A Primer on Gallo-Irish Polytheism -Part 1 : Coming into relationship

This series of articles is adapted from reflexions I have shared on other platforms and collated here together for the first time.

I have long been wanting to write specifically about my faith, while being exceptionally timid at the idea of doing so. More so even than the extent of my magical pacts and other witchcraft compacts, the topic of my religious and devotional life is something I have kept quiet and private. In the spirit of honoring one of my spiritual resolutions for this year, which is to be more open and forward in the world about my religious beliefs, I wish to speak publicly about the gods who made me, and the trajectory that was mine. As my theurgy and practices shaped themselves more consistently over time, so too my beliefs refined, and with them my own piety.

Read A Primer on Gallo-Irish Polytheism – Part II : Inside the Nemeton
Read A Primer on Gallo-Irish Polytheism – Part III : The Gods My People Swear By

Ad astra, per aspera – through the thorns, to the stars

I suppose the best way to describe my religious path would be to coin the somewhat imprecise and needlessly pompous appellation of “Gallo-Irish polytheism”. Indeed, fairy faith is a core aspect of it, and was in fact its foundation in many regards. But there is ever, for me, witchcraft in devotion, and devotion in witchcraft – and so a strictly religious description does not entirely explain the extent of my theurgical practices. That being said, I do not believe our Ancestors separated their faith and magical explorations in neat little boxes, either – the gods were magic, and magic was everywhere in the mundane, proof of the existence of those invisible we share the world with. A way to bring Them closer, and articulate the mundane with the spiritual.

I shall not tell of how I became a witch.

But I am, first and foremost and at my core, an animist. This is certainly the most accurate term to define my system of beliefs, ethics, and practices – and what is a religion, if not the ideal combination of all this ? I shy away from the term « pagan » (it makes me genuinely wince in discomfort; so silly have been the neo-pagan currents of spirituality in the Western world that I find it hard to reclaim the term for myself), and « polytheist » is probably a bit too stern as I do not think I am structured enough in what I am doing to qualify exactly as a formalized religion.

Precisely, I worship and am oathbound and/or pledged and pacted to a small, curated handful of Celtic gods and ungods, specifically Gaelic and Gaulish, though other influences from continental and insular Celtic lands are distilled in this cauldron of knowledge. I came to the gods through magic, not devotion : born and raised in an agnostic family, my own faith still feels a little alien even to me.

I am not a Reconstructionist – first, because I have neither the scholarly knowledge to pretend, nor the dedication / willingness to be role-playing a farmer from 300 BCE; and second, because I was taught that academia and research are water, but not the fruit. Often Recons seem to me orthodox to the point of being more preoccupied with the worshipping of ashes than to the kindling of fire. There are a great many things I would change in Recons circles, for I am a highly critical person, but the main one is the endless peer-reviewing of the meager lore we have and the painstaking debates just for the sake of debating. But I am no Revivalist, either, because I like my practices rooted in structure, tradition, lore, history, and ritual as much as possible.

There seems to exist little middle-ground to stand between austere academia or just plain, out-of their-god-damn-mind pagans hugging trees, yet surely, there has to be a third option. At some point, after diligently studying cultural contexts and archeological evidences, one needs to start doing, but there is so very little discussions on the actual praxis of our faith, and none whatsoever in which I have manage to durably recognize myself in.

Ergo, Gallo-Irish polytheism. We’ll come back to that.

On developing and practicing ‘belief-belief’

“For now, let’s just accept the connection between what I like to call ‘belief-belief’ (belief confirmed by experience) and an increased ability to practice magic. (…) To ‘believe-believe’ in magic in a modern, educated, post-industrial context, is to be at war. It is to hold fast to your vision against a hundred voices.”
– Lee Morgan, Standing and Not Falling (2019)

I do not, typically, doubt my gods and spirits – I merely doubt myself : Their simple love and presence in my life, and how vocal and concrete this presence is, often has given me genuine imposter syndrome. I thought for a long time that only kings, saints, prophets or heroes benefited from such extended, unique and privileged relationships with the gods, or even spirits for that matter – and I was neither. I can bolster no royalty in my lineage (as far back as I am aware), and without any false modesty, I am not any more special or privileged a practitioner as any other. Thus I have not gotten over that simple question : why ?

Divine and spirit relationships are just that – relationships, freely given. There is not always a hidden agenda – and yet, at the same time, there are always deeper implications and ramifications.

I came to my gods and spiritual family as one would a homecoming.

I was lucky enough to be found, and recognized by, a mentor, who identified me as someone with the potential to learn, at a time of great spiritual unrest – where I was seeking to excavate meaning and understanding out of my magical craft, and out of life in general. In the tradition I was first brought up in (Irish fairy doctoring), signs need interpreting, and specific omens read scrupulously, to determine a prospective student, and one had to have proper permissions, needed to be marked in some certain way – I do not mean from this side but from the other. Picture me, a French native from the tall mountains and green lakes of the Alps, now living in the UK. When I was approached, I do not think I was a particularly interesting nor educated witch. I stood at the edge of a cliff, wanting to jump while being slightly afraid of doing so. But my mentor immediately saw unmistakable signs that I had no conscience of carrying / displaying, and this total stranger proceeded to unravel my whole life, and in particular my early childhood circumstances, like they were spinning a tale. I saw my story through their eyes, was told I had fire in the belly, and this was about it.

Me being seen and taught led to a huge upheaval in my life that I can only describe as a spiritual crisis, as truthfully the burden of responsibility of being touched by the Others and acknowledging so in an actionable manner is quite terrifying, though paved with much mirth, awe, bliss and joy also. I was sometimes afraid, but I can honestly say that I was always loved – and my mentor made sure I knew it. Many trials and ordeals were sent my way to test me, and that is not even beginning to mention my own personal struggles. My utter disbelief and bewilderment was patiently dismissed both by the spirits and my mentor on multiple occasions, because, so I learnt, carrying on the torch of a tradition is not about the individual, but about inheritance and survival. If you are deemed worthy to do so, then the rest will follow as long as you have trust, and faith, for it means being a part of something greater than yourself. I now know better than to question spirits’ motives and gods’ will. It teaches humility and integrity at the same time that it teaches pride and cunning.

I feel that the idea of a « divine experience » is understood by most as necessarily unique and miraculous in character, which in truth it is, but the divine is also surprisingly relatable, and holiness surprisingly down to earth at times. Sacred things are found in the mundane. I find this very immanence of my gods one of the most awe-inspiring and appealing thing about Them – I had this peculiar notion that gods were necessarily remote beings, fundamentally detached, busy, and alien. And that They are, too, or can be, rather – but They are far from distant. I am constantly amazed by how much They do care, and how all it takes is asking to be receiving. In many ways I am glad They proved me wrong, and to have been shown that I am always close to Them. I carry Them with me, in constant conversation. There are moments where I do feel more particularly attuned to Their presence, yes. Dark nights of the soul are part of this journey.

What draws one to their gods is such an incredible question to ask oneself. Ultimately, I have not a better answer to give than love, indeed.

I am where I am because of my mentor, because they chose me as a student. Aside from being a magical practitioner, my mentor acts in a priestly capacity and blends together their faith, magic, religion, and warriorship. So this is how I was shown to the gods, or rather, how I was shown my gods. They said the mark they saw was placed there by our gods and that, should I wish to learn, on Their behalf they would bid me come home. They not only taught me the true essence, nature and purpose of my magic: they welcomed me into their faith, their ways, their religion, recognizing me as kin, as an equal and sibling. The love my mentor showed me, the trust they gave me, the stories they told me, the rules they taught me… they traced all this and more back to Them – not in a self-aggrandizing, egotistical way, but with strong moral, bestowing me with stringent cultural and spiritual standards that still sometimes make it hard for me to relate to most occultists. Specifically, in my lineage, we believe our gods and ourselves to be one and the same tribe, and that our powers, gifts and abilities have been given to us by the gods in hope that we may act in this world to be a force for good. This does not make us chosen or special, nor does it imply a mission – in fact, in a world where dog eats dog is the law of the land, to do justice and show mercy is radically at odds, and this merely places quite the burden of responsibility on our shoulders. My mentor never disguised the fact. To be where I am now there are a certain number of virtues one has to uphold to do honour to our gods and our tribe, and I have been instructed with great care to mind my ethics in magic.

My mentor, I know, had other students, whom I never met. By their own admission, none succeeded.

I do not want to give the impression that my lineage is something very serious and formal that has been consistently maintained over the years, for it is not the case. We come from a humble family tradition. My mentor taught me because they saw me as a member of this family. They passed on knowledge they received from their own Irish grandmother, who herself had received it from her grandmother – and beyond that, we do not know. There is no temple aside from the one we carry in our heart, no powers passed aside from the one quickened in our hands – my mentor explained that to teach one how to fence, both mentor and mentee must already be equipped, for otherwise one would have to give up their sword, and the other be sword-less. There are ways in which that works (on a deathbed, for instance), but in the end, in recognizing power needing awakening, what she saw was that I had a sword, and that together we could dance.

I knew nothing about the gods, the faith, the tribe, back when we first talked – in fact I can distinctly remember a time where I had no desire whatsoever to be involved with any deity, and to be quite vocal about it. I was even foolish and vain enough to take pride in it. And yet – I still harbored this desire for what laid beyond, this longing in my heart that I did not quite know how to express nor feel, this need to belong and find my people and who I was.

When the gods reached out openly and independently from my mentor, it was an absolute shock. I grew up in an agnostic environment, but my paternal grandparents were Christians, with a Virgin hidden in the crook of a stone in their garden, and their God seemed always so stern, so remote and distant. The immanence of my gods unsettled me to my core – how responsive; how vocal, how present They were. I have said many times that I believed the gods to speak only to specially elevated individuals – so why could I hear Them ? Why would They talk to me ? I struggled, really struggled, to reconcile my preconceived ideas with what I was experiencing, and it threw me down a rather dark loop. More spectacularly, realizing Their gentle hands, Their mantle, were on me long before I was able to recognize it for what it was, made me have a proper spiritual breakdown.

I learned later that this all has nothing to do with me, of course. You are not special because you can hear gods or because They talk to you – this happens all the time, to a lot of different people. My incapacity to wrap my head around the fact, was due to ego plain and simple. My mentor had simpler explanations to give to my over-analyzing brain: the gods talk to you because They love you.

The simpler explanations are often the most deeply impactful, specifically if they speak the language of the heart, which burns and sows tendrils of fire in the soul, and I was not ready for this truth, I was not ready to be loved by the divine – and my whole body heaved and quivered in denial of it. It took a lot of people, patience, and various supportive readings, to soothe my spiritual anxiety, to help me cope with how raw and vulnerable this all made me feel, and to help me integrate that what I felt and experienced was real – and that others could see it. In fact – when a diviner cannot see this mark, it is a really bad sign that my gods are shielding me from their gaze because They do not trust them to look for me. This brought me a lot of joy, and a lot of sorrow.

I think you could say I was in crisis, and stayed there a long time. Establishing a spiritual routine did wonders for my mental and spiritual health, as well as talking, with people from various faiths, who showed me greater kindness than I was capable of lending myself. Settling down into devotion and the healthy expression of religious feelings is still a work in progress, but I am much more comfortable now than I was a few years ago. I envy those for whom this comes easy. Sometimes I am scared that my stubbornness will cause my kith to loose interest in me, but then I am reminded that I am loved exactly for the way I am, that all I do and feel, is the reason why these gods and spirits are my gods and no others. It can be so deeply alienating. And that is why I have never experienced anything more life-changing and important in my entire life, save for the love of my fiancé.

Walking the tides of Magic and Religion

Any religious artefact I own tends to double as a magical one, and vice-versa. One is never strictly just one or the other. I say there is no distinction to be made, no firm line to be drawned, between religion and magic. Ritual belongs to both. To be held by my gods and spirits the way I am, to know in my heart of heart that to place my trust in them leads me where I am meant to (even if it means cutting away at unsincere friendships, faring on my own, progressing in the dark, or grappling with doubt), is the reason why I am doing what I am doing. I would not be the same person if it weren’t for Their guidance. Of course, I have a thirst for knowledge and a crave for power (as does any witch). But my teacher told me recently one of the reasons they picked me was for the integrity they saw in me, because I wanted knowledge and power just for the sake and beauty of it, just to watch it unfold. I get really excited when I learn more about my gods and spirits, Their plans, Their capacities, and it fuels me in unspeakable ways, but I have grown completely out of the ego-trip of being able to perform miracles – in fact I find it incredibly shallow. As I learned and understood how everything is a matter of permissions, always, I aimed to cultivate substance and devotion over pride and passion. Make no mistake though – I am a sovereign creature and there is nothing about my temper that likes being governed, so it takes work !

I also learned that magic and religion are no sciences to be dissected under a calculating eye : they are, at their best, art, techniques, marvels – to be experienced through the heart and the soul. Magic and religion cannot and will not be fully reconciled with the mundane. That is why they are magic and religion. And why we must be daring and brave enough to take a leap of faith.

To be bold.

Step into the unknown. Endanger ourselves. Endanger our preconceptions of the world. Settle into the unsettling. Accept to be unsteadied. Be scared, but do the thing anyway.

Then we must integrate that we are Seekers. This means recognizing that we have a longing, a yearning, a hunger, a thirst that cannot be eased nor quenched by materialism, by the daily life of the shared experience of the world with others. This hunger or thirst or yearning will be the core root of our spiritual drive. It will tug and pull at our secret strings, sometimes aching, sometimes empowering. We will knead it and nurture it further. Questions such as why and how do not always find their answers, and we will have to be able to swallow that, to accept that we are now on a lifelong quest. To learn how to enjoy the quest for what it is – seeking -, and to remember those tales teaching that the quest is the tale, that the path is the arrival. Only then can we trust in the feedback we are getting. If we call, do our allies answer ? If we cast a spell or conduct a ritual, does it lend us result ? If we speak and confide in our gods, do They speak back, and do we find comfort and solace ? If we walk this spiritual road, do we grow and change in a way that pleases us, fulfills us, and makes us a better, stronger, happier person ?

We shall never be totally spared from the plague of self-doubt, the fleetingness of confidence, the gnawing mechanism of the imposter syndrome, spiraling out of control, and the sabotaging potential contained in this single most unraveling capacity we have, as human beings walking a spirit road, of second-guessing ourselves – but, truthfully, to be rid of it is not the goal. We will only ever learn to navigate it on our own terms. These unchartered waters have lessons of their own, and us instructing ourselves to swim despite the undercurrents will take us to shores only us can explore. In time, we will meet other alone Seekers like us, with whom to share and exchange and walk a bit of the path.

The short and sweet answer as to what happens to someone braving the ordeals of spirit initiation would be the witty ending « dead, mad, or a poet ». This dramatic saying emphasizes that as human beings (and no matter whether or not your initiation is a success by your tradition’s standards) we do not come back intact from repeated contact with the spirit world. We are simply not meant to. A witch, for example, is forever marked as Other, their very soul forever changed.

One could in fact argue it is the same for the priest.

Or the devotee.

A little bit of death, madness and poetry all happen all at once.

Standing in the middle: Between Land, Sea and Sky

I have come to think of the Wyrd as an infinitely vast and complex tapestry, made of multiple events and relationships woven together. Nothing is quite set in stone, the tapestry is amenable, pliable, but each thread depends on the others, and we are only allocated one small window to view and understand it, an infinite portion of the greater ensemble. Some people (witches and magicians) are capable of borrowing the needles of the gods and spirits to undo and redo this tapestry as they see fit – to bargain and barter, to ask and supplicate, but such deeds always have consequences, and they run ever so deep. Performing magic ideally requires a strong understanding of Fate’s innermost consistency – meaning, having as broad a window as possible, together with proper permissions and power to act. Badly performed magic will ultimately cause the practitioner’s own unraveling, for this tapestry has guardians.

We all always, at each and any given point in time, weave, unspool, tie, knit and knead Fate, simply by living our own life. Free will is not fundamentally incompatible with the notion of Fate : thinking so, I feel, is singularly small-minded. Rather, we play the game with the cards we have been dealt – or, in this case : stars.

For to catch a glimpse of this tapestry, one needs only looking up : Fate, in all its alien, grandiose and remote meaning, is best seen mapped out in the celestial ocean – there, mind you, the abyss peers back. Our fate, however, is best seen in the eyes of the people who surround us, in our daily, mundane circumstances, and in the sum total of our choices – each one holy, each one shaping the essence of who we are, each one defining and refining what makes us, us, and our life our own.

Reading poetry. I do so because the operational tech of poetry (the rhymes, rhythms, flow, scansion, breath and chant, the weight and meaning of the words) is virtually the same as the tech necessary to the raising of magical power, in my tradition, and because the way poetry conjures up images and symbols in the mind to stir the soul deeply, deeply, provoking unrest, longing and hunger, is (more often than not) the very language the spirits speak – one with no words nor tongue, but made of raw fire and pure light, symbols and enigmas, a labyrinth’s tongue spoken in echoes. In writing / listening / declaiming poetry, we as humans take ourselves closer to the spiritual world, to the realm of gods and spirits, to the Other, than any trance-inducing substance ever will. In Gaelic lore, there is a long, fascinating history of complex connections between poetry and prophecy, and it is magnificently apparent why.

We are a narrative species. We storytell. We fateweave.

And from this very act, we understand the gods, our world, our place, in between heaven and earth, in between Land, Sea and Sky – and how we are to live in it.