I have been asked to write an article in order to spell out the differences between Wicca, and what it is coming to be known to anglo-american witches as stregheria or stregoneria. These three terms, wicca, stregheria and stregoneria have often been used as synonymous. When a difference has been made, this was in order to differentiate Gardnerian or Alexandrian witchcraft from stregheria or stregoneria, which is seen as an Italian variant of the old religion.
This article may help to clear up some misunderstanding about what stregoneria is and what is not, how it differs from wicca and from its sproots coated in Italian robes, in particular the stregheria tradition started by the American witch of Italian descend Raven Grimassi. In Italian, stregoneria, simply means ‘witchcraft’. This is the first difference to be made: stregoneria, or often ‘stregoneria italiana’, is the term that most Italian practitioners use to refer to the system of practice they adopt. Stregheria is a term that no-one had ever heard before Grimassi came up with it. So the first point of this article, which will be developed in what follows is that stregheria and stregoneria are two different things: the first is an adaptation of Gardnerian wicca to what Grimassi felt were the ways and the practice of ancient Italian witches. What wicca is should be clear to the users of this forum, so I will not dwell on the topic. However, I wish to offer a clarification before starting explaining my point.
I have no title to support my claims: I have not been initiated in any particular coven or tradition, no one has ever passed me an hand-written grimoir folded in human leather nor have I received any revelation of great mysteries. I happen to be born and grow up in Italy, and to have an inclination for witchcraft. In about thirteen years of study, I have set up my own working system. In this way, I am an Italian witch, a strega. During my path, I have received the blessing of meeting like-minded people, with whom I have discussed, exchanged and practiced magic, and explored witchcraft. This article tries to spell out differences between wicca, the Grimassian framework and stregoneria based on my experience of what witches actually do rather than of disputes about ancient mysteries and originality.
I believe that the human is a marvellous creative being, and then his fate and natural attitude is to invent. Steam engines, electrical bulbs and all sort of witcheries. As a witch, I regard this as good and a proof that we are indeed of the same substance as the dreams, and the gods. I do not necessarily consider what is new to be less valuable of what is ancient, or is considered to be so. Ancient systems of beliefs and magical practice can transmit great wisdom, but often they are also bearer of great inequality and oppression. Although witches tend to emphasize those systems and society which held women in high regard, ancient societies were often discriminating systems were women were considered male possession and transsexual and homosexual people were used as animals in act of sacred prostitution. The idea that old is good and new is unsubstantiated is an illusion, and we should not be afraid of embracing the new if it offers fulfilment and emancipation.
Keeping that in mind, I will now proceed to spell out the distinctions that I mentioned by enumerating the elements which I feel substantially differentiate wiccans from what I will call Grimassian wiccans from streghe. By the first term I mean any practitioner who adheres to the Gardnerian or Alexandrian brunches of wicca, or from a derivate of them. I am aware of the many directions wicca has taken, especially in the US, but many of the existing covens originate through a number of initiations to one system or the other, so I will allow myself this over simplification. By Grimassian witch I mean a practitioner who follows the Grimassi ‘Book of Ways’ as well as his other writings. For a strega, I mean an Italian practitioner of witchcraft who follows the ritual traditions and folk magic of Italy as his or her guide.
Instruments – I will start from where many wicca and Grimmasian handbook usually start from, the ritual instrument the witches use. It is known that Gardnerian wicca numbers a set of ritual instruments that the practitioners uses for the crafts: the athame, the bolline, the sward, the cup, the wand, the scourge, the pentacle, the cauldron, the rope. The Grimassian Book of Ways proposes the same tools, with the exception of the scourge (which was considered too kinky by much of old witchcraft). This is a strictly salomonic toolkit, which came straight to Gardner through ceremonial magic, via Aleister Crowley. This is known in the craft. The way Gardner justified this was through the common hard times that both witches and jews went through back in the days of persecution, were both were looking for good hiding places.
Grimassi basically adheres to this version, and also admits that he has mingled with the traditional teachings he received in order to mainstream the ‘old religion’ into wicca, as not to scary people out with the original ritualistic and magical elements he received. Curiously, there is literally no difference in how the tools are used and presented in both traditions, with the exception that Grimassi offers particular engravings and consecration to be mad which he coloured with a moon magic flavour. In both traditions, tools have to be consecrated and carefully displayed on an altar, if possible.
Streghe have a much poorer ritualistic set-up, and almost never have a fixed altars. Tools are found in everyday equipment, and the ‘sacred order of things’ is not reproduced every time we sit down for doing magic. For certain operations, we will use for example no blades at all, while for others the only cup might be the one that contains the oil to prepare candles and other instruments. Instruments are assembled and found on the spot, according to the need of the moments and their symbolism and use is more important than their magical associations. We would often use needles or nails instead of blades. Many of us would keep a particular knife for ritual purposes, for example, but I know of no Italian strega who does not use it to cut bread or herbs at need. We use a lot of pots, and kitchen equipment, because this is what people do here for doing magic. And it works. Our universe is less structured, but that does not mean that we do not value the complexity of wicca or ceremonial magic. Many streghe are avid reader of such themes, and well aware of correspondences and magic symbolism, that is at the occasion incorporated into the intent of the ritual. However, her will is for the strega the only instrument she needs. To receive the instruments, a wicca, Grimassian or Gardneria, will need to know the instruments and their use. The strega only needs to know what she wants to do, the she will know what to use.
This centrality of the will does not mean that we believe that it is sufficient to wish for something to make it happen, the training of a strega consists of learning how to perform ‘the things that we do’ in order to obtain her will. This is, if you want, the Art for us: not the script of a rite for the enacting of something, but the process of writing the rite itself.
Heritage – Traditions in witchcraft tend to assume that ‘the older, the better’. Gerald Gardner claims he received the first version of his Book of Shadows from old Dorothy, an English witch who initiated him into the century-old New Forrest Clan, Gardner’s first coven. Doreen Valiente, one of Gardner’s High Priestesses and the co-author of the final Gardnerian Book of Shadows, says much of Gardner’s Book came from Crowley, Leland and other known sources. However, she retains some of the parts in the book are truly original and might have been passed onto Gerald. In my view, there is the rightful doubt to be hold here, but at the same time one has no reason to doubt the word of Doreen Valiente, who has openly contradicted Gardner on many issues openly.
Grimassi is quite a different case. He claims to have received his Book of Ways from his Italian ancestors, and that it is a true and original document witnessing the cult of Tana and Tanus, Aradia and Lucifero, in its true form. As a courtesy to us, he preferred not to reveal this extraordinary material which would finally give a grounded historical basis to the whole of witchcraft. On the contrary, he openly states to have moulded it with wicca in order to make it more acceptable. And not only wicca: you find in Grimassi work every possible influence of every possible system of magical thought and spiritual development you can think of, from Chakra openings to positive thinking. There are some interesting parts in the moon magic section, and some rituals for invocation with a valid ritual basis, but the rest truly is nothing more that what you could find in any wiccan book, with the names and parts of the liturgies changed.
As I have already stated, I personally welcome innovation. However, there is a nice words in Italian for describing those who sell things confusing the buyer about the nature of their purchase: ciarlatani, which literally means ‘vendors of lies’. While claiming to derive straight from an ancient systems, Grimassi gives no ritual element to think this is true. He just sells wicca with an Italian touch to it, and calls it very ancient. If the heritage of his tradition is what makes it really unique, why is Mr Grimassi keeping all the good stuff from us, and make only the wiccan elements stand out? Why is he not providing any prove of the original material? Gardner was witch enough that his materials have been witnessed by many eyes, dismantled at the occurrence and retained good stuff and taking out the unwanted, Grimassi is not giving is initiated the same choice.
Grimassi claims his documents to be the original version of Leland’s Il Vangelo delle Streghe text. The origins of Lelands text are still debated, but it is interesting what Grimassi thinks of the text. In the introduction to his Book of Ways he claims it to be a vulgar, Christianised version of the original text – especially for the ‘bad magic’ which it contains. I am not versed enough in anthropology or history to assert claims on the genuine nature of Leland’s text. What does struck me is that it is a text of revolt, a tale of oppressed people and their prohibited religion, their dreams of revolts against their oppressor and the occurrence of witchcraft as the perfect tool to do it. It comes straight from the mouth of the Goddess, who warns her disciples that they should not be evil but claim vengeance against their oppressors in her name and with the power of the witches. False or true, it is a very powerful text which Grimassi rejects on the basis of its evil and corrupted nature.
However, one thing that sorcery has always been in Italy was a thing of revolt. As Storia Notturna and I Benandanti by Carlo Gizburg clearly shows, witchcraft was often the only way of pursuing a better life for peasants and people of the lower classes of society. The Gioco di Diana, the witches council, was an affair of the poor and emarginated who confabulated witcheries against the wealthy. Witchcraft has this power of subversion: of letting you turning the laws of the ration world upside down in order to see what is unseen by others, to liberate you and your loved ones by the blindness of society. It was the game of the poor, it still is the game of the poor.
The Game, (il Gioco or Giuoco) is the name by which the witches Sabbath was often named by the streghe during the time of persection. Gioco is in interesting word, as it derives from the latin ludus which means game, but also ‘the place where one goes to learn things’. It was a moment of fun, but also of learning things that the Good Lady of the Game (La Buona Signora del Gioco) would teach her disciples. Stregoneria is an art of learning, and learning means changing and growing. However, few Italian streghe claim to have direct heritage of this experiences. The ones among us who have received traditional magical teachings, have received them in the form of Christian spells and rituals. Often the ritual structure of these proceedings adapts very well to a new, pagan form. Sometimes it does not. But there is not, and there has never been to my knowledge, an Italian Book of Shadows, nor Book of Ways. Italian streghe could hardly read and write, and when they could they would normally pin their magical recipes with their kitchen recipes and herbal remedies, calendar or church notes. Yes, many old ladies were in possession of ancient magical text. This sounds absurd, but I witnessed myself as a young boy two old aunties having a remarkable ancient copy of the Chiave di Salomone. This was held on a stall, and revered as a sacred book. However, this was revered as a most saint book and sometimes read very slowly out loud, but never was ever enacted from it. But there never was a systematisation of all the magical practices and beliefs all around the countries. There were, however, compendia of folk magic and to those we look with interest. They are similar to those anthropologists have collected in other parts of the world, as in France, Eastern Europe or the Maghreb. It is very likely that many Italian streghe might have relied on this sources to elaborate their workings.
The discovery of the ‘true Italian way’ has also been replicated on the peninsula, when since the middle of the first decade of 2000 interest for the matter has grown. Both texts of which I am aware, Dragon Rouge’s La Vecchia Arte and Corte degli Scontenti’s Il Sabba Italiano make the same mistake as Grimassi, selling as ‘Italian’ something which has his roots in witchcraft. With the difference that none of these authors seem to have a Wiccan initiation neither, which makes things more confusing.
However, there are some rituals circulating that have their roots in the traditions of our campagne. This came out when the internet became a place of discussion for streghe, and people started getting in touch and talking about their practices. In particular, a group formed around M, a strega of Northern Italy, which adapted rituals from folk traditions, both public private. This is really the best collection I have ever seen of truly Italian traditional witchcraft. It has nothing to do with Wicca, apart from a series of symbolic references which remands to what witches do all over the world. This material is circulating among quite a few of people. I have only seen a part of it, and I doubt anyone has really all of it in its entirety. There are quite a few witches who work this way. Their practice is the combination of received teachings, personal discovery and exchange with other practitioners. The work done by Italian occultist such as Ottavio Adriano Spinelli and Franco Spinarsi highly influence and permeates this material, as does some of modern Wicca. The uncertainty of our origins is why, as Italian streghe, we have always been the less loud and strict about our identity. If we have one, this is generated by the common experience of the heritage of Italy, its nature and its culture and most importantly of the places we grew up in, their traditions and folklore. To some of us, the traditional catholic covenants of saints devotes have more to teach than High Magick books, which many of us also read. But our primary source are people’s tradition, our grandmothers and our senses. Other magical systems and magical knowledge comes in when it is needed to complete the missing parts, or to integrate what we feel necessary.
Religiosity – This is a crucial issue, that is why I am tackling it before everyone gets exhausted and gives up the reading. In Wicca, the magical act is always a celebration of the Gods. With relevant differences, the presence of the Gods is always enacted within the circle. The coven’s year is based on the celebration of the eight Sabbath, and great importance is given to observing religious duties. To reconstruct the divine polarity, the traditional wiccan coven works in couples, male-female. The Great Rite is the enactment of the cosmic mating of the God and the Goddess. Wicca is a very religious philosophy of witchcraft. Drawing down the Moon must be performed upon the High Priestess, while the High Priest is the sacrificial God of Death and Rebirth. Wicca has a quite structured religiosity, which is intrinsically polarised between a masculine and feminine principle[1].
As you will have understood at this point, Grimassi’s system is no different. In his Book of Ways, although stating that the perfect realisation of man and woman is in bisexuality, Grimassi states that the ritual performance of the God and Goddess must be enacted by the respective sexes. The religious structure of stregheria is built on Gardner’s system, we have now sorted it out.
Not having a clear heritage, Italian streghe differ in these regards in two ways. First, there is no clear religious tradition among streghe. Most of us, nowadays, identify with modern pagans. Others are atheists or gnostic, others are Christians. The key principle here is that a strega uses divinity as one of her tools. I know this might sound blaspheme to wiccan witches, but this is how it is. We know that our rural witches used anthems and blackmailing on the Christian saints, who often covered the pagan gods. This is a way of affirming one’s will, and of giving directions to energies. However, often the Christian version of an invocation or spell is the most powerful one, so the strega might decide to keep it. Other times, spells and signs have been passed very secretly in a Christian forms, through generation. What right as one witch to alter this common heritage? Why substitute an expression full of power such as ‘Mother of the Verb’ with another one?
As streghe, our practice is our concern. Stregoneria is our art, through which we shall find fulfilment. Religiosity is our companion in life, and we accept it with an open heart knowing that if we are true to ourselves the gods will be true to us. We do not need to prove that we come from an ancient heritage or dynasty, we light our candles and we pronounce the words of power in our dialect. And we call them with the Christian saints name, or their pagan names, or we just conjure them by the power of our will. Explain the Legend of the Descend of the Goddes to a strega and she will probably fall asleep. Ask her how to prepare ritual soap, or the ritual candles, and she will keep you up all night. Stregoneria is an art of doing.
The second point is that we do not feel polarity as our main concern. Again, I am speaking for myself, but I think many Italian witches would agree with me. This all knife-into-the-cup affair looks very ceremonial to us, and we take it with care. We do not focus so much on the Great Rite, not having any traditional version of it passed onto us. Some of us do know it and have performed or still do, but our power does not come from the ritual mating of the God and Goddess. It comes from within ourselves, and our own sexuality reflects our practice. We might perform the ritual mating when we think we need it, but it is not and has never been the basis of the practice of Italian stregoneria. We do not feel it relevant to have our cup and knife always with us, and we do not think this gives less value to our magic. This would also hopefully help find themselves more at ease gay, transgender and other people who do not feel well in the extreme polarity Aradia-Cernunnos, Tana-Tanus. Especially in covens.
Also, while presented as ancient as humankind, this polarity is the byproduct of a misconception about how pre-historic (and sometimes also of acient-classical periods) men and women conceived sexuality. The dominant paradigms of evolutionary psychology that were the tenets of such assumptions during the last century, that the survival of the species was ensured by pre-historic humans by stable heterosexual bonded pairs of male-hunters and female holding the mysteries of lives. While it is true that in pre-historical societies women might have hold places of power, the latest research in archeology, ethnology and anthropology show that human societies had a much more complex view of sexuality. Male-female couples were the exception, while sex was practiced as a common social form of relaxation and conflict-resolution and of procreation. The view is expressed in the book Sex at Dawn. The book’s perspective on the subject spoils it of its veil of sacrality (the Goddes and the Horned God and Their Sacred Mating) and brings it back to the realm of everyday life, were sex is experienced as a form of enjoyment, friendship and sometimes of power and vengeance, not only for procreative love or the union of a male or a female. The energy necessary for sex magic is also produced by male and female masturbation, gay sex, orgies, and a whole series of sexual practices that do not involve any enactement of the Great Rite (aka ritual penetration, by means of human or ritual enactement). Wicca is based on the assumption that human sexuality is fundamentally the game of female and masculine sexuality, while ignoring the fact that sexuality is for humans much more than the moment of procreation and although this has a very powerful symbolic meaning, it is a fantasy to think that magic works most effectively if practiced by a male and a female who work the opposite pole of a battery as this ignores the many ways in which nature presents also non-procreative copulation, hermaphroditism, a-sexual reproduction and a whole series of way of reproducing life that go way beyond sex. We tend to see the dynamics of human life as the universal principles of nature, but this is a very anthropocentric (and antropomorphic) view of how nature works.
Covens and Celebrations – Working in covens is the rule for Gardnerian wiccans, although with the spreading of the religion in the US solitary practice has become another mass form of wicca. However, the wiccan natural state is the coven when, with his or her partner, she can experience the three degrees of initiation. Again, this is no difference in Grimassi.
I am not aware of estabilished covens of traditional Italian whitchcraft, and I am quite sure that the ones which openly claim to be so are not. I have my suspects about a group or two, but I do not have bulletproof evidence that these are genuinely working by traditional initiation going back at least, say, a hundred of years. What I know for sure is that much knowledge has been passed within families or from person to person. There still exists a variety of these practices transmitted in Italy, and it is not rare for people to often exchange initiations. However, there is again no Book of Shadows to be copied but only single rituals, teachings and spells. No structured systems that might hint at a series of coven originating from one original initiator (of course I might be wrong, and I might just be unaware of it).
However, Italian streghe rarely work in coven. Traditionally, much of the work was solitary or performed within the family – grandmother with a suitable niece, mother-daughter (or mother-son, or father-daughter, father-father…). This does not mean that streghe did not help each other, and still do. Italian streghe are still very active at exchanging rituals and practices with one another, and they may gather during difficult times or to perform celebrations or magic. However, most of the strega research is solitary. Some Italian wiccans who have also integrated traditional Italian sorcery in their practice keep a coven structure, which they call ‘famiglia’. Such wiccan clans do exist, although they are scarce and represent an interesting mix of wicca and truly Italian traditions.
One of the reasons Italian streghe might meet other streghe is the celebration of festivals. As already explained, streghe observe festival in a less strict way. Candelora, San Giovanni, Ognissanti and the Winter Soltice are our most important festivals. Many of the rituals that have been elaborated in the strega community cannot be made public (I attach, anyway a rite for Winter Solstice that has already been made public, and which suggests the differences with wicca that I am talking about).
Ethics – The one rule of Wicca is ‘do as thou wilst, as it harms no one’. The Grimassian system, no surprise, adheres to this rules. Streghe do not. It is not because the rule was invented by Gardner, as many practitioners of modern wicca know, but because we realise this is not the way it has been passed onto us or how we perceive stregoneria has been used. It has always also been a tool of active protection and of rightful revenge, and for that we use it. Also with intent of attack. As I have already stated, the fact the our ritualistic elements are simple does not mean we cannot be skilled magicians. Many of us are aware of the possible ‘blow of return’ of magical operations, and we take it into account and embrace it, or reject it. There are techniques to do that that some of you may be aware of. This is important to us: we do not feel limited by a cosmic law, but by our own reasoning and our own will. We will not judge the strega who decides to harm, as she might have the right reasons to do so. We do not judge weather this is ‘ethical’ of not. Magic, for us, is a tool we use – as we do use a club or kitchen spoon: of course every action one takes in her life has consequences, but that does not mean you do not take action. You find a way to master the consequences, to the extent that you can. This is not something that we feel we should judge ethically, it is not how nature works, and our power comes from nature.
I was dubious as whether to insert this section or not: there is a weird ‘let’s play whose got it longer, and blacker’ in the witchcraft community, especially among those labelling themselves ‘traditional withces’. As I have explained, ethics is not the only thing that divides us, I suspect. What divides us is the way we conceive witchcraft: for the wiccans and the Grimassian, witchcraft is a system of practices to get in touch with the Gods. For streghe, besides a spiritual endeavour, is a useful skill to have, like being able to play the piank and kung-fu. If you master a martial art, for example, you can choose to attack someone and hurty him very badly in a quarrel outside of a pub, let’s say. Of course there will be consequences to this. One consequence might be that the police comes, and puts you in jail for a couple of months. Another might be that you get away with it, but they you hurted your adversary so badly that you might feel guilty, wretched and miserable afterwards. Another possibility is that the person’s pals arrive and really teach you what ‘three times’ back means. Or you can just get away with it, and be happy because he deserved it. In short, every action in human life entails consequences, and these might entirely depend on the situation and on the person taking action. Witchcraft is a human thing and although it acts according to its own laws, we do not see why ‘karma’ should work in two different ways for witchcraft and for kung-fu. A witch who performs aggressive magic might be fully aware that a ‘blow of return’ is coming, and might be ready to accept it because it’s not that relevant, or because she feels it’s right, or she will try to manage it the best she can. The only reason why one would do that it’s because she things the objective to be achieved is worth.
Materials – This might look a secondary subject but, to my view, it is not. While wicca (in all its strand) has been highly contaminated by the mass market-lead of witchcraft of the past decade, streghe remain quite isolated from it. This is also because of the mighty presence of the Catholic Church in Italy, for which the owner of an esoteric shop can rarely be quite. What I want to say is that Italian witches are commonly concerned with the purity and natural origins of the materials they use, which is a top priority for many of us. This means not relying or buying incences, candles, oils, creams and obviously herbs. This is also the reason of the ‘poor’ nature of our witchcraft: Italin countrymen did not had access to blue or green candles, but they had an abundance of greasy white and black candles. Some managed to produce red candles as well, but rarely beyond that. Candles are usually produced by the practitioner, and some of our ‘festivals’ provide moments for the preparation of ritual materials that will be used throughout the year. We tend not to use synthetic candles nor incenses either, and this is also why herbs are so important in the practice of many of us. They make up the very correspondential basis of our rituals, and it is the way through which we give carachter to our magic, which is very often herb magic. We value the use of herbs, and hold in great esteem handcraft abilities. Many streghe are also able artisans, professional or otherwise.
[1] I am fully aware that there are wiccan groups nowadays for gay people, lesbian, transexuals etc.. and who see sexuality in a very different way. This is very welcome, but does not change the fact that the basic theology of wiccan is based on bipolarity, and that these are strong amendments to it .
The Strega Lore 