The last day of PantheaCon always has an element of sadness. People are packing and going back home. Virtually everyone is requesting a late checkout and it takes hours to get one of the trolleys to move your things back to your car. Attending workshops becomes a challenge, but I managed to get to two.

The first was “Oracles and Divination in Ancient Egypt” by Richard Reidy, who is the author of Eternal Egypt: Ancient Rituals for the Modern World. Richard’s approach to the practice of ancient Egyptian religion is a bit different to that of Tamara L Siuda (whose workshop I attended on Saturday morning). Richard’s approach is that he limits himself solely to source texts. As I have previously discussed, this seems to me to be largely a matter of taste. (more…)

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 4:23 am
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I presented my first workshop on the morning of Sunday 14 February 2010, at PantheaCon. This was quite a special day, being both Valentines Day and my second wedding anniversary. My workshop was titled “Magickal Initiation in Ancient Egypt.” The workshop went quite well, with a large group experiencing an authentic Graeco-Egyptian ritual.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that there were two workshops on Neoplatonism, one following on from the other. The first, “What is Neoplatonism & Why Should I Care?” was presented by Don Frew, who is widely known for his interfaith work. Don’s workshop was very easy to follow and was an excellent introduction to Neoplatonism. Don showed just how important Neoplatonism was to Gerald Gardner, and by logical extension, to the practice of contemporary Wicca.

Lunch was a lot of fun. (more…)

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 4:07 am
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I decided to start Saturday 13 February 2010, at PantheaCon with “Ancient Egyptian Prayers” by Tamara L Siuda, the current head of the Kemetic Orthodoxy group. While Tamara holds two Masters Degrees in relevant fields she doesn’t limit herself to a purely academic approach of worshipping the ancient Egyptian deities. She and her group incorporate elements channeled through dreams as Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) and practice ancestor worship. UPG is a hot topic within reconstructionist circles. On the one hand it cannot be unambiguously verified from academic source texts, but on the other hand it restores the vitality which ancient religions had in their heyday. (more…)

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 3:37 am
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On Friday 12 February 2010, PantheaCon kicked off. While I don’t know the exact numbers, PantheaCon is the biggest event that Jo-Ann and I attend, and typically attracts roughly 3000 pagans from all over the US, as well as a few from overseas. PantheaCon is put on by Glenn Turner of Ancient Ways, along with a small army of volunteers.

The problem with PantheaCon is that there up to a dozen presentations at any given time slot. Scheduling all these presentations is a nightmare. (more…)

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 2:54 am
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On Thursday 11 February 2010, the day before PantheaCon started, Cherry Hill Seminary (CHS) held their Winter Conference. The conference, which featured Steven Posch, went really well with participants thoroughly enjoying themselves. Steven was his usually bubbly effervescent self.

We were privileged to have Robert Brandon Longcrier of the Military Pagan Network in attendance. He recently came to prominence by establishing a worship area for earth-based religions at the US Airforce Academy in Colorado. The site was subsequently desecrated by Christians who surreptitiously left a huge cross in the worship area. Why are some Christians so obsessed with trying to force the world to believe what they’ve chosen to believe? Everyone should be able to practice their own religion as they choose without interference by intolerant minority groups.

One of the best things about the Winter Conference is that it is the event that brings together the largest number of CHS students, faculty and board members. It’s great actually meeting people who I normally communicate with via email and sometimes telephone. For photographs, check out CHS’s Facebook page.

Tony Mierzwicki

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 11:25 am
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Patrick McCollum has been fighting for years to overturn the State of California’s “five faiths policy”, which limits the hiring of paid chaplains to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American adherents. The lawsuit began with Patrick and a number of pagan inmates claiming that it was unconstitutional for the state to deny the pagan inmates their religious rights, their religious materials, and their religious services through a pagan chaplain.

The defense is arguing that “traditional” faiths are first tier faiths and that those faiths were meant to have equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution, but that all of the other faiths (including pagans) (more…)

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 4:35 am
filed under: Legal, Pagan Issues, Politics
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January 30 & 31, 2010 saw the 6th Conference on Current Pagan Studies held at Claremont Graduate University. Scholars and practitioners gathered to discuss Sustainability. Keynote speakers were Donald Michael Kraig and T Thorne Coyle. The conference was organized by Dorothea Kahena Viale.

While not every presenter was an academic, there were a large number of people (more…)

posted by Tony Mierzwicki @ 2:46 am
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