Witches Take Pagan Message To School Children

mark · Witches Take Pagan Message To School Children

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Witches Take Pagan Message To School Children
By Robert Mendick

The Pagan Federation has appointed an Essex comprehensive school media studies teacher as its first youth manager - to educate teenagers about witchcraft.

Ralph Morse, a 44-year-old "witch" from Colchester and member of the local Silver Wheel coven, is producing an information pack about paganism and witchcraft for distribution to inquiring youngsters.

His appointment has caused anger among Christian groups who describe Mr Morse's role as "dangerous". The local MP will raise the matter this week with education bosses.

Mr Morse freely admits to participating in naked initiation ceremonies and to casting spells. He believes that all humans possess untapped psychic powers, which can be unleashed through worship. He says all spells cast by Pagan Federation members are used only for good. He will use his position as youth manager to counter the "misleading" information about pagans and to steer youngsters away from unscrupulous internet sites which may, he says, be luring them into satanic cults and devil worship.

Pagans, who predate Christians by several thousand years, worship a multitude of deities, based mainly on the seasons and harvests. Paganism is enjoying a modern-day revival some 500 years after the witchfinder general first began killing suspected witches. There are an estimated 100,000 pagans currently practising in the UK.

Kate West, a 42-year-old witch and vice president of the Pagan Federation, has just received an advance from publishers HarperCollins to write The Young Witches Handbook. Television programmes such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, with viewing figures often topping two million, have fuelled its increasing popularity.

Mr Morse, whose wife Carole is a high priestess, was appointed following a surge in inquiries to the Pagan Federation which represents the interests of its 7,000 members.

He will not distribute information to children under 16 without parental permission first. "This is not about indoctrination," said Mr Morse, who teaches at the 1,300-pupil Shenfield High School in Essex. "We are being reactive to the needs of society and its young people.

"Over the last couple of years the number of inquiries from young people has increased dramatically. As a teacher I am already concerned with the protection of minors. There are thousands of internet sites out there but there is unfortunately a lot of misinformation and bogus people."

He denies he will preach, convert or recruit youngsters and has discussed his new role with his school bosses. But local MP Eric Pickles has promised to raise the matter this week with Shenfield High's head teacher.

"If he is a youth manager but his job isn't about attracting youths [to paganism], then what on earth is he doing?" said Mr Pickles, a Conservative frontbench spokesman on social security. "He is obviously a person children are in regular contact with and therefore I am going to take the sensible precaution of raising this with the head teacher to see if we can lay some guide rules down."

Father Leslie Knight, the local Roman Catholic parish priest, will hold a meeting with parishioners next week. "We should be promoting Christianity and not things which go into witchcraft and magic," he said.

Doug Harris, spokesman for the Reach Out Trust, a Christian group which helps people involved with the occult, said: "Paganism opens you up to a supernatural power that cannot be controlled. It's dangerous to encourage young people."

laura

isn't that just typical... denounce something because you don't know or understand it...!.. what is so wrong about being informed? people can then make an informed choice..
with statements like that from people with a bit of power..it makes you realise why the witchhunt started in the first place...ggrrr! (p.s. i acknowledge all religions, but practice none)

mark

Father Leslie Knight, the local Roman Catholic parish priest, will hold a meeting with parishioners next week. "We should be promoting Christianity and not things which go into witchcraft and magic," he said.

id like to have been there .....

david hobbs

Did the federation not realise that this was bound to be the response.

I think campaining pagans make just as ridiculous figures as campaining Christan's.

Having said that I feel that all beliefs should be freely spoken about in schools.

An ex regional head of the federation used to sit in my circle. Sadly he died from a brain hemorrhage aged 40. He was sincere and dedicated to the federation and ceartainly not over the top.

They are very anti Christian though, so to me just as bad as each other.

meiah

I'm in two minds about this.

One is that teenagers have so much exposure to "witches" in books, films etc that they are bound to have questions, and to answer them in a realistic way is not a bad thing....in fact it may breed some responsibility.

The other mind (the closed one) is that it is virtually impossible to stop under 16's getting hold of information, without parental permission, and that this could easily lead to more bad press, and misinformation.
There has got to be a better way.

billy nomates

this is terrible!!!!!1
christians have never killed anyone,robbed,stolen,plundered,invaded another country, massacred the locals -held them at ransom-stolen their property and gold-raped the women,burned someone at stake because somebody said they were a witch.......

christians are the salt of the earth and just smile and sing all the time......

it is disgraceful for our children to learn this wicked pagan religion!!!!!

Raymond

I fell out of favour with the Pagan Federation some years ago. There's too much clawing up the ladder for my liking.
The thing is, it's like anything else. If these kids want to find out about something then they will anyway.
Actually I'm not very happy with all this because the kind of thing the PF promote is watered down Paganism.
Most members of the PF are Wiccans and even then are the 'fluffy bunny' variety.
This will always be a problem because paganism is such a fractured belief system that it's difficult to emcompass everyone's beliefs.
The PF doesn't speak for me and my style of Witchcraft.

evergreen

I don't think religion has a place in school no matter what it is unless it is taught as this is what is out there... not this is what is right

david hobbs

Raymond

That's all very cuddly wuddly Mr. Hobbs but to be quite honest I really couldn't give a s**t what other religions do or don't do. I just don't want them forcing thier misguided belief systems onto me.

billy nomates

brainwashing children/people should not be allowed...but religion has been used to control the masses by vested interests and the followers are too blind to see that they are merely pawns......

i dont mind if people want to be idiots but when it impinges on my life it annoys me.It amuses me that vicars and priests lecture on life when in many cases they actually have very little life experience to draw from....
ie they become ministers at an early age and get free accomodation etc

meiah

There is a difference between understanding others religions, and actually believing them.

No, I don't like it when the Jehovahs Witnesses and Plymouth Brethren knock on the door, but I do ask for literature which explains exactly what their religion is, so that i can make an informed decision (so far I haven't been given anything

)

I don't dismiss religion out of hand just because it doesn't do anything for me. I do honestly think that in most there is a grain of truth which has been obscured over the centuries.

No, I don't like the way that religion has been used to control others, but that is true of many things.

But I do think that to dismiss something that I do not understand would be closeminded of me in the extreme.

As for whether children should be taught religion, I have no problem with them being taught comparative religion, and then should they with to take it further in later life, they can do.

evergreen

religion to me is like a drug ..it can be addictive -

we dont go around saying here try these drugs so you know what they all mean ...

knowing about a religion or not doesn't make you any more open in my mind ...

who here can say that they understood religion as a child because they were openly taught about it at school? Well I can' all I know is what you learn at school it generally in the form of THIS IS RIGHT TO LEARN AND KNOW AND BE.... and that is why my kids dont' do religious education ..

my beliefs are governed by me and my experiences how can anyone teach me how to get in tune with my own beliefs in a disipline government education system- basically all they are interested in is teaching me what they would like me to think not how to think.

Raymond

It isn't a question of being 'open' or 'closed' minded, it's question of just not being interested.
If some bloke knocked at my door and wanted to explain the joys of train spotting to me he'd be told to sling his hook because I'm just not interested.

As far as I'm concerned, the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims have got it all horribly wrong because all thise religions are made up of stolen Pagan concepts anyway.

If a Buddhist or a Hindu knocked on my door then I may be interested but any of the others would get the door in thier face.

I'm just haven't got the time or patience to listen to man-made, fake religions.

david hobbs

I love it. Reading the posts that is.

Mostly anti religion and every other sentence starting with I believe or I think.

Perhaps we are all religious and don't realise it.

Good god

What am I saying.

Most pagans that I know are just as closed minded as most christians that I know.

laura

evergreen

If you think back to religious education of young children there is little or no choice it is something they are told is right or wrong.... children are impressionable and adults are meant to be "right" and even if you tell a child it is their choice what they believe they are likely to believe what the adult says until they are old enough to understand and make up their own minds.

Often by then they are often too indoctrinated in religion for this to be an open minded prosess - hence my referrence to drugs- we dont 'teach children not to take them by giving them to them... we teach them about the harm they can do. Basically I am not handing my kids smokes and saying now try this and see for yourself how good or bad it is... I refrain from giving them smokes and teach them the ill effects. I am indoctrinating them against cigarettes .... if I was to smoke in front of them it would lessen the effect of my message against smoking

Now is that as clear as mud?

billy nomates

PERTINENT POINT DAVE.......BELIEFS!!!!!!!!!

Why do people have beliefs?
somebody said there was a bloke called jesus........
another said an the archangel gabriel came down to an illiterate saudi and dictated his canon.......
others said that moses was lectured by the one and only god..........

why do people believe ?
it is just ridiculous..........
the only way to find out if anything is true is to experience things individually...........i meditate and use some shamanic means to explore the unknown.what i have been shown i can say is true-for me- and not for anyone else...........

I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANYTHING............all of our behaviour has been inherited or learnt(maybe uconsciously)from someone else..........

we can be guided but the truth lies within each of us and not in a book!!!!

Raymond

david hobbs

Do you think that anyone is truly open minded?

Kas

Raymond

No of course not. Everyone has certain subjects they would refuse to know more about if the opportunity arose.

billy nomates

i am open minded ......there are billions of things i dont know........
so i will listen..i will then decide if the new information suits me and then either use it or reject it..........if someone wants to talk about things that we do not find interesting then i would say that is down to choice not a closed mind..........ie i train with an opera singer (for the technique).........but i cant stand most opera and have no interest in learning any.........

with religion i have looked at the bible,koran,torah etc..........
some have truths .others are just pants!
i prefer kabbalah and crowley..

Raymond

stardust2

They teach islam in schools and the catholics do not complain about that.They even teach islam in catholic schools.

Raymond

They have to SD2. It's part of the national curriculam. I'm sure it's not by choice.

evergreen

what is that all about why is religion taught in schools anyway... I have my kids removed from religious education much to the schools horror .. in the last school my kids attended eventually they removed the kids who were to go to religious educations...hahahaha not eh ones who were not to have it.. I love instigating change... now in this new school once again people are asking me why and trying to convince me that its only an hour a week it means nothing.... if it means nothing then why do ti in the first place

beantighe

Precisely.

When I was at school, we weren't taught about any other religions, just Christianity, and it stuck in my craw when I observed what hypocrites the teachers we had were. They were nasty individuals,believe me, all 'Don't do as I do, do as I say'. It left a very nasty taste in my mouth. I even had a run-in with the RE teacher at my middle daughter's school, when he humiliated her in front of the class, and she came home crying. I didn't pull any punches, and told him exactly what I thought of him, and said he wasn't fit to be teaching Christianity!

matt

Raymond

Yes I agree with what you say Matt but I really don't agree with religion being part of schooling.
It's left wide open for abuse. Children are very impressionable and it only takes some religious nut like Mr. COC to get his hands on them and that's it.
On this subject I think the French have got it right. Religion should be kept out of school.

sheelanagig

Back in the mid 60's my mom became a mature student, and went into training to be a teacher.
One of the subjects she chose was relgious studies.
She like myself had been brought up as practicing catholics.

During her 3 year studies, for her religious studies she decided to embrace and find out about all religions.
For her final year exam she chose Witchcraft as her topic.
She did it from the angle that witchcraft and paganism was as valid a way of life as any other religion. :)

She got top marks for this study.
She still has her work in a black folder covered in delicate black lace on which she embroiderd a lovely spiders web and the word witchcraft.

I have my mother to thank for standing up to the family and not sending me to a catholic school which unfortunatly my cousins had to endure.

matt

Raymond

I disagree, I actually think it encourages ignorance.

Just last week my nephew's school was closed down in honour of Eid. This is a Church of England school I might add where the majority of kids are white and christian.
Still, the do-gooding headmaster decided to close the school for the day to respect the beliefs of the few Muslim children that go there.
This is the same headmaster who hasn't allowed a nativity play to be performed at the school for the past 3 years.

That's the kind of abuse I'm talking about here, do-gooding lefties thinking they're 'doing the right thing'.

The up-shot of it all? Now most of the parents are up in arms because their children had to miss a day of schooling because of a religion they do not practice. The anti-Muslim feeling currently at my nephew's school is rampant.
The teachers are teaching them about Islam during the day and the parents' are refusing to allow them to do the Islamic homework in the evening and telling them it's wrong, and I have to say - I agree with the parents.
They are church of england, why should they be doing homework about Islam????
Fair enough, skim over it, learn of it as a comparative religion but to actually be given homework assignments? It's just wrong.

matt

Thats not Religious Studies though just a stupidly PC head teacher.

Raymond

But it still open to abuse.

In a perfect world there would be no religion or politics in school. Politics would be impossible to irradicate. An individual teachers' political stance will always come into the subject they are teaching.

When I was at school I had a very far-left History teacher. She never taught anything about British history unless she was slagging it off in some way. We spend two whole terms learning about the Irish potato famine and of course the whole thing was the fault of the British. She even went as far as to say that the British were largely responsible for the start of the second world war.

Politics will always creep in but I see no need for religion to play a part. And it isn't just 'perfect world' wishful thinking. Like I said, a non-religious curriculum works perfectly well in France.

evergreen

evergreen

david hobbs