Zell, Tim and Morning Glory

Zell, Tim and Morning Glory

Tim Zell was born on November 30, 1942 in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of a Marine who served in World War II. After the war, the family moved to Clark's Summit, Pennsylvania, then to Crystal Lake, Illinois. Zell attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.

At an early age, Zell started reading and absorbing the Greek myths and other stories of Paganism. He was an introvert who spent a great deal of his time communing with nature, roaming the woods near his Pennsylvania home and then around the lake in Illinois. He felt that he had telepathic powers to the point where he could pick up the thoughts of others.

At college he befriended Richard Christie, a devotee of Ayn Rand and Abraham Maslow. Together they discovered Robert A. Heinlein's science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, which became their catalyst for founding the Church of All Worlds (CAW), which was based on an organization of that name in the novel. Initially the group was called "Atl," a term derived from the Aztec word for both water and "home of our ancestors." This was later changed to Church of All Worlds. By 1967, the Church filed for incorporation and was formally chartered on March 4, 1968. This was the first of the Pagan Earth religions in the United States to obtain full federal recognition as a church. With its formation, Zell coined the term "neo-Pagan."

In 1963, Zell met and married his first wife, Martha, and together they had a son, Bryan. The marriage lasted eight years. Meanwhile, Zell earned undergraduate degrees in sociology/anthropology and psychology from Westminster. In 1970, Zell had a visionary experience that led to his concept of Mother Earth as a single sentient being, dependent upon the harmonious balance of all things on the planet. He presented this as the Gaia Thesis, which spread rapidly and was adopted throughout the Pagan community. In 1973, Zell promoted his ideas at the Gnostic Aquarian Festival in Minneapolis under the title, "Theagenesis: The Birth of the Goddess."

Zell met Morning Glory at the festival, and they recognized each other as soul mates.

Morning Glory had been born Diana Moore, May 27, 1948 in Long Beach, California. Her parents were from Mississippi and had Irish and Choctaw Indian heritage. Her grandfather was a Methodist minister and her parents were Pentecostal. An only child, Moore became involved in the Pentecostal Church by age twelve. But by age sixteen she had tired of the male chauvinism of the Church and began to study Buddhism, joining the Vedanta Society. This introduced her to the Goddess, although she found Buddhism to generally focus on the male. Her search widened to Greek mythology, Paganism, and comparative religions generally.

At age nineteen, she changed her name to Morning Glory, having discovered Witchcraft a year before after reading Sybil Leek's, Diary of a Witch, and during her studies of Diana/Artemis. She traveled to Eugene, Oregon and picked up a hitch-hiker named Gary along the way. They decided to get married, and, a year later, had a daughter named Rainbow (later changed to Gail). It was an open marriage, so when she later met Tim Zell, her relationship with Gary remained friendly. Her meeting with Tim Zell