Charlie Charlie really?

09 September 2015 - 18:09 By Bruce Gorton
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Image: ItsNickBean via YouTube

One of the things that always gets me with a lot of people is that sneaking suspicion that some fully grown adults believe Harry Potter is a documentary.

The reason I say this is because of freak-outs such as the Charlie Charlie challenge.

The challenge works like this – you draw a four square grid a bit like this:

Yes No

No Yes

Then you get two pencils – balancing one on top the other to form a cross that bisects the grid.

You ask Charlie a question and the spook obligingly answers.

And according to IOL, a bunch of people who are supposed to be educating our kids at Prince George Primary call in an exorcist, because basic physics somehow wasn’t on their school curriculum.

So what is actually happening in the challenge?

It is simple really – when you balance the pencils right it doesn’t really take much to set them moving.

Some get results just because they breathe heavily when asking the questions – others use a straw to blow the top pencil.

It is about as magical and occult as blowing out a candle and uses pretty much the same force.

These sorts of games and illusions could be used to further children’s educations, teaching them to try and figure out the trick for themselves, rather than simply taking them at face value.

Instead, you get ‘well-known exorcists Moulana Nazeem Salie and pastor Karen Maarman.’

I don’t have any respect whatsoever for exorcists. I think they are basically a breed of particularly scummy con-artist who prey on the fearful often to the point of causing child abuse.

And that pair demonstrates exactly why. Rather than teaching the children what was going on, Sallie told them “The game you are playing is making deals with the devil and we do not belong to evil, we belong to God.”

“Whatever choices you are making will affect your life,” Pastor Maarman warned.

In other words, rather than let kids figure out that the occult is bullshit and that Billy down the road isn't what happened to Gandalf after he turned on the magical mob – tell them its very, very real and very, very scary.

Because telling the truth is far less profitable than assuring people that the demons you cast out are real, and not just a trick to make money.

All across the country, and the world there are consequences for this sort of nonsense consequences such as people believing their neighbours have cast curses on them.

In some of the states to the north of us there are "Witch villages" because people believe the old biddy or creepy kid are secret spellcasters.

And you have some people doing awful things - because they believe they have the power to curse others. Muthi murders and sacrifices, purely pointless endeavours that carry on because of superstition.

We're all adults, and deep down we all know the truth - magic isn't real. When something weird happens, we can generally figure out why if we work on it - and that is far more constructive than calling in the exorcists.

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