Top Story: We are still in the midst of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, but that event seems to be increasingly haunted by the upcoming/overlapping UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen. This reality was noted by Reclaiming Witch and community organizer Zay Speer at the Pagans at the Parliament blog.

“The Parliament may be taking place on the other side of the world from Copenhagen, but Copenhagen is not very far from peoples’ minds. There are at least eight talks here with “climate change” in the title, more in the descriptions, and it is appearing as a persistent subtheme throughout the conference, from all traditions. Despite not having a voice on any of the Ecology panels, we Pagans are working it in too. The Community Night Pagan ritual hosted by Melbourne Reclaiming ended with an activist-style raising of energy for the healing of Mother Earth, ‘all the way through to Copenhagen!’”

Can religious groups influence the debate over a new global climate pact? U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon seems to think so, saying that religious leaders “can have the largest, widest and deepest reach”, and hundreds of religious folks are coming, some directly from the Parliament, to make their voice heard.

“[Sister Joan Brown] will be among numerous preachers, rabbis, ministers and other faith-based figures who are bringing a spiritual presence — and, often, a strong point of view on the political issues — to Copenhagen. At a time when political leaders are struggling to pass environmental legislation in the USA and elsewhere … as many as 100 religiously affiliated representatives from the USA plan to attend the summit, estimates Tyler Edgar, assistant director for the environmental arm of the NCC. Worldwide, she says that number will likely run ‘in the hundreds.’”

What will these mainstream religious voices for a tougher climate change pact at this “Woodstock of the environmental movement” say? According to reports from the Parliament, they may sound amazing like Pagans, even if the Pagans weren’t invited to most of the panels on climate change and the environment (with one exception). Don’t believe me? Check out the blog of a Franciscan Nun heading to Copenhagen for a beautiful evocation of sacred Earth. We may not be there, but the nature-reverent ethic many of us hold does indeed seem to be traveling “all the way through to Copenhagen”.

In Other News: We turn once again to the international epidemic of witch-hunting. Some think I’m trying to equate Western Paganism with innocent folks accused of sorcery and witchcraft in Africa and the Middle East, but my reporting isn’t about questions of identity, but about a simmering religious and cultural phenomenon that won’t be contained much longer in the mostly-ignored developing nations. This isn’t merely about controversial blessings, or even American-funded witch-hunting churches, but of this madness spreading right to our doorstep.

“An evangelist church leader who tortured his 10-year-old daughter and kept her prisoner for four days with no food because he was convinced she was a witch was jailed for eight-and-a-half years today. The twisted 39-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, dripped boiling hot plastic over his terrified daughter’s feet and beat her senseless after she became ‘possessed by evil spirits’. The girl was held prisoner and force-fed olive oil and milk for four days after the man became convinced she had powers to make people fall asleep, Coventry Crown Court heard.”

Even when it does happens “here”, some may be tempted to write this off as an “immigrant” problem, but that ignores how easily we “rational” and “civilized” folks in affluent first-world nations drift into the same madness when certain triggers are pushed. We need to address this problem, not because the accused “witches” are Pagan, but because hysteria is an easily exportable commodity, and some very prominent people here at home seem to be very tempted to see if it can make them a prophet profit.

Turning to my ongoing coverage of the Pagan presence at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, I present an audio interview with Reclaiming Witch and community organizer Zay Speer. Speer works with the Onondaga Nation, part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, on environmental and interfaith issues. We talk about how she came to be a part of the Onondaga delegation, what the Onondaga hope to accomplish at the Melbourne Parliament, working to end the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and her own experiences as a Pagan at the Parliament.

If you are a Pagan podcaster, or host a Pagan-friendly radio show, you are welcome to download this file to play on your program. Be sure to credit the Pagan Newswire Collective as the audio source. For more Parliament-related audio, check out my discussion with Ed Hubbard, a PNC correspondent, and my interview with Pagan Scholar Michael York. For more great Parliament coverage, stay tuned to the Pagans at the Parliament blog for the latest news.

Salon.com gives some more coverage to the upcoming documentary about Norway’s black-metal scene “Until the Light Takes Us”, which I’ve mentioned here before. Movie critic Andrew O’Hehir wonders if the documentary-makers went too far towards making controversial figures like Varg Vikernes seem like “misunderstood Robin Hoods” instead of  “Satanic church-burning maniacs”.

“Do Aites and Ewell owe the viewership a clearer explication of Vikernes’ ties to white nationalist groups, his long record of troubling racial, sexual and religious rhetoric and his public flirtation with Nazi ideology? You won’t learn this in the film, for instance, but Vikernes is viewed as the philosophical father of the musical-political subgenre called “National Socialist black metal,” or NSBM. Or is it fairer to this disturbing and complicated figure to present him on his own terms, without recourse to prejudicial buzzwords? (For the record, Vikernes has not called himself a Nazi since the late ’90s, preferring the invented term “Odalism,” said to signify “paganism, traditional nationalism, racialism and environmentalism,” along with an opposition to modern civilization in all its forms.)”

I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t comment, but it does seem like a calmer, even friendlier, tone may be welcome after the waves of sensationalist reporting and media on the topic. I certainly couldn’t see the film-makers gaining the trust of the local black-metal scene had they gone in looking to portray “Satanic church-burning maniacs”. Again, whatever its flaws, I still think this will be a welcome asset for those wanting to explore Pagan and Heathen spirituality in underground subcultures.

In a final note, according to Cumbrian Witch Marcus Katz, Wicca is no stranger than pigeon racing.

“We offer a very open, authentic and down-to-earth approach. We don’t consider it any stranger than people joining a pigeon-racing club, which is something I find bizarre!”

So there you go. Wicca is equal-to or less-strange than the sport of pigeon racing. Please take note.

That’s all I have for now, don’t forget to check the Pagans at the Parliament blog for the latest updates and links from Melbourne,  and have a great day!

• 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!

About a year ago, I reported on a University of Nebraska employee who was allegedly fired for being a Witch. “Jane Doe”, who is a member of Reclaiming, claimed that once her superior found out about her religious beliefs she was fired and replaced by a non-Pagan. Now, the Journal Star reports that the University has settled the case, though they still won’t admit that her claims of discrimination have any validity.

“A woman who sued the University of Nebraska saying the school fired her after learning she is a witch has agreed to settle the case for $40,000. The university made the offer “solely to compromise the claim … without admitting the validity of plaintiff’s contention or any allegations of wrongdoing by the defendants,” attorney David Buntain said in an October letter.”

The University very likely settled because the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission had already ruled that Ms Doe’s rights were violated in the run-up to the lawsuit. So rather than potentially lose a lawsuit, and gain lots of unwanted attention in the press, they settle. Better a lump sum than humble pie. A trend we may well see repeated in the Bath & Body Works and Google firings.

Thanks to Religion Clause for the tip-off on this story.

Few living modern Pagans have had as much influence on our interconnected movements as Starhawk. Author, outspoken activist, and co-founder of the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft, she, along with several others, helped shape threads of modern Paganism that were more explicitly feminist and eco-activist in nature. She is perhaps most famous for her 1979 book “The Spiral Dance”, a work that synthesized elements of spiritual feminism, Wicca, environmentalism, and the teachings of Victor Anderson into something entirely new. This year we not only approach the 30th anniversary of that book, but of the yearly Reclaiming-sponsored Spiral Dance Samhain ritual, which has evolved from a small Bay Area community-based ritual into an international event that draws nearly 2000 people. I was lucky enough to recently conduct a short e-mail interview with Starhawk about both of these anniversaries, and her vision for the future.

This interview will be part of a larger piece about the 30th anniversary of the Spiral Dance to be published by the Pagan Newswire Collective in late October/early November.

Starhawk

What started out as a release party for your book “The Spiral Dance” has evolved into a massive multi-day ritual pageant, complete with original art, music, and dance, that draws people from far outside the San Francisco area. To what do you attribute this success, and what do you think the Spiral Dance represents to the hundreds who attend?

Let me just start by saying that the Spiral Dance has always been, first and foremost, a ritual. Although the first one was also a book release party, uppermost in our minds was the desire to create a powerful, public ritual on a scale that we had never tried before. And I wanted to involve friends of mine who were artists, musicians, poets—to honor the arts as sacred activities. In retrospect, we did crazy things. We had Goddess dancers in porcelain headdresses sculpted by Medea Maquis, and wearing macramé costumes all hand-made by my dear friend Kevyn Lutton. Another sculptor, Eleanor Myers, made sixteen porcelain headpieces for the chorus. They were all beautiful—and you can see them in the video that’s on our new website. But they were incredibly hot, heavy, and breakable!

But that was the spirit in which we approached the ritual—let’s go all out, over the top, and see what we can create. And I think that’s why it has become a tradition.

Now, the Spiral Dance is many things. It’s a performance, that we hope moves people both esthetically and spiritually, and that serves as a vehicle for many, many people to express their creativity in different ways: building altars, creating dances and invocations, singing in the chorus. It’s a place where we can come together to mourn our dead and reconnect with their spirits in deep meditation. And again, beyond everything else, it’s an amazing, participatory ritual where over a thousand people dance together and raise focused power for our vision of healing and renewal.

Your book is also seeing its 30th year in print. In those intervening years you’ve become one of the most visible modern Pagans, acting as a panelist for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” project, and making international news with your activism. Has your notoriety changed how you view The Spiral Dance – the book, and the event?

I don’t know if ‘notoriety’ is actually the word that fits—that, such as it is, and a quarter might get me on a bus. Actually, these days it would probably take a couple of dollars.

Thirty years ago, books had more impact than they do today. Merlin Stone’s book When God Was a Woman came out in 1976. In 1979, three important books came out: mine, Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, and the anthology edited by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, Womanspirit Rising. Together they helped to take what was really a tiny movement of a few of us in our living rooms doing circles, and boost it up into a major movement—really several intercepting movements—the womanspirit movement, the earth-based spirituality movement, the Pagan movement.

Throughout the eighties, Harper SanFrancisco was looking for books on feminist spirituality to publish. They saw it as a niche, but a large enough one that they could do well by serving it. In the nineties, sometime perhaps around the time Harper Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch, they shifted focus. They dropped a huge number of contracts—not mine, but many other quality books, and like publishing as a whole, moved away from serving specific communities and toward a general mass-market focus. Harper SanFrancisco now publishes mostly Christian books. And publishing overall is in turmoil, losing readers to the Internet.

So, while its easier than ever to publish—all you have to do is set up a blog and you can publish yourself—it’s harder than ever to find publishers for deeper, more thoughtful works or for them to find an audience. HarperSanFrancisco did a tenth anniversary edition and a twentieth anniversary edition of The Spiral Dance, but they didn’t want to do a thirtieth unless I significantly rewrote the book, which I decided I didn’t want to do. I think the book still stands on its own, especially with the commentary I’ve added in the later editions. Perhaps because I wrote it when I was young, fervent and in the first throes of my love affair with the Goddess, it has an energy of its own that I didn’t want to mess with. If I were going to rewrite it, I’d rather write something new, which I did a few years ago, The Earth Path.

As for the ritual—I still love it! I work on it every year in some capacity, as part of the ‘cell’ or collective that puts it on. People join the cell by taking on a coordinating role, whether that’s directing the chorus or directing the cleanup—a truly vital role! We have a visioning meeting early on, and invite a large group of people who have a connecting to the ritual. From that, we draw our theme and intention and imagery for the year.

Reclaiming works collectively, and we try to pass around roles of leadership and responsibility. So—I’ve done many things for the Spiral Dance, from writing or rewriting parts of it, to unloading the storage space and hoisting the platforms for the altars. Some years I lead the trance—other years I’ll take a smaller role in the ritual itself and let someone else take the central roles.

One change—for many years we did not allow photography at any of our rituals. We felt there was a power in the ritual happening at the moment, and that photographs were intrusive and made people feel paranoid. However, in recent years we’ve changed that policy for the Spiral Dance. The world has changed—and communication now is visual, on the web. We found we couldn’t get calendar listing without good photos. So we experimented with asking a couple of the photographers and videographers in our community to shoots some photos in a limited and respectful way. They did an amazing job—and we learned that photography, too, can be a sacred art when it is practiced in the right spirit. I’ve put together two short videos that have let over 20,000 people catch a glimpse of our ritual. They can be viewed on our website.

This year our theme is ‘the next generation’, and we’re bringing many of our teens and youth into ritual roles, together with some of our elders. I’ll be co-leading the trance with my dear friend Rose May Dance, one of our early Reclaiming members, and with a young teen, Julian Litauer-Chen, who has also sung in the chorus for many years.

Reclaiming, the Witchcraft tradition that sponsors the annual Spiral Dance, has become a vibrant international presence within the modern Pagan movement. How do you think this growth and evolution have changed the event?

Bay Area Reclaiming used to be Reclaiming—now we are just one community among many. The Spiral Dance used to be the Big Event for all of Reclaiming—now it is one ritual among many, including other rituals in the Bay Area and all the rituals people are doing in their home communities. I’m thrilled that Reclaiming has grown, and our vision has always been one of many linked, decentralized communities with their own identities and characters.

But people still love The Spiral Dance—and many people come from far away to participate. This year, our house is full with visitors from Vermont, Boston, Montreal, L.A. and San Diego. We’ve had guests from England, Australia, New Zealand—all over the world.

What are your personal feelings on this 30th anniversary?

I’m thrilled at what we’ve accomplished, excited for this year’s ritual, and a bit shocked to think that I wrote the book thirty years ago!

How have your visions for the future shifted during the first 30 years? What do you envision the 60th annual Spiral Dance will be like?

I see two roads for the future—and that’s part of the theme and imagery of this year’s and previous Spiral Dances. On one road, we continue to pump fossil fuels into the atmosphere and pump the poisons of fear, racism, hate, and war-mongering into the psychic atmosphere. By 2039, we’ll face a world of drought, famine, endemic war, potentially a loss of our civil liberties, hundreds of millions of deaths, oceans rising…

Then there’s the other road, the good road, the road of life…where we make the tremendous shifts we need to make, where we recognize the sacred in every human being and in the interconnected web of all life, where—as our litany says—“we draw our power from the wind and sun.” “May the old ones and the young be loved, and all the forms of love be blessed, and all the colors of our skin be praised, and all the cycles of life be saved.”

That’s the vision we raise power for at The Spiral Dance, that’s what we dance for and sing for, and what we work for all the other days of the year. It is my deepest hope that, thirty years from now, we are walking firmly on the good road, and that a new generation is still dancing the Spiral.

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

On Friday Reclaiming activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured at a demonstration against Israel’s separation barrier (called the “Apartheid Wall” by activists, and deemed a breech of international law by the ICJ) in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. Anderson was shot in the head by a high-velocity tear gas canister. According to the Israeli military the canisters were fired in response to thrown rocks, witnesses on the scene say that Anderson was not near, and took no part in any violent action. A video of the shooting has been posted to YouTube (warning: the images are bloody and disturbing).

“Tristan Anderson from California USA, 37 years old, has been taken to Israeli hospital Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. Anderson was unconscious and bleeding heavily from the nose and mouth. He sustained a large hole in the right part of his forehead where he was struck by a tear gas canister. The heavy impact from the tear gas canister being shot directly at him, from about 60 meters, also caused severe damage to his right eye, which he may lose. Tristan underwent brain surgery in which part of his right frontal lobe and shattered bone fragments were removed. As of 16 March, Tristan is in stable condition, has been taken to the neurological department and is in intensive care.”

Currently, Anderson’s condition has improved somewhat, though the long-term effects of his brain injury at this point are unknown. Supporters of Anderson in the Bay Area are holding a demonstration in solidarity with his efforts today, and Reclaiming co-founder Starhawk has released a statement concerning the incident.

“Tristan is always there, at every demonstration, every mobilization, every fight for justice. He has always seemed fearless to me, with that young man’s confidence in his physical body that I now envy. He’s not so young—thirty-eight, still, I have twenty years on him and he seems young to me, strong, hardy, willing to sit in a tree for months to protect a grove of oaks at UC Berkeley, willing to camp out and show up early to clean out the convergence space, to eat bad pasta and dumpster-dived vegetables for weeks on end. Tall, slim, with dark eyes and olive skin, and a sharp, aquiline nose that starts off in one direction, then changes its mind and heads in another, he comes regularly to our rituals as well as actions, and helps build the North altar every year at the Spiral Dance. Softspoken, unassuming, more than anyone else I know he embodies a certain ideal of rigorous equality, never pulling rank nor trumpeting his considerable street cred, never asking for attention, simply showing up again and again and pitching in to get the work done.”

Tristan Anderson’s parents are hoping to return him to America as soon as he’s well enough to be moved. For more background on why Anderson was in Ni’lin, this blog links to a fact-sheet put out by an anti-barrier organization. I understand that the issues of land and sovereignty in Israel and the Palestinian territories are one of those “third rail” topics that can lead to heated and incendiary rhetoric from both sides (indeed, some commenters on the web are already calling Anderson a terrorist sympathizer who got what he deserved), but when (by all accounts) peaceful activists are getting shot I think we need to acknowledge that something fundamental in the process of dialogue and finding a mutual resolution has broken down. The answer to this tragedy can’t be “protestors shouldn’t protest” or sweeping generalizations about either side in this conflict. We can only hope that leaders on both sides eventually find a way through the endless cycles of violence to some sort of lasting peace accord.

Note: I know this is going to be a controversial topic, so I want everyone to keep it reasoned and polite in the comments. Any sign that someone on either side is about to enter Godwin’s Law territory, engage in racist bromides (subtle or not) concerning Israelis or Palestinians, or anything resembling “he got what he deserved” regarding a man with a traumatic brain injury will find themselves off this thread and their comments deleted.

A new small piece of information has trickled out concerning the alleged discriminatory firing of a University of Nebraska employee for being a Witch. According to an AP article run by WNCT in North Carolina, the woman identifies as part of Reclaiming.

“The lawsuit, filed by a plaintiff identified as Jane Doe, states that she was hired in February 2007 and was satisfactory in her performance. But once her employer discovered she was a witch, the lawsuit says the “plaintiff was terminated from her position, and was replaced by a non-witch.“ The woman says in the lawsuit that she’s using a pseudonym to protect herself and her family from potential discrimination from the public or other employers. The lawsuit says, ‘Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft is her religion.’”

As I said in my initial post on this matter, this looks like a legit grievance. The Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission has ruled that Ms Doe’s rights were violated, and I can’t imagine them backing her claims lightly. I’ll post more on this issue as it develops.

Here I am, last but not least, in the “amazing guest star vacation week” of The Wild Hunt. Jason will return tomorrow, hopefully rested, revitalized, and ready to once again provide us with breaking news of Pagan interest.

Vacations change our consciousness by shaking up the mundane rhythm of our lives. They are, in and of themselves, magic. I am glad Jason took one, and I’m honored to be part of the shape-shifting roller coaster of this guest star week.

Jason included in my bio that I teach at Reclaiming Witchcamps. Witchcamp, vacations, and the value of taking time out, even from our own communities, is the focus of this post. Wrestling each year with whether I want to spend my vacation at a witchcamp, I’ve become acutely aware of the spiritual balancing act of intensity and repose. This balancing act is a challenge for many of us as individuals, but it also a challenge to the Pagan and activist communities I’ve been a part of. This year, I’m jumping out of the box of my past experience and doing something new. I’m not going to teach at an intensive but instead, at a restorative.

In 1986 I attended the first Reclaiming Witchcamp Intensive for my summer vacation. This week long getaway was held at Jug Handle Creek Farm on Northern California’s Mendocino Coast. It was the beginning of the culture shift of the fledgling San Francisco based “tradition” that was then the centerpiece of my life. I had no idea just how many of my summers witchcamp would come to shape. I had no idea how this getaway would come to shape Reclaiming.

At the time, I was in coven with Starhawk and Rose May Dance, among others; both a women’s coven and one that was focused on mixing magic with activism. Due to the popularity of Starhawk’s books, there was a growing demand that we teach our particular kind of magic outside of San Francisco. We took time off to meet that demand, and twenty two years later there are witchcamp intensives across the United States, Canada and Europe. A big slice of Pagandom has attended at least one Reclaiming witchcamp, and there are plenty of newcomers each year. There are plans for new camps in Israel, Crete and also Australia. In the course of serving up our particular kind of magic around the world, our particular kind of magic changed. Mix together old time revival,magical skill sharing, Pagan ecstatic encounter group, and anarchist circus and you have what comes close to resembling a Reclaiming witchcamp.

We’ve forged ahead, creating new witchcamps hither and yon, with little looking back. Reflection is not the strong suit of the Reclaiming tradition. Reclaiming is high on intensity and low on contemplation. There are a growing number of communities that have been built around witchcamps, like Spiralheart, and the one in British Columbia, that have come to value examining the “why” of what they are doing. But, getting to this has meant breaking away from some of the bad habits and community patterns inherited from the Bay Area. Here, due to the crisis based paradigm of the early days of the tradition – the world is about to end and can only be saved by our magic – there is little time for self-reflection or questioning community dynamics. Recruitment is in service of this magic, and in order to bring in people we can’t appear to be flawed. Hence, acknowledging community shadows is potently resisted, as is taking any break from action.

I’ve learned from my years teaching witchcamps and my many years in Reclaiming and activist circles just how important breaks from intensity are and just how important it is to slow down and take the time to envision there is time. Sometimes, pulling back from the fray of Pagan and/or activist community is the only way to stay in it.

Here in the Bay Area, some of us laughingly call ourselves more “Remaining” than “Reclaiming”; we’ve become a strange Greek chorus ambling in and out of local community. We utter our reflections and advice from the blogosphere, occasionally attending meetings and events. From our seasoned teaching guild we send out proposals to the wider community for things we hope will help the tradition, like policies of transparency and accountability. And then, we let go and go off and tend to other areas of our lives. We step outside the insular confines of tradition and join the greater Pagan world. When we step back in, we come back with a wider perspective that signals a vacation well spent.

This summer I will be taking a vacation from a teaching a witchcamp intensive. Instead, along with others, I’m creating an equinox restorative. It’s aimed at those who feel called to a retreat that is deep, restful, and reflective. With three nights away instead of a full week, we also leave free more vacation days for other pursuits. Among us are those who are Feri and Gardnerian as well as Reclaiming. We welcome working and playing with those outside of our respective traditions.

Planning the restorative has been transformative, as it’s called for us to do the very process we hope will occur at the event – reflection and review. When we first started out, we named it aptly “A Fool’s Journey”, as we knew we were stepping into new territory. We are sorting through our past experiences, witchcamp among them, sorting through what we want to leave behind and what we find valuable enough to gather in the Fool’s sack. We’ve noticed that the Fool’s posture is not one of rushing ahead. It’s the posture of taking time to smell the roses. What’s the point in rushing to save the world and all its roses if you never take time to smell them?

We’ve found a retreat center in Northern California built decades back to serve the Jungian community that seems perfect for our intent. Its large swimming pool, library full of spiritual texts, meditation room, art house, acres of woodland and meadow designed for ritual and ceremony seem to invite restoration to take place. As a priestess well trained in whooping the energy up, I welcome the challenge of invoking sacred lounging around the pool.

With the spirit of the Fool as my guide, I am open to anything. The Fool’s Journey could become an annual event, part of the community of witchcamps, or purely a one time thing. For all I know, next year I might search for the spirit of Elvis and end up vacationing in Las Vegas.

Taking breaks from the ordinary is important. I’m grateful that Jason and The Wild Hunt had one. Welcome back, Jason! Whether your vacation was restorative or intense, I hope you got what you needed. And now, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming…

guest posted by Deborah Oak of the roots down, branches up blog

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

To start off, happy birthday to Rome, which was founded by the mythical twins Romulus and Remus on April 21, 753 BC. On that day a pagan festival ensues that some call the “Christmas of Rome”, and hundreds dress in traditional Roman military garb.

The Wall Street Journal shows that gods and goddesses can indeed change over time. Representatives and mediums of anticommunist ancestor deities residing in Taiwan are softening their stance towards China as political relations thaw between the two nations.

“…after being anti-China for decades, some of the gods around here are having a change of heart. At least that’s what their representatives say. The keeper of the temple of Lee Kuang-chi’en, a colonel in the Nationalist army who died fighting the Chinese in the 1940s, says Mr. Lee now wants to return to his homeland in peace. Su Ai-chih, a 67-year-old retiree and spiritual medium, says a woman who was drowned by Chinese soldiers and turned into a goddess has even asked believers for help in reconnecting with her family on the mainland. ‘The goddess possessed me and told me that she wanted to go home,’ she adds.”

This is a perfect illustration of polytheistic theology in action. Gods can change, practice can change, and those who do not change risk losing worship. There is no singular text or law holding these faiths in a static position.

“Fortunately, Chinese folk religion — a widely practiced mix of indigenous beliefs and elements of other religions — is remarkably forgiving. Not only does it often co-exist alongside other beliefs, its worshippers can create, discard or modify gods. That’s particularly true of gods who aren’t considered to be ling — effective or powerful. As ties between China and Taiwan improved, Kinmen’s anticommunist gods started to lose their ling. ‘Chinese folk religion doesn’t have a scripture, so everyone has his way of interpreting a god,’ says Chi Chang-hui, an anthropologist on Kinmen who has studied anticommunist cults. ‘And nowadays, that is less hostile to the mainland.’”

The gods and worshipers remain, but to survive in different eras, they adapt and adjust (or they fade away). A common event throughout the history of polytheism, one that can seem alien to those growing up in a culture dominated by a “religion of the book”.

If you think the myth of “The Burning Times” is overblown and harmful, wait till you start to explore the Christian persecution complex. A “discursive entity”, according to Professor Elizabeth A. Castelli, “impervious to critique, self-generating and self-sustaining.”

“This trend mobilizes the language of religious persecution to shut down political debate and critique by characterizing any position not in alignment with this politicized version of Christianity as an example of antireligious bigotry and persecution. Moreover, it routinely deploys the archetypal figure of the martyr as a source of unquestioned religious and political authority.”

The article is wide-ranging and covers a growing spiritual militarism within Christianity that is fueled by a deep-seated (though often illusory) sense of persecution. The Reveler web site offers only an excerpt, for the entire article head over to the Differences journal page, where you can download the entire piece, along with several related works.

Speaking of “The Burning Times”, Christian blogger John Morehead interviews Christopher S. Mackay about his brand new translation of the infamous “Malleus Maleficarum” (“The Hammer of Witches”). A tome that is blamed for enabling the execution of thousands of innocent men and women for the crime of “witchcraft”.

“I’d say that the Malleus was responsible for the acceptance of a new “paradigm” (in the sense advocated by Thomas Kuhn) about witchcraft. That is, the dissemination and widespread acceptance of the point of view (or world view) that underlay and instigated the so-called “craze” of witch hunting in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries can be attributed (ultimately) to the Malleus.”

The new version, which is apparently far more coherent and readable than previous translations, gives us a means of understanding how this establishment of “diabolism” (Satanic witchcraft) still lingers in our world today, and helped inform such tragedies as the “Satanic panics” of the 80s and early 90s. An important text to have, though I think I’ll wait for the soft-cover edition, since the two-volume hardcover runs for several hundred dollars.

Over at “Blog o’ Gnosis”, Anne Hill criticizes efforts by Reclaiming to reach out to racial minorities in order to make the group more “diverse”. Hill questions why the organization should be on a diversity recruitment drive when they don’t even have their own “house” in order.

“…the obsession with proselytizing, I mean bringing in new blood – no, I mean reaching out to others who could be helped by people like us. As several people at my table mentioned, other religions are not diverse, and they seem to have no problem with it. Wasn’t the point of a spiritual community to give aid to its members? Why were we even discussing strategies for bringing different kinds of people in, when we were gathered for a rare opportunity to meet each other face to face? It was at this point that I had to point out the essential backwardness of our discussion topic. Reclaiming is insular. Painfully so, embarrassingly so. We really needed to be asking the opposite question: why don’t we get out more? Why aren’t more of us involved in interfaith activities? There’s plenty of diversity there, but that would involve going to meet others rather than reeling them in to us. Why don’t more folks even make the trek to San Jose for Pantheacon each year? Isn’t there anything we can learn from other Pagans?”

The issue of expanding racial diversity (and similar issues) is, according to Hill, a “red herring” that prevents Reclaiming from working through deep divisions that already exist within the community. A state of affairs that has distanced several Reclaiming veterans from the tradition they helped create.

In a quick final note, a Llewellyn Journal article tells you what you really need to do.

“The only thing that we as new magickians really need to do is rely on a made-by-reputation company like Llewellyn Publications, because nothing is as easy as it seems.”

Indeed, nothing is as easy as it seems.

That is all I have for now, have a great day!

Alan Miller (aka Dr Christopher Hyatt) 1943 – 2008

Author, occultist, and founder of the The Extreme Individual Institute. Alan Miller was well-known in metaphysical circles as a former student of famed occultist Israel Regardie, and a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and the Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn. In addition to his occult pursuits, Miller was a practicing psychotherapist for many years. Miller passed away on February 9th, after a long struggle with cancer. You can read full obituaries at Lashatal, and at Dr. Hyatt’s web site..

Susan Grace Falkenrath (aka Susan Wolf) 1954 – 2008

A longtime member and teacher within the Reclaiming community, Susan Falkenrath is perhaps best known as a writer and singer of songs. Her best known work within the Pagan community is the haunting lament entitled “Spirits”, about a woman being consigned to the stake, which appeared on the “Best of Pagan Song” compilation from Serpentine Music. Falkenrath passed on January 12th from breast cancer. You can read moving tributes to Susan Falkenrath from Anne Hill, and M. Macha NightMare.

Brenda Henson (pictured on the right) 2008

Longtime feminist and GLBT-rights activist, Brenda Henson was a champion of equality and human rights. She, along with her partner of 24 years Wanda Henson, founded Camp Sister Spirit in 1991. Their subsequent battle against harassment and discrimination made national news, and prompted the direct involvement of the Clinton administration into the matter. In addition to hosting gatherings and classes aimed at women and lesbians, Camp Sister Spirit has also hosted numerous Pagan gatherings, and has become a pillar of support for the Pagan community in Mississippi. Henson passed away on February 8th due to complications from liver cancer. You can read a short obituary, here.

May they all rest in the arms of the Goddess.

Two recent stories discuss upcoming Pagan-run events for the Samhain season. The first comes from Starhawk’s most recent entry on The Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog. In the essay Starhawk discusses her views on death and dying, and mentions Reclaiming’s annual Spiral Dance held around Samhain in San Francisco.

“At this time of year, as we move toward Samhain or Halloween, the ancient festival of the ancestors, we say ‘the veil is thin’ that divides the world of the living from the realm of the dead. The ancestors return to visit us – and that is the origin of our Halloween customs of setting candles out in jack-o-lanterns to light their way to our doors, of giving offerings (once harvest offerings, now candy) to children, who are the ancestors returning. In our Samhain rituals, like the large, public Spiral Dance ritual that Reclaiming creates every year right before Halloween, we often take an imaginative journey to the Isle, to meet and talk with our beloved dead, to receive help and guidance, to finish what is unfinished, to offer our love. I have many times had visions and a deep sense of connection with my loved ones who have passed on. The meaning is often very personal, a message of hope or approval or advice.”

Meanwhile The Salem News gives us a “dummies guide” to the variety of Witch-related Halloween happenings in the “Witch City” of Salem. Of particular interest is the competing “official” Salem Witches Balls from two different generations of Witches.

“…two witches balls, both advertised as the “official” Salem witches ball and both at the historic Hawthorne Hotel. The first, on Friday, Oct. 26, is run by local witch Christian Day and features Fiona Horne, an Australian rock star billed as “the world’s most famous witch.” The other, on Halloween night, is being staged by Laurie Cabot, who also is “the world’s most famous witch.” Cabot, of course, is the official witch of Salem, a title bestowed upon her three decades ago by Gov. Michael Dukakis … It could be argued that Day, 37, and Cabot, 74, are the new and old guard of Salem witchcraft. They have loyal followings, are occasionally controversial and unabashedly entrepreneurial.”

You can find information for Day’s ball, here, and Cabot’s, here. These Samhain events, held on different coasts, help illustrate the diversity of attitudes and approach within modern Paganism (specifically religious Witchcraft) while preserving essential elements of the holiday (honoring the ancestors, acknowledging those who have died, celebrating life through feasting and dance, connecting with divinity). To a certain extent, a shared practice (praxis) binds these Witches together far more than any shared theology or ideology. A point that often escapes those looking to pigeonhole “what Witches (or Pagans) believe”.