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Adam Walks Between Worlds, CAW, OTO, et al.
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Bio for Otter G'Zell
Primate of the Church of All Worlds
(Bio as of 1989)

Otter G'Zell is a man of diversified talents and interests, all
of which have grown out of his lifelong love for the
Goddess as Mother Nature and his dedication to Her
service.
     A childhood fascination with dinosaurs led not only to
the study of paleontology, but also to the pursuit of
dragons in myth, legend and history. Dragons led into
cryptozoology, the study of unknown animals, a field in
which Otter's contributions have included regular
submissions to The Bigfoot News, a series of sculptured
figurines, the resurrection of living Unicorns, and the
solution of the Mermaid mystery. The pursuit of legendary
animals led into the realm of mythology, and Otter's work
in this area has resulted in a number of contributions to
Neo-Pagan mythealogy; the one he considers most
significant being what is now generally known as "The
Gaea Thesis" (the premise that all life on Earth comprises
a single vast living organism, equated with the ancient
concept of Mother Earth). Otter formulated and published
this thesis several years before the more well-known
James Lovelock as the result of his "Theagenesis"
Goddess vision in 1970. He has written numerous articles
on Pagan thealogy, which have been published widely in
various Neo-Pagan journals, with considerable influence
on the evolution of the Neo-Pagan movement.
     Mythology led to history, especially the study of the
obscure or suppressed history of the people who didn't get
to write the history books, and one of Otter's major works
is an analysis of the transition period between Bronze Age
matrism and Iron Age patriarchy, especially noting the
events transpiring around 1500 BCE; the time of the
Exodus and the eruption of the volcano Thera. An ongoing
obsession with history has also led Otter into intensive
studies of cosmology, astronomy, geology and
paleogeography, and he has produced several maps and
timelines correlating historical and geological data. As a
child, Otter spent much of his time alone in the woods,
watching the wild creatures and learning their ways. He
has raised as pets and companions snakes, lizards,
turtles, caimans, bats, owls, possums, rats, rabbits, deer,
praying mantises, tarantulas, fresh- and saltwater aquaria,
cats, goats and Unicorns, and he is a considerable
authority on zoology and natural history. He currently
works with Critter Care, a wildlife rescue operation, serving
to rehabilitate injured animals and return them to the wild.
     An ability to see and interpret patterns in virtually any
phenomena has served Otter not only in his studies of
science, magic and arcane lore, but is also expressed in
his artistic endeavors. His Goddess poster series is well-
known in Pagan circles, and he has also contributed
artwork to various science-fiction/fantasy publications, a
Unicorn coloring book, Anodea Judith's superb book on the
chakra system, Wheels of Life, and a bestiary of the alien
animals of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. The
first sculpture Otter ever attempted was a reproduction of
the "Venus of Willendorf," and he has sculpted museum-
quality replicas of nearly all of the intact paleolithic
Goddess figurines so far discovered, as well as many
other Goddesses from later eras. His sculptures of
Unicorns, Dragons, dinosaurs and other creatures of
mystery have been sold in many card and gift shops and
museum stores, and his surrealistic paintings and
woodcarvings have been shown and sold in several art
galleries. Otter has also been a builder and collector of
science and fantasy plastic model kits.
     Otter's education includes a BA from Westminster
College, Missouri, majoring in pre-med, psychology,
sociology and anthropology. He attended graduate school
at Washington University in St. Louis on a USPHS
scholarship in clinical psychology, and later went on to
receive a Teacher's Certificate from Harris Teacher's
College and a Doctor of Divinity from Life Science College
in Illinois.
     In early 1963, Otter (then Tim Zell) married Martha
McCance, becoming the first married student in the history
of Westminster. Their son, Bryan, was born in September
of that year. As a baby, Bryan was raised with a Skinner
air-crib for a bed and playpen. As married students, Otter
and Martha enjoyed the unique status of having
independent housing, as all other students lived in dorms,
fraternity/sorority houses, or with parents. Needless to
say, their apartment became a center for non-sanctioned
activities, and they never lacked for volunteer baby-sitters.
Otter joined and later dropped out of Phi Kappa Psi
fraternity, becoming the first member of that fraternity ever
to deactivate. This experience provided a model for the
subsequent group he help form.
     The publication of Robert A. Heinlein's Hug-award-
winning science-fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land,
in 1961, when Otter was a freshman at Westminster,
inspired him to unite with a few fellow xenophiles,
including Lance Christie, into a water-brotherhood they
called Atl, which grew over the years, eventually giving
birth to the Church of All Worlds (CAW) in 1967, with Otter
as its founder and High Priest. In college, Otter edited the
alternative newspaper, Atlan Torch (1962-1966), and later
the Atlan "inside" newsletter, Atlan Annals (1965-1968).
Following the legal incorporation of the Church of All
Worlds in 1968 as the first Neo-Pagan religion to obtain full
state and federal recognition in the US, Otter ran the CAW
headquarters on Gaslight Square in St. Louis from an old
four-story mansion that also served as a community
center, coffee house, free university, head shop, free store,
crash pad and printing shop. With his first wife, Martha,
Otter lived in St. Louis for ten years, raising their son,
getting involved in assorted adventures (including a hobby
of spelunking) and working as a Headstart family
counselor, a primary school teacher and a social
psychologist. As founder of a church whose mythological
origins were in a science-fiction novel, Otter regularly
attended all the stateside World Science Fiction
Conventions from 1969-1975, on several occasions
winning major prizes in the costume contests for his
portrayals of the Horned God.
     During those years the Church of All Worlds prospered
and grew in influence, uniting with other emerging Neo-
Pagan groups in the ecumenical Council of Themis and the
later Council of Earth Religions, both of which Otter co-
founded. Otter designed nearly all the early liturgical
material of the Church of All Worlds, including worship
services, marriages and seasonal ceremonies. His
writings on theology, sexuality, history and ethics were
extremely influential on shaping the cultural attitudes of
the early Neo-Pagan community. In fact, it was Otter who
first applied the terms "Pagan" and "Neo-Pagan" to that
new religious movement. With his training in transpersonal
psychology, and heavily inspired by work being done at
Elysium Institute, Otter also conducted sensitivity
seminars and encounter group workshops.
     Otter's most significant contribution to Pagan
ecumenicism during this period was undoubtedly his
editorship of Green Egg (1968-1976), the 60-page, 8-times-
a-year "inside" journal of the Neo-Pagan movement.
Regarding Green Egg, Margot Adler in Drawing Down the
Moon (1979; revised and updated 1987) states that: "It is
popular today to talk about 'synergy' a combination that
has a greater effect than the simple addition of its
components and that perhaps best describes the effect of
Green Egg. It connected all the evolving and emerging
Goddess and nature religions into one phenomenon: The
Neo-Pagan movement." Otter also published two issues of
The Pagan!, a general circulation magazine, and five
issues of Mythos, a Pagan comic book.
     Otter and Martha separated in Spring of 1971, each to
pursue separate destines. He then lived for awhile with a
remarkable young woman named Julie, but that
relationship disintegrated in early 1973.
     Otter met his soulmate, Morning Glory, at the Gnostic
Aquarian Festival in Minneapolis in September of 1973,
where he was a keynote speaker, and they were wed the
following Easter, in one of the first Neo-Pagan handfastings
publicly performed in this country, by CAW High Priestess
Carolyn Clark and Archdruid Isaac Bonewits. In 1975, on
his 33rd birthday, Otter abandoned his career in social
psychology to begin a new life. He and Morning Glory
bought an old school bus, rebuilt the interior, loaded
aboard their reference library, two giant snakes, a possum,
a colony of rats and two tarantulas, and left the City to find
America. After assorted adventures on the road, the settled
for a year in Morning Glory's home town of Eugene,
Oregon, where they taught courses on "Witchcraft,
Shamanism and Pagan Religions" at Lane Community
College and worked actively with "Oregonians Cooperating
to Save the Whales." Otter also spearheaded a successful
campaign to defloridate the public drinking water of the city
of Eugene.
     While in Eugene, Otter undertook a wilderness vision
quest, fasting for two weeks while living naked with no
tools or fire. The culmination of this experience comprised
his initiation into the 2nd degree of Shamanic Witchcraft
and the 8th Circle of CAW. At the University of Oregon,
Otter completed research for his major thesis, "Cataclysm
and Consciousness: From the Golden Age to the Age of
Iron," and, while engaging in research for his and Morning
Glory's proposed book on cryptozoology, Creatures of
Night Brought to Light, rediscovered the lost secret of the
Unicorn.
     Realizing that it was up to them to return Unicorns to
the world, Otter and Morning Glory left Eugene in quest of a
home in the country. Attending the 1977 Coeden Brith
Midsummer Festival in Mendocino County, Califia, they
were invited by the owner of the land, Alison Harlow, to
move onto Coeden Brith as stewards of the 220-acre
mountain wilderness sanctuary. Chartering the Holy Order
of Mother Earth (HOME) as a subsidiary monastic order of
CAW, Otter and Morning Glory spent the next eight years
building a homestead, hosting large Pagan gatherings, and
raising wild deer and Unicorns. Their next-door neighbor
was the well-known Pagan bard Gwydion Pendderwen, with
whom they were close friends until Gwydion's death in a
car wreck in 1982. Another neighbor was Leonard Lake,
who moved away in 1982 and three years later emerged in
front-page headlines all over the world as one of the
century's greatest mass murderers.
     Otter and Morning Glory were among those conducting
the rites of the total eclipse of the sun on Feb. 26, 1979 at
the full-scale Stonehenge replica in Washington state,
where 3,000 participants magically cleared the cloudy
skies to witness the awesome mating of shadow and sun.
Otter was, in fact, the main instigator and coordinator of
that gathering, as he had a vision of the event the year
before and had circulated its message widely: "The
prophecies will come/When Shadow mates with Sun./Be
there./You know where." Transformed by this experience,
Otter subsequently received his current name from a
mystical encounter with an Otter in Eldritch Creek, the main
waterway through Coeden Brith. The otter appeared
immediately following his prayer to the Mother Goddess to
grant him a sign for a name that he might take in Her
continued service.
     The following year Otter and Morning Glory's pursuit of
the Unicorn bore fruit with the birth of the first two baby
Unicorns in over 400 years: Lancelot and Belvidere. Thus
catapulted back into the world after years of seclusion, the
next few years were a whirlwind of appearances,
interviews, television and renaissance faires. They
obtained patents and copyrights on the process, and made
various licensing arrangements as well. Then in 1984,
their agent netted a contract with Ringling Bros. Barnum &
Bailey Circus for four years exclusive exhibition rights.
     At that time another major cryptozoological mystery
was making headlines: the mystery of the "Ri," a creature
inhabiting the waters of a small island near New Guinea
which the natives described as what Westerners call a
mermaid. Flushed with the success of the Unicorn venture,
Otter and Morning Glory assembled a diving expedition,
complete with underwater video crew, and spent the month
of March, 1985, diving in the Coral Sea in search of
Mermaids. They located and filmed the Ri, which turned out
to be the Indo-Pacific Dugong. The mystery was solved, but
the expedition had cost all of the money they had received
from the circus contract. Nothing was left to pay for
producing the video-documentary. They returned home
penniless, and were shortly evicted from their homestead
by Alison.
     Back in civilization again, Otter took a job as a
counselor in a school for problem children. Shortly,
however, he mastered computer desktop publishing skills
and began working for a local computer center. He and
Morning Glory then opened a science/fantasy store called
Between the Worlds. They consolidated a three-way
partnership with Diane Darling, which culminated after six
years in a triad handfasting on Beltane, 1989. The store
and the job at the computer center lasted two years,
whereupon Otter decided to go into the desktop publishing
business for himself, forming his own company, Gazelle
Graphics.
     In March of 1987, Otter traveled throughout southern
Europe as a personal tour guide to Dona Carter, visiting
sacred sites and ancient temples in Spain, France, Italy,
Greece and Crete. They made pilgrimages to the painted
caves of the Cro-Magnons, the tombs of the Etruscans, the
catacombs of Paris and Rome, the temples of Athens and
Paestum, palaces, cathedrals and basilicas, the labyrinth
of Knossos, the citadel of Mycenae, and the oracles of
Delphi and Dodona. They even traveled to the
Necromanticon, or Oracle of the Dead on the River
Acheron, the original site of the Underworld halls of Hades
and Persephone that formed the basis for legends of Hell.
It was a memorable journey, and Otter hopes someday to
publish his annotated journal as a book.
     Then, at Beltane, 1988, the first issue of the new Green
Egg was launched, with Otter, Morning Glory and Diane at
the helm. For years they had been noticing that reviews of
new Pagan periodicals were continually comparing them,
favorably or unfavorably, with Green Egg. Realization that
the magazine was still setting the standard nearly a
decade after the last issue had been published convinced
them that it was time for a comeback.
     Back on the Pagan scene, they have become much in
demand for lectures, rituals and workshops, which they
have been offering around the country. They have
designed and performed audience-participation Mystery
Plays, Goddess sculpture workshops, presentations of
their ever-growing collection of votive Goddess figurines,
encounters with the Goddess, guided meditations and
vision quests, and slide shows on Gaea and Our Lady of
the Beasts. They have conducted countless rituals, from
simple full moon circles to elaborate full-scale seasonal
festivals involving hundreds of people. They have
performed marriages, baby blessings, rites of passage,
funerals, cleansings and protection ceremonies, all
dedicated to the service of the Goddess.
     At the end of 1988, the contract with the circus expired,
and Otter, Diane and Morning Glory began planning new
Unicorn ventures. They have produced the world's first
miniature Unicorn, Oberon, and are once again scheduling
appearances. They hope to find a market for miniature
Unicorns as exotic pets and show animals. They are also
planning other cryptozoological projects, including
breeding the legendary Phoenix.
     Otter has been trained in Transpersonal Psychology,
Scientology, Ceremonial Magick, Shamanic Witchcraft and
Silva Mind Control. As a Priest of the Mother, he served the
St. Louis Nest of CAW for seven years, administering the
sacraments, training others, conducting encounter groups
and promoting Pagan ecumenicism. And as a Wizard, Otter
has delved deep into the Mysteries of arcane lore and the
transformation of Reality. His primary mission is to be "a
catalyst for the coalescence of consciousness."
     Born on Nov. 30, 1942, Otter is a Sagittarius, with Moon
in Virgo and Aquarius rising. His mailing address is: POB
982, Ukiah, CA 95482.

For further information on Otter's colorful career, see:

Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler (Viking Press
1979; Beacon Press 1987);
The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft by Rosemary
Guiley (Facts on File, 1990);
Witchcraft, the Old Religion by Leo Louis Martello
(University Books 1973);
Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America by
Robert S. Ellwood, Jr. (Prentice-Hall 1973).
Green Egg is available by subscription for $13 a year (4
issues) from POB 1542, Ukiah, CA 95482. Back issues
$4+$1.25 postage