INTRODUCTION
Witch-Haunted New England, Witch-Haunted Mankind

"Years ago, there were many people who had studied the art and were in league with the Devil.
There were some who handled poisonous roots, too. One of the women who used to play tricks and
bewilder people was old Aunt Betsy Dodge. She was of pure Indian blood
and she always carried two buckets, one large and one small, when she went about from house to house.
"We never knew" said Mrs. Ryan, "what she had in the buckets because the children
were never allowed to ask questions nor peep into packages that belonged to other people."

-William S. Simmons

* * *

No region of the United States is as associated with witchcraft as New England. This is due in large part to the infamous episode of the Salem Witch Trials, but also to the rich and dark folklore of the region. Native American spiritual beliefs, and all of their spirit-dealings, animism, and powerful supernaturalism came to be viewed through the lens of the Puritan settlers of New England, who brought their typical Christian European lens of devilry and paranoia to the setting.

The result was a majestic and terrifying vision of darkness and light, of God's Kingdom and the Devil's Kingdom living side-by-side, as the pious Europeans huddled in their churches on misty mornings and the red-skinned natives danced howling around fires and heard ancient stories of Gods and Spirits on moonlit nights in the wilds. This basic division of societies cannot be underestimated for its impact on the history of the United States, nor for the way it recreated some of the most primal divisions and concepts in the world of the supernatural- divisions and concepts we will cover in detail soon.

There is no doubt that witch-hysterias in New England, such as those at Salem, were due to dozens of factors beyond the reach of the supernatural- changing economies, politics, religious fervor, possible ergot contaminations, misogyny, jealousy, greed, and other such factors played a role. Were any witches really hanged at Salem? Absolutely not. But the trials forged historical documents for us- human dramas and tragedies that even today shed light on the frame of mind that these people lived in.



And those frames of mind, supported by the records of folklorists and historians that were contemporary, contained a vision of a world in which the supernatural was never far away, and indeed, in which the supernatural "otherness" often intruded into the ordered world of Christian men and women. The nature of this intrusion, and of those who, instead of fearing it, actually sought it out and worked to manipulate those weird powers from the "outside" of God's Kingdom, brings us to the doorstep of authentic Witching or Witchcraft.

Those who wish to study true Witchcraft are confronted with much historical and modern material that can seem very confusing. Suffice it to say- as it has been said so many times- what passes for most "witchcraft" these days is a tragic jumble of new-age feel-gooder ideas and liberal politics. Most people seeking a Witchcraft still seek it in religious terms, and following religious models that they are used to. Most cannot imagine a "craft" without bells, books, and candles- but trappings are not a craft, and neither are rote words, or secret cults to Pagan Gods or Goddesses.

Real witchcraft is found in something far simpler, and, at the same time, something far more ominous. To gain a Witching, a power that can transform things, means discovering a way to reach beyond the ordered boundaries of mind, society, and reason, into a dark world where everything is indistinct and strange. This dangerous task can be the ruin of some- but, as we shall see, it is very important to any society, no matter how much the people of that society may revile it.

To walk into the space where witchcraft is truly born requires nothing but a curious soul, a Promethean daring, and a mind for caution. Trappings may come into play- but they are not the heart of the "backwards art" of crossing the boundary between what is known and what is unknown, and bringing back strange powers that allow for real changes in the person or the world.

Surely there are many ways to change things that don't include the forbidden corners of sorcery and the dangers of "crossing over" into the spirit-world. There are, in fact, many ways to go about any task- "more than one way to skin a cat", they say. But the personality of the person who is drawn to Witchcraft or sorcery is an issue- for some, the daring and mystery of the beyond is too strong an allure. Some- of decidedly different spiritual orientations- would say that the soul of the sorcerer is possessed of a flaw, a devilish flaw. Some would call it pride, or an unhealthy curiosity. But that's all perspective, like anything else.

Change is change. Things within the person or society get changed by many factors, but change is the constant. All change can be painful in its implications, regardless of how it is inspired. All forces that "change" something are intruders in their own way. No system, organic or inorganic, changes without influences from the "outside". Many people love to mindlessly repeat the old adage "Change is good"; but are they conscious of the fact that "change" requires a gateway- hidden or overt- to a place outside of order, an open gate whereby fresh ideas or forces for transformation or growth can "get in"? Are they conscious of how terrifying or traumatic change can be?

Everyone craves stability- and none more than those who despise change, despise the unexpected, the unplanned, and who hate the "outsider"- whether it be outside ideas or even other human beings who appear on the scene, and whose heads may be filled with strange, foreign ideas. Fear and hatred for the "different" people, for the foreigner, all stems from a desperate grasping for things to stay the same.

But organic health- of a living being or a living social system- requires the outsider, the fresh influx of ideas, and change. This is true. When Puritan societies, like the later Victorian societies, calcified and sanitized their world into lock-step, ordered visions of Godly, proper behavior and living, they created an unhealthy world- one that feared and resisted the outsider or the forces that would shake up the foundations. In such a world, those who were from the outside, or different in any respect, faced persecution and death, as the fears of the society were given a religious form- the form of witches and demons- and projected onto these outsiders.

It was also projected onto the people from within who had the "strange souls" I discussed earlier. For their enemy the Devil was forever about, stalking about, corrupting not just from the outside, but from within the soul, as well. The enemy within becomes a strange ally to the enemy without- and danger rises to a feverish level.

* * *

For all this talk, I must say- Witches were real, and Witches are real. The Puritans of Massachusetts bay might never have hanged a real witch, but witches were there, nonetheless. The society of Native Americans that surrounded them certainly had powerful sorcerers- they were witches of a type. But even within the folk-culture of Europe, there struggling in the New World, a witchcraft was smoldering below the surface.

Witchcraft is the strangest possible hobby- which only becomes real in the hands of a person born with the soul of a Witch- a soul that delights in dark places and risky spiritual wanderings and adventures- sometimes misadventures. Why would God or Great Nature weave such souls, such tragic or strange features into souls? That same question could be asked of those who enjoy adrenaline-soaked sports and feats like sky-diving or bungee-jumping; what strange factor in us drives us to risk and extremes?

That buried factor in us is real; it thirsts for novel experiences to expand the mind and soul's reach into understanding. We're fortunate that it's there, even if it does cost us many men and women who meet early deaths or madness- for in that strange extreme of human experience, society itself is regenerated, given the force it needs for change, the inspiration, and sometimes the tragedy. These people and their odd souls remind us that things aren't always as simple or orderly as we'd like- even when we want to believe in the myth of absolute order. They remind us that there are many ways to achieve our goals, other perspectives that allow for growth and innovation.

But the craft of "reaching outside" the boundaries is dangerous. For some, it's just a lifestyle of speed and adventure. For others, it is a craft, a sorcery that draws on hidden reaches of the mind and soul. That is Witchcraft. The adventurous on the physical level gain courage and self-confidence; the witch gains power, the power to know the deep places of the mind and soul, and to change it- and to change others. But the Witch doesn't work alone.

Beyond the "known world" of men and women and churches and jobs and tax-paying, is a region of mind and a world of spirit that contains sentient forces. These forces- these non-human persons- are wise in their own way, but dangerous in others. Only a fool believes that the unseen world is a happy place of butterflies and light, all the time. It may have its pleasing moments or places. But it is a world where nothing is certain, and some of its lords and ladies are not the sorts of neighbors you'd want moving in next to you, here in this world.

In fact, as we shall see, real "Witching" deals with learning to walk between two halves of reality- to be a man or woman in this world, and a witch in the other, where you exist as another self. These two worlds are not meant to come together, for that would spell the doom of both. It would certainly spell the doom of the mind and body of the foolish Witch who allowed the seen and unseen to collapse together. The master or mistress Witch knows how to circulate back and forth, over the boundaries and back again, in an almost hypnotic pattern of day walking and night-flying, rotating back and forth forever- being a mortal, but also more than a mortal.




The Unquiet in your Mind

To be a witch is to be a boundary-crosser. It means to understand what "this world" means, and what the world beyond it really is, and to have the bravery and ability to move across the spectral dividing-line. It means many things on many levels. On the personal level, the witch is not a "clean fit" for society; they do not become personally locked into easy patterns of belief and habit, for they are too informed by the strangeness and transformative powers that they interact with. They don't blend in well, because their eyes are focused, strangely, on things other people can't see, and their minds are obsessed with strange things that others would rather not think of... or couldn't think of.

On a worldly level, the witch can literally leave this world and enter into another. This other world has been feared and hated for a very long time- it is, to most Christians in society, a hellish, dangerous place, inhabited by soul-hunting demons and spirits of iniquity. The spirit world, to the mainstream, is fearful and dangerous. But the mainstream is only partly right. It is not a place of "angels and demons", but it is a place of strange powers, long-lived non-human persons that have strange abilities. Some of them can be teachers or helpers to witches who can integrate their power. Others can be doors of madness and death. Others are quite harmless.

For most Westerners, the door to the unseen has a goat's head and an upside-down pentagram carved on it. I mention these two symbols even though there are many others, because they obsess the minds of the mainstream, as symbols of the devil and magic. They have for a long time. The emotional power attached to these symbols, ironically born in misunderstanding and error, has become a real power that can now bring about a true "opening of the door"- a parting of the hedge or wall that separates our world from the unseen world.

Those who would take the gamble of real Witchcraft need to understand this, and mark it well- emotional power is everything. The origin of a symbol is important- for true symbols are connected to real powers outside of time. But some symbols, despite the lameness of their origins, still become inter-woven with emotional strength and even fear, and by so doing, become another kind of magical power. Yes, the trappings of the "satanist" from bad Hollywood and modern witch-hunts may be ludicrous and belong to a ludicrous world of invented metaphysics, but something has occurred in the minds and souls of Western men and women: we've let ourselves believe in them.

The unquiet in your mind is there- even the rock-hard atheist is bothered, on a deep level, by the sights and sounds of wild savagery, of the blood-soaked spiritual rites of non-Western native peoples, of mentions of demons and possession, of the well-worn "scary subject matter" used in the cinema. These things- the monsters, the demons, the weirdness, the supernatural- we've been battered with them through cinema and literature and even by participation in churches. They have lodged themselves in our deep minds, and a shudder of fear and excitement and interest goes through us when we see them or hear of them.

Late at night, when we are alone, we have the unquiet. We know that monsters aren't real, on an intellectual level- but deep down, we still have the images, the fear. There is an emotional power wrapped around the trappings of witchcraft and devilry- even trappings that were never historically used by real witches, and only made popular by Hollywood and hysterical church-goers. However they gained that power, they have it, and can today summon the "shudder" in us which is a sign that we are penetrating below our surface consciousness. More people than not will admit that they still run and leap into bed, so that the "thing" under it can't grab their feet. More people than not will admit that they still dash down the long, dark hall at night to get to the safety of the lit bathroom at the end.

A walk through the actual folklore of sorcery takes us into new regions of symbol and story that can arouse us in the same way, and this time, the arousal is being manifested by items and themes that pack a much deeper punch than Hollywood props. But a punch is a punch. When society "marks" certain objects, beliefs, practices, and symbols as "forbidden" or "dangerous" or "scandalous", they become doorways to regions of mind and experience that lie outside of the boundaries of society, and, in a real sense, "outside of the world", for society is a world in microcosm. The Witch knows how to open doors and gain access to power and resources that spring from that world beyond. This is the root-understanding of real Witchcraft.

Going "beyond" the boundaries of safety is never without risks. No matter how well you think you have it figured out, the world beyond is always a little more obscure and unpredictable. The "straight and narrow" people who stay fearfully within the boundaries of safety have one thing to their credit- they take less risks, and are less likely to end up mentally ruined or dead from things like sorcerous tampering with forbidden rites and regions of the spirit world. But they have demerits as well- there is much they will never see, and let's face it: there are plenty of ways to die or go mad even within the boundaries of the sane, rational world.

This all resolves down to one issue: are you the sort of person who feels the draw, from a deep personal level, to go across the boundaries? If so, then you can't be fulfilled without trying. You may die, but that's out of your hands. There are risks either way. One thing remains true: despite the propaganda of the people who huddle inside the partial safety of the well-worn world of men, Fate or Providence itself has made it so that men and women from every age will be Witches, or the risk-takers and journeymen of spirit and mystery. The "boundary crosser" is a function of humanity, found in every society, in many forms. They are necessary, and it is for this reason that the occult and the "superstitions" excoriated by the mainstream will always be with us. We will never give up on our belief in mystery, or our attraction to it.


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All Text, aside from given citations, is Copyright ? 2009 by Robin Artisson
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