Arthur Evans Witchcraft and The Gay Counterculture

WITCHCRAFT
and the Gay Counterculture

Photo by Sal Russo
WITCHCRAFT
AND THE
GAY COUNTERCULTURE
By Arthur Evans
A Radical View of Western Civilization

and Some of the People It Has Tried to Destroy
FAG RAG Books

Boston, 1978
Copyright Arthur Evans, 1978
ISBN: 0-915480-01-8
LC 75-6122
Publication of this book has been partially assisted by a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts; the findings, conclusions, etc. contained herein do not necessarily represent the
views of the Endowment.
For Marty Robinson, a Free Spirit, who taught through
personal example and direct action. Marty's tremendous
influence on the early Gay movement in New York has
been slighted, now that academics, professional politi
cians, and other liberals have taken over the show. But his
time, and ours, will come again. Thanks for everything,
Marty.
CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 Joan of Arc: Transvestite and Heretic. ..................... .. . 5
2 Who Were the Fairies1 . .................................. ... 15
3 Homosexuality and Class Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4 Heretics: Women, Buggers and Free Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5 The Sacred Orgies of Witchcraft . ............................ 63
6 The Medieval Counterculture ............................. ... 79
7 The Mass Murder of Women and Gay People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
8 Sex Magic in the Early Third World . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
9 Sex Among the Zombies . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 113 .
10 Magic and Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Appendix: Calendar of Events .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 157
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
INTRODUCTION
Whatever Happened to
Gay History?
Once upon a time, Mayor John Lindsay of New York "invited" all city
employees to Radio City Music Hall so they could contribute money to his
bid to become President of the United States. When His Honor arrived at
the theater, he had to enter by the back door because of an angry
demonstration out front by the Gay Activists Alliance. When he finally
made his way to the stage, he was brought to a shocked stop by the actions
of Cora Rivera, a Lesbian, and Morty Manford, a Gay man. The two
chained themselves to the balcony railing and shouted: "Why don't you
support Gay rights?"
Startled, Lindsay gave up trying to make his fund-raising pitch and
walked off, as the audience rumbled in confusion. Gay activist Ernest
Cohen hurried to the balcony railing and poured down a shower of leaflets
explaining the disruption: While passing himself off as a liberal, Lindsay
refused to support a simple Gay-rights bill before the City Council.
Despite past efforts by Gay people at polite education, there had been a
conspiracy of silence in the New York news media around Gay rights. The
intent of this disruption was to force the Gay rights issue into the arena of
public discussion. As it happened, one television station did give the event
competent coverage (although referring to Cora Rivera as "an apparent
Lesbian"). But more typical of past experience was another station that
completely falsified the news. The announcer not only failed to mention the
zap, but falsely added that Lindsay was well received and "completed his
speech as scheduled." His account was a total fiction.
This was not the first time that professional journalists had falsified the
news. Earlier The New York Times printed a comprehensive list of bills
introduced into the legislature - listing all bills except those dealing with
Gay civil rights. And in its yearly feature on homosexuality (by the medical
editor), the Times made no mention of GAA's militant political activity. In
the eyes of most professional journalists, Lesbians and Gay men were
nothing more than a tiny minority of perverts.
Historians, just like professional journalists, have falsified the Gay
story, and just as badly. Writing in 1971, a leading authority on Gay
history said:
Almost everyone who has written about gay life has called it pretentious,
absurd, pitiful or repugnant. The great majority of homosexuals seem to vouch
for the accuracy of its depiction in The Boys in the Band, a play replete with
jealousy, competitiveness, insecurity, malice, tantrums, and hysterical mood
shifts (Karlen, 526).
2 Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture
A similar type of venom can be found just beneath the surface in the
writings of so-called liberal historians. A good example is the widely read
work of a liberal Anglican priest. He concludes his whitewash of the
church's atrocities against Gay people with this statement: "Homosexual
perversion, therefore, is not itself a fount of corrupting influence, but only,
as it were, the ineluctable consequence of a corrosion which has already left
its mark upon marriage and family life and, if not checked, may ultimately
undermine the whole social order and lead to sexual anarchy" (Bailey, 166).
Introduction 3
Just as bad is the liberal approach found in the popular historical study
by a Danish psychotherapist. While assuring the reader that he is most fair
minded, the author concludes by saying that there is no such thing as Gay
history and that men who are exclusively Gay suffer from an "inability to
adjust themselves heterosexually" (Vanggaard, 52).
The professionals have suppressed Gay history, just as they have
suppressed the truth about Third World people, women, the poor, the
imprisoned, and the insane. They have been co-opted, not only by being
bought off, but in a more insidious way. Through their long "training" they
have lost the ability to see other realities than the official ones, and have
internalized within themselves the values of the ruling classes. Intellectually
and spiritually, they have been anesthetized.
We will have to write our own history, and when I say "we" I mean
any of us who have the interest and energy to do so. We must demystify
ourselves from the illusion that only well-paid professionals can do this
work. In many ways, trained professionals, including Gay ones, are the
least suited to teach us, for they have been most assimilated into t he
lifestyles and values of the ruling classes.
This book is an attempt to record some of the things that professional
historians usually leave out. It is one-sided, in that it is mostly concerned
with the victims of Western civilization, rather than their rulers. It is
subjective, in that it reflects my own personal value judgments and
emotions. It is arbitrary, in that it picks and chooses among all the source
material, accepting a few things here and there, but rejecting most as biased
or unreliable.
The book, however, is as true as any other historical work. It is true
because all historical works are one-sided, subjective, and arbitrary. Every
historian works this way. The real falsehood occurs when historians hide
their values, emotions, and choices under a veneer of "objectivity. " A work
of history cannot be assessed apart from the values of the person who wrote
it.
This book may horrify professional historians. They will probably
object to my use of myths as historical sources. Yet myths can have
historical worth if we learn how to evaluate them, just as The New York
Times can have historical worth if we know how to evaluate it. They will be
offended by my qualified acceptance of the theory of matriarchy. Yet
current feminist writers are showing that male prejudice has greatly
distorted the writing of history. They will be angered by my contempt for
academic professionalism and its methods. Yet whole new insights often
emerge, even in the physical sciences, despite rather than because of the
professionals.
There is no such thing as the authoritative Gay history, but as many
Gay histories can exist as there are Gay visions. May they all be written.
4 I Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture
1
JOAN OF ARC:
TRANSVESTITE AND HERETIC
On May 30, 1431, in the town of Rouen, France, a peasant woman

named Joan of Are, age nineteen, was burned alive at the stake as a relapsed
heretic. The immediate reason for her death was that she was found wearing
men's clothing in her prison cell. This fact about Joan's execution may
surprise those who view her as a traditional Christian saint. But the records
of the time show she was hardly traditional.
After 1425, when she started her drive against the English invaders of
France, Joan of Arc was an adamant transvestite. On May 23,1430, she was
captured by a sell-out French faction. They sold her to the English, who
charged her with heresy and handed her over to the Inquisition. At the trial,
Joan's judges were horrified by her transvestism. Article twelve of her
indictment read:
Jeanne, rejecting and abandoning women's clothing, her hair cut around like a
young coxcomb, took shirt, breeches, doublet ...tight-fitting boots or buskins,
long spurs, sword, dagger, breast-plate, lance and other arms in fashion of a
man of war (T. Douglas Murray, 345-346).
When brought before the court, Joan refused to promise to wear
women's clothing, even though her refusal meant she couldn't receive com
munion. What's more, she insisted that her transvestism was a religious
duty, saying: "For nothing in the world will I swear not to arm myself and
put on a man's dress; I must obey the orders of Our Lord" (T. Douglas
Murray, 87).
To the judges, it was bad enough that Joan had been wearing men's
clothing. But to say this was a religious duty was heresy! The following was
one of the chief charges brought against her:
Jeanne attributes to God, His Angels, and His Saints, orders which are against
the modesty of the sex, and which are prohibited by the Divine Law, things
abominable to God and man, interdicted on pain of anathema by ecclesiastical
censure, such as dressing herself in the garments of a man, short, tight, disso
lute, those underneath as well as above ....To attribute all this to the order of
God, to the order which had been transmitted to her by the Angels and even by
Virgin Saints, is to blaspheme God and His Saints, to destroy the Divine Law
and violate the Canonical Rules (T. Douglas Murray, 346).
The English drew attention to Joan's transvestism and urged the church
to condemn her for that reason. The King of England, Henry VI, even got
involved on this point. In a letter he wrote about Joan, he said: "It is suffi-
ciently notorious and well-known that for some time past a woman calling
herself Jeanne the Pucelle [the Maid), leaving off the dress and clothing of
the feminine sex, a thing contrary to divine law and abominable before
God, and forbidden by all laws, wore clothing and armour such as is worn
by men" (W. S. Scott, 52). The sell-out French faction that had captured
Joan called her hornasse, which was a derogatory word in Old French
meaning masculine woman (Lightbody, 60).
Not only did Joan wear men's clothing as a religious duty, but in the
eyes of her judges she did something else just as bad - she acted masculine.
Contrary to the Christian view of womanhood, she was bold, self-assertive,
strong willed, and contemptuous of her captors. In article sixty-three of the
original indictment, the judges condemn her for "allowing herself a tone of
mockery and derision such as no woman in a state of holiness would allow"
(T. Douglas Murray, 363). The judges were horrified that Joan had rejected
the traditional woman's role: "She disdains also to give herself up to
feminine work, conducting herself in all things rather as a man than as a
woman" (Murray, 348). The fact that Joan had led male troops in battle and
had even given them orders seemed to her judges another sign of heresy: "In
contempt of the orders of God and the Saints, Jeanne, in presumption and
pride, hath gone so far as to take command over men" (T. Douglas Murray,
359).
The judges were interested in Joan's relationship with other women. In
the summer of 1424, Joan had left her parents against their will and went to
live with another woman, La Rousse ("The Red"), who lived in
Neufchateau. La Rousse, it turns out, was an innkeeper, which is interesting
since inns in the middle ages were often brothels. In article eight, the judges
accused Joan of hanging out with prostitutes: "Towards her twentieth year,
Jeanne, of her own wish, and without permission of her father and mother,
went to Neufchateau, in Lorraine, and was in service for some time at the
house of a woman, an innkeeper named La Rousse, where lived women of
evil life, and where soldiers were accustomed to lodge in great numbers.
During her stay in the inn, Jeanne sometimes stayed with these evil women"
(T. Douglas Murray, 344).
The judges also questioned Joan about her relationship with another
woman, Catherine de la Rochelle. Joan admitted to the judges that she had
slept in the same bed with Catherine on two successive nights, but that her
reason for doing so was religious. Joan claimed that Catherine told her she
often had visions of "a lady" at night, and Joan said she wanted to see this
lady too. Whatever her reason, Joan admitted to sleeping twice with
Catherine (W. S. Scott, 97).
The judges were interested in Joan's sex life, and had her examined by a
panel of women to determine if she was a virgin. They reported that she
was.
Joan of Arc 7
Joan's behavior at her trial was hardly that of a Christian saint. When
she was asked to swear to tell the truth on the Gospels, she repeatedly
refused. Usually, after much haggling back and forth at each session, she
would give in (partially) by swearing on the missal (which is-the liturgy). In
addition, Joan adamantly refused to recite either the Lord's Prayer or the
Creed, although she was asked to do so many times. Her judges thought this
refusal was significant.
The mystery of Joan deepens as we look at other aspects of her life.
Before her capture, whenever she appeared in public she was worshipped
like a deity by the peasants, a practice she never discouraged. The peasants
believed that she had the power to heal, and many would flock around her
to touch part of her body or her clothing (which was men's clothing) .
Subsequently her armor was kept on display at the Church of St. Denis,
where it was worshipped.
The area of Lorraine, where Joan grew up, was famous for the lingering
paganism of its people. In the century before Joan's trial, the Synod Qf
Treves had condemned the peasants of Lorraine for believing in "all kinds of
magic, sorcery, witchcraft, auguries, superstitious writings . . . the illusions
of women who boast that they ride at night with Diana or Herodias and a
multitude of o ther women" (M. Murray, God of the Witches, 177).
The peasants who lived in Joan's own neighborhood retained memories
of prophecies from the old Celtic religion that had existed there before the
introduction of Christianity. One of these ancient prophecies concerned a
wooded area called Bois Chesnu that was near Joan's house. The prophecy,
which was well known and was attributed to Merlin the sorcerer, said that a
maid would come forth from Bois Chesnu, perform many marvels, and
unite the French people (W. S. Scott, 76, note) .
In certain parts of Europe where Celtic beliefs survived, the word
"Maid" or "Maiden" was a religious title, signifying a type of divine being
who had the power to cure people (Hope, 35). The old French word for this
title was La Pucelle, which was sometimes applied by French Christians to
the Virgin Mary. When Joan was asked by what title she called herself, her
standard reply was "Joan the Maid, Daughter of God. "
Joan's judges believed that she had not been raised a s a Christian, but
as a pagan. "In her childhood, she was not instructed in the beliefs and
principles of our Faith, but by certain old women she was initiated in the
science of witchcraft, divination, superstitious doings, and magical acts.
Many inhabitants of these villages have been known for all time as using
these kinds of witchcraft" (T. Douglas Murray, 343).
The judges spent a lot of time questioning Joan about her supposed
relations with beings called "fairies" - a fact that has puzzled many modern
commentators. Near Joan's home was a huge old beech tree (in Latin, fagus
tree). Rumor had it that the fairies sometimes came and danced around this
tree at night. By Joan's time, the tree was considered sacred to Our Lady of
Domremy, but suspicion remained that it had once been a holy spot in the
old pagan religion. Near this tree was a spring where the peasants often
went to be cured of diseases.
Joan denied ever seeing fairies at the tree, but did admit to participating
in celebrations around it as a child. Her admission on this point, which the
j udges considered incriminating, is as follows:
Not far from Domremy there is a tree that they call 'The Ladies Tree' - others
call it 'The Fairies Tree' .... It is a beautiful tree, a beech {fagus!, from which
comes the 'beau mai' [the maypole] .. .. I have sometimes been to play with the
young girls, to make garlands for Our Lady of Domremy. Often I have heard
the old folk - they are not of my lineage - say that the fairies haunt this
tree ....As for me, I never saw them that I know of ....I have seen the young
girls putting garlands on the branches of this tree, and I myself have sometimes
put them there with my companions; sometimes we took these garlands away,
sometimes we left them.Ever since I knew it was necessary for me to come into
France, I have given myself up as little as possible to these games and distrac
tions (T. Murray, 20-21).
On April 2 , 1431, all charges of witchcraft were dropped against Joan
(see entry under "Joan of Arc" in Robbins) . The court apparently felt that it
could not prove (short of a confession forced by torture) actual practices of
conjuring demons. Besides, the Inquisition had not yet been authorized to
deal with witchcraft in and of itself. This would not happen until 1451
(Robbins, 272) . The court had enough evidence to condemn her anyway, in
view of her claim that her transvestism was a religious duty and her belief
that her personal visions were more important than the institutional
authority of the church .
Joan was subjected to unending psychological abuse and threatened
with being burned alive . By April 24, 143 1 , she could stand the pressure n o
longer and recanted. She promised to submi t t o the institutional authority
of the church and said she would stop wearing men's clothing . The court
showed her mercy, as Christians understand it: she was sentenced to life
imprisonment on bread and water.
On May 30, Joan again resumed the wearing of men's clothing . It's not
clear from the records whether she did this deliberately or was tricked into it
by her guards . In any event, as Margaret Murray observes, "the extra
ordinary fact remains that the mere resuming of male garments was the
signal for her death without further delay . On the Sunday she wore the
[ male) dress, on the Tuesday the sentence was communicated to her, on the
Wednesday she was burned, as an 'idolator, apostate, heretic, relapsed'"
(M . Murray, The Witch-Cult, 274). This fact is extraordinary because the
laws that regulated the wearing of clothing never made transvestism a
capital offence . Apparently, in the opinion of her j udges, Joan's resumption
of male clothing was a sign of relapse into "heresy . "
Joan of Arc 9
A clue to the importance of Joan's transvestism comes from a decree of

the faculty of the University of Paris. On May 14, 1431, the faculty con
demned Joan and urged that she be burned as a heretic (medieval
academics, like their modern counterparts, were mostly mouthpieces for the
values of the ruling class). The reason for the faculty's condemnation of
Joan's cross-dressing is striking.They said that by doing it she was "follow
ing the custom of the Gentiles and the Heathen" (W. S. Scott, 156). This
should stop us and make us ask, "What custom? What heathen?" Just what
are these academics referring to? Before we answer these questions,
however, we first have to examine one more angle -
During her military career, Joan's closest friend, personal bodyguard,
and most devoted follower was a man named Gilles de Rais (1404-1440).
Gilles de Rais was widely reputed during his lifetime to be a homosexual.
In 1440, the Bishop of Nantes publicly charged Gilles de Rais with
violating the immunities of a certain priest; conjuring demons; and sodomy.
At the insistence of the bishop, a concurrent civil trial was begun in which
Gilles was accused of massively molesting and murdenng chlldren, mostly
young boys. In the language of the Inquisition's indictment, Gilles was said
to be a "heretic, apostate, conjurer of demons ...accused of the crime and
vices against nature, sodomy, sacrilege, and violation of the immunities of
Holy Church" (see entry under "Gilles de Rais" in Robbins).
At first Gilles denied everything and spok contemptuously to his
judges. Then he and some of his closest friends and servants were tortured
by methods rather like those used by the CIA today. Gilles confessed
everything his judges wanted to hear.On October 26, 1440, nine years after
the burning of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais was publicly strangled.
Historians are divided over what was really going on in the trial of
Gilles. One of the problems involves his relationship to his family - who
were upset at the way he was squandering their money. Gilles was one of
the richest nobles in Europe, but he was blowing the money away on every
thing that caught his fancy. He spent so much that he started selling off
family estates to pay for his debts.This selling of the family inheritance was
too much for his relatives. In 1436, they got the King of France to issue a
decree forbidding him to sell any more family land.In September of 1440, a
priest tried to take possession of one of the estates that Gilles owned outside
the King's jurisdiction and had sold for debt. Gilles beat up the priest and
arrested him.The priest than collaborated with Gilles' relatives and with the
Bishop of Nantes, who stepped forward and made his charges.
But there are other factors besides economics. In generaL slanderous
charges of child murder or child molestation have been used in the past by
patriarchal religions against people who practice a dissenting religion. For
example, such charges were leveled against Christians in ancient Rome,
against Jews in Christian Europe, and against Jesuit missionaries in China.It
Joan of Arc 11
is extraordinary that this same type of slander is widely used today against
Lesbians and Gay men. ("We can't let them be teachers because they'll
convert our children"; "They practice strange rites among themselves";
etc.).
We know that Gilles was a practitioner of magic before he was
arrested. At the time of his arrest and thereafter, some pretty strange things
happened. On the day he was to die, there was a large public demonstration
on his behalf (James, 154). This is hardly the type of thing to happen for
someone regarded as a child-molester! After he was executed, a fountain
was erected on the spot where he died. For many years thereafter, nursing
mothers would visit this fountain and pray to it to increase their flow of
milk. Every year on the anniversary of his death, the parents of Nantes
ritually flagellated their children in his memory (Murray, God of the
Witches, 195).
So we see that with Joan and Gilles we have a very strange set of
circumstances. On the one hand, we have a peasant woman who practiced
transvestism as a religious duty; who was masculine in appearance and
behavior; who admitted to sleeping in the same bed with another woman;
who was worshipped in her own life time; and who came from an area
where pagan traditions were still strong. On the other hand, one of her
closest friends was a man who was commonly known as a homosexual and
a sorcerer; and whose place of execution was popularly regarded as a
fertility charm.
To most straight historians, these strange circumstances mean very
little. They usually dismiss the trial of Joan as a phony political frame-up
and regard Gilles as "a vicious sexual pervert" (Russell, 263). Despite this
shallow straight approach, we will follow up other historical clues.
For one thing, the emphasis on transvestism at Joan's trial is important
because transvestism played a major role in the religion of Europe before
Christianity. The historian Pennethorne Hughes puts it this way: 'The
wearing of clothes appropriate to the opposite sex was always one of the
rites of witchcraft, as it has been and is of primitive [sic] peoples, during
their fertility festivals, throughout the history of the world" (Huges, 108).
Links between witchcraft and transvestism appear regularly in the
history of Christian Europe. In the sixth century, the Christian writer
Caesarius of Arles denounced the pagan practices of ritual transvestism and
the wearing of animal costumes. Sixth and seventh century synods
repeatedly condemned transvestism during the popular New Year's holiday,
where men were dressed as women - "a masquerade probably originating
in a fertility rite of some kind" (Russell, 58). In the ninth century, a
Christian guidebook prescribed penance for men who practiced ritual trans
vestism (Russell, 74). A thirteenth century inquisitor in Southern France
denounced female worshippers of the goddess Diana along with male trans-
vestites (Russell, 156-157).

Ritual transvestism associated with the old holidays continued in
Europe down to modern times. "May Day sports perpetuated the practices,
including even transvestism, and . . . in Wales, there existed, into the nine
teenth century, a peasant dance and march with a garland, led by a dancer,
[a horned god figure) called the 'Cadi'" (Hughes, 125). Similarly in twenti
eth century England such celebrations as the Helston Furry Dance, the
Morris Dances, and the Peace Egg Mumming Play continue the tradition
(Hughes, 211-212). In the Hogmanay celebration in Scotland, "the boys
wore skirts and bonnets, the girls hats and greatcoats" (Hughes, 212). The
Feast of Fools, a remnant of the old pagan religion, has persisted into
modern times, with clerics "wearing masks and monstrous visages at the
hours of office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, or disreputable
men, or minstrels. They sing wanton songs" (Hughes, 111). Today many
Gay people throughout Europe and America observe Halloween as a Gay
holiday with transvestite celebrations. Originally, Halloween was one of
the great holidays of the old religion - the Night of All Souls.
Besides transvestism, a second clue to understanding Joan's history is
her association with "fairies." Pennethorne Hughes observes that "the
people who until the late Middle Ages were called fairies by one name or
another were often those, who until the seventeenth century, were called
witches" (Hughes, 76). Everyone knows "fairy" as a derogatory word for
Gay men. Many other anti-Gay words have historical connections with
heresy or witchcraft.
The word "bugger" comes from a group of twelfth and thirteenth
century Christian heretics. Hughes observes that:
this partlcuiar name became associated with the homosexual practices which the heretics
were held to encourage .... Hence they were known as Bulgari, Bugari, Bulgri, or
Bourgres, a word which, as it is delicately put, 'has been retained with an infamous
signification in the English, French and Italian vernaculars"'{Hughes, 66).
Gay men were once called "punks" in Britain. Until recent times in
Yorkshire, a festival was annually held on the Night of All Souls. Local
people themselves call the festival "Punky Night" or "Spunky Night," and
some participants are called "punks" (Hughes, 211).
The history of the word "faggot" reveals the intimate connection
between Gay men, heresy and witchcraft. Both witches and heretics were
regularly burned on bundles of sticks called "faggots." In the popular speech
of the time expressions popped up like "fire and faggot" or "to fry a faggot,"
suggesting that the victims themselves were called "faggots." "Faggot" even
became "the embroidered figure of a faggot, which heretics who had
recanted were obliged to wear on their sleeve, as an emblem of what they
had merited" (Oxford English Dictionary). The word "faggot" comes from
the Latin fagus, which means beech tree. Fagus in turn derives from the
Joan of Arc 13
Greek phagos or phegos, which originally meant any tree bearing edible
nuts or fruit (in Greek, phagein means "to eat"). In classical Greek, phagos
especially refered to oak trees. Burning witches and heretics on bundles of
faggots may have originated from a religious link with trees (especially
beech and oak) - which were sacred in pre-Christian Europe. The old fairy
tree near Domremy where Joan of Arc first heard her voices was a fagus
tree.
Margaret Murray offers an interesting interpretation of these clues. In
1921, Murray, a professor of Egyptology at University College in London,
unsettled conventional historians with the publication of The Witch-Cult in
Western Europe (still available as a paperback). Murray approached the
subject as an anthropologist: she collected transcripts from witch trials
(mostly from Britain, where torture was rare), went through the evidence
for common themes, and compared the results with existing mythological
and archaeological knowledge of early Western Europe. Murray claimed
that "witchcraft" was a lingering pre-Christian religion and that various
pagan cults continued to exist underground until recent times. In examining
the evidence about Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais, she concluded that both
were members of such a cult - a supposition which clarifies many strange
incidents surrounding them.
In addition to Murray's view, we have seen that Joan of Arc and Gilles
de Rais were probably Gay. Of course, our evidence, like most historical
evidence concerning sexuality, is circumstantial. But Joan was certainly not
an orthodox Christian: she refused to recite the Lord's prayer; she viewed
transvestism as a religious duty; she rejected the authority of the church;
she accepted deification in her own lifetime; she admitted to sleeping in the
same bed with another woman; and she boldly asserted her womanhood.
Similarly Gilles de Rais was well known for his sorcery and suspect for
sodomy.
Most "respectable" historians (usually straight males) have rejected
Margaret Murray's views. But straight historians provide no context for
understanding Joan, Gilles, or Gay history. Their writings mainly concern
the straight-identified ruling classes and ignore the people. What we need
instead is a people-oriented context for Gay history, especially in relation to
heresy and witchcraft. In what follows, we will create such a context by
exploring certain themes of sexuality and religion from prehistoric times,
through the middle ages, and up to modern times. In this way, Joan of Arc,
Gilles de Rais and other parts of our hidden history will no longer be
unexplainable mysteries.
2
Who Were the Fairies?
Human beings are animals. In the earliest ages, the sex life of humans
resembled that of other animals. Today people are alienated from both their
sexuality and their animal nature, but in the beginning this was not so.
Animals do not live in neat little nuclear families, as the mass media
often claim. Instead, the mating instinct is separate from the sexual impulse,
and the heterosexual bond is limited and weak (Briffault, I: 212ff). For
"higher" animals such as mammals, heterosexual fucking usually occurs
only when the female is in heat; otherwise, the two sexes often live separate
ly - females and young in one group, and males in another. Some mam
mals even live in separate herds of male and female, such as reindeer, elk,
antelope, buffalo, bats, elephants, seals, walruses, moose, boar, squirrels,
as well as certain monkeys, orangutans, and gorillas (Briffault, I: 122-23).
Usually females alone raise and protect the young. When rearing is done by
pairs of both sexes, as among many birds, the pairing usually lasts for only
one season. Pairings that last longer are rare (Briffault, I: 171). Monogamy
and the nuclear family are almost unknown in nature.
The strongest emotional bond among mammals is that between mother
and child, not between mother and father. The need for adult companion
ship is usually satisfied by members of the same, not the opposite, sex. Both
female and male homosexual behavior is common in the animal world,
especially among "higher" mammals (Ford and Beach, 139ff). Except when
the female is in heat, physical distinctions between the sexes are de
emphasized. Animals of one sex often take on the appearance and manner
isms of the other sex, and "the development in the male of instincts and
psychical modifications of female origin is widespread in the animal king
dom" (Briffault, I: 137).
Among humans, early social forms resemble these animal practices, as
can be seen in surviving stone and iron age societies. There, men and
women associate more often socially with members of the same sex;
sometimes the sexes live in separate common houses. For example, such
separate housing arrangements have .existed among the Moto, the Bassa
Komo of Nigeria, the Hottentots, the Zulus and the Aranda of the Upper
Congo. Among the Aranda, the sexes once even lived in separate villages
(Briffault, I: 509-13). In many of these common houses, homosexuality is
regularly practiced, and "in such cases the first homosexual intercourse is a
rite of friendship" (Van Gennep, 171). Even when the custom of separate
houses isn't found, the sexes in nature societies still tend to live their daily
lives apart. "In all the North American Indian tribes there was scarcely any
social intercourse between the men and the women; the sexes lived their
lives separately" (Briffault, I: 510).
In the earliest forms of human society, marriage was much different
from what it is today . When a man married a woman, he often married all
her sisters as well, and she, all his brothers (Briffault, I: 629ff) . "However
rare collective sexual organizations may be at the present day, they are by
no means so rare as might be supposed . . . . there is scarcely a portion of
the habitable globe where those forms of sexual association or the evidence
of their recent existence are not to be found" (Briffault, I: 765) .
Women had a high status in the oldest societies . In cases where men
and women did live together, the husband often left his people and went to
live as a stranger in his wife's household (matrilocal marriage) . Thus the
wife was in a relatively secure position . 'The practice of matrilocal mar
riage was the original form of marriage union, and is coeval with the origin
of humanity" (Briffault, I: 307) . Inheritance rights passed from the mother,
not the father (matrilineal descent) . Consequently, "in the great maj ority of
uncultured [sic] societies women enjoy a position of independence and of
equality with the men and exercise an influence which would appear start
ling in the most feministic modern civilized society" (Briffault, I : 311). Sex
ist white observers have misunderstood the role of women's labor in early
societies . For example, Native American women were viewed as oppressed
because of their lives of hard work, which ran counter to European notions
of feminity . But their right of access to essential labor was the very basis of
their independence (Briffault, I: 317, 328).
Taboos and ceremonies around menstruation have also been misunder
stood . These taboos are simply an extension from the animal world, where
::lll species limit access to females v;hcn they 3re menstruating, giving birth ,
or nursing . Menstruating taboos were originally invented by women and
were used as vetoes against male advances during these times . In fact, the
most severe taboos are found in those societies where "the women exercise
an almost despotic power over the men" (Briffault, II: 400, 404).
White male observers usually misinterpret the role of males in nature
societies . While talking to leaders of the men's groups and ignoring the
women, they reach the false conclusion that the society as a whole is organ
ized by males . The chief, who is only the leader of hunters and warriors, is
interpreted as being a king or president (Briffault, I: 492 ) . But male activities
like hunting and warfare are only a part of tribal life . The labor and activi
ties of women are at least as important as that of men . True, among nature
societies we find examples where women are treated harshly, even brutally .
But where such brutality exists, as among certain tribes in Australia and
Melanesia, there is evidence of a previous matrilocal system that has since
broken down (Briffault, I: 334).
Who Were the Fairies? 17
The first shamans (or healer priests) in nature societies were women
(Briffault, II: 518) . The first male shamans imitated women by taking on
their roles and wearing their clothing . Wherever patriarchy has overthrown
matriarchy, even in nature societies, the previous religious power of women
is feared as something diabolical . The priestess is turned into the witch ( B rif
fault, II: 561) . Unfortunately, Robert Briffault, whose book I have been
citing so far, freaks out over homosexuality, which he dismisses as "the in
dulgence of unnatural vices" (Briffault, II: 533) . And so he can't imagine
there could be a link between cross-dressing shamans and homosexuality .
But we will see later there is such a link, and that as the priestess was turned
into the witch, so the Gay male shaman was turned into the heretic .
In stone age Europe, humans probably lived pretty much like people in
surviving nature cultures . For example, archaeology suggests that a
shamanistic religion was practiced and that women had high status. From as
early as 30, 000 BC we find an abundance of female figurines and cave draw
ings that show women leading religious ceremonies (Rawson, 13ff) . From
about 5, 000 Be, the heads and necks on many of these figurines are
stretched out to form smooth dildos, so that the composite figure is that of a
fat female with a dildo emerging from the top (Rawson, 18) . We know from
the practices of existing nature societies in Africa and India that such imple
ments were often used in ritual Lesbian acts where an older woman initiated
a younger ( Rawson, 18 & 71) . In addition, the oldest deity worshipped by
the Celts, Germans, and Anglo-Saxons of Western Europe was a G reat
Mother goddess who was associated with womb-like caves .
Many bisexual figurines have been found from the stone age - notably
in Trasimeno, Italy; the Weinberg Caverns, Bavaria; the Jordan Valley; and
Pembrokeshire, Wales ( Rawson, 17) . Among surviving nature societies,
bisexual deities often indicate bisexual religious rites ( Baumann, passim).
Many cave paintings show pictures of nude men with erections dancing
together in groups without women. Among nature people, a man's cum is
often thought to embody ancestral religious power, "and this probably ex
plains one male initiation ritual . . . during which adult male initiates have
anal intercourse with novices" (Rawson, 48) .
Animals ( especially horned ones) also play a large part in stone-age art,
and male human figures appear wearing animal skins . These figures are
probably shamans, since nature societies often identify themselves col
lectively with the animals they eat (totemism) and imitate their behavior,
including their sex life, in religious rites .
At the end of the stone age and the beginning of the bronze age (around
4, 000 BC ) , sacred places came to be marked by the presence of huge stones,
called megaliths . They extended from Ireland, through Brittany, to Portu
gal , Italy, Malta, South Arabia, India, Malaya., Sumatra, Indonesia and the
Pacific Islands ( Rawson, 42) . These sites were apparently sacred to the
Great Mother and often marked burial spots for the dead (von Cles-Reden,
11). Some writers, pointing to surviving beliefs in re-incarnation, think the
megalithic tombs were viewed as "magical reservoirs" of souls waiting to be
reborn (Rawson, 43). They could be right, since the tombs certainly were
thought to have great fertility powers . In historical times, women believed
they could get pregnant by visiting them at night . In some medieval witch
craft trials, there were persistent reports that sabbats were being held at a
few of these spots (Grinsell, 77, note 18).
Into this world of matriarchal Europe, there eventually moved a new
people, the Celts . They spread across Europe, coming from the east, and set
up a civilization that extended from Turkey in the West, through Central
Europe and even into the British Isles . The Celts came in waves, beginning
around 1500 Be . Conquering local tribes, their society became increasingly
militaristic and patriarchal (Hatt, 63-84). By 500 BC, a national Celtic
culture emerged, fused from the cultures of both the conquerors and the
conquered . As such , it stood midway between the two worlds of matriarchy
and patriarchy (Markale, 16-17).
One legacy of the older ways was the continued high status of Celtic
women . They were independent and chose their sexual partners freely
(Hope, passim). Both marriage and divorce were by mutual agreement, and
a wife maintained her own property apart from her husband's family
(Markale, 32-35). Many types of marriage existed, including marriage for a
specific length of time; marriage between one wife and one husband;
between one husband and many wives; and between one wife and many
husbands . If a woman had greater wealth, she and not her husband was
considered head of the family (Markale, 36-7). This sexual openness con
tinued well into Christian times . Around 395 AD. the Christian propa
gandist Jerome complained that "the Irish race do not have individual wives
and . . . none among them has a spouse exclusively his own, but they sport
and wanton after the manner of cattle, each as it seems good to them"
(Hope, 295).
Women played an important role in Celtic myths, as shown by the
Tain 80 Cuailnge - a pre-Christian Irish epic finally put into writing in the
eighth century .
Thomas Kinsella, a translator of the Tain, writes, "probably the great
est achievement of the Tain and the Ulster cycle is the series of women . . .
on whose strong and diverse personalities the action continually turns:
Mebd, Derdriu, Macha, Nes, Aife" (Kinsella, xiv-xv) . The rain depicts the
arts of war as the special province of women . Men learning to fight went to
school under women, who were at the same time sorcerers (Markale, 38).
The medieval saga Kulhwch and Olwen, drawn from Celtic traditions,
describes a group of women called gwiddonot who fight in battle and utter
prophecies . 'They are amazons who live in a settled house called L lys of
Gwiddonot" (Chadwick, The Celts, 13 6). Some sources suggest these

women were Lesbians (Markale, 39).
Celtic men were notorious for their homosexuality. In the first century
BC, the historian Diodorus Siculus said about Celtic men:
Although they have good-looking women, they pay very little attention to
them, but are really crazy about having sex with men. They are accustomed to
sleep on the ground on animal skins and roll around with male bed-mates on
both sides. Heedless of their own dignity, they abandon without a qualm the
bloom of their bodies to others. And the most incredible thing is that they don't
think this is shameful. But when they proposition someone, they consider it dis
honorable if he doesn't accept the offer! (Diordorus, III: 5, 32,7).
Celtic religion, like Celtic social life, also reflected earlier matriarchal
traditions. The most ancient Celtic deities were three goddesses whom the
Romans called Matres or Matronae - 'The Mothers. " They were versions
of the Great Mother, who was worshipped as early as the stone age (Chad
wick, The Celts, 168, and Rawson, 45). Altars to the Mothers have been
found all over Europe. Stories about them persisted into medieval times i"n
the King Arthur legends, where the goddess Morrigan ( the Great Queen in
'Ireland) became the figure of Morgan la Faye (Morgan the Fairy). Finally,
the Mothers were turned into fairies, as indicated by the Welsh word for
fairies, y Mamau, which means "the Mothers" (Hope, 32).
The newer forces of Celtic patriarchy and militarism brought new gods
who challenged the ancient matriarchal traditions, but even after these
changes, the Mothers retained their importance among Celtic peasants and
women. They were the overseers of nature: goddesses of earth, moon,
plants, animals and sex. Their worship included ritual sexual promiscuity,
even with animals, and their chief priests were women (Rawson, 44; Hope,
166-167). The two types of deities continued to exist side by side. The Celtic
upper classes converted to patriarchal gods, while the lower classes main
tained the old religion ( Hope, 43).
One manifestation of the Celtic Mother was the bear goddess Artio
who was widely worshipped. "The name Art, 'Bear: occurring in names
such as Artgenos, 'Son of the Bear, ' occurs widely in Welsh and Irish
personal names and in toponymy" (Ross, Britain, 349). The name persisted
into Christian times. Lady Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, Ireland, was accused
in 1324 of having ritual sexual intercourse with a "demon" named Robin,
son of Art. Hers was the first trial for heresy and witchcraft in Ireland.
The Mother G oddess made her influence felt even within traditional
Christianity. Some of the earliest churches in Ireland, Britain and German
Switzerland have nude figures of a woman carved above the front door. She
squats, looking down on the incoming worshipper with an intense stare,
and has both hands on the lips of her cunt, which is greatly enlarged. These
figures are known as sheelagh-na-gigs, and "they are, in fact, portrayals of
the ancient goddess" who was "long-remembered in the traditions and festi
vals of the people" (Ross, Celtic and Northern Art, 104 ) . In France most of
the great sanctuaries of the Virgin Mary are located on sites that previously
were consecrated to a Celtic Mother goddess (Markale, 17).
One Celtic male deity is as old as the Mothers . This is the horned god,
"one of the most basic of the Celtic god types , " whose worship goes back to
the stone age (Ross, Celtic and Northern Art, 83; Bober, 40). He is often
associated with the Mothers, as well as sex, animals and nature. He also
seems to have links with male shamans . His great antiquity is shown by a
stone age painting in Ariege, France, which shows a man dancing in the hide
of an animal and wearing the antlers of a stag. And in the eighteenth
century, construction workers inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris un
covered a four-sided Celtic stone altar dating from Roman times and
bearing the figure of a bearded male deity with antlers . The stone was
inscribed with the word Cernunnos, which means 'The Horned One"
(Bober, 28ff).
The horned god was especially linked with male sexuality and often
appears with an erect cock. Moreover, when erect, he is sometimes
portrayed in the company of men, not women. A drawing of the horned
god from Val Camonica, Italy, shows him holding a ceremonial collar ring
in one hand and a horned serpent in the other. He is being worshipped by a
man, and the man has an erection (Bober, 18; Ross, Celtic and Northern
Art, 84) . This picture is reminiscent of early art scattered throughout
Europe. The men often have erections and appear together in groups
without women (Ross, Celtic and Northern Art, 81) . In view of the Celts'
notoriety for homosexuality, these facts suggest a Gay element in the
worship of the horned god.
The horned god was also lord of the dead and the underworld (Bober,
44) . To the Celts, who believed in reincarnation, darkness and death were
parts of the cycle of life and rebirth, and death was the very place where the
creative forces of nature brought about new life. Because of this connection
with the underworld the horned god was often shown as black in color
( Ross, Britain, 137) . But this blackness was not considered evil, as Chris
tians later viewed i t.
The depiction of the Celtic male god as an animal with horns is under
standable in view of the economy and religion of the times. Stone age
Europe was dependent for its very existence upon the hunting of reindeer,
red deer, and elk. Among the first animals to be domesticated were sheep
and goats. Ancient Europeans, like all nature people, worshipped the
animals they depended on, in contrast to modern "civilized" people who
objectify and destroy animals with all the impersonal violence that only
scientific industrialism can devise.
The Celts dated the feast days of their religion according to the chang
ing of the seasons, the breeding habits of animals, and the sowing and
harvesting of crops. As in Judaism, feasts began on the night before the
holiday. The four greatest Celtic holidays (with their Irish names) were
Samhain (November 1); Imbolc (February 1); Beltaine (May 1 ); and
Lugnasadh (August 1 ) (Chadwick, The Celts, 181). These holidays were
celebrated with ritual sexual promiscuity (Hope, 166-167).
As it happens, these dates correspond exactly with the holidays later
attributed by medieval Christians to witches. The Christians called these
days, respectively , Halloween, Candlemas, Walpurgisnacht, and Lammas.
Two other holidays were also celebrated by both Celts and witches : the
winter solstice, December 2 1 , surviving as the Feast of the Fools; and the
summer solstice, June 23, surviving as Midsummer Night. Shakespeare's A
Midsummer Night's Dream, written in the late sixteenth century, has echoes
of this holiday. The play is full of magic, fairies, human and animal
sexuality. It features a leading character named Puck, or Robin Goodfellow
- a descendant of the horned god (Kott, 213-236).
After the Roman conquest of the Celts in the first century BC, the
Celtic druids urged their tribes to resist Roman imperialism. They organized
rebellions and prophesied that Roman power would be overthrown. "We
may probably regard the druids as the most formidable nationalist and anti
Roman force with which Romans had to contend" (Chadwick, The Druids,
72). The Romans responded by conducting a campaign of propaganda
against the druids and the Celts, attempting to portray them as bloody bar
barians (Chadwick, The Druids, 25). In churning out this propaganda, the
Romans were like the early American colonists who painted the native
Indians as "savages" so they could feel justified in murdering them and
stealing their land. Unfortunately, some modern scholars have been taken
in by these anti-Celtic tirades.
The Celts of Europe were not the only people who carried on matri
archal religious traditions. In Asia Minor we find "the Great Mother of the
Gods," who was associated with animals, sex and nature (Showerman,
230ff). Her priests were both women and men. The men castrated them
selves, grew long hair, and wore the clothing of women (Showerman,
236-237). They were called "teachers of orgies," "sorcerers," and "cave
dwellers" (Showerman, 236 & n. 55). Male followers of the religion were
later called "effeminate" by Greek writers (Showerman, 294-295).
The Great Mother of the Gods was worshipped with sacred orgies. Par
ticipants of the rituals played flutes, castanets, cymbals, and drums, calling
these the "strings of frenzy" (Showerman, 238). Homosexual and hetero
sexual acts of all kinds took place at these rituals. As one academic (a tight
assed homophobe) puts it, there were "revolting sensual rites, the presence
of the hermaphroditic element" (Showeman, 247). A man who wanted to
become a priest of the Great Mother attended the orgies, and in an ecstatic
and frenzied trance, castrated himself (Showerman, 238-239). This castra
tion was entirely voluntary, and was undertaken only by those who wished
to be initiated as priests.
After the Roman conquest, the cult of the Great Mother of the Gods
spread across Europe. In every location, the conquered people saw in the
Great Mother the same deity their ancestors worshipped. She was most
popular among the lower classes, who retained much of the ancient
matriarchal traditions. The Roman upper classes distrusted her. They
especially disliked the fact that she was popular among women and slaves
(Showerman, 295 & 300).
Among the Romanized Celts of Western Europe, the worship of the
Great Mother spread under the Latin name of Diana (the Greek Artemis)
(Turcan, 48ff). The Celtic preference for the Roman Diana is easy to under
stand, considering the history of her worship. The official deities of Greece
and Rome (the Olympians) were really latecomers. They overthrew an
older set of three Greek goddesses connected with the moon. Like the Celtic
mothers, the goddesses presided over agriculture, hunting and domestic

arts, and were worshipped with sexual orgies (Graves, passim) . By late
Roman times, they were absorbed into the figure of Diana, who was
originally goddess of the new moon (Graves, I: 83, n. 1) . In an alternate
form, they also survived as the three Fates. Again like the Celtic Mothers,
they were turned into fairies by the medieval Christian world ( "fairy"
coming from the Latin jata, meaning fate).
The Greek Fates and the Celtic Mothers also find their counterparts
among the ancient Anglo-Saxons. The oldest Anglo-Saxon deity is the god
dess Wyrd (Fate), who was one of three sisters (Branston, 64-65) . They later
became known as "the weird sisters" ("weird" originally meant fateful).
This tradition survived at least until 1605, when they were mentioned in
Shakespeare's Macbeth (Branston, 66) . According to Christian tradition
they were associated with witchcraft, and Shakespeare portrayed them as
androgynous, as witnessed by Banquo's remark, "You should be women,
yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so. " Belief in these three
goddesses was almost universal in ancient Europe. "It is evident that the
conception of the three Fates goes back to Indo-European times and that the
ancestresses of Wyrd, the Noms [ Iceland], the Parcae [ Italy ] ' and the
Moirai [ Greece ] , were three all powerful figures of at least six thousand
years ago" ( Brans ton, 70) .
Throughout the entire Mediterranean area, the oldest religious tradi
tion in many cultures was the worship of a great goddess, often associated
with sexual rites . She had many different names : Ashtoreth or Astarte in
Palestine; Tanit in Carthage; Ma in Cappodocia; Aphrodite in Cyprus; and
Isis in Egypt (Showerman, 247; Lethbridge, 19) . Roman writers were well
aware of this Mediterranean tradition . For example, in Apuleius' The
Golden Ass (2nd century AD) , the hero Lucius prays to the moon, calling
her Regina Caeli, "Queen of Heaven, " a title later given to the Virgin Mary .
When Lucius falls asleep the goddess appears to him and reveals her true
power:
Look, I have come, Lucius, moved by your prayer. I am the mother of the
nature of things, the mistress of all the elements, the original progeny of the
ages, the supreme divinity, queen of the departed souls, chief of the deities of
heaven, the manifestation in one of all the gods and goddesses . By my com
mands, I regulate the bright vault of heaven, the health-giving sea breezes, the
bereaved silence of the dead. The whole world venerates my single name in
many forms, with varied ritual, with a name linked to many others. And so the
Phrygians - the first born of all humans - call me Mother of the Gods at
Pessinus; native Athenians call me Cecropean Minerva; the sea-tossed
Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the Cretan archers, Diana Dictynna; the tri-lingual
Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; the Eleusinians, the most ancient goddess Ceres.
Some call me Juno, others Bellona. Here I am Hecate, there Rhamnusia . And
both Ethiopias, which are illuminated by the beginning rays of the rising sun
god, as well as the Egyptians, who are strong in the teaching of antiquity and
who revere me with special ceremonies, call me by my true name - Queen Isis"
(Apuleius , Book XI, Section 4) .
In both Asia Minor and Celtic Gaul many statues of Artemis ( or Diana )
have been found with a singular feature : they show a woman with many
rows of naked tits and surrounded by animal figures (Turcan, 49) . In some
stone-age caves, groups of stalagmites can be found, such as at Pech Merle,
that are painted like tits with pictures of animals around them . The statues
of Artemis are similar to these strange figures and "must embody echoes of
that same ancient Mother of the Animals whom we can first identify in Pech
Merle" ( Rawson , 15) .
During the early days of Christianity, Artemis was worshipped in the
city of Ephesus in Asia Minor . Her cult was one of the chief impediments to
the missionary effort there of Paul of Tarsus. The new testament book of
A cts describes the severity of the struggle between the two religions . The
pagan worshippers of Artemis rioted against Paul, shouting "she whom
Asia and all the world revere may soon be stripped of her magnificence"
(Acts; 19, 23-29) .
The people of Asia Minor worshipped Artemis with sexual rites that
Wh o Were the Fairies ? 25
included homosexuality . For this reason most of Paul's denunciations of

a high status for women, free sexuality, and homosex uality -
when read
closely - turn out to be denunciations of ido latry. In R o mans, Paul writes :
They claimed to be wise but turned into fools instead; they exchanged the glory
of the immortal God for images representing mortal man, birds, beasts, and
snakes. In consequence, God delivered them in their lust to unclean practices:
they engaged in the mutual degradation of their bodies, these men who
exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped the creature rather than the
creator. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and the men
gave up natural intercourse with women and burned with lust for one another
(Romans I; italics added ) .
In other words they were practicing the old sex and nature religion .
As Christianity rose to power in the Roman Empire, the worship of the
Great Mother was one of the most powerful forces to resist i t . Christian
propagandists bitterly attacked this old religion and singled out for abuse its
effeminate priests. Augustine condemns
effeminates consecrated to the Great Mother, who violate every canon of
decency in men and women . There were to be seen until just the other day in the
streets and squares of Carthage with their pomaded hair and powdered faces,
gliding along with womanish languor, and demanding from shopkeepers the
means of their depraved existence (Augustine, 286) .
Once Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire,
Mother worship was outlawed. 'The prominent part the Mother played in
the last struggle [ against Christianity 1 probably made her sanctuary one of
the first pagan edifices to fall before the fi:maticism or rapacity of the
Christian party as soon as all restraint was removed" (Showerman, 312) .
Attacked, with its temples looted and destroyed, Mother worship went
underground, but did not die .
Many ancient cultures worshipped horned gods, in addition to a
mother goddess. Behind all these gods was a common ancestor that went
back to the stone age . In pre-Christian times he appeared under many
different names . In the Greco-Roman world he was Dionysus, Bacchus, or
Pan; in Crete, the Minotaur; at Carthage, Baal Hammon; in Asia Minor,
Sabazios; and in Egypt, Osiris. He usually had the horns of a goat or a bull
and was worshipped with rites that included sexual orgies, animal masquer
ades, and transvestism. As with Pan, the lover of Diana, he was often linked
with a goddess who was mistress of wild animals, the forest, agriculture,
and sexuality .
Among the ancient Greeks, as with the Celts, the horned god was
associated with homosexuality . One ancient bowl shows Pan, with cock
erect, chasing a young male shepherd, which the German scholar Reingard
Herbig describes this way :
The god pursues at quick pace and with utmost excitement a beautiful shepherd
boy . The meaning of the picture is unmistakeably underlined by the addition of
26 Witchcraft and the Gay Coun terculture
an accessory that should be symbolically understood, a Priapus herm [a phallic

image J . Here Pan is really everything that fits his original essence: masculine
drive seeking release, which here, following the early Greek preference, devotes
itself to 'the beautiful boy' (Herbig, 37).
As ancient Greece became "civilized" and fell under the influence of
patriarchal institutions, the worship of Pan was denounced and repressed.
The new order couldn't handle the religion's open sexuality, transvestism,
feminism and emotionalism. The struggle between the rising Greek patri
archy and the old traditions underlies Euripides' play Bacchae. The plot
revolves around a revival of the worship of Dionysus (same as Pan) and the
attempt to suppress the religion by King Pentheus of Thebes, who is an
urban law-and-order type, the ancient Greek equivalent of Richard Nixon.
Dionysus himself appears in the play as an effeminate young man. King
Pentheus arrests him, not knowing who he is, and cuts off all his long hair.
In retaliation, Dionysus drives Pentheus mad, for Dionysus is lord of the
emotions . Pentheus in his madness dresses up as a woman and attempts to
spy on one of the orgies of Dionysus' religion . When the King gets to the
orgy, the women worshippers (including the King's own mother) are driven
into a frenzy by the rites. Mistaking Pentheus for a lion, they attack him
and tear him to pieces. His mother returns to Thebes with the head of this
lion in her apron, only to discover on becoming sober that she has torn off
the head of her own son. The moral of the play is clear: the new order is
repressing aspects of human behavior that are sacred to the god of ecstasy.
The price of this repression will be a madness that tears the new order itself
apart.
Historically the worship of the horned god was responsible for the rise
of theater in Western civilization. (So there has always been a connection
between theater and Gay men. ) In ancient Greece, Dionysus was first wor
shipped in a ritual of masquerading, song, dance, and sex by a group of
people called the chorus. In time, a few persons emerged from the chorus
who played special roles and were called actors . Eventually the religious
and sexual aspects of the ritual were forgotten and the ceremony became a
play, enacting out a previously written script. It's no accident that the word
"tragedy" comes from the ancient Greek tragoidia, meaning "goat song. "
After the Roman conquest, various concepts of the horned god blended
together, just as they did in the case of the Great Mother . We find him
appearing under the names of Priapus, Attis, Adonis, Dis Pater and
Tammuz. But the relationship of the horned god to the Mother changed as
the patriarchs gained more control throughout the world. At first he was
born from the Mother and subordinate to her, but finally he became the
world's sale creator ( Campbell, 86).
The triumph of Christianity brought bad news for the horned god.
Since he kept company with the Great Mother and her sex rites, the church
made every effort either to suppress or change him to suit its own needs. He
became identified with the Christian ruler of the underworld - Satan -
and was viewed as evil, even though the Celtic god of the dead was not
considered evil. In the Jewish religion, Satan had been an adversary only to
humans, never to God himself. The new testament went beyond this view,
but the personality of the devil was still fuzzy. In 447 AD, the Council of
Toledo settled this question once and for all by picturing the devil as cosmic
evil personified (Robbins, 132).
With the doctrine of the devil established, the church took many of the
"bad" traits of the horned god ( such as sexuality) and gave them to the devil
(Schoff, passim) . The old horned god was turned into the devil himself, and
from that time forward, Christian art depicted the devil as having horns,
cleft hooves, furry legs, and an erect cock - the very characteristics of the
horned god (Ross, Britain, 132). Soon the old teutonic fertility spirits were
likewise changed into subordinate "devils" (Russell, 46). To medieval witch
hunters the figure of the devil became sex personified. The Malleus
Maleficarum, a manual used for detecting witches, stated, "the power of the
Devil lies in the privy parts of men" (Malleus, 26).
The "good" aspects of the horned god were taken and applied to figures
in Christianity. For example, in the book of Revelations we find Christ
pictured symbolically as a horned animal and called "the Lamb" (V; 6ff).
The doctrine of the devil also affected Christian attitudes toward the
color black. As the Celtic lord of the underworld, the horned god was
pictured as black. This was not an evil color since the Celtic underworld
was a place of rest before reincarnation, whereas the Christian underworld
was a place of hell and damnation. As a result, black to the Christians
became an evil color, connoting sin, death, and the Devil. Later, when
Christians from Europe encountered people whose skin was black, the
Christians viewed them as sinful and devilish. This attitude was not the
only cause of Christian racism, as we'll see, but it was one factor.
In the British isles, an ancient name in folklore for the horned god was
Robin or Robin Goodfellow. In one 17th century picture, Robin is shown
surrounded by a ring of dancers. He has hooves, a goat's horns, and an
erect cock. In one hand he carries a candle; in the other a ritual broom
(Murry, God of the Witches, 97). Robin also figured in witch trials as well
as folklore. We've already seen that Lady Alice Kyteler was accused of
having sex with a black demon named Robin, son of Art.
Matriarchal traditions persisted through Celtic, Roman, and early
Christian civilizations, even though they were suppressed more vigorously
in each succeeding epoch. The Roman period saw a fusion of the Great
Mother with Diana, the Fates, and the Celtic Mothers, just as there was a
blending of Pan, Robin, Dionysus, Adonis, and the Celtic horned god.
When the Christians took over, a part of the Great Mother, although
28 Witch craft and the Gay Counterculture
greatly desexualized, squeezed through as the Virgin Mary, while the

horned god was banned as the devil. Though outlawed, the worshippers of
this matriarchal mix - which Margaret Murray calls the old religion -
persisted underground and were known in folklore as fairies, named after
the fateful goddesses whom they worshipped. Later in the medieval period,
various remnants of the old religion were to emerge again, only this time
they were called heretics and witches . As we'll see, their greatest "crime"
was that they experienced the highest manifestations of the divine in the free
practice of sexuality.
3
Homosexuality and Class Warfare
The mass media have long given us an impression of the Stone Age as a
time of terror, violence and war. Stone Age people are often depicted as
ape-like creatures who went around clubbing each other over the head.
Their societies are usually described with pejorative words like "primitive, "
"barbaric, " "savage, " and "low" (in contrast to modern industrial society,
which is called "advanced, " "civilized, " "cultured, " and "high").
Despite this Hollywood view of history, Stone Age culture was
actually rather peaceful. The testimony of archeology is overwhelming on
this point: the people who lived in the Stone Age did not practice organized
warfare (Hawkes, 265 ) . Paintings and art work from the period do not
depict warlike activities, weapons are not found in burial areas, settlements
are completely unfortified. It may be surprising but is nonetheless true that
"war is a comparatively late development in the history of humanity"
(Dawson, 239 ) .
Organized warfare did not arise until the appearance of cities, class
conflict, government hierarchy, and private property. Indeed, it is precisely
those societies in history that have been the most "civilized" that have
waged the most frequent and terrible wars. No Stone Age society even
approaches the savagery of Nazi Germany against Jewry or "democratic"
America against the Vietnamese .
What we know about the people who still live in close contact with
nature confirms our knowledge of the peacefulness of the Stone Age. For
example, organized warfare was extremely rare among the native North
Americans prior to the Christian invasion (Driver, 355 ) . Admittedly, the
North American Indians did engage in duels and feuds . But until the white
Christians "instructed" them in warfare, they did not develop a permanent
military organization, special fighting regalia, or militaristic ceremonies .
(The situation was different with middle and south American Indians who
were partially urbanized . )
People have mistakenly associated nature societies with war because
so-called barbarians have come in conflict with urbanized and stratified
societies as in the ' "Gothic invasions" of the Roman Empire. But the
"barbarians" were usually tribes who lived on the periphery of urbanized
societies and who imitated their methods. In the case of Rome, outlying
"barbarians" had long been admitted into the Roman army before the tribes
they came from attacked Rome. Roman militarism had been seeping into
their cultures for centuries .
The Stone Age was striking for other reasons besides its peacefulness .
As best we can determine from archeological evidence and from compari
son with existing Stone Age cultures, there was communal ownership of
property by the tribe or the clan, government by voluntary consensus with
out any hierarchical superstructure, an absence of class domination and no
rigid division of labor (Hawkes, 265 ff. ) . Of course, it is tempting to dismiss
this as a utopian fantasy since we are so accustomed in our own society to
self-aggrandizement, government repression, class domination and rigid
soul-killing division of labor that is either idiotic or based on years of
zombie-like institutionalization ("education") . We have become so
conditioned through universities, factories and offices to be feelingless,
brain-dominated, self-seeking billiard balls that we cannot conceive of a
society run otherwise. But the evidence will not go away . Human beings
once lived differently.
Women had a very high status in the Stone Age, as we have seen .
Archeology, myth and comparison to still-existing nature societies all point
to their dominant position . 'There is every reason to suppose that under the
conditions of the primary Neolithic way of life, mother-right and the clan
system were still dominant [as they had been in the Paleolithic period ] , and
land would generally have descended through the female line . Indeed, it is
tempting to be convinced that the earliest Neolithic societies throughout
their range in time and space gave woman the highest status she has ever
known" (Hawkes, 264 ) .
Around 4000 B . C . an extraordinary change took place, beginning first
in the Near East and spreading gradually from there into Europe . At this
time there emerged a new era - the Bronze Age, which involved much
more than the making of bronze implements . For the first time in history,
social groups came into existence that were controlled by males and were
based on military exploits . In the Stone Age, humans had survived by
foraging, farming and hunting . Now came people who survived by warfare .
The political and economic life of the human race was completely upset
by these male invaders (Woolley, passim). In place of the earlier tribal com
munalism, a new institution came into being: the state (Woolley, 360) .
The new states lived off the labor of agrarian people and economically
exploited them . Class divisions developed, and slavery was imposed where
formerly there had been free labor . People became separated from the
immediate, direct life of nature, and intellectual activity was stressed at the
expense of emotional gratification. Most important of all, the status of
women fell, as did the great importance of the mother goddess . "Urban life,
the strengthening of intellectual powers and of individuality and self
consciousness, male rulers and priests, military conquests, were to combine
to lower the status of the goddess in all her manifestations in the centers of
ancient civilization" (Hawkes, 343) .
Hom osexuality and Class Warfare 31
Many scholars believe these male-dominated warrior groups evolved

from Stone Age hunters (usually male) . By some process, the male hunters
in certain of the earlier societies developed into a separate caste devoted not
to hunting but to warfare . The change, once made, became self
perpetuating : peaceful Stone Age tribes were either conquered by the new
militarists or were forced to become militaristic to defend themselves.
In the new social order, private property made its first appearance in
history (possibly as the seized booty of warfare; Engels, passim ) . Strict
hierarchies, always characteristic of military societies, emerged, as did a
new sense of morality characterized by obedience and self-discipline . The
beginnings of class warfare lie in this period, as the new order of warriors
tended to constitute an urban-based aristocracy that held sway over the
peasants .
The older Stone Age traditions that had existed time out of mind
eventually reasserted themselves against the Bronze Age innovations . The
new military class was too small, and the old peasant culture too large and
old, to allow for the annihilation of Stone Age ways . The conquerors
tended to be absorbed into the customs of the conquered . An equilibrium
was eventually reached, and societies stabilized into new forms that
embodied practices and beliefs of both the older Stone Age and the new
Bronze Age . Such, for example, were the ancient civilization of Sumer and
the oldest kingdoms in Egypt. There, even though organized warfare had
now come into being, "it was exceptional and of a rudimentary type"
(Dawson, 238). Although the status of women was lower than in the Stone
Age, women still maintained a position far higher than they do under the
primitive conditions of modern industrialism (Davis, passim ) .
Bronze Age civilization still retained much of the old love of sexuality,
especially in religion. Archeological evidence is abundant on this point,
both from the new cities and from the countryside. For example: "In
searching for some positive features of Bronze Age religion our attention is
caught by the strange phallic figures in the rock-carvings of Northern
Europe . Whatever the meaning of these figures may be, they un
questionably show that sexuality played a great part in that cult and belief
of which they are expressions" (Runeberg, 247) . In literary evidence from
Bronze Age Egypt, homosexual behavior is idealized as an activity of the
gods (Licht, 449). Nearly everywhere the worship of the Great Mother and
the horned god continued right along side that of the new militaristic
dieties.
One very important example of Bronze Age civilization is the culture
that emerged in Crete . From 3000 B . C . to 2000 B . C . waves of immigrants
from Asia Minor mingled with the local Stone Age people of Crete and
created a new civilization called Minoan, named after the legendary King
Minos .
Minoan civilization reached its peak in the period from 2000 B . C . to

1600 B . C . During this time, women had a very high status . They are
depicted in Minoan art work as participating equally with men in feasting
and athletic contests . In addition, Minoan society was peaceful . Scenes of
war are rare. 'The emphasis is on nature and on beauty" (Hammond, 30) .
The two chief deities of the Minoan religion were a great mother goddess
associated with animals (such as the snake) and the horned god (in the form
of a bull ) . Later Greek tradition particularly associated Crete with public
homosexuality, and several ancient authors claimed that it was the
historical source of homosexuality in G reece (Symonds, 4 ) .
Olive tree and crescent sacred to the Moon Goddess (Minoan gem)
On the Greek mainland itself, the local culture originally showed the
same peaceful characteristics . "It was peaceful, agricultural, seafaring, and
artistic, and its religious beliefs, if we may judge from the steatopygous [ fat
assed l female figurines, were focused on a mother goddess and may have
been associated with a matriarchal society or at least with one which was
not strongly patriarchal" ( Hammond, 37).
An analysis of early Greek literature shows that the society of the
mainland was matrilineal, not patrilineal, and that the characteristic
religion was one of shamanism (Butterworth) . As we have seen, shamanism
is frequently associated with ritual homosexuality, both male and female .
There is also evidence of transvestism in the rituals of early Greece as well
as the sexual worship of earth deities (Butterworth, 145ff. ) .
Hom osexuality and Class Warfare 33
All this was changed at the end of the Bronze Age . There were great
upheavals in Crete and Greece . About 2500 B . C . and thereafter, male
dominated militaristic tribes started entering parts of the mainland. They
worshipped male sky gods, the Olympians, and were organized s ocially
into a partriarchy (Hammond, 39) . These new invaders spoke Greek, a
language that was previously unknown in the area .
The invading patriarchal Greeks disrupted life in both Crete and
Greece . They established a capital at Mycenae in Greece (from which they
were called Mycenaeans) and at Cnossus on Crete . They developed bureau
cratic institutions, plunged the entire Aegean Sea area into warfare, and
violently opened up new markets for their trading interests (Hammond,
42ff . ) . By the end of the 15th century B . C . , all the leading settlements of
Crete had been burned (possibly accompanied by a volcanic eruption) .
During this period, the status of women declined. Succession to
religious rites, political power, and property became patrilineal, not
matrilineal. In religion, the status of the Great Mother fell, and the p ower of
Zeus and Ares ( the god of war) increased. "The matrilineal world was
brought to an end by a number of murderous assaults upon the heart of that
world, the potnia meter [ Revered Mother] herself. The opposition to the
potn ia meter seems to have been closely connected with the cult of Ares"
(Butterworth, 51) . Ares was the only Greek god who was n o t famous for his
homosexual love affairs ( Symonds, 10) .
After 1400 B . C . , patriarchal Greek culture was widely established
throughout the Aegean . In the late 13th century B . C . , a great convulsion of
war rocked the Greek settlements around the Aegean, including but not
limited to the famous Trojan War . The ruling patriarchal states destroyed
each other, and migrations of new peoples moved into Greece .
In the 12th Century B . C . , during all this turmoil, a new tribe of Greek
speaking people moved into Greece, dispossessing the previous warlords of
their power. These people - the Dorians - are of special interest because
of their attitude toward women and homosexuality.
The early Dorians, whose capital was established at Sparta, are often
negatively depicted as boorish and militaristic, in contrast to their rivals,
the Athenians, who are usually praised. This depiction is at odds with the
facts and has been largely inspired, I believe, by academics' dislike of the
Dorians' love for Gay sex .
It is true that the early Dorians were militaristic, but they were actually
less militaristic than the previous Mycenaeans . For example, the Dorians
were not dominated by a miltaristic aristocracy, and they had no govern
ment bureaucracy devoted especially to war, as did the Mycenaeans. "The
Dorians, whose tribal organization did not preclude the arming of all their
people, attacked and overthrew the Achaeans [ another name for
Mycenaeans l , who were only a small, armed, ruling class ruling over the
Greek agricultural population, which was largely unarmed" (Wason, 30) .

The Dorians maintained many of the most ancient traditions of
the earlier ages, especially with respect to women . For example, unlike the
situation in the previous patriarchy, "there is ample evidence to show that
the status of women among the early Dorians was one of freedom and
honour - a survival, perhaps, of a matriarchal period" ( Carpenter,
Intermediate Types, 107) . Among the Dorians, women ran and wrestled
naked in public with men . They had fuller power over property than
anywhere else in Greece . They had the power to publicly praise or censor
men, who greatly feared their criticism (Carpenter, 106ff . ) .
Among other Greeks who had lost the earlier traditions, women were
not allowed to dine with their husbands . The could not call their husbands
by name, but only "lord. " They lived secluded in the interior of the house
(Mueller, 297) .
Homosexuality had a high sta tus among the Dorians . In fact, it was
more highly regarded there than it was at Athens during the later classical
period . Male homosexuality at Sparta took the form of paiderestia - the
love of an older more experienced man for a younger inexperienced man .
Paiderestia was a form of religious, military, educational and sexual
training. The experienced man initiated the inexperienced man into men's
mysteries . It was through the institution of paiderestia that the Dorians
transmitted their cultural values. It made learning into an intimate personal,
emotional and sexual experience . The more experienced man was called
eispnelas, which means "inspirer, " and the inexperienced man was called
aitas, which means "hearer" or "listener" (Mueller, 300-301). In Crete,
where the same cut oms prevailed , the corresponding terms were philetor
("lover") and klein 05 ("renowned one" ) (Mueller, 302 ) .
Paiderestia had a religious origin, a s w e discover i n a remarkable study
by the German scholar E. Bethe . Bethe points out that cum was originally
viewed as a sacred substance, conveying a man's soul-power (468) . The
"inspiring" that took place among Dorian men was the transference of
cum, which was viewed as a holy and religious act (463).
Unfortunately, little is known about the Gay sex life of women at
Sparta, due to the sexist prejudice of Western historians . It's very probable,
however, that similar religious and sexual relations existed among women
in view of their high status . Plutarch, writing in the first century A .D . , said
of the women of Sparta : "the unmarried women love beautiful and good
women" (Lives, v . l , 18, 4). We know that even in the non-Doric island of
Lesbos in the 6th century B . C . , Sappho praised and practiced lesbianism
and that she and her lovers worshipped Aphrodite, the great goddess in her
capacity as the protector of love . When the Christians came to power in the
early Middle Ages, they deliberately set about destroying most of Sappho's
works .
Homosexuality and Class Warfare 35
From what has been said about the Dorians, we can see the falsehood
of two lies often repeated by historians: 1) that male homosexuality is
historically associated with contempt for women; and 2) that
homosexuality was a late development in Greece. To the contrary, Doric
paiderestia is a reflection of familiar shamanistic and religious concepts that
date back to the Stone Age. The Dorians, though coming later than the
Mycenaeans, remained much closer to the earlier sexual traditions. As for
the contempt-for-women myth : "It completely founders on the fac t that
precisely in Sparta and Lesbos, where boy-love and girl-love are best
known, the sexes, as best we can tell, associated more freely with each other
than in the other Greek states" (Bethe, 440) .
In the 12th century B . C . , as we have seen, Mycenaean power
collapsed, and Greece was thrown into chaos . Invading tribes had learned
well the military methods of the Mycenaeans, which they now imitated
(including, eventually, the Dorians as well) . Militarism was again on the
rise, and another revolution occurred in human affairs - the Iron Age .
With the advent of the Iron Age, the power of male-dominated armies
increased in politics, and p owerful city-states with imperialistic ambitions
came into existence .
After 1000 B . C . , the city-state emerged as the typical political uni t .
Cities became economic centers, and a "new type o f people" began making
themselves felt in politics - traders, seafarers, artisans, and merchants
(Wason, 52) . An urban-based bourgeoisie developed and struggled for
power with the older class of land-magnates and warlords. Monarchies
tended to be replaced by republics, still in the form of city-states . The
various city-states were constantly at war with each other, struggling to
build up their own commercial and military empires . Slavery became
widespread in Greece for the first time (Wason, 44) .
The effect of this urbanism, militarism, and growing bourgeois
ambition was predictable. "Civilization" (that is, urban culture)
increasingly lost touch with the nature religion of the peasants, who
formed, together with the urban slaves, the lowest level in the new
economic order . The status of women fell because male-dominated
activities like war, trade, and government service were now the crucial
activities on which urban society depended for its survival . A negative turn
developed in the attitude toward sexuality in general and homosexuality in
particular. Sex was no longer part of the public religion of the urban upper
classes.
The final outcome of this turn of events is well illustrated in Athens
during the classical period (after 500 B . C . ) During this period Athens was
almost constantly at war: against the military empire of Persia, against
Sparta, even against its former allies. During the same period, the status of
homosexuality fell . It was no longer practiced as a means of public
education or viewed as an expression of public religious sentiment. It had

become a private affair, something done in the privacy of one's house
between consenting adults .
In the late classical period, Greeks got out of touch with the religious
origins of homosexuality . Educated writers reacted with surprise and
contempt when they encountered it in more "primitive" societies, especially
when male transvestism was involved . Herodotus describes such behavior
among Scythian shamans as "a disease of effeminacy" (theleia nosos -
quoted by Carpenter, 24) . Classical Greek civilization became contempt

uous of the effeminate man - which is not surprising in view of their
contempt for women and the importance of war (hence masculinism) to
their economy and politics .
This change in attitude toward homosexuality is strikingly evidenced
by an event that occurred in 399 B . C . - the trial and condemnation of the
philosopher Socrates . Few straight academics have understood the real
issues involved in Socrates' confrontation with the establishment of his day .
They usually describe Socrates as an advocate of unpopular ideas who was
executed by people who felt threatened by them . In part this is true . But
there is much more : Socrates' Gayness and his religion . In the second half of
the 5th century B . C . , a reaction had developed against educational homo
sexuality . This reaction was led by the Sophists (Bethe, 439 ) . The S ophists
were independent professional academics who taught practical skills and
knowledge for money and who believed in book learning . They viewed the
relationship between teacher and pupil as a purely objective, mercenary
one . They rejected the traditions of the old nature religion, where learning
was through the oral tradition and where sexuality played an important
part in the relationship between teacher and student.
S ocrates hated the Sophists . He was horrified by the idea that teachers
should make money out of conveying knowledge. He rejectea'book'learning.
He believed that the only way to learn was through personal dialogue. He
believed that sex was an important part of the educational process (he had
famous affairs with his pupils, like Alcibiades) . Finally, he insisted that his
vocation was a holy one and that he was personally inspired by some spirit
or god (in Greek, daimon - usually used to denote nature spirits, and
almost never applied to the Olympians) . These characteristics of the
Socratic method of learning are all typical of shamanism : the sexual
relationship between teacher and pupil; the emphasis on learning through
personal oral communication rather than through books; the aura of a
divine being. Of course, Socrates was not a shaman in the same way that
shamans existed in the Stone Age, but he was following that tradition in so
far as it had managed to survive in urbanized, militarized Athens .
S ocrates infuriated the Sophists . He a ttacked their economic preroga
tives, their bookishness, and their repressive attitude toward sexuality . In
the end, the Sophists w o n out. Socrates was condemned to death for
corrupting the young men of Athens and for believing in gods that the state
didn't believe in (Plato, A pologia, 24B ) . The new moralism of the Iron Age
could no longer be resisted.
After the advent of the Iron Age, the entire Mediterranean area became
a world of deep class divisions and ever-increasing urbanism . Small groups
of warlords and their attendants settled in fortresses, which later became
cities, and held sway over the masses of peasants . Economic growth
depended on warfare . By the end of the fourth century B . C . , most Greek
city-states had become "military tyrannies ruling over an enslaved
population and resting in the last resort on mercenary armies" (Rostovtzeff,
6).
Throughout the entire Mediterranean, rival states fought for suprem-
acy . In the end, the city-state of Rome proved to be the most ruthless and
violent of all and succeeded in conquering nearly all the rest.
The nature of the Roman state and Roman society has been greatly
misunderstood, especially in regard to sex . Most people still think that the
Romans did little else than sit around at banquet tables and devote them
selves to orgies . This view, which is based on Christian propaganda, is a
distortion. Roman society - when viewed in the context of the cultures
before it - was actually hostile to sensual pleasure . Admittedly, in the eyes
of the early Christians it seemed hedonistic . But we must never forget that
the standard of judgment used by Christians was one of the most sex
repressive in the history of the world.
The dominant value system of Rome, both early in the republic and
later in the empire, was one of self-discipline. The virtues praised in public
and taught in school were the virtues of self-sacrifice to the state, obedience
to hierarchical authority, and suspicion of pleasure and sex .
It was no accident that Rome had these values . Rome was a highly
artificial state created and maintained through military violence . The
foundation of the expanding Roman economy was quite simple : "The
Romans enslaved the enemy and maintained their lands" (Levy, 62 ) . War
was the essence of the Roman economy . The property seized from the
defeated tribes and nations became state property and was divided up
among the most aggressive of the Roman warlords who became absentee
landlords. The defeated peoples themselves were often shipped off to Rome '
where they formed an army of slave labor (Levy, 62) . Roman warlords
developed masculinist values because these values validated their warlike
activities and supported the economy .
As might be expected, women and Gay men, especially effeminate Gay
men, suffered under such a regime . In 186 B . C . , the Senate banned the
practice of the Bacchanalia, which was an ancient sex and nature ritual in
honor of Bacchus, a variant of the horned god . The historian Livy has
38 Witch c raft and the Gay Cou n terculture
preserved a Consul's argument in favor of this ban, including his condem

nation of the high status of women and Gay men in the Bacchanalia and its
subverting influence on Roman militarism :
A great number of adherents are women, which is the origin of the whole trou
ble . But there are also men like women, who have joined in each other's defile
ment . . . Do you think, citizens, that young men who have taken this oath can
be made soldiers7 Are they to be trusted when they leave this obscene sanc
tuary7" (Partridge, 54) .
There were extensive prosecutions under the ban, and about 7000 peo
ple are reported to have been arrested (Partridge, 55) . The class nature of
this oppression is evident when we realize that the ancient worship of Bac
chus was most popular with the lower classes (Finley, 82) .
The status of women fell under the militarized Roman patriarchy .
Under original Roman law, a man's wife and children were considered his
personal property to dispose of as he will , as if they were so many tables
and chairs . This extreme situation was later tempered, however, but not
because of anything Roman . It resulted from the influence of the more le
nient customs of conquered peoples on Roman legislation itself (Bury, V. 2,
403 ) .
Around 169 B . C . , the Scantinia or Scatinia law was passed, which out
lawed pederasty and made it punishable by death (Meier, 180) . The
emperor Augustus re-affirmed this condemnation and also made adultery a
public crime . The anti-gay laws of Rome were primarily designed to control
the behavior of the lower classes and were often ignored or flaunted by the
members of the upper classes . Although homosexuality was tolerated in the
upper classes, however, it had clearly lost the great social and religious
significance it once had in earlier ages . It was now often associated with
guilt, self-deprecation, and cruelty .
This decline in the status of homosexuality is illustrated in the case of
the emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous . When Antinous died in 120
A. D . , Hadrian ordered statues erected to him throughout the Empire . Some
historians compare this act to the repressive mentality of modem industrial
society and see it as showing a high status for homosexuality at Rome . In
reality, however, when the event is compared to earlier ages, we see that
homosexuality had fallen in esteem . This falling off is well explained by one
historian as follows:
To Hadrianus the relationship with Antinous was a personal matter, respected
by the society in which he lived in the same way as other serious emotional rela
tions . But whatever ethical and esthetic component there was in the relationship
was an individual and private matter between the two. Pederasty was no longer
a means employed by the state in the education of the young, controlled by its
highest authorities and an obligation for the best men to take upon themselves .
It was not institutionalized any longer, had no place in the cult, and its symbols
had ceased to be the generally recognized expressions of the noblest aims of the
communal life of the society" (Vanggaard, 131).
The longer the Roman state existed, the more militarized it tended to
become. "As the army in its new shape was the greatest organized force in
Rome, its chiefs were bound not only to represent the military strength of
the state but also to become its political leaders" ( Rostovtzeff, 26) . As early
as 49 B . C . , Julius Caesar, the militarist who defeated the Celtic tribes of
Western Europe, seized power at Rome in a military coup d'etat . The
republic became a military dictatorship. Even though Caesar was
subsequently assassinated, the new form of government stuck .
It was during this period of the increasing militarization of the Roman
state that Christianity first came into being - a fact of great significance for
women and Gay men, as we'll shortly see.
The oppressive class structure of Rome was reflected in the relationship
between city and country . Warlords, bureaucrats, manufacturers,
academics, and other members of the upper classes took up residence in the
cities, whose growth was deliberately fostered by imperial policy . In
Western Europe, the emperor Augustus tried to suppress the tribal system
of the Celts in favor of urbanizing them (Rostovtzeff, 51) . The new class of
the urban bourgeoisie supported these efforts in return for being granted a
"privileged position among the masses of the provincial rural population"
(Rostovtzeff, 83) . The result of these developments was that the oppressed
classes of the empire were rural classes, either still on the land of absentee
landlords or living dispossessed in cities .
These rural-based classes held on to the old religious and cultural
values, which included elements dating back to the matriarchal period .
They held on to their old languages and steadfastly resisted efforts to make
them accept Greek and Roman culture. It was only the privileged classes in
the cities that spoke the official languages of Latin and Greek; the rest of the
population spoke Celtic, Iberian, Illyrian, Thracian, etc . (Rostovtzeff, 298) .
In reality, the Greek and Latin literature that modern academics hold up
before us as the basis of Western civilization is the voice of a minority of
oppressors .
The city-based oppressing classes looked down o n the tribal, rural
cultures as "half civilized or uncivilized" (Rostovtzeff, 180) . They especially
disapproved of their loose sexuality . The emperor Tiberius had the image of
the sex goddess Isis (a version of the great mother) pulled down and thrown
into the Tiber ( Partridge, 60) . Increasingly, Roman poets and other molders
of public opinion mentioned homosexuality in a context of scorn, ridicule,
and satire (Gibbon, V. 2, 377) .
Despite this cultural repression, the old traditions sometimes even
penetrated into the upper classes . The most famous example is that of
Elagabalus, a priest in a sex and nature cult, who became emperor of Rome
in 218 A . D . As Emperor, he often appeared in public in drag, practiced
ritual sex with members of both sexes, and publicly declared one of his male
lovers to be his husband. The sentiments of the ruling classes were

outraged. He was assassinated by an indignant Praetorian Guard in 222
A . D . His b ody was mutilated, dragged through the streets of Rome, and
thrown in the Tiber River. "His memory was branded with eternal infamy
by the senate" (Gibbon, V. 1, 129) .
The rise and triumph of the Roman patriarchy brought with it a

profound change in human values . At first gradually, and then in a great
rush just prior to the triumph of Christianity, a wave of grim a sceticism
swept across Greco-Roman civilization . "It pervaded philosophy and
religion. Like a mighty tide it swept onward, especially from the first
century B . C . , from the East over the West, gathering momentum as i t
forced i t s w a y into every serious view o f life. Every great teacher from Plato
to John the Baptist, from Paul to Plotinus, axiomatically accepted
asc e ticism as an essential of and qualification for religious life" (Angus,
216-217) . In the new system of values, sex and the body were degraded .
"Copulation in itself became a sin . . . Matter was looked upon as evil or as
the seat of the evil principle; the whole business of life was to release the
soul from the contact and pollution of matter, from the body, its bane"
(Angus, 222 ) .
The cause o f this cultural phenomenon was the ever-increasing
militarism of the Roman state . In the late Empire, the army became a
separate caste consisting of huge numbers of soldiers with an elaborate
bureaucratic organization . Together with the emperor, it was the largest
single consumer of goods and services produced in the empire (Rostovtzeff,
149 ) . All important p olitical decisions came to be dic tated, either directly or
indirectly, by the needs of the army . Emperors were made and unmade a t
the behest of various factions o f the army. The legendary last words of the
emperor Severus to his sons sum up the whole scene: "Be united, enrich the
soldiers, and scorn the rest" (Rostovtzeff, 354 ) .
This utter militarization o t society encouraged asceticism. In the first
place it gave rise to the "cult of discipline" - the idea of stern self-sacrifice
on behalf of the state . Secondly, and more important, it resulted in a
strangulation of l ocal political life (Halliday, 41 ) . Decisions were made at
the top , and often with great violence . Ruinous civil wars were frequent,
whenever the various factions of the army couldn't agree on an emperor.
The economy was dangerously unstable, depending as it did on war needs .
Government became increasingly rule-bound , top-heavy, bureaucratic, and
out of touch with peoples' needs . All freedom of expression was squelched .
A system of secret police was formed to spy on the population. People
simply had no control over their lives . Daily life became d angerous, and the
best the average person could hope for was to be left alone . Ascetic religion
became an opiate for the pain, enabling people to stifle their real needs and
feelings, and thus avoid the suffering of constant frustration . The

government was well-disposed to ascetic religion because it kept the people
quiet and obedient.
It was within this historical setting that Christianity entered the stage.
From its very start, the Christian religion was one of the most ascetic
religions of the empire . Jesus the Nazarene, believing that the world was
about to end , called upon his followers to renounce all interest in worldly
things and to prepare for the age to come . Paul of Tarsus based his entire
theology on the concept of sin and saw sin in practically every form of
human sensuality . The new religion fed on and re-enforced the sense of
despair that was growing in the Roman state:
In not a few respects Christianity was a new reflection of that pessimism which
pervaded the ancient world in the centuries immediately before and immedi
ately after the beginning of the Christian era . It adopted, but transformed in so
adopting them, many of the characteristic sentiments of Greek and Roman
philosophic pessimism . . . by cultivating certain practices like asceticism,
mortification, and celibacy (Thompson , 61-62 ) .
I n one important way, however, Christianity differed from the other
ascetic religions : it strongly emphasized corporate organization . Ascetic
m ovements that were non-Christian were never well organized, nor were
they generally intolerant of other religions . The Christians, on the other
hand, were totally intolerant of any religion but their own and were very
effectively organized (Gibbon, V. 1, 383) . In fact, it was because of their
fanaticism and zeal for organizing that the Christians were originally
perceived as a threat by the Roman establishment . Consequently they were
sporadically persecuted in the first and second centuries.
Christianity had another important peculiarity . In contrast to the old
sex religions, Christianity was from its very first an urban religion . The
word "Christian" first came into use in Antioch, a iarge metropolis in Asia
Minor . "Early Christianity was a religion of towns and cities; it was urban,
not rural . It spread from city to city, from province to province, along the
highways of trade and commerce by land and by sea" (Thompson, 56) . The
first Christians were members of the new urban classes : artisans,
craftspeople, shopkeepers and tradespeople (Thompson, 57) . Urban
oriented, they tended to equate rural living with everything non-Christian .
The word "pagan" comes from the Latin paganus, which means country
dweller . Augustine labelled his ideal Christian community the city of God
and subtitled his book of that name "Against the pagan i . "
Early in the third century A . D . , Christianity spread rapidly in the
army, as soldiers responded to the Christian emphasis on discipline,
organizational order and obedience . A contending religion, Mithraism, had
also grown rapidly in the army as early as 60 B . C . (Taylor, 251-252) .
Christianity absorbed much of the militaristic spirit of this religion and even
some of its holidays (such as December 25th, the birth-day of Mithra, the
son of the sun god, and Sunday, the day of the sun, in contrast to Saturday,
the Jewish sabbath). During this period, with the conversion of soldiers and
the absorption of Mithraism, Christianity began to change from a loose
federation of cells into a unified, centrally-controlled hierarchy of bishops
and archbishops (Gibbon, V. 1, 421 ) .
The emperor Constantine emphasized the militaristic traits of
Christianity and incorporated them into army life. The cross was adopted
as a military symbol and placed on shields and banners. Goths and
Germans were recruited in the army and made to march behind the sign of
the cross. The first two letters of the word "Christ" in Greek were formed
into a logo and stamped on coins with the inscription in hoc signa vinces
("By this sign shall you conquer") (Gibbon, V. 1 , 644, 656).
On becoming emperor, Constantine proclaimed himself the protector

of Christianity, made Christianity a legal religion throughout the empire,
systematically appointed Christians to high-level bureaucratic jobs in the
government and army, encouraged people to donate money to the church,
and finally converted to the new religion on his death bed. He was the first
Roman ruler to realize that a religion well-entrenched in the army and
ascetic in outlook could be very useful in controlling the state: "The passive
and unresisting obedience which bows under the yoke of authority, or even
of oppression, must have appeared in the eyes of the absolute monarch the
most conscpicuous and useful of evangelic virtues" (Gibbon, V. 1, 640 ) .
The Christian emperors following Constantine consolidated his policy.
Christianity became the state religion; all other religions were banned. The
rich and powerful converted in great numbers to Christianity and donated
vast amounts of money to the church. Bishops became more than religious
officials; in many parts of the empire, both east and west, they absorbed the
powers and functions of government officials, generals, and judges. They
also became absentee landlords of huge estates. For example, the fifth
century bishop of Cappadocia owned almost all the land in the province of
Cappadocia (Thompson, 82) .
The church itself increasingly assumed the powers of government,
developing an elaborate bureaucracy (Thompson, 77). As the largest
landowner in society, the church also became the largest slaveowner and
advocate of slavery. The church pushed slavery beyond its earlier form in
the secular Roman empire (Thompson, 86). Christians systematized a whole
set of slave laws which later facilitated the enslavement of non-white people
in the 17th and 18th centuries. "It was that most Christian of emperors,
Justinian, whose codification of the Roman law . . . provided Christian
Europe with a ready-made legal foundation for the slavery they introduced
into the New World a thousand years later" (Finley, 88-89).
And so Christianity became more than just a religion. It became a
system of power and property. The ruling warlords and absentee
landowners of Roman civilization converted to Christianity and made it
their own, as society moved away from the ancient economy towards
medieval feudalism. The church itself emerged as the most potent corporate
body in society, holding in its hands not only the keys of Peter but also the
government and the major means of production.
As these changes were taking place, Christian propagandists called for
the destruction of paganism because of the prevalence of homosexuality in
the religions of the old nature cultures. Augustine, one of the most
influential writers, repeatedly called attention to this love of sexuality and
urged that it be destroyed. He was particularly incensed by the worship of
the Great Mother, whose chief priests were Gay transvestites. After
ridiculing various rural sex gods, he says, "The same applies to the
effeminates consecrated to the Great Mother, who violate every canon of
decency in men and women. They were to be seen until just the other day in
the streets and squares of Carthage with their pomaded hair and powdered
faces, gliding along with womanish languor, and demanding from the
shopkeepers the means of their depraved existence" (Augustine, 286).
Constantine declared pederasty a capital offence; the emperors
Valentinian and Theodosius applied the penalty of being burned. Justinian
initiated a pogrom against Gay men, whom he rounded up in large
numbers, tortured, and burned. An ancient author notes: "Some he had
castrated, while in the case of others he ordered sharp reeds inserted into
their genital openings and had them paraded as captives through the forum"
(Theodosius of Melitene, quoted by Bury, 412, note 5). The charges of
homosexuality became a tool for hunting down political dissidents, as it
would be later in the Middle Ages (Gibbon, V. 2, 378). In the fourth century
A.D., the emperors Valentinian and Valens undertook a witch-hunt for
practitioners of "magic." "From the extremity of Italy and Asia the young
and the aged were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch.
Senators, matrons, and philosophers expired in ignominious and cruel
tortures" (Gibbon, V. 2, 856).
The triumph of Christianity thus represented the triumph of the worst
:>atriarchal elements of Roman civilization. It was the final triumph of
lrban-based male militarists and their followers, who increasingly rose to
power first under the republic and then under the em pire . Once victorious,
they adopted a new patriarchal religion, banned all other religi ons,
appropriated to themselves all the means of production, reduced the rest of
the population to slavery, enforced a universal code of blind obedience t o
authority, degraded women, and suppressed sexuality.
In the past, vi ctorious patriarchal groups always rea ched some
a ccommodation with the older matria rchal and rural traditions which
continued t o exist and m old society in an im portant way. But things were
different after 300 A. D . For the first time in Western history, the
patriarchists a ttempted to root out and utterly destroy everything
connected with the old rural-based sex religions. Their successors continued
the same tactics of terror later in the middle ages in their attacks on witches
and heretics .
The repressive institutions and values established by these pat riarchists
became the basis for the devel opment of industrialism . The new cities that
emerged in the late middle ages came to birth in the context of a profound
Christian contempt for rural living. "Christianity . . . reinforced the
prejudice a gainst the countryside in making the countryman (paganus) into
the pagan, the rebel a gainst the word of the Christian god" (Fontana
Economic History of Europe, V. 1, 71). This is not su rprising since the new
t owns first formed around the fortresses of Christian warlords and the
buildings of Christian monasteries .
These new t owns owed their existence to violence and repression
a gainst the countryside . They became an "abnormal growth, a peculiar
b ody t otally foreign to the surrounding environment . " As the countryside
itself graduall y became industrialized, peasants were wrenched away from
rural servitude to become slaves in urban workshops (Fontana, V. 1, 18,
180). The mentality of the neW towns was typi cally Christian: they
displayed a l ove of order, discipline, punctuality and self-restrain t . These
attitudes were "indispensable to the growth of capitalism and to the
industrial revolution " (Fontana, V. 1, 94).
Another Christian legacy to industrialism was the objectification of
nature . In the old religion, trees, rocks and plants were viewed as living
beings with which people could personall y communicate . Often they were
worshipped as gods . Christians viewed these natural beings as so many
objects to be used b y the highest order of creation: humankind . The new
u rbanism reinforced this belief . Christians lived within the walls out of
t ouch with natural beings, which now became "resources . " One result of
this attitude was the rapid deforestati on of Europe . 'The great forests of
Europe . . . were regarded as as enem y to be hewn down" (Thompson ,
610). As might b e ex pected, these p ractices led t o a n acute shortage of
lumber, especially in England. There, this state of affairs led in turn to the
adoption of coal for manufacturin g activities, a practice that "put England
well on the road to the Industrial Revolution" (Fontana, V. 2, 12).

The evolution of monasteries laid the foundation for the development
of a money economy. In the 4th century A.D., monasteries were
incorporated and allowed to own corporate property (Thompson, 139).
The discipline, asceticism and orderliness of the monasteries enabled them
to acquire great wealth in a short period of time. "Religiously the monks
were intense fanatics, economically they became avaricious" (Thompson,
141). Bulging with wealth, monasteries became the earliest banks of the
middle ages. Although Christian law at this time forbade usury, the
monasteries were exempted. "A common argument was that, as the
monastery was a corporation, and not a person, no sin was attached to the
taking of usury" (Thompson, 638).
Soldiers fighting in twelfth century Germany.
Another important step along the industrial road was Christian

militarism. By the middle ages, the church had become a great military
power. Bishops, abbots, and even Popes were warlords who often per
sonally took to the field of battle (Thompson, 655-657). The Christian love
of war, together with the Christian intolerance of any other religion, led to
the development of the crusades, beginning in the 11th century. The
crusades were the first great impulse of European imperialism. They
brought foreign markets under Western control, encouraged the
development of cities, created a money economy in place of the natural

economy of barter, and fostered the development of a new class, the
bourgeoisie (Thompson, 397).
It was in the same mood of religious militarism that Europe undertook
a second wave of expansion in the 16th century, the so-called voyages of
discovery to the new world. In reality, they were imperialistic expeditions
with two goals: to spread the Christian religion and to get gold (Gilbert,
30). These European invaders annihilated the cultures of the native peoples
they encountered (all of whom were non-white), and gave special attention
to wiping out their sacred Gay transvestites. The gold and silver bullion
stolen from the nature peoples was returned to Europe, where it provided
the basis for the financial expansions of European businesses. In the
succeeding centuries, white Europeans enslaved millions of people from
nature cultures to provide the forced labor necessary to support the growing
industrial monster. The enslaved victims, who were non-white, were
viewed as less than human beings. "These dark-skinned peoples lacked
both the Christian culture which Europeans considered essential for
salvation, and the technology to resist European mastery" (Gilbert, 288).
The violence of Christian militarism was also internalized in Europe
itself. The most famous example of this was the never ending hunt for
heretics and the mobilization of armies to wipe them out. In the time of the
early Christian emperors, a campaign was begun "to despoil the pagan
temples of their property" (Thompson, 71). The seized property was used to
pay for the increased cost of government bureaucracy, and bishops became
financial speculators with the proceeds (Thompson, 71, 77). In the later
middle ages, the hunt for witches and heretics was an example of the same
thing. Witch-hunting became a major industry in the middle ages. The
crusade against the Albigensians turned into "a series of gigantic
buccaneering expeditions" (Thompson, 490). The King of France supported
the crusade because he wanted to bring the southern provinces within his
power, thereby unifying the French state and establishing direct trade routes
with the East (Thompson, 492). In a separate incident with another French
King, the Templars were charged with homosexuality and deprived of their
property in order to build up the French Treasury and underwrite war
expenditures. Everywhere heresy-hunting helped provide the needed capital
for building up the apparatus of the emerging state.
The entrenched militarism of Christian civilization led to the
development of a huge arms industry where modern methods of production
were first practiced on a wide scale. "It is characteristic of the early modern
period that until far into the 17th century the best examples of large-scale
industrial organization were state-owned factories producing war materiel"
(Gilbert, 51). The modern factory system is thus a direct descendant of
Christian militarism.
48 Witchcraft and tile Gay Counterculture
The real beneficiary of Christian militarism was a new institution that

became the epitome of institutionalized violence-the nation state. This
happened because the business of war increasingly became the specialty of
secular princes and the new economic forces that supported them (the
bourgeoisie). The nation-states they created eventually came to have a
.monopoly on institutionalized violence, and so ended up with a monopoly
on political power as well.
Although Christian violence was responsible for the birth of the
modern nation-state, the state nonetheless engaged in a savage struggle with
its parent. In time, the state was victorious. The rule of clergy was replaced
by the rule of politicians. Scholasticism was replaced by science.
Government bureaucracy took over from church hierarchy. But underneath
there remained the same class domination, urbanism, militarism, racism,
exploitation of nature, and repression of women and sexuality.
The triumph of the nation-state brought with it a shift in Christian
values, coinciding with the rise of Protestantism. Lutheranism, the first
successful form of Protestantism, came into being because certain petty
states in Germany were willing to use their armies to resist Catholic military
power. Luther never forgot this debt and continually supported the secular
power's authoritarianism. For example, in 1525 Luther urged the state to
suppress with violence the rebelling peasants, whom he compared to mad
dogs (Gilbert, ISS). Lutheranism became a profoundly reactionary religion,
whose members were drawn mostly from the upper and middle classes
(Gilbert, 156 ) .
I n Calvinism, the successful accumulation o f money was viewed a s a
sign of God's grace; alienated labor was a "calling"; and self-interested
calculation was a sign of rationality. The bourgeois thrust of Calvinism has
led some writers like Max Weber to conclude that Protestantism prepared
the way for the rise of capitalism. But as we have just seen, the entire
Christian tradition was working to this end for a thousand years.
The really different thing about Protestantism is that it tried to purge
Christianity of influences it had picked up from paganism. The so-called
Reformation was in reality a reaction against the Renaissance, where pagan
influence (including a looser sexuality) had had a major impact on Western
culture. Protestants emphasized the anti-sexual, anti-woman writings of
Paul of Tarsus. They detested anything that suggested sensuality. In some
cases, they entered existing churches, smashed the organs, broke the
statuary, and white-washed the murals (Gilbert, 136) . Significantly, they
rejected the worship of Mary, whose cult was a survival within the
Christian patriarchy of earlier matriarchal values.
The Puritans were the most fanatical of the Protestants. John Knox
attacked the status of women in his pamphlet "The First Blast of the
Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women" (Partridge, 116) .
Thomas Hall published a pamphlet called 'The Loathsomeness of Long

Haire" (Partridge, 118). Puritans insisted on sexist dress codes. 'The
Puritans attempted, for reasons which should not be too obscure, to
masculinize men as far as possible, and correspondingly, to defeminize and
make negative members of the opposite sex" (Partridge, 117-118).
All the major sects of Protestantism agreed on severely repressing
sexuality; on inculcating unquestioned obedience to authority, both of the
state and of the male head of the family; and on scorning non-Christian and
non-white cultures. The rising bourgeoisie eagerly embraced these values
and translated them into public policy, where they remain to this day.
And so the story of human history in the West has been the sickening
scpectacle of increasing patriarchal power, first gradually in the Bronze
Age, then with a sudden leap in the triumph of Christianity, and finally
overwhelmingly with the onrush of industrialism. Corresponding to this
rise has been a fall, first in the status of women, then of rural people, then of
Gay people, then of non-white people.
Everywhere the old nature cultures are gone. The Celts are gone,
conquered by Caesar. The peasants of Europe are gone, having been
murdered, enslaved, or transformed into an urban proletariat. The Indians
are gone, wiped out on orders from the Pope and from Washington. The
Third World has been going every day. They are all gone, and in their place
has corne that son of the city of God, that all-conquering Leviathan, the
new industrial state.
And that's how it happened that straight white males got control of our
lives.
50 I Witchcraft and the Ga y Counterculture
M ed'leval Gnostic religious symbo 1s,

4
Heretics: Women, Buggers and
Free Spirits
Christianity was not always well defined. The established doctrine of
today's church was originally just one of many competing views. It pre
vailed because it was favored by the ruling interests of the time. All other
views were suppressed. Among the earliest repressed views were popular
movements trying to combine paganism with the new testament. The most
famous example, Gnosticism, arose in first-century Asia Minor (western
Turkey). Gnostics believed that knowledge gained through personal mysti
cal experience (gnosis) was more important than the dogmas of faith (pistis)
(Vanggaard, 150; Obolensky, 3; Runciman, 7). In the tradition of the Great
Mother, many Gnostics believed in a goddess: Helen, Bar.belo, Silence, or
Wisdom (Quispel, 73-74). Gnostics generally believed that the things of this
world and the world itself were evil. Many rejected Jehovah the Creator as
an evil demon.
Gnostics were ascetics in a way hard for modern people to understand.
They believed in denying this world and purifying themselves, but some
times practiced sexual indulgence as a means of purification. Occasionally
they seemed to believe that the best way to transcend "evil" was to experi
ence it. They were sensitive to pagan asceticism, which unlike Christianity
included both self-indulgence and self-denial. For example, the ancient rites
of the Great Mother involved sex orgies, yet they were presided over by
celibate priests. Rejecting the old testament god, Gnostics sympathized with
the victims of this god's wrath. "Sects arose that paid reverence to Cain, to
the Sodomites, and the Egyptians" (Runciman, 10).
Orgiastic' sex rites appeared among some Gnostics and scandalized
traditional Christians. Roman authorities used these practices to discredit
Christianity as a whole. Traditional Christians consequently condemned
the Gnostics and denied any connection with them. In 177 AD Irenaeus,
missionary to the Celts, condemned a group of Gnostics for their promis
cuity. In the third century, Bishop Clement of Alexandria denounced
Gnostics for holding orgies, as did the historian Eusebius (Cohn, Demons,
9; Benko, 113). An account of such practices by Epiphanius, a fourth
century monk and former Gnostic, claimed that men and women had sex in
common and worshipped cum and menstrual blood as the body and blood
of Christ (Benko, 110). According to Epiphanius, Gnostics believed in
sexual pleasure but not procreation, because birth divided up the world
soul. Salvation consisted in the gathering together and return to Barbelo,
the Great Mother, by means of communal sex rites ( Benko, 110; 117-118).
Many historians believe that Epiphanius' sex reports were untrue ( C ohn,
Demons, 9ff) . Yet his reliability on o ther matters of Gnostic faith is
generally accepted ( Benko, 1 1 1 ) .
In 242 A D a Mesopotamian Gnostic, named Mani, began teaching that
Gnostic believers were divided into two categories: the leaders (or elect) and
the followers (or hearers) (Runciman, 1 5 ) . Both women and men were
leaders in Mani's religion, in contrast to tradi tional Christianity, w hich
prohibited women from being priests. Leaders were also forbidden to own
personal wealth, again contrary to the Christian tradition of rich priests and
bishops. Mani believed in one good god and one evil god (Jehovah). Salva
tion meant escaping from the control of Jehovah and renouncing all
material possessions and earthly power, even for the church. Mani's
religion spread rapidly and under the name of Manicheeism (or Mani
chaeanism) became a serious rival to traditional C hristianity. Augustine,
later Bis hop of Hippo, was a Manichee for nine years before converting to
Christianity. He accused the Manichee leaders of libertinism, and claimed
that this was the reason for his conversion (Cohn, Demons, 1 7 ) . Later,
Christian writers called any popular movement "Manichaean" whenever it
displayed a belief in more than one god, a prominent leadership role for
women, and a pagan sense of asceticism.
1n the latter part of the fourth century a Manichaean type heresy

(known as Massalianism) appeared in Syria and Asia Minor. The Massal
ians ( or Messalians) were Christian Gnostics whose leaders were both
women and men (Runciman, 23) . They believed that a period of strict self
denial was necessary for them to reach a purified state, at which point sin
was no longer possible. Once in this state, believers no longer required self
denial and could engage in any sex act without sin (Obolensky, 50). 'The
Messalian doctrines were the extreme expression of the longing to
comprehend mystical revelation through sensual experience" (Loos, 72). By
the tenth century, Massalian beliefs reached Bul garia, where they gradually
fused with Bogomilism, a heresy named after a priest called Bogomil. The
Bogomils believed in two gods, rejected the church hierarchy, and preached
passive resistance to government authority (Loos, 53-56; Runciman, 74-75;
Heretics: Women, Buggers and Free Spirits 53
Obolensky, 126ff). At first they were strictly puritanical but in time came
closer to the Messalians. "Under the increased influence of Massalianism,
the Bogomiis entirely lost their reputation for puritanism and had become
associated with the most extreme form of sexual indulgence" (Obolensky,
251). Both groups were persecuted by traditional Christians.
Under the heat of persecution, the Bogomils allied themselves with the
masses of Bulgaria, where paganism was still powerful. Boris, the king,
hadn't converted to Christianity until 864 AD (Loos, 41). His attempt to
impose Christianity on the people resulted in a civil war in which he
eventually defeated and blinded his rebellious pagan son. Boris and his
Christian successors were "bitterly resented by the common people of
Bulgaria, who were obstinately attached to their own pagan customs and
worship" (Loos, 42). The Bogomils became political, "espousing the cause
of the serfs against their masters, of the oppressed against the
oppressors"(Obolensky, 141).
Some historians have denied that the erotic Massalians had any con
nection with the Bogomils. They believe that the word "Massalian" didn't
refer to any actual heresy, but was used as a general term of abuse against
the Bogomils (Cohn, Demons, 18, note). But evidence shows that the name
did have a definite technical meaning. It occurs repeatedly from the very
beginning in accounts of Bogomilism. It is used in this manner by
Theophylact, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 950 AD; the priest Cosmas,
around 969; the theologian Euthymius Zibagenus around 1100; Anna
Comnena, daughter of the Byzantine emperor, in 1148; and the council of
Tirnovo in 1211. Anna Comnena wrote:
For two very evil and worthless doctrines which had been known in former
times, now coalesced; the impiety, as it might be called, of the Manichaeans,
which we also call the Paulician heresy, and the shamelessness of the Massal
ians. This was the doctrine of the Bogomils compounded of the Massalians and
the Manichaeans" (Anna Comnena, 412).
In the early 14th century, when Massalian influence was at its greatest,
a Bogomil monk named Lazarus appeared in Tirnovo, the capital of
Bulgaria. He advocated nudism and sexual freedom as ways to salvation.
Arrested, but refusing to recant, he was consequently branded on the face
and exiled (Runciman, 97). Another Bogomil, Theodosius, advocated orgi

astic sex, but his fate is not recorded. Most Bogomils did not share these
views, but they were an example of where Bogomil teaching could lead. The
Bogomils were strict vegetarians, rejecting any food that was created as a
result of heterosexual sex. As with the Massalians, women were prominent
in their leadership (Loos, 53-59; Obolensky, 117-140). In the eleventh
century, Bogomil practices and teaching emerged from Bulgaria and swept
across Europe. In the west, these heretics were known as Cathars, from the
Greek Katharoi, meaning "the Purified Ones. " Within a hundred years, the
Cathars managed to organize a rival church, create a counter-civilization in
southern France, and raise armies in their own behalf.
From their first appearance in the west, Cathars were associated with
practicing ritual sex. An early example of what was probably Catharist
heresy appeared in Orleans, France, in 1022. According to the earliest
account:
They adored the devil, who first appeared to them as an Ethiopian [that is, a
black man], then as an angel of light, and who daily brought them much
money. In obedience to his works, in private they completely rejected Christ
and secrety practiced abominations and crimes of which it is shameful even to
speak, while publicly they pretended to be true Christians (Wakefield and
Evans, 75).
A later account by an arrested participant reported that believers were
offered a "heavenly food" and told "often you will see with us angelic
o
visions, in which sustained by their consolation, you can visit whatsoever
places you wish without delay or difficulty" (Wakefield and Evans, 78). The
report said they met secretly at a certain house until a demon descended in
the form of an animal, at which point the lights were extinguished and there
was an orgy. If a child was born from these sexual acts, it was killed, then
burned, and its ashes saved for making the "heavenly food".
Most historians regard these early reports either as sick fantasies or as
stereotypes used by the church to crush dissent (Lerner, 34; Cohn, Demons,
20). But the first view ignores evidence from folklore, and the second, the
fact that such stereotypes were not widely used by the church until the
thirteenth century.
These early charges make some sense if considered in the context of
heresy, paganism, and folklore. The Celts worshipped a black horned god,
whom Christians later identified with the Devil. The heretics in question
flourished in Orleans, once part of Celtic Gaul, where ancient traditions
persisted until the time of Joan of Arc (the Maid of Orleans). Throughout
the middle ages, church writers continually condemned the wearing of
animal costumes at peasant rituals. Even in the twentieth century, Portu
guese peasants have dressed in cats' skins to do ritual dances (Alford, 356).
In shamanist religions a priest often dresses up as the animal god who is
being invoked.
The heavenly food of the heretics was said to be sustained by angelic
consolation. The only sacrament later attributed to known Cathars was the
consolamentum ("consolation"), thought to be administered by leaders
possessing the souls of angels. As for the child murder charges, the Catholic
Church has always claimed that those who perform abortions are com
mitting murder. Women accused later of witchcraft were often abortionists.
In pagan times a new-born infant was not assumed to be a person until the
mother (or family) formally accepted it. If the infant was deformed, or
simply unwanted, it was killed or abandoned in the wilderness. Among
nature people, this attitude towards newborn infants is the general rule and
is widely observed among animals, who will abandon, kill, or even eat the
unwanted young. The heretics at Orleans probably performed some
abortion rite, especially since Cathars considered giving birth as a grave sin.
Long before the Inquisition created its stereotypes, Cathars had a repu
tation of tolerance toward lesbianism and male homosexuality. In 1114 the
French abbot Guibert of Nogent wrote about two brothers, Clement and
Evrard, whom he knew personally. He said they were heretics who had a
large following among the local peasants in Bucy-Ie-Iong:
They condemn marriage and the begetting of offspring through intercourse.
And surely, wherever they are scattered throughout the Latin world, you may
see them living with women but not under the name of husband and wife, in
such fashion that man does not dwell with woman, male with female, but men
are known to be with men, women with women; for among them it is unlawful
for men to approach women (Wakefield and Evans, 103).
The followers of Clement and Evrard were accused of holding orgies in
cellars and killing any children that might be born among them (Wakefield
and Evans, 103). On trial before the Bishop of Soissons, one brother
confessed, but refused to repent, while the other brother denied the accusa
tions. Both were burned.
Charges of lesbianism and male homosexuality henceforth became
routine against Cathars. "This, the first explicit allegation of homo
sexuality, also became a commonplace in later trials. Variations on the
phrases vir cum viris [the man with men] and femina cum feminis [the
woman with women] appear again and again" (Russell, 95, note). The word
for Cathar in most European languages came to be the word for homo-
sexual: in German, Ketzer, in Italian, Gazarro, and in French, herite. In

several languages the word for Bulgarian (the heresy originated in Bulgaria)
also came to mean homosexual : Italian, Bulgaro; French, Bougre; and the
English, Bugger (Russell, 238-239; Hughes, 66). Heresy and homosexuality
became so interchangeable that those accused of heresy attempted to prove
their innocence by claiming heterosexuality . A thirteenth century weaver
accused of heresy replied : "Gentleman, listen to me! I am not a heretic, for I
have a wife and I sleep with her. I have sons" (Wakefield, 213) . When the
people of Toulouse rebelled against the heresy-hunting Dominicans, "the
cry was, they were unjustly accusing decent married men of heresy" (Wake
field, 213).
Mere suspicion of homosexuality was enough to condemn a person for
heresy, even though the person was not known to have believed in or
taught any heretical doctrine. In 1381 an epileptic German beggar named
Brother Hans was thought to have magical powers . Arrested and tortured
by the inquisition, he confessed that he was a "perverter of young boys"
(Lerner, 145). He was consequently burned at the stake for heresy even
though no doctrinal dispute w.:>s involved .
Since the same words often came to mean both heresy and homosex
uality, we sometimes have trouble knowing exactly what was meant by the
legal codes of the times . In 1272 the laws of Orleans, Anjou, and Marne
called for death by burning of anyone guilty of "bougerie . " Historians are
still debating whether this refers to homosexuality, heresy, or both (Bailey,
141-142) . As a result of this confusion, a person's sexual orientation became
a test of religious orthodoxy and political loyalty . "Heresy became a sexual
rather than a doctrinal concept; to say a man was a heretic was to say that
he was a homosexuaL and vice versa" (Taylor, 131).
Straight historians rarely believe the Gay sex charge made against
Cathars. But their own homophobia, which affects the way they deal with
the evidence, is revealed by their very language. One noted medieval
historian calls Lesbians "perverts, " while another calls Gay sex acts "nasty
sexual aberrations" (Lerner, 119; Wakefield, 41).
There is good reason to accept a connection between Catharism and
Gay sex : the Cathars' special view of morality . Cathars did not believe in
Hell, purgatory, or damnation, but like many ancient peoples believed in
reincarnation. For them, souls continued to be reborn as animals or humans
until they escaped from the cycle of life . Eventually all souls will escape,
and no one will be damned . Cathars held that there was only one sin; that
occurred when the angels, led by the evil god Jehovah, rebelled and were
thrown out of heaven (Borst, 175; Loos, 140) . These angels became human
souls weighted down with matter, and so were continually reborn. Only
when they regain their original angelic state, brought about by a complete
renunciation of the world, will they escape from the cycle of rebirths and
return to the good god .
Cathars believed that only a tiny minority were able to attain this
angelic state. These were the Cathari, the "perfected ones. " They led
completely ascetic lives and were worshipped as angels. There was only one
way to become a perfected one : through an initiation rite called
consolamentum ("consolation") , a laying-on of hands. Once receiving this
sacrament, perfected ones were expected to live a life of strict self denial
(Loos, 142 ) . As a result, Cathars usually put off receiving the rite until just
before death (Wakefield, 36). Most Cathars had not taken the
consolamentum and lived by a different moral code from the perfected
ones. There was no point for them in doing penance, practicing asceticism,
confessing. And, in fact, Cathars rejected all Church sacraments, including
penance. The only thing that really counted was getting the consolamentum
before death, and then leading a totally ascetic life.
The perfected ones feared procreation, since that would ensnare yet
another angelic soul in matter. Sex must not lead to birth. Lesbianism and
male homosexuality were therefore safe forms of sex, if sex must be
practiced at all. "So long as i t did not lead to the conception of children they
positively seemed to encoura ge sexual intercourse or at least not discourage
it - a complete reversal of the Catholic view " (Runciman, 152).
Although Cathar leaders were austere, many followers believed that
until they received the consolamentum sex acts not resulting in birth were
permissible ( Borst, 182 ) . Many of them told Christian inquisitors at
Toulouse and Turin that they didn't think homosexuality was a sin ( Borst,
182, notes ) . "Even the most hostile depositions against the later Bogomils
and Cathars declare that the Initiates led personally blameless lives, but that
they associated with and seemed to encourage Believers who led l ives ot
remarkable immorality" ( Runciman, 176) .
Cathars were also strict vegetarians. They refused to eat meat, eggs,
cheese, or any milk products (Wakefield, 38) . Because animals were viewed
as reincarnated souls, killing an animal for food was akin to killin g a
human. Also, procreation - even in the animal world - was the work of
the evil god . As with the Bogomils, women played a large role among
Cathars. Women and men were viewed as equals; many women became
Cathar leaders. Cathar women also fought in battles. A woman catapultist
killed Simon de Montfort, leader of the Catholic army that attacked
Cathars in southern France. Catharism scorned the institution of marriage ,
and was one of the few religions to have no marriage rites. In fact Cathars
considered marriage to be no better than prostitution (Wakefield, 33).
Catharism was tolerant toward other religions. Cathar-controlled areas
were among the few safe places for Jews. In southern France, a fusion of
Cathar and Jewish though t produced the Kabbala, a book of Jewish
mysticism (Wakefield, 61 ) . Cathars had an encouraging attitude towards
the arts. Cathar areas in France were the very ones where troubador poetry
developed, a poetry marked by sensuality and bawdyness (Briffault, 3:488

ff; Wakefield, 56-57, notes). After the Cathars were suppressed, this
tradition continued, although in a less openly erotic form. In time it had a
tremendous impact on the development of modern Western poetry.
Catharism was essentially a religion of the lower classes and was spread
from town to town by itinerant weavers. In 1157 these weavers were
condemned for preaching against marriage, and practicing promiscuity
(Runciman, 121; Russell, 128; Loos, 117; Cohn, Millennium, 153).
Because of its close association with the lower classes, Catharism gave
rise to pagan offshoots - which I call the Cathar left wing. Some Cathars
worshiped the sun as a god. Between 1176 and 1190, a man named
Bonacursus, a Cathar who had converted to Catholicism, said of some
Cathars at Milan: "They hold that the devil himself is the sun, Eve the
moon; and each month, they say, they commit adultry" (Wakefield and
Evans, 173). Here the sun is called the devil, but among Cathars the devil
was viewed as a god. In 1350, Armenian speaking heretics were reported to
be worshipping the sun (Russell, 93, n.49). Armenia was a known Cathar
stronghold. During the war between the Cathars and Catholics in France,
Cathar leaders took refuge in a fortress long rumored to be a pagan temple
Heretics: Women, Buggers and Free Spirits S9
of the sun (Wakefield, 173), and notes) .

Among some Cathars the evil god came to be highly regarded. Heretics
in Austria, Brandenburg, and Bohemia in the early fourteenth century were
accused of worshipping "Lucifer" (Russell, 177-179; Lerner 25-26; 30-31).
The word Lucifer literally means "the light bearer" in Latin, and this was
applied in pagan antiquity to the sun and the morning star (Venus) . Among
medieval Christians, it was used as another name for the devil . This usage
arose from a misunderstanding of Isaiah, where the King of Babylon is
compared to the morning star: "How have you fallen from the heavens, 0
morning star, son of the dawn!" (Isaiah, 14:12). In the Latin translation of
this passage, "morning star" was rendered by Lucifer, falsely making it
appear that Isaiah was talking about Satan being thrown out of heaven .
From this double meaning as light bearer and devil, the word Lucifer was
easily used to describe the god of sun-worshipping Cathars, since Christians
viewed sun worship as demon worship .
Practices of the Cathar left wing triggered frequent Christian chargt:s
that Cathars had sex orgies, killed infants (abortion), and worshipped a
demon. The charges appeared before the creation of the Inquisition and
continued into later times . Typical of them all is an anonymous letter from
1390 describing a group called "Luciferans":
First they worship Lucifer and believe him to be the brother of God, unjustly
driven from heaven . . . they sacrifice their children to him . . . they meet
together in underground locations ... They indulge in promiscuous cravings
and abominable wantonness (Lea, 1:206).
Cathar belief that the Devil was a god - plus the traditional notion that the
Devil was above all concerned with sex - would naturally lead to orgiastic
rituals, especially for Cathars who remained close to ancient pagan
traditions. In addition, ritual sex was a part of Gnosticism, which was the
historical root of Catharism . And later heresies, building on Catharism,
denied the existence of any moral law . Seen in this way, ritual sex was part
of a lasting heretical tradition .
In the thirteenth century a new heresy arose. People formed
independent communal groups, either all male or all female . They gave up
all their property (if they had any to begin with) and traveled around the
country begging for bread. They rejected any form of church regulation or
control . The women were known as beguines and the men as beghards
(hence the English word beggar). Within some (but not all) beguine and
beghard communities, a heresy came to birth known as the Free Spirit,
which later took off on its own . From the very start, beguines, beghards,
and Free Spirits were accused of being Lesbians and Gay men (Lerner, 39,
70-71, 117). In 1339, two men - John and Albert of Brunn - joined the
Dominican order after renouncing their previous participation in the Free
Spirit . They claimed that as Free Spirits they did not consider any passion of
the flesh, including sodomy, to be sinful (Lerner, 108-110). In 1367, a
German Free Spirit, John of Ossmannstedt, was questioned by the Inquisi

tion. He eagerly responded without any coercion and declared that those
who are truly free "can be subject to no authority" (Lerner, 136). He said
people should act on their sexual feelings, even if incestuous, and rejected
any distinction between holiness and pleasure, saying, "as for the sacra
ments, a Free Spirit did not have to confess because he was without sin and
a game of chess could reveal God as well as the Eucharist if one took more
delight in it because God is found in pleasure" (Lerner, 138). The Free Spirits
held that "one of the surest marks of the 'subtle in spirit' was, precisely, the
ability to indulge in promiscuity without fear of God or qualms of
conscience. " Since God could be experienced through sex, the sex act itself
took on "a transcendental, quasi-mystical value" (Cohn, Millennium, 189).
Many academics do not take Free Spirits seriously. One historian dismisses
John of Ossmannstedt as psychopathic: "There are some personalities that
so enjoy being in the spotlight that they will do or say anything to remain
bathed in it. John might have been of this type, or he may have been slightly
deranged" (Lerner, 138). Another academic labels Free Spirits "aberrant,"
"paranoid megalomaniacs," "schizophrenic," and "nihilistic" (Cohn,
Millennium, 149, 151, and 185).
The Ranters as imagined by their contemporaries.
Free Spirits lasted until the seventeenth century in England, where they
were known as Ranters. One of them, Abiezer Coppe, was a member of a
group called My One Flesh. He sometimes wrote ecstatic spiritual passages
filled with Gay images :
Eternal kisses, have been made the fiery chariots, t o mount m e swiftly into the
bosom of him who my soul loves (his excellent Majesty, the King of glory).
Where I have been, where I have been, where I have been, hug'd, imbrac't, and
kisst with the kisses of his mouth, whose loves are better than wine, and have
been utterly overcome therewith, beyond expression, beyond admiration
(Cohn, Millennium, 370-371).
Coppe condemned the people of Sodom not for their homosexuality, but
because they "called Angels men, they seein g no further than the forms of
men" ( Cohn, Millennium, 363) . Although Ranters supported Cromwell's
revolution, they were suppressed once the revolutionaries came to power.
In 1650, Parliament passed a law forbidding Ranters to advocate that
certain kinds of human actions, including sodomy, were not sinful i n and of
themselves ( Cohn, Millennium, 326 ) . This was not the only time in history
that advocates of sexual freedom supported a revolutionary cause, only to
be silenced once the revolutionaries came to power.
By the fourteenth century, some Free Spirits had come to the
conclusion that private property was as contrary to economic justice as the
church was contrary to true religion (Cohn, Millennium, 193 ) . In 1317,
John of Durbheim, the bishop of S trassburg, began a persecution of Free
Spirits, charging that they urged poor people to steal from the rich on the
grounds that all property should be owned in common ( Lerner, 86) .
Protestant leaders were no less upset by the link between Free Spirits and
the l ower classes. In 1525, Martin Luther condemned the unlettered Free
Spirit Loy Pruystinck of Antwerp because of his close association with
thieves, prostitutes, beggars and craft workers ( Cohn, Millennium,
1 77-1 78 ) . Many Free Spirits came to the conclusion that only the poor could
get to heaven. For them, "apostolic" became synonymous with "poor"
( C ohn, Millennium, 162-163) . Abiezer Coppe had his God say, "And as I
live, I will plague your Honour, Pompe, Greatnesse, Superfluity, and
confound i t into parity, equality, community" ( C ohn, Millennium, 361) .
There has been a continuous tradition of pagan-influenced rebellion
within Christianity itself. This tradition includes G nosticism, Manichaeism,
Massalianism, Bogomilism, Catharism, the Free Spirit and others -
movements that have been called heresies within the restrictive framework
of traditional Christianity. In many cases where they appeared, these
movements displayed five important features : 1) Belief in more than one
deity; 2) a p rominent leadership role for women; 3) a pagan sense of
asceticism, including both self-denial and self-indulgence; 4) hostility to the
wealth and power of the church; and 5) a tolerance for Gay sex. The
underlying force that nourished these heresies was the surviving paganism
of the lower classes. Soon the church would move against this paganism
itself and call it "witchcraft. "
Drawing by Krista Van Laan by permission of Out magazine.

5
The Sacred Orgies of Witchcraft
"Diana is the Devil."
-Tomas de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Spain
(Russell, 235, note).
While some so-called "heretics" tried to combine paganism with Chris

tianity, others (especially lower-class country people) retained pagan rites
in their old pre-Christian form. In the early middle ages, church synods
repeatedly condemned surviving pagan rites, including the ceremonial use
of sex images (Russell, 55 & 58, notes; Cohn, Demons, 157; Summers,
History, 99). Christians were also troubled by the surviving worship of the
Great Mother, who was most often honored under the name of "Diana, the
goddess of the pagans." Condemnations of her worship persisted from the
early middle ages until the 16th century. The earliest accounts tell of sex
rites, describe surviving statues of the goddess, and report strong popular
resistance to Christianity, even to the point of killing missionaries (Russell,
57; 58, n. 21; 61, n. 25; Cohn, Demons, 212; Grimm, 237). In the late 9th
century, one hostile writer gave this description:
"It is also not to be omitted that some wicked women perverted by the
devil, seduced by illusions and phantoms of demons, believe and profess
themselves, in the hours of the night to ride upon certain beasts with Diana,
the goddess of the pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women, and in
the silence of the dead of night to traverse great spaces of earth, and to obey
her commands as of their mistress, and to be summoned to her services on
certain nights. But I wish it were they alone who perished in their faith
lessness and infidelity. For an innumerable multitude, deceived by this false
opinion, believe this to be true, and so believing, wander from the right
faith" (Russell, 76).
Due to the widespread and ancient nature of her worship, the goddess
had many other names beside Diana. In Germany and France, she was
called Holda or Holle. In Norwegian and Danish lands, she was Hulla,
Huldra, or Huldre. In Switzerland and Austria, she appeared as Berchta,
Bertha, or Perchtha. Elsewhere, she was known as Faste, Selga, Selda,
Abundia, Satia, Befana, and Befania (Grimm, 221-225; Russell, 49, note).
Whatever her name, she was usually regarded as a powerful deity, ruling
over the weather, animals, sexuality, spinning, weaving, plant life, and the
abode of the dead.
Hundreds of years before the Inquisition's great witch hunts, some

Christians already viewed worshippers of the Great Mother as witches,
contrary to the view of certain historians that these early accounts had
nothing to do with witchcraft (Cohn, Demons, 212). In the early 11th
century, Burchard of Worms called the night-riding goddess "the witch
Holda" (Russell, 81). And in Germany, the word hollefahren (from Holle
and fahren, meaning to travel) came to mean witches' travel (Grimm,
already cited).
Other Christians, especially the "well educated, " tended to laugh off
these accounts. The 12th-century philosopher John of Salisbury reported
the popular belief of his time in a night-riding goddess who held meetings
where infants were killed (abortion again?). Ridiculing such stories, he ex
claimed, "it is clear that these things are put about from silly women and
from simple men of weak faith" (Cohn, Demons, 219). Like many of his
modern academic counterparts, John felt that the experiences of women and
"uneducated" men had little relevance to history.
The specter that the intellectuals tried to laugh off would not go away.
In 1249, William of Paris described the people's belief in a deity - Abundia
or Satia - who travelled at night with a band of followers to whom she
gave prosperity (Ginzburg, 49). In 1270, Jean de Meung, author of sections
of Roman de la Rose, relayed the popular notion that people roamed at
night with Dame Habonde and that one-third of the world joined them
(Russell, 135). In 1279, Bishop Auger de Montfaucon condemned women
who rode at night with Diana, Herodias or Bensozia (Alford, 355). In 1320,
an English Franciscan asked in disgust: "What is to be said of these wretched
and superstitious persons who say that by night they see most fair queens
and other maidens tripping with the lady Diana and leading the dances with
the goddesses of the pagans, who in our vulgar tongue are called Elves?"
(Russell, 175).
Authorities soon had a ready answer about what to do with these wild
fairies. By the 14th century, the church increasingly came to interpret this
type of activity as the work of "demons." Dominican Jacopo Passavanti
wrote:
It happens that demons taking on the likeness of men and women who are alive,
and of horses and beasts of burden, go by night in company through certain
regions, where they are seen by the people, who mistake them for those persons
whose likenesses they bear; and in some countries this is called the tregenda
[which has come to mean "witches' sabbat" in modern Italian]. And the demons
do this to spread error, and to cause a scandal, and to discredit those whose
likenesses they take on, by showing that they do dishonorable things in the
tregenda. There are some people, especially women, who say that they go at
night in company with such a tregenda, and name many men and women in
their company; and they say that the mistress of the throng, who leads the
others, are Herodias, who had St. John the Baptist killed, and the ancient
Diana, goddess of the Greeks (Cohn, Demons, 215-216).
The Sacred Orgies of Witchcraft 65
As Christian intellectuals became more convinced that these practices

were led by demons, they became less inclined to laugh them off as they had
earlier . In 1 3 70, the Inquisition a t Milan indicted a woman for being a
member of the "society of Diana" (Russell, 210) . In 1384, an Italian peasant
named Sibillia was brought to trial before a secular court ( and later before
the Inquisition at Milan) . She freely admitted that she belonged to a society
that went out every Thursday night with "Signora Oriente" and that they
"paid homage to her" (Russell, 211 ) . Sibillia said she never confessed these
things because it never occurred to her that they were sinful (Kieckhefer,
22) . She was reprimanded and sentenced to wear two red crosses as pen
ance. Six years later in 1390, Sibillia was again before the Inquisition . She
admitted to the same practices, saying they went back to her childhood and
again insisted they were no sin . Now, however, she admitted that the name
of God was not used at the celebrations for fear of offending Oriente
( Russell, 212 ) . In the same year of 1390, Pierina de Bugatis was tried for
similar charges before both a secular court and the Inquisition at Milan . At
their celebrations, she said, people weren't the only ones who appeared, but
also animals and the souls of the dead. She claimed that she traveled with a
group of women who robbed the houses of the rich, while bypassing those
of the poor. She also claimed that Signora Oriente ruled their society as
Christ ruled the world ( Russell, 213) .
The manner in which professional historians have reacted to the trials
of Sibillia and Pierina is a good indication of how history has been ignored,
suppressed, and distorted by straight white males with Christian values. As
Norman Cohn sees the trials, "something that hitherto has happened only in
the minds of silly old women has taken on an objective material existence"
(Cohn, Demons, 2 1 7) . As usual, Cohn resorts to sexist and age-ist
stereotyping, and just ignores the evidence . He even rej ects other historians
on the same grounds . For example, among the many reasons he can't stand
Margaret Murray's approach to witchcraft , is that "by the time she turned
her attention to these matters she was nearly sixty" (Cohn, Demons, 109 ) .
W e find a different kind o f prejudice i n the historia n Jeffrey Russell. He
admits that the experiences of Sibillia and Pierina were in some sense real,
but he can't b ring himself to admit that they were an example of anything
religious . He says what we are dealing with here and in similar cases is
merely "old folk tradition" or at best "strange fertility rites" ( Russell,
212-213) .
T o historian Richard Kieckhefer, the practices of Sibillia and Pierina
may be religious, but they could never be considered pagan . "It would be
misleading to speak of them as conscious or deliberate pagan survivals,
since the participants seem to have viewed themselves a s Christians, despite
the reservations that churchmen evidently held" (Kieckhefer, 22) . Here we
have not only a misinterpretation of the evidence, but a complete
falsification of i t . Where do the women say they regard themselves as

Christians? What they said is that they didn't regard the things they did as
sinful. And what on earth does Kieckhefer mean by " the reservations that
churchmen evidently held" ? He makes it sound like their inquisitors had
some polite second thoughts in a dinner-table discussion of theology . We
aren' t dealing wi th mere reservations here . These women were accused of
heresy!
Despite the prejudices of historians like these, evidence abounds for the
continuation of pagan religion right into the 15th cen tury . Around 1421,
Gobelinus Persona told of the popular belief of his time that Domina Hera
flew through the night between Christmas and Epiphany and brought an
abundance of good things to people (Lea , v . I , 1 76-177) . In 1428, the earliest
Swiss wi tch hunts by inquisitorial methods began . In these trials, people
were tortured into confessing that they worshipped " the Devil" instead of
Diana or Herodias ( Cohn, Demons, 225-226) . In 1435, the inquisitor Johann
Nider reported that peasant women imagined themselves to fly with Diana
after rubbing their bodies with an ointment ( C ohn, Demons, 219-220) .
Similar tales were later recounted by Bartolommeo Spina and Johann
Weyer, a physician . In 1439, Thomas Ebendorfer in his book De decem
praeceptis condemned the popular practice of leaving food and drink out at
night for Perchta or Habundie ( Ginzburg, 51 ) . In 1487, Tomas de
Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, declared, "Diana is the Devil"
(Russell, 235, note ) .
W e can clearly see the transition from Diana-worship to Devil-worship
in the witchcraft trials of the 16th century . In 1525 , a woman named Wypat
Musin from Burseberg in the Tyrol was tried for "superstition . " She
confessed that two years before, on the night of one of the four quarterly
feasts of the year, she had seen a multitude of dead souls being led by Frau
Selga, the sister of Frau Venus (Ginzburg, 58) . In 1532, Domenica Barbarelli
confessed to traveling and dancing with Diana, whom she called "Mistress
of Play" [ Domina Ludil (Ginzburg, 36, n. 3 ) . In 1573, a Swiss woman with
the significant nickname Seelenmutter ("Mother of Souls") was arrested .
She was tried by a secular court for "non-Christian fancifulness" and
burned as a witch ( Ginzburg, 59) .
The best documented case of how the Inquisition turned the followers
of the Great Mother into witches occurred in Friuli , I taly, in the 1570s . At
that time a group of people were uncovered called the Benandanti ( that is,
the wanderers) . They admitted, without coercion or torture, that a t certain
times of the year ( the beginning days of the four seasons), they went into
trances . In this state, they had the experience of leaving their bodies and
doing things that reveal a curious mix of Christian and pagan beliefs. When
they were in the out-of-the-body state, they traveled in company with
animals and carried fennel stalks, which they used as weapons against
another group of spirits, who were evil and who carried stalks of s orghum
(Ginzburg, 4). They called these evil spirits "witches" and said they
themselves were fighting for the faith of Christ ( Ginzburg, 34) .
The Italian scholar Carlo Ginzburg has shown that the Benandanti
were in fact remnants of a shamanistic cult. This cult existed continuously
among segments of the peasant population since the days of paganism
(Ginzburg, 40 ff) . The Benandanti originally worshipped a Diana-type
goddess who was mistress of vegetation and growth and also queen of the
dead . She was the center of a religion that was widely spread throughout
Europe . During the change of the seasons, her foll owers celebrated the
changes as a ritual conflict between different nature spirits (Ginzburg, 39).
In the course of the centuries, the Benandanti absorbed certain Christian
beliefs. Some of them came to the conclusion that what they were fighting
for at the seasonal feasts was the faith of Christ .
B y the 16th century, these rituals were no longer acted out b u t were
experienced only when the believers went into trances . Nevertheless, the
Benandanti insisted over and over again that their experiences were real
( Ginzburg, 20) . Many modern historians, who have had Christian/ indus
trial values burned into their brains, j ust don' t know what to make of these
and similar shamanistic experiences . We find Norman Cohn suggesting that
the Benandanti suffered from catalepsy ( Cohn, Demons, 124 ) . He thinks
that the experiences of shamans in general are "all purely imaginary"
( Cohn, Demons, 222 ) . Of course such trances involve psychological effects,
and of course fantasy is an essential part of them. But that doesn't mean that
we should refuse to see reali ty in them - perhaps a kind of reality that
industrial civilization is blind to and would even prefer didn't exis t .
In addition to having visions, the Benandanti were healers . I n fact, the
Inquisition first got wind of them because they were healing people. On
March 21, 1575, a priest spoke to the Inquisition at Friuli . He said he had
come upon a certain Paolo Gasparutto who claimed to heal people through
the power of vagabonds who traveled at night carrying fennel stalks .
Through their questioning of Gasparutto, the Inquisition uncovered the
practices of the Benandanti (Ginzburg, 3 ff) . The remarks about fennel
stalks bring to mind the ancient worship of Dionysus. Dionysus was a
version of the horned god and an associate of Cybele, the Great Mother
( see Chapter 2) . Both he and the Great Mother were worshipped by women
and by men dressed in women's clothing . These worshippers carried wands
made of giant fennel stalks (narthex) with a pine cone on the end ( see
Euripides' Bacchae) . (The modern Italian word for fennel is finocchio,
which also happens to mean "homosexual . " ) Once the Inquisition realized
how widespread the practices of the Benandanti were, they launched a
broad attack against them . Members of the cult were arrested, only now
they were tortured into confessing what the Inquisitors wanted to hear . And
what the Inquisitors were interested in was not Diana, but the Devil (since
they viewed Diana as a demon) . The upshot was that the Benandanti were
continuously tortured until they said that they were witches and that they
worshipped the Devil . By 1618, many of the Benandanti , under this extreme
physical and psychological torment, actually came to view themselves as
Devil-worshipping witches (Ginzburg, 108 ff) . Hence the evidence
concerning the Benandanti is conclusive proof that paganism survived very
late in Europe and tha t Christians turned these pagans into witches .
The last stage in the transformation of paganism into witchcraft

occurred when the night-riding followers of Diana became the witches who
fly through the night on broomsticks . As we'll see later, the pagans
sometimes used hallucinogenic drugs that gave them their visions of flying .
These drugs were taken in the form of an ointment rubbed over the body
and absorbed through the skin. To the inquisitors, this became the witches'
salve that enabled them to fly through the nigh t .
Evidence for the transformation of Diana into the Devil has been
preserved in some of the existing peasant dialects of Europe . S o, for
example, in Sardinia, Jana (derived from Diana) means "witch . " In
Asturias, Dianu means "deviL " and the same for a Diana in Galicia, and
Dianho in parts of Portugal (Alford, 359) .
We find broken-down remnants of Diana-worship even into the
present day . In 1935 , a visitor in Portugal reported that she was present in
the town of Janas, which had been built on the site of an ancient pagan
temple. She observed a public feast day that still had traces of paganism .
The peasants brought their cattle in from the fields and walked in a big
circle counterclockwise around the church. The older women arrived riding
on donkeys. People made small votive offerings out of wax in the form of
cattle and placed them on the altar. The visitor heard persistent rumors that
a cock was killed in the church and the cattle sprinkled with its blood,
although she herself did not witness this (Alford, 359-360) .
In most of the accounts dealing with Diana, her followers usually seem
to have been women . But similar rites existed among all-male groups with a
male god . As with Diana, the leader of the male troops had many different
names, depending on the location in Europe. Among the most common
were Herne the Hunter, Herla the King, Herlechin, Herlequin, Harlequin,
Hellequin, Hillikin, Berchtold, Berhtolt, Derndietrich, Quatembermann,
and Kwaternik (Russell, 49, note & Ginzburg, 58, n. 2) . In my opinion, this
male figure is a survival of the Celtic horned god . As we saw in chapter 2,
the Latinized name for the Celtic horned god was Cernunnos, which means
'The Horned One" (B ober, passim) . The ending -as on this word is the
suffix that G reek and Old Latin added to most masculine nouns b orrowed
from other languages. So the original, de-Latinized form was probably
Cernunn . N ow, the prefixes Cer- and Her- are interchangeable Indo
European roots that both mean "horn . " Hence a variant spelling of the same
name is Hernunn. This last word, I suspect, was the original Celtic ancestor
of Herne, which is one of the oldest names for the male figure we're dealing
with . A variant spelling of Herne was Herla. From Herla comes Herla, the
King, and from Herla, the King comes Herlequin and Harlequin (see
"Harlequin" in the Random House Dictionary) . Medieval depictions of
Harlequin confirm these speculations based on language. They usually
show him wearing a forked cap having two drooping horn-like appendages .
In the La tin li terary tradition, Harlequin was turned into the figure of
the Fool, as, for example, he appears in late Italian comedy . He is usually
shown dressed up in bright clothes, and this is the traditional appearance of
Harlequin on the I talian stage . His manifestation as the Fool is interesting,
because in the middle ages a holiday survived from paganism called the
Feast of Fool s . It usually took place around January 1st ( the festival of Janus
- the brother of Diana), and was characterized by drinking, feasting, sex
orgies, and transvestism ( Russell , 51, 58-59; Rawson, 74) .

The word "Fool" a s applied t o Harlequin didn' t originally mean silly or
stupid, but rather frenzied or ecstatic or mad, akin to the French word folie,
which means madness or l unacy . This latter meaning is certainly in line
HARLEQUIN DISGUISED AS DIANA

Seventeenth century print
with the ecstatic nature of the Feast of Fools . The rites of Harlequin
originated from the countryside and the forest and impressed Christian
observers with their wildness . This impression is conveyed through the
words by which Christians described the foIlowers of Harlequin. They were
variously known as sauvages, selvatici, seivaggi, selvatici, and homines
seivatici, meaning "wild men" from the root silvus, meaning forest ( Russell,
49, note) . Throughout the middle ages, we find numerous reports about
troops of men foIl owing Harlequin at nigh t . As one example, consider the
historian and monk Ordericus Vitalis. In the 1 1 th century, he reported in

his Church History that these beliefs existed in Bonneville, France . A priest
late one night was said to have witnessed a large crowd on horses and on
foot, among whom were many who had recently died . On seeing this sight,
he replied: "This is doubtless the troop of Harlechin, of which I have heard
but never believed" (Lea, v. I, 1 71 ) . This account recalls the Benandanti,
who often said they saw the dead as well as the living .
By the fifth century, Christian intellectuals had transformed the pagan
horned god into the Devil, and Christian law began defining the old
teutonic fertility gods as "devils" ( Russell, 48) . The church called these
spirits incubi ( that is, demons who lie on top) or succubi ( demons who lie on
the bottom) . In the eyes of the church, they were devils who could take on
the body of a man or woman at will and have sex with humans of either sex .
For example, in the seventh century, Isidore of Seville said that the Teutons
worshipped a spirit that lived in the woods called Scrat, which in Old
English means hermaphrodite . He claimed that among the Latins they were
called incubi (Wright, 75) . Around 1218, Gervais of Tilbury noted that
many people claimed to have seen nature and forest spirits that the ancient
Celts called Dusii, but that the people of his day (that is, Christians) called
incubi (Lea, v. I , 1 73 ) . Around 1455, Felix Hemmerlin reported that in
Denmark and N orway demons frequently appeared in human form and
were called Trolls . He added :
And due to habit, they are not frightened by men, but men practice obeisance to
them, who even still are called incubi and succubi and are mingled [ that is, have
sex ] in human form with the sons and daughters of men ( Lea, v. I, 160) .
These examples show that the church did not just invent in cubi and succubi .
Behind the concept were minor pagan gods, sometimes hermaphroditic,
that were believed to have sex with human beings. As the practitioners of
paganism came to be viewed as witches, the church emphasized more and
more the importance of incubi and succubi .
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull attacking incubi and succubi:
It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us, that in some parts
of upper Germany, as well as i n the provinces, cities, territories, regions, and
dioceses of Mainz, Koln, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen , many persons of both
sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the Catholic faith, give
themselves over to devils male and female ( Kors, 108) .
The issuance of this bull marked a turning point in the history of witchcraft .
It gave strong papal support to the growing view that witchcraft in and of
itself was a form of heresy, and thus subject to the Holy Inquisition . "It
established once and for all that the Inquisition against witches had full
papal approval and thereby opened the door for the bloodbaths of the
following century" ( Russell, 230) . It is from the date of this bull that we
mark "the European witch-craze. "
Few historians have analyzed the sexual dimension o f Innocent's bull .
His reason for classifying witchcraft as a heresy was that "devils" were
having sex with humans of both sexes . Such people were guilty of
"forsaking the Catholic faith" - in Latin, a fide catholica deviantes,
literally "deviants from the Catholic faith" (Lea, 1 : 161) . The western view
that sexual non-conformity is "deviance" originated in religious orthodoxy .
Modern psychiatrists, in taking up this view , have assumed the role once
played by priests and inquisi tors in suppressing dissen t .
Because Christians believed incubi and succubi to b e evil spirits
without bodies, they ran into an embarassing theological quibble : How
could beings without bodies have sex? Caesarius of Heisterbach, a thir
teenth cen tury monk and historian, offered a memorable answer in his
Dialogus: demons collected all the cum that was ejaculated "contrary to
na ture" and used it to make bodies for themselves ! (Lea, 1 : 152) In wha tever
form demons ob tained their bodies, sex with them was a crime . "Intercourse
with a devil was held the equivalent of buggery, for which the penalty was
burning" (Robbins, 467) . Margaret Murray in The Witch-Cult in Western
Europe propoed that incubi and succubi were actually humans
impersonating pagan gods who had sex with both male and female follow
ers . After examining many charges brought against wi tches, Murray
concluded :
The evidence of the witches makes it abundantly clear that the so-called Devil
was a human being, generally a man, occasionally a woman. At the great
Sabbaths, where he appeared in his grand array, he was disguised out of
recognition; at the small meetings, in visiting his votaries, or when inducting a
possible convert to join the ranks of the witch-society, he came in his own
person, usually dressed plainly in the costume of the period (Murray, 31).
Sex played a big role in the surviving traditions of paganism . Many
accounts hint of sex rituals, transvestism, and nature worship, sometimes in
association with sacred areas that are known to date back to the Stone Age
or the Bronze Age . For example, church condemnations of both ritual
transvestism and the worship of images of sex organs are frequent (see
calendar at rear of book) . Concerning surviving sex worship in general, we
have a lot of evidence . In the 1 1 th century, the German church historian
Adam of Bremen reported that the god Fricco - represented by a huge
dildo - was still being worshipped in Upsala, Sweden, and that the day
Friday was sacred to him (Wright, 26) . In the 13th century, we find several
reports concerning acts of worship around dildos . In 1268, there was a
spreading cattle disease in the Scottish district of Lothian. The Chronicle of
Lanercost reported that some members of the clergy urged that an image of
Priapus ( that is, a dildo) be raised up in order to protect the cattle (Wright,
31 ) . In 1282 , in Inverkeithing, Scotland, a parish priest led an Easter dance
of little girls around a dildo (Wright, 31-32 ) . Some historians laugh off this
last account, but if we bother to take the original text seriously, we find out
"
the pries t's motivations. When challenged by the bishop, the priest said it
was the ancient custom of the country (Wright, 31-32) . The bishop
apparently believed him, because he was allowed to keep his job . Can you
imagine what w ould happen if a Catholic priest did that today in Boston?
In the 14th century a group of Armenians, probably Cathers, practiced
sun worship and held orgies ( Russell, 93, n. 49) . In 1353, Boccaccio's
Decameron mentioned a secret society called "rovers" (reminiscen t of the
Benandanti) that met twice a month for feasting and orgies (Russell, 193 ) . In
1375 an I talian woman, G abrina Albetti, was brought to trial at Reggio for
teaching other women to take off their clothing at night and pray to the
stars . She was condemned by a secular court, branded, and her tongue was
cut out ( Russell, 210) . In the 15th century, John Zizka charged that
Bohemian heretics called Adamites were practicing nudity, ritual dances
around fires, and sodomy (Lerner, 123 ) . This report probably referred to
pagan practices, since fire dances were a regular feature of the pagan
holiday that survived under Christianity as the Feast of St. John the Baptist
(Midsummer Eve) . Around 1455, Pope Calixtus III forbade religious
practices that were still being celebrated in his day in caves decorated with .
horses . One art historian thinks this refers to Stone-Age caves, since these
often had animals painted on them and were originally used as shamanistic
religious sites ( Rawson, 10) .
In the 1 6 th century, we find more links between stone-age and bronze
age sites and charges of witchcraft. In 1514, the Englishman John Panter
was accused of visiting a location annually on the eve of the Feast of S t .
John the Baptist f o r the purpose of consulting demons . The place h e went to
was in the parish of Doulting, near a location of 12 bronze-age burial
mounds (Grinsell, 73 ) . In 1566, John Walsh of Netherburg in England said
he consulted "fairies" that resided in large heaps of earth and that he got his
power of w itchcraft from them . These heaps were prehistoric burial
mounds (Grinsell, 73-74 ) . In this same century, blatantly pagan practices
continued even within some churches. In 1562, a large wood and leather
dildo was worshipped in the Catholic church of St. Eutropius at Orange and
was publicly seized and b urned by Protestants (Wright, 5 1 ) .
In 1 7th-century England, many bronze-age monuments were reputed
to be the sites of witches' sabbats and were mentioned repeatedly i n witch
trials. In northwestern France, the sites of bronze-age monumen ts were
often associated in folklore with witches' sabbats. S ome burial mounds
were even named from witchcraft, such as one in Brabant called Le L ieu du
Sab bat ( , The Place of the Sabbat") (Grinsell, 76-77) .
These reports bring to mind stories about magic mounds in I taly . In
1630, Diel Breull of Assia said that he had traveled to the Mound of Venus,
where he met Frau Holt, who was a protector of the fertility of the land . In
1632 , Breull was tortured by the Inquisition into confessing that he had
worshipped the Devil there (Ginzburg, 64-65) . In 1694, a group of people
called the Brotherhood of John were tried in Leopoli . They said they had
visited the souls of the dead on the Mound of Venus and had the power to
evoke them (Ginzburg, 64) .
Paganism even continued into the 18th century . On December 30,
1 781, an eyewitness account told of a church in Isernia, Naples, where the
phallic god Priapus was still worshipped under the name of St. Cosmu s .
People placed wax models o f cocks and balls o n his altar a s votive offerings
(Hamil ton, 18-21 ) . In 1 794, the minister of Callander in Pert shire, Scotland,
claimed tha t pagan rites were still being practiced in his area (Hope, 73) . In
Brittany, people continued to hold sex rituals at the site of bronze-age
monuments until the 19th century . And they didn't give up the practice
without a struggle, for "until the last century the Church fought vigorously
and with varying success against pagan and often obscene practices
associated with the megalithic monuments" (von Cles-Reden, 260) .
Even as late as the beginning of the 19th century , the names of the old
deities were still used in some places . The goddess Demeter was worshipped
under her own name and in the form of an ancient statue at Eleusis, Greece,
until 1801 . The cult was put down at that time by two Englishmen, Clarke
and Crips . They formed an armed guard and went in and forcibly removed
the goddess, causing a riot among the peasants (Briffaul t, v . III. 182 ) .
The feasts of he ancient pagan gods were often celebrated with sex
orgies . We shouldn't be surprised, therefore, to find C hristian inquisitors
linking witchcraft with sexuality . When people were arrested on suspicion
of witchcraft, they were questioned at great length about their sex lives .
Often they were tortured into confessing to every p ossible form of sexual
activity . As one historian says: "The curiosity of the judges was insatiable
to learn all possible details as to sexual intercourse and their industry in
pushing the examinations was rewarded by an abundance of foul [ sic]
imaginations" (Lea, II: 916-917) .
In the 16th and 1 7th centuries, people who were suspect of being
sexually unorthodox might easily find themselves accused of witchcraft,
just as earlier, such people could easily find themselves accused of heresy .
At Innsbruck, Austria, the notorious witch-hunter Henry Institoris was
uncertain whether a defendant had killed someone through poison or witch
craft, "though he inclined toward the latter suspicion on the peculiar
grounds tht the suspect had a history of sexual laxity, and was thus no
doubt prone to such base activities as witchcraft" (Kieckhefer, 49-50) .
During the peak of the witch-hunting craze, the great majority of
people accused of witchcraft were women. This is understandable since
women were the chief transmitters of the ancient pagan traditions . Under
the earliest forms of paganism, women had enjoyed a great deal of sexual
freedom. Their association with loose sex and paganism resulted in the
creati on of the Ch ri stian stereotype of women as sexually depraved.
This stereotype comes out quite clearly in the Malleus Maleficarum , an

official 15th-century handbook for prosecuting witches. The authors of the
Malleus ask themselves why more women are witches than men, and reply
in the best tradition of male supremacy that "since they are feebler both in
mind and body, it is not surprising that they should come more under the
spell of witchcraft" (Malleus, 44). The authors continue their line of
reasoning by claiming that women are more sexual than men, and therefore
more likely to be controlled by the Devil: "But the natural reason is that she
[ woman] is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many abomina-
tions" (Malleus, 44). Their underlying attitude toward women's sexuality is

well summed up in these words: "A woman is beautiful to look upon,
contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep. . . . All witchcraft comes
from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable" (Malleus, 46-47). In the
worst periods of the witch craze, a woman could find herself hauled before
the Inquisition and accused of being a witch merely because she had a
reputation for enjoying sex. The same thing could happen to a man if he had
a reputation for being Gay. Unfortunately, professional historians have not
given the latter fact much attention. This is because they often have an
attitude toward homosexuality very similar to that found among medieval
Christians .
76 Witch c raft and the Gay Coun terc u l t u re
Male h omosexuality and witchcraft were often linked together, just as

Gay sex was earlier linked with heresy . Some scholars may be confused on
this point because of the view of homosexuality in the Malleus
Malefica ru m , which was the first witch-hun ters' handbook to carry the
Pope's approva l . According to the Ma lleus h o mosexuality is so disgusting
that not even demons would d o it! In the words of the Ma lleus :
And it must be carefu lly no ted that, though the Scripture speaks of Inc u b i and
Succubi lusting after women, yet nowhere d o we read that Incubi and Succubi
fell into vices against nature . We d o n o t speak only of sodomy, b u t of any o ther
sin whereby the act is wrongfully performed o u tside the rightful channel . And
the very grea t enormity of such as sin in this way is shown b y the fact that all
devils equally, of whatsoever order, abominate and think shame t o commit
such actions (Malleus, 29-30) ,
The M alleus concludes by saying that anyone who commits a Gay sex act
after the age of 33 is probably beyond all hope of salvation :
Indeed many say, and it is truly believed, that no one can unimperilled
persevere in the practice of such vices beyond the period of the mortal life of
Christ, which lasted for thirty- three years, unless he should be saved by some
special grace of the Redeemer (Malleus, 30) .
Unfortuna tely for Gay people, the Inquisition did not follow the Malleus in
believing tha t the Devil was above homosexuality . In 1582 , the Inquisition
a t Avignon , France, delivered this j udgment against a group of condemned
witche s : "You men have fornica ted with s u c c u b i and you women with
incu b i . You have wretchedly committed genuine sodomy and the most
unmentionable of crimes with them by means of their cold touch" (Lea, v. I,
485 ) .
Homosexuality and witchcraft became so closely associated that the
two were often linked together in popular tracts on the subj ect . In 1460, an
anonymous tract appeared during the trial of accused wi tches at Arras,

France . I t made this accusa tion :
Sometimes indeed indescribabl e ou trages are perpetrated in exchanging women,
by order o f the presiding devil, by passing on a woman t o other women and a
man to o ther men, an abuse against the nature of women by both parties and
similarly against the nature of men, or b y a w oman with a man outside the
regular orifice and in another orifice (Robbins, 468 ) .
In 1589 , an anonymous pamphlet of 15 pages appeared in Paris accusing
King Henry III of France of being a h o mosexual and a witch ( Summer,
Popular His t o ry, 164-165) . I n Lisbon in 1612, h o mosexuality and witchcraft
were so in termixed that authorities were confused over whether sodomites
should be executed under the civil procedure for criminals or under the
religious procedures for witches (Lea , v. II, 485 ) . In many wi tchcraft trials,
defendants were tortured into confessing that Gay sex acts took place a t the
sabba t . In 1615, the accused witch Gentien Ie Clerc was tried a t Orleans . He
was made to confess that "after the Mass, they dance , then lie together, men
with men, and women with women" (Murray, Witch-Cult, 249 ) .
During the peak of the terror, judges, theologians, and intellectuals

rou tinely combined charges of witchcraft with lesbianism and male homo
sexuality . A good example is Henry Boguet, who personally tried a great
many cases . Around 1619, he wrote in his book Discours des So rciers :
You may well suppose that every kind of obscenity is practiced there, yea, even
those abominations for which Heaven poured down fire and brimstone on
Sodom and G omorrah are quite common in these assemblies (Summers,
History, 157) .
In 1620, a Portuguese inquisitor named Manuel do Valle de Moura pub
lished a book on witchcraf t . He said that in Portugal the Inquisition got
j urisdiction for prosecutions of sodomy and that no one who was convicted
escaped the stake (Lea, v. II, 481-485 ) . I n 1625, the Jesuit Paul Laymann
published a book on morals called Theologia M o ralis, which claimed that
adultery and sodomy were crimes that led to witchcraft (Lea, v. II, 680) .
The association between Gay sex and wi tchcraft was not limited to
continental Europe . In 1661 , the Irish woman Florence Newton was brought
to trial and accused of aggressively kissing and bewitching a young servant
woman, Mary Longdon ( Robbins, 352-353) . In 1670 in Scotland, Thomas
Weir, a respected 70-year-old bachelor, stunned public opinion by
confessing, at his own initiative, to witchcraft, fornication, and sodomy
( Robbins, 534 ) .
By the 16th century, the Inquisition had created a witch stereotype .
According to this stereotype, a witch was a person who had the power to
bewitch people, was bound to the Devil, flew through the air at night,
c onspired to overthrow Christian civilization, and attended periodic
meetings where wild sex rites were held (Cohn, Dem ons, 147) . People were
arrested on suspicion of wi tchcraft and were often tortured until they
c onfessed to practicing everything in this stereotyp e . As a result, many
people were burned who had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any
of these things .
The stereotype of the witch was a fantasy developed by the Inquisition,
but it was a fantasy based on a certain reality . Evidence for the survival of
sex and nature worship abounds in both Gnostic heresy and peasant
traditions . Witches existed, but they were not Devil-worshipping monsters
hell-bent on destroying the human race . They were simply remnant prac
titioners of broken-down strains of the old paganism. They healed, went
into trances, had visions, and celebrated bawdy rites in honor of the
magical powers of sex and nature . Like the pagans of antiquity, they did not
make a distinction between sex and religion . For them, sex was one
manifestation of religious p ower . In the eyes of patriarchal Christians, that
was heresy and the same thing as worshipping the Devi l .
78 Witchcraft and the Gay Countercultu re
6
The Medieval C ounterculture
The old religion had a coherent world view. Behind its many forms
there lay a basic outlook on life, a way of feeling and experiencing nature
and other people, that was passed down from generation to generation.
This world view was manifest first in ancient paganism, then in medieval
heresy, and finally in witchcraft . Although the old religion and Christianity
influenced each other and in some cases even fused, the root beliefs and
social forms of the old religion formed a genuine counterculture, radically
opposing the way traditional Christians lived and thought .
The old religion was polytheistic . Its most important deity was a
goddess who was worshipped as the great mother . Its second major deity
was the horned god, associated with animals and sexuality, including
homosexuality . These and other deities were worshipped in the countryside
at night with feasting, dancing, animal masquerades, transvestism, sex
orgies, and the use of h allucinogenic drugs . Sensual acts were at the heart of
the old religion, since theirs was a worldly religion of j oy and celebration .
The testimony of the witches themselves, when uncoerced, bore witness to
this joyousness . Pierre de Lancre, a seventeenth-century judge, reported:
"Jeanne Dibasson, twenty-nine years old, tells us that the sabbat is the true
paradise, where there is more pleasure than one can express" (Murray,
Witch-Cult, 25) . Sometimes, motivated by a desire to discredit paganism,
inquisitors tortured witches until they denied their joy and said the
celebrations were disgusting. In so doing, the inquisitors were like some
modern psychiatrists who "treat" Gay patients into saying that Gay life
can't possibly be happy .
Women were the chief priests and leaders of the old religion, perform
ing the roles of prophet, midwife, and healer. Women priests impersonated
the goddess and acted in her name . Although groups of male priests also
existed (such as the Druids) , they never suppressed the religious role of
women. The material substructure of the old religion was a matriarchal
social system that reached back to the stone age .
The old religion was a religion of the countryside and forest, rather
than of the city . In the earliest period, references to any church or temple
were rare, becoming more frequent only under the later influence of
patriarchy and Christianity . Followers of the old religion lived rural lives in
direct dependence on nature and felt a sense of community with all plant
and animal life . In the stone-age world from which paganism emerged, no
"government" existed except for the people themselves. Even in the early
medieval period, their culture was devoid of institutionalism as we now
know i t . In later European history, wi tchcraft retained this characteristic

hostili ty to institu tional authority . "In the history of Christianity,
wi tchcraft is an episode in the long struggle between authori ty and order on
one side and prophecy and rebellion on the o ther" (Russell , 2 ) .
Both ancient pagans and l ater witches were learned people, possessing
a vast storehouse of knowledge about herbs, plants, animals, signs of the
weather, astronomy, and medicine . This . knowledge, along with their
myths and poetry, was transmitted by word of m o u th from one generation
to the nex t . Learning was thus a ma tter of close personal dialogue .
Originally the old religion knew n othing of b o oks or the bureaucra tic
con trol of knowledge by universities . Only as Christianity became more
powerful did bookishness find i ts way i n t o the old religio n .
T h e Christian religion, in i ts traditional form s , was opposed t o these
features of the old religio n . Christians worshipped only one god, described
in terms tha t suggested male heterosexuality ( " G o d the Father" ) . This god
exis ted in grand isolation above na ture, which he created and dominated,
whereas the dei ties of the old religion always remained subordina t e to
nature . The Christian god was also completely intolerant of any o ther deity
or spiri t . Christian hatred for people who worshipped deities other than
their "one true god" goes back to Jesus the Nazarene, who compared such
people to weeds :
The weeds are the followers of the evil one and the enemy who sowed them is
the devil . The harvest is the end of the worl d . The Son of Man will disp a tch his
angels to collect from his kingdom all who draw o thers to a p ostasy, and all
evildoers . The angels will hurl them into a fiery furnace where they will wail
and grind their teeth . (New American Bible, Mattl L , 13: 38-42 ) .
While t h e o l d religion w a s tolera n t of a l l forms o f sex, tradi tional
Christianity condemned every form of sex excep t m onogamous hetero
sexuality sanctified by marriage . Jesus the Nazarene had no sex l i fe a t all,
and Paul of Tarsus constantly condemned adul tery, fornication, and h omo
sexuality, b o th male and female. "The e a rlier religious element most
particularly pursued and repressed by Christianity was the naive and quite
beautiful a doration of the sexuality of n ature and of human beings"
(Legman, 103-104) . Wherever tradi tional Christianity has come t o p ower, it
has used the power of government to repress sex . Whenever Christian
missionaries have encountered so-called "primitives, " the first thing they've
done is t o make the people feel guil ty about sex, nudity, and the very fact of
having a body . The maj or forces behind the American homophobe Anita
Bryant were a coalition of churches, synagogues, and right-wing poli tical
groups.
Christianity's hatred of sex was m atched by its h atred for women . The
Christian god was always addressed as "He , " and n o women were found
among the disciples of Jesus the Nazaren e . Women have always been
excluded from the priesthood. Paul of Tarsus stated:
The Medieval Counterculture 81
A woman must listen in silence and be completely submissive. I do not permit a

woman to act as a teacher, or in any way to have authority over a man; she
must be quie t . For Adam was created first, Eve afterward; moreover it was not
Adam who was deceived but the woman . It was she who was led astray and fell
into sin (I Tim . , 2: 11-14) .
During the 16th and 1 7th century witch hunts, inquisitors singled out
women as dangerous. Many times women were condemned precisely be
cause they were associated with sex . The heterosexual men who controlled
Christianity viewed sexual feelings as sinful; since women aroused these
feelings, they too must be sinful . The condemnation of women was a
natural consequence of the condemnation of sex .
In contrast to the anarchistic values of the witches, Christianity was
obsessed with obedience to established institutions . Typical of this tradition
was the attitude of Paul of Tarsus:
Let everyone obey the authorities that are over him, for there is n o authori ty
except from God, and all au thority that exists is established by God. As a
consequence, the man who opposses authority rebels against the ordinances of
God; those who resist thus shall draw condemnation down among themselves
(Romans, 13: 1-2 ) .
The concep t of hierarchy w a s spread throughout the Christian world b y

Dionysius, the Pseudo-Areopagite, " the father o f Christian mysticism . " I n
h i s theology, the hierarchy o f the church was a symb ol of the hierarchy of
heaven, which was a symbol of the mystical inner structure of God . The
only way for Christians to know God was to obey those who occupied the
next highest rung in the church's hierarchy , since hierarchy in and of itself
was an image of divini ty . Dionysius made obedience more than just a moral
duty; it became the means of grace itself, as bureaucracy was raised to the
level of a mystical principl e . Later, Protestantism threw off the concept of
the hierarchical dispensation of grace, but retained the idea of the mystical
importance of its own hierarchy . As a result, in both Catholicism and
Protestantism, church and hierarchy have become synonymous .
Christianity vi ewed learning as a bookish practice, and set up a system

of universi ties across Europe . Learning became impersonal and obj ective,
consisting of the study of documents and b o oks in a classroom under the
control of a central bureaucracy . The church carefully outlawed and
destroyed those b o oks that the fai thful were forbidden to read. The effect of
these practices was to separate reason from feeling and t o make learning
into an objective, intellectualized pursuit conducted within the confines of
an insti tution. Learning became bureaucratized .
Christianity and the old religion differed i n the way they viewed
nudity, hair, drugs, and animals . Among the Celts, nudity was never
regarded as shameful since the nude b ody was respected as a source of
religi ous p ower . Celtic warriors sometimes fought nude in order to increase
their magical powers on the battle field ( C h a dwick, The Celts, 134) . The
chief dei ties of the old religion were generally shown nude, and the male
deity had an erect cock . Small lead amulets, depicting both male and female
genitals, continued to be used as g ood-luck charms by the peasants in
Europe long after Christianity became the official religion (Hamilton) .
Christianity's contempt for the nude body was logically connected to

its hatred of sex . In the old testament the first fall into sin is connected with
the shame Adam and Eve felt over nudity:
Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were
naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loin-cloths for themselves
(Genesis, 3: 7) .
When the god Yahweh appeared i n the Garden o f Eden, Adam hid: " I heard
you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself"
( Genesis, 3 : 1 0) .
The new testament continued in the same vein, and several statements
of Jesus the Nazarene have encouraged some Christians to become
fanatically ascetic:
What I say to you is: anyone who looks lustfully at a woman has already
committed adul tery with her in his thoughts. If your right eye is your trouble,
gouge it out and throw it away ! Better to lose part of your body than to have it
all cast into Gehenna (Matth . , 5:28-29) .
In the third century, both the letter and spirit of this statement was followd
by Origen, a church father, who castrated himself to avoid sexual
temptation .
Medieval Christians were morbid about nudity . S ome even refused to
bathe because that would involve undressing . Stories were circulated about
early Christian saints who had never bathed in their whole lives . The
inevitable result of this type of thinking was widespread disease,
particularly skin disease, which constantly plagued the middle ages .
In Christian art of the middle ages, the genitals are rarely shown, and
the human form usually appears emaciated and anti-sensual . A common
motif is the tortured or mutilated body of some Christian marty r . The
maj or emblem of medieval Christianity - the agonized body of Jesus the
Nazarene nailed to a cross - sums up the whole Christian mentality:
crucify the body for the sake of the soul . During the Renaissance, Christian
artists began t o show a more positive body image . The underlying cause,
however, was the revival of pagan Greek values; it had nothing to do with
Christianity per se . The so-called "Reformation" was a revolt against this
revival, leaving as its legacy the artistic sterility of modern Protestantism.
The old religion prized body hair. Celtic stories and poems frequently
praised the beautiful l ong hair of both men and women . Among the ancient
Germans, Holle ( a grea t mother goddess) was associated with long hair,
giving rise to a German expression for a man with long unkempt hair: Er ist
mit der Holle gefahren, meaning "He's been traveling with Holle" ( Grimm,
223). Fairies, too, were associated with long hair until very late times . Long
haired fairies dressed in green were reported in Danffshire, Scotland, until
1793 (Hope, 14).
Medieval Christians associated long hair with the Devil . William of
Auvergne, thirteenth century philosopher and Bishop of Paris, said that
women must cover their hair in church because " the beauty of the hair
strongly excites the lust of incubi" (Kors, 152) . Paul of Tarsus though t long
hair was acceptable for women , but unnatural for men : "Does not nature
itself teach you that it is dishonorable for a man to wear his hair long, while
the long hair of a woman is her glory" (1 Corinthians, 1 1 : 1 4 ) . Although
tolerating long hair on women, he insisted they cover it in church: "Any
woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered brings shame
upon her head. I t is as if she had her head shaved . Indeed, if a woman will
not wear a veil , she ought to cut off her hair" (l Corinthians, 1 1 : 5-6) .
The old religion celebrated i ts rites with hallucinogenic drugs .
Throughout the history of witchcraft, references are made to drug taking .
Wal ter Map, a twelfth century ecclesiastic, stated that he knew certain
heretics who served innocent people a "magic food" that affected their
minds ( Russell, 131). Johann Weyer, a sixteenth-century physician who
opposed the oppression of wi tches, wrote: "The experiences of wi tches are
delirious dreams induced by drugs wherewith they confect their ointments"
(Lea, II: 505 ) . Weyer identified several substances in the witches' so-called
flying ointment as hallucinogens .
Thorn apple (Datura) Mandrake (Mandragora)
Margaret Murray was the first m odern scholar to suggest that witches
used hallucinogens. Her suspicions have been confirmed by Michael
Harner, ' who concludes tha t the witches' ointment contained atropine and
other alkaloids, "all of which have hallucinogenic effects" and which can be
absorbed through the skin ( Harner, 128) . Some historians reje"ct Harner's
conclusions, but their reasons usually boil down to simple prejudice against
drug takers . Norman Cohn ridicules Harner because his book "was
published j ust as the craze [ ! 1 for psychedelic experiments and experiences
was building up" ( C ohn, Demons, 118) .
Henbane (Hyoscyamus) Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna)
The role of hallucinogens in the witches' religion is interesting in view

of the ancient worship of Dionysus ( the horned god of the Greco-Roman
world) , who was also the god of drunkenness . Wine was originally viewed
as a religious hallucinogen, giving participants in the sacred orgies visions
similar to those reported by witches. The ancients viewed wine as a magical
power distilled from the life forces of plants . By drinking wine, the
worshippers of Di onysus became entheos, "filled with the god , " literally
drunk with divinity .
The old religion had a reverent attitude toward animals. Both major
deities - the grea t mo ther and the horned god - were animal-oriented .
The great mother, as mistress and protector of animals, was called "Diana"
by Christians because of her similarity to the Greco-Roman animal and
moon goddess . Besides his horns, the male god had cleft hooves and furry
legs, and his worshippers dressed in animal skins . So common was the
practice of animal masquerades in the middle ages that detailed condem
nations were issued against them . Theodore, the seventh-cen tury Arch
bishop of Canterbury, wrote :
If anyone in the kalends of January goes about as a stag or a bull; that is making
himself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and pu tting
on the head of beasts; th ose who in such wise transform themselves into the
appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this is devilish
( Summers, History , 134 ) .
Throughout the Christian Era , t h e confessions of wi tches, t h e transcripts o f
trials, a n d popular writings show t h a t certain male members of t h e witch
cult dressed in animal skins (later in black leather) and had ritual sex with
other witches at the Sabbat . The most common animal masquerades were
those of bull, cat, dog, horse, and sheep (Murray, The Witch- Cult, 61ff) .
In England, witches were associa ted with "familiars, " which were pet
animals kept for magical purposes, such as the famous black cat. Often
accused of communicating with these animals, wi tches themselves claimed
they could change themselves and others into animal forms. These stories
should not be dismissed as simple fantasies, especially in view of the
witches' use of hallucinogens . "There is documentary evidence of the
existence over a period of centuries of the belief tha t certain women (not
necessarily always old ones) could change themselves and others into
animals in classical times" (Baroj a , 39; original's italics).
Christiani ty has always taught contempt for animals, believing that
animals are inferior to humans. In the old testament, humans are com
manded to rule over animals: "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the
birds of the air, and all the living things that m ove on the earth" ( Genesis,
1:28) . In the new testament, animals play no role in G od's plan for
salvation, and God himself is never worshipped as an animal. Early church
fathers, absorbing the traditions of Greek intellectualism, taught that
humans were superior to animals because they possessed logos the power
-
of reasoning. The fathers viewed all non-intellectual functions (like

sexuality) as "animal passions, " and thus beneath the dignity of purified
Christians. The word "animal" has come to connote baseness ever since.
The old religion's attitudes toward the body, hair, hallucinogens, and
animals were all consistent. They were the values we'd expect to find in a
culture that was practically devoid of bureaucratic institutions, existing in
direct dependence on nature. Living in this way, early rural pagans and
later medieval witches viewed t heir sensuality as the key to who they were
as people, and not as some kind of low-level crud to be scraped off their
souls. Their very survival depended on being in touch with their bodies and
knowing how to communicate with plants and animals. As a result , theirs
was an enchanted world, the world of natural feelings.
Traditional Christian attitudes were also consistent . They were the

values of a culture that depended for its survival on thorough-going
domination and hierarchy, a social fact that colored their view of the whole
universe. In the external world, it was the domination of God over nature,
humans over animals, men over women, Pope over bishops, King over
knights, states and churches over people. In the internal world, it was the
hierarchy of the soul : intellect over body, thoughts over passions,
disciplined preparation for a future life over the anarchy of here-now
sensuality . Sexual repression, self-discipline, and obedience were the means
of survival in such a culture, as well as the keys to heaven . They were also
the tools that enabled church and state to accumulate vast institutional
control over the lives of human beings . And so Christians lived and died
"within the walls , " out of touch with natural feelings .
These same Christian values have found their way into the minds and
laws of all highly industrialized nations . Regardless of whether they call
themselves capitalist or communist, the governments of all "higbly
developed" nations of the w orld fear nudity, drugs, long hair, animals, and
sex . Like medieval Christian civilization, modern indus trial cultures are all
institutionalized, bureaucratized societies, totally dependent on domination
and hierarchy for their survival .
All of us have been institu tionalized since the moment of our birth - in
classrooms, prisons, offices, factories, hospitals, mad houses . We are
totally dependent on great institutions for meeting our every need . There
are very few of us who can do what the maj ority of people throughout
history have always regarded as essential human activities: grow our own
food, make our own clothing, build our own homes, make our own medi
cines, create our own gods . And there are very few of us who can guiltlessly
express the full potential of our sex energies, communicate with the animals,
or become transfigured by the power of the plant spirits. Instead, w e have
had drilled into our brains those traits that make it possible for great
bureaucracies and institutions to satisfy our needs and thus dominate our
lives: alienation from nature, sexual repression, self-denial, and obedience .
88 I Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture
7
The Mass Murder of
Women and Gay People
"Don't think I've come t o bring peace on earth. I've come, not to bring peace,
but a sword . " - Jesus the Nazarene (Matt. , 10:34)
Christianity and the old religion, with its heretical offshoots, could
not co-exist in peace . Members of the Christian ruling cbs were convinced
that theirs was the one true religion and that all other religions served the
devil . They remembered the words of Jesus the Nazarene : "Go out into the
highways and along the hedgerows and force them to come in. I want my
house to be full" (Luke, 14 : 23 , New A merican Bible) . Taking up the sword,
Christian rulers tried t o annihilate those they could not convince.
The situation became critical in the late twelfth century . By 1150, the
Cathars had their own culture, dialect, religion, and tradition of self
government in Languedoc ( southern France) (Wakefield, 62) . Cathars
opposed Catholicism and were tolerant toward Gay people, Jews, and
pagans . Many Cathar leaders were women, and the arts flourished free of
censorship . Church leaders were alarmed at the spread of Catharism and
started issuing condemna tions of their practices and teachings . In 1150,
Geoffrey of Auxerre published Super A pocalypsim, accusing the Cathars of
advocating free sex ( Russell, 128 ) . In 1 157, the Synod of Rheims met and
formally denounced Ca tharism . The Synod charged that Cathars engaged
in orgies and that itinerant Catharist weavers were condemning marriage
and encouraging promiscuity ( Runciman, 121; Russell, 128; Loos, 1 1 7;
Cohn, Millennium, 153 ) .
Catharist beliefs spread rapidly i n the rest o f Europe, becoming strong
in Lombardy and i n the Rhineland . Other heresies appeared . In 1 1 73 , Peter
Waldo (or Waldes ) , a rich merchant from Lyon, France, a ttacked the wealth
of the church and gave away all of his possessions to found the Walden
sians . In 1184 Pope Lucius III condemned the Waldensians and authorized
the use of the inquisition (without torture) to uncover them (Wakefield, 44
& 133 ) .
In 1208, Pope Innocent III summoned the Albigensian C rusade t o wipe
out the Cathars of Languedoc, who were also known as Albigensians, after
the city of Albi . From 1209 to 1229, Catholic troops, led by Simon de
Montfort, invaded Languedoc, threw the country into a bloody civil war,
and conducted a campaign of extermination . The people of Languedoc
resisted with equal determination and violence, and were nearly victorious
until the King of France, who had been uncommitted, j oined the Catholic
forces . On April 12, 1229, the Albigensians surrendered, except for a small
group holding the fortress of Montsegur. They surrendered in 1243 only to
be burned en masse. An incident reported by the Catholic writer Caesarius
is indicative of the violence of the invading troops :
From the confessions of some of t hese people, they [ the troops j were aware that
Catholics were intermingled with the heretics, so they asked the Abbot: 'Lord,
what shall we do? We cannot distinguish the good from the wicked' . The
abb o t , as well as others, was afraid that the heretics would pretend to be
Catholics only in fear of death and after the Christians' departure would return
to their perfidy . He is reported to have cried : 'Kill them ! The Lord knows those
who are his own'. ( Wakefield, 197) .
At the crusade's end, both sides signed an agreement . Forfeiting one
third of his land, the Count of Toulouse swore allegiance to the church and
the King of France. In addition, he promised to hunt down any remaining
heretics, dismiss all Jews from their j obs, and tear down the fortifications of
thirty castles. He also agreed to let a university be buil t - the University of
Toulouse - for the purpose of fighting heresy and propagating Christian
values (Wakefield, 127-130 ) . Ironically , Augustus Caesar, twelve hundred
years before, had established a university in the same town for combating
the teachings of the Druids (Chadwick, The Druids, 78) .
Despite the crusade, Catharism and other heresies continued to spread .
Between 1227-1235, Pope Gregory IX created a permanent heresy-hunting
machine, the Office of the Holy Inquisition . First created by the Catholic
Church, the Inquisition was later copied by courts in Protestant countries as
well . Before the Inquisition was set up, heretics were tried before secular or
bishops' courts acting independent of one another without any central
direction . They rarely went looking for heretics, dealing only with cases
that were brought to their attention. With the creation of the Inquisition, all
this changed.
The Inquisition declared that heresy was a crimen excepta ("an
exceptional crime") , which meant that prosecutions were exempt from the
usual due process of law . According to the rules established by the
Inquisition, a person was assumed guilty until proven innocent (see entry
under "Inquisition" in Robbins, p . 266 ) . Mere suspicion or common gossip
were sufficient to bring a person before the Inquisition on such a charge .
Witnesses who incriminated the accused were not publicly identified, and
the accused was not given the right to cross-examine their testimony . In
most cases, the accused was denied the right to counsel . In cases where
counsel was allowed, a too vigorous defense of the accused could result in
the counsel's being indicted for heresy .
After 1256, persons accused of heresy were almost always tortured
until they "confessed. " The torture was severe and could result in death .
Those who did confess were generally tortured further until they named
Mass Murder of Gay People 91
accomplices . After this, the accused was made to appear in court and swear
that his or her confession was "voluntary" ; refusal to swear this resulted in
m ore torture . Once defendants confessed and swore that their confessions
were "voluntary , " they were given over to the secular authorities to be
executed . Those who confessed were generally strangled, and their bodies
burned ( sometimes they were reprieved and sentenced to life imprisonment
on bread and water) . Those who refused to confess or who retracted a
confession were burned alive . Officially, it was the secular authori ty, not
the Inquisi tion, that finally executed the heretic . Throughout the entire
history of the Inquisition there was never any case of simple acquittal
(Robbins, 2 70) .
The cost of running the Inquisition was paid for by the accused, whose
property was seized and divided up between the accusers and the j udges.
Heresy hunting became a maj or industry of the middle ages, rewarding
those who supported the Inquisition. In 1360, the Inquisitor Eymeric
complained that the secular authorities in his area were no l onger giving
enough support to the Inquisition : "In our days there are no more rich
heretics; so that princes, not seeing much money in prospect, will not put
themselves to any expense; it is a pity that so salutary an institution as ours
should be so uncertain of its future" ( Robbins, 271 ) .
The authorities who created the Inquisition showed a n extraordinary
concern with sexual matters . In 1233 Pope Gregory IX issued a bull called
Vox in Rama, accusing heretics of practicing sex rites and calling for their
annihilation :
The whole Church weeps and groans and can find no consolation when such
things are wrought in its b osom . It i s the most detestable of heresies, a horror to
those who hear of i t , opposed to reason, contrary to piety, ha teful t o all hearts,
inimical to earth and heaven, against which the very elements should arise . It
would not be a sufficient punishment if the whole earth rose against them, if the
very stars revealed their iniquities t o the whole world, so that not only men but
the elements themselves should combine for their destruction and sweep them
from the face of the earth, without sparing age or sex, so that they should be an
eternal opprobium to the nations (Lea, 1 : 202 ) .
Six years before, Gregory had issued another Bull, Extravagantes, which
condemned sodomy ( Bailey, 98) . C ondemnations of homosexuality among
the clergy also appeared in the decrees of the Third Lateran Council in 1 1 79 ,
the Council o f Paris i n 1 2 1 2 , a n d t h e C ouncil of Rouen in 1 2 1 4 ( Bailey, 127) .
Because of the identifica tion of homosexuality with heresy, the
crea tion of the Inquisition seems t o have spurred secular authori ties to start
harassing Lesbians and Gay men . In 1260, the legal code of the city of
Orleans outlawed lesbianism and male hom osexuality, calling for mutila
tions for the first and second offenses, and burning for the third (Bailey,
142 ) . In 1261 , the parlement of Amiens had to decide a dispute between the
bishop and the city government as to who had the authority to try
sodom i tes, finally deciding on behalf of the city ( Bailey, 143 ) . The fact that
homosexuality came to be viewed as a form of heresy is clearly shown in the
1290 law passed by King Edward I of England . The law called for death by
burning in the case of sodomi tes - but did s o in the context of condemning
religious criminals : 'The same sentence shall be passed upon sorcerers,
sorceresses, renegades [ meaning apostates ] , sodomists, and heretics
publicly convicted" ( Bailey, 145-146) .
The Holy Inquisition turned homosexual i ty into heresy . "Heresy
became a sexual rather than a doctrinal concept ; to say a man was a heretic
was to say that he was a homosexual . and vice versa" (Taylor, 1 3 1 ) .
Because of the methods of the Inquisition - with hearsay and the forced
confession of accomplices - great numbers of Lesbians and Gay men must
have lost their lives . But s traight historians have not documented this aspect
of the Inquisition, just as they have not documented the mass murder of
Gay people in Hitler's concentra tion camps .
The Inquisition inevitably lead to poli tical abuse . The most famous
case of this abuse involved the charge of homosexual ity against the Order
of the Knights Templars, a monastic military order. On Friday, October 1 3 ,
1307, Philippe t h e Fair, King of France, stunned Europe by having 5 , 000
members of the Order arrested throughout France ( Legman, 3ff) . The
Templars were brought before the Inquisition and charged with five counts
of heresy : (1) tha t incoming members to the order were required to spi t on
the cross and reject the Christian religion; (2) that during his initiation the
'
initiate kissed the initiator on his mouth, cock, and ass hole; (3) that
sodomy was the lawful and expected practice of all Templars; and (4) that
the Templars held secret religious rites where they worshipped a non
Christian deity (Lea, in Legman).
At first, Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Order, and the
other arrested members denied the charges. But when they were subjected
to torture, many "confessed." Under an apparent plea-bargaining deal, de
Molay himself agreed to plead guilty to rejecting Christ, if the charge of
homosexuality was dropped (Legman, 107-108). On November 22, Pope

Clement issued the bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, urging all monarchs of
Europe to emulate Philippe's action (Lea, in Legman, 177). In the next few
years the Templars were hunted down all over Europe. Exiled, imprisoned,
or executed, they saw their property confiscated, and the order was
abolished.
Most historians believe that Philippe's actions were purely mercenary.

Although the Templars were founded in 1128 as a monastic, military order
of poor crusaders, by the fourteenth century they had accumulated vast
wealth and had become the chief bankers of the middle ages. Both Pope
Clement and Philippe were in debt to them. The Templars had also gained
astonishing legal privileges. They were exempt from all taxes, were above
secular law, maintained their own set of confessors, and worshipped in their
own chapels from which all others were barred. Legally the French
Templars were not even the subjects of Philippe, but were accountable only
to the Pope (Lea, in Legman, 152). Philippe was desperate for money due to
his huge war debts. Previously he had debased the currency, arrested all of
the Jews in his kingdom, claimed their property, and banished them (Lea, in
Legman, 154). His treatment of the Templars was consistent with his
ruthless policy of subsidizing, by any means possible, the emerging
apparatus of the nation-state of France. Unlike the witches, no Templar
advocated his supposed heresy in the face of torture, and de Molay
eventually withdrew his confession, though he knew the withdrawal would
cause him to be burned alive (Lea, in Legman, 163). Hence historians are
probably right in seeing the Templars as the victims of a frame-up, having
nothing to do with either heresy or sodomy. The real significance of their
trial is that it shows the extent to which heresy had been identified with
sodomy and the way in which both charges could be used for political
purposes.
In 1310, King Philippe brought posthumous charges of conjuring,
apostasy, murder and sodomy against Pope Boniface VIII, who had died in
1303 (Cohn, Demons, 185). H is reasons were purely political. In 1296, he
had tried to impose a tax on church property to pay for his war against
England. The Pope issued a bull forbidding the tax and excommunicating
those who tried to enforce it. The King had the Pope arrested, but the latter
still refused to withdraw his excommunication, and soon after died. The
only way to invalidate the excommunication was to have the dead Pope
declared a heretic. The effort proved unncessary, however, when the new
Pope, Clement V (a stooge of the King). withdrew the excommunication, at
which point the King dropped the case (Cohn, Demons, 182).
Despite these cases involving Popes and Kings, inquisitors spent most
of their energy trying to exterminate heretics from the lower classes. In
1311, Pope Clement V issued his bull Ad Nostrum, which called for
annihilation of the spreading heresy of the Free Spirit, popular among the
very poor. The issuance of this bull marked the beginning of a crucial
transition period which ended in 1484 with Pope Innocent VIII's anti-witch
bull. Between these two dates, the church's entire concept of witchcraft
changed. It was no longer simply vi Ned as the act of injuring another
person through magic (bewitchment). but was regarded as a form of devil
Mass Murder of Gay People I 9S
worship (demonic witchcraft). In effect, witchcraft came to be viewed as a

form of heresy, and so fell under the jurisdiction of the inquisition.
Under paganism, witchcraft was thought of as simple bewitchment (the
ability to bless or curse). Pagan laws restricted themselves to cases of actual
proven injury brought about by a curse or spell. If the defendant was
acquitted, the accuser was punished instead; hence the laws favored the
accused. 'The old pagan laws had taken cognizance of magic only in the
form of maleficium [bewitchment], and even then had judged it solely in
terms of harm done to life, health or property" (Cohn, Demons, 157).
Under the early church, however, both good and evil magical activities -
since they supposedly came from the devil - were considered evil.
Furthermore, the early church viewed witchcraft as an essentially pagan
tradition. This identification with paganism is clear from early Christian
law:
There also exist other, most pernicious, evils that are undoubtedly left over
from the practice of the pagans. Such are magicians, soothsayers, sorcerers,
witches, diviners, enchanters, interpreters of dreams, whom the divine law
decrees to be punished unflinchingly (Lea 1:138).
Despite its contempt for magic, the early church did not organize a full-scale
attack against magicians and witches because it was not yet strong enough.
The Christianity of the early middle ages was largely an affair of the King
and the upper class of warlords. The rest of society remained pagan. In
addition, early medieval Christians were hampered by a general breakdown
of centralized authority in both church and state. Anarchy favored
paganism.
By the early thirteenth century, with the election of Pope Innocent III,
the church was much better organized and ready to act. Its immediate target
was heresy: the numerous and widespread attempts tu cumbine traJitional
Christianity with elements of the old religion. To deal with this, the church
launched crusades and started the Holy Inquisition. By the early fourteenth
century, the church as an institution was stronger than ever, gaining the
upper hand over heretics everywhere. Now it began to look at the historical
sources of heresy - the surviving old religion that modern historians view
as "folklore," "peasant fantasy," and "strange fertility rites." Feeling its
privilege, power, and world view threatened by these sources, the fifteenth
century ruling class fantasized that Satan was conspiring to overthrow the
power of Christ's church on earth. Christian intellectuals fed on this fear,
and they, not the lower classes, thus created the stereotype of demonic
witchcraft (Kieckhefer, passim). In 1451, Pope Nicholas V declared that
magical activities were subject to the Inquisition (Robbins, 272). And in
1484, Pope Innocent VIII gave papal backing to the intellectuals' view that
witches were demon-worshipping heretics.
Tw'o factors thus combined to produce the mass witchhunts of the 16th
and 17th centuries: great power and great fear in the hands of the Christian
ruling class. The combination was deadly and lead to horrible conse
quences. Most of continental Europe became convinced that witches were
everywhere. "Every misfortune and every accident in a hamlet would be
attributed to witchcraft" (Lea, III:508).
. - -
, -
-
Two companions being slain together during the Inquisition
The methods developed by the Holy Inquisition (and later adopted by

the Protestant courts as well) guaranteed a steady flow of "confessions."
Any person who was a non-conformist ran the risk of being brought before
the court and tortured into confessing and naming accomplices. Common
methods of torture used against witches included crushing their fingers in
vises, pouring alcohol on their backs and setting it afire, making them sit on
a red hot stove, pouring hot oil into their boots, roasting the soles of their
feet over fires until the joints fell out, stretching their body on the rack until
every joint became dislocated, tearing out pieces of flesh with red hot
pincers, amputating parts of their body, and gouging out their eyes.
Rumors of homosexuality made a person suspect of witchcraft. Typical of
the attitude of the time was the book Theologia Moralis, published in 1625,
which argued that sodomy was a crime leading to witchcraft (Lea II:670).
Persons arrested were questioned at great length about their sex lives,
and were almost always tortured into confessing an abundance of sexual
"crimes." Women who showed any signs of independence or non-
98 I Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculturf'
I. .
, l\
conformity were very suspect. Up until the fourteenth century, women and
men were cited equally at the trials; after that time the majority of the
victims were women (Russell, 279). There can be little doubt that Gay
women suffered a great deal during this period.
Roman Catholicism had no monopoly on the terrors of the witch hunt.
Some of the worst atrocities were perpetrated by the Protestants, who
introduced the Inquisition to countries that had been lenient (Trevor-Roper,
138). John Calvin hunted down his religious enemies, as well as witches. He
once boasted of luring the Unitarian Michael Servetus to Geneva under the
guise of safety and then having him burned alive as a heretic. At Geneva,
the most trivial offenses were also suppressed: dancing was illegal; a group
of bridesmaids were once arrested for decorating a bride with too much
color; a child was beheaded for striking its father (Taylor, 158; 163). "What
the Puritans and Calvinists achieved at the Reformation was the reestab
lishment of the depressive, guilt-ridden attitude as the whole source of
religion" (Taylor, 282).
It is impossible to determine how many people were killed by Christian
witch-hunters. Estimates vary from between several hundred thousand to
almost ten million. But if anything, most estimates are probably low since
the great bulk of transcripts and court records still lie unseen and
unanalyzed in archives and libraries throughout Europe.
The Christian oppression of women and Gay people was no accident.
Their freedom and high status in the old religion made them prime targets
for the new religion, which was profoundly anti-sexual. In view of these
atrocities, it cannot be argued, as some still do, that the Christian religion
has on the whole been humane, even though there may have been terrible
injustices at certain times. Throughout its history, Christianity has been a
religion of the sword. The few Christians in the past who have raised their
voices against the atrocities of their co-believers have always been a tiny
minority, and often they themselves have ended up being burned as
heretics.
The Christians hunted down heretics and witches for fourteen hundred
years, from the 3rd to the 17th centuries. Their aim, which they
accomplished, was to annihilate an entire culture. For the most part, the old
religion and the heresies it inspired were wiped off the face of the earth. In
their place stood the grim, disciplined edifice of Christianity and the violent
forces that kept Christianity in power.
8
Sex Magic in the Early
Third World
Beliefs and practices similar to Europe's old religion can be found
throughout the world. Cross-dressing by both men and women, masquer
ading in animal skins, and ritual sex are common in the oldest traditions of
non-industrial societies. Here Lesbians and Gay men are often shamans
(healer-priests).
The fullest account of the magical role of Gay people in nature societies
was written by the German scholar Hermann Baumann, who assembled
evidence from the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Concerning the
American Indians, Baumann wrote that "since the days of the discovery of
America, conquerors, missionaries, travelers, etc., made reports on the
effeminate men and 'hermaphrodites' who, according to them, were said to
be found in great numbers among the original Indian populations"
(Baumann, 21). These "hermaphrodites" were not people possessing the sex
organs of both sexes, but members of one sex who took on the clothes and
attributes of the other sex and who had sexual relations with members of the
same sex. The most famous example of this practice was the so-called
berdache - a Gay male transvestite among the Prairie Indians - so named
by the French from an Arabian word meaning slave. Actually, the berdache
was not a slave at all, but occupied a contemptible position only in the eyes
of the homophobic whites who encountered him. Among the native
Americans, before they adopteq white values, the berdache was a magical
person who played an established role in their culture.
George Catlin, who traveled across North America in the early 19th
century recording Indian customs, left an eyewitness account of the
berdache among the Sioux. They had a special joyous dance in honor of the
berdache (whom they called [-coo-coo-a) and his lovers. Appalled by the
high honor paid to the [-Coo-coD-a, Catlin wrote: "This is one of the most
unaccountable and disgusting customs, that I have ever met in Indian
country" (Catlin, v. 2, 4th ed., 215). He urged the invading whites to
suppress the custom: "I am constrained to refer the reader to the country
where it is practiced, and where I should wish it might be extinguished
before it be more fully recorded" (Catlin, 215). According to Baumann, the
institution existed in all major linguistic and cultural groups of North
America (Baumann, 21).
The widespread homosexuality of the North American Indians was
given as an excuse by the invading Christian whites for their extermination.
Their religious sex rites were taken as proof of their supposed racial
inferiority, compared to the more sexually repressed culture of the invaders.
Notes Baumann:
At the time, this was readily taken as a sign of the degeneracy of the Indian
races, or at least as a reason for the quick defeat of their population. Although
these often fanciful reports (which circulated from the 16th to the 19th century)
were sensitively colored because of the tastes at the time of the European
observers, nonetheless they are extraordinarily important, for it was precisely
erotic practices that quickly disappeared in later times, suppressed by the
ridicule or malicious criticism of bookish European observers (Baumann, 21).
The Indians themselves generally viewed the berdache with religious awe
(Baumann, 21-22). For a man to dress in the clothing of a woman was not
considered disgraceful in a culture (unlike our own) where women held a
high status. It's only because men look down on women in our culture that
effeminate-appearing men are ridiculed (they're viewed as degrading the
supposedly higher status of their own sex).If women were seen as the equals
of men, no man would feel threatened by a woman-appearing man.Women
had a far higher status among the North American Indians than women do
in modern industrial societies (Briffault, v. I, 311-328). They usually had
political, religious, and sexual equality and most often formed an
independent social group separate from the control of men.They even filled
the role of warrior. When the ships of Admiral Colon first landed on an
island near Puerto Rico in 1496, they were attacked by "a multitude of
women armed with bows and arrows" (Steiner, 23).
Sometimes the berdache played a ritual sex role in the great religious
festivals of the North American Indians.Among the Pueblo Indians of New
Mexico, a man was chosen as a mujerado whom the other men fucked in the
ass as part of the spring festival (Baumann, 24). In the buffaio dance of the
Sioux, a man dressed in buffalo horns was ritually fucked by other men.
In some Indian dances - as with pagan Europeans - dildos were used.
"In fact, we are acquainted in the neighborhood of the Yuma peoples with
numerous additional ritual acts in which men are dressed as women in order
for them to function as the feminine role in a fertility rite, while the
masculine role is played by men sometimes with a phallus, and both roles
depict copulation as a fertility charm" (Baumann, 24). As in ancient Europe,
these practices were joyous celebrations thought to make both the tribe and
nature prosper.
The berdache could also play an important political role. In 1935, a
Navaho elder said, "1 believe when all the nadle [Lesbian and Gay-male
shamans] have passed away, it will be the end of Navaho culture ...They
are the leaders, like President Roosevelt" (Baumann, 25). Among the Otoe
Indians, becoming a berdache could be the climax of a man's life, even for a
warrior (Irving, 94).
Sex Magic in the Early Third World 103
Many straight writers still insist that the berdache did not have an
honored place among the North American Indians, but was at best tolerated
like some kind of funny freak.They base their conclusions on the reports of
some early white accounts that do sometimes give this impression.But if the
accounts are read closely, the observers often contradict themselves. For
example, in 1564 Jacques de Morgues reported of the berdaches among the
Florida Indians that they "are considered odious by the Indians themselves"
(Katz, 286).Yet he then goes on to say that they are the healers of the tribe!
A good example of how the white observer's reaction could conflict with the
Indians' practice is the account of the Jesuit Joseph Lafitau around 1711.He
says concerning the berdaches of the Illinois and other tribes: "They believe
they are honored by debasing themselves to all of women's occupations ...
and this profession of an extraordinary life causes them to be regarded as
people of a high order, and above the common man" (Katz, 288).
It's true that some accounts show that the berdaches were butts of jokes
by other men and women.But Indians made jokes about all sorts of people.
Laughter and gaiety were typical of the Indian character.The heads of the
tribe themselves were often the butts of jokes."Those in power sometimes
had to accept that they were the butts of jokes, especially of sexual jibes and
jeers" (Burland, North America, 123). Women often ridiculed men and
sometimes even had satirical rituals concerning them.The making of jokes
was common to all segments of the Indian population. But no one has
bothered to record the jokes the berdaches may have made about straight
men.
North American Indian art reflects an openness to Gay sex.The oldest
examples of their art (apart from arrow heads) come from the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys from between 100 Be and 900 AD.The Gay themes of
some of this art has scandalized white anthropologists (Burland, 121).
Although most early reports concerning the American Indians describe
male berdaches, Gay women also played an important role in the tribes.In
general, the sexist white observers tended to look down on Indian women,
viewing their work as inferior to that of the men's, and giving much less
attention to their rituals and practices. As a result, we have much less
information concerning women. One interesting account is by the Jesuit
Lafitau, who said he observed cases of "Amazons" in the tribes he visited,
who were transvestite women warriors (Carpenter, Intermediate Types,
24).His observations came from the Illinois and the Sauk, but I suspect that
the institution of the Lesbian warrior was as well established among all the
North American Indians as it was in ancient Europe.
Christian missionaries denounced the North American Indian
approach to religion as witchcraft, just as Catholics and Protestants had
done earlier in Europe with the surviving old religion.Writing in the 17th
century, Cotton Mather denounced the Indians as "the veriest ruines of
mankind" (Mather, 504). He charged that they had "diabolic rites" in which
"a devil" appeared to them (Mather, 506). In this context, we should note
that the famous witch hunts in Salem Village in 1692 all started with
accusations made by three sexually repressed young Puritans. These three
young women had been present at Indian ceremonies conducted by two
Carib Indians, John and his wife Tituba (Hansen, 56ff).
Sad to say, the North American Indians of today are completely out of
touch with their original sexual culture, just as Europeans have lost all
contact with the old religion. Nonetheless, certain myths still survive
among the Indians, which tell, in symbolic language, the story of what has
happened to them. A beautiful example is a myth of the Caddo Indians,
which was recorded somewhere between 1903 and 1905:
One time there lived among the people a man who always did the women's
work and dressed like the women and went with them, and never went with the
men. The men made fun of him, but he did not care, and continued to work and
play only with the women. A war broke out with some other tribe, and all of
the men went to fight but this man, who stayed behind with the women. After
the war party had gone, an old man, who was too old to go with them, came to
him and told him that if he would not go to fight he was going to kill him, for it
was a disgrace to have such a man in the tribe. The man refused to go, saying
the Great Father did not send him to earth to fight and did not want him to. The
old man paid no attention to his excuse, and told him if he did not go to fight he
would have the warriors kill him when they returned from battle with the
enemy. The man said that they could not kill him, that he would always come
to life, and would bewitch people and cause them to fight and kill one another.
The old man did not believe him, and when the war party came home he told
the men that they would have to kill the man because he was a coward, and
they could not let a coward live in the tribe. They beat him until they thought
he was dead, and were just ready to bury him when he jumped up alive. Again
they beat him until he fell, then they cut off his head. He jumped up headless
and ran about, frightening all of the people. They were just about to give up
killing him when someone noticed a small purple spot on the little finger of his
left hand. They cut that out; then he lay down and died. Soon after many
people began to fight and quarrel, and even killed their own brothers and sisters
and fathers and mothers. The other people tried to stop the fighting, but could
not, because the people were bewitched and could not help themselves. Then
the 'old man remembered what the coward had said, and he told the people, and
they were all sorry they had killed him (Dorsey, 19).
Sex Magic in the Early Third World I 105
A religious attitude toward Lesbians and Gay men was not limited to
the area now called the continental United States. A connection between
transvestite Gay people and magical power is also found in native societies
inhabiting the area around the Bering Strait. Such is the case among the
Kamchadales, the Chukchi, the Aleuts, Inoits and Kodiak Islanders, where
male and female Gay shamans have been reported. In these societies, Gay
men grow their hair very long, wear the clothing of women, and are
accorded great religious and political respect. "Homosexuality is common,
and its relation to shamanship or priesthood most marked and curious"
(Carpenter, 16). A similarly high position in religion and politics is reported
for transvestite Gay women among peoples of the Yukon (Carpenter, 18).
Here, as in other places, straight anthropologists have freaked out over
what they observed. The classic account of Chuckchi shamans is by the
Russian observer W. Bogoras. He describes them in a chapter with the
homophobic title "Sexual Perversion and Transformed Shamans." He
claims that the natives gossip about the shamans because they are "so
peculiar" (Bogoras, 451). Yet he then proceeds to admit that the Gay male
shaman "has all the young men he could wish for striving to obtain his
favor" (Bogoras, 451). He also admits that the people have great respect for
his magical powers.
In Central and South America, many reports have survived of Gay
people and transvestites in native societies' religions. For example, in 1554
Cieza de Leon described religious Gay male prostitutes similar to those
mentioned in the Old Testament as living in Canaan. He associated them
with the Devil: "the Devil had gained such mastery in the land that, not
content with causing the people to fall into mortal sin, he had actually
persuaded them that the same was a species of holiness and religion"
(Carpenter, 34).
In 1775, Thomas Faulkner reported that the function of male wizards
among the Patagonians was performed by effeminate Gay men (Carpenter,
37). Sacred male prostitution was reported by the conquistadores in pre
Columbian Mexico. The sculpture of Yucatan shows that male homosexual
ity was "the custom of the country" (Bloch, 49). Young male religious
prostitutes, whom the Spanish called maricones, existed among the Andes
Indians (Bloch, 50).
The situation in Central and South America was complicated,
however, by the rise of patriarchal civilizations like those of the Aztecs and
Incas. The Aztecs were a highly militaristic society dominated by a ruling
class of warriors. Like all such societies, they had a repressive attitude
toward sex (Burland, Middle America, 147ff). For example, they feared
nudity and identified sex with the witch goddess Tlazolteotl. Among the
Incas of Peru, the official sex morality was also very strict (Osborne, 191).
But in South American civilizations that were not patriarchal and
militaristic, we find a great deal of sexual freedom, just as among the North
American Indians. This is true of the Mochica people who flourished
between 200 BC and 700 AD in Peru. Their art freely depicts every kind of
different sex act, including Gay sex, naturalistically and without any
reserve (Osborne, 193).
Rock drawings, Mashonaland, Africa
Gay shamans also existed in Africa. Such were the transvestite

omasenge among the Ambo people of South West Africa (Baumann, 33).
Among the Bantu and the Kwanyama, all the medicine people were Gay
transvestites. Gay medicine people were also reported among the following
societies: the Ovimbundu and Kimbundu of Northern Angola; the Lango of
Uganda; the Konso of South Abyssinia; the Cilenge-Humbi of South
Quillenges; and the Barea-Kunama, Korongo and Mesakin, all of Northeast
Africa (these examples from Baumann).
In certain African societies, sacred orgies occurred in which Gay
people, both women and men, played an important role. People in the orgy
reported that they were taken over by a divine spirit that led them to Gay
sex acts. Concerning the matriarchal Bantu people, Baumann observes:
"Du
' ring these orgies it sometimes happens that a masculine ondele enters a
woman, causing sexual desires that lead as an evil consequence [sic] to
Lesbian acts" (Baumann, 34-35). Even in certain societies where European
commentators claim that homosexuality is not accepted, such as in parts of
Angola, during great religious festivals people become possessed by

transvestite and homosexual spirits (Baumann, 36).
Magical Gay people were also found in Madagascar, the large island
off the coast of southeast Africa. Among the Manghabei, the sacred male
transvestites were called tsecats (Bloch, 45-46). The Sakalavas and Betani
menes of Madagascar knew of the same institution (Bloch, 46-47).
Dogan wood figure , Mali
I
But an openness to Gay sex, even in a religious context, is certainly not
universal in Africa. As we observed in the case of Central and South
America, sexual freedom in Africa can be greatly restrained in those
societies that are patriarchal and militaristic. In general, an open attitude
toward sex is found most often in those nature societies that have not
undertaken a program of empire-building and who are free from a rigid
hierarchical class structure.
When invading Christians encountered religious Gay practices in
Africa, they attributed them to the Devil, just as Christians did in the case
of the Indians of North America, and the witches of the Middle Ages. In
1492, the Christian convert Leo Africanus wrote concerning the sacred
Lesbians of Morocco:
The third kind of diviners are women-witches, which are affirmed to have
familiarity with divels. Changing their voices they fain the divell to speak
within them: then they which come to enquire ought with greate fear and
trembling aske these vile and abominable witches such questions as they mean
to propound, and lastly, offering some fee unto the divell, they depart. But the
wiser and honester sort of people call these women Sahacat, which in Latin
signifieth Fricatrices [Lesbians], because they have a damnable custom to
commit unlawful venerie among themselves, which I cannot express in any
modester terms (Carpenter, 39).
In outlining the sacred role of Gay people in non-industrial societies,
we could go on and on, and cite numerous examples outside of America and
Africa. Suffice it to say that ritual transvestism and sodomy (or the worship
of androgynous dieties, which is usually indicative of this) are also found in
Australia, the South Sea Islands, the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East
(including India, China, Japan and Vietnam).
In addition, indiscriminate sexual orgies are commonly and routinely
practiced by non-industrialized societies as a form of religious devotion.
Reports of these sacred orgies come from all over the world. An excellent
account of their practice can be found in George Scott's book Phallic

Worship. ("Phallic" as used in this book refers to the genitals of both sexes,
and not just to cocks. ) For example in the Americas, pictures surviving from
ancient Yucatan show religious scenes in which men perform acts of
"indescribable beastliness" (Scott, 122-123). In the Far East, the situation is
the same. In Japan, many of the oldest practices of the indigenous nature
religion continue under the guise of Shintoism. Ancient Shinto temples are
full of orgiastic art and "were the scene of sexual orgies rivaling the
Bacchanalia of ancient Rome" (229). In ancient China, one of the most
celebrated goddesses was Kwan-Yin, a variant of the great mother. She was
worshipped with orgies that included homosexuality (222). The most
ancient religious artifacts of India are filled with depictions of orgies, and
the worship of the sexual organs of both sexes (183). Jacques-Antoine
Dulaure, in his classic book on sex worship, notes that "the celebrated and
ancient pagoda of Jagannath, and the no less ancient one of Elephanta near
Bombay, the bas-reliefs of which William Alen sketched in 1784, offer the
most indecent pictures that a corrupted imagination could conceive (The
Gods of Generation, 83).
Drawings by Richard Burton
Sacred orgies regularly occurred in the religious rites of ancient peoples

living around the Mediterranean Sea. Such, among others, were the
worship of Isis at Bubasti in Egypt; the festivals of Baal-Peor in the Middle
East; the worship of Venus at Cyprus; the worship of Adonis at Byblos;
and, of course, the Dionysia, Floralia and Bacchanalia (Bloch, 95).
The purpose of these sacred orgies has been much obscured by modern
commentators, who are generally straight males. The orgies were not done
to increase the population as is often maintained. The notion that the
purpose of sex is procreation is a modern industrial one, derived ultimately
from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Some of the most ancient nature
societies did not even know that children are produced by fucking. Besides,
most nature societies deliberately restricted population growth through the
use of herbal contraceptives and abortions. Nor were their rites a secret
symbolizing of some deep hidden theological meaning.
All the evidence indicates that nature people fucked for pleasure. Their
purpose was to celebrate sex. Their orgies were acts of sexual worship to the
power of sex they felt in themselves and in nature around them. Their
religious feasts were characteristically joyous: dancing, feasting, fucking
together. The Indians who have been observed in the Americas; the myths
that have survived in Europe; the artifacts that exist from all over the world
- all attest to the pleasure of what the celebrants were doing. George Scott
has rightly observed "that, without exception, the worship of sex by all
primitive [sic] races originated in the pleasure associated with coitus, and
not in any clearly conceived notion that intercourse would produce
children" (47).
Hence it is a misrepresentation for industrialized academics to call such
celebrations "fertility rites," as they usually do. The orgies were not clumsy
attempts to increase the gross national product by people who had a very
rude understanding of economic laws. Nature people did, indeed, believe
that through such acts their bodies would become stronger, the crops would
grow taller, the sun would shine brighter, and the rains would come in
profusion when needed. But they believed these things because they had a
collective tribal feeling of the power of sex throbbing through the whole of
nature; their experience of sex was so open, public, communal and intense
that they felt it reverberate through the whole cosmos. In this, they were
unlike modern industrialized people who practice sex solely for procreation
- privately, in the dark, in isolation, and with guilt.
Non-industrialized societies were not in the least embarrassed to
practice all sorts of sex acts in public because the notion of sexual obscenity,
like the procreative ideal of sex, is a modern Christian/industrial view. "In
tribes where no ideas of modesty such as are current in civilized [sic] society
have arisen, there is no concept of obscenity in connexion with exposure of
the genital organs or even with the performance of the sex act itself. Any
taboo is concerned not with the sight of the reproductive parts, but with the
touching of them by unauthorized persons" (Scott, 125).
Non-industrialized societies also in general treat prostitutes, both
heterosexual and homosexual, much differently than Christianlindustrial
societies. In modern societies, as we all know, the prostitute is a purely
economic being: a woman or man rents out her or his body for the sake of
someone else's orgasm or phantasy. In addition, the work of prostitutes is
looked down upon in industrialized societies as being somehow dirty, and
prostitutes are often caught up in a web of social disrepute, legal
harassment, and exploitation by pimps.
In non-industrialized societies, prostitutes are often treated with great
religious respect, and their activities are considered as religious activities.
For example, in the ancient Middle East, the land of Canaan, later invaded
by the Israelites, was originally peopled by a society where Gay male
prostitution was very prominent. These prostitutes were located in the
temples. As with medieval witches, men and women who impersonated
sexual deities were literally thought to become them, and having sex with
these people was viewed as the highest and most tangible form of religious
communion with the deity.
Drawings by Richard Burton
Payment was made to the temple as a form of religious donation after

having sex with the sacred prostitute. In the original Hebrew of the Old
Testament, male prostitutes were called Kadeshim, which literally means
"consecrated ones, " indicative of their high status in the eyes of their
worshippers (Carpenter, 29). Most translations of this word into other
languages suppress the positive meaning of the word, and mistranslate it
Sex Magic in the Early Third World I 111
negatively, as, for example, "effeminates" (Dulaure, 130-131). Israeli

leaders denounced this sex and nature religion as witchcraft (Carpenter,
Intermediate Types, 50).
Throughout the ancient world, both male and female prostitution was
associated with religion. Such was the case in the worship of Baal-Peor,
Moloch and Astarte (Syria); Osiris and Isis (Egypt); Venus (Greece and
Rome); Mithra (Persia); Myllita (Assyria); Alitta (Arabia); Dilephat
(Chaldea); Salambo (Babylonia); and Diana Anaitis (Armenia).
In Mediterranean civilization, the male god associated with these
phenomena came in general to be called Priapus (which means "erect cock"
and "dildo" in Latin). He is very reminiscent of the homed god of the
witches: "In the statues raised in the temples, Priapus was represented under
the form of a hairy man, with legs and horns like a goat, holding a wand in
his hand and provided with a formidable virile member" (Dupouy, 503).
The corresponding female deity was a great-mother figure often associated
with the earth or the moon, reminiscent of the witches' Diana.
The religious prostitute seems simply to be a historical extension of the
practice of having ritual sex with the shaman, either male or female. In
tribal societies (where cities, temples, and money are unknown), we have
seen the common practice of ritual sex with the shaman, individually or in
orgies. As early Mediterranean societies fell victim to urbanism and a
money economy, the function of shaman in the countryside was trans
formed into that of priest in the temple, and money then entered in as a
form of religious donation. So we see how Gay history, the history of
prostitution, and the religious history of non-industrialized societies are all
tied together.
The phenomenon called "witchcraft" in Europe was by no means an
isolated thing peculiar to a certain period in the history of that continent.
Quite the opposite: the ritual worship of sex and nature was once the case
throughout the world, and still is in the societies that industrialized
academics call "primitive. " In these societies, as in the case of the witches,
women and Gay men generally enjoyed a high status, Gay people of both
sexes were looked upon with religious awe, and sexual acts of every possible
kind were associated with the most holy forms of religious expression.
Admittedly, there were also great diversities and variations in the beliefs
and practices of these societies, but there was one great common feature
that set them off in sharp distinction to the Christian/industrial tradition:
their love of sexuality. This love of sexuality was "the universal primitive
religion of the world and has left its indelible impress upon our ideas, our
language, and our institutions" (Howard, 7).
Slave-muster at the Casa Grande, Morro Velho

9
Sex Among the Zombies
I see
I wear
the zombie smile
of the sane
as we tiptoe past mirrors
cradling the grenades
of our truth.
Claudia Reed, "Women's Work" in Plexus magazine.
American civilization began in genocide.

When the early European colonists arrived in North America, they did
not come upon a vacant land. Instead, they found a multitude of nature
people who had lived there for ages on end. These nature people had devel
oped some of the highest cultures in recorded history. They lived full, long,
healthy lives. Their societies had little hierarchy and no government super
structure. Organized warfare, in the modern sense, was rare or unknown.
Labor was free. Women generally enjoyed a high status, and Gay persons of
both sexes were regarded with religious awe. They developed beautiful arts
and crafts, in which nearly everyone was skilled. They managed to satisfy
all the basic needs of human existence with much grace and beauty, and
were able to do so without the curse of cities, police, mental institutions, or
universities. Although personal violence was known among them, it paled
in comparison to the level of violence in any Western society during the past
two-thousand years. The Indians loved nature and knew how to talk to
plants and animals, whom they regarded as their equals. They were able to
feel (and not just know) that everything that is, lives.
Onto this scene came the industrializing whites, burdened and pro
pelled by over two-thousand years of patriarchal institutions. The whites
denounced the Indians as "primitive," "savage," and "barbarian." They
accused them of worshipping devils and ridiculed their Gay shamans. They
taught them how to practice organized warfare. They plied them into
violence against each other, stole their land, and succeeded in killing off
nearly every one of them, quarantining their survivors in concentration
camps called reservations.
The whites' genocide against the Indians affected how the whites
thought about sex: They came to view sex as an instrument of imperial
policy. For them, the purpose of sex was to breed as large a number of
people as possible in order to push aside the relatively low-density Indian
population and the population of colonists from other European nations.
Colonial leaders eagerly looked forward to the day when fast-breeding

white Americans would force their way over the whole Western hemis
phere, both north and south. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin published hi
Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind. In it, he urged
Americans to breed rapidly in order to take over new lands. He called upon
the British government to forcibly displace the local Indians to make room
for the growing number of rapidly breeding Americans (van Alstyne, 20-21).
One of the most outspoken advocates of the same policy was Thomas
Jefferson. In 1786, when the states were under the Articles of Confedera
tion, Jefferson stated: "Our confederacy must be viewed as the nest, from
which all America, North and South, is to be peopled," (van Alstyne, 81).
Later, in 1801, after the constitution was in effect, Jefferson continued along
the same line: "However our present interest may restrain us within our
limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid
multiplication will expand it beyond these limits, and cover the whole
northern if not the southern continent, with people speaking the same
language, governed in similar forms, and by similar laws" (van Alstyne,
87). Jefferson continually pointed his finger at the retreating Indian tribes,
whom he considered savages, and urged Americans to "press upon them"
until they were pushed out of the way (Williams, 179). He even urged rich
Americans to get Indian leaders in debt "because we observe that when
these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to
lop them off by a cession of lands" (Williams, 187). The early French
colonists had a similar view of sex as a tool for breeding. They vied with the
Americans as to who could fill up the continent first with their populations
(de Riencourt, 5). Such a twisted view of sex (which must have seemed
totally incomprehensible to the Indians) came easily to the colonists. It had
lain ready at hand for nearly seventeen centuries in the Christian religion.
The various chuches of Europe (both Catholic and Protestant) had long
been imperialist institutions. They had advocated the very same view of sex
for similar reasons. Such a view was also found in the ancient state of Israel,
which had invaded the land of Canaan, uprooted the local population, and
bred as rapidly as possible to fill up the land. This attitude became so
entrenched that it was projected onto the Israeli god. Accordingly, in the
book of Genesis, which was accepted by both Jews and Christians, the
Israeli god gives this as his very first commandment to Adam and Eve: "Be
fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it," (New American Bible;
Genesis 1 : 28) . In New England, the Puritans were infatuated with the
history of the ancient Israeli state. They regarded themselves as the
founders of a New Israel in the American wilderness (van Alstyne, 8). They
compared the Indians to the sex-worshipping Canaanites whom the Israelis
killed.
Imperialism and compulsive heterosexuality go hand in hand, as was
Sex Among the Zombies 115
well understood by the ancient Israeli state, the Christan churches of

Europe, and the American colonial leaders. In early America, this use of sex
paid off. Due to rapid breeding and the continual invasion of immigrants,
the colonial population grew from 250,000 in 1700 to 1, 400,000 in 1 750, an
increase of well over 500% in only fifty years (Williams, 103).
The British government became alarmed at the rapid growth of the
colonial population and tried to stop the seizure of Indian lands west of the
Alleghenies. In doing this, however, the Crown was not motivated by any
humanitarian reasons. It didn't want to lose the lucrative fur trade it had
forced on the Indians (de Riencourt, 6-7). These restrictions infuriated the
colonial ruling class. The Declaration of Independence, which was written
mostly by Jefferson, attacked the King for this policy. It listed as a
justification for rebellion against the King the fact that "he has endeavored
to prevent the Population of these States."
In view of the imperialist use of sex in the colonies and the dead weight
of Christian tradition from Europe, it's not surprising that the colonies
outlawed sodomy. Even the outbreak of the Revolution had no effect ori
changing these laws. The Bill of Rights spoke only of intellectual rights,
such as speech, religion, and assembly. It had nothing to say about the
rights of sex, the emotions, or the body.Jefferson, the originator of the Bill
of Rights, helped write a law that Gay men be castrated (Katz, 24).
Moreover, the right to religious freedom was (and still is) considered to
apply only to patriarchal religions. Public religious orgies using
hallucinogens have never been permitted in the United States.
Early America was a slave society. The first permanent English
settlement in North America was Jamestown, founded in 1607. Soon
thereafter, in 1619, the first boatload of Black slaves was brought to James
town (Hacker, 57). Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, people from
Black African cultures were kidnapped, sold to slave dealers, and shipped
across the sea to America. Those who survived the wretched conditions of
the journey were sold off to the colonial ruling class. Between 1 686 and
1786, more than 2, 000,000 Black people were forced to become slaves in the
West Indies and in the American colonies (Hacker, 101).
Slaves were the basis of the economy in the North as well as the South.
This was because of the nature of trade relations in the industrial system of
early America. Ships from New England sent foodstuffs, lumber, and
animals to the West Indies; they returned from there with sugar and
molasses, from which they made rum; they exported the rum to the coast of
Africa and with it bought slaves; the slaves were returned to the West Indies
and the colonies. Hence "the slave trade made possible the expansion of the
mercantile economy of the New England and middle-colony ports"
(Hacker, 101). We have seen that Gay people performed the role of
shamans in Black Africa, just as they did among the native American
Indians. The enslavement of Blacks, like the annihilation of the Indians, is

an example of how the sexually repressive American way of life built its
empire on the agonies of nature peoples.
Samuel de Champlain's attack on the Iroquois (1609)
White slavery was also widespread in America. It took the form of

indentured servitude. Many of the poorer people immigrating to America
from Europe had to sell themselves into slavery (usually for seven years) in
order to pay for the cost of crossing. Although indentured servitude did not
last a life-time, indentured servants had the legal status of slaves during
their service. "Colonial America was built upon the unfree labor of whites
and blacks. Fully 250,000 white men, women and children and another
250,000 black persons - constituting in all at least one half of the original
immigrants to the mainland colonies by 1700 - had gone this way"
(Hacker, 97; italics added). The beneficiary of this oppression was the
colonial ruling class, which consisted of the landlords of huge estates, land
speculators, and rich merchants. A good example of this class was George
Washington, who was a plantation lord, a land speculator, a dealer in
animal furs and grains, and a moneylender (Hacker, 112).
As the frontier moved westward, the first people to move in after the
Indians were pushed out were not bands of pioneers, but wealthy land
speculators and large real-estate companies. 'The West was not opened up
by the hardy frontiersman; it was opened up by the land speculator who
preceded even the Daniel Boones into the wilderness" (Hacker, 131-2). Most
of the pioneers who followed the land speculators were not the poor and the
down-trodden. They were upwardly mobile middle-class people, since the
journey was a very expensive one (Hacker, 202). These early pioneers
eagerly slaughtered masses of wild animals in order to sell their furs
(Hacker, 133). The images of these invaders today adorn cigarette adver
tisements as ideals of American masculinity.
In the earliest history of Europe, the ancient worship of sexuality
originated in a matriarchal agrarian society. The people lived in close
emotional communion with the land. This was the ancient economic and
religious fact that lay behind the latter-day cultural forces of witchcraft and
heresy. This tradition managed to survive in some form or other in Europe
until the 17th century. In America - apart from the Indians, who were
killed off - no such tradition of relating to nature and the land ever took
root. "The American farmer started out as a capitalist farmer from the very
beginning" (Hacker, 6). American farmers were entrepreneurs, interested
only in getting as much cash out of the soil as quickly as possible, and then
moving on when the land was exhausted. Because of their rapid exhaustion
of land, they tended to become a class of land speculators. Hence from the
very beginning we find the narrowness of American rural living and the
repressiveness of its small towns. Land was not viewed as a manifestation of
the Great Mother to be collectively worshipped and loved. It was a mere
resource to be exploited and sold on a competitive basis in the markets of
big cities. In American history, there was no historical counterweight to the
sexually repressive, nature-killing forces of patriarchal institutions. The
absence of such a counterweight has had staggering implications for
America's sexual, religious, and cultural life.
From the earliest days of independence from Britain, American leaders
joyously described the new society as an empire and called for a policy of
vigorous imperialism. In 1773, John Adams called for the annexation of
Canada and Nova Scotia, and said, "An empire is rising in America"
(Williams, 112). In 1783, George Washington described the states as a
"rising empire," a phrase that had become commonplace by then (van
Alstyne, 1). The ruling class of landowners and rich merchants looked with
covetous eyes on the vast tracts of land still held by the Indians, the
Canadians, the French, and the Spanish.
During the American Revolution, there was considerable unrest among
the lower classes, and many of the poor called for an annulment of debts
and a redistribution of land. In several states, poor radicals even took over
the machinery of government. Some of them expressed anarchist views. But
by 1780, the upper class began to re-assert itself. Upper-class leaders wanted
a centralized government that would prohibit states from annuling debts.
They wanted a government that would be strong enough to wage war and
undertake a program of continental empire-building. Out of these upper
class interests emerged the constitution movement. Its chief spokesperson,
James Madison, openly stated that the powers of the central government
"ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority" (Hacker, 187). In effect, the constitution movement became
"a well organized campaign by a coalition of America's upper-class
leadership to establish the institution appropriate to an American
mercantilist empire" (Williams, 148). In the various elections for the new
constitution, less than one-fourth of adult males were allowed to vote, and
women had no vote at all (Hacker, 188). The new constitution was
approved (though barely) by these select few. On April 30, 1789, George
Washington was installed as President, and the world saw the birth of what
was to become a terrifying new institution, the United States Government.
The single most striking fact of American history - a fact that has
conditioned every aspect of the nation's life, including its sex life - is the
militarism of the U.S. Government. Indeed, if the nature of an institution is
determined by what it does rather than what it says, we would be close to
the truth in seeing the U.S. Government as essentially a machine for making
war.
In 1775, even before the government was created, the colonists were at
war with Britain. They invaded Canada and tried to take it over, but were
rebuffed. In 1799, the U.S. Government conducted a brief naval war against
France, and in 1812 was again at war with Britain. In 1812, the U.S.
Government tried to take over Canada for the second time and was again
rebuffed. In 1823, the Monroe Doctrine was issued. In effect, it warned
European powers that henceforth the U.S. Government was to be the only
imperialist power permitted to operate in North and South America (van
Alstyne, 99). Throughout this whole period, a merciless war of genocide
was in progress against Indian men, women, and children. In the 1830s,
President Andrew Jackson alone spent over $200 million (an enormous
amount of money at the time) in wars of annihilation against the Indians
(Williams, 320).
In 1847, the U.S. Government invaded Mexico. The Americans cap
tured Mexico City, and the Mexicans were forced to give up half of all their
territory. Out of this war booty were eventually carved the states of
California, New Mexico, Texas (with the Rio Grande as border), Arizona,
Utah, and Nevada (de Riencourt, 17). In 1853, the U. S. Government sent
Admiral Perry to Japan to forcibly open up that country to American
trading interests. From 1861 to 1865, the Americans were involved in a
bloody civil war between the plantation capitalists of the South and the
merchant and factory capitalists of the North.
In 1890, the last of the Indians rebels were slaughtered in the Battle of
Wounded Knee. In 1891, Queen Liliuokalani ascended the throne of Hawaii
and tried to eliminate American influence in the islands. In 1892, she was
deposed by the U. S. Marines. In 1898, President McKinley, at the insistence
of the Hearst newspaper empire, declared war on Spain and took over
Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
Group of Gani Men (Richard Speke)
In the late 19th century, the attitude of the U.S. Government toward
the rest of the world, and especially toward nature peoples, was well
summed up in the words of Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana: "We will
not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the
civilization of the world" (van Alstyne, 187). He was later echoed by
Woodrow Wilson, who in 1902 as a private citizen said it was "our peculiar
duty" to teach nature peoples "order and self-control" and "to impart to
them, if it be possible . . . the drill and habit of law and obedience" (van
Alstyne, 197).
In the first two decades of the 20th century, the U.S. invaded Cuba,
Haiti, Nicaragua, and Santo Domingo ( twice). In 1903, President Theodore
Roosevelt supported a coup against the government of Colombia in order to
set up a puppet government in the region of the Panama Canal. The puppet
government gave the U.S. a perpetual lease over the canal, something the
government of Colombia had adamantly refused to do.
In 1917, the U.S. Government declared war on Germany and Austria,
and thus entered World War 1, which ended in 1918. On December 7, 1941,
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, one month after Secretary of War Stimson
had written in his personal diary that President Roosevelt had "raised the
question of how to maneuver the Japanese into firing the first shot" (de
Riencourt, 61). The U.S. Government ended World War II by dropping
atomic bombs on the Japanese, thus setting the precedent for the use of
nuclear arms in war.
In 1947, the U.S. Government created the Central Intelligence Agency.
In the 1950s the U.S. Government got involved in a cold war with the
U.S.S.R. and a hot war with Korea. In 1953, the CIA overthrew the
government of Iran and installed a fascist Shah; in 1954, it overthrew the
government of Guatemala. In 1960, it overthrew the government of Laos,
and since that time has been so active no one can keep up with it. By the
1950s, the U.S. Government established a military protectorate over more
than 40 nations covering 15, 000, 000 square miles and more than 600 million
human beings (de Riencourt, 96). In the late 1960s, the U.S. Government
brought out of the closet a secret war in Indo-China, which became the
longest war in American history.
The entrenched militarism of the U.S. Government throughout its
history has had a profound influence on American values. It has affected
the way Americans think about nature, other people, their own bodies, and
sex roles. One notable effect has been on the American concept of
sanity, reflected in the American psychiatric movement. The father of
American psychiatry was Benjamin Rush, who lived from 1746 to 1813.
Benjamin Rush was the Physician General of the Continental Army. He was
a stern disciplinarian who believed in using violence against mental
patients. He condemned both masturbation and sodomy. He believed that
being Black was a disease. He locked up his own rebellious son in a mental
hospital for 27 years (Szasz, 137ff.). Today he is highly regarded by many
American psychiatrists.
The American Psychiatric Association currently publishes an official
list of mental disorders, which, as most readers know, recently listed
homosexuality (the A.P.A. was forced into an about face on the issue due to
action by Gay activists). This list, which is comparable to the Vatican's
index (except that it applies to behavior instead of books), is of military
origin. It was first developed by Brigadier General William C. Menninger,
who was head of the psychiatric division of the Surgeon General's office in
the U. S. Government during World War II (Szasz, 38). Before the AP. A
adopted the list, it was put into use by all the branches of the armed forces.
Its purpose was to weed out men who are not fit for military slaughtering.
Today, at least one-half of all American psychiatrists are employed by
institutions (Szasz, 235). The institutional nature of the AP. A itself goes
back to its beginning. Its original name was the Association of Medical
Superintendents of American Institutions. The first proposition publicly
approved by this group was a justification for the use of violence in
"treating" the insane (Szasz, 306). Most mental institutions in America are
governed on a military model (with lines of command, central control, the
threat of forcible confinement, etc. ). In 1964, more people were in mental
institutions than in prisons (Szasz, 65).
In the U. S. S.R. , psychiatry has a similar militaristic coloring and is
also used to suppress dissent. In Nazi Germany, the leading role in the
development and use of gas chambers was played by psychiatrists, and their
first victims were mental patients (Szasz, 214). An untold number of Gay
people were exterminated in these chambers.
American militarism has affected the way Americans view masculinity,
just as Roman militarism affected Roman views. All American men have
been conditioned throughout their lives to think of disciplined aggressive
ness as masculine; to look down on effeminacy, playfulness, passivity, and
open emotionalism; to admire hardness in other men; to dread above all
things being called a sissy; to enjoy relations of domination and obedience;
to get a thrill out of seeing pain inflicted on others; to get turned on by
uniforms; and to be able to accommodate themselves to functioning in
large, impersonal, hierarchical institutions. Men who internalize these
values are considered admirably. sane by American society. But this is a
concept of sanity that supports war. When the orders come, such sane men
are ready to kill other men on command. They are totally unprepared to
deal with other men in an openly loving, warm, sexual manner. To them,
that's insane. Until just recently, most psychiatrists would have agreed.
In 1960, with the election of President John Kennedy, a revolutionary
change took place in the nature of American militarism. This change was to
have stunning repercussions in every aspect of American life. President
Kennedy centralized control over all the purchasing activities of the
Pentagon within the office of the Secretary of Defense (then Robert
McNamara). Stringent requirements were written into contracts for firms
doing business with the Pentagon, giving the Pentagon the right to decide
all important management decisions of these firms, determine their budgets,
and oversee the hiring and firing of employees. In effect, the firms doing
business with the Pentagon were made into subsidiaries of one giant
corporation with the Pentagon as the central office. Kennedy and
McNamara deliberately made these changes on the model of the business
empire of the Ford Motor Company, with the Pentagon patterned after
Ford's central office (Melman, Pentagon Capitalism, 2ff.).
The effect of these changes was to create the largest single business
monopoly in the history of the United States, and possibly in the world. By
these actions, the President and other top officers of the U. S. Government
got control over the 15,000 to 20,000 firms that are prime contractors with
the Pentagon and over the 45,000 to 60,000 firms that are sub-contractors.
The total number of employees working for all these firms is unknown, but
the Department of Defense itself employs 10% of the nation's entire labor
force (Melman, Pentagon Capitalism, 83). More than two-thirds of the
spending by the U. S. Government each year is for current or past military
operations, despite the fact that such spending is often disguised by such
phrases as "payments to individuals" or "interest on the national debt"
(Melman, Pentagon Capitalism, 174). From 1946 to 1969, the U. S.
Government spent more than one trillion dollars on the military; half of this
entire amount was spent under the administrations of John Kennedy and
Lyndon Johnson. In 1968, the Pentagon business empire produced $44
billion worth of goods and services. This exceeded by far the sales of
America's leading civilian businesses (AT&T, duPont, GE, GM). In its post
exchange operations, the Pentagon business empire ranks as the third
largest retail distributor in the United States, exceeded only by Sears and
A&P (Melman, Pentagon Capitalism, 24, 73).
The product manufactured by this giant business empire is war. Recent
examples are the genocidal wars against Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
These wars happened, not because they were in the interests of the
American people, but because war-making is the job, the specialty, the
unique product of the nation's largest business monopoly. A government
that spends two-thirds of its national budget on a war factory is a
government that will manufacture wars.
One effect of this new kind of militarism is the co-option of science and
technology. More than two-thirds of America's technical researchers now
work for the Pentagon business empire (Melman, Our Depleted Society, 4).
Another effect is Pentagon influence over universities. During 1963-1966,
research in chemical and biological warfare was carried on at 38 universities
under contract with the Pentagon (Melman, Pentagon Capitalism, 99).
A third effect is Pentagon control over the electoral process. Both the
management and the unions of Pentagon subsidiaries make huge campaign
contributions to political candidates. They also spend a lot of money on
political propaganda. In 1963, Secretary McNamara publicly praised the
leadership of the AFL-CIO for "utilizing extensive communications media
to promote greater understanding among its millions of members and the
public of the vital objective of defense programs" (Dibble, 182). A
notorious example of this control over the electoral process is the buying
and selling of the Presidency. 'The readiest source of campaign funds and
political support for nomination and election as President lies in the
military-industrial complex. It is also the most skillfully hidden source"
( Stone, 25).
King of Uganda (Richard Speke)
In 1969, the Pentagon maintained an army of 339 lobbyists on Capitol

Hill, or one lobbyist for every two members of Congress ( Melman,
Pentagon Capitalism, 175). In cases where Congress votes against the
Pentagon's wishes, the Pentagon often goes ahead and does what it wants
anyway. For example, in December of 1966 it was revealed that in the
previous year, the Pentagon had spent $20 billion on the war in Vietnam
exactly twice what had been authorized by Congress (Melman, Pentagon
Capitalism, 182). This overspending was a violation of the U.S. Consti
tution and of U. S. law. The matter was never investigated, and no one was
ever indicted. Soon everyone forgot about it. Similar examples could be
cited involving directives of Presidents.
Through the CIA and the FBI, the top government officials who
control the Pentagon business empire also exercise a reign of propaganda
and terror over the lives of the American people. In 1967, it was revealed
that CIA money was being channeled to Billy Graham's Spanish-American
Crusade; the National Council of Churches; the Harvard Law School; the
National Student Association; the Institute of International Labor founded
by Norman Thomas; and hundreds of universities, churches, unions, and
legal organizations (de Riencourt, 110). In the mid-1970s it was revealed
that the FBI and the CIA had for a long time beeD reading people's mail,
burglarizing offices, planting infiltrators and disrupters in radical groups,
infiltrating or buying dissident news media, censoring established news
media, training and equipping local police forces, and possibly assassinat
ing protest leaders.
In 1976, a Congessional committee investigating the FBI and the CIA
stated that an ex-FBI informer (Robert Merritt) helped the FBI keep tabs on
Gay people, especially when they were involved in radical politics. "Merritt
told the Committee that his FBI handling agents instructed him to conduct
break-ins, deliver unopened mail acquired illegally, and solicit and provide
information to the FBI regarding homosexual proclivities of politically
prominent people and individuals of the New Left" (Report of the House
Select Committee on Intelligence, 43). Gay political groups, like the rest of
the New Left, continue to be either disrupted or co-opted by government
informers and agents.
The United States is a garrison society. The extension of Pentagon and
secret-police control over American life has been the material equivalent of
a military coup d'etat. As when Augustus Caesar took control in Rome in
27 B.C., so it is today: the Senate continues to meet, the tribunes of the
people are elected, the courts hand down decisions, new Presidents take
office, and all the proper outward forms are observed. But behind the show
of the visible government there looms the overwhelming institutional power
of the military and the secret police. True, there still remains a degree of
freedom of speech and thought, especially for the middle class and the
privileged professional classes. But if any group becomes an effective threat
to the establishment - as the Black movement did in the 1960s - it will
soon find its organizations infiltrated, its offices bombed, and its leaders
shot. As I write these very words, I hear reports that American Indian
activists are regularly being killed by the FBI. Such news is not likely to be
reported in the middle-class press.
The Pentagon business empire has cast its shadow over the lives of Gay
people. For one thing, neither the Pentagon nor any of its vast array of
subsidiaries will willingly or knowingly hire a Gay person as an employee.
This makes the Pentagon business empire the largest single discriminator
against Gay people in the United States. It also encourages Gay people to
mimic straight appearances and lifestyles in order to get work. But even
more il11portant, this shadow of militarism brings into the lives of millions
of American working people the specter of masculinism. The following two
facts are not unrelated: 1) most Gay men in American society in the
mid-1970s are masculine-identified wearers of denim and leather; 2) the

single most powerful employer in the United States is the Pentagon war
machine. Consider Castro Street, a major Gay hang-out in San Francisco
and the center of one of the largest Gay ghettos in the country. On any
given day, Castro Street is filled with a conformist mob of male
impersonators meticulously decked out in denim, leather, and even Nazi
like uniforms. One of the most popular Gay baths in San Francisco was
./
Steam bath of the Mandans (George Catlin)
until recently called The Barracks. A popular bar is The Folsom Prison.
Another is The Bootcamp. These facts of Gay life take on added
significance when we realize that one-third of all jobs in the San Francisco
Bay area are tied to the Department of Defense (Gellen, 190). Historically,
the superstructure of sexual style is determined by the substructure of
economic power. Our society will never be rid of masculinism until we are
rid of militarism.
The history of militarism in the United States with its culmination in

the Pentagon business empire is not an isolated social fact. Militarism is
related to industrialism. Furthermore, militarism and industrialism are not
unique in the United States. Similar phenomena can be seen in all "highly
developed" societies, regardless of whether they are capitalist or
communist. Industrialism, like militarism, has had a devastating impact on
our sensual and sexual lives. Since the end of the Christian era, it has been
the single most pervasive force in mutilating Gay culture. No understanding
of the oppression of Gay people in modern times is even half adequate
without an understanding of the nature of industrialism.
Industrialism is the process by which people cease producing things
directly for their own immediate needs. Instead, things are produced
through specialized and centralized institutions. The producing institutions
can be quite varied (for example, factories, universities, governments)
depending upon the things produced (automobiles, knowledge, law and
order). In any given society, there are degrees to which such specialized and
centralized institutions control production. Among the American Indians,
for example, there were practically no such institutions. In modern
America, on the other hand, nearly every aspect of life has been
industrialized. When most of a society's production (of whatever nature) is
controlled by specialized institutions, I call that society industrialized.
There is no recorded instance in history where a highly industrialized
system of life was voluntarily chosen by a non-industrial society. In every
case, industrialism has been imposed on the people by the violence of the
institutions themselves. In Europe, industrialism was an edifice built on the
blood and gore of centuries of Christian violence. In America, it came to
power through the annihilation of the Indians and the enslavement of the
Blacks. In Russia, it was the fruit of Stalin's grim war of terror against the
peasants. In the modern Third World, it is everywhere coming to power
through the conflicting imperial ambitions of America, Russia, and China.
In every case, militarism has been the means by which industrialism has
triumphed. Industrialism, therefore, is not just a system of production. It is
also a system of power.
Why do nature people everywhere resist industrialism? For one thing,
industrialism is not necessary for a nature culture to survive (as long as it's
left alone by "higher" civilizations). The classic example is the North
America Indians, who managed to meet all basic human needs with a mini
mum of centralized institutions and without destroying their environment.
There is a second reason for this resistance to being industrialized.
Industrialism, by its very nature, destroys the magic of human existence.
Consider the way we, as industrialized people, relate to our environment.
Everywhere we see huge cities, highways, factories, universities, airports.
Everywhere the trees, the plants, the animals have been slaughtered. In
1969, the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center reported that there was n o
longer any uncontaminated a i r anywhere in North America (Roszak, 16). In
1970, Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic in a handmade boat. He
reported that he could not find one oil-free stretch of water during the entire
crossing (Roszak, lac. cit.). What kind of people are we that we do this t o
the environment? "Only those who have broken off their silent inner
dialogue with man and nature, only those who experience the world as
dead, stupid, or alien and therefore without a claim to reverence, could ever
turn upon their environment and their fellows with the cool and meticu
lously calculated rapacity of industrial society" (Roszak, 168).
We have seen in past chapters how the friumph of Christianity and the
emergence of the industrial system resulted in the objectification of n ature.
What we must now realize is that this objectifying has resulted in the
deadening of our feelings. Nature people everywhere believe that the earth,
the trees, the moon are living personalities who talk to us and with whom
we can communicate. We laugh at them and call them savages. Could they
be right, after aIl7 If so, when they talk to us about these things they must
feel like people with vision trying to explain color to someone who is blind.
Another loss of the industrial system is art. There are very few of us left
with any artistic skills at all. Artists are considered rare birds, slightly
bizarre, and not at all normal like everyone else. The artistic skill that
remains has been co-opted by industrial institutions, either for selling
toothpaste (as in the West) or socialism (as in the East). So rare indeed is art
in our lives that art objects are kept locked up in special institutions
(museums) which we go to view on special occasions. No doubt in a few
more generations there will also be tree museums.
But how could the situation be otherwise with art? In an industrial
society, we no longer make things for ourselves. We buy them as
consumers. Art is part of the process of making. In nature societies, people
make everything for themselves. As a result, every inch of their
environment is filled with art. Museums are unknown. Wherever industrial
ism has triumphed, art has disappeared from the life of the people, and
museums have taken its place.
Industrialism has killed the animal within us. We become indoor
people, surrounded by concrete and plastic, working hours on h ours as
factory workers, bureaucrats, academics, living in our skulls and dead to
our bodies. "Man was created to have room to move about in, to gaze into
far distances, to live in rooms which, even when they were tiny, opened out
on fields. See him now, enclosed by the rules and architectural necessities
imposed by over-population in a twelve-by-twelve closet opening out on an
anonymous world of city streets" (Ellul, 321).
Industrialism continues to teach that humans are superior to animals
and that "civilization" consists in getting as far away as possible from our
animal nature. Wilhelm Reich correctly believed that the rise of fascism in
industrialized countries was dependent on the repression of our animal
nature within the bourgeois family. "The theory of the German superman
has its origins in man's efforts to dissassociate himself from the animal"
(Reich, 334). When alienated from their animal nature, people come to view
it as evil, and then look for an outside authority-figure to keep it repressed.
''The Leader," whether political or religious, suppresses from without what
is feared from within. The Nazis associated homosexuality with animal
behavior (which, like all sexuality, it is). They violently purged their own
party of known Gay people, destroyed the early antecedents of the Gay
Liberation Movement, and sent masses of Gay people to the gas chambers
(Lauritsen). Similar attitudes could be found among Russian Stalinists
(whose overriding obsession was to industrialize Russia as fast as possible).
The industrial system has made us forget how to live. Nature people
know how to make their own houses, food, medicine, clothes, religious
rites, humor, and entertainment. These skills keep them from becoming
enslaved by money. Since people always retain the skills of survival, it's
very difficult for an aristocracy of money to get control of their lives. The
people don't need money to survive. In an industrial society, however, we
are never taught the skills of how to live. We become totally dependent on
money for meeting our every need. If the money runs out, we have nothing
to eat, nothing to wear, nowhere to sleep. As a result, we become totally
dependent on those who control money. In capitalist countries, these are
the huge business monopolies. In communist countries, it is the state.
Industrialism has degraded both labor and leisure. Most people in
industrial societies are in fact wage slaves, working forty hours a week or
more at monotonous, hateful "jobs" for the sole purpose of making enough
money to live and enjoy life. When they come home debilitated from such
alienated labor, they have nothing left to their souls except alienated leisure:
television, movies, newspapers, all of which indoctrinate with industrial
values. Like schools and universities, these media are part of the general
anesthesia.
Workers in industrial societies tend to work longer hours than people
in nature cultures. And industrial work is far less interesting. Industrial
workers are kept at their jobs through their dependence on money and
through constant indoctrination by institutions. "The natural tendency of
man, as manifested in primitive [sic] societies, is almost certainly to work
until a given consumption is achieved. Then he relaxes, engages in sport,
hunting, orgiastic or propitiating ceremonies or other forms of physical
enjoyment or spiritual betterment. This tendency for primitive man to
achievecontentment has been the despair of those who regard themselves as
agents of civilization and remains so to this day. What is called economic
development consists in no small part in devising strategies to overcome the
tendency of men to place limits on their objectives as regards income and

thus on their efforts" (Galbraith, 279).
Industrialism has devastated our sexual lives. We complain that we
treat each other's bodies unfeelingly, as so many objects, to use and dispose
of. Yet we fail to realize that we treat everything (including ourselves) as so
many objects to use and dispose of. We fail to see that the total
Making Beer (Richard Speke)
objectification of our environment and of nature is a direct effect of the

power system of industrialism . If we have been conditioned throughout our
lives to objectify everything, how can we fail to objectify those who excite
us sexually7
The industrial system has reduced sex to a productive activity, just as it
reduces all human functions to productive activities. Under industrialism,
the purpose of sex has become purely economic: to breed consumers,
workers, and soldiers for their proper roles in industrial and military
hierarchies . Sexual relations have been reduced to productive relations. The
basic unit of people-production is the monogamous heterosexual family.
Sex itself is locked up in secrecy, privacy, darkness, embarrassment,
and guilt. That's how the industrial system manages to keep it under
control. Among nature peoples, as we have seen, sex is part of the public
religion and education of the tribes. It becomes a collective celebration of
the powers that hold the universe together. Its purpose is its own pleasure.
Any group of people with such practices and values can never be dominated
by industrial institutions. That's why the first thing industrial societies do
on contact with "primitives" is make them feel guilty about sex and their
bodies . The historical tools for doing this have been patriarchal religions.
The whole industrial system is like one great night of the living dead
where the entire populace has been reduced emotionally to the level of
zombies . It has deadened us to our environment, deprived us of art,
sterilized our animal nature, robbed us of the skills of survival, degraded
our labor and leisure, and decimated our sexual lives . And so it has made us
like the living dead - dead to nature, dead to each other, dead to ourselves.
Some people may say: "Even if this is true, industrialism has also
generated its own antibody, a thing that will ultimately transform i t . This is
technology, which in itself is neither good nor bad . We can transform the
world for the better if we only use technology in the right way . Technology
will save us!" Unfortunately, the historical evidence does not support this
view. For example, it used to be said that computerization would eliminate
idiotic, repetitive jobs, thus giving people more leisure and also giving birth
to new kinds of jobs that allow for more creativity . In fact, however, the
exact opposite has happened . As a study of the actual evidence shows, "the
largest single occupation created by computerization is that of the key
punch operator" (Braverman, 83). Being a key punch operator is one of the
most deadening jobs in modern society. It involves dealing with machines in
the most mechanical, mind-and-body killing way .
One of the most important areas in which computers have had a mass
impact is that of clerical work . Since 1900, there has been a disastrous fall in
the status of clerical workers, in their pay, and in the avenues for creativity
in their work (Braverman, 51) . Coincidentally since 1900, the mechanical
working-class segment of the general labor force has increased from 50% to
between 67% and 75% (Braverman, 1 13). "It takes but a moment's
reflection to see that the new mass of working-class occupations tend to
grow, not in contradiction to the speedy mechanization and 'automation' of
industry, but in harmony with it" (Braverman, 114). The actual effect of
technology has been to create a vast surplus of workers available for
deadening work at low wages (Braverman, 1 14).
The economist Harry Braverman notes that corresponding to the disas-
trous fall in the status of clerical workers has been a change in their sex. In
1900, three-fourths of all clerical workers were male. In 1960, two-thirds
were women (Braverman, 50). As all of us who have been clerical wage
slaves know, a very large number of the men who remain in clerical
occupations are Gay . Hence the largest growing segment of the work force
in industrial America - the one that is among the lowest paid and is most
due to the growth of technolgy - is based on the exploited labor of women
and Gay men.
This situation brings to mind the earliest days of industrial technology
in England. The first workers in factories were women and children, not
men . Because of this situation, large families were encouraged. Large
families meant having more workers who could be put to work for wages .
"With the rise of the factory, the practice of hiring low-wage child and
female labour in preference to male labour in some areas and industries
might confront the man with the economic necessity of marrying early,
reproducing quickly and abundantly" (Lazonick, 40; original's italics) .
Historically, industrial technology has been the cause of overpopulation,
not vice-versa .
Technology has not produced more leisure, either. Between 1 941 and
1965, a period of great technological innovation and application, the
average work week actually increased (Galbraith, 370, note 1). During
roughly the same period, the economic power of workers declined . From
1 940 to 1950, wholesale prices doubled (Burns, 113). From 1964 to 1970
alone, the purchasing p ower of the dollar dropped 20% (Melman, "From
Private to Pentagon Capitalism , " 4). With every passing year, goods are
produced with increasingly inferior quality.
Historically, technology has been associated with militarism . As we
have seen, m ore than two-thirds of the nation's technical researchers are
now employed by the Pentagon business empire . The greatest technological
innovations have always occurred during times of war. The modern factory
system, itself a crucial technological innovation, was derived from 17th
century businesses that manufactured war material (Gilbert, 51).
It's true that machines and technical skills are not in themselves evil,
but only become so when controlled by powerful institutions beyond the
will of the people . But the essence of industrial technology is that very
fusion of technical skill with institutional power. Industrial techn ology, like
industrialism itself, is a sys tem of power.
To be effective, it requires the quantification of needs, which means
that personal needs are debased and reduced to mass needs . Once applied, it
creates problems that can only be solved by more technology. Hence arises
the inevitable elite of experts . To be most efficient, it needs the greatest
amount .of centralized control . Hence arises monopoly . In the Soviet Union,
all major industry is controlled by one institution, the state . In the U. S . , as
early as 1944, 62% of all workers were employed by 2% of all enterprises

(Ellul, 154). Today, the concentration is certainly much higher.
All the highly industrialized nations of the earth, regardless of whether
they are communist or capitalist, show the same effects of the impact of
technology: concentration of political and economic power in the hands of
a few; increasing regimentation of every aspect of life, including thoughts,
emotions, and even fantasies; and devastation of the environment. "In spite
of all the men of good will, all the optimists, all the doers of history, the
civilizations of the world are being ringed about with a band of steel" (Ellul,
127) .
Of course, it's possible to divorce technical skill from institutional

control, but then we no longer have industrial technology. Such a change
would mean a new type of technology, something far different from any
productive system that now prevails on the planet.
"But," someone may finally say, "look at all the progress brought
about by technology. What about progress?" And, indeed, technology has
brought about breath-taking progress - for the privileged classes of
industrial societies . But what of the cost? What of the annihilation of the old
cultures of Europe and the cultures of the American Indians? What of the
enslavement and exploitation of the Blacks? The exploited labor of the
modern Third World? The destruction of nature? The twisting of sexuality?
What of the millions upon millions of people killed in wars made possible
only by technology? Yes, the survivors (some of them) have it very good.
But when we take into consideration the entire historical cost, "we cannot
say with assurance that there has been progress from 1250 to 1950" (Ellul,
192) .
The industrial wasteland has come upon us from our past. It is the
gestation of over 2,000 years of patriarchal rule, the last offspring of Chris
tian/industrial institutions. It is vast. It is powerful. It has respected neither
culture nor ideology . It has spread like a cancer over the whole face of the
earth. It has ruined our work, our art, our environment, and our emotional
and sexual lives. It has cost us the magic sense of life.
If we are ever to rise up from the dead and regain our rightful place in
nature, we will have to do more than put our faith in the state, the party, or
technology - all of which are mere props of industrialism. We will have to
tap the saving energies that now lie buried in ourselves and in nature. And
that means we will have to summon forth powers that have not been known
since the days of the shamans.
1 34 I Witchcraft and the Gay Coun terculture
Photo b y Bernie Bo yle

10
Magic and Revolution
What is revolution1
Many of us answer this question by rote . As if somebody pushed a
button, we feed back the "right line" we've been taught in our particular
school of though t .
The rote response is b a d because it makes us overlook many things w e
take for granted. F o r example, almost a l l o f us are locked into the habit of
seeing everything through patriarchal eyes . We carry this tunnel-vision
around with us even when we allow ourselves flights of revolutionary
fantasy .
In the past, many revolutionaries, on coming to power, falsely believed
they were starting a new order. Often all they really did was re-establish the
old patriarchal order under a more efficient or humane management . In my
opinion, this has been the fate of the two most important progressive forces
of the past few hundred years: liberalism and industrial socialism . In what
follows, we will take a look a t each of these two movements in view of what
we've found out about Gay history . In doing so, I believe we will see the
need for transcending both .
Historically, liberalism has been associated with the bourgeoisie . It was
originally the ideology of European merchants and business owners in their
revolt against the l anded aristocracy and the monarchy . Today it is p re
eminently the ideology of educated members of the middle class and of
reform-minded members of the privileged professional classes .
Spokespeople for modern liberalism are often connected to schools and
universities . Their great hope is for reform through education and peaceful
compromise.
Liberalism has had a good record in ending some forms of oppression .
It has been of great benefit for those oppressed members of society who
have been able t o adjust to middle-class lifestyles . In this respect, i t has
especially helped upwardly-mobile people from a lower middle-class
background .
But for those who cannot o r will not adjust t o a middle-class lifestyle,
liberalism has had little to offer. The United States has seen two-hundred
years of basically liberal institutions and a great host of liberal leaders and
programs (recent examples being the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the
Great SOciety ) . Yet despite this liberal tradition, the United States today is a
corrupt garrison s ociety, living off the exploited labor of non-white people
136 Witchcraft and the Gay Cou n terculture
throughout the world and violently repressive within its own borders of
Gay people, women , Blacks, poor people, Indians, and Mother Earth.
The great flaw of liberalism is that it accepts the basic values of
Western culture as that culture has been handed down from generation to
generation through schools and universities . As we have seen, this cultural
tradition everywhere represents the values of the patriarchal ruling classes .
For example, the most cultured leaders of medieval Europe were the very
ones who called loudest for the annihila tion of witches and heretics and the
lifestyles they were practicing . "The more learned a man was in the
traditional scholarship of the time, the more likely he was to support the
witchdoctors [ that is, the witch-hunters ] . The most ferocious of witch
burning princes, we often find, are the most cultured patrons of
contemporary learning" (Trevor-Roper, 154 ) . This cultural savagery did
not stop with the end of the Middle Ages . "It was forwarded by the cultural
popes of the Renaissance, by the great Protestant reformers, by the saints of
the Counter-Reformation, by the scholars, lawyers and churchmen"
(Trevor-Roper, 91 ) .
Within modern times, schools and universities have become servants of
the military-industrial complex . Most of their money comes from the gov
ernment, the military, or private industry . Their regents most often come
from the ruling class (the Hearst family's influence over the University of
California being a notorious example) . Modern schools and universities
push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature
and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification,
and chilling competitiveness . These character traits are the essence of the
twisted personality-type of modern industrialism . They are precisely the
character traits needed to maintain a social system that is utterly out of
touch with nature, sexuality, and real human needs . The degrees issued by
modern schools and universities have become little more than tickets of
admission to the privileged professional classes . Despite this dismal
situation, modern liberals such as John Kenneth Galbraith continue to place
their hope for the nation's salvation in "the educational and scientific estate"
(Galbraith passim) .
Liberalism fails t o recognize that schools and universities have been
major vehicles through which prejudice has been spread against Gay
people, women, and Third World peopl e . What is today called "common
prejudice" was only yesterday taught in the schools as the refined thinking
of learned teachers . Schools, not common people, have "proved" by the
most exacting scholarly methods that Gay people are sick; that women are
inferior to men; that Third World cultures are primitive, barbaric, and
savage . Just as schools today continue to teach that reason is better than
emotion; that animals are inferior to humans; that rocks, hills, and stars are
inanimate objects; that the most important thing in life is to get a good j ob ;
Magic and Revolution 137
and that education consists in reading books.

Liberals worship professionalism. They urge us to turn to professional
historians to find out about history; to sociologists, to find out how social
groups work; to psychologists, to find out about the soul. They fail to
Photo by Bernie Boy le
realize that the more "educated" a person is the more she or he is likely to
embody the twisted personality-type of modern industrialism and thus to
see reality through the dead eyes of the industrial mentality. They fail to see
a horrible irony in the fact that many professional institutions now do the
very opposite of what they claim. And so we find state departments of
ecology functioning as agencies for licensing the rape of the earth; nursing
homes and hospitals as places where most people die; newspapers as means
for distorting and censoring the news; schools as graveyards of all personal
learning and growth; and departments of defense as machines for planning
and carrying out aggressive warfare. Liberals are blind to the fact that the
privileged professional classes of modern industrial society are utterly
bankrupt, having been bought and paid for by the rotten system that feeds
them their money and their values.
Liberals are also blind to the class struggle . They overlook the fact that
what is called Western "civilization" has been made possible only by wave
after wave of patriarchal domination. As we have seen, this domination has
grown in leaps, beginning in the Bronze Age and increasing through the
period of the Greco-Roman patriarchy, the Christian Era, and finally the
Dark Age of Industrialism . In each period, the patterns of domination have
been passed on in sequence from one ruling class to the next. To liberals,
this sequence is rarely even acknowledged, let alone resisted .
Within the context of the Gay movement, liberals have been very
effective in changing laws and in changing attitudes on the part of some
professional s . But Gay liberalism has had little relevance for those of us
who reject a middle-class lifestyle. At its worst, Gay liberalism has
encouraged Gay men to mimick the behavior of upwardly-mobile straight
professional types . This is the line pushed by David Goodstein, the million
aire owner of The Advocate, the leading organ of Gay liberalism in the
U . S . ; Goodstein, who is proud of his hobby as a horse breeder, urges Gay
men to get "respectable" and to push on with the j ob of being assimilated
into the American dream. In effect, he would have all of us become
Straight-Identified-Faggots ( or STIFFS, for short) .
A more subtle emphasis on professionalism and middle-class values is
found in the National Gay Task Force, the nation's leading Gay liberal
political group . NGTF greatly admires the ideal of the highly educated,
middle-class professional Gay person. It emphasizes the importance of a
"professional approach" to Gay liberation. NGTF runs itself internally on
the model of a professional business organization . Interestingly, the phrase
"Task Force" is a military-bureaucratic term, first being used by the U . S .
Navy t o denote a particular group of differing specialists under the
leadership of one commander (see entry under "task force" in The Random
House Dictionary) . The founder and co-boss of NGTF is Dr . Bruce Voeller,
an ex-geneticist for Rockefeller University, a prominent center of
independent research financed by the military-industrial-scientific estab
lishment.
Gay liberals have been indifferent to the way the Gay movement has
been co-opted by the owners of Gay bars, baths, and businesses. These
owners have capitalized on the new tolerance toward Gay people by
creating a network of businesses designed to swallow as much Gay money
as possible . Having gotten rich from this take, they now control the largest
single source of money in the Gay community . Hence they set the tone and
atmosphere of such publications as The Advocate.
Gay capitalists are prepared to spend a bundle for Gay "civil rights"
(by which they mean the right to run Gay businesses free of harasssment) .
But they raise bloody hell if the Gay movement brings up class issues. Two
examples of this type of Gay-bar liberalism are Dale Bentley and Emerson
Magic and Revolution I 139
1 40 Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture
Propps, the Reno-affiliated duo who own the western branch of the Club
Baths chain (not to be confused with the eastern branch) . These two
capitalists boast that they have put a lot of money into making things looser
for Gay people in Denver and Idaho . Yet early in 1976, they began a policy
of refusing admittance to their San Francisco baths to anyone wearing the
T-shirt of Bay Area Gay Liberation (BAGL) . In their opinion, BAGL
members were "troublemakers" and "communists . " The troublemaking
they were referring to was BAGL's recent protest against racism and sexism
at a local Gay bar, the Mindshaft. Bentley and Propps were also accused of
discriminating against Gay men who were effeminate, old, or Third World
(which they denied) . They were sued in court over the BAGL incident and
lost . A suit over the other forms of discrimination is still pending. To
Bentley and Propps, Gay liberation seems to mean making the world safe
for the owners of Gay bars and businesses . People like them are now
footing the bill - and, therefore, calling the tune - for many liberal Gay
activist organizations .
Gay liberal organizations tend to seek out "respectable" ( that is,
bourgeois) Gay men as their spokespeople . These, unfortunately, have been
known to oppress Gay people who can't or won't fit into the mainstream .
We have all seen the late Dr. Howard Brown, health bureaucrat from New
York, running around on behalf of the National Gay Task Force . He was
put into that position solely because of his middle-class credentials and
connections . Soon after coming out on the front pages of the New York
Times, he appeared before a mid-west Gay group and proceeded to tell
them that cross-dressing should be discouraged because it offends middle
America I
So, on the whole, Gay liberalism has all the advantages and disadvan
tages of any middle-class movement : On the positive side, it has accessibil
ity to the media, to establishment politicians, and to opinion makers in the
. privileged professional classes . On the negative side, it is insensitive to the
struggles of non-middle-class people and is generally oblivious to pene
trating questions about lifestyles . Since it takes bourgeois industrialism for
granted, it is never revolutionary. In effect, it is nothing more than a move
ment on behalf of white, middle-class, masculine-identified men.
The second great progressive force of modern times has been industrial
socialism . Historically, industrial socialism has been associated with the
urban proletariat and those who claim to be its leaders . It reached its classic
expression in the 19th century in the writings of Karl Marx . In general, it
advocates the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the collective
seizing of the means of production by a highly disciplined party .
Industrial socialism has been the single most important force for
human liberation in the 20th century . In nearly every case where it has
come to power and managed to hold on to power, it has driven out foreign
exploiters (usually American business interests), ended mass hunger, and

provided the necessary means of survival for its people. Such has been the
case, for example, in Russia, China, and Cuba.
Unfortunately, industrial socialism has had some disastrous blind
spots, especially concerning sex, the family, nature, science, the state, and
industrialism itself. These weaknesses are all interconnected.
One of the first things the Bolsheviks in Russia did after seizing power
in 1917 was to repeal the old Czarist laws, including the laws against homo
sexuality. For a time, the regime seemed to encourage a freer status for
women and a more humane atmosphere for Gay people. Within seventeen
years, all this had changed. In January 1934, Joseph Stalin carried out a
mass arrest of Gay people in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, and Odessa
(Lauritsen, 68) . In March 1934, Russia again outlawed homosexuality
(Lauritsen, 69).
Corresponding to this drastic reversal were other outrages. In 1929,
Stalin had undertaken a war against the peasants, who at the time
constituted 80 % of the population. Peasant families were deported, their
land was confiscated, and many were sent to concentration camps. Those
who weren't imprisoned were sent to large-scale industrialized farming
units. Stalin compared his war against the peasants to Russia's war against
the Germans (Nove, 160-177) .
Stalin's goal was to industrialize Russia at any cost, and that's what he
did. The industrialization of Russia was made possible through the blood of
its peasants, just as the industrialization of Western Europe was made
possible through the annihilation of the old religion and its cultures, and the
industrialization of the North American continent was made possible by the
enslavement of Blacks and the seizure of Indian lands.
Although Stalin was the most "extreme example of industrial violence in
Russia, the roots of his actions go back to both Lenin and Marx, both of
whom never questioned the inevitability or desirability of industrialism and
science. Lenin in particular believed there was a necessary link between
industrialism and the need for a powerful centralized state. In 1917, shortly
after the Bolsheviks came to power, he said: "Neither railways nor
transport, nor large-scale machinery and enterprise in general can function
correctly without a single will linking the entire working personnel into an
economic organ operating with the precision of clock-work. Socialism owes
its origin to large-scale machine industry" (Nove, 57). From the earliest days
of the revolution, Lenin was accused of taking Russia in the direction of
state capitalism, a criticism he rejected as "left-wing childishness" (Nove,
58).
Karl Marx had argued that industrial civilization was the last and
highest stage in the progressive dialectic of human civilization. All other
forms he viewed as outdated, primitive, or savage. Marx had faith in
science and called his theory scientific socialism. He ridiculed socialists who
questioned the nature of industrialism itself as "utopian."
Many modern Marxists continue to view nature societies with
contempt. An example is George Thomas, a well known Marxist historian
who has written about matriarchy in early Greece. He says concerning
nature people in general that "the primitive [sic) cultures still surviving in
other parts of the world are products of retarded or arrested development"
(Thomas, 3 5 ) . This type of thinking comes straight out of Marx's theory of
dialectical materialism. According to this theory, nature societies are rather
low in the scale of social evolution. Sooner or later, as a result of internal
class struggle, they develop in the direction of white industrial civilization,
which is viewed as high in the scale. The development in this direction is
considered inevitable, desirable, and progressive. Such a theory, apart from
being false, is inherently racist.
Photo by Bernie Boyle .
Neither Marx nor Engels had a very good record in dealing with Gay
rights. They never lifted a finger to help the Gay struggle in their time, even
though both were aware of it (Kennedy, 6) . In fact, they were even
homophobic. Engels believed that male homosexuality was historically
linked to contempt for women, as when he said concerning ancient Athens :
"this degradation of women was avenged on the men and degraded them
also till they fell into the abominable practice of sodomy and degraded alike
their gods and themselves with the myth of Ganymede" (Engels, 128) .
Marx, like Engels, usually referred to Gay men with derogatory words. He
called Karl Boruttau, an early advocate of sexual freedom, "cock-queer"

Kennedy, 6) .
Industrial socialism in Russia has turned into state capitalism. Russian
society is now greatly industrialized and urbanized like the U. S. , but the
means of production are owned by the state instead of corporate business
people. The state itself is the chief capitalist in Russia, and the Russian state
competes with other states (both capitalist and socialist) just as corporate
capitalists compete with each other in the West. Industrial technology has
had the same impact in Russia that it is having everywhere: repression of
sexuality, regimentation of every aspect of life, and reduction of the
populace to emotional zombies.
As long as socialists do not raise questions about the nature of indus
trialism itself, I believe that socialism will always end up by becoming state
capitalism. This will happen because there are certain features of industrial
ism that are in and of themselves capitalist. To understand this point, we
recall that industrialism is the system where people stop making things for
their own immediate needs. Instead things are produced by specialized and
centralized institutions (such as factories). Whether these institutions are
called socialist or not makes no difference with respect to one point: they
cannot exist at all unless the workers' labor creates a surplus value above
what is needed for the workers to survive. All of this surplus value cannot
be returned to the workers themselves; otherwise, there would then be no
means of paying for the factory or its expansion. So there arises a need to
manage and plan the use of this excess capital. If these factories are to be
integrated into one huge complex economic system, a special group of
experts is necessary to do this managing and planning. Hence, in a socialist
society, arise the planners who become agents of the state (if they aren't
state agents, there's the risk of the return of corporate capitalism). And so
the state itself emerges as the director of all important capital decisions and
thus becomes the chief capitalist.
Whenever any socialist society deliberately undertakes to industrialize
itself, it immediately comes under tremendous pressure toward state
capitalism. The classic example in our time is the People's Republic of
China. Under Chairman Mao, China approached closer to the ideal of a
true socialist society than any other country. Academics and other
professional types spent part of each year working in factories or on the
land. Wage differentials were narrowed. Most important of all, Mao
emphasized the great importance of the peasants, whom Stalin annihilated
in Russia and whom Marx at times considered little better than a sack of
potatoes.
But this socialist thrust has been maintained only at the cost of great
internal upheaval after the revolution and in the face of stiff opposition.
From 1966 to 1969, Mao pushed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
This was in fact a civil war in China whose purpose was to stop the rising
power of the privileged professional classes. These privileged classes were
getting stronger as China moved along the road to industrialism. In the end,
the forces unleashed by the cultural revolution seem to have become a
threat to the Chinese state itself . They were finally suppressed by the army
on orders from Mao (Macciocchi, 59).
No one can say what will happen in China now that Mao is dead, but
the forces working toward state capitalism still exist . This threat is actually
intensified by the structure of the Chinese Communist Party, which is
heavily indebted to the ideal of organization and discipline that it borrowed
wholesale from earlier Christian missionaries and monastic orders (Fitz
gerald, 133). It is conceivable that communism in China could end up
becoming just another patriarchal religion, as it already has in the U. S . S . R.
Or perhaps China will continue to raise penetrating questions about
industrialism and so take socialism on to a new and unprecedented path .
Industrial socialism of all stripes has been very uptight about sex . As
we have seen, homosexuality is now illegal in Russia. In China, Gay people
are said not to exist and the subject is not publicly mentioned . In Cuba,
homosexuality was declared a "social pathology" in 1971 and many Gay
people were sent to concentration camps. The nuclear family - which is the
life blood of patriarchal civilization - has never been questioned in any
industrializing socialist society, and in fact has been greatly re-enforced.
In addition, industrial socialism eagerly embraces science, views indus
trialism as desirable and inevitable, and ridicules the old animistic religions
that have existed in each country in which it has come to power (which is
ironic, since these old religions, if anything, represent the basic values of the
peasant masses over the centuries) . The leaders of industrial socialism have
generally been masculine-identified males who owe their initial success and
power to organized armies.
In the context of the Gay movement, industrial socialists often have

weak feelings of Gay identity and a shallow concept of Gay culture and Gay
spirituality. Typically, they view Gay revolution as meaning nothing more
than supporting the programs of the New Left, while also having Gay sex
on the side. Too often, they believe that Gay men have nothing more in
common than sex (which is actually a lotl ).
Just like liberals, Gay industrial socialists also have been insensitive to
the true depth of corruption in Western civilization. This insensitivity
comes out through such slogans as, "Socialism is the answer ! " This implies
that all we have to do is get worker control over the factories and all other
means of production. As we have seen, however, the problem is not only
who controls the means of production, but the means of production
themselves. Industial socialists step back from the conclusion that what we
need is not a new administration in Washington or a new economic policy,

but a new civilization.
Photo by Bernie Boyle
In making these criticism, I am not saying that industrial socialism has

not helped people. It certainly has, far more than bourgeois liberalism ever
did or could. But what I am saying is that industrial socialism is not
necessarily the highest or only form of revolutionary socialism. Even in
cases where it has been absolutely necessary (as in China), we can view it as
something to begin with, to build on, rather than as the absolute and final
end of all human struggle toward liberation. The revolution shouldn't end
when the revolutionaries take power.
I believe it is necessary to develop a new socialism, one that takes into
account the failures of industrial socialism and that makes room for the
special contributions of Gay people, women, and ancient Third World

cultures. In the remaining part of this chapter, I will try to outline the main
features, as I see them, of this new socialism.
To begin with, I believe we must bring about a massive withdrawal of
allegiance from the dominant institutions of industrialism. We have all been
assaulted with incessant industrial propaganda and lies from newspapers,
magazines, television, schools, and universities . As a result, most of us still
feel some sense of allegiance to such things as formal education, industrial
medicine, and the professions. Nearly every American still has some faith in
the U . S . government, the Christian religion, and the American way of life.
But as we have seen from this entire book, the dominant institutions of
industrialism arose from an oppressive patriarchal culture and continue to
function as oppressors to this day. As new socialists, we should never fail to
expose the inherent fraud of lawyers, doctors, academics, police,
politicians, priests, psychiatrists, generals, and business people. We should
miss no opportunity in denouncing their privileges and power and in
undermining all vestiges of their moral authority. And we must demystify
ourselves to overcome the belief instilled in us that we can't heal ourselves,
educate ourselves, create our own religion, or wage warfare on our own
behalf. We can do all these things - and more! We must work to regain
confidence in ourselves as the makers of our own culture and satisfiers of
our own needs and to throw off the yoke of the professional parasites who
now live off our life energies.
The way to do these things is through collective work. I mean real
collective work, not the forced collectivity of industrial socialism (which is
often nothing more than state control masquerading as collectivity). For
example, we can form small collectives to start getting food for ourselves in
the cities (such as the many non-profit food co-ops on the West Coast). We
can join together to publish our own magazines and books. We can study
herbs and people's medicine to heal ourselves. We can form collectives to
work on satisfying practically any of our needs - and we can do it better
than the privileged professionals can (I've seen it happen).
In this way we begin replacing industrial technology with people's
technology. In place of large corporations controlled by profiteers and
staffed by an elite of experts, we create decentralized productive units that
are integrated into the neighborhoods they serve. We rediscover the joys of
learning and sharing craft mysteries and feeling love toward the products of
our labor. We encourage technical methods that are humane and
democratic (like solar energy and wind power) and reject methods that
encourage central control and regimentation (like nuclear power). Of
course, some may object that such methods are totally inappropriate to
"modern" society. But that's the whole point! Non-alienated labor will
always be irrelevant as long as society is based on class domination,

exploitation of nature, and overpopulation.

The most favorable spot for such collective work is the countryside.
There we can remove ourselves as much as possible from industrializing
influences and begin struggling collectively with the earth, learning again
how to become peasants. If such collective groups are cemented together by
magic (which we'll discuss in a moment), we can start building the cells of a
new society within the old. We Gay people (like industrialized Third World
people) have been locked up in the cities for too long. We have a right to the
countryside! But if we can't or won't leave the inner cities, we can still
organize there, too. The inner cities of today are comparable to the ancient
countryside in the sense that that's where the most oppressed part of the
population now lives.
The new work collectives that we form must be more than loose
functional groups. Experience shows that such loose groups are usually
short-lived and weak. If we are ever to overthrow the industrial patriarchy,
I believe we must tap into deeper energies, energies that the ruling classes of
Christianity and industrialism have always desperately tried to deny and
repress. These are the energies of magic.
Magic is the art of communicating with the spiritual powers in nature
and in ourselves. Nature societies throughout history have known that
trees, stars, rocks, the sun and the moon are not dead objects or mere
resources but living beings who communicate with us. They have also
known that there are mysterious non-rational powers within ourselves. The
Christian power system, on the other hand, has taught that spirit and
matter are two utterly separate categories and that spirit emanates from one
being who exists above and beyond nature. Industrialism has continued this
same distinction between matter and spirit, but modified it by viewing spirit
as either an illusion or as a quality of certain subjective (and therefore
suspect) mental states. Accordingly, we have all been told from childbirth
to repress, deny, hide, and kill our natural abilities to communicate with
nature spirits and our own inner spiritual energies (just as we have been told
to deny and repress our sexuality). This suppression has been aided by
forcing people to live in huge urban wastelands, where we scarcely even
encounter nature, let alone communicate with it. Urban wastelands also
atomize us, keeping us in conflict with one another, and out of touch with
our collective power centers.
This suppression has been very useful to the ruling classes in the
industrial power system. The moon, for example, ceases to be the fateful
goddess whom we worship with rituals in the silence of night and becomes
instead a piece of real estate on which to plant an American or Soviet flag.
Since we are kept out of touch with our real collective power centers, we
have no collective entities to identify with except large, impersonal,
industrial, false ones, such as the state.
Magic is inherently a collective activity, depending for its practice on

group song, dance, sex, and ecstacy. It is through magic that so-called
"primitive" societies are able to hold themselves together and function in
perfect order without prisons, mental hospitals, universities, or the
institution of the state . Until very recently in history, magic was the birth
right of every human being. It is only within the last few hundred years that
whole societies have c ome into being where people live magicless lives .
Magic is one of our most powerful allies in the struggle against
patriarchal industrialism . One reason, as we've just seen, is that magic
holds our work collectives together and gives us great inner power. But
there is a second reason. Patriarchal industrialism has come to power not
only by suppressing and killing great numbers of people, but also by
violating nature . No one has ever fully recorded ( or could record) the
atrocities of industrialism against the animal people or the plant people .
From the annihilation of animals for their furs in early colonial America to
_ the widespread and grotesque experimentation on animals in the present,
industrialism in America has utterly decimated the animal kingdoms . In
addition, industrial society in general, in all times and places, has blackened
the whole environment and viewed nature as something to conquer. Indeed,
throughout its range in time and space, the entire Christian/industrial
system has been one great crime against nature.
By tapping into magic, we tap into nature's own power of defending
herself, her corrective for "civilization." We give avenues of expression to a
natural force for correction and balance that otherwise would never even be
acknowledged. We are in league with the memories of the forest and Our
own forgotten faery selves, now banished to the underworld. Let us invoke
our friends, the banished and forbidden spirits of nature and self, as well as
the ghosts of Indian, wise-woman, faggot, Black sorcerer, and witch. They
will hear our deepest call and come . Through us the spirits will speak again.
A genuine counterculture that fully affirms the magic of human life is
an ominous threat to the entire industrial order. Once we begin creating
such a counterculture, we can expect to encounter a vast barrage of
resistance from the establishment. Industrial authorities will try to take our
children away and send them to the wasteland's schools. They will try to
suppress our medicine people and force us to go to the licensed practitioners
of industrial medicine (who cure through violence and chemical drugs). If
we live in the country, they will try to force our shelters to follow industrial
building codes . If we organize in the cities, they will find a thousand ways
to harass us. If we try to openly celebrate our magic and sexuality, they will
send in the police. Even if all we ask for are simple human rights, Chris
tian/industrial forces will organize against us . Look at the coalition of
churches and corporations behind Anita Bryant in Florida or John Briggs in
California.
Hence there arises the need for political resistance. For the sake of our
survival, we will need allies. Our natural allies-people who have been
victimized by industrialism just like us-are women, Third World people,
the poor, the unemployed, the unemployable, and the insane.
Although America is controlled by straight-identified, upper-class
people, these classes do not control the rest of the world, and the rest of the
world is now on the verge of revolt. It is in our interest to give support to
(and demand support from) victims of industrialism throughout the world.
And it is in the interest of the international movement against imperialism
to get our energy, criticisms, and input, especially concerning matters of sex
and the family. A difficult struggle lies ahead in forming these alliances.
Many Left leaders are men who come from a hard, masculine tradition
within industrial socialism. But what is the alternative to cooperation with
other oppressed people?
The industrial patriarchy has maintained itself in power by means of
the most incredible violence, as we have seen in previous chapters. Witch
hunts, torture, and genocide have been regular features of the patriarchy's
arsenal from the age of Constantine to the age of Richard Nixon. These
tactics have been effective. I personally doubt, therefore, that mere good
intentions, education, and above-ground organizing will ever be enough on
our part. Do we really think that such things can stop a civilization that
wiped out the witches? Or murdered the Indians? Or sent Jews and Gay
people to the ovens? Or bombed Vietnam into the Stone Age? Or infiltrated
domestic protest groups and assassinated their leaders? I doubt it. I doubt
that we will ever stop the patriarchy until we fan out like viruses in the body
politic, when the time is right, carrying our secret weapons, and striking
without warning against ruling institutions, and the politicians, industrial
ists, warlords, and academics that run them. Many will undoubtedly
disagree, but without a revolutionary underground, I fear we will again
perish like burning faggots.
I admit that violence against other human beings is a terrible
desecration of life. But what are we to do in the face of the atrocities of the
patriarchy, when our backs are up against the wall. Trust in liberalism?
Pray? Give up? Every important above-ground movement for reform in the
U. S. during the past decade has either been annihilated or co-opted. When
we read The Pentagon Papers or follow the Watergate scandal, it's not hard
to understand why.
Violence among humans seems to be worst when it is institutionalized
(as in a standing army). Then it becomes the basis of the society's economy.
It becomes self-perpetuating and self-justifying. In additon to the death and
destruction it causes, it re-enforces a masculinist character among the
people. This is not the violence I am talking about, but rather the hit-and
run spontaneous violence of autonomous anarchist collectives. Not against
152 Witc hcraft and the Gay Counterculture

the general populace, but against those in control. Anarchist violence still
kills, but it is quite a different thing from the massive, scientifically planned
objective violence of institutions like the Pentagon. It is more like the
violence of a cornered animal defending itself. Still, those who kill defile
themselves, and they must be prepared to accept the consequences of that
defilement. But at this stage in the crisis in international industrialism, I see
no effective alternate to revolutionary violence. And revolutionary violence
is effective - that's why the U.S. government is so uptight about it. Despite
the great newspaper publicity that erupts when members of the under
ground are caught, very few terrorists are in fact ever tracked down and
arrested.
I'm not saying that revolutionary violence is the only form of resistance
or even the most important form at all times. But it does play a part,
depending on circumstances. Revolution is an act of both creation and
destruction.
For those who detest the very thought of violence, let them consider for
a moment the powder keg the U.S. ruling class is already sitting on. The
U.S. today is a country whose economy is based on ghastly exploitation of
peoples throughout the world. Not only do U.S. corporations exploit these
peoples' labor, but they take the better part of their natural resources, churn
them into commodities, and sell them in the U.S. and other countries,
where they are quickly converted into garbage. As a result of this impe
rialism, mass starvation now stalks the Third World. Within the borders of
the U.S. itself, the ruling class and the privileged professional classes live as
zombies, utterly alienated from their sexuality, from nature, and from
themselves. The great American middle class lives in a plastic bubble,
surrounded by suburbs and television, totally oblivious to the dragon
whose tail it is treading on. At the bottom, the lower classes burn with
resentment. With each passing year, the skies grow darker with pollution,
and the earth is ever more gorged with refuse. The privileged classes grow
old, filled with fat and cancer.
These outrages cannot last forever! Sooner or later, something is going
to give, and when it does, the debate over violence will be academic indeed.
The justification for all these struggles is the new society we look
forward to. How can we describe it? What does it look like? In many ways,
it is practically the opposite of the one we now live in.
We look forward to the passing away of the state, the church, the
university, the large corporation, the prison, the mental hospital, and all
other institutions that rob people of the meaning of life. These institutions
are only necessary within the basic assumptions of industrial patriarchy.
For example, industrialism has spread compulsive heterosexuality and
repressed homosexuality, thus giving rise to disastrous overpopulation and
hideous urban wastelands. Industrialism has kept us from learning the skills
of how to survive, thus making us dependent on money and productive

institutions. Industrialism has been fostered by an elite ruling class, thus
making necessary the existence of prisons, schools, and other coercive
institutions for keeping people in their "proper place". There is no reason in
the nature of things why these practices and institutions should be part of
human experience. There have been many societies in which they were
absent.
What is to take the place of the state-and all these institutions? We
look forward to the rebirth of the tribe and tribal communism. We look
forward to a myriad number of autonomous tribes, small in population,
growing like plants from the earth. We look forward to a society in which
everyone spends some time working the earth with his or her own hands to
provide the food necessary for survival. We look forward to a gradual
decrease in the importance of books, and the revival of the oral tradition,
where each tribal collective passes on its cumulative wisdom through
poetry, song, and dance. We look forward to the revival of personal and
sexual learning, as it was once practiced by Sappho and Socrates and the
Native American Indians. We look forward to freeing technical skill from
institutional control and to the days when local tribal collectives forge their
own metals and make machines that serve people rather than dominate
them. We look forward to freeing the spirit of art, to the day when we all
become artists because we all participate in creating our environment.
We look forward to re-establishing our communication with nature
and the Great Mother, to feeling the essential link between sex and the
forces that hold the universe together. In so doing, we remember the
prophecy of Edward Carpenter, the Gay historian and prophet. In 1889,
surveying the industrial wasteland around him, he said this concerning man
(and, we might add, women too):
"The meaning of the old religions will come back to him. On the high
tops once more gathering he will celebrate with naked dances the glory of
the human form and the great processions of the stars, or greet the bright
horn of the young moon which now after a hundred centuries comes back
laden with such wondrous associations-all the yearnings and the dreams
and the wonderment of the generations of mankind-the worship of
Astarte and of Diana, of Isis or the Virgin Mary; once more in sacred groves
will he reunite the passion and the delight of human love with his deepest
feelings of the sanctity and beauty of Nature; or in the open, standing
uncovered to the Sun, will adore the emblem of the everlasting splendour
which shines within" (Carpenter, Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure, 57).
We look forward to creating a genuine Gay culture, one that is free
from exploitation by bars, baths, and Gay business owners. We look
forward to re-establishing women's mysteries and men's mysteries as the
highest expression of collective Gay culture and sexuality. We look forward
to regammg our ancient historical roles as medicine people, healers,

prophets, shamans, and sorcerers. We look forward to an endless and
fathomless process of coming out-as Gay people, as animals, as humans,
as mysterious and powerful spirits that move through the life cycle of the
cosmos.
So we see that the new socialism is a movement that is not just
political, but also magical and sexual. It rejects the dominant traditions of
the West's ruling classes, including mass industrialism and urbanism.
Instead, it calls for these features: creation of tribal collectives that are held
together through shared work, sex, and magic; liberation of technical skill
from institutional control; release of the captive powers of art; assertive
cooperation between all groups oppressed by industrialism; revolutionary
violence; and creation of a post-industrial communist nature-society where
Gay culture can flourish free from repression and exploitation.
We are casting aside the shackles of the industrial patriarchy. Like
butterflies, we are emerging from the shells of our past restricted existence.
We are re-discovering the ancient magic that was once the birth right of all
human beings. We are re-learning how to talk to the worms and the stars.
We are taking flight on the wings of self-determination.
Come, blessed Lady of the Flowers, Queen of Heaven, creator and
destroyer, Kali-we are dancing the great dance of your coming.
Appendix:
CALENDAR OF SOME
INTERESTING EVENTS IN THE
HISTORY OF HERESY AND
WITCHCRAFT
399 BC The Athenian philosopher

Socrates is condemned to
death for corrupting young
men and believing in gods
the state doesn't believe in
(Plato, 24B).
186 BC The Senate of Rome out

laws the Bacchanalia, re
sponding to charges that the
rites undermine militarism
and make men effeminate
(Partridge, 54).
169BC The Senate of Rome out

laws male homosexuality
among Roman citizens
(Meier, 179).
122BC The City of Rome begins a

conquest of Celtic civiliza
tion (Hatt, 305 ff).
58 BC Julius Caesar conquers the

Celts of Gaul (Hatt, 305 ff).
28 BC The Emperor Augustus

Caesar orders all temples of
the goddess Isis removed
from the inner city of Rome
(Angus, 38).
13 BC The Emperor Augustus as

sumes the title Pontifex
Maximus (Supreme Priest),
a title assumed by all subse
quent emperors and later by
the Popes (Angus, 37).
12 BC The Emperor Augustus be nature worship (Russell, 55,

gins a campaign to suppress n. 12; 58, n. 19 & n. 20;
Celtic religion (Chadwick, Cohn, Demons, 157).
Druids, 71 ff).
312 AD Constantine, supported by
0-100 AD Gnosticism, an under- the Christian party, be
ground religion combining comes sole emperor of the
elements of Christianity and West after a period of civil
paganism, arises in Asia war, marking the beginning
Minor (Obolensky, 3). of the Christian Era in
19 AD The Emperor Tiberius dis Western history.
mantles the remaining tem 313 AD Constantine declares Chris
ple of Isis (Angus, 38). tianity to be a legal religion,
100 AD- Gnosticism spreads rapidly appoints Christians to high
throughout the Roman Em level government jobs, and
200 AD
pire (Runciman, 6). lays the groundwork for
making Christianity the
state religion of the Roman
190 AD Clement of Alexandria,
Empire.
prominent Christian theolo
gian, condemns the pagan 342 AD The law code of the emper
practice of worshipping im ors Constantius and Con
ages of human sex organs, stans condemns male homo
as well as ritual sexual sexuality and urges that
promiscuity among certain sodomites be subjected to
Gnostic sects (Benko, 113, "exquisite punishments"
Summers, History, 99). (Bailey, 70).
242 AD- Mani, a Persian Christian 350 AD Bishop Epiphanius pub

276 AD Gnostic, founds Maniche lishes his Panarion, con
ism as a powerful rival to demning certain Gnostics
Christianity (Runciman, for practicing ritual sexual
12-26; Loos, 23). promiscuity (Benko, pas
sim).
296 AD Amobius, Christian propa
350 AD- The Massalians, a group of
gandist, condemns the use
400 AD Christian Gnostics promi
of dildos in the pagan wor
nent in Syria and Asia Mi
ship of Cybele, the Great
nor, absorb pagan tradi
Mother of the Gods (Sum
tions and teach mystical
mers, History, 99).
revelation through sensual
300 AD The Council of Elvira de experience (Obolensky,
crees that the last rites of the 49-50; Loos, 72).
church should be denied
382 AD Augustine of Hippo con
anyone guilty of pederasty
verts from Manicheism to
(Vanggaard, 139). From this
traditional Christianity
date onward and for the
(Runciman, 16 ) .
next several hundred years,
numerous church synods 390 AD The Emperor Theodosius I
repeatedly condemn the declares Christianity to be
continued practice of pagan the state religion of the Ro
rites and the survival of man Empire and bans all
Appendix 159
other religions. He also 650- Pagan Bulgars move into

passes a law making sod 700 AD the slavic Balkans and set
omy a capital offence (Bar up the pagan kingdom of
nett, 82, n. 45). Bulgaria (Runciman, 4 &
Obolensky, 63). Paulician
414 AD Nicetas repeats the con ism, a movement hostile to
demnation of worshipping the church hierarchy and in
sex images (Summers, His favor of a return to early
tory, 99) Christianity, breaks out in
430 AD Augustine attacks the Man nearby Armenia (Obolen
ichees as libertines (Cohn, sky, 28).
Demons, 17; Summers, His 689 AD The Christian missionary
tory, 99). Kilian is killed for trying to
convert the East Franks
431 AD The Virgin Mary is declared
to be the Mother of God by away from the worship of
the Council of Ephesus, in Diana (Grimm, 237; Rus
the same city noted for its sell, 61, n. 25; Cohn, De
previous pagan worship of mons, 212).
the Mother of the Gods 690 AD A penitential of the Arch
(Branston, 197). bishop of Canterbury is the
438 AD The Emperor Theodosius II first to mention lesbianism
publishes the Theodosian (Hyde, 31).
Code, in which the penalty 693 AD The Council of Toledo con
for sodomy, as for heresy, demns male homosexuality
is declared to be burning (Bailey, 63).
(Barnett, 80).
777 AD Armenian Massalians are
447 AD The Council of Toledo es accused of holding orgies
tablishes the doctrine of the and worshipping Satan
Devil. who is subsequently (Cohn, Demons, 18).
identified with the Celtic
horned god. 744 AD A note attached to the reg
ulations of the Synod of
450 AD- Western European writers Septinnes condemns the
600 AD condemn the surviving practice of men dressing as
worship of the goddess Di women on the occasion of
ana (Cohn, Demons, 212; pagan feasts (Russell, 67).
Russell, 57 & 58, n. 21).
787 AD Charlemagne decrees that
527 AD Justinian becomes emperor anyone making sacrifices to
in the East and briefly re "the Devil" should be put to
establishes the Roman Em death (Cohn, Demons,
pire. He conducts a pogrom 157); later he outlaws sod
against Gay men, whom he omy (Hyde, 31).
tortures and castrates
(Bury, 412, n. 5). 864 AD Boris, the King of Bulgaria,
is forced to convert to
550 AD Visigothic Christian law Christianity after a Chris
condemns those who offer tian invasion of Bulgaria
sacrifices at night to "de (Obolensky, 71). He tries to
mons" (Cohn, Demons, force Christianity on the
157). rest of the country. Pauli-
cianism enters Bulgaria and riders "the witch Holda"

(Russell, 81).
begins to spread (Obolen
sky, 82; Loos, 42). 1071 AD Adam of Bremen reports
that a large dildo figure is
866 AD Pope Nicholas I writes to
still being worshipped un
King Boris of Bulgaria,
complaining that many Bul der the name of Fricco in
garians continue to practice the city of Upsala (Wright,
paganism (Obolensky, 85; 26).
Loos, 242; Runciman, S). 1022 AD Heretics are uncovered at
Orleans and are said to
889 AD Boris retires as King of Bul
practice ritual sex orgies,
garia in favor of his son
worship the Devil, and
Vladimir, who tries to re
have visions of traveling
store paganism as the offi
cial religion. Boris returns after eating a "heavenly
food." They are called
from retirement, defeats
and blinds his son, and re "Manichaeans" (Wakefield
and Evans, 75-81; Lerner,
stores Christianity (Loos,
42; Obolensky, 87). 33-34; Cohn, Demons,
20-21; Russell, 86-87).
906 AD Regino of Prum publishes a
1050 AD The Byzantine theologian
lost ordinance of the 9th
Michael Psellus claims that
century, the canon epi
the Massalians practice rit
scapi. It derides the wide
ual sex orgies and worship
spread belief of women who
the Devil as the brother of
"profess themselves in the
Christ (Obolensky, 185-
hours of the night to ride
upon certain beasts with Di 187). Catharism, a Mani
chaean heresy derived
ana, the goddess of the pa
from Bogomilism, spreads
gans" (Russell, 75-76).
throughout Western Europe
950 AD Theophylact, Patriarch of (Loos, 115).
Constantinople, writes to
1054 AD Peter Damiani writes his Li
Tsar Peter of Bulgaria men
ber Gomorrhianus, claim
tioning a new heresy there,
which he defines as Mani ing that homosexuality is
spreading at an alarming
cheism mixed with Pauli
rate among the clergy
cianism (Runciman, 67;
(Bailey, 111-114).
Loos, 47; Obolensky, 112 &
112, n. 7). 1091 AD Ordericus Vitalis tells of
969- popular beliefs in ghostly
The priest Cosmas con
972 AD night riders following "Har
demns a new Bulgarian her
esy called Bogomilism, lechin" (Lea, v. I, 171).
which he says recognizes 1100 AD Euthymius Zigabenus re
two gods and rejects the ports that the Bogomilism
church and its sacraments of Constantinople is a mix
(Loos, 50-59; Runciman, ture of Paulicianism and
68-69; Obolensky, 117- Massalianism, and that it
122). regards the Devil as the
brother of Christ (Obolen
1000 AD Burchard of Worms calls
sky, 206-214; Loos, 67-70;
the goddess of the night-
Runciman, 73-78).
Appendix 161
128; Loos, 117; Cohn, Mil

1112- Peter of Bruys, a priest in-
lennium, 153).
1220 AD fluenced by heresies from
the Balkans, criticizes the 1163 AD Hildegard of Bingen reports
need for an organized that there are heretics who
church or sacraments reject the sacrament of mar
(Wakefield, 23). riage, advocate sexual free
dom, and say that their god
1114 AD Peasant heretics are un
is not invisible (Cohn, Mil
covered at Suey-Ie-long and
lenium, ISS). Eleven hereti
accused of practicing ritual
cal weavers are burned at
lesbianism and male homo
Cologne for advocating sex
sexuality. From this date
ual freedom (Cohn, Millen
on, charges of ritual same
nium, 153-154).
sex acts become common-
place in heresy trials (Rus- 1167 AD The Cathars hold a large
sell, 94-95 &: 95, note; meeting at St. Felix de Cara
Wakefield and Evans, 102- man, near Toulouse, with
104; Runciman, 120). representatives from France,
Italy, and Constantinople
1150 AD Catharism becomes en
(Loos, 127 &: Runciman,
trenched in Languedoc
72).
(southern France) and con-
stitutes itself as an organ- 1173 AD Peter Waldo (or Waldes)
ized rival to traditional forms the Poor of Lyon
Christianity (Wakefield, 30- (Waldensians). He advo
31). Geoffrey of Auxerre cates a return to early
accuses the Cathars of Christianity and opposes
preaching free sex (Russell, both traditional Christian
128). ity and Catharism (Cohn,
Demons, 32).
1150- Heretics in Germany are ac-
1170 AD cused of holding orgies and 1175 AD Heretics at Verona are ac
of eating cum as a holy food cused of holding orgies in
(Russell, 129). an underground hall (Rus
sell, 126).
1156- Philosopher John of Salis-
1159 AD bury ridicules women who 1179 AD The Third Lateran Council
claim they ride out at night condemns the spread of
with a goddess (Grimm, homosexuality among the
235; Cohn, Demons, 218- clergy (Bailey, 127). Alan
219). de Lille says of certain here
tics that in order to rid
1157 AD The Synod of Rheims con
themselves of concern for
demns spreading Cathar
the body they practice ran
ism, accusing the Cathars of
dom sexual intercourse
holding sex orgies. It also
(Russell, 129; Cohn, De
complains that Manicheism
mons, 22 ff).
is being spread throughout
the diocese by itinerant 1182 AD Walter Map accuses heretics
weavers who condemn the of holding orgies and of
sacrament of marriage and kissing the genitals and ass
encourage sexual promiscu- hole of "a black cat of mar
ity (Runciman, 121; Russell, velous size" (Russell, 131;
Cohn, Demons, 22).
1184 AD Pope Lucius III condemns 1211 AD The Synod of Tirnovo re

the Waldensians and auth peats the definition of Bo
orizes the use of inquisitor gomilism as a combination
ial methods by bishops in of Massalianism and Pauli
trying heretics (Wakefield, cianism (Obolensky, 238).
44 &: 133).
1212 AD The Council of Paris con
1190 AD Joachim of Flora preaches demns the occurrence of
that there is no need for homosexuality among the
law, government, or clergy (Bailey, 127).
churches (Russell, 138).
1214 AD The Council of Rouen con
1198 AD Lothar of Segni, a Roman demns the occurrence of
aristocrat and a bitter foe of homosexuality among the
heresy, becomes Pope Inno clergy (Bailey, 127).
cent III, the strongest Pope
in the history of the church 1221 AD Pope Gregory IX calls for a
(Wakefield, 86). crusade against rebelling
peasants in Germany
1200- A new movement arises in (Wakefield, 134).
1300 AD which women and men
form sexually separate beg 1222- Gautier de Coincy publishes
ging groups that are inde 1224 AD a poem claiming that homo
pendent of church control. sexuality is common among
They are called beguines the beghards (Lerner, 39).
and beghards (Lerner, pas
1227 AD Pope Gregory IX issues his
sim).
bull Extravagantes, repro
1206 AD Death of Amaury of Bene, ducing condemnations of
leader of the Amaurians, a early church councils
group of heretics who have against sodomy (Bailey,
trances, claim miraculous 98).
powers, and say that every
1227- Pope Gregory IX passes leg-
thing that is, is God (Cohn,
1235 AD islation creating the Office
Millennium, 157-161, 166).
of the Holy Inquisition, a
They are popularly called
special body of professional
by names that are usually
heresy-hunters centrally
applied only to women
controlled by the Vatican
(Cohn, Millennium, 166;
(Russell, 158).
Lerner, 13).
1231 AD William of Paris accuses
1208 AD Pope Innocent III, fearful of
heretics of worshipping the
the Cathars of southern
Devil in the form of an ani
France (Albigensians), calls
mal and holding orgies
for a crusade to wipe them
(Cohn, Demons, 22).
out (Wakefield, 68).
1233 AD Pope Gregory IX issues his
1209- A crusade is waged against
bull Vox in Rama, accusing
1229 AD the Cathars of southern
certain heretics of holding
France leading to a bloody
bisexual orgies (Russell,
civil war and ending in the
161). He also sends Domini
overthrow of Cathar civili
can inquisitors to southern
zation (Wakefield, 97).
France to hunt down any
Appendix 163
lingering Cathars in the 1268 AD The Chronicle of Lanercost

wake of the crusade there reports that some priests in
(Wakefield, 140). the Scottish district of Lo
thian urged peasants to
1235 AD Stephen of Bourbon, an in
raise up a phallic image in
quisitor in France, tells of
order to save their cattle
male night-time wanderers
from a rampant disease
who dress up as women and
(Wright, 31).
who are popularly called
"the good women " (Russell, 1270 AD Jean de Meung, author of
157). the second part of Roman
de la Rose, ridicules the
1240 AD Caesarius of Heisterbach
popular belief that large
says demons collect all the
numbers of people roam
cum that is ejaculated "con
about at night with Lady
trary to nature " (Lea, v. I,
Habonde (Russell,135).
152).
1272 AD The laws of Orleans,
1245 AD The Inquisition at Toulouse
Anjou, and Marne call for
uncovers many Cathar fol
the burning of anyone c'on
lowers who claim that
victed of bourgerie (Bailey,
homosexuality is not a sin
141-142).
(Borst,182 & 182, n. 7).
1279 AD An episcopal statute of
1249 AD William of Paris mentions
Auger de Montfaucon con
popular beliefs in a goddess
demns women who claim to
- Abundia or Satia - who
ride at night with Diana,
travels at night with a band
Herodias, or Bensozia (Al
of followers (Ginzburg,49).
ford,355).
1256 AD Pope Alexander IV allows
1282 AD A Scottish priest, John of
inquisitors the use of torture
Inverkeithing, leads an
to extract confessions
Easter dance around a dildo
(Wakefield,179, n. 7).
figure, and, when chal
1259 AD Bishop Bruno of Olmutz lenged by his bishop,says it
condemns beguine women is the ancient custom of the
for refusing to obey the country (Wright,31-32).
orders of men (Cohn, Mil
1290 AD Beguines and beghards in
lennium, 167).
crease in number. Among
1260 AD The legal code of Orleans some of them a new heresy
outlaws male homosexual appears, the Free Spirit
ity and lesbianism, calling movement. Free Spirits are
for bodily mutilations for accused of attacking all ex
the first and second offences isting institutions and say
and burning for the third ing that there is no sin
(Bailey,142). "under the belt. " The first
beghards are arrested for
1261 AD The Bishop of Amiens and
heresy (Lerner,16-20 & 44;
the town government of
Cohn,Millennium, 164).
Amiens quarrel over who
has the proper authority to 1290 AD King Edward I of England
try sodomites (Bailey,143). decrees the death penalty
for anyone convicted of prophets but live freely

sorcery, apostasy, heresy, after the flesh (Lerner, 79).
or sodomy (Bailey, 145- Again through a conspiracy
146). of King Philippe, Pope
Boniface VIII is accused
1292 AD A homosexual scandal posthumously of ritual
erupts at the University of magic, sodomy, and mur
Paris, and many professors der (Cohn, Demons,
are banished (Lea, 180-185).
Templars, 155).
1310- Heretics are accused of wor-
1296 AD Pope Boniface VIII issues a 1315 AD shipping Lucifer and prac
bull condemning a sect ticing orgies in Austria,
whose members are said to Brandenburg, Bohemia,
pray in the nude (Lerner, Prague, and Krems (Russell,
79). 177-179; Lerner, 28).
1300 AD An accused Cathar named 1311 AD Pope Clement V, acting
Lepzet confesses before a through the Council of Vi
secular court that ritual les enne, issues the bull Ad
bianism and male homosex Nostrum. It condemns the
uality are practiced at the heresy of the Free Spirit,
meetings of his religious accusing its advocates of re
group (Russell, 162). jecting the concept of sin
and of believing that no sex
1307 AD King Philippe of France ar
act in itself is sinful (Lerner,
rests all the French Tem
81-84).
plars and accuses them of
heresy and sodomy (Lea, 1317 AD The Bishop of Strassbourg
Templars, 158). organizes an inquisitorial
persecution against the Free
1307- Through a conspiracy of
Spirit in his diocese (Cohn,
1314 AD King Philippe of France and
Millennium, 170; Loos,
Pope Clement V, the Tem
85-87).
plars are hunted down all
over Europe, and the order 1320 AD The inquisitor Bernard Gui
is abolished (Russell, 195). mentions women who are
called "the good people"
1307 AD Archbishop Henry of Virne
and who ride out at night
burg condemns beguines
(Russell, 175). Pope John
and beghards for rejecting
XXII empowers inquisitors
the concept of sin and say
to act against practitioners
ing that simple fornication
of ritual magic as heretics,
is not sinful (Lerner, 66-67).
thereby broadening the
1310 AD Marguerite Porete is execu concept of heresy (Cohn,
ted by the Provost of the Demons, 176).
University of Paris for prac
1323- The peasants of Flanders re-
ticing heretical mysticism
1328 AD volt (Cohn, Millennium,
(Lerner, 71-72). The Fran
216).
ciscan Nicholas of Lyra
writes that new heretics 1324 AD Lady Alice Kyteler of Kil
have appeared who say that kenny, Ireland, is accused
people should not obey the of sorcery, having sex with
Appendix 165
a demon, and holding or the sun; and that they prac

gies (Cohn, Demons, 198- tice indiscriminate sex (Rus
201; Russell, 189-192). sell, 93, n. 49).
1325 AD Heretics of the Free Spirit 1353 AD Boccaccio's Decameron

are spied on at one of their mentions a secret society
meetings in Colgone and are that meets twice a month
arrested and burned for for feasting and orgies (Rus
holding a communal sex sell, 193). Pope Innocent VI
orgy (Cohn, Millennium, appoints the first papal in
190-191). quisitor in Germany; his
purpose is to suppress the
1327 AD The Austrian Abbot John of
Free Spirit (Cohn, Millen
Viktring reports that here
nium, 171).
tics are holding orgies in
caves (Lerner, 25-26 & 1355 AD Lazarus, a Bulgarian Bogo
30-31). mil, refuses to recant his ad
vocacy of nudism and free
1332 AD Beguines of Silesia in Bo
sex and is branded on the
hemia confess that lesbian
face and exiled (Runciman,
ism is accepted in their com
97).
munity (Lerner, 117-119).
1358 AD Peasant revolts occur in
1338 AD Heretics at Brandenburg are
France (Cohn, Millennium,
burned for holding nightly
216).
meetings under a "leader of
boys" (Russell, 181, n. 25). 1365 AD Pope Urban V orders the
The Franciscan John of French Inquisition to be on
Winterthur claims Swiss the lookout for heretical be
heretics are holding homo guines and beghards (Ler
sexual orgies (Cohn, De ner, 52).
mons, 35; Lerner, 25).
1367 AD John Hartman of Ossmann
1339 AD The people of southern Bo stedt confesses enthusiastic
hemia revolt against the 'In ally and without torture to
quisition. The Pope sends in the Inquisition of Germany
troops and suppresses the that he believes no sex act is
revolt (Lerner, 107). Two sinful in itself and that God
ex-heretics in Czechoslova is to be found in pleasure
kia, John and Albert of (Lerner, 135-139).
Brunn, say that while they
1370 AD The Inquisition in Milan in
were heretics they believed
dicts a woman for being a
that any passion of the flesh
was permissible, including member of the "society of
Diana" (Russell, 210).
homosexuality (Lerner, 109-
110). 1375 AD An old woman named Ga
1350 AD brina Albetti is convicted
Daniel of Thaurizio reports
by a secular court at Reggio
that there are Armenian
of teaching other women
speaking heretics in Ton
how to pray to the stars.
dray near Manzikert; that
She is branded, and her
they are neither Christians
tongue is cut out (Russell,
nor Jews; that ther worship
210).
1381 AD Peasant revolts occur in

England (Cohn, Millen Tours repeats the con
nium, 216). A German demnation of those who
beggar is accused of being worship sex images (Sum
"a perverter of young boys" mers, History, 99).
and then executed for
heresy, though no doctrinal 1400 AD Groups of heretics called
dispute is involved (Lerner, Fraticelli appear and are ac
145). cused of practicing orgies
(Cohn, Demons, 43-48).
1384 AD A woman named Sibillia
admits to a secular court at 1411 AD A group of Free Spirits
Milan and to the Inquisition called Men of Intelligence
that she and other women are condemned at Cambrai,
are accustomed to travel at after being accused of
night with Signora Oriente, preaching nudism and free
whom they pay homage to; love (Russell, 224; Lerner,
she insists that there is 158-161).
nothing sinful in this. She is
1421 AD The chronicle of Laurence
sentenced to a relatively
of Brezova reports that
light penance and released
heretics in Bohemia are ac
(Russell, 211-212; Kieck
cused of practicing nudity,
hefer, 21-22; Cohn, De
dancing around fires, and
mons, 217-218).
sodomy. They are extermi
1387 AD The Inquisition at Turin ac nated by the Christian John
cuses heretics of practicing Zizka (Lerner, 123; Russell,
orgies. Followers of Cathar 224-225).
ism are uncovered who say
1428 AD The earliest trials for witch
that homosexuality is not a
craft proper by inquisitorial
sin (Russell, 220-223; Borst,
methods are instigated
182 & 182, n. 7).
against S!iss peasants. In
1390 AD Sibillia is again tried at these trials, the figure of
Milan, saying her practices Diana is replaced by the
go back to her childhood. Devil (Cohn, Demons, 225-
Another woman, Pierina 226).
de' Bugatis, also admits to
1431 AD Joan of Arc is burned alive
traveling with Signora Ori
at the stake for practicing
ente and to robbing the
transvestism as a religious
houses of the rich. She says
duty and for believing that
Signora Oriente rules their
her personal visions are
society as Christ rules the
more important than the in
world (Russell, 212-213).
stitutional authority of the
1396 AD John Wasmod, an Inquisi church.
tor at Homburg and later
1435 AD A woman of Cologne is ex
rector of the University of
communicated for wearing
Heidelberg, writes a book
men's clothing in imitation
accusing beghards of prac
of Joan of Arc (Kieckhefer,
ticing homosexuality (Ler
appendix under 1435).
ner, 57-58). The Synod of
Appendix 167
1435- Johann Nider tells of peas- 1475 AD For the first time, reference
1437 AD ant women who anoint is made in a trial document
themselves and believe they to the witches' "sabbat"
fly with the goddess Diana. (Russell, 249).
Similar stories are later told
Pope Innocent VIII issues
by Alfonso Tostato, Barto 1484 AD
his bull Summis desideran
lommeo Spina, and Johann
tes. He accuses witches of
Weyer (Cohn, Demons,
having sex with both male
219-220).
and female demons and
1438 AD Pierre Vallin of la Tour du gives full backing to a mass
Pin is tried for witchcraft. witch hunt in Germany.
Under torture, he confesses This is a major turning
to giving himself body and point in the history of
soul to a male demon witchcraft, since it estab
(Cohn, Demons, 230). lishes the view that witch
craft in and of itself is
heresy and thus subject to
1439 AD Thomas Ebendorfer, in his
the Inquisition.
De Decem Praeceptis, con
demns the practice of leav 1487 AD Pope Innocent VIII organ
ing food out at night for izes a crusade against the
Perchta or Habundie (Ginz Waldensians of Dauphine
burg, 51). and Savoy (Lea, v. 1, 204).
Tomas de Torquemada, the
1440 AD Gilles de Rais, a close per
Grand Inquisitor of Spain,
sonal friend and bodyguard
declares, "Diana is the
of Joan of Are, is executed,
Devil" (Russell, 235, note).
after having been charged
with sodomy, heresy, and 1500 AD A reign of mass terror
child murder and molesta against supposed witches
tion. builds up and lasts for
about 200 years. The terror
1450- Witch hunts make their first
is supported by both Catho
1460 AD appearance in Northern
lics and Protestants and is
Italy (Cohn, Demons, 145).
backed by most intellectuals
1451 AD Pope Nicholas V declares and members of the privi
that sorcery as such is sub leged professional classes.
ject to the Inquisition, even
1514 AD John Panter of England is
where heresy as previously
accused of consulting de
understood is not involved
mons near the location of
(Robbins, 272).
Bronze-Age burial mounds
1455 AD Pope Calixtus III condemns (Grinsell, 73).
the practice of holding re
1532 AD Domenica Barbarelli of
ligious rites in caves deco
Novi, Italy, admits to trav
rated with pictures of horses
eling with Diana, whom she
(Rawson, 10).
calls Lady of Play (Ginz
1460 AD A popular tract appears ac burg, 36, n. 3).
cusing the witches of Arras
1533 AD King Henry VIII of England
with lesbianism and male
outlaws sodomy (Barnett,
homosexuality (Robbins,
80).
468).
1539 AD The Protestant leader John 1589 AD King Henry III of France is
Calvin condemns members accused by an anonymous
of the Free Spirit as "spiri pamphlet of being a homo
tual libertines" (Cohn, Mil sexual and a witch (Sum
lennium, 178). mers, A Popular History,
164-165).
1542 AD King Henry VIII of England
passes a law making witch 1600 AD From this date on, numer
craft a capital offence (Sum ous witch trials in Guernsey
mers, Popular History, mention that sabbats occur
216). in the vicinity of Stone-Age
burial sites (Grinsell, 77, n.
1562 AD A large wood and leather
18).
dildo, worshipped at the
Catholic church of St. Eu 1612 AD Conflict arises in Lisbon be
tropius at Orange, is seized tween secular and religious
and burned by Protestants authorities over the proper
(Wright, 51). method of executing sod
omites (Lea, v. II, 485).
1566 AD John Walsh of Netherburg
in England says he gets the 1615 AD The reputed witch Gentien
power of witchcraft from Ie Clerc of Orleans con
fairies who reside in prehis fesses to ritual lesbianism
toric burial mounds (Grin and male homosexuality
sell, 73-74). among his co-religionists
(Murray, Witch-Cult, 249).
1573 AD A Swiss woman nicknamed
Seelenmutter ("Mother of 1619 AD Henry Bouget, a judge in
Souls") is arrested and tried volved in a large number of
by a secular court for "non witchcraft trials, says sod
Christian fancifulness" and omy is commonly practiced
burned as a witch (Ginz at witches' rituals (Sum
burg, 59). mers, History, 157).
1t:....,n An
1575 AD Members of a remnant of ..1.UV rl.1.J Manual do Valle d Muura,
the cult of the goddess a Portuguese inquisitor,
Diana are uncovered in Fri condemns the connection
uli, Italy. They are tor between sodomy and witch
tured into confessing that craft (Lea, v. II, 485).
they are witches who
1625 AD Paul Laymann, a Jesuit,
worship the Devil (Ginz
publishes his Theologia
burg, xv).
Moralis, in which he says
1576 AD The inquisitor Bartolom that sodomy and adultery
meo Spina says the night are crimes that lead to
riding goddess of the chase witchcraft (Lea, v. II, 680).
is worshipped by "witches"
1630 AD Diel Breull of Assia claims
(Lea, v. I, 178).
that he has traveled to the
1582 AD Witches in Avignon are Mound of Venus and seen
condemned by the Inquisi Frau Holt (Ginzburg, 64).
tion for having committed
1650 AD Numerous Ranters appear
"actual sodomy and the
in England. They are a rem
most unmentionable crime"
nant of the Free Spirit and
(Lea, v. II, 485).
advocate sexual freedom
Appendix 169
and economic communism 1780 AD An ancient dildo is still be

(Cohn, Millennium, 317; ing worshipped under the
319-320). Parliament passes name of St. Cosmus in
a law to suppress them, call- Isernia, Naples (Hamilton,
ing them "obscene, licen- 18-21).
tious, and impious heretics"
(Cohn, Millennium, 325). 1794 AD Pagan celebrations are re
ported as still being held in
1660 AD Pagan celebrations are still Pertshire, Scotland (Hope,
being reported outside of 73).
Edinburgh, Scotland (Hope,
118-120). 1801 AD The goddess Demeter is still
being worshipped under her
1661 AD Florence Newton of Ireland own name in the form of a
is charged with kissing and statue in Eleusis, Greece.
bewitching a young servant Two Englishmen, Clarke
women (Robbins, 352-353). and Cripps, accompanied
by an armed guard, forcibly
1670 AD Thomas Weir, a 70-year-old
remove the statue. The
bachelor, stuns public
peasants riot (Briffault, v.
opinion by confessing, on
III, 182).
his own initiative, to witch
craft, fornication, and sod
omy (Robbins, 534).
1694 AD A group of men called the

Brotherhood of John are
tried at Leopoli, Italy, and
claim they have visited the
souls of the dead on the
Mound of Venus and have
the power to evoke them
(Ginzburg, 64).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Although my name appears on the title page, this book has actually been a collective
effort. I give my love, blessing, and thanks to thost2 who put their insight and labor
into it. Among the many who did so are:
Leo Martello, friend and witch, who first suggested to me in 1970 that there was a
link between witchcraft and the history of feminism.
Ernest Cohen and the staff of Out magazine, who carried the first and second
installments of the magazine version of the manuscript, beginning in December
1973.
Charley Shively, Paul McPhail, Ken Sanchez, Larry Anderson, John Mitzel, and
others of the Fag Rag collective for making possible, in December 1974, the
continuation of the magazine version when Out folded.
Larry Mitchel for putting up a generous loan in order to publish the material in
book form.
Michael Bronski and Charley Shively, for editing the book-version of the
manuscript, giving me good critical feedback and moral support, tracking down
illustrations, doing layout, and overseeing production.
Michael Capizzi, for helping with the index.
David Stryker of Xanadu Graphics, for his careful typesetting .
Faygela ben Miriam, for providing me with a typewriter.
Randy Alfred, for scholarly leads, moral support, and vision.
Bernie Boyle, Michael Heppard, Paul Stewart, Michael Johnson, Michael Ferri,
Steve O'Neil, Dan Smith, Earl Galvin, and Margot Schulter, for helping produce,
in the spring of 1976, the San Francisco slide show based on this research. A special
thanks to Bernie for his hundreds of slides.
Jacob Schraeter, for bringing goddess energy to both the magazine series and the
slide show.
Murray Edelman, for enlightening dialogues and a loan to help defray printing
costs.
The Faery Circle of San Francisco for revelation/revolution.
Tede, Jamal, Sylvana, Soula, Harley, Jonathan Schwarz, Aaron Shurin, and
Assunta Femia, for supportive energy when I wondered whether it was all worth it
(which was often).
Mitch Walker for informed, precise, and caring criticism.
Hal Offen, for being my best friend.
The spirits that bring visions to us all.
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INDEX
When originally preparing the index, I first made a card for every name
appearing anywhere in the text, but in the end I decided to use only the
following personal names in the index: (1) the name of any known Lesbian
or Gay man; (2) the name of any person accused of heresy or sexual
"crime." Consequently, all the names have been dropped of inquisitors,
theologians, most kings, and all except one Pope. A.E.
Abortions, 55, 59. Clement of Bucy-Ie-Iong, 55.

Albert of Brunn, 60, 165. Cohen, Ernest, 1.
Albetti, Gabrina, 65, 73. Collectivism, 146.
Albigensians. See Catharism. Coppe, Abiezer, 60.
Amaury of Bene, 162. Communism. Early forms of in her
Amaurians, 162. esy, 61, 169.
America. Imperialism of, 113ft. Cretans, 31-32.
Animals. Animal masquerades, 11, Diana, the Goddess of the Pagans,
25, 55, 79, 86; Familiars, 86; In 11, 22-23, 24, 27, 63ff, 68, 69, 85,
early art, 17; Sexuality of, 15; 154, 159, 160, 161, 163, 165, 166,
Worship of, 21, 79. 167, 168. See also: Mother God
Antinous and Hadrian. Lovers, 38. dess.
Artemis. See Diana, the Goddess of Dibasson, Jeanne, 79.
the Pagans. Druids, 22, 79, 90.
Barbarelli, Domenica, 66, 167. Effeminacy, 22, 25, 38, 121, 157.
Beguines and Beghards, 59, 162, 163. Elagabalus, 39.
Benandanti, 66ff, 71, 73, 168. Evrard of Bucy-Ie-Iong, 55.
Bentley, Dale, 138-140.
F.B.I., 123-124.
Berdache, 101ff.
Faggots, 12-13.
Blacks, 106-107; 115-116; 124. See
Fairies, 7, 12, ISH, 73, 83.
also: Racism.
Fates, 23-24.
Bogomils, 52-54, 57, 160, 162.
Feast of the Fools. See New Year's
Bolsheviks, 141.
Holiday.
Boruttau, Karl, 143.
Free Spirits, 59, 94, 163, 164, 165,
Boniface VIII, Pope, 94, 164.
166.
Breull, Die!, 73, 168.
Brown, Howard, 140. Gay Activists Alliance, 1.
de Bugatis, Pierina, 65-66, 166. Gay History, Suppression of, 1-3, 13,
Buggers, 12, 56. 56. See also: Homosexuality,
Bulgaria, 52ff, 159-160. Male; Lesbianism.
Gasparutto, Paolo, 67.
C. I. A, 120, 123, 124.
Gentien Ie Clerc, 76, 168.
Carpenter, Edward, 154.
Gnosticism, 51-52, 59, 158.
Catharism, 47, 54ff, 73, 89ff, 161,
Goddess. See Mother Goddess.
162, 163.
Goodstein, David, 138.
Catherine de la Rochelle, 6.
Greeks, 32ff.
Celts, 7. 18ff, 39, 51, 55, 157, 158,
159. Hadrian. See Antinous and Hadrian.
Child Molestation. As a slanderous Hairiness, 83-84.
charge, 9. Halloween, 12, 21.
Christianity. Imperialism and vio Hallucinogens, 68, 79, 84ff.
lence of, 39, 42ff, 80ff, 89ff, 158ff. Harlequin, 69ff, 160.
Henry III, King of France, 76, 168. Knights Templars; Lepzet; Les
Heresy, 5Hf, 89ff; Role of women in, bianism; Manford, Morty; Propps,
130-131; See also: Bogomilism; Cath Emerson; de Rais, Gilles; Socrates.
arism; Free Spirits; Gnosticism; Horned God, 20-21, 25-27, 31, 37,
Homosexuality, Male; Inquisition; 67, 69, 71, 85-86, 159. See also:
Lesbianism; Luciferism; Massalian H a r l e q u i n .
ism; Manicheism. Incubi and Succubi, 71, 72, 76, 84.
Heterosexuality. As tool of imperial Indian, John, 104.
ism, 114-115 . Indian, Tituba, 104.
Homosexuality, Female. See Lesbian Indians. See Native Americans.
ism. Industrial Socialism, 140ff. See also:
Homosexuality, Male. Among: Afri New Socialism.
cans, 106-107; Animals, 15; Athen Industrialism. As a repressive force,
ians, 35-36; Arras witches, 167; 45ff, 87, 102, 113ff, 146, 149, 153-
Beghards, 166; Bohemians, 73, 155.
166; Cathars, 55f; Celts, 19; Cret Inquisition, 5, 55, 57, 60, 64, 65, 68,
ans, 32; Dorians, 33, 34-35; Egypt 71, 73, 76-77, 90ff, 162ff.
ians, 31; Free Spirits, 60; Native
Jews, 57, 89, 90, 114.
Middle and South Americans, 105;
Joachim of Flora, 162.
Native North Americans, 102; Na
Joan of Are, 5ff, 55, 166.
ture societies, 15; Romans, 38-39;
John of Brunn, 59.
Siberians, 105; Swiss heretics, 165.
John of Inverkeithing, 163.
Associated with : Horned God,
John of Ossmannstedt, 60, 165.
25-26; Heresy, 75, 92, 161, 166;
Mother Goddess, 44; Witchcraft, Knights Templar, 47, 92ff, 164.
76ff, 168; Kyteler, Lady Alice, 19, 27, 164-165.
Condemned by: Scantinian law, LaRousse, 6.
38, 157; Paul of Tarsus, 25; Lazarus, the Bogomil, 53-54, 165.
Church councils, 92, 158, 159, 161, Lepzet, 164.
162; Laws of Constantius and Con Lesbianism. Among: Africans, 106-
stans, 158; Law of Theodosius t 107; Animals, 15; Bohemians, 165;
158-159; Law of Theodosius II, Cathars, 55ff: Celts, 1 8-1 9; Na tive
159; Law of Orleans, 92, 163; Law Americans, 102; Nature societies,
of Edward t 92, 163-164; Law of 15, 17; Siberians, 105; Spartans,
Henry VIII, 167; Law of Thomas 34.
Jefferson, 115; Laws of American Associated with : Heresy, 55;
colonies, 115; Laws of Russia, Witchcraft, 167, 168.
China, and Cuba, 141ff. Condemned by: Paul of Tarsus,
Capitalist co-option of, 138ff; 25; Christian penitential, 159; Law
FBI surveillance of, 124. In the of Orleans, 92, 163; Witch hunters,
labor force, 131; Justinian's po 98-99.
grom, 159; Liber Gomorrhianus, Women's mysteries and Gay
160; Marxist oppression of, 142, Culture, 154.
144; Men's mysteries and Gay cul See also: Homosexuality, Male;
ture, 154; Masculinism, 125ff; Joan of Arc; Newton, Florence;
Scandal at University of Paris, 164. Rivera, Cora; Sappho of Lesbos.
See also: Antinous and Hadrian; Liberalism, 135ff.
Bentley, Dale; Boniface VIII, Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii, 119.
Pope; Brown, Howard; Cohen, Luciferism, 58-59; 164.
Ernst; Elagabalus; Gay Activists Magic, 148-149.
Alliance; Goodstein, David; Manford, Morty, 1.
Index 179
Mani, 52, 158. Servetus, Michael, 99.

Manicheism, 52, 158, 159, 160. Sex rites, 17, 21, 22, 25, 31, 32, 35,
Maoism, 143-144. 51, 54, 59, 70, 72, 74, 77, 91-92,
Marxism, 141ff. 101, 102, 107ff, 158, 160, 161, 162,
Masculinism, 121, 124ff. 164, 165, 166.
Massalianism, 52f, 158, 160, 162. Sexual Deviance. Origin of concept
Matriarchy, 3, 15, 16, 18-19, 22, 27- in religion, 71-72 .
28, 30f; 79, 102, 117, 142. See Sexual Freedom. Advocacy of in her
also: Mother Goddess. esy, 34, 60, 61, 164, 165.
May Day, 12, 2l . Shamanism, 7, 32, 36, 67, 73, 101,
Megaliths, 17-18, 74, 167, 168. 105H, 113, 155.
Minoans. See Cretans. Sheelagh-na-gigs, 19-20.
Militarism, 19, 29, 39, 41, 46-47, 105, Sibillia, 65-66, 166.
107, 113ff. Socialism . See Industrial Socialism;
Mithraism, 42-43. New Socialism.
de Molay, Jacques, 93. Socrates, 36-37, 154, 157.
Mother Goddess, 17-18, 19-20, 22ff, Sophists, 36.
27-28, 31, 34, 39, 44, 51-52, 63, 67, Stalinism, 14l .
73, 83, 108, 154, 155, 158, 163,
Technology, 122, 130, 143, 146, 154.
166, 169. See also: Diana, the God
Templars. See Knights Templars.
dess of the Pagans; Matriarchy.
Theodosius, the Bogomil, 54.
Musin, Wypat, 66.
Third World, 3, 15, 16, 17, 29, 101f,
Native Americans, 16, 29, 10Hf, 113, 113ff, 136, 153.
124. Transvestism, 9, 11-12, 17, 22, 25,
Nazism, 121, 128. 32, 36, 44, 70, 72, 79, 101ff, 140,
New Socialism, 145ff. 159, 163, 166. See also: Joan of
New Year's Holiday, 11, 21, 69. Arc.
Newton, Florence, 169. Tribal Communism, 154.
Panter, John, 73, 167. Troubador Poetry, 55.
Patriarchy, 18-l9, 30f, 41, 45, 107, Vallin, Pierre, 167.
113ff, 135, 136, 138, 149, 151, 153, Virgin Mary, 20, 28, 48, 154, 159.
155. Voeller, Bruce, 138.
Paulicianism, 53.
Waldensians, 89, 161.
Pentagon Capitalism, 12Hf.
Waldo, Peter, 89, 16l .
Porete, Marguerite, 164.
Walsh, John, 73, 168.
Propps, Emerson, 138-140.
Weavers. As purveyors of heresy, 58,
Prostitution, 105, 109ff.
16l .
Protestantism. Repressiveness of, 48-
Weir, Thomas, 77, 169.
49, 61, 83, 90, 99, 168.
Witchcraft, 63ff, 79ff; As a counter
Pruystinck, Loy, 61.
culture, 79ff; Association with
Psychiatry. As a tool of repression,
Stone Age and Bronze Age sites,
71-72, 120-12l .
73, 167, 168; At Salem, 104;
Punks, 12.
Change in church's view of, 94ff;
Racism, 27, 44, 47, 113ff, 119. Holidays, 21; Pagan nature of,
de Rais, Gilles, 9ff, 13, 167. 63ff; Role of women in, 63, 79, 97-
Ranters, 60-61, 168-169. 98; Viewed as a form of heresy, 71;
Revolutionary violence, 15Hf. Witch bull, 71-72, 94, 167;
Rivera, Cora, l . Witches' sabbat, 64, 73, 167. See
Sappho of Lesbos, 34, 154. also: Heresy; Homosexuality,
Seelenmutter, 66, 168. Male; Inquisition; Lesbianism .
180 Witch c raft and til e Gay Co u n te rc u l t u re
Women . Christian supp ression of, 6,

74-75 , 80-81, 89ff; Exp loitation of
in the modern work force, 130-13l .
See also : Heresy; Joan of Arc; Les
bianism; Matriarchy; Witchcraft .

Arthur Evans Witchcraft and The Gay Counterculture

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What groups did the author discuss were oppressed in Western civilization?

What groups did the author discuss were oppressed in Western civilization?

WITCHCRAFT

and the Gay Counterculture

A Radical View of Western Civilization

FAG RAG Books

1 Joan of Arc: Transvestite and Heretic. ..................... .. . 5

2 Who Were the Fairies1 . .................................. ... 15

3 Homosexuality and Class Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

4 Heretics: Women, Buggers and Free Spirits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

5 The Sacred Orgies of Witchcraft . ............................ 63

6 The Medieval Counterculture ............................. ... 79

7 The Mass Murder of Women and Gay People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

8 Sex Magic in the Early Third World . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

9 Sex Among the Zombies . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 113 .

10 Magic and Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Appendix: Calendar of Events .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 157

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171

On May 30, 1431, in the town of Rouen, France, a peasant woman

A clue to the importance of Joan's transvestism comes from a decree of

vestites (Russell, 156-157).

Gwiddonot" (Chadwick, The Celts, 13 6). Some sources suggest these

mothers, the goddesses presided over agriculture, hunting and domestic

included homosexuality . For this reason most of Paul's denunciations of

an accessory that should be symbolically understood, a Priapus herm [a phallic

greatly desexualized, squeezed through as the Virgin Mary, while the

Many scholars believe these male-dominated warrior groups evolved

Minoan civilization reached its peak in the period from 2000 B . C . to

Greek agricultural population, which was largely unarmed" (Wason, 30) .

education or viewed as an expression of public religious sentiment. It had

quoted by Carpenter, 24) . Classical Greek civilization became contempt

preserved a Consul's argument in favor of this ban, including his condem

lovers to be his husband. The sentiments of the ruling classes were

The rise and triumph of the Roman patriarchy brought with it a

feelings, and thus avoid the suffering of constant frustration . The

On becoming emperor, Constantine proclaimed himself the protector

well on the road to the Industrial Revolution" (Fontana, V. 2, 12).

Soldiers fighting in twelfth century Germany.

Another important step along the industrial road was Christian

development of cities, created a money economy in place of the natural

The real beneficiary of Christian militarism was a new institution that

Thomas Hall published a pamphlet called 'The Loathsomeness of Long

M ed'leval Gnostic religious symbo 1s,

1n the latter part of the fourth century a Manichaean type heresy

and exiled (Runciman, 97). Another Bogomil, Theodosius, advocated orgi

sexual: in German, Ketzer, in Italian, Gazarro, and in French, herite. In

developed, a poetry marked by sensuality and bawdyness (Briffault, 3:488

of the sun (Wakefield, 173), and notes) .

German Free Spirit, John of Ossmannstedt, was questioned by the Inquisi

The Ranters as imagined by their contemporaries.

Drawing by Krista Van Laan by permission of Out magazine.

While some so-called "heretics" tried to combine paganism with Chris

Hundreds of years before the Inquisition's great witch hunts, some

As Christian intellectuals became more convinced that these practices

falsification of i t . Where do the women say they regard themselves as

The last stage in the transformation of paganism into witchcraft

orgies, and transvestism ( Russell , 51, 58-59; Rawson, 74) .