Professor Grant Devilly, from Griffith University’s [Queensland, Australia] Psychological Health research unit, says the memory usually works in the opposite way, with traumatised people reliving experiences they would rather forget.

“It’s the opposite. They wish they couldn’t think about it,” he said.

In a briefing to the US Supreme Court, Professor Richard McNally from Harvard University described the theory of repressed memory as “the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry”.

Where do “repressed memories” come from? Therapists help patients to invent them, as described in this 1993 article from American Psychologist.

Here is another article by Prof. Devilly on the “memory wars.”

During the “Satanic abuse” scare of the 1980s, some prominent Pagans were fooled by supposed abuse survivors who came to Pagan gatherings and would spout some nonsense about how “I was abused by ‘witches,’ but now I see that your kind of Witchcraft is not like that.”

The template for many such fantasies was Lawrence Pazder’s Michelle Remembers, about a little girl in Victoria, B.C., who supposedly spent her childhood as the plaything of a ring of organized and powerful Satanists.

And I will admit that I was blown away by the story when I first read it, such that I did not notice the obvious plot holes.

I say “plot” because it is a work of fiction, dreamed up cooperatively by patient and doctor (who later married) under hypnosis.

These “moral panics” seem to come through on a regular basis, and all you can do is seek the facts and hope that justice does, in fact, move slowly and deliberately and not at lynch-mob speed.

Malcolm shopped Wet Goddess around to publishers for years before self-publishing it. (After all, one of my favorite novels, The Sea Priestess, went the same route—too weird, too controversial.)

In earlier days, Malcolm Brenner produced some now-archival Wiccan material, such as a video interview with Fred Lamond, and he also produced some amazing (and low budget) illustrations for my 1995 edited collection from Llewellyn: Witchcraft and Shamanism.

Some photos appeared on the EnglishRussia blog last summer. More recently, Peculiar linked to a more complete article about this Asgarda group.

A little Pagan resonance in that name, wouldn’t you say?

While [French photographer Guillaume] Herbaut is uncertain if the photos are a good representation of the tribe, he adds “They were very happy when they saw the pictures. They want to show their strength”. When asked of his impressions of the Asgarda prior to and after photographing them, he remarked, “My first impression was ‘Asgarda is the root of a new sect’. My second impression was ‘Asgarda is the root of a new sect’!” New sect or the rebirth of a previous one, the Asgarda are reclaiming their lost independence, and, if Herbaut’s photographs are any indication, they aren’t afraid to fight for it.

I do not know, of course, if the group still exists, but would welcome up-to-date information.

Related: An article on contemporary Ukrainian Paganism from The Pomegranate (abstract free).

* In sense 1 of parthenos.

His first post: “Do we want real history or lucid dreams?”

It was written in June, however, so I hope he does more.

• Musings on that “Nazi” label and whether the climate of the Pacific Northwest encourages “black metal” bands, at Bioregional Animism.

• He comes to the festival as a lapsed Lutheran. He leaves as a Pagan—an interview from the Pagan Newswire Collective’s Minnesota bureau. (I’m waiting for the Prairie Home Companion parody of their piece.)

• Did a witch’s spell burn down the pub?

Such as green vegetable. Or not chi (qi) but rice. Or not “beautiful” but “disaster.”

This must be the revenge of the Orient for our laughing at all those nonsensical Japanese “Engrish” T-shirts.

But you can take off a T-shirt.

The artist also forgot to add blogging.

Both the saga literature and forensic studies of skeletal remains suggest that battle injuries could be horrific …. The femur (leg bone) shown to the right is from another man who died of battle injuries in the 11^th century. The bone shows clear marks of the impact of ring mail against the bone, suggesting his upper leg was hit with a sword blow so powerful as to force the rings of his mail shirt through the muscles of his leg into contact with the bone. Astonishingly, this injury was not the cause of his death. His skeletal remains show other serious injuries received in that battle. However, it was a cut that partially severed his spine at the neck that killed him.

My own modest reading of the sagas suggest that when two men went at each other with battle axes, usually after no more than two swings of the ax someone had serious arterial bleeding.

But in Iceland they sure loved their natural hot tubs—and who wouldn’t?

(Via Making Light.)

There have been the usual hassles—missing “essential” photos, notes that did not match the text, etc.—but we are working through all of that.

I mentioned the project on Facebook once, and got a response from a former student who was raised in the Assemblies of God, one of the larger Pentecostal denominations (the largest, says Wikipedia).

She had heard about Aimee when she was younger, but thought of her as a “scary” person.

Having lived with Aimee’s biography for six months, there is much that I could say about her, but “scary” is not a word that I would use. (I sent the student a PDF of the chapter about Aimee’s revival tour through Denver in the early 1920s.)

Do Pentecostal Christians send their elders down the memory hole as effectively as Pagans do?

Or does that process happen in all religions that do not have formal processes of canonizing saints or the equivalent—something that fixes them in memory?

I am still waiting for a serious academic biography of Gerald Gardner, who is after all the founder of a world religion, now that Wicca is in India, Brazil, Germany, and other places.

No doubt many young Wiccans have  either (a) not heard of him or (b) think that he was some “scary” old guy.

Philip Heselton (interviewed here), the author of two earlier books about Gardner, is supposed to have a new biography coming out from Thoth, although as of today I cannot find it on their fancy-but-unsearchable website.

I judged the earlier books as being strong on research and legwork, but weak on analysis and contextualizing. Credulous, even.  There is probably still room for a biography written by someone with a background in discussing new religious movements.

Meanwhile, Oberon Zell is at work on some new encylopediac work about “wizards of the world.” He has been trying to convince me to a write an entry about Gleb Botkin. Now there is someone who should be kept from sliding down the memory hole of Pagan history as well.

A multicolored, long Perseid crossing the sky (Wikipedia).

Last night after walking the dogs I spread an old blanket on the ground and lay watching the stars.

The Perseid meteor shower is under way, and in 15 minutes I saw five meteors.

One was just a blip of light, two were quick, and two left long streaks.

I had felt emotionally low all day. Isaac Bonewits’ passing was part of the cause, but only part, I think.

We were friends at a distance, but rarely saw one another. He moved East, and I have attended only one festival there in my life, and it was not one that he came to.

The time of year is part of it. After all those years in the classroom, mid-August still seems like the end of summer.

Last week I was talking with a friend at the university library. She mentioned that university convocation, which is followed by college and department meetings, comes next week. She said that I flinched when I heard that—even though it no longer affects me, even though it no longer means the end of summer break.

Back when our ancestors chopped with stone, they no doubt watched the night sky much more than we do. And they saw falling stars, of course, and no doubt they made analogies between meteors and human lives.

Isaac’s was one of the long streaks—at least so far as we Pagans are concerned. But there is so much black between the stars.

Still, watch the sky-show if you can. It is all that there is.