For me, it began with an interest in horror films.
In my early college years, I became acquainted with Italian Giallo, a genre of murder mysteries centering on equal amounts of gore and style. Taking inspiration from the works of Alfred Hitchcock, as well as the yellow-covered pulp novels from which they take their name, films such as Twitch of the Death Nerve and Blood and Black Lace became precursors for popular American fare such as Halloween and Friday the 13th.
However, it wasn’t until seeing Dario Argento‘s Suspiria that the interest became an obsession. The tale of a young ballet student who discovers that the German academy she’s attending is run by a coven of witches, the film’s nightmarish milieu had a profound effect on me, and I set out to find out as much as I could about the story behind it all.
Some research provided me with the fact that Suspiria had a sequel, the little-known Inferno, which took the atmosphere and themes of the first film and transplanted them into a New York apartment building. Both films stood as part of an as-yet unrealized trilogy (eventually completed with La Terza Madre) depicting The Three Mothers, a triumvirate of witches who rule the world with terror and misery.
Along with tales of his current partner, Daria Nicolodi, concerning her grandmother’s stay at a Prague music school (supposedly a front for occult activities), Dario Argento’s chief muse had been a prose poem by writer Thomas de Quincey. Titled “Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow,” the work asserts that, just as there are three Graces and three Furies, there are three Sorrows. The eldest, Mater Lachrymarum, The Mother of Tears, is the embodiment of grief (“She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod’s sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened for ever, which, heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven“). The second, Mater Suspiriorum, The Mother of Sighs, is the embodiment of despair (“She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless“) and the third, Mater Tenebrarum, The Mother of Darkness, the embodiment of depression (“She is the defier of God. She is also the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides“).
Although these were not authentic deities by any means (De Quincey notes within the poem that he sought to create personifications of abstract ideas, “clothed with attributes of human life, and with functions pointing to flesh,”) they managed to take root in my imagination. If I was depressed, or overwhelmed, I walked with the Mother of Sighs. If I suffered loss, the Mother of Tears was at my side. If I was angry, or was near to giving up altogether, the Mother of Darkness was waiting. The concept consumed me to the point that, as the final project for a Rhetorical Criticism class, I wrote a 13 page paper on the Argento trilogy, using De Quincey’s poem and a number of other quotes from various psychoanalysts, speculating on the “monstrous mother” figure found so often in film.
At the time, though I counted myself as a pagan, I didn’t have much of a relationship with the Goddess. Having read overly feminist (read: borderline misandrist) works about Wicca had put me off the idea of the divine feminine, and I tended to gravitate toward the God, in particular Cerrunos or the Dagda. The Goddess, however, was not done with me.
The concept of the Three Mothers continued to haunt me. In the fall of 2011, it was my turn to serve as high priest at my local pagan group’s monthly Esbat circle. Fascinated with the idea of honoring a deity of witchcraft, and learning about Hellenic Reconstructionist Paganism via an acquaintance on Facebook, I decided to hold a ritual in praise of Hecate, the three-fold mistress of magic and the moon. I did my homework, reading up on Greek religious practices, and trying to make the ritual as accurate as possible. What I could not gather from actual religious practices I looked to the myths to guide me on. While probably not accurate in the slightest, I did my best, and Hecate was given offerings of honey, grapes, cheese and bread, buried at the site of a makeshift crossroads. At the time, I was unaware of the belief that Hecate is but one aspect of a much older goddess; I did take note, however, in my studies, of a warning: those who invoke Hecate tend to end up as her servants for life.
About a month or so later, I was in the library at Rowan University, randomly web surfing to kill time. For whatever reason, I decided to google The Three Mothers, just to see what would come up. After a few repetitive sites on Argento’s movies or De Quincey’s poem, I came across something unexpected. It was called “Lachrymae: On the trail of the Three Mothers,” an online memoir by British film director Richard Stanley. Fascinated, I began to read on.
An acquaintance/ascended fanboy of Argento’s, Stanley had developed the same strange obsession with the Three Mothers as I had, although unlike me, he was able to discuss his interest with the man himself. Various talks on the occult had resulted in a planned meeting at a New York botanica. However, Argento, due to other commitments, never showed. Deciding not to waste the trip, Stanley investigated the place himself, and along with a few other tacky souvenirs, purchased an inexplicably dark-skinned statue of, presumably, the Virgin Mary.
Not long afterward, Stanley was in Spain for a film shoot. Having never been in the country before, he became lost, only to find himself at Montserrat, a historic castle once thought to be the resting place of the holy grail. He quickly became aware of the castle’s main attraction, a statue of la Moreneta, the black virgin. Other than being much larger, it was identical to the one he’d purchased in NY.
The eerie coincidence led Stanley on a journey to learn more about the mystery of the virgin. He discovered that there were innumerable depictions of her as black throughout Europe, from Greece to Russia, France, and beyond, both in the form of statues and paintings. All were known as sites of miracles and miraculous healings. The blackness has been blamed on candle soot, fire damage or faded paint (though none of these claims actually holds up under close scrutiny), yet the most viable explanation is that the figure is based on a much older mother, the Goddess Isis.
Often thought of as primarily an Egyptian Goddess, the worship of Isis had spread throughout the ancient world. Altairs and statues of her were often found beside more local goddesses, who she was often synchronized with, including Cybele, Astarte, Diana, and, yes, Hecate (all of whom, it should be mentioned, were sometimes depicted as black or dark-skinned). Like the Virgin Mary, Isis was the consort of an absent God, the slain Osiris, and mother to his son, Horus, who she was often depicted holding in his infant form. As the theory goes, when the church came into power, the cult of Isis continued under the guise of devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
I was intrigued, though this was not the first time the Black Madonna had crossed my path. I had seen a copy of a book on the subject at an antique store I frequent, Robert Jay’s Unforgettables, though at the time I had no idea of its significance, and it never occurred to me to pick it up. That weekend, I ran back for it, Ean Begg’s The Cult of the Black Virgin, and spent the next week devouring the text in my free time. Begg’s book, though somewhat dry, and given to going off on tangents, nevertheless provided a look into the history of pagan goddess worship, and its relationship to Mariology. I came to the conclusion that, regardless of whatever fallacies may be held by the idea of “The Old Religion,” a single divine feminine, under various guises, has indeed been worshipped since antiquity.
A week later, after having finished the book, I attended my film Industry class, having put the matter of the Virgin behind me. The topic of that day’s discussion was foreign cinema, and its effect on American filmmaking. By way of example, the professor had us screen part 1 of the Decalogue, a series of one hour films shot in Poland and based on the Ten Commandments. Caught up in the cinematography, I was taken by surprise, when what should appear in the final scene but Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna of Poland. I tried (and failed) to brush this off as a coincidence.
The next night, I stopped at a local store in Oaklyn on an errand. Despite the close proximity to my house, I hadn’t been in the area for some time. I can be forgiven, then, for being completely unaware of an occult/metaphysical shop that had opened up only a few doors down from my destination. Called “The Sacred Green Earth,” the place had been open for about a year, and was the only one of its kind for miles (one of the sad facts about being a South Jersey Pagan is that most of the good stores are either up in North Jersey or in Philly). Intrigued, I decided to check it out.
Run by a man named Ackbar and his wife Annemarie, the place turned out to be a mecca of candles, incense, books and statuary, though closer to a general New Age sensibility than specifically witchcraft. Across from the counter, a wall was dedicated entirely to worship of the goddess in her various forms, the shelves filled with pictures and statues. And, in the dead center of this tableau sat a ceramic plaque, depicting in low relief the Black Virgin and child. This was officially no longer a coincidence, but a calling.
At Samhain, I attended a ritual and potluck supper in honor of the deceased, held by my pagan group. Afterwards, one of the members, Jackie, began reading tarot cards for each member. When my turn came, I was dealt the Six of Swords, the Two of Cups, and the Queen of Swords. The Six, according to Jackie, stood for depression, and the recovery from a bad situation, which fit well with my time under the influence of the three mothers. The Two of Cups stood for a connection, an attraction, creating a bond. And the Queen of Swords was a powerful female influence, all-knowing, honest, and no-nonsense.
In other words, a goddess.
The Witches Dance 