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May 28, 2005
Witchery on the Rise
Posted by Dave Blount at May 28, 2005 12:51 PM
The Democratic Party has been going through some hard times lately, but at least the base of hard-core moonbats from which they draw voters is holding steady. According to today's New York Times, paganism — defined as "the umbrella term for nature-based belief systems" — is actually on the rise.
Last Thursday 300 of them met in the woods in Massachusetts for a Rites of Spring ceremony. They included not only witches, but also "self-described Druids, faeries, Dianics, Wiccans, Asatru and ceremonial magicians." I believe Dianics have something to do with Diana from Roman mythology, although a connection with Lady Di shouldn't be ruled out. No word on whether Prophet Yahweh was in attendance.
The Times claims that unnamed academics put the number of practicing pagans in the USA as high as 700,000. But according to Sabina Magliocco, who teaches at California State University, "Some people are reluctant to identify as pagans because there is a lot of very real persecution."
This very real persecution actually existed as recently as just a few centuries ago. The maypole dancers showed some courage by meeting in Massachusetts, home of the Salem witch trials.
But I'm sure the risk was worth it for the fun they must have had:
Moira Ashleigh, the witch leading the ceremony, asked participants to divide themselves into the "pole people," who, singing a West African chant, fetched the 30-foot trunk of a birch tree festooned earlier with colorful ribbons, and the "hole people," who then planted it in the ground, chanting, "Back to the river, back to the sea, back to the ocean, home to me."
Then they danced around the pole, weaving the ribbons. There were no reports of Satan having been conjured, though rustling in the forest might have been caused by He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
Afterwards, one participant announced to her colleagues that she was organizing Earth Day celebrations with "ritual content" for her city next year. "These people don't even know they are pagans," she crowed.
Margot Adler, National Public Radio correspondent and "recognized witch," indicates why paganism could be the perfect "religion" for believers in moral relativism:
You don't have to get it whittled down to one answer, one god, one way of being, one form of society, one philosophy.
The philosophy is quite inclusive. So long as it's kooky, it's all good.
