• RECORD CROWDS AT STONEHENGE SOLSTICE CELEBRATION
  

- - - England. (The Times (UK))- June 22, 2009 - Druids began their incantations, Wiccan priestesses drew their cowls tight against the damp morning air and four half-naked Papuan dancers waved their hands in the air and went: “Woo, woo, woo”.

Only the guest of honour failed to put in an appearance at Stonehenge.

A record 36,500 people had gathered at the prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain to watch the sun rise. So many turned out to celebrate the solstice that roads had to be shut and the vast field converted into a car park for 6,500 vehicles was full by 3am.

Disappointingly, despite a promising forecast, the sun was unable to break through the thin layer of grey cloud that shrouded the ceremony. But most people did not let that spoil their enjoyment.


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• ANCIENT MARBLE MONUMENT FOUND IN ROME
  

- - - Rome, Italy. (adnkronos.com) - June 16, 2009 - An 2000-year-old marble monument featuring the pagan god Mithras has been found outside Rome by Italian police who believe it was to have been illegally sold abroad. The large marble bas-relief which dates from the 2nd century AD was recovered by authorities in a house north of the capital, according to a report in the Italian daily, Il Messaggero.

Police said the monument was to be sold to China or Japan and transported via the United Arab Emirates.

The relief, made of white Carrara marble and weighing 1,500 kilogrammes, comes from Vejo - a former Etruscan city that flourished in the 5th century BC - and shows the god Mithras slaying a bull.

Agents from the Italian tax police or Guardia di Finanza said the piece was recovered from an old house in the Roman countryside.

According to a statement by Italian tax police, the operation "allowed us to also discover an archaeological site previously unknown to authorities."

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• PAGANS, ATHEISTS AND NATURE WORSHIPPERS
  

- - - Cairo, Egypt (Jill Kamil- Al-Ahram) - June 12, 2009 - Wadi Digla is a dried-out river bed lying to the east of the Cairo suburb of Maadi. It was declared a nature reserve some years ago, and is frequented by nature lovers and those who want to take exercise far from the madding crowd. For my group of friends it is also an opportunity to walk together to discuss matters of mutual interest.

On a recent occasion we got to talking about paganism. As an Egyptologist I naturally associate the word "pagan" with polytheism, the worship of many gods before the introduction of the divine or "revealed" religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Characteristic of pagan traditions, I presented, is the presence of a living mythology that explained natural phenomena and religious practice.

However, a friend claimed that paganism referred to atheists and agnostics. A third asked, rhetorically, what of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and the Bahaai faith, surely they are not pagan, or are they? When I pursued the conversation with others that evening, I heard the remark that the Old Testament of the Bible (the Hebrew Scriptures) contained references to pagans as those communities surrounding the Hebrews, and they included Babylonians, Canaanites, and Philistines.

In fact, everyone I spoke to seemed to have a different definition of the word "pagan", and at some gatherings, as the argument became more and more heated, I realised that while opinions differed, most of my compatriots remained convinced that their meaning of the word was the correct one. There was obviously no consensus, and, I observed, not even a "correct" definition of the word "pagan". So I decided to look it up on the Internet. There I was in for a number of surprises. "Paganism" is actually derived from the Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller, or rustic", and was a term originally used to describe the religions and spiritual practices of pre-Christian Europe; by extension, it was a term for polytheistic traditions or folk religion (like that of ancient Egypt) seen from a Western or Christian viewpoint.

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• PAGANS AREN'T AMERICANS - GINGRICH
  
  

- - - Gus diZerega (Beliefnet.com) - June 8, 2009 - Newt Gingrich, the thrice divorced defender of family values and Catholicism, warned "I am not a citizen of the world. I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator." Which would be news to our Founders as well as to the Constitution, that gives rather different requirements.

Apparently from Newt's perspective we Pagans are not Americans, for in his fatwa he warned Americans that they are surrounded by "Paganism."

Mike Huckabee, who had earlier explained the relationship between our constitution and his theology: "I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view. . ."

That Pride and Power are Huckabee's real deities was made clear when he criticized President Barack Obama for saying in Cairo, Egypt, last Thursday that one nation shouldn't be exalted over another.

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• WIZARDS AND WITCHES TO MEET IN ST. LOUIS TO TEST THEIR KNOWLEDGE
  
  

- - - St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) - June 5, 2009 - Oberon Zell of Grey School and Don Lewis of Witch School have agreed to a trivia contest about all things magical to test their students and all comers. They plan to meet on June 13th and 14th at the St. Louis Pagan Picnic, held at Tower Grove Park. The St. Louis Pagan Picnic is the largest Pagan gathering in the Midwest, and brings together thousands for a weekend of friendship, fellowship, entertainment, teaching and merchants. The Wizards and Witches Trivia contest will be just one of the many parts to this wonderful event, but for the students of Grey School and Witch School, it is a highly anticipated one.

This meet is very special, as Oberon Zell, one of the Great Elders of the Pagan Community, will be returning to his hometown, where his amazing journey began. It was in this area that Oberon first coined the word "Pagan" as a religious self-identifier that is now used by millions of people, founded the Church of All Worlds, and presented the Gaia Thesis, which is a view of life on earth being part of a greater whole known as "Gaia". This amazing person, known as one of the Greatest Living Wizards today, makes his way back to this wonderful city of St. Louis, where he is challenging the next generation of Wizards and Witches to develop their skills.

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• BLACK MAGIC BOOMS IN VENEZUELA
  
  

- - - Caracas, Venezuela. (St. Louis Today) - May 31, 2009 - Milvia Santos went with her children to the Southern Municipal Cemetery in the Venezuelan capital on Mother's Day to pay her respects to her late mother.

As they were about to lay a dozen red roses on the grave, however, they found a hole in the concrete slab. When they warily reached in to open the coffin, they saw that the skull had been stolen.

Grave-plundering at cemeteries in Caracas has reached epidemic proportions. Priests, academics and the victims' families blame black-magic practitioners known as "paleros," who use other human bones to initiate members into an African-based cult that spread to Venezuela from Cuba and is growing rapidly

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