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Just becaue it's October - Witches?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7254338" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>As long as we are discussing what witches should be, it's worth noting that the term has no meaning outside of context. </p><p></p><p>The original witches were the priestesses of Hecate, who kept her secret rites. We know virtually nothing about them.</p><p></p><p>The origin of the modern ideas about witches are in the animist priesthoods of pre-Christian northern Europe. Initially, this idea of witches was not specifically gendered, as there were plenty of male 'witches' as well. </p><p></p><p>Christianity traditionally has seen all non-Christian religion as deceits of the devil and has largely seen its mission as to destroy all superstition in the world in consequence. (This may seem ironic if you aren't religious but is actually a hugely important historical trend.) Consequently, any animist tradition that it encountered was treated as a sort of devil worship. Again, originally, this idea of witches was not specifically gendered, and plenty of male 'witches' were described and sometimes executed.</p><p></p><p>By the medieval period, even as late as the late Dark Ages, non-Christian religious traditions didn't even exist in the oral tradition of Europe, much less in actual practice. (Indeed, the most famous of these - the Druids - had actually ceased to exist completely even before Christianity existed, having been utterly extinguished under Roman persecution.) We know virtually nothing about those pre-Christian European traditions - they had been totally destroyed and almost nothing much had been written about them before they disappeared. The handful of sentences written about them were often written generations after they ceased to exist by people with no reason to correctly report their practices and obvious bias against them. But in the early modern period, a number of writers popularized the notion of modern (to them) witchcraft still being practiced in Europe. There is almost no evidence that any of this actually existed, but the notion terrified and appalled much of Europe and entered into the popular imagination. The result was a 'witch scare' that ran rampant through the secular institutions of Europe lasted several centuries and ended up killing over the course of it several 10's of thousands of people - probably largely the mentally ill. (In the popular imagination, it was the Catholic Church - the 'Inquisition' - carrying out this, but this is a misnomer. Most of the educated clergy were somewhat skeptical of the whole affair, and most 'Inquisitions' such as the Spanish Inquisition were carried out under secular authority quite against the wishes of the Clerical hierarchy. The Spanish Inquisition was repeatedly denounced by the Pope, for example. And most of the worst witch scares occurred in newly Protestant areas. The Spanish Inquisition in fact acquires its infamy through Protestant propagandists in England, who were eager to make their national foes seem more villainous.) While both men and women were executed for 'witch craft', the longer the moral scare went on the more gendered it became in the public imagination. Ultimately, the idea of the witch became consolidated around elderly women living alone (except perhaps with a cat for company). Senility and eccentricity then became the reason for fear (and often greed, since it was easy to buy the property of a widow with no relations). This notion of the 'witch' became the monster of children's story, and is the 'witch' found in the writings of for example Shakespeare and his contemporaries. </p><p></p><p>At about the same time as the 'witch scare', Northern Europe actually entered into a Renaissance in education, literacy, art, and invention. The southern European Renaissance had been marked by the romanticization of the achievements of ancient Europe - Rome and Greece - as well as a revival in the interest in the writings of that time. Northern European scholars suffered from an intense case of cultural jealousy, as they had no equivalent period of ancient achievement to point to, Northern Europe up to High Middle Ages having been among the most primitive and backward places on the planet. As a result, several writers invented whole cloth the appearance, rites, and mythology we associate with Ancient Druidic practice. With literally nothing to go on, they invented the notion of Druids as a male ancient astronomer philosopher priesthood, robed and bearded and obsessed with mistletoe and holly and so forth. A similar period of invention is found in the Victorian period, as the Victorians again rehabilitated these imagined astronomer philosophers as forerunners of English achievement. This would not be important to our discussion of what witches were except that in the mid-20th century, there was yet another revival of interest in pre-Christian European tradition, this time amongst people looking for a more European spiritual tradition that the Jewish derived "cult" of Christianity. Neo-pagan groups invented a new vibrant religious practice from the prior imagination of old white guys, repurposed according to their preferred morality. Among this invention was the notion of Wicca, which created yet another idea of what it meant to be a 'witch'. </p><p></p><p>And yet more ideas of what it means to be 'witch' can be found in modern fantasy, such as the "Witch = Nerd" analogy found in the writings of Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rawlings. </p><p></p><p>For my part, virtually every practicing magician of every historical magical tradition is in fact an animist priest or derived from an animist priest. The whole notion of a "wizard" is in my opinion a D&Dism scarcely to be found in real world tradition, and barely found in fantasy literature prior to D&D. All real historical wizards are in fact clerics, or more specifically shamans. This can be verified by any cursory examination of the occult. Real world magical traditions do not postulate the irrational idea that people can by the force of their will or the depth of their study force reality to conform to their wishes. That notion is laughable to anyone with any experience of reality. Instead, all magical traditions postulate that a well studied person can by secret rites and knowledge make bargains with or force supernatural beings to conform to certain laws that govern their behavior, with the result of having these supernatural beings or forces work the will of the magician. Indeed, the relics of this version of the M-U can be found in some of the occult trappings of the 1e AD&D M-U. But these occult trappings were removed during the occult scare and not found at all in the 2e 'Wizard' with its explicit focus on the Tolkienesq fireball throwing, lightning bolt casting 'Wizard' Gandalf. </p><p></p><p>But if you want a witch, all the various notions of what it means to be witch aside from repurposing like Pratchett and Rawlings have this in common - they are all animist priests that make bargains with spirits to obtain magical power. (It's another D&Dism that you aren't a priest, that is a cleric, if regardless of what sort of polytheistic tradition you belong to, you don't have the trappings and veritable monotheistic viewpoint of a Catholic priesthood. You can tell its a D&Dist polytheism if they start talking about "Faith" as if it was in anyway meaningful to the religion.) It's for this reason that I suggested that you could hardly do better than Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook, and that their Shaman's Handbook actually captured the reality of historical 'witchcraft' better than their Witch's Handbook with its nods to modern Wiccan beliefs about 'witches'.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7254338, member: 4937"] As long as we are discussing what witches should be, it's worth noting that the term has no meaning outside of context. The original witches were the priestesses of Hecate, who kept her secret rites. We know virtually nothing about them. The origin of the modern ideas about witches are in the animist priesthoods of pre-Christian northern Europe. Initially, this idea of witches was not specifically gendered, as there were plenty of male 'witches' as well. Christianity traditionally has seen all non-Christian religion as deceits of the devil and has largely seen its mission as to destroy all superstition in the world in consequence. (This may seem ironic if you aren't religious but is actually a hugely important historical trend.) Consequently, any animist tradition that it encountered was treated as a sort of devil worship. Again, originally, this idea of witches was not specifically gendered, and plenty of male 'witches' were described and sometimes executed. By the medieval period, even as late as the late Dark Ages, non-Christian religious traditions didn't even exist in the oral tradition of Europe, much less in actual practice. (Indeed, the most famous of these - the Druids - had actually ceased to exist completely even before Christianity existed, having been utterly extinguished under Roman persecution.) We know virtually nothing about those pre-Christian European traditions - they had been totally destroyed and almost nothing much had been written about them before they disappeared. The handful of sentences written about them were often written generations after they ceased to exist by people with no reason to correctly report their practices and obvious bias against them. But in the early modern period, a number of writers popularized the notion of modern (to them) witchcraft still being practiced in Europe. There is almost no evidence that any of this actually existed, but the notion terrified and appalled much of Europe and entered into the popular imagination. The result was a 'witch scare' that ran rampant through the secular institutions of Europe lasted several centuries and ended up killing over the course of it several 10's of thousands of people - probably largely the mentally ill. (In the popular imagination, it was the Catholic Church - the 'Inquisition' - carrying out this, but this is a misnomer. Most of the educated clergy were somewhat skeptical of the whole affair, and most 'Inquisitions' such as the Spanish Inquisition were carried out under secular authority quite against the wishes of the Clerical hierarchy. The Spanish Inquisition was repeatedly denounced by the Pope, for example. And most of the worst witch scares occurred in newly Protestant areas. The Spanish Inquisition in fact acquires its infamy through Protestant propagandists in England, who were eager to make their national foes seem more villainous.) While both men and women were executed for 'witch craft', the longer the moral scare went on the more gendered it became in the public imagination. Ultimately, the idea of the witch became consolidated around elderly women living alone (except perhaps with a cat for company). Senility and eccentricity then became the reason for fear (and often greed, since it was easy to buy the property of a widow with no relations). This notion of the 'witch' became the monster of children's story, and is the 'witch' found in the writings of for example Shakespeare and his contemporaries. At about the same time as the 'witch scare', Northern Europe actually entered into a Renaissance in education, literacy, art, and invention. The southern European Renaissance had been marked by the romanticization of the achievements of ancient Europe - Rome and Greece - as well as a revival in the interest in the writings of that time. Northern European scholars suffered from an intense case of cultural jealousy, as they had no equivalent period of ancient achievement to point to, Northern Europe up to High Middle Ages having been among the most primitive and backward places on the planet. As a result, several writers invented whole cloth the appearance, rites, and mythology we associate with Ancient Druidic practice. With literally nothing to go on, they invented the notion of Druids as a male ancient astronomer philosopher priesthood, robed and bearded and obsessed with mistletoe and holly and so forth. A similar period of invention is found in the Victorian period, as the Victorians again rehabilitated these imagined astronomer philosophers as forerunners of English achievement. This would not be important to our discussion of what witches were except that in the mid-20th century, there was yet another revival of interest in pre-Christian European tradition, this time amongst people looking for a more European spiritual tradition that the Jewish derived "cult" of Christianity. Neo-pagan groups invented a new vibrant religious practice from the prior imagination of old white guys, repurposed according to their preferred morality. Among this invention was the notion of Wicca, which created yet another idea of what it meant to be a 'witch'. And yet more ideas of what it means to be 'witch' can be found in modern fantasy, such as the "Witch = Nerd" analogy found in the writings of Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rawlings. For my part, virtually every practicing magician of every historical magical tradition is in fact an animist priest or derived from an animist priest. The whole notion of a "wizard" is in my opinion a D&Dism scarcely to be found in real world tradition, and barely found in fantasy literature prior to D&D. All real historical wizards are in fact clerics, or more specifically shamans. This can be verified by any cursory examination of the occult. Real world magical traditions do not postulate the irrational idea that people can by the force of their will or the depth of their study force reality to conform to their wishes. That notion is laughable to anyone with any experience of reality. Instead, all magical traditions postulate that a well studied person can by secret rites and knowledge make bargains with or force supernatural beings to conform to certain laws that govern their behavior, with the result of having these supernatural beings or forces work the will of the magician. Indeed, the relics of this version of the M-U can be found in some of the occult trappings of the 1e AD&D M-U. But these occult trappings were removed during the occult scare and not found at all in the 2e 'Wizard' with its explicit focus on the Tolkienesq fireball throwing, lightning bolt casting 'Wizard' Gandalf. But if you want a witch, all the various notions of what it means to be witch aside from repurposing like Pratchett and Rawlings have this in common - they are all animist priests that make bargains with spirits to obtain magical power. (It's another D&Dism that you aren't a priest, that is a cleric, if regardless of what sort of polytheistic tradition you belong to, you don't have the trappings and veritable monotheistic viewpoint of a Catholic priesthood. You can tell its a D&Dist polytheism if they start talking about "Faith" as if it was in anyway meaningful to the religion.) It's for this reason that I suggested that you could hardly do better than Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook, and that their Shaman's Handbook actually captured the reality of historical 'witchcraft' better than their Witch's Handbook with its nods to modern Wiccan beliefs about 'witches'. [/QUOTE]
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