What calls itself "modern witchcraft" these days I find ridiculous beyond belief. Not only is it a throwback to 15th century Christian superstition, but they try to role model it as if so-called witches really existed the way the inquisitions tried to confabulate it. Seeing that, I'm inclined to doubt whatever their claims to paganism. Having thoroughly examined what derives itself from Gerald Gardner's Wicca, I find it really just a convoluted mess of Hermetic mysticism with much romanticized pickings of ethnicity; if not hackneyed Middle Eastern formulae for claims of supernatural lineage. That the lobbies of "it is written" blatantly ignore any real anthropology, is only typical of Holy Roman academia, especially the attitude of what's "civilized" or not. Then, on the other hand, we have the insular druids, who profess a long Phoenician/Celtiberian oral tradition; claiming the rest were just blood offering tree worshippers according to Tacitus. It just doesn't sit with them that us continentals were just as much Celtic as Germanic.
To make matters worse, America's rather idealized representations of old world culture has led to all kinds of fantasy on ethnicity itself. It inclines to Disneyworld and Hollywood expectations, more apt to alienate than actually relate to anything outside its own language barriers. Hence, the selling of snake oil by outcast religious fanatics has grown into a new age pulp fiction empire of esoterica pillaged from every corner of the earth. Say nothing of Salem's lot with their "witchier than thou" assuming a tradition that goes back to the Gothic delusions of their ergot addled puritan ancestors. So, what exactly was that witchcraft tradition other than painting Hagal runes on barns? The prats even have the audacity to push such pseudo-history on me, as if I didn't know the difference.
"Cunningcraft" across Europe was on the same parallel in society as the skill of artisans and other talents. This is well illustrated in the Story of Wieland the Smith. The mentality behind it is clear in the German word "Geist" which not only refers to "spirit" but the individual driving force behind human consciousness and its creativity. It shows a tendency to animism that Holy Roman doctrine never really could come to terms with, especially insisting on delivering their dogma strictly in Latin. Education was a Catholic institution reserved for the gentry. Trying to explain the bible to the illiterate peasantry was the task of monks in the form of oral allegory using pictorial animal representations. In this way Catholicism reserved all rights as a mystery religion just as the Nicene Creed had intended it. Exploiting the fear of mortality, between supernatural threat and divine persecution, was common practice. Heaven forbid if you strive for anything above humble obedience to your peers.
By the 15th century, feudalism in central Europe had become such a regime of the greedy that the common folk could no longer burden the heavy tributes. These were apocalyptic times, plague ravaged and full of dissent. The protestant rebellion was in-fighting as to whose reformation should dictate the trend. Hence, the witch hunts were not so much about conjurers, but a convenient means of scapegoating. Martin Luther himself was inclined to blame the Jews for everything since the persecution of Christ, while Cabalism had always been considered sorcery by the Nicene Creed. Where do you think the term "Hexensabbat" really came from?
The patrimony of feudalism was a jealously guarded domain of the church. Particularly unfavourable was to be a single woman, regardless of whether you were a widow or not. If you didn't want to be forced into an arranged marriage, your only option was life in a convent. Midwives and their herbalists were also targets of suspicion, often blamed for miscarriages or congenital defects. Epilepsy was suspect of demonic possession, say nothing of the delusions from ergot infested rye. Most still had a limited scope of natural causality, let alone personal hygiene. On the other hand, documents like the Malleus Maleficarum come across as practically pornographic. Ironically, the author Heinrich Kramer himself was banished from Innsbruck, suspect of his investigations being sexually motivated. Nonetheless, thanks to language barriers, the old animist mentality still managed to survive all that. Not even Hitler, with his racist regime of quasi-Holy Roman spins on Germania, could undermine the old traditions.
Frankly I have no use for Christian theology at all, seeing how much of it was badly plagiarized from the works of Hebraic refugees (and that with every intent to deprive them of their ethnic identity). In fact that old Greco-Roman spin on things just leaves me cold...not that I would want to bury myself in the teachings of the Zohar either. Thus, any Renaissance mix of John Dee with Christian Rosenkreuz and Fucanelli doesn't beguile me much either. The same goes for all that Edda-thumping "reconstructed" heathenry trying to hard sell their "allfather" as something synonymous with Christian god. No surprise that England is heading down that same nazistic track as America these days.
I think I've travelled far and wide enough, immersed in so many languages and cultures, to know that psychic ability comes from within, regardless what your artifice. Throw too many twists into the equation and you only end up confusing the issue. What is important, is to understand the ancestral course of events that led to your being, what some may call "tapping the bone" because that is where the real memory prevails, beyond what spoken or written word can truly encompass (although it does help to learn the language). Know yourself.
