Tag Archives: pagan

Knock on Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text:

“Anytime someone in my family is talking about something that has the potential to go wrong, we will knock on wood immediately as a way to protect ourselves or sort of prevent it from happening. If we were in the car or there was no wood nearby, my parents would remember to knock on wood when they got home.”

Context:

My informant’s parents have done this for as long as she could remember. While her parents are immigrants from Asia, they likely picked it up from popular culture. 

Analysis:

The exact origin of this superstition is not known for sure, but some believe it is based on ancient pagan traditions. They believed that spirits and gods lived inside the trees, therefore knocking on tree trunks was a way of asking for protection. When individuals knock on wood, they are engaging in a form of apotropaic magic. Even though they know that knocking on wood isn’t actually going to do anything, many do it as a way of easing their worries. It may be a way for people to feel as if they are in control of their own fate. 

White Peacock Encounter & Mythology

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Director of Student Engagement for the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text: “So, I was in Scotland for my fortieth… Forty-fifth birthday. Fortieth birthday. Forty-fifth birthday. Yes, I’m sorry, I was in Scotland for my 45th birthday, and I was on my way to find Iona Abbey, because Iona is the birthplace of Scottish Christianity and is kind of a pilgrimage site. But to get to Iona Abbey, you have to go across several little tiny islands to catch a ferry over to Iona abbey. So um.. and these little tiny islands have like a one lane road.

“So, my honey bun and I were driving on the last… across the last little island to catch the ferry. When we came around a bend in the road, out in the middle of nowhere, no like, country, and there was this beautiful white peacock with its feathers fully displayed, standing in the middle of the road, just looking at us. So I freaked out. I’m like, ‘oh my god you see that white peacock?!’ So the white peacock is just standing in the middle of the road looking at us, and we’re looking at the white peacock. And it didn’t move, and it just had its beautiful feathers displayed. And I knew that that white peacock was there for me, I just didn’t know what it meant. But I knew it was there for me. It did not move until we started to creep the car forward, and when we finally started to creep the car forward a little bit, it moseyed — you know, in Oklahoma terminology — it just moseyed off the road. Um… but it was gorgeous, and I’d never seen a white peacock in the wild, and I certainly had never come around a bend and had one waiting for me. But I felt like that peacock had been waiting for me. So I was mesmerized, and if we hadn’t been in a hurry to catch the ferry — because we were catching the last ferry over, and we were of course running late — I would have gotten out and, you know, tried to interact with this peacock. So it always haunted me that I never interacted with this white peacock, because I knew it was there for me.

“So fast-forward to when I’m 50, and I’m reading a book by Meggan Watterson, who’s a Harvard-trained divinity scholar, and it’s called The Sutras of Unspeakable Joy, and I think it was sutra number 14… I think it was 14. She has a line in it that says, ‘I am nothing more than the albino peacock of my own incandescent soul.’ Well, the moment I read that line… You know those moments in life where your whole body goes aflame, you’re like, “Wah!! What does this mean?” It took me down lots of rabbit holes where I was trying to understand the symbology around white peacocks in particular, not just peacocks but white peacocks. Well, there’s a lot of different things. One is that if you see one, it portends that you are on the right path, and because I was sort of on my pilgrimage at that age, I was like ‘yes, this is — I’m on the right path.’ I was sort of starting my path towards my spiritual sovereignty, so for me it was about spiritual sovereignty, and just knowing that I’m on the right path. But there’s a whole mythology around white peacocks that’s connected to Kuan Yin. And I’m gonna totally butcher this, but I want you to look it up. If I could go back to my journaling, I have it written down. But Kuan yin at some point, a goddess, was incarnate. By choice, because she wanted to be here to help the humans. And for some reason she had to go back to wherever that is. And she, like…. um… See, I’m not gonna say this very well, but the mythology is that the eyes on the peacock? She’s the one who created the eyes on the peacock. And the eyes on the peacock are supposed to be looking out for humanity while she is not here. While she is, you know, on the side of the gods and goddesses — the eyes of the white peacock are supposed to do that work for her.

“I just thought that was really cool because part of my growing up years, you know, I did my doctoral research about abusive Christianity, and I framed that through a panoptic gaze, and a punitive gaze, and it was so lovely to have a different framing of a gaze… And these eyes on the peacock feathers were a loving gaze, and a watchful gaze, but in protective way, and not like a “Let me see what all you’re doing wrong,” you know that kind of a gaze. So that’s partially why it was so striking to me. But look up the mythology around white peacocks, its pretty cool. And so now white peacocks are one of my… Totem animals, spirit animals? I don’t know what you would call it, but yes, there’s the story.”

Context: Informant RS is a highly educated individual from the Oklahoma with multiple PhDs. A key part of her life was recognizing and healing from the abusiveness of the religious tradition that raised her. After graduating college, she spent many years exploring different spiritual traditions that valued divine femininity, intuition, animism, and environmentalism. RS currently identifies as Pagan and feels a spiritual connection to Scotland, especially upon learning that she has ancestral connections there. She is also a Carl Jung enthusiast and values his theories of archetypes and synchronicity. Kuan Yin is the Buddhist goddess of compassion.

Analysis: RS’s experience with and reaction to the white peacock is reminiscent of various (and often overlapping) traditions including witchcraft, Wicca, Native American spirituality and Paganism that ascribe magical or spiritual powers to non-human beings. Thus, she interpreted the peacock sighting as a sign of guidance, protection, and compassion during a formative point in her spiritual journey. Her knowledge of Kuan Yin’s mythology in Chinese culture reflects her education and spiritual exploration, and she was able to translate her experience in terms of spiritual and religious folklore she had studied.

Easter Tradition

“A tradition I have is every year for Easter my whole extended family goes to Cabo. Since Easter is on a Sunday and most of us have school the next day, we celebrate Easter on Saturday because we have to leave on Sunday. During the day we hangout and paint and decorate eggs which will be turned into deviled eggs in a couple hours. Then, we get ready for our easter egg hunt which only involves the grandkids. There are eggs sitting on the grass on the floor, however those eggs are only for the very very young kids. Each of us has a basket we need to find and as well as candy eggs and baskets there are golden eggs that contain different amounts of money. Since we are getting older, it is starting to get competitive because we all want the money. My grandpa always gives us some hints and sometimes our parents do too. After the hunt, we all open our baskets then get into teams and play croquet. After croquet, we all have a nice dinner together at the house.”

The informant does this every year on Easter weekend in Cabo, Mexico. Her whole family is involved, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Her grandpa helps hide the eggs and gives them hints when necessary. Her parents get all of her siblings small baskets, the other parents give their kids baskets as well, which are full of small gifts like bracelets and chocolate. She believes Easter egg hunting has always been a thing for Easter, and her family has been doing this for as long as she can remember.

The tradition is part of the widely held celebration of Easter, the Christian day on which Jesus Christ was said to have risen from the dead after his crusifiction. On this day, it is common for children to hunt for Easter eggs, which are colorful plastic eggs full of candy. This holiday is often spent with family and friends and is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. Although the holiday is now a large part of the holiday economy and is very consumerist, it started as a celebration of the coming of Spring before it was Christanized. It is celebrated around the world as an important Christian holiday.

Névnap

Nationality: Hungarian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/2023
Language: English

Text:

Name Day (Névnap) celebrations are a popular tradition in Hungary. In Hungary, there is a registry of names that you can pick from when naming a child, and every child is given a name from that list. Each day of the year in Hungary is dedicated to 2-3 Hungarian names, and on that day, everyone who has those names gets celebrated. Name Day celebrations are similar but not as elaborate as birthdays. They are announced each day in the newspaper and on the radio, and throughout the day, Hungarians exchange celebratory greetings with the people whose names are being celebrated. Flowers and desserts are customarily given as small gifts, and a feast is often held in the evening with family and close friends to round out the day’s festivities. Where possible, the gifts and food are usually themed around the name being celebrated in associated recipes, cards, engravings, etc.

Context: 

The informant participated in this tradition when he was living in Hungary as a child. He explained how many countries have Saint Day celebrations where everyone who has the name of a saint gets celebrated, but Hungary made this more inclusive by expanding these celebrations to include names from Hungary’s pagan history as well.

Analysis: 

I would like to argue that Hungarian Name Day celebrations, which are meant to be secular holidays, in fact, have a distinctly religious purpose. My informant made a point of mentioning that many European countries have Saint Day celebrations, where everyone with the name of a saint is celebrated on a certain day of the year. However, Hungary chose to expand this to also include names in its pagan history that were not related to the saints or other biblical figures. However, why they chose to do this, I believe, is something worth probing further. While on the surface it could be argued that it was simply to be more inclusive, this doesn’t seem to add up. To explain, my informant told me that Hungary has a predetermined registry of names that every parent must pick from when naming their child. There are two lists, one for boys and one for girls. There are no gender neutral options, he said, and there is no room for creativity or personal expression. This rigid naming convention seems contrary towards promoting inclusivity, and so I would like to push back against the notion that Hungary merely expanded this holiday to seem “more inclusive.” I believe that it may have been a way of getting more of the population to identify with what was traditionally a Christian holiday (Saint Days), and thus, even historically pagan families with pagan names would be drawn to celebrate their Name Days in traditional Christian fashion, receiving gifts and acknowledgement to make them feel special. The customary rituals, gift giving, and greetings throughout the day all contribute to the appeal and allure of this annual celebration. Name Day celebrations were arguably aimed at attracting more people to Christian holidays, and so I conjecture that this ostensibly “pagan” holiday was a way of subtly reinforcing and promoting Christian values. 

The Haunted House of a Pagan High Priestess

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 24
Residence: Los Angeles
Language: English

Informant: A

Interviewer: B

Text:

A: “So I have a friend who, she was like 22 or 23 when I met her, but that doesn’t really matter, but she is like a certified Pegan High Priestess um a very interesting lady um and we stayed the night at her house one time uh me and my boyfriend at the time and we stayed at her house because we were all going to go to an anime convention the next day. Um and we were staying in her room and she was like “I have to warn you that my house is haunted” and we were like ‘Kimi what do you mean?” *laughs* “What does that mean?” and she was like “As a kid I did a ritual to summon a demon in my basement” and she didn’t realize it was a demon but she did the ritual to summon something in her home and since then, she was like 12, and since then it has been in her house. And we’re like “okay” and she was like “do not go down this specific hallway” and we’re like “okay umm” *strained voice* So um we stayed the night at her house and neither of us could sleep because of this feeling of awful. We were both like “did you just feel dreed all night” and we were like “yeah” and I don’t remember if it was that night or a different night but I distinctly remember um her coming to us and telling us that she woke up with gouging scratch marks on her back which she showed us and we were like “oh that’s fun and cute, how did you sleep through that” and she was like “this happens not infrequently because my house is haunted” and we were loke “COOL were not gonna spend the night at your house again, cool goodbye” and I’m pretty sure to this day that her house is haunted which is weird because she like cleanses houses, like she cleansed one of our rooms, but apparently she can’t get rid of the demon so *laughs* that’s the tale.”

A: “One is always skeptical when a friend of yours comes over and tells you they’ve summoned a demon and in hindsight I had a very high impression of this person because I met her when I was like 14 and she was like 20 something and so I like I already had a very, they’re like an older sister role model to me um but I did believe her because um idk it felt off before she told us that her house was haunted and there were actively, again this could be placebo, but my boyfriend at the time, we had concluded, we had seen things on her balcony. I guess this is a separate story but whenever we went up the stairs you would get up to the top of the stairs and, not out of breath or anything, not out of exertion, but our chests would feel heavy and other people had reported, had told us this too that “your upstairs has bad vibes”, and there was no reason for the upstairs to have bad vibes but it did and we had like seen things on the balcony like shadowy figures and were like you know what this is not good, so she like came and cleansed it and it helped. So obviously it could the placebo and the kind of wanting it to be better but um and I think a lot of ghost stories, their reliability has to do with how much you believe in it sometimes. I don’t know I think it’s fun and I hope she’s not being hurt by something that might be in her house.” *laughs*

B: “What was the house itself like?”

A: “It was a very normal house, the only thing is, it wasn’t out out in the middle of nowhere, but it was kind of on the outs. It was less suburbia and more like, I don’t know if other people use this terminology, but it’s what I would call ‘out in the country’ so but like the inside was perfectly normal. It’s not like the pool where it has an inherently creepy vibe, it was just like a house, yeah.”

Context:

The informant learned of the haunting as they were spending the night in their friend’s house. The informant and the owner of the house had been friends for years prior to the incident. The informant believes that the haunting is real and that the High Priestess is telling the truth. The informant saw deep cuts on the High Priestess’s back the night after sleeping in the same room together and barely sleeping due to a feeling of dread. Given that experience, the informant believes that the simplest explanation is that the High Priestess is telling the truth about the demon haunting.

Analysis:

I’m sure that understanding the particular form of Paganism that the High Priestess practices would help provide further context to interpret the haunting. However, the informant does not recall the specifics of the High Priestess’s beliefs. From preliminary research on overarching principles of Paganism, the inclusion of demons appears to be quite sparse. Perhaps the lack of information regarding demons in Paganism is why the High Priestess has not been able to remove the demon. It is also noteworthy that the house itself seemed quite normal and was not an uninviting space—further emphasizing the power of the High Priestess’s beliefs. I do not know what to make of the gauges in High Priestess’ back. The informant reported that the High Priestess’ back was smooth before going to bed and that she shared a room with two other people, none of whom slept deeply or left the room. Given that information, I cannot easily see an explanation for how the cuts appeared. However, I doubt the High Priestess felt that she was in frequent mortal danger as she did invite two friends to stay the night.