Unfamiliar Subjects 1

After completing my AP Research on the pagan faith, Wicca, I sit back and realize just how much of my research I couldn’t put into the project. So through these blogs, I’ll be able to share so much of the Occult information that I’ve learned.

Wicca is believed to have its origins in the Stone Age. The first Witches, being Shamans, practiced something called “hunting magic”, where animals were magically manipulated and the event of the hunt was celebrated. As Gerald Gardner, the Witch-historian I researched, wrote about these old Witches, “a Stone Age cult which began by practicing hunting magic, and had found that the magic which affect animals could be used to affect human beings, and to attempt to cause events to occur.”(MoW). These events were mental manipulations that made it easier to hunt animals. As I was reading, what stuck out to me was that both animals and people could be affected by magic. In the same book, a page later, Gardner writes about how the man of the Stone Age had no metal tools, so one ritual was to dress as an animal and lure a herd, of whatever was hunted, over a cliff. That practice, Gardner calls magic. Another way that animals were manipulated with magic was by taming them, “the Horse Whisperers in Ireland, who… could tame the most savage horse by simply whispering to it… in Scotland there was a sort of mystical secret society known as the Horseman’s Word among farm servants… The secret taught in this society or cult was that men and animals were brothers, of the same stock, and should be thought of and treated as brothers. I think something like this was believed and practiced by the Horse whispers,”(WT). Although taming, or mind control of people if you want to call it that, is not explicitly written about in Gardner’s books he does write about the opposite in two of them. In this ritual, where a witch would play some instrument, he gives a harp and drum as examples, at a slower tempo then more rapidly would then result in the victims that listen to the music to become violent.

In one book Gardner writes about this happening in a fictional scenario, and in the other he writes about his personal experience of being the victim. However, there are other uses for this magical manipulation of the mind. In another of Gardner’s books, he writes about making someone believe that they aren’t in pain, “strive to make them believe they are getting better, install in them happy thoughts… say, ‘The pain is going”, he will believe you and the pain will really get less, but you must ever say so with conviction… if you can fix his mind so that he believes you, it is true.”(BAM). So for better or for worse, people and animals can be manipulated with magic. The instance last mentioned is meant to heal a patient. By what Gardner has written, then there might be a way to use this same helpful manipulation on animals as well.

However, there are deeper connections between man and animal in the greater rules of magic. Another similarity written about is the use of blood in magic. Gardner writes that blood can be used for more power in a ritual, but witches don’t need to use blood in their rituals. “The blood is the life…any Living being is a Storehouse of energy… At the death of the animal this energy is liberated suddenly.”(BAM) and “witches do not use the blood of sacrificed animals, birds, or any other living things in their rites”(MoW). It’s not a new idea to use blood within spiritual practices. Those that paid attention in history class would recall that the Incans used animal sacrifices and the Aztecs used human sacrifices. Animal sacrifices are also an old Biblical practice.

Though what about the power and energy mentioned earlier? As written, all living things have, what witches call, ‘Power’ within them and that power is necessary to enact anything magical. Doreen Valiente, a Wicca high priestess, wrote on what power was and where it came from. “this mysterious energy as mana, translated simply as ‘power’… This power is directable by the human will and imagination.” And that power is found, “a kind of invisible influence emanating from all living things… This power is said to emanate from witches’ bodies;”(RoW). That further extends to people and animals, and as Valiente describes, perhaps even plants.

This power within people and animals could allude to why their blood could be used for more power within a ritual. Within Valiente’s writing, which expands on Gardner’s because she joined the faith after him, she writes about animals and people working together in Witchcraft as a sort of servitude, “Witches had ‘familiars’. These could be either actual animals or birds, or a discarnate spirit. In either case, the familiar assisted the witch in divination and in casting spells… These are very like the ‘guide’ of the Spiritualist… animals can have more love, faithfulness and trustworthiness than many humans. To the witch, all life is one in nature… some animals have strong psychic powers and can even, like some humans, be mediumistic.”(RoW). Now take this with a grain of salt, because it may seem so, but Valiente is not claiming that one form of life is superior to another. If you take a moment, you’ll realize that animals are good creatures to tell your secrets to because who will they tell them to? In all seriourness there has been research comparing animals to humans. For example, Chimps mourn their dead. However, given what Gardner and Valiente have written on these connection between people and animals, it leaves more questions than answers. Can animals perform magic? Which animals are more magical than others? Do animals believe in a higher power? I suppose that the more you know about something, the more you realize what you don’t know.

High Magic’s Aid(HMA) – Gareld B. Gardner, 1949
Witchcraft Today(WT) – Gerald B. Gardner, 1954
The Meaning of Witchcraft(MoW) – Gerald B. Gardner, 1959
Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical(BAM) – Gerald B. Gardner
The Rebirth of Witchcraft(RoW) – Doreen Valiente, 1989