{"id":8123,"date":"2016-07-11T21:10:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T03:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8123"},"modified":"2016-07-11T21:11:25","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T03:11:25","slug":"witches-of-america-sitting-at-the-cool-kids-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8123","title":{"rendered":"“Witches of America”: Sitting at the Cool Kids’ Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"I finally read Alex Mar’s Witches of America<\/a><\/em>\"\", and it is better than I thought, based on some of the reviews that I had seen, like this piece of negativity<\/a>, for example: “[a] sordidly pornographic and self-aggrandising narrative” or this one<\/a>: “extremely judgmental,” or the Complete Hurt Feelings Wrap-up here.<\/a><\/p>\n

First, this is not a grand survey of the Pagan scene by a sympathetic journalist, similar to Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America<\/a>\"\"<\/em> (1979, rev. 1986) or the even earlier Witches U.S.A.<\/a>\"\" <\/em>by Susan Roberts (1974).<\/p>\n

Rather, as one Pagan reviewer sarcastically noted, the better comparison was Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia<\/a>\"\".\u00a0<\/em>(I cannot imagine Julia Roberts playing Margot Adler in the movie version of Drawing Down the Moon<\/em>.) It’s a memoir about “finding yourself.”<\/p>\n

But I still enjoyed the read, once I realized that it was not any kind of a survey but more like Alex Mar trying to find the cool kids’ table in the magic-school cafeteria. Just when you think she has settled on a corner seat at the O.T.O., she started looking across the room at the necromancers. Maybe they <\/em>are the real kool kidz.<\/p>\n

At least you, the reader, get to ride along with actual necromancers after midnight. That’s worth the price of admission right there.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Gilbert’s marriage to Jose “Felipe” Nunes, the “Love” part of her title, has broken up after twelve years<\/a>. I wonder if Alex Mar will be active with the O.T.O. that long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally read Alex Mar’s Witches of America, and it is better than I thought, based on some of the reviews that I had seen, like this piece of negativity, for example: “[a] sordidly pornographic and self-aggrandising narrative” or this one: “extremely judgmental,” or the Complete Hurt Feelings Wrap-up here. First, this is not a […]<\/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":[10,75,288,192,5,12],"class_list":["post-8123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-california","tag-necromancy","tag-new-orleans","tag-paganism","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-271","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5325,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5325","url_meta":{"origin":8123,"position":0},"title":"Sarah Pike on Witchcraft and American Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Religious studies professor Sarah Pike, author of Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community and New Age and Neopagan Religions in America discusses her work at the Religion and American History blog. In a chapter I wrote recently on \u201cWicca in the News\u201d about changing representations\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":2676,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2676","url_meta":{"origin":8123,"position":1},"title":"Witches and Politics, Nigerian Style","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Imagine reading this article with the names changed. Let's see... The Witches and Wizards Association of America (WITZAA), has deployed 500 witches to Washington and other parts of\u00a0 the East Coast to prevent any tragic occurrence and ensure peaceful inauguration on January 15. According to its national co-ordinator, Dr.\u00a0 Raven\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"weirdness\"","block_context":{"text":"weirdness","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=weirdness"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":457,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=457","url_meta":{"origin":8123,"position":2},"title":"She Went among the Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Waterbrook, Random House's evangelical-publishing operation, has announced Wicca's Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality, a new journalistic survey of Wicca in America.From the Web site:Hundreds of thousands of people practice Wicca and other forms of modern Pagan spirituality in America today, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0877881987","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6142","url_meta":{"origin":8123,"position":3},"title":"1971: Witches in Bellbottoms, Talking Heads","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a 1971 documentary from the BBC that is supposed to be about witches. But at the time it was made, no one was making much effort to sort out the new Pagan Witches, anthropological and folkloric witches, and Satanic witches of the Church of Satan variety. So what\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":4111,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4111","url_meta":{"origin":8123,"position":4},"title":"Hanging the Salem Witches was a Good Idea, said the Zu\u00f1is.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From Philip Jenkins' Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality, which I am reading as part of some research on changing attitudes towards shamanism: In 1882 when a group of Zu\u00f1i emissaries visited Salem [Mass.] . . . they congratulated the citizens for their ancestors' determined response to the\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":515,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=515","url_meta":{"origin":8123,"position":5},"title":"More Crazy SeasonThe Crazy Season:\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"More Crazy SeasonThe Crazy Season: the weeks leading up to Hallowe'en when the news media rediscover Witchcraft.Witchcraft and Magic: North America, edited by Helen Berger and mentioned here earlier, has arrived.One contributor, the sociologist Tanice Foltz, writes on \"The Commodification of Witchcraft\" (a favorite academic topic, also addressed by other\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8123","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=8123"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8132,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8123\/revisions\/8132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}