Posts Tagged ‘Witchcraft’

  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.

  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.

With so many people looking for work, looking to improve themselves by going back to school we find ourselves in the front of an interviewer or a test.  No need to panic you can do it!  You’ve made it this far and you can do this too.  Want to bolster a little magickal support for your needs, try this cute and effective spell.

A TWIG Spell for Success (Perfect for a test or interview)

Items Needed:
A small bit of water
Matches or Lighter
1 Oil Burner (the Abundance Goddess is my favorite)
3 drops of benzoin EO
3 drops of Cinnamon EO
1 Yellow candle (a spell candle works perfectly) in a secure holder (the Bubble Magick or Cobalt Stars are my favorites)
1 Purple Candle (a spell candle works perfectly) in a secure holder
1 sharp craft or kitchen knife (I love using the Silver Leaf Boline for this kind of work)
1 naturally forked twig
1 6inch length of plain string or twine

Instructions:
**Place all the ingredients on the desk on a surface where you have been researching or studying for your exam/test or preparing for your interview.
**Light the oil burner, placing the water and essential oil in its dish.
**Light the Yellow Candle, saying:
Mercury ease my way in this (exam/test/interview)
**Light the purple candle, saying:
Jupiter bring me Fortune
**Using the craft knife, trim the forked twig to a convienient size to fit in your pocket or handbag.
**Carve into the longest part of the twig the rune known as “Rad”. Rad means “wheel” and it will help the wheel of fortune turn in your favor.
**Now slowly wind the string or twine around the base of the twig, chanting as you do so:
Air to find
Thread to bind,
Find what’s best and
Make it mine.
**Tie off the string and the spell is complete.
**Carry the twig with you when you attend or work on your exam/test/interview, keep it close to you until you have achieved your goal.
**Once you have achieved your goal, say a silent “Thank You” as you cast it into flowing water.

Our week of empowerment blogged about earlier is coming to a close.

This morning I recorded the working for the final day as posted here.  I wanted to work on this empowerment to help build myself up for the pending Mercury Retrograde to help me weather the storm that usually knocks the socks right off me!

You can do these exercises anytime at all to give yourself a boost.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1842 poem, The Lady of Shalott creatively manufactured one of the most influential witch figures of the second half of the last millennium. A combination of the witches of Avalon from the medieval Arthurian sagas and Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queen, the unnamed Lady of Shalott is both and she is neither. She is a powerful seer separate from society, yet one who sorrows. She has seemingly sacrificed human interaction in exchange for her mystical powers, and yet she regrets this sacrifice: longing to love and be loved in return. And this is perhaps her most notable contribution to the witch-lore of the centuries that were to follow: the myth that the witch cannot or should not love a mortal without sacrificing her power or some other element of self or magickal community.

  Obviously, this is not a true concept. A witch, like any other human or even mammal, is capable of love and of being loved. However, in casting the Lady of Shalott as a tragic victim of her own power, Tennyson unwittingly launched a pop culture campaign exploring this idea of love vs. magickal power, and the combination thereof. It was a particularly popular notion in witch-films and television of the middle twentieth century, notably the classic films So I Married a Witch and Bell, Book, and Candle as well as the magickal sitcom Betwitched.

  The power disparity between the witch and her lover (and indeed Bell, Book, and Candle’s insistence that she sacrifice her power if she is to be in love) descends from The Lady of Shalott’s dark focus on the ethics of its witch-faerie star falling in love. It begs the question of whether she can love without magickally influencing the object of her love to love her back? It also debates whether a relationship between a magickal being and a non-magickal being is a balanced relationship. These related questions are vital to two anthropological discussions: the influence societal, or in this case, otherworldly power, has in any relationship (i.e. Does the Queen or the Royal Mistress really love the King or did she marry him for the throne?) and the modern magickal nix on the use of love magick for ethical reasons.

  Where Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships, the boat of the Lady of Shalott launched a series of ethical questions integral to both the anthropology of magick and the psychology of relationships.

  For a more in-depth look at the Lady of Shalott, her fellow literary witches, and other historical and mythical witches: keep your eye out for the upcoming class: History of Witches in the Western World! NEW from yours truly and exclusively offered at the fabulous Sacred Mists!!

Pictured above is John William Waterhouse’s famous version of The Lady of Shalott.

Monday’s are all about home, family, love, health, magick and dreams. These last two, the association is hard to ignore with the ruler of Monday being the Moon. The colors today are silver and white.

With this in mind today’s magick is going to be postponed to be called tonight’s magick
and one that I will be doing before I lay down to bed tonight.

The moon for today is in Taurus making it a fantastic time to work with inner peace, love,
creativity. These are the spells that take the longest to manifest but the results are
stable and long lasting.

My primary altar is on my desk, I use this altar every day. I do have a secondary altar
on my nightstand next to the bed that houses gemstones and a spot for a candle should I want one and an incense burner with either a small stone offering bowl or a stone goddess in the center.

Materials for tonight’s magick:
White Votive Candle (I am using a Sacred White Sage Votive)
Incense with Sandalwood or Jasmine (I am using Hari – Amber/Sandalwood)
Moonstone gem (if you have one)

Set your altar or bedside table (if safe) with the votive, incense burner and gemstone.
If you have an oil you use before sleep please anoint your votive with it. I will be
anointing mine with what some may believe to be an odd choice, nevertheless; I will be
using the Ostara Creamy Petals – Spellbound Potion on my candle. The scent relaxes and
opens my mind to the possibilities before me.

Sit before your altar, light your candle and focus on a challenge in your life right now.
Something you need to find resolution to, something that blocks your way, something that needs divine inspiration to help you find a creative solution through. Be very specific
in your thoughts. For me personally, I will be working on resolving challenges presented
before me in an effort to relocate with the ability to maintain my bills and life while
simultaneously improving it for the better.

I am looking for inspiration and creativity to help me find the direction, by using the
dream-state to lay the groundwork needed.

You may enter a meditative state while thinking about your challenge, this is perfectly
fine and normal as you will begin to receive visions of symbols by letting your conscious
mind go and allowing your inner-self take over to give you ideas and directions.
When you are ready, dab a little of the anointing oil on your temples and third eye then
lay down for sleep.

You may find your dreamstate to be more active. Before your feet hit the ground in the
morning, write down the symbols you are able to recall from your dreaming. These will
help you find your way through your challenge and bring your goals to fruition.