How that guy from Tombstone changed my life:

Back in the late 90’s there was a large influx of young persons who began dabbling in the Occult due to movies like The Craft and shows such as Buffy and Charmed. The Pagan group I was a part of during this time was rather disdainful towards these newbies, irritated with the misinformation that surrounded them, ridiculing these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed novices with their fresh-of-the-shelf copies of Teen Witch by the infamous Silver Ravenwolf, and shiny tales of “self-initiation” rituals.

To say that they were not welcomed with open arms would be a vast understatement.

Personally I believed that it was better to treat them with as much kindness as possible, as even if the majority of them were just going through a fad, at least they could take away something positive from their experiences, instead of tainting everything they encountered with mockery and derision, which would only result in making them bitter and narrow-minded as they grew out of their witchy phase. What can I say? I was a much nicer person back then, more tolerant of other people's bullshit.

Although, there was also a more personal reason behind my desire to not snub them, as I too was first brought over to the Occult due to a film.

During my youth I had access to books on Greek mythology. When I was very young, my parents had purchased a copy of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths for me and I was immediately captivated with the stories within. While I attended church services with my Mother at the time, I never saw any conflict between her God and the ones I read about. To me, they were all equally real, so even at an early age I was a polytheist.

It wasn’t until I attended a private, Church of God school, around the age of 10, that Monotheism’s less tolerant views on other religions became known to me.

I did not have a very positive experience in that school, but I will not go into detail about that, as it would take far more time than I’m willing to bore anyone with now, just that in the end, I had my breakdown, in the middle of class, which resulted in my expulsion from the school and a week at home while I waited to be enrolled in one of the worst public schools this state had to offer.

During that time I was silent, withdrawn and not in a very healthy frame of mind. My parents did not know what to do with me, and their disappointment in my behavior only added to the myriad of other issues that weighed heavily on my mind. I had experienced frightening visions and voices towards the end of my breakdown, which had lasted around 3 hours in total, and while it had cleared my head long enough to help me find a way to contact my mother, so she come to the school, the lucidity did not last long, and wasn’t helped much by the fact that by the time my mother arrived, she ended up walking in on 3 of the school’s administrators screaming at me while I lay in a crumbled, crying heap on the floor at their feet.

To make matters worse, the teachers had personally visited the parents of the two girls I had befriended in the school and warned them that I was a bad influence and that it was possible I was possessed by demons. One of the girls was able to sneak a single phone call to me in order to let me know that both of their parents had forbidden them from ever contacting me again, so for the first time in my life, I was completely alone.

That first night home, I was numb, and stayed locked in my room, mindlessly watching TV when the movie The Doors came on. I only watched it because the teachers at my school had made such a fuss over it’s release, telling the class that their songs were code for worshiping Satan.

I wasn’t paying much attention to the movie overall, the music didn’t really appeal to my tastes, and was woefully disappointing in terms of how evil it was built up to be, but one scene in particular stood out to me. Anyone who has seen the film should already know which one. It was the ritual scene between Jim Morrison and the Witch, Patricia Kennealy, whom he ended up sharing a fling and hand-fasting with.

While not very in-depth, her speech about witchcraft struck a cord in me. Especially when she mentioned the Bacchae. I already had a fascination with Maenads from the stories I’d read, so I took the scene as a sign, and decided at that point that I would find a way to gain some form of power, something I desperately craved since I had just lost all sense of myself, and had my confidence and personality brutally stripped away from me.

Right after that film went off, Warlock came on, with the ever-adorable Julian Sands in it, and I knew that it too was a sign, so that was the title I claimed for myself.

While not nearly as romantic as the awakening experiences of others, at the time it held great meaning to me. I had never heard of anyone practicing Witchcraft before. Even for years afterwards, I honestly thought that there were no other witches around. I was young and ignorant and had zero information in which to guide me. I didn’t care that I was building a belief system based around the voices in my head and a movie about an over hyped 60’s band, nor did I worry about the gender association of the term Warlock. I just knew that these were signs and even now, looking back on how it all came into play, I know that I was right in the choices I made. 

Even now, knowing how some terminology is ostracized by the Occult communities, I still wouldn’t change a thing. Whenever anyone gives me the “oath breaker” speech, I simply smile and tell them that I am re-claiming the term, even though it is used by Satanists and some Scottish Occultists, so it’s not as if I’m even original in my usage of it.

And while I was originally drawn to Greek theology, I still utilize the term Bacchae, instead of Maenad, as it was the first to truly speak to me, even going so far as to refer to my bi-monthly OBE rituals as Bacchanals, as it is a time where I allow the madness to fully take me over so that I can leave my body to shift and join in on the hunts of the full and dark moons. The term is not limited to just those rituals though, as in my path, it can also represent any time when a person fully gives themselves over to ecstasy and revelry.

I have learned to trust my visions and the voices, whenever they decide to make themselves known to me, and I still utilize films as a form of divination. While I have received no end of mockery due to this, as it’s not seen as being a “witchy” form of scrying, it has always worked for me and it’s not as if it is my sole resource for knowledge. I believe that signs can appear through any means and refuse to fabricate my choices simply because technology isn’t as respected or embraced as reading tea leaves or rune stones.

And while this is not the whole of my story, it is how I began my path, and why I don’t tend to feel any sort of scorn over those who began their interest in the Occult through similar means.