{"id":13495,"date":"2023-11-04T12:12:57","date_gmt":"2023-11-04T18:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13495"},"modified":"2023-11-04T12:12:57","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T18:12:57","slug":"lifting-up-love-light-in-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13495","title":{"rendered":"Lifting up Love &#038; Light in North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/a><\/p>\n<pre><em>A mug with the Pagan triple goddess symbol is pictured at Quantum Soul in Carrboro on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023.<\/em><\/pre>\n<p>The student newspaper at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailytarheel.com\/article\/2023\/11\/lifestyle-paganism-samhain-triangle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">does the annual Pagans-and-witches story but reaches out a little farther to interview a graduate student working in that area.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThere are lots of different ways that people celebrate this time of year and engage in this time of year and the best thing to do to learn more is actually to just ask people,\u201d Mary Hamner, a Religious Studies graduate student studying paganism and witchcraft at UNC, said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * * *<\/p>\n<p>According to Hamner, it is very difficult to estimate pagan and witch populations in the U.S., but assumptions can be made based on statistics concerning witchcraft-related book sales or the number of posts under certain hashtags on social media.<\/p>\n<p>She cautioned people from making the mistake of thinking pagans and witches are \u201cfringe groups,\u201d or a group with extreme views, especially in the South.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe South has this really entrenched history in Protestant Christianity in particular,\u201d she said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t erase the fact that it is a really diverse region and many other religious groups have been here the whole time just because they are not the ones routinely who get the microphone handed to them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now if we could get the\u00a0<em>Daily Tar Heel\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0to follow\u00a0 <em>Pomegranate <\/em>style and capitalize &#8220;Pagan&#8221; while lowercasing &#8220;religious studies,&#8221; which is not a proper noun unless you are talking about the UNC <a href=\"https:\/\/religion.unc.edu\/\">Department of Religious Studies.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mug with the Pagan triple goddess symbol is pictured at Quantum Soul in Carrboro on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023. The student newspaper at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, does the annual Pagans-and-witches story but reaches out a little farther to interview a graduate student working in that area. \u201cThere are lots of [&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_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,95,449,299],"class_list":["post-13495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-journalism","tag-north-carolina","tag-pagan-studies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3vF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10102,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10102","url_meta":{"origin":13495,"position":0},"title":"Call for Papers: Digital Paganism and Digital Occultism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"For a special issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. My name is Heather Freeman (Professor of Art, UNC Charlotte, USA) and I am seeking research on Digital Paganism \/ Digital Occultism for a future issue of\u00a0The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies.\u00a0 Please see the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Pom-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10799,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10799","url_meta":{"origin":13495,"position":1},"title":"A New Study of Solitary Pagans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Solitary Pagans: Contemporary Witches, Wiccans, and Others Who Practice Alone is a new study from Helen A. Berger, a sociologist of religion who has been studying contemporary Paganism for decades. Her body of work is large enough now that future scholars will be returning to it again and again for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/solitary-pagans.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12603,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12603","url_meta":{"origin":13495,"position":2},"title":"Interview with Helen Berger, Leading Scholar of Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"At his blog, now called On New and Alternative Religions, Ethan Doyle While interviews Helen Berger, one of the leading American scholars of contemporary Paganism. Since completing her PhD research on the early modern witch trials in the 1980s, Berger has devoted her career to the sociological analysis of modern-day\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/helen-berger.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5","url_meta":{"origin":13495,"position":3},"title":"Who and Where are the Pagans?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 8, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Sociologist Helen A. Berger, author of A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States, has a new book coming out in July, written together with Evan Leach and Leigh Shaffer. The title is Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in\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":11233,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11233","url_meta":{"origin":13495,"position":4},"title":"Conference on Current Pagan Studies 3: Harper Hall","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1: The Southwest Chief Part 2: Holing up in Claremont It was a 20-minute walk from the hotel to Claremont Graduate University, where the Conference on Current Pagan Studies rents space during CGU's winter break. CGU is one of the seven \"Claremont Colleges\" \u2014 five undergrad, two graduate schools\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/black-phillip-at-pagan-conference.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=653","url_meta":{"origin":13495,"position":5},"title":"Llewellyn Takes on a School Board","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Llewellyn, the largest New Age\/Pagan\/astrological publisher in the US, has pushed a North Carolina school board into a corner. When the board said that \"religious groups\" could distribute \"scripture\" in the school's, Llewellyn's publicist decided that the works of Silver Ravenwolf would qualify as well. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the details.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495","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=13495"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13499,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions\/13499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}