Posted on 10/31/2006 3:31:47 AM PST by SkyPilot
SALEM, Massachusetts (Oct. 31) - She brews potions, wears flowing black caftans and says she can speak with the dead and cast spells with a gentle wave of a wand.
Laurie Cabot is a proud witch , and she's fighting for her civil rights.
At age 73, the official witch of Salem says her craft is stronger than ever, as she sits in an overstuffed chair behind a pink table where she does psychic readings -- and where, she says, spirits of the dead often "pop through."
"I can't see them with my eyes, I just know they are there," said Cabot, whose cheek is tattooed with a spiral and whose long gray hair, streaked with black, covers her shoulders and much of her back.
"They talk to me and tell me things that no one would know. And of course the person I'm reading for is either totally shocked or they end up crying a lot," she said.
Cabot says she became the first to openly practice witchcraft in Salem, a historic New England city made infamous in 1692 when young girls accused servants, neighbors and relatives of being witches. As fear, bigotry and denunciation spread, 19 people were executed before reason prevailed. (I am surprised they didn't bring Gay Marriage into this sentence).
As Cabot prepares for her busiest season, the Wiccan New Year of Samhain that falls on Halloween, she is doing something she hasn't done in nearly two decades -- fight publicly for the civil rights of witches.
In between psychic readings and running a shop that sells everything a witch needs to get started, Cabot is mailing letters to civic leaders across Massachusetts warning them of the legal perils of portraying witches as grisly old hags.
Posters hung on government property of witches as haggard women on broomsticks or as green-faced outcasts with an evil glint in their eye could lead to defamation lawsuits by witches protesting what they see as violations of their civil rights.
"If they don't protect us and take care of us like everyone else, then they could be sued," said Cabot, who in 1986 founded the Witches League for Self-Awareness after the filming of "The Witches of Eastwick," a movie witches said made them look "stupid."
In the 1980s, Cabot waged a letter-writing campaign to major newspapers and television networks explaining witches are not Satanists, do not practice evil and follow a peaceful pagan witch religion, Wicca, which is legally recognized.
After that burst of activism, she returned to her main passion -- her witchcraft and her shop. "I handed over the work, the letter writing, to another group, but all these years they have done nothing, so we are starting over this month."
"I'd like to canvass the whole of the United States, city by city, and give every official this law memorandum," she said, producing a white four-page pamphlet on the constitutional rights of witches.
In one section, the pamphlet quotes from a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that reads: "While there are certainly aspects of Wiccan philosophy that may strike most people as strange or incomprehensible, there mere fact that a belief may be unusual does not strip it of constitutional protection."
She also wants the military to let Wiccan soldiers have faith symbols inscribed on their government-issued tombstones.
In 1975, Massachusetts' then-governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed Cabot the official witch of Salem, a city synonymous with witchcraft.
Today the city teems with an estimated 500 to 1,000 practicing witches and pagans. Shops that sell Tarot cards and magic supplies line its streets, which swell with tourists leading up to Halloween on October 31.
A "Dairy Witch " parlor sells ice cream. Shops such as "The Broom Closet" and "Angelica of the Angels" conduct "psychic channeling." There's a "Salem Witch Museum," " Witch House" and a " Witch Dungeon."
"This is looked at as fantasy land in the pagan community," said Jerrie Hildebrand, a witch and an ordained minister with the Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan organization that provides counseling and spiritual services. "We refer to it jokingly as the rent-a-witch season."
In 1975, Massachusetts' then-governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed Cabot the official witch of Salem.
Movies don't make witches look stupid. Witches make witches look stupid.
Surely that won't apply to ex-wives?
She doesn't age well....
It's all that cocaine over the years.
Is that now "Hate Speech?"
From the article:
Today the city of Salem teems with an estimated 500 to 1,000 practicing witches and pagans.
Hey - what a good looking witch in the photo above, huh?
Maybe trying to get a government sanction "quota" for the group? Standard press talking points invitations? Preferential Affirmative Action scholarships at schools?
what if they actually are ugly?
Like most people who are "fighting" for civil rights this woman is really fighting for special rights.
She already has every right I have. What she wants is to use for force of law to require that people give her respect and acceptance.
darkside ping...
LOL:) When I saw the lady's pic, that's exactly whom I thought of.
"I can't see them with my eyes, I just know they are there," said Cabot, whose cheek is tattooed with a spiral and whose long gray hair, streaked with black, covers her shoulders and much of her back.
"They talk to me and tell me things that no one would know. And of course the person I'm reading for is either totally shocked or they end up crying a lot," she said.
BOO! hoo....
NIV Deuteronomy 18:10-14
10. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft,
11. or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.
12. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.
13. You must be blameless before the LORD your God.
14. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.
NIV 2 Chronicles 33:6
He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced sorcery, divination and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.
NIV Micah 5:12
I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells.
NIV Galatians 5:19-21
19. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
20. idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
21. and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances!!
Burn her!
Yeah... Sure...
It's that BEHOLDER thing.
You don't happen to have a pic of the witch from the Holy Grail, do you?
(Or maybe BEER holder...)
And in the same proclamation he declared his wife,Kitty,to be the official witch of Brookline (their home town).
Back in my pizza delivery days I made a delivery to a psychic studio. As the witches were counting up their money I looked around at the paraphernalia in the room and could feel the evil just oozing out of the walls. after I left I was rubbing myself down, as if wiping slime off my arms.
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