There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
“The employment discrimination ruling is especially disturbing and is one that all religious people should be worried about, not only Pagans. It creates precedent that gives the state the power to discriminate on the basis of religion for chaplain jobs, for example chaplains in prisons, hospitals, the veterans’ administration, and the military. The court ruled that the state could choose to prefer some religions over others, even when (as the defendants in my case admitted and the court noted) those religions are chosen for no reason at all – are not based on any criteria.
The rationale the court gave for its decision was that the five faith inmates have a first amendment free exercise of religion right to their chaplains. But there was nothing in the case so far that could have warranted the court coming to that conclusion. The defendants admitted that the inmates’ fee exercise rights were not criteria for the five faith chaplains; there were no criteria. Yet the court ruled that the only way I would be able to apply for a chaplaincy job is if the Pagan inmates proved that their free exercise rights require them to have a chaplain. But the five faith inmates never had to prove that their first amendment rights require them to have chaplains. (The Native Americans got a settlement consent decree that said they have that right.)
The court also stated that the five faith chaplains serve all other inmates’ faith groups. That also was a finding that the court had no basis to reach, and it isn’t true. In the prisons I still go to and others, inmates only have services when there is a volunteer, and because of that, the inmates can go long periods without religious accommodations at all, especially because prison staff do all sorts of things (for example “losing” paperwork over and over again) to prevent the inmates from coming to services, even when there is a volunteer at the prison to provide services.”
I’ve only just started analyzing this response, so I’ll no doubt have a more in-depth commentary later, but I wanted to get this up ASAP so the rest of the Pagan community, especially those who’ve been providing legal commentary, can digest it as well. I’d like to thank Patrick McCollum, the Patrick McCollum Foundation, and his legal team for their openness and accessibility in the wake of this recent decision. I’d also like to personally thank Patrick McCollum for his many years of service on this important issue, and express the hope that this latest setback is a temporary and surmountable one.
Here’s my previous coverage on this ruling and its aftermath:
“We were approached recently to contribute to Troy Southgate’s Black Front Press whose last published work was a Crowley anthology. After a little research, we were disturbed to find their rather murky history hidden beneath the anti-corporate, anti-capitalist and permaculture ideals. Though we are very happy to promote the independent esoteric and occult authors and publishers whose work and dedication invigorate and stimulate our community, it is entirely another matter to contribute our energy to a project which would seem to be attempting to use a multiplicity of voices from the occult scene to promote the ideas of the so-called New-Right.“
“Race defines who we are, it provides us with an identity and exists for a damn good reason. Without maintaining this essential diversity, something you can find throughout nature, the world will become increasingly drab, standardised and monotonous and the only people left on the planet will inevitably form part of a coffee-coloured mush of uniform humanity. National-Anarchists wish to preserve the different races of the earth and believe that multi-racialism ends with the dissolution of all races. Racial separatism is the only way that the organic balance can be restored. We realise that it is impossible to separate people in the large cities and towns, many of whom have racially-mixed children or wish to live among foreign populations, and neither should we attempt to do so. Indeed, we believe that the nation-states of the West are likely to collapse in the next few decades and that our respective countries will begin to fragment along racial and cultural lines. So there is clearly no need to treat people inhumanely by herding them into camps or deporting them in the way that the Nazis and Soviets did in the last century; something which ended disastrously for those concerned. National-Anarchists must form new communities based on their own racial and cultural values. The maxim of the future will be respect for others and unity in diversity.”
“The danger National-Anarchists represent is not in their marginal political strength, but in their potential to show an innovative way that fascist groups can rebrand themselves and reset their project on a new footing. They have abandoned many traditional fascist practices—including the use of overt neo-Nazi references, and recruiting from the violent skinhead culture. In its place they offer a more toned down, sophisticated approach… Their cultural references are the neo-folk and gothic music scene, which puts on an air of sophistication, as opposed to the crude skinhead subculture. National Anarchists abandon any obvious references to the Hitler or Mussolini’s fascist regimes, often claiming not to be “fascist” at all.
Like the European New Right, the National-Anarchists adapt a sophisticated left-wing critique of problems with contemporary society, and draw their symbols and cultural orientation from the Left; then they offer racial separatism as the answer to these problems. They are attempting to use this new form to avoid the stigma of the old discredited fascism, and if they are successful like the National Bolsheviks have been in Russia, they will breathe new life into their movement. Even if the results are modest, this can disrupt left-wing social movements and their focus on social justice and egalitarianism; and instead spread elitist ideas based on racism, homophobia, antisemitism and antifeminism amongst grassroots activists.”
“The most important thing for us is the Natural Order. It is natural for men and women to procreate. Anything which threatens the harmony of Nature must be opposed. Feminism is dangerous and unnatural not because it threatens to leave men with a pile of dirty washing-up and a few smelly nappies (as some of its adherents claim), but because it ignores the complimentary relationship between the sexes and encourages women to rebel against their inherent feminine instincts. Anyone interested in the opposing view should read The Female Woman by Arianna Stassinopoulos (Davis-Poynter, 1973) or Chapter 20 of Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World (Inner Traditions, 1995). Homosexuality is contrary to the Natural Order because sodomy is quite undeniably an unnatural act. Groups such as Outrage are not campaigning for love between males – which has always existed in a brotherly or fatherly form – but have created a vast cult which has led to a rise in cottaging, male-rape and child sex attacks. Nature is about life and health, not death and AIDS. One of the most eye-opening pamphlets produced on this issue is Alexander Baron’s truly excellent Guide to Gay Sex: A Primer For Young People (Infotext Manuscripts, 1994). But we are not trying to stop homosexuals engaging in this kind of activity like the Christian moralists or bigoted denizens of censorship are doing, on the contrary, as long as this behaviour does not affect the forthcoming National-Anarchist communities then we have no interest in what people get up to elsewhere. I just hope these people respect our own right to live in the way we choose. As far as abortion is concerned, this process violates the sanctity of life and once again the killing of an unborn child is flying in the face of Nature and one could do far worse than read Abortion: Yes Or No? by John L. Grady (Tan Books, 1979).”
Amazingly, the “we’ll let you live in peace apart from us come the revolution” defense seems to often work. Allowing views that would get them painted as neo-fascists to get lost in a constructed apolitical fog. However, any direct contact with self-proclaimed National Anarchists makes plain what they are, and apologists end up having to twist themselves into pretzels in order to insulate figures like Southgate from the odious effects of their pseudo-intellectual rhetoric.
I don’t think there should be a “blacklist” for those duped into thinking Black Front Press was truly apolitical in orientation, but once enlightened, it will become increasingly hard to erect a firewall between Southgate’s publishing arm and the views he and his followers espouse. Just because this book on Crowley avoided becoming a pamphlet for neo-fascist views doesn’t mean the publishing house that produced it should be given a free pass. Ultimately, there’s an expectation that intelligent people will consider who is funding and distributing a project. If your work is helping to bolster the image of a company that endorses the philosophy of the National Anarchists, if your work helps these groups further insinuate themselves within Pagan and esoteric communities, then the fig leaf of apoliticism must be challenged.
“So, where are we now? We’ve got structures for the legal and financial stuff, although there’s always endlessly more of those to put in place. We’ve got artwork, character drawings, wonderful support from major artists who will allow us to use their work and images. We have that screenplay—finally down to the size it needs to be! We have a letter of interest from Olympia Dukakis, who is my dream choice to play Maya, the old woman/storyteller. Within the next couple of weeks, we’ll have our website up and already our Facebook Page is up. Please check it out and Like it if you can!”
“I so strongly believe that the world needs a positive vision of the future right now. I can’t think of any movie that projects a positive vision of a future here on earth. How can we create it if we can’t envision it? A friend confessed to me the other day that she and everyone she knows thinks it’s already too late, that we’re past the point of no return. I don’t believe that. I believe that the earth is resilient and creative—and we are agents of that creative force called to reinvent our way of life right now. If we can give people some hope, some direction and some inspiration, it seems worth all the risks and the work!”
Films made by and for modern Pagans is a newly emerging phenomenon. Recently, film projects like “Our Pagan Heart,”“Dark of Moon,”“Tarology,” “The Spirit of Albion,” and the recently completed “To Dream of Falling Upwards” have woven explicit Pagan and occult themes into visual storytelling. Considering the popularity of Starhawk’s novel, this may be the biggest project of its kind to ever be undertaken. We’ll keep you posted as things develop on this project.
“It seems that since then, and especially this week, it’s become a little contest of the faiths- particularly Christianity versus Paganism- many of these Christian bloggers have taken it to the point of claiming it’s Spiritual Warfare. I’ll address that in a moment, but I’d also like my readership to know that Mrs. B has also received anonymous death threats via email and blogger comments… and that’s just taking things way too far.”
However, it looks like pluralism (and Paganism) won out over spiritual warfare and Internet threats. What started out ugly and mean-spirited became an opportunity for interfaith outreach, and the Pagan mom-blogs have acquired a new sense of solidarity they may not have had before. So congratulations again to Mrs. B and all the other Pagan mom-bloggers for turning what could have been an ugly, disheartening experience into a triumph. The rest of the Pagan blogosphere applauds you!
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
Time Magazine spotlights a self-proclaimed “proud Pagan” who is either so desperate for attention that he has taken leave of all good sense, or he truly is the kind of man who’d accuse his ex-girlfriend of aborting his baby on a highway billboard. He’s on such morally shaky ground that even the local pro-life groups have abandoned him, and the more people dig, the less there is to like.
Pagan Community Notes is a companion to my usual Pagan News of Note series, more focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. I want to reinforce the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So lets get started!
“You can say, Isaac wanted to give money to ADF and therefore it’s acceptable, or you can say, Isaac placed what was right and proper and honorable before profit, always, and therefore it’s utterly unacceptable. I knew him very well, and I can hear him saying “tacky” quite clearly in my ear, but I recognize the subjectivity of that. In the end, I can only speak to what I feel is right, and respectful, and kind. To commodify the death of a great man is not respectful. To do so at an event where he was being honored is not right. To do so when his only son was at that event was not kind.”
The ADF responded by saying that they are only charging for the DVD “to recoup a fraction of the costs associated with their creation,” and that the DVD was only made so that those without broadband Internet access could see the footage. Lipp responded by calling the production of a DVD “tasteless, disrespectful, undignified, and uncompassionate to those for whom this loss is personal.” Shortly after Lipp’s open letter started circulating Phaedra Bonewits, Isaac’s widow, posted her own thoughts on the matter, her opinions veered sharply from the idea that the ADF were “uncompassionate” in their move to sell a DVD.
“Bottom line, I do not want anyone to think that the opinions of Ms. Lipp, Isaac’s ex wife, represent my feelings, or the sentiments of any other member of Isaac’s family other than those of her son, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits. They are entitled to feel what they feel, but their feelings are not representative of the rest of us. I can’t presume to speak for Isaac, not really. But he did put his legacy in my hands because he loved and trusted me, as I loved and trusted him. Thus, I want to state unequivocally that I do not find the videotaping of the memorial, nor the distribution of the DVDs at nominal cost to be in any way disrespectful or exploitative of his memory. I completely support ADF in this situation, as do his siblings and his own mother.“
This is obviously an emotionally intense subject, and I’m only reporting on this now because all parties involved have decided to make public their positions in the matter. I know from firsthand experience that the loss of a loved one is never easy, and the initial months, even years, after their passing can be fraught with unknown obstacles and a unique liminality brought on by grief. To lose someone who was a beloved public figure, who many people feel a sense of connection to, is no doubt even more complex and trying an experience. To paraphrase our nation’s president, I think it’s above my pay-grade to make a judgment call on this situation. It is what it is, a difference of opinion regarding what actions were proper and respectful. I wish all involved every blessing, and would guess that Isaac himself would relish engaging in the question at hand, though we are now all bereft of his direct insight in the matter.
“To put it simply, it’s not helping enough people change their lives. We have a large community and terrific events, but the Temple isn’t making the impact I want to see it make. As a priest, I’ve witnessed a significant shift in people’s spiritual needs. The needs that Temple of the River was designed to fulfill—a place for community, and accurate knowledge about historic practices—simply aren’t as badly needed now as they were ten years ago.
Instead I see people searching for a way to take charge of their lives. That has to be the priority, because the world is changing, and people feel lost, or stuck. The economy, technology and culture are all shifting. 20th century strategies for life don’t work well anymore, so there are a lot of people out there who aren’t happy with their lives. What I want to teach people is how to change that. How to live boldly and lead a life of victory. I want to empower people.”
Jacob now says he’ll devote his time to the Heroic Life, “a new spirituality for the 21st century” that’s “based on bravery and adventure.” Temple of the River will hold one last event on Midsummer’s Eve, and a final meditation session the week before.
“It [Trials of the Moon] is devoted entirely to my own work. Although he allows that I have some virtues, at the opening and the end, these concessions seem very hollow in view of everything in between. He sums up the message of Triumph as being that modern Pagan witch-craft is “entirely a new invention, cobbled together by a few eccentrics,” with no link to any earlier form of “Pagan spirituality.” This is of course a travesty of its intended message. The whole purpose of his own bookis to destroy my reputation as an authority upon the history of Paganism and witchcraft, at least among Pagans, and especially belief in the argu-ments of Triumph. He has carried out very little research into primary source material. What he employs instead is a number of secondary texts of varying quality and drawn from a wide span of time. Whenever he finds a passage in these which apparently contradicts me, he proclaims that I am proved wrong. He also examines some of the works from which I have quoted myself and claims that I have misrepresented them. Nobody who believes his assertions can be left with anything other than the impression that I am an unscrupulous and deceitful individual motivated by a concealed hostility to Paganism. Most of the use that I make of source material is passed over in silence: only the apparent faults are highlighted. Where I address properly in later publications matters that he accuses me of neglecting in Triumph, this is taken as confirmation of my earlier guilt rather than a negation of it. By the same tactic, aspects of earlier work of mine to which he takes exception, and which are differently handled in Triumph, are still made to stand as examples of my turpitude. He criticises me for not defining terms like “witchcraft” with absolute precision, but then makes no attempt to do so himself, keeping them as fluid as possible so that they can fit a range of different meanings. He likewise makes no attempt to construct an alternative history of witchcraft and Paganism to my own: his whole purpose is simply to undermine confidence in me, so that—presumably—Pagan witches can go back to believing whatever they did before I wrote. Most of the points on which he tries to fault me are of detail, often trivial, and his hope is clearly that if he can put enough small cuts into my reputation for reliability, then faith in it will leak away.”
There’s much more, so those interested in this debate should download and read the whole thing. I must say that I share Hutton’s dream of a consensual picture of Pagan history based on primary sources, made in conjunction with Pagan writers and outside scholars, rather than “a number of mutually hostile sects, with different versions of history centered on rival writers,” or generational-based “acrimonious division.” Here’s hoping that our future is one of cooperation and collaboration instead of deepening divisions or impassible generational shibboleths. For even more on this topic, The Pomegranate also features a formal review of Whitemore’s book by Peg Aloi, and Chas Clifton tackles yet another “grandmother story.” For all of my coverage of Whitmore’s work, click here.
Speaking of Pagan Spirit Gathering, registration for the week-long outdoor festival has been extended through June 13th. There’s going to be a dedicated Pagan media camp this year, full of great folks!
