Yesterday the NPR interview program Fresh Air interviewed actress/comedienne Samantha Bee of The Daily Show fame on the release of her new memoir “I Know I Am, But What Are You?”, which includes tales of growing up with a Wiccan mom while harboring a crush on Jesus Christ.

“Ms. BEE: And she found it really repellant. My father is just a complete atheist and my mother is into Wicca. So she decided that it was – she felt compelled to introduce me to some other stuff, so she made me go to like a Wiccan mass, which was just horrible for me.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. BEE: Just terrifying.

GROSS: We should explain that Wiccan means more of a kind of contemporary, kind of feminist-spiritual approach to witchcraft.

Ms. BEE: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. It was very important to her. It has always been very important to her. But to me it was just satanic, because I just thought it was. It was just the people sort of looked vaguely – it was just too counterculture for me. But she, you know, she made me go and attend some rituals and it was terrifying. I found it just terrifying.

GROSS: You know, I’ve known people who have been into Wicca but I’ve never really known the child of somebody who’s been into it and I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be the child of somebody who has beliefs that are considered like far out of the mainstream like that.

Ms. BEE: Well, when I – I kind of felt sorry for my mother when I was growing up because I was so into Jesus. I thought oh, this poor lamb of God. She doesn’t understand. She just doesn’t get it.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. BEE: But now, I mean, you know, I’m proud of my mom. She stuck with it. You know, lots of people don’t stick with it, but she’s always had her little, her, you know, oh that was so, oh her little amulets. That’s terrible. But she’s always had her rituals and the things that she does. It’s really an important part of her life. And so I respect the fact that she stuck with something.

Now, it’s not for me. It’s not for my husband, but she loves it and so, I wouldn’t say that it’s – it’s not horrible or terrifying. It’s not very intrusive when you’re growing up. It’s the most unobtrusive religious practice imaginable. It’s very not in your face. It’s kind of a private thing and people gather on the wrong side of the tracks to practice, whatever it is that they’re doing. Being a child of Wicca has not affected me negatively. And you get to know a lot about plants.”

There’s more at the official transcript, including discussion of the term “warlock” and whether “witchcraft” is the appropriate term to use. You can listen to the program, here. What’s interesting about the interview, besides the fact that Fresh Air host Terry Gross “knows people who have been into Wicca” yet considers modern Paganism “far out of the mainstream”, is the fact that it drives home that modern Paganism is a multi-generational faith. Bee’s mother probably came to Wicca in the 1980s, when books like “The Spiral Dance” and “Drawing Down the Moon” were making waves, and Bee was a teenager, now Bee is 40 (only four years older than myself) with children of her own. Unlike Bee, it’s very likely that many adult children of the 1970s-80s Pagan converts have retained and cherished some sort of Pagan identity, a notion that flies in the face of critics who like to portray Paganism as either a refuge of 60s-era feminists or goth teenagers.

Thanks to Chas Clifton for the heads-up on this story. Oh, and if Samantha Bee’s mom is reading The Wild Hunt, I’d love to interview you about the difficulties in raising a teen with a crush on Jesus! Just drop me a line!

It isn’t making the religion blogs and newswires, and I would have missed it entirely if Get Religion hadn’t mentioned it, but religion mega-site Beliefnet is being put up for sale by News Corp. (owner of Fox News) after acquiring it only three years ago.

“It looks like News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has lost faith in Beliefnet. After only three years of ownership, the media giant is seeking a buyer for Beliefnet, a website devoted to religion and spirituality. The decision was first reported by AllThingsD and confirmed by people with knowledge of the situation. News Corp. acquired Beliefnet for an undisclosed sum in 2007, with plans to integrate it with the company’s other faith-based units, including HarperCollin’s Zondervan unit, which publishes bibles and Christian titles such as Rick Warren’s best-selling “The Purpose Driven Life.” Fox Home Entertainment also operates Fox Faith, a label that distributes family films and Christian DVDs to retailers and through churches and ministries … As with other digital assets, News Corp. has decided to jettison Beliefnet as no longer fitting with its strategy.“

Back in 2007 I was rather pessimistic about Rupert Murdoch’s company acquiring the site; I didn’t think it would lead to some new synergistic golden age for the fiscally unstable religion hub.

“No doubt promises of independence and a glorious future are forthcoming, but I’m not sure this will be good for the already-marginalized religious minorities who were once strong supporters of Beliefnet. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, over the next few years, Beliefnet grows ever-more Christian and conservative in tone. A “family friendly” site to help promote Fox Faith films and hype new Christian book releases from (coincidentally) Zondervan.”

In defense of the new owners, they did fiscally stabilize the site, and tried their best to adapt to the new blogging and social networking culture that grew up in the years since Beliefnet first launched (blogging was still in its infancy back in 1999). They even installed a Pagan blogger (Gus diZerega) back in 2009, after years of complaints over how the site treated its non-Christian communities. But the question now is, who wants Beliefnet? While they are still the most popular religion site on the Internet, their numbers have been softening of late, shedding nearly 400,000 regular visitors in the three years under News Corp. Some, like former Beliefnet News Producer Ira Rifkin, think the site may have run its course.

“Beliefnet has made itself irrelevant and US magazine down-market by dropping all serious content – even its blogs have lost all their umph. How many bumper-sticker-depth, saccharin lead features consisting of no more than – literally – “inspirational” one-liners, cheery photos of flowery fields or “15 Love Lessons from ‘Sex and the City’” can you run before serious readers looking for consequential spiritual/religious insights to help guide their actions realize how trite it all is, get bored and log off, taking sponsors with them? Beliefnet is worth very little in today’s media market. Empress Oprah might be a good match, except she has no need to spend money on a much inferior version of her own product line. In short, Beliefnet may have run its course. We’ll see.”

For the record, today’s “headline” features are “Movie Mom Looks Ahead At New Family Films”, “Support For Military Families”, “How To Treat Yourself Royally”, and “12 Ways To Be  A Better Listener”. It’s not exactly what you would call gripping, hard-hitting, or even fascinating. Still, 2.4 million readers is nothing to sneeze at, and that might tempt a news or media outlet to acquire the site/brand and do something new with it. But whoever acquires Beliefnet will be dealing with a very changed religious-news and information landscape. Where once the site stood alone, they now have competitors in an expanding God(s)-beat on the Internet. Patheos, Religion Dispatches, the Huffington Post’s new religion section, CNN‘s just-launched Belief Blog, and the Newsweek/Washington Post-supported On Faith are just some of the sites it must now contend with, not to mention the ever-thriving religious blogosphere where folks can find original and curated news to fit their particular social and theological niche.

So, to echo Get Religion’s question, who do you think should acquire Beliefnet? What changes should the prospective buyer(s) make if they do pick it up? Should Beliefnet survive at all? Will it go down in history as an early failed experiment in new media attempts to cover religion and spirituality, or will it rise once more and keep its spot at the top?

Every year, a fundraising conference called TAM (The Amazing Meeting) is held for the James Randi Educational Foundation (home of the famous one million dollar challenge), an organization founded by James “The Amazing” Randi, a former stage magician who has dedicated his life to debunking paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. As one might expect, these conferences draw famous skeptics, free-thinkers, and atheists to give talks, and this year is no different. Headliners this year include Richard “The God Delusion” Dawkins, PZ Meyers, Cory Doctorow, Stephen Fry, and Alan Moore.

Wait a minute …  Alan Moore?!?

“Richard Dawkins is of course author of The Selfish Gene, a volume that popularised the reinterpretation of Darwinian thinking to explain altruism. He is also the number one evangelical atheist in the media. Alan Moore, of course, worships a snake god, describes himself as a magician and has outlined a number of spells that he has cast. Which should be interesting.“

Yes, interesting would certainly be the word. One of Moore’s upcoming works is a “a clear and practical grimoire of the occult sciences,” and his ground-breaking comic series Promethea is, in essence, a primer on magickal thought and theory from the very basics to an extended journey through the Kabbalah.

Depending on when you ask him, Moore is also quite convinced as to the reality of Glycon, the snake god.

He shows me his altar to the Roman snake god Glycon. “He was exposed as a glove-puppet in the second century”. And he explains how he used to accompany his magical experiments with psychedelic drugs but now finds he doesn’t need them. “It’s frightening. You call out the names in this strange incomprehensible language, and you’re looking into the glass and there appears to be this little man talking to you. It just works.”

So this leads us to speculate on the nature of Moore’s support for the foundation, and what the organizers think of his rather unique ideas concerning the efficacy of magic. Perhaps he, like myself, wishes there was more skepticism amongst those who practice magic and worship strange gods. Maybe he just thinks James Randi is fun guy, and is doing him a favor. Or maybe, he’s enjoying the best of both worlds by telling the skeptics and the believers what they want to hear. After all, he did say that  “everything everyone says about magic is true as long as you understand it’s all in their mind.” So everyone’s right, and Moore can invoke Glycon and raise some cash for Randi’s foundation without too much bother. Still, makes you wonder what the hardcore atheists in attendance will make of it.