My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

The recent arrest of Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic, who was posing as a New Age guru named “Dragan David Dabic”, has sparked some eager pundits to form a link between the New Age movement and mass murder!

“The New Age Dr Karadzic was not a disguise; it was a peep at what could have been, an alternative history. If Pol Pot had come to Britain, he might have opened a respectable stall at the Stoke Newington farmers’ market. If Dr Karadzic had moved to Camden market he could have become a quiet and harmless guru. As it was, he butchered half a country. The lesson is: keep an eye on those health stores.”

Igor Toronyi-Lalic’s correlations become ever-more perilous, performing mental acrobatics to link organic farming to murder because Pol Pot liked it, and claiming that New Age stores readily carry copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. If this extended Reductio ad Hitlerum points to any conspiracy theorist, it must be the author himself.

Speaking of conspiracy theorists, want to dig up the “Harry Potter leads children to the occult” argument again? No? Too bad! Joe Max e-mailed me a link to a dazzlingly tunnel-visioned editorial from 2003 entitled “Heresy in the Hood II: Witchcraft among Children and Teens in America”. Heresy in the hood! Gods that tickles me. That should be the title of a movie.

“Any Web–savvy child can be indoctrinated into a pagan worldview and start casting spells before a parent catches on to this new interest.”

And they are probably downloading their records for free! Truly Satan is powerful! But why am I mocking an article from five years ago? Because the Christian anti-abortion hub LifeSiteNews references it extensively in a recent editorial by Hilary White.

“As of June 2008, the seven book Potter series has sold more than 400 million copies and the books have been translated into 67 languages. The phenomenal success of the books has made their British author, J.K. Rowling, the highest-earning novelist in history. Three years after Harry Potter, Harvey writes, a review of television programs, major children’s book publishers, and popular youth websites, ‘should more than confirm our initial warnings.’”

Blah, blah, blah, Harry Potter, blah, blah, Buffy, blah, blah, Satan, blah blah. Really I can’t even muster the energy to debate this stuff any more. Especially if they don’t even go to the trouble of writing a new piece, instead of simply paraphrasing one from five years ago. Perhaps both sides are stricken with Harry Potter outrage fatigue?

The Richmond Times Dispatch features a column from A. Barton Hinkle that looks at a recent decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding non-sectarian prayer in the town of Fredericksburg (it was challenged by a Christian pastor who wanted to say the “J-word”). Hinkle explains how the ACLU could press for non-sectarian prayer in this instance, yet fight for the inclusion of Wiccan Cynthia Simpson in a different public prayer case.

“There is a defensible rationale for the stance the ACLU has taken, and it goes like this: Governmental bodies should not allow invocations, period. But given the fact that Chesterfield had done so, then it was obliged to treat all religions equally by allowing prayers from other faiths: Buddhist, Shinto, Wiccan, or Spaghetti Monster. Having opened the door to Abrahamic faiths, it couldn’t slam the door on non-Abrahamic ones. In the Fredericksburg case, the ACLU doesn’t want the door opened at all.”

In other words, if you want sectarian prayer, you have to invite the Pagans.

Paging Llewellyn! Remember your hilarious moral victory in North Carolina? Well, you just might get your chance to repeat it in Arizona.

“Alliance Defense Fund yesterday announced that it had filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Arizona on behalf of the First Baptist Church of Maricopa and its pastor, Jim Johnson, challenging Maricopa County school district’s policy on distribution of literature by nonprofit groups … School policy permits nonprofit groups to have their literature promoting various events and activities made available to students in schools. However the policy excludes literature from any sectarian organization or literature that promotes a particular religious belief or participation in religion.”

Network with some Arizona groups now, contact the local media and tell them that if First Baptist Church of Maricopa wins, you’ll be happy to distribute Pagan books and flyers to the kids. As I mentioned earlier, if you include sectarian religious content, you have to let everyone in!

In a final note, Technoccult points to an amazing in-depth look at the relationship of Throbbing Gristle/Psychic-TV founder Genesis P-Orridge, and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, who tragically passed away last year due to an undiagnosed heart condition.

“If we can be with this woman as lovers, as partners, for the rest of our lives, thought the front man of the legendary bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, who’d easily piled up enough experiences and enough identities to justify that royal “we”—it’s all we’ll ever want in the universe.”

A true tale of magick, love, gender, music, and the art of becoming one being.

That is all I have for now, have a great day!