{"id":95279,"date":"2012-10-08T13:54:44","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=95279"},"modified":"2012-10-08T13:57:23","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:57:23","slug":"get-hexed-from-our-no-comment-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2012\/10\/get-hexed-from-our-no-comment-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Get hexed? From our ‘no comment’ department"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe>\n<\/p>Let me be honest with you. I am not sure how to start this post.<\/p>\nAfter all, I could simply say \u201cclick here\u201d and send GetReligion readers to the Washington City Paper<\/em> item in question and that would be that. In fact, I think I\u2019ll do that in a minute.<\/p>\nBut I honestly think there is a story here \u2014 a religion-news ghost beyond the obvious ones \u2014 and I\u2019ve been searching for a way to put that into words. Here\u2019s what I have come up with.<\/p>\nSeveral years ago, I went to the Czech Republic to speak to the broadcasters there who work in Afghanistan and in other Muslim-majority lands in that region. The key question: Why do American journalists keep insisting that there are \u201cmoderate\u201d Muslims and \u201cfundamentalist\u201d Muslims in spite of the fact that Muslims in the region do not think in those terms?<\/p>\nAnyway, I spend several days in the company of a veteran Czech journalist known for his work in public broadcasting. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the nature of religious belief and unbelief in the post-Soviet era.<\/p>\nThe bottom line: The Czech Republic is now one of the most secular nations in the world. However, there\u2019s a twist in this story. As the number of people committed to traditional religious belief and practice has declined, the number of people whose worldview includes strong beliefs in superstitions \u2014 such as hexes and omens \u2014 has risen. Sharply. Today, the Czechs are among the least religious and the most superstitious people in Europe and in the world at large.<\/p>\nWith that, let\u2019s look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtoncitypaper.com\/blogs\/citydesk\/2012\/10\/05\/sally-quinn-can-put-curses-on-people-according-to-sally-quinn\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">following bizarre item<\/a> from here in Beltway-land, concerning a statement by Sally Quinn of The Washington Post<\/em> and it\u2019s On Faith project:<\/p>\n<blockquote>At a New York panel Monday on spirituality earlier this week, Quinn recalled how she used her psychic powers in the world of southern magic (emphasis added):<\/p>\nWhat we really believed in and practiced was voodoo, psychic phenomenon, Scottish mysticism, palm reading, astrology, seances, and ghosts. And I have many, many stories about those, real stories. And that\u2014those things were my true religion, aside from dances. Aunt Ruth was psychic, my aunt Maggie was psychic, and I\u2019m psychic. We actually put hexes on people and they really worked.<\/strong> It was actually really scary and I finally stopped when my brother who has a PhD in religion from the University of Chicago and is a theosophist and a practicing <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>Buddhist<\/a> told me I had to cut it out because it would come back at me three times. Anything that I did later that was troublesome I kept thinking, I brought this on myself, I should never have put a hex on her<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\nFirst, a reminder that Quinn is a columnist for a major American newspaper. Second, huh?<\/p>\nDon\u2019t count on Quinn for an explanation, though. At least not yet. \u201cI\u2019m saving it all for my book!\u201d she writes in an email. \u201cBut be careful what you write anyway. \u2026.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nUh, OK.<\/p>\nNow, let\u2019s try discussing this as a JOURNALISM<\/em> topic. <\/p>\nSo, thumbs up or thumbs down. Who thinks this is a topic \u2014 broadly defined, as opposed to defining it as belief in hexes among Beltway mavens who are atheists-turned-Episcopalians \u2014 worthy of coverage in the mainstream press?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let me be honest with you. I am not sure how to start this post. After all, I could simply say \u201cclick here\u201d and send GetReligion readers to the Washington City Paper item in question and that would be that. In fact, I think I\u2019ll do that in a minute. But I honestly think there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6,30,50,18,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglicanism","category-godbeat","category-humor","category-mainline","category-people","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Get hexed? From our 'no comment' department<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Let me be honest with you. I am not sure how to start this post. 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