Wiccan Charged Under N.C. Anti-Divination Law.A North Carolina woman has been charged with violating a rarely enforced 1951 law that prohibits the "arts of phrenology phrenology, study of the shape of the human skull in order to draw conclusions about particular character traits and mental faculties. The theory was developed about 1800 by the German physiologist Franz Joseph Gall and popularized in the United States by Orson (reading head bumps), palmistry palmistry Reading of an individual's character and divination of the future by interpreting lines on the palm of the hand. Palmistry may have originated in ancient India, and it was probably from their original Indian home that the traditional fortune-telling of the Gypsies , clairvoyance clairvoyance (klâr'voi`əns), alleged power to perceive, as though visually, objects or persons not discernible through the ordinary sense channels. , fortune telling and other crafts of a similar kind" unless performed at a school, church social or event. Kindra Rajaniemi was ticketed in August by an Asheville police officer, but is challenging the law, claiming it violates her First Amendment rights. She is receiving legal assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nonpartisan organization devoted to the preservation and extension of the basic rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution. . "The problem with laws like this is that nobody in the legislature wants to come out and vote to repeal it because they would forever be branded the pro-psychic senator....," Deborah Ross, executive director of the North Carolina ACLU affiliate, told the Associated Press. "It's purely political." |
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