          RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT RESOURCES CENTER
          629 S. Howes
          Ft. Collins, CO 80521
          (303) 482-8487
          Hal Mansfield, Director
          August 1989

                  SPECIAL REPORT ON WICCA (WITCHCRAFT) AND PAGANISM

          During the summer of 1989, Hal Mansfield was invited and
          attended a Pagan festival (Dragonfest) located in the Colorado
          Rockies. The festival included people from all over the United
          States, with approximately 250 in attendance. He has also talked
          with numerous other Wiccans and Pagans and has done extensive
          research in the area of Wicca/Paganism.
          The following conclusions will be no doubt controversial. Keep
          in mind our center does not evaluate belief systems; that task is
          left to individuals and their own faith communities. We only look
          at the operational mechanics of an organization or group.
          With that in mind, Hal found that applying our definition of
          destructive cults, Wicca and the Pagan communities do not fall
          under the definition. That being: An organization that inhibits
          individual freedom of thought through the use of violence,
          deception and mind control. Using another model, that being Dr.
          Lifton's eight points of mind control, Wiccan communities don't
          fall under that category either. For more detailed explanation of
          these points, we would suggest reading Dr. Lifton's book,
          _Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalitarianism_.
          During the four days Hal was at the festival, he was made
          welcome and allowed to attend (or not as he saw fit) anything he
          wanted. There was no pressure, guilt, mass recruitment, or anyone
          constantly to accompany him unless he asked. There was no
          autocratic leadership, no mass orgies, or long processions of
          hooded, black robed people practicing black arts ceremonies until
          all hours of the night. Instead, there were workshops, a lot of
          music, people enjoying the great outdoors, and the rituals were
          reletively short, brightly colored, and no Devil worship. Satan
          is not in their belief system.
          A large percentage of the workshops dealt with social issues
          such as: the environment, politics, ethics and feminism to name a
          few. During these workshops, opposing points of view constantly
          came up on the issues at hand. Though debate was at many times
          heated, no one was put down for expressing themselves or bringing
          contrasting opinions into the discussions.
          Cult-related crime does occur, but we need to be careful not to
          jump to conclusions and lay blame on groups because of alternate
          beliefs. Hal feels this has happened to a large extent to
          Wiccans/Pagans. There are extreme differences between an
          alternative religion and destructive cults. Hal finds little or
          no evidence to link Wiccans to occult crime or cult cases we have
          researched or investigated. The few links are in the adolescent
          "Do-it-yourself" covens in which kids beg, borrow and steal from
          all sorts of belief systems, books, movies, etc. For more
          information on this, we would refer you to our discussion paper:
          "Psuedo-Satanism in School Systems Today." The other area is
          involving an individual's own pathological behavior. Almost all
          these persons call themselves Satanists. Satanism, whether it's a
          made-up system by individuals, an organized group, or a
          destructive cult, is not Wicca or Paganism! There is little
          similarity between them.
          Some skeptics might say the Pagan/Wiccan communities put on a
          show for Hal. He would reply that he doubts 250 people would come
          from all over the country just to put on a show for him. Hal has
          interviewed countless numbers of Wiccans/Pagans and has found the
          same findings as above throughout the years. This is not a
          comprehensive report on Paganism, only very basic. Wicca and
          Paganism are too complex to outline in this paper.
          The final thought is, when cult crime does occur, rumor and wild
          speculation are poor substitutes for good research and
          investigatory techniques. Each case needs to be handled as
          unique, not lump-sum them all together.
          As always when we publish a report of this nature, we invite
          comments, evidence and suggestions in support or in contrast to
          our findings. Permission for reproduction of this report is
          granted; feel free to share it.

          A SERVICE OF UNITED CAMPUS MINISTRY AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY

 * Origin: Sound Doctrine BBS (303)680-7209 Aurora CO  (7703/4)

