Séance Pt 1

Séance Part 1

We are all familiar with the old stereotype of a séance –a darkened room, people holding hands in a circle around a crystal ball, lots of good spooky fun.

But this is of course a stereotype. It is not completely inaccurate –many Spiritualist séances of a century ago did look and feel a lot like that. But today a real séance is likely to be a lot more mundane, with few if any aspects of the old stereotype present.

The term “Séance” is French and means “a sitting” –in the sense that one “sits” for spirit communication. Actually today “sitting” is the more common term for the practice, but we will use séance here because everyone immediately recognizes its basic meaning.

In a séance we seek to communicate with spirits –either the spirits of people we have known, spirits who are in need, or Spirit Guides who are there to aid and guide us.

Obviously this practice is based upon the belief in the immortality of the soul, and the ability of the living to develop the psychic abilities to communicate with the spirits.

A séance works through the clairvoyance of the sitters. It works best if at least one is of the sitters is a developed medium, but all people have and can develop clairvoyance. We have conducted weekly séances during the course of which people who had no previous experience of clairvoyance became quite skilled at receiving messages.

Whenever several people are together they amplify each other’s abilities. A developed clairvoyant will amplify the abilities of anyone working with them.

Spirit messages are received when the medium is in trance –either light trance in which the medium retains consciousness, or deep trance in which the medium looses consciousness and has no knowledge of what is happening.

A séance can be conducted with only the medium(s) in light or deep trance, or with everyone present in light trance, depending upon the people’s abilities.

Although the term “séance” was popularized by Spiritualists, the practice of receiving spirit messages is quite ancient, having been practiced by many ancient peoples through a variety of techniques.



Conducting a séance

To conduct a successful séance, or any kind of spirit work, it is absolutely essential to have the right attitude. The emotional and spiritual vibration are of paramount importance, and if they are off then nothing will work correctly.

Working with spirits is not a game, it must be taken seriously and engaged in for the right reasons –a genuine desire for communication, for personal spiritual growth and understanding.

It is not “spooky” or “scary” and should never be practiced with that expectation or desire –because the universe will tend to give you what you ask for. If you are looking for a scary experience you may get one even if only because it is the only one you are in a state to receive.

One also should refrain from being judgmental or skeptical during a séance. It is fine to analyze and even be skeptical of the information received AFTER the séance is over, but it is important to avoid this DURING the séance as it will tend to shut down the process.

Nor should you ever work with spirits while intoxicated, as this will both tend to warp any communications you receive and may also offend the Spirits. Some people do like to take a small glass of beer or wine before sitting for spirits, but just enough to relax slightly, never enough to intoxicate.

Instead have a reverent attitude and positive expectations. It is the spirits own decision whether they speak to you or not. Be respectful and remember that the spirits are not there to serve you, though your Guides are there to help you –your Guides being those spirits who are your specific guardians and helpers.

Generally however if you are drawn to spiritual work it is because your Guides have drawn you.

It is best to conduct a séance in a fairly quiet and peaceful atmosphere where there will be no distractions. A skilled medium can communicate anywhere regardless of what is going on, but beginners can be easily disrupted.

The stereotype that a séance must be conducted only in a darkened room is rather silly and always was. However some people are more able to relax in low light, and relaxation is important to the process, so you may prefer to eschew really bright light –though for an advanced medium this is irrelevant.

One should avoid having too much metal around as metal tends to conduct energy and may tend to absorb the energy needed for communication. Some people go so far as to remove metal jewelry, though this is not really necessary.

It is good to light one or more candles, as these will augment the natural energies. It is also good to create energy constructs to act as batteries for the same reason –imagine four columns of white light in the corners of the room, and a ball of light at the center. Advanced energy workers can refine this to personal taste, perhaps creating energy constructs specifically suited to the energies of the participants.

Many people imagine that they need elaborate protections to conduct a séance. This is not so. You should ask your Guides to admit only appropriate spirits who wish or need to communicate, and they will see that this is the case. Having asked your Guides to do this you should have trust in them and know that only those spirits they have approved will speak.

It can be good to cense (“smudge”) the space where the séance is to be conducted with cleansing herbs such as sage or rosemary. This will help to cleanse the energy of the place.

It is good to pray and meditate at the opening of the séance to establish a spiritual tone. It is also good to make a statement of purpose stating that you have come together to speak with the spirits and are willing to speak only to spirits of good will or who are in need of your help.

The séance should begin at the time that has been set for it. If a series of séances is planned, they should ideally be set for the same hour each time. This builds a pattern for both the sitters and the spirits, and is more important (especially when learning) than one might think.

Once the séance begins it should not be interrupted –very like a ritual. Interruptions will break the mood and make the process much harder. Phones should be turned off, and people should not be coming and going from the room.

People should think of the bathroom BEFORE the séance –though allowances should of course be made when necessary. The “potty dance” does not help build concentration for anyone.

A séance will work best when conducted by people with an established relationship: either pre-existing or built up over the course of several séances. Successful séances can and are done with strangers, but tend to have less striking results because the rapport is less. Receiving messages in this way is a skill which is built up through experience.

Spell Writing Pt 5

Spell Writing Part 4:
Lay Out and Composition

Lay Out and Composition

For the purposes of this lesson we will carry out the writing of a Prosperity Pouch Spell. In composing or laying out a spell, I like to think of it as writing a recipe for change. Spells are a lot like recipes. They contain a list of ingredients and steps for preparation and execution. For a magickal spell, our first thought is our intention. With this in mind you might like to think of a title for your spell. However, at this time, your intention is most important. The title can simply be your intention. If your spell intention addressed prosperity, you might simply call it ‘My Prosperity Pouch Spell’ or even include your name ‘Lynda’s Prosperity Pouch Spell’. Consider continuing without choosing a name. Often a name will come to you while you are writing the spell.

Next, you will want to date your spell by simply entering the date you wrote it or began writing it. As you are the one who created it, you alone know when it came into being, whether it is the day you first thought of it, or the day you actually sat down and began writing it. The choice is yours.

Then, state your purpose in a brief phrase. For instance, ‘A spell for a prosperous change written by Lynda’ or simply ‘A prosperity pouch spell written by Lynda’. You just want to write something to comment on the intention of the spell. If you are writing a spell for someone else, then you might want to say something like ‘A prosperity pouch spell written for a friend’. What ever the case may be, statement of purpose will make it easier for you to identify a spell when you are looking for a spell to use.

In spell-writing it is important to determine the timing related to your spell. Here you will enter the time of day, day of the week, planetary hours, moon phase, tidal movement, or what ever other timing information you choose to use, if any. Also included here will be exact dates the spell will cover. For instance, if the spell will last seven days, then you will enter the beginning date and the ending date, including month, day, and year. Again, it is up to you how many of these correspondences you will use, or if you choose to use any at all.

A point to consider when writing a spell is setting the location. Where you perform the spell may take some planning. If you choose to perform your spell outdoors, such as at a park or at the seashore, you will need to take into consideration the other ingredients. You won’t want to try to light candles at a park if there is a fire danger warning in effect. You would not want to attempt to keep a candle lit on a windy beach. For this you might like to use a jar candle or even an oil lamp. If you write a spell that is to be cast outdoors you will need to make sure that all and any ingredients that you may place out in nature are ecologically safe. For instance, if your spell involves leaving an offering to Deity or nature, you would want to leave something like flowers, herbs, or natural objects. You would not want to leave plastic or imitation flowers. When spell casting outdoors, be prepared to pack out all waste and trash. If others before you were not as thoughtful, bless Mother Earth by picking up after them. Another point to consider is privacy. If you are sure that there will be no unexpected visitors, you can pretty much perform your spell as you choose. Ideally, this is what we all would like in an outdoor setting. However, if your location is a public beach or park, you will want to be discreet and try to find a private place. Always be sure to carry out anything you carried in; never leave trash or anything harmful to nature. This is why I like to stress the use of only natural ingredients for spell workings. Always leave the area better than you found it.


Lay Out and Composition

Another important step in the process is to enter the supplies you will use in the spell. You will want to list the ingredients and the amounts or numbers needed. If you are including one of each item, then you will want to list it that way. It is important to remember that numbers play a very important role in spell-writing and working. Numbers have magickal meanings and these meanings are often interpreted differently depending upon who is doing the interpretation. Use your intuition. Listen to your inner self and start there. You can use the common magickal meanings attributed to numbers, also. The choice is yours. If your intuitive powers are strong, then listen to them. There will be a list of number correspondences in a later lesson. You will also want to list anything you will need to perform the casting of this spell. You should list all ingredients as well as all tools needed. An example of items to list here would be herbs, oils, incense, stones, candles, magickal or ritual tools (chalice, cauldron, athame, etc.), pouches, pen, paper, matches, cords, mixing bowls, water - anything you will use for or in the spell.

One of the most creative parts of spell-writing may very well be your incantation or spoken charm, or any spoken words. These are usually spoken at specific intervals of the spell-working. You will need to compose the charm or incantation and determine when it will be spoken. Most are usually spoken or chanted when the ingredients are being blended together or put together. For instance, if you are putting together a magickal pouch spell using an herb, an oil, a stone, a pouch and a candle as your ingredients/ supplies, you might want to begin combining the herb, stone and oil by mixing them together in a bowl. While you are mixing you will be chanting the incantation. It might be something like:
“Herbs and stone and oil combine,
Let prosperity be mine!”

You will need to determine the number of times to repeat the chant by determining the magickal number to match the intention. There may be more chants or incantations included in a spell, in fact there may be many, however for the purposes of this basic course, we will simply include one. We covered writing your own charms and incantations in Lesson 4.


Basic Spell Writing
Lay Out and Composition

A major step that makes your spell working flow smoothly is called ‘procedure’. These are the step-by-step instructions on how to carry out the spell. You will begin at the first steps. The instructions might read like this:
“At your altar or sacred space, place your pentacle disk in the center with the mixing bowl in the center of the pentacle disk. Light the green candle. Place the herbs and stone in the bowl, add the oil by drop. Mix them together. Repeat the following incantation three times:
‘Herbs and stone and oil combine,
Let prosperity be mine!’
Now take up the pouch in your receptive hand (left hand for right handed people) and with your power hand (right hand for right handed people) pick up the magickal mixture of herb, oil and stone, and place it into the pouch. Empower the pouch and its contents by sending your energy from within you, and into the pouch through your power hand.”

Determining the steps in the spell requires a lot of thought and consideration. How you accomplish this is a matter of thinking the process through as if you were actually working the spell in your mind. It is sort of like trying to find your path in unfamiliar territory. You will probably make a few false starts until you come up with your procedure. When you get to the point of describing your procedure, you will already know what type of spell you are writing. In the case of our example ‘Prosperity Pouch Spell’ we knew we wanted to make a pouch that could be carried or worn. With that said, we then knew it would require ingredients and those ingredients would have to be empowered and combined so we chose to use the mixing bowl to mix the ingredients and the charm spoken as we mixed and empowered, followed by placing the ingredients into the pouch.
Next comes the closing. At this point, for this particular spell, we have pretty much finished our spell. All that is left now is to close it and this is simply done by extinguishing the candle and speaking a closing. Your closing can be anything you wish to state. You may simply want to say ‘So mote it be!’ or ‘Blessed Be’. In keeping with magickal ethics, the Rede, the Law of Three, and Karma, I always like to end by including the following or similar words:
‘With harm to none and for the highest good of all concerned,
So mote it be!’
In perfect love and perfect trust, we thus seal the spell and send it on its way into the Universe and into the hands of the Goddess and God.

As an option, you may wish to include an entry titled ‘Further Instructions’. In the case of the sample spell, it would give instructions on how to use and maintain the pouch. It can be very confusing if after working a spell you are unsure about how to deal with what it left over. This section will tie up any loose ends by explaining any details not mentioned in the actual spell. This is the perfect place to mention what to do with any libations (drink, liquid, etc.), herbs, incense or other items that may be left over from the spell casting. Whether they should be cast to the wind or buried or whatever needs to be done, this is the place to explain it.

So, we have gone through the steps of writing and laying out the spell. Let’s see what it will look like when it is all written out. We will use Lynda’s Prosperity Pouch Spell as an example.

Lynda’s Prosperity Pouch Spell
A prosperity pouch spell written by Lynda
Timing: At Noon during the time of the Full Moon.

Date of Creation: Jan. 1, 2004

Supplies Needed:
A pinch of goldenseal herb
A drop of cinnamon oil
1 small Aventurine stone
A small pouch to be worn or carried on person.
1 green candle
Your pentacle disk
A small mixing bowl or shell

Location: At home: at your altar or other sacred space.

Charm/Incantation:
‘Herbs and stone and oil, combine
Let prosperity be mine!’

Procedure: Prepare your altar or sacred space.
“At your altar or sacred space, place your pentacle disk in the center with the mixing bowl in the center of the pentacle disk. Light the green candle. Place the herbs and stone in the bowl, add the oil by drop. Mix them together repeating the following incantation three times:
‘Herbs and stone and oil combine,
Let prosperity be mine!’

Now take up the pouch in your receptive hand (left hand for right handed people) and with your power hand (right hand for right handed people) pick up the magickal mixture of herb, oil and stone, and place it into the pouch and seal or close the pouch.” Empower the pouch and its contents by sending your energy from within, and into the pouch through your power hand.
Closing: Now extinguish the candle and finish by saying:

‘With harm to none and for the highest good of all concerned,
So mote it be!’
It is done.

Further Instructions: The pouch should be worn or carried as needed to attract prosperity. The contents of the pouch may be refreshed or replaced as needed or desired.

As we see here, our spell is complete and as such can be worked at the proper time, as needed.

Spell Writing Pt 4

Spell Writing Part 4:
Magickal Properties & Correspondences

Magickal Properties and Correspondences

In this lesson we will cover the basics of correspondences. Correspondences are magickal properties related to spell ingredients and timing, etc. It would be a tremendous undertaking to try to list all the correspondences or properties of all spell ingredients in one place. So for the purpose of this basic course, I will list enough to give you a list that you can work with as you begin to write your spells. As you become more familiar with writing spells, you will begin to collect more and more information on correspondences and will find your basic lists growing.

There are an unlimited number of ingredients you can include in your spells, far too many to list here. We will include some basic herbs, oils, stones, and other correspondences. By using these lists you will be able to write your own basic spells. Each will be listed by intention.

Note: When working with stones, clear quartz crystals may be used in place of any stone and can be included in any working to add its power to the energy of the spell and its ingredients.

Courage

Herbs: Agrimony, cloves, mullein, mustard seed, sweet pea, tea (black or green tea), yarrow.

Stones: Agate, amethyst, aquamarine, bloodstone, carnelian, red tourmaline, tiger's-eye.

Oils: Cedar oil, clove oil, ginger oil.


Creativity:

Herbs: Beech, cinnamon, clove, vervain.

Stones: Amethyst, aquamarine, fluorite labradorite, sapphire.

Oils: Cinnamon oil, honeysuckle oil, jasmine oil, lemon oil, mint oil, orange oil.


Good Luck

Herbs: Allspice, bayberry, cabbage, caraway, heather, moss, parsley, peony, poppy,
star anise, strawberry, vanilla bean, violet.

Stones: Amber, amethyst, aventurine, apache tears, jade, lepidolite, tiger’s eye, turquoise.

Oils: Orange oil, pine oil.


Happiness

Herbs: Azalea, catnip, cherry, geranium, hawthorn, lavender, saffron,
St. John’s wort, violet, witch grass.

Stones: Amethyst, chrysoprase, yellow zircon.

Oils: Apple blossom oil, basil oil, lavender oil, sesame oil, tuberose oil.

Healing

Herbs: Allspice, angelica, apple, bay, blackberry, cedar, garlic, sandalwood, rosemary.

Stones: Agate, bloodstone, coral, hematite, holey stones, jasper, pink tourmaline,
rose quartz.

Oils: Camphor oil, coriander oil, cypress oil, eucalyptus oil, myrrh oil.


Love
Herbs: Avocado, cardamom, carnation, coriander, frangipani, ginger, jasmine,
rose, tomato.

Stones: Calcite, beryl, moonstone, pink tourmaline, rose quartz, sapphire, topaz.

Oils: Cardamom oil, coriander oil, ginger oil, jasmine oil, rose oil.


Magickal Powers

Herbs: Alder, galangal, marigold, mugwort.

Stones: Bloodstone, garnet, quartz crystal, malachite, opal.

Oils: Allspice oil, dragon’s blood oil, ginger oil, vanilla oil.


Money

Herbs: Almond, buckeye, comfrey, dill, garlic, honeysuckle, oak moss, tonka bean,
vertivert.

Stones: Aventurine, coal, calcite, goldstone, jade, mother of pearl, salt, opal.

Oils: Allspice oil, basil oil, bergamot oil, cinnamon oil, cinquefoil oil, patchouli oil, pine oil.


Protection

Herbs: Bay leaf, bergamot, cloves, cinquefoil, dragon’s blood (resin), geranium, juniper, rosemary, St. John’s wort, Spanish moss.

Stones: Emerald, hematite, moonstone, holey stones.

Oils: Cypress oil, juniper oil, patchouli oil.


Prosperity

Herbs: Alfalfa, almond, elderberry, mistletoe, musk, parsley, peony, poppy, tulip,
vertivert.

Stones: Aventurine, bloodstone, chrysoprase, mother of pearl, olivine, ruby, sapphire,tiger’s eye.

Oils: Almond oil, cinnamon oil, peppermint oil, patchouli oil.


Success

Herbs: Clover, honeysuckle, peony, rowan, strawberry.

Stones: Amazonite, chrysoprase, malachite.

Oils: Ginger oil, oakmoss oil, sunflower oil, verbena oil, vertivert oil.


Wisdom

Herbs: Bodhi, lemongrass, sage, sunflower.

Stones: Coral, chrysocolla, jade, sodalite, sugalite.

Oils: Almond oil, lavender oil, peppermint oil.




Magickal Properties and Correspondences

Color Correspondence Table

White: All purposes, peace, purity, protection.

Black: Banishing, banishing negativity, absorbing negativity.

Red: Energy, strength, passion, courage, protection, self-defense.

Pink: Romantic love, friendship, peace, compassion.

Orange: Energy, courage, success, willpower, imagination.

Yellow: Intellectual pursuits, confidence, travel, communication.

Green: Healing, money, wealth, fertility, jobs, growth, luck, abundance.

Blue: Healing, patience, happiness, wisdom, psychic abilities, tranquility, changes.

Purple: Power, spirituality, meditation, magickal powers, deep healing.

Brown: Stability, pets, grounding, strength.



Tidal Correspondence Table

High Tide: The water is at its highest level. This is the optimum time to perform all typesof magickal spells.

Ebb Tide: The optimum time to perform banishing spells to send off the unwanted with the receding tide.

Low Tide: The water is at its lowest level; the optimum time for introspection and going within.

Flow Tide: The tide is ‘coming in’ or rising. The optimum time for performing
manifestation spells, spells to bring in or draw.



Lunar Correspondence Table

Waxing Moon: Optimum time for manifestation spells, spells to draw your desires or goals.

Full Moon: Optimum time for all magickal spells and workings, the time of greatest power.

Waning Moon: Optimum time for introspection and magickal spells of banishing
negative or harmful energy.

New Moon: Optimum time for new beginnings.



Days of The Week Correspondence Table

Monday: Psychic abilities, peace, healing, fertility.

Tuesday: Passion, courage, protection, strength.

Wednesday: Wisdom, divination, studies, travel.

Thursday: Money, prosperity, luck, wealth, success.

Friday: Love, romance, friendship, beauty.

Saturday: Family and home, transitions, new beginnings, banishing.

Sunday: Healing, power, success, protection, vitality, vigor.



Time of Day Correspondence Table

Morning: New ventures, new beginnings, success, jobs, healing, purification.

Noon: Power, strength, energy, courage, protection, prosperity, money, luck. Add extra energy and power to spells.

Evening: Banishing, getting rid of unwanted or negative energy.

Night: Love, divination, magickal power, psychic abilities.



Element Correspondence Table

Earth (North): Grounding, money, jobs, possessions, prosperity, manifestation, growth.

Air (East): New beginnings, communication, study, learning, wisdom.

Fire (South): Courage, creativity, passion, protection, strength, banishing, energy, will power, change.

Water (West): Purification, love, psychic powers, dreams, divination, peace.


In this lesson I have attempted to give you the basic information on magickal properties and correspondences. At this point, by using the tables and the information in the previous lessons, you should be able to sit down and write a spell of your own. Do not limit yourself to these short tables. There is a wealth of information to learn in regards to magickal properties and correspondences. The lists of herbs, stones, oils, and other spell ingredients are as limitless as the imagination. It is a wise witch who listens to his/her own intuitive voice when laying out a spell. If you sense the need to use a certain ingredient in place of one traditionally used, then do so. It is by listening to our higher selves that we truly begin to learn and grow as witches.


Summary and Closure

In this course we have covered the very basics of writing a spell. By following these guidelines and applying our Wiccan principles to our workings, we are sure to create spells that will enhance our lives and light our paths to becoming balanced and powerful witches. I wish you success in your magickal endeavors.

Blessed Be,
Moonraven (Rev. Teri Ott)
1st Degree Priestess Correllian Tradition
1st Degree Mentor
1st Degree Senior Mentor
aka Marina Seabourne Writer and Sea Witch.

Spell Writing Pt 3

Spell Writing Part 3:
Intention & Magickal Ethics

Your first steps in writing or creating a spell come with your very first thoughts or desires about bringing about change. This can be a thought as simple as a wish or inner comment about something you would like to see, do or have. Magick is the act of manipulating energy to bring about positive change in one’s life. Our Correllian teachings tell us that our thoughts and emotions have a direct effect upon the energy around us. Once a thought or desire comes into our mind it will either take seed and grow in intention toward a magickal outcome, or it will simply depart, maybe to return again as a memory, or be forgotten. It is our desire that determines the path the thought or intention will take. It is the depth of our need or the strength of our emotional tie to the thought that empowers it toward fruition.

A thought that grows in intention toward a magickal end will have roots in our mind and heart. These are the seats of our thoughts and desires, respectively. At this point we must make a decision as to whether or not our desire is one we truly would like to bring about in perfect love and perfect trust. Whether our desire will be ethically correct is a choice each of us must make. Whether or not we wish to accept the responsibility of our actions is a decision that must be considered with seriousness.
Intention and magickal ethics go hand in hand and are the solid foundation that all magickal spells are built upon. When used as a first step, they are the balance that is needed to insure a well-grounded and stable spell.

Since you are reading this, you are interested in learning to write your own magickal spells and bringing about positive change in your own life. That being the case, be prepared to accept the responsibility involved in proceeding with spell-working.
We do this by considering the foremost concepts in Wiccan literature, the first of which is known as ‘The Wiccan Rede’ or simply ‘The Rede’ and the second known as ‘The Law of Three’ or ‘The Law of Threefold Return’.

The basic and foremost teaching of the Rede is simply ‘…As you harm none, do what you will…’ We must always consider these words when we first begin to entertain the idea of spell-working. It should always be our intention to cause harm to none. Period. Many ask how we can live without harming anything or anyone. We are discussing intention here. When considering the working of magick and manipulation of the energy around us, we must consider our intention first. The Rede teaches us to harm none. As such, we must consider if our intention is directed toward harming anyone. Is our spell directed negatively toward anyone or anything? As spirit creatures and children of the Goddess and God, we are each granted free will. We must insure that our workings will not directly affect the free will of another. One technique we might use in this respect is to never direct a spell toward another person without that person’s consent. No matter how positive our intentions are, we should always, when possible, get permission from the person before working a spell on their behalf.

The Law of Three works in almost the same manner as Karma. What we send out is what we will surely see return to us a multiple of times. To continue to send out the same energy is to receive the same in return until we have learned what we must from it. If we send out harmful or negative intent, we must be prepared to deal with it when it returns to us as many times as it takes for us to learn from the experiences. To follow the Rede is to insure that what returns to us is positive and enlightening. When we abide by magickal ethics we are creating a balance between our magickal efforts and nature.
When we are prepared to accept the responsibility for our magickal intentions, and when we have determined that our intent is in compliance with the main concepts of magickal ethics, then we are ready to proceed with the creation of our spell.


Banishing and Manifesting

As part of our discussion on intention, we will discuss the two major types of spell-workings to consider when writing spells. These are banishing, sending energies away or getting rid of, and manifesting, bringing energies in or creating. It is important to determine what we are trying to accomplish with our spell and considering these two categories will help us to begin.

Spells to manifest are simply spells that we use when we wish to bring something into our lives or create a positive thing or change. Spell types used for these purposes are wishing spells, attraction spells, spells that are written for the purpose of bringing something or some positive energies into our lives. We are letting the Universe know that we are open to these energies and ready to bring the desired outcome into our lives. These types of spells are usually worked when the moon is waxing or growing larger in appearance and approaching fullness or when the moon is full, also when the tide is coming in, or approaching or at high tide. The energies we are working with are those of a drawing nature and intended to bring or create.

Spells of a banishing nature are simply that. They are intended to banish or get rid of situations, bad habits, negativity and the unwanted from our lives. Examples of banishing spell intentions might be losing weight, banishing negativity, or shedding a bad habit. By banishing we are sending away undesired energies. We are letting the Universe know that we are no longer in need of these energies. Spells of the banishing type are usually worked when the moon is waning or growing smaller in appearance, or when the tide is receding or going out or at ebb. The energies we are working with are those of an expelling nature and intended to rid or send away. Banishing spells can be different from other spells as they tend to be action spells. By action, I mean they are spells that call for acting out or speaking the intention and usually focus on the spoken charm, timing, writing the intention on paper, burning, candles, etc. A banishing spell can even be written in such a way that you would “act out” the actual banishment. As an example, let’s say your intention is to leave behind or banish an old habit. You could write a spell that would require you to actually “step away” from your old habit. You might write words such as “I now leave this old habit behind!” and as you speak this charm, you actually walk forward one step, literally out of the old and into the new. Many banishing spells don’t include actual ingredients. In spells such as these, extra energy will be added by matching correspondences related to timing, candles and colors, elements and directions.

Spell Writing Pt 2

Spell Writing Part 2:
Energy & Timing

We have learned from our First Degree studies that everything in existence is composed of energy. All that exists vibrates at different frequency levels. As we consider the seven levels or planes of existence, we see that the highest vibrations exist at the highest level, or Deity, and the lowest exist at the lowest level, that being matter. We now see that a Spirit being will have a very high frequency of vibration and a stone will vibrate at a very low or subtle frequency. A good way of relating to this concept is to consider radio waves. They travel in an up-and-down roller-coaster type of movement. Higher frequency vibrations make the waves closer together and very steep. Lower frequency vibrations make the waves further apart and more like gentle slopes.

So what has all this to do with magick? Well, our First Degree lessons teach us that magick is the manipulation of the energy around us to bring about change in our lives. Each ingredient that we include in our spell-working will have an effect upon that energy, sort of like ripples in a pond. Each stone, herb, color, incense, or oil that we include in our spells, will bring its particular properties or energy to that spell. How much of an effect is determined by the number of ingredients we use and their properties. We also know that thought and emotion have an effect upon energy. Thought and emotion, like spirit, vibrate at a higher frequency than physical things such as stones and herbs. Proper timing can also boost the intensity of a spell’s energy. The greater effect we have upon this energy, the more power we will be introducing into our spells. That is why it is important to understand the concepts of energy and timing. We must also remember that any spell, regardless of how long it is or how many ingredients are involved, is nothing more than words written on paper if we do not do the visualization and personal energy work involved. The power of the spell is relative to the amount of energy we put into it. We must empower the spell and all the ingredients to our intention. As we have learned from our First Degree studies and exercises, we must practice and exercise our psychic muscle to become powerful witches. Yes, the ingredients we use do bring their properties to our spells, but the more personal energy we pour into the spell, the more power it attains and the more energy it has when we send it out to the Universe, the more successful it is apt to be. It is of vital importance to every witch to practice and become skilled at visualization and raising power. Diligent practice of your First Degree exercises is the beginning. As this course deals with the writing of spells, as opposed to the working of spells, we will leave discussion of raising power to future courses.

Timing is a matter of determining the proper time of day or night, season, hour, moon phase, or even tidal motion for performing a spell for a particular intention. There are mountains of information on magickal correspondences for timing to be found on the Internet as well as in books. In our final Lesson of this course, we will deal with the basic lists of timing correspondences as well as correspondences for all ingredients, which you can add to your personal Book of Shadows as a start. With time you will collect more and your lists will continue to grow.


To address the issue of how to incorporate timing into our spells we need first to consider the intention. As with each ingredient, we want to look for the correspondences or properties of each spell, and determine which period of time, or phase of the moon, or tidal movement we would like to use for our purpose. If the spell is of a banishing nature, or one of getting rid of something such as a bad habit, then we would consult our lists of correspondences for the best time and ingredients to include in our spell working to achieve that goal. As you can see, when we begin to work at gathering together our thoughts and ingredients for spell working, we are actually involved in a research type of project. As with all things magickal, the most important factor is first determining our intention or goal. What is it that we want to bring about with our spell? By answering this question first, then we can begin to lay out our map of accomplishment. Spell-writing can actually be thought of as making a map. Your intention is your starting point. Your ingredients and timing are steps on the map and your goal is at the end. By thinking about spell-writing in this manner, we can lay out a blueprint or recipe for successful spell-writing and a successful spell-working.

Another important point to consider in relation to timing is the length or duration of the spell. Will the duration of the spell be the length of time it takes to cast the spell? Or will the effects of the spell continue on for a week, a month or longer? We must determine how long the actual spell will last. Length or duration refers to how long the spell itself will continue working after you have finished casting it. Spells written to last more than the usual time it takes to cast as spell will need to be determined using basic number correspondences. This means finding the number of hours, or days, etc. that the spell will continue. For instance, if the intention of a spell is protection, one might write a spell that would include lighting a white candle for 7 minutes, reciting a spoken charm 7 times and doing this each day for 7 days. On the seventh day the spell is completed and ended.

It is important to remember that what you choose to include in your spell and how long it will last is totally up to you. If you want to write a spell that incorporates wishing on a full moon, then so be it. Your major ingredients would be determining when the next full moon will be and the words you will speak or think. If you want to write a candle spell for love, then you need only determine the color of candle you will need, and what you want to say. How and what you include is up to you. If you wish to only use your personal energy as the sole input of energy for your spell that is your choice. Including more ingredients is a matter of bringing in energy or power from our environment.

Spell ingredients such as stones and oils, and anything you might choose to include, can be powerful not only as ingredients, but these items themselves can be further empowered or charged by you, to bring additional energy into the spell. How much effort you put into your spell determines how powerful it will be. This has nothing to do with which ingredients or how many ingredients are used. I have written very successful spells and worked them and simply thought a desire from deep within my soul. No ingredients were used, no special ingredients, just deep intention. On the other hand, one of my most powerful spells included an extensive list of ingredients and was worked over a period of 30 days. So how do you know what kind of spell you need? By using your intuition and your own basic wants.

Spell Writing Pt1

Spell Writing Part 1:

Charms/Incantations

The American Heritage dictionary defines incantation as ‘ritual recitation of verbal charms or spells to produce a magic effect.’ It is a Latin derivative, which means ‘to enchant.’ When we include a spoken charm in a spell we are, in a sense, adding a means of enchantment, a way to send our magick out by speaking a chanted charm. Any words we may speak from the heart will send our energy out with the spell. It only adds to the harmonious energy of the spell if we can arrange those words into a pleasant-sounding rhyme. We often find that rhymes are easily committed to memory and can be very useful in creating spoken charms, which can also be used as positive affirmations. Affirmations themselves can be a form of spell-working that can have a powerful effect. Powerful words or phrases used in spoken charms can send their energy into a spell and work as excellent correspondences; they are a form of spoken ingredients in spells. It is not my intention to teach a course on writing poetry or prose. This is simply a short lesson on composing a spoken charm that can help to empower any spell.

The important part, as mentioned, is the intention. Think about your intention. Begin to feel what you are thinking about. If you are focused on bringing prosperity into your life, then begin to feel the desire for it. Begin to visualize your intention as already in effect. Form a picture in your mind of your intention as having already manifested. How strong is your intention or desire for the outcome? Where do you sense it? Is it just a thought? Do you feel it in your heart? By locating the seat of your desire, you can begin to sense your creative urges kick in and this is what we want to tap into.

Writing is a means of expressing what is in your heart and mind. It is a means of putting into words what you are feeling on a cellular level, so to speak. It is the tool we use to capture ideas and feelings that come from within. It is a means of interpreting what we experience with our senses. Our emotions find release in the writing of words. When we experience a desire to create a spell addressing a specific intention, we should listen to our heart and let it speak to us. Write down any thought that comes to your head. Be creative.

A rhyming dictionary can be very helpful in finding words that will rhyme to produce a rhythmic or musically flowing effect. A Thesaurus can be an excellent source for words that relate to or describe one another. Selecting words that express your feelings can be a powerful part of spell-writing. Words that flow in a melodic or rhythmic nature can add an extra boost of energy to a working. I have always been taught that melodious and rhythmic spoken charms or incantations are like music to Spirit. I feel that incantations that rhyme have a flowing vibration and can be very powerful to use in spells.



Charms/Incantations

Once you are ready to begin to create the spoken part of your spell, you will be very familiar with your intention. By this time, it has been growing in strength and power with each thought you have given it. With your intention in mind, think about how you are going to bring it into form. Think about the method or magickal technique that you will be using and include this in your charm. If you are using a simple candle spell, you might focus the intention upon the candle and make reference to it. For example, you might say something like this for a money spell:

“Candle flame strong and bright,
Draw money to me on this night.”

Use simple words that say what you want. The phrases can be repeated as a chant and will form their own rhythm in the repetition. The charm itself can be as long or short as you choose. I would suggest you keep the charms short to begin with. This makes it easier to remember and you will be less likely to make mistakes that can break the rhythm if you are chanting the charm. Your charms can express the nature of your spell whether it is a solemn working or one of lightness and joy. It is important to sense the spell and let your creativity flow from it. Take into consideration the time of day and use it as you write. You may want to include the ingredients you are using in the wording of the charm. For instance you might want to include the herbs, stones, or oils by name and include their magickal properties and how they will affect your intention. Your wording may stress your need and may be in the form of a request for the power of the magickal ingredients’ properties to boost the energy of your spell.

Another method of boosting the power of your charm is to determine the number of times to repeat the charm. Numbers have a magickal property of their own. By matching your intention with the magickal properties of numbers, you can add extra power to the chant as well as to the entire spell. As part of your magickal education I suggest taking the Numerology course offered by Witchschool.com to help include numbers in your spell writing.

Whatever method of writing you choose to create your spoken charm, remember that you will do well to memorize the charm and know it before performing your spell. This is important because you will be able to speak the charm from your heart and will be able to speak it without reading it. As you speak a charm in this way, from your heart, it is rising from within you on a cellular level and coming out with your breath, much like the technique used in magickal breathing. When using charms in this manner, it is much more beneficial if we have committed the charm to memory and can speak it from within and not by reading what was written on paper. Once you have written your spell and committed it to paper, you will find that most of it is committed to your memory as well.

The Meaning Of WitchCraft Pt.4

The Meaning of Witchcraft by GERALD GARDNER
Part 4

It is evident from early pictures and descriptions (the earliest being the famous cave paintings found at Ariege in the Caverne des Trois Freres, done by men of the Stone Age), that the High Priest who was the god’s representative sometimes wore a ritual disguise, consisting of a head-dress bearing the horns of a stag or a bull, and a kind of robe of animal skins; sometimes, too, a mask which concealed his features. This custom seems to have been more particularly followed at the big Sabbats, when many people gathered outside the circle who were not actual initiates of the witches’ mysteries, but came “for luck” (i.e. for the blessing of the Old Gods) or simply to enjoy themselves. It made the proceedings more impressive, and at the same time safer, if the god’s representative was masked and disguised, so that he could not be recognized. The horned figure, seen dimly by moonlight or by the light of torches, would have seemed to the outsiders to be a supernatural being, and the initiates would not have undeceived them. When only initiates were present, there was less need for the ritual disguise, so the custom of wearing it has tended to fade out.

It will be seen that witchcraft is a system involving both magic and religion. This in itself is an indication of great age, because in primitive times magic and religion were closely interrelated. The priest was also the magician, and the magician had perforce to be a priest. Indeed, when one comes to consider it, many religious rites today are directed towards ends, which might be called magical. What is the essential difference, for instance, between prayers for rain, or for a good harvest, and the old fertility rites, which were directed to the same end? And why must a King or a Queen undergo the ritual of Coronation? With regard to the Church’s prayers and a fertility rite, the difference would seem to lie in the latter working on the principle that “God helps those who help themselves,” whereas the former is content with petition. The question of the necessity of Coronation ritual raises the whole idea of the Divine King or Queen which has engaged the attention of anthropologists for many years. The idea that there is any connection between religion and magic may be indignantly repudiated by some orthodox believers; nevertheless, both spring from the same root.

As I explained in my previous book, there are certain secrets of the witch cult that I cannot by reason of my pledged word reveal; but many people write to me saying, “You said in your book, Witchcraft Today that all the ancient Mysteries were basically the same; so as we all know what these ancient Mysteries were, we know exactly what the witches’ secrets are. So why don’t you write another book telling everything?”

Now, while the ancient authors who were initiated into a number of the Mysteries agree that they were all the same basically, and there is a certain amount of agreement among modern authors about what their secrets were, I doubt very much if any of them realizes the reason behind them, “what made them work,” in fact; and what makes things work is the witches’ secret. I think that this was probably the practical secret of the ancient Mysteries also.

However, I am not going to be drawn in this way to break my word; a statement, which will, I hope, result in a saving of notepaper and stamps on the part of some of my more aggressive correspondents. Certain of the present-day enquiries of psychical research, archaeology, anthropology, and psychology are beginning to converge in a manner that is gradually revealing facts about ancient beliefs and their effect upon human evolution which have not been realized before. It is my hope that this book will be a useful contribution to these lines of enquiry, and perhaps assist in their convergence.



Upon the 1st March, 1956, Major Lloyd-George, then Home Secretary, as a result of a question asked in the House of Commons, said that black magic was an offence in common law. When pressed by M.P.s to define black magic, he said, “It is the opposite to white magic (at which there was laughter and ironical cheers) which is performed without the aid of the devil, so I assume the other is done with his aid.”

If this were accepted as a definition, then authentic witchcraft is certainly not black magic, because witches do not even believe in the devil, let alone invoke him. The Old Horned God of the witches is not the Satan of Christianity, and no amount of theological argument will make him so. He is, in fact, the oldest deity known to man, and is depicted in the oldest representation of a divinity which has yet been found, namely the Stone Age painting in the innermost recess of the Caverne des Trois Freres at Ariege. He is the old phallic god of fertility who has come forth from the morning of the world, and who was already of immeasurable antiquity before Egypt and Babylon, let alone before the Christian era. Nor did he perish at the cry that Great Pan was dead. Secretly through the centuries, hidden deeper and deeper as time went on, his worship and that of the naked Moon Goddess, his bride, the Lady of Mystery and Magic and the forbidden joys, continued sometimes among the great ones of the land, sometimes in humble cottages, or on lonely heaths and in the depths of darkling woods, on summer nights when the moon rode high. It does so still.

From time to time the public have been treated to various highly-colored and highly unconvincing “revelations” in the popular Press and elsewhere upon the subject of “Black Magic,” “Satanism,” and similar matters, and occasionally these have been linked with witchcraft. Let me state right away that I personally maintain an attitude of thorough-going skepticism towards these things, and that even if they do exist I do not consider them to have any relation to the survival of the witch cult. Alleged “confessions,” especially where witchcraft is mentioned, bear ample internal evidence of their own meretriciousness, in that they are obviously modeled upon sensational thrillers and reveal no knowledge whatever of genuine witch practices.

The real thing is deeper hidden than this. People, especially country people, are reluctant to talk about it; but no one, I think, can study folklore in this country for long without becoming convinced of the amazing vitality and tenacity of old beliefs.

Where the town-dweller usually goes astray in his conclusions about the witch cult is that he has been fed mentally upon the alleged “revelations” mentioned above, or upon works that associate witchcraft with some fantastic belief vaguely known as “Satanism,” with the implication that it is, or was, a cult of evil and nothing else. I submit that this is an unreasonable view, and has been promulgated by persons who possess no qualifications beyond a bent for sensationalism or an outlook blinded by religious bigotry. The countryman and countrywoman preserve a belief through the centuries because they think it is some use to them, or because they derive some satisfaction from it. Of course, the benefit they derive from the belief may not always seem to us to be highly ethical. Nevertheless, no one but a maniac would deliberately cultivate evil for its own sake.

The foundation of magical beliefs, of which witchcraft is a form, is that unseen Powers exist, and that by performing the right sort of ritual these Powers can be contacted and either forced or persuaded to assist one in some way. People believed this in the Stone Age, and they believe it, consciously or not, today. It is now well known that most superstition is in fact broken-down ritual.

The unseen Powers that have interested man most in his early history have been the powers of fertility and of contact with the spirit world; of Life and Death. These are the elementary powers that became the divinities of the witches, and their worship is as old as civilization itself. The meaning of witchcraft is to be found, not in strange religious theories about God and Satan, but in the deepest levels of the human mind, the collective unconscious, and in the earliest developments of human society. It is the deepness of the roots that has preserved the tree.


Details:

The Meaning of Witchcraft

GERALD GARDNER

First Published in 2004 by

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
York Beach, ME
With offices at:
368 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210

Originally published in the U.K. in 1959 by Aquarian, London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gardner, Gerald Brosseau, 1884-1964

The meaning of witchcraft / G.B. Gardner.

p. cm.

Originally published: 1st ed. London: Aquarian Press, 1959.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-57863-309-5

1. Witchcraft. I. Title.

BF1566.G3 2004

133.4’3—dc22

The Meaning Of WitchCraft Pt.3

The Meaning of Witchcraft by GERALD GARDNER
Part 3

Eileen Power, in her book, Mediaeval People4 says, speaking of the peasants:

They used to spend their holidays in dancing and singing and buffoonery, as country folk have always done until our own more gloomier, more self -conscious age. They were very merry and not at all refined, and the place they always chose for their dances was the churchyard; and unluckily the songs they sang as they danced in a ring were old pagan songs of their forefathers, left over from old Mayday festivities, which they could not forget, or ribald love songs which the Church disliked. Over and over again we find the Church councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests, too) were singing ‘wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women’, or holding ‘ballads and dancing and evil and wanton songs and such-like lures of the devil’; over and over again the bishops forbade these songs and dances; but in vain. In every country in Europe, right through the Middle Ages to the time of the Reformation, and after it, country folk continued to sing and dance in the churchyard.

She continues:

Another later story still is told about a priest in Worcestershire, who was kept awake all night by the people dancing in his churchyard, and singing a song with the refrain ‘Sweetheart have pity’, so that he could not get it out of his head, and the next morning at Mass, instead of saying ‘Dominus vobiscum’, he said, ‘Sweetheart have pity’, and there was a dreadful scandal which got into a chronicle.5

However, I have never heard of a present-day witch meeting being held in a churchyard; I think those sensation-mongers who have described present-day witches as forgathering in graveyards are guessing, and their guess is a few centuries out.

Actually, witch meetings today may take place anywhere that is convenient, and only people who have been initiated into the cult are allowed to be present. The actual proceedings would probably greatly disappoint those who have been nurtured on tales of blood sacrifices, drunken orgies, obscene rites, etc., etc. Witches do not use blood sacrifices; and only the type of mind which considers all recognition of the Elder Gods and their symbols to be “diabolical” would call their rites “obscene.” There are, on the other hand, people who consider many of the Church’s beliefs and practices to be an insult to Divinity; a woman once told me, for instance, that she thought the Church of England’s Marriage Service so disgusting that she could never bring herself to submit to it. Much depends upon one’s point of view in these matters.



__________________________
4. Penguin Books, 1951.
5. The chronicle in question was that of Giraldus Cambrensis, Gemma Ecclesiastica, pt. I, c. XLII.


The taking of wine during the rites is part of the ceremony; it consists usually of two glasses at the most, and is not intended to be a “mockery” of anything, still less a “Black Mass.” In fact, witches say that their rite of the “Cakes and Wine” (a ritual meal in which cakes and wine are consecrated and partaken of) is much older than the Christian ceremony, and that in fact it is the Christians who have copied the rites of older religions. In view of the fact that such ritual meals are known to have been part of the Mysteries of the goddess Cybele in ancient times, and that a similar ritual meal is partaken of, according to Arthur Avalon in Shakti and Shakta, by the Tantriks of India, who are also worshippers of a great Mother-Goddess, there seem to be some grounds for this statement.

In the old days, they tell me, ale or mead might be used instead of wine, any drink in fact that had “a kick” in it, because this represented “life.” I wonder if this is why Shakespeare used the expression “cakes and ale” as a synonym for fun which was frowned on by the pious?

It is a tradition that fire in some form, generally a candle, must be present on the altar, which is placed in the middle of the circle, and candles are also placed about the circle itself. This circle is drawn with the idea of “containing” the “power” which is raised within it, of bringing it to a focus, so to speak, so that some end may be accomplished by raising it. This focusing of force is called “The Cone of Power.”

Incense is also used, and I have read in Spiritualist literature that “power” is thought by some mediums to be given off by naked flames, by a bowl of water, and by incense. All these are present on the witches’ altar. I once took a photograph of a witches’ meeting-place while a rite was being performed there; this included none of the people present, deliberately, but merely the altar, etc., and part of the circle. When the photograph was developed it showed “extras” in the form of ribbon-like formations, some of which appeared to proceed from the candles. I assured myself that there was nothing in the composition of the candles, which could account for this phenomenon, nor was there anything wrong with my camera. A copy of this photograph is on display in the Museum.

The great reservoir of “power,” according to the witches, is the human body. Spiritualists generally share this belief. Upon the practical means used to raise and direct this “power” I do not propose to touch; but that it is not a mere flight of fancy to believe in its existence is proved by some of the researches of modern science. The radiesthesia journal, The Pendulum, for March, 1956, carried an article called “Living Tissue Rays,” by Thomas Colson, from the Electronic Medical Digest. This told how Professor Otto Rahn of Cornell University had described to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Syracuse, New York, how yeast cells can be killed by a person looking intently at them for a few minutes. The yeast cells were placed on a glass plate and held close to the person’s eyes. The Professor explained this by saying that certain rays were emitted from the human eye, which were capable of producing this result. For several years, he said, scientists had been reporting discoveries that living things produce ultraviolet rays. In the human body they had been found coming from working muscles, and in the blood.


The fingertip rays of several persons at Cornell killed yeast readily. The tip of the nose was discovered to be a fine ultra-violet ‘tube’. Then came the eye. Human rays are not always harmful. From some persons they are beneficial to tiny plants. There seems to be no difference in the kind, but the volume differs. When large, it is lethal to yeast. The same person emits it at different rates. He may be ‘killing’ at one time and ‘benign’ at another. The right hand appears to radiate more than the left, even in left-handers. . . .

These body rays seem to be given off most strongly by the parts of the body which are replaced most rapidly, such as the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. . . . The tops of the fingers are very strong emitters of this energy. . . . The back gives off the least energy and the abdomen and chest slightly more. The sex organs in both sexes and breasts in women emit these rays quite strongly.

The first scientific proof that there is a personal electric field, a sort of electrical aura, within and in the air around a living body, was announced to the Third International Cancer Congress. The report was made by Dr. Harold S. Burr, of Yale University. . . . Human eyes are powerful electric batteries. This discovery, showing that each eyeball is an independent battery, was announced to the National Academy of Sciences in 1938 by Dr.Walter H. Miles, Yale University pathologist. . . . The fact that eyes produce electricity has been known to science since 1860, when it was discovered in frogs, but the source of this electric power, its variations and especially its high power in human beings, is little known.

The above extract gives the reason for the witches’ traditional ritual nudity. To their Christian opponents this was mere shamelessness; but students of comparative religion know that, apart from the practical magical reason given above, nudity in religious ceremonies is a very old and worldwide practice. This is, in fact, yet another indication of the witch cult’s derivation from remotest antiquity.

It may seem strange that the beliefs of the witch and the discoveries of the man of science should ever find a realm in which they could meet and touch; yet this is not the first time such a thing has happened. The doctor who introduced the use of digitalis into medical practice bought the secret from a Shropshire witch, after taking an interest in her herbal cures.

The witches’ belief that “the power” resides within themselves, and that their rites serve to bring it out, is the great difference between them and the practitioners of “ceremonial magic,” black or white. The latter proceed by the invocation or evocation of spirits, sometimes of demons, whom they seek to compel to serve them. This is not the witches’ way, though they believe that helpful spirits, human or otherwise, come of their own accord to assist in their rites, and that those present who have developed “the Sight” (i.e. clairvoyance) may see such spirits.

A popular belief about witchcraft, which is nevertheless erroneous, is the idea that a witches’ coven must consist of thirteen people. Actually, it may consist of more or less than thirteen people; but thirteen is considered to be the ideal number. This may be because it is the best number of people to work in the witches’ traditional nine-foot circle; six couples and a leader. Or it may be because witchcraft is a moon cult, and there are thirteen moons in a year and thirteen weeks in every quarter, each quarter of the year having its Sabbat. The four great Sabbats are Candlemass, May Eve, Lammas, and Halloween; the equinoxes and solstices are celebrated also, thus making the Eight Ritual Occasions, as the witches call them. On the great Sabbats all the covens that could forgather together would do so; but apart from these great Sabbats, minor meetings called Esbats are held. The word “Esbat” may come from the old French “s’esbattre,” meaning “to frolic, to enjoy oneself.” Traditionally, the Esbat is the meeting of the local coven for local matters, or simply for fun, and it is, or should be, held at or near the full moon.


As might be expected from a moon cult, the leading part in the ceremonies is played by the High Priestess, or Maiden. She has the position of authority, and may choose any man of sufficient rank in the cult to be her High Priest. In France the Maiden was sometimes called La Reine du Sabbat; in Scotland she seems to have been called the Queen of Elphame (i.e. Faery), and one old witch-trial has it that “she makes any man King whom she pleases.”

Apart from the theory that the “fairies” were actually the primitive People of the Heaths, the smaller, darker aboriginal folk displaced by the Early Iron Age invaders, which I treated of in Witchcraft Today, there is another connection between them and the witches. In the popular mind, after the advent of Christianity the old Celtic Paradise to which the souls of pagans went when they died became the “Realm of Faerie,” and the God and Goddess who were the rulers of the After-World became the deities of the witches, who held to the Old Religion, and also were considered as the King and Queen of Faery. Hence the High Priestess of a witch coven, who is considered as the Goddess’s living representative, would naturally be called “the Queen of Elphame.”

The original “Fairyland” was the pagan paradise, and the “fairies” of early romances, are very different from the dainty miniature creatures of later tales and children’s stories, made up when their original significance had been forgotten. This is made abundantly clear by the descriptions given in the anonymous old English poem, “Sir Orfeo,” of which the earliest MS. we have dates from the early fourteenth century. It is reminiscent of the Greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice, but with a happy ending instead of a tragic one, and contains a fine description of “The proude courte of Paradis,” which was entered apparently through a hollow hill or rocky cave, and of its rulers, “The king o’ fairy with his rout,” and his queen, the White Goddess; “As white as milke were her weeks” and so brightly shining that Orfeo could scarcely behold them.

A. E.Waite, in his introduction to Elfin Music, an Anthology of English Fairy Poetry6 says: “The Elizabethan age commonly identified the fairies of Gothic superstition with the classic nymphs who attended Diana, while the elfin queen was Diana herself, and was called by one of the names of that goddess, that is, Titania, which is found in the Metamorphoses of Ovid as a title of the uranian queen.” He states further that “. . . the original fairy of Frankish poetry and fiction was simply a female initiated into the mysteries and marvels of magic.”

A third ingredient in the tales of “fairies” is, of course, actual non-human nature spirits which some people claim to be able to see, and it is fascinating for the student of folklore to disentangle these different strands that weave through old stories and beliefs.

The High Priest of a witch coven is, as we have seen, chosen by the Priestess. He is the person whom the Inquisitors and witch-hunters of old times used to call “the Devil,” as being either an actual supernatural devil or else his human representative. Witches are constantly being accused of “worshipping the Devil.” Now, when we use that word “Devil,” what picture automatically forms itself in most people’s minds? Is it not that of a strange looking being who seems to be partly human and partly animal, having great horns on his head, and a body covered with hair, although his face is human? Have you ever stopped to wonder why this picture should automatically come into your mind in this way? There is not one single text in the Bible which describes “the Devil” or “Satan” in this manner. The only place in which you will find such a personage described is, curiously enough, among the gods of the ancient peoples. Here you will find quite a number of Horned Gods, and sometimes Horned Goddesses too, who were not, however, beings of evil, but deities beneficent to man. The reason why people picture “the Devil” in this way is because from the very earliest times the Church has taught that the Old God who possessed these attributes was the enemy of the Christian God, and hence must be Satan; and people have got so used to this concept that they have never stopped to question it.

__________________________
6. Walter Scott, 1888.

The Meaning Of WitchCraft Pt.2

The Meaning of Witchcraft by GERALD GARDNER
Part 2

I am not the first to have pointed this out; Eliphas Levi, the celebrated French occultist, who was also a devote Catholic, stated in his book, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, that the first condition of success in the practice of black magic was to be prepared to profane the cultus in which we believed.

Some may hold that anyone who does not believe in Transubstantiation is lacking in the True Faith and doomed to Hell. I am told that certain Nonconformist ministers preaching against Transubstantiation obtained consecrated Hosts and held them up to mockery in the pulpit; but I have never heard that this made them witches.

What about the Christian people who carry such consecrated Hosts about in lockets as personal charms? Are they being reverent or not? And are they witches? We have some of these charms in this Museum.) I know very well that some people would be shocked at this practice, but this does not alter the fact that it is done.

The point which those writers who persistently link the witch cult with the Black Mass fail to appreciate is that they can either maintain that witches are pagans, or that they celebrate Black Masses; but that in the name of logic and common sense they cannot have it both ways.

Unlike a number of sensational writers, I do not wish to convey the impression that there are witches at work in every corner of the land. On the contrary, there are very few real witches left, and those keep themselves very much to themselves. They are generally the descendants of witch families, and have inherited a tradition, which has been preserved for generations. This is, indeed, the traditional way in which witchcraft was spread and preserved; the children of witch families were taught by their parents, and initiated at an early age. In fact, this is very probably the origin of all those frightful stories of the witches bringing babies to the Sabbat to eat them; what really happened was that witch parents dared not omit to have their babies baptized, for fear of instantly arousing suspicion, so they used to bring the babies to the Sabbat first, and present them in dedication to the Old Gods. Then, they felt, it wouldn’t matter if a ceremony of Christian baptism was later gone through “for show.” (“When I bow my head in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon Thy servant in this thing.”) However, as the persecution of the Old Religion grew more fiercer, it became dangerous to admit children. Innocent children prattled among themselves about where their parents went and what they did, and one unlucky word overheard by the wrong person might have meant death to the whole family. There are terrible records of children being hanged or burned with their parents, merely because they were of the witch blood. Margaret Ine Quane, for instance, who was burned as a witch here in Castletown in 1617, had her young son burned with her, simply because he was her son. Hence the custom of initiating the children was less and less observed, and this, coupled with the wholesale extermination policy carried on at the Church’s instigation, soon greatly reduced the numbers of the cult.

However, there is one factor in the continuity of the tradition which the opponents of the cult had not reckoned with. The witches are firm believers in reincarnation, and they say that “Once a witch, always a witch.” They believe that people who have been initiated into the cult, and have really accepted the Old Religion and the Old Gods in their hearts, will return to it or have an urge towards it in life after life, even though they may have no conscious knowledge of their previous associations with it. There may be something in this; because I know personally of three people in one coven who discovered that, subsequent to their coming into the cult in this life, their ancestors had had links with it, and I have already mentioned the witches who “recommended” me.


Of course, witch rites today are somewhat different from what they used to be many centuries ago. Then the great meetings, called Sabbats, used to be attended by large numbers of the population, who arrived provided with the wherewithal to cook a meal for themselves (hence the “hellish Sabbat fires” we have heard so much about), and prepared to spend a night on the heath in merrymaking, once the more serious rites were over. In fact, most traditional country merrymakings have some connection with the Old Religion; the Puritan Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses, fiercely denounces the people who stayed out all night in the woods “Maying” on the old Sabbat date of May Eve; and Christina Hole, in her English Folklore, notes how the Northamptonshire “guisers”—folk-dancers dressed in fantastic costumes—are called “witch-men” to this day. Such instances might be greatly multiplied.

The English climate, of course, did not always permit these gatherings to be held on the heath; and I think that in this event they probably took place in someone’s barn, or in the hall of a great house whose owner was friendly to the cult. In the Basque country of Pays de Labourd in 1609 the official investigator from the Parlement of Bordeaux, Pierre de Lancre, was horrified to find that the Sabbat was sometimes held in the local church, apparently with the priest’s consent. He was particularly scandalized to find how many Basque priests sympathized with the Old Religion.2

We are often told horrid tales of witch meetings in churchyards, and of witches who, in the words of Robert Burns, “in kirkyards renew their leagues owre howkit dead.” But in the old times the churchyard was the regular place for village merrymakings. In those days a churchyard was not, as it is today, a place of gravestones, but simply a green sward. From M. C. Anderson’s Looking for History in British Churches3 we may see that dancing in the churchyard was quite feasible in the old days as the author says that it was not the practice to erect gravestones to those who were buried there. “The great folks were buried beneath sculptured tombs within the church. . . . The little people remained anonymous in death
before the 17th century.”

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2. De Lancre, Tableau de L’Inconstance des Mauvais, Paris, 1612.
3. John Murray, 1951.

The Meaning Of WitchCraft Pt.1

The Meaning of Witchcraft by GERALD GARDNER
Part 1

My Directorship of the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft at Castletown, Isle of Man, brings me a great deal of correspondence from all parts of the world; some interesting, some abusive (a very little, just enough to enliven matters), some fantastic, and some funny in all senses of the word.

However, my more serious correspondents want to know the origin of witchcraft. Where, they ask, did it come from? What is behind this thing that obsessed the minds of men for centuries? Is it an underground cult of devil-worship? A dark thread running through history? An irruption of the supernatural into normal life? Or is it an enormous delusion? What is the meaning of it all?

This is a matter which of late years has exercised the ingenuity of a number of writers. These may be roughly divided into three schools. Firstly, those who take the severely rationalist view that witchcraft was a kind of mass hysteria, arising from psychological causes. Secondly, those who maintain that witchcraft is real, and that it is the worship and service of Satan, in whom its devotees appear to be great believers. This is the attitude taken by that very prolific writer, the late Montague Summers, and his many imitators. Thirdly, that school, headed by anthropologists like Dr. Margaret Murray, which has tried to look at the subject without either superstitious terrors and theological argument on the one hand, or materialistic incredulity on the other. This school of thought maintains that witchcraft is simply the remains of the old pagan religion of Western Europe, dating back to the Stone Age, and that the reason for the Church’s persecution of it was that it was a dangerous rival. I personally belong to this third school, because its findings accord with my own experience, and because it is the only theory, which seems to me to make sense when viewed in the light of the facts of history.

Perhaps I had better state briefly what that experience is. I am at present the Director of the only museum in the world, so far as I know, which is exclusively concerned with magic and witchcraft. I was a Civil Servant in the Far East (Malaya) until my retirement, and I made a large collection of magical instruments, charms, etc., which formed the nucleus of the present collection here. I am also an archaeologist and an anthropologist, and through these studies I became interested in the part played in the life of mankind by magical beliefs, and by what people did as a result of these beliefs.

When I was out East, before I had any contact with witchcraft in Britain, I investigated much native magic without finding anything, which could not be explained by telepathy, hypnotism, suggestion or coincidence, and frankly I considered magic as an instance of the curious things that people will believe. In those days I was very much interested in Dr. Margaret Murray’s theory that witchcraft was the remains of an ancient religion; but as all authorities seemed agreed that while there was evidence that some people may have been witches, there was not the slightest evidence that witches had ever been organized into covens; and as Charles Godfrey Leland, who had known many witches in Italy and elsewhere, and wrote a lot about them, never mentioned any coven or any organization, I dismissed witchcraft as something which had possibly happened once, but even if it had existed it had been “burnt out” three hundred years ago.



The earlier books I read on the subject all seemed to agree to a certain extent. They said that witches existed everywhere, and were both male and female. They were intensely wicked people. They worshipped the Devil, often in the form of a heathen god (but then, all heathen gods were the Devil). They had a big organization,regular religious ceremonies on fixed dates, a priesthood with priests, priestesses and officers, and an organized form of religion; though their deity might be called “a god” and “the Devil” almost in the same sentence. This was explained by saying that all non-Christian gods were really the Devil in disguise.

However, in the late 17th and the 18th centuries public opinion seemed to change. In spite of the strong views of John Wesley and other clergymen, people did not believe in witches any more, to the extent that when two clergymen induced a jury to convict Jane Wenham of talking to the Devil in the form of a cat, and she was sentenced to death for this in 1712, the judges protested and she was released. In 1736 the penal laws against witchcraft were repealed; and I did not think that anyone, with the exception of the Rev. Montague Summers, dared hint that there might be anything in witchcraft today without being laughed at. Charles Godfrey Leland had been regarded as a romancer who had written up a few Italian fortunetellers, and while Dr. Margaret Murray was known as a good anthropologist, it was thought that she was writing about things that happened three or four hundred years ago, when people were superstitious, and believed silly things.

However, after Dr. Murray’s books appeared, some other people were bold enough to admit that there were some witches left, but said that they were only village fortune-tellers, impostors who knew nothing about the subject, and there never had been any organization, and anyone who thought otherwise was just being imaginative. I was of these opinions in 1939, when, here in Britain, I met some people who compelled me to alter them. They were interested in curious things, reincarnation for one, and they were also interested in the fact that an ancestress of mine, Grizel Gairdner, had been burned as a witch. They kept saying that they had met me before. We went through everywhere we had been, and I could not ever have met them before in this life; but they claimed to have known me in previous lives. Although I believe in reincarnation, as many people do who have lived in the East, I do not remember my past lives clearly; I only wish I did. However, these people told me enough to make me think. Then some of these new (or old) friends said, “You belonged to us in the past. You are of the blood. Come back to where you belong.”

I realized that I had stumbled on something interesting; but I was half initiated before the word “Wicca" which they used hit me like a thunderbolt, and I knew where I was, and that the Old Religion still existed. And so I found myself in the Circle, and there took the usual oath of secrecy, which bound me not to reveal certain things.


In this way I made the discovery that the witch cult, that people thought to have been persecuted out of existence, still lived. I found, too, what it was that made so many of our ancestors dare imprisonment, torture and death rather than give up the worship of the Old Gods and the love of the old ways. I discovered the inner meaning of that saying in one of Fiona MacLeod’s books: “The Old Gods are not dead. They think we are.”

I am a member of the Society for Psychical Research, and on the Committee of the Folklore Society; so I wanted to tell of my discovery. But I was met with a determined refusal. “The Age of Persecution is not over,” they told me; “give anyone half a chance and the fires will blaze up again.” When I said to one of them, “Why do you keep all these things so secret still? There’s no persecution nowadays!” I was told, “Oh, isn’t there? If people knew what I was, every time a child in the village was ill, or somebody’s chickens died, I should get the blame for it. Witchcraft doesn’t pay for broken windows.”

I can remember as a boy reading in the papers of a woman being burned alive in Southern Ireland as a witch; but I could not believe that there could be any persecution nowadays in England. So, against their better judgment, they agreed to let me write a little about the cult in the form of fiction, a historical novel where a witch says a little of what they believe and of how they were persecuted. This was published in 1949 under the title of High Magic’s Aid.

In 1951 a very important event occurred. The Government of the day passed the Fraudulent Mediums Act, which repealed and replaced the last remaining Witchcraft Act, under which spiritualists used to be prosecuted in modern times. This Act is, I believe, unique in legally recognizing the existence of genuine mediumship and psychic powers.

I thought that at last commonsense and religious freedom had prevailed; but even so, the passage of this Act was highly obnoxious to certain religious bodies which had been preaching against Spiritualism for years and trying to outlaw it as “the work of Satan,” together with any other societies to which they objected, including Freemasonry and, of course, witchcraft.

About a year previously, this Museum had been opened, and I had flattered myself that showing what witchcraft really is, an ancient religion, would arouse no hostility in any quarter. I was to find out in due course how wrong I was!

Any attempt to show witchcraft in anything even remotely resembling a favorable light, or to challenge the old representation of it as something uniformly evil and devilish, or even to present it as a legitimate object of study, can still arouse the most surprising reactions. The virtues of humanism, which Charles Saltman defined as “sensitivity, intelligence and erudition, together with integrity, curiosity and tolerance,” have still quite a long way to go in their struggle against the mentality, which produced the Malleus Malejicarum.

In 1952 Pennethorne Hughes wrote a book, Witchcraft, which gave a very good historical account of witchcraft, but stated that while in mediaeval times witches had a fully worked-out ritual of their own which they performed, modern witches were simply perverts who celebrated “Black Masses,” which he described as being blasphemous imitations of the Christian Mass. This made some of my friends very angry, and I managed to persuade them that it might do good to write a factual book about witchcraft, and so I wrote Witchcraft Today.1 In writing this latter book, I soon found myself between Scylla and Charybdis. If I said too much, I ran the risk of offending people whom I had come to regard highly as friends. If I said too little, the publishers would not be interested. In this situation I did the best I could. In particular, I denied that witches celebrated the Black Mass, or that they killed animals—or even un-baptised babies—as blood sacrifices.

One of the first questions I had asked witches as soon as I had got “inside” was, What about the Black Mass?” They all said, “We don’t know how to perform it, and if we did, what would be the point of doing so?” They also said, “You know what happens at our meetings. There is the little religious ceremony, the greeting of the Old Gods; then any business, which has to be talked over, or perhaps someone wants to do a rite for some purpose; next there is a little feast and a dance; then you have to hurry for the last bus home! There is no time or place for any nonsense of ‘Black Masses,’ and anyhow why should we want to do one?”

I think this is just common sense. To a Roman Catholic who believes in Transubstantiation, that is, that the bread and wine of the Mass are literally changed into the flesh and blood of Christ, a ceremonial insult to the Host would be the most awful blasphemy; but witches do not believe this, so it would simply be absurd to them to try to insult a piece of bread.

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1. Rider, 1954.