Pagan Community Notes: Pagans for Trump, Starry Nights, conference season and more!

UNITED STATES — After the widespread attention given to a binding spell action against President Donald Trump, members the Facebook-based group Pagans for Trump began talking about doing a counter-spell. At the same time, it was reported in various media outlets that a group of Christians were planning to “pray the hex away.” In describing her own work to counter the binding, Lori Lyttle, a member of Pagans for Trump said, “It’s a blocking and protection spell.” She used black and white candles, incense, and “many, many gems,” which were all laid out on her altar. Trump supporter Katie Roberts was also planning to work against the mass binding spell.

Pagan Community Notes: Patheos, PantheaCon, the awen and more.

TWH – The tensions between bloggers and the Patheos company continued this week as former Patheos writer John Halstead announced that he and others would be demanding that their material be taken off the site. Their joint letter begins: “We the undersigned former and current Patheos Pagan contributors hereby request that you remove our names, likenesses, and our intellectual property, including our writing, art, and images, from your site. We previously gave Patheos license to publish our writing, but Patheos is no longer the company that we contracted with.” The letter continues on to list the writers’ grievances and detail why the group feels that Patheos is no longer the company that it once was. In its conclusion, the letter says, “We should not be forced to affiliate with or be seen to support, through our work, organizations which are inimical to our values and which, in many cases, are hostile to our existence…” 

Currently eighteen bloggers have signed the document.