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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 9. 1ts May 1973

Books

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Books

The Witch's Workbook

Conn of the Hundred Battles, Do not love Druidry.......

Anyone who has ever become interested in the so-called Black Arts will have been faced with an immense body of writings on each element of this subject. Most are interestinga few are useful.

One wonders whether there is a practical medium between the blind accepttance of such directives, recipes, and philosophies as the interested party is able to ingest, and the impossible luxuries of sceptical dismissal or complete empirical evaluation. It would appear that such an approach contains in part an enquiry into those physical laws and behaviour patterns which firstly are currently understood, and secondly have been visibly associated with activities previously described as witchcraft or sorcery. It should be noted here that witchcraft is essentially many religions, the devotees of which ascribe their powers to assistance by spirits. Sorcery is the exercise of preternatural powers supposedly derived from a knowledge and use of the occult forces of nature, without recourse to spiritual aid. Thus any serious approach to this phenomenon should consider the theological context in which it operates—that is, in absolute objective terms, not what the practitioner can identify. We may favour Rousseau's universe of pervasive good, or de Sade's of pervasive evil. Or the manichaean system of a Dual universe, in which the primeval conflict between light and darkness rages. We may accept as a theological axiom a universe populated by supernatural beings of varying potency and inclination. Or we may not see sufficient reason for assigning any value to the concept of supernatural presence and control.

While science is concerned with that which is measurable, it does not preclude the existence of anything beyond its immediate known boundaries. But in the absence of adequate evidence as to the theological constraints on the universe as we preceive it, a study of witchcraft would of necessity be initially only descriptive. The singularly ephemeral deities which have received Man's attention have all had the common power of being socially accepted by a majority of their supposed subjects. One of the usual objections to witchcraft has been its heresy.

This indicates that a behavioural approach to witchcraft would be of value. Studies in ESP and PK have demonstrated their existence and attempted to determine some of their 'laws'. Research has been made in varying degrees into individual and crowd psychology, hallucinogenic drugs and self-hypnosis, physiology, atavism, religious organisation, ritual, primitive societies, mythology and folk-lore, alchemy and its history, and genetics. It is suggested that all of these disciplines are relevant in considering witchcraft. Some studies have been done already in this field.

But why bother? Most people regard it as rubbish or superstition. Many who study or practice witchcraft are knaves or fools. Palmistry, astrology, necromancy, water divination, spiritualism—all of these activities are similarly dismissed by rational people. The main fault in such an attitude is that it is itself 'medieval' or 'primitive'—one should know why one does not believe in something. Another reason for constructing an analysis of witchcraft is that it has been notoriously persistent in all human communities. It is now enjoying a considerable popularity and much publicity.

Vitruvian Man drawing

Cave painting, new moons, goat-heads, phallic images are all magical. Bothwell, Alice Perrers, Faust—all denounced as witches. Bothwell and Perrers were cunning diplomats and courtiers. Defoe informs us in his "Political History of the Devil" (1726) that Faust was a Dutch printer's apprentice deemed a witch, Magician and Conjurer by the learned Doctors of Paris who were not familiar with printing, and considered his merchandise a product of the Black Art. Medieval Europe occasionally excused its persecution of the Jews on the grounds of witch-hunting, sometimes as the same time the Crusaders were being exhorted to slay the Saracens who were obviously wizards and magicians. There were witch-hunts in Germany, England, France, Salem. Heinrich Kramer, James Sprenger, Sir Edward Coke, Soeur Jeanne des Anges, Jame VI of Scotland, Cotton Mather; all believed in the demonic power of witchcraft, and babbled hysterically about them to what seems to have been a fairly receptive audience.

The literature was full of black magic: Skarp-Hedin sings from the burnt-out farmhouse at Bergthorsknoll, while his killers flee; before he is executed, Stigandi's gaze scorches the hillside through a rip in his blindfold; Eva places a terrible curse on the children of Lir; Merlin, Tannhauser, and true Thomas the Rhymer are all real and still in Faerie. Even after persecution has been dead for one hundred years, Joris-Karl Huysmans can personify Gilles de Rais as the archetypal witch and trace his personality from piety through refined criminal artistry to a repentant but still mystic end. 'Toil and grow rich, What's that but to lie with a foul witch', says Yeats.

Jesus Christ is variously equated with Pan, Tammuz, Adonis. Satan is Apollo, Asmodeus, Pluto, Lucifer. All this was believed—the key to any success in magic. Consider the ritual of the Christian church service, which contains the essence of magic—ritual, invocation, devotion, as welt as seventeen hundred years of success.

Today, the counter-culture has touched upon this long talc of woe, firstly as a grotesque curiosity and lately as a serious pursuit. "Rosemary's Baby" fills the theatres, and Roger Zelazny and James Blish are read everywhere. Magazines are produced devoted to witchcraft. Witch Supply Shops are established in Los Angeles and San Francisco. More than ever, the witchcraft ideal has been garbled by its environment—Ann Grammary's Witch's Workbook is a typically amusing pastiche of ancient and modern myth. The book is interesting in that it shows the sort of thing which has resulted from the current fad of Witchcraft. Ann Grammary (her surname means 'occult learning') has produced amongst all her spells and lists of demons to invoke, one or two useful ideas. In her introduction she makes the point that to make magic work, one must develop one's mind to believe in its success, and concentrate on achieving the goal. Miss Grammary qualifies the content of her book by saying that ritual is a fairly useful means of raising the mind to the level necessary to control ESP and PK powers—perhaps the most useful item in this Witch's Workbook. She also says that the ritual involved is 'fun'—if she believes in what she is doing, it is anything but fun.

"Study"

Drawing of a creature impaled by a screw

This book claims it will help people to learn to study. It aims to make the skills of the academic available to all. If a person has the interest, perserverance, or masochism to read this book to the end, then they are probably academic enough already and don't need its commonsense advice. For those who find padding and obscure argument boring, the best advice in the book is contained in the Preface: "turn to page 219". Don't go back after having read that page, as G.G. suggests, but read on to page 236 (the end). You will have saved yourself a lot of time and probably you won't then buy the book.

G.G. advises that interest and motivation are two of the main things necessary for successful study. Most university students are either academic or want a meal ticket, that is why they are at university. So for them and others with academic interests some of the hints may be useful. Although I think such erudite advice as G.G. gives (e.g.: "It is generally true that such artificial conditions as shelter, regulated temperature, the armchair, the desk, and the midnight oil are necessary for mental work".) is commonsense to most.

But for those without interest and motivation, the other 89% of the population, his advice is rather useless. As they are not interested in academic study they will not persevere with G.G's book. Rather, they need to know and understand things that will be of use. They need to become aware, along with the majority of university students. G.G's book contributes little toward helping people to understand the process by which awareness is achieved.

"Pedagogy of the Oppressed",.

"Cultural Action for Freedom".

The works of Paulo Freire are, in my opinion, of paramount importance to all progressive people in New Zealand. Freire is concerned with how the oppressed can achieve awareness—how the 89% that G.G. ignored can liberate themselves through what Freire calls 'cultural action and conscientization'. The oppressed in New Zealand are the alienated, unaware majority—workers in the factories and in the offices that produce the goods and and services in our economy.

Freire's main premise is that the major contradiction in the world today is between the oppressor and the oppressed. The act of dominance deprives the oppressed of their 'thought-language' and imposes that of the oppressor. The thought-language' of the oppressor constitutes the myths, rationalisations, the superstition and fatalism that uphold the state of oppression.

Oppression is dehumanizing, says Freire, because it deprives man of his uniquely human right to know and understand his life in his society, and, therefore, deprives him of the right to control his own destiny. Humanization, becoming aware of oppression and thereby organising with one's fellows to achieve freedom, is the process which these two books describe.

Briefly, humanization is achieved by a process of dialogue between 'teacher-students' and 'student-teachers'. First, the oppressed must see themselves as subjects rather than objects. That is, the oppressed must realise that they make the culture in which they live and that the relationships and social actions in that culture are not pre-ordained (although they are controlled by the oppressor). This is achieved by getting the oppressed to teach the teacher-student about their lives. Knowledge of the lives of the oppressed enables the teacher-student to initiate dialogue about the oppression through which the oppressed become aware. Through dialogue the oppressed name the world (their experiences) and thus develop a 'thought-language' with which they can understand their lives, and most important, their oppression.

As the dialogue develops the teacher poses problems that help the oppressed to clarify their understanding of their lives in society, and to finally achieve awareness and praxis. Praxis is "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality".

This is the pedagogy of the oppressed. Praxis, cultural action for freedom, is in some quarters labelled mere reformism. Freire developed his theories of education in Brazil where their practice was centred on a rural adult literacy campaign. After Freire's literacy teams left a village the peasants would begin to organise in Peasants' Associations and work for the end of landlordism and for land redistribution. Thus Freire's method was so successful in inciting rebellion that one of the first acts of the military regime after the coup of 1964 was to put Freire in prison. Freire was subsequently exiled to Chile where he helped institute a literacy campaign based on his principles in the shanty towns. It was the change of vote in the shanty towns which was one of the factors in Allende's election as president.

The essence of Freire's theories are universal and can be applied to any situation where oppression exists. "For the dialogical problem-posing teacher-student the programme content of education is ... the organised, systematised, and developed 'representation' to individuals of the things about which they wish to know more". Or, as another well known political thinker who developed parallel ideas somewhat earlier said: "In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily 'from the masses, to the masses'. This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action".

Freire also has many other words of wisdom to offer us on such subjects as sectariansim and verbalism. So, instead of deriding Christians even though they be Marxists, (Freire is one of the mythical Christian-Marxists), and engaging in other sectarian practices, bone up on your revolutionary ideology. Both books, though heavy going, are well worth the effort. And, who knows, if we can put them into practice perhaps the government may not let a certain Mr Freire into N.Z. in May 1974 at which time it is rumoured he may be coming.