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Seriously? Evangelicals? At Paganicon?

Now there's something you don't see every day, Chauncey.

Well, I didn't actually see them myself, but I heard the stories.

A couple of guys with that indefinable sense of not-quite-belonging buy day passes to Paganicon 2025. Then, name-tags on lanyards around their necks, they proceed to wonder around, tourist-wise, staring and asking off-the-wall questions.

Well, as a people, pagans value hospitality highly. If non-pagans want to give us their good green non-pagan money for the privilege of hanging around us, so be it.

I heard from the folks at the Sweetwood Temenos Hospitality Suite that the duo stopped in, and wanted to hear in particular about the Sweetwood clothing-optional policy, and the fact that children might be present. One can easily see what their dirty little minds would make of this. To the impure, all things are impure.

Apparently there were no major breaches of hospitality—guests have responsibilities, too—until they came across the Minnesota Satanists' Hospitality Suite. There they barged in with, so to speak, Bibles blazing.

The Satanists threw them out, called Security, and bye-bye fundies.

No refund, either.

(I hear that they caused some disruption at the Pagans of Color Suite as well, but don't know any specifics.)

Doubtless there will be write-ups in the Dysangelical* press about evil, child-molesting Satanist pagans. Nazzes are nothing if not predictable.

Realistically, we can expect more arrogance of the same intrusive sort in the near future. Since the last election, conservative Christians see themselves in cultural ascendancy, with an eye to legislated religion and eventual American theocracy.

The guy coming toward me on the sidewalk is clearly not pagan.

“Hey, your skirt is torn,” he ingenouses, friendly-wise.

Well, he's half-right. My Utilikilt opens over the leg. In this breeze, with a cooler hefted up onto my shoulder, I'm probably showing a little more thigh than is generally considered polite.

“I hate it when that happens,” I ingenouse back.

He gives me the eye-over: boots, kilt, petroglyph hoodie, torc, baseball cap. Standard-issue pagan festival dress.

“You here with a group?” he asks.

“Convention,” I say.

“Which one?” he asks.

Oh well: in for a penny, in for a pound. I set down the cooler.

“Paganicon,” I say.

“Spell that?” he asks.

“P-A-G-A-N-I-C-O-N,” I say. “It's a pagan convention.”

“Oh,” he says, not unfriendly. “Are you guys, like, devil-worshipers or something?”

Oh gods. Time for a little public relations management.

“More like Nature-worshipers,” I say, gesturing toward the woods across the street.

“So 'pagan' means 'worshiper'?” he asks.

A favorable omen: he's listening and thinking, both.

“Actually, it comes from a Latin word that means 'country,'” I answer. “Back when the New Religion came, the cities converted first. Meanwhile, out in the country, we were still sacrificing to Zeus.”

He looks thoughtful.

“Do you worship Zeus?” he asks.

“Not personally,” I say, “but I know folks that do.”

He quirks his head.

“But Zeus doesn't exist,” he says.

“Depends on what you mean by Zeus,” I reply. “To the people I know, it's just another word for Heaven.”

There's a pause. Time to redirect.

At the Astragalomancy Workshop

(Blows horn.)

Sure beats “May I have your attention, please?”, doesn't it?

(Laughter.)

So, welcome to Paganistan. My name is Steven Posch, and this is the workshop on astragalomancy. Long ago, in the dawn of days, the Horned, God of Witches, gave us the bones, and taught us how to read them.

This is a sacred knowledge, and so we'll begin our sacred work today in a sacred way. But first, some demographics.

How many witches here today?

(Voice from crowd:)

By whose definition?

(Laughter.)

Well, by yours, of course!

(Show of hands.)

Well, to all of you, whatever your pagan tribe: welcome, and a thousand times welcome.

So, members of the tribe and guests of the tribe both, let us together take up our sacred work today. Could I have a volunteer? (Show of hands.) Yes, you, thanks.

Robert Cochrane, the Father of the modern Old Craft movement, once said: “There is no true religion without fire.” (Gestures toward lighted candle.) This Fire has burned continuously for nearly 40 years at the Temple of the Moon here in Minneapolis.

Oh, and another thing: never ask an oracle—and especially not the Bones—readily falsifiable questions. That's not what they're for, and it shows deep disrespect.

Say you ask...

(Puts hand behind back)

“How many fingers am I holding up behind my back?”

(Brings hand from behind back, showing three fingers raised)

...and then you throw the Bones to see whether or not they get it right.

Assuming they even deign to answer—and they may just tell you, in effect, to go f*ck yourself—you'll get “One,” you'll get “Two,” you'll get “Four,” you'll get “Five.”

Will you ever get “Three”? No, you won't. Not ever.

Remember, this is the oracle of the Horned, god of witches, and—you'll pardon my Anglo-Saxon—he's a bigger f*cker than anybody.

So a rede to the Wise: don't f*ck with the Bones, and they won't f*ck with you, OK?

Seriously, Posch?

Next month at Paganicon 2025, you'll be teaching a class in astragalomancy: divination by knucklebones?

What the Bones Said: How to Cast and Read the Knucklebones

Long ago, in the dawn of days, the Horned gave us the bones and taught us how to read them.

Here's how.

Paganicon 2025

Friday, March 21 – Sunday, March 23

You mean to say that you're giving a workshop, and yet there will be no stack of new, ready-for-signing books on astragalomancy?

No do-it-yourself read-the-bones kits?

No faux-leather carrying pouches?

No cast-resin whitetail “knucklebones”?

No cotton “linen-style” casting-cloths?

You're giving a workshop, and you're not selling anything?

Anything at all?

OK, we're going to throw the bones in order to determine the god's will in a given matter, but first we have to give the bones a ground.

The ground is always either circular or square. Can anyone tell me why?

Good: it's a horizon, a world in microcosm. The horizon is a circle, and the square marks out the four directions. Circle and square are analogous: the circle is a curvilinear square, the square a rectilinear circle.

(Incidentally: these days people mostly cast circles, but back in the days of our people's wandering—nomads don't have fixed holy-places, mostly—our temporary sanctuaries were square.)

So, we begin by spreading out the casting-cloth on the ground. The casting-cloth is square and woven of linen. Why linen? Anyone?

Good: it's the ancestral fabric. Wool would be the other good option here, but with linen and the bones we have both Plant and Animal: Red God and Green, the Horned and his Twin. Wool or linen, though, we're talking Web of Wyrd imagery here, right? The weaving of Fate? Of course, that's something that's intrinsic to our divination.

(In days before weaving, I suppose you'd have used an animal skin, but of course it would need to be the whole skin of a small animal, not something cut from a larger hide, right? Be thinking about why that might be, and what animal you'd want to use; we'll discuss it further next time.)

So, you lay out the casting-cloth. If we were outside, we'd align it with the corners pointing to the four directions, but since we're indoors, we align it with the corners pointing to the four walls.

Can anyone tell me why we lay it out like this, instead of with the four sides of the cloth parallel to the walls?

An Introduction to Astragalomancy

Paganicon 2025

At the upcoming Paganicon 2025, I'll be teaching a workshop in Astragalomancy: divination by the casting of knucklebones.

As divinatory systems go, one could characterize this one as quick and deep. I can (and will) teach you the basics of the Bones in five minutes.

So what do I plan to do with the remaining 55 minutes of the workshop? Easily told.

Context, context, context.

In the waking time between first and second sleeps, I lie abed alert, drawing up the story arc of the forthcoming workshop.

In so doing, I come to the heart of the Old Ways.

What is that, you ask?

Listen, and I'll tell you.

The Horned speaks in many ways, but perhaps most clearly through the Bones.

(They come, after all, from His own Body.)

Who is the Horned? The God of Witches.

Who are the Tribe of Witches? The People of the Horned.

Listen, and I'll tell you.

It's paradigmatically Neo-Pagan behavior to rip gods, practices, and concepts from their cultural contexts and claim them for our own, we whose natal gods, practices, and concepts were torn from us long ago.

Behold: the violated becoming, in turn, the violator.

This we do even though, in so doing, we strip said gods, practices, and concepts from that which makes them truly pagan.

Behold, I will tell you all of paganism in three words.