{"id":10594,"date":"2019-06-07T10:24:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T16:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10594"},"modified":"2019-06-11T09:48:42","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T15:48:42","slug":"out-of-the-broom-closet-american-wicca-in-the-late-1980s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10594","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Out of the Broom Closet&#8221; \u2014 American Wicca in the late 1980s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ka3zBQYR4Ho\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">?<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Valdosta State University in Georgia has digitized and posted two videos by Wiccan journalists <a href=\"https:\/\/malcolmbrenner.com\/\">Malcolm Brenner<\/a> and Lezlie Kinyon. (That is Brenner&#8217;s voice-over narration.)<\/p>\n<p>This one,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Ka3zBQYR4Ho\"><em>Out of the Broom Closet<\/em><\/a>, was released in 1991 from video shot in the preceding years.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This documentary begins with a protest of Z. Budapest speaking about witchcraft at the St. Theresa Public Library in San Jose, California on July 12, 1986. What follows are formal and informal interviews of Pagan leaders explaining what Wicca is, how the general public has a misconception of what witchcraft is, and why it is important for practitioners to come \u201cOut of the Broom Closet\u201d to educate the public.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It and much more are cataloged in VSU&#8217;s\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/archives.valdosta.edu\/archon\/?p=collections\/classifications&amp;id=511\">New Age Movements, Occultism and Spiritualism Research Library (NAMOSRL)<\/a>, created by librarian Guy Frost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>? Valdosta State University in Georgia has digitized and posted two videos by Wiccan journalists Malcolm Brenner and Lezlie Kinyon. (That is Brenner&#8217;s voice-over narration.) This one,\u00a0Out of the Broom Closet, was released in 1991 from video shot in the preceding years. This documentary begins with a protest of Z. Budapest speaking about witchcraft at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_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":[10,100,95,5,4,6],"class_list":["post-10594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-history","tag-journalism","tag-paganism","tag-scholarship","tag-wicca"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2KS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12446,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12446","url_meta":{"origin":10594,"position":0},"title":"Z Budapest Is Still Creating","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Z Budapest, one the first public witches of the 1970s in the United States, is \"largely retired from ritual work\" but still creating, according to a profile pubished in the Los Angeles Times. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with all her views, but in the history of the craft, she is an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/z_budapest_-_la_times_2021.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13148,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13148","url_meta":{"origin":10594,"position":1},"title":"Witch Dance is a Phenomenon","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Time was,\" Minnesota witch Steven Posch wrote in 2016, \"here in Paganistan, the Besom Brigade used to show up at the Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, black steeple hats and all, doing our precision broom drills down the middle of Bloomington Avenue.\" A sort of drill team with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dance\"","block_context":{"text":"dance","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dance"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/orDHt1qosDg\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13198","url_meta":{"origin":10594,"position":2},"title":"The First Wiccan Book Published in India","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A little more than twenty years ago, in the preference to his landmark study of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, The Triumph of the Moon, the historian Ronald Hutton wrote that \"the unique significance of pagan [sic] witchcraft to history is that it is the only religion which England has even given\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"India\"","block_context":{"text":"India","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=india"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/ANI-20221216115613-300x205.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":873,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=873","url_meta":{"origin":10594,"position":3},"title":"Wicca and Christianity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not yet seen it, but English scholar Jo Pearson has a new book, Wicca and the Christian Heritage. Amazon-UK link here.From the publisher's catalog:What is Wicca? Is it witchcraft, Paganism, occultism, esotericism, magic, spirituality, mysticism, nature religion, secrecy, gnosis, the exotic or 'other'? Wicca has been defined by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5113,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5113","url_meta":{"origin":10594,"position":4},"title":"Wicca, Recategorized by Librarians, Now by Booksellers as Well","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2007, the\u00a0 news was that books on Wicca were re-categorized by the Library of Congress from BF (psychology, abnormal) to\u00a0 BP 600, a sort of catch-all for \"other beliefs and movements.\" A new Dewey Decimal number was assigned as well, for libraries using that system. Now the change is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"libraries\"","block_context":{"text":"libraries","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=libraries"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6351,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6351","url_meta":{"origin":10594,"position":5},"title":"Judy Harrow","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Judy Harrow, one of the most influential East Coast American Wiccan priestesses and a damn fine writer too, is no longer with us. You can read tributes at The Witching Hour blog, on a Facebook page, and elsewhere, I am sure. From The Witching Hour: As an author she contributed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10594","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=10594"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10620,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10594\/revisions\/10620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}