BEING A WITCH IN BRITAIN TODAY
by James Pengelly
Written for the Newcastle University Conference; Encounters of Religion
I am regional co-ordinator for the Pagan Federation (PF) for Humberside, North
Yorkshire and the counties that form the northeast of England up to the Scottish
Borders. The PF was founded in 1971 by a group of Gardnerian Witches, the
object of it being to counter what was perceived as being popular misconceptions
about Witchcraft.
The main reason for the existence of the PF remains largely unchanged, as the
last few years have seen what can only be described as an onslaught by various
fundamentalist Christian organizations who have latched on to the unfortunate
and sad matter of child abuse to which they have added the word "Satanic' as a
means by which they can attack and defame the occult in general, and Witchcraft
in particular.
I will return to this matter elsewhere in this lecture, but I mention it now to
illustrate the importance of our anti-defamation work. In addition, the Pagan
Federation acts as a networking organization to put people who share views on
religious and spiritual matters in touch with one another, to enable them to get
together, discuss and learn, and experience further.
The third important aspect to our work is to increase awareness of the spiritual
and cultural heritage of this country. Given that many, if not most, of our customs
and traditions have their roots set deep in our Pagan past and that our
countryside is rich in the physical remains of this we feel that a positive
promotion of this inheritance is vital to a fuller understanding of who we are.
The topic of this lecture is Being A Witch In Britain Today. Now I think that when
one mentions the word, "Witch" to the average member of the public, the image
that is immediately conjured up is one of a wizened old hag boiling up an
extremely noxious brew in some bubbling cauldron, probably on a windswept
moor somewhere. This is of course Shakespearian in its perception, but
unfortunately, whatever his intentions were at the time he wrote Macbeth, William
Shakespeare did Witchcraft a considerable disservice, because this image has
stuck. In addition, the public is very much subject to conditioning laid down in the
Middle Ages by the Church, through historical accounts of Witch trials, which
were heavily biased. Consequently it is hardly surprising that the image the
general public has is of nasty, evil, thoroughly bad people riding around on
broomsticks at dead of night creating havoc all over the place, poisoning people
right left and centre, doing unspeakable things with goats, not to mention
chickens, frogs, toads, cats, and sundry other animals. All in all not very nice
people!
It is interesting to note that even in this day and age, many people are still very
superstitious when it comes to magic, the occult, Witchcraft and so on. In
addition to the historical misconceptions about Witches and Witchcraft, I would
go as far as saying that people still have a deeply rooted superstitious attitude,
and that while some may automatically dismiss out of hand Witches having any
sort of magical power, deep down, the majority of people still harbour deep
rooted fears about this sort of thing being possible.
At a time when mankind has seemingly achieved so much in the field of science,
when there is so little mystery left in life because everything has been
rationalized and explained, and developed beyond that which our ancestors were
able to comprehend, the fact that people do still harbour superstitions and
worries about Witchcraft and the occult in general does not altogether surprise
me. If one removes the mystery from life, one has nothing left with which to
replace it, and one has to look to that which one cannot explain. The problem
being that man has for countless generations been frightened by that which he
cannot explain. And this is why we are now living in the scientific age, because
man has purposely set out to explain that of which he is afraid. The thing being
that there is very little left that man cannot explain. And one of the areas that he
cannot explain is, of course, magic, Witchcraft and the occult.
Let us for a moment, examine the term, "occult". Occult simply means 'that which
is hidden'. The term has been used for centuries to explain the general workings
of the universe. The creation of fire would have, at some point in time, been
regarded as magic. Why things moved when they were subject to certain power
sources such as steam would have been deemed magic before the principles
were understood. Illnesses were originally considered to be occult based. You
could impose an illness on a neighbour or friend if you had the magical power to
do it. But of course, none of these things were actually magical in any sense. The
magic lay in the fact that a lot of people didn't understand what was going on.
Those who did have an understanding of what was going on were perceived as
having some sort of power. The biblical phrase, "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to
live", is in this context quite revealing because in its original format, the word,
"Witch", did not actually translate as Witch, it translated as "poisoner". And there
is no doubt that the original village Witch would have in her own way been a
doctor of sorts, in that she or he would have understood the uses of various
herbs for good purposes and for bad purposes. And could quite probably been
paid to use that knowledge to achieve the results for which she was being paid,
to either kill or cure. Consequently, the village Witch, was someone to be feared,
and respected.
As the Christian Church took hold, the older Pagan ways were perceived as
something to be got rid of. I do not think this was particularly a spiritual battle. It
was a power battle. It was simply a matter of one religious-political system
wishing to gain control over another. And as Christianity grew in strength, largely
through fear and oppression, the old ways were presented as being evil and
wicked, and not to be tolerated.
This situation remained largely extant until 1951, when the last laws remaining on
the English statute book against Witchcraft were repealed, and what is now
commonly referred to as the British Revivalist Craft came to light. The fact that it
had, in some form or another, managed to survive over countless generations
was, in itself, quite a surprising thing. But we now know that what are often
referred to as the Hereditary Craft and the Traditional Craft were to a certain
extent passed down from generation to generation either within specific families
or small, invariably farming, communities. It was this that the late Dr Gerald
Gardener is thought to have discovered, and built up into what is today known as
the Revivalist Craft. His work was later developed by others such as Alex
Sanders who founded the Alexandrian Craft and, more recently, by Janet and
Stewart Farrar. Their works are very well known, popular, and easily avail-able,
and they have created what is sometimes jokingly referred to as the Farrarian
Craft; a hybrid mixture of Gardenerian, Alexandrian and their own methods of
working.
Being a Witch today in this country is not necessarily a hard thing, but nor is
necessarily an easy thing. There is still a great deal of superstitious prejudice and
nonsense held against Witches. And this is fermented, and that is the only word I
can think of, to a large extent by certain areas of our national media, in particular
the more lurid tabloid press, and of course Christian fundamentalist groups, who
have over the last few years started to expand at a rather alarming, and for many
non-Christians, a rather frightening rate. The phenomena of Christian
fundamentalism is something which has largely been imported to this country
from America, where it has been a populist Christian movement for many, many
years. One only has to look at the news over the last few years concerning some
American fundamentalist leaders to realize that basically, they are like so many
of us human beings, subject to all the little foibles that human beings are gener-
ally subject to, that they are just as easily led astray as any of us can be. The
rising issue of fundamentalism is, as I say, quite a frightening thing because it
seeks to impose a set of standards, a set of behaviour, and a set of religious
beliefs, on every-one, which no-one is permitted to question. This is one reason
why we find so many people are now turning to Paganism in its broadest sense,
and to Wicca in particular. (Wicca being the commonly used modern term for
Witchcraft.) They turn to us because they are disillusioned with the level of
dogma and the level of imposition they find within established Christian traditions,
be they Church of England, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, or some of the
more extreme fundamentalist sects.
People seem now to be dividing into groups. There are those who are 'the led'
and they search for leaders. And when they find a leader who is prepared to tell
them what to do, when to do it, how to think, how not to think and so on, they
latch onto that and they go on quite happy in their own way because they want to
be told. On the other hand there are an increasing number of people who are
prepared to listen to what others have to say but then like to go away and make
their own minds up about things, and work things out for themselves. And we are
finding more and more that this is what Paganism in general and Wicca in
particular is providing. It is providing people with the means by which they can
form deeply personal relationships with their own particular perceptions of deity.
They can work with that perception. They can utilize it within a framework that is,
generally speaking, of a very high moral and ethical standard. And the idea that
Witches are evil, nasty, wicked people who go around sticking pins in little lumps
of wax shaped into the form of a person containing lumps of fingernail and pieces
of hair and other sundry bodily parts, is being increasingly recognized as grossly
untrue. We have to bear in mind that a lot of the popular perceptions of the Witch
are, as I have already said, largely determined by historical records. Historical
records written by people in whose interest it was to defame the Witch, and to
register her, or him, as an evil person, but even these are now being challenged
by more and more people.
So, as I've said, being a Witch in this country today is not always an easy thing.
On the one hand, you can meet with extreme prejudice, on the other hand you
can equally meet with extreme derision. A number of perfectly normal, sane,
rational people that I know of think that the fact that I am a Witch is a huge joke. I
am very used to people asking me "When can I come round to your house and
take all my clothes off?." My usual response to which is "Any time you like
providing I'm not having my tea at the time, or watching Coronation Street, but
believe me pal, you're on your own." I personally find that this is the best way to
approach this sort of thing. If you can turn the question into a joke aimed at
yourself, people are happy with that and feel comfortable with that, and will go
away thinking that basically you're a pretty decent sort of person with just some
very strange ideas. If, on the other hand, you become intensely defen-sive, the
opposite can be true because they will assume that you have something to hide,
something which you don't wish to talk about. And we all know that faced with
that sort of situation the human mind is capable of conjuring up all sorts of
unpleasant images. So I stand before you today proclaiming myself to be a
Witch. I do not particularly like using the term, but it is a term with which most
people are familiar, so within the context of this lecture, I am happy to use it. And
I stand before you here, not a wizened old crone, dressed in rags and tatters with
a big wart on the end of her nose, but, I hope, a fairly presentable man in his
early middle age, who has a very respectable job. I have a house, a mortgage, a
small daughter, I am like many people of my generation, separated from my wife,
for purely personal reasons. I am, to all intents and purposes an ordinary person.
And yet I stand before you here, and tell you I am a Witch.
What does this mean for me personally? Basically, like most Witches, I am a
Pagan. I believe in the Old Religion. The religion that was worldwide before
Christianity or Hinduism, or Islam took a hold on large areas of the world. Once
upon a time, whether people like to admit it or not, the whole world was Pagan.
Paganism then was vastly different from Paganism today. There are those who
go round saying that they are practicing pre-Christian Paganism. I would say,
that while they are not necessarily deluding themselves, they are misleading
themselves. What we are practicing today is the spirit of ancient Paganism. We
cannot possibly practice ancient Paganism, because if we were doing so, we
would be indulging in such things as blood sacrifice, and so on and so forth,
which forms no part of modern Pagan tradition.
Witchcraft is a sub-system of broad Paganism. Most Witches regard it as the
mystery aspect of Paganism. The mystery aspect being that one searches for the
spark of the ultimate divine source, which is inherent in each one of us, in the
hope that one can find it, come to terms with it, and accept it as part of ourselves.
Most Pagans believe in an ultimate creative source. Christians call it God. We
believe that there exists, somewhere out there in the wider universe, the source
of all creation. We do not give it a name, we do not give it a form. It is, to our
way of thinking, entirely neutral. It is all things in one thing. It is all things and it is
nothing. It is largely beyond our reach. Some people aspire to attain union with
the ultimate, very, very few people ever reach it. Consequently, most Pagans will
choose to leave it alone.
It is unreachable. And it is unaware of our existence, because it is neutral in form.
What we do is we aspect it; we split it into the various components which form it.
The ultimate split is gender, male and female. If the ultimate creative source is all
things, then it must have male and female aspects. So the ultimate male aspect
is 'The God', the ultimate female aspect is 'The Goddess'. Below this one can
continue splitting into various other aspects as one chooses, until one gets down
to a level of elementals, nature spirits, and so on and so forth. The idea being,
that all natural things coming from the ultimate creative source contain a spark of
that creative source, and consequently all things are inherently sacred. We reject
entirely the Christian concept that man is born sinful, and has to spend the whole
of his life begging forgiveness for sins real and imaginary. We believe that it is
because of this attitude that mankind does a lot of the things he does. If you bring
somebody up and condition them to believe that they are inherently bad, they are
going to react in that way.
Pagans and Witches believe that man is born inherently sacred, and it is what he
himself does with his life that makes him bad or good. It is nothing to do with
God, the Gods, the Goddesses or anything else. Consequently, Paganism and
Witchcraft are extremely responsible forms of religious practice in that they teach
that we are responsible for what we do and the effect that it has for those around
us, both immediately and out in the wider world. We believe in what is commonly
referred to as 'the ripple effect'. Drop a stone in a pond, and it will create ripples
which will go on and on until they reach the bank and are forced to stop. If you
regard the universe as a very large ocean, everytime one of us does something,
we create a ripple effect. The ripples, on a universal scale, may be imperceptible,
but they are there none the less. And if we regard life in that way, we need to
immediately take stock of that which we do and act upon it. Now obviously it is
not possible to take this sort of philosophy to an extreme, otherwise, one would
literally do nothing. If one flushes the toilet one is potentially adding to sea
pollution.
If one turns an electric light on, one is potentially adding to air pollution. Whatever
one does, somewhere along the line is likely to have a detrimental effect on
someone.
The Witch or Pagan will judge what he or she is doing with his or her life and will
try and determine the least harmful way of living. It requires a great deal of
thought, it requires a great deal of honesty and self analysis and not a small
amount of self-sacrifice. it forces one to look at how one relates to oneself, and
life around us, because we believe that all natural things on this world are
sacred, and therefore to be treated with respect.
So, what then, is our relationship with our perception of divinity? As 1 have
already mentioned, we personalize aspects of the ultimate creative source.
These personal-izations can be drawn from one or another of the existing Pagan
pantheons, such as Norse, Greek, Roman or Egyptian, or they can be done on a
much more personal level where the individual will somehow personalize
whatever aspect of divinity they wish to work with in that moment in time. Most
Witches have the Great Goddess, and the Horned God. (The horns, incidentally
have absolutely nothing to do with the concept of the devil having horns. And are
usually, in this country, personified as being deer's antlers being simply symbols
of power and strength.) The Great Goddess is seen as being the Mother of all
things, the Horned God, her consort who is also frequently linked with the Sun as
the All Father.
Below that, we have the Triple Goddess, whose symbol is the Moon, the Maid,
the Mother, and the Crone. And then there are any number of other
personifications largely based on the individual preference of the person or
group, doing whatever it is they're doing. This may seem to be an immensely
complicated system, and indeed it some-times takes a great deal of
understanding. But you have to relate it to the natural seasonal cycle, or festivals,
that most Pagans, whatever their traditions, will follow.
The seasonal cycle basically follows the agricultural and solar cycle of the year.
We have eight major festivals. The first, and possibly the most important, is
Samhain, spelled S-A-M-H-A-I-N, commonly known as Hallowe'en, and is
thought to have been the time when the ancient Celts celebrated the new year. It
was the end of one agricultural year and the beginning of the next. It was the final
onset of Winter. It was, as it is commonly regarded today, also a festival of the
dead. The modern concept today of ghosts and ghoulies and long-leggedy
beasties and things that go bump in the night, stemmed directly from the Celtic
feast of the dead. This is not some necrophiliac intention of summoning up spirits
for evil purposes, it was/is simply a time when one reflects on the memories of
lost loved ones, lost friends, and hopes to gain some insight into one's own life
from the lessons that we can learn from those who have gone before us. It is
interesting to note that, even in its christianized form, Halloween, or All Hallows
Eve is still a festival of the dead.
The mid-Winter Solstice is, of course, Yule, an Anglo-Saxon word so old its
meaning is now completely forgotten. It has been suggested that that it could
mean 'wheel', and within a Pagan or a Wiccan context the year is often referred
to as "the wheel of the year", in that it turns on, and on. Yule celebrates the re-
birth of the Sun. It is indeed interesting that Christians should have taken this
festival to mark the birth of Christ, when what historical evidence we have seems
to suggest that Christ was actually either born in March or September.
From then we move on to Imbolc, christianized as Candlemas, which represents
the first stirring of Spring and the gradual return of light. We then have the Spring
Equinox, which when the earth comes back fully to life, and has become largely
associated with Easter. Many people today do not realize that Easter is a
moveable feast because the date of Easter is set on the first Sunday after the
first full Moon after the Spring Equinox. And if that isn't a Pagan concept, I really
don't know what is. In fact, the very name "Easter" comes from the Anglo-Saxon
fertility Goddess "Eostre" and many of the items traditionally associated with
Easter such as eggs and rabbits are directly derived from Pagan ideas and
symbols.
Then follows Beltane, which is interesting in that it is the only Pagan holiday
which does not have a Christian counterpoint. This is probably because of its
overtly sexual nature. It is interesting that children conceived at Beltane were
invariably born on or around Imbolc, which is lambing time in the sheep farmers
year. Ewe's milk would have been important in the past to strengthen children for
the last part of Winter and to give them strength to grow through the Spring and
Summer.
After Beltane we have of course the Summer Solstice, mid-Summer, which
represents the Sun at its height. Solstices and Equinoxes all being solar festivals.
The union of Sun and Earth to produce the harvest that is to come. Lugnassadh,
commonly referred to as Lammas, which literally means loaf-mass from the
Anglo-Saxon, is the start of the harvest. It is the time when we prepare to cut
down that which the union of the Sun and the Earth Mother has provided for us.
The Autumn equinox is the harvest festival. A time to rest and relax after the
harvest has been collected. And then we come back again to Samhain, or
Halloween.
So as you can see, we follow a very natural cycle. Rituals and ceremonies can
vary immensely from group to group, or individual to individual. But each one,
whenever it is done, will consist of some sort of symbolic, what I can only
describe as 'drama', that reflects what we see going on in the world around us,
and how we perceive the Gods and Goddesses of Paganism or Witchcraft as
playing a part in that. There is a lot of talk about the use of spirit powers and so
on and so forth, and many Christians perceive this as being inherently very, very
dangerous. Spiritualism, as it is commonly perceived, plays very little part in
Wicca. It is not something that we believe should be played around with. We will
invoke on one another the spirit of a particular God or a particular Goddess
dependent on what we are doing at the time. But all we are asking that particular
God or Goddess to do is imbibe us with something of their power, something of
their insight. It is basically an intensely psychological thing. Because, as we all
know, if one stands in front of a mirror saying "every day and every way, I am
getting better and better", then one is likely to grow in self-confidence. The
concept is pretty much the same.
So, as we can see, Witches are not horrible evil people, but generally, quite
ordinary nice decent people who have chosen to try and relate more to the
natural things around us than some far distant imperceptible god-form. But what
of magic? Witchcraft is obviously very closely associated with the use of magic.
So what is magic?
Magic was once described as 'the art of causing change in conformity with will'.
Put more basically, this simply means mind over matter. Causing something to
happen simply by the strength of your own mind. This is perhaps a bit too far
fetched for a great many people to accept, but when one considers the nature of
prayer, one has a concept which is easier to understand. For most Witches, an
act of magic is simply a form of prayer. You will seek the attention of a particular
God or a particular Goddess, and you will ask her or him to assist you in
something that you want done. Surely, this is no different from anyone going into
a church or synagogue, kneeling down, and saying, "please God, help me".
It is true that Witches will dress that up in some way and use items of equipment
and paraphernalia which are alien to a church, mosque, or synagogue. These
are primarily nothing more than psychological props, means by which the
individual can focus their attention on something. Using the appropriate
equipment at the appropriate time aided by appropriate colours and scents are all
means by which one can focus one's mind onto a specific point. Like anything,
our acts of magic do not necessarily always produce the desired result. But we
choose to believe that if it does not happen, it is because it is not meant to
happen, rather than we are not worthy of it happening.
Many people talk of white and black magic. This is an entirely Christian concept;
we do not accept the terms white or black magic. Magic is a neutral force which
is used by the individual and it is what the individual does with it that makes it
white or black. But most Witches, in using the powers that they have available to
them will consider the implications of what they are doing, and will think very
seriously about undertaking any act of magic which could prove detrimental to
any-one or anything which cannot be justified morally and spiritually.
If the Craft has any "laws" as such they apply to the use of magic in a more
obvious way than any-where else, and there are basically two such "laws".
The first is more of an ethic - "An it harm none-do what thou will". On the face of
it this seems to offer carte-blanche to do what you want as long as no-one gets
hurt but if regarded within the context of the "ripple effect" mentioned earlier the
relevance and importance of it becomes clearer. In addition to this, most Wiccans
subscribe to what is usually referred to as the "Law of Threefold Return" which
basically means that the result of an act will reflect on the instigator times three.
As you will possibly appreciate, this is worth serious consideration if what one is
undertaking is potentially or deliberately harmful.
Between the clearly "white" or "black" areas of magic however lies the "grey"
area. This is hard to define as it depends largely on the conscience of the
individual but whatever the shade, a Witch will never undertake any act of magic
without serious consideration of all the matters and questions surrounding it.
To go back to the matter of Satanic child-abuse, the suggestion that there exists
some sort of organized conspiracy of Satanic based child abuse is nonsense. It
is a myth created entirely by so-called Christian extremists whose intention is to
ferment a modern Witchhunt in exactly the same way as the Nazis fermented
action against the Jews. There is no question of that. Whilst I would not deny that
there may be some sick, criminal perverts, who utilize the cover of the occult in
general and Witchcraft in particular, to abuse children, these people are not
Witches, they are sick and evil perverts who deserve the full weight of the law to
fall upon them.
To specifically identify Wicca with child abuse is criminally irresponsible as it
brands a huge number of totally innocent people as potential child abusers, and
given that it is an intensely emotive issue, there is a real risk of a lynch mob
mentality being provoked, with all the horror that it implies. If we are to judge a
whole belief system on the strength of the activities of a few perverts, one could
equally point the finger at the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church,
both of whom have suffered from the publicity of members of their own clergies
being caught for this very crime. Recently, in this country alone, there have been
several instances of Church of England and Roman Catholic clergy abusing
children, and there is evidence to suggest that it is rife within the Roman Catholic
church in America. I pass no judgment on the churches for that. This is down to
individuals, and again, we come back to the concept of individual responsibility
for one's own actions.
For a Witch to abuse a child is total anathema. It is contrary to everything that we
hold close to our hearts. Our children are our future. If we abuse them, we run
the risk of turning them into abusers. Apart from the fact that in abusing them, we
abuse that which is part of the sacred, the ultimate divine source. Children born
in love and unity are sacred and to be treated as such. There is no evidence,
other than in the minds of those that make the allegations, that so-called Satanic
abuse exists.
As to the future, and what we would like; basically all we seek is the acceptance
of society to be what we are, and to practice what we choose to practice. We do
not seek to impose ourselves on anybody, or anything. We wish more than
anything else, to exist in harmony with members of other religions, who have the
perfect right to believe what they choose to believe. All we ask is that they afford
us that same right. Nobody has the right to impose their values on any other
person, other than in a purely secular sociological situation where rules and
regulations are necessary to avoid total anarchy.
On the spiritual level, the individual has the right to choose what form of religion
he or she will follow, and how he or she will perceive his/her own God. When one
looks around the world today, one can see that many of the conflicts going on in
places like Yugoslavia, and Northern Ireland have a religious basis. They are
based on one group of people trying to impose its religious form on another. This,
we feel, is entirely wrong.
Since the onset of Christianity, it has been the fact that one religion has tried to
impose itself on another. Millions of people have died in modern times for this
very reason. And so much harm, and so much suffering, and so much pain could
have been avoided if mankind only accepted that one person has no right to
impose his religious will on another. We do not ask for converts. We do not
actively seek converts. All we ask is that we be left alone in peace, to do that
which we feel is right. We would dearly love to work in harmony with members of
other religions, towards a greater good. Surely, although we walk along different
paths, our ultimate aim should be the same - to achieve a world that can live in
peace with itself. We believe that our way is one way to achieve that. We do not
say that it is the only way, we say that it is one way. Our paths may not meet,
they may certainly not cross, but they run in parallel, and if we can hold hands
across the divides that exist between us, surely, the world will be a better place.
We have a great deal in common. Each religion professes a love of humanity.
Each religion professes a love of the world that surrounds us, and yet so few of
those religions that profess those beliefs, do very much about it. We do not say,
as I have already said, that ours is the only way, the one way, the true way.
There is no one true way. The Arabs I think have a saying, and I may have this
wrong, that there are a million ways to God, and it is for each one of us to find his
or her own way. This, we feel, is a fundamental truth. We believe passionately,
that the world could be a better place if half the people in it stopped trying to
impose their will on the other half. We have no desire to do this. We wish to
move forward with others who may or may not share our beliefs to a better world.
This paper may be freely copied or re-published providing it is copied or re-
published in its entirety without changes, and authorship credited to James
Pengelly, Pagan Federation.
James Pengelly
The Pagan Federation,
BM Box 7097,
London WCIN 3XX.
Ravinessa23 Community Member 
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