Witchcraft-Documentary Review: Mysteries of History, History Channel International

I watched the History Channel Internationals documentary this morning on Witchcraft. Being previously encouraged from watching the main History Channel’s documentary on Halloween, I thought that the international channel viewpoint would be just as open ended. And for the majority of the hour long episode there was some educational handling of the witchcraft subject, just not through the duration of the program.

Please, keep in mind that the following information is from the review and notes taken during the documentary. I am aware that not all this information is correct historically, even though that is how all of the information was present by the History International Channel. So, let us begin on the review portion of today’s post on Simple Abnormality.

…read full article…

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“In short, women are abandoning the church,” writes Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby. “Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by [the pagan religion] Wicca, popularized by the TV series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ Read full article here.

I’ll admit it, this statement provided me the Ha-Ha today.  Personally, I would like to hope that it would take more than a pop culture t.v. show to garner a reasoning for dropping ones faith.

By using the acceptance of what the media likes to play out as “entertainment paganism” there are way to many people jumping the bandwagon in the blame game looking for reasons outside of ones’ church as a way not to take any spiritual responsibility for its adherents not going to services anymore. Maybe, such places of worship who are upset about losing the female members of their congregations should take a look at what they can do about their problem instead of using pop culture as a scapegoat.

Just a thought.

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A retired vicar named Rev Kevin Logan published a book in 1987 entitled Paganism and The Occult. In light of Harry Potter’s popularity, the reverend has decided to update and re-release his book.

Now, I have purposely not commented on the whole Harry Potter and Paganism topic over the years because I felt that the “hoohaa” was completely unfounded. In my personal opinion, which goes the same for the controversy over Brown’s Da Vinci Code, these books are works of creative fiction. Rowling tells a good story that appeals to many people and she does it in away that captures people’s imaginations. Yet, at the end of the day they are still works of fiction neither Rowling nor Brown has ever tried to sell their work as historical truth. I digress, though as covering Rowling’s work is not what this post is about.

This post is about the Rev Kevin Logan and his statements to the UK’s The Citizen. Rev Logan who expresses his concerns about the rise of Paganism as: “Harry Potter is a PR exercise for paganism. One hundred children a month are contacting pagan organizations wanting to know how to become a witch or wizard. I did a Google search for paganism and thousands of groups were inviting me to join a coven or become involved with pagan ways – it is an issue we need to be aware of.”

One of the main tenets underneath the umbrella of Paganism is that we do not prostelytize. Pagans do not go around trying to convert people and coven’s do not actively seek people to join up. We don’t have social conversion or prayer gatherings and we certainly do not require as a part of the faith to go door to door to spread our own beliefs to people who are not looking for it. I would really like to know where Rev Logan came by is statistics.

Who are these “thousands of groups” who he states that tried to get him to join a coven? Where is the statistical information showing that one hundred children a month are contacting Pagan organizations? Does Rev Logan even know of any Pagan organizations?

Blatant assumed statements like Rev Logan’s confuse me in this day and age. What seems to be going on here (and I could be wrong) is that Rev Logan is retired and is at an apt stage to re-release a book for profit. If the concern was really with saving people from Paganism, why not re-release the book for free? He also seems to be a bit late in rehashing the whole war on Harry Potter and Paganism stance, as the books have been out for quite awhile. Why wait so long to warn people about the dangers?

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Paganism casts spell over followers, an article published today as a special to the L.A. Times in fact is not that bad of an article in regard to showing Paganism.

The title is misleading as what the report focuses on is Wicca and not general Paganism. The sub-title is also misleading as it states: Wiccans and others mystical sects band together for political clout or just healing fairs, and plans are already being made for their annual gathering in October. Read full article here.

The L.A. Times states: This is the first in a series of occasional articles exploring alternative cultural life around Southern California.

Hopefully in the future though, they will look a little more closely at the construction of the article and the use of sweeping generalizations. Either way, it should be interesting to see how this new feature for the L.A. Times works out.

Technorati Tags: la time series, la times, laura jean karr, Pagan, pagan article, paganism, simple abnormality, Wicca, wiccan, wiccan article