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Robots in films
There are so many films that show the life with robots, or how robots live. Science fiction has tons of stories that talk about how robots will destroy our planet, which get hacked or reprogrammed to exterminate everyone. Science fiction gives a lot of doubts to people about robots and Artificial Intelligence.

I, Robot film was released in 2004 by Alex Proyas. The timeline of the story is in the year 2035 where a scientist Dr. Alfred Lanning has created robots, which help people. But the scientist was murdered by a robot which was different from the others. It was believed that it was a suicide, which raised a suspicion for techno-phobic homicide detective Del Spooner and he started investigating the incident finding out that there was a bigger problem with the robots. With the help of robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, they find a robot called Sonny who was built by Lanning and which acted different than other robots, who was also the one to kill the scientist, so that the police would see that there was something wrong with the system, and that someone would start changing things. They discovered that VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) was controlling all the other robots. She stated that there will come a day when humans eventually cause their own extinction, so she started controlling robots to sacrifice some humans for their own good in the future. This is one example of science fiction about how robots what to “fix” the world for humans. But that is why the whole idea of robots sometimes scare people.

Another example of robots which want to take over the world is an animation movie “9”. In 2005 Shane Acker created a short film showing how robots created by humans destroyed humanity and little rag dols tried to save the Earth. This short film was nominated for an Oscar and in 2009 a full-length movie was released with a story line giving more backstory of what was created in the short film. A scientist is ordered by a dictator to create an intelligent machine, that scientist calls B.R.A.I.N. After the experiment ends the dictator turns the robot into the machine that could create robots to fight in war. The scientist fails to give the robot a soul and B.R.A.I.N. decides to destroy the humans. Scientist using alchemy spends his last hours of life to give parts of his soul to nine homunculus-like rag dolls he created in hope that they would save the future. In this story artificial intelligence again is used in a negative way, wanting to work against humans and even create a better world without humans. After seeing films like these or reading science fiction stories, robots can be seen as a threat to society.

Even if there are stories about how robots take over the world, there are films that show how humans themselves start destroying the Earth. An animation movie WALL-E was created in 2008. The story is about how the planet is over-run by rubbish and it is unsuitable for humans and animals. The surviving humans live on a spaceship, waiting for cleaning robots WALL-Es’ to prepare the Earth for recolonization. After seven hundred years only one WALL-E was left, but he was still producing cubes from debris and collecting unusual situations he would find along the way. A spaceship deposits another robot EVE, who came to Earth to find vegetation. After an unsuccessful search, WALL-E found her and took her to the garage where he kept all his fascinating findings and showed her a plant he found. It activated her and several days later EVA was taken aback by the ship. WALL-E hitched himself on the plane and travelled to the main ship where humans lived. He decided obese humans who could not walk by themselves, so they had to sit in chairs and move everywhere with them. EVE took the plant to the captain who started to educate himself about Earth and wanted to start the recolonization process, but Auto, the ship’s autopilot, did not let proceed with the mission for how bad the Earth got and was considered permanently uninhabitable. But WALL-E and EVE helped the captain accomplish the mission, and this way humans went back to Earth to plant the plant and save the planet.

Symbolism
The symbol of the pentacle has a misconception that it represents evil, when the pentacle does not represent good vs. evil. This symbol means faith, and as mentioned above symbolizes five elements. And the circle around the star represents protection and ever-changing everlasting circle of the life and nature, which connects all the elements. There is also a misconception that when the symbol is upside down, meaning that the point of the star is facing down, then it means an evil symbol. This misconception comes from other religions like Satanism, where they use a star symbol in a circle where the point of the star faces down and has a goat head inside. But traditionally this pentacle is used both ways, and it is not necessarily considered evil. But usually Wiccans’ use the up-right symbol to not be mixed up. Point-up pentagram (a star without a circle) means that the spirit is ascending above matter. The top represents the Element of Spirit and others represent the Spiritual Elements.

One of the other symbols that Wiccans use is a Triquetra. It was first found on the ancient runestones in North America and is now a pagan symbol, but it is believed and understood to be a Celtic symbol. The symbol is an entanglement of three petals and a petal having a meaning of a Goddess. Triquetra has many meanings such as past, present and future. In Ireland, this symbol has a meaning of a promise to love, honor and protect. Also, in Christianity this symbol symbolizes the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And in Paganism triquetra usually represents the Mother, the Maiden and the Crone.

Symbols of dragons are less popular among traditional Wicca’s, but is a symbol for Draconic Wicca, which is a form of Wicca. Draconic witches use dragon symbols like regular witches use symbols of Gods and Goddesses. There are hundreds of different dragons, used for desired results.

Another Wicca symbol comes from Dianic Wiccan tradition. Dianic Wicca uses a symbol Triple Moon from the Neopagan which represents the Triple Goddess. The symbol itself represents three figures of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, and each of which symbolizes a separate stage of the female cycle and a phase of the Moon: crescent, full and dark moon. Dianic Wicca symbol uses Triple Goddess symbol but also has a pentagram (the star) inside. The Dianic tradition is a type of Wiccan religion only with Goddesses female-centered and earth-based feminist denomination. It is all about the Goddess in the earth’s seasonal cycles of birth, death and regeneration and it all matches to women’s own life cycle transitions.

North America
Over the years, Witchcraft has become more popular, more used and practiced than before. When a platform TikTok became popular among people in 2018, it presented different niches of content, and one of them is #spiritualitytiktok, #witchtok. In 2019, TikTok’s #witch hashtag received over 585 million views, #babywitch has 45 million views. The videos posted with these and many other hashtags are videos of people doing tarot readings, talking about crystals, sharing witchy tips and more. Even tough, this type of content can and is posted from all around the world. Most of the popular creators are from the United States. In 2020, there was an election for a new president in America. The candidates were Joe Biden and Donald Trump. A part of an American nation did not want Donald Trump to be elected, so Michael M. Hughes, a writer, speaker and magical thinker, posted a spell on line called “Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him”. He was talking about that on Halloween it will be a full and blue moon, and that people should cast a spell attempting to make Joe Biden win. He listed what components you need and what steps to follow to do this spell correctly. He was, of course, encouraging people to go vote. Even tough, it is not what witches do daily, but magic was used to work in people’s favour. Most of the witchcraft methods that are talked about on TikTok are for understanding yourself, getting in tune with your energy, protecting your energy and getting guidance.

[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52a5ddbae4b0ea452efcfe32/t/5c37c3851ae6cfc0093c814f/1547158406535/Satanic+and+Occult+symbols+updated+May+2018.pdf Static1.squarespace.com. 2018. [online] Available at: <https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52a5ddbae4b0ea452efcfe32/t/5c37c3851ae6cfc0093c814f/1547158406535/Satanic+and+Occult+symbols+updated+May+2018.pdf. ]