Pagan Studies marches on

The book series on Pagan Studies that I co-edit with Wendy Griffin has now grown to four titles. If all goes well–if the publisher accepts my ms.–then two books should be ready in time for the American Academy of Religion–Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in November.

First would be Researching Paganisms: Religious Experiences and Academic Methodologies, an anthology edited by Jenny Blain, Doug Ezzy, and Graham Harvey.

I will have a piece in it called “Drugs, Books, and Witches,” which the editors have put in the section, “Challenging objectivity, theorising subjectivity.”

Second, as I blogged on 12 April, would be my book, Her Hidden Children.

In addition, Wendy is working on a book called Goddessing: Contemporary Women and Ritual Magic, while Barbara Jean Davy is preparing the first undergraduate textbook on Pagan Studies.

I can’t wait to see the book display.

The Man Who Would Be King

The Man Who Would Be King, the 1975 movie (based on Rudyard Kipling’s novel), starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine, is one of my favorites of all time.

Now an English writer, Ben Macintyre, suggests that Kipling’s work was based on the life of an American adventurer in Afghanistan. NPR has the audio report. He also got involved in camel-breeding in the American West.

LEFT: Book cover, The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan.

Book progress & link dump

I am a little drained today, having finished revisions on my book Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Contemporary Paganism in America. On Tuesday I will e-mail files to my editor at AltaMira Press, followed by the printouts. Naturally it is not as long as he hoped, and he was already asking me today if I planned to do the indexing myself–or have the cost charged against my royalties. Indexing, what a thought. Maybe after the semester is over I can think about indexing.

Meanwhile, Tarot artist Joanna Powell Colbert comments on a friend’s Goddess rosaries.

Archaeology magazine’s web site offers a collection of articles on the original Olympic Games and some myths about them.

They also have an interview with art historian Kenneth Lapatin, author of a recent monograph, Mysteries of the Snake Goddess, arguing that the famous Minoan “snake goddess” figurine was a late 19th-century fake.

The Passion of the Bunny

After reading this, I wonder what the good people of Glassport Assembly of God have planned for Christmas.

Religion-beat journalist Terry Mattingly has more.

Tropic of Night

If I had to describe Michael Gruber’s new novel Tropic of Night in Hollywoodese, I would say that it’s “(Miami crime writer) Edna Buchanan meets (ethnobotanist) Wade Davis.”

Detectives, sorcerers, preschoolers, santeros, this world, the otherworld, all handled deadpan:

“I read threat in the way they were standing: two Latina women in tan servant’s uniforms, a dark woman with shopping bags, with a little girl and an older boy in tow; a zombie; two thin Oriental guys in cook’s whites speaking Cuban Spanish, and a very fat copper-skinned woman with a cane and a palm fan, all typically what you would find at any such corner in low-rent Miami, except maybe for the zombie.”

Thanks for the tip to Steve Bodio, whose own latest book is Eagle Dreams.

The Masonic conspiracy

The wacko Islamic jihadis are not obssessed only with the so-called worldwide Jewish conspiracy, says New Statesman writer Nick Cohen, they also are keeping alive the fantasy of the evil worldwide Masonic conspiracy! Read more here.

Why do they always take her picture?

Pagans are not the only ones complaining how certain flamboyant figures (example or example) get media attention whether they are “representative of the community” or not.

Religion-beat journalist John Dart (April 1 entry) shows that that complaint is heard in other religions as well, because, he suggests, religion-beat reporters’ input is not heeded.

Now we will see if the Druids’ curse still works

Magic planned against stone circle vandals.

Pagans and Jedis, O My!

The Sunday Herald reports results of a recount of religious affiliation in Scotland, paid for the the Pagan Federation in the UK.

Thanks to Cat McEarchern, American doctoral student at the University of Stirling, who says that he thinks the Pagan numbers are low.

Church of the Eternal Source co-founder dies

I learned just recently of the passing in January of Don Harrison, one of the founders of the Church of the Eternal Source.

Since he was a teenager in the 1940s, Don had been drawn to ancient Pagan religion. In 1967 he started to publish a modest neo-pagan discussion magazine in Los Angeles, which he called Julian Review after the Emperor Julian.

Later, through the pioneer Southern California Pagan group Feraferia, Harrison met Harold Moss and Sara Cunningham, who joined him in founding the Church of the Eternal Source in August 1970 as an umbrella for groups and individuals wishing to follow reconstructed ancient Egyptian philosophy and religion.

In addition to creating many items of art, furniture, and temple furnishings based on Egyptian prototypes, Harrison wrote three historical novels, The Spartan, The Alexandrian Drachma, and The Lion Warriors.

(My thanks to the Rev. Harold Moss, CES, for the photo and information.)