{"id":283,"date":"2004-10-12T21:26:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-12T21:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=283"},"modified":"2004-10-12T21:26:00","modified_gmt":"2004-10-12T21:26:00","slug":"283","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=283","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

More than a passing fad?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brooks Alexander of the Spiritual Counterfeits Projec<\/a>t (an “anti-cult” group) has a new book, Witchcraft Goes Mainstream<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

It gets favorable notice from Jeffrey Burton Russell<\/a>, perhaps one of the last of the hardline historians of the medieval and early modern witch trials, who treated at least some of the victims as genuine Satanists.<\/p>\n

The publisher’s language manages to be both conventional and scare-mongering: “What do I say to my teenage daughter who wants to experiment with witchcraft?” Why not “son”? “Experimenting” — sounds so much less committed than “adopting a different world view” or even “changing religions, much to her parents’ horror.”<\/p>\n

Alexander’s assertion that “historical” witchcraft is in the past would be challenged by plenty of journalists and anthropologists, for people are executed (usually by their neighbors) for the crime of so-called witchcraft all the time, particularly in Africa<\/a> but also elsewhere. <\/p>\n

Much of the Craft’s appeal, Alexander asserts, arises because “The contagious excitement of cultural insurrection is modern Witchcraft\u2019s functional substitute for missionary zeal.” And then there is feminism, oh yes. Read the excerpt at the Web site. Much of the history is accurate enough, if polemical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than a passing fad? Brooks Alexander of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (an “anti-cult” group) has a new book, Witchcraft Goes Mainstream It gets favorable notice from Jeffrey Burton Russell, perhaps one of the last of the hardline historians of the medieval and early modern witch trials, who treated at least some of the victims […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-283","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11058,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11058","url_meta":{"origin":283,"position":0},"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":12955,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12955","url_meta":{"origin":283,"position":1},"title":"Witchcraft, Paganism, and Detective Fiction","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Jen Bloofield's Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction\u00a0is avallable as a free PDF download from Cambridge University Press through 7 July 2022, if I understand correctly. Paperback copies are US $20. From the publisher: Witchcraft and paganism exert an insistent pressure from the margins of midcentury British detective\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":13560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13560","url_meta":{"origin":283,"position":2},"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":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":283,"position":3},"title":"Call for Papers: Pagans and Museums","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"NOTE UPDATED DEADLINES AT BOTTOM Museums and contemporary Paganism are inextricably linked. Gerald Gardner, founder of modern pagan witchcraft, first publicized Wicca in 1951 at Cecil Williamson\u2019s Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft at Castletown (later The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft) on the Isle of Man. Some of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"museums\"","block_context":{"text":"museums","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=museums"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":527,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=527","url_meta":{"origin":283,"position":4},"title":"Witchcraft and the welfare stateDutch\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft and the welfare stateDutch society has entered a period of self-examination after the murder of film director Theo Van Gogh. Many said that Dutch ideals of religious tolerance had been exploited by Muslim extremists.On the other hand, the government will fund Witchcraft lessons. Tags: Witchcraft Netherlands","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2491,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2491","url_meta":{"origin":283,"position":5},"title":"TSA Fires Wiccan","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Another strike against the so-called Transportation Safety Administration's general bureaucratic ineptitude. Add religious discrimination to their list of ugly attitudes. Judge: Let's take the witchcraft out of it. If someone complains to you, he's Jewish, and refers to a stereotype about his Judaism, go to mediation and work it out?\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\/283","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=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}