In Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Last updated on: January 16, 2012 at 1:49 pm By Jason Pitzl-Waters

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can... Read more

Unleash the Hounds! (Link Roundup)

Last updated on: January 15, 2012 at 11:00 am By Jason Pitzl-Waters

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. It looks like the magic made by Salem Witches Lorelei and Lori Bruno was effective, or perhaps New England Patriots QB Tom Brady has pacts with powers unknown to us, in any case Brady led his team to a crushing victory over the Denver... Read more

Haiti and Vodou: Two Years After the Quake

Last updated on: January 14, 2012 at 12:39 pm By Jason Pitzl-Waters

This past Thursday marked the two-year anniversary of the massive earthquake that almost completely destroyed Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, killing hundreds of thousands, and throwing the country into chaos. A number of mainstream news outlets have marked the occasion with retrospectives and updates on Haiti’s progress, and various ideas of what Haiti (and the hundreds of NGOs operating in Haiti) should do to speed recovery. By all accounts building and rebuilding in Haiti has been slow, the green-lighting of new projects frustratingly intermittent,... Read more

The End of An Era for Salem’s Official Witch

Last updated on: January 13, 2012 at 11:14 am By Jason Pitzl-Waters

On Wednesday the Salem News reported that Laurie Cabot, Salem, Massachusetts’ official Witch, would be closing the doors of The Official Witch Shoppe at the end of January, bringing to an end Cabot’s 42-year run of owning and operating Witch-related stores in Salem. The Salem News piece quotes a message sent out by Cabot on January 6th, detailing the reasons why Cabot is stepping back from personally running a retail establishment. “Here I sit now, reflecting on my life as a Witch,... Read more

Pagans and Minority Religions Under Hungary’s Authoritarian New Constitution

Last updated on: January 12, 2012 at 12:26 pm By Jason Pitzl-Waters

One thing that may escape casual observers of the modern Pagan movement is that we are now truly global in scope. Pagan revivals and reconstructions are happening across Europe, in South America, Lebanon, South Africa, Russia, and there are even Wiccans in India. Far too often our focus is on what’s happening with Pagans in English-speaking countries, forgetting that there are daily struggles by Pagans outside that paradigm. Recently, a major upheaval in the country of Hungary places a spotlight on... Read more

Update: Ministerial Exception and Minority Religions

Last updated on: January 11, 2012 at 10:45 am By Jason Pitzl-Waters

Today the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling in Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which centered on the question of whether an employee of a religious organization could be fired without recourse to anti-discrimination laws if they were ordained within said faith. The case heard by the Supreme Court involved a teacher at a Lutheran school who was fired due to a sleep disorder. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, backed by the Justice Department, felt that her role... Read more

Gary Bauer’s Hypothetical Pagan Candidate

Last updated on: January 10, 2012 at 10:22 am By Jason Pitzl-Waters

Influential conservative evangelical Christian, and former presidential candidate, Gary Bauer, engages in a thought experiment for his most recent USA Today column. “A thought experiment: Imagine a presidential candidate. He has spent years in politics, rising to become a trusted leader in his party. He also has spent time in the business world, has an impeccable personal life, a deep understanding of the issues, and is eloquent in speech and moderate in temperament. Sounds like a dream candidate, right?” I see... Read more

Filtering and Free Exercise: ACLU vs. Salem Public Library

Last updated on: January 8, 2012 at 10:58 pm By Jason Pitzl-Waters

In 2002 Nancy Willard, Executive Director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, issued a report that warned of the troubling confluence between content-control software and conservative religious groups. Willard voiced concerns that the relationships between companies providing web-filtering software to public institutions may be “inappropriately preventing students from accessing certain materials based on religious or other inappropriate bias.” She went on to note that terms like “occult” or “cult” are “frequently applied to any non-traditional religions” and... Read more

Unleash the Hounds! (Link Roundup)

Last updated on: January 8, 2012 at 10:50 am By Jason Pitzl-Waters

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. This week Elysia at Llewellyn tackled the thorny issue of Pagan/metaphysical book piracy after discovering a site distributing PDF copies of 32 Llewellyn titles. Several emails and one DMCA notice later, the content was taken down, but not before the pirate did her... Read more

The Audacity of Jon Huntsman’s Pluralism

Last updated on: January 7, 2012 at 10:55 am By Jason Pitzl-Waters

There are a lot of reasons, and a lot of commentary, for why Jon Huntsman isn’t a front-runner in the Republican presidential nominee race; he’s seen as too liberal, or he’s too nice, he’s a Mormon not named Romney, or maybe it was that bizarre first campaign ad. What hasn’t been alleged, until now, is that he isn’t sufficiently Christian, and might be a Chinese “Manchurian candidate.” However, thanks to a racist attack ad that’s so extreme it almost plays as... Read more