A Witch's Take on Sanguinarium
The Fire and the Rose
(Everyone's seen it now, right? If not, spoiler alert.)
Yay! I get to be the first to point out that Mulder mispronounced
"Samhain"--the "mh" is actually pronounced like a "w", so that you get
"SOUWwin". Also, the names of the high holy days were quite a
mishmash--"Samhain" from Irish tradition, "Lammas" from Scottish,
"Roodmas" from who-knows-where although it sounds English, and I didn't
catch what they used for Beltene/May Day.
Some of my neopagan friends are no doubt very offended by this ep, but
it's no problem for me to concede that they were drawing from the Catholic
witch tradition rather than anything neopagan. I liked that the first
witch--Rebecca Waite--was actually trying to help. (She sure was
ineffective, though.) I also liked that they didn't use the pentacle as
an all-purpose symbol of evil.
The reversed-pentacle thing has always been iffy in my mind, though,
seeing as it's almost as hard to tell which end of a pentacle is supposed
to be up as it is to tell which end of a circle is supposed to be up.
The "vanity" thing was pretty cool, and the best thing about the ep was
Mulder's furtive examinations of his own face.
In general, though, I didn't like this ep so much. It was gross rather
than scary. And there were loose ends--the belladonna-drug thing, for
one. How did the evil witch-doctor get them all to take it?
Was I correct in thinking that the teaser for the next ep implies that the
Cigarrette-Smoking Man shot JFK? Too funny!
--
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. --T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"
Rodrick Su
In article <Pine.OSF.3.95.961111...@saul5.u.washington.edu>,
Erika Peterson <eri...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>Hey, you are just the person I wanted to talk to! The mish-mash of names
>confused me: doesn't Roodmas sound awfully Christian (as in "mass of the
>Holy Rood (crucifix)")? And my dictionary says Lammas comes from the Old
>English for "loaf mass". So from what I've been able to figure out, the
>traditional English (Christianized) names for those holy days (Feb.1, May
>1, Aug. 1, and Nov. 1) are: Candlemas, Roodmas, Lammas, and Hallowmas.
>Now I have several questions:
>
>3) I thought it was interesting that the Christian versions of these holy
>days are all in honor of a theme or object rather than a particular saint
>or Biblical event. Do these themes (candles, crosses/rods, loaves, and a
>whole bunch of dead people) map onto what was originally being celebrated
>in the Celtic holy days?
>
The reason for some of the dates in the Saints' Calendar which
coincide with the Pagan dates are obious. The early church
wants to suppliment the pagan religion, and one way to do it is
to rob them of their Holy dates. The prime example of this being
Samhain, where the church stuck All Saint's Day behind. And Samhain
is the Pagan new year.
--
[ Rodrick Su [ If at first you don't succeed, well, so much for ]
[ r...@primenet.com [ skydiving. [ ``Games of the Hangman'']
[ http://www.primenet.com/~rsu ]------------[ Victor O'Reilly ]
Mark Chandler
jcoc...@brynmawr.edu (The Fire and the Rose) writes:
>(Everyone's seen it now, right? If not, spoiler alert.)
>The "vanity" thing was pretty cool, and the best thing about the ep was
>Mulder's furtive examinations of his own face.
What was the deal with Mulder "checking out" nearly every female
nurse/doctor when he and DS were first walking into the hospital?
Was he simply amazed that every woman was beautiful? (Maybe they
get deals on procecures?)
While not a Mulderism, I liked when one of the doctors told the evil
doctor that he, "looked like hell."
>--
>And all shall be well and
>All manner of thing shall be well
>When the tongues of flame are in-folded
>Into the crowned knot of fire
>And the fire and the rose are one. --T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"
--
Mark Chandler Concord, California m...@crl.com
Check out <http://www.crl.com/~mpc/index.html>
for mountain bike reviews, articles, and info.
Nikki Gustas
In answer to your questions:
1. Lots of Pagans use the Christian names. I use Lammas and Candlemas
frequently, but that's me.
2. The Feb. 2 holiday is originally called Brigid, after the Celtic
godess.
3. Some of the Christian things do map onto the Pagan holidays. Samhain
is the day to say farewell to the dead. If Roodmas maps onto the spring
solstice, than that's easy - spring solstice is a fertility ritual (I'm
sure you see the symbolism of the rod in that one...) Candlemas
celebrates the slow demise of winter (I've always thought it was in there
to give something for everyone to look forward to in the dead of winter,
kind of like President's Day now...) I was surprised Yule wasn't in
there, 'cause that's sure a biggie. I personally consider it more
important than Brigid.
-rednikki
The Fire and the Rose
> 1) Is there or was there a witchcraft tradition that used those Christian
> names rather than the Celtic names for those festivals?
Well, all detailed Celtic-based witchcraft practices are modern
reconstructions, based on historical information and scattered present-day
survivals. So anybody looking to tap into pre-Christian religion could
call the days whatever they wanted. There was a long period of time
(certainly c. 740 AD to c. 1900 AD, and arguably to the present) when
Christian and pagan traditions existed side-by-side (especially in western
Ireland.) At that time there were certainly pagan rituals used to
celebrate Christian holidays.
> 2) What are the Celtic names? (I'm blocking on the Feb. one, but I think
> the rest are Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samhain).
Imbolg (or Imbolc) is the old Irish Gaelic name for the Feb. 1
celebration, which has become St. Brighid's Day. Since St. Brighid is so
important in Ireland (she's known as "The Mary of the Gaels"), her
feast-day has pretty much eclipsed the older holy day. This was, of
course, exactly what was intended by the Church. (It runs both ways,
though--St. Brighid absorbed nearly all the attributes of the goddess
Brigid.) On all of the other quarter-days (days halfway between the
solstices and equinoxes) traditions from the pagan holy days survive.
Candlemas is actually Feb. 2, I believe.
>
> 3) I thought it was interesting that the Christian versions of these holy
> days are all in honor of a theme or object rather than a particular saint
> or Biblical event. Do these themes (candles, crosses/rods, loaves, and a
> whole bunch of dead people) map onto what was originally being celebrated
> in the Celtic holy days?
Sort of.
February--Candlemas--Imbolg: Like I said, Imbolg is the holy day we know
least about, since the traditional celebrations have been mostly
eclipsed. But it celebrated the beginning of the planting season and the
time that ewes began to give milk. It marked the first approaches of
spring. (Remember Ireland's climate is relatively warm.) Also it comes
at a time when the days are getting longer again--this light symbolism
might correspond to the candles. St. Brighid is certainly associated with
fire (And fertility--weird for a virgin saint, eh? but not for a pagan
goddess.) A perpetual fire was kept in her honor at Kildare.
May--Roodmas (apparently)--Beltene (Beltain, Beltane, etc.): It doesn't
have anything to do with crosses, unsurprisingly. It's a big party to
celebrate the arrival of spring. There's dancing and plays and a lot of
sexual imagery. If you stretched it, I suppose you could say crosses and
may poles have something in common.
August--Lammas--Lughnasa: There was dancing around bonfires lit on the
tops of hills. I don't know any connection with loaves of bread, although
something niggling at the back of my mind tells me that people floated
bread down streams somewhere at some time.
November--Hallowmas--Samhain: Samhain is November 1. The night before
(Hallowmas Eve, or All Hallow's Eve) is Hallowe'en. It is the beginning
of the Celtic New Year, marks the approach of winter, and is a time when
the natural and supernatural worlds coincide. It's also a time for the
honoring of the dead. These holidays correspond perfectly.
Hope this helps! Feel free to email me if you want to talk witchcraft
more. (I don't go on the pagan newsgroups--I don't have enough
patience.) I'm agnostic myself but I study mythology. I practice
"witchcraft" because charms and spells have power over the mind, and the
mind has power over the body. At some point I stop saying "okay, hematite
and moonstone are just rocks just but if I carry them around maybe I'll
convince myself it's helping my cramps and then my brain will obligingly
not make me aware of the full extent of my pain,"--I just say "cause,
effect--cool! give me more hematite."
Erika Peterson
Hey, you are just the person I wanted to talk to! The mish-mash of names
confused me: doesn't Roodmas sound awfully Christian (as in "mass of the
Holy Rood (crucifix)")? And my dictionary says Lammas comes from the Old
English for "loaf mass". So from what I've been able to figure out, the
traditional English (Christianized) names for those holy days (Feb.1, May
1, Aug. 1, and Nov. 1) are: Candlemas, Roodmas, Lammas, and Hallowmas.
Now I have several questions:
1) Is there or was there a witchcraft tradition that used those Christian
names rather than the Celtic names for those festivals?
2) What are the Celtic names? (I'm blocking on the Feb. one, but I think
the rest are Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samhain).
3) I thought it was interesting that the Christian versions of these holy
days are all in honor of a theme or object rather than a particular saint
or Biblical event. Do these themes (candles, crosses/rods, loaves, and a
whole bunch of dead people) map onto what was originally being celebrated
in the Celtic holy days?
EP
On Sun, 10 Nov 1996, The Fire and the Rose wrote:
> (Everyone's seen it now, right? If not, spoiler alert.)
>
> Yay! I get to be the first to point out that Mulder mispronounced
> "Samhain"--the "mh" is actually pronounced like a "w", so that you get
> "SOUWwin". Also, the names of the high holy days were quite a
> mishmash--"Samhain" from Irish tradition, "Lammas" from Scottish,
> "Roodmas" from who-knows-where although it sounds English, and I didn't
> catch what they used for Beltene/May Day.
>
> Some of my neopagan friends are no doubt very offended by this ep, but
> it's no problem for me to concede that they were drawing from the Catholic
> witch tradition rather than anything neopagan. I liked that the first
> witch--Rebecca Waite--was actually trying to help. (She sure was
> ineffective, though.) I also liked that they didn't use the pentacle as
> an all-purpose symbol of evil.
>
> The reversed-pentacle thing has always been iffy in my mind, though,
> seeing as it's almost as hard to tell which end of a pentacle is supposed
> to be up as it is to tell which end of a circle is supposed to be up.
>
> The "vanity" thing was pretty cool, and the best thing about the ep was
> Mulder's furtive examinations of his own face.
>
> In general, though, I didn't like this ep so much. It was gross rather
> than scary. And there were loose ends--the belladonna-drug thing, for
> one. How did the evil witch-doctor get them all to take it?
>
> Was I correct in thinking that the teaser for the next ep implies that the
> Cigarrette-Smoking Man shot JFK? Too funny!
>
M.R. Power
The Fire and the Rose (jcoc...@brynmawr.edu) wrote:
: "Roodmas" from who-knows-where although it sounds English, and I didn't
: catch what they used for Beltene/May Day.
That was Roodmas.
: Some of my neopagan friends are no doubt very offended by this ep, but
I was starting to get offended until I figured out that the witch was the
good person.
: it's no problem for me to concede that they were drawing from the Catholic
: witch tradition rather than anything neopagan. I liked that the first
I don't agree. They never made it clear at all - and since so many of us
use pentacles and celebrate the Sabbats, though not by the Christian
names (excepting Samhain, which is Celtic) that they used, I spent the ep
thanking my lucky stars that the type of people who watch the show aren't
the types to form a negative opinion from one ep. (I also wished Mulder
would have made another quick statement as he did in "Die Hand Die Verletzt"
explaining the difference between Witches and black magicians.)
: witch--Rebecca Waite--was actually trying to help. (She sure was
: ineffective, though.) I also liked that they didn't use the pentacle as
No kidding - if it had been me in her shoes, there's no way I'd have gone
after that guy alone! People who practice blood magic are way too
dangerous and nasty for that. I'd have had every coven, Circle, and
solitary I could get working one gigantic binding. Maybe she, too,
suffered from her own particular form of vanity? Or maybe she was just
stupid. I liked her, though - the actress was well chosen for the part.
She looked like anyone I might meet at a Pagan gathering. I may be
grasping at straws, but her being named "Rebecca" and being a nurse
(Rebecca Nurse was one of the women falsely accused of witchcraft and
executed during the Burning Times) struck me as a little more than
coincidental.
: The reversed-pentacle thing has always been iffy in my mind, though,
: seeing as it's almost as hard to tell which end of a pentacle is supposed
: to be up as it is to tell which end of a circle is supposed to be up.
I got a giggle out of that too. There's no way Mulder could have known
whether the pentacle was reversed unless it was hanging (not to mention
that the whole reversed-pentacle being associated with Satan thing is an
invention of the modern Satanist movement. In England, where they don't
have such a problem with Satanists, the reversed pentacle is part of the
second-degree Gardnerian and Alexandrian initiation.)
: The "vanity" thing was pretty cool, and the best thing about the ep was
: Mulder's furtive examinations of his own face.
I loved the scene where he was redoing his nose on the computer!
Overall, though, I was a little upset by this ep. They never made it
clear, for instance, that the guy doing the sacrifices was NOT a Witch as
the word is used by the modern Witchcraft movement. And I also have to
wonder why a guy who wasn't a Witch would take so much care to choose
victims who were born on the Sabbats. I doubt those days would have much
meaning to him, since they're primarily religious holidays.
--
Blackbird
134 days and counting...
______________________________________________________________________________
Blackbird - blac...@budget.net
http://www.chatlink.com/~blackbird/index.html
"Meanwhile, I've quit the FBI and become a spokesperson for the AbRoller."
"The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M.R. Power
Erika Peterson (eri...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
: Hey, you are just the person I wanted to talk to! The mish-mash of names
: confused me: doesn't Roodmas sound awfully Christian (as in "mass of the
: Holy Rood (crucifix)")? And my dictionary says Lammas comes from the Old
: English for "loaf mass". So from what I've been able to figure out, the
: traditional English (Christianized) names for those holy days (Feb.1, May
: 1, Aug. 1, and Nov. 1) are: Candlemas, Roodmas, Lammas, and Hallowmas.
Precisely. Some Witches, mostly those from older or family traditions,
do celebrate the Sabbats under these names, however.
: 1) Is there or was there a witchcraft tradition that used those Christian
: names rather than the Celtic names for those festivals?
Many of us do, in fact.
: 2) What are the Celtic names? (I'm blocking on the Feb. one, but I think
: the rest are Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samhain).
The days are:
Samhain (Oct. 31), Yule (Winter Solstice), Imbolg aka Brigid or Bride
(for the Irish Goddess of the same name, Feb. 2), Ostara or Eostre
(Spring Equinox), Bealtainne (spelled various ways, May 1), Litha (Summer
Solstice), Lughnasadh (Aug. 1), and Mabon (Fall Equinox.) The four
Greater Sabbats are Samhain, Yule, Bealtainne, and Mabon. (If you'd like
to know more, check my home page - address below. I'm still getting this
bit up, but I've gotten the first four and their meanings up and will be
finishing the rest soon. Click on the link to my Pagan page, and from
there the one to Wiccan holidays.)
: 3) I thought it was interesting that the Christian versions of these holy
: days are all in honor of a theme or object rather than a particular saint
: or Biblical event. Do these themes (candles, crosses/rods, loaves, and a
: whole bunch of dead people) map onto what was originally being celebrated
: in the Celtic holy days?
Some do, in various ways. Lughnasadh is a harvest celebration, which
would tie in with the "Loaf-mass.") Imbolg celebrates the return of
spring and sunlight, which I guess might be linked with "candles."
The Fire and the Rose
A little follow-up to myself:
> > : The reversed-pentacle thing has always been iffy in my mind, though,
> > : seeing as it's almost as hard to tell which end of a pentacle is supposed
> > : to be up as it is to tell which end of a circle is supposed to be up.
Apparently you can make two prongs longer if you're doing the
reversed-pentacle thing. But then it wouldn't be circular.
whatever
M.R. Power wrote:
<Snipped some really neat stuff to address one little point...>
> : witch--Rebecca Waite--was actually trying to help. (She sure was
> : ineffective, though.) I also liked that they didn't use the pentacle as
>
> No kidding - if it had been me in her shoes, there's no way I'd have gone
> after that guy alone! People who practice blood magic are way too
> dangerous and nasty for that. I'd have had every coven, Circle, and
> solitary I could get working one gigantic binding. Maybe she, too,
> suffered from her own particular form of vanity? Or maybe she was just
> stupid. I liked her, though - the actress was well chosen for the part.
> She looked like anyone I might meet at a Pagan gathering. I may be
> grasping at straws, but her being named "Rebecca" and being a nurse
> (Rebecca Nurse was one of the women falsely accused of witchcraft and
> executed during the Burning Times) struck me as a little more than
> coincidental.
* I keep coming back to the name "Waite". Why does it keep
reminding me of Jolly Olde England and the Stonehenge?
>
> : The reversed-pentacle thing has always been iffy in my mind, though,
> : seeing as it's almost as hard to tell which end of a pentacle is supposed
> : to be up as it is to tell which end of a circle is supposed to be up.
>
> I got a giggle out of that too. There's no way Mulder could have known
> whether the pentacle was reversed unless it was hanging (not to mention
> that the whole reversed-pentacle being associated with Satan thing is an
> invention of the modern Satanist movement. In England, where they don't
> have such a problem with Satanists, the reversed pentacle is part of the
> second-degree Gardnerian and Alexandrian initiation.)
>
> : The "vanity" thing was pretty cool, and the best thing about the ep was
> : Mulder's furtive examinations of his own face.
>
> I loved the scene where he was redoing his nose on the computer!
>
> Overall, though, I was a little upset by this ep. They never made it
> clear, for instance, that the guy doing the sacrifices was NOT a Witch as
> the word is used by the modern Witchcraft movement. And I also have to
> wonder why a guy who wasn't a Witch would take so much care to choose
> victims who were born on the Sabbats. I doubt those days would have much
> meaning to him, since they're primarily religious holidays.
* Maybe they made the Wiccan/Pagan/Christian aspect of Rebbeca Waite
confusing because she's confused... My impression was that she was
trying to combat Dr. Franklin on his "home turf" and she wasn't really a
practioner. Hence, the confused symbolism.
Ignoring the fact that it's fiction :), Dr. Franklin remarked that
Rebbeca had been with the facility 10 years ago when the first incidents
occurred. Recognizing Dr. Cox/Franklin, she may have used the Christian
references she was more familiar/comfortable with to try and combat or
reverse what he was doing.
Of course, that still doesn't explain Dr. Franklin... :)
>
> --
>
> Blackbird
> 134 days and counting...
* When's your actual due date if you don't mind my asking?
April-something?
deb...or whatever.
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
>While not a Mulderism, I liked when one of the doctors told the evil
>doctor that he, "looked like hell."
To which he *should* have replied, "I was up all night".
--Eric Smith
(Who knew something funky was gonna happen as soon as the guy lay down
with his arm out like that..."He's going to levitate", I said. <g>)
Jeff Heinen
In article <84774321...@marduk.obscure.org>, redn...@obscure.org
(Nikki Gustas) wrote:
> 3. Some of the Christian things do map onto the Pagan holidays.
There's a good reason for this. Early on in Christianity's history the
church adopted the dates of many pagan holidays in turned them into
Christian holidays. This was done for the most part to keep people from
attending the pagan festivities. December 25th was originally the
birthdate of the pagan god Mithras (who was interestingly also born of a
virgin). The Mithraists held a midnight ceremony on this day to celebrate
his birth, and the early Christians adopted this date as the birth of
Christ specifically to keep people from attending the pagan event. In
reality no one knows exactly when Christ was born.
Christianity was influenced quite a bit by the early mystery cults. Many
of them also have a god that died and was resurrected, and also
incorporate a ceremony involving the symbolic eating of the flesh of their
god.
Regarding the religion of Wicca, it has absolutely nothing to do with
either demonology or satanism. It is a modern nature religion concerned
with protecting and preserving the earth, among other things.
-Jeff
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| Jeff Heinen | "Neccessitas non habet legem." |
| jhe...@mcl.ucsb.edu | -St. Augustine |
| http://www.calpoly.edu/~jheinen| |
|================================+==================================|
| Department of History | Senior Consultant |
| University of California | Microcomputer Lab |
| Santa Barbara | UCSB |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
Akasha
JC>Yay! I get to be the first to point out that Mulder mispronounced
JC>"Samhain"--the "mh" is actually pronounced like a "w", so that you get
JC>"SOUWwin". Also, the names of the high holy days were quite a
JC>mishmash--"Samhain" from Irish tradition, "Lammas" from Scottish,
JC>"Roodmas" from who-knows-where although it sounds English, and I didn't
JC>catch what they used for Beltene/May Day.
JC>Some of my neopagan friends are no doubt very offended by this ep, but
JC>it's no problem for me to concede that they were drawing from the Catholic
JC>witch tradition rather than anything neopagan. I liked that the first
JC>witch--Rebecca Waite--was actually trying to help. (She sure was
JC>ineffective, though.) I also liked that they didn't use the pentacle as
JC>an all-purpose symbol of evil.
Once again, I'm glad to see someone else noticing the little
things I've seen... but I'll forgive them their ignorance since they
didn't slam witches as being nothing but evil, giving us the benefit of
the doubt... At least it's a beginning.
Akasha
Akasha
ER>2) What are the Celtic names? (I'm blocking on the Feb. one, but I think
ER>the rest are Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samhain).
You are correct on those three. The fourth is Imbolc.