(05-14-2024, 07:20 AM)Ninurta Wrote: I know for fact that "witchcraft" has been used in my family, but I don't sweat it. As a matter of fact, all of my sisters claim I'M a witch, because I sometimes know things that I shouldn't. But I'm not a witch... it's just a thing.
What has always bumfuzzled me is what constitutes "witchcraft". For example, how is the "magick" involved in expelling evil spirits any different from the "magick" involved in summoning them? I've seen videos of a lot of exorcisms and house cleansings and whatnot. There is always some guy or gal, often in robes, roaming around, tossin' crosses for talismans and throwing "holy water" all over the place, all the while chanting magickal incantations intended to expel evil spirits... so how is that different from the rituals, talismans, incantations, and stuff used to call them in in the first place?
Is "magick" sometimes NOT "magick", even though it involves the exact same processes and materials? Is it only "magick" if it's the other guy doing it?
There are a whole lot of religions around these days, most of them pointing their fingers at all the others and saying "y'all is EVIL!", and I can't fathom why, if they are themselves doing pretty much the same things as all of the "y'alls" that are doing evil.
I reckon it's just a human thing. Way back when, in the Middle East, there were also religions abounding, and all of them thought that all of the rest were doing evil, even though they were mostly all doing the same thing, just for different "gods". Sometimes, a "god's" territory was measured in miles, and ended as soon as you got to the boundary of the next kingdom over., because that kingdom had it's own god or gods.
Mountain folk don't, or at least they didn't used to, when I was young, draw as stark a line between witchery and Bible-totin'. Everyone had their own little brews for what ailed ya, and if you didn't have one, the Granny Woman that lived alone in the cabin in the woods... you know, that old woman that knew the use of every herb, plant, and combination thereof... probably had a cure for what ailed you. It didn't mean she was cavorting with Satan, it just meant that if you were sick, she might be closer than a trip to the big city for a doctor call.
There were lots of spells and bindings and whatnot handed down among generations, and no one believed they were going against God to use them. If they did, they wouldn't be using them.
Some of them even used Bible verses for magicking. Let me tell you a little story.
When I was real little, 2 or 3 years old, my mom was washing out a fishbowl in a bathtub when it broke, and the glass sliced her wrist pretty deep. There was blood all over the place. She screamed for Dear Old Dad, and he came running in, saw what had happened, grabbed her wrist and recited a particular verse out of Isaiah I believe. I was too little to remember the event, but mom swore, and still swears to this day, that him reciting that verse caused her to stop bleeding long enough to get everything wrapped up and carted off to the emergency room for real live doctorin'. She believed in it so strongly that she marked that verse in her Bible, in case any of us young-'uns ever got to leaking out way too much blood.
Is that "witchery"? I dunno. Is God just waiting and hankering to smite us real good over it? Again, I dunno. I reckon that'll be between us and God when we get to the Pearly Gates.
If your mom lived and breathed long enough to birth YOU, then I doubt there was any "sacrifice" of her by your granny. I don't think folks can be sacrificed against their will unless they are killed in the process. Joe down the street can't just up and sell my soul to the Devil without my say-so and agreement. Oh, he could tie me across an altar and cut my throat I suppose, but that isn't a sacrifice of my soul, or of ME. It's just a sacrifice of my body, and bodies are only temporary and fleeting anyhow.Once my soul was freed of that body, well, Old Joe would learn whole news ways of fearing, for the rest of his natural and unnatural life, and the Devil would be nowhere to be found if he knew what was good for him.
On top of that, your Granny is in control of her destiny. Whether she makes it to heaven or not is not for either you or I to say, that's between her and her Dear Lord. There have been many a person who has done horrific things early on, and then done a turn around later in life and skidded in past Home Plate. We are not the judges of that, only God is.
So, there is always hope!
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You know, I was just saying this to someone today.
Jesus turning water into wine. How is this not magick?
Giving sight to the blind. Raising the dead. Speaking in angelic tongues. Prophecies.
These all fall under magical in my opinion. Heck, God creating the universe, and all of us. I mean, that's all a form of magic. And I'm starting to learn that.
Ffs, the phone in our damn hands.....magick; in a way.
After having a few days (and again, I wrote there is more to the story. I had tracked something in particular that I haven't shared here), I have come to accept, pretty much as you have stated it here.
I'm starting to accept this. This was more of my strict as iron on us kids, and years of manipulation from her, and the abuse she put on me and my sisters, hearing how perfect she was, and how we could never live up to her standards-- lifetime of hearing all of these, and then to find this out. This was a slap in the face moment for me.
I never feared it.
He who is within and all that.
It was more like, everything I thought I knew was a lie, kind of moment. It helps me process to write. I chose to share this in hopes of some sage advice.
I came to these same conclusions, pretty much in the last day.
I see my granny in a whole new light now, but still not sure what to think. I know she loved Jesus. She's the reason why I know Him. She was the one that had us in church when we were real little. As I've stated there is so much more to this story, more personal stuff that links up with my OP.
I admit that I've been naive. I had my head in the clouds for a very long time in life.
They live.
We sleep.
We sleep.