"Hindu Witch" Fired by Air Force Clinic

An Air Force clinic at Fort Meade in Maryland is under scrutiny for the suspicious firing of a dental technician. Deborah Schoenfeld was a Hindu woman working among evangelical Christians, and they apparently made her life hell.

Schoenfeld's claims would seem outrageous and absurd if they were not corroborated by sources for the Air Force Times. And, if this kind of thing were not so frighteningly common in 21st Century America.

These are some of the accusations and treatment Schoenfeld was subjected to.

• In her time at Epes Dental Clinic she was actually and specifically accused of “witchcraft” and “bringing demons into the office.” She has been officially advised that she is not allowed to know who her accusers are.
• She has been openly disparaged for not having the same religious views as her superiors (Evangelical Christian) and being “uninterested in taking part” in Christian rituals or the rampant and rapacious, workplace-based, Evangelical Christian proselytizing which is outrageously and comprehensively supported by her former command.
• She has been admonished that practicing yoga is “Satanic” and will “cost (her) her soul”.
• She was advised by her chain of command to pray against the recent Supreme Court ruling against same sex marriage, as it is “an abomination to their religion”.

Pagan Candidate Causes Libertarian Shake-Up

I was hoping The Wild Hunt would weigh in on the strange candidacy of Augustus Sol Invictus, and they have obliged. The news yesterday was awash in stories of the strange paganish practices of this Libertarian opponent of Sen. Marco Rubio, that actually caused both the chair and vice chair of the Florida chapter to resign in protest.

Much of the upset seems to be over stories of Invictus's sacrifice, some say dismemberment, of a goat. Invictus disputes the dismemberment charge, but not the sacrifice. As The Wild Hunt points out, animal sacrifice is an ancient religious sacrament still practiced in many religious contexts. I would add that Christianity is a religion based on a human sacrifice, that of Christ, otherwise known as the Lamb of God.

I'm not a fan of animal sacrifice, but criticism of the practice by practitioners of religions built on such foundations smacks of hypocrisy.

A similarly ironic statement came from Republican strategist and adviser from the Trump campaign Roger Stone.

“The guy is a nut, speaks in tongues or whatever. Weird stuff,” Stone said. “They need someone to run against him to make sure he doesn’t win and make us all look crazy.”

One assumes Stone won't be courting the Pentecostal vote. Apparently a whole lot of evangelical Christians are crazy.

"Witchcraft" Blamed for Grisly Murder

This is how it starts, people. A grisly crime in some sleepy, provincial community, a proximal association with an astronomical event, police officers with notions, credulous reporting by so-called journalists, and it all adds up somehow to an occult ritual.

Numerous news outlets are breathlessly reporting a "Wiccan Ritual Killing" in Pensacola, FL. That Wiccans don't ritually sacrifice people and that nothing about this crime appears in any way ritualistic, notwithstanding.

This NBC article was floating down my Facebook timeline this morning.

A triple homicide in Florida is suspected to be a "Wiccan ritual killing" related to the "blue" moon, police said Tuesday.

The three victims, all from the same family, were found after a welfare check on Friday, July 31, said Escambia County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Andrew Hobbes.

"It appears that this might be connected to some type of Wiccan ritual killing and possibly tied to the blue moon," Hobbes told NBC News.

. . .

When asked how the evidence suggests these are ritualistic or Wiccan killings Sgt. Hobbes said, "The injuries to the victims, the positions of the bodies and also the person of interest right now is also a practitioner." 

Pagans and Satanists Explore Religious Freedoms

As predicted, the recent Supreme Court decision to allow religious invocations in public meetings is already exposing the hypocrisy and discriminatory practices of conservative Christian defenders of "religious freedom." Turns out some religions are more equal than others. Shocker.

In Florida's Escambia County, a potential legal battle is heating up between Agnostic Pagan Pantheist David Suhor and the county school board over his right to perform the invocation. Other local institutions have hosted him and his absolutely beautiful invocation can be heard in the video posted above. But he has locked horns with school board member Jeff Bergosh over his proposed appearance.

David Suhor, 46, a Pensacola resident and musician, said he is ready to bring litigation against the school board after he made requests to several board members to lead an invocation but was turned down by all but one. Suhor describes himself as an agnostic pagan pantheist and wanted to lead a pagan prayer.

“If you’re censoring Muslims, pagans or even satanists, then you’re practicing discrimination,” Suhor told the board.

After Suhor and school board member Jeffery Bergosh engaged in a heated debate through their blogs — Bergosh on jeffbergoshblog.blogspot.com and Suhor on anapplebiter.blogspot.com — Bergosh asked the district’s attorney, Donna Waters, to look into the matter.

Sea Change for Snakes in Ireland

What would St. Patrick say? Snakes, aka., Pagans, are becoming a visible force in Ireland. The Wild Hunt reports that openly Pagan Deirdre Wadding has claimed a Council seat.

On May 23rd, the 2014 Irish local elections were held, the first set of local elections since a major restructuring of local government was put into place earlier this year. In what seems to be a tumultuous outing, with small left-leaning parties and Sinn Féin largely benefitting, the People Before Profit Alliance gained 15 council seats across Ireland. One of those seats was won by Deirdre Wadding, on the Wexford County Council. Oh, and she just so happens to be openly Pagan, the first such candidate to be elected to office in Ireland.

“Cllr. Wadding, a long-term socialist activist, took the final seat in the Wexford district on Sunday night after a long, two-day count. A vocal campaigner, she has made her mark through her work with the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes and was approached by PBPA on the back of that. She polled an impressive 599 votes on the first count and picked up a number of large chunks of transfers later in the day. Laughing off the description of ‘white witch’, Cllr. Wadding said that she was one of 20,000 pagans across the country but, as far as she knew, was the only one now serving as a councillor. ‘I did ask the Irish Battle Goddess Morrigan for victory today and I have a crow’s feather in my hair as a reminder of her.’”

Wadding has been a visible part of a growing movement in a changing Ireland. Pagans of various stripes are becoming a real force in what has been for centuries a very Catholic country.

The Holy War Against Pop Culture Pagans

A trio of pretty, karate trained teens are battling demons around the world. Charmed? No. Worse. Brynne Larson, Tess Scherkenback, and Savannah Scherkenback are evangelical Christian exorcists who have been touring impoverished mining towns in Ukraine armed with nothing but crosses, holy water... and Larson's preacher father. Their efforts at saving these lost souls from the tortures of hell have received mixed reviews... from the director of their documentary.

[Charlet] Duboc said: ‘The way they come across on camera is just the way they were when we turned off the camera, they never stopped the vacant smiling,’ the British film-maker said.

They weren’t horrid, they weren’t unpleasant, they were just a bit creepy. It was a bit like talking to the Stepford Wives, I was like “where are the humans behind this?”’

The girls will be taking their glazed expressions and vapid smiles to the heart of the dragon, which is to say Potterworld, which is to say London. Someone has to protect unwitting entertainment seekers from demonic possession!

The threesome, from Arizona, believe the spells in J.K. Rowling's best-selling fantasy series are real, and dangerous.

In fact, they see Britain as a hotbed of occult activity whose origins go back to pagan times.

Savannah explains: 'It has been centuries in the making, but I believe it came to a pinnacle with the Harry Potter books.'

'The spells you are reading about are not made up,' adds Tess. 'They are real and come from witchcraft.'

Well, no. The Potter series is actually based on Western Alchemy, but why quibble.

Meanwhile, Methodist minister Keith Cressman is keeping his battle against idolatry closer to home -- Oklahoma, to be precise. It would appear that the state has graced its official license plate with the image of a the "Sacred Rain Arrow." The sculpture on which it is based depicts an Chiricahua warrior shooting an arrow into the sky to make it rain.

Said Cressman, through an attorney, putting such a plate on his car makes him a "mobile billboard" for a pagan religion. Despite his insistence to the contrary, it seems pretty clear that he holds Native American "religion, culture, or belief" in a fair bit of contempt. That, however, is his right, so I'm not really sure which side of this debate bothers me more -- Cressman's fear of the unholy savages who lived in Oklahoma first or the State's trivialization and cooptation of Native practices by reducing them to a logo.

Oklahoma no doubt meant this to be a way of honoring its large -- and largely discriminated against -- Native American population. But by putting an image of an Apache ritual on a state issued plate, they're effectively saying that those beliefs are not a religion. Would they put a an image of the Eucharist on a license plate? I'm betting not -- not even those Oklahomans who don't believe in separation of church and state.

“(T)he case presents legal issues of freedom of speech and religion that I feel are important for all Americans of all religious, non-religious and ethnic backgrounds,” Cressman wrote.

“The case may help define personal liberties and freedoms protected by the Constitution of the United States.”

. . .

Hemant Mehta, author and board member for the humanist-based Foundation Beyond Belief, wrote of the ruling:

“If this image goes too far, then surely a cross or other religious symbol can’t be allowed on a license plate, either. A devout Christian may have done a huge favor to all of us who support church/state separation.”

Okay, I've picked a side.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Fox's War on Paganism

The news network that every, bleedin' year goes on and on about the "war on Christmas" has never had much interest in the religious holidays of other, non-Christian faiths. As Jon Stewart famously said to Bill O'Reilly, "If you think Christmas isn't celebrated in this country, walk a mile in Hanukkah's shoes."

Fox did, however, go out of its way to marginalize Wiccan and Pagan holidays. In fact, they were outright derisive.

The trouble started last year when the University of Missouri added the eight sabbats of the Pagan year to the university's holiday guide. Graduate student Christopher White was not amused by the move towards inclusiveness and took to The College Fix to complain

The Wiccan and pagan festivals are listed right alongside major religious holidays such as Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, and several other Jewish and Buddhist observances.

Their inclusion in the religion guide may be considered an indication by some of the mainstreaming of Wiccan and pagan beliefs in America.

. . .

While the percentages of Mainline American Christians have declined over the past twenty years, from 86.2 percent in 1990 to 76 percent in 2008, they still, in terms of percentage, dwarf the 1.2 percent of American Wiccans and Pagans, according to the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008. These statistics beg the question: why put both Christianity and Wiccans in equipollency?

Not only does the, ahem, graduate student misuse the phrase "begs the question," he apparently doesn't understand that here, in these United States, our rights aren't contingent on majority status. And even if they were, one wonders why Jews at 2.1% of the population deserve to be in the university guide, but Pagans at 1.2% don't. Yes, Judaism comes in at a very distant second to Christianity. Wicca, by the way, is the fifth largest religion, putting it ahead of Buddhism, which White also considers legitimate enough to be in the holiday guide. So I don't know what Mr. White is studying there at the University of Missouri but one assumes it's requires no working knowledge of Constitutional law, logic, or statistics.

Fox News, which has apparently given up fact-checking entirely, took the ignorance wide. They erroneously deduced that this meant that these would all be vacation days and students would no longer need to "cram for exams" on Pagan holidays, prompting a stern correction from the university. From there it was pretty much open season on the "fringe belief systems" that those kooks in Missouri strangely consider legitimate enough to be in a calendar.

Tammy Bruce described the decision as "beyond political correctness; it's almost like an excuse to do nothing. It's like social nihilism, where nothing matters."

Honoring Pagan holidays, according to Bruce is "less about elevating other religions and other individuals and more about diluting the dynamic about what's important in people's lives," which I think is her way of saying that including Pagan holidays is all part of the "war on Christmas."

If you can suffer through the video above, you'll hear Bruce explain that respecting Pagan holidays is exploitative... of Pagans. Pagans and Wiccans "should be very angry at how they're being used by the establishment," says Bruce, "to downgrade what's important to the majority of Americans."

Dizzy yet?

Tucker Carlson seemed to find the whole thing too trivial and geeky to be threatening.

"Any religion whose most sacred day is Halloween, I just can't take seriously," Carlson said on the Feb. 17 broadcast of "Fox and Friends" weekend show that touched off the controversy. "I mean, call me a bigot."

"Every Wiccan I've ever known is either a compulsive deep Dungeons and Dragons player or is a middle-aged, twice-divorced older woman living in a rural area who works as a midwife," he said.

Two petitions totaling more than 40,000 signatures, a Facebook page demanding an apology, and outrage on the Missouri campus later, Carlson apologized... twice.

Once on Twitter:

Two days after the Feb. 17 show, Carlson apologized on Twitter: "To Wiccans and pagans: Sorry for my pointlessly nasty remarks. Your holidays still confuse me, but you seem like nice people."

And later, on the show:

"Comments in the story offended a number of people -- that was never my intention," Carlson said on the show Saturday (Feb 23). "I also violated one of my basic life rules, which is live and let live. The Wiccans have never bothered me or tried to control my life. I should have left them alone. Sorry about that."

To my knowledge, no one else from Fox News has apologized.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

The Burning Times Continue

The highly publicized torture killing of an accused witch in Papua New Guinea is a brutal reminder that they still burn "witches" in some parts of the world.

A young mother was burned alive in Papua New Guinea this week after townspeople accused her of being a witch.

According to multiple reports, Kepari Leniata, 20, was tortured and killed in front of a mob of hundreds in the town of Mount Hagen. The woman, stripped naked and covered in gasoline, was burned alive on a pile of trash by relatives of a young boy who had died earlier in the week. The relatives had accused Leniata of killing him with sorcery.

If anything, it's a growing trend. Deep-seated cultural beliefs result in numerous murders, despite their illegality.

PNG's sorcery act dates back to before 1975, when the nation was a colony of Australia.

The law acknowledges the widespread belief in sorcery and tries to regulate it; however, the courts have increasingly backed away from sorcery cases.

But this incident threatens to inspire serious legal action, drawing passionate condemnation from the prime minister and international pressure to prosecute Leniata's killers.

"No one commits such a despicable act in the society that all of us, including Kepari, belong to," Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said in a statement.

"Barbaric killings connected with alleged sorcery. Violence against women because of this belief that sorcery kills. These are becoming all too common in certain parts of the country.

The dynamics appear to be startlingly similar to the burning times of ancient Europe. Women are the primary targets and in many cases it is to wrest property from them.

The UN's special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, in March last year gave a blistering assessment of the treatment of women in PNG, finding two-thirds of females in relationships have experienced domestic violence.

Ms Manjoo said sorcery allegations were usually used as a way of depriving women of land and property, while misfortune or death were used as a reason for the accusation.

But much as I discussed here, at some length, among the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea, a belief in sorcery distinguishes between "good and bad magic."

This is where it becomes complicated. People in the West, like Rob Kerby, conflate ancient tribal beliefs in sorcery that they don't understand at all with Wicca, Paganism, and Western Alchemy. The drift of ancient tribal beliefs enshrined in the Bible, become a bludgeon in the hands of ignorant, bigoted Westerners. Worse, they further fuel torches and outrage for Christian converts in the third world. And the Rob Kerbys of the world marvel at the moral clarity of the third worlders who are taking their witch problem seriously.

Jason at the Wild Hunt also has some thoughts on how our other nearly religious obsession, Hollywood, may be cross-pollinating with myths about witchcraft and exacerbating the problem.

We live in a strange time. In America we concoct fantasies about killing “witches,” we build thrillers that suppose our own witch-killings were justified, while thousands are killed by mobs in towns and villages across the world.  Surely we should be feeling some cognitive dissonance, but we seem to accept “The Witch” as just like any other fantasy creature: zombies, werewolves, vampires, winged fairies. We make no real connection to how much our fantasy is built on the horror of killing innocents (and the propaganda that fueled it). Nor do we realize that Hollywood is a global business, and that our fantasies about witch-killing might be seen very differently in lands where witch-hunts have not become a relic of history. For modern Pagans and Witches living in countries where these witch persecutions happen, they are in a constant struggle to change a culture of misinformation and dangerous propaganda (South African Pagans are currently circulating a petition to their Human Rights Commission).

Yesterday I wrote about a large number of film projects featuring witches and witchcraft that are being released this year, and that those of us who identify as Witches should start discerning our response to them, because what pop-culture does impacts our collective thinking and beliefs. This is not because these films are about “us,” but because the lines are far blurrier than we realize. That it’s problematic that we are entertained by fake witches being killed while Christian groups in America fund witch-hunters overseas. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous have no problem issuing polemics that deliberately try to blur the lines further between modern religious Witchcraft and the witch-persecutions. We seem to forget that we are not immune to moral panics here too.

It's a good post in a long line of good posts on the issue and it's filled with linky goodness. But let me just emphasize the action step: Sign the petition.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

No Tree for You!

Remember the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld? This capricious vendor of very delicious soup would refuse service to anyone he didn't like, telling them, "No soup for you!" Well, it seems we have ourselves a Tree Nazi, except that this one discriminates based on religion -- including Jews... So that's a little creepy.

There seems to be some debate as to whether or not the photo could possibly be real. I for one don't doubt that it could be a genuine article. It looks like another battle line has been drawn in the culture wars. Now they're being fought on the commerce front -- like the gun dealer who's refused to sell to Obama voters.

It's hard for me to get worked up about the possible civil rights violation because the whole scenario is just too hilarious. But then, I'm not a Jew in desperate need of a Hanukkah bush in whatever provincial backwater this sign was photographed in.

Why do I find this amusing? For starters, and I'm not alone in noting this, Christmas trees are Pagan -- not Christian. And the Bible specifically condemns the "heathen" custom. Some of your more serious Christians recognize the Pagan nature of Christmas customs and have taken to waging their own version of the "War on Christmas." But I digress.

On a less prosaic note, I can't help noticing that the Christmas tree graphics used in that sign have a very noticeable benben. For a detailed explanation of the sacred geometry represented by the Christmas tree, see here. But here's the shorthand:

For so many reasons, that discriminatory sign is as risible as the yearly tempest in a teapot that is the "War on Christmas." But at least this bold move to defend the tragically beleaguered, nay endangered, Christendom, puts the focus back on the real meaning of Christmas: Retail.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Pagan Kerfuffle Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

I was reading this ghastly story this morning about a man who was recently executed for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia.

According to SPA, the Saudi state news agency, Muree bin Ali bin Issa al-Asiri, a man "found in possession of books and talismans" was beheaded in the southern province of Najran.

The BBC reported that the execution was carried out after al-Asiri's sentence was upheld by the Middle Eastern monarchy's highest courts, and that "no details were given of what he was found guilty of beyond the charges of witchcraft and sorcery."

Although Amnesty International stated that the country does not consider it a capital offense, executions on charges of sorcery and witchcraft have occurred in Saudi Arabia in recent years. 

Books and talismans... sigh...

So, I was trying to remember what exactly Rob Kerby had said about Saudi Arabia's proactive response to the witch and djinn (genie) problem. I seem to remember he was fairly laudatory. But when I clicked on the link to the original post, I found that it was gone. I ran some searches on the site. I can't find it. I seem to remember that the response to that piece by Beliefnet's Pagan blogger Gus DiZerega linked to a different version of the same story on that site, so I clicked the link to DiZerega's post. Also gone.

I guess disposing of comments was not enough. Beliefnet has flushed the entire episode and still seems to be trying to profit from its pre-existing brand as a religiously tolerant site. Gus DiZerega has not posted anything since, however, so I'm assuming he and the Pagan community never got that requested apology.

They could not, however, remove all traces of Kerby's diatribe. An extant version can still be found on The Blaze, so I was able to refresh my memory.

In September, Abdul Hamid Bin Hussain Bin Moustafa al-Fakki, a Sudanese national, was beheaded in Medina after being convicted of casting a spell involving jinni designed to reconcile a divorced couple.

“Saudi law does not clearly outlaw sorcery,” reports Cecily Hilleary of Middle East Voices, a Voice of America website, “but the country’s legal system is based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.”

According to the Understanding Islam website, belief in magic is integral to the Islamic tradition. Many Saudis say their belief in sorcery and jinni is an integral part of Islam.

Anyone Muslim denies their existence is not a true believer, according to Christoph Wilcke, Senior Researcher for the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch.

“I recall a meeting with the highest adviser to the Minister of Justice in Saudi Arabia a few years ago,” Wilcke told the Middle East Voices, a Voice of America website. “I asked him, ‘How do you prove sorcery or witchcraft in court?’ And the answer he gave me, after looking a little bit stupefied, was to point to the American justice system – how do Americans know what is pornography?

“He basically said, ‘I know it when I see it.’”

Witchcraft is a profitable business in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Muslim world, he said.

“The poor, the ailing and the heartsick, believing in magic, turn to fortune tellers and herbalists for help,” writes Hilleary.

In the west, witchcraft is trivialized with children’s books such as Harry Potter and Disney movies and TV shows that present it as harmless.

I know it when I see it... and then off with their heads. And this is what Kerby holds up as a model for taking the dangers of Harry Potter seriously. Wow. It's even worse than I'd remembered.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Rob Kerby Pagan Bashes on Facebook

Click to Enlarge

I know. I'm like a dog with a bone. But it turns out Rob Kerby leaves his Facebook profile open to the public, so... I skimmed. And if I ever had any doubt that Kerby has nothing but contempt for "witches," it's gone now. Here he is delightedly mocking the upset of the self-described witches who complained to him about his vile post. Screw the Pagan community on Beliefnet, man. Screw Pagans, period. Let 'em burn.

Nothing like Christian kindess, huh?

As to the other commenters in this odious little back and forth, as of this writing, their Facebook pages are also wide open. If they'd closed them to the public, I'd have blacked out their identities. But they haven't so I didn't.

For back-story on Rob Kerby's assault on the dignity and safety of modern Pagans, Wiccans, etc., see here, here, and here.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Pagans Down the Beliefnet Memory Hole

So, there was a little dust-up on Beliefnet when Pagans began to notice that the Senior Editor, one Rob Kerby, is a bigot -- something I first realized last fall. In addition to the homophobia, there were hints that he was not at all comfortable with modern Paganism, or other non-Christian faiths for that matter. The latter became very explicit in a recent article which posited the theory that third world witch hunters might know better how to handle the scourge that is Harry Potter. So Pagans took notice. And I noticed, once again, that Rob Kerby has a penchant for disappearing comments he doesn't like.

As previously noted, one of my comments regarding the hypocrisy of Biblically based homophobia  disappeared. A second attempt to comment found me unable to post at all. Now, my IP has changed at least a couple of times since that incident, so I felt inspired to give it another shot when I saw this post on the power of forgiveness. I did so for two reasons. One was to test a system that appears to be losing comments left and right. The other was to satisfy myself that Kerby is aware that he's hurt people and has been called upon to make amends. So under an article subtitled "Time to Forgive," I posted the following comment, with a link to Gus diZuniga's post:

Click to Enlarge

As you can see, it went straight into moderation. Methinks Mr. Kerby is tired of hearing from outraged readers. And he's definitely tired of letting them get a word in edgewise before he's had a chance to silence them.  In less than 24 hours my comment was "moderated" out of existence.

Click to Enlarge

So, Mr. Kerby knows he's insulted people. He knows he's been called upon to apologize. He knows that he would be welcomed to the table to have a mature, interfaith dialogue with members of an ostensibly ecumenical site. He just doesn't care.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Rob Kerby's Pagan Kerfuffle

Click to Enlarge

Oh, the things I learn when I remember to check my stats! I was somewhat heartened to see, this morning, that the Rob Kerby article I referenced here has graduated to a genuine kerfuffle. I have been writing about the Rob Kerby problem for a while now, notably here and here. And despite having been assured by another staffer at Beliefnet that there would be changes, any change seems to have been for the worse.

In the past couple of days, there have been reactions from The Wild Hunt, About.com, Star Foster, and Beliefnet's Pagan blogger Gus diZerega. And yet, for all the brouhaha, you know what I notice? There is still not one single comment on the article in question. As I've already addressed in my previous posts, comments that conflict with Kerby's world view tend to disappear and my IP was apparently blocked so I can't even leave comments anymore. Well, why would I bother when they're just going to be deleted? But either the programming was changed or Kerby's gotten sloppy because the number of comments is still recorded. As of this morning, there were seven invisible comments, as you can see in the graphic above.

Dare I hope that now that Beliefnet's Pagan blogger has addressed this head on, there will finally be changes at Beliefnet? I'm not optimistic, considering that Beliefnet is now owned by BN Media, which has ties to a swath of Christianist organizations. Their other properties are Crossbridge and Affinity 4. This is something I noted with dismay when I first began to notice the shift in tone on my Beliefnet News feed. I see now that The Wild Hunt was on it from the start and saw the writing on the wall when the acquisition was first made.

When you do click to see what groups Affinity4 supports, it’s a who’s who of conservative Christian organizations. Focus on the Family, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Promise Keepers, Concerned Women for America, and Christian Broadcasting Network, to name just a sampling.

And we were all worried that Murdoch would destroy Beliefnet. Clearly he was too busy ignoring (???) all the phone hacking at his hotter media properties.

DiZerega has called on Kerby for an apology and signaled his intent to leave in the absence of one. Whether or not one is forthcoming would give some hint as to the future of that site's editorial direction. But, as I say, I'm not optimistic. My sense for some time has been that the new management at Beliefnet is giving its non-Christian communities the Milton treatment. If you're familiar with Office Space, you'll know that I mean they're letting the problem "just work itself out" while avoiding direct confrontation. So poor diZerega and the Pagan community he represents on Beliefnet's pages may be looking for their red, Swingline stapler for a very long time.

It's not just the Pagan community, either. Kerby is an equal opportunity offender. The only articles he posts about Islamic faiths are scare pieces like this one. The closest thingto respect for Muslims I've seen is his seeming admiration for Saudi Arabian persecution of sorcerers and those who consort with the djinn, in the Pagan-bashing post in question. He's a garden variety bigot, whose standard seems to be, how does this story relate to the truth that is Christianity. He lauds stories of Christian faith through adversity and their struggle against atheists, and, as discussed, expresses unabashed disgust at gay people. He's also turned the news section into a politics beat and a platform for his Christian Right, anti-liberal views.

I will say again that I would be bothered by none of this if Kerby were simply blogging as Kerby on one of the Christian sections of Beliefnet. But he's a Senior Editor, and he's taken over the operation of the News section, which makes him, in many ways, the public face of Beliefnet.

Sadly, I think Beliefnet has finally jumped the shark.

Note: An earlier version of this story left an assurance of change from a Beliefnet staffer anonymous and unsourced, but I found the tweet and linked it above.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

To Suffer a Witch

Put this in the broad category of things I really don't want to write about. But I'm afraid I have to. In a curious synchronicity I noticed the latest drivel from Rob Kerby on my start page. One of these days I will remove the Beliefnet feed, but a combination of morbid curiosity and laziness has prevented it thus far. (For the back story on the Beliefnet news feed's devolution into a reactionary, bigoted, wingnut megaphone for the Christianist Kerby, see here and here.) Kerby's latest bit of wrongheadedness is a diatribe on the dangers of witchcraft. Why is this synchronous? This may be a little hard to follow but bear with me.

Let me start by saying that Kerby's biggest mistake is in conflating certain third world, tribal fears of witchcraft with Pagan faiths. He expresses dismay at Harry Potter for trivializing the dangers of witchery and at the Cornwall schools' inclusion of Paganism in its religion curriculum. This is the first synchronicity. But even more curious is that I was watching this fascinating video last night which had me thinking about a very particular usage of the term "witchcraft." It's a documentary on shaman and "vegetalista" Don Emilio Andrade Gomez who more than once uses the term witchcraft to describe the dark practice of sorcery. A lot of this could be written off to semantic differences but the distinction is too important to leave to the Rob Kerbys of the world... because that kind of thinking gets people killed.

There are several admonitions in the Bible against various supernatural practices. It all gets very confusing because the Bible also extols those same practices in other contexts -- the Book of Daniel, chapter 5 comes to mind but there are other references. The specific use of the word witch which has caused innumerable deaths through the centuries comes from Exodus 22:18 and reads, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," in the King James version.

The word witch is a poor translation from the Hebrew word m'khashepah which is more fairly translated as "poisoner." It stems from ancient beliefs in the ability of some people to harm or even kill people through various forms of spell-casting.

When a shaman like the one in the video uses the term witchcraft, he is, somewhat ironically, closer to the actual meaning of the original term. It's clear from his comments that he is referring to malicious sorcery.

The hybridization of Christianity and indigenous shamanism is one of the most fascinating aspects of this documentary, which was made as part of Luis Eduardo Luna's field work in the Peruvian Amazon. It is also somewhat jarring, as is apparent in some of the comments posted on YouTube. It is an apparently benign religious drift. The merging of Christianity and tribal beliefs, though, isn't always harmless and has led to numerous witch persecutions in third world countries. I touched on this here in a discussion of Sarah Palin's mentor, Kenyan witch-hunter Thomas Muthee. I also posted recently about the disappearances of a number of Peruvian shamans which have been tied to fundamentalist Christian officials in the region.

What I find singularly horrifying about Kerby's post is that he seems to believe that these murderous witch hunters have something to teach us about the dangers of everything from Harry Potter (which is actually based in Western alchemy) to modern-day Wiccans, Druids, and other Pagans. He also touches on Arab persecutions of sorcerers and those who consort with the djinn. Here's a lovely example from Saudi Arabia. Yet, somehow, what Kerby seems to find disturbing is all the witchery that goes on, not the fact that innocent people are being killed for it.

The problem with some of this Christian outreach and missionary zeal is that it simultaneously feeds the fear of sorcery and disavows shamanism as a healing practice, viewing it all as "witchcraft." Don Emilio repeatedly refers to his own work as aligned with Christ and as a tool to use against sorcery. It is the distinction between the shaman as healer, or curandero, and the sorcerer. Sorcery, again, is a term that is subject to semantic variation and isn't negative in every context but to a Latin American shaman it's a very negative term. Shaman Christina Pratt draws the distinction thusly: A sorcerer is someone who uses the same tools as a shaman but for the highest bidder. (I'm paraphrasing from memory.) It's the difference between having a moral compass and not.

In a recent show, Christina waded into the sorcery issue again and dealt specifically with the subject of curses. I'll be very honest and say that this subject is way over my head. Psychic attacks and the like are just so far outside my paradigm, I don't feel able to speak to them. From my perspective, as a mystical thinker, I consider it impossible to attack someone else without tearing yourself apart in the process. Because my beliefs and practices are mystical, I don't actually think it's possible to "put a spell" on anyone but myself because I am the source of my reality. To put it another way, I can't bend the spoon without bending myself, so I couldn't damage the spoon without damaging myself. In any event, to any Pagan or shaman, dark sorcery is frowned upon. It also subjects the practitioner to painful blow-back -- the three-fold law and all that.

So, in sum, I highly recommend the video above as a small window into the world of ayahuasca using shamans. I also recommend Christina's show on curses as well as interviews she did with Steven Beyer on working with plant teachers. Both, I think, lend some context to the documentary. Beyer explains the "diet" of the initiate into plant medicine, for example.

And, I think Rob Kerby is a menace and an embarrassment to a site that still at least gives lip service to ecumenicism and support for the Pagan community.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Paganism Added to School Curriculum

Buy From Art.com

In the Potterverse young witches and wizards begin their magical training at Hogwarts at age 11. And now in Cornwall, 11 year olds will begin instruction in "modern paganism and its importance for many." Education in standing stones like Stonehenge will begin at age 5. All part of a new initiative to integrate the Pagan faiths that have surged in recent years into the schools' religion curriculum.

The syllabus adds that areas of study should include ‘the importance of pre-Christian sites for modern pagans’.

And an accompanying guide says that pupils should ‘understand the basic beliefs’ of paganism and suggests children could discuss the difficulties a practising pagan pupil might face in school.

. . .

Paganism encompasses numerous strands, from druids, who believe themselves to be practitioners of the ancient faith of pre-Christian Britain, to wiccans – modern witches who gather in covens – and shamans, who engage with the spirit of the land.

Despite push-back from local Christians who are dismayed that this "fringe eccentricity" will eat into the time allotted for religious instruction,

the Cornwall Council seems determined to extend its education to the small but growing population of earth-based practitioners.

No word on whether the young students will be trained to deal with those troublesome Cornish pixies.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Michigan Christian Notices Christmas is Pagan

Buy From Art.com

Christmas lovers in a quiet Michigan neighborhood were shocked to find a note appended to their mailboxes denouncing their holiday light displays. It began:

Hi neighbor

You have a nice display of lights and this love note explains how that pagan tradition began. For thousands of years Sun worshippers have celebrated the Sungod's rebirth after solstice. Pagans honored the birth of the "invincible sun" with a "festival of lights." They used big bonfires, pigs fat tallow candle lights, and today, billions of colored christmass [sic] lights. Rome's seven-day December Saturnalia was religious revelry with decadent drunkenness outrageous adultery and giving Saturn's nativity birth gifts to the children. The Norseman's yuletide solstice carousal used sexual soliciting mistletoe, Yule-log bonfire, and decorated evergreen wreaths and tree worship. None of this honors the life of Yeshua the Christ.

But for the invective, that could have been written by a pagan. (I particularly like the way Sungod and Saturnalia are capitalized but "christmass" isn't.)  In fact, last year I offered a bit of history regarding the pre-Christian roots of bringing evergreens into the home during solstice and the Bible's condemnation of it. But light-displaying Michiganders scoff at such litmus tests of their Christianity and do not take kindly to the grievous insult of being called "pagan."

Danette Hoekman, who received the letter, said: 'I laughed because I think it’s ridiculous that people would get upset over Christmas lights.'

. . .

Miss Hoekman added: 'It's a sin to judge other people and to tell people that if they have Christmas lights they are Pagans.

'We're not Pagans, we go to church regularly, my kids go to the Christian school.'

The mash note writer isn't the only one calling Hoekman's faith into question. George Conger at Get Religion points out that Christianity and single motherhood are oxymoronic and strangely conflates the whole thing with lesbianism.

A “Miss” whose kids go to the Christian school? That would be news.

But facts and George Conger don't seem to be well acquainted. Conger also takes both the Michigan do-gooder and the Huffington Post to task for claiming that it was Christians who coopted the pagan holiday when it was the Roman Emperor Aurelian.

This bit of conventional wisdom does not stand up to scrutiny. It will disappoint the crank of Hudsonville no doubt, but he (and the Huffington Post) have it backwards. As Prof. William Tighe wrote in Touchstone magazine a few years ago:

… the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date [Dec 25] in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians.

In other words, it was the pagan Emporer Aurelian who sought to paganize the Dec 25 holiday of the Christians, not the Christians who sought to Christianize the Roman pagan holiday.

Never mind that Christianity owes ancient Rome and its emperors for most of the Christian foundations we hold dear. It was the pagan Emperor Constantine who formally legalized Christianity and organized the Council of Nicaea which was responsible for hammering out Christian doctrine and assembling the Bible that fundamentalists today consider the irrefutable word of God. Constantine was only baptized into the Christian faith on his deathbed after a living a thoroughly debauched, wife-murdering, life.

More to the point, "the crank" doesn't appear to have said anything at all about who it was who so thoroughly enmeshed Christmas with paganism. But that enmeshment cannot be reasonably disputed.

The Wild Hunt has more on the link between Saturnalia and Christmas.

So get out your statue of Saturn, or if you don’t have one, I suppose a statue of Santa will have to do, place him on your best couch, and let the merriment begin!

“According to the Augustan historian Livy, following the sacrifice the Roman senate arranged a lectisternium, a ritual of Greek origin that typically involved placing the deity’s image on a sumptuous couch, as if he were present and actively participating in the festivities. A public banquet was held (convivium publicum), and afterward the shouting of io Saturnalia began, originally only on the single day.”

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Gloria Steinem: Feminist, Writer, Pagan

Buy From Art.com

Hat-tip to The Wild Hunt on this intriguing little tid-bit. In an article about Gloria Steinem's collaboration with Egyptian-born feminist Mona Eltahawy, Steinem reveals that she considers herself a pagan.

Steinem’s father was Jewish, her mother was not, and she was raised without religion. She now calls herself a “pagan,” inspired by a trip down the Nile, where she witnessed how the ancient Egyptians incorporated nature into their worship.

Paganism is, compared to the "great religions," much more affirming of women and feminine power. Speaking for myself, it was the goddess imagery that drew me towards earth-based religions once upon a time. It was the only religious construct I'd encountered that didn't view women as lesser creatures. Not necessarily in modern applications of those religions, many of which are progressing on that score, but in the ancient scriptures, and peppered throughout in the language.

What I find most interesting, though, is that Steinem's conversion was inspired by ancient Egyptian religion. What is it about the power of those symbols? There is just something about Egypt that awakens us, in some cases painfully, to some greater awareness.

As discussed here, the great pyramids at Giza forced themselves into my consciousness many years ago triggering a sense of rekindled memory. Graham Hancock describes them as a kind of "alarm clock" possibly designed to wake us up to the mystery of our human origins and past life history. So I found this new add campaign from Toyota kind of interesting.

I'm currently reading Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval's The Master Game which posits a through-line from ancient Egypt, through the Gnostics, the Cathars, the Rosicrucians, the Masons, and more, that found expression in the French and American revolutions. As discussed here, Egyptian icons like Isis, Horus, and the pyramids were an important symbols to French revolutionaries.

Egypt represents the way out of our current morass. So it doesn't really surprise me that one of the greatest way-showers of the modern era would find faith and meaning there.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Amanda Knox: Another Witch Trial?

I will be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the Amanda Knox murder trial. I didn't follow it when it was going on and most of the hysterical coverage here in the states was little more than background noise to me. I will also freely admit that I should have been paying more attention. In the wake of her exoneration on appeal, the coverage has been most interesting. I don't know if she and her boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito were guilty or innocent. I haven't read enough about the case to have a fully formed opinion. But it seems evident at this point that whatever else it may have been, this was another case of a woman being put on trial for her sexuality. There are also disturbing elements of a Satanic Panic similar to that that robbed the West Memphis Three of eighteen years of their lives. The Wild Hunt gives a little overview.

Now that Amanda Knox has been acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher on appeal, more than a few have been noting the ties to “Satanic panic” that marred the original conviction. However, a bizarre editorial from Brendan O’Neill in The Telegraph says that the Satanic panics were started by feminists, not Christians, using one whole data point (and Oprah) to feed his narrative. In truth, this moral panic incubated, at least in the United States, in Christian churches, not feminist gatherings. The textual evidence for this is so pervasive that I can only think that O’Neill has an ax to grind.

The Brendan O'Neill piece is nothing short of bizarre and his animus towards feminism is glaringly apparent.

This idea that the modern-day obsession with Satanism and crazy sexual degradation springs from somewhere within the Vatican is completely mad. It wasn’t Catholic officials or men of the cloth who in recent years rehabilitated the Middle Ages view that there are evil people out there who worship the devil and have sex while they’re doing it – no, it was radical feminists and social workers, in fact some of the same kind of people currently shedding tears over the witch-hunting of Knox. Across Western Europe and America in the 1980s and 90s, it was implacably atheistic, supposedly “Left-wing” activists who spread the idea that Satanism was making a comeback and that children were being raped and killed as a result. It was writers like Beatrix Campbell, a feminist and contributor to the Guardian, who argued in 1990 in Marxism Today, the then bible of the chattering Left, that Satanists were “organising rituals to penetrate any available orifice in troops of little children; to cut open rabbits or cats or people and drink their blood; to shit on silver trays and make the children eat it”. It was feministic social workers who, with the help of police, kidnapped working-class children from their families on the bizarre basis that they were being ritualistically abused. It was people like Oprah Winfrey, echoing academic feminists, who hosted TV shows claiming that some families in America were involved in "human sacrifice rituals and cannibalism" – watch the clip here.

He's not entirely wrong as to how, in part, the Satanic Panic was disseminated, but has ripped these elements from their proper context and transparently used them to bash feminism. In his version of events the sex abuse of children is a fictional element of a feminist obsession with Satanism. This is about exactly backwards. There were definitely erroneous reports of Satanic ritual abuse; some that ruined people's lives unfairly. This was part of a larger belief in the recovery of repressed memory that dominated discussions of sex abuse more generally. Much of the repressed memory theory has been discredited. That far more sex abuse of children occurs than society had previously wanted to admit has not. And the repressed memory theory was one part of bringing the horrors of this crime out into the open, in part because it allowed for legal avenues where the statute of limitations would otherwise have made prosecution impossible.

Repressed memory theory remains controversial. The American Psychiatric Association considers its occurrence as possible but unproven.

First, it's important to state that there is a consensus among memory researchers and clinicians that most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them although they may not fully understand or disclose it. Concerning the issue of a recovered versus a pseudomemory, like many questions in science, the final answer is yet to be known. But most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later. However, these leaders also agree that it is possible to construct convincing pseudomemories for events that never occurred.

The mechanism(s) by which both of these phenomena happen are not well understood and, at this point it is impossible, without other corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true memory from a false one.

In The Myth of Repressed Memory, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus effectively challenged the theoretical framework of repressed memory therapy. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I wrote the press release for the book when it was originally released.) It was a fascinating book and while I would not say that Loftus entirely disproved the phenomenon of repressed and recovered memory, she demonstrated quite conclusively that memory is a creative and mutable function. We rescript memories all the time, which is why two people can remember the same events very differently. And under guidance we can completely fabricate false memories. I think there is little question that there are cases of people fabricating memories under hypnosis and other forms of therapy that are partly or, in some instances, entirely false.

I think in many cases it was accidental and with the best of intentions that therapists guided people through a process of memory recovery that created false memories. And in some of those cases, the memories that arose involved Satanic ritual abuse and some people saw things that looked like horror movies complete with supernatural phenomena. These memories were treated as real by therapists and talk show hosts and formed one tributary that fed the Satanic Panic of the '80s and '90s. I would never be so arrogant as to say that no instance of Satanic ritual abuse ever occurred. I will say that there has never been documented evidence of it and point out that the FBI was never able to corroborate the instances of Satanic ritual murders and the like.

To chalk this up to some kind feminist conspiracy, however, is ludicrous. Women, some self-described feminists and some not, have been at the forefront of a movement to bring the horrors of childhood sexual abuse into the open and to provide avenues for effective therapy. Some of it has been disastrous. Some of it has been life-saving for survivors of sex abuse.

A social worker friend of mine explained to me, some years ago, his theory of why Satanic ritual abuse has come up repeatedly in the therapy of sex abuse survivors and I consider his reasoning quite sound. It was his supposition that people who'd been sexually abused as children found themselves in an experience of unfathomable evil and a total sense of powerlessness. That they would augment those memories with imaginings of the archetype of ultimate evil, Satan, made perfect sense.

All that said, I think O'Neill's supposition that the prosecutor in Italy was led astray by feminists in his Satanic theory of Amanda Knox's criminal proclivities is the height of absurdity. His case against Knox was the antithesis of feminism but, more to the point, he seems to have something of an obsession with Satanism.

The story begins almost a decade ago, long before Meredith Kercher's murder, when the pubblico ministero (public prosecutor) of Perugia, Giuliano Mignini, opened an investigation into the mysterious death of a doctor whose body was found floating in Lake Trasimeno in 1985.

Mignini believed the doctor was connected to a satanic sect, which had murdered him because he was about to go to the police and reveal its many crimes. Mignini believed this shadowy cult was connected to infamous murders committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence.

. . .

Mignini theorised that this satanic cult consisted of powerful people – noblemen, pharmacists, journalists and freemasons – who ordered the Monster killings because they needed female body parts to use as the blasphemous wafer in their black masses. Putting himself in charge of the investigation, Mignini became so obsessed that he crossed the line of legality, wiretapping journalists and conducting illegal investigations of newspapers.

He was indicted for these and other crimes, including abuso d'ufficio, abuse of office, in 2006. One prosecutor said he was a man "prey to a kind of delirium".

Far from a feminist inspired sex abuse theory, Mignini's case took as its departure point the mere fact that Amanda Knox was a young woman very much in possession of her sex drive. This, to his way of thinking, made her "'a diabolical, satanic, demonic she-devil' who 'likes alcohol, drugs and hot, wild sex'. "

As Hugo Schwyzer explained in a recent column, the prosecution put her perfectly normal, nonviolent sexuality on trial.

That mixture of prurience and contempt was on full display in Perugia, where Knox was tried.  The prosecutor devoted extensive time to discussing the defendant’s sex life and her clothing, including her taste in (or lack of) underwear. He was positively obsessed with her vibrator, as if female masturbation  was indicative of a propensity for homicide.  Her diary, replete with the personal details one would expect in a private journal, was read repeatedly in court.

Sadly, there is nothing new about the demonization of female sexuality. It's quite ancient, really.

There is also nothing new about accusations of Satanism, heresy, and evil Masonic plots. And despite Brendon O'Neill's protestations, far more of that falls to the history of the Catholic church than to modern feminism. And Giulliano Mignini looks like an old-school inquisitor, pursuing specters of witchery and other enemies of the Church.

Mignini got encouragement and theoretical assistance in the esoteric aspects of previous investigations from an unusual source: Gabriella Carlizzi, a wealthy Roman woman and courthouse gadfly whose day job consisted of running a Catholic charity that worked with prisoners. Carlizzi, who died of cancer in 2010, was, like Mignini, a serious practicing Catholic herself who had dedicated her life to exposing and fighting satanic sects.

. . .

One of Carlizzi’s primary obsessions were the Masons.

There are 24 Masonic lodges in Perugia, making it Italy’s per-capita center of Masonic activity. Perugians believe that members of those lodges secretly control most aspects of banking, business and administration in their community.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Hail Columbia

Buy at Allposters.com

At 6:00 this evening, DC40 kicked off their "siege" in the US capital. Tomorrow they begin their prayer mission of "reformation" in each of the 50 states starting with Hawaii because it was the last state to join the union. From there, they'll continue through the states in reverse order. As discussed here, they're turning turning their guns directly on the goddess Columbia as they attempt to obliterate the Pagan underpinnings of the US. In response, this site, and many others, will be engaging in a counter campaign to honor the Pagan underpinnings of the US by honoring Columbia. See how that works?

When the organizers on the DC40 got wind of Pagan interest in their event they responded with a blood invocation.

The New Apostolic Reformation, a neo-Pentecostal Christian movement, hosts an event called DC40 to “lay siege” for 40 days on Washington D.C. to change the District of Columbia into the District of Christ and eliminate compromise in our government. Pagans around the country attempt to counter the event’s goal of influencing elected officials.

. . .

In their latest newsletter, DC40 sent out this response to the Pagan community:

We are well aware of the websites and blogs rallying to try and curse our effort and counter it. Always remember, You can’t curse what God has blessed! Read Psalm 2. Remember also that Jesus is the light of every man. We have read some of your accusations and false perceptions of us, and we say “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We were once in darkness too, and we call you out of the darkness and into the light. We release the power of blood-covered light over you.

Thank God for Hollywood

And, um, Montclair, New Jersey. I say that because Bruce Sinofsky, one of the filmmakers responsible for putting the West Memphis Three in the spotlight, is from the lovely town I used to call home.

Montclair filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky was home in New Jersey when he heard about a surprise hearing today for three convicted killers in Arkansas, whose story he’s been chronicling since 1993.

Sinofsky and co-director, Joe Berlinger have made three documentaries about the crime. Their Emmy-winning first film, "Paradise Lost: the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" examined the initial 1994 trial, in which the prosecution built a case around the theory that teenagers killed three 8-year-old boys in a supposed Satanic ritual.

. . .

The movie did spark a grassroots movement called "Free the West Memphis Three." Celebrities including Johnny Depp, Natalie Maines and Metallica took up the cause. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was in Arkansas for the release today.

In the trailer for their upcoming third documentary in the Paradise Lost series, Damien Echols tells the filmmakers that he would be dead were it not for their involvement. Sadly, he's right. Had the strange case not been preserved in film and broadcast on HBO, the West Memphis Three would be just three more inadequately represented poor people run over by the wheels of an aggressive justice system. And Damien Echols would have been executed years ago for a crime he didn't commit. That's a hard and painful truth and it reflects poorly on American jurisprudence.

Last night on CNN David Mattingly described Damien Echols to Anderson Cooper:

Well he is very intellectual. He seems very smart, very articulate. And a lot of people argue that he has a certain charisma that's really elevated the profile of this case. If he was just a typical poor kid from Arkansas with no personality, he might have disappeared on death row and so would these two, other two young men. But instead there was something about him that fascinated people. They kept coming back, kept talking to him. This case stayed alive and now he and those other two are free men.

It's an irony I've considered before. The very uniqueness that put Echols in the sights of the West Memphis police, after the gruesome discovery of three dead children, has saved him from the executioner. There's no arguing that he has a larger than life quality. He wasn't the kind of kid who could disappear in a crowd, even if he wanted to. For many of us who grew up feeling like fish out of water in small towns, Echols's persecution struck a chord. As did his youthful hostility to the town in which he was always destined to be an outsider.

Having lived a large chunk of my life in the aforementioned Montclair and having worked for years in Manhattan, it's been easy to forget how damaging that small town mindset can be. Shortly after moving to Montclair, someone I met at a party said to me, "You don't seem like someone from Ohio."

"They've been telling me that all my life," I said.

Now that I'm living amidst Southern religiosity, thanks to my darling husband's Marine Corps career, I've been forced to consider the small town phenomenon once again and not in an entirely academic sense. I was even accused of witchery in a court of law, recently. Fortunately, I wasn't the one on trial, but it was a stunning reminder that such ignorance and insanity still exists. (True story. Maybe I'll tell it some time.)

I know when I first became aware of the West Memphis Three -- I saw the second documentary first -- I was very affected by Damien Echols. The piercing, intelligent eyes, the intense spirituality and interest in non-traditional religions, the struggle to figure out who he was amongst people he couldn't relate to at all... It all just felt so familiar. "There but for the grace of God..." thought I. 

There's no question that some of us belong in big cities, preferably on coasts. So it's not that surprising that it was actors, writers, musicians, and filmmakers who championed the West Memphis Three. Many of them have no doubt been marginalized at various points in their lives for the very sense of difference that gives them their star quality. Creative types, you know... They're always a little strange.

Johnny Depp said as much. When the usually reclusive star spearheaded coverage of the case on CBS, he explained that he was also "a freak" in small-town Kentucky.

That people with the money and star power to actually do something found so much to relate to in the brooding teenager who made his dark debut in Paradise Lost - The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, has made all the difference. The sad truth is that innocent, poor people without proper legal representation are convicted, jailed, and even executed, all the time. The West Memphis Three would undoubtedly be among those statistics but for the cameras of Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger and the fans their documentaries found among people who also have millions of fans.

Among the "Hollywood Elite" who've put their money and their mojo behind the West Memphis Three, are filmmaker Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, it was revealed Thursday.

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy helmer with Walsh have "played a leading role" financially and legally behind seven years of efforts to get justice for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr.... This has included financing extensive private investigators over a number of years and the uncovering of crucial new DNA evidence. Jackson and Walsh also have been instrumental in hiring some of the country’s leading forensic experts to reevaluate the case and uncover new witnesses, all of which contributed to the Arkansas Supreme Court’s decision to reopen the case.

Jackson also wrote an impassioned statement on his Facebook page. In it he fleshes out some of the background on the tortured deal that finally set the three men free.

The last two weeks have been very tense, because the State told the three defense teams that they would consider an "Alford Plea" - but it had to be "all or nothing". All three men had to accept the conditions of the plea - if one refused, they would all stay in prison, probably for another 2 to 3 years, until their inevitable retrial, which would have almost certainly found them innocent. When he received the plea offer, Jason Baldwin refused to accept it. And why the hell should he? He's an innocent man, who has had the last 18 years - half his life - robbed by the State of Arkansas. This was a brave and noble stand by Jason, but it created a very tough time for Damien, and his loved ones.

You see, Damien Echols had to get out of prison, Alford Plea or not. Unlike Jason, Damien has spent the full 18 years on death row. He has not seen sky for over 10 years. He has not had sun on his skin for over 10 years. He is shackled hand and foot whenever he leaves his cell. His eyesight has deteriorated. Look at this morning's press conference - see how Damien has his hand over his mouth? It's because he has severe continual dental pain, and has had for years. On Arkansas death row, the only serious dental care they offer is extraction. No point killing men with nice new crowns. Everyone who knows Damien, has been fearful for his health. He's very weak, and frail - and has limited ability to fight off any infection. Up there in the Varner Unit death row, they don't tend to be as interested in basic medical care as your family doctor.

For several nerve-wracking days, Jason was saying no to the "Alford Plea", but he has been confined in a different, much less severe prison environment and had no contact with Damien. Damien's lawyer wrote to Jason, several friends talked with him. They explained Damien's situation to Jason, and he immediately agreed to change his mind. Jason is a decent guy, and did the right thing for his friend, just as he did many years ago when he was offered a much reduced sentence if he testified against Damien. He refused then - because he knows Damien is innocent, as he is - and he wasn't going to take the bait and sell out his friend. He's been in prison ever since as a result.

The people of West Memphis bridled from the beginning against outsider interest and the continuing media attention that put them under a microscope. After the 48 Hours Mystery devoted to the case aired, Police Chief Bob Paudert decried the lack of exonerating evidence that Hollywood provided. It seemed an ironic statement considering that West Memphis police had never produced a single stick of physical evidence in the original case that put three teenagers behind bars. But more than that, it has been thanks to Hollywood figures like Peter Jackson that extensive DNA testing and forensic research was made available to so thoroughly discredit the convictions -- something Judge Laser acknowledged in yesterday's hearing.

There is always a dynamic tension between the communal desire for safety and stability and the need for change and growth. And those who work against the status quo, whether it's through conscious action or just being their own strange selves, push communities out of their comfort zone. There are inevitable social penalties for going against the grain.

Art at its finest challenges assumptions, reflects the foibles of society, and can even change the path of history. And sometimes it saves lives. Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger have arguably saved at least one life with their documentaries. But their work should serve as a wake-up call to an even greater social transformation.

"This case is about the power of film and a main protagonist,” says Nancy Snow, professor of communications at California State University in Fullerton. “Without the 'Paradise Lost' series, you simply would not have the same level of celebrity cheerleading for justice. The main wrongly accused character, Damien Echols [the one defendant who had received a death sentence], has himself become a celebrity author and poet.”

Other observers say there’s a lesson here for investigative writers and broadcasters.

“I think this is actually the media at their best, shining a light on a situation in which the machinery of government apparently failed to do its job,” says Fordham University communications professor Paul Levinson, author of “New New Media.” “It asks the question – 'What other failures of the criminal system are out there?' – and provides the impetus that journalists should get on those cases and investigate them more fully.”

I uploaded the movie trailer to YouTube because I couldn't get the original to play properly but it can be viewed here.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.