Artwork by Stephen Alexander for the Treadwell's Paper
'The Whip and the Wand' in the Sex/Magic series (2005)
As an essay over 7000 words in length, 'The Whip and the Wand' is unfortunately too long to reproduce in full.
However, following publication of a recent post in which I mentioned this text [1], I thought it might be a good idea to offer three extracts from the opening sections on the perverse nature of witchcraft ...
Extract 1: The Malleus Maleficarum is clear on one thing above all else: Witchcraft results from insatiable carnal lust and is a form of sexual depravity as well as religious heresy.
It was widely accepted in the early modern period that witches consorted and copulated with demons and that their rituals involved obscene and unnatural acts including naked dancing, masturbation, bestiality, anal sex, and feasting on the flesh of infants. Via a combination of sodomy and sorcery, the witch threatened to subvert the very foundations of the moral and political order of society and this made her not only sinful, but dangerous.
But what of twentieth century witchcraft à la Gerald Gardner and company?
Alas, if Doreen Valiente is to be believed, then it has become a depressingly tame affair in comparison: "There is no doubt that witchcraft has evolved considerably […] Few covens now insist upon ritual nudity, or practice the more controversial rites involving sex or flagellation". [2]
Thus, far from being an opportunity to form an erotic relationship with the divine and daemonic and indulge in a wide range of perverse pleasures, witchcraft is now merely the chance for personal development and an exploration of the "hidden powers of the human mind" [3].
Whether Valiente really believes this, I cannot say. But, happily, it's not quite true. In fact, modern pagan witchcraft remains inherently perverse, involving as it does many elements that the masochist and fetishist would instantly understand and appreciate ...
Extract 2: The Erotic (and Kinky) Aspects of the Great Rite
Any list of the essential activities performed during the Great Rite would have to include the following: undressing, scourging, binding, kissing, dancing, chanting, touching, drinking, feasting, and fucking. And any list of the necessary paraphernalia involved would have to include: an altar, a whip, a wand, a length of cord, a knife, a sword, a bowl of water, a chalice of wine, a dish of cakes, some salt, and some incense to burn.
If these objects have magical symbolic significance, then, likewise, the above activities in which they are used are invested with great ritual importance. But here, however, I'd like to examine some of the more erotic (and kinky) aspects of the Great Rite ...
To begin, all members of the coven - with the exception of the high priestess and the high priest - position themselves around the perimeter of the magic circle, each facing the centre; the priestess and priest stand facing each other in the middle of the circle. The latter then proceeds to give the former the five-fold kiss, which is actually a series of eight kisses beginning with the feet and then working up the body to the lips, via the knees, genitals, and breasts.
The high priestess then lies down on her back, her arms and legs outstretched in order to form the pentagram, whilst the priest fetches a veil with which he covers her naked body. He then kneels between her ankles and delivers an invocation that begins:
Assist me to erect the ancient altar, at which in days past all worshipped ...
And the sacred place was within the centre of the Circle,
the origin of all things.
Following this hymn to her - or more precisely, to her reproductive organs - the rest of the coven leave the circle so that the high priest and priestess can fuck in what the Farrar's call "the dignity of privacy" [4], thereby betraying the bourgeois morality not only of their own vocabulary, but at the heart of modern pagan witchcraft.
As for the idea of the body of the priestess serving as a living altar, I must confess I rather like this; it reminds me of Minski's furniture in Sade's Juliette, or the sculptures by Allen Jones. But it's not really an ancient idea, so much as one developed by 17th-century occultists as part of their Black Mass and simply borrowed by Gerald Gardner who, of course, made a fetish of nakedness and insisted upon it within his own neo-paganism.
The Farrar's, unsurprisingly, are having none of this, however; they insist that whilst the Great Rite invocation "specifically declares that the body of the woman taking part is an altar, with her womb and generative organs as its sacred focus […] this has nothing to do with any 'Black Mass'" [5].
They continue:
"The Black Mass was a Christian heresy, using perverted Christian forms […] in which the living altar was used to desecrate the Christian Host. Such obscenity is of course utterly alien to the spirit and intent of the Great Rite." [6]
To which we can only say - what a pity!
But there you go; Wicca, say the Farrar's, belongs to a tradition of "sincere and honourable pagan religions" [7] and is not performed by sophisticated degenerates who only know how to corrupt forms, symbols, and rituals.
So concerned are the Farrar's that pagan witchcraft and its practitioners not be thought of as in any way perverse, that they call upon dear old Doreen Valiente in order to defend the fact that the Great Rite culminates in an act of ritual sexual intercourse.
Such an act, asserts the latter, is "'obviously […] the very opposite of promiscuity'" [8], because it takes place between carefully selected partners at the right time, in the right place, and in the right way. "'It is love and only love that can give sex the spark of magic'" [9], dribbles Valiente in a manner which surely would have left witches of old helpless with laughter.
Extract 3: The Whip and the Wand
Apart from the act of intercourse, Gardner's Great Rite also, crucially, involves plenty of ritual scourging and bondage as the following description makes clear:
The priestess sits on a throne holding a knife in one hand and a whip in the other. The priest kneels before her and begs purification. The priestess then fetches a cord and ties his hands securely behind his back. The ends of the cord are tied in front of the throat and the priest is led by this around the circle like a slave. Following this, the priest kneels facing the altar once more, to which he is tied by his lead. His knees and feet are also firmly bound. If he complains of too great a level of discomfort, his bonds may be loosened slightly, whilst remaining tight enough so as to ensure absolute helplessness.
Next, "the priestess fetches the scourge and gives him three light strokes with it" [10] before the roles are reversed; i.e. the priest ties and whips the priestess. Then, for good measure, she ties and whips him once more.
Finally, once both parties have been purified in this manner, they are ready to engage in sexual intercourse.
As described earlier, this involves the priestess lying down and allowing the priest to adore and to kiss her body, whilst masturbating himself to erection. Following the act of intercourse, post-coital thanks to the Lords of the Watchtowers are offered and the rest of the coven rejoin their high priestess and priest for a celebration.
What, then, are we to make of this?
Firstly, I must say that the ludicrously affected language used throughout the ceremony is neither convincing, nor poetic as intended. To describe the phallus, for example, as the miraculous spear or lifted lance, is absurd and betrays a level of humiliating coyness rather than a sense of mystery. But what it also reveals is just how fetishistic and masochistic modern pagan witchcraft is. The above scene between high priestess and priest is replicated in bedrooms and dungeons all over London between the Illicit Lover and his Mistress.
Ronald Hutton rightly points out that Gerald Gardner gave great importance to flagellation and it soon becomes obvious to any reader of the Book of Shadows that the whip "represents the essential component of the rituals" [11]. Even the Farrar’s cannot deny this, although it is clearly something that makes them uncomfortable and, claiming to never use the whip themselves during their own rituals, they then seek to justify Gardner's usage:
"Some witches hold that Gardner was too fond of ritual scourging and many of his detractors maintain that he had a psychologically unhealthy addiction to flagellation. Quite apart from the fact that such a […] gentle person as Gardner is most unlikely to have had such leanings, all this is based on a complete misunderstanding. The technique of not-too-tight binding and gentle monotonous scourging is not even a symbolic 'suffering to learn' as it is in the first and second degree rites; it is a deliberate and traditional method […] to 'gain the Sight' by influencing the blood circulation." [12]
Now, I don't deny the second part of this at all; scourging undoubtedly has a stimulating effect on the blood and I've no doubt that visions can be induced via a wide range of ascetic techniques involving discipline and punishment. Even Christian mystics and penitents know this.
However, it's what is said in the first part of the above passage - and the manner in which it is said - that troubles me. The Farrar's seem to share the same virulent hatred of dissident sexuality and fear of queerness that is found in Dion Fortune's writings of the 1920s, where she described masturbation as an activity which undermines health and "condemned homosexuality, sadism, and masochism as perversions" [13] - branding the first of these in particular as an infectious mental disease.
Obviously, Gardner was not a typical flagellant: "Nor are the operations involved in the rituals standard acts of sado-masochism" [14]. But Gardner does at least admit the erotic aspect of what he calls the virtue of bonds. He writes: "'It has been found that this practice doth often cause a fondness between aspirant and tutor, and it is a cause of better results if this be so … [15]'"
They may not like it, but the Farrar's are reluctantly obliged to admit that the longest non-ritual passages in the Book of Shadows concern ritual bondage and scourging, all carefully explained in meticulous detail (a sure sign of the ardent fetishist). Nevertheless, they repeat their by now familiar line:
"The purpose of the not-too-tight binding and the deliberately light scourging is plain: to help bring about [… an] expansion of consciousness […] or communion with the Goddess […] To distort this into an allegation that Gardner himself had an unhealthy urge to flagellation, whether sadistic or masochistic […] is nonsense." [16]
Actually, it's this denial of the perverse aspect of sex magic which is the only nonsensical thing. To deny the sado-masochistic elements of ritual witchcraft is almost in itself perverse. But the Farrar's are not alone in making this denial and Doreen Valiente is ever-on-hand to support them in this: "'The reason we used the scourge is a very simple one - it works!'" she exclaims, before adding: "'Perhaps it has become associated with kinky sexual matters; but long before that it was part of ancient mystical and magical practices'" [17].
Personally, I cannot understand this determination to make an absolute distinction between the erotic and the sacred and it seems at odds with Wicca's own philosophy; doesn't the Goddess demand ecstasy both of the spirit and of the flesh? Even Starhawk, to her credit, declares the relationship between witches and the divine to be "erotic, sensual [and] carnal" [18] - even if she mistakenly suggests this to be a perfectly natural relationship, rather than a perverse one.
The fact is, in all the great pagan cultures of the past, sex is esteemed as a sacrament and the orgy is the great religious festival and celebration par excellence. Prostitution, too, was a sacred institution; in the Babylonian temples of Ishtar, for example, young girls known as the ishtaritu devoted themselves to the service of their goddess by indulging in sexual congress with any male worshipper who wished for the blessing of the latter (and was able to make the necessary financial offering). Why then do the Farrar's find the inherent kinkiness of modern pagan witchcraft so difficult to accept?
It's left to Ronald Hutton to admit that Gardner's rituals "possess certain idiosyncrasies which seem particularly suited to his own tastes and views" [19], and by this we assume he refers to Gardner's own sexual dispositions. I would argue that these are crucial to Wicca and should be accepted, affirmed, and developed as such; not shamefully glossed over, explained away, or rejected outright. Better Gardner and his love of naked women, sharp knives, and bondage than the moral fanatics who have come after him and turned witchcraft into a form of therapy, or just another liberal theology.
Gardner - the pervert and religious fanatic who declares that to do magic, one must be in a state of frenzy - is an infinitely more interesting figure than either of the Farrar's. And the magic circle as a sacred space in which to consort with demons and dance naked round the bonfire, is a much more exciting prospect than the coven as self-help centre for the disappointed and disillusioned.
Notes
[1] The post to which I refer is 'On the Whip and the Wand: A Response to Joanne Pearson' (17 Sept 2023): click here.
[2] Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present, (Robert Hale, 1994), p. xi.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Janet and Stewart Farrar, The Witches' Bible, (Phoenix Publishing, 1996), p. 49.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., p. 50.
[8] Doreen Valiente, quoted by Janet and Stewart Farrar in The Witches' Bible, p. 49.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Janet and Stewart Farrar, The Witches' Bible, p. 36.
[11] Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 234-35.
[12] Janet and Stewart Farrar, The Witches' Bible, pp. 34-5.
[13] Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, p. 182.
[14] Ibid., p. 235.
[15] Gerald Gardner, quoted by Janet and Stewart Farrar in The Witches' Bible, p. 58.
[16] Janet and Stewart Farrar, The Witches' Bible, p. 60.
[17] Doreen Valiente, quoted by Janet and Stewart Farrar in The Witches' Bible, p. 60.
[18] Miriam Simos (aka 'Starhawk), Dreaming the Dark, (Beacon Press, 1982), p. xii.
[19] Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, p. 239.
