Why are you reading this?

The revolution will not be blogged, says Mother Jones writer Geoge Packer.

“The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive ? that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They’re so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. ”

Well, that’s it. I’ll stop. I’m off to the low-rent coffeehouse in the Masonic temple building, a small town coffeehouse with no wireless Internet access and hence no one generating “little spasms of assertion.” And I will stop at the hardware store, the realm of the tangible.

Why are you reading this?

The revolution will not be blogged, says Mother Jones writer Geoge Packer.

“The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive ? that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They’re so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. ”

Well, that’s it. I’ll stop. I’m off to the low-rent coffeehouse in the Masonic temple building, a small town coffeehouse with no wireless Internet access and hence no one generating “little spasms of assertion.” And I will stop at the hardware store, the realm of the tangible.

Why are you reading this?

The revolution will not be blogged, says Mother Jones writer Geoge Packer.

“The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive ? that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They’re so easy to consume, and so endlessly available. Their second-by-second proliferation means that far more is written than needs to be said about any one thing. ”

Well, that’s it. I’ll stop. I’m off to the low-rent coffeehouse in the Masonic temple building, a small town coffeehouse with no wireless Internet access and hence no one generating “little spasms of assertion.” And I will stop at the hardware store, the realm of the tangible.

Counter-attack on The Da Vinci Code

Cronaca and Bookslut (27 April entry) both have entries on the flood of new books out to counter the spurious history, not to mention the “feminism, anticlericalism and pagan forms of worship” of The Da Vinci Code.

From the New York Times: “The Rev. James L. Garlow, co-author with Prof. Peter Jones of Cracking Da Vinci’s Code and pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, said: ‘I don’t think it’s just an innocent novel with a fascinating plot. I think it’s out there to win people over to an incorrect and historically inaccurate view, and it’s succeeding. People are buying into the notion that Jesus is not divine, he is not the son of God.'”

Author Dan Brown welcomes the controversy.

50th Anniversary of Witchcraft Today

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Gerald Gardner’s Witchcraft Today, a fascinating book, although flawed by the author’s pretense that he is a sort of anthropologist reporting on “them,” the witches, rather than in fact what he was–co-founder of the modern magical religion of Wicca.

An American edition was published later by Citadel, now part of Kensington Books. My old copy (4th paperback printing) is dated 1973.

Now Citadel has re-issued Witchcraft Today with the original text and illustrations plus additional annotation and four additional essays. Those new contributors are Judy Harrow, the project’s editor, plus historian Ronald Hutton, Wren Walker of The Witches’ Voice web site, and Tara Nelsen, a graduate student, bookstore owner, and Pagan activist from southern Illinois.

Harrow, in particular, has produced some fascinating work, tracking down nearly every one of the sources upon which Gardner drew (in his slapdash way), producing what amounts to an annotated bibliography of the original edition. In addition, she indexed the book–it always lacked an index–and wrote a second essay with reading lists, focused on all the themes, such as spellcraft, which Gardner touched upon.

Preparing annotated bibliographies may not seem as sexy as writing about spells or shamanism, but they provide a true service to future researchers. Like the centennial edition of Charles Leland’s Aradia: or The Gospel of the Witches, which I was privileged to write an essay for in 1999, the appearance of this edition marks one more step in the maturation of contemporary Paganism.

Absintheurs of the Web

When the snow melts, I know the wormwood will be flourishing. Perhaps it is time to think about absinthe — like this guy (See 31 March 2004 entry). Or there are the commercial versions.

. . . summer afternoons ahead . . .

April in the snow

Blogging is a bit difficult right now. Thanks to a major spring blizzard, my home has had no electricity since Thursday night, the 22nd, and telephone service was restored only yesterday. I might also credit the local rural electric cooperative, which has not had anyone trimming trees out our way for at least ten years. Now their guys have to be out in the knee-deep snow and rain, clearing the power lines. (In fairness, it looks like some utility poles snapped off out on the praire west of Pueblo as well.)

So just link dumps today, as I work at my office on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The War of the Sweatshirts

Things are getting a little tense out there in Abrahamic Religions Land.

New papers posted on my home page

I will be putting some older essays and conference papers on my home page. For now, here are two:

“Fort Hood’s Pagans and the Problem of Pacificism” –Why Starhawk’s writings are not the best source for Wiccan attitudes towards war.

“If Witches No Longer Fly,” (104 kb PDF file) — An essay on contemporary Pagans and Solanaceous plants, originally published in The Pomegranate.

Watch out for Denver Nick

This Tarot-reading is serious stuff, says the Pueblo Chieftain, the local daily paper, in this article.

But I tell youse, standards are slippin’. When I was younger, Gypsies always drove Cadillacs.

Canaanite festival update

Based on photographic evidence, the former spring festival of Ashtoreth and Adonis (one possible origin of the Christian Easter) has been moved to August, as least in Tel Aviv, where planning is underway for the seventh annual Love Parade.

“For the seventh year in a row, the palpable tension that exists on the streets of Tel Aviv is about to be washed away by an onslaught of good vibes, techno beats and body paint, as the annual Love Parade comes to town” (Travel Channel).

Two Israeli photogs with long lenses have posted web albums of last year’s celebration: Tommy’s photos give you more of the parade floats and the crowds, while Verti goes more for female flesh close-up.

The fastest-growing religion?

The notion that Wicca is America’s fastest-growing religion has achieved meme status. Everyone says it, but who started it?

Thanks to Jim Lewis, I have been looking at some of the data collected by the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted at CUNY, and comparing sociological changes in American religious populations between 1991 and 2001.

Just a few observations from the “key findings” section:

Religious identification is down: “In 1990, 90 percent of the adult population identified with one or another religion group. In 2001, such identification has dropped to 81 percent.”

“The proportion of the population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86 in 1990 to 77 percent in 2001”

“Although the number of adults who classify themselves in non-Christian religious groups has increased from about 5.8 million to about 7.7 million, the proportion of non-Christians has increased only by a very small amount.”

“The top three ‘gainers’ in America’s vast religious market place appear to be Evangelical Christians, those describing themselves as Non-Denominational Christians and those who profess no religion.”

Data on Wiccans and other Pagans seems a little shakey, because comparative numbers from the 1991 survey are mostly missing. Also, although the summary does not address this issue, I suspect that many contemporary Pagans are still shy about naming their affiliation to some stranger doing a survey.

Wicca: 1991–84,000

Wicca: 2001–134,000

Druids: 1991–not reported

Druids: 2001–33,000

Santeristas: 1991–not reported

Santeristas: 2001–22,000

Non-specific Pagans: 1991–not reported

Non-specific Pagans: 2001- 140,000

That is a 160-percent increased in the self-reported number of Wiccans. By comparison, the self-reported number of Muslims rose 208 percent, from 53,000 in 1991 to 1,104,000 in 2001. Things don’t look so good for the meme, do they?

Another factoid: “As in 1990 so too in the current study, the Buddhist and Muslim population appears to have the highest proportion of young adults under age thirty, and the lowest percentage of females.”

There is much more — have a look.