Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903)

This will probably sound like a red flag to the bull, although I don’t intend it as so, but just as Charles comments that “we” (of those times) shouldn’t be surprised that there are still superstitions in the scientific 19th century, we also shouldn’t be surprised that there are still old hat American Christians in the new age 21st, you know. Some old hat American Christians are even ~young~ in the 21st century, although that does seem a little uncommon. And also people don’t die show more when they stop being cool, by a long shot, thanks to medical science…. But I know all that will just be a red flag to the Trumper, you know. “You’re saying things are bad for me!! Things will NEVER be bad for me!!!!….. I’m oppressed!!!!!!!!”

(shrugs) Anyway, it is a mistake to think that we are all the cool people, the graduating class of a medical school, basically; library stocked with expensive reference books and anti-Deepak Chopra screeds…. But equally, the two ARE related; it’s equally wrong to think that they’re ’just different’—the ‘lower’ culture is usually derivative to the same extent that the ‘higher’ is arrogant/isolationist…. The ‘best’ possible way usually draws from both, you know.

Of course, Charles doesn’t always get that. He’s a little arrogant, sometimes comically so. (Irish savages, etc…. 😸 Hey, they’re the conservative base now—don’t alienate the base! 😹)

…. It still surprises me how our wise modern intellectuals can lavish attention on such topics as they frankly confess or snidely insinuate to be unworthy, although I suppose they must, since everything is curious and nothing worthy. But then, there IS a sort of ‘cleverness’ in even the most ill-reputed and frankly non-intellectual pursuits, and then too, there’s fear at the bottom of history, you know….

…. Although obviously I have to add, as much as I don’t want to be an over-developed ACIM person; I mean, there is usually fear in superstitions, you know. We can only guess how much of these people’s magic was brutalized (made brutal, or at least very non-vegan! 😸) by their exclusion/suffering, etc, and how much of it was just hostile summary, you know. I had a very negative reaction to this book of folklore once about an African god in the Caribbean; I feel like I was overreacting probably now, although he was a trickster, more a “rambling man” or a “bad father” (though sometimes “good” fathers are not preferable, or even safe, you know), than a…. I mean, I knew it was ethnocentric, and it had to do with me, and the New England governess and her hostile summary, but…. I couldn’t do anything about it. And you know, it’s also true that a “rambling man” isn’t an art therapist at the Sheltered Children School of Whitesville, and sometimes that’s even not a good thing, necessarily; I don’t want to be naive, to pretend that he would always treat me the way that I prefer…. But both the hostile summary and the fact that he doesn’t practice shamanism or understand its core principles, means that he just indifferently chooses kinda coarse and gross things to talk about, quotes some Latin, German, and Romani (Gypsy), and then just kinda leaves it at that. Possibly technically true, but edited poorly and not explained—no ‘bridge’ of understanding between the two populations, very illusion-generating, really.

…. “The spell is mine—the cure is God’s.”

…. But I guess it’s fair to say that it’s marginally sympathetic at times, and the soon-there-will-be-no-magic narrative of the Victorians marginally less alienating than what came before…. And you can’t beat the price point, lol. ($1).

…. But maybe the attraction isn’t JUST the price tag; it’s fascinating reading about a lost world (even though it was cray). Because magic may not be dead, but all those 19th-century birth cohorts are!

…. I also think it’s curious how the Gypsies (Romani—‘husbands’, lol) admire Christianity and Christian magic, (if you will), the church-y notion of the ‘purity’ of one’s faith never having occurred to them. I suppose that although the conquest of the earth may largely consist of taking it away from peoples with slightly different noses from oneself, it still has a certain allure: or, more to the point, perhaps, when one, starting out in the East, goes in an ‘oriental’ direction over a certain portion of the face of the earth, eventually one winds up in the West, you know. For them, our ‘occidental’ ways are quite ‘oriental’, of course. And the idea of ‘purity’ having no place among them….

…. “Scary stories”, lol.

…. (Re: Leland) An intellectual is often a man who preens that he has frustrated his subconscious.

…. And of course he’s careful to see all the bad that they do—that is the rule of journalists and rationalists, right? If it bleeds, it leads, and the rest that’s bad, is the filler to shape out the rest—because he thinks that the principle good that they do is all lies, and of course ignores whatever other miscellaneous knick-knack work they must have tinkered at and done, from time to time…. But, yes, it would be interesting to know, what the “foreign element” does on a clannish continent, to survive, you know. Very base trickery, at times, I’m sure, but quite a trick—and the will to live.

…. Of course, if he had any sense he’d draw the link between burning a ‘gypsy witch’ in Tennessee and (other?) KKK killings—Blacks…. etc!—but he’s too busy saying that Americans outside of posh Philadelphia aren’t really white, but red (Indians)! Yes, I suppose that if white is posh, Americans aren’t white…. just white racists, though! We make apology for our lack of aboriginal whiteness, you know!…. Gosh, someone should make a show or something, The Clannish Continent (Europe), and then follow it up with, The Clannish Country, (America). But you’d need ‘the good white people’ to do most of the work of doing it, and, once done, the, quite frankly, ~bad white people~, would tear it apart! After all, the story isn’t over yet, is it!

…. Incidentally, the KKK has been largely written out of the folk memory of white America, you know. I remember my dad once going off about the IRA—and terrorism is bad, don’t get me wrong, but his performance basically meant, “I’m white, not Irish” (although we keep the Irish card to play long after we become white in substance). And he said that if General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate veterans had fought a “guerrilla” war after the surrender, then that would be like the IRA. And I suppose, from the perspective of a white northerner (and a Protestant, too, unlike my grandparents, but whatever), I guess my dad is right from a selfish-to-the-point-of-bigoted POV, you know. Southerners didn’t cross the Ohio River to continue the War Between the States via guerrilla raids or something. But what about the KKK? A lot of Black people died. But the average white person can read a racist book from 1891 and read racist/moralist points about Black youth or whatever, and not think, “They were being killed”, you know.

Of course, the ~book~ is useful since it’s at least almost about marginal folk groups, right. But Charles made it no secret that he did not consider these people to be his equals. He was the superior.

…. Anyway, maybe this is a dream and a fancy, but it sure would be nice to turn the clock back in a progressive way and have a non-‘white’ European culture, to not be locked and clocked into exclusion because of a pair of rosy cheeks, you know: and certainly for that, a great help might come from the culture of the gold-plated non-white Europeans, the dun-cheeked Gypsies, you know.

…. And sometimes, like when someone’s watching the news, or even occasionally when one listens to gangster rap, it seems a rather once-born and noisy sort of life, but there’s a lot more to the Black story than crime and punishment, and dare I say to the Romany one, too. It’s just that people can’t attune themselves to the precious things, so they listen to the noise, and walk away, thinking that they’ve heard….

…. But there is a little common humanity to it, you know. Re: torturing Gypsies and witches for Jesus, Oh that was just the one era, life is hard; “But if it was wrong ~then~ why did you do it if you were ~infallible~ inspired judges?” And plenty of people do still think that witches are crap because the infallible church says so, you know; and it’s still polite to smile and look the other way. (Which is in turn interpreted as an affront. I need more people to help me round up these witches, and if people don’t get brutal quick, there won’t be enough for me. “Enough what? Money?” No! Not money…. GOD…..). Even on TikTok or was it YouTube Shorts, it’s like, I notice you watch paganism videos. Would you be interested in this video of Brutal Christian Talk Church (BCTC) dissing pagans? It’s like…. Thanks for making me feel unwanted, idiot AI, but no, I’m not clicking the click, thanks….

…. And he’s right that there is social evolution, basically, even if he probably still believes in the whole obsolete stages thing which comes from Christianity. Really, it’s a wheel, a circle; there are no obsolete stages. Although it is true that sometimes the wheel gets stuck in a rut, you know, by the side of the road; he’s right that the conservatives of today are the kill-able heretics of the 16th century; and good boys look at that and say, Think of all we’ve lost! To think people used to be guaranteed to be right about everything by the fire of earthly hell! Why, I wouldn’t mind being burned in the fires of earthly hell, if only it were for the faith guarantee, you know, and—hey, did the price of ice cream go up again? That’s nine cents more than it was last Christmas? I’ll tell you what it is—it’s those Biden Democrats; this’ll lead to unrest—to murder! Now! What was I talking about?

But there will always be Christians. I can’t even imagine what they’ll be like, because in the future people will all have to be good so that we don’t destroy ourselves, and the Christians are all so wicked, even the ‘good’ ones…. But I suppose they’ll be around. Probably less impressed with themselves and their power, but there are some things, people, ideas, you never wholly forget, of course.

…. (end) And I’m very glad that Charles wrote this book—but it’s a terrible book. show less

This is a hardbound facsimile of a book of Leland's charming weirdness, introduced by Mathiesen and followed by his transcription. Apparently, Leland would make handcrafted grimoires/spell books as gifts, writing them in character (in this example, Dame Darrel). This one is more of an encyclopedia of magical beings from folklore than a spell book, but it's still a delightfully quirky read. Mathiesen's thoughts on Leland, Gerald Gardner, and the Book of Shadows are also worth reading.

There's a problem with 19th century religious studies texts is the blatant "my research is better, and oh by the way, read this other work I've written." Not only that, he admits that he's rewritten a lot of the translated texts, to keep with his "feeling" of what the "intent" of the Italian was. His bias is basically shoveled into the work.

I have to admit that there's some useful stuff in there, but I can't really recommend it.

The story of Aradia and the information that she supposedly passed on to Charles Leland. I think that this has since been discredited, but it is a good book to read for refernce to the origins of modern witchcraft both from the Wiccan and Stregheria perspective.