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Gus diZerega

Columnist

Gus diZerega is a Gardnerian Elder with over 25 years practice, including six years close study with a Brazilian shaman. He has been active in interfaith work off and on for most of those 25 years as well. He has conducted workshops and given presentations on healing, shamanism, ecology and politics at Pagan gatherings in the United States and Canada. He is the first Pagan blogger for Beliefnet. His first Pagan book Pagans and Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience won the Best Nonfiction of 2001 award from The Coalition of Visionary Resource. His second, Beyond the Burning Times, is a joint Pagan and Christian authored book discussing relations between the two religions. He is completing a new book: Faultlines: The Sixties the Culture Wars and the Divine Feminine. This will argue the US's current political and cultural struggles reflect a four-way division between "traditional" religion, liberal and "Baconian" secular modernity, and spiritual traditions that have gone beyond the modern paradigm.

Gus is now writing Pointedly Pagan in a blog format! Follow his latest writing here.

Works by Gus diZerega

Politics, Pagan religion and the 2016 elections- up at...

Gus diZerega | June 09, 2016

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Politics, Pagan Religions, and the 2016 Election

Gus diZerega | June 08, 2016

Pagan religions honor a multitude of ways of thinking about and interacting with the......

The Trance of Belief II: Awakening and enjoying

Gus diZerega | June 05, 2016

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The Trance of Belief: Part I.

Gus diZerega | April 27, 2016

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Social Justice from a Pagan perspective

Gus diZerega | February 05, 2016

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The role of esotericism in Pagan religion

Gus diZerega | February 01, 2016

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My Near Death Experience in Maine: a lesson in compassion...

Gus diZerega | December 22, 2015

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Mammon's False Promise

Gus diZerega | November 18, 2015

Consumer society does not simply reflect our desire to have good things. It is a......

The Parliament of the World's Religions and the Future of...

Gus diZerega | October 31, 2015

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Swastikas and the Stars and Bars as Symbols

Gus diZerega | July 01, 2015

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Probing the Depths of the Charleston Murders: a Pagan...

Gus diZerega | June 22, 2015

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Caitlin Jenner, the Duggars, and Us

Gus diZerega | June 11, 2015

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The Language of Power and the Language of Care

Gus diZerega | May 15, 2015

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The spiritual gifts of Wicca do not stop with Wiccans

Gus diZerega | March 22, 2015

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Why monotheisms are so violent. And why the best...

Gus diZerega | January 13, 2015

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A response to Niki Whiting's review of my book, Faultlines

Gus diZerega | August 24, 2014

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Environmentalism and Pagan religion

Gus diZerega | July 23, 2014

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Polytheism, Emergence and the One

Gus diZerega | June 13, 2014

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Considering ‘Privilege,’ White, Wiccan, and otherwise....

Gus diZerega | April 02, 2014

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Considering ‘Privilege,’ White, Wiccan, and otherwise....

Gus diZerega | March 28, 2014

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Considering ‘Privilege,’ White, Wiccan, and otherwise....

Gus diZerega | March 22, 2014

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Looking to the future: Pagan religions in 50 Years

Gus diZerega | March 11, 2014

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What is Paganism? Part VI: The New Age and the Limits of...

Gus diZerega | February 04, 2014

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What is Paganism? Part V: ChristoPaganism and the Limits...

Gus diZerega | January 30, 2014

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What is Paganism? Part IV: Interfaith Recognition

Gus diZerega | January 28, 2014

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What Is Paganism? Part III: Pagan Religion from a...

Gus diZerega | January 23, 2014

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What is Paganism? Part II: A Spiritual Taxonomy

Gus diZerega | January 20, 2014

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What is Paganism? Part I: The Basics: Religion,...

Gus diZerega | January 16, 2014

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Faultlines Book Release, and Why Pagans Should Work with...

Gus diZerega | December 10, 2013

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The Future of America's Civil Religion Lies in New...

Gus diZerega | October 29, 2013

Hope rests with a new spiritual sensibility that is not necessarily a new religion, but......

Samhain 2013

Gus diZerega | October 23, 2013

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A Personal Note on Abortion

Gus diZerega | August 28, 2013

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The “Pro-Life” Movement’s Hidden Subtext

Gus diZerega | August 12, 2013

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Pagan Abortion Ethics: Pre-existing Spirits Seeking Birth

Gus diZerega | August 06, 2013

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On Abortion: A Pagan Ethical Response

Gus diZerega | July 15, 2013

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Earth Day 2013

Gus diZerega | April 22, 2013

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The Transforming Power of Pagan Religion in a Christian...

Gus diZerega | April 11, 2013

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Why I Am a Pagan

Gus diZerega | April 01, 2013

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A Pagan Perspective on Wilderness

Gus diZerega | March 26, 2013

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The Mirage of Monotheism

Gus diZerega | February 15, 2013

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If Thought Forms Exist, What Can We Do About Them?

Gus diZerega | February 07, 2013

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Thought Forms and the American Crisis: Esoteric Insights

Gus diZerega | January 26, 2013

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Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Thought Forms

Gus diZerega | January 12, 2013

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How the 'Christian' right is destroying Christianity in...

Gus diZerega | December 26, 2012

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Looking Back on the Election: A Pagan Perspective

Gus diZerega | December 05, 2012

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Five Reasons to Vote for Obama

Gus diZerega | October 28, 2012

A Pagan case for voting Democratic down the entire ticket....

Pagan Spirituality and the Future of America

Gus diZerega | October 04, 2012

The core confusion is to equate capitalism with economic freedom or free markets. Once......

Encountering Pagan Deities

Gus diZerega | August 23, 2012

How deep you go into the realm of the gods is largely your own decision -- unless the......

The Pathology of Modernity: Individualism v. Individuality

Gus diZerega | August 02, 2012

Mitt Romney and all he stands for perfectly exemplify the Republican right and the final......

Where Are the Pagan Fundamentalists?

Gus diZerega | July 12, 2012

Why Paganism is immune to fundamentalism....

The Growing Threat of Christian Dominionism

Gus diZerega | June 14, 2012

The New Apostolic Reformation is a dominionist group with close ties to many Republican......

Does Religion Decrease Compassion?

Gus diZerega | May 10, 2012

Studies suggest that religious dogma can override our natural tendency toward empathy....

Earth Day, 2012

Gus diZerega | April 21, 2012

Earth Day becomes increasingly a day to venerate, and yet is now increasingly ignored....

Religion and Freedom, Religion and Slavery

Gus diZerega | April 05, 2012

Totalitarians of the right and left have always been clear as to what they would do, and......

Cool Ad on the War on Women

Gus diZerega | March 30, 2012

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Framing, Limbaugh, Pagans and Christians

Gus diZerega | March 14, 2012

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The Contraception Battle: Is This the Culture Warriors'...

Gus diZerega | March 08, 2012

It will be very fitting if the nihilists on the right meet their Waterloo by mindlessly......

Pagans, Science, and the World

Gus diZerega | February 15, 2012

When we honor the world, we are honoring a context bigger than we are....

Of Gateways and Beauty

Gus diZerega | January 27, 2012

When we enter a place, we add ourselves to its energies and bring additional presences....

Individuality and God

Gus diZerega | January 06, 2012

Monism is far more adequate than monotheism as a means for understanding the Ultimate....

Pagan and American Individualism

Gus diZerega | December 16, 2011

A poem that teaches us that our individuality is shaped by relationships....

Meditations on a Bumper Sticker

Gus diZerega | December 02, 2011

By buying locally when we can, we help maintain an ethically rich network of community......

Religious and Cultural Paganism

Gus diZerega | November 11, 2011

Why NeoPagans have but the barest hint of a Pagan culture....

Ethics from Within, Not from Above

Gus diZerega | October 27, 2011

The Pagan ethic of respect is in keeping with the realities of embodied existence....

The Underlying Unity Within Pagan Diversity

Gus diZerega | October 16, 2011

What we have in common is that we celebrate the fact that we're all different....

The Pagan-Fascist Controversy

Gus diZerega | September 29, 2011

We need a new historical understanding of Paganism's recent past....

Mainstreaming Pagans

Gus diZerega | September 22, 2011

What's the difference between today's Paganism and indigenous traditions? Intensity and......

Expanding Possibilities within the Trance of Life

Gus diZerega | August 12, 2011

Is embracing Paganism like coming out of a trance?...

Edge or Mainstream? Pagans In The Future

Gus diZerega | August 04, 2011

What if becoming an accepted part of American society turns us into a nominally......

Anders Behring-Breivik, Christianity, and Violence

Gus diZerega | July 28, 2011

The potential for fanatics to use Christianity to justify mass murder is not simply an......

Can a Pagan be a Conservative?

Gus diZerega | July 21, 2011

Yes. But a Pagan can't be a right-winger any more than a Jew can be a Nazi....

The Ethics of the Universal Potlatch

Gus diZerega | July 14, 2011

We will bring agriculture into greater harmony with a Pagan sensibility only when it is......

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