About Italian tradition of La Vecchia Religione (the "Old Religion")
by Claudio Simeoni
The "Old Religion"
They were violent Sorcerers. They were working for the building of the future of the GODS, but they didn't have compassion (they didn't live with the same passions) for the building of the future of Human Beings and for the conditions in which Human Beings lived. Human Beings bent their knees to the slaughterer of Sodom and Gomorrah, and so Sorcerers despised them. "You're on your knees" the Sorcerers said "continue on that way!". Those Sorcerers only cared about their battle.
In this dark period, there was someone who fought the battle in favour of Human Beings. A titanic battle. A battle against christian horror, but even against the Sorcerers who melted their paths with the GODS. Those fighters were the WITCHES. Little women who, clenching their fists, made themselves compact in building the infinite. The Sorcerers' battle was important, it changed the future in which Human Beings would build their lives; the Sorcerers were calling the GODS in order to help Human Beings who were becoming GODS themselves. A great battle. Really, a great battle. But who was fighting everyday the battle of surviving? Who was trying to feed her hungry children? Who was trying to heal the wounds? Who helped other women in giving birth to children? Who?
They, the WOMEN, were doing all this!
For the period from the carnage by Charlemagne until 1789, when I say women, I say WITCHES!
People don't understand the meaning of being bought and sold. To be sold to a husband, to have to bear ten, twelve, fifteen and even eighteen hours of work everyday. To give birth to children, one after the other, with one chance in two to die. To live with a husband who beat his wife everyday, when he was at home ( there is still a song that is sung in tours, by mountain choirs and by companies, in which they say that her husband is a good man because he beats her with a cudgel only on Sundays). People don't understand the meaning of being blackmailed by the priest while he's raping their children. Despite all this, it is necessary for the women to build the future. To harvest herbs for the soup. To wash clothes for the master. To go to mass. To overburden their own shoulders with wood and plod along footpath. To look after the children so that the future can reproduce itself.
These women became WITCHES in order to survive. They learned the perception to escape from the everyday anguish. They learned incantations against bad luck and they learned to curse with little repetitive rites. Those rites worked. They worked a lot. Rites and incantations were laden with anger and anguish. They were imprecations against the horror of life. They were the call to the witches so that they would awake. The power of their dreaming led them into worlds that dissolved their anguish and torments.
This is Luserna's witch to whom a Sorcerer (a strange sorcerer for that time) gave a small pan with which she could call the spirits in order to escape and fly away through the chimney, after she had said aloud her aim:
(in local language)
Onto bisonto sotto terra sconto Varda de no tocar Ne di quà, ne di là frrr! Au pa kemech!
Translated in English:
Greasy once, greasy twice hidden under the ground, be careful: don't touch there nor here! Frrr! Up through the chimney!
Surely those invocations worked.
They flew with their dreaming bodies into unknown worlds. In these worlds the everyday weariness was dissolved and they were everything they wanted to be.
They learned the Being Power by themselves, disciplining their angers, defending themselves from violence as far as possible, practicing their controlled madness towards husbands, priests and authorities who thought to them as to livestock.
Mothers, Grandmothers and female friends sometimes taught the art of going out the physic body; their luminous body often had the form of a bee, a moth or a straw stalk. Other women learned the art of healing, like Margherita Ardizzone who said, during her trial, that people had said she was a witch because she was a healer, and cited the episode that mostly impressed her fellow villagers, about a toad: "I desiccated a toad and put it on the eye of one of our oxen that was ill!" That ox was important. It was so important that forced her to concentrate her efforts and attention on it, so that she can preserve her own life. Where was her husband? Was he getting drunk?
They, the women, preserved life renouncing their own. While women were renouncing their lives, male human Beings were playing the game of ownership. While they were playing the game of ownership, female Human Beings were building a tradition of surviving. While native australian women worked two, three hours a day to live, women who lived in countries like Italy worked twelve, fourteen hours a day because, after the sunset, they often were in the shed, weaving baskets out of reeds, repairing sweaters and socks, even while drunk old men were speaking only about buttocks and tits.
You bet their curses, spells, incantations worked! All these were filled with the women's hate, passion, desire of facing life: all these were filled with AIM.
Today, a Sorcerer who engages himself in Tension Lines is very sought-after. He can speak about strange worlds and mysterious visions. He has seen things that only the GODS can see. He is amazed by what he has seen. A Sorcerer who engages himself in Tension Lines finds Human Beings' lives very miserable.
The Sorcerer has nourished the great plans of GODS; plans of FREEDOM. Those plans would have failed, if women hadn't become witches, bearing the everyday horror on their skins.
So, why are we astonished, when Diana's eyes are fierce as she preserves life? Those eyes are full of the pain and anger to which christian horror has forced millions and millions of women, and just few women managed to relieve their suffering using Diana's hazel stick (or broom) and flying into the infinite worlds of perception in which GODS recognized women as GODDESSES.
This is the OLD RELIGION!
This is the NEW RELIGION!
They are the same thing: they are the breath of FREEDOM that goes from Human Beings to GODS, while Human Beings are taking themselves away from the submission in order to look at the unknown as a challenge.
This is the Italian tradition, but, as far as Witchcraft is concerned, it's the same the whole world over. FREEDOM doesn't care about borders. Borders are useful only in order to build fences and destroy Human Beings' divine spirit.
When Human Beings dream that they are flying, some of them are building strategies to learn to fly. These are WITCHES and SORCERERS who are planning the INFINITE!
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Write only in Italian, please! Claudio Simeoni Mechanic Apprentice Sorcerer Keeper of the Antichrist P.le Parmesan 8 30175 Marghera Venice Italy Tel. 3277862784 E-mail: claudiosimeoni@libero.it
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