The Dumb Supper - Love, Death, and the Evolution of Folk Magick
Written by: B. James Adkinson
Yep! It’s that time of year again.
Even in the midst of a global pandemic, divisive political upheaval, and a near endless onslaught of cultural meme-propriation - It's startin’ to get awfully spoopy out there!
And, honestly, has there ever been a point when we needed it more? Hell, no! We need Halloween this year like no other time in our lives. We need plastic goblins and paper-mache ghouls and to laugh along with the things that go bump in the night.
We need the thinning of the veil like never before. We need that touch of magic.
Why? Because we have always needed magic. Humans crave it. They crave it the way they do sex and rich wine. They seek out the forbidden and the hidden, to touch the shadow and carve their names in smoke - to speak to the dead and to know their own future.
Samhain. Hallowe’en. All Saints Day. Dia de Muertos. It matters very little by which name you call it, no time of the year brings us closer to magic than this season. No other time calls the accountant and the shop-keeper to drop their social courtesies, don a wicked or wild mask, and revel along with that-which-lays-beyond.
Because, it is that hunger that drives us.
Hunger is such an apt word, too. Consider how often food and drink are linked to our rituals. The candies and treats that have become linked inexorably to our various holidays. The wines of the Christian Communion. The pagan rites of cakes and ales. The fasting of Ramadan. The specific foods that are kosher, or halal - and alternately the foods that are forbidden or unclean.
Consider the old folk magick of The Dumb Supper.
When I first heard of the Dumb Supper, it was during a discussion about rituals for communing with the dead. Studying the various paths and practices of the occult has been a passion of mine since I was young and I had never heard of this, so I was immediately intrigued. I asked the witch who told me about it to elaborate.
It was described as a meal held in absolute silence (“dumb” in this case, meaning “silent”) where the order of the courses was reversed - deserts and coffee first, followed by the main course, with salad and warm baked bread at the end. A place was set at the head of the table, or alternately an empty seat was set across or next to each guest. This is where the soul of the departed would sit.
Guests would bring pictures or letters to the dead, which would act as a “witness” in calling the spirits from the great beyond. It had to be done all in candle-light. Absolutely no electricity was allowed. And above all, no talking once you entered the dining room.
Once the dinner was completed, it was expected that the guests would then retire to an adjoining sitting area and discuss any impressions or visitations that they had experienced. It seemed to me a fascinating idea and one very much in keeping with the season, but it frustrated me that I had never heard of it before. So, I decided to do some investigating.
And down the rabbit hole we went.
There are literally dozens of websites with variations on the Dumb Supper theme. Most seem designed for varying levels of shock value, or to capitalize on those seeking an “authentic occult experience” while visiting tourist locations known for being haunted. Many speak of the “hazy origins” of the Dinner With The Dead and draw parallels to ancient rituals from around the world.
But these weren’t answers. These were hyperbolic sensationalism designed to bring in the marks. This was Mattel selling a Ouija Board for ages 8 and up. This was the monetized final frame of the Satanic Panic most of Gen X had to grow up in. So, I started digging deeper.
It turns out that the Dumb Supper as a means of communicating with the dead is relatively new. The original ritual does indeed date back much older. Most historians recognize that American Folk Magic has deep roots in the Ozarks and throughout the Appalachians, but the Dumb Supper has been found as far afield as California and throughout New York and Illinois. Also, it wasn’t done only at Halloween. Many places practiced this during the early part of the year, specifically during the Spring.
Because, at that time, it was a love spell.
While variations on the Dumb Supper can be seen throughout the United States, the earliest records of the practice come from the British Isles in the 1600’s and are largely centered around the Feast of St. Agnes. Noted historian Wayland Hand describes dozens of stories from England and Scotland and hundreds from across America. English romantic, John Keats penned one of his most famous poems in 1820 about young girls wishing to dream of their future husbands in “The Eve of St. Agnes”,
According to tradition, Agnes was the daughter of a wealthy Roman family in the early 4th century who refused the advances of a young prefect. She wanted to devote her life to Christianity, which was considered a crime under the Diocletianic Persecution.
For such an offense, she was sentenced to be dragged naked through the streets and thrown into a brothel. Any man who touched her however was struck blind or paralyzed. After that,then condemned as a witch, she was sentenced to be burned at the stake - yet, no wood would light.
She was martyred at twelve years of age in 304 CE when one of the guards on hand decapitated her with his sword. She thereafter became the patron saint of chastity, virginity, purity, lawful engagement, and deliverance from rape.
During the Feast of St. Agnes, girls would walk backwards, fashion “dumb cakes” in silence, and eat eggshells filled with salt to induce visions of their future husbands. The girls would work at night with aprons tied backwards, in utter silence with their hands behind their backs, baking and turning the cakes in the oven in a prescribed order. The entire process was performed reversed, with any misstep or sound breaking the spell.
Contemporarily, the different regions and groups in the US held the Dumb Supper in widely different regards. In some areas it was incredibly taboo, with horrible stories of girls being murdered and visions of death accompanying the ritual. Other places it was almost a rite of passage, where mothers and aunts would encourage their girls to hold these suppers in abandoned buildings, then intentionally get local boys to show up at midnight as a form of courtship.
As fascinating as this became, I couldn’t help but ask myself, how did this widely spread Christian love ritual change from visions of a future husband to that of speaking with the dead?
The answer I found lay in the sexual revolution of the 1960’s. Almost all accounts of the Dumb Supper as a form of love magic had ended by the late 50’s. With the sexual revolution, free love, and the growing right of young women to choose their own future and lovers, the need for magic and rituals to foresee future suitors quickly became passé. The need wasn’t there. The hunger was being satisfied by a culture seeking out its own answers and magic to the beat of psychedelic acid rock and teenage rebellion.
But the Dumb Supper wasn’t finished with us yet. Like so many of our traditions, it evolved. As the 60’s wore on and the war in Vietnam was poured into every living room in the United States, our needs became more somber. The hunger for finding future happiness transformed into a need to know that our loved ones had found peace. As decade passed to decade, the question became insistent. Our need to know that there was something beyond this life became insistent.
So, now. The year is 2020. The Dumb Supper has been performed in one fashion or another for at least four hundred years. It has been a prayer for purity, a wish for a good match, a game of childish happiness, and a reflection upon the brevity of life. Above all this, however, it is a beautiful example of how our needs and our social consciousness changes the magic we weave in this world.
This season, I invite you to consider how we might now use this ritual - the reversals, the mirror imaging, the silence - to pierce the spirit’s shroud and seek out what is on the other side.
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