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Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,414 | And All Who Reside Here,
Let None Enter Here Unbidden,
Keep Harm and Fear Far from This Place,
May God and Goddess Bless Us!
So Mote It So!
So Mote It Be!
1740
"This should be performedon the night of the full moon, and is a
very intricate spell. All portals and doorways should be open, includ-
ing closet doors and windows, Then, as you start, close every closet
and cabinet door, making the sign of the banishing pentacle with your
wand, your athame, or your hand (a stick of patchoili incense may be
substituted). Music should be light. Use a goodly amount of commanding
incense as well as patchouli and sandalwood. Once you have done the
closets and cabinets, go from window to window outlining the banishing
pentagram on each one, and close AND LATCH each window. Remember to
close and latch your fireplace, as well, perhaps burning some incense
there. Once the windows are secured, do inside doors, then when you
reach the entry ways, state the last ten lines. If performed correct-
ly, you will notice the difference in atmospheres from the outside
compared to the inside, the moment you walk into the house or apart-
ment."
--Avon, Sysop, Sanctuary BBS
Okay, that's how I got it. Here's what happened when we performed
it.
I had pulled one of my partners intothis with me, and we did itthe
night after the full moon, being as how we didn't get home in time the
night OF the full moon (being across town and having to stay the night
as our friends were very tired). We also didn't use patchouli incense,
as I dislike it, opting for sandalwood instead with the commanding
incense. Several times, though I had talked to said partner about what
to do when I was speaking, I still had to pause in the recitation to
tell him what to do. So, there were breaks in concentration. WITH ALL
THIS, we still got an apartment that feels much happier. This buil-
ding, just since we moved in a year and a half ago, has seen an axe
murder on the lower floor, a shooting on the upper floor where we are,
two police break-ins on drug raids, several shootings in the back
alley, and two stabbings on the sidewalk near the building. Bad vibes.
Now it's better.
Here's the downfalls--if you can call them that.
This is supposedto, at least how I interpretit, clear out EVERYTH-
ING in your house to start fresh. We had a ghost cat before. We still
have her now. Also, we now have two dark brown, heavily fanged...THIN-
GS...hovering in my kitchen, worshipping my fridge. You think I'm
kidding. I'm not. Scared the hell out of me when I first noticed them;
eventually, I broke down and went into the kitchen. When they didn't
attack, I moved near the fridge. "It's a refrigerator," I said. They
gave back a sort of sub-vocal "Wow..." I opened said fridge. "It's
still a fridge," I said. They looked in; seemed even more impressed. I
have NO idea why. Also, once I looked down from my computer, feeling
watched, and noticed another dark brown thing, all rags and big feet
and big eyes. His whole being radiated shock and surprise when I
looked down; again, I caught a sort of sub-vocal "WHAT??!!??", and he
vanished. Poof. That's been it, but it's interesting. Did these slip |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,415 | in due to the changes or due to the lack of concentration? No harmful
thing is in this apartment now; of that I'm sure. So how are these new
residents explained?
Anyway, that's it. Hope you have fun with it... :>
1741
Rosicrucianism
Julia Phillips
Esoteric Legend: the Rosicrucians were founded by Pharoah Thothmes
III in the fifteenth century BC. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne
was said to have founded a Rosicrucian lodge at Toulouse in the 9th
century AD, and in 898 AD a second lodge was founded. Around 1000 AD a
group of heretical Catholic monks established the first Rosicrucian
college which flourished until the 16th century. It has also been
claimed that the Brotherhood of the Rose Cross was founded by Templars
after their order was disbanded by Pope Clement.
Historical story: The Fama Fraternitatis appeared in 1614 (written
in 1610), describing the foundation and purpose of the Society (Broth-
erhood) of the Rose Cross. This related that a Father CRC, born in
1378, a German, poor but from a rich and noble family, made a pilgrim-
age to Jerusalem. He remained at Damascus through ill-health, and
studied there. He later travelled to Damcar, where he was trained by
the Arabs, and translated the book "M" into the Latin tongue. He then
travelled to Fez, and after two years to Spain, where meeting with
ridicule, he returned to Germany.
After five years he calledthree of his bretheren to him,bound them
by an oath, and then founded the "Fraternity of the Rose Cross". They
later initiated another four members, and decided to spread the word
to other countries. Their by-laws were that they should heal the sick
without charge; wear the clothes of the country they visited; every
year upon a certain date should meet, or be represented, in the "House
of the Holy Spirit"; each should search for a worthy replacement for
when he dies; that the letters R.C. would be their mark; that the
Order would remain secret for 100 years. It was later also decided
that burial places would be kept a secret.
It is known thatJohann Valentin Andreae, a Germantheologian, wrote
at least one of the so-called Rosicrucian documents, but how much can
be laid at his door is not known. It is also an esoteric legend (with
some grounds in fact) that whilst an historical character called
Andraea did in fact exist, that the Rosicrucian writings attributed to
that person were in fact the work of Sir Francis Bacon. The three
major objects of the Rosicrucian Fraternity are:
1) The abolition of all monarchical forms of government and the
substitution therefor of the rulership of the philosophic elect. (This
demonstrates that the Rociscrucians are, in fact, Platonic, despite
their proclaiming themselves Christians.)
2) The reformation of science,philosophy and ethics. (Materialarts
and sciences are shadows of the divine wisdom; only by penetrating the
mysteries of nature can man attain reality and understanding.)
3) The discovery of the Universal Medicine, or panacea, for all
forms of disease. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,416 | In 1646 Elias Ashmoleand astrologer William Lilly foundeda Rosicr-
ucian lodge in London based upon a utopian ideal of the creation of a
new Atlantis.
1742
SPRING EQUINOX 1990
Circle cast by the HP
Old God: HP
Young God: Priest
Earth: Priest
Air: Priest
Fire: Priestess
Water: Priestess
Everyone else may choose to take the role of an animal of their choice.
Young God is blindfolded and bound (three cords), and stands in the middle
of the circle. Everyone else holds hands, and circles around deosil
chanting:
Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan Pan!
until HPS changes the chant to the Ekos; finish arms up.
HPS and Priestess make an archway, which everyone else passes through,
moving as their chosen animal, chanting, "chop, chop, chop, chop etc."
Every so often, HPS and Priestess drop their arms around one person, and
whenever they "capture" one of the four elements, they hold them and the
chanting stops. A riddle is then asked by each of the elements:
Air: What is whispered on the wind?
Fire: What is the kiss of fire?
Water: What is the secret of the serpent?
Earth: What lies at the centre of the labyrinth?
If Young God answers satisfactorily, a cord is removed. The blindfold is
removed last. When the blindfold has at last been removed, HP will step
forward to present the wand to arm the Young God.
HP says:
"You are now come to your manhood, and must be armed. Will you accept the
wand, this symbol of your power?"
Young God: "I will"
HP: "Then you must take it from me!"
And so saying, runs away. Young God catches him, and they fight for the
wand. Young God wins, and holds the wand aloft in triumph.
Young God and HPS then perform cakes and wine.
1743
BELTANE 1987
Coven of the Serpent's Eye |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,417 | Declamation: Rufus Harrington
Invocation of the Young God: Prudence Jones
Invocation of the May Queen: Rufus Harrington
Responses to the invocations: Paul Greenslade and
Jacky Salter
The Blessing of Love: H. Rider Haggard
The Union of God and Goddess: Rufus Harrington and
Julia Phillips
The Beltane Charge: Julia Phillips
Temple set up as follows:
Altar set up, and ritual weapons as usual
One extra sword
One extra chalice of wine and dish of cakes
Candles and incense
Maypole in the centre of the Temple
Green Cord
Roles:
HPS#1 Blessing the Union
HPS#2 Invocation to the God
PS#1 The May Queen
PS#2 Swordbearer
PS#3 Swordbearer
PS#4 Handmaiden
HP#1 Declamation, invocation to the May Queen and
Blessing the Union
HP#2 The Young God
Casting the Circle:
All present will be purified and consecrated, and the circle will
be cast by the HPS and HP.
The HPS and HP will ask everyone to assist in the invocation to
the quarters. Those who have athames should collect them from the
altar at this point. After the Northern Quarter has been invoked,
the group should all face centre while the HPS performs the
invocation to Spirit.
This completes the casting of the circle.
1744
THE RITUAL
The ritual will commence with a meeting dance. Everyone should
link hands (male/female as far as possible), and move slowly in a
deosil motion following the chants initiated by the HP and HPS.
When she feels the time is right, the HPS will break the circle,
and lead everyone in a meeting dance, where each man and woman
kiss as they pass. When everyone has greeted one another, the
circle will be re-formed by the HPS, and finish with the EKO
chant.
HP#2 and PS#1 will stand at the maypole, facing the altar.
HPS#2 will stand at the altar facing them, and the rest of the |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,418 | group will seat themselves around the maypole in a horseshoe
shape, with the end nearest the altar left "open". HP#1 will read
the declamation:
Deep within the dream of silence
Blood and passions born beyond,
Gather at the serpent's calling,
Echo to its siren song.
For deep within the cauldron's darkness
Two hearts ache to join as one,
Must answer to the serpent's laughter;
Dance within its spiral song.
For blood is called, and passions gather:
Drum beat rhythms call the blood
To dance the paths of passion's power,
To sing for joy, for life, for love.
Within the shadows of a clearing
Deep within the silent green,
Revealed through a veil of moonlight,
Caught beside a crystal stream.
A woman from the land of beauty
Dances in the silver light,
Entranced within a web of silver
Woven by the serpent's light.
The serpent's laughter, song of shadows,
Echoes through the spinning web,
Weaving dreams with songs of silver,
Calling sacred fires long dead.
Within her body, flames awaken
Beauty and her passions need
Power and a desperate yearning,
Calling to the serpent's seed.
1745
Within the ancient forest shadows,
Roots and boughs that weave and dream,
re-echo to the serpent's laughter,
Weaving webs of dancing green.
The serpent's song now calls the Hunter;
Beast Lord, Master of the Woods.
Calls the Stag Lord from the shadows,
Woodland's Master, Lord of Love.
She dances now, her passions spiral,
Calls her love into the night;
He flies upon the wings of laughter,
Led on by her silver light.
Flesh and sinew, man and muscle,
Loins that ache now hear her call.
She hears the Hunter's horn of power,
Hears his cry and hunting call.
The Stag Lord stalks within the clearing,
She turns to flee, but cannot run. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,419 | Transformed she spreads herself for passion,
Calling with her silver song.
Both their bodies rage with passions,
Beasts now dance within their blood.
Their eyes now flash with love's own lightning
As flesh now kindles warm for love.
Her thighs remember mothers' movements,
Moments from her mother's birth,
Cries of silver golden laughter
Plough within the fertile earth.
Their song and cry a single moment,
Pain, and yet a single joy,
As Earth unites a single sunlight
Lust fulfilled, reborn as joy.
HPS#2 will now perform invocation to the Young God:
God of the meadow, God of the hill,
God of the sap and of our true will:
Thee I invoke as Spring awakes,
Thee I invoke as the blossom breaks.
Come young God, come come with the fire,
Lissome and leaping, alive with desire.
Come with the pipe and come with the drum,
With the heartbeat's pounding, come God come!
1746
O seeker of joy, O hunter of pleasure,
Come enter the ring, tread the pagan measure.
Be here in Thy servants, be here in Thy Priests,
Be here in the flesh, and join in the feast!
Io Pan, Io Pan, Io Pan Pan Pan, etc.
Young God responds:
"Response"
HP#1 will now perform the invocation to the Goddess as May Queen:
"Invocation to Goddess"
May Queen Goddess responds:
I who am the fragrant spring air,
And the soft breeze that refreshes the earth;
The cool spring rain, the sudden shower
That nourishes the earth.
The source of all joy and love,
The Goddess of all new beginnings,
Answer your call,
And once more I walk upon the earth.
Seek for me; I am all around you.
HPS#2 will now acknowledge the arrival of the God and Goddess:
Spring has sprung! |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,420 | The God has made the world seem young again.
The blossom blows,
The Goddess lets the world know joy again.
May Queen now breaks away from the God, and he must chase and capture her.
(Anything spoken at this point should be spontaneous). The group should
form a spiral from the maypole, going out to a circle, leaving a space
between each person for the May Queen and Young God to pass in and out in
their "love chase". While this goes on, the group should play tambourine,
bodrhun, bells and Abo sticks in a lively rhythym. The God should event-
ually capture the Goddess through his realisation that hunting is not the
way to her heart!ŠThey should embrace and kiss, and then kneel to receive
their crowns: PS#2 and PS#3 will collect these from the altar, and place
the crown of flowers on the Goddess' head, and the crown of leaves upon the
God's head. PS#2 and PS#3 should then collect the swords from the altar,
and stand either side of the altar holding the blades of the swords down.
PS#4 should collect a bouquet of flowers, and present these to the Goddess.
The God and Goddess should now lead PS#4 and the rest of the group around
the Temple in a simulation of their journey to the Blessing of their Union.
At a given signal, PS#2 and PS#3 will stand in the North, and make an
archway with their swords through which the God, Goddess and Handmaiden
will pass. As they do so, HP#1 says:
1747
Hail to our King and Queen!
For love fulfills an ancient law,
Born before the Gods and Men,
Decreed of old when all was still.
HPS#1 and HP#1 will be standing at the altar, and the God and Goddess will
kneel to receive the blessings of their predecessors (ie, the God and
Goddess of the previous cycle). The Goddess will hand her bouquet to the
Handmaiden, who will replace it upon the altar.
HPS#1 reads the Blessing of Love:
Love is like a flower in the desert.
It is like the aloe of Arabia that blooms but once and dies;
It blooms in the salt emptiness of life, and the brightness of its beauty
is set upon the waste as a star is set upon a storm. It hath the sun above
that is the spirit, and about it blows the air of its divinity.
There is only perfect flower in the wilderness of Life:
That flower is love!
There is only one fixed light in the mists of our wanderings:
That light is love!
There is only one hope in our despairing night:
That hope is love!
All else is false. All else is shadow moving upon water. All else is wind
and vanity.
Who shall say what is the weight or measure of love?
It is born of the flesh, it dwelleth in the spirit. From each doth it draw
its comfort.
For beauty it is as a star.
Many are its shapes but all are beautiful, and none know whence that star
rose, or the horizon where it shall set.
And I say unto you, that every man and woman is a star, and therefore,
every man and woman is love. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,421 | 1748
HP#1 and HPS#1 perform the Blessing of the Union. HP#1 says:
Dancers to the Gods of Love,
We bless you in these sacred signs:
[Perform blessings, loosely bind hands with cord]
Spread your blessing on the land,
Fulfill with love the ancient law:
Fruit and corn for man and beast,
And love for evermore.
[remove cord]
HP#1 and HPS#1 assist the God and Goddess to rise with a kiss.
PS#2 and PS#3 replace their swords upon the altar, and pick up a dish of
cakes and a chalice of wine. They hand the wine to the God, and the cakes
to the Goddess, saying:
Please bless this food and wine into our bodies, bestowing
health, wealth, love and compassion, and that deep joy which
is the knowledge of Thee.
They step back while the God and Goddess bless the wine and cakes. The "Io
Evohe" chant is initiated by HPS#1 and HP#1, and everyone else joins in.
(Note: this is a joyful celebration of the good things of the Earth which
the God and Goddess provide for us, so the chant should be lively.) The
Handmaiden then steps forward to receive a cake, and a sip of wine. She is
followed by PS#2 and PS#3, and then the rest of the group ending with HPS#1
and HP#1, who take the wine and cakes, and offer them to the God
and Goddess, then replace them upon the altar.
The God and Goddess now embrace around the maypole, and everyone
takes a ribbon (male/white, female/red) to dance around. Minstrel
now plays the maypole dance, and everyone begins: men go in a
widdershins direction, female in a deosil one. The dancers go
under the first person, over the next, under the next, and so on
until the ribbons are used up. The dancers must then unwind the
maypole, so everything is reversed (tip: keep watching your own
ribbon!)
1749
After the dance has ended, Young God and May Queen are released from
the Maypole (!), and they read the Beltane Charge:
YG I am the burning flame of inspiration
Bringing light and life to the world:
MQ I am the burning flame of love
Which creates light and life in the world:
YG I am the rushing stream, sweeping all before me:
MQ I am the deepest ocean, taking all within me:
YG I am the swiftest wind that carries the seed:
MQ I am the gentlest breez which kisses the land: |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,422 | YG I am the mighty mountain which caresses the stars:
MQ I am the smallest leaf which falls in the forest glade:
YG I am He! The Lord of Life and Death;
The Keeper of the Gates, the Hunter and the hunted:
MQ I am She! Queen of the darkness and the light;
Guardian of the Veil, the Mystery of Creation:
YG/MQ Together we stand, and in the power of our love
shall the wheel turn.
They now perform Cakes and Wine - servers step forward to assist.
The Feast
TO END THE RITUAL
HPS#1 READS THE BLESSING PRAYER
All take their athames, and support the HP and HPS as they thank, and bid
farewell to the Quarter Guardians.
Formal Grounding of the Power.
All present make their farewells to each other, and leave the Temple.
1750
C A N D L E M A S 1 9 8 7
Coven of the Serpent's Eye
Declamation: Rufus Harrington
Invocation of the Mother: Paul Greenslade
Response of the Mother: Adapted by Prudence Jones from an original by
Vivianne Crowley
Invocation to the Crone: Rufus Harrington
Response of the Crone: Julia Phillips
Welcome to Spring: Mike Pinder
Welcome to the Virgin: Prudence Jones
Dance of the Elements: Prudence Jones and Julia Phillips
Initiate's Ceremony of Adapted by Julia Phillips from
Illumination: traditional Gardnerian source |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,423 | Charge of Brigid's Fire: Adapted by Rufus Harrington
Temple set up as follows:
Veil across northern quarter
Altar set up, and ritual weapons as usual
Candles and incense
Cauldron in centre of Temple
Brighid Doll
Sistrum
White silk veil for Virgin
Wrist and ankle bells for each Priestess
Large white candle, placed in cauldron
Symbols of the elements:
One athame (or dagger) }
One wand } These should be placed ready One chalice
} upon a small altar,
One pentacle } adjacent to the main altar
One black egg }
1751
Roles:
HPS-1 Goddess - Crone Aspect
HPS-2 Goddess - Mother Aspect
PS-1 Goddess - Virgin Aspect
HPS-3 Spirit
HP-1 Declamation and Invocation to Crone
HP-2 Invocation to Mother
PS-2 Eastern Quarter (Air)
PS-3 Southern Quarter (Fire)
PS-4 Western Quarter (Water)
PS-5 Northern Quarter (Earth)
(Note: it is essential that the first six roles be taken by experienced
initiates only)
Casting the circle:
All present will be purified and consecrated, and the circle will be cast
by the HPS.
The HPS will ask everyone to assist in the invocation to the quarters.
Those who have athames should collect them from the altar at this point.
After the Northern Quarter has been invoked, the group should all face
centre, while the HPS performs the invocation to Spirit. This completes the
casting of the circle.
THE RITUAL
PS-1 will go behind the veil, and put on the white silk veil.
HPS-1 and HPS-2 will stand side by side in the centre of the Temple. PS-2,
3, 4, and 5 will take up their positions at the cardinal points of the
Temple, and the Priests will stand between the Priestesses, ensuring
polarity. HPS-3 will stand in front of the main altar.
HP-1 will read the declamation: |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,424 | Child of the Spinning Serpent,
Daughter of the morning star;
Startled from the depths of silence
Wakens vision's Silver Star.
Starting cold from depths of nightmare,
Shadows passing on the land;
Tears of silver, iced and shining
These she sheds upon the land.
1752
For deep within the night of vision
There the coiled serpent stirs,
Calling from the cauldron's darkness,
Singing with the song of stars.
For there she sees a frozen river,
There beholds a land of ice,
And sees an ancient mother mourning,
Tears that quickly turn to ice.
And sees herself, the youthful virgin,
Reach that river; frozen, cold,
Shining in the crystal moonlight
Seeming like a silver road.
Across the waters, there the mother;
Ancient Queen of the Shining Night;
Standing in the silver darkness
Lit by icy crystal light.
Reaching out across the darkness,
Silver arms across the ice,
Two hands touch above the waters,
Reach across the frozen night.
But now the serpent song of starlight
Calls across the cauldron's night;
Their hands a bridge across the silence,
Darkness shatters into light.
As sunlight calls across the waters
Rising from the shining east,
Cries of joy that echo terror
Crack as silent ice release.
Now hear the cry of mourning mothers;
Hear the joy of pain released:
Dull ache deep within the waters
Calling to the stirring beast.
For now behold the icy rivers
Touched by sunlight, turned to blood;
See the waters flowing freely
Through the gates of land and love.
1753 |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,425 | HP-2 will move forward, and perform the invocation to the Mother aspect of
the Goddess upon HPS-2:
I call to you, Mother of all,
Queen of our most secret dreams.
From dark and starlit heavens,
And deep within the fertile earth:
Come to us crowned in glory - Come!
I invoke you, and call upon you;
By the fertile earth and pregnant moon:
Come! Descend upon the body of Thy Priestess.
HPS-2 responds:
I am thy Goddess:
Before the beginning of time was I.
I made the mountains into peaks,
And laid with soft green grass the valleys and the meadows.
Mine was the first foot which trod upon the earth,
And where I walked there sprang forth flowers.
Mine was the voice which gave rise to the first song,
And the birds listened, and heard, and made return.
In the beginning of time
I taught the sea its song,
And mine were the tears
That gave forth the first rains.
Listen and hear Me!
For it was I who gave birth to you,
And in the depths of my earth
You will find rest and rebirth.
I will spring you forth anew,
A fresh shoot to greenness.
Fear Me; Love Me; Adore Me!
Lose yourself in Me.
For I am the cup of the wine of life:
I stir the senses;
I am the power.
1754
HP-1 will now perform the invocation to the Crone aspect of the
Goddess upon HPS-1:
Ancient Mother born of silence,
Silver Queen of spiral ice;
Hear the serpent's song of starlight
Call across the cauldron's night.
A name, a call, a key of shadows;
An ancient song from an ancient dream
Echoes deep within the darkness,
Calls Thee from the depths unseen.
For now I see Thy crystal spiral,
Now I see the crystal web,
Shining in the cauldron's darkness, |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,426 | Bringing life and bringing death.
And now I call upon Thee, Ancient Mother,
To descend upon this the body of Thy servant
and Priestess.
HP-1 bows down before HPS-1
HPS-1 responds:
Who calls to the Queen of the Night?
(HP: "A worshipper")
Who calls to the cutter of the thread?
(HP: "The Spinning Serpent")
Who calls to the Mother of the Serpent?
(HP: "A lover")
Who calls to the Mistress of the Spiral Castle?
(HP: "Life itself")
If that man has not fear in his heart, let him stand and face me
now. (HP rises)
You have called, and I have answered, and now I shall teach thee
a mystery: That if that which thou seekest, thou findest not
within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee. For behold, I
have been with thee from the beginning, and I shall be with thee
at the end. Blessed Be.
1755
HP-1 returns to his place in the Temple. The Mother and Crone
will now "arm" each of the female guardians with the relevant
elemental weapon: The Crone will take an athame from the altar,
hand it to the Mother, who will present it to the Eastern
guardian. The wand will be given to the Southern guardian, the
chalice to the Western guardian, the pentacle to the Northern
guardian, and the black egg to Spirit.
Crone and Mother will now approach the veil: the Crone will part
the veil, and say:
As the white eagle of the north is flying overhead,
And the browns, reds and golds of autumn lie in the gutter, dead.
Remember then that summer birds with wings of fire flaying,
Came to witness spring's new hope, born of leaves decaying.
As new life will come from death, love will come at leisure:
Love of love, love of life, and giving without measure
Gives in return a wondrous yearn of a promise almost seen.
Live hand in hand, and together we'll stand
On the threshold of a dream.
During this, the Mother leads the Virgin to the centre of the
circle, and on the last line, all three stand hand in hand. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,427 | Then the Mother unveils the Virgin saying:
Welcome Virgin to Life!
Welcome Virgin to Spring!
Let life spring from thine heart,
And out thine eyes.
Let joy behold the dawn.
The Crone now instructs the Priests to turn away, as they may not
witness this stage of the female mysteries.
The Priestesses start to slowly circle deosil about the circle in
The Dance of the Elements. While this is going on, the Mother and
Crone will explain to the Virgin the significance and power of
each of the elements. 1755Note:1755 This is an integral part of the
ritual, but cannot be written as it is performed spontaneously by
the Mother and Crone. The format is basically as follows:
Mother: I give you the power of your intellect
Crone: I give you the power of beginnings
Mother: I give you the power of decision
Crone: I give you the freedom of air
and so on, remaining with each element as long as desired.
1756
On command from the Crone, the Dance will cease, and each
Priestess will return to her respective position. Now, the Mother
will take the Virgin to each Priestess in turn, starting with the
East, where she will be presented with the elemental weapons.
(ie, armed with her potential). After each presentation, the
Virgin will replace the weapon on the altar, to signify her
understanding and acceptance of this knowledge. Both Virgin and
Mother will return to the cauldron, where the Crone will present
the Virgin with the Bride Doll, which she will accept, and place
upon the altar. She then returns to the centre, and looks into
the cauldron, where she now finds a sistrum, which she picks up
and shakes joyfully shouting "Bride is Come, Bride is Welcome!"
This is the cue for the Priests to face centre once more. HP-1
starts playing the Bodrhun, and HPS-3 leads the dance. The Mother
and Crone link hands around the Virgin in a symbol of protection.
Everyone chants 1756"Bride is Come, Bride is Welcome"1756 as the dance
increases in tempo, and then HPS-3 will initiate the Witches'
Rune when she feels the time is right. The dance will finish with
arms held aloft, and then the Virgin will break out from between
the Mother and Crone, and take the cauldron candle to the altar,
where she will light it from one of the altar candles.
She will turn to face the group while HPS-3 leads the Initiate's Ceremony
of Illumination.
The virgin now returns to the East, where she reads The Charge of Brigid's
Fire.
I am She of the golden hair, Queen of the white hills, Rider of
the white swan, and now stand at the threshold of my glory.
I bring with me three gifts of fire: the first is the flame of
Inspiration that is kindled within the heart of the seeker. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,428 | The second is the flame of purification; the cleansing flame of
truth. The third is the flame born of the fires of love that
brings the seed of hope to all life.
Virgin now performs cakes and wine with a Priest of her choice.
The feast.
TO END THE RITUAL
All take their athames, and support HPS-1 as she thanks, and bids
farewell to the Quarter Guardians.
Formal grounding of the power.
All present make their farewells to each other, and leave the
Temple.
1757
IMBOLG 1992
JULIA PHILLIPS
Temple in darkness, apart from the Yule log in the centre. Brigid in
her bed on the
small altar. Lots of unlit candles in sand pots around the room. All
enter as usual,
and the Circle is cast in the normal manner. After the central
invocations, HP says:
Awake O Earth from your slumbers! Awake O Sun and restore the Earth!
Mother - we are
in darkness.
HPS picks up a jug of water, and pours it into the cauldron saying:
The waters are broken. The ice melting towards Candletime. Blood has
been along the
track, but now the ways are clear of death. Old and grey I was, but
here in the
mystery of the waters I am renewed. For I am the one you sought, but
could not find.
For I was singing to my child unseen, beneath the hills of birch and
rowan.
HPS takes the asperge, and all circle around her chanting the |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,429 | Witches Rune. She
asperges each person as they pass, and on the last round, hands each
person a white
candle. When everyone has a candle, the circling stops, and HPS
lights the main
candles and says:
The darkness of winter is passing: the Earth awakens once more from
its slumbers;
the Virgin walks among us again, and brings Her blessings upon the
land and upon our
lives.
Priest and Priestess step forward and remove the cover from Brigid's
bed, revealing
the Virgin. Everyone shouts:
Brigid is Come! Brigid is Welcome!
1758
HPS takes a light from the Yule log and says:
Let the inner light bear fruit in our own lives, even as the Earth
bears the first
flowers.
I am Brigid: She of the Golden Hair; Queen of the White Hills, and
rider of the
White Swan. I bring three gifts of fire. The first is the flame of
creation; of the
poet and artist; of the lovers' passion for union with the beloved.
The second is
the flame of purification and testing, the flame of truth. With this
flame all dross
and weakness are made clear and cleansed from thee, so thou become
like a true and
tested sword. The third is the greatest of all, for it is the
healing flame born out |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,430 | of the love that gives all, the maker of peace and harmony. But I do
not give these
gifts one by one; I give them as a whole in the form of the growing
Sun.
Everyone then lights their candle from the Yule log, and starts to
circle deosil,
lighting the candles around the room as they go, chanting:
Thus we banish winter, thus we welcome spring;
Say farewell to what is dead, and greet each living thing.
When all the candles are lit, everyone places their candle in a sand
pot, and the
chanting ceases.
HPs and HP bless cakes and wine.
1759
S A M H A I N 1 9 8 6
Coven of the Serpent's Eye
Declamation written by Rufus Harrington
Invocation to Horned God written by Doreen Valiente
Response of the Horned God written by Paul Greenslade
Consecration of the seeds written by Jim Kitson
Temple set up as follows:
Veil in northern quarter
Cauldron in centre, with charcoal blocks ready lit
Stereo ready with taped music
A dish of corn seeds on the altar
One pot of earth for each person
Pomegranate on altar
Candles, incense and ritual weapons as usual
Floor tom-tom drum
Roles:
HPS The Goddess
HP The Horned God |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,431 | Priest To consecrate the seeds
P or PS Ritual drumming
Casting the circle:
The Circle will be cast by the HPS
The HPS will invoke the quarters: while she does so, each person
should face the quarter being invoked, and direct power to the
quarter with their athame (or other if they have no athame). The
group should all face centre, forming a circle after the
invocation to the northern quarter, and hold both arms aloft
while the HPS calls upon the Lord and Lady to join with the
celebrations. This completes the casting of the circle.
.paŠ
The Ritual:
HPS wearing black silk robe and veil stands at the altar,
facing the group, who are seated. 1759The HP reads the
declamation:1759
Iced legions of the damned
Call and dance the songs of madness;
Hollow hills re-echo to the silent cries of night,
For dancing flames now turn to shadows,
Winds and madness call the night,
And just a single light in darkness
Stands before the veil to fight.
1760
And so the Goddess stood in darkness,
Tear stained cheeks lashed by rain,
Turned to face the veil of darkness,
Turned to face the world of pain.
Alone, an outcast, branded traitor;
She it was who killed the land.
To save the land from age and darkness,
To save the land from fear and death,
For love of life she sought to conquer,
Sought to stay the hand of death.
But in her love and in her madness
She summoned death into the land;
Summoned death to fight the darkness,
Thus it was destroyed the land.
Cracked silver lightning; shattering darkness,
Revealing eyes, and visions born beyond.
Iced visions of light,
Echoes of dying laughter chill and cool the blood.
Storm clouds tearing sky and screaming,
Battles fought at heaven's gate,
Fly upon the winds of madness,
Seek the silver key of fate.
HPS: SILENCE! An end must be made! |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,432 | For there are three great events in the life of man:
Love, Death and resurrection in the new body, and magic
controls them all.
For to fulfil love you must return again at the same
time and place as the loved one, and you must remember
and love them again.
But to be reborn, you must die and be ready for a new
body; and to die you must be born, and without love
you may not be born, and so is formed the spiral of
creation, and this is all the magics.
The group now stand, and when everyone is facing the HPS, she
assumes pentagram
position. The ritual drummer takes his position, and the Priest who
is taking the
role of the Horned God switches on the music tape, blows out the
northern quarter
candle and moves behind the veil. Silence while the tape of "The
making of Bloduedd"
is played, as this is the invocation the the Goddess in her
transformation aspect.
(Note: the tape is allowed to continue playing, as this is the only
item on the
tape, the remainder being blank.)
The HPS turns to face the altar, and holds aloft the sword. As she
does so, the
drummer plays a steady rhythm. The HPS moves to the centre of the
circle, facing the
veil; the group arrange themselves behind her, all facing the veil.
The HPS points
the sword at the veil, and the group hold aloft their arms for the
invocation to the
Horned God.
1761
HPS says:
By the flame that burneth bright O Horned One,
We call Thy name into the night, O Ancient One!
Thee we invoke by the moon led sea,
By the standing stone, and the twisted tree.
Thee we invoke where gather Thine own,
By nameless shrine, forgotten and lone.
Come where the round of the dance is trod,
Horn and hoof of the goat foot God!
By moonlit meadow and dusky hill,
When haunted wood is hushed and still,
Come to the charm of the chanted prayer,
As the moon bewitches the midnight air.
Evoke Thy powers that potent bide,
In shining stream and secret tide,
In fiery flame and starlight pale,
In shadowy hosts that ride the gale.
And by the fern brakes, fairy haunted,
Of forests wild and woods enchanted;
Come O come to the heart beats drum,
Come to us who gather below, |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,433 | When the pale white moon is climbing slow,
Through the stars to the heavens height,
We hear Thy hooves on the wings of night!
As black tree branches shake and sigh,
By joy and terror we know Thee nigh.
We speak the spell Thy power unlocks,
At solstice, sabbat and equinox.
Word of virtue, the veil to rend,
From primal dawn to the wide world's end!
(As the invocation proceeds, the drummer speeds his rhythm to
suggest the sound of
hoofbeats, and after the final line of the invocation, he suddenly
reverts to a
simple, slow four beats for the entrance of the Horned God.)
P#1 responds from behind the veil:
I am the Dread Lord of the Shadows:
God of life and giver of life.
I open wide the veil through which all must pass.
The gate is open between the worlds
And all who would enter on this night are welcome.
Come spirits; departed ones; brethren from our past and present
Join us in the hunt tonight.
During his response, he parts the veil, and then fastens it open in
some way, as
the veil between the worlds remains open until closed by the Horned
God at the end
of the ritual.
1762
As he finishes speaking, he enters the Temple, and proceeds to move in
a widdershins
direction, and the drummer plays a rhythm according to the speed and
movement of the
Horned God. The Horned God then takes the hand of one of the group
(female), and
she takes the hand of the next male, and so on until all the group
except for the
HPS and drummer are dancing with the Horned God. This represents the
Wild Hunt, and
the drumming and dancing should reflect the feeling of this. At a
prompt from the
Horned God, the group will stop dancing, and seat themselves on the
floor facing
inwards around the cauldron. The drummer will join them, and the HPS
will bring a
pot of incense, from which she will take a handful and throw it into
the cauldron.
she will then pass the incense to the HP, who will also throw some
into the
cauldron, and will pass it to his neighbour, and so on around the
circle until each
person has thrown some incense into the cauldron. There is now a
period of
meditation, where everyone thinks about the past year, and those who |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,434 | may have passed
over during that time. It is also a time for joining with our loved
ones who have
gone beyond, and who we invite to return to us for the night. When
the HPS feels
that long enough has been spent on this part of the ritual, she will
signal that
everyone should end their meditation.
P#2 shall now rise (also PS#1 if designated), and approach the
altar where he/they
will perform the consecration of the sacred seed.
P#2 says:
Bounded by a shell then?
Secure in the vice of the earth, a unity waiting.
And outside?
Cold, wet loneliness, the comfort of death.
And above?
The agony of birth and growth, total struggle in total night.
O Gaia!
Smile upon your children, set free the seed of life and joy.
So Mote It Be!
When this has been completed, P#2 takes some of the seeds, and
energises them with
his own hopes and desires for the coming year, and then plants them
in one of the
prepared pots. The rest of the group do likewise, commencing with
1762PS#11762 if
designated, and following male/female if possible. The Horned God
and Goddess do not
plant seeds at the altar. When the last person has planted their
seeds, and all are
seated again, the 1762Horned God1762 approaches the altar, and
slices the
pomegranite in half, and holds both halves in one hand. He picks up
some seeds and
charges them with his hopes and desires for the coming year, but
does not plant them
at the altar. He holds them in his hand, and then he calls to all
the spirits who
followed him through from beyond the veil to return with him now,
and moving in a
deosil direction, circles around the Temple finally ending up beyond
the veil again.
He calls to the Goddess to join with him once more, and she has such
love for him
that she willingly leaves her life this side of the veil, and of her
own free will
joins once more with her consort. She rises, and goes to the altar
to collect and
charge her own seeds, which she then carries with her as she moves
around the
Temple, finally joining the Horned God behind the veil. He closes
the veil between
the worlds once more, and to symbolise her willing descent to the
Otherworld, the
Goddess eats one half of the pomegranate. She and the Horned God |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,435 | then plant their
seeds.
The northern quarter candle is relit by the person nearest to it.
1763
At this point, 1763PS#1 and P#21763 approach the altar, and perform
the consecration
of cakes and wine, in which all participate bar the HPS and P#1
behind the veil, as
they are "no longer of this world". After cakes and wine, 1763HPS
and P#11763 rejoin
the circle for the feast, no longer "Horned God and Goddess".
TO END THE RITUAL:
Each quarter is thanked and bidden to depart by HPS
All present make their farewells to each other, and leave the
Temple.
The Rite is ended.
1764
Y U L E 1984
Julia Phillips
Circle is cast and Quarters erected.
HPS: We now stand at the turning of the year.
Dark Lord: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter,
All fades and passes, day to night.
Dark Lord extinguishes candles leaving only altar candles alight.
HPS: Let us dance for the long year's end, for the sun
sets
quickly in the West, and we begin the long night of
hope.
Coven do Wheel or Cord dance widdershins about the cauldron
chanting:
Time and Death, Life and Seasons, All must pass, All must change.
Star Child now leaves the circle, and stands behind the veil in the
North.
HPS stands at the cauldron in the centre, wearing a black veil.
HPS: I am the Hag who engendered you all;
I am the Three and the One who is here;
I am the log that is ripe for burning;
In my end is your hope of beginning. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,436 | HPS now lifts the cauldron aloft and presents it to each quarter.
She returns to the centre, and lights the cauldron candle, from
which she lights a quarter candle for each member of the coven.
The quarter candles are placed in their respective quarters.
Narrator: This is the night of the Solstice; the Mother
Night.
Now darkness triumphs, and yet gives way and changes
to light.
Time stops, and all wait while the cauldron of the Dark
King is
transformed into the infant Light. We watch for the dawn
when the Mother
again gives birth to the sun, who is the bringer of
hope and the
promise of summer. Holly gives way to Oak, the Wren to the
Robin, Old to
New.
Narrator: We stand now in the long night, we pray for the
sun's return. In
darkness and shadows the Great Mother groans. The Mother
labours to bring
forth the sun from her pain. From her cries of labour
comes forth our
cries of welcome; from her toil and anguish our hope is
reborn. Let us
now call forth the Great Mother, and the Lord of Life, her
husband and son.
The Star Child emerges from behind the veil, and lays at the
feet of the
HPS. The HPS points to the Star Child and proclaims:
Behold the Child! Here lies our king!
1765
The HPS crowns the Star Child with a crown of misteltoe. She
removes her veil and announces:
I am the Mother who brought forth the child;
I am the inspiration, and I am the rebirth.
Narrator: You are the ecstasy of the blessed
You are the light of the sun's beams
You are the lordly door of welcome
You are the guiding star
Yours is the step of the roe on the hill
Yours is the step of the white-faced mare
Yours is the grace of the swimming swan
You are the jewel in each mystery
Coven now do Wheel or Cord dance deosil about the cauldron
chanting:
Power of soil and power of air,
Power of fire and power of water,
Power that spins the wheel of birth, |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,437 | Spins the wheel of joy and mirth,
Spins the wheel of sun and moon,
Push, push, push, Open the gate.
Power of spell and magic free,
Eternal power that binds the sea,
Weaves the web of infinity,
Light of dark and light of day,
Speed the spokes fast on their way,
Push push push - ah ah
Open the gate, So Mote It Be!
HPS now invokes the Lord of Misrule into the circle. He is
challenged upon entry by the Dark Lord, and must explain who he
is, and why he is there. The Lord of Misrule is now in charge of
the circle, and may behave as he sees fit. At some point, he must
take the burdens of the coven for the previous twelve moons and
pack them in his bag.
Cakes and Wine.
The Lord of Misrule must be ritually hunted as a wren to bring
about his downfall. The coven mime hunting the wren chanting,
"Burn the bush, hunt the wren"
When he is discovered, the coven point their athames at his neck
to symbolise his death.
Close ritual.
1766
"LEGITIMACY" IN THE CRAFT, a conversation
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-
(117) Sun 25 Apr 93 11:16
By: Khaled
To: Lana
Re: things
St:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--
L> What rituals do you think I would have to do to become
"letigimate" L> ....(do I
have to be "initiated" in other words... )!
That rather depends on who you want to recognise you as
legitimate. There's a
wide variance of opinion as to what makes a witch, a Witch or a
Wiccan. If you open
your heart to the Lady and commune (speak with your heart, not
necessarily in words)
with her often, she will eventually adopt her as one of her special
Children (the
"inner", or Lady's, initiation). Her adoption will cause changes to |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,438 | your spirit and
way of looking at things that will be obvious to those of us who
share it, as its
presence in others will become obvious to you after you've awakened
to her touch
(unfortunately, it's one of those things
that doesn't make much sense until you've *been there*).
Most of us here accept the Lady's initiation as the mark of a
true Witch
(capitalised to denote the priest/ess, as opposed to the folk mage
or witch). I
gather that the majority of those posting here think of Wiccans and
Witches as one
and the same, though many of us think of Wicca as a particular
subset of Witches
(i.e. all Wiccans are Witches, but not all Witches are, or even wish
to be, Wiccan).
1767
For those of us who see them as different (I'm one of them), you
will need to
be formally adopted into a Wiccan clan to be a *Wiccan* Witch. Some
traditions
permit self-adoption into their clans, some (Gardnerians and their
near kin in
particular) recognise you as Wiccan only if you've been adopted by
an authorised
Elder of the clan in question. Then again,there's a few diehards
who don't
recognise anyone but members of their own clan as Wiccan.
Which brings us back to square one -- it depends on whose
recognition you're
looking for. Most will accept your legitimacy *as a Witch* based on
the quality of
your rapport with the Lady. And the way to develop that is to spend
a lot of time
in her company, whether with like-minded others in a coven or
quietly by yourself.
A large minority will accept you *as a Wiccan* based on whether or
not you have |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,439 | passed through a human rite of passage (confusingly, also called
initiation)
adopting you into a Wiccan clan. Be sure you know the
family that wishes to adopt you before accepting: this time you get
to *choose* your
relatives . Those who insist that only *they* have the Truth, and
therefore only
they are legitimate aren't really worth wasting your time worrying
about, IMHO.
1768
L> I was wondering if you HAD to belong to a coven in order to
L> practice, or to be "letigimate", so to speak.
As Ayesha mentioned, what matters is that you spend time in the
Lady's company,
and "listen" to what she has to say, "feel" what she has to show.
Even amongst
crusty old Gardnerians such as myself, there's no need to be a
member of a coven to
practice your Craft, nor does resigning from a coven invalidate your
initiation(s).
We prefer to work in covens, because we generally prefer the company
of our brethren
in Circle, but there's no law that says we *have to* if we feel like
being alone, or
have no choice in the matter. Gardnerian
*initiations* are done by a coven, and one normally has to be a
candidate for
membership in that coven in order to be initiated (by us). This is
by no means
invariable, but initiating someone you don't want in your coven is
considered
tasteless at best, a betrayal of your sacred trust at worst.
So, no, you don't HAVE to be a member of a coven to be seen as
legitimate. And
since my own opinion is that the weakest link in a coven is its
weakest solitary,
I'd encourage you to continue to do some solo work, even if you DO |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,440 | join a coven.
But what would I know, I'm just a 3rd . Blessings on your
path, whichever
way you choose to go...
K
1769
The Meaning of Witchcraft
Gerald B. Gardner
P.265
Appendix I
THE MAGICAL LEGEND OF THE WITCHES.
Now, G. (the Witch Goddess) had never loved,
but she would solve
all the Mysteries, even the Mystery of Death;
and so she journeyed to
the Nether Lands.
The Guardians of the Portals challenged her,
"Strip off thy
garments, lay aside thy jewels; for naught may
ye bring with ye into
this our land."
So she laid down her garments and her jewels,
and was bound, as are all who
enter the Realms of Death the Mighty One.
(Note: There was a Celtic custom of
binding corpses. The cord which had bound a
corpse was useful in learning the
"second sight.")
Such was her beauty that Death himself knelt
and Kissed her feet,
saying, "Blessed be thy feet that have brought
thee in these ways.
Abide with me, let me place my cold hands on
thy heart." |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,441 | She replied, "I love thee not. Why dost thou
cause all things that I love and
take delight in to fade and die?"
"Lady", replied Death, "tis Age and Fate,
against which I am
helpless. Age causes all things to wither; but
when men die at the end of time I
give them rest and peace, and strength so that
they may
return. But thou, thou art lovely. Return not;
abide with me."
But she answered, "I love thee not."
Then said Death, "An thou received not my had
on thy heart, thou
must receive Death's scourge."
"It is Fate; better so", she said, and she
knelt; and Death
Scourged her, and she cried, "I feel the pangs
of love."
And Death said, "Blessed be", and gave her
the fivefold kiss,
saying, Thus only may ye attain to joy and
knowledge.
And he taught her all the Mysteries. And
they loved and were one, and he
taught her all the Magics.
For there are three great events in the life
of man; Love, Death,
and Resurrection in a new body; and Magic
controls them all. For to
fulfil love you must return again at the same
time and place as the
loved one, and you must remember and love them
again. But to be reborn you must
die, and be ready for new body; and to die you
must be born; and without love you
may not be born. And these be all the Magics.
1770 |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,442 | The Spiral Dance
1979; Starhawk
p 159
The Goddess In The Kingdom Of Death
In this world, the Goddess is seen in the moon,
the light that shines in darkness,
the rain bringer, mover of the tides, Mistress
of mysteries. And as the moon waxes
and wanes, and walks three nights of its cycle
in darkness, so, it is said, the
Goddess once spent three nights in the Kingdom
of Death.
For in love She ever seeks Her other Self, and
once, in the winter of the year, when
He had disappeared from the green earth, She
followed Him and came at last to the
gates beyond which the living do not go.
The Guardian of the Gate challenged Her, and She
stripped Herself of Her clothing
and jewels, for nothing may be brought into that
land. For love, She was bound as
all who enter there must be and brought before
Death Himself.
He loved Her, and knelt at Her feet, laying
before Her His sword and crown, and gave
Her the fivefold kiss, and said,
"Do not return to the living world, but stay
here with Me, and have peace and rest
and comfort."
But She answered, "Why do you cause all things I
love and delight in to die and
wither away?"
"Lady," He said, "It is the fate of all that
lives to die. Everything passes; all
fades away. I bring comfort and consolation to
those who pass the gates, that they
may grow young again. But You are My heart's
desire -- return not, but stay here
with Me." |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,443 | And She remained with Him three days and three
nights, and at the end of the third
night She took up His crown, and it became a
circlet that She placed around Her
neck, saying:
"Here is the circle of rebirth. Through You all
passes out of life, but through Me
all may be born again. Everything passess;
everything changes. Even death is not
eternal. Mine is the mystery of the womb, that
is the cauldron of rebirth. Enter
into Me and know Me, and You will be free of all
fear. For as life is but a journey
into death, so death is but a passage back to
life, and in Me the circle is ever
turning."
In love, He entered into Her, and so was reborn
into life. Yet is He known as Lord
of Shadows, the comforter and consoler, opener
of the gates, King of the Land of
Youth, the giver of peace and rest. But She is
the gracious mother of all life;
from Her all things proceed and to Her they
return again. In Her are the mysteries
of death and birth; in Her is the fulfillment of
all love.
*Traditional Craft Myth
1771
A TRUE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
updated through January 3, 1992. copyright (c)
1992 by Allen Greenfield. All
rights reserved.]
"The fact is that the instincts of ignorant
people invariably find expression in
some form of witchcraft. It matters little what
the metaphysician or the moralist |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,444 | may inculcate; the animal sticks to his
subconscious ideas..."
Aleister Crowley
The Confessions
"As attunement to psychic (occult) reality
has grown in America, one often
misunderstood and secretive branch of it has
begun to flourish also -- magical
religion..."
J. Gordon Melton
Institute for the Study of
American Religion, Green Egg, 1975
"Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!
With my Hawk's head I peck at the eyes of
Jesus as he hangs upon the cross
I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed &
blind him
With my claws I tear out the flesh of the
Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and
Din..."
Liber Al Vel Legis 3:50 - 53
"If you are on the Path, and see the Buddha
walking towards you, kill him."
Zen saying, paraphrased slightly
"Previously I never thought of doubting that
there were many witches in the world;
now, however, when I examine the public record,
I find myself believing that there
are hardly any..."
Father Friedrich von Spee, S.J. , Cautio
Criminalis, 1631
Having spent the day musing over the origins
of the modern witchcraft, I had a
vivid dream. It seemed to be a cold January
afternoon, and Aleister Crowley was
having Gerald Gardner over to tea. It was
1945, and talk of an early end to the
war was in the air. An atmosphere of optimism |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,445 | prevailed in the "free world" , but
the wheezing old magus was having none of it.
"Nobody is interested in magick any more!"
Crowley ejaculated. "My friends on the
Continent are dead or in exile, or grown old;
the movement in America is in
shambles. I've seen my best candidates turn
against me....Achad, Regardie -- even
that gentleman out in California, what's - his
- name, AMORC, the one that made
all the money.."
1772
"O, bosh, Crowley," Gardner waved his hand
impatiently, "all things considered,
you've done pretty well for yourself. Why,
you've been called the `wickedest man
in the world' and by more than a few. And
you've not, if you'll pardon the
impertinence, done too badly with the ladies."
Crowley coughed, tugged on his pipe
reflectively. "You know" he finally ventured,
"it's like I've been trying to tell this fellow
Grant. A restrictive Order is not
enough. If I had it all to do over again, I
would've built a religion for the
unwashed masses instead of just a secret
society. Why, the opportunities! The
women!"
Gardner smiled. "Precisely. And that is what
I have come to propose to you.
Take your BOOK OF THE LAW, your GNOSTIC MASS.
Add a little razzle-dazzle for the
country folk. Why I know these occultists who
call themselves `witches'. They
dance around fires naked, get drunk, have a
good time. Rosicrucians, I think.
Proper English country squires and dames,
mostly; I think they read a lot of
Frazier and Margaret Murray. If I could persuade |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,446 | you to draw on your long experience
and talents, in no time at all we could invent
a popular cult that would have
beautiful ladies clamoring to let us strip them
naked, tie them up and spank their
behinds! If, Mr. Crowley, you'll excuse my
explicitness."
For all his infirmity, Aleister Crowley almost
sprang to his feet, a little of the
old energy flashing through his loins. "By
George, Gardner, you've got something
there, I should think! I could license you to
initiate people into the O.T.O.
today, and you could form the nucleus of such a
group!" He paced in agitation. "Yes,
yes," he mused, half to Gardner, half to
himself. "The Book. The Mass. I could
write some rituals. An `ancient book' of
magick. A `book of shadows'. Priest-
esses, naked girls. Yes. By Jove, yes!"
Great story, but merely a dream , created out
of bits and pieces of rumor, history
and imagination. Don't be surprised, though,
if a year or five years from now you
read it as "gospel" (which is an ironic synonym
for `truth') in some new learned
text on the fabled history of Wicca. Such is
the way all mythologies come into
being.
Please don't misunderstand me here; I use the
word `mythology' in this context in
its aboriginal meaning, and with considerable
respect. History is more metaphor
than factual accounting at best, and there are
myths by which we live and others
by which we die. Myths are the dreams and
visions which parallel objective
history. This entire work is, in fact, an
attempt to approximate history.
To arrive at some perspective on what the
modern mythos called, variously,
"Wicca", the "Old Religion", "Witchcraft" and
"Neopaganism" is, we must firstly |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,447 | make a firm distinction; "witchcraft" in the
popular informally defined sense may
have little to do with the modern religion that
goes by the same name. It has been
argued by defenders of and formal apologists
for modern Wicca that it is a direct
lineal descendent of an ancient, indeed,
prehistoric worldwide folk religion.
1773
Some proponents hedge their claims, calling
Wicca a "revival" rather than a
continuation of an ancient cult. Oddly enough,
there may never have been any such
cult! The first time I met someone who thought
she was a "witch," she started
going on about being a "blue of the cloak." I
should've been warned right then and
there. In fact, as time has passed and the
religion has spread, the claims of
lineal continuity have tended to be hedged more
and more. Thus, we find Dr.
Gardner himself, in 1954, stating unambiguously
that some witches are descendants
"... of a line of priests and priestesses of an
old and probably Stone Age
religion, who have been initiated in a certain
way (received into the circle) and
become the recipients of certain ancient
learning." (Gardner, WITCHCRAFT TODAY, pp
33-34.)
Stated in its most extreme form, Wicca may be
defined as an ancient pagan
religious system of beliefs and practices, with
a form of apostolic succession
(that is, with knowledge and ordination handed
on lineally from generation to
generation), a more or less consistent set of
rites and myths, and even a secret
holy book of considerable antiquity (The Book
of Shadows). |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,448 | More recent writers, as we have noted, have
hedged a good deal on these claims,
particularly the latter. Thus we find Stewart
Farrar in 1971 musing on the
purported ancient text thusly: "Whether,
therefore, the whole of the Book of
Shadows is post-1897 is anyone's guess. Mine is
that, like the Bible, it is a
patchwork of periods and sources, and that
since it is copied and re-copied by
hand, it includes amendments, additions, and
stylistic alterations according to
the taste of a succession of copiers...Parts of
it I sense to be genuinely old;
other parts suggest modern interpolation..."
(Farrar, WHAT WITCHES DO, pp
34-35.)As we shall discover presently, there
appear to be no genuinely old copies
of the Book of Shadows.
Still, as to the mythos, Farrar informs us
that the "two personifications of
witchcraft are the Horned God and the Mother
Goddess..." (ibid, p 29) and that the
"Horned God is not the Devil, and never has
been. If today `Satanist' covens do
exist, they are not witches but a sick fringe,
delayed-reaction victims of a
centuries-old Church propaganda in which even
intelligent Christians no longer
believe." (ibid, p 32).
One could protest:, "Very well, some case
might be made for the Horned God being
mistaken for the Christian Devil (or should that
be the other way around?), but what
record, prior to the advent 50 years ago of
modern Wicca via Gerald Gardner, do we
have of the survival of a mother goddess image
from ancient times?"
Wiccan apologists frequently refer to the
(apparently isolated) tenth century
church document which states that "some wicked
women, perverted by the Devil,
seduced by the illusions and phantasms of |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,449 | demons, believe and profess themselves
in the hours of the night to ride upon certain
beasts with Diana, the goddess of
pagans, or with Herodias, and an innumerable
multitude of women, and in the
silence of the dead of night to traverse great
spaces of earth, and to obey her
commands as of their mistress, and to be
summoned to her service on certain
nights." (Quoted in Valiente, WITCHCRAFT FOR
TOMORROW, Hale, 1978, p 32.) I do not
doubt that bits of pagan folklore survived
on the Continent through the first millenium --
Northern Europe remained overtly
pagan until the High Middle Ages. But what has
this to do with Wicca?
Farrar, for his part, explains the lack of
references to a goddess in the
testimony at the infamous witch trials by
asserting that "the judges ignored the
Goddess, being preoccupied with the Satan-image
of the God.." (WHAT WITCHES DO, p
33). But it is the evidence of that reign of
terror which lasted from roughly 1484
to 1692 which brings the whole idea of a
surviving religious cult into question.
It is now the conventional wisdom on the
witchburning mania which swept like a
1774
plague over much of Europe during the transition
from medieval world to modern
that it was JUST that; a mania, a delusion in
the minds of Christian clergymen and
state authorities; that is, there were no
witches, only the innocent victims of
the witch hunt.
Further, this humanist argument goes, the
`witchcraft' of Satanic worship,
broomstick riding, of Sabbats and Devil-marks,
was a rather late invention, |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,450 | borrowing but little from remaining memories of
actual preChristian paganism. We
have seen a resurrection of this mania in the
1980s flurry over `Satanic
sacrificial' cults, with as little evidence.
"The concept of the heresy of witchcraft was
frankly regarded as a new invention,
both by the theologians and by the public,"
writes Dr. Rossell Hope Robbins in THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WITCHCRAFT & DEMONOLOGY,
(Crown, 1959, p.9)"Having to hurdle an
early church law, the Canon Episcopi, which
said in effect that belief in
witchcraft was superstitious and heretical, the
inquisitors cavilled by arguing
that the witchcraft of the Canon Episcopi and
the witchcraft of the Inquisition
were different..."
The evidence extracted under the most gruesome
and repeated tortures resemble the
Wiccan religion of today in only the most
cursory fashion. Though Wicca may have
been framed with the "confessions" extracted by
victims of the inquisitors in
mind, those "confessions" --- which are more
than suspect, to begin with, bespeak
a cult of devil worshipers dedicated to evil.
One need only read a few of the accounts of
the time to realize that, had there
been at the time a religion of the Goddess and
God, of seasonal circles and The
Book of Shadows, such would likely have been
blurted out by the victims, and more
than once. The agonies of the accused were,
almost literally, beyond the
imagination of those of us who have been
fortunate enough to escape them.
The witch mania went perhaps unequaled in the
annals of crimes against humanity
en masse until the Hitlerian brutality of our
own century. But, no such confessions
were forthcoming, though the wretches accused,
before the torture was done, would |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,451 | also be compelled to condemn their own parents,
spouses, loved ones, even children.
They confessed, and to anything the inquisitors
wished, anything to stop or reduce
the pain.
A Priest, probably at risk to his own life,
recorded testimony in the 1600s that
reflected the reality underlying the forced
"confessions" of "witches". Rev. Michael
Stapirius records, for example, this comment
from one "confessed witch": "I never
dreamed that by means of the torture a person
could be brought to the point of
telling such lies as I have told. I am not a
witch, and I have never seen the
devil, and still I had to plead guilty myself
and denounce others...." All but one
copy of Father Stapirius' book were destroyed,
and little wonder.
A letter smuggled from a German burgomaster,
Johannes Junius, to his daughter in
1628, is as telling as it is painful even to
read. His hands had been virtually
destroyed in the torture, and he wrote only
with great agony and no hope. "When
at last the executioner led me back to the
cell, he said to me, `Sir, I beg you,
for God's sake, confess something, whether it
be true or not. Invent something,
for you cannot endure the torture which you
will be put to; and, even if you bear
it all, yet you will not escape, not even if
you were an earl, but one torture
will follow another until you say you are a
witch. Not before that,' he said, `will
they let you go, as you may see by all their
trials, for one is just like
another...' " (ibid, pp 12-13)
For the graspers at straws, we may find an
occasional line in a "confession" which
is intriguing, as in the notations on the
"confession" of one woman from Germany
dated in late 1637. After days of unspeakable |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,452 | torment, wherein the woman
1775
confesses under pain, recants when the pain is
removed, only to be moved by more
pain to confess again, she is asked: "How did
she influence the weather? She does
not know what to say and can only whisper, Oh,
Heavenly Queen, protect me!"
Was the victim calling upon "the goddess"? Or,
as seems more likely, upon that
aforementioned transfiguration of all ancient
goddesses in Christian mythology, the
Virgin Mary. One more quote from Dr. Robbins,
and I will cease to parade late
medieval history before you.
It comes from yet another priest, Father
Cornelius Loos, who observed, in 1592
that "Wretched creatures are compelled by the
severity of the torture to confess
things they have never done, and so by cruel
butchery innocent lives are
taken....." (ibid, p 16). The "evidence" of the
witch trials indicates, on the
whole, neither the Satanism the church and
state would have us believe, nor the
pagan survivals now claimed by modern Wicca;
rather, they suggest only fear,
greed, human brutality carried out to bizarre
extremes that have few parallels in
all of history. But, the brutality is not that
of `witches' nor even of `Satanists'
but rather that of the Christian Church, and
the government.
What, then, are we to make of modern Wicca? It
must, of course, be observed as an
aside that in a sense witchcraft or "wisecraft"
has, indeed, been with us from the
dawn of time, not as a coherent religion or set
of practices and beliefs, but as
the folk magic and medicine that stretches back |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,453 | to early, possibly paleolithic
tribal shamans on to modern China's so-called
"barefoot doctors".
In another sense, we can also say that
ceremonial magick, as I have previously
noted, has had a place in history for a very
long time, and both these ancient
systems of belief and practice have
intermingled in the lore of modern Wicca, as
apologists are quick to claim.
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But, to an extent, this misses the point and
skirts an essential question anyone
has the right to ask about modern Wicca --
namely, did Wicca exist as a coherent
creed, a distinct form of spiritual expression,
prior to the 1940s; that is, prior
to the meeting of minds between the old magus
and venerable prophet of the occult
world Aleister Crowley, and the first
popularizer, if not outright inventor of
modern Wicca, Gerald Brosseau Gardner?
There is certainly no doubt that bits and
pieces of ancient paganism survived
into modern times in folklore and, for that
matter, in the very practices and
beliefs of Christianity.
Further, there appears to be some evidence
that `Old George' Pickingill and
others were practicing some form of folk magick
as early as the latter part of the
last century, though even this has recently
been brought into question. Wiccan
writers have made much of this in the past, but
just what `Old George' was into is
subject to much debate.
Doreen Valiente, an astute Wiccan writer and
one-time intimate of the late Dr. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,454 | Gardner (and, in fact, the author of some
rituals now thought by others to be of
"ancient origin"), says of Pickingill that so
"fierce was `Old George's dislike of
Christianity that he would even collaborate
with avowed Satanists..." (TOMORROW, p
20). What
George Pickingill was doing is simply not
clear.
He is said to have had some interaction with a
host of figures in the occult
revival of the late nineteenth century,
including perhaps even Crowley and his
friend Bennett. It seems possible that Gardner,
about the time of meeting Crowley,
had some involvement with groups stemming from
Pickingill's earlier activities,
but it is only AFTER Crowley and Gardner meet
that we begin to see anything
resembling the modern spiritual communion that
has become known as Wicca.
"Witches," wrote Gardner in 1954, "are
consummate leg-pullers; they are taught it
as part of their stock-in-trade." (WITCHCRAFT
TODAY, p. 27) Modern apologists both
for Aleister Crowley AND Gerald Gardner have
taken on such serious tones as well
aspretensions that they may be missing places
where tongues are firmly jutting
against cheeks.
Both men were believers in fleshly fulfillment,
not only as an end in itself but,
as in the Tantric Yoga of the East, as a means
of spiritual attainment. A certain
prudishness has crept into the practices of
postGardnarian Wiccans, especially in
America since the 1960s, along with a certain
feminist revisionism. This has
succeeded to a considerable extent in converting
a libertine sex cult into a rather
staid neopuritanism.
The original Gardnarian current is still well
enough known and widely enough in |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,455 | vogue (in Britain and Ireland especially) that
one can venture to assert that what
Gardnerian Wicca is all about is the same thing
Crowley was attempting with a more
narrow, more intellectual constituency in the
magickal orders under his direct
influence.
These Orders had flourished for some time, but
by the time Crowley ` officially'
met Gardner in the 1940s, much of the former's
lifelong efforts had, if not
totally disintegrated, at least were then
operating at a diminished and diminishing
level.
Through his long and fascinating career as
magus and organizer, there is some
reason to believe that Crowley periodically may
have wished for, or even attempted
to create a more populist expression of magickal
religion. The Gnostic Mass, which
1777
Crowley wrote fairly early-on, had come since his
death to somewhat fill this
function through the OTO-connected Gnostic
Catholic Church (EGC).
As we shall see momentarily, one of Crowley's
key followers was publishing
manifestos forecasting the revival of
witchcraft at the same time Gardner was being
chartered by Crowley to organize an OTO
encampment. The OTO itself, since Crowley's
time, has taken on a more popular image, and is
more targeted towards interna-
tional organizational efforts, thanks largely
to the work under the Caliphate of
the late Grady McMurtry. This contrasts sharply
with the very internalized OTO that
barely survived during the McCarthy Era, when
the late Karl Germer was in charge,
and the OTO turned inward for two decades. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,456 | The famous Ancient and Mystic Order of the
Rose Cross (AMORC), the highly
successful mail-order spiritual fellowship, was
an OTO offspring in Crowley's
time. It has been claimed that Kenneth Grant
and Aleister Crowley were discussing
relatively radical changes in the Ordo Templi
Orientis at approximately the same
time that Gardner and Crowley were interactive.
Though Wiccan writers give some lip service
(and, no doubt, some sincere credence)
to the notion that the validity of Wiccan ideas
depends not upon its lineage, but
rather upon its workability, the suggestion
that Wicca is -- or, at least, started
out to be, essentially a late attempt at
popularizing the secrets of ritual and
sexual magick Crowley promulgated through the
OTO and his writings, seems to evoke
nervousness, if not hostility.
We hear from wiccan writer and leader Raymond
Buckland that one "of the
suggestions made is that Aleister Crowley wrote
the rituals...but no convincing
evidence has been presented to back this
assertion and, to my mind, it seems
extremely unlikely..." (Gardner, ibid,
introduction) The Wiccan rituals I have
seen DO have much of Crowley in them. Yet, as
we shall observe presently, the
explanation that `Crowley wrote the rituals for
Gardner' turns out to be somewhat
in error. But it is on the right track.
Doreen Valiente attempts to invoke Crowley's
alleged infirmity at the time of his
acquaintance with Gardner:
"It has been stated by Francis King in his
RITUAL MAGIC IN ENGLAND that Aleister
Crowley was paid by Gerald Gardner to write the
rituals of Gardner's new witch
cult...Now, Gerald Gardner never met Aleister
Crowley until the very last years of |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,457 | the latter's life, when he was a feeble old man
living at a private hotel in
Hastings, being kept alive by injections of
drugs... If, therefore, Crowley really
invented these rituals in their entirety, they
must be about the last thing he ever
wrote. Was this enfeebled and practically dying
man really capable of such a tour
de force?"
The answer, as Dr. Israel Regardie's
introduction to the posthumous collection
of Crowley's late letters, MAGICK WITHOUT
TEARS, implies, would seem to be yes.
Crowley continued to produce extraordinary
material almost to the end of his life,
and much of what I have seen of the "Wiccan
Crowley" is, in any case, of earlier
origin.
Gerald Gardner is himself not altogether silent
on the subject. In WITCHCRAFT
TODAY (p 47), Gardner asks himself, with what
degree of irony one can only guess
at, who, in modern times, could have invented
the Wiccan rituals. "The only man I
can think of who could have invented the
rites," he offers, "was the late Aleister
Crowley....possibly he borrowed things from the
cult writings, or more likely
someone may have borrowed expressions from
him...." A few legs may be being pulled
here, and perhaps more than a few. As a
prophet ahead of his time, as a poet and
dreamer, Crowley is one of the outstanding
figures of the twentieth (or any)
century. As an organizer, he was almost as
much of a disaster as he was at
1778
managing his own finances...and personal life.
As I understand the liberatory
nature of the magical path, one would do well |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,458 | to see the difference between
Crowley the prophet of Thelema and Crowley the
insolvent and inept administrator.
Crowley very much lacked the common touch;
Gardner was above all things a
popularizer. Both men have been reviled as
lecherous "dirty old men" -- Crowley,
as a seducer of women and a homosexual, a drug
addict and `satanist' rolled
together.
Gardner was, they would have it, a voyeur,
exhibitionist and bondage freak with a
`penchant for ritual' to borrow a line from THE
STORY OF O. Both were, in reality,
spiritual libertines, ceremonial magicians who
did not shy away from the awesome
force of human sexuality and its potential for
spiritual transformation as well as
physical gratification.
I will not say with finality at this point
whether Wicca is an outright invention
of these two divine con-men. If so, more power
to them, and to those who truly
follow in their path. I do know that, around
1945, Crowley chartered Gardner, an
initiate of the Ordo Templi Orientis, giving
him license to organize an OTO
encampment.
Shortly thereafter, the public face of Wicca
came into view, and that is what I
know of the matter: I presently have in my
possession Gardner's certificate of
license to organize said OTO camp, signed and
sealed by Aleister Crowley. The
certificate and its import are examined in
connection with my personal search for
the original Book of Shadows in the next
section of this narrative.
For now, though, let us note in the years
since Crowley licensed Gardner to
organize a magical encampment, Wicca has both
grown in popularity and become, to |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,459 | my mind, something far less REAL than either
Gardner or Crowley could have wanted
or foreseen. Wherever they came from, the rites
and practices which came from or
through Gerald Gardner were strong, and tapped
into that archetypal reality, that
level of consciousness beneath the mask of
polite society and conventional wisdom
which is the function of True Magick.
At a popular level, this was the Tantric sex
magick of the West. Whether this
primordial access has been lost to us will
depend on the awareness, the awakening or
lack thereof among practitioners of the near to
middle-near future. Carried to its
end Gardnerian practices, like Crowley's
magick, are not merely exotic; they are,
in the truest sense, subversive.
1779
Practices that WORK are of value, whether they
are two years old or two thousand.
Practices, myths, institutions and obligations
which, on the other hand, may be
infinitely ancient are of no value at all
UNLESS they work.
The Devil, you say
Before we move on, though, in light of the
furor over real and imagined
"Satanism" that has overtaken parts of the
popular press in recent years, I would
feel a bit remiss in this account if I did not
take momentary note of that other
strain of left-handed occult mythology,
Satanism. Wiccans are correct when they
say that modern Wicca is not Satanic, that
Satanism is "reverse Christianity"
whereas Wicca is a separate, nonChristian
religion. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,460 | Still, it should be noted, so much of our
society has been grounded in the
repressiveness and authoritarian moralism of
Christianity that a liberal dose of
"counterChristianity" is to be expected. The
Pat Robertsons of the world make
possible the Anton LeVays. In the long history
of repressive religion, a certain
fable of Satanism has arisen. It constitutes a
mythos of its own. No doubt,
misguided `copycat' fanatics have sometimes
misused this mythos, in much the same
way that Charles Manson misused the music and
culture of the 1960s.
True occult initiates have always regarded the
Ultimate Reality as beyong all
names and description. Named `deities' are,
therefore, largely symbols. "Isis" is
a symbol of the long-denied female component of
deity to some occultists. "Pan" or
"The Horned God" or "Set" or even "Satan" are
symbols of unconscious, repressed
sexuality. To the occultist, there is no Devil,
no "god of evil." There is,
ultimately, only the Ain Sof Aur of the
Cabbalah; the limitless light of which we
are but a frozen spark. Evil, in this system,
is the mere absence of light. All
else is illusion.
The goal of the occult path of initiation is
BALANCE. In Freemasonry and High
Magick, the symbols of the White Pillar and
Black Pillar represent this balance
between conscious and unconscious forces.
In Gardnarian Wicca, the Goddess and Horned
God - and the Priestess and Priest,
represent that balance. There is nothing,
nothing of pacts with the "Devil" or the
worship of evil in any of this; that belongs to
misguided exChristians who have
been given the absurd fundamentalist Sunday
school notion that one must choose the
Christian version of God, or choose the Devil. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,461 | Islam, Judaism and even
Catholicism have at one time or another been
thought "satanic," and occultists have
merely played on this bigoted symbolism, not
subscribed to it.
As we have seen, Wicca since Gardner's time
has been watered down in many of its
expressions into a kind of mushy white-light
`new age' religion, with far less of
the strong sexuality characteristic of
Gardnerianism, though, also, sometimes with
less pretense as well.
In any event, Satanism has popped up now and
again through much of the history
of the Christian Church. The medieval witches
were not likely to have been
Satanists, as the Church would have it, but, as
we have seen, neither were they
likely to have been "witches" in the Wiccan
sense, either.
The Hellfire Clubs of the eighteenth century
were Satanic, and groups like the
Process Church of the Final Judgement do,
indeed, have Satanic elements in their
(one should remember) essentially Christian
theology.
Aleister Crowley, ever theatrical, was prone to
use Satanic symbolism in much the
same way, tongue jutting in cheek, as he was
given to saying that he " sacrificed
millions of children each year, " that is, that
he masturbated. Crowley once
1780
called a press conference at the foot of the
Statue of Liberty, where he announced
that he was burning his British Passport to
protest Britain's involvement in World
War One. He tossed an empty envelope into the
water. He was dead serious, though, |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,462 | about the "Satanism" of Miltonian eternal
rebellion, and the "Satanism" of
fundamentalism's dark fear of sexuality. The
Devil, however; the Satanic "god of
evil" was an absurdity to him, as to all
thinking people, and he freely said so.
The most popular form of "counterChristianity"
to emerge in modern times,
though, was Anton Szandor LaVey's San
Francisco-based Church of Satan, founded
April 30, 1966. LaVey's Church enjoyed an
initial burst of press interest, grew to
a substantial size, and appeared to maintain
itself during the cultural drought of
the 1970s. But LaVey's books, THE SATANIC
BIBLE and THE SATANIC RITUALS, have
remained in print for many years, and his ideas
seem to be enjoying a renewal of
interest, especially among younger people,
punks and heavy metal fans with a
death-wish mostly, beginning in the middle
years of the 1980s. By that time the
Church of Satan had been largely succeeded by
the Temple of Set. This is pure
theatre; more in the nature of psychotherapy
than religion.
It is interesting to note Francis King's
observation that before the Church of
Satan began LaVey was involved in an occult
group which included, among others,
underground film maker Kenneth Anger, a person
well known in Crowlean circles. Of
the rites of the Church of Satan, King states
that "...most of its teachings and
magical techniques were somewhat vulgarized
versions of those of Aleister
Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis." (MAN MYTH AND
MAGIC, p 3204.) To which we might
add that, as with the OTO, the rites of the
Church of Satan are manifestly potent,
but hardly criminal or murderous.
LaVey, like Gardner and unlike Crowley,
appears to have "the common touch" -- |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,463 | perhaps rather more so than Gardner.
I determined to trace the Wiccan rumor to its
source. As we shall see, in the very
year I "fell" into being a gnostic bishop, I
also fell into the original charters,
rituals and paraphernalia of Wicca.
1781
THE CHARTER AND THE BOOK
Being A Radical Revisionist History of the
Origins of the Modern Witch Cult and
The Book of Shadows.
"It was one of the secret doctrines
of paganism that the Sun was the
source, not only of light, but of life...The
invasion of classical beliefs by the
religions of Syria and Egypt which were
principally solar, gradually affected the
conception of Apollo, and there is a certain
later identification of him with the
suffering God of Christianity, Free - masonry
and similar cults..."
Aleister Crowley in Astrology,
1974
"...if GBG and Crowley only knew each other for
a short year or two, do you think
that would be long enough for them to become
such good friends that gifts of
personal value would be exchanged several
times, and that GBG would have been able
to aquire the vast majority of Crowley's
effects after his death?"
Merlin the Enchanter, personal
letter, 1986
"...On the floor before the altar, he remembers
a sword with a flat cruciform |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,464 | brass hilt, and a well-worn manuscript book of
rituals - the hereditary Book of
Shadows, which he will have to copy out for
himself in the days to come..."
Stewart Farrar in What
Witches Do, 1971
"Actually I did write a scholarly book about the
Craft; its title was Inventing
Witchcraft. . . But I spent most of the last
fifteen years failing to persuade Carl
Weschcke of Llewellyn or any other publisher
that there was a market for it."
Aidan A. Kelly, Gnosis, Winter,
1992
"...the Gardnerian Book of Shadows is one of
the key factors in what has become a
far bigger and more significant movement than
Gardner can have envisaged; so
historical interest alone would be enough
reason for defining it while first-hand
evidence is still available..."
Janet and Stewart Farrar in
The Witches' Way, 1984
"It has been alleged that a Book of Shadows in
Crowley's handwriting was formerly
exhibited in Gerald's Museum of Witchcraft on
the Isle of Man. I can only say I
never saw this on either of the two occasions
when I stayed with Gerald and Donna
Gardner on the island. The large, handwritten
book depicted in Witchcraft Today
is not in Crowley's handwriting, but
Gerald's..."
Doreen Valiente in
Witchcraft for Tomorrow, 1978
1782 |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,465 | "Aidan Kelly...labels the entire Wiccan revival
`Gardnerian Witchcraft....' The
reasoning and speculation in Aidan's book are
intricate. Briefly, his main
argument depends on his discovery of one of
Gardner's working notebooks, Ye Book
of Ye Art Magical, which is in possession of
Ripley International, Ltd...."
Margot Adler in
Drawing Down the Moon, 1979
PART ONE
WAITING FOR THE MAN FROM CANADA
I was, for the third time in four years,
waiting a bit nervously for the Canadian
executive with the original Book of Shadows in
the ramshackle office of Ripley's
Believe It or Not Museum.
"They're at the jail," a smiling secretary-type
explained, "but we've called them
and they should be back over here to see you in
just a few minutes."
The jail? Ah, St. Augustine, Florida. "The Old
Jail," was the `nation's oldest
city's' second most tasteless tourist trap,
complete with cage-type cells and a
mock gallows. For a moment I allowed myself to
play in my head with the vision of
Norm Deska, Ripley Operations Vice President
and John Turner, the General Manager
of Ripley's local operation and the guy who'd
bought the Gerald Gardner collection
from Gardner's niece, Monique Wilson, sitting in
the slammer. But no, Turner
apparently had just been showing Deska the
town. I straightened my suit for the
fiftieth time, and suppressed the comment. We
were talking BIG history here, and
big bucks, too. I gulped. The original Book |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,466 | of Shadows. Maybe.
It had started years before. One of the last
people in America to be a fan of
carnival sideshows, I was anxious to take
another opportunity to go through the
almost archetypally seedy old home that housed
the original Ripley's Museum.
I had known that Ripley had, in the nineteen
seventies, acquired the Gardner
stuff, but as far as I knew it was all located
at their Tennessee resort museum. I
think I'd heard they'd closed it down. By then,
the social liberalism of the early
seventies was over, and witchcraft and sorcery
were no longer in keeping with a
`family style' museum. It featured a man with a
candle in his head, a Tantric skull
drinking cup and freak show stuff like that,
but, I mean, witchcraft is sacrile-
gious, as we all know.
So, I was a bit surprised, when I discovered
some of the Gardner stuff - including
an important historical document, for sale in
the gift shop, in a case just
opposite the little alligators that have
"St.Augustine, Florida - America's Oldest
City" stickered on their plastic bellies for
the folks back home to use as a
paper-weight. The pricetags on the occult
stuff, however, were way out of my
range.
1783
Back again, three years later, and I decided,
what the hell, so I asked the
cashier about the stuff still gathering dust in
the glass case, and it was like I'd
pushed some kind of button.
Out comes Mr. Turner, the manager, who whisks |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,467 | us off to a store room which is
filled, FILLED, I tell you, with parts of the
Gardner collection, much of it, if not
"for sale" as such, at least available for
negotiation. Turner told us about
acquiring the collection when he was manager of
Ripley's Blackpool operation, how
it had gone over well in the U.S. at first, but
had lost popularity and was now
relegated for the most part to storage status.
Visions of sugarplums danced in my head. There
were many treasures here, but the
biggest plum of all, I thought, was not
surprisingly, not to be seen.
I'd heard all kinds of rumors about the Book of
Shadows over the years, many of
them conflicting, all of them intriguing.
Rumor #1, of course, is that which
accompanied the birth (or, depending on how one
looked at it, the revival) of
modern Wicca, the contemporary successor of
ancient fertility cults.
It revolved around elemental rituals, secret
rites of passage and a mythos of
goddess and god that seemed attractive to me as
a psychologically valid
alternative to the austere, antisexual moralism
of Christianity. The Book of
Shadows, in this context, was the `holy book'
of Wicca, copied out by hand by new
initiates of the cult with a history stretching
back at least to the era of
witchburnings.
Rumor number #2, which I had tended to credit,
had it that Gerald Gardner, the
`father of modern Wicca' had paid Aleister
Crowley in his final years to write the
Book of Shadows, perhaps whole cloth. The
rumor's chief exponent was the
respected historian of the occult, Francis
King.
Rumor #3 had it that Gardner had written the |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,468 | Book himself, which others had since
copied and/or stolen.
To the contrary, said rumor #4, Gardner's
Museum had contained an old, even
ancient copy of the Book of Shadows, proving
its antiquity.
In more recent years modern Wiccans have tended
to put some distance between
themselves and Gardner, just as Gardner, for
complex reasons, tended to distance
himself in the early years of Wicca (circa
1944-1954) from the blatant sexual
magick of Aleister Crowley, "the wickedest man
in the world" by some accounts, and
from Crowley's organization, the Ordo Templi
Orientis. Why Gardner chose to do
this is speculative, but I've got some idea.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
While Turner showed me a blasphemous cross
shaped from the body of two nude women
(created for the 18th century infamous "Hellfire
Clubs" in England and depicted in
the MAN MYTH AND MAGIC encyclopedia; I bought
it, of course) and a statue of
Beelzebub from the dusty Garderian archives, a
thought occurred to me. " You
know," I suggested, "if you ever, in all this
stuff, happen across a copy of The
Book of Shadows in the handwriting of Aleister
Crowley, it would be of considerable
historical value."
I understated the case. It would be like
finding The Book of Mormon in Joseph
Smith's hand, or finding the original Ten
Commandments written not by God Himself,
but by Moses, pure and simple. (Better still,
eleven commandments, with a margin
note, "first draft.") I didn't really expect
anything to come of it, and in the
months ahead, it didn't. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,469 | 1784
In the meantime, I had managed to acquire the
interesting document I first mistook
for Gerald Gardner's (long acknowledged)
initiation certificate into Crowley's
Thelemic magickal Ordo Templi Orientis. To my
eventual surprise, I discovered
that, not only was this not a simple initiation
certificate for the Minerval
(probationary-lowest) degree, but, to the
contrary, was a license for Gardner to
begin his own chapter of the O.T.O., and to
initiate members into the O.T.O.
In the document, furthermore, Gardner is
referred to as "Prince
of Jerusalem," that is, he is acknowledged to
be a Fourth Degree
Perfect Initiate in the Order. This, needless
to say would usually imply years of
dedicated training. Though Gardner had claimed
Fourth Degree O.T.O. status as
early as publication of High Magic's Aid,(and
claimed even higher status in one
edition) this runs somewhat contrary to both
generally held Wiccan and contemporary
O.T.O. orthodox understandings that the O.T.O.
was then fallow in England.
At the time the document was written, most
maintained, Gardner could have known
Crowley for only a brief period, and was not
himself deeply involved in the O.T.O.
The document is undated but probably was drawn
up around 1945.
As I said, it is understood that no viable
chapter of the O.T.O. was supposed to
exist in England at that time; the sole active
chapter was in California, and is
the direct antecedent of the contemporary
authentic Ordo Templi Orientis. Karl
Germer, Crowley's immediate successor, had
barely escaped death in a Concentartion
Camp during the War, his mere association with |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,470 | Crowley being tantamount to a death
sentence.
The German OTO had been largely destroyed by
the Nazis, along with other
freemasonic organizations, and Crowley himself
was in declining health and power,
the English OTO virtually dead.
The Charter also displayed other
irregularities of a revealing nature. Though
the signature and seals are certainly those of
Crowley, the text is in the
decorative hand of Gerald Gardner! The
complete text reads as follows:
Do what thou wilt shall be the law. We
Baphomet X Degree Ordo Templi Orientis
Sovereign Grand Master General of All
English speaking countries of the Earth
do hereby authorise our Beloved Son Scire
(Dr.G,B,Gardner,) Prince of Jerusalem
to constitute a camp of the Ordo Templi
Orientis, in the degree Minerval.
Love is the Law,
Love under will.
o
Witness my hand and seal Baphomet X
Leaving aside the misquotation from The Book
of the Law, which got by me for some
months and probably got by Crowley when it was
presented to him for signature, the
document is probably authentic. It hung for
some time in Gardner's museum,
possibly giving rise, as we shall see, to the
rumor that Crowley wrote the Book of
Shadows for Gardner. According to Doreen
Valiente,and to Col. Lawrence as well,
the museum's descriptive pamphlet says of this
document:
"The collection includes a Charter granted by
Aleister Crowley to G.B. Gardner
(the Director of this Museum) to operate a |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,471 | Lodge of Crowley's fraternity, the Ordo
Templi Orientis. (The Director would like to
point out, however, that he has never
1785
used this Charter and has no intention of doing
so, although to the best of his
belief he is the only person in Britain
possessing such a Charter from Crowley
himself; Crowley was a personal friend of his,
and gave him the Charter because he
liked him."
Col. Lawrence ("Merlin the Enchanter"), in a
letter to me dated 6 December, 1986,
adds that this appeared in Gardner's booklet,
The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft.
The explanation for the curious wording of the
text, taking, as Dr. Gardner does,
great pains to distance himself from Crowley and
the OTO, may be hinted at in that
the booklet suggests that this display in the
"new upper gallery" (page 24) was
put out at a relatively late date when, as we
shall discover, Gardner was making
himself answerable to the demands of the new
witch cult and not the long-dead
Crowley and (then) relatively moribund OTO.
Now, the "my friend Aleister" ploy might
explain the whole thing. Perhaps, as some
including Ms. Valiente believe, Aleister Crowley
was desperate in his last years to
hand on what he saw as his legacy to someone.
He recklessly handed out his literary
estate, perhaps gave contradictory instruction
to various of his remaining few
devotees (e.g. Kenneth Grant, Grady McMurtry,
Karl Germer), and may have given
Gardner an "accelerated advancement" in his
order.
Ms. Valiente, a devoted Wiccan who is also a
dedicated seeker after the historical |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,472 | truth, mentions also the claim made by the late
Gerald Yorke to her that Gardner
had paid Crowley a substantial sum for the
document. In a letter to me dated 28th
August, 1986, Ms. Valiente tells of a meeting
with Yorke "...in London many years
ago and mentioned Gerald's O.T.O. Charter to
him, whereon he told me, `Well, you
know, Gerald Gardner paid old Crowley about
($1500) or so for that...' This may or
may not be correct..." Money or friendship may
explain the Charter. Still, one
wonders.
I have a Thelemic acquaintance who, having
advanced well along the path of
Kenneth Grant's version of the OTO, went back
to square one with the unquestionably
authentic Grady McMurtry OTO. Over a period of
years of substantial effort, he
made his way to the IVo `plus' status implied
by Gardner's "Prince of Jerusalem"
designation in the charter, and has since gone
beyond.
I am, myself, a Vo member of the OTO, as well
as a chartered initiator, and can
tell you from experience that becoming a
Companion of the Royal Arch of Enoch,
Perfect Initiate, Prince of Jerusalem and
Chartered Initiator is a long and
arduous task.
Gardner was in the habit, after the public
career of Wicca emerged in the 1950s,
of downgrading any Crowleyite associations out
of his past, and, as Janet and
Stewart Farrar reveal in The Witches' Way
(1984, p3) there are three distinct
versions of the Book of Shadows in Gerald
Gardner's handwriting which incorporate
successively less material from Crowley's
writings, though the last (termed "Text
C" and cowritten with Doreen Valiente after
1953) is still heavily influenced by
Crowley and the OTO. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,473 | Ms. Valiente has recently uncovered a copy of
an old occult magazine contemporary
with High Magic's Aid and from the same
publisher, which discusses an ancient
Indian document called "The Book of Shadows"
but apparently totally unrelated to
the Wiccan book of the same name. Valiente
acknowledges that the earliest text by
Gardner known to her was untitled, though she
refers to it as a "Book of Shadows."
It seems suspicious timing; did Gardner take the
title from his publisher's
magazine? Ms. Valiente observed to me that the
"...eastern Book of Shadows does not
seem to have anything to do with witch-craft at
all....is this where old Gerald
first found the expression "The Book of Shadows"
and adopted it as a more poetical
1786
name for a magical manuscript than, say `The
Grimoire' or `The Black Book'....I
don't profess to know the answer; but I doubt
if this is mere coincidence...."
The claim is frequently made by those who wish
to `salvage' a preGardnarian source
of Wiccan materials that there is a `core' of
`authentic' materials. But, as the
Farrars' recently asserted, the portions of the
Book of Shadows "..which changed
least between Texts A, B and C were naturally
the three initiation rituals; because
these, above all, would be the traditional
elements which would have been
carefully preserved, probably for
centuries...." (emphasis added)
But what does one mean by "traditional
materials?" The three initiation rites, now
much-described in print, all smack heavily of
the crypto-freemasonic ritual of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the OTO, and |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,474 | the various esoteric neorosicruci-
an groups that abounded in Britain from about
1885 on, and which were, it is
widely known, the fountainhead of much that is
associated with Gardner's friend
Crowley.
The Third Degree ritual, perhaps Wicca's
ultimate rite, is, essentially, a
nonsymbolic Gnostic Mass, that beautiful,
evocative, erotic and esoteric ritual
written and published by Crowley in the
Equinox, after attending a Russian
Orthodox Mass in the early part of this
century. The Gnostic Mass has had
far-reaching influence, and it would appear
that the Wiccan Third Degree is one of
the most blatant examples of that influence.
Take, for example, this excerpt from what is
perhaps the most intimate, most
secret and most sublime moment in the entire
repertoire of Wicca rituals, the
nonsymbolic (that is, overtly sexual) Great
Rite of the Third Degree initiation,
as related by Janet and Stewart Farrar in The
Witches' Way (p.34):
1787
The Priest continues:
`O Secret of Secrets, That art hidden in the
being of all lives, Not thee do we
adore, For that which adoreth is also thou. Thou
art That, and That am I. [Kiss] I
am the flame that burns in the heart of every
man, And in the core of every star. I
am life, and the giver of life. Yet therefore is
the knowledge of me the knowledge
of death. I am alone, the Lord within ourselves,
Whose name is Mystery of
Mysteries.'
Let us be unambiguous as to the importance in |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,475 | Wicca of this ritual; as the
Farrars'put it (p.31) "Third degree initiation
elevates a witch to the highest of
the three grades of the Craft. In a sense,a
third-degree witch is fully
independent, answerable only to the Gods and
his or her own conscience..." In
short, in a manner of speaking this is all that
Wicca can offer a devotee.
With this in mind, observe the following, from
Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass,
first published in The Equinox about 80 years
ago and routinely performed (albeit
,usually in symbolic form) by me and by many
other Bishops, Priests, Priestesses
and Deacons in the OTO and Ecclesia Gnostica
(EGC) today. The following is
excerpted from Gems From the Equinox, p. 372,
but is widely available in published
form:
The Priest. O secret of secrets that art hidden
in the being of all that lives,
not Thee do we adore, for that which adoreth is
also Thou. Thou art That, and That
am I. I am the flame that burns in every heart
of man, and in the core of every
star. I am Life, and the giver of Life; yet
therefore is the knowledge of me the
knowledge of death. I am alone; there is no God
where I am.
So, then, where, apart from the Thelemic
tradition of Crowley and the OTO, is
the "traditional material" some Wiccan writers
seem to seek with near desperation?
I am not trying to be sarcastic in the least,
but even commonplace self -
references used among Wiccans today, such as
"the Craft" or the refrain "so mote
it be"are lifted straight out of Freemasonry
(see, for example, Duncan's Ritual of
Freemasonry). And, as Doreen Valiente notes in
her letter to me mentioned before,
"...of course old Gerald was also a member of |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,476 | the Co-Masons, and an ordinary
Freemason..." as well as an OTO member.
PART TWO
THE REAL ORIGIN OF WICCA
We must dismiss with some respect the
assertion, put forth by Margot Adler and
others, that "Wicca no longer adheres to the
orthodox mythos of the Book of
Shadows."
Many, if not most of those who have been drawn
to Wicca in the last three decades
came to it under the spell (if I may so term
it) of the legend of ancient Wicca.
If that legend is false, then while reformists
and revisionist apologists
(particularly the peculiar hybrid spawned in
the late sixties under the name
"feminist Wicca") may seek other valid grounds
for their practices, we at least
owe it to those who have operated under a
misapprehension to explain the truth,
and let the chips fall where they may.
1788
I believe there is a core of valid experience
falling under the Wiccan-neopagan
heading, but that that core is the same
essential core that lies at the truths
exposed by the dreaded boogy-man Aleister
Crowley and the` wicked' pansexualism of
Crowley's Law of Thelema. That such roots
would be not just uncomfortable, but
intolerable to the orthodox traditionalists
among the Wiccans, but even more so
among the hybrid feminist "wiccans" may indeed
be an understatement.
Neopaganism, in a now archaic "hippie"
misreading of ecology, mistakes responsible |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,477 | stewardship of nature for nature worship.
Ancient pagans did not `worship' nature;
to a large extent they were afraid of it, as
has been pointed out to me by folk
practioners. Their "nature rites" were to
propitiate the caprice of the gods, not
necessarily to honor them. The first neopagan
revivalists, Gardner, Crowley and
Dr. Murray, well understood this. Neopagan
wiccans usually do not.
In introducing a "goddess element" into their
theology, Crowley
and Gardner both understood the yin/yang,
male/female fundamental polarity of the
universe. Radical feminist neopagans have
taken this balance and altered it,
however unintentionally, into a political
feminist agenda, centered around a
near-monotheistic worship of the female
principle, in a bizarre caricature of
patriarchal Christianity. Bigotry, I submit,
cuts both ways.
I do not say these things lightly; I have
seen it happen in my own time. IF this
be truth, let truth name its own price. I was
not sure, until Norm and John got
back from the Old Jail.
A couple of months earlier, scant days after
hearing that I was to become a
gnostic bishop and thus an heir to a corner of
Crowley's legacy, I had punched on
my answering machine, and there was the
unexpected voice of John Turner saying that
he had located what seemed to be the original
Book of Shadows in an inventory
list, locating it at Ripley's office in
Toronto.
He said he didn't think they would sell it as
an individual item, but he gave me
the name of a top official in the Ripley
organization, who I promptly contacted. I
eventually made a substantial offer for the
book, sight unseen, figuring there was |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,478 | (at the least) a likelihood I'd be able to turn
the story into a book and get my
money back out of it, to say nothing of the
historical import.
But, as I researched the matter, I became more
wary, and confused; Gardner's
texts "A" "B" and "C" all seemed to be
accounted for. Possibly, I began to
suspect, this was either a duplicate of the
"deThelemized" post1954 version with
segments written by Gardner and Valiente and
copied and recopied (as well as
distorted) from hand to hand since by Wiccans
the world over.
Maybe, I mused, Valiente had one copy and
Gardner another, the latter sold to
Ripley with the Collection. Or, perhaps it was
the curious notebook discovered by
Aidan Kelly in the Ripley files called Ye Book
of Ye Art Magical, the meaning of
which was unclear.
While I was chatting with Ms.Deska, Norm
returned from his mission, we introduced
in best businesslike fashion, and he told me
he'd get the book, whatever it might
be, from the vault.
The vault?! I sat there thinking god knows what
. Recently, I'd gotten a call from
Toronto, and it seems the Ripley folks wanted me
to take a look at what they had. I
had made a considerable offer, and at that
point I figured I'd had at least a
nibble. As it so happened Norm would be
visiting on a routine inspection visit,
so it was arranged he would bring the
manuscript with him.
1789
Almost from the minute he placed it in front of
me, things began to make some kind |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,479 | of sense. Clearly, this was Ye Book of Ye Art
Magical. Just as clearly, it was
an unusual piece, written largely in the same
hand as the Crowley Charter- that
is, the hand of Gerald Gardner. Of this I
became certain, because I had handwriting
samples of Gardner, Valiente and Crowley in my
possession. Ms. Valiente had been
mindful of this when she wrote me, on August
8th, 1986:
I have deliberately chosen to write you in
longhand, rather than send a
typewritten reply, so that you will have
something by which to judge the validity
of the claim you tell me is being made by the
Ripley organisation to have a copy
of a "Book of Shadows" in Gerald Gardner's
handwriting and mine. If this is..."Ye
Book of Ye Art Magical," ....this is definitely
in Gerald Gardner's handwriting.
Old Gerald, however, had several styles of
handwriting....I think it is probable
that the whole MS. was in fact written by
Gerald, and no other person was
involved; but of course I may be wrong....
At first glance it appeared to be a very old
book, and it suggested to me where
the rumors that a very old, possibly medieval
Book of Shadows had once been on
display in Gardner's Museum had emerged from.
Any casual onlooker might see Ye Book in this
light, for the cover was indeed
that of an old volume, with the original title
scratched out crudely on the side
and a new title tooled into the leather cover.
The original was some mundane
volume, on Asian knives or something, but the
inside pages had been removed, and a
kind of notebook -- almost a journal -- had
been substituted.
As far as I could see, no dates appear anywhere
in the book. It is written in |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,480 | several different handwriting styles, although,
as noted above, Doreen Valiente
assured me that Gardner was apt to use several
styles. I had the distinct
impression this "notebook" had been written
over a considerable period of time,
perhaps years, perhaps even decades. It may,
indeed, date from his days in the
1930s when he linked up with a neorosicrucuian
grouping that could have included
among its members the legendary Dorothy
Clutterbuck, who set Gardner on the path
which led to Wicca.
Thinking on it, what emerges from Ye Book of Ye
Art Magical is a developmental set
of ideas. Much of it is straight out of
Crowley, but it is clearly the published
Crowley, the old magus of the Golden Dawn, the
A.A., and the O.T.O.
1790
Somewhere along the line it hit me that I was
not exactly looking at the
"original Book of Shadows" but, perhaps, the
outline Gardner prepared over a long
period of time, apparently in secret (since
Valiente, a relatively early initiate of
Gardner's, never heard of it nor saw it,
according to her own account, until
recent years, about the time Aidan Kelly
unearthed it in the Ripley collection
long after Gardner's death).
Dr. Gardner kept many odd notebooks and
scrapbooks that perhaps would reveal much
about his character and motivations. Turner
showed me a Gardner scrapbook in
Ripley's store room which was mostly cheesecake
magazine photographs and articles
about actresses. Probably none are so evocative
as Ye Book of Ye Art Magical,
discovered,it has been intimated,hidden away in |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,481 | the back of an old sofa.
I have the impression it was essentially
unknown in and after Gardner's lifetime,
and that by the Summer of 1986 few had seen
inside it; I knew of only Kelly and my
own party. Perhaps the cover had been seen by
some along the line, accounting for
the rumor of a "very old Book of Shadows" in
Gardner's Museum.
If someone had seen the charter signed by
Crowley ("Baphomet") but written by
Gerald Gardner, and had gotten a look, as well,
at Ye Book, they might well have
concluded that Crowley had written BOTH, an
honest error, but maybe the source of
that long-standing accusation. There is even a
notation in the Ripley catalog
attributing the manuscript to Crowley on
someone's say-so, but I have no indica-
tion Ripley has any other such book. Finally,
if the notebook is a sourcebook of
any religious system, it is not that of
medieval witchcraft, but the twentieth
century madness or sanity or both of the
infamous magus Aleister Crowley and the
Thelemic/Gnostic creed of The Book of the Law.
As I sat there I read aloud familiar
quotations or paraphrases from published
material in the Crowley-Thelemic canon. This is
not the "ancient religion of the
Wise" but the modern sayings of " the Beast 666
" as Crowley was wont to style
himself.
But, does any of this invalidate Wicca as an
expression of human spirituality? It
depends on where one is coming from. Certainly,
the foundations of feminist Wicca
and the modern cult of the goddess are
challenged with the fact that the goddess in
question may be Nuit, her manifestation the
sworn whore, Our Lady Babalon, the
Scarlet Woman. Transform what you will shall
be the whole of history, but THIS |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,482 | makes what Marx did to Hegel look like slavish
devotion.
What Crowley himself said of this kind of
witchcraft is not merely instructive, but
an afront to the conceits of an era.
"The belief in witchcraft," he observed, " was
not all superstition; its
psychological roots were sound. Women who are
thwarted in their natural instincts
turn inevitably to all kinds of malignant
mischief, from slander to domestic
destruction..."
1791
For the rest of us, those who neither worship nor
are disdainful of the man who
made sexuality a god or, at least, acknowledged
it as such, experience must be its
own teacher. If Wicca is a sort of errant
Minerval Camp of the OTO, gone far astray
and far afield since the days Crowley gave
Gardner a charter he "didn't use" but
seemed to value, and a whole range of rituals
and imagery that assault the senses
at their most literally fundamental level; if
this is true or sort of true, maybe
its time history be owned up to. Mythos has its
place and role, but so, too, does
reality.
PART THREE
WICCA AS AN OTO ENCAMPMENT
The question of intent looms large in the
background of this inquiry. If I had to
guess, I would venture that Gerald Gardner did,
in fact, invent Wicca more or less
whole cloth, to be a popularized version of the
OTO. Crowley, or his successor
Karl Germer, who also knew Dr. Gardner, likely
set "old Gerald" on what they |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,483 | intended to be a Thelemic path, aimed at
reestablishing at least a basic OTO
encampment in England.
Aiden Kelly's research work on all this is most
impressive, but at rock bottom I
can't help feeling he still wants to salvage
something original in Wicca. In a way,
there is some justification for this; the Wicca
of Gerald Gardner, OTO initiate and
advocate of sexual magick produced a folksy,
easier version of the OTO, but by the
middle nineteen fifties some of his early
"followers" not only created a revisionist
Wicca with relatively little of the Thelemic
original intact, but convinced Gardner
to go along with the changes.
It is also possible, but yet unproven, that,
upon expelling Kenneth Grant from the
OTO in England, Germer, in the early 1950s,
summoned Gardner to America to
interview him as a candidate for leading the
British OTO. Gardner, it is
confirmed, came to America, but by then Wicca,
and Dr. Gardner had begun to take
their own, watered-down course. Today most
Wiccans have no idea of their origins.
Let me close this section by quoting two
interesting tidbits for your consider-
ation.
First consider Doreen Valiente's observation to
me concerning "the Parsons
connection". I quote from her letter
abovementioned, one of several she was kind
enough to send me in 1986 in connection with my
research into this matter.
1792
...I did know about the existence of the O.T.O.
Chapter in California at the time |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,484 | of Crowley's death, because I believe his ashes
were sent over to them. He was
cremated here in Brighton, you know, much to
the scandal of the local authorities,
who objected to the `pagan funeral service.' If
you are referring to the group of
which Jack Parsons was a member (along with the
egregious Mr. L. Ron Hubbard),
then there is another curious little point to
which I must draw your attention. I
have a remarkable little book by Jack Parsons
called MAGICK, GNOSTICISM AND THE
WITCHCRAFT. It is unfortunately undated, but
Parsons died in 1952. The section on
witchcraft is particularly
interesting because it looks forward to a
revival of witchcraft as the Old
Religion....I find this very thought provoking.
Did Parsons write this around the
time that Crowley was getting together with
Gardner and perhaps communicated with
the California group to tell them about it?
We must remember that Ms. Valiente was a close
associate of Gardner and is a
dedicated and active Wiccan. She, of course,
has her own interpretation of these
matters. The OTO recently reprinted the Parsons
"witchcraft" essays in Freedom is a
Two Edged Sword , a postumous collection of his
writings. It does indeed seem that
Gardner and Parsons were both on the same wave-
length at about the same time.
The other matter of note is the question of the
length of Gardner's association
with the OTO and with Crowley personally. My
informant Col. Lawrence, tells me
that he has in his possession a cigarette case
which once belonged to Aleister
Crowley. Inside is a note in Crowley's hand that
says simply: `gift of GBG, 1936,
A. Crowley'."
(Personal letter, 6 December, 1986)
The inscription could be a mistake, it could |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,485 | mean 1946, the period of the Charter.
But, as Ms. Valiente put it in a letter to me
of 8th December, 1986:
If your friend is right, then it would mean
that old Gerald actually went through a
charade of pretending to Arnold Crowther that
Arnold was introducing him to Crowley
for the first time - a charade which Crowley
for some reason was willing to go
along with. Why? I can't see the point of such
a pretence; but then occultists
sometimes do devious things...
Crowley may have played out a similar scene with
G.I. Gurdjieff, the other
enlightened merry prankster of the first half of
the twentieth century.
Gnosticism and Wicca, the subjects of Jack
Parsons' essays, republished by the OTO
and Falcon Press in 1990, are the two most
successful expressions to date of
Crowley's dream of a popular solar-phallic
religion. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think
Aleister and Gerald may have cooked Wicca up.
If Wicca is the OTO's prodigal daughter in
fact, authorized directly by Crowley,
how should Wiccans now relate to this? How
should Crowley's successors and heirs in
the OTO deal with it?
1793
Then too, what are we to make of and infer about
all this business of a popular
Thelemic-Gnostic religion? Were Crowley,
Parsons, Gardner and others trying to do
something of note with regard to actualizing a
New Aeon here which bears scrutiny?
Or is this mere speculation, and of little
significance for the Great Work today?
If the Charter Crowley issued Gardner is, |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,486 | indeed, the authority upon which Wicca
has been built for half a century, then it is
perhaps no coincidence that I
acquired that Charter in the same year I was
consecrated a Bishop of the Gnostic
Catholic Church. Further, it was literally days
after my long search for the
original of Gardner's BOOK OF SHADOWS ended in
success that the Holy Synod of T
Michael Bertiaux's Gnostic Church unanimously
elected me a Missionary Bishop, on
August 29, 1986.
Sometimes, I muse, the Inner Order revoked
Wicca's charter in 1986,placing it in
my hands. Since I hold it in trust for the OTO,
perhaps Wicca has, in symbolic
form, returned home at last. It remains for the
Wiccans to, literally (since the
charter hangs in my temple space), to read the
handwriting on the wall.
" Witchcraft always has a hard time, until it
becomes
established and changes its name." - Charles
Fort
1794
Paganism at the Crossroads
by Skytoucher
These are tricky and dangerous times.
Paganism has grown in size to the point
where we no longer enjoy the luxury of
obscurity. We now face a choice that all
initiatory paths face at some time in their
development; whether to remain a viable
initiatory path, and if so under what
circumstances; or to devolve into a mere
religion.
I'd better backtrack some readers may not
understand what an initiatory path is |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,487 | or how it differs from a religion. Others may
think paganism is a religion already,
and wonder what I mean by suggesting it is or
could be something else.
A defense often used against fundamentalist
Christians and others who attack
paganism on a religious basis is to say "We are
not like you, only different in a
few not so important ways. We are a religion,
like you, another belief system,
harmless, ordinary. We worship the Earth, the
Goddess, the same way you worship
your abstract God. You should extend tolerance
to us for the same reason you extend
it to Muslims or Buddhists or Catholics or Jews.
When you single us out as
something weird, you are exhibiting hysterical
paranoia." It's an effective
defense, but somewhat disingenuous.
We are different. We aren't just a religion.
We are at present, and in my
view should try to remain, a path of initiation.
It may be inevitable that a
religion grow up around us. It may even be
desirable to employ such a religion as a
cloak, or a doorway, to both. But a Pagan
religion is also a threat to the Pagan
path of initiation. We need to ensure that the
growth, if it occurs, is that of a
tree from a seed, not of a pearl from a grain of
sand.
A tree produces more seeds.
A pearl only hide the sand to save the oyster
from discomfort.
What is an initiatory path? And what, then,
is initiation?
We touch here upon a word badly misunderstood
by many Pagans. Initiation is
one thing; an initiation ritual is another. A
person is not an initiate, in the
sense I mean here,just because he or she has
passed through an initiation ritual. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,488 | Initiation is a personal experience in which one
becomes aware of mysteries;
realities that were
previously hidden and which cannot be
communicated by one person to another in words
or symbols, but must be experienced directly,
firsthand. This last point is
crucial. One finds "mysteries" communicated in
coven initiations or even at
festivals, but these are only hidden meanings of
symbols and tools used in the
Craft, or of stories told about the Gods. The
fact that they can be communicated
makes them not true mysteries, only secrets.
A body of teaching, practice, and ritual
which facilitates initiation is an
initiatory path. Most religions start out as
paths of initiation.
1795
Religion tends to be conservative.
Initiation, however, is always revolution-
ary...-....It forms a person's life, bringing
inner peace, greater insight into the
workings of fate, and awareness of the
connections linking all things, as well as
magical power. If it were a commonplace event,
if people went through initiation as
surely as they go through puberty, we would have
a far different and better world.
Even if the circle of initiates included a
significant minority of the
population, the magical effect of such a number
of altered minds on the world would
be profound and positive. Of course, this
very fact means that initiatory paths
will be opposed by those interests, both human
and non human, that are opposed to
positive change. The opposition is not really a
conspiracy; it seems more than an
automatic reaction, a law of nature. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,489 | Initiation is not an instantaneous event, but
one that occurs through years of
effort and devotion. It seems likely that there
is no end to the process, and that
the idea of there "fully enlightened being" is a
peculiar Oriental fantasy. There
are times, it is true, when revelation comes in
a flash like lightning, but such
moments are exclamation marks punctuating a
story that unfolds chapter by chapter.
Many tools and methods for achieving
initiation have evolved over the ages.
Some are intellectual, aiming to expand
consciousness through thought: Vedanta and
the Caballah come to mind as among
the most impressive. Others are ritual or
devotional; Bakhti Yoga, chanting the
names of the Gods, drawing down the Moon, the
meditations of the monastics. Some
are also physical: Hatha Yoga, Sufi dancing,
some forms of martial art. Some aim at
expanding consciousness directly by stretching
it to its limits; meditation, Raja
Yoga, guided
visualizations, vision quest. Then there are
sex magic, drugs, drumming,
austerities,use of talismans, self discipline,
and so on. Most of these techniques
evolved outside a pagan context, but they are
amendable to incorporation in a pagan framework.
Initiation rituals, of course, are
another method, but they are seldom sufficient
by themselves.
Initiates can be found into the context of
any religion,including those least
similar to Neopaganism. St. Francis of Assisi
was an initiate, and many a Sufi and
Caballist, Buddhist and Yogi, Taoist and shaman.
A modern Neopagan initiate has far
more in common with them than with an
illiterate, superstitious pagan of the Roman
Empire, gobbling the flesh of sacrificed animals
while contemplating how to backstab |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,490 | his competitors. All initiates of all paths
have a common heart; it is religions,
which circle the periphery of the sacred, that
differ.
But, while Christian, Jewish and Muslim
initiates do exist,the established
religions don't make it easy. For every
illuminated Catholic saint, there are
hundreds of burned heretics. Indeed, many post
Constantinian saints escaped burning
themselves only by miracles greater than those
for which they were canonized.
Burning is passe nowadays but condemnation for
heresy is not, and thrives as well in
most Protestant denominations. So bound about
with the fetters of faith is the
Christian that initiation is virtually
impossible, except for minds.
1796
This is no accident.
The tragedy of Christianity is that it began
so well and decayed so quickly
into such a parody of its beginnings. This is a
recurring phenomenon. Again and
again, the initiatory message has presented
itself in some new form and met with
some success,only to be hidden in a maze of
illusions, and crusted over with
barriers and restrictions. There are always
counterattacks from outside the new
path, from established religions, but the truly
effective counterattacks come from
within, so that what began as a bright new hope
becomes a mere religion. The
priests, the figures in authority, forge an
instrument for the furtherance of their
own authority, to which genuine initiation is a
serious threat. The initiatory
impulse is carefully bled off into harmless
channels, and all magic outside those |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,491 | channels is
ruthlessly suppressed.
There is a great deal of magic in Christian
monastic orders,and more still in
Hindu and Buddhist ashrams, or wielded by
wandering saddhus. But these illuminated souls,
both Western and Eastern, are sworn
to poverty, chastity, humility. Many do not
reproduce, ensuring that, if there is a
genetic component to magic, it will be weakened
by removing its best practitioners
from the gene pool. Too, in renouncing the
world, they ensure that their spiritual
insight will play a small role shaping events.
In contrast, a few secret initiatory
paths remain active and true to their original
mission. These paths, which include
Hermeticism, the Caballah,
surviving shamanic traditions, and a few
branches of Sufism, have made
themselves non threatening in a different way.
They continue to live in the world
and to learn and teach practical as well as
spiritual magic, but in such tiny
numbers and in so furtive a fashion that they
hold little promise of genuine large
scale transformation. There is not really
anything wrong with this; such secret
orders have acted over the centuries to preserve
the Mysteries, not to spread them.
Without them, efforts to break the chains on a
large scale would be to no avail.
But Paganism is different.
Neopaganism is unique at this time, though
not
historically in that it is a genuine initiatory
path that has grown large.
Moreover, in its diversity and flexibility, its
protean and progressive nature, it
promises to incorporate all of the virtues of
the other surviving paths. It may not
be the most advanced, the most powerful, or the
most aesthetically refined,but these
characteristics can all be absorbed from the |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,492 | smaller paths which possess them, for
Paganism is an all gobbling magical amoeba,
sucking up the mythos, methods, and
knowledge of every other path in existence.
Once
again, an initiatory path threatens to break out
and make some changes in reality.
On schedule, opposition has begun to arise.
As always, some of the opposition is from
the outside, but I don't think we
need to be concerned about that. A strain of
paranoia is built into our origin
myths and traditions, and is always a greater
danger than the persecution we fear.
The external opposition has seldom been very
effective against any relatively
genteel sort, mostly involving propaganda.
However, propaganda is legitimate (they
have a right to express their opinions about
what we do, as we have the right to
speak in counterpoint.) There may be more
serious difficulties, even occasional
violence, but the Burning Times are gone for
good, barring a complete collapse of
civilization. We have more important
things to worry about within our own ranks.
The rapid increase in our numbers in the last
few decades means there are many
newcomers. Newcomers are ripe for exploitation,
both monetary and political, and
1797
both have begun to occur. The first fills me with
amusement and outrage. The
second is more alarming.
There seems to be a growing desire in some
quarters to commercialize
Neopaganism and profit from it. That's only
natural, but when crystal athames go
for $1,400 and classes are taught in return for |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,493 | a pledge of a percentage of the
students' income in perpetuity, somebody is
getting fleeced. This is bad enough,
but not nearly as bad as what
might happen in reaction. Better a crowd of
poorer and wiser novices, the hucksters
filling the role of the Dweller on the
Threshold, than a Paganism reduced from a
path of initiation to a mere religion, its
bright promise gone dull, as have so many
others.
The seeds of this development lie chiefly in
individuals we might call Pagan
politicians, and in our response to them. They
may not be high initiates or
powerful magicians, but they are skillful at
organizing, they like to strike poses
in public, and they know how to work the media.
Sometimes they appear on television
to say "This is what Paganism is. This is what
Witchcraft is," self appointed
spokespersons for the entire Pagan community.
Their power over the Craft may be
small, but it could easily grow as the Craft
grows, as they sink their hooks into
more and more beginners.
An experienced initiate is unlikely to be
moved by a picture on
television, or a story in the newspaper. It is
otherwise for a novice. When first
appraising something, it is the surface one
sees. And there are two dangers in this
trend; First, that insightful, intuitive,
independent people, the kind who would
make good Witches, maybe turned off by the media
spectacle (analogy: What is your
reaction to the words "New Age?".) Secondly,
that those who are not repelled may
develop a kind of mundane "Neopaganism," a mere
religion, based as other religions
are on faith, dogma, and prescribed observances,
conservative (in the sense of
resisting progress, not of voting Republican)
and anti initiatory. There may be |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,494 | points in common
between it and us (such as an environmental
ethic or "worship" (how I despise that
word!) of a Goddess), as a baboon might wear a
tuxedo, but the heart and soul would
be gone. Anyone who sought initiation would
have to pass the gauntlet of this other
paganism first and then unlearn this religion to
approach the new path. Few could
be expected to do so.
It is important to recognize these politicos
for what they are. They are our
would be clergy who, like Christian
priests,Muslim mullah and Jewish rabbis, would
be religious leaders but,with rare exceptions,
no initiates. Their authority would
derive from accepted doctrines and from
political acumen, rather than spiritual
awareness. Pagan pontiff pretenders are not
necessarily malevolent, but they do not
comprehend the purpose of initiation or the
fundamental ways in which Paganism
differs, not just from this or that religion,
from all religions. Consequently, they
do not understand that priests,
ministers,rabbis, and so forth are not good role
models for Pagan spiritual leaders, even if
allowances are made for differing value
systems. Paganism, as currently practiced, is
not simply a different
religion, but a different category of thing
altogether. Not only does it not
suffer without an organization comparable to
that of established religions, but
creating such an organization may bury us.
The bishops who created the Catholic Church
were not particularly evil men.
But they were misguided, and the result of their
labor was disastrous. Yet some
movement on this road is inevitable. It is the
fruit of growth, a sign that a path
of initiation has matured into a serious threat
to the status quo. It represents a
counterattack by the forces of inertia. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,495 | Let's not be unduly alarmist. We are not in
immediate danger, but the clouds
can be seen on the horizon, and we need to
prepare ourselves, and consider whether
1798
anything can be done to avoid the usual fate of an
initiatory path at the
crossroads. All our predecessors, on reaching
this juncture, have taken the wrong
turning. But we have ;advantages former
initiatory paths lacked. That no one has
succeeded up to now is not so imposing an
obstacle as it might seem.
One of our advantages is the First Amendment
to the United States
Constitution and similar provisions, in fact and
tradition if not law,
guaranteeing religious liberty in all Western
democracies. It is literally
impossible for a Pagan Catholic Church, even if
one comes into existence, to exile
or execute dissident Pagans, as was done to
dissident Christians after the Council of
Nicaea. It is unlikely that any Pagan
organization,or that of any other religion,
could get a modern Western government do
its dirty work to any significant degree. Overt
persecution is reduced from a
terror to a nuisance. That's no small
achievement.
Another advantage is modern information
technology. Communication of ideas is
now so easy, and suppression of them so
difficult,
that to contain or channel or eliminate the
initiatory message will be harder than
ever before, and may be impossible. Of course,
the downside of this development is
the proliferation of blatant nonsense. But I
think that is an acceptable price. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,496 | Better the truth be heard whispering through
shouted lies and bellowed folly than
that it not be heard at all.
The third, subtlest and possibly the greatest
advantage we have over our
predecessors is science.
By science I do not mean any particular bit
of knowledge which has been
uncovered by scientists, although all that is
useful as well. I mean the attitudes
of science. I mean the methods of science.
Above all, I mean the vision of
science. Thanks to science, we no longer think
of all knowledge as being only in
its sacred and spiritual and aesthetic
dimensions though these are certainly
important but in its technical dimensions as
well, as seek the laws and principles
that underpin magic, analogous to the laws of
physics that
underpin technology.
Best of all: Thanks to science, we are not
limited to what we know today. We
understand that even our best picture of reality
is only an approximation, that we
will have a better picture tomorrow. This gift
promises to upset the creeping
authoritarianism that has ruined so many paths
of initiation and created so many
religions.
1799
These are potent advantages. I believe they
allow us the possibility of
success. But not the certainty. As we approach
the crossroads, there are a number
of things that need doing. Some of these steps
are simply a matter of keeping our
attitudes in the right places. Others involve
research, development, and artistic |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,497 | creation. Others still involve magical tasks.
We need to understand that modern
Paganism, though built on the past, is not
limited by it, that we are capable of
improving on our ancestor's wisdom even to the
extent that their wisdom is not a
product of our own romantic imagination, which
is large measure it is. We need to
recognize, once and for all, and say so, that
our origin myths are just that: Wicca
is not a survival from the pre Christian past,
but an eclectic/creative construct
meant to imitate what such a survival should
ideally be. Its resemblance,
and that of Neopaganism in general, to ancient
paganism in any of its multitude of
forms is slight and ultimately besides the
point.
We need to do these things because they will
allow us to take the next step,
which is to expand Paganism, as a path of
initiation, to its potential. We cannot
do that so long as we are locked into an old
model real or romanticized. The
initiatory paths of the past have failed.
Therefore, we need something better than
what has gone before. We can take the
essentials of Neopaganism, the broad strokes
of its mythology and ritual, as a starting
point, but we must go beyond that start.
First, we need to penetrate beneath the level
of religious symbolism to what
might be called the physics of magic, the nuts
and bolts and laws of nature that
account for what magic does and is. Next to the
initiatory experience itself, which
can never be communicated or replaced by
anything that point cannot be emphasized
too much or too often the physics of magic
would be the deepest level of
understanding, accounting for all forms of
symbolic knowledge. I have
developed on system of laws which I believe to
be workable. (An account of those |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,498 | laws will appear in an upcoming issue of
Enchante.) It is the duty of every
scientifically minded reader to rip them apart
as best as possible, to test them,
and improve on them.
Secondly, we need to improve our tool chest
of spiritual methods. Much of the
work has already been done by initiates outside
Paganism. All we have to do is
translate it and incorporate it within our own
framework. At the same time, an ex-
panded and improved body of poetic ritual would
be useful.
A recognition of both the possibility and the
need would be a valid step. We
must acknowledge that Yoga can meditate us into
a corner, that the Caballah
theorizes rings around us, and that any good
shamanic lineage works magic to put us to shame.
We must also insist that Paganism
has advantages over these that should not be
surrendered, and work to incorporate
what other paths can teach us into our own
framework.
These accomplishments would serve to
strengthen and fortify the initiatory path
of Paganism. It will need all the strength it
can get if it is to resist turning
into a religion. But there are other things
that need doing as well, on both the
communicative and magical fronts.
1800
Those of us with active pens must communicate
the idea of an initiatory path
that lies within the mythical and ritual
structure of the Pagan religion, as it out
to and once did lie within all religions. There
is, at present, no established |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,499 | Pagan doctrine or dogma, no established pagan
clergy, and no established Pagan
pantheon, and this also must be made clear. The
magical side of the battle may be
the most important one. Here, the guiding
principle should be a clear visualization
of what we want Paganism to be.
Should exoteric Pagan religions grow up
around the initiatory core, then,
ideally, we would want the priest/esse/s of this
religion to be initiates. But this
may not be practicable. First, many of us are
unsuited for or uninterested in the
role of ministering to those who are unready for
initiation. Second, there may be
too many newcomers to Paganism (by some
estimates the fastest growing religion in
North America) and too few initiates.
I believe we could agree on two goals; a
viable and visible initiatory
tradition must be maintained within the religion
and no exoteric priesthood must be
allowed to gain preeminence over the path. To
those ends, then, the following
magical workings are suggested.
Weave the Net. There is a tenuous telepathic
link among all initiates. This
can be invoked as part of the opening of any
major magical work, which will
strengthen both the work and the net. Some
covens and individuals already do this.
Reach out the heart's fiery hand and feel the
love of one another, both within the
coven and beyond it, setting aside the quarrels
of the mind, poles of a tipi each
supporting each, moving faster, faster,circles
made of love. In this way, a
synergistic entity, a collective consciousness,
may be generated, incorporating all
our diversity yet stronger than any of us alone.
This consciousness can be invoked
like any deity, and can be a guide and
empowerment. We can give it names; there |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,500 | will be private names known to individual covens
or solitaries, but among us all the
name is Love.
Shine like a Beacon. Another working, which I
feel is appropriate to a Full
Moon ritual, is one to avoid the light under a
bushel syndrome, to illuminate all
minds equipped w ith eyes to see. The metaphor
of a lighthouse beacon seems
appropriate; we can visualize this light shining
brightly, overpowering any attempt
to hide it, so that truth cannot be any [who
want] to understand it, initiation
cannot be denies to those capable of attaining
it.
Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom; or, Divide and
Rule. Assume that a mundane
Paganism must arise; above all we must not allow
any one sect or denomination of the
Pagan religion to achieve preeminence over the
others. It doesn't matter how much
we like or dislike what the leaders of this or
that sect are saying. Any Pagan
doctrine will always be wrong, even if it's
right, because initiation cannot be
conveyed in words or symbols. We can,through
our magic, encourage diversity and
creativity in the ranks of newcomers and
noninitiate
leaders, preferring chaos to conformity, and
subtly bend the path of discourse so
that it leads toward initiation rather than away
from it. We must avoid the
temptation to encourage a unified, strong
Paganism, and that temptation will arise!
A fractious, splintered, disorganized, and
confusingly multi headed Paganism may be
somewhat embarrassing when it appears on network
news or in Time magazine. But if
the initiatory tradition is clearly visible
within, we will be far better served by
chaos than by an order which serves its own
purposes, not ours. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,501 | I believe certainly I hope that these steps
can preserve the Neopagan path of
initiation, prevent its burial under the mantle
of religion, and permit what has
never before happened: genuine, large scale,
beyond the point of no return breakout
of the Mysteries, leading to the transformation
of human culture and this planet
assuming, of course, that civilization survives
the crisis of the coming years.
1801
Paganism is by some estimates the fastest growing religion in North
America and too
few initiates.
Best of all: Thanks to science, we are not limited to what we
know today. We
understand that even our best picture of reality is only an
approximation, that we
will have a better picture tomorrow. This gift promises to upset
the creeping
authoritarianism that has ruined so many paths of initiation and
created so many
religions.
These are potent advantages. I believe they allow us the
possibility of
success. But not the certainty. As we approach the crossroads,
there are a number
of things that need doing. Some of these steps are simply a matter
of keeping our
attitudes in the right places. Others involve research,
development, and artistic
creation. Others still involve magical tasks. We need to
understand that modern
Paganism, though built on the past, is not limited by it, that we
are capable of
improving on our ancestor's wisdom even to the extent that their
wisdom is not a
product of our own romantic imagination, which is large measure it
is. We need to
recognize, once and for all, and say so, that our origin myths are
just that: Wicca
is not a survival from the pre Christian past, but an
eclectic/creative construct
meant to imitate what such a survival should ideally be. Its
resemblance, and that
of Neopaganism in general, to ancient paganism in any of its
multitude of forms is
slight and ultimately besides the point.
We need to do these things because they will allow us to take |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,502 | the next step,
which is to expand Paganism, as a path of initiation, to its
potentia. We cannot do
that so long as we are locked into an old model real or
romanticized. The
initiatory paths of the past have failed. Therefore, we need
something better than
what has gone before. We can take the essentials of Neopaganism,
the broad strokes
of its mythology and ritual, as a starting point, but we must go
beyond that start.
First, we need to penetrate beneath the level of religious
symbolism to what
might be called the physics of magic, the nuts and bolts and laws of
nature that
account for what magic does and is. Next to the initiatory
experience itself, which
can never be communicated or replaced by anything that point cannot
be emphasized
too much or too often the physics of magic would be the deepest
level of
understanding, accounting for all forms of symbolic knowledge. I
have
developed on system of laws which I believe to be workable. (An
account of those
laws will appear in an upcoming issue of Enchante.) It is the duty
of
every
scientifically minded reader to rip them apart as best as
possible, to test them, and improve on them.
1802
Secondly, we need to improve our tool chest of spiritual methods.
Much of the
work has already been done by initiates outside Paganism. All we
have to do is
translate it and incorporate it within our own framework. At the
same time, an ex-
panded and improved body of poetic ritual would be useful.
Note from Ellen Cannon Reed:
I received permission today from Skytoucher to upload the article
preceding this message. I found it one of the best articles on
paganism I've found. I do confess he is using paganism where I
would
use "Wicca", and I do not mentally apply what he says to the other
pagan paths such as Asatru, but I do think the article is an
important
one with regard to Wicca.
--- Maximus 2.00
* Origin: Mysteria * Be ye mystic * 818-353-8891
(1:102/943) |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,503 | 1803
Witches Rede of Chivalry
Magical Rites from the Crystal Well, Ed Fitch and Janine Renee,
1987, Llewellyn
Publications.
Insofar as the Craft of the Wise is the most ancient and most
honorable creed of
humankind, it behooves all who are Witches to act in ways that give
respect to the
Old Gods, to their sisters and brothers of the Craft, and to
themselves.
Therefore, be it noted that:
1. Chivalry is a high code of honor which is of most ancient Pagan
origin, and must
be lived by all who follow the old ways.
2. It must be kenned that thoughts and intent put forth on this
Middle Earth will
wax strong in other worlds beyond and return... bringing into
creation, on this
world, that which had been sent forth. Thus one should exercise
discipline, for "as
ye plant, so shall ye harvest."
3. It is only by preparing our minds to be as Gods that we can
ultimately attain
godhead.
4. "This above all... to thine own self be true..."
5. A Witch's word must have the validity of a signed and witnessed
oath. Thus,
give thy word sparingly, but adhere to it like iron.
6. Refrain from speaking ill of others, for not all truths of the
matter may be known.
7. Pass not unverified words about another, for hearsay is, in
large
part, a thing of falsehoods.
8. Be thou honest with others, and have them know that honesty is
likewise expected of them.
9. The fury of the moment plays folly with the truth; to keep one's
head is a virtue.
10. Contemplate always the consequences of thine acts upon others.
Strive not to do harm.
11. Diverse covens may well have diverse views of love between
members
and with others. When a coven, clan, or grove is visited or joined,
one should
discern quietly their practices, and abide thereby. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,504 | 12. Dignity, a gracious manner, and a good humor are much to be
admired.
13. As a Witch, thou has power, and thy powers wax strongly as
wisdom
increases. Therefore, exercise discretion in the use thereof.
14. Courage and honor endure forever. Their echoes remain when the
mountains have crumbled to dust.
15. Pledge friendship and fealty to those who so warrant. Strengthen
others of the Brethren and they shall strengthen thee.
16. Thou shalt not reveal the secrets of another Witch or Coven.
Others have labored
long and hard for them, and cherish them as treasures.
1804
17. Though there may be differences among those of the Old Ways, those
who are once-born must see nothing, and must hear nothing.
18. Those who follow the mysteries should be above reproach in the
eyes of the
world.
19. The laws of the land should be obeyed whenever possible and
within
reason, for in the main they have been chosen with wisdom.
20. Have pride in thyself and seek perfection in body and in mind.
For
the Lady has said, "How canst thou honor another unless thou give
honor to thyself
first?"
21. Those who seek the Mysteries should consider themselves the
select
of the Gods, for it is they would lead the race of humankind to the
highest of
thrones and beyond the very stars.
1805
_____________________________________________________________________
_ _ _ _
((___)) ((___))
[ x x ] [ x x ]
\ / \ /
(` ') (` ')
(U) (U)
HISTORY OF THE BOVINOMICON
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by The Raver
>>> A CULT Publication......1988 <<<
-cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
_______________________________________________________ |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,505 | ___
The history of the great Bovine mythos cycle is a lost and
twisted one. Of the
tales of the Bovine unknown, one literary work, one tome of
Bovinity, does stand
out. Yes, brutal reader, the BOVINOMICON.
This being a short but complete outline of the history of this
book, its
author, The Raver, presents this work. The outline follows its
various translations
and editions from the time of the writing (AD 730) of the
BOVINOMICON to the present
day.
==========================================================
=======
Original title AL AZIF - Azif being the word used by the Arabs
to
designate that nocturnal sound (made by Bovine creatures) supposed
to be the howling
of daemons.
Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad cow herder of Sanna, in
Yemen,
who is said to have flourished during the period of the Omminade
Caliphs, circa AD
700. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets
of Memphis and
spent ten years alone in the great
southern desert of Arabia - (the Roba El Khaliyeh or "Empty Space"
of
the ancients and "Dahna" or "Crimson" desert of the modern Arabs) -
which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and
monsters of death. Of
this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those
who pretend to
have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus,
where the
BOVINOMICON (AL AZIF) was written, and of his final death or
disappearance (AD 738)
many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn
Khallikan (12th
century biography) to have been seized by an invisible cow in broad
daylight and
devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses.
Of his madness
many things are told. He claimed to have seen the fabulous Irem, or
City of
Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless
desert pasture
the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind.
(Editors Note: A full
desc- ription of the nameless pasture, and the annals and secrets of
its inhabitants
will be found in the t-file THE NAMELESS PASTURE, written by the
author of this
outline). He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown
Entities who he
called Yog-Elsie and Bob-Sothoth. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,506 | In AD 950 the AZIF, which had gained considerable, though
surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age, was
secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of
Constantinople
under the title BOVINOMICON. For a century it impelled certain
experimenters to terrible attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt
by the
patriarch Michael. After this it was only heard of furtively, but
(1223) Olaus
Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the
Latin test was
printed twice - once in the 15th century in black letter (evidently
in Germany) and
1806
once in the 17th (probably Spanish); both editions being without
identifying marks,
and located as to time and place by internal typographical evidence
only. The work,
both Latin and Greek, was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232 shortly
after its Latin
translation, which called attention to it. The Arabic original was
lost as early as
Wormius' time, as indicated by his prefatory note; (there is,
however, a vague
account of a secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the
present century, but
later perished in fire), and no sight of the Greek copy - which was
printed in Italy
between 1500 and 1550 - has been reported since the burning of a
certain Salem man's
library in 1692. A translation made by Dr. Dee was never printed
and exists only in
fragments recovered from the original manuscript. Of the Latin
texts now existing,
one (15th century) is known to be in the British Museum under lock
and key, while
another (17th century) is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. A
17th century
edition is in the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the library at
Miskatonic
University at Arkham; also in the library of the University of
Buenos Aires.
Numerous other copies
exist in secret, and a 15th century one is persistently rumored to
form a part of
the collection of a celebrated American millionaire. An even more
vague rumor
credits the preservation of a 16th century Greek text in the Salem
family Pickman;
but if it was so preserved, it vanished with the artist R.U.
Pickman, who
disappeared in 1926. The book is rigidly suppressed by the
authorities of most
countries, and by all branches of organized ecclesiasticism.
Reading leads to
terrible consequences. It was from rumors of this book (of which
relatively few of
the general public know) that R.W. Chambers is said to have derived
the idea of his |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,507 | early novel, "THE KING OF CUD".
1807
--------------------------------------
CHRONOLOGY
One - AL AZIF written circa AD 730 at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred.
Two - Translated into Greek as BOVINOMICON, AD 950 by Theodorus
Philetas.
Three - Burnt by Patriarch Michael AD 1050 (ie, Greek; Arabic text
now lost).
Four - Olaus translates Greek into Latin, AD 1228.
Five - Latin and Greek editions suppressed by Gregory IX - AD 1232.
Six - 14..? Black letter edition printed in Germany.
Seven - 15..? Greek text printed in Italy.
Eight - 16..? Spanish translations of Latin text.
==========================================================
======
PERSONS interested in learning more details about the nameless
pasture mentioned in this outline, where Alhazred spent much time,
should read the t-file THE NAMELESS PASTURE by THE RAVER, which
gives a detailed
description. The file is also a cDc communications release.
This t-file is dedicated to my favorite author, H.P. Lovecraft,
who, now that we have had time to take his work into perspective,
is, no doubt,
unsurpassed as the twentieth century's best practitioner of the
horror tale.
"No weird story can truly produce terror unless it is devised
with all the care
and versimilitude of an actual hoax."
-- H.P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith (17 October 1930)
=====================================================
===
(c)1988 cDc communications by The Raver
4/22/88-57
All Rights Worth Shit
1808
___________________________________________________________________
_ _ _ _
((___)) ((___))
[ x x ] [ x x ]
\ / \ /
(` ') (` ')
(U) (U)
THE NAMELESS PASTURE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scribed by The Raver, Teller of Strange Legends |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,508 | >>> A CULT Publication......1988 <<<
-cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
__________________________________________________________
__
The tales of the Bovine mythos cycle are strange and diverse.
Although some of
our terrible order's members prefer to scribe tales of present day
Bovinity, I opt
for tales of a dark and terrible past, a time when the Bovine
stalked the earth
unheeded by mankind.
"...The wailings of the mad are but the birth-cries of
the new man - the old man gone like dust in the desert
wind. Cleansed of the lies of mankind, the new man -
the man of darkness - is free to absorb the beauty of
nothingness, to glory in the stark night of the utter
void. As your useless reason dissolves, rejoice in the
knowledge that others in as diverse places as Texas and
North Carolina have walked the same path, have drunk
the same blood, have reveled in the same prospect of
everlasting night, as you..."
-- Keeper of the Bovine Gate
'Tis true, we are evil in our potent writings and scriptures of
the Cow. But
this is only for a reason. The following passage describes this
point very well.
Much better than I could, indeed.
"...You do not yet know the true gods. Everything you
know is a lie. The Great Bovine Ones - these are the
true rulers of the Universe; these and others you have
not yet heard of will be the objects of your adulation,
your emotion, your love. You are the fortunate ones -
the time may come, if you give your selfless devotion,
that you will worship in the flesh in the Temples of
the Nameless Pasture, whose glory is beyond your
comprehension."
-- Catechism of the High Priests of the Bovine
The following tale is a true one and depicts the place that
many Cultees desire
to be... the dreaded Nameless Pasture, where Bob-Sothoth rules
supreme and the blood
of thousands runs rampant through the stalks of Cow-Bane. This tale
is not for the
faint of heart. Nay. You have been forewarned.
1809
==========================================================
In a distant land, in a distant time, the mad arab, Abdul |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,509 | Alhazred, began a
horrific journey into the Roba El Kaliyeh ("Empty Space"), the vast
desert of
southern Arabia. The time was AD 715 and Alhazred was quite mad.
After traversing
the ruins of Babylon and the strange subterranean catacombs beneath
the archaic
ruins of Memphis who would not be? Alhazred, in his demented mind,
thought that the
vast desert would allow him the peace and tranquility that he so
desperately needed.
Unfortunately, this was not to be...
As Alhazred traversed the shifting sands, his mind wandered
back to the days
when he was but a simple cow herdsman. All was well, until that
day... the day that
he heard a cow utter the following phrase in an ancient tongue: "Ia!
Ia!
Bob-Sothoth fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Bob-Sothoth wgha-nagl
fhtaga!" Ever since
that time seventeen years ago Alhazred had not been the same. He
had afterwards
began a vast quest to discover why the cows he had herded had talked
and exactly who
and what Bob-Sothoth is... or was. Alhazred began his quest almost
a score of years
ago and felt that he was close to the
ultimate answer. During his nights with the cows those years past
he had heard
their urgent mooings. What did they mean? Were the cows possessed
of daemons? What
in the hell was going on?
As Alhazred continued his bizarre cycle of thought he noticed
not the paved
stones peeking up at him from the sand below his sandled feet. Only
when he tripped
on a large crack did he notice the fragmented pavement beneath him.
"What?" thought
Alhazred. A road in the middle of a vast expanse of desert? Filled
with curiosity
Alhazred decided it best to follow the ancient road. Soon darkness
overtook the
world and day became night.
As the moon climbed higher in the sky he began to see that the
slopes of
desert began to rise. Urged by an impulse which he could definitely
not
analyze, Alhazred scrambled with difficulty up the dunes... Upon
reaching the
top of the tremendous circle of dunes he stood silently, gazing into
the
stygian depths where no light had yet penetrated.
All at once his attention was captured by a vast and singular
object on the
opposite slope, which rose steeply about a hundred yards ahead of
him; an object
that gleamed brightly in the newly bestowed rays of the ascending
moon. He assured
himself that it was merely a piece of gigantic stone; but he was
conscious of an |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,510 | instinct impression that its contour and position were not
altogether the work of
Nature. A closer scrutiny filled him with sensations he could not
express; for
despite its enormous magnitude, and its position in
an abyss which had yawned in the middle of a vast desert since the
world was young,
he perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object was a well-
shaped monolith whose
massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of
living and
thinking creatures.
1810
Dazed and frightened, yet not without a certain thrill of the
scientist's or
archaeologist's delight, Alhazred examined his surroundings more
closely.
The moon, now near the zenith, shone vividly above the towering
steeps that hemmed
in the chasm revealed that far below rested a great area of flat
land. As he
inspected the monolith more closely he noticed that, though eroded
by the billowing
sands, it was still identifiable as... a cow. Footholds were
aplenty and Alhazred
began the laborious trek downwards into the vast chasm.
As Alhazred dropped from a low ledge to the base of the chasm
he uttered a
slightly audible groan. His feet had hit not sand but wheat. As he
regained his
feet he surveyed his surroundings. For hundreds of yards the great
field reared
into the distance.. far off he thought that he saw a mass of some
sort but it was
dark and he was unsure. He slowly set off towards the mass.
Somewhere off in the
distance he thought he heard the frenzied mooings of some
unspeakable Bovine beast,
but he convinced himself that it was probably just
the wind.
When Alhazred was within earshot of the vast mass he did hear
the frenzied
mooings of some sort of beast. Shaking with fear he moved closer
only because of
fear of what might be lurking around the vast pasture. As he got
closer he saw that
the mass was indeed a building, a temple.. broken colonnades paraded
around the
temple and strange bas-reliefs covered its face...it was too dark to
clearly make
out what the reliefs depicted. Alhazred began to circumvent the
temple looking for
some means of egress. Soon he found a rubbled hole in
a wall. The hole poured with a dim light and the smell of greasy
smoke. He |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,511 | crouched down so that he could peer inside.
Inside he saw a vast chamber filled with a slime-coated liquid
that was
obviously water. The chamber was dominated by a Cyclopean monolith,
on whose
surface he could now trace both inscriptions and crude sculptures.
The writing was
in a system of hieroglyphics unknown to Alhazred, consisting for the
most part of
Bovine creatures and the like. Several characters obviously
represented beasts not
of the modern world.
It was the pictorial carving, however, that did most to hold
him spell-bound.
Plainly visible across the intervening monolith on account of their
enormous size
was an array of bas-reliefs whose subjects would have excited the
envy of a Dore.
He thought these things were supposed to depict cows - at least, a
certain sort of
cow; though the creatures were shown disporting like cows in great
pastures, or
paying homage at some monolithic shrine which appeared to be in a
pasture as well.
Of their faces and forms he dared not speak in detail; for the mere
remembrance mad
him grow faint. Grotesque beyond
the imagination of a Poe or a Bulwer, they were damnably Bovine in
general outline
despite loathsome tentacles, cilia covered with congealed slime,
wide with flabby
lips, glassy, bulbous eyes, and other features less pleasant to
recall. Curiously
enough they seemed to be chiseled badly out of proportion with their
scenic
background. Alhazred decided that they were merely the imaginary
gods of some race
lost in the vestiges of time. Awestruck at this unexpected glimpse
into the past,
he stood musing whilst the moon cast queer reflections on the stone
walls around
him.
Then he saw it. With only a slight churning to mark its rise
to the surface,
the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, polyphemus-
like, and
loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the
monolith, about
which it flung its gigantic scaly tentacles, the while it bowed its
hideously horned
head and gave to certain measured mooings. Alhazred went mad then.
On his frantic ascent of the cliff and dune slopes, and of his
delirious
journey back to Damascus, he remembered little. Alhazred sang a
great deal, and
1811 |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,512 | laughed oddly when unable to sing. He had distinct recollections of a
great storm
some time after ascending out of the blasted heath in the middle of
the Roba El
Kaliyeh; at any rate, he knew that he heard peals of thunder and
other tones which
Nature utters only in her wildest moods.
==========================================================
======
It was this experience that prompted Abdul Alhazred to scribe
the original
Arabic text, AL AZIF, later translated into the BOVINOMICON. This
rare work deals
with many complex matters, including the idea that Bovine mooings
are actually the
language of daemons from the outer regions of the cosmos.
"...do you dare imagine things as they can be? As, indeed they
will be when
the earth is transformed and the illusion of reality is erased from
the minds of men
by the annihilation of those minds? Do you live in hope to see
Great Bob-Sothoth
stride the earth? Do you dream of the Throne of Yog-Elsie, of
joining the faithful
that mosh there? O, purify yourselves, then, for these and greater
things await you
who are members of our terrible order..."
-- Part of a speech heard outside of a home in a Winston-Salem, NC,
suburb
"The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind." -- H.P.
Lovecraft
======================================================
==
(c)1988 cDc communications by The Raver 4/22/88-58
All Rights Worth Shit
1812
T H E A U T O N O M A T R I X
Nascent Manifesto of 930111
:: Symbolism & Design ::
The name AutonomatriX is derived from the words autonomy and matrix
to
represent a self-directed and self-governing repository of
information. The emblem
of the Auto-nomatriX is a circular blade with eight teeth providing
a background to
t he glyph of Eris turned on its side. |
Wicca | The-Complete-Uncut-Book-of-Shadows | 1,513 | The AutonomatriX is a networking chaos magic guild of those striving
to discover and
rejuvenate magical ideas and technical skills with success as the
only key to
validation. We do not discriminate on
the basis of lifestyle, gender, affiliation, race, or sexuality. We
seek to interact
with creative magicians who are pushing boundaries instead of being
trapped by them.
We are a guild composed of working craftspeople, whereas an
order/lodg e/clique is
generally an exclusive
membership of supplicants.
The time of centralized info-banks is at an end; the nature of
"classified" or
"secret" information is that it is more often limiting than useful
to the collector,
and only profitable to the banker
of such media. Hierarchical structures are unnecessary and
undesired; checks and
balances regarding membership are determined by an individual's
interaction with
the rest of the group rather than personal prejudices or acceptance
for any member
by any other member. The principles "sink or swim" and
"(inter)action equals life"
are applicable to this magical guild, as in any network.
:: Access to the AutonomatriX ::
When a candidate has made intentional contact with a member of the
AutonomatriX
(called the "AX"), that member sponsors the candidate hirself and
provides all
pertinent information about that candidat
e to another member as soon as is possible for co-sponsorship.
Alternatively, if for
any reason the member chooses not to sponsor the candidate after the
initial
inquiry, that member must send the
information to two other members, one of whom is the member nearest
to the
candidate's geographic locale. Ideally, the two sponsors would be
geographically
separated from one another. All inquirers will be provided with the
current AX
manifesto by any member who accepts sponsorship of that candidate at
the onset of
their relationship. The suggested sponsorship period is three
months, at the end of
which the co-sponsors mutually decide upon whether or not initiation
should take
place.
The sponsored candidate is requested to provide information
regarding any personal
magical work done in a journal or magical record. The candidate may
in turn be
given any part of the Corpus Fecundi other than the Contacts Listing
(see below)
that the sponsors deem appropriate at any time. Initiation may be
performed by one
or both of the sponsors and/or an y other members of the AX with the |
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