Have you ever read one of those articles about a sacrifice done in a graveyard and wondered who, exactly, does that sort of thing? Well, after a sacrificed rooster was found in a graveyard at Cocoa, Florida, hacked Facebook pictures traced the ceremony back to Christos Kioni, a “living legend” and “two headed” root doctor/spiritual coach. Florida Today interviewed Kioni to find out about his beliefs, and why he conducted the graveyard ceremony.

Kioni was hired by a woman in her 30s pleading for help. He said someone put roots — or a spell — on her, leaving her welted with skin lesions, swollen legs, jaundice and heart problems. “[the spirit of Jonathan Davis, the grave where the ceremony was performed] is very strong. He’s calling people to his grave. He was a warrior,” Kioni said. “His mother should be proud.” Just before sundown, a time when hoodoo practitioners believe the world transitions between life and death, Kioni presided over the sacrifice. The rooster was washed in scented water, perfumed with oils and prayed over as candles flickered. “We presented it to almighty (God)…but I did not deface a grave. This is my religion,” he said.

What isn’t mentioned in the article, but is mentioned in Kioni’s own Youtube channel, is that he’s a initiate into Palo Mayombe. The various threads of Palo are often misunderstood, and often sensationalized as the “dark side of Santeria” due to its willingness to engage with necromancy. Considering the reactions Palo can receive, its not too surprising the root doctor didn’t mention that part of his spiritual resume. One of the most interesting things about this profile/story on Kioni is his own account of how he entered into the world of root work and hoodoo.

“Curiosity and love of God led him to the seminary, he said. He later joined Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination that promoted speaking in tongues, prophesies and spiritual warfare. He became a pastor, but later left organized religion and got into what many Christians consider the forbidden worlds of witchcraft and divination. He has since built what Anderson called a worldwide audience in the hoodoo community.”

I have commented before on how close the Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal forms of spiritual warfare are to traditional magic as Pagans and other practitioners understand it, and here we have confirmation of something I’ve often wondered: do Christian spiritual warfare techniques ever lead someone into magic? The answer, at least in this case, seems to be yes. I would recommend reading the entire profile, as its not often that traditional news outlets are able/willing to track down and interview root workers, and other practitioners, when they cause controversy with their rites.

Just a few quick news notes for you on this Thursday.

COG Local Council Protests Go Daddy: The Dogwood Local Council of Covenant of the Goddess (COG), a regional body that serves Witches and Wiccans living in Georgia and Alabama, have sent out an announcement that they have stopped using the Internet domain service Go Daddy and are joining an ongoing protest that stems from company CEO Bob Parsons shooting and killing an elephant in Zimbabwe.

“We understand that Parsons’ acts were within the legal limits of Zimbabwe’s laws. And he may believe that he is doing good. However, the ends do not always justify the means. After careful consideration, we, as Witches and members of humanity, have decided to protest these killings,” states Hawk, First Officer of Dogwood Local Council and High Priestess of GryphonSong Clan [...] “While we do not want to see humans starving as a result of these roving elephants, we cannot condone the progressive annihilation of a species simply because they are in our way. And the African Elephant is still on the WWF endangered species list.”

Parsons has repeatedly defended his actions as humanitarian in nature, criticizing his critics as unwilling “to step up and do anything,” saying they are “all talk and no walk.” Vanity Fair notes that Parsons seemingly failed to realize that the “heroism of rich white men shooting elephants” has long ago fell out of fashion. As for Dogwood’s protest, it remains to be seen if the rest of COG, or other Pagan organizations, will follow suit.

The Wicker Tree Will Be Coming to America: Fangoria reports that “The Wicker Tree”, the forthcoming companion film to the classic 1973 Pagan-themed horror film “The Wicker Man,” has been picked up by Anchor Bay Entertainment for distribution, and that the film will be screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

“Fango has learned that writer/director Robin Hardy’s THE WICKER TREE—the British helmer’s semi-sequel to his 1973 classic THE WICKER MAN—has been picked up for distribution in North America and the UK, as early as this fall. The film’s international sales agent, High Point Media Group, will screen THE WICKER TREE at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival on May 14 and 16. Anchor Bay Entertainment will release THE WICKER TREE, described as a “companion piece” to the original film and based on Hardy’s 2006 novel COWBOYS FOR CHRIST (the initial title for the follow-up movie, previously attempted and scuttled a few years ago), which takes place 40 years after the events of the previous film.”

So we could be seeing this film in theaters this fall! Maybe just in time for Samhain? We’ll keep you posted. You can read all of my “Wicker Tree” coverage, here.

New Orleans Voodoo and Hoodoo Gets a Magazine: New Orleans Voodoo Examiner Denise Alvarado brings our attention to a new quarterly magazine entitled Hoodoo and Conjure Quarterly.

“Recognizing the resurgence of folk magic and the growing community of hoodoos, rootworkers, and spiritualists, Planet Voodoo has created a new, high quality journal that meets the needs of today’s conjurers and curious. Hoodoo & Conjure Quarterly (HCQ) journal is the first publication of its kind that focuses on New Orleans Voodoo and hoodoo and related African derived traditions. It shares historical and contemporary information about aspects of the conjure arts, including magico-religious practices, spiritual traditions, folk magic, southern hoodoo, and religions with their roots in the African Diaspora and indigenous herbalism. Each issue of Hoodoo & Conjure Quarterly brings you original and traditional formulas, spells, tutorials, root doctor, spiritual mother, and conjure artist profiles, information about New Orleans Voodoo and more!”

The periodical was created by Alvarado and her business partner Sharon Marino. The first issue came out in March, is in full color, and is 100+ pages long. If you want order a copy, please visit Planet Voodoo.

It happens every year. The irresistible combination of Halloween (aka Samhain to many Pagans) and real-live Witches causes a great flood of articles involving local Pagans. While usually of the light-as-a-feather “meet the Pagans” variety, they can sometimes be insightful, or give attention to Pagans who are doing good work. For instance, the Chicago Tribune’s profile of Circle Sanctuary minister Paul Larson.

He said he spent years searching religions for the proper spiritual fit. ”I was born into the Mormon faith, converted to the (Episcopal) faith and then became a Buddhist,” Larson said. “But I had been investigating paganism since 1969.” About eight years ago, after experiencing the loss of several family members and friends, he began to concentrate on paganism. ”I still consider myself a hyphenated American, a Mormo-Episco-Buddhi-pagan,” said Larson, who has a Buddhist statue in his office located in the Merchandise Mart. The statue isn’t too far from the certificate that shows he was ordained over the summer as a Wiccan minister. “Eight years ago as I was going through my (reinvention), I stopped believing in religious exclusivity, that there was one path through which the divine speaks,” he said. Larson said that despite the misconceptions, contemporary paganism has become attractive to more people, particularly young people, over the last three decades because of its reverence for the environment and its embrace of feminism. It also allows for a diversity of thought and belief systems that aren’t bound by a singular doctrine.

Meanwhile, the Religion News Service concentrates on how some Christians and Pagans work to co-exist and spread their faith’s message within the hothouse confines of Salem during the Halloween season. Giving special attention to Pastor Phil Wyman of The Gathering, who had come into conflict with his own denomination over his openness to the local Pagans and Witches.

[Phil Wyman] trains counselors not to fear witches and to disavow an “aggressive, warfare” mentality. ”That would ruin what we would do,” Wyman said. “A dialogue is the only way that we’re really going to find out what people think, what they really believe and where they stand. We have to be willing to hear what they believe as well as say what we believe. There’s a give and take.”

The RNS also interviews Spiritualists, Witches, and Catholics to paint a picture of how all faiths get swept up in the atmosphere of Salem’s Halloween, participating in festivities and having divinations performed on their behalf.

Perusing the seasonal coverage you can find stories on Witches’ Balls, local metaphysical shops, shamans, and even an in-depth examination of Hoodoo in America courtesy of Erik Davis.

“In his necessary history Occult America, Mitch Horowitz declares hoodoo “America’s first boundary-free faith.” He also shows how hoodoo was transformed by the emerging commercial marketplace of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when mail-order catalogs and chains of urban supply shops standardized some hoodoo practices while providing a cornucopia of new items for imaginative appropriation. Products developed for secular purposes — like Florida water or Hoyt’s cologne—transformed into healing potions. The resulting magical transformations were not limited to the United States — San Pedro shamans in Peru still love to spritz with Florida water.”

Of course you can also find your usual smattering of “Halloween is evil” articles if you look hard enough. Various pastors and ministers trying very hard to inject Christ into this spooky holiday season. But these seem to be shrinking, especially as more and more people turn to this holiday as a means of escape from the mundane problems around them. Between all the Christine O’Donnell coverage, the Druid charity status story, and now the usual spate of Halloween/Samhain pieces, this may be one of the biggest media blitzes in terms of sheer coverage and interviews our communities have seen in years. Whether all this coverage translates into more respect, understanding, or even converts, is still an open question. What we can say is that is certainly keeps modern Paganism, for better or for worse, in the public eye.

I’m not much of a sports fan, but I did end up watching the second half of last night’s Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts. While the Saints seem like a well-honed and remarkably skilled unit, at least to my inexperienced eyes, I was also struck by how “lucky” the team seemed in those final quarters of the game. Did they have some “outside” help? Religion reporter Gary Stern noted that many of the Saints are devout Christians, who quickly thanked God for the victory.

“Well, that was quite a game. You have to feel good for the city of New Orleans, no matter which team you root for. Coming five years after Katrina, the Saints’ big win seems perfectly scripted. By whom? A bunch of Saints players are saying that it was “God’s plan” that they beat the Colts.”

But thinking about the religious and cultural climate of New Orleans, I had some other notions of who might deserve a thank-you. Lisa Johnson, sister of retired football pro Eric Dickerson, and a root-worker for several NFL stars, tells Gawker that the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

“The Colts were up against every single “Southern root doctor, voodoo priest, and conjurer” in the Bayou last night. Johnson knew the Saints were getting special help when she watched the NFC Championship against the Vikings two weeks ago: quarterback Brett Favre took a beating, playing terribly after a whole season of the best football of his long career. ”I guarantee you,” she said, “when he got up at the end of the game, he felt like an old man.” The conjurers went to work on the Colts the week before the game … From midnight to 5 a.m.—”the witching hour”—the conjurers “burn candles, sage and tobacco” Chicken feet were used to curse opposing players and protect the Saints. By the time the game started, Johnson knew the Colts couldn’t win…“

While I’m sure there were some practitioners in Indianapolis trying their best to influence the outcome, they were probably out-gunned by sheer numbers alone. For weeks the media has been hinting that alongside Christian prayers, many fans were trying to appease the spirit of Marie Laveau, or engage in some root-work to make the win happen. Indeed, many commentators, despite thinking the Colts were technically better, decided there were too many mystical intangibles working for the Saints to lose.

“Sure, Peyton Manning is the most ruthlessly clinical surgeon under center since Joe Montana. But he tempted the fates. He might have offended New Orleans’ late voodoo queen Marie Laveau along the way. Or did you miss the “gris-gris” bestowed upon the once-favorite son of the South? Brett Favre, who grew up a Saints fan in neighboring Mississippi and later became King Creole, had the audacity to ride into the Louisiana Superdome with Minnesota. He needed a mere five yards or so to set up a game-winning field-goal attempt in the waning seconds. And as he rolled right, the field opened up. Then, as if someone (Laveau?) stuck a pin in the right arm of his purple-clad voodoo doll, Favre uncorked a cross-body pass. Interception. Overtime. Favre never touched the ball again. The erstwhile Aints were Super Bowl-bound.”

So as Get Religion explores the many Christian dimensions of yesterday’s Super Bowl, let’s also acknowledge that there was plenty of “extracurricular” spiritual activity happening on the side-lines. I mean, can you have a big win in New Orleans without thanking God and the spirits? Something tells me there are going to be plenty of offerings left at crossroads, graves, and shrines in the coming weeks alongside the “amens” in church.

Sometimes you can understand why something strange makes the news and provokes wild speculation. For instance, when people find dead animals in parks, that is bound to freak people out and lead to speculation of “dark” magic practiced by a mysterious “other”. But other times, you have to wonder how something actually made the headlines, such as in the case of a “cursed cow tongue” found in a rural cornfield.

“…farmers called police to County Road 28 and County Road 5 around 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and police said they found a package wrapped securely in black plastic and tied with yellow nylon ropes. Police said someone dug a small hole and left the package inside. Since officers couldn’t tell what was inside the package, they called out the bomb squad. X-rays showed no mechanical devices inside, so police opened the package and found some kind of flesh that had sutures in it. An anthropologist, who is part of the investigative staff identified it as a cow’s tongue.When officers opened the sutures, they found a photograph inside, writing in Spanish and what looked like different types of pepper, said Longmont Police Cmdr. Tim Lewis.Officers said they did some research and found a cow’s tongue is used in different types of rituals, including one that would make someone stop gossiping or talking about a person, which is what this appears to be, Lewis said.”

First of all, a bomb squad? I understand the need for caution, but who would bomb a rural cornfield? Also, since they uncovered that it wasn’t a bomb, and in fact no danger to the community, why was the press told? Further, they said they are trying to warn the person in the photo and bring in the spell-maker for questioning (though they admit they probably won’t press charges), escalating a simple bit of folk-magic into an ongoing drama.

An x-ray of a cursed cow-tongue.

If there is a lesson here, it is two-fold. First, magical practitioners need to be really, really careful about where they leave spells. Even if you’re doing a bit of non-malefic magic to stop someone bad-mouthing you, you better make sure that en-spelled cow tongue (that you bought at the butchers) or bottle full of pee and rusty nails is buried somewhere safe. Second, if no harm was done, and no charges are going to be pressed, then this should never have been a matter that made its way to the press. You don’t think the local papers aren’t going to want to follow up and see who did this? There is the very real possibility that a fragile  (or simply personal) domestic situation could boil over now that it’s splashed all over “news of the weird” sections across the country. As for the local papers, frankly, you’d think that with newspapers collapsing across the country, they’d want to save their payroll for issues that actually concern the public at large.

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

Jane Baker, from the Australian paper The Yass Tribue, holds up Hypatia of Alexandria as a beacon of inspiration when confronting various fundamentalisms and maintaining independent thought.

“In a time darker than ours, a time when reason was held hostage to fundamentalism, when only one form of thought and belief was permitted, when scholars were denounced and their works destroyed, Hypatia kept teaching and standing up for reason. “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all,” she told her students. Those words should stay with us when we read the papers, listen to the news, hear the latest demagogue spruiking his zealotry. We have to think. We have to question. We cannot accept what we are told without thought and consideration. That is what stands between us and the darkness of ignorance and fanaticism.”

Now that Hypatia’s story is being adapted into a film, one wonders if the famous Neoplatonist will indeed become a sort of Pagan saint, invoked against intolerance and religious extremism by a variety of groups.

Students from Pagan/Wiccan club and Native American club at Joliet Junior College, inspired by one of their teachers, joined forces to create a Relay for Life team and raise money for Cancer research.

“Students from the Native American Club and the Pagan Wiccan Club joined together to create the JJC Thunderbirds team for the All-College Relay for Life being held this weekend at Lewis University in Romeoville. In a final push to raise funds for the walk, they created an event – ‘Clips for a Cure’ – on the JJC bridge Thursday afternoon. Anyone donating a foot of hair to Locks of Love was eligible for a free hair cut; others were given a hair cut with a donation as small as $5. Hairstylists from J&M Hair Salon in Joliet donated their time and talent to the cause, cutting both men’s and women’s hair.”

Thanks in part to the efforts of these clubs, Joliet Junior College has raised over $25,000 for cancer research in the past two years. This is a wonderful example of young Pagans involved in making the world a better place, and showing that the future of our religious movement is in good hands.

The Florida Sun-Sentinel re-tells the myth of Eos and Tithonus.

“Naturally Tithonus loved Eos. Who could resist the love of such a beautiful goddess? Just as she does today, in those years long ago, Eos woke the world each morning with curling rings of light, and every morning she mystically brought the world out of darkness. Whenever Tithonus looked at her, he felt a glow, the way so many people feel at dawn – as buoyant as an April morning on those days when the first buds begin to bloom.”

Just the myth. No commentary, no moral lesson, just the story. If re-printing the great stories and myths in newspapers is a new trend, I approve! Perhaps they can run a serial of the Trojan War?

A Druid from Portsmouth has turned in his ritual sword to the police in order to make a statement on the recent growth of stabbing incidents in the UK.

“A Druid who had to fight a legal battle to get his sword back after police confiscated it has now handed the weapon in to promote world peace. Merlin Williams used his blunt sword, Taliesin, to create a circle of safety around members of the druid order at ceremonies … He said: ‘The thought to hand the sword in to police came to me when I was meditating and thinking about world peace and the stabbings you read about in the papers all the time. ‘I wanted to show that druids are peace-loving and although the sword was never used for violence, I thought handing it in to the police station where it was confiscated would be a good way of doing this. I also want to discourage others from carrying knives as it can lead to violence and people being hurt.’”

Williams is a member and chief bard of the The Insular Order of Druids, an organization that has had more than one run-in with the law over confiscated ritual blades.

The Oshawa Public Library in Ontario has generated a bit of scandal over providing a tarot workshop to local teens.

“It’s not often that a school librarian takes issue with a library program. But Oshawa’s Susan Packer said she was driven to act last week, after learning Oshawa’s public library will be offering tarot card workshops for teens later this month. “I believe that tarot reading is a dangerous practice. Teenagers who might attend the program offered at the library will be dabbling in the occult,” said Ms. Packer, who is the parent of three teenagers and a teacher-librarian at an Oshawa elementary school … Ms. Packer shared her concerns with the Durham District School Board and sent a letter to the library board and local politicians last week, asking that the program be dropped.”

While such a controversy might have played out differently in America, it seems that Canada has little tolerance for religious hysteria. A librarian at OPL said that “we don’t let small groups of people dictate what large groups of people can see or do or learn”, and they plan to go ahead with the workshop. The workshops are being held on April 19th and 26th, and will feature Zsuzsana, author of “The Now Age”.

In a final note, a couple people passed along a link to a story from late last year that I missed. It concerns an ongoing rivalry between two Baltimore candle stores on the same street “Grandma’s Candle Shop” and “Lucky Star Candles: Home of Old Grandpa.”

“Grandma’s and Grandpa’s have both been caring for the spiritual health of downtown Baltimore for three decades, squabbling like an old married couple the whole time. The feud isn’t as hot as it was when Old Grandpa ran his store, but despite their similarities, there’s no love lost between the candle merchants.”

This story has it all: drama, allegations of intellectual property theft, bad blood, and different religious backgrounds (Grandma’s is Pagan-friendly, Grandpa’s is decidedly Christian in tone). Both uneasily co-exist while selling mojo and magical supplies to the locals. A must-read!

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

The Digital Journalist has a wonderful essay up by producer and director Jim Gabour on the culture of Voodoo in New Orleans, and how a simple wedding gift of “mojo” made his neighbors see him in a new light.

“Seems two old friends in L.A. are getting married, and I want to send them something as a gift – they’ve both been very generous to me with their friendship and their unselfish introduction of a Looziana boy into the West Coast media community over the years. So I want to send an only-from-New-Orleans-and-only-from-me gift to celebrate their union. After much rumination I decide I will go to my favorite voodoo shop (the XXX Botanica is literally the Wal-Mart of voodoo paraphernalia) and put together a packet of lucky charms. Surely a New Orleans sort of thing, that. The XXX is out in a bad part of the Faubourg St. John area, and a bit of a drive, but I figure that the effort will make it more of a heartfelt gift.”

I won’t reveal the story here, but it’s worth the read for a no-nonsense look into the culture of hoodoo and Voodoo in present-day New Orleans. For more of Gabour’s writings, check out the Open Democracy site.