The Magical Companion

Magic isn’t about products. This basic truth is often repeated on the internet, in between waves of advertising for occult products. But it’s true – the effective work of magic does not rely on cool stuff, whether blades or jewelry or books.

Ah, books… I admitted I was powerless over books, and that my shelves had become unmanageable…

Nevertheless, books are, for many modern occultists, the real gate and road to learning magic.  Personal teaching is rare to locate, and rarer to find without strings attached – books respond as reliably as they are used. Certainly if more students actually did what the books told them, we’d have more competent magicians. But, I’m already rambling.

In my own desire to own the sort of books of magic I imagine, I have produced collections of my own rituals and spells, most notably the Leabhar Mor  (”Big Book” in Irish) a full-sized Wizard’s Tome which I have made available over the years. I love the copies I have, and it did fulfill some basic “I want a wizard-book” fantasy. The big book on the podium in the library or ritual room is one of the core images for me.

But there is another facet to the archetype of the Magical Book. So often in recent centuries magic has been “forbidden knowledge”, either frowned-upon socially or actually outlawed by authorities, and suppressed by violence. From another angle there was a long period in which books themselves – each book – were treasures. Paper, even parchment, was rare and valuable, and the skill of bookbinding produced items that were intended to be of lasting value even when not embellished with gold and gems. So some books were intended to be concealable, or as handbooks on a busy workbench, or as a light load for a scholar’s luggage and might be bound in small size… the ‘octavo’, or even smaller. Prayer books and missals were commonly bound so, as were grimoires and books of sorcery.

In my very own head, where all the attics and shadowy glades of my magic are found, two fictional models of powerful occult books in small sizes stick out. The first is the curious cypher book in John Bellair’s “The Face In The Frost”, which fascinates the attention of a sequence of scholars and magicians, and the Book of Calls, from Fred Mustard Stewart’s “The Mephisto Waltz”. Both were written in such a way as to present a powerful (and spooky) book of magic in a small, portable, concealable way.

So I was quite pleased when, at last, Lulu.com began offering on-demand hardback books in their ‘pocket book’ size – the size of the old standard paperback book. As usual Lulu’s standards for their work are good, and the experimental copies I’ve received are holding up to some carrying and use. They offer only a couple creative options in covers, but I’ve done something I like…

The Pagan Magical Companion is my effort to assemble a hand-book of modern Pagan magic and spirit. It contains material mostly written since the compilation of the Leabhar Mor, along with some repeated material, tables, etc, which I thought necessary for a useful portable reference. My intention is to create a book that is useful to the working magician, as well as inspirational to those pursuing Pagan spirituality.

The book begins with material useful in beginning and maintaining a simple house-cult of local gods and spirit – which can be the basis for a lot of more esoteric magical work. The book presents a method of formal theurgic invocation of the gods, and offers a model for using it in context of a yearly cycle of seasonal rites. 

In this handbook format I have not included articles of technical explanation of basic magical methods, such as trance-vision journeying. I do present a ritual framework that can help unite vision-journey workings with one’s larger ritual-magic practice, but the method will have to be acquired by the reader. Likewise divination is discussed, and some simple methods given, intended to be especially useful for the magical rites described.

Central to the book’s magic is the Pagan system of spirit-arte it presents. Based in my research and experiments over the past decade, here I have tried to boil-down and present the method in an easy outline that can be worked with a few proper tools. The work presented in the book includes all the needed rites for making the tools, preparing the mind and opening relationships with the spirits. With those things in hand, spirit-arte is the next logical step. The book contains a set of rites for making basic alliances that can serve for practical magic of all kinds.

Finally I collect a set of experiments based on the book’s methods, along with many one-off charms and ‘prayers’ for a variety of spiritual and practical purposes. These needful charms help make the Companion a source of inspiration and support through our common lives.

So the Magical Companion is available now at my store on Lulu.com. It is a pocket hardcover, the cover image-printed on gloss (which I find more durable than their matte stock). It is printed in full color on sturdy stock, with red and black text throughout, and many color illustrations and plates. I find it has a satisfying heft while suiting the desire for a portable resource.

                                    

Spirits, Daemons, Gods - Toward a Coherent Model

In the development of Neopagan religious practice and discourse several disputes have arisen concerning the true nature of the gods and spirits. In my opinion these disputes arise mainly due to the remains of Judeo-Christian theological thinking, combined with the influence of modern skepticism and rationalism. As one who finds consideration of theology and metaphysics useful, I will attempt to venture perhaps further into such speculations than is common in our modern Pagan discussion.

The Reality of the Spirits

Let me begin by saying that for this discussion we will treat the world of spirits as ‘real’. In this we need not adopt any firm description of the final nature of that reality. Whether it is a subcategory of ‘material’ manifestation within the quantum foam, or a psycho-linguistic field, or an epiphenomenon of human telepathy, or any other thing, the whole world – every culture in every age – has experienced the presence of the spirits. Communication; direct material action, possession and para-personal expression are just some of the spirit-phenomena common to many or most human cultural experiences. Materialist science has devised a number of clever efforts that attempt to ‘explain away’ such phenomena.  In the mythic reality of our Paganism, let us begin by taking spirits as given, and making it our business to know how to deal with them well. 

While we may not be able to box up the ‘True nature’ of spirits, we can approach them as phenomena, and discuss the traits that humans have seen. To avoid a long summary of world-wide evidence, I will presume to propose a list of general behaviors and characteristics of spirits, in no particular order:

• Spirits are not primarily material, though many traditions describe them as able to manifest bodies of air and smoke, or even of more dense elements.

• Spirits act both psychospiritually and on occasion materially. Like much of magic, spirits seem to operate by affecting How Things Go – which crossroads are taken, which way the coin falls, etc. It is rare to the degree of ‘miracle’ for spirits to act directly on matter, but it is not unknown.

• Spirits resonate with and respond to the material world. When described as ‘animism’ we think of spirits as being ‘in’ or ‘of’ specific material objects – the spirit in a tree or of a waterfall.

• Spirits act through living people, not only by direct possession or guidance, but by influence based on their nature. A merry spirit makes mortals near it inclined to merriment.

• Spirits are widely various in their influence on mortals, some being potentially or overtly dangerous or destructive and others providing blessings worthy of the divine.

Non-Locality of the Spirits

Spirits who become the ‘Gods’ of humankind seem to be those who are particularly powerful or able. In essence they are those who respond to human worship, and give good blessings. While some spirits seem rather localized – attached directly to a specific material basis - the spirits who are called ‘gods’ by the poets often have presence in a wider range of culture and geography; they transcend the local. Sometimes this has a natural material basis – the Sun is visible in all places, even if its effects vary. Sometimes it has a widespread cultural basis – customs surrounding hearth-fire can be relevant to most human habitation.

As a Pagan I take nature and its dance to be a map of the real nature of spiritual reality. As above, so below, the old wisdom says – nature is the materialization of spirit, and we can learn much about one from the actions of the other. When we apply this principle to the nature and presence of the gods we arrive at what I see as the center of polytheism.

Just as with any real thing in our natural world, the divine exists in and as multiple (infinite… uncountable…) entities. The gods as they appear in ‘mythology’ – in the bodies of tales preserved and retold by poets – bear only a generic resemblance to those gods as they are present in local temples and regions. If one considers “Diana” of the Anatolian city of Ephesus, in comparison to the Artemis/Diana of Greco-Roman story my principle is clearly indicated. This phenomenon happens across the polytheist world. In both India and in W African religions it is often formally acknowledged. The Goddess or honored spirit ‘of’ a local village may have the same name and stories as that of three villages away, yet have local presence, history and nature that clearly distinguishes her from another presence in another temple. This doesn’t prevent scholars and theologians inside the tradition from identifying them all as one entity, or villages from competing over whose Goddess is the coolest.

To me this entirely blurs the argument between so-called ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ polytheisms, in which ‘hard’ insists that every iteration of a deity is a distinct entity and not an ‘aspect’ of some other, while the ‘soft’ holds that deities are trans-individual, existing in many aspects. It is clear to me that traditional polytheisms today, and almost certainly those of European ancestors, are and were both. I sometimes propose an axiom that gods and other mighty spirits simply have the power to exist as multiple persons.

The Daemons

To find a specific solution in the myth and metaphysics of Pagan peoples I turn to the Hellenic notion of ‘daemons’. The word ‘daemon’ (from roots meaning ‘separate being’) is a general Greek term for ‘a spirit’. Homer applies it to the Gods while popular Hellenic Paganism could apply it all the way down to one’s garden-sprites as well. In Classical Greek Pagan theology the Daemons were similar to what we think of as ‘angels’ – agents and messengers of the gods. They were understood to attend the sacrifices on behalf of the gods, to carry the blessings of the gods in turn to mortal worshippers, and in essence to function *as* the god at the local level. In this way Zeus “of” a particular regional temple could be both a separate self-acting agency, and a ‘person of’ the storied deity.

I have described Sam Webster’s Fire metaphor before, but it is so very apt here. If I take a spark from a fire, and go a mile away, and use it to light another fire, it will be, in many ways, almost exactly the same as the original – same chemical processes, consuming the same kinds of fuel, etc. It is Fire, in the directly descriptive sense. Yet each such fire is distinctly individual – it is in a new place, it illuminates new things, it develops a unique history and narrative. So, we might think, it is with the Gods. A new image is made, a new ritual fire is lit, and customs are established influenced by the landscape and climate of the new temple.

We may say that in such work a different daemon of the deity is attracted to one temple than to another. In essence these spirit ambassadors or presences act and exist as the deity, as it may appear in the setting mortals have made for it. Mythic tales tell of deities making their own places of worship, reshaping the material world but, again, this level of the miraculous is not the rule. More commonly humans make a particular pattern, lay a sacred feast with a particular flavor, and it attracts the deity in and as a properly resonant daemon.

In this way it is not mistaken to think of the beings that act in each temple as separate and individual beings, who may have their own inclinations and desires. Likewise if you spoke with any one of them they would identify themselves as That God From the Stories, even as local versions of the myths diverge. This polyvalent perspective renders empty many disputes about which kind of worship, which narrative, which theology, is the “real” version from Ancient Days. The real pattern of ancient Paganisms was probably a patchwork of localisms linked by larger cultural forms.

This model has applications at both the most immediate levels, and at the transcendent. For those of us working to establish a home cultus it offers the freedom to establish the work as we will, and accept the results we get. When we establish a home shrine, develop out customs and implement them ‘religiously’ we summon a daemon of the god who is fit for the work we are fit for. If one wishes simply to establish harmony, get a good blessing, and live in peace then the simple sacrificial relationship with your own local daemon of your god may be all you need. For those of more mystical bent, the divine work of formal ritual makes a pathway of linkages – from the image of the God in your mind, through the material form of an idol and invocation, to the daemon of the God who serves at your fire to, perhaps, the cosmic principle of the God themself.

This model can lead us toward certain other speculations. Modern Pagans often ask ourselves about how such culturally similar forms as, say, Diana and Artemis, or Manannan and Manawyddan may be spiritually related. For those drawn to lumping, this daemon theory can easily be expanded from the local to the regional. I, myself, find it just too unlikely that thunder-gods from neighboring cultures with linguistically-neighboring names such as Taranis, Thunor and Thor must be utterly distinct entities. If there is some shorter list of great powers behind the many cousins of the European pantheons, the transpersonal and transcultural spiritual powers behind so many local daemons. Even so they need be no more relevant than a poet’s tales of the Earth-Mother are to bringing in a good harvest, as we approach those Powers almost exclusively through their local expressions. There is nothing in Pagan ways to insist that the ‘highest’ must be a special object of worship; practical work often is better done through more earthly spirits. Once again, we need not try to decide which is “true” – that all gods are separate individuals, or that some gods are ‘aspects’ or ‘persons’ of one another. We can comfortably and reasonably go for “both”.

Pagan Rites of Sacrifice

Ancient Hellenic bull-sacrifice

One cannot do any study of the actual ways of ancient European religion, i.e. Paganism in its original forms, without encountering the fact of animal sacrifice, and the rumor of the taking of human lives in ritual. It is undoubtedly true that human sacrifice occurred in most ancient European cultures at one stage or another. However it was never the central element of Pagan religious ritual.

               Let me begin with the word ‘sacrifice’. From the Latin, it means ‘Sacred Work’; and ‘sacred’ means ‘set apart for the work of the spirits’.  While it has come to have connotations of ‘giving up’ and even of loss, to reclaim its sacred power is to affirm sacrifice as a joyous work of connection with the divine. During the work of sacrifice, many offerings may be made, of many kinds. In common language these offerings are often referred to as ‘sacrifices'. This is, in a way, a mis-speaking. To say “the sacrifice” is not to refer to whatever object is the central offering of the ritual, but rather the whole ritual of offering and blessing is, itself, ‘the sacrifice’ – the sacred work. So I find myself enjoying referring to our public Pagan rites as ‘the sacrifices’… feels nice and archaic.

               Secondly, in preface, I mention that the Neopagan Druid system I work in has specifically disallowed live-animal offerings in our rites. We do make many offerings – ale and meal and bread and fruit and even meat, but we admit that we haven’t either the call or the skill to take the life of an animal and butcher it for cooking in ritual.

Classical Indian Fire-Sacrifice

• Animal Sacrifice-offerings 

The basic form of larger, community worship from Ireland to India was a feast, shared with the spirits and graced with poetry and song. The best way to serve meat is fresh, and the terrible truth of the human ability to bring death to other beings required ritualization. So animals were ritually honored then killed, and their meat cooked. In Hellenic rites (of which we have written records) the bones and fat were wrapped in the skin and that was burned on the altar for the spirits. The cuts of meat were cooked and shared with the attendees. In ancient Indian fire-sacrifice it was said that the rite was not properly concluded 'until the poor had been fed'.

Smaller or personal religious rites often made offering through ‘libation’ – the simple pouring of wine, grain or other offerings on the altar of a spirit, or by ‘dedications’ – the giving of gifts of images, inscriptions, altars, buildings, even gold and cash to a deity. This form of offering was, in fact, gaining in popularity in the classical period, and even internal and native philosophies in the ancient world found reason to argue against the ancient customs of animal sacrifice. Modern rites that replace animal-meat feasting with such offerings are only expressing a Pagan-era trend.

• Human Sacrifice-offerings:

Ritual killing of political and criminal prisoners is described among the Celts. Scandinavians are said to have offered human lives before their greatest idols. Greek and Roman myths speak of youths being ‘offered’ to this titan or that monster, and the Romans specifically outlawed human-life offerings (which means that there was something to outlaw) in the years around 100bce. Human sacrifice seems to have had two major kinds, though we have no literate remains of ritual for those that I know of. (Some rites may exist buried in Indian Tantric material). First was the killing of prisoners of war and criminals. This seems to have been done en masse when needed, and to have been somewhat casual and pragmatic. We read, also, that when armies faced one another, the opposing army would all have been dedicated to the gods, so that every life taken in battle was an offering.

Modern Druid Fire-Sacrifice

Personal human sacrifice (the 'virgin youth' sort) had to be voluntary. The lore suggests that an offering such as that would have been intended to 'remake the world' - to restore the essential elements of existence. Bone is given to make stone, flesh to make soil, breath to make the wind, etc. This is, I think, where the occasional claim comes from that the Druids said they had created the world.

To live in the Old Ways was, I think, to seek to live in harmony with the world as it really is. To do so, especially for those living and eating straight from the farm, would seem to require the sanctifying of the fact of death, and the ritualizing of the deed of killing. What is murder? Murder is killing done outside the laws, and without the blessing of sacrifice. So, killing for food, killing for law or religion, even killing for war - the ancients seem to have considered the power to kill to be so sacred that it had to be acknowledged and ritualized. As an exercise we might make an ethical comparison between such an attitude (and recalling that life was cheaper, in fact, in ancient days) and our own culture of sanitized, mechanized, and commoditized killing.

• The Takeaway: ‘Sacrifice” is the sacred work of offering to a god or spirit (the gods or spirits), often as offerings of food and gifts as if for a noble guest. Animal-life offering, while common in the ancient world, is not mandatory in modern work. Human sacrifice was already passing away in Pagan times, and need never be contemplated in ours.

The Veil Is Thin...

It has become a cliché of modern Pagan discourse to say that at certain seasons “the Veil” between the world of mortals and the reality of the spirits “grows thin”. As we approach the November Cross-Quarter Day (whether it is Hallowe’en, Samhain, Beltaine in the southern hemisphere, or whatever) It is recited commonly. Occasionally one hears the question “What do you mean by that? What is the Veil” etc.

It’s a metaphor, that’s what. It is a poet’s description of what it is like to see dimly, and with less detail than one would hope, as if through thin cloth or mist. I suspect that modern people are less used to seeing veiled faces, and to gazing out from behind veils, than people were in earlier fashion ages. A single veil can reveal this, conceal that. Layers of veils can be entirely opaque. For those who never saw a digital image ‘res up’ out of nothing, the thinning of layers of veils expressed the idea of increasing clarity and revelation of what had been concealed.

We live in an era of jaded
imagination...

There is no Celtic original for the metaphor of the Veil. I suspect it arose with spiritualism, in Victorian times. The metaphor used in Celtic lore is the Mist. Heroes and magicians must pass through mist – through a space in which the air itself precludes sight – before the mist thins and reveals the hidden world. One of the Druidic wonder of the tales is the creation of a ‘hedge of mist’ around that which they would conceal. The notion of the ‘Veil’ certainly doesn’t insult this Celtic original; it simply expresses it in the technology of a later age. There is a solid Celtic explanation for why days such as Samhain are times when the boundary-of-perception between mortal and spiritual realities grows more passable and transparent. 

Among ancient European peoples, and strongly among the Celts, magical power or potential could be found in things, times and places that were ‘neither-nor’, that were between one state, category or locale and another, that were ambiguously located in time or space. Modern anthropology has referred to this as the ‘liminal’ quality, or as ‘limnality’. In this way we see that Celtic sacred spaces were often built in the borders between tribal territories, indicated the sacred (and politically neutral) Between nature of spiritual work. We find, in one of the few examples of Celtic magical ritual that is preserved, the placing of offerings to spirits in a doorway to partake of that access to the Otherworld. The strand of the Sea, the tops of high hills, these are places of boundary between Land, Sea and Sky, and so places where magic is easier to make effective – places where the ‘veil’ between mortals and spirits is thin.

In keeping with Celtic patterns of sacred number, the primary division of the calendrical year is into two – the light half and the dark half, summer and winter. These two great halves are ‘hinged’ upon the two great feast days of Bealtainne and Samhain. Both of those days are thus spaces Between major categories. Samhain is neither summer nor winter. These great moments of between-ness recur in Celtic story as times when spirits and mortals cross between worlds, when visions are seen, and great deeds are done. They naturally become times when modern Celtic Pagans and magicians seek to gather and express magical power. In such seasons the magician (and, from the Other side, the spirits) can more readily part the Mist, can see the turnings in the Forest, can pass through the thinned Veil.

The spiritual world is no more uniform than the material world, I think. It is true to say that a skilled magician can always find a thin place in the Border if they know how to look. Yet in such seasons as this the effect is more general, - all-encompassing, perhaps, by the time one gets to sunset or sunrise on Samhain night. Let the Spirits walk, or dance, into a welcome as they come to us through the Veil.

Designing Your Personal Practice

The work on my forthcoming book (working title, presently: "Pagan Magic; Esoteric Spiritual Technique for Polytheists") continues, though not at the pace I might like. As a bit of proof-of-life I offer this chapter-section on developing a personal schedule of spiritual work.

The Order of Work

• Development of the hidden powers within Pagan spiritual practice requires diligent effort over an extended time. Of course some techniques can be tried immediately, and simple worship and meditation begin their effects immediately. More advanced techniques, like those of any discipline, require committed self-training and applied effort. The magician is a spiritual artisan, the shrine is the workshop, and magic is the product. Only practice, and learned skill carefully applied, can move the student from apprenticeship to journeywork to mastery.

• Many traditional polytheistic magical systems have been taught in controlled circumstances. This was often a ‘school’ of students surrounding a master, in which daily work and focus were maintained by a master-servant relationship. In more ‘civilized’ Pagan places monasteries grew up in which occult students could be supported in detailed temple ritual, long-term retreats and group ceremony. In either case the student of magic participated in a formal regimen of study and practice that led to both skill in spiritual arts and earned recognition of skill.

• One of the hallmarks of the medieval grimoire tradition of magic is its insistence on the development of spiritual power through basic ‘religious’ rites. Daily prayers, purifications, attendance at rites and the receiving of the church’s traditional blessings were all major sources of the magician’s power. Many ritual tools are made with the aid of priestly rites.

It seems to me that it would not have been different in Pagan days. Taking advantage of the spiritual power of local temples, the blessings of the public sacrifices, etc. would have been a basic part of the magician’s work. What can be difficult for modern practitioners to understand, perhaps, is that in both the medieval grimoirist’s work and the Pagan sorcerer’s magic was directly integrated into the religious work of their cultures. Certainly we may call the former ‘heretical’, and some Hellenes would have said the same of the latter, but both depended on the workings of their mainstream cults to empower magic.

• In our modern times, many Pagans seeking occult skills are simply unwilling to resort to the rites and customs of the Roman Church. “High Church” occult styles, such as the post-Masonic orders (three sash minimum…) are often bound around with oaths of secrecy, and also sometimes modeled on monotheistic and medieval theologies that deter Pagans. Public Pagan temple rites are difficult to find (though no longer impossible). A solitary modern student of magic must, essentially, devise and conduct their own personal temple, as well as a magic school or monastery. The invocations, offerings, power-exercises and spells that are part of the traditional arsenal of the Pagan magician must be derived from books, digested in thoughtful analysis, arranged (whether written-out or re-written) for practical performance, practiced until performance is competent and, finally, set into a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cycle of magical and spiritual rites and practices. In short, the Pagan magician begins by functioning as the priest of their own temple.

• The Daily Sequence: Common modern life will prevent many from devoting more than a maintenance level of effort to daily offerings and works. If one chooses a simple morning prayer or invocation, supported with a simple offering and short moment of meditation, then that can be enough. It should be said that there can be a difference between common daily work and more specific preparations for major magical rites. The latter may be well-served by added invocations, offerings and trances proper to the intention at hand.

            A simple Daily Work routine might include simple morning salute/offerings, Ancestor prayer and meal offering, and bedtime prayer. Additional offerings for special principles could include special daily offerings to a god or spirit one means to invoke, as well as meditations or workings meant to reinforce the magician’s integrity and spiritual power. As a magician’s work advances they will almost certainly find themselves developing a personal ‘constellation’ of gods and spirits, unique to their own altar. Making the proper offerings to these in the proper times will become a part of daily work for many.

• Weekly or Monthly Sequence: Regular performance of more detailed ritual is valuable for the building of personal magical power. This provides a chance to build ritual skills, work useful spells for personal growth and gain and build relationship with the Gods and Spirits.

            Weekly work is a matter of personal choice. Those who must keep their daily schedule short and simple (usually in service of their work and family duties) may find a weekly hour (or day…) at the shrine a useful way to develop their work. For those working with family a weekly rite is a chance to involve the whole clan in one’s magic in a way that will simply become the ‘way we do things’ to the kids, and build powerful mental consensus in the mage. If family or those who are not actively training for magic are involved such rites can be kept simple, with the mage quietly working the Inner patterns to activate them for their goals.

            Perhaps the most traditional clock for timing monthly work is the moon. Certainly Neopagan methods have tended to imitate the Wiccan pattern of meeting at the Full Moon – it is both the most obvious of the moon’s phases and often the best night to be outdoors. World polytheist systems have a variety of lore-sets about the moon’s phases and stories. For now I will talk about how I have used the moon to time magical and religious rites.

            The moon’s magical power is associated with its phase, and the amount of its light. The two primary phases of the moon are the Waxing (from the first visible crescent until the end of Full Moon) and the Waning (from the end of Full Moon through the Dark Moon days). In European lore these are universally understood to affect life, work and luck. The waxing moon stimulates growth and gain, while the waning moons retards it. On a far-too-simple level these are sometimes perceived as ‘positive and negative’ times, but this is so only in the most literal sense. Much good can be done under the waning moon, to retard the growth of disease or reduce the influence of an irritant. 

            Within the twenty-eight day turning of the moon are several moments of traditional magical power. Workings that hope to use the moons power to grow a result can choose the early phase of the waxing moon, when one has many days of waxing power to draw on. The very first visible crescent is good for this, but can be hard to spot. Druid tradition has emphasized the ‘sixth night’ of the waxing moon – roughly the end of the first quarter – as a night when the growth power of the waxing moon is both well-established and still growing, making it a good time for many kinds of magical working. Of course the full moon is the legendary height of magical power. As the crest of the moon’s growth, it is a time when one wishes to grasp and use the force of the wave’s top – to work for things that manifest immediately. I think it is for this reason that the full moon is the time of the Witch’s Sabbath – the summoning of gods and spirits is especially proper at that time. The Full Moon’s power of manifestation makes it a fine time to invoke and assemble the ‘constellation of worship’ of whatever is included in one’s home cult, maintain one’s offerings, and receive their conversation and blessing. This is essentially the ‘esbat’ of the witches.

            Finally, many cultural systems assign symbols or names to each of the  lunar months, and those can be of use in designing an annual ‘retreat’ of  rituals with specific focuses. Astrological symbols for the passages of the sun and moon can also provide symbols on which to focus a sequence of rites. This can allow a set of cultural symbols to be more completely expressed and understood, and provide a powerful set of blessings.

Seasonal or Annual Sequence: I have already written about the traditional Year-cult, and its eight-fold expression in Neopagan ways. Those working a specific ethnic reconstruction will choose how to adapt the seasonal and calendrical rites of the past to modern times. Such work is off-topic for this instruction in magic, and is yet another instance in which I must recommend detailed additional reading. Learning the lore of whatever cultural form you pursue can only deepen and clarify your magic.

            High Day rites (as we Druids have come to call the larger annual ritual occasions) present an opportunity to create and arrange ritual on a scale larger than home-shrine work. Attunement of the personal spirit to the tides of the great wheel of seasons, the Gods and Spirits who dance through them, and the Blessings conveyed by each are sources of personal magical authority and respect among the spirits. Incidentally, these notions apply whether one is working the Neopagan Eightfold Wheel, the seasonal cycle of ancient Athens (so different from the Anglo-German north), or the annual saints’-calendar of the Roman Church.

If one is able to present rites for friends or community then elements of theater, development of performance persona, etc can all be useful to practical magic. In a later chapter we will discuss using occult techniques to strengthen the effects of public seasonal rites, but the ritual skills developed for effective public ritual also strengthen one’s personal magical authority and power.

All of this structure can be allowed to develop organically inside a magician’s practice. For a certain sort of student (such as myself) the tendency to begin by getting a blank book and pre-writing the outline of such practices will be nearly irresistible. There is value in that work (and a version of my own version of the work is provided here in the Rituals section) but I advise you not to postpone beginning simple daily or weekly work until you have everything ‘just right’. Your understanding will grow with experimentation and work, and pre-writing may serve to constrain your choices. It is inevitable that you will outgrow your first efforts, and some students are hampered by a sense of loyalty to their own writing that restricts experimentation. I might humbly suggest beginning with another’s printed scripts and rites, such as those presented here. One need feel no special loyalty to those when the time comes to change or abandon them.

A Solitary Rite of Pagan Sacrifice

A high-church solitary
temple, with Tree at top,
Well at the base
and Fire before that.

For long-time readers, this is a new solitary script based on ADF's Order of Ritual. I felt like trying to devise some new language, and employ some new mythographic understandings as well as a couple of ritual tropes. It will be familiar to Our Druids, but I hope it may be instructive and suggestive to others looking for a modern approach to traditional-style rites of offering-and-blessing.

The Sacred Center is arranged with a Fire as the circumstance permits, and with a bowl of clean water. There can also be an offering bowl if offerings may not be directly spilled on soil, and a censer to hold multiple incense sticks if offerings cannot be directly burned in the Fire. If desired, a third symbol of the Sacred Center – a pillar ‘tree’ or stone – can be added. To these basic tools are added any images or objects proper to the rite at hand.

If you plan to work seated on the ground have a small rug or cloth to lay over the earth or floor. If you wish to stand, a low table with a cloth covering will make the physical steps easier.

Tree, Well, & Fire, with Deity images and offerings at the ready.

Basic offerings and blessing:

Silver to bless the water

Incense, either loose incense to spoon onto charcoal or sticks to place in sand, enough for at least nine individual offerings.

Bread and honey, for the Dead

Three silver-colored coins, or small semi-precious stones, for the Landwights

Scented oil or specially-chosen incense, for the Gods

A chosen drink for the Blessing – ale, wine, or non-alcohol, and a cup to drink from.

Other offerings, symbols, images and vessels may be needed for the specific purpose of any rite, but the above will serve for a basic offering.

Arrange the ritual space with a seat, and a cloth to cover the grass if working on the ground, or on a small table if working standing or seated.

The Rite:

Light the Fire (the candles and/or charcoal, or a proper Fire) and find your center and your power, as you speak:

The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree; Flow and flame and grow in me.

Let the Deep Waters rise; Let the Great Light shine

I sit in balance, I seek the Sacred Center

Between the Earth and Sky

Work the Two Powers or other centering in silence, then say the Opening Prayer:

I come to keep the Old Ways. O Holy Ones hear me, I pray you, as a Child of the Earth. Let my call come unto you with honor and truth, as I work the work of wisdom.

Mighty Mother of all, first Goddess, whether the Mother of this soil, of the great waters that flow, or of the whole world, I make offering to you (offer ground grain) bless and uphold this rite, I pray you with love and reverence.

• The Well is elevated, and the silver offered, saying:

Waters of wisdom, Waters of love, Waters of life

Power of the Deep, be present in these waters and in this Grove.

Sacred well flow within me

• An offering is made to the fire saying:

Fire of inspiration, Fire of transformation, Fire of sacrifices

O Light of Inspiration, be present in this fire and in this Grove.

Sacred fire, burn within me.

• The Tree or Stone is sprinkled and censed, saying:

Pillar of the Grove, Sacred Crossroad, Tree of the World,

Let the Order of the Worlds be present in us all and in this Grove.

Sacred Tree, grow within me.

• The water is sprinkled around the area, and the incense is carried or fanned saying at least three times:

By the Might of the Waters and the Light of the Fire

Let the Sea not rise, let the Sky not fall, let the Land hold fast

Let good be welcomed and ill be turned away

And this Grove be made whole and holy.

• spread hands and proclaim:

The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree

Flow and flame and grow in me

In Land, Sea and Sky, below and on high

Thus is the Sacred Grove claimed and hallowed!

• An offering of incense is made to the Fire, saying:

Where Sacred Fire & Water meet

There is the Boundary Between

There is the Center of the Worlds

Lord of the Sacred Center, Keeper of the Crossroads, Fleet-traveler, Teacher of the Wise, Herald of the Spirits, Keeper of Roads and Ways, hold open the way between the worlds, I pray.  Bar all ill and admit all weal as I seek the blessing of the spirits.

Gatekeeper, accept my offering.

• Make an Opening spiral (spiraling out from center to edge, clockwise) over the fire, saying:

By the Lord of the Borders, and by my magic, let this sacred center be as the boundary between all worlds. Let the voices of the spirits be heard, let my voice be heard among the spirits. Let the mist be parted, let the way be clear, let the gate be open!

Three Kindreds Offerings

• In this phase the offerings to the spirits are presented and set at the center. They are not burned or spilled until the Prayer of the Sacrifice

• Pause for a moment to contemplate the whole pattern of the Sacred Center, and the Boundary. Then begin the offerings by saying:

I come to the Sacred Center, to the Crossroad, where three meets three at the Threefold Hallows. Let my voice be heard by the Gods, by the Dead, by the Noble Ones as I make to them due offering.

• Prepare the simple offerings: Ale for the Dead; worked silver or crystal, or three silvery coins for the Wights; scented oil or special incense for the Gods.

• The Dead: Hear my voice, Ancient and Mighty Ones. You who first were born and died, you enthroned in the House of the Dead, First Memory, hear me.

Hear my voice, oh Mighty Dead. Grandmothers and Grandfathers, Progenitors, Wisdom-Keepers, Warders of our line, hear me. Likewise, to all those of my blood who stand by and watch, who will give aid, I call to you.

Hear my voice, oh Ancient Wise, Heroes of the ancient world, and of our times. All you men and women of renown, whose names we know, and whose deeds inspire us, hear me. To you all I make this simple offering, bread and honey from my store. I welcome you at my fire; I set a feast for you in my heart. Mighty Dead, accept my offering!

• The Landwights: Hear my voice, Wild and Lovely Ones. You noble kindreds of the land who dwell in the world with us, Spirits of the World, hear me.

To the Uncounted Clans, those who dwell in the flesh of the Land, in the blood of the Sea, in the breath of the Air; vast or tiny, to you I call.

To the Gentle Court I call, to the great ones who guide, the Queens and Kings of the clans. Let me be welcome among you, and hear my call.

To you spirits who are my allies, known to me or unknown, who share my life with me and mine; keep my luck by your aid, and hear my call.

To you all I make this simple offering, wealth from my store. I welcome you at my fire; I make a gift to you in my heart. Noble Ones, accept my offering!

• The Deities: Hear my voice, Shining Ones, Gods and Goddesses. Ancient Victors and Rulers, you who Order the Worlds and turn the Seasons, hear me.

You Ancient Fate-Weavers, Eldest, Silent, you who turn the wheel and draw out the future, spin good weal for us.

First Mothers and Fathers, Enthroned Ones, Kings of the Realms, Great Queens, let my path be well-walked by your guiding.

All the Tribe of the Mother, gods and goddesses, of wise arts and clever skill, of the Warrior, the Farmer or the Wise, known to me or unknown, grant me your blessing.

To you all I make this simple offering, oil/incense to sweeten the Grove for your presence. I welcome you at my fire; I feed a flame to you in my heart. Shining Ones, accept my offering!

• To all the Holy Beings, whether in Land, Sea or Sky, in the Shining Heavens, in the dark wealth of the Underworld or in our green Middle World, I say again: Mighty, Noble, and Shining Ones, gather at the Center, drink from the Well, be welcome at my Fire!

Pause for a time, if you wish, to open your Inner eyes to the vision and presence of the Spirits. Whatever your ability to ‘see’, know that they have come in answer to your offerings. Be open in heart and mind for their voice or spark.

The Key or Special Offerings:

If you have additional gods and beings to convoke, according to the season, or a magical intent, that is done at this time. A magician might devise a personal pattern of invocation and offering for her allies among the Spirits, naming them and inviting them specifically. When the seasonal High Day rites are kept each will involve a constellation of beings proper to the feast. These Beings of the Occasion need not be limited to Deities – the Dead and Landspirits can also be involved, either collectively or as individual names. In short any invocations specific to the special intention of the rite are worked in this place.

For simple general worship a rite may proceed directly from the Three Kindreds Offerings to the Sacrifice:

The Sacrifice

• All of the offerings assembled from the invocations are now burned, spilled or given. This represents the magician’s offering of honor, respect and even love to the beings of the rite. This is a point at which ex tempore or personal, heartfelt speech is proper, as long as focus is maintained. Magicians may sing, or ‘om’ or intone, expressing the emotional truth of the rite as the offerings are made. Of course spoken words are always proper. Here is a charm written for a rite intended to invoke the spirits for magical work:

Now let my voice arise on the fire; Let my voice resound in the well

Let my call pass the gate to the land of spirits and bring the spirits to my aid.

Holy Kindreds, Gods, Dead and Noble Ones

A Child of Earth calls you to the Sacred Grove;

By Three Realms and Four Winds

By the World Tree’s root and crown

By Fire’s Light and Well’s Might

By the Sacred Center where Magic is made

Come to the Fire, Holy Ones

Come to the Fire, as you hear my voice.

Come to my Fire, and receive this offering.

You who would aid me in my work,

I send you love and honor with this gift, saying - Holy Ones, accept my sacrifice!

Or a more general Sacrifice Charm:

Let my voice arise on the Fire, let my voice resound in the Waters.
Hear me Holy Ones, as I give you due offering. Respect I offer, and honor; love I offer, and aspiration to the divine; a feast I offer with these simple gifts. I set a place for you in my temple and in my heart. Holy Ones, accept my sacrifice!

This is another moment during which silent contemplation may be valuable. The magician may envision the whole composition and structure of the rite, and abide in the presence of the spirits that have been invoked, before proceeding to the Blessing:

The Blessing

Pt 1: Taking An Omen.

Using whatever traditional divination system you prefer, draw an omen, asking whether the Powers will offer you a blessing, and of what sort. You might pray:

Holy Ones, I have offered to you and now I would ask, in turn, your blessing. Let me hear your voice, let me see your signs; reveal to me, in these symbols, whether my offering has pleased you and whether your blessing will be sweet.

Draw the omen, and interpret it for yourself. Does it seem to display the pleasure and reward of the Holy Ones? If you feel unsatisfied with the offered blessing you might choose to make a second round of offerings, and again ask for a better blessing. However some would simply choose to take a no for a no, and try another time.

Pt 2: Calling the Blessing

(Holy Ones)(or names of the Beings of the Occasion) I see your signs, I listen for your voice, I call for your Blessing. Give me the flow of fullness, the light of your power; I call for your Blessing. By this blessing let the whole world be blessed; three times I call for your Blessing!

If it is expedient, the drink might now be poured into the vessel.

Let the Blessing be poured from the Well of the Deeps, from the Starry River, from the stores of the gods’ feast, into this cup of blessing. Gold of Sun and Moon’s Silver, heat of the Sacred Fire. River of Memory, Fountain of Wonder, Cauldron of Nourishing, let the Blessing of the Holy Ones be poured.

Elevate the vessel over the Fire, saying:

Let this drink be the spirit of the Holy Ones given to me for my good and gain.

Behold, the Waters of Life

The Blessing is reverently and contemplatively consumed. It can be valuable to deliberately drink three times, perhaps accompanied by a charm or hymn:

We take up Wonder with this holy cup
The Draught of Druid’s Ale that stirs the soul
In joy and power we are lifted up

So drink the Blessing, that our hearts be whole.

The spirit in all things is in us too.
The Well flows deep, the Fire shines in our heart

The power fills us, deep and good and true

We drink the Blessing, filled in every part

So blessed are we in belly, heart and head
On every side, in Land and Sky and Sea
The power of the Gods, the Sidhe, the Dead
We drink in Blessing, and so let it be!

With the sensation of the drink cool in one’s belly, sit in contemplation of the whole spiritual

form of the rite. If you have called special gods or beings for the occasion, see them enthroned

with the Fire before them, or however they present themselves to you. See again the Triple Host of spirits arrayed around them, and the Three Hallows holding all at the Sacred Center. Abide a while in contemplation, communing with Them as you may. When you are finished, return awareness to the material temple and the Hallows, and begin the closing, saying:

I am blessed by the Blessing of the Holy Ones! Secure in their blessing, I prepare to go from the Grove into my life and work. I go forth with the blessing of the Gods in body, mind and spirit.

To you Holy Powers to whom I set this feast, O (names of the Beings of the Occasion, if specific) I give you mythanks for your blessing.

To the Three Kindreds of Spirits, Mighty Ancestors, Noble Tribes of the Land, Shining Gods and Goddesses, I give thanks for your blessing.

To all those who have come to my fire, all who have given their blessing, to all those who aid me, I give thanks. I bid you go in peace, if you will, or stay at my sides in blessing. Spirits, I thank you!

The Gatekeeper is thanked and the gate closed, saying:

Keeper of Gates, Lord of Ways, for watching and warding the ways between, I give you my thanks.
Make a closing spiral, beginning from the outer edge and turning anti-clockwise inward, over the Fire, saying:

Now let the Fire be but flame; Let the Well be but water

Let all be as it was before; Save only for the magic we have made.

Let the gates be closed!

At last, To the Mother of the Land, Mother of all Life, for upholding this rite as you do all our lives, I give you my thanks.

 Then recite a closing Blessing:

The blessings of the Holy Ones, be on me and mine

My blessing on all beings, with peace on thee and thine

The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree

Flow, and flame and grow in me.
Thus do I remember the work of the wise!