The Soul of Bones
  • Blog
  • Contact

Night Witches and Good Ladies

8/22/2016

3 Comments

 
PictureWitches and devils dancing in a circle. Woodcut, 1720. Artist unknown. Public Domain.
The witches’ sabbath motif is familiar to us all - witches would smear themselves with noxious ointments and ride through the sky on brooms, staffs or the backs of animals, or in the shapes of animals themselves, and travel to a designated place where they would dance, feast and fornicate with demons and pay worship to the Devil in various forms. In addition to cannibalistic orgies and diabolism, witches’ sabbath activities also included the practice of harmful magic (maleficium), such as spreading plagues, raising storms, killing innocents or causing famines and war.

Many contemporary scholars now agree that the stereotype of the witches’ sabbath was (rather than constructed purely out of the fantasies of demonologists) based partly on a folkloric complex of beliefs surrounding the nocturnal spirit flights of individuals who later came to be accused as witches. Originally, these night journeys were related to agrarian rituals, as well as processions of both benevolent and malevolent spirits of the dead and other divine beings (such as fairies or goddesses). It has been argued that only later did they come to be associated with the practice of witchcraft and the notion of a witches’ sabbath, when this complex began to be merged with conspiratorial rumours of cannibalism, orgies and general evil-doings that were attributed to Jews, lepers and other marginalized groups of the time period.


Read More
3 Comments

The Discovery of the Soul - Part II

8/5/2016

0 Comments

 
PictureDante Gabriel Rossetti - How They Met Themselves (1860-64 circa). Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
The belief in what can be called soul(s) appears to be a universal aspect of human culture. The similarities between one culture’s concepts and the next, regardless of what separates them in terms of time and space, are truly fascinating. Most importantly, a close study reveals that soul beliefs arise from people’s direct experiences and observations - they are not simply products of blind faith or philosophical speculation. Unfortunately, most Westerners remain confused about the concept of the soul. Our beliefs are poorly defined and often contradictory, owing in large part to the influence of Judeo-Christian religion and modern science, both of which discourage us from seeking - much less trusting - any direct personal experience of the sacred.

I was raised a Catholic, and what meager instruction I received regarding the nature of the soul is this: the singular soul, created by God, is the immortal part of mankind destined to reside permanently in either heaven or hell after death, and it remains mostly passive in life. The soul is considered pure and closer to God, in direct opposition to the body and the corrupt material world. This Cartesian dualism and the materialism also embraced by modern science has served to cloud the earlier pluralistic soul beliefs of our ancestors - even if we follow a different spiritual path now, we have been influenced by these beliefs. One worldview teaches that the spiritual world of deities, angels and the dead is far removed from material existence, and the other teaches that all that exists is physical matter, that all phenomena arises from material processes. Humans in this understanding are comprised of body and soul/spirit, or body and mind.


Read More
0 Comments

    About

    The Soul of Bones blog discusses European myth, magic and folklore, with a primary focus on witchcraft and related folk traditions.

    Archives

    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.