Tag: pentagram pizza

Pentagram Pizza from Rome’s Enemy

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagrampizza¶ The word went around last week of the passing of Jonas Trinkunas (1939–2014), founder of the revived Lithuanian Pagan group Romuva. This Lithuanian website has video of his funeral ceremony, everyone in archaic ritual gear, lots of singing and drumming. (Video may be slow to load.)

¶ “Perhaps the future Carthaginians were like the Pilgrim Fathers leaving from Plymouth – they were so fervent in their devotion to the gods that they weren’t welcome at home any more.” But do not let that sentence give you any warm feelings until you have read the rest.

¶ The polytheists’ Ark was round, but still held animals.

Pentagram Pizza: An ‘Apocalypse’ for Witches

On By Chas S. Clifton1 Comment

pentagrampizza¶ From Scarlet Imprint, Peter Grey’s Apocalyptic Witchcraft. In its review The Daily Grail said,

Grey sets out to explicate a perspective on the familiar symbols and stories of witchcraft in the West which has little truck with the formalities of scholarship, the sensibilities of the Wiccan paths or the white-light Newage perspective. His is a witchcraft both messy and impudent, one that stinks of mud, blood and spunk — in a good way. One where the oft-ignored or sidelined aspects — the legends of human sacrifice, poisons, curses and The Devil Himself — are both represented and, on some level, embraced.

¶ Once again, local authorities are deeply unimpressed by a legal defense based on “sacred prostitution,” especially when the woman involved is trying to get a license for a Colorado marijuana dispensary. 

¶ The list of polytheistic devotional books (and some Pagan SF) published by the Biblioteca Alexandrina  continues to grow. I have one and should get a couple of others.

Pentagram Pizza: Where You Find an Eagle Eating a Snake . . .

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagrampizza¶ After reading this article, I think I will write something for Fate magazine about how Tenochtitlan was really a Mexica overlay on a forgotten Roman colony. Should be good for a few chuckles.

¶ After a long hiatus (in comic book years), Asterix the Gaul returns.

¶ An old acquaintance, Loretta Orion, pops-up in this Samhain-themed article, “Phantoms of the Hamptons.” She is the author of Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revived (1994).

Pentagram Pizza: It’s Revived Again

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagrampizza¶ At Pagan Square, Rebecca Buchanan rounds up children’s books featuring Norse gods and heroes.

Bright Spiral is an online comic about occult initiation. Trippy and complex.

¶ “Chilled-out multitasking hipster psychics don’t seem so eccentric anymore” and “We are in the middle of an occult revival.” Again.

Green Egg is back as a print magazine. And don’t forget the “Best of” anthology, for which I wrote a bunch of chapter intros.

Pentagram Pizza: Not a Lie

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagrampizza¶ An insightful interview with Pagan musician Sharon Knight.

¶ Why TED talks are lying to you.

This is what a dolmen should look like — “This enormous structure is the Soto dolmen in Trigueros, Spain, which has been returned to its prehistoric glory after a nine-year restoration. The mound is 60 metres across and 3.5 metres high, making it the largest of more than 200 dolmens, or megalithic tombs, that dot the Huelva province.”

Pentagram Pizza: Should You Print Out These Links?

On By Chas S. Clifton2 Comments

pentagrampizzaItems that deserve more commentary, but are not getting it today:

• From  MIT Technology Review: When we read books on paper, do we retain more than when we read on a screen?

• Re-creating the sound of ancient musical instruments, sometimes with synthesizers.

• A review of Apocalyptic Witchcraft, from Scarlet Imprint.

• At The Journal of Hofstadr Hearth, Alfarrin rethinks the blot in terms of Neolithic and Paleolithic, Aesir and Vanir, reciprocity and sharing. With a big shout-out to Paul Shepard!

• Related issues here at “Heathens in the Military: An Interview with Josh and Cat Heath, Part One,” at the Norse Mythology Blog.

Pentagram Pizza without External Validation

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagrampizza• Pharoah Tutankhamun was a lot more important dead than he ever was during his short life. So for him, can we say that the embalmers and craftsmen did give him immortality?

• Magic is a way of living: or why Dion Fortune got it wrong, from Anne Hill.

• Sannion on why you do not need external validation in your practice . . .

• . . .  followed by Galina Krasskova on the same topic: “How can you ever find your way, or center yourself fully in the road of devotion if you’re endlessly willing to change your path on the whim of a random person’s say so? How an there ever be integrity in what you do if you’re constantly worried about how others are going to respond?”

Pentagram Pizza with the Inner Bark of Pine Trees

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagrampizza• At Wytch of the North, a lengthy blog post on being a godspouse.

• A small publisher seeks submissions for a volume on “transgressive rites and rituals.”
We are looking primarily for practical articles describing new and original rites and rituals that cross barriers and challenge social norms. Although the bulk of the book will be made up of practical working material, we will consider articles relating to historically significant rites, philosophical discussions on the nature or significance of transgression, and first person accounts of actual rites and rituals. Original artwork will also be accepted for consideration.

• Certain ponderosa pine trees in my region are identified as being “sacred trees” to the Ute Indians. I would like to know more about this, since is a distinction between these “cultural” trees and those that were de-barked for eating purposes — this link addresses both eating the inner bark and the “cultural” use, complete with power dreams.

 

Pentagram Pizza: Eat It Back in the Cave

On By Chas S. Clifton

• You knew this was coming: the zombie Tarot deck.

• On cave paintings, art, and cognition.

• More old stuff: were those ancient figurines of voluptuous women goddesses . . . or toys? Don’t suggest the latter to the idol-makers of today.

• Have beautiful handwriting by Christmas. You have a whole year now to improve!

Pentagram Pizza: Buy It by the Slice in the Occult City

On By Chas S. Clifton

pentagram pizza• David Metcalfe writes in depth about the “Mapping the Occult City” event that I mentioned earlier.

• The one true religion —  the Church of Aircraft. It has some bizarre rituals too.

• Dver on polytheism: “Gods are not characters.”

• A rare book on witchcraft — a manual for prosecutors, similar to the Malleus Maleficarum  — has been re-discovered in the library of the University of Alberta (the article is a little unclear.)

Its pages describe cackling wenches sailing across the night sky on broom sticks, frolicking in nocturnal orgies of twisted delight and casting Satanic spells to doom crops with lightning and hail.

The usual. But note that the organized persecution of witchcraft was coincidental with the rise of modernity, not the Middle Ages.