Forgive me if my tone sounds harsh. Actually, I speak quite literally and with great respect. These girlfriends of mine were Wiccans. They worshipped earthly things.
One of them cast a spell to cure me of a nasty sunburn after a long day at the beach. I’m not sure what it consisted of exactly. It involved a charmed stone dropped into a glass of water. The glass was placed next to my bed and – wouldn’t you know it? The bee-sting itch of my nuclear sunburn was gone that very night.
Where gels, sprays and various lotions had failed, a simple gesture from a witch garnered me my first good night’s sleep in a week.
Maybe it was the passage of time that did the trick. Maybe it was the natural healing process. It didn’t matter to me at all. I looked at the small stone sunk to the bottom of the glass and the infernal irritation was eased. If my girlfriend’s magic consisted of nothing more than parlor tricks and psychology, that was good enough for me.
Or maybe it really was magic. Who am I to say?
Another of these girlfriends introduced me to mystical patch of woods and streams in Hallowell. For her, it was a place of charms and magic. For me, it was a cool place to hang out and walk over ancient stone bridges. She spoke of the spiritual properties of crystals while I skipped rocks across the water. She meditated and collected leaves while I looked for lizards under logs.
The third of my bewitching girlfriends brought me runes and explained what they meant. I still have a few lying around.
I had wonderful times with these witches. Not one of them threatened to turn me into a frog or a bug, even when I misbehaved. Not one of them spoke of powerful forces channeled from dark places. None beckoned me to unholy masses. They worshipped the Earth and the powers of nature where others worship deities or icons.
It makes no difference to me. It never has and it never will. People worship gods I’ve never heard of and people worship trees. I don’t understand the most simple of religions. Why should I worry myself about any of them?
People have been picking on witches for hundreds of years. They were burned and hanged and tormented, mostly because they were misunderstood. With misunderstanding comes fear and resentment and then real evil is afoot. It was afoot in the days of scourges and it’s afoot right now.
I’m confounded about the fuss over Harry Potter. I haven’t read any of the books, but I read similar stories in my youth. I tore through tales of sorcery, science fiction and horror. I read tales of magic, murder and marauding. Fairy tales all of them, when you get right down to it. I know it and most children know it.
Not once as a wee lad did I feel myself succumbing to a magnet pull of demonic forces come to claim my soul. Not once did I feel darkened by make-believe characters or any of their hocus-pocus. What I felt was the compulsion to read more and to strengthen the muscle of the imagination.
There are efforts under way to keep Harry Potter out of the hands of children. These efforts tell the kids that what you find in particular books is inherently bad. At a Harry Potter protest a few years ago, I saw a young girl hurl the book away from her as if she had been burned. Her father applauded the action. I wonder what kind of reaction the child would have if she were to handle a grownup tale of hocus-pocus. What kind of injury would Shakespeare inflict on her delicate hands?
At the same protest, the always controversial Rev. Doug Taylor screamed: “The Bible does not condone any witch! All witches are an abomination!”
My friend who cured me of sunburn and often baked me bread will be disappointed to hear that. She lives a wholesome life and is referred to as an abomination.
Madness, all of it. Ancient fears and misunderstandings played out in the modern world. Censorship and pure folly. Why teach children that those with opposing ideas are inherently bad? Why cripple a child’s imagination by placing an embargo on what she can read?
And why, for the love of God, are people still picking on witches? We have plenty of genuine evil in the world: murderers, rapists and all varieties of cold-hearted fiend. There’s a faction out there getting jumpy about some bespectacled kid with an assortment of strange friends. They’re getting feisty over the archaic fear of an innocuous belief that predates most modern religions.
So, I’m all grown up now and married to a young lady who knows nothing of Wicca. She treats my sunburns with over-the-counter creams and lectures me about staying out on the beach too long. The magic of marriage instead of the magic of the Earth.
I think we’ll go see Harry Potter as soon as it hits the drive-in. It’s not my kind of movie, really, but you know? Sometimes you just have to be bad.
Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.
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