9th Claremont Pagan Studies Conference

Conference on Current Pagan Studies: Pagan Sensibilities in Action

January 26 & 27, 2013, Claremont, California

Call for Papers

 This year we will focus on Pagan Sensibilities in Action. We welcome papers that discuss how our pagan perspectives manifest as our lived experiences in artistic expression, personal and collective practice, the manner in which we hold power, and other engagements, including involvement in politics, social justice, ecological concerns and economics. How do Pagan theo(a)logies inform our being in the world?

This year we are encouraging proposals for academic panels. Please contact us early if you would like to organize a panel.

We are looking for papers from all disciplines.  A community needs artists, teachers, scientists, healers, historians, philosophers, educators, thinkers, activists, etc.

As usual, we are using Pagan in its most inclusive form, covering pagans, wiccans, witches and the numerous hybrids that have sprung up as well as any indigenous groups that feel akin to or want to be in conversation with Pagans.

Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words and are due by September 30, 2012. Go to our website for advice on presenting papers. Please email abstracts to pagan_conference@yahoo.com

Acoustic Stonehenge

People keep attempting to tease out the secret of Stonehenge. The astronomical-calculator explanation bulked large at one time and remains in popular consciousness, but do you really need to haul large stones for many miles in order to predict the solstice?

If any thing, I suspect that it was more a question of using the solstices, etc., as demonstrations of how the “power of Heaven” reinforced the rule on earth of King Somebody and his descendents, the one who ordered the building of the monument. (Given its age and the stages of construction, there were no doubt multiple King Somebodies.)

But the search goes on. Here is research on the monument’s acoustic properties, using the replica Stonehenge in Washington state, which has all its pieces and is the same size as the original. Video and more links about studying sound in archaeological sites at the link.

(Via The Daily Grail)

Necrophilia: An Ancient Egyptian Tradition?

This may be the worst sort of environmental determinism, but what is it with Egypt? Is there something in the Nile water?

For centuries Egyptian Paganism seemed to function—on one level—as as sort of post office of the dead. All those mummified cats, ibises, crocodiles, etc. neatly stacked in little p.o. boxes. What’s with that?

And of course there was the elaborate bureaucratic ritual that accompanied the mummification. The Greek historian Herodotus (a bit of a gossip) commented,

The wives of men of rank are not give to be embalmed immediately after death, nor indeed are any of the more beautiful and valued women. It is not until they have been dead three or four days that they are carried to the embalmers. This is done to prevent indignities from being offered them. (Link is to a different translation, but quite similar.)

Then, for several centuries, Egypt was mostly Christian. Christians liked to store the body parts of saints in their churches, which is why the Emperor Julian (PBUH) referred to them as “charnel houses.” What went on in the funeral business I do not know.

Today, in majority-Muslim Egypt, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television network reports that Egyptian women’s rights campaigners (there are some) are protesting two laws proposed in the “Islamist-dominated parliament”:

She was referring to two laws: one that would legalize the marriage of girls starting from the age of 14 and the other that permits a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death. . . . . Egyptian prominent journalist and TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty on Tuesday referred to [cleric] Abdul Samea’s article in his daily show on Egyptian ON TV and criticized the whole notion of “permitting a husband to have sex with his wife after her death under a so-called ‘Farewell Intercourse’ draft law.”

Because nothing expresses grief over losing one’s spouse quite like that.

UPDATE: Another source says that no such law was proposed. Was Al-Arabiya fooled?

Errors in English Usage

The Common Errors in English Usage website clarifies a lot of things.

I still hesitate over “precede/proceed,” but the explanation for which to use when is easy to remember.

Returning the (Overdue) “Book of Power”

One of the jobs that usually falls on the writing program is teaching undergraduates not to be afraid of the university library. By contrast, in 2004, the University of Kansas, with gentle librarian humor, went the Lord of the Rings parody route, with this short video directed by then-film student Christopher D. Martin.

Pentagram Pizza for April 21st

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.

• Circus Breivik. Norwegian scholar of esotericism Egil Asprem analyzes the trial of Anders Behring Breivik. (He wrote about the shootings for the current Pomegranate.)

This trial will be about two things: psychiatry and ideology. Two drastically conflicting reports on Breivik’s mental health have already ensured this. Added to this, of course, is Breivik’s own clearly stated wish to be judged as sane, and have his actions confirmed as ideologically motivated.

• Teaching classical philosophy to Brazilian schoolchildren:

I assured the students that until the nineteenth century hardly any philosopher was an atheist. Plato’s Euthyphro—with its argument about the relationship between ethics and the will of the gods—gets us into a lively discussion.

* This is called “edgy, irreverent outreach” by some of today’s Christians Jesus Followers. I think the pastor needs to look up “pathos” in the rhetorical dictionary, because he is doing it wrong. But to be fair, some long-ago saints would have agreed with him.

• Alcohol  “sharpens the mind.”  But “beer goggles” are real too.

• Canada braces for more Danish aggression.

Hanging the Salem Witches was a Good Idea, said the Zuñis.

From Philip Jenkins’ Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality, which I am reading as part of some research on changing attitudes towards shamanism:

In 1882 when a group of Zuñi emissaries visited Salem [Mass.] . . . they congratulated the citizens for their ancestors’ determined response to the witchcraft problem. Through the 1890s, U.S. authorities were struggling to suppress Zuñi persecution of witches in conflicts that nearly led to war. (31)

Which reminded me of one of my all-time favorite articles, Malcolm Brenner’s “A Witch among the Navajo,” or what happens when Pagan Witchcraft meets witch-as-translation-for-our-word-for-evil-magic-worker.

At the time of writing it, Malcolm was a newspaper reporter in Gallup, New Mexico, and the Zuñi tribal government was part of his beat. Previously he had lived on the Navajo reservation to the north, during which the events he described took place. His website.

 

An Anthology on Priestesses

Announcement

It is with great enthusiasm that we announce a new anthology to be published by Goddess Ink. This anthology comprises works of, about and by priestesses, and will be edited by Dr. Candace Kant and Dr. Anne Key.

As priestesses and scholars, we endeavor to create an anthology that will serve as a resource and a source of inspiration to both those engaged in and those interested in the role of priestesses. The anthology will contain material addressing ancient and modern priestesses including academic pieces, ritual, essay, poetry, meditations and artwork.

We seek submissions that express the experience and knowledge of priestessing, particularly, but not limited to, the priestess’ role in ritual and group leadership.

Submissions may be in any printable form, including scholarly essays, personal essays, poetry, artwork, chants, rituals, meditations, invocations, or other genre.  For prose submissions send a 150 word abstract outlining your approach to the subject.

Submissions other than prose should be sent in finished form. For poetry, up to three poems of no more than 50 lines each.

Previously published work will be considered, but authors must hold all rights and have written proof from previous publisher .

Include author bio of up to 200 words at end of submission Please submit proposals and any inquiries by email to <submissions@goddess-ink.com> .

Deadline for submissions: July 1, 2012

Planned publishing date for the anthology: January 2013.

Contributors will be compensated with one contributor’s copy of the anthology and reduced pricing on additional copies purchased at the first run.

Dr. Candace Kant and Dr. Anne Key Managing Editors, Goddess Ink, Ltd.

Quick Review: Two Books on Mind-Altering Herbs

My house holds several shelves of herb books, thanks to M.’s interest in herbalism, some of which rubs off on me.

Lots of them are not relevant to our ecosystem, but we keep them for one little bit or another.  Of the best, my favorites include Charles Kane’s Herbal Medicine of the American Southwest, although it leans more to the Sonoran desert than the southern Rockies, and the late Michael Moore’s various works of herbalism and ethnobotany.  (Others by Kane here.)

One thing this reading did for me is make me sensitive to which writers have gotten their hands dirty, so to speak, and which are just recycling.

I would put Kenaz Filan’s The Power of the Poppy: Harnessing Nature’s Most Dangerous Plant Ally in the first category and Steve Andrews’ Herbs of the Northern Shaman: A Guide to Mind-Altering Plants from the Northern Hemisphere, sadly, in the second.

I have a real negative reaction to phrases such as “is thought to contain tryptamine”  or “has been reported to have been used in the berserker frenzies of the Viking tribes” or to borrowing from dear old Maud Grieve, who was indeed a leading herbalist of the early twentieth century, but has no one learned anything since?

Unfortunately, Herbs of the Northern Shaman is full of that kind of bluster that promises more than it delivers.

Some sentences are completely confused: “Further to all these uses the Thorn Apple was a hallucinogen that ancient Greek priests employed as an oracle” (118). Presumably, the priest, not the plant, was the oracle, but if he employed Datura (thorn apple) as an entheogen, how was it done? And where and when and in what god’s service were these priests?

You won’t learn that here. Herbs of the Northern Shamanism is too elementary to be a solid  historical work and too vague to be useful to the hands-on herbalist. It offers precious little about cultivation, preparation, or dosage. And for a book with “Shaman” in the title, it has little solid to say about the entheogenic uses of plants except for bland references to other peoples in other places. You would get much more at Erowid.org.

Open The Power of the Poppy, by contrast, and you will find a solid, documented history of humankind’s various interactions with Papaver somniferum, both the plant itself, its chemical constituents (heroin, morphine, etc.), and its synthetic imitations. Filan can write several interesting pages just on the history and development of the hypodermic syringe:

The hypodermic quickly became a status symbol among physicians, a sign that they had the finest and most modern medical equipment at their disposal [in the late 19th century]. Wealthy clients learned how to inject themselves or trained their servants in the technique . . . .  The 1897 Sears Roebuck catalog feature hypodermic kits (a syringe, two vials of cocaine or morphine, two needles, and a carrying vase) for$1.50. (255)

The chapter on cultivation is basic but accurate enough, but the payoff is the chapters on dependence, tolerance, and getting clean.

Finally, if shamanism is partly about relationships with the other-than-human world, you will find that here too. It is not merely a literary device to write, “Poppy wants to alter your consciousness; that is one of the major means by which she encourages human cultivation  . . . . But be advised that Poppy has her own best interests at heart, not yours. We may believe that Poppy is a tool that suits our purposes. Be advised that Poppy feels the same way about us” (276).

The Puzzle Path to Witchcraft

Clues to Witchcraft's Riddles?

Looking at the box, M. said, “It reminds me of the Christina Collection.” That took me back to the year we first lived together, when we rented a somewhat-winterized 1920s summer cabin in the faded resort town of Manitou Springs, Colorado, on the western edge of Colorado Springs.

Exploring the attics (there were two), we found a suitcase. Evidently it had been up there for several years. Inside were some clothes, a diary, and other items. From them we pieced together a partial picture of a twenty-something woman named Christina, her misadventures in Colorado Springs’ tiny lesbian bar scene, and other facts about her.

We never figured out her last name or any contact details, though, or why she stored her suitcase there—and she never came back for it in the six years we lived at that address.

All of this is a long introduction to “In the Drip of an Eave,” which is described by its maker as “a unique new way to learn witchcraft, this kit contains three books and handmade items, puzzles, and riddles. Carefully designed to evoke a true witchcraft experience.”

It’s the same principle as the Christina Collection, but with a smaller cardboard box instead of a suitcase.

Modred, the creator, is selling the kit. Mine is a review copy, and having sent a major editing project off to the printer, I now want to settle down in front of the wood stove (it’s chilly tonight) and start reading that diary.