Earlier this month, I mentioned my disdain for pagan activist Starhawk. But I did not appreciate just how nutty she is until my wife directed me to Starhawk’s A Pagan Response to Katrina.
The article is bizarre through-and-through, but the highlight is the Pat Robertson moment,
The forms and names we put on Goddesses, Gods, and Powers help translate those forces into terms our human minds can grasp. And so the Yoruba based traditions that originate in West Africa have given the name ‘Oya’ to the whirlwind, the hurricane, to those great powers of sudden change and destruction. Santeria, candomble, lucumi, voudoun, all include Oya in some form as a major orisha, a Great Power. Offerings are made to her, ceremonies done in her behalf, priestesses dance themselves into trance possession so that she can communicate with directly with the human community.
No city in the U.S. has more practitioners of these traditions than New Orleans. On the night the hurricane was due to hit, I made a ritual with a small group of friends to support the spiritual efforts that I knew were being made by priestesses of Oya all over the country. We were in Crawford, Texas, at Camp Casey, where Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Itaq, camped near Bush’s ranch to confront Bush with the painful reality of the deaths his policies have caused. Many of the supporters there were from New Orleans, worried about their homes, their friends and families. The overall culture of the camp was very Christian—we found no natural opening for public Pagan ritual, although a number of people did indicate to me quietly that they were ‘one of us.’ But our little group gathered by the roadside, cast a circle, chanted and prayed.
We prayed, speaking personally in the way humans do: “ Please, Mama, we know what a mess we’ve made, but if there is any way to mitigate the death and the destruction, to lessen it slightly, please do.” That same night Christians were praying and Orisha priestesses were ‘working’ Oya, and the hurricane did shift its course, slightly, and lessened its force, down to a Category Four.
And New Orleans survived. Not without loss, and death, but without the massive flooding and destruction that was feared. We all breathed a sigh of relief.
Robertson, of course, infamously claimed that through prayer he prevented Hurricane Gloria from striking Florida in 1985. In contrast, Starhawk’s accomplishments seem a bit underwhelming.
In both cases, however, it is interesting how indifferent both Robertson and Starhawk were to other people’s suffering during their purported spiritual efforts. After all, Hurricane Gloria went on to wreak havoc on the East coast, while Katrina avoided a direct hit on New Orleans but devastated other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi (Starhawk doesn’t mention the devastation in Mississippi, where hundreds of people were killed by Katrina, even once in her essay). Presumably Mississippians should have employed more voodoo adherents the next time a hurricane comes to town.
As I have said before, what fascinates me about new religious movements is how frequently they are simply that old time religion with a slightly different veneer on it. Although she imagines herself a leftist and a pagan, Starhawk’s views are surprisingly right wing fundamentalist.
Aside from the miracle of altering a storm’s course and strength, she’s got creationist nonsense,
Our human intelligence, our particular, sharp-pointed ability to analyze, think, draw conclusions and act, our esthetic/emotional capacity to thrill at a beautiful sunset, our deep bonds with those we love and our empathy and compassion for others, are all aspects of the Goddess Herself. Indeed, she evolved us complicated, contradictory big-brained creatures precisely to experience some of those aspects. Or to put it simply, she gave us brains and she expects us to use them.
She’s got apocalyptical prophecies inspired by man’s wickedness,
A few weeks ago, when we were preparing for the Free Activist Witch Camp that Reclaiming, our network of Witches, offered in Southern Oregon, I asked, “Is there any way to avert massive death and destruction.” The answer I got was an unequivocal ‘no’.
“The process has gone too far,” was the answer. The image that came to me was river rafting and shooting the rapids.. There was a point where we as a species could have chosen a different river, or a different boat, or a different channel. But now we’re in the chute. We can’t turn back. We can’t stop.
Not to mention people’s contemptuousness of her particular deity,
The Goddess does not punish us, but she also doesn’t shield us from the logical consequences of our actions. Katrina’s destructive power was a consequence of a human course that is contemptuous of nature. A Native American proverb says, “If we don’t change our direction, we’re going to wind up where we’re headed.” Katrina shows us a glimpse of that awful destination.
This last quote is the one I find the most bizarre. So people who die in natural disasters are the victims of their own contempt for nature? I’d love to see her explore the theological implications of the North Sea Flood of 1953.