[SIZE=+2] Witchcraft in America [/SIZE] NOTE: The following article is excerpted in its entirety from the March, 1988 issue of _Criminal Intelligence Report_ ("America's Only Professional Crime News Magazine"), pages 4-7. The February and March issues include a remarkably lengthy "enemies list" (which will eventually be scanned or re- keyed as SUSPECTS.CIR); these lists are accompanied by articles entitled "Satanism and Crime" (which will eventually be available here as S-CRIME.CIR) and the following article. - J. Brad Hicks Sysop WeirdBase, FidoNet 1:100/523 MagickNet Echo Conference Moderator Data: 1-314-741-2231, 2400 baud ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ W I T C H C R A F T I N A M E R I C A ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Since our last isue, David Brom, 16, of Rochester, Minnesota who is described as a serious Church going youth, killed four members of his family with an axe. CIR has learned that teenagers in the Rochester area have been frequenting caves where detailed drawings of satanic emblems adorn the walls. Also, Brom had been reading satanic literature and had become so attracted to hard rock that the day of the slayings he had shaved the sides of his head and fashioned is hair into the spiked punk style. According to Sandy Gallant of the San Francisco police department's intelligence division, who is a recognized expert on Satanic crime, there is a relationship between hard rock music and occult violence. Because of what is obviously becoming a disturbing trend in our society, we have collected the following background material for your examination. The current growth of witchcraft (the craft of the _wicca_ or wise ones) can be dated to 1951, when the last of the British witchcraft laws was repealed, and to the subsequent publication in 1954 of _Witchcraft Today_ by Gerald Gardner, a self-proclaimed witch from the Isle of Man in Britain. Gardner's book signaled to the world that witches still existed. His work was based upon the thesis of Margaret Murray that witchcraft had existed since pre-Christian times in small, scattered occult groups practicing the old pagan religion and hidden in fear of persecution. Most contemporary witches have accepted Murray's historical thesis, but the legitimacy of her conclusions is now a matter of intense debate in the occult community. There can be little doubt that various, mostly agricultural religions existed in Europe at the time that the Christian Church was in the process of becoming the dominant religious form of Europe. There is also little doubt that in the 1400's, the church turned its Inquisitional powers on something called witchcraft. What was described as witchcraft was a mixture of the local religions, a number of things the church wanted to supress, and some things wholly in the imagination of the early inquisitors. It was during this era that various new images of witchcraft, particularly the one connecting it with Satan worship, were published. Many men, women and even children died in the witch scare that gripped Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the face of the myth of satanic witchcraft, some genuine Satanists and even genuine witches arose. The most famous incident was the Black Mass scandal which rocked the court of Louis XIV and led to the arrest of more than three hundred persons. In the 1670's, Madame LaVoisin, one of Louis XIV's mistresses, suspected she was losing Louis' affection and hired a priest to say Black Masses, hoping thereby to win back the king. Some of the masses included the killing of babies; some of the masses were offered on Madame LaVoisin's nude body. Louis imprisoned or banished the participants in the heinous affairs. Contemporary witchcraft bears little resemblance to the witchcraft described in the literature of the witchcraft trials. Going beyond the medieval image, modern witches try to separate themselves from any connection with Satanism. Rather than reacting to Christianity (i.e., being anti- Christians), they see themselves as an alternative faith (like Buddhism or Islam). As magicians, they have selected the old faiths of Europe with which to identify. Just what are the elements of wicaan [sic] faith? This question is not an easy one to answer, there being a wide variety of definitions in the literature. First, witchcraft is a religion. There is much more to the adherents' faith than just magick. Witchcraft offers a world-view, a relationship to deity and an ethical code. Of course, magick and psychic development are a part of the religion; much of the ritual and energy of witches is spent in their practice. "Witchcraft is the raising and manipulation of psychic power," says one witch. Wicca is polytheist, finding its pantheon in various European pre- Christian nature religions. The prime deities ar the Goddess and God, usually represented as the Triple Goddess and Horned God. The triple aspects of the Goddess are maiden, mother, and crone. There are different explanations of the origin of these gods, although most agree that the Goddess is ascendent in modern cultic expressions. Psychic development, besides being training for magick, is also for communion with the deity. (The Horned God was connected with Satan by medieval witch-hunters, and Satan has been pictured since with a goatee and cloven hoofs.) The two essential books of the witch are the grimoire and the book of shadows. The grimoire is the book of spells and magical procedures. The best known grimoiries are medieval: the _Greater Key of Solomon the King_ and _The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage_. The book of shadows is the traditional book of rituals. According to custom, it is copied by hand by each individual witch, and thus no two copies are alike. The basic organization of witches is the coven, though there is also an associational tie between covens of like belief and practice, especially where one coven has broken off from another and owes its initiation to the other. Such a relationship exists in the Gardnerian covens. The coven consists of 13 people (an optimum number which may vary from four to twenty) who meet regularly to practice witchcraft. The regular meeting of the coven is called an esbat; but eight times a year there are seasonal festivals, sabbats. The most famous festival is October 31, Halloween. Others include Candlemas or Oimelc (February 2), May Eve or Beltane (April 30), August Eve or Lammas (August 1), and the lesser sabbats - the two solstices (June 22 and December 22) and the equinoxes (March 21 and September 21). The eight festivals are reflected in the common practice of publishing witch-oriented periodicals eight times a year. Most covens have both a basic initiation and higher initiations which are reserved for potential and actual priests and priestesses, who are the coven leaders. There are usually three degrees which require a year and a day between each initiation. Work within the coven is done with the magick circle, a circle nine feet in diameter, drawn on the floor or ground. Magick is done within the circle, which functions both for protection and concentration. Within the circle are placed the various magical items. They include the _athame_, a ritual knife; the _pentacle_, a disc-shaped talisman; a chalice; and a sword. These items vary from coven to coven. The _athame_ is the most ubiquitous. Many covens worship in the nude (i.e., skyclad); but in most, street clothes or ritual robes are worn. When the robe is worn it is bound with a cord, the color of which designates the degree of initiation. The work of the coven covers all religious practices (psychic healing and problem-solving playing a big part) and includes hand fasting (marriage). Witches share with all magicians a belief in reincarnation and the manipulative world-view. They also place belief in the power of spells. They cast spells for themselves and others, for their own betterment (financially, sexually) and, on rare occasions, against someone else. For most witches, the magical world-view is tempered by a poetic-mystical appreciation of nature. In their writings are numerous references to ecology, being natural and, in a few cases, vegetarianism. For most, acceptance of the gods is a poetic expression of attunement with the forces of life. AFRICAN WITCHCRAFT Voodoo, the major folk religion of Haiti, is an African form of magick and witchcraft mixed with New World elements, complete with the ruling mother goddess, a pantheon of lesser deities (correlated to specific human needs), a psychic ritual and a manipulative world-view. Voodoo has a significant history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries particularly in the Creole country. In the nineteenth century, Dr. John and, later, Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen of New Orleans, openly flaunted their magical powers in public. They were followed by Dr. Alexander and Lou Johnson. For a number of reasons, modern witchcraft practice has had little input from voodooism, apart from the romantic aura of the word. This lack of intercourse can be traced to a number of elements, the same that have prevented many books on voodoo from appearing. Voodoo is not a literary religion; this source material must be gathered directly from practitioners. Practitioners are few in number and hard to find. The are mostly members of the black community or recent immigrants from the Caribbean. The latter often have a language problem.
