The Agora was, to put it in deceptively simple terms, a Pagan listings site, but as this passage excerpted from the old site shows, the Council was trying to do a little more with it than just give names and telephone numbers.




A little of what we're about ...

Our intention in writing this page is to help the Pagan seeker to conduct her search for a place to be part of, in a focused and directed fashion. That means, that this is to be a page of information, of discussion and review of the Pagan groups in our area. It is to be one of criticism, both positive and negative, but always, we hope, constructive, when dealing with those of good will.

This means, that we want to hear from all who have something valuable to say. Yes, of course, most of all, we invite those running a group to share with the reader a sense of who they are, and what they are about. To that end, we offer at least 50 K of space to each group to talk about itself and give the reader a firm sense of what it would be like to be part of it. But we also welcome commentary from those who have experienced the group, or have gotten to know it.

Some have been unhappy about this approach, feeling that we are not supporting the community. Our response to this is that if you truly believe in something, then you'll want people to see the whole truth about it. Did we recently advertise the fact that, by the admission of its own contact person, one particular group was charging four to five hundred dollars for its pre-initiation courses, and criticise them for doing so? Yes, absolutely, and we'd do it again. But, what kind of people would we be, as a community, if one of our number decided to prey on the unwary in this fashion and none among us saw fit to speak up?

Do we believe in the Pagan community? You bet. So when we stand up, in such a bare minimum fashion, and say that religion isn't about turning a profit, we do it with the confidence that we won't be standing alone. When we direct people away from a group that has behaved in a dishonorable fashion, we do it with the confidence that there will be others ready to greet them and restore the trust that such a group would betray. To those who ask us if we are supporting our community, then, we would ask, what truer support can there be than to show your belief in something through your actions?

Given that our mission is to serve the seeker and not the group, why would a group wish to help build its listing, here? Well, to begin with, because in giving the reader a clearer picture of its character, it increases its chances of being visited by the sort of prospective member who would feel at home in it, and of being avoided by the sort who would feel malcontented within. This can't help but make a group stronger. Further, if that group has a message to get out, in over 40 pages to work with, it has a good chance of catching the attention of those who might be interested in hearing more.

So please, write and share. We sit, waiting to hear. But share in a spirit of trust and integrity, because we are to speak of man's relation to the Divine, and the best that is within himself, and there's a reason why in such things, people speak of "faith".


Yadda, yadda, yadda ... my, some of us were in a hopeful mood. That mood would soon pass. That one passage said it all:


So when we stand up, in such a bare minimum fashion, and say that religion isn't about turning a profit, we do it with the confidence that we won't be standing alone.

But, as we would soon discover, the council was standing alone on precisely this, and it would soon find that its faith in the community was greatly misplaced. Perhaps the most telling moment would come when one of us corresponded with the priestess mentioned in "Breaking Away", who wanted to know what the topic for submissions to the first issue of the Newsletter was going to be. Given the large number of Pagans following "magickal traditions", the Council felt that a good topic would be "the metaphysics of magick" - what does one feel is the metaphysical basis for "magick"? Not just how does it work, but why? Does one believe that one gains the intercession of the gods, does one believe in a subjective world that one influences by reaching into a sort of Jungian collective subconscious ... or something else? What does one believe in this area, what has lead one to this belief, and how does one's beliefs influence one's practices? No answer ever came from the priestess, but we found that a noticable chill fell over the community in response to that question.

We, ourselves, not believing in magick, would not have been among those submitting to that issue, but we thought that learning more about our neighbor's beliefs might be interesting. What we discovered instead was one of the local Wiccan community's many dirty little secrets: that its elders had no thoughts on this matter whatsoever, that their faith had no depth to it at all. It was nothing more than a smattering of formulas and recipes with no philosophical base, little more than an excuse to, as one of us later put it, "try to sell candles to the rubes at $20 apiece". It was just another quick money scheme hatched in the pages of the Reader and those exposed, however unwittingly, would not be happy about that turn of events, at all. Let's continue with our account of what happened.