Paganicon 2018

It has become increasingly accepted that the original form in which humanity conceived God was feminine. In some corners such traditions have come down to the present day, but in most of the world, and particularly the West, they have been lost, and there is now a great seeking for them again. The Goddess spirituality movement, modern Paganism, depth psychology, neo-Gnosticism, and a dozen like upswellings attest to this widespread desire to once more embrace God as Mother.

Amidst the intellectual ferment of 1970s Oxford, a small group of women students, deeply immersed in Greek and Roman classics, Roman Catholic Marian devotion, British feminist Witchcraft, Shakta Hinduism, Guénonian Traditionalism, and the work of Marija Gimbutas, articulated teachings which they saw as the interpretive key to this vast diversity of doctrines—a simple, pure devotion to Our Mother God which has come to be called Filianism, and which can now be found among scattered devotees throughout the English-speaking world.

In this presentation, you will hear the history of a movement that influenced the Fellowship of Isis, inspired the (in)famous lesbian subculture of Aristasia, and disproved Ronald Hutton's thesis that Wicca is "the only religion which England has ever given the world". More importantly, you will also become acquainted with the beauty of its Scriptures, the ingenuity of its synthesis of Abrahamic, Pagan, and Dharmic thought, and the potential of its teaching to respond to the environmental, political, and social challenges of our own time.