www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Norway hosts witchcraft experts

He drank hard liquor too. Oh, and he smoked pipes! I've heard that too as a reason to dismiss his writings.

"Tolkien had used fantasy but had Christ as the referent."

I would say he had a Christian world-view. The Lord of the Rings was not written as an allegory.


"People then get led to spiritual greed."

Benny Hinn feeds that fire too.


"One aspect of the occult is the denial of reality. Reality can be determined by one's intentions. People believe that they can control reality. It's about power and control."

Indeed!

Well, at least he didn't smoke cigarettes, like I used to do

Or did he? hmmmmmmmmmmm

Exactly.

I did a Google search on this.

Here is an article that is useful:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070614/20070613005434.html?.v=1

Here is the program for the conference (in English):
http://www.heksekonferansen.no/e_prog.htm

As you can see, the conference is not about neo-paganism, Harry Potter, or the folks who like to rub crystals for neo-gnostic new age "spirituality."

Instead, it's mostly focussed on how torture has been used, and still is used, to persecute people and how witch hunts are still used as the excuse.

And that still happens in the world, especially in Africa, where the local inconvenient woman is sometimes killed off under the ruse of witrchcraft. (You see, they're still "primitive" so they haven't yet evolved a system of murdering inconvenient women like our system, such as with Tari Schaivo on the one hand and abortion on the other.)

In my opinion, there are two real sins with witchcraft: that some folks still believe in it, and that others (many others) use that superstitious belief to persecute and murder others.

-- John

Dear John,

Witchcraft/sorcery is alive and well. It might not have been until recently in our mainly Protestant and Puritanical world, (who wanted to be burned at the stake), but exists in the Middle East, Africa, Greece, Italy, France, Carribean, and South and Central America. I say recently, because it seems to be coming back into practice through our teenagers, who frankly will always try anything.

The Muslems condemn sorcery quite often, and it seems to have been brought into Greece by the refugee's from Asia Minor in 1923. One has only to read the books by the exorcist of the Vatican to realize how prevalent it still is, and how more exorcists are needed.

In the witch trials of Salem, it came into existance through a black servant from New Orleans, and it exists and is known in the South, in places such as Savannah...probably from the black slaves.

Recently I read how a certain exorcist said that the most difficult people to free from spells and possessions are those from Africa and Brazil. To not believe in such things, is to not believe in the devil, and the power he can exert over us. A saintly elder I know, said that the greatest protection a person could have from those that delve in witchcraft, is going to confession often.

God Bless,

Zenovia

Dear SPDundas,

I love Bewitched too. It was different though, and a different era. At that time, the stories were cute and were meant as entertainment, in the same way as cartoons and fairy tales. Samatha might have been a witch, but she never used her power, and always fought her mother when she used her's for mischievous reasons. There was nothing there to entice young people to delve into the occult.

Those old shows weren't geared to teenagers, who will do anything as long as it's perceived to be acceptable...and let's face it, teenage girls are always mad at this girl or that girl, and who knows what they will try. I became worried when seeing things popping up about teenage witch's, and of course projecting the witches as being righteous in their actions.

We live in different times.

God Bless,

Zenovia

Dear John,

Not to believe in the power people can exert over others through the devil, is not to believe in the devil himself. As for persecuting others, you are right. Those that I know who delve in the occult have an uncanny ability, (probably not their own), to arouse suspicions about others...if one should ever wonder why saints were always persecuted. So who knows if those that are persecuted are truly witch's or if those that have condemned them, are the one's that are involved with it?

All in all, we have been given two opinions of the meeting in Norway. One person showed them in a good light, and the other didn't. We can leave it then to each person's personal experiences and discernment.

God Bless,

Zenovia