Tribulations and
Transformations, Part 2—
The Night the Magick Died
Now all the truth is out, be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat, for how can you compete,
Being honor bred, with one who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own nor in his neighbors’ eyes?
—from william butler yeats,
“to a friend whose work has come to nothing”
NARRATOR: The events that you will be reading about in this chapter were spread out over many years and happened concurrently with what was going on in the previous chapter. The roots of them go way back, to at least the early days of the CAW in St. Louis. At that time, in order to receive recognition as a tax-exempt religion, the Church became incorporated and established a board of directors. This meant that what was essentially a bunch of Hippies and college students had to become part of the “establishment”; but they wanted to be able to exercise their right to freedom of religion, and so they took that chance.
With the rebirth of the CAW in California in the mid-1980s, there were many more dues-paying members than just the select few you are reading about in this book, and there was Annwfn, which by the 1990s had become valuable real estate. (It was primo rural acreage in the heart of Mendocino County, where growing and selling marijuana had become a major local industry.) And there was Green Egg, which had become a professionally published, slick magazine that was sold on newsstand racks in chain bookstores alongside the likes of Playboy, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone. And all of this belonged to the Church, which was still legally incorporated.
No one on the staff in the early years in California had much experience running a business, and as it grew as a business the problems grew. Neither the Church itself nor the magazine had a professional bookkeeper, and the financial records were still being kept, and not very well, by hand. And the legal and financial matters of the Church were controlled not by OZ and not even by the Clergy, but by the board of directors.
When Tim Zell set up his Church for legal recognition in the ’60s, he not only had to incorporate it, but he also had to give the whole setup some kind of structure other than simply sitting around in a circle telling stories. The only social group he’d ever belonged to, other than the Boy Scouts, was his fraternity. So that’s what he used as a model.
That meant that the religious organization that Tim had wanted to be libertarian and leaderless had to follow rules that had been established by the U.S. government and, to a certain extent, the college Greek system—and that included how the board, and its meetings, were run. And so when things began to fall apart, that’s what was used to try and keep them together. And in the mid-’90s, they started to fall apart pretty badly.
Much of this was done in meetings that were closed to the public. And since this was the beginning of the Internet age, there was lots of back and forth, done quicker than anyone could have previously imagined possible, with Internet lists and groups that were also closed. (This also meant that rumors and gossip were spreading at a crazy new pace, which didn’t seem to help matters.)
I don’t want to take sides in this, or create any kind of appearance that there is some simple, obvious explanation of what went on. But suffice it to say that by the mid-’90s, Oberon felt beleaguered by both the Green Egg staff and the CAW board of directors, who were mostly made up of Green Egg staff at that time.
(And as the researcher, interviewer, organizer, and de facto editor of this book, I have decided that it is in everybody’s best interests, including those of the reader, to not try and analyze what happened at every CAW board meeting during these years. This is an oral history! My inspirations for this book are journalists like Studs Terkel and Legs McNeil, not Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
And with that in mind, we will now continue with this chapter.)
OZ: In October of ’93, we finally moved the Green Egg offices out of the spare rooms in our homes and rented a real office building, which became the administrative office of the Church as well. Two years later, we moved everything into a large storefront in downtown Ukiah, where we provided walk-in copy services to the public. And of course in 1996 the Green Egg and CAW offices moved to the V-M Ranch.
Over the years the staff of Green Egg expanded to include a number of talented and dedicated people. It grew to a circulation that reached about 30,000 readers. But with all this success, and so many people involved, there soon arose conflict, contention, and power struggles. In July of 1994 after our triad broke up, Diane, a brilliant editor, left Green Egg, and went on to edit Green Man, and later PanGaia. She was succeeded as editrix by Maerian Morris, newly wedded to Orion Stormcrow (with MG and me officiating), who ended up responsible for bookkeeping.
NARRATOR: Orion’s perspective on things is conspicuous in its absence from this book, and that was his choice. He declined my interview request. Unfortunately we’re going to go ahead and consider some of it without Orion’s perspective, but we will include that of Maerian, his partner at the time.
The relationship between Orion and OZ seems to be one of those mysterious things that nobody, including the two of them, really understands. One person I interviewed described the CAW Clergy as “a twenty-five-person dysfunctional family with thirty years of history,” and certainly what went on between those guys was among the most dysfunctional of all. They have loved and cared for each other for decades, but also have had many great conflicts.
After Diane left Green Egg, Orion became increasingly involved in its day-to-day operations, and found that he had the same differences with Oberon as Diane had had—namely, that of who had final say over what ran in the magazine, from art and essays to advertisements. Oberon summed up the staff’s position as “Oberon insisted, as publisher, he had absolute authority to publish anything he saw fit to. Orion insisted he didn’t.”
OZ: And that was exactly true. I’d created the magazine (twice!), and each incarnation had become a legendary success. And like any other founding publisher of any other journal, I fully maintained my right to include in it anything I felt belonged there; indeed, that was the entire purpose of my creating the magazine in the first place, and the essential prerogative of being publisher—as well as the key to its success.
Orion, however (like Diane before him), was adamant in his desire to exclude submissions by people he didn’t approve of personally. As far as I was concerned, personal approval of the behavior or lifestyles of contributors was never a criterion in my decision to include their material—but rather whether their contributions would enhance the content and vision of the magazine and be of interest to the readers. We had many heated exchanges around this issue, and I always maintained that the final decision was mine to make, not Orion’s.
Like many of my Hippie/Pagan peers, I had not been part of the high school “in-crowd” cliques, whose very raison d’être was about exclusion. I encountered the same thing in college fraternities, churches, and social clubs. And I resented the hell out of it. I was determined to create something different—a “club” in which everyone who wanted to join could belong, and be welcomed.
But it seems to be a basic aspect of human nature to want to form associations defined more on who (or what) is excluded than on who (or what) is included. My conflicts within CAW were invariably around my welcoming in people others didn’t want to associate with. I’ve actually had people threaten to blackball events I’ve held if I allowed so-and-so to attend!
MAERIAN MORRIS: During that period of time, just before Orion began to deal with some of the publisher’s jobs, Green Egg switched to a model where the board of directors of CAW, who actually owned the magazine, would hire Green Egg staff as employees of the Church. I was thus hired by the board with Otter’s strong recommendation. The CAW board included all members of the Clergy and several scions, and these people were legally responsible for business decisions. Of course they listened to the publisher and the founder, but they had final decision-making power over the magazine.
It’s important to understand that this was a nonprofit religious magazine, with a tiny staff, most of whom were CAW scions and Priests or Priestesses—most of us wore a lot of hats at the same time. The goals and ideals of the Church recognized divinity within each of us, and were about helping people discover it in within themselves. Unfortunately, these goals did not always transfer into action in the CAW. There was a big difference between Pagan ideals and the laissez-faire culture of the Pagan community. This culture often conflicted with the business requirements of running an organization.
Otter is a visionary. He’s interested in Magick; he’s interested in being a Wizard. He was less interested in the managerial stuff. Otter liked to do the fun parts of it. He’s gregarious and charismatic and funny and lovable when he’s out there being Otter. And there’s another side. And that, I think, has to be said. And it has to be said by somebody who is trying to say it in a loving way. He is not good at the management side of things. His life history proves that. You don’t give your house to the Church and then say, “Send me my money.” A publisher needs to be a good manager. I know what good business practices are. And believe me, these were never successfully implemented at Green Egg.
OZ: So when Orion was elected president of the board of directors in August of 1996, the very first meeting held thereafter, on September 13, stripped me of all control and decision-making—in absentia. The “conflict of interest” was absolute, as all of the board of directors officers who voted on it were also staff members of Green Egg. But since the minutes of that fateful meeting were never published, the rest of the membership had no way of knowing what had actually come down. I was handed the honorary title of “publisher emeritus,” with no more say in the content, vision, or direction of the award-winning magazine I had created, and the position of publisher was given over to Orion.
NARRATOR: It would be easy, and ultimately unfair, to frame all of this as just another episode in their ongoing drama—indeed, even after this incident, the next year the Ravenhearts still invited Orion and his family to move into one of the homes on the V-M Ranch.
OZ: Although devastated by what I felt to be profound betrayals, I continued to write for the magazine, as I believed it to be an essential service to the greater Pagan community, and I didn’t want to see it disappear again.
NARRATOR: Still, this infighting between water-brothers, in addition to the sex scandals explored in the previous chapter, took its psychic toll on Oberon.
OZ: When I brought up my own pain and sense of betrayal over that action at the following Samhain rite, I was loudly condemned by Orion and accused of “breaking the chalice” of CAW trust and water-brotherhood. This interpretation, supported by the entire board and most (but, significantly, not all) of the Clergy Council, left deep wounds and alienation for many years thereafter, planting a poison of mistrust and a sense of betrayal deep within the heart of our core group. These were the darkest years of my life.
NARRATOR: Tom Williams has known OZ, and had been active in the CAW, since the original St. Louis Nest. Here he shares some of his memories of, and insight into, the experiences that caused him and many others to quit the Church.
TOM WILLIAMS: The night was Samhain 1996, and the Tribe had gathered at Annwfn, the sacred landhold of the Church of All Worlds in Northern California. It was part of an established magickal cycle that had been building momentum for some ten years and infusing that magickal energy back into the land from the love and dedication of hundreds of devotees of the Goddess and those who loved this place. We had poured our feasting, revelry, lovemaking, song, passion, tears, and ritual intent into this place to produce a truly enchanted sanctuary.
That was the bright side. There was another side. CAW has long been beset by controversy, rivalry, upset, and political intrigues that had caused many a long and agonizing encounter among Clergy and members in general. Up until this night we had mostly been able to keep these darker issues separate from our sacred workings or even, at times, to turn the energy generated at those workings towards healing or trying to heal the sorrier aspects of our entity as a Church. Seldom, if ever before, had those controversies intruded directly into a circle dedicated to magickal working focused on the health of the Tribe and the well-being of the land of Annwfn.
This night would be different. This night would signal a sea change in the energy flow that constituted the gestalt of the Church of All Worlds. This night the chalice would be shattered in the midst of the Magick Circle. This was the Night the Magick Died.
That night did not happen out of nowhere. There were seething conflicts afoot concerning the then Primate [Oberon] and his dealings with the Clergy and the membership. This night, however, broke the veil that separated the mundane world of organizational and business dealings from the world of the true magickal mission of the Northern California CAW. This was the Night the Magick Died.
In order to understand what was lost that night and how it has led to this situation, which signals the actual demise of the Church of All Worlds as an effective Neo-Pagan organization, it is necessary to understand what the magickal energy surrounding Annwfn actually was. I will probably not be believed in this by those who have only experienced CAW and its Magick at festivals, through Nests in remote places like the East Coast or the Midwest. What they have known of the magickal energy and vitality of the CAW in those parts of the country as opposed to its full power in its Northern California incarnation at Annwfn and at its celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries at the Pinnacles caves is but a pale shadow. Indeed, they know not, though they think they do.
Of all the things CAW has done, the cycles of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Beltane/Samhain fertility cycle enacted at Annwfn are the most meaningful and significant contributions to Magick and the understanding of the meanings of life’s enigma we could have imparted to those members fortunate enough to experience them in the time in which they prevailed. This is not something that those who experienced CAW only from printed literature or online discussions can remotely comprehend. An understanding of Magick can only be achieved by an experience of Magick. That is why I considered the entire online presence of CAW to have been utterly worthless and degrading to the vision we once held.
They were two interwoven magickal/mythical cycles, the Mysteries and the Corn Cycle. Of the Mysteries, I can speak but little, for I have twice carried the energy of Lord Hades and refuse to profane those sacred rites by revealing their secrets to the uninitiated. Suffice to say that a sincere participation in those rituals could bestow on the initiate a deep appreciation for and understanding of the endless round of birth, life, death, and renewal and bring to that person a reverence for his or her place in the tapestry of existence. But perhaps I have already spoken too much.
Of the Corn Cycle I may speak more openly, although it, too, concerns the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, albeit on a more “Earthy” level. In truly and faithfully enacting this cycle on the landhold of Annwfn, we not only involved ourselves and our co-worshippers in the magickal energy of birth, death, and renewal. We also infused our magickal energy into the land itself, making it a sacred and sanctified place that welcomed our Tribe and opened itself to our Workings.
Four great Sabbats were dedicated to these two cycles: Mabon and Ostara to the Eleusinian Mysteries, and Beltane and Samhain to the rites of the Corn Cycle. Thus did the cycle turn through the year for our Tribe. This, then, is the magickal wonder that was shattered on the Night the Magick Died.
On the Night the Magick Died we were in a sacred Circle that was a Samhain Circle dedicated to continuing the cycle. It was here that these mundane controversies of Clergy and member strife boiled over into that sacred Circle and broke the Circle. Since that night, the steady decline of magickal energy at Annwfn and in both cycles—Eleusinia and Corn—has continued to this day. I wish I had not witnessed the hurt and anger and pain that were brought into that Circle that night. Nothing has ever been the same since.
After that night, the National Park Service denied access to the Pinnacles caves where the Mysteries were performed (breeding time for bats). Since that night, the May couples have experienced misfortunes to the point that this past Beltane the May energies were buried and returned to the Earth as if we were no longer worthy to carry them. I have little hope that they will ever be resurrected by a CAW ritual again. Since then the Magick has died. It died that night—the Night the Magick Died.
This night was neither the cause nor the end result of the problems plaguing CAW. There was an almost pathological denial of obvious dysfunction that allowed totally unqualified persons to be ordained as Clergy. There was also a long-standing feud over the allegations of teenagers having sex with adults. Over a number of years we allowed a charming sexual predator into our midst in the person of Adam Walks-Between-Worlds. This creature had a habit of insinuating his sexual attentions on women (often young and impressionable) with promises of magickal initiation. Another ploy was to break up relationships and then move in on the female. This latter tactic may be what ultimately got him murdered in L.A.—a case that has yet to be solved. His “seductions” left a number of women emotionally wounded and traumatized, and several of them complained directly to individual Clergy members. Still, CAW remained blind to his depredations for years, although to its credit, the Clergy finally did take action.
Given this background, the Night the Magick Died was what is called a “signal event.” It was a sign—had we been able to heed it—that there had been a change. That change began before that night and continued long after it.
NARRATOR: There were major ramifications from all of this. I would just like to point out that I don’t think anybody was pleased with the end results. The hurt feelings, anger, mistrust, and sense of betrayal went on for years, and just when it seemed like the conflict might be over and that it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did. In 1998, Oberon was “impeached,” and although some would disagree with his word choice, no one can dispute that it happened. A few years later the CAW board of directors dissolved Green Egg altogether, and, once again, Pagandom’s most legendary publication seemed destined to become but a footnote in history.
Right around the beginning of the millennium, a new board of directors was established, and the board operations were moved to Ohio. By this point there were about 1,300 CAW members across the United States (and elsewhere) who were connected by members-only CAW email lists, and who had full voting privileges. In 2002, Oberon was not even invited to the fortieth-anniversary annual meeting of the church. Under the leadership of Jim Looman, an Ohio resident who got elected president, the board of directors was able to change the ways the Church was run to their own personal financial advantage. They proceeded to gut the Church’s treasury and other resources like corporate raiders. The extent of what they did, and why they did it, will probably never be understood, because all the records have been “lost.”
OZ: The officers of the board of directors in Ohio voted themselves an unprecedented income, to pay for which it was rumored that they intended to sell off the Church’s sacred land of Annwfn (bequeathed to CAW by our late Bard, Gwydion Pendderwen, upon his tragic death in a car accident in 1982) and take the money. I was appalled.
Most of the finest people who had been inspired by CAW over all those years, and had gathered together into its worldwide Tribe, left in dismay and disgust. I could no longer recommend that anyone become involved in the new “CAW Inc.,” which embraced ripping off and fucking over as a matter of company policy. And—following my principle of “If you don’t like it, you can’t have any”—I denied my permission for them to use any of my own writings and artwork in their new organization. Let them write and illustrate their own sermons, theological treatises, histories, handbooks, FAQ sheets, liturgy, tracts, etc.!
To counter this painful estrangement somewhat, Liza Gabriel-Ravenheart composed a brilliantly succinct synopsis of “The Church of All Worlds Tradition”—as distinct from “CAW Inc.,” the corporation. This document summarized beautifully the essence of the religion that I had worked so hard to create, and in which I still deeply believed. I hoped eventually to develop a website dedicated to the “Church of All Worlds Tradition,” which would make available to everyone the forty years’ worth of good stuff we conceived and created when CAW was a Pagan religion and a “congregational” Church, rather than a secular business, as “CAW Inc.” was set up.
LIZA: I wrote the seminal document “The Church of All Worlds Tradition,” later published in Creating Circles and Ceremonies. The idea to write it was Morning Glory’s, but the actual document was written by me and at my initiative. This document became the focus of a high-volume listserve among CAW members. It helped catalyze the rebirth of the Church of All Worlds after its demise. This was a magical working that resonated with the “Open Source” movement in software today. By setting the CAW tradition free from its institutional moorings, we empowered anyone and everyone to participate—and they continued to do so!
To his credit, Oberon saw the wisdom in this. I still consider myself a proud practitioner of the CAW tradition—beholden to no one and connected, through water, to everyone. I later discovered that translating the vision of a group or individuals in this way is a gift I can give to anyone who is open to it, and it is a major part of my work now, something I continue to be excited about.
OZ: At the CAW annual general meeting, held on August 1, 2004, Jim Looman was re-elected president, and the board of directors (BoD) issued “A Resolution for Implementing the Dormancy of Church of All Worlds, Inc.” It stated:
Be It Resolved that the Board of Directors, Church of All Worlds, Inc., authorizes the Officers and the Director of Operations to take whatever actions necessary to wind up its affairs and cease doing business by September 1, 2004 or as soon thereafter as possible, and Be It Further Resolved that the Board of Directors, Church of All Worlds, Inc., authorizes the following specific actions: To cease to accept new memberships and the renewal of existing memberships by authority of {3.8} of the Constitution; To cancel all lifetime memberships by authority of {3.8} of the Constitution; To terminate or all publications, websites, email lists and any other form of public contact. To notify all individual members and Local Congregations of this decision so that they may go their own way or organize and affiliate as they wish; To terminate all business relationships; To terminate or escrow all Licenses; To satisfy all creditors possible, either fully or partially, in any legal way possible until there is nothing of value left; To close all bank accounts; To inform the proper sections of the IRS that we are ceasing operations so that they may retire our EIN, our 501(c)(3) status, and our group exemption letter; To complete all of the above by June 1, 2005 VOTE: 6 aye, 2 stand aside, 1 nay.
But immediately afterwards, the entire BoD resigned en masse, and none of those items were actually implemented. And in October, Jim Looman died. Thus ended in ignominy the second incarnation of the Church of All Worlds: 1985–2004. Requiescat in Pace.
NARRATOR: The year 2004 also saw the end of the story of Red Daniel, started in the previous chapter. He had eventually settled down into a long-term relationship with one of the young women he’d been involved with. It lasted for over ten years, until she was well into her twenties.
MG: When his relationship with his lady finally failed and she left him in a fit of despair and frustration with his perpetual self-destructive adolescence, he completely went to pieces and started drinking and doing speed—hanging out with genuine low-life types.
We let him sleep on our sofa and spent time counseling him and helping him get his life back together. And then finally, his only daughter, who had gotten married, had a baby and invited him to come up and spend some time with his grandchild. He was making plans to get a truck and camper setup so he could do that. He had been working at a sort of farm where the owner rented to speed freaks, and Daniel had been promised a truck in exchange for his work. When he went to pick up the vehicle on August 18, 2004, he was met by one of the tweakers, who shot him down and left him for dead.
NARRATOR: In 2006 a jury convicted James Zook of first-degree murder for killing Daniel; he was sentenced to fifty years to life in a state prison.