Message #10922 - Wicca (Magicknet) Date : 24-Oct-90 21:59 From : Greg Edwards To : Don Orchard Subject : Halloween And Holy War! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @MSGID: 1:202/502.19 27265567 @ CHRISTIANS TO TAKE ON WITCHES, PAGANS IN HALLOWEEN "HOLY WAR" Atlanta Journal/Constitution --- Wednesday, October 24, 1990 SAN FRANCISCO - The term "holy War" will take on a whole new meaning here as Penecostal Christians and Goddess Worshiping Pagans square off on Halloween to prove who's holier than thou. Texas televangelist Larry Lea is mustering 10,000 Christian soldiers Halloween night in San Francisco's Civic Auditorium to do battle with the forces of Satan. And members of the normally low-key Pagan community in the Bay Area -- Practitioners of Wicca, nature religions and New Age Spiritualism -- have launched a counteroffensive, claiming Mr. Lea's spiritual warfare interferes with their constitutional right to practice their religion. Mr. Lea, a protege of Oral Roberts and former pastor of Church of the Rock in Dallas, has made a name for himself among Pentecostal and charismatic Christians for a tendency to preach in Army fatigues and hand out "prayer army dog tags" to his followers. He is a proponent of "spiritual warfare" -- using prayer to exorcise demons. Last month, with the backing of 500 pastors of Bay Area churches, Mr. Lea announced a three-day San Francisco crusade to "reverse the curse" of Halloween and march through the city to convert those they consider possessed by Satan; drug addicts, homosexuals, the sexually promiscuous, belivers in New Age religion and Wiccans, those spell-casting, goddess-worshiping folks commonly called witches. "These are not just kids having fun". Mr. Lea said at the time. "There is actual worship of the devil." Janet Christian, spokeswoman for the Bay Area Pagan Asemblies, and organization of Wiccans and nature-worshipers, is outraged. "We're goddess worshipers; Witches don't have anything to do with Satan. Who do these people think they are?" asked Ms. Christian, whose group sponsored a Witches' Ball at the Palo Alto Hyatt on Friday night, and open-to-all consume party designed to build bridges of understanding between the practitioners of Wicca and the community at large. "What if we brought some big-name witch to town on Christmas Day to do a ritual outside their churches? We'd never do anything like that to them," Ms. Christian says. "Why are they doing this to us?" Ms. Christian's group has taken defensive action in the pending holy war, hiring security police to keep out any Bible-Weilding Christian soldiers. But other Pagan groups are on the offensive, planning conter-demonstrations outside the Civic Auditorium and threatening guerrilla actions to disrupt Mr. Lea's crusade. "Larry Lea's going to find out that there are more of us than he can handle," says Eric Pryor, high Priest of the New Earth Temple, a San Francisco group of Wiccans and other Pagans. ** Thought that many here would find this interesting... Let me know if you find out anything more about it.. Thanks, Balance and Light! Greg Edwards - Astralite --- XRS! 3.42+ * Origin: The Astralite still shines! (Quick 1:202/502.19)