Quotes

Against a scholarly tradition that has not chosen to see this passage [from
Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar] in this way, I find the sinister, diabolical creatures who appear in the first two dreams– dark, large, and bloodthirsty– difficult to disassociate from Christianity’s interpretation of Óðinn, a cross between the old pre-Christian god and the satanic figure of medieval Catholicism. Frequently referred to in the noun phrase ‘the devil Óðinn’ (e.g.,
dyeffuolen Oden), the figure is neither wholly Christian nor wholly pagan by the close of the Middle Ages. In one post-Reformation Swedish source, for example, Óðinn has retained many of his heathen characteristics, but in a manner also consistent with his increasing identification with the devil of Christianity, he is everywhere associated with the color black: he visits humans accompanied by big black dogs and servants on black horses, riding in a coach drawn by black horses, all with eyes that burned like fire.

Pleasure then pain? Why must it be this way? Intoxicating nightmare. Driven by storms, vows of silence, maddening rush … Rancid under the spell of mockery I fled for the hills – basking in a frothing sea of night. For years I war with demons in my sleep, pillaging loud than softly: blasphemous change in seasons too subtle to detect. Mineral mind announcing tortures from below – burning temple, original domain – gastric prehensile of defecating logic. First my insides then my skin. I sacrifice it all to monstrous thresholds; idyllic ruptures in the bellicose moment, rending from an ancient source the will to live again …

Within the lore and shifting forms of the witches’ Devil may we find Lucifer the light bearer, the hunters betwixt the worlds – Herne, Odin and Woden, the Otherworld Faery King, antecessor of the Wise – Cain; born of Eve and the Serpent Lucifer, and the fiery Old Goat Azazel is he.

Thinking of our ancestors as less advanced or intelligent is just as farfetched a notion as romanticizing people today who look or live different from ourselves.

Witchcraft is, and was, not a cult for everyone. Unless you have an attraction to the occult, a sense of wonder, a feeling that you can slip for a few minutes out of the world into the world of faery, it is of no use to you.

Congress with the Devil became a popular part of sabbat mythology, but testimonies like the vivid one of Isobel Gowdie suggest that we cannot write this off as merely the exaggeration of the interrogators. There are simply too many details here that an interrogator would never think to enquire about, Isobel has provided more than a simple answer to a question: ‘yes I copulated with the Devil’, she provides us with a rich narrative of the experience.

There is no greater defence against the grim, uncompromising wasteland of the late capitalist world than the unshakeable awareness that it will end and you will not.

Witchcraft is, and was, not… for everyone. Unless you have an attraction to the occult, a sense of wonder, a feeling that you can slip for a few minutes out of the world into the world of faery, it is of no use to you.