• A barbershop in Massachusetts has been closed down after city inspectors found a Palo Mayombe altar and six chickens (one dead) in the basement of the establishment. Health officials have shut down the business due to unsanitary conditions in the basement. The owner claims he never did sacrifice in the basement of his business and that the animals were only there temporarily while he moved. There is an ABC Nightline video of the basement in question, as well as an interview with barbershop owner William Camacho. Litigation seems very likely.
• Kathryn Price NicDhàna updates us on the ongoing actions in Arizona to stop the clear-cutting and burning of forest on the San Francisco Peaks to make way for a pipeline that will pump treated wastewater up the mountain so that a ski resort can make more money. As documented here, the San Francisco Peaks are held as sacred by several indigenous peoples and Tribal Nations in the area. For ongoing coverage check out Censored News and Indigenous Action Media. A nationwide Forest Service protest is currently being organized.
• Conservative columnist Roy Exum has apologized for his article mocking Pagans, a piece he wrote in reaction to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee adding four Pagan holidays to its calendar. Quote Exum: “I need to apologize. I have never slighted anyone for their religious views and in Wednesday’s column I did so badly. Because of my ignorance of the subject, I was under the impression Pagans and Wiccans were more of a cult and I am genuinely sorry that I offended some very kind and nice worshippers.” Exum also shares excerpts from the many letters he was sent. Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary wrote him a thank-you note for his apology, and urges others to do the same.
• New Apostolic Reformation leader/apostle C. Peter Wagner protests against assertions that his movement wants a Christian theocracy in the United States, clarifying that the “way to achieve dominion is not to become ‘America’s Taliban,’ but rather to have kingdom-minded people in every one of the Seven Mountains: Religion, Family, Education, Government, Media, Arts & Entertainment, and Business so that they can use their influence to create an environment in which the blessings and prosperity of the Kingdom of God can permeate all areas of society.” In essence, a theocracy would be too limited a concept for what NAR wants. I’m sure you are all reassured, right?
• For those keeping track of Sacred Paths Center‘s fiscal travails, PNC-Minnesota has an update on the what’s going on. SPC has released the findings from their recent governance audit and posted a historical narrative of what, exactly, happened.
• Clothing designer Rachel Roy visited Haiti recently (alongside Martha Stewart and Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren) to investigate business opportunities with local artisans. While there she learned something about Haitain Vodou: “Jean Baptiste – Possibly my favorite artist who beads- also Voodoo priest. Voodoo actually being a positive force. Over the years it has gotten a bad rap (‘black magic’). Well, really, it is no different than other religions that offers hope-provides clients and provides dietaries and substance – for a nation … learn something new everything minute … I love to learn.”
• The DC/Baltimore area Sacred Space Conference has announced it’s featured presenters for 2012: Lyratah Barrett, cat yronwode, Ivo Dominguez Jr., and John Michael Greer. The event takes place March 8th – 11th in Laurel, Maryland. You can register now.
• James Kirk Wall, author of “Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance,” ponders who non-religious voters should back in 2012. Some of his points could just as easily apply to adherents of minority religions as well.
• The Russian Republic of Karelia has ordered a ban on Halloween celebrations at its schools, stating that it is a Pagan holiday that contradicts the “secularist character of education” and promotes “Satanism and extremism.” Isolated bit of paranoia and overreach, or is connected to the slow-moving oppression of minority faiths in Russia? As the government, in seemingly increasing collusion with the Russian Orthodox Church, use laws against extremism and “cults” to intimidate and oppress competing faiths, the future of indigenous and neopagan faiths in Russia seems endangered.
• According to the Times of India, Wicca has reached its 15th anniversary in India, and checks in with their country’s most famous Wiccan, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti.
• The American Family Association is trying to distance itself from its own Director of Issue Analysis, Bryan Fischer. Fischer has a long track-record of spouting off increasing intolerant and hateful screeds. While the AFA is usually content to keep quiet about Fischer’s near-daily rants, this time they are splitting with him on the Establishment Clause: “under American law all religions enjoy freedom from government interference.  However Joseph Story’s view continues to have proponents, including Bryan Fischer, one of American Family Radio’s talk show hosts.  However, the American Family Association (“AFA”) officially sides with Jefferson on this question.   AFA is confident that the truth of Christianity will prevail whenever it is allowed to freely compete in the marketplace of ideas.” Right Wing Watch challenges us to “name one other organization that regularly has to declare that the things said by its own spokesman should not be construed as reflecting the views of the organization itself.”

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

“If a Ten Commandments monument is placed on Marion’s Tower Square, resident Robert Donelson wants equal access to share the views of his Wiccan religion … “If Christians are going to have their viewpoint up here, let them at least put up ours,” he said. Donelson, who said he has been a Wiccan for five or six years, was introduced at the news conference by Rob Sherman, the atheist from northern Illinois who has warned city leaders they could be in for a legal battle if the Ten Commandments go up on public property … “I am calling Mayor (Bob) Butler’s bluff,” Sherman said. If the city allows the Ten Commandments, it must also allow room for other religious viewpoints, Sherman said.”

According to Sherman, Mayor Bob Butler has vowed to get the Judeo-Christian monument erected, and that he would only allow the viewpoint of the majority to be represented on the Town Square. Mayor Butler goes further in local paper The Southern, and mocks the Wiccan faith.

“I do not believe Mr. Sherman’s comments are worthy of comment. Period,” he said of Sherman’s threat of a lawsuit. Butler did say that the chances of a Wiccan viewpoint making it onto Tower Square were slim. “I only recently heard of the Wiccans and I am not impressed. They probably come from a different planet, maybe the same one Mr. Sherman comes from,” Butler said.

So much for equal access! I guess to Mayor Butler, some faiths are more equal than others under the law. It looks like Sherman will get to file his lawsuit against Marion, though there’s still a chance the City Council will back down under the threat of encroaching Wiccans. This isn’t the first time the seemingly frightening prospect of Wiccan participation has been used to influence local politics, though in some cases they are used as a fig-leaf of diversity. I hope that Robert Donelson knows what he’s getting himself into.

The Divine Feminine in Judaism: Tablet Magazine profiles Kohenet, the Hebrew Priestess Insitute, and other groups on the fringes of modern Judaism that (re)embrace the Divine Feminine, earth-based spirituality, Jewitchery, Jewish Paganism, and related concepts. Tablet notes that Kohenet priestesses, unlike Jewish converts to Paganism, stays rooted in a Jewish identity.

Back when Jewish Renewal and Starhawk were struggling to get off the ground, the notion of Jewish paganism was unimaginable because it defied the monotheistic core of Judaism. In recent years, though, Kohenet and other earth-based Jewish groups are challenging that monotheistic essence; in their view, Judaism and paganism can coexist. As Hammer and Shere write in an unpublished manuscript about Hebrew priestesses, Kohenet holds “a soft position with regard to monotheism.” While their work “conceives of God/dess as a unity,” they “welcome women who experience the divine as a multiplicity.” But unlike Starhawk and other Jews who became pagans, today’s earth-based Jews ground their theology explicitly in Jewish traditions and texts. “What’s new here isn’t that Jews are doing paganism,” says Jay Michaelson, a columnist for The Forward and an expert on Jewish spirituality who confesses that he has become more “pagany” over the last few years. “It’s that they’re staying Jews.”

The article also notes that these movements, despite their growing popularity in some areas, haven’t found much traction within mainstream Judaism, and two quoted Rabbis are quite critical (one calls Pagan Jews “perverts”). However, The Forward’s Jay Michaelson, who’s written about Jewish Paganism, notes that “pagany” elements have been emerging in mainstream synagogues lately, so who knows what the future may hold for the Jewish Priestesses, Jewish Witches, and Jewish Pagans.

Cults or Pranksters? The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal explores whether a recent grave robbery (on Friday the 13th) was the work of a disturbed prankster, or a practitioner of Palo Mayombe. So far local authorities seem to be reserving judgement, and the expert the paper talks to doesn’t seem to be heading in sensationalist directions.

Tony Kail is a Tennessee author and educator who has studied what he calls “magico religious activity.” He spoke to Stamford police about their case and is consulted by other departments about similar cases. Kail cautioned against jumping to any conclusions about a grave robbery. “A disturbed grave alone,” he said, “is not an indication of a magico religious activity,” he said. “Historically, many of the incidents involving grave thefts are done by those who aren’t involved in actual magico religious cultures. Individuals who ‘roll their own’ take elements from established religions and create their own subcultures.” Bones used in African-based religious traditions are used to represent ancestors, he said. But most bones used in Palo Mayombe are obtained through legal means, said Kail, who wrote “A Cop’s Guide to Occult Investigations” and “Magico Religious Groups and Ritualistic Activities: A Guide for First Responders.” Though disturbing, not every grave robbery is linked to rituals or the occult.

Tony Kail of Worldview Consulting is given high marks by Pagan author Dorothy Morrison, so hopefully things won’t veer into racial or religious profiling for what may be the work of a single disturbed individual. Crates, candles, and even animal parts, do not a religious ritual make. Whoever was the culprit, let’s hope he or she is soon caught and brought to justice.

Queens Tribune Faces Scrutiny: Those of you who followed my coverage of New York City Councilman Dan Halloran’s political campaign may remember that it was the Queens Tribune who outed him in a sensationalist fashion, nearly derailing his campaign in the process. Many pointed out that the Queens Tribune had a sister company that did consulting for his opponent, and that this created a conflict of interest for the paper, something the paper strenuously denied. Now the Queens Tribune is facing scrutiny again, as it’s been revealed that Democratic State Sen. Shirley Huntley paid 30,000 dollars to Multi-Media, run by Queens Tribune Executive Vice President and Associate Publisher Michael Nussbaum, for political consulting.

“It’s uncomfortable and it crosses the line,” said [Richard] Parker, a fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center. “You should not have a newspaper executive simultaneously serving as a consultant to a candidate being covered by the paper.” Huntley said Nussbaum’s dual roles don’t pose any conflicts for her. ”I hired him as a political consultant,” she said. “Everyone knows he’s with the paper. I assume this is a separate business.” Huntley, facing a tough primary against Democrat Lynn Nunes, insisted she wasn’t looking to garner favorable coverage from the weekly newspaper by hiring Nussbaum.

The article notes that it’s an “open secret” that Nussbaum runs both businesses, and mentions the Halloran campaign as a previous instance where the interests of the consulting company and the paper seemed to merge in an uncomfortable fashion. Will this latest coverage finally “out” Queens Tribune as a partisan paper? How impartial can you be when your parent company is cutting checks from the people you’re supposed to cover? I wonder how many local journalists are now comparing Multi-Media’s client list against the Queens Tribune’s coverage?

Two Kinds of Witchcraft in India: Two separate articles published the same day in the Calcutta Telegraph spotlight two different kinds of Witchcraft in India. The first looks at the problem of witch persecutions and killings, around 2,500 in the last 14 years, and efforts to “rehabilitate” women who’ve been ostracized.

Three months ago, it was decided that Purangi Nag, a Munda woman who worked in the Soongachi tea estate in Jalpaiguri’s Matelli block, was a witch. Purangi’s husband had died seven years ago; her son and his wife were killed by a rogue elephant. The widow’s neighbour, Birbal, has a son who fell ill soon after these mishaps. Purangi, he declared, was a witch who had cast a spell on the neighbourhood. One night, Birbal and three of Purangi’s neighbours — all men — assaulted her, injuring her grievously and forcing her to flee with her seven-year-old grandson, Dhiren, to her brother in a neighbouring village. When she approached the local thana, she was handed over to a temporary shelter run by the North Bengal People’s Development Centre.

The second profiles popular Indian Wiccan Ipsita Roy-Chakraverti, the “beloved witch”.

“When I started in 1987 in Calcutta, ‘witch’ used to be a bad word, an abusive expression,” she said. She went on to recount how she has struggled lifelong to remove the stigma attached to the word. In the process she has had to face “brickbats”, often quite literally. But Ipsita’s success in this context is limited only to a section of the urban populace. In Indian villages, ‘witch’ is not only a “bad” but also a dangerous word. Even in the city, a witch is generally that evil woman who has stolen one’s husband. How did the word ‘witch’ acquire a sinister ring and the worshipper of Goddess Diana become the ‘daiyen’ or ‘daini’? Ipsita said it was because of the marginalization of pagan cultures by mainstream religions. “This battle was a gendered one as well,” she added. Witchcraft has feminist tendencies as witches were the “worshippers of the mother goddess”, while conventional religions promoted patriarchy.

Wicca, particularly among the young, and in urban areas, continues to grow. Roy-Chakraverti has worked, sometimes with the government, to prevent witchcraft slayings and female infanticide. Can the growth of Wicca, and the subsequent redefinition of the term “witchcraft” change the deadly superstitions in some rural areas? What tensions will we see as these phenomenons start to converge? India is a prime example of how witch-killings is quickly becoming a Pagan issue, even though those harassed, abused, and murdered, would never claim the term for themselves.

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

A clipping from the Times of India article.

“Sangeeta Krishnan, whose collective is called Astral Hub, screens films like “The Secret”, plans day trips to Madh Island with psychic games and Maypole dances, and initiates debates like the forthcoming one called Harry Potter versus Real Witches. “Wicca is a calling and I’d say there are about 50 dedicated Wiccans in Bombay,” she says. And the headcount may keep growing as Wiccans bravely come out on social networking sites.”

The article also gives credit to Ipsita Roy Chakraverti (whom I’ve covered at this blog previously) with bringing Wicca in India out of the “Indian broom closet” in the 1980s, and interviews an Indian Wiccan who received her initial training from the US-based Witch School. While the number of Indian Wiccans is still very small, the tone of these articles very much reminds me of the early profiles of Wicca in Britain and America, and we all know how our population exploded in the years after the faith was introduced in those countries.

Will later generations of Wiccans in India look towards Chakraverti and Krishnan the way we now look at figures like Alex Sanders or Starhawk? Whatever the outcome, it looks certain that modern Paganism has indeed found fertile soil among this predominately Hindu country (which brings up all sorts of interesting questions about Indian Pagans and Western Indo-Pagans), and that Wicca has truly become a world religion, with thriving communities of practitioners located across the globe (in Brazil, South Africa, India, Russia, Australia, and Mexico for instance). When the modern Pagans go to the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne this December, they can truly claim that they have a personal stake in what happens outside the Western countries we are normally associated with.

“There’s more to Paulo Coelho than meets the eye. The Brazilian writer whose bestselling books are said to have a life-enhancing effect on millions across the world is a “wiccan” and a “mystic”. Coelho’s wicca link was brought under the scanner by Calcutta’s own wiccan Ipsita Roy Chakraverti at a book-reading session of his latest release Brida. Not only does Brida dwell on wicca, Coelho himself is a practitioner of the pagan religion that worshipped the Mother Goddess around 25,000 years ago, confirmed Ipsita.”

If true, this would certainly be big news (the American equivalent would be Starhawk publicly outing an author of Toni Morrison’s stature), except that it isn’t. At least it isn’t wholly true. If you look at Coelho’s Wikipedia page, you’ll find that the Brazilian author seems to be a part of some sort of mystic Catholic order. However, in the author’s past, he was a student of the occult and in the 1970′s tried to start a Aleister Crowley-influenced “alternative society” with Brazilian rock star Raul Seixas.

“Through Coelho, Seixas was introduced to the work of controversial English mystic Aleister Crowley, which influenced their collaboration. The influence extended not only to music, but also to plans for the creation of the “Alternative Society,” which was to be an anarchist community in the state of Minas Gerais based on Crowley’s premise: “‘Do what thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the Law.” The project was considered subversive by members of the Brazilian military, which imprisoned all prospective members of the group. Seixas and Coelho are reported to have been tortured during their imprisonment.”

However, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti’s chronological mistake might turn out to be a subtle form of prophesy. In Coelho’s latest book, “The Witch of Portobello”, the author seems to be growing disillusioned with Catholicism, and explores the re-emergence of Goddess religion.

“A new witch-hunt is starting to gain ground. This time the weapon isn’t the red-hot iron, but irony and repression. Anyone who happens to discover a gift and dares to speak of their abilities is usually regarded with distrust. Generally speaking, their husband, wife, father or child, or whoever, instead of feeling proud, forbids all mention of the matter, fearful of exposing their family to ridicule.”

So who knows, perhaps Paulo Coelho’s Pagan past may eventually become his future.
]]> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/06/paulo-coelhos-pagan-past-and-future.html/feed 9 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/06/paulo-coelhos-pagan-past-and-future-2.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/06/paulo-coelhos-pagan-past-and-future-2.html#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:05:00 +0000 Jason Pitzl-Waters http://patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/06/paulo-coelhos-pagan-past-and-future.html The Telegraph in India interviews Ipsita Roy Chakraverti (India’s most prominent Wiccan) concerning international best-selling author Paulo Coelho’s spiritual life. Basing her assertions on the recent English translation of Coelho’s 1990 book “Brida”, Ipsita claims that Coelho is a Wiccan, like herself.

“There’s more to Paulo Coelho than meets the eye. The Brazilian writer whose bestselling books are said to have a life-enhancing effect on millions across the world is a “wiccan” and a “mystic”. Coelho’s wicca link was brought under the scanner by Calcutta’s own wiccan Ipsita Roy Chakraverti at a book-reading session of his latest release Brida. Not only does Brida dwell on wicca, Coelho himself is a practitioner of the pagan religion that worshipped the Mother Goddess around 25,000 years ago, confirmed Ipsita.”

If true, this would certainly be big news (the American equivalent would be Starhawk publicly outing an author of Toni Morrison’s stature), except that it isn’t. At least it isn’t wholly true. If you look at Coelho’s Wikipedia page, you’ll find that the Brazilian author seems to be a part of some sort of mystic Catholic order. However, in the author’s past, he was a student of the occult and in the 1970′s tried to start a Aleister Crowley-influenced “alternative society” with Brazilian rock star Raul Seixas.

“Through Coelho, Seixas was introduced to the work of controversial English mystic Aleister Crowley, which influenced their collaboration. The influence extended not only to music, but also to plans for the creation of the “Alternative Society,” which was to be an anarchist community in the state of Minas Gerais based on Crowley’s premise: “‘Do what thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the Law.” The project was considered subversive by members of the Brazilian military, which imprisoned all prospective members of the group. Seixas and Coelho are reported to have been tortured during their imprisonment.”

However, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti’s chronological mistake might turn out to be a subtle form of prophesy. In Coelho’s latest book, “The Witch of Portobello”, the author seems to be growing disillusioned with Catholicism, and explores the re-emergence of Goddess religion.

“A new witch-hunt is starting to gain ground. This time the weapon isn’t the red-hot iron, but irony and repression. Anyone who happens to discover a gift and dares to speak of their abilities is usually regarded with distrust. Generally speaking, their husband, wife, father or child, or whoever, instead of feeling proud, forbids all mention of the matter, fearful of exposing their family to ridicule.”

So who knows, perhaps Paulo Coelho’s Pagan past may eventually become his future.
]]> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/06/paulo-coelhos-pagan-past-and-future-2.html/feed 7 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/02/updates-on-past-stories-4.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/02/updates-on-past-stories-4.html#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:08:00 +0000 Jason Pitzl-Waters http://patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/02/updates-on-past-stories-6.html Thelemites Fight Pedophillia Charges: An Australian couple who posted unsubstantiated accusations of pedophilia and ritual abuse within the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) chapter in Melbourne, Australia have been sentenced to nine months in prison. The prison stay was ordered after Vivienne Legg and Dyson Devine defied a court order to take down the material, and declined to appear at hearings.

“Vivienne Legg and Dyson Devine posted on their website claims that an occult group, the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), was really a pedophile ring in Victoria, and that its activities included hosting parties at which naked children served as waiters and members had sex with and murdered children … [Judge Marilyn Harbison] said the material was gross, insulting and bizarre in asserting that the OTO tortured and killed children and animals and consumed their organs in blood rituals. It also said OTO members were criminally corrupt, spoke of a culture of corruption at the highest levels of government, and identified politicians as taking part. Judge Harbison said she had to signal to the broader community that tribunal orders were not to be ignored and that breaching the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act was a serious issue.”

The offending site in question was finally taken down in January by the hosting provider. Legg and Devine now have to decide if they will apologize to the judge and hope that their sentence is commuted, or if they will appeal their case to the Supreme Court.

The First Wiccan Multi-Millionaire: A local ABC News affiliate checks in with Ellwood “Bunky” Bartlett, a Wiccan who won an estimated 33 million dollars in the Mega Millions drawing back in September of 2007. According to the report, Bartlett is keeping the promises he made back when he first realized he won the lottery.

“After Dundalk’s Bunky Bartlett hit the Mega Millions jackpot in 2007, he said he planned to help a new age gift shop expand. He also said he would continue teaching people about his Wiccan beliefs. Bartlett has been true to his word. The Mystical Voyage store in Nottingham used to occupy 2500 square feet of space. When the expanded store opens next month, it will occupy 6500 square feet — enough space for several new holistic healing rooms, and a large yoga studio.”

Bartlett continues to teach classes on Wicca at the store, as he did before the lottery win. No further word yet about the proposed Willow Springs Sanctuary and Community Center that was announced back in November.

Wicca in India: In the past I have reported on Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, a famous adherent of Wicca in India. Chakraverti, a social activist, started a “Wiccan Brigade” to stem witchcraft killings and female infanticide through a campaign of education and re-framing the practice of “witchcraft” in India. While we have heard no reports on how successful these initiatives have been, it does look like Wicca and other western Pagan imports are gaining popularity in certain Indian cities.

“New age therapies and healing through a host of skills, including hypnosis, tarot reading, astrology and witchcraft are being accepted by a majority of people in Chandigarh, the twin capital of Punjab and Haryana … Claiming to be India’s first Shaman Witch, Renu Mathur helps remove all negative energy surrounding a person through prayer and meditation. She claims that she receives the energy from Gods and Goddesses as also from the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. ‘Although this may not seem like a straight fight against superstition because what I am doing is very logical like the use of colours, use of fire, use of crystals all of which has been validated by everybody in all fields. This is just a concentrated form of using them and invocations of a Wiccan or a person like me used has a very scientific oath -’Do what will not harm anyone’. We cannot harm anyone. If we even think of doing so we lose our energies,’ said Renu.”

It should be interesting to see what the continued co-mingling of Hinduism and Indian culture with modern Paganism will produce. These cross-cultural interactions seem to hint at the promise of a post-Christian future, where theological “sisters” like Hinduism and modern Paganism can enrich one another over the longer term.

Speaking of India, today is the beginning of the Pongala Mahotsavam, a ten-day festival in honor of Bhagavathi (the mother goddess of the Malayali Hindus). Held in Thiruvananthapuram, it is the largest religious gathering for women in the world.

“Women in thousands have started pouring in to participate in Friday’s ‘Pongala’ festival at Attukal temple, famed as ‘Women’s Sabarimala’ for attracting one of the world’s biggest female congregations. The Attukal Bhagavati temple here had entered the Guinness Book two years back as a unique religious event that draws over a million women on a single day. The whole city would turn into a sea of women as sun rises on Friday with the road, pavements and by-lanes about an area of six km around being occupied by devotees with the earthen pots placed on brick hearths in front of them to prepare the ‘prasadam’ (sweetened pudding). The ritual consists of preparation of the prasadam of rice, jaggery, coconut and spices, to be offered to the Goddess to invoke her blessings for peace and prosperity.”

An estimated 2.5 million women are expected to participate this year, breaking all previous attendance records for the festival (1.7 million in 2007, and 1.5 million in 2006).
]]> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2008/02/updates-on-past-stories-4.html/feed 4 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/07/wicca-india-and-infanticide.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/07/wicca-india-and-infanticide.html#comments Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:24:00 +0000 Jason Pitzl-Waters http://patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2007/07/wicca-india-and-infanticide.html The intermingling of modern Paganism/polytheism with Hinduism isn’t just happening from the Western side of the fence. Some Indians are adopting Wicca as a means towards progress and social reform within their country, the most visible example being activist Ipsita Roy Chakraverti. Chakraverti made international headlines last year for forming a Wiccan “brigade” to help curb witchcraft slayings in rural areas of India through education and outreach.

“People from different walks of life and even governments had asked me to institutionalize Wicca, but I was waiting for the right moment…Now is the time we stood up against people who persecute and kill innocent women…”

While I never saw any reports on how that program was progressing, it seems Chakraverti’s efforts have not gone unnoticed, and she has been tapped by the Indian government to head a panel dealing with the issue of female infanticide.

“Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, a Wiccan and social activist, has been nominated by the government’s National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) to head a panel tasked with improving the status of young girls, they said. Around 10 million girls have been killed by their parents over the last 20 years, the government says, as female infanticide and foeticide, although illegal, are still prevalent with boys preferred to girls as breadwinners … The Wiccan campaign has made inroads into several rural pockets across India and has helped raise awareness against victimising young women and girls as witches. Authorities expect that this influence could be expanded to promote the overall well-being of young girls.”

Chakraverti sees this as a “triumph” for Wicca in India, which she equates with the practice of Dakini or Yogini Vidya* (a tradition that invokes a great mother goddess and, according to Chakraverti, has many similarities with European Wicca). What is especially interesting is that Wicca is being introduced as a “cure” (of sorts) for patriarchal imbalances within their society, something practitioners of modern religious Witchcraft (from Starhawk to Doreen Valiente) have endorsed to one degree or another for years. How effective this cure will be remains to be seen, but it does pave the way for explosive growth of modern Paganism within India (and in an Indian context).

* Translated, “Yogini Vidya” means a powerful female practitioner/sorceress who worships the goddess as wisdom personified.
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