Are ASU professors teaching students to practice witchcraft?
They link feminism to the occult
Parents and potential students, would you be surprised to find out that events are held on campus to teach how to practice witchcraft? We teach about all of the world’s religions at ASU. The goal of a religious studies class is to teach about religion. When a professor is a member of the religion being taught about, the professor does not cross the line into teaching the students to observe that religion.
Imagine hearing about an Introduction to Christianity class at a secular university where the professor led the students in reciting the Lord’s Prayer before class, asked the students to have daily devotions by reading the Word of God and praying, and required acknowledging Christ to be their Lord and Savor. I suspect you would say that sounds out of place for a secular university, and the professor has crossed the line from teaching about religion to advocating and practicaing a religion. What if the example is changed from Christianity to witchcraft? Would you be surprised to learn that professors at ASU teach how to practice witchcraft and why it is beneficial?
Check out this event held at ASU. Here the claim is that witchcraft in various forms helps to re-imagine the female body by disrupting and challenging traditional forms of knowledge creation. The events teaches that witchcraft is a source of healing and power. In other words, this is an event at ASU giving arguments for why someone should practice witchcraft.
So what is witchcraft? Isn’t it just earth-mother-goddess-worship to correct the abuses of the male sky-god worshipers? No 😂. The teaching about the earth-goddess is that “all is one, all is a cycle.” It is a denial that God alone is eternal and created the heavens and the earth. God isn’t the “sky-god.” God created the sky. So the first thing witchcraft asks you to do is deny God the Creator.
Then we find that there are two kinds of magic. One is impersonal, and the other personal. In the impersonal forms, you learn a ritual or spell so that when it is performed, something happens. Think of Harry Potter. This form of magic is just the post hoc fallacy of superstition (after this, therefore, because of this) and is corrected by the scientific method of observation and falsification. The other kind of magic requires contacting a person. You contact a spirit guide, dead person, or demon, and you learn the right way to get them to do something for you. Think Supernatural.
The teaching of this personal magic is that there is a hierarchy of spiritual beings, and humans can connect with them and get more power. Humans are on their own journey of the soul toward higher spiritual realities. If there is a highest god, it is being-in-itself (or the absolute) that humans can unite with after their spiritual journey. Thus, witchcraft rejects God the Creator and rejects that humans have sinned against God and need redemption. Instead, there are spirit guides and magical rituals that give power. It teaches what amounts to works righteousness-you can save yourself by your own works. It offers no way to be reconciled to God through the forgiveness of sins.
If you were taught anything at all about early New England in secular high school or college, it was probably about the Salem Witch Trials. The idea is that those who held the trials were especially bad because they knew that witchcraft was not real. They knew witchcraft could not be used to curse others. Or, they were just superstitious bigots. The modern student is asked to beleive a conspiriacy theory about the patriarchy who men fear women getting too much power. Supposedly, feminism exposes patriarchal superstition and ignorance. And yet this event at ASU links feminism with witchcraft.
But now we have witchcraft being taught and practiced on campus as if it were real. The claim is that witchcraft actually works. So here is their dilemma:
Christians in New England were wrong for indicting witches because witchcraft is not real.
Witchcraft is real (thus, Christians in New England had legitimate fears).
Parents, do you want to send your child to a secular university that teaches how to practice witchcraft? Potential students, is this what you expected out of a secular university education?
