Legal Witchcraft

My mind boggles to read as from Saturday, Romania has officially recognise witchcraft as a profession, part of the government's drive to crack down on widespread tax evasion in recession time.

Witchcraft is popular in Romania, the homeland of Dracula, as many local folks believe in the occult.




A month ago, the above Mircea Geoana, a top contender for the Romanian presidency was said to be zapped out by a shadowy parapsychologist enlisted by his rival.
He asserted that he had been targeted by waves of negative energy during a key debate just before the run-off and a "negative energy attack" led to his narrow loss to re-elected President Traian Basescu.
Mihaela, his wife claimed he "was very badly attacked, he couldn't concentrate", and Romanians mocked the former foreign minister, saying he was a bad loser.

But the recent publication of photos showing well-known parapsychologist Aliodor Manolea - his specialities include deep mind control, clairvoyance and hypnotic trance, was close to the President during his re-election campaign has caused Romanians to wonder whether he really did put a hex on his rival.

It has since been the talk of the nation when the daily Evenimentul Zilei wrote in an editorial, "The Evil Witch defeated Geoana."

Romania's former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu abolished psychology departments across the country as he was said to be terrified of even traditional psychologists.
He feared the threat to communism that he even banned the word from the official dictionary.
Then in 1982, he staged a crackdown against people, and dismissing scores of officials who were allegedly practicing transcendental meditation.

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In 2007, Judge Elena Simionescu was relieved of her position as court president and salary reduced for three months, of not only "misplaced" an important court document, but was accused of being a witch - alleged by court staff, judges and prosecutors, to perform rituals of splashing water, mud and "other liquids", as well as salt and pepper, on fellow judges' desks.
The practice was said as an attempt to bewitch and tried to cast spells on them, creating a conflicting atmosphere during her term as a president of the court in Vatra Dornei, in eastern Romania.

She denied the accusations, telling investigators, "I splash my colleagues' desks with holy water every day, in the spirit of good Christians' rituals."
But a local lawyer claimed she had many quarrels with people working in the court, and they were all convinced that she was casting spells.
Inspectors investigating the complaint concluded that Judge Simionescu used "unorthodox methods with her court colleagues and maintained a constant tension by using occult practices and witchcraft".

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31-year-old Gabriela Ciucur is Romania's first legal witch, after she registered a company dealing with "astrology and contacts with the spiritual world" after months of negotiations with the government that finally introduced witchcraft as a legal occupation.
Gabriela attends up to seven people each day and charges her clients about US$13 to see into their future lives, to unravel what's in the stars and to get them in touch with the spirits of loved ones. Superstitious it may seemed, but belief in the paranormal spawned some unusual practices up to recent times.

A witch called Bratara had, on Saturday, planned to cast a spell using black pepper and yeast to create discord in the government over the recent tax implementation.