quasi-coherent thoughts on why witches don't fly anymore
I am interested in examining consumption of a transformed substance (wine) versus consumption of a transformative substance (any number of drugs or specially prepared herbs) within a spiritual context. Why do shamans fly (many times with the aid of prepared substances), while modern-day witches have opted to remain grounded (using only wine, and sparingly so, more often than not)? What happened to our broomsticks? Why don't we fly anymore? Why does modern witchcraft feel like a whitewashed shadow of what it might have been in the past and could be in the future?
I have discovered that a large part of it has to do with the fact that we in the West have lost our oral tradition -- the safety net of experience. We are now left to experiment for ourselves... and only a few crackpots do that, right? It is my understanding that the shamans, those who are left anyway, undergo intense training, be it on the physical or astral plane, wherein they learn what they need to know in order to help their community. In addition to learning how to cure illnesses and retrieve souls, they learn about plants of power, be it tobacco, datura, ayahuasca, etc. We have training available to a certain extent through initiations and degrees. We learn how to commune with the gods, how to do rituals for this or that... but the plants have been abandoned as dangerous. Well, yeah, they are. But so's aspirin, if used inappropriately. Hell, over-consumption of water can intoxicate and even kill you.
We try to make everything so safe. Tame it down, dilute it for the masses. It feels like we're all wandering around thinking we're hot shit witches, when it seems like we are, in actuality, handicapped more than we realise by the absence of a huge part of our heritage: witches flying on their broomsticks to the sabbats is not as much a fantasy as we may think, if we are to believe what has been written about the use of flying ointments.
In researching flying ointments, I came across a well-written article by Chas S. Clifton, an academic pagan who tends more towards the shamanistic side of things. If Witches No Longer Fly: Today's Pagans and the Solanaceous Plants. It touches on pretty much everything I've been trying to put together in my head for a long time.
A bit from the article in question:
[T]he type of power we're discussing here really does not appeal to most of the contemporary Neopagan movement. A majority of the Neo crowd ... well, they don't like the Wild or else they're afraid of it, and the same can be said of anything 'dark' at all.... You get to talking about the magical application of poisonous plants, and the Bambi Wiccans & Co. are going to squick in very short order. They prefer to deal with a sweetness & light world and its attendant powers. Show them a glimpse of the Ancient Wild and they freak out. They will howl that working with any potentially poisonous plant is inherently evil (never mind that most medicinals are poisonous if improperly used). I think that part of that is cultural upbringing, and part of it is wariness of anything unfamiliar, and much is fear of anything so mighty and awesome. i mean, these plants have been around for millions of years, some of them; their collective history quite outstrips the entire human race .... Some of the Neopagans just can't get comfortable with that. Jack Prairiewolf, "Solanaceous Plants," email, 17 October 1998.
I am also reminded of what Gaiman wrote in American Gods:
Wednesday looked up at their waitress. 'I think I shall have another expresso, if you do not mind. And tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?'
'Worship?'
'That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide-open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray at dawn and dusk?'
Her lips described several shapes without saying anything before she said, 'The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know.'
'Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?'
'She's the goddess within us all,' said the girl with the eyebrow ring, colour rising to her cheek. 'She doesn't need a name.'
'Ah,' said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, 'so do you hold mighty bacchanals in her honour? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candle holders? Do you step naked into the foam, chanting ecstatically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping at your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards?'
'You're making fun of me,' she said. 'We don't do any of that stuff you were saying.'
...
'There,' said Wednesday, 'is one who "does not have the faith and will not have the fun". Chesterton. Pagan indeed.'
There's a great yearning inside of me that I've been exploring for sometime in the only way I know how -- by interest-led, academic-style studying. And I'm discovering so much about what I need out of life and how to find it. My ultimate goal is to transform the academic learning to actual hands-on, lived experience. I'm damned tired of reading about what other people do. I'm tired of being an armchair witch. Tired of feeling reigned in -- externally or internally. Regardless whereof it stems, I yearn for Wildness, and if I have to ride a fricken broomstick to get there, then so be it.
(don't be scared, though. I'm not going to go huffing glue in the name of X deity, or start indiscriminately munching on henbane seeds and monkshood stems. I'm not retarded, nor am I stupid. Just... a little more inclined to want to intelligently experiment than some people.)
I have discovered that a large part of it has to do with the fact that we in the West have lost our oral tradition -- the safety net of experience. We are now left to experiment for ourselves... and only a few crackpots do that, right? It is my understanding that the shamans, those who are left anyway, undergo intense training, be it on the physical or astral plane, wherein they learn what they need to know in order to help their community. In addition to learning how to cure illnesses and retrieve souls, they learn about plants of power, be it tobacco, datura, ayahuasca, etc. We have training available to a certain extent through initiations and degrees. We learn how to commune with the gods, how to do rituals for this or that... but the plants have been abandoned as dangerous. Well, yeah, they are. But so's aspirin, if used inappropriately. Hell, over-consumption of water can intoxicate and even kill you.
We try to make everything so safe. Tame it down, dilute it for the masses. It feels like we're all wandering around thinking we're hot shit witches, when it seems like we are, in actuality, handicapped more than we realise by the absence of a huge part of our heritage: witches flying on their broomsticks to the sabbats is not as much a fantasy as we may think, if we are to believe what has been written about the use of flying ointments.
In researching flying ointments, I came across a well-written article by Chas S. Clifton, an academic pagan who tends more towards the shamanistic side of things. If Witches No Longer Fly: Today's Pagans and the Solanaceous Plants. It touches on pretty much everything I've been trying to put together in my head for a long time.
A bit from the article in question:
[T]he type of power we're discussing here really does not appeal to most of the contemporary Neopagan movement. A majority of the Neo crowd ... well, they don't like the Wild or else they're afraid of it, and the same can be said of anything 'dark' at all.... You get to talking about the magical application of poisonous plants, and the Bambi Wiccans & Co. are going to squick in very short order. They prefer to deal with a sweetness & light world and its attendant powers. Show them a glimpse of the Ancient Wild and they freak out. They will howl that working with any potentially poisonous plant is inherently evil (never mind that most medicinals are poisonous if improperly used). I think that part of that is cultural upbringing, and part of it is wariness of anything unfamiliar, and much is fear of anything so mighty and awesome. i mean, these plants have been around for millions of years, some of them; their collective history quite outstrips the entire human race .... Some of the Neopagans just can't get comfortable with that. Jack Prairiewolf, "Solanaceous Plants," email, 17 October 1998.
I am also reminded of what Gaiman wrote in American Gods:
Wednesday looked up at their waitress. 'I think I shall have another expresso, if you do not mind. And tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?'
'Worship?'
'That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide-open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray at dawn and dusk?'
Her lips described several shapes without saying anything before she said, 'The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know.'
'Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?'
'She's the goddess within us all,' said the girl with the eyebrow ring, colour rising to her cheek. 'She doesn't need a name.'
'Ah,' said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, 'so do you hold mighty bacchanals in her honour? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candle holders? Do you step naked into the foam, chanting ecstatically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping at your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards?'
'You're making fun of me,' she said. 'We don't do any of that stuff you were saying.'
...
'There,' said Wednesday, 'is one who "does not have the faith and will not have the fun". Chesterton. Pagan indeed.'
There's a great yearning inside of me that I've been exploring for sometime in the only way I know how -- by interest-led, academic-style studying. And I'm discovering so much about what I need out of life and how to find it. My ultimate goal is to transform the academic learning to actual hands-on, lived experience. I'm damned tired of reading about what other people do. I'm tired of being an armchair witch. Tired of feeling reigned in -- externally or internally. Regardless whereof it stems, I yearn for Wildness, and if I have to ride a fricken broomstick to get there, then so be it.
(don't be scared, though. I'm not going to go huffing glue in the name of X deity, or start indiscriminately munching on henbane seeds and monkshood stems. I'm not retarded, nor am I stupid. Just... a little more inclined to want to intelligently experiment than some people.)