Tag Archives: publishing

The Nigerian (419) Book Scam

In the early 1980s, M. and were dues-paying members of the Fellowship of Isis–sort of a souvenir of our honeymoon in Ireland, when we made a couple of visits to Clonegal Castle, its headquarters.

Our contact details were published in the FOI newsletter, which brought several letters to us from Nigeria.

They always took the same form: “Dear Glorious Wonderful Adepts . . . I so much want to learn blah blah blah . . . Please send me all of the books that you have . . . for free.”

Having received a bunch of these letters, I was pretty well inoculated against the “419 scam.” You get those emails too, I am sure: the widow of the minister of something-or-other who has millions of dollars stashed in a bank account, and only you (or some other sucker) can help her retrieve them, with the help of God, of course.

(Lots of sample letters here, and if you want to have a little fun scamming the scammers, here are some helpful hints.)

So it was a blast from the past when Llewellyn forwarded to me this week a letter from one “Mr. Inemesit Sanctum” (if I read correctly) of Abia State, Nigeria.

It begins “Dear Spiritual Don,” I wonder if he means “Don” in the Spanish/Italian sense, as in “Don Giovanni,” or an Oxbridge academic “don.” Perhaps the latter?

My edited book Living Between Two Worlds “opened his eyes” blah blah blah.

“I never knew that witchcraft could be so exciting and unassociated with the typical diabolism which I used to be told, which caused me a great dread of it.”

Etc. etc. etc. And then the pitch:

“Finally, to cool my thirst, send me such books as [lists four titles from the Llewellyn catalog]. Doing this will give me and my yearning friends hope to climb the strange but exciting spiritual ladder.”

No mention of payment, of course. That’s the Nigerian touch. They never even offer to cover postage.

And the closing: “Yours spiritually.”

Ah, nostalgia. A handwritten begging letter in this day of email 419 scams.

Shaman’s Drum’s new fundraising

Timothy White started Shaman’s Drum: A Journal of Experiential Shamanism & Spiritual Healing in the mid-1980s, at the same time that Jay Kinney started Gnosis: Journal of the Western Inner Traditions.

In fact, I met both publishers on the same evening in San Francisco, at a publishing gathering where they introduced their new journals. As a graduate student in religious studies, I ended up writing frequently for Gnosis, but I always subscribed to Shaman’s Drum as well.

Both suffered a big hit in the late 1990s when a major distributor went under, owing them both significant sums of money. Jay Kinney closed Gnosis in about 2000 and went on to other projects; Timothy White and his wife, Judy, struggle on in Oregon.

Their latest plan is to organize a series of benefit auctions on eBay, offering such items as “traditional shamanistic craft items (drums, medicine bags and other items), original shamanistic paintings, collector’s prints and photos . . . . back issues and/or discount certificatesfor workshops and tours advertised in the magazine.”

They are also soliciting donated items to sell.

News of upcoming auctions is supposed to be posted on the Web site. It’s not there yet, but check back later.

We have a Pagan Studies series!

Introduction to Pagan Studies by Barbara Jane Davy
With Barb Davy’s Introduction to Pagan Studies, we now have three books in Rowman & Littlefield’s Pagan Studies series.

And three of something truly is a “series,” right?

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A fall from a height

I am in Colorado Springs today, where famous evangelical pastor Ted Haggard’s fall dominates the news.

Frankly, to borrow the name of a better-known blog, I just don’t “get” his kind of religion. A 14,000-member megachurch? Why? So you can sit on your butt and be preached at and sung at among a huge crowd of strangers?

My dislike for Haggard’s approach is more than theological. It is partly aesthetic–the whole megamall megachurch entertainment thing. And it’s partly because of the way that New Lifers regarded the most interesting parts of Colorado Springs (such as the Old North End and Tejon Street) as controlled by Satan or something. I wrote elsewhere that they do not understand the gods of the city, only the gods of the suburban shopping mall.

One excerpt: “[Jeff] Sharlet makes a good case for New Lifers as exurban parasites, taking the services that the city provides but being unwilling to pay for them, either financially or psychically.”

Anyway, he is toast now, although there will probably be some sort of public-repentence-as-career move. From a Christian perspective, LaShawn Barber’s coverage is about the best.

And that’s the news from “Fort God.”

Leaving the meat uncovered

Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly, Australia’s senior Islamic cleric, explains rape and how women serve Satan:

“If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the disaster.

I just felt that I needed to share that. Pagan cat-owners, please don’t be offended.

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Some Pagan Publishing Gossip

Sarah Pike’s new book, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, just landed on my desk with instructions to review it for Nova Religio. Given that many contemporary Pagans are ambivalent at best about the “New Age” movement, it will be interesting to see how she sorts out and categorizes attitudes and practices. (Her first was Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves, which concentrates on the festival scene.)

Also anticipated: Nikki Bado-Fralick’s Coming to the Edge of the Circle. (Oxford U. Press’s US web site does not seem to be working today.)

Meanwhile, the AltaMira Press Pagan Studies series has signed Douglas Cowan to write on Pagan material culture, even the spoofy stuff, like “Secret Spells Barbie” (right). Doug was last seen studying ten years’ worth of Llewellyn datebooks.

Speaking of Llewellyn, they are moving into postmodern magical studies. Soon you will be able deconstruct symbol systems, foreground phallocentric magical artifacts, and examine hegemonic discourse in sigils and defixios. Penetrate the panoptic metanarrative of divination and and create a praxis of postcolonial decentered womanist occult networking!

No, the best thing up in Minnesota is company president Carl Weschcke’s new blog. He is writing sporadic entries on such topics as his own family history of occultism–interesting stuff.

Not too many years ago, some in the company despaired that Carl would even take to e-mail. He is, after all, well past 60, and Llewellyn’s work force tends to be youthful, since turnover is high. And now he’s blogging. Keep it up, Carl.

Haifa Wehbe Watch

Ever since my original post about Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe
(or Wahbi), this blog has been receiving sporadic hits from the Middle East: Israel, Syria, Egypt, Dubai . . .

Apparently she and some of her peers have really undermined traditional Arab ideas of beauty.

But I say this to her fans:

“Some would say an army of cavalry, others of infantry, others of ships, is the fairest thing on the dark earth, but I say it’s whatever you’re in love with.”

Those lines are from the ancient Greek poet Sappho. Read Sappho, and understand.

Where the weekend went

To the detriment of my students, I spent most of the past weekend editing the first issue of the “new” Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies. To help the process go faster, I asked the aid of my old friend Michael McNierney, who not only teaches but has written for The Pom in the past, as well as possessing strong editorial skills. Peer-reviewers of academic journals are normally paid in the coin of glory, but I was happy to share food, drink, and some of the old .45 ACP ammunition that I inherited from my late father.

“Cosmic Truths of the Ages, Revealed” (Fated, part 2)

A newspaper article on Fate magazine and its editor, Phyllis Galde.

My “Part 1” here.

It Was Fated

After letting my subscription lapse about three years ago, I have re-subscribed to Fate magazine.

I have to admit I missed it: the UFO sightings, the “True Mystic Experiences” from people who could not possibly be making it all up (this is not the Penthouse Forum, folks).

And the wacky ads: “The most frightening book in print,” the Atlantean crystal headband (only $59.95), the “free” Tarot readings, and all the ads from world-famous psychics and mediums.

In 1994 Llewellyn Publications bought Fate from the small company that had published it since 1948. Knowing better than the earlier publishers, they promptly changed its small, “digest” format to a fullsize 8 x 10-inch magazine. In fact, I had an article published in that first “full-size” issue on the archaeological anomaly of “Colorado ogham” inscriptions.

But it looks now like the conservative readers won: Fate is back in the digest format, only with some process-color pages instead of only black and white photos.

Maybe I should buy the poster of the first issue cover, complete with flying sauces that look remarkably like compact disks with a notch cut out of them. Who knew?

The John William Waterhouse Revival

The Neoclassical (or some would say Pre-Raphaelite) painter John William Waterhouse, 1849-1917, is enjoying a posthumous career illustrating books on Paganism.

His painting “The Sorceress” appears on the cover of Witchcraft Medicine — see entry for October 29 — while “Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses” is on the dust jacket of Ronald Hutton’s latest, Witches, Druids and King Arthur, of which I will have more to say soon.