 I wonder if there are any Wiccans in the house? Kind of Wiccans? Kind of sorta. I know, there are many kind of sorta Wiccans. And in fact, I'm gonna sort of do a little bonus besides Wicca. I think I may talk a little bit about contemporary goddess worship because there's a mashup between the two entities of belief and or celebration depending on how you think about it. I'm also making my relationship with the space-time continuum a little stronger by turning on my iPhone and seeing actually how much time has eloped, elapsed. I am really grateful to Hank for bringing me back to this day, this conference and I'm really sad that I can't spend the rest of the afternoon with you. I brought a couple of my mailing lists that are back on the table, the middle table back there. There's a pink one and a blue one in case anyone is interested in either the Center for Sex and Culture, the entity that I founded with my partner Robert or Good Vibrations where I have my day job. I'm honored to talk about sex for a living most of the time and it's a rare treat to be able to talk about spirituality that isn't directly in the context of sort of sexualized spirituality as with Tantra or what have you. Or American Tantra, I mean. So I may mention sex a couple of times in this talk. I don't think I'll get in trouble for doing that but that's not going to be the complete focus of what I speak about as opposed to most of the times that I get up and speak to an audience. So I discovered Wicca when I was a young woman. I was about 11 when I saw an ad in the back of a magazine. That would have made it 1978 if you're doing the math. 1968 and the book was called Potions and Spells of Witchcraft. And I was probably not a typical 11-year-old and yet I was typical in one sense I think that I did not feel as though my human power in the world was respected as much as I thought it ought to be. I was a little girl. So I decided to order Potions and Spells of Witchcraft to see if I could even out the scales. I actually think that the act of ordering Potions and Spells of Witchcraft and asking my mother to write the check for it was the magic that was supposed to happen because I don't know that I actually got anything out of the book that made a huge change in my life with the exception of making the loop, closing the loop of finding something spiritually interesting. And I wouldn't have called it spiritual when I was 11, but shortly thereafter I began to think of it in terms of spirituality. I was a little atheist kid. I had gone to church for a couple of years with my not very believing but dad is a teacher in a tiny town so we must keep up appearances family. And I knew that that whole business wasn't my thing. As a matter of fact, they let me go out in the car, lock myself in the car every Sunday afternoon for the last two thirds of the time that my family sojourned in this church with a stack of fairy tale books and read fairy tales instead of going to Sunday school and that was because I was asking inconvenient questions. And they all pretty much agreed that I should just go sit in the back of the car with Andrew Lang's fairy tale books and learn something about the universe that way, not that way. So I was well set up for having a sort of a fairy tale inflected otherworldly kind of spirituality. I also grew up in the country and in the mountains in fact where I talked to trees and had a pretty robust relationship with the natural world around me. So when I got to college and I found out that there was another way of looking at witchcraft than the notion of potions and spells that in fact there was a contemporary community who embraced this as their spiritual path or their religion depending on who you ask. And that it was called wicca, an old word whose root we think means to bend or to shape which matches the spells and the potions but also I think speaks to the notion that we in wicca bend and shape our understanding of spiritual notions in a different direction than the mainstream. That some witches were feminist heroes having been burned at the stake for crimes against femaleness and humanity and whatever it was that got them there in the first place. That wicca was an ancient spiritual system that went back depending on how you trace to the northern European and English worlds. Most of the people you ask within this community will tell you that it goes way, way, way back and some of the people you ask within this community and people who study it will say, well it was kind of a little bit invented out of whole cloth during the Victorian era as an alternative new religious movement. I did get my Phi Beta Kappa because I did a research study in college about this but I don't pretend to know the answer to that. I will tell you that wicca is a contemporary spiritual system with great meaning to a lot of people and I want to try to describe what that looks like and why that is as kind of a counterpoint to some of the other discussions that we're having today in this conference. I am going to tell you that I'm going to say next to nothing about transhumanism that if anything I am a fellow traveler and a friend of the family I'm not in it, I'm not an expert on it and I'm not an expert on what wicca thinks about it so perhaps you're going to need to ask another witch I will say that the notions about the spiritual reality within which we are contained that wicca presents may have some points of contact. I also just want to say in so many words because the camera's on me, I'm just going to say it that witchcraft is not Satanism. Now all y'all come from around here mostly you're not out there saying witchcraft equals Satanism I don't think you look like the Harry Potter banning library, torch wielding, et cetera I don't think that's who you are but I'm just going to say in so many words particularly because Satanism has been in the news this week and I don't know if you have a Satanist so I'm just going to say that the statue that's going to go on the Oklahoma State House grounds paid for by the Satanists and their Kickstarter campaign is ready to be made so if any of you contributed woot and it has a nice sexy sculpture of Satan and two happy little Oklahoma children looking up at him going look it's Satan and just in case they don't raise enough money to actually install it on the Oklahoma State House lawn I wonder if we'll bring it here to Golden Gate Park there have been some Satanists who have been active in San Francisco for quite a long while this would be a sensible place to put it but witchcraft and wicca are not Satanism Satanism in my opinion this may sound like fighting words to some of you I don't really mean it that way just an analytical thought experiment Satanism is a denomination of Christianity it reveres a notion, a being a notional being that is contextualized within and deeply important to Christianity and wicca does not have that guy wicca has a guy that looks like that guy depending on how you look at him but he's not that guy although they might be descended from the same guy but witchcraft is not Satanism I just felt that I need to clear that up so today's witchcraft is kind of two things wicca is two things because not all wiccans will say witchcraft is even exactly what they do potions and spells contrary to my experience in 1968 are not necessarily what it's all about but celebrating, celebrating the seasons in the natural world is certainly what it's about and there is an adjunct like let's think of a Venn diagram where this part of wicca is extremely extremely focused on the natural world and our relationship with it and within it as it and this part which Venn diagrams over which thinks about a cosmology in which there is a supreme goddess and a god, her son and sometimes consort the sex does come in there although you have to focus on it if you really want to because son is sometimes, I'll explain and in the middle there is this notion that the supreme being if any of wicca is a goddess and this side of the Venn diagram says that supreme being is Gaia, the earth have I lost anybody yet? okay, good so feminism, second wave feminism gave a boost to wicca because of this goddess worshipping piece I think this is actually my sort of my analytical sociological words that I'm bringing to you because notionally having a female deity not a male deity confronts, challenges and helps to bend the back story of the culture that many of us grew up with right? not everybody grew up Christian or Jewish, Judeo-Christian or Muslim within which often in all of those religions and others too, the supreme being is generally called by a male pronoun not all of us grew up in those contexts but many of us did and all of us living in the United States have been touched by the ideas that are held dear by at least some part of that system of religions and if you think about the supreme being as being female, not male it's a bend or twist or maybe it's a revolution it's hard to say exactly what it is but what it is for some people at least and many people who embrace wicca and feel at home there it is a space within which we can lay down the problematic stories about gender and sexual expectations that are told almost by definition by religious systems that have an all-powerful father-god that I lose anybody yet so having said that where am I on the time space continuum let me check having said that I also want to say that there is a there's a way in which feminist goddess spirituality and wicca touch but are not one another one can be a pretty impassioned and fervent and worshipful I guess, wiccan celebratory is more what we would say I think without being very focused on this notion of the goddess and the god it's present within wiccan cosmology but for some people the notion that the earth is animate that everything on the earth is animate that we are among those animated spirits altogether and that the earth is predominantly the object if that's the right word of worship is the most important piece to wiccans so western nature worship would be one way of thinking about that and there are high holy days that have to do with the solstices and equinoxes the cross corners which is halfway between each solstice and equinox I think if I had a PowerPoint I could clearly show you that but I'm a Luddite so there you have it and so we just actually had one of those holidays May Day is a really important holiday in wiccan cosmology and if any of you are not wiccans but also are very fond of May Day because of the rhyme hey hey it's the first of May outdoor fucking starts today then you will know something maybe not spiritually but you will know something of the joy with which a wiccan might approach the advent of May Day so coming up summer solstice super important very big high holy day for wiccans the solstice in the winter and the equinoxes in spring fall big deals big festivals big parties jewel logs lots of things so that's the nature piece and it intersects with the goddess piece in a way that I'm about to describe but let me first say that within feminist spiritual theory which may or may not which includes wicca but is not only wicca feminists have gone back and some other historians and sociologists and religion also have gone back to find female deities or female male pair deities or once in a while so-called female deity who changes sex once in a while in other cultures at other times and sort of brought them forward as a way to ground a spiritual system that doesn't need to rely on what maybe they would call male privilege or a kind of male dominance to balance all that out whether people who come from communities and cultures without a male father god feel as much need or zeal about awakening long sleepy goddesses is an interesting question that I do not know the answer to but I will tell you that for many people having found that much goddess religion back in our search of the old time religion is a healing and a significant thing and I don't think it's only feminists who feel that way but I certainly know that feminism embraced this scholarship hook, line and sinker loves having found a bunch of awesome goddesses and awesome goddesses that represent a lot of different human qualities or post human qualities or extra human qualities and that was really what rooted me in Wicca that in the celebrating because there's two more things I want to tell you about so Wicca is a more sex positive religion than many in many religious systems sex, sexual diversity sexual zeal too much of it extramarital, homosexual what have you not really so okay I don't know if any of you came from those places but if you did I think you know what I'm talking about and if you didn't come from those places I bet you can think of at least one news story in the last three months that really expressed that in a lively way here in the United States here in the 21st century we still live if not in that world touching that world at all times so when I hear one of the creation myths of Wicca which I will tell you now that the goddess was alone in the vastness of space and looking out over the vastness of space the vastness of empty space she saw her reflection in the black curve which mirrored her she became so excited that she began to masturbate and she gave birth to the entire cosmos I don't remember that from Sunday school I don't think that's the way most Wiccans necessarily come upon and venerate the creation myth because there's not only one in this religion this is pretty DIY there's certain notional ideas that hold it but there's a lot of a little like Unitarianism that way and in fact there's a den Venn diagram between Unitarian ladies and witches oh is there ever I don't know maybe the person in the audience who went ah maybe I'm a Wiccan maybe she's half Unitarian I don't know so in the context of sexuality is when we get back to the cycle of the seasons and the goddess who gives birth to the god in the deep depths of winter I wonder if this sounds familiar to anybody at all the god is born around winter solstice fledges grows and is old enough and sexually fledged enough to become the consort by mid-summer and dies again at the time of the harvest and then is reborn again so some people will say that certain elements of that backstory have been borrowed by others and embellished upon in different ways often without the consort part and I want to be really clear when I say about the consort part taken as a lover so you've got two sexes at least represented as god heads as figure heads as the spiritual apotheosis of what we see and experience here on earth and of course I'm going to tell you right here that there are not only two sexes or genders I don't believe that for one minute not for a minute at least five and probably more than that that's what I'm going to tell you but old school Wicca sees the goddess as the supreme spiritual person being whatever she is projection and the god as secondary but equally important in many ways and the ways that the relationship shifts over the course of the year clearly I think in the way that I explained it I hope it was clear that it mirrors the changes of the seasons the changes of the weather, the harvest it follows the wheel of the year the wheel of the year is the basic set of celebratory calendar times within Wicca so just one more thing before I shut up and see if there are a couple of questions because I know I'm running out of time because we live in a time technologically in which we perhaps are on the brink of helping to cause changes on the earth her mother our mother that may affect our ability to live comfortably here the lives of her other creatures and our siblings on this earth whom we are not above whom we were not brought here to control because we might be at a time of great and dire danger for the earth our mother there are people within Wicca who think that Wicca has revived and re-arisen and is bringing people into its fold specifically to do work to help to save the earth I'm wearing my activism is the rent I pay for living on this earth shirt and I don't know that it's easy to separate out contemporary Wicca from ecological activism it's probably less easy to separate it out from ecological activism than from feminism but both of those social movements have made a pretty vibrant home for Wiccans who at one time were pretty under the radar pretty closeted and not so much anymore if you're interested in Wicca there are many places to find out more about it the Bay Area not surprisingly is a bit of a hotbed and there are covens who celebrate together celebrate is what we mean by worship by the word that we use by the way for worship has a little different balance to it and there may even be covens who I first read about this when I was quite young and I thought it was awesome there's a ceremony that a few Wiccans have done but not everybody does called drawing down the moon in which in a coven or a celebration situation one woman in the coven takes the role of the goddess one man takes the role of the god from Sunday school either which is one of the reasons that while I usually talk about sex in public I was super honored and super happy to have a chance thanks to Hank's kind invitation to talk to you now I know we don't have too much time for questions but if any he's got any we do have time for two or three questions I see one here and one there I'm acquainted with a few Wiccans that do have what seems to me to be transhumanist inclinations I am actually not familiar with her so I'm sorry do you want to say do you want to say a little something about the transhumanist link as you understand it it might be really interesting to do I see it there I'm not an expert on Wicca but it's fascinating and I've listened to Pepper Louis I recommend her to you thank you very much I will say that the notion that Wicca animates everything with spirit does give space for spirit to continue in a changed way once our bodies are no longer as animated in the way that they are today I think that there's plenty of space within even the Wicca I know without having discussed transhumanism with anyone in it I could absolutely see a large barn door to drive that particular truck through it's just a quick one I really appreciated your comment about we are not superior to mother earth in fact maybe we're the problem maybe we're a parasite on mother earth so the question would be how do we go forward balancing our own selves with the other creatures and mother's earth well I think what I would say to that is that we've got two somewhat warring notions I don't generally like the language of combat all that much but the idea that we're here to dominate and utilize the world the religious and the political manifest destiny that we all learned about that manifest destiny didn't come out of no philosophy it came out of a certain kind of religious philosophy the fact that this is a complex in our culture now needs to have alternate voices call out the assumptions one of the things about these big cultural ideas that sometimes they sink down so deeply that you don't know that your thoughts feelings and actions are impacted by ideas that people decided were holy hundreds of years ago ideas that come from gendered notions that our generations did not invent not one bit so talking the talk and stepping up and having the climate change argument and all of that and talking about the way that we are if anything we're created to hold this planet that it's all well and good for people to die and the ones who have been saved go somewhere else but that leaves a lot of collateral collateral damage I might put it and that I think there is plenty of room in much Judeo-Christian thought within other religious systems too to open some doors to some respect for these ideas at the moment when we have this brilliant spaceship if that's all she is many of us would not agree that that's all earth is but we have it we're not all ready to leave it by any means so we might as well be doing the work to preserve her that's how I would at least start that conversation and then there's like political action and all kinds of stuff that has to flow and evolve from that take our last question? one more I saw I've been having a lot of cognitive dissonance trying to trying to make coherent your initial statement about being a fellow traveler with transhumanism given that especially neopaganism that you know last 60 years or so has universally been linked to a response against scientism and technology and industrialism and they're all very much part and parcel of all of the means by which transhumanists hope to overcome things that you also see as a good end saving the earth is good and you want to save it but the means are so distant that I can't make a connection I appreciate that a lot I didn't want to speak for the rest of neopaganism around this question because I don't think nobody elected me there's not as much hierarchy within this world as there is in some but I'm not that person and as a fellow traveler myself one of the ways that I want to say this set of spiritual ideas that I've shared with you are not the only way that I look at the world and are not the end of the road the end of the analysis I think that there's a way in which our magician forebears were the scientists of their time right what was alchemy but a mix of science and magic and we won't know for a long time how much of the science we hold dear today was magical thinking not until not until it all spins out to the end of the real right the spool is not yet spun out and so I don't want to suggest that all neopagans or certainly all Wiccans are anti-science I think there are plenty of neopagans within the ranks of scientists but who want to make connections about the world and our place in it spiritually as much as they want to understand those connections maybe that's the best I can do right now to help with the cognitive dissonance I hope that's a little bit helpful I also want to say that there's a book that I an interview with me appears in and I think it's the reason that Hank thought of me in the first place called Modern Pagans and that some of you may find that an interesting book there's a bunch of different ways that modern paganism has evolved and this book at its particular historical moment ten or twelve years ago tried to get its arms around this and it's an interesting read it's got pictures so I hope that some of you will find that interesting I'm going to head out of here pretty shortly I'm going to ask Hank if he wouldn't mind getting the mailing list to me later Hank is that okay so that if you want to sign up on it later you don't have to run up and do it right now after I leave the room thanks