Pagan Community Notes: BBC Reports on Witchcraft, CPWR Calls for Programs, Starhawk says “Vote!” and more

[Pagan Community Notes is a series focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. Reinforcing the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. If you enjoy this series and our other recurring entries, please consider donating to our 2014 Fall Funding Campaign. Your support and donations make it possible for us to keep sharing the news and these important stories with you. Now let’s get started!]

Pagan Federation

In recent weeks, the BBC and other media outlets have published articles on the increase in Witchcraft related violence in the UK. As a BBC article reports, police have had “27 allegations” this year alone which is up from 24 in 2013. After reading the reports, a senior Religious Education official contacted the Pagan Federation with concerns that the stories might cause misunderstandings with respect to Pagan religious practice in the UK. 

In response, Pagan Federation President Mike Stygal said, “I was particularly grateful to him for drawing my attention to the article.” In a public statement, Stygal explained, in detail, his deep concerns with the way mainstream media and officials have handled these child abuse cases. He said, “I’d quite like another opportunity to meet with … the appropriate government representative to see if we can find a way to highlight the issues whilst limiting the potential for misunderstandings about modern Pagans.” Both the Doreen Valiente Foundation and the Centre for Pagan Studies have both come forward to endorse Stygal’s statement. To read it in full, click here

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CPWR Logo.Planning is underway for next year’s Parliament of the World’s Religions to be held in Salt Lake City. In the last week, the Council put out a call for programs, saying, “Everyone who attends the Parliament has wisdom to share – from those who are having their first interfaith experience to those who are steeped in interfaith. The purpose of this gathering is to support relationships, connections, and inspired calls to action which can then ripple out from the Parliament into hundreds of grassroots organizations, networks, and communities.”  Of the thousands of submissions, only about 10% will be selected for inclusion in the program. The application and submission guidelines can be found on their website.

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Starhawk at Harvard Divinity School.

While many people are focused on Pagan Pride, fall festivals, Samhain and Halloween, another day sits just over the horizon. On Nov. 4, the U.S. will hold its general elections. On her blog Dirt Worship, Starhawk offers a post entitled, “Why Vote?” in which she lists “the practical, political and spiritual reasons” to get off the couch and head to the polls. She says that after you vote,”the world will not have transformed overnight. The Great Turning won’t have turned. The Good Guys will not have completely triumphed over the Bad Guys. But the world might just be a slight bit better than it would have been otherwise. And that small difference might be the divergence in the path that heads us away from destruction and onto the road to hope.”

In Other News

  • The struggle to keep religion out of schools is not only a U.S. problem. As reported on Oct 6 by SAPRA’s Damon Leff, the South African government has conflicting and problematic policies with regards to the teaching of religion within its public school system.
  • Around Samhain, Wild Hunt columnist Rhyd Wildermuth will be releasing his new book Your Face is a Forest, “a collection of prosaic wanderings and essays.” All profits from the book’s sale will be used toward funding his trip to the UK and Ireland in December. Rhyd was selected to attend the Winter Solstice festivities at Newgrange. When he returns, he will be reporting on that unique experience here at The Wild Hunt.
  • The Patrick McCollum Foundation has announced an opening for two interns. The positions are for volunteers, preferably graduate students, who want to work with the organization in its mission “to further world peace, planetary sustainability, environmental protection, and human rights, including the advancement of women’s rights.” For more information, contact executive director Nell Rose Phillips.
  • In the coming weeks, the organizers of PaganPro.org will be launching a new website with a series of public surveys that will eventually become the basis of a new online service. Chairperson Lydia M N Crabtree says,”PaganPro.org will be the first site to offer real and verified information about Pagan and occult leaders.” The surveys are the first step in building that database.
  • This month, Red Wheel Weiser Books is releasing a book called The Hedgewitch Book of Days by Mandy Mitchell. The book is “aimed at the practicing or would-be witch whose life is more jeans, chaos and the never-ending question of what’s for dinner, instead of black-robes, cauldrons, and incantations.”
  • Here’s a brief update on our own Fall Funding Drive. You have helped us to reach 96% of our campaign goal. Amazing! To all of those people and organizations who have already donated, thank you so very much. We can’t do this work everyday without your support. If you haven’t donated yet, please consider contributing today. If you have already donated, won’t you share our link and give us the extra boost needed to raise the remaining funds.

The Wild Hunt Fall Fund Drive. Donate Now!

That’s all for now! Have a great day.


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13 thoughts on “Pagan Community Notes: BBC Reports on Witchcraft, CPWR Calls for Programs, Starhawk says “Vote!” and more

  1. In relation to the first point: It looks, at least from my point of view, that Pagans often tend to want to associate themselves as closely as possible with “Third World” (in a lack of a better term) occult practices only to steer away from that situation every time something like this happens.

    IMO one should be a bit clearer on the division between European Paganism and “Third World” Occult/Magical practices.

    • With respect, dantes, I don’t see the conflict. AFAIK none of these witch-accusation abuse cases has been tied to African Occult-Magical practices. The perpetrators have all been Christians. The idea of accusing someone of witchcraft may be a meme that in Africa is flavored by African Occult/Magical practices, but that is no reason for a Western seeker to avoid such practices if they feel a call.

      • I never said one shouldn’t, but in such countries, there’s maybe a bigger blur between what can be considered “Christian” and “Occult/Magical” practices. than in the West.. Even though I recognize that US-influenced Evangelical theology and practices are making this distinction clearer, while leaving a trail of corpse at the same time.

        • No different from how Christianity absorbs Pagan content everywhere. Easter, for example, was originally about resurrection, not eggs and bunnies.

          • Originally Easter/Ēastre was a month, as listed by Bede. Then Christianity appropriated the term for their own uses.

    • Any time we see talk of “Witches” or “Witchcraft” in any non-Anglophone culture – watch out. Every language has it’s own magical vocabulary. It is only when Christian missionaries (or their partners-in-crime, Western anthropologists and “journalists”) start poking their noses into other people’s business that we find reports of supposed “Witchcraft” in Africa, etc.

      • Agreed, the media as a whole and the christian themselves are huge contributors to such confusion.

  2. The cases of “Witchcraft related violence” referred to by “the BBC and other media” are, in fact, cases of ANTI-Witchcraft violence perpetrated by Christians.

    The BBC article linked to refers only to two specific cases, the murders of Kristy Bamu and Victoria Climbie. In both of those cases it is a well-established fact, accepted by everyone familiar with the cases, that the perpetrators were Pentecostalist Christians acting on the basis of their Christian religious beliefs.

    A similar (in fact nearly identical) story at rt.com also mentions recent reports of “child exorcisms” in clearly Christian terms (link).

    The Guardian version of this article (link) also mentions the case of “Child B”, which is another case known to be connected to evangelical Christian churches.

    The Telegraph version of the article additionally mentions the case of Kevi Kanda, who was a victim of Congolese pentecostalist “pastors”. (link)

    • Thanks for the summary. But I feel somewhat saddened that such news don’t even shock me any more. As you say, Christians committing horrific acts of violence against children is all too common place.

  3. Rhyd’s trip is somewhat confusing me – you state he is saving up to come to the UK, but then you state he will be at Newgrange, which is in the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann).

    Would I be right in presuming a bit of both?