{"id":2190,"date":"2010-12-23T11:49:36","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T18:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2010-12-23T11:49:36","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T18:49:36","slug":"can-you-prove-that-witches-exist-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2190","title":{"rendered":"Can You Prove that Witches Exist in Canada?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow I missed this, but last September an organization of self-proclaimed Canadian skeptics challenged the world to <a href=\"http:\/\/extraordinarybus.wordpress.com\/2010\/09\/21\/witches\/\">prove that witches exist<\/a>\u2014along with Bigfoot, voodoo, and the Easter Bunny.<\/p>\n<p>OK, all this fun hinges on the difference between &#8220;anthropological witchcraft&#8221; and capital-P Pagan religious capital-W Witchcraft.<\/p>\n<p>But still.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if anyone shows up and says, &#8220;I&#8217;m a witch,&#8221; the professional skeptics will set the bar so high: &#8220;Can you fly? Can you turn me into a frog?&#8221; You know the drill. And no, metaphor will not be good enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow I missed this, but last September an organization of self-proclaimed Canadian skeptics challenged the world to prove that witches exist\u2014along with Bigfoot, voodoo, and the Easter Bunny. OK, all this fun hinges on the difference between &#8220;anthropological witchcraft&#8221; and capital-P Pagan religious capital-W Witchcraft. But still. Of course, if anyone shows up and says, [&hellip;]<\/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":[94,22,29],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada","tag-weirdness","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-zk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13560","url_meta":{"origin":2190,"position":0},"title":"Helen Cornish on Witchcraft Drumming and Chanting","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The article \"Musicking and Soundscapes amongst Magical-Religious Witches Community and Ritual Practices\" by Helen Cornish is available as a free download from Religions journal. Abstract Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12617,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12617","url_meta":{"origin":2190,"position":1},"title":"&#8220;W\u00e6lcyrge or Witchcraft: Identifying Heathendom in late Anglo-Danish England&#8221;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"? Just one of many presentations from the just-finished online conference\u00a0 Performing Magic in the pre-Modern North. Here, Ross Downing deals with such issues as whether witchcraft and Heathenry were defined differently in the time of King Alfred the Great in the late 9th century, including details as the execution\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Anglo-Saxon England\"","block_context":{"text":"Anglo-Saxon England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anglo-saxon-england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11058,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11058","url_meta":{"origin":2190,"position":2},"title":"Witchcraft Cycles and the Official Witch of LA","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Jason Mankey's Raise the Horns blog (in the sidebar) carries his look back over the previous decade, \"Paganism & Witchcraft in the 2010's.\" I urge you to read it. I would like to add just a little bit of nuance to one passage: Until recently Modern Witchcraft was generally tied\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Mayor-Sam-Yorty-Louise-Huebner-the-Official-Witch-of-Los-Angeles-Portrait.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1041,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1041","url_meta":{"origin":2190,"position":3},"title":"Fooling the Cyber-Censors","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I wrote a review of The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture, a collection of papers edited by Hannah Johnston and Peg Aloi, for the upcoming issue of The Pomegranate.Teen Witches, a fluid and constantly changing group, have been heavily dependent on the Internet, because they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":558,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=558","url_meta":{"origin":2190,"position":4},"title":"Under Southern Skies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Doug Ezzy, sociologist and co-editor of Researching Paganisms also edited an anthology by \"Down Under\" Witches called Practising the Witch's Craft: Real Magic Under a Southern Sky. He writes to say that it is now available from Amazon for the rest of the world. It ranges from Gardnerians to Goddess\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8868,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8868","url_meta":{"origin":2190,"position":5},"title":"They Were Not Witches \u2014\u00a0They Are Our Martyrs","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the memorial created in 1992 for the victims of the Salem trials in Salem, Mass. Each \"bench\" contains the name of an accused person: \"Margaret Scott. Hanged. September 22, 1692.\" Walk there, and you know that it has become a shrine. Then you realize that you are walking\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\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190","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=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}