Ask Angus #34: Dreaming of Strangling your Angelic Mentor

Anne: Why do some feel it takes a witch to make a witch? 

Hey Ann,

Why? Because there are 7 billion humans on the planet – and each life thinks it is more important than all of the other lifes. We are all the crowd shots to each others Starring Roles in our Lifes on Earth. And because all of us are more important than anybody else, it follows that anything that has worked for any one of us will work for everyone else.

So somebody who is a witch, or has learned from a witch, will obviously think that that is THE way to go, because it worked for them, so, by extension, it should work for everybody.

Is this true? I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t learn learn a Witch – I learned from several Priestesses, informally, plus a dozen books, and several thousand customers in the witchy shop that I managed. I didn’t swallow anybody’s mandate, and I made plenty of mistakes, but eventually I had created my own path to the Craft.

And naturally, since I am awesome and I didn’t learn from anybody in particular (and nobody ‘made’ me), and that worked for me, it’s then true for everyone, right?

So, I will then say that no, nobody needs a witch to make a witch. I didn’t, and I’m cool. Others who did learn from a witch will tell you otherwise. With complete Authority.

Welcome to Unorganized Religion.

Nika:  What is the best way to find a mentor?

Dear Nika,

The best way to find the perfect mentor for you is to find many who are imperfect. Try every teacher you can find, every school, every course, every event, every public ritual. Get out and meet the witches in your part of the world. Also instructors in any other esoteric art that catches your fancy. Study. Learn. Practice. But if you feel you need help, then go out and aim for quantity over quality. Within the former you will find the latter.

Morgan: What exactly are angels and how do they fit into Wicca?

Yo Morgan,

Angels are not exactly anything; thats kind of the whole idea. Every culture down through History had had its tribe of ethereal gossamer-types. The existence of barely-theres ranges from sternly wing-ed be-robe-ed entities down to effervescent sprites no bigger than the flowers that they hide under. But this bestiary, vast as it is, has a common core: Hu-mans have always intuitively known that something is out there in Nature. (Or more precisely, IN there in nature.)

Each culture just dresses up its devas in its own cultural artifacts.

Now once you start assigning roles and rules and guidelines to these spectrals, well then you’re draping way more of our dubious Humanity onto them than is necessary. Fairies and ghosts and brownies and seraphim and ‘secondary movers’, vilas, rusalkas, naree-pon, feufollet, encantado, mogwai, tien, yaksha, (and on and on infinitum) have way more in common with each other in their realm than we do with each other in our puny plane of existence.

The human mind, limited to its linear time and three dimensions has no category for those who flit between the worlds. So we do what we can, trebucheting things we can understand onto spirits that are more than likely to return serve with a juicy raspberry, a mooning, a plague, or – most commonly – to ignore us utterly.

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And Finally, I had another question about a dream. Now, don’t get me wrong – I ADORE dreams: They are one of the coolest magic tricks that we higher animals pull off. I have written about mine extensively here here here and here and don’t get me started.

That said, I do not attach any particular Meaning or even importance to the symbolism of any particular dream. The physiological data

(the oldest part of our brain going to play in the newest part of our brain) suggests that in dreams we attach A Priori Meaning to whatever happened to be caught up in the lint trap of our frontal lobe when we closed up consciousness for the night. In short; dreams are random and arbitrary. And hilarious, terrifying and fascinating.

But if you are going to ask me what does it MEAN to dream about talking dogs, Christ, an ancient symbol in black paint on the living room wall, and being strangled by an androgynous child – well I am going to nod sagely “Ah, yes: A two-headed goat has been born in Peru and it will give Strawberry Quik instead of milk.” Then I will warn you not to dip your nightly box of Twinkies in wasabi.

And then I will laugh, clink your beer stein, and say: “Fuckifiknow!”

Angus McMahan

send your questions – on any topic! – to angusmcmahan@gmail.com

see also: www.angus-land.com

(Pics from the authors collection [at Splash Mountain!], wikimedia commons [Angel has had ENOUGH], and media accompanying the question about dreaming.)