1. Name (optional): Dave Wardell

2. Age: 45

3. Nationality: English

4. Gender: male

5. How would you explain your path to someone else with no knowledge of it?

A man

A witch

A Polytheistic Pagan.

6. How is your path expressed in practice?

Religiously: seasonal and other observances with Gardnerian Witches or other Pagans

Spiritually: by communications with my patron deities and other spiritual entities

Magically: by spells and "craft"

Physically: through exercise and contact, pleasures and abstinences.

7. How do you know if your practice is successful?

Through the changes that happen

8. Why have you chosen the particular path you are following?

Of all the paths I have studied or followed (Christianity, Buddism, Tao,...) it speaks to my soul, spirit, intellect and body and is in conflict with none of them.

9. What is your experience of otherworld beings? Could you give some examples.

The gods I commune with are like us, some are selfish, some altruistic, some have motives of their own.

There are other beings, like Elementals (wind, fire, etc.) and elementals (sprights, boggarts, etc) and many things betwixt and between.

10. How do you see your relationship with them?

It is a two-way thing, like friendships, business relationships, sexual relationships and family relationships.

11. How does your path relate to other areas of your life?

There is no separation.

12. How do you see the relationship of life and death?

Threefold: the body decomposes and is recycled; the spirit keeps its personality and joins the ancestors; the soul meets the "Washer at the ford" and loses its memory and is reborn (not necessarily in this physical world).

13. How do you see time?

A very hard question. The knowledge that time slows as one approaches the speed of light and reverses at speeds above the speed of light is difficult. I find it a huge mystery that *at* the speed of light time is at a complete standstill. That means that a photon exists in all of its possible locations in a permanent "now". It only seems to be moving because we aren't fast enough. I think upon that mystery and its consequences frequenlty, I think there is a spiritual truth locked in there.

14. How do you handle ideas of good and evil?

I don't believe in any absolute source of either of them. I do believe that different entities have their own motives and conditionings that make them behave in particular ways. I do believe in choice, so even though a being (including a human) through conditioning, experience and predisposition may lead them to one course of action or another, they still can choose - it is those choices that would judge to be good or evil.

15. How do you view different spaces and objects in your practice or experience?

I have a hankering for anachronism, so a sword seems a more "magical" tool than a machine-gun in a circle. But really I feel that crafted items are more "precious" than mass-produced, that extends to food too.

16. How do you feel about other religions?

Indifferent; sometimes threatened.

17. How do you feel about science?

Fundamentally I am a rationalist, scientific method is one of the pinnacles of human endevour. However, it is of itself an amoral persuit, see good and evil above.

18. How do you feel modern Paganisms relate to ancient paganisms?

Not well. We no longer need or want to bargain with the gods. The gods know that and their dealings with us are more civilised too, with a few notable exceptions. However, those exceptions tend not to be amongst Pagans.