Paganism in Depth – the On-line Course
Module 0: Introduction
transcript by K.D. Echols
Hi. Welcome to Paganism in Depth, the On-line Class.
Now, if you think back to when you were in school – maybe you still are in school – on the first day of class, the teacher would come in, write their name on the board, hand out the syllabus, talk a little about the book they were going to use and what they hoped to accomplish in the class, and then they were done. Sometimes they would dismiss class and you had some free time. Other times they just started right into teaching. Either way, there was some stuff upfront that they needed to get accomplished before they started class.
Well, it’s the same thing with this class. There’s some syllabus-type material that needs to be covered. And rather than cram it all into the beginning of Module 1, I decided to create Module 0. This is the syllabus module. Additionally, I can make this one public. So, if you’re wondering if you really want to do this or not, is it going to be what you thought it would be, what’s it going to be like, well, it’s going to be like this. If you like it, great! Sign up. If you don’t like it, well, now you know.
The foundation for this course is my first book, The Path of Paganism. You don’t have to have read it, but it helps. And it certainly helps to be familiar with it’s core theme of the primacy of religious experience. Now, I love books as much as the next Pagan, and tradition is pretty important. But, there is no substitute for first-hand religious experience. We can debate what these experiences mean and how we should interpret them. But, we should never let anybody tell us that our experiences aren’t real.
The course, of course, is based on the new book, Paganism in Depth – A Polytheist Approach. The dedication says:
“For those who serve their gods and their communities when it’s easy and when it’s hard, who take their Paganism ever deeper even when there’s no map, and who trust their own senses when encountering things that some say cannot be: you are building something sacred and beautiful. This book is dedicated to you.”
That’s the mission of Paganism in Depth. It’s a book to help you take your Paganism, your polytheism, deeper than it’s ever been before. It’s a journey. I hope you’ll join me.
I’m John Beckett. The book is Paganism in Depth. Now, let’s talk about the syllabus.
WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE?
Let’s begin with the question: Who’s this class for? Who should participate in the class? It’s intended for polytheists – people who worship one or more of the many Gods. People who have been working with Brighid, or the Morrigan, or with Zeus and Apollo, or any of the many deities that our ancestors knew and worshiped. Or, perhaps, some that they didn’t know then. The class is intended for polytheists.
But, it’s also intended for people who are curious about polytheism. Maybe you are new to Paganism and you don’t know if you are a polytheist or not. Maybe you’ve been thinking of the Gods in terms of one great diving being and now you’re starting to get the idea that well, maybe these aren’t all one being, maybe they really are distinct individuals and I should relate to them like that. Or, maybe you are a Christian or a Buddhist or an Atheist and you have no intention of becoming a polytheist. You’re just curious about what this is, and what people believe and what people do, and you want to understand it better – you are welcome in this class.
WHO SHOULD NOT PARTICIPATE?
Who should not participate in this class? People who want to advocate for another religion. Now, most of this class is going to be you and I interacting, me speaking through the videos, you giving me your feedback, me giving you my feedback on your feedback. So, it’s mainly going to be one-on-one. But, there’s going to be some opportunity for some interaction among classmates. And, in that interaction, proselytizing for another religion is not welcome.
So, if you’re a Christian who wants to learn about polytheism: Welcome. If you’re a Christian who wants to get into a polytheist group to tell us how we all need Jesus, you’re not welcome.
Again, your beliefs and your private actions don’t disqualify you. How you interact with your fellow students will. I can’t imagine anybody who is out to proselytize for whatever religion is going to pay $50 to take this class just to have access to the people who sign up for it. But, you know, let’s just lay that out in the ground rules. Proselytizing for other religions is not welcome here.
OUR PATRON: LUGH
And, this is our patron, Lugh. Lugh is an Irish deity. Lugh Samildánach, Lugh Master of All Arts. Lugh Lámfada, Lugh of the Long Arm. We are beginning this class on August 1 which is Lughnasadh, which is celebrated as the festival of Lugh, but in ancient times was celebrated in honor of his foster mother, Tailtiu, who cleared the land of Ireland for planting and then died of her exertion.
I was starting to sketch out this course and realized it was starting on August 1, and I heard this voice behind me, “You know, this is My holy day. You could use a Patron.” And when I hear voices like that, my only answer is, “Yes! Yes, I do!”
So, our Patron is Lugh. If you aren’t familiar with him, I suggest that you do a little bit of reading, particularly the story of how he first came to the court of the Tuatha Dé Danann. It’s an interesting story. It’s on my blog from a few years ago if you want to go search for it. Or, you can find it somewhere else. This is a polytheist class. It is dedicated to an approach to the Gods that says that they are all individuals, and this is the individual deity who has offered to be our Patron, and we are honored to be doing this class under his patronage.
COURSE FORMAT
What’s this course going to be like? As I said in the introduction, it’s going to look just like what you’re seeing here. There will be weekly video lessons. Again, exactly like what you’re seeing here. The exact frequency may vary. I’m planning to do them weekly. But, if something comes up, they may be a day or two or three late here and there. Those of you who follow me on my blog for a long time know that I’m pretty regular with hitting my schedule so I expect to have them out exactly one week apart. But, I’m not promising that. If something comes up and they are a day or two late, then they are a day or two late. If they are two weeks late, then somebody come check on me because something bad is wrong.
The format is on demand. I will create the videos. I will load them on the website. When you sign up for the class, I will give you access to the page that has the videos on it. You watch them when you feel like. You do the homework when you are ready. You send it in when you are ready. I have seen numerous classes from teachers I really like and respect, but they are teaching live and I am never available when they are teaching. And even when they record them and make them available later, I never go back and watch them.. But, the classes that I’ve signed up for that let you do the class when you are ready to do the class, I’ve been all over those, so that’s the way I’m structuring this one.
The required reading is Paganism in Depth. Now, I’m not going to come to your house and check your shelves to make sure that you’ve got it. But, you really do need to have read the book. The course is designed to take the material in the book and go even deeper with it. You can take the class without reading the book, it’s just going to be a whole lot harder.
This is not a book study class. Get the book, read the book, then as we are progressing through the classes and we go back and talk about certain sections, go back and read those sections again. This isn’t going to be a class where you read a chapter, then talk about a chapter.
There will occasionally be recommended reading, where I think a book from another author would be helpful, and so I will recommend that. Reading it is optional.
And there will be homework. The purpose of the homework is to help you begin to put the material into practice. Not just, “Read this, and we’ll talk about that.” “Now, what do I do?” Here’s some things to help you get started – that’s the purpose of the homework. This isn’t high school. Nobody is going to check up on you to see if you did it or not. If you want to take the class and not do the homework, that’s your business and I’m certainly not going to say a word about it.
HOMEWORK REVIEWS
If you turn in the homework, I am going to review it, I am going to read it and see what you have to say. Again, it’s entirely optional. If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. There will be no grades. I don’t know how I would grade this. I have no intention to, so I haven’t really given it any thought.
I am looking to see if you got the concept: Do you understand what I’m saying? If you understand what I’m saying and you disagree with me, that’s fine. It bothers me when people disagree with me, and they don’t really get what I’m trying to say, and they are disagreeing with something that’s not what I meant. So, I want to look and see: Do you understand what I’m saying? Because if you don’t, then I need to do a better job of explaining the material and presenting the material. I’m going to offer observations and suggestions: “Have you considered this?” “You might try that.” Expect a couple of lines of feedback, not paragraphs. Certainly there will be no papers returned marked up in red ink.
What you do with the feedback is up to you. If you are, “Oh yeah! Now, I get what you’re saying!” That’s great. Or, “No John, you are still wrong.” That’s great, too. What you do with it is up to you.
I will say up front that the homework reviews will end about a month after the final module. My intention is to leave this course up indefinitely. If you see this class, and it’s 2021, and you want to sign up for it, go for it! It’s still there. You can still do it. I’m not going to be reviewing homework. I’m going to have moved on to other projects. So, if you are following along, and you are not quite keeping up with the classes as they go, that’s fine, but at some point, I’m going to cut off the homework reviews.
I will remain available to answer questions about the course, no matter what day it is. So, if you are doing this in 2022, I’m not going to review the homework, but if you have a question about the material, ask and I will do my best to answer.
SIX MODULES
What about the class itself? There are six modules, six lessons that will come out a week apart.
MODULE 1: SEEING THE WORLD IN A DIFFERENT WAY
The first one is: Seeing the World in a Different Way. We are going to talk about religion, and what religion is, and what it isn’t, and how what you probably have been taught about religion, particularly if grew up in a Protestant church, is definitely in the minority as far as the rest of the world goes.
We are going to talk about world view – your foundational assumptions about the world and the way it works, what’s possible and what’s not. We are going to discuss materialism, not consumerism, but the philosophical idea that all that exists is the material world and the interactions of matter. We are also going to discuss animism, which is a competing, and from my standpoint, a much better world view, which says that everything that surrounds us is not a thing, but a person. And, we can relate to these other persons, even though they are not human persons.
We are going to talk a lot about the myth of disenchantment, the idea that a long time ago, the world was filled with Gods and magic, and now it isn’t. Well, no, not really. Our polytheist religions, Hellenism, and Kemeticism, the ancient Heathenry, yes, these religions were wiped out by Christianity. But, the Gods didn’t die. They were still around in one form or another. And, so was magic. And we are going to talk about how the idea that these things just don’t happen anymore just isn’t true and there is evidence to back that up.
Then we are going to talk about polytheism as I practice it. Polytheism isn’t a religion. It’s a religious approach. This class is based on my particular approach to honoring and worshipping and working with the many Gods. We are going to talk about how I do that, not because my way is the one right way, but because it’s the way I do it, so it’s what I can teach.
MODULE 2: THE GODS
We are going to talk about the Gods. We have a whole module devoted to Them. We are going to talk about a definition of a God, and why creating that definition isn’t really easy. We will talk about how to approach the Gods, how to relate to Them, how to work with Them. Polytheism is the religious regard for many real Gods. We are going to talk about who and what those Gods are.
MODULE 3: SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Spiritual practice is the foundation of any religious depth, not matter what religion you are practicing it in. We covered some of this in The Path of Paganism. We are going to take it deeper here. Doing is not the same thing as believing. Doing is the primary approach to Paganism and polytheism. What you do is more important than what you believe.
MODULE 4: PAGANISM OFF THE MAP
Paganism Off the Map was the original title of this book. We changed it to Paganism in Depth because my editor thought that Paganism Off the Map sounded like a Pagan travel book and people don’t buy Pagan travel books. So, we changed the title, but that theme still very much runs through the book. What does Paganism look like when you are not doing Wicca as defined by Scott Cunningham? What is it like when you are not doing Druidry as defined by Philip Carr Gomm? What is it like when you are doing things and your God and spirits are pulling you in directions where people haven’t been before, or at least they haven’t written about it in places that are easy to find?
One of the main things we are going to cover here is titled: “Interlude – I Like it Here. Why Do I Have to Leave?” Maybe you like what you are doing. But, maybe you are getting these urges to take something deeper, to take it further, to go higher up the mountain, to go further out to sea. Leaving where you are, leaving your practice that you have been doing for a year, or three, or five, or ten, or however long, that can be very hard. Why might you want to leave? Why might you need to leave? And maybe you don’t! Maybe you need to stay exactly where you are. But, if you do, then make that a conscious decision, not something where you stay in the same place month after month, year after year, because that’s what you already know. If you need to stay where you are. That’s fine. But, make that a conscious decision.
We are going to talk about the Otherworld, the veil between the worlds. We are going to talk about the changes in how the worlds interact, things that some of us are calling The Storm, and others are calling Tower Time. We are really getting into the depths of this class in Module 4.
MODULE 5: ECSTATIC PRACTICE
Module 5 is Ecstatic Practice. This likely will be the longest of the modules. I’ve never taught ecstatic practice remotely. Honestly, I’ve only taught it in a class once or twice. Most times I taught it, it’s been, “Ok. We are going to do this now. Watch and follow along.” But, I keep getting asked: “Show me how to do this.” “Write it in your book.” “Tell me how to do this.” One thing my editor asked for is more instruction on how to do ecstatic practice. So, we are going to cover this. We are going to talk about what ecstatic experience is. We are going to talk about the cultural biases against them, why you might not feel like you could or should do this. Ecstatic experiences can’t be commanded but they can be facilitated, We are going to cover some of the things you can do to make it more likely that a God or spirit will speak to you.
Perhaps more importantly, we are going to talk about what you can do when it’s over. “This experience was wonderful! A deity touched me and I feel so awesome!” Now what? I’m pretty they didn’t touch you just so you could feel awesome. There is something they want you to do, something you need to do. We are going to talk about how you can figure out what that is and go about doing it.
MODULE 6: BUILDING A POLYTHEIST FUTURE
The final module is Building a Polytheist Future. This is where we put it all together. We take the first five modules, we put it together, and we talk about how what we do can become a deep and long-lasting tradition, for ourselves as individual practitioners, for our local communities, and for the world at large. And we are going to talk about how we can do that, and still live a life in the ordinary world. I would love to move off into the mountains somewhere and live in a Druid monastery where all I had to do was commune with the Gods and write about what I had experienced. I don’t live in that world. Almost none of us do. We have jobs. We have school. We have family obligations. We have all these things that take up our time. How do we fulfill our mundane obligations and also explore our deepest callings?
PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP
There will be a private Facebook group. It will be set to Facebook Secret setting which means that only members can find the group, see who’s in it and what they post. Now, some of y’all don’t like Facebook. I get it. It’s not my favorite thing. But, it’s here and it’s easy and it’s free. I’m spending my time developing the courses, not trying to figure out how to create a private forum on this website. It’s here. It’s easy. We are going to take advantage of it.
We are going to use it for questions. I may not be the best person to answer your question. There is going to be other experienced polytheists in this class. You may want to get their opinion on it. You may want to have conversations with your classmates: “Hey, when I was doing this exercise, this is what I thought. What kind of experience did you have?” You may want to compare notes – a very good thing to do.
Participation is completely voluntary. If you don’t want to sign up for the Facebook group, you don’t have to. You want to sign up for it, but you just want to hang out? That’s fine, too. You know, maybe all of you are going to opt out of it and there won’t be anything to it. I don’t know! It’s the first time I’ve done it. We are going to try it. I think that conversation amongst the participants of the class can be valuable. It’s valuable for you to talk with each other, compare notes, and learn from each other, not just from me. So, I think that’s a value. We are going to set it up and see how it goes.
QUESTIONS
If you have questions, I’ll do my best to answer – things about the course, about the material, it’s application. If there is something that you don’t understand, something that’s bothering you, something that you are not quite sure what it means – ask.
The response format will vary. If it’s a short, simple, straight-forward question, I may fire back an email response. I may suggest you post it on the Facebook group. If you are not on the Facebook group, I may post it for you and gather the results up and see what other people say. It may turn into a blog post. A lot of my blog posts come from people asking good, deep questions, and by the time I get halfway through answering it, I realize that this is approaching a thousand words, and if this person is having this question, then other people may have it too. So, we will put it on the blog and let everybody else see it too. I will not identify you, either directly or indirectly, unless you give me permission. I’m probably not going to respond by pigeon, but, hey, you never know!
I DON’T DO CASUAL CONVERSATION
Let’s draw a boundary upfront. I don’t do casual conversation. I absolutely detest online chat. Do not send me things and say, “Hey, read this and tell me what you think.” Absolutely do not send videos and say, “Watch this and tell me what you think.” I’m going to ignore those kinds of comments.
If there is something that you want to talk about with me that is outside the scope of this class, I do spiritual counseling on a consulting basis. That means that I charge for it. I’ve asked around and my rates are comparable to other people who do magical and spiritual work for hire. I don’t do this to make money. I do it because, if I’m going to invest my time into doing these things, I need to be compensated for it. My rates are reasonable. If you are interested, ask, and we will see about doing it. I’m not trying to discourage you. If you think there’s something that I might have some special insight into, that you think that spiritual counseling would help, do consult me, and we will see what we can work out.
As always, I’m a Druid and a priest, not a psychologist. I can’t provide therapy. If you need mental health care, if I think you might need mental health care, I’m going to say, “I can’t help you. You need to find a therapist.”
But, if you ask questions relevant to the class, I will do my best to answer them. I don’t want to scare people off. I just want to draw the boundaries now and say, let’s keep it on-topic, I’m not going to do online chat.
GOALS FOR THE COURSE
What are the goals for the course? I want people to come out of this course with a better understanding of polytheist concepts. I want you to learn the language better. I want you to understand the concepts better. If you already understand the concepts, I want you to appreciate them more deeply in your heart and in your soul.
We want people to develop a deeper spiritual practice. If you are doing a little bit of prayer and meditation now, I hope that at the end of this that you’ll be doing regular prayer and regular meditation, or observation of the sun and moon, or offerings to ancestors – whatever it is that you do and are called to do. We are trying to develop a deeper spiritual practice.
We want to encourage a deeper devotional practice – those formal relationships between you and the deities who you honor and serve.
We want to come out of here with a clearer vision for polytheism in the contemporary world. What should it look like? What should we be doing? What works well? What doesn’t work well? We want a clearer vision of what the future can be.
But, mainly, we want to build a stronger foundation for your polytheist religion, whether you are a Druid, a polytheistic Wiccan, a Hellenistic Kemetic, a Heathen, a Reconstructionist, a tradition that I’ve never even heard of. Whatever you polytheistic religion is, we want to help build a stronger foundation for it.
COST
So, what’s it cost? $50 for the entire course. I’ve seen some teachers that charge that much for a single class (and most of them are worth it). I’ve seen some that charge a lot more for an ongoing class like this. I’m trying to make back the cost of web-hosting, of video-hosting, and make a fraction of minimum wage for the time I put in creating this material. Nobody gets rich teaching pagan courses, but I’m trying to make back some of the costs.
I prefer that you pay through PayPal. As with Facebook, it’s just simpler. Yes, they have fees, but anything short of cash or check is going to have fees. It’s simple. It’s easy. It’s convenient. Let’s use PayPal. If you cannot use PayPal for some reason, let me know how you would like to pay. If you are paying by credit card, that’s going to run through PayPal, and there will be higher fees on it. But if there is some other way you want to pay, let me know and I’ll do my best to work it out.
If you are experiencing financial difficulties, if $50 is just going to be a hardship for you, a limited number of scholarships are available. This isn’t financial aid. I don’t want to see your tax returns and your bank statements. If you say, “hey, I need to apply for a scholarship,” that’s all you have to do. I’ll put you on the list. Again, I’m trying to cover expenses here. I don’t have an unlimited number. But, I do have some scholarships available. And the more paid registrations I get, the more scholarships I can offer. So, when you pay the full amount, you are not just paying for yourself. You are helping to pay for somebody else who isn’t in a position to pay their own way at this time.
SIGNING UP
So, how do you sign up? Use the contact form. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. See that thing that says, “Contact Me”? Fill in your name, your email, and in the message say, “I want to sign up for class #1, the Paganism in Depth.” If for some reason the contact form won’t work for you, send me an email to john@undertheancientoaks.com .
I will send you a PayPal invoice. When you pay the PayPal invoice, I will register you for the class. I will say that in testing, we have had a problem with some of the class registration emails that give you your password to the site have gone into people’s spam folders. So, if it hasn’t shown up, check your spam folder, particularly if you are on Gmail. A lot on Gmail have gone into spam.
Expect a 24-hour turnaround. I know, this is 2019. You expect to give somebody your credit card and get instant access. Again, I’m doing all of this myself. I’m putting all my time into building the classes, not learning the intricacies of e-commerce. Expect a 24-hour turnaround. If you catch me when I’m travelling, especially in the middle of July when I’m at Mystic South, it may be longer. But, sign up now during July, and you’ll be all set to go on August 1.
HOMEWORK: MODULE 0
Yes, this is the first day of class, and yes, we’ve just gone over the syllabus, but there is homework! The homework for Module 0 begins with signing up for the class. Or not. You know, if you’ve watched the video and say, “I don’t think this is for me.” Well, now you know. But, if you like what you see and are interested in the material and you want to take it deeper, go ahead and sign up for the class. Do it now.
Get the book. Again, it’s not going to be a read-and-discuss type of class. Read the book during the month of July. If you are joining in later: Get the book, read the book, do the class.
When it gets a little closer to August 1, and we are about ready to start, go back and read Chapter 1, the “Introduction”. That will prepare you for what we are going to talk about in Module 1.
And Module 1 begins on Lughnasadh, August 1, 2019.
That’s it! We are about to set out on a journey deep into the forest. Who knows what we will find? Who knows what you will discover about yourself, about the deities who you work with or who you’ve been thinking about approaching? I don’t know what lies deep in the forest. But I have to find out, so I am going! And, I hope that you will join me.
See you on August 1.