For anybody interested, here’s a link to a description of otherkin . It talks about the phenomena of believing that one embodies the qualities of a cat, fairy, gnome, elf, etc.
I think I first heard about this idea on the Discover Channel or History Channel. They tend to go all out with information on various types of subcultures around the world - for better or for worse (if you’re looking for any sort of understanding of the concept or even just decent categorization, it’s probably worse), they tend to lump discussions on people who identify with different animals and mythological creatures with ghost sightings, demonic possession and other supernatural phenomena. With Halloween coming up, there’s been a definite upswing in the airings of shows like Weird Travels on the Travel Channel. I expect that’ll increase a lot as the month wears on.
My phone does this all the time, and I’ve never snapped a pic of a Wiccan. There’s about a one second delay from when I push the button to when it actually captures the photo, so if I twitch my arm or if the subject moves the actual photo comes out blurred or of something different than what the preview showed. Makes taking kitty pics on my cell damn near impossible unless I tranquilize the little boogers first.
Come be Asatru. We don’t need to hex cameras; we just pull out our battleaxes, scream in berserker rage, and chop down the photographer. You don’t want to know what we do to the jerks with no cell phone manners.
So your friends believe it’s possible to hex a camera so that it doesn’t work? Gosh what an interesting belief. Do they leave out food for the pixies & carry cold iron just in case?
And an upsidedown pentagram does not mean ‘devil worshiper’, it just refers to aspects of the earth. IIRC point down is male and point up is female.
I had a Wiccan period shortly after college, and for the most part, people weren’t too weird about it. My father accused me of doing it for attention. :roll eyes: The worst I ever got was one guy at work who told me that because I was Pagan, I couldn’t believe in dinosaurs. Ooooookay. Then, there was a guy in my credential program who was just completely freaked out when I made a passing reference. He managed to keep his cool, but you could tell he was just looking for an opportunity to escape. He even asked, very politely, not to cast any spells on him.
Well, it’s better than getting burned at the stake. :shrug:
GRR. My phone does this too. It is super annoying - the preview is the photo I wanted to take but the picture itself is inevitably blurry or someone blinked or whatever. I hate it. Who decided that was a good feature?
You know when you write the word “Wiccan™”, you’re supposed to put a tm after it , since it’s a trademark. You probably need to pay royalties to the Grand Warlock or something as well…
First I’ve heard of it. I was taught that the “top” point refers to Spirit, and that most of the time, you want to keep Spirit above the four elements in your life: Air, Earth, Water and Fire, represented by the “bottom” four points. Occasionally, however, you might want to temporarily emphasize the elements and downplay Spirit, like if you’re doing personal work on, say, weight loss or building a home. In such times, you might flip your pentacle around to the de-emphasis of Spirit position.
A. No, it isn’t.
B. Even if it *was *trademarked, you wouldn’t need to put a TM after it.
Thank you for reaffirming the need for a website devoted to fighting ignorance.
Yeah, what an absurd concept—that a young post-collegiate might go through a “phase” of fascination with a trendy, recently remanufactured and repackaged pseudoreligion almost guaranteed to raise the hackles of one’s conservative, probably Christian former acquaintances, who (thanks to Jack T. Chick and the general desensitization to absurdity that is part and parcel of most major organized religions) might actually believe in the power of witchcraft, spell-casting, and other complete horseshit, simply in order to attract attention, whether negative or not.
I mean it’s not as though teens (and twentysomethings, who thanks to a generation of overcoddling appear to be the “new teens”) have ever embraced controversial ideas, or engaged in questionable practices, in order to rattle their parents before. If that sort of thing were commonplace, Dad would have a point, but since you’d be the first Hipster Wiccan on record, I’m rolling my eyeballs in synchronous orbit with your own.
Seriously, if a friend of mine thought a woman could cast a spell on a camera, I would still be asking him if he’s insane. “Are you INSANE?”, I would be saying.
