I am presuming a “ritual of leaving” is a ritual that seeks to have the object of the spellwork leave the area. It’s a different way of saying “banishing”.
When I was actively spell working I somewhat specialized in defensive magick. which can be tricky. A lot of it is on the level of “don’t look at the man behind the curtain/nothing to see here, move along/these are not the droids you are looking for” type of misdirection, reflection of evil back at the source, and so on. There is a subset of “go-away” type workings, but those are of sometimes problematic nature. An expected rebound might be that the undesirable person(s) leave… but then something comes up and YOU leave the location as well.
Also, Wicca has changed considerably since I joined up in the 1970’s - back then, at least with the crowd I was with, it was perfectly acceptable to defend yourself with strong measures - in that case, you were considered to be acting as an agent of the Threefold Law. You weren’t starting the fight, just finishing it. But hey, you have extremists in any religion, it’s just that in Wicca the last few decades seem to have spawned extreme pacifists. And vegans. Vegan pacifists who would no doubt be horrified at the section in my Book of Shadows on using blood in rituals and spells. (of course, that is a real book of shadows, as opposed to a floppy disk or hard drive of shadows - technology marches on, doesn’t it?)
Ooooh! :o Of course. Banishings seem to occupy a strange grey area in Wiccan ethics, don’t they? While they technically infringe on Free Will, they’re mostly seen as the preferred way to handle trouble, instead of doing a Binding, because they only infringe on it a little bit, I guess. I’m not a fan of doing Banishings against people - it’s just too NIMBYey for me. Why should someone else have to deal with my troublemaker because I’ve shooed him away? Plus, as you say, there’s that pesky backlash to deal with. I’d hate to do a Banishing on someone and then find out I’ve lost my job and been banned from the premises.
However, The Marine Corps does not possess Free Will. Individual Marines do, but The Marines don’t. They probably possess an egregore, I’d have to meditate more on that, but still no Free Will there. There’s no ethical reason one couldn’t try to banish The Marine Corps from the area (and that’s exactly what these people have been trying to do with mundane means, is it not?) as long as you weren’t doing a Banishment of individual people.
And I know what you mean about the pacifist wing of the movement. For what it’s worth, I think that’s a very superficial level, one oft’ presented to the media in response to allegations of Satantic blahblahblah… Certainly Reclaiming isn’t all fuzzy bunnies, and Starhawk is still out there rabble rousin’ and fighting the good fight. Now that the environment is becoming a visible issue and there’s a war that’s not going well and at the same time our civil liberties are being restricted, there have been a lot more serious workshops at most of the festivals I attend talking about civil and magickal disobedience for the greater good.
It’s my pleasure, WhyNot. As I have aged, I have found myself drifting much more towards an agnostic or outright atheist viewpoint, but the ethics and such behind spellwork still interest me (no matter what I may personally feel about it these days).
I feel the question has been answered, and it’s only a matter of time until this dissolves into the sadly stereotypical religion bashing fest.
Relatively dead serious question: Does esprit de corps have magical power in the worldview of wiccans?
I’ve known pagan soldiers, of various flavors, from wiccan to astaru. I’ve heard them talk about the spirit of the corps in mystical ways. But what I’m wondering is, in regards to, say, the spirit of the unit or company, the non-religious, exactly, but inherent will not to disappoint the history of the squad/unit/corps. Without actual ‘spellcasting’ to back it up.
Because if it does count, I can’t think of a single thing that any random wiccans could even theoretically do that would be able to penetrate the self-image of a proud Marine.
An egregore? Hey, good term. I like it. But I’d think there’s more to it than merely that. Each unit has its own traditions and spirit, each unit has its own emblem and flag. The Marines as a whole have their own tradition of being the hardest asses in the armed forces.
One little ritual trying to make the Marines lose their nerve?
“Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”
Ah, here we go. List of Marine Corps Batallions, with emblem.
From a wiccan perspective, what does this mean to you?
“Once a Marine, always a Marine.”
Next to the Navy, the Marines have some of the deepest and oldest traditions in the armed forces. I can’t say anything about that from your perspective, but every Marine that died, died in the name of the United States Marines.
If willpower counts in wiccan magic, if drive and sacrifice count… these witches have no idea what they’re messing with.
(Full disclosure: An ancestor was a Marine on the Ranger (1777), I do not believe that wiccan spells have any actual effect except psychological, but I understand that you might, and I want to hear from your perspective what the interaction would be.)
It’s funny you should mention this. I remember once when I was at Georgetown, I saw a bunch of Catholic big cheeses in their ceremonial robes, carrying scepters and whatever else. They went to the main gate and waved their scepter and said some incantation, and then wandered off whence they came. I was struck by how this was no different from someone attempting to cast a spell or something, and was frankly embarrassed by this display of naked superstition.
I personally think they have about as much chance of moving the Marines as they do of moving Mt. Everest. And for rather similar reasons. There is, as you call it “esprit de corpse” is firm, long established and hardheaded as all get out.
The following is The World According to Me, and steals ideas not only from Wicca but from Qabalah, Golden Dawn and my own personal meditations on Life, The Universe and Everything. Please don’t think anyone else specifically shares these ideas - many people do, but I’m not speaking for the group here.
The Marines are definitely a group with a powerful presence in the physical world, and you don’t get that way without a powerful presence in the (for lack of a better term) spiritual world. Everything that exists starts in the world of Formation before it can exist in the world of Creation. You have to have an idea about something before you can make it in physical form. When lots and lots of people share that idea, it becomes manifest more quickly and more strongly. Thousands and thousands of people over many years have fed this idea, that thought-form, to create the spirit of the Marines. This spirit is what allows the physical existence of the Marines to be as strong as it is. With enough mental, emotional, psychological and, perhaps psychic energy, this spirit, this thought-form, takes on a life of its own. The *idea *of The Marines has power, even when the physical Marines are not present. That’s an egregore.
It’s not just Marines who feed it. The media, video games, our personal impressions, thoughts and ideas about Marines and Marine life - those all feed the egregore, too. You could, theoretically, kill every single Marine and former Marine in the world tomorrow. But unless you destroy everyone who has a link with that egregore, you will not have destroyed The Marines. They would rebuild and return, created and sustained by that egregore.
IMHO, this is why long standing non-religious institutions like racism are still around. We haven’t destroyed the egregore that powers them. We’ve done so much on a societal level to try and eradicate people’s racist behavior, but we haven’t been able to stop the group thought form that empowers those behaviors.
It is a mystical spiritual thing? I have no idea. Is it the psychological bond of soldiers? Sure, absolutely. Is it societal inertia? Of course. Is it a philosophical construct best pondered late at night after a few intoxicants of your choice? Quite possibly. Quite probably, it’s some of all of the above.
I’m an agnostic myself. I’m not an atheist only because I can’t be sure there isn’t a Divine any more than I can be sure there is one. Yes, I’ve been the vessel for the Goddess to work through, more than once. But what does that mean? Does it mean I can get a certain part of my brain to light up more easily than others? Does it mean I’m delusional? Sure, could be. Could also be a literal Divine being sitting in my cerebrum telling me what to say for a while. I don’t actually think those are mutually exclusive, anyway. Maybe that “religious center” of the brain is where The Universe can plug in. Or it could be a flaw in the design of the neural network. I dunno. I think anyone who says they do know, for sure, is lying. The most any of us can do is suspect.
(Sophistry and Illusion, Roman Catholicism is widely recognized among neopagans as the most pagan of the Abrahamic religions. If they had allowed me to be a priest and had slightly different views on gay and reproductive rights, I would have been quite happy to be a part of their church. They have just beautiful rituals, not to mention the best sacred music ever written.)
Let us withdraw to a place of sanctity and sanctuary, and perform rituals of spirtitual cleansing, so that our souls may be unsullied as we raise our eyes unto God and intone:
Yeah, I was thinking about that, too. But the thing is, one has to ask oneself: does this help or hurt their cause? Surely they (Code Pink) are smart enough to know that this hurts their cause. So what is the point?
Of course, I still have doubts about the veracity of this story. Does anyone have a link, even if it’s just to the Fox story? There may be a grain of truth that has been spun to make it look more serious than it is.
Friday, May 9th: Witches, Crones, Sirens: perform rituals of leaving, cast a spell of peace and love over the station, rendering nil the recruiting of our youth to become fodder for this occupation of Iraq.
I propose a simple solution. Throw the protesters in the ocean and those that do not drown are real witches and therefore should be allowed to cast their anti-recruitement spells. It’s just good old-fashioned lobbyism with a twist.
What we don’t want is a bunch of posers stealing the attention from the real difference makers.
Cite? That all that is stuff that I think? Um…okay. I assure you it is.
I don’t claim it to be true or real, but it’s what I think, and I was very clear about that in my post. All that E-Sabbath asked for was a perspective, and that’s what he got.
I know a few code pink people. While I don’t know for certain that this story is true, I have no problem believing it. The ones I know live in DC. God knows what the ones in Berkeley are like.
I think they’re less concerned with actually affecting policy as they are with making a spectacle, having a party, attracting attention, and feeling good about themselves. Elucidator makes a valid point that Code Pink has done far far less damage to America and the world than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney and the rest. But when I look at their antics all I can think is You’re. not. helping.
