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Post by Graveyardbride on Aug 1, 2014 13:29:40 GMT -5
Pagan ‘High Priest’ Finds Few Believers Inside an Arkansas City Hall
BEEBE, Ark. – Bertram Dahl (above) is a boyish 48-year-old who was raised in rural Arkansas by a Pentecostal preacher. He is fond of wearing loose white tunics; in this land of boots and ball caps, he can seem like a visitor from Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine. His religion also sets him apart. Dahl is a self-described high priest of Paganism, dedicated, according to his website, to seeking “the truth of what came before the idea of monotheism.”
Is Dahl’s dream of opening a Pagan temple next to his house being denied because the idea does not go over so well in this Bible Belt town? Was the 35-foot-tall lighthouse across the street – constructed by a Pentecostal church soon after Dahl moved to the neighborhood – flashing its light into his windows to harass him? And just what is a 35-foot lighthouse doing in landlocked Beebe anyway?
Dahl suspects the city government began discriminating against him once local officials realized he was a Pagan. “If we’d had any inkling we’d have such problems we’d never have moved here,” Dahl said. “We’re absolutely being discriminated because of our religion.”
The mayor, Mike Robertson, contends the issue has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with Section 14.02 of the local zoning code, which limits the uses of “accessory buildings,” like the one behind Dahl’s house, where he has proposed putting his temple. The mayor also suspects Dahl is seeking publicity in order to raise donations, or perhaps lay groundwork for a lucrative lawsuit. “Do I believe he’s doing this for financial gain? Yeah,” Mr. Robertson said.
Dahl arrived in Beebe in January with his wife, Felicia, a Sam’s Club employee and tarot reader, and their two young children. The Dahls had operated their Seekers Temple for a number of years out of a trailer in nearby El Paso, Ark., but they say they struck out for Beebe, home to a branch campus of Arkansas State University, in hopes of finding a little college-town tolerance.
Before the move, Dahl stopped by the mayor’s cavernous furniture outlet, where he bought a few sofas for the new house and introduced himself. Dahl said the mayor expressed no reservations when he notified him he would be opening a pagan house of worship on the property across from the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church.
On February 5, soon after the Dahls moved in, a code enforcement officer showed up demanding they cease any temple or retail activities on the property. The mayor had issued a written decision that any permit to authorize it “for any use other than residential use is to be denied.”
In a subsequent meeting, Dahl said, the mayor told him, “You’re not going to open a Pagan anything in my town” – a claim Robertson strenuously denies.
Meanwhile, Dahl said, members of the Lighthouse Pentecostal Church, including its founder and bishop, John Scheel, began harassing him, visiting the house numerous times to ask him to convert to Christianity, warning him of the “evil trickery of the Pagan Devil” and calling his number to play gospel music over the phone. The lighthouse was built between February and April; the rotating light, Dahl said, shone across his windows for weeks.
On May 21, Dahl burst into the Lighthouse Church and complained, boisterously. A week later, he was arrested by the Beebe police and charged with harassing communications and disorderly conduct. Dahl has pled not guilty.
Jason Scheel is the son of John Scheel and pastor of the Lighthouse Church, named for an old Christian hymn. He met a reporter on a recent weekday morning in his office, which is in the base of the lighthouse building, full of Rococo furniture and a bust of George Washington. Scheel said the church had nothing against Dahl and disputed his version of events. He said his father had made just one visit to Dahl’s house, welcoming the Dahls as new neighbors. The brick lighthouse, he said, had been long in the works, replacing a wood-framed model that was destroyed by a tornado that flattened much of Beebe in January 1999. “I’m one of the biggest advocates for religious freedom that exists,” he said.
When word got out that Dahl’s case might be discussed at a June 23 city council meeting, it attracted the largest crowd in at least a quarter century. Some were Pagans who drove in from surrounding communities. The majority were Christians. Some were openly displeased about the idea of Pagans in their midst. “I don’t feel that we need a Pagan church in Beebe,” Louis Collachi, a resident, told a television news crew. “It’s a very religious community.”
The mayor told the crowd the issue was unrelated to religious freedom and he invited Dahl to meet with city officials to discuss his options. Dahl said he was told that a permit for a church might be possible if he subdivided the property and built a new building. But Dahl says he cannot afford that option. He also believes the fix is in: A few years ago, the mayor hung a copy of the Ten Commandments in City Hall. In a 2010 government newsletter, he wrote that “government has allowed nonbelievers far too many liberties taking God out of our daily lives,” according to a story in the weekly newspaper Arkansas Times.
Dahl pointed out other properties in town that are home to both a business and a residence. The mayor says that some of those are judged on different criteria because of their different zoning classifications, or because of the nature of the businesses. Others were grandfathered in before a stricter zoning ordinance was passed in 2006. Today, he said, “there’s no zoning change that would let him do a store, a place of worship and a home.”
Moreover, if Dahl wishes to appeal the mayor’s denial of a permit for a church, he would have to go before a planning and zoning commission, whose longtime chairman, he notes, is the pastor, Mr. Scheel.
For now, Dahl said, with a note of defiance, he will continue to sell Pagan items out of the garage and hold services in a room in his house.
“Everybody says he’s a Devil worshiper,” said Diana Pruitt, 55, a waitress at Waffle House. “But our Constitution tells us he has a right to worship as he sees fit.” Ms. Pruitt added that if there was a good book to which all residents should adhere, it was the local zoning code. Dahl, she said, should not be eligible for an exemption. Source: Richard Fausset, The New York Times, July 28, 2014.
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Post by jason on Aug 1, 2014 17:48:49 GMT -5
"a boyish 48-year-old," my ass! He looks like a freaking serial killer! I agree with the mayor, this freak is laying groundwork for a lawsuit. Now that he's married with a couple of kids, the pension that he scams from the Veterans Administration by pretending to be disabled probably isn't enough to take care of four people and operate a business, so he's looking for additional income and of course working to support himself and his family never occurred to this ugly-assed parasite.
When Dahl has his photo taken, he always makes sure he has his cane so that he can put on his disabled veteran act, but take a look at this video, where he went into a church and acted like a lunatic. He was so angry that he forgot his cane and he seems to be able to walk just fine:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=spEyR24OQAk |
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Post by aprillynn93 on Aug 3, 2014 14:35:33 GMT -5
I agree...I don't even see him limping or anything in the video. Looks like he's totally able-bodied to me.
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Post by madeline on Aug 3, 2014 17:53:08 GMT -5
I was visiting some friends who live near Little Rock 2 or 3 years ago and her teenage niece wanted to go to a witch store to get something for a spell she'd found in a book. We went to this weird place in a mobile home and this kooky man in some kind of dress-like gament, who I later found out was Bert Dahl, didn't have what we were looking for and tried to tell us something about 3-fold destiny, or some kind of BS like that. The spell she wanted to do was a hexing spell. He came up right behind me so close that I could feel his breath on my neck and I turned around and gave him a dirty look and the teenage girl and I went outside to the car. Later, one of my friends said that he came up behind her so close that she felt his private parts and started coming on to her. We heard a baby crying somewhere in the house and it sounded like an infant, so his wife must have just had a baby and he was making passes at other women. What a DIRT BAG!
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Post by Kate on Aug 3, 2014 23:20:35 GMT -5
I know a woman in Arkansas who knows that weirdo and she said basically the same thing that you're saying, Maddy, that he makes passes at women anytime that his wife's back is turned. She knows a lot about witchcraft and has studied it for years and she says that Dahl doesn't know sh*t from shinola about paganism or anything else, that he just makes it up as he goes. His wife works at WalMart while he sits at home and does nothing, which means that she's crazier than he is. What woman would have kids and work while their husband sits on his ass and draws a pension that he doesn't deserve? I've never known a man who called himself a witch or pagan that wasn't a weirdo and pervert. Witchcraft is for women and men should stay out of it. |
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Post by aprillynn93 on Aug 4, 2014 11:00:00 GMT -5
Eww!!!! So gross!!! Sorry you had to experience that Madeline.
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Post by kitty on Aug 4, 2014 21:15:56 GMT -5
Uggh! That man is creepy and repulsive! If he walked up behind me and touched me, I'd feel like throwing up.
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Post by Joanna on Aug 5, 2014 3:12:30 GMT -5
Bert Dahl was the reason I left Mystic_Investigations and formed our first group, MysteriesUnsolved. He personally attacked others and though he didn't send me any abusive emails, personally, I know that he was sending them to others. I remember a discussion once where someone said something about the forests in Maine and the Pacific Northwest and Dahl claimed the forests in some county in Arkansas covered a larger area than any other forest in the country. He was nuts. Once he used some very offensive language toward a teen member who was in the group and it was after that incident that the owner banned him. He was a know-it-all, who knew less than just about anyone else that I've encountered in a group, he had no tact and would lash out at people for no reason. I can understand why the people in that little town don't want him there. Later, he tried to join our group, but his name was at the top of the banned list. One of the Mystic_Investigations moderators, who joined our group, told me that he finally harassed so many people that his Yahoo! account was suspended.
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Post by jane on Aug 27, 2014 6:34:13 GMT -5
I've been reading some things about this guy and he's a parasite. It really bothers me that he lives off the government and has never made any attempt to get an education or learn a trade. If he's able to serve as a high priest, operate a website, run a pagan store, or whatever it is that he wants to do and stay at home and look after two toddlers while his wife works, he's able to get a job. There's nothing that I hate more than people who are younger and more able to work than I am living off the government. I worked until I was 63 and I'm over 70 now and retired, but I would have been ashamed to sit back and do nothing and let the government support me before I was old enough to retire. It's all about character and this parasite doesn't have any.
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Post by madeline on Sept 1, 2014 23:23:56 GMT -5
On some sites, this ugly idiot argues with people and claims that he's never had any problems with online groups. Just thinking about my only live encounter with him gives me the creeps. When I went with friends to his trailer, where he had his silly pagan shop that time, I didn't know until afterwards that he was the one who caused all the problems in Mystic Investigations. He has two or three people who go from site to site personally attacking anyone who tells the truth about him. What bothers me, other than that he's one of the slimiest jerks that I've ever met, is that he is so clueless that he can't seem to understand that pretending to be disabled and living off the government upsets people. He seems to think that what he's doing is fine, but he's white trash and that's the way white trash people think.
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Post by jason on Oct 21, 2014 18:14:19 GMT -5
On Bert Dahl's Seekers Temple crap page, he refers to himself as a "true Mountain Wizard." Does anyone know the definition of "mountain wizard"?
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Post by Kate on Oct 22, 2014 19:25:05 GMT -5
In my opinion, a mountain wizard would be some old man who lives in Appalachia who knows a lot about herbal cures and things like that and this Bert Dahl fool doesn't qualify.
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Post by catherine on Apr 27, 2015 3:16:36 GMT -5
I was reading a comments section from last year and someone called old Dirt Ball "white trash" and he couldn't understand why. He was so stupid that he actually asked the person if he was saying that everyone who lived in a trailer was "white trash." The person replied, no, just those who are "white." Anyway, here's a paragraph from his silly website:
As we try to live our Pagan life, we dream of a day when the local store clerk will not back
away in fear at the request for Bats Blood Ink or an Athame. We look at great stone buildings
and envision the day when it will contain a statue of Zeus or Odin or Isis. A day when nobody
will think it’s strange or sinful if someone comes to pray to a Pagan god. And we imagine, as
we check out at Wal-Mart, hearing the words ‘Blessed Be’ from the girl behind the register.
He talks about checking out at "WAL-MART" and he can't understand why people call him white trash? Another thing, if you go to a store that sells "Bats Blood Ink or an Athame," people aren't going to "back away in fear" because they're in the business of selling those things. Of course, old Dirt Ball is so dumb, he probably doesn't have any better sense than to go to a supermarket and ask for such things when he knows the store doesn't sell them. This freak is so stupid, I'm surprised he's able to cross the street without getting hit. Now, he's claiming his ignorant wife is an "Egyptologist." An Egyptologist is an archaeologist or a historian or linguist, who specializes in Egyptology, the scientific study of Ancient Egypt or Egyptian antiquities. His loser wife works at Wal-Mart!
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Post by steve on Jan 28, 2017 3:40:07 GMT -5
I was just reading some old posts and came across this one. Does anyone know what ever became of that doofus Bert Dahl? Did he sue the city in Arkansas that wouldn't let him open a temple in his house?
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Post by jason on Jan 28, 2017 17:18:16 GMT -5
I was just reading some old posts and came across this one. Does anyone know what ever became of that doofus Bert Dahl? Did he sue the city in Arkansas that wouldn't let him open a temple in his house?
No, he didn't sue the city of Beebe, AR, because he couldn't find a lawyer to take his silly case. He tried the ACLU, but like people tried to tell the fool when he was threatening to sue everybody, his case didn't have anything to do with Constitutional rights, it was a zoning issue. He accused the city and the church of making death threats and all kinds of crazyassed stuff, which was all a lie. When he found out the folks there weren't going to allow him to push them around, he and his crazy wife high-tailed it to South Carolina and they're now living in the house with some friend there. I couldn't find the street address of the house where they're staying, maybe Lee can find it.
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