Quick Notes: More Psychic Wars, Alex Mar, and Upset Hindus

April 24, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 13 Comments

The Cook County Crackdown: If you thought unconstitutional and redundant laws against fortune telling only happened down south, think again. The Cook County Illinois board of commissioners (that would be the county Chicago is located in) are proposing a new ordinance that would ban “fraud” under the guise of spiritual services for pay.

“The proposal, from Commissioners Edwin Reyes, Bridget Gainer and Gregg Goslin, includes a swath of spirituality. It would affect mediumship, palmistry, card reading, astrology, seership, “crafty science,” and fortune telling that might take place as gatherings, circles and seances. “This was something that was highlighted to say there is a variety of different things out there that could be covered by certain deceptive practices,” Gainer says. She says the measure was suggested by the sheriff’s department, and that more people dealing with a tough economy might be hoodwinked by frauds posing as spiritual leaders.”

First off, there are already laws against fraud and deceptive business practices in Illinois, and I can’t see how this new ordinance would have protected a recent high-profile Chicago-area victim of the old-as-the-hills “cursed money” scam. Further, how will this ordinance, if passed, be enforced, and who gets to decide what’s fraud? If you pay for a reading at a party, can you call the cops the next day? If you drop $20 when the local Pagan group passes the hat and you later have buyers remorse, can you press charges? The language is so broad (“circles”, “gatherings”), that it easily includes any Pagan ritual where any sort of money changes hands. Since this proposed ordinance doesn’t seem to ban charging for “spiritual services” per-se, how will it actually prevent the most outrageous instances of blatant grifting?

Another Interview with Alex Mar: “American Mystic” director Alex Mar is interviewed by MTV Tr3s about her documentary, which features Pagan priestess Morpheus Ravenna, and discusses gaining the trust of her subjects, her own background, and resources for folks interested in modern Paganism.

“That’s an interesting question. First off, let me say that I’m not advocating any one spiritual path over another. But that said, I know WitchVox to be a useful site for pagans or people who are pagan-curious to connect locally. I was told over and over again how much easier it’s become for people who are curious about different forms of witchcraft to find mentors now that the Internet exists. The Wild Hunt is a widely read pagan blog about the latest politics and culture that’s relevant to the pagan community. And there are major conventions a few times a year where young witches, warlocks, Druids, you name it, get together and mix and network and learn new techniques and dance to gothic metal bands.”

I’d like to thank Alex for the plug, and note that the “gothic metal band” she’s most likely referring to is Pandemonaeon, who played at this year’s Pantheacon. “American Mystic” is currently playing at the The Tribeca Film Festival, and is one of twelve entries in the festival’s World Documentary Feature Competition for 2010.

Guess Who Else Didn’t Like That Episode of  Supernatural: It wasn’t just Pagans who were a bit annoyed by the Supernatural episode “Hammer of the Gods”, where various non-Christian deities were portrayed as shallow flesh-eaters getting worked over by Satan, Hindu activist Rajan Zed (you may remember him as the Hindu priest who got heckled by Christians on the Senate floor) blasts the show for its portrayal of Ganesha and Kali.

“Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that Lord Ganesh and Goddess Kali were highly revered in Hinduism and such absurd depiction of them with no scriptural backing was hurtful to the devotees. Ganesh and Kali were meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be thrown around loosely in reimagined versions for dramatic effects in TV series.”

Even Annalee Newitz at io9, a fan of the show, slammed the episode, saying it should never have been made.

“My point is just that this episode, in attempting to answer that “what about other gods?” question, made things infinitely worse than if we’d just been left wondering. Now we’re left thinking that somehow Christian deities are more powerful than any other deities in the world. Dean goes so far as to call them “just monsters.” Which A) doesn’t really fit the show’s premise, which is that Christianity is one mythological system among many; and B) makes it seem that Supernatural buys into the idea that Christianity is somehow the “best” or “most powerful” mythological system out there. Thumbs down on that one.”

Many have defended Supernatural as an “equal opportunity offender”, but I’m not sure that’s true. While Christian themes are treated lightly and irreverently at times, it still acknowledges and reinforces the inherent supreme power of the Christian mythos. It has also been careful to steer clear of the third rail of secular pop-culture fantasy portrayals of Christianity by not making Jesus (or even God for that matter) a character. Supernatural, in other words, doesn’t mind being flip about Hinduism, Taoism, Vodou, or Paganism, but won’t court real controversy by having Jesus (or the Virgin Mary) show up and throw down.

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

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(Pagan) Pop-Culture Round-Up

April 23, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 23 Comments

Tracking Pagan themes in movies and television is a bit like waiting for the bus, nothing comes for a long time, then suddenly it seems like every show on TV has a Witch or Pagan in it. This past week was kind of like that, with three network television shows featuring (or about to feature) Witches or Pagan gods. Let’s take them order, shall we?

First, the medical drama House, in this week’s episode “Knight Fall,” featured a renfaire knight with a mysterious ailment (naturally) and a predilection for Witchcraft. The Llewellyn Worldwide blog talks about how they provided some of the props.

“A few months back, members of Llewellyn’s Publicity staff were contacted by the producers of the Fox television program House with a request to use Llewellyn titles as props in an upcoming episode. The episode of House, “Knight Fall,” featuring two titles by Llewellyn’s very own Raven Digitalis aired this week! If you look closely in the images below you’ll notice the distinct covers of Goth Craft and Shadow Magick Compendium in these screen shots from the episode.”

Was the Witchcraft/occult stuff treated respectfully? Not really. It is House after all, and all non-scientific belief is up for mockery and debunking on that show. Plus, the “knight” who’s into Witchcraft (and has a copy of the “Necronomicon”, natch) is revealed to be a bit of a naive hypocritical twit, so I’m not sure why Llewellyn thinks this was good exposure for Raven, but no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Then we come to the show Supernatural, and the episode “Hammer of the Gods”. This one didn’t feature modern Pagans, but did feature a whole lot of Pagan gods, and you may not like how they were portrayed.

“It’s not surprising, then, that when “Hammer of the Gods” brings in a pantheon of pagan wonders, from Odin to Baldur to Baron Samedi to Kali herself, the gods don’t do much in the way of being ineffable, and they have a thing for eating human meat … There are gods among us, specifically those who aren’t involved with the Apocalypse to be, and they’re getting scared. Their solution: kidnap the Winchesters, and try and bargain their way out of Doomsday. It’s sort of like Neil Gaiman by way of Tobe Hooper.”

Not only are the Pagan gods largely portrayed as amoral one-dimensional human flesh-eaters, but are totally ineffective against Lucifer when he shows up to take them down.

“For all the build up, the gods are surprisingly easy for Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) to dispatch when he arrives. It is a typical Supernatural bloody mess of a fight but it is a little disappointing that for all their talk they are not able to put up much of a struggle. The exception is Kali (Battlestar Galactica‘s Rekha Sharma; also currently seen on V) who attempts to use supernatural power to fight him off. Balder’s death makes the least sense since he seems to just walk up to Lucifer, only to have the fallen angel’s fist go right through his chest. And even with Kali showing off her power during the fight, she is still relegated to escaping with the Winchesters in their car. She needs a car to get away, really?”

Now I suppose the case could be made for the whole belief=power trope I’ve seen many writers use. More folks believe in Satan than Odin after all, so he could, using this justification, just waltz through some gods, but there are around a billion people who believe in Kali and Ganesha, and they’re largely ineffective too? The underlying message here is that pagan gods thrived on human sacrifice, and that’s where their power in the world comes from, while the Christian mythos is free of such limitations and constraints. This view of divinity in Supernatural has been explored before, only this time it’s being applied across the board to non-Christian forms of divinity. So Supernatural is, underneath the b-movie horror trappings,  triumphalist in orientation.

Finally, we come to the forensics/cop dramedy Bones, and an episode, “The Witch in the Wardrobe”, that will air on May 6th. A special installment written by author Kathy Reichs, who created the characters the series is based on, it will be based in Salem and feature Witches both old and new.

“A cabin burns down in the woods revealing two bodies, one of a modern-day witch and one from the days of the Salem Witch Trials, leading Booth and Brennan into the world of Wicca to find a killer. Meanwhile, when Hodgins’ reckless driving gets him and Angela arrested and thrown in jail, Sweets and intern Clark Edison (guest star Eugene Byrn) step into unfamiliar territory to help out the team.”

Now, I’m somewhat hopeful in this case, since Reichs has sympathetically tackled Wicca before in her novels. But I also know that Salem + Witches + television doesn’t always equal something that will reflect well on the larger Pagan community. So we’ll have to wait and see.

Also, in a quick non-pop-culture note, I’d like to thank Terry Mattingly (of Get Religion fame) for mentioning The Wild Hunt in his most recent column about the state of religious journalism today. Check it out, as it says some interesting things about the future of religious news.

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Raven Grimassi, Paris the Forest God, and the Demon-invoking Witch

October 11, 2009 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 11 Comments

I have a few, well, odder, odds-and-ends for you this Sunday. Starting with a seemingly improbable mystic super-hero, Wiccan author Raven Grimassi. Grimassi, along with his wife Stephanie, appear in the latest issue of the “empowering” (and not safe for work) soft-core comic “Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose”.


Raven & Stephanie in action.

“…it’s a battle between Raven Hex, Raven Grimassi, and his wife. That name may or may not mean anything to you, but Grimassi is a reknowned author of numerous books on Wicca and Witchcraft. Within the world of Tarot, he’s also the keeper of the Library of Magick and, alongside his wife, more than a match for Raven Hex.”

Raven Grimassi also conveys important life-lessons about ancient wisdom and seeking for knowledge, though I don’t know how effective “Tarot” is as a vehicle for such wisdom-teachings. Let’s just say that it is incredibly disconcerting to see Raven Grimassi talk about the “Library of Magick” when his head is placed right next to a gigantic, well, cameltoe (the above panel is, in fact, one of the few that is “work safe”). Will people, after reading this work, be unable to think of him without recalling that his cartoon stand-in was kicked in the face by a semi-nude woman with improbable (even by comic standards) breasts? One wonders which “Craft superstars” they will recruit to appear in the comic next. If you’d like to purchase this comic (soon, no doubt, to be a collectors item), it’s available at the Broadsword Comics web site.

Switching our pop-culture gears slightly, we turn from occult cheesecake comics to cheesy occult television. It seems that the most recent episode of the CW Network show “Supernatural” featured a shape-shifting “forest god” that needed killing.

“Turns out the monster is a washed-up forest god whose old stomping grounds were razed to make room for a Yugo factory. Her worshipers used to hand themselves over to her rapturously, allowing her to eat them for sustenance. But now that the whole “old school religion” sacrifice thing isn’t common anymore, the god has to take on the forms of celebrities to eat people. As long as it munches on people who adore it, the god is satisfied. Plus it gives Sam and Dean a little lecture on how celebrities are the new gods…”

It’s a plot-point that should warm the cockles of multi-media magicians everywhere. Naturally the final form the fallen god takes is that of Paris Hilton, who bemoans the fact that people have lost touch with “old-time religion” before having her head chopped off. You can watch the entirety of “Fallen Idol” at the CW Supernatural web site. I’m not sure exactly where this sits on my personal offended/amused scale of things, but you have to give them points for originality. It isn’t often a forest god takes the form of Gandhi and tries to eat someone.

In a final note that is sadly not fiction, a publicity-starved occultist, “Magus” Lynius Shadee, claims he has conjured a demon inside a Catholic church in Cambridge that could drive parishioners to suicide.

“Magus Lynius Shadee says the demon could possess parishioners and drive them to suicide. He claims to have instructed the evil spirit to “dwell” in the famous church to “cleanse it”. The occultist, who calls himself the King of All Witches, says he let loose the entity to prey on worshippers at the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs in Hills Road.”

This brazenly idiotic publicity stunt came in the wake of vocal concerns by local Christian church leaders over Shadee opening up an occult center near Cambridge University. Shadee is yet another sad, self-proclaimed, “king of all witches”, who needs to stir the pot in order to feed his no-doubt incessant need for attention. I hate to say it, but I’m rather rooting for the Catholic exorcists in this instance.

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

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