There is a marked difference between funny/snarky but above all instructive giving of information (specifically in the “occult community”) that happens on tumblr versus the holier than thou one-upmanship bullshit and trying to make your peers look stupid because you don’t have fuck-all going on in your life that happens on this site.
I apologize for my part in creating this atmosphere by not explaining my motivations more clearly and being blasé about calling out people for a variety of things.
I can’t think of a single thing I’ve said that I regret or a single person who I’ve called out in error, but I could have done those things in a perhaps more constructive way.
I am also guilty. There are some great magicians here I have been pissy with and I regret it.
This is an interesting article I came across, offering a different perspective – someone coming from witchcraft and incorporating other elements in time. I explored and am exploring traditional witchcraft after working in ceremonial and hermetic practices first. Love seeing good discussion on these topics!
Agreeing with the article, working with spirits in a cosmology does not necessitate belief in the exoteric religion of the cosmology. As is noted here, Saints usually are older than the Christian religion that stole them away- its an interface to that spirit, one of the benevolent dead that was able to a cohesive entity after death and who has been working with the living for potentially thousands of years. Also, when working with spirits, in this case celestial and infernal, use the tool set and tech most applicable to the work. Find ways of communicating to ancestors in ceremonial language they understand. See what comes with communication. If a practice is not to your liking, do not engage again but always respect the spirits involved. You can banish, admonish and dismiss them, yet be respectful.
There are a few authors I would recommend to read if curious about medieval witchcraft and how it intersects at times with esoteric Christian belief and local pagan practices to evolve into the something new – sometimes by tradition and sometimes for survival. From these anthropological books, we get access to primary text exploring these beliefs. Yes, they are colored from the bias of the writers, in this case Vatican Italian Inquisitors, but they do not harm these witches, usually only tell them to not accept payment for the work – something I found fascinating and totally divergent from what happened in Spain and later in the Americas. To learn more about the
Benandanti
, the Malandanti
, agrarian witchcraft cults of the alps, why the local goddesses were over written (terrible thing to lose to male priest writers) and just referred to “Diana”, being born with the Caul, souls leaving the body to fight demons for the crops on the ember days, astral warfare for the fate of crops by “good” witches and “bad” witches check out the following( all have reliable english translation when needed):
The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries – Carlo Ginzberg (Italian)
Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age – Éva Pócs (Hungarian)
The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic – Thomas Hastis (American, expands on Ginzberg’s work in depth with more modern understanding of the practice)
This was a hard lesson for me but I eventually came to terms with it. Helps that I have a cousin who is a saint.
According to a common definition, animism is the belief that ‘everything has spirit’. You hear people talk about ‘the spirit of the tree’ or ‘the spirit of the river’.
This might make it sound as though animists believe that there is a spirit entity attached to, say, a tree, that is somehow separate. An inhabitant of the spirit world that looks after the tree.
That’s not how I see it. The spirit of a tree is the deepest reality of the tree itself. It reveals itself in the shape of its branches, in its flowers and fruits. It is the tree in all its aliveness, connected to the soil that holds it and the air that feeds it.
The spirit of the tree is also part of the spirit of the place where it grows. Each locality is filled with spirit, which is made up of the life and presence of everything there.
If the tree is old, if it has shared in the life of that place for a long time, it may have become a guardian. Its spirit will be very noticeable as part of the spirit of place, like a repeating melody in a piece of music, or a dominant colour in a painting.
But everything there, from the tiniest pebble to the quality of the light, contributes to the spirit of the place. It all sings together of the magic of life as it expresses itself in that particular place.
The room you are in right now has its own spirit. If it is your room, your own spirit will have created much of it, choosing objects and furniture according to your taste and personality.
Each of those objects, the materials they are made of, the fabric of the building and its history also contribute to the spirit of your room.
I am writing this in the tiny flat we have made in our house while it is being renovated. Fire is burning in the wood stove. Some washing is drying next to it. The oven is cooking our dinner. My husband is doing something on his own laptop. This is the house he grew up in, and we are still living with some of the furnishings his parents left behind. The spirit of this room has many stories to tell.
What spirits are sharing your space right now? How do they combine to make up the spirit of the place? How can you acknowledge them?
(picture from pixabay.com)
Reblogging this as a prelude of things to come. Old Frater T will be starting a new blog soon (in addition to Scroll of Thoth). Watch for it!
