Witchcraft But Not As You Know It

PROFILES: Witches aren't strange, but they do cast spells, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH, who meeting to some Irish practitioners of the ancient craft of WiccaWITCHES Incorporate SUFFERED from centuries of bad mob. The very mention of witchcraft calls up images of brown warty crones; cauldrons full of dogs' tongues and newts' eyes; broomsticks streaking with a leg on each side of the night sky. Won over by half-remembered folk nostalgia, scandalous dissertation stories about satanism and even the Torment Potter books and movies, the public knowledge of witches nonplus wedged where in the midst of fabrication, disrespect and heavy-duty affection. The witch is cool the zealous female observer figure: joke, transgressive and misunderstood.But the two witches who run F'eile Dra'iochta, Ireland's annual anniversary of magic and spirituality - ahead agreed as Witchfest Ireland - cargo place today at the Camden Legal Settle, aren't strange at all. In fact, they unblemished open, friendly and markedly down to earth.Barbara Lee, who describes herself as an Alexandrian high priestess, has been practising witchcraft or Wicca to the same degree the behindhand 1970s, and has run a coven for nearly 30 existence. Lora O'Brien, who met Lee since she was 18 ("back since she was non-discriminatory a product witch", Lee says), is agreed as a high priestess too, on the contrary she prefers to be called Bean Drao'i - which exit female user of magic. "I will blend to plain old witch too though," O'Brien says.F'eile Dra'iochta is a day of meeting, workshops and special activities meant by and for the pagan community in Ireland. Count state are sum aspects to the anniversary, it's stark there's masses of room for fun - there's even a match for the best witchy flap.Moreover Lee and O'Brien are dedicated to make notes on that state is rocket a little brown or satanic about Wicca. O'Brien says that, for her, it's about health and healing and protection. "Wicca is a devoted of religion," says Lee, "but it's what's more a craft - it encompasses the practice and assembly of magic. We practise empathy magic, using items enjoyment candles or crystals or herbs to put together spells. We honor the cycle of the year: we taste the four defining fire festivals and the four through the ceiling festivals, and people are our simple rendezvous rituals. Wicca ritual is about celebrating the Burrow, channelling of use energies and creating healing. There's no tenet or in print system of belief in Wicca: it's very free and it allows for difference in declare, in practice and in knowledge."Count part of the explanation of Wicca is, as Lee puts it, "the awe and the marvel and the magic", she says that the social outcome is whopping too. "We support each other, take hostage up for each other. There's a heavy-duty direction state. We enjoyment to delegation, too - we wouldn't do it if it wasn't fun."Put forward are seven women and six men in Lee's coven - designed the perfect dimensions to the same degree the traditional shape of a coven is 13 - and the age dossier ranges from ancestors in their 20s to their 60s. The members of the coven travel from all anew Ireland, and they widely rejoinder subsequent to a month, since the moon is full, in Lee's home - agreed as the covenstead. There's eternally a feasting element, with masses of deliver and plan. "We surround cheese, wine, bread and freezing cuts," she says, "it's our takings to ourselves for creature such good witches."Firm witches may not surround broomsticks, but they definitely surround wands. In fact, Lee eternally chooses totally roomy handbags so she can have available her wand with her at all get older. But there's no high-octane showmanship in casting spells: "We use wands in a ritual way rather than in an abracadabra revere."She sees spell-work as akin to prayer. "It's a inspect of energy: putting concentrate and said in vogue an finish. You do surround to be fair, grasp workplace for what you do. We use spells in total for healing - that's our dimensions one concentrate, but we what's more do money and job spells."Lee what's more claims to surround had odd achievement with her pregnancy spells, for couples wishing for a child. "But I do sometimes say no. Sometimes I get ancestors coming to me whose assistant has departed them and they impoverishment me to cast a spell to bring them back. I wouldn't do that. I may perhaps, but I wouldn't. To the same extent it comes to love, I maintain stark. I would what's more say no if the yet to come are too high, or if ancestors are looking for a quick fix." Completely witches, it seems, realise that there's no such thing as waving a magic wand to store all ills.Lee says that she has been practising Wicca for so desire that is has become indissoluble from her own identity: "I've lived anew 30 existence of my life as a witch and it's so by a long way a part of what I am - even notes enjoyment light a candle, waking up in the dawn and delivery the day a sure way, even in how you be there to ancestors." Her Wiccan possibility was a heavy-duty support to her since her 16-year-old baby, Rhiannon, was diagnosed with lump. Rhiannon died in September 2007. "I wouldn't surround got through that exclusive of the belief that at some change we will rejoinder and love another time," Lee says.Lora O'Brien says she started off as a solitary teenage witch. But on one occasion she met Lee at a pagan rendezvous in a steal bookshop nearby to Dublin Fortress, she began her initiation in the Wiccan tradition: "I was parched for associations with like-mided ancestors."Currently, O'Brien lives in Co Roscommon with her two children and her fiance John Sinnott, who is what's more a witch (Wiccan men as well as women baptize themselves witches). O'Brien manages an archaeological inheritance centre at Rathcroghan and she's what's more the high priestess of her culminate coven. Sinnott, who is an archaeologist by profession, is the high priest.It's an huge life itinerary, one which some ancestors would find incompatible. But O'Brien says such scepticism is unjustified: "A lot of pagan ancestors are operating in the foolish professions or in community work, putting their spiritual civilization in vogue their professions. There's a lot of generous work going on out state under the radar."She adds that subsequent to ancestors know supervisor about paganism, it becomes less alarm. "In 2005 I published a book about my experiences and the publishers insisted on a headline-grabbing slogan. So it was called Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch. Personnel reacted cynically to the slogan, and since my granny wanted to read it, members of my people tried to freeze her, they said she'd be amazed. But granny held it was non-discriminatory enjoyment listening to stories that her own granny told her. And I expect that's true. Doesn't matter what dub you put on it, it's non-discriminatory the stuff that's eternally been available in Ireland - notes enjoyment cures for warts and so on. It's actually very overconfident."Barbara Lee says that "for some ancestors witchcraft is eternally going to be peculiar and strange. That's fine, we're not out to hound employees. But we don't sacrificial victim fresh, and we don't indulge in mad sexual orgies. Wicca is all about each individual's exploration of themselves. We would never suspect to tinker with or criticise someone else's spiritual outing, so I expect it's fair to expect the incredibly street."Innovative witches can exonerate ancient precedents for their gentle interpretation of the tradition. In pre-Christian get older, witchcraft was admired as a healing practice; the word witch derives from Wicca, which itself translates as discriminating one.For some women, part of the explanation of Wicca is its consequence on the feminine and on goddess worship: as John Sinnott points out, it's the high priestess, not the high priest, who actually runs the coven. And that concentrate on female spirituality is a part of the wider pagan tradition, too.Laura Maeve Dunne, who describes herself as a pagan and a tribal bellydancer, is flexible a workshop at F'eile Dra'iochta that aims to get ancestors in bounce with "the divine feminine", or their inner feminine power. "I revealed paganism countless existence in the future I took up belly-dancing," Dunne says, "but it was dancing that non-discriminatory woke me up. Formerly you start ham it up any healing, you request to work yourself. Dancing is enjoyment standing in be in charge of of a mirror naked and saying reliable, I'm correctly. It's about making yourself vulnerable, reducing the fences, and learning how to street your own body type."There's no be unsure that selection spirituality has a strong manifestation in Ireland. Barbara Lee estimates that state are 150 witches from the Alexandrian tradition in Ireland, with special 2,000 pagans, druids and shamen.To some ancestors, pagan beliefs and practices may unblemished odd or absurd: the wands, the spells, the unfamiliar titles, such as priestess hierophant of the western mystery tradition. And countless may consider practitioners' experience to effect any vary at all, good or bad, through their rituals. But a core adage of Wiccan virtue is the ancient saying "An it harm none, do what ye will", agreed as the Wiccan Rede. It's a entitlement of the authorize to act, as well as an acknowledgement of the workplace of one's accomplishments. If witches are ham it up no harm by their accomplishments, doubtless it's time to come to pass and let come to pass.See feiledraiochta.com/index.htmlORIGINAL Swathe