{"id":704,"date":"2006-08-16T21:09:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-16T21:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=704"},"modified":"2006-08-16T21:09:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-16T21:09:00","slug":"morwics-and-mormon-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=704","title":{"rendered":"Morwics and Mormon magic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Morehead (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chasclifton.com\/2006\/08\/christians-reaching-out-to-pagans.html\">of Sacred Tribes, mentioned earlier<\/a>) blogs about his discovery of &#8220;Morwics,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/johnwmorehead.blogspot.com\/2006\/08\/morwics-religious-synthesis-in-utah.html\">Mormons who have adopted Wicca<\/a>. (He lives in Salt Lake City, it should be noted.)<\/p>\n<p><em>It seems that ex-Mormons not only gravitate toward evangelicalism and atheism as their religious choice options, but also toward Paganism. This makes sense in terms of a religious logic in that a rejection of what is considered a strict form of Christianity might lend itself toward identification with a variety of nature-based spiritualities such as Wicca.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As he rightly notes, Mormonism <a href=\"http:\/\/www.signaturebooks.com\/reviews\/magic.htm\">has a strong root in Western magic<\/a>: divination, prophetic dreams, evocation of spirits, the works. This is not something that the LDS church advertises to outsiders. Those 19-year-old &#8220;elders&#8221; who show up at your door probably will not talk about it. But it&#8217;s there.<\/p>\n<p>Back when I was in graduate school, I gave some paper on Gerald Gardner and Wicca at the Rocky Mountains-Great Plains regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion. I looked down at the guys in the front row: shiny black shoes, short hair, clean-shaven, Brigham Young University name tags&#8211;and listening intently.<\/p>\n<p>(Much more ex-Mormon humor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salamandersociety.com\/\">here<\/a>. Not all work-safe.)<\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/wicca\" rel=\"tag\">Wicca<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/latter-day saints\" rel=\"tag\">Latter-day Saints<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/mormons\" rel=\"tag\">Mormons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Morehead (of Sacred Tribes, mentioned earlier) blogs about his discovery of &#8220;Morwics,&#8221; Mormons who have adopted Wicca. (He lives in Salt Lake City, it should be noted.) It seems that ex-Mormons not only gravitate toward evangelicalism and atheism as their religious choice options, but also toward Paganism. This makes sense in terms of a [&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":[],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-bm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8092,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8092","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":0},"title":"Spirits, Photography, and the Burned-Over District","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Why was the Eastman Kodak Company founded in Rochester, New York, not far from the town of Hydesville (now part of Arcadia Township), where the Fox sisters birthed the American Spiritualist movement? Is there a connection between photography and spirits? Esoteric photographer Rik Garret tof Chicago says yes, and he\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":[]},{"id":1166,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1166","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":1},"title":"CESNUR, Day 3","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I did take the tour of the Cathedral of the Madeline. After a day of listening to talks on Mormon violence--and violence against Mormons--the cathedral felt like Goddess religion. (The Lady Chapel, after all.)","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":[]},{"id":266,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=266","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":2},"title":"DNA vs. the Mormons Christianity\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"DNA vs. the Mormons Christianity Today, which bears no love for the Latter-day Saints, reviews a new book that undercuts a key Mormon teaching: that American Indian tribes are descended from \"Lamanites\" and \"Nephites,\" alleged ancient immigrants from Israel. LDS officials react with predictable smokescreen. Years ago, I worked at\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1179,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1179","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":3},"title":"Druidry and Made-up History","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the YouTube trailer for a new documentary on British Druidry. Yes, that is Ronald Hutton at the beginning (long hair, glasses). (If the YouTube link does not work, try this one.)And here is the video clip dissected with a sharp knife by a different British Pagan academic.It's true:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druids\"","block_context":{"text":"Druids","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0300144857","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":790,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=790","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":4},"title":"Fundie art and sex","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I knew Jeff Sharlet from Killing the Buddha and his great Harper's piece on New Life Church in Colorado Springs. It turns out that he has a quirky personal blog too: Call Me Ishmael.Check out his comments on Christian fundamentalist art.My tentative theory: As religious art traditionally uses eroticism to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":596,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=596","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":5},"title":"The Shock of It All","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I have started reading Christine Wicker's Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America. (Jason Pitzl-Waters has also mentioned it.) Alas, I'm too jaded to be shocked! shocked! by her revelation that magic--or at least magical thinking--is everywhere. When I see a chapter heading like\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\/704","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=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}