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3 April 2019 18:45![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonQuick note ahead of a full review:
The Witch: A History of Fear by Ronald Hutton is crazy good.
Every page there's three or four things which make me go "huh".
He frequently makes remarks ive heard from Occult authors here and there, but he's a historian so he's independently discovered them or is citing their original contexts. It's fascinating to see a non-practicioner make statements like "ceremonial magic is a neutral tool which can be combined with any religion", and then back it up with the historical evidence.
Additionally, stuff like "what does the pentagram symbolise". He says the five parts of the body, which I've heard before; but also the five wounds of Christ, which hasn't survived into our traditions.
He discusses the schism between ceremonial magicians and witchcraft - I can't believe the dumbass superiority complex held by sneery mage is like over 500 years old. It is repeatedly argued in 14th & 15th century grimories why farting around with circles and incenses is OK and meaningfully distinct from witchcraft. Again, Hutton ia a historian without a horse in this race - he's interested in the history of ideas and concepts.
He's got a good chapter on what "shamanic" even means, including a good part on whether Viking sedir is shamanic (apparently, the jury is out - possible but not proven). He talks a lot about how our ideas colour what we see in history: how ancient Viking rites may have been *written down* by people influenced by nearby, surviving Finnish traditions, just as our views of them are now coloured by anthropological work and assumptions of what "shamanic" entails.
I was even facinated to discover that my solar/lunar conception of religious vs magical acts has been enshrined in thought since Greco-Roman times. It's incredible to me that something I put time into developing and figuring out is, in fact, just the background noise of culture: a deep-rooted division we are primed to spot when we look at the world.
OK I'm like three chapters in here so diving straight back for the Sabbatic chapters.
The Witch: A History of Fear by Ronald Hutton is crazy good.
Every page there's three or four things which make me go "huh".
He frequently makes remarks ive heard from Occult authors here and there, but he's a historian so he's independently discovered them or is citing their original contexts. It's fascinating to see a non-practicioner make statements like "ceremonial magic is a neutral tool which can be combined with any religion", and then back it up with the historical evidence.
Additionally, stuff like "what does the pentagram symbolise". He says the five parts of the body, which I've heard before; but also the five wounds of Christ, which hasn't survived into our traditions.
He discusses the schism between ceremonial magicians and witchcraft - I can't believe the dumbass superiority complex held by sneery mage is like over 500 years old. It is repeatedly argued in 14th & 15th century grimories why farting around with circles and incenses is OK and meaningfully distinct from witchcraft. Again, Hutton ia a historian without a horse in this race - he's interested in the history of ideas and concepts.
He's got a good chapter on what "shamanic" even means, including a good part on whether Viking sedir is shamanic (apparently, the jury is out - possible but not proven). He talks a lot about how our ideas colour what we see in history: how ancient Viking rites may have been *written down* by people influenced by nearby, surviving Finnish traditions, just as our views of them are now coloured by anthropological work and assumptions of what "shamanic" entails.
I was even facinated to discover that my solar/lunar conception of religious vs magical acts has been enshrined in thought since Greco-Roman times. It's incredible to me that something I put time into developing and figuring out is, in fact, just the background noise of culture: a deep-rooted division we are primed to spot when we look at the world.
OK I'm like three chapters in here so diving straight back for the Sabbatic chapters.
