Pagans celebrate Halloween as part of the country’s newest religion

By Robert Pigott

BBC News religious affairs correspondent

In a riverside meadow in the Dorset town of Weymouth, a witch is using a broom to sweep a sacred circle in the grass. 


The rest of the coven stand, some in hooded gowns, in a circle around an iron cauldron where a fire is burning.


They've met to celebrate Samhain, pronounced "sah-wen": the turning of the year from light into dark.


Many think of Halloween as a time of ghouls and ghosts, and for some retailers it has become the third most lucrative event of the year.


It is the time of year when some churches remember the souls of the departed.


For the witches of Weymouth it is one of their most important religious festivals, a time when they believe the barriers between the physical and spiritual worlds are at their thinnest.


They invite the spirits of north, south, east and west into the circle, and cut apples to share with the spirits of people who have died.


The leader of the coven, Diane Narraway, bids farewell to the goddess of light, and kneels before the head of a horned ram, holding her hands out as if to a flame.


"I kneel before... the horned god, Lord of Witchdom, as we welcome him back to reign over the dark months," she says.


The coven meets regularly to make spells, using a variety of potions and differently coloured candles in order to achieve particular ends.


Green is for money, pink is for love


They say the spells are exclusively positive, and should be seen more as prayers.


Anouska Ireland, a 35-year-old teaching assistant, is wearing a hooded cloak in pale blue - the colour of good health.


She says: "We sometimes use the cauldron to mix spells... it could be for the purpose of healing, and in harnessing positive intentions for someone who is unwell."


Sarah Sanford, a mother-of-three, uses spells to protect them.


"When my children are going to school I'll do a protection spell for them, so they get through the day all right," she says.......


For the Complete Story Follow This Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11652512

Honouring the Ancestors: Samhain and Beyond

 October 26, 2010 by Galina Krasskova

Samhain by Helene Grasset

There’s a great deal of focus around Samhain on honouring one’s ancestors, and honouring the dead in general. Whether we celebrate Samhain or Winter nights, that’s what this holiday is all about, right? Well, yes….but ideally the celebrations that mark the end of October, should be the culmination of a year spent regularly and consistently interacting with the dead, honouring them, and recognizing their role in the continuing evolution of our spirituality. Honouring and interacting with the ancestors isn’t just a Samhain “thing,” rather it’s an every day “thing,” and one of the fundamental underpinnings of a strong, nourishing, resilient spiritual practice.


Many traditions pay special homage to their ancestors, to those who have come before us, to those who, by their struggles and failures, victories and joys have contributed to the common threads of being we all share. Honouring one’s lineage is the first and one of the most important steps in developing a strong spiritual foundation. It is a place of beginning. We all have ancestors. We can all tap into that connection. Ancestors may include those connected to you by blood, but also those who, while a blood relationship might be lacking, were nevertheless close enough to be kin. These are our teachers, mentors, and friends—our spiritual kin. No one lineage is better than another. Paying homage to one’s ancestors is not, in any way, shape or form an excuse for racism, rather it is a means of honouring the process of one’s spiritual journey, honouring those whose actions and lives helped create our own, shape our own. It means honouring those who shed blood for us, so that we might remember and also learn to craft lives of honour. It is an acknowledgement that we are all connected through the Holy Powers, through the cycle that Hela governs. We honour the continuity of Divine presence throughout the course of our lives. We honour their strength, courage, wisdom, struggles even as we seek to learn from them.

In the Northern Tradition, we have several different types of ancestors. The word “Dis” (plural: disir) refers specifically to the female ancestors of one’s line. These ancestors are very important because they are guardians of one’s luck and one’s wyrd. Luck particularly relies heavily on the female line in passing from one generation to the next. Sometimes the word ‘alf’ (plural: alfar) is used for the male antecedents, but in contemporary Heathenry this is not all that common as it leads to confusion with the denizens of Alfheim, one of the nine holy worlds. So most of us just refer to them as our “male ancestors”…unglamorous but effective! One might also encounter the word “wight,” an anglicized form of the Old Norse ‘vaet’ (plural: vaettir). This is a rather ‘catch-all’ term for nature spirits, elementals, and land spirits. Some use it to imply ancestors, but that is not its most common usage. The Northern Tradition is an animistic one and these beings, somewhat analogous to what Shinto would call ‘kami’ are no less important than one’s ancestors. So we honor not just our dead, but the spirits of the places in which we live, of our home, of the land itself as well.

One does not evolve spiritually in a vacuum. The strength of one’s spiritual House depends on the integrity of one’s lineage. By this, I mean being in right relationship with our ancestors. This is attained by honoring them regularly, rightly, and well. One’s ancestors and the vaettir of our world can assist us in our journey and in our spiritual Work. We can learn much from them but only if we empower them to act with us. A house cannot be built without bricks. Bricks cannot be secured without mortar. Paying homage to one’s ancestors and the spirits of the land is the mortar and clay from which those bricks are formed. We begin in the physical because we are physical beings. Our own physicality, the sense of touch, of sight, sound, smell, and hearing are the primary filters through which we experience our world. The first step in growing strong and whole and heal in this tradition, is honouring those who have struggled to do exactly that before us. This process is helped by the fact that many spirits choose to stay as guides/watchers and protectors.


There are endless ways of making proper offerings. The first step one should take, is the construction of an ancestral altar. This should be a separate altar from anything given to the Gods – a simple shelf will do, dedicated entirely to the ancestors. In my main kindred, we have a communal ancestral altar with offerings from each person. It’s quite a gathering of energies, because we all come from different backgrounds: Celtic, English, Swiss, German, Lithuanian, Cherokee, African, Italian, Polish. We honor our spiritual lineage too. This means that in addition to those actually related to us by blood or adoption, we also consciously honor those people who may have had a tremendous influence on us, who were teachers, mentors, and guides. For example, my mother kept a picture of Wilfred Owen on her ancestral altar, because his war poetry helped her through a very traumatic time in her life. In addition to the shared kindred altar, most of us also have our individual ancestor altars.

For the rest of this article click here: http://www.patheos.com/community/paganportal/2010/10/26/honoring-the-ancestors-samhain-and-beyond/

Preparing for Samhain

Article from A Pagan's Blog

Tuesday October 26, 2010

I've been busy polishing our ritual script for Samhain (pronounced "Sow-win"), which we will celebrate the 30th. I hope every other Pagan reader of this blog will have an opportunity to observe and celebrate this time as well. I think it is one of our two most important Sabbats.


Wicca celebrates and honors the Sacred in all its manifestation throughout life, for it is the Divine as it manifests in the world that serves as our "sacred text." We focus on the meaning within phenomena as symbols of a larger context toward which they point. Life is a cycle, and we see it symbolized throughout the course of a year here in temperate zones. On the equator we would need different symbolism to bring this insight alive, a sign that variety is itself Sacred. Along with the Sacredness of variety, I believe our world's other most fundamental teaching about the Sacred is its eternal linkage of life and death. Everything that lives, dies.


Samhain is when we honor death, as six months previously we honored life at Beltane. Then light was rapidly increasing, each day longer than the one before. Now night is becoming dominant, each night longer than the one before.


In NeoPagan and Celtic traditions Samhain is the last day of the year, as sundown is the end of the day and the beginning of the next. For Wiccans such as myself, the time between Samhain and Yule is the time when death is the dimension of Spirit most present at least symbolically.


For the rest of this article click on the following link: http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2010/10/preparing-for-samhain.html

Vikram Bhatt resorts to witchcraft

Bollywood horror film director Vikram Bhatt’s forthcoming film Shaapit incorporates Theban, or the Witches’ Alphabet. It is used in witchcraft to hide magical writing from prying eyes.

For more on this subject click here


The film itself is his third horror, the first two being Raaz and 1920, once again  stars two newcomers,  Aditya Narayan and Shweta Agarwal. Vikram stated in an interview with OneIndia that "Yes, the subject of Shaapit excited me tremendously. Also, I strongly feel that there's a huge market for horror films, which needs to be tapped by film-makers"

With regards to what the story is about, all I have been able to find is  a girl who is trapped in a generational curse, which does not allow her love & marriage and her lover who vows to conquer this curse. That's pretty much it.

I thought I'd add this story because of the witchcraft connection which may only be the Theban txt and nothing more. I#ve not been able to find any more connections than that. But if I do, I will add it :)

Sarah Jessica Parker Is Stunned To Discover Witchcraft In Her Family

Sarah Jessica Parker, of Sex In The City and Hocus Pocus fame , was stunned to discover that one of her ancestors was a vicitm of the Salem Witch Trials. Sarah, who was participating in the American version of the popular British series Who Do You Think You Are, scarsly escaped being burnt at the stake as a witch, during her search through her family roots.

She was relieved to discover that her ancestor, called Ellwell, was saved when the court was disbanded just weeks before her trial.

For more on this story click here

Who Do You Think You Are (American) starts begining of March 2010

High Tech Paganism

According to Renowned film director Emir Kusturica modern man has lost his spiritituality. He states that "High-tech pagans have invaded the world today. This paganism doesn't do any good to a human-being. A person today lives under permanent technological control… However, the main difference of modern people is that they lost spiritual orientation. Uniqueness of a human being as God's image in leveled down in the world today,"

Now I find myself trying to figure out where he gets off refering to such people as pagans? Obviously this man doesn't have the first clues as to what a Pagan is, or have I just simply missed the point. If you think I have, do please enlighten me through comments. Thank you :)

If you want to know more click here

First They Came for the Swingers

A story in last week’s issue of the Texas Observer is drawing attention across the blogosphere to a militaristic Christian organization called Repent Amarillo who are dedicated to eliminating anything they deem anti-Christian through the use of intercessory prayer (aka “spiritual warfare”) and witnessing “soldier groups”. Their first successful mission was harassing a private married-couples-only swingers club out of existence.

Repent Amarillo became an almost-constant presence, shouting through bullhorns, blasting Christian music, haranguing club members, following swingers in vehicles and sticking video cameras into people’s faces. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has been called out twice. Police records show that nearby businesses have called frequently with noise complaints. Repent even showed up on occasion when the Route 66 building was rented out for non-swinger events. “They have been here every time we open our doors, regardless of what kind of functions we have, whether I’m down here doing maintenance, cleaning, whatever,” Mac says. “They don’t have a life. Well, I guess we are their lives. We’re their blood. At three or four in the morning, we’ll open the door, and there they are. They come waddling out of their vehicles with their cameras.”

 

To Read More CLICK HERE

 

Note from Reki: I was going to place a link to this vile group, but decided against it. I'm not adding such filth to this page!

But here's a news report about them...

March of the pagans, from the Bible belt to Hollywood

March of the pagans, from the Bible belt to Hollywood

Alexander Cockburn: The Bible's had a rough time of it in America these past 40 years...

By Alexander CockburnLAST UPDATED 12:36 PM, FEBRUARY 4, 2010

Thirty years ago, driving across the hill country in the South, every 50 miles I'd pick up a new Pentecostal radio station with the preacher screaming in tongues in a torrent of ecstatic drivel – "Miki taki meka keena ko-o-ola ka" – the harsh consonants rattling the speakers on my Newport station wagon.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Vatican Slams Avatar: Warns Against Nature Worship And Paganism

Vatican Slams Avatar: Warns Against Nature Worship And Paganism

by Yuliya Talmazan
January 12, 2010 at 05:04 pm

Vatican has slammed James Cameron's epic Avatar, warning against the message of nature worship and paganism. Vatican Newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has published commentary of Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi regarding the newly released movie Avatar that has dominated the box office ever since its release, and is well on its way to becoming the top grossing movie of all time.

Vatican criticized Avatar for having “few genuine emotions” with nothing much "behind the images." Vatican said the movie was far from being in the same league with other sci-fi masterpieces due to its "overly simple anti-imperialistic and anti-militaristic parable."

But, it seems the biggest problem that Catholic clerics have with Avatar is the movie's hint of paganism, an archaic belief system based in nature worshiping. Vatican spoke against the idea propagating the idea of ecology as "the religion of the millennium." Vatican warned against the worship of nature as it is portrayed in Avatar, in which the people of Pandora worship mother goddess Eywa. Lombardi says in Avatar nature is no longer a creation of God to defend but a divinity to worship.


Direct Link to Article

Families banished over witchcraft

~Pagan Related News~

Families banished over witchcraft



Wednesday, 7th October, 2009


Angry residents attacked two families in Mubende and Mityana district after accusing them of practicing witchcraft. A mob almost lynched the family of Yozefu Walakira on Sunday night at Bulyamagunju village in Myanzi sub-county.


A day earlier, in a separate incident, Betty Nakyobe was chased from Kityokya centre in Bulera sub-county. In the Sunday incident, Walakira’s property was destroyed, but security operatives came in time to rescue the family.

The sub-county internal security officer, Godfrey Kabiito, confirmed the attack. “Some goats, pigs and chicken were killed. The banana and coffee plantations were cut down and Walakira was assaulted,” he said.

The mob accused Walakira’s wife, Deziranta Namatovu, of terrorising the village with witchcraft, he explained.

“One of the complainants is Simon Bugembe, his neighbour, who claims that Namatovu bewitched her daughter.” The Police said the hunt for the perpetrators was still going on.

In the other incident, Nakyobe was chased from the trading centre after she was seen digging up the graveyard of George Nsamba resident.

“They arrested her and took her to the Police. The Police called the owner of the graveyard and Nakyobe agreed to repair the graves,” said Jane Namukasa, the defence secretary.

“When she was released to implement the agreement, the residents held a meeting and resolved to send her away from the village.”

Another area leader, Emma Sakos, said the residents attacked Nakyobe on Saturday morning before she left her house and ordered her to leave the village.

“The LC officials and the Police intervened and she was not assaulted. She immediately left the village. The property which she left behind was burnt,” Sakos said.

The acting district Police commander, Nathan Matovu, said the case was being investigated.


http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/19/697106