• Former COG First Officer and Officers of Avalon president Peter Dybing has issued a request to the Pagan community for donations to 100 Percent for Haiti, and organization founded by artists looking to assist Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. Quote: “Today I am placing the call. Can you please support this worthy effort? We are not seeking large sums of money. It is in fact our small size that makes us so effective. We have no fancy fundraising materials, no adopt-a-child program, no tear jerking commercials, only real people making a difference with what little we have. Please consider joining us, committing to give a little in support of this effort. If you find that you can not commit funds to this effort, please forward this to others who may be able to assist.”
• Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann writes about her time studying occultists in the 1980s for Freq.uenci.es (which led to the infamous book “Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft”). This leads Pagan scholar Chas Clifton to explain what made Luhrmann’s work controversial in the first place, and how it partially inspired the book “Researching Paganisms”. Also, check out Chas Clifton’s post on the necessity of the Iliad for modern polytheism.
• This Friday, Veterans Day, a new Pagan podcast entitled Pagan Warrior Radio will launch focused on serving Pagan veterans and those on active duty in the United States Military. This new weekly internet radio show will be hosted by co-founders Pamela Kelly, facilitator of the Sheppard Air Force Base Pagan Circle, and Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary. Quote: “Pagans have served and are serving in each of the branches of the US Armed Forces. We are creating Pagan Warrior Radio as an additional way to support Pagan veterans and troops and their loved ones, and to be a forum for networking, education, and dialogue. Shows will be a mix of news, information, music, reflections, ideas, and call-in discussion.”
• The Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle is now accepting proposals for next year’s conference. Deadline for proposals is January 15th, 2012. For more on the EBC, check out the recent guest-post from Dr. Amy Hale on the event.
• The Huffington Post looks at the important role botanicas play within the Latino community in the United States. Quote: “This is an old tradition that in part is a response to the lack of more formal resources, such as physicians, that Latinos have continuously utilized,” said David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the UCLA School of Medicine. “The tradition has been buttressed by the fact that Latino communities have usually had very poor access to formal medical care.”
• A rabbinical court in Haifa, Israel has fined a woman for the practice of witchcraft. This included a polygraph test, and consultations of texts to find an alternative to stoning her dead (no, I’m not joking). Quote:  “The wife denied her husband’s charge that she practiced witchcraft, but she failed a polygraph test, leading the court to determine that she in fact had been practicing witchcraft. Death is the punishment for witchcraft in the Torah, but the rabbis found a source that instead allowed them to mete out the financial penalty.” Oh, and did I mention the husband cheated on her, and that they were trying to get a divorce? Yeah, stay classy Haifa rabbinical court.
• Is the fantasy genre inherently Christian? DG Myers thinks so, but ED Kain rebuts that it’s far more pagan than Christian in its outlook and orientation. Quote: “I think that fantasy is not founded in Christian themes so much as it is rooted in distinctly Anglo-Saxon mythology. And not just the mythology of the Medieval, feudalistic period, but the pre-Christian myths of the faerie-folk as well.” More here, and here.
• Tomorrow is the Thai festival of Loy Krathong, a time to honor the goddess of the river, and ask “her forgiveness for man’s polluting of the water and to thank her for fertility.” More on this at the Washington Post.
• Broadmoor Hospital Chaplaincy Service in Berkshire says it is “responding to requests for pagan and Rastafarian input” for its in-house chaplaincy team.
• Sentencing in the James Arthur Ray sweat lodge deaths case has finally begun. First witnesses in the six days of hearings were very critical of Ray and his methods.
• So this has to be one of the most bizarre claims I’ve read in awhile: six ‘Curse of Tutankhamun’ deaths were actually murders perpetrated by Aleister Crowley according to Mark Beynon, author of “London’s Curse: Murder, Black Magic and Tutankhamun in the 1920s West End”. The Telegraph breaks down the accusations and there seems to be no hard, credible, evidence (something the author admits). In essence, if Crowley, or anyone he knew, crossed paths with a “victim” he could have done it. The whole thing is a smear-job designed to sell books to the gullible.
• Remember kids, practice safe Satanic sex.

That’s all I have time for today, expect a write-up of my FaerieCon adventures in the near-ish future. In the meantime, do check out my interview with Qntal’s Michael Popp at A Darker Shade of Pagan. As always, some of these stories may be expanded upon in future posts.

“CBS 5 News has also learned this was part of a long term investigation that spanned from the Valley to Sedona. Police served three additional search warrants in the Sedona area and detained several more people for questioning at those locations. [...] [Sgt. Steve] Martos would not confirm the nature of the investigation, saying investigators would be working well into the night and more details would be available tomorrow.”

It was revealed that police also raided Sedona Goddess Temple, an affiliate of the Phoenix Goddess Temple. It’s plainly obvious that this is a raid looking for proof of prostitution, though previous sting operations have turned up empty-handed. Why else do a highly publicized raid and perp-walk? So far, there are no reports of actual charges being made, and Phoenix Goddess Temple has released no statement regarding these events. If Phoenix Goddess Temple was simply a house of prostitution with a veneer of religion painted over it, wouldn’t they have been closed down by now? Earlier this year the Phoenix New Times called the temple’s activities “New Age prostitution,” though the men and women at the temple insist that they are engaged in a higher calling.

But despite the obvious eyebrow-raisers at the temple, [Temple founder Tracy] Elise says she’s doing nothing wrong. “The temple is really a church for us,” she says. “We open ourselves with love as an empty channel, and that’s the authority by which I heal. I don’t get my credentials on the ground level. I get my calling and I am under the jurisdiction of the most high.”

Even if no charges are brought from this current investigation, the writing is on the wall. It’s obvious the police are looking for any excuse to shut these temples down. The question now is, should they be able to? Even if some sessions end in “happy endings” aren’t their activities protected by law so long as they don’t directly charge money for sex? If they took this matter to court, would they be able win broader protections since they are religiously sincere in their activities? How should the broader Pagan community engage with sacred sexuality practitioners?

“Time and time again we respond to tragedies that could have been so easily prevented,” Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said. “This fire had so many of those elements — candles left on the floor near combustible material, one of the occupants trying to douse the flames before calling 911 and an open door, which allowed fire to spread into the hallway. Hopefully others will learn from this tragedy.”

This is a text-book fire safety failing, one that sadly claimed a life. That couple could have been any ordinary careless couple, and had it been, this tragic story would never have made it past the local Brooklyn news. Yet, because of a certain detail, it has ignited the newswires.

“Fire marshals said the fire started around 6:40 p.m., when a woman visited a man in the building and paid him $300 to perform a voodoo ceremony to bring her good luck. The man was known in the neighborhood as a voodoo priest, the AP reported.”

That’s right, it was a Vodou ritual. So instead of candles, they are now “voodoo sex candles”, now a “voodoo sex ceremony caused [the] deadly Brooklyn fire”, instead of an overturned candle and bad reaction to the initial fire it started. Now, the press searches for ironic rejoinders to the dryer newswire accounts.

Nelson “Pepe” Pierre, 66, claimed “he could turn people into ghosts, move buildings, turn people into buildings,” said Patrick Louis, who also lived in the East Flatbush building. “But that day, I guess, he couldn’t turn that fire out.”

Yes, his magical powers couldn’t put the fire out! Because Voodoo/Vodou is silly and superstitious! Plus, sex ritual! OMG! Can you imagine this story being written in this sensationalist manner if the couple were evangelical Christians?

“Betty and Robert, despite being properly married and bible-believing Christians, were unable to call down the Lord’s aid in ending the blaze. Neighbors have wondered if it was the judgment of the Lord.”

A sentence like that, even from a tabloid, would have provoked a storm of controversy. Even the normally sedate New York Times uses the phrase “Voodoo candles” in their headline. CNN trumpets that “Voodoo sex ceremony starts fatal fire.” No, neither the ceremony, nor the sex, nor the religion of Vodou started the blaze. What started the blaze was a knocked over candle into flammable fabric. If an overturned candle had accidentally burned down a church, would the headlines call them “Christian candles”? If it had happened during a baptism in that hypothetical church, would the press say that “Christian baptism starts fatal fire?” No. Because one faith is seen as normal, and another is not. So the tragic death of a woman, and the loss of homes for dozens more, is reduced to a sensationalist punchline because Vodou happened to be involved.

Here’s this week’s panel question:

Catholics and condoms. In an interview with journalist Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict XVI said that condom use may be acceptable under “exceptional circumstances” such as use by a male prostitute in order to prevent the spread of HIV/ AIDS. Interpretation of the pope’s pronouncement has varied. Many insist that the church’s teaching, which bans birth control, has not changed, but others see the pope’s statement as opening the door to a broader conversation about human sexuality in the modern world. What are the implications of Pope Benedict’s statement on condoms in terms of AIDS policy, the church’s teaching on sex and its view of women?

Here’s an excerpt from my response:

The vast tragedy is the blind insistence that simply encouraging abstinence would somehow work. According to UNAIDS, there are more than 7000 new HIV infections each day. Many of those infected could have been reached by the Catholic Church, and by other Christian organizations that do outreach to people with HIV or AIDS, but who won’t encourage basic sexual responsibility. It’s this denial of Eros outside of rigidly defined roles, this romanticized struggle against the physical passions, that continues to be a massive failing of many strains of the dominant monotheisms. Our modern world is still so afraid of our sexual selves, still so wrapped in taboos and superstitions, that it is willing to turn this ongoing tragedy into a statistic, a talking point, a moral lesson, instead of seeing the industry of ignorance, suffering, and death in which it is engaged. We keep feeding the poor, but won’t ask why they are hungry.

I hope you’ll head over to the site and read my full response, and the other panelist responses, and share your thoughts.

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

“I am struggling with the Frosts. Struggling because it would be too easy to do as others have which is to demonize them or relegate them to the “sweet old couple.” They are something far more varied than either of these. Some people want to sweep them under a rug, but I do not think they should be ignored. Why? We need to figure out our theolog(ies). We need to know where we stand on sex. Many of us would still rather just suppress it like the overculture teaches us, because abuse may happen otherwise, or we may need to deal with our own demons. I say that abuse happens because of the suppression. Our demons grow stronger the more we constrict around our fears. Abuse happens when we don’t deal with our own sexuality, and we don’t teach our children about their own. And abuse sometimes just happens … If sex is sacred, we need to figure out how that translates and is reflected in our own lives, and in how we pass on that teaching.  And this is why, Gavin and Yvonne, as two people who have taught many others, I wish you would explain. Or I wish you would retract. Or I wish you would apologize. We could use discerning words from you instead of simply a shut down or blustering defense, or the insistence that those who disagree with you are “plastic”.”

She closes with some questions for the Frosts to answer:

“What do you really think, today, about the sexual education of children? Is sex between adolescents with adults really the best way they should learn these mysteries? How did you teach your own daughter to appreciate the powers of sex, love, and Nature?”

And some questions for her readers:

“What do you think about your own relationship to sex? To magic? To life force? To our process? To mistakes? To feet of clay? To your own regrets? To the sacred? To teaching our children?”

The sexual politics, and controversies, of the Frosts is a topic I’ve covered more than once here on this blog. I applaud Thorn for bravely stepping forward to process her own participation and feelings regarding these issues. I agree with the sentiment that we need to have an ongoing and constructive dialog concerning sex in our wider community, to actively engage with tough issues instead of ignoring them or allowing certain individuals to frame the entire moral question. I urge my readers to go through all three of her essays, and to answer her questions at her blog. Then, if you’d like, feel free to answer them, and continue the conversation, here, too. You should also keep an eye on Thorn’s podcast page, where audio and video from the panel in question will soon be posted.

Scottsdale police spokesman Sgt. Mark Clark said police visited the Phoenix Goddess Temple last week to investigate a complaint that it was a house of prostitution but could not determine if the allegations were true … The temple has drawn police attention because its tenets connect spirituality and sexuality and it employs sexual healers and teaches its members about tantric sexual techniques. “It’s perceived as a sex church,” Elise said. The 48-year-old priestess was unapologetic about the temple and its views on sex, which she said are far more enlightened than those of most other religions. A waiver that members sign states: “I acknowledge that I will not receive any type of sexual gratification in exchange for money during my session” at the temple. A citizen’s complaint to police alleges that prices listed at the temple say services are $204 for one hour and $440 for 2 1/2 hours but do not say what those services are.

Though a police sting operation yielded no arrests, and despite the fact that they seem quite careful to avoid veering into illegality concerning their sex-oriented teachings and sessions (note the rules for a “cuddle party” held at the temple), that hasn’t stopped neighbors from complaining to law enforcement officials and making assumptions about what goes on inside the temple.

Kim Edwards, president of the Scottsdale Southwest Village homeowners group, said she witnessed congestion problems at the church but was unaware of what was going in the home. She figured it was a business operation. “I almost hit somebody crossing the street there,” she said, adding that she complained to the city. “I wouldn’t support any church at that location because of the traffic it draws. But because of the nature of this church, it sends up a lot of red flags.” Another neighborhood leader, Hope Monkewicz, said she was disturbed by a veil of secrecy surrounding the temple. “If you’re operating there and no one knows about it, you can’t be doing something good in there,” she said.

But unhappy neighborhood leaders can breath a sigh of relief, the temple is moving to Phoenix. Not because they were forced out due to their teachings on sex, but because of local zoning laws.

In Scottsdale, the city code enforcement inspectors notified the Phoenix Goddess Temple on Oct. 21 that it needed approval to operate a church out of the home at 68th Street and Exeter, said Malcolm Hankins, the code enforcement manager. After meeting with city planners in December, the temple considered its options for acquiring an adjacent property or moving to a new location. It ultimately decided to move to Phoenix but was still operating this week in Scottsdale … Earlier this week, Elise said she plans to move to a home in 5900 block of East Shea Boulevard in March. Phoenix planner Alan Stephenson said the city has not received an application to operate a temple at the home, but a church would be allowed in that residential zone.

No doubt the Phoenix Goddess Temple will continue to do well for itself, let’s hope the neighbors and local authorities are a bit more tolerant at their new location. Though the only laws they were breaking were local zoning ordinances, I’m disturbed by the neighbor who found them suspicious simply because “no one knows about it”. This is a group that seemed to have no trouble talking to the press, and keep an extensive web site explaining what they do (and don’t do), yet the spectre of sex and female empowerment seemed to trigger suspicion and hostility. If you want a crystal ball to predict how the future growth of modern Paganism will be received once we’re fically robust enough to open temples and sanctuaries in local communities, you could do worse than to examine how these men and women were treated.