ninjacat has done a pretty good job of following it up in the real world. I really hope she actually did take the legal action she says she did. Prison should pretty effectively quiet the crazy. And from what she's suggesting, there's enough out there on Mr. Carlton to put him away for a substantial vacation.
Dantalion has been really quiet on these issues of late. It's kinda nice actually. Let's hope he was arrested (that's not wishing ill on others, btw, it's quite literally what he deserves).
So a fond farewell to unrestrained crazy, I hope.
BTW, I'm beginning to suspect his emails were a sad attempt at scaring you into thinking he was casting black magic curses on you. Or perhaps he's just crazy. Or C. All of the above.
The only thing that doesn't jive with my earlier portrayal of the situation is the number of times the same text appears throughout the internet. If yuo follow the wonderful-wicca link above, you'll see it. That text appears verbatim in several other locations. I've seen it at least 4 or 5 times and I wasn't actually searching for the text, but for Tasha Palladino.
Now, it may be that it's cheap plugging for her site. But it was the rpeamble to a site selling packages of materials (including books) on wicca at absurdly low prices. The wonderful wicca site has a 24-hour number listed on it for someone that is not even mentioned in the text or anywhere else on Tasha's apparent main site.
Again, if Tasha's marketing is good, there's nothing saying other sites might not copy her text wholesale. But I'd be curious to see if they are all owned by her or if at least a lot of them are. I don't have the time, personally, to do much looking into it, but it may be a line of evidence that casts even more doubt on the possible scenario I portrayed.
Again, in that situation I was playing devil's advocate. I'm wavering somewhere between good-intentioned but unethical, and more ethical/accurate but still a scam.
The Dantalion thing is just too ridiculous for words. I really am in stiches over it. I'm not even bothering to refute any of it anymore.
Thanks, Princez. Trae can vouch for me on this one. The people we used to associate with almost forced you to be overly detailed in order to cover your bases. It's pretty evident in the admirable amount of detail Trae goes into with his research as well, though I think he's got other reasons for his meticulous work as well.
And a final note. The response on her site seemed very reasoned and calm. She made no accusations against Trae and even offered a relatively even-handed treatment of FD that he really didn't deserve. She didn't make her response any kind of dramatic indictment of her competitors, nor did she make it a marketing ploy to say 'see this is why I'm genuine and they aren't'. She hasn't made erratic changes to her site or pulled down sections, and really hasn't displayed any of the typical behavior attributed to the owners of sites like this. It really just seems like a small business owner trying to do some damage control to me.
Perhaps I'm being duped here. Perhaps the sane and sober thing is just a show. But she just doesn't fit the profile so far as I have seen.
I don't think it unusual at all that she would look like her niece. There was a picture on the wall inthe house I grew up in of my grandfather. I looked so much like the picture people regularly asked where my mom got such a great old-fashioned portrait of me. The same has been said of pictures of my father. And here's the kicker, I'm adopted. I'm not actually blood related to either of them. My adoptive sister also very closely resembles my half sister to the point that I've confused them in pictures. Again, no blood relation whatsoever. I'll agree it's not common, but it really is well within the realm of possibility.
As for the paypal reservations, you don't need to have a business to have a paypal account. In fact I'd venture to say the vast majority of paypal accounts are not attached to businesses. So there's nothing to say she hasn't had an account in good standing for eight years up to and including the two years her business has been in operation. This is not only possible but extremely likely if it is indeed her niece's boyfriend's account. Furthermore, at one point the convention mentioned elsewhere on this site was run off of my paypal account. Granted, at that point I was a co-chair of the convention, but I didn't start a business account for the con itself until two years into it's operation. And note, I was a co-chair, not an owner or a partner. I wasn't even the treasurer. The wisdom of leaving her finances to a third party could certainly be questioned, but again, not a game killer.
I also will take a few notes from her playbook and mention that her fees are abnormally low for such a site, very much in line with her claims that it largely covers the cost of running the site/business. Additionally, the spells she claims to cast are very reasonable and not impossible for someone to undertake. They are certainly not the '8 hour ritual to cure cancer' that fastspells claimed to do. (I just noticed the irony of the fastspells name considering the length of the rituals they claimed to perform as a side note.
As for the liveperson site with similar wording, it's clearly a cut and paste job of the worst kind. It seems illogical to me that they would have one site that was well-designed and structured, and then another that is a complete hack job with terrible formatting, no sections, and not even so much as a paragraph break. The fact that it is mixed in with various absurdly overblown claims not contained on the witchraft spells now site, and the fact that the hack site is supposed to be a psychic and not a spellcaster leads me to believe it was, indeed copied and pasted from the witchraftspellsnow site, and likely by someone else. And the subliminalblackbook site looks like hers asthetically, but has absolutely zero similar content as far as I can see. That's very easily the result of templating. That goes on in every corner of the internet. Almost no one other than medium to large corporations creates their designs from scratch unless they, like Trae, have the actual skill set required.
And finally, she said her husband oversaw the design process. Nowhere did she say he actually designed it or that he had any hand in the coding or layout other than an advisory role. This is hardly splitting hairs. I can code, but my designs stink, which is why I don't maintain my own site. And a lot of people have a great design aesthetic but little if any knowledge of coding or even graphical layout methods.
Again, I have no way to prove any of this, but I think I've demonstrated here that there is no proof to the contrary either. The statements for and against have been entirely circumstatial. And while this is certainly not a court of law, I do still feel a guilty verdict has been rendered too hastily. And also to restate, I am not supporting her site one way or another. In my email to her I expressed my opposition to spellcaster for hire sites as well as my reservations with some of her practices in the love spells section. But I just can't shake the fact that she seems genuine at least in so far as her intentions aren't as off-base as fastspells or FD.
Yeah, there are definitely some things that are cause for questioning, and I really have no proof, per se. My only real point is that, unlike pretty much all the other sites out there, she really does present a decent face for Wicca aside from the concept of the site itself.
I got a reply back from her on the love spell thing. She stated it's really more of an attraction thing, though it's not worded all that well on the site. My only remaining ethical beef with the spells themselves then is the binding portion in that same section. She actually send me a very sane and sober reply. It was no 'I can help you get anything you want, just give me $800 and your bank routing number' and certainly nothing like Frater, who I am at a loss to even emulate.
I guess my caution is as a reult of one of the communities I post on out there on teh interwebs. A bunch of folks on there do readings, reiki, herbal cures, etc, and a few charge a minimal fee beyond materials. None of them are running anything close to a formal business, but they are 100% legit as far as I can tell. I'm odd as a pagan in that I'm still skeptical of how well it would work, but at least I know enough about them that so long as they haven't concocted a complete BS persona (not out of the question, for sure), they are the real deal. It just leads me to wonder if there are some folks out there running real businesses with no intention of scamming.
I don't know, the jury's definitely still out, but her site is far less absurd or offensive than the vast majority of those I see.
Princez,
The only note I'll make is there is a possibility of a floodgates effect here. Just like the priest abuse scandals with Catholicism there could be a rush of folks coming out of the woodwork now that someone has filed a complaint. I don't think that's the case, but it's certainly a possibility. People can be very sheep-like under the right circumstances and if they feel cheated, they may not want to come out and say it. There's a similar psychological function in effect with the low reporting rate on rape cases.
I gotta say, I'm inclined to believe her. Most of the postings around the net from the spellcaster Tasha are very consistant. The site itself, aside from the two spells on the love spells section involving free will (binding, etc) don't really appear to violate any standard Wiccan beliefs or practices. There are the witch laws involving charging for services or that Gardner drafted, but I know very few Wiccans, Gardnerians included, that follow those to the word, especially since some of them are rather bizarre.
Honestly I felt her site gave a rather fair view of Wicca considering how many truly attrocious claims are made in the name of Wicca even on Witchvox (on almost a daily basis, I might add).
The niece she speaks of also seems rather consistant throughout all of her sites, with only a slight variation in claimed age, probably due to the various levels of updating on the sites more than anything.
I really gotta say, I think she's at least legitimate to the degree that I don't feel she's out to intentionally scam anyone.
I'm still opposed to the spellcasting site concept in general on principle as well as on grounds of effectiveness. Again as I said in one of the RoR reports, it's all about will, and I'm not sure how much will you're going to get from a spellcaster who, empathy aside, has no dog in the race as far as the subject of the spell goes. She at least addresses this through some excersizes whe has her clients do. I'm just a bit of a doubter on this one.
I do feel very strongly opposed to the love spells section because binding an unwilling or unknowing target in my book is a black and white example of a Rede violation or at least an extremely strong risk of a violation thereof. I don't think it's a fundamentalist view of things. Indeed, the idea of directly targeted love spells being very risky business in regards to the 'harm ye none' clause is pretty widespread in the community at large. Often the best way to tell a 'fluffy bunny' from someone who's going to make it a lifetime commitment is the willingness to budge when it comes to love spells.
I'm willing to grant her a pass on the basis of it being an earnest and honest attempt at a business, but the ethics question still looms large for me on those grounds. I emailed her on it and am awaiting a reply.
The one and only piece I can't quite settle myself on is the temple she is supposedly running. It may very well be real, but even the informal 'temples' in peoples' living rooms around here in Madison have some sort of trace on the net. Aside from her articles, I can't seem to scrape up anything on her temple anywhere on the web. Perhaps I'm just not looking in the right places or perhaps it's a sign that there are still some questions.
None of my reservations are true game-killers and I've been a little hesitant to jump on this one as I did with the Reynolds case or with Frater.
Meep
PS I considered submitting this as a potential article, but it really is a direct comment to the page.
Tasha has the same article posted all over the place with actually relatively fair-minded information about Wicca. However, in all cases it makes the same claims about her supposed temple. She has a few sites out there of her own, mostly with the same garbage story spouted over and over. The only thing that really (and I mean REALLY) bugs me about it is that she has a link up on the Wicca supplies page on religioustolerance.org. I have a lot of respect for that site and am disappointed that such a site, as well as a few other spellcaster sites, is posted as a resource on RT. I'm taking it upon myself to ask them to remove it and others.
I should mention that she actually uses her full real name in multiple places throughout the site including her legal section.
What a horrible picture of me. I believe that was in the autograph line for Tiffany Grant back at the last WestCon (may it rest in peace). I gotta say, we had quite the operation for being entirely auxilliary to the con itself.
Oh, and as a spellcasting pagan I gotta agree with Trae. There's pretty much no chance any person claiming to be wiccan or neo-pagan is running a spell scam site.
Furthermore, I sincerely doubt any sites, whether or not they claim to be Wiccan, are actually genuinely doing anything, more or less anything that will actually accomplish your goal.
There are tons of pagan communities out there. If you really think a spell is what you need (I don't necessarily agree with you, but hey go for it), make some friends there and see if somewhere along the line someone will help you. They'll have a lot of discussion about the ethics of your intended working, and chances are they will probably spend a lot of time trying to get you to solve your problem through other means.
Most witches/pagans are in it for the religion and view spells as a sort of prayer, but with more of a component of personal will. That's why it isn't likely to do much, even if they are legitimate spell casters. It's their will not yours and even if they really really want to help, it's still not the same as your desire for it to work.
Now, there are mystical traditions outside of Wicca, but their practitioners are pretty few and far between and they are ususally pretty secretive. So chances are, they won't be running spells for hire sites either. As a religious neo-pagan, I question their ethics as well.
I've replied to any of the Rip off Reports that mentioned you saying, essentially, that all you need to do to prove who is telling the truth here is watch FD's site. Like I say on ROR, you can change your site to 'prove' your case, but you can't change your site to prove you don't change your site.
It seems, from the comments, that no one buys FD's garbage anyway, as well they shouldn't, so I guess I'm watching the drama unfold more out of shear amusement at this point than anything.
Okay, the guy's clearly delusional if he honestly believes you are connected with any of those sites. And anyone who genuinely looks through them will see that pretty much right away. The garbage he sent you, minus a few references to your actual name come off pretty much as spam email more than anything. My assumption is that he's just trying to portray himself as a lunatic so you'll be afraid of him.
My suggestion? Route all of his emails to a folder, grab snapshots of his bats*** crazy page and just generally document. Don't post any new info here for a while. Lay low. He'll probably go away once he realizes the target of his delusions isn't paying attention to him. If he's still going at it in, say, 6 months then unleash an onslaught of evidence about it and link to it on ROR. The most important part is to not react. No posts, no emails, no nothing.
I'll break the anonymity here. I wasn't necessarily saying a D&D campaign had no place there, merely that it was oddly placed as an official event on the calendar. It's also a little troubling to me in that the connection of fantasty role-playing to a pagan event in an official capacity further enhances probably the most wide-spread assumption about pagans in general and wiccans in specific, that we're all a bunch of kids who read too many fantasy novels or watch too much TV.
There was plenty of light-hearted fun there from games and a pagan fashion show to a children's craft area and a bounce house for pete's sake. Most of the performers had a heck of a sense of humor in their sets as well. And D&D, while an odd bedfellow in my mind, is not entirely out of place and certainly not unwelcome. But as part of the official calendar it just doesn't quite sit well with me.
Perhaps I'm a little too concerned about paganism's PR and maybe I am a little too serious about it, but I worry that so often we do ourselves no favors by overtly allying ourselves with role-playing and midieval reenactment crowds. There is some serious cross-over interest there, for sure and I think they will both always be a component. After all, what is high ritual, pagan or not, but an elaborate role-play. But the degree to which we acknowledge that relationship is critical in my mind.
My mother, upon learning that I was pagan, suggested I write fantasy novels instead. To me, that speaks volumes about general public opinion of my faith.
Meep
PS By the way, I can't write fantasy to save my life. I tried once upon a time and man did it come out trite, formulaic, and completely unentertaining.
I may, but as you may have noticed I'm more of a reactionary poster on the web. I write very little original material and mostly just reply to posts I don't agree with. I'll definitely think about it.
"This whole article is one big straw man argument, with some scare tactics and ad hominem thrown in for good measure. "
It's an editorial page, in essence, and not a formal debate. I do realize that the public at large isn't aware of the difference between the two, but if you are going to use logical falacies to tear down an editorial page, you're barking up the wrong tree on a fundamental level. Pick up a newspaper editorial page sometime and let me know how much of it holds to the priciples of logical debate. This, being an informal, personal page has even less obligation to stick to those principles, though actually does a pretty decent job given that it is editorial.
That said you do at least have a point that they have some claim to what the term does and doesn't mean. But keep in mind as well that the terms 'witchcraft' and 'pagan' were terms started in a different group at a different time. Most modern witches and pagans don't fit at all into some of the multiple definitions of those terms.
I think you miss the point, however, in that Trae is not arguing as to whether or not they have the right to do so, though when it comes to words, no matter how personal they are, they really don't have that right.
The dangers of fundamentalist thought are pretty profound. Not the least of which is in the realm of public opinion. Often the strict, exclusive, and occasionally 'holier than thou' nature of fundamentalism in any form presents a somewhat negative view on the movement as a whole, fundamentalism included. For instance, I was often credited on religious debate boards for converting people to christianity better than the fundamentalist christians in that I often apologized for their insanity and presented a fairer picture of the faith. A view I thought it deserved.
The other aspect, which Trae mentions, is fostering division in the group as a whole. There certainly is an argument to be made that wicca has come to be too broadly defined. I hardly imagine any Wiccan would disagree with that. But drawing the lines strictly on initiatory lineage or specific practices ignores an awful lot of realities in modern paganism. Trae even mentions them in the article. Valiente's self-initiation ritual, the existance of Seax-Wicca which is a Gardner-approved deviation from Gardnerianism, the list goes on.
And how about Alexandrianism, which claims a distinct lineage while containing similar structures and practices. Sanders was initiated, true. But similarities aside, his tradition clearly deviates from Gardnerianism and claims no heredity from it. How is it that Alexandrianism is so easily accepted as genuine and the rest are not? simply because it's older as Trae suggests (also a logical falacy, by the way)? Because it claims a heritage, though not Gardnerian? Several trads claim that as well.
So the final point is that clearly the initiatory lineage doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule and clearly strict BTW practice is not either. So how are we to accept lines in the sand and the inevitable problems they cause when it appears the line doesn't universally apply?
I argue that we can't and we shouldn't. I think it's important to discuss it as it's important to understand what we mean by Wiccan, but it is not a black and white issue and shouldn't be made out to be that way. It wasn't then and it isn't now.
I think a better approach is to recognize the spiritual practices generally assumed to be Wiccan and realize that all Wiccans adhere to most of them yet most Wiccans, BTW Wiccans included, do not adhere to all of them. There are definitely some definitive quid pro quo beliefs that are non-negotiable, but aside from the very core characteristics I think it does a disservice to the body that is Wicca to canonically define it much further than that.
Yeah, I suppose the 'naive college student trying to make a quick (albeit dishonest) buck' should have occurred to me as a scenario. But just because you don't run your scam like a superspy doesn't mean you shouldn't be held accountable for it. You gotta know this isn't legal/ethical.
That said, while I haven't ever run a scam or, to my knowledge, done anything illegal, I've said some pretty attrocious things on the net over the years. I know what people could get on me off the net and I wouldn't be as surprised as to the depth of info someone could get. But it would freak me out if some actually demonstrated they had gone out and gotten it.
Hopefully this scares her enough to pull her off the scammer rosters for good, at the very least. I don't think anyone here is about to initiate any lawsuits, especially given the fact that none of us were actually victims of this scheme. But if I were her I'd be seriously worried about that at this point. You don't even need the address, just a name and a town of residence and a disgruntled customer could start some serious trouble for you.
I don't have to tell any Wiccans here that when it comes to harming others, you reap what you sow. Perhaps she should have read that chapter of her Wicca 101 book a little closer before she embarked on this little escapade.
Wow, I figured this all might have made a dent, even a significant hole in their business. I didn't think it would fold like a deck of cards in a few weeks time. It's apparent the initial post Trae made, if it was noticed by fastspells.com folks at all, was brushed off as typical consumer snooping. But the detail and breadth that Trae went into with post 2 and the rallying cry and assistance from the peanut gallery definately caught someone's attention. Hopefully that someone was a fraud investigator, but I doubt it. My only worry is that this site will reincarnate as yet another scam by the same folks only smarter because they now know how people can follow their trail (which I won't go into in hopes that I'm wrong and they're not that smart).
odd item of note, her Xanga page has mysteriously been cleared. It still says it's hers and still has a big (and hideous) pink pro-ana banner across the top, but the posts have all been deleted. Perhaps she found your post here?
Really? Buckland's trad is not considered part and parcel to the whole thing? He was quite close to Gardner, if I recall, and was initiated by Gardner as a mutually agreed method for introducing it to the US. I guess I do agree that it wouldn't be true BTW in the sense that it's not British nor ever has been, but it's a pretty close lineage.
Eh, I digress. I don't actually care all that much about the intricacies and inheritance of initiatory Wicca anyway. Hard Gards drive me a bit out of my mind, actually. I generally use the term Neo-Pagan, myself. I'm a Wiccan by most non-fundamentalist views, but I'm borderline enough that I'm comfortable with avoiding the conflict.
That and I feel more and more that paganisms, both old and new, are quite similar in general theological tenets. I've felt that way for ages, but the book Pagan Theology really has cinched it for me. Envision Triumph of the Moon only focused more on theology and less on history. It's very non-dogmatic, while still having very valid points about paganism at large.
Oh, and on a related note, a recent post on a pagan board out had a somewhat disturbing story. A woman had put her child into day care with a licensed individual.
The woman did a wonderful job with the young boy until the mother noticed he would occasionally put his hands together as if praying. That didn't worry her too much as praying is not a problem with pagans. But when she asked him about it he told her that the day care provider had been having them pray every day and had told him that witches were evil and going to hell. She posted on the boards asking if there was any way she might be able to approach it without having to find new child care arrangements.
Now, I'm not one to stand in the way of someone's religious beliefs. I can't even honestly say that prayer is unacceptable in a child care environment. But to do so without consent of the parents is totally reprehensible. And the specific mention of witches leads me to believe this may have been a targeted and covert attempt at saving this boy's soul.
I never told my parents. My mother found a few pagan resources (the only ones the local bookstore had) stashed in my room.
We had a good old bookburning first. Then she asked my psychotherapist to deprogram me and, when he refused, she asked my step-dad's pastor to do the same. Much to their credit, no one cooperated with her requests, but I still lost about $70 worth of books and got the message that religion was not a subject my mother was willing to be even slightly flexible on.
The subject went completely under the rug until my wife and I got married. I had to tell her why I wouldn't be getting married in a catholic church and why my kids would not be baptized.
Since then, we simply don't talk about religion, though I do toss in an occasional barb about how her beliefs resemble paganism.
Judging by the bountiful supply of 'how to cast a love spell' books in the bookstore this actually does not surprise me at all. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that most people find this to be about as much of a steaming pile as I do. Sadly people do far more shocking things, and far more gullible and boneheaded things, fully within the scope of actual religious practice.
The only thing that makes these sites work is the woeful lack of understanding in the general public of wicca and paganism at large, and spooky factor of a mystical tradition. And the only thing that differentiates between the claims of this site and the claims of a host of religions, pseudo-religions, pseudosciences, and just plain superstitions is that unlike many of the above Wicca, real Wicca, doesn't actually claim to be able to do any of it. At least not in the way it is portrayed.
Love spells? Sure. I can do all sorts of thing magickal and mundane that'll bring more love my way, not the least of which is not being a lying, thieving charlatan. But make someone fall in love with me? Heck, even The Craft wasn't so bold and so dumb as to suggest that was a good idea.
I loved the humor in this. The usual Wicca FAQ reads either like a VCR repair manual or like it was written by some almost angry enough to bomb your car if you ask one more dumb wicca question. This was refreshingly funny and respective of those who may be new to the Wicca world. Well done!
Very nice. I love to hear people's stories on how they came to Wicca, or any belief for that matter. This is certainly atypical compared to the ususal 'grew up as a christian but turned away' story that most pagans, myself included, tell.
