by Sunny Kirsten
In January 1987, mod.psi — the moderated Usenet newsgroup for discussion of psychical research, approved at the University of Lowell — published a long response from Sunny Kirsten, a pagan practitioner writing from hoptoad.UUCP in San Francisco. The occasion was a debate about whether academic parapsychology had anything to do with the practice of witchcraft, or with genuine psychic phenomena at all.
Kirsten's response is a practitioner's theology: a careful map of the spiritual landscape that distinguishes what science, witchcraft, occult arts, and PSI each affirm and deny about God, the human spirit, and the capacity of spiritual action to affect the physical world. It is one of the earliest and clearest articulations on the early internet of the difference between scientific parapsychology (which denies spirit) and pagan practice (which affirms it) — and of why the former cannot, in Kirsten's view, ever really study the latter.
It is not at all clear to me that academic parapsychology has very much to do with psychic phenomena (psi). It is not at all clear to me that those who practice witchcraft do NOT engage in psychic phenomena. It is not at all clear to me that witchcraft is essentially a belief system. So, let me begin.
Witchcraft is both a belief system (as is any religion) and an occult art. Both aspects of this are spiritual.
Science is a belief system (as is any religion). The scientific approach to the study of paranormal, occult, metaphysical, psychic, psi, extrasensory perception, or parapsychology is doomed to failure. Why? Because the religion of science is an atheistic religion, and these phenomena are spiritual.
A Framework for Comparison
Here is how these four approaches stand with respect to three fundamental questions:
First: Belief in the existence of God.
- Witchcraft: Yes
- Occult: Yes
- Science: No
Second: The human spirit as independent of God.
- Witchcraft: Yes
- Occult: Yes
- Science: No
Third: Whether spiritual actions (prayer, invocation) can affect the physical world.
- Witchcraft: Yes
- Occult: Yes
- Science: No
Fourth: Whether one may invoke spirits other than one's own human spirit.
- Witchcraft: Yes
- Occult: No
- Science: No.
The only thing science has in common with most occult phenomena is a lack of invocation of spirits. I have not claimed that the practice of witchcraft must necessarily involve the invocation of spirits other than those human spirits present in the bodies of those practicing it, nor have I made any claims as to what other spirits might or could be so invoked. Let it suffice to say that many witchcraft rituals do involve the invocation of at least the four elements (fire, earth, air, water), the four directions (N, E, S, W), and the Goddess — which other religions call God.
But then, any good bible-thumping Christian preacher will also be sure to invoke not only Satan, but Hell, Brimstone, and the element Fire.
The Witch Circle and the Church
While a witch circle has protected itself from outside intrusion by the invocation of the Guardians of the directions and elements, they may then get down to the business at hand: prayer to the God(dess) of their hearts, as is common in any religion, and occult activities.
There is no difference between prayer and occult operation, save whether you ask God to act as an intermediary. You may pray to God to do something for you, or you may pray that something happen based on your own power. Since we were all created in the divine image, we are all divine ourselves, and we all have the power to accomplish things directly ourselves. Witchcraft and occult arts share this in common: the belief that you don't need God as a go-fer. Christian religions, on the other hand, insist that you need to go through either God or the Church to get what you want.
What Are Psychic Phenomena?
Psychic phenomena are those spiritual operations which allow you to exercise your own divine powers. They don't require the assistance of other humans or of other spirits (as may be done in witchcraft), nor do they require the assistance of some special human — rabbi, priest, father — nor do they necessarily involve God itself. Therefore, we may observe that most religions, including witchcraft, tend to be based on the concept that you can't do it alone.
You can.
However, it should also be noted that anything done in a group — and the larger the group — is many more times powerful than the mere factor of how many people there are. The World Planetary Healing Hour held at the end of the calendar year, involving the simultaneous prayers of some fifty million people of all different races, religions, and cultures, was a massive occult operation, simply because so many people focused at the same time on altering the world in the same way.
PSI is not scientific — it must admit of spiritual involvement.
PSI is not witchcraft, though witchcraft may include psychic phenomena.
On Fear
What underlies the question "Is PSI the same as witchcraft?"
Fear.
False Evidence Appearing Real.
The fact is that what you think and what you believe and what you fear all create the reality you live in. And if we all believe the same thing, we collectively create that as our reality. Do you believe that the world will be blown up in nuclear holocaust? Please don't. Instead, have faith in the positive. There is nothing more powerful than a positive affirmation.
Colophon
Written by Sunny Kirsten ([address removed]), San Francisco. Posted to mod.psi on January 5, 1987. Message-ID: [email protected]. Approved by the moderator at the University of Lowell.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. One of the earliest practitioner-authored theological frameworks for distinguishing science, witchcraft, occult arts, and psychic phenomena on the early internet.
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