TRACING THE PAGAN PAST AND PRESENT

Liz Williams. Miracles of Our Own Making, A History of Paganism. Reaktion Books, 2020.

Dealing mainly with the British Isles, this book traces a historical path from the earliest evidence of religious practice in these islands to the roots of the modern pagan revival and the position of paganism as a belief system in the twenty-first century. The first thing the author demonstrates is that we know very little indeed about historical paganism, other than it existed in some form or other for a very long time.
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The problem we are faced with is that for most of their history pagan communities, other than those of Rome and Greece, left little written or archaeological evidence of what they actually believed and practised. From earliest times to the early mediaeval period the written record of native British religion and magical beliefs was largely recorded by their adversaries.

The earliest evidence we have of any religious practice in Britain is from 33,000 BC in the form of the ‘Red Lady’ of Paviland, in South Wales. This is a skeleton (probably actually male) found in a grave along with objects made of mammoth ivory, which are believed to be ‘grave goods’ and seem to indicate some form of religious ritual surrounding the individual’s death. Of course we have no idea what that ritual may have been or the beliefs surrounding it.

We have to wait more than 30,000 years after that to find any written description of religious practice in Britain, and this comes from the Roman invasions, and their contact with the druids. The Roman senator Tacitus is one of our main sources of information about the druids, and it is from him and Julius Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars that we see them as a priesthood often practising human sacrifice, sometimes by the infamous ‘wicker man’.

Williams suggests that although these accounts were written by Romans who were keen to promote the idea that the far-flung reaches of their Empire were inhabited by savages who needed the civilising influence of Rome, it is probable that their accounts were not too far from the truth, as they correspond to what we know of practices across the rest of Europe and in Italy itself, which the Romans would already have been familiar with.

We get an idea of some of the Celtic gods and goddesses, as the Romans practised a ‘syncretic’ form of religion, and were usually happy to incorporate local deities and sacred sites into their own practises, and we are able to learn about figures such as the Celtic oracular goddess Sulis, whom the Romans happily adopted and adapted as Sulis-Minerva, a goddess of wisdom. But with the eventual departure of the Romans, we have to wait nearly 1500 years before we encounter the druids again, this time a very different guise.

The vagueness which we have seen towards the beliefs and practices of Celtic religion in Britain, continues when we try to understand the religious beliefs of the Saxons. We know the names of some of their gods - we name the days of the week after them – but others seem to have vanished without trace: Tuw got Tuesday and Woden got Wednesday, but what happened to Rig, Ran and Irpa?

Again in the absence of a contemporary written record, we get most of our information from later, Christian Saxon writers who were keener to glorify the conversion of the Saxons rather than record their beliefs and practices.

We are little better off when it comes to the next wave of invader who brought their religion, the Norse. Here we do have significant written sources in the form of the Eddas, although even these were written when most of the Norse lands had been Christianised, but it does mean that we have a clearer picture of the Norse gods, the myths surrounding them, and some of the religious practices associated with them.

The Vikings were actually remarkably quick to adopt Christianity, and by the century before the Norman invasion, Britain was almost entirely a Christian country, so the events of 1066 made little difference to religious life in Britain for most people.

But if any form of paganism as a distinct, living religious practice was now beyond living memory, does this mean that no pagan or magical practices were taking place in Britain? Well not really, as many of the traditions involving magical spells, charms and rituals that were part of the ‘pagan’ world, continued in the newly Christianised society. And here we come to one of the important arguments of this book. These survived, not as some hidden, underground alternative belief system which were suppressed by witchcraft persecutions, but as a regular part of everyday life, tolerated, and sometimes encouraged by, the established church.

Some of the older Saxon ceremonies were even incorporated into Church ritual. Williams cites the ‘Land Ceremonies Charm’ a day-long ceremony in which priests would sprinkle honey, holy water, milk and herbs over fields to ensure their fertility, which seems to have been taken over wholesale from earlier pagan Saxon rituals.

The medieval church in Britain seemed not to be particularly bothered about witchcraft, and at first mocked those who were foolish enough to believe in it, but at the same time tolerated the ‘cunning’ men and women practising herbal medicine and mostly benevolent spells in towns and villages across the country.

As a number of recent histories of witchcraft and magic in Britain have shown, for most of the time witchcraft trials were largely political in nature, targeting individuals who were seen as likely to cause unrest and threaten the status-quo, or were often the result of local family feuds. It is clear that there was no secret underground ‘witch cult’ being suppressed by the state and church authorities.

The attitude towards magical and ‘occult’ beliefs began to change at the time of the Renaissance, when scholars re-discovered Classical texts and ideas such as Hermeticism and alchemy began to be studied more widely. This was a new ‘High Magic’ far removed from the practical magic of the ‘cunning folk’. The magicians of this era were people like Robert Fludd and John Dee, and later figures like Isaac Newton at the time when alchemy and astrology was transforming into chemistry and astronomy.

Another form of study that began to emerge throughout the seventeenth century was antiquarianism, a study of the ‘relicts’ of earlier ages. William Stukeley explored and measured Stonehenge, and may be considered a pioneer of archaeology, and it is at this point the druids return to the story.

Stukely’s idea of the druids was they were monotheistic proto-Christians which is totally at odds with what little we do know about historical druidical beliefs. Williams points out that Stukely’s druidical revival came at the time of the foundation of a whole range of ‘gentleman’s clubs’, from the artistic and political to the notorious ‘Hell-fire’ clubs, which have their own place in the history of pagan revivalism in Britain. The new druidical movement also rose in tandem with a nascent Welsh nationalism.

By the start of the nineteenth century the ideas of paganism began to be expressed in the burgeoning Romantic Movement in art and literature. Writers and artists saw the figures of mythology and paganism as expressions of freedom and their own revolt against society. The poet Percy Shelly describes how he raised a small altar to “mountain walking Pan”.

Later in the century writers and mystics began to look to the east in search of magical interpretations of the world. H P Blavatsky established the Theosophical Society, which became a massive influence on later groups, and in France Eliphas Levi’s writings on ‘high magic’ described practices and rituals which are still used in one form or another today. This was the period of the ‘Occult Revival’ with a mixing of ideas and beliefs from oriental religions, classical literature, Freemasonry and groups like the Rosicrucians, the Spiritualist movement and the growing intellectual interest in psychical research.

But still working away at a popular level were the cunning-people and a whole range of folk beliefs, spells and talismans. Williams outlines the work of Edward Lovett, a London banker, who spent much of his spare time buying charms, amulets and other tokens which, well into the twentieth century, were sold on market stalls and in herbalist shops, particularly in the dockside areas of London, where they were particularly popular amongst sailors.

When we began our journey, the problem in understanding pagan and occult belief and ritual in Britain was the absence of any contemporary written record. Looking at the twentieth century the problem in understanding modern paganism seems to be the sheer massive amount of written material.

It is here that this book really comes into its own, as the author guides us through the complicated network of religious, philosophical, theosophical and magical societies. As they developed they formed complex ‘family trees’, Groups have split and formed new groups, or been refounded, renamed and evolved, and new groups have emerged from the ashes of their predecessors, others seem to have sprung from obscurity, or from one individual’s inspiration.

The book’s jacket tells us that Liz Williams not only has a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University, but also owns a witchcraft shop in Glastonbury. Both of these qualifications are needed to lead us through the complexities of modern witchcraft, Wicca, heathenism, Chaos Magick, and the other pathways by which individuals seek some understanding of, and connection to a spiritual world, as well as introducing us to many of the individuals involved in this history.

Although I have read a fair amount about modern paganism and magic, is is not my particular field of study and I am often baffled by the complexity of it. Williams’s clear and good natured account of the many groups and beliefs has helped me understand it in greater depth.

She has not been afraid to touch on the controversies, disputes and some of the problematic issues that have arisen from time to time, sexual exploitation, dubious political ideas, or the dangers of cultism, but does so in what I think is an objective manner and without rancour. An interesting appendix to the book outlines some of the warning signs of incipient cultism.

The author writes in an easy, fluid way, avoiding jargon – or explaining it when it is unavoidable, steering well clear of academic complexity for its own sake, and happy to insert a humorous touch where appropriate. This is probably not a book for someone who is already involved in the world of paganism and magic, but for someone with a sympathetic interest in the topic who wants to understand it more fully, I think it would be hard to find a better guide.

• John Rimmer