Introduce me?

I am getting lost in the world of trying to work out which blogs I should be looking at, its all so distracting!  So please, if you have a blog of an Magickal nature, please respond to this or email me with a link, so that I can make a list of the ones I like and would like to read?  I will add everyone who makes the effort to my blogrol as a thanks.

Ludlow – Stephen Skinner!

They have a blog now with information on the conference and how to get tickets.  I just got mine, but I think there will still be tickets available, though best to check.

http://esotericconference.wordpress.com/

“

In the hustle and bustle of online this, and online that, it may come as a surprise to some, but tickets to the conference are not available online!

Instead the organisers prefer the old fashioned way via the Royal Post, otherwise known as snail mail. 

So send a letter along with your details and return address, including how many tickets (£15 each) you require and a cheque (made payable to Verdelet) for the correct amount to:

PO Box 82,
Craven Arms,
Shropshire,
SY7 8WG

FFI & enquiries from the online conference co-ordinator @: keltsrus@hotmail.com ”

The Women of the Golden Dawn

I am very interested in the contribution of women to the world of magick.  It is more often obvious in traditions like Wicca, but less so in things like the Golden Dawn.  Anyway, it was with great excitement that I discovered the book “Women of the Golden Dawn” and promptly ordered it as part of my May book buying.  I had heard someone at Treadwells in London give a talk about the women of the GD a few months back and thought that this book would be an interesting read to supplement the bits of information the lady who gave the talk shared (her lecture was almost entirely based on information in this book).

Women of the Golden Dawn is an amazing work, credit to the author Mary Greer!  Great reading and a fantastic inspiration to the rest of us.

The Cults of Paganism

I have been thinking a lot of late, looking at websites and forums, in an effort to replace the mourned Avalonia forums, how much of modern Paganism is a cult? Or at least, even if they say they are not and believe they are not, might they still be a cult?

Using the Cult Evaluator created and developed by Isaac Bonewits, it would seem that many of the groups and traditions of Wicca indeed seem to be displaying cult like behaviour. If you don’t know Isaac Bonewits’ cult evalutor I am speaking about, you will find it http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html Using it as a general guideline, I found that many of the groups I encountered might be considered borderline.

So is being a cult dangerous? Are Pagan cults just as much a part of religious society as Christian cults?