There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Nathaniel Rich at the New York Review of Books looks at the story of the West Memphis Three through Damien Echols’ book “Life After Death,” the “Paradise Lost” documentary series, and the feature documentary “West of Memphis.” Quote: “Investigators asked Jerry Driver, a local juvenile officer and self-described “guru” of the occult, to compile a list of local kids involved in cult-related activities. At the top of Driver’s list was Damien Echols, an eighteen-year-old high school dropout who had been hospitalized for depression. [...] In his closing statement, district attorney John Fogleman pointed at Echols and said, “There’s not a soul in there.” That argument carried the day.” As always, the story remains a cautionary tale of how a moral panic over “cults” can send innocent children to jail.
Santero Jorge Badillo has filed a complaint against several officials in Monmouth County, New Jersey for civil rights violations after police searched his home (fruitlessly) for a gun belonging to his brother, went through his sacred items, and filed a complaint with the SPCA who proceeded to flood the man with citations with little evidence of wrong-doing. Quote: “Badillo claims Amato issued the tickets without any evidence that any of the animals had been abused. ‘To sacrifice a sick or maltreated animal to the Orishas or to perform the sacrifice in a way that causes the animal to suffer is prohibited in Santeria as this would be an insult to the Orishas,’ Badillo says. Amato then contacted the Asbury Park Press, a local newspaper, and told it about the summons he had issued to Badillo. The Asbury Park Press published an article, in print and online, and included Badillo’s address, he says in the complaint. As a result, Badillo claims, his home and car have been vandalized and he and his family have been threatened.” Badillo claims the accusations ruined his family’s attempt to adopt children, violated their civil rights, and endangered his family.
After my participation earlier this month in an interfaith dialog between evangelical Christians and Pagans the two evangelical participants have followed up with editorials about how to move forward. John Morehead, in a guest post at the Patheos Pagan Portal asks if “we [will] ever be able to move beyond our history of ignorance, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, bigotry, and combativeness,” while Paul Metzger argues against a secular “naked” public square as the ideal place for interfaith interactions. Quote: “It is important that we make space for other religious and philosophical traditions to receive air time so that a naked, secular square free from religion does not get put forth as the preferred and only legitimate option.” I thought then, and still think now, that progress will only come from evangelical Christianity owning its privilege, and showing it’s collectively ready for change.
“Over the following months, counselors interviewed hundreds of children, using questions that might have been quite appropriate when treating the genuinely abused, but which should never have been used in a prosecutorial context. In 1984, the case broke in the most lurid terms. Seven teachers were accused of a mind-numbing list of atrocious crimes, including the mass rape and torture of children, and the killing of small animals to instill fear. Other allegations involved the ritualistic use of urine and feces, and bizarre acts involving robes and occult symbols. Seven years of trials and investigations followed.”
This hysteria lasted for around a decade before official investigations into the phenomenon, lawsuits against therapists, and a shift towards skepticism in the media finally started to defuse the panic. Sadly this shift didn’t happen quickly enough for the West Memphis 3 (Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin) who in 1993 (ten years after the McMartin case) had their interest in the occult used against them during a murder trial, as shown in the new documentary “West of Memphis” out now in theaters.
The West Memphis 3 were finally freed, after the case against them slowly started to fall apart, but they lost nearly 20 years of their lives in prison, and in the case of Echols, in solitary confinement on death row. In his RealClearReligion piece Jenkins stresses that this phenomenon isn’t a relic of the past, but something that is still in our collective rear-view mirror: “These aren’t just throwbacks to the dark fantasies of Salem in the 1690s. They were yesterday’s news.” Sadly, some don’t want to let this moment pass, and are working to propagate the old slurs and rumors in the name of religion, ideology, or personal power. The moment we allow ourselves to forget, to let this slip into the memory hole, the easier it will be for the unscrupulous to revive the panic.
For modern Paganism, our communities were shaped by, and surged in growth during, the Satanic Panic era. The reflexive mantra of Pagans not being Satanists was established as a talking point in virtually all media interviews during this time, as were similar assurances that we didn’t engage in blood sacrifice or harm people. For many, the massive influx of teenagers into modern Paganism in the 1990s (myself included) presented a huge potential danger at a time when “covens” and “rituals” to harm children were still being taken seriously. So many built an image that was as benevolent as possible, eccentric “white-lighters” at worst, no danger to your neighbor’s kids. Some books for Pagans even gave tips on how to appear harmless, and advised that sometimes not telling the truth about your faith was for the best.
If you look at the late 1990s and early 2000s, the backlash against these impulses now seem inevitable, and there are still pockets within our community who commit themselves to criticizing “fluffy bunnies” and “white lighters” as in any way representative of their Paganism or Witchcraft. Some defiantly embraced “dark” Paganism as an antidote, or discovered the emerging reconstructionist faiths which presented a more scholarly and serious alternative to the pop-culture moment in the sun Wicca seemed to be enjoying. In many ways our interconnected communities are only now getting to the many serious discussions and debates we should have been having instead of constantly watching our backs worrying what the church (or occult expert at the town hall) was saying about us.
As the Satanic Panics move into ever further into our past, we need to grapple with them as an integral part of our history, which, for better or worse, shaped how we have behaved.
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Jeet-Kei Leung, a researcher into ”transformational festival culture,” heads up a new web documentary series entitled “The Bloom” about these events. The first episode is due in February, but you can watch this 9-minute preview video now, featuring some familiar faces (and places) and plenty of Pagan-friendly themes. Quote: “Amidst the global crisis of a dysfunctional old paradigm, a new renaissance of human culture is underway [...] THE BLOOM tells the vibrant, compelling and colorful story of a cultural renaissance in progress with the artistic sensibility and inspired creativity from which the culture has been birthed.”
Art dealer and museum curator Carine Fabius writes about Baron Samedi, Haiti’s Lord of Death and Sexuality, and why the Haitian people love him. Quote: “I also reminded people that the Baron isn’t just the Spirit of Death. As many of the numerous works featuring larger-than-life phalli imply, he is also the Spirit of Sexuality, the extension of which is life. The Baron is death in charge of life; he is a guide and source of comfort during difficult times, and the one who takes life away. He may be unpredictable but he is God’s ultimate helper.”
Yesterday was a unique calendrical event: 12-12-12, which of course means that someone had to do something stupid, like carve a pentagram into his 6-year-old-son’s back. Quote: “According to CBS DFW, Brent Troy Bartel of Richland Hills, Texas, told a 911 dispatcher early Wednesday that he had carved the religious symbol — often used as a symbol of faith by Neopagans — on his 6-year-old child because ‘it’s a holy day.’” The star, or pentagram, is a symbol used by many faiths, philosophies, and traditions, and this has nothing to do with modern Paganism. Bartel is now in custody, the boy is in stable condition, and with his mother.
The male lead in Bollywood film Ek Thi Daayan, Emraan Khan, is apparently talking to real-live Wiccans to better research for the supernatural witchcraft-themed film. Quote: “The actor didn’t know that many practitioners of the Wiccan craft reside in Mumbai, in fact, he didn’t even know that certain forms of witchcraft are practiced till today [...] the actor is making the rounds of the plush residences in Mumbai where Wiccans stay and practise their craft. Emraan visits them diligently, to find out more about their customs and philosophies. Friends of the actor say his research has made quite an impression on him.” So now you know where Wiccans live in India, the “plush residences” of Mumbai!
Singer, songwriter, and visual artist Phildel sent me a link to her new video “Storm Song,” saying that it’s “a celebration of the natural world,” and that she has “always enjoyed a strong spiritual connection to nature.”I think many folks here will enjoy the song, and the imagery in the video. Her debut album “The Disappearance of the Girl” is set for release in January 2013.
“Hobbit” director Peter Jackson says that “West of Memphis,” the documentary on the West Memphis 3 that he produced with partner Fran Walsh, was one he “never intended to make,” but that “it turned out to be the most important one they’ve ever made.” Quote: “Their support turned into funding of scientific research and, when they felt they needed to present the evidence to the public, they eventually decided to make a documentary on their findings. They asked Amy Berg (“Deliver Us From Evil”) to direct.” For all of my coverage of the West Memphis 3, click here.
The Baltic Crusades were pretty terrible it turns out: “The Baltic Crusades left major ecological and cultural scars on medieval pagan villages, and new archaeological evidence shows the campaign caused deforestation, pushed species to extinction and may have even ended a pagan practice of eating dogs.” I guess it was good for the wild dogs, but still. Pretty bad.
More and more people are starting to notice that the “religiously unaffiliated” are becoming an important voting demographic. Quote: “The religiously unaffiliated voters are almost as strongly Democratic as white evangelicals are Republican, polls show. Their overwhelming support of Obama proved crucial in a number of swing states where the president lost both the Catholic and Protestant vote by single and low-double digits, but won the “nones” by capturing 70-plus percent of their votes.” Maybe it’s time to tone down the Christian culture war stuff?
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Over at HuffPost Religion Deepak Sarma addresses the question of white Hindu converts, and whether this growing group, sincere or not, are engaging in a unintentional mockery of that which they profess to honor. Quote: “So, no matter their sincerity, or self-proclaimed authenticity, their mimicry seems more like mockery. And, unlike the forced mimicry of the Diaspora Hindu, which may have subversive undertones and may destabilize the dominant ideology, reverse mimicry, ironically, merely reinforces existing hierarchies and paradigms. In fact, some claim to be more “authentic” than Diaspora Hindus and, in so doing, deny the voice of those they mimic/ mock.” Sarma goes on to posit that perhaps white converts can never understand the experience of the Hindu diaspora and wonders if welcoming Western Hindu temples and homes suffer from “post-traumatic, post-colonial, servile disorder” by accepting these converts. It should be interesting to see the debate and discussion this post incites.
Sandra L. Harris, M.Div., Pagan Pastoral Counseling
Pagan learning institution Cherry Hill Seminary has passed another important hurdle on their road to becoming an established, recognized, seminary. After awarding its first Master of Divinity in Pagan Pastoral Counseling, graduate, Sandra Lee Harris has had her credentials examined and accepted by the Board of Chaplaincy Certification, Inc., the credentials-examining body for the Association of Professional Chaplains. This frees her to complete the process of becoming a board-certified chaplain. Quote: “David Oringderff, Ph.D., Harris’s department chair and adviser at Cherry Hill Seminary, congratulated her on her achievement, “This is indeed a milestone, both for your professional aspirations and for Cherry Hill Seminary.” Oringderff noted the precedent set by the BCCI/APC decision, which could strengthen the case for future acceptance of Cherry Hill Seminary degrees by other institutions, the U.S. Department of Defense, for example.” We’ll have more on this story, and its implications, in the near future.
Check out this interview with West Memphis 3 member Damien Echols, conducted by Henry Rollins, who talks to Echols about “his life before and after his trial, including his spiritual and intellectual journey in prison as well as his wife, Lorri Davis, whom he met and married while on death row.”
Back in 2010 I announced that long-running web magazine Heathen Harvest, which covered post-Industrial and neofolk music, was closing down. Now, the site has returned at a new address, with new owners, and with the blessing of the original founder. Quote: “Heathen Harvest’s second major incarnation came into being on 4th July 2011, learning from the past by chiefly reviewing digitial promos and concentrating only on the most stimulating music received. The new site has been respectfully named The Heathen Harvest Periodical to distinguish it from the old website, which still remains archived at www.heathenharvest.com. We continue to cover all material from the darker musical underground and to serve the needs and works of musicians, artists, authors and journalists alike all across the post-industrial spectrum.” The new site can be found at: www.heathenharvest.org.
At the New Yorker, Michelle Dean wonders if the folkloric witch has been tamed to its own detriment. Quote: “But the witch is no longer terribly wild to us; she’s domesticated, normal, prone perhaps to a spell of madness but one from which she’ll emerge sunny and whole. She no longer signals a liberating spirit. Culturally, we have replicated witch-figures like Samantha of “Bewitched,” whose powers aid her in serving her husband. Our emblematic witch is Hermione Granger, who performs all the magic and takes none of the credit from Harry Potter. She is self-effacing and noble and never in any real danger of contamination by the dark. There are bad witches in Harry Potter, indeed, bad witches in many stories. But their cartoonish one-dimensionality cancels out any real portent. The internal conflicts go to Snape, while Bellatrix is irretrievable.” Dean feels we need the uncontrollable and unpredictable witch in order to do battle with those who seek to control women.
The Fourth Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruled that a prison does not have to provide an outdoor worship space for Asatru in prison, noting that there’s no authority requiring it. Quote: “A federal trial judge concluded that Krieger failed to show how the practice of his religion, which is called Asatru, was harmed by the lack of a worship circle outdoors. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision.“
In a final note, tomorrow I’ll be heading to the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting in Chicago. and I’m hoping to post updates during my time there, and bring back some interviews as well. You’ll also have regular updates from Wild Hunt columnists and reporters to read while I’m away. I’d like to thank everyone who funded this coverage trip back in April, and will do my best to transmit what’s happening in Pagan Studies and Pagan scholarship to you.
That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of them I may expand into longer posts as needed.
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Bull of Heaven publication party. (photo: Christopher Gregory/The New York Times)
Michael Lloyd’s (excellent) new book “Bull of Heaven: The Mythic Life of Eddie Buczynski and the Rise of the New York Pagan” recently celebrated its publication in Manhattan, and the New York Times covered it for their City Room blog. Quote: “So many friends and followers of Mr. Buczynski turned out, that the evening became one of the largest Wiccan summits in New York in years. “It’s a blessing of the gods,” said Michael Lloyd [...] His was just one of many invocations of the Wiccan gods, which quickly turned into a giant prayer circle, with chanting and singing of Wiccan prayer and song in veneration of Mr. Buczynski, an openly gay Wiccan priest who died in 1989 from AIDS.” Kudos to Lloyd for his book, and for enabling such positive coverage of Pagans in New York (despite the “Eyes Wide Shut” crack from reporter Corey Kilgannon). Be sure to read the whole thing.
David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame, for the uninitiated), writes on his journal about seeing the black metal documentary Until The Light Takes Us, and talks about how boundary-pushing art can be twisted in ways the artists never intended. His closing paragraph is one I think many of us would find thought-provoking: “Going at this alone is a solitary quest, in a dangerous landscape, taken, in this case, without a guide. One would be tempted to say that maybe Odin, Thor, Wotan and the rest of the Norse horde, might have been summoned—but maybe these Gods or archetypes are too powerful to be confronted by an amateur. As with Voudoun, chanting, LSD and many other arts and practices that reach parts of us that we often don’t touch, it might be wise to have a professional along who knows where the dangers and pitfalls lie.”
Religion News Service reports on a new University of Washington study concerning the effects of ritual on mega-church attendees. Quote: “Worship services at megachurches can trigger feelings of transcendence and changes in brain chemistry — a spiritual “high” that keeps congregants coming back for more.” While some Christians are skeptical of how the data was collected, and if the results are accurate, I find it interesting from a Pagan perspective. Many are drawn to our rituals because of the emotion, energy, and liminal experiences that often coincide with them, perhaps this why modern Paganism has experienced consistent growth for the past 40 years?
The Air Force has released a new policy document that promotes free exercise and religious neutrality. Quote: “Leaders at all levels must balance constitutional protections for an individual’s free exercise of religion or other personal beliefs and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. For example, they must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion. Commanders or supervisors who engage in such behavior may cause members to doubt their impartiality and objectivity.”The Air Force had been dealing with conservative Christian blowback to accomodations made towards minority faiths, including Pagans, and this restatement of neutrality and balance is no doubt a partial response to those criticisms.
Is Etsy following in the footsteps of eBay? PNC-Minnesota reports that the online marketplace has placed new restrictions on products making medical claims, including folkloric medical claims for herbal products. This has disturbed herbalists who have used Etsy, and some are complaining that Etsy provides no guidance as to what is and isn’t appropriate language. Quote: “[Etsy's] answer to sellers has been not to offer clarification but to tell us that they will remove listings and possibly shut our shops down if we are not in compliance. The only way most of us will find out if we are in compliance is if are listings are removed and we are threatened to be closed by Etsy.” While there are alternative marketplaces for herbalists, Etsy’s reach is far larger, and this could impact the income of many people within our community. As with eBay’s move to stop selling magical speech and expression, it looks a case of avoiding litigation, liability, and customer complaints. One wonders where the next domino in this trend will fall?
Conservative New York congressional candidate Dan Halloran recently traveled to Israel, and the Times of Israel talks to him about his Heathen religion. Quote: “In America, the great thing is that we don’t use religion as a divisive thing. We celebrate diversity. In my council district [around Flushing] there are over 130 ethnicities, over 87 religions, everything from Shinto to Buddhism, Orthodox Judaism to Reform, Catholics, Lutherans, Evangelicals. I find great comfort in the fact that – although it was used against me in my council race initially – [my religion] has proven to be unconnected to my life as an elected official. And it has enabled me to reach out to communities which have traditionally been underrepresented, like the Hindu community that has always felt marginalized by the mainstream.” The Jerusalem Post headline read “Israel’s ‘Heathen’ Friend,” though one wonders how effective his strategy of courting Israel will be. Oh, and yes, he prayed at the Wailing Wall like every other politicians who travels to Israel does.
Kevin Carlyon (“High Priest of British White Witches”), he of the red bathrobe, has finally found his perfect niche: soap operas. Quote: “Kevin Carlyon, of Dane Road, St Leonards, has been asked to star inBoom Town, a docu-soap set in a fictional town. [...] Karl Warner, executive producer, said: ‘Boom Town will be the first sketch show to make stars out of real people. Some of the characters we’ve already met are laugh-out-loud funny and would sit well in any scripted comedy.’” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Every pot truly has its lid.
That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Why should you avoid over-estimating your religion’s growth and numbers? Because it can come to bite you in the ass later. For example, Scientology in Australia saw its numbers crater in most recent census, down to just over 2000 members, despite an official estimating that they had hundreds of thousands of adherents a couple years earlier. Complaints that your faith group is being under-counted in census figures or surveys only seems credible when your numbers keep rising, as they have been for modern Pagans in Australia. A cautionary note for those who are quick to be effusive about our community’s growth.
South Korea, one of the most Christian countries in Asia, is witnessing a revival of interest in its indigenous shamanistic practices, with local mudangs (priests or priestesses) being consulted by politicians and featuring on popular television shows. Sociology professor Shin Kwang-yeong thinks the popularity is due to Koreans dealing with the “strong uncertainties” of their modern existence, with many crediting shamanism with bringing healing and piece of mind to their lives. Quote: “I felt something from my heart. This ritual has everything in there – happiness, sadness, anger and fun [...] Sometimes tears pour out from my heart. Sometimes it’s just fun when everyone is dancing and bowing. And, it’s healing.”
There’s a deep connection between synthesizer music and the occult, Klint Finley explores it for Boing Boing. Quote: “You can find traces of the occult throughout the history of electronic music. The occult obsessed Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo built his own mechanical instruments around 1917. The famous Moog synthesizer made an early appearance in Mick Jagger’s soundtrack to Kenneth Anger’s occult film Invocation of My Demon Brother in 1969. And in the late 1970s Throbbing Gristle built their own electronic instruments for their occult sound experiments, setting the stage for many of the occult themed industrial bands who followed. The witch house genre keeps this tradition alive today.”
The Border House looks at the controversy surrounding the upcoming game SMITE, and the protests from Hindu activist Rajan Zed over the depiction and ability to control their gods and goddesses, most notably Kali, in the game. The Border House also calls out the “pornification” of Kali. Quote: “This is truly disgusting. Not only is a faith appropriated, but it is done so in a way which turns a widely revered deity into a male sexual fantasy. A goddess in non-sexual nudity is somehow less preferable to a caricature in which she is put in a costume for the male gaze. Whether you agree with Rajan Zed or not about controlling Hindu deities as combat tools is not the issue. The cultural imperialistic mindset which allows a westerner to pornify symbols of Hinduism and yet think he has the right to lecture a Hindu about the religion, this is the issue.”
Associated Press reporter Christopher Torchia says that ancient Greek myths lend valuable context to the country’s current fiscal and political crisis. Quote: “Greek mythology is full of examples of how mortals should find the middle way in order to live a happy life, or as it said on the walls of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, ‘Nothing in Excess,’” Peter Meineck, associate professor of classics at New York University, wrote in an email. He noted that, according to the Greek poet Hesiod, “the first divine agent that caused creation was Eros — the spirit of erotic drive or the impulse to create anything.”
Tammy Trotter-Bazzle, a Pagan priestess living in South Carolina, shares her experience advising the pastoral staff at AnMed Health after a Pagan patience was admitted. Quote: “I feel blessed and honored to have had that opportunity. At the end of a day, good was done for the greater good. Pagan patients will be better understood at AnMed. And that was, after all, the reason for this class; to help the patient. I, along with many of the local Pagan community, are happy to see this step forward.”
In a 35-page ruling, the appellate court justices noted that Hernandez testified during the trial about the “benevolent purposes served by the dolls.” ”He characterized the dolls as an element of his Catholic faith in which the pins stuck in the dolls were a form of ‘spiritual acupuncture’ to cleanse evil from the individuals the dolls represented. He also believed the dolls would assist in ensuring people were not put in jail wrongfully,” the justices wrote.
This case is just the most recent to raise the question of when, exactly, it is fair and relevant to a criminal case to bring up a defendant’s adherence to a minority religion, or involvement in an esoteric practice. While the justices in the Court of Appeals found that Ruben Hernandez’s altar was fair game, that wasn’t the opinion in the case of Christopher Vaughn, accused of murdering his wife and three children. In that instance, Judge Daniel Rozak ruled that Vaughn’s adherence to Druid beliefs could not be directly referenced, seemingly agreeing with Public Defender Jaya Varghese, who said that “The word ‘Druid’ alone is prejudicial,” and would “significantly impact” his right to a fair trial.
“A Will County judge this morning barred attorneys from referring to quadruple-murder suspect Christopher Vaughn’s Druid beliefs at trial, but said some statements Vaughn posted to a Druid listserv can be heard by jurors. [...] Prosecutors want to use postings Vaughn made to Druid listservs that refer to his desire to live in the Canadian wilderness. They argue his statements were another sign that Vaughn wanted to be rid of his family. [...] Judge Daniel Rozak said he would allow the statements “if they somehow deal with leaving the country or living off the land” and don’t reference Vaughn’s religious beliefs.”
There are two very different cases, but both speak to the fact that the mere mention of a Pagan, Afro-disaporic, or esoteric practices can have an outsize influence on a trial, affecting how juries and judges react. For every instance where bringing up a defendant’s religion might be acceptable, as in the case of Angela Sanford, there are many more, particularly in custody battles, where it is not. Where it’s clear that fear and ignorance are being welded as weapons to win a judgement.
“…you really have to put this case into historical perspective. In 1993, the Satanic Bandwagon Folks like Dr. Griffis were mainstream and largely supported by both the media and established religion. We now know better, just like we now know that there are such things as “coerced confessions.” In 1993, virtually everybody believed that the phenomena of Satanic Ritualistic Homicide was very real, and perhaps even more regrettably, that no one, not even a mentally handicapped person, or a child, would confess to a crime that they did not commit. Thankfully, due in large part to pioneers with real credentials like Dr. Gisli Gudjohnson, Dr. Richard Ofshe, and Dr. Richard Leo, we now understand the dynamics of false confessions. By the way, not many people remember that Dr. Ofshe won a Pulitzer Prize for his work studying religious “cults.” He had a dual expertise.”
Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley would end up spending 18 years in prison before being freed in 2011 on an Alford plea, the capstone on an era that saw thousands of lives ruined in part thanks to the willingness of lawyers and prosecutors to wrongfully exploit people’s fears. Today, those fears are still being exploited, invoking “effigy dolls dunked upside down in this brown liquid” to judge the “consciousness of guilt.” Judging the worth of mothers, or even the depths of depravity, through what amounts to a theological popularity contest.
It very well may be that Hernandez, or Vaughn for that matter, are entirely guilty of the crimes they’ve been accused of, but that doesn’t remove the issue of their religion or beliefs being invoked. In Vaughn’s case, his lawyer was able to make sure the case stayed focused on the facts, while Hernandez’s trial allowed his “voodoo altar” to be used as evidence of his guilt, even though the spells may have born from defensive fear instead of from a guilty conscience. It is for this reason, perhaps more than any other, that outreach and interfaith efforts must be maintained.
It’s easy to affect an air of smug superior isolationism when there’s nothing on the line, but in the wider world we must constantly face that our faiths are a tiny minority in world dominated by faiths that have been historically hostile to us. We have to work towards changing perceptions, or else we risk sacrificing all those who end up situations where misconceptions can mean jail and ruined lives. In the meantime, while we work for change, let’s hope that more lawyers advocate strongly to leave religions most people don’t understand off the witness stand.
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Artist Lauren Raine is holding a Kickstarter campaign to create 21 new pieces in her Masks of the Goddess series. Previous collections in this series have been used by several Pagan groups for ritual purposes, most notably Reclaiming. The new collection will be held in trust for future community use. The money raised will also fund the “inaugural performance” of the new collection at the 2012 Women and Mythology Conference in San Francisco, produced and directed by M. Macha NightMare.
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
If I’m reading this right, it looks like Jessica Orsini, Alderwoman in Centralia, Missouri, and a Hellenic polytheist, isn’t running for reelection in 2012. Quote: “Ward 3 incumbent Jessica Orsini is not a candidate; Landon Magley is the lone candidate for that two-year term.” Orsini is in her third term as an Alderwoman, and one of the few openly transgender and Pagan elected officials. I’d like to thank Orsini for her public service, and wish her well in future endeavors.
05. Dominionism! The Reponse! Christians Behaving Badly! I don’t revel in writing about extremism and anti-Pagan fervor within the politically and culturally dominant Christian religion(s), much preferring to instead highlight achievements and challenges within our interconnected communities. Still, even the most temperate of commentator would have to agree that this was the year when some ugly elements within Christianity inched ever closer to the mainstream, and, for a time, received some much-needed scrutiny from the mainstream press. There were three main and intertwining narratives, the Christian religious phenomenon known as Dominionism, the continuing emergence of the New Apostolic Reformation, and the embrace of these elements by mainstream politicians.
“What [Pastor] Thomas [Muthee] was probably doing, and he and I are friends also, what he was probably doing was speculating that there would be some people who practiced witchcraft and other forms of the occult who would try and take Sarah Palin down through certain rituals or curses or other techniques that witches have and try to destroy her through those things. And I think Thomas was praying a shield of protection around Sarah so that she would not be affected by them.” - C. Peter Wagner, one of key architects and Apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation movement, on NPR’s Fresh Air.
Patrick McCollum on the cover of Witches & Pagans.
“I’m currently in a place where if an inmate brought a case, my case could go forward [...] I saw this coming down the pike, and so I have helped inmates bring forward cases that meet the criteria to make it so my case is viable and valid [...] I’ve managed to keep those cases under the radar and the first of those cases his the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. [...] If the court rules that those inmates who are on that case do have a right to a chaplain then I can walk right back into the court and forget the ruling made by the 9th Circuit or anybody else.”
These battles are vital, as the basic question of equal treatment for Pagans and other minority religions lies at its center. Access to chaplains, to religious guidance and instruction, should be a fundamental right and the human cost when that right is denied can be greater that some would imagine. The rights of prisoners are a canary in the coalmine of our society, what we imagine is acceptable to deny them eventually become acceptable to deny others. Precedents are won and lost behind bars, and McCollum has worked tirelessly to ensure that minority religions have access to chaplaincy. I have no doubt that 2012 will see even more reverberations from this story, and from the larger battle over access to chaplains.
The former New Mexico governor spoke with members of the Pagan Newswire Collective, ModernWitch Podcast and Patheos.com, among others. He said it was important to reach out to voters that fall outside the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths, and slammed his own party for being too beholden to the Christian right. “I think the world looks down on Republicans for their socially conservative views, which includes religion in government,” Johnson said. “I think that should not play a role in any of this. When Republicans talk about values — you know what? I bet you and I have the same values.”
In an editorial at The Washington Post I tried to contextualize the importance of this event, noting that alienating religious minorities is not a good long-term strategy for any political party, and that modern Pagans have real, serious, concerns that should be addressed by our political system. Since that press conference, Johnson has indicated that he’ll try to run as a Libertarian in 2012, noting that obstacles his candidacy has faced within the current Republican Party. Johnson’s chances to win the presidency of the United States are slim, but his willingness to reach out to Pagans, whatever the motivations were, opens a door to our faiths being taken seriously within the context of American politics.
“Not all Pagans or Magick Workers support the Occupy movement. I would not expect them to. However, I am unsurprised at the large number of us who do. We are used to linking the spiritual with the material, honoring the sacred in the baking bread, the programmed pixels, the words we speak, the trees, the earth, the sky. Some of us find comfort in humanity and some from our Gods. For me, the Occupy movement includes all of this. Also, Occupy is about the spirit of individual people striving to connect with one another, to feed each other, to fight for each other, and to lift each other up.”
01. West Memphis Three Go Free: On August 19th, 2011, the West Memphis 3 (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley Jr.) were released from prison on an Alford plea. The West Memphis 3 case is perhaps the most high-profile trial known in which the 1980s Satanic moral panic played a significant role, using Damien Echols interest in the occult and Wicca as proof of his murderous interests. The case was decided with no physical evidence, and a coerced confession from the mentally challenged Misskelley. Jessie Misskelley’s former defense attorney Dan Stidham, in an interview with John Morehead, paints a picture of the Satanic hysteria that surrounded the trial.
“…you really have to put this case into historical perspective. In 1993, the Satanic Bandwagon Folks like Dr. Griffis were mainstream and largely supported by both the media and established religion. We now know better, just like we now know that there are such things as “coerced confessions.” In 1993, virtually everybody believed that the phenomena of Satanic Ritualistic Homicide was very real, and perhaps even more regrettably, that no one, not even a mentally handicapped person, or a child, would confess to a crime that they did not commit. Thankfully, due in large part to pioneers with real credentials like Dr. Gisli Gudjohnson, Dr. Richard Ofshe, and Dr. Richard Leo, we now understand the dynamics of false confessions. By the way, not many people remember that Dr. Ofshe won a Pulitzer Prize for his work studying religious “cults.” He had a dual expertise.”
That wraps up my top ten news stories about or affecting modern Paganism in 2011. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll join me for another year of sifting through the news and views of interest to our communities. See you in 2012!
