Pagan Studies


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Studies Blogs

Advanced and/or academic Pagan subjects such as history, ethics, sociology, etc.

Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Prayer to Brighid for Healing

I wrote this in 2016 but it seems like something that needs to be shared now, so I wanted to offer it here. 

Brighid is the modern name of the pagan goddess Brig and also the name of a Christian saint, bot of which are associated with healing. Brighid is a complex figure whose stories are woven through Irish mythology and folklore but who can often be hard to pin down. She appears as a member of the Tuatha De Danann in the Lebor Gabala Erenn and the Cath Maige Tuired, and is referenced as a goddess in the Sanas Cormaic. There are several pseduohistorical figures in the Ulster cycle which are thought to possibly be Brighid by scholars like Kim McCone. And Saint Brighid is found across an array of material and in the modern catholic faith. These figure and stories intertwine among each other and blur together in both history and myth. So this prayer calls on Brighid in all her many forms. 

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Disease, Protection, and Animism: Folklore from the Past

Everyone is talking about COVID19. How could we not? My five-year-old's school has closed for two weeks, like all other schools in the state, and we're having to postpone his 6th birthday party. Like many other families, we've been spending most of our time at home, although we do plan on battling the cabin fever with some family hikes in the mountains here and there. My husband remarked today that we've never seen a situation quite like this in our lives.

 

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Cleanliness is Next to Godliness: Bathroom Spirits & Traditions

I have a few shrines around my house: an ancestor shrine on the hearth mantel; a "winter shrine" in the corner of the kitchen for my home's land spirit; and a shrine in the window of my bathroom. This last one might seem like a strange location for a sacred place, but peoples around the world have understood that the places where we clean and care for our bodies are hallowed places, housing certain powers.

 

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Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Actions, Consequences, and Fairies

  I tend to write quite a bit about the more dangerous Otherworldly beings and dangers more generally of interacting with the Otherworld. Some people find that off putting and I understand why but I feel its' important to offer a counterbalance to the more widespread view out there, which is decidedly in favour of a kinder, gentler, more helpful view. In a perfect world we would see balance and an understanding that the Other, like anything here in the human world, is about the potential to help or harm based on a huge array of factors; unfortunately that isn't the world we live in. For too many people it is easy to justify ignoring the potential risks in favour of focusing only on the potential advantages. So today I want to talk about some of the factors that are involved in how these interactions go.

Firstly to be clear, yes the Good Folk can be helpful and can take a liking to humans without any clear reason. There are many examples in folklore and modern accounts of encounters with the fey folk that end well or are inexplicably beneficial. I want to start with that up front so there's no confusion that I'm only saying they are dangerous. 

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Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Seers' Charge

 

It is murky out there. It has been this way for a long time. There are roiling atmospheres of complicated astrological conditions that will persist for years. There are currents and crosscurrents of cultures, ideologies, and religions moving and colliding into whirlpools and riptides. And all that is churning while the icecaps are melting.  There are pundits, prophets, and profiteers with axes to grind. It seems a safe bet to put your money on cynicism, apocalyptic narratives, and apathy as respite.

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Posted by on in Studies Blogs
CAOS, Caliban, Chaos -- and Sycorax

There are bound to be a lot of commentaries on the latest series of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the latest in the comics adaptations aimed at getting young adult audiences (and the not so young) to binge on the tales of teen sex and magic. The creators have fun with the links to Riverdale of course, and horror movies (showrunner and comics writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa grew up on comic books) as well as magic and the occult. You can already find a couple of thoughtful responses from Cunning Folk Magazine and the Media Witch.

No doubt there is a lot to untangle and most of it is probably not as deep as our analyses will go nor as seriosu (as we know) but I am struck by the use of Sycorax without using the most well-established aspect of her as Caliban's mother. In this series of CAOS Caliban is 'made of clay' like a golem (!) I guess for reasons to do with plotting. This move erases lineage but it also erases race. Sycorax as created by Shakespeare in The Tempest is Algerian and banished to this island presumably in the Mediterranean between Italy and Tunisia where Claribel, Alonso's daughter, was to be married to the prince.

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Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Rejecting Dualism With Fairies

I have never personally understood dualism very well, although it seems to run rampant in many corners of the pagan community. In my particular focus on fairies and fairylore I also see this dualism expressed in the idea that some people have that fairies are either good or bad, or in some views must be wholly good, or in others wholly bad. I tend to reject these concepts but I think its important to discuss why.

To begin let's start with what dualism is, so we're all on the same page, because there are several definitions. For our purposes here the meaning we are using is that of a worldview that divides things into the opposing groups of good and evil. In cosmology this is often expressed through the idea of powerful benevolent deity/deities in opposition to malevolent cthonic or entropic forces. The benevolent forces seek to preserve or improve the human world while the opposite forces seek to destroy it; that which seeks to preserve is labeled by humans as 'good' while that which seeks to destroy is called 'evil'. 

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