Curse the Tax Man

MOGOSOIA, Romania - Everyone curses the tax man, but Romanian witches angry about having to pay up for the first time are planning to use cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government. Also among Romania's newest taxpayers are fortune tellers - but they probably should have seen it coming. Superstitions are no laughing matter in Romania - the land of the medieval ruler who inspired the "Dracula" tale - and have been part of its culture for centuries...Romanian witches from the east and west will head to the southern plains and the Danube River on Thursday to threaten the government with spells and spirits because of the tax law, which came into effect Jan. 1. A dozen witches will hurl the poisonous mandrake plant into the Danube to put a hex on government officials "so evil will befall them," said a witch named Alisia. She identified herself with one name - customary among Romania's witches. "This law is foolish. What is there to tax, when we hardly earn anything?" she said by telephone Wednesday. "The lawmakers don't look at themselves, at how much they make, their tricks; they steal and they come to us asking us to put spells on their enemies." The new law is part of the government's drive to collect more revenue and crack down on tax evasion in a country that is in recession. In the past, the less mainstream professions of witch, astrologer and fortune teller were not listed in the Romanian labor code, as were those of embalmer, valet and driving instructor. Those who worked those jobs used their lack of registration to evade paying income tax. Under the new law, like any self-employed person, they will pay 16 percent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programs.Some argue the law will be hard to enforce, as the payments to witches and astrologers usually are made in cash and relatively small at 20 to 30 lei ($7-$10) per consultation. (1)

In Jersey, of course, witches and astrologers are licenced under the Regulations and Undertakings Law, and pay taxes like anyone else. But wouldn't it be wonderful if someone put a hex on the Treasury Minister for putting up GST, so that all his hair fell out? Maybe they once did?

Actually, modern neopaganism in Western culture, such as Wicca or modern Druidry, frowns upon curses.

Most Wiccans are against baneful magic - that is, to cause harm to another through magical means, or to interfere with another's free will.

One of the main arguments that Wiccans use is that in the so-called Wiccan Rede:

Mind the Threefold Law you should,
Three times bad and three times good.(4)

or stated as:

Ever Mind The Rule Of Three
Three Times Your Acts Return To Thee
This Lesson Well, Thou Must Learn
Thou Only Gets What Thee Dost Earn

This, also known as the "law of return" says that if you do an evil spell, it will return or rebound to you threefold, whereas a good act will also do so.

This is a far cry from Romania, or the older cunning folk traditions of Jersey and Guernsey, when curses could be given freely, in what amounted to what amounted to a kind of magical protection racket. An good example of this comes from Stephen Dewar's pamphlet on "The Evil Eye in Guernsey:

In 1914, Mrs Lake was charged by the Constable with fortune telling, interpreting dreams. Mrs Outen had asked for police protection after a spell had been cast on her by Mrs Lake condemning her to die unless she paid a specified sum (presumably a fee) to Mrs Lake. A police search by PC Lihou revealed buried six packers of powders composed of flour, brown starch, salt and baking powder.

It transpired that the previous October, Mrs Outen's cattle had died and gone to Mrs Lake who revealed (by divining tea leaves in a tea cup) that her cattle and her husband had died from witchcraft, and she was in fact under a spell. Powders were given to her to take as a counter-spell. Mrs Lake was charged not with witchcraft, but with "disorderly conduct". The Constable was amazed that anyone could believe such things in this day and age.

And yet credulity is on the increase. Just look at the sections for Tarot, fortune telling, Wiccan spells etc in local book sellers - from a small shelf tucked away in bookshops in the 1970s, it now takes up a massive amount of space within book shops. But while there have been political demonstrations against GST increases, I have yet to see any kind of action in Jersey like that taken by Romanian witches.

Perhaps 13 people should chant and move around the Royal Square when the States is sitting, because they certainly couldn't take less notice than they take of political demonstrations or petitions.

Here is a sinister incantation they could use, which I understand was used at a coven in Wiltshire, between May 22 to June 19 in 1971 by the presiding officer, a Vicar who had a prediliction for the dark arts, a certain Mr Magister:

Ymar dah a elttil bmal!
Sti eceelf saw etihw sa wons!
Dna ereh wyreve taht ymar tnew!
Eht bmal saw erus ot og!

Links:
(1) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110105/ap_on_re_eu/eu_romania_witchcraft
(2) http://wicca.timerift.net/curse.shtml
(3) http://wicca.timerift.net/laws/credo.shtml
(4) http://www.mystikgarden.com/Ethics.htm

Wiccan Bigotry

Having come across Wiccans who cannot put any posting on Catholicism without suggesting that all priests are child abusers and paedophiles, and who are generally people who "speak their own mind", i.e. have a very fascist approach to everyone who does not agree with them, it was refreshing to come across this site. It also deals with the commercialisation which plagues the Mind Body Health fairs, bookshops etc. I always cause problems at the fairs by asking if their products are ethical, i.e. are crystals obtained by strip mining (which is usually, but very damaging to the environment), and invariably they just could not care less! The sloppy scholarship is another commonplace - "the burning times" ignores where - such as in England - hanging was the procedure, not burning, and the figures are usually grossly inflated.

 

http://wwwwinterscapes.com/sannion/wiccan_letter.htm

 

"It is not Wicca that I condemn, but those who bastardize Wicca. It is the person who picks up a book and claims to be a High Priestess without going through the years of study, devotion, and discipline which make one worthy of such a title. It is the person who espouses the values of tolerance and acceptance with one breath, and then spews the worst sort of invective against Christians with the next, holding all of them responsible for the crimes and atrocities of a misguided and hateful few. It is the people who show disdain to the Gods they claim to reverence, dismissing them as mere archetypes or masks, and pretending that they would be pleased with sloppy, ineffectual, hastily cobbled together rituals. It is the people passing off their delusional fantasies and poor grasp of history as unquestionable fact. It is the people who believe that all Pagans believe the same things, do the same things, act the same way - and anyone who does it differently from them is wrong. It is the people who would prostitute their religion for a fast buck by producing poorly written InstaWitch books, spell kits, and charging exorbitant fees for classes whose content they swiped off the internet. It is the intellectual stagnation and philosophical shallowness represented by countless interchangeable Wicca 101 websites, but never anything touching on the deeper mysteries of faith. It is the ego-tripping, grandstanding, histrionic outbursts, and martyr complexes which I cannot stand. "

Govt turns to Wiccan queen to save girls

Interesting news story from India. This is the first mention I have come across of a Wiccan "social activist", normally they tend to be apolitical. Maybe change is on the way, and we will see Wiccan Aid alongside Christian Aid?

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Govt turns to Wiccan queen to save girls

By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - The government has enlisted the follower of a global pagan witchcraft movement to help curb the country's high female infanticide rate and end the neglect of the girl child, officials said on Monday.

Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, a Wiccan and social activist, has been nominated by the government's National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) to head a panel tasked with improving the status of young girls, they said.

Around 10 million girls have been killed by their parents over the last 20 years, the government says, as female infanticide and foeticide, although illegal, are still prevalent with boys preferred to girls as breadwinners.

"This is a triumph for Wicca as the establishment was against Wiccans for years," Chakraverti said.

Wicca is primarily a Western movement of nature worship based on pre-Christian traditions and is recognised as an official religion in the United States.

Like many pagan religions, Wicca practises magic. Wicca witches believe that the human mind has the power to cause change in ways that are not fully understood by science.

In their rituals, as well as honouring their deities, witches also perform spells for healing and help people with problems.

MILES TO GO

The Wiccan campaign has made inroads into several rural pockets across India and has helped raise awareness against victimising young women and girls as witches.

Authorities expect that this influence could be expanded to promote the overall well-being of young girls.

Chakraverti, who studied the faith in Canada, is planning to institutionalise Wicca in India. She has set up a "Wiccan Brigade" to stop the persecution and killing of young girls and women on the pretext of their being witches.

"Ipsita is the right person for the task as she is widely travelled, does a lot of social work and feels pain for the downtrodden," NCMEI chief M.S.A. Siddiqui said from New Delhi.

"We are still far away from improving the status of the girl child and this committee will help us reach this goal and will not make any discrimination on the basis of religion and caste," Siddiqui, a retired judge, said.

Domestic violence and sexual abuse involving young girls is reported frequently in the country and a 2006 government survey found that 45 percent of girls were married before the legal marriageable age of 18.

India's adult female literacy rate was 47.8 percent, compared to the adult male rate of 73.4 percent in 2004.

The sex ratio in the country is still one of the world's lowest, with an average of 933 females recorded for every 1,000 males in the 2001 census.

"Education of girls even in big cities was dismal and census figures show that the population of the girl child was dropping," said Chakraverti, adding that tough laws and education of parents were needed to force change."

"Most cannot complete primary education."

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-07-02T143626Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-282780-1.xml&archived=False