If someone claims to have secret, special knowledge they are probably wrong, mad or lying. If they want a lot of money from you, or sex, or attention, they probably know they are lying. They may want to be treated as super important because of the secret special knowledge, but to keep it secret, they won’t actually be able to share it with you. It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t exist, and when you press them about the ancient book they have (there is often an ancient book in the story) it will turn out to be on loan at the moment, or recently destroyed in a house fire. You will never get to see the book.
There are no big secrets in Paganism. There are secrets of course – many schools, orders and traditions, even family lines will have secret knowledge only available to members, initiates, blood relatives… When this happens, there tends not to be one keeper of the special knowledge – there tends to be a whole school, or family line, who know the things and only share what they know with people they feel have earned it.
One of the great things about Paganism is that you can figure out a lot of it all by yourself. You may be able to find your own secret special knowledge – it will come from your relationship with the land, or the work you do with the ancestors, or the personal gnosis arising from your work with deities, or something else of that ilk. And that’s wonderful, and yours, and exactly as secret as you want it to be – unless you get some sort of geas from whoever you are working with in which case it will have to be very secret indeed.
Someone else’s personal gnosis is not going to be more secret and special than yours. The more claims they make for how important their personal insight, the more likely that they are spouting rubbish. The desire to be important can do terrible things to people. Best not to feed into that – you do not owe anyone your interest and curiosity even, no matter how important they say they are. And it’s worth remembering that negative attention – anger, confrontation, argument – is also attention and will feed people who are desperately attention hungry and can encourage them to stay with their unreasonable claims.
I once had a run in with a chap who claimed to understand the ‘truth’ about the Brehon laws because he was descended from the lawmakers – the evidence being that his surname sounded a bit like Brehon. He had one of those secret books. These people turn up with tedious regularity and they don’t even tend to be very original.
The land is there. Your ancestors are in your blood. There may be all kinds of Gods, spirits, fairy folk, and so forth who might be willing to talk to you. Find your own secret special knowledge. Join a group that shares its secrets. Don’t be intimidated by anyone who makes outlandish claims.
Druid Life 