Sicilian folk witchcraft, also known as streghe, is a rich tradition steeped in folklore and ancient pagan beliefs. It encompasses a wide range of magical practices and rituals that have been passed down through generations. **At its core, Sicilian folk witchcraft is rooted in the worship of nature and the belief in the power of spirits and ancestors**. It is a combination of various influences, including Greek, Roman, North African, and Arabic traditions, which have shaped the unique practices found in this region. **One of the key aspects of Sicilian folk witchcraft is the concept of the "evil eye"**. The evil eye is believed to be a curse inflicted on someone through a malevolent glance or envy.
Both the survivalist perspective and the Marxian attention to materialist context made important contributions to the understanding of folk magical practices by emphasizing their historical continuity with earlier systems of thought, and their relationship to systems of power and domination. However, both approaches ultimately failed to address the deeply spiritual nature these practices had for their practitioners. This spiritual significance is, I suspect, the reason why despite the disappearance of Italy’s grinding poverty and backwardness by the mid-twentieth century, vernacular magical practice has persisted, albeit in mutated forms. Nor are its manifestations limited to underdeveloped rural areas. As ethnologist Cecilia Gatto Trocchi has shown, urban centres are now the sites of a variety of occult and esoteric practices, from traditional fortune-telling to New Age religious movements, which are rooted in earlier systems of magic and healing. 6 Today, a new generation of seekers is reviving old practices such as tarantismo as a way of affirming local and regional identities in an increasingly globalized Europe. 7
Allowing us as LGBTQ Witches to discuss themes around paganism, witchcraft and magic from an LGBTQ perspective, Gianmichael is a driving force for LGBTQ Witches, and always finds those who can contribute to the discussion. A lifelong hereditary practitioner of Italian and Afro-Sicilian folk magic, drawing on more than fifty years of personal study and practice, Gianmichael draws deeply from the well of Sacred Wisdom of the Ancestors and Spirits beyond the Veil, as well as the esoteric Catholic and Franciscan mystical and contemplative traditions.
The evil eye is believed to be a curse inflicted on someone through a malevolent glance or envy. Sicilian witches are often sought out to remove or protect individuals from the effects of the evil eye. They have developed various charms, amulets, and incantations to ward off this curse.
The study of Italian vernacular religion and magic
Most of the data on which my chapter is based were collected by Italian ethnologists and folklorists between 1880 and 1980, with interruptions during the First and Second World Wars. The study of folklore is never a politically neutral act, however. The kinds of materials collected, and the ways they were presented, were conditioned by the preconceived notions of the scholars collecting them. Italian unification in 1861 was followed by a great wave of urbanization, especially among the elite and middle classes, who sought in the life of the cities and the new capital a level of cosmopolitanism and sophistication unavailable in rural areas. This movement led to a surge of Italian nationalism, and a new focus, partly born of nostalgia, on what came to be called tradizioni popolari, popular or folk traditions. Italians located the source of their national identity and cultural authenticity in the Classical period, the last time the peninsula had existed as a unified entity under the aegis of the Roman Empire. Early Italian scholars sought in folklore some kind of link to that Classical past, as well as to that other touchstone of Italian national identity, the Renaissance, in order to show that contemporary Italian culture carried on an ancient, uninterrupted tradition that legitimized the existence of the state.
The early collectors worked from an evolutionary premise. They assumed that the practices of the Italian peasant class were remnants of an ancient, ‘primitive’ belief system dating back to pre-Classical times, which was destined to disappear as its bearers became ‘civilized’. Their attitudes ranged from the affectionate respect that Sicilian collector Giuseppe Pitrè brought to his informants, most of whom were also his medical patients, to the disdain of Giuseppe Bellucci, the title of whose 1919 work Il feticismo primitivo in Italia e le sue forme di adattamento (Primitive Fetishism and its Adaptations in Italy) speaks for itself. 5 While the work of early collectors has left us a wealth of material, including proverbs, charms, spells, cures and narratives, these scholars made few attempts to understand the role of magical belief systems and practices in the context of the lives of rural agricultural workers. Instead, they often preferred to compare them with the customs of ancient civilizations, so they could ‘prove’ an uninterrupted oral transmission of culture from Classical times to the founding of the Italian state. Beliefs and practices were presented as fragmentary and incomplete, not as parts of the integrated belief systems of individuals and small communities. They were also stigmatized as the ignorant productions of a peasant underclass. Because most early collectors were men, their concerns reflect those of their male informants. So, for example, we have a great many reports from men about women’s power to bind with potent love spells, but we do not know whether this reflects women’s actual behaviour, or men’s fears and anxieties. More significant still is the absence of ethnographic attention to women’s ecstatic traditions connected to saints’ cults. It was not until the 1970s that women began to enter the ethnological professions in greater numbers, and conduct fieldwork centred around women’s issues, that more information on women’s actual practices became available.
Survivalist perspectives flourished well into the Fascist period in Italy (1922–44), supported by a government whose political interests were served by the projection of contemporary cultural praxes into a gloriously imagined past. But, ultimately, survivalist perspectives were themselves rejected as outdated after the Second World War, as scholarship began to reflect a greater interest in contemporary social conditions and issues of power imbalances between the industrialized north and the underdeveloped Meridione (south) in the developing nation-state. It was the Socialist writer Antonio Gramsci, who was imprisoned by Mussolini, who most strongly influenced the post-Second World War generation of Italian ethnologists. Gramsci’s writings on folklore were brief, but significant, for they moved Italian ethnology away from survivalism at last. For him, folklore was not a ‘survival’ that was quickly disappearing, but an integral part of the cultures of rural Italian peasants, and a product of particular historical and cultural circumstances, and worthy of study in its own right alongside literature and history. In genres such as festivals and celebrations, he saw emergent forms of peasant resistance – clever, creative ways the rural underclass subtly undermined the power that the hegemony exercised over their daily lives. Following Karl Marx, Gramsci saw folklore as part of the ‘superstructure’ of society – those forms and accretions that grow out of particular economic configurations. He also believed that folklore, especially certain forms of folk belief and magical practice, were a kind of ‘false consciousness’ that ultimately blinded peasants to the forces that oppressed them by hiding the real sources of domination under a veil of mysticism. So while Gramsci idealized folklore as peasant resistance, and sought to legitimize its study as a form of culture in its own right, he also saw popular religiosity and magical practice as ultimately crippling, a relic of the past that needed to be discarded to bring about a more equal distribution of power in society.
This philosophy was very much at the heart of the work of two great Italian folklore scholars of the mid-twentieth century: Alberto Maria Cirese and Ernesto De Martino. Cirese expanded upon Gramsci’s theories of folklore, urging its study as part of subaltern culture that existed in contraposition to the hegemony of church and state. De Martino was interested in documenting and analysing Italian magical practice to understand thoroughly how magic worked within the economic, cultural and historical context in which it existed. Thus his groundbreaking studies of the evil eye belief complex and tarantismo emphasize peasants’ captivity in a system of social relations rooted in economic, social and gender oppression. Still, despite De Martino’s own origins in Naples, centre extraordinaire of the occult in southern Italy, and his deep knowledge of ethnology, he and his followers, like Cirese, saw magic as primarily a tool of the poor and weak, a form of resistance against systematic forms of domination that was ultimately unsuccessful. They assumed that as economic opportunities became available to the subaltern class, folk magical practices would cease to exist.
Both the survivalist perspective and the Marxian attention to materialist context made important contributions to the understanding of folk magical practices by emphasizing their historical continuity with earlier systems of thought, and their relationship to systems of power and domination. However, both approaches ultimately failed to address the deeply spiritual nature these practices had for their practitioners. This spiritual significance is, I suspect, the reason why despite the disappearance of Italy’s grinding poverty and backwardness by the mid-twentieth century, vernacular magical practice has persisted, albeit in mutated forms. Nor are its manifestations limited to underdeveloped rural areas. As ethnologist Cecilia Gatto Trocchi has shown, urban centres are now the sites of a variety of occult and esoteric practices, from traditional fortune-telling to New Age religious movements, which are rooted in earlier systems of magic and healing. 6 Today, a new generation of seekers is reviving old practices such as tarantismo as a way of affirming local and regional identities in an increasingly globalized Europe. 7
Another important aspect of Sicilian folk witchcraft is the use of herbs and natural remedies for healing and protection. **Many witches in Sicily are skilled herbalists and possess extensive knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants**. They use these herbs in the preparation of potions, ointments, and talismans, which are believed to have both magical and medicinal properties. The practice of divination is also an integral part of Sicilian folk witchcraft. **Witches use various methods such as tarot cards, palmistry, and reading the patterns in coffee grounds to gain insight into the future**. These divinations are often sought out for advice on matters such as marriage, childbirth, and business ventures. The role of the witch within Sicilian society is complex. While some individuals seek out the help of witches for healing and protection, there is also a long-standing belief in the power of malevolent witches. These witches are believed to use their powers for evil and to harm others. **The fear and mistrust associated with malevolent witches has led to a long history of persecution and witch trials in Sicily**. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Sicilian folk witchcraft. **Many individuals are reclaiming their ancestral ties and seeking to reconnect with the traditions of their ancestors**. This has led to the revival of ancient rituals and practices, as well as the sharing of knowledge and experiences within communities. Overall, Sicilian folk witchcraft is a rich and diverse tradition that continues to thrive in modern times. **It combines ancient beliefs, practices, and rituals to offer guidance, protection, and healing to those who seek it**. Whether one believes in the power of magic or not, the traditions and practices of Sicilian folk witchcraft offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural and spiritual heritage of this region..
Reviews for "Uncovering the Mystical Traditions of Sicilian Folk Witchcraft"
- John Doe - 1 star
I found "Sicilian folk witchcraft" to be extremely disappointing. The book promised to delve into the rich history and practices of Sicilian witchcraft, but instead, it felt more like a collection of vague and unverified information. The author seemed to rely heavily on personal anecdotes and subjective opinions rather than providing any concrete evidence or scholarly research. The lack of thoroughness and credibility made it difficult for me to take the book seriously.
- Jane Smith - 2 stars
Although I had high hopes for "Sicilian folk witchcraft," I ultimately found it to be lacking in substance. The content was repetitive, and I felt as though the author was simply rehashing the same concepts without adding anything new or insightful. Additionally, the book lacked clear organization, jumping from topic to topic without any logical flow. Overall, I was left feeling unsatisfied and wishing for more depth and coherence in the book.
- David Johnson - 1 star
I have to say that "Sicilian folk witchcraft" did not live up to my expectations at all. The book seemed more focused on promoting certain beliefs and practices rather than providing a comprehensive exploration of Sicilian witchcraft. The author often made generalizations and assumptions without providing any evidence or historical context to support their claims. It felt more like a personal manifesto rather than a well-researched and informative book. I would not recommend it to anyone seeking an objective and scholarly understanding of Sicilian witchcraft.
- Sarah Brown - 2 stars
"Sicilian folk witchcraft" didn't offer much substance beyond the surface-level descriptions of practices and rituals. While it briefly touched on certain aspects of Sicilian witchcraft, it lacked the depth and detail I was hoping for. The book often made sweeping generalizations about the history and traditions without providing enough evidence or sources to support these claims. Overall, it left me feeling like I had only scratched the surface of Sicilian witchcraft and left me wanting more in terms of authenticity and depth of knowledge.