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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Macha Nightmare
What Makes Midwestern Paganism Different?

Over the course of our decades-long friendship, writer and activist Macha Nightmare has remarked to me on more than one occasion that paganism here in the Midwest has a more distinctively “regional” feel to it than in most other places.

(Macha, please correct me if I'm misquoting.)

Macha has traveled more widely than I have across the many-colored world of Pagandom, but—from what I've seen—my own experience tends to bear out her observation.

So one New Moon the coven sat down to discuss the matter.

What makes Midwestern Paganism different? Here's what we came up with.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Aline "Macha" O'Brien
    Aline "Macha" O'Brien says #
    I agree with Mark about the similarities between Paganstani and us Left Coasties. Certainly the primacy of place has increased si
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Part of my intent with this piece (it's a poor writer that needs to speak of intent, but so be it) was to poke some gentle fun at
  • Murphy Pizza
    Murphy Pizza says #
    I can get on board with that. Steven was also.pointing out, politely, the good things.about Paganistan. Theres plenty about oursel
  • Mark Green
    Mark Green says #
    OK, fair enough. I think it's tricky, parsing pride of place vs. thinking our place is "better" than some other place. Because for
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Tony Kelly of the Pagan Movement in Britain and Ireland always used to say that "Mabh [=Earth] is nowhere more beautiful than wher

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
500 Years of Theban

2018 marks the 500th anniversary of the first publication of the Theban script, now widely used by modern witches.

Theban first saw light in Johannes Trithemius' 1518 Polygraphia, in which he attributes the script to the legendary magus Honorius of Thebes: hence the name.

Trithemius' student Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) later included the alphabet in his De Occulta Philosophia (Book III, ch. 29) in 1531. From Agrippa, Theban made its way into several early 20th century popular books about the occult, and it is through these that it probably entered the the modern Craft.

Certainly it came in early on. Ronald Hutton tells me that he's seen references to Theban among Gardner's papers now in Toronto, and it was in current use in London during the early 60s. I myself first became aware of the script in Paul Huson's controversial 1970 Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks, and Covens. For my money, Huson's serifed Theban is still the most elegant version of all.

And Theban does have its own weird, witchy beauty. With all due deference to my colleagues who can read it as fluently as the ABCs, it's not a practical script. The letters are too complicated, too similar in shape for general daily use. But that's all part of its—ahem—charm. And as something that a certain group of people share, it's brilliant in-group strategy. If you can read this, you must be one too.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Greybeard
    Greybeard says #
    Some years ago I was looking through an art book of ancient Greek sculpture. One statue of a horse caught my eye. It had Theban
  • Janet Boyer
    Janet Boyer says #
    Fascinating. I hadn't heard of this script before. Just added Huson's book to my AMZN cart.
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." That's from Herodotus isn't it?
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    I figure that as a storyteller, it's my responsibility to tell the best stories that I can. As a historian, it's my responsibility

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Besom Brigade

Time was, here in Paganistan, the Besom Brigade used to show up at the Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, black steeple hats and all, doing our precision broom drills down the middle of Bloomington Avenue.

There's no need to be afraid:

we are the marching Besom Brigade.

Schmeering on that herbal lube,

riding all night on our brooms.

Sound off.

Thir-teen!

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Wicked Witching

So, one day the Interfaith Council asks the witch the deliver the opening prayer.

(By the way, this actually happened. My long-time friend and colleague Macha Nightmare has been active in Interfaith for years.)

She stands up.

“Witches dance to pray,” she says. “So I'm going to teach you one of our oldest, most sacred dances. It's called the Spiral Dance.”

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    I should add that after the Never-ending Spiral Dance of Death, I heard at least one suggestion that the SD actually dates from th
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Och, the tales of Spiral Dances Gone Bad. The broken legs, the sprains, the dislocated shoulders, the spiral that broke in the mid
  • Greybeard
    Greybeard says #
    Good for Macha. Just wondering. How many people does it take to do a spiral dance? More than 2, certainly. More than 10 perhap
  • Aline "Macha" O'Brien
    Aline "Macha" O'Brien says #
    I would say the optimal number, for me, would be 15-40, at least in terms of intimacy. Small coven ones with eight or nine can wo

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

A while back I had a call from my friend and colleague, Macha Nightmare. She had a new book deal and was looking for reasons to take pride in being pagan. As one does in these situations, she was consulting peers on the subject. That's kind of how elder-ocracies like the paganisms tend to work; it helps keep us honest.

“Well, we were first at a lot of things,” I said.

 “Like what?” she asked.

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