Christine O’Donnell’s imaginary witchcraft

Slactivist:

The oddest thing to me about Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s “I Was A Teenage Witch” claims is that so much of the reaction has accepted her claim that such a thing might be possible.

It is not. Her claims of “dabbling” in what she called “witchcraft” are not true. The supposed witchcraft she describes is not something that exists. Such stories of bloody altars and Satanic covens are common and they are false. All of them. That is a matter of established fact.

The supposed witchery O’Donnell describes is simply the stuff of Satanic panic urban legends. Her descriptions come straight out of the fabrications of proven liar and con-man Mike Warnke. He made this stuff up. Her claims are about as credible as if she had said that she once conjured Bloody Mary by repeating her name three times in the bathroom mirror.

“I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things,” she said. This is not true. The wholly imaginary form of Satan-worshipping “witchcraft” in which O’Donnell claimed to have dabbled has never actually existed. You can’t dabble in things that don’t exist.

That Christine O’Donnell would repeat such well-established lies as facts — embellishing them with additional patently false claims of first-hand experience — is not surprising. Her entire political career has taken place within the strand of the evangelical Christian anti-abortion movement that is driven and shaped by this very same late-20th Century variant of the medieval blood libel. These imaginary Satanic baby killers form the core of her identity — they are the Other against whom she has always defined herself. They are the enemy in contrast to whom O’Donnell and her supporters are able to feel good and righteous and special. That these enemies do not, in fact,exist — that they have never, in fact, existed — only highlights the desperate insecurity of O’Donnell and her witch-hunting comrades.

There’s a lot more and it’s really interesting. Highly recommended.

Related posts:

1. Christine O’Donnell “not a witch”
2. Delaware Republican nominee for Senate Christine O’Donnell not so much a fan of birth control (surprisingly)
3. Rand Paul is just afraid of imaginary beer