Archived Sermons

Introductory Words
When I was young I learned about the history of religion in Sunday school. It wasn't very complicated. There were the Jews, then came Jesus, and after him there was Christianity. And that was about it—end of the story. Sure there might have been references to other religions in the world, but I came to believe that they could be disregarded because they were primitive and obviously not to be taken seriously.

Growing up in one of the mainline Christian denominations, this is what I recall learning about the history of religion. I suspect that this would be similar to what I would have experienced had I grown up as a Jew. I would know quite a bit about Judaism, and little about other faiths. The same is true if I were raised to Muslim, or Buddhist, or Hindu.

Now all this is understandable given that most faiths will focus on telling their history in order to deepen the beliefs and commitment of their members. This is to be expected—this is part of the game as the various religions try to create legitimacy for their particular systems of belief.

But we, Unitarian Universalists, tend to have a little different perspective on such history and its place in religious education. Of course UUs tell the story of their heritage, but they also have a strong tradition of educating themselves about other faiths. In fact sometimes it feels like we focus more on the history of other faiths than we do on our own. Whether that is true or not, I am not sure. But I am sure that we are fairly unique in that we strive to objectively explore the history and meaning of other religious perspectives. We do so because we believe that such information is vital. We believe that it is vital to nurturing such things as compassion, understanding, and freedom. We believe that knowing more fully the range and depth of the religious experience makes us more accepting of diversity and more aware of the many facets of spirituality that may enrich our lives.

This is who we are. The children who grow up in our congregations and regularly attend religious education end up with an understanding that the world is composed of a variety of theological approaches. And we believe this is good—good for them and good for the world. Of course it does have some interesting side effects. After a recent religious education class that focused on Yom Kippur, my daughter announced to me that she was a Jew. “That is fine”, I said, “in a sense we all are.”

And so on this Halloween Sunday I want to share with you a little of what I have learned about a religious tradition whose roots go back to when humans first began to struggle with religious ideas. On this Halloween Sunday I want to fill in a little of the history we probably missed in Sunday school, or Hebrew school. Today I want to share with you a one perspective on the history of the “Old Religion”—the history of Witches.

Sermon
The story of what we would call witchcraft begins some 30,000 years ago in the Paleolithic period--the Old Stone Age. In those times humankind was awesomely and painfully close to the forces of nature. Now days we have several layers of protection between the natural elements and ourselves—we have our homes, furnaces, clothes, vehicles, grocery stores, etc. Because of this we can, most of the time, take nature for granted—most of the time nature is not a major factor in how we plan and conduct our daily lives.

But in the Paleolithic period our ancestors were much more vulnerable to and thus mindful of the natural world around them. Their world was alive with forces that brought opportunities and threats. They experienced much more directly and intimately the power of nature--the thunderstorm, the animals they hunted and the ones who hunted them, the water that rushed down the streams, and the fire that at times brought them safety and warmth and at others death and destruction. All the great forces could be beneficial and deadly.

We have no written record from this time so archeologists and anthropologists must speculate based on other evidence. It is generally believed, though, that our Stone Age ancestors began to view the powerful forces in their lives as being controlled by spirits or gods. They came to believe that a god, for instance, controlled the gusting wind; a spirit was in the rushing, swirling river; and a fairy swayed the mighty trees. This is animism—the belief in nature spirits. It is probably the earliest, most universal, and longest lasting theological understanding humans have had.

Animists worship the many spirits whom they believe rule the natural world. “They subscribed to the idea that the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—each have their own guardian spirits, as do animals, trees, and other natural objects.” [Witchcraft from the Inside, p. 3]

Animism is still found in the world. For example on some south sea islands when a person is about to chop down a tree they will first tap three times on its trunk to give the residing spirit time to get out. I am sure we could find countless other examples of modern day animism. Anthropologists throughout the world and its history have documented these types of beliefs.

Our early ancestors saw their world as controlled by a host of spirits or gods—forces that impacted their lives dramatically. It only made sense then, that they began to formulate ways through which they believed they could influence these spirits and enlist them on their behalf. And so they developed our earliest religious ceremonies and rituals—they developed worship.

Now when one is trying to influence the gods there are two traditional approaches. The one we are most familiar with is to petition the spirit—to petition it to act on our behalf and favor us. We pray to ask the gods help, or we make some sacrifice we believe will please her. Once done we hope that the spirit looks favorably on our petition and then decides to help us out.

The other way to influence the spirits is to perform certain acts or rituals that have direct impact on future events, or makes the spirit produce a certain outcome. This is commonly referred to as magic. This concept of magic is based on the idea that our religious ceremonies can be a force to bring about certain changes or events. It is not asking for help, it is creating a reality.

The speculation is that our ancestors first turned to magic in the attempt to influence the forces of nature. Evidence of this comes from the archeological sites. “For example at Le Tuc d’Audoubert, Ariege, there was found very realistic clay model of a bison, pock-marked with holes where it was literally attacked with spears and javelins. The belief is that this “model of the animal was . . . set on the floor of the residential cave or in an open clearing. Under the priest’s/shaman direction [that person who had essential knowledge about the magic] the simulated animal was attacked and ‘killed’ by the hunters. Successful in this killing, it was then felt that they could go out and hunt the real animal and the hunt would be equally successful. (Witchcraft from the Inside, page 4) More recently, in the 1800’s, similar ceremonies were observed within the Native American people as they prepared to hunt bison and deer. Both are examples of magic where a set of human actions and/or words done ritually was believed to influence the spirits to produce a desired result. Magic was probably the first form of religious worship, and it is still a part of the human religious experience although it exists under different names.

So we have two elements that are characteristic of our ancestors beliefs—animism and magic. But there is a third element as well—it is the power of the feminine principle.

Without a doubt the figure most central to the religious life of humankind from 30,000 years ago up until perhaps three thousand years ago was the Mother Goddess. Her image was one of the earliest carved by humans. “Modern archeologists have unearthed hundreds of small statues (often called Venus figures) carved from stone, bone, and the ivory tusks of woolly mammoths that indicate women were central in ancient religions. The figurines, with oversized breasts and buttocks and often depicted as pregnant, were believed to have magical significance.” (Witches Stuart Kallen, p. 14)

Joseph Campbell wrote: “There can be no doubt that in the very earliest ages of human history the magical force and wonder of the female was no less a marvel than the universe itself; and this gave to women a prodigious power, which it has been one of the chief concerns of the masculine part of the population to break, control, and employ to its own ends.” (Witches Stuart Kallen, p. 15)

The mother Goddess was so important to humankind because she represented fertility. We take such a notion for granted now days, but to our ancestors, fertility was a life and death issue.

• It was a life and death issue in terms of food supply. Fertility was essential to having enough food to live on. Fertility was essential to crops, livestock, and the animals humans hunted. For thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, our ancestors periodically experienced the devastation that occurs when fertility is compromised through drought, natural disasters, or population displacement—they saw their families and clans suffer and die when their sources of food diminished. Fertility was a paramount issue.
• And fertility was an issue in human reproduction. More than one in ten women died in childbirth, and more than 1/3 of children died within the first year. There was incredible loss. This was a fertility issue.

Both food production and childbirth were central to the lives of our ancestors, and so it makes sense that fertility would be central to their religion--and so it makes sense that the image of this great power would be feminine. And it makes sense that humankind would, through ceremony and ritual, try to magically influence the Great Mother to increase fertility. And that is why “These figurines [of the mother goddess] for thousands of years were prized for their assumed powers to bring protection and fertility to the people who held them. Farmers carried them into their fields to bring them luck during the harvest. [And] since the Mother Goddess was believed to have so much power, each culture had creation stories that were based on the female or the mother.” (Witches , Stuart Kallen, page 16)

This is the “Old Religion”. Out of this animism, magic, and the powerful feminine evolved all the various theologies. In many religions you have to look pretty hard to find the vestiges of this, but it is there. In witchcraft, though, the basic elements are still clearly visible having been carried forward from the ancient times. Witchcraft has retained these elements for thousands of years because they touched the religious impulse of the human animal.

But this was only the beginning of the story.

“Around six thousand years ago, ancient agricultural societies began to build cities. People started to cultivate the soil between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq. They learned how to make houses from sun-dried brick and used their improved architectural skills to build brick-towered temples. Refined farming techniques allowed populations to grow, and Sumerian villages sprouted market centers where goods could be sold or traded. Each important city was ruled by a local queen whom villagers associated with their creation goddess.”

“For another fifteen centuries, the goddess remained a primary spiritual deity. Then things began to change among these relatively peaceful societies. The changes came when warlike tribes invaded. According to Joseph Campbell, ‘The barbarians [came] raiding in from the desert and the great plains. There are two orders of barbarians: the Semites, from the Syro-Arabian desert from the south; and the Indo-Europeans, from the north.’ With this invasion of new cultures, the harmonious and peaceful legends of the goddesses were reinterpreted, often to cast the female deities as destructive and detrimental to humans. Those goddesses who did not become evil were married off to male gods and their importance was eclipsed.’” (Witches, Stuart Kallen, p. 18)

“A good example of how a once-revered goddess was turned into an evil woman may be found in the story of Lilith. Originally Lilith was the Semitic goddess of all creation and was believed to be the mother of the entire human race. [She was a major deity, if not the major religious figure for thousands of years] Eventually, though, she became one of the most demonized figures in Semitic legend.

When the Bible was first written, Lilith was a figure in the creation story who was said to live in the Garden of Eden with Adam. Lilith refused to be submissive to Adam and claimed to be his equal. Adam tried to force her into obedience, and in her rage Lilith uttered the magic name of God, took to the air, and flew to the Red Sea--an area full of lustful demons. Three angels found Lilith there as she was giving birth to hundreds of fiendish monsters. The angels commanded that Lilith return to Adam, but she refused. God then created Eve from Adam’s rib so he would have a companion in the Garden of Eden. For her part, Lilith became queen of the succubae—creatures who kill small children and drain the lifeblood from healthy men.” Classic evil witch characteristics. [Witches, Stuart Kallen, p.22]

This retelling of an ancient goddess myth, where the power of the feminine was repackaged to be seen as evil and dangerous, was repeated over and over in the coming centuries. Lilith was one of the first goddesses converted from life enhancing to life threatening by the forces which gave rise and sustained patriarchal religion. She was one of the first evil witches that have come to haunt our movies and literature. This story, and other stories like it, mark the beginning of a campaign against the goddess and the power of the feminine principle—a campaign that continues today. A campaign according to Joseph Campbell ‘which has been one of the chief concerns of the masculine part of the population to break, control, and employ to its own ends [the prodigious power of the feminine]’.

But it wasn’t just the goddesses who were turned into evil witches—mostly it was mortal women. Remember much of the “old religion” was based on rituals and ceremonies that focused on manipulating the natural spirits—what we call magic. This magic was performed by humans. Women did much of this magic as had been the case for thousands of years. Some of this magic involved knowledge of potions that would bring love or cure disease. Such potions often used plants to treat certain ailments—magic we now call medicine. People believed in magic—they went to these women to be healed, to have their children delivered, to have the problems in their lives corrected. This made these spirit women powerful figures in their communities. And it was these women who were also turned into evil figures. It took centuries, but slowly the forces opposed to the “old religion” pushed it and its practitioners further and further to the margins of society until finally in the Christian world witches were viewed by the general public as dangerous and uncontrolled menaces.

All this set the stage in Europe for a tragedy of Biblical proportions. From 1450 to 1700 over 100,000 people were put to death for allegedly practicing witchcraft, and untold numbers of others died in prison waiting trial or committed suicide when accused. Most of these were women. In some villages 80% of the women were killed.

Now some of these women might have been practitioners of the “old religion”, but probably most were not. Magic, though, was still a part of people’s lives. It was often stated as the cause of some misfortune, and anyone believed to use magic was a witch. Witches were blamed for nearly every kind of personal calamity. And back then, as now, there was plenty of personal calamity and so the conclusion was there was a lot of witchcraft going around.

The “legal” process set up to determine if someone was indeed a witch was run by the church, often a secret affair, and was heavily stacked against the accused—especially if they were women without family which meant they were poor. “European society in this era blatantly favored men— most women never attended school, were not allowed to own property, and those who had never married or whose husbands had died were among the poorest members of society. Many of the women executed were old [and without spouse]. Statistics show that the average age of women persecuted for witchcraft was between fifty-five and sixty-five. This was in an era when, due to plagues and disease, the average age of death was thirty-five to forty. Accused witches were often women who were extremely poor and were forced to beg for a living.” (Witches, Stuart Kallen, p. 45)

The horrors of this period were many—all based on ignorance and intolerance and fear—things our UU faith has long opposed. By 1760, though, the witch-hunts in Europe were all but over. Prominent voices during what is called the Age of Enlightenment had pronounced the witch-hunts irrational and barbarous. The church was forced to cease such practices. It is one of the darkest chapters in human history.

But the history of witches did not end there—the “Old Religion” was not snuffed out. Since then there have been periodic revivals of interest in witches and the “old religion”. In our time there has been a significant surge in the number of people who practice some variety of witchcraft or Wicca, as some people call it. There is great variety within the movement, but still after over 30,000 years it still contains those basic elements that helped our ancient ancestors make sense of their world. Many aspects of it don’t hold up to the scrutiny of science, but then that is the case with just about all theology. In the end religion is about helping us become our whole/holy selves. And I think history can attest to the fact that this can come through celebrating the four elements just as it can through worshipping Jesus or praying to Allah. That is what history would suggest, if we take the time to listen.


©2004 Rev. Daniel S. Brosier