1924 Moroccan franc - I gave one of these to my son as a pendant for his 15th birthday after having it for 20 years
Twilight. A group of figures, some robed, most in plain clothes, pace the ancient patterns of the labyrinth in wet grass and silent meditation. Later, yellow, red, blue and green candles are lit and prayers are offered, invoking the four elements and their associated Archangels, and lastly a white candle in a silver orb. The Ritual begins with a Greek chant associated with the Temple at Delphi. Word and Wisdom are invited to the Heiros Gamos, the Sacred Marriage. The Priest intones:
Come, hidden Mother, come; come, you who are made manifest in your works, and give joy and rest to those who are bound to you.
Later still a Chalice of wine is blessed and shared among those gathered, offered with the cryptic challenge: "Be what you see; receive what you are."
What Religion is being celebrated here? Gnosticism? Wicca? Christianity?
Yes.
The Witchcraft is not "nature worship"; the term implies a kind of observable materialism, the fixation on trees and flowers and lunar cycles. Rather, The Witchcraft rightly sees the natural world as expressions of the Divine, and a path back to the Divine: not as an end to itself but as an example of how to live harmoniously.
There's a "ghost in the machine" in The Witchcraft. That's the difference between cowering under the covers during a lightning storm – surely Zeus must be angered and requires tribute! – to being humbled and inspired by the majesty of the event. (Curiously, most Christians never get past the "angry Zeus" model of theology.) The post-modernist world-view for Witches grants that it's all a metaphor, inviting myth and poetry and art and sex into that space of reverence for beauty. There's a subtlety to it that belies the origin of the term "pagan"; a latin colloquialism for "illiterate hick".
Given the very high numbers relating to post-secondary education among modern Pagans, I'm disturbed by the recent trend of pushing the dumb ones in front of reporters: We're told Witches don't practice Witchcraft. Pagans worship rocks and trees. Lord such and such and Lady so and so are actually descended from Faeries. If I see one more pair of muttonchops in a velour cloak posing as royalty and talking about the "Old Religion", I'm going to punch out my laptop.
Now, the staggering majority of the two million plus Witches, Wiccans, NeoPagans and Pagans are not using pretentious pseudonyms, wearing Spock ears and talking about "the Burning Times" as though this was an historical reality.
Most of them are the henna-tattoo-and-spice-rack variety; they are art students with black kittens and triquetra pendants, and take the Goddess as a benign and socially-responsible shorthand for a much greater and deeper theology than a dormroom altar can express. And I love 'em. These are my people. They're smart, sexy, funny, inquisitive, creative, responsible and generous. And I think most of them are Gnostics, though few are familiar with the term.
Increasingly, I come across the term "Gnostic Witch"; I do wonder if that's necessary. Both gnosis and The Witchcraft are ways of seeing, and involve using poetry and mythic states to communicate with the Divine. The word "Witch" itself is related to Wisdom, to being an agent of Sophia, the Goddess and Eternal Bride.
The other thing I'm seeing among Witches is a call for a deeper, ecumenical understanding of the role The Witchcraft plays alongside other religious traditions; a call for apologetics and theology. It does seem to me that Ecclesiastical Gnosticism is just such an apologetic, the expression of this desired understanding. The Eucharist is a pre-Christian magical working, an Alchemical Operation, and an authentic, contiguous link to the Religion of Pagan Rome, of Greek Mysteries, of Kemet and Sumer.
The Fifth Element of the Pentagram is the point where Gnosticism and The Witchcraft converge, the Quintessence. It must be understood that each element contains the others; the message of the Pentagram - sacred to Witches, Hermeticists, Alchemists, and early Christians – symbolizes the Divine Spirit within the material world, the stolen Promethean fire that is the Gift of Sophia.
See also Are Witches Gnostic? Part I and Are Witches Gnostic? Part II
11 comments:
Interesting post. I see a lot of similarity between gnosticism and afro-carribean witchcraft myself, but these would be difficult to articulate. Here goes anyway:
1. The idea that God is removed from the world, and does not intervene in earthly affairs, but has delegated the operations of nature instead to a number of lieutenants, aka saints, loa, orishas, etc.
2. 7 (primary) lieuenants in number according to some schemes.
3.The inner spark descended into the work and living in fragments within everyone as divine potential - energy
4.The ability of humans to manipulate this energy and feel it move through them, perception of and interaction with the spirit world
5. Secretive, initiatory
6. Long polysyllabic names with lots of vowels
7. Syncretic, prone to elaborate allegory
8.acceptance of (if not always emphasis on) the possibility of reincarnation
9. Misunderstood, history of persecution
Big differences: ATRs are oral and hands-on (not academic) in orientation, employ systems of divination and offering foreign to gnosticism, and manifest phenomena unknown (at least as far as I know) to organized gnosticism, i.e., trance possesion, ancestor worship, etc.
It's not surprising, given the enormous impact that Kemetic religion had on north- and east-africa. We can see many "fossilized" versions of Kemetic thought and practice today in a swath from Mali to the Sudan.
Likewise, it was in Egypt (Alexandria) that Gn was first conceived, as a syncretism of Judaism and the Greek Mysteries against a Kemetic backdrop.
I don't pretend to understand the finer points of my Wiccan friend's belief system, but her practice appears to include a prayer group, the displaying of a Green Man pendant and assorted chunks of crystal, and past life readings. I don't think she is familiar with the word "gnostic" but she'd probably have no problem incorporating it into her belief system.
With all the similarities in the thought processes, I can see how witches could be classified with Gnosticism.
However, Wicca is not something I would classify as "gnostic" per se, mainly because the modern day version does seem to spawn quite a number of people just looking for attention and not really understanding its intentions.
In the same sense, we could say that Buddhists are also gnostics, but I doubt that would hold either. I can see that Wiccans and Buddhists have gnostic tendancies, but it's also making Gnosticism a more umbrella term.
Maybe it's just what it seems: gnostic influence.
Well let us be careful to not confuse Witches with Wiccans, but Wicca (and ALL neopaganism which came after) emerged from the 19th Century Gnostic Restoration. Without Doinel's vision of Sophia in 1890 we would not have had the Golden Dawn, without the GD there would be no Rosicrucian Revival after WW1, without the Rosicrucian Theosophists there would be no Gardner, and without Gardner, no Wicca.
Ecclesiastical Gnosticism is in the DNA of all modern Pagans.
It's not surprising, given the enormous impact that Kemetic religion had on north- and east-africa. We can see many "fossilized" versions of Kemetic thought and practice today in a swath from Mali to the Sudan.
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What's Kemetic religion? Just out of curiousity... looked it up on Wiki but it only had info on Kemetic Wicca & Kemetic Orthodoxy which as far as I could tell were some sort of self-conscious 19th century revivals of ancient Egyptian beliefs
FWIW most of the ATRs are a syncretic fusion of the beliefs of different west and south african tribes (bantu, yoruba, fon, dahomey) from Angola, Zaire, Nigeria, etc with Roman catholicism, either brought to Africa by colonists or else imposed on captives in the New World (braizil, haiti, cuba) during the slave trade.
I've read that freemasonry influenced the development of these systems in Haiti - and solomonic goetia in Brazil (particularly in the congolese cults) - but aside from that cannot find much connection with European thought in general or Ecclesiastical Gnosticism specifically. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough?
Still, the parallel cosmologies are fascinating.
Oh yeah, the sepent is also an important symbol or deity in many of these systems too, esp. voudon. But that might be making too much of it.
Now, the staggering majority of the two million plus Witches, Wiccans, NeoPagans and Pagans are not using pretentious pseudonyms, wearing Spock ears and talking about "the Burning Times" as though this was an historical reality.
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If you also classify the magico-religious systems and cults of South & Latin America and the Carribean (e.g., Voudon, Umbanda, Candomble, Lucumi, Palo, Quimbanda, Brujeria, Obeah, etc.) as witchcraft traditions then that brings the number to about 50 million.
I guess it all depends on how you define "witchcraft" though.
To my mind, any form of polytheistic shamanism/sorcery with a well-developed cosmology and liturgy whose adherents work with personified forces of nature and/or spirits of the dead to effect healings, curses, etc. probably qualifies.
"What's Kemetic religion?"
Kemet is merely the proper archaeological name for ancient Egypt; "kmt" or "black / black land" for the dark, fertile soil irrigated by the Nile (as opposed to the "red" land of the infertile desert).
"I guess it all depends on how you define "witchcraft" though."
I distinguish between the catch-all lower-case "witchcraft" which I'm sure does encompass all you've described from The Witchcraft, which is the distinctly European tradition that deliberately used the word "witch" to describe mythic experience and employed the symbolism of the Two Kings (and the meme of the Leukothea).
Ah, OK, thanks... I've run across the "Kemetic" term before but never knew what it referred to.
Never heard the term "The Witchcraft" before either, but I guess I know what you mean now.
On a related note, it's interesting the way "The Dominant Culture" always seems to need to encode some sort of privilege into everything - from witchcraft and "The Witchcraft" to a gospel and "The Gospel."
Then again in Afro-Latin culture, when people say "the Religion" that doesn't mean just any religion - you're supposed to know already, and if you don't there's an assumption there too. Perhaps the habit of drawing distinctions in this way is universal.
Father Jordan, needless to say for most of us that enjoy your site, your theological knowledge is impressive, but for some of us newbies, your references are sometimes hard to find on the internet to learn more. :) Googling only works if you know what you are looking for!
"...the 19th Century Gnostic Restoration. Without Doinel's vision of Sophia in 1890 we would not have had the Golden Dawn, without the GD there would be no Rosicrucian Revival after WW1, without the Rosicrucian Theosophists..."
I am interested in learning more about these events. Can you point me to a place to study this further?
Thank you so much for what you do here.
Peace to you
Shawn
BS"D
Hey! That's my matching pendant to yours :D
As far as the Gnostic Jewy-ness is concerned, I would recommend reading the Bahir ("brilliant emanation of light") & then getting back to me. R' Aryeh Kaplan has a friendly English translation...
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