She's a Witch!

Normally this is the sort of story you hear out of parts of Africa or India, not Glastonbury in the United Kingdom. But apparently developed nations are still not completely immune to this sort of superstitious nonsense. A Glastonbury woman was recently convicted of waging a campaign of harassment against a neighbor that she claimed was a witch who had put a curse on her. The neighbor did engage in some alternative religious practices, but it's not clear why the woman believed herself to be a target of magical attacks.

Hilary Joy Osborne took an obsessive dislike to Lynda Brown who was a spiritualist and taught pagan drumming and also practised Druidism, mantra chanting and Buddhist traditions. Over the course of ten months the defendant was continually abusive to her neighbour, screaming, banging on her walls at all times of night, threatened to burn her house down and threw a golf club at her.

Osborne ignored police warnings to curb her behaviour and one night the victim and her lodgers were woken by a piercing scream with the defendant shouting “you have people in the walls talking to me, take these curses off me you ****ing witch”. She also claimed her neighbour had cast spells and put voodoo curses on her and repeatedly accused her of practising black witchcraft.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Miss Brown said the defendant’s actions had left her life “a living hell” and had made her house more secure after Osborne threatened to burn it down.

Osborne here sounds seriously deranged. Perhaps things in her life were not going well, but to leap to accusing a neighbor of witchcraft and then attacking them is pretty bizarre. The court did determine that she suffers from some form of mental illness that was not disclosed, so perhaps this is simply paranoia on her part. It's just rather unusual to see it manifest in this way in a country where belief in magick is not widespread.

In other parts of the world, a story like this often ends with an angry mob storming the home of the accused witch and injuring or killing them. Fortunately for Brown, that's not the way things work in England.

Etsy Bans Non-Christian Magical Items

At least, those that include the words "magic" or "spell" in the description. The online marketplace has implemented a new policy that bans the selling of any item that is described as having paranormal powers, or even the "vague suggestion" of them. eBay implemented a similar policy awhile back, which resulted in may sellers to move their shops over to Etsy.

So now it looks like they may have to move again if they want to keep their stores online. I do understand that at least some of the spells and so forth being sold online are probably scams, which is what Etsy is trying to avoid, and of course they have the right to prohibit the selling of any class of goods they want. However, I am very concerned that they may be applying the policy in a discriminatory manner against minority religions.

While these theories are all sound, many metaphysical sellers believe that Etsy has a cultural bias against their goods. One forum user compared the sale of crystals that could be used in meditative rituals to the sale of a rosary or a cross. Both items represent spirituality, but neither make the claim that they will heal your ills or help you speak to God.

“Etsy seems to be only targeting those items of a pagan/occult nature while allowing items of certain faiths traditionally used for protection like St. Christopher medals, to still be marketed,” said another vendor in an email. “Personally I think it's probably unintended ignorance and failure to consider and think through what banning all spiritual, energetic and magickal claims will really mean.”

“Etsy seems to be only targeting those items of a pagan/occult nature while allowing items of certain faiths traditionally used for protection, like St. Christopher medals, to still be marketed.” Admins in the forums insist that the sales of things like oils, incense, crystals and candles for use in spells are still okay, as long as they don’t claim any magical properties. For many witches, however, that’s not good enough.

Against Lesbian Yogurt

Two weeks ago One Million Moms, a conservative advocacy group that numbers nowhere near the millions and admits that its members are not necessarily moms, made a splash in the media with their opposition to the upcoming television series Lucifer because they thought it made the devil look too nice. Now the group, which should probably more accurately be named A Couple Thousand Crazy People, is at it again, expressing its outrage at an ad for Chobani yogurt that depicts a lesbian couple.

Scolds like the members of this group have a lot in common with the Poor Oppressed Christians, and likely sympathize with their cause. As I've mentioned previously, the idea that the mere existence of anything you disagree with somehow represents a mortal offense is pretty much the pinnacle of false victimhood. If you are really so offended by how someone else lives their life when they have nothing whatsoever to do with you, you really need to rethink your priorities.

One Million Moms fumes that these dang lesbians and their horrifying yogurt are creating a new age Sodom and Gomorrah, right here on earth:

"Chobani should be ashamed of their latest commercial for attempting to normalize sin by featuring two women naked in bed together. The newest commercial for Chobani yogurt has two nude women in bed while one lovingly strokes the other’s foot. This commercial not only promotes same sex relationships by including two lesbians, but also same sex marriage because the two women wear matching wedding bands. The ad states, 'To Love this Life is to Live it Naturally.' There is nothing natural about homosexuality.

What does selling yogurt have to do with gay sex? Nothing at all, but Chobani wants to make the association. One Million Moms continues to stand up for Biblical truth, which is very clear in Romans 1:26-27 about this particular type of sexual perversion."

One Million Moms is asking its army of Mom Warriors to contact Chobani, “urging them to pull this inappropriate commercial immediately and remain neutral in the culture war. Also, let Chobani know that continuing to air this ad and offensive advertisements in the future will force your family to make the decision to no longer purchase Chobani products.”

Slapping Down David Icke

Yes it will, David. Yes it will.

David Icke is something of a laughing-stock among serious occultists, but a lot of other people do buy his books. Icke has basically made a name for himself by claiming that the wealthy individuals and families who by and large control the global economy are in fact shape-shifting reptilian aliens. As I've commented before, what's so bizarre about this is not that a global elite exists, but rather the idea that they can't possibly be human.

Icke also fills his books with allegations of "Satanic" activity by said elites, which as I have also pointed out here is basically ridiculous. The global elite is not made up of occultists, Satanic or otherwise. Occultism is a fringe discipline practiced by those who don't have the financial resources to shape the world at the geopolitical level. Why go through the process of developing magical powers when money can get most jobs done more efficiently?

Icke recently was forced to settle a lawsuit brought by a Canadian human rights lawyer, who was accused of seeking to suppress the author's exposure of (non-existent) "Satanic child abuse and murder" in one of his books. Needless to say, the allegations were found to be entirely false.

“He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy” were the words Richard Warman, a Canadian human rights lawyer, quoted after being paid £117,000 in compensation for lies published by conspiracy author David Icke in his 2001 book Children of the Matrix.

In an embarrassing defeat David Icke quietly settled out of court for indefensible statements he had written about Warman, which included false allegations that Warman was seeking to suppress Icke’s purported exposure of Satanic child abuse and murder.

David Icke is not shy of making allegations, often vicious and vitriolic in nature, about people on his website DavidIcke.com. However, it is noted that Icke hasn’t mentioned this recent defeat anywhere, despite having previously widely publicise it to his readers and appeal to them for monetary donations for a legal defence fund.

Exorcising Mexico

I've posted here before about Pope Francis' support for the practice of exorcism, which has been on the rise during his tenure. But what do you do if you have to perform an exorcism on an entire country? It's not like you can just tie it to a bed and dump holy water on it. As it turns out, such a rite does exist, but it's rarely performed. It's called “Exorcismo Magno” and it involves exorcists from all over the country coming together and working in concert. About a month ago, this special rite of exorcism was performed in Mexico.

The event was not made known to the general public beforehand. According to Archbishop Cabrero, the reserved character of the May 20 ceremony was intended to avoid any misguided interpretations of the ritual. But how can an entire country become infested by demons to the point that it’s necessary to resort to an Exorcismo Magno?

“To the extent sin increases more and more in a country, to that extent it becomes easier for the demons to tempt (people),” Fr. Fortea told CNA.The Spanish exorcist warned that “to the extent there is more witchcraft and Satanism going on in a country, to that extent there will be more extraordinary manifestations of those powers of darkness.”

Fr. Fortea said that “the exorcism performed in San Luís Potosí is the first ever carried out in Mexico in which the exorcists came from different parts of the country and gathered together to exorcise the powers of darkness, not from a person, but from the whole country.”

“This rite of exorcism, beautiful and liturgical, had never before taken place in any part of the world. Although it had taken place in a private manner as when Saint Francis (exorcised) the Italian city of Arezzo,” he stated.

The exorcism was prompted by recent rising levels of violence associated with Mexico's drug cartels, which seems as good a reason as any to perform a magical ritual. However, I think it's very unlikely that said violence is the result of "witchcraft" or "Satanism." I suppose from the church's perspective, the veneration of Santa Muerte, long associated with the Mexican drug trade, is the same thing - even though from an informed occult perspective it of course is not. The drug trade has always been violent, but it has gotten significantly worse since the Mexican government launched its own "war on drugs" in 2006.

Just as in the United States, all this escalation does is make the drug trade becomes more dangerous and therefore more profitable, and widespread Mexican poverty means that fewer legal economic opportunities are available. I've read in a couple of places now that one of the most damaging blows struck against the cartels in recent years has been the legalization of marijuana in several US states, because legalization makes the criminal trade less profitable.

Perhaps the Mexican government should take a hint.

Seriously, Jeb Bush Pals Around With Vampires!

And that's still not a joke.

Usually I try to keep things here on Augoeides apolitical, but every so often something arises of significance that touches on the sort of subject matter that I normally cover here. When an aspiring presidential candidate has a personal connection to a vampire - like, a real vampire, who drinks blood and everything - it's pretty hard to resist.

So I didn't.

I posted the whole sordid story awhile back, but it seems appropriate to bring it up again as Jeb Bush just officially announced he will be seeking the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election. My previous article did not generate nearly the traction I had hoped, even though I'm not that prominent a blogger. Maybe the story just seemed too weird for opposition researchers to dig into.

I'm not personally a Republican so I won't be voting for Jeb regardless, but I still believe that the guy is a complete nightmare waiting to happen and even if you are a Republican, there are better candidates you could be supporting. The Iraq War was an unmitigated disaster, whether you believe that it was an "intelligence failure" or something more sinister.

And as I mentioned in the previous article, Jeb has gone out and recruited all the same people who were involved in pushing the Iraq invasion. They're either stupid or evil, and either way, does anybody really want them running the country again? I'm convinced that even the loopiest of the other Republican candidates would be an improvement over that, at least as far as foreign policy goes.

I also am convinced that if this vampire story gets enough coverage, it will be embarrassing enough that even the Bush family's deep pockets won't be able to cover it up. Maybe that's unrealistic, and maybe the other candidates have enough questionable associations themselves that they don't want to go there.

But I can dream, can't I? Go ahead and share this one too, and maybe together we can make a difference.

Satanic Literature Strikes Oklahoma

It worked in Florida, so now it's happening in Oklahoma. A third grade teacher there distributed Bibles to students, an action that was defended on religious freedom grounds by the state's Attorney General. Therefore, Satanist Adam Daniels is asserting his right to distribute his own holy book to children at the school, a text entitled "Ahrimani Enlightenment" that teaches the tenets of Satanism.

Teaching children the tenets of Satanism, Daniels argues, is a right protected under Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt’s own legal language regarding the distribution of religious texts in schools. In an April 14 letter to the Duncan County superintendent, Scott warned of “a challenging time in our country for those who believe in religious liberty.”

“Our religious freedoms are under constant attack from a variety of groups who seek to undermine our constitutional rights and threaten our founding principles,” Scott says. “I am therefore writing to make clear that it is in fact legal for schools to allow the dissemination of religious literature and that I will take a stand to defend the religious freedom of Oklahomans.”

“Oklahomans do not need to live in fear that their government has become hostile to religion,” Scott asserts. “Schools have a right to enact neutral policies that allow all viewpoints on religion to thrive. As the Attorney General of Oklahoma, I will not stand idly by while out-of-state organizations bully you or any other official in this State into restricting the religious freedom the Founders of this country held dear.”

All viewpoints has to mean all viewpoints, or it means nothing at all. So if Scott is being honest here, Daniels has every right to distribute his book and should be allowed to do so. In Florida, Christians were so scandalized by Satanists wanting to distribute literature in schools that they eventually enacted a policy banning the distribution of all religious materials. That's probably what Daniels is aiming for as well.

The Threat to Christian Marriage

This one Christian marriage, anyway. A Christian couple in Australia has vowed to divorce if same-sex couples gain marriage rights in their country. I suppose that's really the only way to construct an argument where the "threat to straight marriage" makes any sense, but it sure sounds stupid to me. Apparently these two are so entitled that if their religion can't define marriage, they want no part of it. Either that, or they're just grandstanding for the media and will in fact do no such thing.

A Canberra couple have vowed to get a divorce, ending their "sacred" 10-year union, if Australia allows same-sex couples to legally marry. Nick Jensen and his wife Sarah believe widening the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples threatens the sacred nature of the union and leaves the door open to polygamy.

The Christian couple have been happily married for over a decade, have no intention of separating and hope to have more children. For all intents and purposes they have a healthy marriage. But in a novel protest against any successful move to legalise same sex-marriage in Australia, Mr Jensen wrote in an article published in Canberra CityNews on Wednesday that they are prepared to divorce.

Personally I favor a model of marriage in which the civil and religious components are entirely separate. You have a "civil union" that establishes legal rights, and then you can have any religious ceremony you want that a church is willing to perform, or you can skip the whole thing altogether if you're not religious. When I officiated a wedding for a good friend last year, I had to get myself registered as a "minister" with an online church so that it would be legal. That's silly. Everything would work better if the ceremonial and legal aspects had nothing to do with each other.

Let me also point out, though, that the "slippery slope to polygamy" argument really doesn't hold up well, even under my preferred model. In principle I have no problem with more than two people getting married, but the additional legal framework that it would require is massive. Marrying someone establishes them as your uncontested next of kin for all sorts of legal purposes - but let's say you're married to two people and wind up near death in a coma. One spouse wants to take you off life support and the other doesn't. Who decides?

A living will can address that one issue, but there are many others that work the same way. Marriage has a value to society in terms of streamlining legal issues precisely because you can only be married to one person at a time. The minute more than one has to be considered, that advantage disappears, which is why I think legal marriage involving more than two people is a long way off. Same-sex marriage, on the other hand, does nothing that requires a new framework because it works just like opposite-sex marriage as far as the law is concerned.