The Halloween Witch

This painting has come to be the classic image of the American Halloween witch. The copy shown here was published in 1903 and is truer to the original art than most later copies I have seen. Like the predecessor from 1864 below, it was published as a representation of a witch at (over) Salem Massachusetts in 1692.

By the turn of the century, the Halloween witch in America has moved far toward a rather merry, if not down right mirthful image of witchcraft.

Witches and Ghosts

I am delighted to have recently acquired this original 1864 American image of a witch. Published as an historical “view” from 1690 Salem Mass, the depiction of a flying witch in this image says much more about Americans’ idea of a witch at the time of the War Between the States than it speaks of anything Cotton Mather might have had in mind in pre-Colonial America.

In each of my four books based on Appalachian and Southern States folklore, I have included a few stories of witches and witchcraft. I do not believe that witches are ghosts, of course. But the folklore of the witch in American life accepts the idea that witches communicate with and sometimes control people and animals who dwell in the spirit world. Or vice versa.

The 1864 depiction of an American witch includes a very traditional Victorian idealized image of children. Are they being abducted or rescued?

Two important things to notice here:

1. One is the depiction of human flight in 1864. There were no airplanes in 1864. It is interesting to me that the broom is business-end forward and it appears to propel itself in flight, with the witch holding on for the ride. The witch is not so much “riding” the broom as she is being dragged through the sky holding on for dear life.

In short, the broom could fly. The witch, not so much. In early Appalachian folklore of the American witch, witches fly all by themselves. They do so by covering their naked bodies with grease and, in two 19th-Century accounts I have read, by slipping up the chimney and into the sky with the smoke from a fireplace.

I don’t know if this idea of greasy witches is a concept of witchcraft, though. It seems to have more to do with the concept of aviation that a greased human body can slide through sky.

Also note the flowing robes of the witch herself. This would change into a cloak or a cape in later American images of witches in flight. Another fifty years later, this cape would be borrowed by the artists and writers who created American super heroes such as Superman and Batman. Witches were there first.

Ghosts, by the way, don't need a silly cape or cloak to fly. They don't need brooms to ride. Casper gets around real well on his lonesome.

Witches and Horses.

2. In the upper right corner of this 1864 witch scene, a flying horse is hidden in (or emerging from) the clouds. A human form is being held close to the horse. Perhaps this person is clinging to the horse itself. One of the accepted 19th-Century folk believes of the American witch is that witches changed people into horses while the people were asleep in their beds and rode the horses on wild escapades through the night.

People used in this way by witches woke up sore, tired, thirsty and covered with bramble scratches. They could get very little work done during the course of their days unless the witch’s spell was broken. Apparently, witches had somewhere to ride horses to every night.

The more common depiction of the American broom-flying witch is firmly established by 1900 or so as a witch straddling a broom (business-end of the broom behind her) with a black cat coming along for the ride. By 1905 or thereabouts this image is so closely associated with Halloween that many people refer to a witch thus depicted as a Halloween Witch.

It is interesting to me that later images of American witches show them in pointed pre-Colonial style hats, while earlier depictions of American witches do not.

How to Grow A Ghost

1. My understanding of ghost experiences comes from decades of talking with people who have “seen” a ghost in their lives.

2. Almost equally, I have engaging conversations with people who want to see a ghost and are making an effort to do so.

3. And, finally, people who don’t believe in ghosts at all speak to me at will on the subject. Their conversations are as likely filled with interesting ideas as everyone else’s.

In trying to understand how the ghost world exists parallel to our real-life world, I benefit in understanding (and in finding my own limits of understanding) from close conversation with all three groups. I can draw few, if any conclusions about ghosts. But I can tell you how most people experience a ghost.

First, you should know that I am one of those individuals who is content to “let the mystery be” (with a nod of thank you to Iris Dement for having written such a wonderful song on the subject). I am vastly, but specifically, interested in how people encounter and experience ghosts in their lives.

I am not intent on discovering, explaining, or proving how those experiences might physically (or not so physically) occur within the laws of science, nature, religion, etc.

Because I am interested in the heart of a ghost experience and not so much in the science of a ghost encounter, I do not make limiting definitions of what a ghost is or is not. I keep an open mind on the subject. People who have pat definitions of such things bore me. Even in hard science, we need a little wiggle room of thought if we are to continue to learn and to discover.

Love.

Back to the beginning of this post, I have found a divide exists between people who have a ghost encounter and people who want to (and set out to) “see” a ghost. Most people who share their ghost encounters with me did not seek a ghost experience on purpose.

Ghosts happen. For now, let me note that people who do not believe in ghosts in any manner or form are as likely to have a ghost experience in their lives as people who openly embrace the idea that dead people can and do interact with our living world.

The most common thread and perhaps the most important thing to understand about ghost experiences is that such encounters are most often involved with heart ties. That’s right, love.

Love is center and foremost in almost all ghost encounters.

Sadly, this also means that love’s counter-balance, hate, can also create a ghost. There are hateful ghosts. Hate can bind a spirit to the real world as surely as love does.

Hate, however, does not often bind a close tie between a dead person and a living person. Hate-filled ghosts are more often tied to place and objects. As are the ghosts of people who experience traumatic and/or fearful death.

Love-based ghosts are most often tied directly to another person or living thing. By a wide margin, the great majority of ghost experiences I have collected are love-based interactions between the living and the dead. This includes ghosts that are seen, ghosts that are heard, ghosts that are smelled, ghosts that are touched, and ghosts that touch you. This includes ghosts that visit people in their dreams.

Conversely, hateful ghosts are likely the type of ghost that might be experienced or encountered by strangers who live entirely outside the realm of the ghost’s influences. Otherwise, love is the key. Many ghost encounters are private experiences.

In short, you grow a ghost from the heart. You grow a ghost from being able to love and from being loved.

A ghost experience is not all roses and Valentines. Love is not a red paper heart decorated with lace, and neither is a ghost encounter. But love is the key.

Yes, this includes obsessive love. Obsessive love and misplaced love are rarely good for anyone (although, they have their moments in our lives). Both are fertile soil for a ghost experience. I have even heard a few ghost experiences based on erotic love.

Still, the vast majority of ghost experiences I have collected grow out of a close and relatively normal experience of human love, of loving someone and/or being loved by someone.

Have you seen a ghost?