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| The look, the glamour, not the ideology |
My humble opinion is that the modern witchcraft movement, like all magical systems, balks at the idea of being slotted into any of society's convenient categories. Convenience & safety may dictate that it is best to take advantage of societal protection given to religion in many parts of the world. I have posted before on my discomfort at describing what we do as a spirituality, & describing ourselves as a secret society is to invite both ridicule & suspicion. Our deepest secrets are anyway open to everyone & unstateable in human language, & to assign our way to spirit alone is disingenuous.
I think our witchcraft may actually best be compared to a martial art. What I mean by this is that I feel the kind of equilibrium & mental state sought by the martial artist is almost the same as that sought by the sorcerer. The ultimate target of every magical act is almost always the magician himself: oh there I go, letting another 'secret' out of the bag. I could just tear out my own tongue.
With this confusion of identity & aim comes a confusion of principles. Naturally those who say witchcraft is a religion seek a public system of ethics, which frequently is the inadequate & tedious 'law of three,' & it's variants & amendments. The Wiccan Rede is another ethical principle guaranteed to fail as a public relations exercise while ensuring crippling fear of action in the practitioner. Witches are further hampered by an internalised inferiority towards the scriptural traditions prevalent in our society & a fear of failing to integrate all things, another major magical goal. Oh dear, I really am letting lots of cats out of bags today. If I could pronounce any of the words & didn't fancy them all, I would probably be a Heathen, since they're not shy of pronouncing someone their enemy, an action which my life experience has taught me to be sympathetic towards. To put it in a more witchly way, to integrate all things in a living system, some must die. This is inescapable & natural.
To find a system of principles to underpin this system of conscious homeostasis it is unfortunately necessary to look to the East. The writings of many martial artists can be nourishing to the witch. Such works as the Book of Five Rings & the writings of Morihei Ueshiba deal with such things as correspondence, integration & timing, which subjects fill many an appendix of a paperback with a crescent moon on the spine.
A system also from the East & one which I personally find useful for it's apparent simplicity, is Mao Tdw Tung's principles of guerilla warfare, which I find I am using extensively in my current run-in with my 'manager':
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, on the basis of his comprehensive analysis of the enemy and ourselves, Comrade Mao Tse-tung laid down the following strategic principle for the Communist-led Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies: "Guerrilla warfare is basic, but lose no chance for mobile warfare under favourable conditions. " (2) He raised guerrilla warfare to the level of strategy, because, if they are to defeat a formidable enemy, revolutionary armed forces should not fight with a reckless disregard for the consequences when there is a great disparity between their own strength and their enemy's. If they do, they will suffer serious losses and bring heavy setbacks to the revolution. Guerrilla warfare is the only way to mobilize and apply the whole strength of the people against the enemy, the only way to expand our forces in the course of the war, deplete and weaken the enemy, gradually change the balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves, switch from guerrilla to mobile warfare, and finally defeat the enemy.
In the initial period of the Second Revolutionary Civil War, Comrade Mao Tse-tung enumerated the basic tactics of guerrilla warfare as follows:
The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue. (3)
Guerrilla war tactics were further developed during the War of Resistance Against Japan. In the base areas behind the enemy lines, everybody joined the fighting — the troops and the civilian population, men and women, old and young; every single village fought. Various ingenious methods of fighting were devised, including "sparrow warfare", (4) land-mine warfare, tunnel warfare, sabotage warfare, and guerrilla warfare on lakes and rivers.
In the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japan and during the Third Revolutionary Civil War, we switched our strategy from that of guerrilla warfare was the primary form of fighting to that of mobile warfare in the light of the changes in the balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves. By the middle, and especially the later, period of the Third Revolutionary Civil War, our operations had developed into large-scale mobile warfare, including the storming of big cities.
War of annihilation is the fundamental guiding principle of our military operations. This guiding principle should be put into effect regardless of whether mobile or guerrilla warfare is the primary form of fighting. It is true that in guerrilla warfare much should be done to disrupt and harass the enemy, but it is still necessary actively to advocate and fight battles of annihilation whenever conditions are favourable. In mobile warfare superior forces must be concentrated in every battle so that the enemy forces can be wiped out one by one. Comrade Mao Tse-tung has pointed out:
A battle in which the enemy is routed is not basically decisive in a contest with a foe of great strength. A battle of annihilation, on the other hand, produces a great and immediate impact on any enemy. Injuring all of a man's ten fingers is not as effective as chopping off one, and routing ten enemy divisions is not as effective as annihilating one of them. (5)
Battles of annihilation are the most effective way of hitting the enemy; each time one of his brigades or regiments is wiped out, he will have one brigade or regiment less, and the enemy forces will be demoralized and will disintegrate. By fighting battles of annihilation, our army is able to take prisoners of war or capture weapons from the enemy in every battle, and the morale of our army rises, our army units get bigger, our weapons become better, and our combat effectiveness continually increases.
Since appearing at the disciplinary hearing I have also brought a grievance, since my 'manager's' sidekick decided to have a go at me for no reason. I have now gone strangely quiet. They're plainly wondering what I'm going to do next. This is exactly the kind of strategy advocated by Comrade Mao Tse Tung!
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