Gorey Details
For all your Edward Gorey needs–but do they have the sorrowful Lab from The Sopping Thursday, or all Gorey fans all “cat people”?
Watching the news . . .
Not surprisingly, The Drudge Report was first with this story, in tandem with Religion New Blog. It’s right up both their alleys. I found it ironic that the woman herself, obviously not playing with a full deck (“I had cut myself. I do that kind of out of habit now.”), could say in her own defense that she was into Satanism, not Witchcraft. Like that will help her?
The Pagans have been happier with the outcome, so far, of the “prayer” lawsuit story. One issue: most Pagans I know do not speak of prayer. Offering Pagan “prayers” in front of a legislative body is, I suspect, just another step on the road towards meeting in rectangular buildings with pews.
It Was Fated
After letting my subscription lapse about three years ago, I have re-subscribed to Fate magazine.
I have to admit I missed it: the UFO sightings, the “True Mystic Experiences” from people who could not possibly be making it all up (this is not the Penthouse Forum, folks).
And the wacky ads: “The most frightening book in print,” the Atlantean crystal headband (only $59.95), the “free” Tarot readings, and all the ads from world-famous psychics and mediums.
In 1994 Llewellyn Publications bought Fate from the small company that had published it since 1948. Knowing better than the earlier publishers, they promptly changed its small, “digest” format to a fullsize 8 x 10-inch magazine. In fact, I had an article published in that first “full-size” issue on the archaeological anomaly of “Colorado ogham” inscriptions.
But it looks now like the conservative readers won: Fate is back in the digest format, only with some process-color pages instead of only black and white photos.
Maybe I should buy the poster of the first issue cover, complete with flying sauces that look remarkably like compact disks with a notch cut out of them. Who knew?
A Voice in the Forest
Here is something that you won’t read about in The Spiral Dance or most of the other how-to-be-a-witch books. It’s rare, but it happens: covens that claim mediumistic communication with their Craft ancestors. I’ve heard it claimed for followers of Robert Cochrane and small press in Massachusetts and presented as spiritual communication with Alex Sanders (1926?-1988). Sanders was one the leading figures in Britain’s Craft scene in the 1960s and 1970s–a bigger publicity hound than Gerald Gardner, even, but still, according to people who knew him, an effective and daring magician.
As far as publishers were concerned, one of his best assets was his then-wife and high priestess Maxine (b. 1946). The camera loved Maxine. And Maxine, although she broke with Alex in the 1970s, apparently endorses this book: “The contact described within the book was so obviously true it gave me goose bumps.”
This book’s author, Jimahl di Fiosa of Boston, says that the communication began in 1998, ten years after Sanders’ death, and continues to the present day. A new, expanded edition of A Voice in the Forest Is to be published in April 2004.
I never knew Sanders, but I did know several of his students. I can’t say whether the communications are genuine or not, but I’m more interested in the idea of them as yet another example of the constant discourse about Wiccan lineage.
Danish Pagans Gaining Recognition
Articles from Scandinavian papers here and here summarize efforts by Forn Sidr, which means The Old Custom in Norse, to be an officially recognized religion in Denmark, able to perform legal marriages and so on. (Links are via Religion News Blog.)
The Danish Forn Sidr is not to be confused with this one, which is what you will find in a Google search. The English-language version of the Danes’ website is here.
My students always display expressions of amazement when I tell them that a Danish baby is automatically a member of the state Lutheran church unless he or she opts out. This Danish site would enlighten them.
‘Ghosts’ in print
My essay “Ghosts” has been published in the November issue of Colorado Central magazine. Naturally, I’m delighted that the editors, Ed and Martha Quillen, liked it, even though it is probably more “literary” than their usual editorial mixture.
I wrote it last May, composing parts in my head while driving the back roads of Park County, Colorado, on the way home from the trip to Eagle Rock that the essay describes. In some cases, I found myself on the same roads that Dad and I had traveled the previous December on what would turn out to be his last trip into those mountains.
Errata: In the “Florence 2003” section, “windy roads” should be “winding roads.” And I can explain the discrepancy between the number of musicians in the Pearl DeVere funeral-reenactment photos and the text. Really, I can.
Traditional Medicine versus Addiction
As long as I’m blogging the BBC, let me point out this story on the effectiveness of traditional therapy, including the use of entheogenic (“psychedelic”) plants in a shamanic context to overcome drug addiction in Brazil.
I Have Been Waiting for this News Story
Ever since I heard that Saddam Hussein was draining these wetlands, I had enough reason to hate the guy. And ever since the invasion of Iraq last spring, I have been wondering if someone?American troops, British troops, local contractors–I don’t care who–would show up with some earthmoving equipment and start correcting the situation. It looks like that might be happening, according to the BBC’s website. On the other hand, there’s not enough water in the Euphrates any more.
Maybe Iraqis need to take up the infidel custom of holding Ducks Unlimited banquets and auctions to raise money for wetlands restoration.
I Have Been Waiting for this News Story
Ever since I heard that Saddam Hussein was draining these wetlands, I had enough reason to hate the guy. And ever since the invasion of Iraq last spring, I have been wondering if someone?American troops, British troops, local contractors–I don’t care who–would show up with some earthmoving equipment and start correcting the situation. It looks like that might be happening, according to the BBC’s website. On the other hand, there’s not enough water in the Euphrates any more.
Maybe Iraqis need to take up the infidel custom of holding Ducks Unlimited banquets and auctions to raise money for wetlands restoration.
I Have Been Waiting for this News Story
Ever since I heard that Saddam Hussein was draining these wetlands, I had enough reason to hate the guy. And ever since the invasion of Iraq last spring, I have been wondering if someone?American troops, British troops, local contractors–I don’t care who–would show up with some earthmoving equipment and start correcting the situation. It looks like that might be happening, according to the BBC’s website. On the other hand, there’s not enough water in the Euphrates any more.
Maybe Iraqis need to take up the infidel custom of holding Ducks Unlimited banquets and auctions to raise money for wetlands restoration.