demons Archives - Seo Helrune

April 3, 2026

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).

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.

November 21, 2024

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.”

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.)

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?

April 18, 2019April 2, 2019

Witch Wars: Survival Tips

In the previous two posts of this series, I discussed what you can do to minimize the likelihood of getting seriously attacked, and how to diagnose a curse or attack. In this post, I’m going to take a look at the less-discussed aspects of dealing with and surviving magical attack.

First of all though, I’d just like to clarify something here. The kind of magical attack I’m talking about here is the more serious kind, the kind that goes beyond a simple case of the evil eye. Now I realize that a lot of people don’t believe in this more serious kind of curse and generally look to psychology for explanations. Thankfully, relatively few practitioners from WEIRD cultures have experienced the kind of magical attacks that can truly destroy your life. And for those of you who have never experienced this, I truly hope you never do. I’m not going to argue about the existence of this, you can either take this seriously or not.

But if you have experienced this kind of thing, or simply take magic seriously enough to recognize its potential for completely fucking up your shit up to and including taking your life, then read on.

There’s been a lot written in various places about how to respond to curses in terms of getting it off you, uncrossing, protection, amulets, and magical counter response. However, there’s a lot of stuff I haven’t seen discussed about magical attack -stuff I consider important to management and survival -so that is what I’m going to discuss here.

The Fear Response

For most people who find out that they’ve been cursed, or are the subject of a magical attack of some kind, the most common response is fear. This is completely normal. For someone who hasn’t experienced this kind of thing witch wars - fear before, it can be one hell of a wake-up call to realize what others can do to you, your loved ones, and your life with magic. And for those of us who’ve been through the mill a few times, it can be triggering because you remember how fucking awful it was all those other times.

However, the hard truth of it, is that you cannot give in to that fear. Because it’s too easy to make stupid moves, and at a time when you really cannot afford to do so.

So the first step to keeping your shit together when you’re on the receiving end of some magical whammy, is to recognize the fear. Take some time to sit with it (but not too long), lean into it and find out where its roots lie.

Then put that shit aside for later. You haven’t got time for that right now.

Attacks Are Often Multilayered

In the majority of cases, ‘curses’ are generally more rightly thought of as “multilayered campaigns”. You see, people who want to take you out tend to not stop with simply fucking up your luck and your health, or messing with your dreams, or whatever.

They will attack you on multiple fronts (if they can), and some of those attacks will fall more into the “curse” category, while others will fall into the “psychic attack” category. They may even bind spirits and send them after you, and you need to also realize that they will probably come after your family too.

Fucking horrible, right?

But if someone has decided that you are sufficient enough of a threat to their ego, then nothing in their capacity is ‘off the table’. I mean, let’s get this straight: there is no such thing as honor here, it’s down and dirty shit-flinging. And even if you have cleared or gotten free of the main attack, you will probably find other minor fronts coming to light months down the line.

So recognize that this is likely not going to be a ‘one working and done’ kind of deal. If they have launched a campaign, then you are fighting a campaign, and you need to plan accordingly.

You May Need Help (And There’s No Shame In That!)

Unfortunately, being able to set aside the fear and recognize the breadth of the campaign being waged against you, is no guarantee that you’ll actually be able to fight it. Remember all those things I mentioned in my last post? Well a witch wars - help lot of them like that feeling of helplessness, sapped energy, and decline in mental (and physical health) can all affect your ability to respond. Depending on what has been done to you, you may not even be able to do anything at all!

To make matters worse, a lot of witches tend to take pride in being able to handle things alone. But don’t fall into that here – this isn’t the time for more ego. If you find yourself in this situation you need to reach out and get help. And the chances are that if you’re involved in your local community enough to cop an attack, you already know someone in your community that you suspect could and would help you.

Just be aware that you may have some difficulties getting to meet or communicate with your potential help. The spirits involved in curses will often take measures to prevent the subject of their nastiness from escaping. If you find yourself in this situation, it’s the ideal time to dig out any older amulets you have lying around. Depending on what you have, they may not help with the wider attack, but they may help with the simple issue of getting to your help.

Destroy Connections

One of the least discussed parts of being attacked that I’ve noticed is the matter of connections. Now on one level, when I talk about connections here, I’m talking about connections created by gifting. But on another level, you may have more subtle connections to a person that were either created through working together, or that were planted on you in order to influence, spy, or witch wars - chains drain you.
The physical connections are clearly the easiest to sever. Seek out anything they gave you that still feels connected to them (again, you may need help here) and either destroy it or put in some kind of containment for leverage down the line. If it can tie them to you and used by them to affect you, it can tie you to them for the same thing.

As for the subtle connections – this is another area where you will need help. Even if you can deal with the rest of the attack alone, you will need help to get rid of these.

Freeing the Mind

For a bunch of people who basically work to change reality with our minds, breath, bodies, incantations, and wills, we often forget our minds in our training, our work, and in surviving magical attack.

If you are subject to magical attack and the person wants to let you know it without directly saying it, they will work to keep themselves front and center in your consciousness. This is incredibly empowering for them, because on one level it helps to build upon the fear and feelings of helplessness their previous witch wars - onion work has created. However, on another, it’s still giving them access to your mind.

This is something you need to resist; but how?

After all, it’s not like you can pretend they don’t exist or what are you fighting against? The key to this is figuring out the right level of access. Sounds confusing, right?

Try imagining your mind like an onion of many layers. Now think about where certain people in your life are in the onion -see your nearest and dearest in the central layers as clearly as you can before moving outwards from the center and mapping where different people fall in the layers. One of those layers should be some kind of defense that is impermeable from the outside, and it’s in the layers beyond that where any enemies should sit in your mind. If you find your enemies within that barrier, or yourself without a barrier, then you need to do some evicting.

Your goal is to be able to talk about them and think of them with no more weight to their names and faces than you would give turd you scraped off your shoe.

Tu Quoque

Finally, you need to realize that if you send things back to them, then you are sending them exactly the same as they originally meant for you, and you need to be ok with that. You need to really walk through the ethical and moral implications of it and figure out if you’re good with it or not. The morals of witchcraft are the morals that each individual witch carries. So work deliberately. Because it doesn’t matter that they started it, you are choosing to take the same action and will be just as responsible for the ensuing consequences.

Which all sounds easy to live with when you’re angry. But could you really live with something that (for example) was targeting your kids, targeting other children?

See what I mean?

Just…be aware of the scope of what you choose as a response before you do it, and recognize that you will have to live with whatever rolls out from that course of action.

April 16, 2019

Neoliberalism and Spirituality

A specter is stalking Europe. Well, not just Europe really, it’s pestering the whole bloody world. It often goes unnamed, though we can all point to its effects, and has been credited with everything from the 2008 financial crash and decline of public health and education, to the epidemic of loneliness.

This specter does have a name though; shall I name it?

It is none other than “neoliberalism”, and I guarantee that this poisonous ideology is currently fucking up a spiritual practice near you.

Defining Neoliberalism: The Roots

Neoliberalism is one of those terms that is difficult to define, and despite its early proponents happily referring to themselves as neoliberals, is a term seldom heard nowadays, even as the ideology has rooted and solidified.

Curious, no?

It started, as with many things, with a group of people thinking they’d found a better way. Collectivism is a force that can either be exceedingly positive or exceedingly terrifying; and the earliest proponents – two Austrian exiles attending a meeting in late 1930s Paris had certainly seen plenty of the exceedingly terrifying. So it’s not hard to understand their aversion to anything that smacked of collectivism. I do not mean to paint these men with too much sympathy though, and the reasons for this will become clearer as I go on.

What began as a term coined during a meeting of minds in the City of Lights would coalesce into theory in 1944 when Hayek published his book The Road to Serfdom in which he argued that government planning not only crushed individualism, but would eventually lead to totalitarianism. This unsurprisingly caught the attention of some extremely wealthy individuals who saw in this ideology the potential for both limitless profit and an escape from taxation.

So it’s no surprise that when Hayek founded the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947 – the world’s first organization dedicated to spreading neoliberal ideology – he did so with the backing of multiple millionaires.

Defining Neoliberalism: The Ascent

Hayek went on to create a transatlantic network of supporters, and his rich backers put their money towards a series of organizations with names that some of you might recognize such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Institute For Economic Affairs, the Center for Policy Studies, and the Adam Smith institute.

As time went on, the movement changed and gained new thought leaders such as Milton Friedman. It was also around this time that the term “neoliberal” curiously all but disappeared as a self-identifier – or indeed from public discourse.

But no one was paying attention to that back then – Keynesian economics that emphasized the social contract were in vogue, and so the neoliberal leviathan slept.

The 70s brought with them economic crisis and the old Keynesian policies were struggling to keep up. This was when neoliberalism popped up again with all the enthusiasm of Internet Explorer when you accidentally hit the wrong icon at the bottom of the screen. Except with you know…a weird illuminati vibe.

“When the time came that you had to change … there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”
-Milton Friedman

Defining Neoliberalism: Dominance

1979 and 1980 were big years for neoliberalism – or rather the ideology that was now curiously unnamed. Key proponents of the ideology swept to power in both the US and the UK and set about following Hayek’s prescription to the letter. Deregulation was pushed so as not to impact the efficiency of industry. Public health and education were privatized and dismantled as much as possible. Special efforts were taken to break the collectivism of the trade unions (and the threat they posed to the neoliberal agenda). And all the while, the rich got to divide up and profit off everything that was outsourced and privatized – all with increasingly egregious tax breaks of course.

And that is the world we now find ourselves in, kids! That

is neoliberalism.

A world in which money buys freedom and political voice while the vote and wages of the average citizen decrease in value. In which the earth itself is sacrificed for profit, and people are kept docile by endless consumerism and entertainment. (Or as the Romans liked to call it, bread and circuses.)

But hey, “you can have it your way”, “you’re free”, this isn’t really the road to serfdom.

Neoliberalism and Spirituality

“Consumerism is the opium of the masses…along with well, illegally acquired prescription narcotics.”
– Me

But what in the Sam Harris does any of this have to do with your spirituality, and how is probably fucking it all up for you? Well, I’m glad you didn’t ask, because I’m going to tell you anyway.

In my last post, I wrote about consensus and how it affects perception. Well neoliberalism is a huge part of the consensus reality we live in, and it guards its position fiercely. How often is it presented as being the only option (and the only alternatives presented as being either Nazism or Communism)? Think about that for a second. Does it really make sense that out of however many years humans have populated the earth in all of our countless cultural variations, this (or Nazism or Communism) is the only feasible option for forever?

Of course it doesn’t, and yet we can barely imagine actual alternatives.

That’s powerful.

So it only makes sense that as such a key part of the consensus, its influence on your spirituality is significant.

This influence can be seen in two main ways.

Firstly (and most obviously), you can see its influence in the commodification of spirituality. I’ve written about this before, but how many of us buy occult tchotchke like it’s some kind of super special thing that’s going to fix/provide greater connection with/protect us from ______ like right now? And if we’re honest with ourselves, most of the time we don’t need that shit. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t buy pretty arcane things if you have the cash, just don’t kid yourself that it’s anything other than something you just like.

We see this commodification in courses as well, or rather the forms they take, and this is especially prevalent in the “shamanism” courses. Now there are some excellent courses out there that are presenting information as wholly and authentically as possible, but there are many that are basically taking lots of very complex things and simplifying (or outright editing and distorting) them to make them more accessible for predominantly white American audiences.

The second way in which we see the influence of neoliberalism in spirituality is in the cult of the individual. Remember that old neoliberal grudge against any form of collectivism? Yeah, that plays out in your spirituality too.

We live in a world in which staunch individualism and the ability to get by on your own are seen as virtues. Like the tax burden, the solving of problems (regardless of the root cause or capacity), has been shifted to individuals (preferably in a way that does not in any way burden productivity in terms of time and cost).

Have a terrible job that barely pays you enough to live? Here! Take this mindfulness prescription! Go fix it with this commodified, soulless version of a

neoliberalism - yoga — “I make shit for money on my three jobs, I can’t afford to get rid of my crappy roomie, and retirement is something I’ll never see. But it’s all okay, because I’m doing a yoga.”

practice that’s actually deep and whole-making when not completely divorced from its religious context! How’s about a little Jesus to go with that? Yeah, he’ll make you feel better, he fucking loves you! I got some yoga to go with that too if you still haven’t managed to fix yourself (why haven’t you managed to fix yourself yet?).

See what I mean? This focus on the individual has given us a necessary extra job that nobody wanted: ‘self-care’.

And you know, we talk about spiritual bypassing a lot in the Pagan community. Of course, it’s always in terms of the behaviors of individuals within our respective communities. But is it any surprise that these behaviors exist when corporations and society at large push what amounts to spiritual bypassing in order to get people to focus on something other than their shitty life situations (and more importantly, the things that are causing them)?

Interestingly, the term “spiritual bypassing” first appeared in the early 80s. Funny that.

Thinking With Motivation

Which brings me to the question of motivation for spiritual activity. What motivates you? Because if you sit with that question and you come up with what essentially boils down to self-care, then your motivations may need a little work.

Having the right motivation for spiritual practice is an incredibly important yet under-discussed (at least among Pagans) thing. Proceed with the wrong motivation and you either burn out when things become difficult, or it becomes limiting. But if you proceed with the right motivation, then it can both sustain your practice when things become hard, and present a limitless array of possibilities.

neoliberalism - LARP — “My favorite LARP is ‘Paganism: The Escape’. It’s super sweet, really takes me away from it all!”

Motivation that is essentially self-care generally falls into the first category, because (and this is especially the case with paradigms that are very different from what we know in our day to day lives) it can all too easily become a form of escapism. A therapeutic religious LARP, if you will. When this occurs, spirituality is no longer whole-making. It is no longer something that connects us to our lives in a more authentic way, and rather than chasing the real, it becomes an exercise in avoiding the misery.

Final Words

In my next (Tuesday) post, I’m going to take a look at ways in which we can free ourselves and our practices from neoliberal ideology. Sounds like a tall order? Well, nothing is too tall if enough people are working together – just ask that Yahweh one about Babel.

April 4, 2018May 30, 2018

Authority and Hierarchies IV: Or “Why Your Pet Isn’t Your Fucking Familiar”

Returning to Familiar Ground

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been on an epic journey. We’ve taken a look at the evidence for hierarchies among grimoire spirits and fairies alike, and discussed agency, anthropocentrism, and to a small degree, colonialism too. We’ve also examined the different kinds of reciprocal relationships, spiritual authority, the role of piety, and finally took a brief tour through the history of magic wands.

This week, I’m coming back to a topic that should be a lot more familiar to everyone (pun intended): the witch’s familiar.

Introducing the Early Modern Witch’s Familiar

The witch’s familiar is an ancient phenomenon, though the most commonly held ideas surrounding them seem to owe more to Early Modern Britain. Simply put, a familiar was a form of spirit helper with which the witch or cunning person held a certain kind of relationship. The kinds of familiars possessed by both cunning folk and witches differed too, with the familiars associated with “Cunning Folk” being more of fairy, and those associated with witches being

Familiar - Hopkins — Prize prick Matthew Hopkins with some witches identifying their familiars.

more demonic. It is the latter form that is the most recognizable today (Wilby 2005).

For witch or cunning person, the acquisition of a familiar was for the most part by chance. Accounts of encounters recorded during the witch trials, paint these encounters as happening spontaneously, as the witch or cunning person went about their business (Wilby 2005). Often the witch or cunning person would also be impoverished, or recently subjected to some kind of further hardship or tragedy. There is an undeniably folkloric feel to these encounters, and not unlike the kind of deal made by the girl forced to spin straw in Rumpelstiltskin (for example).

Unlike period descriptions of encounters with the dead, the fairy or demon familiars are described in stunningly naturalistic terms – they’re as real-looking as you or I. They were of vivid color, and animation and sound. But that’s not to say that they were “really” just the pets of people who looked a little “witchy”; it’s one thing to assume the shape of a thing, and quite another to actually be that thing. Having said that though, there were cases in which the pets of people suspected of witchcraft also shared the fates of their owners. But witch crazes are nothing if not illogical, let’s not mistake misplaced bloodlust for authenticity.

However, while the majority of accounts depict a person coming across the spirit that would become their familiar in a spontaneous way, there were ways in which familiar spirits could also be acquired. For example, one might petition a condemned person to return and serve as your familiar as in the case of Mary Parish’s familiar, a one George Whitmore (Cummins 2017 “The Rain Will Make a Door III”). In other cases, one could gain a familiar by somehow encountering fairy royalty and showing them the proper respect thus acquiring a familiar as a gift. Alternatively, you might acquire a familiar as a gift from another witch – most commonly a family member (Wilby 2005). And lastly, if none of those methods were available to you, you could always try petitioning a demon such as the Verum demon Sustugriel who was reputed to ”give good familiars” (Stratton-Kent 2010).

(About that fairy and devil/demon crossover? You might want to read this piece by Fairy in a Human Suit, Morgan Daimler.)

Tracing an Older Pattern

As I said above though, the Early Modern familiar is simply just the most well-known form of spirit helper. The fact of the matter is that magical practitioners have been finding helping spirits and making pacts with them for a very, very long time. And like wands, familiars traverse a wide range of different cultures (albeit under different names – obviously).

The earliest account of what might be recognized as a familiar is the ob (pronounced “ov”) of the biblical Witch of Endor. The ob was both a spirit “of the dead or minor underworld deity that “speaks from the earth in whispering voices”, and an object of worship whose spirit can enter into a human and reside within them (Barrabbas 2017). In other words, to have a familiar is to be possessed by a familiar (something which I will speak of more towards the end of this post).

Among the Greeks, we find the parhedros who fulfills a similar function to that of the ob and the familiar. Given that the Greek Magical Papyri begins with ways in which to acquire a parhedros, we have to assume that they were considered an integral part of performing magic (Skinner 2014). Moreover, like their Hebrew counterparts, there is also the aspect of worshiping objects associated with the paredros. For those of you who are interested in the idea of performing one of these paredros rituals, it bears mentioning that those early methods of acquisition require blood sacrifice. Far less bloody to summon a demon in this case!

Moving over to Heathen period Northern Europe now, we find evidence that witches partnered with elves in order to perform their magic. Alaric Hall argues that rather than being the result of attacks by elves, the phenomenon of elfshot was more likely curses thrown by elf-empowered witches (Hall 2001). This is where we find our way back to Wilby’s period of study. Hall traces a pattern of witches working with mound-connected elves from the tenth century Old English magico-medical charm Wið Færstice and term ælfs?den (literally “elf-Seiðr”, or “elf-magic”); to Martin Luther’s account of being “shot” by a neighborhood witch; and finally to Isobel Gowdie’s accounts of encountering the Queen of Elfhame in a mound and seeing elves fashioning the shot. I personally take it somewhat further and point to the portrayal of Frey and Freyja in the Ynglingasaga. Freyja as the sacrificial priestess (and as we know, goddess associated with the form of magic known as “Seiðr”) ends up overseeing the cult to her brother, Freyr (who is associated with elves), even as he lies in the burial mound. The people bring offerings to the mound for peace and good seasons, and so even in death, he possesses a power that his sister does not.

Equally, elves were also associated with possessory divinatory trances that may have resembled or been confused with epileptic fits (Hall 2001), and so here too we find the possessory aspect of the ob.

Familiars and Hierarchy

The themes of hierarchy and spiritual authority also play their respective roles here. You may have already noticed that outside of the spontaneously acquired familiars, a higher power must be approached. This is an important distinction to make: the familiar gifted by fairy royalty will obey you if their royals command it. For those who inherit their familiars from others, one has to assume that the same terms and conditions of whatever pact was agreed upon transfer to the new witch.

Mary Parish’s familiar George is the obvious exception to this. Unlike most other familiars in the accounts, he was a dead human whose service was contracted by means of an oath before dying. This allowed Mary the authority she needed in order to work with him postmortem. However, his story is not completely devoid of involvement by a higher (fairy) power.

At some point, a minor aristocrat by the name of Goodwin Wharton became covetous of George (who he had become aware of through his love affair with Mary), and endeavored to have Mary gift him her familiar. However, a fairy queen referred to as the Queen of the Lowlanders steps in. From Wharton’s journal:

” The transfer of George was further complicated by the queen of the Lowlanders, who demanded that Goodwin stop attempting to have George as his own personal spirit. At first Goodwin was a little resistant, but the queen insisted that if he would not willingly show her this preference, he should never see any of the Lowlanders. She wanted to be his number-one contact with the spirit world. Goodwin had little choice but to agree to her terms. As a consolation, George agreed to answer any questions directed at him as long as Goodwin turned his back and did not look directly where George stood. However, Goodwin could not understand the spirit very clearly, as he spoke in a low, soft voice close to Mary’s ear. So throughout their relationship, Goodwin relied on Mary to communicate with George.”
(Cummins 2017 “The Rain Will Make a Door III”)

It would seem that even when it comes to contracting the familiar services of the dead, the fairies will still have their say.

Pets as Familiars

Now to come to something a little polemic, but that I find weirdly irritating all the same.

I’ve noticed a tendency among some in the Pagan/Witch/Heathen communities to refer to their pets as their “familiars”. At first, I thought it was just a joke being made (and for most people, it does seem to be). However, I seem to be coming across more people who actually think their pets are their familiars.

Now hopefully this blog has illustrated all the ways in which that is just fucking stupid. And I think one of the reasons why I get so angry about this is that after having worked with a familiar for a number of years, the collocation of “pet” with “familiar” is just yet more disrespect and treating the Other like some fun and twee little thing that’s just here for our edification, or worse – our entertainment. I feel like I’m quickly running out of ways to say that it’s not all about us humans.

Let’s just stop this, please. We’re better than this. And your dog/cat/bird/whatever may be cool, but he isn’t your familiar. Moreover, if you actually kept your dog as animal familiars were most commonly kept (in a wool basket, being fed milk, blood, or whatever), you’d be in trouble for animal cruelty.

So let’s just not; okay?

Sources

Barrabbas, Frater (2017) Spirit Conjuring For Witches
Cummins, Al (2017)The Rain Will Make a Door III: Faerie and the Dead
Hall, Alaric (2009) Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Health, Belief, Gender, and Identity
Skinner, Stephen (2014) Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic

Stratton-Kent, Jake (2010) The True Grimoire
Wilby, Emma (2005) Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic

September 19, 2016January 10, 2018

Witch-Making

“You cannot simply draw a bath, light a few scented candles, and declare yourself a witch. Take your bath, but you are only a witch after the demons have come calling, which they most certainly will.” (1)

Growing up in Blighty, sometimes it feels as though most of my childhood took place under steely grey skies. Of course, it wasn’t like that *all* the time, but that is my dominant memory – or maybe it’s simply just the way I like to remember it.

Witch - sheep I remember running wild under those steely grey skies, I remember countless adventures up on the moors and in the hidden places where adults didn’t seem to go: like the ‘ravine’ that was really a small stream down the side of an old Victorian factory that led into a more modern industrial park; or the ruins of Victorian farms built in the shadow of a brooding moor.

We never seemed to be dressed for the weather either; choosing little more than the ubiquitous 90s ‘combat pants’ (you know, those pants with all the pockets on – perfect for adventuring), a t-shirt, and a hoodie for the vast majority of these jaunts.

I think about those times on days like this – days clouded over and raining in a way that my mum would describe as ‘spitting’. You know the kind of rain I mean, the kind that isn’t particularly heavy but just feels as though maybe the sky is spitting at you. It’s a kind of rain I played in often as a kid.

The last post I wrote was about how the summer makes me feel dead inside. Well, not quite, that’s a bit of hyperbole. But there is a draining sensation at the end of the summer, and a dragging, and an “Oh for fucks sake, why can’t it be Fall already?”
But Fall *is* coming. The leaves are turning, the sky is looking more ‘right’, and I am beginning to come out of my slump.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently, reading up on things that are a little bit different than my usual topics, and it has been truly excellent.

It’s from one of those books that I pulled both the quote at the beginning of this post (and the inspiration for this post as a whole).

You ever read something where you find yourself agreeing so much with what the writer is saying that you find witch-making - preach yourself nodding, and mentally giving the author a “Right on, man! You tell em!”? Well, I’m reading a book like that right now. Had this been a church sermon, the entire section that inspired this post would have had me shouting “Hallelujah” and “Praise the Lard!”, because it is just so nice to come across someone who writes things that you so completely agree with. That doesn’t happen a lot for me.

The question of what makes a witch is a perennial one in online discussions. Some people think it’s initiation within a specific tradition. Other people think it’s in the doing. For my part, I think initiation is a part of it, and that it is through the doing that you put yourself on the path to that initiation. But it’s not the kind of initiation that comes from other humans (although other humans can set you on that road), but from the Unseen powers.

Today I’m going to talk about the kind of initiation that happens when the demons come calling.

During the course of the summer, I seem to have somehow acquired a couple of students. We had a good first session – covered a lot of ground – and I’m pleased that I have two lovely students with as much potential as they have. I’m really looking forward to seeing them grow (and seeing how much I’ll learn from teaching them, you always learn more from the teaching if you’re doing it right). But at the end of the first session, I warned them that when you set feet upon this path, that there are things that will come a-knocking. When you start doing things, things that garner attention from the Unseen, things that effectively put you in a position for (as Gordon White put it) ‘the cosmic croupier to deal you in’, you will get into situations in which you have to think on your feet and deal with some really fucked up circumstances.

This may sound like I’m rehashing my previous post about Witchcraft not being safe, but if anything, I don’t think I went far enough with that post. Because in spite of what some people think, it’s not about being edgy or ‘dark’, it’s about having the kind of experiences that leave you (to quote Gordon again), “with a lasting, visceral, unshakable knowing that the universe extends beyond what can be physically observed.”

It’s about interacting with the Unseen.

There was a time when witches were considered to learn their craft predominantly from the Unseen as opposed to from other humans. You see this reflected in the Irish beliefs surrounding the Fairy Doctors, Mná feasa, and Cailli – they were all believed to have gotten their powers and learning from the Other Crowd. This same idea was also reflected in the Germanic cultural sphere too, except the Germanic witches were believed to work with the elves – again, members of the Unseen.

It’s about breaking chains.

In Paul Huson’s classic Mastering Witchcraft, the student is advised to light a candle right before going to bed and to say the Lord’s Prayer backwards while visualizing the breaking of chains, a move that Jason Mankey referred to as ‘repugnant’ in his review of the book. But in spite of his distaste for Huson’s methodology, Mankey concedes that Huson’s rationale for this makes perfect sense. And it does.

Because we live in a society in which there are many barriers to even coming across the Unseen, let alone seeking initiation from those hidden powers. Our lives are so busy, so full of noise and distraction, and I’m not decrying electricity or anything (I LOVE living in a place with solid walls and mod cons), but there are reasons why when we do have those soul-shattering experiences they tend to be out in the lonely places.

In the liminal places.

Far from the buzz of tech with its incessant reminder of the outside world.

And that’s even before I talk about the barriers of belief involved here. Like the materialism that says that such things simply *cannot* happen, or the generations of dogma that declares that seeking out or trafficking with such things is a sin.

How many new Pagans and Witches claim to no longer believe in their previous monotheisms? And yet how many would baulk at sitting before a candle and reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards?

“Nema! Livee morf su revilled tub
Noishaytpment ootni ton etc…”

witch-making- pacyderm — “Fight me or find a way to get along with me! Ignoring me won’t make me go away.

How many Pagan paths offer an alternative to Christianity without eschewing it completely, an alternative in which that person can go an entire lifetime without wrestling with that Jesus-y elephant in the room? Because I think that sooner or later, if you practice witchcraft and you truly want that kind of transformation that witchcraft makes possible, you have to find a way to take that motherfucking pachyderm down. (Or at least figure out how it fits in within your worldview. Clue: it’s all just spirits). You can’t break the chains if you ignore them.

Now I’m not saying that people have to go and recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards tonight or something, but it’s certainly something to think about. Witchcraft is not just unsafe, it is also transgressive. Usually when people talk about that transgression nowadays, it seems to be in very political terms, but I think it’s a lot deeper than that.

This is the kind of transgression in which simply having transgressive opinions isn’t enough. It’s not enough to want to ‘stick it to the man’ (or whatever), you have to step outside of the norm, you have to pass beyond. You have to go from the safe places of the inner yard that everyone else huddles in, away from those electric lights, and the safety and comfort of traditional religion.

You have to cross that boundary, try to traffic with the spirits, get that dirt under your fingernails, muddy up those boots, fuck up, make mistakes, and just have those crazy experiences that are usually highly unpleasant, but that leave you with the kind of clarity that comes with the dawn.

Because it’s often in those times, that the most meaningful of initiations are found.
witch-making - dawn

References
(1) Quote taken from The Chaos Protocols by Gordon White.