“Authors as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, E. Nesbit, and J. R. R. Tolkien have shaped modern paganism as greatly as any theological underpinnings.”
“I have issues with anyone who tries to claim that science is unworkable - creationists who deny evidence for past history, yet are happy to benefit from the products of the methodology that they otherwise deny.”
“I've written a detective series myself, set in an imaginary, and slightly futuristic, Chinese city. The novels have an extremely tenuous relationship with the real world, since the hero is the city's Hell and ends up with a sidekick who is a demon.”
“Because contemporary paganism is essentially so new, its underlying ethical structure is not particularly sophisticated.”
“For me, spiritual practice is a lot closer to art than science.”
“Only in the English countryside could violent death remain something that is 'cosy.'”
“Contemporary paganism gives me a subjective lens through which the world in which I live can be interpreted on an aesthetic and an ethical basis. I'm interested in narrative, myth, and story, in folklore and the way we connect to the turning of the seasons and the natural world.”
“I think that the power of the Silent Minute lies in its inherent lack of external direction: what participants actually do during that minute - prayer, contemplation, focus - is up to them.”
“Just so that we are clear on this, I am in favour of teaching children about different beliefs. I am not in favour of indoctrinating them in any particular belief, including my own: these issues should be presented as beliefs, not as fact.”
“Much of what Karl Popper contributed to the philosophy of science has now passed into mainstream thought, into the currency of that nebulous, tricky ontology known as 'common sense.'”