Soul-based Wizards, who are inherently suited to manifesting common Creation, have difficulty adapting or conforming to ANY dogmatic form of religion or spiritual worship or expression. This leaves a lot of Wizards with their tails hanging in the wind; as they cannot claim allegiance to dogma, nor can they claim individual gnosticism or deital delineation, so it seems that their only choice - given the alternatives - is to claim to believe in NOTHING.

No Wizard is truly comfortable with this concept. Wizards, like all Humans, can not help but to seek some deeper meaning, some "rhyme and reason" that accounts for life and allows a pattern to be revealed that allows Humanity to interact with Creation, rather than be subservient to it.

Wizards cannot live without some sense of Purpose in their lives. To be without Purpose is to be without meaning. To be without meaning is to be without substance. Without substance, we do not exist. Wizards seek spiritual substance, and are often confronted with the dilemma of facing religions that appear to offer Spirit without substance, or substance without Spirit.

There are "alternative" religions in the twentieth-century that have survived very well, primarily because of their emphasis on the "Goddess-aspect". The goddess, or feminine energy, has truly been long overdue, but it is my belief that modern religions have taken the opportunity to use the same energy of anger that has already been present to replace an angry male god with an angry female god.

I, for one, am ready to dispense with anger altogether — it didn't help the patriarchal societies - why, then, should we believe that to replace an angry patriarch with an angry matriarch will serve any more noble Purpose?

Anger is anger - is it any more attractive whether it's masculine or feminine?

Yet, we are still faced with a crisis of "spiritually homeless" Wizards. One of the FEW observations I do appreciate about religion in general is that it DOES give a collective group of people an opportunity to come together and to unite under the umbrella of Humanity. Yet, this becomes a farce when people are not allowed to focus upon their own expression, and their own singular sense of identification with Spirit.

The integrity of religion, or spirituality, is destroyed when "leaders" become crystallized, and instead of being a voice of the people, become the voice for the people, so that the people are lost, but the voice remains.

Those leaders are the ones who get lost, and begin to believe that they speak for the deities, rather than TO the deities for the people.

I, for one, do not believe in deities at all.

Earth religions claim to worship the Earth. I don't see how it serves the Earth to divide Mankind. When humans start to segregate groups of humans or animals - or gods - or sexes - based on hierarchical Divinity - they perpetuate the process of division that Humanity already resents under the organized, conventional religions.
 

There is a flaw, in my opinion, in the fact that people attempt to revive "dead" or ancient religions and to keep those religions intact, considering that those religions were created and consecrated at a minimum of 1,000 years ago - when cultural forms and mindsets were completely different. ANY religion should encompass Spirit rather than form.

In the 20th century, for example, it is a little pretentious (at the least) for someone to put on a robe, gather berries, and call themselves a Druid. Druidism is a philosophy and way of life, not a ritual. Druids did practice rituals, but they were the rituals of Universal Magic - not some obscure form of the Rocky Horror Time Warp. Those rituals are still available today - they are channeled directly from Spirit, and not through so-called Priests. The Druids of old believed in Universal Knowledge, and believed that Spirit was available as a Well of Knowledge - to be drawn by anyone - anyone! - who stood receptive to their Higher Selves. They didn't need Priests or Shamans to give expression to - or define - Spirit.

The purpose of Priests and Shamans was to speak for the mass of Humanity to Spirit. The Shamans channeled UPWARD, rather than downward or inward. Because of the "chasm" of Man and Spirit, the Shaman stood as the voice of the People - but the energy of Spirit was accessed directly by every member of the "coven". In other words, Spirit did not discriminate who "heard" Spirit. The Shaman served purpose by incorporating the Conscious Will of the Group and radiating that to Spirit - and back to Humanity.

No religion... NO form of spiritual expression should have any taint of FASHION incorporate into its practice or expression. Too many spiritual groups today are exclusionary, didactic, and just plain snobbish - antithetical to the true spiritualism that every Man, and Wizards in particular, seeks.

Wizards believe in expressing for the Whole... It goes against their nature to segregate into elitism. Wizards also inherently believe in the power of the One. It becomes the task of Humanity to understand that the power of One resides in every human. When we understand that we are equal parts of the Creator, it will become easier to create. What will be gone is the illusion of separativeness.

We ALL create; Wizards are the ones who manifest. They MUST respond to the group, and are not separate. Churches, and religions, must learn to recognize that is the people that make the church - the church does NOT make the people.

For those isolated, individual and "solitary" Wizards... There is no such thing as a solitary Wizard - a solitary Wizard is a lonely Wizard, exiled from his people, and exiled from his Purpose. A solitary Wizard is one who is not working through people, but around them.

There is another way.

The individual Wizards must learn to consolidate the mass around him. Wizards can set the example by learning their own individual spiritual expression. It's not as "easy" as trying to find a group with truly universal beliefs, but it helps establish the chain-reaction that will allow ALL of Humanity to help define their own individual spiritual expression. Perhaps the groups should come to the individuals, rather than the other way around.

Wizards would do well to focus on Universal Thought, and to ask to integrate the Divine energies that supersede the importance of the forms of Men. The forms of men have no importance when they are not overshadowed by Light. Wizards, at this time, can help destroy crystallizations of frozen thought forms by radiating Light to any situation that reeks of stagnance, repression, or obscurity.

Wizards grease the wheels that run the Universe. That "grease" is defined by a sense of Purpose. Wizards MUST have a sense of Purpose, and cannot do so unless they claim the power of Love. When Wizards can apply Love to themselves as well as to others and the world around them, they gain the power of the Stars to bring that energy in to themselves and to Earth.

It is the Wizards who must bring in the energy of Universalism. It will begin when each Wizard recognizes himself as a Universal Being. The Wizard will then seek to make that knowledge (consciously or unconsciously) an emotional focal-point in all of his relationships. THAT is what will truly precipitate the appearance of the Age of Aquarius.

Love, Galadriel
10/19/2003
Druidry/universe.htm