America is Under a Spell‽

Presented by ^Rev.Thom Potter

The following is composed from conversations I have had with fellow Americans who are as concerned about the trouble in our High School as any other. these people are from alternative cultures of faith or culture. Fear can be a deadly animal. It turns gentle souls into a mob, an animal with 10,000 heads and no brains. Even police are a fraid of the mob.

"Several students described the Trench Coat Mafia members in similar terms: they wore their trench coats every day, no matter the weather, even in class. Under the coats, they dressed in black from head to toe-military berets, T-shirts, jeans, combat boots. Red shoelaces and the occasional Confederate flag patch were the only departure from the dark theme." -- Quote from Marc Fisher

2 kids … … … …
30 bombs … … … …
13 dead … … … …
No one knew … … … …

What's wrong with this picture?

Eric Harris 18, Dylan Klebold 17. Two children.

Answer me this, Klebold and Harris stored and created weapons in their own houses. How? Why?

Answer me this, the parents never noticed the bombs and rifles. How? Why?

Answer me this, the parents never suspected anything, never noticed. How why?

Answer me this, Klebold and Harris were able to bring the bombs to school, unnoticed. How? Why?

Answer me this, Klebold and Harris were able to plant the bombs at school, unnoticed. How? Why?

Answer me this, 13 children are dead, 10 others wounded … … … …Why?

What's wrong with this picture.
Who is to blame?
Shall we blame the music industry?
Or do we blame those who buy the cd's?
Shall we blame the television industry?
Or do we blame those who watch?
Shall we blame the video games?
Or do we blame those who play them?

The answer to all these questions is no. We don't blame the children that watch Friday the 13th, or play Double Dragon. We don't blame those who listen to Marilyn Manson. We blame those who don't know where reality begins, and fascination stops.

There can be only one explanation:

A spell has been cast upon the United States.

From The Wren’s Nest, based on a Story told in the Detroit News

Thanks in part to the popularity of the Harry Potter books and to television shows such as “Charmed” and “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch”; everyone in America knows what a spell is. Spells are something cast by Witches. Maybe even by a whole coven of those Witches. Witches and spells are linked forever in the American psyche-sort of like ballots and chads.

Only the million or more Witches, Wiccans and Pagans that reside within this country didn’t cast this one.

Take a bubbling cauldron of mainstream religious arrogance, toss in a pinch of two-thousand-year-old stereotyping, add a dash of governmental indifference and top it all off with a measured dose of bland media platitudes and what have we brewed up?

If two young people dress in black, they are teased and taunted at their school and presumed to be “Goths” and interested in Witchcraft. (They weren’t.)

And if these same two young people then one day decide to go to that school with some guns and kill several of their Christian classmates (and themselves), the media just can’t get enough of it. This week at TWV (March 12th-19th, 2001)

You Call It Easter, We Call it Ostara Pagan Summit Releases Details to Community Pagan Essays for March 2001 Now UP Which Came First? The Bunny Or The Egg? The Mists of Avalon promos look promising New Pagan Zine: Asian Pagans Monthly Open Statement To President George Bush Pagan Census The Seasons of the Witch 2001 Calendar Planner Pantheacon Pagan Convention - a review by D. Jewel St. Michel Wendy Rule to Visit America Music Press: Gaia Consort Recording in Full Swing Bardic Circle at WitchVox Continues: Faerie Elaine of the Silver Stream offers “The Lady of the Lake” Patrick Ginnaty offers “Sirens” and blackQueen offers “Silentium”

Every written and spoken word takes on new meaning. Every aspect of their home life and school interactions are scrutinized. Every pundit on every talk show and every editorial writer from the New York Times to the Rocky Mountain News has a theory, a commentary or a soaring inspirational piece about the tragedy. And in the end, a new Christian martyr, Cassie Bernall, is the subject of a book and the name “Columbine” is forever branded into American history.

And we learn that guns don’t kill people; people kill people.

If a young girl dresses in black, she is teased and taunted at her school and presumed to be a Goth and interested in Witchcraft. (She was.) And if she resolves not to go to school one day with a gun, but decides instead that she will simply end her pain by taking her own life, well — that doesn’t make her book material really; it makes her just another teen suicide.

What may make this case different from the first is that twelve-year-old Tempest Smith’s tormenters are the Christians. And their weapons of choice were not guns, but “Christian hymns”.

Will the notebooks and computers of Tempest’s classmates’ be seized and searched now? Will their CDs be examined for subversive anti-Pagan lyrics? Or will their parents be questioned about their family’s prayer life at the local police station? Will they be sued for not exerting proper parental control over their vocalizing offspring?

“The last thing we want to do is make our students feel guilty,” said Lincoln Park Middle School Principal Robert Redden. “But, maybe there is a lesson to be learned here: that we should strive to treat each other with more kindness.”

No, it doesn’t look like Tempest is going to be elevated to Cassie Bernall status anytime soon. But, “maybe” she will make an interesting lesson plan.

“Gunman targeted Christian girl because of her beliefs.” BIG story there! And why not?

“Christians targeted girl because of her beliefs”. No big story there. And why not!?

And we learn that Christian hymns don’t kill people; children of another religion who can no longer endure being mocked with Christian hymns day after day kill themselves.

And Pagan shop owners like Jamie Cain of Walker, FL, aren’t driven out of towns by Christians marching into her place of business and shouting bible passages, such as “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”, either. Christians don’t actually perpetuate hate crimes against Pagans; they just don’t want “that kind” in their town of pretty white churches.

And we learn that one person’s death threat is just another person’s scripture passage.

No big story there either. No CNN Crossfire. No Larry Ling Live. No “Breaking News Story” on MSNBC or Fox.

America must be under a spell.

What other reason could there be for the lack of incensed Democratic congressmen and women showing up on every television talk program decrying the rising tide of intolerance directed toward their Pagan-American constituents?

Why else would the great liberal editorial voices of the New York Times and The Washington Post not be lifted up in outrage?

What else would prevent President George W. Bush from calling for an official investigation — or at least calling Tempest’s grieving mother to offer some sort of comfort?

And what else can possibly account for the eerie silence of the American people — a people who swear to uphold the rights of liberty, freedom and justice for all — when confronted by the hidden hatred that haunts Pagans — and hunts gays — and eliminates the names of black voters from the rolls.

America must really be under a spell.

And it is a spell that only real Americans can break.

A Question of the Nature of Hate:

Is there any order to the chaos of life?

Over and over again I ask myself if this is the way it is supposed to be. People hidden because the world cannot accept them or that they really don’t accept that people are allowed to have veiws other than their own. The world will never accept others who are not like them.

Don’t missunderstand me when I say this though. If you look around some of us do it also. I have come to realize this in the vampire community also.

Other groups that complain of non-acceptance but go on to degrade and put down people searching for the same thing.

Please I am not posting this to make anyone here mad.

Will the world ever learn not to turn their back on their fellow man, their fellow woman?

But seriously does anyone understand what I am trying to say out there. I can’t understand how a mother or father can turn their back on their own child either. I think people in this world have lost the communication and understanding that it takes to be human.

Too many times I have seen people turn their backs on each other because of their differences but we all have our differences and to be so pompuse as to think that one persons way is the only right way is silly. I am guilty of it also, is this part of human nature also? If it is how do we change our own nature.

I am really afraid to send this because I really do not want to anger anyone here. You have all been very kind and understanding.

… … … …Sorry for the rambling … … … …

Michael