So very shortly, it may seem that Wicca is going to be recognised as an ‘official’ religion within Australia.

At least by the Australian Taxation Office.

I’m sure many of you are jumping for joy over this, but if you are, then you really haven’t thought this through.

Ok, let’s start the beginning here.

To begin with, dealing with any government body is an infernal, diabolical, non-fun Satanic deal with the unholy powers that may be… with paperwork. They get thigns wrong. Possibly purposefully. They lose things. Constantly. Then they misinterperet things. Intentionally. Finally they will only go with the stuff that’s actually written down. Willfully & ignorantly.

Anything that’s not there cannot and will not be considered when dealing with that particular set.

This is important to keep in mind for the context of everything else I am going to point out.

Issue 1: This Creates an Officially and Non-Officially Recognised Branching of Wicca

If this goes through, you now have officially created schism, where the governing bodies of the country accept one version of Wicca as a legitimised religion, and all the others fall by the wayside as cult based schisms or separatist movements. Considering the manner in which many people drawn to Wicca tend to be “non-conformists” in the first place, you’re going to see a large number of them insist on staying away from “The Man’s Witchcraft”… In fact, I’m fairly certain the feminist Wiccans are going to have a field day with it.

You’ll be able to get other forms of Wicca recognised, but only by going through this process again and again, and whilst it will be easier for those that follow, Wicca is a religion as disparate as Christianity, and loaded with about as many charlatans who will simply use this for the tax breaks. In this case, I’m going to assume dodgy palm & tea readers who basically sea this as a great way to avoid paying tax on their $3.95 premium SMS service.

Considering how much persecution there already is within the Wiccan community towards other Wiccans, this is shit that could really be done without as well. The amount of name calling and drama llama-ing is hilarious to those of us outside looking in, and it’s kind of no fucking wonder that Wicca can’t get taken seriously.

This will also create PR situations similar to that of modern Judaism – issues that the officially recognised group will get media / public exposure on their side of the story, and any dissenting voices will be studiously ignored or potentially even silenced in one manner or another. As a test, attempt to find a single Jew in the media that is not a pro-Zionist. I assure you dear reader that they exist in droves as many do not agree with the actions of the Israeli Government, nor have no implicit wish to see Israel run as a democractic Theocracy (which it currently is)… but you will never hear about them from a printed or broadcast news outlet as their bad for the united front image.

Issue 2: Wicca’s Rede – Do No Harm

You might be wondering how a tax break can be considered as doing no harm.

It’s harm of ommission. That money could be better spent elsewhere, and whilst other countries Governments may piss away money on shit their constituents don’t agree on, by and large our Government actually has a pretty decent balance on spending priorities and commitments. Technically speaking, that money could be going to better purposes than letting yet another religion get away without paying council rates.

There’s also research showing that those that think of their own income in ways that allow them to reduce their nominal tax rate are rather stone hearted and therefore less likely to give to those in need, which is kinda one of the core tenets of Wicca. This is basically like saying “Fuck that giving out and returning in threes shit. I’ll keep it and get a 5.95% return with ING instead”.

Issue 3: Wicca is a Personal Religion

One of the teachings lost in more orthodox and mainstream religion is the idea that there shall be no stone between Man and God (unless it’s the alter stone that you totally sacrifice awesome shit on). Wicca generally gets back to this in one of two ways. 1) By being outside of a mainstream / orthodox religious institution and therefore requiring no formal worship space 2) by having worship outdoors… and occasionally making sure that there is also no cotton, silk, polyester, or other fabric between Man and God.

Sarcasm aside, if there is a formalised and officially approved version of Wicca, it kind of forces the others to be “wrong”, at least in a sense of orthodoxy, as well as what the state will tolerate. Wiccans still have a hard enough time not getting tossed on a pile of faggots every time a new Harry Potter character comes out of the closet. This comes from being an individual with no united front.

But Wicca is, almost by definition, without a united front, and having one will effectively ruin what it is for a lot of people – a worship of their externalised anima. You simply cannot be a formalised group of individuals

Issue 4: Commercialisation and Exploitation

Everything that gets mainstream acceptance is exploited for commercial benefit of the unscrupulous.

It’s bad enough that witch craft, and indeed any mysticism that’s poorly understood by a vastly ignorant general public is already used and abused. Once it gains state sponsored legitimacy though, that shit will go into overdrive. We’re going to see Baccanalia decorations, Sabbat alters in K-marts, etc., and it’ll all be made in China by a few people that have a holy symbol remarkably similar to $.

I will admit to being in a hypocritically similar boat here though. I thoguht it would be an awesome idea to make wormwood laced, Absinthe flavoured condoms to sell as official witches sabbat orgy protection – After all, whilst chants and dances may brings fortune, luck and success in life, they also tend to bring chlamydia, herpes and syphillis.

Being serious again (for a moment at any rate), there are enough people turning a buck from witchcraft in some amazingly seedy ways already

Issue 5: Counter Measures

Whilst Wicca actually has very little to do with classical Christian belief in witches, that’s really not going to stop them. Official recognition by government bodies, at least in the short term, will actually increase the occurence of hate crimes committed against those that openly state or position themselves to be of that particular minority group, as well as those that are assumed to be of that minority group. It’s happened for Female Suffragetes, Jews, Blacks, the gay community… in fact, almost every group other than heterosexual, anglo, male Christians. Personally, I don’t see a connection here, but you’re welcome to make your own conclusions.

Whatever.

The point is that you’re going to see a whole bunch of firebrand religions groups (i.e. Catch the Fire Ministries) not telling their followers to go and beat the living bejesus out ofanyone that even looks like they could be remotely witchy. Goths, particularly faggy emos, people reading Harry Potter books, people reading books in general that aren’t IT Tech manuals or the Bible, people with large noses (there’s the Jews again),

They’re going to bring down a wrath like two she bears on a bunch of  kids that called a prophet “baldhead”.

What I Think Is Really Going On

See Issue 1, Para 2.

Seriously.

I get the feeling that “Ziggy” has seen a number of other covens attain a tax exemption in other countries, such as a case in the late 80s in Providence that gave Our Lady of hte Sacred Rose Wiccan Church (??!) tax exemptions. Particuarly dangerous are the ones from Romania where legislation that basically would have made witches and “psychics” accountable for the sale of their potions and predictions to the public via taxable receipt and laws similar to those that governm sales puffery in advertising was shot down.

No related posts.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

 

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.