Hey, guess what? Circle will be publishing an article that I co-authored with a friend, Anna Franklin (a MS. entry, actually) in the latest issue of their magazine: www.circlesanctuary.org/circle/ So, when you see a copy of this issue, pick it up, would you! The only change since submission (depending upon how they may have "Edited" it) is the introductory sentence in an effort to read MUCH more professionally and smoothly. I initially submitted it for their "Pantheon" section, but they wonderfully published it under their "Nature Religions Around the World"! I should be recieving my complimentary two copies of this issue within a fortnight-- just in time for my birthday: 14, March. Hmmm...I wonder when our local Borders will carry it? But, if you can't find it there, order it directly from Ciurcle Sanctuary, or search about until you *do* find a copy! *G* Let me know what you think of it when you read it, please! Personally, I'm particularly excited to read Emma Wilby's contribution, "Shamanistic Visionary Traditions In Early Modern British Witchcraft"; in fact, I can't wait to read her academic book on the same topic (along the lines of Profs. Eva Pocs, Carlo Ginzburg, and Claude Lecauteux, etc.). Apparently, European scholars have reached this consensus to the consternation of their British peers that reject it as rubbish, and usually invent vapid "reasons" for doing so, too (for example, by claiming that one cannot use any term with the root-word "shaman" in it, such as "shamanistic" as an "understood", unless they are *specifically* applying it to the tribal peoples of Siberia and the Arctic north). Apparently, Emma Wilby (an Independant Scholar that was published by Sutton, an academic publisher) has been explaining how untennible the British position is. Be hat as it may, some luminaries, such as Ronald Hutton, vehemently rejects it, and to modern Pagans, "if Hutton says it, it's so (end of story)!" So much for free-thinking Pagans, eh? Hell, just to get his scholastic-way, Hutton has actually, and blatantly, mischaractreized the writings of Prof. Carlo Ginzburg, to make them sound as though they really cannot be brought up as evidence for pagan survivalism or shamanic antecedants in witchcraft belief, as though Carlo's books say something contrary to what they actually do! I'd like to know how he can get away with this, and not be pounced on by his academic peers! Poor Carlo was also similarly mischaracterized, as he informs us, by two other British scholars, namely Norman Cohn (who lied about Margaret Murray and got away with it) and JB Russell.

Take Care,
Wade@MacMorrighan.Net
http://MySpace.Com/MacMorrighan