The call for papers for the next annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion is now available online. You will find the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group’s CFP here.
Quick Review: “Dark of Moon”
If you are a Pagan watching Dark of Moon, you probably will be thinking “I know her! I’ve met them! I’ve been there!” — even if, of course, you have not.
You will probably be so pleased to watch a feature-length film that treats Wicca and Druidry as normal rather than as scary or exotic that you will overlook the technical glitches and occasionally wooden dialog.
To me, skill in lighting separates the pros from the wannabes. The movie’s lighting was occasionally flat and harsh. M. is more conscious of dialog and kept saying that the first half of the movie was “propagandistic.”
And why all the door and window moldings have been removed from the Gardnerian covenstead must be a third-degree secret. It is odd, considering that the protagonists enter expecting something fancier than their own shared house, only to find quite the opposite.
At the center of the movie is an ensemble of Wiccan housemates, friends since college, each one single, members of the Coven of Mystic Light — and all on the threshold of “real life,” or as Beth says, “Woo-hoo, I’m an adult. What do I want from my life?”
The zaftig Sammi (Angelia DeLuca) bubbles her lines, most of which have to do with how much she enjoys various aspects of sex.
Like Samantha in Sex and the City, is she a gay man written as a female character? There is a lot of risqué humor in Dark of Moon, most of it about as subtle as a wet towel to the face.
Drew (Roger Conners), the actual gay housemate, is the only one with a back story—he is a would-be graphic artist waiting tables to pay the bills
The slacker-ish Miller (DJ Remark) seems to have wandered in from Clerks.
Zeke (Brad Arner), the tall, dark, and handsome one, works in — wait for it — an occult-supply shop.
And in contrast to the conventional wisdom that says once a woman says “let’s just be friends,” any chance of romance is dead, Zeke’s long-time friend Beth (Kelly Rogers) genuinely wants him. With mobile features that register every emotional twinge, Rogers may have the most acting talent of the cast.
When Zeke leaves his old covenmates to join a Gardnerian group, the plot is set in motion.
The setting is northern Ohio, and the Gardnerian HPS is named Lady Circe. That may be an inside joke; if so, I did not find it all that funny. But maybe there was more than one Lady Circe in Ohio.
Or maybe we are in Cleveland, in which case The Drew Carey Show-with-pentagrams is still better than Charmed.
And in the end , each covener finds true love, or at least true lust, all in a setting where “Pagan” is the default setting — and that’s refreshing.
Order DVDs, read cast bios, view trailers and all the rest at the official website.
Some Recent Publications Available Online
Some recent publications in or related to Pagan Studies:
• The first issue of Goddess Thealogy: An International Journal for the Study of the Divine Feminine is available for download (PDF, 3.17 MB)
• Videos and PDF files of lectures from the “Demons in the Academy” session at the recent American Academy of Religion meeting are available at the Phoenix Academy website.
• With author Eric Steinhart’s permission, I have uploaded his series of posts on atheism and Wicca as one PDF file.
Cemetery Theory in the Upland South
From a blog about the archaeology of American cemeteries:
There are cemeteries that are formally laid out, for example, most city cemeteries (many of which follow the ideas of the Rural Cemetery movement, but that’s a topic for another day), then there are the folk cemeteries – those that follow a folk, or vernacular, pattern. The distinction is roughly analogous to that between Landmark Architecture (created by professionally trained and schooled architects) and Vernacular Architecture (everything else – often applied to barns, houses, and other structures). Like Folk/Vernacular Architecture, Folk Cemeteries follow a cultural pattern developed through tradition and practical experience. There are many different traditions in cemeteries, one of which is the Upland South Folk Cemetery as defined by D. Gregory Jeane. I’m going to prevent a sort of thumbnail sketch of the Upland South Folk Cemetery (USFC), if you’d like to know more check out suggested reading at the end of this post.
“My Weirdest Summer”
For Erik Davis, it was the summer of 1985, when he took a total-immersion course in Robert Anton Wilson.
It didn’t help that I spent the summer reading Aleister Crowley, Phil Dick, the Principia Discordia, and Robert Anton Wilson, especially the Illuminatus! Trilogy, Prometheus Rising, and Cosmic Trigger. Or maybe this was the only stuff that actually did help — and especially RAW, who taught me, as he taught so many others, to nimbly dodge the gravity wells that threaten to suck us down the various informational reality tunnels that make a Swiss cheese of our consensus trance. A year ago I traded a bunch of books to a Russian teenager who sent me a couple of samizdat copies of my book Techgnosis, translated into Russian. He liked Terence McKenna and wanted me to send him more books that would tug the silly putty of his world with humor and verve. He was about the same age I was when I had my Weirdest Summer Ever. And so RAW — and especially the two indispensable nonfiction books listed above — topped the list. He appreciated them.
For me, it was an earlier summer that I will always remember as my “total immersion course in occult hysteria.” Alas, there are not always hyperlinks to the past.
Survey on Pagan Attitudes toward Elders
If you might be considered a Pagan elder, have opinions on who should be considered an elder — not specific people, but people holding what qualities — or think that there should or should not be councils of elders, help a researcher by taking this survey.
Your Aries Horoscope: Go Directly to Jail
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.”
Wicca without “Woo”
I linked earlier to one of Eric Steinhart’s series of discussions and critiques of Wicca from a non-theistic philosophical perspective. Here is the last, apparently, on Wicca without the “woo”:
Despite Steinhart’s perspective, however, his blogging annoyed some of the heavyweights at Freethoughtblogs.com, of which Camels with Hammers is part.
Having read a few of Eric’s contributions, I am disgusted. Prolix bafflegab, confusion, thinly veiled attempts to rationalize pagan mysticism, and just general longwinded bullshit. Why have you invited him here? He’s awful.
Woo indeed. Apparently Wicca comes under the heading of Things That May Not Be Discussed if you are a committed atheist. (Condemnation from the security of one’s armchair would be all right, I suppose.) If you take it seriously enough to discuss the possibility of an “atheistic nature religion,” you have become ideologically unclean.
Ironic, eh?
Learning about Pagans for the Purpose of Converting Them
Last month, I answered some questions from a reporter for a Christian news site.
He had such response that now he is on the Pagan beat. So I give you “A Peek at Modern Paganism, Part One” and “Part Two.”
Soon — wait for it — you meet that reliable figure, the ex-Pagan who found Jesus.
(Sorry, but there is a long history of fraud about that. One example here: John Todd. I mentioned Todd to the reporter, Mark Hensch, but Christian reporters rarely seem to investigate the claims of ex-Pagans on the lecture trail. Todd was brought down by Christian journalists, it’s true, but he is just one example of the type.)
Understanding such multiplicity, says former Santeria-high-priest-turned-evangelical-Christian-author John Ramirez, is vital to befriending and ministering to pagans. Christians need grace, compassion and mercy, he said, to connect with their pagan peers.
Interestingly, the next expert quoted is James Beverley, a Canadian whom I know slightly from academic study of new religious movements, in which he is active. But here he has his theologian hat on:
“Witchcraft ultimately fails in the mythic and legendary nature of its gods and goddesses,” Beverley writes in Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions’ chapter on Wicca. “The Roman, Celtic, Nordic and Greek deities dwell only in the followers’ imaginations. The lack of historical trustworthiness concerning Artemis or Zeus or Diana or Isis is in direct contrast the historical nature of the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ.”
Bottom line: be strong in your faith, learn to appreciate nature, and you can get close to the Pagans.
Polytheistic Predictions are Predictable?
At The Wild Hunt, Jason links to some predictions for 2012 from some Cuban Santería priests, whom he describes as “eerily accurate” in the past.
Yes, if you predict “war and conflict,” it is hard to go wrong.
Let’s see, I predict that my volunteer fire department will be called out on a forest fire threatening our community this summer. We fought three such fires last summer, so I too might well be eerily accurate.
Now here is a man calling himself el brujo mayor of Mexico. He predicts that President Obama will not be reelected, among other things.
At least that is a straight true/false sort of prediction.
But does anyone tally and compare all these predictions, so that you can have something like an NFL quarterback’s pass-completion average?