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A rough draft of the spiritual autobiography of Joseph B Wilson. The history that lead to Toteg Tribe.
Copyright 2003 by Joseph B Wilson
After Susan Roberts' book was published we received a lot of mail. Among others I established
contact with Tom DeLong of the San Francisco Bay area who had written to me because our
approaches to the Old Religion appeared to be similar. Tom preferred to be known by the name
he used in the Society for Creative Anachronism, Gwydion Penderwin. I soon included him in the
joint correspondence held with Tony Kelly, John Hansen, and Ed Fitch. When one of us wrote a
letter we made carbon copies and sent it to everyone on the list. Some letters were three or four
thousand words long. At least one of Tony's contained over 10,000 words.
Hundreds of the letters we got were requests for information on how to start practicing the Old
Religion. We jointly decided to take Ed's idea of an Outer Court a step or two further and we
collaborated on a book of pagan religious rituals and practices suitable for those who had to start
without personal guidance. Each of us contributed something of substance from our own
background to share, rituals, theories, and so forth. It turned out to be a fairly decent small book.
We decided to provide this information to anyone who asked for it in return for postage and
printing costs. We also decided not to copyright it and to keep the authorship anonymous so that it
could be freely copied and passed on to anyone else without guilt. That turned out to be a mistake,
since a couple of years this Pagan Way material was stolen by the sleeze ball Herman Slater who
sold it to Weiser for $500. We'd have been better off doing that ourselves, and maintaining the
credit. But then this was the free Hippie era, and freedom was our ideal. Or at least mine.
I thought it would be helpful if we had an organization to help get things rolling. The others agreed,
but they disagreed on how. Eventually we divided into three "sister" groups, with Tom starting
"Nemeton" on the west coast, John and Ed forming "Pagan Way" on the east coast, and me being
the first leader of "Pagan Movement in Britain and Ireland", in England. Whenever any of us got a
request from someone in another's geographical area we would forward that request to the
appropriate group.
I found it impossible to pay for postage of The Waxing Moon (which was still the only witchcraft
newsletter/magazine in the US) to the United States so I asked John and Ed to take over
publication there. They agreed, I gave them my U.S. mailing list, and we now had two separate
editions being published, one for each country. Later this resulted in confusion so, with my
agreement, they changed the name of the U.S. edition to The Crystal Well. It became the official
organ of "Pagan Way". I turned The Waxing Moon into the official organ of "Pagan Movement in
Britain and Ireland".
We made it a practice of mailing our publications to other "underground press" periodicals, and
listing the ones we exchanged with in an advertisement in the back. This exchange resulted in free
advertising for each periodical. One of the publications we exchanged with was Green Egg a
journal used as the organ of the "Church of All Worlds" out of St. Louis, Missouri. This church was
founded by Tim Zell (later Otter G'zell, still later Oberon, still later ???), and was based upon his
interpretation of the Church of All Worlds from Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land". Tim
called his church a Neo-Pagan denomination. It's major emphasis seemed to be free love and
ecological considerations. Both platforms were something I could agree with. I'd contribute an
occasional letter to be published in Green Egg.
It was my policy to support the right of anyone to call themselves what they wanted to, and practice
religion the way they saw fit. Some others disagreed and there were literary arguments about the
right of lineage through initiation of various traditions. Just like "Sean" had warned me so many
years before.
I took the unpopular position of supporting Gavin & Yvonne Frost's right to call themselves
"witches" and teach a course -- I said, and still say, I may disagree with their approach, but they
have the same rights as anyone else. Somehow this raised the ire of another contributor to Green
Egg, one "Dr." Leo Louis Martello. Martello was an obnoxious ass who made it a practice of
attacking in print anyone who slightly disagreed with him. I suppose that made him feel important.
Recently the world became a better place with his departure from the realm of physical existence.
In January or February of 1970, in response to requests from people I'd contacted through The
Waxing Moon, and "Pagan Movement" (we shortened the name) I started having open meetings in
my home and encouraging others to do the same thing. We conducted these religious and
teaching ceremonies regularly on the Second Saturday of every month. I was tired of the OSI
investigating me because of my religious activities so mailed them, the base commander, the
base chaplain, and the wing commander an invitation to attend the meetings each month. I told
them that since they were so interested in what I was doing they might as well attend and find out
first hand and see if I had any illegal activity or other deep dark secrets to hide. They always
declined the invitation, though I think the OSI may have sent undercover people to report on my
activities.
