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TWPT:
When was it that writing became a moving force in your life and what
were some of the first subjects that you tackled in written form?
PH: I suppose I've written for most of my life.
Obviously school and university involve a lot of writing and my work,
as a local government officer, involved writing letters and reports constantly.
Of course, this was mostly done at the request of other people, but
I've never been keen on either idiomatic expressions or jargon, and I
have never consciously tried to develop a particular way of writing.
I think that over the years I have evolved a reasonably clear writing
style, which people have mostly found easy to read and to understand.
Since the age of 15, I've edited various magazines, including "The
Ley Hunter" and "Northern Earth Mysteries".
These were in the days when one had to type onto a stencil and run
off copies on a duplicating machine - very messy on occasions!
I also wrote articles for the magazines which I edited and for others
in the earth mysteries and pagan fields. I then started to write and
produce independent booklets, including one with Brian Larkman which
was an early introduction to Earth Mysteries. When my mentor, Tony
Wedd, died, I wrote his life story as a tribute which I published
myself, including organising the printing and binding. It only sold
about 100 copies, but it did what I wanted.
One thing that I dearly wanted was to have a book published by a "proper
publisher". But it was not until 1989 that a friend
suggested that I should contact Element Books, who had an "Elements
of ..." series on various esoteric subjects. I offered
to do one on Earth Mysteries. After submission of a synopsis and
sample chapter they invited me down to see them and, in July 1990,
they offered me a contract. "The Elements of Earth Mysteries"
appeared a year later.
TWPT:
Did you see your writings as filling a gap in the material that was
available at the time for those who were searching, even as you did,
for information on the Pagan path?
PH: I suppose in a sense all my writing has been
to fill a gap in what was available. I wanted a book on something. It
wasn't available, so I collected together information from a variety
of sources and then decided that I might as well write a book based
on the material that I'd collected. This is really the way it has
mostly occurred. But I never really saw myself as an "expert",
merely someone who could gather material together and present it in
a readable way, which is what I have always tried to do.
TWPT:
What is it about writing that you like the most?
PH: I suppose that it's the fact that I have a
lot of control over the whole process. What I really like is the
gradual building up from a few notes jotted on odd bits of paper to
the final printed book. I like the process of gathering material
together, classifying it and then subdividing the material into
chapters and sub-sections, adding information, then putting together
chunks of text, adding things in right up to the last minute, and
then trying to produce a polished piece of writing which says
something that no-one else has ever said before, certainly not in the
same way.
Though there is something about standing up in front of an audience
that is exciting, most of the time I tend to prefer writing to
speaking. Once you've said something, that's it! You can't "un-say"
it or add something in at the beginning or half-way through decide
to put it all in a different order. I think what it is about writing
(and here the word- processing capability of a computer ties in very
well) is that I can alter things over quite a period of time, write
only the things that I'm interested in at the moment and fill the
rest in later.
I would imagine that this works best with the sort of non-fiction
writing which I do. I imagine if you're writing a story you probably
have to do it in a more chronological way, but perhaps I'm wrong
there, as I have no experience of writing fiction. I once asked a
fiction- writing friend whether she had ever tried writing
non-fiction. She answered that she thought that she didn't know
enough to write non- fiction. This was interesting, as one of the
reasons I have given for not writing fiction was that I thought that
I didn't know enough to write fiction!
TWPT:
Is there a sense of satisfaction from passing on information to
others in written form that will benefit them along their life's journey?
PH: I suppose there is. I'm not sure that I'm
that conscious of the ultimate reader when I'm writing a book, and
certainly not anything as grand as "benefiting them along
their life's journey". What I always tend to have in mind is
to write the sort of book that I would want to read myself. If it
interests me then there is a fair chance that it might in addition
interest others, whereas if I find it boring then it is almost
certain that the readers will as well. (And that also goes for giving
talks.) In fact, when a new book of mine appears, people often find
it funny when they see me sitting down reading it! "Don't you
know what's in it?" they comment. I don't think it's
egotism, but there is something strangely satisfying about reading
one of my own books. Indeed, if I have succeeded in writing something
that I would want to read, then of course I will actually want to do so!
I suppose there's part of me that considers it some sort of bonus if
other people find my books interesting and useful. I was always
rather amazed when I started to give talks that people were taking
down notes of what I was saying. And people have said some very nice
things to me about my books, including how helpful they have been to
them, the feeling generated by the book, etc. and how they have
recommended them to other people, which is rather nice, as they
needn't have said that.
TWPT:
What kinds of feedback do you receive on the books that you have
written so far?
PH: The reviews which have appeared have, without
exception, been very good indeed, which has pleased me because I am
very sensitive to adverse criticism. Even the minor criticisms in
basically good reviews have worried me. Some reviews have been really
good, such as "Go out immediately and buy half a dozen copies to
give your friends for a Yule present!"
I haven't had very many letters from individuals who have read my
books. I have had a few, passed on by my publishers, and they have
been genuinely interested, probably asking some specific query, which
I have tried to help with, or putting people in touch with someone
specific or an organisation, etc. What I was hoping for was some such
letter as: "We'd like you to come and do a lecture tour of the
USA. We will arrange venues and will put you up with local people in
the towns you visit." I'm still open to such a suggestion!
TWPT:
Since many of your books cover "earth mysteries", how
would you define this subject to our readers and what fascination
does it hold for you?
PH: I was interested in "earth mysteries"
before it had a name.
I was introduced to Alfred Watkins' ideas about leylines by my first
mentor, Tony Wedd, back in 1961, over 40 years ago. These were
alignments of ancient sites in the landscape which Watkins claimed to
have discovered in his home county of Herefordshire on the
England/Wales border, and elsewhere, in 1921, over 80 years ago. Tony
Wedd, in his seminal work, "Skyways and Landmarks"
linked the leys, or physical alignments, with the flows of subtle
energy across the landscape, and with sightings of UFOs.
As a result, I and a school friend, Jimmy Goddard, started what we
called The Ley Hunter's Club, and founded "The Ley Hunter"
magazine, which only ceased publication in 1999.
"Earth Mysteries" was the name coined in the
early 1970s for a set of ideas centred around the principle that the
landscape that we see is not the only landscape, that it has a
subtler or non-physical component, that the ancient peoples
throughout the world were more sensitive than we are to this subtler
world and could sense the energy flows along the surface of the
earth, which was recognised as a living being.
Many people involved in Earth Mysteries have become very involved
with archaeology and with what the ancient peoples were doing, using
Earth Mysteries insights in the process.
My own path has been rather different. I have always stressed the
importance of our own relationship to the landscape, now. This led me
away from traditional earth mysteries and towards paganism, in other
words participation rather than observation. I tried to express this
in my book "Secret Places of the Goddess", to
give what I hope is an evocative feeling of how we can relate to the
landscape. It wasn't a guide to actual places but to how we can,
wherever we are on the earth, relate to the land where we happen to
be. For that reason the photographs which I used to illustrate the
book don't have captions saying where they are. This isn't an attempt
to be secretive - it is rather using them as examples and saying, in
effect, "go out and find the places in your vicinity".
TWPT:
Do you think that there is an adequate understanding among Pagans as
to the nature of the energies and spirits that the earth contains? Is
this understanding a prerequisite for being able to function as part
of this wonderful mystery of life?
PH: We can understand on different levels, using
different parts of ourselves. Clearly, we don't understand very much
intellectually, and what I would want to avoid are the "systems"
of so-called understanding that many choose to impose on the land.
Such things as feng-shui and the various "grids" that
dowsers and others have described can be revealing as long as we
don't fall for the "package deal" of the complete system.
We understand very little about the land, particularly in its subtler
levels and it is important that we recognise this. We can only
understand a small part, like the story of the blind men and the
elephant. The best way of learning is to leave our preconceived
opinions behind when we explore somewhere. Indeed, we have to
understand the place with our whole being and not just our intellect.
We have to keep open to what the place is telling us. I tried to give
some hints on how to do this in "Secret Places of the Goddess"
and in my book on trees, "Magical Guardians".
Is it a prerequisite? I think it may be, provided we don't limit it
to intellectual understanding. There is an instinctive understanding
which people who live close to the earth have always had. They are
wise and we can learn much from them.
TWPT:
How was it that you came to write your latest book Wiccan Roots:
Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival?
PH: The short answer would probably be "Because
it needed to be written"! I'd been interested in Gardner's
story for many years, but it was very sketchy to say the least and I
frequently wondered about the things which he didn't say - things
that were missing. As I became more interested in witchcraft and the
Gardnerian craft in particular, my desire to fill in the gaps became
much stronger. I started gathering material together and, in a sense,
the book arose the same way that they always seem to for me, in other
words, because there wasn't a book available I found things out the
hard way, by research in archives, going and interviewing people,
etc., and then, because I am a writer, it was natural to put this all
down as a book. In fact I had much encouragement from such people as
Patricia Crowther; Mike Howard, the editor of "The Cauldron"
journal; and Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University
of Bristol, all of whom were very helpful indeed and gave me the
strength to continue. |
