Remembering David Oringderff

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I met David Oringderff just one time, in a San Antonio wine bar where a bunch of Pagan-studies scholars and members of the local Pagan community met for an evening, (He drove down from Austin, I believe) It was 2004, just before the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (but not the Defense Dept., to use its old name) accepted the “Pentacle Quest,” which allowed Pagan emblems (and others) in national cemeteries.

As Selena Fox wrote in the article linked above,

“Two other international Wiccan churches joined Circle Sanctuary’s re-application with letters of support, rather than applying separately. Included was a letter from the Covenant of the Goddess (COG), signed by Rev. Kathryn Fuller, and a letter from the Sacred Well Congregation (SWC), signed by Dr. David Oringderff. Both of these churches have members who are veterans as well as members who are on active duty. SWC includes groups that meet at US military installations.”

When you read her story of the pushback against the Pagan religious acknowledgement,, you have to realize that it’s not just from bureaucrats but from the entrenched monotheistic chaplains. As a retired officer and Pagan leader, Oringdorf pushed for Pagan chaplains for years — long before SecWar Pete Hegseth came on the scene — and ultimately got nowhere.

The following eulogy was published by Cherry Hill Seminary this past week:

Columbia, S.C.—Cherry Hill Seminary is sad to learn of the death on October 6 of longtime faculty leader David Oringderff, Ph.D. Fondly called “Dr. O” by many students, Oringderff taught for the Seminary beginning in 2002, headed the Department of Pastoral Counseling & Chaplaincy for about a decade, assisted in the development of the Community Ministry Certificate, and helped the academic dean to develop curriculum standards for his department.

“But his stellar work on behalf of Cherry Hill Seminary was just one facet of David’s extraordinary life,” said director Holli Emore. “Biographies that emerge in the wake of his passing will more fully detail all of David’s accomplishments. But I knew him as a co-founder and executive director emeritus of Sacred Well Congregation, an international Pagan coalition, and as the person behind the Wiccan circle at Fort Hood, Texas, when a national media firestorm erupted.” Emore continued, “David was also active for many years with the COMISS Network on Ministry in Specialized Settings. But I remember him best for always making himself available to students, his colleagues, and to me. We could always depend on David to follow through with whatever he committed to, quietly sharing his wisdom when asked.”

Others in the Seminary community also shared their memories.

I first got to know David when he was a U.S. Army major and he requested that I become his Europe-based doctoral supervisor during his NATO posting in Europe. His dedication to Paganism and Earth-based traditions, and to ensuring that those in the military have access to the spiritual resources that they need, was outstanding. His legacy lives on in the military in the form of the Sacred Well Congregation and the generations of chaplains, students, and Pagans that he has inspired. He will be greatly missed by his friends in Europe, the States, and beyond.—Vivianne Crowley

Only last December 2025 I was privileged to present David with the Hypatia Award for Excellence in Education in recognition of lifetime achievement and his service to the Cherry Hill Seminary community. During that time, he advised and taught scores of students, and mentored the first Master of Divinity graduate.—Margo Wolfe, Ph.D., Academic Dean

As a fellow psychologist, and an early instructor in the counseling program, I respected and admired David’s leadership at Cherry Hill. David mentored and guided students to achieve successful and satisfying careers as pagan counselors. He was compassionate and sincere, and a joy to work with.—Valerie Cole, Ph.D.

As a fellow chaplain endorser, I always knew David to be friendly and truthful. A person of integrity, he was not afraid to engage myself or others of differing faiths. And I do remember him well as an endorser and colleague. I am a past Chair of the COMISS Network, and he attended during my tenure. I respected him.—David B. Plummer

David has been a close friend and trusted mentor for many years. In many ways, he served as a father figure. He will be well remembered in this realm, and may he be well received in the next.—Shane L. Nelson, M.Div.

To David’s wife, Willow, his family and the many, many people whose lives he touched, Cherry Hill Seminary extends our sincere condolences. Read more about David here

A visitation will be held from 10:00 am to 11:00 am Thursday, October 15, 2026 at Mullinax Funeral Home, Butler, Missouri. Funeral services will follow at 11:00 am Thursday, also at the funeral home, with burial in Fort Scott National Cemetery, Fort Scott, Kansas.

Fleeing with the Idols

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This was the Summer Turned Inside Out. Blogging and a lot of other things (fishing trips, home improvements, were suspended at the end of June.

Pausing on the way down from the mountains, looking homeward anxiously,

In the early morning of June 29th, a tree fell against a power line in a little 1950s-vintage mountain subdivision perhaps thirty minutes’ drive away. Local firefighters responded, but the west winds blew and the pines were thick. They called for help from nearby departments (but not mine, for jurisdictional reasons). It got worse.

The fire had the little town of Beulah in its sights. Known as the Aspen Acres Fire, it burned more than 102,000 acres (43,000 ha), destroying almost two hundred homes and many other structures, including an iconic park lodge.

But then it thought, if fires think,1 “What about those people over there? I don’t stop at county lines.” On the morning of July 2nd, we were put on “pre-evac,” which to me meant go ahead and air up the tires of the camping trailer while hoping that we did not have to go anywhere. But by late afternoon the word came down: “Go.”

We ended up on friends’ horse property outside Pueblo: they were super-helpful, Marco the dog could hang with their big dogs — but it was not home, and I had an hour’s drive to the firehouse, on the days I worked.

But I had forgotten about the outdoor shrine! I was used to one- or two-night evacuations, not two weeks,

There it was, back in the trees, with its small roofed box holding god and goddess statues, the little altar, some other objects . . . It used to be screened by junipers and scrub oaks — not any more! A bulldozer had gone within a few feet of one sculpture at the “gate,” and the sawyers’ chainsaws opened up the view.

I wonder if anyone realized what they were looking at. Meanwhile, I scooped up the images and moved to the house, because the “army” would be back.

After the fire was contained, they had to mitigate (sort of) the environmental damage they had done. All the trees and brush cut to slow the fire’s spread were piled in “slash piles.” Those had to be chipped. I cajoled a couple of supervisors into doing the chipping on site rather than hauling the branches to the central chipping spot, I wanted the chips for mulch. And I high-graded all the big pieces for firewood before the chipping crew showed up.

And they need at a minimum to dig water bars (angled trenches built up on the downhill side) in the dozer bars to divert rainwater to one side or the other that it would not turn the dozer scar into a gully.

Revegetation? That was up to me (and Nature). So off I went buying “reclamation mix” grass seed at $10–$14 per pound. I’m ready now, just waiting for first frost.

But the shrine? Maybe there’s a lesson there. Maybe it had been too concealed. You can’t see it from the road. I think about rebuilding it more with stone — I have lots of sizeable stones lying around, ripped up by dozer and track hoe. I can’t bring back the screen of trees, obviously. But there will continue to be something,

Download This Free Book on the Witches’ Sabbath

Cambridge University Press is making a new book free to download.

Imagining the Witches’ Sabbat: Visions of Darkness Since 1900 is a new work by Ethan Doyle White. He is author of several academic works on Wicca and Witchcraft and a member of the editorial board of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies.

Of all the dark visions to haunt the cultural imagination, few have proven so pervasive as the witches’ Sabbath or Sabbat – an idea born in the fifteenth century. The Sabbath, however, did not remain there, and this Element explores some of the ways in which the witches’ Sabbath has been reimagined since 1900. It considers how early twentieth-century scholars, most notably Margaret Murray and Montague Summers, took it as evidence of a real witches’ religion, and how later historians like Carlo Ginzburg drew upon it in their search for ancient shamanisms. It examines how occultists such as Gerald Gardner, Austin Osman Spare and Andrew Chumbley integrated sabbaths as key elements of their own new religions. Finally, it outlines the role of the Sabbath in literature, film and television, where it has continued to terrify and titillate.

This free download is availalble only through July 17, 2026. Print copies can be ordered too, of course.

The Light of Midsummer Shines

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From the oracle deck Jesper Toad (The Enchiridion Magistellus: A Visual Handbook of the Witches’ Art)

People of Wheat: Decoration Day on the High Plains

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Twiiter user Clay Scott @scottwestacre) who raises wheat in southwestern Kansas, posted this video on Memorial Day — once known as Decoration Day, from the custom of decorating graves on that day.

He wrote, “Decoration Day. We place wreaths of wheat each year on the graves of family and friends. We have done this for decades as our tribute to service and remembrance. It was a tough sort this year but everyone will be grateful for the crop no matter what it looks like. Always the best.”

The religion scholar in me wants to know: what is their background? Mostly Catholic or mostly Protestant? Was this a custom in the Old Country? And where was that?

Prairie Kansas has — or had — many ethnic enclaves. For instance, further northeast, around Great Bend, there is a heavy Catholic presence based on immigration from Poland,southern Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian empire. Little country crossroads churches with names like St. Xavier’s.

But cycles of growing and reaping are forever, John Barleycorn holds hands with Dumuzid. Seems “Pagan-ish” to me.

What Wines to Pair with Esotericism?

Cover of Ægypt by John Crowley, 1988 edition

John Crowley’s novel Ægypt came out in 1987. It gained three sequels: “The series describes the life and work of Pierce Moffett, a history professor who prepares a manuscript for publication even as it prepares him for some as-yet unknown destiny, all set amidst strange and subtle Hermetic manipulations among the Faraway Hills at the border of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania” (Wikipedia).

Ægypt is set in the late 1970s (Crowley’s preferred title for it was The Solitudes—follow the link for longer plot summary). The imaginary Hudson Valley (?) town of Blackberry Jambs seized my imagination, because at the point of my life my wife and I had ended up in Cañon City, an unglamorous small town in Colorado, both unemployed or unemployed (1987 was the “bottom” year of my life), and I, at least, wondered if I would ever leave or if this was the quiet backwater in which I would build some kind of writer’s life.

My first introduction to Crowley’s writing was Engine Summer (1979), an America-after-the-Big Collapse story, that has stuck with me. Little, Big gets more attention, maybe because of the large part played by the Fae in it. Phil Ford and J. F. Martel of the Weird Studies podcast gave it an entire episode, with the assistance of Erik Davis.

Unlike Little, Big, the Ægypt books do require some familiarity with the Western esoteric tradition, which is bookish. If you don’t know of Giordano Bruno, or the magickal partnership of John Dee and Edward Kelley, a lot if going to go right past you,

Or the scene in the prologue where ten-year-old Piece Moffatt (the main character), a Catholic boy in a Kentucky mining town, rises early to serve as an altar boy at 6:45 a.m. weekday Mass, and stumbling off into the predawn thinks, “I’m not from here. I’m from someplace different from this.”

That’s a big foreshadowing, (There is more on the novels’ structure here.)

But to this re-reading, I can add one thing: wine pairings! Such has my taste changed since my first reading in that little 1908 smelter worker”s cottage.

I have selected two wines to go with the reading because I can do that now. The Theurgist (red blend) comes from the Abbey Winery in Cañon City, so there is that connection, while Lapis Luna (Stone Moon) winery in Lodi, California, makes a red blend whose label proclaims, “This way one gets to the stars.”

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When a Blanket Is as Weird as Bigfoot

A traditional Hudson’s Bay blanket in “Queen Anne” colors.

Encounters with the paranormal — the Other, as some say — can change people, Some have a “UFO” encounter and are never the same, often psychologically damaged. Some encounter Bigfoot or other cryptids and are sort of afraid of the dark ever after.

On the other hand, one Bigfoot experiencer whom I interviewed had created a sort of shrine to his encounter in his home: photos, drawings, newspaper clippings, etc. It struck me as a kind of “material religion” thing.

This experience of mine is much less awesome. It involves bedding — wool blankets. Just fabric, no critters. But it was still weird.

I got this Hudson’s Bay “point blanket” from my mother in the 1990s. The “points,” the thin black lines, identified the blanket’s size when folded on a shelf in the trading post or the Hudson’s Bay Co.’s later department stores.

It not only spoke of tradition, but it was damn fine blanket that went on the bed every October — until October 2024.

That year I went to the bathroom cupboard where sheets and blankets are stored. There sat a zippered plastic blanket-storage bag. I could see the off-white wool of the folded blanket within.

I pulled it down, unzipped it, and took out a off-white heavy wool blanket. It was not my Hudson’s Bay blanket though, but another one — creamy-white with two thin blue stripes up the middle. I had never seen it before, that I could recollect.

The Hudson’s Bay blanket was gone. I have never found it. The replacement blanket is on the bed now, although the time to take it off is rapidly approaching.

The “other” blanket. Where did it come from?

This is the second winter with the “replacement” blanket, which is a fine blanket, but not the right one. The house wights, or whoever, have not chosen to switch them back.

But do I blame the house wights? They go mainly for shiny objects, although there was that one episode involving a book. This feels different. It feels like life was a train running down one track, and someone switched it onto another parallel track. I look around, and it all seems the same: Same wife, same house, same dog, same Jeep, and so on and on.

(Maybe in the Hudson’s Bay blanket timeline, the house burned in a forest fire or some other bad thing happened. But how would I know?)

So a little bit like the UFO experiencers, I am shaken at some level. It’s like something told me, “You’re not really in control as much as you think you are.” And what do you do with that?

Light It Up like a Roman

Archaeologists at Pompeii are trying to figure out what incense its residents burned in their homes.

The study is part of a growing interest in so-called “sensory archaeology,” which seeks to reconstruct not only objects and spaces from the past but also the sensory experiences associated with them. The aroma of burned incense, mixed with the smoke of local plants and possibly with wine poured as a libation, formed an essential part of communication with the divine in the domestic sphere.

One residue detected is that of elemi, the gum of Canarium Luzonicum, a tree that grows in tropical forest in such locales as Madagascar and Philippine Islands. “It is still intensely fragrant and perfect as an ingredient in solid perfumes, salves, cremes, cosmetics, incense blends and moustache wax recipes,” says one online seller.

So there was quite a journey involved, either across the Indian Ocean or up the eastern coast of Africa through the Red Sea to one of several ports, then overland Alexandria (no Suez Canal then!) and back into a ship to Italy.

Household shrine in the Casa del Larario del Sarno (I.14.7) with statuettes of Lares, a lamp and a censer. Credit: Pompeii, Archivio Fotografico inv. D964

(Household shrine in the Casa del Larario del Sarno (I.14.7) with statuettes of Lares, a lamp and a censer. Credit: Pompeii, Archivio Fotografico inv. D964)

“Grape biomarkers” are also mentioned, so apparently people were pouring out wine into containers on their altars, which seems perfectly normal.

Upcoming Zoom with Robin Douglas, Sasha Chaitow

Two leading scholars of contemporary Paganism will be live on Zoom this weekend: Robin Douglas has a book in press with the Equinox series on Pagan studies: The Pagan Revival A Documentary History of Modern Paganism, 1700-1950.

Sasha Chaitow is also widely published, including in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Lately she has focused on is an independent scholar of Greek cultural history whose work focuses on ancient, Byzantine, and modern traditions. She is the author of Son of Prometheus, a new study of Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica, and forthcoming studies of Byzantine demonology and of living Greek magic.

You can find earlier podcasts in the Coming to the Center series on Cherry Hill’s YouTube channel. This Sunday’s podcast should turn up there later. There is even one of me (looking sleepy out on the front porch) from 2024 and running on about contemporary Paganism.

Are the House Wights Studying the Renaissance?

Most of my stories about how the “critters,” the house wights, the Borrowers (to borrow a term), or whatever they are like shiny objects.

There was the still-missed Norwegian salad-serving fork. Corkscrews vanished a couple of time. Another big serving fork disappeared and then reappeared, lying in plain view in an empty dish rack. Two rings of keys vanished from a spot on top of a filing cabinet. One later reappeared elsewhere (and there might be a naturalistic explanation, I admit), while the second was gone for good.

A few months ago they branched out into books. It was a one-time thing as far as a I can tell. (Well no, what happened to that Allan Kardec book?) There is a kind of a switcheroo in this one.

So I was musing about the history of the Tarot, and I wanted to look for something in Joscelyn Godwin‘s The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, but I could not find it on the shelf where it was supposed to be.

The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance recounts the almost untold story of how the rediscovery of the pagan, mythological imagination during the Renaissance brought a profound transformation to European culture. This highly illustrated book, available for the first time in paperback, shows that the pagan imagination existed sidebyside often uneasily with the official symbols, doctrines, and art of the Church

I looked and looked. No book. No problem, I’ld order a used copy from the Big River. In due time, it arrived. I opened it and left it on my desk. Shortly after, it disappeared, leaving only the wrappings.

I ordered a third copy, and in a few days it arrived, as seen the photo. Meanwhile, the original book “re-appeared” — I put that in quotes because because it is quite possible that this was nothing paranormal but just me mis-remembering where I had put it. Every little weirdness does not bear the fingerprints of The Other. Sometimes I outsmart myself.

But somewhere there is a copy of The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, and I would like to know who is reading it.