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wiccans inc
This page considers cyberspace as a domain colonised by
self-described 'pagans', as a focus of anxieties about
'ritual abuse' and as a perceived dominion of satan.
It covers -
cyberwiccans
The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni Press 1983) edited by Eric Hobsbawm & Terence
Ranger noted that much 'tradition' is a recent confection,
syncretic and often distinctly commercial. Assertions
that contemporary 'wicca' or 'paganism' has strong - indeed
unbroken - links to past practice are deeply problematical,
with practitioners apparently being informed by Madison
Avenue, fantasies by Margaret Murray and schlock from
the Hammer Horror studio rather than the Middle Ages or
earlier epochs.
As with mainstream religions the net has served as a communication
mechanism: a way of linking like-minded (a cruel observer
would say sometimes weak-minded) people and of disseminating
concoctions from figures such as Aleister Crowley, Anton
LaVey and Juno Moonbeam.
Lisa McSherry thus proclaimed that
Where
once we were prevented from reaching out, for fear of
prosecution, we are now free to worship in the safety
and privacy of cyberspace. No longer are we bound by
geography in our search for like-minded Pagans.
It
is unclear whether worshipping in cyberspace is particularly
satisfactory, although interaction online presumably spares
a 17 year old wiccan from the derision of mum or dad and
is less messy than sacrificing a goat.
McSherry's cybercoven.org proclaims
This
is an exciting time to be a Pagan. We watch as borders
are erased by electronic structures, replacing out-dated
social conventions and giving rise to a Gaian entity,
and at the same time we teeter on the edge of chaos,
looking into the Abyss yet never, quite, falling into
it. We move between synthetic and organic life, local
communities and the endless, exciting, flow of global
goods with information the ultimate marker of value.
How
many wiccans are online? What are their demographics?
No one really knows. Substantial studies with an empirical
base are rare. One example is James Lewis' 2001 'Who Serves
Satan? A Demographic & Ideological Profile' (PDF).
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that much online
'wicca' is a fashion statement for the sort of unhappy
adolescents and disfunctional young adults who would otherwise
emulate their peers as a Goth, a Punk, a fundamentalist
Christian, a neoNazi or member of a Trotskyite splinter
sect. Much online wicca has a commercial flavour, with
sales of paraphernalia
or primers and promotion of guest appearances.
panics
The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s saw outbreaks of moral
panic in which the mass media reported uncritically
on bizarre claims that groups of devil-worshippers had
engaged in 'ritual abuse' featuring large-scale molestation,
torture and even murder of infants and adults.
One such claim features in Satan's Underground
(Eugene: Harvest House 1988) by serial fantasist Laurel
Willson. Patricia
Pulling's bizarre The Devil's Web (Lafayette:
Huntington House 1989) warned on pervasive satanic conspiracies
- reminiscent of 1950s US hysteria about reds under the
beds and fin de siecle antisemitism - critiqued by Robert
Hicks' In Pursuit of Satan: Police and the Occult
(Buffalo: Prometheus Press 1991) and in Evil Incarnate:
Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History
(Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 2006) by David Frankfurter.
Skepticism about the existence or supposed extent of satanic
conspiracies (and about 'recovered memory' evidence) met
with the response that police and courts could not find
evidence of plots because those officials were part of
a global web of intrigue, one that embraced all parts
of society - from plumbers and pastors to presidents and
media magnates.
Some incidents centred on trial by media of kindergarten,
playgroup and junior school operators, with an egregious
failure to respect principles of natural justice in investigations
(even prosecutions) by police and social services personnel.
A feature of recent hysteria has been assertions that
participants in ritual abuse are coordinated via the net,
with a satanic leadership making use of usenet,
P2P filesharing, email
and web sites. The absence of evidence for such assertions
- which have proliferated across the net - has not deterred
audiences who want, indeed need, to believe and who have
been receptive to nonsense such as claims that LPs (or
even CDs) played backwards will provide a hypnotic satanic
message.
Recognition of the fervour of those true believers is
evident in the fawning approach by the Australian Parliamentary
Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission in
its 2007 report on the inquiry into the Future Impact
of Serious and Organised Crime on Australian Society.
Could we expect such thanks for a group - equally sincere
- that alerted the Committee to the dangers of little
green men from Mars?
the prince of darkness
Given past anxieties that the telegraph, telephone and
radio were literally portals to Hell (or instruments of
Satan) it is unsurprising that some people have claimed
that the net is a device of the devil and - more broadly
- that digital technology is infernal.
Such anxieties are apparent in chiliastic
claims that RFIDs are the Mark
of the Beast.
They are also apparent in weirdness such as unsuccessful
litigation by Christian fundamentalist farmer George Bothwell
in 2003 against inclusion of his driver's license photo
in a central data bank. Bothwell claimed that Revelation
asserted that such use of an individual's image automatically
aligned him with Satan and warned that "he who worships
the beast or receives his image shall drink the wine of
the wrath of God". Canada's human
rights regime does not authorise non-compliance with
such law.
studies
Points of entry to local New Age belief include Lynne
Hume's Witchcraft and paganism in Australia (Carlton
South: Melbourne Uni Press 1997), Frances Chan's 2003
When Witches Came Out of the Broom Closet (PDF)
and The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan
Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1999) by Ronald
Hutton. Fundamental works on traditional belief include
Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1971) and Norman Cohn's
Europe's Inner Demons (New York: Basic Books
1975). For resources on the history of witchcraft see
the Witchcraft Bibliography Online project.
Colonisation of the net is discussed in Cyberhenge:
Modern Pagans on the Internet by Douglas Cowan (London:
Routledge 2004)
Moral panics are illustrated in Lynley Hood's A City
Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case (Dunedin:
Longacre 2001), Robert Hicks' In Pursuit of Satan:
The Police and the Occult (Buffalo: Prometheus Press
1991), Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making
of a Modern American Witch Hunt (New York: Basic
Books 1995) by Debbie Nathan & Michael Snedeker and The
Satanism Scare (New York: Aldine De Gruyter 1991)
edited by James Richardson, Joel Best & David Bromley.
Other works are highlighted here.
A cursory traverse through Google or online bookstores
and specialist retailers (wiccans have to get the crystal
balls from somewhere, although eye of newt or toe of bat
is perhaps best caught at home) reveals works such as
M. Macha NightMare's Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving
Pagan Traditions Online (Toronto: ECW Press 2001)
and Lisa McSherry's The Virtual Pagan: Exploring Wicca
and Paganism through the Internet (San Francisco:
Weiser 2002).
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