As always, the goal here in GetReligion land is to dig into the nuts and bolts of religion-news coverage in the mainstream press. Truth is, this is easier to do when the coverage is bad than when it is good. Besides, when we praise coverage almost no one writes comments and these good-coverage posts do not affect the trolls who say that we hate the mainstream press.
However, some stories deserve to be praised — such as the following msnbc.com investigative piece about a Wiccan believer who may or may not have lost her Transportation Security Administration job because of prejudice against her faith. As is often the case in workplace controversies, it is hard to describe the precise point where personality conflicts turn into discrimination that can end up in court.
But there are three things I can say about this story.
(1) Reporter Bill Dedman literally buries the reader in often riveting information about the conflict between witch Carole A. Smith and Mary Bagnoli, her former mentor and the woman whose complaints about Smith and her work drove this case to its still messy conclusion. No, we do not know anything about Bagnoli’s religious beliefs, in case that would be relevant.
(2) It’s clear that religion played some role in this case and that the Religion in the Workplace rules created in the era of the Clinton White House — the product of a stunningly broad coalition of religious groups — remain as relevant as ever. This story could have used a small sidebar detailing the key details of these rules.
(3) Wiccans face a tough decision in the complex marketplace that is American religion. Do they openly tell co-workers about their faith, placing the religion card on the table in case they later need to prove discrimination, or do they try to keep their faith hidden out of fear of intolerance? How would we answer that question if we were talking about Jews, Muslims, Sikhs or, oh, Pentecostal Christians?
Here is a key chunk of the story, offering a summary of the initial accusations:
The assistant director told her he was investigating a threat of workplace violence. He said that her former mentor in on-the-job training, officer Mary Bagnoli, reported that she was afraid of Smith because she was a witch who practiced witchcraft. She accused Smith of following her on the highway one snowy evening after work and casting a spell on the heater of her car, causing it not to work. Well, actually, Bagnoli said she hadn’t seen Smith’s car, but she had seen Smith. “I thought to myself,” Smith recalls, “what, did she see me flying on my broom?”
Carole Smith proudly acknowledges being a witch, a practitioner of Wicca, the pagan religion. She does have a broom, too, but just for show. Not all Wiccans use the word witch, but Smith and some others are reclaiming it as a term of respect, sometimes said to mean “wise woman.” She says she had told at least one person at work about her beliefs. But as for hexes, no, Smith said Wiccans don’t go in for that sort of foolishness.
“I was dumbfounded,” Smith said. “I told him, that’s not what Wicca is. We don’t cast spells. That’s not witchcraft. That’s black magic or voodoo or something else. To put a spell on a heater of a car, if I had that kind of power, I wouldn’t be working for TSA. I would go buy lottery tickets and put a spell on the balls.”
The assistant director, Matthew W. Lloyd, testified later that he realized immediately there was no genuine threat of workplace violence. Smith hadn’t followed anyone home — that’s the only highway going toward her home from the airport. It was just a personality conflict made worse by fear of an unfamiliar religion.
In addition to the Wiccan element of the story, Smith also turned into a whistle blower about security issues in the Albany airport security zones, even if she did this, in part, as a reprisals about the complaints about her work that were stacking up in her own personnel file.
As a reader, the most striking passages in this piece come near the end when Dedman draws on court transcripts that cut right to the chase. This is long, but it gives you a good idea about the style of this news feature.
Though she lost her case, the transcript of the hearing is revealing. The judge who ruled against her kept pointing out that the TSA officials were changing their stories.
“You expect me to believe that?” Judge William Macauley of the EEOC asked one supervisor. “You’re hedging,” he told another.
The judge was most withering in dealing with Matthew Lloyd, the assistant director who handled the workplace violence complaint. Lloyd couldn’t explain why he had not noted in his report his conclusion that there was no actual potential for workplace violence. He couldn’t explain why he had told other managers that Smith was uncooperative when she left his meeting in tears, when, as he testified, he had concluded that she was merely emotional.
And Lloyd kept changing his story about why he thought mediation “would be a good venue for Ms. Smith to alleviate any misconceptions” about her religion.
Judge Macauley: Why? Why? Why? Why should that be a good venue? It should be an irrelevant venue. If Ms. Bagnoli has a problem with her religion, then she needs to be corrected that it’s not relevant on the job and to ignore it. Am I correct?
Lloyd: Yes. You’re absolutely correct.
Judge: Let’s take the witchcraft out of it. If someone complains to you, he’s Jewish, and refers to a stereotype about his Judaism, go to mediation and work it out? Is that management’s response to that?
Lloyd: No. That would not be management’s response to that.
Judge: OK. But witchcraft takes it into a different thing? I guess. I guess witchcraft and Judaism are different in the sense that — what?
Lloyd: To be perfectly honest, sir, at the time, I wasn’t even — I didn’t know anything about witchcraft or Wiccanism. … I wasn’t even aware that Wiccanism was a recognized religion at the time. I had to research it afterwards.
Judge: What’s your impression of witchcraft?
Lloyd: I don’t have an impression of witchcraft.
Judge: You don’t have an impression? You expect me to believe that? You have no impression of witchcraft. … When someone says, “I’m a witch,” you say — you just draw a blank?
Lloyd: Well, it could be claimed they’re a good witch, or it could be, you know, the Wicked Witch of the West. I don’t know enough about it to make a determination.
When asked why the agency’s reaction to the religiously based complaint about hexes was listed on Smith’s termination letter, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said, “But it also listed a lot of good reasons to fire her.”
This is must reading for anyone who cares about religious liberty and mainstream coverage of religion in the workplace. This, by the way, is not a liberal case or a conservative case. It’s a religious liberty case. Period.
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Comments (31) |
March 30, 2011, at 11:46 am
I agree with tmatt that this is a very good piece, perhaps the best I’ve seen in recent memory that deals with the troubles modern Pagans regularly face in the workplace.
The only thing my community has had some issue with is the following passage:
“I was dumbfounded,” Smith said. “I told him, that’s not what Wicca is. We don’t cast spells. That’s not witchcraft. That’s black magic or voodoo or something else. To put a spell on a heater of a car, if I had that kind of power, I wouldn’t be working for TSA. I would go buy lottery tickets and put a spell on the balls.”
Most Wiccans do, in fact, cast spells. Any cursory investigation of Wicca would confirm that. We’re thinking Smith meant that Wiccans don’t perform malefic magic, and that wires got crossed during the interview. However, that’s a small criticism of what was largely a fine article.
I’ve written an editorial about Smith’s case that should be going up today at WaPo’s On Faith section.
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March 30, 2011, at 12:33 pm
Just a query—Aren’t there other pagan religions than WICCA? The article says WICCA “the pagan religion” as if all pagans fell under WICCA’s umbrella. Wouldn’t it be better to write “a pagan religion??”
And the comment here “We’re thinking Smith meant that WICCANS don’t perform malefic magic.” However, I have read and heard of and know some who do. Is there a set of WICCAN doctrines that consider that heresy? Is there some sort of WICCAN organization that excommunicates those who get into Black Magic??
These are quibbles I know. The story itself seemed well researched and put together.
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March 30, 2011, at 12:46 pm
John,
There are indeed many Pagan religions, it is an umbrella term. I don’t think the author was trying to state that Wicca was the only Pagan religion, only that it is a Pagan religion. Perhaps the editor missed that particular choice of words?
“I have read and heard of and know some who do.”
I’m endlessly fascinated by Christians who claim to personally know Wiccans who engage in malefic magic. I’m not saying you’re mistaken, or exaggerating, I just find it interesting. I can say with some authority that I know far more Wiccans than you do, and I’ve found Wiccans who engage in damaging spellwork to be a rather tiny aberration. In any case, there’s no Wiccan pope, or king, or central authority. So yes, an individual Wiccan could decide to perform harmful spells if they truly desired to. However, most Wiccans subscribe to the Wiccan rede: “An it harm none do what ye will.” That’s taken pretty seriously, and a lot of Wiccan umbrella organizations, like COG, make adherence to that ethic, or one largely similar, a prerequisite toward joining.
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March 30, 2011, at 12:49 pm
Yes, and there are Wiccans/pagans who say that Christian prayers they do not approve of are “malefic magic” by their standards, as I remember well from my Compuserve days. Should I say that they are not telling the truth, or ‘mistaken, or exaggerating’?
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March 30, 2011, at 12:59 pm
Not MSNBC, but msnbc.com. (Different companies.)
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March 30, 2011, at 1:00 pm
Will,
I’m not sure your comparison here is apt. I’m also pretty sure you’re taking this conversation even further off the topic of journalism.
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March 30, 2011, at 1:42 pm
JASON, WILL:
Jason is right. Back to journalism issues raised by the story and the post.
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March 30, 2011, at 1:55 pm
Thumbs-up on the article, and your decision to feature it. (I’m just leaving this comment as proof that people really do like the stories that praise good journalism.)
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March 30, 2011, at 2:26 pm
One thing the story doesn’t seem to get into is that “witch” is an English word, with a long history.
It seems kind of strange to be “dumbfounded” that someone thinks a “witch” might be into casting spells.
I would have appreciated some exploration of this angle.
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March 30, 2011, at 2:48 pm
I thought the lottery quote was excellent, despite the question of is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-spell. I also thought the comparisons to Judaism were very apt. That contrasts the image of Wiccans with that of another numerically-small religion that’s not generally seen as threatening or exotic. In both cases, the witch and her attorneys are trying to demonstrate that she’s a member of another religion, not another species, and this piece captured it really well.
I can see how it would have been tempting to play this as either “Look at the weird religion!” or “Look at the poor persecuted minority.” The writer avoids both pitfalls and reports it straight.
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March 30, 2011, at 2:50 pm
Something I wish the article explored more: is a wiccan hex considered a credible and actionable threat against a coworker, or just a malediction?
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March 30, 2011, at 4:04 pm
I have read and heard of and know some who do.
As Jason pointed out, the number of persons claiming to be Wiccan practicing “malefic magic” are an aberration. They are no more representative of Wicca than cult leaders and religious bigots claiming to be Christian would be considered representative of Christianity.
Wicca is life-affirming nature based religion. In its traditional form it is an initiatory pagan priesthood. In its solitary form it is the personal pursuit of the individual to strengthen their personal connection with the Divine. Practices such as tarot reading, herbalism or spell casting and so forth, are not specific to Wicca and are engaged in to varying degrees per the individual’s interest.
Is there a set of WICCAN doctrines that consider that heresy?
Wiccans believe in personal responsibility and accountability. They adhere to “The Rede” and “The Threefold Law” (also known as “The Law of Return”). The Rede states “An it harm none, do as ye will” (“an” here meaning “if”). I.e., do not commit an action that is harmful or destructive to others or yourself (none means none). This causes the person to think things through and seek a better purpose, to act and not react, rather than allow themselves to be consumed by petty wants and jealousies. It’s free will - to be Wiccan is to decide to be a source of good because that is what the person wants to be, not because they’re fearful of divine retribution if they aren’t good.
The Threefold Law is the belief that whatever one does comes back to him to a greater degree. One reaps what one sows. It’s the Wiccan ethical equivalent of “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”
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March 30, 2011, at 5:16 pm
Jason—-One of my best friends in high school and I used to debate religion a lot. (We graduated in 1960). A few years later I bumped into him and found out he had gotten into witchcraft. I’ve always remembered the reason he gave for getting into it when I asked. He said— with a leer I well remember from our school years—“Coven meetings are a great place to get girls to take their clothes off.”
About another decade went by and one Sunday I looked at the Boston Globe Magazine and there was my buddy’s picture
on the front cover. The article was claiming he was the head witch of Mass. He had cleaned up his act somewhat, I gathered from the article.
Skip forward to last fall—our 50th Class reunion. I was hoping to see him and get into one of our enjoyable religion debates again. He didn’t show up. Good reason. He died in 1991.Noone knew what had become of him. So I did some internet searching
In 1991 he was in Florida and was the President of the National Association of Pantheists and went under the name of Lord Sylvanus for religious purposes (His real name was Ron Parshley). There are a few stories about him if you Google his name—including a long list of praise in eulogies for him from other members of The Craft—all women it looked like.(I wonder if he’s still leering in summerland.)
One reason I really wanted to see him again was he introduced me to the girl who has become my wife of 46 years
and I wanted to Thank him. I wonder if he knew one of her ancestors was one of the Salem witches????
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March 30, 2011, at 5:27 pm
Like some of the others noted - thanks for the great post. This was a great story to read and I for one was enriched by it.
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March 30, 2011, at 7:30 pm
one Sunday I looked at the Boston Globe Magazine and there was my buddy’s picture on the front cover. The article was claiming he was the head witch of Mass.
Either the article quoted the information incorrectly or you’re misremembering the wording as he was not “the head witch of MA”. Neither witchcraft or Wicca or other pagan religions have central leaders, each coven and group is autonomous. While he was a prominent individual within the pagan community, it’s incorrect that he was “the head witch”. Even more well known figures are not considered as such.
As for his previous comment in the 1960s, it’s necessary to keep in mind the era your conversation occurred. It’s more reflective of the bohemian and experimental times than the practice itself.
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March 30, 2011, at 7:34 pm
(1) The reporter’s sole source is the complainant (Smith). Saying in the tail that the TSA refused to answer questions because the case is under appeal does not sufficiently alert the reader to the inherent bias.
(2) Smith alleges discrimination on the basis of her religion - so it is the entire focus of her complaint; but the question whether or not the case is “about religion” is a question for the judge to answer.
(3) The Administrative Judge found that religion played no role in this case. A finding that does not leap to the eye from the lede (which asserts the opposite). Check how far down you have to scroll to find the statement that Smith lost the case.
(4) The lengthy extract from the transcript of the evidence of Lloyd (offered in palliation of the fact that Smith lost) had no bearing on the outcome and is merely prejudicial. The only witness the judge criticised in his finding was a man named Englehardt who was said to lack credibility in claiming he did not know what Smith’s religion was. But (need I say “obviously”?) knowledge of Smith’s religion cannot, of itself, found an allegation that her employment was terminated because of it.
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March 30, 2011, at 8:48 pm
In re-reading the eulogies to my classmate Lord Sylvanus (Ron Parshley) I noticed I had written the wrong year for his death here. It was 2001 not 1991.
Actually I would like to read more detail about WICCAN rituals etc. One of the eulogies gave high praise to Ron’s performance of the Minotaur ritual(?????). Some of the eulogies make it look like he was the grandaddy of the modern pagan-witchcraft movement and considering how far back they credit his leadership, it might be true. Some media articles on modern WICCAN history might be of interest
to a general readership.
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March 30, 2011, at 8:54 pm
Hi, Deacon John
Apologies to all for a non-journalistic post. Ron Parshley was a dear friend of mine. What happened was that he moved to Florida after inheriting a house there from an aunt who had died. After some years there, he died of a heart attack. He is much missed in Florida and in the Northeast.
He certainly never claimed to be the “head Witch of Massachusetts,” Florida, or anywhere else during the time I knew him. Such a claim would be wildly inappropriate for anybody, since we have no centralized leadership.
Ron specialized in psychic healing, which certainly can be understood as beneficent spellcraft, but no more so than prayers for healing in any religion. In later years, he and his Catholic wife jointly ran an Interfaith healing group. He taught me most of what I know about healing.
More elders like Sylvanus would be a blessing to all of us!
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March 30, 2011, at 8:58 pm
Hi, again, Deacon John,
Apparently we both posted at the same time. While Ron Parshley was not the grandaddy of the contemporary Pagan movement, he was most definitely a grandaddy.
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March 30, 2011, at 10:53 pm
Judy—so glad to read your comment. I was wondering how he died—I suspected heart from one of the eulogies. Ironic that Ron’s wife was Catholic—that was what we always debated -His Episcopal faith vs. my Catholic faith. Do you know what became of his son?? He had a child by the girl friend he had through high school soon after we graduated. The Globe article didn’t go into his family history that I can recall.
As for giving him the title “head witch” I’m pretty sure it was the Globe that gave him the title. I don’t remember him making the claim in the article, but that was the line that struck me at the time and has been in my head since reading it.
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March 31, 2011, at 1:14 am
Bain, thanks for your perspective, but your statement is false: “(1) The reporter’s sole source is the complainant (Smith). Saying in the tail that the TSA refused to answer questions because the case is under appeal does not sufficiently alert the reader to the inherent bias.”
No, the sources include the documents: the TSA e-mails, the hearing transcript, her personnel file, memos by TSA officials, the investigator’s report, etc.
And the story links to each of these documents. The full record is there for the reader to chew over.
Your main claim seems to be that there should be no news story because she lost her case. First of all, as I point out, she appeared pro se. No one reading the file would think that she put on the best case one could from the facts. Also note that the issue is not settled; she has appealed, and this time will have counsel.
These are subsidiary to the main point: The point of the article was not that she should win her case. It’s up to Ms. Smith and her attorney, not us, to advocate for Ms. Smith. The story is about the way the TSA handled this case, and the way it handled it can be newsworthy even if it turns out that it didn’t cross a legal boundary.
The TSA’s own documents cite the way it handled the religious claim against her: Twice her temination letter lists the agency’s response to the claim of casting spells as a reason warranting her termination. One of the reasons she was fired: The agency segregated her from a co-worker who claimed Ms. Smith put a hex on the heater of her car. Another reason she was fired: She cried when confronted with this allegation and twice left the room. That’s in the TSA’s documents.
Sole source = Ms. Smith? No. I would not have done the story if all I had was Ms. Smith’s say-so.
The documents told the story.
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March 31, 2011, at 2:11 am
Bill, thanks for the corrective - I did over-state. You interviewed Smith and gave links to the main documents (maybe with the help of her attorneys, if she has any - and if you did, I think that should have been mentioned).
What I should have said is that the story is presented exclusively from the perspective of the complainant - specifically in the lede where the result of the case is distorted. It’s her lens which is used throughout. Your version of what happened uncritically accepts Smith’s point of view, and I just don’t think that is fair to the reader. Telling me I can wade through 500 pages of transcript isn’t providing balance.
What about the issue of Smith using profanity at work on 10 March? That’s also in the termination letter. She denied in her evidence that she had used profanity, but her own witness (Hay) contradicted her (transcript, pp. 192) and even said that far from being discriminated against, Smith was treated more leniently (in the case of profanity) than another co-worker (transcript, p.202).
Nor is there anything in the termination letter referring to religion. That is her (and your) spin on why she was segregated from Bagnoli. The agency says it was conflict management and Smith accepts there were conflict-issues with Bagnoli - even before Bagnoli knew Smith was Wicca (as far back as January 2009: transcript, p.105-107).
Next, I am certainly not saying there is no story because she lost her case. What I am saying is that it is only Smith who believes it is a case concerning freedom of religion.
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March 31, 2011, at 3:12 am
Apologies for reverting. Smith contradicts herself over her history of conflict with Bagnoli. In her opening speech she says (transcript, p.8)
“there was a personality conflict between Mary Bagnoli and myself since I started working here. On March 4th, it escalated to where she brought my religion into it by filing a Complaint”
But in answer to the judge she says it was not from day one (pp.100).
She claimed that harassment by her co-workers escalated from 4 March such that she called the Ombud about it that day, or possibly earlier (transcript, pp.8f). Did she tell the Ombud the harassment was religion-related? No (p.20).
Did she perceive the harassment at the time to be religion-related? No. She mentions only 2 co-workers in this regard, Macauley who made one “broomstick” remark which she overheard (p.13); and Rodriguez who made 3 or 4 remarks, none of which mentioned Smith’s religion (pp.14f.). The “pointy hat” remark (in your piece) isn’t anywhere in the transcript.
At her meeting with Johansson of management (set up for her by the Ombud) she complained that Bagnoli was harassing her. Did Smith tell him it was religion-related? No (pp.25-27).
The first time Smith complained about any religion-related remark was at a meeting with the Ombud on 12 March when she complained about Lloyd’s suggesting mediation. The Ombud advised a discrimination claim based on that, but Smith declined because she didn’t want to “make matters worse for [her]self” (p.28).
Yes, indeed, the documents do tell the story.
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March 31, 2011, at 10:47 am
Bain, you’re correct about this part: It’s undisputed that Smith did not mention religion early in her complaints about harassment by Bagnoli and others. So the story says, so Smith says, and so the documents say.
As I reported, the judge found that this failure on Smith’s part to mention religion harmed her legal case against the TSA.
You seem uncertain about this part: It was Bagnoli, and the TSA, which explicitly brought religion into it. Bagnoli made a religious allegation: I’m afraid of her because she’s a witch. And it was the TSA which punished Smith because the TSA had to respond to Bagnoli’s allegation. It’s on the termination letter.
You make the point, as the TSA does, that there are other reasons on the termination letter. Yes, and those developed after the claim about witchcraft. More to the point, if I give 10 legal reasons for firing you, and two bogus reasons, it may be that, on balance, a judge would support your firing. That’s the framework you’re carefully staying inside. But the broader framework, which was the subject of my article, is a valid one: Why are those bogus reasons on the termination letter at all? After all, an action can be both legal and newsworthy.
Let’s step back and put this in another context. Let’s say you’re the only Roman Catholic kid in school, and the other kids beat you up and harass you. They don’t mention that you’re Catholic — you’re not even sure they know you’re Catholic. They just beat you up. Then, as it develops, one of the kids starts calling you “Pope Bain” while he hits you. Still, at other times, she just hits you without stating a reason. You don’t know — you can’t prove — whether she’s attacking you because of your religion, or whether she just uses the religion as a cudgel as she attacks you for other reasons. But then something else happens: She goes to the principal and complains that she’s afraid of you because you’re Catholic and she thinks you’re praying for something bad to happen to her bicycle. Those are the facts.
Now, your argument boils down to this: You can’t prove that the harassment was caused by your religion, and it started before some of the kids even knew you were Catholic, so you have no case. Not only no case, but no story. Move along folks, nothing to see here!
My point boils down to this: You got beat up, and you complained about it to the principal, and then the main harasser complained about your religion. How did the principal handle all that? That’s a story worth telling. And the difficulty that you would have proving that it was caused by your religion — that’s also a story worth telling.
You read the story, read my explanation of why it was difficult for Smith to win her case, and you’ve decided that the story was therefore unfair because Smith didn’t win her case, or shouldn’t have won her case. What a shallow reading.
Again, the story is not: Can Smith win her case. The story is: What happened to her, and how did this government agency handle it. I am surprised that those aspects don’t interest you.
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March 31, 2011, at 2:47 pm
Hello again, Bill.
I’m sorry you think my reading of your piece was shallow. I say it was unfair because you present the case (not the complaint - there is a difference) exclusively from Smith’s point of view. Is that disputed?
And why was it difficult for Smith to win her case? Well, because she never claimed she was being harassed on account of her religion. It’s a duh, Bill, it really is.
Where you are seriously misreading the complaint (as well as the case) is in failing to distinguish harassment by co-workers (which Smith said escalated after 4 March) and harassment by supervisors (as to which there was no evidence). Your schoolyard analogy breaks down because the only complaint Bagnoli made was the 4 March one.
And the alleged harassment by co-workers (a) was hardly pervasive or serious on Smith’s own account of it, and (b) was never brought to management’s attention. End of story.
What is left is Smith’s suspicion that the termination was a covert response to Bagnoli’s sole complaint. It doesn’t cite it – it notes TSA’s reaction to it (I’m not sure what our point of contention is here). What it cites (item 5) is a “conflict mitigation measure”:- no implication Smith was at fault, no indication she was being punished.
As early as 5 December 2008 and again in February 2009, Smith had complained about work-related harassment by Bagnoli. All of this was pre-“hex”. Then it boiled up on 4 March with Bagnoli lodging her complaint about potential violence grounded in Smith’s being a “witch”, and management deem the best solution is to keep the parties separate – Smith, coincidentally, having lodged another (and unrelated) work-related harassment complaint against Bagnoli the same day.
No other termination issue (before or after 4th March) is remotely religion-related, and none was bogus.
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March 31, 2011, at 3:24 pm
Deacon John M. Bresnahan says:
Actually I would like to read more detail about WICCAN rituals etc. One of the eulogies gave high praise to Ron’s performance of the Minotaur ritual(?????).
There are two primary forms of Wicca, Traditional and Eclectic/Solitary. While there are some shared basics (e.g., holy days, The Rede, Threefold Law), they are distinct. Trad Wicca is a Mysteries religion, an initiatory priesthood (i.e., unlike mainstream religions, there is no laity). It has a sacrosanct body of knowledge, passed from initiate to initiate. Eclectic Wicca is not, rather it’s a path that shares the basic elements noted above but then incorporates a multitude of pantheons and influences from other practices, per the individual’s choosing.
Wiccan traditions have shared liturgy, but most of it is not made public as the rituals are only attended by the given coven. However, covens often host open rituals to which non-initiates are invited and those give an idea of ritual structure. Eclectic Wiccan rituals are widely and readily available.
There is no Minotaur ritual inherent to Wicca. However individuals and groups often create additional rituals to focus on specific concepts and spiritual growth. Possibly, this one used the Greek myth as a metaphor for exploring the intricacies of one’s spiritual path (labyrinth) and the personal obstacles one must face and overcome (minotaur).
Some media articles on modern WICCAN history might be of interest to a general readership.
One place to start is with the articles available at Gerald Gardner.com, which covers the history of Wicca (Traditional Wicca): http://www.geraldgardner.com/essays.php
Eclectic/Solitary Wicca came about circa late 1970s - early 1980s. Given its varied nature, search “Eclectic Wicca” and peruse the multitude of perspectives.
Wikipedia has a decent enough entry on Wicca overall, particularly useful are the sources cited in the footnotes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca
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March 31, 2011, at 5:08 pm
Another recent case besides Smith’s had to do with a malfunctioning car whose troubles were attributed to spells. Maybe the MSM owe the public a duty to report those claims in the same tone that they cover flying saucer spottings.
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March 31, 2011, at 5:32 pm
Bain, I’ll leave the conversation with this. Thanks for the discussion.
You say, “What it cites (item 5) is a ‘conflict mitigation measure’:- no implication Smith was at fault, no indication she was being punished.”
Bain, that’s one time that the agency’s response to the religiously based complaint is on her termination letter. She’s cited because the agency replied to the complaint of hexing.
The other time is No. 8. She is cited for leaving (momentarily, to compose herself) the meeting in which this religiously based complaint was presented to her, along with the recommendation that she go to mediation with the accuser. That’s two.
Both of these items are cited by the TSA, in her termination letter, as “incidents” … “that warrants terminating your employment with TSA.”
If that’s not an implication that Smith was at fault, or an indication that she was being punished, it’s hard to imagine what could be.
The documents are on the story.
Again, thanks for the chat.
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March 31, 2011, at 5:43 pm
BAIN:
Yes, a word from the management: You’re done.
You are arguing the case, not the article. Dedman’s article includes all the arguments and points that you keep raising, all cited from the only sources available since Smith’s critics have no incentive to talk.
You’re done. Wait until another battle.
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April 1, 2011, at 9:14 pm
Re: “Wicca, the Pagan religion.”
If somebody writes, “Babe Ruth, the baseball player,” nobody interprets it to mean that no other baseball players exist.
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April 3, 2011, at 10:50 pm
Steve S.,
That is likely because they know of other baseball players. Many people don’t even know about Wicca, let alone any other Pagan religions.
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