To Be the Witch Continued

                             

Does it work Crudely put we come over and over again to the question, does witchcraft work? And then one has to sound sagacious and a little Socratic and say, “What do you mean by work?”

I used to know someone, ungracious, fearful, unkind, unconscious, always resentful and not terribly courageous, silly actually. He went to a spiral dance at a Unitarian church and came back a witch. He was talking about how magical it was that some old love he had was coming back into town and they were getting together, and it was only a little while later I thought, someone like him would make the worst out of any blessing that came his way. Ungracious by nature, even if he did possess any magic, whatever he worked for, no matter how good it turned out, would look to him like it didn’t work. His perception was so very off and his attitude so bad.

I was describing to someone the mind of a book character who was a witch and I said that one thing that distinguished her in her training was that she was almost hyper rational because she was always observing the world around her, and even examining the fidelity of own mind. Was she looking at things as they were? Was she looking at herself as she was, or was she simply playing a role. I said that, fictionally or in reality, an effective witch would have to be such a person, because how could you really know if you were effecting the world, or how would you really begin to effect the world if, in fact, you couldn’t see the actual world you were in?

For understanding magic we may have to turn to literature again. Ursula K LeGuin’s Earthsea wizards describe working magic as little as possible because each magical working effects a change and you have to see if the change really needs to be made. If you believe in such things and you acknowledge connections you have to understand you don’t really know the full force of setting a thing into motion.

I have referenced Peter S Beagle’s Shmendrick in the The Last Unicorn, the magician who becomes a true wizard when he learns to say to the magic, do as you will, and even George RR Martin’s characters say something to this effect noting that magic is like a sword with no handle.

So, I’ve said the nature of a witch in my tradition is to be first and foremost a priest and a devotee with all that entails. This precludes me from being, at least  purposefully, a magician who is attempting to contact malignant forces or control them, and it also precludes me from being someone who thinks they understand more than they do. As I have said in the past, the true witch is always an apprentice and never master of the Magic, but apprentice to it. When we call up magic, we are calling up the Holy Child and the Holy Child is Adonoy, is Adonis, Cernunnos, Hermes the Psychopomp and Master of Mysteries. We are opening ourselves to being led more than leading.

But I opened up with one question: does it work? And this is an important and constant question. And then I have several literary explanations, but in the end there was one question and it deserves an answer. The answer is the magic is as good as the practice and the practice is as good as the witch, The answer is yes.