expertise, continued

Music: Between Interval: Radio Silence (2007)

My apologies for not posting for some time; I've been swamped/overwhelmed. I did recently post about a couple of guest editors for a Southern Communication Journal special issue on Katria, but then deleted that post because I didn't want some of the folks implicated to get the shaft. The short story on this is that good scholars everywhere should boycott SCJ, period. I've got two articles in it, but in the past three years the journal has really gone downhill, and has been treating authors very, very poorly. Let me repeat: don't send SCJ your work. Or, at least, if you're a graduate student don't send them your work, because when it's rejected after six months you won't get any feedback.

[Later edit 10/19/07: Dr. Mary Stuckey is taking over SCJ, and has expressed some concern, as have others, about my call to not send work to SCJ. I am personally very fond of Mary and have no doubt she will be an excellent editor. She is a top-notch scholar and I suspect has little patience for unprofessionalism. Nevertheless, my issue has nothing to do with any one person; my concern is about leadership structure and Southern organization, a structure that permitted this disaster and let 40 scholars flap in the wind for more than six months.]

But I digress.

A few days ago I was sent the paperwork for my first case as an occult expert with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Of course, I cannot make comments about the specific case, but it's pretty safe to say that it is interesting. For the filing, there is upward of 300 pages, most of which I can read and comprehend (without a law degree)! What's even more interesting, to me at least, is that I can see the validity of both sides of the case. As I continue reading, both those who brought suit and the defendants are earnest. I am charged with making a report, which will require some days of research. I know all of this is vague, and it needs to be, but here's the challenge: occult belief systems have exploded in the past twenty years. There is, for example, no one "Wicca" but many Wiccas. I know a lot about Wicca circa 2000 . . . Wicca 2007 has morphed and changed so much that I now have to "read up" on what's new. There's a post here on postmodern religiosity, but bedtime is nearing . . . .

On this tip, I received a voice mail message today from a defense attorney involved with an exorcism case. I don't know the details, as I was unable to reach him, but: I never dreamed I'd be a consultant on occultism when I listed that as an area of interest on my UT webpage. I certainly never thought I'd be tapped as a consultant on exorcism---until Inside Edition came calling last year. I regret I didn't land that interview, now (I passed them on to an expert in New York, a Jesuit). Today in my Rhetoric and Religion class I lectured on Satan in the New and Old Testament, in preparation on our next case study: demonic possession. Exorcism is increasing as a practice again, and much like it did after The Exorcist debuted in 1973. How do we account for re-arrival of this practice?

I'm unsure. But I do know this: if I had originally set out to be a paranormal and occult investigator/expert, I'd have work today.