Category Archives: occult art

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The Meaning of Witchcraft

Around two decades ago I moved from Brighton on the south coast of England to rural North Devon. I recall searching online in an effort to learn about the place where I’d decided to raise my family and put down roots. Through this research I discovered the tale of the ‘Bideford witches’. Their story, the tale of the last people of England to be executed for the crime of witchcraft, haunted me. The trial of 1682, in common with many others, was the result of a perfect storm of factors and, like most witch trials of the early modern period, was far from a rural mob lynching. Rather, the Bideford witch trial unfolds at a time when our modern society is beginning to take shape, one in which both the inception and execution of the witch-hunt are led by the then cultural elites. 

Soon after my arrival in North Devon I was among a group of occultists who performed a ritual in memory of those three executed women; Mary Trembles, Susannah Edwards and Temperance Lloyd. We processed through the town on a rainy day, laying flowers at places these ladies would have known; the steep lane in which the Devil was said to have appeared to one of them, and the medieval bridge which spans the turbulent river Torridge. Our ceremony is documented in my book Magick Works. The observant reader will notice that the cover of the book shows a red rose of the type we offered. The artwork also includes the seals of the Pomba Gira spirits, beings often associated with the outcast, the dispossessed and with ‘fallen’ women. One material result of this ritual was the painting that adorns my living room by Greg Humphries entitled ‘Southwestern Arrow’ also known as ‘Truth and Reconciliation’.

Many years later I found myself working alongside colleagues in the local museum installing a display about the Bideford trial. Our installation was opened to coincide with the publication of a new book The Last Witches of England: A tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition by John Callow of the University of Suffolk. At the end of this page there is a link to the interview I filmed with John on the occasion of his book launch at The Burton Art Gallery and Museum. I was pleased to assist John with his research and honoured to see a quote from Magick Works in a chapter where he discusses the legacy of the trial. The Last Witches of England is both an engaging page-turner of a read, as well as a landmark text in the study of the Bideford case and its wider implications.

Pondering an orb at The Burton Art Gallery & Museum with curator Nicole Hickin and author John Callow

The word ‘witch’ has a multiplicity of meanings, many of which are elegantly defined in Ronald Hutton’s masterfully and wide ranging book The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present. As Ronald explains, for the vast majority of its history ‘witch’ meant a person who deployed malicious magic. This evil supernatural power might be enacted through the agency of the animal-shaped familiar spirits of English witch trials. Alternatively, on the European mainland, witches were believed to cast malevolent spells as agents of an underground satanic conspiracy, which met at blasphemous sabbats to plot the overthrow of the Christian State.

The narratives behind witch-hunting, such as who gets accused of being a witch, vary across time and culture. That’s the reason the Bideford museum installation includes a black mirror, beneath which visitors may read the following:

Black mirror
Black mirrors, crystal balls and other reflective surfaces are traditionally used for ‘scrying’; the practice of looking into an object in the hope of detecting significant messages or visions.
In many places witches are imagined as older women. However, in other locations people persecuted as witches may be predominantly male (Russia and Iceland), red-haired (medieval Europe), LGBTQ+ (Tanzania), albino (Southern Africa), or children (Nigeria).
Sometimes wealthy people are accused of being witches, more commonly the poor are singled out.
Our reflection in the black mirror might remind us that potentially anyone could be accused of being a dangerous witch.
Even you.

Black Mirror

The black mirror on the case was actually manufactured by a witch, but a witch in the modern sense of the word. Levannah Morgan is one of the most well-respected members of the witchcraft community in Britain. The depth of her practice is beautifully conveyed in her book A Witch’s Mirror: The Craft of Magic released by Nikki Wyrd’s publishing house The Universe Machine. This much sought after text, out of print since the first edition of 2013, will be a valuable addition to the library of experienced and aspiring witches alike. The new edition contains glorious full colour photographs of the magical objects that Levannah creates and an invitation for readers to discover their own creative approach to magic..

This modern conception of witchcraft is very different from its previous malign meanings. Levannah Morgan writes:

What is witchcraft? Witchcraft is worshipping the Old
Gods on a moonlit night, on a high tor on Dartmoor. Witchcraft
is tying nine knots in a red thread. Witchcraft is walking in the
spirit world. Witchcraft is catching the moon in a mirror.
Witchcraft is collecting rowan berries. Witchcraft is living with
familiar spirits. Witchcraft is making a circle of holed stones.
Witchcraft is dancing with the Horned God. Witchcraft is
sitting on a deserted beach as the tides ebb and flow. Witchcraft
is the oldest thing there is. Witchcraft is all of these things and
much more.

While the meaning of ‘witchcraft’ varies across time and culture, there are undoubtedly points of contact between the notion of witchcraft understood as malefica and witchcraft in the modern Pagan sense. One of these is the feminine or female quality of witchcraft; with women being understood, particularly in early modern European cultures, as inherently sinful; tainted with unruly wildness and sexuality, and therefore to be commonly excluded from religious office and temporal power. In contrast, modern forms of neopagan witchcraft often celebrate the dark, the mysterious, the feminine, and accordingly depict the sacred as a Goddess and in those circles women often take a leading role.

Another relationship is perhaps a sense of solidarity felt by modern witches for victims of ancient, historic and indeed modern witchcraft persecutions. The social processes whereby unfounded accusations, whether of impoverished, abandoned women (as in the Bideford case) or of modern Pagans (as in ‘Satanic Panic’ phenomena) in both cases can lead to exclusion, scapegoating and to violence.

These days, whilst witch-hunts may be framed in language other than of the Biblical injunction ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’, an identical process of false allegations and cultural othering is played out again and again. Certainly we need systems, services and cultures in place where actual harms can be disclosed, where people can be safeguarded and appropriate action taken, but we need also be mindful of the witch-hunting pattern, whatever new vocabulary it comes clothed in.

While witch-hunting seems common to many cultures (though by no means all, as Ronald Hutton’s book explores) there are are ways in which we might mitigate this behaviour. We might, for instance, insist on the requirement for verifiable evidence rather than relying only on hear-say or, as in the Salem trials, ‘spectral evidence’. (As an example of the importance of evidence in the legal process check out this early article on this blog to discover how this requirement changed the course of the witch-hunts in 17th century Spain.)

A second strategy is to consider the possibility that the vociferous accuser may be mentally unwell, deluded, or simply a bully attempting to bolster their social significance within society, often at the expense of a minority community. (Making false allegations against marginalised groups, and occasionally elites, is a common social process. The conflation of Jews with witches in early modern Europe is one example of this.)

A third, also important in relation to the Basque witch trials, is that it helps to involve someone from outside a community to evaluate what’s going on. (The relative absence of a functioning judiciary during the English Civil War was what gave Matthew Hopkins the opportunity to find and execute witches for money).

And perhaps one of the most important points; to realise that just because someone in authority asserts the reality of (malefic) witchcraft, or the ‘scientifically demonstrable’ sub-human nature of Jews or homosexuals, the inherent criminality of refugees, or whatever, that doesn’t mean they’re right. It’s wise to remember that cultural othering and dehumanization is just as likely to develop top down as bottom up, and that when it emerges from cultural elites that dehumanization can include legal and sometimes lethal force. (History is full of examples and pretty much every war between nations is dependant on the process of dehumanizing the enemy.)

There is perhaps no single strategy that might stop us from dehumanizing people and vilifying, imprisoning or even murdering ‘witches’ but certain measures – insisting on verifiable evidence, considering the intentions behind allegations, inviting impartial observers to be present, and being prepared to challenge authority – all play a role in putting the brakes on cultural othering. However, these strategies only work if we can also deeply remember our shared humanity, even with those whom we might perceive as ‘bad people’, and to cultivate our compassion and kindness. Perhaps if we can do this we might see the realisation of the aspiration engraved on a stone plaque in Exeter dedicated to the memory of those three Bideford women: ‘In the hope of an end to persecution & intolerance’.

Julian Vayne

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In the Dark’s Early Light

In the Northern Hemisphere we are emerging from the darkness of winter. Blinking into the cold, clear, even cruel light of the Imbolc season. This year, we initiates emerge from the long vigil of the pandemic night and now, as the seasons turn, we can begin to imagine what comes next.

What sort of rebirth will this be?

We need to appreciate that for many people the last year has been the most challenging of times. Some have been working to save the lives of others. Some have fallen down lonely rabbit holes of conspiracy fetishism, holes that have become yawning chasms in culture, where legitimate fears are conflated with concerns of a much less well-evidenced sort. Some have found themselves with several months off work on full pay, a delicious time in which they have been rediscovering their local area and exploring their creativity. Others have been holed up for months in difficult or even dangerous situations. Healthcare workers have been living through a time of tremendous stress. A friend of mine spent several weeks holding up iPads to the faces of prone and dying patients with Covid-19 so their families could say goodbye.

The range of experiences within this one great, shared, global crisis are legion. But for all of us there is now the challenge of finding good ways to remake our connection with others. There is both danger and opportunity in this delicate time.

One practice I’ve developed to help deal with isolation is contained in the guided meditation below. This is a practice to help us connect with our sacred magical places. Special places we may not have visited for some considerable time. We know that a lack of connection is commonly at the root of both depression and addiction. By using our imaginal skills to reconnect with those places we love, we help ourselves be well and better prepared for the challenges to come.

This meditation was one of the practices that Nikki Wyrd and I shared in our recent online ritual hosted by The Psychedelic Society. For the rite Nikki also wrote a beautiful text about the spirits of the time which you can read in its entirety at the end of this article.

Imbolc or Candlemas is closely associated with the Goddess (or Saint) Brigid, the archetypal skilful woman. A skilful woman who received a long overdue celebration of her work this month is the artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton. A beautifully realized film documentary telling her story, The Witch of King’s Cross, is now available on Vimeo and Amazon. If you find yourself entranced by Norton’s work and story then your next stop has got to be Pan’s Daughter, an excellent biography by Nevill Drury. I’ve been a fan of Norton’s work for many years, and the new film includes some stanzas of her ritual poetry. Below, I’ve recorded in full a poem quoted in part in the film. The image I’ve chosen is the one originally published alongside the poem in her banned occult art book The Art of Rosaleen Norton (published in 1952, just one year after the repeal of the witchcraft act in Britain).

As we in the North emerge from the winter and into reconnection with others beyond Zoomland, in physical space, there are going be lots of issues to negotiate, many of which will cluster around our ability to trust. It is lack of trust that fuels the conspiratorial mindset. This is quite understandable. The hesitancy to be vaccinated as demonstrated by some communities is perfectly intelligible given the very real abuses of trust they have suffered in the past where people, generally the more excluded members of our societies, have indeed found themselves the unwitting guinea pigs of appalling unethical scientifically mediated interventions, such as the infamous Tuskegee Study. Sure, the whole notion of ‘the state’ is problematic, orientated as it generally is around a monopoly on violence. Simply put; some guy comes along and tells you you have to give a percentage of your crops to The King, if you don’t his knights will make things difficult, or terminal, for you and your family. Later The King explains that he is protecting you from other Kings and other knights, and so the great protection racket begins. It is therefore explicable that, in the face of this pandemic, the state narrative (for some nations) is voiced in the language of fear, protection by authority, othering and ‘reasonable’ draconian measures.

However, that is not to say that letting the state control pendulum swing totally in the other direction would have been any better; some people fail to understand that, especially in a pandemic, it’s not just one’s own health that matters but rather the health of the nation, or indeed the species. Such an individualistic attitude would have let the pandemic rip through our society, which would have been most unkind; nor would it have necessarily have led to less suffering than that caused by lockdowns, social distancing and the other strategies. We might for example think back to some early news coverage of the pandemic which suggested that a large percentage of the British workforce could be off sick all at once. This could realistically have led to many kinds of problems in maintaining even basic infrastructure like water and power, leading to potentially catastrophic domino effects. The point about the pandemic is that we are dealing with dis-ease, an experience that, by definition, is not easy. Life is often like this, there are some situations in which there is no good option, Whatever we do it’s going to hurt. (I should mention here other models of the nation state, or more broadly collective action, that don’t originate in totalitarian oppression which in turn gives rise to the shadow of the ‘sovereign individual’ as an apparently isolated and autonomous self. Alternative systems based on compassionate collective action and personal integrity are possible, as exemplified in this excellent documentary Gather.)

Meanwhile, the number of people I know who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 is increasing. Thus far none of them have been taken over by Bill Gates’ nanobots or whatever, so that augurs well for my own chances when the time comes! Personally, I rather like vaccination as a concept, the idea of limited exposure to disease which primes the body to better manage the actual infection has a somewhat alchemical or even initiatory quality to it.

In initiation rituals we go down into the darkness, recapitulating the experience of our intrauterine existence and our birth. We do this in a limited, controlled but authentic way. Initiation is a little death, a death that doesn’t kill the bodymind but instead enables us to experience a managed crisis of psychic dismemberment and physical tests. In passing through these rites we discover a new appreciation for life just as those who experience near-death events do. Moreover, we acquire enhanced resilience in the face of challenges posed by the human condition.

Over the last few months I, like many people, have spent quite a bit of time online and I know for myself that it’s going to be a curious journey re-making and re-joining collective physical space. While we have all experienced a pandemic, the differences in our narratives will be very significant, as will our experiences of coming back into social space. There are going to be lots of people, notably those in the medical profession, who will be carrying with them deep wounds and trauma. I hope very much that as a community we can find good ways to help each other, and as the year turns, to re-emerge together into the light. Let’s spring clean, shaking out the dust of the wintertime, and make space for the year to come.

Julian Vayne

St Brigid’s crosses (the three-armed variation!) made by Nikki Wyrd
A Call to Brigid and the Spirits of Imbolc

We call in the spirits of the technology that connects us, electronic wizardry conjuring deep magic spells through wires drawn from deep in the ground. 
Flowing electrons, rising sap, leaves budding, fluid birdsong, surge across landscapes. 
We feel the life force stirring beneath the earth. 
Feel the quickening in the belly of the year.
Start to see glimmers of sunlit days ahead. 
The clean clear white light reminds us of the Shining Emptiness at the centre of the psychedelic experience. 
Place of creation, forge of identity, lit by sparks of aspiration from the hammer that beats, and beats with passion for the making of love. 

Imbolc, the time of emerging from the dark of winter days, the time of emerging from under the ground.  
Green shoots with white bells, push up through the snow. 
Pale primrose yellow signals the opening of the season for flowers: Golden trumpets herald the sun’s return. 
Make way, make space! 
For new shoots, springing from old roots. 
Clear the ground, clear your mind, hear the beginning of life from way, way down.  
Make room to breathe, room to forge ahead, room to grow. 

Brigid, goddess of smithing, of fire, of the bright, of wells, of healing and fertility, of poetry, of love, of brilliance. 
Crowned with candles, the saint walks through the land, stirring our hearts with a touch of her wand, soothing away the cares of the winter with a touch of her hand. 
Milk flows from sheep, from mothers, they give life to those that are just born, ancestors nurturing and nourishing what were twinkles in last year’s eyes. 

Brigid, Brid, you who were born as the sun rose, exalted one, blessings on those who celebrate you on this holy day! 
You, who know what we need, wise goddess, we ask for visions, for words, for you to show us what is hidden within! 

The pulse of the year, as the wheel turns again; the beat of the heart, as the smith’s hammer beats time into shape. 
Sparks fly up, tiny lights glimmer, the sun glints from ice crystals as the daylight grows. 
Tiny bright sparks, catch them in your mind’s eye. Breathe with the bellows breath and see the light glow. 

Brigid, inspire us, as our thoughts rise up, like a spring bubbles forth from the ground, overflowing with inspiration long held, deep within our hearts. 
Seed sparks, giving rise to bright flames, flowers blooming on the anvil of Earth as the season of creation arrives.

Nikki Wyrd

Coming up this spring