I was talking to a friend of mine about churches as businesses that sell religious services. He posited that the religious services that Christian churches sell are salvation and eternal life. But I disagree. Salvation and eternal life are marketing strategies, the services are much more concrete. Right now the McDonald's Corporation is promising to "thrill your senses", but what they are actually selling you is a burger.

What particular services a church provides depends on the religion. Most Christian churches are selling a weekly Sunday service, which consists of a bit of musical entertainment, some participatory theater, and an educational speech, with educational child care for families with children. After that there is a "coffee hour" where they encourage the building of networks of social support, and give you free coffee. Churches were the original social network sites, before the internet. Churches also provide adult education opportunities and other social networking events based around shared values and interests.

What is the difference between going to a Sunday religious service and going to see "The Passion of the Christ" in a movie theater? Both are religious performances of short duration. "The Passion of the Christ" is a pre-recorded performance, it will be the same every time you see it. Sunday church services are live and slightly different every time, they are also participatory.

Movie theaters are businesses that provide pre-recorded performances on a variety of subjects. Christian churches are businesses that provide live performances on one very large topic. Both are what William Sims Bainbridge called "Audience Services" (The Sociology of Religious Movements). Churches also provide what he calls "Client Services" (individual counseling by a respected authority figure), and social networking services. Neither of those are available at your local cineplex. Although the cineplex will sell you overpriced popcorn.

What Services do Wiccan Covens Sell?

In a very literal sense most Wiccan Covens are not businesses. Most Covens do not collect fees for our services. Covens are more like groups of friends or clubs. There is even a precedent for this in Ancient Greek clubs. This makes making a living as a Wiccan Priest/ess very difficult. Although some clubs do function as businesses and collect fees for membership.

Just to understand how Wiccan Covens exist sociologist invented the idea of The Cultic Milieu: a setting (milieu) in which new systems of ritual practice (cults) are likely to form. (Which I think is rather superfluous, each new generation or social change creates an environment conducive to new beliefs and new rituals. Cultic milieu is the normal state of human existence. But I digress.) Wiccan Covens tend not to be stable institutions. They tend to be free flowing social networks, constantly coalescing, dissolving, and reforming in new configurations. (Which I believe was well documented in Persuasions of the Witch's Craft by T. M. Luhrmann.)

The most successful business models for providing religious services for pagans are not the traditional church models but: festivals, book writing, classes, and occult supply shops. Of those, festival organizers are the closest we come to traditional 'religious' institutions. (Sarah Pike provides an ethnography of the festival system in Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves) If you look at modern Hinduism, Roman paganism before the Greek political religion influence, and Germanic tribal religion you can see that paganism tends toward family centered practice with some large communal sacred sites providing a social cohesion. Only time will tell if we will develop the traditional pagan temple system to go along with the festival system.

This is going to seem like a odd question, but I'm trying to write a code of honor. That is to say a list of rules by which to live. I plan to put it in my BOS and make it a part of my tradition. I'm looking for suggestions on areas of life that the list should cover. Suggestions can be a vague or as specific as you like, either would be helpful.

Also, If you happen to have a personal list that you are willing to share or know of a list (I know George Washington had a list of rules) I would appreciate a link.

Go!. Read the whole article. It's short.
Chuck Baldwin's Christian Nation Nonsense
by Ed Brayton, ScienceBlogs (blog), December 29, 2009

"Indeed, the Bible contains no support at all for the notion of religious liberty. In many places in the Bible, God (allegedly) commands his followers to put to death those who openly advocate other religions. The entire slaughter of the Midianites was commanded because two Midianite women had supposedly "tempted" Israelite men to worship other gods. There is not one verse in the Bible that advocates the notion that any government should protect religious liberty -- which is perhaps why no nation that used the Bible as a source of law has ever had anything like religious liberty.

And as for the claim that the Constitution was "based on" Biblical or Christian principles, this should be quite easy to prove. All one has to do is point to the various provisions in the Constitution and then to analogs in the Bible or in Christian theology. Good luck with that. The founding fathers certainly did not find any, or at least did not manage to mention any such connections.
[...]
And let me add one more irony here. Baldwin keeps claiming that religious liberty flows from Biblical Christianity, yet he himself is an enemy of religious liberty. Baldwin is the leader of the Constitution Party, which is openly theocratic, for crying out loud."

Is 'Avatar' Anti-Christian? Anti-Corporate? Anti-Development?
by nell, Minow, Movie Mom, Beliefnet.com (blog), December 28, 2009

"At the New York Times, Ross Douthat disapproves of the movie because he sees it as an apologia for pantheism. Movieguide's David Outten sees it as an attack on both capitalism and Christianity. But a sympathetic, even romanticized portrayal of one belief system is not necessarily an attack on others. The bad guys in this movie are not affiliated with any religious practice or [religious] institution. Outten at least notes that it is not the structures that are at fault but the people in them. There is a reference in the film to a time in the past when the different groups on the planet did not live in harmony. And there are good guy humans in the movie as well, so I think Outten's view is represented in the film, whether he sees it or not.
[...]
I particularly like [Gus diZerega's] description of the way that the conflict in the movie is more than anything else about power. Again, this is Outten's point that it is not the belief systems or the societal structures but the people who struggle to aspire to the values of those systems and structures that get into trouble. And that is also the point of the movie."

Greetings. I am wondering how you all feel about fictional pantheons. Plenty will say "Fiction is fiction; leave it at that." Nevertheless, I believe that there is often more than meets the eye. What should a person do if he or she is drawn to a fictional deity? What could the significance of that be? I personally have felt very drawn to a fictional deity, and I was intrigued to notice that She seemed to have been based on an actual deity worshiped by an ancient culture. Can a fictional deity be worshiped, if He or She embodies very real and powerful energies?

-Mike

A review of the "pagan pop punk" band Cackle
Cackle's got a few tricks up its sleeve
by Julie Lawrence, OnMilwaukee.com, Dec. 28, 2009

""Our approach is very new-school," says Edler. "It's about shattering stereotypes. A lot of people assume that anything pagan is associated with the devil. The whole genre gets a bad rap, like you have to wear a cape, have some missing teeth or dress like Stevie Nicks to be into it."

Although the band loves to indulge in "creepy-cute" Wiccan rituals while on stage, the members say their personal approach to paganism is much more modern and simple and not as "out there" as people might assume. It's about believing you can have whatever you want in life, as long as you create it.""

Goodwill wanted
Rutland Herald VT, December 28, 2009

""Most of us are Christian and you're not, so why don't you go away" isn't the Christmas message. It's not close to the Christmas message, but unfortunately, it's becoming the message in some parts of some communities.

It's hard to imagine what could bring someone to use the birth of Jesus as an excuse to harass Jews, but that seems to be what's happening in at least one case.

If the only way to counter that is to shut down Christmas observances for a time in those schools, so be it.

Peace on earth, goodwill toward all is more important than presents under a tree."

God's Nature
by Ken Ramey, Salem-News.Com, Dec-27-2009

"The confusion surrounding the nature of God is due to the difference between the Universal concept of an unknowable God vs. the nature of man’s “Institutional God.”

Judaism speaks for Jehovah suggesting that Jews are God’s chosen people but lacks an objective symbol, such as Jesus or Mohammad of Christianity and Islam fame. All claim to believe in the One God, but each is a construct to serve a particular political purpose.
[...]
In 1598 Juan de Oñate established the first Spanish colonies in New Mexico and was successful in converting the Pueblos to Catholicism. But in the 1670s unfavorable natural events occurred that shook the faith of the Indians in the Church and enticed Popé to attempt to return his people to their native Kivah-religion.

Spaniards accused him of witchcraft [the exercise of magical anti-Catholic influence] and jailed him for awhile which did not improve his disposition. On August 10th 1680 he led a revolt that killed many Spaniards and drove the remaining colonists to sanctuary in El Paso del Norte below the Rio Grande. Popé’s “reformation” seemed complete.

But in 1692 Diego de Vargas began the re-conquest of New Mexico, and by 1696,Spain was again in control, but only by allowing the Indians to practice their Kivah- religion. Today, Kivas and the Catholic Church are found in all New Mexico Pueblos in much the same way as Catholicism and Protestantism co-exit.

But in the Zuñi Village pagan deities are painted on the interior walls of its Catholic Church; how many others we can only guess, Ácoma did not let me enter its Church."

So this is my first time posting here. I've lurked for a bit, and now I have a rather controversial question.

( Cut for length and controversey )

So my question for everyone would be, is Wicca falsifiable? If so, how? If not, does that make our faith any less legitimate?

This is not in any way meant to put Wicca down. I've been Wiccan for two years, but I couldn't really come up with an answer, and I hoped someone with more experience could.

( follow the holy cupcake )

Thanks for looking!

Witch-Hunt in Kenya as The Elderly Are Targeted
Newstime Africa, December 27, 2009

"Some families are living in constant fear as their neighbours call them witches. Some are also forced to go as far as possible from their villages in search of jobs as no one who knows them will offer them any work. Witchcraft remains a deeply rooted issue within the community and the elderly are portrayed as custodians of witchery. Every ailment, misfortune or trouble is blamed on sorcery. Some say even success is attributed to witchcraft. Lobby groups for the elderly have set up shop here to try and stop the targeting of senior citizens, spreading the message that burning of suspected witches is not an answer to sorcery."

Oh dear. Another not very well thought out article by a college student.
I have tattoos. I have a friend who has a visible tattoo on her hand (a small innocuous star in one color) and was passed over for an office job because of it. But I still think this article is overly simplistic about the issues involved.
OTHER VIEWS: The taboo of tattoos
By Sara Rose, East Oregonian, 12/27/2009

"Basically, it comes down to this: Society has created this "perfect box" and if you don't fit in that box, you're a social outcast. Employers need to realize that just because a person has tattoos or piercings, it doesn't mean he/she is incapable of performing the task at hand. Ink does not drain brain cells!"

The Mago Earth Park is the center of a conflict over a giant statue. An interesting issue. The complaints are mostly not about the statue being a pagan idol but an eyesore, like those giant Jesus statues you see sometimes.
Mago statue a towering presence in Verde Valley
By Jon Hutchinson, Verde News Online, December 11, 2009

"The 39-foot-tall statue, representing Mago, which in Korean means the "Soul of The Earth," has captured the interest of motorists who have passed the Bill Gray Road area, where the Mago Earth Park stands across the road from the new Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.

The name Mago, according to Tao Fellowship, derives from ancient East Asian tradition. "Ma," a nearly universal sound representing "Mother," is combined with "Go," meaning "eminent and ancient origin." This is an ancient respectful name for "Mother Earth."

According to the Tao Fellowship news release, "This event will celebrate respect and love for Mother Earth. We believe Mother Earth's greatest desire is for all of her children to recover their original connection to nature, to rediscover their true selves, by nurturing Earth's bounty and safeguarding its precious environment."

Related Stories:
• Letter: Mago Center imposing obtrusive eyesores on entire community
• Letter: Mago statue to be symbolic landmark of peace for Cottonwood
• Letter: Mago Earth Park a welcome addition to Verde Valley
• Letter: Statue is obnoxious, repugnant, offensive
• Letter: Message is fine; messenger is too big
• Letter: I’ll be there to support the Mago statue
• Letter: Let’s not turn Cottonwood into another Sedona
• Letter: Park provides positive image, but the statue does not
• Mago Park dedication ceremony set today
• Tao Fellowship dedicates Mago statue and Earth Park
• Gallery: Mago Earth Park Dedication
• Mago zoning matter draws a huge crowd but no resolution"

Every year, it's the War on Wicca
by Tamara Dietrich, Daily Press, December 26, 2009

"Not being pagan or Christian, myself, I don't have a dog in this hunt. Burn your yule log or sing your Christmas matins – more power to you.

But, as noted in a recent Slate article, some Christians don't appreciate a level playing field. One spokeswoman at a conservative Christian group was displeased when a clothing company gave equal time to various holidays in a television ad.

"As a Christian, I don't put Christmas on the same plane as winter solstice," noted Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family. "It kind of felt like a poke in the eye."

I suspect pagans know the feeling."

Swati Prakash, Founder, Tarot India Network
YourStory (blog), Entrepreneurs, Women Entrepreneur, Saturday, 26 December 2009

"Tarot cards and Magic may sound like a moments fancy to many unbelievers but in the hands of a skilled practitioner they provide pathways to a better life. Swati Prakash is a Wiccan and an M.D. in Alternative Medicines who has channeled her entrepreneurial energies to create Tarot India Network. Her entrepreneurial mission is not just to convert the unbeliever but to give them the benefits that an alternative lifestyle can endow."

But Some Are More Equal Than Others
Dafydd ab Hugh, Hot Air (blog), December 26, 2009

"As to Kelly’s claims that the sign mocks religion, foundation co-President Dan Barker said: “He’s kind of right, because the last couple of sentences do criticize religion, and of course, the beginning is a celebration of the winter solstice. But that kind of speech is protected as well — speech that is critical and speech that is supportive.”

Protected, yes; but not necessarily hosted. If the FRFF wants to put up a sign on private property proclaiming the falsity of Christianity and Judaism — or of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Wicca, though those other religions never seem to provoke such Vesuvian eruptions from the FRFF, the ACLU, or the United Separators (sorry, I meant Americans United for the Separation of Church and State) — let them.

But if they want to express themselves in a display in a public space devoted (for a time) to celebrations of religious faith, then let them simply state what they believe without mocking, attacking, deriding, or spitting on other faiths."

Canadian charged with sham witchcraft
AFP, ‎Dec 10, 2009‎

"A Canadian woman is to appear in court on Christmas Eve for posing as a witch in order to defraud a grieving Toronto lawyer in a case that invokes a century-old law, police said Thursday.
Vishwantee Persaud was charged under a very rarely used section of Canada's criminal code with allegedly pretending to practice witchcraft to convince a man that she was the embodied spirit of his deceased sister.
She did so, say police, in order to defraud him of tens of thousands of dollars.
[...]
The bogus witching law was enacted in 1892 when witchcraft was no longer a punishable offense in Canada, but fears persisted that it could be used as a cover for fraud.
It makes it illegal for anyone to fraudulently pretend to exercise witchcraft or sorcery or enchantment.
Jones conceded the law is "obscure... but it's still on the books," and it captures what he believes transpired -- "preying on a man's sensitivities" to commit an "absurd" fraud.
"The law is not directed at witches, but rather at using the pretence of witchcraft to separate someone from their money," he noted."

Sorcery and Witchcraft Still Blight on Middle East
by Stephen Jones, The Epoch Times, ‎Dec 24, 2009‎

"In Saudi Arabia, last month Lebanese TV personality Ali Sabat was detained as he traveled to perform his Hajj pilgrimage.

He was sentenced to death for witchcraft, after he became famous for giving mystical predictions about the future.

Amnesty International called on Saudi authorities to lift the sentence. "Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement at the time.

"The crime of witchcraft is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state-sanctioned executions."

In the United Arab Emirates, and Dubai in particular, authorities take a more liberal stance. However, because of the large number of scam artists posing as sorcerers and exorcists in Dubai, police have set up a special task to crack down on so-called "magic-related crimes.""

Belief in Witchcraft Leads to Murders in Africa
by Benjamin Radford, LiveScience.com, ‎Dec 9, 2009‎

"In Tanzania, East Africa, at least 50 albinos (people with a rare genetic disorder that leaves the skin, hair, and eyes without pigment) were murdered for their body parts last year, according to the Red Cross. An albino's arms, fingers, genitals, ears, and blood are highly prized on the black market, believed to contain magical powers. People with albinism anywhere often stand out because of their distinctive features; in a continent of dark-skinned Africans, albinos are often the subject of fear, hatred, and ridicule.

The belief and practice of using body parts for magical ritual or benefit is called muti. (Science fiction fans may recall that muti was featured in the hit South African film "District 9," in which the hero's body parts were sought after by a local warlord who believed that the limbs would give him magical powers. That horrific scene was based in fact, not the screenwriter's imagination.)"

Kenyan witch-hunt targets elders
Aljazeera.net, Dec 26, 2009 ‎

"Dozens of villagers in the Kenyan district of Kisii are falling prey to superstitious groups accusing them of witchcraft.

The poverty-stricken western district, known as Kenya's sorcery belt, has seen an increase in mob attacks on individuals and even killings.

The poor and elderly in particular are being targeted"

Living in an extremely small space now, I've placed all my big statues in storage for the time being.

Here is what I'm working with:

I have posted many articles recently about the influence of the Roman festival of Saturnalia on Christmas. Thinking about the Roman god Saturn, it occurred to me that His influence on modern culture is most noticeable as the 'Old Year' in our New Year's cartoons. The Old Year is depicted as holding the sickle of Saturn and the hourglass or clock of Chronos

From wikipedia:
Saturn

"Saturn (Latin: Saturnus) was a major Roman god of agriculture and harvest. In medieval times he was known as the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength; he held a sickle in his left hand and a bundle of wheat in his right. His mother's name was Helen, or Hel. He was identified in classical antiquity with the Greek deity Cronus, and the mythologies of the two gods are commonly mixed. Saturn's wife was Ops (the Roman equivalent of Rhea). Saturn was the father of Ceres, Jupiter, Veritas, Pluto, and Neptune, among others."

Cronus, Kronos or Cronos

"In the Alexandrian and Renaissance periods Cronos was interpreted with the name Chronos. Another theory holds that it may be related to "horned", suggesting a possible connection with the ancient Indian demon Kroni or the Levantine deity El."

Chronos

"In Greek mythology, Chronos (Ancient Greek: Χρόνος) in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. His name in Modern Greek also means "year" and is alternatively spelled Khronos (english transliteration) or Chronus (Latin spelling).
Chronos was imagined as an incorporeal god. Serpentine in form, with three heads—that of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, serpentine Ananke (Inevitability), circled the primal world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky.

Saturn

Old Year/New Year

Keep Dragging religion into Christmas
by Charles W. Moore, Telegraph Journal, Saturday December 26th, 2009

"Distaste for Christmas's pagan residues led Oliver Cromwell's Puritans to ban the celebration in England entirely between 1642 and 1652. Even after royal restoration, the Dec. 25 observance remained in bad odour among British Protestants - an attitude the Pilgrims carried with them across the Atlantic. Around 1660 the General Court of Massachusetts even passed a law banning Christmas observance: "anyone who is found observing, by abstinence from labour, feasting, or any other way, any such days as Christmas Day, shall pay for every such offense five shillings." Christmas wasn't widely celebrated in the English-speaking Americas until massive nineteenth-century immigration by Irish Catholics and Germans.

Many Christmas traditions have pagan origins, including the tree (Roman and Egyptian tree-worship); mistletoe (Druidism); exchanging presents (Roman Saturnalia); and evergreen decorations (Teutonic-Norse paganism). There's nothing essentially Christian about pigging out at gut-busting turkey dinners."

A Merry Christmas?
Howard Belton, Manila Bulletin, December 26, 2009

"Today I’m going to break that rule and talk about religion. I come from a not very religious country, but in the corner of it, Northern Ireland, they were fighting religious wars only a few years ago. There’s a story about the foreigner who arrived in Northern Ireland during the conflict. The taxi driver from the airport asked the crucial question which was put to all visitors: “Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?” The visitor replied “Neither, actually I’m an atheist”. The taxi driver said “No, you foreigners don’t understand. You have to choose your side. Are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?”

I remember my first trip to Peru. It was interesting to see the churches of the Spanish conquerors built right on top of the sacred places of the natives. You could still see the massive cyclopean stones of the ancient builders under the even blocks of the Spanish church. It clearly helped conversion to Christianity to take over some aspects of the local religion. In Europe most of the Christian festivals were held at the same time as the major pagan festivals – especially the mid-winter festival which became Christmas. One of my heroes, Oliver Cromwell, when he ruled England four hundred years ago, decided that the pagan festivals had to be stopped and he more or less banned the celebration of Christmas together with dancing on Sundays. These bans were very unpopular, not because of religious beliefs, but because he was trying to ban drinking and parties."

Blending beliefs: Family takes diverse approach to religion
by Mary Garrigan, Rapid City Journal, December 26, 2009

"As president of the Black Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship’s board, Bach found her spiritual home seven years ago in the liberal religious community that “focuses on love and respect for all human beings … and the responsible search for truth and meaning,” she said.
She arrived at Unitarianism after growing up in a divorced family with a father who was an evangelical Christian and a mother whose nature-based pagan religion found God in the mountains, the desert and the natural world.
“Really, our church was hiking in the mountains and having picnics in the desert,” she said. “My mother taught that nature is a gift from God for us to respect and enjoy.”
[...]
For Bach, all of the world’s major religions lead to the same place – the shared values of loving one another and caring for the less fortunate.
One of the reasons she’s a Unitarian is because the group emphasizes spiritual-based activism and draws ideas from many different religious traditions. A Unitarian service is just as likely to feature an informative program on Quakerism or Mormonism as it is on Islam or Buddhism.
To her, the best expression of religion is charitable giving and doing good works.
“For us, expressing spirituality is about relieving suffering right here in our own community,” she said."

NEPAL: Witch Tag Only on Dalits, Minorities
By Mallika Aryal, Kathmandu, Dec 23 (IPS)

"Just 40 kms away from the capital Kathmandu, in Thasingtole, Lalitpur District, Kalli Kumari B.K., 46, a local Dalit woman, was mercilessly beaten up. She was accused of being a 'witch', imprisoned in a shed and forced to eat her own excreta
[...]
In Sunsari, 650 km south-east of Kathmandu, Jabrun Khatun, 26 was dragged out of her house and beaten in the middle of the village. "They said I was a witch, that because of me a lot of children were falling sick and beat me for hours. Then they stepped on my chest and forced me to eat human excreta," said Khatun.
[...]
In Kalilali, far west Nepal, Jugu Kumari Chaudhari was accused of practicing witch-craft when a close family member died. Chaudhari was beaten up and her husband had to come rescue her. "We went to the police station to file a complaint but they said it was a personal matter and we should resolve in the community," said Chaudhari.

Gender activists have been fighting for years to end this extreme form of violence against women, but the problem is still common in the Tarai, the southern plains of Nepal, and in areas where there's high illiteracy and poverty.

"An educated woman from higher-income family and higher caste never gets accused of practicing witchcraft," said Indu Pant, gender advisor at CARE Nepal. Urmila Bishwakarma of the Dalit media group Jagaran Media Centre has been documenting cases of Dalit women who have been accused as witches and tortured. She said that Dalit and other minority women are the most vulnerable because they are socially, culturally, financially and politically backward.

Pant says that the problem is exacerbated because the state is often missing in these regions, so the victims have nowhere to go for help. "Even when they try to seek help from the police they are often turned back because the police says it is a personal matter and must be solved in the community. This culture of impunity lets the perpetrators off the hook."

Spokesperson of the Supreme Court Sri Kanta Poudel said that there is a legal vacuum when it comes to punishing those who are involved in such crimes. "There are no provisions of compensation or reintegration of the victims into the society, that is the weakness of our justice system," admits Poudel."

Witching hour gives Patricia va va broom
The Star, South Yorkshire UK, 22 December 2009

"Patricia Crowther is one of the nation's most revered High Priestesses of the Craft of the Wise, or witchcraft to the uninitiated.
[...]
Patricia, now 82, was ordained as High Priestess in 1960, and set up the Sheffield Coven in 1961. She is now referred to as a Grand Mother of the craft - primarily because of her age. "We respect the old in the Craft," she says.

This year she published her tenth book, Covensense, a reference book for followers of the Craft of the Wise, or for the curious-minded. Topics include the significance of the magic circle, herbs, flowers, initiation, ritual and spells - and all are addressed as answers to questions Patricia has been asked over the years.

Christmas is not the only celebration in December
Many other traditions get lost in crush of Christian holiday
By Patti Zarling, Greenbay Press Gazette, Dec 23, 2009

"Some celebrate the winter solstice, also known as Yule, as the start of both the solar and calendar year.

The solstice is the official start of winter and occurred at 11:47 a.m. Monday. The word solstice comes from Latin and means "sun stands still," referring to the sun appearing to rise from the same point on the horizon for several days in a row.

Today, as in years past, it is celebrated over several days and nights, said the Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister for the Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan Church based in Barneveld.

Many Christian holiday customs are based on pagan traditions, so celebrations are similar, Fox said. Pagans celebrate winter solstice by kindling candles and other lights to represent the sun, burning a yule log of oak representing the new year, celebrating around large bonfires, decorating homes and other places with holly, mistletoe and evergreens, gift giving, sharing with others through food drives and charity work, singing and eating."

Winter solstice attracts more than just druids to Stonehenge
by Steven Morris, guardian.co.uk, 22 December 2009

"Spiro Marcetic had travelled to the Wiltshire monument from Birmingham with his wife, Alison, and their children – Evie, four, and Hector, two – to get away from it all for a few days. They stayed in a Travelodge down the road (not very druidic) and pushed the children under the subway and up to the stones in a double-buggy.

"We're here for an anti-religious reason, if any," said Alison. "Pagans seem to have more fun so we'd thought we'd give it a go. We'll be celebrating Christmas but this is about showing the children that this season isn't just about getting presents. What goes on here is more basic, more tangible."

Jill and her 10-year-old daughter Jasmine are Stonehenge regulars. But this year they brought along Jasmine's classmate, Ifu, and her father, Ken, who are not pagans, to show them what it was all about.

Ken said: "I think we found it very spiritual, very moving. It's a great experience."

Jill added: "For us this time of year is about starting to come out of the dark. It's a very positive time of year. I think people who aren't pagans come here to enjoy that feeling too.""

Preparing for the Sun’s return at Yule
By Kathy Nance, The Post-Dispatch, 12.21.2009

"In Celtic tradition, the Oak King, the Lord of Summer, is the baby that is born to the Mother Goddess. He will reign until MIdsummer, when he loses his life in battle to the Holly King. The hollies of Tower Grove are very beautiful this Solstice Day, as always. The oaks are dormant and still. Life waits at their roots.

I return home for my own midwinter ritual. I’ve spent the weeks since Samhain going through my shelves and closets. I have filled many boxes with things that are still good, but no longer serve the person I am becoming. I’ve cleaned, rearranged furniture, repurposed some rooms.

It occurs to me that I’m nesting."

Santa: Last of the Wild Men
by Justin Hopper, The Old Weird Albion, December 25, 2009

"Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of Saint Nicholas, Spanning 50,000 Years: A long title for a short-ish book; one not trapped in the pale of academia, yet lacking in the vibrant writing of a popular creative non-fiction; a book that won’t please your Christian Grandmother, but might get smirked at by the hardcore folkies as well. But the late Phyllis Siefker’s tract on the origins of Santa Claus – tracing this folk figure from, she posits, his initial existence as the “Wild Man” of pan-European paganism – is a wonderful excursion into our own mythologies, regardless of its faults. And, in fact, Last of the Wild Men has become one of the prime movers in getting my personal interest in Christmas back in gear.
[...]
In The Mad Pranks And Merry Jests Of Robin Goodfellow [by John Payne Collier], a book existent from 1628 that probably predates that by quite some time, in a section entitled “How Robin Good-Fellow Was Wont To Walke In The Night,” Robin is described as a chimney-sweep whose practical jokes would be followed by his traditional cry of, “Ho, Ho, Ho.”

As one can guess from the, umm, less than modest portrayal in this portrait, Robin hangs onto many of the Wild Man’s jobs as fertility symbol and cloven-hoofed central figure of the circular merriment of May Day. But as Siefker might point out, that beard and mustache look familiar – slap a red hat over those horns and put the feet on a reindeer before him, and we’re starting to see something..."

I'm not sure if this is the right question for a wiccan page, but im not really in any spiritual groups right now. My daughter has the gift to see the dead, not that it happens often but she has seen her grandfather, a fellow fishing at the beach, who she spoke with and the other night whilst awake she could see someone by the bed, whom i believe is still alive, this concerns me as this guy, was a very good friend, but allegations were made that he molested his girlfriends daughters.. She said he was standing by the bed, and she was saying this to her stepmum whilst she was in the room. They even did the white light protection, and she got her cards and put them under her pillow for protection. But she also claims there was another person there that she'd seen on tv that was a bad man also a paedophile i think... So im really wondering what is she seeing, its easy when you know they are spirits but what would be presenting to her like this??? If you have any suggestions i would appreciate it... Kimmi

Would like to start with appologies for being a part of this group for so long and haven't introduced myself. I go by Karlyn Rayne. My mother and grandmother were witches so my path was simple. Both my daughters also chose this path. Sometimes it isn't the simplest route but was the choice I made. Three years ago I came out of the broom closet. It was done as an act of trust in myself to know that people will make their judgements no matter what you do.

With the dark months approaching, now is the time of reflection and turning inward to evaluate the past and plan a better future. As I look back I see a daughter, sister, mother, a dreamer, a neighbor, friend, healer, a shrink for my friends, and someone who although never really fitting in always loved even those who didn't like who-or-what I am. Soon I will move from this place in the woods to a place with way to many people. It keeps me awake. Six months ago I knew what to expect each day. I walked and talked but I was dead, lost in a past life, a life that died 3 years before. Then came the love of my life. Maryanne sent me to a site in which I found a man. I sent him a note saying, "Hey guy! Your in my neck of the woods." The rest was fate. I love you Eric.

I was brought up in a family where spirits, spells and Ouija boards were common place. In a time, when no one understood….. and thought people who could see.... were crazy, those who practiced ....were devil worshipers, and those who heard ....had surely lost it.

This wonderful Mother Earth grants us only what we can comprehend so think twice before you ask for gifts you may not really be ready for. But if you open your hearts and eyes there is a whole other world out there, a world where things that go bump in the night really do exist.

I sometimes encounter the theory that religion is the cause of wars and human suffering and therefor if we get rid of religion we will have fewer wars and less human suffering.

I disagree with the premise of this one. While some wars and acts of violence are done in the name of religion I believe they are actually caused by conflicts over economics and political power. What often looks like religious conflict is just struggle over economics or power between identity groups that happen to use religion as a identifying marker. If religion wasn't there they would use ethnic identity, or family ties, or residence to fight over.

Name a war that people say is over religion and I can probably explain why it is actually about wealth or power.

The Crusades? Supposedly a holy war, but actually needed so the nobility could rase taxes, and to get rid of armed men who would otherwise be competing for a limited supply of land in Europe.

Al-Qaeda? Another supposedly holy war, but actually an attempt to recapture Arab sovereignty from Western imperialism. Western nations have been undermining Arab self rule and installing puppet dictators for a long time. The Shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, and the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.

The problem with blaming "religion" for wars is that it leads to the conclusion that if we get rid of "religion" we will get rid of the problem. We can no more get rid of religion than we can get rid of economics or identity groups. If we were able to get rid of everything called "religion" we would still have economics and groups in conflict over power. They would call themselves different things but the problems would still be there.

Most of my Pagan friends have been unimpressed by the plot of "Avatar". The special effects are great but the "Gospel According to James" is old news.

The entire plot or "Avatar" in 3min 30sec
"So, I really liked "FernGully" *BUZZ*, "Pocahontas"? *BUZZ*, "Atlantis: The Lost Empire"? *BUZZ*, "Dances with Wolves"? *BUZZ*, "Avatar"? *DING*. The Most original movie I've ever seen in my life!"


sbcpanuru wrote a Review of Avatar

"Avatar 2 will be three minutes long and will consist of the corporation detonating tactical nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, extinguishing all life on the surface while leaving the precious underground minerals intact. Which leaves me wondering, what exactly was the point of that two and a half hours? "Aggressive imperialism is bad?" I knew that already; I didn't need to watch Dances With Wolves In Space to tell me that."

But the best part is in her comments when she says

"What pissed me off about the film was that I really wanted to like its politics. Sure, it had an extraterrestrial species that has a language that is actually learnable by humans (everybody fudges that), uses intelligible body language (Star Trek set a really bad example for everybody), and doesn't have any pathogens to speak of (um, there's no real excuse for this one). But I'm usually pretty excited to see "Might doesn't make right" stories, and even though it's a few miles beyond asinine to design a freaking alien species around stereotypes of Native American culture, whatever.

Except there's this part when they find out about the trees actually functioning as a collective mind, and Grace's line is that it's not just some pagan voodoo, it's real. And suddenly the argument that it's not okay to exterminate a culture just so we can steal their resources falls apart, because now it's only morally indefensible if the funny things they spend time talking about are detectable in a lab. Way to throw freaking everybody under the bus there, jackass.

But mostly what irritated me was the film's dishonesty toward its own premise. When civilizations clash, the ones with guns, germs, steel and nukes accomplish their objectives. Nobody really wins, but the ones who will be writing the history of the Pandora conflict fifty years down the road are not the ones holding the victory party at the end of Avatar."

Heaven and Nature
By Ross Douthat, The New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, December 20, 2009

"“Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.

In Cameron’s sci-fi universe, this communion is embodied by the blue-skinned, enviably slender Na’Vi, an alien race whose idyllic existence on the planet Pandora is threatened by rapacious human invaders. The Na’Vi are saved by the movie’s hero, a turncoat Marine, but they’re also saved by their faith in Eywa, the “All Mother,” described variously as a network of energy and the sum total of every living thing.

If this narrative arc sounds familiar, that’s because pantheism has been Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now. It’s the truth that Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves. It’s the metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like “The Lion King” and “Pocahontas.” And it’s the dogma of George Lucas’s Jedi, whose mystical Force “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.”

Hollywood keeps returning to these themes because millions of Americans respond favorably to them. From Deepak Chopra to Eckhart Tolle, the “religion and inspiration” section in your local bookstore is crowded with titles pushing a pantheistic message. A recent Pew Forum report on how Americans mix and match theology found that many self-professed Christians hold beliefs about the “spiritual energy” of trees and mountains that would fit right in among the indigo-tinted Na’Vi."

Avatar and the attack on Pantheism
by Gus diZerega, Beliefnet.com (blog), Thursday December 24, 2009

"Let's start with the problem of evil. As Douthat states it, the problem is actually far more serious to his monopolistic transcendental monotheism than it is to pantheism. Karl Rove-like, he takes one of our strengths and tries to make it a weakness, one of his religion's greatest weaknesses and tries to make it a strength.

If you have a deity defined largely by his power, and his claim that he also happens to be good, the problem of evil is all but insurmountable. This is the reason many Christians have become agnostics or atheists. Bart Ehrman the noted religious scholar and Biblical expert was able to handle his discovery that the Bible was in no way literally true. But Ehrman finally lost his faith over the issue of evil.

The problem of evil is far more tractable from a pantheistic perspective. First it removes us from center stage. We two leggeds are one part of the glorious reality that is this beautiful world. We may or may not play a central role in the drama of life, but the world was not created as our little cupcake to consume as we see fit. (If it were, as folks like Douthat seem to think, evil again becomes a problem. Why create such a world unless you are a very bad designer? Or a sadist?)"

This is interesting.
The Pan-African Movement is the Modern African Peoples' Union (APU)
by Naiwu Osahon, Modern Ghana, Dec. 24, 2009‎

"We are not asking Africans to return to the old and rather crude ways of our ancient spiritual practices and faiths. We have modified our ancient African spiritual ways, cleaned the faiths up, modernized them, to make them as attractive as any other modern religion in the world, without our spirituality loosing its well known superior spiritual potency. We now focus our faiths on science and scholarship because our African spirituality is the highest level of science known to mankind. We are using our spirituality to challenge White ideas of the world from Einstein's E=mc2 to Darwin's origin theory. Out theories have already begun to numb the critical thinking world. What all races of the world did was take aspects of the African faiths they could understand and modernized and simplified these into Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and so on, to help their respective races to ascend in the world. They changed Black images of the original African spirituality and mother of all the religions and racial spiritual movements of the world, to their native images.

Kabbalism is the most successful of all the adaptations of African spirituality. Kabbalism achieved about 30% of the African spiritual potency which the Jews used to conquer the Arabs and to ascend in the world. The Secret Societies of the West and all the other racial groups of the world, but particularly that of the West, acquired less than the 30% that Kabbala derived from the Mystery System of the Africans. And we all know that they along with the Jews rule the world today. African spiritual mavens can do anything. They are Gods in the affairs of man but they are derided by their own children who have been captured by the spiritless alien religions of Christianity and Islam. We have refined our mavens' methods to make the practices attractive to the modern, young African, and release the power for the good of all of mankind. That is what Myk is about.

Myk is the Mystery System all over again, but refined, modernized, rendered friendly, open, extremely adaptable and no less potent and reliable as our ancestors Mystery System of old. Myk relies totally on psyching the human self, withdrawing into the self to draw on the god within us, the sixth sense, our spirit essence and twin, to unleash the power of imagination to re-order and straighten out civilization and rule the world. It is share brain power I am talking about. Nothing fetish, nothing demeaning, just pure science at the highest level of scholarship and members can choose to be atheistic Pagans.

Any black African individual can start a Myk/Pan-African Movement branch in his or her neighbourhood, school, workplace, street the same way you start a Church. Apply to us and we would put you through how to set up your Myk/Pan-African Movement branch. A well run Myk/Pan-African Movement centre is expected to become a successful, efficient and highly respected hub of social, spiritual, cultural, political, intellectual and economic activities in its community within a short time. Three to five years at the most, buying up manufacturing companies, large farms, housing estates for members, office complexes to let, schools, investing in the stock exchange etc., and turning members into millionaires and business tycoons. Members are entitled to receive priority employment advantage in their Myk businesses as long as the applicants are qualified for the jobs."

'Christmas' has traditions older than Christianity
The Rev. Michael A. Engelking, Jr., Universal Life Church, Wiccan Minister, Seacoastonline.com Opinion Letter, December 24, 2009

"Dec. 25 is popularly known as Christmas, and the Winter Solstice arrives a few days earlier. The holiday symbols of virgins, births of gods, evergreens, yule logs and the old jolly man all originated from ancient Pagan beliefs. Many people across the world still celebrate this old pagan winter festival called Yule.

I am not trying to insult Christians who celebrate Christmas by any means, but only have them acknowledge there are many winter festivals celebrated during this time that are older than Christmas and shouldn't be insulted if someone prefers the holidays under a different name. Wiccans and other Earth-based religious followers gather in groups this time of year to celebrate the Winter Solstice as the New Sun god is reborn of the Virgin Goddess; Jesus and his virgin mother, Mary, is just another incarnation of the Sun god born to the Virgin Mother Goddess on the Winter Solstice. There is only one God, but God is called different names by different cultures.

But one main thing is that on this day, we (all faiths) are celebrating the rebirth of our God as he promises of spring and renewed life for all. Happy Solstice, Merry Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas and happy holidays!"

Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas
By Selwyn Duke, American Thinker , December 24, 2009

"If we were to discard all things pagan, I should think we'd plunge ourselves back into the Stone Age. We walk on concrete, record our knowledge with letters, and designate our months with names originated/invented by the pagan Romans. We steer our boats with rudders invented by the pagan Chinese; make calculations with numbers invented by pagan Indians; and create computer graphics, medical imaging, and designs for buildings and bridges using geometry formalized by pagan Greeks. And much of our philosophy (and much of that drawn upon by early Christians, mind you) was generated by pagans such as Aristotle and Plato. Should we "go Taliban" and burn all their works -- and other books thus influenced? A pious Christian must believe that pagans could not have had the whole Truth, but only an ignorant Christian would believe they had no Truth."

Christmas Eve and the birth of the sun: A Ukrainian feast has pagan and Christian roots
By Wynne Parry, Norwalk Advocate, 12/24/2009

"The pagan traditions in place before Christianity's arrival in Ukraine in 988 A.D., are still around, enmeshed in the holiday celebration. In pre-Christian times, this was time to celebrate the winter solstice, or as it was known then, the birth of the sun, Wolynetz said. The 12 dishes associated with Christmas Eve can honor either the 12 apostles or the 12 full moons of the year, depending on the perspective.
[...]
Since Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, its traditions have experienced a resurgence, according to Wolynetz. Soviet rule repressed religion and introduced the Russian Grandfather Frost to replace the Santa Claus-like St. Nicholas and the Christian winter holiday, she said.

Dinner is followed by caroling, which can involve costumes and disguises. Traditionally, the carolers are accompanied by someone dressed as a goat, who dies and is brought back to life in a skit the carolers perform. This has its roots in pagan beliefs, symbolizing the death of winter and rebirth of spring, according to Wolynetz."