the Cosmos... but the whole of the KOSMOS is in one respect feminine.. This is the PACHAMAMA... The Cosmic Mother. She is the generator of life... from her all form comes.)

The Solar aspect is the light that fecunds the dark and in their harmonious relationship creation comes to be... When the human being is overly biased toward one or another element of the creation or of the psychology (which is a mirror of creation) we have the creation of “ISMs” i.e. - favouritisms; thus machoism (Mysogeny) and feminism are two sides of the same coin. Often today we have the problem that many women feel bad with the way woman has been treated, they are wounded, as is Mother Earth, by the imbalanced male energy... This is true and has happened and no-one can deny it... but if the male is imbalanced it is because also the female has become imbalanced... the illness is in all of us. So when a woman responds to or feels that pain and this makes her afraid of men or reject men then she is not going to find healing because man and woman are one in flesh and blood and we are opposite but complimentary and we need to face the wound TOGETHER and for the woman to comprehend that because SOME MEN behave badly then it does not mean she needs to reject all men or all male expression because the Male of the species and the Male aspect of God exist, always existed and will continue to exist and without the Male then there would be no creation, no life etc. just as without the female there would be no creation of life. Both are necessary and both have their role.

Maybe in this life you were born a woman, maybe before in another you were a man or visa versa so we don't know all we have lived in multiple incarnations.. sometimes we have been the aggressor, sometimes the victim, if we are wounded it is also because we have wounded others too - this is the Law of KARMA.. Cause and effect, action and reaction, so to blame and to attack the other sex for the so called collective sins of those from that sex is not logical in the ultimate sense although it is "understandable" given that we are all trapped in duality and can often only see one side of the coin... Many times nowadays as a man one can feel the rejection from women and this can come even when one offers love and not invasion so we all have to be patient and not let those instances of rejection, fear, pain etc. to stop us trying to make a change in the way we relate... It takes time and perseverance to make the work of shamanic healing....)

If by paganism we mean a spiritual way that acknowledges the many aspects of God (and God is not "Male" God is BEYOND all that) as expressed by the Gods and Goddesses of the old religions then we would say let’s use the ancient rites of our ancestors in order to make a true transformation of our consciousness. Let’s revive the communion with Mother Nature so that we can return to our roots and liberate our souls from the psychological prison we have closed them in, let's work to eliminate from ourselves the selfishness that harms others.


Here we want to send the message that all is ONE. God is ONE and the light is the light… but God has many faces and there are many emanations that come from the absolute. For this reason it is clear that it is possible to reconcile polytheism and monotheism. There is only one God and yet there are many Gods and Goddesses.
Perhaps in the Hindu tradition we can see the example of a culture that at its height managed to reconcile the one with the many.Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and yet God has infinite manifestations. Perhaps this is why for the Hindus it was not difficult to recognise that Jesus Christ was like "God made flesh" even though he wasn't a Hindu and didn't speak or dress like Krishna.
Equally we also know that, for example, Lugh of the Long Arm, God of the Gaels of Ireland and Europe was also"God made flesh" he was another incarnation of Divine Light and Consciousness in a human body.. And in the same way Bridgid or Bridey, Goddess of the Sacred Fire, Guardian of the Medicine and of the workers of Metal was also the an embodiment of God in the Feminine aspect.. etc etc etc...

True religion comes from the practice of principles and values that ultimately transcend cultural differences. Sadly, due to the abuse of spiritual principles by the human ego there have always been conflicts, lies, hypocrisy etc that have entered the distinct cultures around the world and in the end this led to monotheism and later to atheist materialism like a succession of reactions to the spiritual failures of mankind. In the end Marx concluded that "religion is the opium of the masses" and this thought echoes in many minds today. This in reality is yet another defect of mankind. It is not the fault of God that man has turned religion into an opium rather than a means to reach God.
That is the fault of man but mans greatest fault is perhaps to always blame outside himself rather than look within.

When the people are united we will never be defeated and WE CAN CREATE A BETTER WORLD, it's a question of changing our perspective, opening our minds and working for change. What we need to do is clean from our minds rigid perceptions and allow the new to enter and not let ourselves swallow the lie that tried to divide us.