{"id":1927,"date":"2010-10-26T16:38:01","date_gmt":"2010-10-26T22:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1927"},"modified":"2016-02-10T15:56:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T22:56:17","slug":"a-ritual-against-hitler-that-really-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1927","title":{"rendered":"A Ritual Against Hitler That Really Happened?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via the Pagan Newswire Collective <\/a>(should I just have a dateline with “PNC” in it?) comes this link to a witchcraft ritual reportedly performed against Adolf Hilter and the Nazi regime in Maryland in January 1941<\/a>, which is almost a year before the United States officially <\/em>declared war.<\/p>\n

It was \u00a0inspired by William Seabrook’s Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today<\/a><\/em>, originally published a few months before\u2014Seabrook himself is in the photos.<\/p>\n

In other words, this is not the Wiccan religion nor any variation thereof but witchcraft in the purely magic-working sense.<\/p>\n

Having once worked briefly for one of the old-school, cigar-chomping big-city “press agents,” I immediately wonder if the whole thing was not a collaboration between some publicist and the photographer. In other words, was there media involvement from the beginning? So often, things that seemed to have “just happened” in fact did not.<\/p>\n

Second, whether contrived or not, this magical working is better sourced than the more famous Lammas 1940 working supposedly performed by British witches. It was during the summer of 1940 when German invasion of southern England <\/a>was imminent, until the German High Command canceled the invasion.<\/p>\n

That Lammas ritual was fictionalized in Katherine Kurz’s Lammas Night<\/a>. It was described in Gerald Gardner’s 1954 book Witchcraft Today<\/em><\/a>, in which he coyly describes it as being performed by “witches” but does not say if he was there. (Although he was Wicca’s chief founder, his pose in the book is that of an ethnographer\/historian, not a participant.)<\/p>\n

They met, raised the great cone of power and directed the the thought at Hitler’s brain: “You cannot cross the sea,” “You cannot cross the sea,” “Not able to come,” “Not able to come.” Just as their great-grandfathers had done to Boney [Napoleon Boneparte, 1804<\/a>] and their remoter forefathers had done to the Spanish Armada<\/a>” [in 1588] (104).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem is, the only knowledge that we have of the 1940 is Gardner’s say-so. All accounts of it trace back to him. My old friend Evan John Jones<\/a> was skeptical that more than half a dozen people participated, but I am more skeptical. I think that it is equally likely that Gardner, who served in the Home Guard<\/a> (before moving inland away from the coast) and wrote letters to newspapers advocating desperate resistance to the expected invasion, described the ritual as something that should have happened<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0 more attested that Dion Fortune’s ceremonial magic group (and possibly others) were trying to affect the course of the war by magical means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via the Pagan Newswire Collective (should I just have a dateline with “PNC” in it?) comes this link to a witchcraft ritual reportedly performed against Adolf Hilter and the Nazi regime in Maryland in January 1941, which is almost a year before the United States officially declared war. It was \u00a0inspired by William Seabrook’s Witchcraft: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,95,29],"class_list":["post-1927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-england","tag-journalism","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-v5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13560","url_meta":{"origin":1927,"position":0},"title":"Helen Cornish on Witchcraft Drumming and Chanting","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The article \"Musicking and Soundscapes amongst Magical-Religious Witches Community and Ritual Practices\" by Helen Cornish is available as a free download from Religions journal. Abstract Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12955,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12955","url_meta":{"origin":1927,"position":1},"title":"Witchcraft, Paganism, and Detective Fiction","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Jen Bloofield's Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women's Detective Fiction\u00a0is avallable as a free PDF download from Cambridge University Press through 7 July 2022, if I understand correctly. Paperback copies are US $20. From the publisher: Witchcraft and paganism exert an insistent pressure from the margins of midcentury British detective\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":1927,"position":2},"title":"Call for Papers: Pagans and Museums","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"NOTE UPDATED DEADLINES AT BOTTOM Museums and contemporary Paganism are inextricably linked. Gerald Gardner, founder of modern pagan witchcraft, first publicized Wicca in 1951 at Cecil Williamson\u2019s Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft at Castletown (later The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft) on the Isle of Man. Some of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"museums\"","block_context":{"text":"museums","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=museums"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":918,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=918","url_meta":{"origin":1927,"position":3},"title":"Witchcraft on the Screen and on the Page","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan performance-studies scholar Jason Winslade is interviewed at the TheoFantastique blog on Witchcraft and the entertainment industry:Let me first say that I have a hard time coming up with any examples of \u201creal witchcraft\u201d or \u201creal magic\u201d in television or films. As you rightly state in your blog, any portrayals\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":873,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=873","url_meta":{"origin":1927,"position":4},"title":"Wicca and Christianity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not yet seen it, but English scholar Jo Pearson has a new book, Wicca and the Christian Heritage. Amazon-UK link here.From the publisher's catalog:What is Wicca? Is it witchcraft, Paganism, occultism, esotericism, magic, spirituality, mysticism, nature religion, secrecy, gnosis, the exotic or 'other'? Wicca has been defined by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7405,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7405","url_meta":{"origin":1927,"position":5},"title":"The Blue Moon Made Me Do It","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A northern Florida sheriff speculates that the deaths of a family were \"ritualistic\" murders. \"The time of death on Tuesday also coincides with what's referred to as a blue moon, which occurs every three years.\" According to the Associated Press version, linked above,\u00a0 which \"faith or religion\" the sheriff had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1927"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7774,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions\/7774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}