With an Irish witch in the Big Brother house, is 'the craft' coming out of the broom closet, asks Adrienne Murphy.
As someone who has dipped in and out of witchcraft for years, attracted by the grace and beauty of its trance-inducing rituals, the inspiring nature of its symbolism and pagan lore and its appreciation of the feminine divine (I wouldn't call myself a witch but I do believe in magic), I was interested enough to tune into Big Brother this week for a goo at Mary O'Leary - the Irish witch and daughter of a former nun and ex-priest - who is currently burning in the fires of the infernal TV show.
It's only a few hundred years since real flames were the fate of anyone deemed to practise "the craft". To whip up the medieval witch-craze - when thousands of innocent people were burnt at the stake - church and state persecutors invented the diabolic figure of the evil witch, a hideous hag who ate babies and had ritual sex with Satan.
In the process, they demonised people who still practised vestiges of Europe's ancient, often goddess-centred pagan religions, as well as women who were either poor and vulnerable or powerful and independent (one English woman was executed for surfing on a home-made board).
When a person goes on Big Brother proclaiming their witchhood, you know we've come a long way since "the burning times" (though with its relentless character assassination and humiliation, Big Brother itself is a public trial and persecution). The image of the "white witch" - a nature-loving priestess or magician - is slowly supplanting the medieval hexing hag stereotype, but there's still fear, intolerance and misunderstanding about witches in the popular mind.
As an ambassador for witchcraft, will Mary O'Leary do for witches what former Big Brother winner Nadia did for transsexuals? Will she normalise a minority tarred with the "weirdo" brush?
"I don't think she's the best ambassador for witchcraft," says Barbara Lee, an experienced Irish witch who trained O'Leary in Dublin for a short time. "Certainly she's the real deal, a very talented psychic, though she's a solitary or 'hedge witch' rather than someone who does magical work with a coven. But she seems to be reacting badly to the pressure on Big Brother, letting her temper fly. I can't think of any other witches I know who'd put themselves in that very public position. Witchcraft by its very nature is an underground thing; you don't really go around broadcasting it.
"I'd say Mary didn't consider the implications of becoming a Big Brother contestant," adds Lee. "I saw her when she first went into the house - she was wearing a big black cape and carrying a broomstick, like Harry Potter's Nimbus 2000. The crowd booed her and she seemed to want to turn back. I don't see how anyone in their right mind would go in there - you'd have to pay me more than £100,000 for even one day."
In Wednesday night's episode of the show , there was a vicious verbal exchange between O'Leary and housemate Saskia over whether "the Irish witch" had called Saskia "fake" and insinuated that her boobs were false. During the row, the long dark-haired Mary bared her teeth and almost hissed, sparks flying from her eyes.
"Did she threaten to curse her?" asks Lora O'Brien, author of Irish Witchcraft From An Irish Witch, who hasn't actually seen Big Brother yet. "That's the kind of thing I'd be worried about. People fighting in a stressful situation is one thing, but I'd be afraid the witchcraft would be made an angle. That's not what it's about or what it's for, and I'd hate to think that your average Big Brother watcher is getting that impression.
"Real witchcraft is a spiritual path," explains O'Brien, "and magic is an expression of the self. It's about taking responsibility for your own life and ethics. Lots of people are looking for a new spirituality - they need something other than Big Brother in their lives. Witchcraft is one of the new spiritualities that's fulfilling people worldwide."
• Barbara Lee and Lora O'Brien are organisers of Féile Draíochta - A Festival of Irish Magic And Spirituality, taking place on June 25 in Chief O'Neill's Hotel, Smithfield, Dublin 7. Tickets for the all-day event are 20. For information and ticket sales, see www.feiledraoiochta.net
Witchcraft: a sceptic spells it out
Paul O'Donoghue - Irish Skeptics Society
While admission of witchcraft could have cost you your life up to the last century, most people now see it for what it is, ie a naive notion that, via rituals and spells, one can influence nature for good or bad.
In a scientific age, we know this not to be true. Sadly, the world is as it is - not as we might wish it to be.
Witchcraft is an acceptance of a fantasy world more the domain of children who believe they can influence the world merely by thinking about it.
Most children grow out of such credulity, abandoning fairies and goblins as they grow. Witches, it seems, can not or will not make this transition into reality.
Paul O'Donoghue is a clinical psychologist and founder-member of the Irish Skeptics Society.