PantheaCon 2010 Day 3 Sunday
I presented my first workshop on the morning of Sunday 14 February 2010, at PantheaCon. This was quite a special day, being both Valentines Day and my second wedding anniversary. My workshop was titled “Magickal Initiation in Ancient Egypt.” The workshop went quite well, with a large group experiencing an authentic Graeco-Egyptian ritual.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find that there were two workshops on Neoplatonism, one following on from the other. The first, “What is Neoplatonism & Why Should I Care?” was presented by Don Frew, who is widely known for his interfaith work. Don’s workshop was very easy to follow and was an excellent introduction to Neoplatonism. Don showed just how important Neoplatonism was to Gerald Gardner, and by logical extension, to the practice of contemporary Wicca.
Lunch was a lot of fun. Jo-Ann and I joined Frater Barrabbas, Steven Posch and HiC [a tarot reading Kemetic Wiccan] for an hour of wit and frivolity.
Just after lunch I participated in the Immanion Author panel. A number of the Immanion authors at PantheaCon were part of the panel, including Taylor Ellwood and Lupa, Erynn Laurie, Sarai St Julien, Crystal Blanton, Frater Barrabbas and Denny Sargent a.k.a. AION 131. The panel was an informal chat with authors discussing their backgrounds and how they got onto their present path. The common thread was that all of us were unable to find what we were looking for in published material and so put together our own systems.
Following this, there was a panel featuring a number of well known Weiser authors titled “Earth Based Religion: Are We Really?” The panel was moderated by T Thorn Coyle and included Diana Paxson, Z Budapest, Orion Foxwood and Lon Milo DuQuette. It was fascinating hearing authors from widely divergent traditions giving their take on just how “earth-based” their spiritual modalities actually are. At the end of the panel, future pagan authors in the audience chatted to the two Weiser acquisitions editors, trying to get an idea of which way the publishing winds were blowing.
Following on from Don Frew’s workshop was “On the One: Critical Remarks on Pagan Neoplatonism” by Nathan Bjorge, who is probably best known for his work in Thelema. Nathan’s workshop was far more technical than Don’s, but was greatly appreciated by those who already had a basic grounding in the subject matter.
While I was at Nathan’s workshop, Jo-Ann went to “Visceral Magick” by Peter Paddon. She thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and had a number of “light bulb moments.”
Twelve hours after my first workshop began, I gave my second workshop, “Greek Nature Deities and Gaia Consciousness.” This workshop was an expansion of the paper which I presented to the 6th Conference on Current Pagan Studies at Claremont Graduate University just two weeks previously. I felt privileged to have the presence of Lon Milo DuQuette at both workshops while Selena Fox and Elysia Gallo of Llewellyn were at the second one. At the end of the workshop Selena shared her deep love of Greek deities. Having been part of a classical education, the Greek deities are incredibly prevalent in our society – especially in popular culture, where they pervade advertising, literature and the cinema.
It seems that at every PantheaCon I manage to find someone with whom to have an incredibly cerebral conversation. This time around, it was with Jonathan Korman, whom I managed to separate from T Thorn Koyle, and other Feri folk such as Shade and Flame. Jonathan, who has contributed to Thorn’s Solar Cross project, is a practitioner of Western Hermeticism whose catchcry for completing the Great Work is “Know your dharma, live your dharma.” We had an intense discussion covering a broad array of esoteric topics, which will hopefully be one day continued.
While Jonathan and I were chatting, Thorn, her friend Amanda and Barbara McCollum abducted Jo-Ann, and took her to the party in full swing in Sam Webster’s suite for the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn. There was much to celebrate as Sam has just published his first book, Tantric Thelema. The party eventually broke up into smaller groups so as to keep overall noise levels down.
A word of advice for next year’s PantheaCon attendees – if you’re thinking of getting a room on the tenth floor which is party central and you like getting early nights, don’t.
Tony Mierzwicki