Scientologists in Haiti: A Firsthand Account
We’ve spoken to someone who traveled to Haiti on a Scientology plane — and witnessed firsthand the ineptitude, quackery and irresponsibility of the church’s minions in a disaster zone. Here’s his account. Read full story from gawker.com
Farewell to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore The founding owners of the Bodhi Tree Bookstore are dealing with the closure of their L.A. institution as only spiritualists can. “In our best Buddhist sense, we try to incorporate the idea that things always change,” says Phil Thompson, who, along with Stan Madson, opened the Bodhi Tree 40 years ago. Through the years, their cozy Melrose Avenue shop became a nationally known, much beloved center for Buddhists, astrologers, psychics, yogis, swamis, acupuncturists, naturists and others seeking enlightenment. Read full story from laweekly.com
Inside the AFA worship circle
The new Wiccan, Druid and Earth-centered religious worship circle on a mountaintop at the Air Force Academy is equipped with a propane gas hookup for the ritualistic soul-healing fires — just like the worship circles a thousand years ago, when the High Priestess of Babalashadan would stand by the fire and cry out in an enchanted voice, “Lagaz atha cabyolas,” which means, literally, “OK, who brought the marshmallows?” Read full story from csindy.com
Pagans and Politics…Who and What
Having been asked many times what the heck a Pagan is, I’ve sort of distilled it down to some easy sound bites which actually may define most of us. Think of the three-legged stool analogy; here are the legs of the stool, in no particular order. First, Pagans believe that the Sacred Divine (note: no gender implied) is too enormous to fit into any single definition comprehensible to we humans. No “old man in the sky”, just something just beyond our grasp, something toward which we each find our own path. Read full story from pagannewswirecollective.com
Pagan Spirit Gathering 2010:”Spirals of Spirit and Light”
The Pagan Spirit Gathering (PSG) is one of America’s oldest and largest Nature Spirituality festivals. Since its inception in 1980, PSG has been bringing together hundreds of people from throughout the United States, plus other countries, to create community, celebrate Summer Solstice, and commune with Nature in a sacred environment. Sponsored by Circle Sanctuary, PSG is open to long-time practitioners as well as newcomers of a wide range of Nature religion traditions, including Wiccan, Contemporary Pagan, Druidic, Heathen, Celtic, Baltic, Greco-Roman, Isian, Shamanic, Hermetic, Animistic, Egyptian, Native American, Afro-Carribean, Taoist, Pantheistic, Ecofeminist, and Nature Mystic. PSG is an opportunity for personal renewal, networking, education, and cultural enrichment. Get more details at circlesanctuary.org
Valentine’s Day: Ancient Festival of Sexual Frenzy
Valentine’s Day has its roots in ancient orgiastic festivals. On February 14, The Romans celebrated Febris (meaning fever), a sacred sexual frenzy in honor of Juno Februa, an aspect of the goddess of amorous love. This sex fest coincided with the time when the birds in Italy were thought to mate. Read full story from huffingtonpost.com
Haiti calls on voodoo priests to help battered nation heal
MARIANI, Haiti – To the outside world, their faith has long been shrouded in mystery, ministering as much to the dead as the living, and associated with images of animal sacrifices and human skulls. Read full story from boston.com
Stunningly Preserved 165-Million-Year-Old Spider Fossil Found
Scientists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved spider fossil in China dating back to the middle Jurassic era, 165 million years ago. The fossilized spiders, Eoplectreurys gertschi, are older than the only two other specimens known by around 120 million years. Read full story from wired.com
Hindu healer wins funeral pyre battle
It took four years of complex legal wrangling, nearly bankrupted an ailing Hindu guru and has cost the tax-payer tens of thousands of pounds. But in the end open air cremations were legal all along. Read full story from independent.co.uk
Author to discuss paganism at Pacific
STOCKTON — Margot Adler, an author and correspondent for National Public Radio, will lecture about paganism in America at 8 p.m. next Tuesday at the Long Theatre at University of the Pacific. Read full story from recordnet.com
Billboards on Tampa Bay roads duel over existence of God
Two billboards, in Hillsborough County near Fowler Avenue and 17th Street and in Pinellas County near Ulmerton Road and U.S. 19, are the latest in a publicity blitz over religion. They are part of a national advertising campaign by the United Coalition of Reason. Read full story from tampabay.com
Off in the New Age
New Age is a spiritual movement that combines astrology, folk religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, physics, psychology and more. Though it can incorporate elements of mainstream Western religions (Christianity, Judaism), New Age rejects their dogma. Important to many followers is the Harmonic Convergence, a planet alignment tied to the Mayan calendar, last occurring in 1987. Read full story from detnews.com
Rights are sometimes absent in Indian country
BOULDER, Colo. – The Constitution is often given short shrift in Indian country, where it’s unlikely there will be a jury of one’s peers, a federal courthouse within a reasonable driving distance, or a grand jury convened nearby. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Democrats push to repeal religious dress ban in schools
BDemocrats are leading the charge to lift the ban because they say it is unconstitutional and discriminatory. In a move to make their proposed law more palatable to critics of repealing the ban, Democratic lawmakers recently added an amendment that would allow school districts to restrict religious clothing if it affects “religious neutrality in the classroom.” Read full story from katu.com
Pink Ouija Board Targeting Young Girls Riles Critics
The children’s sleepover staple — sold by Hasbro since 1967 — now comes in hot pink, an edition released two years ago that gets tweens to call on “spirits” to spell out answers to life’s pressing questions. Read full story from foxnews.com
Fire in the head, Spirit in the heart
I had originally intended this as just a short response to fellow blogger Edward Smith’s comment on my Imbolc posting. But that would not allow me to share the lovely images, which so well illustrate our common point. Read full story from stltoday.com
Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys
Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an “honour” killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys. Read full story from guardian.co.uk
Energy Medicine Practitioner Dawn Stranges to Speak
Integrative medical researcher and consultant Dawn Stranges will share her ideas about “energy medicine” during two lectures of the SUNY Cortland’s Spring 2010 “Wellness Wednesday series, on Feb. 10 and Feb. 17. Read full story from cortland.edu
Advocates of pagan church near Bowdon blame prejudice for BOC permit denial
Appearing at the Carroll County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday night, a number of residents spoke in favor of a conditional-use permit for a church near Bowdon, claiming the Planning and Zoning Board’s past recommendation of denial stemmed from unconstitutional prejudice. Read full story from times-georgian.com
94. Dr. Jeffrey Long’s Near-Death Experience Research a “Game Changer” for Science
Science has studied the near-death experience for more than 20 years. Most research has concluded NDEs are real and unexplainable, but scientists have been slow to accept consciousness beyond death. A new scientific study by Jeffrey Long, M. D. may change that. The research compiled in his new book, Evidence of the Afterlife, represents the largest, most comprehensive study of near-death experience and according to the study’s author is, “a real game-changer” Read full story from skeptiko.com
Prosecutors: Informant in artifacts case is clean
SALT LAKE CITY – The undercover operative in a federal bust of artifact trading collected around $7,500 a month for secretly recording transactions with collectors and sellers across the Southwest for more than two years, new court papers say. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Christian Serbia maintains its faith in folklore
While Serbia is a deeply religious nation, it also happens to be steeped in superstition. The BBC’s Mark Lowen finds that folklore and tales of medieval military glory are part of daily life for many Serbians. Read full story from bbc.co.uk
Spooky Encounters with the Ghost of Catherine’s Hill
Some of you who have driven the Black’s Woods Road in Downeast Maine between Franklin and Cherryfield, may have heard about the legend of Catherine’s Hill. Read full story from wabi.tv
Course explores wicca religion
The Temple of the Green Cauldron is offering Introduction to Wicca, running Wednesdays from Feb. 17 to March 14 at the Harewood Activity Centre, 195 Fourth St. Read full story from bclocalnews.com
Campaign finance ruling impacts tribes
WASHINGTON – Many tribes already have trouble getting their voices heard in the American political system. A controversial Supreme Court campaign finance ruling may amplify the problem, according to political observers. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
March of the pagans, from the Bible belt to Hollywood
I had a friend, an ardent Pentecostalist – “shouters”, those hillbillies called themselves – whose trailer featured by way of cultural uplift only the Bible and a big TV set permanently tuned to the Christian Broadcasting Network, on which Pat Robertson used to denounce New Age paganism on an hourly basis. Read full story from theirfirstpost.co.uk
Libya: Stop Blocking Independent Web Sites
(New York) – Libya’s moves in late January, 2010, to block access to at least seven independent and opposition Libyan web sites based abroad and to YouTube is a disturbing step awayfrom press freedom, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should restore web site access immediately, Human Rights Watch said. Read full story from hrw.org
Cat predicts 50 deaths in RI nursing home
Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death. Read full story from telegraph.co.uk
US Baptists ‘knew taking children out of Haiti was wrong’
Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said some of the children have parents who are alive. The government is attempting to locate them. He says a judicial system needs to determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith – as they claim – or are child traffickers. Read full story from independent.co.uk
Not so smart after all
New Age is a spiritual movement that combines astrology, folk religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, physics, psychology and more. Though it can incorporate elements of mainstream Western religions (Christianity, Judaism), New Age rejects their dogma. Important to many followers is the Harmonic Convergence, a planet alignment tied to the Mayan calendar, last occurring in 1987. Read full story from theleafchronicle.com
Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries
Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009. Read full story from nytimes.com
Voodoo Dialogue
In the wreckage of the earthquake, in that heavily Christian-Voodoo nation surely some whispered Psalms, words born in Hebrew, now shared, a crying from “out of the depths.” It is an island punished by nature but not God forsaken. Many Haitians believe that even before the rescuers arrived, God was with the mourners on the mattresses in the dirt, and on the pieces of cardboard that pass for mattresses. Read full story from thejewishweek.com
Why Detox?
Detoxes and cleanses are all the rage in the world of wellness. If you know someone who religiously practices yoga, gets acupuncture, or reads up on nutrition, chances are, they’ve done the Master Cleanse or some such other fad cleanse at least once. Read full story from examiner.com
Comanche Nation blasted by ice
LAWTON, Okla. – In the aftermath of a brutal ice storm Jan. 28, the Comanche Nation went into full emergency management system mode and opened a command center to field response operations, officials said. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
The Irish calendar – staying grounded with the 8 seasonal holidays
Some cultures call the Equinox and Solstice the start of the season. The Irish start the seasons between them with cross-quarter holidays–Imbolc, Bealtine, Lughnasadh, Samhain–and think of the equinoxes and solstices as the zenith of the seasons. Read full story from irishcentral.com
Cotton Mather & the Salem Witch Trials
“If they do good, it is only that they may do hurt.” So preached the Reverend Cotton Mather in 1689, three years before the horrific hysteria that was the Salem Witch Trials, in a sermon entitled “A Discourse in Witchcraft,” which was then printed and circulated as part of a larger collection, Mather’s Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possession. Although Mather was speaking of witches in that line, asserting that there were no such thing as “good” witches, he would have done well to apply the line to himself; Mather succeeded in causing more harm, albeit unintentionally, for his community with his discourse, despite the seemingly honorable intention of alerting the Boston townspeople to the dangers of witchcraft. In his attempt to educate the people of Boston about the evils of magic, Cotton Mather, through his discourse, inadvertently assisted in fueling the hysteria that caused the Salem Witch Trials by creating an environment of unease and distrust among townspeople. Read full story from australia.to
“Thirteen Moons on A Turtles Back” And “Punxsutawney Who?”
The term actually comes from the number of plates on the shell of a snapping turtle. The Native Americans used it as a way of keeping track of the moons in a year. I know you are thinking, “Aren’t there twelve moons in a year?” That is true if there were not occasionally two full moons in one month approximately every 2.5 years. I am sure you have head of ‘Once in a Blue Moon’. Read full story from findlayliving.com
Haiti earthquake: voodoo high priest claims aid monopolised by Christians
Max Beauvoir, Haiti’s “supreme master” of voodoo, alleged his faith’s opponents had deliberately prevented much-needed help from reaching followers of the religion, which blends the traditional beliefs of West African slaves with Roman Catholicism. Read full story from telegraph.co.uk
Academy chapel to add outdoor circle to worship areas 1/26/2010 - U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. – The Air Force Academy chapel will add a worship area for followers of Earth-centered religions during a dedication ceremony, which is tentatively scheduled to be held at the circle March 10. Read full story from usafa.af.mil
Are spirits lurking around the grounds at the county museum?
LAWRENCE – Could there be paranormal activity at the Van Buren County Museum?
That was a question posed to the Southern Michigan ParaNormals: Paranormal Investigators, (SMP) who spoke last Wednesday, Jan. 20, to members of the Van Buren Historical Society.
The Paranormal Society spent the night of Oct. 5, 2009, at the Van Buren County Museum, located between Hartford and Lawrence on Red Arrow Highway, in search of “spirit” activity. Read full story from zwire.com
Haiti’s homeless haunted by werewolf fears
By night, mythical creatures are said to prowl the camps, snatching and murdering children. Many Haitians are convinced that people possessed by evil spirits turn into wolves after dark, a version of the werewolf legend.These “loups-garoux”, or “wolf-men”, are thought to be preying on defenceless people sleeping in the open. Read full story from ft.com
Brace yourself for St Brigid
She’s our female patron saint yet St Patrick gets all the parades, but with her name coming back into favour maybe it’s time for St Brigid to shine, writes FIONA McCANN Read full story from irishtimes.com
Prayer before N.C. meetings ruled unconstitutional
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Using prayer to open a North Carolina county board of commissioners meeting violates the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled yesterday, adopting recommendations made earlier by a magistrate judge. Read full story from firstammendmentcenter.com
Groundhog Day has fallen far from our hearty Teutonic roots
Next week, we mark the occasion when, hundreds of years ago, our European ancestors emerged from their thatch-roofed homes, chilled to the bone from the winter’s cold, and prayed to whatever pagan gods they held dear that a sacred animal would herald the return of spring. Read full story from thedailytimes.com
Lifetree Cafe to highlight Wicca, Pagans at event
“People are intrigued with Wicca and witchcraft,” said Craig Cable, Lifetree Cafe representative. “But there’s a lot of misinformation floating around. We’ll hear from people who know the facts – and discover what the appeal is of Wicca and Paganism. Might you have a witch living next door? We’ll find out.” Read full story from coloradoan.com
Shouldn’t such a good, green thing be accessible to its students and teachers? I certainly think so. The state of New York seems to differ. They’re threatening to make being a yoga instructor or studio owner challenging with lengthy forms, tests and licensure procedures, in addition to expensive license renewals. Read full story from treehugger.com
