Messages In This Digest (4 Messages)

1.: Fwd: [PantheanCommunity] 30 days of advocacy against Witch-hunts - M From: Rev. Alicia Lyon Folberth

2a.: File - Do NOT Send Invitations to other Groups.txt From: Witch_Essentials@yahoogroups.com

3.1.: File - Warning about Grouply.txt From: Witch_Essentials@yahoogroups.com

4.: CDW 3April 2011: Beauty and Darkness From: Blackbird

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1.: Fwd: [PantheanCommunity] 30 days of advocacy against Witch-hunts - M

Posted by: "Rev. Alicia Lyon Folberth" PantheanTemple@aol.com halfwolfie

Sat Apr 2, 2011 6:26 pm (PDT)

-----Original Message-----
From: rev_alicia_lyon_folberth <PantheanTemple@aol.com>
To: PantheanCommunity <PantheanCommunity@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Apr 2, 2011 6:30 pm
Subject: [PantheanCommunity] 30 days of advocacy against Witch-hunts - March 29 to April 27 2011

30 days of advocacy against Witch-hunts - March 29 to April 27 2011

R.I.P. Vela Nogemane (9). Hacked to death. A victim of a witch hunt.
30 days of advocacy against witch hunts - Day 6.
Because accusation isn't proof!

For more information please visit http://tiny.cc/qrkcr

Please consider supporting this campaign by downloading the campaign's International Letter of Protest from the link above and sending it? Thank you.

Is it true ?

REVIEW: Witchcraft accusations and human rights abuses in Africa

Download a .pdf copy of
Witchcraft accusations and human rights abuses in Africa

* International Letter of Protest
Download in .pdf / Download in .docx

Witch‐hunts have become epidemic throughout Africa. Although witch‐hunts have historically been viewed as gender specific, with a large percentage of victims still identified as elderly and solitary women, recent reports show that victims of witch‐hunts include both women and men of all ages.

Witch‐hunts on the African continent are largely motivated through localized forms of religious extremism by practitioners of traditional African religions who believe that witchcraft is the cause of misfortune, traditional healers (including diviners, herbalists, 'witch‐doctors') who use various forms of divination to point out suspected witches, and charismatic revivalist Christian religious leaders (pastors and prophets) who use their prejudicial notions of witchcraft as a manifest form of satanic evil to encourage their followers to find (accuse) and convert suspected witches.

The words witch and witchcraft are used predominantly as an accusation throughout Africa, either to describe a number of clearly defined traditional religious practices that do not self‐define as witchcraft, as well as a number of variable urban legends perpetuated by religious leaders and traditional healers to identify women, children and men who are not actual Witches.

In rare instances where alleged confessions of being a witch or practicing witchcraft are made by the accused, reported testimony is either irrational or coerced through torture or threat. The 'witchcraft' most often referred to as accusation, allegation and harmful superstition, exists only in the minds of those who believe that witchcraft is the embodiment of evil and that witches are responsible for misfortune, disease, accident, natural disaster and death. Witch‐hunts occur in almost every country in Africa and they are increasing in occurrence and brutality.

In January 2009 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released a working report on human rights abuses committed as a result of witchcraft accusations.

"An extensive literature review of journal articles, UNHCR internal documents and newspapers has shown that witchcraft accusations lead to violence and persecution in locations throughout the world. Protection concerns from witchcraft allegations can occur at home and also impact individuals throughout the cycle of displacement. Witchcraft‐related violence may manifest as domestic violence, child abuse, or mob justice. [...] UNHCR and governments need to be prepared to apply refugee law to claims that are based on witchcraft. By being aware that the phenomenon of witch persecution is still very much alive, those in the refugee field may be better prepared to pre‐empt or respond to the associated violence and provide protection as needed." [0]

[0] New Issues In Refugee Research Research Paper No. 169
Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights: a review of the evidence. (January 2009)
Jill Schnoebelen. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

In April 2010 the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) published evidence of an increase in accusations of witchcraft against children [1] "...including orphans, street‐children, albinos, those with physical disabilities or abnormalities such as autism, those with aggressive or solitary temperaments, children who are unusually gifted; those who were born prematurely or in unusual positions, and twins". [2] in sub‐Saharan Africa, including specifically Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Nigeria. According to this report a majority of the victims are males between the ages of 8 and 14.

[1] Children Accused of Witchcraft: An anthropological study of contemporary practices in Africa (April 2010) Aleksandra Cimpric ‐ UNICEF WCARO, Dakar

[2]Children in Benin who were branded as witches for their "abnormal" births (16 July 2010) http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89858

Several media reports published during 2010 highlight tragic human rights abuses arising as a result of witchcraft accusations. The following news reports represent a small sample of existing reports of witchhunts on the African continent.

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http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117751598282929

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2a.: File - Do NOT Send Invitations to other Groups.txt

Posted by: "Witch_Essentials@yahoogroups.com" Witch_Essentials@yahoogroups.com

Sun Apr 3, 2011 3:39 am (PDT)

On Sending our Members "Invitations" to Other Groups:

PLEASE NOTE:

It is against the rules of many Groups to use their membership lists to "mine" names for other Groups -- including "social networking" Groups -- and this includes Witch Essentials.

You would be wise to ASK PERMISSION of Group Owners or Moderators, BEFORE sending any "invitations" to other groups, to them or their members.

Sincerely -
~Gaia, Group Moderator

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3.1.: File - Warning about Grouply.txt

Posted by: "Witch_Essentials@yahoogroups.com" Witch_Essentials@yahoogroups.com

Sun Apr 3, 2011 3:39 am (PDT)

Once more, please be reminded that Yahoo FORBIDS ITS MEMBERS to belong to "Grouply":

Warning about Grouply.Com

You will not be allowed to join this group with a 'grouply' email
account.

This is a new site which advertises they can make accessing your
groups faster and easier. Most of us are too seasoned to fall for
something like this, but I am posting this as CYA.

This is what happens when you join:

"First, when a member joins, it automatically changes their primary
email address for the groups, giveing them a @grouply.com extension.
This is being done unaware to those who are joining.

Secondly, members who join the grouply website are having to give
their member ID and password. This opens up a security issue for
those members.

Thirdly, once a member joins grouply, it opens access to the files
and posts of each group to the grouply website. Grouply staff can
then access these files. If they get hacked, then it opens the doors
to the groups getting hacked as well. It has also been reported that
it's generating a lot of spam already."

In other words, information from a group can be made accessable to
everyone, and massive amounts of spam with your email address can be
generated.

The following information tells you the steps which needed to be taken
if someone has joined Grouply.com

IDENTIFY THEFT AT GROUPLY.COM

There is a message going out to different Yahoo Groups advertising
and suggesting that you join a new group called GROUPLY. This group
claims to help manage all your Yahoo groups and you will get a
summary, at the end of the day, telling you what is going on in all
your groups.

IF YOU JOIN THIS GROUP, they use your Yahoo ID and password to
post "mass mailings" (can be junk, can be porno) and send them to
anyone, and since it's YOUR ID they are using, others will think it
is coming from you.

For instance, you could get an email CLAIMING that it came
from "emagic2" Yahoo group and it really is not from this group. I
could get an email, with this mass mailing, claiming it came from me,
and it wouldn't have been from me.

Again, IF YOU HAVE JOINED THIS GROUP called "GROUPLY" IMMEDIATELY
leave Grouply. Then go into your account at:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ mygroups and change your password. Some
groups have posted that this will help. Unsubbing from that group
won't make a difference (but I think you will want to) so change your
Yahoo Password.

By joining this group you have also exposed all your groups, group
members and group leaders to hacking of their emails and group
information.

Because of this problem, all members with a email grouply.com are
being removed from the affected groups. This is the only way to
protect all the members. This is how Identity theft gets going.
They now have your real email, your yahoo emails, any emails listed
in your yahoo group and can mail as you in and out of the yahoo
groups.

I hope you understand what is happening and will take precautions to
protect your Yahoo ID.

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4.: CDW 3April 2011: Beauty and Darkness

Posted by: "Blackbird" blackbird_61@yahoo.com blackbird_61

Sun Apr 3, 2011 10:54 am (PDT)

Hi All,

Before we begin today, Allow me to suggest you just spend a moment with
this beautiful image <http://www.anar-mura.com/tgimg/DrkAngl/xxi.jpg> .

We find ourselves contemplating the Sun, from the Dark Angel Tarot, and
I honestly think this card, most perfectly captures the achingly
beautiful melancholy of this deck;

As I see her, 1
We One of the Dark Angels who people this deck, a creature that has
accepted that she herself is damned, embracing, and protecting the dying
sun; she is life's last Guardian, pressing the source of all life to her
bosom shielding it like a mother.

She is in her own sad way the Shadow of the Mother Goddess, the Gaia, or
Ki; <http://www.anar-mura.com/tgimg/gd/ps_pentacles.jpg> we normally
think of when contemplating these issues.

She is a reminder that while we all struggle with the very real problem
of Evil; and many of us long for a pure or summer land; that in such a
'perfected' place, much beauty must be lost.

The beauty that can only be found in the heart, when it is confronted
with such relentless evil; Tolkien clearly understood this, he could
have made the middle earth a pure land, we surely see his vision of a
pure land in the shire; but it is only a small part of a much larger
world, and it seems clear to me that larger world would have been
diminished in his mind, if Sauron had been less terrible, if the Orcs
had been less fierce; if Sauruman's treason less odious.

Sometimes a Shadow is necessary to give shape to the light, and in that
contrast we find the vision, and sometimes it is the Aching Sadness of
the vision, that makes it beautiful.

Blessings, BB.

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