{"id":8160,"date":"2016-08-07T15:05:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T21:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8160"},"modified":"2016-08-10T21:39:14","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T03:39:14","slug":"kicked-back-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8160","title":{"rendered":"Kicked Back in Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was contacted a couple of months ago by family members of\u00a0 the two defendants in a Wicca-related murder case. It was big news in the American Craft network((I prefer that word to “community”\u2014especially for that era.)) circa 1977\u201380. If you remember it, fine. If not, I am not going to summarize it now because I am thinking in other directions. Maybe later.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, two medium-size cartons arrived in the mail, full of newspaper clippings, notes, correspondence, annotated copies of jury lists, itemized bills from lawyers and investigators, sworn statements and affidavits, investigators’ reports\u00a0 \u2014 pretty much the entire paper trail except for the actual trial transcripts and some of the law-enforcement paperwork.<\/p>\n

The old Court TV channel (now TruTV) would have loved this case,<\/strong> but it came a decade too soon.<\/p>\n

And too early for the Internet, thank the gods. The hypothetical comments on a hypothetical post on The Wild Hunt<\/em><\/a> would have blown up the server, I am sure.<\/p>\n

One thing you don’t find in every criminal case is a thick file of psychics’ impressions of what “really happened<\/strong>,” complete with maps and diagrams, not to mention psychic readings of a couple dozen potential witnesses. (The investigator checked out some of this info as best he could.)<\/p>\n

Yes, it was just the opposite of the Salem witch trials of 1692\u201393. In this case, it was the defense using “spectral evidence.” And while there was no bill from Dr. Buzzard for “chewing the root” in court, you can bet some magic-workers were involved.((For more on the doctor, read High Sheriff of the Low Country<\/a><\/em>\"\".))<\/p>\n

I don’t feel like writing a “true crime” book<\/strong>, but I want to write something<\/em>.\u00a0 I had drafted a chapter on the trial for Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca And Paganism in America<\/a><\/em>\"\", but I deleted it because it did not mesh with the other themes of the book. (Now where is the file, on the old iMac in the basement?)<\/p>\n

Maybe we need a Contemporary Pagan Studies Group s<\/a>ession on “Paganism and Violence,” and since I won’t be co-chair after this year, I can submit something.\u00a0 It’s a story that needs to be told, from the perspective of folklore studies or perthaps the study of new religious movements. To me, now, almost forty years after the events, it’s not so much the “who done it” that interests me as it is the context in which these events were imbedded.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I have rough-sorted all the papers and condensed two cartons down to one, having set aside lots of old Pagan zines and unrelated materials of various sorts that were tossed in with the trial documents. Among these was the “Pagan Occult New Age Directory Supplement, Autumn 1978,” from the Pagan Grove Press of Atlanta. I looked up “Colorado” and there I was, with my old Manitou Springs telephone number. Kicked back in time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was contacted a couple of months ago by family members of\u00a0 the two defendants in a Wicca-related murder case. It was big news in the American Craft network((I prefer that word to “community”\u2014especially for that era.)) circa 1977\u201380. If you remember it, fine. If not, I am not going to summarize it now because […]<\/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_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,247,95,282,6,29,12],"class_list":["post-8160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-crime","tag-journalism","tag-texas","tag-wicca","tag-witchcraft","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-27C","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3847,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3847","url_meta":{"origin":8160,"position":0},"title":"Wicca Work?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"M. drew my attention today to the fact that Rocky Mountain PBS (Motto: \"All Antiques Roadshow all the time.\") was offering another BBC-produced copy show, Wicca Work. Typical of RMPBS, they seem to be starting with the third season. CORRECTION: The series is New Tricks, the episode is \"Wicca Work.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":187,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=187","url_meta":{"origin":8160,"position":1},"title":"More Wiccan History","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Founding Fathers of Wicca,\" a graduate-school paper by Susan Young, currently at the University of Alberta, explores Aleister Crowley's liturgical and other influence on Gardnerian Wicca. It was published in Axis Mundi: A Student Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, whose article index is here. The paper is\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":776,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=776","url_meta":{"origin":8160,"position":2},"title":"Wicca: trendy, phony, and Constitutionally protected","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"If I were not teaching rhetoric, I would not have found Michael Medved's column on Sgt. Patrick Stewart's pentacle memorial while looking for a good political column for my students to analyze.After insulting the religion--\"it\u2019s a trendy, phony potpourri of druidical, primitive and New Age elements that\u2019s more a pagan\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":3707,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3707","url_meta":{"origin":8160,"position":3},"title":"Wicca without “Woo”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I linked earlier to one of Eric Steinhart's series of discussions and critiques of Wicca from a non-theistic philosophical perspective. Here is the last, apparently, on Wicca without the \"woo\": It\u2019s probably not possible for Wicca to renounce the culture of woo.\u00a0 But an atheistic nature-religion in the United States\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":3644,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3644","url_meta":{"origin":8160,"position":4},"title":"An Atheistic Critique of Wicca","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Blogging atheist Eric Steinhart, writing at Daniel Fincke's Camels with Hammers, turns his rhetorical guns on Wicca. He thinks that a \"woo-free Wicca\" might be tolerable. There are a number of separate posts, and I have not read them all. But I get the impression that he is engaging with\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":13198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13198","url_meta":{"origin":8160,"position":5},"title":"The First Wiccan Book Published in India","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A little more than twenty years ago, in the preference to his landmark study of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, The Triumph of the Moon, the historian Ronald Hutton wrote that \"the unique significance of pagan [sic] witchcraft to history is that it is the only religion which England has even given\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"India\"","block_context":{"text":"India","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=india"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/ANI-20221216115613-300x205.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160","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=8160"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8194,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8160\/revisions\/8194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}