Hello, Symposiast! I’m Dr Angela Puca, a religious studies PhD and University lecturer, and this is your online resource for the academic study of magic, esotericism, Paganism, shamanism, and all things occult.
Since I am in Italy, I thought that I would make a video on open and closed practices and whether Italian witchcraft is an open or closed practice. I know that many of you are from English-speaking countries, and there are little to actually probably no reliable sources on Italian witchcraft. Because the things that, in North America and other English-speaking countries, that are considered to be Italian witchcraft tend not to be Italian witchcraft. My research is the only academic research that has been done systematically on Italian witchcraft as a whole. So, I thought that I would share the results from my research and how they interact with the discourse that is happening nowadays among practitioners with regard to open and closed practices.
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So, now that that is out of the way, we can crack on with our topic. So, what are open and closed practices? At the moment, we don’t have much academic research on the topic of open and closed practices because it is a very new topic and is something that is still ongoing. And I’m actually hoping to publish something myself on open and closed practices. In fact, I had a research paper that was accepted for the American Academy of Religion this year, but unfortunately, I won’t be able to deliver that research paper because I’m unable to go to the US in November. But, I definitely intend to work more on the subject of open and closed practices.
This is a definition, or definitions, that have appeared and emerged in the practising community in recent years. This is not really a classification that you find 20 years ago or in the past. It is a definition that has developed quite recently. And, probably, even though I don’t have enough data to say that for certain, my impression is that this classification has arisen thanks to social media and the internet. The fact that now, it is so easy to access information about any sort of tradition and any sort of practice from different traditions all around the world and from different cultures. And that has created the need to ask oneself the question: Is this a practice that I am allowed to get involved in, or is it something that is not allowed for me to practice, research, or study as a practitioner? And that’s why the topic of open and closed practices emerges. The idea of an open practice is a practice, usually in relation to witchcraft in this context. These are witchcraft-related practices that are open to everybody to learn, for everybody to engage with. They don’t require a specific type of initiation within a specific coven. So for instance, an example of this practice is eclectic Wicca.
Of course, there are also forms of Wicca that are initiatory, for instance, Gardnerian Wicca and Alexandrian Wicca. Those are initiatory traditions. So, in that case, you would have to be initiated within a tradition to be allowed to practice that tradition exactly. However, Wicca has developed in such a way that you also have eclectic forms of Wicca. The practitioners and the initiators of these eclectic forms of Wicca, like Seax-Wica, but also other forms of eclectic Wicca that have been popularized by authors such as Scott Cunningham, Silver RavenWolf, Phyllis Curott—these are forms of Wicca that are open to anybody. Anybody who wants to practice Wicca can self-initiate themselves, do a ritual of dedication, and they are good to go; they can start practising Wicca. The same cannot be said for other types of practices. There are indigenous practices – African-Brazilian practices that are considered closed practices in that you need to meet certain criteria in order for you to practice and enter that specific tradition. In some cases, it can be a form of initiation; in some cases, it can be a type of training that you have to go through. In other cases, it could be being accepted by an elder; it can be accepted by somebody who is already an experienced practitioner, and they have acquired the level of a teacher. Obviously, the term varies depending on the tradition, but somebody who is experienced enough to be allowed to teach the tradition and to pass it on to other people, to new disciples.
There are also types of closed practices that are only allowed to people within the bloodline, to people within a specific culture. So, to summarize, before we enter the conversation about Italian witchcraft, open practices are the ones that are open to everybody to practice, as long as you understand what the tradition is about – what the practices are about. If you feel that it resonates with you, you can just start and practice it, and you can be part of that tradition or part of that practice. A closed practice is a type of practice that is not available to everybody. It has some types of restrictions; it can be restrictions related to those who are even allowed to engage with it. In some cases, only people from the bloodline—you know, in the most restrictive, we could say, cases. But there are also cases where you have to follow specific training, even years of training so that you’re allowed to perform certain practices. So, this would be closed practices.
Now, the first thing that I’d like to point out is that the conversation that I see happening online with regard to open and closed practices tends to be an “either-or” type of conversation. Either something is an open practice, or something is a closed practice. And looking at the traditions and how they have been classified within the popular discourse online, what comes to mind, to me as a scholar of religion, as a pagan studies scholar, and as an esotericism scholar, is that I see that more as a spectrum rather than an “either-or” situation. Because it’s not, in some cases, that clear-cut for many reasons. Actually, the first one that comes to mind is that traditions very often are not monolithic. So, you will find within a tradition somebody who tends to be more in line with a closed-practice approach and others who might be more in line with an open-practice approach. So, how are you going to assess whether that one practitioner, that one individual, is a spokesperson for the entire tradition? Obviously, you cannot really say that. And the job of actually identifying the patterns of behaviour is the job of us, of academics, of scholars of religion. So, that’s one problem. The problem is that you don’t really find consistency; you find trends. You won’t find consistency in my experience as a religious studies scholar.
Now, when it comes to Italian witchcraft, as I mentioned earlier—and I’m sorry to say this—but unfortunately, in terms of what is available for English speakers who don’t speak Italian, it’s next to nothing. I can think of very few sources on Italian witchcraft, so I will put that in the description box, and you will find it also in the description box of my other episodes on Italian witchcraft. But, I was the first one to study Italian witchcraft and the Italian vernacular healing tradition and magic traditions in Italy in a systematic way. And I systematized it under the label “The Tradition of Segnature,” which has been published in peer-reviewed journals and will be the subject of an entire book to be published soon by Brill.
So, as basically the first academic who has studied this systematically, first of all, if you want to learn more about the basics and what Italian witchcraft looks like, check out my first video, where I discuss the tradition of Segnature. So that you don’t think that I don’t know—Stregheria, it’s not Italian witchcraft. So, when it comes to Italian witchcraft, if you have followed my work or if you have watched the episode on Italian witchcraft, you will know that the tradition of Segnature, which is the name that I use for Italian witchcraft for the reasons that I explain in that video, is a tradition that is quite varied but still presents an underlying similarity across the different regions. A similarity that is present enough for me to call it a tradition as an academic. Now, there is still a massive divide between what I called in my research the “old generation of Segnature,” which are the Italian witches, and the “new generation of Segnature.” And even though there is a divide based on age, but also based on where people live—because the old generation of Segnature tend to be older, tend to live in secluded places in the countryside, and the new generation of Segnature tends to live in cities, tends to engage more with the internet, with social media—the most important divide between the two is the willingness to share the Segnature, to talk about the Segnature. Because the old generation of Segnature, and the old generation of Segnatori—which are the practitioners; Segnature are the practices, and Segnatori or Segnatrici, it’s a male and female plural—the old generation tends to be extremely, extremely reserved. They are not going to talk about their practices with anybody who is outside of the community, and they are not going to talk about these practices with anyone who’s outside of the family, outside of the community, and outside of the network of people. So, the only way you can get a hold of these people, the Segnatori of the old generation, is by being friends or somewhat connected to them, their family, and their community. They will not, for the life of them, share their practices.
According to the old generation of Segnatori, that is a closed practice because you’re not even able to get a hold of them to know that they exist unless you’re part of the community, let alone practice those things. And for the old generation, who are also practitioners who are very Catholic, only somebody, with very few exceptions, but only somebody from the bloodline is allowed to engage in those practices. In some cases, also of a certain gender. So, for instance, in southern Italy, it’s common to say that only people in the bloodline who are also female are allowed to be passed on the Segnature. And it is also passed on on a specific day. So, you could say that it really ticks all the boxes for a closed practice.
However, with the new generation of Segnature, it’s different. As I said, the most important divide between these two generational approaches to Italian witchcraft, and these two generational ways of practising and passing down Italian witchcraft, is the willingness to share. So, the new generation of Segnature is much more willing and open to communicate their practice to other people, people outside of the bloodline. However, you still need to meet certain criteria for them to pass you the Segnature. For instance, I’m going to undertake training, another – yet another initiation, because, yes, as an anthropologist of religion, I have been initiated multiple times as part of my research, including into Italian witchcraft. And I have another set of initiations that are awaiting me this Christmas. And, on that occasion, that was limited to people who already had the Segnature, who had prior knowledge of the Segnature, and who were willing to use them for the community. Now, as a researcher and anthropologist, I’m always open. I always try to be the most ethically transparent. So, I always tell people, “I am not here as a practitioner; I’m here as an academic, as a scholar.” So, unfortunately, I might not be able to learn and be initiated into this Segnature to help people and heal people, help magically people with the Segnature. But what I will do for the community is to share these things around – internationally with an English-speaking audience, which is something that is not really done because Segnatori and Segnatrici very often are not particularly good or don’t know English at all. So, the person who’s running the specific training accepted me and actually saw what I’m doing here with you guys as a service to the community and a service to Italian witchcraft. So, I was honoured to be accepted, to be fully honest.
But, as I said, if you look at how the new generation of Segnatori works in terms of transmission of the practice, would you classify that as an open practice or as a closed practice?
To me, it seems difficult to say it’s either-or. Because, in a way, it is open; you don’t have to be part of a specific bloodline, you don’t have to be of a certain gender, you don’t have to be of any specific tradition really, to be allowed to be initiated into the Segnature. However, you still need to meet certain criteria, and those can vary. But I would imagine that you would need to learn Italian because they normally only speak Italian, and the Segnatore themselves—I cannot reveal to you the magic words—but they are either in Italian or they are in specific Italian dialects. So, you would probably need to learn Italian. And I know that in North America, there’s a belief that if you have a certain ancestry, that gives you a right to that culture. But that is a belief that is not backed by anthropologists, sociologists of religion, sociologists in general, or ethnographers. It’s actually quite dangerous to associate your DNA ancestry, which is also a test that is not very scientifically accurate for a number of reasons that I’m not getting into. But it’s also a test that is not accurate. Culture is not your DNA; culture is what you live and breathe. Culture is living and being born and bred in a country, being raised in a country, and you are completely immersed in that culture. And that determines the way you speak, the language you speak, the accent you get if you move to another country, the mannerisms, the ways of being in the world, really. It really shapes you as an individual, as a person. And it’s called culture because it is something that is cultivated; it’s not in your DNA; it’s in your life, in what you live and breathe. So, you can come from a culture, which is where you were born and bred and raised, and you can be acculturated into a different culture if you move to a different country. But either way, culture is something that is acquired by living; it’s not acquired by DNA. Now, the question that I know many of you may be wondering because I know that many people who watch my channel are of Italian heritage is: “If I have Italian heritage, can I practice Italian witchcraft? Am I allowed to practice Italian witchcraft?” And the answer is yes, I guess.
There are practices of Italian witchcraft that are shared in books; they are in Italian, I’m afraid. I know that there are some things that have been published in English, none of which I feel comfortable recommending. There are books in Italian, though. So, if you are of Italian heritage and you want to learn Italian witchcraft, I would definitely recommend learning Italian first of all. And hopefully, once my book is out, there will be something in English as well.
You can already find some free resources that I have published in peer-reviewed journals on Italian witchcraft that are in English if you’re interested. So, I wouldn’t say that Italian witchcraft is a closed practice per se, but you will need to meet certain criteria. So, I would imagine, for instance, if somebody who is American of Italian heritage wanted to learn Italian witchcraft, they would need to get in contact with a Segnatura, male, or Segnatrici, female, and ask them to be initiated. And perhaps saying, “I’m of Italian heritage; I feel like I want to reconnect with my heritage, and I would love to learn and honour this tradition and this practice. How can I do that?” And I’m pretty confident that it would be possible for people of that kind of background to get access to forms of Italian witchcraft. As I said, probably the biggest barrier would be language because, as I said, these practices are in Italian, guys, in Italian or even in dialect. I mean, even if you’re Italian, you’ve got to learn the dialects of the region that the Segnatori or the Segnatrici that you are trying to get in contact with comes from. So, you’ve got to learn the language, and that’s also a matter of respect. I mean, I would imagine that if you are born and raised in a country, so you belong to that culture, but you have Italian heritage, I would imagine that if you want to practice Italian witchcraft and honour and reconnect with your heritage, surely you would want to know the language, right? So, I would definitely recommend doing that, at least to the extent where you can try and reconnect with and connect with these people, with these practitioners, and get access to these practices. So, yeah, I guess I have said what I wanted to say in relation to open and closed practices.
And in summary, the tradition of Segnature, just like any other form of witchcraft and esotericism, is not a monolith; it doesn’t have a central authority. And so, I don’t think that you can boil it down to just saying it is absolutely an open practice or it is absolutely a closed practice. I think it depends, and in the case of Italian witchcraft, it depends on the generation. Because the old generation is definitely a closed practice, but the new generation of Segnatori and Segnatrici, I would say that it’s kind of open and closed at the same time. So, it’s open in the sense that even if you don’t belong to the bloodline, you can still get initiated. But it’s closed in the sense that you still need to meet certain criteria. So, for instance, you cannot earn any money out of those practices because the tradition of Segnature is—and that’s why I argue in my PhD dissertation that it is one of the reasons, actually, that it is a form of shamanism—so you cannot earn any money out of it. They need to be used to benefit the community and to help others, and they need to be passed down according to certain criteria. And you need to follow the practices quite carefully so that you acquire the power, “Il Potere,” as they call it in Italian. So, is that closed, or is that open? It’s a bit of both. That’s why I think that Italian witchcraft is a good example, and I’m sure it applies to other traditions, of how this dichotomy between open and closed practices should be seen more as a spectrum rather than as these two monolithic categories where you’re either an open practice or a closed practice. It’s much more likely that it’s going to be a spectrum; it’s much more likely that, in certain respects, it might be an open practice, and in some other respects, it might be a closed practice.
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