{"id":10006,"date":"2018-12-03T21:03:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T04:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10006"},"modified":"2018-12-05T16:47:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T23:47:42","slug":"season-of-the-witchcrap-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10006","title":{"rendered":"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When I look out my window,
\nMany sights to see.
\nAnd when I look in my window,
\nSo many different people to be
\nThat it’s strange, so strange<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Strangeness. Back before there was an Internet, dear readers, I clipped and photocopied newspapers and magazine articles on Wicca, other Paganisms, etc., and sorted them into folders labeled “Witchcrap 1970s,” “Witchcrap 1980s,” and so on. Eventually, printed-out Web pages joined the rest. Why the name? Because so much of it was crap, but at least it kept the idea out there.<\/p>\n

Dear readers, I have to say that this past “season of the witch” has been extraordinary! I have so many bookmarked links that this will be a two-part blog post (or three-part). So . . . in no particular order, it’s “Best of Witchcrap 2018”!<\/p>\n

\u2022 Those of us in the know know that the heartland of America is the heartland of Paganism, so a title like “Occult Rituals in the Backwoods of Wisconsin<\/a>” should not raise any eyebrows. After all, who else is in the backwoods of Wisconsin? Circle Sanctuary<\/a>, that’s who. This one is not really about Paganism, however, so much as it is about murder and “Goatman.” You know, teenagers summoning Satan and all that. Not Selena Fox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In Britain, the ever-so-earnest Guardian <\/em>newspaper asks, “Why Are Witches So Popular?<\/a>” Since it’s the Guardian,<\/em> the answer must be that “this new wave is linked to the bubbling cauldron of contemporary politics.” Move along, nothing religious to see hear. No invisible friends \u2014 Karl Marx said they don’t exist.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Elsewhere on the political spectrum, inviting witches into politics is seen as a bad thing \u2014 and to be honest, it does not produce predictable results<\/a>. In the Washington Examiner<\/em>, “Emails: Kyrsten Sinema summoned witches to her anti-war rally<\/a>.” She won a close election though, “hocus-pocus” or not.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Meanwhile, in Pagan-friendly but officially Lutheran Iceland, “Icelanders abandon National State Church, as old pagan \u00c1satr\u00fa continues to grow<\/a>.” The Pagan Association of Iceland claims 1.2 percent of the population, all of whom could fit into Colorado Springs with room left over. But still, I do feel that 1 percent is a kind of tipping point, the point where “they” have to take you seriously. Also, 6.9 percent of Icelanders are registered as “nones.”<\/p>\n

Continue to Part 2!<\/a><\/p>\n

Continue to Part 3<\/a>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I look out my window, Many sights to see. And when I look in my window, So many different people to be That it’s strange, so strange Strangeness. Back before there was an Internet, dear readers, I clipped and photocopied newspapers and magazine articles on Wicca, other Paganisms, etc., and sorted them into folders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,88,106,95,5,79,29],"class_list":["post-10006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-britain","tag-iceland","tag-journalism","tag-paganism","tag-politics","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2Bo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10035,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10035","url_meta":{"origin":10006,"position":0},"title":"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 3","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 1\" \"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 2\" \"Witchcrap\": superficial journalistic treatments of Wicca, Witchcraft, and related Pagan paths. \u2022 In The Atlantic,\"Young black women are leaving Christianity and embracing African witchcraft in digital covens.\" Except the article discusses a convention and gets to the digital\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/mercator.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/mercator.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/mercator.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5257,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5257","url_meta":{"origin":10006,"position":1},"title":"Ghost Girls: Witchcrap or Pop Occulture Fun?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"My old friend Oberon Zell of the Church of All Worlds is backing this show because he designed some jewelry for the characters. A Facebook commenter calls the show \"the kind of CRAP our spiritual community has had to put up with for decades!\" According to the projected TV series'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8711","url_meta":{"origin":10006,"position":2},"title":"Pentagram Pizza Cut into 12 Slices","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Everything old is new again \u2014 young Chinese discover the Western zodiac and think that it is cooler than \"Year of the Monkey,\" etc. \u2022 \"Witchcrap\" from The Daily Beast website \u2014 \"These Modern Witches Want to Cast a Spell on You.\" Modern witchcraft combines feminism, self-help, and wellness.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Albania\"","block_context":{"text":"Albania","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=albania"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/pentagrampizza1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14","url_meta":{"origin":10006,"position":3},"title":"Pagan World Report","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 20, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a site collecting Pagans-in-the-news articles from all over the place. I started doing the same thing with scissors and photocopier in the pre-Internet 1970s, but it was impossible back then to have this kind of scope. My stuff went into a series of file folders labeled \"Witchcrap,\" since that's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8856,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8856","url_meta":{"origin":10006,"position":4},"title":"Pentagram Peach and Other Good Reads","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"1. From a regular reader in Kyoto comes the link to this giant bronze peach marked with a pentagram. It is part of the Seimei Jinja Shrine, dedicated to a tenth-century wizard and astrologer. Pentagrams everywhere! 2. John Beckett writes on the \"aesthetic of witchcraft,\" which has cycled around again\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"aesthetics\"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=aesthetics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/pentagram-peach-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10019,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10019","url_meta":{"origin":10006,"position":5},"title":"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 1\" here. Continuing . . . \u2022 One more \"high\" priestess joke, and you're out of here. From the Colorado Springs Independent, the weekly that gets all the cannabis advertising because the chain-owned daily paper won't touch it: \"Meet Colorado's High Priestess of Cannabis.\" Yes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10006"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10042,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006\/revisions\/10042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}