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Celebrating the Goddess: the Aquarian Tabernacle Church

by Katie Regan
Fifty miles from downtown Seattle, along the Skykomish River in the Cascade Mountains, the town of Index, Wash. has staked its reputation as a rough and simple place, a haven for hikers, campers and nature enthusiasts. The river twists and bends through the thick knot of evergreen trees surrounding the town, while eagles and osprey nest in their branches. The sound of gushing water tearing away at rocks saturates the area, and the crisp, pine air lies heavy over travelers and inhabitants.

But for hundreds of pagans, Index’s reputation stretches beyond just a quiet spot to observe nature. It’s the home of the largest Wiccan church in Washington, the Aquarian Tabernacle Church.

Pete “Pathfinder” Davis, 70, founded the church Oct. 31, 1979 and says when he originally created it, it was simply intended to be a place for pagans to come together and celebrate their religion. What he didn’t expect, he says, was that it would become a legally recognized church in more than five countries and one of the most widely recognized Wiccan traditions in the nation.

“The Tab,” as many church-goers call it, hugs the banks of the river and sits unobtrusively beneath the frosty peaks of Mt. Index and Mt. Persis, which rise 5,000 feet above the river valley.

Davis, a smiling older man with thin, silver glasses that almost disappear into his face, a dark black mustache and a stark white goatee, first discovered the town of Index when he left his New Jersey home to visit family in Seattle.

“I was looking to invest some money in a piece of recreation property,” Davis said. “And this place is just spectacular. I moved right after that and have been here ever since.”

Davis originally intended the property to be for personal use, and never imagined a church would be built on it.

Church rituals are held in the MoonStone Circle, the Tabernacle’s place of worship, located behind the church building. Carved into the thick of cedar trees that line the church property is a circle of wooden benches and six-foot tall granite monoliths. Pearly statues of Pan and Diana peer into the circle, and tea candles pepper the ground.

The picturesque landscape of the Tab does more than provide a lush setting for church services. As an earth-based religion, an important credo followers mind is the need to respect nature, and the beauty of the church setting helps to emphasize that point, Davis said.

“We try not to leave too many footprints on the land,” Davis said. “We don’t own it. We’re only tenants here.”

History of the church

Jamie Freeman, 23, a priestess at the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, said its existence in the pagan community is almost an anomaly.

“I used to think there wasn’t a Wiccan church anywhere, covens at best, but mostly just solitaries,” she said. “And the truth is, there aren’t that many churches. It’s very abnormal for the pagan community. We’re pretty solitary because I may believe this, but you believe that. But when it comes to this church, we’re going to put aside our differences and hold ritual together because it’s important to us.”

Freeman attributes the church’s long-lasting success to its willingness to accept anyone, and Davis agrees.

He said the exclusivist tendencies of many other pagan organizations tend to force the groups to break down.

“A lot of pagans do with their textbooks what Satanists do with Bibles,” Davis said. “They confuse them. It’s like they’re reading them upside down and backwards. Pagans don’t need to be exclusive.”

Davis said the church was created based on English Traditional Wicca, which evolved into the Aquarian Tabernacle Tradition of Wicca, but it continues to be an open-attendance pagan group.

Everyone receives their ten minutes on the soapbox to express their point of view, Davis said, and his church is well-known as a safe place for pagans to share their ideas.

Emlyn Freeman, 23, a Vancouver Film School student, is a pagan who identifies with the Norse deities, said while his beliefs are quite different from many other attendees, he finds acceptance and trust in the church.

Though Davis’ original intention when creating the church was just to provide pagans with a safe place to worship together, he said his goals quickly shifted toward creating a government-recognized, tax-exempt church in order to establish tolerance, since acceptance is not always something the church receives. On Nov. 12, 1988, Davis’ church received governmental recognition in the United States, and several years later gained IRS Group Exemption umbrella recognition, which provides any congregation the Tab accepts as an affiliated group automatic recognition as a tax-exempt church.

Branches of the Tab have begun to appear and be recognized in Canada, Australia, Ireland, France, South Africa and New Zealand, and Davis said he still can’t believe his church has evolved as far as it has. —>