Peter Greys' Apocalyptic Witchcraft wills hotly be out in Portuguese in Brazil by Penumbra Livros and I was in this regard invited to write a preface for Apocalyptic Witchcraft, which yo cand read below:
Much has been written about witchcraft, its
practices and beliefs, its history and the witchcraft processes. The sheer
amount of literature gives us a steady red thread of the witch as malefica and
venefici – and it is this that became the icon of the witch proper. The witch
is a votary of Circe and Medea, a child of Cain and it is this icon of the
witch as ‘other’, as opposer, as danger Peter Grey is paining out for us on the
backdrop of modernity.
Peter states that the witch is what we find at the
end of a pointed finger and at the end of the pointed finger we find the unruly
and the rebellious bound by the otherworldly, the scapegoat and the dangerous.
Hence “witchcraft is the work of the enemy. Witchcraft is the sex that other
people have, witchcraft the drug other people take, witchcraft is the rite
other people perform”. And in truth witchcraft can be defined by ‘the other’
and as time passes and civilizations and cultures reach renewed levels of degeneration,
misery and alienation from core, nature and soul ‘the same’ becomes gradually
more and more like concrete, steel and glass objecting nature in favour of
fashion, greed and illusory power over the temporal.
The decay of society stands out in Apocalyptic
Witchcraft as a canvas that makes the animus and anima of the witch visible and
threatening, because the witch is the opposer, it is the nay, it is protest
done in acts of autonomous self-celebration where ‘the other’ is claimed as both
guardian angel and a shade of threat and comfort. It is in this field we find he desire for
freedom and in this a rejection of the imposed dictum that we need to be sheep.
Instead we realize we are goats lusting for the blood running wildly from bleeding
stars that fell to Earth and dress the cloak of the devil. As Peter
writes: “The Devil as the mask of wild nature and the Goddess, giving us the
choice to control our bodies, minds and destiny is at the core of what a witch
is.”
Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a war manifesto
aiming towards sowing a consciousness that enables the flame to act against
oppression, any kind of oppression, it be social, political, psychological or
what a given culture has judged to be ‘good manners’ in favour of truth.
Truthfulness to one self, to one’s ambitions, to one’s own path and in this we
can truly become makers of our own Fate. There is a political agenda in Peter’s
book, he is not solely a terrible force for the oppressors, he is also a
liberator of those chained by the oppressors, they be real, imaginative, of
faith or of society as he call upon the Free Will to recognize the truth of
Self in unique ways. We speak of anarchy, but there is a lineage to this
anarchy, we are speaking of Thoreau, Tolkien Tolstoy and Chomsky that saw what
Peter is seeing and in this saw a similar need, that a return to the laws of
nature was necessary. For Peter the realization of the importance of this
return turns in to an insistence on re-wilding witchcraft and this is only done
by aware and willing participation as ‘the other’ in contemporary civilization,
this because “The Devil is not the hidden hand of history, but has been formed
by the glove it wears”, hence ‘the other’ is in some Foucaultian nightmare
always defined by ‘the sameness’ or what we is usually known as ‘the
majority’.
This socio-political dimension is important and
a factor that often escapes those believing they are doing witchcraft, those
who write about it and those who actually do it that the word ‘witch’ was since
the dawn of time defining the scapegoat, the grains of sand in a well-oiled
social machinery that made it flunk and become imperfect, and of course,
instead of turning the eyes within the search for the scapegoat begin without s
and ‘the witch’ has always been the target, willing or unwilling to take the
blame in the name of ‘otherness’. In this respect Peter has taken the very icon
of the witch and made He or She tangible and recognizable in our contemporary
society. Yet there is not enough to be a rebel, whore or a drug fiend to earn
the dignified accusative of a scapegoat, of something other, something that
threatens norms and order or society. It takes something else, something much
more than just being in opposition , because witchcraft is in the blood, it is
a special breed, it is about the Cains and the Liliths of the world, they know
it or not. As Peter writes: “We do not need to begin with an exterior
cult if we can diligently apply the basic exercises, and in doing so nurture
the flowering of our own gifts. If we do not have the will to do so, seeking it
outside will not remedy this.”
And I think it is truly here it lies, the
entire secret of the witches blood and brood, you need to recognize this in
earnest and be truthful about who you are, because no one can give what they
don’t have and the blood of the witch is only ignited, like a match put to
gasoline because it is already there.
If we look at all possible publications
discussing witchcraft we find an enormous array of possible interpretations.
The historical material relegated to ‘the other’ under the guise of ‘the witch’
is massive and can at times be so confusing that we end up with something like
‘witchcraft religions’ a synthesis of the other and the same. It is proper to
make a pause and reflect on what happens when the same and the other merges. As
we contemplate we realize we will have a temporary expansion heralding its
extinction, because the other will always affirm the status quo and vica versa.
Society has always been the glove that gives shape to the Devil and the Devil
has always been there marking the boundaries of how far is too far, because we
can never get more far away from mediocrity that what blazes in ‘the
otherness’, as affirmation and challenge to what is.
Witchcraft was always about this, it was always
about communion with the spirits of nature and house. It was always about
understanding and grows wise in adapting or perpetuating. I have always considered witchcraft to be
‘peasant craft’ in the sense that witchcraft is occupied with earth, with the
woods, with the waterfalls, the farm and the family and all that comes together
in this, it be cows, goats, woodpeckers or snakes. Witches were also known to
be ‘cunning ones’ or ‘wise ones’, people who knew a bit more that what they
should know and even if witchcraft has its secrets and mysteries as an art of
understanding the world around your homestead it takes a witch to recognize it.
The fact that there are actually genuine strains of witchcraft passed down as
legacy through families can be frustrating, because of the silence, taboo and
restrictions of sharing outside blood and family that solely aim towards a
preservation should not be a hindrance for recognition of who you are. Peter
writes: “Given that the techniques of
witchcraft are either simple tricks, or incommunicable to those who do not
already understand the secret, it is inevitable that a literature would grow
around it with the voracity of thorns, however well-meaning the sowers were,
has nonetheless created an invasive barricade of spines.” And his solution
lies in: “I cut this down, I harvest
these thorns, I make this the haft of my shod stang and striking the earth
clearly proclaiming my intent.” In this he gives further voice to the 3
paragraph in his manifesto that says:
Witchcraft is our
intimate connection to the web of life
And who can disagree with such statement,
because in this sentence we find the heart of the craft of the witch. To be
intimate with the web of life means to be a friend of your fears. It means to
be connected to the sameness as an opposer to those who opposes the otherness
and allow the fountain of deep understanding to flow as you forge your own
Fate. Even what is written in stone can erode in the waters of time and the
waters of time will always call upon the need fire of the witch to make it
known.
The craft of the witch is about a practice and
a set of rites that are meaningful and functional, that serves and ends through
understanding of why what is done is done. The witch is a pragmatist, a time
traveller, a rider of beasts and wild horses, because the witch prefers her
tiger and boar untamed and wild and seeks the communion that is beyond
appearance, the soul of the world, the naked flesh of God and his consort, the
Earth.
Witchcraft is not bound in religion and
priesthoods; it is a matriarchate, because the earth we step on is Her crowned
by a myriad of stars, which is why Peter’s manifesto says in section 27: “The practice of witchcraft is one of
revolution and of the power of woman.”
And this is a truth a million times true.
For Peter, Earth is crowned by Algol with the
Cains and Liliths of the world securing the otherness in constant provocative temptation
with the fear ridden sameness, because witchcraft is sexy, it is beautiful and
it is dangerous. If witchcraft has no fangs, no devil, no danger or no sex it
is not witchcraft, it is conformity and sameness, it is a religion like any
other…
Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a book taking the
pulse of the temperament of the witch in our day and time. It is a book about
how the witch comes to power in any time and age and in this how we can
recognize and understand what we find at the end of the pointed finger as
something meaningful for the other. Doing this Apocalyptic Witchcraft
ultimately calls into question our own reality and the poetry our life with all
its truths and lies created in a world of decay and power calling not upon a
return, but to re-wild what was always wild and untamed.
Nicholaj de Mattos
Frisvold