Daily magic in Russia
Russians continue to use “low” magic, says this news report.
“Ghoulish as Russian traffic police are, perhaps it makes sense to resort to unorthodox measures to ward them off.”
Kinder, gentler polytheism
Charged with reviewing both it and a new book about the emperor Julian, I have finally begun Jonathan Kirsch’s God Against the Gods.
Even as the legacy of the Vietnam War still influences American politics, so the fourth-century C.E. conflict between the ideas of Julian and his uncle Constantine echo down unto our era. Kirsch’s thesis, in brief, is that monotheism produces intolerance and violence, such as flying hijacked airplanes into office buildings. “At the heart of polytheism is an open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice,” he writes by contrast–and I am all for that.
(On the other hand, when dealing with any of the “desert monotheisms”and their commands to “kill the polytheists”, it’s best to keep your eyes open.)
Jason Pitzl-Waters earlier blogged about the same volume, and it furnished the subtitle for The Juggler, the collaborative Pagan blog.
A sidelight: Julian’s story was still so annoying to some medieval Christians that Winchester Cathedral contains a set of paintings depicting an entirely fictional version of his death.
UPDATE: If you like that “open-minded and easygoing” polytheism idea, then surf on over to Godchecker.
Not Satan’s Birthday
Focus on the Family decides that Hallowe’en is all right after all, although “darker” than it used to be. Well, I am so relieved.
Drug war backfires again
The Drug Enforcement Agency’s bureaucratic blunders may unwittingly end up boosting the legal hemp industry, while new research seems to confirm that your body manufactures morphine–a finding with interesting implications for the study of addiction.
If I were (a) younger and (b) more interested in medicine as a career than I ever was, I would concentrate on the study of addiction. What a spiritual-medical-psychological-legal-social puzzle!
Thanks to The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics for the links.
“The fastest-growing religion”
James R. Lewis (University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point) collects data on new religious movements in this article in the online Marburg Journal of Religion.
In New Zealand, at least, “The fastest growing segment is Paganism (‘Nature and Earth Based Religions’)”. The data from other English-speaking countries are suggestive too, but the United States, of course, does not ask questions about religious affiliation in its census.
Peyote progress
The Utah Supreme Court has decided that Native American Church members may use peyote even if they are not on the rolls of a federally recognized tribe.
James Mooney, the NAC leader spectacularly busted a few years ago, is celebrating, but the feds, of course, see peyote as an Evil Drug whose use must be contained and limited to enrolled tribal members (marginal folks, you know) and continue to menace Mooney’s NAC congregation.
“If this concerned the sacrament of any other religion, people would be up in arms.” (Links from Religion New Blog.)
Andrew Chumbley
Andrew Chumbley, who died this month on what would have been his 37th birthday, pursued an individualistic form of Traditional Witchcraft, not to mention other byways of magic. Comparisons between his life and that of Austin Osman Spare are inevitable, especially when you consider Chumbley’s artwork.
Häxan
Continuing our sporadic investigation of cinematic paganism, M. and I watched Häxan (“Witches”), a 1922 silent Swedish film that is available subtitled in English as Witchcraft through the Ages.
Released just before Margaret Murray swayed English-speaking readers with her “survival of the Old Religion despite persecution” theory, this film reflects the “enlightened” outlook of the late 19th century: witchcraft was partly ecclesiastical prejudice and partly undiagnosed “hysteria.”
In its own way, its pseudo-documentary approach commits a different set of blunders than did Murray, blaming the Catholic Church for witch persecutions, when, in fact, Church courts were milder (more likely to acquit, less likely to use torture) than were secular courts–and Protestants killed as many “witches” as did Catholics, maybe more.
Parts are hilarious (the animal-demon costumes at the “sabbat”), while other parts are merely inexplicable (the two men dissecting a corpse–what was that all about?).
One online critic writes, “What makes Häxan memorable is [director/actor Benjamin] Christensen’s remarkable quasi-documentary approach, which must have been awfully sophisticated stuff in 1922.”
Maybe. Now, at best, it’s a Hallowe’en party movie.
DNA vs. the Mormons
Christianity Today, which bears no love for the Latter-day Saints, reviews a new book that undercuts a key Mormon teaching: that American Indian tribes are descended from “Lamanites” and “Nephites,” alleged ancient immigrants from Israel. LDS officials react with predictable smokescreen.
Years ago, I worked at a newspaper in a Colorado town next to a Mormon colleague. The paper was owned by a family named Lehman, so I’d occasionally make a joke based on wordplay of Lehman-ite/Lamanite. She would laugh, but with a look in her eye that said, “How do you know about that?”
Another reason for home-schooling
Pennsylvania man keeps the kids at home to protect them from neighborhood witches. Where is Professor Evans-Pritchard when we need him?