We see the same unacceptable thing happening with Wicca, a movement that has started to gain more mainstream acceptance. Don’t forget the persecution of witches in the past!
This is, sadly, quite true. At my last place of academic employment, I had a (formerly Wiccan) friend who insisted on identifying herself as a “non-affiliated neo-pagan practitioner” – a term that was a reaction to negative associations with Wiccans. Sure, this is supposed to be a free country, founded on religious tolerance. But as always, the gap between good intentions and the reality of complex social structures (i.e. human failings) is vast.
The persecution of witches arises, as all persecution does, out of fear. The modern western world does not have a female aspect, other than the Virgin Mary, whose power lies primarily in being a vessel. This at least partially accounts for the demonization of female power, particularly female sexual power (Mary was a virgin, after all). Other world cultures, however, have embraced the feminine to varying degrees. My favorite example is the Hermaphrodite God Adistis, who was born when Zeus impregnated a rock. Eventually Dionysus got Agdistis drunk and tied its male genitals to a tree, whereupon he startled Agdistis and Agdistis accidentally castrated himself. When the blood fell on the ground, an almond tree sprang up. Agdistis became the goddess Cybele, whose festival involved her priests whipping themselves with knuckle bones and castrating themselves in a frenzy.
We shall hear more about Cybele in a later post.
But I digress. I was attempting to draw a parallel between the persecution of witches and the persecution of the Tzombi. Perhaps it seems initially outrageous to imply to imply that the Tzombi have the greater challenge, but on closer inspection it seems less so: while women were simply marginalized in Christianity, death was conquered. The ultimate deed of Jesus Christ was not to conquer evil or Satan, but to conquer death. Consequently, we have a severe prejudice against death and the dead which doesn’t exist in many other cultures. One need only look at the use of the word “Death” in the English language: “I was scared to death,” “She looked like death warmed over,” etc., where death is universally regarded as a negative. Compare this to cultures in China for example, or the pre-Hispanic Philippines, in which ancestor worship was practiced to have our fear of death thrown into stark relief.
As someone who has experienced death close up, I know that it can often be kinder than life, and that the sudden, unexpected death which we all fear is far less traumatic than one in which a person wastes away gradually.
A further kindness of the sudden, traumatic death is that this is the sort which, according to research, “activates” PMMS (note: this idea is controversial in many circles). For the Tzombi at least, this sort of death is the beginning of their new life as fully realized members of the Tzombi race.
10 comments:
That’s cool, because I embrace death. I wear black all the time and I slept in a coffin once.
I screwed a chick in a graveyard.
“Dead to the world”, “Deadline,” “Deadbeat.”
How about these? “Death breath,” “Dead as fuck,” “Dead head.”
Those don't make any sense. Are you retarded?
“Dead men tell no tales,” “Death and taxes.”
I know all about that female sexual power. It’s crazy, man, what they can get you to do. Scary, in fact.
Perhaps we can find common ground there.
Some people are unable to let themselves go for the sake of love. Some people prefer to feel nothing.
Yes, Papillonnoirs. Life without love IS a sort of death, isn’t it?
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