The Christ and the Craft

from Chapter 4 of The Crafted Cup by Shadwynn

 

Not long ago, one of the fledgling groves within our Order underwent a drastic upheaval resulting in the exodus of a majority of those novices and students who were considering becoming affiliated with our tradition. The reason for this frenzied flight from the group was their exposure to the celebration of the liturgy of the Grail Mass, the most potent and exalted liturgy of the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis; but a liturgy nevertheless which includes three references to the Christ: once as "The Cosmic Christ", once as "Jesu, the Suffering Servant", and once as "The Crucified God."1

For them, any reference to Jesus or the Christ sent chills of fear and apprehension down their spines. Never mind that these references to the Christ were always interspersed among the names of the other dying and rising gods of ancient Paganism, Jesus simply being included in the liturgy as the culmination and ultimate synthesis of all that these gods represented in their hightest attributes and mythic foreshadowings.

This underscores one thing unique to this tradition of the Grail Quest; we have not been afraid to incorporate within our rituals certain mystic aspects of the mythic Christ. The Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis is not anti-Christ or anti-Christian because we understand that in its proper esoteric context, Christianity is a relevant and valid path of the mysteries. (We are, however, totally at odds with the traditionsl, guilt-ridden shackles of the institutional Church and its narrow-minded dogmas.) This is one reason we have little difficulty in using the Grail mythos directly, despite its many over Christian trappings.

Modern Neo-Pagans generally seem to be very adept in assimilating pantheons, rituals and concepts from nearly every Western religious path except Christianity. This we find to be rather unobjectively prejudicial. While realizing that the Church has historically been both politically and socially intolerant during the eras of its greatest power, that can in no way invalidate the the truths of timeless mysticism which it possesses in the inner resources of its spiritual vitality. As a priesthood of the Grail, those within our Order can be just as comfortable with the Sun of Righteousness (Solar Hero/Christ) as we are with the Moon Maiden or Isis. It is just a matter of applying a truly Pagan eclecticism to what is valid and magickally helpful in Christianity as much as we do with all the other ancient faiths which Neo-Pagans and Wiccans have so blatantly raided in order to retrieve the treasures of their spiritual mysteries for the enrichment of theor own newly formed traditions.

Yet the fact of the matter remains that many within the ranks of Neo-Paganism and Wicca are downright afraid of Jesus Christ. No matter how hard the modern Craft revival movement may try, it cannot escape the shadow of the Cross which pervades the spirituality of Western culture. Nor should it attempt to do so. As related in the above incident, many Neo-Pagans' nerves get et on edge whenever the name of Jesus is mentioned; almost as if they would prefer to pretend that he doesn't exist as a spiritual reality in our religious culture. Others even question the validity of anything within the pale of Christian mysticism.

Unfortunately, the anti-Christian bias of many individuals within the Craft is a symptom of their own unresolved conflicts and subsequent rebellion against the established Church of their upbringing. Actually, a lot of these people have not delved deeply into the eclectcism of authentic, historic Paganism which would enable them to see the wisdom of embracing the positive and uplifting aspects of the Christian mysteries along with the sacred stories of other cultures and ancient religions of both past and present. Instead, they are still so busy running from the Church that they have not had the time to truly embrace either Wicca or Neo-Paganism for reasons independent of their religious rebellion against Christianity. It is obvious that some have come back to the Craft as a form of reactionism by which they are attempting to "get back at" the Church for all the hurt and unneeded guilt it has caused them in the past. By becoming involved in what is considered by many to be a counter-cultural fringe religious sect, they are hoping to reek revenge upon the many uninformed Christians around them through the sheer shock-effect of announcing their identity as Witches, knowing all the while that they will be perceived as dastardly "servants of the Devil." But we must keep in mind that if we are to ever truly grow spiritually, we must leave such negative motivations behind. Otherwise, many Wiccans and Neo-Pagans run the risk of degenerating into a perpetual, paranoid condition which can only be described as "Christophobia". Usually, this is symptomatic of their own inner confusion of the Christ with the authoritarian, hierarchial institution of our culture's ecclesiastical establishment. It is essential for them to make a distinction between the personage, identity, and myth of the Christ as opposed to the later oppressive tyranny of the historical Church, if this religiously parochial condition is to be rectified in a positive manner.

The Christ is the most potent archetypal figure of Western history and religion. Those who consider themselves to be part of the Craft of the Wise cannot afford to ignore his power and influence, nor should they let their knee-jerk reactions against fundamentalist narrow-mindedness create an artificial barrier between the complements of Pagan and Christian truths. Many Wiccans seem to be under the mistaken impression that in order to be a Witch or a Pagan, they must either renounce or greatly distance themselves from the Christ. This is totally fallacious. Gerald Gardner himself, the founder of modern Wicca, declared just the opposite:

"It is usually said that to be made a witch one must abjure Christianity; this is not true; but they naturally would not receive into their ranks anyone who was a very narrow Christian. They do not think that the real Jesus was literally the Son of God, but are quite prepared to accept that he was one of the Enlightened Ones, or Holy Men. That is the reason why witches do not think they were hypocrites "in times of persecution" for going to church and honoring Christ, especially as so many of the old Sun-hero myths have been incorporated into Christianity; while others might bow to the Madonna, who is closely akin to their goddess of heaven."2

Doreen Valiente, another pioneer in the modern Craft revival, even related that she knew of one Wiccan priestess who had a picture of Jesus in her private sanctuary because of the honor and esteem in which she held him.3 Another witch interviewed by Margot Adler in her book , went so far as to declare her belief that the Christ was an "avatar of the Great Mother--a Dionysus incarnation," and she further stated her belief in the validity of the sacrificial character of the Mass, even to the extent that she would occasionally attend church in order to partake of the body and blood of the risen god.4

This simply demonstrates that there are at least some within the Neo-Pagan and Wiccan communities who have attempted to come to terms with Jesus and his theological implications in their own personal walk of faith without resorting to negative reaction to anything that even hints at Christian influence. But, alas, they do, nevertheless, seem to be in the minority.

In perhaps one of the most well thought out, yet concisely expressed comments on the Christ/Craft issue, well-known author Alan Richardson has penned some words which should give Christophobic Neo-Pagans pause for thought:

"It is a question, also, of whether we accept Jesus as the Son of God or a Son of Light. This in itself points out a peculiar advantage enjoyed by Pagans that not many of them realize: By regarding Jesus as a Son of Light--one of many--they can actually work with and appreciate much of the Christian Mystery Tradition while at the same time they never need to surrender their own pantheons. Christians, on the other hand, must necessarily accept the exclusivity of their God, and are forever denied the use of Pagan altars. It was because the followers of the Old Religion saw in the image of Jesus another example of a Divine King and Sacrificed God that they were quite happy to let the new religion put down roots...Jesus, as a Thorned God, was just one more in a long line of such beings..."5

For those purists who labor under the zealot-like conviction that for the Craft to be an authentic expression of the Old Religion it must never pollute its rites and ceremonies with anything of Christian religion, I would suggest a careful reading of Aidan Kelly's latest contribution to the history of the origins of modern Wicca entitled Crating the Art of Magic, Book I. In it he proves how that nearly every ritual used by Gerald Gardner was taken directly from the grimoires of Judeo-Christian ceremonial magick; and only at a later time were the distinctly Christian elements of the conjurations deleted or revised.6 So we can see that even the so-called "Old Religion" (as Kelly observes in his book, there is no concrete evidence that Wicca existed in any organized form prior to 1939) is greatly indebted to the influence and rituals of Christian occultism in the formation of its earliest Book of Shadows!

The identity of the real historical Jesus has both intrigued and obsessed scholars and theologians for centuries. But what is important from a contemporary Pagan perspective is to discern the difference between the dogmatic claims of the Church and the evidence of history regarding this greatest of all Hebrew teachers. For fundamentalist Christians, the true identity of Jesus is easily solved by a simplistic application of Biblical "proof texts." In their minds, Jesus can only be defined on the basis of the words attributed to him within the canonical gospels of the New Testament.

This naive, uncritical acceptance of these traditional utterances of Jesus makes their "research" for the truth quite easy. The fundamentalist oversimplification rests upon the bedrock of these sayings' assumed authenticity. Building upon this shaky foundation, they begin their arguement along the lines of an either/or approach: "Either Jesus was telling the truth about himself (as recorded in the Gospels), or else you must accuse him of being a liar!" From this line of reasoning they conclude that any words attributed to him in the New Testament can be used as proof of his divinity, his messiahship, and his supposed status as the only way-shower to salvation. Such a superficial approach totally neglects the problem of which sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels can be considered authentic from the standpoint of valid Biblical scholarship and responsible textual criticism.

Once authenticity has been established, then begins the job of adequately interpreting these sayings in light of the contemporary culture, society, and political atmosphere, as well as the religious climate of Jesus' day. This involves a lot more than opening up the Bible and pointing to a selected passage to "prove" something about the identity or divine nature of Jesus! From a more responsible approach, the historical Jesus has been variously interpreted by scholars as being a reform-minded rabbi whose teachings were based loosely upon the more liberal Pharisaical traditions of first-century Judaism.7 Others have seen him as an itinerant teacher who drew largely upon the mystical and magickal lore of the Essenes, Therapeuts, and other Egyptian esoteric sources.8 Perhaps both are right in that Jesus was very possibly a charismatic character who combined the best of both religious sources into a uniquely attractive as well as controversial reform movement which threatened the complacency and entrenched political power of the Jewish rabbinical establishment, the rammifications of which eventually led to his crucifixion at the hands of Roman authorities.

Of course, many other theories about his life and death abound; some both fanciful and intriguing, including the one which asserts that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was revived and later traveled with Mary Magdalene and their child to the shores of southern France!9 The fact of the matter is that we may never know the total truth. Contrary to the claims of the Church, Jesus was not some kind of omniscient demigod. He made mistakes in both judgement and prophetic calculation. He never claimed to be omniscient.10 He made mistakes in judgement based upon the apocalyptic expectations of his day, assuming that he would return again in glory before the disciples had even finished preaching the Gospel in the surrounding towns of Israel!11 He no doubt saw himself as the fulfillment of various prophetic expectations which had infected the populace like a religious fever, and as a result he left an indelible imprint upon both the religious history of the Jewish people and the Western world.12

Yet, ironically, it would appear that Jesus' vision of the extent of his personal ministry did not extend beyond the boundaries of Israel itself.13 Jesus believed that some of his disciples would never die until his second return.14 He further declared at his own trial to the Jewish High Priest that he would see him coming again in the clouds of heaven.15 Needless to say, the High Priest died without ever witnessing such a return. None of these observations are meant to belittle either the intelligence or the integrity of Jesus, but to establish that he was a product of his religious environment and had the same human limitations in judgement and foreknowledge as any other person. This, however, can in no way detract from the unique spiritual message which he conveyed in the course of his teaching ministry.

Because of the unerasable imprint which he has made upon the history of the world through both word, deed, and the larger-than-life character of his dynamic personality, his followers understandably came to see in him the crystalization of a new composite image of the Deity which stressed the value and centrality of unconditional love ("For God so loved the world...") as the undergirding foundation for all authentic relgious experience and the definitive standard for genuinely transformative ethics in a New Age.

What was it, then, which made of this first-century rabbi/prophet/theurgist a worldwide Savior and incarnate God? To exhaustively pursue the involved path of this evolutionary development would be impossible here; others have more than adequately dealt with these religio-historical developments.16 But suffice it to say that this was the result of an ongoing process of theological mythologizing of bits and pieces of historical remembrances about Jesus into an interwoven tapestry of religious syncretistic thought which brought forth a new manifestation of the ancient Dying and Rising God, but this time in the form of Jesus Christ, Savior of the world.

From a modern Pagan perspective, the real identity of the historical Jesus is not as important as the subsequent mythical development around his personage as the Christ; an amalgam of Jewish, Hellenistic, and Pagan eschatological hope; the inheritor of all the previous myths of the solar, chthonic, and vegetative dying and rising goes which seemed to coalesce in Jesus as a fullness of all towards which the earlier gods had pointed; a manifestation of the Christ at the dawning of the Piscean Age.

It is not generally known that the earlier dying and rising gods of antiquity also functioned as literal Christs (i.e., anointed saviors) to their own devotees.17 The titles which most Christians consider to be unique to Jesus Christ were actually appropriated from these gods of earlier Pagan mystery cults. Appellations of divinity such as Logos, Light of the World, Good Shepherd, True Vine, King of Kings, Bridegroom, and the Resurrection and the Life were all earlier devotional designations of Hermes, Mithra, Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, Tammuz, and others. In point of fact, the composite image we have of the Christ in orthodox Church dogma is in reality not just a picture of the Jewish teacher from Galilee. It is, instead, a theological collage of the most enlightened and exalted of Pagan symbol and myth blended into the expectations of first century, apocalyptic Judaism which combined to produce the most awesome character of the mythic Christ. To some extent and degree, he is a composite of all the earlier Pagan deities which preceded him but seemingly foreshadowed his appearance upon the stage of history.

Interestingly enough, it was the intolerant and often unscrupulous Church which utilized the titles and sacred stories of these older gods to enhance the glory of their new successor, while at the same time condemning them as demonic entities!18 The hypocrisy here was squarely upon the shoulders of the Church, not the Christ. Nearly all of Christianity's holidays were stolen directly from earlier Pagan seasonal celebrations. The seven sacraments of the Church were patterned to some degree after the seven sacraments of Mithraism. The vestments and miters and other adornments of the Christian priests were borrowed from the pre-existing Pagan Mystery religions.19 Even the central Mystery of the Christian religion--the Mass--was developed from earlier Pagan Eucharistic precedents.20 Is it any wonder that a well-known Anglican priest frankly admitted that Christianity was merely a manifestation of reformed Paganism with just enough intolerance to give it a bad name?21

It is also important that we not forget the influence of the Gnostics within the early Church, for they brought with their beliefs a blend of Pagan and Hellenistic theology which inspired the writing of many non-canonical gospels which were considered subversive by the hierarchy of the early Church, but which some scholars believe contain original sayings of Jesus which were never allowed to surface in the later accepted Gospels of the New Testament due to their controversial implications.22 The Gnostics had no problem incorporating the concept of the Christ into their larger spiritual cosmology, which often included different orders of celestial beings (gods and angels), as well as a focus upon the Divine Feminine.23 In short, it is the Gnostics who give us an example of how contemporary Pagan theology can comfortably integrate the highest of the archetypal images and insights of the Christ within its own eclectic system of belief without compromising its integrity or its polytheism.

According to the teachings of the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis, even the traditions of the Holy Grail--the central focus of our spiritual Quest--are incomplete without the mysticism of the Christ which permeates and superimposes upon the earlier Celtic context of its original derivation in the mysteries of arcane lore. What is more, the entire Western Mystery Tradition would only be a shell devoid of any sense of substantial fullness apart from the richness of esoteric Christianity which has infused it over the centuries with precious treasures of spiritual insight and aspiration.

As practitioners of the Craft, we have nothing to fear from the Christ. He, together with his apostles, consisted of a coven of thirteen.24 He was careful as a guardian of the mysteries not to divulge the secrets of his teachings to the uninitiated, but only to the inner circle of his disciples.25 He employed the techniques of divine magick for the healing and betterment of others.26 He aggressively lashed out against the hypocritical religious establishment of his day.27 He recognized the handiwork of Deity in even the most seemingly insignificant beauties of Nature.28 He shunned the self-righteous asceticism of religious piety in favor of eating, drinking, and celebrating the joys of life with the common people most in need of his message of hope.29 He instituted mystical rites designed to enhance our oneness with the Deity.30 Like Tammuz, he died. Like Osiris, he descended into the realms of the dead. Like Attis, he rose again, and like Mithra, he ascended into the light of the glorious immortals.

For modern Pagans to refrain from embracing at least a celebratory recognition of his ageless significance would be to simultaneously disgrace all the previous gods of Pagan antiquity who, through the process of theological evolution, were themselves assimilated into the composite mystery which is the Christ.

 

Footnotes:

1. Shadwynn, The Crafted Cup. (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1994, p.

184 and 186. Editor's note: On page 185, Jesu is also included in the list of

gods in the Anamnesis of the Liturgy of the Host.

2. Gerald Gardner, The Meaning of Witchcraft. (New York, NY: Magickal Childe,

Inc., 1982), p.27

3. Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft. (Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing, Inc.,

1988), p. xvi.

4. Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986), p.

139.

5. Alan Richardson, Earth God Rising. (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications,

1990), p. 141.

6. Aidan Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magic, Book I. (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn

Publications, 1991), pp. 50, 67.

7. Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Man From Nazareth. (New York, NY: Harper &

Brothers, 1949).

8. Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician. (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1981).

9. Michael Baigent, Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (New York, NY: Delacorte Press,

1982).

10. Matthew 24:36, Holy Bible.

11. Matthew 10:23, Holy Bible.

12. Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot. (New York, NY: Bernard Geis

Associates, 1965).

13. Matthew 15:24, Holy Bible.

14. Matthew 16:27-28, Holy Bible.

15. Mark 14:61-64, Holy Bible.

16. Father John Rossner, In Search of the Primordial Tradition and the Cosmic

Christ. (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1989).

17. J.M. Robertson, Pagan Christs. (New York, NY: Dorset Press, 1987).

18. Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity. (New York, NY: G. P.

Putnam's Sons, 1928).

19. Barbara G. Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. (San

Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 663.

20. Weigall, pp. 147-159.

Annie Besant, Esoteric Christianity. (Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing

House, 1982), pp. 243-244.

21. Rossner.

22. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels. (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1981).

Robert Winterhalter, The Fifth Gospel. (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988).

23. Pagels, pp. 57-83.

Caitlin and John Matthews, The Western Way, Volume II--The Hermetic Tradition.

(Boston, MA: Arkana, 1986), pp. 60-95.

24. Luke 6:12-16, Holy Bible.

25. Mark 4:10-12, Holy Bible.

26. John 9:6-7, Holy Bible.

27. Matthew 23:13-32, Holy Bible.

28. Matthew 6:25-34, Holy Bible.

29. Matthew 11:16-19, Holy Bible.

30. Matthew 26:26-29, Holy Bible.