MASTER OF PAGANISM DEGREE

Universal Life Church Master of Paganism Online Seminary Course.

This course is a beginner's course on Paganism. In this course, you will learn all the basics of Paganism from the beginning, looking at creation, to more advanced concepts and beliefs. If you are a follower of Paganism, or you'd just like to find out more about this very old religion, then this is the course for you. The course is written in very easy-to-follow language and contains many useful facts and ideas.

For a Sample of this interesting course, click PAGANISM

*********

Below are some articles about Paganism:

The Wild Hunt

Pagan Newswire News I’m traveling today, so I don’t have time to do my usual blogging routine. However, there are some Pagan Newswire Collective related items I’d like to quickly share with you. First, I’m proud to announce two newly-launched PNC bureaus, PNC-Iowa and PNC-Florida. “We’re proud and excited to bring the PNC to Florida. The Sunshine State is home to a vibrant and diverse Pagan community that includes Druids, Hermetic and Thelemic orders, eclectic and traditional Pagans, Wiccans, and Orisha traditions, and Florida boasts several festivals including Body Magick, Florida Pagan Gathering, and Turning the Tide. Florida is also a political hotbed of environmental, immigration, economic, cultural and social issues. We look forward to exploring this community and sharing it with you.” In addition, PNC-Atlanta has recently re-organized and is expanding to cover all of Georgia. Iowa, Florida, and Georgia join already established bureaus in Maine, Washington DC, a

Media Outreach at Cherry Hill Seminary I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be teaching a 4-week Foundations course at Cherry Hill Seminary starting on September 14th. Media Outreach for Pagan Groups and Organizations September 14 – October 5 In an age of ubiquitous social media, conveying your organization’s goals and values in an effective manner is more important than ever. Pagan groups and organizations used to have to deal with exploitative, uneducated, or even hostile mainstream media outlets in order to get the word out, but now we’re lucky if the local paper or television station even has time for any religion-oriented story. The last decade has seen some major upheavals and cutbacks in the areas of traditional media, with religion beats being cut back or eliminated across the United States. However, while traditional media outlets have been cutting back, there’s been an expansion on the Internet. As a result, its never been easier for small groups to create and disseminate informa

Quick Note: Blessings on the River This past Friday in Asheville, North Carolina was the second annual Blessings on the River: an Oshun Veneration & Concert. Held in concert with rites performed at Asheville’s sister city of Osogbo, Nigeria, proceeds from donations during the veneration benefited the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove. The event was sponsored by the Zamani Refuge African Culture Center, with event altars constructed by Mother Grove Goddess Temple. Valeria Osunyemi Watson-Doost from the Zamani Refuge, herself a priestess of Oshun, has posted a four-part video series from the event on Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9fQrEHQ-ls Here are the links for part 2, part 3, and part 4. You can also watch footage from the inaugural event last year. This looks like an excellent example of how a US-based Goddess/Pagan community can participate in an event for the benefit of indigenous pre-Christian religions in far-flung parts of the globe. Local writer Byron Ballard, a member of the Mother Grove Goddess

Return of the “I Believe” Plates Religion Clause reports that South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster has issued a ruling that clears the way for a non-profit group to have the infamous “I Believe” Christian licence plates produced. The new “I Believe” design. “Nine months after a federal judge barred the state from making legislatively approved plates with the religious message, Attorney General Henry McMaster says a similar plate designed by a nonprofit group is legal. The plate under review at the Department of Motor Vehicles reads http://www.IBELIEVEsc.net along the top. It features a golden sunrise and on the left, three crosses symbolizing the site where Jesus was crucified .  The nonprofit group applied for the plates in February under state law that allows private groups to create specialty plates, if they pay a $4,000 deposit or collect at least 400 prepaid orders before production. It officially changed its name to the website address, in hopes of meeting new DMV rule

Invoking TheurgiCon Coverage This past Saturday in Berkeley, California was the one-day conference TheurgiCon, an intensive that focuses on the practice of theurgy, the use of magic and ritual to invoke (or evoke) the gods. This year’s line-up included Tony Mierzwicki, Brandy Williams, Don Frew, Diana Young, and Sam Webster. COG (now on Facebook) members Rachael Watcher and Greg Harder were there on behalf of the Pagan Newswire Collective to cover the event. First, here’s an interview with TheurgiCon founder and organizer Glenn Turner (who also founded PantheaCon). www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FpeZ-PR0_c Here’s their report on TheurgiCon. It was a room full of mostly older folks dressed in varying ideas of LL Bean casual, coffee in hand, milling about prior to settling down to work for the day; your usual run of the mill business meeting with the usual number of computers, reference books and notated materials. However, with the opening statements of the first speaker, it became obvious

Suppressing A Pagan Revival in Russia? Global Voices points to an Open Democracy report from last month on how Mari Traditional Faith (the indigenous belief system of the Mari people in the Republic of Mari El) is facing a renewed form of “anti-religion” in Russia. In response to an appeal by the local state prosecutor, Yoshkar-Ola Municipal Court found Vitaly Tanakov guilty of religious and ethnic hatred in 2006, sentencing him to 120 hours’ forced labour. In 2009, Mari El Supreme Court ruled that his leaflet – “A Priest Speaks” – contained religious and other extremism. It is now banned throughout Russia. Peoples influenced by the Bible and Koran “have lost harmony between the individual and the people,” argues Tanakov, in what is actually one of only a few references to other faiths in his leaflet. “Morality has gone to seed, there is no pity, charity, mutual aid; everyone and everything are infected by falsehood.” By contrast, he boasts, the Mari traditional faith will be “in d

Interview with Mike Nichols The writings of Mike Nichols are almost ubiquitous on the Internet. His essays on the Witches’ Sabbats have been endlessly re-posted and republished (sometimes without proper attribution), becoming an essential resource for many to understanding modern Witchcraft’s “wheel of the year”. Some time ago I had the privilege of interviewing him to help promote the book version of his essays on the Sabbats published by Acorn Guild Press. However, due to a computer melt-down the interview was lost. But as luck would have it, the interview was recently rescued from digital oblivion, and I’m now happy to present this “lost” Wild Hunt interview with Mike Nichols. Mike Nichols The Wild Hunt: I know you cover this in your book, but briefly, for the benefit of my readers, how did you come to be so interested in the origins of the holidays, and how did that intersect with your newfound Paganism? Mike Nichols: As a kid, I adored holidays. It was like taking

Quick Note: Gus diZerega in The New Yorker Pagan author and Beliefnet blogger Gus diZerega is quoted in The New Yorker regarding a feature on the billionare libertarian conservatives David and Charles Koch, who fund “a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups”. DiZerega, who has lost touch with Charles, eventually abandoned right-wing views, and became a political-science professor. He credits Charles with opening his mind to political philosophy, which set him on the path to academia; Charles is one of three people to whom he dedicated his first book. But diZerega believes that the Koch brothers have followed a wayward intellectual trajectory, transferring their father’s paranoia about Soviet Communism to a distrust of the U.S. government, and seeing its expansion, beginning with the New Deal, as a tyrannical threat to freedom. In an essay, posted on Beliefnet, diZerega writes, “As state socialism failed . . . the target for many within these organizations shifted to any kind of reg

Pagan Community Notes: ADF’s Memorial For Isaac Bonewits, An ADF Ordination, Strowlerfest, and More! Pagan Community Notes is a companion to my usual Pagan News of Note, a new series more focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. I want to reinforce the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So lets get started! Celebration of Life: Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF) recently held a special memorial service at the Summerland Gathering in Ohio for their founding Archdruid Isaac Bonewits who passed away on August 12th. Now the ADF has released video excerpts from the ceremony for the public to view. “The following are a list of videos taken during the ADF Memorial Service for Isaac Bonewits. A full-length version of the entire rite will be available from the ADF Store soon. The videos below are roughly in order to fit the ADF Order of Ritual, except that the one

World Congress of Ethnic Religions Begins in Italy August 26th in Italy sees the beginning of the 13th annual World Congress of Ethnic Religions. Formed in 1998 at the first gathering in Lithuania, the congress works to promote tolerance of ethnic indigenous religions and create networks of support among adherents of ethnic traditions across the world. There are member organizations from across Europe, and the Congress also welcomes delegations from India, Russia, and the United States. The theme this year is “Ethics in the Contemporary World”, and is being organized by the Italian organization Gentilitas. “The Congress theme will be to compare the different ethical views of individual members of the religious associations within WCER to find a lowest common denominator or, more simply, to discuss ethical and religious views during the development of rings.” – Federazione Pagana, Italy WCER President Jonas Trinkunas (Romuva), who recently attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Austra