The Power of Dead Scripts
Perhaps you want to write down a particularly secret spell. Maybe you'd like to craft a sigil and add another layer to the work. Maybe, by writing in the script, you will be able to create a chain of text that does not end.
Or perhaps you just feel inspired to use letters that aren't your own.
There is a reason witches were once said to keep black books, whose devilish characters could only be read by their eyes. There is a reason witches now still scribe out the Theban Script and their ancestral scripts in their working books. Secrets can be kept, names can be hidden from prying eyes, and spells can be revealed only to those who know the code. There is a reason why we continue to use letters and languages that distort our eyes and tongues while we read and speak them.
For when the Wiccan High Priestess casts the circle, does she not cast the same circle that was cast by Gardner himself, and that power of all those who cast it before her? When the Traditional Witch lays a compass, do they not enact that same ritual that Cochrane himself composed, and pull from all those who have done it hundreds of times themselves? And when a witch writes in a language once used daily, mundanely, do they not invoke the power of those ancestors who once used it to communicate? Do they not reach down into the well of tradition and pull from it a clean bucket of water? Do they not call upon those ancestors who lived, loved, and died, all while using their native tongue and writing, and all the power of those same ancestors, secular or not?
Why must an ancient alphabet have been used in a magical way to warrant magical use now? Why is it "romanticizing the past" to take an alphabet that is alien to your eyes, that has thousands of yesrs of human use, and to translate your letters and intention and power into that new symbolic representation of your word? How is putting more power, more focus, more will, and more intention into your writing my taking the time to translate the writing into something new, incorrect or "romanticizing the past?"
The answer is that it is not.
To look to the past and find scripts and languages no longer used, for magical or secret purposes, does not mean one is romanticizing the past, or applying some false overarching belief of magical ancestors and false mysticism. Rather, it shows the ability of the witch to find power in the mundane, and the extent to which that practitioner may draw upon the past powers, and even how much they can violate the taboos and invert the traditions of that power.
This is true REGARDLESS of which alphabet the witch may choose to use, so claiming one is Eurocentric...
...for choosing an alphabet based on ancetral ties they can forcefully pull from, rather than using their art to violate cultures that do not belong to them, is the epitome of ignorance regarding cultural sensitivity and the ways in which one may be trying to respect other cultures by pulling from their own. It also assumes far too much about the ways in which the witch interacts with the world, and how they view the world at large, how they view other religions and beliefs and countries, the list goes on.
The power of Dead Scripts is in the name: dead. "Ad finitae mortem, ad finitae mortas." An end to death by passing through death. Power through transmutation. What is dead cannot die again. And if you are cunning enough to harness the use of some dead script for magical uses, weaving it into spell, sigils, charm bags, and the like, you are cunning enough to speak with a Shining Tongue.
germansingergirl
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titsay
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