“The Witch of Criswell” is a recent novel by John Michael Greer (JMG), an American blogger and student of the occult. Its exact relation to the author´s previous fantasy novels (the so-called Haliverse) is somewhat unclear, but there are certainly strong similarities. These include folk magic, awkward teenagers, secret societies, plot developments in farm country, and a near-future America slowly but steadfastly running out of steam. And yes, friendly anti-Communist Asians, this time from South Vietnam.
The most obvious difference with “The Weird of Hali” is that the Lovecraftian themes are missing. Indeed, “The Witch of Criswell” feels so in-house that I suspect that two of the characters, Ariel and her grandfather Dr Moravec, are both freely based on John Michael Greer himself! The least important example – but an extremely funny one – is that Dr Moravec is a Slovak-American. Slovak is a language related to Czech. And on his blog, JMG has revealed that he is trying to learn Czech. Another is the only city in the novel, the fictitious Adocentyn, named after an equally fictitious Arabic city in a medieval magical manuscript known as the Picatrix. One of the translators of the Picatrix from Latin to English is none other than JMG. The constant criticisms of Harry Potter novels are also a Greer staple, while the attacks on TV have been replaced by a ditto negative attitude towards I-pods.
The main character of the novel, Ariel Moravec, is an 18-year old high school student with some inner demons and peculiar habits. Although not autistic or extremely socially awkward, she is certainly “nerdy”, uncool and perhaps asexual. Using both wits and determination, this unlikely prodigy manages to become a cross of Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot and a folkish witch. Note the name: Ariel is a nature spirit in Shakespeare´s play “The Tempest”, but perhaps also a symbol for a neophyte in magic. According to all-knowing Wikipedia, Ariel is also a gender-fluid character, which may or may not be significant.
Most of the plot is “realistic” in the sense that it deals with folk magic (or folk superstition, if you´re a Skeptic-TM), including Hoodoo, which I assume is more or less correctly described. It´s a world of farmers cursing each other´s cattle, old ladies reading tea leaves, mojos, hauntings and strong Omerta about the whole thing. One of the witches takes the form of a very large raven! And yes, some cats and barn owls are there, too. Only at the end does it seem that the magic becomes more ritualistic and “properly esoteric”, with Dr Moravec wielding the Trident of Paracelsus (whatever that is exactly) to kill off the evil sorceress once and for all. A more exotic ingredient in the magickal mix is Cao Dai, the Vietnamese Spiritualist religion which supposedly venerate Victor Hugo as a kind of prophet (although that particular detail isn´t mentioned).
If there is any message in “The Witch of Criswell”, it´s that a magician or witch isn´t really “special”, rather it´s a normal person who realizes that *the world* is special (or more special than many ordinary people think). A more subtle point is that God is very distant, and although you can somehow feel his presence during religious services, he stands far above the petty problems of humanity – the Cao Dai ritual of praying to God doesn´t seem to stop the evil witch. Presumably, humans must therefore become more “pagan” and learn magical tricks of trade themselves, perhaps with some input from spiritual beings of a lower order than God. Indeed, everything humans can perceive is really “natural”, although some of it goes unrecognized by modern Science-TM.
With that, I close these reflections on “The Witch of Criswell”. Apparently, a new Moravec mystery will soon be published…and available at your local conjure shop?
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