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Can someone please wake me up from this terrible nightmare I am having? I dreamt that Christian fundamentalists had infiltrated the South African Police Service and our mainstream media, who have somehow forgotten that we now have a constitutional right to freedom of thought, belief and religion in this country.
I dreamt the South African Police Service had resurrected the Occult Related Crimes Unit under the influence of so-called "occult expert" Kobus Jonker, and was spending our tax money on initiatives with a blatant religious bias.
I dreamt I read an IOL news article titled "Rise in witchcraft & Satanism in KZN", in which Jonker was quoted as saying "the six-pointed star with a circle around it was a 'witchgram' used to mock Jews and Christians ... It's a very powerful symbol used at witch festivals when they use white magic, and they use it to evoke the spirits. They make blood sacrifices and pacts with the demons and they drink the blood to get power". [Translation: Kobus Jonker et al are spreading malicious propaganda to stigmatize minority religions. It is a very powerful mechanism to spread fear among the uninformed and prejudice anyone who does not swim in the mainstream. They make pacts with police officials and journalists to get power.]
If Jonker truly was an expert of any sort, he would know that a six-pointed star is known as a hexagram ("hex" meaning the number six in Greek, not "heks" i.e. witch in Afrikaans) and one well-known hexagram is the Jewish Star of David. (Incidentally, a pentagram is a five-pointed star and a Pagan pentacle is a five-pointed star within a circle, representing spirit above manifesting as the elements of fire, air, water and earth below. According to Wikipedia, pentacles containing six-pointed stars also exist but to my knowledge they are not commonly used by Pagans or Witches. Good luck finding a six-pointed pentacle in a Pagan store.)
I don't generally feel the need to wear a Pagan pentacle or engage other people about my or their religious beliefs, but I am feeling more and more inclined to do so simply to counter the nonsense being spread about my religion. At least until this nightmare is over.
[10/10 to ZA News for their brilliant report Ghosts in the Machine, my MWEB video streaming sucks but it was so worth waiting for the punchline.]
