Busted Halo » Anthony Chiorazzi

Still Chanting, Still Smiling and Still Hare Krishna

Anthony Chiorazzi — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 07:05:17 +0000

Kusha Devidasi gaped in horror as her cat moved in for another kill. A vegetarian, Devidasi had tried everything to get him to stop devouring God's feathered creatures, even putting a bell around his neck. Nothing worked.

As the latest victim struggled in her cat's jaws, Devidasi -- a recent Hare Krishna convert -- turned to her budding faith for a miracle. She chanted, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna; Krishna Krishna..."

Suddenly, her cat let the bird go. "And he just flew away," she says. "My cat never freed a bird before. Never." Two months later, when she turned 18, Devidasi moved into the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) ashram in Hawaii.

That was 1969. Wearing a colorful sari and swaying with the music at a recent festival at the Los Angeles ISKCON center, this self-described former "motley hippie" with nose ring says she still hasn't lost her '60s groove and passion for Krishna. "My body may be older, but my soul is still adventurous and young in Krishna."

In the Land of God and Gullah

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:30:58 +0000

“You sure you want to drive out there?” an 82-year-old farmer warns when I stop to ask for directions on a dusty, rutted road in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. “Ahead are the Gullah islands,” he says, shaking his head. “They’re a peculiar people with mighty mysterious ways.” As I voyage over a gauntlet of [...]

The Last of the Shakers

Anthony Chiorazzi — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:59:44 +0000

Strolling along a quiet farm road, flanked by 19th-century white clapboard buildings, Frances Carr is an endangered species in a threatened habitat. She is one of the world’s last Shakers, a member of a pious separatist community that boasted 6,000 members and 19 settlements in the 1800s. But today only three believers remain at the [...]

The Zarathushtra Effect

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:21:39 +0000

His admirers claim he was the first to teach monotheism, the existence of heaven and hell and the final triumph of good over evil. Plato and Aristotle revered his wisdom. Raphael included him among the world’s greatest philosophers in his The School of Athens fresco. Some scholars insist that he had more influence on Western [...]

Southern, Proud and Pagan

Anthony Chiorazzi — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:33:21 +0000

Tom Cornwell had a secret stashed in the ottoman of his Savannah, Georgia, home. A former Jehovah’s Witness elder and minister for 20 years, he worshipped the Egyptian goddess Isis. Cornwell, 62, thought his secret was safe — until his devout Jehovah’s Witness wife announced she’d found his cache of witchcraft books. Cornwell (not his [...]

Godless in Alabama

Anthony Chiorazzi — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:09:21 +0000

A red Hyundai with a Darwin fish and an "atheist" license tag eases up to a fast food drive-through window in Huntsville, Alabama. A van pulls up behind it. Five children slip out, line up along one side of the car and chant "God loves you" and "Praise Jesus." The kids scramble back into the van, congratulated by a high-fiving mother.

Blair Scott — the 38-year-old, cherub-faced man in the red car — still chuckles about it a year later, joking that the kids yelled "god-scenities" at him. The quick-to-laugh Scott shrugs off the negative attention — which also includes 75 hate emails and at least one death threat a week. Scott is the founder of the largest atheist organization in the state, the North Alabama Freethought Association (NAFA) in Huntsville.

In 2004, NAFA had two members; today it has more than 200. Scott says that a decade ago, three atheist organizations in Alabama floundered, but now 10 thrive. "Atheists are on the rise in Alabama. But we may not be what you think," he beams.

Blood, honor and the fair weather goat

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:23:16 +0000

He should have honored their ways. When a county health inspector threatened to press charges against the members of Oyotunji African Village in South Carolina for scarring themselves in a tribal ritual, members of the village performed an ebo, or animal sacrifice, to one of their deities, asking for help. “The following week,” says Bale [...]

Uncorrupted Christians?

Anthony Chiorazzi — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:57:17 +0000

When Shuvael and Matanah Hebert sold their upscale, four-bedroom home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to join a controversial Christian commune called the The Twelve Tribes, friends and family said they were crazy. But seven years later, the middle-aged couple insists that they have no regrets, despite sharing bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a washing [...]

Almost Amish

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:29:53 +0000

Joseph Miller says he likes driving Italian sports cars, drinking tequila and partying all night—and, oh yeah, he’s an Amish teenager. “But that doesn’t mean I still can’t get up early to do a mean cow milking,” he jokes. On a remote Pennsylvania farm road, Miller opens a secret compartment in his buggy, revealing the [...]

Of God and Ghosts

Anthony Chiorazzi — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:26:22 +0000

Young lovers hear inhuman growls when they stroll past it. Passing tourists feel tugs at their shopping bags, but when they whirl around, nothing is there. Teenage thrill-seekers take photos of it and delight in the beast-like faces that show up in empty windows. The abandoned Gothic mansion at 432 Abercorn in Savannah, Georgia is [...]

The Navajos, Peyote and Jesus

Anthony Chiorazzi — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:35:49 +0000

Raymond Lewis, a retired mechanic living in the Navajo Nation in Arizona, tucks away his rosary and rises from kneeling and praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary in his living room, “Tonight, I take peyote and maybe see the Mother Mary,” he says. Lewis, a 67-year-old full-blooded Navajo, who preferred not [...]

Saved By Sedona

Anthony Chiorazzi — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:23:51 +0000

Yvonne Draper came to Sedona to kill herself. With a ruptured disc in her back, a hip that slid out of the socket, knees and ankles that constantly went out, Draper was in chronic pain. Also burdened by personal and financial setbacks, Draper was ready to give it up in the place voted by USA [...]

Latter Day Differences

Anthony Chiorazzi — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:30:38 +0000

“You’re not true Christians,” shouts the barrel-chested 43-year-old Lonie Pursifull to a group of Mormons passing through Temple Square, the world headquarters for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Salt Lake City, Utah. “You’re not following the true gospel of Jesus Christ. You’re liars. You’re of your father—the devil.” Pursifull pastors the [...]

Cool, Young and Mormon?

Anthony Chiorazzi — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:34:34 +0000

Bushy haired, scruffy and wild-eyed, a punk-rock singer bellows out the words to an irksome tune. Blaring throughout the campus, the singer’s lyrics laud the virtues of environmentalism. Students stop to enjoy the music and many even dance, punk-style, in front of the singer’s stage. The event could easily have taken place at UCLA or [...]

From Cross to Crescent

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:21:47 +0000

As a girl in Catholic school, Khadijah Rivera dreamed of becoming a nun despite the fact she feared Jesus. She was frightened by her church’s bloodied statue of Christ nailed to the cross and was plagued with fear when receiving communion. “When I used to put the host in my mouth,” she says, “I never [...]

Kosher Kabbalah

Anthony Chiorazzi — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 03:26:57 +0000

One rabbi who studied it grew crazy, one died and another became so bewildered that he lost his faith. According to Jewish tradition, the study of the Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism is not only powerful but also downright dangerous. “Woe to the person who says that the Torah shares with us plain stories and mundane [...]

Sympathy for the Devil

Anthony Chiorazzi — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:33:27 +0000

Syn Holliday is a family man with three young children, a loving wife and a suburban home next door to a devout Mormon family his children regularly play with. He’s also a Satanist. Holliday leads one of the largest satanic covens in the Los Angeles area, the Syndicate of the Five Points. Donning dark clothing [...]

Gay, Proud and Pro-Life

Anthony Chiorazzi — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:47:48 +0000

Steve Cook flinched as a heckler hollered, “You’re a traitor to the gay community.” One of the signs Cook held read, “Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians,” and the other “Killing children never advances gay rights.” Soon others joined the chant of “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” Cook was participating in the second-annual Walk for Life West [...]

Buddha in the Barrio

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:50:27 +0000

Thomas Ward agonized over a choice: should he cheat death by ditching his research or forge ahead and prepare to die? He decided to prepare to die. From 1993 to 2000, Ward, a professor of anthropology at USC, spent nearly every day hanging out on street corners, back alleyways and apartment complexes with members of [...]

Murmurs of the Soul

Anthony Chiorazzi — Tue, 23 May 2006 02:57:57 +0000

David Allen’s parents wanted him to see a psychiatrist. Why? Not because he was depressed, taking drugs or getting bad grades in college but because he wanted to convert to Christianity. Allen is one of several Jewish-Christians at the University of Southern California who belong to Chaim, a new Christian organization on USC’s campus that [...]