The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/templefest)
In this week’s Pagan Community Notes: Well-known Pagan leader Kirk White announces a run for state office, Various Pagan events announce changes and postponements, the Buckland Museums reopens, art contest announced, and more!
BOSTON – In March, Senator Elizabeth Warren sent an email to her supports that was titled “Murder, drugs, and pagan rituals.” Warren begins, “If you believed everything you read on the internet, you’d know that I was a serial killer who participated in [P]agan rituals to honor the gods of wind and fire. . . . These stories that snake through the sewer of the internet have popped up all over Facebook, Twitter, and Google over the past year – and they’re getting worse.”
HANCOCK, N.H. – TempleFest 2017, the annual summer festival of the Temple of Witchcraft, was held last weekend. Attendees and presenters traveled from all over the country to partake in workshops, panels, and rituals. Did these witches find what they were looking for? Folklorist and anthropologist Dr. Sabina Magliocco says Pagans attend festivals for a range of reasons, “Everything from seeking to immerse themselves completely in Pagan culture, to reconnecting with old friends, experiencing nature in the company of other Pagans, and participating in large group ritual. Some go just to party with friends.”
VIRGINIA BEACH, Vir. — It is being reported that 37-year-old Jaime Johnson was killed Aug. 2 in her home on Sutter Street in Virginia Beach. There is currently a police investigation underway, but officials have not yet released any specific details about the case. Originally from Minnesota, Jaime was well-known across the American Pagan community.
TempleFest, the annual summer festival of the Temple of Witchcraft, was held the weekend of July 29-31 in South Hampton, New Hampshire. The festival was hosted on a privately-owned farm deep in the hills of southern New Hampshire, and on a property guarded by red, white, and black masks of Hecate. Her guardianship seems completely appropriate in this place, which feels like a true crossroads between the everyday world and the world of all thing magickal. TempleFest’s theme is “Spirit, Community, Education,” and there was plenty of each on display throughout the weekend in the form of powerful rituals, mutual support for attendees of all experience levels, and an excellent array of classes and workshops. Approximately 370 attendees from the TempleFest community came together along with special guests to learn and grow, and to also have fun while challenging their minds and hearts.