“Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T. S. Eliot includes a lot more witchcraft symbolism than most readers realize. Most scholars read the poem to be about the futility of life from a Modernist perspective. For example, they understand the dark imagery and fragmented structure to represent a futile existence, where society is fragmented and individuals are isolated and doomed to a meaningless existence. This perspective is common in Modernist writings. But an investigation of witchcraft and pagan symbolism in the poem adds a new, interesting caveat to this interpretation.

First, there is the symbolism of time. 12am is also known in literature as The Witching Hour. Between 12am and 4am, the veil between physical reality and the supernatural world is supposedly the most “thin” according to some pagan factions, and many authors have made use of this idea in their famous works. For example, in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, David is born at 12 and has a “veil” or sac over his face, which historically has been read as a sign the child born has prophetic or supernatural gifts. The poem takes place between 12 and 4am, when the hours in which contact with the supernatural realm is most possible (with ghosts, demons, goddesses, etc.). The hour is thought by some to be the best time for pagan or witchcraft rituals to be performed. There are many different types of paganism and witchcraft, and it really does depend upon era and moment in history how and when rituals are performed, but practices commonly associated with different types of witchcraft in literary history include incantations, animal or human sacrifice, taboo sexual acts, and other rituals.

These hours, as presented in the poem, may be read as a figurative representation of the hours of inspiration. Many writers find their inspiration at night, or in the hours spent wandering along physical and psychological landscapes. Modernists like Eliot were known to use images encountered in real life for poetry. Some used the images without trying to attach deeper meaning to them, attempting capture the moment (the Imagists). Others used the images to paint their psychological landscapes for the reader, exposing the connotative meaning behind the visuals. The fact that the man wandering is guided by light—symbols of illumination—at night, and that the lights talk to him, further reinforces this reading that the poem is about finding inspiration in a dark world.

As the man wanders, he sees a black cat, which is commonly understood as a symbol of bad luck in witchcraft, and which could also be a reference to shape-shifting. (Just think of the cat in Sabrina, the T.V. show, or the shapeshifting professor McGonagal in Harry Potter .) The cat could represent the bad luck associated with a pessimistic view of reality. The wanderer also witnesses a child who reaches “automatic” to take a toy. The word “automatic” implies some form of witchcraft (for example, automatic writing or Voodoo). Some Modernist forms of writing, like stream-of-consciousness writing, are very similar to automatic writing, but the "channel" is thought by such writers to be a connection to the subconscious mind instead of a supernatural entity. The child does not seem to have any control over his picking up the toy; he seems controlled, just as in automatic writing, when words written are channeled by some entity other than the person holding the pen. The child is like a zombie or a demon—soulless and spiritless: “I have seen nothing behind that child’s eye.” This view suits a Modernist writer, who commonly would not believe in the eternal soul. It could also just...