Witchcraft gets a Logic Trapido

DemonSpawn

Date:
14/01/2010

Ah, after all this time... and you thought I was finally gone!
Actually there is little that can shock, shake or stir me to action these days. Since we elected the Zoooma! I have seen little to raise my ire to the point of action. Until now.

Oh, yes, there is a site with the words "thought" and "leader" and on the same line is the name "Michael Trapido". The irony! If the editors only knew how old his thoughts really are. I think they actually inspired the principles around which the Spanish Inquisition came into being. That's pretty ancient. Anyway, if you want to see what the guy stole from the Catholics and projectile-vomited back at us an age and a half later via this wondrous invention of the space age we enlightened folk have dubbed "the net", you can go to http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/traps/2010/01/13/make-witchcraft-a-criminal-offence/ but I have to warn you, the responses to the article are actually better reading and less grating on the senses. Those governed by one's morality, love of freedom and quest for independent thought. Which means accountants and Christians will love the article itself.

In any case, I thought that most of the people who responded - and there were quite a lot with the same theme - had a good point. Ban witches so that innocent people don't get accused of being witches and then stabbed to death. Using the same logic, we should then (and I'm drawing from the responses here - lovely!) make being black illegal to protect people from racism, make homosexuality illegal to protect people from gay-bashing, and (this is my personal favourite) make Judaism illegal so that no-one becomes a target of Antisemitism.

Aw man, I think this is one hell of a logic torpedo - or Trapido - right up the ass of our Constitution! I'm sure there is something in the Law that allows this guy to be sued for publishing hate speech and inciting discrimination. Anyone?

The point that old anal Trapido made that I would like to address is a simple one. Being a supposed former criminal attorney, did you ever read the Constitutional Court's explanation for why they will not reinstate the Death Penalty? You said, Michael, "The only alternative being the introduction of the death penalty for any party who commits murder based upon the premise that the victim is a witch."
That sounds like it came from a first year Social Science student. "The only alternative"? Are we only killing people who kill people believed to be witches? What if they, by some slip or accident, are advised by their criminal attorney not to admit that the murder was motivated by the belief that the victim was a witch? Will the courts just go, oh, well, if that's the case, we'll just give you the usual slap on the wrist and you'll be out in six months including time served?
And aside from all of that incredibly full truckload of bullshit, one of the first things they teach you in Legal Studies 101 is that the Death Penalty has been debunked as a form of deterrent. And that is one of the primary reasons for the decision of the Constitutional Court back in the mid-90's. Or did you only practice law before democracy? From your viewpoints and spectacular lack of enlightened reasoning, I would guess so.

My response to that thorough abortion of thought leadership is this:
I think the first and most important step is to rectify the root problem. That is, what black people call "witchcraft" is nothing like what is practiced by those adherents to Western Witchcraft or "Wicca". Since the majority of this country consists of black people, who have been brought up to believe that witchcraft and umthakathi are one and the same, a minority of Pagans within a minority of whites will not register on the radar unless we (Pagan witches) take steps to have this communication at cross-purposes fixed. That means a lot of lobbying in government, lots of social awareness and educational public relations campaigns over an extended period of time, and finally, once everyone is on the same page, and the greater aspect of individual rights has been protected, we can fully begin to address the problem of murders of innocents accused of being abathakathi. This of course means we have to also address the origin of the use of the word "witchcraft" in South Africa, since this is an English word, and clearly not an accurate translation of umthakathi, which is a form of spellcasting not reliant on the same aspects of Gaia that are used in the Western practice of witchcraft. "Witchcraft" as a term was used as a means to alienate black people from their traditional non-Christian occult practice, and I think it has been incredibly successful. As I always say, the first and most insidious sign of colonialism was the importation and imposition of Christianity.
But I digress. Once the incorrect use of language in translation has been identified and given its appropriate status as hate speech and propaganda, we can move forward with the decades and generations worth of public education which can maybe in the future at some stage bring things into their correct perspective and perhaps then people will think for themselves with compassion and enlightenment.

Well, it all starts with a good idea, no?

As usual, my parting words are something along the lines of: think for yourself, question everything, do not give in to fear.
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Reading from The Bedside Book of Beasts (or: Our bodies, our adversaries)

Jantar

Date:
12/03/2010

One of the books I'm reading at the moment is Graeme Gibson's 'The Bedside Book of Beasts'.

Here's a quote from it:

"Once we discarded animal spirits and adopted anthropomorphic Gods, we began to thank them [for the food] – and by implication, our selves – instead of the creatures who gave their lives to feed us. This shift served to depersonalize our relationship with the meat on our plate, in the same way that technology later depersonalized the killing of the living beast.”

There's much more really good stuff in the book, so go out and buy a copy when you're done here, if you can.

Anyway, I was reminded of that quote when I read the following nit of nonsense in today's Guardian:

“A member of the New York's legislative assembly has introduced a bill that would ban the use of salt in restaurant kitchens. The ban's proposer says it would give consumers the choice about whether to add salt to their meal. Restaurants trying to sneak a bit of sodium chloride on to the plate would be fined $1,000 every time they were caught."

We've come a long way, haven't we? We moved from those Lascaux caves, where we left those beautiful drawings on the walls and now we send out rockets into space – but we've become very strange in the process: So far removed from our ancestor bones and our ancestor souls that we think we're no longer part of nature.

Which is probably why we inhabit and treat our bodies as if they were our adversaries and why we have such a deranged and unhealthy relationship with our food.


Okay, one more quote from Gibson's book before I go:


"Now, of course, few of us thank anything or anyone for the gift of our food. Which in the light of industrial agriculture seems appropriate: it would be adding insult to injury to offer thanks to a battery hen or turkey, considering the horrors we've inflicted upon it.”



Glob-a-Log