AFRAID OF WITCHES AND PAGANS

A sermon preached by Rev. Brian S. Kopke
February 11, 1996
at the First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa



SPOKEN MEDITATION

Great god of snow clouds -
May I remember to fill my shovels only half fill', as I savour the cold melting crystals on my nose.
May I remember the glare ice below this beauty and shorten my steps. May I take time called patience with a child who cannot resist your call to play.
May I remember the real reasons you have come this day - to challenge my sensitivity to beauty, to quiet, and joy.
I bow to your wisdom, great god of snow clouds


SERMON

Witch 1: Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.


Witch 2: Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.


Witch 3: Harper Cries: - 'Tis time, 'Tis time

.
Witch 1: Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison'd entrails throw -
Toad, that under coldest stone,
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter'd venom, sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the pot!


All: Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn; and cauldron bubble.

Witch 2: Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.


All: Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire, burn; and cauldron bubble.


Witch 3: Scale of dragon, Tooth of wolf;
Witch's murumy; gaw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt sea shark;
Root of hemlock, digg'd i' the dark;
Liver of Blaspheming Jew;
Gall of Goat; and slips of yew,
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth strangled babe,
Ditch-delivered by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

All: Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire, burn; cauldron bubble.

Witch 2: Cool it with a baboon's blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

[Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1, adapted slightly]



These were the witches. These were the best witches that I grew up with. If the brew was not powerful, the setting was, a foggy glen, silhouette of a leafless tree under the full moon, cackling voices and horrible ingredients, some belying their own horrid prejudices. Yes, they were the best witches and they were the most unpredictably evil.

Snow White. I remember failing in love with the figure drawn by the Disney Studios. She was such a pretty and such a nice person. And that repulsive queen who had her set out in the forest to die. . . what of her. Praises be for woodsmen and miners who save Snow White. But alas the Queen is really an evil witch who bears a delicious, but poisoned apple which puts Snow white into a deep forever after sleep. I mourned with the dwarfs and hated the witch. There is no fate too bad for witches.

I was totally unaware that my attitudes toward Witches had been shaded by the actions of Pope Innocent VIII's 1484 bull "Summis desiderantes" which condemned witchcraft and sorcery. Not all bulls took hold with such venom in the imagination of people. In 1570 a Papal bull decried Queen Elizabeth as the "servant of Wickedness." While this bull caused the English to rally around their Queen and form what later became the Church of England, the bull against witchcraft started the inquisition

Witches were simply pagan practitioners of mystical powers. Heathen meant those living out on the heath, pagan - a country dweller living far from cities where Christianity took hold. Pope Innocent equated paganism and witches with the devil, starting a fear not only of the very being of witches but also of any attempt to understand them, which lasts to this day. At the height of the inquisition, there were over 20,000 witches burned at the stake in one year. One of them, of course, was Joan of Arc. The inquisition was about as horrible as a cleansing co4id be. On St. Bartholemew's Day in 1572, over 50,000 French protestants were put to death by the church - in one day.

The real reason for the inquisition was not faith, but power. The Church wanted the resources, money and people, upon which paganism had a hold. "It is estimated that 90% of all people who died because of the Church's attempts to stamp out the Old Religion were not even associated with the craft - rather, they were widows who owned property that would revert to the state upon their deaths, or midwives who continued~ to practice after men ~ook over medicine, or women and men who opposed the iron rule of the church, or just people with whom they had a quarrel." [Libera, Caitlin, Creating Circles of Power and Magic(Freedom, CA:
Crossing Press) 1994, p.5)

On Tuesday, July 19, 1692, in Salem, there was a mass execution of witches. Five were hanged on Gallows Hill, all women: Rebecca Nurse, Goody Good, Elizabeth How, Sarah Wild, Susanna Martin. Judge William Stoughton never repented his action. Puritan minister Cotton Mather urged the court on. Afterward, nearly everyone realized that they had been caught up in a panic and proceeded wrongly. Mather, however, wrote a defense of his actions. [Miller, Perry, The American Puritans(Garden City: Doubleday)1956, p.59, 112) While most people see the episode as tragic, the idea that witches are evil has carried on; the movement went underground.

The last execution for witchcraft in England took place in 1712; in 1736 English statutes against witchcraft were repealed.

And then there was little Sarah Getoff who over twenty years ago came downstairs on Halloween afternoon all wrapped in a large piece of black cloth. Her mother said, "Oh, Sarah, you have decided what you are going to dress as this Halloween!" Sarah replied with a "YES"large enough to fill the room and excitement that walls could not contain. "You will make a wonderful WITCH," said her mother. Rather indignant, Sarah shot back, "Yuck! I am not a witch! I am' Brian!" When I heard that story, I smiled and wondered if I frightened any of the children when I wore my robes - black and flowing like a witch, an evil witch.

Present day witches just do not stand much of a chance with this sort of history and attitude behind them. As we heard about this history, I hope you noticed that it was a history of what happened to witches. I have yet to say anything about what witches do or believe. That same sort of history could be written about midwives, Jews, Gypsies, African Americans, even Unitarians - anyone who was the object of prejudice, hatred and fear. Just as Witches did not use the word to describe themselves for years, there was a time when the name "Unitarian" was anathema to the liberal Christians. "Unitarian" was a negative name used by conservative Christians to identify a heresy in their midst. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that the name was owned by liberal Christians outside of Transylvania. In the meantime, Unitarians Michael Servetus and Catherine Vogel were burned at the stake.

Acknowledging the prejudice which greets the witch should be easy for Unitarians. Let us turn to what present day witches believe and practice and then to the article that appeared in the CITIZEN a week ago, about witches and this congregation.

The reading this morning from Starhawk indicated that Paganism and Witchcraft are fled to Goddess religions and have a lot to do with women owning their own power. To own their power, women need to do things in a different manner than men. Because of the history of demurring to patriarchy, women need to own their power to become whole. In part, witchcraft is about women owning their power - but not power of the ego. And all women on a path to owning their own power will not necessarily choose the path of witchcraft.


The difficulty encountered in describing Wicca comes from the fact that it is as different from person to person as Unitarianism is and doesn't even have a set of agreed upon principles as our religion does. Ne~'erthe4ess, the Council of American Witches did, in 1974, hammer out a statement of principles as they met in Minneapolis. There are 13 tenants:
1) We practice rites attuned to the phases of the moon and the seasons (no difference from a liturgiccal year of any church)
2) We live within nature and are responsible for the environment.
3) We acknowledge a deep power that naturally lies within each of us. (Leads to respect for dignity and worth of each individual)
4) The creative power of the universe is both male and female (that avoids sexism); sex is valued for pleasure, the embodiment of life, and its creative power ("ow healthy).
5) Both the inner world of the spirit and the outer world are part of us and required for fulfillment. (holistic - realistic)
6) While knowledge and courage provide leadership we recognize no hierarchy. (Common sense if anarchistic)
7) Religion, magic and wisdom are united. (I need definition for magic)
8) A witch seeks to control the forces inside her/himself in order to live life wisely and well, without harm to others, and in harmony with nature. (I wish more people sought to live this way)
9) It is through an affirmation of life and continued personal development that the Universe and our role in it gain meaning. (quite Unitarian)
10) Onr only animosity toward other religions is in their claim to be the only true religion. (no argument there)
11) We are not threatened by the past but centre ourselves in today and the future. ("ow freeing)
12) We do not accept evil, Satan nor the devil; we do not seek power through the suffering of others. (a positive attitude)
13) We seek within nature for that which contributes to health ~nd well being. (emphasizing the interdependent web)

They belong to groups known as a coven. In a meeting of the coven they will set out a sacred space, a circle, and in that circle HONOUR the powers inherent in each of us and draw on those powers to reinforce what is good, often changing themselves in the process. What oth~~ might call personal transformation, they call magic. So drop all y~r assumptions about what the word magic means. They do not pretend to or try to alter or bend the laws of nature or practice sleight of hand. This is not their magic. Understanding Wicca is an exercise in open mindedness. They are surrounded by unfortunate words. At the end of the gathering the circle will be opened. If they have directed their healing powers toward one not in the group, it is only with the permission of that person, much the same as our Caring Committee attempts to limit caring cards to those who have agreed to have them sent.

There is much in common with the Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Perhaps this is why the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, an affiliate group within the UUA, had little trouble gaining such status.

I could spend a month of Sundays describing what Wicca is and is not. The best way for you to find out about this expression of religious belief is to attend some meetings. If you would like to understand paganism a bit more and are a woman, you could attend one of the gatherings of the Women's Spirituality Group. If you are a man or a woman who would like to expenence the gatherings of CUUPS, they are open to all. Indeed, some of you have already attended just to see what goes on. Such a step is a time honoured Unitarian Universalist way of finding out for ourselves what is happening and I commend it to you. I encourage each of us to go beyond what Pope Innocent VIII started. Do not fear the very being of witches nor the seeking of knowledge about witches. I encourage each of us to embrace their being as a valid expression of the religious search for meaning within time honoured Unitarian Universalist parameters. In doing so, I know it will stretch your imagination, cause you to refine the horrid prejudicial definitions history has heaped upon witches, and will even challenge you to become a better person.

Now let's move to that article which appeared Saturday a week ago. Bob Harvey, religion editor for the Citizen, did the best he could to write a fair article. There were many problems for me with what ended up in print (so what's new) and the difficulties range from our own reactions to it to the ways Mr. Harvey chose to present and shade information. Bob Harvey is not terrible for what he did, he is just a part of the newspaper culture which must seek the sensational so that newspapers can be sold. They pander to us. The craft taught to journalism students today is not as moral as the craft of Wicca in my mind. Wicca would never use anyone to its own ends. Newspapers do that all the time in the name of presenting the news. While Wicca works to define meaning for the individuals involved, newspapers have developed into a role where they create meaning for others, the readers, yet do not practice. the common ethics of teachers. And there are also high ideals journalists do attempt to honour. Theirs is not an easy lot.

Now let's look at the shading of meaning and inference. The article states that a woman who attends the church on Sundays teaches in the church school and teaches witchcraft. She is not a church school teacher, though she has taught church school at the Halifax Unitarian Church. Bob Harvey, I am told, says she said she taught church school here. She says she did not say that. Two comments: Reporters can hear what they want to hear, and each of us needs to be very careful in speaking to reporters for they will use us for their ends.

I am quoted as saying I am an atheist. You have heard me say that before but the full sentence includes "who paradoxically believes that God and the Goddess exist". There is more on that in my column in the March newsletter - read it He had my sentence on tape with the request that he not shorten it. He shortened it.

He had a request from Martha Patterson that he not include her picture unless it was part of a group of those attending the meeting. The group picture was taken, then it was blown up and cropped so that she, alune, was shown and identified as a witch. It was unethical of the paper to do that, and it was an invasion of privacy to a degree that violates a person's space unconscionably.

I explained the full process by which our Principles and Purposes were changed and the vote taken to do so. It requires about three years of discussions within the congregations, there have to be two votes at successive General Assemblies, and there was a full six page special section in the UU WORLD in last year's January-February issue. While the Board of Trustees did not want it passed and one member thought that there was not enough discussion, the vote was 735 to 358, close only in the sense that it was only 17 beyond the 2/3 vote required. A 2/3 vote is not a close vote under any circumstances! The truth was shaded. He also said the principle change received little consideration. That was a fabrication. I have told you about the process, and I told him. In one sentence he said that conservative critics call us new age and in the same sentence goes on to say that we are growing. Now I ask you what those two statements have to do with each other. He had to get in the accusation that we are new age, even though he had information in an interview with me about our roots as a heresy within the Christian Church right back to the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. He knew of Transylvania, England, Puritan America, and Canadian roots from many different sources. He knew that we were about to celebrate our centennial here in Ottawa. He chose to bury a dig in there in the face of much information to the contrary.

All this aside, the article has brought a dozen or more people to the congregation because we were portrayed as tolerant and diverse. These are people willing to explore us to see if we can fit into their lives. I am thankful for their sense of adventure and honoured that they would look us over.

Now it is true that for years many of our members have wanted the CITIZEN to do an article on Unitarianism. They wanted an article about our gentle rational caning religion, oriented toward tolerance, respect and social action. They would have had the article refer to our support of the River Parkway Preschool, Amnesty International, the Unitarian Service Committee, Unitarian House, and Rideauwood Institute. They would have us portrayed as a Centre for the arts through our own gallery and the monthly displays of Art Lending, as well as the scores of musical groups which continue to use us as a concert space of preference. And more. But, my friends, as wonderful as all that is it does not sell papers and that is the very reason why we have not had such an article in the past. Such an article can be written about most any church for we all spawn good. works, and newspapers do not get sold by telling good news. Dave Brown gets little space!

Now quickly, because our time is running out, I must speak to the reactions we have had to the article. Some of our people were in tears because we were promoted as something represented only by a fringe group within the congregation, a group they don't understand. They were embarrassed in the face of friends and neighbours. Remember that embarrassment is a confused state, and we need to work through the feelings to a good point, as I spoke to the children about this morning.

CUUPS is a group which has every right to meet here on the basis &-~ freedom of religious expression alone. Our Board of Trustees has accepted CUUPS as one of the groups of the congregation.

I believe our religious values are important. Without those values ~s congregation would not exist. It would not exist as a social group o~ a force for social action. It is our principles which keep this diverse group of people together. When we are embarrassed to tears by the application of our principles, something is wrong. While we may disagree, I believe that what is wrong is the hurt we feel. I understand it. I sympathize. I think the newspaper was wrong to do what it did in the way it did ii But, my friends, you can't stop a reporter on the scent! I believe ~ if we are strong Unitarian Universalists, we will answer our friends with a gentle explanation of the value of religious freedom and pluralism and the need to allow even fringe groups to exist. We would educate ourselves about this CUUPS thing and Women's Spirituality so that we can speak in an informed way about it, in agreement with it or not. Without that information we could simply say that there are many groups which use the congregation as a meeting space and no one of them defines who we are. Who we are comes from a long history of upholding freedom of religion within the bounds that belief and practice are hurting no one. This belief is terribly important to us. Such an answer deflects the slanderous and prejudice filled comments of some of our friends toward a real consideration of the good we do and try to exemplify. It can be done in a friendly manner. Above all, the hurt should be directed at the newspaper, not heaped upon a group already the object of unfair prejudice in history.

Most importantly, we have learned some lessons. Amongst them is the fact that we need to train our own people about dealing with the press. We need to manage some of the contacts a little better and watch the language we use. To that end, a proposal will go to the Board about creating a press packet for the congregation and about a workshop for training regarding media contacts. We have the expertise in the congregation for the workshop and it can be done in such a way that anyone whose job puts them in contact with the media would benefit from it. Watch the newsletter for announcement of such a workshop later in the spring.
In the long run, we will benefit from that article more than it will hurt us. Our reputation is not besmirched, but broadened. It is only one of many times in the past few weeks we have made the media. We should not row become media shy, but media wise.

Beyond the article, we must remember the values which we uphold as treasured principles in our religion. We value freedom of religion within the bounds that no one hurt another. We value the dignity and worth of every person, so we treat witches and reporters with respect, acknowledging who they are in this world, their history, their ethics. I guess that neither has an easy road. And we have added earth based spirituality to our sources of religious inspiration. This includes native spirituality as well as Wicca, as well as the Goddess, as well as the religions that existed before the time of the matriarchy. Exploring these religions does not supplant the belief in reason, science, humanism, God, Creative Powers of the Universe, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian and other roots that we bring with us to this place. We are enriched, not diminished.

The derivation of the word OTTAWA naming the tribe which lived here, corning from the Algonquin, has been said to mean variously "trade" or "the meeting place of rivers". Either way it is an apt symbol for us in this age. Our church is the place where trade in ideas goes on and where the rivers of faith converge. With a tolerance expanded by the tethers of the interdependent web and limited only by respect for the dignity and worth of individuals, let it ever be thus. We are Unitarian Universalists, the congregation of the Ottawa.



This reading from Starhawk was a part of the service:

The longing for an expanded spiritual consciousness has taken many of us on a "journey to the East," where Hindu, Taoist, and Buddhist concepts are encountered and brought back to infuse Western culture with new understandings. Eastern religions offer a radically different approach to spirituality than Judeo-Christian traditions. They are experiential rather than verbal. The image of God is the abstract, unknowable ground of consciousness itself, the void, the Tao, the flow, not the anthropomorphic, bearded God-father in the sky. Their goal is to be God, not just to know God. In many ways the Eastern philosophies are very close to witchcraft.

Women need to look closely at these philosophies and ask "What does this spiritual system do for women?" Gurus discourage us, saying that even asking such a question continues the enslavement of the mind. The truth of the matter is that while men, in our society, are encouraged to have strong egos and to function competitively, aggressively, and in intellectualized modes, for most women the ego is like a fragile African violet, grown m secret from a seed, carefully nursed and fertilized and sheltered from too much sun. Before I toss mine into the garbage heap, I want to be sure I am getting something in return.

Eastern religions may help men become more whole, in touch with the intuitive, receptive, gentle feelings they have been condifioned to ignore. But women cannot become whole by being yet more passive, gentle, and submissive than we already are. We become whole through knowing our strength and creativity, our aggression, our sexuality, by affirming the self, not denying it. If we look closely at the symbols, we can only conclude that, while gurus may be using different instruments, they are playing the same old tune.

In contrast to all this, the feminist movement is a magicospiritual movement as well as a political movement. It is spiritual because it is addressed to the liberation of the human spirit, to healing our fragmentation, to becoming whole. It is magical because it changes consciousness, it expands our awareness and gives us a new vision. If we are to reclaim our culture, we cannot afford narrow definitions.

There are valuable underlying concepts in Witchcraft. The most important is the understanding that the Goddess, the divine, is immanent in the world, manifest in nature, in human beings, in the human community. To worship her is to assert, even in the face of suffering and often against all evidence, that life is good, a great gift, a constant opportunity.

Because the Goddess is manifest in human beings, we do not try to escape our humanness, but seek to become fully human. The task of feminist religion is to help us learn those things that seem so simple, yet are far more demanding than the most extreme patriarchal disciplines. It is easier to be celibate than fully sexually alive; it is easier to withdraw from the world than to live in it; it is easier to be a hermit than to raise a child; it is easier to repress emotions than to feel them and express them; it is easier to meditate in solitude than to communicate in a group; it is easier to submit to another's authority than place trust in one's self. It is not easy to be a Witch, a bender, a shaper, one of the Wise, nor is it a guarantee of peace of mind. It requires openness, vulnerability, courage, and work. It gives no answers, only tasks to be done and questions to be considered. In order to truly transform our culture, we need that orientation toward life, toward the body, toward sexuality, ego, toward all the muckiness and adventure of being human.

Witchcraft offers the model of a religion of poetry, not theology. It presents metaphors, not doctrines, and leaves open the possibility of reconciliation of science and religion, of many ways of knowing. It functions in those deeper ways of knowing which our culture has denied and for which we hunger.
[Starhawk, The Spiral Dance(SanFrancisco: Harper) 1989, p. 205-209, edited.]



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