Yesterday a coalition of U.N. officials, NGOs, and representatives from affected countries addressed the United Nations asking for governments to face the full extent of witch hunts across the world. Far from being a localized phenomenon in “primitive” or isolated villages, witch hunts and witch killings are now global in nature and spreading.

(Trigger Warning!) An Indian “witch” being beaten and paraded through her village.

“Murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people, experts said Wednesday … “This is becoming an international problem — it is a form of persecution and violence that is spreading around the globe,” Jeff Crisp of the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR told a seminar organized by human rights officials of the world body.”

According to some U.N. experts tracking the issue “at least” tens of thousands have died due to witch hunts, while millions have been beaten, abused, isolated, and turned into refugees. While economic hardship is given as a reason for the recent escalation in witch-related violence, experts at the UNHCR also claim that the rise can also be attributed to”religious practitioners” who exploit local fears and superstitions.

“Some religious practitioners make a living from exorcising alleged witches and charging exorbitant fees to those who request the ritual. In Foxcroft’s experience, the most vulnerable members of society – children and the elderly – are often the victims of these accusations.”

Who, exactly, are these “religious practitioners”? The IHEU is far more specific.

“Witchcraft is still widely practiced in many countries in Africa by witchdoctors who often use human body parts in their spells. Some witchdoctors employ gangs of young men to attack and kill victims, often young children, for their body parts, which are frequently removed while the victim is still alive. An estimated 300 people are killed each year in South Africa alone as a result of this practice. But horrific though this practice is, it is only part of the problem. In Nigeria, in both the Muslim North and the Christian South, witch hunts are not uncommon and this has led to a second form of abuse. Some unscrupulous pastors, many linked to Pentecostal churches, have a lucrative trade in making unfounded accusations of witchcraft against young children. [The pastors then agree to “cure” the witches for a substantial fee. Many children are being ostracized and abandoned by their parents as a result of these accusations.]“

These Christian pastors aren’t isolated to Africa, they tour churches in America bragging about their battles with the occult, and have established ministries in Ireland and the UK. Commingling with an increasing anti-occult fervor among some Western Christian groups. Meanwhile, actual modern Pagan communities in places like India and South Africa are facing the possible ramifications of intensifying witch-hunts and witch persecutions.

If this trend isn’t seriously addressed soon, we may find this madness turning its eye towards “safe” occultists and Pagans in places like America, the UK, Australia, Brazil, and Canada. Don’t think it could happen? All it takes is a pseudo-militant occult-fighting Christian movement cross-pollinating with a reviving “Satanic Ritual Abuse” movement, stir in some anti-government populist anger and frustration, and you have all the makings for an American witch-lynching.

“When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drew on years of experience for a warning: “Be careful.” The 51-year-old Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.”

The anger and hardship that cries out for a scapegoat is right here in our backyard. Right now “socialism” or “the government” may be the popular/populist nightmare,  but that can change. A global epidemic of witch-hunts is our issue, not because we share some theological bond with a “witch” killed in Nigeria, or imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, but because we don’t live in an enlightened vacuum, free from the troubles of the “third world”. Nor will outraged Internet petitions stem the tide, what we need is a concerted international campaign of education, aid, and better policing in the “hot” spots like Nepal, Kenya, India, and Nigeria. Those who have grown powerful on witch-hunting rhetoric won’t go quietly, and only the surety of secular law can ensure some semblance of safety. Meanwhile, those of us who are “safe” need to realize that what happens to “witches” in India and Papua New Guinea is no longer a string of  isolated incidents that will always stay “over there”. A “global” problem means it could indeed happen here, and perhaps sooner than any of us would want to admit.

While the practice of witchcraft is often viewed in a negative light within various cultures, at times erupting into horrible anti-witch violence in places like Tanzania and India, that isn’t the case everywhere. In fact, some cultures are trying to preserve their witches for the sake of future generations. That is the case with the Paiwan people of Taiwan, who are concerned that their long tradition of witches are fading away and have decided to do something about it.

“Witchcraft is an important part of the Paiwan tribe’s culture, but the number of practising witches it has produced has recently dropped sharply. The school, which opened last July, has ten students, but the organisers hope it will expand. Wong Yu-hua, a social affairs official in Pingtung county, where the school is based, told AFP: “We are witnessing the disappearance of the ancient ritual. We are trying hard to preserve it. The Paiwan tribe numbers about 86,000 people but has fewer than 20 witches, a decrease from more than 100 half a century ago.”

Naturally the term “witch” can mean many different things, so what exactly does a witch do within the context of this indigenous culture? Well, something that may seem rather familiar to practitioners of modern Witchcraft in the West.

“Paiwan witches are seen as mediums between gods and humans, and the school teaches pupils rituals for blessing people and protecting them from evil. Witches can use their powers to worship gods and ancestors, pray for weather and for their harvests and perform healing treatments and rituals for hunting and tattooing.”

For more on the Paiwan religion and culture, check out this report from the Digital Museum of Taiwan. As indigenous traditions of seership, witchcraft, shamanism, and magic become endangered through a variety of social, religious, and economic pressures it will be interesting to see how attempts to ensure their survival fare. Will the Paiwan witches dwindle to a mere handful like Japan’s itako, or will they experience a rebirth like the Yoruba priests and priestesses have at Nigeria’s Osun-Osogbo grove have? The outcome remains to be seen, but the opening of schools of witchcraft seems like a positive first step.

News has reached us that author, teacher, radio-show host, comedian, and proud New York Witch Marion Weinstein passed away on July 1st, 2009. Weinstein is probably best known by many Pagans as the author of “Positive Magic”, which was first published in 1978 and soon became a beloved classic among women and men awakening to religious Witchcraft. She went on to write several more books, and give talks and workshops on a variety of Witchcraft-related topics, including a yearly stand-up comedy show each Halloween. One of Weinstein’s life-long goals was to de-stigmatize Witchcraft and have it recognized as a positive influence on the world.

Marion Weinstein, Candlemas 2009

“Weinstein’s guiding belief about Witchcraft is that a Witch’s job is to help the community. Her personal definition of magic is transformation. Thus she spreads information about personal self-transformation–always for the good of all and according to free will–as an ongoing way to help the individual self and the global community. A self-avowed “city Witch” in a modern world … Weinstein sees Witchcraft not only as a religion but also as a philosophy and a way of life, springing from a personal inspiration that comes from within.”

A public memorial service is being held at the NYC Pagan Pride Day celebration on September 26th. The service will be lead by Donna Henes, and you can contact her for more information. To learn more about Weinsteins rich and full life, check out her web site, her YouTube channel, and an interview conducted with Weinstein by the Wiccan / Pagan Times. May she rest in the arms of the Goddess and return to us again.

The Latin American Herald Tribune reports that Spain, hoping to boost their tourism revenue, is developing more occult and witch-themed tours through the Basque region. While Galicia has always been a popular destination for tourists interested in pre-Christian remnants and sorcery, thanks in part to the famous Queimada ritual fire-drink, Navarre is stepping up to capitalize on the Basque witch trials and the various witch-related landmarks in the area.

“This joining of Galicia and witchcraft and the claim that there are witches in that region, however, has been superseded – at least touristically – by Navarre’s initiative to exploit the richness of its own black magic traditions. Organizers in Navarre have set up a tour through 16 towns so that visitors can seek out and get to know, without fear, the areas where Spain’s best-known witches once lived, and perhaps still do … To speak of witchcraft in Spain is to speak of Zugarramurdi, the cave where people from every social class gather to worship the devil in the form of a male goat. It is there, to the side of the rocky outcrop where the cave is found, that “akelarre” is celebrated. That term, derived from the Basque words “aker” – male goat – and “larre” – field – refers to the spot where the “sorginak” (witches) gather. Zugarramurdi is the starting point for the new tourist packages being pushed by Navarre, a magical site located along the so-called “Border, superstition and witchcraft” route.”

In addition to the “Border, superstition, and witchcraft” route, there is the “First persecutions of witchcraft in Navarre” route, and the “Mountains and caves, between mythology and witchcraft” route, which explores sites sacred to the Basque goddess Mari.

“…passing through Anocibar, Alli, Areso, Intza and Olague, and the route is based on mythological beliefs, the celebration of religious rituals in natural settings and the worship of the earth god Mari, practices that also resulted in inquisitorial persecutions.”

There seems to be a growing trend for occult, pre-Christian, and supernatural-themed tourism. From Catemaco in Mexico to the Pendle Witch Experience tours in Britain, travellers seem fascinated by witchcraft and magic. One wonders what percentage of these tours are filled by modern Pagans & Witches and other spiritual seekers looking to experience an older and deeper connection to a history they identify with. Do these tours also create new converts in addition to providing entertainment to folks on holiday? It would be interesting to know. Perhaps some of these tours will, over time, morph into something more like a pilgrimage than a thrilling historical jaunt.

The Times in South Africa has a profile of African National Congress and South African Communist Party (in alliance with the ANC in the current government) member Adrian Williams, an MP from Mpumalanga who happens to be a Pagan.

“Meet Adrian Williams, the only pentacle-wearing witch in parliament. But the card-carrying ANC and South African Communist Party member, 43, from Mpumalanga has renounced the terms “witch” and “witchcraft” because he maintains the issue needs to be treated with sensitivity in South Africa. Williams practises “magick”, but calls himself a pagan or eclectic wiccan.”

The article brings up the complex issue of labels and identity in a country where “witchcraft” and “witches” are beings to feared, and if possible, hunted and killed. The Times piece seems to illuminate a split in opinion among South African Pagans and Witches, while some want to be accepted and named as Witches, and are fighting against anti-witchcraft laws for fear it will affect them as well, Williams (and I’m assuming others like him) takes a more pragmatic approach to the issue.

“I don’t call myself a witch. I distance myself from those terms because they are highly offensive to the vast majority of people in this country … Pagan rights groups have asked the South African Law Reform Commission to consider repealing the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957. It prohibits knowledge or the practice of witchcraft, criminalises the accusation of others as witches — as well as the practising of divination … But Williams said the rights groups were being “arrogant”. He said self-defined witches should be sensitive to the majority of South Africans and their beliefs. “Go to Limpopo and declare that you’re a witch and see how long you survive,” he said.  Asked to comment on the Witchcraft Suppression Act, he said: “It does not undermine any right except the right to define yourself.” “I just think it’s very arrogant of white pagans in South Africa to push for rights they know will be detrimental to the majority. It would be ideal if we could change the perception of what witchcraft is.”

Williams seems to be a proponent of a slow and gradual “liberation” of the terminology by Pagans, and is against Pagans in South Africa making what he sees as culturally insensitive (and dangerous) demands. It seems that issues like these will only become more pronounced as Wicca and other forms of modern Paganism increasingly become “world” religions. It does seem a shame that some sort of middle ground can’t be found between an out Pagan MP in South Africa and the South African Pagan Rights Alliance. It would be interesting to have some input on these issues from any of my South African Pagan readers.

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

The BBC Radio 4 program “Beyond Belief” devoted yesterday’s program to Witchcraft, ancient and modern, complete with unnecessary links by the host to the latest Harry Potter film.

“Ernie Rea and guests discuss the beliefs underpinning witchcraft. Do modern witches have anything in common with their forebears? And, have the Harry Potter books and films inspired greater interest in the craft?”

Among those interviewed are Christina Oakley Harrington of Treadwell’s bookshop in London, who handled the rather salacious questions of Ernie Rea quite well. You can listen to the program online, here.

Over at the Washington Post’s “On Faith” blog, Pagan panelist Starhawk weighs in on Jimmy Carter’s recent stand against the religious justifications for discrimination against women, pointing out a basic assumption prevalent through much of modern Pagan thought.

“Why does it matter if women can hold positions of responsibility and leadership in spiritual and religious life and communities? Many years ago, Mary Daly wrote: “If God is male, then the male is god.” That which is sacred to us is what we most deeply value and care about. It sets the pattern for what we value, all down the line. So if our only images of the sacred are male, and all positions of spiritual authority are held by men only, inevitably women will be devalued.”

One of the great disconnects between women (and men) attracted to various forms of Paganisms and the patriarchal monotheisms is the role of women. Despite our many flaws, feminine conceptions of the divine aren’t placed into a subordinate (or non-existant) role, and women are given full access to positions of spiritual leadership. This assures us that while we may take an occasional misstep, the institutional discrimination and devaluing of women won’t be among them.

In an update to a story I mentioned on Saturday, the Vodou priest at the center of a mysterious death during a cleansing ritual breaks his silence and speaks to the press.

“Authorities are awaiting results of a toxicology test to determine the cause and manner of Hamilton’s death, which has not been deemed suspicious. No charges have been filed, and Salva, who goes by “Houngan Hector,” said he is “100 percent confident” there was no wrongdoing on his part. Salva, soft-spoken and polite with a constant smile, said that no drugs were involved in the spiritual cleansing called the Lave Tet, but that small amounts of rum sometimes are consumed. “Maybe a sip,” he said, but he added that Hamilton had “passed on the rum.” …  “She was happy, very positive,” he said. “She seemed very fine as far as everyone knew.” What happened about 11 p.m., Salva said, is the same scenario he told dispatchers during a frantic 9-1-1 call. “She was taking a nap and we woke her up to see if she was hungry, and she was nonresponsive,” he reiterated yesterday. “We kept calling her name and she wouldn’t respond.” The other participants in the ritual could not be reached for comment. Salva declined to provide their names.”

The report also says that Hector Salva did contact Lucie Marie Hamilton’s mother (something friends of Lucie criticized him for not doing), and sent flowers to her funeral. Due to the firestorm of press, and negative speculation from neighbors, Salva is moving out of his current home to a new location.

In a less serious update to a previous post, the folks at Wookey Hole caves in Somerset, England have found their new professional full-time witch, Carole “Carla Calamity” Bohanan.

In the end, the judges opted for 40-year-old estate agent Carole Bohanan, of Shepton Mallet, Somerset. She will resign from her job and go by the name of Carla Calamity. Carole – or Carla – said: “I am going to be a great witch. All it takes is a little bit of magic and a little pizzazz. It’s a natural progression from my old job as an estate agent. I have been using my witching skills to sell houses for a long time.”

Bohanan apparently won over judges with a song about Wookey Hole and throwing candy snakes to the audience. While many “real” Witches seemingly applied for the job (you can see some pictures, here), there is no official word on if “Carla Calamity” is “one of us” as it were.

In a final note, Louis A. Ruprecht at Religion Dispatches ponders the Christian roots of the New Age movement, specifically “The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ” by Levi H. Dowling. This 1908 publication set the stage for numerous trance-induced gospels to come and helped spark interest in the new idea of an “Age of Aquarius” to come.

“Among the papers Levi Dowling left at his death was one explaining his conviction that the Earth and our Sun were entering the Dispensation of Aquarius, a literal New Age. Aquarius is an air sign, he noted, and the triumphs of the twentieth century were destined to be aerial rather than watery. Think of the Wright Brothers; think of humanity’s first tentative steps into outer space.”

While the “New Age” is often thought to be something that smacks of Paganism (or Eastern mysticism), it’s good to remember that Christianity had a key role in the formation of the “New Thought”.

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

Ever wish you could make a career from your practice of Witchcraft? Wish no longer! Wookey Hole Caves, a tourist attraction in Somerset, England, is looking for a full-time Witch to do witchy things all day long.

“So the job is straightforward: live in the cave, be a witch, and do the things witches do. Wookey Hole is advertising nationally and hopes to attract a strong field of candidates, with the £50K salary serving as a major incentive. Interviews for the post, which will involve on-site assessment incorporating a range or standard tasks, will take place on Tuesday 28th July at 11am. Given the nature of the role, Wookey Hole has decided to run the process on an “open audition” basis. Ambitious witches, looking for a key career move, should turn up dressed for work and bring any essential witch accoutrements. A limited range of potion ingredients will be available.”

Could this be Kevin Carlyon’s big chance? Will they film the auditions? But before some of the more, ahem, flamboyant members of our community consider emigrating for a chance at the job, keep in mind they have some pretty firm ideas of what their ideal witch would be like.

“Wookey Hole wants the appointee to go about her everyday business as a hag, so that people passing through the caves can get a sense of what the place was like in the Dark Ages. This was when an old woman lived in the caves with some goats and a dog, causing a variety of social ills including crop failures and disease. She also turned the local milk rancid.”

I can turn milk rancid, but only by forgetting in the back of the fridge for too long. As for social ills? Well, we support gay marriage. Would that do? They whole thing seems rather embarrassing and offensive, but then again, in this economy a decent salary is hard to come by.

The tabloids and gossip blogs are afire with the news that actress Heather Graham (”The Hangover”, “Boogie Nights”, “From Hell”) has admitted to being, well, a Witch (of some sort).

Heather Graham

“I have this group of friends and we get together and we call ourselves The Goddesses and we wish for things and then a lot of amazing things have happened to all of us,” Heather admitted.   “We burn things — honoring the elements of earth, wind, air and fire. You do spells. “We did this thing where we were calling on the wind and the air and this whole storm started on my roof… It was amazing… empowering.”

Graham joins the ranks of fellow actresses Megan Cavanagh and Cybill Shepherd in publicly admitting to some sort of Goddess worship or magical/witchcraft practice. Graham, in addition to admitting her participation in a spell-working group, and performing “good sex spells” with her boyfriend, also talks about doing workings to get Barack Obama elected.

“My friends really wanted Obama to be elected so we all did a spell and then he got elected,” … “It worked out good.”

So there you go. Heather Graham is a Witch, or perhaps a Goddess worshipper, or maybe just into casting empowering spells with her friends. Whatever the circumstance, it seems she’s “one of us” for the moment (though at least one gossip blogger thinks she’s just a “sad” wannabee). That’s two “outings” this year, will 2009 be the big moment for Hollywood to come out of the broom closet? Will we soon hear tales of extravagant high-powered covens, decked out in the finest witchy fashions? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Johann Hari at Slate.com, heartbroken by witnessing the ongoing brutal persecution of women and children as “witches” throughout Africa, reads through two recently released books, “The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World”, and “The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village”, for insight.What he finds are some haunting commonalities as European, American, and African people from different eras find the “other” within their own ranks. Scarred communities responding to collective trauma by lashing out at the primal giver of life.

“Yet this doesn’t explain why witch hunting keeps taking the same form every time, with only mild variations. Why, in particular, is it almost always targeted at women? … Demos [author of "The Enemy Within"] believes there is a primal reason for this. “A mother—a woman—is the primal Other, the nonself from which the self is progressively distinguished; further, she disposes a kind of absolute power to meet, or reject, infantile need,” he writes. “As such, she retains forever afterward an aura of what a discerning psychologist has called ‘magically formidable’ qualities.” So when we begin to suspect all-powerful dark forces, we suspect women first—because our mothers once held all-encompassing powers over us.”

So perhaps the two sides arguing over who exactly were killed during the European witch-hunts are both (to differing extents) right. There most likely wasn’t a surviving witch-cult dating to before the advent of Christianity, but perhaps women were especially targeted because on some level they became representatives of the primal mother. A communal subconscious rebellion against a dark Creatrix who they blamed for their suffering and torment. So the Mother (and her young offspring) must be cleansed and destroyed. Of course Hari points out a far simpler reason for why women were targeted, they were easy prey.

“I think this misses a starker and simpler explanation. Women are generally weaker than men. They are less able to defend themselves from braying mobs. They are easier to pin down and turn into a screaming, denying receptacle of evil. The mobs usually choose the weakest women of all—old women and little girls.”

Hari’s article ends with the “Satanic Panic” and “Satanic Ritual Abuse” madness of the 1980s (a madness we are still feeling the ramifications of) as proof that it can still happen in advanced and “rational” America. Indeed, Hari references former VP candidate Sarah Palin’s interactions with self-proclaimed “witch-hunter” Thomas Muthee as proof that this madness never fully goes away (it can be of little coincidence that Palin’s Third-Wave pals, with their anti-goddess rhetoric get along so well with a man who lies/brags about terrorizing women). That example, and the (so-far) isolated cases of witch-related abuse here on our own shores, should keep us ever vigilant (especially when it is very dangerous to be a “witch” in a recession). We must, as Hari writes, in times of hysteria and panic demand hard evidence and settle for nothing less.

“…the hysteria will happen again. We don’t know yet who the victims are, but they are out there, oblivious. There is an enemy within—dormant in our own fragile minds and emerging with paranoid intensity at times of stress. Our only antidote is to insist on evidence. Whenever there are charges against a person or group, we must ask insistently: How do we know? Show me the proof. Show me three times. Show me 10.”

A reoccurring question at The Wild Hunt has been: “why should Pagans care about witch-hunts in Africa or the Middle-East”? While I have argued (somewhat pragmatically) that as modern Pagans and Witches spread around the globe, we will have no choice but become a factor in places that are persecuting “witches” (as is already happening in India and South Africa), there is another possible answer emerging. That all witch-hunts are connected by a common thread of fear and hatred, and if they aren’t addressed and stopped by the forces of tolerance and rationality, they become like a virus spreading beyond the “host” community.

I certainly don’t agree with everything Starhawk says, but she does have a point that modern Pagan Witches have chosen to reclaim the label “witch” for themselves. It is folly to think the African or Middle-East witch-hunts will forever stay safely away from the “real” Witches in America, Europe, or Australia, or that when it is exported it will be forever contained in immigrant communities. Someday, if we continue to insist that women and children being killed as “witches” if faraway lands isn’t a “Pagan” problem, we might wake up to find our own communities poisoned by a need to find “the other” within their own ranks. What better place for the panicked and hysterical to look than the increasingly public and “out” community of self-proclaimed “Witches”?

While the actually holiday of Easter has little to do with pre-Christian traditions, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some unique blending of Christianity and different folk customs over the years. Time Magazine shares one of the more charming in their round-up of “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Easter”.

“Many of the things you don’t know about Easter have to do with odd, intensely national Holy Week traditions. So why not start off with the most unexpected one — the Easter Witch. In Sweden and parts of Finland, a mini-Halloween takes place on either the Thursday or Saturday before Easter. Little girls dress up in rags and old clothes, too-big skirts and shawls and go door to door with a copper kettle looking for treats. The tradition is said to come from the old belief that witches would fly to a German mountain the Thursday before Easter to cavort with Satan. On their way back, Swedes would light fires to scare them away, a practice honored today by the bonfires and fireworks across the land in the days leading up to Sunday.”

Easter witches! You can lean more about the tradition here, and here. Between this and Italy’s Christmas witch I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a European Christian holiday somewhere that doesn’t involve some form of witches and children getting presents.