The Kiss of Infamy

Our eyes are wild. Our hair is unbound. We are aware of the enormity of the task that lies before us, and we are quite prepared to do our part. We are the witchcraft. And we shall overcome.

From Slippery Elm

Distancia
negra tiniebla que bate mi piel cansada
Silencio como una daga múltiple
investiga en el aire los huecos de mi cuerpo
Sueño
entre dragones que conquistaron la luz
Vuelo
condenado y difuso entre las sombras

***

Distance
black darkness that strikes my weathered skin
Silence, like a multiple dagger,
seeks through the air the hollows of my body
Dream
among dragons that conquered light
Flight
condemned and diffuse among shades

—poem and calligram by MAAM (María de los Ángeles Argote Molina) (b. Jaén 1955 - d. Granada 2013)

Distance has personhood, is as animate as the things it separates or draws near. Ask practitioners of the plastic arts, especially those who paint landscapes, and they will assure you that Distance has its own colour. By daylight, from far enough away, all things fade to a faint greyish blue. Or by night, to black, to umber.

Many languages have precise words for this very colour, have concepts to express that person who emerges when the distant sea cannot be fathomed as distinct from the sky. Distance itself is the bluish-grey veil that substantiates the erotic pull and push of physics, the tension between form and force. It is the veil of separation that makes communion impossible, while at the same time it gives communion a further depth of intimacy. It is the darkness that gathers around the faintest candle, that its tiny flame glitter all the more brightly.

The animate qualities of Distance have perhaps never been made so apparent as in the present age, in which social distancing, cloth masks, the gasping for air of oppressed humanity and suffocated nature, presage the unfolding of a new masque of anarchy. In old growth forests, immense trees come crashing down, branches splinter, and the whole canopy of things is shaken. From this instability, from this ruin, saplings, shrubs and all the mossy creeping creatures of the forest floor may achieve the conditions for their mutual thriving, and stretch in the sunlight now pooling out of gaps just opened in a sky of leaves.

The kiss is an age old symbol of this union, of this solidarity. Of seemingly disparate entities coming together in harmony to achieve something thought to be beyond the bounds of each. In an age in which cloth masks cover our mouths and concern for the safety of ourselves and our communities make kissing taboo, almost forbidden, it might seem a strange venture to explore the revolutionary power in the symbol of the kiss. Yet, the present circumstances also provide us a unique opportunity to examine the kiss from afar, to hold it up and turn it over in the light as we would a multi-faceted jewel.

Der Kuss [The Kiss] by Gustav Klimt

There are many kinds of kisses. Not all of them are revolutionary or empowering, let alone healthy. In the Kiss in History, Keith Thomas writes that a kiss may express

“deference, obedience, respect, agreement, reverence, adoration, friendliness, affection, tenderness, love, superiority, inferiority, even insult. There is no such thing as a straightforward kiss.”

We can add to this list that if a kiss is forced, given without consent, it constitutes assault. Some kisses oppress, some kisses empower.

If the kiss is a microcosm for human interaction, observing how kisses are given in hierarchical dynamics can be instructive in how kisses can work to subvert those selfsame hierarchies. The kiss is symbolic and conducive of apotheosis and mystical union, of the realization of personal power that clears the air for the arrival of freedom on grander scales.

The mystical kiss vis-a-vis hierarchy and its subversion is explored by Joel Hecker in his essay “Kissing Kabbalists: Hierarchy, Reciprocity, and Equality”. The Zohar is replete with kisses. Kisses given, kisses taken. Kisses denied, kisses received. Kisses from above, kisses shared. Kisses exchanged between God and the mystic’s soul, between angels and God, between angels and humans, between master and disciple, between initiates, between human lovers, even between different sefirot on the Tree of Life. There are palaces in the upward ascent toward the godhead that are “populated by kisses”, where “desire rejoices in desire”, and where angels kiss the words of prayer uttered by mystics in the world below as they pass by on their stellar journey.

Queen of the Sabbat by Ephraim Moses Lilien

For kabbalists, the ultimate kiss is that of devequt, or in other words, mystical union. It is said in Jewish tradition that Moses, Aaron, and Miriam all “died by a kiss”. This mystical “death by kissing” was something actively pursued, and thought possible to achieve in this life, not just as a point of transition into the hereafter. In the kiss of devequt, the mystic may even achieve redemption from the angel of death.

When kisses are concerned, the biblical verse that is repeated over and over in kabbalistic literature is a line from Shir ha-Shirim [Song of Songs]: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine”. While the lovers of Shir ha-Shirim are often cast by apologetic rabbis as ciphers for God and Israel, the attentive reader does not have to recourse to biblical scholarship to observe how this sublime piece of scripture asserts that love itself is holy, and has direct and blatant origins in the poetry and liturgies of the pagan “Near East”. 

The mystical nature of devequt, kissing as practiced by angels, and the grounding for the holiness of kissing in scripture form the basis for kisses exchanged between humans to be understood in the same mystical terms. Consensual kissing can feel good on a physical level, but can also have the power, for an eternal instant, to turn all one’s world to precious glittering gold, much like the kiss-induced gilding depicted on Klimt’s controversial canvas.

Kabbalists also exchanged kisses as blessings, and as gestures in rituals of initiation, at times given with the following formula: “Your name is light, and you are light, and light rests with you”. A gilding of the spirit, and a transmission of light from mouth to mouth. Or as Joel Hecker puts it: “The kiss is an embodied gesture that completes the exchange and marks the union of the two figures in an intimate social and esoteric compact”.

The ritual role of the kiss in this context finds parallels in rites of vassalage prevalent at the time Kabbalah emerged (or re-emerged) in medieval Europe, in which a would-be vassal kneels and clasps hands with his lord to be, with whom he then shares a kiss. The kiss sealed the bond between the two. As we explored in The Dead Hermes Epistolary, Occitan and Catalan troubadours, in a manner similar to the Arabic and Hebrew poets of Al-Andalus, subverted this hierarchical relationship in enigmatic and iconic ways in relation to their Ladies and Sovereigns. The kabbalists, especially the famous hevra [circle, brotherhood] active in thirteenth century Girona, were aware of the poetry being sung by the troubadours and a marked troubadour and andalusī influence can be found in the poems of kabbalist Meshullam de Piera, of whom we have written extensively.

The mystical bottom line for the importance of the kiss in all these instances is that a kiss constitutes a mingling of breath, and breath is the spirit. The mouth is the door of the spirit, and when two people or entities share kisses, their spirits intermingle. As a result of this intermingling, this union, identities are blurred, genders melt away, and a spirit far greater than the sum of those who cleave together in kissing emerges from the union.

For example, the Zohar Hadash on the Song of Songs reads:

“He shall kiss me”—this is the cleaving of love, of spirit with spirit.

For there are four spirits that join together and become one: one

gives his spirit to his fellow and takes the spirit of his fellow who is

cleaving to him. Thus his spirit and the spirit of his friend make

two; and the same is true for his friend. Thus there are four spirits

that are united as one with these kisses. “With the kisses of His

mouth”: from those supernal kisses that He had kissed before.

For there is no love and enjoyment unless they come from the

kisses of the Supernal Spirit [to those] below.”

Joel Hecker provides the following commentary on these lines:

As noted above, many cultures understand kissing as an exchange of breath; that is, the mingling of two people’s breath/spirit. In the Zohar’s representation of kissing, breath is exchanged by the partners such that A gives of his spirit to B, and reciprocally B gives of his spirit to A. Zoharic mathematics yields four souls: A & B1 in one person, B & A1 in the second. The full mystical potency of the human kiss rests upon the notion that human kisses have their origin in the primordial kisses that God first bestowed upon humanity, in which God breathed life into the inanimate lump of clay of Genesis 2. Kissing between a man and his fellow not only marks the mutual fructification of souls, but the kissers thus participate in the paradigmatic kiss that stands at the very inception of life. There is neither true pleasure nor true love in human kissing unless it is grounded in consciousness of its source. Moreover, through kissing, the two have become one, overcoming the divisions into self and other that are the stuff of commonplace experience…

In other words, rather than falling into the neat patriarchal superiority of male over female, master over disciple, the kiss offers a graphic image emphasizing the horizontal axis rather than the vertical… The potency of the kiss, I believe, is that it disrupts this easy division by evoking a relationship that is both equal and hierarchical, loving and dependent, horizontal and vertical. Indeed, I would suggest that the visual appearance and sensual experience of the kiss confound these easy dichotomies, most particularly in the context of mystical experience in which boundaries are blurred and discrete identities obscured.

The kiss, then, is greater than the sum of its parts, and is an apt symbol for the power of seemingly disparate groups rising together in solidarity. The free and ecstatic intermingling of breath that occurs when kissing is a challenge to those who would attempt to suffocate the voices, and snuff out the spirits of primarily, and to a far greater extent, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour, but indeed those of all humanity. This becomes especially clear if we accept that the tendency to mutual aid, the desire for freedom, and the deep feeling of camaraderie with the more than human world (i.e. Nature) to be essential characteristics of what it means to be human.

Yet, kisses also are a source of contagion. In the fourteenth century, around the same time our kabbalists were kissing angels and each other, hundreds of kilometres to the South, Muslim jurists and theologians were debating with doctors the details of a different yet nonetheless deadly mingling of breath. The bubonic plague was raging in the Emirate of Granada, the last remaining corner of what once was Al-Andalus.

In those days, the de facto party line of Islamic jurisprudence was to deny that contagion existed. The basis for this denial was a ḥadīth in which the Prophet was purported to have denied contagion as devilish superstition. The word used for contagion is ʿadwā. Curiously enough, the reason for this denial seems to have been an attempt to distance Islam from the cosmovision of the pagan Arabs, who viewed ʿadwā as the result of malignant or ambivalent spirits transmitting disease from one person to the next (remember the connection between “spirit” and “breath”).

Explaining cause and effect through the intervention of spirits — malignant or otherwise — who animate the landscape and the winds that blow over it would have been anathema to the authorities of a nascent Muslim community determined to assert that everything comes to pass by the hand of an omnipotent God who pulls all the strings. The concept of plague in Islam has thus been explained in different ways, such as the assertions of fourteenth century jurist from Granada — Ibn Lubb — who purports that plagues are acts of mercy [raḥma] sent to the community of Muslims from God, who are to embrace each other with a single body and consider those who died of the disease as honoured martyrs.

Not all fourteenth century Muslims living in Granada shared this view. Two luminaries — one, the physician Ash-Shaqūrī, the other, polymath Ibn al-Khaṭīb both espoused the theory of contagion. Alas, both came to untimely ends. Ibn al-Khaṭīb expressed his views thus:

If one asks “How can you admit the assertion, there is infection, when the revealed word denies this?," we answer that infection exists, is confirmed by experience, research, insight and observation, and through constantly recurring accounts. These are the elements of proof. For him who has treated or recognized this case, it cannot remain concealed that mostly the man who has had contact with a patient infected with this disease must die, and that, on the other hand, the man who has had no contact remains healthy. So it is with the appearance of the illness in a house or quarter because of a garment or a vessel. Even an earring can destroy him who puts it in his ear, and all the inhabitants of his house.

This was not the only controversial view espoused by Ibn al-Khaṭīb. The insomniac poet, mystic, historian, scientist, and physician wrote some seventy treatises, and has gone down in history as one of the masterminds behind the beauty and wonder of the Alhambra, and the Nasrid court that once gathered there. His poetry (which includes such boundary breaking lines such as “fī layālin katamat sirr al-hawā” [On nights when the secret of love was concealed]… “lā ubālī sharquhu min gharbihi” [I don’t care about his East from his West] which can be heard in the video embedded above, a muwashshaḥ he wrote many hundred years ago, sung here by the inimitable Fairuz) once adorned the walls of the Alhambra itself but were later chiselled off and replaced by those of his former pupil, Ibn Zamrāk, after the authorities murdered Ibn al-Khaṭīb in Fez on charges of alleged heresy. His body was later burned in an attempt to ensure he had no chance of entering Paradise. (Those familiar with Muslim tradition will know cremation is taboo, as literal interpretations of scripture purport that the bodies of the faithful will physically rise from their graves on the day of Judgement).

Ash-Shaqūrī for his part, wrote a whole treatise on the plague, which he explained as being transmitted from one person to the next due to a foulness [fasād] in the air.

The first half of his treatise outlines practical means for removing this foulness. He prescribes incense as a powerful means of doing just that. Sandarac, frankincense, storax, myrrh, and/or mastic if the air is cold and damp, or sandalwood, tamarisk, camphor and/or aloes if the air is warm and clear. He advises hanging stalks of garlic in the house, closing all windows and doors and fumigating the dwelling with these mixtures, while washing the walls and floors with vinegar for a period of three days. He also councils seeking cool low lying places to spend the day — perhaps a ground level room or creek gully — and a warm higher elevated locale where the winds blow for spending the night.

The second half of his treatise is made up of dietary recommendations. He recommends eating lots of citrus, and avoiding drinking water unless it has been purified first with a little vinegar. He also recommends adding vinegar to bread dough before baking, and to drink only from clay cups that no one else has used. These cups are then to be washed in vinegar after each use.

Also striking is Ash-Shaqūrī’s all hands on deck approach with regard to healthcare. The medical establishment was often scornful of common herbalists and healers but, it seems, given the gravity of the situation Ash-Shaqūrī was willing to make an exception in the interest of getting as many caregivers to people in need as possible. He did, however, council that herbalists’ remedies be checked first by physicians. Ash-Shaqūrī called his treatise a nasīha [advisory notice]. Chillingly, he himself died not long after writing this “advisory notice”, having succumbed to the effects of the plague he fought hard to save people from. He was twenty-one years old when he died.

Despite the many problematic aspects of modern medicine and healthcare systems, herbal and home remedies should be applied with much care, and should not be taken as exclusive substitutes for treatment or advice given by qualified medical practitioners. Yet, a very small percentage of the world’s population has access to modern medicine and hospitals, a fact that might come as a shocking surprise to those who have grown up with privilege in the world’s economically richest countries. This is one reason why, in many parts of the world, people continue to seek out traditional healers.

Hospitals and healthcare should be reserved first for those who are most vulnerable. In these times of pandemic, if and when healthcare systems and hospitals become saturated, and you are unable to access them — no matter what your privilege or the country you live inv—vit can be very useful to be prepared. In addition to herbal medicine and household purgative agents like strong vinegar, witches and those magically inclined can seek out those spirits who are said to cause plague. For if these spirits know how to cause plague, they also know how to cure and prevent it. They can be approached, with much care, to assist in effecting a cure, or to wisely oversee the confection of protective amulets and similar.

We cannot offer concrete advice or recommendations regarding specific herbs, treatments, cleaning agents. Nor can we do so with regard to prayers, songs, and magical operations. It is up to each of us to do research and come up with the curative and preventative techniques that make the most sense in each of our idiosyncratic circumstances. Let’s keep ourselves and each other safe by any means necessary, and by whatever means available. 

We have so far discussed the kiss in relation to mystical experience, and to contagion. We will now combine the two and discuss the kiss as vehicle for the contagion of empowerment. As we see it, this is the kiss of witchcraft.

As with Kabbalah, the kiss in the context of witchcraft comprises a co-mingling of breath, a breathing together, a conspiracy. A sealing of an esoteric and revolutionary compact formed in opposition to Church (later on, to capitalism) and State. For medieval and pre-modern witch-hunters, this kiss was called the osculum infame, or literally “the kiss of infamy”. Precisely, it was said that witches would adore the horned figure that presided over their sabbats, and be initiated into his company by kneeling and bestowing a peck upon the cheek of his icy cold rump.

Mind you, mouth to rump kisses were not the only ones that appear in the lore surrounding witches and fairies, but also mouth-to-mouth, as in instances of fairy lovers bequeathing their human lovers with poetry, song, or other magical powers through kisses; or mouth to breasts, as in accounts of the witches suckling wisdom from the teats of the goddess in her guise of all-devouring sow or she-goat, the mother of a thousand young. In the osculum infame, we find an inversion of the Christian “kiss of peace”.

In contemporary iterations of the craft, the five-fold kiss comes to mind. As do kisses exchanged during some forms of circle casting when celebrants hold hands as the circle winds about “thout a thout thout within and without” and kisses are exchanged along the way. Unfortunately, these practices have been abused by far too many predatory individuals, who pervert the holiness of the kiss into an excuse to go in for a prolonged snog. Or worse.

Kissing, and other eroticism, should only be undertaken with those whom you share love and trust, and with whom explicit and crystal clear consent has been mutually granted.

That said, what we find most powerful about the osculum infame, is that, per Margaret Murray’s take, witches come to kiss and be kissed by the devil only and ever out of their own free will. If they do not come freely, they are simply refused initiation. The sabbat revelry, just before so bright and colourful under the stars, will disappear into the very air.

There is a deep mystery in this. A mystery related to personal autonomy, and the paradox that arises when we realize that in taking our own power, our own wills, into our own hands, we are simultaneously accepting full accountability for our actions and full responsibility to safeguard the autonomy of our fellows. In these nighttime forest groves, any ethical commandments prescribed by coercion from above or without, wither to naught. We take our own chances and pay our own dues. This — the wild beautiful dance that some hazard to call freedom.

Furthermore, reclaiming the symbolic power of the kiss does not imply a call to indiscriminate kissing, especially during these times of pandemic. If anything it gives added power to the kiss itself, inspires further discernment, and gives lovers incentive to kiss with prudence.

As we write this, in some parts of the world lockdowns are easing, in others, they are returning. Whatever the circumstance where you live, friend, remember this: the state of emergency is far from over. And behold! — it began long before the emergence of this coronavirus. For some, it began about 400 years ago, for some it began in 1492, or earlier still. We believe it began far earlier and declare that the state of emergency began with the idea of the State itself.

In parting, we will recall and co-opt the words of Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais, with the conspicuous substitution of one of his words for another:

As to what your work as a witch is to be, I cannot conjecture; I know what mine is to be, and would have you know yours and buckle yourselves to it. And it may be (nay, it is) that yours and mine will lead us to a common meeting-place, and that on a certain day we shall stand together, with many more beside us, ready for a greater adventure than any of us has yet had, a trial and a triumph to be endured and achieved in common.

I close my eyes and see you all with me. Sitting around the fire with me. Sharing food, song, stories and laughter. Or breathing in silence. Our eyes are wild. Our hair is unbound. We are aware of the enormity of the task that lies before us, and we are quite prepared to do our part. We are the witchcraft. And we shall overcome.

Sisters, friends, brothers: I hereby offer you to accept, if it be your own free will to receive, from my lips to yours, this kiss of infamy.

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Slippery Elm

Slippery Elm is a poet and the author of The Dead Hermes Epistolary (Gods&Radicals Press 2019), a work of anti-fascist philology that examines the relationship between language and the land, the connections between capitalism, cultural erasure, language loss, and ecocide, and which also includes a practical epistle that weds permaculture design with the traditional methods of medieval Islamic agriculture and husbandry, written in the interest of empowering revolutionaries. A long time permaculture designer and guerrilla gardener since completing a two-week training taught by Starhawk while still a beardless youth, his passions for food sovereignty and food security have led him to work in high mountain olive groves and agro-ecosystems, as well as hay fields in desert climes and in intensive market gardens in temperate rainforests. He is a father, a student of martial arts (Krav Maga, Irish stick), and believes the methods of permaculture to be a powerful means of bringing about a conquest of bread.