I'm surprised to see this here on the front page of HN. Seems to me the audience here would generally be hostile to this, and not necessarily in a religious fundamentalist way. In other groups I run with, full of brilliant people who have developed their skills in both rationality and mysticism, this article might be criticized for other reasons -- not whether this is yet another example of superstition, but rather, in it's authenticity and whether it was a fluff piece.

Some comments at the meta level and on a tangent: I still think of that article posted up about René Girard, his influence on Peter Thiel, and the fascinating philosophy of mimetic violence. It's something I want to deep dive into. One of the questions it probes is: why do people create a scapegoat? Why do people want to say things to put down other people?

Fundamentalists scapegoat non-fundamentalists. (Maybe because it is less acceptable now to attack someone for their religious beliefs, so it is easier to attack someone for their lack of religious beliefs). Atheists have responded in kind. I'm not saying this happens here on this specific forum, but I have seen this dynamic happen a lot in other places, both online and offline.

Rational skepticism is one method of inquiry, useful as long as the people involved remain open-minded. Yet, whether we're talking about rational materialists, religious fundamentalists -- or even the drama I got sucked into with that Hong Kong martial arts article -- there is a tendency to rhetorically attack others. It is as if there is a _irrational_ tendency attack ideas (and not in the sense of trying to refine it through oppositional rhetoric, but to dismiss, to destroy, to deny the idea's very existence).

Lots of people watching jonathan strange and mr. norrel on netflix.

Over the years, the majority of wiccans I have known (barely double digits, to be fair) have been quite up front that it was just a metaphor for organizing their life and worldview, not literally "true" witchcraft. There is a, I don't recall the correct term, belief that you can will positive outcomes into existence by visualizing them. This is not unique to wiccans though.

It's less of a fad than it was twenty years ago, which might explain it. The people who stuck with it are probably the ones looking for a framework rather than the attention seekers.

Wow. That's scientology-level bullshit.

Scientology is a whole other level of bullshit. Wicca seems a great deal less predatory. And being wished a happy solstice by a dude with leaves in his hair is way less creepy than being offered a "free personality test." I'd rather deal with Wiccans.

Are you sure? To me it just looks like your average sect. And having sex with a man wearing a goat mask does not appeal to me as "less creepy" :)

Also, a few wiccans committed a collective suicide in France some time ago.

I guess it's just less mainstream for now. We need to wait a bit for more scandals to emerge.

Perhaps so. I'm certainly an outsider to both, and I'm unaware of incidents such as you mention. Scientology's abuses, on the other hand, are well publicized.

She supplanted mainstream gibberish (monotheistic religions) with fringe gibberish, that's all.

I've never understood the lofty attitudes of people who engage non-traditional supernatural beliefs. You're just a different idiot.

Everyone needs to find or invent terminology and tools to help define the elements(including the mystical and undefinable) of their existence. At least she and people like her are/were courageous enough to throw away the old tool set in order to define something for themselves.

The way I figure it when some people LARP, they just go all the friggin' way with it.

BS aside, making the world safe for oddballs seems worthwhile so long as they are of mostly harmless varieties.