witchcraft

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:13:13 PST

The story opens with a group of girls going for dance along with a black slave(girl) in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. The slave's name is Tituba. But they are caught by a preacher, Samuel Parris when they are dancing and one of the girls is his daughter. By seeing him, the girl, Betty suddenly falls ill. Her condition becomes very worse in hours. At the same time, another girl Ruth falls ill and everyone suspects a possible witchcraft in the town.

Parris requests Reverend Hale, an expert in witchcraft to come and see through the matters. On arrival, he questions Abigail Williams who is the girls' leader about what happened on the day Betty has fallen ill in the forest. She tells him that they were just dancing. After this, she tells the other girls not to spill out anything. Then a local farmer, Proctor who had an affair with Abigail earlier comes and talks to her alone.

Suddenly Betty wakes up and she screams. Everyone goes to see whether she was really attacked by any witchcraft. Reverend Hale comes and checks Betty and questions Abigail about Betty's behavior in forest and he somehow gets doubtful about her. He then thinks of speaking to Tituba and she tells him that they talked to devil. She is joined by Abigail and Betty in saying that many people of the town talk to devils. Proctor and his wife has an argument over Abigail. Proctor's wife asks him to tell everyone that Abigail is bad.

Proctor goes to court along with his maid who accused his wife of following witchcraft. She knows the truth behind the girls' actions in the forest and she says that she is ready to say that in court. But the girls come and accuse Mary of following witchcraft. This provokes Provokes to tell the judge about how manipulative Abigail is and to tell him about their affair. He also tells that his wife knows about it. Then his wife is brought in and upon questioning, she lies that her husband is good person. This makes the judge to announce that Proctor is a liar.

Then the girls again accuse Mary as following witchcraft and as she doesn't know what to do, she tells the judge that it is Proctor who is following witchcraft. He is then arrested.

It is a very confusing story and people can not really understand it in one time.

Harry Potter

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:39:42 PST

The Harry Potter series has become incredibly famous and popular. Some people hail it as a great thing since it has gotten many of kids actually interested in reading again. Others have decided it a wicked and evil thing and should at all cost be kept from kids. The people that condemn Harry Potter are usually either Christian or catholic. They claim that Harry Potter is an evil and vile thing because it contains witchcraft. They site the old testaments view of witchcraft in supporting their beliefs. They also claim that it's a tool of Satan to lure children at an early age into witchcraft and draw them away from the Lord. Personally, I believe all these views are biased, misguided, full of fallacy, and plain hypocritical

There are plenty of other books out there that contain witchcraft and magic in them, yet religious leaders don't attack them. Plenty of our fairy tales contain mentioning of magic, but those are a perfectly acceptable thing to read to our children. Most of the fairy tales that contain magic are aimed at a much younger demographic than those of the Harry Potter series. If we take the same reasoning that we take with Harry Potter, than we should all get together and have a good old fashion book burning and try to undue the damage that has already been done.

When it comes to the issue of Harry Potter and Satan using them to draw young kids into witchcraft and away from the Lord, it makes me want to hurt myself since the whole idea is riddled with fallacies. The “witchcraft” in Harry Potter is completely different from that of real witchcraft or Wicca. Many followers of Wicca itself denounced Harry Potter since it gives people a false portrayal of what it really it is. Anyone who compares the witchcraft in Harry Potter to Wicca. is either functionally retarded, or knows nothing about the book series at all except that is contains magic and is popular.

That brings me to my next point, Harry Potter's popularity. I think that's one of its main reason it's been attacked by religion and religious leaders. Religion has always condemned what's popular. Look at rock and role, people thought it was the end of our youth. Same goes for comic books, radio, and TV. The church has always feared what's new. Its always had an opinion on what popular and new, even it doesn't concern them in the least bit.

Many people will defend Harry Potter with the morals and good teachings it possesses If you've even. Some people however, twist this defense into an offense. The people who do this have it ingrained into their very soul that Harry Potter will give birth to the end of the world and inspire the some young kid to eventually become the anti-Christ. They say Satan puts this small grain of truth and morality in it in order to deceive us even further. Honestly, if these people weren't condemning Harry Potter, they would be condemning something else, these people are just bigots.

What really makes me sick about the people who have nothing better to do than to condemn Harry Potter, is that they are hypocritical. They condemn Harry Potter because it contains Harry Potter and turns the morals and principals it teaches into seeds of the devil's deceit. Yet they praise Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia because of their Christian symbolism. If you applied the same reasoning to these series the one they do to Harry Potter, then we ought to build a time machine, go back and time, and stone Tolkien and Lewis for such blasphemy. Because following this logic, they are even worse. They dare to mix Christianity with witchcraft and sorcery! Hypocrites I say!

Most of the arguments people present as to why Harry Potter is wrong and evil are either stupid, full of bias, or full hypocrisy. So we should either start concerning ourselves with something more important than warding of the so called evils of Harry Potter, or get to work on a time machine.

Why Was Harry Potter Really Written?

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:03:35 PST

Many people like Harry Potter, magicians, warlocks etc, but is it really harmless fantasy? No!

Harry Potter is sugar-coating and enticing young people into witch craft. The dangers and evils of witchcraft are very real. I am not suggesting we go out and start another massacre like the Salem Witch hunt. I am simply writing this article to inform those who may not know the true nature and purpose of the Harry Potter series.

It was written to indoctrinate unsuspecting young people into the practices of Paganism and witch craft. Instead of going out and buying your child the latest Harry Potter book or film, stand your ground and say no. Don't just say no, instead say no and explain to them why you are saying no.

Wisdom begins with knowledge. Ignorance makes people blind. I say we should educate children so that they do not blindly follow the wolves to the slaughter.

Above and Below the Iceberg: The Story of Young Goodman Brown

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:50:49 PST

Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author whose works cover most notably the lives of Puritan Americans, touches upon both the nobility and the social shortcomings of this eccentric and oppressive culture (by today's standards). In his story "Young Goodman Brown", he tells of the dreamt journey through the woods of one such Puritan, to a meeting with the arch-nemisis himself.

By interpreting the dream as both Goodman Brown's conscious and unconscious mind (each of which come into play within the dream) it is possible to assert a number of conclusions this allegorical tale alluded to. Among these, one could say that the Puritan Culture caused an unavoidable hypocracy both personally and communally. It is no secret that human's have the capacity of great good, and also great evil, and throughout our lives we struggle figuratively and between these two forces.

By constructing a society in which each person is expected, without leniency, to conduct themselves in perfect concordance with the spiritual doctrines of the time, you come to the inevitable dilemma due to humanity's "sinful" nature. Without the opportunity for redemption, socially and spiritually, it is small wonder that Goodman Brown, a man of most probably exemplary humanity, is driven to near agoraphobia.

Consciously, throughout the story, Goodman Brown verbally and mentally enters into a state of denial against the images of pure evil that he is exposed to. When told of his father and grandfather's sins, he unshakably denies them, "We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness" (56). Consciously, he continues to hold steadfast in his beliefs, and in his faith, even with the revealing that both the Minister and his Deacon were participating in this Black Mass (61).

However, if one looks at the symbolism of the events that occur inside of the dream, a different picture beings to make itself visible. Freud stated, "It is ... necessary to observe tht our doctrine is not based upon the estimates of the obvious dream- content, but relates to the thought-content, which, in the course of interpretation, is found to lie behind the dream. Dreams do not directly allow themselves open to interpretation, rather, are subject to condensation (compression, conflation and omission of dream elements) and displacement (shifting, emphasis).

Freud even went as far as to say that our conscious mind attempts to reject messages put forth in our dreams, we repress this knowledge. In Goodman Brown's case, the Witch Festival was merely a symbol, in which he himself was thrust face first into the knowledge that on some level all men are inherently capable of evil deeds, and no man can be called sinless. Even his very wife, whom he holds in such high regards, was villanized in this dream. "...they [were] partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and in thought, then they could now be of their own" (67).

This subconscious realization, relayed through the dream, was (even as Freud said would be), completely denied by the conscious self of Goodman Brown. The guilt of others hung so heavily in his subconscious mind, even greater than his own. As his subconscious self continued to reveal his own knowledge that the entire human race was sinful by nature, "Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny," (65) Goodman Brown continued to push deeper into denial, ignoring the obvious implication that he was equally as filthy as those around him.

The scene of dire importance lay with the moment Goodman Brown discovered the pink ribbon which belonged to his wife. In his moment of despair he too is brought to a "...a vent[ing] of horrid blasphemy..." (62). But this slip, this dark moment of complete and total hopelessness, and the significance of such, is lost on the conscious Goodman Brown, but perhaps not in his subconscious.

Though continuing his life of denial as "[a] stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man..." (68) shows a psychological break down in the screen that Goodman Brown's mind had placed in front of him. It revealed to him the natural sinfulness of man, but in a very Puritan way, denied him the ability to see the hypocracy of such unsound judgment upon his fellow man. And while outwardly he chose to ostracize his community, inwardly the message that his subconscious attempted to deliver was still festering.