Posts

Posted on

The Proof Of The Pudding

Somehow I missed the usual social media ruckus around St Patrick’s Day this year. I’m not entirely sure how, as it wasn’t intentional. But somehow I did.

(Algorithms. It was probably the algorithms.)

A week-or-so later though, my feed was full of it. All the same arguments, all the same misconceptions recycled from year-to-year. And of course, I also saw the same people valiantly wading in to stem the tide of bad information.

You know, the usual story.

Arguing about this stuff seems to have become something of a tradition nowadays, and an unwanted one at that. Once upon a time, I would have been out there as well, but nowadays I’m just glad to have missed the whole thing. (If only the same were true for Ostara!)

You see, one thing I’ve realized over the years is that these arguments really aren’t about the topic at hand for the most part. In my experience, they’re usually about something much deeper. And until we address that something, no amount of good information is going to turn back that tide.

Conversion

As I explained in this previous post, facts and logic do poorly against narrative. Unlike data, story is an immersive experience that speaks to both the heart and the mind. A well-crafted story can summon tears and devastation, affection or hatred for protagonists, exultation and joy. But if we’re not careful, a story can become bandaid for whatever bits of brokenness or lack we perceive in our lives and selves. Other times, stories can function as narrative bridges between our areas of perceived lack and what we think we need to feel whole. I have no way to prove this, of course. But I suspect that this is what underlies much of the modern Pagan/Heathen tendency to cling to inaccurate narratives.

Nowadays, religious conversion is mostly thought of as a ritual. Depending on the faith or denomination in question, there may be some training beforehand. But even in those instances, it’s still the ritual that makes the convert. A few words and a Jesus-powered supersoaker to the face (or whatever), and boom, you’re saved!

Sounds simple, right?

If only! Unfortunately, that blessed bukkake is really just the beginning of a constant and unending process. Real talk, but pretty much none of us—even those of us who’ve been doing this for decades—will develop a truly Pagan/Heathen worldview within our own lifetimes. That’s not just me being negative, it’s the truth. In this case though, I think it’s pretty freeing.

Believe it or not, but it took the early English church centuries to fully stamp out the Heathen worldview among their people. Conversion wasn’t just a case of some monks rolling up, selling people some Jesus, and everything falling into place. Christianity was largely an alien worldview to them. All of which meant the church first had to build entire conceptual frameworks to fully transition their flocks to their new faith.

So, why would we expect it to be any different for us now? If anything, I would argue our path is much harder after a millennia-and-a-half of Christianity shaping our cultural default. (And yes, that includes the parts we consider “secular” as well.)

Conversion: Hard Mode

Those aforementioned challenges aside though, the early English church had something we don’t—something that gave them a serious advantage.

They had the support of a religious institution with at least a few centuries already under its belt.

It’s never easy stepping onto a new path, but it’s much harder when that path is either doesn’t exist or is mostly buried under dirt. There’s a saying that the difference between dialect and language is an army and navy. I think we can apply a similar framework here too.

So, what is the difference between a religion with roots and whatever “dialect” we have? Well, fully developed systems of support and institutional control, for a start. Clear boundaries that—yes, contain—but also comfort and convey a feeling of certainty to those on the inside.

A Catholic (for example) never has to worry about whether they’re “doing it right” or the veracity of a saint’s hagiography. Not only do they have religious training in the form of catechism classes, they have various flavors of clergy to guide them as well. Their religion boasts entire toolboxes of responses to the uncertainties of life. Set prayers and rituals, a constellation of saints for whatever the need, and the many benefits that come with a somatic practice like praying with beads. Finally, they have the comfort of belonging to a tradition that stretches through time, and the sense of security that can bring.  (#NotAllCatholics)

And as long as they stay within the boundaries delineated by their church, they never need to worry they’re doing it wrong, or whether what they’re doing is even <em>real</em>. And why would they? The Roman church is old as shit. And as we all know (heavy sarcasm here) age always confers legitimacy.

Now, consider our own traditions, practices, and communities for a moment—our various toolboxes for this journey through life. What do we have, and what do we lack? All things considered, I think it’s hardly surprising that so many of us cling to false narratives and dream up links to ancient traditions. Belonging, security, and connection are after all core human needs.

Walking A Path With No Path

Another story now.

I’m old enough to remember when Triumph of the Moon by Professor Ronald Hutton made its way into the world. I’ve never been Wiccan in the modern sense (the OG definition though, is another matter). But I can only imagine how it must have felt for those who were at the time. Here was this scholar disproving the foundational lore of their tradition—lore that had no doubt gave many of them that sense of belonging and connection to older roots. (With all the security and legitimacy that apparently implies).

I could go on about the downstream effects of this shift, but that would be one hell of a digression. More to the point though, it would also likely lead back to arguments surrounding historicity and legitimacy when I think we’d really be better off looking for the proof in the pudding instead.

Where I’m from, any dessert can be “pudding,” therefore I dedicate this spot to a piece of lemon pound cake.

You probably already know the old saying that “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Simply put, you have to try something to know its flavor or worth. Is it good? Bad? Does it belong in the bin, or can it be saved? This is what I’ll be referring to as “pudding proof,” from here on out.

Now obviously, Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon didn’t break Wicca. Like I said, I’ve never been that kind of Wiccan myself, but I suspect there was enough pudding-proof to sustain the tradition regardless. In other words, the pudding proved good enough in the eating to keep making it.

Hooray for that Wicca-pud!

But what do I mean by “pudding” in this context? Well, it’s your rituals, workings, and practices. But more importantly, it’s the results and experiences you get from them.

Sir, Your Pudding Is Lacking!

Now, that may sound like “hopium,” but really it’s not. Once upon a time, even the Roman church was new. Their path wasn’t just wrecked or hidden, they were cutting it as they went. Christianity was far from the “full-service” religion it is now.

The Pagan shrines and temples on the other hand were community hubs, offering services like healing, oracular wisdom, dream incubation, and divination by lots. They were places of poetry and music, drama and dance, art, sculpture, and rhetoric (MacCullen, p. 150-159).

So you know, pretty neat places to hang out.

The cults the early Christians left had centuries-old rituals, entire languages of symbolism and ritual gestures. They had play, dance, and celebration—all of which were missing from the new Christian faith.

Hell, they weren’t even supposed to light candles in their churches unless they needed light!

“We do not light candles, as you vainly and untruly allege, in the daytime but only to lessen the darkness of the light. And bear in mind that we are not born Christians, but reborn: and because we once worshipped idols, are we now not to worship God? —lest we appear to venerate him with the same honors accorded to idols?”

Jerome to Vigilantius, 4th/5th century (MacCullen. P. 116)

Even something as foundational as prayer was an unknown language to them. They knew how to address the older divinities through speech, song, sacrifice, and dance, but their new god was entirely another matter (MacCullen. 150-159). The line between piety and idolatry was still taking shape.

But do you see what I mean? The early Christians were once where we are now (albeit traveling in the opposite direction). They, too, felt gaps in their new faith—areas of lack that sent many-a-convert back to their local Kalends and New Year’s celebrations (Ibid).

The question now then is what kept them on their new path? Obviously, the threat of persecution would come to play its part, as would the eventual transition to a “full-service” religion. But what about for those who were Christian before they won an emperor to their faith?

On Pudding Proof

Well, this is where that “pudding proof” I mentioned earlier comes in.

Again much like us, the early Christians couldn’t exactly make appeals to history or tradition. They would have been sitting on a throne of lies and they knew it. So how does a religious new kid on the block attract converts and keep them?

They focus on who is right, on whose god is a true god as opposed to a demon.

In other words, the early Christian case for conversion hinged on proving their “pudding” was good (MacCullen. p.11-12).

The Demon In The Martyr’s Pudding

According to Peter Dendle in Demon Possession In Anglo-Saxon England, exorcism was one of the main “selling points of early Christian evangelism.” Yup, much like today, turfing out demons was one of their main (if not the) kinds of pudding. A point the 2nd century bishop Irenaeus also acknowledged (Dendle. p. 54).

Now curiously, tales of demonic possession and exorcism are arguably absent from in Greco-Roman sources prior to the first and second centuries (Dendle. pp.52-53). That’s not to say that there weren’t any, of course. But the earlier references that do possibly exist are hotly debated by scholars.

The first clear example of possession and exorcism in Pagan literature appears in a 2nd century account of a Syrian exorcist from Palestine, suggesting these beliefs had their origin in the near east (Ibid). That may seem a leap until we consider the writings of the second century philosopher Plutarch. Not only did he feel the need to interrogate the origins of such beliefs, implying a lack of familiarity with them on his part, he presumed a non-Greek origin from the start (Ibid).

Weird, that!

It kind of reminds me of how the possession and exorcism narratives in early English sources were all written between the 670s and early 700s (Dendle. p.170). Though there are some later mentions, they are only ever in passing—usually while referring to a saint. A far cry from the dramatic tales of those earlier times. I’m sure that Pagan resurgence post the plague of 664 was also just a coincidence—just like that suppression campaign by the Christian kings beginning around 650 (Dendle. Pp. 146-148). Probably all just coincidence.

Right? All I’m saying is it just seems a bit convenient, you know?

Well anyway, back to those early Greco-Roman Christians. You see, not only were they slinging this (probably) new-to-their-target-audience kind of “pudding.” They marketed themselves as the best demon-pudding slingers to boot. According to the second century martyr known as Justin, Christian exorcism was the only kind that always worked—even when the possessed person was a Pagan. While he conceded that exorcisms done in the name of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob/God might sometimes work, only those done in Jesus’ name were certain of success (Dendle. p. 54).

“Just Justin!”

The demon, the mark, and the audacity of that zealot, amirite?

Ironically, Justin went on to literally lose his head for the crime of impiety. As someone who refused to offer to the gods, he was considered an atheist. After all, that Pax Deorum (“peace of the gods”) wasn’t going to do a Pax Romana (“peace of Rome”) without some offerings greasing the wheels (Kirsch. pp. 108-109). From the perspective of Roman society, the dude was falling short of his civic duty, so it was off to the forever box with him. (Click here for an account of his trial.) 

“Oh, miserable men! If you wish to die, you have precipices or halters.” 

–Roman proconsul stuck dealing with people like Justin.

Sourcing, Tweaking, And Tossing Pagan Pudding

But what about our Pagan Pudding? We already have quite a lot (some of it actually good), but something tells me the recipe isn’t quite there for a lot of us. So, what now?

Nowadays, we have an entire genre of horror linking Christianity with possession and exorcism narratives. The early Christians though, were far from the first demonologists. People in the ancient near east had been casting out demons for millennia before the advent of Christianity. I mean, the ritual technology of exorcism was first attested in Sumer from around 2500 BCE (Dendle. P. 42).  Borrowing has long been a source of “pudding,” and frankly the same can be said for just making shit up. How many of those early exorcism narratives do you think were true, and how many were bullshit? Given the convenient dating of those narratives, I’d say the answer to the latter part of that question was “a lot.”

Having said that, there can be a fine line between invention and inspiration, especially when we walk that line in a playful manner. Play often makes doorways for true inspiration where it would otherwise struggle to slip in. We should lean into it! It also needs to be said that there’s nothing inherently wrong with outright making shit up either. Read up on basic ritual structure and magic, and you can make some really excellent pudding! We just need to be honest about what we’re doing.

For me personally though, the rubber really meets the road when working in collaboration with the Dead, Divine, and Otherworldly. Over the years, I’ve been lucky to have teachers in each group and have received some absolute gold from all three. Pretty much all of my experimentation revolves around inviting that collaboration, deepening those connections, and finding ways to intensify my experiences. I may jokingly refer to it as “magical FAFO”, but in truth, it’s the work of relationship and revival. A sacred thing.

No matter the source of our “pudding,” however, we do have to actually give it a try once made. This may seem obvious, but since becoming an author, I’ve had more than a few folks express genuine surprise that I test everything I put out into the world.  So clearly, the expectation of testing isn’t universal when it really should be.

Another important point: we need to be honest about our results, even if only to ourselves. Here I’m reminded of the saying that “tradition is not the adoration of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” Now, this may just be me, but I feel like a lot of us have piles of ashes we should really toss out. And yes, that does also apply to the practices and rituals we perceive to be more historically accurate (ergo “legitimate”) too. If it ain’t working, it ain’t working. Sometimes we may tweak and find an ember to kindle; other times though, they’re just plain dead. (Assuming they even worked in the first place.) Either way, we need to be clear-sighted about what we have and to act accordingly. All these piles of dead ashes do for us in the end is waste our time and take up space.

Perceptions Of Worship

Equally important to consider is how our former religions have shaped and continue to shape our understanding of worship, for that, too, influences the pudding we make. For the Pagan of Rome “joy was worship,” to quote Ramsey MacMullen. ”At the Kalends or Attis day as at Easter, it was an offering of faith to show one’s happiness” (MacMullen. p. 109).

Now ask yourself, when was the last time you felt true joy in your worship? What about love? When was the last time you sang to your Holies, danced, played an instrument in their honor, or engaged in sacred play? More importantly, how do you feel when you think about those things?
What feels “allowed” or “proper” to you within the context of worship, and what feels “taboo”?

Because I suspect a lot of us are still closing ourselves off to some degree, perhaps giving ourselves over to instinct and inspiration only rarely. While I believe my holy powers are patient and fully understand that humans now are not as they once were, I also often find myself wondering whether we can truly worship any divinity with a heart half-caged by the “Thou shalt nots” of another faith. And the whole thing just makes me feel so sad for us all, you know?

In many ways, we’re just like those early Christians with no idea how to pray, and no real systems of support. But unlike them, we also have to contend with the added challenge of materialism as well. That, too, has shaped our modern consensus. In some ways, the line between “acceptable” modes of worship and “THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING CRINGE/INSANE/WEIRDOS” has never been finer. And the upshot of this? Well, how often do we see aesthetic put before devotion? In other words, often people worry more about how a ritual or practice looks than what it actually does.

Final Words

Believe it or not, I didn’t write this to make you feel hopeless—quite the opposite! Our paths may currently suit goats better than humans, but that doesn’t make them impossible. No, I wrote this because there is a way forward. We just have to lean into the doing—eat that pudding and keep tweaking until it’s actually good.

Simply put, our rituals and practices need to connect us to something bigger, however that looks for us. If we’re going to survive, we need pudding that’s good eating, and lots of it. Oh, and our spells need to get the goods as well.

Because at the end of the day, it’s experience and relationship that really grow and sustain a faith. So, the sooner we stop looking to history for legitimacy, the better. Now, don’t get me wrong; I fucking love history and often find it sparks inspiration. But those sparks need feeding, and all our wood is decidedly modern. Moreover, as I said at the beginning, a lot of people also mistake history for a bandaid for lack, which can then leave them susceptible to false histories and fake lore.

Far better to focus more on the doing and see what rolls out. After all, it worked out well for the Christians.

Now, go stuff yourself with pudding. (And I hope it proves good.)
Bon appetit!

Books Cited

Dendle, Peter. Demon Possession In Anglo-Saxon England.

Kirsch, Jonathan. God Against The Gods.

MacCullen, Ramsey. Christianity And Paganism In The Fourth To Eighth Centuries.

Posted on

Narrative DESTROYS Facts And Logic! Authenticity FLEES!

If you’re anything like me, you probably hated that title. Hell, I hated typing it! But this is a post about ersatz, and as algorithms are some of its main purveyors, it seemed fitting to start with some clickbait.

The last time we met in this space, I talked about the growing thirst for authenticity I perceive in the overculture. Whether that perception is accurate remains to be seen, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Houston, we have a problem either way.

If you haven’t already read that post, I recommend that you do so before continuing. Then, my focus was on the science of perception, processing, and bias. Or to quickly summarize: No human perceives reality as it actually is. Instead, we navigate this existence via a working model created and constantly modified by the brain in response to sensory input. This was what I meant by the “unrealness” of reality—a term of my own creation. As someone for whom words are containers for meaning, I often find myself crafting containers for the families of meaning that don’t fit my mother tongue’s current forms.

Simply put, my “unrealness” container is a stand-in for “perception” that also implicitly acknowledges that we humans all experience reality by proxy. If we let it, it can serve as a reminder that the “real” is often not nearly as important as the stories we tell to give it shape.

In my previous post, I mostly stuck to the most common scientific “maps” of this particular territory. However, as the saying goes, “the map is not the territory.” And in my opinion, those scientific maps are missing some layers. They show the equivalent of roads, landmarks, and businesses, but say nothing of the topography, ecosystems, and local culture of a place.

Here begins the process of filling in some of the missing layers that are not so easily labeled or explained. The souls-filled and magical. The inspired and Unseen.

Well, would you know yet more?

Ersatz Like Cobwebs

First though, a story of a dream (so really, a story within a story).

How delightfully meta!

The year was 2022, and my family and I were visiting my parents back in Lancashire, England during the winter break. It was my first trip back in over a decade, and my daughter’s first trip to where her mother grew up.

One night while there, I had a dream. I was rushing along country lanes, long and winding like snakes, the land around me smothered by layers of cobwebs. Now, these weren’t some Otherworldly roads, mind you. That’s just how a lot of the lanes there are—winding serpents of pitch and gravel through tunnels of trees. All snakes I’d set my boots to countless times in waking life.

After a while, I came to a stop and turned to the hedgerow lining the lane. Somehow, I knew I’d reached my destination for the night—that that was where I was supposed to enter. By this point, I was fully lucid in my dreaming. I could have easily turned back the way I came. But Necessity was loud in my souls, so I pushed through the shadows and thorns until the hedge opened up, and I found myself in what appeared to be a council chamber.

Looking around, I saw that numerous peoples had gathered there for a meeting—everybeing from the plant, tree, and animal peoples to the Unseen and Otherworldly. As the only human there, it wasn’t long before I attracted some attention, though perhaps not in the way you might think. Apparently, we humans had always had a place at the meeting. It had just been a good long while since any of our kind had last filled those seats.

The reason, I was told, was the cobwebs. According to my hosts, what I’d perceived as webs were really the layers of stories woven over the human population by those who’d remain in control. The only reason that I finally made the meeting (or could even see those webs to begin with) was because my time away had first loosened, then shaken their hold. Nowadays, I wholly believe those “webs” are what people are referring to when they speak of “the veil.”

Toward A Definition of Ersatz

No matter its name, that barrier or binding is largely what I mean by “ersatz.” My container this time is obviously a borrowing altered from its original form. But “container” struggles seem par for the course when it comes to discussing this subject. The writer James Joyce, for example, named his container “false art” or “improper art,” which J.F. Martel summarizes in the following way:

’Proper art stills us, evoking an emotional state in which “the mind is arrested and raised above desiring and loathing.” Improper art does the opposite, aiming to make the percipient act, think, or feel in a certain prescribed manner.’ (Martel, Reclaiming Art In The Age of Artifice. 26-27).

You may wish to put a pin in that part about “desiring and loathing.” I’ll be returning to it toward the end.

Much like that “false” or “improper” art, my borrowed “ersatz” is any story that binds and keeps us closed off to inspiration, and/or controls and makes us another’s tool or weapon. Ersatz is the stories that trick us into believing ourselves separate from, maybe even better than, other humans due to inborn qualities. It’s the stories that have us reaching into our pockets for money we don’t have for some product to fix everything (usually while also convincing us that we’re brands too).

Tired of Capitalism 1.0? Try Capitalism 2.0 instead! Think you know REAL Capitalism? Think again! 100% guaranteed to make you rich!

(Terms and conditions most definitely apply.)

Ersatz is propaganda and marketing and nationalist myths of blood, soil, and divine destiny. It’s the various “programs” or ideologies by which our societies run. To quote Martel again (who’s clearly also in the container business), ”Proper art moves us, while artifice tries to make us move.”

And unfortunately, that artifice or ersatz is more prevalent than ever before.

According to Samuel Spitale in the introduction of How To Win The War On Truth, the average American is subjected to anywhere between 4,000 to 10,000 media messages a day (up from around 1,600 fifty years ago).

No wonder so many of us struggle to find the space for Authenticity’s seeds.

Weaponized Ersatz: A Two-Headed Beast

So, we have our ersatz, already monstrous but still growing. Worse still, this beast is polycephalus. For the purposes of this post, I’ve set a two-head limit for this word-woven creature. After all, nuance often gives way to endless rabbit holes without proper boundaries. And well…this post is already a warren.

With that said, let’s meet our fiend!

A loud roar suddenly shatters the silence as the beast rises. Its feet make dust of hard rock. Terrified, you begin to retreat, your heartbeat a war drum in your chest. The land shakes as it takes a step, and, unable to look away, you stumble and lose your footing. Palms aching, you take to shuffling backward on your butt—anything to escape. But then the land shakes again as it takes another step, and realization sinks in as hard as the stone making raw meat of your skin. Your desperate shuffle could never match a monster’s stride. Blood like ice, you freeze. Instead, you stare at the two heads swaying like snakes, their mighty maws open wide, and prepare for the end.

Dear Gods, please let it be quick…

One head lowers, and you find yourself choking on its breath. “WHEN YOU’RE HERE, YOU’RE FAMILY!!” it bellows, the words so loud they rattle your bones.

A half-second later, its twin lets out a second booming slogan. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The laughter slips out before you realize it.

“Fuck me, Marketing and Propaganda?” you manage between cackles. You sound insane, and maybe you are, but this beast makes crazy people of us all anyway. The two heads cock to one side, and you laugh even louder. “I’d rather a fucking demogorgon!” you snort.

(Me too, fictional scenario person. Me too. At least demogorgons aren’t the bestial equivalent of glitter.)

A Natural History Of Glitter

When I first began looking into the history of this beast, I’d assumed it would be easy. There are, after all, entire courses on these subjects. However, I quickly found that most of the relevant sources treated marketing and propaganda as completely different entities rather than parts of the same beast.

In my opinion, this is a flaw at best. Not only does it obscure the commonalities between the two heads, it also shrouds the extent of its reach in our lives. Worse still, I would argue that, much like Pavlov’s salivating dogs, the marketing we consume as benign actually primes us for propaganda as well.

But more on that shortly.

Whenever I research a subject, I first seek out the root—the “origin story,” so to speak. Without those “first layers” or “prologue,” I find it hard to fully anchor a subject in my mind.

Unfortunately for me, this glittery beast has no clear parentage. That tendency to see two different beasts instead of a singular fiend obscures its origin story as well. So, a person working within the “two-beast” model with a focus on marketing, for example, might cite Adam Smith as the father, as he is considered the originator of the concept. However, a second person with a focus on propaganda might cite Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, as the father of “public relations” (itself a rebranding of propaganda) instead.

Faulty modeling aside, however, we are dealing with the same beast. In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays writes about propaganda and public relations for commercial and political ends without differentiation. Where nowadays we might say that marketing sells products and propaganda ideas, it was all the same toolkit to Bernays.

Interestingly, he also makes it clear that a group he refers to as the invisible government—shadowy figures who understand the mechanism and motivations of the public mind—uses that same toolkit to rule over the people as well (Bernays. 9-10).

”The minority has discovered a powerful help in influencing majorities.” (Bernays. 19).

Given that the “powerful help” is our beast, it’s little wonder the mist between the two heads is so damn thick!

The last time I darkened this digital domain, I talked about some of the recent research into perception, emotion, and bias. Now obviously, Bernays had none of those modern discoveries to pull on, but he was very familiar with his uncle’s work (as well as that of some of his contemporaries). Where his predecessors, the “old propagandists,” relied on “the psychological method of approach” (in other words, arguments based on facts and logic), Bernays focused on influencing the “mental pictures” in the public mind (Bernays, 106-107).

”Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring policy of creating or shaping events to influence the relationship of the public to a given enterprise.

This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president.” (Bernays, 25)

Over the years, Bernays worked on both commercial and political campaigns alike, influencing American life in surprising ways. In the 1920s, for example, a time when smoking was not so common among women, Bernays ran a campaign for Lucky Strike that equated smoking with women’s rights and presented cigarettes as “torches of freedom” (Spitale. 14-16). It’s also thanks to Bernays that hairnets became ubiquitous in food service. As shorter styles became more fashionable among women, hairnet sales sank. To remedy this, Bernays convinced health officials to make them a requirement for food service workers (Ibid. 16). He is also why people came to consider disposable cups cleaner than reusable options, and why men now also wear wristwatches and no longer consider them women’s jewelry (Ibid.)

Most infamously, however, Bernays produced propaganda for the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) against the democratically elected government of Guatemala, labeling them “communists.” This helped to enable a CIA-backed coup that led to decades of dictatorship and civil war for the poor people of Guatemala (Ibid. 16).

(This was also the origin of the term “banana republic,” by the way.)

So yeah…absolutely abhorrent.

As significant a parent as Bernays was though, he’s clearly not the only “daddy” in the mix for our beast. Unsurprisingly, this being is more homunculus than anybeing naturally spawned. (Gods, what a collection of words!) Moreover, there may also be some earlier, magical parentage as well.

Marketing, Propaganda, And The Magic Of Desire

This next part begins with the work of Ioan Petru Culianu. In life, Culianu was a Romanian-American historian known for his books on certain niche aspects of renaissance thought. A practicing magician who sadly met his end in 1991 in his bathroom courtesy of a bullet to the head.

A murder that remains unsolved to this day.

Well anyway, one of Culianu’s main academic foci was the writings of Giordano Bruno, a friar-turned-magician who was burned for heresy in the year 1600.

In his book Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, Culianu uses Bruno’s essay On Bindings In General as a framework to examine the possible connections between renaissance magic and mass-media marketing. For Bruno, the key to magic was eros (desire).  Along similar lines, modern advertising manipulates consciousness via images that spark desire. Sex sells either way.

Nowadays, we don’t typically think of marketing and propaganda as magical arts. However, Culianu considered this desire-based manipulation the very foundation of political power in modern industrial nations (referred to by Culianu as “magician states”) (Greer. The King In Orange. 19-21).

A Souls-Familiar Layer?

Emotions have long been understood to be magically potent. In Heathenry, the furious god is also the “Father of Galdr” or verbal charm magic. A form of magic that not only marries narrative (and sometimes also poetic meter) with intense emotion and modes of performance. Speak a galdor while utterly enraged, and you’ll probably get some spectacular (not to mention quick) results.

However, fury isn’t the only emotion that appears in connection with magic in the Norse sources. The other main emotion was familiar to both Bruno and Bernays.

Desire.

In the Old Norse sources, both fury and desire are stirrings of the same soul. This is the Hugr, the most “occult” of a person’s souls, you might say. Although better attested in Norse sources, cognate forms appear in all the older Germanic tongues, all of which rooted other words. Among the early English, Hugr was known as Hyge, while a speaker of Old Saxon would have referred to their Hugi instead. In Old High German, the word was Hugu, and in Gothic, it was Hugs.

Broadly speaking, Hugr is “mind,” “heart,” “desire,” and “longing,” though I should also note that these cognates do differ slightly in meaning. For example, the Old English Hyge could be “thought,” “mind,” “courage,” “intention,” “heart,” “disposition,” and “pride.” The Gothic Hugs, however, primarily carried meanings of “thought,” “intelligence” and “understanding” with none of the heart.

Overall, the best summary of Hugr as I understand and experience this soul comes from Snorri Sturluson in Skáldskaparmál chapter 86:

“Thought (Hugr) is called mind and tenderness, love, affection, desire, pleasure…Thought is also called disposition, attitude, energy, fortitude, liking, memory, wit, temper, character, troth. A thought can also be called anger, enmity, hostility, ferocity, evil, grief, sorrow, bad temper, wrath, duplicity, insincerity, inconstancy, frivolity, brashness, impulsiveness, impetuousness. (Faulkes trans. 154.)

As I said earlier, they are the most “occult” of our souls. At times in the sources, they give counsel, while at other times they appear to be a ward. A protector. They are also a wanderer, capable of independent movement from the human whole.

Most important of all though, Hugr has force. They are the fury in the galdor and the lust in the seiðr, they are the difference between empty words and gestures, and tangible result. Hugr is what makes Wish real in the world.

All of which makes Hugr the main prey of our two-headed beast.

Where marketing works to ensnare Hugr with bait made of carefully crafted wishes, propaganda ensnares by stirring up rage and offering nightmarish possible futures to appeal to Hugr-as-ward. If we’re not careful, this beast can make monsters of our Hugr over time as well.

And that, Hel-friends, is a recipe for disaster that lasts long after the screen has gone dead.

Final Words

I was planning to follow up with another post on this topic directly after this. However, the thing about exploring such huge subjects is that, sooner or later, I begin to feel trapped. Suddenly, I find all kinds of other things to talk (ahem, rant) about and find myself getting annoyed. Eventually, I lose interest and cease writing full stop.

So, this time I’m trying something different.

I’m going to post that stuff anyway instead of trying to stick to one series at a time. Expect the unexpected, I guess!

That said, I’m not nearly done with this subject. So far I’ve focused on the effects on individual humans, but I’m yet to touch on mass effects. What happens when significant numbers of Hugr-twisted humans obsess over a practitioner of New Thought who markets themself as a brand? How about when big tech takes a huge dump in the information space? More importantly, why even take that dump in the first place after warning of its dangers less than a decade ago?

The technology might well be new, but the playbook really is not.

Until that next time though, I really encourage you to check out Winifred Rose’s work on Hugr. One of the very best things I’ve ever done for myself both as a human and Wicce is to get to know mine. Nowadays, my Hugr and I are more intentional in our collaboration. Better still, we’re both learning to spot that beast’s bait.

An important practice in our increasingly brain-cooked world full of people with out-of-control and twisted Hugr-souls!

So, until then, be well, Hel-friends and stay safe.
<3

Sources

Bernays, Edward. Propaganda (Original Classic 1928 Edition): The Definitive and Complete Masterwork on Public Relations. 2025.

Greer, John M. The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Martel, J.F. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2015.

Spitale, Samuel C. How To Win The War On Truth. 2022.

Sturluson, Snorri. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Translated by Anthony Faulkes. Oxford: Oxford University Press (UK), 1982.

 

Posted on

One Word: Authenticity

A couple of weeks ago while wandering the fetid wastelands of Facebook, I came across a post by my friend Irene/Glasse Witch. If you’ve ever seen the Bernie Sanders meme where he’s once again asking for donations, it was kind of like that. Except instead of asking for donations, Irene once again posted about her practice of choosing an intention word for the coming year and invited us all to participate.

You can read more about this from Irene at her blog. She’s much more sensible than I am, and is absolutely not Bernie Sanders in disguise.

Much like the Sanders meme, there was something soothing in seeing Irene’s annual “One Word” post. No sooner had I clapped my eyes on it, than I felt something inside me relax. And for a few precious moments, the world felt a little less uncertain and slightly more predictable. Safe. Without realizing it, those annual posts had become one of the many tiny, but no less mighty, anchors in my world.

If “Irene’s One Word” were a D&D Spell, it would belong to the category of transmutation. It does, after all, take specific collections of letters (themselves bags of holding for meaning) and make guiding stars of them as well.

This spell is a “Choose Your Own Components” adventure.

So naturally, I tapped out a quick comment.

“My word is ‘unhinged,’” I replied.

That probably sounded like trolling, but those words spilled from my fingertips with my whole chest.

A few seconds later though, I added a follow-up to explain what I’d actually meant. You see, growing up neurodivergent in the 80s and 90s, I got used to tucking away the weirder, more feral parts of myself to only maybe sorta fit in. ADHD was something American kids had on TV, and Rain Man was the only kind of autistic. Back then, you were just an obsessive, bizarre kid with the vocabulary of a “posh Victorian bitch” who pretty much lived on the naughty table at school and came up with ideas like “I should try walking to London” and “Maybe we could rock climb through that gorge with these mountain bikes?”

(In case any of you were curious, I give both of those activities a tentative 3/10.)

So is it really any wonder that “unhinged” became somewhat synonymous with those hidden-away pieces of self?

Maybe, maybe not. But most folks would probably use the word “authenticity” for that kind of thing.

Well…to a point. Pied Pipering a bunch of other kids into walking to London with me that one time was clearly a bad thing.

Authenticity Hunger in an Ersatz World

Hope for me has always been as dangerous as it is nourishing; I keep a cautious ember alive at best. Since Irene’s post though, I’ve seen others express that same desire for greater authenticity again and again. I’m seeing it so frequently now, it’s a struggle to keep that ember from bursting into flame.

Has our culture finally grown sick of this dystopian hellscape full of AI slop, propaganda, and online personalities who are more brand than actual people?

Time will tell, I suppose.

Fair warning, but this next part is probably going to sound like bullshit unless you know my kid. Around seven years ago (and I know this because I just checked FB memories), she randomly informed me that “Reality isn’t real. Reality is fake news.” She was all of four years old at the time, but there she was, sitting on the floor with her coloring book and crayons, laughing her little head off at the whole thing.

Startling statements and my kid go together like PB&J.

Clearly, the “fake news” part of it had come from overhearing adults discussing current events. It was after all 2018, and she’s always understood more than most kids her age. As for the rest of it, she either put it together for herself or it surfaced—as many of her statements often do—from goodness only knows where.

Usually when she does this, I encourage her. I ask her questions to try and flesh out where she’s coming from, then follow along to see where her thoughts next lead. Children often notice things that most adults miss or have been trained out of seeing.

I no longer remember where that conversation went, but my daughter was essentially right. This thing we call “reality” <em>isn’t</em> real—at least not in the way that most think.

However, I am old enough to remember a time when that unrealness was, or still felt, mostly organic—a world with the space to be authentic instead of constantly curated and always “on.”

This ersatz unrealness makes avatars of us all.

The Organic Unrealness Of Reality

“How might authenticity look for me, and how would I recognize it?”

Those were the two questions I began with at the start of this journey.  While I knew this would likely be a process of separating the “wheat” from the “chaff,” I’m also well aware that the chaff is everywhere and, even worse, has its tricks. It’s very well-practiced in convincing humans that it’s wheat.

In the end, I decided my quest for authenticity was also really a search for that organic unrealness as well, and that is where I begin here too.

First and foremost, no human sees the whole of reality as it actually is, and believe it or not, that’s at good thing.

According to two different studies—one by the neuroscientist Karl Friston, and the other by cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman—raw reality is too much for our brains to handle (Kastrup 2023, 13 – 14). It’s the kind of “extra” that nobody needs. Apparently, things would devolve rather quickly into “Warning! Danger Will Robinson!” territory in the brainmeats, then it would be off to the forever box. The End.

So how do we humans navigate reality then without melting our brains?

Well, this is where perception comes in.

In his book Making Up The Mind, neuroscientist Chris Frith explains that perception is a working model of the world produced and constantly modified by the brain. So, a filter between ourselves and our otherwise overwhelming reality (Frith 2007, 111 – 137). If you’re a fan of analogies (as I am), you might find the following from the former CERN scientist Bernardo Kastrup useful:

”Perception is like a dashboard of dials: it contains information about the world only in an encoded form, thereby limiting the entropy of our internal states, just as a dashboard of dials intrinsically limits the entropy of information pilots have to contend with…” (Kastrup 2023, 14).

So, this thing we perceive as “reality” is really a user interface keeping our brains from melting like Johnny Mnemonic’s back in the day had he not made it to that dolphin in time.

Glorious.

See, in another version of the ThisWorld, Bird Box could have actually been good.

Prediction, Story, And Perception

But how does the brain know which modifications to make? The answer to this question, it seems, is prediction.

According to predictive coding theory, your busy bee of a brain modifies what you perceive based on the predictions it makes in response to sensory input.  Like all working models, our perception has its foundational premises, its systems and criteria—frameworks through which the brain can interpret new information then respond.

It just so happens that the building material of human perception appears to be story.

Now, to be clear, when I say “story” here, I mean everything from personal past experience, preferences, and relationships to cultural wisdom, academic knowledge, political bias, media, and religious beliefs. As I will explain shortly, story is the language of experience, and the experience of it goes much deeper than the spoken or written word.

In a sense, each and every one of us carries entire libraries of memory in our hearts and minds. Some of them are our own whereas others are added from elsewhere. But it’s these “libraries” that are the foundation and frameworks for those perception-shaping predictions that keep us alive.

The world may be a vampire, but the evidence suggests we humans are hardwired for story. To quote the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, “story is something brains do, naturally and implicitly.” It is the solution our brains arrived at to solve the problem of which of the 11,000,000 bits of sensory input per second to keep, cut or edit (Cron. 7-8).

We humans have been storytellers since perhaps even before we became homo sapiens sapiens. No matter our culture or language, we all teach, learn, and pass on warnings via story (Ibid). It is, as I said earlier, the language of experience, without which we humans wouldn’t have survived. However, it also enables us to form relationships with others and maintain community bonds. In an existence of navigating reality by proxy, shared stories create common ground. They’re the bricks and mortar of society itself.

Moreover, stories are “sticky” in ways that facts are not. Brain imaging studies have found that well-crafted narratives light up the same regions that process sights, sounds, tastes and movement in real life (Cron p.4). So you know, in addition to all of its other roles, story can also be a holodeck for our brains.

In case you were wondering, that hardwiring and felt experience are a large part of why people rarely change their minds when faced with new evidence. The rest we can mostly blame on cognitive bias and the incredible irony that lizard-brain-tickling narratives almost always DESTROY facts and logic.

But anyway…so far, so organic, right?

Well, that’s about to change.

How The Ersatz And Unwanted Slips In

Cognitive bias is one hell of a thing.

For decades, these biases were defined as errors in thinking arising from the busy-bee brain making shortcuts on the fly to simplify its job (usually related to memory). Relatable motivation, honestly. More recently though, researchers have found that those “errors” are entirely intentional. 

It seems the brain has never prioritized accuracy when it comes to perception. Unsurprisingly, the goal has always been survival; that is the priority. If you’re not careful, your brain will edit/add to those inner libraries and fuck with the indexing. When you consider the fact that the brain can just edit obvious physical phenomena from your sensory input so you literally don’t perceive it, that’s actually quite disturbing.

(As an aside, this is why it’s especially important for those of us from minority religions to frame “reality” as a consensus of perception. We need to be aware of where the overcultural consensus ends and ours begin, and to be mindful of that line.)

Anyway, also in our Bear Grylls brain kit: an equally innate negativity bias.  This little Swiss Army Knife of misery is why we tend to focus much more on negative experiences and media. So, not only do our brains proactively tweak perception to privilege survival regardless of accuracy, it also privileges the negative while doing so.

Remember those brain scans I mentioned earlier?

Well, according to other neuroscience studies, that negativity bias is as physical as it is emotional. Brain scans show greater neural activation to the negative than either the neutral or positive or neutral—a response induced not only by negative stimuli, but also by images, videos, words, and even risky visualized scenarios. Finally, those cognitive biases I began with at the top of this section? Well, I’m sure it’ll absolutely not surprise you to learn that fear appears to be the most fertile soil for those.

What do you get when you cross a survivalist with pessimism and a high level of anxiety?

You get an easy access point for an ersatz or unwanted reality to slip in.

Final Thoughts

When I first sat down to write this, I had something much shorter in mind. As it turns out, I’m far from done spilling words on this topic. However, attention is precious nowadays, and I’ve kept yours with this behemoth for long enough. It’s only fair that I give your eyeballs a break. (Worry not, the next post is mostly already written!)

In this post, I’ve talked a lot about perception, its mechanics and vulnerabilities. I’ll be digging further into those ersatz unrealities, the propagandist’s/marketer’s art, and its overlap with this thing we call “magic.” There’s also a possible third post in the works too, but more on that later.

For now though, if you find that you also thirst for the organic, then I encourage you to practice noticing your own easy access points and to sit with them. Consider how you might best shore up your defenses in a way that is both compassionate and respects your needs and the innate mechanisms of your brain.

However, most of all, I invite you to try reframing some of the news you see as stories in a book. What are the plot points? Who are the protagonists, and what drew them in? What is the prologue? Where might this story be going, and what emotions does it stir up?
Lastly, where are you in this story, who is doing the telling, and what might the storyteller or storytellers hope to achieve?

The Final, Final Words (No, Really)

I’m excited to share that I’ll be presenting at the Sacred Space/Between the Worlds 2026 joint conference in College Park, MD in February!

The Sacred Space Conference is the premier annual esoteric conference on the East Coast for intermediate to advanced practitioners. The Between the Worlds Conference is offered at particular intervals aligned with specific astrological events.

When these two conferences come together you can expect a wide variety of high caliber workshops and rituals designed to discuss important magical needs and timely topics.

Check out the schedule and register here ➡️ https://sacredspacebtw2026.sched.com/

That’s all from me for now. Please enjoy this bonus pic of Irene (who, again, is absolutely not Bernie Sanders) as a reward for making it this far.

Posted on

An Elephant Called “Magic”

A few years ago now I gave a class on Christian religious baggage at a Heathen event. The title of the class was Uncloaking Elephants, because I wanted to focus on some of the baggage that most tend not to see in the first place. Unlike their easily-seen cousins, these proverbial elephants don’t just huddle in the corners of our mind-rooms; they’re part of the décor—in some cases, the very foundations of those spaces.

They’re the default assumptions of our overculture, premises we accept without question, their religious roots usually forgotten.

One such “elephant” that has been coming to mind of late concerns the concept of magic. If you’ve ever been to any of my classes, you’ll know that I talk about magic a lot. (Hell, I even have a definition I use while teaching!) But the truth of the matter is that this is just me making use of an elephant as koine; “magic” is common parlance. Were it up to me though, I’d actually take that elephant and toss it off a cliff.

Fuckety-bye, Dumbo!

An Elephant Named “Magic” Plummets To The Earth

But why? Why would I take a perfectly proficient proverbial pachyderm and yeet them to their demise?

Because words are more than containers for ideas; they also delineate conceptual boundaries, and in aggregate, form entire frameworks. Most of the time, those containers are simple, their boundaries easily delineated. A “chair,” for example, is a piece of furniture where people may plant their butts (comfort level may vary). Other words, however, defy concise definition, which is naturally the group within which we find the word “magic.”

Common though it is, this term confounds practitioners and scholars alike (no matter what some may tell you). To quote the academic Richard Kieckhefer, who has spent literal decades studying this very topic, in The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Magic (2019):

”What is magic? We know perfectly well what it is if no one asks us, but when someone asks and we try to define it, we are confused.” (p.15)
Yet that confusion (which is by no means limited to Professor Kieckhefer) doesn’t prevent academics from operating under certain assumptions.

To see where I’m going with this, consider the following from pages 226-227 of European Paganism by Ken Dowden:

“I have excluded magic, because by definition it is not capable of being institutionalized within religion, though plainly actions which we or others might dismissively categorize as magical can be performed by priests as ritual—or by individuals who happen to be recognized religious professionals as acts of, for example, medicine.”

Here we see Dowden inserting a well-worn divider between magic and ritual, and in so doing, once again separating priest from witch.
Quite an odd trajectory for a term originally used to refer to a class of Zoroastrian priests.

A Flashback For “Magic” On The Brink Of Death

The Greek sources are full of interesting births. A god gets a migraine and pops a fully formed goddess of wisdom from his head with the help of an ax. Some foam oozes from the castrated junk of a primordial god and births a love goddess. You get the idea…

Living rent free in Zeus’ head.

Another interesting birth for you now: a group of priests, or magi, attract enough attention from some 5th century BCE Greeks to wind up in texts and produce a baby elephant…or something.

Silly elephant stories aside, this is the origin story of the word “magic,” a word that has carried the implication of foreignness and the social “other” ever since the first Greek spilled some ink about them. The magi as recorded in those early texts were ritualists (as one might expect for priests), but also practitioners of mysterious arts like astrology and magical healing. The first etic definition of magic and the magical was, simply put, whatever acts or practices the Greeks associated with that Persian priestly class (Kieckhefer. Magic in the Middle Ages. p. 10).

So far our elephant has remained relatively small and is yet to gain stealth. For the next part of the story though, we’ll need to fast-forward almost a millennium—to the 4th century CE, to be exact—and exchange the columns of Greece for those of Rome. A time when Christianity was ascendant in the empire and the early Christians secure enough to flex their socio-political power.

*Insert Leveling-Up Montage*

And naturally, a good deal of that flexing involved spreading the word like Jimmy Pop spread the turd back in the late 90 s. The more things change, the more they stay the same…

However, jokes about Jimmy Poop and Jesus aside, a key part of the Christian conversion strategy back then was conflating Pagan ritual technologies with magic.

Remember that earlier prejudice against the magi and connotations of the social other? Well, the 4th century Christians made good use of those biases. Presenting themselves as the social in-group, they painted the Pagans as outsiders and labeled their own seemingly magical acts as “miracles.” Early Christian narratives from the classical world during this time are full of exorcism narratives, all written with the goal of depicting the Pagan (ergo “magical”) as foolish and weak, and their own god as the mighty victor (MacCullen, Ramsey. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. pp. 8-10; 91-93).

However, it would take more than some 4th century smacktalk to attain religious dominance. You see, for the average Greco-Roman Pagan, one’s shrine of choice was where you went for healing and/or oracular help—functions that the Christians would have to either replace or sully if they were to convince the Pagans away from their older cults (MacCullen. pp. 53 – 57).

Another part of the wider strategy to chip away at Pagan cultus was labeling Pagan spirits and deities “demons” by default (from the Greek daimones; Latin daemones). A far cry from the sulfur-smelling pit fiend of later lore, the original Greek daimon was (among other things) an intermediary between humans and gods.

With the Pagan holy powers now “demons” and the practices of their cults “magic,” anything savoring of Paganism (and later heresy) became both “magical” and “demonic” by definition, and as such, eventually the antithesis of religion, society, and culture (Kieckhefer. Magic in the Middle Ages. p. 38).

End montage.

The elephant named “Magic” has now attained its final form and is all set to become another piece of the over-cultural default. They’re the woody knot in a doorpost or mantelpiece ornament gathering dust that have been there forever.

Practically invisible.

#NotAllPachyderms

Elephant Meets Ground = Splat

Eventually all things come to an end: our proverbial pachyderm meets the ground in a bloody mess.

Toward the beginning of this post, I said that words both contain meanings and delineate their conceptual boundaries. The way we define and understand words shapes our ability to think about a subject or problem in a very real way. By conflating the already maligned “magic” with the Pagan, those 4th century Christian clerics have left us with an ideological catch-22 that has us struggling to arrive at a consensus definition for a word that originally referred to a kind of priest while also denying that any connection with priesthood exists.

Madness.

But this is why “magic” is so difficult to define, the reason for the countless discussions and arguments about where the line lies between “magic” and “religion.” (A pointless debate when you really think about it.)

This is why we see scholars such as the aforementioned Ken Dowden confidently asserting that magic “by definition” is “not capable of being institutionalized within religion” (in a chapter with multiple primary source quotations, some of which directly contradict that entire notion).

Over and over, we keep trying to force a round peg into a square hole.

Our current common understanding of the word “magic” (itself the product of a 4th century Christian conversion strategy) is more hindrance than help. It actively limits our ability to think about Pagan/Heathen cultus while, more nefariously, perpetuating the inference that our traditions are automatically inferior (especially if they look a little woo-woo magical)

Worse still, that status as a default assumption impedes our ability to engage with historical evidence without first editing or ignoring the parts that don’t fit. (Or alternatively: creating caveats and/or additional frameworks to explain the numerous exceptions.)

So yeah, we should yeet the elephant—that old foot soldier of conversion—and the premise it came to represent. Their memory will remain, so we’ll keep the koine (for now).
It’s time to stop letting that ghost call the shots and ask ourselves what might be instead.

Sources

Dowden, Ken. European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic In The Middle Ages.
McCullen, Ramsey. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries.
The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Magic (from Mitchell, Stephen. Old Norse Folklore: Magic, Witchcraft, and Charms in Medieval Scandinavia.)

 

Posted on

Apolitical = Shit

Apolitical Poison And Feral Disaster Groundhog Dirt-Witches

There hasn’t been much good to come out of 2025 so far. Whether you call it Tower Time or a Wolf Age, we’re well and truly in it, and neither The World nor Apple Age are guaranteed.

One thing that doesn’t suck, however, is that Aidan Wachter has begun showing up on podcasts again like some kind of feral disaster groundhog. That’s right, he’s back to coming in everyone’s ears again! Hooray!

100% NOT Aidan Wachter.

I happened to catch one the other day while preparing dinner. (This one, if you’re curious.) The episode was about animism and chaos magic, and as always with Aidan, it was an excellent discussion. But then I made the mistake of going to the comments, where I saw something along the lines of “This was great until you started talking about politics.” And well, I have something to say about that. Truth be told, I’ve been pondering a post on this since the beginning of the year. But for whatever reason, I seem to be running into this sentiment more of late.

“Ugh, I’m here to discuss magic/animism/(insert subject here, not politics.“

(Cue dramatic gasp and clutch pearls.)

And coming from Heathenism, I’m intensely aware of how far-right individuals benefit when groups adopt apolitical stances. I mean, it’s a handy-dandy way to stifle opposing views while quietly expanding their own influence. (It’s called “entryism.” Look it up!)

Apolitical veneers are dangerous. Red flags, always. But that’s not the reason why I decided to tip-tap out this ikkle screed of a post.

You see, here’s the thing: you can’t talk about animism as an aspiring animist without that animism also informing and shaping your politics. Contrary to what seems like popular belief, animism is much more than some Disney princess scenario where a group of forest peoples do you the solid of tidying your hovel (though that would be nice).

Some day, my bird-friends. Some day…

Life goal: convince a group of tits to tidy my home.

Before I get into it though, let’s begin with a couple of definitions so we’re at least all starting out on the same page.

Defining Animisms

Believe it or not, the word “animism” didn’t exist before the 19th century. This is why you will never see medieval texts labeling pre-Christian cultures “animist.” That was actually the product of an anthropologist called Edward Tylor, who coined the term in 1871 as a way to describe all belief in phenomena that cannot be empirically proven, like gods, fairies, ghosts, spirits, and souls (Harvey, 5-6).

So. Congratulations, Christians! According to Tylor you’re all a bunch of animists (even though you’ve been working to stamp out actually animistic beliefs since the get-go).

Iechyd da, Jesus stans!

But I digress…

The thing about Tylor is that he was an ardent materialist. Where his contemporaries considered society to be degenerate because of the decline of traditional religion, he saw that as a good thing. For him, animism (and ergo all religion) was a category error common to all humans that would hopefully eventually be eradicated through science and reason (Harvey, 5-6).

Among anthropologists, Tylor’s definition of animism is known as the “old animism.” And unfortunately, Tylor’s views continue to shape our ideas of animism, and especially the prejudices surrounding it, even today.

The “new animism,” however, is very different, largely because instead of simply labeling groups of people without trying to understand how they understood their own cultures, anthropologists actually began to learn from groups whose worldviews they perceived to be animist.

What has emerged is a definition of the animistic worldview that’s rooted in an expanded conception of personhood. In short: we humans are but one kind of people inhabiting Earth, and personhood is both revealed by and defined by interaction with others. Basically, people communicate (in whichever way is natural for them); people learn from each other; people are relational; and people are willful and have agency (Harvey, 17-24).

People are not defined by having a human shape.

Unlike the old animism, the new animism doesn’t struggle to figure out whether everything in the world is sentient, or which of the many, many phenomena is. Conversely, the new animist simply asks whether the object in question has communicated yet and, in doing so, made it known that they’re a person (Harvey, 18, 33). And as for everything else who may also be a person? Well, who knows?

As an aside, Tylor considered the recognition of seemingly inanimate objects as being sentient akin to that stage in childhood where children personify objects (Harvey, 8). And now you know where much of the mockery leveled at animism comes from…Congrats!

Anyway, back to the politics…

Animism and the World

Like many other societies, modern US society is rooted in a worldview that holds humans to be separate from the rest of the world. You see, apparently we’re the only beings special enough to have souls. Everybeing else is just basically a resource, lacking in any real sentience (a view we are seeing increasingly challenged in scientific research).

A more “enchanted” version of this – or at least one that is presented as being so – is that the omnipresent Christian god fills and maintains the world. Those who have eyes to see can find manifest wonders all around them. Signs. Revelations. How special, each and every wonder a little love note left by deity daddy!

This, by the way, is pretty much the “reenchantment” currently being pushed by the right wing Christian writer Rod Dreher to entice people from Paganism and Heathenry, and back to the church. Throw in some paranoia about demons and some exorcism narratives to really sell it, and you’re good to go! Ironically, this is also the same basic strategy used by the 10th/11th century homilist Ælfric of Eynsham to achieve the same goal (Jolly, 95). Don’t fall for it, yo!

Blame this guy too.

Because here’s the thing about that worldview: it got us to where we are now. When it’s the default to see us humans as divorced from the rest of the world and every other being as a resource to exploit (a statement which also all too often also extends to humans), what incentives do our politicians have to take the trees, the waters, the birds, fish, or lightning bugs into consideration in their policy making? What are those “resources” next to accumulating pieces of green-colored paper or big numbers on a screen?

None. They have none. At best, they may have a basic awareness of the foolishness of shitting where you eat. But aside from that? Well, that paper with its green patterns sure does make life comfy!

Now here’s where animistic worldviews differ.

Because it’s not just humans who are people, not just humans with souls or spirits. This world isn’t something given to us by a single deity to use and manage as we wish. We’re not the main characters in this web of life, with everybeing else our support cast. Herbs do not heal because of some deity filling them or storing “virtues” in them like Easter eggs; they have their own power, their own indwelling spirits. We are a part of this mighty Middle-Earth, our homes the nests of our kind. We are no more separate from everybeing else here than we are our limbs, organs, or blood.

“All of these are your kin.”

 

Frankly, as an aspiring animist (i.e., someone who is working to transition to an animistic worldview), the current direction of modern politics runs counter to pretty much every single belief I have. That fascism that’s resurgent in so many places right now? It’s completely fucking anathema to animism. A worldview of separation instead of connection, both an escalation and predictable end result of ideologies reliant on “us” vs “them” dichotomies. Man vs nature, body vs soul, good vs evil, angels vs demons, I could go on…It’s all the Lie of Separation playing out, just different heads of the same beast.

I guess my question at this point is how the fuck do you discuss animism without also discussing politics?

The truth is that you can’t.

The thing about worldview is that it isn’t just something you perform with coreligionists once a week or month, everyone returning to their own homes at the end after some polite conversation by the coffee table. It is, as the word suggests, the way you perceive and understand the whole world, and as such, shapes your choices and opinions – the way you move in the world. If you consider yourself an animist and take issue with others bringing up politics, I would question how deeply committed you are to aligning with this worldview.

Final Words

The vast majority of the time, calls for apoliticism are either a demand for comfort or a way to silence opposing viewpoints for whatever ends. It should go without saying that the personal is political. Well, the same is true for magic and religion as well. Contrary to what some would prefer to think, political discussion doesn’t sully the sacred. If anything, forwarding politics with the aim of seeding and spreading what you believe to be good in the world is holy work. Necessary. At times, a kind of jailbreaking for minds.

Look, we’re well and truly in the Wolf Age; our choices and words are extra weighty now. We all need to make like wolves and howl out our truths regardless. Fuck being apolitical. No one ever won a world by keeping their tongue behind their teeth.

Sources Cited

Harvey, Graham, Animism: Respecting the Living World.

Jolly, Karen. Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context.

 

 

Posted on

Tweens And The Unseen

Not Your Typical Tween Drama

It’s been a common occurrence here of late. A small voice with a note of panic echoing down the stairs at night.

“Mum, can you come upstairs?”

When I get there, I find a terrified preteen. Sometimes she’s hiding under her covers with only her eyes peeping out. Other times, she’s outside her room on the landing hugging a stuffie she’s had since she was literally a baby tight to her chest.

It’s a scene I recognize all too well from my own childhood.

Most of the time when we talk about childhood development, we speak in terms of physical, mental, and emotional changes. We discuss hormones, acne, BO, and tempestuous behavior. Only very rarely do we see discussion of *other* changes – if at all.

Liminality and Discernment

The transition from child to teenager is a liminal time, and in my experience, one of intense spiritual development. There’s a ramping up of activity and expanding of senses that is often scary, and sometimes even deeply traumatic.

As a child, I was yet to develop the ability to discern between helpful and harmful, and because of this, even the slightest hint of uncanniness scared me. I’ve always seen the world as being somewhat “pixelated,” even while wearing glasses. If you’ve ever sat so close to the TV you can switch between seeing the full picture and the pixels, it’s similar to that. The only exceptions for me – the only solidity – are ensouled beings.

As a child, I learned to notice the “pixels” getting “buzzy” as a precursor to the temperature drop preceding a ghost. I also learned to leave the room when my dog did – that he tended to pick up the coming uncanniness even before the change in pixels.

I suspect it’s similar for my child. Helpful or harmful, it doesn’t matter. At the first signs of uncanniness, she’s now afraid.

A Blast From The Past

In many ways, I was lucky as a child growing up with that kind of sight. My dad’s family have been Spiritualists for generations – pretty much since the movement landed on their shores – and family lore suggests they were involved in similar practices before that era as well.  Now, I’m not claiming to have learned “ye olde craft” unbroken here. But I did grow up with a dad who healed people and who got taken over by his spirit guide from time to time. Unlike so many others, I had the benefit of someone to talk to about my experiences, someone to learn from.

More importantly though, I had someone to help when things got bad.

For example, once when I was 17, I made a rag doll. That’s not much of a story on its own, but it got possessed by something deeply malevolent – the most malevolent being I’ve felt to date. Long story short, my dad got possessed by his guide and took care of it, and I never want to see a doll’s facial features move again.

Sidenote #1: people could have saved themselves so much of that Annabelle nonsense had they just done what my dad did with the ragdoll I made and tossed it in the wheelie bin. 

Sidenote #2:  this is also why I don’t make dolls anymore. Not unless they’re to be consecrated as a “house” for someone specific. And I do that consecrating as soon as I’m finished.

Not so fast, you little shit! Get in the bin!

So, that was a good thing. Having my dad to go to was incredibly helpful. He was also the first to get me practicing sensing and manipulating energy.

The Ups And The Downs

However, it’s important to realize that there are pros and cons to every situation.

Here in the States, Spiritualism is largely practiced in churches and communities like Lilly Dale. But in Northern England, Spiritualism largely became a family-based practice passed on from parents to children. My dad learned from his parents, both of whom were practitioners. I’m not sure who his mum learned it from (though her siblings were also Spiritualists), but his dad also learned it from his parents in turn (both of whom also came from families of practitioners).

What I’m saying, is that there’s no tidy and standardized tradition here. The practices of my family are one of many expressions of that form of Spiritualism.

Initially, Spiritualism began with the initial premise that we continue to exist after death and that communication beyond the “veil” is possible (i.e., necromancy). That was how it began in 1850s upstate New York. But over the years, elements of Theosophy and Hermeticism also made their way into the movement as well. 

Nowadays, ideas spread like wildfire online. However, prior to the internet, ideas largely spread between family groups within this specifically northern English context via random encounters with other Spiritualists while out and about in the world.

(Spiritualists, like Witches, have a tendency to “sniff” each other out, you see.)

Imagine a giant game of “Telephone” where no one knows who is playing or how many players there even are, and then the information from that game being used in necromancy and healing. That’s kinda close to what it was like. Sometimes the other player you knew was “Greg who works in the fruit and veg section at the supermarket on Thursdays.”

A Brief Interlude

For what it’s worth, I consider that influx of outside influences detrimental to Spiritualism. Kardec was absolutely right to guard against them by building out the doctrine of Spiritism. Among other issues, the Theosophical elements reduced the feorin (fairies) of my local area to “lower level elementals,” helping to erode traditional understandings of those peoples, and introduced hierachies among spiritual paths (e.g  Dion Fortune’s formulation of the “green ray” path being lesser than others).

And Back To The Story…

In addition to this rampant eclecticism, many Spiritualists in the area where I grew up also placed a great deal of value on being taught “by Spirit” (as opposed to by other humans). As far as they were concerned, that is where the most power lies. Aside from his parents, my dad’s main teacher is “Spirit.” And even a few years shy of 80 and despite some serious health issues, the man is still a presence. Sit next to my dad when he’s even slightly in that mode, and the hairs on your arms stand up on end. Ouija boards used to stop working around him just because he told them he had no intention of talking to them.

But do you see what I mean about none of this being tidy? Despite what people may imagine about growing up in a family tradition like that, there is no set anything. Even unbroken for a few generations, there is nothing pristine being handed down. Just a whole lot of magic magpies doing the best with what they have (while calling up the dead, dealing with hauntings, and casually getting possessed by spirits – as you do).

One of my dad’s biggest challenges in getting me through these developmental stages was our different experiences of the dead and otherworldly. Where I see, hear, and otherwise sense the dead and other, he can sense when somebeing is there, but little else. He relies on his guide for discernment and doing what needs to be done from there. Clearly at a loss and desperate to help me, my dad often asked the other Spiritualists he encountered for their advice, and this is where the pitfall I now hope to avoid with my kid emerged.

Welcome To Rando SpirtualismLand (Flag Probably Not Coming Any Time Soon)

As a parent, I now know what it’s like to see my child too terrified to go into her room. The child I was has never forgotten what lies beneath the requests to bring the cat with her to bed at night (regardless of the cat’s thoughts on the matter). I don’t blame my dad one bit for any of this. If anything, I admire his willingness to seek outside help when so many others would have simply pretended they weren’t out of their depth. The only thing I wish he’d done differently was trust in himself and his own wisdom more.

Because unfortunately, the advice my dad returned with was poison.

Nowadays, we can ask an entire world of people for advice thanks to the Internet. Before then though, you had library books and the word of others. The other that time was someone he’d initially met while at the supermarket, chatted with, then found that both he and the guy he was conversing with were each stood off to the side of their bodies.

“Shall we get back to our bodies then?”

“Aye, we’d better had.”

And honestly, that’s just another day in rando SpiritualismLand.

Welcome to Rando SpiritualismLand! Sometimes, it looks suspiciously like your local supermarket.

My dad had absolutely no idea that the advice he was conveying was the Law of Attraction or that it would prove harmful. From his perspective (as someone who didn’t see and hear these beings), it must have seemed an easy solution for me to stop being a magnet for spirits.

“Just raise your vibration. Like attracts like. Raise your vibration, and then only the good beings will bother you. A home full of love is the only protection we need.”

Well, that went about as well as you’d imagine. I had no idea what on earth these “vibrations” were or how to “raise them.” Worse still, I felt as though I was at fault for my experiences. And even worse than that, I felt as though I had nowhere to turn to feel safe – a core need for a child.

Sometimes, folks, bad advice is better than none at all.

A Better Story?

Nowadays, I tell my kid that children like her who see and hear as she does are like beacons. I ask her to remember what it was like to look out of the plane window at night the last time we flew, and to imagine those sparse lights over the rural areas children just like her. She is bright to the dead and Other through no fault of her own.

Why yes, I do realize this is the moth/lamp theory of why some children get haunted.

Ironically, this was the same thing my dad used to tell me *before* going to his friend for advice. It’s really a pity how often our desperation to do right by our children drives us to the bad counsel of others over the wisdom of our own souls. As I said earlier, I wish my dad had trusted himself more.

At the age of 13, I took my first steps in Witchcraft. A simple circle – nothing too taxing. But that circle was life-changing. Now, I could write about how I felt like I was right where I was meant to be – that I was stepping into alignment with fate(because I absolutely did) – but the most striking thing for me at that moment was actually the feeling of finally having a barrier – of having tools.

Suddenly, I was no longer relying on a love-filled home for protection. I mean, don’t get me wrong: love is powerful. And my parents’ home was and is indeed filled with love. However, there are situations where love just simply isn’t enough, and this happened to be one of them.

My Dad’s Shoes

Now, I find myself fully in my dad’s shoes. It’s my turn to pass on what I know while hoping I’m doing the right thing. Family lore aside, I can’t claim to come from a lineage of Witches or cunning folk, but my own walk along the crooked path has brought Witchcraft to that line of Spiritualists regardless. Whether my daughter makes her own way down that same path is entirely up to her. I can only teach her what I know, give her tools she needs, and hope she comes through this empowered and cunning, ready to dance with the numinous, breathe blessings into teas, and hurl hexes as needed. With luck, she’ll avoid the years of struggle and eventual desensitization I went through.

When I first sat down to write this post, I intended to write a discussion of practical measures for parents going through the same thing. Instead, I wound up telling you my experiences, my dad’s efforts to help me, and how I now find myself in his shoes. Hopefully, this serves as a warning against the Law of Attraction when supporting kids through this stage and a reminder of the importance of good barriers. I also hope that my story makes it clear that none of us have this down – that even the most loving parents can and do make mistakes, and that not even a childhood with necromancers and healers guarantees greater knowledge or success.

At the end of the day, all we can do as parents is our best by our children. Such has been the way of parenthood since the very beginning, and despite the many, many “secret sauce” solutions offered by experts of various stripes, I doubt that’s going to change.

My dad may not have known how to keep these beings from our home, but he was right about love being important. It isn’t a barrier, but it is sustaining. So, make sure your kids know they’re loved – that you’re always there for them no matter how weird or scary it gets, and be that barrier as needed. You may not get it right, but as someone who’s come through that particular fire with burned feet, believe me when I say that love can be the difference between broken and whole.

Be well, lovely people. Until the next time!

 

Posted on

What is a Witch?

Which Witch is Witch

What is a witch, and who gets to call themselves one? If ever there were two more controversial or ire-provoking questions than these, I am yet to find them. Nowadays, those of us who live in the post-Industrial nations of the world treat the word “witch” as a title to claim and squabble over. Which is ironic really, when you consider that for many centuries, the witch was a person to fear, a bane on cattle and crops; and for those who were accused of being one, a path to prosecution and possibly either the gallows or pyre.
I’ve already blogged about the origins of the word “witch,” or more specifically, the first attestations of its Old English ancestor: wicce (f)/wicca (m)/wiccan (pl). As I argued then, given the contexts in which those attestations appear and their clear parallels in Old Norse narratives of Heathen magic and magical practitioners, the first Witches were most likely a kind of Heathen ritual or magical specialist.

Now, that’s all well and good. But what about practitioners today? After all, not everyone claiming or squabbling over the title of “witch” is a Heathen. If anything, most seem to consider Heathenry and Witchcraft two completely separate paths—paths that are, for the most part, largely in opposition to each other. Additionally, for many within the Traditional or Folkloric Witchcraft communities, the “real” witches were Christians, and it’s the Pagans and Heathens who are the latecomers to the Craft. (Another irony given those aforementioned origins!)

Perception and Meanings

So, with all that said, where do we go as modern practitioners? Because believe it or not, this isn’t about telling everyone they have to be Heathen or GTFO of the Craft!

The thing about words is that their meanings change over time. People have literally spent centuries altering the definition of witchcraft to fit their social, political, and religious agendas. “Witch” and “witchcraft,” simply put, were labels of exclusion used to delineate and enforce the boundaries of society while identifying those people, practices, and beliefs perceived to be harmful to that order to eradicate them (see Kieckhefer cha. 8 for further discussion). Given the central role of perception here—which is itself incredibly malleable and largely shaped by belief—it’s little wonder those definitions have shifted so much over the centuries. That perception of harm is why it was entirely possible for the same person to be considered a “cunning person” or “charmer” by some, and a “witch” by others. To quote Kirsteen Macpherson Bardell in her paper, Beyond Pendle: the ‘lost’ Lancashire Witches:

“Again, the evidence indicates that healers had a widespread reputation in the community but that this ambiguous connection with magic could turn into suspicion of something more malevolent.”

“Pendle, old Pendle, thou standest alone.”

The witch who could heal could also hex, and all that. A precarious position for any practitioner.

Moreover (and to further complicate matters), “witch” has become the go-to gloss for any word used to describe ritual specialists in other cultures as well, its application largely dependent on how those practitioners were perceived by cultural outsiders. This not only expanded the definitions of “witch” even further, it also obscured, shifted, or even outright erased the original understandings those cultures had of those practitioners. (An accusation we can also lay at the feet of the appropriated version of the term “shamanism” as well, if we’re being honest.)

Either way, it’s little wonder we have so much to argue over now.

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that outside of its original cultural and religious context, the word “Witch” doesn’t really have a fixed meaning. Both now and in the past, it’s been used as a box of sorts. For some, that box was a place to toss the people and things they wanted to get rid of, while for others, that box holds something treasured to be gatekept. In one box, lives one kind of person’s nightmares, whereas the other box holds another kind of person’s ideals and dreams.

Again and again, it’s perception that shapes those walls.

The Familiar Thread

Nebulous though the meanings of “witch” can be, however, there is something more solid to be found in that cloud. A way to sort through the mist, if you will. As unlikely as it may seem, there is a core there that exists regardless of religious belief, socio-political goals, or mystical aspirations. We see this core in a theme that is repeated over and over from the eleventh century writings of the early English homilist Ælfric (and likely earlier) to the early modern English and Scottish trial accounts.

This surprised you, didn’t it? Come on, admit it!

It’s the presence of “devils” or familiar spirits, be those familiar spirits Otherworldly or Dead. A thread that predates the development of the continental witchcraft narrative by centuries.

“Now some deceiver will state that witches (wiccan) often say truly how things will turn out. Now we will say truly that the invisible devil who flies around the world and sees many things makes known to the witch what she may say to men so that those who seek out that wizardry may be destroyed.”

From De Auguriis by Ælfric of Eynsham

In my blog talking about those earliest attestations of wicce/wicca/wiccan, I discussed the strong parallel between King Alfred’s 9th century renegotiation of Exodus 22:18 and the image of the Old Norse seeress or völva in the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá. To summarize for those of you who are yet to read that post, both the wiccan of Alfred and the völva of the Edda were portrayed traveling between homes, exchanging magic and seership for the hospitality of their (predominantly female) hosts—a theme we see repeated a number of times in the Old Norse sources.

Given the common root of the early English and Norse cultures and their history of exchange and interaction, shared themes or patterns can hardly be surprising. Yet despite this long relationship, even the suggestion that early English witches might have been analogous to the Norse völur in some ways is still somewhat controversial.

Perhaps it hits too many of the same buttons indiscriminately smashed by Margaret Murray for comfort? Or maybe anti-Wiccan sentiment among modern Heathens is to blame? I suspect both may be a part of it. However, it’s also important to point out here that the völva (much like the shaman) isn’t nearly so tarnished by those centuries of negative PR. This is especially the case among Anglophones, but it likely extends into other cultures too given the outsized influence of Anglophone media on the rest of the world. In short, völva has a certain cachet that “witch” simply doesn’t have and perhaps offers a way to be “witchy” without inviting the same degree of hostility from others. Any comparison between the two then must feel like a sullying of something dearly held.

You see, even as Pagans and Heathens we are shaped by those Christian perceptions; some of us still borrow our prejudices instead of setting them aside.

Devils? Nah. Let’s Talk Elves and Witches!

However, to return to my point, that partnership between witches and so-called “devils” also appears in Old Norse sources. Over and over, we find female magical practitioners in league with other-than-human people.

For example, in Ynglinga saga, Freyja (a goddess associated with magic referred to as seiðr) is described as a blótgyðja or “sacrificial priestess” and appears to lead the cult centered around her brother’s burial mound. Her brother, of course, is Freyr, a god described as the ruler of Álfheimr or “Elf Home” (cognate to the Scots word Elfhame) in the poem Grímnismál. Another place we see this partnership between a “witch-coded” priestess and elf-coded male is in chapter 28 of Örvar-odds saga, where we find a king by the name of Álfr (literally “elf”) and his wife Gyðja (“priestess”), who appears connected to Freyr. Gyðja is also depicted shooting magical projectiles from her fingernails, an ability we also see demonstrated in Jómsvíkinga saga by the goddess Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr, who Hilda Ellis Davidson identifies with Freyja (Davidson, Roles of the Northern Goddess pp. 177-178).

And while we’re on the subject of magical projectiles (also known as “elfshot”), allow me to mention a couple more sources that feature this theme as additional illustrations of this partnership. The first source I want to mention is the 10th century metrical charm Wið Færstice (“Against a Stitch”), which features a narrative set at a burial mound that likely describes witches shooting projectiles made by elven smiths. The second source I want to mention is the confession of the 17th century witch, Isobel Gowdie, in which she claimed to obtain her magical projectiles from elves (and the Devil), who made their houses in mounds (Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England pp. 112-115).

Despite the centuries between them, the narrative of Wið Færstice and themes of Isobel Gowdie’s confession align in that both involve witches shooting elf-made magical projectiles and mounds. Quite remarkable when you think about it! Clearly, those things go together like PB&J!

(Can confirm.)

I could go on (no really, I could; this is my special interest). I’ll spare you all for now, though. We’ll be here all day otherwise.

Moving Forward

The partnership between witch and familiar is perhaps one of the oldest and most consistent threads of the witchcraft story regardless of era, at least as it has played out among English and Scots-speaking groups in mainland Britain, or in other words: those groups who once would have likely used the words wicce/wicca/wiccan in their daily speech. While this pattern can also be seen in other cultural groups within the British and Irish Isles as well as continental witchcraft narratives, those are beyond the scope of this post.

Now does that mean that everyone has to have a familiar spirit in order to be a “real” witch?

Not necessarily. What I will say, however, is that one does have to be somewhat other. Some of us come by that otherness via ancestry i.e. someone way back when made some connections that subtly changed them and those who came after them, while some of us become other through encounters with the Dead and/or Otherworldly, eventually founding relationships. It may not be popular to say this, but that’s the thread.

Some Personal Theorizing

My personal theory is that the witch originally began as an analog of the Old Norse gyðja, who, as Terry Gunnell points out in his paper Blótgyðjur, Goðar, Mimi, Incest, and Wagons: Oral Memories of the Religion(s) of the Vanir, was mostly associated with the cult of Freyr in the sources. This interpretation would accord well with the etymology put forth by the linguist Guus Kroonen, which traces the word’s derivation from the same linguistic roots as the Proto-Germanic *wiha-1 and *wiha-2 (“holy” and “sanctuary”). A second etymology that also accords well with this interpretation considering the centrality of burial mounds in some of these narratives is that given by the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, which traces wicce/wicca to the Germanic *wikkjaz or “necromancer.” An association that also appears in the later Aldhelm glosses as well.

“This is my church. This is where I heal my hurts.
For tonight, god is an (elf) DJ.”

Final Words

Still, that thread doesn’t erase those centuries of loose meanings and adaptations. If the word “witch” inspires you, then I encourage you to respectfully take on that mantle. I am not here to police or gatekeep you or your practice. That’s just tiring and pointless. As I’ve said before (many times), the Craft protects itself. Just know that the witch-mantle is weighty and can get you into trouble. Be mindful of its history, both the good and the bad, and remember on whose side you stand.

And whatever you do, never, ever forget the possibility that it all began with devotion and service.

Now, wear that mantle accordingly.

Sources

Davidson, Hilda E., and Hilda R. Davidson. Roles of the Northern Goddess. London: Psychology Press, 1998.

Hall, Alaric. Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender and Identity. 2007.

HarperCollins Publishers. “Appendix I – Indo-European Roots.” American Heritage Dictionary – Search. Accessed May 9, 2025. https://ahdictionary.com/word/indoeurop.html.

Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Kroonen, Guus. Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Brill Academic Publishers, 2013.

Poole, Robert, and Kirsteen Macpherson Bardell. “Beyond Pendle: the ‘lost’ Lancashire Witches.” In The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.

Seven Viking Romances. London: Penguin UK, 2005.

Sturluson, Snorri. Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.

Terry Gunnell. “Blótgyðjur, Goðar, Mimi, Incest, and Wagons: Oral Memories of the Religion(s) of the Vanir.” The Center for Hellenic Studies. Last modified March 30, 2021. https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/part-ii-local-and-neighboring-traditionsterry-gunnell-blotgydjur-godar-mimi-incest-and-wagons-oral-memories-of-the-religions-of-the-vanir/.

“Örvar-Odds Saga.” Snerpa.is / Heim. Accessed May 9, 2025. https://www.snerpa.is/net/forn/orvar.htm

Posted on

Reenchantment? Not so fast!

Living In Wonder (At The Audacity)

Earlier this morning, I read the most recent post by John Beckett. It’s a review of Rod Dreher’s book Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, a book he read after encountering this video by the YouTube creator, The Antibot. For those of you who hate the video format and prefer to read, the TL;DR is that Dreher is advocating for a Christian reenchantment in order to pull people who are searching for meaning (in our allegedly disenchanted world) away from “the occult.”

Satan’s Pictionary

And well, prepare thyself! I have a lot to say, and many of my words are sharp – as subtle as an air raid, you might say.

Misplaced Blame?

To be completely transparent, I haven’t read Dreher’s book myself. Considering what I’ve read of him, his virulently racist positions, and his admiration for the autocrat, Victor Orban in the past, I don’t intend to throw any of my money his way if I can help it.

To be clear: this is not me saying that John shouldn’t have done this. If anything, I’m grateful he spent the money and time to bring us this review. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that we need at least some of us throwing money in the direction of horrible people. This is about intelligence gathering, a necessary thing if we’re going to keep up-to-date with and counter their ideology and aspirations within our communities. With older publications, often there are used copies out on the market. However, Living in Wonder has been out for less than a month, making it toss-up between dropping some coin for potentially useful intelligence or waiting for used copies to enter the market.

So, as John has already taken that particular hit for the team, I’m going to stick to quoting him on Dreher.

The first passage I wanted to discuss was the following regarding the role of the Reformation and capitalism in disenchanting the world.

In his blog, John writes:

“He says ‘it is impossible to discount the role that the Reformation played in exiling the numinous from the collective consciousness of Western Christianity.’ And unlike almost every political conservative I’ve ever read, he blames capitalism as much as Protestantism, because capitalism reduces a world infused with the divine to a thing to be monetized. His argument isn’t quite animism, but it’s certainly on the right track.”

While I don’t disagree that the Reformation played a role in “exiling the numinous from the collective consciousness of Western Christianity,” I do think we need to be careful when considering these Christianities, their views of the numinous, and any relationship to capitalism. Christianity –  I would argue – contained the necessary ingredients to enable the growth of capitalism from the start.

From my perspective as an aspiring animist, capitalism is both an economic system and ideology that ultimately reduces the life of Earth and her peoples (both human and other-than-human) to exploitable resources. Terrible for the continuation of an enchanted worldview – yes. However, is that position really all that different from what we find in the Bible? Take Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:28 for example:

“26. Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

“28. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

NIV

So, in other words, humans are to dominate and subdue every other kind of person in the world by divine decree.

A final point I’d like to note before moving on: The shift to capitalism in Europe, though commonly thought to have begun with the Enclosure Acts in 16th century England, actually began a couple of centuries prior in Italy (Holler, The Birth of Capitalism, p. 55). Similar tactics, but different time and place. This is probably good to bear in mind while discussing disenchantment. Some might try to connect the birth of capitalism with the Reformation (also the 16th century) otherwise.

Reenchantment, But Make it Christian

Here is where we get to the meat of the Christian “reenchantment” Dreher would like to see.

The second quote from Dreher that stood out to me was as follows:

‘He says “there is a world outside our heads, but how we attend to it determines how real it becomes to us. And the manner of our attending is the way to become aware of the divine presence saturating the material world.”’

Although a member of the Eastern Orthodox church, what Dreher proposes here is essentially drawn from Augustinian theology. The relevance of this will hopefully become clear shortly.

“But it is the one true God who is active and operative in all those things, but always acting as God, that is, present everywhere in his totality, free from all spacial confinement, completely untrammeled, absolutely indivisible, utterly unchangeable, and filling heaven and earth with his ubiquitous power which is independent of anything in the natural order.”

Augustine, City of God Against the Pagans. Book VII, Chapter 30.

(Side note: any day that involves going through Augustine’s City of God can get in the fucking bin.)

Augustine of Hippo: Originally a sexually frustrated guy obsessed with plays who lived with his mom and converted to Christianity. Wrote a lot. Should have lost to Pelagius.

Leveraging Reenchantment And Bad Metaphysics

For Dreher, this becoming “aware of the divine presence saturating the material world” constitutes reenchantment. Well, I disagree. Instead, I would argue that this is no true reenchantment, but simply a way of reconquering the world outside of church walls.

Why do I say this?

Consider the following passages from Dreher as quoted by John. It’s clear his primary concern is winning what he sees as the spiritual war between his god and all else. His version of reenchantment – such as it is – is simply the tool he hopes to leverage in that fight.

‘The critical problem with this book is summarized in this quote: “people today aren’t wrong to seek enchantment – but if they do it outside a clearly and uniquely Christian path, they will inevitably be drawn into the demonic.”

‘The danger of that line of thinking is shown here: “as the old Christian faith framework breaks down, more and more Americans … are opening themselves to dark enchantment, a real phenomenon, one that kills the soul. In the spiritual warfare raging around us, both visibly and invisibly, there is no neutral ground. You must take a side and commit.”’

For the lovely Mr Beckett, Dreher’s labeling of the non-Christian as “demonic” is “bad metaphysics.” I, however, would argue that there is no single, correct metaphysics, and that Dreher’s positions are entirely consistent with the metaphysics of his own religion. Moreover, I think it’s important that we recognize that no amount of well-constructed arguments from religious scholars and anthropologists will change the views of zealots like Dreher.  And that even when they appear to consider our arguments, such consideration is almost always strategic. Their end goal always remains the same: conversion – their fucking religious war.

Brad (24), currently giving Asmodeus a “prayer-by-four.”

Pagans And The Demonic

Returning more directly to those metaphysics now, the tradition of labeling the non-Christian “demonic” goes back to the earliest days of the church. As far as early Roman Christians were concerned, the Paganism of the time was grounded in necromancy and magical arts, and the Roman deities nothing but (evil) demons pretending to be gods (Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages. pp 36-37).

Now, we can argue until we’re blue in the face that our Gods aren’t demons. But this narrative is over 1500 years old; it’s pervasive and well rooted. In all likelihood, we’re just wasting our breath.

As an aspiring animist, part of my “reenchantment process” has been to shift my worldview to one with an expanded conception of personhood. So, instead of limiting personhood to humans, I try to understand myself as inhabiting a world full of people, only some of whom happen to be human. As people have agency, are capable of communication, and exist in relationship with other people, I try to bring this approach to my magic as well.

For me (or at least the worldview I’m working on inhabiting), plants and trees (just to give you an example) are a kind of people with their own abilities, needs, relationships, and forms of communication. Modern science has made some of these ideas less controversial. For example, we now have evidence that trees live in communities and communicate with each other via mycorrhizal networks. This understanding is an aspect of reenchantment for me. The existence of scientific evidence for something does not remove the possibility of enchantment, and what is greater and more wondrous than that realization of personhood and interconnectedness – more people to get to know and learn from? After centuries of materialism and resources, such discoveries are reminders of the holiness and magic of our world.

However, that view would have been completely anathema to some early Christians. For example, the 2nd century writer, Tatian, saw herbs (along with amulets and other magical objects) as being a way for practitioners to “signal” to demons. Like a BeelzeBat signal, I guess. According to him, herbs had no powers of their own. Any benefits or results gained from working with them were simply the work of demons all along. Others, like Tertullian, argued instead that the herbs themselves contained magical powers, the knowledge of which was taught to women by demons (Kieckhefer. Magic. pp. 38 – 39).

Witch sending up the BeelzeBat Signal (witch not actual size)

Magic became the battleground upon which the war between Christianity and Paganism was fought. However, as Christianity’s hold on Europe grew stronger then eventually dominated, the combatants on the field shifted.  Around the 13th century, the fight over magic became focused on the question of whether a form of magic could be considered “natural” or “demonic” (Kieckhefer. Magic. p. 12).

It was also around this period that the (papal) inquisition arrived on the scene

The Real Disenchantment?

Over the past year or so, I’ve seen two advocates for a Christian “reenchantment.” Both, I would argue, have “radical traditionalist” tendencies, one far more overtly than the other. (“Christianity is YOUR ancestral religion.”)  And both ignore or downplay the centuries of church authorities working to root out actually enchanted worldviews under the guise of excising “demons” and heretics from among the faithful.

The first papal inquisitors were appointed by Pope Gregory IX in the early thirteenth century. They were to seek out heretics – a task initially left to bishops. According to one inquisitorial guide of the era, they were to question their suspects about everything from divination and invocation of demons to singing charms over herbs and using baptismal water in magic.

And unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before they encountered reports of sorcery. However, this was before they got slick with the accusation game. In one case, a woman managed to escape prosecution by arguing that she hadn’t committed heresy. Her reason? She hadn’t actually believed in the magic she was selling. She’d found the loophole. Eventually, Pope Alexander IV directed his inquisitors to only prosecute magic that “savored of heresy.”

As you might expect, this prompted some inquisitors to develop arguments that all magic was heretical. Yes, they were bringing back  that old conversion period line that magic was all about the demons. One area where this was particularly clear were the arguments concerning necromancy forwarded by inquisitors and theologians like Nicholas Eymericus. According to Eymericus and his peers, necromancy was inherently heretical because it involved the belief that “demons” were worthy of veneration. Another thing they argued for was the existence of “practical heresy,” or in other words: a form of heresy that was also implicit in one’s actions regardless of belief.

And this was basically how a bunch of (probably sexually frustrated) theobros convinced Pope John XXII to direct the inquisition to target necromancers and magicians directly (Kieckhefer. Magic. pp. 190-191).

Lovely.

Yet again, the battleground that was magic had become a fight against “demons.” The shitty old arguments were returning; nature wasn’t healing. Inquisitors were coming for everything from the benign charms spoken over herbs for healing to the foulest necromancy, and pretty much everything in-between that could be considered evidence of deviation from dogma. In one place, inquisitors even accused a physician of having a book of “necromancy,” when really it was a book of herbal remedies (Kieckhefer. Magic. p. 192).

By the 15th century,  judges and prosecutors in mainland Europe began to forward narratives of anti-Christian conspiracies featuring magicians and witches in league with demons and/or the Devil. It was also in this period that the demonic pact narrative rose to prominence as well (Kieckhefer. Magic. pp. 194-197).

But was any of this truly a disenchantment of the world?

I would argue that it was. The world before the spread and rise of Christianity was a busy one. One inhabited by all manner of peoples both living and dead. Gods, the beings we now refer to as “Otherworldly,” the unseen peoples of our Holy Middle Earth—all became “devils” or “demons” under the new order.  Their very existence was/is a challenge to the notion of a world made, maintained, and wholly directed by a single god found.

We can see the rise of the papal inquisition and the witch trials as a campaign against the daemonic, spirit-filled world. A way of making such beliefs fearful to the masses, that fear enforced by spectacles of horrific public torture and execution.

(And that’s not even getting into the fact that the church actively campaigned to limit the dreams of adherents out of fear of them encountering the Dead, Deities, and Otherworldly. Because, yes, that happened!)

The Actual State Of Play

When I read the words of people like Rod Dreher, I hear in them a call to resurrect an old, bloody, and frankly evil story. True reenchantment is an expansion of our world, an act of restoration, and a recognition of our place in that wider web of relationships and life. What he advocates, however, is a return to that same old worldview that has caused so much harm and ultimately left so many feeling disconnected and an emptiness within.

(Total utopia they’re selling here, lads!)

In my opinion, the enchantment that survived did so despite the efforts of Dreher’s religious forebears. I believe we forget that at our peril, especially in our current era.

This isn’t the end of it, just one of the opening (?) volleys we just happened to catch. Dreher likely isn’t the only one working this angle, and nor will it be the only strategy he and his fellow-travelers try to employ. We need to guard against well-used tactics such as content produced to manufacture an illusion of consensus or create a foundation to co-opt elements of our practices with allegedly Christian symbolism. We need to also consider the possibility of entryist tactics within our communities.

Last but not least, Dreher is a friend of JD Vance, our Vice-President elect. We face an incoming administration that has been shaped by Christian nationalist ambitions. Needless to say, we need to tread carefully. Dreher is not alone in believing he’s fighting a spiritual war. Posts and comments about spiritual warfare and the battle of good over evil have become worryingly common online over the past few months, and especially before the election. For some, the past election was the great showdown between Christianity and evil, with Michael the Archangel one of the main recipients of their prayers.

The rules we’ve been playing by for the past few decades are likely to go the way of the dodo.

We need to recognize the fight we’re in and be smart about it. Frankly, I don’t even think we have the luxury of believing in common ground anymore. We in the US are, at least theoretically, a nation of laws. We’re supposed to have the freedom of religion, to believe whatever the fuck we want. That is where we must direct our fight. And failing that?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?

Posted on

The Origin Story of the Witch

Wiccan, Wicca, Wicce, Witch

Over the past few months, I’ve been digging into the 9th to 11th centuries in early English history. This was a tumultuous period to say the least. A time of warfare in which two very different possible futures hung in the balance.

It was also during this time that the word wiccan (“witches”) made its first appearance in the textual sources.

Nowadays, most understand Wiccan to refer to a single practitioner of the neopagan religion Wicca. For the early English though, wiccan was always plural, and a wicca was a male witch. The feminine form of the noun, wicce, eventually became our modern word “witch.”

(Yes, Gerard Gardner chose the singular masculine form of the noun to name his religion. How…utterly unsurprising of him.)

Over the centuries, “witches” have been blamed for all manner of social ills—everything from the ritual murder of infants (a version of the antisemitic blood libel accusation) to blighting crops and causing disease (both of which were also accusations used to wipe out entire communities of European Jews). The meanings of the word “witch” have shifted over time. It’s become something of a malleable term, all too often weaponized. A tool for policing behavior, enforcing dogma, and exerting control.

But that is not the subject of today’s post. That ground is well-trodden enough. No, today I want to talk about the original meaning of the word “witch” and, more importantly, its relationship to early English Heathenism.

The Witch Appears

One of the earliest mentions of the Old English plural form of “witch”, wiccan appears in a passage from the prologue of King Alfred’s Dombōc (law book) (Elsakkers 2010). Now, there is an earlier attestation of the related word wiccungdōm in Cædmon’s Paraphrase that likely dates back to the 7th century (Thorpe. p. 223). However, for this post, I’m going to limit myself to sources including the words wicce, wicca, wiccan and wiccecræft, as well as the verb wiccian.

Anyway, back to Alfred’s Dombōc. The prologue of the Dombōc included sections of chapters 20-22 from the Book of Exodus, ostensibly translated into Old English.

Unsurprisingly, we first find the word wiccan in Alfred’s “translation” of Exodus 22:18 (“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”):

Þa fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon [anfon] gealdorcræftigan [galdorcræft] 7 scinlæcan 7 wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban.

(The women who are wont to receive [and assist] gealdorcræftigan and scinlæcan and wiccan, let them not live.)
(Elsakker 2010)

As you can see from the above quote, Alfred’s treatment of this verse is more reinterpretation than translation. Where the author of the Hebrew Bible punished the mekhashepa, Alfred instead punished the women who welcomed them into their homes and helped them.

But why?

Alfred’s Source

Alfred’s main source was the Vulgate, a 4th century translation of the Hebrew Bible. However, that does not seem to have been his only source. Consider the Vulgate translation of Exodus 22:18 below.

“XXII. 18 maleficos non patieris vivere.”

As you can see, the Vulgate translates the Hebrew word mekhashepa as maleficos, a word that originally meant “evil doers” and carried no connotations with magic in earlier Latin texts. A terrible translation by any measure. But in the defense of the Vulgate’s translator, no other translation was possible. Thanks to the Theodosian Code anything even vaguely related to magic was considered maleficium (“evil doing”) and had been for decades before his birth. For 4th century Romans like Jerome of Stridon (the translator in question), there simply was no difference between charm-muttering healers and sorcerers (Hutton 2017). So, the fact that Alfred used three words where the Vulgate only used one suggests he must have had a secondary source.

“It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem. It’s me.”
– Alfred, never.

The most likely candidate for that secondary source is the Vetus Latina. This is a collection of Latin translations of the Septuagint, a 3rd century Greek translation of Hebraic traditions produced by Jewish scholars who were fluent in both Greek and Hebrew. Unlike the Vulgate that followed it, the Vetus Latina retained the nuance of the Septuagint. And this—more specifically, the Vetus Latina version of Exodus VII.11—is likely the source of Alfred’s own nuance (Elsakkers 2010). Because instead of the evergreen “maleficos” of the Vulgate, the Vetus gives us a trio of practitioners.

However, neither of Alfred’s sources explain the most significant change of the Dombōc version: the target. For that, we’ll have to widen our net.

An Old Norse Parallel?

When I first read Alfred’s law, I was struck by how similar it was to what we find in later Old Norse texts. The peripatetic seeress/magical practitioner that goes from house to house plying her trade is one that crops up in a number of sources, the most famous of which being Þorbjörg Lítilvölva from Eric the Red’s Saga. However fame aside, I think a better parallel to Alfred’s law (at least in sentiment) is verse 22 of the Poetic Edda poem, Völuspá.

”Bright Heiðr they called her
At all the houses she came to,
A good seer of fair fortunes
—she conjured up spirits who told her.
Sorcery (seið) she had skill in,
Sorcery (seið) she practised, possessed.
She was ever the darling
Of an evil wife.”
(Dronke trans.)

In my opinion, Alfred’s choice to condemn the women who received and assisted the practitioners in their homes instead of the practitioners themselves owed more to attitudes prevalent in his own culture than his sources. A culture that shared a common root with and engaged in centuries of interaction and exchange with the Norse.

However, unlike with the Romans, Alfred’s law wasn’t as simple as banning all magic. The presence of magical elements such as verbal charms and ritual acts in early English healing practices would have made such a ban impossible. They may as well have been trying to ban healing itself! An untenable position for any ruler, but especially for one whose rulership was under threat.
And this, friends, is where we come to a key part of this puzzle.

Christians, Danes, and Witches, Oh My!

At the time of the Dombōc’s writing, Christianity was in a perilous position in the English kingdoms. The conversion of the would-be English had begun in 597 CE with the arrival of the monk Augustine in Kent. Over the next two-and-half centuries, Christian missionaries spread their faith throughout the English kingdoms, with the city of Canterbury as their base. However, not all in the kingdoms were eager to receive the new teachings, leading the missionaries (on the pope’s orders) to “sweeten the pot” by co-opting Heathen practices and places of worship instead of simply banning them and tearing them down.

Generally speaking, Christianity spread first among the rulers. However, even after that initial conversion among the kings in the 6th century, some—such as Redwald of East Anglia—were persuaded back to the ways of their ancestors. And even when a king remained devoutly Christian in life, there was no guarantee his heirs would share his devotion. At least two of the kingdoms officially reverted to Heathenism with the ascent of Heathen heirs to their thrones in the 7th century (Knapp. The Fight Against The Threat).

And Christianity seems to have been even more precarious at the popular level. As Karen Jolly notes on page 45 of her book Popular religion in Late-Saxon England:

“The pagan hierarchical structure disintegrated rapidly in the seventh century in the face of Christianity’s systematic organization. But folk practices were all-pervasive in everyday life. The animistic character of Germanic belief prior to Christianization, with its emphasis on nature, holistic cures, and worship at wells, trees, and stones, meant that it was hard to counteract on an institutional level of organized religion. Small religious sites were everywhere; people carried amulets to ward off misfortune and relied on the belief in spiritual agents as explanations for many life experiences.”


That’s not to say that everyone at the popular level was practicing exactly as they had prior to conversion though. Over time, these practices were syncretized with Christian elements (Jolly. 45). Education in Christianity also seems to have been a concern for the church, as few at the popular level were literate—a situation that would remain well into the 11th century.
Then in the late 8th century, the Danes came. This was the world Alfred was born to and the wider context of his law book and education program. A world in which centuries of struggle to fully Christianize a land met a new challenge in the form of Heathen invaders.

Witches, Heathens, and Law

Alfred’s law book wasn’t just the first to mention witches, it was also likely a large part of why “witches” became synonymous with maleficos (and in turn, fordæða in Old Norse). Once included though, witches and witchcraft remained a part of the early English law codes, and persisted in English law long after other terms for practitioners fell away.

(A short note before I proceed: the following laws are pulled from M.J Elsakkers “Reading between the lines: Old Germanic And Early Christian Views On Abortion, which you can find linked at the bottom of the page.)

The first law code to actually sentence the witches themselves was the 10th century law code of Æthelstan, Æt Greatanleage II, which states (ModEng trans. only this time):

“Concerning witchcrafts (wiccecræftum). And we have pronounced concerning witchcrafts (wiccecræftum) and sorceries and secret attempts on life, that, if anyone is killed by such and he (the accused) cannot deny it, he is to forfeit his life”

This is repeated (along with a sentence of outlawry) in the 11th century law Eadward, Alfred and Guþrum:

“If witches (wiccan) or sorcerers (wigleras), perjurers, or murderers or foul, polluted, manifest whores are caught anywhere in the land, they are then to be driven from this country and the nation is to be purified, or they are to be completely destroyed in this country, unless they desist and atone very deeply.”

When we get to article 5.1 of Cnut’s law code from 1020-1021 though, we finally get a possible hint as to the motivation underlying Alfred’s choice to punish the female hosts of magical practitioners instead of the practitioners themselves.

”It is heathen practice if one worships idols, namely if one worships heathen gods and the sun or the moon, fire or flood, wells or stones or any kind of forest trees, or if one practises witchcraft (wiccecræft) or encompasses death by any means, either by sacrifice or divination, or takes any part in such delusions.”

As we can see here, wiccecræft was clearly considered a part of Heathenism in Cnut’s time. If this was also the case in Alfred’s time (more than likely), then it would have made sense for him to find ways to limit contact between the faithful and the Heathen. From this perspective, we might see his amendment to Exodus 22:18 as a way to cut off those contacts by targeting a key vector of transmission: the female hosts.

Ælfric and the Witches

Unfortunately, that is where the legal evidence of wiccan dries up without getting into the Latin translations of those earlier English laws. However, witches also appear in the work of the 11th century homilist, Ælfric of Eynsham. And as infuriating as Ælfric can be to read, he also provides us with some important clues as to how the early English thought about and interacted with witches.

In On Auguries, Ælfric warns his fellow Christians against consulting witches (wiccan) for divination/prophecy, claiming devils as the reason why their predictions prove true. (According to Ælfric, everything a witch could do was down to devils.) In the same text, he also speaks against going to witches for advice about health, a far more holistic concept at the time which not only pertained to physical health but matters of luck, prosperity, and safety. And more curiously, he rails against Christians making offerings at trees and earth-fast stones for healing “as the witches teach.”

“Evergreen content…yeah.”

You may have already noticed this, but the roles of the early English wiccan as alluded to by Ælfric, are not so different from what we attributed to the seiðkona, Heiðr, in the Völuspá passage quoted toward the beginning of this essay.

Moreover, I would go so far as to say that those roles sound somewhat cultic. Things a priest/ess might do.

And yes, I know everyone decided this particular line of thought was bullshit decades ago. But if you ask me, we threw out the baby with the Margaret Murray bathwater.

The Witches In The Glosses

Moreover, these possible associations between cultus and wiccan are further strengthened by the Aldhelm glosses. These were Old English translations of Latin words added to a manuscript after its production to aid comprehension. This really isn’t so different from modern readers designed for language learners where you have the target language text and a small glossary of the more difficult words at the bottom of the page.

The relevant glosses are found in the Digby MS 146 manuscript and date back to the 11th century. There we find wiccan glossed with words like p(h)itonissam (or “pythoness,” a term that derived from the oracular priestess of Apollo at Delphi), and ariolum (diviner, seer). We also find wiccan cited as a cognate for helrunan, and wiccecræft used as a gloss for necromantia or “necromancy.” A gloss we find repeated in the 12th century manuscript, MS Royal 6.B.VII.

The Meaning In The Witch

Finally, we come to the etymology of “witch.” As I said at the top of this post, our modern word derives from the feminine form of the OE noun, wicce. Beyond that though, a number of possible etymologies have been proposed. The one I cite below is that found in Gus Kroonen’s Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic:

“*wikkōn- w.v. ‘to practice sorcery’ – OE wiccian w.v. ‘id.’, WFri. wikje w.v. ‘to tell the future, warn’, MDu. wicken w.v. ‘to practice sorcery’, MHG wicken w.v. ‘id.’*uik-néh₂- (WEUR).

Derived from the same root as found in *wiha- 1 and *wiha- 2 (q.v.). The verb served as the derivational base for OE wicca m. ‘witch’, wicce f. ‘id.’ < *wikka/ōn- and MHG wicker m. ‘soothsayer’. Also cf. OE wigol adj. ‘prophet ic’ <*wigala- and OE wĭglian, (M) Du. wichelen ‘to practice divination’.

*wiha- 1 adj. ‘holy’ – Go. weihs adj. ‘id.’, OHG wih adj. ‘id.’*uéik-o- (WEUR) – Lat. victima f. ‘sacrificial animal’ < *uik-tm-ehz-. Also cf. Go. weihan w.v. ‘to bless, consecrate’ < *wihen- and ON vígja, OFri. wi(g)a, OS wihian, Du. wijden, OHG wihen, G weihen w.v. ‘id.’ < *wih/gjan-. Related to *wiha-2 and *wikkōn- (q.v.).
*wiha- 2 m./n. ‘sanctuary’ – ON vé n. ‘mansion; sanctuary’, OE weoh, wig m. ‘idol’, OS wih m. ‘temple’ (WEUR). Closely related to *wiha- 1 ‘holy’ (q.v.).”

How interesting that once again we find ourselves back in the realm of cultus!

Final Words

This post has been long and something of a winding road. However, the picture that emerges is surprisingly coherent, spanning a variety of textual sources, and has strong parallels with themes found in later Old Norse material.

I’ve actually been wanting to write this for a while for a couple of reasons. The first is that I’ve found myself getting increasingly frustrated by the perennial discourse surrounding the matter of what a witch is and who gets to call themself a witch. So, I hope this provides some helpful context for these discussions going forward – or at least encourages more precision with regards to the era of witchcraft being discussed.  Secondly, I wanted to highlight the connection between those original wiccan and Heathen cultus, and to begin drawing attention to the parallels in ON accounts of seiðr. For a multitude of reasons (many shitty), the label “witch” has been somewhat stigmatized in modern Heathen communities, something to be avoided, and primarily associated with modern Wicca. I would like for that particular discourse to also shift.

As for whose cultus I think the wiccan might have belonged to? My personal guess would be that of Ing, the early English Freyr, but I’ll have to save my reasoning for that for another post.

For now though, let’s just concentrate on getting that proverbial baby back into the bathtub. Murray’s work may be riddled with issues, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I think there is enough here to conclude she was right that the witch’s roots lie in pre-Christian belief, likely in the realm of cultus.

With that said, be well all!

Oh, and before I forget, I’m giving another class on Sunday. This time I’ll be looking at the matter of luck, what it is, its implications for magic, and how to work with it. Interested? You can find tickets (along with more info) here. All ticket holders receive recordings after the class. This time, the attendee pack is also coming with a little book as well.

Sources

Bouterwek, K. “Die Angelsächsischen Glossen in dem Brüsseler Codex von Aldhelms Schrift De Virginitate.” Digizeitschriften. n.d. https://www.digizeitschriften.de/id/345204107_0009%7Clog30?tify=%7B%22view%22%3A%22info%22%7D

“Caedmon’s Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scriptures in Anglo-Saxon : Caedmon, Benjamin Thorpe : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive. Accessed September 19, 2024. https://archive.org/details/caedmonsmetrica01thorgoog/page/n265/mode/2up?q=magic

Dronke, Ursula. The Poetic Edda: Volume III Mythological Poems II. 1969.

Elsakkers, M. J. “Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion.” Research Explorer. Accessed September 19, 2024. https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1578616/76079_article_08_embargo_twee_jaar.pdf

Hutton, Ronald. The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.

Jolly, Karen L. Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context. Chapel Hill: UNC Press Books, 2015.

Knapp, R. I. “The Fight Against the Threat of Witchcraft and Paganism in Anglo-Saxon England.” Lux et Fides: A Journal for Undergraduate Christian Scholars 1 (May 2023). https://pillars.taylor.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=luxetfidesjournal

Kroonen, Guus. Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Brill Academic Publishers, 2013.

“Old English Glosses : Chiefly Unpublished : Napier, Arthur S. (Arthur Sampson), 1853-1916 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Internet Archive. Accessed September 19, 2024. https://archive.org/details/oldenglishglosse00napiuoft/page/n1/mode/2up

Pollington, Stephen. Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plant Lore, and Healing. 2000.

“Pythoness – No, Not a Big Female Snake.” Notre Dame Sites. Last modified October 20, 2017. https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2017/10/20/pythoness-no-not-a-big-female-snake

Simpson, D. P. Cassell’s New Compact Latin-English, English-Latin Dictionary. 1971.

Thorpe, Benjamin. The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Scôp Or Gleeman’s Tale, and the Fight at Finnesburg. With a Literal Translation, Notes, Glossary Etc. by Benjamin Thorpe. 1855.
https://archive.org/details/anglosaxonpoemso00thor/page/12/mode/2up

“Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch to Live, A Murderous Mistranslation.” Haaretz | Israel News, the Middle East and the Jewish World – Haaretz.com. Last modified August 17, 2017. https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2017-08-17/ty-article/thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-witch-to-live-a-murderous-mistranslation/0000017f-e2c8-d804-ad7f-f3fa49340000)

Vulgate Latin Bible With English Translation. Accessed September 19, 2024. https://vulgate.org/

“Ælfric’s Lives of Saints/17aug – Wikisource, the Free Online Library.” Wikisource, the Free Library. Accessed September 19, 2024. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%86lfric%27s_Lives_of_Saints/17aug

Posted on

Reconstruction and Gnosis: The First Experiment

So there I was, standing on a little finger of land between two streams with my jacked-up Götavi grid drop-cloth. I was on my magical experiment bullshit again up a mountain in WV, perfumed with eau de DEET and wishing it wasn’t so fucking humid.

Crunch time had come; it was time to test my working theory. And come Hel or high water, I was going to test it—sweat patches and all!

(Oh the glamour!)

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Allow me, dear reader, to wind things back a little.

The Story So Far

This series began as a single post that was supposed to stand alone. But the more I wrote, the clearer it became that I had too much to say on this topic to fit in a single post. Eventually (and much like my antiperspirant in WV), I had to concede to a greater force, and thus this series was born.

If this post is the first you’ve seen of this series, I encourage you to go back and read the rest in order. There have been five posts so far. Five posts filled with research, musings, and discussion that you won’t want to miss out on going forward. It’s all necessary context for what comes next. I’ve even linked them below to save you the trouble of hunting them down.

One
Two
Three
Four
Five

Why Is Life So Busy?

It’s been a while since the last installment and you may have been wondering where I was. Well, life got kind of exciting! I got jumped by a bunch of deadlines and facilitated a week-long devotional magical practice for the Cult of the Spinning Goddess group. I also held some community-building events called Spin ‘n’ Witches, gave a class, and kicked off a podcast with Morgan Daimler. In the middle of all of that, I’ve also been working on several books, learning Japanese with my kid, and studying Welsh (as well as doing all the usual life-y stuff).

And that’s even without mentioning my personal magical practices (both the daily and experimental). For me, there are no words on the screen without the dirty boots, sweat patches, and magical adventures. As weird as it may sound, this kind of work is also really whole-making for me, a key part of my wellness. It’s a good portion of the roots that help the tree that is me to grow.

In one way or another, practice forms a large part of the foundation for pretty much everything I produce. And I will absolutely move some projects to the back burner if it means reclaiming some time for the work that makes my souls sing. Which is what happened to these blog posts for a while, and I’m never going to apologize for that.

But anyway, as Machine Gun Kelly and/or Corpse Husband say/s in their joint masterpiece, Daywalker: “I came back.”

From Books To Boondocks

When I last left you, I’d just finished talking about the research and planning phases of magical experimentation. In this post, I’m going to talk about that first experiment and how it all shook out. This is where the gnosis is really going to start to come in. If that isn’t your thing or reading other people’s gnosis makes you rage, then I advise you to hit the back-button.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

For those of you who stick around, I hope these posts serve to illustrate how wonderful it can be when research and gnosis meet. Because frankly, it’s amazing and I hope some of you feel inspired to go make your own magical adventures.

Before we go any further though, did you know that the word “boondock” comes from the Tagalog word bundók, meaning “mountain”? If I ever get to name a mountain, I’m calling it “Bundók-Pendle Mountain” so it means “Mountain, Hill, Hill, Mountain.” You know, as you do.

Prologue To An Experiment

So anyway, I initially began researching the grid in 2019. However as it turns out, nothing wrecks plans for magical mischief and mayhem like a global pandemic. But by the time May 2021 rolled around, things seemed to be getting back on track thanks to the advent of the first COVID vaccine. So I booked a cabin up a mountain in West Virginia with a couple of friends. We were going to hang out, do the experiment, then hang out some more.

When it came to the experiment though, my friends realized they weren’t actually all that comfortable with active participation. One was concerned about the possibility of adverse effects on their health issues, and the other just didn’t want to do something with such a high degree of uncertainty attached.

These were both sensible concerns. Some forms of magic really aren’t good to participate in if you’re already sick. And some people have vulnerable folks in their care to think of too. So while I would have loved for them to have also taken part, I’m also really glad they didn’t. When you’re attempting to work with historical magic in this way, you need to know and be honest about your limits. And I’d much rather my friends tell me “Hey, this isn’t for me,” than participate and have something potentially bad happen to them.

Instead, my friends acted as observers, which meant my experiment also had the benefit of an outside perspective as well.

And that was one hell of a silver lining.

Back To The Experiment

Anyway, back to that little finger of land between two streams (and those sweat patches).

Before setting up, I made offerings to the local spirits and explained what I was going to do. The mountain was active; I’d been catching glimpses of the local beings since I’d arrived. It would have been rude to not ask.

There was a sense of acceptance toward my request, but also the feeling that it was only good until nightfall, and so I proceeded. Despite my earlier plans to set up the grid after circumambulating, I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to see where I’d walked without first setting up the grid. The ground was too uniform to discern marker points. So I opened the grid and set up posts at the north-northeast edge.

From that point on, the set-up went pretty much as planned. I circumambulated the space counterclockwise and made an offering of wine to Hel, asking her to allow temporary passage for some from her realm. Then I settled at the southwest edge of the grid.

According to my notes, I heard a male voice while circumambulating but couldn’t make out what he was saying so began to sing the dirge. Whenever I sing this dirge in ritual, I do so in a light trance in order to visualize/see the journey between the realms. This time when I peered at the road, I saw a blonde-haired man dressed in a white tunic.

A suspiciously shining man, as it happened.

As I finished the song, I heard what sounded like geese. And when I checked doorposts to the north of the grid, to my satisfaction, the space between the posts appeared “pixelated.”

There was a cool breeze like wove its way like a ribbon through the trees and the skies above grumbled, three thunderous complaints.

“Yes!” I remember thinking to myself. “This is working just like I thought it would!”

The Curveball (Because What’s An Experiment Without One?)

But that’s when the shift happened and my working theory went down like Das Boot. I’d originally theorized that the grid worked like other intermediary spaces I’d worked with like as crossroads effigies and doorposts. However, the shift that had taken place was more like what I’d experienced in my mound sitting experiments instead. When I’d sang the dead through doorposts or crossroads effigies in the past, I’d felt them enter into the space. Usually, their entrance came with a cool breeze that flowed from whichever medium they’d passed through. But most importantly, all of this would take place within an intermediary space rooted in this Middle Earth.

My experience with mounds though, is that the space shifts so that it’s no longer rooted in Middle Earth. It reminds me of the difference between being inside a different nation’s embassy while still within your own country and in your nation’s embassy while within another country.

Recognizing that feeling from those experiments with mound sitting, I moved onto the cloth, my ears filled with a buzzing that sounded like white noise. The cloth felt cool to the touch, and I had the feeling that someone was on their way.

I was both shocked and delighted by the discovery.

Unfortunately though, that thunder had only heralded a coming storm. I wasn’t able to spend as much time feeling out my discovery as I would have liked. So I began the process of wrapping things up. I sang the dead back and made offerings of gratitude to Hel. Then I closed down the doorposts and grid, before circumambulating clockwise to return the space back to how it was before.

(Or so I thought.)

The Experiment: Observer Perspective

From talking to my two wonderful observers, I learned that during the circumambulation they’d seen the leaves to the north of me appear to “twitch.” From their perspective, it appeared as though whoever was making the leaves twitch was moving toward me.

One observer seems to have seen the same ribbon of wind I’d seen, and described it as coming from the east, before veering to the north, west, and south to wrap around the space. What’s especially interesting to me is that this ribbon of wind seems to have moved counterclockwise as I had during the circumambulation.

“Greetings! Have you heard the word of Beyla?”

The next main observation was that as I was getting into the rite, a big bee appeared in front of the door to the covered porch they were observing from. Apparently, this bee seemed to be trying to get in and was loud enough to drown out my voice. They (as in the bee) went on their merry way again once the rite had ended.

The Aftermath I

As I mentioned before, I only had the benefit of observers because my friends hadn’t felt comfortable with active participation. Again, I’m going to reiterate the fact that you really don’t know what’s going to happen when creating magical experiments based on historical sources, places, or objects. And this is also true for the aftermath.

The first thing I noticed in the aftermath was that I kept seeing the blonde man in the white tunic in the land outside. There was something very elven about him, but his presence confused me at that time given my location. (Now I’m a few more experiments in with the grid,  his presence makes total sense.)

The next thing I noticed was that the cloth itself had a certain energy to it, and was still chill to the touch. The lights in the cabin dimmed as I brought it in, and one of my friends expressed the concern that it might not be safe to drive with in the car. Agreeing with her, I worked up a quick and dirty chaos magic sigil for containment on a plastic bag big enough to hold the cloth and stuffed it in.

The room visibly brightened.

Once that was taken care of, I made sure to purify myself as I always do after clarting around/potentially clarting around with the dead and settled in for the night.

The Aftermath II

The afternoon gave way to the evening and eventually night. We ate dinner together and got comfy in the lounge to hang out and shoot the shit. After a while though, we began to notice that there were creaking noises coming from an empty wooden chair in the lounge area. It sounded exactly like the kind of creaking older chairs make when someone moves, shifting their weight. Curious, I put my hand out to feel the space and felt a cool presence there.

We had an unseen guest.

He (because he felt like a “he”) would remain with us for the rest of the evening and into the next morning.

When something like that happens, I generally find that you have a few options. You can ignore them and hope they don’t cause trouble. Another option is to kick them out. But my preferred option (at least in this case) was to offer him hospitality in the form of a cup of mead in exchange for him being a good guest. There can be a level of protection in the host-guest relationship, and when it goes right, everyone leaves happy.

And he was a good guest, though he would show his displeasure by creaking his chair and flickering the lights whenever we talked about other ghosts who were assholes while trading stories. Whenever this happened, we’d reassure him we didn’t mean him and he’d calm down again.

It was a real “not all ghosts” moment.

After the After-Aftermath

So that was the first experiment with the grid. Looking back, there were a lot of mistakes and my working theory was just plain wrong. However, this is all par for the course with this kind of magical experimentation. If that’s not something you can handle—that uncertainty—then I recommend you steer clear of this work. You need to be able to think on your feet and McGyver solutions relatively quickly. And I’m not saying that to be an elitist. It’s just that there’s so much you can’t know or plan for as the first human (often) to work with a space/object/kind of magic in a thousand-or-so years.

But that uncertainty and those first experiment fuck-ups is where the next step comes in: evaluation and optimization. And that is what I’m going to talk about in the next post in this series.

Be well.