Poet Kevin Young’s book The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (Graywolf Press, 2012), reviewed in The New York Times Book Review last Sunday (“Race, the Remix,” by David Shields, April 22, 2012, p. 15) is not a Pagan book per se. Rather, it is about Black Cultural-Life in the United States- with the idea that Blacks have been forced to adopt the stratagems and postures of the Trickster, in order to navigate and manage an oppressive White Culture, intent upon controlling and exploiting Black art, literature, and music. The theme of the Trickster (an Archetypal figure seen in Deities such as Loki, Coyote, Hermes, Puck, and Elegba) is hit with such regularity in the review as to stand out with particular force: “The trickster, Kevin Young says, is central to black culture”; “Young places the trickster near the axis of black American culture”; “Condescended to, suppressed, effaced, ripped off and covered, black artists have resorted throughout American history to subversive styles of artistic expression largely revolving around the ‘trickster’ as mask and music. How much of Young the Author is in the trickster tradition?”; “The curatorial trickster claims American language as black music,” with the “African-American trickster tradition” often ignored or downplayed. In the end, Mr. Young’s, and “the trickster’s desire,” is not to “replace white America (which, after all, the trickster’s black America helped construct),” but rather, to “remix” the music of America.
- Pixar announced this week that the second of the two films it has in production right now will be focussed on el Dia de los Muertos. Unfortunately, they have nothing slated for next year, and a dinosaur film set for 2014. And so we shan’t be seeing this Day of the Dead film until 2015.
- Here are three time-traveling fashion incantations from a contest over at Go Fug Yourself.
- Lastly, who wouldn’t want to play on a huge inflatable bouncy-castle version of Stonehenge?
Perhaps the single greatest historical factor with which modern Pagans and Witches have to grapple (even beyond the question, what was going on with Gerald Gardner?) is that of the Demonization-Campaigns of the Middle Ages Churches. (Seriously- why did Witchcraft, and Paganism, disappear so thoroughly in the medieval period, except through the deliberate, terrorist-onslaught of the medieval churches, both Catholic and Protestant?) Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (W.H. Freeman & Co, 1997) is a very intelligent dissertation upon Weird Things that people will believe in, and why; among other subjects, he takes up folks who believe in UFO abductions, in addition to those who deny Evolution (so-called “Creationists”) and those who deny the Holocaust (so-called “Holocaust-deniers”). Interestingly, he notes the same methodologies among those who deny Evolution and those who deny the Holocaust; as he is writing in 1997 (a little before the issue of Climate-Change really takes off), he does not address what might be fascinating similarities between the Evolution-denying set, the Holocaust-denying set, and the Climate-Change denying set. Be all this as it may: what interests me is Chapter 7, “Epidemics of Accusations,” which concerns “Medieval and Modern Witch Crazes.”
Less than a full-on review of the Burning Times period (admittedly, probably beyond the scope of Mr. Shermer’s book), this single chapter ponders medieval Witch-Hunting against such “Modern Witch Crazes” as the “Recovered Memory” Movement (the “Recovered Memory Movement” being both a “frightening parallel to the medieval witch crazes” and the phenomenon of the early 1990s, whereby people began to “recover” memories of childhood sexual abuse); Mr. Shermer also considers the “Satanic Panic Witch Craze” of the 1980s, when “thousands of Satanic cults were believed to be operating in secrecy throughout America, sacrificing and mutilating animals, sexually abusing children, and practicing Satanic rituals.”
The correspondences between the two phenomena, and the medieval Witch-Trials, are close and alarming: in regards to the “Satanic Panic Witch Crazes” of the 1980s, Mr. Shermer quotes experts who observe that many of the descriptions of Satanic Ritual-Abuse emanated from children, and were directed against adults (an aspect of many of the historic Witch-Cases, such as Salem); in many cases, these children’s disclosures were “influenced, coached, or pressured” by adults. The authorities cited by Mr. Shermer go on to suggest that the “evangelical Christian campaign against new religious movements” proved to be a “powerful influence encouraging the identification of satanic abuse.” (p. 108) (Pretty much as was the case in the Middle Ages.)
All three phenomena- the Satanic Ritual Panic, the “Recovered Memory” Movement, and the medieval Witch-Crazes- depend upon a “feed-back loop,” according to Shermer. In the “feed-back loop,” accusations and allegations generate sensation, often leading to more claims and accusations. The general mood grows more and more hysterical (frequently leading to the vilification and ostracism of the accused parties), “until the movement hits a critical peak of accusation, when virtually everyone is a potential suspect and almost no one is above suspicion.”
“Then the pendulum swings the other way. As the innocent begin to fight back against their accusers through legal and other means, the accusers sometimes become the accused and skeptics begin to demonstrate the falsity of the accusations.” (p. 100) In addition to well-describing the dynamic of the ’80s Satanic Panics and the ’90s Recovered Memory movements, this effectively characterizes the medieval Witch-Craze.
Shermer goes on to ponder the various theories offered by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, to explain the Burning Times. (p. 103) These range from Henry Lea’s theories in 1888 that the Craze was “caused by the active imaginations of theologians, coupled with the power of the ecclesiastical establishment” (surely a major factor, at least in the early development of Burning Times thinking). Thence: Marion Starkey (1963) and John Demos (1982) have considered the matter in psychoanalytic terms; Alan Macfarlane (1970) argued (with “copious statistics”) that the scapegoating of socially marginalized individuals played a huge part; H.C.E Midelfort (1972) theorized that Witchcraft-accusations arose from unresolved interpersonal conflicts; Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English (1973) made a correlation between Witchcraft-accusations and the suppression of the Wise-Woman/ Mid-Wife traditions; Linnda Carporael (1976) proposed an ingenious connection with the unwitting ingestion of hallucinatory substances; and Lederer (’69), Klaits (’85), and Barstow (’94) attribute the Craze to medieval misogyny and chauvinistic gender-politics. All are surely correct, to a degree: as Hans Sebald interjects, no explanation for the complicated business of the “medieval mass persecution” of Witches can be derived from a “monocausal frame”; rather, its solution must lie in a “multivariable syndrome.”
Shermer agrees, cautioning that “divers sociocultural theories can be taken to a deeper theoretical level by grafting them into the witch craze feedback loop”; all were components of the feedback loop, and all drove the system forward as they were fed in or out of the system.
Two other thoughts are interesting: sociologist Kai Erikson observed that, “Perhaps no other form of crime in history has been a better index to social disruption and change, for outbreaks of witchcraft mania have generally taken place in societies which are experiencing a shift of religious focus- societies, we would say, confronting a relocation of boundaries.” (p. 107) This is especially born out by the fact that the worst phase of the 1400s-1600s Burning Times period occurred just after the 1600s- the time when the disruption of the medieval period was undeniable, and the advent of the modern age unavoidable.
In another way, we can see the Witch-Hunting Scapegoating instinct at work, as we listen to anthropologist Marvin Harris (1974), who noted that the “principal result of the witch-hunt system was the poor came to believe that they were being victimized by witches and devils instead of princes and popes.” “Preoccupied with the fantastic activities of these demons, the distraught, alienated, pauperized masses blamed the rampant Devil instead of the corrupt clergy and the rapacious nobility.” (p. 107) As two of the internal components of the feedback loop include: the “social control of one group of people by another, more powerful group,” as well as the “need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere” (p. 101), the Witch-Hunt system explains not only the distraction by the medieval elite, of the medieval disadvantaged, away from the true cause of the misery of the medieval poor: it explains the “Witch-Hunting” of the Conservative sets today (exemplified by say, Fox News), of the so-called “Liberal Media-Elite,” intended to blind folks to the egregiously unequal social and financial policies that favor the more-monied classes.
Pondering the connections between “rumor-driven panics and mass hysterias,” Shermer finds the parallels between modern sex-abuse scandals and the Middle Ages Witch-Craze to be “eerie.” (p. 112) He cites The Satanism Scare by J. Richardson, J. Best, and D. Bromley (1991), which believed that public discourse about sexual abuse, Satanism, serial murders, and child pornography marked a “barometer of larger social fears and anxieties.” (p. 106) I personally think there is something to this, as I remember (as a kid) both the intense public fascination in the early ’70s with Satanism (seen in movies like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen); the serial murders of the Manson gang (I remember the Helter Skelter TV-movie was both incredibly controversial, as well as something that FREAKED me out); and the severe disillusionment with the government, brought to a head with the Viet Nam War and the Watergate Hearings: both deeply traumatic national events.
As to the Ritual Satanic Sex-Abuse scandals of the ’80s, which so alarming mirror medieval Witch-Hunts: in a weird way, it was like society began to practice for the shocking bolt when genuine allegations of sex-abuse started being made against the Catholic Church later in the ’90s, as was kind of the fascination with “recovered memories” of sex-abuse in the early ’90s.
- Essential reading: Valve’s Handbook for New Employees. I’m serious. It may not be Pagan, but egalitarianism in the workspace? Amazing.
- Loki (or, at least, the actor who plays Him) is surprisingly erudite
on the topic of superhero movies. - Here are a few more images of a 3D-printed sculpture of Yggdrasil emerging from it’s seed.
By the end of the 19th century, railway-access into New York City (only a few decades prior having been considered the ultimate in modern transportation) was deemed so insufficient as to require demolition, and reconstruction of, one of the main thorough-fares in and out of the city: Grand Central Station, situated on 42nd Street, at Park Avenue. This work, performed between 1903-1913, eventually necessitated the excavation of 2.8 million tons of bedrock; yet yielded (for being constructed in the early 1900s, when the Classical influence continued strong) a Neo-Classical building famed in 1914 for the largest sculptural-group then in the world (at 48 feet), surrounding Grand Central’s signature clock (the largest example of Tiffany glass in the world), complemented on one side by the Goddess Minerva; on the other, by the God Hercules; and in the middle, surmounting all of the Grand Central Railway: the God of Communication, Commerce, and most of all, Travel: Mercury.
To be inside Grand Central is an awe-inspiring experience; for such a busy place, it is surprisingly quiet. Due to the size of the terminal (275 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 125 feet high), the noise gets swallowed up by the space, and the environment can be almost meditative. For the Magickally-minded, there is a wonderful Microcosm/ Macrocosm dynamic at work, as the ceiling (the 125 feet high ceiling) is painted with a map of the Heavens, showing the Zodiac. This augments the Temple-like feel of the station; one wishes it were possible to conduct Magickal Ceremony inside, but this would probably alarm the security personnel. An interesting thing is that the ceiling-painting (apparently based upon a medieval astronomical map) depicts the stars backwards. The saving-grace explanation is that it is intended to portray the Gods’ view of the Heavens- but probably, no one noticed until too late that the Heavens had been painted in reverse. Also apparently, if one studies these things, the stars are a little “off” from their present positions; because of the use of a medieval map, the stars have shifted their positions, due to the precession of the equinoxes, since the Middle Ages.
Incredibly, there was a push in the late 1960s to tear down the jewel-like Grand Central, a marvel of early 20th century architecture (covered in the “Proposals for Demolition” section of the Wikipedia entry). Fortunately, no less a personality than Ms. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (a very famous New Yorker, as well as a gracious lady quite committed to artistic and historical preservation) got involved, and due hugely to her opposition, the plan was stopped, and an appalling act of civic vandalism averted. A few of Ms. Onassis’ eloquent words: “Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future?” Thank the Gods for that good woman: to this day, Grand Central serves as an example of the Neo-Classical in the early 1900s, and the God Mercury continues to hold open His arms in protection and fortune to the travelers who pass beneath His gaze, as they enter the curious combination of Ancient World Temple and modern railway-station.
The classic Lerner and Lowe musical Camelot is not so much about the Arthurian legends as it is about revolutionary new ideas and the struggle to bring them into the world. This Arthur is a reluctant warrior who, encouraged by his Merlin to “keep thinking,” seeks creative new answers to the futile system of battle, death, and justice-by-the-sword that stagnates his kingdom. Frustrated with “might makes right,” he introduces a world of equality fueled by a new maxim, “might for right,” and introduces the seeds of democracy into the his medieval world.
The musical opened in 1960, the year that John F. Kennedy won the presidency and, like Arthur, represented a young ruler filled with hopes of reform and who challenged his country with groundbreaking new ideas. Kennedy’s time as president coincided with the decade in which the idea of the “Age of Aquarius” was beginning to enter the popular consciousness. The youth of the day looked forward to an age of true equality, and end to war, and brotherly love that was promised by what they believed was this new astrological era.
In this sense, the Arthur of the musical and President Kennedy are pretty similar. Both presided over (perhaps overly) optimistic ages which inspired their citizens while irritating the upper classes. This is the premise that drives Mysterium Theater’s production of Camelot, which opened this weekend. This Camelot is set inside the Kennedy White House, paralleling the Aquarian optimism of the two famous rulers.
The concept works. The show combines the two periods. The set is a castle, Arthur wears a crown, and carries an impressive Broadsword as Excalibur, and the knights still joust. But the costumes are from the 60’s, Morgan LeFey is Marilyn Monroe, and the Beltane-inspired song “Lusty Month of May” is sung during a martini-guzzling key party.
As Arthur, Duane Thomas is genuine and thoughtful. He looks nothing like Kennedy, nor is he a physically imposing warrior-king, but he doesn’t need to be. His idealism is honest. He is inspired by his revolutionary ideas. He comes across as a philosopher king who is truly concerned for his people and willing to sacrifice raw power in order to establish real justice.
I rarely like Guenevere in any version of the Arthur legends. One way or the other, she seems to always come off shallow and Marie Antoinette-ish. Daina Baker Bowler avoids that track in her Jackie Kennedy inspired interpretation of the role. Her transformation from young, fearful princess to materialistic queen to tragic accidental destroyer of Camelot is satisfying and complete. Her expressions are real, her voice beautiful as it changes through the show, and her chemistry with both Arthur and Lancelot is tangible.
Robert Dudley carries a wonderful swagger as Lancelot. As he walks the line between his love for his king and his passion for his queen, the internal conflict comes off impressively. Erik Hjortnaes brings an appropriately slimy quality as Mordred, Arthur’s son and eventual bane. His devious performance is reminiscent of the Devil/Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees.
Keith Bush is an excellent bright spot as Arthur’s friend and confidant, Pellinore. He has more energy than anyone on stage, and his constantly humorous presence drives every scene that he is in, making his more serious work toward the end all that much more gripping.
Of course, neither the Arthur of this retelling nor John Kennedy were able to complete the work they so optimistically began. Arthur’s past comes back to destroy him, and Kennedy’s presidency was cut short by a sudden hail of bullet in Dallas. Still, their place in history is secure. Arthur’s quest for the Grail of his high ideals is legendary, and Kennedy remains respected, even by those who disagree with him.
Their Aquarian ideas lived beyond them. The Round Table’s symbolism of equality among all those who sit at it is firmly set in the popular mind, remaining a representation of the democratic ideas that the Arthur of the musical strives so hard to implant. Kennedy asked America to challenge its assumptions and work to put a man on the moon. Although he died, his challenge became reality by the end of the decade.
This version of Camelot doesn’t deify Arthur or Kennedy. It presents them both as real men with passions, dreams, and flaws. It shows us that dreamers aren’t always liked, and they don’t always succeed in their lifetimes, but unless you pull hard you will never get the sword out of the stone.
If you check out my friend Luckylicious’ latest Eat My Pagan Ass podcast, you will find him discussing our mutual friend Michael Lloyd’s upcoming book Bull of Heaven: the Mythic Life of Eddie Buczynski and the Rise of the New York Pagan (which was also covered in a Guest-Post on The Wild Hunt). Eddie was active on the Scene during the exciting time of the early ’70s, when hippie-culture was high, Gay Liberation was in its heady early days, and Neo-Paganism was starting its influence in America: all especially so in New York City, where lived the young Mr. Buczynski. Perhaps (I guess) the first person in Neo-Paganism to address the needs of the Homoerotic Pagan, Eddie founded the Minoan Brotherhood (an initiatory Magickal Tradition for Gay men), as well as the Minoan Sisterhood (a companion Tradition for Lesbians); both Traditions continue to this day. It is for this boldness in recognizing Queer Spirituality Paganism (in the early ’70s, or roughly when Sybil Leek was pondering the question of the Homosexual’s place in Witchcraft), that Michael (co-founder of the Between the Worlds Men’s Gathering) calls Eddie “the Gerald Gardner of the Gay Pagan community.” Since Eddie was busy on the early New York Pagan scene (he and his lover Herman Slater opened the Magickal Childe, one of the more memorable of NYC’s Witch-Stores), this book unfolds against the back-drop of 1970s New York Paganism as well. As much a history of the Pagan Movement in the Big Apple as it is about Eddie Buczynski, this book is being very eagerly awaited in certain circles; it is already being called the successor to Drawing Down the Moon, and indeed, Margot Adler provides the Foreword. Please be sure to read this book when it comes out, and in the meantime, please check out this Eat My Pagan Ass podcast.
It Takes A Witch is the first book in a new series of witchy murder mysteries. The tone is quite light, and the magic is similar to that found in Bewitched or Sabrina, the Teenaged Witch. The mystery in this particular novel is fairly typical of the genre, but Blake has a pretty deft touch with the romantic subplot. And so, unless cuteness triggers your gag-reflex, you’re likely enjoy the novel as a good, quick, breezy read.
Our heroine in this series is Darcy Merriweather, a recent divorcee who has moved with her sister, Harper, to a small, touristy village near (the-inevitable-default-setting: gah!) Salem. Their mother was from the village and they have learned from their Aunt Ve that their Mom had been a Wishcrafter, a type of witch who is able to grant wishes. Witch powers in this universe are strictly hereditary with lots of arbitrary rules enforced by the village Craft “Elder”. Darcy learns some of the nuances of those rules throughout the book as she practices her newly discovered craft. She really only has the one spell, but she has to learn when she is forbidden to grant a wish and when she must do so.
(Mild spoiler after the break)
Continue reading »
- Boing-boing posted up yet another gallery of tiny houses.
- The Fug Girls wrote about this dress that Taylor Momsen wore without even mentioning the large pentagram on it. Momsen is currently working with Marylin Manson.
- The picture is a photoshop, but Angelina Jolie has, indeed, agreed to star in a film centered on the antagonist from Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty
Once the medieval church assimilated Witchcraft to Devil-Worship in the 15th century, the stereotypical image of a Witch was that of a perverse, amoral, ghoul-like creature; after two hundred years, this stereotype appeared to have the solidness of oak. As James (the first Stuart king of England) was known as a proponent for the maligned view of Witches, play-writer Ben Jonson is very careful to indulge his Majesty’s prejudices when he puts up The Masque of Queens in 1609, at the royal court. Charles Manson and Jack the Ripper together had nothing on these Hags, who (as one can see from the copy of the play posted on The Holloway Pages) make their various entrances (p. 348) boasting of killing infants with a dagger, in order to gain their infant-fat; rifling the hanged corpse of a murderer for grotesque trophies; and killing a black cat for its brain. Demented and psychotic as the Hags undoubtedly are in their characterizations, there is a logic to the performance of their rite, and a layer to their presentation, that suggests the deliberate demonizing of something otherwise “real” in the culture. In describing the outfitting of the Hags (p. 345), Jonson indicates quite a bit of folklore-association going on in their costuming; they are “all differently attyr’d [attired]: some with Rats on their Head; some on their Shoulders; others with Ointment Pots at their Girdles; all with Spindles, Timbrels, Rattles, or other veneficall Instruments, making a confused noise, with strange Gestures.” Other than the “rats on the head” (surely one of the most unusual costume-directions in the history of theater), nothing about this presentation of Witches fails to conform to what we might imagine of early 17th century village Wise-Women- identified by their “ointment pots” worn on their belts (“girdles”); with the spindle of a spinning wheel; and with timbrels (tambourines), rattles, and other “veneficall” (for being associated with Witches) music-making instruments.
The fact that the Hags gather for a Witch-Ceremony, tricked out with rats on their heads, ointment-pots at their girdles, and with music-making instruments in their hands, indicates that rhythm and music-making were an important part of 17th century Witchcraft. Jonson goes on to describe how he “prescribed them [the Witches] their Properties of Vipers, Snakes, Bones, Herbs, Roots, and other Ensigns of their Magick, out of the Authority of ancient and late Writers.” Jonson wants to assure us that his Witches are as realistic as possible, so he carefully makes a point to tell us that he has consulted both “ancient” (meaning “Classical”) writers, as well as “late” ones (meaning, “more modern ones”) as “authorities” on the subject. In addition to vipers and snakes (possibly used in traditional English Witchcraft, but more likely, in my opinion, to be a grotesque detail of a kind with the “rats on the head”), Jonson’s Hags are presented with such Magick-Working devices as bones, herbs, roots, and other “ensigns of their Magick.” One notes a portrait based upon traditional elements- ointment-pots; bones, roots, and herbs; and musical-instruments- “Hagged up,” or made sensationalistic, by being combined with vipers, and rats worn as chapeaus.
Further insight into what Jacobean English culture considered “the Witches’ Craft” is seen in the fact that the Witches join in a collective, collaborative “Working”: they function as a coven (although they do not use that word). This Magickal dynamic is seen in other dramatic works, notably Macbeth and Middleton’s The Witch. One important element is missing, however: as soon as the Witches gather, “one of them missed their Chief.” Utilizing invocation, the Witches summon their Dame- or what we would term their “High Priestess.” (“Dame” being a medieval term intended to confer honor upon a lady as one high-ranking, the highest honor that the British Empire can bestow upon a female still being the title of “Dame,” akin to a male “Knight.”) Jonson assures us of the habit of making some Witch of the coven the “Dame Witch,” or what we would call the “High Priestess,” in somewhat confusing form. As the English of the 1500s-1600s are excessively well-educated in Latin, they tend to accept the Romans as cultural authorities; moreover they don’t seem to make much distinction between Classical Witchcraft and that of their own English milieu: as Jonson demonstrates in his Notes (e) to The Masque of Queens (p. 345, in Holloway), when he says that, “amongst our vulgar Witches [meaning the 'lower-class Witches' of his own time], the honor of Dame (for so I translate it) [he is here referring to the Latin writers, explaining that he translates their Latin term for 'High-Ranking Female' as 'Dame'] is given with a kind of preeminence to some special one at their meetings.” As his authority, he cites Delrio, quoting Apuleius.
In essence, what Jonson is saying is, that both “our own vulgar Witches” (the Witches of his time, stereotypically thought of as uncouth and of the lower orders), and the Classical Witches, gave “with a kind of preeminence” the title “Dame” to “some special one” when they met in a Witches’ Meeting. He is basically describing a High Priestess, a practice otherwise seen in the leadership-role assumed by Hecate in Middleton’s The Witch, as well as in an authentic Elizabethan Witch-Case- that of the Windsor Witches, who seemed genuinely to have formed themselves into a coven (although that word is not used), with “some special one” acknowledged as the “Mistress-Witch” to the rest (a “Mistress” being the same as a “Dame,” both words meaning “women whose orders one must obey”).
In short order, the Dame appears, and is She a sight. (If you pursue Jonson’s Notes, you will see that he has modeled Her upon Classical depictions of Witches, say, with snakes intertwined, a la Medusa, in Her hair. But soft: She gives an Invocation to the Powers of Witchcraft, which the Elizabethan/ Jacobean theater-going types recognized as essential in the Performance of the Witch’s Arts- because that is what Medea does, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (held by all in the time to be among the greatest of the Latin writers). According to Jonson (p. 349), this speech boasts “all the power attributed to Witches by the Ancients; of which, every Poet (or the most) doth give some.”
In this speech (and in imitation of Medea), the Dame does something very interesting from the point-of-view of Witches; She pauses to venerate the Moon. It’s a little difficult to tell if this is purely something derived from Classical literature, or if venerating the Moon was something that native English Witches did as well. On the one hand, A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains so many Moon-references as seemingly to make plain an English culture-observation (at least, if not outright veneration) of the lunar orb, and I believe that I am right in saying that both Anglo-Saxon and Celtic culture at least suggest Moon-Worship.
“And thou three-formed Star, that on these Nights art only powerful, to whose triple Name thus we incline, once, twice, thrice, and thrice the same.”
In other words, at this time of the Full Moon (who of all the Heavens art the “Only” Powerful “these Nights,” or the Nights of Her Majesty’s Brilliance, Goddess of the Night Skies), the Witches gather to work their secretive Craft: stopping first to honor Her Glory, by bowing, first three times- then “thrice the same.”
The Full Moon presents an interesting association for us: we tend to associate the Full Moon with Diana, Luna, Selena- maybe Isis (Heathen Traditions, I understand, consider the Moon as a God, and the Sun as a Goddess). However- to Jonson’s mind (and perhaps to the general mind of early 17th century England), the Full Moon represented Hecate (perhaps, again, because of Ovid’s Medea, who specifically invokes Hecate at the time of the Full Moon). In Note (c), Jonson refers to Hecate, called Trivia and Triformis, “believed to govern in witchcraft; and is remembered in all their Invocations.” As authorities, he cites Virgil, Seneca, and Lucan.
In fictionalizing a Witches’ Rite, Jonson draws upon the Classic writers for inspiration, and because Elizabethan/ Jacobean England was used to deferring to the Ancients as experts. However, the Rite that he begins to assemble at this point (one hopefully agrees) represents nothing so much as an Energy-Raising Ceremony, punctuated and energized by deliberately intensifying energies, assisted by rhythmic chanting, hand-clapping, and (so we were told at the very beginning) musical-instruments.
This is a procedure not encountered in Classical literature (that I know of); assuming that it is of English (Celtic-Anglo-Saxon) derivation: the best explanation that I can think of for performing such a (mutually cooperative) ritual, is that offered by Gerald Gardner in Witchcraft Today- that Witches believe that they can generate an Energy- a Witch-Power- out of their bodies, and that this Energy-Raising is beneficial to Witchcraft.
The thing is, that Witches consistently act out the same Ceremony, in three notable Jacobean plays: The Masque of Queens, Macbeth, and Middleton’s The Witch. Each time, the best explanation (to my mind) for, why do they keep doing this?- Is, as Mr. Gardner stated: to raise their Witch-Energy.
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