The Rebirth of Witchcraft

«He says he is a Doctor of Philosophy, an honorary degree conferred on him by Singapore University twenty years ago» — sobre Gardner, y nótese el «He says»: registra la credencial como declaración de él, no como hecho. Es su procedimiento característico con su propio maestro.

«Dr Murray discarded all the old notions which had identified witchcraft with Satanism and devil-worship» — el giro de Margaret Murray que hizo posible todo lo demás: separar la brujería del satanismo.

«she referred to witchcraft as the Dianic cult, pointing out that the name Diana was found throughout Western Europe as being that of the female deity of the witches» — y con qué la sustituyó: el culto diánico.

«Curiously enough, however, she does not mention Leland’s works but goes further back to the early C» — su reparo filológico a Murray: no cita a Leland, de quien venía la Diana de la brujería italiana. La frase queda cortada por el salto de plana.

«The number was actually twelve persons and their leader. This was not, as had been suggested before, a mockery of Jesus and his twelve disciples» — sobre el aquelarre de trece: doce y su jefe, y no una parodia de Cristo y los apóstoles. Expone la idea de Murray.

«The witch-hunting of the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries was an effort to stamp out an old religion surviving from pre-Christian days» — la tesis de la supervivencia, que es la que sostiene la pretensión de antigüedad de toda la tradición.

«seventeen men and women had gathered in a clearing in the New Forest to raise a ‘cone of power’ to prevent Hitler from crossing the Channel» — el episodio fundacional del relato gardneriano, la «Operación Cono de Poder» de 1940.

«If the average person were asked, ‘When was the last big witch trial in Britain?’, they would probably reply, ‘Oh, I suppose about two or three hundred years ago.’ They would be wrong.» — abre el libro con una corrección de cronología: sostiene que la persecución legal de la brujería en Gran Bretaña no es cosa de dos o tres siglos atrás, como supondría cualquiera, sino de la memoria viva de sus lectores.

«It took place at the Old Bailey in 1944.» — data el último gran juicio por brujería en el Old Bailey y en 1944, en plena guerra.

«The accused was a Spiritualist medium, Helen Duncan.» — identifica a la acusada: no una bruja sino una médium espiritista, lo que a su juicio muestra que la ley vieja servía para cualquier cosa que el Estado quisiera perseguir.

«She was charged under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, found guilty after a trial which lasted for eight days and sentenced to nine months imprisonment.» — consigna el cargo y la pena: la Witchcraft Act de 1735, ocho días de juicio y nueve meses de cárcel.

«The recorder’s summing-up of the case lasted nearly two hours, and in the course of it he is reported as saying: ‘If Mrs Duncan, by going into a trance or simulating a trance, pretended to hold communion with the spirits, that was the kind of conjuration which is referred to in the Witchcraft Act.» — cita al recorder para mostrar dónde ponía la ley el delito: en fingir el trance, de modo que la acusación no tenía que probar que el fenómeno fuera falso, solo que se pretendiera tenerlo.

«Evidently, the law was out to get her.» — su lectura del proceso, dicha sin rodeos: rechazadas las pruebas y rechazada la sesión de comprobación, concluye que la ley iba tras ella.

«The answer may lie in the words reported as being spoken by Chief Constable A.C. West of Portsmouth, where the seance that was raided by the police took place: ‘In 1941 Mrs Duncan was reported for having transgressed the security laws when she foretold the loss of one of His Majesty’s ships before the fact was made public. She is an unmitigated humbug and pest.’» — adjudica al jefe de policía A.C. West de Portsmouth el motivo real que ella atribuye a la persecución: Duncan había anunciado el hundimiento de un buque de guerra antes de que se hiciera público.

«Mrs Duncan may have been a pest to the authorities, but she was evidently not a humbug.» — concede la mitad del insulto y niega la otra: molesta para las autoridades sí, farsante no.

«In June 1951 the Fraudulent Mediums Act became law, and the old Witchcraft Act was finally repealed.» — fecha la reforma: la Fraudulent Mediums Act de junio de 1951 deroga por fin la Witchcraft Act.

«At long last, witches were free to practise and openly acknowledge the Old Religion.» — lee la derogación como el hecho que hace posible todo lo demás: hasta 1951 las brujas no podían practicar ni reconocer públicamente la Old Religion.

«Whether or not the legislators realized this when they passed the Act is doubtful.» — y le pone de inmediato su reserva: duda de que los legisladores supieran lo que estaban habilitando.

«He described the gods whom the witches worshipped – not Satan, but the oldest gods of all, the powers of fertility and death.» — resume lo que la prensa de 1952 divulgó de los dioses del culto, y el punto es la negativa: no Satán, sino los dioses más antiguos, los poderes de la fertilidad y de la muerte.

«Nudity was considered to be obscene.» — sitúa el obstáculo social que hacía impublicable el material: en aquella sociedad la desnudez ritual se leía como obscenidad.

«In some quarters of the occult world, however, he was referred to with bated breath as ‘The Master Therion’ (the Great Beast) and regarded as the supreme magician of modern times.» — registra la reputación de Crowley en el mundo oculto de entonces, y la registra como habla ajena: el Master Therion tenido por el mago supremo del siglo.

«However, Crowley had taken the precaution of naming a very readable author, John Symonds, as his literary executor.» — atribuye a la previsión del propio Crowley el que su figura llegara al público: nombró albacea literario a un autor legible.

«Hence he was well able to handle the material which he duly inherited and to produce a book which was the first real study of one of the most remarkable personalities of the twentieth century.» — y por eso data en The Great Beast de Symonds el primer estudio serio de Crowley, que es lo que puso el ocultismo contemporáneo en circulación.

«Some readers were shocked, but many more were fascinated – and visitors to the Witches’ Mill in the Isle of Man looked with particular interest at the contents of one of the show-cases, which contained a charter granted by Aleister Crowley to Gerald Gardner to operate a lodge of Crowley’s magical fraternity, the Ordo Templi Orientis.» — consigna la pieza que ligaba la nueva brujería con la tradición ocultista previa, y la consigna como objeto de vitrina: el charter de la Ordo Templi Orientis concedido por Crowley a Gardner, expuesto en el Witches' Mill.

«Back in 1949 he had published a novel called High Magic’s Aid, on the title-page of which he describes himself as ‘SCRIRE. O.T.O. 4 = 7.’» — data en 1949 High Magic's Aid y hace notar que Gardner se identificaba en la portada con su grado de la O.T.O., no con el culto de brujas.

«It has been said, however, that nothing can stand in the way of an idea whose time has arrived.» — la fórmula con que explica la coincidencia de los tres factores: la idea llegó cuando le tocaba.

«‘Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will,’ said Crowley – a definition which at once removes it from the realm of superstition and folklore.» — cita la definición de magia de Crowley y sostiene que es la que saca la práctica del terreno de la superstición y el folklore.

«These, then, were in my opinion the three factors which concurred in the year 1951 to begin the rebirth of witchcraft in modern times:» — enuncia su tesis del capítulo, marcada como opinión propia: tres factores concurrieron en 1951 —la derogación de la ley, el museo de la Isla de Man y la difusión de la literatura ocultista— y de ahí arranca el renacimiento.

«The lineage of modern witchcraft is traceable.» — su premisa genealógica: la brujería moderna no aparece de la nada, se le puede seguir el linaje documental.

«This last book has probably been the most influential and most remarkable of all his writings.» — adjudica a Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches el mayor peso de toda la obra de Leland.

«However, Leland was in his sixties and happily married, nor is there any suggestion in his biography that he was ever a womanizer (though admittedly it was written by his devoted niece).» — objeta la sospecha de que Maddalena fuera amante de Leland, y pone ella misma el límite de su descargo: la biografía la escribió una sobrina devota.

«But having urged it on Maddalena, my collector of folklore, while she was leading a wandering life in Tuscany, to make an effort to obtain or recover something of the kind, I at last received from her, on January 1st, 1897, from Colle, Val d’Elsa, near Siena, the MS. entitled Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.» — cita a Leland contando la procedencia del manuscrito, con fecha y lugar, y de paso deja ver que el texto se obtuvo porque él lo encargó.

«We have, therefore, to take Aradia as we find it, as recorded by Maddalena with Leland’s comments.» — su regla de lectura para Aradia: se toma como está, con la mediación de Maddalena y los comentarios de Leland encima, sin suponer un original limpio detrás.

«Nevertheless, a picture emerges from it of an ancient and secret cult, La Vecchia Religione, ‘the Old Religion’, with its distinctive beliefs and practices, time-worn until it has become like some ruined building of olden days with its last remaining stones gilded by the setting sun.» — describe lo que a su juicio emerge del texto: no supersticiones sueltas sino un culto antiguo y secreto, la Vecchia Religione, gastado hasta parecer una ruina.

«The basic belief of this religion was that the first and most powerful deity was feminine – the goddess Diana.» — la doctrina central que le adjudica: la primera y más poderosa deidad era femenina, Diana.

«This concept is, I think, something that has become grafted on to a much older story.» — y marca como añadidura tardía la figura de Lucifer hermano y consorte: a su juicio está injertada sobre un relato mucho más viejo.

«It will be seen how the two original principles of light and darkness in the witches’ legend correspond to the Chinese concept of the primordial Yang and Yin in the I Ching.» — propone leer el par luz-oscuridad del mito de las brujas como equivalente del Yang y el Yin del I Ching.

«Pitying the sufferings of the poor and oppressed at the hands of their masters, she sent Aradia upon earth to be the first witch and to teach witchcraft to those who would learn, thus setting up a secret cult in opposition to Christianity.» — resume el mito de fundación: Diana manda a Aradia a la tierra a enseñar brujería a los oprimidos, y el culto nace como oposición al cristianismo.

«The whole manuscript is a fascinating collection of scraps of folklore, evidently by different hands originally and from various sources, yet all with the same theme: La Vecchia Religione, the Old Religion, which evidently really is a religion and not merely a collection of superstitions.» — su juicio sobre la naturaleza del manuscrito, con el desorden incluido: retazos de folklore de manos y fuentes distintas, y aun así una religión y no un montón de supersticiones.

«It was not until the twentieth century had begun and the world had seen the great and catastrophic changes brought about by the First World War that a society very different from that of Leland’s day was shown a new concept of the real meaning of witchcraft.» — fecha el cambio de concepción de la brujería después de la Primera Guerra, cuando una sociedad ya distinta de la de Leland recibe la lectura de Murray.

«Doreen Valiente was one of the founders of modern Wicca» — de la solapa de la edición: sitúa a la autora dentro del objeto que estudia.

«The right of Doreen Valiente to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her» — de la página de créditos; es aquí el testimonio de atribución más firme.