Christine O'Donnell's alleged "little midnight picnic on a satanic altar"

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.

"What is Witchcraft?" - some suggestions to Christopher Kimberley

Here on Google/Blogspot, I recently came across a blog called What is witchcraft? by Christopher Kimberley, jam-packed with news stories, from around the world, about everything having to do with witchcraft. The majority of the news stories are about witchhunts. Some are about actual practitioners of various witchcraft traditions, and some are about ritual crimes. The witchhunt stories are primarily from Africa, as one might expect, but there are witchhunt stories from other places too, including Saudi Arabia and India. This blog has the potential to become an excellent research resource.

Some suggestions to Christopher Kimberley on how to make it more useful:

1) Add a label list to your side panel. You're already using labels on most of your posts. A label list on the side panel could serve as a topic index. (For an example, see the label list here on my own blog, on the side panel, just below the blog archive.)

2) On all posts from henceforth, use one of the following general category labels, or something similar, in addition to the kinds of labels you are already using now:

• witchhunts - for all stories about witchhunts


• practitioners - for all stories about actual practitioners of some witchcraft or magical tradition


• ritual crimes - for all stories about ritual murders and other crimes for magical purposes, or alleged magical purposes

With the above improvements, your blog could become an extremely handy and valuable scholarly and journalistic resource.

Laurie Cabot, "expert" on "non-traditional faiths"? - blooper on animal sacrifice

The news story What washed up on the Keansburg beach? by Alyssa Passeggio (Bayshore Courier, New Jersey, U.S.A., May 9, 2008) reports the discovery of animal remains along Keansburg beach, including (1) garbage bags of headless chickens and (2) bones and hooves of deer, goat, or sheep. Cops think these are animal sacrifices and have arrested two Aborishas (Santeria practitioners).

The news story mentions a similar finding last year, on which Laurie Cabot (a well-known modern Pagan Witch) is paraphrased as blaming "a ritual performed by individuals practicing Santeria, San Paulo, Voodon or Satanism."

It's possible she was misquoted. But, if Laurie Cabot really did say "Satanism" or even "Devil worship," then she's utterly wrong.

The vast majority of Satanists, even most theistic Satanists, staunchly reject the idea of animal sacrifice. (See Animal sacrifice and Satanism on my page about Animal Sacrifice on my Theistic Satanism site.)

And the small minority of today's theistic Satanists who perform animal sacrifices would be unlikely to sacrifice chickens, sheep, and goats in particular, for reasons I explain here in my longer post on my LiveJournal blog: Laurie Cabot - willfully ignorant about Satanist views on animal sacrifice?

Anyhow, I also question the cops' claim that the recent New Jersey incident, in particular, has anything to do with a Santeria sacrifice. Garbage bags seem like a very non-traditional - and not very reverent - way to dispose of a sacrifice.