The right Halloween

It’s the season when people celebrate Halloween for all reasons, even the bloggers of “The Cotillion,” a sort of “Carnival of . . .” for social conservative female bloggers.

They have assembled a tasty selection of vintage artistic and cinematic images and an analysis of the Salem witch trials to serve their causes of trashing the “mainstream media,” the lifestyle left, and even Tom Cruise.

OK, I’m with them on the Tom Cruise part. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker’s critique of Katherine Hepburn at the start of the latter’s career, “He runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”

Hurray for Piglet too.

Tag: Halloween

The day of the dead

We are approaching one festival where the Pagan and Catholic ritual calendars coincide, and the question of who borrowed from whom might even be more complex than we realize.

The Arizona Republic offers a guide to altars for the Day of the Dead / Día de los muertos.

I have my own take on putting up photos of the deceased: I like to wait a few years first. Does someone really need their sleeve tugged in the Otherworld right away?

Marigolds, champagne, whiskey, etc.–all fine.

(Via Relapsed Catholic.)

Tags: Halloween, Day of the Dead

Silly season roundup

Jason Pitz-Waters samples the Halloween-season coverage of Pagan religions. Check the last link in particular.

Halloween

Writing on Paganism helps journalist earn award

Freelance writer and religion journalist Kimberly Winston won this year’s American Academy of Religion journalism award in the category of “news outlets with more than 100,000 circulation or on the Web.”

Her work has included writing on Wicca and Paganism, including a piece that I linked to earlier.

The AAR’s magazine notes, “Winston, from Pinole, California, submitted articles on a number of topics: the mainstreaming of Wicca, whether the the influence of the movie The Passion of the Christ was what was feared or hoped for; the campaigning politicians’ use of Puritan theology; the trend of modern pagans [sic] reviving ancient religions; and how non-Christians are fighting to save Christmas.”

Tags: Kimberly Winston, Wicca, Pagans, Christmas

I still won’t shop there

Canadian journalist finds Wicca books on sale at Wal-Mart and views with alarm. (Link from Wren’s Nest.)

Somehow I connect this story with another of today’s headlines, about the continuing drop in major crime.

Despite variations on this news over the past couple of years, one of my evangelical Christian students wrote in a rough draft what must be a commonplace in her religious community: she wrote that crime is rising. If crime is rising, then it’s due to “taking God out of schools” and so forth.

But if crime is falling, what then? Whom do you blame?

Now it is true that Americans’ economic situation is generally worsening. Big corporations cut pensions that were supposed to be rock-solid (Delta, General Motors, many others). Health care gets more expensive. Inflation is rising (Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, etc.)

Somehow those declines are not easily blamed on “taking God out of the classroom.”

Tags: Wicca, Wal-Mart, Crime

Both product and producer

An interesting post on “creating a scholarly voice” from Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Sometimes something akin to “scholarly voice” is discussed in the context of the need for scholars to “brand” themselves. That is, it is thought that academics must develop and maintain a unique, immediately recognizable identity for themselves and their work. These two things–“themselves” and “their work”–become largely interchangeable in the branding process: Scholars are both product and producer.

All that is missing is the advice that I got from some more experienced writer at some point: “The first million words are just for practice.” Dang, I’ve used that phrase twice now.

Tag: Writing

God hates Sweden plus various other countries

Pastor Fred Phelps, that prophet of the Lord, is branching out with new Web sites devoted to countries that his god hates, e.g., America, Sweden, Canada, Madagascar, Nepal. (OK, some of those links won’t work–yet.)

Here in Colorado we are blessed with occasional apparitions of Pastor Fred, probably because he can drive fast from Topeka to Colorado Springs without stopping to empty his bladder on unconsecrated ground.

By comparison, James Dobson looks like the Prince of Peace, while Ted Haggard is the Suffering Servant. Phelps makes them look good–it’s always handy to have some loony to perform that function for you.

But Phelps would probably be happier as a Wahabi Muslim, where he could get a job that fits his talents.

(Via Harry Hutton.)

Tags: Fred Phelps, James Dobson, Ted Haggard

Up and down in Pagan publishing

Lawyer and Wiccan author Phyllis Curott has stirred up a lot of dust in the past couple of months with dark hints of a conspiracy to suppress Pagan books.

Some see too many “Wicca 101” books or not enough editorial integrity.

Elsewhere, Kensington/Citadel laid off the editor in charge of its Pagan titles, ostensibly because the market had cooled, I am told.

And a literary agent whom I know slightly, who represents several Pagan writers, opined, “The market for pagan books has not only cooled, it’s gone into the deep freeze. There was a glut of these books because the mainstream of society was hearing about Wicca and Paganism (mostly through media like the movie The Craft and tv shows) and wanted to buy books to learn more about what this religion was all about. After 9/11, we saw the vast majority of these people lose interest in new spirituality and return to the safety and security of the traditional religion that they’d grown up with.”

I agree with her that the publishing market is cyclical. And 9/11 changed things. In 2000, I walked around the huge book exhibit at the AAR-SBL annual meeting with Graham Harvey, who commented on the growing number of academic titles on Paganism.

The following November, every publisher had dragged out whatever they had that somehow related to Islam and displayed those books most prominently.

Paganism seemed forgotten. Yet it was at that same meeting that Fritz Muntean, the founding editor of The Pomegranate, and I connected with our new publisher, to name just one development.

As far as Wicca and other forms of Paganism are concerned, it’s good to make haste slowly.

The tide of scholarly books is slowly rising: 2006 and 2007 will see significant publications. And in terms of significant books of the past, Margot Adler is reworking Drawing Down the Moon, her groundbreaking survey of the American Pagan scene that was first published in 1979 and revised in the 1980s. I look forward to seeing it.

Tags: Paganism, Pagan publishing

Where to donate for earthquake relief

“California Yankee” has a list of organizations helping victims of the Kashmir earthquake. Most accept online donations.

Tag: Kashmir Earthquake