Pagan Bloggers with Naturalistic Worldviews
Sarah Anne Lawless, who published these two revelatory articles on her experiences of being sexually harassed and abused within the Pagan community (mostly in Canada and the Pacific Northwest), has now published a third piece. In it, she reports the truly horrifying blowback she received for daring to name this problem. Lawless has suffered financially, … Continue reading Abuse, the Pagan Community, and Our Commitments
Read more
So, next week I will go to Pantheacon 2019. I am a volunteer on staff, which is how I am able to afford to go. I always have mixed feelings about going. Part of me is excited to see friends, meet new ones, and share Atheopaganism with others. Part of me is anxious: will people … Continue reading Approaching Pantheacon
Read more
Some weeks ago, I wrote about how Paganism is having a moment in the sun, and mainstream culture is noticing us. If nothing else, take as evidence the eternally fluffy and pop-culturey Huffington Post’s article about encountering Pagans. Seems pretty clear that between sugary media offerings like The Spooky Adventures of Sabrina and the explosion of … Continue reading Mainstreaming, Pt. 2
Read more
Atheopaganism is a particular spiritual/religious path: a subset of both Paganism and atheism. There are other atheistic Pagan paths, so ours isn’t the only one, but our particular path has now existed for ten years and has been steadily growing for five. I thought that for my first post of 2019, I would talk a … Continue reading The State of the Path: Atheopaganism in 2019
Read more
Much has been made in both the popular and Pagan press recently about the “witchcraft fad”. There is lots of witchy imagery in media and popular culture right now, including fashion, television, film and literature. Witchcraft, so they say, is having a moment. And not just in the media, but in reality: self-described witchcraft (which … Continue reading The New Ones
Read more
There has been a lot of talk online lately about the Pagan (or neopagan, if you prefer) community* and integrity, or lack thereof. Stuff about “fakelore” traditions and lineages: pretense of ancient roots that aren’t, and people using this pretense to dangle “ancient secrets” before naive seekers to leverage sexual favors . Stuff about lousy sexual … Continue reading Forging Paths of Integrity
Read more
So…the Freedom From Religion Foundation conference was…interesting. It’s a great organization. Lobbying and legal work to prevent religious incursion into governmental and public spaces. Very important stuff. I got the sense that most of the attendees felt a deep relief at being in a place where they could admit their atheism. And that seemed to … Continue reading Reflections on the FFRF Conference 2018
Read more
‘Tis the season, so let’s talk about it: it’s a thing, among us Pagans. Cemeteries, bones, skulls, ravens. Vampires and absinthe and Ye Olde Occulte Symboles. Dark. Spooky. Sexy. It scares some people. Particularly non-Pagan, white-light-obsessed Christians and New Age folks. At this time of year, the Pagan community leaps with particular gusto into the seasonal … Continue reading Paganism, Gothic Aesthetic, and the Sensibility of Darkness: An Observation
Read more
It is not a surprise that as it was being founded, Neopaganism looked to an imagined pastoral and pre-industrial way of life as an inspiration. Modern Paganism’s inaugural moment in the United States, about 50 years ago in the late 1960s into the mid-1970s, occurred at the same time that the Romantic idealizations of the … Continue reading Presenting Ourselves to the World
Read more
Atheopaganism is a naturalistic religion: that is, we believe that all that exists is a part of the natural, material Universe, and is subject to its laws. We revere this material Universe—the Cosmos—as Sacred and magnificent. As naturalistic Pagans, we do not subscribe to the idea that there is an Otherworld within which reside magical and/or disembodied … Continue reading Naturalism, Monism, and the Philosophy of Atheopaganism
Read more