Tag: witches

Simona Kossak (1943-2007) was a polish scientist, an ecologist, an
author of films and books and an university professor. People called her
“witch” because she was very close to wild animals, and it looked like
she understand their language. She believed that the key to happiness is
living simple and close to nature.. – more: culture.pl

A witch is, actually, a successful (in the sense of surviving) deviant. You have a cultural, ideological, social, what-not pattern which is, for that society in question, normal (and, importantly, this is understood as a synonym for natural). Most people survive because they conform to these patterns, because they behave normally. […] But then suddenly you get a deviant which survives, and since it does not draw its support from the normal pattern, […] that deviant is understood as drawing its support from “unknown,” “supernatural” sources. […] If we cannot survive without our order, how can she [the witch] survive in solitude? Hers must be indeed a very powerful order to exist so independently, without all the inter cooperation and individual compromise which we have to go through to survive. And if it is so powerful, then it could destroy us. We must try to destroy it first.

Maya Deren, “From the Notebook of Maya Deren”, c.October 1947, vol. 14: pages 21–45.

the signs as real witches

Aries: Agnes Waterhouse/ Had a deal with the Devil and wasn’t afraid to say so. The Brave witch.
Taurus: Joan Wytte/ Clairvoyant and healer who eventually became possessed by the Devil, getting involved in many fights.
Gemini: Marie Laveau/ Voodoo Queen. Performed necromancy, mind control, telekinesis and pinning.
Cancer: Chedipe/ Witch-vampire who rode on tigers in the moonlight, choosing houses to visit to cast spells on men.
Leo: Agnes Sampson/ Tried to sink the ship of Queen Anne, wife of King James VI of England.
Virgo: Isobel Gowdie/ Could control the weather and would often write poetry about witch practices. Allegedly marked by the Devil.
Libra: Circe/ Transformed random sailors into wolves and lions and all kinds of animals.
Scorpio: Mother Shipton/ Clairvoyant, sorceress. An outcast with a great talent.
Sagittarius: Maret Jonsdotter/ Frequently tricked men. Attended witch sabbaths.
Capricorn: Alice Kyteler/ Poisoned her rich husbands, disappeared the night before her execution.
Aquarius: Angele de la Barthe/ Allegedly had sex with the Devil.
Pisces: Catherine La Voisin/ Fortune Teller & Love Potions expert. Plotted to murder Louis XIV.

The Witches’ Alphabet, also known as the Theban Alphabet,
has long been used by practitioners of sorcery to encode their
writings. The oldest surviving book containing the Theban Alphabet is
Johannes Trithemius’ Polygraphia, c.1518. This exerpt
explains how Trithemius learned of the alphabet from a pre-existing book
on magick, now lost to time, which he attributes to Peter d’Abano:

“Sequitur aliud alphabetum Honorii cognomento Thebani, cuius
ministerio suas in magicis fatuitates abscondit, sicut Petrus de Apono
testatur in suo maiore libro quarto.“

Here follows another alphabet of Honorius surnamed the Theban, and
the use thereof is for hiding the foolishness of his magic, as Petrus de
Abano testifies in his greater fourth book.