{"id":13362,"date":"2023-05-05T08:59:55","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T14:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13362"},"modified":"2023-05-05T09:00:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T15:00:27","slug":"and-its-not-october-paganism-in-the-news-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13362","title":{"rendered":"Yet It’s Not October: Paganism in the News (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been seeing a flush of Pagan-related articles in Anglosphere news media lately, so many that it feels like October, which is usually the only time we are noticed.((Possibly with a smaller peak around Yule.))<\/p>\n

One reason may be upcoming coronation of King Charles III.((I might as well say it: when I was young, my older sisters and I independently worked out that I was probably named for him, at least partly, by our anglophile mother. Officially, I was named for a maternal great-grandfather, who was a job printer, newspaper publisher, and postmaster in Baxter Springs, Kansas.)) There was a flutter of exitement over the Green Man on the coronation invitation. Was the king a closet Pagan<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\"\"When the Times <\/em>announced that the Princess of Wales might wear flowers in her hair, historian Francis Young((Also a contributor to\u00a0The Pomegranate<\/em><\/a>)) playfully tweeted, “The folk horror theme of this Coronation intensifies<\/a>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Young, in fact, has written an article on the king’s coronation, “Monarchy re-enchanted: The new Coronation liturgy underlines Charles III\u2019s sacral kingship<\/a>,” which emphasizes both the coronation’s deep Christian roots and an attempt to add an element of mysticism.<\/p>\n

[The King] has consistently demonstrated sensitivity to an expansive awareness of the sacred that exceeds the strictures of a single religious tradition, in spite of his unambiguous commitment to the Church of England. . . .\u00a0 Charles III seems intent on re-enchanting the monarchy through a Coronation service rooted in both the past and the present , but suffused with mysticism. . . .\u00a0 Charles III\u2019s Coronation will be the first in many centuries to take place directly on top of the Cosmati pavement made for Coronations in the reign of Henry III, a talisman designed to draw down celestial influences on the new king. The new \u201cCross of Wales\u201d, the processional cross, contains a relic of the True Cross given to the King by the Pope; the holy oil for the King\u2019s anointing has been consecrated in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the King has insisted that his anointing, the holiest moment of the ceremony, be entirely hidden by a specially designed screen adorned with words of the mediaeval mystic Julian of Norwich, and he has elected to wear the full sacred vestments of his forebears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saturday’s coronation will be a deeply Christian ceremony with ancient roots. They are bringing out a manuscript of the gospels, the St. Augustine Gospels, believed to have been brought to England in 596 by Augustine, a missonary to the Anglo-Saxons, before there ever was a political entity called “England.”((This is Augustine “of Canterbury,” not to be confused with the earlier Augustine “of Hippo,” the weaselly lawyer.)) (The Celtic British were largely already Christian by then, with a connection to Christian Ireland.)<\/p>\n

But the sort of Pagan penumbra persists. Why does the BBC pick this time to discuss the The Wicker Man<\/em>,<\/a> the Pagan-themed horror that became a cult favorite of actual Pagans in the 1980s? (“Just ignore the ending,” they would say, which is of course not posssible.) Is there some sort of Fraserian sacred king\/death\/rebirth smoke in the air, ancient gospel manuscripts or not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been seeing a flush of Pagan-related articles in Anglosphere news media lately, so many that it feels like October, which is usually the only time we are noticed.((Possibly with a smaller peak around Yule.)) One reason may be upcoming coronation of King Charles III.((I might as well say it: when I was young, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":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":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,24,100,36,5],"class_list":["post-13362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-britain","tag-christianity","tag-history","tag-movies","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3tw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11803,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11803","url_meta":{"origin":13362,"position":0},"title":"Book to Explore Paganism in Early Modern Lithuania","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I post a lot about old and new Pagan movements in the Baltic nations, a region that I have never visited, although some of my family members have.((One of my older sisters lived the last couple of years of her life in Kaunas, Lithuania, but that had nothing to do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Latvia\"","block_context":{"text":"Latvia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=latvia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/shrine.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/shrine.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/shrine.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8205,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8205","url_meta":{"origin":13362,"position":1},"title":"Call for Abstracts: Paganism and Food","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Call for abstracts Feasts of the Gods: Food and Drink in Contemporary PaganismTo be published as part of Equinox Publishing\u2019s Contemporary and Historical Paganism Series Dear colleagues, You are invited to submit an abstract for a chapter in a new book on food and drink in Contemporary Paganism.\u00a0\u00a0 In this\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":7539,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7539","url_meta":{"origin":13362,"position":2},"title":"It’s Late October \u2014 Who Can Keep Up with the News?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There is more Pagan-related stuff popping up in the news and publishing world than usual right now. I wonder why. So here are some highlights: \u2022 Gwendolyn Reece is a university librarian, blogger (Diary of an Occult Librarian), and scholar \u2014 one recent publication, \"Impediments to Practice in Contemporary Paganism,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Europe\"","block_context":{"text":"Europe","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=europe"},"img":{"alt_text":"psst it's halloween","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/psst-its-halloween-205x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5217,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5217","url_meta":{"origin":13362,"position":3},"title":"Parsing Paganism, Rejecting the F-Word","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This whole issue of \"Pagan fundamentalism,\" Pagan identity politics, and related disputes have been giving me a lot of agita. In fact, I do wish that \"the f-word\" had never been introduced, because rather than helping the conversation, it shuts it down. As soon as you refer to someone as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6549,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6549","url_meta":{"origin":13362,"position":4},"title":"Literary British Paganism and an Unusual Thor’s Hammer","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 Ethan Doyle White reviews Ronald Hutton's Pagan Britain and Marion Gibson's Imagining the Pagan Past (free PDF download). The first I have, but the second might actually be more valuable to anyone studying contemporary Paganism, for it looks not at \"not at paganism [sic] itself, but instead explores how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pasthorizonspr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/hammertop.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12836","url_meta":{"origin":13362,"position":5},"title":"CFP: Pagan Studies Conference at Masaryk University","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism and its Others 13-14 June 2022 Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Brno, Czechia The Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University invites your participation in a conference on the overall theme of \u201cPaganism and its Others\u201d to be held in Brno, Czechia, 13-14 June, 2022, with in-person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13362","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=13362"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13370,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13362\/revisions\/13370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}