Scottish Pagans Deny Horse Attacks

From the Blame the Witches files, there's been a series of reports out of Scotland that prompted the country's SPCA to put out a warning after three horses had their manes and tails chopped off. The warning said the attacks were likely linked to "witchcraft or other Satanic activity."

As you can imagine, that's not sitting well with Scotland's Pagan Federation. Presiding officer Louise Park said: "There have been allegations going around for many years that it is witches or Pagans that are behind various attacks on horses all over the British Isles. These allegations are entirely unfounded, and largely generated by unscrupulous news reporters."

Park added, "It does need to be said that the Pagan and witchcraft communities are as sickened and upset by these attacks as everyone else, and even more so that we are being accused of being responsible." She also pointed out that for many of Scotland's Pagans, the horse is a sacred animal.

Again, this is something that's not exactly unfamiliar to readers here. There's a definite trend in reporting that seems to say that any time something comes along that has no clear or obvious explanation, it's far easier to blame occult religions than to stop and figure out the real source. Here in the US, we often see groups like Vodou practitioners or followers of Santeria being accused whenever a dead chicken or goat shows up in a public park.

It's also important to note that the term "Satanist" gets tossed out a lot, and yet it's legal to BE a Satanist. Not only that, most members of the Church of Satan will tell you that this isn't their kind of thing either. Over at Patheos, Peg Aloi makes the excellent point that "it does us no good to assume every sensational, poorly-informed news story about the occult is somehow intended to "make witches/Wiccans look bad."

Indeed, the mere fact that modern occult religions are "othered" and thus non-mainstream to the predominantly Christian majority makes it hard for those of us who are different to explain why it's really not us doing awful things to kittens and horses and chickens and so on. The increasingly conservative political climate certainly makes this no easier in countries like the US, or even in the UK, where there's a pretty long history of not-Christian worship.

Peg goes on to say, "one of the first lines of defense in protecting our religious freedoms is to become as articulate, well-informed and educated as we can about the history of our own beliefs and traditions, and that includes the history of the modern occult revival." She's absolutely right - because if we don't educate ourselves about the beliefs and practices of our community - including those members of our community who are Not Like Us -- how are we going to educate those who stand outside and look in so that they can place blame?

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