Still Running Off at the Keyboard

ASSOCIATION FOR CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLORATION

or ACE, is the name of the organization that sponsors the Starwood Festivals and their winter variety of Pagan fest called WinterStar. At the website The Nation Paul Krassner has done a story on ACE titled "Life Among the Neo-Pagans". From the story:

The annual Starwood Festivals have been presented by the Cleveland-based Association for Consciousness Exploration, a group of about thirty friends, ACE's co-directors, Jeff Rosenbaum and Joe Rothenberg, were both raised in traditional Jewish homes. Rosenbaum's parents were Holocaust survivors. He calls himself a pantheistic social libertarian with a psychedelic spiritual orientation.

Krassner was one of the entertainers at the 2005 event. He speaks of the New York Festival being in "Amish country on the border near Ohio and Pennsylvania--on private campgrounds, where clothing was optional. Many women were bare-breasted, and several men and women were fully naked, a practice known as 'going skyclad'."

Krassner also points out an anti-Christian bias on the part of at least one of the Festival presenter.

"The Growing Dangers of American Theocracy" by Phyllis Curott, First Amendment lawyer, Wiccan High Priestess, author of The Love Spell: An Erotic Memoir of Spiritual Awakening: She warned of the Christian right's stealth desire for achieving "biblical law" that would require the death penalty for blasphemy, adultery, homosexuality and witchcraft. Already, teenage witches are expelled from school; Pagans in the military are harassed by religious fundamentalists; there have been public burnings of Harry Potter books; a Wiccan couple is challenging a court order that they must protect their 9-year-old son from "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

Does anyone else find it the least bit unsettling that a "First Amendment lawyer" thinks Christians want the death penalty for blasphemy? Especially considering that one of the most prominent Christians is calling for an end to the death penalty for any reason? Do people like this lawyer actually get to play with our First Amendment?

The article indicates that the founders and managers of Starwood belong to the Chameleon Club, which is also listed on the Starwood/ACE website.

ACE (or A.C.E.) appears to be active on the Wright State University campus. There is an entry listing Stefanie Hengge on the Student Organization Contact List and a Wright State website for A.C.E. as well, but clicking on the logo as the website directs produces a star-studded blank page, at least on my computer.

In any case, the mailing address for Joseph Rothenberg/ACE is 1643 Lee Road #9, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118; and the Starwood Center is located at 712 E. 185th Street (& Hiller). I asked my husband about the 185th Street location with a thought of taking a ride. His response: "Do you want to get your throat cut?" I guess there are safer neighborhoods.

According to The Virtual Jewish History Tour website, the Jewish "exodus to the suburbs continued unabated until the mid-1950s, emptying the central city, as the vast majority of Jews settled in an inner suburban ring formed by Cleveland Heights, South Euclid, University Heights, and Shaker Heights. Since my husband spent part of his childhood near Cleveland Heights, I'm familiar with at least part of the neighborhood, although it has changed considerably since I used to go shopping there. My all-time favorite Jewish bakery was located in Cleveland Heights. They had the best bagels I've ever eaten and other good stuff. Sadly the bakery closed several years ago. Gone but not forgotten.

You can read about ACE here, and the Chameleon Club here. According to the ACE website, Starwood is "America's Greatest Magickal Event." Krassner's article indicates the first event weekend was attended by 185 people, with twenty presentations and a bonfire. The 25th anniversary event drew 1,600, and offered 150 presentations and performances. There is a bio of some of the Chameleon Club members here at the links on the left. A picture of one of the rituals at Starwood shows some who are clearly skyclad if you look closely.

The Starwood Speaker Roster lists the speakers starting with the first Starwood in 1981 through 1996. DePaul faculty member Patricia Monaghan has been a regular. She appears on the list for '92 through '96. She's been doing this for a while. Also on the list are O.T.O., occultist Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, and Terence McKenna. Aleister Crowley would have been right at home if he were living today. Strange company for a faculty member of a Catholic college.

In the summer of 2003 the co-founder of ACE, Joseph Rothenberg, spoke at two Cleveland Heights City Council Meetings. Cleveland Heights, "the only city in Ohio to provide spousal health benefits to the same-sex partners of its employees" according to Gay People's Chronicle, was considering a domestic partner registry. Rothenberg addressed Council on July 7, 2003 and August 4, 2003, speaking in favor of the registry. In both instances he identified himself as being gay or having a live-in male partner. If you have the time, read through his brief comments on August 4 and note that he believes this registry, if it becomes law, may prevent a few diseases "because people will be in committed relationships where they've agreed to commit to one another." He believes "Nobody is going to become gay because we have a domestic partner registry," and that "the only thing that's really left is your fear and your prejudice." He sounds so sincere and family-oriented in these comments to Council. How could anyone refuse what he wants? Of course if they knew about Starwood...

At Starwood 2002 Shawn Eyer conducted a ritual "reminiscent of colonial era Freemasonry," and presented a workshop titled "Your Grandfather's Magic: The Esoteric Legacy of Freemasonry." Not surprisingly, Joseph Rothenberg is, or was in 2005, a Junior Deacon at Heights Lionheart Lodge 633. The Lodge spells out membership requirements here which state in part:

Freemasonry is not a religion, though anti-Masonic writers try to show that it is, and (claim it) is also unchristian. Masonic beliefs are heavily influenced by 18th and 19th century Deism and Universalism. Masons must only swear a belief in a Divine Being, but is open to any religion otherwise. No atheist can be a Mason. Many confuse this non-discriminatory policy of welcoming all religious adherents as members to be endorsing the validity of all religions. Actually, religion, as well as politics, are forbidden topics in any lodge. How one worships is one's own private business. All Masonry demands is that you do have religious beliefs to rest your moral development on.

Homosexual Pantheist Joseph Rothenberg has his own variety of "religious beliefs to rest his moral development on". I wonder if his lodge brothers know just what sort of morals he believes in? Rothenberg gives a new definition to Masonic morality. One wonders after exploring his activities if there is such a thing as Masonic immorality? What sort of immorality would be left after Rothenberg's morals have been classified as acceptable? Is there any sexual activity left that the Starwood Festival hasn't already endorsed?