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I have a few news items to start off your Saturday, beginning with a story that’s spread like wildfire through the political and religious blogospheres gaining mainstream coverage, and its all about prayer. Specifically its about “imprecatory prayer”, the Christian equivalent to malefic “black” magic (you’re basically asking God to kill, maim, or trouble some person). While there have been a few high-profile imprecatory prayer stories popping up lately, the most recent centers on a meme and line of merchandise urging people to “pray” for President Barack Obama, invoking the biblical Psalm 109:8 “let his days be few; and let another take his office”. It seems rather harmless as imprecatory prayers go until you read the rest of the psalm in question.

“It was, most likely, intended as a joke.  But it isn’t really very funny.  Especially since the next verse reads, “May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow.”  The passage goes on the same way--asking God to pulverize this poor fellow--that he lose all his worldly goods, that his orphans be abandoned, that his father be remembered as a sinner, and finally, that “his memory be cut off from the earth.” Thus, the “Prayer for Obama,” does more than anticipate that he leaves office; it entreats God to destroy the president.”

Supporters and opponents of this prayer are battling it out at Cafe Press, with stores being removed and reinstated. Meanwhile, pundits are split on whether this is harmless fun, or yet another sign that far-right Christianity is coming unglued and “trawling for assassins”. How should Pagans and occultists, many of whom believe in the power of magic and intention, react to these sort of stories? Harmless? Or the beginning of a particularly nasty egregore?

Turning from prayer to more material conflicts over belief, Chas Clifton reports on a Russian Orthodox priest who was recently murdered in his church. 34-year-old Daniil Sysoyev was missionary who bragged of converting 80 Muslims personally, and wrote several books critical of Islam, gaining many death-threats in the process. But while this seems a rather open-and-shut case of a Russian Muslim taking revenge against a firebrand converter of Muslims, authorities are also looking at other groups, like Russian Pagans.

“Sysoyev also worked with former members of religious sects and wrote a book on Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovahs’ Witnesses. He also spoke out against nationalists and Stalinists, whom he criticized on his blog for ignoring the murder of innocent people.”

None of the articles specifically mentions Pagans when they mention “various religious sects”, but the ABC article links the phrase to another report they did on Russian Pagans, so they must know something we don’t. Clifton points out that Russian Pagans do come into direct conflict with the Russian Orthodoxy and “are more likely to have their own line of “blood and soil” rhetoric and to claim that they represent the true spirituality of their people”. All that said, I’m siding with Occam’s razor on this one, so the Russian Pagans and hard-liner Stalinists most likely have little to worry about during the investigation.

In a final note, it looks like “Agora”, which centers on the life (and death) of Neoplatonist pagan philosopher Hypatia, has finally found an American distributor and will hit theaters in early 2010.

“Alejandro Amenabar’s intellectual epic that had sat without a U.S. buyer for six months, has found a stateside home. Newmarket Films has picked up U.S. rights to the Rachel Weisz starrer and is prepping a release for the first half of 2010.”

Distribution deals finally materialized after the film starting doing far better than expected in European markets. So we’ll finally get a chance to see “Agora” on the big screen, anyone want to place bets on if/when it will gain American protesters?

I have a few stories of interest before we dive head-first into our Samhain celebrations, starting with an Omaha World-Herald story about a Wiccan inmate who had his request granted to change his legal “Christian” name to his chosen “Witch name”.

“Just in time for Halloween, former Fremont resident Billy Joe McDonald has received a judge’s permission to change his “Christian” name to his “witch” name: Hayden Autumn Blackthorne. In requesting the change for religious reasons, McDonald — er, Blackthorne — wrote that he is “a lifetime member of Witch School,” a “recognized Wiccan Priest” and a person who has “successfully completed Correllian Wicca — First Degree.” And, oh yeah, McDonald also noted that he is a sex offender who has been successfully convicted of sexual assault — first degree.”

While the Wiccan angle makes it newsworthy, the event itself isn’t all that uncommon. Prison inmates request to change their names, often for religious reasons, quite often. That said, these requests aren’t always granted, a Heathen inmate in Nebraska who wanted to change his name to “Sinner Lawrence Bilskirnir” was denied on grounds that it didn’t satify “legal requirements”. Blackthorne’s request was most likely granted because he had letters of support from local clergy, and proof of long-time religious activity within the prison.

Turning from prisons to the world of “adult” film, The Sydney Morning Herald interviews porn star Monica Mayhem about her new book “Absolute Mayhem”, which apparantly mentions her adherence to Wicca.

“It helps me to stay grounded and it helps me to cope with things a lot better … it’s not like you see in the Hollywood movies, it’s actually just a more free and naturally way of living … it’s all about mother nature and the universe.”

Considering how many “stars” in the adult industry are treated, I sincerely hope that Wicca really does help her cope, and ultimately brings her a deeper connection to the earth around her.

In a final “we must be doing something right” note, both Pravda Online (a remnant of the once-mighty official organ of the Communist Party) and The Vatican have warned against celebrating Halloween due to its pagan and occult origins!

The Holy See has warned that parents should not allow their children to dress up as ghosts and ghouls on Saturday, calling Hallowe’en a pagan celebration of “terror, fear and death”. The Roman Catholic Church has become alarmed in recent years by the spread of Hallowe’en traditions from the US to other countries around the world … The Vatican issued the warning through its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, in an article headlined “Hallowe’en’s Dangerous Messages”. The paper quoted a liturgical expert, Joan Maria Canals, who said: “Hallowe’en has an undercurrent of occultism and is absolutely anti-Christian.”

So there you go! Celebrate Halloween properly and you’re defying both The Vatican and members of Russian Orthodoxy who write for post-Communist propaganda tabloids. Talk about rebellion!

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

Summer seasonal celebrations by Pagan and pre-Christian faiths isn’t merely relegated to places like Britain or North America, various Pagan groups in Russia celebrated the arrival of Summer, and their numbers are growing to the point where the international press is taking notice. Sergei Ponomarev, writing for the Associated Press, talks to some modern Russian Pagans celebrating a fertility rite known as Ivan Kupala.

Priests pelt grain on the crowd, and young women with braided hair serve loaves of unleavened bread and kvas, a nonalcoholic drink made of rye. As darkness falls, they jump over bonfires, roll burning wooden wheels symbolizing the Sun chariot and float burning candles in a nearby river to attract good luck. Dmitri Pankratov, who goes by Ragnar among his friends, says Slavic paganism is the only true religion for Russians. Other religious “are branches grafted to a tree,” Pankratov says on the morning after the festivity. “None of them are a root of the people.”

Ponomarev also briefly touches on nationalistic impulses within Slavic Paganism that has led some to join violent extremist movements that target the Orthodox Church and non-Slavic immigrants. Some of these themes were touched on in Speaking of Faith’s “Pagans Ancient and Modern” show, which interviewed Adrian J. Ivakhiv, an academic whose parents are Ukranian.

“Paganism in Eastern Europe tends to be on the right end of the spectrum. But yeah, I mean, there’s nationalism and there’s nationalism. There’s a kind of civic nationalism that is inclusive and just wants to get things moving in the right direction in a given country. And then there’s the kind that really claims that one group of people, one ethnic group, or one nationality has the rightful claim to a particular piece of land and others don’t. And you do find some of that among people of this religious persuasion. You find it among others as well, but it’s definitely a fairly strong tendency.”

But modern Paganism in Russia isn’t simply assorted pseudo-nationalists, and anti-Russian Orthodoxy rebels (though Russian Christians aren’t exactly friendly to Russian Pagans), it also has surviving remnants of pre-Christian religion through the Finnic-derived Mari Traditional Religion (though they reject the term “pagan” as a descriptor).

“The Mari, a Finnic people of roughly half a million whose language sounds a bit like a strange mixture of Finnish and Turkish, are said to be Europe’s last pagans. Yet their priests, called kart in Mari, reject that notion. “We are not pagans. We call our faith the Mari Traditional Religion, and we are registered officially in the republic,” said Vyacheslav Mamayev, who oversaw the ceremony as the chief kart of the local Sernur district. He went on to explain that for the Mari, God has nine substances, or hypostases, ranging from the life-giving Ilyan Yumo to the birth goddess Shochinava. Asked about the theological foundation of his faith, Mamayev smiled and said, “Everything works through nature.” Indeed, like most animist religions, the Mari faith traditionally knows no written scriptures and no sacred edifices. Prayers are chiefly held in sacred groves, where some feasts include the ritual slaughter of animals as sacrifice.”

It’s hard for an outsider to get a truly clear picture of what modern Paganism is really like in Russia, most journalistic accounts that reach us either focus on nationalistic thugs or anthropological-style reports on folk-survivals. There is, no doubt, any number of Pagans there who reject violent nationalism and have much in common with Pagans in Britain, Australia, and America, but I doubt we’ll hear much from them in the press any time soon. However, the AP article does note one commonality between Paganisms in Russia and the West.

“The fractured pagan groups constantly argue about the authenticity of rituals, the hierarchy of priests or the pantheon of gods.”

Sounds like they’d fit right in around here.

Russian atheists are hopping mad about their government’s recent trend towards “clericalism”, and have formed a new coalition to address the problem.

“Administrators of several atheistic websites have established the RU.NET Atheist Council, the website of this newly established body has reported. The Council consists of five atheistic websites while representatives of the Circle of Pagan Tradition and political movement of Free Radicals promoting prostitution, pornography and euthanasia have joined it as observers. According to the Council statute, they have a right to participate in its work. Main objectives of the new structure are to coordinate work of all atheistic Internet sources and ‘fight against clericalism in all spheres of public and political life.’”

Is the enemy of your enemy truly your friend? I guess the Circle of Pagan Tradition will soon find out. While it may seem odd to see religious minorities teaming up with atheists in Russia, it comes in response to Russian Orthodox leaders working with political leaders to limit “freedom of conscience” rights in the country. Whether they have any success in halting the “special treatment” the Russian Orthodox Church receives remains to be seen.