1983_10 Insight October 1983

              irate on their wishes "if one believes — it will
happen," she said.
We were joined at this point by Nocafer, a
black and white feline whose name, according
to Plexico's, means "bearer of darkness."
Nocafer, one of the many house cats owned by
the young woman, quickly lost interest in our
conversation and padded off as casually as it
had appeared.
"I am not a Wiccan witch myself," Plexico carefully explained. "But we have a
following of Wiccan witches. Some come from
as far as Bakersfield. Tbey used to have to go
to San Francisco for their needs before we
opened the shop."
Plexico hesitated when asked to guess the
number of active witches in the Fresno area.
"I really couldn't guess," she said. "There
has got to be more than 25.
"Wkxa," she explained, "is primarily a
nature worshipping religion. It is a private
and personal affair or one can take an active
part in reciting or writing the prayers.
"Joining a coven of witches is not like attending a Christian church where you can ask
to be a member and are readily accepted."
she said.
"It is an 'invitation only' membership
that first requires training before acceptance.
There can be no power struggles in the coven
— physically nor mentally." The coven (13
witches) strengthens the mind power of the
magic.
"Toe motto of the Wiccan religion is
'Harm ye none — do what ye will.'" said
Plexico. "The church persecuted witches
because they feared the loss of income and the
Plexico quickly thumbed through a book
written by Aleister Crowley, a late 17th Cen-
;./»\turjr practitioner of witchcraft, for his definition of magic. Her face reflected ner uiMiain
as sbe pronounced his name. "Rhymes with
"  she said, adding softly.  "Crowley
didn't like Wiccans."
"Magick is," she carefully read, "the
science and art of consciously and intentionally causing change to occur in conformity with
(your) will."
Plexico excused herself while going into
the kitchen. She returned with a plastic
tumbler and a piece of paper. She caught two
flies that had been buzzing loudly in the window and released them outside. "Flies have
their place too," she said smiling, "but not in
the house."
She resettled herself on the floor and continued her explanation of witchcraft.
, "The Wiccan religion originated in northern Europe and the deities were male and
female personificaUpns," she sai<J„"The male
deity had horns because in the winter solstice,
the time of the year when the sun reaches the
farthest point south of the equator — around
Dec. 21 or 22 — the men hunted for antlered
animals.
In the summer, the goddess — most commonly Diana — was worshipped for fuitifica-
tion," she said. "Even in Christianity, the
devil wasn't depicted with horns until the 17th
Century."
Plexico left the room again, this time
returning with a three-dimensional model of
the Qubbalah tree, which resembled a
molecular structural model used in some
chemistry classes.
"In western ceremonial magick." she
continued, "the Qubbalah. or 'tree of life' is
central. It is spelled 'Cabala.' 'Cabbala.' but I
prefer Qubbalah."
Tbe Qubbalah, in the stride t sense, was a
system of Jewish mystical thought which
originated in southern France and Spain during the 12th and 13th Centuries. She pointed to
the differently colored balls and explained
how each represented the different gods, including the Father, Son and Holy Ghost from
the Christian religion.
"It is." sbe said, "symbolic for the
understanding of one's self. All religions use
prayer or incense in their prayers." she said.
"And we are all trying to reach the top of the
mountain. We just use different routes to
reach the top."
Plexico said her interest in the occult
developed while she was a student at CSUF.
The former liberal studies major met her husband. Doug, while attenting school.
"Doug didn't go to CSUF. He attended city college for awhile but didn't finish. He introduced me to the occult and I just wanted to
learn more about it," she said
"We got married and he was having a
hard time finding work. I had inherited some
money so we took that to open our shop... you
know, pay the rent and purchase some inventory. It was awfully hard going,to school and
running the store.
"We've moved five times since wc first
opened in. 1980. At first we had no telephone
and couldn't do any advertising because we
lacked the funds. The rent took most of the
money." Plexico said.
"Our customers would lose us for awhile,
but somehow they would locate us. This is my
last move," Plexico added with determination. "I've bought this house and this is where
I plan to stay."
Her baby stirred in the car bed where she
had been sleeping. The young mother quickly
tended to her month-old daughter.
"Her name is Tara Aditi Lien Barile." she
proudly said. "Tara and Aditi are goddesses,
and Lien is Chinese for 'Lotus.' "
Kathy's father came in as she explained
this and introduced himself. Kathy's mother,
who had been tending the baby earlier, had
left to go to work.
"My dad was a journalism major at
Fresno State too," Kathy said. "He graduated
in 1950.
"I didn't pursue the journalism."
Dominic Barile explained. "I was the editor of
a Kerman weekly for about a year while I was
in college, but I went to work for the government instead."
"My mother graduated from CSUF in
1974 — or was that 75, dad?" Plexico inquired
of her father.
Barile thought for a moment before
answering. "It must have been 1974... I think
that was the year you were doing your Viet
Nam protesting thing." he teased. "This is all
Kathy's thing." said Barile. "I don't have
anything to do with any of this." he said waving his hand as he went out the door.
Fewer and fewer people are controlling
more and more of the public information in
the United States, a fact that media critic Ben
H. Bagdikian believes is distorting the news
Americans see, read and hear every day.
Bagdikian. a Pulitzer Prize winner and
reporter and editor for over 30 years explained in a speech Monday night how America's 50
largest corporations control the print and
broadcast media to their own advantage.
About 100 people attended the speech,
part of the University Lecture Series, in the
John Wright Theatre.
"Less than 50 corporations own half or
more of all our media businesses," said
Bagdikian These corporations are in every
imaginal kind of business, including some
that are very sensitive to the news — oil,
tobacco,  weapons production,  agribusiness
Sometimes. Bagdikian said, media
stones can i-onflict with their owner's other
interests tn these cases, stories must be "better than normal, better documented, and iron
clad," he said, because the editor is going to
have to answer to the owner.
"When you get a large number of stories
with ownership sensitivity — and even if they
get in (are published i most of the time — they
get in only over a higher threshold than other
stories. So what you get is a different flow or
community picture of the country.
"Gradually, those ownership-sensitive
stories arc reduced in number and emphasis
and it begias over a period of time to change
the total (news) picture. It's really a subtle
thing, but I think it's real," Bagdikian said.
The emergence of newspaper chains in
the last 25 years has had noticable effects on
news. Bagdikian said.
"There are fewer and fewer people who
control more and more of our public information." said Bagdikian. "This isn't just true in
newspapers, but in broadcasting, magazines
and books. And even if they were all perfect
owners ... having such a small group with
such power is nervous-making. We don't
believe in that (philosophy) in government
and I think we ought not to in the media."
Bagdikian said newspaper chains have
grown from two to three to four newspapers
in the same general area to nationwide and
Ben H. Bagdikian   ^
even international chains " He outlined two
problems that result from the chains
"Number one, that removes crucial decisions away from the local scene" and causes
papers to be "less and less sensitive to local
needs and local coverage. Secondly, they are
big companies, which means they will be competing for profits with some of the most profitable industries in the world
Because chain-owned newspapers are
owned by companies which have to compete
on dividends and keep up their stock in the
stock market, they are under great pressure
to maximize their profits. Bagdikian said.
"The temptation to favor advertising
more than news increases," said Bagdikian.
"Enormous profits are frequently done
(achieved) by shifting the energy of the
newspaper away from news toward
non-news."
Bagdikian used the tobacco industry as a
prime example of corporate control over news
content.
"In reporting, for the last 30 years to this
day, the link between tobacco and heart/lung
cancer has not been professionally reported.
They don't treat this disease the way they do
any other."
Despite an average of 300,000 heart/lung
cancer-related deaths per year, Bagdikian
said he frequently sees victims of lesser
diseases given frontpage attention. He said
the same number of deaths attributed to polio
would get significantly different play in
newspapers.
"I wish I could conclude with a neat solution, but I can't." Bagdikian said.