We are of the Old Religion, and sired of Time. For too long the people have trodden a stony path that goes only onward beneath a sky that goes only upward. The Horned God plays alone in the glade, for the people are scattered in this barren age and the winds carry His plaintive song over deserted heaths and moors and into the lonely grasses. Who knows the ancient tongue of the Moon? And who still speaks with the Goddess? The magic of the old Gods has withered in the dragon's breath; the old ways of magic have slipped into the well of the past, and only the rocks now remember what the Moon told us long ago, and what we learned from the trees and the voices of the grasses and the scent of flowers.

Among the people there are witches yet who speak with the Moon and dance with the Horned One. But a true witch is rare these days; deep and inscrutable, recognisable only by their own kind, by the light in their eyes and the love in their hearts, by the magic in their hands and the lilt of their tongues and their knowledge of the real. There are many the world over who worship the Earth Mother and the Sky Father, the Moon Goddess and the Little People in the mists on the other side of the veil. There are those who worship the Goddesses and Gods of Nature, whether by observation or by study, whether by love or adoration, or whether in the sacred rites with the Moon or the great festivals of the Sun.

Many suns ago, as the pale dawn of reason crept across the sky, man grew out of believing in Gods. He has yet to grow out of disbelieving in them. He who splits the Goddess on an existence against non-existence dichotomy will earn only paradoxes, for the Gods are not so divided and neither are the magic lands of the Brother of Time. Does a mind exist? Ask, and they will tell you "yes" but seek them out and they will elude you. They are in every place, and you'll see their works in all places, but you will not see them. Existence was the second-born from the Mother's Womb and contains neither the first-born nor the unborn. Show us your mind, and we'll show you the Gods. Come with us and the Gods themselves will be our love.

We hear our teachings in the wind and feel them in the stones and the Moon will still dance with us. For a long time the Divider has been among the people and the tribes of man are no more. The sons of the Sky Father have all but conquered Nature, but they have poisoned her breast and the Mother is sad for the creatures are dying and the night crawls on. A curse on those who have sought only to conquer. But not of us, for they curse themselves, for they are nature, too. They have stolen our magic and sold it to the mindbenders, and the mindbenders tread a maze that has no outlet for they fear to go down into the dark waters, and they fear the One who guards the path. Where are the shrines? Where do the people gather? Where is the magic made? Where are the Goddess and the Old Ones? Our shrines are in the fields and on the mountains, in the stars and in the winds, deep in the greenwood and on the rocks where two streams meet. But the shrines are deserted, and if we gathered in the arms of the Moon for our ancient rites to rule the Mother's land and claim rights of ownership on the Mother's breast, and make laws of division and frustration for us.

We can no longer gather with our Gods in a public place and the old rites of communion have been driven from the towns and cities ever deeper into the heath where barely a handful of heathens have remained to guard the old secrets and enact the old rites. There is magic in the heath far from the cold grey society, and there are islands of magic hidden in the entrails of the towns behind closed doors, but the people are few, and the barriers between us are formidable. The old religion has become a dark way, obscure, and hidden in the protective bosom of the night. Thin fingers turn pages of books while the sunshine seeks in vain for his worshippers in his leafy glades.

We are the lone witch on the seashore; we are those who worship in the vastness of a mountain range, and those who sing the old chants in the lost valley far from the metalled road. We are the wanderer, and equally the prisoner. We are too, the Coven, with the circular dance in the light of the full moon, with the great festivals of the sun, and the gatherings of the people. We will build our temples in the towns and in the wilderness, give them to the Goddess for her children's use, and we will replant the greenwood as it was of old for the love of the dryad’s stillness, and for the love of our children's children. We must create a place wherein everyone shall be free to worship the Gods and Goddesses of nature, and the relationship between the worshipper and their Gods shall be sacred and inviolable, provided only that in their love for their Gods they do not curse the Gods of another.

It's not yet our business to unmake the laws of regression, and, with the Mother's love, it may never become our business for the shifting tides of dogmatism are at last already in ebb. Our first work, and our greatest wish, is to come together, to be with each other in our tribes for we haven't yet grown from the Mother's breast to the stature of Gods. We are of the Earth, and kinsfolk to all the children of wild nature, born long ago in the warm mud of the ocean floor; we were together when, beguiled by the pride of the Sky Father, and forgetful of the Mother's love, we killed their earlier-born children and polluted the old genetic pool. Man once looked with one eye on the two-faced God when he reached for the heavens and scorned the Earth that alone is our life and our provider and the bosom to which we have ever returned since the dawn of time.

Our lore has been encrusted over the ages with occult trivia and the empty ramblings of the lost and egotistical. The occult arts are in a state of extreme decadence; astrology is in a state of disrepute and fears to confront the statistician's sword; unfamiliar creeds oust our native arts and, being as little understood as our own forgotten arts, are just as futile for their lack of understanding, and more so for their unfamiliarity. Misunderstanding is rife. Disbelief looms black on every horizon, and fools abound on the blood of the credulous; it has no place in the heart of the witch.

We were old when the first alchemist was a child. We have walked the magic forest, bewitched in the old Green Things. We have seen the One become Many, and the Many in One; we know the Silver Maiden of the moonlight and the sound of cloven feet. We have heard the pipes on the twilight ferns and we've seen the spells of the Enchantress, and Time, stilled. We've been into eternal darkness where the Night Mare rides beyond the edge of the Abyss, and we know the dark face of the Rising Sun. Spin a spell of words and make a magic knot; spin it on the magic loom and spin it with the Gods. Say it in the old chant and say it to the Goddess. Say it to a dark well and breathe it on a stone.

Here, then, is our task: to make magic in the name of our Gods, to share our magic where the Gods would wish it and to come together in the ancient festivals of birth, and life, and death and of change in the old rhythm. We will do all in our power to bring the people together, to teach those who would learn, to learn from those who can teach. We will not speak the secrets of any Coven, Grove, or Congrega, nor profane the tools, and still less, the magic.  When the streams flow clear and the winds blow pure, and when the stones tell of the Horned God and the greenwood grows deep to call back her own; then our work will be ended and we will return to the beloved womb of the Old Ways.