| Categories | Neopagan |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Publisher | Church of All Worlds, Inc. |
| Founder | Oberon Zell-Ravenheart |
| Founded | 1968 |
| First issue | 1968 |
| Final issue | 2007 (continued online) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Website | greeneggmagazine |
Green Egg is aNeopagan magazine published by theChurch of All Worlds intermittently since 1968. TheEncyclopedia of American Religions described it as a significant periodical.
Green Egg was created byOberon Zell-Ravenheart, who was the editor from 1968 to 1974. It started as a one-pageditto sheet. It continued under another editor for two more years, by which point it had grown over 80 issues into a 60-page journal. According toJ. Gordon Melton in theEncyclopedia of American Religions, it became "the most significant periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970s and made Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, its editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism".[1] It became dormant in 1976.
Margot Adler's sociological studyDrawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today was first published in 1979, shortly after the first incarnation ofGreen Egg ceased. (Adler's work was revised and updated in 1986, 1996, and 2006.) Adler usedGreen Egg as one of the main ways of distributing her survey, and received hundreds of responses from its readers.Drawing Down the Moon repeatedly refers toGreen Egg as formative in modern American Paganism. "It took a catalyst to create a sense of collectivity around the wordPagan, and in the United States the Church of All Worlds and itsGreen Egg filled this role." The magazine created a communication network (in pre-internet days) among the manyearth religions that were coming into being. Adler was impressed by the "free-ranging and diverse" views found in its pages, commenting that, "There was less common ground assumed inGreen Egg than in any other publication I had ever seen." It was highly synergistic, bringing together hundreds of groups and ideas for debate in print, covering subjects relating to "ecology, ethics, tribalism, magic, science fiction, and the relationship of human beings to the planet". Adler reports that some Pagans told her in the late 1970s that they were glad of its demise, because there would be less bickering between various factions. She, however, judged it "key to the movement's vitality".[2]
Rosemary Ellen Guiley states inThe Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca that it was Zell's two wives,Morning Glory Zell and Diane Darling, who revivedGreen Egg atBeltane 1988. Morning Glory is credited with coining the term "polyamory", in an essay inGreen Egg entitled "A Bouquet of Lovers".[3] Once more it took its place as "a leading Pagan journal", according to Adler. Eventually Darling left, Zell-Ravenheart was ousted,[citation needed] and the magazine—thriving until 2001—folded again.
In March 2007,Green Egg was restarted as anezine, available online at greeneggemagazine.com. In 2008, an anthology of art and articles was published, entitledGreen Egg Omelette.[4] In 2013,Green Egg announced aprint on demand service, and was digitising its back catalog.[5]
Oberon (formerly Otter) and Morning Glory Zell were the subjects of the bookThe Wizard and the Witch: Seven Decades of Counterculture, Magick & Paganism (2014), which includes a fuller story ofGreen Egg and the Church of All Worlds.[6]
In spring 2020, Church of All Worlds resume online publication of Green Egg Magazine under the direction of Rev. Alder Moonoak.[7]