introduction 5
include Greek texts about Phoenician religion. The Jewish philosophical movement Ohavei Falcha (Hebrew for “Lovers of the Soil”), in the late 1800s, revived some Canaanite themes and influenced a later movement, Am Ha’Aretz (“People of the Land” in Hebrew), also called Amcha. Amcha incorporates Canaanite ideas, draws heavily from Israelite and Jewish themes, and focuses on nature. The Ordo Templi Astartes (OTA), a magical lodge in California, began in the 1970s and incorporated some Canaanite themes into Hermetic rituals, tinkering the themes to fit Hermetic philosophy; however, the OTA does not make use of actual magical texts found in Canaan or the ancient and classical Near East. In the mid-1990s, a woman in California with Jewish heritage, Lilinah Biti-Anat, began the first explorations into Canaanite-Phoenician revival and started an online group called LevantPagan. It was during this time that she started a small practicing group and an extensive website, Qadash Kinahnu, which is still online today. In 1998 I had an experience with a goddess whom I had never heard of. I discovered that she originated in the Canaanite pantheon, and from that day on I searched for ways to honor the Canaanite deities. I cherish Lilinah’s website; it got me started. I have since gone in a direction that focuses on Bronze Age material and a festival calendar that relies more on the extant texts from the city of Ugarit. I started Coffee in Canaan chat groups in Chicago in 2002 and opened the CanaanitePaganism group online—the group is still active today. In 2003, with input from friends on the CanaanitePaganism group, I coined the term Natib Qadish from the Ugaritic language; natib means “path,” qadish means “sacred.” There is no word for “religion” in Ugaritic—the oldest and best known Canaanite language—so we use natibu qadishu, or Natib Qadish. Natib Qadish is independent from and does not incorporate elements of Ohavei Falcha, Amcha, or OTA. Natib Qadish is, first of all, deity-centered, with a secondary emphasis on community, and with nature as a third theme. As such, descriptors like “earth-centered” or “nature-based” are inaccurate, because they place emphasis on the tertiary theme instead of the primary theme.