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Now we have just past Halloween – and, yes, I did have a marvellous time – I thought you might like to know that the police force here in London has been issued with thoughtful and sensitive advice on dealing with the great sisterhood of witches. Indeed, they have. Officers of the Metropolitan Police have a 300-hundred page guide (not all about witches!) with all sorts of helpful tips on dos, don’ts and correct procedures. The details outlined in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday helped raise a smile amidst the residues of party Armageddon!
To begin with officers are advised against touching a witch’s Book of Shadows. Yes, we all have one, a personal, hand-written account of each singular and unique journey in the mysteries of the Craft. There is magic here, the magic beginning with pen put to paper and continuing to weave a spell. It’s a mystery and like all mysteries has to be kept secret, so I’m not prepared to say anymore, or to allow the police to have access on a whim!
The other thing Mr Plod should avoid is touching my ceremonial dagger, my athame, without permission, or interrupting a pagan ceremony. If by chance they happen to do so, and if by further chance they discover that a blindfolded, bound and naked person happens to be the focus of the said ceremony, they are not immediately to jump to conclusions. It’s just as well they stayed away from my party then, or various erroneous conclusions might have been leapt at!
Actually, I shouldn’t really make fun of this, though the earnestness really invites humour. It’s a measure of the growing importance of witchcraft that officers are being introduced to terms like “merry meet” and “wickening”; to festivals such as Imbolic, Lughnasadh and Samahin. It’s delightfully educational; I’m just not sure what it has to do with policing. “Pagans”, we are told, “have no religious dietary laws. However, many, though not all, witches are vegetarians”. Yes, but so what? It seems, well, a tad on the banal side
Meanwhile, you can burn my house, steal my car, drink my liquor from an old fruit jar. Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh, honey, lay off of my Book of Shadows. :-)
...Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels!
Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!
I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset;
I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky...
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ReplyDeleteSelf-pity and paganism are contradictions in terms. :-)
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ReplyDeleteDid you read the story, Adam? The headline was quite misleading, I thought: the story was not about arresting witches at all. It simply drew attention to a new handbook on the range of beliefs now present in society, including witchcraft. I admit it was a bit simplistic, though, at least the parts that the paper published. There is also an entry on atheists, whom, I dare say, have been responsible for a great many crimes!
ReplyDeleteThe Wikipedia article on Halloween/Samhain is quite good if you want more detailed information. For me it's simply the greatest of the pagan festivals, next only to Beltane. It's the time of greatest reverence for the past, for tradition, for our ancestors; it's a festival that indicates that each and everyone of us are but part in a great chain, linking the past, through the present into the future.
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ReplyDeleteAdam, please don't always be so literal-minded. I was using atheism to indicate people who have no place for God, morality or the sacred in their lives, which probably covers most common criminals!
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to get bogged down here. I'll simply repeat a point that I've made before. Whether Stalin and Pol Pot killed because they were atheists or not is irrelevant. They killed people, monks and priests, for no greater offence than that they followed a religious life.
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ReplyDeleteAdam, I did not say that people without God were also without a sense of morality. I made no observation either about Stalin or Pol pot's nihilism or atheism, merely that they kiiled people simply for holding beliefs of which they disapproved.
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ReplyDeleteI celebrated Samhain instead of Halloween by reading up on Scottish history and the Six Celtic Nations. I was angered though that the Wikipedia article made no mention of the Scottish and Irish in the American West, even though it did mention settlement in the East, and even though the settlement of Scots in the West was actually the biggest settlement of Scots in the US.
ReplyDeleteOnly did a little bit of this though, had a big test to study for.
Jeremy, the beauty of Wikipedia is that you can add this information yourself, though best to make sure that it's sourced. Good luck with the test. :-)
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ReplyDeleteTo me, the pure meaning of Christmas is the literal meaning of Christmas, Christs birth (mas). The pure meaning of Halloween doesn't exist as the holiday was cobbled together from several different festivals including Samhain, the Mexican Day of the Dead, All-Saints Day, local legends and who knows what else.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought it would be beautiful to celebrate Easter with a marathon, a bodybuilding competition, a dogsled race, or other great tests of endurance and overcoming the bodies flaws. I rather think it should be a day for sport, celebrating the miraculous achievement of Christ in overcoming death. Likewise, I think Good Friday should be a day of quiet meditation and reflection upon Christ in ones own life. I think Christmas will be more pure if we shift some of the traditional wintertime and family festivities (gift giving et cetera) to the Winter Solstice.
Jeremy, scratch one ceremony or feast day and you will find another dozen down below! It wasn't until the fourth century, I think, that the Church finally agreed on the precise date of Christ's birth, no mention of it being made in the Bible. And the date they chose just happened to be the birthday of Sol Invictus, the chief Roman deity. :-)
ReplyDeleteIslam confirms the existence of magic and strictly forbids to spell on people. It also confirms the third kinds like ghost, soul, daemons ...etc. (You don't spell on anything, right Ana??)
ReplyDeleteKunday, all my magic is good magic. I most certainly do not put spells on others. :-)
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