“Children make up rituals,” writes Meg Elison in this retrospective on Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s novel. “They make up stories. Like the kids in The Egypt Game, they make up religion, even if their parents assure them that they have religion at home.”
Arts & Culture
The First Spell Is Silence: The Pagan Question of Withheld Knowledge
|
“Almost every magical system in fiction has a rule about who is allowed to learn,” writes Beatrix Kondo. “What has been remarkable about fantasy over the past few decades is how many of those systems have stopped pretending this rule is natural.”
Culture
Opinion: A Modest Proposal for Banning Christian Athletes from Men’s Sports
|
Rather than obsessing over the miniscule number of transgender athletes in women’s sports, fairness-minded politicians like Ken Paxton should focus on the pandemic of unregulated divine intervention in men’s sports.
Culture
Pagan Community Notes: Week of July 23, 2026
|
In this week’s Pagan Community Notes: a cardinal (not the bird kind) reignites the Pachamama controversy and debate over Paganism in the Catholic Church, career spells make the business news, Brittany explores the “misnamed Witch,” and, of course, Star’s Tarot of the Week.
Culture
Migration and Religious Diversity Shaped Early Vilnius in Europe’s Last Pagan Kingdom
|
Long before Lithuania officially embraced Christianity, Orthodox migrants and local converts lived alongside a predominantly pagan population in medieval Vilnius, offering new archaeological evidence that religious change unfolded gradually through migration, trade, and everyday life.
Arts & Culture
Tarot! at the Morgan Library
|
“If someone were trying to trap me,” writes Meg Elison in her review of the exhibit, “one of the surest ways would be to put up a sign to say there’s a show focused on tarot inside this building, this cardboard box, this tiger pit. This thing is a Witch magnet.”