"A witch is someone who can see and command spirits..."
Witches
today do not typically worship the Judeo-Christian
God, or G-d. While some of the
Mayfairs, most notably Marguerite, Mary Beth, Stella, and Great Nananne,
practiced Vodou,
they werre also firmly rooted in
Christianity via their Catholic faith. The Mayfair family, including
Merrick,
remain Catholic today.
Cleopatra VII on Wikipedia
However,
witchcraft, or Wicca as is often called, takes issue with
various aspects of Christianity,
including but not limited to its historically documented tendency to
"borrow" from older
traditions and religions. Ancient
Egyptian practices were often sampled to entice people to convert to the
new Church. Below is a picture I
found that compares the imagery of Isis nursing Horus to the imagery of
Mary
holding the Baby Jesus.
Also,
I have included a portrait of Cleopatra VII, who was in fact
Macedonian but adopted the spiritual
practices of the country she ruled, Egypt. She was a devoted follower
of Isis all
her life, though there is nothing
that says she ever considered herself a witch.
Modern
wicca and witchcraft separate themselves from Christianity
as a whole. However, the blend of
the innate abilities of the Mayfair Witches, their knowledge of and
practice of Vodou
and their devotion to
their Catholic faith all combine to make an exotic combination of
mystery and power.
 |
| Mary and Jesus, the beginning of Christianity - Right |
Cleopatra VII on Wikipedia
Witches in Popular Culture Today
The
popular image of a witch today is of those who identify themselves
as Wiccans, or even Pagans.
Sections have been designated in bookstores for books on metaphysics and
New Age spirituality.
Many of those books concern the
practice of Wicca, the use of divination and the casting of spells -
magic.
The
practitioners of this earth-based spirituality have no dogma and no
religious
hierarchy, though many choose to
meet in covens with High Priestesses and High Priests, and the older
traditions have varying
degrees of adeptness assigned to
coven members. The ways Wicca is actually practiced is as varied as the
Wiccans themselves;
however, there are some basic tenets
of this spirituality that seem to be universal to witchcraft.
Of
course, there are the cauldron, broomstick, cape and pentacle (as
sacred to a Wiccan as the Crucifix
is to a Catholic), and the image of a witch brewing concoctions with
herbs and oils by
the light of a candle. The witch is
usually saying words that are the spell, and the words have to be
correct or said
with a particular delivery. Then
there is the magic circle, the elements, the directions, and the altar
itself.
These
are the tools and "trappings" of witchcraft. What is actually
going on is more profound, and it is
this deeper meaning that is central to the Mayfair Witches.
Wicca and the Mayfair Witches
The
witches who describe themselves as Wiccans often keep grimoires, or a
"Book of Shadows," in which
spellwork is recorded along with other information the witch may refer
to later on. Julien
Mayfair kept grimoires, found during
the renovation of First Street, and an assessment of them seems to
indicate that this
is the kind of information recorded
in them. It was described as being the same as what information about
witchcraft
was already widely available.
However,
the Mayfair Witches, for the most part, did not make a regular practice
of rites such as circle-casting, or
use divination tools such as Runes or Tarot cards to "see". This is
not
to say that no Mayfair has ever
tried these things; it is only to say that it was not common. Below
are some
examples of the times the Mayfairs
used what could be defined as witchcraft, particularly in a notable way.
Examples of Witchcraft among the Mayfair Witches
Suzanne
Mayfair called up the spirit Lasher by mistake in the circle of
stones.
A witch, according to the Talamasca,
can command spirits at will, which is exactly what Suzanne did. All of
her direct
descendants since have had this
ability, hence they are called the "Mayfair Witches". It is this very
ability that determines
which female child will be the next
Designee of the Legacy.
Marguerite
Mayfair commanded Lasher to try and animate the dead bodies of
slaves and their stillborns with no
success. Though she could command the spirit Lasher, she was not strong
enough to
use her will to command cells to
return to life and replicate, nor was she able to determine if there was
life left.
The jars left over from her
experiments are found in the attic at First Street upon the death of
Carlotta Mayfair. They
are sent by Rowan and collected by
Aaron Lightner for the Talamasca archives. The remaining tissue on the
heads in the
jars bear evidence of Lasher and
Marguerite's attempts to change matter and restore life.
It
would be Rowan who would be able to command cells in such a fashion,
but
even Rowan had limits. She can only
bring life back if life is still inside, which is how she was able to
rescue Michael
from completely drowning. However,
she would not have been able to revive her mother, Deirdre, because as
she verified
for herself, there was no life left
in Deirdre. This "diagnostic sense" would be something akin to
telepathy, as her
ability to use the sheer force of
her own will to kill someone is called telekinesis.
Magic and the Mayfair Witches
This
sheer force of will, the operative word being "will", is part of the
basic definition of what magic is,
according to many magic-practicing Pagans. It is by the focused
direction of our
will that change can occur. The
tools of magic are meant to aid the magician in focusing that will and
in signaling
the spirits and gods with rich
symbolism. If one has a direct line to spirits, though, these tools
just may not be necessary.
Many
Mayfairs, not just the Legacy line, can hear people's thoughts and
divine
things from far away. This is not
an example of will but of ability. The Legacy witches, heirs to Lasher,
seemed
to exert their will through him.
Stella, Antha, and Deirdre were all expelled from one school after
another because
of their involvement with Lasher - a
commonly occuring incident is the floating flowers that scare and
enthrall the other
classmates. Otherwise, the three
were simply caught with him at one point or another and accused of
breaking rules and/or
consorting with a young man.
Mary
Beth Mayfair may have been the only witch in the line capable of
exerting
her will for short periods before
Rowan. If she was truly capable of bilocation, the act could not have
been completed
without the strength of her own
will. Even so, Mary Beth still relied upon Lasher but unlike the
others, whom Lasher
exploited through their dependence,
Mary Beth was strong and willful enough to exert her will over him, to "whip
him and make him obey." Julien did this as well.
All
of the Mayfair Witches were able to see and command Lasher as well as
a host of other ghosts and spirits
over time. This means they fit the Talamasca's definition of what a
witch is.
Witches may also have certain
abilities that do not necessarily fall in the category of magic, such as
telepathy, precognition,
postcognition, clairvoyance, and in
Rowan's case, telekinesis. As for magic itself, let me suggest that the
Mayfair
Witches might not be considered
natural practitioners of magic as their will to create change beyond
conventional parameters
was accomplished through Lasher's
aid.
Rowan and Mona Mayfair
According
to the Talamasca, or because it did not include this
in its definition, witches are
defined by their ability to see and command a spirit, but not by their
ability to perform or
practice magic. What they are able
to do in varying ways may be loosely defined as magic, but not if you
apply the simple
definition of magic. Rowan and Mona
Mayfair are able to see and communicate with spirits and sense whether
or not life
is still present in a person who is
unconscious or even clinically dead. They are telepathic, able to
hear other people's thoughts.
There
is little evidence of Mona's actual abilities or examples of her
exerting
her will, but it is clear from her
ability to survive delivering a Taltos that she does indeed have
strengths and capabilities
comparable to Rowan Mayfair. It is
by this and by the genetic blueprinting of all the Mayfairs in the wake
of
Lasher's fatal mating rampage that
we know Mona is a witch as more fully defined by the family's genetics.
Further Definition of a Witch by Heritable Traits
It
is evident that only a witch, one with the extra chromosomes, can
produce
a Taltos, but even a Mayfair with 46
chromosomes can produce another witch with a person who has the extra
chromosomes.
Curiously, Deirdre Mayfair managed
to produce Rowan when she herself did not have the extra chromosomes.
Therefore,
Cortland Mayfair must have been the
parent who passed the extra chromosomes to Rowan. Cortland Mayfair had
the same
abilities as the other Mayfairs who
could be described as witches besides the Legacy line - the clairvoyance
and telepathy,
most notably. He was also the son
of Julien Mayfair, the disputed 8th witch of the line.
A witch, in this sense, is also someone who inherits dominant alleles
expressed as psychic abilities
from one or both parents. These psychic abilities would then have to
have a
physiological vehicle in the
individual through which to work. The most obvious possibility would be
sensory perception,
meaning heightened awareness through
sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This means the second
possibility
is the nervous system itself.
A Witch's Nerves
If
a witch is defined by inherited psychic abilities triggered by
physiological
and psychological responses, the
core of those abilities would have to be seated in the nervous system.
An individual
has nerve endings in every part of
the body that exchange information with and interpret the external
environment. This
information flows to and from the
central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) via the peripheral
nervous system, the major
nerves that branch out from the
spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system is divided into three
subdivisions, the autonomic
(maintains homeostasis by regulating
the heart and internal organs, pupil dilation, etc of which the
parasympathetic system
is yet another division), the
somatic (voluntary movement such as musculoskeletal movement) and the
enteric (gastrointestinal
function, of which the sympathetic
system is yet another division). The somatic nervous system is also
what controls
reflexive arcs, or what we do when
we are in imminent danger and must protect ourselves.
If
the nervous system, which controls our "five senses", conducts
information
via its synapses, dendrites and
axons in a witch as defined by genetics, traits that enhance perception
and ability would
express in the nervous system. The
"energy" that is such a popular topic in New Age circles could be
broadly defined
in scientific terms as an external
layer around a human witch produced by the nervous system that is
designed to exchange
information in much finer detail.
The witch's nervous system is genetically enhanced to receive this
information but
it is the reasoning, logical mind
which must deduce its meaning.
Conclusion
Clearly,
the Mayfairs have passed on traits that express abilities such as
the ability to see and command a
spirit, Lasher in particular. Some of them are more able to do this
than others, and
have more psychic ability than
others, even in the Legacy Line (compare Deirdre to Mary Beth, or her
own daughter, Rowan).
Genetics are a crap shoot as a rule
and there is no way of knowing exactly which traits will be passed or
which traits will
actually express. A trait being
passed on chromosomes does not necessarily mean it will express, even if
conditions
that would normally trigger that
trait are optimal. Clearly, the Mayfairs were not exempt from this law
of biology despite
their extraordinary abilities.
Please see Merrick and Mayfair Religion for more discussion on the religious and spiritual practices
of the Mayfair Witches.