Doug wrote this on his blog:
WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.
2007 Update: A sorceress responsible for, among other things, men turning into apes; enchantments that cause obsession, indifference or distraction in the victim; the levitation of owls; the nocturnal rituals of cats; and, in many cases, profligate drinking, foolish voting and debt.
And I replied:
Then there's the boring kind of witch, like me, who is simply someone who didn't get along with the accepted religion of the society and so reverted to a previous one. Neither hideously ugly nor in any way beautiful, I zig-zag or sleepwalk in my own odd way through life, annoying those who lack a sense of humor and frightening those who are devoted to the accepted religion.
WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.
2007 Update: A sorceress responsible for, among other things, men turning into apes; enchantments that cause obsession, indifference or distraction in the victim; the levitation of owls; the nocturnal rituals of cats; and, in many cases, profligate drinking, foolish voting and debt.
And I replied:
Then there's the boring kind of witch, like me, who is simply someone who didn't get along with the accepted religion of the society and so reverted to a previous one. Neither hideously ugly nor in any way beautiful, I zig-zag or sleepwalk in my own odd way through life, annoying those who lack a sense of humor and frightening those who are devoted to the accepted religion.
1 comments:
The witch is a construct: Doug's witches number one and two, (un)sexy or not, are defined through their relation to the devil - what makes them "witches by definition": This is a christian thing, a christian definition.
The "malefica", the doer of evil, the sorceress, the "common" witch is found in any culture - regardless of the religion.
In one of the oldest imperial crime-codes Karl der Große says that people believing in women riding on animals through the night shall be punished for this wrong belief. That is around 800 after Christ. Some 600 or 700 years later one gets punished when NOT believing in women flying through the night - the phallic broomstick is a later invention, maybe 19th century. ANd of course the fly through the night to gather on this place to fuck with the devil - the "Hexensabbath" is reduced to fucking, the devil is the horn, the witch is the unsatiable hole: That is the beginning from the "Hexenhammer / malleus maleficarum", a handbook for inquisitors, written by some gynophobe Dominicans (Sprenger and Insitoris). Right in the 14th century there is something strange happening: on one side you find a "exploding" worship for Mary the mother and on the other side the image of the witch forms and manifests.
The point is: Any culture knows of women and men doing magick. And I know of my family that some women stood in that reputation. It became weaker.
There is something, I do not know what. I am afraid of human beings, because they can do harm. I guess that creatures of they other kind do no harm normally - after all these beings were human once. And I will join, as anybody else, with the end of my earthly excistence.
I really do hope that there is a cosmic power, entity, a being, and not just silence.
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Think I will have to read your book finally.
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