Patheos is five years old today. I’ve been here for two and a half of those five years and it’s been an amazing ride. Patheos is a big platform on which to write and I remain amazed by how many readers I sometimes have in a given month. When I first began blogging a good day was maybe 200 readers, now I often (but not always) have thousands of readers on any given day. It’s weird to think that this little blog is most likely one of the ten most read in all of Pagnadom on any given third Thursday of the month.
I think we are suppossed to rehash our most popular articles for the Patheos Birthday Celebration, but the things here that have attracted a lot of eyeballs I’m largely ambivalent about. I like writing about the histories of holidays, but I don’t want to re-post stuff from Yule in early May. Also, a lot of my more read stuff has been argumentative, I’m not proud of that either. So instead of showcasing seasonally inappropriate posts and tired debates I went with the posts I’m most proud of, and the ones I hope people will still be reading five years from now.
Wicca and the Idea of Duotheism I loved this post so much. I went into a bunch of formative “Wicca 101” type books and dug up a lot of different ideas about deity and presented them as an explanation as to why so many people equate “Duotheism” with Modern Wicca. I was sure it was the kind of interesting, intelligent, well researched article that would end up shared on all sorts of Facebook pages . . . . . I also thought the Broncos would win the Super Bowl this past February.
All About Witch Bottles It’s history! It’s spell work! It’s great when my love of history coincides with something that’s useful and makes for good magical ritual.
The Rede of the Wicca My favorite posts are generally ones having to do with history and this is no exception. Not only did this particular post trace the history of “an it harm none” but it also looked at the alleged origins of the “long form Rede.”
Magick & The Occult in America: The Long Lost Friend I did three “Magick & The Occult in America” posts and while the other two in the series didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted them to, this one did. I was originally planning to write more articles in the series, but they weren’t all that popular. I sometimes write just for me, but I also write to be read, and if no one is all that interested in a particular topic I end up not writing about it as much. I love occult history, even the stuff not related directly to Paganism.
Wicca and the Fork in the Road The definition of “Wicca” has changed a lot over the last seventy years, whether that’s been for good or for ill probably depends on who you are speaking with. I think defining words like Wicca, Witch, and Pagan is mostly a thankless task, just like blogging often is!
Are Satanists Pagan? I think most of my early scribblings on Raise the Horns are pretty horrible and I urge you to not read them, but I did like this one. The comments are worth a look too.
And yes, that’s me on the Iron Throne with my wife.
The last two and a half years on Patheos have been a thrilling and sometimes frightening thrill ride. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Patheos for hosting these horns the last couple of years. It’s been mostly fun.
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