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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
- During the first half of the 80s we avoided mingling with the general neo-pagan community while
focusing on getting back to basics and developing an experiential as opposed to intellectual
approach.
It was difficult for me to do this. It meant that I personally had to set aside every bit of dogma
(pantheons, rituals, mystical approaches, myths, etc.) I had learned from all of my teachers and
truly apply Occam's Razor (making everything as simple as possible but not simpler) getting rid of
everything that was not absolutely necessary.
It seemed obvious to me that our distant ancestors came to know their deities and spirits through
dreams and visions and that the myths, legends and religious doctrines that have been handed
down to us are those shared dreams and visions embellished by storytellers and cultural overlays
and changed by translators interpretations of translators interpretations. All of that had to go.
It also seemed obvious to me that many of the myths of our ancient ancestors were interpretations
of natures cycles in spiritual terms. For example the Norse myth of Ragnarok appears to be a
description of Winter, followed by the rebirth of the world. The conception of reincarnation is seen
in the life cycles of plants, perhaps tubulars, the conception of immortality seen in the evergreens,
and so forth. All of the interpretations had to go so we could examine the essentials.
In mid 1984 I began the process necessary to successfully establish Temple of the Elder Gods
(TOTEG) as a California Non-profit Religious Corporation with tax-exempt status from both the
State of California and the United States Internal Revenue Service. I thought it was magically
symbolic to arrange it so that TOTEG officially got it's corporate status and tax exemption on the
Winter Solstice.
I'm finding the next parts extremely difficult to write about because I have mixed feelings about
them. A part of me recognizes that I learned a great deal from the events that followed. Another
part of me is ashamed by the way I deviated from my own values, purpose, and vision. Often I
would like to deny that part of my life happened.
I think it was for my birthday or Yule in 1984 that Joey bought me a copy of "Medicine Wheel: Earth
Astrology" by Sun Bear and Wabun Wind. She inscribed it "Because there might be something of
value here."
I found the book to be quite interesting at first and began experimenting with the concepts, the
plant and animal associations in it. I started reckoning time by the cycles outlined in the book and
felt myself being drawn into his cosmology. In January of 1985 I had the vivid dream that I call
"Bright Visions", probably inspired at least in part by Sun Bear's description of his own vision.
The Bright Visions dream was so intense that I insisted that we adapt it as a ritual, and so for
several months the circle rehearsed the movement and dance. That spring, at the annual Pacific
Circle gathering at Bandito Campground in the Angeles National Forest (the first such gathering
that TOTEG attended as a group) we performed the ritual publicly. I guess you could say that this
was TOTEG's "coming out" in the Southern California Neo-Pagan scene.
Through Bear Tribe I learned that a man named Glen Schiffman lived just a few blocks away from
me and that he hosted sweat lodge ceremonies from time to time. I was very interested in having
that experience and wrote to him, but didn't get a reply for several months. By the time Glen wrote
back he had moved from Sunland to Burbank.
I seriously considered becoming a Sun Bear Apprentice and corresponded with Wabun Wind for
a time. There were a couple of big things that held me back. First was the several hundred dollars
they wanted before acceptance into their apprenticeship program, and the second was the fact
that I could never get them to answer my questions about what the apprenticeship program actually
consisted of.
After Pacific Circle that year TOTEG began to interact with other active groups in the Southern
California area. Several of the major groups got together and formed what they called Seeker's
Circle -- a loose association of all of the groups. Every Saturday we would meet at one or the other
groups locations and interview newcommers. The Newcommer would then attend circles with each
one of the different groups until they decided which one they would like to study with.
This was quite a workable system for a few years after that.
The more of Sun Bear's stuff I incorporated into my thinking, the more uncomfortable I got. There
was something about it that was just too familiar. Eventually I realized that the book "Medicine
Wheel: Earth Astrology" was just that. Earth Astrology. The only thing the book and Sun Bear's
Vision had in common is that they were printed between the same covers. The vast majority of the
book and the system outlined is nothing more than traditional Babylonian astrology and Western
Philosophy with Indian sounding names substituting for the familiar planets, signs, elements, and
so forth.
