NMR ISSUE 17

Astrological Forecast 17
Diving Beetle
Editorial 17
Epilogue
Hymn to the God
It's the End of the World as Your Know It
Lady of Light
Letters 17
Love and Magic
Lover, the Feeling and Love, the State of Being
New Age Scapegoat
Our Constitutional Rights and Education
Qabalistic Explanation of the Parts of the Soul
Seth, Witchcraft and a New Definition of Magick
The Oldest Magick
The Sacred Wheel
The Wiccan Christ
Understanding Your Dreams
What is Quabalah?

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Our Constitutional Rights and Education

Witch RLT, Myjestic Order

This is a dramatic story from the life of a very experienced and highly respected Crafter. Let's hope such events are forever in the past!

When I was a child, a well-educated person had an 8th grade education. Few people had this, not because they were not smart enough, but simply because even children had to work to help feed the family. Then things began to change. The Law enforced schooling for children. All kinds had a chance to get an education. Then Our Constitutional Rights" took new meaning. Not that this changed anything—no way. But people learned what rights we had in this new land, and that we are to be allowed worship as we please. This is the greatest right that we the people" could hope for. Here is a true story to prove it. I will not give names, dates or places in this story. This is to protect the later generations from any embarrassment.

When I was a child, about eight years of age, I had a best girl friend. One weekend she would stay with me at my house, the next one I would stay at her house. We told each other our deepest secrets—here is where I fouled up. I told her about my family being Wicca. And the word witch really got her attention. I told her where we worshipped and what dates and of course all about the full moons and instructions in the religion. She swore by her heart that she would not tell, but as soon as I went home she told her parents. Her parents, of course, told the rest of the people in our community, and they decided to burn us out. That night about midnight, a messenger came to our house and told us to run. Every male of age, in our community was on his way with torches aflame. My mother grabbed up the case with the book and working (ritual) tools, while dad grabbed my baby sister.

By then, the men were in sight, but we managed to hide behind the fence row. They were screaming, hollering and cussing as they broke up our house—the doors, windows and the like. They went in and took what they wanted. Then they went back outside and poured kerosene over the house and set it aflame with their torches, still screaming like a bunch of crazy people. When at last they left, we ran down the fencerow till we came to some trees. We had to stop for awhile, till we could see a light far out in the trees. Then we scurried towards it, being very quite and careful, till we could see it was the man who had come to meet us to take us to another state. When we got to the next state we got on a Greyhound bus and traveled through more states. Three states away from where we left, we stopped and made our home for while.

Those people who did this awful crime were all uneducated. They really believed that we were against God, against Right, that we did all the gruesome things that people had written. They didn't know that our religion had, and still has, such a strong belief in karma. They didn't know that we would not do anything against another living thing, and certainly not spill the blood of another human being.

Since then, people have become better educated. We don't have to hide and be so careful about who knows what about us. The people know that we are a religion, and most of them know that we do not believe that a deity called the Devil even exists. And they further understand that we know evil does exist, and that it comes from within the evil doer's own mind—that it is the evil doer who is creating it, not the Devil. That Mr. Man doesn't exist now, nor did he ever. People have only themselves to blame. And it will be the evil doer who pays the karma.