I’m of the opinion these days, a controversial one I bet, that all peoples of Pagan persuasion should be expressing their spirituality in direct action—protests against runways, against nuclear power expansion in preference to wind and solar power—and in joining political parties either to change them from the inside, or because they tally entirely or mostly with our own views.

Pagans should not litter, they should not buy into fast food by frequenting chains such as Burger King, KFC and McDonald’s, they shouldn’t be shopping at Primark or buying knock-offs from market stalls knowing the cheap clothes might well have been made by little kids in other countries who were forced into what is basically slave labour.

Capitalism as a system is the complete antithesis of Pagan living and beliefs, yet how many Pagans just love to shop to cheer themselves up, or vote Republican or Tory? Can you be a Pagan and not recycle, reuse, repurpose, instead throwing mountains of crap in the bin so it ends up in landfill?

Can you be a Pagan and not, when push comes to shove, give a toss about social inequality and injustice? Can you refuse to engage with politics? I don’t believe so.

But these are my opinions only. To try to set them in stone you’d be heading into Ten Commandments territory, and I for one wouldn’t want to do that. I think it’s better to cultivate one’s own convictions, to self-assess, to allow yourself to be led by your gods and by your conscience into doing the right things, rather than being told exactly what to do by books or glorious self-ordained leaders who are suddenly as likely to announce Mr Blobby has come to them in a dream and told them to get 50 wives as they are to tell one or more individuals to do wacky, dangerous, even violent things.

We Pagans must take our orders from our own selves, never from others who set themselves up as mouthpieces of the Divine. The holy and sacred never works like that, which is precisely why, when we see cult behaviours they invariably lead to horror, frustration, entrapment and downright abuse. But we can be told to do something. It’s up to the individual to listen, and to work out what, and to recognise when they’re being given honest opinion as opposed to an invitation to join a cult.

I’m no cultist, I don’t profess to be given directives from the Gods Almighty, I have no desire to force my own ways on anybody. But I do have opinions and I’m not afraid to voice them. It galls me like you wouldn’t believe when I see Pagans exercising gluttony and growing obese on fast food, chips and chocolate without ever going near a fresh green salad. It upsets me when, at Pagan festivals, I see mothers walking round with children who drop litter—the garishly-coloured wrappings of stuff that has no business being called food—and mum (or dad, or guardian) doesn’t tell those little boys and girls not to litter, to instead show respect for the earth.

And frankly that they shouldn’t be eating crap containing chemicals not found in the natural world let alone the food chain.

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