Arin Murphy-Hiscock is the author of one of my favorite books, Way of the Green Witch. So color me surprised when I picked it up at Chapters. And you can color me more surprised that it’s not as great as WGW.
I love hedge, hearth, and home witchery. Given any day, I’m much more likely to devise a simple charm than to create a spell (let alone full-blown ritual). I like to collect fascinating lore, and I’m a frequent lurker at places like Hearth & Home Witchery – I’ll frequent them more than places like MysticWicks, or Witchvox.
Overall Murphy-Hiscock does a fair job of summarizing and codifying what is, essentially, a decentralized, personalized practice. She has an excellent chapter on cauldron myth and lore, and her chapter on hearth-associated deities isn’t restricted to the usual “Brigid/Hestia/Vesta/Frigga” line – deities like Bes and Ertha get some time as well. She also has a very handy warding ritual, and overall her book is pretty good.
Now to the (admittedly) nitpickin’. She has a section on Ethics and cooking magic, and what she calls manipulation and what she defines as being not. This is where she lost points with me. The singular issue for me are the sentences:
“The key thing to remember is that by serving food made with love, those who eat it have the opportunity to absorb the energy that is enhancing it…. they do not automatically do so. Their personal energy has the choice to accept the loving energy in your food and home or not.” (pg. 155)
This, according to her, is not manipulation. According to myself, it is manipulation. The reason this bothers me comes from my work life. At work, I care for and advocate with persons with disabilities, who, historically, have had histories of being marginalized and deprived of choices. So I am very particular about choices, and, especially, informed choice.
If I am eating food that you have prepared and infused with what Hiscock calls “Divine love and energy” (same page), then according to her I have the choice not to accept that energy into myself. However, if you don’t inform me of that, then I am not operating from the same information base as you are, which automatically tilts the balance of power in our relationship to favor you. This smacks of privilege, and I don’t care for it.
Yes, I know I am splitting hairs on this. But look at it this way: here, the example Hiscock uses is love. I made you some cookies, and I intentionally used corresponding materials to insert love and happiness into the cookies. I may have used spices which correspond to love, or I may have even gotten all fancy and prayed while I mixed. I might have even stirred the cookies a certain way. So I’m now giving them to you.
You’re eating my air-fairy cookies of light, and it’s been a real shit day for you. Maybe you want a cookie that has been literally designed to make you feel better. Maybe you’ll tell me to fuck off, you want to be in a cranky mood. We all need times to feel like crap – it’s part of the shadow-side of things, and as healthy (or healthier) than making things all shiny-happy all the gorram time.
But wouldn’t you at least like to know that you have a choice? This is a poisoned rose, guys – and yeah, love and happiness are positive emotions. What if they weren’t?
Just as some feel uncomfortable when the Witnesses start praying for you, so too do I feel uncomfortable with the idea of people magically baking shit into my food without me knowing it. I want to know. I want the choice. I want to be considered as equal and as deserving of respect as you are.
I also have issues with this example based specifically coming from my background as an emotional eater. It’s not safe to bottle up what we consider “negative” emotions – and it’s not healthy to eat foods designed to make you feel better. Feeling better is a choice, and a healthy person knows how to make this choice without the use of food. We don’t want to be “eat the cookies of happiness, and the pain will cease to be”, because it’s not a healthy coping tactic. Not to mention that it’s an insulting idea in general.
Magic is a tricky subject, especially when it comes to ethics and spell casting for (or on, or around) others. As a witch living in a house that is not mine, with people who do not share my beliefs, I personally don’t cast much in the way of magic at all. What I do is geared solely to myself, for myself, and by myself. I wouldn’t dare dream of cooking happy-laced cookies any more than I’d dream of cooking hash-laced ones, unless I’m the one eating all of them myself!
Other than that? It’s a good book.
