Interviews

The Pagan Revival: an Inside View
By BONNIE WELLS – Staff Writer
Those who decorate with evergreens, mistletoe and holly this season will be participating in a tradition thousands of years older than the approaching Christian holiday.
The trees and berries were sacred to the earth- and nature – centered religions of northern Europe for millennia. To groups like the ancient Druids or Asatruars, the planet itself, its products and patterns were all invested with divinity.
The peoples who celebrated the seasons of the earth at the solstices and regular points in between brought evergreens into their dwellings at the winter solstice, or Yule, to symbolize their faith that, on the darkest day of the year, light and life would return. Today, practitioners of a variety of nature-based religions go by the general name of Pagans, and their numbers are growing. Because they gather in small groups in homes or natural surroundings precise figures are hard to come by, but a recent New York Times article pegged the current ranks at somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 souls.
Ellen Evert Hopman, local herbalist and author, wears the ceremonial robes of her station as a Druid Priestess.
Who are they?
In her 1996 book “People of the Earth: The New Pagans Speak Out,” local present-day Pagan and herbalist Ellen Evert Hopman presents interviews with Pagans from around the world, representing a wide range of beliefs and practices. She says 98 percent of Pagans practice Wicca or witchcraft, while all the other varieties comprise the remaining 2 percent.
She is herself a Druid.
“In the dictionary, a Pagan is defined as godless,” Hopman says.
“But we honor many gods and goddesses.”
Still, for the uninitiated, the word may conjure up visions of unspeakable acts committed by the light of a full moon.
“We got a very bad rap during the Inquisition, when they took our forest god, who happened to have antlers, and made him into Satan, this horrible demonic creature, Hopman says.
“The hysteria spread, and it was all manufactured.” The designation Pagan reflects the power politics of the times.
As worshipers of nature-based gods were being converted to Christianity, the first to convert were those in the city and coastal areas, while those in the country lagged behind, Hopman explains.
The Latin Paganus means country person.
Green skin and warts Hopman was recently featured in a documentary aired on the Arts and Entertainment channel, which explored present-day Druidic practices in England, Ireland and the United States at best, she says.
But “Most Hollywood movies make us look scary, like we have supernatural powers and can turn people into toads.
Then there are those horrible Halloween cards that picture witches with green skin and a big wart.”
To bring some truth about the Pagan revival to the small screen, Hopman invited Ernest Urvater of Sawmill River Productions in Amherst to videotape a full year of Pagan sacred celebrations here in the valley.
“Pagans, The Wheel of the Pagan Sacred Year,” a personal, informal look at how Pagans from several traditions actually practice their faith, will have its first public screening Sunday, Dec. 19, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Red Barn at Hampshire College.
Admission is free and a reception with the show’s creators will follow.
With Hopman as creative consultant, and Urvater producing, the show was shot by award- winning Boston videographer James MacAllister and includes an original music score composed and performed by Paddy Keenan of the Bothy Band.
The 65-minute tape records eight ceremonies, drawn from several traditions, starting with the Yule celebration of the winter solstice.
Highlights include Morris dancing at Beltaine, egg decoration at the spring equinox and the feast of the dead at Samhain.
The production explores how the ceremonies are planned and carried out and how individuals came to embark on their own personal journeys to Paganism.
“It’s the first depiction of us as we really are,” says Hopman, “how we really look, how we really worship, what we really do.”
“Pagans The Wheel of the Pagan Sacred Year” is available from Sawmill River Productions in Amherst.
This article appeared in the Amherst bulletin, December 17th, 1999

Ellen Evert Hopman
Herbalist, Scholar, Celtic Pagan
Interviewed by Carl McColman
Ellen Evert Hopman is an herbalist and one of the leading figures in the Druid renaissance. She’s the author of A Druid’s Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year, (Destiny Books), Tree Medicine, Tree Magic (Phoenix), Walking the World in Wonder: A Children’s Herbal (Destiny Books) and with Lawrence Bond is the co-author of Being a Pagan: Druids, Witches, and Wiccans Today (Destiny Books).
The daughter of an American diplomat born in Europe, Ellen Evert Hopman describes herself as a global person, with a passion for the Celtic spiritual revival on a global level. For nine years she was the vice-president of the Henge of Keltria (one of the largest North American-based Druid organizations); she is also the co-founder of the Order of the White Oak (Ord na Darach Gile), a Druid order dedicated to scholarship and Druid ethics. Her Druidic “mission” has taken her to the British Isles, France, and other parts of the world, where she has been involved in the larger Celtic Neopagan community. And of course, she’s taken her networking efforts to the Internet, where she’s reached Druids (and would-be Druids) from places like Japan and Peru–all in the cause of moving the Druid revival forward into the new millennium.
But what exactly is the Druid revival? Is it just a matter of silly old Anglican ministers in white robes, prancing about at Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice? Not hardly! As it stands today, prominent Druid leaders like Isaac Bonewits, Philip Carr-Gomm, and Hopman are working to revive the ancient Pagan traditions of the Celtic people–in a scholarly, carefully-researched fashion. Such devotion to research and intellectual rigour makes the Druid community unique among Pagans, who, in carrying out their spiritual practice, often rely more on imagination than the intellect.
In describing how she came to understand herself as a Druid, Hopman never talks about magic or mysticism, but instead begins with her lifelong love for Celtic art and culture.
“I was born in Salzburg, Austria, which is the birthplace of the Celtic culture–the Halstatt area. When my mother, who was an artist, was pregnant with me, she was very interested in the archaeological digs that were going on. So she was following the archaeological discoveries, they were finding Celtic artificacts, bodies out of the salt mines–and she was really interested in all this stuff. So from the time of conception, or even before, all through the pregnancy and the first few years of my life, my mother would always talk about the Celts. I figured that’s what everybody’s mommy talked about!”
In college, she pursued degrees in art education and art history–but found her main interest was in Celtic artifacts. “Even though in school I studied artists like Leonardo and Botticelli, what really got my heart was the Battersea Shield,” she says with a laugh. “It’s an iron age Celtic shield that was dragged out of the Thames River. I remember when I saw that, my heart stopped; I just couldn’t believe how exquisitely gorgeous it was, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. So that was another hint.”
Like many people of our generation, Hopman developed a strong interest in mysticism, and explored Zen, Sufism, and other paths, but eventually chafed against the asceticism often found in such traditions. “The whole idea was that you were supposed to transcend the earth, everything of the earth was to be discarded.” By the time she distanced herself from the world-renouncing types of spirituality, she says “I felt like I was starving, because I had lost contact with the earth. So the first thing I did, I started hanging out with Native Americans, getting in touch with the earth. I did that for five years, and then one day it was a Native American who said to me, ‘It’s really wonderful that you’re honoring our ancestors, but you really need to honor your own.’ And I had no idea who he was talking about.”
Shortly after that, Hopman met Isaac Bonewits, author of Real Magic and founder of Ár nDraoícht Féin, a prominent Neopagan Druid group. “A client of my herbal practice actually told me about Isaac, and mentioned that there were Druids in this world! And as soon as I heard there were Druids, I knew that was it. Some people hear the witch word and they know that’s what they’re supposed to be, but not me, I was never interested in witchcraft. But when I heard that there were Druids, I just knew that was it. I was one of the original members of ADF, in 1985.”
For Hopman, adopting the Druid path–the path of indigenous Celtic paganism–was easy because of her experience with the indigenous spirituality of Native American people. “Moving from Native American spirituality to Druidism was very, very easy. Native American spirituality honors the Earth; and Druids have sacred trees, we have sacred herbs, sacred animals, ritual fires, we honor the water–there’s so many similarities. So moving from the indigenous Native American worldview to the indigenous Celtic worldview was no problem at all. It really is the same worldview.”
“Both cultures are tribal-oriented; women are understood to be capable of leadership and equals in intelligence and craft and every area of accomplishment; in Native American tradition you have female deities, like the Corn Maiden and Tobacco Maiden and Spider Woman; there’s the idea that there’s both male and female divine forces out there, the same as in Druidism.”
I asked her what sets Druidism apart for other forms of Neopaganism.
“Well first of all, there’s a difference between witchcraft and Wicca–not everyone who calls themselves witches would consider themselves to be Wiccans, or Neopagans, so it’s very complicated. And there’s different kinds of Druids. Without wanting to sound prejorative, there are some people who read fantasy novels, or books written out of the author’s fantasies, who then might call themselves Druids. But there’s a whole other, completely different level of Druidism, and those are the people who are very concerned about scholarship, about the Gaelic language, about trying to find out what really happened in ancient times in order to bring it forward and recreate it–the Celtic Reconstructionist Pagans. Not long ago I was at a Pagan gathering in Ireland–and in Ireland, like America, the typical Neopagan is a Wiccan–where I posed the same question: ‘What is the difference between witchcraft and Druidism in Ireland?’ An Irish Druid replied, ‘Wicca is an Anglo-Saxon import, and Druidism is the indigenous religion of Ireland.'”
But what exactly do Druids believe? Like other tribal religions, the emphasis tends to be less on belief, and more on practical spiritual techniques. Still, Hopman points out specific ways in which Druid religion and spirituality differ from other Pagan paths.
“We work with the three worlds–land, sea, and sky–and with ancestors, nature spirits, and deities. Although we recognize the four directions, that’s not a major part of our orientation. We are polytheistic, unlike Wicca, where the standard expression is ‘All the Goddesses are one Goddess, and all the Gods are one God.’ A Druid would never say that. We know, from personal experience, that the deities are individual, with completely individual energies. There are some Druids who follow the Hindu model, which is the idea of the Oversoul or the Atman–we don’t have a Druid word for it yet–out of which the various deities emanated, but it’s not a Goddess or something like that, but simply ‘the mother of ten thousand things,’ as the Taoists would call it. But then there are others who would disagree with that and say there was no primal cause. So that’s a matter of ongoing debate. And of course, witches like to wear black, which is a very sacred color for them, but Druids tend to wear white or blue or green, or distinctly Celtic garb like kilts, so there’s a different look and feel to it.
“As Druids we also try not to mix different traditions. One can go to a Wiccan ritual where they will be quite comfortable invoking an Egyptian Goddess, and a Greek Goddess, and a Roman God and a Scandinavian God, all in the same ritual–because if you believe all the Goddesses are one Goddess and all the Gods are one God, it doesn’t matter, you just pull in whoever you want and bring them all in to the Circle. Whereas Druids don’t do that, the same way that Native Americans don’t do that. Druidism is an indigenous native tradition, that belongs to the Celtic areas, so it has its own inherent logic, its own deities, its own traditions, its own way of understanding the universe; thus it just doesnt make sense to pull in other indigenous traditions; we just keep to our own.”
Like Wicca, Druidism is a branch of the Pagan (or Neopagan) revival. Hopman’s book Being a Pagan explores the landscape of contemporary Paganism, through interviews with key Pagan leaders (such as Bonewits). What makes the book valuable is the way in which it uses interviews with individuals to depict the diversity in this new religious movement.
“Paganism is an over-arching term. The same way that Christianity includes Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists and Pentecostals, so Paganism includes Druids, Wiccans, witches, and Asatruar. It’s important for people to see the breadth to the Pagan community, even though there’s a lot in Paganism that I personally would not subscribe to–just because it’s such a diverse community. The book really does have everything, from the scholarly end–people like Alexei Kondratiev who is one of the most respected Celtic scholars right now in the Druid world, a very conservative gentleman in his personal behavior–everything from that end of things all the way to the Sacred Prostitutes! We’re all caught together in this same kettle of fish; it’s a fascinating mishmash. We have Druid and Wiccan scholars who are like the Jesuits of our movement, but then we have the people who are simply out to shock, who wear the most outlandish clothing–the kids, the fantasy crowd. We have that whole incredible spectrum. But at the same time, everybody is so passionate about what they’re doing. It’s this roiling sort of movement that most Americans, to this day, are largely oblivious to–that on every block, there’s probably a Pagan. It’s one of the most well-kept secrets in our culture.”
I asked her if she had any idea how many Americans identify themselves as Pagan–a difficult question to answer, since so many Pagans are secretive about their spiritual practice. She mused, “I would guess between half a million and a million. But it depends your definition. If you’re including Earth-centered New Agers in the definition, then there’s probably several million of us.”
Yet Hopman is more than just a spiritual leader; she has a successful practice as an herbalist and teacher of medicinal herbalism. I asked how she brought medicinal and magical forms of herbalism together.
“I live in the woods. I talk to the plants every day, and they talk to me. I try to be in total harmony with the seasons; for example in the fall I gather horse chestnuts for making salves and I gather acorns to give to people, just to carry in their pockets. Acorns are symbols of fertility–they are potential oak trees, so when you carry an acorn around in your pocket, you’re carrying a potential oak tree. I also gather and carry hazel nuts–apparently in ancient times, the Druids carried hazel nuts in their pockets, to symbolize the hazels of inspiration which are associated with the salmon of wisdom, the salmon being the creature who knows how to get back to the source. So for Druids to carry hazel nuts in our pockets, it’s a reminder that we are dedicating our lives to getting to the source of truth and knowledge, to understand the ultimate cause of all that is, to seek the depth going back to the origins of who we are, the origins of the universe, and the world of the Gods. So nuts have a very profound symbolism!
Hopman sees the magical use of herbs especially in terms of expressing gratitude to the spirit world, or in asking for spiritual help in energetic healing or cleansing. “I have these little pillboxes that I carry around with ground sage or ground rosemary. When I come to a place, like a garden, and I want to thank the nature spirits, I’ll take a little pinch of the green powder, and I’ll blow it into the air, and I’ll give thanks to the spirits for growing the beautiful flowers. Or if there’s a place that needs healing on the earth, I’ll make a prayer and I’ll ask the spirits to bring good energy to the place so that it gets cleaned up. Even if I’m in a room and energetically a room needs cleansing I can take a little pinch of rosemary and blow it off my fingers and out into the room.”
Despite the role that plant magic plays in her day-to-day spirituality, Hopman remains clear about the boundary between magical and medicinal herbalism. “When I teach my herbs class, as a Druid I try to go into great depth, but I keep medical herbalism separate from magical herbalism, because I feel very responsible about the people I send out into the world. If they’re going to be telling other people what to put in their mouth, I want them to really know what they’re talking about, and know which sources to go to if they have questions.”
As a veteran Druid, I asked Hopman if she had any advice for the neophyte Pagan–especially for teenagers who may be drawn to Earth-centered spirituality for the first time. “First of all, I’d say, ‘Good for you!’ Paganism is a tremendous adventure that you’re about to embark on, and it will take the rest of your life, if not several lifetimes more, to get to the bottom of it. Be aware that there is a huge body of knowledge out there, there’s a lot to be learned; seek out a mentor; try to find somebody who you respect and just be humble at the outset. You can have a lot of fun with this, but it is a serious spiritual path, it’s not just a rebellion or a way to get back at your parents. And by the way–if you’re under 18, get your parents’ permission!”
She offered some insights into the glamour of Paganism and magic–important insights that any budding witch or magician ought to consider: “I think a lot of young people are attracted to the word witch, because they think it’s going to give them some kind of power; of course when we’re young that’s when we feel very powerless, especially in our teen years when everything’s going crazy, our hormones are going crazy, we’re thinking about leaving home for the first time, we want to rebel against our parents, so the word witch is very attractive because we think it’s going to give us some kind of power. Druids have a very different mindset, by and large; our emphasis is on honoring the Gods, and personal sacrifice, and learning and scholarship. If you’re prepared to take this path seriously, with all the beauty and the depth of it, then this is the path for you. But don’t think you’re going to get some kind of instant power to zap somebody–that happens only in the movies.”
This interview, in a slightly different form, originally appeared in the March/April 1999 issue of New Leaves.

By Jennifer Hemler
Background: Born in Salzburg, Austria, the land of the first Celtic civilization, Ellen Evert Hopman has the ancient Celtic religion, Druidism, a strand of Paganism, in her blood. She’s been a Pagan since 1986, and is the author of several books —Tree Medicine, Tree Magic, and the videos Gifts of the Healing Earth Vol. 1 and Pagans. She is also the vice president of the Henge of Keltria, an international Druid Fellowship, and is a professional member of the American Herbalist’s Guild. She teaches herbalism and Druidism.
Her new book, People of the Earth: The New Pagans Speak Out, is a collection of interviews with a variety of Pagans sharing their experiences and dispelling myths about Paganism. It also includes an extended list of resource books, e-mail accounts, zines, etc. for further study of Paganism.
Hopman’s future plans include giving tours of sacred places in Britain and Ireland where she will instruct followers on Pagan rituals — she even has permission to practice inside Stonehedge.
First of all, can you give a definition of Paganism, to clarify all the mystery?
I guess a broad definition would be non-monotheistic, although there are exceptions to that because there are goddess worshipers who are very monotheist, they only worship the goddess so even there, there are contradictions. But I think with very few exceptions most pagans will tell you that there is a feminine aspect to deity — that’s very basic — that nature is important if not sacred. Paganism is an umbrella term, and it encompasses witchcraft, Druidism, Germanic Paganism, Italian Paganism. It encompasses all of it. It’s kind of like when you say Christianity, within Christianity you have Lutherans, you have Catholics and you have Baptists and…so Druidism would be considered a branch of Paganism.
What kind of training do you need to become a pagan, or don’t you?
(laughs) That’s a very controversial question.
Because it seems like Paganism is not a religion, but it is…
Well, it is a religion. Anyway you look at it, it is a religion. The controversy comes in with some people who believe they can just read one book and then call themself a witch. Other people believe that to call yourself a witch implies training and standards of competence which you can’t get unless you do go through training… You talk to different people and you get different opinions.
Have you had any mystical experiences?
I’ve had many mystical experiences. One day I had been fasting and I walked up a hill that St. Francis used to hang out on. I think it was Mt. Subasio. I walked up to the top and all of a sudden there was this big storm that came up. It was thunder and lightning and hail and snow. I was up above the tree line and there was just this one little tiny pine tree and so I wrapped myself around this tree which is probably the silliest thing I could’ve done. But it was the only living thing up there and I was scared. When the storm subsided I came down the hill completely exhilarated, singing at the top of my lungs. I walked into the Romanesque church, sat there in the dark and a voice came to me. The voice said, you’re supposed to be working with plants. And the weirdest part is I knew that that was absolutely true, I mean here I was getting my masters in art history and that was not my calling. Anyway, I went through a period of about six months after that where I had a lot of energy and just kind of a state of ecstasy and sometimes the ecstasy was so much I didn’t know what to do with it so I would give it to people who were sick, I would just kind of send it to them…
Wait… how do you send it to them?
Well, I can only give you an example. When I went back to Rome, there was this women who used to bring me my breakfast every morning, and every time she came she would put down the tray she would say, “Oh, my liver hurts” [in Italian]. One evening I woke up in the middle of the night and I was just in this ecstatic state filled with all this energy and I didn’t know what to do with it and I thought of her. I mean it was so intense it was almost painful and I didn’t know what to do with it so I thought of that woman and I said, send it to her. The next morning when I sat down to breakfast, and I swear to god this is what happened, she walked in, she looked at me, she said, my liver doesn’t hurt anymore, and you did it. That’s the kind of thing that was going on, it was very interesting.
Do you think that most people could have this voice, could have this calling, but are just tuning it out?
Yes, I do. I think the circumstances that I went through are very similar to a Native American vision quest. It was the fasting and the prayer, and I was hanging out with nature. I was just extremely open. I lost weight, my clothes were falling off, but I mean, I became very light and very open, and I think you need a protected community — a spiritual community that can foster the right environment for that to occur, but of course I think that anybody can do it, since we’re all connected.
Why do you think there are so many strange myths and misconceptions surrounding paganism?
I think it’s the media. Newspapers and Hollywood and magazines, all try to sell “ookie” witch stories because they know it captures the popular imagination. Unfortunately what happens is you have people like fundamentalist Christians who buy this stuff and they bring it back to their congregations and they’ll make really outrageous statements — you know, most of the kids who have disappeared in America, it’s because witches have stolen them to kill them for rituals. It’s been going on since the 12th century, a little thing called the inquisition, remember that? There’s this huge propaganda machine and unfortunately it’s fed a lot by the media. every time you see a story about a bad witch it reinforces the whole idiotic conception.
Why do you think they fear Paganism?
People want to have a scapegoat. In the early part of this century it was the Jew… people love to think that the evil is outside of themselves, something out there and then they don’t have to look at their own behavior.
What is going on now, what are the rituals?
Well I think there are probably more witches than any other kind of Pagan. I think a lot of people are attracted to the word “witch” because it implies some kind of power. Witches will typically call in the Four Directions, the Sacred Four Directions, which is something they have in common with Native Americans. They’ll call in the north, south, east and the west. They will usually honor a goddess and a god — unless they happen to be Dianic, in which case they only worship a goddess. There’s what’s called power raising, which is actually exactly the same thing you would get in a Pentecostal church. It’s the same thing, working yourself up to an emotional state, then bringing the energy down. They ground it so that people don’t get psychologically unbalanced. Then they thank the deities, thank the direction and share what’s called cakes and wine, which helps to bond the group.
Where should people go here to practice Paganism?
If you’re really looking for a personal, mystical kind of revelation, as a Druid, I say beware of books and buildings. We do all of our ceremonies outdoors, we try to be close to nature.
Originally Published at http://citypaper.net/articles/020196/article001.shtml February 1–8, 1996