Llewellyn George, Patent Medicine, and Pagan Publishing

In 1993, when I was editing the Witchcraft Today series for Llewellyn Publications, I few up to Minnesota to spend a couple of days conferring with Carl and Sandra Weschcke, who own the company.

Driving me around St. Paul in his black Cadillac, Carl told me the story of how he came from a German family heavy with doctors and pharmacists, inheriting a company that made cough lozenges and other over-the-counter medicines. In the 1960s, however, he took a different turn, buying a tiny astrological publishing firm founded by astrologer Llewellyn George (1876-1954). He even legally changed his own middle name to Llewellyn in homage.

Llewellyn Publications is still in St. Paul. It publishes (in short runs) more books on contemporary Paganism, astrology, ceremonial magic, and other such topic than any other firm, although the quality is sometimes uneven.

So much for the astrology connection. But there is also a patent (OTC) medicine connection: Llewellyn George was in that business also, as the journalist and critic H.L. Mencken noted in one of his “Free Lance” columns almost ninety years ago. I have put Mencken’s full text here.

UPDATE: Llewellyn now plans to move to suburban Woodbury, Minn., and the old Coca-Cola bottling plant that has served as office/warehouse will become part of some waterfront re-development.

“Satan in the Groin”

It’s the name of a site devoted to “exhibitionist figures in medieaval churches,” but with excursions to phallic standing stones in Ireland as well.

Communicators struggle with communication

It looks as though the Religion Newswriters Association is re-doing its website, and although it now boasts this page of religion blogs, the links to John Dart’s and Don Lattin’s blogs don’t work anymore. And they are stalwart RNA members. Consequently, their links on my blogroll under “Religion and Journalism” don’t work either.

While we are waiting for RNA to figure this problem out, read Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion instead.

Supremes back UDV

The Uniao do Vegetal, a Brazilian-based church that uses entheogens in a way similar to the Native American Church, has won an important battle in the Supreme Court.

“Those poor pagans”

A meandering Denver Post opinion column has a lot of Colorado Pagans upset, mainly because Paganism is invoked rather pointlessly just to color yet another rant about secular government and religious observances.

Some sample comments from the e-mail lists:

–He responded to me also, just to say, “Please, tell me again HOW you think I offended you and other Wiccans.”

–Frankly, that’s the only way it makes sense. There are such amazing leaps in logic there that Superman would be dizzy.

I think we are seeing one fruit of Wicca and other Pagan religions’ increasing visibility. We have moved from “invisible religion” to “fake and/or ludicrous religion,” which is, I hope, a step on the way to “just another religion.” See my previous post here and Jason Pitzl-Waters’ comments here and elsewhere.

UPDATE: Some letters to the editor about the column.

Secret Thrills of Teaching Rhetoric

I teach a class each semester on advanced composition and rhetoric, using this book as one of the texts. The students are mostly education majors who must take the course as their last exposure to a writing class before they are turned loose on the job market.

This semester’s final exam included a creampuff essay question that brought this response in the first paper that I graded. “Students should know who Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, and Quintilian were.” Quintilian! Take that, constructivists!

Of course, who knows what she will actually do once she has a classroom of her own. I just like the fact that I’m able to pass on a little bit of the Classical Pagan tradition here at a minor state university.

Over the break, I plan to snuggle up with Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric to design some new in-class writing exercises.

UPDATE: In all fairness, I should point out that there is a “Classical” wing in the Christian homeschooling movement. But they run up against opposition from their own co-religionists, as in this excerpt from the “Classical Christian Homeschooling: Frequently Asked Questions” page:

Classical education seems like the best model to produce truly educated children. But as Christians, how can we use the model established by the pagan Greeks and Romans? Does Christian classical education have a Biblical foundation?

Answer coming soon

I’ll be watching for that answer. See also my earlier post about the possible dangers of “addiction to Greek mythology.”

As I try to point out gently to my own students, rhetoric cannot really stretch its wings when there is a Holy Book With All The Answers limiting what can and cannot be discussed or even asked.

Pagan Studies in the Academy (AAR Musings, Part 3)

I mentioned earlier an attempt by scholars of contemporary Paganism to gain program-unit status in the American Academy of Religion.

Good news from Cat McEarchern, who has been doing the heavy lifting on the proposal:

We got it. I heard just a few minutes ago that the AAR Program Committee approved the proposal for the Contemporary Pagan Studies Consultation. There was apparently only a brief discussion and many of the members of the committee seemed to think that approval was a given. So people outside our field have been noticing all the work we’ve been doing and the growth of Paganism as a religion.

It’s time to start thinking of something that I can submit for next year’s session.

I will post a link to the Call for Papers when it is ready.

It’s so nice to be noticed

By Belisarius’ definition here, all religions would be “fake,” insofar as they were given form by human beings. If Belisarius were writing as a militant atheist, he would be more convincing. Unfortunately, Ship of Fools is a Christian Web site, and an entertaining one at that. Check out the “mystery worshipper.”

Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah to you

Barraged by comment over holiday-related squabbles in the state capital, I especially enjoyed this animated greeting. (A fast connection helps.)

In an ecumenical spirit, M. went Chrismahanukwanzakah shopping today at the Holy Cross Abbey winery.

When I was a young Pagan, I never let the “C-word” cross my lips if I could possibly say “Yule” instead. Now I hardly care. When a Salvation Army bellringer wished me “Happy Holidays” last week after I put some money in the kettle, I almost snapped back, “I expect to hear ‘Merry Christmas’ from you! Where’s your pride?” But that response would not have been in the Chrismahanukwanzakah spirit. (Thanks again to GetReligion for the link.)

Fun with Visitor Logs

This blog entry was the first hit when someone typed the search terms “Hellenistic VW bus” into Google. Someone else managed a convoluted scriptural exegesis involving VW buses, hippes, and the apostle Paul on a Segway human transporter.