Editorial: Beyond the threshold and into the unknown

ATLANTA – The editor and publisher of The Wild Hunt, Heather Greene, has announced her retirement as of October 31. Greene started with the organization in 2012 as a weekly news writer and took over as editor in 2014 from founder Jason Pitzl. After six years of service to the community as a journalist and editor, Greene has decided to step down in order to spend more time with family and pursue a new career path. 

Or, that is how I imagine the news story would start if I or someone else were to write it in that style. But let’s try something a bit more personal. After six years of writing and editing for The Wild Hunt, I have decided to retire and hand the baton over to a new administration.

Pagan Community Notes: exorcism and hexing, Canada Pagan community, Michigan Scholarship Fund, and more.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The Catland bookstore that hosted the Oct. 20 hex action against Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh found itself the target for an exorcism. According to reports, Father Gary Thomas, the exorcist for the Catholic Diocese of San Jose, California, scheduled two masses prior to the hex event in order to stop it. Father Thomas told The National Catholic Register “that he has witnessed people in the satanic world becoming bolder.” He said that the more confident these so-called Satanists become, the more “the general public will be more accepting of the demonic.”

Recreational marijuana legal in Canada

CANADA – The use and sale of recreational marijuana became legal Wednesday, making Canada the second nation behind Uruguay to legalize cannabis. The Cannabis Act, as it is called, was passed by the Canadian House of Common in Nov 2017 and then by its Senate in June 2018, and approved that month. Recreational cannabis became legal midnight October 17 and, according to news reports, there were shops and buyers ready and waiting. Heathen Robert Rudachyk, who lives in Saskatchewan and has been involved in local government for years, told The Wild Hunt: “It is long past time. Whether you choose to smoke it or not is and has always been a matter of personal choice.

Turner Entertainment opposes use of ‘Wicked Witch’ in trademark

TWH – Turner Entertainment Company has filed an opposition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to stop witch and Pagan elder Dorothy Morrison from trademarking her brand name ‘Wicked Witch Mojo.”  Turner Entertainment, a subsidiary of AT&T’s WarnerMedia, serves as the copyright holder for a large library of productions made by its sister subsidiary Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (aka, Warner Brothers), that includes The Wizard of Oz (1939). In 2001, Turner successfully trademarked the terms “Wicked Witch”  and “Wicked Witch of the West.” In 2008, the company trademarked “Wicked Witch of the East” and expanded that of “Wicked Witch”. Then, in 2014, it trademarked “Wicked Wiches” [sic] It is for this reason that Turner has decided to file an opposition notice in response to Morrison’s own attempt to trademark her business name.

Netflix to release the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series Oct 26

TWH – Many of the most beloved American television and films about witches premier in October, and that is no different this year. A new version of the popular 1990s show Charmed is scheduled to begin airing on the WB October 14. And, Netflix will begin streaming The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina October 26. These shows are capitalizing on the popularity of witchcraft in pop culture as well increasing awareness and even notoriety of modern Witchcraft practice in the U.S.

Both shows are eagerly awaited as Charmed was one of the most popular witch-based shows in American entertainment history, and was created during a time when modern Witchcraft phraseology was being incorporated into the narrative in a more or less positive way, even if sensationalized. As for Sabrina, she is one of the most influential, long-lived and popular witch characters in American entertainment history, making her debut in the early 1960s.