From: alizard@tweekco.uucp (A.Lizard)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse"
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 03:03:16 PST
Organization: Tweek-Com Systems BBS, Moraga, CA (510) 631-0615

nancyp@techbook.com (Nancy Parsons) writes:

> [cut . . . ]
>
> >Nancy, when someone makes an accusation the burden of proof is on them.
> >Until that time, we should presume they are blowing hot air.  Why?
> >Because it is too easy to raise emotion against any one of a number of
> >things with absolutely not a shread of evidence, and that leads to the
> >witch-hunt mentality we see today in both the "Satanic" thing and also i
> >other areas.

> The ultimate source of the "witch hunt mentality" that concerns you
> is fear.  We are not the only people who believe that it is possible
> to make things happen by thinking about them.  And, human nature
> being what it is, it is unreasonable to expect that every single one
> us has motives that are completely pure.  This, I think, scares some
> people a whole lot.  Perhaps those fears are not wholly rational, but
> we do very little to assuage them, or even address them, beyond saying
> how childish they are.

Your injecting imaginary (if it isn't imaginary, give us names, dates,
places!) "Satanic Ritual Abuse" into this discussion feeds the "witch hunt
mentality" among any non-pagans reading this newsgroup.

> We do have a "party line" about abuse of our power, which is that it
> doesn't happen, period.  Saying, or even implying that it does, is
> something we just don't do.  My frustration with that silence is what
> prompted my admittedly testy "axe-grinding" post.

1. What do your questions about misuse of magickal powers have to do with
"Satanic Ritual Abuse"? As far as I know, the accusations I've seen have to
do with physical and psychological abuse, not magickal / psychic attacks on
children, even the fundies aren't accusing the Satanists of turning little
kids into frogs. Just because both topics are colorful don't mean that they
are the same topic.

2. In a real situation of the sort you describe, my advice to the person who
might be under psychic attack (AFTER excluding the mundane causes, not all or
even most problems are a result of "the evil eye") would be on psychic
defense techniques, returning the attack to the sender would be sufficient as
far as doing something about said attacker goes, the fun part about psychic
attack is that a failed psychic attack can cause even more harm to the sender
than was intended for the receiver.

Your general question about people in the pagan community who misuse their
powers, both magickal and organizational on people is an excellent one, which
has come up more than once in my E-mail... there has been more than once
where I've been told about something outrageous done by alleged pagans to
pagans in the guise of religion and wished I'd had access to a pagan
organization with the resources to investigate a situation and the power to
DO SOMETHING about it if something needed doing.

Every group has its bad apples, the pagan community is no exception. What can
we do about ours? Especially in a climate where there are groups actively
willing to exploit any bad publicity created by our problem people.

Should we police ourselves, and if so, HOW do we police ourselves?

If we don't, the fundies will be quite ready to use the government to do this
TO us. On the other hand, who is qualified to set up a group for the purpose
of exercising police power over other pagans? (and if such a group could be
set up, who guards the guardians?) How can police powers be exercised over
other pagans? We don't have a monolithic community we can cast people out of,
nor an authority to do the casting. Nor is this a suggestion that we should
have one.

This topic is worthy of discussion. Please leave the "Satanic Ritual Abuse"
garbage out of this, Nancy, we're discussing real problems with real people,
not stuff out of supermarket tabloids that merely confuses the issue.

                                             Bright Blessings,
                                             A.Lizard

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