"The further I go, the sorrier I am about how little I know:
It is this that bothers me the most."
Claude Monet
ReCreating a New Religion
As I was wandering through our local mega book stores, I decided to check out what the Occult section had to offer. While dodging the astrology, numerology...rolling my eyes at the Prophet woman's lost teachings of Jesus...and becoming exasperated with all the UFO books of alien abductions, I came to the conclusion that most of this isn't what I want in the first place. I want to read about MAGICK, WITCHCRAFT and the HISTORY of the religion. I just can't take anymore "How To" books, now I want to create my own. This is when I realized that I am no longer a New Witch...I guess I would be in the Journeyman stage. I have learned the basics and am ready to move on. Don't get me wrong, I like Cunningham and RavenWolf; but they no longer offer what I crave...
I am a historian by heart. More like...a social historian. I picture history as a grainy black and white photo that slowly turns to brilliant color with every aspect I study. I want to know how children were raised, what the religious aspects of society was, what were the laws, who ruled and what did women do. I crave this knowledge with the deep seated need of a historical junkie. I am getting a degree in this field and am facing more graduate study degrees in my future. History is facinating, repetitive and complex. The more things change...et al.
Now, while on this line of thought, I began to analyze what books were being offered. Manuals, "How To's" and a smattering of Witta, Wicca, Pow-Wow, Native American all claimed a history of their religion. "Fascinating!" I think, and flip to the corresponding chapters...only to be disapointed. Maybe I expect too much, but a continual rehashing the Salem Witch Trials as a history as well as the Inquisition gets to be old....FAST! Were is the other stuff?
It is this other stuff that made me realize I am not celebrating an old religion. I am recreating a comfortable hope of what was the past. In the centuries of the Pagan religions...what happened? Did it only consist of what the Christians did? Didn't they at one time live in peace? What happened to change all that? Were did all the Goddesses go?
It becomes too complex of a problem to toss all the history into such a small space as an essay, but there are a couple of points I would keep in mind when I become troubled that I may not be doing ritual correctly. The first thing to remember is...these people of history were poor. Some were below destitute. To purchase a sword, athame and bolline to do ritual would cost these people years of earned money...and might take a lifetime to achieve. Herbs were not so bad, these were cultivated from local fields and forests, and their lore was much better than what we have now. But if you wanted to create oils, candles and incense...that took hard currency. If you were lucky, you raised bees for the wax, but most people would have to buy the wax, molds and other containers to place these expensive items in. Even today, these items are considered luxuries. What do you think it cost the local cunning woman who lived in the forest?
The adage to "Keep Silent" seems to be a collective memory remnent of the Christian Inquisition. This silence adage has become a type of magickal "law" which has been used by covens to keep magickal knowledge silent. It is used as an honor system, to keep what a coven has learned safe as well as private. Other reasoning is that by keeping silent, what magickal effect/affect one is trying to achieve will not be negated by anothers thoughts. I personally do not believe this. I don't tell what I have done because half the time I can't explain why it is even working! I just know that what I set out to achieve...succeeds. What powerful thoughts we humans must hold if we can cancel out physical and magickal "laws". I equate it to an airliner passanger thinking good thoughts...and those thoughts are keeping the plane in the air. It makes us feel better, but does not actually hold true.
The other issue I want to find out about is the concept of the Book of Shadows. First off, what peasant could afford paper? Not to mention...they were illiterate. The church held a strangle hold on learning...usually limiting it to songs, psalters and the Bible. If you were a male, you might find some kind monk to teach you your letters, but a female did not face becoming learned until almost the 1500's. Exceptions were princesses who's fathers were more forward thinking than their religious counterparts but the rule was that women could not read and write. Were did the Book come from? Keeping such a damaging text lying around ones house was the same as if a flashing neon sign was lit over the owner's home, so I want to know if these ancient Witches really did have Books of Shadows. If there was a coven, who kept the book (of course we come back to the concept of keeping silent) and which Witch did the writing? I want to to know!
So, the next time you come across books that claim to be able to teach you everything you will need to know about Witchcraft...Take it with a grain of salt. Quartz wands aside, we really do not have much to go on about this religious path we are on. Every day, we create something wonderful and new out of the remnents of the old and unknown. Gardner forced the issue into the open, but whomever trained him had to rely on oral traditions now written down...and mistakes can be made. So,the next time you are casting your Esbat circle, think of what your religious ancestor might have done and bow your head to their determination that this religion we are recreating did not die.
To flip through the pages of my BOS faster...
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What is this??
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Brightest of Blessings