WIZARDS IN THE BOCAGE

Whether Norman, Vendée, Berry, the “bocage” (fields and surroundings) is still surrounded by the sulphurous aura of the sorcerers’ and witches’ sabbaths of past centuries. It follows that Witchcraft remains imbued in the public mind with a series of epinal images which do not always correspond to reality. First of all, there is inevitable confusion between Magic and Witchcraft, the terms of which are poorly differentiated, since they are believed to be interchangeable due to ignorance of their specificity. Etymologically, Magic is “The Art of the Magi”. That is to say of these Priests - Persians, these Chaldean Sages, these Hebrew Prophets (Moses), these Kabbalists, these Holy Marabouts, whatever their religious affiliation, because Magic and Religion are never separated as underlined by the esotericism of their sacred texts. What does this “Art” consist of? It is a set of operations by which the Mage seeks to force the Natural Forces (Invisible Powers of various orders) to act (do) according to what he requires of them. The Mage is an “Initiate” devoted to the great Divine Mysteries, a Master. The Sorcerer of country or bocage magic is an “apprentice” who unleashes forces that he only knows empirically, and of which he is then not master. In one there is “Knowledge”, in the other, perverse use of “occult forces” for personal ends or for others in the voluntary rejection of all moral order. The great demonologist of the 16th century, Jean Bodin, defined the sorcerer as: “being one who by diabolical means knowingly strives to “achieve something”. Love, hate, money, revenge, death? All this perhaps according to demand?

WHERE DOES WITCHCRAFT COME FROM? The current interest in witchcraft both in Europe and in America is largely due to the vogue for esotericism and occultism, a vogue which embraces pell-mell: astrology, spiritualism, clairvoyance, mediumship, spiritism and certain exotic techniques: Zen, Yoga, Tantrism, Shamanism, etc. But the phenomenon of witchcraft is so complex that it seems difficult to explain it by a single factor. To understand it in its universal scope, it would be necessary to call on disciplines including: folklore, ethnology, sociology, psychology and especially the history of religions. Thus, a religious organization not particularly set up against Christianity, Witchcraft was in reality the old paganism widespread throughout Europe, because it constituted a “religion” WICCA. A horned god was worshiped there, comparable to the Celtic god Cernunos, whom the Inquisitors much later deliberately confused with the Satan of the Gospel. Far from evil beings, the practices and rituals of WICCA used ancestral “knowledge” including the power of medicinal and magical plants, the influence of precious stones, the effectiveness of bonesetters, healers, magnetizers, and these “good woman’s remedies” which have spanned the centuries. participated in WICCA. Consequently, it is by demonizing this naturist context that Christianity will little by little eradicate the old paganism which will therefore naturally go underground. The Church will pursue its heresy-based hatred of a competing religion, gradually assimilating the archaic cult of WICCA to Black Magic, entirely dedicated to the worship of Satan, andof his evil works. Fiercely repressed, witchcraft will then bring in its wake trials, burnings, large numbers of deaths in art, and endless massacres. Deadly epidemic ravaging Europe in all its parts and the New Continent where the famous Salem witch trials took place.

WHO ARE WIZARDS AND WITCHES? First of all, the “believers” whose worship was being persecuted, as later we will see the wars of religion between Cathars and Catholics, between Protestants and Catholics, generating massacres whose horror has been echoed in history. Secondly, wizards and witches are “rebels” against Power. Especially women, because since EVE, mistrust has reigned against the female species both socially and sexually. The widow in particular, lacking marital control, is at the forefront of suspicion. Old, nasty, she is a parasite on society. The imagery of the Middle Ages will make him this disheveled and fierce creature, riding a broom to go to the Sabbath, the diabolical meeting or concocting in his lair, poisons, magic potions which provoke love, hatred, death… To repress witchcraft, which it amalgamates with heresy, the church will institute “The Judgment of God”, “the ordeal”, ordeal. judicial under supernatural powers, in order to verify or refute a presumption of diabolical behavior. The witch, presumed guilty, was subjected to the tests of fire, poison, hot iron and drowning, and had to emerge unscathed from these torments to prove her innocence. “The ordeal”, this particularly barbaric decree, offered no chance to the accused, and many of them succumbed to it.

From the 13th to the 16th century, witchcraft spread among the common people and spread to all levels of society. High figures, such as: Louis of Orléans, brother of King Charles VI, Gilles de Rais, marshal of France and companion of Joan of Arc, the latter burned as a witch, the Templars, whose great Master Jacques de Molay perished at the stake. Under Louis XIV, with the Affair of the Poisons, witchcraft almost splashed the steps of the throne. The main accused, the witch La Voisin, will go up in smoke, while her accomplices, the great ladies of the nobility, guilty but not responsible, will escape judgment. Minister Colbert put an end to the pursuit of sorcerers with the Edict of 1682. Always a joker. Voltaire will have no problem denying witchcraft “since all the witches had been burned!” This metaphysical quip from an 18th century philosopher imbued with anticlericalism made a mockery of medieval theology focused on heresy, without however explaining the human condition subject to Good and Evil.

GOOD AND EVIL The human being is continually carried by two opposing currents. It results from this principle of duality that Good and Evil will appear mobile, interchangeable, equivocal. A creature is good or bad, not by its nature, but by the direction it takes or undergoes. The great poet Goethe recognized this fact of double consciousness, these two poles between which the ebb and flow of the normal consciousness of each human being evolves. It is from this constant oscillation alternately generating Good and Evil that the Mage-Priest and the sorcerer emerge, earthly images of God and the Devil, which each Religion has tried to impose. But how and why despite centuries ofWestern Christianity, witchcraft was able not only to persist, but also to remain as alive and active in the towns and the countryside, as evidenced by the quiet or flashy advertisements in specialized magazines. It is probably that Witchcraft constituted a moment in the History of humanity, since it is found everywhere in various forms. From the aborigines of Australia to Polynesian societies, from Anglo-Saxon America to Africa, from the whole of Europe to our bocage of Cartesian France. Paradoxically, she is a scientific ethnologist. Jeanne Favret Saada, who attests to the vitality and authenticity of Witchcraft… For three years, she lived among the “unwitchers”. the “sorcerers”, the “mesmers” and other “spell casters”* from a village in Normandy. In her book: “WORDS, DEATH, Spells”, a social science bestseller, she describes the “clearance” rituals applied to a family victim of occult nuisances: livestock diseases, barren fields, disputes and violence in the family and in the neighborhood, divorce, suicide. After the passage of the “sorcerer “disenchanter”, the beam of hatred which enveloped this family vanished as if by “enchantment”, it is true to say so! The “charm” was broken… Obviously, Jeanne Favret-Saada, scrupulously reported the facts, but did not find the explanation or the understanding. Here, Science did not have much to say, except to deploy widely. The label - “superstition” which it adorn these “businesses”! Today, in our technological modernity, the wizards and witches, those who take advantage of this title in advantageous advertisements, are only pale heirs of WICCA. They are country “spellcasters” in the countryside supported by a rural clientele who fear them, but consult them. In the city it is an elegant witchcraft, mixed with parapsychological science. (they say) magical means to change unfortunate destinies, ward off bad luck, repair romantic disorders, success assured… for an exam, a candidacy, a political seat (!)”… The stock market of junk “witchcraft” is flourishing. There are abounding Mages, Masters, High Initiates, supported by flashy advertisements which credit them with all the miracles! They are ready to believe it. to everything to escape the iron circle of fate, to find luck and hope, to escape from the solitude of the soul and the body… This is how the profession of “sorcerer” speculates on human credulity, it still has beautiful days ahead of it. However, Magic, which is fundamentally the Science of the Mages, of those High Initiates who have studied in long research the Knowledge of the laws of the universe, this called Magic. “Theurgy” exists. Its motto “KNOW, WANT, SHUT UP” expresses well the occultation of a secret not to be put into everyone’s hands. The deliberate diversion for personal and lucrative use of this science constitutes witchcraft or “goetia”. His victims are numerous, because the spirit of profit that drives him has no limits. Human greed, which infiltrates everywhere, has found a particularly juicy niche here.

Louise Falba