A club for pagans, witches and devil-worshippers has been stopped from meeting at a university over fears they could summon Satan.
The Adelaide University Occult Club was informed that one person had made a complaint against them to the Adelaide University Union.
The complainant said they were scared the club would try to summon Satan and that its members were occultists who were always ‘involved in criminal activity’.
The club was launched in 2020 for students who had an interest in witchcraft and paganism.
Student clubs are only allowed to convene meetings on university grounds if they are registered with the AUU.
The Adelaide University Occult Club provisionally registered with the student union in 2021 and submitted an application for full registration in 2022.
Full registration would have allowed the club’s 30 members to access funding and equipment and to permanently meet on the grounds.
The AUU then dismissed the application in March after receiving the complaint.
‘Even if we did want to summon Satan, it’s not against university or union policy to do so, so it’s still not really grounds to reject us,’ president Ashley Towner told the ABC.
The club president, whose pronouns are they/them, penned an angry letter to the student union and accused it of discrimination.
‘I have personally worked and fought for the right to create an Adelaide University Occult Club that is a dedicated and welcoming social and spiritual space for witchcraft and paganism,’ the letter read.
‘We are now deeply concerned to hear that our right to enjoy this space, a space afforded to many mainstream religious beliefs and social identity groups without discrimination, is yet again being challenged.’
Towner claimed the refusal of the application was ‘damaging to freedom of speech on campus’ and ‘discriminatory’.
It should disgust all students that our Union’s Clubs Committee is willing to pick and choose which clubs it accepts and doesn’t accept based on governing party’s personal beliefs,’ the letter read.
‘A union that cannot support the democratic rights of the people that it represents is a union that has failed.’
An AUU spokesperson said the club’s application was not accepted because not enough members of the committee voted.
A motion must receive three votes before it can be carried out, but only two committee members voted.
‘These people have just made this decision based on their own political gain rather than what’s actually democratically desired at the university,’ Towner said.