From:    Khephera                               Area: MagickNet
To:      Farrell McGovern                       27 May 96 04:34:08
Subject: Virtual Reality and Magick             UpdReq 

On May 25 22:49 96, Farrell McGovern of 93:9610/0 wrote:
FM> Greetings:
FM>         You humble Moderator is about to embark on an interesting voyage, 
FM> the use of VR for Magick. In the next month I will be aquiring a pair of 
FM> Virtual IO's i-Glasses, a Head Mounted Display (HMD) that will give both 
FM> stereo-scopic vision & sound, as well as 3 degrees of freedom.
Cyber Magery is something I've been studying for a little while now- in a 
theoretical sense.  Unfortunately, I lack the equipment.  :(
Perhaps I can give you some ideas and you can try them out.  ;)  Depending on 
what your capabilites (computer) are at this point...
FM>         What I am looking for is anyone else who is interested in this 
type 
FM> of work. It's going to eventually need artists, programmers, and 
Magickians 
FM> and Pagans of all sorts...but for now, I need at least one more person to 
FM> at least test links and such with. 
Sorry I can't help with that end of it.  However, when it comes to exactly 
"what" you want the system to do, I've got most of that figured out.  It'll 
be up to you to figure out how to make the system do it...;)  Being that I'm 
a practicing Wizard- who's put a lot of study into exactly "how" Magick 
works, and how to use a VR enviroment to augment that.  I suppose you could 
say...you've got the body while I've got the brains.  ;)
Blessed Be, may Yahweh and His Asherah guide and keep thee,
Ar ReX Em SeXem Eref Neter Au-a
Rx
Khephera


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From:    Thomas Izaguirre                       Area: MagickNet
To:      All                                    27 May 96 19:20:00
Subject: Witches Lose Court Decision            UpdReq 

* Original Area: CULTINFO
* Original To  : All (93:9806/0)
From The Wisconsin State Journal for Saturday, May 25, 1996 (3B):
 NATURE-WORSHIP CEMETERY PROPERTY TAXES DUE, JURY FINDS
 Milwaukee (AP) -- A town's refusal to grant a property tax exemption to a 
group of witches did not violate the members' constitutional rights, a 
federal court jury ruled Friday.
  The Madranite Circles Church and its leader, Mary Bloom of Oshkosh, sued the 
Winnebago County town of Nepeuskun, claiming officials had discriminated by 
refusing to grant the exemption.
  The church sought the tax break for a 33-acre nature-worship cemetery in 
which Bloom said members were to be buried in a spiral pattern with trees, 
not headstones, serving as grave markers.
  During closing arguments Thursday, town attorney Charles Bohl argued 
officials were justified in denying the tax exemption because the group 
refused to answer questions about its religious beliefs.
  "All they have is, "We're Madranite Circle, we're religious, and we don't 
want to pay our taxes," Bohl said.
  Church attorney Elizabeth Adelman, however, told jurors that town officials 
refused to grant the tax exemption even after the town's attorney repeatedly 
said Bloom's group qualified as a bonafide religious order.
  She urged the jury to disregard comments by the town's attorneys that used 
words such as "witch," "coven," and "magic."
  "What the defendants have tried to do here is make you afraid, bring out the 
worst instincts," Adelman said.
  Adelman conceded Bloom refused to answer questions about the Madranite 
Circles at a town meeting where she faced a hostile group of local residents. 
 Talking about the church's Wiccan religion at that point "would have been 
like throwing gas on the fire," she said.
  "They don't believe in death, they don't believe in one God, they believe in 
many gods," Adelman said.  "They're pagans."
  Bloom, who once described herseld as the high priestess of a circle of 
witches, now says she prefers the title of president.
 

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