In a matter of months, Witch School in Hoopeston hopes to graduate from the world of magic to the ranks of reality TV.
The SCI FI Channel this month revealed its plans to create a reality series about the school at the Television Critics Associa-tion’s winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif.
The news comes just six months after the Hoopeston establishment announced it would offer on-site courses at its home at 112 W. Main St.
The lid remains tight on program details.
Witch School chancellor, the Rev. Don Lewis, confirmed the program “is happening,” but couldn’t comment further at the re-quest of NBC executives.
Despite the tight-lipped situation, he couldn’t hide his excitement for the school.
“There are lots of interesting things forthcoming in the future,” Lewis said.
The SCI FI Channel calls the program a “docu-soap” about a school for aspiring conjurers. It is being assembled in cooperation with New York-based Stick Figure Productions, which handled the HBO documentary series “Family Bonds” and the UPN reality series “Amish in the City.”
Adrienne D’amato, spokeswoman for NBC Universal and the SCI FI Channel, said via e-mail the show is in active develop-ment but not in production. More information regarding the program is expected when production commences in the coming months.
A press release from NBC Universal, which owns the SCI FI Channel, said the show depicts the real-life witch school “resem-bling your typical classroom experience … some elements of this education are less traditional.”
Witch School came to Hoopeston in September 2003, after using its Internet site for about 2½ years as an online school dedi-cated to Wiccan, Pagan and magical thought.
The school faced division from Hoopeston residents, with some being less than accepting of the new institution.
Those who want to learn more can visit the school, see the merchandise and library and take classes. The school, which con-tinues its Internet courses, offers lectures twice a day, if enough people show up.
Campaigners are calling for a change in the law to make it a criminal offence to demonise a child, it is reported.
The move comes after police told the BBC that they were unable to charge an African pastor who accused children of witchcraft in this country.
Pastor Dieudonne Tukala was arrested on suspicion of inciting child cruelty last January following a joint investigation by the Today programme and Newsnight.
A BBC investigation broadcast last year connected Pastor Dieudonne Tukala to a case where a father branded his son with an iron because he believed the child was a witch.
It also spoke to other parents who said Tukala told them to send their children back to Africa where he could pray for them to die.
In an interview broadcast on Today and Newsnight on Thursday night, the Pastor denies having accused children of witchcraft or of having seen the boy who was branded with a steam iron.
So-called “child witches” have been murdered in some African countries.
The Metropolitan Police launched an inquiry, but after 10 months of investigation no charges have been brought. It is not against the law to accuse a child of witchcraft or to pray for a child to die.
Debbie Ariyo, director of the charity AFRUCA told Today: “You’re telling a child that you’ve been responsible for killing people, destroying people’s lives - that does actually constitute emotional abuse.”
Asked if religious leaders who accuse a child of witchcraft should face jail, Ms Ariyo said: “I think they should.”
Rest assured: Naomi Campbell has no intention of casting a spell on those who provoke her.
Naomi has recently denied her involvement with witchcraft. The supermodel has rejected claims she is interested in Brazil’s African-based Candomblй religion, which has rituals some have likened to witchcraft, after claims were made she was seeing a witch doctor to curb her temper.
She told the New York Daily News newspaper, “I’m Church of England, Protestant. I was christened that. I went to a birthday party for Tuca Franchini, who is a Candomblй priest. I don’t discriminate against what religion people have. That’s what he does, but it doesn’t mean I have to be involved in it.”
The 36-year-old did admit she uses prayer to try and calm her famous fiery temper.
She said, “I work on myself daily. I work on my program of meditation and prayer and try to stick to it. It’s important to me. I’m remorseful and regretful. I’m trying to live my life and do some things for charity. I’m taking my punishment, and I accept that. I’ve accepted my responsibility and that’s that. I have no idea what community service I’ll do. Whatever they tell me to do, I’ll do with my integrity, and that’s it.”
Naomi was recently sentenced to five days community service for assaulting her maid.
A magic spell to keep snakes away from the tombs of Egyptian kings, adopted from the Canaanites almost 5,000 years ago, could be the oldest Semitic text yet discovered, experts said Tuesday.
The phrases, interspersed throughout religious texts in Egyptian characters in the underground chambers of a pyramid south of Cairo, stumped Egyptian experts for about a century, until the Semitic connection was found.
In 2002 one of the Egyptologists e-mailed the undeciphered part of the inscription to Richard Steiner, a professor of Semitic languages at Yeshiva University in New York. Steiner discovered that the phrases are the transcription of a language used by Canaanites at some point in the period from 25th to the 30th centuries B.C.
“This is the oldest connected text that we have in any Semitic language,” Steiner said in a telephone interview while visiting Israel to present his findings in a lecture sponsored by the Academy of the Hebrew Language. The previous oldest Semitic text dates from the 24th century B.C., Steiner said.
Another expert said it was still unclear whether the Egyptian text is actually the oldest.
“This is highly significant because maybe, according to the researcher, it dates to the third millennium B.C., so it’s the most ancient pre-Canaanite text that we ever met and maybe … it is the most ancient Semitic text ever discovered,” said Moshe Florentine, an expert on ancient Hebrew and a member of the language academy.
Steiner has not submitted his findings to a scientific journal but plans to do so, he said. More study of the fragments will be necessary to determine how these passages fit into the evolution of Semitic languages, Florentine said.
The Egyptians’ use of the magic spell demonstrates the close relations they had at the time with the Canaanites. While Egyptians considered their culture and religion superior to that of their neighbors to the north, they were willing to do anything to protect the mummies of their kings from the poisonous snakes.
Believing that some snakes spoke the Semitic language of the Canaanites, Egyptians included the magic spells in inscriptions on two sides of the sarcophagus in an effort to ward them off.
“Come, come to my house,” reads one section in the Semitic language that is supposed to be the snake’s mother speaking, trying to lure him out of the tomb. In another passage, the snake is addressed as if he is a lover with “Turn aside, O my beloved.”
The Egyptian and Semitic sections are each an integral part of the magic spell and neither can stand alone, Steiner said. For this reason, the Egyptian experts could not fully understand parts of the religious texts until Steiner got involved.
The Semitic language of these texts that have now been deciphered was a very archaic form of the languages later known as Phoenician and Hebrew, Steiner said.
The text includes words that have the same meaning as in Hebrew, like “yad” for hand, “ari” for lion, and “beit” for house, he said.
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A former Starbucks barista in Hillsboro has sued the coffee giant, saying it discriminated against her based on her Wiccan religion.
In a complaint filed Jan. 8 in U.S. District Court in Portland, Alicia Hedum said a manager at Starbucks’ Hillsboro Landing cafe asked her to remove her Wiccan cross several times, even though other employees, including the manager, wore Christian crosses.
Hedum accused Starbucks of retaliating by refusing to promote or transfer her, reducing her hours and scrutinizing her “minor tardiness.”
A Starbucks spokesman said she was unaware of the lawsuit.
Wicca, a nature-based religion often described as a form of witchcraft, has been the subject of other employment discrimination cases. A Wiccan member of the Industrial Workers of the World union complained last year to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that a New York City Starbucks discriminated against her based on religion.
Hedum worked for Starbucks in Cornelius and Hillsboro from March 2004 until her Aug. 29, 2005, dismissal. Hedum’s suit also accused the retailer of retaliation, wrongful discharge and workers’ compensation discrimination.
Hedum’s attorney, Craig Crispin, did not make her available for comment.
AFTER 1,700 years, the ancient Greek god Zeus was honoured once again yesterday, with a group of modern worshippers defying a government ban to celebrate at an ancient temple in the heart of Athens.
It was first known ceremony of its kind at the 1,800-year-old Temple of Olympian Zeus since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman Empire in the late fourth century.
About 200 people attended the ceremony next to the ruins of the temple, which was organised by Ellinais, an Athens-based group campaigning to revive ancient religion. The group ignored a ban by the Culture Ministry which declared the central Athens site off-limits.
Costumed worshippers recited ancient hymns calling on Zeus, “King of the Gods and the mover of things”, to bring peace to the world.
“Our message is world peace and an ecological way of life in which everyone has the right to education,” said Kostas Stathopoulos, one of three high priests overseeing the event, which celebrated the nuptials of Zeus and Hera, the goddess of love and marriage.
A herald holding a metal staff topped with two snake heads proclaimed the beginning of the ceremony, then priests in blue and red robes released two white doves. A priest then poured libations of wine and incense was burned.
Ellinais, which has 34 official members - mainly middle-aged and elderly professionals - was founded last year. It won a court battle for official state recognition of the ancient Greek religion and wants its offices to be registered as a place of worship, which could allow the group to perform weddings and other ceremonies.
Ancient rituals are re-enacted every two years at Olympia, in southern Greece - where the flame-lighting ceremony is held for the summer and winter Olympic games - but the ceremony is not regarded as religious and actresses pose as high priestesses.
Christianity rose to prominence in Greece in the fourth century after the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Emperor Theodosius wiped out the last vestige of the Olympian gods when he abolished the Olympic Games in AD394, though several isolated pockets of pagan worship still lingered as late as the ninth century.
“The Christians shut down our schools and destroyed our temples,” said Yiannis Panagidis, 36, an accountant who attended the event.
Most Greeks are baptised Orthodox Christian, and the church rejects ancient religious practices as pagan. Church officials have refused to attend ceremonies at Olympia.
Without a holy book, ancient Greeks divined the will of the gods through oracles.
“The priests at the oracles were highly educated people with a grounding in the sciences, even in foreign affairs, and offered advice, just like meteorologist today predict the weather,” Mr Stathopoulos said.
A Loganville mother of four who has fought to ban the Harry Potter series from Gwinnett County classrooms is appealing the state’s decision to let the best-selling series stay.
The file in Gwinnett County Superior Court consists of a stack of papers that rivals the length of the novels in J.K. Rowling’s series about an orphaned boy who attends a school of witchcraft and wizardry.
Laura Mallory said her one-sentence appeal, dated Jan. 9, was filed after “a lot of prayer … (and) a very, very specific answer to prayer.”
“I didn’t want to do it if the Lord didn’t want me to,” said Mallory, who has two children in elementary school this year. “It’s not easy, the criticism, but I’m trying to do what’s right.”
Mallory has sought to get the books out of classrooms since 2006, after finding out that the books were being used in her son’s classroom. She has said the books are inappropriate for children because they contain violent themes and promote the Wicca religion. Furthermore, she said, the Bible says witchcraft is an abomination to God.
School board members argued the books are good tools to encourage children to read and spark creativity and imagination. In May, the board decided to deny Mallory’s request to remove the series.
The state Board of Education backed Gwinnett’s stance in December, voting without discussion to uphold the county’s decision.
The school board attorney has been notified of the appeal, said Sloan Roach, the school system’s spokeswoman.
Roach said Mallory “certainly has a right” to appeal, but the school system believes the appeal will affirm the decisions of the local and state boards.
Mallory, however, says the power of God will ultimately win.
She said she has received support from people all over the United States, some of whom have made “significant donations” to help her in her legal battle.
Mallory and some of her supporters have created a Web site, www.hisvoicetoday.org, which lists some of the research that supports her claims about the series.
The Harry Potter books, published by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing LLC, have been challenged 115 times since 2000, making them the most challenged texts of the 21st century, according to the American Library Association.
The challenges most often claim that the series encourages children to question adult authority and promotes witchcraft, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the deputy director for the association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
Del. Bill Carrico reintroduced his “religious freedom” amendment to the Virginia constitution for consideration by the 2007 General Assembly.Carrico first introduced the amendment two years ago, with the goal of protecting rights of Christians to pray on public property, including schools. He acted after a Wiccan high priestess sued a town in South Carolina over a prayer that referenced Jesus Christ.
The bill passed the House in 2005, but was killed by the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.
Critics at the time said the amendment was either unnecessary or unconstitutional.
The amendment is needed to stem challenges against things like the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance and “in God we trust” on U.S. currency, Carrico said of his renewed efforts.
“The problem we have today is the secular world believes that they don’t have to tolerate anyone’s belief in God,” he said.
Carrico, R-Fries, sees his amendment as protecting a citizen’s freedom of religious expression in public places.
He cited examples such as the case of graduating Windsor High School senior Anna Ashby being denied her wish to sing Celine Dion’s “The Prayer” at commencement exercises in 2003, because it contained a line referring to God.
Carrico’s bill, House Joint Resolution No. 724, would add new language to the Virginia’s Bill of Rights that was penned by founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
“To secure further the people’s right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience, neither the Commonwealth nor its political subdivisions shall establish any official religion, but the people’s right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including public schools, shall not be infringed,” the proposed amendment says.
Carrico acknowledges that freedom of religious expression is governed by the U.S. Constitution and the courts.
While an amendment to the state constitution would not change what federal courts presiding over such cases would do, he said that Virginia has a chance to be the first state to show support for similar measures that are before Congress.
He explained that he based his measure on a similar effort at the federal level.
The process for an amendment to the state constitution requires the General Assembly to approve it in successive annual legislative sessions before the question would go to voters in a statewide referendum.
The public should have the right to vote on the religious freedom amendment, Carrico said.
Two years ago, Carrico’s proposed amendment drew criticism from representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The U.S. Constitution already protects religious expression, Rebecca Glenberg told The Gazette at the time. What is prohibited is governing bodies sponsoring activities that favor a particular religion.
The Supreme Court has ruled that governing bodies may use only generic prayers, she said.
In other legislative business, Carrico has introduced:
€ a measure to remove crimes involving cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine from consideration in the first-offender deferral program in the courts.
Carrico expects that, if passed, the change will mean tougher sentences for first-time drug offenders caught dealing in cocaine, heroin and meth.
The program originated in hopes those who made a mistake in getting involved with marijuana and being arrested would learn from the experience, the delegate said. But those who get involved in harder drugs shouldn’t be allowed to benefit from the program.
€ a bill to name the Interstate 77 bridge over U.S. 58 after Vietnam veteran Charles B. Morris, who won the Medal of Honor. Morris, though wounded, led his platoon to overcome a superior force of the enemy and saved many lives by taking out enemy guns and administering medical assistance to other soldiers.
Police used a warrant at the Portales Public Library to seize magic and witchcraft books that had been checked out by a woman who is charged in the Jan. 4 death of her 6-year-old son.
Teresa Gilman, 24, told police “the devil was in my son,” according to arrest affidavits.
Gilman’s 8-year-old daughter told police that on the morning her brother, Lorenzo Cabral, died, her mother poured salt in a circle around the boy’s body. Police found writing describing a “ritualistic type ceremony” in Gilman’s residence, an affidavit says.
“We were looking for material consistent with the writings we found in the home,” Portales Police Capt. Lonnie Berry said.
The Office of the Medical Investigator determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the boy’s head, with drowning a possible contributing factor.
Gilman is being held without bail at the Roosevelt County Detention Center. She has been charged with first-degree murder or, in the alternative, child abuse resulting in death, and four counts of child abuse related to her three other children.
“We believe the way some of the child abuse resulting in death happened can be related to stuff that’s in those books,” said District Attorney Matt Chandler.
The district attorney said that all of the books seized were books Gilman had checked out in the past.
Gilman’s grand jury appearance was postponed earlier this week while a mental competency evaluation on Gilman is performed. That process could take 60-90 days, Chandler said.
If Gilman is found mentally competent, the case will proceed to trial.
If she is found incompetent to stand trial, a judge could commit her to state mental health authorities if there is a finding through clear and convincing evidence that she committed the alleged crime, Chandler said.
Gilman’s three other children — an 11-month-old boy, a 3-year-old boy and the 8-year-old girl — are in the custody of Child Protective Services, Chandler said.
