Murphy Pizza, Ph.D lives in the Twin Cities, MN, where she did research on the Pagan community (Paganistan, Ashgate:2014). She is an ethnographer, writer, and oral historian with a doctorate in cultural anthropology/comparative religion and a practicing Pagan folk religionist (read: honest-to-goodness Witch Doctor!). A longtime magical practitioner, shamanic healer, tarot reader, reiki master, ecstatic alchemist, and lover of the occult, she is endlessly fascinated with the religious and magical practices of the world. Her teaching and activist background includes art and art history, religions and the occult, anthropology, feminism, power and social change, cultural competency/humility, and racial justice studies. Her spiritual hunger and thirst for justice eventually led her to Indigenous European and American philosophies, Shambhala Buddhism, African Diaspora religions, and New Religions through the scholarship of her advisors, John Boatman, Dr. Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Dr. James Lewis; to Lucky Mojo Curio Company and hoodoo study; to Temple of Miriam the Prophetess and Jewish magical study; and membership in the Wiccan Church of Minnesota, Harmony Tribe, and the Sacred Alchemical Fire Circle in Paradise. (Not all who wander are lost.) She has occasionally been a guest-reader, guest co-host, and guest announcer on the LMCC Hoodoo Rootwork Hour. She is now forging ahead with her research to be a professional reader and rootworker, ready to turn her skills and knowledge into a practice that helps guide those in spiritual need and to ensure that the cultural transmission of magic stays vital and alive.
Rose in the Retort