Hekate by William Blake 1795
Kadmus via Gods & Radicals:
We see a similar structure to the conflict between official state religious power and local magical practice in the cunning craft and witchcraft of Europe and, though in a very different context and developed through very different pressures, in the still exceptionally vital Afro-Caribbean magico-religious traditions. Perhaps the most striking example of this is the distinct character of the Petwa Loa of Haitian Vodou. These are a class of spirits with a particularly violent and forceful nature that derive from the time of the Haitian revolution. Far from sinister, they are part of the force that won freedom for the enslaved in the only slave revolt to result in the founding of a free state. The magic of the Petwa is revolutionary magic par excellence and that of one of history’s most terribly oppressed peoples.
No consideration of the identification of magic with the oppressed would be complete without keeping in mind that it has often been the province of women in contexts when they are denied official social power and freedom. Indeed the mythological image of the witch is, more than anything else, that of a powerful woman in a world that fears and seeks to destroy nothing so much as that. Far from being condemned for using demonic power, female witches were condemned for having any power at all.
Certainly, from time to time, we come upon a John Dee, a MacGregor Mathers, an Aleister Crowley – we come upon more aristocratic figures who inevitably become better known due to social privilege, education, and access to publishing, press, and political power – but the vital living traditions from which such figures draw their practices and inspiration is a rather more “common” affair. Certainly attempts are made to clearly distinguish theurgia from goetia, high magic from low, but all fail on close inspection and one can’t help but sense the presence of a political more than theological battle being waged. As Scholem has made clear, the populist bent of magic is one with its assault upon official religious authority and this authority – whether Christian, Jewish, or Pagan – is generally the tool of the political ruling class.
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