Del Martin (seated) and Phylis Lyon

Finally, after 55 years and lobbying for their right to be legally hitched, Del Martin, 87 and Phyllis Lyon, 83, tasted victory. They made history as the first same sex couple to get legally married in San Francisco on June 17, 2008. In Los Angeles County, another lesbian couple, Robin Tyler, 66, and Diane Olson, 54, made headlines too.

While both marriage ceremonies raised a lot of hoopla and attracted media, another couple of the same sex had their wedding rites. What made their union more interesting? They were witches.

With the recent spotlight on gay marriages, the gay and lesbian witches are pouring out of the closets. Gay witches also feel discriminated and they blame the gods and goddesses for their godly sense of humor but they have long since learned to balance their energies to co-exist with nature.

The wedding ceremony worked around the elements – water, fire, earth, and air. The couple drank from a chalice, symbolizing their commitment; the fire of two candles were joined to signify their unity as a couple; white and red earth in separate bottles were poured into a third bottle to merge their paths. The Spirit was represented by the cord that wrapped their ringed finger. The cord was pulled to tie the knot, so to speak. The broom represented air and the couple jumped over this to start their new life together.

Like heterosexual couples, gay witches also dream of the ultimate gay wedding, though the traditional wedding is not for them. They dream of tying the knot in the Mayan ruins or in Stonehenge with the moon’s soft glow reflecting on their happy faces.

Photo credits:http://www.advocate.com

The Green Man is the God of the forests

It’s interesting to find out to whom do witches pray to when they want something. When asked, they tell you they pray to a female and male god, and nature spirits or deities representing the sky, sea, and the underworld – depending on what they want to achieve. They contradict the general belief that that they are cavorting with diabolical entities; they are only communing with nature in its many forms.

The Deities

The male deities fall into two categories – the light and the dark gods. The light gods are the Sun King, Green Man, Sacrificed God, and the Sky Father. The dark gods are the Horned God, Underworld God, Sea King, and the War God. There are also minor deities who serve as bridges between the supplicant and the gods.

Of the female divinities, Diana is the most favored. Diana is a Roman goddess associated with childbirth, healing, the hunt, and the moon. She is also the goddess of nature, which makes her the ideal candidate for the esteemed position. Aphrodite –the goddess of love and sexual passions, Aradia — the queen of witches, Hathor –protector of women —are but a few of the pantheon of female deities in the roster. They also have spirit guides who give them the direction they need.

How Do Witches Pray? Or Do They?

Witches have their improvised altars in their homes. Yes, they pray. They bring salt and herbs to the altar or whatever is appropriate for the rite. The rite begins with the lighting of incense or a candle. They offer praises and thanksgiving to the god and goddess they revere but they don’t always ask for personal favors. Instead, they say they want this and it will happen because they believe in their capabilities to make it happen; and they are ready to accept any consequences of their actions. The ending of their prayer “As I will, so mote it be” says it all.

Photo credits: www.johntateart.co.uk

Once she confessed that she cast spells for the return of her lover, using some ritualistic formulas, but it didn’t work the way she intended. Her erstwhile lover didn’t return to her pining arms, instead he found someone else — a bewitching young miss; my friend is not crying now but has savagely attacked her canvasses to paint her frustrations.

The lure of white magic got her entangled with the craft – after she dabbled with tarot cards. I was her first client. She read the cards with the ease of a master, having memorized all the 22 major and 56 minor arcanas and predicted that I would meet a Chinese guy who would be crazy about me. After quizzing the guys who have shown some romantic interest in me if they had Chinese ancestry, I got negative responses. After 10 years I’ve quit; but I still pester her about the Chinese guy who is taking his time to find me. She is indeed a witch to have kept me waiting for my man from Shanghai.

The witch doctor holds an exalted position in the community and holds sway over his fiefdom with his rituals. They ‘smell-out” the suspects and look for ‘evidences” and force them to confess and identify other witches. Evidences may happen to be an innocent record with names of people in it, bones, stones, candles, snuff, and potions. They determine if these have been used for witchcraft – by performing rituals.

Tortured, the hapless suspects are forced to point out other “witches,” hoping to be spared, but no pardon is granted. Whether they confess or not, they are doomed, including the “unsuspecting” innocent villagers. Once the list is drawn, all is lost and the carnage begins. More than 23,000 “witches” in South Africa have been lynched and the number is still rising.

Come to think of it, the witch doctor does the very same thing a village witch does. Only he or she has been “trained” for the vocation. They dress in appointed ancestral colors, dispense advice, concoct unguents and brews for healing, and offer sacrifices to appease the spirits. They are also in-demand to find husbands and reverse fortunes. Thus, the witch doctor assumes a powerful hold over the community. He can do his job.

Such power has led to the abuse of their position. In the guise of rituals, they molest young men and women, and a word from them that a person is a witch can start a carnage. Jealousy, spite, and envy can incite them to accuse a person as a sorcerer or a witch. Whatever lies the witch doctor says through his teeth is sacrosanct, there lies the rub.

On the other hand, local healers who are sought out for herbal and other curative remedies are unjustly accused of witchcraft when the patient dies. Other instances when one can be accused of witchcraft - an innocent glance that disturbs a person or red eyes because of an infection.

Famines and droughts, and personal misfortunes (infertility and impotency) are attributed to the witches. Greed also compels people to accuse others of witchcraft when they covet their property – the list is long, hence, there will be no end to the witch hunt in South Africa and elsewhere. The “witches” can do nothing when the witch doctors accuse them of being witches. Can anybody help the “witches”?

Photo credit: www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com

The picture below shows a witch doctor reading bones.

Let’s get it straight. The word Satanism is used in different contexts, the worship of Satan or the practice of the magic arts; witchcraft is the use of supernatural or magical powers. The link is in the practice of magic or the use of supernatural powers, which comes from a negative source. A witch may not worship Satan but the mere indulging in the magic arts creates this link.

Mention witches and we all react but differently. We however connect witches with everything evil. But are we right? Witches profess that they are just like you and me only that they are more attuned to nature and they have their own deities.

Self-proclaimed witches strongly deny links with the devil but they believe in a deity that possesses both male and female characteristics. They also center their religious rites on the concept of a mother goddess, which represents the life force of nature and nurture. They also strongly argue that they are linked to the forces of nature and they continue to ride on the rhythms of the cycle of life.

They have the right to their spirituality and they won’t enforce this on others. Yet they have to hide their pentacles or risk physical attack or public ridicule. But they want to make it clear that they are not Satan’s followers. But to the adherents of the Catholic faith, this reeks of hypocrisy. The link between Satanism and witchcraft will always exist, no matter what excuses are given.

Eyewitness reports of the May 20, 2008 incident recounted that the mob had the support of the majority because the suspected ‘witches’ were seen listing down names of the people they were intending to bewitch. Even at the time of their death they were heard crying out the names in the list. Five of the 11 suspected witches “confessed” and begged for mercy but their pleas where left unheeded. It was also reported that 15 were killed but as of press time, only 11 bodies were found.

Families of the victims could not believe that their loved ones were brutally killed by a crazed mob when there was no tangible proof to back up their accusations of witchcraft. According Mwangi Ngunyi, Nyamaiya District head, the killers will be hunted and prosecuted.

In Kenya and in other parts of Africa it is easy to be accused of witchcraft - appearing in someone’s dream, death or illness of loved ones, and even prosperity can land one in trouble with the witch hunters. A dispute with a family member can also lead to banishment to a place strictly confined to witches. Witch hunting is rampant in small villages in Africa and the majority of the victims of women. They are beaten to death, torched, put to hard labor or banished from their homes.

Belief in witchcraft is rife in Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world. The problem is worsened by superstitions grounded on animist worship, the people’s lack of education and the absence of health services in rural areas. Until Africa does something for the basic needs of her people, the dark age will continue to grip the continent.

When the fury or hunger seething within bursts forth, it erupts with incredble violence or drips with deceptive sweetness and light to lull the unsuspecting. The anger feeds insatiably on our hapless victims or we destroy ourselves emotionally, physically, and mentally. The witch in us feeds on our imperfections and when we don’t try to control ourselves, we lose ourselves to the witch within us.

The wickedness of women has been documented and history is replete with the tragedies caused by women. The extent of the damages they have wrought is beyond human comprehension. How can a woman who is the nurterer of life be a diabolical and scheming murderer? To illustrate my point, I have selected some interesting stories to show how womn can be evil no matter their age and circumstances in life because they allowed the witch within them to rule.

The following women let loose the witch in them and reaped their grim harvests:

• Black Widows Olga Rutterschmidt, 73 and Helen Golay, 75 have been convicted of murders most foul. Their modus operandi was befriending homeless men, taking them in and feeding them and taking out life insurances on them. After the two years, they dispose of the men. The men are drugged and run over with their station wagon to make it appear that the men were hit-and-run victims. They later collected the insurance money in the millions of dollars while posing as girlfriends or cousins of the murdered men . In this AP photo, Olga Rutterschmidt is shown here during the court hearing on April 17, 2008 in Los Angeles.

• In March 2007, a Toronto woman with AIDS had sex with different men and was charged with sexual assault for deliberately withholding the important information from her her sexual partners. Robin Lee St. Clair was diagnosed with AIDS four years ago and she kept on with her sexual binges wrecking further havoc . Pity the unsuspecting men and their wives or partners.

• Mary Ann Robson Cotton (1832-1873) was hanged in Durnham Jail for poisoning 3 husbands, her mother, 11 children and a sister-in-law. She dispatched her victims with arsenic and rushed to the insurance office to claim the spoils. A parish official, Thomas Riley became suspicious when the last surviving son of Mary Ann’s 4th husband Frederick Cotton, succumbed also to stomach fever.

• Fausta, the second wife of Constantine I, the Roman emperor. She decieved her husband into believing that his son Crispus raped her. Crispus was secretly executed on the orders of the emperor. The lie was discovered too late and the emperor ordered Fausta murdered in the privacy of her bath. Her memory was was also expunged from society with the damnatio memoriae. Fausta also caused the death of her father, the Roman Emperor Maximianus, by revealing her father’s plot to murder her husband. It is not clear if Maximianus committed suicide or was assassinated.
• Khairual Abdul, 43, finally got her comeuppance 17 years after the murder of her four year old daughter. The skeletal remains of the child was discovered by a hiker in the woods of the Long Island Espressway. The bore broken bones and other signs of physical abuse. Abdul is facing 25 years to life in prison.

All these women showed no compassion for their victims. They walked the blooded crossroads to their perdition. How about controlling the witch in us? But can we all?

There will always be something chillingly thrilling about witches of yore; there was something darkly mysterious about them. Excuse me if I err, but todays witches seem bland beside their diabolical predecessors. Well, witches like fashion and politics, have evolved.

The Witches of Biblical Times

The sorcerers of the pre-biblical era were esteemed members of society and were greatly feared. They possessed knowledge beyond the comprehension of the ordinary person, and enjoyed royal patronage. They influenced important decision-making with their interpretation of the signs from the heavens and from the things around them. Such was their sway on the socio-political drama of those times.

Man’s interest with the supernatural is recorded in the Old Testament. The sorcerers or the kashaphs of that time used incantations and mutterings, animal sacrifices, and magical formulas to deal with or control the unseen world.

Even then the sorcerers had their specialized fields - necromancy (communicating with the dead), fortune-telling (by interpreting the position of the stars in the heavens and the behavior of animals and the condition of the liver of dead animals), summoning the intervention of spirits .

The Bible strongly abhors the following - one who induces her son or daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, an observer of times, an enchanter or a witch, a charmer, a consulter of mediums, a wizard, and a necromancer.

The Bible makes it clear that the power of sorcerers come from an evil source and they were an abomination to the sight of the Lord. This explains the rabid and cruel extermination of women suspected of witchcraft even on the flimsiest of evidence. Unfortunately, this fervor was a blot in the church’s history. Millions of those persecuted had no supernatural powers and most were ignorant and poor women.

The Witches of Medieval History

During the medieval period, people believed that the witches sold their souls to the devil and had sex with demons to obtain supernatural powers. They used these powers to cast spells on people and animals, but most of the witches burned at stake or tortured were innocent and “confessed” under duress to escape a painful death.

The earliest witch trial was starred by Dame Alice Kyteler (1280-1325?) who according to her accusers was instrumental in the deaths of her four husbands, by resorting to poison and witchcraft. Dame Alice escaped to England but her friends were persecuted, and her maidservant was burned at stake after suffering servere flogging. The witch hunt pread and escalated in Europe. In the US (then a colony of England), the infamous Salem Witch Trials continue to haunt the country.

The New Age Witches

The witches of the New Age are into earth-centered religion, are not into satanic mischief, and they profess to be ordinary people with jobs and families and saddled with the usual problems. They believe in a deity who has both male and female aspects.

The modern day witches are not deeply religious and they do not claim that their powers come from the evil one although they are able to contact supernatural powers. They have organized themselves into covens, composed of six males and six female witches led by a high priest and a high priestess during secret ceremonies that hark back to the pre-Christian era.

Black magic paraphernalia found on Rancho Sta. Elena

To appease the spirits, witches offer animal sacrifices and pour the blood on the earth or on sacred vessels. The more copious the blood, the more appeased the spirit. In severe cases and extreme rituals that need the full satisfaction of the spirit, human sacrifices are offered. The more pain inflicted on the person while alive, the happier the spirit will be.

The favorite human sacrifices are children because their blood is purer and they scream with unbearable pain and beg for mercy. The head, arms and legs are severed with accurate precision and the blood collected and mixed with other parts of the body and used to make potions and liniments.

Those who are guilty of human sacrifices do not think in terms of the pain and the horror of the act. They think in terms of offering a perfect ritual to a supernatural being and get their rewards – mostly revenge on an enemy or erring lover, or the return of a wife, husband or lover.

The sacrifice of human lives is a practice in Africa where people believe in the potency of ritual killing and draining a child’s blood was the highest form of offering – and the blood was drained while the child was alive.

Those practicing ritual killing prey on the poor and the homeless because no search will be instigated. In Mexico, the 1989 kidnapping of American student Mark Kilroy led to the discovery of mutilated bodies in Rancho Santa Elena and the subsequent identification of the cult leader, and the arrest of his cohorts.

Photo Credits: http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/constanzo/1.html

A Sonora stall of curative herbs

Visit any small town market and you’ll be swept off your feet by the plethora of goods from dried wood shavings to charms and spells. So who is afraid of the big bad witch? And if you are into serious business, you can haggle for charms and amulets meant to keep lovers from straying or bargain for magic spells to court wealth. That’s how witches in developing countries survive the economic crunch.

In Mexico, the witch market in Sonora is one tourist attraction and locals flock to the market before the start of the new year to attract better wealth, the return of a lover or spouse, and to wage destruction on an unsuspecting enemy. The witches have everything you want in Sonora Market. There are snakes, potent candles, oddities and curiosities andeven those ugly voodoo dolls touted to have magical but potent charms.

The women don’t disguise the fact that they are witches. They wear necklaces of small skulls. They’ll perform a cleansing ritual for you using eggs, herbs, smoke, and the throwing of birdseed behind the back of the “patient.”

You can also trek to Catemaco to talk to the town’s warlocks and witches and ask for rituals to protect you from envious eyes and mischievous spells.

In the Philippines, pseudo witches and healers trek to Siquijor to get concoctions brewed with much ceremony on a Black Friday. The herbs are purportedly coming from caves and are carefully selected following a special ritual of fasting and incantations before the Holy Week sets in.

Most petitions are for better sexual relationships and do you know what goes into these potions which you have to drink for a year? Menstrual blood mixed with sperm, bull manure cooked in cow’s urine, or boiled bull’s genitalia.

All witches have their charms and amulets to ward off the evil eye, to lure love, to get rid of unwanted attention, to attract wealth and good health. If you’re intending to try some potion watch out for the New Year, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, and Winter Solstice, Halloween, and Christian Candleria which is celebrated every February 2. So take note of the times if you want these potions.

Photo credits: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/4567/photo16.html