'The Whip and the Wand' in the Sex/Magic series (2005)
According to the academic author Joanne Pearson, the use of a whip or scourge as a magical tool within the context of (post)modern spirituality, including pagan witchcraft - or Wicca, as many of its adherents prefer to call it - has elicited little debate and ritual flagellation tends to be a largely concealed practice.
She writes:
"Techniques associated with BDSM in the public imagination [...] tend to be ignored, sidelined, dismissed, and whitewashed, both by Wiccan
practitioners and by academic studies of Wicca, rather than being explored as
mechanisms by which boundaries might be transgressed through the infliction of pain, exercised on the body, eliciting religious experience from skin
and flesh." [1]
However, that's not quite true: way back in 2005, for example, I presented a six-part series of lectures at Treadwell's Bookshop on Sex/Magic, at the behest of Christina Harrington, a respected authority on all things esoteric and the store's founder and presiding spirit.
These talks discussed a variety of topics from a philosophical perspective, including masturbation, anal sex, nakedness and - in the final paper of the series, entitled 'The Whip and the Wand' - fetishistic aspects of modern pagan witchcraft [2].
The lectures were eventually published in 2010 by Blind Cupid Press as Volume I of The Treadwell's Papers.
Of course, to be fair to Pearson, this is not something widely known; the talks were attended only by a handful of people and neither filmed so as to be uploaded to a social media platform, nor livestreamed online as so many events are today.
Similarly, the two Blind Cupid books of Treadwell's Papers - each consisting of twelve essays - were produced in an extremely limited number and those not sold via Treadwell's were left in the philosophy sections of several other London book stores for anyone who came across them to freely acquire [3].
Having said that, however, as a scholarly researcher and writer in this area, it's surely incumbent upon Pearson to be aware of this and not mistakenly assert that no one - other than her good self - has ever been bold enough to investigate the links between Wicca and BDSM [4].
Notes
[1] Joanne Pearson, 'Embracing the lash: pain and ritual as spiritual tools', Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, Vol. 23, (2011), pp. 351-363.
See also Pearson's earlier essay: 'Inappropriate Sexuality? Sex Magic, S/M and Wicca (or Whipping Harry Potter's Arse!)', Theology & Sexuality, Vol. 11, Issue 2, (Sage, 2005), pp. 31-42.
[2] For full details of the Sex/Magic series - as well as all other papers presented at Treadwell's between 2004 and 2012 - click here.
[3] Apparently, these books sometimes turn up online described as rare collectors items and selling for laughably exorbitant prices.
[4] I suspect that Pearson has sought to gain a little speaker's benefit by positioning herself in this manner; i.e., as the only one who dares to speak openly about the
prohibited and the perverse, thereby challenging the established order and its taboos.
To her credit, however, Pearson began exploring the common conceptual ground between Wicca and BDSM several years before I thought of it; first presenting a paper on this at a conference at the University of Glasgow entitled 'Dangerous Sex: Contesting the Spaces of Theology and Sexuality', in 2002. But her later claims about the continued attempt to deny or overlook the kinky aspects of Wicca need some (retrospective) qualification.
Readers who are inerested can read three extracts from 'The Whip and the Wand' by clicking here.
