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Preface: 

 

The Craft is an e-novel about Witchcraft in a future setting.  It's a prequel to my dystopian novella: The Cloud: set in the the last half of the 21st century - after The Great Famine.

 As I was writing The Cloud, I imagined that in fifty years the great bulk of the population will rely on their Virtual Personal Assistant (VPA), hosted in The Cloud, evolved from the primitive Siri and Cortana assistants available today. Owners will name their VPA and give him or her a personalised appearance, when viewed on a screen or in virtual-reality.

VPAs have obviated the need for most people to be able to read or write or to be numerate. If a text or sum is within view of a Cloud-connected camera, one can simply ask your VPA who will tell you what it says or means in your own language, explaining any difficult concepts by reference to the Central Encyclopaedia.

The potential to give the assistant multi-dimensional appearance and a virtual, interactive, body suggested the evolution of the: 'Sexy Business Assistant'. Employing all the resources of the Cloud, these would be super-smart and enhance the owner's business careers. Yet they are insidiously malicious, bankrupting their owners and causing their deaths before evaporating in a sea of bits.  But who or what could be responsible?  Witches?

We were travelling through Rothenberg, in Germany, as I was putting my thoughts together.  Serendipitously, to mark 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his '95 theses' to a church door in Wittenberg, setting in motion the Protestant Reformation, the Museum of Medieval Crime had an exhibition around Martin Luther's preoccupation with witches.

In the Early Modern Period witches became feared by Catholics and Protestants alike, as agents of Satan. 

 

Luther und die Hexen

 

Jews and Christians and Muslims have long been warned against witches: 

  • A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood [shall be] upon them. Leviticus 20:27
  • Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Exodus 22:18

Yet early Christians downplayed witchcraft as pagan superstition.  But the Renaissance brought changes in theology. If God was benign, how could one explain the presence of evil and suffering?

Christians now feared that Satan, the Devil, was secretly at work through subversive human agents: witches (hexen).  

Satan was believed to exploit original sin: mankind's base desires and weaknesses, in particular sex.  There was also increasing alarm caused by new scientific discoveries and witches were thought to possess secret knowledge about nature and the universe.

Regular outbreaks of the plague reinforced this belief. Surely each pandemic was the work of Satanic worshipers on broomsticks or riding a pale horse; it could not be the work of a loving God?

 

Die Hexen

 

From their pulpits the clergy sounded the warning and across Europe somewhere between 40 and 60 thousand suspect women were dragged from their homes by terrified fellow citizens and sent to mock-trials; before being hanged or burnt alive. 

Witches could be bewitchingly seductive: exploiting the basest desires in others. Others lurked alone or in covens, with other wicked women, and used 'dark arts' to cause illness and death in those that they chose as victims. 

Thus, the depictions of witches, in the new medium of printing, were frequently highly sexualised: not as pornography but to illustrate their potential to bewitch and seduce, as a warning. 

 

Hexensabbat

 

As the Enlightenment took hold, rationality and the scientific perception pushed back.  Witchcraft became just another religion, no longer feared, and for most of us became the stuff of fairy-tales or Roald Dahl tales for our children:

 

A Note about Witches

In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks.
But this is not a fairy-tale.  This is about real WITCHES
REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women.
They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.
That is why they are so hard to catch.

Roald Dahl - The Witches

 

 

In my dystopian world of The Cloud, religion has gained new importance to offer some meaning in a benign welfare-society: without countries; or war; or shortage; or serious pain; where life is about consumption until one commits voluntary euthanasia. But power over others remains a human desire and some have turned to a new: Scientific Witchcraft to satisfy that need. Others, capriciously and amorally exploit The Cloud itself for casual amusement.

 

Warning: Like a Martin Luther sermon: The Craft has some strong adult content.  

 

 

As with all fiction on this Website stories evolve from time-to-time.  
Unlike printed books that have distinct editions, these stories morph and twist, so that returning to them after a period, may provide a new experience.

 

 

 <Read The Craft>

 

 <Read The Cloud>

 

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Travel

Bridge over the River Kwai

 

 

In 1957-58 the film ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai‘ was ground breaking.  It was remarkable for being mainly shot on location (in Ceylon not Thailand) rather than in a studio and for involving the construction and demolition of a real, fully functioning rail bridge.   It's still regarded by many as one of the finest movies ever made. 

One of the things a tourist to Bangkok is encouraged to do is to take a day trip to the actual bridge.

Read more: Bridge over the River Kwai

Fiction, Recollections & News

On The Secret

There is an obvious sub-text to my short story: The Secret, that I wrote in 2015 after a trip to Russia. Silly things, we might come to believe in, like 'the law of attraction' are not harmless. 

The story is also a reflection on the difference between American and Australian stereotypes, that were evident from conversations on the cruise.

I lived in New York for some time and my eldest daughter was born there. I have visited the US fairly regularly since. It is, in many ways, the closest country to Australia that you will find, outside New Zealand.  So, I have often been surprised by how different it is in other ways to Australia, given the great similarities in the median standard of living, shared popular culture and immigrant demographics.

I have come to the conclusion that this stems from our different founding origins.

Read more: On The Secret

Opinions and Philosophy

Overthrow and the 'Arab Spring'

 

 

Back in April 2007 I was in Washington DC and wandered into a bookshop for a coffee.  On display was Stephen Kinzer's  National Best Seller: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.  So I bought it to read, before bed and on the plane. 

It is a heavily researched and work; very well described by the New York Times as: "A detailed passionate and convincing book... with the pace and grip of a good thriller."  And like a good thriller it was hard to put down.  I can recommend it.

Read more: Overthrow and the 'Arab Spring'

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