There's a man named Robin Fletcher who has been convinced multiple times for sex offenses against teenagers, who claims that his acts were all just him practicing his 'Wiccan religion'. This is problematic on several counts.
First: The Wiccan religion has nothing to do with perpetrating sex crimes against minors. There's nothing even about the requirement to be naked, though the option is there, and there's certainly nothing about a requirement for sex. If someone claims there is one, they're creepy skeezy liars and need to be pushed away from the main stream of what Wicca is. The main tenet is Harm None, and sex crimes harm people. Even if these girls thought it was consentual, we'd be willing to bet it was because he'd convinced them of the above lies.
Second: If he was doing this religiously and not compulsively, being arrested once would have been enough for him to find another way to express his religion-- something solitary, say, or with like-minded adults, or through entirely non-sexual practices. He shouldn't even have come to the conclusion that such things were necessary if he'd really done his spiritual homework. The fact that he refuses to change his ways shows that he's wrong in the head, and he's not practicing this gentle and happy religion correctly.
Third: This is all anyone ever hears about Wicca and Paganism. The weirdos who take the ideas and run with them in illegal ways and blame it on what is essentially a sweet and innocent philosophy trying to heal the world. This is not healing. And it's not a good lens for our community to be seen through. Do What You Will doesn't mean to break the law, go to jail and then come out and do it again. That's not who we are. It means to do what's best for you, so long as it doesn't harm anyone, including yourself. Being convicted of sex crimes harms you. Being a victim of them harms someone else.
Fourth: People who blame their deviancy on something like a religion are not facing the facts. And the lack of a central authority of Paganism means that the mainstream will always view us through a filter of stories like this. Each one undoes years of work done by really dedicated and honest people trying to rehabilitate our image so we can be accepted as equal partners in the religious life of this country.
Fifth: This country is paradoxically steeped in sexual imagery and very sexually repressed, and it leads to deviancy. Paganism has embraced sexuality and accepted the nude body as a natural thing, but that doesn't mean that every time someone is naked, it's for sex. The point of being skyclad is to be naked before your god, nothing between you and the Creator that made you-- there should be no sex in that reverie, and there definitely shouldn't be someone leering and pawing at you. That's why there are people who choose to be skyclad only when they're in solitary practice, and why many Circles are closed to outsiders: Misinterpretation of intent leads to problems. No one should ever be forced or cajoled into nudity, and it should never go beyond that unless it's entirely consentual, entirely between legal age-matches, and entirely informed.
Watch out for things like this: we don't need our religion to become a hold-out and an excuse for people with issues that need psychologists, not rituals.
Comments
Hello Samantha,
A good deconstruction and valid points. I would, however, invite you to research the past around Robin Fletcher. Whilst today the pagan community here in Victoria spends a great deal of time explaining exactly the points you have made to our local media, I fear it is to our perpetual shame that a reading of Fletcher's court transcripts strongly suggests that he was a formally trained and initiated member of the Wiccan faith. Many of the statements Fletcher made in court were recognisable as parts of the Gardnerian branch of Wicca, things which at the time of Fletcher's trial weren't readily accessible to the public, certainly not in this country at least (at several points he quotes the Ardanes or "Gardnerian Law"). This is not to say that he is in anyway justified in his actions, however to some degree I fear that our community must accept the responsibility of having had this monster in our midst and not seeing it.
-Raven
Every community has predators in its midst. Unfortunately, the Melbourne Pagan community has been no exception thanks to Robin Fletcher.
Just to pick up on a point that Raven made, at various times Fletcher has claimed to be an initiated Wiccan, a Christian minister and a Druid. He's claimed to be a lot of things. But yes, he was a part of our community back then. We can be fortunate at least that members of the community gave evidence against Fletcher during his original trial, stating clearly that rape and coercion play no part in Pagan beliefs and practices.
Fletcher is known - it is the unknown that may be out there that is the problem now. Our emphasis is going to be on educating and empowering our young people, so that they can spot sick individuals like Fletcher from a long distance, steer clear, and feel confident enough to tell the Police or community elders about anything untoward that they see.
Gavin Andrew
Pagan Awareness Network Incorporated.
This guy is a creep. Wicca is not about sex, Wicca acknowledges the importance of sex in a live-giving and ceremonial way. And most of the time, 'sex' within a ceremony is totally symbolic. Which means that the High Priestess and Priest do not actually have sex. In the religion of Wicca the Golden Rule is "An it harm none, do what ye will." Being a sexual predator is harming people, himself, and the teenage girls. I believe that this guy should be seriously punished, and i do not mean civilly punished. Any one who would trow away his common sense for physical pleasure needs to be taught a lesson. Wicca is not about sex, it's about honoring the Earth and the Deities that inhabit the Earth. This guy is sick and twisted, and needs to be put somewhere where he can not destroy a good religion and cannot harm anymore young girls.
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