void
|
|
from the washington post
| 
Nov 2 22:57 UTC 1996 |
this appeared in my e-mail this morning:
WITCHES' TRIALS
Real-Life Practitioners Say Halloween Doesn't Help Dispel a Frightful Image
By Cindy Loose
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 30 1996; Page A01
The Washington Post
The seven members will gather tomorrow night in an ordinary living
room -- a nanny, a human rights advocate, a real estate agent, an
interpreter, an engineer, a student, and a computer programmer who
died last year.
"Paul is still a member," explained the nanny. "Just because someone
dies doesn't take away their influence or membership."
The nanny and the others call themselves witches, and they are members
of the Washington-based Dark Flame coven. Tomorrow night -- Halloween
to most people -- is to them Samhain, the most sacred night of the
year. It is a solemn time to review the year's successes and failures,
a time to remember those who have gone before and to honor them.
On that night, said the nanny, "the veil between the living world and
the departed world is thinnest."
It is also the time of year they get the most attention and the most
scorn. For centuries, witches have been considered evil purveyors of
black magic. Even a modern dictionary terms them "malignant." These
witches, however, say they are just misunderstood. Witches, they say,
are part of a pagan tradition that reveres nature, ancestors and the
good that is part of every living thing.
There are so many misconceptions to deal with. Cauldrons. Eye of newt.
"Macbeth."
"One of my in-laws sent an e-mail saying he was anxious to discuss the
occult with me," Robin Brown said. "What's he thinking? What would I
know about the occult? I'm a witch."
Another member of the coven said she has to laugh when people ask what
costume she's going to wear for Halloween.
"I have work to do that night," said "Logan," the nanny, who asked for
obvious reasons that only her "magical name" be used. "I'm a witch --
I don't have time to fool around."
Brown, a grandmother who lives on Capitol Hill and works at Amnesty
International, is the only coven member out of the witches closet at
work. Thus, she is the only member able to take the day as a religious
holiday.
Their celebration of Samhain will begin as the coven builds an altar,
using a compass to find true north so that candles can be set
precisely in all four directions. They will light incense. Everyone
will bring something of personal significance to set on the altar.
The starting time is up in the air. "We operate on coven time, which
is a little like Unitarian time," said Brown, referring to the church
most coven members attend. "There's nothing mysterious about it; it
just starts when everybody manages to get there from work."
As the evening progresses, someone will cast a circle -- one member
tends to favor a ritual sword to create a mental space, although Brown
prefers a multicolored scarf she found in a thrift store, where she
buys most of what she owns. (Witches tend to recycle a lot out of
respect for the Earth.)
Some may wear black ritual robes; others, ordinary street clothes. "We
are not a sky-clad coven," said Logan, meaning they do not practice
naked.
Once all agree that a circle has been cast, they will gather inside it
and call to all four directions. East represents air; south is fire;
west is water; and north is earth. Someone will invoke a god or
goddess. Most likely, it will be Apollo, since that was Paul's magical
name, or Hecata, the goddess most associated with Samhain . Halloween
began centuries ago as a druidic ritual honoring Samhain, Lord of the
Dead, on the last day of the Celtic year.
Coven members will then mentally send a taproot down into the earth
and draw energy. They will use it for a purpose -- as a healing coven,
the members often choose as a purpose the relief of pain. They will
call out Paul's name, and the names of others who have gone on before.
"I personally believe that you keep someone alive by saying their
name," Brown said. "The spark of energy that makes us alive remains in
some form forever."
If someone were to videotape their rituals, she said, it would look
stupid because so much of what is happening takes place within the
mind. In actuality, she added, an awesome, powerful creation is being
formed.
When the creation is complete, and any remaining energy is sent back
down to the earth's core, the group will chat and share something to
eat.
"It's real mysterious stuff," Brown said. "I'll probably pick up a
cake at Safeway."
Witchcraft and paganism, they say, is a growing alternative religion.
Take, for example, the 600 pagans who showed up for last week's Grand
Magickal Congress at a Holiday Inn in Wilmington, Del. Workshops
included "Pagan Pastoral Counseling," "Medicinal Herbology," "Druidic
Ritual Patterns" and "Glenshire Witchcraft."
Some workshops, Brown said, were a little much even for her: "One told
us the fairies would be coming back within five years."
The Holiday Inn scene was a study in Americana: Along with the pagans,
the hotel played host to a high school football team, the Tammy
Wynette Road Show, a coalition of Christians and Jews and -- briefly
-- the NAACP.
"It was really weird," Brown said. Saturday night, at the end of a
sacred ritual, the pagans looked out the window at a costumed
Halloween pub crawl in the parking lot.
"There were all these people pretending to be what we were upstairs
practicing," she said.
Brown brought back a stack of brochures advertising pagan events: a
Samhain convention at the Frederick County (Md.) Fairgrounds; a
"Sacred Space X" exploration of equinoxes and solstices in Timonium,
Md.; a monthly coffee klatch at La Madeleine's in Rockville. Dark
Flame will be the host for "Blood and Bone, a Weekend of Intensive
Magic" next month in the District.
There are pagan and witchcraft Web sites on the Internet and vacation
packages for pagans. One is an Irish tour of Celtic and neolithic
sites that will include a visit to Lady Olivia Robertson, high
priestess of Isis, in her castle at Clonegal.
A coven -- Dark Flame knows of 10 in the Washington area -- will weave
together a set of beliefs from various traditions. All covens share a
belief in the interconnectedness of humanity and the universe. All are
polytheistic and nature-centered.
The existence of witches is very threatening to some Christians, who
associate them with Satanists. But these witches say they are not like
that -- they don't even believe in Satan, or his antithesis, Christ.
They believe that the potential for good and evil resides in all
things.
The witches' creed -- "And harm it none, do what ye will" -- is much
like the doctor's Hippocratic oath.
So why are they so often confused with the occult?
"The public relations arm of the Catholic Church during the
Inquisition is all I know," Brown said.
Brown, formerly a Lutheran, found herself edging over to witchcraft as
part of her search for meaning as a woman.
"Somewhere along the way, something happened with the way religions
looked at the deity, and it became very much favorable to men," Brown
said.
Logan, raised as a Roman Catholic, was barely 12 when she stumbled
across a book on witchcraft and quickly embraced the subject,
searching for everything she could read on it, sneaking out of her
Midwestern farmhouse at night to practice rituals.
Until three years ago, when she helped found Dark Flame, she worked
alone, in secret. Some family members who know she is a lesbian still
don't know she's a witch.
"I thought I'd always practice solitary, because I'd done that so long
in a backward, rural area. In a coven, it's like people making music
together, and it's an awesome experience."
© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
Back to the top
|