Pagans.net Blogs

GoErie.com: ‘Witch’ doesn’t mean ‘evil’

GoErie.com: ‘Witch’ doesn’t mean ‘evil’: “It’s that time of the year again. Pumpkins and mums are appearing at roadside stands, bags of candy are going on sale at the stores, and people who do not know any better will once again confuse the most sacred holiday in the pagan year with a Hollywood-style, supernatural horror fest.

I will be the first to admit that pagans love a party, and we are gleeful pumpkin carvers, candy givers (and consumers) and horror movie watchers. But when it actually comes to celebrating Samhain (pronounced sow wen), it is for us an opportunity to contemplate the passing of the harvest time and the coming of winter, as well as to honor our ancestors.”

(Via GoErie.com.)

Wicca Experts Encourage Christians to Engage America’s ‘Fastest-Growing’ Religion

Wicca Experts Encourage Christians to Engage America’s ‘Fastest-Growing’ Religion: “While many Christians today are closely monitoring the growth and activity of Islam, especially after 9/11, another religious movement has been steadily growing ‘under the radar’ and could become among the largest religions in the United States in less than five years.”

(Via The Christian Post RSS Feed.)

Review: Rootwork - Using the folk magic of black America for love, money, and success

Review: Rootwork - Using the folk magic of black America for love, money, and success
By Tayannah Lee McQuillar

Review by Kim Huggens

Rootwork (otherwise known as Hoodoo) is a subject that is quite difficult to find decent books about. A lot of the available literature is amateur and brief, giving the budding rootworker very little by way of intellectual resources. Sadly, ‘Rootwork’ by Tayannah Lee McQuilllar is a prime example of this.

Numbering 141 pages and split into three sections, it took me just under an hour to read, so at least it wasn’t too much of a waste of my time. Luckily the book is also written in an easy, simple and approachable style, so ‘Rootwork’ can be read without too much concentration. The three sections of the book are ‘Rootwork Basics’, ‘Elements of Rootwork’, and ‘Understanding Spells for Love, Money, and Success’.

(Via The Esoteric Book Review.)

Pagans proud but not loud - Financial Post

Financial Post: In a quiet grove in a quiet park in the middle of the city earlier this month, about 50 mostly youngish people in various sorts of attire formed a rough circle on the damp grass. The area they created was a frith, a kind of sacred space. Four participants at equidistant points in the circle faced away from the others and held aloft hammers –not the claw kind from Canadian Tire but those heavy T-shaped implements the Norse god Thor would wield. …

(Via Google News)

Why it’s dangerous to be a witch in a recession.

Slate Magazine: “Why did people murder suspected witches in Renaissance Europe? And why do they still do so today in sub-Saharan Africa? As someone whose main source of information about witch trials is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I was fascinated to learn that witch-burning has its own grim economics.

[more ...]

(Via Slate Magazine.)

Still bringing light into children’s lives

Liverpool Daily Post.co.uk: “THE twits, The BFG, and the Witches were just some Roald Dahl’s unique gifts to the world. But his efforts to make the world a warmer, brighter place didn’t end with his death.

“A lesser known legacy of Dahl was the funding of a battalion of nurses equipped to lend specialist knowledge and support to children and parents affected by neurological conditions.

“And the pioneer of the Roald Dahl nurses scheme was Anne Sweeney, an epilepsy nurse specialist at Alder Hey. She’s patrolled the neurology ward, visited homes and schools and simply offered a friendly ear for thousands of parents with children with the condition for the past 15 years.”

(Via Liverpool Daily Post.)