[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time and culture, remain relevant today.]
The Egyptian Goddess Isis to Western Witch
While it seems that the goddess’ split into the Holy Mother and the damned witch was common throughout the Western world, there are distinct differences in the tenor of legends of witches on the Continent and those of North America and England. This may in part be due to the localities where the legends persist and their earlier pagan relationship to the goddess as well as how well the local Christian church adapted to earlier pagan traditions. In Alpine regions, for example, witches are not necessarily evil, they can be seen as the women who live in the mountains and protect the innocent, while they deal out strikes to those who harm the land, animals or their protected people. The Lady Perchta, who inhabits the mountains of Bavaria, Tirol and Salzburg, is an example of just such a witch. In one tale, “The Witch from Gleichenberg” from Styria, Austria, the Witch, who is also called a gypsy, saves a young boy, who grows up to be the head of castle, with water from a sacred spring. She keeps the spring and its powers to herself, i.e, keeps the magic to herself, but when she knows she is dying, she lets the lord of the castle know where the healing water is located to protect the community.40 The Untersberg Frauen, the women who live in the Untersberg mountain, which lies on the border of the province of Salzburg, Austria and Bavaria, Germany, play tricks on passersby with light shows on wet rocks and undergrowth. They can lead the innocent to safety in storms and through fog, while they have been known to push those they don’t like into crevasses. They live amid the many caves in the mountain, while they play in its streams and waterfalls. They are still respected by the local population, even those who go to church every Sunday.
Recently, post-Reformation traditionally negative views on witches have also been mitigated by children’s stories such as the award winning Die kleine Hexe (The Little Witch) by Otfried Preussler.41 The story includes some of the popularized elements associated with witches, and yet it has a twist that brings the Little Witch back in line with elements of the great goddess and her Alpine descendants. The popularized elements include: the Little Witch has a raven companion named Abraxas; the witches at the Walpurgis Night celebration encompass those who have command of the natural elements, such as mountains, woods, swamps, fog, weather, wind, and herbs/plants; they make a witches’ fire and sing and dance around it as they fly through the night; and the witching hour is midnight. They have a Witches’ Council with a chief witch who listens to the other witches as they govern the community—not letting the Little Witch participate in the activities. The witches put spells on people to change bodily features to include parts of animals, e.g., donkey ears and cows’ feet. The Little Witch makes salves of frogs’ eggs and mouse droppings, i.e. she uses natural elements to heal. In one chapter, ‘The Lightly Spelled Marksmen Festival,’ she helps children save their favorite ox from being killed and eaten. In the story, the Witches’ Council gave the Little Witch a year to learn to be a good witch. The young girl, who is only 127 years old, has perfected her powers, learned all the spells in the book of magic, and helped a number of innocent people during the year. When she goes for her final exam on Walpurgis Night in order to be allowed to participate in the Nightly Festival, she answers the questions easily and seems to have passed the exam until one of the other witches, who had been tracking her throughout the year, announced all of the ways she had helped people. The witches in the Council are appalled because being a good witch means harming rather than helping. The Little Witch then uses her magic to trick the other witches and destroy them in the Witches’ Fire created for the Walpurgis Night celebration. She is alone, but she will continue to be the good witch, destroying that which harms and protecting the innocent. This theme of the good witch who only selectively uses magic, and then only to be helpful, was seen in the U.S. television shows Bewitched (1964-1972), Sabrina, the Teen-age Witch (1996-2003) and Charmed (1998-2006) along with a variety of children’s books similar to The Little Witch. This change may, at least in part, be related to the development of Wicca.
Wicca originated in England after WWII, as a creation of Gerald Gardner, an amateur anthropologist, who combined diverse pagan traditions with early 20th century theosophical thought. One impetus for creating the new pagan tradition was a reaction and denunciation of organized religion, and as such Wicca has no central authority or doctrine.42 The one most predominant aspect of the various Wiccan traditions is the worship of the Great Goddess and the Great Horned God, reminiscent of the Babylonian/Mesopotamian Baal. While not all Wiccans practice magic, many do, and they associate their skills with their deities. Ellen Reed, a renown Wicca practitioner, ties her faith back to the Great Goddess, even in the title of her book, Circle of Isis: Ancient Egyptian Magic for Modern Witches. In it she explains:
In Wicca, our approach to magic is usually through the Gods. Having done all we are capable of doing on this plane, we turn to magic, and will often ask for the help, guidance, and blessing of specific deities.
Egyptian legend says that Ra invented magic. The Gods were too busy to do everything, so Ra gave humankind magical powers, heka, so that we would be able to handle the unseen world ourselves.
Wicca is, first and foremost, a religion. You might call magic a fringe benefit, a result of our beliefs. We believe that we are part of the Gods and able to do much They can do. The very source of the ability to do magic, however, makes it imperative that we view it as something sacred, not to be used lightly, or for fun, or to manipulate or harm others. Never forget it was a gift from a God.43
She goes on to reveal Wicca’s relationship to the gods, which has a very shamanistic flavor:
To put it another way, they (the gods) are real beings, not archetypes, not representatives of certain kinds of energy. You can come to know them personally.
In many covens, including mine, this belief is put into practice by what is often called Drawing Down the Moon. It is also called aspecting and channeling. …
Basically, it is this: The Priest calls a Goddess into the Priestess who serves as the vessel. Ideally, the Goddess speaks through the Priestess. She may speak to the group as a whole, or to each member individually.44
Wiccan understanding of the deities as real beings is in line with ancient Egyptian religion as well as many pagan traditions across the globe today. Most Christian churches, however, would find this approach to be both blasphemous and demonic; exorcisms were performed for much less. Wiccans do not follow the ancient rites and rituals to perform the Drawing Down the Moon ceremony for channeling the goddess, if there even were such practices before the 20th century, as there are no records of how the ancient magic ceremonies were performed. They were secret, as were the Dionysian Mysteries and other esoteric traditions. 45 Today’s Wiccans create new ceremonies based on their understanding of the deities and traditions, but they are not historically accurate re-creations. According to Reed, Wiccan understanding of Egyptian magic is based on how the earlier tradition blended words and gestures.46 This is similar to many esoteric yogic traditions, where mantras/chants are recited with specific postures and hand manipulations. The chants, in Wicca’s case, words of the spell, need to be recited for them to have vibrational power and be written down, keeping Thoth in mind, for posterity. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be much relayed about the gestures and body postures from Ancient Egyptian literature, which is why Wiccans create their own, often based on Indian models which are more widely known. They differ from the Indian model, however, in that, contrary to the gurus of the Himalayas who insist on a particular word and pronunciation for a mantra/chant, Wiccan’s are more free-spirited and don’t use the exact pattern used by their ancient forbearers.47 It should be noted, however, that the chants are seldom used as spells; instead they are mainly intended as a means to honor and invoke a particular god or goddess.
Reed links her coven back to the ancient Goddess of the Nile by using aspects of her attire and/or creatures affiliated with her. One of these is, “The Knot of Isis, a symbol also known as the “Blood of Isis” or “Girdle of Isis.” It is used for the purpose of invoking Her protection. When carved from stone, the stone is usually red. 49 This knot is at chest level on sculpted Isis’ robes starting with the beginning of the Graeco-Roman period. Where Athena wears a Medusa medallion, Isis has an eternal knot, symbolizing the three times, the three worlds, and the eternal cycle of them both.
40 Hildegard Pezolt, “Die Hexe von Gleichenberg,” Die Schönsten Sagen Aus Österreich (Wien: Carl Ueberreuter Verlag, 1993), 193.
41 Otfried Preussler, Die Kleine Hexe (Stuttgart: Theinemann-Esslinger Verlag, 2013).
42 Julia Philips, “History of Wicca in England: 1939- to the Present Day.” http://geraldgardner.com/History_of_Wicca_Revised.pdf
43 Ellen Cannon Reed, Circle of Isis: Ancient Egyptian Magic for Modern Witches, (NJ: New Page Books, 2002), 15.
44 Ibid., 129.
45 D.P. Walker, Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries. (London: Scolar Press 1981), 12.
46 Reed, Circle of Isis, 151.
47 Ibid., 195.
48 Ibid., 202.
(To be continued)
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