Posts in Modernity
Words Worth Noting - July 30, 2023

“Two weeks ago in the run-up to Halloween, I visited Salem, Massachusetts... I was bowled over by what I found in the Witch City: bigger crowds, longer lines and a wider and welcome array of merchandise geared toward many different religious traditions and ethnic identities. Amid the curious crowds in black capes and conical hats, bags overflowing with DIY spell kits and candles to enhance prosperity, I overheard the same question: Is magic really real? For me, the answer is yes. I am one of a million-plus Americans who – whether proudly, secretly or dabbling through the power of consumerism – practice some form of witchcraft. Witchcraft, which includes Wicca, paganism, folk magic and other New Age traditions, is one of the fastest-growing spiritual paths in America. In 1990, Trinity College in Connecticut estimated there were 8,000 adherents of Wicca. In 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau figure was 342,000.... The precise number of witches in America is difficult to determine because many practitioners are solitary and, either by choice or circumstance, do not openly identify as such.”

Antonio Pagliarulo, author of the forthcoming “The Evil Eye: The History, Mystery, and Magic of the Quiet Curse”, in an NBC “Think” “Culture & Lifestyle” piece 30/10/22

Words Worth Noting - July 26, 2023

“Vivienne Westwood, influential fashion maverick, dies at 81/ Vivienne Westwood, an influential fashion maverick who played a key role in the punk movement, died Thursday at 81.”

Subject line/headline and text of email teaser from “NBC News Top Stories” December 29, 2022 [oh, that’s original a fashion maverick, whatever will they think of next, to shock the bourgeoisie?]

Words Worth Noting - July 13, 2023

“there is scarcely anything that could offend me in modern England which is not far more offensive in modern Germany. It is there that these things have had their real success; it is there that they will have their real failure. You may say that Germany leads the modern world. You may, if you like, say that Germany is the modern world. But, if that be so, what is called the modern world is, amid general rejoicings, coming to an end. With all its mirthless cynicism, with all its unmanly militarism, with its sham science and shifty diplomacy, with its excuses for the powerful and its routine for the poor, with its long words of explanation and its very short cuts in conduct, with all its care of the self, and all its carelessness of the soul, what some call the Modern Spirit is cast out of heaven like Lucifer, Son of the Morning. It is cut down to the earth, that did weaken the nations.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News, September 9, 2016, quoted in “GKC on Scripture * Conducted by Peter Floriani” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #1 (Sept.-Oct. 2022)