Pagan Pizza

[icymist]

Italian Pie Meets Goddess Worship

If there are two things, however alliterative, that one wouldn’t expect to find in combination, it’s paganism and pizza. Nonetheless, a dedicated group of Santa Barbara pagans have been meeting once a month on Friday night to hang out at the Carrillo Rusty’s, eat pizza, and talk about their beliefs, their lives, and their current projects — for the past fifteen years.

There are many common conceptions about paganism, and after sitting in with the pagan pizza-eaters for an evening, I learned that almost all of them are wrong. For example, one member of the group told me that “Paganism has nothing to do with Satanism,” and asked me to please “put that in .” She explained that one of her neighbors considers her one step — if that far — from sacrificing chickens in the backyard, and hoped that this person would read the column and finally be convinced that Paganism and Satanism are entirely different.

If you’re reading this, neighbor, now you know.

Another very basic misconception is that Wicca, a branch of Paganism, is actually synonymous. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a term, “paganism” refers to a variety of traditions, faiths, beliefs, practices, and philosophies — possibly as many as there are pagans.

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