www.youtube.com/watch?v=215OLyndNHI

Believers around the world have furthered the theory, which stems from a stone tablet discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describes the return of a Mayan god on that date, similar to the story of Judgment Day. But Cuba’s priests say that “what needs to die is not the world itself, but rather the ways in which the world has lived until now: confrontations, wars, misery and discrimination,” said Lazaro Cuesta, one of the island’s leading Santeria priests, or babalawo. “For us, an old world must end so that a new world is born …. It is not a physical end.”

Despite the Mayan “2012″ theory being debunked again, and again, and again, and again, and again, some still think something momentous will happen when that calendar runs out. As Mayan Elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun says, “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff”. I suppose the popularity of 2012 as an end-date made such a comparison inevitable, but still, I would have liked to see more on the Ifá predictions instead of having them comment on the popular Mayan trend. In any case, here are their events of social concern for 2012.

1. This is a sign of war and confrontation.
2. This is a sign of transition, and social, political, and economic change.
3. Loss through old age (aging population).
4. Increase in seismic movement.
5. You should pay attention to all household issues.
6. Serious marital problems.
7. Seek nimble solutions to any existing problem.
8. Dangerous increase in temperature.

And here are the recommendations from the 2012 reading.

1. Improve hygiene in hospitals.
2. Improve apprenticeship in the manual trades.
3. Special attention to agriculture and the organized distribution of products.
4. Attention to your children.
5. Grant consideration to women in every aspect.
6. Better the organization of public economic management.
7. Use music as social therapy.
8. Organize a campaign of general sanitation against environmental contamination in order to avoid epidemics.
9. Make offerings to ASOJUANO.
10. Take advantage of the properties of the following plants for their respective uses: albahaca (basil), hierba de la sangre (blood plant), caisimón, quita maldición (remove curse), ciruela (plum), algodón (cotton) and bledo blanco.
11. Control the increase in promiscuity.
12. Preserve the environment.
13. Avoid false accusations and defamations.
14. Change and revise penal laws, bringing them up to date.

As for good omens from other sources, I would like to think launching of a new Pagan community center in Washington DC is a particularly good one. What omens, predictions, and visions do you have for the year of Oya?

“We are sure that there will be changes” in 2011, said the one of the group’s top priests, Lazaro Cuesta. “We’re certain that good moments are coming.” [...] The priests announced their latest forecast — known here as the “Letra del Ano,” or the “Letter of the Year” — following a secretive New Year’s Eve ritual that includes religious chants and animal sacrifices. Some 1,000 priests participated in the closed-doors ceremony, Cuesta said.

Naturally Cuba’s government-sanctioned Santeros, knowing where their bread is buttered, aren’t predicting the drastic changes seen in the independent group’s readings.

Predictions by a rival Santeria group agreed that 2011 is the year of Oggun. In a statement Sunday, the group, which enjoys official government sanction, added that “great difficulties” would be overcome this year.

You can find the full text of the 2011 Ifa readings, here.

So, having seen their predictions, let’s turn to the Pagan community. Did you do any readings about the coming year? Have any predictions you want to share with the world? Feel free to post them in the comments. But be warned! We’ll be looking back in 2012 to see how accurate you were!

“It requires all school systems, community colleges and public universities to allow students at least two excused absences each academic year for religious observances. The law standardizes an informal practice. But some administrators hope it won’t create exam-week havoc.”

Sounds like a net positive, right? Practitioners of minority faiths that don’t have observances that overlap with existing Christian holidays can include the kids without hassle, and college students can attend a scheduled event without worry of hurting their GPA. But a comment from Rep. Rick Glazier, who co-sponsored the bill, have some worried about how it will be applied.

“It has to be a bona fide holiday; you don’t get to just take the day off because you want to pray at home.”

So who decides what’s a “bona fide” holiday? Will the school take the parent’s word for it? The law is vague on this point, only saying that schools can request a letter of explanation if they want. Faith & Reason’s Cathy Lynn Grossman notes the law could make minority faiths have to “prove their religiosity”, but it’s more the “praying at home” bit that I’m concerned about. If your “church” is the living room, or an open field, or a forest, does it still count as bona fide? It should be interesting to see how this law is enacted by different schools, and see how it handles Pagan requests for days off.

Guilty Sentence For Cop-Dragging Pagan Priestess: A Magistrate has found Eilish De Avalon, who gained international noteriety last month for dragging a cop by the arm during a routine traffic stop, guilty of recklessly causing injury. De Avalon, who is currently out on bail pending an appeal, made tabloid headlines by announcing she was a “pagan priestess”, and that man-made laws didn’t apply to her, much to the chagrin of other local Pagans who said that incident has set back local interfaith efforts. In a press release, the Australian Pagan Awareness Network (PAN) blasted those who were using this incident to put her beliefs, and by extension the beliefs of all Australian Pagans, on trial.

“The media has done its best to put Ms De Avalon on trial in the court of public opinion for her beliefs as well as her actions. I doubt they would bother if she were a Catholic or a Hindu or practically any other religion. What is the big deal about practicing an indigenous European belief like witchcraft? When it comes to the law, people’s actions are what matter.”

It remains to be seen what will happen next. I can’t imagine she’ll win on appeal with the involuntary “autonomous state” defense she used in the first trial. As for the reputation of Pagans in Australia, perhaps the soon-to-be-airing episode of Rituals: Around the World in 80 Faiths (which I covered here previously) that features Australian Pagans will help things a bit.

A Cuban Santera on Faith, Possession, and Divination: Journalism student Kelly Knaub interviews Cuban Santera Iyalocha Lourdes about her faith for the Havana Times, and undergoes a purification ritual as well. During the interview Iyalocha Lourdes goes into some detail on the matter of possession by spirits, which I found quite interesting.

“In the beginning you lose consciousness. It’s a process of spiritual development. Right now you’re an embryon – a person that doesn’t have the potential or capability to be a medium. Right now, that’s you – you don’t have any knowledge. You come to my temple to develop yourself spiritually, which means to process and open yourself and become a spiritualist. So, in the beginning, I pull the spirits so that they possess you. You lose consciousness, you don’t remember anything.

As the years go by, and you continue perfecting and working more with your spirituality, a moment will come when you’re seated, like I am, and a spirit comes to you and you speak, sometimes also in a conscious state and you can remember it. But this comes with practice.”

They also talk about gender within Santeria, “false spiritualists” who only do it for the money, and animal sacrifice. It’s definitely worth a read, especially since most mainstream journalism about Santeria doesn’t tend to allow this much detail or insight into their practices.

The Welsh Witch Problem: It seems that rural Wales is a hotbed of occult and strange happenings being reported to the police. A recent Freedom of Information Act request reveals that residents in places like Powys, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire are having all sorts of supernatural problems, including “witches” behaving badly.

The force, which covers Mid and West Wales, has received 86 reports of witches in the last five years. The force’s police incident log reveals details of the calls. One caller reported “that one individual is a witch and had attended at the house to put salt around the bed”. A caller in January last year claimed he had been fed a “fur ball” during a witchcraft ritual. Following a call from Llanelli, police recorded: “Caller, who was drunk, who rang regarding a gang of witches who want to sacrifice him.” Another call was a report of a “malicious communication: rumours that an individual’s mother is a witch”.

OK, which tradition’s been feeding people fur balls? There were also reports of ghosts, vampires, demons, and wizards, but witches topped the list. The Dyfed Powys Police downplayed these reports, saying they are far more ordinary taken in context, though local paranormal experts insist this is just further proof that “Wales is a frighteningly haunted country”. That still doesn’t explain the fur ball. Was it from a cat? Is it a euphemism? What?

I Can Only Imagine the Internet Spam I’ll Get Now: Plenty of places on the net are getting a decent chuckle over an Ebay auction that is selling a spell by a “powerful Wiccan Witch” to increase the size of your, ahem, “booty”.

“Are you desperate to achieve the perfect butt and perhaps a fan of the occult? For just $8.95, you can achieve your dreams by buying one “Booty Enhancement Spell” from a “Powerful Wiccan Witch” on eBay. Hurry, supplies are limited!”

There’s also a spell for breast enhancement. The powerful “Amelia” (it that’s her real name) claims that she’s “used this [spell] many times with stunning results!” But just in case, buying multiple castings ensures greater chances for success (naturally). There’s always been spell-peddlers in our community, but this level of brazenness and scammy-spammy-vibes may take this to a new high/low. One wonders what old Gerald would have to say about booty-boosting spells.

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

“Their prediction: a year of social and political unrest, struggles for power, and treachery. They also warned that there could be a coup d’etat or other sudden political change. Speaking about their findings, one of the leading babalawos, Victor Betancourt, said it was time for a new generation of leaders to take over. “Times change. The older generations should pass their experience on to young people because they are better prepared,” he said.”

Naturally these sorts of predictions don’t sit well when your country is being ruled by a pair of increasingly elderly brothers. So the only thing to do when your power is thus threatened, short of imprisonment and murder, is to release some predictions of your own to muddy the waters.

“A rival Santeria group, which enjoys official sanction from the government, came out with its own predictions later Saturday, saying 2010 would be a year of improving health.”

That rival Santeria group knows where its bread is buttered.

Naturally the meeting of Babalawos and Santeros in Cuba isn’t the only new-years predictive ceremony that’s held.

“Mexico’s ”Brujo Mayor” or ”Great Witch” is scheduled to announce his predictions on world events and celebrity affairs on Monday, and Venezuela’s Santeria priests are expected to make their own New Year’s predictions.”

I’m sure that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to predictions for 2010. So let’s turn to the Pagan community. Did you do any readings about the coming year? Have any predictions you want to share with the world? Feel free to post them in the comments. But be warned! We’ll be looking back in 2011 to see how accurate you were!

“Several thousand people walked to the church during the morning clutching bunches of mauve gladioli, pink bougainvillea and fat cigars to leave as offerings to the saint, who also symbolizes the deity Babalu-Aye in the Afro-Cuban Santeria faith. Experts explain this fusion of Santeria and Christian figures by saying that African slaves in Cuba originally pretended to worship the Catholic saints of their Spanish masters while secretly paying homage to their own deities.”

The Reuters article notes that religious expression, particularly Catholic religious expression, has become more pronounced in Cuba since the Pope John Paul II’s visit in the late 1990s. However, despite this relatively recent religious openness, Cuba is still rated as the least religiously free country in the Americas by a recent study of global restrictions on religion released by the Pew Forum. Santeria was initially suppressed by the Communist government, though those restrictions have lapsed over the decades, especially now that the faith draws in tourists interested in witnessing rites, or receiving initiations.

Over at the Washington Post/Newsweek’s On Faith religious blogging brain-trust, Starhawk weighs in on whether action regarding global warming is a moral imperative.

“Responding to climate change is the moral imperative of our time, and people of spirit and faith can play a vital role in helping us make this crucial transition. God, Goddess, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Krishna and the Great Spirit know that the politicians aren’t doing it! Watching the manipulations, stalling and deceptions going on in Copenhagen is enough to make us wonder if the Goddess really knew what she was up to in involving human beings–or if she simply didn’t finish the job … we need real commitments. What if every church, synagogue, mosque, temple, and Pagan grove committed to reduce their carbon footprint by the 90 percent that we truly need to reach by 2050? What if they started study groups and chevras and support groups to help people learn the skills and fund the projects and make the changes together?”

In addition to calling for stronger leadership on this issue within religious communities, Starhawk will also be attending the upcoming Gaza Freedom March along with 1300 other activists and notables, including Alice Walker and Roger Waters. You’ll be hearing more about her participation in this event soon. It should be interesting to see what ramifications, if any, her 2008 deportation from Israel will have.

In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald conducted a Nielsen poll concerning religious belief, and found that 6% followed “obscure faiths” like Wicca, while 22% of the total population believe in the existence of witches.

“Committed Christians are even more likely to believe in witches (35 per cent). This may surprise many, but not Pastor Daniel Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries, who in October this year organised a prayer offensive on Mount Ainslie after the discovery, it seems, of an altar for black masses. It was, said Nalliah, “the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and Federal Parliament [which Mount Ainslie overlooks] – witches have been at work to tear down the fabric of the robust democratic system of Australia through spells”. The offensive appears to have worked.”

The manner in which the survey and the results were conducted and reported didn’t please some local Pagans, who didn’t like being lumped in with UFO-believers, Jedi, and other “obscure” religions. That the 22% who believed in witches weren’t superstitious, just “informed”.

“…the 22 per cent who said they believed in witches are not necessarily superstitious but just informed. In the last Australian census more than 22,000 people admitted to following a pagan religion, many of them Wiccan or witches. To put this in perspective, this is more people than the Australian followers of the Jains, Ba’hai and Sikh religions combined. At the recent World Parliament of Religions hosted in Melbourne, witches and other pagans had their own educational stream just like the Christians and Buddhists. As for the 78 per cent who don’t believe in witches . . . I don’t believe in you either.”

That’s all I have for now, have a happy Solstice tomorrow. If you are looking for some Pagan-friendly holiday music, why not check out my just-posted A Darker Shade of Pagan 2009 Winter Holiday Music Special. It’s sure to put you in a proper Winter-feasting, welcoming-the-light-back sort of mood.

Should you be judged by your graduate thesis? That very issue is heating up the Virginia governor’s race where Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell is fielding questions concerning a 1989 thesis he submitted to Regent University in Virginia Beach. In it, McDonnell rails against feminism, homosexuality, contraceptives, and “occult” television shows damaging children. The solution to these problems? The government must empower the (Christian) church.

“…government at all levels must help create the legal and financial conditions to unleash the power of the church to restore broken families and create the safety net of pastoral care for families … every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals, or fornicators.”

The local Democrats are jumping all over this while McDonnell claims that he’s “moderated” his views since that “academic exercise” in 1989 and shouldn’t be judged by it. However, as Wendy Kaminer at the Atlantic explained in a recent editorial, the thesis does bring up some deeper questions about McDonnell, such as what role he now believes sectarian religious beliefs should have within government. Can non-Christians in Virginia trust that he’s “moderated” enough to treat all religions fairly once in office?

The Southern Poverty Law Center, in their Fall 2009 Intelligence Report, focuses on the growth of Odinist and Asatru prison groups in the wake of court decisions granting them “certain rights” that prisons must accommodate. This being the SPLC, the majority of their focus is on racist manifestations of Norse Paganism behind bars, though they do admit that Asatru is largely “benign” in the free world.

“As practiced by Owen and others outside prison, Odinism tends to be a benign form of paganism, tolerant of others and close to nature. Behind the walls, however, it is likely to take on a more sinister cast, and many prison wardens have long regarded Odinism as the religious arm of white supremacist prison gangs. The U.S. Supreme Court has nonetheless ruled that Odinist inmates have certain rights that prisons must recognize. So while a decade ago a pagan volunteer like Owen would have been dismissed as a kook or, at worst, a gang liaison, Odinist inmates today can wear Thor’s Hammer pendants under their jumpsuits and request visits from outside leaders.”

The piece also debates what percentage of incarcerated Norse Pagans/Odinists/Asatru are racists. While one Asatru chaplain (Valgard Murray of the Asatru Alliance) says the number is as low as ten percent nationally, the Texas prison system says that racists are 90% of their Odinist/Asatru population. They also touch on a case where Murray testified against incarcerated Odinists in an ongoing lawsuit, garnering the ire of other Odinist groups. On the whole, this is a fairly even-handed report for a hate-groups watchdog and they should be commended for seeking out and interviewing Asatru/Odinist prison chaplains.

The New York Times gives a rather critical review to the new travel series “Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre World” for not being all that, well, bizarre.

“He’s kept “Bizarre” in the title for branding purposes, but based on the Cuba episode, it now barely applies. In the course of an hour his most extreme activities are eating barbecued tree rat and taking part in a Santeria ceremony. The sight of his bald scalp covered in chicken blood is a bit unsettling, but he undercuts it with some all-American mugging and a big thumb’s up for the camera.”

Oooh chicken blood! Santeria! How bizarre! Nothing like exploiting a local religion to amuse your audience. The New York Times also dings Zimmern for conveniently overlooking the politics that led to all the “bizarre” idiosyncrasies of Cuban life (the fishing is great for tourists because Cubans aren’t allowed on boats, people eat tree-rats, all the cars are super-old), after all, we wouldn’t want to get too bizarre and upset the Cuban government now would we?

The Boston Globe reports on the increasing demand for hospital chaplains as patients admitted to hospitals now tend to be sicker and need spiritual guidance in dealing with life-or-death issues.

“Since 2004, requests for chaplains at the Brigham have jumped 23 percent. At Massachusetts General Hospital, requests have grown 30 percent since the hospital began tracking visits in 2006. And at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which expanded its pastoral care program last year, monthly visits are expected to rise to at least 540 this month, a 10-fold increase over the same time last year.”

It remains unsaid in this article, but if demand for priests, ministers, rabbis and imams are growing, it stands to reason that requests for minority-religion chaplains are also increasing. This makes credible and thorough training for Pagan chaplains an increasingly important issue, one that growing organizations like Cherry Hill Seminary (disclosure: I’m on their BOD) are trying to address in their curriculum. As Paganism’s second wave hits retirement and deals with the illnesses that often come with old age, will our movement be ready to meet their spiritual needs?

In a final note, congratulations to Pagan blogger Betsy Phillips at Tiny Cat Pants and Pith in the Wind who is starting a guest-stint at the major-league feminist blog Feministe.

“I’m a heathen, though not a very formal one. I hope we can talk about that, too, why I, the daughter of a Methodist minister, left Christianity and became a polytheist. I know paganism, broadly, is loaded with feminists, and yet, it seems to me, we rarely talk openly about what we pagans believe and why to other feminists.  And for good reasons. I know I feel like a damn fool when I talk about it, but it’s important to me and a lot of the reason I left Christianity had to do with being a woman, so maybe we can just try it and see how it goes.”

You can read all of her guest-posts, here.

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

Cuba’s babalawos have gotten together once again to make predictions for the coming year. While warning against natural disasters and marital strife, they seem somewhat upbeat (if cautious) about economic matters.

“There is a favorable time for loans, an increase in certain powers from the financial point of view, but one has to be careful about using that increase,” [Victor Betancourt] said. The prediction also warns of the perils of drinking water being contaminated, family quarrels, wars and the threat of natural disasters, and calls for men to respect women in the home. He also recommends being careful when speaking to avoid interpersonal conflicts, not revealing secrets people trust us with, and guarding against marital infidelity.

The Ifa readings for 2009 say the year will be reigned over by Oggun, the loa of war, and by Oya, in charge of storms and gentle breezes. You can read what I think is the text of the 2009 readings, here. You can also look at last year’s readings to see how accurate they were.

Medusa Coils reviews a new book by Jeri Lyn Studebaker (aka Athana of Radical Goddess Thealogy fame) entitled “Switching to Goddess: Humanity’s Ticket to the Future”.

Studebaker (who blogs as Athana on Radical Goddess Thealogy) doesn’t mince words in her bold assessment of where “war-daddy god” worship has gotten us and why we need to return to the female divine, whose cultures have been associated with peace, equality, and risk-taking. She doesn’t tip toe around difficult issues, and isn’t afraid to directly and strongly criticize Christianity and the Bible, for example. Though she often writes in a slangy style, you’d be wise not to be taken in by the flip language: Studebaker is no intellectual lightweight. The offbeat language helps make the book more accessible and enjoyable, but behind it a strong intellect and Goddess interpreter is at work.

Studebaker’s book was released by O Books, who have been gaining a good reputation as a company unafraid to publish thoughtful, challenging, and provoking Pagan-oriented books (most notably recent works by Brendan “Cathbad” Myers and Emma Restall Orr). For those unfamiliar with Studebaker’s work, note that she is an unapologetic Goddess booster on a mission (not that there is anything wrong with that). Even her positive reviews typify her writing as “fierce”, “provoking”, “zealous”, “fiesty”, “hard-hitting”, and (naturally) “radical”. Personally, I’m glad to see more Pagan books unafraid to stir things up now and then.

Attention scholars, music lovers, metal-heads, and others interested in the links between spirituality and music. A massive new collection of (seemingly free) interviews with musicians entitled “The Spiritual Significance of Music” has been released. Of particular interest is the “Metal Edition” which covers the interest in Pagan, Satanic, occult, and esoteric practices by metal bands.

…an exciting exploration of how music powerfully impacts spirituality, and why spirituality influences music. Readers will discover sincere expressions of spiritual beliefs from the world of metal music. This portfolio includes an eclectic mix of musicians playing many forms of metal music; ambient metal, avant-garde death-metal, black metal, brutal metal, death metal, doom metal, experimental metal, funeral-doom, gothic metal, grindcore, heavy metal, industrial metal, melodic metal, power metal, progressive metal, psychedelic metal, Satanic metal, sludge metal, speed metal, symphonic metal, technical metal, thrash metal, and includes musicians from alternative-rock, avant-rock, and hardcore-punk bands. Metal Edition provides readers with an important introduction to metal music’s affinity with demonology, divination, magic, mysticism, Satanism, spiritualism, the occult, and witchcraft.

There are also “Christian”, “World” and “Authors” editions to peruse as well (though the “World” and “Authors” sections seem to be down at the moment, perhaps due to traffic problems). Just the metal section alone looks like a treasure-trove of information, and I can’t wait to start sifting through it all. Kudos to editor Justin St. Vincent for the yeoman’s work performed here.

More signs of the growth of alternative and minority faiths in prison? In a fairly standard profile of prison chaplains for a women’s prison in Idaho, they reveal the religious make-up of the institution.

Mostly, he refers the inmate to one of the numerous groups that routinely visit the prison as part of the ministries program. At initial intake into the prison population, each woman is asked her religious leaning. Forty-five percent of inmates identify their orientation as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 24 percent as non-Roman Catholic Christian, 10 percent as Catholic, 4 percent as Wiccan, Odinist, Rastafarian or other less-mainstream religion, and 1 percent as Jewish.

The high Mormon numbers seem about right for a state  where around 23% of the population are LDS members, but I was surprised to see a prison in Idaho with such a high percentage of minority and Pagan faiths. Are more Pagans going to prison, or are we seeing an increasingly large number of people turing to Pagan faiths while incarcerated? If so, it certainly places extra importance on efforts to obtain equal and fair treatment of Pagan inmates across the country.

In a final note, the Reuters FaithWorld blog highlights the unveiling of Catholic Google (no official relation to actual Google) that removes (as much as possible) offensive sites and gives extra weight to pro-Catholic sites.

So now there’s Catholic Google, a search engine that calls itself  “the best way for good Catholics to surf the web”, It claims that “it produces results from all over the internet with more weighting  given to Catholic websites and eliminates the vast majority of unsavoury content, such as pornography”. When I heard this today, my first question was whether Google was getting into the religion business. Were there Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or other versions of the search engine out there as well?

I truly hope that this isn’t something that takes hold. I would personally recoil at the thought of a “Pagan Google”. What is wonderful about Google is the lack of fences in search results. When religious faiths start acting like China when it comes to the Internet, the possible damage to ecumenicism, interfaith outreach, and dialogue is inestimatable.

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