An Ethics Statement: Public Comment Period

May 18, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 7 Comments

Almost exactly a month ago, I proposed that the Pagan community create a voluntary opt-in statement of sexual ethics that individuals, organizations, and event organizers could use to educate both newcomers and outsiders as to a baseline of principles shared across our many diverse faiths and traditions. That recent high-profile cases concerning sexual abuse tied to our community, and the many unreported cases of sexual predation that have taken place over the years, were not tolerated or condoned. To educate, and hopefully also empower, abuse victims who might be fooled into thinking what was happening to them was/is “normal” or correct within a Pagan context.

This project was blessed to have Pagan author and philosophy professor Brendan Myers take the lead in coordinating the effort to produce the final draft of the statement that you are about to read. He, along with a dedicated and talented open group of collaborators, did the hard work of engaging the feedback from various parts of our community, and responsively moving forward with a document that we think a large plurality of our community could sign in good faith.

“This text came about after a vigorous, productive, and at times intense three-week process. Passing through four “cycles” in which a draft of the text was subject to the criticisms and revisions of all the volunteers, we think we have achieved about as much of a consensus on this text as we are likely to get. Integrating various important considerations, such as the variety and multiplicity of moral views within Paganism’s many communities, the need for grammatical and stylistic correctness, the need for moral decisiveness, and for rhetorical and exhortative strength, has not been an easy task. But together we have produced a statement of moral agreement which we are prepared to sign our names to, and stand by. We hope that you agree.”

You can follow the entire open process to this final draft at Brendan’s web forum.

From this point in the process, we are opening the final draft to a two-week public comment period. At the end of which we will consider any reasonable suggested additions or changes before we move forward with attaching signatories and starting our outreach campaign. Because I don’t want to simply publish a few excerpts, I will point you to a page featuring the entire statement, here. There is also a nicely-formatted PDF version of the text provided by David Shorey of the Sacramento Grove of the Oak. I strongly urge everyone to read and consider the entire document before making a comment.

Once the comment period is over, and any last-minute changes considered, the statement will be posted at its own web site. Pagans Against Sexual Abuse (PASA) www.pagansagainstsexualabuse.com, where we will begin accepting and listing signatories, offer the text in a variety of formats, and move forward with an outreach committee who will engage and dialog with various groups, events, and individuals in hopes of creating broad-based support for the statement. The site will also act as a clearing house for similar statements of ethics from other organizations, and provide tools so that the Pagan web can easily link, promote, and reference the statement.

I also want to reiterate that the ethics site will remain politically neutral, and will not advocate for or against any tradition, group, or individual in a conflict. Signing the statement will be opt-in and voluntary. No group, individual, or legal entity will be strong-armed into participating, or demonized if they feel they can’t sign on to the finished product. Coalitions that bring lasting change aren’t built by guilt or coercion, but by bridge-building and compromise. We will gladly stand by and partner with those who opt to develop alternate faith or group-specific ethics platforms, so long as they are created in the same spirit of protecting the innocent. Further, the finished statement will exist as its own entity beholding to no single faith, group or individual, and anyone will be able to “sign” or “opt-in” to it at any time so long as they support its tenets.

Update: A Note on Process and Consensus

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An Ethics Statement: How to Start

April 20, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 36 Comments

I’m going to stray a bit from my normal routine, and propose an actual initiative for our community to undertake. Considering recent cases within our community concerning the sexual abuse of children, and the larger context of news-making abuse cases within non-Pagan faith intuitions, I feel that a voluntary statement of ethics put forward and enforced by Pagan leaders, groups, event organizers, media outlets, and organizations could go a long way towards fostering an atmosphere that would support victims, discourage would-be abusers, and potentially avert some cases of abuse. I understand that any undertaking that attempts to gain the support of any sizable percentage of the larger Pagan community can be fraught with drama, dissent, and backlash, but I feel this is something worth the effort, and the process will have The Wild Hunt’s support at every stage.

Every stage of this process, so long as I am a part of it, will be opt-in and voluntary. No group, individual, or legal entity will be strong-armed into participating, or demonized if they feel they can’t sign on to the finished product. Coalitions that bring lasting change aren’t built by guilt or coercion, but by bridge-building and compromise. We will gladly stand by and partner with those who opt to develop alternate faith or group-specific ethics platforms, so long as they are created in the same spirit of protecting the innocent. Further, the finished statement will exist as its own entity beholding to no single faith, group or individual, and anyone will be able to “sign” or “opt-in” to it at any time so long as they support its tenets.

Stage One: Crafting a draft statement. We will start with a relatively small group working together, with ongoing input from the larger community, to create a first draft of the ethics statement. Pagan author and professor of philosophy Brendan Myers has volunteered to host and help guide this stage of the process. If you are interested in being a part of this process, please join his message board, and take part. I urge folks from various faiths, traditions, professions, and walks of life, to participate. I thank Brendan for stepping forward to shepherd this initial step.

Stage Two: Feedback on draft. Once a rough draft of the statement is complete, it will be posted here, and at other Pagan media outlets, for feedback. All constructive input will be listened to, and responsive changes and revisions will be made accordingly.

Stage Three: Posting of draft, and creation of ethics statement web site. Once complete, the final ethics statement will be posted at its own web site, and all who wish may then sign on to the statement. All participating organizations and events will be prominently listed, web badges and printable materials will be made available, and an outreach committee will be formed to encourage wide adoption of the statement. The site will remain politically neutral, and will not advocate for or against any tradition, group, or individual in a conflict.

That is my suggestion for moving forward. If you want to discuss this, and get on board with this process, please visit Brendan Myers’ site to get things started. I hope this will be the start of a productive and proactive step to address this issue within our interlocking communities.

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The Great Wild Hunt Vacation

July 13, 2009 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 10 Comments

There are times when you just can’t get to the computer for several hours per day to blog, one of those is when you’re trying to pack and engage in a cross-country move. This week I’ll be pulling up stakes and moving from the Midwest (Milwaukee) to the Pacific Northwest (specifically, Eugene, Oregon). But don’t despair! While I’ll be driving through Montana with my wife and two cats (two, upset, angry, cats), The Wild Hunt will be featuring a wide assortment of vibrant, challenging, and innovative voices from within (and occasionally from without) modern Paganism while I’m gone. Here’s the run-down of The Wild Hunt’s amazing guest bloggers!

July 14th – Brendan Myers

Dr. Brendan Myers, Ph.D. is the author of several critically acclaimed books on the subject of ethics and philosophy, environmentalism, Celtic and European mythology, folklore, society and politics, and spirituality. They have been used as inspirational and educational resources by college professors, social activist groups, interfaith groups, Celtic cultural associations, and even humanist societies, in many countries around the world. Brendan’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, podcasts, and radio shows (including America’s NPR). He is the 2008 recipient of OBOD’s prestigious Mt. Haemus Award for recent research in Druidry.

July 15th – Elysia Gallo

Elysia Gallo is an Acquisitions Editor at Llewellyn Worldwide, the oldest and largest independent New Age publisher in the United States. She acquires books for publication in such topics as Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, magic(k), herbalism, and the paranormal. She lives in St. Paul, MN with her husband and two cats.

July 16th – Cat Chapin-Bishop

Wiccan since the late ’80s, Cat Chapin-Bishop has also been Quaker since 2001. Cat’s essays have appeared in Laura Wildman’s “Celebrating the Pagan Soul”, “The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies”, the Covenant of the Goddess newsletter, and “Enchante: The Journal for the Urbane Pagan”. In addition to her work as a Wiccan HPs, Cat is the former Chair of Cherry Hill Seminary’s Pastoral Counseling Department, and she currently serves on the Ministry and Worship Committee of Mt. Toby Quaker meeting. Cat and her husband maintain Quaker Pagan Reflections, a blog dedicated to exploring the connections between Pagan spirituality and Quaker practice. They reside in Northampton, Massachusetts, where they attempt to live peacefully in the midst of chaos.

July 17th – Lupa

Lupa is the author of “Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic” and “A Field Guide to Otherkin”. She’s also the co-author of “Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla” with Taylor Ellwood, and a contributor to the “Magick on the Edge” anthology and “Manifesting Prosperity: A Wealth Magic Anthology”. Additionally, Lupa works as an associate editor, layout tech, and nonfiction publicity/promotions manager for Immanion Press/Megalithica Books. Lupa uses the term pagan for simplicity’s sake, though more accurately she describes herself as a totemist, an animist and a pantheist. She has been studying pagan religions and magical topics for twelve years and practicing for ten years. Currently she is developing and training in therioshamanism.

July 18th – John Morehead

John Morehead is a researcher, writer, and speaker in intercultural studies, new religious movements, theology and popular culture. He has an M.A. degree in intercultural studies from Salt Lake Theological Seminary which included a thesis on Burning Man Festival. He also has an avid interest in aspects of pop culture, particularly myth and archetype as well as the social, cultural and religious dimensions of fantasy, sci fi,and horror. John lives in the greater Salt Lake City area with his wife and two children. Be sure to check out his excellent TheoFantastique blog!

July 19th - Caroline Kenner

A longtime Washington D.C. activist in in feminism and environmentalism, Caroline Kenner now uses her skills to advocate for modern Pagans. In 2006 and 2007 Kenner called pan-Pagan rallies in Washington D.C. to demand religious freedom and equality. The 2007 rally was particularly auspicious as it celebrated the recently-won right to place the Pentacle, equivalent to the Cross, Star, or Crescent, on military grave markers. The event united several large Pagan organizations working to establish Pagan military chaplains and the approval of other specific Pagan symbols worn by Pagan and Heathen veterans. In addition to her activism, Caroline is a graduate of The Foundation for Shamanic Studies‘ Three Year Program in Advanced Shamanism and Shamanic Healing. Caroline also holds an A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and a M.S. from Boston University. She has practiced shamanism since 1989.

July 20th - Chas Clifton

Chas S. Clifton has been blogging since 2003, when he converted his Pagan magazine column, “Letter from Hardscrabble Creek,” into a blog. A widely published Pagan writer, he is the author of “Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America”. He also edits “The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies”.

July 21st – James R. French

James R. French has been interested in Magick and Paganism since adolescence. He is an Adept of the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn and a Reiki Master. (Mr. French wants us to understand that “Adept” and “Master” are titles within these respective lineages. They do not necessarily indicate anything beyond that.)

July 22nd – Thorn Coyle

T. Thorn Coyle is a magic worker, mystic, musician, and author of “Evolutionary Witchcraft” and “Kissing the Limitless.” She teaches internationally. Her blog can be found at yezida.livejournal.com or http://www.thorncoyle.com/musings.html.

July 23rd – Sannion

H. Jeremiah Lewis, also known by his religious name Sannion, is a Greco-Egyptian polytheist who has been actively honoring the gods since around 1993. He has lived all over the country, including Alaska, Nevada, New York, Montana, Washington and Oregon (where he currently resides), and has worked the standard assortment of odd jobs that every aspiring author needs to get by with. Mr. Lewis divides his time between an insanely intense religious practice, writing, research, helping to organize the activities of Neos Alexandria, and directing the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. There isn’t much time for anything else.

July 24th – Peg Aloi

Peg Aloi is a Pagan and a scholar who works in both the academic and popular arenas. She is a writer on Paganism and the media for Witchvox, is the co-editor with Hanna E. Johnston of the new volume “The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture” (Ashgate, 2007), and is currently co-authoring a book with Hannah titled “The Celluloid Bough: Cinema in the Wake of the Occult Revival”.

Please give all of them a warm and hospitable welcome, I’m certain they will all contribute something special to The Wild Hunt. The gods and my new DSL service willing, I should be back to my regular posting schedule by July 25th. Make sure to keep things respectful and polite in the comments while I’m gone, the assorted hells hath no fury like a vacationing blogger who has to log in to a WiFi spot in Idaho to engage in some blog moderation.

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The Wild Hunt's Book Picks

November 30, 2008 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 3 Comments

Since the Yuletide season is fast approaching, I thought I would take some time this weekend to share some new book reviews in hopes that it might make your gift-giving preparations for Yule, Solstice, Saturnalia, or other Winter Festival, a bit easier.

Have you ever wondered why “The Exorcist” is scary? Why “The Wicker Man” managed to amass such a loyal following? Why even very bad horror films can sometimes affect us deeply? Then you need to read Douglas E. Cowan’s new book “Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen”.

“Sacred Terror examines the religious elements lurking in horror films. It answers a simple but profound question: When there are so many other scary things around, why is religion so often used to tell a scary story? In this lucid, provocative book, Douglas Cowan argues that horror films are opportune vehicles for externalizing the fears that lie inside our religious selves: of evil; of the flesh; of sacred places; of a change in the sacred order; of the supernatural gone out of control; of death, dying badly, or not remaining dead; of fanaticism; and of the power–and the powerlessness–of religion.”

Cowan has written an engrossing and deeply knowledgeable book analyzing the religious elements in horror films. Of particular interest to modern Pagan readers will be his exploration of the religious “other” in many of these films, particularly the way pre-Christian religion, Pagan revivals, and witchcraft (Satanic or otherwise) are treated in cinema, from “Rosemary’s Baby” to “The Craft”. An essential tome for anyone interested in the intersections between popular cinema and the sacred. A academic sequel of sorts to Stephen King’s more populist examination of horror: “Danse Macabre”. For more on this book, I highly recommend checking out the Theofantastique interviews with the author.

When I first approached Brendan Myers’ new book “A Pagan Testament: The Literary Heritage of the World’s Oldest New Religion” I thought it would be in the vein of “The Paganism Reader”, a collection of literary texts influential to the modern Pagan movement, and while that is indeed an element of the work, it takes far greater pains to contextualize and explain the philosophy behind the included sources. It also takes more time to explore the ever-evolving literary and oral traditions that have emerged from our modern festival circuit.

Originally entitled “A Wiccan Testament”, the book pays a great deal of attention to the literary history and influential texts of that religion. Which isn’t to say that non-Wiccan Pagans won’t find anything of value here, on the contrary, the book takes a sort of “Pan-Pagan” journey through history, from pre-history to the ancient Greeks, to an examination of Aleister Crowley’s influence on modern Paganism. A sequel of sorts to his thought-proving work “The Other Side of Virtue”, it envelops the more modern Pagan texts into a larger continuum of pagan thought. A map, an idea, of what modern Paganism can offer to the world.

“The contemporary pagan community, holding the Earth in such high regard as it does, is in a position to show the world what a spiritually aware, environmentally conscious, socially just, and artistically flourishing society looks like. The pagan community can create a social and cultural space where ancient noble ideas like ‘inspiration and honour’ are still preserved and
practiced.”

This is a bold and smart work. While Myers’ ideas may not resonate with everyone, he should be commended for being at the forefront of an effort to write better Pagan books. He, along with some other authors of note, are writing those “advanced” books we all keep saying we want (also, you might find my recent interview with Brendan Cathbad Myers to be of interest here).

The final work I’d like to discuss isn’t an academic tome, or a philosophic exploration of our Pagan beliefs, but a work of poetry and art. “The Phillupic Hymns” by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus is a collection of devotional poems and translations dedicated to the gods of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul and Britain, with a special emphasis on Antinous, the deified lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. These poems explore the syncretism of the ancient world, the homo-erotic natures of many ancient gods and heroes, and the cultural tensions inherent when an imperial power interacts with those it has subjugated. These works seem accomplished, sincere, and passionate, but I’m no great judge of poetry, so instead of appearing foolish, let me instead share one of the shorter poems contained in this collection so you can judge for yourself.

Roma Aeterna
She was known across the continent,
in the east and in Greece
long before the pomerium was drawn
by Romulus and Remus.

The seven hills of Rome—
the Quirinal, Viminal, and Aventine,
Capitoline, Caelian, Palatine,
and Esquiline—mere Tiberian mud

when the lady first granted
her protection to mortals,
or guided Aeneas’ barque to
the shores of Latium.

She makes her home even now
in every stone of the Eternal City,
invited by Hadrian,
given a dwelling
as neighbor to Venus Felix—

the mirror of amor—
reflecting the sunrise of the east
so that Roma Aeterna
may shine across the west.

In my estimation this is a worthy addition to the growing collection of titles to be found at the Bibliotheca Alexandria. A vital entry into a growing field of devotional literature within the modern Pagan movement. We can only hope that works like “The Phillupic Hymns” are only the beginning of a greater trend towards a modern Pagan artistic tradition.

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