While the Obama administration has considerably toned down White House observances of the yearly National Day of Prayer, a day that many claim had been hijacked by conservative Christian organizations during the previous administration, several groups have been asking if it’s even legal for our government (built on a principle of separation between church and state) to have a mandated day on which to call citizens to prayer. Especially when that call to prayer has been arguably couched in a predominantly Christian context within our multi-religious society. Well now a Wisconsin US District court judge, in a case brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has just ruled that the law authorizing the day was unconstitutional.

“US District Judge Barbara Crabb said the federal statute violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on government endorsement of religion. She issued a 66-page decision and enjoined President Obama from issuing an executive order calling for the celebration of a National Day of Prayer. The National Day of Prayer was first authorized by Congress in 1952. Since 1988, the date has been set as the first Thursday in May. The judge stayed her own injunction pending the resolution of any appeals. “I understand that many may disagree with [my] conclusion and some may even view it as critical of prayer or those who pray. That is unfortunate,” Judge Crabb wrote.”

Of special interest to my audience concerning Judge Crabb’s 66-page decision is the following passage:

“Recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge, or practice rune magic.”

Right there, Crabb acknowledges the reality and existence of pre-Christian, indigenous, and non-monotheistic faiths in this country. That having a US state-sanctioned “prayer day” isn’t some sort of secular ceremonial deist tradition (in fact, both Jefferson and Madison thought such proclamations were unconstitutional), but instead invokes the praxis of primarily Abrahamic faith traditions.

Naturally this won’t stop the White House from issuing a proclamation this year, and several organizations are already lining up to challenge this decision (while vilifying Judge Crabb). Even some supporters hold out little hope of this decision surviving the appeals process. But that shouldn’t diminish the importance of Crabb’s tacit acknowledgment that the National Day of Prayer has long outlived the cold-war cultural/religious alignment that enshrined it into law, and that the curtain of ceremonial deism will no longer hide the Christian pulling the levers.

More responses to this decision: Interfaith Alliance, Americans United, American Humanist Association, and  Lynn v. Sekulow.

On April 14th U.S. Marshals arrested Waco “White Wolf” Tohausen in North Carolina on rape and pandering charges involving a five-year-old Ohio child in 2007.

Waco “White Wolf” Tohausen

“In the early evening hours of 04/14/2010, Waco “White Wolf” Tohausen, 37 years old, was arrested by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department in Murphy, NC. Tohausen, indicted for Rape and Pandering Sexually Oriented Materials involving a five year old victim. The crimes, which were committed back in 2007, where recently indicted back on December 21, 2009. Tohausen is associated with a Wiccan Group known as the Temple of the Crystalline Star and the Lustration of the Ancestors.”

The group Tohausen is associated with, the Temple of the Crystalline Star and the Lustration of the Ancestors, is a Correllian Nativist Church Mother Temple. I contacted the Rev. Donald Lewis-Highcorrell, First Priest and Chancellor of Correllian Nativist Tradition, who issued a statement that confirmed Tohausen’s clergy status within the organization, and that he has been suspended pending the outcome of the trial.

“I cannot too strongly emphasize how seriously the Correllian Tradition takes charges such as these. Our law is the Wiccan Rede –Do As You Will But Harm None. And our clergy are especially charged with upholding this ideal. For clergypersons to be charged with doing harm to children is a matter of the utmost importance and greatest concern to our Tradition and its people.

It is our established policy that any clergyperson charged with sexual abuse of a child must be immediately suspended from clergy status and from any position of responsibility until the charges are resolved. If the clergyperson is found guilty all status with the Tradition must be revoked.

It is the desire of the Correllian Tradition to cooperate fully with the police who are investigating this matter, and to assist them in any way we can. The Tradition will be holding an internal investigation as well to determine whether Tradition policy was properly followed and whether all appropriate actions have been taken.”

No further details have been released in this case at this writing. Tohausen is being held on $750,000 bond, and is being extraditied back to Hamilton County to face the charges against him. Needless to say, these are extremely serious charges that if true raise some difficult questions concerning Tohausen’s interactions with the Pagan community over the years, and his role as a Correllian clergyperson. I will post further updates once more information comes to light.

Word has come to me that noted French alchemist, esotericist, and nuclear physicist Jean Dubuis passed away on April 6th due to natural causes. Deeply involved in French Martinism and Rosicrucianism, Dubuis founded “Les Philosopes de le Nature” (LPN) in 1979 to help forge his own path in mystical studies and alchemy.

“I think that the main problem stands that in the real initiatic path you must have no priest, no master, or guru. Because the real initiation means that when you present yourself at the door of the temple you are a free being. So, to use a word I don’t like, the Eternal Father can’t recognize one of his sons if he is a slave of the earth, whatever the field he is a slave of. Freedom is the first thing you must acquire in order to be initiated. The Inner Freedom, of course.”

The LPN eventually spawned an American branch, the Philosophers of Nature, and Dubuis’ teachings and writings became an influential force in the development of modern occult studies. American esotericist Mark Stavish released the following statement regarding Dubuis’ passing on his Vox Hermes e-list.

“Those of us who had the opportunity to know him, and learn directly what he had to teach will sorely miss him.  His life was dedicated to helping others learn how to help themselves, so they could be truly independent and self-aware on their journey on the Path of Return.  According to his wished he was cremated with a simple ceremony held by close friends and family. In this, the age of the nadir, he will remain as one of the few occultists of the 20th and 21st Centuries to have had a coherent and practical approach to esoteric matters and who gave it freely for the good of all.  He will be missed greatly. A more detailed obituary will be posted in the near future.”

To learn more about his work, I recommend reading Stavish’s mid-1990s interview with Dubuis.

I wish Jean Dubuis well as he embarks on his next journey of discovery.

Note: A site on the web says that Dubuis died in 2001, but since Stavish personally knew Dubuis, I’m going by his information until otherwise corrected.

Indulge me, if you will, to talk a bit about Brunswick, North Carolina. You see, Brunswick and this blog have something of a history. Way back in 2006, the Brunswick County Board of Education in North Carolina was on track to approve a controversial and vaguely-worded policy that would allow for the distribution of religious materials on school grounds. Legal threats didn’t seem to faze them until Llewellyn Worldwide offered to distribute free books on Wicca and Paganism to school children. Faster than you could say “Galloping Gideons”, the Brunswick board backed down from their plan, and someone fortuitously caught that delicious moment in a photo.

Since then, the Brunswick board would pop up occasionally to threaten a ban on Harry Potter, or attempt to inject Creationism into the curriculum, and I’d get to run that awesome photo again. Good times. So imagine my reaction when I learn that the Brunswick County Commissioners are considering ending public invocations due to fear that they might have to include Witches in the mix.

Brunswick County’s commissioners could be dropping their traditional prayer before public meetings. The consideration of changing from an opening invocation to a moment of silence comes after a StarNews report on a late-night board meeting in which commissioners vehemently opposed Commissioner Charles Warren’s request to allow outside clergy to pray before the board meetings. Traditionally the commissioners have given the invocation. Commissioner Phil Norris, who is also a pastor, said Wednesday that, after much thought on the issue, he now thinks the board should hold a moment of silence instead of the prayer. “I think, after thinking about this for some time, the way I see the Constitution it provides all of us with freedom of religion or freedom to not have any religion,” he said. Norris’ original reaction to Warren’s request was: “If we do that, do we have to invite witches?”

If you think that’s something, take a gander at the actual transcript!

Commissioner Charles Warren: Mr. Chairman, I’m basically, I’m still trying to keep the community involved in our board meetings and things of this nature. So I’m recommending that we invite different clergies, priests, rabbis throughout the community to come in and do our invocation of services.

Commissioner Phil Norris: If we do that do we have to invite witches and uh…

Commissioner Marty Cooke: My godson has a witch who’s his mother in law…

County Attorney Huey Marshall: We’ve got the largest monestary of Buddhists between DC and Atlanta

Sue: Buddhists?

It gets even better after that, with one commissioner threatening to walk out if a Buddhist is allowed to do an opening prayer, and another more than willing to waste tax-dollars on a lengthy lawsuit over the matter. It remains to be seen what the Brunswick County Commissioners will end up actually doing, but with a recent court room loss for sectarian opening prayers in North Carolina, they may have to go silent if they don’t want to endure the Buddhists and Witches (and a lengthy court battle).  This not only shows what some religiously conservative-dominated local governments truly feel about religious diversity, but also shows the unintended power modern Pagans hold in places like Brunswick simply by existing.

Top Story: Neighbors of Betty Marquez in Tracy, California, are upset that the practitioner of Santeria is holding religious gatherings and performing animal sacrifice at her home. Marquez, who is quick to point out that the animals are slaughtered humanely, and eaten afterwards, says she feels as if she is being harassed, while at least one neighbor is eager to prove he isn’t prejudiced by saying something that sounds pretty prejudiced.

“We used to spend a lot of time in our yard, and now there’s bongos and loud singing, and we just don’t feel good about it anymore,” he said. “We’re not prejudiced. We’re very fair. Take that stuff outside of town.”

Meanwhile, another neighbor has contacted PETA (People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals) who called the cops on their behalf, and is “staying in contact with authorities” concerning the matter.

“Of course we’re against religious sacrifice,” Martin Merserau said. “We’re against animal abuse in many forms, whether you’re dragging a knife across the throat of an animal for quote-unquote religious purposes or not.”

PETA, perhaps feeling that their racist, sexist, sizeist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and transphobic campaigns haven’t been going far enough, they now feel the need to attack minority religions as well by getting involved in a local spat. Never mind the sheer hypocrisy of calling animal sacrifice “abuse”, while they “humanely” euthanize thousands of healthy unwanted animals, and have even had employees charged with illegal disposal of animal corpses. I guess context is king. All I know is that I’ve been a vegan for years, and I’ve never supported this group. As for Marquez, considering the recent win for Jose Merced in court, it’s going to be increasingly hard to enforce animal slaughter laws against Santeria practitioners.

More Fodder for Sharkey’s Ever-Hungry Ego: Joseph Laycock, author of  “Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism”, decides to give more attention to Jonathon ‘The Impaler’ Sharkey for an essay at Religion Dispatches. Why? To make the point that Sharkey’s buffoonish extremism now seems almost normal in today’s ultra-polarized political landscape.

“The Impaler” arose during the Bush Administration, seeking popular appeal by promising to kill an unpopular president. And while he has continued this strategy during the Obama era, sadly he no longer seems nearly as crazed and peripheral next to the extreme fringes of the Tea Party movement. Simply put, violent rhetoric has become more acceptable. Progressives have criticized Sarah Palin for a political “hit list” on her Facebook page that features gun crosshairs over the home states of targeted Democrats. Sharkey and Palin are in effect both catering to the same sentiment. While Palin has never called for the impalement of Harry Reid, her supporters might not take offense if she did.

I suppose I see the point he’s trying to make, but I object to giving this criminal, who has shown a pattern of having inappropriate, and sometimes threatening, interactions with young girls, any more media-driven oxygen. I almost didn’t comment on this story because I want nothing more than to see Sharkey fade off into obscurity until he’s finally imprisoned for stepping too far over the line. Of course he’s calling for Witch-hunts! He is desperate for our attention, because without it, he’ll be forced to face the life he’s created for himself. So barring some truly newsworthy event involving Sharkey, the topic will no longer come up at this blog, and I urge everyone in the Pagan and Vampire communities to follow suit. As for Laycock, check out the interview with him about modern Vampirism at the always-excellent TheoFantastique blog.

Starhawk and Social Justice: In the wake of the Glenn Beck/Jim Wallis spat, author, activist, and On Faith panelist Starhawk weighs in on “social justice” in the context of modern Paganism.

“While Pagans do not have a set creed or unified code of beliefs, our traditions hold in common the understanding that we are all deeply interconnected, all part of the sacred weave of the world. The Goddess is immanent in this world and in all human beings, and part of our service to the sacred is to honor one another and take care of one another, to fairly share nature’s bounty and to succor one another in facing the hardships of life. We must create justice in this world, not wait for redress of grievances in the next. No one person or group has the right to commandeer nature’s resources, which are the underpinnings of all wealth. Generosity, justice and fairness are old Pagan virtues…”

I’m personally all for social justice, but then I’ve never been all that offended when people called me a socialist because of it. Which I suppose makes me one the 36% of Americans who have a favorable opinion towards the ideology. Not that social justice has to be equated with socialism, but I’m not the one blurring those lines in order to score political points.

South African Pagans and Inclusion: The Richmark Sentinel focuses on South African Pagan Council’s (SAPC) quest for representation at the country’s national multi-faith organizations.

The South African Pagan Council says its being ignored by the Moral Regeneration Movement (MRM), National Religious Leaders Forum (NRLF) and National Interfaith Leaders Council (NILC) … Asatruar Charles van Bergen, the representative of the South African Pagan Council (SAPC) tasked with negotiating the inclusion of Pagan religious leaders to both the NILC and its forerunner the National Religious Leaders Forum (NRLF), thinks South Africa is not achieving its stated intention to facilitate cooperative inter-religious participation. “Organizations such as Home Affairs and SARS have been forced to abide by the laws pertaining to such things, but other than that an active policy of passive-aggressive exclusion of Pagans is the status quo countrywide.”

Why does the SAPC want a voice in predominately socially conservative and anti-pagan multi-faith organizations? To remind the leaders of the dominant faiths in South Africa that other opinions exist and should be respected.

“I believe the SAPC’s presence on both the NILC and the NRLF will ensure that religious policies and dialogue maintain respect for the rights of minorities who do not necessarily agree with the conservative views and positions expressed by members of these organizations. We’d like the right to participate and contribute constructively to our Nation’s spiritual and moral values.”

The SAPC is currently involved in supporting the 30 days of advocacy against witch-hunts campaign, and is one of three legally recognized Pagan organization in South Africa (along with The South African Pagan Rights Alliance and the Correllian Nativist Tradition S.A.). I wish them luck in trying to change opinions concerning modern Paganism in South Africa.

Ongoing Tensions in Haiti: Reporters from the Miami Herald look at the ongoing tensions and deteriorating relations between faiths in post-earthquake Haiti, and mention that a human rights lawyer went before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights last month, calling for an investigation into anti-Vodou attacks.

Last month, Mario Joseph, a Haitian human rights lawyer, went before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking an investigation of attacks against Vodouists after several were stoned by Evangelical pastors in the Cité Soleil slum. “In other zones of the country,” he told the commission, “particularly in the commune of Verrettes in the Artibonite, literal witch hunts have been launched against priests and practitioners of this religion.”

This news of “literal witch hunts” is deeply troubling, and there seems to be no real investigation of this by the press, many of whom have moved on now that the initial disaster is over with. In the chaos, with international eyes turned elsewhere, and the government still powerless, is there a quiet campaign of violence and intimidation against Vodou practitioners under way?

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

Yesterday, The Tribeca Film Festival’s ‘Faces of the Festival’ interview series focused on Alex Mar, director of the new documentary “American Mystic”. The film, which features Pagan priestess Morpheus Ravenna, looks at alternative forms of religion and spirituality in America from three different perspectives, and is one of twelve entries in the festival’s World Documentary Feature Competition for 2010. In the interview, Mar discusses the history of the project, her search for documentary subjects, and the difficulties in finding a modern Pagan practitioner to participate.

“I met with different covens in different parts of the country, and one of the challenges with the pagan element in the film is I needed to find someone brave enough to say, okay, not only am I a witch, and to say that on camera, but I have this coven, I have this group that I practice with, and everyone associated with her had to be brave enough to say, okay, we’re comfortable with this.

In California and maybe in New York, it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to say that you’re pagan, but obviously being a witch is a big deal in this country. I met with a woman who I thought was so wonderful in Tennessee, and she would have loved to have shared her story but she was terrified. You know, she had seen people lose their jobs, and actually had a friend whose children were taking away from her through child welfare… It was really, I think, all told, six months of going around the country.”

Alex Mar

Mar’s obvious sympathy for her subjects, and her willingness to view the world from their perspective, makes me very hopeful that this will be one of the best documentary treatments of modern Paganism by an outsider. I look forward to the opportunity to see this film, and I wish it every success at the Tribeca festival. I urge you to read the entire interview, and if you’re in New York, to go see the documentary.

There’s been much ado in the British press over the case of Shirley Chaplin, an NHS nurse who was told to stop wearing a crucifix necklace on the outside of her uniform. Chaplin said she felt her religious rights were violated by the mandate, and refused compromise measures offered by the hospital, who felt the loose necklace posed a potential safety hazard. Despite an employment tribunal panel ruling that Chaplin’s rights were not violated, the case has sparked a spate of public soul-searching on if Christianity is being “marginalized” in the growingly secular UK.

“We’ve redefined oppression as hurting people’s feelings, and suddenly the whole citizenry from the secular society to hospital patients are declaring themselves hurt by everything that in the least savours of Christianity. Muslims may wear their burkas, gays their earrings [?!] and Sikhs their turbans, but Christians may not wear crucifixes.”

Of course, the tribunal pointed out that the hospital put limitations on all public manifestations of faith in the hospital (a policy that has been since modified in the wake of the offered compromises), not just Christianity, but that hasn’t quelled cries of secular persecution.

“In his ruling Mr Hollow said that the hospital had treated staff from ethnic minorities equally by ordering Sikhs to remove wrist bangles and Muslim doctors to switch to tighter-fitting hijabs.”

This tempest over religious jewelry is, in my opinion, just the latest birth pang in an emerging post-Christian Britain. Just as ponderings last year over if the British soul was “pagan”, and the fall-out over revelations that British churches were bleeding female membership the year before that, were. Where once nurse Chaplin’s crucifix might have been seen as completely normal, in a post-Christian secular society her religious expression is just one of many, and is treated as such. But since Christianity, especially Anglican protestant Christianity, have enjoyed generations of cultural and legal dominance, the process of making Christianity just another faith will often explode into legal battles over expression, and hand-wringing editorials over the “ruling elites” assault on Christianity.

“The highest echelons of both the Church and the judiciary seem incapable of grasping why Christianity is crucial to this country and has to be upheld and defended against attempts to undermine and destroy it, from wherever such attacks may come.”

But a post-Christian society doesn’t want to “destroy” Christianity, it just acknowledges that there are many voices, and many competing interpretations of what exactly is “crucial” to Britain.

“Senior church leaders have been known to make the claim that Britain’s constitution has been shaped by Christian faith. But it is the statue of the goddess Justitia, not Jesus, who sits above the Old Bailey and in the ante-chamber to the House of Lords. Based on a Greco-Roman idea, she depicts a model of justice whose primary concern is to weigh alleged law breakers in the balance, and then deliver the appropriate punishment.”

The real question is if a once-dominant Christianty facing demographic and cultural diminishment will keep its complaints within the context of judicial arbitration and civil debate, or if it will devolve into violent fantasies of revolution and returning to the power it once held. For my UK readers, what do you think? Is Christianity losing its grip on British society? Do you feel like you live in a post-Christian state? Do you think the Chaplin case was handled fairly? Let us know.