Pagan Magazine Vs the Pagan Federation

Fig. 1: Pagan: The Magazine of Blood-Knowledge Issue XXVIII (Spring 1989)

Fig 2: Letter from Leonora James, President of the Pagan Federation (1 Nov 1989)

 

I. 

 

A reader writes:

As someone who is researching the history of paganism in the UK during the twentieth-century, I was naturally interested in a remark made in a recent post published on Torpedo the Ark [1] concerning some kind of dispute between yourself and the then President of the Pagan Federation, Leonora James, in the 1980s.

      

You allege that she threatened to report you to the police on the basis of some artwork sent to her, but provide no further details of this incident, nor any proof with which to back up this claim. If you could provide a little more information and any documentary evidence relating to this case that you may still have in your possession, I'd be most grateful.    

 

 

As I'm always happy to assist those doing research, here then are a few more details as requested, along with materials submitted in evidence ...

 

 

II. 

 

Issue XXVIII of Pagan Magazine was entitled 'Expressions' and was dated Spring 1989. 

 

It mostly consisted of a selection of poems written over the winter months and illustrated with some of my favourite works by several German Expressionists, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Otto Mueller. 

 

Later that year, I decided to try and get some support from the Pagan Federation (PF) for what I was doing - not just the magazine, but also a line of Pagan T-shirts - and wrote to the then President, Leonora James, a high priestess in the Gardnerian tradition of modern pagan witchcraft. 

 

The PF had been founded in 1971 and aimed to protect the rights and raise the profile of all those who described themselves as pagan and to provide information on pagan beliefs and activities to the wider community and media. Vivianne Crowley, founder of the Wicca Study Group in 1988, was appointed Secretary of the PF in that same year.   

 

Just to be clear: I wasn't a member of the PF and didn't seek membership. I was simply looking for recognition and, perhaps, some financial assistance (though I had no idea of whether they provided such). 

 

Unfortunately, after a long wait to hear back from the PF, I received the following letter dated 1 November 1989:

 

 

Dear Stephen Alexander,

I am returning your paedophile mag unopened herewith. If it is a serious attempt at Pagan erotica, we suggest you leave Paganism and join the Church of England, where choirboys seem to be all the rage, according to the many documented criminal convictions in the last year. If it is an attempt by artists to interest Pagans in paedophilia, buzz off, we're not interested. If its lurid cover picture is intended to link Paganism with paedophilia in the public's mind, rest assured, we shall take any future issues straight to the police for investigation - of you. 

The neo-Nazi overtones of the picture's legend are unlikely to arouse much interest among Pagans of the Norse tradition. Asatru is concerned with building a free and honourable lifestyle for people of all ages, not with living out regressive fantasies about children. 

May the Gods guide you through your misconceptions, and don't bother us with this kind of rubbish again. 

 

Sincerely, 

 

Leonora James

President, Pagan Federation

III.    

 

I have to admit, I still find this frankly bizarre and ludicrous letter as astonishing today as I did when I first read it. My reply read as follows:

 

 

Dear Ms James,

                        

Your letter referring to Pagan Magazine (Issue XXVIII), leaves me absolutely astounded. You accuse me of paedophilia, eroticism, and neo-Nazism and base all three accusations purely on the cover alone! 

      

Of course, I strongly deny at least two of the above charges: Pagan Magazine is not a paedophile publication and nor does it have any neo-Nazi overtones, undertones, or sympathies. And if it sometimes features erotic art, it is hardly pornographic in character (nor a 'serious attempt' to be such).

      

I'm not quite sure what troubles me most about your letter: your ignorance and philistine stupidity; or your hysterical obsession with child-sex. The image you describe as 'lurid' is in fact a well-known work by the German Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 

      

As for the phrase blood-knowledge in the magazine's subtitle, please note this is taken from D. H. Lawrence and refers to a way of knowing that is intuitive and instinctive; i.e. pre-mental and non-headbound. It has nothing to do with the racial politics of the Third Reich. 

      

Returning to the erotic aspect of Pagan Magazine, if this worries you so much then I suggest you rename your church of the closed mind and unopened text the Puritan Federation! It's shocking that someone like you is a representative of the pagan community, as your letter clearly demonstrates you are unworthy of such a role. 

 

'May the gods guide you through your misconceptions ...'

 

Stephen Alexander Von Hell

PS: please note how, at no time, did I threaten to send a policeman after you ...!

 

PPS: I will one day expose your foolishness. 

 

 

Thirty-five years later and it seems that my second postscripted remark has finally come to pass  ... 

 

Image used on the Contents Page of  

Pagan Magazine XXVIII (1989)

 

Notes

 

[1] The post referred to - 'Pagan Magazine: Remembered and Reimagined' - was published on 1 August 2024 and can be accessed by clicking here. Another recent post in what might be thought of as the Pagan series can be read by clicking here.

  

 

Gymnosophy 2: On German Free Body Culture and the Third Reich

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Bathers at Moritzburg (1909-26)

Image: tate.org.uk

The German naturist movement, often known by the name of Freikörperkultur (FKK), was the first such movement in the modern world and helped to establish public acceptance and enthusiasm for nudity which has continued to the present day; there are some legal restrictions about where and when you can strip off, but they are few in number compared to most other countries and as viewers of Eurotrash will recall, Germans love being naked more than anybody else.

Ask almost any German, and they will wax lyrical about the joys of nature, communal living, and getting naked with friends and family - and, indeed, strangers. It is, of course, a Romantic ideal and it's not surprising to discover that at the same time as public nudity was becoming increasingly taboo, there were poets, perverts and philosophers all preaching in favour of nude bathing and adopting an Ancient Greek perspective on these matters.  

It wasn't until 1898, however, that the first Freikörperkultur club was established for consenting adults to meet up and strip off as part of a wider programme of so-called Lebensreform.* Predictably, there was some opposition from within conservative circles who saw such behaviour not as an expression of health and freedom, but moral degeneracy. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, nudist organisations were either banned or absorbed into their own programme of Kraft durch Freude [KdF].

It should be noted, however, that naturism was a subject that the Nazis were extremely ambiguous on. On the one hand, many passionately believed in the benefits of nude sunbathing and sporting activities and argued that FKK should be given state recognition and support. But, on the other hand, there were some Nazis who worried that Nacktkultur** encouraged immoral activity, including homosexuality, so argued for laws restricting its practice.     

Ultimately, any prohibitions on nudity were not strictly enforced during the Third Reich - provided activities were kept in the countryside and that all clubs and organisations were officially registered with KdF to ensure that Jews and known communists were not given membership; naked rambling beneath a Nordic sky was something that only members of the master race could enjoy ...

Notes

* Lebensreform was a social and cultural movement in the late-19th and early-20th century that propagated a back-to-nature fantasy that anticipated the hippies and the green movement of today in its emphasis on organic farming, vegetarianism, nudism, alternative therapies, anti-capitalism, and neo-paganism. Although politically diverse, I would argue that the driving force of this reactionary movement came from the extreme right and that völkisch Romanticism all-too-easily feeds into the spurious Blut und Boden ideology of the Nazis. 

**  The term Nacktkultur was coined by Heinrich Pudor, who in 1906 published a three-volume study that connected nudism to vegetarianism and social reform. It was also tied to pacificism and became politicised by radical socialists who believed that sunbathing, plenty of outdoor exercise and sexual hygiene would lead to a utopian society. Mention should also be given to Adolf Koch, as his was the name most closely associated with Nacktkultur in the 1920s and '30s. A PE teacher who had studied psychology and medicine, Koch was founder of the Institute for Nudist Education, as well as a network of schools throughout Germany. Despite attempts to curry favour with the new regime (to which he was not unsympathetic), his organisation was closed down and his activities curtailed by the Nazis. 

Readers interested in part one of this post on the naked philosophers of the ancient world, should click here. 

Readers interested in part three, on nudity and neo-pagan witchcraft, should click here. 

Readers interested in part four, on streakers, should click here.