Ian's Witch Blog

  A couple of weeks ago, our class concocted some potion recipes, with each person coming up with their own wild ingredients. Pressed for time, I decided to draw from Harry Potter and go with one of my favorite words I’ve ever heard, a bezoar. Mentioned frequently by Severus Snape throughout the book/movie series, this ingredient has always stuck with me, even though I had no idea what it actually was. Well, after still not knowing when asked about it in the following class, I finally figured it was time to incrementally increase my Harry Potter knowledge. So, a bezoar, in real life, as an indigestible object that is either intentionally or unintentionally introduced into a person’s gastrointestinal system, was commonly thought to protect such people from poison. In the sixth movie, this belief is demonstrated when Ron accidentally consumes a bewitched bottle of sweetwine that was meant for Dumbledore. Rowling, who frequently drew from real-life magical sources, has Harry scour P...

  In line with my previous post on the prevalence of 'witchiness' throughout the music of the late 1960s and the mid-to-late-1970s, Jimmy Page may have been the rocker that possessed the most legitimate and sincerest belief in these ideas. Whereas some artists appeared to exalt witches because of their unique aesthetic qualities and symbolic association with oppressed peoples, Page’s interest lies in the backdrop of this phenomenon instead. Indeed, Led Zeppelin’s lead guitarist is more concerned with the occult than anything else. More specifically, in a sense, Page is more concerned with ‘magick’ than magic. In 1959, a fifteen-year-old Jimmy Page’s lifelong interest in Aleister Crowley began. Yes, after coming across the Thelemic’s Magick in Theory and Practice , Page stated, “That’s it. My thing, I’ve found it”. While the rocker never officially joined Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis, he certainly dabbled in Thelemic philosophy, among other occult practices. This philosophy,...

  One movement we have not discussed enough in class is the increase in ‘witchiness’ throughout the late 1960s and early-to-mid-1970s. Seemingly because of its natural compliance with counterculture in general, and especially because of this specific counterculture’s obsession with Bohemian fashion/attitudes, the ideas and aesthetics that accompany the culture displayed in WitchTok today appears to have originated during the hippie/yippie era. Indeed, according to the Internet subculture’s prominent archetypes and themes, it seems a person cannot be considered a full-fledged ‘witch’ unless they know all the lyrics to Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon”. Kidding aside, that song is not the only one from this time period that explores such concepts. Of course, Stevie Nicks, both through her songwriting and appearance, embodies the era’s fascination with witchdom, but songs like Santana’s “Black Magic Woman”, Cliff Richard’s “Devil Woman”, Cher’s “Dark Lady”, and, alas, The Eagles’s “Witchy ...

Before the presentation on Maleficent two weeks ago, I knew little and less about the movie’s plot. Frankly, all I really knew about the movie was that Angelina Jolie played the titular character. So, when the presenters outlined the basic setup of the movie (the struggle for conquest between the human world and a fairy world called The Moors), I thought the film would steer in a much different direction. As I’ve mentioned before, I took a class last year on 20 th Century Irish Literature, a class that I never realized would have so many connections to this one. From Samhain and Halloween to W. B. Yeats and C. S. Lewis, Ireland’s relationship with mysticism and, therefore, witchcraft is as strong as that of any other country/culture. Yet, despite all of this, Maleficent ’s connection to Irish myth still came as surprise to me. Indeed, the story of Niamh and Oisin starts off in much the same way as Maleficent , which is why I thought the movie’s plot was headed in a different direct...

  Almost every time our class mentions the near-ridiculous methods for determining a woman’s affinity for witchcraft, I think of a specific scene from my favorite movie of all time. That movie is Monty Python and the Holy Grail and that scene, as fans of the movie might surmise, is the one in which King Arthur visits Sir Bedivere during a witch trial. While the scene is, of course, funny it its own right simply because the villagers’ many logical fallacies, an added level of hilarity emerges once one realizes, as I have, that these fallacies are not tremendously far off from their real-life counterparts. So, what better way to ring in the middle of the semester than by referencing one of the funniest movies of all time, at least according to me. Right. The beginning of the scene pokes fun at the faulty eyewitness testimony provided by the townsfolk during many of these witch trials. For example, in the Martha Carrier trial, a man named John Rogger testified “that upon the threat...

  Ever since learning about the golems of Jewish folklore a few weeks ago, I cannot stop noticing explicit and implicit references to them in my daily life. For example, they have been mentioned in two other classes I’m taking this year, most often in another Honors Colloquia class titled “Superheroes and Culture”. While the connection between golems and superheroes may not be obvious to most (at least it was not to me), they actually have quite a bit in common, especially considering they both emerged during periods of tremendous Jewish peril.  To the golems first, however. Perhaps the most well-known aspect of Jewish mysticism, these clay creatures could be magically brought to life by chanting the names of God. In spite of this, because they were not actually created by God, they were often dumb and dull, leaving them almost like Frankenstein’s monster. Still, what makes these golems so well-known is that there are mentions of their use as recently as the 16 th century. ...