An Interview with
Terri Moore

Atheist and secular Pagan

Q. Who is Terri Moore?

That’s a really good question, you know - one I’m not sure I know the answer to. I can tell you who she was, or has been, though. Born 8th November 1959 at 5:00 am, oldest child of two scientists, granddaughter of Scottish and German Peerage, I was originally Terri Jay Anderson, of Clans Anderson and McKay, von Banning and the Welsh Georges. I have been a daughter, sister, and mother in my time. I am none of these now.

I have studied Astronomy and Physics at university, but utilize very little science today. I have been a servant of drugs and alcohol, and a victim of paralyzing agoraphobia and inexplicably lost both addictions and the phobia a few years ago. I have stood on the precipice of death, shuffled a toe over, and returned again to life. I have been a humble Christian and a Wiccan High Priestess, and now am neither.

Five years ago I lost everything I had, including my family, and have started again from nothing. At the moment I live in Bloubosrand in Randburg, with my Life Partner Warren and a Pit Bull called Charybdys. I work as an IT professional, and otherwise conduct myself pretty much as a hermit. I socialize very, very rarely and enjoy my own company. When I do venture out, it’s pretty likely to be to a Meet Up of Atheists whose honesty and integrity I prize very highly indeed, to say nothing of their intelligent sense of humour. I am honoured to count myself one of their number.

I get a strong sense of myself as an entity in constant change, the almost permanent feeling of being born anew each day, of someone who is becoming something, which just eludes her vision. So, really, while I know where I come from, it is not yet apparent what I truly am or what I may become.

Q. How did you come to embracing Paganism?

I was subverted into Paganism in 1985. I’d had a couple of flings with Christianity before that, as I seem to have been an inherently ‘religious’ person.

My first introduction into the Pagan lifestyle was person-on-person, which I think many people are missing today. These days we’re far more likely to find our answers through the Internet, or if we’re lucky and literate, through books. It’s not the same really.

I split my learning between England and South Africa though, which has made for a mind well divided between the hemispheres. I grew up in England, and the very words ‘June’ and ‘July’ have a deep ring of summer to me, even today!

Q. How would you define a Pagan?

I’ve come to believe that a Pagan is pretty much self-defined today. The roots of the word, as we know, refer to someone ‘of the land’. Hence to me a Pagan can be a wide variety of people - a hard polytheist, a crypto-monotheist or even an atheist. The key is the personal bond to the Earth. She really is our Mother, and every living thing is our brethren.

I have a very lively appreciation of the fact that we are all stardust, literally. I’m still continually overawed by the majesty and beauty of the universe.

So I’m not too keen on a narrow definition of the term. However, there are, to my mind, one or two precluding characteristics. I don’t believe that anyone who identifies the Earth as enemy territory to be conquered and destroyed as we reach for some ancient ‘goat-herders’ definition of paradise should be considered a Pagan.

Q. Tell us about your experience of the Gardnerian Tradition. Are you still a practicing Gardnerian? Who initiated you?

Here’s a thing: although I have extensively rewritten both Sabbat and Esbat liturgical material to fit in better with my non-theist stance, I find myself often reverting to doing it the way that I was taught. There are some works which carry such a sense of grandeur that they just feel right for the occasion. The Gardnerian BOS is one of those works. So yes, I still practice in the way of a Gardnerian, but I do not count myself one any longer. I took my First and Third Initiations from Clwyd in Forest Town (East End of London) in 1986 and 1989 respectively, and I have worked with a Dianic Coven. However much I slag off the Gardnerians (and indeed they are often so full of Old Bollocks), I regard them to be serious about their religion. They have a good deal of integrity (as well as a good deal of secrecy), and I do respect them greatly for that. My gratitude also goes out to them for finding me in the first place worthy to instruct.

Q. Was Gerald Gardner really a horny old sod, or are the rumours just that?

Hah! No public stance on this one, I’m afraid. But if you are well acquainted with the old British Colonial upbringing and hence psyche, you can certainly draw your own conclusions!

Q. Does neo-Paganism have a place for reverends, clergy, congregations and churches?

Most unfortunately yes. There seems to definitely be a place for the above-mentioned scroungers, spongers and hangers-on. The delightful terms from the world of Other Anthropoids describe most of them well:
“Fake Silverbacks” and “Pseudo Alphas”.

Seen this way, their comical aspirations to be the deliverer of their people from Evil make sense at last. Allowing Fake Silverbacks into our ranks may have been one of the most deadly mistakes we have ever made, as a race.

This is not to say that I don’t have a deal of respect for some people who just happen to also have a clerical title before their names - the Rev.’s Arias Ndlovu and Epona Moondancer come to mind as decent folk who are working within a largely rotten paradigm.

Q. Can neo-Pagans justify exclusionism by distancing themselves from traditional African spirituality?

Seems to me that South Africans are getting pretty GOOD at justifying their exclusionism. Seems to ME that there’s a major fear for some of them that someone who comes from a direct unbroken line of shamans and spiritual healers might just show them up for the patzers they are.

I may have no wish to become a sangoma myself, but some of our European neo-Pagans are rather over-stressing their distinction from traditional African healers. Makes very little sense to me, unless of course we are looking at an insidious refinement of white supremacy here.

Q. How do you feel about the commercialization of religion in general and Witchcraft specifically?

I take a pretty dim view of both religion and advertising, so the combination is bound to give me indigestion. The abundant smearing around of platitudes meant to comfort or inspire is likely to turn my stomach. Deepak Chopra gives me the absolute pip - yes I have read him, and heartily wish I hadn’t. That’s some scary stuff.

Let’s be real here, I consider religion to be a peculiarly human vice, one that is akin to mental illness, and it can be both as harmful and as hard to be rid of. I think we have no business popularizing schizophrenia, for instance, or touting OC disease as an answer to our lives. Just so, religion should never be packaged as a consumer item.

Witchcraft, even when not ‘sold’ as a religion, seems to fall prey to ethically deficient morons with about as much regularity as does Pentecostal Christianity. The emphasis seems to be on how much revenge you can extract from your enemies, or how much power you can learn to wield over those ‘not in the know’. It’s all about a feeling of personal powerlessness, in other words. Some people will go to great lengths, pay any price, to feel empowered.

Q. What do you think are the qualities required of an elder in any spiritual or religious community?

An ‘elder’ should require their chelas to think it through for themselves, always. And be ever willing to engage in an exchange of ideas. With anybody. No more than that. Oh, OK- being grounded in something approximating reality helps as well. That, and a keen sense of their own lack of omnipotence.

Q. What do you think of European Paganism and Pagans in South Africa to date?

I think we’ve got off to a bit of a shaky start. To date, we still have too many people out there striving to feed their own deep powerlessness with the light of publicity. It doesn’t need to be that way but we must also look at our society overall in this country. Image seems to be everything. The appearance of wealth is just about the most important thing there is to most South Africans and the blasé acceptance of the most grinding poverty existing side by side with the most extreme affluence. How can we expect the Pagans who arise out of this society to be well balanced? I believe that we will get there however, just as I believe this wonderful country will eventually be the best little corner of the earth to live in!
Q. What is your definition of magick? Is it just superstition?

I like the definition: “The true magic is that which cannot be named”, but of course that’s just dodging the question. I certainly don’t believe that I, or anyone else, can achieve macroscopic changes in reality in a short period of time. One doesn’t alter the laws of physics just by thinking really hard at them.

What you can change is the way you think and hence how you act and react in this universe. Many micro changes like this and you may see something worth noting.

I’m very well aware that I don’t know how everything or even most things work. There are almost certainly nuances to this world that I have failed entirely to notice. But I do believe that we will, one day, know much more. However, this will only come to pass if we continue to apply ourselves to the scientific disciplines, Meditating upon the shape of the universe may feel damn good, but it won’t add a jot or a tittle to our understanding of it unless we get off our bums and try to make those measurements in real time.

What if to the Race I was born?
To me that’s no reason why I
Should cling to a faith that I scorn,
When my birthright’s the infinite sky!

Victor Neuburg - The Agnostic Journal 1904