Today I stopped to grab replacement frames for my daughter’s glasses. The lady asked about my daughter’s name (Hermione).
Me: Like the girl from Harry Potter.
Clerk: Oh I’ve never seen those movies, I don’t believe in the witches and warlocks and such.
Me, jokingly: Well it’s all make believe, nobody actually thinks that witches or warlocks are real.
She then informed me that they are indeed real and she’s a member of a missionary group who “casts them out” all the time…
This is a fully grown (looked to be 45-50ish) adult woman, who is allowed to vote and reproduce, who straight up believes that magic, witches and warlocks are real, and not only that, she is a member of a larger organization of people who go out on “missions” to “cast out” these evildoers. And she works in a business where she holds at least some authority over an aspect of peoples’ health and well being.
The crazier thing is, she’s not the first person in this area I’ve met who thinks witches and warlocks are real life people out there casting spells and shit.
And that is why Trump won re-election.
Edit for clarification: Around here when somebody says they “don’t believe” in a thing, specifically in this context, what they mean is they “don’t support” that thing. I’ve also heard people say they “don’t believe” in guns, despite them being very real. What they mean is, they don’t “support” a thing, not that they literally don’t believe it’s real.
You must log in or # to comment.
Clerk: I don’t believe in the witches and warlocks and such. Also clerk: they are indeed real
This is what I imagine atheists in the lore of D&D are like.
“Gods? They’re totally real. I saw Baal himself kill a man once. But I don’t believe in them. They’re all gonna fail eventually.”
Reminds me of Dorfl the atheist golem, from Terry Pratchett’s Feet of Clay (set in the Discworld, a world where gods very much exist, and have rather short tempers):
Another priest said, “Is it true you’ve said you’ll believe in any god whose existence can be proved by logical debate?”
“Yes.”
Vimes had a feeling about the immediate future and took a few steps away from Dorfl.
“But the gods plainly do exist,” said a priest.
“It Is Not Evident.”
A bolt of lightning lanced down through the clouds and hit Dorfl’s helmet. There was a sheet of flame and then a trickling noise. Dorfl’s molten armour formed puddles around his white-hot feet.
“I Don’t Call That Much Of An Argument,” said Dorfl calmly, from somewhere in the clouds of smoke.
Also of note the Ephebian philosopher “Charcoal” Abraxas, writer of the Disc’s most significant treatise on gods, struck by lightning at least fifteen times.
There’s also that bit about Granny Weatherwax not believing in gods because that just encourages them
I think that’s basically it. Gods are not omnipotent and can be killed. Powerful mortals can likewise attain godhood. A D&D atheist can accept they’re real but also believe that they’re just really powerful people and not true divinities.
Heck, on that line of thought, it’d be cool to have a faction of militant atheists in a campaign whose goal is the eradication of all gods as a way to help bring order to the world. Additional twist: in this faction’s effort to produce champions powerful enough to go at it with a god, they inadvertently create additional god candidates.
Edit: Actually I think I just summarized the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion
Campaign tag-lines:
Gods all the way down.
Too many dieties!
A barrel full of blasphemy.
That’s pretty much world history.
And people want to be respected for having faith.
Not from me
A reminder on how D&D used to be attacked in the 70s-80s as some cult activity thanks to Jack Chick tracts, even sparking a TV movie.
Tom Hanks’s first lead role, Mazes and Monsters.
Religions do teach that stuff; the holy ghost, drink my blood and eat my flesh, rising from the dead. Sounds like a horror movie.
She then informed me that they are indeed real and she’s a member of a missionary group who “casts them out” all the time…
You: “‘Casts them out?!’ So you’re admitting you’re doing sorcery. I’m sorry, dealing with magic users is against my faith. I cannot speak to you any longer” /s
jesus magic is ok.
That’s because he is a full fledged Zombie now.
Cleric good, wizard bad, ignore that some spells are on both lists. Also they think wizards are all warlocks or sorcerers in 5e terminology
Ouch that was a hard one to read.
Media literacy is so incredibly low.
The brainwashing has got them thinking everything in tv they see is real. No wonder they will give everything to a scam like religion and toxic pedos running the operation.
When I was a kid (90s) my grandmother swore straight up and down that a certain woman she knew was a witch, and that one way to test it was to put a sewing needle down and see if she would refuse to step over it. So one day I took one and sort of mashed it into the wood in the bottom of her door frame so you couldn’t see it. The woman came by a day or so later and when invited in she declined and said she needed to get back home. That was all the proof my grandmother needed. My mom is also convinced they’re real. Pentecostal churches are reasonably common around here (eastern Kentucky) where people scream and holler and speak in tongues and cast out demons and all kinds of other nonsense.
Why the needle? Was it a form of evil eye or something? I don’t get the thinking.
I have no idea. The old folks also used to think witches were scheming against them and casting spells because out here in the woods sometimes if you’re deep in the woods after dark you’ll hear something that sounds eerily like unintelligible voices babbling together in the distance. Guess what screech owls sound like, especially if there’s a group of them? 🤣
Needles, quills, pins etc are often used in defensive magic (yeah, thinking a witch can’t cross a needle is magical thinking, which is funny). One of the slightly less obscure examples is in Witch bottles, a sort of gross protective charm against witches.
Needles and thorns protect animals and plants, so obviously knitting needles can also protect us, is what magical thinkers would say. Magical thinking is all about symbolism
I mean, anyone with enough skill at using chopsticks can probably wield a set of 8 gauge knitting needles with a high degree of efficacy
KY, you say? Explains a lot - even without making lubrication jokes,
Then where the fuck is my admission letter? I’ve been waiting for that owl since ages.
Take your business elsewhere.
I plan on it.
This truly is the worst fucking timeline.
It definitely sucks donkey balls, but I know for a fact it could be even worse. I mean, we’re still able to come here and kvetch, right?
They call me the Hero of Kvetch
Mkay, Jayne.
My ex’s aunt was terrified when she found out we’d read the books and sent us religious pamphlets about how it’s evil.
I wonder if she’s changed her mind now that the author came out as a bigot.
People like this are a big part of why I have no sympathy for this planet.
Unless it was a bigot against something that she personally cares about, I wouldn’t bet on it. Even if that were the case, mental gymnastics to “justify” it are far more likely than ever admitting the truth that she was wrong.
My wife’s best friend’s roommate believes she is a witch that casts spells to bring her wealth and fame, and in her words, they “don’t seem to be working” and she “doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong” because she “followed the spell perfectly”
She also refused to use my spare hammock when she tagged along unexpectedly over the weekend until she could burn some sage and waft it around because apparently my hammock was apparently possessed by someone who died in a hammock.
She also asked, repeatedly, if she could do a tarot card reading, but warned me if I wanted to try and ask the same yes or no question, her deck “likes to be a catty bitch” and give random answers. Crazy how that works out…
My wife also used to live with some people who claimed to be a witch and a warlock and that their property was haunted by natives who had been buried there and I would absolutely 100% see them if I ever spent the night. Sadly, despite assurances that they were around every night, I didn’t see them any of the times I stayed over, even when I camped in a tent half a mile from the house.
And quite a few people around me are super duper into crystal healing.
I love crystal healing. You get a crystal wine glass and fill it with wine, then you drink, fill again, drink, fill again… [5 hours later] …what was I saying earlier??
That woman sounds exhausting.
who is allowed to vote and reproduce
Holy fuck dude.
Eyup. I met those type but its rare although feels like less rare. I think they problem is they tend to have kids as stuff that just happens.
Humanity and humans have always been like this and the majority still are.
You would think that access to the collective knowlege of the internet would fix that… Its apparently made it worse…
Turned out there was more collective stupidity
We all forget that we are really at the very start … the very infancy of our civilization. We spent much of our evolution as hunter/gatherers wandering around the wilderness trying to survive … it’s only been a couple hundred years that we got out of that. Sure many of us became farmers and city people a few thousand years ago but all of them were all uneducated, unaware and highly superstitious people who only understood the world superficially.
It will take a few hundred or a few thousand years of development and hundreds of generations for us to get away from our habits … if we can survive that long.
Your IF statement at the end of your post really is the limiting factor. Im not as optimistic as you are, but its good that some people are.
I forgot where I read this, but modern wiccecræft is about propaganda and brainwashing. Black wiccecræft is brainwashing without folks realizing they have been manipulated, while white wiccecræft is being overt.
Modern hypnosis falls in the white category, while subtle advertising falls in the black category. Donald Trump employs both white wiccecræft whenever he lies publicly, and black wiccecræft when makes backroom deals like subsidizing Argentina & money laundering.
