There’s a right way & a wrong way to go wage war against witchcraft & sorcery.
Own the fact that in times past, Christian Zealotry has been guilty of needlessly oppressing witches & sorcerers, particularly women by using needlessly draconian methods up to & including both private & public individual & mob violence, de facto ethnic cleansing, torture, &, in the cases of Indigenous & analogous ipopulations, sociopolitical & socioeconomic, cultural erasure.
Consequently, as those who have inherited this history, we have a duty to refuse to agree with the thoughts, words, & deeds of our forebears &, if possible replicate & restore with respect to these communities.
With that in mind, let’s think about how can we properly root out & respond to bona fide witchcraft & sorcery, particularly legislative witchcraft & sorcery that seeks to parody human civilization & makes those who engage in that kind of activity a danger to themselves, to the people around them, & the Realm as a whole?
First, we need to understand the witch’s creed that begins with “To thine own self be true,” that there is a double standard at work among us that accuses us of hypocrisy when it comes to any rites &/or rituals we deploy. & any beliefs that lead them to claim they have no Master.
What does the Bible say in response?
- “To thine own self be true. Honor yourself first.”
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34–40, ESV)
- As to double standards/hypocrisy…
As the holidays approach practitioners of witchcraft &/or sorcery frequently sound the alarm that the use of Christmas trees, like Easter eggs is really rooted in paganism. Therefore, we are guilty of using a double standard, one for ourselves & another for them.
This objection is both legalism & propaganda on the part of these & other individuals. The Bible is full of examples of intuitive & inductive prophecy that serves as a means to take authority over witchcraft & sorcery.
In addition, the Bible is clear that bare thoughts, words, & deeds don’t qualify as sins apart from / regardless of the motives that underwrite them.
1 Samuel 16:7, Jeremiah 17:9, t10, & Matthew 5 are all very clear that God judges us & our thoughts, words, & deeds by way of His personal evaluation of our desires/motives.
James 1:14 - 15 reminds us that moral agents sin when they form & follow desires that result in sin, condemnation, & death.
Matthew 22, Romans 13, & I John 4 remind us that sin is rooted in the failure to love God exhaustively & perfectly first & foremost, then all others, then yourself. Perfect love fulfills the Law & conquers fear related to guilt in the Judgment.
On a functional level, Witchcraft & Sorcery agree, insofar as the practitioner has to shape & refine their thoughts, desires, emotions, & intent in one or more particular directions. A failure to do so might have disastrous consequences, especially if they are trying to make the hellmouth work for them.
In addition, Romans 1:18 - 32 reminds us that the purpose of the created order is to testify to God’s existence, invisible attributes, & authority, & that God has judged us all for suppressing that truth & thus His own image by way of looking to the created order to theology, philosophy, & ethics. The text then calls such reasoning futile & foolish & describes what results as an exercise in bigotry, rebellion, & perversion of justice that, left unchecked, can destroy whole societies.
Psalm 8 reminds us that the earth is the LORD’s & the fullness thereof. Every covenant that emanates from God begins with Him as Creator-Deliverer, & as such our authority is dependent on God’s authority via His assignment & gifts of general & specific dominion in & over the earth & the whole of the created order.
Jude is very clear about where demons & non-demons who go in the same or similar directions stand as to authority.
And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 11 Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. (Jude 6–13, ESV)
- As to the claim they have no Master.
This too is just propaganda. Unless a witch or sorcerer has chosen to act as a truly independent free agent, they are, at the barest of minimums, their own Master, because if they aren’t this exposes them to the possibility of being legally or illegally hoovered up & exploited by one or more individuals or covens, which might or might not be adversarial to the witch & who might or might not conscript &/or enroll them temporarily or even permanently with or without the witch’s consent.
In truth, the witch/sorcerer is beholden to themselves, one or more covens, one or more they serve, &, of course God Almighty who governs the create order, the witch/sorceror included, & there is no way around that particular fact.
They are also mastered by the principle of sin itself. He who sins is the slave of sin (John 8:34). Witchcraft & Sorcery are bondage.
This Is the Way! O LORD, Hear Our Prayer(s)!
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