Ask Angus #22: Teo Bishop, the Invisible Fighter Pilot

Tweener: Is it possible to make yourself invisible?

Dear Tweener,

Me? No. You? We can only hope. Actually, invisibility, like so many other concepts is not so much a matter of reality as it is perspective.

• If you are speaking of your corporeal form dissolving and reintegrating somewhere else, you need to see your local priest for a discussion about transsubstantiation, or hail Scotty down in the transporter room.
• If you were thinking of Astral Projecting yourself out with only your little kite string to guide you back, then check your definitions: When you astral project your body stays put; visibly put.

• If you were thinking of becoming ghost-like and sneaking into locker rooms, etc. then think again: H.G. Wells and Willie Ames had that market of absurdity cornered a long time ago.

But there is a form of invisibility that is achievable by the average adept: I once worked alongside a woman named Persephone who was expert at deflection spells.

She could sit somewhere and cast a cloak of – not invisibility – but of ‘not notice‘ around her, and the rest of us would walk in and out of the room and not notice her.

I didn’t actually know that she was doing this spell until one time she sneezed and I found out that I CAN scream like a little girl.

So Tweener, it is possible to do this, but be warned that as with most big spells the effect is very subtle and the prep work involved is daunting. It was a pretty cool skill though, I gotta admit.

And don’t EVEN tell me that you meant to do good deeds with it.

Knitwitch: You’ve been very quiet about Teo Bishop’s controversial decision to abandon Paganism for Christianity. What are your thoughts on this event?

Dear Knitwitch:

My thought is that I hope Teo is happy and finds some peace of mind. Period.

I’ve been a big fan of ‘Bishop in the Grove‘ – the man writes with a clear eye and a grace that I can only dream about – but I never felt that he ‘spoke for me’ or my Path as a pagan. So ‘losing’ Mr. Bishop is, for me, a mild shrug: I’ve only spoken with him a few times (super nice guy), I probably won’t read BitG much now (as I don’t find Christianity that interesting), and I will miss seeing him and his knit beanie at Pantheacon. (Did you know he’s a knitter?)

See, here’s the thing, Knitwitch: I don’t follow leaders, I don’t take anything as gospel and I certainly would not allow anyone to be my voice. I practice an occult religion, not a revealed one, and although I read, listen to and interact with a great amount and variety of pagan peoples, in the end it is MY path, which I blaze alone and define for myself*.

As the man himself recently said: “I’m a little burnt out on being a representative of anything. It was never my intention when I set up this blog to be a spokesperson for all of Pagandom.” So there you go. Period.

Is ‘losing’ Mr. Bishop a Public Relations a blow for the Pagan movement? Maybe on the surface. But there is a lot more to being a witch than the surface (*wink). I think the Earth Spirit Community will survive this ‘event’ just fine.

And, hey, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Sammy: Is it true that a group of witches helped win WWII for the allies?

Dear Sammy,

Ah, good one! This is one of the great urban legends of the pagan world. It’s 1940 and the Battle of Britain has reduced the Limey’s fighter force to a handful of squads. Radar has helped immensely but the Luftwaffe’s targeting of runways and garrisons is crippling. America is nowhere near ready to enter the fray, and Britain has no friends close at hand.

Except for Dion Fortune and her merry band of witches! (Fortune wrote the seminal classics “The Sea Priestess” and “Moon Magic”, was a member of the Golden Dawn, and was a leading light of NeoPaganism for the first half of the last century.)

During that awful summer of 1940 she organized a series of weekly meditations with her posse, the “Society Of the Inner Light”, as well as select other Magickians. Details are sketchy of course (Witchcraft was still illegal in Britain until 1951), but many of Fortune’s monthly letters to the projects devotees survive (edited by Gareth Knight into “The Magical Battle of Britain”).

And on September 7th, with servicable British aircraft and trained pilots down to a few tens, mere days from the Nazis gaining the air superiorty necessary to launch Operation Sea Lion and invade Britain, Hermann Goering inexplicably switches targets from the garrisons to London itself.

The Brits come together united as one incredibly obstinate people, and their young pilots are given the breathing room to organize a thrilling comeback.

And the rest, as they say is history. So, Sammy, there is no link between witchcraft and the bonehead move by the Luftwaffe, but something made Hitler & Goering change their minds….

(Bwa-ha-ha!!)

~Ask Angus

Angus McMahan

@AngusMcMahan

Send your questions to: angusmcmahan@gmail.com

*I’m not a sheep, or the shepherd, or the herding dog, or even a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m more like a coyote over in the next valley, trotting along, looking for an easy meal. 😉

(Pics from, respectively, favim.com, authors collection, themescompany.com, secretsun.blogspot.com, and spitfirsite.com)