Wiccan's Pagan Festival invites attendees to open their hearts and minds, to witchcraft, Paganism and The Occult
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Wiccan's Pagan Festival invites attendees to open their hearts and
minds, to witchcraft, Paganism and The Occult*
Posted: June 10, 2007
Kalamazoo Gazette
If the organizer of Paganstock – a kind of Woodstock for Wiccans –
accurately divined the spirits when he predicted turnout, 400 pagans
have descended onto his southwestern Michigan property this weekend to
open their hearts, open their minds and to hear the magic.
Ethan Pulka of Bangor, Mich., almost canceled the annual event this year
after his house burned down in March and after a testy fight in 2006
with the local township over an ordinance requiring permits that local
pagans saw aimed at them.
Paganstock is a three day affair featuring jewelry, clothing and food
vendors, tarot-card readings, massages, mystics, fire tricks, several
heavy metal bands and numerous occult teachings and pagan rituals.
"We do have ceremonial drumming," Alice Aldag, founder of Caer na Donia
y Llew pagan church, told a local television station last year. "But we
did walk the property to make sure it wasn't going to bother any of the
neighbors."
But after one of the group's earlier pagan events on Pulka's property, a
neighboring farmer complained to the sheriff and the local township board.
"I guess he had cows, and it kind of knocked them off schedule," said
Arlington Township Supervisor Bill Colgren.
The ordinance, proposed last year by the township board, would have
required a special-use permit, issued 60 days in advance, for gatherings
of 50 people or more that lasted more than 14 hours.
Colgren denied the ordinance was aimed at Paganstock
"It's not taking anyone's rights away," he said. "It's not going to
impact the pagans. They can do whatever they want. But we just want to
know what's going on, so we can set safeguards in place."
"The reason why we feel the need is because our ancestors did it, that's
the biggest thing," Pulka said. "This has been going on since the
pre-Christian era."
Aldag complained in a letter to a local newspaper that when her group
met with the board about last year's Paganstock, they were grilled about
animal sacrifice, nudity and asked, "Are you gonna burn up a goat in
that firepit?"
A resignation left only four members on the township board and the
ordinance died after a 2-2 tie, opening the way for this year's event.
According to Pulka, he took on the task this year only because past
participants were so insistent.
"This is the only place a pagan can be a pagan," one of the musicians
for this year's headline act, 13 Winters, told Pulka.
Pulka's abandoning the Celtic-influenced music featured at past
Paganstocks for hard rock and heavy metal acts.
"It seems a lot of pagan festivals in the past have had folk music, very
mellow, a softer tone to it. ... There are a lot of artists out there
that have a heavier or different sound I'd like to showcase," Pulka told
the Kalamazoo Gazette.