Borrowed Time

                                                            Borrowed Time

                                                           by Marco M. Pardi

Shortly into the Spring semester of 1971 I was dutifully putting in office hours when, in my upper peripheral vision, my office doorway darkened.

“Hi. I’m a witch,” she said.

“Hi. I’m an anthropologist. Have a seat.”

And so began, with this young woman clad head to toe in black accented by various amulets, a two hour discussion of Wicca, the so-called “Old Religion”.  True, it was a pleasant interlude from the caravan of coeds coming into the office, sometimes in two’s, to arrange a Tit for Tat transaction, Tat being a good grade.  Unable to conclude they had all shopped for their clothes – such as they were – at the same strippers’ Snap-N-Drop store, I was impressed by their Now I’m Dressed – Now I’m Not dexterity (doesn’t anyone wear underwear anymore?), and by the menu of offerings they brought. My practiced response was, “I’ve not put by any tats for such an occasion. Try studying.”  After all, moral questions aside, where is The Joy of Sex with someone whose I.Q. comes second to a blow-up doll?

That initial discussion of Wicca ended with an invitation to attend and observe a meeting of the coven for which this young woman served as assistant High Priestess.  Her knowledge of Wicca seemed to have come from selective reading of the many paperbacks on the market.  And so I went with the expectation of spending an evening among social orphans and others ignored for the Prom.  It was no small surprise to walk into a home populated with airline flight attendants, business people, and even an Episcopal priest from a Bay Area city.  The High Priestess herself, perhaps aptly titled, was a staple feature in the most popular supermarket tabloid.

Being uninitiated, I was prohibited from the sanctum during the climactic moments, the “Drawing down of power”.  I availed myself of the company of the HP’s husband, who indulged his wife’s behavior so long as she did not set the house afire.

Though he and I detected no entry of power into the home, even with the lights already off, we were pleased when the group emerged seemingly charged with enthusiasm of purportedly occult origin.  The coven – yes, thirteen, gathered in the living room and exchanged testimonies of their numinous experience.  And, perhaps in the exuberance of the successful ceremony, I was approached by individuals who were also members of other covens and invited to attend those.  Like diet books, you can’t have just one.

And so began a two year odyssey, skipping from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic (by conventional transportation), observing coven meetings and duly signaling Anthropological understanding.  Again, serious scholarship was nowhere to be found, but then who would miss it when such other liberations were so commonly at hand?  The majority of the covens seemed to use Wicca as the veneer over a drug or sex, or drug and sex meeting.  Rituals were hasty as the hookahs were warming and the fornicarium was waiting.

Without exception the meme recited by these groups was “the Old Religion.”  Really?  The title implies a monolithic entity with a formalized dogma and, perhaps, catechism.  Where were they getting this?  Among the plethora of mass market paperbacks the two stand-out British authors were: Gerald Grosseau Gardner (1884-1964) and Margaret Alice Murray (1863-1963).  Murray had already distinguished herself as an Egyptologist and was a highly visible member of the early Feminist movement in the U.K. when Gardner, found her “Witch-Cult” theory in print.  Heavily influenced by it, as were many others, Gardner took it a step further to develop his own “Gardnerian Wicca”, complete with long tracts supported by imagination, fantasy, wishful thinking, and perhaps more than a bit of social alienation, borrowing completely spurious antiquity.  Murray’s claims to a witch cult long pre-dating Christianity in Europe were quickly and thoroughly discredited academically, but the shit was out of the bull and there was no putting it back. Ironically helpful was the very strong scholarship being directed at the previously inviolate Christian texts. Discoveries and linguistic breakthroughs in the Near and Middle East were devastating the coherence, authorship, originality, and even the supposed purpose of the “Bible”. John Darby, a self anointed evangelist who, while confined to bed and reading his Bible in feverish states “discovered the hidden message of the Rapture”, found no support among the educated English and moved to America where he was warmly received by the semi-literate farmers who made the bulk of the population. Nonetheless, his legacy left an embarrassing impression in Britain.  And, of course, analyses of source documents were beginning to clearly show that Christianity, as it is known in the West, is almost entirely a Greek invention.

Murray and Gardner went on to become the icons of Wicca – “The Old Religion” down to this day.  “The” is never questioned although it implies a monolithic entity; how “Old” is never specified; and “Religion” is never authenticated beyond the circular loop of “we want it so” or, in their words, “so mote it be.”

An interesting turn in language developed in the wake of the publication of the Qumran scrolls, often known as the Dead Sea scrolls.  Some 981 texts have been recovered, starting in 1946.  They were held secret for fifty years until a law suit finally wrested them from Church hands.  As their translations went public it became clear to many that these writers, in Aramaic, Hebrew and Nabatean, viewed Paul (nee Saul) as a false prophet, especially as he had never laid eyes on Jesus and was writing for a Greek audience.  I am unaware of any lexico-statistical glottochronology attempts to establish first usage of “Judeo-Christian”, but it is abundantly clear that the usage dramatically increased, if not originated subsequent to the revelations in the scrolls.  Simply, Christianity had to scramble to lay claim to antiquity and adding the much older Jewish tradition to the family tree was the easy way to go.  Needless to say, Jews are not impressed.  Again, the borrowing is selective; few Christians adhere to the prescriptions in Leviticus calling for the stoning of just about everyone.  The term “cafeteria Catholic” originated to describe especially the American pick and choose approach to dogma and canonical law, but it applies as well to Judeo-Christians who pine for Israel but for only their interpretation and selection of its ways.

This tactic appears in the political sphere as well.  America rings with the Second Amendment “right to bear arms” conveniently omitting the phrase “as part of a well regulated militia”.  Shooting ranges in Texas allow children as young as six.  Shades of the Children’s Crusade.

One of the more precise avenues to exploring and understanding a culture is the search for what I call culturally induced cognitive dissonance.  The strong theme of pining for the “good old days” while basking in the electric glow of our computers, IPads, IPhones, Bluetooth earpieces, in ever changing iterations, and insisting upon the latest wizardry in everything from televisions to cars to cooking devices is a good starting point.  The evangelists thrumming out their messages in archaic King James English in mega churches wired with the latest in jumbotron media displays.  The Catholics who miss the Latin Mass though Jesus never spoke a word of Latin. The good old days. When a damp corn cob was your toilet paper, in the little house out back. The corporate slogan “Progress is our most important product” is directly contrary to the value that antiquity confers authenticity.

In his book Future Shock Alvin Toffler described the syndrome of being unable to cope with the speed of technological and cultural change.  Among other symptoms, people in such straits reinvent the past, often appending this historical revisionism to their cultural narrative as a means of asserting authority through antiquity.  And so the individual finds himself with the feeling of “living in the wrong time”, living a covert idealized persona while presenting a “with it” social identity. Torn between an identity that never was and an identity he cannot understand and cannot internally value. 

Partly with this syndrome in mind I asked a couple of Catholic clergy acquaintances questions:  If it could be shown without a doubt that the sanctified historicity of Christianity is largely if not entirely false, if it were admitted that it was all concocted by some long ago Pope and his advisors, would Christianity have within it value which would withstand such a realization?  For example, Buddhism at its core is a realization of self in relation to the world and, as such, stands on its own merits regardless of historicity.  Could Christianity do the same?  The answers did admit to the likelihood that many believers would despair, but, in fairness, it was left as a conjectural question evoking only opinion and not certainty.  Fair enough.  Yet, I wonder.