Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Druid ritual, Gods & Radicals, Stan Newcombe, Memorial for Las Vegas victims and more

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ATHENS, Tenn. – The Wayist Druid public Samhain ritual was successful despite threats of mass protest and violence. Due to threats the week before, the city posted warning notices to citizens that stated that it was illegal to disturb or interfere with any person or event that had been giving a permit. According to ritual host Archdruid Angela Wilson, Saturday’s event attracted more than 250 people. She said, “I want to personally thank everyone for coming yesterday it was a beautiful thing.”

Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: the Binding, the Unnamed Path, Cherry Hill Seminary, and more

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TWH – The NRA Institute for Legislative Action published an article in reaction to a documentary film titled the Binding that depicts modern Witches performing a binding spell inspired by Michael Hughes’ work. First reported on by The Wild Hunt, the film, which was produced and directed by Patrick Foust, features members of the Firefly House and includes author and activist David Salisbury. Foust told TWH that the inspiration for The Binding came when [he] saw news footage of Witches conducting a binding ritual on President Trump in February 2017. The NRA ILA reaction to the film was published June 15, and has since triggered a number of other media articles, including one in Fortune magazine and another at Raw Story. After the NRA writer discusses the film’s content, he or she reports that the organization “has not experienced any uptick in paranormal activity or supernatural suppression of [their] affairs.”

Australia

Poet Fleassy Malay’s ‘Witches’ poem inspires women

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In the past they burned us,
because they thought we were witches. Just because we knew what to do with herbs outside of the kitchen. Because we knew how to dance, seduce, pray. Because we moved with the cycles of the moon. That’s the beginning of poet Fleassy Malay’s Witches, which has been shared and appreciated widely within Pagan circles.

Hounds

Unleash the Hounds (link roundup)

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There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans and Heathens out there, more than our team can write about in depth in any given week. Therefore, the Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Scott Cunningham, one of Wicca and Witchcraft’s most prominent figures. Over his career, Cunningham authored more than 30 books of which the most well known is Wicca: a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. Through that work alone, he made solitary Wiccan practice more visible, more credible, and more accessible. Cunningham died in 1993 of an AIDS-related illness.

News

Graduate student teaches and studies Western Paganism in Japan

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KOBE, Japan —  Eriko Kawanishi first came to Glastonbury as a graduate student, working on Western paganism for her thesis. Impressing the locals with her understanding, her courage in coming alone to a small English town on the other side of the planet, and her good humour, Eriko soon became an integral part of the Glastonbury community and has taken her knowledge of the UK Pagan scene back to her home country of Japan. Eriko is a researcher at Kyoto University and will be teaching at Konan Women’s University in Kobe as a part-time lecturer beginning September 2017. She said that Western Paganism isn’t studied widely in Asia, and although Shinto, for instance, shares some common themes with Pagan paths such as Druidry, there is currently little formal exchange between the two. As the work of academics like Eriko expands, however, a more in-depth understanding of the spiritual analogies between the cultures is likely to develop.