The Great work – The Mayfair Witches Season 1 Review
So full disclosure: I started watching The Mayfair Witches on a whim, and had no clue season 2 was currently airing. Last night when I finished season one I went straight for season 2, believing it was only a short 5-episode season.
As such, this review contains spoilers for half of season 2, as well.
The Mayfair Witches Season 1 Review
As I mentioned above, I started watching The Mayfair Witches on a sudden whim. I fully intended to watch A Discovery of Witches since clips keep popping up in my recommended on YouTube, but I saw The Mayfair Witches was recommended as a similar show in the comment section for a video, and decided to check it out.
I first came across the Mayfair name while doing completely unrelated research on the lore and history surrounding the demon Azazel, and saw that he mixed himself into the bloodline of a Mayfair witch. Like the Constantine and Belmont families, the Mayfair’s seem to be a historical, supernatural legacy family that has found itself entwined in our current popular media.
In a similar fashion to the Ballad of Trevor Belmont in Castlevania, “The Great Work” also seems to be an underlying theme in season one, and definitely season two of The Mayfair Witches.
The Great Work in Alchemy
The Great Work is an alchemical term used to describe the conjoining of two human souls – male and female, respectively – in one body. Similar to the Knights Templar (and by extension, Masonic) worship of the Baphomet, the idealization of the hermaphrodite is gently embodied in Cortland’s inverted son, Jojo.
Given the renewed discussion concerning the handsome women of European royalty and transgender celebrity sons and daughters, I have to wonder if this magical ritual is less about “sacrifice” and more about the fulfilment of this Hegelian Dialect of hemeticism, the hermaphrodite embodiment giving one the nature of, and then “powers” of both sexes to create a new, more “cultivated” entity.
After all, in a private discussion that is later crashed by Rowan, Jojo confronts her father Cortland over the nature of his acceptance of her conversion to live as a female. Initially, Jojo thought that Cortland accepted his son living as a woman because it made Jojo happy, but now Jojo doubts that reasoning as in the matriarchal Mayfair family, women have all the power, passed down through their female bloodline.
Even Cortland’s father Julien seemed like an absolute Queen when discussing his relationship with Lasher to Rowan in the victrola after his sister Carlotta rejected Lasher 4 years prior. Despite this, when looking through Cortland’s memories with Moira’s help, we can see the duality of Julien’s nature.
Julien learned about the Old Magic from a great (x) grandmother and was taken to the old stronghold of Dunlaith in Scotland, fathered at least one more son in Ian away from New Orleans, and was a tyrant in his children’s eyes despite having this feminine and soft side about him when used by Lasher.
Interestingly enough, the etymology of Dunlaith is “Lady of the Dun” or Lady of the Fortress. Julien even tells Rowan that Dunlaith isn’t a recreational place or town, but a medieval fortress with the blessing of pagan spirits.
In Celtic lore, Dunlaith is also the daughter of the Connacht warrior, Regamon. The name could be anglicized as “Dunla”. There were also many sheep fields around in Cortland’s memories of the place, and in LoTR’s lore, Dunland (fortress land) was a place inhabited “by backaward herdsman and hillmen” known as “Dunlendings”.
As J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin draw heavily from occult Celtic and Albion mythology, I have to wonder if there is some truth to this place, which is now sunken in time.
The Designee and the Demon
Starting with Suzanne in the 1600s, the demon Lasher has bound himself to Mayfair women for centuries in hopes of fulfilling an ancient prophecy related to the Taltos beings. This culminates in the binding of Lasher to the 13th Mayfair Witch Rowan, who like the magical tree in Celtic folklore gives him life, and a body now in the human realm.
The binding truly happens in season one when Rowan is put into a “thrall” by Lasher and is stuck in an alternate reality in order to get pregnant by Ciprian so that she could give birth to Lasher mere hours later.
(The Renesmee Cullen energy is strong with this supernatural pregnancy and birth.)
Lasher is reborn as “Ashlar” and has human memories of a past life, but few of his previous demonic one. An ashlar is a large square cut stone when building a foundation in masonry. The stone of Dunlaith castle was most likely comprised of ashlar, just as “Ashlar” had been the foundation for which the Mayfair family had built their wealth and power.
Ashlar the Taltos Reborn
Through the help of Lark, Rowan discovers that she has four extra chromosomes.
This is most likely why Laher tells Deirdre that Rowan is “just like him”. I also find it strange that Lasher’s spectral appearance is the same as when he regains his “saintly” body“. Which makes me wonder if he’s all saw this before in a vision, or if this was similar to his previous form as a Taltos – human hybrid.
Because after all when Suzanne calls him forward (I guess he was just hanging out during the witch trials waiting to fulfill the prophecy) he is at first simply flames – pure chaotic energy before being converted to a spectral form more appealing to Suzanne’s liking.
Assuming that Rowan and Ashlar/Lasher are the same genetically now, and she is just holding his power – this may also explain why Lasher is accidentally killing Mayfair witches after seducing them. The extra chromosome is not compatible with their bodies – which is why they hemorrhage and bleed out after their encounter; only Rowan would be compatible with Lasher’s body now.
This also leads to some very creepy implications, since Rowan already shut down teenage Lasher’s sexual advances towards her. But if Rowan and Lasher are currently the only compatible beings in this world and if Lasher “must” reproduce to further cultivate the prophecy, what does that mean for his biological mother, rowan?
Also, does anybody else get Dumbledore and Grindelwald vibes from Julien and Albrecht’s insinuated relationship? Especially since the two hold parallels to real-life historical figures in alchemy?
Let me know your thoughts and leave them in the comment section below! And until next time ~
“This world is a shadow of the real one”.
❂ Stories From the New World