working class warlock

 Thank you for taking the time to share you thoughts. My name is GG Irkalla, I am a member of Core Oly Witch Crew, I am its mother as I started it a year ago, and I am one of the caretakers of this blog. There are 4 of us in the core group: Mushroom, Hannah, Ezmyrelda, and GG Irkalla (myself). Though I will never denounce or distance myself from what something a family member needs to say on here, I think its important to note that this is a complex blog involving multiple people, and that affects the content. We do not gatekeep each others decisions to express thoughts on here. The family member who wrote that post was expressing an overall sense of frustration we all felt towards Gardner after an entire year of discussion and study amongst us. 

My family member cited no sources, I admit. But neither did you. So I will.

     As for homework, here is some on the topic of Gardner as a “liar”, from Jeffery B Russel in “A History of Witchcraft” . I admit “liar” seems a harsh word, but poor scholarship full of shortcuts and deceptions was a horrible way to start a movement, and Gardner and Leland should be held accountable for this. The quote below is very long, but I am sure that you wont mind as you seem to care deeply about the truth.

“Charles Leland was a widely read and widely traveled american writer and folklorist who while staying in Italy in 1866 learned that a manuscript containing the ancient secrets of Italian witchcraft was in existence. He had been relying upon and Italian witch named Maddalena to find him folkloric materials and Maddalena produced for his pleasure a manuscript entitled Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches. Or she produced something like that. For Leland admitted that he never saw Aradia in an old manuscript but rather had heard it orally from Maddalena and seen portions of it transcribed in her handwriting. The criticism of Aradia made by Elliot Rose in his Razor for a Goat (1962) is compelling, and I do not need to repeat his arguments here. The doctrines and practices of the witches as reported by Leland area  melange of sorcery, medieval heresy, witch craze concepts, and political radicalism, and Leland reports ingenuously that this is just what he expected, since it fitted what he had read in Michelet. (Some of the doctrines did surprise him, possibly a tribute to Maddalenas imperfect understanding of her patrons requirements.)             Aradia may simply have been faked by Leland, though his own explanatory appendix seems too frank for that. Or Maddalena may have been a fraud, though that is difficult to say as no documentation exists of what she did tell him. Leland never produced either Maddalena or her handwritten notes for the community of scholars. Perhaps the most likely interpretation is that Leland, already learned in folklore and fascinated by Michelet, enthusiastically read into Maddalenas words what he already knew - or thought he knew - about witchcraft. Clearly he imposed ideas gleaned from Michelet upon Maddalenas descriptions. He admits some of this in his own preface:

“It is true that I have drawn from other sources, but this woman by long practice has perfectly learned what few understand or just what I want, and how to extract it from those of her kind. “

Leland had asked Maddalena to teach him an invocation that would help him obtain ancient books and manuscripts cheaply, and perhaps in her eagerness to please she provided more than the charm. Anthropologists are familiar with the eager local who provides them with just what they want; more often than not it turns out to be the product of an enterprising local artisan. Leland, a political radical enchanted with Michelets erroneous view that witches were socially oppressed rebels against feudalism, discovered in Aradia, to his great delight, passages reflecting radical views congenial with those of Michelet and of himself but incongruous with any tradition of witchcraft. Numerous explanations are conceivable. But Aradia is not what one would expect of a surviving witch cult; it is very much what one would expect from a late-nineteenth -century scholar attempting (for whatever motive) to discover such a cult. To say the best for it, Aradia is unreliable. Yet its ideas had great influence. “

“It is likely that Lelands work would never have had wide influence had it not been for the corroboration allegedly brought to it by Margaret Murray. As we saw in Chapter 2, the Murray thesis is that European witchcraft was a remnant of an ancient fertility religion based on the worship of the horned god Dianus. This old religion persisted through the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, and on into the early modern period. Only at the end of the Middle Ages was Christianity powerful enough to launch an effective attack, and finally to wipe out the old religion during the persecutions of the witch-craze. This scenario, like that of Aradia, is not permitted by the evidence, which Murray misused in violation of the simplest rules of criticism. All historians are agreed on this(see pp.41-2) but most recent historians have taken the unwarranted position that it contains no truth at all. Open-minded investigation readily reveals that some - indeed many - pagan beliefs and practices survived through the Middle Ages into the present. The question is not whether survivals existed, but how many and of what kind. 

   Murrays ideas had intellectual vogue for a long while, but they did not immediately generate the witch revival. The religion of the witches came into being in the years immediately following the Second World War. In 1948, Robert Graves published the White Goddess, a brilliant provocative, and uncritical tome in which he argued for the existence of a widespread and beautiful ancient cult, a cult not of the horned god but of the earth and moon goddess. Graves found this cult all over ancient Europe, especially in Celtic culture. At the same time, E.O James was  keeping interest in ancient survivals alive with a series of books on ancient religious rites and festivals.

  At this juncture, witchcraft was becoming a reality in the mind of Gerald Gardner. Gardner was born in 1884. His followers tell the story that he was initiated into witchcraft in 1939 by Old Dorothy Clutterbuck, a witch of the New Forest who later, they say, led the covens of England to the seashore where they prevented Hitler’s invasion by sending out the cone of power towards him with the instruction “ You cannot come. “ When the Craft was destroyed in the Burning Time, it was argued, a few kept it alive secretly, and old Dorothy was the heir of this ancient tradition. In fact there is no evidence that old Dorothy ever existed, and the ancient tradition is very dubious. Aidan Kelly, a Berkeley Scholar, has examined Gardners papers and after long critical scrutiny is prepared to demonstrate that Gardners ideas can be traced to other, modern sources. Kelly’s reconstruction of Gardners ‘reform’ of witchcraft is more or less as follows. 

     Gardner used a variety of literary and magical sources to invent - or re-invent - a religion. He Had belonged to a number of magical and spiritualist organizations, including the Fellowship of Crotona, of which Annie Besant was also a member, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was a friend of Aleister Crowley and claimed to have a charter from Crowley to found a chapter of the OTO . The influence of crowley upon Gardner was considerable, and , drawing heavily from the Golden Dawn Material, Gardner began to write a grimoire in his own handwriting. Gradually new ideas - ideas later to be the teachings, laws, and rituals of the Craft, - worked their way into the material. This grimoire, still in existence in the Ripley collection at Toronto, was begun during the Second World War. It is clear from this manuscript that, if Gardner had been initiated into a coven in 1939, they had given him almost no information at all. His ideas of the Craft were still very inchoate. The  material gradually changeded as Gardners own views shifted from the elite cermonial magic of the Golden Dawn to a more populist magic, transforming the semi-serious intellectual rituals of the Order into simpler rituals that could be performed by ordinary people. Gradually he reduced or eliminated the Judeo-Christian-gnostic flavor of the Golden Dawn materials and added neopagan ideas derived from Murray and Leland. Later still, he absorbed ideas from Graves, James, and other writers. Some scholars find the influence of Crowley even in Gardners revised views and claim that Crowley, rather than Gardner, is the true father of modern witchcraft) At first Gardners revision followed Murray closely and emphasized the importance of the horned god. But gradually the Goddess became more and more important, until she emerged as the chef deity. As the power of the Goddess rose, so did that assigned to the High Priestess, who replaced the High Priest as leader of the coven. By ‘ drawing down the moon’ a HIgh Priestess can take the Goddess’s power into herself and for a time in effect become the Goddess. Gardners combination of ceremonial magic with simple sorcery produced a new way of working magic appropriate to smaller and simpler groups. A good example of the development of Gardners thought is the 161 laws of the Craft (which were first published in the appendix of June Johns Laudatory biography of Alex Sanders - for whom, see below) These laws purport to be from a Book of Shadows dating from the sixteenth century. In fact Kelly has proved that the first version of them was drafted by one of Gardners associates and the rewritten in pseudo-archaic language by Gardner, supplemented with other material, and issued in 1958-9. The language is strained in itself, but the certain proof of its modernity is that in Gardners manuscripts the modern language versions of most of the passages in the laws were composed earlier than the archaic version.”

  “That Gardner invented the religion does not invalidate it. Every religion has a founder, and much that surrounds the origin of every religion is historically suspect. Lack of historicity does not necessarily deprive a religion of its insight. But no religion based upon evidence that is demonstrably false is likely to survive long. That is why sophisticated witches have increasingly abandoned the argument that the Craft is an ancient religion based on a surviving tradition and argue instead or its validity in terms of its poetic, spiritual, and psychological creativity. “ 

 Jeffery B Russel, “A History of Witchcraft”

So here is my view, (and it may be different from what my family member , the OP, thinks in some ways, but that is the nature of our family: we are a safe space for a diverse range of emotions, views, and needs.) I can imagine how insulting all this must seem to you.  You have worked hard your whole life to build something beautiful through struggle and solidarity with your witch-kin, and all you see is a bunch of ignorant young people stomping all over it. (Props to you for becoming a High Priest, by the way ) But that isnt whats happening. Whats happening is this: a generation of witches has no future because of worldwide ecological collapse, and this inspires in us extremely radical attitudes in our magick, beliefs, and practice. Those extreme radical attitudes towards magick (which i call witchpunk) when turned on the shitty scholarship of your hero, put him in an unflattering light. As a result, some of us may say things about him that sound highly judgmental, but it is not because we are incapable of respecting our elders, it is because we feel that our elders have failed us at a time of global crisis. We are searching desperately for authenticity in the ruins of post modernism and as a result we hold figures of the past to very high standards, and it is not our fault that they fall short.

“Another reflex of the death of Wicca is the rise of Traditional Craft. I take this to be a search for ritual practice which has retained is meaning following the collapse of the Murray thesis and the disenchantment caused by Huttons Triumph of the Moon that whilst proposing a modern pagan witchcraft was, in retrospect, its death knell. But ultimately Traditional Witchcraft and Dark Fluff are a product of and a reaction to post-modernism, they are seeking something authentic in a culture devoid of values and meaning, though approaching it from opposite directions. Neither of these paths have an answer for what is happening. Tradition cannot help us because these circumstances have never occurred before, dark fluff cannot help us because it only seeks to exploit the symptoms of the crisis in the sphere of the individual, its endless promises of power are empty.”  

 - Peter Grey, Rewilding Witchcraft (Scarlet Imprint)

And yet this does not mean that we think Gardner was a monster. We just think, in a variety of ways, that he was a problematic figure who should be called out. The huge quote from Jeffrey Russell above made the excellent point that just because Gardners research was poor doesnt mean that Gardnerian witchcraft is valueless.  And I agree with this. Thousands of people have found healing, guidance, and community through Gardnerian Wicca and that is real. I am happy for them. I recognize that. But it bothers me how every time someone dares to shine a light on your patriarchs flaws you react as if we shot your dog. I understand it hits a nerve, but you dont have to take it so personally. 

I can understand the value in taking Crowleys material and making it less complex and more like folk magick so that it would appeal more to working clas witches. Though I am a devotee of Babalon and use some elements of Thelema, Crowley was also a problematic figure, but for different reasons. Crowleys scholarship was extremely good, but he was also kind of a rich prick with a huge ego. “Aleister kisses his hand in preparation for a love that he never truly surrenders to” is one of my favorite lines from an Invocation to Babalon on scarlet imprint. So I am not worshipping Crowley…I am looking for the truth. And the truth is that Gardner wasnt wrong in simplifying Crowleys material, he was wrong in being dishonest about it. And that is a fact.

 A new generation is trying to find a witchcraft that makes sense to us. In generational astrology everyone my age was born with neptune in capricorn. This means that our job is to structure the subtle and shine a harsh light on the unstructured vague mysticism of the past, pulling from it what is solid and real and using that to build something strong and new that can “unify through building”. This process is messy, just like punkand anarchist movements were  messy, just like the history of movements and cultures are messy. Change is messy. It involves points of view that arent perfect but which nevertheless are striving to forge something real out of a world of chaos and alienation. 

 Peter Grey also said, in Apocalyptic Witchcraft “to define oneself in opposition to ones closest allies seems fatally flawed” and he is right. This is a time when it is crucial that witches and neopagans find common ground and work together. Thus disagreements as profound as ours are unfortunate. I have to admit that. But at the same time I am a midwife of a subculture that is in the early stage of forming its principles and core ideas. That is a very difficult process, so I hope that you will try to understand that we are opinionated and angry for a good reason and we are , deep down, not so different from you.

Another run of “From the Ashes”

Screen print and letterpress. Printed on reclaimed paper. 11.5" x 8.5"

Tattoo Road Trip!

So, in May of 2016, my friend M. and I are hitting the road and I want to do some tattoos! So if you’re in Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas or Louisiana and want a handpoked tattoo by me, now is your chance! Shoot me an email at [email protected] to book in, I don’t have exact dates for each state yet, hoping to base my time in each state around tattoo appointments. You can check out more of my work on my instagram