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  In 1692, the sleepy town of Salem Massachusetts was swept with fear as the most infamous witch trials of colonial America rocked burgeoning province. While not impervious to the witch trials which had been sweeping Europe over the course of the preceding centuries, America had managed to avoid the wild, superstitious fear until the 1640s. Several trials occurred in the 1640s, but only in 1647 did New England have its first execution of a witch. A smattering of accusations and trials occurred over the next several decades, but the peak of the witch-hunt in the early Americas ultimately took place in Salem and its nearby villages.

  The most well-documented of the early American cases, the trials of Salem spiraled from cases of childish magick to a socio-political nightmare that took the lives of a significant number of the female population of the township and its surrounding areas. The witch trials encompassed both purported actual witches, like the confessed enchantress Tituba, to the young girls whose immature attempts at divination were tied together with later seizures, speculatively from the eating of or exposure to psychotropic grain or other natural products. As the American lowlight of the Burning Times, the Salem Witch Trials represent an important, although tragic key point in the the anthropology of magick.

  As I happened to be in Massachusetts this past weekend for an archaeology and heritage conference, I was able to make a pilgrimage to the pleasant New England town of Salem. Be it out of respect for the witches and innocents persecuted by the infamous trial or a morbid curiosity about gothic matters, Salem has become a tourist Mecca. And while many things in Salem have an element of kitsch about them, there is still much respect for the town’s solemn role in the history of witchcraft, both with regards to honoring the dark events that brought it notoriety and valuing the role it has for the modern Wiccan, Witch, and Neo-pagan communities because of its occult connotations.

  My tour through Salem started off with a green bang. As we drove into Salem proper, my co-tourist and I discovered that Salem Commons was featuring an ecological rally for a green Salem (good cause!). We began our official tour with a brief visit to the National Park Service’s Visitors center for Salem, mostly to collect the relevant maps and brochures that were necessary to navigate the town. A meandering stroll around town led us past such amusing things as a local Pirate museum and some of the Witch museums of wax figures, none of which took our fancy enough to actually go in. Though these museums probably certainly have their charm, I was more keen to skip such secondary and third resources and go straight to the primary. And thus my principal goal for my Saturday afternoon in Salem was visiting the actual historical points of interest.

  This kicked off with a visit the Burying Point, the oldest graveyard in Salem. Somberly perched on high ground in the city center, the Burying Point contains several of the dignitaries associated with the witch trials, many relatives of famous colonial personages, and my particular favorite concept (from my warped archaeological perspective) an exciting array of tombstone iconography representative of the seriation of styles prominent during the late 17th and early 18th centuries (super dorky reference, but I am quite a fan: Remember Me as you Pass By, Chapter 4 of James Deetz’ seminal book on historical archaeology and the cultural implications of gravestone iconography In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life). I had been planning on taking some pastel rubbings of some of the iconography, but sadly, very prominent signs forbade against this artistic endeavor. I did , however, manage a respectful rubbing of Emily Dickinson’s grave marker (“Called Back”) earlier in my trip.
The Burying Point is also the home of the Witch Trials Memorial, an artistic series of granite benches and inscribed paving stones which memorialize “the events of 1692 … as a yardstick to measure the depth of civility and due process in our society” (per the Salem City website).

  Following a quick trip to A&J King’s fabulous bakery (walnut cinnamon buns to die for!) and brief tours past some of the more architecturally exciting bits of downtown Salem, we headed for the most pop culturally iconic monument in the town: the Bewitched Statue. As pictured at the start of this article, the statue is a bronze casting of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stevens astride her broomstick and against a crescent moon. Placed in Salem by TVLand, it is a fitting memorial to one of television’s greatest and most respectful representations of witchcraft in the modern world, as well as a testament to the role Salem holds as a place of magic, forever associated with the witches (and falsely accused magicians) of the New World. As a bright spot in the history of witchcraft, the show Bewitched, and its commemoration in Salem, provides a perfect counterpoint to the dark history Salem is typically associated with.

  More meanders through town ensued, including trips into several of the touristy cum magickal shops, which although great, could not compare to the Sacred Mists Shoppe (if you haven’t been to the bricks and mortar version of Shoppe in Napa, it is well worth a trip of its own! Go!). And finally, after some fabulous frozen custard, my co-tourist and I headed over to the Maritime Museum and House of Seven Gables. Though the pirates obviously held strong appeal, it was the House of Seven Gables I was more excited to see. For one reason or another, it seems most American high school curriculums include Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter, but I believe his House of Seven Gables to be the far superior and more engaging text. The story of a lingering superstition, the politics of the witch trials, and a cursed set of families, the dynastic saga peaks at the invasion of a distant cousin who manic-pixie-dream-girls the lineages out of their various plights. Hawthorne’s cousin’s house that inspired the tale still perches along the waterfront in Salem. The house is a stunning piece of period architecture which serves as a historical testament both to the book, and the family’s own actual connections to the Salem witch trials that inspired the initial cursed events of the classic tale.

  Though Salem’s place in the history of witchcraft is a dark legacy, the town of Salem remains an important focal point for magick. The idea of ‘The Witch’ has come a long long way from the hysterical fear it once elicited. Modern role models for the wiccan and neo-pagan communities like Bewitched or even Harry Potterhave done much to move away from the evil stereotypes once associated with being a witch. But in order to appreciate how far society has come out of the broom closet, we must fully understand how deep the fear of the ‘other’ represented by magick has come. We must memorialize the dark times in order to fully appreciate the light.

  This week I am presenting an archaeological paper at the Digital Heritage conference at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (excitingness!). And as I am in the birthplace of one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson, it seemed apropos to share one of my favorite works with you: one which emphasizes the notion of utilizing one’s imagination and finding fantasy and magick in the mundane elements of life.

  Dickinson’s A Murmur in the Trees subtly emphasizes the idea of seeing beyond the regular world into what I have always interpreted as a sort of faerie realm or different dimension which coexists with our own. It advocates for seeing the world as brightly techno-colored as we can, and holding that close to ourselves comfortably, without insisting that others must see it as well. Though it is not overtly a magickal bit of literature, it hints at the otherworlds magickal practices attempt to reach and at a calm understanding of the unity between those worlds and our own. I do hope you enjoy it (and wish me luck at the conference!):

A MURMUR in the trees to note,
Not loud enough for wind;
A star not far enough to seek,
Nor near enough to find;

A long, long yellow on the lawn,
A hubbub as of feet;
Not audible, as ours to us,
But dapperer, more sweet;

A hurrying home of little men
To houses unperceived, –
All this, and more, if I should tell,
Would never be believed.

Of robins in the trundle bed
How many I espy
Whose nightgowns could not hide the wings,
Although I heard them try!

But then I promised ne’er to tell;
How could I break my word?
So go your way and I’ll go mine, –
No fear you’ll miss the road.

  If you, like I, have ever pondered the plurality of culture in modern Wicca and Neo-paganism, then you should read this book.

  If you have ever wondered at how Celtic symbolism, the Kabbalistic Tarot, Native American Spirit Animals, and the use of yoga, kundalina, and chakras (etc) can all be blended together within New Age counterculture and contemporary spiritual practices ~ then you should read this book.

  How and why did all of the ancestral traditions come to be peacefully united within the context of modern paganism? How has the cultural diffusion of the world at large contributed to such a delightful polygenesis or amalgamation of past and present? If your interest is piqued at this very notion…then you ought to read this book.

  Sabina Magliocco’s Witching Cultures: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America is not just an ethnographic exploration into modern Neo-paganism, it represents a new and important step in the anthropology of the contemporary magickal community. Unlike the classic foundation texts on the anthropology of modern witchcraft like Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon and Luhrmann’s Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magick in Contemporary England, Magliocco’s work does not just seek to explore the existence of a magickal community and their perceptions of magick, but rather strives to understand how the multi-cultural magickal menu came to be so diversified. In attempting to understand how magickal and spiritual traditions are borrowed and hybridized into contemporary practice, Magliocco explores the underlying anthropological meanings and psychological back-story behind such acceptance and incorporation. It is not a history book, it is an examination of modern practices. Though it is light on the structuralist anthropological theoretical framework it was undeniably written in, it is a groundbreaking text in pagan and (by association) wiccan studies.

  Witching Cultures: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America is a celebration of how the practice of modern magick delicately and respectfully crosses cultural boundaries to create approachable and shared meanings. As Magliocco concludes “The art of magic allows our imagination to transcend the boundaries of local blood and geography, to experience, at least in part, other cultures and time periods and feel empathy with other living beings (237).”

  Of all of the witchy texts I have reviewed lately, Witching Cultures: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America by Sabina Magliocco is my new favorite and I highly recommend you give it a go.

  Somebody happened to call me a “mythic creature” on Friday; and it has stuck with me all weekend.

  In context, it was a rather mundane and flippant figure of speech. One of the engineers in the digital archaeology lab I’ve just started at was merely elaborating on how rare it was to have one of the researchers in the lab for the full creative process. As a user of the technology verses a creator of it, he was basically saying that it was a novel concept to have my input at this stage of development. Really, it was a compliment of sorts (I hope). But it was more his turn of phrase that caught my attention. And rapidly pulled me from my everyday work, into the magickal realm I share here with all of you at Sacred Mists. Down the rabbit hole, as it were.

  My initial visualization of my possession of the label ‘mythic creature’ had much to do with the addition of faerie wings trying to fit round my desk chair and a unicorn’s horn sprouting from my forehead. Eventually, however, my meandering daydreams wandered away from the specific image of me as a mythic creature in the engineering lab; and more to do with just the idea of the mythic creature in the lab or office: Pegasus flying past the window, sprites floating in the water cooler, satyrs bounding off the elevator, and the like. The magick seeping through the mundane.

  Really, however, if one has been paying close attention to the faerie tales of childhood and, indeed, of world mythology: that is exactly how these mythic creatures present themselves. Out of the corner of your eye, there is a little something extra that you can spot for an instant and then is gone. In faerie tales: it may be a meeting with an elderly woman in the woods who you politely shared your bread with (thus earning the power to spit up jewels) or the spider you carried outside instead of smashing (and who later helped you succeed at a seemingly futile task). In faerie tales, and indeed perhaps in real life, the true encounters with mythic creatures are not ones you really pay that much attention to as a special encounter of any kind. The effects of the meeting may be felt; blessings given or mischief enacted (depending on the type of mythic creature), and one is left pondering the encounter, identifying what one can about what you saw, and extemporizing the rest to make sense of it ~ often fitting it into the known order of things in order to make it fit into one’s view of the world. More often than not, one might not realize that they’ve had such an encounter because they were not aware of what they were looking for and even if they saw something had no subconscious archetype against which to compare it. The Platonic archetypes extolled by the likes of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung can often seem like vague generalizations, but they are worth knowing as reference points. It is, after all, easier to put together the jigsaw puzzle if one knows what the general picture is meant to be of. The meeting of the mythic with the mundane is where magick translates outside of anthropology and becomes a part of one’s life experience.

  I admit, that when not working on a project for the Sacred Mists, I often forget to look around me and see the magick in the world: the beauty and power that vibrates through everything; the wonder that I know I experienced as a child looking out at the world and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that magickal things could happen. The seemingly innocuous phrase ‘mythic creature’ woke me up. It made me LOOK. It made me SEE. It made me aware and appreciative. For this past weekend, at least.

  And while no, I have not spotted any landvaettir around my apartment, fey lurking in the shrubbery, or trolls under the freeway bridge: the part of me that steadfastly believes in the anthropological power of faerie tales maintains that they are there. They have just gotten very, very good at blending in. So much so, that when we see them or meet them, we probably don’t even realize what they really might be.

  The power of seeing the mythic creature in the modern world can lead to marvelous things. Ever heard of a little place called Narnia? Narnia is a magickal realm full of myth and wonder that has provided children and adults alike with a refuge, despite its ultimately fictional nature. Its author C. S. Lewis reputedly first began creating the back-story for Narnia whilst riding on a train one snowy evening. Looking out at the town, a man carrying his shopping and an umbrella appeared to have the legs of a faun instead of those of a human. And thus Mr. Tumnus, the first Narnian was born. If you take nothing else away from C.S. Lewis’s masterpiece series the Chronicles of Narnia, take away the idea that great things come from using your imagination and seeing the magick in the mundane. From seeing the mythic creature in the modern world.

  Have you had any recent encounters you’ve realized were less than mundane? Are your bumblebees secretly faeries or your pool overrun with lorelei? Or did you open the door for a stranger or give a lost tourist directions and feel inexplicably blessed the rest of the day? Mythic creatures come in all shapes and forms. Let us know about your recent run-ins!

  And if you haven’t had any recent encounters with mythic creatures: go seek them out. Attempt an anthropological cum psychological experiment into your own awareness and find them in unlikely places. Find them at your office, in your home, or in the pages of a fairy tale you’ve long since given up~ those archetyes still speak to you, if you’re willing to listen, so give them another chance. And then report back here and share your experience with everyone else!

Image Credit: At the top is Mary Gow’s Fairy Tales.

Next in out series of interviews is the very prolific author, Judika Illes! In today’s interview, Judika talks about her love of magic, her many books and her diverse background.

Bernadette:
We would love to hear a little bit about your background Judika!  Many of your books deal with magic from many different backgrounds and cultures, so I’d love to hear about your background and influences!

Judika:
Well, I’m from Queens, one of New York City’s outer boroughs, which partially explains my comfort and familiarity with different cultures. Queens is reputedly the most ethnically-diverse place on Earth. I come from a fairly international family—I have relatives all over the place. I was the first person in my family to be born in the United States. I grew up with people from lots of different backgrounds, cultures, religions, and spiritual traditions, so I was raised to be tolerant and not make assumptions about people.
I think that personally I am a fairly good example of an urban magical practitioner. Magical practitioners from major urban centers like New York are constantly learning from each other, trading and sharing information, and evolving new traditions. The traditions I learned at home were mainly Central and Eastern European, but I was also heavily influenced by people who taught me African-American, Latin-American, Caribbean, North African, and East Asian traditions. Other influences on me include the great occult stores that flourished in New York City during my youth, before rising rents drove them out of business—great stores like Samuel Weiser’s Books and Magickal Childe, and all the botanicas and wonderful herb stores like Aphrodisia, which just closed recently. Growing up, there was also an unofficial but strong and distinct local New York style of magic, mainly an amalgamation of Western occultism and Puerto Rican traditions, especially Espiritismo—I’m very much a product of my background.

Bernadette:

Tell us about what inspires you to write Judika.  Your books are great sources of information for anyone interested in metaphysics.  How do you go about compiling and researching all information that needed to complete the books that you write?

Judika:

What inspires me to write is my love for my topics. I am so blessed and privileged to be able to write about subjects I love, like spells and witchcraft, saints and spirits. I enjoy the researching process- that part is fun and I would do it for myself, whether I was published or not.
Writing itself is difficult, but I feel an obligation to my material, to preserve it and also to present it in the clearest possible way, so that readers can share in my passions. I love divination, for instance, and I want other people to love it, too. My motivations aren’t entirely unselfish—I think that there’s greater safety for my community of magical practitioners and fortune-tellers if the greater public really understands what it is that we do. Historically, it has been dangerous to practice these arts, as it still is in some places today. I hope that my writing helps dispel fear and misinformation.
My research derives from a combination of personal exploration, learning from books and learning from other people. By nature, I’m a fairly shy person, but I’m a fearless researcher. I contact perfect strangers, if I perceive that they have information needed for one of my books or if I need someone to teach me something or explain something to me—I’ve made some wonderful friends this way.

Bernadette:

Do you have “other” interests or hobbies?

Judika:

Oh, yeah, lots—although whether I have time to devote to them depends on my writing schedule. I love beading and cooking. I read a lot just for my own pleasure: history, mysteries, comic books, art books. I love music. I like to watch movies. I tend to accumulate stuff- I’m an avid collector, especially of witchcraft-themed items like postcards and dolls. I love traveling. Given the opportunity, I’d do all my own field research, if I could.

Bernadette:

What’s in the future for Judika?  What projects do you have coming up?

Judika:

My next book, The Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saint, and Sages will be published in November 2011. It’s another thousand-page encyclopedia, this one exploring saints, holy people, and miracle-workers from many spiritual traditions. It’s a practical work, similar to my Encyclopedia of Spirits, containing information regarding how to venerate and communicate with a wide variety of saints, as well as information on how to determine which saints are most compatible with you and helpful for your own particular problems and issues. I’m also in the process of updating my website and, hopefully, doing some more teaching. Having spent much of the last ten years alone in a room writing, I really appreciate opportunities for personal contact. I have some new classes in the works that I’m very excited about.

Bernadette:

Is there a book that you would like to write, but haven’t done so yet?

Judika:

I would actually like to write some fiction someday—I have a few novels turning around in my head that haven’t made it onto paper yet. I also have several half-completed books. The Encyclopedia of Spirits was initially going to incorporate saints and angels alongside Pagan spirits but the manuscript grew too big. The easiest way to trim it was to delete these categories with the hope that someday they would have their own books. The Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saints, and Sages will be published in November and hopefully the angels will one day have their own encyclopedia, too.
I began my writing career with a large work on fertility that remains unpublished. That manuscript contains a chapter of magic spells. A publisher rejected the book, but liked that chapter, which evolved into my first published work, Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting. I would very much like to eventually publish my fertility book.

Bernadette:

I wanted to let people know about your musical background..can you tell us a little about that?

Judika:

I know that’s something we share, Bernadette! My first true loves were music, magic spells, and divination and they remain so today. Some of my earliest memories involve listening to music on the radio and eventually I became a disc jockey. I started off hosting a blues show, but also did standard rock programs and would sometimes fill in for the country and jazz hosts. My taste is eclectic. As with the magical arts, I love and appreciate many styles of music. I was the first female music director of WRSU-FM, the radio station affiliated with Rutgers University. In terms of the craft of writing, the writers who have influenced me the most are the music journalists of the ‘70s, who wrote with clarity and humor and were not afraid to wear their passions on their respective sleeves. When I was eighteen, my career plans involved these musically-oriented paths, but free-form radio was in its death-throes, as was that sort of music journalism, so I ended up on different paths, although, who knows? Radio has evolved and I may return to it someday. The urge to share music with other people spills out of me on facebook, where I’m constantly posting music news and sharing youtube videos.

Bernadette:

How do you feel about the pagan community today?

Judika:

I try to approach people as individuals, regardless of their background. I think that we are blessed to live in a spiritual renaissance and that we should be ever-vigilant to preserve hard-won liberties. I think that it’s crucial that we cultivate tolerance for each other.

Bernadette:

Any advice for aspiring pagan writers?
Judika:

People are constantly writing to me, telling me what book they think I should write next—sometimes describing these books in great detail. And what I always tell them is that if you can “see” a book that doesn’t yet exist, then maybe you’re meant to be the one that writes it. That’s how I began my career—I perceived a need for a book and I could “see” the book that would fulfill that need. If you can see it, then you can write it. This is a good time for spiritual publishing, so don’t wait. If you have a book in your head, put it down on paper. Just write it— it’s easier to fix or embellish something that already exists, rather than agonize over words in your head. My other word of advice is to consider the format in which you would like to present your work. If you hope to actually publish something in book form—whether in a traditional book or an e-book—then don’t post too much of the actual work on the internet: save it for the book itself.

This interview was such a pleasure to do!  Judika’s books have become the”mainstay” of anyone who is interested in the study of spells and magic.  I refer to her books on a daily basis!

Here are just some of her many books:

http://www.judikaIlles.com

The Sacred Land.

There is one belief that runs through all aboriginal belief systems across the world and that is that the land is sacred. From the native Americans to the aboriginal tribes of Australia the land is something to respected and held in high regard.

Dare I also include Britain in this august company? I think that at one time I could have, and people in the Pagan world be they Druids like myself or Witches are trying to reclaim this sense of the sacredness of the land.

Some good friends and I visited Avebury on Saturday and we were treated to a guided tour of some of the lesser known sites in the landscape, some of which were over six thousand years old.

What struck me was the relationship the people had with the land and how in tune with it they were. From birth to death they included the land in there daily lives. Our lives are governed by small increments of time, days, hours, and seconds whereas our ancestors were governed by the turning of the seasons.

This is where I believe the wheel of the year plays its part. Although to some extent it is a modern construct I feel its biggest benefit is to slow our thinking down. As we follow this yearly cycle our brains are rewired to think in terms of what the land is doing at any given time.

So I believe that the land is sacred and I would go even further in believing that the land is the body of the Goddess. Her body the hills, her hair the waving grass, her arms and the majestic trees, her feet buried in deep dark soil.

So is the land sacred? Look around you at all the trees bursting in to leaf and the land becoming fertile after the fallow time of winter and I think that you would agree with me when I say yes it most certainly is.

Pangur-ban