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My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

It seems like a given nowadays that if some dead animals turn up, practitioners of Santeria or Vodou will get blamed by a police officer, animal shelter spokesman, or speculative/lazy/bored journalist, even though most of these cases bear little resemblance to the actual religious practices of African diasporic faiths (and it usually ends up being teenagers). Journalistic coverage of these animal killings, and the assumed religious angle, has gotten so bad that press watch-dog blog Get Religion has started asking for some needed clarification.

“Say what? Let’s read that quote again, the one in which it is claimed that the number of ritual animal sacrifices spike at this time of year because of “a lot of high holidays that different groups celebrate.” … what in the world are these words supposed to mean? Are we to believe that there is a wave of beheaded animal corpses because of (a) the arrival of Advent/Nativity Lent, (b) approaching observances of Hanukkah, (c) Kwanzaa festivities, (d) some alleged connection to Solstice? Is the goal to link this to voodoo or something? But before you go there, please note that the story says absolutely nothing that would point toward Santeria and, even if it did, there is no discussion of whether these sacrifices in any way fit patterns of worship in that tradition. You see, it’s wrong for journalists to say, “Behold, beheaded animals. Those Santeria people are at it again.” That’s too simplistic. So let me ask the obvious question and ask readers to weigh in: Precisely what “high holidays” are we supposed to assume are being discussed here? I honestly do not have a clue. What does this strange sentence mean? Just asking.”

The quote referenced above, from an AP story, and left unexamined, is from another representative of an animal cruelty center, making me wonder what kind of workshops on ritual killings (or horror movies) these people are attending. I’m very glad to see the issue of the horrible reporting concerning mysterious animal deaths and their alleged connection to Santeria or Vodou is being picked up on by more religion-news watchers. Maybe now we can finally inch away from pure sensationalism whenever a dead animal turns up.

Over at the Times, Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard visits a famous Clootie well near he village of Munlochy and wonders if the practice of tying rags to branches for healing really is an ancient pagan custom.

“The notice nearby, put up by the Scottish Forestry Commission (for like most shrines it’s a tourist attraction too), claims that this tradition goes back to pre-Christian times, and is a reflection of the power of water in pagan Celtic religion. It is, in other words, an amazing survival across the millennia. I found myself thnking that this was really rather hard to believe. If most other customs are invented in the nineteenth century, then why nt this pagan one too. How far back does it really go, in this form. Does anyone have any real hard evidence?”

I’ll leave it to my Celtic reconstructionist readers to look into the matter and let me (and Mary) know. While we’re on the subject of Ms. Beard’s skeptical nature, she also takes aim at the theory that ancient Greek temples were deliberately built to face the rising Sun. I’ll leave it to my Hellenic Pagan readers to weigh in on that one (I’m quite the delegator today).

Author and techgnostic Erik Davis has posted an essay adapted from the introduction to the new photography collection “Tribal Revival” that deals with the West coast neotribal festival culture.

“Every summer, tens of thousands of participants descend upon dozens of festivals and gatherings, great and small, that occur on the West Coast of North America: Shambhala, Oracle, Moontribe, Lightning in a Bottle. The names of these clans and crews are legion: hippies, ravers, pagans, crusties, free spirits, burners, seekers, travelers, eco-warriors. They gather together to dance, to escape, to hold ritual, and to craft a visionary culture based on community, creative self-expression, and a celebratory earth wisdom. Labels are always dangerous, but an honest name for the scene is neotribal. These are the new tribes, recreating and reinventing patterns of organic culture that are inspired by the premodern past but designed for a high-tech planet hurtling through a period of unprecedented global change.”

Something of a neotribal himself, Davis waxes Utopian about the the “festival [as] foundation of world renewal”, and the “earthy communion” these interweaving groups partake in. Whether this subcultural phenomenon will truly equip us for an uncertain future remains to be seen, but I’m certainly open to there being more festival, “feral joy”, and liminality in our lives.

Turning briefly to pop-culture, the io9 blog has a clip from the upcoming Percy Jackson movie “The Lightning Thief” featuring Uma Thurman as Medusa. I’ve written about the pagan-ness of Percy Jackson previously, which follows the adventures of young Greek demigods. “The Lightning Thief” is due out in February. Meanwhile, the highly literate/geeky indie rock band The Decemberists is putting out a full-length animated film of their recent myth-drenched pagan-y concept album “The Hazards of Love”.

“…next month, Colin Meloy and co. will push The Hazards of Love to full-on The Wall status, releasing the album as a full-length video. Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized premiered at a show in Los Angeles on October 19, and on December 1, it’ll be available exclusively via iTunes. Filmmakers Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria created animations to accompany individual sections of music from the album.”

That trailer looks pretty cool/trippy. If you want to acquaint yourself with the music before considering the movie, you can download it at Amazon.com (they also have it in vinyl for those that want to kick-it old-school).

In a final note, no matter how much I deplore the idea of sparkly vampires, if Vatican spokesmen and evangelical anti-occult book-peddlers don’t knock it off soon, I’ll have to see the darn things just to spite them.

“Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, of the Pontifical Council of Culture, said: ‘Men and women are transformed with horrible masks and it is once again that age-old trick or ideal formula of using extremes to make an impact at the box office. This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern.’ ”

Man, if sparkly celibate-till-marriage Mormon vampires are a “moral vacuum” I’d hate to hear what he thinks of “True Blood”.

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

Just a few quick items of note for this Wednesday morning.

The Augusta, Georgia alternative weekly Metro Spirit starts off October with the almost obligatory spotlight on local Pagans. The result is a fairly solid run-down of the history of Wicca, with interviews from Michelle Boshears (aka Dawnwalker), who coordinates Circle-sponsored ritual groups on military bases, and the Thelemic Wicca-practicing couple of Jezibell Anat and Joseph Zuchowski.

“Paganism is not a religion,” said Joseph Zuchowski, a Wiccan high priest who resides in Augusta. “Paganism is a blanket term given to a whole series of religions that are mostly Reconstructionist, in the sense that we reconstruct as best we can within the contemporary framework of the world we’re living in the beliefs of our pre-Christian ancestors.”

In a separate piece, Metro Spirit features a comparison of three religious magazines, and the author decides she likes “Witches & Pagans” the best, saying she “didn’t find much to guide me spiritually, but at least now I have more respect for that magazine”. The other two magazines? EnlightenNext (too much Ken Wilber) and Purpose Driven Connection (too Dr. Phil-ly).

Guardian music-blogger Nell Frizzell notices that there’s a whole lot of pagan imagery within pop music lately.

“Triangles? Check. Candles? Check. Stars? Check. Orbs? Check. Flowers? Check. Flowing locks? Check. Forests? Check. That’s more checks than a gingham tablecloth. The last time there were album covers like that, Steeleye Span were still in the top 40. What in the name of faery queen is going on? From Clinic to Little Boots, Florence and the Machine to Pendulum, Bat for Lashes to Wild Beasts, Paganism, it seems, is back.”

While Frizzell stretches her net rather wide in order to include a many “hot” acts as possible, I do agree with the central thesis, that pagan imagery, themes, and sympathies haven’t been this prevalent within music (both popular and underground) since the 1970s. Nor is the Guardian the only one to notice, NPR is discussing the occult significance of Jay-Z’s lyrics and clothing, The Quietus recently interviewed Gary “I was once in Blondie” Lachman about his occult history, the New Yorker profiles the massive (and metaphysical) sound of Sunn O))), and “Pagan rock” gets a brief mention in an article about the possible harmful side-effects of music. Of course if you want to keep track of some of the best Pagan and Pagan-themed music out there, you know where to turn.

It looks like some Christians liked (or hated) Isaac Bonewits’ “Spells for Democracy” so much they decided to steal appropriate the idea for themselves.

Liberty Counsel (a Christian advocacy group) has begun a “prayer in action” initiative it calls “Adopt a Liberal.” It is hoping to change the minds of political leaders it sees as “misguided”. The initiative calls on participants to pick one of the eleven liberals on Liberty Counsel’s list, or to choose some other liberal leader, and then: “Pray earnestly and intensely for them! Pray that the Lord would move upon them and cause them to be the kind of leaders who will encourage others to lead “a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” We encourage you to seek the Lord’s guidance on how to pray for your liberal(s), always allowing Him to temper your prayer with His love and mercy….”

You can see the chosen “liberals” (which includes two Republicans) they are urging Christians to pray for, here. Short of the theological loophole of asking “The Lord” to do the work for you, this pretty much the same sort of magic they damn the Pagans for. What a funny world. I suppose it’s better than the anti-Obama death prayers that some of ultra-right Christian groups have been engaging in.

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

Before we head into the holiday weekend, here are a few quick news items I’d like to share with you, starting off with a very sympathetic (with some slight inaccuracies) article from the Charleston City Paper about being Pagan in South Carolina.

“…one of the problems with being a spiritual minority in America, especially in a culturally conservative state like South Carolina, is that you and your religion are frequently misunderstood by the population at large. Pagans and Wiccans, one of the many groups in this broad religious category, have long been associated with casting spells, riding broomsticks, and otherwise committing godless mischief. From Macbeth to Bewitched to Charmed, they have been the source of terror and spoof — as well as the object of ridicule and persecution. For that reason, many local Pagans remain undercover, or — to use the Wiccan vernacular — they choose to stay in the broom closet.”

They go on to interview several local Pagans, the chair of the Lowcountry Council of Alternative Spiritual Traditions, and even touch on the saga of South Carolina resident Darla Wynne, who successfully sued the town of Great Falls over the matter of sectarian invocations (and garnered 32 votes in her bid for a seat on the Town Council in 2008). Nice to see a journalist go to several sources and local groups to get a broader journalistic picture of modern Paganism.

Meanwhile, in New York, park rangers and the head of a local watchdog group are freaking out about animal sacrifices in Queens. Filled with your usual cult-hysteria sensationalism, the topper is the inclusion of an incident that seems to have nothing at all to do with Vodou, Santeria, Satanism, or the occult.

“Geoffrey Croft, who runs the watchdog group New York City Park Advocates, said he has stumbled upon gruesome examples of animal sacrifice in at least five city parks … “It’s a public-health issue, it’s disgusting, and it freaks people out with the whole voodoo thing,” said Croft … In another grisly discovery, Croft said he once found the dead carcass of a dog that was shot and eaten by a man.”

What does that have to do with animal sacrifice? Seemingly nothing, but why should that stop “journalists” James Fanelli and Rich Calder from throwing it in there anyway. Why let things like context and responsible journalism get in the way of a good guy-eating-a-dead-dog story? It goes without saying that no-one who knows anything about African diasporic religion or the occult were quoted or consulted for the story.

In a final, and more positive, note, today is the start of the massive three-day Faerieworlds festival right in my back-yard of Eugene, Oregon. Expected to draw thousands, it is a celebrations of all things mythic and magical.

“In just seven years, Faerieworlds has become the premiere mythic music festival on the West Coast. Featuring world renowned fantasy artists, Grammy-award winning musicians, spectacular performances and entertainers, an amazing arts and crafts vending village, thousands of fans from around the globe travel each year to Eugene, Oregon to experience the magic of Faerieworlds. We believe that the revitalizing, healing and transforming spirit of faerie is alive and moving actively in our lives: faerie inspires and provokes, heals and reveals, illuminates and transcends. At Faerieworlds, we invite you to enter the Realm as your magical self and release the beautiful, magical faerie spirit that’s inside you!”

A few news items I wanted to share with you this Saturday morning. We start off with a glowing profile of the Starwood Festival from Mark Mansfield of Stereo Subversion.

“The best festival I’ve ever participated in, I heard about through word of mouth fifteen years ago. Festival has many different meanings depending on the person. The Hippie might be thinking about Rothbury this year, with it’s heavy Deadhead lineup. The Artist might think of Burning Man where contributory art is everywhere and fires abound. Somewhere in that intersection is Starwood.  Billed as the largest Pagan festival in North America, it is that and so much more … Starwood is a festival unlike any other. It is quite literally what you make it. Some people live for the drumming, while others are intent on attending as many workshops as they can. For some it is a hedonistic party while for others it is a deeply spiritual and transformative experience (and in fact is often both at the same time.) Though not exclusively a music festival, between the concerts, the radio station, and the night’s drumming, the music never stops.”

Dare I wonder if Starwood is becoming, well, hip? Will people start talking about Starwood they way they talk about Burning Man? Maybe, but the musical lineup is still heavily weighted towards the folky-pagan and old hippie, with touches of world music, so I think they have awhile before they’re completely inundated with outsiders.

The wonderful Goddess spirituality blog Medusa Coils points to a recent essay by Starhawk at Alive Mind & Spirit that explores the ever-shrinking mainstream market for “women’s spirituality” book titles, and what that has done to their movement.

“…although you may or may not have noticed, major publishers are no longer terribly interested in books on women’s spirituality.  Why?  Back in the ‘eighties, HarperSanFrancisco published not just me but a whole lot of great books—Carol Christ, Marija Gimbutas, Z. Budapest, Luisah Teish, Vicki Noble if I’m remembering it all right.  They were the books we read, discussed, got excited about and inspired by. Then sometime in the nineties they dropped just about everyone except me—not because the books weren’t selling, but because they weren’t selling enough.  They lost interest in publishing for a strong, steady niche, and only really wanted to publish blockbusters for the mass market … it had a debilitating effect on the movement.  Without the books to inspire women, without new books to continue the discussions and debate, we lost ground, especially with younger women.”

Starhawk also seems to partially blame the Internet and blogging on this shift, though she hasn’t been shy in utilizing the web to fuel her own activist concerns and capitalist endeavours (one wonders how many new readers she gets from her lofty perch at the Newsweek/Washington Post-backed On Faith blog). It is true that book publishers are increasingly focused on “blockbusters”, but it’s also true that there has been a slow shift in the “New Age” book market away from Pagan/occult material and towards the Oprah-style self-empowerment/improvement genre(s). The industry is in flux, and the Pagan and Goddess-focused authors and small publishers will have to think of new ways to reach their audiences (just as the book Starhawk mentions, “Women of Wisdom”, seems to be doing).

In a final note, the First Amendment Center reminds Christians who complain about minority-faith accommodation that they are the one’s who wrote the rules that exclusively benefited them, and who now must deal with the changes that come from a truly religiously pluralistic (and free) society.

“When people complain about the growing list of requests for accommodation in public schools from students and parents from minority faiths, I like to remind them that the majority faith wrote the rules. Founded as Protestant-dominated institutions in the 19th century, public schools never open on Sunday, close for Christmas, and in other ways institutionalize accommodations for the majority faith … Students in the majority faith rarely need religious accommodation in public schools because the majority wrote the rules in the first place – and in many places still writes the rules. For students like Adriel whose faith is unfamiliar to many school officials, it’s often difficult to get a fair hearing. For some school officials, rules are rules – no exceptions. But religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, is our nation’s first freedom. Rather than complaining about all those requests for accommodation, we should be celebrating the genius of the First Amendment, which recognizes religious liberty as an inalienable right for people of all faiths and none. It takes work – and accommodation isn’t always possible. But taking claims of conscience seriously should be at the heart of what it means to be an American.”

Religious freedom means freedom for all religions. The Protestants who wrote the rules may never have envisioned a day when Pagan, or Buddhist, or even Muslim students would one day be a part of their societal fabric, but thanks to our (Enlightenment and Deist-influenced) Constitution we have the ability to thrive in that changed world.

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

British music site The Quietus (which is quite good btw) has decided to forego its usual tips for attending the massive Glastonbury Festival, and has instead sought the advice of Druid leader Emma Restall Orr. The author of “Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics” gives sensible advice about not minding the rain, avoiding greasy junk-food, and finding time for a little serenity.

“Factor in some good chill out time, sometime during the day or night. Find quiet to relax alone, even just for ten minutes: find some peace … Visit the stone circle. Walk it a few times, feel its calm and how it sits deeply rooted in the landscape … Don’t make a mess or abandon your rubbish, and thank the spirit of the land when you leave.”

That’s all well and good, but surely they’d want some Pagan suggestions on which acts to check out, right? Since anyone who’s going is probably already there, this is pure armchair quarterbacking, but I’d definitely check out Bat For Lashes, Fleet Foxes, Fairport Convention, The Horrors, Bon Iver, and Tunng. Artists who have all been played on my A Darker Shade of Pagan podcast at some time or another. Also, from a purely personal standpoint (outside a Pagan purview), I wouldn’t want to miss Echo and The Bunnymen or Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds either.

I have a few items of interest in my daily scan of the news, starting with a profile of practicing Witch and Australian singer-musician Wendy Rule. Rule is coming to Florida to perform, and the Daytona Beach News-Journal explores her Wiccan identity, and how that influences her songwriting.

A Sydney native who calls Melbourne home, Rule says, “It’s not such an unusual thing for music to have a magical and spiritual purpose. All the ritual music of traditional cultures — Aboriginal Australian and Native American shamans, folk music from across the globe, Gregorian chants and gospel music — share this same goal: to alter our consciousness and bring us in contact with the divine.” But, she adds, “I’m no more a Wiccan songwriter than I am a Scorpio songwriter, or an Australian one, or a female one. I’m just living and writing and singing and exploring my heart and soul — and I happen to be an Australian Scorpio Witch.”

While it’s nice that the paper decided to give some ink to Wendy Rule’s upcoming shows in America, you’d think they would bother to do more than simply cut-and-paste from her web site while implying they interviewed her. Maybe a long-distance phone call was too expensive for their operating budget? After all, these are hard times for newspapers.

If you want to brag once and for all that you’re as smart as (or possibly smarter than) Oberon “Grey School of Wizardry” Zell and Don “Witch School” Lewis you’ll get your chance at the upcoming St. Louis Pagan Picnic. According to a press release, they will be holding a trivia contest about “all things magical” open to all comers.

“Oberon Zell of Grey School and Don Lewis of Witch School have agreed to a trivia contest about all things magical to test their students and all comers. They plan to meet on June 13th & 14th at the St. Louis Pagan Picnic, held at Tower Grove Park. The St. Louis Pagan Picnic is the largest Pagan gathering in the Midwest, and brings together thousands for a weekend of friendship, fellowship, entertainment, teaching and merchants. The Wizards and Witches Trivia contest will be just one of the many parts to this wonderful event, but for the students of Grey School and Witch School, it is a highly anticipated one.”

The winners will receive unspecified “prizes”, one hopes that it isn’t a gift certificate to their respective schools. After all, would the winner of such a contest really need such a thing?

In a final note, workmen in Florence, Italy, while digging a hole for a new water cistern in the courthouse, stumbled across a temple to Isis.

“Workmen inside Florence’s courthouse have stumbled across a spiral column and hundreds of multicoloured fragments that experts believe may have belonged to a Roman temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis.  According to Roman news agency ANSA, the remains, dating back to the second century AD, were discovered as the men dug a five by three meter hole, barely four meters deep, for a new water cistern for the courthouse’s anti-incendiary system … the remains were “comparable” to others found over the last three centuries in the immediate area that have also been attributed to the temple of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility who was later adopted by the Greeks and Romans.  The location of the temple is unknown, but it is believed to have been built just outside the Roman part of the city, near the current courthouse building…”

Florence’s archeology superintendency is currently overseeing the discovery, no announcements have been made as to what will ultimately be done with the find. Interesting that a courthouse was unwittingly built over the temple of a goddess that the Book of the Dead calls “She who seeks justice for the poor people”.

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

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

The Marin Independent Journal reports that Jo Carson’s documentary film “Dancing With Gaia” has finally been completed and will be shown at the Fairfax Film Festival.

“An exploration of earth-based spirituality shot at sacred sites around the world, including Marin, the film will be shown for the first time at 2 p.m. April 5, a highlight of the 10th annual Fairfax Film Festival. A former Lucasfilm camera operator now working as nurse at Marin General Hospital, Carson traveled throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and the United States, filming the sacred sites of ancient earth-centered religions. She interviewed 15 visionaries along the way.It’s taken 20 years, but Jo Carson’s documentary, “Dancing with Gaia,” is at long last finished and ready for its world premiere.”

The film was inspired by Feraferia co-founder Fred Adams (who is also featured in the film), and features interviews with Pagan luminaries like Monica Sjoo, Cerridwen Fallingstar, and Kathy Jones. For those who can’t make it to a film festival showing, Carson says that there will be a DVD release out soon. Documentaries featuring Pagans are rare enough that I very much look forward to seeing this.

Did any of you catch the 200th episode of “CSI” last night? If so you were treated to an exorcist-haunted take (thanks to direction by William Friedkin) on Santeria (or was it Voodoo, the show is a bit hazy on that front) that manages to imply that the loa/orisha Ogun is some sort of evil demon (complete with subliminal Pazuzu-esque demon-head flashes) and paints adherents to Afro-Caribbean religions as wholly alien and apart from “normal” life.

“There was a piece of white leather in her hand with traces of powdered Datura on it, which was also in Silvia’s system. It’s a powerful hallucinogen that is reportedly used in Santeria voodoo rituals to speak with the dead. Brass and Nick check out local Datura dealers and come across some voodoo chanting with bongos and shrieking and possibly a couple seizures. There is some voodoo priest guy hauled in for questioning, but nothing ever comes of it. Weird  … When brought in, [the killer] still claims his innocence. Until his voice gets low and deep and he blames it on a Voodoo God. Ray twists his arm up, then leaves the room and punches a wall …”

Really awful. Some truly exploitative stuff here. Not a single attempt to paint the killers actions as completely outside the norm for African diasporic faiths, or that “Ogun” is simply a manifestation of his mental illness. In fact, there isn’t really any exposition concerning Santeria at all. It all exists as a prop for Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) to get upset and punch things.

I haven’t been keeping track, so I’m not sure when this happened, but Pagan author A.J. Drew has closed down his web sites, started a goat farm, and is selling his most popular Internet addresses for 10,000 dollars.

There have been and still are plans to incorporate PaganNation.com into community software A.J. Drew began several years. However, maintaining this site is beyond our capabilities at this time, the software is not yet ready for release, and the obligations generated when his business was destroyed and the convention failed are pressing. He would very much like to conclude his former life without those obligations. In an effort to meet those obligations: PaganNation.com, WitchesBall.com, and TheRealWitchesBall.com Are for sale as a package: $10,000.00. Should a sale not take place prior to the launch of our software, PaganNation.com will return in a much improved format.

I’m not sure who would be willing to pay that much for 3 domain names (nor do they provide contact information for interested buyers), but who knows? Perhaps there is someone out there with deep pockets who covets “TheRealWitchesBall.com”, I couldn’t say. Aimee Drew (A.J.’s wife) also briefly explains her husband’s 2006 electrocution accident, and the subsequent deterioration of their previous life. It isn’t known if this is a permanent retirement from active participation with the larger Pagan community, or simply a step back to regroup, whatever the situation I wish them peace.

Author and “Techgnostic” Erik Davis shares his introduction to the new book “Mushroom Magick: A Visionary Field Guide” where he ponders the enduring myth of “shrooms” as a precursor to religion.

“…appearances can deceive. Despite the fact that Psilocybe spores carpet-bombed wide swaths of our planet millennia ago, there is little hard evidence for psychedelic mushroom use in traditional societies—even among groups that consume other mind-expanding plants and brews. Along with Mesoamerica, where royal weddings were capped with mushroom-fueled dance parties, the only other bulls-eye is Siberia, where shamans (and ordinary folks) consumed Amanita muscaria, the non-psilocybin-containing fungus whose psychoactive alkaloids were also passed around through the quaffing of urine. In Europe, there is scant suggestion of mushroom use, despite the ubiquity of several species. Solidly documented cases of probable Psilocybe intoxication begin in the eighteenth century, and they suggest that these accidental shroomers discovered nothing particularly cosmic in their trips—although some did get the giggles. Nonetheless, a number of authors insist that a hidden mushroom cult of fungal gnosis, rooted in Neolithic shamanism, has been passed down secretly.”

Like many myths that gained popularity in the 1960s, the European “mushroom cult” has obtained a reality of its own, with thousands using the fungus both recreationally and for sacred purposes.

In a final note, The Sun interviews Colin Meloy of The Decemberists about their new concept album “The Hazards of Love”, and how folk, metal, and prog-rock are linked together through a shared love of myth and mysticism.

“Metal and folk share a similar fascination with mythology, mysticism, pre-Christian stuff, paganism. Led Zeppelin are the most obvious bridge between the folk revival and classic metal. But Black Sabbath had quite a bit of that with Fairies Wear Boots etc.”

Considering The Decemberists’ new album features “a shape-shifting forest dweller” and a “jealous forest queen”, it might just appeal to fans of myth-drenched pagan-friendly music.

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

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

An advice column for the Washington Times highlights the struggles of a Wiccan military family after the children are outed at their local school.

…my children are being discriminated against by their teachers and administrators because we are Wiccans. It all started when other children at their school found out we are Wiccan. The students now call my children witches and warlocks. I know my children are being harassed, and this is not fair to them. Their grades are now falling tremendously. I have complained about this to the teachers, counselors, assistant principal and the principal. They have done nothing about it. I wanted to use this experience as a learning tool, to teach others about our lifestyle without imposing our views on others. It was my desire to stay calm and educate only to stop the fear and harassment. I asked to do a professional development session for the staff and a presentation to my children’s classrooms. I know this would help others understand, so they would stop judging and name-calling. The teachers would not hear of this. They all said it would infringe upon the rights of other students who do not want to hear about Wiccans.

The columnist “Ms. Vicki” Johnson advises the mother to climb higher on the administrative ladder with her concerns, and to seek counselling in order to deal with the emotional stress, but I fear that this is a far deeper problem than a few uncaring teachers. The military culture has become downright hostile to non-Christian faith expressions, often exploiting loopholes to keep Pagans (and other faiths) from gaining legitmacy and equal treatment. It wasn’t simply because of Bush that the veteran Pentacle quest took so long to achieve victory. I don’t know if there’s an easy solution to this problem, but one can hope that things will open up a bit under the Obama administration.

Darin Najor, who assulted a teacher and threatened to set her on fire for being a “witch” after she assigned the class to read “The Crucible”, is undergroing a competency hearing to see if he can stand trial.

Police said the assignment to read and discuss “The Crucible” apparently set Najor off. The teacher had been discussing the play in class for a while before she was assaulted. Najor questioned the teacher the day before the assault, police said, and she told him she didn’t believe in witchcraft and that the play was an allegory about persecution. The following day, Najor came up behind the teacher chanting what sounded like religious verses and poured water over her that he carried in a Gatorade bottle, Denmark said. Najor was also carrying a large barbecue lighter and told the teacher she was a witch who needed to be purified, police said. Najor ran from the room and the teacher and a security guard followed him outside where he was smoking a cigarette, Denmark said. The suspect ran at the teacher and said he was going to “burn the witch” when he was restrained by the guard, police said.

While Najor certainly seems delusional, one wonders where he got the idea that a witch needed to be purified by fire? It’s too bad this account doesn’t dig a bit into his background. What’s his home life like? What religious instruction did he receive? I would like to know these things, just in case the water-bottle was simply a trial run.

Speaking of innocent teachers and witches, a Texas man has finally been cleared of all charges after being accused of confining two girls to a classroom because he thought they were witches.

It has not been an easy three years for Jose Ramos. The 45-year-old Spanish teacher has been unemployed and under a felony indictment for most of that time, chafing against what he saw as an ongoing injustice he could not seem to clear. Some days, it was hard to tell what was worse: That he was being accused of confining two scared teenage girls to a classroom, or that the Rio Grande Valley thought he’d done it because he thought the girls were witches. On Thursday, prosecutors dropped the last of his criminal charges and, with an apologetic shrug from a county court-at-law judge whose children had been his students, Ramos was once again free, innocent and employable.

In the span of three years the truth slowly came out, the girl’s stories changed, and they no longer wanted to testify. In fact, it seems that it was Ramos who was trying to protect the girls from fellow classmates who accused the girls of casting malicious spells. The tragedy is that this man’s life and livelyhood were ruined while under the shadow of these charges. Resentful, he’s now looking for a job far away from the town in which he once worked.

The Independent gives a decidedly lukewarm review to Gary Lachman’s new book “Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen”, calling it “stodgy” and “uncontroversial”.

Gary Lachman has certainly done his research. This history of how the occult has influenced national politics – and not just wacky, fascist politics but mainstream and progressive political movements too … It could be fascinating, but the prose is stodgy, and the actual aims of these secret societies, where revealed, are often uncontroversial and bland – to create a better world, that sort of thing. It’s never entirely clear whether Lachman believes that occult study is a real means of acquiring knowledge, providing an alternative to “the hard-nosed empirical approach [of] science”. This book offers no evidence that it is; but then doubts are raised about Lachman’s commitment to rationality when he claims that “in 1960, aliens took an interest in US politics and backed a candidate for the presidency”.

For more on Lachman’s work (which tends toward the sensationalistic), you should check out this (slightly edited) excerpt from “Politics and the Occult”.

How did ancient Greeks choose their temple locations? According to Gregory J. Retallack of the University of Oregon in Eugene, it’s all about the soil.

No clear pattern emerged until he turned to the gods and goddesses. It was then that he discovered a robust link between the soil on which a temple stood and the deity worshiped there. For example, Demeter, the goddess of grain and fertility, and Dionysos, the god of wine, both were venerated on fertile, well-structured soils called Xerolls, which are ideal for grain cultivation. Artemis, the virgin huntress, and her brother Apollo, the god of light and the Sun, were worshiped in rocky Orthent and Xerept soils suitable only for nomadic herding. And maritime deities, such as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Poseidon, the sea god, were revered on Calcid soils on coastal terraces too dry for agriculture. The pattern suggests that the deities’ cults were based on livelihood as much as on religion. And, says Retallack, temple builders may have chosen sites to make the deities feel at home.

So if you’re looking to build a new Pagan temple, better check out the local dirt first.

In a final note, mega-rockstars U2 may be dedicated Christians, but that hasn’t stopped them from wondering if the patriarchy is all its cracked up to be.

“[The song "Get On Your Boots" is] based around the idea that men have f****d things up so badly, politically, economically and socially that it’s really time we handed things over to women.”

You can see the video for the song, here. Careful guys, you keep this sort of sentiment up, and you might lose some of your ardent patriarchy-loving Christian followers (but who knows, you might also gain some goddess-lovers to replace them).

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

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

Cuba’s babalawos have gotten together once again to make predictions for the coming year. While warning against natural disasters and marital strife, they seem somewhat upbeat (if cautious) about economic matters.

“There is a favorable time for loans, an increase in certain powers from the financial point of view, but one has to be careful about using that increase,” [Victor Betancourt] said. The prediction also warns of the perils of drinking water being contaminated, family quarrels, wars and the threat of natural disasters, and calls for men to respect women in the home. He also recommends being careful when speaking to avoid interpersonal conflicts, not revealing secrets people trust us with, and guarding against marital infidelity.

The Ifa readings for 2009 say the year will be reigned over by Oggun, the loa of war, and by Oya, in charge of storms and gentle breezes. You can read what I think is the text of the 2009 readings, here. You can also look at last year’s readings to see how accurate they were.

Medusa Coils reviews a new book by Jeri Lyn Studebaker (aka Athana of Radical Goddess Thealogy fame) entitled “Switching to Goddess: Humanity’s Ticket to the Future”.

Studebaker (who blogs as Athana on Radical Goddess Thealogy) doesn’t mince words in her bold assessment of where “war-daddy god” worship has gotten us and why we need to return to the female divine, whose cultures have been associated with peace, equality, and risk-taking. She doesn’t tip toe around difficult issues, and isn’t afraid to directly and strongly criticize Christianity and the Bible, for example. Though she often writes in a slangy style, you’d be wise not to be taken in by the flip language: Studebaker is no intellectual lightweight. The offbeat language helps make the book more accessible and enjoyable, but behind it a strong intellect and Goddess interpreter is at work.

Studebaker’s book was released by O Books, who have been gaining a good reputation as a company unafraid to publish thoughtful, challenging, and provoking Pagan-oriented books (most notably recent works by Brendan “Cathbad” Myers and Emma Restall Orr). For those unfamiliar with Studebaker’s work, note that she is an unapologetic Goddess booster on a mission (not that there is anything wrong with that). Even her positive reviews typify her writing as “fierce”, “provoking”, “zealous”, “fiesty”, “hard-hitting”, and (naturally) “radical”. Personally, I’m glad to see more Pagan books unafraid to stir things up now and then.

Attention scholars, music lovers, metal-heads, and others interested in the links between spirituality and music. A massive new collection of (seemingly free) interviews with musicians entitled “The Spiritual Significance of Music” has been released. Of particular interest is the “Metal Edition” which covers the interest in Pagan, Satanic, occult, and esoteric practices by metal bands.

…an exciting exploration of how music powerfully impacts spirituality, and why spirituality influences music. Readers will discover sincere expressions of spiritual beliefs from the world of metal music. This portfolio includes an eclectic mix of musicians playing many forms of metal music; ambient metal, avant-garde death-metal, black metal, brutal metal, death metal, doom metal, experimental metal, funeral-doom, gothic metal, grindcore, heavy metal, industrial metal, melodic metal, power metal, progressive metal, psychedelic metal, Satanic metal, sludge metal, speed metal, symphonic metal, technical metal, thrash metal, and includes musicians from alternative-rock, avant-rock, and hardcore-punk bands. Metal Edition provides readers with an important introduction to metal music’s affinity with demonology, divination, magic, mysticism, Satanism, spiritualism, the occult, and witchcraft.

There are also “Christian”, “World” and “Authors” editions to peruse as well (though the “World” and “Authors” sections seem to be down at the moment, perhaps due to traffic problems). Just the metal section alone looks like a treasure-trove of information, and I can’t wait to start sifting through it all. Kudos to editor Justin St. Vincent for the yeoman’s work performed here.

More signs of the growth of alternative and minority faiths in prison? In a fairly standard profile of prison chaplains for a women’s prison in Idaho, they reveal the religious make-up of the institution.

Mostly, he refers the inmate to one of the numerous groups that routinely visit the prison as part of the ministries program. At initial intake into the prison population, each woman is asked her religious leaning. Forty-five percent of inmates identify their orientation as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 24 percent as non-Roman Catholic Christian, 10 percent as Catholic, 4 percent as Wiccan, Odinist, Rastafarian or other less-mainstream religion, and 1 percent as Jewish.

The high Mormon numbers seem about right for a state  where around 23% of the population are LDS members, but I was surprised to see a prison in Idaho with such a high percentage of minority and Pagan faiths. Are more Pagans going to prison, or are we seeing an increasingly large number of people turing to Pagan faiths while incarcerated? If so, it certainly places extra importance on efforts to obtain equal and fair treatment of Pagan inmates across the country.

In a final note, the Reuters FaithWorld blog highlights the unveiling of Catholic Google (no official relation to actual Google) that removes (as much as possible) offensive sites and gives extra weight to pro-Catholic sites.

So now there’s Catholic Google, a search engine that calls itself  “the best way for good Catholics to surf the web”, It claims that “it produces results from all over the internet with more weighting  given to Catholic websites and eliminates the vast majority of unsavoury content, such as pornography”. When I heard this today, my first question was whether Google was getting into the religion business. Were there Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or other versions of the search engine out there as well?

I truly hope that this isn’t something that takes hold. I would personally recoil at the thought of a “Pagan Google”. What is wonderful about Google is the lack of fences in search results. When religious faiths start acting like China when it comes to the Internet, the possible damage to ecumenicism, interfaith outreach, and dialogue is inestimatable.

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

Word has been buzzing around the Internet that popular Pagan musician SJ Tucker (aka Sooj, aka “skinny white chick”) has been hospitalized with what appears to be appendicitis. Like many independent musicians and artists, she doesn’t have any health insurance and is facing a massive medical bill of $25,000 dollars or more. Friends, fans, and loved ones are now rallying to raise money through donations, charity auctions, and special sales of Tucker’s work.

SJ Tucker

I know that some of you have already heard about SJ’s recent emergency and hospital stay. It looks likely that it may actually be appendicitis, although the doctors want to confirm this with another CT scan before they do any surgery. We -do- know that the hospital bills are going to be significant, since this first trip to the hospital involved two emergency rooms, four doctors, a 45 minute ambulance transfer between the two hospitals, a CT scan AND an X-ray, multiple IV antibiotics, nearly daily bloodwork tests, and five and a half nights in the hospital … Please help us raise money to pay for these medical bills. Buy CDs. Spread the word. Share links and diggs and do all that interweb magic. What we need is 1000 people with $25. Do you have $25? Do you know someone who does? If you can’t give us money, please tell people who might.

I think it is safe to say that some of the things close to my heart  are Pagan music, and the awful state of health care in America. Living in fear of getting sick or having an accident is stressful, and when it happens, devastating. While we wait for our politicians to reform medicine in America, we have to do our best to take care of our own. I know for a fact that I have way more than a thousand readers, and while many of us have been hard-hit by the recent economic troubles, surely a percentage of us can spare a few bucks? Let’s unleash The Wild Hunt here, and help out in this effort. Make a donation, or purchase a CD (I bought a digital download of her album “Blessings”), and when you do, tell them you came from here.

ADDENDUM: Over $14,000 dollars was raised in the first week! Congratualations to SJ Tucker’s supporters on this amazing start, and thanks to all my readers who went out of their way to give to this cause, you helped make this happen.