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| "I hold here in my hand a list of names of known Pagan Fundamentalists ...." |
In medieval Christian Europe, for example, authorities regularly defined magic as drawing on demonic power, while religious rites, however similar in form or intended outcome, comprised a wholly separate sphere of action because they were believed to draw on divine force.13 Thus tied to Christian demonology, medieval European conceptions of magic became inextricably linked to Christian concepts of heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, profoundly affecting the ways in which medieval authorities responded to supposed magical practices.
In classical Greece, on the other hand, what modern scholars might label as either ‘‘religious’’ or ‘‘magical’’ rituals were often conceived as evoking the same sources of power (frequently spiritual entities called daimones). Within this range of powerful and effective practices, mageia referred quite precisely to foreign cultic rites, specifically those of Persian priests or magoi. In its etymological origins, the Western term ‘‘magic’’ was defined first by simple geography. Because the foreignness of mageia carried dark and sinister connotations, the term gradually became extended to include many illicit, covert, or private rites performed by Greeks themselves, but opposed to the publicly approved civic cults of the Greek poleis. Yet mageia in this sense was not simply ‘‘religious’’ ritual transported out of the confines of public cults, for the ancient world knew private cults, particularly familial ones, as well as prophets and priests who operated outside of clear cultic sites. Such people might arouse more suspicion than temple priests, but they were not automatically magoi.
There is no doubt that the ancient pagan and medieval Christian worlds defined magic quite differently. As Christianity rose to dominance in the world of late antiquity, conceptions of magic underwent a profound shift that Valerie Flint has characterized as a ‘‘demonization.’’ Christian thinkers transformed classical daimones, creatures of often ambivalent morality, into demons, fallen angels, and servants of the devil who were inherently evil and inimical to humanity. Yet although classical and Christian culture had very different ways of separating magical operations from proper religion and cultic practices, they each posited such a division, and even described it in some of the same ways. In both pagan antiquity and medieval Christian Europe, the term ‘‘superstition’’ meant excessive or improper devotion or ritual practices. In fact, early Christian authors took the word superstitio directly from late-Roman usage. While to the Romans, Christianity was superstitious, in the Christian context a major element of superstition was the improper performance of rituals in honor of demons. This definition encompassed magic, but also the rites of all pagan cults. While this radical redirecting of superstition highlights the opposition between Christian and pagan culture, it also demonstrates that both pagan and Christian society, despite their very different understandings of magic, were similar in their identification of sharply differentiated spheres of ritual action.
On the question of the degree to which the Society was Christian the experts differ. Mr. Geoffrey Watkins believes that it was strongly so from the first. Mr. Gerald Yorke that A.E. Waite who rewrote the ritual extensively when he broke away from the original Order, was mainly responsible for the Christianization. "Where the G.D. called itself a Hermetic Order, Waite called his version a Roscirucian Order, and the Rosicrucians were always more Christian than the Hermetists. In the original G.D. the Christianized Rosicrucian material did not come until the 5=6 degree in the Inner Order. Here for the first time you find the Calvary cross, but with a rose on it instead of the figure of Christian." This quote from a letter fro Mr Yorke; who further writes: "Now Hermetic Orders as such are only Christian in that they include some Christianity but do not stress it. Rosicrucian orders on the other hand are primarily Christian but draw on other pre-Christian sources. In other words the Hermetists always try to become God in his anthropomorphic or in some instances theriomorphic form. They inflame themselves with prayer until they become Adonai the Lord ... whereas the Christian approached God the Father through Christ (Adonai) but never tried to become Christ, only to become as Christ. Thus the Hermetic (or pagan) approach is as Adonai to order the averse hierarchy about, the Roscirucian approach is to order them about through the grace of Christ or through the power of His name ... Now the G.D. used the pagan formule, the Hermetic formulae and pre- or non-Christian names of power, take from the Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, Egyptian and Chaldean sources. The Rosicrucian substitutes names from the Christian system, from the Christian Trinity, etc. Both systems combine when it comes to the archangels Gabriel, Uriel, Michael and Raphael. They also agree on the Cherubim, Seraphim, etc. The G.D. way of becoming the god is the dangerous one, as it leads at once to inflated ego, witness Mathers and Crowley, et al. The occult orders are full mostly of people who are for the time being in revolt against or not at home with Christianity. When they find that the occult, Hermetic pre-Christian way of doing things at its best is no better than the Christian way, they often find their final home back in Christianity or in Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. For the major religions are major because they have stood the test of time better. Thus my conclusion is that the Hermetic way of the Golden Dawn is primarily Hermetic and not Christian, since it is reverting to pre-Christian methods and attitudes, but some of the members will have done it all in a Christian way way. I am fairly certain that these were the minority at any given moment and seldom remained in the Order all their lives. But this of course is a personal opinion."
I quote this valuable opinion of Mr. Yorke for the light it throws on the impoderables of an ambience, and emphasis within an Order at best ambiguous. Mr. Watkins's view of the predominance of the Christian emphasis may be founded on the fact that two of the founder-members (not Mathers) were members of the English Rosicrucian Order. As regards Yeats, we must be left wondering, as Thomas Butts wondered about Blake, whether his angels were black, white, or gray; but the colour of the angels themselves may perhaps lie in the eye of the beholder. In any case, from a Catholic point of view the Oder of the G.D. would stand condemned if only on the grounds of the vow of secrecy imposed upon its members.
"In this world, one of the strangest and most pervasive beliefs was that in witchcraft: unseen power, thought by many to be diabolical, harnessed for good and evil ends."A little later on (pp.1-3), when discussing the case of Elizabeth Clarke, who was the first victim of Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, Gaskill can't quite seem to make up his mind. First he states that a "wise woman". identified as Goodwife Hovey, would have been deemed a Witch by "parish ministers and ecclesiastic courts", but that among the lay public (or at least in the mind of John Rivet), a woman, like Hovey, who was "famed for her skill in healing and divination" would not be seen as a Witch because that designation was reserved for a "hag who visited disaster upon her enemies."
"As a legacy of this shame, it is likely that she [Elizabeth Clarke] had been a marked figure all her life, reviled but perhaps also revered among her watchful neighbors." [emphasis added]Also in his little book Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction, Gaskill explicitly acknowledges the historical ambiguity of the appellation "Witch". For example, he not only heads one subsection "Healers and Hags", but he also spends some time discussing the specific cases of two women, Elizabeth Mortlock and Appoline Beher, who were sought after as healers, and who found themselves denounced and convicted of Witchcraft because of their practice of beneficial magic
"Also in 1694, a dispute came to a head between the Crook and Baron families who shared a house at Overhilton (Lancashire). Henry Baron regularly quarelled with James Crook's wife (she had already received a warrant for his good behaviour), and when one of the Baron's calves died suddenly he accused her of witchcraft. On learning that she refused to appear before a JP, Baron was heard to say 'it was ill liveing near a white witch & ... if one did kill a white witch one could not be hang'd for it'. Soon afterwards, he beat her severely and she died. [Words in quotes are from court records dated 16 March, 1694. See Gaskill 2000 for more on the original source.]This particular point should not be overstated. Gaskill's acknowledgements concerning the ambiguous nature of Witchcraft have the air of a reluctant, half-hearted concession. Clearly Gaskill does not wish to dwell or or draw too much attention to either the positive magic attributed to Witches, or to the positive attitudes about Witches that inevitably resulted from that positive magic. Nevertheless he feels obligated, as indeed he is, to admit the reality of the association between Witches and beneficial magic.
Most scholars ply their humble trade far away from the public eye, with very little attention ever being paid to their labors outside the narrow confines of their chosen academic niche. Part of the reason for this is that most scholars can barely explain their research to the other experts in their own sub-fields, let alone make themselves understood (much less entertaining) while speaking to the "general" public (i.e. the ignorant masses).
The point, however, isn't for all the bought priests to monolithically toe a single party line. Rather, it is their job to delineate the proper boundaries of what one is allowed to think, while maintaining the illusion of having thought of it on one's own. Therefore there are different scripts to be read from depending on whether the opinionating is done on MSNBC, PBS, FOX, CNN, The Comedy Channel, etc (or the Guardian, versus the Telegraph, versus the New York Times, versus the Wall Street Journal, etc). 
"The history of witchcraft helps us to understand this tragic phenomenon [modern cases of violence against people accused of Witchcraft]. Unfortunately, the subject remains littered with powerful myths. Some modern witches sing a protest song called Catch the Fire, which mentions the 9 million women burned during the "witch-craze". Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code says 5 million. The actual figure was about 50,000. This still might seem a lot for an imaginary crime, but viewed in context of time, space and population levels, it's clear that witch trials were comparatively rare. Plus executions followed in only about half of trials."
"Mark Driscoll is a well-known nutty preacher in Seattle whose entire schtick is trying to dress up old-fashioned fundamentalist misogyny like it’s the cool new thing the kids are doing these days. His main strategy is talking about sex all the time. It’s incredibly important to Driscoll that you understand he’s a sex machine, and to generally imply that following Christ turns men into insatiable horndogs. He published a sex manual for Christians last year, one that portrays Christian marriage as something of a pornographic fantasy of women living in a state of permanent submission and sexual availability."
