margaret murray #2

While I was browsing the internet looking for something else, I came across the suggestion that some of her writings may have encouraged the making of new covens in the 1920s and 1930s, covens such as the one into which Gerald Gardner was initiated in September 1939.

This reminded me of a certain number of times during my recent re-reading of God of the Witches when I paused long enough to observe that the example she had just cited, or something very much like it, is still to be found either as an ideal to be sought after or as something actually incorporated into current practice.

There is, for example, the proposition that the ideal number of witches in a coven is twelve; or twelve plus the Master; or twelve plus the High Priestess. From time to time I find the same information appearing in introductory manuals.

Another example is the evidence from one of her witnesses of the new witch kneeling before the Master, then placing one of their hands on their head, their other hand beneath the soles of their feet, and dedicating everything in between. In a modern context, I have been present at first degree initiations when the postulant kneels before the initiator, the initiator places one hand on the candidate’s head, the other hand under the candidate’s feet, and all between is then willed into witchcraft.

(It is important to add that because some of Murray’s instances are also present in Wicca, this does not necessarily imply that the latter results from the former.)

I recall that when I first met a practising witch and he talked about his craft, I recognised a substantial amount of his exposition as derived, directly or indirectly, from the works of Margaret Murray. This was more than thirty years ago and both he and the other witches I was in touch with at that time were practising a form of coven-based witchcraft that made no reference to Wicca. For them it was simply witchcraft.

© francis cameron, oxford, 10 july 2009

God of the Witches

god of the witches (1931) margaret murray

Margaret Murray wrote three books which are required reading for the proper study of witchcraft : The Witch-cult in Western Europe (1921); The God of the Witches (1931); The Divine King in England (1954).

In times past I have become familiar with all three of them : first of all in conjunction with the standard anthropological texts focussing on witchcraft; and, much later, while preparing an essay on the emergence of Gardnerian Wica [so spelt] in the mid-20th century.

In the past few days I have once again taken up The God of the Witches as part of my personal enquiry into the essential nature of Wicca and possibilities for its extension beyond the information so freely available in the public domain.

As an aside, I recall my first attendance at a Pagan Federation district convention. Ronald Hutton was the principal speaker. It was there, from him, I first became aware of academic objections to Murray’s thesis. It now seems to me that the generality of these objections have their origins in that portion of 18th century opinion which came to categorise ‘any belief in witchcraft’ as a falsehood deserving to be punished by the strictures of the 1735 Witchcraft Act.

It may also be the case that Murray, unwittingly, compounded the situation when she wrote her ‘Introduction’ to Gerald B. Gardner’s Witchcraft Today (1954).

As once again I make my way through her 1931 essay, I become aware that her technique, her method of presentation, is no longer fashionable. Her studies had led her to the conclusion that Pagan beliefs and practices – those of the Old Religion, as she has it – were never so completely eradicated or superseded by those of the Christian hierarchy as was once asserted to be the case. What did happen was that ‘the Church’ condemned any such manifestations as the machinations of its enemy the Devil and all his works. Hence the accusations and executions which are part of the historical record.

Rather than argue her corner, as a later generation of students has been taught to do, Murray simply sets out page after page of examples to back up her point. I am reminded of similar procedures by writers and speakers on country customs, their history, their variants, and their survival. She presents statements and restatements on the theme of : this is what people said or are alleged to have said; this is what people did or are alleged to have done. Much of what Murray offers us, I find quite convincing.

I do take issue with her on some of the conclusions she draws from preliterate illustrations. It is all very well to look at a display of figurines in a museum cabinet and accept that these are indeed miniatures of named gods and goddesses, because there is literary evidence to back up these attributions. But there comes a point when to extrapolate too far backwards in time leads us into an area of unprovable hypotheses tinged with wishful thinking.

To include an illustration of the Trois Freres ‘Masked Man with Stag’s Antlers’ among paragraphs concerned with the Horned God is going too far and her use of the ‘Masked Dancer’ (with musical bow) from the Fourneau de Diable is plain wrong. But then Murray is but one of a number of scholars misled by a figure wrenched out of context. I doubt any of them had actually seen prints showing the crowded state of the depictions on that particular wall. Look at any space where flyers have been posted one on top of the other, and you will see a modern example of a paleolithic practice.

For all that, Murray’s writing remains a valuable indicator of a particular ethos of the preWar days of the 1920s and 1930s. It is a part of the cultural atmosphere of a Southern England so very different from the present; part of the surroundings which nurtured the embryonic (was it really embryonic?) Craft of the Wise which eventually blossomed into the full flower of the Wicca.

© francis cameron, oxford, 9 july 2009

it's different down under

‘What Witches Do’ became a very useful source of inspiration, a stimulus to exploration and discovery, a prompting for more reading, deeper study and practical work. So we stepped into the Tarot. Trial and error eventually resulted in packs that suited each of us. At first there was much turning of pages when, after more trial and error, we came across books which were the right ones for us. Then we met with Dion Fortune’s ‘Mystical Qabalah’ and linked the two systems together, which has tended to influence my readings ever since. (These days, in my teaching of divination, I begin with psychometry and the resulting build up of images which deliberately excludes the use of books or other printed prompts.)

Stewart Farrar’s text set us off in the right direction. It was a brilliant starting point.

It was the observation of the seasonal feasts which first caused me to be aware of the difference between England and the Southern Hemisphere. I’d grown up in London with a full awareness of the power of Spring in the poetry painting song dance and instrumental music of our northern world. It was the great re‑awakening of life and new growth after the dark dormition of Winter. In all my time in Australia, I never once saw any sign of Spring. It just did not happen. Only the state government’s calendar contained the rubric that September 1st was the first day of Spring.

I was prepared to find December 25th celebrated with a turkey lunch on a suitable beach while the surf rolled in from across the Pacific. It never quite worked out like that. Christmas Day was a time to invite friends to a full Christmas lunch, a swim and much partying. Only as time went by did I feel it quite incongruous to be singing ‘See amid the winter’s snow’ when the temperature outdoors was up in the 80s Fahrenheit with humidity to match. Easter was similarly out of joint. Easter is the great festival of rebirth after the drama of death. How could you really celebrate Easter when the deciduous trees in the Botanical Garden were dropping their richly coloured leaves as they moved to the end of yet another annual cycle? (The ubiquitous indigenous gum trees celebrated no cycle at all. Their leaves always turned edgeways on to the rays of the sun.)

In time I recognised that we lived with the equivalent of just two seasons a year. Summer was hot and often tropically wet. Winter was cool and dry. ‘Cool’ meant about 15º Celsius, though indoors and at night it felt colder than that.

The phases of the Moon we could appreciate and celebrate. The daily round of the Sun was a different matter. Yes, we could turn to the eastern horizon for the sunrise but the transition from complete darkness to full light was accomplished quite suddenly. (So different from standing with Bobcat and her Druids on the ramparts of Avebury while I grew to understand why our forebears had lit fires to inform the stations down the line that something really was happening.) In Australia I observed many a brilliant sunset on the western horizon even though twilight was quite absent. Nightfall was like the dropping of the Safety Curtain in a theatre.

But the Sun at Noon stood in the North. And there was the problem. Should we dance and circle clockwise, as the books said? or should we go with an Australian deosil : East North West and South?

Then there were the Guardians of the Four Quarters and their associations. I began to understand that what suits one location may not suit another. To our East, hardly more than a few steps away, were the endless rollers of the Pacific Ocean. Surely this must be the home of the Watchtower of Water? And out to the West, beyond the city, the high landscape of the Blue Mountains. Earth. Surely? And in the South, that Summer phenomenon known as the Southerly Buster, a harsh wind which could sweep up direct from the Antarctic with a drop in temperature of 15 Celsius or more. A powerful dominating demonstration of Air. And so, leaving us with the Sun at Noon in the North : Fire, to complete the tetrad.

It’s only in more recent years, sitting here in a gentler clime, within walking distance of Carfax, where the Four Ways meet, that I came to appreciate how much the Pagan components of Wicca depend on local landscapes. The changing angles of the Sun observed as it swings on its pendulum from solstice to solstice and back again. The eagerly sought for first signs of the green shoots of Spring troping the bare branches of Winter. The delightful chromaticisms of the Fall of the Leaf as a prelude to hibernation. And all that goes betwixt and between.

Magic. Sheer magic.

© francis cameron, oxford, 1 july 2009

it's different down under

‘What Witches Do’ became a very useful source of inspiration, a stimulus to exploration and discovery, a prompting for more reading, deeper study and practical work. So we stepped into the Tarot. Trial and error eventually resulted in packs that suited each of us. At first there was much turning of pages when, after more trial and error, we came across books which were the right ones for us. Then we met with Dion Fortune’s ‘Mystical Qabalah’ and linked the two systems together, which has tended to influence my readings ever since. (These days, in my teaching of divination, I begin with psychometry and the resulting build up of images which deliberately excludes the use of books or other printed prompts.)

Stewart Farrar’s text set us off in the right direction. It was a brilliant starting point.

It was the observation of the seasonal feasts which first caused me to be aware of the difference between England and the Southern Hemisphere. I’d grown up in London with a full awareness of the power of Spring in the poetry painting song dance and instrumental music of our northern world. It was the great re‑awakening of life and new growth after the dark dormition of Winter. In all my time in Australia, I never once saw any sign of Spring. It just did not happen. Only the state government’s calendar contained the rubric that September 1st was the first day of Spring.

I was prepared to find December 25th celebrated with a turkey lunch on a suitable beach while the surf rolled in from across the Pacific. It never quite worked out like that. Christmas Day was a time to invite friends to a full Christmas lunch, a swim and much partying. Only as time went by did I feel it quite incongruous to be singing ‘See amid the winter’s snow’ when the temperature outdoors was up in the 80s Fahrenheit with humidity to match. Easter was similarly out of joint. Easter is the great festival of rebirth after the drama of death. How could you really celebrate Easter when the deciduous trees in the Botanical Garden were dropping their richly coloured leaves as they moved to the end of yet another annual cycle? (The ubiquitous indigenous gum trees celebrated no cycle at all. Their leaves always turned edgeways on to the rays of the sun.)

In time I recognised that we lived with the equivalent of just two seasons a year. Summer was hot and often tropically wet. Winter was cool and dry. ‘Cool’ meant about 15º Celsius, though indoors and at night it felt colder than that.

The phases of the Moon we could appreciate and celebrate. The daily round of the Sun was a different matter. Yes, we could turn to the eastern horizon for the sunrise but the transition from complete darkness to full light was accomplished quite suddenly. (So different from standing with Bobcat and her Druids on the ramparts of Avebury while I grew to understand why our forebears had lit fires to inform the stations down the line that something really was happening.) In Australia I observed many a brilliant sunset on the western horizon even though twilight was quite absent. Nightfall was like the dropping of the Safety Curtain in a theatre.

But the Sun at Noon stood in the North. And there was the problem. Should we dance and circle clockwise, as the books said? or should we go with an Australian deosil : East North West and South?

Then there were the Guardians of the Four Quarters and their associations. I began to understand that what suits one location may not suit another. To our East, hardly more than a few steps away, were the endless rollers of the Pacific Ocean. Surely this must be the home of the Watchtower of Water? And out to the West, beyond the city, the high landscape of the Blue Mountains. Earth. Surely? And in the South, that Summer phenomenon known as the Southerly Buster, a harsh wind which could sweep up direct from the Antarctic with a drop in temperature of 15 Celsius or more. A powerful dominating demonstration of Air. And so, leaving us with the Sun at Noon in the North : Fire, to complete the tetrad.

It’s only in more recent years, sitting here in a gentler clime, within walking distance of Carfax, where the Four Ways meet, that I came to appreciate how much the Pagan components of Wicca depend on local landscapes. The changing angles of the Sun observed as it swings on its pendulum from solstice to solstice and back again. The eagerly sought for first signs of the green shoots of Spring troping the bare branches of Winter. The delightful chromaticisms of the Fall of the Leaf as a prelude to hibernation. And all that goes betwixt and between.

Magic. Sheer magic.

© francis cameron, oxford, 1 july 2009

body and soul

As I sat across the street I heard a familiar chord sequence and then I put together the fragments of melody. He was playing ‘Body and Soul’. He was just a mendicant guitarist in Cornmarket Street, but he played ‘Body and Soul’ and I haven’t heard that since it became almost my signature tune.

I don’t expect the name to mean anything to you. You might have sung along while he was playing ‘As Time Goes By’, but that’s been in a film. A black and white classic.

‘Body and Soul’ never was in no film. Just the tinkle of its tune brings back such poignant memories, the memories of my first professional tour. I was ‘the 16 year old boy wonder pianist’ with an ENSA concert party. The Solid Eight. The year was 1944. Flying bombs were dropping on London. V2 rockets were just appearing. The great battle for Europe had yet to be won. We played to Canadian troops in camps all over England. They were ready for action wherever they were needed.

That tour did so much for me. I had to learn to play unfamiliar idioms : boogie-woogie, rumba, the special kind of accompaniment that goes (went?) with an Old Tyme comic’s patter. A life changing experience. The thrill of playing to packed houses in Garrison Theatres and NAAFI canteens. The camaraderie of our tiny touring company.

Olive was a dancer. Wrapped up in her work. Introvert, almost. ‘Body and Soul’ was her point number.

Pamela Cundell was another of the Eight. She’s still around. Must be that much older than me! It’s not so long since I saw her on television one evening. Still as inimitable as ever.

Then there was Teddy Driver, the Top of the Bill star of our little troupe. He was part of Music Hall. I saw him, once, in a film. An Ealing Comedy. And once, when I was working for the LCC, there he was. Teddy Driver standing watching one of our concert parties in the parks. In those few short years before television put an end to all that.

And the years fall away.

I can never again be the boy I was when I was 16 but often it feels to me that dates on birth certificates are not to be taken too seriously. I’ve not yet reached the stage where I feel I really ought to act my age.

© francis cameron, oxford, 3 july 2009