Ian's Witch Blog

  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. ...

In a recent class, an off-hand reference to the notorious William Butler Yeats sparked a multitude of connections within my brain. For a while now, ever since coming across “Rosicrucianism” in A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult , I had been longing to figure out where I had heard that darned word before. And so, as anyone can now surmise, my severely limited knowledge of W. B. Yeats was the answer. This severely limited knowledge was developed in a wonderful English class I took last year on 20 th Century Irish Literature. Taught by the amazing Professor Steele, our class explored the rich literary history “the island of saints and sages” possesses, affording special attention to the impact its prose and poems had in the nation’s ensuing revolutions (Joyce). However, these writings did not emerge out of happenstance. In fact, this so-called “Irish Revival” began intentionally in the late 1800s in order to stimulate a country-wide return to Irish roots and, in turn, a rej...