Editorial

The year seems to be galloping away at a fair rate; Lughnasadh over already, and the fruits and nuts are beginning to ripen on vine and branch. The weather has been quite humid of late, we don't seem to have been blessed with hot balmy days, but then again it hasn't rained as much this year!

We're organising a picnic for all Fáinne attendees and their family and/or friends, this Sunday, August 13th, at 2pm by the Wellington Monument in the Phoenix Park. Bring whatever food and drink you want to consume. It's meant to be a pleasant social event, where we can just hang out, eat, and drink. It's a fair weather event, so if it's raining hard you can expect it will be called off. Phone Silja (number on the back) on the day itself (not too early!) if the weather is iffy. Our topic this evening is Ritual Nudity, and many thanks to Jon Hanna for the article.

Per normal, we need suggestions for topics to discuss, plus people to write an article about them for the newsletter. Also we need volunteers to do the opening of the meetings; don't be shy, we're interested in seeing all traditions - so let us see your way of doing things!

Ádh mór!
Maura McHugh

Ritual Nudity

One of the most frequent questions one is asked as an out-of-the-broom-closet Witch is "do you have nude rituals?". Like most questions about the Craft the answer is a disappointing "some of us do".

The persecutors of the Burning Times were under no such illusions. It was obvious that witches were naked at their rituals, just look at that woodcut if you don't believe us.

Even here though there is some disagreement, some of the woodcuts show people wearing robes. The earliest versions of the conspiracy theory accusing witches of wrongdoing stated clearly that witches were robed for the most part, only becoming naked towards the end of the rite when there would be an orgy. (It's worth noting that this has also been said of just about every religion that was ever practised in Europe before the Enlightenment.)

That is the main point of the nudity question from the point of view of both the Medieval Inquisitor and the more sensationalist-minded modern day Cowan. It's the sex thing. It all seems a bit sordid to a particular mindset (a mindset that doesn't seem able to stop thinking about it nonetheless).

Reports of nudity amongst witches written by outsiders have been crude ("I'm not interested in seeing [libelled individual's] white arse dancing under a laburnum tree", from a recent article), or pornographic, or shocked, or shocked but still finding a need to go on about it (did the Malleus Maleficarum really need to say the same thing three times?), or at best congratulatory from a rake's point of view. They all focus on sex.

(I realise I am leaving other Pagans out, but I'd rather leave you out than accidentally misrepresent you through my lack of knowledge, so please accept my apologies.)

For less sexual representations of nudity we have to go to Rousseau's "Nobel Savage". This concept was an influence on the Nudist movement of the turn of the century, of which Gerard Gardner was a member. Or else we can go to Eden, the Golden Age in Judeo-Christian mythology in which it was okay to be naked because Adam and Eve had no knowledge of their nakedness, they were living in a pre-sentient state in which they were not differentiated by moral understanding from other animals. Here at last we come to a reasonable reason for being naked. It's natural.

It has a few flaws as a reason though. For one thing rituals are most certainly not natural in this sense. They are artificial, the invention of human minds in contact with or trying to contact the divine. We use knives in our rituals because they are one of the first tools we ever had. They make us different to other animals and give us a power they don't have. So why not wear clothes?

Many opponents of ritual nudity argue that Gardner invented it (as he of course invented anything in Witchcraft we don't personally like). Certainly his membership of the Nudist movement would have been more than enough inspiration for this decision. As a Nudist Gardner would have felt that it was natural to be naked, and if reviving or inventing (I'll leave which for someone else to write about) a nature religion it would seem sensible that nudity would feature in it.

When examining the likely authenticity of a modern Craft practice it is common to compare the practice to that of indigenous religions that did not suffer a period of being driven completely underground. A search for ritual nudity among such faiths is not very fruitful however. As a rule people dress up for rituals, not undress. Even those tribes that normally go unclothed through their everyday life tend to dress for rituals. So if the Craft is a sister-faith of indigenous faiths around the world it is rare in regular ritual nudity.

Where these faiths do seem to have ritual nudity is either as part of some Shamanic practices (sweatlodges being an obvious example) or for initiation ceremonies.

This is also the practice of many modern Covens and Solitaries. It seems that nudity is practised less and less in most rituals. However it still has a place in initiations (since initiations are rebirths, and we are born naked, as well as the part dressing and undressing can have in the rite itself) and it is very useful in some Shamanic and Magickal practices for the simple reason that it works.

Jon Hanna

Thought for the Month

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go:

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

William Shakespeare

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