Hearth & Horn

Heartwood by @phoebecoco

Incredible, unsettling little song by a hawthorn tree fearing the ax.

 Say what you like about Scott Cunningham - he's a brilliant writer. He's accessible! My copy of Wicca for the Solitary Practicioners has survived several book culls because I never don't need a quick reference for, say, the 7 basic steps in ritual. Or, some quick sabbat correspondences. Or in this case, how to cast a circle.

It's clear, concise, well laid out, and I frequently don't have the spoons to access more complex information or remember where I might have written or stored it. 

Like, I have other books which talk about circles. From various trads - ive a handful of ceremonial works, some 60s original coven books, some modern ones, some dorky stuff like a book on animal spirits or druid Wicca. They've all got a basic sacred space chapter. 

But Cunningham is my go to.

And that's the essence of what a textbook should be. Not just simple, but simply laid out. 

I think the biggest problem with WftSP is a lack of signposting. It really needs a chapter directing you to 201 level material, and supplementary stuff to pad out his work. For example, there's non real discussion of what you do when a circle is up; and none of the poetry and strangeness which existed as long as Wicca has been performed. Cunnigham's goddess is bland, safe, fully mapped, vapid. I don't necessarily think his craft was like that, only that his accessible textbook style lends itself very badly to poetry.

So you'd definitely want to give a new starter Cunnigham, alongside maybe a book by Valiente -which is more vivid about what the craft looks like in practice, and how complex and vital it was even at its genesis (I feel like Cunnigham is in part responsible for the idea thst Wicca is bland. You think Gardener didon't know how to curse?!). And then thirdly, you'd want to give them something like a book of fairy stories, or the Hobbit, or Paradise Lost - something beautiful, something with poetry and depth, something that feels rather like what magic can be. 

I feel like far from empowering my craft as a new starter, Cunningham held me back. I use him a lot more now I've got the "why" of the faith fully in place, and consult him for the "how"

Here's a starter collection of Folk Horror resources. I hope to keep reading and reviewing them as a form of devotional work, and using this list as a guide to where to go next.

Paganism suffers from a lack of art. That is, Christianity has had the very best and most beautiful and well funded art for hundreds of years, and deliberately-made-Pagan art can rarely complete. They have Michaelangelo! I feel positive about actively rummaging through the rest of the culture for art made by non-Pagans to fill the gaps of hymns and poetry and art.


Books-With-Associated-Blog

• We Can't Go Back
  
• A Year in the Country
• Folk Horror Revival
• Celluloid Wickerman

Films

Brilliant starter list at:

• We Can't Go Back

Extra resources

• Where to start with folk horror - BFI
• Hallowed Ground - Empire
• How Folk Horror is flowering again in Brexit Britain
• The Welcome Return of Folk Horror
• Review of the Scovell book
•  

Blogs

• Landscapism
  

Radio

• What Is Folk Horror

Articles

• The eeriness of the English countryside - very good!

Books and music - TBA

Essentially, the best folk horror music doesn't know it's folk horror music. Right? You can't accidentally disturb the ancient Pagan echoes of the land on purpose. There are bands which use clips from Blood On Satan's Claw and cherrypick the creepiest folksongs and market themselves in this zone, but they fall short of what I want from them. For example, I think Let England Shake by PJ Harvey is extremely landweirdy, in a way that anything The Hare and the Moon do is not, no matter how many times I listen with optimism.

Here's a brilliant article about Thai religion/mythology and cave spirits from the Atlantic:

Thailand's Caves are Dangerously Alluring

We've been very anxiously watching the rescue of the football team - we're spending a lot of time in the hotel bar, which has a news channel unfortunately, and I am *terrified* of drowning so I have some Very Strong Feelings About Diving In Caves.

Not wishing to insert my spiritual feelings where they're inappropriate, and yet the year's been so bad and my month's been so bad and sump diving so dangerous, it's hard to see the rescue as anything other than miraculous. (How do we square terms like "miracle" and ideas like "prayer" with also giving the credit and praise to the human skills & professionalism which made the rescue work? Can you even use a word like "miracle" without inherently implying the work of a higher power, and devaluing what the aid team did...?)

( Full article cross-posted for posterity under the cut )

When I studied film, the best course I ever attended was on American outsider art cinema. Not films with stories you might see in the cinema: weird art-installations made by people who owned a camera, like Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol and Sadie Benning. I saw all sorts that term - like a birth in close up, porn, and autopsies (I think the lecturers were just trying to encourage us to do the reading ahead of the class...)


Kenneth Anger worked in the 60s, and more-or-less invented the modern music video. He combined homoerotic imagery with bubbly pop and automobile fetishism, as well as occasional first-year-art-student stuff like "what if Jesus was actually a biker and also a Nazi". When film academics/critics write about Kenneth Anger, they describe him as "using occult imagery" - which is maddening, because Kenneth Anger was *literally a magician*, and Lucifer Rising is devotional cinema: a ritual, disguised as film.


Some things cannot be explained: they must be felt. That's true of most magic, isn't it? What do I like about Lucifer Rising? I feel like the act of watching it is, in some way, an act of magic. I make time for it several times a year - often at times which feel solar. When the eclipse happened, I listened to Lucifer Rising. I've used its imagery for meditations and artworks, and used it as a sermon of-sorts to reflect on in ritual.

Anger's imagery is bold and strange. It lodges in your memory: rich colours, striking symbols. Like magic, it communicates straight with the subconscious - there's a plot there of sorts, to me a very moving one, but the most important thing is the experience of watching, how those colours and sounds affect you. The music is especially haunting and strange, a key part of the film's mood (Ensure you watch it with the original soundtrack, by Beausoleil - as there are several versions of the film online with new music. A cool creative act to be sure, but the original music is so much a part of it. I almost dropped £80 on a vinyl copy last month. The fact I even considered that might be sensible is a testiment to this film's eerie soundscape)

This film single-handedly got me into Thelema and ceremonial traditions, which I had previously regarded as rather silly. Still do. But by god, it works - you know? It works.



You can watch Lucifer Rising on youtube: here (30 mins)

To own: All Anger's films are collected on a DVD called the Magic Lantern Cycle. This can be fairly challenging to track down cheaply, although if you support Amazon, they currently have a couple for a very reasonable $16.

Viewing notes:
If you've never tried art cinema before, switch off the lights and put the screen on full - and just watch. If you like, put yourself into a meditative and responsive state.

CN: Lucifer Rising contains occasional non-sexual nudity, some blood, and a fair amount of imagery your easily-frightened conservative neighbour would describe as satanic/demonic.



Cautionary note: When I typed that Lucifer Rising is a ritual, and watching it a magical act - I meant it metaphorically. But now I've said it, I think this is very likely to be correct. I think the intent of the film is almost certainly as an enchanted artifact, which is cast as it is unspooled. Magical audiences, concerned about participating in rituals blindly, may wish to take shielding steps or similar, or avoid the work.

That makes it sound more serious than it actually is - my top recommendation is to light candles, cast a circle and immerse yourself in it. I don't think you can appreciate any work of art if you are actively trying to shield yourself from it. And I think that would be a tragic way to approach something which - as I've said - is one of the most beautiful and moving things I've ever seen.

But consent is a thing and all, so if you're not sure, here's a spoilery precis of the film's content, so you can judge how you feel about possibly "participating" in it. I'd urge you very strongly not to read it.

( Lucifer Rising spoilers )
Further Viewing:

Kenneth Anger's films are all on youtube - ensure you choose ones with the original soundtrack. His most famous is Scorpio Rising (CN: Nazi imagery), and it's funny because the homoerotic shots of bikers feature real bikers who didn't realise Anger's queer intent in shooting them.

I like Kustom Kar Kommandos, which pulls a similar trick with boys who love to polish their cars. Fireworks is also a fave, about homoerotic fantasies. His other occult film, Invocation of my Demon Brother, can be seen here (11 mins). People also describe Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome as an occult work - I'm looking forward to revisiting it in this light.

Newly interested in art cinema? The most iconic ones to start with are:

• Meshes of the Afternoon - Maya Deren
• Un Chien Andalou - Luis Buinel (CN: some surprise intense violence & rotting animals)
• Window Water Baby Moving - Stan Brakhage (CN: childbirth)

These can all be found on youtube. Meshes of the Afternoon is a total must-see if you haven't experienced it before.