PebbleDash.

In view of the persistently grim and at times abusive reluctance of Pebble representatives to address fully and frankly the issues raised in this discussion at UKPagan by the constituency which Pebble claims to represent by cross-section, as well as the apparent contempt in which they hold those who ask of them legitimate questions, I felt that it would be a good idea to supply those reading this who disagree with Pebble and the manner in which they have treated their equals, those from whom they request support, a means by which they might advise the British government of Pebble’s true nature as revealed in this discussion and also make it clear that Pebble do not speak in their name.

In the first instance this letter may be sent via email to the Diversity Advisory Group of the Office of National Statistics to whom Pebble and PaganDash representative Jon Randall - present in the UKPagan discussion - has proposed spending our taxes on a section of the census which will represent all British pagans as godless by means of the definition of paganism which Pebble has supplied to the Diversity Advisory Group:

“PAGANISM : The umbrella term for spiritualities and religions that recognise the sacred in nature, the environment, ancestry and heritage.”

If anyone wishes to read further on this issue then they may do so at the Fog Bank entry Godless Pagans.

If you choose to email this message or an edited version then please write your full name after the valediction. If you wish then you may also include your postal address for verification purposes. Here is the email address (your default email service will open yet you may paste the address into the address field of the email service of your choice) and the message to paste into your email follows it, in bold type:

census.customerservices@ons.gsi.gov.uk


F.A.O. Census 2011 Diversity Advisory Group (DiAG), formerly Special Populations Advisory Group.


Dear Sir,


I write regarding the organisation known as Pebble which represents itself to you as the “Public Bodies Liaison Committee for British Paganism”. You should be aware that Pebble has no popular mandate to represent British paganism to British public bodies but only the mandate of a statistically insignificant number of people who belong to its constituent groups.


Pebble is a private lobby organisation for several internet-based groups and the interests of their conveners. As most British pagans either do not know of its existence or disapprove of its claims Pebble acknowledges that it speaks only for its membership, the numbers of which are disputable as those members consciously supporting Pebble policy remain uncounted due to their recruitment via websites and the duplication of memberships across these websites. Pebble‘s claim to embody an inclusive array of British pagan belief, practice and opinion is therefore unsustainable. Pebble does not poll the views of British pagans outside of its constituent groups and this together with Pebble‘s claims are a source of dissension within those sections of the British pagan community who are even aware of Pebble, particularly its definition of paganism which excludes those pagans for whom gods are an important part of their lives.


Pebble does not represent either my religious interests or my secular interests as a British pagan. I hereby advise you that Pebble has no authority to enter into any discussions with your office upon my behalf. I would be happy for this message to be forwarded to other offices within your organisation as you feel appropriate.


Yours faithfully,


The above message may be sent as it stands or edited to any public body with which Pebble meets and to which you wish to make the same statement - simply remove the header “F.A.O. Census 2011 Diversity Advisory Group (DiAG), formerly Special Populations Advisory Group.” Pebble has been given the opportunity to address our concerns yet they refuse to do so. Time for us to speak for ourselves and we may at least register our rejection of Pebble's agenda. If you disagree with any of Pebble’s claims then take back the consent which they have claimed from you and speak out for yourself. Let you and your friends stand up and be counted for your own views and not in furtherance of Pebble’s pet projects.

I have posted this message upon the UKPagan discussion mentioned above. I respect UKPagan's stand in determining the content of their boards in the face of those who would be priests and kings and I thank them for maintaining such an excellent and independent forum. They are good people.

Best wishes, everyone.

Thank you, Miss Exotica Stormtrooper.

Hello Lee. I do not understand why your friend Craig is unable to reply directly, but isn’t this the chap with the blog where the replies precede the message? Or perhaps, as Craig speaks for Stefan and you speak for Craig, it’s the case that the more important you feel you are as a follower of druidry the more likely you are to have someone else handle your correspondence? Whichever, you have my respect, Lee, I hope you know that. Please pass this along to Craig in case he forgets where he put his screen:

Craig. First, I haven’t made Seniuk out as a celebrity but I wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks of himself that way, nor do I have any contempt for Seniuk, reserving such valuable regard for those who truly deserve the attention. No, I’m actually laughing at Seniuk and his pledgers, and you have just given me further cause to guffaw: If Seniuk has designed his statement to be controversial - and a “call to arms” is certainly that - then he shouldn’t be surprised to find himself at the centre of a controversy, should he? I think you’ll find that’s the generally expected result of making a statement designed to be controversial. I would be surprised to learn that someone who speaks in such militant terms was so precious as to wither beneath a little satire, after all if someone sets themselves up as a warrior-prophet then they should expect a few catcalls and hoots.

I do not doubt your sincerity at all yet controversy does not beget respect nor do proclamations imply authority. There may be a need for many changes within Druidry but the first change needed if for those who call themselves druids to stop taking themselves so bloody seriously.

P.S. The history in Seniuk’s statement is total bollocks, you do know that don't you?

Brazil Nuts.

It’s regularly claimed as a point of superiority for paganism over other religions, for example, gosh, I don’t know - Christianity - that pagans do not evangelise. You won’t find groups of pagans hanging around shopping centres on Saturday mornings, banging tambourines and bawling out filk. You won’t find lone pagans standing around other shopping centres with sandwich boards damning everyone to Hell unless they embrace some horned god or other. You won’t find pairs of pagans knocking on your door on a quiet Sunday asking if they may enter and discuss the Eddas with you. You won’t find pagans visiting a developing nation to impose their religion over local forms in order to extract currency in return for educational materials.

This is the general claim, anyway.

Desperation II.

For pity’s sake will someone just say that they like him and make the wheedling stop! He’s even commentating upon his own posts now - Heaven alone knows how he gets away from the shaving mirror each morning.

Never Mind The Cassocks.

With regard to the blog entry posted on both Ancestral Celt and Letters From Brython my answer to the question of the title is, even ignoring the cassocks, yes, and the wrongness is the certainty with which statements such as the following are made:

“In their time our druidic ancestors were at the cutting edge of philosophy, natural science and the understanding of the glory of the cosmos.”

I’m all for reconstructionism but claims like this make me wonder about the source being used, and in this case I fear it’s Goscinny and Uderzo. It’s such an extreme claim that it makes you wonder if those at the centre of both The Albion Conclave and Brython have any knowledge of British history at all, let alone the history of the rest of Europe of the world.

Seniuk predicts that some will find his words offensive. I find them something other. They’re barmy, especially when the cultural catastrophes of the Romans appear to have been ignored in favour of a false Druid-Christian dichotomy.

“Yet we insult these ancestors by pretending to be shamans, as if the ancient Druids had not evolved beyond the hunter-gatherers and still clung desperately to some primitive Mesolithic awareness until the arrival of the Christians.”

This kind of frothing, fictional grandeur is to be expected, I suppose, as every reconstructionism must have its Margaret Murray:


“Where is the passion on our tongues and the fire in our bellies? Is there is no yearning in our hearts to look deeper? Do we really believe we already have all the answers we need? Where is the real belief in the gods? Where is the fire in our heads?”

All due respect to anyone who wishes to formalise their religion but this all sounds a little too fiery. Cool heads may not prevail in the midst of such a fire, and the smoke will choke the light.

Being quite unbothered with LARPers and people who dress up like them to practice their religion I can’t say that until now I knew much about the Albion Conclave and Seniuk. I have taken a look around and one of the most interesting things which I have found - other than Seniuk’s inordinate fondness for describing his activities as "profound" (mistletoe?) - is that the Albion Conclave runs a correspondence course. Now, we all know that there is money in druidry, the Americans being a huge resource of historically-ignorant marks particularly keen to fork out their hard-earned that they might describe themselves as druids, and a cynical man might just wonder if this were not a move to grab a larger slice of the pie from the other teaching orders, if not push them away from the table completely.

It’s interesting that Seniuk seems to put distance between the Albion Conclave and shamanism while the only review which appears of their course that I have found describes the course as having “a deep Shamanic essence to it.” Further, on their own site the Albion Conclave describe shamanism as an “aspect of Druidic Lore”. Presumably this assertion has Seniuk's blessing therefore the Albion Conclave must have determined that shamanism sells yet this apparent endorsement of shamanism via teaching doesn't tally with Seniuk's declaration against shamanism. Something of a mess, all this.

Seniuk’s druid camp profile for 2008 reads like that of an enterprising and anti-Christian IRAB. I’m more used to seeing mangled history of this kind over on the BBC’s Pagan Topic but, considering the high regard in which some people appear to hold Seniuk’s ideas, it seems clear to me that hopeful ignorance is not confined to message boards.

Given the short notes above Seniuk’s newly stated intentions seem very confused. I would urge people to beware of self-selected leaders.

Big.

If Gods exist in any real personal sense then their power and success must surely be judged as that of any other person, which is to say by their achievements. Now, we could say that the various Sun gods are extremely successful, the Sun rising each day in most parts of the world. We may say the same about Moon gods, such is the frequency with which the Moon appears, Let us not forget rain gods as it is always raining somewhere, nor storm gods who are always throwing their bolts about. The oceans move around the world continuously and so the sea gods are doing rather well. City gods are doing marvellously, for cities never seem to go out of fashion. These signs of success are only conditions of our world, however, and of our way of life, phenomena upon which we depend and which could not be any other way if we are to remain in this world. A better measure of success would be those ways in which gods influence how we choose to live our lives, and it seems true that everyone who worships, acknowledges or venerates a god does so for a reason which has its root in the way they act, think and feel. Even those people claiming religions without dogma either behave in a way they feel is pleasing to their god or interact with their god for instrumental reasons. This measure is a universal measure, then, and so it serves nicely to judge the success and thereby power of a particular god when the apparent quantities of people who follow and have followed that god are compared one with another.

It’s bad news for those pagans who insist on bashing Christians, Jews and Muslims, I’m afraid. The god of Abraham wins out. This isn’t to say that the lives and choices of Christians, Jews and Muslims are any more legitimate or have any greater intrinsic value than those of everyone else, it simply means that their god is bigger and cleverer than everyone else’s gods. So, have a little humility all you ex-Christian pagans, and deal with your issues of inadequacy in some other, more gentle ways than flinging insults at the followers of the god of Abraham.

Desperation.

The BBC’s Pagan Topic has become so dull, so far off-topic and so devoid of any kind of civilised discussion - the most active discussion for the last month being some interminable stream of flatulence about crayons - that they have turned to the person they consider adversary number one in order to get any kind of relief from the shower of shit which is the current level of discourse in that place.

The theme is something along the lines of “you‘re not a pagan and don‘t belong here”. Meanwhile, many of the regular posters at The Pagan Topic troll The Muslim Topic, The Jewish Topic and The Christian Topic.

Personality Cu*t.

Recently I observed someone announce that his gods are figments of his imagination, yet this man leads his own religious group in conducting rituals and observing tradition centred around the Wiccan God and Goddess. Where is the sense here? Perhaps the other members of his group feel as he, that their gods are entirely imaginary. If, on the other hand, they are sincere in their belief in the literal existence of their gods then what can they possibly gain from following a someone who does not share their sincerity in this particular regard? Further, what does this religious roleplayer gain from his leadership of his group?

I think that it is much easier to have respect for a person who calls themselves a pagan and denies any interest in gods or even their existence than for someone who cynically employs the idea of gods for their own self-agrandisement.