ayn randroids and the pagan pecking order

A savvy reader alerted me to this fabulous (in more ways than one) chart of "who looks down on whom" in the postmodern pagan hierarchy. My favorite entry by far is the Ayn Randroids, as pictured here. In FAQ-style, the author writes: 4. How come I'm down at the bottom of the hierarchy? It might be because society despises you which fact I am merely observing (e.g., Otherkin), or it may be because I, personally, despise you (e.g. white people who claim to be reincarnated American Indian priestesses) and society ought to despise you. The graphic is large and requires panning around the screen unless you have a very large display, but it's worth the effort. Highly recommended. (btw, Otherkin was a new one on me.) In keeping with both the foregoing and the season, the graphic in the right column links to Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. The incident at Salem began in the winter of 1691, when a niece and daughter of the Salem pastor Samuel Parris began to exhibit bizarre behavior. After frightening themselves with with forbidden fortune-telling games, Abigail Williams and Betty Parris became subject to fits of babbling accompanied by strange physical contortions Other girls became similarly afflicted, and soon the hysterical children were accusing neighbors and acquaintances of witchcraft. And, as Kurt Vonnegut might say, so it goes... As he might also say: welcome to the monkey house.

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