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The Poor Little Witch

To: all
From: Jenny
Date: 24 Mar 1998
Time: 12:05:43

Comments

"The Poor Little Witch" is a good example of modern witch-hunting literature. It's not a book -- it's one of those little comic strips put out by Chick Publications. Chick is a fundamentalist Christian company which sets the record for historical inaccuracy. Their publications are major sources of misinformation, on many different subjects. (I still marvel that people think they can serve a "God of Truth" by spreading lies.)

The comic tells a fictional story about Mandy, an unpopular teenager whose divorced mother never has any time for her. One of her teachers is a witch and decides to recruit Mandy. She gets other young witches to befriend the lonely girl, and slowly teaches Mandy how to use magic to avenge herself on the other teenagers who mistreat her.

Eventually "Mrs. White" decides that Mandy's ready to go to the "next level". She takes her to a secret meeting, where Satanists sacrifice a baby (bred by one of their members). In a footnote, the booklet notes that "Police estimate between 40,000 to 60,000 ritual homicides per year occur in the US."

Mandy freaks after being forced to eat and drink the baby's blood. She starts going to church, but the pastor of the big church is secretly controlled by Satanists. Finally she finds a little back alley Gospel Church where a "reformed" witch gets her to accept Christ. The witches are enraged by this and murder her, but Mandy goes to Heaven.

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"The Poor Little Witch" demonstrates the basics of modern witch hunting demonology. Witches are Satanists. Witches who tell you that they're not Satanists are simply non-initiates who haven't been introduced to the "next level" yet. So, of course, none of their experiences and information mean anything.

Modern witches do exactly what witches were accused of in the Burning Times. They worship Satan. They kill and eat babies. They murder people. If "The Poor Little Witch" had tossed in a couple dead cows, it could have come from the 16th century.

The statistic it quotes (40,000 - 60,000 ritual homicides/year) is completely bogus. According to the FBI, there are "only" 25,000 murders in the US each year. So what modern witch hunters are claiming is that murders are actually three times as common as they appear to be, and two thirds of them leave no evidence. This ridiculous number gets cited over and over again in modern witch hunting literature -- no one ever offers any evidence to back it up.

The booklet also demonstrates the paranoia that fuels modern crazes. Witches surround us, though we don't know it. They teach our children. They speak at our churches. Anyone you know may be a baby-killing witch. Nobody's safe.

There isn't much to analyze here. This is a good example of the basic outline of the conspiracy theory. It's completely fictitious and makes no effort to "prove" anything (other than with that one silly number). It simply tries to use fear to intimidate people into becoming Christian.

Jenny

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