• Reminder: We are in the midst of our first annual Winter Pledge Drive! If you value this blog, its mission, and its content, please consider making a donation to keep The Wild Hunt open, ad-free, and updated daily. Spread the word, and thanks to all who have donated so far!

Even though the American Family Association stumbled from the gate in the kick-off to this year’s skirmishes over religious language and iconography during the Winter holidays (aka “The War on Christmas”), that doesn’t mean other groups haven’t been cowed. Instead it looks like were going to be seeing a rather holy protest at the steps of the United States Supreme Court as Faith and Action and the Christian Defense Coalition stage a live Nativity scene.

“Rev. Rob Schenck, President of Faith and Action, states, “The traditional creche, portraying Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child, along with the angels, shepherds and Wise Men, remind us all of what Christmas is all about. “We like to refer to this effort as keeping Christ Mass in the nation’s Capitol.” Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, adds, “Sadly, we are seeing an erosion and hostility toward public expressions of faith in the public square.   This is especially true during the Christmas Season. “The Nativity Project and Operation Nativity are reminders that our Constitution provides freedom ‘of’ religion not freedom ‘from’ religion…”

Ah, the old “freedom of” not “freedom from” argument, too bad that commitment to freedom is a mile wide and only an inch deep. As the Green Bay Wisconsin Nativity battle proved, once people actually start demanding real “freedom of”, which means the inclusion of all religions and philosophical points of view on public lands, things start to go a bit haywire for those crusaders for “religious freedom”.

So while the  “you aren’t saying Christmas” boycotts have lost their sizzle, the battle over Christmas religious displays in the public square is still heating up. There are already a couple cases that look like they’re headed for the courts, and it seems like only a matter of time before a Wiccan or atheist decides they want a Winter display next to a Nativity on public land somewhere. Then we’ll get to really test the “religious freedom” resolve of the groups currently dressing up like Joseph and Mary on the Supreme Court’s steps.

• Reminder: We are in the midst of our first annual Winter Pledge Drive! If you value this blog, its mission, and its content, please consider making a donation to keep The Wild Hunt open, ad-free, and updated daily. Spread the word, and thanks to all who have donated so far!

Much to Andrew Sullivan’s chagrin, former Vice Presidential candidate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is once again dominating the media. Touting her new book, duking it out with Levi, and chatting with Oprah. But while political junkies are taking bets as to whether she’ll run for President, the media blitz also draws us back into the folks who incubated her political career, and support her to this day. The spiritual-war loving neo-Charismatic, neo-Pentecostal movement known by some as the “Third Wave of the Holy Spirit”. Vehemently anti-Pagan and anti-Catholic, Palin publicly distanced herself from them during the campaign after an embarrassing video emerged showing her being blessed by a self-proclaimed African witch-hunter. Now, Talk to Action’s Bruce Wilson cites sources that Palin not only kept in contact with prominent Third Wavers (specifically Mary Glazier) throughout the campaign, but that they believed a terror attack would kill McCain and place her in the Oval Office.

“On September 22, with the 2008 presidential election little more than five weeks away, Glazier sent a prophetic “Warning of Imminent Attack” out through her prayer network [see 1, 2, 3]. Glazier later released a slightly sanitized version but her original “warning” concerned an “imminent” terrorist attack that could leave American in mourning with Sarah Palin “stepping into an office that she was mantled for.” Sarah Palin has been close to Mary Glazier throughout the entire course of Palin’s political career. On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told Christian leaders at a church conference held near Seattle that Palin had joined Glazier’s personal prayer group in 1989, around the time Palin went into politics…”

Who is Mary Glazier? She’s the Palin spiritual mentor who, as I’ve reported before, took credit for giving a Wiccan cancer and driving her out of the state of Alaska.

Mary Glazier is one of two religious leaders (along with Thomas Muthee) associated with Sarah Palin who claim to have successfully fought witches. Glazier has described a campaign of “prayer warfare” which she says her prayer group used to drive a woman, whom Glazier claimed was a witch, out of the state of Alaska. As Glazier told the Christian magazine SpiritLed Woman, for a 2003 article, “As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft, her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer.”

So far from being a misguided youthful foray into a radical Christian sect, Palin’s friendship with these extremists is seemingly ongoing, and they believe she’s bound for greatness. So while some think Palin has simply become tabloid-fodder, a joke to be ignored, some will know that she’s haunted by these extremist supporters, and that “terror attack” is simply another word for “opportunity” in their eyes. Especially if you’re going to be stepping into an office you were “mantled” by God for. If in 2012 she does run against Obama, as some think she might, we better keep a close eye on Sarah’s friends.

News broke yesterday that U.S. District  Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that South Carolina’s controversial “I Believe” license plate violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

“In finding the sectarian plate unconstitutional, Judge Currie held, “Such a law amounts to state endorsement not only of religion in general, but of a specific sect in particular.” The judge noted that legislators and other state officials have unnecessarily drawn the state into an expensive lawsuit.”

I don’t see why non-Christians would have a problem with this.

This case had been a joint effort of local clergy and Americans United who felt the plate amounted to a state-sponsored endorsement of Christianity. This entire process has also been haunted by the Pagans in South Carolina and their own quest for equal treatment under the law. From the local politicians pushing the plates under the assumption that “any” religion could have their own tags, just so long as those tags weren’t from a Pagan faith, to the fact that the judge on this case also ruled in favor of Wiccan Darla Kaye Wynne during the Great Falls invocation saga. Our presence played a small part in reminding politicians, judges, lawyers, and journalists that  minority religions exist everywhere, even in the “Christian” South. That a Christian cross emblazoned on these plates sent a message of exclusion, not inclusion.

Of course the saga of Christian license plates is hardly over, the state of South Carolina could try to appeal the decision, and other states, most notably Florida, are engaging in the same shenanigans. But at least a message was sent today that America is not merely a “Christian” nation, but a nation of many religions, or of no religion at all, and you can’t raise one up in the government without pushing the others down in some fashion.

[I'm away at the Florida Pagan Gathering, and won't return to normal blogging activity until November 10th. In the meantime, I'm presenting some of my favorite posts to tide you over, consider it a "greatest hits" of The Wild Hunt. Today, I'm re-printing an interview I did with author and journalist Jeff Sharlet. Since first conducting this interview in July of 2008, his book "The Family" has become a New York Times best-seller, and he's appeared several times in major media outlets like the Rachel Maddow show and the Bill Maher show. Enjoy!]

If you have been around the religious blogosphere for awhile, you have most likely heard of Jeff Sharlet. An author and journalist, he helped found two seminal web sites full of insightful commentary on faith in today’s world (Killing the Buddha and The Revealer), co-wrote a book about religious subcultures in America (which included a trip to a Pagan festival), and filed dispatches on the intersections of religion and power for such publications as Rolling Stone, Harpers, and Mother Jones. His most recent book is “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power”, an expose of elite fundamentalism’s avant-garde.

Jeff Sharlet

I was lucky enough to conduct a short e-mail interview with Jeff about his new book, what Pagans have to fear from The Family, and what we can do about it.

Some members of modern Pagan faiths have long warned of a theocratic Christian cabal bent on taking over America, often with the usual suspects of conservative Christianity playing a part. These fears have often been debunked, but your book “The Family” seems to in part vindicate those voices, albeit not in the ways they imagined. Who are “The Family”, and are they really trying to take over the government?

They’re not trying to take over government; they’ve been a part of government for almost seventy years. The Family is a network of conservative Christian elites in government, military, and business bound together by what The Family’s founder, Abraham Vereide, called simply “The Idea.” The Idea came to Vereide one night in April, 1935. God, he’d later say, revealed to him that Christianity’s emphasis on the poor, the suffering, the weak, the down and out, was all wrong. God wanted Vereide to minister not to the poor, but the powerful. He called them the “up and out” — corporate executives, politicians. The Idea was that if you could win the hearts of these “key men,” they, in turn, would dispense blessings to the masses. It was, in effect, trickle down religion, and it’s been the creed of religious conservative elites ever since, the justification for their war on organized labor and their support for foreign dictators, from Papa Doc Duvalier to Suharto to the thugs supported through the Silk Road Act, sponsored by Family politicians Senator Sam Brownback and Rep. Joe Pitts.

Domestically, The Family have long been at the heart of the Christianist assault on the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause – “Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion” – which is the guarantee of the Free Exercise Clause that makes America free (in theory, at least) for Pagan. In 1953, The Family established the National Prayer Breakfast; in 1954, Family politicians led the fight for “Under God” in the pledge and “In God We Trust” on our currency. More recently, Representative Tony Hall, a conservative Democrat from Ohio, made the National Day of Prayer a fixed, permanent affair, with White House observance orchestrated by Shirley Dobson – wife of Christian Right leader Jim Dobson.

Faith-based initiatives was first theorized by Family politicians such as Ed Meese in the 1980s; the legislation that opened the door for it, the 1996 Charitable Choice Provision, came from the offices of two Family politicians, John Ashcroft and Dan Coats.

Historic members have included men such as Strom Thurmond, William Rehnquist, and Senator Homer “Snort” Capehart, inventor of the jukebox (good) and defender of Nazis (not so good). (There have never been a lot of women involved.)

Which is all to say that the question we need to ask about fundamentalists is not, “What are they going to do?” but “What have they already done?” Fundamentalism is not a cabal or a conspiracy; it’s an ideology, and for nearly 70 years it has led America away from democracy and toward empire.

The theology of The Family seems quite different from the usual Christian conservatives and fire-breathing fundamentalists we often see covered in the news (though some of them are members or associates of The Family as well). Can you expand on what they believe, and what “Jesus Plus Nothing” means to them?

I first heard the phrase “Jesus plus nothing” at a spiritual counseling session The Family’s longtime leader, Doug Coe, was giving Representative Tod Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican. Tiahrt was going on about the usual Christian Right concerns – abortion, queers, and Muslims. Coe waved it all off. He agreed with Tiahrt across the board, but he saw that list as too limited. What, he asked, does Jesus have to teach us about Social Security? About building roads? The Family’s vision of “Jesus plus nothing” leads them to seek a government conformed at every level, in every department, every office, to the will of their totalizing Jesus. There’s a sense in which this is a weirdly bureaucratic Christ. He doesn’t stand on street corners and shout about revelation; he whispers his message in the ears of his “New Chosen,” as some Family members call themselves. And the message is almost always the same: “privatize.” For seventy years, The Family has been dedicated to deregulating markets in order to free up the “invisible hand” of God.

I was intrigued by the notion of The Family performing “spiritual assassinations” on political leaders (making them “die in spirit” to Jesus), getting close enough to perform their “hit” through innocuous-seeming events like the National Prayer Breakfast (which they organize). Who are some high-profile “hits” we may have heard of?

Just to be clear – they’re not killing anybody. You’re referring to Chapter Eight, “Vietnamization,” in which I write about The Family’s admiration for the guerilla warfare tactics of the Vietcong. In 1966 – the same year Family leader Doug Coe announced that The Family was going “underground,” erasing its public profile – another Family leader, Clif Robinson, met with the U.S. ambassador to Laos, William Sullivan – strategist of the “secret” – and illegal – air war against that country. Robinson reported back to American Family leadership on what he learned.

“He said the strategy of the VC was the same as International Christian Leadership’s,” gushed Robinson, “except applied physically and militarily. They spend hours, days, weeks, what ever time is necessary setting up for the LEADERS and then either by ambush, assassination, or other intrigue, they do away with them—not the people, the leaders. He said to kill 32 top level people”—as the Vietcong had done the previous month—“was tantamount to immobilizing thousands.” The lesson was that the Fellowship should understand itself as a guerrilla force on the spiritual battlefield.

They wanted their “victims” to “die to self” – that is, to commit themselves totally to Jesus plus nothing. One of their greatest “hits” was Chuck Colson, the Watergate felon. In his mega-selling memoir, “Born Again,” Colson writes of being recruited into The Family, which he describes as “a veritable underground of Christ’s men all through government,” through Doug Coe and the CEO of missile manufacturer Raytheon. Colson would later declare that through The Family’s religion, he was able to accomplish much of what he had once hoped to do politically. “Dying to self” paradoxically gave him a supreme sense of self-righteousness, a confidence – and a political network – through which he’s built up one of the most powerful Christian Right organizations in the world.

Some journalists and bloggers focused quite a bit of attention on the fact that Hillary Clinton is a “friend” of The Family. That through her, The Family would have access and influence. Should we have been worried if Clinton won the Democratic Presidential nomination? How deep are her ties to the family, and are they already looking to become “friends” with Obama?

The Family’s faith is a religion of the status quo. We shouldn’t be worried about what MIGHT happen; we should be worried about what has happened. If you look around the world as it is and think, “A-Ok!”, then you’ve no problem with The Family. If you look at Washington and see a healthy, happy democracy, then you’ve no problem with The Family. But if you’re disturbed by a government that’s more responsive to corporations than to people, by a two-party system in which both sides vote for a war the public didn’t want, by a politics of private influence and quiet deals, then yes, we should have been worried about The Family’s influence in a Clinton administration. We should also be worried about its potential influence in an Obama administration. The Family has endured for 70 years, longer than any other major Christian Right organization, not through doctrinal purity but by compromise with the powers that be. Power is their bottom line.

When Hillary had it, they wanted in. As she writes in her memoir, “Living History,” she joined a Family prayer group comprised of conservative politicians’ wives in 1993. She calls Doug Coe – a man who claims that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao understood the New Testament better than almost any other leaders in the 20th century – “a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide.” And she used The Family to tack right, teaming up with men such as Senator Sam Brownback and former Senator Rick Santorum on legislation that subtly redefined human rights as Christian issues.

This is not to say Hillary is a stealth fundamentalist. She is what she appears to be – a centrist Democrat. To be honest, I voted for her in the NY primary, because of her health plan. I’m glad Obama won; but I’m worried about his willingness to discard principles in pursuit of a false unity. The most troubling example of that is his plan to actually expand faith-based initiatives. Of course, he adds that organizations won’t be allowed to discriminate. But anyone who’s reported on faith-based initiatives firsthand will tell you that such regulations are impossible to enforce. Some Obama supporters say he’s just doing what he has to do to win. That’s exactly the way elite fundamentalists want it – to “win,” you have to play by their rules. I don’t think that’s true. I’m hoping that ultimately, Obama doesn’t, either.

You talk about the differences and similarities between the “populist” and “elitist” branches of American fundamentalism (together forming a “popular front”). With The Family typifying an elitist manifestation, and evangelical mega-churches like Colorado’s New Life Church (formerly headed by disgraced pastor Ted Haggard) typifying the “populist” branch. I was struck by how New Life actively worked to drive out Pagan Witches and other undesirables from their city. Is driving out the “Witches” (the religious “other”) a shared goal between the populist and elitist branches? Or simply the consequence of fundamentalist Christianity coming into power?

Some populist fundamentalists have actually criticized The Family for their willingness to make peace with and conference with those whom they lump under the label of “New Agers.” That was years ago, when Family leaders, like many conservative evangelicals, saw the wide array of beliefs they lumped under “New Age” as a threat to Christianity. They don’t, anymore – not because they’ve made their peace with those beliefs but because they don’t think those followers of those beliefs have much power. Ultimately, the inner circle of The Family considers all non-monotheistic beliefs “demonic.” At their C Street House for congressmen, they used to have a prayer calendar listing spiritual war targets for the day – Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, etc.

In an interview with Alternet you described The Family as “ultimately something worse” than fascism. Since “fascism” is usually considered the ultimate manifestation of political evil, on the right and left, what makes this group worse?

The fact that it’s far more effective. Fascism, properly understood, was a relatively short-lived European ideology. There have been other examples of it since, but by far the most powerful ideology since 1945 has been not fascism, but empire. One church historian says of The Family that they’re not right-wing and certainly not left-wing, but “empire-wing.” Fascism may be a purer evil, but empire is a more pervasive one, and ultimately more dangerous because it’s able to call on the loyalties of well-intentioned people who’d never go near fascism. But if you’re a Vietnamese kid napalmed in 1968, or an Iraqi kid with your hands blown off in 2008, empire is every bit as bad as fascism. Or, for that matter, if you’re a Bangladeshi or a Chinese sweat shop worker or an Afghani forced to grow and process heroin to survive, the economic ramifications of empire are as bad as the explicit political repression of fascism. And for decades, what traditional fascism has cropped up around the world – in Central America, in some African nations, for instance – has been made possible only through the support of empire.

On point you make in the book is that secular America keeps trying to announce the death of fundamentalism, of conservative Christian power, but that these frequent declarations are rarely real. That the “defeats” are merely part of a natural ebb and flow of fundamentalism in America. Instead of shrinking, conservative “muscular” Christianity grows ever stronger and is very much a part of the American fabric. Is the much-touted recent “evangelical crack-up” just another natural ebb? Will we see audacious power-grabs by fundamentalist forces in the near future?

We see audacious power-grabs right now! For instance, Rwanda has recently become the first official “Purpose-Driven Nation,” remade in the image of evangelical pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling “Purpose Driven Life” with the support of U.S. dollars and faith-based initiatives. Closer to home, the Justice Department is supporting a program called “Fugitive Safe Surrender,” in which U.S. Marshals go into a low-income community and for four days move the entire legal apparatus into a megachurch, encouraging anyone with legal problems to sort them out under the sign of the cross. I attended one in Akron; church greeters talked to you about Jesus in the parking lot, then you walked through a metal detector, then you met a sheriff with a gun and a pastor with a Bible. Take your pick. And this program has Democratic support! Chuck Schumer’s gone on record saying it’s great, because it gets potential criminals off the street and allows poor people who’d be screwed by the justice system to have the help of the church. “Church-court” – that’s audacious. There’s no “evangelical crack-up,” no matter how much the New York Times may wish it so. Rather, there’s an evangelical transformation – and an expansion. Evangelicals are addressing issues liberals thought they owned, such as poverty and AIDS. That doesn’t make evangelical conservatives less conservative; it makes their agenda more far-reaching, for better or worse.

Some of the old lions of the Christian Right are dead or are dying. The new generation is softer-toned in style. But conservative evangelicalism has been a huge part of American life for 200 years. It’s not going away just because Jerry Falwell went to heaven. Or wherever.

So how do those opposed to what The Family is trying to do fight back? What is this groups Achilles heel? Is there anything anyone can do to minimize their influence on America and the world?

Of course! The first step is what we’re doing right here: talking about these issues, educating ourselves. The Family prospers when the public doesn’t pay attention. One of my favorite examples of a public fighting back occurred in 2004 in Norway. After I first wrote about The Family for Harper’s, some Norwegian journalists noticed that their new, socially conservative prime minister was jetting around the world to prayer breakfasts on the public dime. So they came to America and investigated. They discovered that this social conservative movement had strong ties with The Family, that their ambassador was taking policy meetings with John Ashcroft at The Family’s headquarters. So they put it on the front page of the paper, for two weeks. A mini Norwegian Watergate. And that government got the boot. That expose wasn’t the only factor, but it was one of them. When Doug Coe showed up in Norway this spring to talk with the king of Norway, the papers responded again, with a banner headline and a picture of Coe: “Hitler-admirer received by King.”

THAT’S public accountability. Let’s try it in America! Let’s tell Obama that we respect his desire to include people of faith – all faiths and no faith – in the public square, but we want him to recognize that not everybody is operating in good faith. Let’s pay attention to our local representatives. In 2004, a Democratic challenger to Rep. Frank Wolf, a longtime Family associate and conservative Republican from Northern Virginia, publicized Wolf’s Family ties. The Washington Post immediately editorialized that such a connection was impossible – and THEN sent a reporter to prove it so. So we need to hold the media accountable, too. We need them to ask smarter – and tougher – questions about religion. When we encounter monotheist politicians – that is, those who consider only monotheism legitimate – we need to give them loud refreshers in the history of the Founders, who were quite clear that they meant the First Amendment to extend to everyone, regardless of their beliefs.

I’m not a Pagan, but I’d also love to see some Pagan candidates for office. We’ll all benefit from that. Even if Pagans don’t win major offices – and they won’t, at least for awhile – their very presence in the public square helps everybody think about what pluralism means, what democracy means. Democracy isn’t something we HAVE, it’s something we make. The Family doesn’t like it. They call it “the din of the vox populi.” The din of the voice of the people. So we know what we need to do: Let’s make some noise.

Previous Wild Hunt interviews: Starhawk, Gus diZerega, Jeff Sharlet, Brendan Cathbad Myers, Rita Moran, Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, Phyllis Curott, Tim Ward, Lupa, J.C. Hallman, Margot Adler.

Word has come to us that well-known spiritual teacher and author Ted Andrews passed away on October 24th. Andrews is perhaps best known among Pagans for his 1996 book “Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small” and many other animal-themed works. He also authored books on Qabala, divination, and other psychic and occult practices, many for Llewellyn Worldwide.

Ted Andrews

“Ted’s books on animal magick are some of the best loved in the Wiccan community and are some of the most often used references for animal correspondences and animal magick … Ted was so respected for his writing and work with animals that he was invited to speak at the United Nations in New York in 2007. On October 24, 2009, Ted Andrews crossed the veil and returned to the Great Mother. His passing will leave a great void in many ways, especially because of his ability to bridge the gap between the Pagans and non-Pagans through his work with animals.” – Rowan Pendragon

In addition to writing books about connecting spiritually with animals, Andrews also worked in wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, and engaged in animal education and storytelling programs in school classrooms. He was, if you’ll forgive the expression, a truly rare bird in the field of New Age and occult literature, someone who walked their talk. For a fuller bio of his accomplishments, check out his page at Dragonhawk Publishing. May he find rest and peace.

A recent column by Francis Wilkinson in The Week Magazine puts an uncomfortable spotlight on Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Attorney General who is a front-runner for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. It seems her role in the notorious  Fells Acres Day Care Case is causing some waves among Democrats with a long memory for abuses of power.

“Coakley did not prosecute the case, which was already under way when she joined the office as an assistant district attorney in 1986. But years later, after the day-care abuse hysteria had subsided and she had won the office’s top job, she worked to keep the convicted “ringleader,” Gerald Amirault, behind bars despite widespread doubts that a crime had been committed … the convictions won by the Middlesex DA in the Fells Acres case have not borne up well. By today’s standards, the prosecution of the Amirault family, who owned and operated the day-care center in Malden, Mass., looks like a master class in battling witchcraft.”

It looked like “battling witchcraft” because these “ritual abuse” (aka “Satanic abuse” or “organized abuse”) cases often hinged on rumours and false testimony of an imaginary network of underground Satanic sex and abuse-cults. Children were often prodded and coaxed into false testimony, much of which is recanted when those same children grow up, and many innocent men and women spent years, sometimes decades, of their lives behind bars. In the instance of the Fells Acres case, children were interviewed by nurse and SRA true-believer Susan J. Kelley, who elicited flatly implausible testimony about sex with bladed implements and “clowns” in “magic rooms” from children that a judge later called “improper” and “biased”.

“The evidence in this case is nothing short of overwhelming with improper interviewing techniques. The bias toward the Amiraults by investigators and interviewers from the beginning. Parental and other family influences. All of it leading to these tragic results.”

Despite the mounting evidence that this case was handled improperly, and that it was very likely the Amirault family were innocent of the charges brought against them, Coakley stubbornly refused to revisit the case. As D.A. she opposed parole for the family despite many lawyers thinking this was a “travesty” of justice, and she made strange conditions for the release of Cheryl Amirault LeFave.

“Coakley had previously allowed Gerald’s sister, Cheryl Amirault LeFave, to be released from prison on the curious condition that she not submit to television or film interviews. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, who championed the Amiraults’ case in a series of articles and in a book, Coakley also requested that the Amiraults’ attorney, James Sultan, who was negotiating Cheryl’s release, stop representing Gerald, which would have further crippled Gerald’s appeals for freedom.”

These conditions, and this case, has made some Democrats uneasy about her candidacy, and seems to be causing her supporters to close ranks on the issue. As for Coakley, she defends her decisions regarding the case, saying she feels the Amirault family were indeed guilty.

“Based on my own extensive experience with child abuse investigations and cases, and my thorough review of all the evidence, including that which is often taken out of context and deemed “exculpatory,” I also believe the convictions were sound, and that he received a fair trial. It is for all of the above reasons that I, as Middlesex District Attorney, opposed his commutation, and I stand by that decision to this day.”

One wonders if this is a case of not wanting to admit to a mistake, access to some sort of mysterious insider knowledge that several lawyers, reporters, judges, and parole boards don’t have, or if Coakley is (like the judge that oversaw Gerald Amirault’s trial) an SRA true-believer. I sincerely hope it isn’t the latter, because if we see a revival of “Satanic Panic” in America, the last thing we need is a Senator willing to craft laws that will throw even more innocent people in jail based almost solely on improperly gathered testimony and hysteria.

This morning I received a letter from Rev. Cathryn Platine and Rev. Viktoria Whittaker, First Battakes and Battakes-in-Waiting of the Maetreum of Cybele located in upstate New York. It is usually not in my habit to re-print letters that I’m sent, but I think in this case it may be warranted.

“We are a Pagan congregation that is encountering entrenched discrimination in upstate New York and currently in court fighting for our rights as a minority religion.  The Maetreum of Cybele is a Goddess-centred, reconstructionist religion.  Although we are not Wiccan, many of us come from Wiccan backgrounds and still practice as such. We have been noted in Margot Adler’s “Drawing Down the Moon, Pat Telesco’s “Which Witch is Which” and Raven Kaldera’s “Hermaphrodeities”.  Our founder has been active in the Pagan Community since the 60’s.

We own real property and run a brick-and-mortar establishment in the Town of Catskill in Greene County, New York.  Our property consists of a historic former Catskill Inn called Central House and approximately 3+ acres of land with an outdoor Temple/Grove in the hamlet of Palenville.  We purchased the property 2002 and turned it into a Pagan Temple and Convent.  A Pagan Convent you ask?  No, it’s not a contradiction in terms.  What we do is provide both temporary and permanent housing for Pagan priestess who wish to dedicate themselves more fully to serving their community as well as for purposes of spiritual retreat, safety and growth.

Not long after we purchased the property a local slumlord addressed a town meeting calling for us to be run out of town by way of zoning and building inspection harassment. While most of the people in town rejected his call and welcomed us, nevertheless over the course of the next several years we weathered continued harassment, vandalism, threats to “burn us out” followed by harassing and illegal inspections.

We incorporated in 2005, put the property in the name of the religious corporation and applied for property tax exemption which was granted in 2006.  The following year the renewal of the exemption was denied without given reason ironically enough within weeks of our Federal 501 (C)3 status being approved.  The Town of Catskill has continued to deny our exemption to this day in open violation of New York tax law which mandates the property tax exemption for religious and charitable organizations.

Today our situation is that we are considered behind on these illegal taxes and thus in potential danger of having our property taken away which is probably the motive here.  Our case is currently in court however we were forced at the last minute to go “pro se” (represent ourselves) because the attorney we were working with would not represent us in court.  Under New York law we must have a lawyer represent us because we are incorporated and we have been ordered by the court to hire a lawyer.  We were actually ordered to use all our connections and networking so this letter is actually by court order
- believe it or not.

We have also contacted the Department of Justice.  Because, after three years of refusing to give a reason for the denial, we were told this year it was because of a zoning violation which is actually prohibited by Federal law under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.  We are hoping, as provided by the law, that the DOJ will pursue criminal charges.”

The Matreum is requesting the Pagan community’s help in finding a sympathetic lawyer. It seems they have been turned down by over 30 lawyers already. If you know a Pagan or Pagan-friendly lawyer in New York who might be willing to talk to them and look into their case, I’m sure it would be appreciated (contact e-mail). They are also soliciting donations towards their cause, asking for people to forward this message, do energy work on their behalf, and inviting people to visit their Maetreum in upstate New York. I should also note that if you are a journalist who reads my blog, this could make a great religion-news story that deserves looking into. Oh, and it seems they have a Facebook fan-page, though it doesn’t mention their current crisis.

Finally, a word of caution. While I’m certainly sympathetic to the case here, I should also note that anyone wanting to donate should do their own investigations into the organization first. I do not know, and am not familiar with, this organization or Cathryn Platine. So please do look things over, contact them, and decide for yourself if this all seems legitimate. I’m reprinting this here, now, because it seems urgent and, on its face, a legitimate case of a Pagan group being screwed over.

Just a few items to start off your week, beginning with a rather tragic update on the James A. Ray sweat-lodge death controversy. Chas Clifton alerts us that a third victim has succumbed to injuries sustained while in the sweat-lodge.

“An Arizona homicide investigation now includes three deaths after a woman died more than a week after participating in a sweat lodge ceremony that hospitalized nearly two dozen people. Liz Neuman of Minnesota died Saturday at a Flagstaff hospital, Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said. The 49-year-old suffered multiple organ damage during the Oct. 8 ceremony at a resort near Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement. Authorities were treating all three deaths as homicides, but no charges have been filed.”

According to the report, Neuman was a true-believer in Ray’s teachings, attending several of his workshops and leading a local Ray-centric discussion group. One wonders how long before Ray’s time gallivanting to speaking engagements and describing these deaths as a “test” for him will come to an end, and he’s brought in for questioning.

Turning to something a bit more pleasant the Pagans for Archeology blog interviews scholar Susan Greenwood concerning her upcoming book “The Anthropology of Magic”.

“When Berg first invited me to write a book on anthropology and magic I didn’t initially think much about it as a project, but after a while I realized that as an undergraduate, and as a postgraduate doctoral student, I’d really struggled to find anything that tackled the issue of the experience of magic. Since childhood, I had always felt a sense of magic – the thrill of a thunderstorm, the fascination with being in nature, and the ‘make-believe’ of creating stories in my head. When I was older I had explored witchcraft and went to university as a mature student to find out more about my magical experiences. During a final year anthropology and sociology project on women’s spirituality I realized that I wanted to explore magic through PhD research (this ended up as Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld). During my time of studying I found books that were helpful in some ways but nothing that really dealt with the issues of studying the experience of magic. I wrote The Anthropology of Magic in the hope that it might help students and others to think about magic as an aspect of consciousness – it was the book that I’d wanted when I first started studying anthropology.”

The whole interview is well worth a read, and you may also want to check out Greenwood’s previous works “The Nature of Magic: An Anthropology of Consciousness“, and “Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld: An Anthropology“.

In a final note, we have yet more crazy from our favorite Australian crazy, Danny Nalliah, head of Catch the Fire ministries. I’ve indirectly mentioned him a couple times recently, but this one deserves full credit.

“Media reports of this “prayer offensive” have become the darling of the off-beat section, ridiculing the event and its prayer vs. black spells premise. But this being the age where you can be believe in spells and be totally in touch with media and the interwebs, Catch the Fire has cottoned on to the rest of Australia’s mocking pretty quickly (see here).  In response, Pastor Danny went on radio to explain this act of “spiritual warfare”. He said witches have cast spells on our politicians to make more liberal laws about homosexuals and abortions and if we don’t do something soon (like a mass prayer to ask God to get back on our side) we’re going to have more natural disasters, including bush fires.”

As for his spiritual warfare? Don’t worry, his fifty-member team was vastly outnumbered by protesters sporting slogans like “I am what you are afraid of”, easily counter-acting his malfeasance (though they claim to have The Holy Spirit accomplished “great and mighty things”). So the liberal laws (and brush fires I suppose) will no doubt continue!

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

I’ve written before about how witchcraft persecutions have become an international problem, how that fanaticism is slowly being exported to the “civilized” West and is cross-pollinating with the first-world churches that support them, but that hardly prepares one for the shock and horror of knowing that these (often American-funded) Christian churches are directly responsible for the death, mutilation, and exile of children.

“His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse. A month later, he died. Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files. Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” “It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.”

Many of these witch-hunting pastors belong to churches that are members of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) who say they can’t police their membership, though they can find it within themselves to collect membership dues. Indeed, the persecution of children for witchcraft is so “mainstream” in places like Nigeria that even the popular mega-pastors admit to horrid abuses.

“Helen Ukpabio is one of the few evangelists publicly linked to the denunciation of child witches. She heads the enormous Liberty Gospel church in Calabar … Ukpabio makes and distributes popular books and DVDs on witchcraft; in one film, a group of child witches pull out a man’s eyeballs. In another book, she advises that 60 percent of the inability to bear children is caused by witchcraft … “Witchcraft is real,” Ukpabio insisted, before denouncing the physical abuse of children. Ukpabio says she performs non-abusive exorcisms for freeHowever, she then acknowledged that she had seen a pastor from the Apostolic Church break a girl’s jaw during an exorcism. Ukpabio said she prayed over her that night and cast out the demon. She did not respond to questions on whether she took the girl to hospital or complained about the injury to church authorities.” and was not aware of or responsible for any misinterpretation of her materials. “I don’t know about that,” she declared.

Ukpabio is very much like the “spiritual warriors” here in America, except that her accusations of witchcraft and demonic possession fuel a trend of death and sorrow.

“Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket … There are nearly 60 branches of Liberty Gospel across the Niger Delta. It was started by a local woman, mother-of-two Helen Ukpabio … Many people in this area credit the popular evangelical DVDs she produces and stars in with helping to spread the child witch belief. Ita denies charging for exorcisms but acknowledges his congregation is poor and has to work hard to scrape up the donations the church expects. ‘To give more than you can afford is blessed. We are the only ones who really know the secrets of witches. Parents don’t come here with the intention of abandoning their children, but when a child is a witch then you have to say “what is that there? Not your child.” The parents come to us when they see manifestations. But the secret is that, even if you abandon your child, the curse is still upon you, even if you kill your child the curse stays. So you have to come here to be delivered afterwards as well,’ he explains patiently.”

The plight of “child witches’” is well known now, so where is the outrage and orchestrated refusal to send money to witch-hunting churches? Where is the Pentecostal-led movement to reverse this trend and isolate people like Helen Ukpabio? It seems almost non-existent, instead, acknowledged witch-hunters have been feted in America, giving blessings to prominent politicians. As for Ukpabio, she is no longer isolated to West Africa, and has a church in Rome. How far will this madness spread before the hundreds of church-bodies who have a stake in Africa do something?

“Please stop the pastors who hurt us,” said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. “I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch.”

For those who want to help the witch-children, two good organizations to send money to are Stepping Stones Nigeria and CRARN (Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network). We can also urge the press to continue to ask difficult questions of American churches that support witch-hunters but plead ignorance.

A very happy Diwali to all my Hindu and IndoPagan readers. Diwali, the festival of lights, is a major Indian holiday representing a spiritual new year, and a triumph of good over evil. Depending on the region and tradition, this day commemorates the return of Lord Rama, the birth of Lakshmi, and the Austerities of Shakti (among other events). Celebrants usually light lamps, set off fireworks, play cards, and will occasionally pray to computers to commemorate the day. Of special note this year is that Barack Obama became the first US president to participate in the White House Diwali ceremony.

Hindu puja on the eve of Diwali.

“Obama became the first US president to personally take part in a White House ceremony for the festival of lights, lighting a “diya” oil lamp inside the executive mansion and bowing respectfully before a Hindu priest. “While this is a time of rejoicing, it’s also a time for reflection, when we remember those who are less fortunate and renew our commitment to reach out to those in need,” Obama said.”

Not to be outdone, the British Prime Minister held a “historic” Diwali celebration at 10 Downing Street. For more information on Diwali and its traditions, check out the informative Hindu Blog.

May you experience happiness and good fortune on this day, and in the year to come.