Two Charms Against Disease

Sheltering in place, here in Ohio, in a county not too hard-hit (yet) by the Covid infection, I contemplate how to apply magic to the situation.
In my personal work I have a long-practiced, nearly-unconscious pattern of applying the Two Powers (as some Druids say - the Underworld and Heaven Powers) to cleansing myself and maintaining a healthy pattern. For those not immediately in Our Druidic work, let me expound a little.
• One can approach the impersonal spiritual energies of the cosmos as the powers of Underworld and Heavens.  Allow me to quote myself, from my "Basics of Pagan Worship":

... the ‘energies’ of the spiritual world. Most common is the work called ‘grounding and centering”. In that technique we make ourselves aware of a flow of “spiritual energies” in the cosmos, and balance those energies in our own bodies and spirits. ...

                At the basic level we address these energies as the Light of the Heavens and the Waters of the Underworld. The Underworld Power is envisioned as the Waters Under the Earth, in which all the wisdom of the past is dissolved. The Power of the Heavens is seen as the Light of the Turning Sky, which brings order, pattern and growth. This duality corresponds to cosmic principles, poles of cosmic structure between which the manifest world appears. ...

                Working with the Fire and Water can be a core technique of practical magic, ... The Fire and Water are the primal powers of creation. When we take conscious control of the Two Powers, through imagination and will, we are doing in the microcosm what the Gods and Spirits do in the greater cosmos.

                The standard of proficiency in this technique of energy-work is to learn to bring (awareness of) the Two Powers into the self quickly and surely. ... From that base any number of specialized forms and applications of the energies can be devised.

The 'Fire and Water' healing charm here is precisely that sort of specialized application. I'm sure it could be worked with any sort of 'grounding and centering' but it is designed for the Two Powers work of Our Druidry.

The second charm here is a direct invocation of the Goddess brigid, who I look to as a primary healer goddess. It calls upon Her Three Powers - immediate daemons of the goddess who I know as the Cup, the Harp, and the Hammer. Details of that concept can be found in the Court of Brigid material. Even if not familiar with those ideas, following the images and poetry of the charm should get you close to the goal.

So here's my wish, for strength to our flesh, skill to our physicians, and the comfort and protection of the spirits on us all.

Healing by Fire and Water

A charm to prevent infection and strengthen wholeness

If desired you may work with a candle-flame and a small bowl of water. The charm can be worked in vision, conceiving the left hand as the Water and the right hand as the Fire.

• Begin by centering yourself in the Two Powers, establishing the Flow and Shine of Underworld and Heavens in your body. When you are ready:
• Extend the left hand (holding the water, or with a small amount in the palm, or only in vision), and understand the Underworld Power as flowing up through you, to concentrate in that hand. Breathing strongly and maintaining that vision, recite:
Deep Water rise,
Dark water bright
Strength from the Deep
All-Cleansing might
(and incant this nine times, charging the water)

• Then anoint the forehead, chest and belly or loins with the water, or place the hand on them in turn, from top to bottom, saying:
Flow, Oh Power, from the deep, through my heart, to my hand, that I may be cleansed,
 that I may be rinsed, that every ill be washed away.
That bonds be broken, and washed away.
That hooks be released, and washed away
That every bit be cleansed, and washed clean.
For the Blessing of the water I give thanks

• Abiding in your cleansed state, extend your right hand, holding the flame, or lit incense, or only in vision, and understand the Heaven Power shining down into you, to concentrate in your hand. Breathing strongly in that vision, recite:
Fire of heaven, Fire of the Sky
Moon’s white Silver, Sun’s bright gold
Shine upon me, shine within
That your power I may hold
(and incant this nine times, charging the fire)

• Then use your hand to warm or brighten the belly or loins, heart and forehead in turn with the flame,  from bottom to top, saying:
Shine, Oh Light, from the heights, through my head, to my hand, that I may be made whole.
Let the Light of Formation fill every empty space, and restore me to wholeness
Let the Light of Knowledge fill every empty space, and restore me to wholeness
Let the Light of Illumination fill every empty space, and restore me to wholeness
That I may be whole, and healed, and well.
For the Blessing of Fire I give thanks.

• And clasp the hands before the heart, understanding the whole work, the cleansing and restoration, and affirming.
So by Fire and Water
Let me be cleansed and whole.
So be it.

Brigid’s Protection Against Disease        By the Might of Brigid, Daughter of Danu

By the Mercy of Brigid, Flame in the Hearth
By the Flow of Brigid, Water from the Well
Spirit of the Hammer, Warm the Forge
Spirit of the Quaich, Bear the Draft
Spirit of the Harp, Sing Beauty
So ring, Oh Hammer, in the Cauldron of Warming
Let my furnace burn warm, my power be strong, 

to keep me from all ill.
Be full to spilling, Oh Cup, into my Cauldron of Movement
Let your healing flow through every course, 

to keep me from all ill
Sing like the Birds of Dawn. OH Harp, 

with words of understanding
Let me hear the Song in my Cauldron of Wisdomto keep me from all ill
Mighty Goddess, make strong flesh and bone
Loving Goddess, make clean blood and wind
Wisest Goddess, Make clear mind and will
In my heart and at my hearth
For my kin and for my folk
That we may all be well.

Cleansing and Banishing in Pagan Ritual

(a basic replacement for 'smudging')

Pagan social-media conversations often circle back to the use of herbal smoke for cleansing material spaces, and ‘banishing bad vibes’. In my summary opinion the notion of ‘sage-ing’ or ‘smudging’ has reached the level of superstition, in which people imitate gestures without understanding, seeking an effect. This trend has bumped-up against efforts by native peoples to preserve their own ways, and prevent their dilution by misappropriation. Recent internet notices have warned us against depriving native people of revenue and recognition in our sources of specific plants, and reminded us that merely imitating a picture of a ritual action does not mean we’re actually doing it.

                When I was coming up in the craft in the 1970s we never spoke of ‘smudging’. The first time I saw the ‘shell-and-fan’ set-up was probably in the mid-80s, at a festival.  Traditional western magic performs cleansing of space with a dual approach, using water and fire. That is how I learned to clear a space, whether casting a circle or giving a basic cleansing to a house. Water-and-fire cleansing is also used in western magic to cleanse and pre-bless objects used in magical ritual, whether the ‘tools’, or the physical basis of talismans, charm-bags, etc. While each of these symbols deserves a full research-report, let me say a little about the traditions surrounding ritual fire and water:

Ritual Water

                The central symbol of cleansing in Euro spiritual ritual is water. The work of finding, bearing, and protecting safe water sources is always central to the lives of early people, and such matters make their way from the mundane into the sacred in a variety of customs. Evidence for the use of specially-dedicated water and water-sources extends as far back as written sources allow.

                In the Greek Magical Papyri of the turn of the first millennium ritual water is gathered from different sources for different intentions. So for work with celestial gods, and various blessings one might collect rain-water, while for Underworld work, fertility, etc water from underground springs is preferred. For modern practitioners this offers a chance to consider the sources of water in your region, and to pay direct attention to weather as a concern in magic.

                If you choose to bring water directly from a natural source, try to choose places where you can gather clean, clear water. Water pure enough to drink seems to have been the basic standard for traditional ritual water, and great care was taken to insure its cleanliness and purity. There is no reason to avoid using the tap water from most modern water-systems – ritual water is always formally consecrated.

The summary of the method of making ritual water is to bring pure water, add some further agent of purification, and speak intention over the water. The added element is often salt, though some Celtoids have the custom of ‘silvering’ water – silver has active anti-microbial properties, so that’s cool.

The western traditions of ritual magic (what is often called the ‘Solomonic’ style) use this basic formula with its usual lengthy ritual recitations. There’s a very complete set of such consecrations at the Digital Ambler. 

A simple working consecration is given below.
Fire and Smoke

                Ritual flame is the traditional center of much Euro-Pagan ritual. In archaic forms the central fire receives the offerings of the people, and may represent the very presence of divine power. Its lore emphasizes ritual purity, spiritual power and the Right Order of wholeness and wellness.

                Among Indic ritual traditions the fire retains most of this archaic power, and stands at the center of what remains of Vedic ritual. In Persian religion (‘Zoroastrianism’) the fire becomes the only idol, the very image of the divine. In Hellenic and Roman religion the sacrificial fire consumed the portion of the offerings given to the gods, and was treated as a deity.

                Ritual fire has the same emphasis on ‘purity’ as does ritual water. Fire can be employed to burn trash, cleanse illness, even consume corpses. Ritual fire is to be made with clean, dry materials, carefully laid, with no unintentional or incidental contents. It receives equally-pure offerings of food, oil, etc.

                In many traditional cultures the ritual fire is connected directly to the hearth-fire. Hearth-fire is kept burning perpetually, the spark carefully preserved over each night, for months at a time. Hearth fire was, in many places, renewed annually or bi-annually, to allow for cleaning and purity. In such cases the hearth was extinguished, and new fire brought into the home from one of the blessed ritual fires. For the rest of the year all ritual fire was lit, in turn, from a hearth-fire.

                Some sects of modern Paganism are attempting to establish the keeping of a perpetual tended flame in homes. The old 20^th century dodge was to bless the ‘pilot light’ of a gas stove. (If you don’t know what that it, it’s because the tech has largely passed away, and I don’t think anyone blesses their piezo…). On modern Pagan shrines and altars a flame can be kept in a succession of seven-day candles, in an oil-lamp, or even a gas fireplace or lamp. Such a light is carefully kept through the year, and ritually snuffed and re-lit in a sacred occasion – often at Spring Equinox or Beltaine. In the many circumstances where a ritual fire cannot be lit from a good hearth-fire, then custom calls for a proper incantation recited over proper fuels, and lit at a proper moment.

Blessing by Smoke

                The central formula of cleansing by water and incense is that it is the water which first rinses away pollution, and the incense smoke which then confers blessing on the clean thing or place. In ancient days bad smells were associated, not unreasonably, with ritual and physical uncleanliness, and smells themselves were considered to transmit disease. Thus perfumes were used to drive off such impurity, and to fill the air of a ritual space with scents attractive to good influences, especially those proper to the rite at hand. Thus it was ordinary to clean a room with water and brush, and then to burn pleasant woods, etc, in the hearth, even in cultures that didn’t use ‘incense’ as such. Both Gaelic and Scandinavian cultures preserve very little trace of the use of formulated incense for either religion or household perfume, but might burn boughs of pine, or apple, or juniper to scent their rooms, especially after sickness.

                In ritual magic of the late classical and medieval days evil spirits, as such, were banished by the burning of ill-smelling smokes. No sense of ‘opposites’ involved – burning asafetida and pepper will drive most beings out of a room. Resorting to such measures today would be for the most extreme matters, I suppose.

At the core of this formula, I think, it is the sacred power of the spark of ritual fire that serves to bless and purify, much more than the effect of any specific herb. Of course there are a variety of herbs used for banishing ill in European tradition, lists are easy to find Any combination can be burned on charcoal (maybe mixed with some nice frankincense) to good effect. If you find yourself unable to use smoke in an apartment or public space simply blessing a candle or (more dramatically) a fire in a bowl will be fully in keeping with the core symbolism of the work. Even the light of an electric candle can serve, especially if the space is dark enough for the light to be visible.

                Refer to the ‘digital Ambler’ link above for the full Solomonic version of the consecration of Fire. For small ritual fires a simple prayer or charm is the usual method.

• It is usual to arrange a token ritual hearth indoors. This is easily done by placing a circle of candles around an incense-burner, allowing incense offerings to be made in the center of the symbolic flames.

• Such a Fire should be lit with a proper charm or incantation, such as the one given below.

Purification By Water and Fire:

A Druidic-style 'altar' arrangement

These simple customs can be used to spiritually cleanse a house, a room, or a person or object. Choose a proper place for the altar – at your home shrine if you keep one. For cleansing a house consider starting at the highest reachable point and working downward and out the doors. In a single room an altar might be on the eastern wall or at an eastern window. In any case the simple tools can be arranged as needed, with consideration as to beauty and harmony.

• Bring clean water, and a little salt.

• Prepare a fire, whether a true wood fire or a ring of candles surrounding a censer. If you are clearing a space, be sure the censer can be easily lifted and moved. If purifying an object the censer can be stationary. Have a good supply of incense – enough to last for the whole area you intend to bless.

Druidic arrangement in detail

• On an experiential note, if I am not using herbal incense on charcoal I have come to prefer good, fresh cone incense – Indian brands are usually nice and oily. Cones can be lit at the tip, and will often burn with an open flame for a minute or three, making a dramatic visual and a literal magnification of the ritual fire before snuffing into fragrant smoke. Setting such a cone on charcoal insures the cake will light, as well.

• As a performance note, a full house cleansing will benefit from having two operators – one for water, one for fire. In this way the elements can move through the house together. It is entirely reasonable for a single operator to do the two phases sequentially, but takes more time.

• With all arranged in the chosen starting-place, take up the salt, and conjure the water, saying:

The water is poured into the vessel, and/or the full vessel is raised, saying:

Here we bring the Waters of the Land, 

Clean from the deep, borne by the pure, 

So that everything it touches may be made pure. 

Let this Vessel be the Spring of the Deep for our rite, from which we draw purification.

On Land (add a tiny pinch of salt)

Beneath the Sky  (add a tiny pinch of salt)

And within the Sea  (add a tiny pinch of salt)

Let the Water make pure the earth, make pure this (place), 

Make it whole and Holy, and free from every ill.

• Light the incense, preferably from an altar-candle or fire and as the initial flame rises, conjure it, saying:

I kindle this fire

In the presence of all the spirits

Upon the Land, within the Sea, Beneath the Sky

At the Center of Worlds

I kindle this fire in Wisdom

I kindle this fire in Love

I kindle this fire in Power

To be the Light of the Heavens upon this Earth.

To be a Fire of Welcome to all of good-will

And a blessing to all beings.

So be it!

(• The above is a ‘long form’ for consecrating the Water and Fire. It is best for new students and beginners to us the long form, paying full attention to the intent of the words. When you have some experience, it can be more convenient to use a short for, such as:

• Salt the water, light the flame, and recite three times:

The Fire, The Well, The Sacred Tree

Flow and flame and grow in me

In Land, Sea and Sky

Below and on high

Let the Water be blessed and the Fire be hallowed.)

• The elements having been blessed, we can use them to purify objects or spaces. In Pagan ritual preparation the space in which ritual is about to be done is cleaned with water and fire. Objects which are being dedicated to sacred work are cleansed, and the materials which are used for talismans, as well. Such things can simply be sprinkled with the blessed water, and held in the smoke of the fire or incense.

• The work can be supported by proper visualizations – see the water rinsing away a layer of dirt to reveal shining; see the fire sparkle on and within the item.

• To cleanse a space, start at one corner or position in a room, and go sunwise around the space (right shoulder to the center), first with the water, and then with the smoke.

• To cleanse a house thoroughly start at the highest room in use and cleanse each room in turn, finally cleansing the front door. Doors and windows can be specifically cleansed around their frames.

• For a single-story house one might start at the front door and go sun-wise through the place, cleansing each room in turn.

• It is traditional to speak one’s intention aloud. If you wish you might speak to the work without script, politely instructing (don’t ask – tell) all inharmonious influences to depart. It is also traditional to repeat a charm.

• In our Druidic ritual, we incant, simply:

By the might of the Water and the light of the Fire, this (place/thing/etc) is made whole and holy.

And slightly more detailed:

Fire and Water, Earth and Sky, 

Rooted deep and crowned high,

Ill be gone and good draw nigh, 

Fire and Water, Earth and Sky

• If cleansing a house, the elements might be returned to the original altar, or taken out the final door and spilled/extinguished at the boundary of the property. Sometimes it is proper to take the live elements out the door and work the edges of the property itself, though often this is impractical.

• When finished return to the original Altar or work-spot, and envision the whole work, solid and complete. Conclude with an affirmation of success and blessing, such as

The Blessing of the Holy Ones

Be on me and mine

My Blessing on all beings

And peace to thee and thine.

The Fire, the Well, the sacred Tree

Flow and flame and grow in me.

Thus do I affirm the work of the wise!

               

               

What is a spell?

In the ongoing series of long answers to frequent questions. Pardon my formatting difficulties, please:

 The word ‘spell’ travels with a lot of baggage, and is used with very little technical consideration. It has been redefined especially by fantasy writers in so many ways that sorting nonsense from tradition, and determining a useful technical definition for our modern magic art is a project worth doing.

Linguistically the word means 'a spoken charm or incantation', and so we could limit its meaning to 'the spoken component of a magical rite'. That isn't what people mean, these days, though.

Allow me to begin at the end, and attempt a definition of a spell – we’ll see whether it’s the same at the end.:

“A spell is magical or spiritual work with a specific intended effect and usually a specific target”

In traditional magical literature ‘spells’ are most often small ritual patterns, involving a combination of natural objects, spoken words, proper timing, ‘occult’ symbols and often the aid of specific gods or spirits. Folk magic tends to quietly bury these elements in traditional rules, that often don’t accompany the transmission of spoken charms – one is supposed to know the rules. More formal ritual magic instructions may make a spell seem like a complex working of its own, by listing the work in detail and sequence. Both of these approaches can be practical and correct. I tend toward the latter.

The whole business of using magic to obtain a specific goal may involve multiple smaller sub-rituals, offerings etc. All these ‘spells’ together are often described as a ‘working’.

In our post-European, post-Christian USA there is that tendency to want products neatly packaged and labelled with instructions. So many who ask for ‘spells’ in internet forums seem to want the proverbial ‘magic words’, that make things change in the blink of an eye. This is, in fact no more likely in magic than in medicine, and spellcraft can involve multiple ‘appointments’ to accomplish a goal. 

Here it may be useful to quote and discuss my favorite definition of ‘magic’. It comes from the Greater Key of Solomon

“Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied to proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effort, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle.”

Allow me to paraphrase:

“Magic is the study of the secret and spiritual forces of nature, their character and powers, so that by applying proper force at the proper place and time effects can be produced which have been called ‘magical’. So magicians learn to predict effects by knowing cause, which makes them seem to be wizards.”

Can I tighten it up?:

“magic is the knowledge of the hidden (occult) powers of things, and of the spirits, and the application of those powers to produce effects.”

So spells are a specific application of this principle – the application of the occult powers of natural and spiritual things to work personal will.

Spellcraft Inside Polytheist Religions

In many world traditions of polytheism and animism the use of religious symbols, rituals and skills for the immediate personal gain of worshipers and their families is a normal part of the work. These traditions teach rites for prosperity, health, fertility and inspiration, much the same as the desires of modern magic-users.

Sadhana 

A symbolic arrangement for a sadhana

            The Sanskrit term ‘sadhana’ can be translated as ‘a specific practice or form’. In dharmic religions the term is used both for the prescribed spiritual practice a teacher might set for their student, and also for specific sets of practices intended to produce results. The latter are patterns that may include proper herbs, proper colors and numbers of candles, proper offerings of incenses, flowers, etc and of course a proper spoken incantation (i.e. ‘mantra’ in Sanskrit). These patterns are often transmitted through what amount to spellbooks, and are an orthodox part of Hindu and some Buddhist religion

Ebbo 

Offering array for an Ebbo

            In the post-African religions of the New World ‘Ebbo’ is a word meaning offering or sacrifice. It can be applied generally to religious offerings to the spirits, but it also refers to specific patterns of practice intended to produce specific outcome – i.e. spells. The forms of some such ritual offering are determined by the spirits themselves, but there are also specific traditional forms, including arrangements of specific numbers, types of fruits, colors of candles, etc., arranged in the proper way, place and time, with the proper invocations. Again, by the terms of western magic, this amounts to a ‘spell’.

Late Classical Paganism

Remnants of traditional Euro-middle-eastern polytheism and spiritism were preserved in the important proto-grimoire called the Picatrix. This ritual manual focuses primarily on the Planetary powers, themselves remnants or reflections of Olympian Gods. The rites usually center around an image or idol of the spirit, and then use number, color, type, etc, to determine a proper set of offerings. This style of offering-ritual, preserved for us in text over the past 2,000 years or so, bears a remarkable resemblance to other forms of spirit-based devotional spellcraft.

A planetary rite of offering

This style of devotional, offering-based ritual seems ready to introduce into our modern polytheist efforts. Drawing on lore, tradition and the inspiration of the spirits rites of this style could be devised in nearly any ethnic system. Of course ethnicities will each have their distinct customs, which can add to the depth of such designs.

Folkloric and Popular Spellcraft

Offering-based spells that draw on the spiritual power of core cultural gods and spirits are one side of the coin of traditional spellcraft. The other is the vast body of lore that employs the ‘occult' (i.e. hidden or little-known)  powers of natural things’, along with the basic principles of mechanistic spellcraft.

The latter were defined by Frasier as “sympathy” –like affects like; and “contagion” – that which has been in contact continues to influence the contact. These are not so much the actions of spirits but natural principles, which operate regardless of the spiritual environment in which they are used. These techniques, plainly called ‘tricks’ in some traditions, become dressed in the mythology of whatever culture takes them up.

For instance, the ‘packet talisman’ – a small bag or wrapped packet containing herbs, stones, seals etc. can be identified in the 16^th century scholastic occultism of Agrippa, yet it also arrives in the New World through Congo ethnic custom, producing the ‘gris-gris’ or mojo-bag of the hoodoo tradition. Such a charm-bag employs sympathy by using herbs and stones of the proper resonance, and employs contagion by the wearing of such a charm next to the user’s skin. Charm-bags are made with prayers to saints, invocations of the polytheistic gods, or even animistic address to the aggregated spirit of the charm itself. This is icing on the basic mix that makes the spell.

Crystal 'grids' use the powers of semi-precious stones
to accomplish specific goals.

Colored candles or lights, proper incenses and perfumes, traditional or discovered magical sigils and seals, all of these are part of this category of spellcraft. Image-magic, the old hair-and-fingernails gag, the use of photographs, drawings or even the written name of a target, all of these use sympathy and contagion to ‘transmit’ the intention of a practical spiritual work. Often these methods are employed along with offering and invocation to direct the power of whatever spirit is offered to.

Wrapping Up

So, then, a spell is a ritual or set of rituals intended to employ spiritual or occult power for a specific practical goal. This sort of practice may exist as part and parcel of a religion or spiritual tradition. If it doesn’t it almost certainly exists just outside of it, relegated to some category like ‘witchcraft’. In my opinion our Neopagan religions, as we construct them, can benefit from making such techniques integral to our spiritual work.

Witches' Almanac 2016

I am pleased to announce that I'll be published later this year in the Witches' Almanac 2016.

Way back in the 1970s - like High School 70s for me - it was already my habit to comb every drug-store book-rack and paperback outlet I knew of. In the occult publishing boom of that time one could just never tell when something truly strange would appear. It was on such an afternoon expedition that I first saw The Witches' Almanac. Since I was buying everything that said 'witch' on it in those days (and one didn't go broke doing it) I snapped it up. 

Originally published in a chapbook,
"Old Farmers'" style

While it was in the form of a fairly standard almanac, with calendar pages, moon-phases and limited ephemeris, the 'filler' content was very different from the Old Farmer's Americana. There were spells, short lore articles, and actual Pagan material as well. The popularly-published item was obviously aimed at the new wave of Witches and Pagans.

I was in Ohio in those High School days, and the Almanac was produced by Elizabeth Pepper (of Rhode Island and Manhattan) from 1971 until 1979. Just after that I would find myself in Providence working on my Witchcraft initiations. An eleven-year hiatus was followed by the revival of the publication by the Peppers and a well-known Providence occultist "Theitic" (who happens to be an initatory cousin of mine through our Wiccan heritage.) Elizabeth passed from the mortal world in 2005, and the new generation has continued the publication. The same publishing house has produced several volumes important to modern witchcraft scholarship, especially Leland's "Dame Darrel" material and the full scholastic study of the origins of both the "long Rede and of a specific New England tradition of the craft in "The Rede of the Wiccae"

I am proud and pleased to have been asked to contribute to this venerable publication. I'll have two articles, one on the Sacred Fire, from Sacrifice to Summoning and the other on the Celtic Nine Elements and the Spirits. The Almanacs are dated from Spring to Spring, so the current issue runs into March of 2016. The 2016 - 2017 issue will be on sale sometime midsummer of this year. Watch this space.

Fun with Cernunnos (vaguely nsfw)

So, in lieu of writing, I've been doing art. This began with redoing the Ninefold Oracle, and went on to the Traveling Magic thingy. Now I'm dredging up more stuff from my sketchbooks. I don't consider myself a 'good' artist, but I can make stuff that pleases me, and that means I'll show it to you : ).
The first (and most recent) one is my shot at a figure that properly reflects ancient models:

Cernunnos was one of the first of the ancient gods to receive my earnest worship. Understanding him based on Huson and Gardner, the combination of wild-forest and Underworld vibe was juicy for a young magician.

Just to get the basics out of the way, I'll quote myself from FB:

"The Antlered God is depicted in Romano-Celtic statuary in central and coastal Gaul and into Roman Britain. We call him 'Cernunnos' (meaning, more literally 'the pointy one') because of a single inscription, and because Gardner adopted the name for the 'devil' of his witch-cult.

The Antlered God is usually depicted cross-legged (the Celtic position of feasting and socializing) with deer's antlers. He is always shown clothed, and there are no phallic depictions of Cernunnos. Likewise, almost no Celtic god is depicted with the head or hooves of an animal, including Cernunnos.

Cernunnos is never shown as a hunter, or with weapons or hunting tools. He bears and wears torcs - often multiple torcs - and is accompanied by the mysterious ram-headed serpent. I take the latter to represent the fertility power of the Underworld.

The Underworld Power of wealth and growth seems the central theme of the figure, to me. He is depicted with bags or cauldrons of wealth, and surrounded by the symbols of wealth - the cow and the deer. I find it likely that he represents a vision of the Fertility Father."

For a very nice review of what we know and guess about this interesting Celtic deity, read Cei Serith's excellent article.

That's the roots of the matter.

The Gundestrup Cernunnos - in many ways the seminal
source for modern depictions.

A Romano-Celtic hunting deity,
with hound.

In the folkloric rehash of the mid-twentieth-century Pagan and witchcraft revival, this obscure Celtic figure was rediscovered and melded with both Pan and with the English folkloric tale of 'Herne', the huntsman of Windsor Park. There is some slim chance that the Saxon name Herne is related to british roots connected with 'cern', but otherwise the only link is the presence of antlers in Herne's tale. There are hunter gods in Romano-Celtic statuary, but they are never antlered and have no connection with Cernunnos.

Levi's Baphomet, the
Goat-god of the witch's
sabbath.

As I was entering Pagan work the image of Cernunnos had been very much merged both with traditional depictions of the Hindu Shiva and with Victorian notions of Pan, as well as with Levi's Baphomet. He was often depicted seated cross-legged, his Ram-headed serpent mixed with Shiva's snakes, and the subtle caduceus-phallus of Baphomet becomes the plain depiction of the Roman Pan and satyroi figures. The example that really sticks in my mind is Oberon Zell's full-page telesmatic figure of the god, probably from somewhere like 1968. That image is surprisingly difficult to find on the internets...

So when I drew my own figure in  late 1980s I had no issue with drawing the above. I never went for the 'Hunter' thing, and preferred to stick to the Gundestrup basics. For me, by the late 80s, the witch's Cernunnos was afigure that combined Shiva's teaching of sorcery and mysticism with the forest and wildlife symbolism of Cernunnos, and a strong inclination to view the original Celtic Cernunnos as the God of the Underworld. In this I was certainly influenced by witchcraft mythology, and I'm really still sorting it all out

This is like the full monty of syncretic Cernunnos-in-my-head. I'll probably stick with the top image, the nicely correct one (once I flip the hands...) but I still dig this one.

May wealth rise from the deep, and plenty flow in from the wild, and may we praise the Antlered God for the Blessing!

The Portal Book is Available

I wrote at the beginning of the year about my efforts to get a new edition of The Portal Book into print. It is now available in hardback, paperback, and E-book, through the miracle of self-publishing.
Buy the paperback here.
Buy the hardcover w/dustjacket here.
Buy the E-book here

Dear readers, hang on to your hats or whatever for a round of commercial announcements again here on el bloggo. I done been creatin' stuff. I'll do my best to keep relevant content coming as well. Watch this space...

Buy In

                OK, I’m a hippie. Or I would have been, if I was just 6 or 7 years older. By the end of the Viet Nam war ‘Hippie’ had been declared dead and buried since 1967. Us high-school kids (I was 18 in 1973, 

the year the draft ended) of a certain long-haired, anti-establishment sort called ourselves ‘Freaks’. So, really, I was a freak, not a hippie.

               

The funeral for the death of 'Hippie',
Haight-Asgbury, October 1967

I’ve spent my biologically ‘adult’ life focused as firmly as life allows on art, music, organizing and spiritual practice. I’ve had to keep a job throughout, though I’ve opted for low-rent work that doesn’t bother me when I’m not doing it, so that I have mental space for my personal efforts. My serious lovers and life-partners have been partners in the art-and-magic as well. Certain character weaknesses may have kept me from being more artistically ‘successful’ in the common way, but I’ve produced a body of work that pleases me, and if I get another 20+ years I’ll surely produce more. I’ve done it without adopting the suit-and-tie hypnosis but while participating in a good deal of the world of adult social life – mortgages, management and the like. It has not crushed my spirit.

                There is an ongoing discussion about the value and meaning of institutional Paganism. Usually the

desire for property, physical worship spaces and ongoing local Pagan programming is contrasted with the freedom of spiritual renunciation and living in freedom. Some of the objection is simply concern that spiritual mission will get lost in the minutia of operations. There is also a more philosophical objection, in which an image of ‘witchcraft’ is offered that places the magic-user outside of society’s limits – a sort of combination of the Indian Sannyasins, Tantric sorcerers and western Satanic Witches.

                I dig that. Magic is juicy when it is part of Forbidden Knowledge, and there is personal power to be gained in stepping outside the safe zone and standing firm. Even in the ancient Pagan world the magician or sorceress was a figure at the edges of Hellenic society, though maybe not so much so in Vedic or Celtic lands. However the other end of traditional magic and ritual was worked right in the center of personal life; the rites of temples and home shrines, invoking the gods, offering to the Dead, divining and charming for small things, consulting professional spookers for spooky stuff – all normative, and all part of ‘religion’, as it was loosely understood.

                That’s the front-end of a magical culture which I am interested in helping to restore to the west. Despite life-long fantasies of conjuring the Green to crack the concrete façade of the sleepers I find myself working to establish Pagan temples and public worship, and design ways in which occult skills can be brought into the lives of people with no particular time for or interest in learning them for themselves. My vision is of Pagan temples where the Fire of Magic burns, and modern people have access to vision, devotion and teaching.

                I haven’t given up on the other side of the work. Here’s the thing – antinomianism is only as powerful as the Law it pushes against. Where I live the general spiritual atmosphere is one of apathy. There is no serious devotion to Christian values in my local culture, in terms of sexuality, commerce or social duty. Tell modern kids that they can join an orgy-cult and they’re like, “Hmmm. Orgy cult… what am I doing Friday night?” When the sense of shock is gone, antinomianism is less fun.

                In fact, for a lot of modern hipsters commitment to growing an institution might be more psychologically revolutionary than individualist seeking. Many of us grew up with individualism, iconoclasm and skepticism as norms. Whether we learned them from our families or adopted them from elsewhere, many of us have long accomplished the work of cutting ourselves free of the values and expectations of mainstream culture to one degree or another. For us it may be more of a conscious effort to decide to devote ourselves to a group project whose goal isn’t focused on the self. To choose to identify with a group even if it isn’t as cool as we wish it could be, to commit to both sweaty material effort, financial participation and even ideological mutuality might seem like the worst sort of ethical compromise.

Doesn’t that make it valuable as antinomianism?

                It seems to me that establishing a main-street normalcy for the more simple end of occult practice will provide a cultural background within which wilder systems can grow. The renunciate often needs the temples to shelter her, both physically and ideologically. Public, family-picnic religion (sweet as it is) could be

contrasted with more private mystery rites that lead us away from common norms. Private teaching of occult arts could be sheltered within socially-protected shelters with cool ritual rooms and gardens. The possibility of antinomian and other radical self-targeted work could be greatly enhanced.

                Back in the day we used to worry that we would be tempted to ‘sell out’ – to trade our birthright of freedom and creativity for the bead-strings of suburban life as we saw it before us in the 70s and 80s. However, as time went by, some of us developed a bit of personal juice – some resources, financial or personal. We began to realize that we might be able to buy in to the larger society, while maintaining control of the transaction.

                Perhaps this is a metaphor for the way the magical understanding of the Pact with Spirits has changed. As a kid I learned that any ‘deal’ with dangerous spirits was a bad idea. Today many of us think that dangerous is often where the power is. When we make deals with ‘devils’ we hold firmly to our own sovereignty even as we bargain in good faith with powerful forces. It is just as reasonable to make a deal with the devil of modern society, to buy in and get one’s box-full of useful crap.

                This requires the magical skills of the shapeshifter, of the cloak of invisibility and the Essence of Look-Over-There. It involves just walking into Mordor, for many of us, as we pass through the gates of the corporate hell-worlds where so much treasure is stored. But the treasures we take away can be employed in the work of re-enchantment. It is rather satisfying to subvert traditional values using the very substance of the inhumane system.

                I’ll conclude with a pitch – even if you’re a wild, naked, animal-sacrificing, gender-indifferent woods-witch, it is valuable to support local Pagan organizing and help to build institutional Paganism. Apply your shape-shifting skills, assemble some resources and go help, or at least tell your local Pagan priestesses how you can be reached, in case someone needs a dose of the wild. If we are firm in our understandings of virtue and confident in our own power we can avoid being ‘polluted’ by our involvement with and proximity to mainstream culture. We can be beacons of the weird in the fog of common life, etc… but I’m not going there now.

                

Wiccan Ossuary – Reissuing the Portal Book

Happy New Year to all! I had a quiet Yuletide, somewhat laid-down by a two-round hit of stomach

and respiratory bugs. I’m back to various sorts of work, especially this project, and preparing the first of the expanded-lesson post-Nine-Moons training courses; more on all that directly.

Here at the start of year six of the old bloggo I find myself slowing down a bit on things to say. I will be journaling a new round of ritual work with Brigid and Dagda, finishing the Cthulhu Occultism series and working on more Wisdom Way posts. There are things brewing here in terms of organizing and building, and you’ll hear some of that. Internet chat will no doubt produce occasional topics to rant about, and then there’s the Novel…

I am grateful to my readers as always. A writer writes, and the blog is a spur to my effort. I hope to average 4 posts per month for my readers – I fell a bit short of that goal last year, but I’m after it again this year. On we go, into another year of conjuring a more enchanted world.

Opening Old Boxes

                I began my occult quest in maybe 1970, around the age of 15. For years it was books only, for me, and occasional ritual experiments with like-minded friends. In those efforts whenever I found a need to cobble together a group ritual I found myself turning to models drawn from the developing ‘witchcraft’ movement.

                One of the great successes of the early Pagan Witchcraft movement (i.e. Gardner’s covens and their imitators, and a variety of other variously-Pagan, magic-using, initiatory systems) was the crafting of a ritual form that could handily be used by one to four people with a minimum of gear. Early-70s manuals such as “Mastering Witchcraft” and “The Tree” provided simple but traditional instructions in consecrating Dagger, Wand and Cup, and a temple of magic could be ritually erected by one or more people in a relatively simple way. That made the Neopagan Witchcraft model (or ‘Wicca’ as it came to be known) the default for a huge percentage of late twentieth-century occultists.

                By 1977 or so I was practicing organized quasi-Wiccan Paganism, actively searching for a tradition in which to be initiated. I might have approached Gardnerianism but their conservatism, in the people I knew, made them a bad fit. In the meantime I developed personal and group rites based on the four-fold, elemental circle-casting and invocation of the gods of witchcraft understood as the Lady and the Lord.

                I became involved in the rise of the Pagan festival scene in the early 80s, and participated in the process by which the formal invocational methods of traditional Wicca were reframed for untrained mass audiences. However my own inclinations led me to initiation with a non-British line of initiatory witchcraft, in which a growing interest in Gaelic material mixed with a focus on Hermetic ritual magic. I completed my three traditional degrees, and undertook to create my own recension of the tradition, as was common in that lineage at that time. Let’s call that, oh… 1986.

                As was common in traditions that practice initiatory secrecy we established an ‘Outer Court’ in which interested students could attend rites with the flavor and symbolism of our system without being given access to the reserved material. We opened the ‘Sabbat’ mysteries to them, and worked a fairly rigorous monthly schedule of mystery and practical rites.

                In time I made an effort to systematize a book of material for those outer court students. There in the late 1980s desktop publishing was barely on the horizon, and so I undertook to hand-write and illustrate the roughly 70 pages of material. I had completed a fair copy of our coven Book of Shadows some years previously.

A handwritten, fair-copy page
from the original pulbication.

                I published “The Portal Book” in 1988, and taught a number of students using it.  It was well-received, and has sold several thousand copies in the years since. However the most recent printing is dwindling to its final copies, and it is time for a new edition.

                So I’m typing it up, from a former print copy (don’t ask, computers frequently suck). It’s archeology of my brain from 20 years ago, not to mention of my writing style.

                I spent the Eighties slowly getting something of a clue about traditional Gaelic polytheism and lore. I began reading Irish lore in my coven training, and worked my way through the sources available. I actually corresponded for a minute with Sean OTuathal, a founding mind behind Celtic Reconstructionism, who (it will be no surprise) set me straight onto the path of triplicity-not-quadriplicity, and other CR fundamentals. I became involved with Isaac Bonewits and the start-up of ADF, but didn’t leave my traditional work for that system until just as the Portal Book saw publication.

               This was, perhaps, three years before I would begin local ritual work with ADF, but my Celtic leanings are already well-represented. Triple-Cosmos material is mingled with traditional four-elements symbolism in ways that reflect my efforts to preserve traditional material in the face of my changing scholastic understanding. The content of this old work, as I re-examine it, holds up pretty well, except that I have abandoned several central opinions about the nature of the divine. I find myself reading my rationales for Neopagan Duotheism and ‘aspect’ theory as to the gods. The cult of our old system was a fairly usual five-fold pantheon of the period – Triple Goddess and Dual God. My descriptions of all of this are already colored by my growing understanding of Celtic lore – I hedge on Maiden, Mother and Crone while keeping the skeleton of the form. The Portal Book was an introduction to our system, and it makes an effort to gently move students from the most common Neopagan forms toward our more specific material. Much of the work consists of my instruction in basic shrine-work and meditation, as I understood it twenty years ago.

The cover of the 1996 typeset edition

                Likewise it is bemusing for me to read my efforts to construct a consistent Year Myth that contained some actual Gaelic motifs. To the extent that our Wicca was a Mystery Religion, it was in the turning cycle of the Sabbats, and the dance of birth, love, war and death between the gods and goddesses. This coherency is something I rather miss in my more recent focus on folkloric content of the seasonal feasts, though I’m afraid it is not something we can find in ancient ways. I note that, for this transitional book, I adopted the modern Neopagan names for the solar feast days (Litha, Mabon, etc). Embarrassing as that may be to my present scruples I’ll be retaining my 1988 usages as I prepare it again for print.
                One could let such a box of bones lie in the ground, but I still get occasional comments that suggest that it has been useful to folks doing Wiccan style work. Sometime later this year (sooner rather than later) I’ll be issuing a new edition of this old text. I should be able to rescan all the original art and clean it up – the original was assembled with scissors and rubber cement. The Portal Book has always been an artistic effort, and the new edition will be as pretty as I can make it.

                I have left Wiccan ritual and theological forms behind me in my personal path but I have nothing but gratitude and respect for the part that the initiatory Craft, and even popular Wicca, have played in our magical revival. Wiccan Paganism has gently nudged many people toward polytheism and self-empowerment. Let the seed be flung widely – that our restored Paganism will flourish where it may.
Update: The Portal Book is available here.