DIVINATION USING FIRE

We stare into the burning fire And see in their resplendent light The granting of our heart’s desire Or else the terrors of the night. From tarot card reading to the study of bird flight, there are many different forms of divination, but in my opinion the most reliable ones are all related to fire. [...]

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LOOKING FOR NYC BLOGGERS/WRITERS

We’re looking for someone to cover the NYC anarcho-mystical, pagan, psychedelic, magickal, herbalist, real-foodist, primitivist scene, with a special heart-warming interest in pieces that show or talk about where the latter group of fun words intersect (but we’ll defs take them a la carte!). We’d like our readers to hear about events, talks, happenings, shop [...]

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MAY DAY HAYMARKET FESTIVAL RECAP: Springfield, IL

The organizers of the 2nd Annual Haymarket Festival in Springfield, Illinois, did so on behalf of the people of Springfield. Organizer Drew Duzinskas said, “It’s about coming together in spring. I like to see cool things happen this time of year.” His intention in participating in the planning was to put on an event that [...]

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PLAYING NORDIC: The fine line between honoring one’s own heritage and creepy white pride cultishness…

At These New Old Traditions we talk a lot about reclaiming lost heritages and spiritual traditions (here and here), and how our hyper-capitalist consumer culture has made doing so rather difficult (here and here). Personally, I am, at times overwhelmingly, interested in the myriad of ways in which people of European descent handle these issues [...]

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THE (SO-CALLED ALTERNATIVE) “RIGHT” SIDE OF PAGANISM

Recently I’ve come across a handful of interesting articles dealing explicitly with paganism and the politically conservative-minded people who embrace it. The most recent take came from the ever-wonderfully informative blog The Wild Hunt titled “Asatru and the Alternative Right.” This is a subject that I find extremely fascinating, both because of its constantly volatile [...]

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PODCAST ON WITCHERY 101

How Stuff Works has a podcast on the history of the persecution of witches, as well as some basic info on contemporary neo-paganism and wicca. At times it’s a little bit “Wiccans believe…,” but still decent and at times properly funny. You can listen to it here. The series has a ton of podcasts on [...]

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SOME WEAR A SNAKE ON ST. PATRICK’S DAY: The silent rebellion

Within the hagiographies (fancy word for the study of saints), St. Patrick is known as the man who, among many other valiant, if questionable, acts, rid Ireland of the dreaded snake! How a single person with nothing more than a walking stick could shoo away thousands of snakes into the Irish sea, I have no [...]

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WE’RE LOOKING FOR WRITERS & BLOGGERS

These New Old Traditions is an online journal devoted to reinvigorating our vacant holidays and traditions with a little mystic revelry. For us, it is no longer acceptable to blindly participate in festivities that have been bought and sold into irrelevance by the vampiric clutches of commercialism. It seems a lot of people feel the [...]

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