On what my superpowers are, if they are as depicted in my bio then yes, if its something like simply time manipulation, then no.

One can't do without another, if you buy the comic, and you like the art, but your favourite character gets killed of by a roadkill or something, i doubt you'll be buying the series anytime soon again..

on the other hand, if the art is crap, but the story is good, you'll feel a distance between the series and you because your losing touch with the characters.

All in all, you cant have one without another!

Ying & Yang effect.

This discussion about Warlocks developed out of a question that has been interesting me for considerable time; namely, why do we as men call ourselves Witches?

I have always thought that a Witch was most definitely a woman, and whilst I am sufficiently sure of my sex to use the term Witch, I felt that it somehow didn't quite fit.

However when I first started to ask whether the term Warlock was more accurate, and for that matter appropriate to the religion, I encountered some very interesting reactions.

These ranged from:

• the term means oath breakeror traitor;

• there is no such person as a warlock. They never existed, or if they did, then they don't now;

• they are all satanists, and evil.

Generally people felt that the word was inappropriate, and the use of it would bring Witches into disrepute.

I have always been able to sense which way the winds blow, so with all this in mind I firmly set off in the opposite direction.

One of the first things I did was to re-read the section so often quoted to me from the book "Eight Sabbats for Witches" by Stewart Farrar:

"But "warlock", in the sense of `a male witch', is Scottish Late Middle English and entirely derogatory; its root means "traitor", enemy, devil';

and if the very few modern male witches who call themselves warlocks realized its origin, they would join the majority and share the title `witch' with their sisters." (Introduction, note 6)

That all looked pretty definite and damning, and is the source of most of the correspondence I received.

My second piece of research concerned tribal and primitive societies and their social structure.

This was very illuminating, because the most common factor in the way societies were run was the principle of elders.

The chief was almost always a hereditary position handed down from father to son or grandfather to grandson.

He was the ultimate leader of the clan or tribe and its survival was his direct responsibility.

The second principle force was the priest/witchdoctor/shaman, who was the spiritual focus of the tribe.

It may or may not be a hereditary position, but was generally regarded as being in direct contact with thegods.

He had enormous say in the running of the tribe. The moving of thetribe required favourable signs, and the interpretation of these was the direct province of this person.

If the signs were misread the tribe could miss the migration of game, or be struck with unfavourable weather. It was a great responsibility and the welfare of the tribe depended on it.

The third principle was the war lord, whose role was the protection and preservation of the clan and its property.

This position was never a right of hereditary succession, but rather one hard fought for.

The war lord was almost invariably the best and most capable warrior. He led the fight for food and raids against enemies.

Between these three the clan was run, and run extraordinarily efficiently. The duties of each were clearly defined and the roles of each respected by all.

That this was the case in primitive societies is clear, but consider the situation of modern man where the roles are still retained in different guises.

The chief is the Prime Minister/King/President, whose role is the general welfare of the country/nation.

The priest has not changed much except in dogma, and he still reads the portends of good and evil to the population.

The war lord is charge of the police and the army.

It was only in the rare cases of one taking over the position of another that balance was lost.

History is full of examples of war lords seizing power with terrible results, and any reference to a modern theocracy shows the limitations of religion and government.

In more primitive times usurping of a role was rare, because of role acceptance, and the social security of being within that role.

Any departure from the sociably acceptable was to lead to being outlawed or simply banished. Yet some did accept banishment or voluntarily left for various reasons.

Tribal legends abound of the shaman or the warrior who left the security of the tribe to live in the wilderness where they developed new techniques and philosophies.

But as importantly, they developed their magical abilities to the point of becoming superhuman, and would come back to the tribe in times of great need as Heroes.

The next thing I thought about was how we as a modern society see primitive cultures. Consider how fiction and faction portray the tribe.

I remember reading the tales of the white hunter amongst the savages in Africa/America.

The chief and our good clean hero become friends (usually because the hero saves the chiefs son/daughter at great personal risk)

and everything would be rosy except for the evil witchdoctor lurking in the background, or the vengeful dumped warrior of the same saved daughter.

These are always spiteful and evil characters and as such we feel the justification when the hero kills them and leads the now saved tribe into the modern world.

Modern medicine will replace the witchdoctor and white men with guns will replace the warrior, as the tribe is put onto the reservation for its own good.

The wise women of the tribes who had been the herbalists and healers, the mid wives and seers, became the Witches, and the shamans and war lords became Warlocks.

Each preserved and developed their own knowledge, but also each preserved the gods and the religion of the old ways.

By living apart from the tribe they were able to survive, but the act of living apart also separated them as a member of the society.

Where they had always been regarded with respect they were now respected with also with fear, and this fear was certainly used by the Witches and Warlocks in their own defence.

All this brings us back full circle, namely to the Warlock and our definition of him.

As has been correctly pointed out, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the Warlock as a traitor or oathbreaker, and this is certainly true in two ways:

• The term is Old English, and derives from about 600CE, which is when the monks were writing the books we now use as reference. There are no prizes for guessing why these Pagan terms were less than endearing.

Any one who would not accept the new and true faith of Christianity was evil and dangerous.

• By equating those who did not accept the faith with evil, the new lords had the enemy firmly sighted. The old gods became the new devils, and the followers of the old ways were heretics and worshipers of demons.

To follow the old ways was dangerous and guarded with secrecy. The Witches and Warlocks became separate from the general population, and followed their own paths.

• Again as has been correctly pointed out, the breaking of an oath was of extreme importance at a time when a man's word was his bond. The making of an oath was done with great care and consideration.

When faced with the annihilation of his tribe by the conquerers, the Chief has historically taken the option of surrender to preserve the clan or tribe.

An oath taken by the clan leader for the surrender and saving of his people would only be broken in great reverence by the younger men of the tribe.

• Thus the term oathbreaker would be one of respect amongst the tribe, as these men left to fight against their conquerers.

An example of this is Chochise who surrendered to the US Cavalry so that the women and children would be saved, but allowed the young warriors to leave under the leadership of his most able follower, Geronimo.

However, what most people ignore (or are simply unaware of) is that the definition of oathbreaker is NOT the only reference to the Warlock, and indeed the Complete Oxford Dictionary has considerably more information.

"This seems to have been the original sense of the present word, but the special application to the Devil (either as a rebel, or a deceiver) was already in OE the leading sense."

"The applications to to sorcerers, with especial reference to the power of assuming inhuman shapes, and to monsters (esp. serpents), appear to be developments, partly due to Scriptural language, of the sense "devil".

"The modern forms with final -(c)k are of obscure origin, for they appear first in Sc. of the 16th c., and owe their spread to Sc. writers, and so cannot represent, as has been assumed,

a Southern sound-substitution of (k) for the -ch (x) of some of the rarer North and Sc. forms. From the first they they have been used in the sense "wizard". Some other word, lost or not discovered , has perh.

influenced both form and sense." (OED 1991)

Thus in the 10th c. the monks had connected the Warlock to those who worshiped the Old Gods (devils), and who refused to accept the Christian God, or did so in a superficial manner (deceitful).

They had indeed been recognised as rebels. What is also recognised is that the word was already old in the 10th c. but its original meaning is lost, or at least waiting to be rediscovered.

We cannot now discover what the original meaning was, but we can perhaps get closer to the truth by looking at the "obscure " refences.

Several people who have contacted me in reference to this article mentioned that there are many references which do not seem to make any sense.

One of these is the association with the word Charlock which applies to various field weeds, and especially to species of the genus Sinapis, Mustard.

Mustard is a very common weed and is obviously associated with the Sun (hot taste, small yellow flowers).

It is also a very good blood purifier and its use as a compress to relieve congestion of the lungs would have been very handy in cold, misty climates such as Northern European Winter and Melbourne in Summer.

Another reference is in connection to binding or securing. To warlock (or warlocke) was to secure (a horse) as with a fetterlock. It is also used in reference to securing a load onto a cart.

In rural South Australia where I grew up, bales of wool are loaded onto a semi-trailer and secured with a length of rope, in the very simple but effective manner of running a loop of rope around the entire load,

then tightening it with a windlass of two short poles set at cross angles to each other.

The rope is looped over the end of one pole and twisted around it with the other. We call this a Spanish Windlass at home, but it is obviously the same method with a different name.

A Warlock is also used to mean a cairn or pile of stones (in Scandinavian regions) which apparently served as beacons (lighthouses) or as markers of territory.

Another use of the term meant that a man "warlocked" was magically immune to wounds inflicted by certain weapons (commonly iron), which developed into the idea of being War-lucked.

Lastly the term meant "to bar against hostile invasion". So a warlocked nation was one which was protected (by Warlocks) against invasion, rather than being embroiled in a war inside its territory.

It must be acknowledged that much of my research has shown that the Warlock was a warrior whose lifestyle was frequently violent and short.

It is easy to either glorify his acts of valour, or accuse him of being a thug, revelling in bloodshed.

What is more difficult is to recognise the middle path between extremes, and recognise that in the "Good Old Days" life was extraordinary difficult and frequently short; that violence was a way of life and death.

Men and Women had very different roles to those of today, and indeed that may be good reason in itself to repudiate the idea of the Warlock. But I believe that in those days men and women were more secure in their roles.

Women ran the household and indeed frequently were the owners of the land. Women probably had more power and control over their lives than they do now.

Since Christianity women have lost their land, their rights, their magic and their voice. Even today women have not regained what was previously theirs by right.

Men were put into the position of controlling the land and all it contained. Remember the land given to the Christian Church was frequently given by the women, and that the Abbeys were often run by women.

Only after the restructure of the Church did women lose all this to become the subjugated nuns to the religion they helped set up.

The ones who did keep what was theirs became the Witches, and continued to heal, teach and act as midwives in the more isolated areas.

As is happening in Nicaragua at the moment, the Witches were attacked for fulfilling the role which was theirs.

In 20th centurt Nicaragua Witches are being taxed, ridiculed and oulawed because of the power and prestige they hold in the community (and because they are cheaper and more effetive than the "modern" doctors!).

We must recognise that the Witch and the Warlock are very old terms which have been tampered with by people with a vested interest in doing so.

History is always written by the victor, but we have the opportunity to question and change peoples' attitudes towards us. We are Witches, and should not change our name because of outsiders' opinions.

We have all - Witch and non-Witch alike - been subjected to 1000 years or so of negative influence. Now we have learnt the reality of Witchcraft, and take pride in it.

If we refuse to acknowledge the name Witch, we accept that what has been written is true.

The same holds for Warlock; just as there are some very dubious people misusing the words Witchcraft and Witch, so there are also people debasing the word Warlock.

A Warlock is not some plonker doing ritual sacrifice and Satanic worship any more than is a Witch. Rather he is some one trying very hard to come to terms with his own inherent powers as a man.

By denying him this right we deny all of the Craft their rights to worship the gods in balance.

The important thing to me personally about this whole issue of Warlocks can be summed up as:

• Whatever the word and its origin, the reality is how we use it now. Many words have changed their meanings over the years to become something totally different from the original.

• Warlocks did exist.

• Warlocks are not satanists or figments of Hollywood any more than are Witches.

• Being a Warlock is a legitimate title for a male Witch.

• Witches and Warlocks are traditionaly outside of general society and each have their own special brands of magic, neither being inherently good or evil.

For Witches to denegrate Warlocks as evil or deluded is very dangerously like using the same dogma that is trotted out by the fundamentalists. No-one can afford to point fingers or throw stones at each other.

Made By Matthew Sandow

Starring Adam Warlock of course

My fav song at the moment and im probably gonna do a AMV with Adam Warlock about it.

Just awesome ;D