Mysteria Misc. Maxima: November 11th, 2011

Mysteria Misc. Maxima is a weekly feature which brings together links on religion and esotericism from around the internet.

• While most European churches are seeing a slide in attendance, this Lutheran church is growing so fast it can’t keep pace with its congregants. (Reuters)
• Maybe church attendance is growing because secularization isn’t? (Epiphenom)
• How does a pluralistic, tolerant religious society deal with a faith like Scientology? (The Nation)
• The difference between agnostics and atheists. (So & So via Swiss Miss)
• But shhhh…atheists attending religious schools have to keep their beliefs on the down-low. (RNS)
• What have we learned after 50 years of Buddhism in the West? (HuffPo)
• Guy Fawkes wasn’t some loosey-goosey counter-cultural hero. Rather, he was a Catholic supremacist. (CNN)
• But would he approve of the Vatican’s move to change the liturgy of the mass? (CNN)
• The search for the historical Satan. (Religous Dispatches)
• Maybe they should look for the devil in Rome? His infernal likeness was recently spotted in a famous fresco. (Reuters)
• Here’s an interview with NYC’s occult aficionado Mitch Horowitz (whom I just think is the bee’s knees!). (Gothamist)
• We often hear about the British witches’ efforts to combat the Nazi’s in WWII, but did you know American witches also put a spell on Hitler? (Life)
• How do magic practitioners conceptualize deity? Here’s one perspective. (Standing at the Centre)
• The new hot topic in magical circles is—Drumroll please!—ethics. (Doing Magick)
• So, uh, how ethical is blood sacrifice? (The Magickal Universe)
• Finally, the University of Amsterdam has two PHD openings in its Hermetic Philosophy department. This is a fantastic opportunity to do research in the emerging field of Western esotericism while gaining  valuable teaching experience. Drool. (Heterodoxology)

Photo by Martin Gommel.