Asya Sarakaeva, Elina Sarakaeva, Irena Lebedeva
Astrakhan State University, Russia
Constructing the Self by
Demonizing the Other.
The Christians’ Image in
the American Neopagan Mythology[1]
Through all the history
of humankind the demarcation of the Self and the Other has been an important
tool for building a self-identity of cultures, subcultures and social groups.
The Other is often presented as a black background against which the virtues of
the Self are better seen. Commonly the most negative characteristics are
attributed to the new unfamiliar cultural, social, religious or ethnic groups
which came into contact with the group of the Self but lately. But in this
article we are going to deal with the opposite situation – when a new
cultural-religious group who have just segregated themselves from the cultural
majority needs effective methods to construct their new unique identity and so
resort to demonizing the majority.
Since its appearance in
1960-70s the Neopagan movement claims the status of the victim of terrible
prosecution and creates its own mythology and ideology an essential part of
which is depicting Christians as narrow-minded, cruel, superstitious people
driven by fear of the Hell and the desire for control.
The Neopagan social and
historical myth says that Pagans are the followers of the “Old Faith”, the
religion inherent to the humankind and known since the Paleolithic times. But
the rise of the monotheistic religions, Judaism and Christianity, made the
majority of people consider the stalwarts and teachers of the “Old Faith” Satan’s servants and accordingly – to arrest
and execute them. In the Neopagan worldview all the Christian era is seen as a
dark time of repression when the Church and the State prosecuted the “Old
Faith” both as an ideological rival
and for its liberalizing effect. The time of the witch trials in the early
Modernity – or even the Christian era as a whole – is often referred to as
“Burning Times”. The claim is supported in the Neopagan literature by the
hugely overblown figure of nine million burnt witches. The number was first
mentioned by an antiquarian from the German city Heidelberg in the late XVIII century, he counted the
number of victims of a witch-hunt which took place in his own city during a
short period of time and then extrapolated the results for the whole of Europe
during the whole of Middle Ages and early Modern history. In 1893 feminist
author Matilda Cage used the number as a proof of historical guilt of the
Church for repressing women. And it is her works that the Pagan mythology
picked up this figure from [Pearson 2002, 192]. A series of research of 1980s gave a considerably less
figure: 40 to 60 thousand victims sentenced to death for witchcraft [Hutton
1991, 306, 370; Levack 1987,
21-27; Briggs 1996, 8, 260].
In 1957 Gerald Gardner,
the creator of Wicca, one of the most popular and wide-spread movements within
Neopaganism, published the so-called
“Old Laws”. He positioned this document as a written record of the ethic rules
of conduct which had prior to that moment existed only in the oral form, passed
from a teacher to a disciple. The text is marked by certain paranoia as it is
totally centered round enemies and tortures: practically ever chapter says how
Christians, or “oppressors” as the author’s calls them, look for witches to do
away with them, or what a witch should do to avoid arrest and execution. Thus, the chapter headlined “Persecutions”, as it might be guessed
from this heading, is devoted to how a witch should behave when tortured, what
to confess to the interrogator and what to keep a secret at any cost [Gardner
The Old Laws]. The chapter “Tools” treats the ways to survive a search
of a witch’s house, by having the magic tools look exactly like usual kitchen
utensils, so that the “oppressors” can’t
recognize them. Though the name of the chapter “Conduct” seems to
promise ethical regulations, only two initial points – number 78 and 79 – treat
morality, as they forbid a witch to brag, to threaten and to dishonor
themselves, the Goddess and their Brethren by their demeanor. But this is
followed by advice what to reply if an outsider asks you about witchcraft.
Preference is given to the answer which does not reject the possibility of
witchcraft, but does not acknowledge it either: "Speak not to me of such, it frightens me, 'tis evil luck to
speak of it". The chapter once
again is closed by the rationale: “the Christians have their spies everywhere” [Gardner The Old Laws].
The chapter “Curses” is
full of invectives for the Christians. The grace of the Christian God, the text
insists, is earned mainly with money and gifts. “But as our gods need our aid
to make fertility for man and crops, so is the god of the Christians ever in
need of man's help to search out and destroy us. Their priests ever tell them
that any who get our help are damned to this hell forever, so men be mad with
the terror of it. But they make men believe that they may escape this hell if
they give victims to the tormentors. So for this reason all be forever spying,
thinking, "An I can catch but one of these Wicca, I will escape from this
fiery pit" [Gardner The Old Laws].
Some highly esteemed
Neopagan texts ascribe the proper conduct of a Pagan towards Christians. In his
“Old Laws” Gardner recommends to restrain from harming Christians for the
following reason: “In the olden days when we had power, we could use the art
against any who ill-treated the Brotherhood. But in these evil days we must not
do so”, because other people seeing the well-being of the witch-hunters come to
think witches simply don’t exist, “…But when one of our oppressors die, or even
be sick, ever is the cry, "This be witches' malice", and the hunt is
up again” [Gardner The Old Laws]. This text shows Christians
should not be harmed only to protect the own safety of a pagan, so as not to
provoke the return repressions by the religious majority.
The chapter “Payment”
states that witches are forbidden to take payment for magic or to lessen the
price of goods by magical means. If a witch is eager to buy a house or land,
and the owner refuses to sell them, it is acceptable to magically persuade him,
but never to cheat with the price of the purchase [Gardner The Old Laws]. Thus the “Old Laws” put an
absolute ban on fraud. On the other hand, the manipulative approach to human
interaction prevails even here.
One more wiccan moral
code is called “Witches’ Reed of Chivalry”. It consists of twenty regulations. Of
these three, rules 11, 15 and 16, oblige a witch to respect other “covens, circles, clans, or groves”, follow their traditions
when joining them, not to tell their secrets to outsiders and in any other way
to support the members of the Brotherhood [Witches’ Reed of Chivalry].
It should be specially emphasized that the Self in this text embraces not only
Wiccans, but all Neopagans as a whole, as Wiccan groups are never called clans
or groves – these names are limited to the Nordic or Celtic paganism
respectively. But the Other, the outsiders not belonging to the Neopagan family
of denominations, are practically excluded from the protection of these rules.
They should not be harmed – and this is about all, every other rule binds a
witch by obligations only to another witch.
In 1899 an occult writer
Charles G. Leland published his book “Aradia: Gospel of the Witches”. It is
still quite an authoritative text for many Neopagans. It is openly aggressive
towards the Christian majority. “And thou shalt be the first of witches known; …
And thou shalt teach the art of poisoning, Of poisoning those who are great
lords of all; Yea, thou shalt make them die in their palaces; …And when ye find a peasant who is rich, Then
ye shall teach the witch, your pupil, how To ruin all his crops with tempests
dire, With lightning and with thunder (terrible), And with the hail and wind...
And when a priest shall do you injury By his benedictions, ye shall do to him
Double the harm, and do it in the name of me, Diana, Queen of witches all” [Leland
Aradia]. This is a far from complete list of threats and curses in “Aradia”
where promises to ruin “the oppressors, the men of evil” are plentiful. We
chose this abstract to quote exactly because here the threats are addressed to
people obviously innocent of any oppression or evil: to an aristocrat whose
only guilt is that he is a “great lord” and lives in a palace; to a peasant –
because he happened to be rich, to a priest who blesses a witch not knowing who
she actually is.
It is not worth while
exaggerating the potential danger from such threats and negative attitude to
the Christians. After all, the only question discussed in these texts is
whether it is acceptable to harm Christians with the help of magic, to which
questions the most common answer is negative. The possibility to harm in any
other, practical way is not even mentioned. So we believe these passages and
their like speak not of aggressiveness or destructiveness of Neopaganism, but
of active efforts to exploit the image
of the oppressive Christian in order to consolidate their own flock.
Oppositions Christian-pagan,
oppressor-victim, Self - the Other,
are more subtle, but just as active, when used to create a new personal
identity of contemporary Neopagans. In contrast to traditional societies, where
a person's identity is almost entirely determined by their social context
(class, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, etc.), modern Western society
allows much greater variability. And it gives the individual an opportunity and
a responsibility to formulate a response to the question "Who am I"?
One of the ways to define their identity is, according to Murray, the stories
about themselves. Individuals find in their past and present what is deemed
representative of their identity and at the same time desirable and commendable
in terms of their reference groups. It is these memories that shape the basis
of self-determination, and thus "stories create identity» [Murray, 1989,
200]. D. Feinstein and S. Krippner call such stories "personal myths"
that "... explain to people their own world, route their personal
development, provide social leadership and meet the spiritual needs»
[Feinstein, Krippner 1989, 24].
Analysis of Neopagans’ personal myths drawn from the
scientific literature and sources suggests that identity is based on contacts
with other worlds and conflicts with inert Judeo-Christian environment. Some
special talent of the future Neopagan is seen already in childhood: his close
personal relationship with nature, the first visions and conversations with
spirits. But in the same period, a conflict with the environment begin to shape,
the conflict, personified by parents who treat the uniqueness of their child
with indifference or outright hostility. Adolescence is usually described as a
rather painful period of social ostracism and exclusion. This is also the time
when the future Neopagans lose communication with other worlds under the
influence of restrictive environment. But then come a vision or an insight, and
sometimes Neopagans do a miracle themselves, and it opens their eyes to heir
own essence and purpose. Since then, they incorporates early childhood
experiences in their identity and find themselves. The story ends with the
acquisition of a new neopagan family-like community with close emotional ties,
which deepens the conflict with external society. Sometimes the conflict is
presented as an active struggle - for example, against patriarchy, sometimes -
just as the passive role of the victim of religious discrimination [Salomonsen
2002, 255-258; Pike, 2001, 162-163].
In addition to the memories of the visions, fantasies,
and amazing games, a significant place in the history of a childhood
restructured by Neopagans belongs to his family. Family, one way or another,
introduced him to the phenomenon of violence. Parents are described as
narrow-minded people who did not want to know anything about the spiritual
experiences of the child, saying, "Do not be stupid," "You're
hysterical," "You imagine too much", "Do not talk nonsense»
[Pike, 2001, 166]. At worst, they considered the gift of their child to be
demonic and struggled with it using savage methods. One Neopagan says that he
was sent to a Christian elementary school and there subjected to an
"effective brainwashing" and the other says that the grandmother - a
Protestant fundamentalist threatened him with Hell and burned off a set of
tarot cards. Another pagan complains that parents invited priests to exorcise
the demons out of their house, and they not only frightened the girl with their
screams, but burnt a beautiful picture of her favorite doll, because they it
was “haunted by devil”. "I've never understood this: if they can drive
Satan out of the house, why can not drive Him out of my doll?" [Ibid,
177-179].
In the narrative of the youth of the future Neopagan
anti-heroes are not parents any more, but peers. They avoid pagans, call them
"nuts", laugh at their clothing and language, borrowed from books.
Avoiding comes to a boycott when the narrators realize themselves to be a
"witch” and start calling themselves so [Pike, 2001, 162-163]. We can
assume that for such socially unsuccessful children and young people
identification with Paganism provides a huge psychological advantage. On the
one hand, it allows them to consider themselves special, not like a faceless
mediocrity surrounding them, but ones standing out of the crowd. On the other
hand, it softens the social stress and loneliness of exile, giving them at
worst- the historical tradition, at best - a new community, satisfies the need
for belonging to a group (Sarakaeva 2012, 148). Moreover, the new pagan
identity gives meaning to the suffering caused by stigma. Witches, according to
Neopagans’ historical myth, have been suffering for more than two thousand
years for their beliefs and special talents. They are marginalized not because
they are worse than their peers, but because they are wiser and more honest.
Thus, attributing to the Christian environment
rigidity, insensitivity, superstition, intellectual and aesthetic ignorance,
Neopagans on the one hand, find arguments in favor of their own break with the
religious traditions of their parents, and on the other - describe themselves
and their new pagan environment. Their personal myths are translated into a
collective myth of neo-paganism, strengthening intra-communication and
enhancing the loyalty of the community of believers through distancing from the
negative image of the “Other”.
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[1] This work was supported by
the Russian Foundation for the Humanities, the project 11-33-00395à2 «The Other in the family”