Cambridge churchmen in fear of King of All Witches
Church leaders in Cambridge have reacted amusingly to the news that a self-styled “King of All Witches” plans to open an Occult Centre in the town.
Shadee character: The King of All Witches welcomes your donations
Lynius Shadee, who claims he can bring back the dead (“I can prove it and any sceptic is more than welcome to join me”), says his shop will offer exorcisms, psychic research, communication with ghosts, and witchcraft.
Father David Paul of St Laurence’s Roman Catholic Church is sceptical of the claims, but still worried:
It will be a shockingly bad thing for Cambridge. Whilst it is obviously a load of nonsense it will appeal to people who are in distress or are vulnerable. It really is manipulation of people’s fears and a complete fraud. People who go to these things often end up with mental problems.
Another churchman is less concerned about the direct competition the woo-shop would present to his business than he is about the reality of the woo it peddles. The Rev Ian Church has visited Shadee’s Occult Centre in Normandy (its website contains a Donations Page with a useful direct-debit form and last-will-and-testament templates to facilitate bequests to fund the “groundbreaking work” Shadee carries out). And the Rev was obviously impressed:
It was quite an experience. There were several ritual and séance rooms and what really struck us was the intense and extreme cold in the rooms.
Mr Shadee is most certainly an occultist in the truest form and I am of no doubt of the powers he can summon, within the paranormal. My concerns are that if he is allowed to open an occult centre there would be an epidemic of anti-faiths.
Oh my god. It would be like Ghostbusters – but in real life!
Shadee’s claim to be the King of All Witches could also spark some controversy. The rather large Kevin Carlyon already has a claim on witchy leadership in the UK, and might object to this upstart from Normandy coming over here and trying to take over.
Witch fight!
UPDATE: (11:45) Cambridge News has more on this Shadee character. According to that jaw-droppingly credulous report, he used an invocation to call up a demon to prey on worshippers at the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs. He said,
It’s an element, a hunter that will attach itself to an individual, then try to take the person, either send them insane and make them depressed, and the worst is to cause them to take their physical life.
All good publicity for his new shop, no doubt.
(Thanks to Mark in the comments)
The irony of a Church leader saying “obviously a load of nonsense”…
As someone who lives in Cambridge, I can tell you that there’s only one religion that tries to convert and prey on students, and it isn’t witchcraft.
And there’s more! http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/displayarticle.asp?id=454587
“Fr Dick Healey has branded the occultist “twisted” and plans to report him to the police for practising witchcraft in a church.”
…
“Police said a potential crime under the Public Order Act could have been committed if anyone was in the church at the time of the ritual and was alarmed or distressed by it.”
Oh I see. Well in that case, I’m alarmed and distressed by Christian rituals…
I was a witch in Cambridge for a while, and I suspect the community still there will be reacting to this news with a great deal of concern. I’ve never met any witches who acknowledge any of the self-styled claimants to the non-existant throne of the witches, and the kind of magic that this guy says he practises is the kind that most witches wouldn’t go anywhere near. The aim of most modern witchcraft-based faiths is positive change, not curses.
It’s actually very irritating. Okay so I’m not really a witch anymore, but I still feel connected to the community in a limited sense, and someone like this coming along is almost a personal insult. He’s claiming lordship over me, and behaving irresponsibly into the bargain.
Perhaps it’s a good thing magic isn’t real, because if it was there’d be a serious fight going on in Cambridge soon.
As always, the Catholic guy shows an unbelievable lack of self awareness. The quotation from him could be applied word for word to the Catholic Church. Why do the religious imagine that their particular brand of groundless idiotic superstition is any different from witchcraft?
Isn’t anyone else bothered about the fact that these “witches” are all dudes? I mean what happened to the traditional hirsute lady in a pointy hat? It’s political correctness gone mad.
If there’s “an epidemic of anti-faiths” to complement the plethora of competing faiths that we already have, would they all disappear in one big bang, so to speak? And we now know why so many old women were accused of witchcraft in the past. They couldn’t afford to keep their cottages heated in the winter, with the result that any prattling prelate who entered, noting “the intense and extreme cold in the rooms”, would have immediately jumped to the conclusion that dark forces were at work! These people are truly beyond parody!!
Another Pot-Kettle-Black from the church!
There is a museum of witchcraft and the occult in Boscastle, Cornwall, an amusing and interesting visit it makes. There is a disturbing display of letters from fundie xtains, you wouldn’t believe the hate and threats in those letters. There have been many attempts by the god squad to shut this museum down.
Father David Paul of St Laurence’s Roman Catholic Church is sceptical of the claims, but still worried:
It will be a shockingly bad thing for Cambridge. Whilst it is obviously a load of nonsense it will appeal to people who are in distress or are vulnerable. It really is manipulation of people’s fears and a complete fraud. People who go to these things often end up with mental problems.
As noted above, Priest, know thyself…
“It will be a shockingly bad thing for Cambridge. Whilst it is obviously a load of nonsense it will appeal to people who are in distress or are vulnerable. It really is manipulation of people’s fears and a complete fraud. People who go to these things often end up with mental problems.”
Kettle calling the pot black if ever there was an instance!
“I can tell you that there’s only one religion that tries to convert and prey on students, and it isn’t witchcraft.”
Islam?
Ask Clare College for their crawling take on this ……
It’s my understanding the most Catholics no longer do exorcisms on people, but rather do them on places which are believed to be haunted. Also, Catholics are strongly oppoosed to people acting as mediums. I would be very upset (and I hope others here agree) if I heard about any group exorcising a person or claiming to act as a conduit for the dead. Both can be extremely manipulative and the first can be positively dangerous.
While I am strongly opposed to anti-pagan bigotry, that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily wrong of Father David Paul to criticise the practices being promoted.