Beltain Bash

Beltain Bash happens every year around this time. That's the end of May rather than beginning so as not to clash with the eponymous religious festival. It's really kym's thing as I'm not into shopping as much as she. But even that has lost some of its lustre since the retirement of Zia, mistress of 'Seven Veils', to the fleshpots of Spain. Zia really was one of the best robe makers and her creations were used in BBC Scotland's Crowley doco 'The Other Loch Ness Monster'. Another unexpected sun seeker is Freya Aswyn, whose gothic looks wouldn't seem to imply a love of the mediterranean sun.

Anyways - we arrive for the second and what turns out to be the quieter of the two days. Lots of familiar faces, some not so. Professor Ronald Hutton is due to speak on sexuality and paganism - so we sit through the Daughters of Gaia, (who have a website) - and have somehow managed to turn some of the slightly overdone pagan chants such as 'we all come from the goddess' etc into new age torch songs. Not quite to my taste but the audience seem to like it. For me it adds to the slightly faded quality of some pagan events these days - they hardly seem cutting edge and I wonder whether they ever did?

Ronald's talk was as entertaining and comprehensive as we've all come to expect - which is amazing considering he is recovering from quite a serious illness AND has to run a large university history department. Makes me feel quite lazy. Some of the ground covered in his talk is familiar to me from my own researches for Katon Shual's slim volume 'Sexual Magick'. I.e sooner or later we all have to face up to the fact that some classical pagans, eg the Stoics, were every bit as puritanical as their Christian nemesis. Although I'd still say not all good things are the gift of the modern pagan. The lifestyle of the high culture of Egypt shows some of the same predilection from 'Sex, drugs and R&R.'

Time for a breath of air, outside I bump into lots of old pals in the smokers circle - and suitably refreshed - I can face an hour with 'Scots' Mary in the incredibly stuffy Bertrand Russell, or is it Mani Shinwell room? I should say that 'Scots' Mary is one of the alumni of Alex and Maxine's 1970s magical coven - so respect. But the talk is hardly rocket science but twenty years ago I would have appreciated this kind of thing - but I'm wondering if the younger members of the audience are impressed? Actually twenty years ago i would have been a bit of a bolshevik and might have protested or even have asked what is it that wiccans actually do with their wands? Or as my friend Alex says, was Gerald Gardner smoking behind the bike-shed when that particular topic was discussed in the Hairy Potheads skool for wizards?

Two lectures under my belt I can safely head for the pub where all the other cynics have decamped for a gossip and another smoke. After an hour I decide to take a look at the valedictory rite more as an anthropological exercise than anything else. It's billed as a two hour psycho-drama based around the mysteries of The Wizard of Oz. The whole crowd of 'munchkins' sighs ahhhh in unison as the high priest enters in his Toto costume - you get the drift. I suppose one shouldn't be too sniffy. Levanah Morgan regularly lectures on the occult symbolism of this and other Hollywood films. Perhaps Julian Vayne is right afterall, we are all Chaos Magicians now. Many moons ago I walked out of an 'Erisian' ritual based around the energy of football - among the other lurkers on the threshold I met my future wife and partner - so chaos magick can't be all bad. - mogg