Article Added On: March 23, 2009 - over 2 years ago
Title: The mysterious world of pagans has many doors
Original URL: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/mysterious+world+pagans+many+doors/1411538/story.html
Author: AL KRATINA
Publication: Montreal Gazette
Publication Date: March 20, 2009 - over 2 years ago
Faith Groups: Pagan
Themes: other

Abstract: Montreal has a wealth of courses and activities that explore alternative spirituality, magic and meditation.

The search for knowledge is considered to be among the noblest of pursuits.

But in much of the Western world, the knowledge pursued often centres on viral marketing strategies and Perezhilton.com rather than more esoteric subjects like crystal healing, shamanism, and turning lead into gold.

Montreal does, however, have a wealth of courses and activities that explore alternative spirituality, magic and meditation.

An excellent starting point in alternative spirituality is the Montreal Pagan Resource Centre.

“We keep track of what events are going on in the city, public rituals, or workshops, or lectures,” says the centre’s head, John David Hickey, whom I last saw at a Yule ritual, sipping cider from a foot long horn while dramatizing Norse legends. “We’re kind of like the public face of paganism in Montreal.”

Paganism is a blanket term encompassing a variety of spiritual practices outside the major Abrahamic and Eastern religions. While various pagan groups define the term differently, Robin Stroll and Scarlet Jory, two managers at downtown occult shop Mélange Magique, agree that paganism is a form of alternative spirituality that exists in harmony with nature.

“It’s a reverence for nature, and the natural cycles of life and the world,” Stroll says. “Under the umbrella term pagan, you have Wiccans, druids, Asatru…” says Jory, who has been researching paganism for 20 years.

“There are many different versions of paganism. Many different ways of expressing your respect, embracing nature and the natural cycle of things.”

The resource centre, located at Mélange Magique, has an extensive lending library and is staffed by volunteers happy to answer questions. Discussion groups are held on the first Thursday of every month. The next talk, to be held the evening of April 2, is about the powers of divination.

Other groups also put on a steady stream of workshops at Mélange Magique:

Spellcraft 101, a love magic class, a moon magic class, an introduction to using stones in your spells and crystal healing are some of the topics, says Stroll, a practicing pagan for the last 15 years.

And classes related to pagan studies are not unique to downtown Montreal.

In Dorval, workshops are held at Avalon Naturel, a small spiritual centre that smells comfortingly of incense and old manuscripts, like a bookmobile parked at Burning Man.

Avalon holds women’s discussion groups, and classes in meditation, yoga, altar creation and, strangely, ninjutsu, the Japanese art of very quietly kicking people in the spinal column.

“We have to be balanced (with) mind, body, and spirit,” laughs Young. “Obviously, that’s the body.”

A structured learning experience is available at The Crescent Moon School of Magic and Paganism, a non-denominational educational facility created and run by Jory, who was introduced to Paganism after a teacher at her Catholic high school suggested she research her Celtic roots. “As far as she was concerned, god is god by whatever name you give it,” says Jory, about the potential conflict between a Catholic education and pagan spirituality.

Jory opened the school in 1995. It is has a four-level curriculum that focuses on a variety of spiritual practices such as Wicca, Celtic spirituality and German folk magic. “We don’t tell (students) you have to believe this god and this goddess,” Jory says. “We give them a variety of tools, and they use them to create their own path.”

A particularly well-defined path can be found at the Horus Temple, a Montreal chapter of the Order of the Golden Dawn, a society founded in 1888 in London by three Freemasons to explore philosophical and magical teachings.

Since its founding, the Golden Dawn has a long and storied history, full of intrigue, frequent sectarian divisions, and the kind of secrecy that fuels conspiracy theories about how the Denver International Airport is a secret Masonic bunker.

“It’s not so much a secret society as it is a society with secrets,” says Martin Thibeault, who founded the Horus Temple in 2001, and, as Imperator, guides the temple’s spiritual direction.

“We do render ourselves available for those who wish to join, (but) it’s what we teach that we keep secret.”

The order has a series of grades that can take decades to master, with the ultimate goal being to “provide the individual with tools or a universe of symbols to assist them with… living in harmony with everything that is universal and true,” Thibeault says.

This truth, he says, can be glimpsed in a variety of religions and traditions, all of which inform the teachings of the Golden Dawn.

“It’s a system of spirituality that involves expounding on the Western mystery traditions … everything from Greek mythology to Egyptian gods and goddesses, pantheons, the Kabballah,” says Thibeault, impeccably dressed in the sharp suit of a diplomat. “Alchemy plays an important role in Golden Dawn, definitely ceremonial magic, the medieval grimoires, astrology, the Tarot, geomancy,” he continues, rattling off a litany of subjects that 50 years ago might have been associated less with a journey of self-discovery than an attempt to conceive Rosemary’s baby.

But knowledge is knowledge, and the Golden Dawn is only one of many paths to enlightenment.

“There are no systems that are, in my opinion, better than others. They’re just different,” Thibeault says.