The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World. Judika Illes

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СКАЧАТЬ spiritual pilgrim who traveled widely, seeking enlightenment. Born a Zoroastrian, he studied and experimented with Buddhism and Gnosticism and even converted to mainstream Christianity for a while.

      No religion he encountered satisfied him, although he found truths in many. He perceived all of them as incomplete, so he decided to perfect them, proclaiming himself the messiah of a new faith, Manicheism, characterized by an intense dualist vision.

      Mani was a prolific artist and writer, setting down his philosophy and vision in words and drawings that were preserved for centuries. His became an important faith, not only during his lifetime but also for many centuries afterwards, with communities of adherents from Persia to Spain to China. Manicheism, at one time, was considered to be among Christianity’s chief competitors. The Church perceived Manicheism as a great threat and actively campaigned against it for centuries. None of Mani’s drawings, and only fragments of his writings survive because they were systematically searched out and destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church.

      Mani’s luck changed when a new Persian ruler devoted to Zoroastrianism came to power. As the story goes (and to be fair, the story derives from those as opposed to the Zoroastrian magi as they were to Mani) the magi perceived Mani as a competitor and pressured the king, Bahram I, to arrest and condemn him. Various reports exist of his death, every one of them horrific. Either he was crucified, or flayed alive, or beheaded with his head stuck on a pole for extended public display. His martyrdom, however, only increased his popularity among some believers and made his faith, with its martyred, possibly crucified messiah, even more of an alternative path to Christianity.

      The mission of Manicheism is to entirely separate spiritual light from material darkness. If and when this process is complete, then the Kingdom of Darkness will be for ever defeated. A microcosm of this war is fought out within each human being as the soul struggles to break free from the corporal body, while simultaneously the corporal body, under the dominion of the Lord of Darkness, tempts and encourages backsliding. Each person must achieve individual salvation: each human is a battlefield for the forces of Light and Darkness. You must actively choose your side. Among the keys to achieving liberation of one’s spiritual essence is an unwavering, complete obedience to the Manichean Church.

      Some people are closer to that goal than others. Persons on the verge of spiritual liberation were known as the Elect. The Elect led highly disciplined, ascetic lives, abstaining from sex because indulgence in sensual pleasures (sex for its own sake) strengthens the body at the expense of the soul, and because babies, the result of sex for reproduction, are but fresh prisons for entrapped sparks of light. Furthermore, those precious sparks of light may be contained within sperm, which should thus be protected from the moist, darkness of the womb.

      The Elect maintained a strict vegetarian diet, with one exception. Saint Augustine (13 November 354–28 August 430), a Manichean for nine years prior to his conversion to Christianity, reports that the Elect ritually consumed a concoction of dough and semen, the theory being that the trapped sparks of light might be liberated if consumed by those on the brink of salvation themselves.

      Saint Augustine, pillar of the Christian Church, was a spiritual seeker, too, who explored pagan paths and Manicheism before devoting himself to Christianity. Although he rejected much Manicheist doctrine, Augustine also introduced the Manichean world-view into conventional Christian thought. Among those doctrines rejected by Augustine is the notion that knowledge (gnosis) leads to liberation. In Augustine’s view, humans are too tainted by Original Sin to accomplish salvation either through knowledge or other individual effort. It can only be achieved through obedience to Christian doctrine, the shepherd guiding the flock. However, he did retain the basic Manichean distrust of matter and the material—especially regarding sex.

      Augustine taught that Adam’s defiance of God (as stimulated by Eve) produced a state of unbalanced desire (concupiscence) which infects every sexual act with the possible exception of completely pleasure-free, mechanical intercourse solely for the purpose of reproduction within the clear, firm boundaries of lawful Christian marriage.

      Dualism permeates world culture, human culture, and especially Western culture. Dualist influence so pervades the vocabulary of modern spirituality that we don’t consider what common words literally mean: redemption, salvation, liberation—from what? They derive from the dualist world-view:

      

Redemption of the soul from the prison of the body

      

Salvation of the soul from its Earthly trap

      Dualists are right: dualism and the fertility cult, shamanic or otherwise, are incompatible views. From the moment of its emergence, dualism has been on an intense, inevitable collision course with those celebrating the cult of fertility, who wish to revel in Earth rather than be saved from her. At their roots, they are genuinely two oppositional viewpoints, two ways of looking at, organizing, and understanding the world. On the dualist side, there is no room for tolerance because compromise means that you’ve assented to the power of the Lord of Darkness. Very frequently, dualists have categorized people they’ve encountered who have possessed a shamanic or fertility-cultish perspective as “witches.” The results for those thus categorized, whether in Europe, North America, Africa or elsewhere, have consistently been disastrous.

      It’s very tempting to see the “fertility cult” as the ancestor of witchcraft and dualism as that of its opponents; that very temptation demonstrates why dualism can be so attractive. Real life, however, is rarely that black-and-white and that would be a simplistic vision that denies the complexity of witchcraft as well as world history.

      There are very few places left on Earth that have not been influenced by both dualism and the more ancient shamanic/fertility cult. Most cultures blend these influences to varying degrees. Dualism even pervades the world of witchcraft. In those immortal words spoken by Glinda to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” Many, if asked whether they are a witch, answer affirmatively but stipulate that they are a “good” witch, as if whatever powers they possess can only be used for good, not possibly for ill. (This may make the self-identified witch more comfortable with her identity, however historically, this distinction has made no difference to dualist authority, who often perceive the “good” witch as even more dangerous than her evil sister. See WITCHCRAZE!)

      Witchcraft, defined as magical practices, is seemingly a crucial human need. Like the Egyptians’ heka, it emerges whenever it is necessary to attempt to ward off those harsh blows of fate or maybe whenever there’s just not enough joy and fun around. Witchcraft exists everywhere in various forms, and is thus found in all kinds of communities possessing all sorts of philosophies. What differs is how witchcraft is perceived (by the witches as well as outsiders) and whether it operates secretly or openly.

       Animals

      Where would the witch be without her cat? That black dog over there—is that a stray roaming loose, a disguised witch on the prowl or a messenger for the goddess Hecate? And those flies buzzing around? Do they merely indicate the presence of food or do they hold deeper significance?

      Around the world, specific animals are associated with witchcraft. In some societies, certain animals are so intrinsically identified with witchcraft that should you have a close association with one (or in an era of witchcraft hysteria, even a brushing acquaintance will do), there’ll be no need to ask whether you’re a witch; СКАЧАТЬ