John Burridge

I’ll confess that I watched the first two episodes of “Agatha All Along,” and now I’ve got the “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road (Sacred Chant Version)” playing in my head (written by Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez, the same folks who brought you “Let It Go” and other Frozen songs).

Storm Faerywolf's "The Satyr's Kiss: Queer men, Sex Magic, and Modern Witchcraft" is a queering of of Feri Wiccan theory and practice, and a queer presentation of sexually explicit ritual and spell craft. 

I purchased this book because I'd been impressed with Storm Faerywolf's other writings about how using a calendar and clock effectively would help with one's spiritual practices; because he identifies as a cis-male, gay, Neopagan; and because if I'm going to read a book about sex magic, it may as well be cis-male, gay Neopagan sex magic. 

Like Starhawk, Storm Faerywolf's spiritual practice is grounded in the American Feri Wicca tradition of Victor and Cora Anderson.   But this is a book that doesn't take itself too seriously; it's a casual book that wants to take you to a fabulously earthy brunch.  This book is not "The Spiral Dance," and Storm Faerywolf is not Starhawk.  Neither is this book "The Triumph of the Moon," and Faerywolf is not Ronald Hutton.  

"The Satyr's Kiss" is divided into a philosophy section and a praxis section. The philosophy section is part introduction to Feri Wicca, part queering of Wicca, part gay history, and part the basics of sex magic.  The praxis section is a collection of rituals and spells.  

I found the review of Feri Wicca's concept of the three-part soul—fetch, talking self, and divine soul—interesting, as well as the mapping of Oak King, Holly King, and holy daemon.  I did wish for more of an exploration into the history of the two kings and why Faerywolf chose to adapt them as apposed to, say, Cernunnos and The Green Man or a trio of gods instead of a duo.  The Feri iron pentacle meditation is introduced, along with a queer variant called the amethyst pentacle. 

Gay history, like much of the material in this book, is painted in broad strokes, which gives it a strong 101 feel.  It does allow Fairywolf to construct a ritual calendar which supplements the Pagan wheel of the year and which honors the lives and deaths of various queer luminaries, such as Harvey Milk and Matthew Shepherd, and events such as the Stonewall Riots.  

While acknowledging the author wanting to avoid Hay's NAMBLA advocacy, I think there is a missed opportunity to explore Harry Hay's concept of subject-subject consciousness, and his ideas behind founding the radical faeries.  Given the number of times the author (possibly at the guidance of the publisher) reminds his readers that any sex magic described in "The Satyr's Kiss" needs to happen between legally consenting adults and that neither he nor his publisher are responsible for the readers doing something stupid or unlawful, I can see why glossing over Hay could be the easier path to take. 

In the same vein, I felt that Oscar Wilde's representation as a late 1800's aesthete and the historical backlash to the aesthete could have been expanded and connected to the sections on other types of gay cis-men.  Both Hay and Wilde are listed as honored ancestors, which would have justified a deeper dive, but "The Satyr's Kiss" really only lists people in summary.  At least this is a good starting point for folks wishing to do deeper research into the lives and main events of the queer community.

Other parts of the philosophy section broadly tell the stories of gods, heroes, mythical creatures (e.g. unicorns), historical, and contemporary figures through a queer lens.  There's not much consultation or interpretation of archeological or historical records, which contributes to a "I read this on Wikipedia" feel.  I suppose the point isn't so much to provide provenance for the stories as it is to provide queer inspiration.

The philosophy behind the sections on sex magic could be summarized "...Sex is something that we should do / Sex is something for me and you / Sex is natural sex is good / Not everybody does it / But everybody should / Sex is natural, sex is fun..."  Fairywolf points out that queer folks, even the ones who aren't cis gay male ones, are sexual beings, and as magic practitioners we should be able to practice magic with every aspect of ourselves.  The three main premises of sex magic are 1) the physical mechanics of sexual and erotic acts produces an ecstatic trance state conducive to casting spells and other numinous actions; 2) orgasm is a liminal and numinous state, and 3) because bodies are sacred, semen—like blood, saliva, or menstrual fluids—is chock full of life force and therefore an efficacious component of rituals and spells.  (While there wasn't a gay male version of Starhawk's "Spell To Be Friends With Your Womb," which would have been "Spell To Be Friends With Your Prostate," there were some that came close.)

In addition to some practical and health advice about sex, I also appreciated the advice about practicing sex magic:  "Sex magic is fun and powerful, but it should't be an excuse for being careless with each other's emotions or for simply expanding one's circle of sexual partners.  As always, if you want to have an orgy, have an orgy.  If you need Witchcraft to give you permission for indulging in carnal pleasures, then you have some deeper personal work to do first."  

The praxis section is less a book of shadows and more a collection of rhymed stanzas and suggestions for performing magical acts, with varying degrees of auto- or group sex.  Fairywolf is broad and general with his descriptions in an attempt at universality and to avoid "arbitrary details."  l should confess that I am not the biggest fan of the author's poetry.  Some of it is fine as ritual litany; some of it could use another pass to address issues with the meter.  As the author often prefaces his ritual descriptions with instructions to alter or rewrite ritual to better fit one's personal tastes and ritual needs, this makes me want to treat the poetry more like suggested guidelines rather than sacred texts.

The conclusion of "The Satyr's Kiss" is a general overview of what a queer coven might look like, with examples from Fairywolf's coven, the Brotherhood of the Satyr, and how the ideas, spells, and rituals presented in the book might be used to realize it.  Fairywolf stresses the importance of boundaries and the differences between a coven and group therapy.  A brief list of resources concludes the book.  

The last few months have not been conducive to writing, but there's been a recent shift, and I'm hoping that the mental energy spent on various distractions and stressors will be available for more creative endeavors.  

Last week I went to a public outdoor ritual.  The organizers had done a lovely job putting out a circle of candles; light blazed from more candles set up on a long altar.   I was looking forward to it--even if I might have to use an umbrella--but the longer I stayed the more apparent the COVID masking and vaccination check protocols I thought were going to be followed weren't.

After some mental risk-evaluation gymnastics involving the number of unmasked folks there, their proximity, and the efficacy of my own mask, I thought I'd be able to stand on the far side of the circle from the unmasked.  Then an unmasked woman came up and handed me song lyrics, and someone else started perambulating the circle's boundary with his nose poking out over his mask and I realized I'd spend the entire time A) wondering if I was going to catch the omicron variant and pass it to my folks and, B) judging people instead of celebrating the station of the sun.

So I left.  

During the walk home, I wondered if I might have said something like, "Who do I show my proof of vaccination to?" or "Is this a masked event?"  I might have if I had recognized anyone else other than the ritual's leader.  The whole thing reminded me of a passage in Starhawk's "Truth or Dare," where women self-censor and have a Disney Ritual instead of something possibly deeper.

When I got home, there was a garden stake with a lit candle over one of the small tables I use as an outdoor altar set up in the center of the backyard circle.  It was like coming home to a sanctuary, and I spent a grateful moment enjoying the flickering flame.  

Presently, Mark (and the dog) came out; the setup was an outdoor bistro for his dinner.

I went in, attempted to write, and wound up making some edits on a various works-in-progress.

I spent much of the long New Year's Weekend reading "The Ancient Egyptian Netherworld Books," by Darnell and Darnell.  I've gotten through "The Book of Adoring Re in the West," and "The Book of the Hidden Chamber."  I'm about to start "The Book of Gates."  

So far this is a scholarly read.  It's not a book for a discussion of hieroglyphics because -- aside from the black and white line drawings of registers -- the various books are presented in their already-translated form, with occasional references written in linguist's pronunciation marks (so no ankhs here, just something like ꜣnḫ).  There's interesting parts in the translations of spells, hymns, and litanies... and I wish I had copies of the author's previous works, and the works of Eric Hornung and Theodor Abt because the footnotes keep referencing discussions between the texts of these authors in passing, and it's apparent that that's where the work of translation is being shown.  (It's like reading an X-men comic, and every other panel has an editor's note from Stan Lee saying, "see New Mutants #43" or "As in Secret Wars #4", which gives one a sense that there's much more context that one is missing from the provided dialog.)

Technically, the tri-part book of translations that I'd hoped for in my previous posting would be difficult to do:  finding complete versions on tomb walls or on the insides of sarcophagi is rare, and, in addition, there are different versions of the same texts.  (Pause to imagine a lost copy of the books going up in flames at Alexandria, except, even then the books would have been a thousand years old...)  So one would have to cobble together an "original version" from multiple sites and sources.  

One insight I have is that there are lots of passages about bound enemies, foreigners, and other conspirators with Apep, the serpent trying to oppose the solar regeneration.  There's tons of decapitations, and disintegrations, and flinging into lakes of fire, and general smiting and punishment; it's enough to make one wonder how sadistic and xenophobic the ancient Egyptians were.  On the other hand, it's part of Western ceremonial magic to consciously call up and neutralize the negative and chaotic aspects in one's spells in order to insure the efficacy of the operation -- these are usually visualized as gods, angels, or some other spirits, though, and not groups of people (pause to reflect on some of the more phobic writings of Dion Fortune...).  

As I was reading later, I came across a statement in one of the litanies:  "there is no part of my body that is not inhabited by a god!"  (This was after shocking the family by reading aloud how such-and-such a goddess was within the phallus of the spell-reciter.)  Later, in an introduction, the authors spoke about how the reciter and the god Re were consubstantial, which had a parallel existence of "Flesh," the mummified earthly body of a god, and the celestial Re going through the stations of the netherworld.   The first reminded me of all those Wiccan books from the eighties and nineties saying, "for a vision of the Goddess, turn to the woman next to you." The second reminded me of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  

When I shared with Mark that since 1450 BCE there's been nothing new in magico-religious thought, he just smiled and nodded.  

I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when I open a public library book and the scent of incense rises off of it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be dippy-hippy.   Sometimes this can be a good thing, but usually it isn't.  I'll admit, I'd checked out the book because of the author is a gay Wiccan, and I thought the writing would be good (or, in other words, address Wicca through the lens of sexual orientation and gender-bias).  Alas, it was a Wicca 101 book filled with vague references to any spiritual tradition you'd care to name and a lot of personal anecdotes.

I had an e-mail exchange with high school friend, the Reverend Amy Beltaine. We were talking about the latest gender politics thing, which has been going on for at lest twenty years, and I wrote: "I think it's useful to think of enclave vs. exclusion. Holding space in enclave with like-people make it easier to process certain things. Holding space in exclusion of others is a form of using gatherings as a weapon."

Amy asked to attribute me, and the next thing I know, there's a link in her missive to my blog. Which currently is about cats and shoulder-bags. And writing and my not-frequent-enough gym visitations.

"Oooh, gotta fix that," I thought... although (looks at blog statistics from last week) it's probably a little late for that now.

The idea comes from a series of thoughts on group dynamics that I formulated back in 1995 at Arcosanti. I was working with a series of symbols, and circle was one of them. The NeoPagan ritual circle of protection was the starting point for one train of thought. In its positive manifestation, the circle allows for an enclave and focus of people with similar experiences, desires, or goals to work together and process. In its negative manifestation, the circle is an excluding boundary that can lead to homogeneity and stasis. The challenge that circle lays before us is to become conscious of all of the boundaries in our lives so that we can dynamically balance safety and focus against discrimination and moribundity.

It's been rainy here the last two weeks or so. The up side of all the rain is that we're getting a lot of snow in the mountains, too. The down side is that the mornings have been socked in, so I haven't been able to see the string of five planets in the morning.

Over the holiday, I cleared off the top of my chest of drawers of all the hats and receipts and paper projects and spent batteries and spare change and and turned it into a kind of altar space. I've placed some tokens at the cardinal directions: an athame to the east, a green lava-lamp to the north-east, a shell to the west, crystals to the north, some Egyptian-themed boxes, and other assorted items. In the south is my gym pass... Against the north wall I put up a mini stand for my necklaces and pendants; I used to wear them more, and I'm hoping that having them out will remind me to wear them more often.

In the center is a finger labyrinth. It takes about fifteen seconds to run my finger through the course; usually I hum "Center of the Sun." While this isn't a full-blown ritual, which the rest of the family probably appreciates, I suppose it counts as a daily prayer.

I've fallen out of observing full moon and the stations of the sun with ritual... which comes with being a solitary. But being aware of the cycles of the seasons is sort of the point to Earth-based mystery religion... Now of course, while I'm thinking about it, there isn't enough room for Portable Stonehenge. Hmmm. If I re-arranged some of the boxes, I might have room for it. I'm sure having too many symbolic, ritual items on one's altar is a metaphor.

And don't forget the cat -- it's only a matter of time before Smokey decides that jumping up onto the chest of drawers is a good way to get us to spring out of bed and pick him up before he knocks something over.


Working Out: Went to the gym Saturday morning and opened the place up. Did my regular routine at my latest high weights (except the barbell curl), and I think I pulled my lats. On the plus side, when I clench my back, I'm just barely beginning to look like those guys with a V-shaped chest. I probably look U-shaped.

We're (more or less) halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox.  Traditionally, Lammas falls on August 1.  Astronomically, the day exactly between the times of equinox and solstice moves around and could be August 4... which it turns out is a different day when the sun is 11.75 degrees above the equator.

In agrarian times, this would have been the beginning of the harvesting season, the gathering of the first fruits and the baking of bread from newly harvested grain.

I like to think of this time of year as the season of the Hunter, the station of the wheel of the year between the Enchanter of the Summer Solstice and the Reaper of the Autumnal Equinox.  The Hunter's motto is: "I am the arrows and the target."   For me this is one of those times (along with the Winter Solstice) to take a look at targets and goals and remind myself that seeking them is supposed to be fun or at least something that feeds my soul (and kick myself in the pants to stop being lazy and get cracking!).

Some Relevant Links:

Sometimes I notice the beginnings of fat and loose skin flirting with making a fold under my chin, and I try to laugh it off by saying "Gobble-gobble-gobble."  It doesn't always work.


January 2014.   I'm not sure when, but Ronald Hutton replaced Starhawk as my go-to source on NeoPaganism.  I spent most of the Winter going through Hutton's "Pagan Britain," which wasn't as much of a source of of schadenfreude in terms of debunking various Neopagan origin stories as I had hoped, but was still an informative (if sometimes dry) read.  "Pagan Britain" was a recapitulation of an earlier work, which said "there's not much of an archaeological record of ancient or pre-historic Paganism; the record might support some ideas about worship and ritual, but there's little proof one way or the other -- so everyone's free to imagine whatever they'd like based on the artifacts we do have (and your theories are just as valid as your weird neighbor's)."

The first quarter of 2014, I took a sabbatical from the Wordos table.  I spent the Tuesday nights writing.  I'd visited Fort Vancouver, and used what I learned about the forge there to write a story for Sword and Sorceress.  Which...got rejected.


March 2014.  Turning Fifty officially began to bug me.  I felt like there was something I was doing wrong, or was forgetting to do, or needed to do.  Especially when my friends seemed to be getting published all over the place.


May 2014.  I discovered the painting of Wes Hemple.  Hempel manages to paint beefcake that's more than beefcake.  The nude or semi-nude male body is a powerful and subversive image, and he manages to make his paintings subversive with erotic overtones, while managing to not stray into explicit or gratuitous images.  Well, maybe a little gratuitous.

When I think about images of NeoPagan Deity I usually run across, the gods imagined are oiled up with a strategically placed vines or wolf pelts draped across their loins as they gaze out of the picture with smoldering bedroom eyes.  Or they're body builders, tattooed or artfully dirty, holding up animal horns to their brows and pouting like underwear models.  Or else they're about to perform The Great Rite  with a buxom, blonde, blue-eyed goddess.  And actually, I don't need to see depictions of two men performing The Great Rite because my spirituality is more than just a queer retelling of Heiros Gamos.   Hempel's paintings have embodied men navigating questions, they are working through something instead of being merely pleasing objects. 



June 2014.   Everything seemed to happen in June.  The month opened with the death of Jay Lake -- all of my social media networks turned into a memorial for him.  Jay was prolific, funny, crude, irreverent, erudite, and only six months older than I was.  I would have never thought when he appeared at my fortieth birthday party in 2004 that he would be dead ten years later.

I had a handful of crazy dreams afterward:  I had my feet whipped as penance for something, I lived in cardboard houses that were melting, I was battling a monster called "Pink Skull," and I woke up with the words, "I'm a fake," ringing in my ears.

I grumped about not having a mentor, and concluded that I'm semi-pro writer who writes lyrically, mythologically, queerly, deistically, sensually, imaginatively, romantically, and visually.   As much as I want my writing to live forever in letters of fire and to be the bane of English Graduates everywhere, I'm satisfied when the images in my head get into the reader's head.  

And then I wandered into the Joanna Russ Archive.  Suddenly, I could listen in on a conversation about gender, orientation, wishes, desire and exploring character that Ms. Russ was having thirty years ago.  And it was exhilarating.  She had linked Kirk and Spock as gay gods in the early 1980's.  She was reading and writing and thinking about essentialism and sex and everything.   Out of all of her writings, I added wishes, Fears, Knowledge, Experiences, and Desires as a useful lens for crafting stories. 

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My entry in the Penn Cove Literary Contest, "Before the Last Bloom Falls," was chosen as the winner for June.

In other writing news, I teamed up with a photographer friend of mine and we switched prompts:  she'd post a photo and I'd write a story to it; I'd post a story or vignette and she'd compose a photo with it.   At first we were doing a weekly cycle, but we switched to a month cycle.  It was a low pressure way to create about eleven rough drafts (two went through the Wordo's table) by the end of the year.


July 2014:  During a discussion of testosterone in older men, Mark essentially pointed at my sagging pectoral muscles and laughed.  In a fit of Capricorn pique, I joined a gym and started chanting explicit oaths under my breath as I worked out on various exercise machines.

I also designed and had 3-D printed two mugs -- er, sake cups -- er, jiggers -- out of ceramic material.  They are very cool, but they're Barbie sized.
August 2014.   Mark and I got legally married in a small courthouse marriage on top of the Lane County Courthouse roof.   We kept it small; my immediate family took pictures.  And nobody cried.  It marks how attitudes towards same-sex marriage have progressed, from Oregonian's amending the state constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman to the US Supreme Court striking down discrimination.   And now I can say "Mark is my husband," and it has a clear meaning.  I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to simply and clearly say to someone, "Mark is my husband."


September 2014.  In an effort to improve my performance, I got serious about blogging my progress writing and working out, and began posting word counts and work-out routines.  I got a simple word-count tracker, and was promptly appalled at how much I don't write; unfortunately, there's no good way to track editing manuscripts other than the amount of time I spend on them.    I managed to keep tracking up until about the first week of December.

As a result of keeping records, I sort of learned what I already knew:  going to bed late makes it harder to get up at 4:45 to write; changes in my routine make it harder to write; holidays make it harder to write; getting the Eugene crud (which the University and elementary students toss around) makes it harder to write.


Our friends, the Wylds, became the latest friends to move to the Portland area.  It's going to be strange without them, because they are one of the few folks Mark, The Child and I like to spend time with.


November 2014.  Maybe it was the post-Halloween sugar crash.  Maybe it was switching from Daylight Savings Time.  Maybe it was the reduction of light, but the first weeks of November were filled with Ennui.   Working out seems to help, and I seem to have shaken it off by the middle of the month.


December 2014.  I wrote and submitted some erotica; I was slightly relieved when it was rejected.  (Spell check had changed that to "slightly revealed," and writing and submitting erotica did feel like I was revealing a little too much.  I'm glad I wrote the piece, because it was good practice for revealing character ... oh dear, that's not coming out right at all... without getting distracted by all the eye-candy.)


I identified several dream images I've had, exploring the intersection of maleness, desire, and spirituality.  I want to work with them and see if writing them into story helps me to discover anything.  About the same time, I tried meditating on the dream images as I work out on the rowing machine; I'm at the beginning stage, but I think once I get used to holding images in my head (while maintaining a 750 calories per hour rowing rate or better), I should be able to use the fifteen minutes as a kind of work-out vision quest.   Or something.


We celebrated my fiftieth birthday with a dance party.  Mark arranged it all, and I collected four hours' worth of (mostly) 1980's dance music.  And danced all of it.  My back and abdomen are still sore a week later. 

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When I think about 2014, it feels like the year where I'm trying to stay focused.  If I can stay focused, I'll be -- OH! Squirrel!  

March 2012.  Ursula K Le Guin came and spoke at the Eugene Library.  It's always refreshing to hear her speak because she's clear and passionate.

April 2012.  After a period where I was conducting tasseomancy, and Tweeting what the tea and milk swirling in my tea cup said, one of my friends commented that I was always taking a Rorschach Test.  That's an apt metaphor for how I think.

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This was the year that I started playing with Blender (again), a three-dimensional rendering engine, and InkScape, a graphic design program.  In addition to creating a scarab on a 3D-printer and playing around with a Silhouette plotter-cutter, I continued to play with geometric designs and zellij, with the end result being a Café John logo.



I should explain that Café John is what I imagine our back yard could be like if I only had wait staff to bring me scones and tea.   The idea is that I'm writing at a nice table, with linens, and a comfy chair, outside.  Not only am I writing, but I'm a fabulous writer.  With tea.  The reality is that the snacks get cold, or the wasps want the cucumber sandwiches, or the neighbors start using a leaf-blower, or the sun becomes unbearably hot.  And then I notice detritus around the yard that makes me mutter, "Great Moments in White Trash," and the illusion of glamour is broken.  Which requires more tea, and probably some chocolate as well.

Part of the allure of Café John is that it would be nice if I could host a symposium on ancient archaeology as it impacts theories of NeoPaganism and modern constructs of shamanism, or Steampunk and Masculinity, or even a presentation of airship songs of the early 1900's, that would be so great.  But somehow, instead of being Scheherazade hosting an erudite party, it's usually just me, trying to write or edit.

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• If I'm Doing the Coven Thing, then I can't be writing (and I'm supposed to be doing the Writing Thing (and the Job Thing and the Parent Thing, and the Spouse Thing).  
• A growing sense that the everyone wanted to go to Place A (or possibly Places C, D, E and F), but I wanted to go to Place B. 
• The feeling that getting to Place Close-Enough-To-B-And-To-A would require more effort than I could give, and turn me into a nag in the process.... not to mention leave me unsatisfied that I'm not going to Actual-Place-B.
• Which makes rituals feel forced.
• Wanting to experience Numinous Moments within a Group Context, and worrying that it put an unrealistic burden on everyone.
• Fretting that wanting to experience Numinous Moments was a kind of spiritual addiction.  
• The realization that maybe I'm in an Old Curmudgeon Mode, and while the concept of group spiritual practice seems nice, the reality may be that I'd rather do it alone.  

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November 2012.  My short story, "Reset Romance," was chosen for publication by On the Premises.  The premise was "Time."  I'd written this story shortly after watching the reboot of Star Trek.  I was annoyed by "red matter" and the resetting of timelines in the movie, and turned that into a story about a married, time traveling couple.

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2012 was a utilitarian year, I guess.  Looking back, it seemed like I was plugging along, writing, getting manuscript rejections, and designing graphic things when I wasn't writing.  And failing to make a group Neo-Pagan practice work.  

Between Hutton and some Queer Pagan Theory from 2011 I've just recently read, I've been revisiting gay male NeoPaganism.

This is a note to myself to read the following.


http://enfolding.org/jottings-queer-pagans-or-queering-paganisms/

Seems to say queer paganism should be a process, not a destination, and uses words like "praxis."  I found the other links by web-walking through the enfolding.org site.


http://enfolding.org/issues-with-the-gender-binary-in-public-paganism/

OMG!  The quote from Z Budapest is... just... wow.


http://enfolding.org/are-there-queer-pagan-mysteries/

http://enfolding.org/jottings-on-queering-deity/

http://enfolding.org/book-review-sex-before-sexuality/

http://enfolding.org/pagan-paths-for-a-gay-man-wicca-or-druidry/

I finished Hutton's Pagan Britain last night.  I'm still processing it.  As a NeoPagan, I started Pagan Britain with the expectation that myths about its historical pedigrees would be debunked.  This happened, but not to the extent that I thought (and secretly hoped) it might (in a Cynthia Eller kind of way).  It's more-or-less a continuation and updating of earlier works published by Hutton (The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles; Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination; Stations of the Sun: a History of the Ritual Year in Britain; The Triumph of the Moon; Blood and Mistletoe: the History of the Druids in Britain; and Witches, Druids, and King Arthur).  I'd place it with Pagan Religions and Shamans because of its dry runs of archeological case-studies, and include Blood and Mistletoe because it references that work a lot.

The final pages of the book argue for a subjective, both-and interpretation of the history of Paganism in Britain.  That is to say, as long as the record specifically does not disprove a particular interpretation (and he would argue, for example, that the record disproves the construction of Stonehenge by extraterrestrials), our historical knowledge, imagination, and wonder are better served by allowing individuals the ability to choose which interpretive narrative of the archeological record appeals to them the most, as long as they recognize that their historical narrative is one of several, equally plausible (though not necessarily equally probable) historical narratives.