Kenaz Filan (Hougan Coquille du Mer) was initiated into Societé la Belle Venus in 2003 after a decade of solitary service to the lwa.  Look for Kenaz’s books such as “The Haitian Vodou Handbook,” “Vodou Love Magic”, and “Drawing Down the Spirits” (the last one cowritten with Raven Kaldera).  Kenaz also writes regularly for magazines such as Pagans & Witches (formerly known as the two magazines NewWitch and PanGaia), Planet magazine, and Widdershins.

MW: How did you get started in magickal spirituality?  Was it love at first sight or was it something that crept up on you?

Kenaz: For as long as I can remember I’ve had a mystical bent.  I’ve always felt there was something else out there besides the material world, and that if I only tried hard enough I would make contact with it. I was raised Catholic and went through an intensely devotional stage, so I suppose that had something to do with it. (All the best mystics, like all the best perverts, are Catholic ).

MW: You embody fluidity of boundaries in many ways: through gender, spiritual, and even cultural identities.  Do you find Pagans to be tolerant of shifting boundaries and challenges of the status quo?

Kenaz: I haven’t run into many problems within the Pagan community regarding my gender-variance.  By and large Paganism is pretty GLBT-accepting: all acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals, after all.  (And there’s certainly plenty of precedent in our legends, from the gallae who served Cybele to the bearded Venus… ). There are certainly isolated bigots and haters who identify as Pagan, but by and large being a Pagan homophobe will garner more scorn than being gay.

But I’ve also found that Pagans can be tolerant of any viewpoint they agree with.  A Witch who votes Republican or supports the pro-life movement (or, horror of horrors, identifies as a Christopagan!) may not receive a warm reception.  A lot of Pagans need to learn that “inclusive” means tolerating views you don’t necessarily accept, and engaging with those people in a respectful fashion… including, if necessary, agreeing to disagree.  A little political disagreement is a good thing: it means we all have to be on point and ready to defend our positions, rather than complacently assuming we are right and everyone else is wrong.

(Of course, this is a problem with American society in general. Take a look at the way our debates over health care have turned into “You’re an Indonesian Muslim terrorist fascist communist born in Kenya!” and “You’re a trailer park-living mullet-wearing white trash bigot!” Civility is, alas, a dying art).

As far as cultural identities go, I’ve been trying to walk the line between learning about different cultures and cultural appropriation. If you’re working with a reconstructed tradition or with gods who haven’t been worshiped for millennia, this isn’t an issue. When you are working with spirits served in a living tradition, things become a lot more complicated.  I think it’s important to approach these traditions with respect and reverence. You have to understand that certain titles must be earned and certain spirits may only be interested in working with those who come from their culture.

MW: Tell us about your experiences working as Managing Editor of NewWitch magazine.  Have you seen many changes in Pagan publishing over the years?

Kenaz: The Internet has been a huge game-changer.  Before the Net, Pagans communicated through fanzines and newsletters. This meant there was a limited audience and little money to be made writing about the Craft. But it meant that anyone who took the trouble to find your publication was serious about the occult: these limited circulation publications became exchanges for ideas and communities for like-minded magicians of all stripes.

Today anyone can find hundreds of Pagan sites with a few mouse clicks.  Forums like Mysticwicks have thousands of members and anyone can put up a website complete with spinning pentagrams and cheesy .WAV files.  It means there’s a much larger potential audience, but it’s an audience that is much less focused on the subject than in the pre-WWW days.  Identifying as a Pagan involves less buy-in today.

Unfortunately, that means a lot of people who identify as Pagans don’t bother with buying obsolete things like print publications. It has become increasingly difficult for a magazine to stay afloat, never mind a bigger book publisher.  When there’s so much free material online, why pay for stuff on paper?

MW: Your books “The Haitian Vodou Handbook” and “Drawing Down the Spirits” (co-written with Raven Kaldera) are quite cutting-edge in many ways – you don’t shy away from getting to the meat of your magickal spiritual practice.  Were they hard to sell to publishers since many publishers seem to feel most comfortable with introductory texts rather than more challenging material?  Do you think we’ll see an increase in intermediate to advanced material being published?

Kenaz: Because of the Internet, publishers are fighting to find a new niche.  There’s such a plethora of introductory material online nowadays. And the publishers who were trying to appeal to the mass market by producing basic and easier-than-basic material for the lowest common denominator are really feeling the effects of that.

The big problem with the Internet, alas, is that there is very little in the way of fact checking and quality control. For every excellent blog or website on Paganism there are a hundred “Lady Idiota’s An It Harme Nunne Guide to Ye Olde Religione.”  People who want to move beyond introductory stuff online will have to shovel through a whole lot of dung to find the occasional diamond.

And that’s where print publishers come in.  Editors slog through the silly crap so their readers don’t have to: when they are doing their job, they separate the wheat from the all-too-abundant chaff.  I believe the Pagan and Occult publishers who will survive the world wide webification are the ones who are providing stuff you can’t easily find online – well-written, fact-checked scholarship.

MW: Have you seen an increase in interest in ritual possession since publishing “Drawing Down the Spirits”?

Kenaz: Actually, Raven and I saw an increase in ritual possession before we started work on the book. Raven’s group had been doing possession rituals involving various Northern Tradition spirits and deities.  I had seen a tremendous amount of interest in African and Afro-Caribbean possessions from people attending my workshops.  We were running into people who were interested in possession – and in people who had begun experiencing involuntary possessions.

As we began research on the book, it became increasingly clear to us what was going on. At first I had been afraid that I would have difficulty finding examples of ritual possession outside the African and Afro-Caribbean traditions. But it soon became clear that it would be more difficult to find cultures in which possession didn’t occur!

It was also clear that if we didn’t write a book on the subject someone else was going to – and there was no guarantee they were going to talk about safety precautions or any of the things that can go wrong when working with ritual possession.  We were afraid we’d see books that talked about how wonderful possession was, and how everything would be fine if you just visualized white light and kept a positive attitude.

We tried to discuss both the benefits of possession and the potential dangers.  It’s an advanced technique and it should not be taken lightly.  We knew that it was happening and it was going to keep on happening.  We’ve been calling on the old gods for decades now and can hardly be surprised that they are showing up!  But we wanted to make sure that their devotees approached them with the appropriate caution and respect.

MW: What projects are you working on now?  Do you have any new books for us to request at our local bookstores?

Kenaz:  I am presently working on The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook, which is the story of New Orleans Voodoo.  Researching that has been great fun: it’s difficult to be bored when you’re studying New Orleans. There are so many fascinating characters and wonderful stories.  While I debunked a few cherished legends about the Crescent City, I always found the true stories were even more entertaining.  So I’m really looking forward to getting that out soon.

I’ve also got a manuscript on Papaver somniferum, otherwise known as the Opium Poppy, on my editor’s desk. I am hoping to sell it to my publishing house (Inner Traditions/Destiny Books).  But if they don’t pick it up I will probably put it out as a self-published book and sell it on my website.  It’s a departure from my earlier work – opium poppies, or any kind of entheogens, have very little use in Afro-Caribbean ritual.  But every now and then you want to do a change-up: I’m curious about a lot of other subjects besides Vodou and always enjoy exploring new topics.

And, finally, Raven Kaldera and I are hoping to start work soon on Talking With the Spirits, a guide to mysticism and personal gnosis (verified, unverified and otherwise).  Writing with Raven is always a pleasure and a great challenge – the guy pumps out words like nobody’s business. Trying to keep up is like drinking from a fire hose! But all that hard work pays off: I think we bring out the creative best in each other. I’m very pleased with how Drawing Down the Spirits turned out and hope our next collaboration goes equally well.

MW: What do you hope the Pagan and magickal spirituality community will look like in the future?  What do you see as our greatest challenges in attaining this future?

Kenaz: Today the biggest influences on magical thinking are Gerald Gardner and Aleister Crowley: almost everyone who writes on the subject engages with one or both of these gentlemen and their ideas for better or for worse.  Before that Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Theosophy were the big players: before that Spiritualism claimed millions of table-turning spirit-rapping devotees.  But today those movements are largely historical curiosities. There is a lesson there for modern Pagans: 100 years from now we may be a major religion or we may be an interesting byway still practiced by a few as the larger magical world does the Next Big Thing.

I think the magical community is going to have to grow up.  For all the bashing of Christianity, we’ve yet to match their artwork or charitable efforts.  Nor has our philosophy reached the levels of sophistication we find among Christian, Islamic or Hindu writers.  We need another Golden Dawn, with artists who can paint like Pamela Coleman Smith and magicians who can write poetry like William Butler Yeats.  The Renfaire/Tolkien aesthetic is fine but it’s getting tired.  I want to see something that moves beyond those clichés and give them back their power.

MW: What advice would you give to those starting out on the path exploring magickal spirituality?

Kenaz: My first bit of advice would be “take your time.” Don’t rush into a teacher-student relationship.  Get to know your prospective mentor and the fellow members of your coven, grove, circle or group. Treat a spiritual relationship as seriously as you would treat a romantic relationship.  When the student is ready the teacher will come.  Until then there’s no shame in exploring until you find the path that is right for you.

Not everybody in the spiritual community has your best interest at heart.  This includes corporeal and noncorporeal entities.  There are spirits out there that will treat you like lunch: there are “teachers” out there who will exploit you financially and sexually.  A little bit of caution will go a long way: if you feel like you’re being taken advantage of then you probably are.

I often see people who spend thousands of dollars and travel to far-off lands after exchanging a few e-mails with someone they found through a Google search. They wouldn’t buy a new car without doing some research and taking it for a test drive – but they’ll throw common sense to the winds where spirituality is concerned. Then later they complain that their teacher took their money and gave them nothing save a painful lesson about fools and their money.

MW: What advice would you give to elders in the Pagan and magickal spirituality community today?

Kenaz:  First, I’d ask  “What makes you an elder?” I see many young people who read a couple of books and buy some jewelry, then declare themselves “Magister Malodorous” or “High Priestess Crystal Breakswind.” At best this is silly: at worst it results in several of their gullible friends actually taking them seriously and wasting years of their spiritual lives – or worse.

How would you handle a 3AM call from a suicidal student? What would you say to someone whose father had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness? How would you deal with a fellow covener who confessed that he was molesting his stepdaughter and wanted desperately to stop?  If you aren’t ready to face situations like this with firmness and compassion, you have no business calling yourself an elder.

Elders are frequently called to work in unpleasant situations with little praise and lots of criticism.  Every time you give a pound of flesh, someone will bitch because you didn’t hack off two.  It’s not just about fancy titles, extra hit points and access to 7^th level spells: it’s an enormous responsibility and commitment, with long hours and lousy pay.  If you want this job, you’re either crazy, deluded or both.

But if you’re one of those poor SOBs whose words are actually taken seriously by your community, then all I can say is “respect your power.”  When you take responsibility for teaching people, you hold their spiritual (and often their mundane) lives in your hands.  You can change peoples’ lives for better or for worse. Understand that and act accordingly.

Keep up with Kenaz online at http://www.kenazfilan.com

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Ben Gruagach is an eclectic Wiccan writer living in Oakville, Ontario Canada with his sweetheart, two wonderful sons, and both a feline and canine companion. Look for his book, “The Wiccan Mystic,” which explores mystery religions and mysticism in a Wiccan context. Ben’s website is http://www.witchgrotto.com.

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