Woman charged with pretending to be a witch

[freetoroam]

4 hours ago, seanjo said:

Being a Witch is a registered religion I believe (Wicca), we had a couple a few years back lived a few doors down from us, they were nice enough, didn't do any harm and kept their "beliefs" to themselves.

A registered religion means nothing in my book in terms of what they wish to call themselves. 

If they can perform miracles or cures or extraordinary feats which defy science or can not be explained with logic...because they claim they have a gift or power due to being a witch, then i would certainly be interested, but so far its all been mind games (many not in a bad wau) and the odd 'herbs' thrown into the bowl. 

How is a 'witch' actually recognised as a witch, apart from the fact many have not qualified as a psychiatrist or doctor? 

 

[traveling_man]

11 hours ago, Nzo said:

The Human race is so entertaining. She professes that she is a psychic not a witch. She does not know who the person who called her a witch is. Well then given she is a psychic it should be easy for her to divine who the culprit is. LOL She must be a very very poor psychic. They should arrest her for fraud not witchcraft.

I recently saw a clip of what seemed to be an interview. The interviewer asked if the interviewee was a psychic, he said yes then the interviewer slapped him hard in the face and asked why he didn’t see that coming. Then he said to the camera “This is how easy it is to expose a charlatan.” It was hilarious.

[Calibeliever]

50 minutes ago, freetoroam said:

A registered religion means nothing in my book in terms of what they wish to call themselves. 

If they can perform miracles or cures or extraordinary feats which defy science or can not be explained with logic...because they claim they have a gift or power due to being a witch, then i would certainly be interested, but so far its all been mind games (many not in a bad wau) and the odd 'herbs' thrown into the bowl. 

How is a 'witch' actually recognised as a witch, apart from the fact many have not qualified as a psychiatrist or doctor? 

 

'Witch' is such an emotionally charged word in Western culture. It's just a term that can be applied to any Shaman. Wicca is just one flavor out of many, many pagan beliefs, and a fairly young one at that. Some identify as witches, others don't. Specifically, Tiffany Butch has said she doesn't identify as a witch, that label was given to her by someone else. She strikes me as a new ager who has read a couple of books and knows the names of a few crystals. She put herself in the spotlight and had no idea what she was doing, and now she's stepped in some doo doo. 

My .02 is if you are using any of your so called 'gifts' to add to someone's suffering for your own personal gain, there is a special place in hell reserved for you. Telling someone they are cursed and playing on their fears to extort money from them is unimaginably evil. I'm not saying that's what Tiffany did here because the accusation rings a little hollow, but if she did she would be done. It's a big no-no. 

Edited December 24, 2018 by Calibeliever
grammar

[XenoFish]

30 minutes ago, Calibeliever said:

Telling someone they are cursed and playing on their fears to extort money from them is unimaginably evil.

This can create a very potent nocebo effect if someone were to be especially superstitious. They would most likely fall into confirmation bias and self-fulfilling actions to further reinforce the said "curse".  Magick works, it's all psychological though.

[Calibeliever]

1 hour ago, XenoFish said:

This can create a very potent nocebo effect if someone were to be especially superstitious. They would most likely fall into confirmation bias and self-fulfilling actions to further reinforce the said "curse".  Magick works, it's all psychological though.

Absolutely agree, the power of a curse comes from someone's belief in it, whether you believe in manifestation or not. 

*snip*

Edited December 24, 2018 by Calibeliever
reasons

[cyclopes500]

I'm wondering if she's upset the Canadian and British secret services and Tessa May. Particularly as Queen Elizabeth II was involved in changing Canadian law. England has done it before. HMS Barham was a battleship sunk during WWII and we used the Witchcraft act to jail a woman. Sadly such a useful law no longer applies in the UK. We could set up and frame so many people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Duncan.

Edited December 25, 2018 by cyclopes500

[Hankenhunter]

A new girlfriend talked me into a psychic reading many years ago. As I sat there, I kept repeating, "this is stupid" in my head over and over till she was done. She just kept on with the vague generalities the whole time. My girlfriend was excited ever the reading and when I told her what I did, she said it doesn't work that way. I was single the next day.

Hank

[SHaYap]

2 hours ago, Hankenhunter said:

I was single the next day.

It was the witches' fault ...

~

[eight bits]

5 hours ago, cyclopes500 said:

Sadly such a useful law no longer applies in the UK.

Pretty much there still is. The post-Duncan charge, I am told, was mainly to clarify that religious spiritualism was not illegal (even if, being a religion, it might include the sacred rite of taking up a collection during its services. Evidently, the dead need money just as much as God does).

I think there remains some interest in overturning the Duncan conviction. The difficulty is that it seems righteous on review. It was no secret that the Royal Navy withheld notification of next of kin of crew serving on ships lost in battle for a time, in order to deprive the enemy of vital intelligence.

So, distraught parents show up at the psychic's office because they haven't heard from their son in the longest time.

Oh, your son's in the war. What does he do, if you can say?

He's a gunner on the HMS Whichever.

Any cold reader worth her fee knows how to play that; odds are the ship is lost. Alas, Ms Duncan had some high profile, sensitively placed clients. D-day planning was apace and secrecy was mission critical. Who's to say that those cold reading skills hadn't pried the fate of the HMS Whichever out of a different client who knew what had happened? What if those same skills were applied to D-day planners?

Ms Duncan was lucky enough to live under the rule of law, and found herself locked up on a charge of which she was likely substantially guilty. There were (and still are) a lot of places where disclosing military secrets during war time would likely result in a fatal accident.

But there's a difference between the US of A and its former ruler, the UK. Over here, after the war, Ms Duncan would have hired a PR firm and billed herself as the one and only psychic whom the powers that be had no choice but to lock her up. She'd have been rolling in lolly.

And as to the topic, I have no idea what the Canadian lady actually did. While it may be true that she is charged under a statute which has now expired, it doesn't follow that the acts which she is accused of performing would be lawful under the new statutory system. Perhaps only the specific charge would change (which in turn has practical consequences: what specifics the prosecutor must prove, what the sentence might be if convicted, etc.).

Legal or not, it's a dodgy business she's chosen. I just can't find many tears to shed for her inconvenience. But may justice be done.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by eight bits

[White Crane Feather]

Silly. Let people spend their money they way they want. I wonder if any of the acusers or prosecutors are Christian. I wonder if they will prosecute preachers for prospertiy gospel? 

Edited December 28, 2018 by White Crane Feather

[TripGun]

What about the crime of extortion using fear?