A British newspaper posts a slideshow of tryouts to be the “Wookey Hole Witch,” an event that came to the attention of the American Pagan blogosphere earlier this month. Watch it if you dare.
Gallimaufry with Ancestors
• From Svartesól, five ways of communicating with the gods.
• Paula Jean West has a round-up of posts on Pagan festival etiquette. But needing a wi-fi hotspot? I thought some people went to festivals to get away from all that. Write some columns in advance–that’s the traditional way of dealing with that issue.
• Caroline Kenner’s guest post at the Wild Hunt on ancestors (i.e., the Mighty Dead) is worth reading. It’s a bit long for a blog post–but as a guest, she did not have the luxury of breaking it into three parts.
• Graduating from college, Annyikha offers her long hair to Artemis and Athene.
• A personal protection spell for handguns. The “witch who lives in the woods alone” probably would approve.
• This week’s best search words that brought a visitor to this blog: “you tube videos secret witchcraft threats.” If they were truly secret, would they be on YouTube? Some people have such trust in the InterWebz. It’s sort of touching.
• Actually, maybe this post is too long. I would look more productive if I made a separate post out of each bullet point, wouldn’t I.
Hutton Named English Heritage Commissioner
Ronald Hutton, the history professor at Bristol University who is best known among Pagans for writing The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
From the news release:
English Heritage was established by the National Heritage Act 1983 as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. It is the Government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment. English Heritage (EH) receives around three quarters of its income from the Exchequer in the form of Grant in Aid (£129.4 million in 2007/2008). The remainder (£49.2 million) is self generated from commercial activities and fund raising. English Heritage’s role is to champion and care for the historic environment.
EH Commissioners receive an allowance which directly reflects the level of responsibilities undertaken, such as chairing an Advisory Committee and/or duties as a regional Commissioner. The remuneration range is currently £4,030 to £9,200 per annum.
Given all the controversies over ancient megalithic monuments in particular (although Hutton is equally an expert on the 17th century, the English Civil War, etc.), I am waiting to hear if he will be concerning himself primarily with the management of Avebury, Stonehenge, etc.
Druidry and Made-up History
Here is the YouTube trailer for a new documentary on British Druidry. Yes, that is Ronald Hutton at the beginning (long hair, glasses). (If the YouTube link does not work, try this one.)
And here is the video clip dissected with a sharp knife by a different British Pagan academic.
It’s true: there is nothing in the historical record on ancient Druids (which would fill about two typed pages) about land ownership or the rights of women. The one speaker is simply making it up.
It is the “crisis of history” again. Can your religion get respect when it is based on non-existent “history”? It works for the Mormons, true, but not without some pain.
Hutton’s Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain
I’m Not Here, I’m There
What would be today’s blog post is over at The Wild Hunt instead.
Britain’s Pagan Cops Request Religious Holidays
Pagan police officers in the UK are requesting–and sometimes getting–religious holidays that are “set in stone” (unintentional pun there, I think, on the reporter’s part, given the illustration). Here is a confusing/confused comment on an unofficial police web site. “Worship witchcraft”?
My First-Draft Paper on the ‘Crisis of History’
My CESNUR paper, “In the Mists of Avalon: How Contemporary Paganism Dodges the ‘Crisis of History,'” has been published on line at the organization’s web site.
It is sort of quick and lightweight, but I want to work more on those ideas in the future.
In the immediate future, however, I need to come up with something for my guest-blogger spot at The Wild Hunt. Warning, it’s more likely to be snarky than deep.
Photos from the Edges of the Festival
M. and I have returned from the smallest of the three Colorado Pagan camp-out festivals held at Wellington Lake, a large private campground. Wellington Lake is dominated by a large rock formation called (imaginatively) The Castle.
The photo above, however, is the west (back) side, which most festival attendees never see. But if you are a boundary-crossing transgressive Hagazussa, then, perhaps you might find yourself on the Rolling Creek Trail into the Lost Creek Wilderness.
RIGHT: Some Pagans spend so much time at Wellington Lake that they feel a certain sense of ownership.
LEFT: The wet weeks of June meant that more mushrooms were available in the forest than usual for this time of year, including this and other boletes.
Gallimaufry with Stakes
• Buffy versus Edward (of Twilight). Nice creative remix; too bad about the different color palates. (Via Odious and Peculiar.)
• Napoleon was [not] short, and five other “facts” about historical figures that their enemies made up. (That process is still going on.)
Novelist Douglas Coupland mused on the 25th anniversary of Macintosh computers:
PCs can sort of mimic the effortless transmodality of the Mac, but they’re way crashier, and their clunky interfaces make you feel like you’re in East Berlin circa 1974 while everyone in the West has already entered a funner, smarter future, the other side of that pesky wall.
John Keel Has Died
Author and Fortean John Keel died Friday in New York.
Not long after his signature book, The Mothman Prophecies was published, I saw on the Colorado Springs downtown library’s new-books shelf and passed it by–repeatedly–because the title sounded too weird.
was published, I saw on the Colorado Springs downtown library’s new-books shelf and passed it by–repeatedly–because the title sounded too weird.From the Cryptomundo obituary:
After years of writing parts of the story in various articles and other books, in 1975, Keel published The Mothman Prophecies, an account of his 1966-1967 investigation of sightings of the Mothman, a “winged weirdie” reported in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
Keel corresponded with Ivan T. Sanderson quietly for months, trying to determine what kind of bird might be involved with the sightings. It was later, as Keel more fully revealed the tale of the sightings and concurrent phenomena, that other elements came into the mix.
“Other elements” is putting it mildly. When I finally read The Mothman Prophecies, I realized that it offers a vivid depiction of the strangeness that any investigator of the paranormal encounters, the feeling that part of your body or part of your consciousness is sliding into an unfriendly parallel universe. Never mind the Mothman, read it for the psychology.