Witch Versus Warlock

No, that's not the title of the latest Hollywood attempt to capitalize on the popularity of witchcraft, released just in time for Halloween. It's the latest courtroom drama to emerge from the Salem witchcraft scene.

The case pits witch Lori Sforza, who goes by the professional name Lori Bruno, against warlock Christian Day. At a hearing yesterday, Sforza won the first round and was granted a protective order against Day after accusing him of telephone and online harassment that she alleges has gone on for the last three years.

During testimony that at times became heated, Sforza accused Day of making incessant phone calls and humiliating her on Facebook. Day’s lawyer countered that the dispute stems from a onetime business partnership that fell apart. Day and Sforza both run occult shops in Salem.

I will point out that whether or not the dispute stems from a business partnership gone bad makes no difference in a harassment case. You simply don't harass or threaten people, no matter how upset you are or how good you think your reason might be. But I know from personal experience that this basic principle is quite hard for warlocks to comprehend.

During the hearing, Sforza reportedly told the judge that she can see into her own future, saying, ‘‘That’s why I'm here today.’’ Sforza, 75, uses the business name Lori Bruno and says she is a psychic witch who descends from a line of Italian witches. She also leads a pagan church in Salem.

Day, 45, who now lives in Louisiana, owns occult shops in Salem and New Orleans. Described on his website as the ‘‘world’s best-known warlock,’’ he organizes the Festival of the Dead in Salem, a series of occult-themed events every October that culminates in a Witches’ Halloween Ball.

The judge hearing the case said he was dismayed by the volume of late-night calls Day made to Sforza. After hearing the decision, Day, who didn’t testify, denied making the calls and then stormed out of the courthouse, according to The Globe. He told reporters he would appeal the order.

There's a reason I've been known to refer to the Salem witchcraft scene as "the clown shoes of magick" on this blog, and these folks and their associates are why. I have nothing against anyone who happens to live in Salem, Massachusetts - as a matter of fact, I have a number of OTO brothers and sisters who reside there of whom I think quite highly.

When "Warlock" Means "Douchebag"

As anyone with access to TMZ should be aware of by now, a campaign is currently underway to rehabilitate the word "warlock" as a positive and acceptible term for a magician, spellcaster, or witch. This campaign is being led by certain eyeliner-abusing Salem witch who is far too well-known around these parts, and probably everywhere else as well. The term also gained media prominence back in February when Charlie Sheen claimed on national television that in firing him from "Two and a Half Men" over his bizarre comments and behavior the network had "picked a fight with a warlock."

In many television series "warlock" has been used to mean "male witch," while the Wiccan community has insisted for years that the word is not gendered and instead derives from a term meaning "oathbreaker." In a previous thread it was suggested that another possible derivation was from a Norse word meaning "spirit-caller," which could properly be applied to practitioners of many magical paths. However, the wikipedia article on the word's history and usage references the Oxford English Dictionary, which does not accept the latter etymology.

The commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English wǣrloga meaning "oathbreaker" or "deceiver." A derivation from the Old Norse varð-lokkur, "caller of spirits," has also been suggested; however, the Oxford English Dictionary considers this etymology inadmissible.

The Oxford English Dictionary also provides the following meanings of the word: Warlock v1 Obs. (ex. dial.) rare, also warloke: To secure (a horse) as with a fetterlock. Warlock v2: To bar against hostile invasion.

While the idea of rehabilitating the term may have an appeal to some, it strikes me as a pointless distraction. There are so many better and more effective things that magicians could be doing besides waging public relations campaigns over the meaning of a single word that the mind boggles. Furthermore, it should be obvious that if you're pretty much the only person out there calling yourself a "warlock" and you go around acting like a douchebag, that's the association people are going to remember.

Too Many Witches?

Fresh off deciding against renaming Witchcraft Heights Elementary School, the City Council of Salem, Massachusetts is considering moving to limit the number of psychic and witchcraft-oriented businesses that may operate within the town. The Council voted to relax previously existing restrictions in 2007, which probably accelerated Salem's transformation from a charming seaside community into one big witchcraft-themed tourist trap. Incidentally, as I've noted before this transformation is completely at odds with the historical record, which shows no real witches were ever executed during the famous witch trials and and that little evidence exists connecting the city to real witchcraft of any sort prior to the modern era.

Salem psychic Barbara Szafranski is in favor of new regulations, noting that inexperienced and untrained people looking to call themselves psychics have popped up all over town since the old rules were changed.

“It’s like little ants running all over the place, trying to get a buck,” said Szafranski, 75, who quit her job as an accountant in 1991 to open Angelica of the Angels, a store that sells angel figurines and crystals, and provides psychic readings.

She says she has lost business since the licensing change.

“Many of them are not trained,” she said of her rivals. “They don’t understand that when you do a reading you hold a person’s life in your hands.”

Roots of the "Salem Tradition"

I was looking through my comments today, and lo and behold, eyeliner-abuser and "World's Most Famous Warlock" Christian Day himself has made an appearance!

Now I sometimes go back and forth on whether or not I should be bashing fellow magical practitioners, no matter how ridiculous their wardrobes and makeup happen to be. There are a couple of reasons for this, most importantly that there are so few people in the magical community that infighting can prove especially problematic. As an example of this, I think of the Thelemic community, which throughout the 1980's and into the 1990's flamed itself over who the "real OTO" was instead of getting together and doing anything productive.

So I was gratified to see this comment from Christian:

What boggles my mind is that you're still talking about all this weeks and weeks after this dropped out of the news cycle. I just love that I can inspire you. I wish I could say the same about you, but all this prattle has done is made me want to talk about me more. :)

Apparently he likes all the publicity, and I know I like all the LOLs. So now my mind is at ease.

Worst. Ritual. Ever.

Salem, Massachusetts is an odd place. The town is famous because a bunch of innocent people were mistaken for witches and executed there in 1692. So its fame derives from the killing of fake witches, not the presence of real ones. If you were looking for a town in which you might find the genuine article based solely on history, Salem wouldn't be it. Despite this, the city has transformed itself into perhaps the largest witchcraft-themed tourist trap on the entire planet over the last several decades.

Judging from the recent events surrounding the hexing of Charlie Sheen, it's clear to me that despite the executions all those years ago plenty of the town's fake witches never left. In fact, they appear to have founded their own fake tradition, in which effective spell-casting takes a back seat to looking spooky, wandering around in Renaissance Festival attire, and dredging up all the free tabloid press coverage and tourist dollars they can muster.

To Support Warlocks, Boycott This Awful Film

The serial eyeliner abuse chronicles continue!

Fresh off of getting a bunch of press for cursing Charlie Sheen, Salem's own warlock-wannabe, psychic-for-hire, and skull fetishist Christian Day is on TMZ today calling for all warlock supporters to boycott the new film Your Highness on the grounds that it, yes, defames warlocks.

Salem-based spellcaster Christian Day -- who even runs his own little witchcraft shop called HEX -- is pissed at Hollywood for its constant negative portrayals of warlocks in movies ... and now, he's calling for an all-out boycott of "Your Highness" for its anti-warlock messages.

Christian calls the movie an "assault on taste" for casting a warlock "who hopes to deflower helpless virgins and rule the world" -- telling TMZ, "Hollywood continues to cast Witches and Warlocks as negative roles when we're the good guys and gals!"

Christian adds, "I hope people boycott this movie and movies like it so that Hollywood is inspired to release more positive films about Witches and Warlocks."

Apparently Day hasn't gotten the message that really, the last thing the magical community needs is its own Bill Donohue-esque sanctimonious blowhard.

Misuse of Magick

Those of you who have followed my blog for awhile know that most of the time when somebody claims this or that to be a misuse of magical powers I generally think they're full of it. I strongly believe that magick is a natural human ability, and that there's nothing wrong with using it for practical goals. The idea that using magick to achieve your goals somehow constitutes "cheating" is ridiculous, and I think it should generally be left up to individual magicians to decide which ethical system should guide their practices.

But then there's this.

A trio of Salem witches, offended by Hollywood hell-raiser Charlie Sheen’s proclamation that he is a “warlock,” are planning a spiritual housecleaning for the “Two and a Half Men” train wreck in the Witch City on Sunday.

“If he doesn’t get some spiritual help, he could end up dead,” said a witch who goes by the name of Lorelei. Just Lorelei. She’s hosting the Sheen-orcism at her witchcraft emporium Crow Haven Corner.

So what will you do Sunday, Loreliei?

“Sacrifice him,” deadpanned the witch, who was immediately chastised by her conjuring colleague Christian Day.

“We’re going to use high ritual and high magic to give him all the help he needs,” declared Christian.

I'm thinking that Loreliei's initial response there was the truth. Christian is just more media savvy and realized that it wouldn't play well in a news story. How do I know? Well, for one thing, "hexes" usually aren't considered "help" in modern parlance.