Curious Christian

While I am talking about the Spirit of Things I would also be remiss if I failed to draw attention to this transcript of an interview with Marian Dalton, Douglas Essy and Sylvie Shaw on Dark Paganism and Deep Blue Religion. Here’s some samples:

On Dark Paganism

Rachael Kohn: What sort of people are particularly attracted to Dark Paganism? That is to say do they come from certain experiences in their past that they want to resolve?

Marian Dalton: Well in what I’ve studied, there wouldn’t be a common factor in terms of past experiences, certainly some Dark Pagans have reported traumatic childhoods, others have simply gone their merry way, become dissatisfied with the religion of their childhood and become virtually atheistic until coming to Paganism. But if there’s anything that unites them I’d say it’s the idea not that we’re broken or imperfect, but rather that there is a balance there that can be reclaimed, and we can only do that by facing our dark side.

Interesting eh?  Personally I’d like to fashion a ritual to help Christians, particularly esoterically inclined Christians, come to grips with the shadow side of our pathway.

On Teen Witches

Rachael Kohn: Douglas, you’ve just done a study on young witches, and there’s no doubt about it, celebrity witches have made this area very popular. How much is sex part of the attraction to it?

Douglas Ezzy: I don’t think sex is part of the attraction for young witches at all. To put my study in context: I’ve done two completely different studies. The study of the Dark Pagan ritual that I’m talking about now is quite separate from another large art study I’ve done of teenage witchcraft, which I interviewed 90 teenage witches from Australia, America and the UK. And my analysis of them is that the reason they’re looking for witchcraft is because a lot of them are young women, but some young men as well, they’re trying to find a sense of self esteem and purpose, a way of engaging with spirituality that is not dogmatic, that respects the feminine and respects the environment. So they’re looking for a particular type of religious practice, and witchcraft provides that to them.

On Deep Blue Religion

Rachael Kohn: So is there such a thing as Deep Blue religion?

Sylvie Shaw: One of the things that I am interested in, I’ve called it Deep Blue religion as a kind of test, because if we see religion or nature religion as an overall umbrella, if I single out something like sea connections as a religious practice, then I’m causing a dichotomy between green and blue. So my intention is to embrace green and blue connections, green and blue spirituality, and I call that Deep Blue religion as a way of saying I’m on a mission here, guys, I’m on a mission to change the discourse from green, which pervades much of nature religion and other academic traditions, and to a discourse of green and blue. So we actually see the sea.

Rachael Kohn: Can you give me an example of someone who had an epiphany and who became a carer for the ocean, for the sea?

Sylvie Shaw: Yes, John is a marine biologist. He’s an activist for the Conservation Foundation, he goes to meetings and attends meetings with various fishers, on government committees. And he’s also a diver, and when he dives, and he’s an underwater photographer as well, so when he dives, often by himself, in the kelp forests or in the Southern Ocean, and a whale comes up to him and he looks in the eye of the whale, and he’s by himself, he says on one hand it’s a real wilderness experience, but it’s an epiphany to look in the eye of the whale when it’s just you and the whale in the ocean on your own.

That reminds me of an experience I had with a Dolphin over my holiday whilst I was out on a meditative prayer walk. Getting late though so I’ll have to leave that story for another time. I have written about the sea and spirituality previously so it’s interesting to see it getting some academic attention in this sort of context.

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