By: Starwyn
Re: witchcradt

   Sometimes I think that it's a real shame that witchcraft and
Satanism don't live up to their media image.  Ah, the romance of
those cavernous crypts lit by massive black candles and filled with
dizzying clouds of incense!  Those robed, chanting figures, those
beautiful though damned maidens, those magnificently choreographed
circle dances and orgies!  When will I taste the mystic potion
which sends the hypnotised heroine into such erotic and
transporting visions?  Where are those ancient houses with secret
passages leading to paneled chambers with horrifying sights?  How
can I join those beautiful people dancing to the strains of
supernatural piping in a stone circle under the full moon?

   Alas, scenes like these seem to exist mainly in movies and
between the pages of books.  I've never seen anything like them in
18 years of occult experience, and friends with longer track records than mine
seem to have missed them as well.

   I once had the illuminating experience of giving a ride to a man
who was about to attend his first ritual with our group.  When I came to
his door and introduced myself as the person his friend had
persuaded to offer him transport, his eyes widened.  I don't know what he was
expecting, but what he got was an ordinary lady in street clothes with a
family type Dodge rattling in the driveway.  He gathered up a bundle of clothes
which looked as though they had been through a number of revels at
meetings of the Society for Creative Anachronism and new-looking
copies of BOTH _The Satanic Bible_ and _The Spiral Dance_ by
Starhawk, and followed me to my car, chattering nervously.  On the
way to the house where the ritual was to be held, he told me how
important he was in the Society for Creative Anachronism; how his
powers had been revealed to him in a childhood vision and how
successfully he had been warding off a series of psychic attacks by
his enemies.

   I suppose that I should not have been surprised when he didn't
know how to behave during the ritual and constantly had that "what
do I do with my hands" look which comes over people who are in
totally new situations. However, I was completely shocked when the
ritual, which I considered to be beautiful and highly moving (I had
written it myself) bored him to tears. He cornered me in the
kitchen later while I was loading my plate with the usual sumptuous
after-ritual feast (six casseroles, two salads, five desserts and
six kinds of chips, washed down with Pepsi and various
strange-looking wines).  "Are your rituals always like this?" he
asked plaintively.

   I shrugged.  "Sometimes shorter, sometimes, longer, sometimes
totally unrestrained."

   He brightened.  "Totally unrestrained?"

   "Yeah.  You were lucky today.  The High Priest kept his face
straight all the way through and Leon the punster didn't make any rude remarks.
Sometimes we end up laughing so hard we can't go on for five
minutes."

   "Oh.  Is there ever any sexual involvement?"

   "We save that for afterwards," I leered and carried my teetering
plate over to the sofa where my two favorite fellow-worshippers had
been beckoning lewdly to me.  Poor Fred!  The most excitement he got that night
was watching the more lecherous members of the group figure out
ways to hug and nibble the ears of all the women in the group while
simultaneously demolishing the food and managing not to miss any of
"Star Trek".

   Needless to say, Fred never came back.

   Recalling Fred's first and only visit to a Real-live Magical
Ritual makes me realize that the so-called "occult experts" who appear on
network and local TV and speak to parent's groups across the nation
are concealing two important and horrible truths from the American
Public.

   First of all, the experts have bought the legends hook, line and
sinker. They believe that we worship in those smoky crypts and god-haunted
groves instead of suburban living rooms and basements.  They believe that
we feast on murdered infants instead of tuna noodle hot dish and
walnut brownies, and that we don't fill our chalices with Mead, but
with human blood.  I have it on the excellent authority of Frank
Medina, a Wisconsin-based probation officer who is one of the few
REAL occult experts in the country, that it is not even POSSIBLE to
drink a cup of blood.  The acrid, caustic properties of blood make
it much more likely that the drinker would dash off to the bathroom
to be sick or even to an emergency room to have his stomach pumped
than that he would rise up filled with fervor and praising Satan.
However, the "experts" would far rather believe in legend than in
fact, and they desperately want to conceal their lack of real
evidence from their audiences.

   The second horrible truth that these stars of the Oprah Winfrey
Show are hiding from the American people is that most of the people who
inhabit the occult world are ordinary, normal, and yes, BORING.  The High
Priests and Priestesses of satanic and wiccan covens across the nation are not
pale, glamorously dressed tempters and temptresses who sleep by day in
the luxurious homes maintained by their private fortunes, then rise
as night to perform unspeakable acts of horror and perversion.  We
are nurses, secretaries, waiters, engineers, graphic designers,
college teachers, soldiers, computer programmers, security guards,
and lawyers.

   Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Average American, we have infiltrated all
walks of American life.  We might even (perish the thought) be living right
next door to you!  How can you tell who we are so that you can protect your
precious pets, children and selves from us?  Well, here are a few dead
giveaways.

1.  Most of us are well-educated.  I have seldom met a witch or a
satanist who does not at least have a bachelor's degree.  Those who
have not attended or finished college have made up for it by voracious and
eclectic reading and seldom can be distinguished from their more-educated
co-religionists.

2.  We have LOTS of books.  Not all of those books, or even the
majority of them, will be on occult topics.  Our bookshelves overflow with
gardening books, cookbooks, science fiction, mysteries, anthropology texts
and even romance novels.

3.  We have LOTS of pets.  Many of us have at least one, and
usually more than one cat or dog or other cute little creature. Mysteriously,
these pets do not usually end their lives as blood sacrifices, but are
cherished, coddled and taken to the vet as often as pets raised in Christian
households.

4.  Not too many of us were raised without the benefits of "true
religion". A startling number of both satanists and witches were raised
Catholic, and most groups include former Lutherans, Baptists and
even Jews.  A conventional religious background can even add to the fervor of
our new religious feelings, and it certainly adds to the rituals.  Unless
he has a theatrical background, it is a sad sight to see a lifelong
atheist or agnostic conducting a ritual as High Priest--he usually won't have
the experience to perform without self-consciousness or with truth
conviction as a lapsed Christian can.

5.  Those occult people have funny names like Bob and Michael and
Sue and Delores.  Certainly, you will find people named Morgain and
Rhiannon and Shadowdancer and Wolf, but you will also find that they generally
revert to their birth names outside of magical groups.

6.  They listen to a lot of music.  Oddly enough, this is seldom
heavy metal or punk music with those vicious Satanic lyrics we've all been
warned
against. Their record libraries generally contain a lot of folk music,
Beatles albums, New Age compact disks, and even jazz.  They tend to
subscribe to public radio and TV stations.

7.  As mentioned before, they eat a lot.  As many recipes are
swapped after occult rituals as after church services, and not just for
guaranteed love potions and remedies for charming off warts.

8.  People who are involved with the occult tend to be devoted
followers of Star Trek".  It is well known that almost all of the occult groups
which hold their meetings on the same night that "Star Trek" is
shown in their viewing area always finish their rituals in time to
watch the show. The reason for this is unknown.

9.  For some reason, a lot of the women have red hair.  I once had
to get up at an occult conference and announce to the group that although
Morgain, Mairi, and Maura all had red hair and glasses, we were not the same
person and would appreciate it if people would bother to learn to
distinguish us rather than addressing us indiscriminately by each
other's names.  One would perhaps think that there is a genetic
predisposition for redheads to go into magic were it not for the
fact that most magical redheads dye their hair!  (Except for me, of
course.)

10. Satanists and Witches are devoted to the Constitution of the
United States, expecially the First Amendment which preserves their
right to worship as much as it does that of fundamentalists, Lutherans,
Catholics, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus.  I once heard a
fundamentalist at an "occult seminar" reply to this argument that,
except for the fundamentalists and the Lutherans, the rest of the
people in that list were all damned and didn't deserve religious rights anyway.
 I wonder why the Lutherans were OK?

   Now then, Mr. and Mrs. Average American, don't these dreadful
and threatening occult types sound an awful lot like you and your
spouse?  That is, in fact, the most horrible truth which the modern witch-
hunters are trying to conceal from you.  If everyone knew the truth, that being
a satanist or witch can be as ordinary and normal and boring
as being a Presbyterian, then the witch-hunters would be out of a
job.   Their mission would be unnecessary, they would no longer be
able to raise (and probably skim) funds, and they themselves would
become laughing stocks.

   Do you want the world to go on being deceived by the suppression
of these horrible truths?  If not, then spread them, promulgate them, foment
them! Let the whole world know, and then maybe we can all get on
with our lives in peace and without fear.