Steveawiggins

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MY BLOGS

  • Sects and Violence in the Ancient World http://sawiggins.wordpress.com/

    A blog that tries to find intelligent things to say about religion and related subjects.

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4601 )

  • Reclaiming the Past

    Reclaiming Past

    It started after Nashotah House.  That event shook me to my very core.  And I was approaching middle age.  I started taking an interest in my childhood. Read more

    Posted on 15 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Row Your Boat

    Your Boat

    I’ve long wondered about what appear to be coincidences. Specifically, about movies on the same topic that seem to come out at around the same time. I saw Gothi... Read more

    Posted on 14 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Confidential Hazing

    Confidential Hazing

    Set in a Long Island prep school, among a somewhat secret society called the Players, this is a dark academia tale of murder and discovery. Read more

    Posted on 13 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Uncut

    Uncut

    I remember well the first time I encountered a book with uncut pages.  It was in Edinburgh and the book was mine on inter-library loan. Read more

    Posted on 12 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Tambora Crisis

    Tambora Crisis

    The name Wolfgang Behringer was familiar to me from his book Witches and Witch-Hunts, which I read several years back. I’ve been interested in volcanoes... Read more

    Posted on 11 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Alien Signs

    Alien Signs

    Personally, I find alien home invasion movies scary. The combination of being awoken at night by a terror that seems plausible and the fact that there is nothin... Read more

    Posted on 10 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Machen’s Monstrance

    Machen’s Monstrance

    It was a coincidence worthy of a story written by a mystic.  Arthur Machen became famous for his novella The Great God Pan. Descended from a clergy family, his... Read more

    Posted on 09 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Still Growing

    Still Growing

    A couple of years ago I posted about Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors. Now life is so busy that when Friday rolls around my wife and I find ourselves at... Read more

    Posted on 08 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Recipe for Childhood

    Recipe Childhood

    I once read that over the course of an average lifespan, an American will eat 73,646 pounds of food.  Think about that.  That’s over 36 tons of food.  Apiece. ... Read more

    Posted on 07 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Leaving Soon

    Leaving Soon

    I’d been hoping to read the novel before seeing the movie, but there’s nothing like the words “leaving soon” on your streaming service to spur you into action.... Read more

    Posted on 06 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Easter Flowers

    Easter Flowers

    Easter is our springtime holiday of hope.  Flowers are starting to bloom and the cold spells, when they come, don’t last too terribly long. Read more

    Posted on 05 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Don’t Look

    Don’t Look

    The title of this movie could stop one word shy. Of course, I had been warned. Don’t Look Away is a low-budget horror film. A low budget in and of itself doesn’... Read more

    Posted on 04 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • The Help

    Help

    Helpmeet was recommended to me by a friend. Since most of my reading these days seems to be in the form of long books, I welcomed a brief one. And the story,... Read more

    Posted on 03 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • No Reservations

    Reservations

    Having watched, and liked, Oddity some months ago, I was glad when a friend told me that Caveat was by the same writer/director, Damian McCarthy. Read more

    Posted on 02 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • First, Kings

    First, Kings

    Recently I sat down to read 1 Kings.  Of course, I used to teach Hebrew Bible so I have more than a passing familiarity with it.  This time, though, I was... Read more

    Posted on 01 April 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Popping Clowns

    Popping Clowns

    You need a scorecard to keep track of all the killer clowns. While not the greatest horror movie, Clown in a Cornfield isn’t bad. As with most of my movie posts... Read more

    Posted on 31 March 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Little Gems

    Little Gems

    On a recent diversion to a curio shop we like, I found that one of the “Dark Shadows” paperbacks they had was one I hadn’t read. Dark Shadows had, of course,... Read more

    Posted on 30 March 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Cool Book Festival

    Cool Book Festival

    So yesterday I was at the Lehigh Valley Book Festival. (It occurs to me know that I should perhaps post such notices in advance, but I know few people in the... Read more

    Posted on 29 March 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Red Thread

    Thread

    Theseus would never have survived the labyrinth without the help of Ariadne.  After escaping the minotaur, the two eloped and, according to some versions of... Read more

    Posted on 28 March 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY
  • Together Again

    Together Again

    Body horror can be gruesome, but also thought-provoking. Together shares a similar them to The Substance, namely, bodies merging. They differ in the details, an... Read more

    Posted on 27 March 2026 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY