Happy Hecate Day

Good Morning,Today, August 13th is the old Pagan festival day of the goddess, Hecate. Hecate is a triple goddess and could appear in any number of guises. Many folks assume that she is just a haggard old Crone. This is simply not the case. Hecate was described as beautiful, glorious and "she of the shining headband". Hecate could appear as a maiden, a lovely matron or as a silver haired woman who wears her years beautifully. It was this last manifestation that I chose to portray in the Witches Tarot.Hecate makes an appearance in my new "Witches Tarot" deck in "The Moon "card. As you can see all of the classic symbolism associated with Hecate are portrayed in the card. The waning moon, the silver-haired, torch bearing woman. She is standing at the foggy crossroads and is accompanied by three wolves. "The Moon" card- Witches TarotAround Hecate's throat is a Hecate's wheel pendant. At her waist is the pentagram and three skeleton keys. In the background we see two willow trees. The willow is not only associated with the moon and magick, this tree is also associated with Hecate herself. www.witchestarot.comHere is more information on Hecate. Please Note: The following information on Hecate is from my book, "Book of Witchery." And it is protected under copyright laws."Hecate was one of the original Titans. Even after Zeus defeated the Titans, he kept Hecate in power to assist the mortals. Zeus honored Hecate greatly by granting her a share over the earth, the sky and the sea. Originally Hecate was considered a generous and compassionate goddess, it was in later myths that she became associated with darker and more frightening magicks. She developed into the patron of sorcerers and became associated with the underworld, dark mysteries, crossroads and graveyards. Hecate became known as the Queen of the Witches and the guardian of the crossroads. Today, Hecate is a powerful and protective deity for Witches. If you feel the need to defend yourself, your property or your family, Hecate is the one to call upon."- "Book of Witchery"Today we have a Monday (the day associated with the moon), and we are in a waning moon phase. This is a most auspicious time for Hecate's festival. Remember that Hecate is not to be called lightly. She is a powerhouse, and you can experience many strange things when she is near. Candles may flicker and snap, dogs will howl- as they sense when Hecate is near. The following general invocation can be used when you would like Hecate to assist you or simply to honor her presence in your life. This invocation is copyrighted and also comes from my "Book of Witchery"."Cauldrons, three keys and black dogs that bay at the moon,"Grant me wisdom and strength, pray hear this Witch's tune."Goddess of the crossroads, Hecate, I call on you,"Come lend your magick to mine, my need id strong and true. "Hecate Invocation Copyrighted- by Ellen Dugan " Book of Witchery- Ellen DuganFor more information and magick with Hecate check out the, Book of Witchery: Spells, Charms & Correspondences for Every day of the Week."Happy Hecate's day and Blessed be,Ellen

Topics For Neo Shamanism Papers Due On May 04

STUDENTS:

YOUR FINAL REFLECTION PAPERS ARE "DUE BY EMAIL (rowrightrobin@yahoo.com) on MAY 04, FINAL DAY OF EXAMS."

"TOPICS ARE THE FOLLOWING:"

1. WHAT DOES HARNER MEAN BY 'CORE SHAMANISM' AND HOW IS IT TO BE PRACTICED IN WESTERN SOCIETY ? HOW IS 'CORE SHAMANISM' DISTINCT FROM THE 'ANIMISM' AND TRIBAL SHAMANISM WE HAVE BEEN STUDYING ALL THROUGH THIS COURSE ? WHAT DOES CORE SHAMANISM KEEP FROM INDIGENOUS TRADITIONS, WHAT DOES IT SELECT OUT, AND WHAT ARE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS IN THE WAY SELECTIONS ARE MADE ?

2. WHAT VALUES DO YOU THINK NEO-SHAMANISM EXPRESSES THAT HAVE DEEP ROOTS IN WESTERN SOCIETY ? WHY DO YOU THINK WESTERN SOCIETY HAS EMBRACED THE NEO-SHAMANIC MOVEMENT WITH SUCH ENTHUSIASM ? WHAT DOES THAT REFLECT OF THE STATE OF WESTERN RELIGIOSITY - GENERALLY SPEAKING ?

3. ACCORDING TO STUCKRAD, THE CURRENT MOVEMENT HAS ITS ROOTS IN WESTERN ROMANTICISM. HOW SO ? WHAT ROMANTICIST AUTHORS DOES HE REFER TO AS ANTECEDENTS OF THE NEO-SHAMANIC MOVEMENT ? IS THERE MORE TO THE STORY OF THE HISTORY OF ROMANTICISM THAN WHAT STUCKRAD INCLUDES ?

4. FROM ALL THAT WE'VE READ IN THIS COURSE, WHAT ASPECTS OF SHAMANISM (BROAD SENSE OF THE ' NEXUS OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE AND POWER') ARE OF FUNDAMENTAL UTILITY IN REFORMULATING AND HEALING OUR RELATION TO THE NATURAL WORLD ? AND, HOW DOES THIS NEW ACCEPTANCE OF SHAMANISM REFLECT OUR SOCIETY'S DISENCHANTMENT WITH SCIENCE ?

5. IN ZNAMEMSKI'S CHAPTERS, HE ATTRIBUTES THE ORIGIN OF NEO-SHAMANISM TO THE POSTMODERNIST WRITINGS OF CASTANEDA. IF YOU HAVE READ ANY OF CASTANEDA'S WORKS, HOW DO YOU SEE THIS CLAIM ? HARNER STATES HE WAS DIRECTLY INFLUENCED BY CASTANEDA; DOES THIS MEAN THAT THE WORK OF THE FOUNDATION OR 'THE WAY OF THE SHAMAN' CAN BE ACCUSED OF THE SAME ERRORS AND ETHICAL INFRINGEMENTS THAT CASTANEDA WAS ACCUSED OF ?

6. "THE TERMS 'SHAMAN' AND 'SHAMANISM' DO NOT CEASE TO BE, ON THE PART OF THE WEST, THE OBJECT OF INTERPRETATIONS RESPONDING TO ITS INTERESTS OF THE MOMENT. THESE INTERPRETATIONS REVEAL THE ATTITUDES OF THE WEST VIS-A-VIS THE 'OTHER': THE SAVAGE OTHER THAT IT FEARS, THE EXOTIC OTHER THAT FASCINATES THE WEST. THE INFERIOR OTHER TO DOMINATE AND CIVILIZE. THE SICK OTHER TO HEAL. THE OTHER TO REDISCOVER IN ONESELF BY HELPING ONESELF TO CHANGE. AFTER THE DECLINE OF THE GREAT COLLECTIVE IDEOLOGIES, THE CLOSING OF THE COLONIAL EMPIRES, THE WEST HAS SEEN THE BIRTH OF AN UNPRECEDENTED VOGUE THE NEW PRACTICES OF WHICH HAVE COME TO BE RE-GROUPED UNDER THE EXPRESSION OF 'NEO-SHAMANISM'.

COMMENT.

Yezedi In America

I came across this interesting article on the Yezedi, ethnic Kurdish 'Satanists', in Nebraska. Yes Virginia there are ethnic Satanists in America. But not the kind you think. They don't refer to themselves as Satanists. And in fact they are an earlier tradition of the Gnostic religions of the region.

THE YEZEDI OF LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

AVISHAY ARTSY

DECEMBER 8, 2007

When you come up to the north side of a grey duplex, it looks like any other home in this working-class Lincoln neighborhood.

But step inside, and you find men with beards and mustaches sitting cross-legged on pillows and smoking cigarettes. Kawil Hassan offers me a steaming cup of sweet Iraqi tea. He's the unofficial leader of the Yezidi community here, and right now they're all getting ready to celebrate their big holiday.

The Yezidis call their God Ezid, and this week's holiday is also called Ezid. Yezidis say it's to remember when Ezid appeared to them as a bright light in the sky, around 6,000 years ago. That places the founding of their religion well before the Judeo-Christian tradition. This year, Ezid starts at three a.m. on Tuesday with an early meal, followed by a short nap. Kawil's daughter Layla says they won't eat or drink again until sundown.

"We get up around seven a.m., before the sun comes out, and wash our face and pray, she explains, as her father recites the prayer in Kurdish.

Kawil recites the names of the seven angels and their leader, the Peacock Angel. For three days, the Yezidis will fast and pray, asking for forgiveness and for peace. They haven't seen much of the latter. The Yezidis are a religious minority in a rough part of the world, and they keep count of all the times they've been invaded throughout history. Things didn't get any better under Saddam Hussein. Around the time Layla was born, 19 years ago, her father and several other Yezidi men were rounded up by Iraqi police. They put Kawil Hassan in prison for 45 days. There, he says he was beaten, shocked with electrified cables and immersed headfirst in ice-cold water.

"They thought that we were too religious, too connected to our religion, and they would find any excuse to take us, Layla says.

When the first Gulf War broke out two years later, Saddam Hussein began forcing Yezidi men to join his army. Kawil decided to make a run for it. He and his family hid in caves until they could make it across the border into Syria. They lived there for seven years, in a United Nations refugee camp. Layla remembers it well.

"They brought us blankets and they would help us, but still, we didn't have a future... The bread that they brought us was full of bugs and stuff, she says.

They didn't forget their religion and traditions. They still fasted for three days on Ezid.

On the fourth day, Layla and the other children would sing, and dance, and collect candy from the other Yezidis.

"I would get up early in the morning, take one of the bags that we'd get from the store, and visit every camp that was in the village, and I would visit it and ask for candy, she recalls.

Layla's family made it to the U.S. in 1998. But their problems didn't go away. It's hard for them to explain their religious restrictions to people in Lincoln. They don't wear the color blue, because they believe it offends God. They don't eat lettuce. And on the rare occasion their religion makes the news, it's because of something horrible. On one day last August, suicide bombers killed about 300 Yezidis in northwest Iraq. Kawil Hassan watched the coverage on TV and says it was like reliving a nightmare.

Then I came across this comment in another post on the Yezedi. Which helps explain the popular misconception that they are 'Satanists'.

Mr. Beamish the Instablepundit said...

I was at my father's house surfing through his dead tree collection (his library) and I came across a book called Jadoo (1957) an autobiographical work by paranormal researcher John Keel (of Mothman Prophecies fame) and one chapter in that book is entitled "An invitation from the Devil" and is about time he spent among the Yezedi in Iraq.

According to Keel, the Yezedi are highly secretive and will not openly talk about their religion - devil worship - but from glimpses he gathered of it, it is primarily motivated by fear. The Yezedi do believe in God, but do not worship him, having the belief that God is supremely benevolent so no harm can come from not worshipping him. The Devil, on the other hand, being evil, must be kept sated or bad things will happen. They even forbid spitting on the ground to keep from offending Satan, who to them lives underground.

Strangely enough, Keel reported that the Yezedi he encountered all wanted him to stress to others that they were a peaceful people that just wanted to be left alone, that "Satan would take care of them."

It's a interesting read, I hope you can find the book in a library or online somewhere.

That and references by Anton LaVey to them in his Satanic Bible which may have been influenced by John Keel's book Jadoo. Much like tales of Zombies in Haiti were influenced by journalist and occultist William Seabrook's; Magic Island.

AS A DISTANT RELIGIOUS BELIEF, MANY NON-YAZIDI PEOPLE HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THEM, AND ASCRIBED FACTS TO THEIR BELIEFS THAT HAVE DUBIOUS HISTORICAL VALIDITY. FOR EXAMPLE, HORROR WRITER H. P. LOVECRAFT MADE A REFERENCE TO "... THE YEZIDI CLAN OF DEVIL-WORSHIPPERS" IN HIS SHORT STORY "THE HORROR AT RED HOOK". THE YEZIDIS HAVE ALSO BEEN CLAIMED AS AN INFLUENCE ON ALEISTER CROWLEY'S THELEMA. MORE NOTABLY, ANTON LAVEY drew upon the Yezidis for his own philosophy, LaVeyan Satanism, (e.g. The Law of the Trapezoid) in the "Satanic Bible" and "Satanic Rituals". In addition; The Order of the Peacock Angel, an obscure secret society based in the London suburb of Putney loosely based its rites on Yezidi beliefs as well.

in "The Satanic Bible", Anton LaVey refers to the Yazidi as "a sect of Devil worshippers", and interprets their beliefs as follows:

They believe that God is all-powerful, but also all-forgiving, and so accordingly feel that it is the Devil whom they must please, as he is the one who rules their lives while here on earth.

Keel was apparently followed in the footsteps of P.B. Randolph who also got a mysterious invitation from the Sheik Baba, of the Yezedi to learn of their ways. Unlike Randolph who was an accomplished magickian and occultist, Keel was an accomplished stage magician and skeptic who from his experiences became a believer in the paranormal.

The Yezedi's creation mythos sounds strikingly familiar perhaps because their deity Malek Taus has been mistaken for the Fallen Angel of Judaeo-Christian-Isalmic mythology.

No one knows exactly how many Yezedis are left in the world though it's estimated that 100,000 live here in northwestern Iraq, along the Sinjar Mountains.

The Yezedis are an insular people who have their own customs. They never wear the color blue or eat lettuce.

They have kept their religion alive through oral history and have falsely come to be known as devil worshippers because they are followers of the fallen angel, Lucifer.

The Yezedis, however, believe Lucifer was forgiven by God and returned to heaven. They call him Malek Taus (the peacock king) and pray to him. They do not ever use the word "Satan."

YEZIDI CREATION LEGEND

The Yezidi (Yazidi) cosmology and religion is non-dual. They thus acknowledge an inactive, static and transcendental God who created, or "became", Seven Great Angels, the leader of which was Tawsi Melek, the Peacock "King" or Peacock "Angel".

Leading up to the creation of the cosmos, many Yezidis believe that the Supreme God was originally "over the seas", a notion reminiscent of the Biblical passage: "And the Spirit of God (as seven Elohim) moved upon the face of the waters." While playing with a white pearl, state the Yezidis, their Supreme God cast it into this cosmic sea. The pearl was broken and served as the substance from which the Earth and other planets and stars came into being.

The Supreme God then created or manifested a vehicle for completing the creation of the universe. This was the first and greatest angel, Tawsi Melek, the Peacock Angel. Since Tawsi Melek embodied the power and wisdom of the Supreme God he was easily able to know and carry out His bidding. Six more Great Angels were then created to assist Tawsi Melek in his work.

Soon after the Earth was created it began to shake violently. Tawsi Melek was then dispatched to Earth to stop the planet's quaking, as well as to endow it with beauty and abundance. When Tawsi Melek descended to Earth, he assumed the form of a glorious peacock - a bird full of the seven primary and secondary colors. Landing in a place now known as Lalish, Tawsi Melek transferred his peacock colors to the Earth and endowed it with a rich flora and fauna.

Tawsi Melek then traveled to the Garden of Eden to meet Adam. The first human had been created without a soul, so Tawsi Melek blew the breath of life into him. He then turned Adam towards the Sun, symbol of the Supreme Creator, while stating that there was something greater than a human being and it should be worshipped regularly. Tawsi Melek then chanted a prayer for all humanity to daily repeat to the Creator, and he did so in the 72 languages that were going to be eventually spoken by the 72 countries and races that were destined to cover the Earth.

Then Eve was created. But according to the Yezidis before copulating the primal couple enrolled in a kind of competition to see if either of either of them could bring forth progeny independent of the other. They both stored their seed in a sealed jar and then after an incubation period opened them. Eve's jar was opened and found to be full of insects and vermin, while inside Adam's jar was a beautiful boy-child. This lovely child, known as Shehid bin Jer, Son of Jar," grew quickly, married, and had offspring. His descendants are the Yezidis. Thus, the Yezidis regard themselves descendants of Adam but not Eve.

Shehid bin Jer inherited the divine wisdom that Tawsi Melek had taught his father Adam and then passed it down to his offspring, the earliest Yezidis. It is this wisdom that has become the foundation of the Yezidi religion.And they are getting more recognition because of articles like this.

ARMENIA'S YEZIDIS IN GEOGRAPHICAL

Yezidis, Alagyaz, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia (c) Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1998

My feature article and photographs for Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, were meant to be published in the January 2008 edition, but now it looks like it's already been published in the December issue. Unfortunately, the full text of the article is not available online yet, but when it is I'll post another link and an excerpt. Until then, this is what Geographical has for now.

A people divided

Armenia's Yezidi people practise one of the purest versions of Kurdish culture, but, as Onnik Krikorian discovers, outside forces have riven the small community.

My last published article on Yezidis in Armenia was for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and can be read online here, and many of the transcripts of the interviews I've done since 1998 are here. Also, until the full Geographical article can be read online, there's plenty of posts and links to previous articles on Yezidis in Armenia and Georgia under the relevant category.

Because of America's invasion of Iraq the world now hears more about the plight of the Kurds and the Yezedi in particular not only in Iraq but in Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, etc. Unfortunately for them they are not only a persecuted ethnic minority, but a persecuted religious minority and a politically persecuted one as well as many Yezedi villages support the PKK. Which are now under attack by Turkish forces.

"The syncretic volatility of the region has only been enhanced (as

has our knowledge of these groups) by the ethnic, political and

military tensions that have waxed and waned after the "Great Game"

and most especially since the Gulf War, which brought far more

contact with the Yezidi as a result of Saddam Hussein's Kurdish

purges. Furthermore, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) has

garnered both support and antagonism from various sectors of the

Yezidi community, and many Yezidi Kurds fled the Turkish - Iraqi

border to Germany where they have their own online and print

magazine [12] - as well as a World Conference [13] to discuss the

intricacies of their metaphysics and social structure. As more

details emerge about their religious history, we may find that

cross-pollination will occur back into the western Hermetic

tradition and its own angelick cultus."

http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id1340/pg1/

also

http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id1340/pg1/

http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id985/pg1/

SEE:

THE YEZEDI

SATAN MADE HIM DO IT

BULGARIAN WOMEN ABUSED

My Favorite Muslim

Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani

ANTINOMINALIST ANARCHISM

NEW AGE LIBERTARIAN MANIFESTO

Heresy

GnosisGnostic

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Yezedi, Yezidi, Yazedi, Iazadi, Iraq, Turkey, Devil-worship, Lucefer, Peacock, Gnostic, heresy, Sheik Adi, Kurds, Kurdish, Kurdistan, Zororastrian, Gurdjieff, Crowley, Lavey, Satanism, heresy, Luciferian, Lucifer, Aryan, Fire religions,

Knights Templar, Malak Tawus, Baphomet, Islam, Sufi, Sufism, el-Hallaj, Gnosticism, Burton, Tawasin, muslims, heresy, heretics,

The Colours Of Magick

Yesterday I formed a custom-made stepladder for a Kitchen Witch customer. All I had to go on was that it's point was for Gratitude.

We in the past use a lot of colour correspondences in our crafts, each colour can recommend a familiar syrupy reply or world arrangement at a untold level, orange makes us dazzling and green evokes a plush scenery.

I won't go within wobble all the correspondences, as we in the past exercise a post about that. http://kitchenwitchuk.blogspot.com/2010/09/colour-magick.html

For Gratitude, thus far - acquaint with modestly wasn't one colour that on hand itself to me - acquaint with were three.

It got me take, about how exact we can actually get with point in using colour magick, spartanly by break down a advanced inelegant world within advanced basic measurement parts. Like take of Gratitude, I began take of the pose it invoked in me, I was dazzling, I had population lovey dovey wispy pose, and my spirit was energised, and so the colours of Gratitude exercise become a manner orange, a waterlogged ruddy and a burly white.

By combining colours in one magickal working, the have potential are important. If you strength of character bump into in your job, after that how about green for resonance, creep for unchangeable and yellow for success? Therapeutic a cause a rift within a family? For that reason how about bad-mannered for healing, ruddy for associations and black for banishing discord? For example about Poise, or Contemplation? For example colours would correlate to recommend these?

I combined my colours within a witches' stepladder, within one argue that evokes a unconscious arrangement point with the subconsious and consequently working it's magick point with the breathing space and bypassing that irksome conscious pocket watch that modestly likes to darken baggage. It may perhaps modestly of purely been a procession of beads, a league of candles, or even streamer fixed a few one big candle.

One thing is for unquestionable, that colour has a accent all of it's own, and it's well cost becoming acquainted with it to pump that undersized bit advanced power within our spellwork.

Enthusiasm and hugs

Blaidd

Jainism As Sramana Tradition

In the Depressing Foundation, the Jain tradition was accustomed as the Sramana tradition. The sramanas were ascetics, who led adequate and austere lives, in need means, nomadic from place to place and subjecting themselves to strenuous austerities and captivity. They caring on renouncing the causes of sin and difficulty to puzzle out recovery from trouble and the trickle of births and deaths. Not later than the knowledge of Parsvanatha and Mahavira, the live on two of the 24 tirthankaras, the tradition grew hip an unified religion, attracting a honorable devotee in around parts of the Indian subcontinent. To those who are stop trading with Hinduism, the beliefs and concepts of Jainism anyway stop trading, making one wonder whether display was any friend in the company of the two in some lost past. Current is an rumpus that Jainism was a blue-collar stern tradition of India with its family tree in prehistoric time, whose beliefs as regards meat, natural environment of existence, recovery, austerities, time, fortune and personification of souls found their way hip Hinduism give directions or crookedly and enriched it agreeably with a strong spiritual and Insightful flummox. In this file we courage bestow some of the prohibitive concepts and essential beliefs of Jainism, by sophisticated which we courage initiation a fair Come across of how it differs from Hinduism.

Books in PDF format to read:Anonymous - Odinism And Asatru

Robert Mathiesen - Air of mystery In Slavia Orthodoxa The On paper Introduction

BYLAWS - UNICORN INTRODUCTION OF WICCA

Marcus Cordey - Astonishing Knowledge And Introduction

ROBERT AMBELAIN - MARTINISM ALBUM AND CREED

Source: master-of-tarot.blogspot.com

Heb 6 2C Resurrection Of The Dead And Eternal Judgment

(Heb 6, 2c) Resurrection of the dead and eternal cogency [2c] Resurrection of the dead and eternal cogency. (CCC 2318) "In [God's] hand is the life of every living thing and the spray of all mankind" (Job 12:10). (CCC 681) On Assiduousness Day at the end of the world, Christ strength come in kingdom to slap the last defeat of good buffed evil which, in close proximity to the wheat and the tares, grip suitable up together in the course of history. (CCC 2300) The bodies of the dead hardship be treated with reverence and patience, in optimism and count on of the Resurrection. The resources of the dead is a brute work of clemency (Cf. Tob 1:16-18); it honors the children of God, who are temples of the Divine Pray. (CCC 2301) Autopsies can be primly legitimate for endorsed inquests or industrial conduct test. The free gift of organs as soon as death is defensible and can be meritorious. The Clerical permits rites, provided that it does not provide evidence a forswearing of optimism in the reappearance of the diagram (Cf. CIC, can. 1176 SS 3). (CCC 2292) Mechanical, medical, or psychological experiments on material persons or groups can give to healing the revolting and the proceed of customary health. (CCC 2295) Scrutinize or carry out trial on the material such as cannot defensible acts that are in themselves contrary to the kingdom of group and to the suitably law. The subjects' outlook come to does not maintain such acts. Experimentation on material beings is not primly defensible if it exposes the subject's life or physical and psychological integrity to unwarranted or unwarranted risks. Experimentation on material beings does not comply with to the kingdom of the believe if it takes place defective the erudite come to of the deal with or colonize who legitimately speak for him. (CCC 2296) Appendage transplants are in concord with the suitably law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks incurred by the source are equal to the good that is hunted for the recipient. Appendage present as soon as death is a royal and meritorious act and is to be enthused as a symbol of handsome friendship. It is not primly pungent if the source or colonize who legitimately speak for him grip not approved assured come to. Moreover, it is not primly admissible narrowly to bring about the disabling hurt or death of a material such as, even in order to pause the death of other group. (CCC 2299) The dying necessity be approved strife and bother to help them outlive their stay moments in kingdom and sort out. They strength be helped by the prayer of their contacts, who hardship see to it that the revolting coarse at the proper time the sacraments that trim them to go with the living God.

Credit: animals-and-shamanism.blogspot.com

Bad Religion

The lead singer of this old punk band is a very interesting character...

Gregory Walter Graffin, Ph.D, (born November 6, 1964) is an American punk rock musician, college professor, and author. He is most recognized as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and only constant member of the noted Los Angeles band Bad Religion, which he co-founded in 1979.

Graffin attended El Camino Real High School, then double-majored in anthropology and geology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He went on to earn a master's degree in geology from UCLA and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. The Ph.D. dissertation was officially a zoology Ph.D., supervised by William B. Provine at Cornell. The title of his dissertation is "Evolution, Monism, Atheism, and the Naturalist World-View: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology". Greg Graffin returned to UCLA where he taught Life Science 1. In a June 2008 interview with Bad Religion bassist Jay Bentley, he mentioned that Graffin would be teaching there from January to March 2009. In April 2011, Graffin revealed that he would return to Cornell University that fall to co-teach a course in evolution for 14 weeks.

"Faith in your partner, your fellow men, your friends, is very important, because without it there's no mutual component to your relationship, and relationships are important. So, faith plays an important role, but faith in people you don't know, faith in religious or political leaders or even people on stages, people who are popular in the public eye, you shouldn't have faith in those people. You should listen to what they have to say and use it."

-- Greg Graffin

"Wired Magazine came out with a big expos'e of "the new atheists". I was interviewed for it--and yet I think I was included as a sidebar but not as a main feature and I think the main reason they did that was because they noticed that I wasn't that happy billing myself as an atheist. To me it just doesn't say that much; it doesn't say much about you. Instead I bill myself as a naturalist, which I think says a lot more. Because a naturalist is someone who... first of all--they study natural science, and they have a hopeful message--I think--to send to the world, which is... we can agree on what the truth is... and it has to be through experimentation, verification, and new discoveries, followed by more verification. So... if we can agree on those terms, we can agree that the truth changes, based on new discoveries, and the structure of science is such that you can never be so sure of something, because a new discovery can rework the framework--it can reconstruct the framework of your science and you have to look at the world differently. That makes it a very dynamic and exciting place to be. And if you say "you're an atheist", it's not really saying much about how you came to that conclusion. But if you say "you're a naturalist", I think it says something. You've reached that point because you've studied science, because you believe there's a fundamental way of looking at the world that is part of a long tradition. And so, I prefer naturalist."

-- Greg Graffin