Posts Tagged ‘Fairies’

News & Submissions 9/4/2012

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

Arts & Entertainment:

New movie in production based on Rose Hall’s ‘White Witch’ legend
Albany pagans looking for future films related to witchcraft and the occult will definitely have some entertainment to look forward to next year. According to an article appearing in the “Jamaica Observer,” a new thriller film called, “The Rebellion: The Legend of the White Witch of Rose Hall,” is slated for production and release in 2013. The movie will be produced by Raquel Roxanne, directed by Rodrigo Retamoza III, and written by Nadine Barnett Cosby. The film will be based on the famed and haunted history at the Rose Hall Great House in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Read full story from examiner.com

The Sims 3 Supernatural Review: Witches, Fairies, Werewolves And Magic
With vampires, bots, imaginary friends and other strange beings brought into our Sims 3 communities thanks to previously released expansion packs for EA’s game, it’s hard to imagine things getting any weirder around the neighborhood. And then comes Supernatural, an expansion pack that unleashes a few new types of beings into the world, giving the player new ways to play the game, and new powers for their Sims to use and abuse at their discretion.

The following review contains spoilers, details and screenshots from the Sims 3: Supernatural expansion pack. It is based on game-play with a Macbook Pro with OS X Mountain Lion. This game is an expansion pack and requires the base game in order to play. Read full story from cinemablend.com

Education:

Aliens, witchcraft and zombie philosophers: 8 unconventional courses at University of Michigan
University of Michigan sparked a national debate nine years ago when the school offered a course titled “How to be Gay.”Last year, Michigan State University raised eyebrows when it offered a course called “Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse.”

This fall, U-M doesn’t seem to be offering courses quite as controversial or off-the-wall as those two, but the school definitely has a few oddballs sprinkled in its course packet.

The unconventional offerings include courses that explore whether aliens really exist, whether Robin Hood was real and what famous thinkers would be saying and doing if they were alive today. Read full story from annarbor.com

Lifestyle:

Beyond the surreal
A career Wicca, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti is on a mission to dispel myths surrounding witchcraft and save the lives of women victimised by superstitionFor Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, the world of the paranormal and metaphysical is not some make-believe hocus pocus, or the stuff that scripts sensational television drama. It is her life’s work. A popular Wicca, or witch in lay terms, she not only administers Wiccan ways of healing, but has also made it her mission to travel to remote villages across India, especially where innocent women are declared witches and then murdered, to dispel myths about “witchcraft”. Read full story from thehindu.com

News:

Ghana witch camps: Widows’ lives in exile
When misfortune hits a village, there is a tendency in some countries to suspect a “witch” of casting a spell. In Ghana, outspoken or eccentric women may also be accused of witchcraft – and forced to live out their days together in witch camps.A rusty motorbike speeds across the vast dry savannah of Ghana’s impoverished northern region, leaving a cloud of reddish dust in its wake. Arriving at a small group of round thatched huts, the young motorcyclist helps his old mother to dismount to begin her new life in exile.

Frail 82-year-old Samata Abdulai has arrived at the village of Kukuo, one of Ghana’s six witch camps, where women accused of witchcraft seek refuge from beating, torture or lynching. Read full story from standardmedia.co.ke

Witch hunts targeted by grassroots women’s groups
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Witch hunts are common and sometimes deadly in the tea plantations of Jalpaiguri, India. But a surprising source – small groups of women who meet through a government loan program – has achieved some success in preventing the longstanding practice, a Michigan State University sociologist found.Soma Chaudhuri spent seven months studying witch hunts in her native India and discovered that the economic self-help groups have made it part of their agenda to defend their fellow plantation workers against the hunts.

“It’s a grassroots movement and it’s helping provide a voice to women who wouldn’t otherwise have one,” said Chaudhuri, assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice. “I can see the potential for this developing into a social movement, but it’s not going to happen in a day because an entire culture needs to be changed.”  Read full story from news.msu.edu

Media:

Christians take discrimination cases to Europe’s top court (Source: CNN)

Blogspot:

Feel free to leave comments regarding the articles posted.

If you’re interested in guest blogging or would like to submit an article or event, contact me at pagansworld.org@gmail.com.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lisa

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Pagan News | Comments Off

News & Submissions 11/23/2010

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

‘Worst Act Of Aggression Against South Korea’ Since ’50s
We start the day with more about the unsettling news that “North Korea (has) fired at least 200 rounds of artillery at a South Korean island near the countries’ disputed western sea border.”

Two South Korean marines were killed and more than a dozen people injured in today’s incident.

On Morning Edition earlier, Dongseo University international studies professor Brian Myers spoke with co-host Steve Inskeep from Seoul. As Myers said, “this is the first time since the Korean War that we’ve had an attack on civilian territory with artillery shells. So, this is really … the worst act of aggression against South Korea that we’ve seen since the end of the Korean War.” (Myers was referring to the end of open warfare, of course, since the conflict between the North and South has never officially ended.) Read full story from npr.org

Selling souls for a celery stick and playing with Ouija boards
For as long as I can remember I’ve been into horror and all things related to it. Ghosts, demons, spirits, scary movies and anything having to do with the occult are always interesting topics to me. I think it would be cool to be a vampire and live forever off the blood of the innocent or a zombie, feasting on brains and other delicacies. Does this mean I truly believe in ghosts and goblins? Not at all. What is surprising, though, is how many people actually do.

Last week, at work, a coworker and I were talking about summoning a demon to the office. We used an online Ouija board and tried to bring a demon forth to haunt our workplace. Obviously it didn’t work. Later, when we told another coworker about it, she replied by saying, “Oh, I don’t mess with that kind of stuff.” Read full story from daily49er.com

Professor explores the Isle of Man’s fascination with fairies!
THE Isle of Man’s fascination with The Fairy Bridge and Manx traditions about fairies has resulted in a British historian arranging a visit to the Island to give a lecture on the subject in January.

Professor Ronald Hutton will deliver his lecture – ‘Traditional Fairy Beliefs’ – at the Gaiety Theatre and will explore the intriguing subject of fairies, including the value that fairy stories served, whether ‘real’ or not. Read full story from isleofman.com

How BP Clashed and Cooperated With Scientists
A detail-rich, 39-page working paper from staff members of the oil spill commission says the government and BP have “much to take pride in” for their response to the crisis, given that “neither was ready for a disaster of this nature.” It says, however, that the failure to get an accurate rate of oil flow early on may have “impeded” BP’s efforts to have oil-collection equipment ready when needed. Read full story from sciencemag.org

Energy Services Platform (ESP) (Source People Power)

Pope makes frank comments in new book (source cnn.com)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Pagan News | Comments Off

News & Submissions 11/15/2010

Monday, November 15th, 2010

On trial: Faith, delusion or excuse for crime?
He’s a self-proclaimed prophet who called his bed an altar.

He wore robes, grew his beard long and penned a rambling manifesto.

He said he received revelations and was destined to take 49 wives.

And he is on federal trial for kidnapping Elizabeth Smart, now 23, and moving her across state lines for sex. Read full story from cnn.com

Saudi Arabian court rejects ‘sorcery’ death sentence
Amnesty International has welcomed a decision by the Saudi Arabian Supreme Court this week not to ratify the death sentence on a Lebanese man convicted of “sorcery”.

The court in the capital Riyadh said that the death sentence for ‘Ali Hussain Sibat was inappropriate because there was no proof that others were harmed as a result of his actions.

The court ordered that the case be retried in the original lower court in Madina with a view to considering commutation of his death sentence and deportation to Lebanon at the end of his sentence. Read full story from amnestyusa.org

How modern day witch trials are destroying rural Africa
Sixteen-year-old Sapavi was sitting in her English class at the Assemblies of God primary school in Ghana, following a lesson she can no longer remember, when she felt something or someone knock her on the head.

The concrete room’s tiny windows meant the airless space stayed relatively dark. It was crowded with low desks and bench seats filled with lanky Ghanaian students wearing uniforms of blue skirts or pants and short-sleeved white blouses. When Sapavi turned to see who was annoying her, what she saw was the ghostly apparition of an old woman holding a long knife and a bowl made from a dried gourd. Read full story from nypost.com

Expert insists end of world is not nigh
DESPITE WHAT you might have heard, the world is not set to end on December 21st, 2012. There are no asteroids to worry about, nor astronomical alignments nor changes in the Sun that will destroy Earth, according to one of Ireland’s top astrophysicists. Read full story from irishtimes.com

Roman Ruins Show Modern Sea Level Rise Didn’t Start Until Industrial Revolution
Over the weekend the New York Times ran an article on sea level rise, which for the seasoned TreeHugger reader may not add tons new to the discussion (Climate Progress has some analysis of it and gives it mostly a thumbs up, rare for mainstream media reporting on climate), but check it out if you need a refresher course. But what caught my eye was a really interesting companion article, highlighting research on Roman seaside ruins which indicate that for the past two millennia or so that sea levels have been comparatively steady, and that the level of increase we witness today really started with industrialization. Read full story from treehugger.com

Rainforests, wildlife preserved by indigenous spiritual beliefs
New research within the native Wapishana and Makushi communities of Guyana suggests that indigenous cultural beliefs such as shamanism help preserve tropical forests and wildlife.

The analysis, published in the September 2010 Journal of Latin American Geography, draws from a massive data set that tracks wildlife populations, hunting kill sites, and spiritually significant features of the landscape within a 48,000-square-kilometer area in southern Guyana. The authors recruited the hunters themselves to record much of the data. Read full story from mongabay.com

The ‘Wee Good Folk’ – what are they?
A remarkable amount of confusion surrounds the subject of fairies, so let’s take a closer look.

What are we to make of these winged, ephemeral creatures that inhabit the hidden regions of the human psyche and the overgrown forests where our ancestors once worshipped their mysterious Old Gods? It is easy to see why a strange mystical state, enveloping fairies has arisen when we examine the various (at first seemingly contradictory) factors attached to these splendid beings.

For the sake of simplicity I shall hereby explore the preeminent working strands of thought-process connected to Fairy Lore.

FAIRIES FROM THE OLD GODS AND AS A SUPPRESSION OF NATIVE CULTURAL PAGAN BELIEF Read full story from ufodigest.com

Lead in reusable grocery bags prompts call for federal inquiry
Lead found in some reusable grocery bags is raising concerns that the toxin could pose environmental or health concerns to consumers.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is asking for a federal investigation into the reusable bags following a series by The Tampa Tribune. The newspaper found lead in bags purchased at Winn-Dixie, Publix, Sweetbay, Walmart and Target. Read full story from usatoday.com

Maya pyramids pose acoustic riddle
Crumbled ruins of pyramids litter Central America’s jungles, trees growing from their tumbled staircase blocks.

Why the ancient Maya abandoned these towering temples remains one of the big riddles of archaeology. But there is one other question: Why build them in the first place? Read full story from usatoday.com

Adventurer’s photos capture a bygone Mecca (Source cnn.com)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

News & Submissions 3/2/2010

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Modern-day world lost spiritual orientation and sank in “high-tech paganism,” Kusturica believes
“High-tech pagans have invaded the world today. This paganism doesn’t do any good to a human-being. A person today lives under permanent technological control… However, the main difference of modern people is that they lost spiritual orientation. Uniqueness of a human being as God’s image in leveled down in the world today,” the film director said in his interview published by the NG-Religii paper in association with the Spas TV channel. Read full story from interfax-religion.com

Wiccan altar puts teacher, officials at odds
Dale Halferty, who has taught industrial arts at Guthrie Center High School for three years, was placed on paid leave Monday after he acknowledged to district officials that he told the student he could not build the altar in class. Read full story from desmoinesregister.com

Native status may be affected by diversity issues
DENVER – With the advent of an increasingly urban, multiracial country, it’s possible that Indian America will slowly be transformed as well, perhaps following a controversial trajectory toward inclusion in an ethnic American identity. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Fairies take over Norfolk estate
And as the Fairyland Trust gets ready to host its showcase event at Holt Hall, the organisers say they still dream of finding a permanent Norfolk lair for magical creatures and nature lovers. Read full story from northnorfolknews.co.uk

Court refuses to stop D.C. gay marriage law
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court today refused to block the District of Columbia’s gay marriage law, freeing the city to issue its first marriage licenses to same-sex couples the following day. Read full story from tbo.com

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Pagan News | Comments Off