International Pagan Coming Out Day

Today is the official date for the International Pagan Coming Out Day. “IPCOD is a not-for-profit organization working to achieve greater acceptance and equity for Pagans at home, at work, and in every community.” I think it’s vitally important that we support groups like this that work for acceptance within our community. I’m lucky enough to live somewhere where being openly Pagan is not usually an issue, but even here in New Orleans, things happen.

Last summer I was in the midst of cleaning my house. Wearing a pair of short shorts, rubber gloves and with my hair a crazy, frizzy mess, I hauled the trash out. As I was opening my trash can up, I heard someone walking down the street. A huge man decked out in all sorts of gang paraphernalia had just turned around the corner. At that point we lived in a pretty bad neighborhood. Just down the block, a gang regularly hung out and probably did a good bit of business. They left me alone, they knew that I belonged in the neighborhood.  I left them alone in turn. We even, on occasion, gave each other a friendly, neighborly nod and acknowledgment. Apparently, some of this might have been because I am a witch.

This huge man, who I had never seen before and who I would not have wanted to have met in a dark ally late at night, took one look at me and crossed the street. Keeping me in his sight the whole time, he threw hex signs at me and hissed. All I could do at that point was smile and wave.

While this particular anecdote is simply amusing and nothing bad happened, I think it illustrates the type of fear that still persists in our overall society about Pagans and Witches. I made the decision a long time ago that I would be openly who I am. If a job doesn’t want me because I am openly Pagan, that is not a job for me. But other people aren’t so lucky.

So what are things that you can do to help those who aren’t out?

Just be yourself! Be open and approachable. Talk about your gatherings and holidays. Don’t hide being Pagan. Many of my coworkers have asked me a lot of questions about what I do and what Paganism is about. They know me, I’m not scary or intimidating. Be an advocate, as the IPCOD organization calls it.

You can also support your local Pagan community. Whether or not you have your own group or coven, there are usually groups that bring the entire local Pagan community together. In New Orleans, we have a meetup group. Don’t have a group like this? Start one!

Many cities also put together Pagan Pride Days through The Pagan Pride Project, which work to introduce the Pagan community to the larger community and promote acceptance and education. The New Orlean’s Pagan community is doing one this fall. Get involved and help out!

If you’re out, take a moment today to remind people that it is OK, that we can be openly Pagan and not be afraid. There is still a lot hate and intolerance in the world. It is only through standing up and saying “Yes, I am different and that’s OK” that we can start to change this and make it better. Some of us aren’t lucky enough to be safely out as a Pagan, use today as an opportunity to help change that. You never know when telling someone that you’re Pagan will make a difference.

My name is Lauren. I am a Pagan. I am proud to be so!

*If you want to help us raise money for the Greater New Orleans Pagan Pride Day 2013, check out our Indiegogo campaign found here!

The Devil and Me

Here, here she comes. I’ll have a bout with thee;
 Devil or devil’s dam, I’ll conjure thee:
 Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch,
 And straightway give thy soul to him thou servest.
– Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Scene I, Act V

The history of witchcraft is intertwined with the image of the Devil.

It’s an ongoing battle for most modern Neo-Pagans to convince the rest of the world that we aren’t worshiping the Devil; killing goats, sacrificing babies at midnight, that kind of thing. If I had a Quarter for every time someone asked me if I worshiped Satan, I’d be quite well off.

And as this comic wonders, why would Satan want babies anyway?

The Sacrifice

As a witch, it seems that my story is inevitably going to be entwined with this entity in the eyes of the larger community. From the merging of Christianity with mainstream culture in the Roman empire, the Burning times in later Europe, the witch trials of early America, to the occasional panic over witches in the current media (such as the West Memphis Three), witchcraft and the Devil are seen going hand in hand by a large majority of the population. Margaret Murray’s Witch Cult Theory may have been the first big argument in centuries for witches being separate entities from the Devil; but for the most part, witches and the Devil still go hand in hand  in the general mindset of the populace.

While I don’t worship the Devil, I do believe he exists. If he didn’t exist before, he certainly does now: there is too much fanatic belief by the same majority population for such a deity not to exist. And I don’t think he’s as easily escaped by Pagans as some of us would like to think. It’s easy enough to say “Oh! I have nothing to do with the Devil!” but that old Devil pops up in some interesting places.

The Devil is in and of himself an initiation that most witches have to go through. To us, he is part of a different pantheon, tied to the Christian God (though never actually mentioned in the Bible, other than a brief conversation with Jesus). But anyone who has been approached in public by a complete stranger and asked if they worship the devil, or asked the same thing by their family when they came out of the broom closet, will understand what I mean. The Devil is a liminal figure that most of us have to face at one point or another. There is a reason The Devil is one of the Major Arcana in the tarot; the Devil is a stumbling block, a blatant symbol of the need to make changes in one’s life. The most important aspect of the card is that all of the things that the Devil represents within the Tarot are bindings that a person willingly takes on themselves. You have to be willing to throw off the ties that the Devil creates.

Another one of the places where I find the Devil to be the most intriguing is in fairy tales. Fairy tales are excellent archetypes for magical work. If you were to read my S.O’s book Fairy Tale Rituals, you would read about his theory that many fairy tales are describing initiations. Hansel and Gretel have to go into the Forest and defeat the witch (who has some rather suspicious ties to their evil stepmother from the first part of the story) to be able to grow up. He didn’t touch on the Devil, but the Devil shows up in many Grimm’s fairy tales as well, and serves as a Trickster character that helps assist these initiations along, just as any good villain will.

And really, at the end of the day, isn’t Lucifer the best villain ever?

Good Guy Lucifer

The Grimm’s have many stories that involve the Devil. The authors even introduce the Devil’s Mother. Though, as the story of “The Devil’s Three Gold Hairs” shows, the Devil’s mother actually helps our hero on his way. It’s also interesting to note that the Devil is a fairly passive character in this story. We can assume that he was out and up to no good before he comes home, but the true evil character in the story is the King who is trying to get our hero killed. The Devil is simply a foil for the hero.

And then we have Baphomet. Many just see Baphomet as another image of the Devil, so for those Neo-Pagans who work with him, the stereotype continues. Baphomet can be a confusing figure, symbolizing many different ideas. It also probably doesn’t help that Baphomet came out of the Christian imagination during the Crusades anyway and was a large part of Crowley’s workings in the early twentieth century. It is a conundrum for Pagans that Baphomet has been heavily linked to Satanism.

In Aradia, Gospel of the Witches, Lucifer is Diana’s brother. Lucifer, of course, in Christian theology is Satan or the Devil. In Aradia, Lucifer is a God of intellectual freedom. He probably embodies everything that most people like to think of him as anyway: the free thinker who would not compromise his ideals, though it meant damnation. This tale, the Fall of Lucifer, is represented in Aradia.

The question also arises as to whether or not Satanists are Pagan. I know some who identify as Pagan and some who want absolutely nothing to do with that label. Several years ago, Anton LaVey’s daughter wrote a tome blasting Pagan girls, stating that Satanist girls were much better, and lived their ideals in a way Pagans did not.  I think Jason Mankey’s article, “Are Satanists Pagan?” sums the wider discussion up pretty thoroughly. But as with all labels, that’s a personal decision. It does probably cloud of the waters though for the larger issue.

The Devil, however you want to approach him as a divine figure, is a Trickster. Most Tricksters cause chaos to bring about a positive change. And as with any villain, the hero couldn’t overcome obstacles to change for the better without the barriers the villain is instrumental in bringing about. Maybe whether we like it or not, the Devil is here to stay: the trick he plays on us is challenging us to divorce ourselves from him. It’s a devilish conundrum.