Some Pagan, occult, and academic news items of interest: • I did not know that any of the “Group of Seven” were Theosophists — plus other influential Canadian Pagans and occultists in one list. • “Unintended Consequences of the Affordable Health Care Act” for part-time college and university faculty. In other words, schools are reacting [...]
Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist discusses evidence of a Norse presence on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic and whether the people who were there were seasonal trappers or trying to establish a year-round settlement. Remains of Old World rats are indicative. So what we have here is High Medieval Christian Norse-speakers gone native in Arctic [...]
The trailer to a new documentary, The WinniPagans, focusing on the (largely Wiccan, I think) Pagan scene in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It will be available as video-on-demand — details at the website Complete with a cute Pagan puppy and a nice shot of Boletus edulis.
Week-old pizza from the back of the refrigerator … • Here’s an idea for a novel: “two down-on-their-luck entrepreneurs who stumble upon the idea of reviving for-profit idolatry. Selling statues of household gods to the masses, and building a neo-pagan religion around it.” Um, I think that people have been doing this for some time. [...]
Police in southwestern Ontario crunch some arrest numbers and note that they arrest more suspects with Sun in Aries than any other sign. Const. Pearce, who produced the data, concedes, “Next year the list could be completely different unless we arrest the same people.”
An interesting post from Walking the Hedge on daily practice, medicine bags, and the demands of tutelary spirits: That’s a whole other bother … fellow witches and pagans who don’t get it. Who think that it all must be done elegantly, flowing and … and not weird. Do something odd or awkward like blowing on [...]
Delhi 2 Dublin, playing and explaining panj-ab / Keltoi fusion music.
Gaia Gathering: Canadian National Pagan Conference Theme: Language to Liturgy Gaia Gathering was founded in 2004 and had its first conference in 2005. Each year the conference is hosted over the Victoria Day long weekend in a different Canadian city through a bidding process similar to the Olympics. Past host cities include Edmonton, Halifax, Winnipeg, [...]
Somehow I missed this, but last September an organization of self-proclaimed Canadian skeptics challenged the world to prove that witches exist—along with Bigfoot, voodoo, and the Easter Bunny. OK, all this fun hinges on the difference between “anthropological witchcraft” and capital-P Pagan religious capital-W Witchcraft. But still. Of course, if anyone shows up and says, [...]
Preparing for last night’s solstice-eclipse, the Montreal Gazette went looking for the Pagan perspective. There are two of them actually: The UPG, it’s-personal version … “It’s a ritual of transformation from darkness into light,” says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto’s Wiccan Church of Canada. “It’s the idea that when things seem really bleak, [...]
