At the end of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, as you may recall, our messianic protagonist Valentine Michael Smith is dramatically martyred. He is now out of the picture. All his friends and followers, and those who had joined his “Church of All Worlds” were left to carry on as best they could. And by this time the readers of the story have become part of it, insofar as they end up considering themselves so. I did, and so did many others, both at the very beginning, and continuing.

     For SISL only provided an origin myth, just as the four Gospels did for Christianity. The real saga begins after the origin, as all who have been touched by the messianic life portrayed in the original story are left to carry on from there. We have been doing this now for 63 years, and through all that time we’ve continued to evolve from those humble origins to become something far greater and more complex. We are the living sequel to the novel.

     While this happened in a science-fiction universe still a ways into our future, and on a probability path that will never exist now, it happened in our own time as soon as each of us finished reading the book. For me, that was early 1962. Lance Christie and I—freshman students at Westminster College in Fulton, MO—read it, and shared water on April 7. We pledged our lives to the actualization of the precepts and principles found in that book, and began turning everybody we thought was cool onto it. And by sharing water with those who grokked the book, we created a water-brotherhood we called Atl (Aztec for “water”).

     Our initial mission-statement was simply “To make the world safe for people like us.” But what did we mean by that, exactly? And what would it take to achieve?

     Firstly, what does it mean to be “safe”? In SISL, Heinlein says: “There is no safety this side of the grave.” I say safety means freedom from fear—to live our lives and raise our families freely without fear of persecution, discrimination, harassment, violence, rape, mugging, stoning, lynching, burning at the stake…

     Freedom from angry mobs with torches and pitchforks—as has literally been the case throughout history.

     Secondly, who are “people like us”? I say we are the ones who don’t fit into the boxes of the normal and ordinary. We are the outsiders, the exceptions, the unusual, the extra-ordinary. The changelings, black sheep and ugly ducklings of whatever society we are born into. Nerds, Weirdos, Geniuses, Creatives, Mutants, Gays, Queers, Divergents, Hippies, Pagans…

     In a personal letter to me dated 1/20/1972, Mr, Heinlein wrote:

“I hope I have convinced you that STRANGER is dead serious…as questions. Serious, non-trivial questions, on which a man might spend a lifetime. (And I almost have.)

“But anyone who takes that book as answers is cheating himself. It is an invitation to think—not to believe. Anyone who takes it as a license to screw as he pleases is taking a risk; Mrs. Grundy is not dead. Or any other sharp affront to the contemporary culture done publicly—there are stern warnings in it about the dangers involved. Certainly “Do as thou wilt is the whole of the Law” is correct when looked at properly—in fact it is a law of nature, not an injunction, nor a permission. But it is necessary to remember that it applies to everyone-including lynch mobs. The Universe is what It is, and It never forgives mistakes—not even ignorant ones.”[1]

[1] Robert A. Heinlein to Tim Zell, 1/20/72 (This entire letter, along with my initial letter to Mr. Heinlein, to which this was in reply, was printed in Green Egg Vol. XXI, No. 82; Lughnasadh, 1988)

Consider the Gated Community analogy:

If you want to live in a safe environment, one way to do this is to create an isolated “safe” neighborhood and then keep all of the “unsafe” people out. This approach is so popular that we even have a name for it: the “Gated Community.” In ancient times this was the principle of Medieval castles and walled cities—even the entire country of China, with its famous Great Wall. Think of Mycenae, Athens, Heraklion, Troy, Alexandria, Rome, Paris, London…all surrounded by walls to keep others iut.

But there is another approach, and that is to try and create a world where all neighborhoods and thus all people are safe. Doing this means that you can be safe anywhere, not just in your own little Gated Community. This means that you have to improve not only your own life, but the lives of your fellow citizens as well. For some people, being part of a safe, educated, inclusive nation is in their own self-interest.

So right from the start Lance and I recognized that it wouldn’t be enough to just create our nice little Nest of Waterkin and hide out, meeting in secret, and hope that Mrs. Grundy doesn’t find us. No, we would need to create a legal Church to give us protection under the 1^st Amendment to the US Constitution: “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion; nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“…religion is a null area in the law. A church can do anything any organization can do—and has no restrictions. It pays no taxes, need not publish records, is effectively immune to search, inspection, or control—and a church is anything that calls itself a church. Attempts have been made to distinguish between ‘real’ religions entitled to immunities, and ‘cults.’ It can’t be done, short of establishing a state religion…a cure worse than the disease. Both under what’s left of the United States Constitution and under the Treaty of Federation, all churches are equally immune—especially if they swing a bloc of votes.”  ~Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

The value of having a legal church in America as an exempt vehicle to do pretty much whatever you want to do without governmental interference was irresistible. So we incorporated the Church of All Worlds in the state of Missouri on March 4, 1968, and received our 501(c)(3) exemption from the IRS on June 18, 1970. But even establishing a legal church wouldn’t be enough “to make the world safe for people like us” if we’d still be surrounded by a larger society bent on our eradication. Creating the legal CAW in SISL didn’t stop the angry populace from storming the fictional temple with torches and pitchforks.

No, we would have to think bigger, and create an entire new religion, such as was proposed in a remarkable article by John Poppy in the Jan. 1970 issue of Look magazine (the final issue): “Why We Need a New Religion.” And such a new religion would need a new identifying label.

So on Sept. 7, 1967, I invoked the ancient identity of “Pagan” (which traditionally encompasses all non-Abrahamic religions) as a category for CAW—and potentially an entire new religious movement. And on March 21, 1968, I produced the first issue of Green Egg magazine (initially just a single-page newsletter), referring to “The First Pagan Church of All Worlds,” and began promoting the identity of “Pagan” to every new spiritual group I would hear about that seemed to fit the criteria I had in mind.
Like CAW, these mostly began as student study groups on college campuses, and included: the Discordian Society in Venice, CA (1959); the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids in England (1961); the Reformed Druids of North America at Carlton College (1963); Feraferia (Mycenaean) in Altadena, CA (1967); the Delphic Fellowship (Greek) in Los Angeles (1967); the Psychedelic Venus Church in San Francisco (19690; the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD) in San Francisco (1968); the Church of the Eternal Source (Egyptian) in Burbank (1970); the Ordo Templi Astartes (Canaanite) in Pasadena (1970); the Neo-Dianic Faith in Los Angeles; and Witches of various Traditions around the country. I would send them a copy of Green Egg and say: “You guys seem to be Pagans. So are we! Let’s all be Pagans together!” And they all said, “Yes, we’re all Pagans!” And in 1969 we formed the first Pagan ecumenical council—the Council of Themis (which reached 21 members before being torn apart in 1972—but that’s another story…). And thus was born a global religious movement.
Ben Franklin—political leader, inventor, bon vivant, philosopher—was once asked what he considered his greatest invention. He said “Americans.” For he was the one who coined and popularized that umbrella term to include the many groups who had settled in the New World, but thought of themselves as separate: Puritans, Lutherans, English, French, New Yorkers, Virginians… Franklin promoted the inclusive identity of Americans through his publications and writings, and it brought all those diverse factions together, making possible an American Revolution—though it still took a while for the wider identity to be embraced by all. In the words of Steve Zaffon and Dave Logan:

Future-based language is responsible for historical moments becoming turning points. Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing the word American and, in so doing, transforming thirteen warring colonies into a nation. His word displaced what most political analysts of the day predicted what was inevitable—that the colonies would never speak with one voice.[1]

And that is what the word Pagan did. It brought together Hellenics, Druids, Khemetics, Norse, Celts, Shamans, Witches, Minoans, Dianics, and CAW visionaries inspired by myths, fantasy, and science-fiction into a single broad religious coalition: Pagans (literally, “People of the Earth;” Ancient Ways, the Old Religion, Nature Religion, Green Religion…). We learned that what unites us is more important than what divides us, and Paganism became a Movement—now recognized as the fastest-growing and 2^nd-largest “faith group” in America, with over four million people so-identifying as of 2021.
Of course, a new religion required a corresponding new theology and liturgy based on immanent Divinity and feminism. This I introduced with my 1970 vision of Gaea as the Soul of our living planet—literally, the superorganism comprising the entire planetary biosphere as a single organism conceived in the Cambrian Explosion half a billion years ago:

“In 1970 Tim [Oberon] Zell began writing about the planet Earth as Deity, as a single living organism, and this became the Church of All Worlds’ central myth. Since 1971, the myth has been revised constantly and has become a unique eco-religious perception…”~Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon; 1979
“Oberon Zell was the first person to conceive and publish the biological and metaphysical foundations of what has become known as the ‘Gaia Theory’—the unified body and emergent soul of the living Earth. Oberon’s profound reconciliation of science, mythology and spirituality inspired and infused a worldwide neo-Pagan, panentheistic movement. ”                            ~Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., The Green Earth Foundation

And we created corresponding liturgy derived from ancient Pagan sources and contemporary reconstructions. Taking a cue from the Witches, we linked our rituals to the cycles of the Moon and the turning of the Seasons (“the Wheel of the Year”), drawing as well from the ancient Mysteries. And we also created Rites of Passage from birth to death.
Once we had a legal church and had started a global new religion to provide a larger context for it, we needed a centralized communications system that would reach everyone. A universal “watering hole,” so to speak, where everyone would come to drink (literally “grok”). This I did with Green Egg—“A lever long enough to move the world,” in the words of Archimedes.

“In March of 1968, the Green Egg appeared. From its inauspicious beginnings as a one-page ditto sheet, it grew into a 60-page journal over the next 80 issues, becoming the most significant periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970s and made Tim Zell, its editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism (a term which Zell coined).”
~ Rev. J. Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of American Religions, 1991

“Tim Zell, by using terms like Pagan and Neo-Pagan in referring to the emerging collectivity of new Earth religions, linked these groups, and Green Egg created a communications network among them.”                                              ~Margot Adler,Drawing Down the Moon, 1979

     By this time we were realizing that we needed to transform the entire dominant paradigm of Western Civilization from the exclusivist Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheist paradigm to a broader and all-inclusive poly-pantheism. A new Paganism for a New Age. Conjuring a genuine miracle would be a good way to get people’s attention. So in 1980 Morning Glory and I manifested “the Impossible Dream” and resurrected authentic Living Unicorns. Real magick right there in front of everyone!

     Well, that worked pretty well, as our Unicorns appeared at every Renaissance Festival in North America, and soon became the star attractions of “The Greatest Show on Earth” (the Ringling Bros/Barnum & Bailey Circus!). And I 1985 I led a diving expedition to New Guinea in search of real-life Mermaids. And on the way we planted the CAW in Australia, where it has prospered.

     When we returned from the South Pacific, we looked around to see what else we would need to change. SISL had considered a revolutionary alternative approach to relationships—particularly sexual ones. From the moment we met, Morning Glory and I had based our relationship and marriage on the expanded family and open marriage ideas proposed in SISL. In 1982, we entered into a triad relationship with Diane darling, which soon became a 4-adults, 3-kids group marriage we called “Triskelion.”

     Like “Pagan,” this too needed new terminology. So in 1990 we came up with polyamory and polyamorous—launching another significant social movement. Today, polyamory is practiced by about 4-5% of the population of America. And according to Pew Research, 51% of adults under 30 in the US now think that open marriage is acceptable.

     Triskelion lasted ten years, during which time we were not only raising and exhibiting our Living Unicorns at Renaissance Festivals all over North America, and publishing Green Egg as the award-winning leading journal of the Pagan movement—with a kid’s auxiliary we called HAM (How About Maick?), mounting a diving expedition to New Guinea in search of Mermaids (found ‘em too…), and raising three kids with multiple parents; we were also very involved in the early polyamory movement, with many conferences and interviews. After Triskelion fell apart in 1994, we created a new group marriage—the Ravenhearts—with five adults (adding Liza, Wynter and Wolf). That also had a goodly run of ten years.

     In the mid-‘90s I decided that our Pagan altars needed suitable altar figurines. Since I had already drawn a few Altar posters of Gods and Goddesses, I began sculpting some. People who saw them wanted their own, so we learned to make molds and reproduce them as a family business. Eventually I created about 30 altar statues and wall plaques, as well as a line of silver and gold jewelry. Other artists soon followed, and now these icons are in metaphysical stores throughout the world. Exhibiting my figurines at the International New Age Trade Show (INATS) in Denver each June, I was introduced to a book publisher (New Page) who commissioned my first books (for Apprentice Wizards), of which I’ve now written more than 20.

     And finally, after having developed and presented viable alternative approaches to religion and sexuality, I turned my attention to the educational paradigm, and created a revolutionary school of “Esoteric Education,” as well as a series of textbooks for it. The Grey School of Wizardry was incorporated on March 14, 2004, and is now the world’s foremost academy of arcana. I held the office of Headmaster until Nov. of 2022, when I passed the torch to my protégé Nicholas Kingsley, who has done a superb job, establishing a physical campus in Whitehall, NY.

     Right about the time SISL came out, in my first year of college, I articulated my lifetime “Mission Statement:” “To be a catalyst for the coalescence of consciousness.” This has served me ever since. In my life, I have ever been a tosser of pebbles and a sower of seeds.

     Stranger in a Strange Land  became an icon of the 1960s counterculture, winning the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel in 1962. In 2012, it was included in a Library of Congress exhibition of “Books That Shaped America.” SISL introduced us to pantheism, immanent divinity, water sharing, Pagan priestesses, psychic abilities, afterlife, communal living, ritual and social nudity, sacred sex, polyamory, and group marriages.

     There were the descriptions of rituals, including Priestesses, and The Goddess, along with ritual nudity (none of these things were to be found anywhere else but in Pagan religions). So we have created and evolved rituals conducted by legally-ordained Priests and Priestesses (CAW was the first incorporated church ever to ordain Priestesses!), to celebrate The Goddess and all the pantheons of the Old Gods. We have evolved new social and family structures, new subsidiary spinoffs, publications, music, theology, liturgy, literature, statuary, jewelry, sacred lands, green cemeteries, businesses, lifestyles.

     In the novel—published in 1961 and set, remember, 25 years after the first human mission to Mars, which still has not occurred, so we are still looking decades into the future—the mainstream society and established religion is so outraged by these radical concepts, and this alien religion—that an angry mob with torches and pitchforks burns down the Temple and martyrs the Prophet.

     But see, here is the thing: we have already changed the world so much that even now—63 years later and decades before the fictional story is even set—that extreme backlash reaction is inconceivable. The real-life Church of All Worlds and the worldwide Neo-Pagan movement it founded and fostered is already over half a century old, and it is far too late to stamp it out. Modern Paganism has long been recognized as the fastest-growing religion in the English-speaking world (and growing exponentially in many other countries as well).

     Modern Paganism has long been recognized as the fastest-growing religion in the English-speaking world (and growing exponentially in many other countries as well). Paganism is now widely accepted as practically mainstream, and persecution of our people is virtually nonexistent. We have won every legal battle for recognition and acceptance of our religion and its symbols—even on school children’s jewelry and veterans’ tombstones in Arlington Cemetery! Large annual public “Pagan Pride” events are now held in many regions of the country, and metaphysical stores may be found in every large city.

When Wicca went public, Gardner’s nightly gatherings provoked considerable scandal. In Britain today, however, Paganism is largely portrayed in positive terms by the media. Although both witches and Druids have sometimes been accused of devil worship due to sensationalism and misrepresentation in popular culture—particularly during the so-called Satanic Panic of the late 1980s and 1990s—the media is becoming increasingly adept at researching and portraying Paganism accurately, and the dedication of some public Pagans in representing Paganism as a gender-equal, nature-loving, and gentle religion appears to have contributed to a comparatively positive image of Paganism among the general public [1]

[1] Manon Hedenborg White, “Contemporary Paganism,” In: James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen (eds.), Controversial New Religions, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2014.

The war is over, and we won! Three generations have already grown up and are raising their own children and grandchildren in a world transformed by our new Pagan Renaissance.

We have embraced, fostered and participated in the shaping of the Feminist movement, the Deep Ecology ecospirituality movement, the Civil Rights movement, sexual liberation, legalization of herbs and psychedelics as sacraments, LGBTQ+ rights (and legal marriages), radical environmentalism (Lance was a co-founder of Earth First!), etc. And we have named, encouraged, and fostered the rise of two entire social movements which have grown directly out of these realizations into full communities: the Neo-Pagan movement, and the polyamory movement. We have planted our roots deep into the fertile Earth, while, like a great tree, our branches reach towards the beckoning stars.

We have indeed made the world safe for people like us! Now let us boldly go where no one has gone before—unto the Awakening of Gaea…

And this is the Ultimate Conspiracy—for when you know enough to grok what it’s all about, it’s too late; you’re already one of us!

Addendum:

Evolution was built into the original design of the CAW, both in the book and in our real-life analog. The basic principles were there in the book, but we have built upon them for three generations. Some of these are:

“Thou art God.” (pp.139-140; 324; 399) This gave rise to a full theology of pantheism and imminent Divinity; and eventually, to the Gaea Thesis. And the total responsibility of this understanding, as in “An it harm none, do as thou wilt” (the Wiccan Rede).

“Grokking.” (pp. 205-206) Grok means, literally, “to drink.”

“Growing closer.” (p. 255; 272; 388) “Spirits blend as flesh blends.” (pp. 397-398) Sacred sexuality; sex as Divine communion.

“May you never thirst.” (pp. 271-272) The ritual of water-sharing, at various levels of intimacy and commitment.

“Love is that condition wherein another person’s happiness is essential to your own.” (p. 345) This gave rise to love without jealousy, acceptance of homosexuality and other sexual options and variations. I believe this single statement was, along with the invention of The Pill, most responsible for creating the “free love” era of the ‘60s.

“The Nest.” (pp. 345-349; 381) This gave rise to polyamory, group marriages, intentional families, communes, tribes…

“All names belong in the hat.” (pp. 134-135; 229-231; 275-278; 349; 375-376; 381-382) SISL taught religious relativism, and acceptance of ALL religions, giving rise to our celebration of diversity in religious paths, eclecticism, polytheism, multiple pantheons, etc. And an exploration of comparative religions that led to Paganism, as we sought to dig deep enough to discover our own roots.

“Goodness is never enough… Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” (p. 393)

There is a great deal to be said regarding the recent national election that returned a despicable scumbag to the White House. Let’s start with the numbers:

The total population of the United States is about 345 million.

Approximately 245 million Americans were eligible to vote in the 2024 general election.

161.4 million people were registered to vote in the US in 2024 (only 66% of eligible voters).

83.6 million people who were legally eligible (34%) couldn’t be bothered to even register to vote.

154 million ballots were cast in 2024 (95% of registered voters; 63% of the voting-eligible population).

92 million Americans, or about 37.6% of the country’s voting-eligible population, did not vote in the 2024 general election.

22 million registered voters didn’t bother to vote (37.6% of eligible voters).

77 million people voted for Trump (31.3% of eligible voters).

74 million people voted for Harris (30.3% of eligible voters).

2 million voted for a third party (0.8% of eligible voters).

So Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by only 1% of the popular votes. Even so, he only garnered 31.3% of the eligible votes—less than a third, since 37.6% didn’t vote at all. This means that over two thirds of the populace didn’t want him to be President! Less than a third of the American people chose a convicted felon, sexual predator and serial liar over a career prosecutor and lifelong public servant. Less than a third of the American people have given Trump license to have his remaining Federal indictments dropped, and pardon all the J-6 rioters and the Proud Boys. In doing those pardons, he has now created his own private “brown-shirt” militia.

Democratic White, Hispanic and Black men either voted for Trump or sat out this election because apparently they did not want a Black woman as president of this country.

The most common reason Trumpers themselves give for why they voted for him is: “He hates all the same people that I hate.” Trump tapped into the hatred and anger that many White male Americans had to keep in the closet for so long. Hatred of women. Hatred of colored people. Hatred of Jews. Hatred of Moslems. Hatred of “queers.” Hatred of anyone different than themselves. Trump openly mocks and insults those groups, and the drooling masses love it. Suddenly, they can go back to saying any damn thing they want, because the President does it, so why can’t they?

Trump is a felon, a criminal, a thug. So is his personal lawyer, his national security advisor, his foreign policy advisor, his chief strategist, his trade advisor, his campaign chairman, his deputy campaign manager, his campaign fixer and his company CFO.

Although the Electoral College with our winner-take-all policy for state electors (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska) handed Trump the Presidency, 31.3% is hardly a mandate to rule. Nonetheless, Trump claims such a mandate and has clearly stated his intention to rule as an absolute “dictator on day one,” pursuing a program not of governance and service, but of “retribution and revenge.”

The extreme right-wing MAGA Republicans now control all three branches of our National Government: Executive (the Presidency), Legislative (Congress: The Senate and the House of Representatives) and Judiciary (the Supreme Court). They now have all the power and wealth of our country.

As Peter Baker recorded in the New York Times, the country that President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration will leave behind when they leave office is in the best shape it’s been in since at least 2000.

No U.S. troops are fighting in foreign wars, murders have plummeted, deaths from drug overdoses have dropped sharply, undocumented immigration is below where it was when Trump left office, stocks have just had their best two years since the last century. The economy is growing, real wages are rising, inflation has fallen to close to its normal range, unemployment is at near-historic lows, and energy production is at historic highs. The economy has added more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs among the 16 million total created since 2020.

Baker quoted chief economist of Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi, who said: “President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets.”

And now we can expect it to become as bad as it ever gets.

The agenda for the coming Administration has been published and widely circulated as “Project 2025.” The Heritage Foundation has laid out a chilling blueprint to radically transform our government and society by any means necessary, threatening the very foundations of our democracy. The 30-chapter, 920-page book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, presents a meticulously detailed, step-by-step guide for seizing control of every lever of Federal power. Read the damn thing and prepare to be terrified:

Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”

Read Here

This document explicitly outlines a detailed agenda for demolishing the democratic and public service institutions of our nation, with a comprehensive plan to consolidate all power in the person of a single individual. Not a mere President, but a King. An autocratic Dictator, Oligarch, Ceasar, Fuhrer, Emperor, “Dear Leader”…

And the person who has been chosen to sit the throne by slightly less than a third of the voting-age populace is a corrupt, decrepit, senile, illiterate, stupid, narcissistic, megalomanic, self-serving, mean-spirited, vengeful, lying, cheating, pants-shitting, pussy-grabbing rapist and convicted felon on 34 counts. Just the sort of leader that America—the most powerful country in the world—needs!

Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025 during the election because it is so obviously anti-American and anti-humanitarian. But now, after the election, he’s appointed the Heritage Foundation’s authors of “Project 2025” to his cabinet. These architects of doom already have executive orders and legislation in place for the following measures:

Project 2025 calls for removing water and air pollution regulations so corporations can do what they want despite the resulting dangerous health risks. It will dismantle most government agencies meant to protect our health and safety—including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Project 2025 also wants to eliminate the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS), which track the growing extreme weather conditions on Earth and in outer space to provide warnings for our power grid and to call for preparations and evacuations.

Project 2025 calls for restructuring the Center for Disease Control (CDC), cutting its funding and limiting it from issuing public health advice and alerts.

Project 2025 plans to restructure anti-trust enforcement to reduce the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) role in regulating corporate mergers and acquisitions, lessening regulatory hurdles for businesses seeking to consolidate.

Project 2025 plans to completely restructure and diminish The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which provides public health initiatives for disease prevention, health promotion, epidemic response and social support programs.

Project 2025 recommends cutting SNAP, which puts food in the mouths of young families and the elderly. It proposes to reduce funding to Free School Meals and to completely eliminate the Headstart Program, which offers childhood education, health and nutrition to low-income children and families.

Project 2025 recommends eliminating or curbing Social Security and eliminating or cutting back on Medicare, which will have widespread and disastrous consequences on healthcare access, financial security, and public health.

Project 2025 will remove the training and merit hiring criteria for government administrative positions. You will no longer need to be qualified for your job; you will simply have to be a crony of Trump or some future president.

Project 2025 will remove the independence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and place them under presidential control, creating a true police state.

Project 2025 calls for removing national educational guidelines for students and eliminating the Department of Education (DOE), which is charged with making education a national priority.

Project 2025 is planning on cutting all these important services that support middle America to pay for the proposed massive tax cuts for corporations and billionaires. There’s absolutely nothing in this plan for middle- or lower-class Americans. It’s about creating a DICTATOR state for one self-serving individual and making the very rich, even RICHER.

America is being turned into an authoritarian corporate oligarchy, ruled by and for the ultra-rich, with the sole driving force being the exploitation of everybody not in that exclusive group.

The first moves will probably be the revoking of the broadcast licenses of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN/MSNBC and National Public Radio (NPR) for broadcasting news stories unfavorable to Donald Trump in the recent past. Control of the national news media is essential to maintaining a dictatorship.

But with all of those nightmare scenarios, one aspect of the coming Administration hasn’t received nearly the attention it should. And that is the religious dimension.

The foundation of the whole right-wing Republican MAGA constituency is rooted in White Christian Nationalism, as expressed in Evangelical Christianity and Christian Dominionism. This is the religion of the entire Trump cult—voters, Congresspeople, and Supreme Court Justices. They maintain erroneously that the US was founded on Christian principles and that the Constitution is based on the Bible. They don’t believe in separation of church and state. And what they really want is for the US to become a white Christian theocracy ruled by Old Testament Biblical law, as in Leviticus (which we all should read!). In short, they think the Republic of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale is a utopian fantasy they want to live in.

Evangelical Christianity has a whole organization of propagandists called the “Wall Builders” preaching their revisionist history to the sheep. They’re very influential in Evangelical circles. Their program is outlined in a document called the Seven Mountain Mandate. This is a Dominionist conservative Christian movement within Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity, and particularly independent Charismatic groups. It holds that there are seven aspects of society that believers must seek to influence or dominate: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. Here are some excerpts from the entry on Wikipedia:

The movement is believed to have begun in 1975 with a message from God delivered to evangelicals Loren Cunningham, Bill Bright, and Francis Schaeffer ordering them to invade the “seven spheres” of society identified as family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. The idea was not seriously considered until 2000 during a meeting between Cunningham and Lance Wallnau. The movement came to prominence after the 2013 publication of Wallnau’s and Bill Johnson‘s Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate.

The movement was generally supportive of the presidency of Donald Trump, with member Paula White becoming Trump’s spiritual advisor. White claimed that Trump “will play a critical role in Armageddon as the United States stands alongside Israel in the battle against Islam.” In 2020, Charlie Kirk said, “finally we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence” during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

By using strategic spiritual warfare, adherents attempt to gain control of the seven mountains by researching and mapping the geographical strongholds of territorial spirits, using prophecy from the movement’s prophets to determine the demons’ names and roles, and intercession in which they pray on-site to rid the location or “mountain” of demons.

Followers believe that by fulfilling the Seven Mountain Mandate, they can establish the kingdom of God on Earth and bring about the End Times.

And the core of their agenda is an all-out “Holy War” to disenfranchise, subjugate and ultimately eliminate all other religions, spiritual pathways and practices in America, and eventually throughout the world.

Heading the Dominionist priorities list is the LGBYTQ+ community, for which they harbor a deep and abiding hatred. The next targets are the other monotheistic religions—Judaism and Islam. They have long hated Jews and Moslems for failing to embrace Jesus as the Messiah, and when Dominionist Christians come to power they persecute both Jews and Moslems. Indeed, as you might conclude, there is a strong Nazi element in their racism and misogyny.

But ultimately the greatest hatred of Dominionist/Evangelical Christian Nationalism is towards Pagans and Witches—which goes all the way back to the beginnings of Monotheism, with Moses and his “Ten Commandments,” and the injunction to “worship no other gods before me.” Exodus 22:18 demands “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The entire history of monotheism is a bloody record of religious warfare (“Holy Wars,” Crusades, Jihads…), massacres, genocides, pogroms, holocausts, and burnings at the stake.

For monotheists believe theirs is the “One True Right and Only Way,” and any others are by definition wrong. And being wrong they must be punished, converted, or exterminated. And that’s us, dear friends.

So far, we Pagans and Witches seem to have been flying under the radar of the MAGA-imperium. Perhaps they just consider us too insignificant to pay attention to. But there are now millions of us in this country alone—more here than the numbers of transgendered, Jews, Muslims, etc. whom they have already targeted. They know we’re here, so don’t expect that we will be ignored indefinitely. Eventually, when they’ve deported the immigrants and implemented the draconian Project 2025 agenda, they will come for us. And we need to be ready.

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” –Martin Niemöller, 1945[1]

[1] Martin Niemöller (1892-1984). He was ordained as a Lutheran pastor in 1924. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller became a critic of Hitler’s anti-Semitic actions and his attacks on the Protestant churches in Germany. Niemöller, along with other religious leaders, formed a resistance movement called the Confessional Church. Niemöller was arrested in 1937 and sent first to Sachsenhausen and then to Dachau concentration camp until he was liberated by the Allies in the spring of 1945. From 1961-1968 he served as President of the World Council of Churches. Martin Niemöller died in 1984.

I have been somewhat relieved to watch the Republican party tearing itself apart—between the lower-income MAGAts and the Elon Musk billionaires. And the utterly absurd, despicable and unqualified nominees that Trump insists on putting forward for Cabinet and other high-level positions. Both factions still hate us, but they may hate each other even more. So sit back, watch the show, and pass the popcorn!

Trump’s term will be a three ring circus full of retaliation, threats, insults, weaponizing the Justice system, firing people who don’t agree with him, spewing insane rambling unhinged crap on camera, all caps mental breakdowns on his social media, lying to his base, pressuring the Republicans to do as he says, lots of golfing, lots of grifting, nepotism, and lawbreaking.

There is also powerful opposition on the Democratic side to the whole MAGA Project 2025 agenda. While the Republicans do hold a majority in the Senate and the House, it is a very slim one. In the Senate, it’s 47 Democrats vs 53 Republicans. And in the House, it’s 215 Democrats vs 220 Republicans. Just as the Republicans during the Obama and Biden Presidencies declared their single goal to be thwarting the sitting Presidents’ agendas, so will the Democrats be dedicated to thwarting the MAGA agenda.

But I think that what may save us all will be the utter incompetence of Trump’s appointees for his Cabinet and other high-level positions. Most of these people have no qualifications, skills or experience for how to govern. And no understanding of their Departments and responsibilities. Their only job qualification seems to be their abject devotion and loyalty to Trump himself. And many of them seem to have significant moral failings—rapists, sex abusers, drunks, drug addicts, criminals… I draw hope that they will simply be incapable of implementing Trump’s stated goals—such as deporting 13 million immigrants who entered the country illegally (about 4% of the US population).

To say nothing of Trump’s plan to raise prices on all imported goods by imposing 20% tariffs—which would be paid by the consumers, many of whom elected him to bring down prices. How will they react when they realize they’ve been screwed?

“Trump and his advisors really don’t care whether the government they put together can function, because they have no motivations beyond personal power and profit. So they’re letting (?) Trump pick a group of dangerous incompetents who can’t do the job.

“Trump is obviously more interested in personal loyalty than experience or competence, but even then some of these choices make absolutely no sense. … The whole collection looks like it might be the result of Trump flipping through a deck of cards, the Republican version of Magic the Gathering dumb villains. Without the fun artwork.

“I’m at the point where politics as entertainment may be my only hope.” (-Beth Goldowitz on Quora)

I hereby propose and advocate a major campaign of Pagan outreach to other non-Christian (maybe just non-Evangelical?) religions and organizations to forge a significant alliance/coalition to stand against the right-wing  Evangelical/Dominionist/Christian Nationalist agenda outlined in Project 2025—to turn the US into a Christian theocracy (specifically Evangelical/Southern Baptist) which will have no room for anyone else.

I hereby appeal to major Pagan groups, Pagan Pride organizations and Pagan Festivals to reach out to Unitarians, Buddhists, Hindus, Afro-Caribbeans, Indians, Shinto, Atheists—even liberal Jews and Christians—as well as to the LGBTQ+ folks that we must unite to stand against the takeover by the Christian Nationalists that will outlaw all of us the way Hitler did with the Jews, Gypsies and gays. We may anticipate replays of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, the “Red Scare” McCarthy anti-communist hearings of 1950-’54 and the Fundamentalist Christian “Satanic Panic” of the early 1990s.

For coordinating local demonstrations, petitions and other actions, I would recommend all the Pagan Pride organizations around the country (many of which events I’ve attended). Since the Pride events are only for one weekend (or one day) a year, these would be the perfect coordinating agencies. Organizers could reach out to the diverse appropriate elements in their respective regions and invite them to participate in the next Pagan Pride event with booths, talks, workshops, panels, etc. Such coordinators might sponsor or become involved with local interfaith meetings as well.

On an individual and personal basis (for those of us who can get away with it), display Pagan bumper stickers and wear your Pagan jewelry and T-shirts proudly! Pentagrams, Mjolnirs, Ankhs, Triskelions, Goddess emblems—and be super-nice and friendly to everyone you meet! Be known as really good neighbors in your communities; join local associations, like School Boards, Chambers of Commerce, Elks and Oddfellows. Volunteer for soup kitchens, food and toy drives, cleanups, Big Brothers, senior centers, library reading times, etc. Smile at people in the grocery store and on the street and engage in friendly non-political conversation. Let the world see that we Pagans are nice, friendly, caring, kind, considerate and interesting people—not threatening or scary.

Rhiannon and I commonly wear nifty steampunk hats with kaleidoscope goggles whenever we go out in public. These are truly magickal—people always smile and say “I love your hats!” and begin conversations as if we’re old friends. We’ve never experienced the slightest negativity.

It’s all about establishing and spreading an overwhelmingly positive reputation for Pagans. Remember the 2^nd Law of Wizardry: “Reputation is power!”

I hereby make an appeal in the name of Gaia—our universal Mother. Let us evoke the popular mythos of forging a “rebel alliance” to oppose the tyrannical Empire and reference this theme in popular movies and TV shows, such as Robin Hood, Flash Gordon, Young Rebels, Star Wars, The Handmaid’s Tale, House of the Dragon, Mufasa…

And I hereby evoke the American Dream—a Vision of a “land of the free and home of the brave” with “Liberty and Justice for All;” that cherishes and derives strength from our diversity; an idealistic utopian country of immigrants where all people are welcome—especially refugees and the disenfranchised, as it says in the famous poem by Emma Lazarus on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

“…Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” [1]

In our appeals to other groups to stand together we may reference the many resistance movements active during WWII, such as the French Resistance, the Partisans in Yugoslavia, the “White Rose” student opposition movement, the Confessional Church in Germany, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising…

Blessed Be, and Never Thirst!

~Oberon Zell

[1] From “The New Colossus,” a sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World). In 1903, the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal’s lower level.

Part 1: By the Numbers

There is a great deal to be said regarding the recent national election that returned a despicable scumbag to the White House. Let’s start with the numbers:

The total population of the United States is about 345 million.

Approximately 245 million Americans were eligible to vote in the 2024 general election.

161.4 million people were registered to vote in the US in 2024 (only 66% of eligible voters).

83.6 million people who were legally eligible (34%) couldn’t be bothered to even register to vote.

153,860,442 (154 million) ballots were cast in 2024 (95% of registered voters; 63% of the voting-eligible population).

92 million Americans, or about 37.6% of the country’s voting-eligible population, did not vote in the 2024 general election.

22 million registered voters didn’t bother to vote (37.6% of eligible voters).

76,705,154 (77 million) people voted for Trump (31.3% of eligible voters).

74,153,671 (74 million) people voted for Harris (30.3% of eligible voters).

2 million voted for a third party (0.8% of eligible voters).

 So Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by only 1% of the popular votes. Even so, he only garnered 31.3% of the eligible votes—less than a third, since 37.6% didn’t vote at all. This means that over two thirds of the populace didn’t want him to be President! Less than a third of the American people chose a convicted felon, sexual predator and serial liar over a career prosecutor and lifelong public servant. Less than a third of the American people have given Trump license to have his remaining Federal indictments dropped, and possibly pardon the J-6 rioters and the Proud Boys.

Democrat White, Hispanic and Black men either voted for Trump or sat out this election because apparently they did not want a Black woman as president of this country.

The most common reason Trumpers themselves give for why they voted for him is: “He hates all the same people that I hate.” Trump tapped into the hatred and anger that many White male Americans had to keep in the closet for so long. Hatred of women. Hatred of colored people. Hatred of Jews. Hatred of Moslems. Hatred of “queers.” Hatred of anyone different than themselves. Trump openly mocks and insults those groups, and the drooling masses love it. Suddenly, they can go back to saying any damn thing they want, because the President does it, so why can’t they?

Trump is a felon, a criminal, a thug. So is his personal lawyer, his national security advisor, his foreign policy advisor, his chief strategist, his trade advisor, his campaign chairman, his deputy campaign manager, his campaign fixer and his company CFO.

Although the Electoral College with our winner-take-all policy for state electors (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska) handed Trump the Presidency, 31.3% is hardly a mandate to rule. Nonetheless, Trump claims such a mandate and has clearly stated his intention to rule as an absolute “dictator on day one,” pursuing a program not of governance and service, but of “retribution and revenge.”

The extreme right-wing MAGA Republicans now control all three branches of our National Government: Executive (the Presidency), Legislative (Congress: The Senate and the House of Representatives) and Judiciary (the Supreme Court). They now have all the power and wealth of our country.

As Peter Baker recorded in the New York Times, the country that President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration will leave behind when they leave office is in the best shape it’s been in since at least 2000.

No U.S. troops are fighting in foreign wars, murders have plummeted, deaths from drug overdoses have dropped sharply, undocumented immigration is below where it was when Trump left office, stocks have just had their best two years since the last century. The economy is growing, real wages are rising, inflation has fallen to close to its normal range, unemployment is at near-historic lows, and energy production is at historic highs. The economy has added more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs among the 16 million total created since 2020.

Baker quoted chief economist of Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi, who said: “President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets.”

And now we can expect it to become as bad as it ever gets.