I can't take your pagan conference seriously when you've still got presenters and gatherings associated with and inspired by "mists of avalon", given the awful, terrible, horrible things we now know about marion zimmer bradley and her husband. I see no difference between that sort of material and anything related to harry potter being at pagan conferences. Both are fabrications, both are written by horrifically vile people, both act as flypaper for the worst possible people on the planet, and neither of them have contributed anything of any worth to a. the destigmatization of people who are identified as 'pagan' and b. the promotion of pagan spiritualities as legitimate belief systems that aren't arbitrary cults of personality intended to sell books to a captive audience.
Do you want to contribute scholarly work to the discovery of heretofore unrecorded and "lost" pre-christian spiritualities? Do that! Do you want to cast a critical eye to commonly accepted accounts of historical figures? Do that! Do you want to create a modern polytheistic nature-based spirituality that's diametrically opposed to contemporary patriarchies? Do that!
But don't take a mishmash of a sex pest's fictional work, big-tent 'generic celtic' deities, a feeble attempt at running an exclusive travel agency, and roll it up in a blatant attempt to create what amounts to an inverted gender version of the equally odious and insipid 'mythopetic men's movement' that went on to birth a thousand incels.
