What’s happening in late June 2008

Posted on June 23, 2008 by Isaac Bonewits

I am currently working on two books: a full-length work on the laws of magic for Llewellyn Worldwide and a guide to Neopaganism for Red Wheel/Weiser (both coming out in 2010). While I own a lot of books on these topics already, I would love to hear of new anthropology and sociology texts that would be useful. The Laws of Magic will be the more formal of the two, while the Field Guide to Neopaganism will be a short, breezy look at all our colorful subspecies and habitats.

I’m also working on two new sites to offer my wedding officiant and other ceremonial services (child blessings, funerals, etc.). The sites will be Unusual Ceremonies.com and Hudson Valley Civil Ceremonies.com (there’s nothing at either site yet but a parking page). For the former site, I’m looking for good (royalty free) subcultural wedding photos I can use to illustrate my willingness to do pirate, sci-fi, medieval, leather, naturist, or other sub-culturally themed weddings (most clergy are much too stuffy to serve these subcultures). The latter site will be aimed at folks wanting secular, agnostic, or atheist ceremonies and will be a bit more sedate! 🙂

Phae is working on cataloging our ten-thousand book library at Library Thing (search under both our names), and is about halfway done. She’s also collecting notes for a book on magic and the senses (as yet unsold) and selling Select Comfort Sleep Numberâ„¢ beds (send her an email via “phaedrao AT aol.com” for info on these).

We’re both working hard on writing new classes for our RealMagicSchool.com online school of Pagan and General Occult Studies. We’ve started recruiting other teachers (see next post) to help with the workload of 1700+ students.

I’m waaaaaay behind on keeping up with my pages at Facebook, Linked In, Live Journal, MySpace (two pages!), Tagged, TG Alchemy, etc. Search for me and you’ll probably find me.

And in my copious free time, I read tarot cards at a local restaurant (Reality Bites) in Nyack, NY and on-line via various chat programs (email me for details, put “tarot” in the Subject line).

And that’s why it takes so long for me to answer my email!

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The Totally Normal Event

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Isaac Bonewits

The Totally Normal Event is where I’ll be on June 28th, 2008 at the Hanover Marriott in Whippany, NJ. “What’s that?” I hear you asking…

The Totally Normal Event takes place in a universe much like our own, only one in which most fantasy, mythology, and science fiction is essentially true. The idea is that, under the guise of being some sort of convention for normal humans who dress up, we’re actually those creatures of myth, disguised. Not disguised very well, mind you, but still.

Within the event itself is an enormous world of entertainments, performances, workshops, pleasures, panels, parties, and entertainments.

I’ll be there to sign books, read tarot cards, and present a seminar on Magic for World Domination! Then I’ll listen to folk and filk singing (maybe do some myself) and Goth fave Voltaire, watch pirates chasing ninjas (and vice versa), enjoy The White Elephant Burlesque Society, and generally have more fun than may be legally allowed.

The event attracts Pagans of all varieties, sci-fi and fantasy and horror fans (and authors!), geeks, rennies, vampires and werewolves, pirates, ninjas, and other ne’er-do-wells that bump (and grind) in the night. It’s run by Jeff Mach, who also runs the Wicked Faire and other amusing escapes from the tedium of day-to-day “reality” (as the mundanes call it) in New Jersey. Be there or be three-dimensional…

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“Stonehenge Decoded?” I think not!

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Isaac Bonewits

I was more than a little disappointed, as a Druid and as a Stonehenge fan, with the National Geographic Channel’s program called “Stonehenge Decoded.”

First off, the title was stolen from a famous book, Stonehenge Decoded, by Gerald S Hawkins. This was the book that first suggested that the famous stone circle was a neolithic “computer,” designed to predict various astronomical events such as solstices, equinoxes, eclipses, and more. While the television program referred to the solstices and equinoxes being observable there, neither eclipses nor Hawkins’ name were mentioned.

The program was mostly fluff. I saw about twenty minutes of solid information concerning archaeological discoveries made in the early 2000s in the area surrounding Stonehenge, mostly involving a huge seasonal village that was there. The rest of the two hours was melodramatic “reconstruction” of possible pre-historical scenarios.

To be completely fair, I did find the archaeologists’ linking of the nearby Woodhenge to Stonehenge via newly discovered “avenues” to be enlightening and their theory about processional routes plausible. Then they repeated for the dozeneth time the only special effect their video editors seemed to know how to do: exploding the sun into a giant fireball.

More importantly, current details and theories about Stonehenge were missing. The computer reconstructions of Stonehenge did not include the second “Hele Stone” that originally framed the summer solstice sunrise. While I predicted thirty years ago that there would probably have been one, the pit in which such a stone sat was discovered only a year or two ago. Without it, the romanticized ceremonies shown in the program had the sun rising directly over the remaining stone.

A number of scholars have recently pointed out that moving multi-ton stones twenty-five miles would be a lot easier and faster in winter than in summer, yet the program assumed the latter, turning the movement of one stone into a dramatic six month trek.

In short, the program was a few years obsolete before it was broadcast. Maybe if they had spent less time on cheezy special effects and over the top drama, they might have needed less production time and could have included newer materials.

I give this program only one menhir out of three!

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Some thoughts on same-sex marriage

Posted on May 23, 2008 by Isaac Bonewits

I’ve been thinking about same-sex marriage recently (no, I haven’t got a boyfriend!), but in terms different from what the public is currently debating. In light of the recent California Supreme Court decision mandating equal marriage rights (and rites?) for same-sex couples, I thought I’d share them.

The Religious Reich’s war against same-sex marriage is only part of a larger picture. Perhaps if it is framed in the context of creedism, rather than just that of homophobia or heterosexism, we can create more effective strategies to stop it.

At the rock bottom of the RR’s theocratic agenda is an appeal to creedism. They believe that they have a “right” to shove their particular (and often peculiar) doctrines down the throats of every man, woman, and child on the planet. This is true whether you are discussing Christian or Islamic Fundamentalists (Jewish Fundamentalists only want to force their doctrines upon people living in Israel or in Hassidic communities elsewhere).

There are plenty of new and old religions in the world, with millions of their members in the USA, who do not agree with the sexual, reproductive, or marital doctrines of conservative monotheism. Why should one group of religions be able to use the power of civil law to enforce their doctrines and deny others’ doctrines?

The fact that Judeo-Christian-Islamic creedists are a voting majority in America is no more relevant to our civil rights than the fact that racists and sexists were once (and in some places still are) the majority of US citizens. The tyranny of the majority is specifically restrained by the constitution.

I advocate fighting this battle over marriage rights, reproductive rights, sex education rights, and all related issues in terms of resistance to creedism. The old protest phrase, “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries,” cuts to the heart of RR bigotry. Their views are rooted in the Torah, Bible, and Koran, so monotheistic creedists are “obligated” to be homophobic and opposed to all sexual freedom issues, just as they were once “obligated” to be racist or sexist.

People are entitled to have any sort of religious beliefs or non-beliefs they like. They are not entitled, under the US constitution, to force all other citizens to live under those same opinions, whether they call them “God’s Law” or anything else.

It may be easier for those of us who are (more or less) “straight” to use the “Homophobia is creedist” frame, but we might all consider using it in appropriate circumstances. Let’s make creedism as socially unacceptable as racism and sexism, and perhaps heterosexism will become equally unacceptable.

Go to www.beyondmarriage.org for some additional interesting thoughts on this issue. I think Robert Heinlein would be pleased at their goals.

As a Neopagan Druid, I’ll be happy to perform same-sex or multiple marriage ceremonies for anyone who asks me to do so. I consider it an obligation of my priesthood. Of course, I would hope that the couple/triad/quad/etc. would help out with any subsequent legal costs!

Posted in Current Events, Political/Cultural, Polyamory, Polytheological ~ Philosophical | 8 Comments