Sabrina, Harry Potter, and the Web help Paganism grow

reuters ^ | June 19,2003 | Pete Harrison

[RogueIsland]

Do what you will to Harry Potter and Sabrina, but hands off of Buffy!

I'll keep my hands off Buffy, but don't expect me to keep them off Faith...

[truenospinzone]

Anything that makes teenage girls feel powerful is bound to go down well.

Well, isn't that an unfortunate choice of words...

[Dead Corpse]

They all think they visually spot demons walking around, with horns and the like.

I've run across that right here on FR. Not so suprising really. Having faith is one thing, some people take it to a level that is a mental illness though.

[Dead Corpse]

Faith schm-aith. Gimme a double helping of Charisma Carpenter. Normally I'm a red-head type guy, for her I'd make an acception.

[najida]

I can twitch my nose like Samantha on Bewitched, but nothing comes of it....~~sigh~~

[kaylar]

Speaking of paganism/wicca/et al for money....

I requested a catalog from a very well known internet purveyor of wiccan/pagan ritual items. This was in 2000 or 2001.

Oh. My. God.

Never have I read anything funnier than that catalog.

The sellers went out and bought a bunch of normal, everyday items from mundane sources, hoked up the item descriptions-and resold the items to the wiccans at a huge markup!

For example:

Remember blueing? Little balls of bleach or detergent or I-don't-know-what that people used to put in with white items? (Still do? I was under the impression that liquid bleach replaced them.) Anyhow-the catalog described them as special "good luck" balls that would wash away bad luck -and "also make your clothes brighter"!

An especially sturdy broom (more for outdoor use than for kitchen use, and which can be purchased at any Orschelin or Home and Garden) was listed as a "besom" for ritual purposes-and at about a 75% markup. Roofing nails-available at any Lowe's-were described as good luck charms to ward off evil-at about 12.00 apiece.

And so on.There were others, but those are the three that really stick in my mind.

[Dead Corpse]

My next youngest sibling tried for a whole month to get her nose to twitch like that. It never failed to illicit a humorous response from me. ;-)

[MineralMan]

"Or, if that is too difficult, how about a spell to stop a Golden Retriever from shedding????"

Wave your wand three times and say: Pilicus Stickicus!

Works every time.

[nina0113]

I was at Glastonbury, England around the time of the Summer Solstice in 92 - the locals in the pub said that if we wanted to see Stonehenge we'd better do it the day before as the roads would be closed on account of all the "Druids" (overgrown kids playing dressup if you ask me).

On the day of the actual solstice, I walked up St. Michael's Mount, which is allegedly where St. Michael threw Satan to Earth, and when I got to the top, the bearded hiker ahead of me took off his clothes (he stopped at his underwear) and started praying to the sun. I was praying too - "please God, let him be Canadian." After that the dancers in the meadow looked normal.

There are indeed some "bloody weird people" out there.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Interesting to note, these very words are in the Satanic bible, "do as thou wilt"

Gee, as if a book was needed to order people to do that. (The self contradictory nature of evil)

[HamiltonJay]

hahhahahahah Sorry, but blaming a TV show and a children's fairy tale for a rise in paganism? hahahahahaha

Its the UK for crying out loud, hardly known in the modern age for its large overwhelming ties to religion in its public life.

[f.Christian]

All hope of peace ended Tuesday morning.

"She cooked some breakfast for him, and he didn't like it . . . and he stabbed her --- a bunch of times. Not once - a bunch of times," said Pedilla. "My brother came home about 5:30. So he [Javier] was in the house all day with the dead body. And he hit him, I think, with a dumbbell."

Police were called to the home about 5:45 p.m. after a 911 call.

The mother was found on the lower level, while the father was found in the kitchen on the second floor. Both were stabbed several times.

[js1138]

First really hot Potter bashing thread placemarker. Next week ought to be busy, catching up with all the evil that's been dormant for two years.

[MineralMan]

"People who are so intellectually bereft as to adopt a "belief system" allegedly found in the Harry Potter books would be believing something else stupid absent the books. "

Isn't that the funny thing. Some folks are stressing about their kids learning "spells" from the Harry Potter books. How stupid do they think their kids are? The first time they try one of these spells and nothing happens, well...I'd think they'd figure it out.

It's a fantasy novel, folks!

[Zavien Doombringer]

It isn't Pagan, it's Hedonism.

[Xenalyte]

Exactly. Me, I'd maybe give it four or five tries, then say the hell with it.

[Dead Corpse]

Yep. That is what happens when paranoid schizophrenics go off. It's also the reason why we all worry so much about you.

[nina0113]

I've been trying to summon a house-elf for absolutely years now, and still nothing. Either that, or the one I summoned is incompetent.

[altura]

Learn to love dog hair, I do.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Nothing there about witchcraft, real or fake.