Dispelling Modern Witchcraft Myths

“We call to the Great God this night of longest day. Join us as the Sun, fiery Lord of the Heavens who blesses our land with the sunshine that makes our world grow! Join us as the Creator who joins with the Great Mother to bring forth new life! May your purifying light and fire bless us this night and drive away all that is negative in our lives. Be a part of our rites as you are a part of our lives! Hail and Welcome!” (from a Midsummer Ritual, Patheos)

Gavin Ashenden, speaking about baptism, says that “we need to reinhabit a metaphysical world in which repentance from the reality of sin is the way into the Church, and the struggle with the reality of the devil and the demonic are the marks of authentic pilgrimage.”

His blog explains why he is upset with the changes approved by the Church of England. As Trevor Grundy notes in “Religious News”:

“In the traditional service, godparents are asked whether they are ready to renounce the devil and all his works for the sake of the child being baptized. The new wording, approved Sunday (July 13), only asks whether parents and godparents will “turn away from sin” and “reject evil.”

And another member of the local clergy says that the devil is very real, and the Island of Jersey is rife with witchcraft.

Now this can easily make people prejudiced. Someone else I know says they have seen witches at the dolmens.

The problem is that what is happening is that a model of witchcraft is being applied in a modern setting to people who are definitely not witches in the traditional sense, in popular folk-beliefs.

This is the witchcraft that was the focus of one of the worst mass panics in history – the period of the 16th and 17th centuries which were the time of the witch-craze, when thousands were burnt or hanged after accusations that they were witches.

The model story, which invariable proved to be true in the confessions - made after duress or torture had been applied – was of witches meeting in secret in covens (usually of  unlucky 13), to partake in a black mass – an inversion and perversion of the Christian Eucharist – and worship the devil. That itself betrays the cultural background of the story. 13 is not universally unlucky; in Italy, for example, it is 17.

Of course, in these stories were fantastical elements, of witches flying to their meetings, or flying out to sea, and conjuring storms while riding the wind. These elements are usually expunged from the kind of narratives that Gavin Ashenden would have us believe, or they are explained away as hallucinations caused by ointments. Although it would be strange if Gavin Ashenden did so, as his main argument is that we should not be restricted to the limitations of our world-view.

In fact, as Norman Cohn pointed out in “Europe’s Inner Demons”, there was originally an accusation made against the early Christians by Pagans on dark rites that was almost identical in form to that attached to witches later on by Christians!

Most accusations against people accused of witchcraft were in fact done not by witch-finders – Hammer films have a lot to answer for – but by neighbours who wanted to settle grudges.

Such accusations could be deadly, once people found themselves caught in the net, but it should be noted that it was the civil and not the religious authorities who tried people for witchcraft, and if found guilty sentenced them to death. It was the Civil Courts in Jersey and Guernsey who sentenced many people to be strangled and burnt.

That dark period seems to be omitted in Philip Bailhache’s book “A Celebration of Autonomy: 1204-2004 800 Years of Channel Island's Law”. It was the relative autonomy of the Channel Islands which allowed the Island’s judges to sentence people to death for witchcraft, which was perhaps not something to celebrate.

Accusations from neighbours with grudges can be seen more recently. When we look back at the Occupation years, as the BBC points out:

“Dozens of letters were sent to the German Field Commander informing on other islanders who were selling or hoarding food, helping escaped slave workers, or listening to the radio. The post office tried to intercept as many of the letters as they could - steaming them open and destroying them. Letters that got through often led to death or deportation for those that were informed on.”

Louisa Gould was denounced to the Germans for helping a Russian slave worker; she died eventually in the Gas Chambers in Ravensbruck. Who denounced her? Her neighbours.

This is the pattern of the witch trials, as documented in historian Robin Brigg’s “Witches and Neighbours” in which accusations come from neighbours, and as Briggs shows, contrary to popular notions about men persecuting women, most of the accusers tended to be women themselves.

What has this to do with modern witchcraft at the dolmens? It is true that rituals are performed at the dolmens, but these are by modern day pagans – such as Wiccans or Druids. Calling them witches, and attributing to them all the baggage that is the legacy of the witch craze is not only mistaken, but also betrays a mindset that can be seen clearly in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”., where it is also alluding to what was called a witch-hunt of Joseph McCarthy and panic about reds under the bed.

In other words, it fosters fear and panic and superstition, and a frame of mind in which people are demonised. It begs the question: where is the devil? With the Wiccans and Druids and their earth-magic, with their ethical beliefs against doing harm, or those who would cast them in the role of witch, and drum up hatred and fear?

We should have learnt by now that demonising a group of people, like the Nazis did with the Jews, or in more recent times, in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, leads to violence, murder, and a disregard for justice.

The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament call the figure of Satan, “the accuser”. It seems to me that those who accuse others of dark witchcraft which has its roots in blind prejudice and fear have far more in common with Satan than those who practice peaceful earth rites.

Here’s part of a Wiccan ritual:

Oh great Goddess and God,
All nature vibrates with Your energies
And the Earth is bathed with warmth and life.
Now is time of forgetting past cares and banes,
Now is the time for purification.

Oh fiery Sun,
Burn away the non-useful, the hurtful, the bane,
In Your glorious power.
Purify me! Purify me! Purify me!

There’s not much there about evil and devil worship, not surprisingly, because neither Wicca nor Druidry have anything to do with that either now or historically. They are pagan, but not Christian perversions, they have no concept of  a devil, and as can be seen, both here, and with the quote from which I started, they actually have a lot in common with Christianity in this desire for purity and purification.

And here’s part of another one:

Take the Herb Pouch and hold above your head, saying:

By thy power, oh sacred herbs, may the Lord of the Sun
Burn away the hurtful, the troublesome, and the painful,
Leaving me purified through His warmth and Light.

It is about time that the fog of ignorance and fear was dispelled. I’ve written this post to try and dispel some of that ignorance.

Renouncing the accuser (Satan) in the baptism service should also mean renouncing the very human impulse to accuse and blacken others.

When you hear people taking about a lot of witchcraft in Jersey, when you hear about people talking about devil worship, you may understand why local pagans don’t make a big show of their beliefs and rituals.

I’ll finish with the close of another Pagan Midsummer ritual, which as you can see, has high ethical principles underpinning it and rather like baptism, uses water for purification.. 

I would point out that the use of water in rituals for purification is very widespread in many religions, including ancient and modern paganism, and not the monopoly of Christianity. Examples can be seen, for instance, in the ancient Babylonian Tablets of Maklu. Purification by water was an important part of Greek and Roman personal religious practices predating Christianity. And in 632 BC, Epimenides of Crete purified the entire city of Athens with water. So this part of the ritual is looking back to a precedent in ancient paganism, not Christianity.

Dip the forefinger of your right hand into the cauldron water, and trace a pentagram on your forehead, saying: Let my mind be open to the truth. 

Anoint your lips saying:
Let my lips always speak the truth.

Anoint your heart area, saying:
Let my heart seek the ways of the Goddess, now and always.

Anoint the centres of your palms, saying:
Let my hands be gifted to work in magical ways.

Anoint the soles of your feet, saying:
Let my feet ever walk upon the sacred paths!

Prayer or Magic? A Convergence

Here is an account of "spell casting for a parking place"

The first time I used the spell I decided to give it a real test and try to use it on the worst place I knew to park, outside my NIA yoga/dance class. It was typical to have to park blocks away in this busy downtown area. The spell is simplicity itself.  No tools, ingredients, witchcraft symbols,  or invocation prayers are needed, though you can add anything you like if it helps your focus. Always remember: whether you think you can or can't, you're right.   This goes triple for spells and witchcraft. Simply visualize the parking space you want and know that you will have it.  When you get there it will usually be free.  The trick is to invoke the white magic spell at least an hour before you arrive.  If you pull up and have forgotten to cast the spell you can't expect a Buick or Toyota to levitate out of the way, though it will often happen that a car will pull out just as you pull up if the spell is working well and you planned ahead. This is a main tenant of real witchcraft: the further away in time you  invoke a result the more likely it is to happen.(1)

But there are more verbal forms of finding parking spaces. Here is a very Wiccan one, invoking the goddess:

Spell to Find a Parking Space: "Goddess Mother, lift your face and find for me a parking space." or "Gracious Goddess, lift your face and find for me a parking space." (2)

And here is a Christian version of finding parking spaces by prayer:

Every home group that I have ever attended, at some point, normally when we are on the subject of prayer, has a conversation like this:
'Yes, I pray to God a lot - just normal stuff - like when I really want a parking space'.
At which point  two or three people looked shocked and one will say: 'You pray for parking spaces????'
And the first person will say 'Oh yes, and it works, they always open up for me'.
'But.. but.. but... what about all the people starving to death, or.. or... being raped, or with dying children, and God doesn't bother answering them, but he finds you a parking space'.
'Err.. yes'...
'I pray for parking spaces too'... chips in another, 'and it works'. Two or three nod authoritatively.
And so the home group is split squarely down the middle between those who do and those who don't pray for parking spaces. I must have observed this phenomenon five times.(3)

What I find most interesting about this is the way in which Modern Pagan and Christian traditions converge. Is this best described as "magic" or "prayer"? If we look at the form of what is being done, especially in the Wiccan form and the Christian prayer, I think there is very little difference. A deity is invoked, and a request made for a parking space. I have actually come across this in Jersey, both with Christians who have told me about "praying for a parking space", and a Wiccan who mentioned calling on the goddess for a parking space.

Christians, of course, may cite the words of Jesus in the New Testament - "ask, and it will be given to you" - as an argument in favour of this practice. but I don't think that what is happening is anything to do with Christianity; the use of a "proof text" is a rationalisation for something which is being done. In essence, this is an attempt to manipulate the real world, and in its way, it is a magic that is a kind of dark cousin of science.

C.S. Lewis, writing in "The Abolition of Man", notes that:

There is something which unites magic and applied science [=technology] while separating both from the "wisdom" of earlier ages.  For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue.  For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men; the solution is a technique.

I think he is pretty accurate in his assessment. And perhaps, when driving in, and hoping that there might be a parking space, what would be more instructive would be a reflection on the kind of feelings - frustration, anger, disappointment - that would be the case if the parking place didn't materialise, and how we could learn to understand ourselves better, and learn patience, acceptance, and peace of mind in the face of minor adversity - not finding a space. That might be of much more benefit, especially when larger adversity threatens, and we have learned how to deal with our emotions.

Using magic or prayer or will power as a means of manipulating the world (by the deity submitting to your will) to accommodate your wishes has the same basic pattern, and it is the pattern outlined in the "Poet and the Lunatics" story by G.K. Chesterton. There a man tries to control the fall of two raindrops running down a window, but the same elements are there. It is not about, as C.S. Lewis says, "conforming the soul to reality", but it is about self-deception, and while parking spaces are a small matter, the small steps to learning the techniques for self-deception is the dark lesson to be taken away here:

"I was looking at two raindrops running down the pane," said Gale. "And so was Saunders."

"Haven't I told you a thousand times," he continued with increasing earnestness and animation, "that I always find myself looking at some little thing, a stone or a starfish or what not, and that's the only way I can ever learn anything? But when I looked at Saunders, I saw his eyes were fixed on the same spot on the window-pane; and I shuddered from head to foot, for I knew I had guessed right. He was wearing a certain kind of unobtrusive smile.

"You know that incurable gamblers sometimes bet on a race between two raindrops. But there is this specially about the sport; that it is abstract and equal and gives one a sense of impartiality. If you bet on a dog-fight, you may find you really sympathize with a Scotch terrier against an Irish terrier, or vice versa; you may like the look of a billiard player or even the colours of a jockey. Therefore the event may go against your sympathies; and you will realize your limitations. But in the case of those two crystal spheres hung in a void of transparency, there is something like the equal scales of an abstract justice; you feel that whichever wins might be the one you had chosen. You may easily, in a certain secret megalomania, persuade yourself it is the one you have chosen. It is easy to imagine oneself controlling things hung so evenly. .. But I knew that Saunders was just at the delicate crisis, where he was half trying to believe he was. He was half trying to think he had really changed the weather and might change everything; and a game like that of the raindrops was just the thing to encourage him. He really felt as if he were Omnipotence looking at two falling stars: and he was the special providence in them.

Links
(1) http://www.spells-witchcraft.org/introdution-to-spell-casting.html
(2) http://www.everythingunderthemoon.net/spells/find-a-parking-space.htm
(3) http://revdlesley.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-that-is-why-praying-for-parking.html
(4) http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Poet_and_Lunatics.html#d

Druid Aid

Whilst our indigent compatriots are generally recognised to have a greater claim on our pity than needy strangers, a great calamity in one country readily calls forth a charitable response in other nations. Mr. Pike believes that the contribution of one hundred thousand pounds sterling which England, in the year 1755, when Lisbon was laid in ruins by an earthquake, sent for the relief of the sufferers, inaugurated this new era of international charitableness. "Compassion," he observes, "was at last shown by Englishmen, not simply for Englishmen and Protestants, but for foreigners professing a different religion; pity, for once, triumphed over intolerance and national prejudice." (1)

When I began researching modern paganism in America, Isaac Bonewits was one of a number of smaller voices calling for pagans to be more proactive in charitable giving, both for support within the pagan community, and for the wider world. The wider world, of course, had organisations like "Christian Aid", but there didn't seem to be anything at all like "Druid Aid" on the horizon. A good many Pagans supported charity work, but as individuals. As members of a group, there wasn't any significant identification, as with Christian Aid, for example.

The ancient world had ideas of charity, but this was usually restricted to the tribal group, or the community of faith:

Of the ancient Persians Thucydides said that they preferred giving to receiving. To be charitable towards the poor of their own faith was among them a religious duty of the first order. Zoroaster thus addressed Vîshtâspa:--"Let no thought of Angra Mainyu ever infect thee, so that thou shouldst indulge in evil lusts, make derision and idolatry, and shut to the poor the door of thy house." The holy Sraosha is the protector of the poor. In the Shâyast it is said that the clothing of the soul in the next world is formed out of almsgiving.

According to Zoroastrianism, charity should be restricted to the followers of the true religion; to succour an unbeliever would be like a strengthening of the dominion of Evil

Zoroastrianism, whilst exalting almsgiving to the rank of a cardinal virtue, at the same time excludes the sick man from the community of the faithful until he has been cured and cleansed according to prescribed rites. (1)

The same can be seen in Ancient Egypt, where charity exists, but as an ancient Egyptian papyri tells us, is limited to one's own nation, one's own people:

In the memorial inscriptions, where the dead plead their good deeds, charity is often referred to. "I harmed not a child," says one Egyptian, "I injured not a widow; there was neither beggar nor needy in my time; none were hungered, widows were cared for as though their husbands were still alive." (1)

Within the modern world, however, there were numerous Pagan charities that did look beyond the confines of the Pagan community, but they tended to be small scale, like S.O.T.E.S. (The Society of the Evening Star) (2)

Founded in 1977 (S.O.T.E.S.), Tax Exempt 1982; A.O.K. founded in 1991
.feeding the homeless
.support for elderly in nursing homes
.assisting with medical & funeral expenses for those in need
.ministry to the sick and lonely
.support of animal shelters through donations & volunteer work

or the CWPN, Inc. (Connecticut Wiccan and Pagan Network)
Founded in 1990; registered as a non-profit in 2002
President: Liz Guerra
.food drives for Foodshare to feed the needy
.donations to local animal shelters

There's a good list at http://www.moondragon.org/pagan/pagancharities.html

But now, the Wild Hunt blog is publicising recommendations for how to give to Japan - including a special site for Doctors without Borders - that marks the contribution that Pagans are making to helping people in Japan, not only as individuals, but as a community that reaches out to the world in solidarity.

While the "Pagan Dash" campaign for the UK census is certainly significant in ensuring that the Pagan community is noticed as a quite distinct religious group ( - it involves putting Pagan - Wiccan, Pagan - Druid etc on the UK Census), as was the welcome acceptance of the Druid Network by the Charity Commissioners as a genuine religious group, it is with this wider aspect that I think that paganism can be said truly to have "come of age", not just as a self-interest group with its own identity, but also as a group that can engage with the need for humanitarian support globally. It's not "Druid Aid", but it is pretty much the same idea!

The Wild Hunt notes that:

I have assembled some resources for the Pagan community regarding donation recommendations and other resources for showing solidarity with the people of Japan in the wake of Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

My primary suggestion for donations is Doctors Without Borders. This organization now has two teams on the ground in Japan setting up medical treatment centers. While this is a well-known NGO, I am recommending them due to their level of accomplishment in Haiti saving lives. Additionally, when this organization raised enough funds for its Haiti response it stopped accepting donations. It is important to recognize that organizations have a logistical limit as to how much they can accomplish. By suspending fundraising this organization demonstrated a commitment to spend funds wisely and not just take the opportunity to raise unlimited cash as other large NGO's did. With this in mind, a Pagan Community donation Page has been set up to enable donations to this organization.(3)

and the Doctors without Borders is set up so that Pagans can give, and let it be known that they are - as a group - as concerned as Christians.

Doctors Without Borders

Thank you for visiting the Pagan communities Fundraising Page. Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to make a contribution to our fundraising efforts. Many thanks for your support-- and don't forget to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too! Doctors Without Boards is making a difference in Japan. (4)

Links
(1) The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Edward Westermarck, 1906
(2) http://www.circlesanctuary.org/liberty/pagancharitywork.html
(3) http://wildhunt.org/blog/2011/03/update-japanese-earthquake-and-tsunami-resources.html
(4) http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/Pagan-Community/doctors-without-borders