I went through my jewelry box to organize it, earlier tonight on a whim. When I was finished, I came to a sad conclusion:
I am powerless to control my addiction to cheap occult jewelry.
Seriously. 4 ankhs. 5 pentacles. 7 rune necklaces. Various Egyptian motifs, Native American gimcrackry, cheap semiprecious stone beads. What the Hell do I need all this crap for? I only have one fucking neck.
Saddest part is a lot of this crap came out of gumball machines, a quarter a pop. It's the packrat in me, I know it. Throw any vaguely occulticky bauble at me and I'll cough up perfectly good money for it.
I'm almost as bad with rings. I swear I'm supporting every silver mine in Argentina on my own. 42 rings...just 10 fingers.
Is there a 12-step group for this? "We came to admit we were powerless over our addiction to bad magickal jewelry..."
Being as I live in Indiana, there are quite a few patches of 'countryside' interspersed with blocks of urban development in the NorthWest Indiana area (Chicago suburbs). On the way home from the airport last night, around midnight, the road that takes us home cuts through a wilderness preserve. And what did we see (and carefully slowed down to avoid hitting) but two white-tailed deer eating grass at the side of the road. They watched us drive toward them with large, round, liquid eyes, totally unafraid, and only ambled off into the trees slowly when we had completely stopped (in case they decided to bolt out in front of the car).
Gorgeous.
One of the complaints I hear in pagan circles quite frequently is that modern pagans, especially those who claim to revere nature and worship nature-connected deities, actually have no contact with nature other than making sure they bring the industrial-sized can of OFF! to their yearly family reunion picnic. While this has never been so for me--gardening, feeding the swans and geese out at Wolf Lake, and frequent walks in the woods keep that at a minimum--every so often I get a deeper glance at the workings of nature that just takes my breath away.
I went back to take a look through an old textbook for one of the classes I used to have, which is Criminal Profiling. (I was a double-major in Criminal Justice and English). I hadn't gotten more than a couple pages into the first chapter when there was a passage that I found fascinating from the point of view of another interest in mine--my interest in the historical witch-hunts in Europe and Colonial America.
The book is Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis (Second Edition), by Brent Turvey. Mr. Turvey writes:
"One of the first published criminal profiling texts for those investigating criminal behavior is The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer). This work was originally published around 1486 as a professional manual for witch hunters (Kramer and Sprenger, 1971). In all practicality, it was a guide for those engaged in the Spanish Inquisition, to assist in the identification, prosecution, and punishment of witches. Various profiles of witches are provided; most often these profiles described women who somehow caused harm or misfortune to befall communities, men, and/or children. A brief excerpt gives some insight into the authors' reasoning and motives (Kramer and Sprenger, 1971, p. 89):
...We pray God that the reader will not look for proofs in every case, since it is enough to adduce examples that have been personally seen or heard, or are accepted at the world of credible witnesses.
The instruction given is explicit that readers of the manual should take what they are being told on the basis of the expertise and credibility of the authors alone, without applying too much scrutiny. Unfortunately, many did just that. As a result, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, one could easily be branded a witch (by virtue of fitting an ambiguous and subjective profile, if even that), tried by the Inquisitors' Court, and burned alive at the stake. Worldwide death estimates resulting from the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834) range from the thousands to the millions. A reasonable argument could be made that this represents of the the earliest documented abuses of criminal profiling."
I hadn't before thought of examining the deaths of the Witch-Hunts and Spanish Inquisition (the Inquisition in general, actually) through the lens of criminal profiling, but the analogy is essentially correct. Of course, given that witches were not the only victims of the Inquisition--Jews, heretics, and those who had falsely converted were also included in the final tally--the scope of the crimes Turvey describes here is actually much wider.
Although I somehow doubt this particular period of time is one of the author's specialties, it's also interesting that rather than quoting the standard fluffy "9 million burned" number that inadequate scholarship usually parrots, he chose to be cautious in quoting statistics and mentioned that the death estimates range 'from the thousands to the millions'. As I understand, modern historians have significantly revised the 9 million total to a more conservative 40,000 to 500,000 deaths (still far too many, of course).
Also interesting, for those who like to apply this sort of thing in a more theoretical way, is taking a look at the racial and ethnic profiling being done in the United States post-9/11 these days. Directly after 9/11, hundreds--perhaps thousands--of people who were not charged with any crime were held incommunicado without access to lawyers or family. Many of these people are still being held, without ever having been formally charged. To speak of criminal profiling abuses of the past is also to have to consider similar abuses taking place in the present, and those that may continue to take place in the future. And, just as Sprenger and Kramer admonished their readers to take their word for what they were being told, rather than asking for proof, those responsible for the indefinite detentions post 9/11 would much rather we take their word for it that the people being held without explanations or rights are dangerous, and must be locked up or executed to maintain the safety and stability of the country, the people, and the status quo.
...the Washer at the Ford, another guise of the MorrÃgan. The Washer is usually to be found washing the clothes of men about to die in battle. In effect, She is choosing who will die.
--from http://www.morrigan.net/morrigan.htm
Raven queen, Scarlet-eyed, Hands full of bloody laundry, You sit at the river's edge. Patient, For so many men come to you in their time. Battle-bright, Sword-steel wingspan, And the cruel scything grip of your talons. Boldly, You stride amongst the wounded. Boldly, You dine on death. Boldly, You winnow weak and strong alike. Cuchulain's bane, Three-in-one, Dark Lady, Who is there who can stand in your way, And end the ringing clash of steel, Silence the screams of the maimed, And wash away the blood?
I've recently been reading The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology, by Jordan Paper, who is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at York University and an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society. Paper's book discusses the framework, background, and need for a polytheistic theology, since there is so much monotheistic theology out there. Paper is himself a polytheist, brought up Jewish but diverging later in life to follow an amalgam of Chinese and Native American beliefs after certain experiences during his life showed him a path that made more sense to him.
Mind you, the book is not geared toward the Wiccan or NeoPagan crowd; it mentions them not at all (unless you want to count one passing mention of "New Age" practices). Rather, it discusses what Isaac Bonewits would probably classify as Paleo-Pagan or Meso-Pagan religions--the native, nonmonotheistic beliefs of the Chinese, Native Americans, West African, Afro-Caribbean, Hindu, Polynesian, and African-Brazilian cultures.
In Chapter 7, titled 'One or Many: Monotheists' Misperceptions of Polytheism', Paper discusses just how badly most monotheists misunderstand the polytheistic worldview, and how the monotheistic worldview in general dismisses polytheism as superstition, ignorance, and outright wrong. Two quotes caught my eye:
"...polytheism is not simply a monotheistic construct, for the word relates to a set of pejorative terms; polytheists are rarely if ever simply labeled "polytheists." Rather, polytheists are termed "pagans" and "heathens" by Christians. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, a "pagan" is a "person not subscribing to any of the main religions of the world, esp. formerly regarded by Christians as unenlightened or heathen." A "heathen" is 1) "a person who does not belong to a widely-held religion (esp. who is not Christian, Jew, or Muslim) as regarded by those that do"; 2) "an unenlightened person; a person regarded as lacking culture or moral principles." Hence, a pagan or heathen is anyone who is not an adherent of one of the monotheistic traditions, with the understanding that such a person is inferior and dangerous. A polytheist is someone lacking in religion, as well as all moral and ethical sensibility."
He then goes on to discuss the "scientific" term ‘animism' as being no better than polytheism, remarking that:
"...the term is still current. A recent film designed for college classroom use, The Roots of Belief: Animism to Abraham, Moses, and Buddha, is the first of a series of ten films supposedly encompassing the entirety of human religions. According to the sales blurb, the film jumps from Neanderthals to Abraham. In this case, polytheists are not considered immoral and dangerous so much as inferior human beings, replaced in the evolution of humans by superior Christian Caucasians, similar to the replacement in Europe of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens. In summary, to admit that one is a polytheist is to damn oneself in the eyes of other members of Western cultures."
His book is brand spanking new--copyright 2005--and I have to wonder how correct he is. While I like to think that the world in general is making strides towards more tolerance and understanding of, shall we say, nontraditional religions, I'm more inclined to give his words some weight, considering that they're not coming from a 'Never Again the Burning Times--9 million sold killed' Fluffy.
What do you think?
ETA: Also good, from the same chapter:
"All humans, by their very nature, are ethnocentric. We are cultural as well as social beings, and we assume ourselves, including the culture in which we operate and define ourselves, to be normal. Since in monotheistic cultures ultimate truth is singular, that focus on singularity tends to inform every type of value as well as modes of thinking, an effect of monotheism to which we shall return in the next chapter. Since there is only one truth, it follows that there is only one true belief, one true religion, one true culture. Monotheism frequently demands an extreme form of ethnocentrism. It is no longer an understanding that one's culture is normal, nor even that all other cultures are inferior; monotheism has often led to an understanding that all other cultures are wrong and the enemy of the one true culture."
