In today's Faithful Friday post, the Beagle brings you stories from many faith traditions. Next Monday, Jan 26, has been dubbed "Blue Monday" and is supposedly the most depressing day of the year, so in this Beagle installment we concentrate on the interaction of mental health and religion, especially in Paganism.

The Wild Hunt featured this well-written article on Paganism and depression last week, including perspectives from a wide variety of Pagan therapists, activists, and advocates.

Nornoriel Lokason seems to have hit a chord with this (self-described) rant on Pagan concern-trolling about mental illness. Do you resonate with this post? Have you experienced unwanted (and ill-informed) advice on this topic?

This post on Spiritual Emergencies and Mental Illness (sometimes overlapping, yes, but mostly *not*) by Camilla Laurentine discusses how Pagan/polytheist societies of the past treated mental illness.

Natural disasters leaves deep sorrow, and often, mental illness in their wake. The new book "Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye" (reviewed here by the New York Times) examines how one woman wove together healing from the complex threads of Japanese spirituality.

Medical doctors in India are collaborating with local faith healers to reach out to the huge numbers of mentally ill people there in need of care.