Around the Pagan Blogosphere

• I too am one who is uncomfortable with the word “faith” in Paganism because of the baggage that it carries. When I worked on a couple of collaborative projects with Evan John Jones, he sometimes spoke of the “Old Faith,” which always jarred me, even though I think that for him it was simply a synonym for “religion.” The Allergic Pagan” starts with the same discomfort and ends up defining four styles of Paganism/nature religion, which might be useful categories.

• Sam Webster starts a new blog with an opening post: “Welcome Thinking Pagans.”

• London blogger Ethan Doyle White has started a series of interviews at his blog Albion Calling.  The first one was with British scholar of esotericism Dave Evans. The newest one is with me.

• And have a look at my blogger sidebar. I try to keep all links up to date — if you encounter a dead link, let me know — and you do not have to give me money to be listed.

A Goddess-Movement Video with Something Extra

One of Fred Adams’ visionary paintings on the DVD case for “Dancing with Gaia.”

First, although this is not directly about “the Goddess movement,” I want to point out the blogging that Aidan Kelly has been doing, particularly about the history of contemporary Paganism in America, at his Patheos blog, Including Paganism.

Another resource is Dancing with Gaia, a video subtitled “Earth Energy, Sacred Sexuality, the Return of the Goddess as Gaia . . . a Continuum,” produced and directed by Jo Carson (82 min.)

A number of the well-known names from the Goddess movement are in, such as the Swedish artist and anarchist Monica Sjöö (1938–2005) to name just one. So it is a valuable work.

What I found particularly interesting, however, was the large amount of 1970s- era footage of the Southern California Pagan group Feraferia, founded by the Goddess- visionary artist Fred Adams and his wife, Svetlana.

Somehow the Adamses are left out of most surveys of Goddess religion. Perhaps they were too visionary, too “cosmic”  . . . and too religious? They just did not fit the narrative—except in Carson’s case.

But what you can see is home-movie footage of Pagan ritual in the California mountains that must be some of the earliest available, as well as other footage of sites in Europe, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere.

Dancing with Gaia is available on DVD for $19.95.

Celebrate Winter

Pomegranate 13.2 in Production

Pomegranate 13.2 is in its final proofreading stages. Online articles may be available this week, and depending on when I get the cover from the graphic designer, it should go to the printers (yes, there are two different printers) within two weeks.

I intend to make Ronald Hutton’s review article on revisionism and counter-revisionism available as a free download.

Contents

“A Response to Amy Hale,” Michael York

“Darna: A Lithuanian Pagan Approach to Life,” Egidija Ramanauskaite and Rimas Vaišnys

“Revisiting the Semnonenhain: A Norse Anthropogonic Myth and the Germania,” Michael D.J. Bintley

“The Heart of Thelema: Morality, Amorality, and Immorality in Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic Cult,” Mogg Morgan

“Entering the Crack Between the Worlds: Symbolism in Western Shamanism,” Susannah Crawford

“Robert Cochrane and the Gardnerian Craft: Feuds, Secrets, and Mysteries in Contemporary British Witchcraft,” Ethan Doyle White

“Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History,” Ronald Hutton

“Contemporary City Shaman Joóska Soós Included in the New Antwerp MAS Museum,” Tamara Ingels

Book Reviews

Michael Howard, Children of Cain: A Study of Modern Traditional Witches

John Breen and Mark Teeuwen, A New History of Shinto

John of Monmouth with Gillian Spraggs and Shani Oates, Genuine Witchcraft is Explained: The Secret History of the Royal Windsor Coven and the Regency

Secret Doings in Glastonbury

Santa showed up with a bottle of Glenlivet and Phil Rickman’s novel The Bones of Avalon.

It’s a sort of typical Rickman-ish set-up — there are places on the land where certain hidden earth-forces are concentrated and influence the inhabitants in not necessarily good ways, especially when they are awakened by those who know not what they do.

Only this time the place is 16th-century Glastonbury, when Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries has killed the pilgrim trade and sent the town into an economic slump.

Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey (Wikipedia).

The protagonist, on a mission for Queen Elizabeth I, is Dr. John Dee, the famous mystic and astrologer and maybe spy as well.

I liked this paragraph, which comes at a point when a former monk has been pointing out to Dee some of the local scryers, fortune-tellers, cunning folk and what not:

I learned that many of these seekers . . . . had journeyed here from the ends of the country, and some from abroad. When the abbey flourished, this had gone, if not unnoticed, at least uncommented on. The town was growing and always full of pilgrims. It was only after the fall of the abbey and the exodus of the wealthy and the pious that people began to notice the nature of the incomers who did not leave . . . who, in fact, began to increase their numbers, some arriving like poor travellers, living in camps and abandoned houses. Attending church only as much as was necessary to avoid prosecution, for their own religious obediences clearly belonged . . . . elsewhere.

Nothing about a music festival, however.

Pentagram Pizza: Eat It Back in the Cave

• You knew this was coming: the zombie Tarot deck.

• On cave paintings, art, and cognition.

• More old stuff: were those ancient figurines of voluptuous women goddesses . . . or toys? Don’t suggest the latter to the idol-makers of today.

• Have beautiful handwriting by Christmas. You have a whole year now to improve!

More on “Europe’s Oldest Paganism”

Following up on last July’s post about Mari Paganism, here via Forging the Sampo is another contemporary journalistic article with links.

Two of the grandmothers are less concerned, lying down in the grass in their shawls as their grandsons collect wood for the fire. “In [Orthodox] Church, you have to stand for hours. I can’t deal with that. The glade is better. Much more comfortable.”

You will find the same article linked as well as other material at the MariUver blog.

A Rant About the Hyphen

Dave Wilton links to a fine rant in The Atlantic about hyphens. (Yes, we care.)  And that link will get you to this one in Mental Floss about the difference between the em-dash and the en-dash.

Now I am careful to use the en-dash when separating ranges of numbers, such as an article being on pages 317–24 of a journal (although you can’t see the difference in this font), but how did I get through various writing and editing jobs without knowing about “the storied ‘compound adjective hyphen,’ an event so rare in the English language that proofreaders shiver with excitement whenever they come across it”?

Me with a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style always within reach. I am but an egg.

Nazi ‘Neo-Pagans’ and Their War on Christmas

A headline from 75 years ago in the International Herald-Tribune:  ” ‘Neo-Pagans’ Target Carols” with further discussion about the relations between National Socialism and Christianity here.

“Don’t Mess with Firefly”

Not just a cult-favorite TV show but an issue of free speech on campus at the University of Wisconsin. With Neil Gaiman  and a thick-headed campus police chief. Don’t underestimate the fans of Firefly.

UPDATE: Sorry, the YouTube link disappeared for a while.