Author: A Solitary Pagan

Right now, somewhere on Earth, on each and every continent, people are actively, consciously venerating, petitioning, thanking, channeling, communicating with, interacting with, and/or pleading with spirits. What do they seek? • Healing • Protection • Prosperity • Happiness • Power • Direct contact with the sacred People haven’t been doing this futilely for thousands of years because there’s nothi...

So why won’t spirits go away? Why don’t we forget about them? Why is our fascination with them so persistent? There has been a popular resurgence of traditional spirituality in modern industrialized nations, yet this does not nearly account for the sheer pervasiveness of the spirits around us. If anything, spirits are more pervasive than they were fifty years ago. New forms of media, technology, a...

Images of spirits surround us. They are everywhere. Cemeteries are filled with images of assorted psychopomps, those spirits who escort human souls to afterlife realms. Garden stores offer stone sphinxes, plaster gnomes, and a vast selection of Aphrodites on the half-shell. Look in store windows and calculate how long until you encounter the ubiquitous image of Maneki Neko, the Japanese beckoning ...

Maybe folklore can exist without spirits, albeit in truncated form, but mythology definitely can’t. Worldwide mythology is accurately defined as stories about and involving spirits. An entire literary genre—fairy tales—is named for a branch of the spirit world. Literary classics are populated by spirits (The Aeneid, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Faust, Macbeth, or The Tempest). So are comic books: Morph...

Fairies, demons, Djinn, devas, dybbuks, dakinis, Nymphs, mermaids, ghosts, nagas, orishas, lwa, mystères, Elves, dragons: that’s just a few of the many kinds of spirit beings. Considering how many people vociferously refute their very existence, the extent to which spirits permeate modern human culture is astounding. You don’t have to believe in spirits to be surrounded by them. In fact, it’s pret...

She Who Sends Messages of Desire Also known as: Kalili; Kilili Abtagigi is the Sumerian spirit of sacred sexuality. She awakens and stimulates erotic impulses. Babylonians and Assyrians used the Semitic form of her name, Kalili, in the same manner, that they called Inanna, Ishtar. Abtagigi-Kalili is among the spirits in InannaIshtar’s entourage. Ancient Sumerian rulers maintained their power by an...

Origin: Celtic Abnoba is the Goddess of the Black Forest, now in modern Germany, a region with many therapeutic springs including the famed Baden-Baden. The etymology of her Celtic name is related to “wetness” or “river.” It is very closely related to Avon, a popular name for rivers; some conjecture that at least some of those rivers are named in her honor. Very little information about Abnoba sur...

Classification: Vampire The Abchanchu roams Bolivian roads in the guise of a doddering, frail old man. He appears confused and disoriented, like someone’s helpless old grandpa, and so inevitably Good Samaritan volunteers to help him. That’s the Abchanchu’s ploy. As soon as opportunity allows, out pop the fangs; his fragility is revealed to be an illusion as the Abchanchu attacks. Under the influen...

Abata Also known as: Abatan Classification: Orisha Abata is the Swamp Queen, the orisha of swamps and marshes. She has the power to control accumulation of wealth (or the lack thereof). Yoruba tradition identifies her as the female compatriot of orisha Erinle or his wife. Erinle has dominion over thresholds where fresh and saltwater merge, as happens in mangrove swamps. Swamps are associated with ...