Lately, quite a bit of mass media publicity has been given to Christine O'Donnell's claim to have "dabbled into witchcraft" and "had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar" on one of her first dates.
It is clear that the "witch" she allegedly dated was not a serious practitioner of either Wicca or Satanism. As far as I am aware, no serious practitioner of any variant of Wicca or Satanism would have a picnic on one's altar.
To put her claim into context, we should note her tendency to confuse Satanism with not only Wicca but also rock fan culture. Back in 1997, in the Washington Post (15 June 1997), Christine O'Donnell made some pretty far-fetched claims about the alleged mass popularity of Satanism among young people. (See Remembering Christine O'Donnell: Praising Helms, Missing Lenny and Squiggy, and Worries of Rampant Satanism, Right Wing Watch, September 15, 2010.)
See also more about Christine O'Donnell on one of my other blogs.
P.S.: I just now posted comments (here and here) in reply to some nonsense about Satanism in the comments area of this page about Christine O'Donnell on Crooks and Liars.
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4 comments:
Hi Diane,
I have been poring through your site with interest and would like to express my thanks for you making this material available. You seem to be a reasonable and in fact ethical person, unlike some of the other satanic sects that promote elitist philosophies. I am a person who has had some direct experience dealing with satanic/religious cult abuse and so wanted to write to you in case you are interested in reading my blog. I can assure you that the prevalence of these groups is quite significant and the label of satanic ritual abuse somewhat of a misnomer, because the majority of these organizations tend towards a more syncretic religious style. My interest in this subject has everything to do with personal experience and nothing at all to do with religious prejudice, as I am actually quite inspired by many cultures that could be classified as satanic. So anyways, I suspect this will all be a bit much for you but I figured it wouldn't hurt to provide a link. The best article to start with is probably
this one. Cheers.
I've replied here, on my Wordpress blog. Please reply either there or, if you prefer, on your own blog, because this discussion is not on the topic of the post above, about Christine O'Donnell.
I remember reading that article lol
I appreciate your posting this. It would be great iof we could challenge misconceptions in the media more often. It still baffles me that in this day and age there are still so many people with such a high level of ignorance of anything outside their small personal paradigm.
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