Canada's last witch trials: Women accused of fake witchcraft
bbc.com
bbc.com
She makes an excellent point, but not the one she intended.
When done properly and with responsibility, it does not claim any accuracy when it comes to telling the future.
It's a tool that you use to have deep and meaningful conversations. The cards are loosely similar to Jung's archetypes, among other things. Modern tarot is an anachronistic melting pot of many philosophies and concepts.
You simply use the cards to investigate a situation. You may discover someone's fears or hopes through one of those conversations. You can then use this information to help them plan out their future. That's pretty much it.
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For example:
Say someone asks you about their career and you pick a card that means "shyness" at some point. The conversation then focus on the concept of being shy. Is this person shy? Could their shyness be the thing that make their work life harder?
If the answer is no, do they have someone at work that may be shy? You then talk about that.
If the answer is still no, could it be that they should be more shy? Is this person too bold? You ask this and the person gets defensive about themselves. A good reader will be able to notice this and then shift the conversation on that.
Through this discussion, they tell you that they might be too brash about one of their employees. You can then help them figure out a plan for the future, a plan to apologize or simply be more emphatic about that employee. But this person come up with the plan by themselves. You simply facilitated this discovery.
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In short, it's a tool that get people to open up to you. Some people abuse of this. They give dates, prophecies, claim truths. They pick up on the points where the person they read for gets defensive and then use this information to emotionally blackmail them.
A good tarot reader is a good listener. You should not make any claim, you are not a trained therapist. Tarot readers should allow people to discover themselves without forcing anything. They should never say "you are x and need to do y before z happens".
(This is going to be controversial on HN. Keep an open mind and be polite. I am not a professional tarot reader and decline reading for people most of the time because of the liabilities that come with it.)
That's why legitimate therapists, etc have professional associations and standards of ethics.
For the non-scammy entertainers, no need for a law whether it's real magic of pretend magic.
It is all fraud, but if we're going to be charging all people like that with fraud, then freedom of speech becomes infringed to some extent. Many of these fraudsters genuinely believe what they're doing is legitimate and isn't fraud. Many of the clients genuinely believe it's legitimate due to their belief systems.
An argument could be made that people should be allowed to spend their money as they choose and that the government should not be in the business of deciding if they're spending their money wisely. Gambling is another example.
> freedom of speech becomes infringed to some extent
Fortunately not everyone thinks that freedom of speech extends to freedom to defraud the vulnerable.
Taking the slippery slope even further, organized religion (and religion in general, but the non-organized ones usually don't harm people too badly) is a fraud. Saying that prayer will help someone recover from disease is fraud. Scientology is fraud. Prosperity gospel is fraud. Compulsory tithing is fraud.
We could make all of these things illegal, but then you're crossing into authoritarianism. Psychics and mediums are no more fraudulent than any Mormon church (Mormon churches have compulsory tithing), in my opinion. It's all woo and it's all pilfering money from the gullible and hopeful, but I don't see why it needs to be illegal.
that's largely an American concept, along with the rest of your post. please stop assuming other countries are like the US, especially laws and legal systems. it rarely furthers the debate
But this article is about Canada, which is also pretty friendly to free speech, even if it's not to the extent of the US.
Thats not free speech. That’s fraud.
Other religions or cults tend to be more ambiguous in the direct benefits donors will be receiving but often the general premise is the same.
I don’t have a problem with “altruistic” witchcraft (although I still think anyone believing in this is an idiot) but there should be protections in place against these magicians exploiting the fears of vulnerable people for money.
Having said that, is there any other kind of witchcraft than fake witchcraft?
When Christian churches tell congregants that tithing 10% saves your soul, are they engaging in fraud?
Now days it’s not mainstream, but I suspect a few preachers/televangelist has suggested such things more recently.
And, in any case, many modern churches and denominations are only tenuously connected to Catholicism of any era.
'Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the Catholic view on indulgences. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
Now, I am not saying the church selling indulgences from a specific menu of sins > prices was mainstream. But, the idea of good works on earth and specifically giving to the church being a good work was very much so. There are also cases of rather significant donations to the church connected to this idea.
PS: Note, this is about reducing time spent in purgatory, not buying your way into heaven. Purgatory was supposed to be a very unpleasant place, but your stay was going to be temporary either way.
The Catholic church today encourages giving "from the heart" without a specific tithe, and doesn't have a concept of indulgences. Mainline protestant churches fundamentally rejected the practice of indulgence. Evangelical churches are different from church to church by nature.
I assume the distinction would be that the law targets people who pretend to practice witchcraft for the sake of defrauding people, rather than people who practice witchcraft "in good faith" because they are adherents of the religion.
It seems like an obvious question for a skeptic (it's all fake) but from a cultural and anthropological point of view, what constitutes "real" and "fake" witchcraft is an interesting question. There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence linking beliefs about witches during the times of witch-trials to any particular pagan or old-world religions - such beliefs being predicated on the Christian premise that witchcraft was explicitly Satanic, and practices like fortune telling tended to persist across cultures.
The same can be said about most religious practices and superstitions. It really doesn't matter what you (or I) think about other's personal practices so long as it isn't affecting others much.
(I'd argue they all affect others, but so does any set of morals a person has whether religious or secular. Most of these don't actively harm other folks).
This article is about prosecuting people for pretending to be a witch, rather than being a witch, which people were prosecuted for in the past.
Adding some trappings let people open up because of assumed authority. Same as most religions, though I know she told a decent share of people to go get medical help.
Very similar to the Terry Prachett version of witchcraft. Worked great. Not sure how much actual magic was involved, but I'm not sure how much needed to be.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4594695/woman-charged-witchcraft-...
I'm guessing the 60k charge is against this woman's sister or mother?