Categories | Neopagan |
---|---|
Frequency | Quarterly |
Publisher | Church of All Worlds, Inc. |
Founder | Oberon Zell-Ravenheart |
Founded | 1968 |
First issue | 1968 |
Final issue | 2007 (continued online) |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Website | greeneggmagazine |
Green Egg is a Neopagan magazine published by the Church of All Worlds intermittently since 1968. The Encyclopedia of American Religions described it as a significant periodical.
Green Egg was created by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, who was the editor from 1968 to 1974. It started as a one-page ditto sheet. It continued under another editor for two more years, by which point it had grown over 80 issues into a 60-page journal. According to J. Gordon Melton in the Encyclopedia of American Religions, it became "the most significant periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970s and made Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, its editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism". [1] It became dormant in 1976.
Margot Adler's sociological study Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today was first published in 1979, shortly after the first incarnation of Green Egg ceased. (Adler's work was revised and updated in 1986, 1996, and 2006.) Adler used Green Egg as one of the main ways of distributing her survey, and received hundreds of responses from its readers. Drawing Down the Moon repeatedly refers to Green Egg as formative in modern American Paganism. "It took a catalyst to create a sense of collectivity around the word Pagan, and in the United States the Church of All Worlds and its Green Egg filled this role." The magazine created a communication network (in pre-internet days) among the many earth religions that were coming into being. Adler was impressed by the "free-ranging and diverse" views found in its pages, commenting that, "There was less common ground assumed in Green Egg than in any other publication I had ever seen." It was highly synergistic, bringing together hundreds of groups and ideas for debate in print, covering subjects relating to "ecology, ethics, tribalism, magic, science fiction, and the relationship of human beings to the planet". Adler reports that some Pagans told her in the late 1970s that they were glad of its demise, because there would be less bickering between various factions. She, however, judged it "key to the movement's vitality". [2]
Rosemary Ellen Guiley states in The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca that it was Zell's two wives, Morning Glory Zell and Diane Darling, who revived Green Egg at Beltane 1988. Morning Glory is credited with coining the term "polyamory", in an essay in Green Egg entitled "A Bouquet of Lovers". [3] Once more it took its place as "a leading Pagan journal", according to Adler. Eventually Darling left, Zell-Ravenheart was ousted,[ citation needed ] and the magazine—thriving until 2001—folded again.
In March 2007, Green Egg was restarted as an ezine, available online at greeneggemagazine.com. In 2008, an anthology of art and articles was published, entitled Green Egg Omelette. [4] In 2013, Green Egg announced a print on demand service, and was digitising its back catalog. [5]
Oberon (formerly Otter) and Morning Glory Zell were the subjects of the book The Wizard and the Witch: Seven Decades of Counterculture, Magick & Paganism (2014), which includes a fuller story of Green Egg and the Church of All Worlds. [6]
In January 2015, Monserrat and Donohue retired.[ citation needed ]
In spring 2020, Church of All Worlds resume online publication of Green Egg Magazine under the direction of Rev. Alder Moonoak. [7]
Wicca, also known as "The Craft", is a modern pagan, syncretic, earth-centered religion. Considered a new religious movement by scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esotericism, developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for theological and ritual purposes. Doreen Valiente joined Gardner in the 1950s, further building Wicca's liturgical tradition of beliefs, principles, and practices, disseminated through published books as well as secret written and oral teachings passed along to initiates.
The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by a range of modern pagans, marking the year's chief solar events and the midpoints between them. British neopagans crafted the Wheel of the Year in the mid-20th century, combining the four solar events marked by many European peoples, with the four seasonal festivals celebrated by Insular Celtic peoples. Different paths of modern Paganism may vary regarding the precise timing of each celebration, based on such distinctions as the lunar phase and geographic hemisphere.
The Church of All Worlds (CAW) is an American Neopagan religious group whose stated mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaia and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and evolving consciousness. It is based in Cotati, California.
Alexandrian Wicca or Alexandrian Witchcraft is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Alexandrian Wicca is similar in many ways to Gardnerian Wicca, and receives regular mention in books on Wicca as one of the religion's most widely recognised traditions.
Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today is a sociological study of contemporary Paganism in the United States written by the American Wiccan and journalist Margot Adler. First published in 1979 by Viking Press, it was later republished in a revised and expanded edition by Beacon Press in 1986, with third and fourth revised editions being brought out by Penguin Books in 1996 and then 2006 respectively.
Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, born as Diana Moore, subsequently known as Morning Glory Ferns, Morning Glory Zell and briefly Morning G'Zell, was an American community leader, author, and lecturer in Neopaganism, as well as a priestess of the Church of All Worlds. An advocate of polyamory, she is credited with coining the word. With her husband Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, she designed deity images.
Leo Martello was an American Wiccan priest, gay rights activist, and author. He was a founding member of the Strega Tradition, a form of the modern Pagan new religious movement of Wicca which drew upon his own Italian heritage. During his lifetime he published a number of books on such esoteric subjects as Wicca, astrology, and tarot reading.
Harvest was an American Neopagan magazine, published eight times a year between 1980 and 1992.
Polytheistic reconstructionism is an approach to modern paganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, which gathered momentum starting in the 1990s. Reconstructionism attempts to re-establish genuine polytheistic religions in the modern world through a rediscovery of the rituals, practices and contextual worldviews of pre-Christian pagan religions. This method stands in contrast with other neopagan syncretic movements like Wicca, and ecstatic/esoteric movements like Germanic mysticism or Theosophy.
The Church and School of Wicca was founded by Gavin Frost and Yvonne Frost in 1968. It was the first federally recognized Church of the religion known as Wicca in the United States. It is known for its correspondence courses on the Frosts' unique interpretation of Wicca. The Church and School are located in Beckley, West Virginia.
Reclaiming is a tradition in neopagan witchcraft, aiming to combine the Goddess movement with feminism and political activism. Reclaiming was founded in 1979, in the context of the Reclaiming Collective (1978–1997), by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk and Diane Baker, in order to explore and develop feminist Neopagan emancipatory rituals.
M. Macha NightMare is an American Neopagan witch. She was born in Milford, Connecticut and was one of the founders of the Reclaiming Collective in the 1970s.
Oberon Zell is a Neopagan writer, speaker and religious leader. He is the co-founder of the Church of All Worlds.
Modern paganism in the United States is represented by widely different movements and organizations. The largest modern pagan religious movement is Wicca, followed by Neodruidism. Both of these religions or spiritual paths were introduced during the 1950s and 1960s from Great Britain. Germanic Neopaganism and Kemetism appeared in the US in the early 1970s. Hellenic Neopaganism appeared in the 1990s.
Edward Fitch was an American occult author and a High Priest of the Gardnerian Wicca tradition, and was a leading figure in the rise of contemporary Wicca and Neo-Paganism in America. He previously lived in Austin, Texas.
Neopagan witchcraft, sometimes referred to as The Craft, is an umbrella term for some neo-pagan traditions that include the practice of magic. These traditions began in the mid-20th century, and many were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion. The largest and most influential of these movements was Wicca. Some other groups and movements describe themselves as "Traditional Witchcraft" to distinguish themselves from Wicca.
Minnesota's Twin Cities region is home to a large community of Wiccans, Witches, Druids, Heathens, and a number of Pagan organizations. Some neopagans refer to the area as "Paganistan". In the Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, Murphy Pizza characterizes the Minnesota Pagan community as "eclectic" and comprising "many different groups - Druid orders, Witch covens, legal Pagan churches, ethnic reconstructionist groups, and many more solitaries, interlopers and poly-affiliated Pagans".
Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revisited is an anthropological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the United States. It was written by the American anthropologist Loretta Orion and published by Waveland Press in 1995.
Pierre Claveloux Davis, also known as Pete Pathfinder, was a religious figure in modern Paganism. He founded the Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC) in 1985, in Index, Washington, and served as its archpriest. He was also involved with several publications and related organizations. Davis advocated for Wicca and Paganism as an expert witness, and was part of a group of people who successfully petitioned for the pentacle to be available as a symbol used on U.S. veteran's headstones.