| Goddess history and heresay | by Lux for everyone |
I. GODDESS RELIGIONS IN THE OLD WORLD
A. Gravettian-Aurignacian Cultures (25000 BC-15000 BC)
1. The Upper-Paleolithic period, though most of its
sites have been found in Europe, is the conjectural
foundation of the religion of the Goddess as it
emerged in the later Neolithic Age of the Near East.
sites have been found in Europe, is the conjectural
foundation of the religion of the Goddess as it
emerged in the later Neolithic Age of the Near East.
a. There have been numerous studies of Paleolithic
cultures, explorations of sites occupied by these
people, and the apparent rites connected with the
disposal of their dead.
cultures, explorations of sites occupied by these
people, and the apparent rites connected with the
disposal of their dead.
b. In these Upper-Paleolithic societies, the
concept of the creator of all human life may have
been formulated by the clan's image of women,
who were their most ancient primal ancestors.
concept of the creator of all human life may have
been formulated by the clan's image of women,
who were their most ancient primal ancestors.
(1) It is believed that the mother was regarded
as the sole parent of children in this
culture.
as the sole parent of children in this
culture.
(2) Ancestor worship appears to have been the
basis of sacred rituals and ancestry is
believed to have been reckoned through the
matriline.
basis of sacred rituals and ancestry is
believed to have been reckoned through the
matriline.
(a) The beginnings of Roman religion were
basedon survivals of the Etruscan culture
and ancestor worship was the earliest form
of religion in Rome.
basedon survivals of the Etruscan culture
and ancestor worship was the earliest form
of religion in Rome.
(b) Even today, the Jewish people determine
who is and is not a Jew through the
matriline.
who is and is not a Jew through the
matriline.
2. The most tangible evidence supporting the
theory that these cultures worshipped a Goddess
is the numerous sculptures of women found
throughout most of Europe and the Near East.
Some of these sculptures date as far back as
25,000 BC.
theory that these cultures worshipped a Goddess
is the numerous sculptures of women found
throughout most of Europe and the Near East.
Some of these sculptures date as far back as
25,000 BC.
a. These small female figurines, made of stone,
bone, and clay, most of which are seemingly
pregnant, have been found throughout the
widespread Gravettian-Aurignacian sites in
areas as far apart as Spain, France, Germany,
Austria, and Russia.
bone, and clay, most of which are seemingly
pregnant, have been found throughout the
widespread Gravettian-Aurignacian sites in
areas as far apart as Spain, France, Germany,
Austria, and Russia.
(1) These sites and figurines appear to span
a period of at least 10,000 years.
a period of at least 10,000 years.
3. Johannes Maringer, in his book 'The Gods of
Prehistoric Man' says- "It appears highly probable
then that the female figurines were idols of a
Great Mother cult, practiced by the non-nomadic
Aurignacian mammoth hunters who inhabited the
immense Eurasian territories that extended from
Southern France to Lake Baikal in Siberia."
Prehistoric Man' says- "It appears highly probable
then that the female figurines were idols of a
Great Mother cult, practiced by the non-nomadic
Aurignacian mammoth hunters who inhabited the
immense Eurasian territories that extended from
Southern France to Lake Baikal in Siberia."
a. It was from this Lake Baikal area in Siberia
that tribes are believed to have migrated across
a great land bridge to North America about this
time period, and formed the nucleus of what was
to become the race of American Indians.
that tribes are believed to have migrated across
a great land bridge to North America about this
time period, and formed the nucleus of what was
to become the race of American Indians.
(1) This tends to support the observation that
European witchcraft and American Indian
shamanism have similar roots.
European witchcraft and American Indian
shamanism have similar roots.
B. The Roots of Western Civilization
1. Western Civilization began in Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley,
where it traveled into Palestine and Greece.
where it traveled into Palestine and Greece.
a. From Greece civilization traveled to Rome,and as the Roman
Empire grew it spread to Spain, France, Germany and England.
Empire grew it spread to Spain, France, Germany and England.
2. Mesopotamia ( 3500 BC - 539 BC )
a. Mesopotamia ("the land between the rivers") is the name used to
describe the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the
southern area of which is mostly lowlying swampland and marshes.
describe the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the
southern area of which is mostly lowlying swampland and marshes.
(1) The fertile lands of Mesopotamia lie between the desert and
the mountains. The northern part has regular rainfall while the
southern part, stretching down to the Arabian Gulf, suffers dry
scorching summers from May to October.
the mountains. The northern part has regular rainfall while the
southern part, stretching down to the Arabian Gulf, suffers dry
scorching summers from May to October.
(a) In what is now the southern part of Iraq, Sumer existed
as one of the world's first civilizations.
as one of the world's first civilizations.
b. Between 2800 and 2400 BC the city-states of Sumer were at their
strongest and wealthiest.
strongest and wealthiest.
(1) The Goddess was worshipped under various names which were
epithets, or characterizing phrases, such as 'Queen of Heaven'
and 'Lady of the High Places'. The name of the city or town that
She was the patroness for, was often attached to Her title
making Her name even more specific.
epithets, or characterizing phrases, such as 'Queen of Heaven'
and 'Lady of the High Places'. The name of the city or town that
She was the patroness for, was often attached to Her title
making Her name even more specific.
(a) An example of this is the temple erected about 3000 BC in
the city-state of Uruk which was dedicated to the Queen of
Heaven of Erech.
the city-state of Uruk which was dedicated to the Queen of
Heaven of Erech.
(b) This city was made a major power and rival to its sister
city Ur by Gilgamesh's son.
city Ur by Gilgamesh's son.
c. About 2350 BC an ambitious king, named Sargon, attacked
Sumer, and made it part of his huge Empire. His capitol of Agade
gave us the name by which Sargons empire is known- the Akkadian
Empire.
Sumer, and made it part of his huge Empire. His capitol of Agade
gave us the name by which Sargons empire is known- the Akkadian
Empire.
(1) The Akkadian Empire was the first successful attempt to
unite a huge area under the rule of one man. It eventually
gained supremacy in about 1900 BC and gradually superseded the
Summerians as the cultural and political leaders of the
region.
unite a huge area under the rule of one man. It eventually
gained supremacy in about 1900 BC and gradually superseded the
Summerians as the cultural and political leaders of the
region.
(a) The Akkadian language of the Babylonians became the
international language of the Near East, just as French
would become the language of diplomacy thousands of years
later.
international language of the Near East, just as French
would become the language of diplomacy thousands of years
later.
(b) The new Babylonian culture incorporated the Sumerian
religion, and the Sumerian language was adopted as the
language of the liturgy much as Latin is used as the
language of liturgy for Roman Catholics.
religion, and the Sumerian language was adopted as the
language of the liturgy much as Latin is used as the
language of liturgy for Roman Catholics.
(c) The sumerian Goddess, under the names Inanna, Eriskegan
and Irnini, evolved into the great Babylonian Goddess
Ishtar.
and Irnini, evolved into the great Babylonian Goddess
Ishtar.
d. Approximately 1600 BC Babylon was sacked by an Indo-European
people known as the Hittites who came from Anatolia, off to the
northwest.
people known as the Hittites who came from Anatolia, off to the
northwest.
(1) During the confusion that ensued, the Kassites seized the
throne of Babylon and ruled peacefully for 400 years.
throne of Babylon and ruled peacefully for 400 years.
(a) Ishtar's power waned as the Babylonians were influenced
by the warlike Hittites and Her temples were taken over by
a male-dominated priesthood, which called the Goddess
Tiamat and wrote stories of how their god Marduk had killed
Her in the struggle for control of the region.
by the warlike Hittites and Her temples were taken over by
a male-dominated priesthood, which called the Goddess
Tiamat and wrote stories of how their god Marduk had killed
Her in the struggle for control of the region.
e. In the centuries following 1103 BC the Assyrians rose to
power and expanded into most of Mesopotamia from their homeland
which lay between the cities of Asher and Nineveh on the Tigrus
River.
power and expanded into most of Mesopotamia from their homeland
which lay between the cities of Asher and Nineveh on the Tigrus
River.
(1) In the eighth century, the Assyrians conquered most of
Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia and had invaded Egypt as far as
Thebes (Luxor) before the Egyptians drove them back.
Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia and had invaded Egypt as far as
Thebes (Luxor) before the Egyptians drove them back.
(a) Looking to legitimize their new empire, they 'married'
their god Asher to Ishtar, whose followers had secretly
kept Her worship alive.
their god Asher to Ishtar, whose followers had secretly
kept Her worship alive.
(b) The joining of Ashur with Ishtar produced a son named
Ninurta, and this is the first formally recorded triad of
Goddess, Consort, and Divine Child in the Near East.
Ninurta, and this is the first formally recorded triad of
Goddess, Consort, and Divine Child in the Near East.
(2) From 631 to 539 BC much inter-city warfare occurred as
the Assyrian empire fell apart.
the Assyrian empire fell apart.
(a) In 539 BC Nabonius, the last king of Babylonia,
surrendered to Cyrus II of Persia who was busy building
the greatest empire ever attempted.
surrendered to Cyrus II of Persia who was busy building
the greatest empire ever attempted.
3. Anatolia
a. Anatolia, which is also called Asia Minor, is a broad peninsula
jutting westward from the Asian continent itself. To the north
lies the Black Sea, to the south the easternmost part of the
Mediterranean. At the entrance to the Black Sea are the
Dardanelles and it is here that Asia comes closest to the
continent of Europe. Not surprisingly, Anatolia has always been
the main link between the Orient and the Occident.
jutting westward from the Asian continent itself. To the north
lies the Black Sea, to the south the easternmost part of the
Mediterranean. At the entrance to the Black Sea are the
Dardanelles and it is here that Asia comes closest to the
continent of Europe. Not surprisingly, Anatolia has always been
the main link between the Orient and the Occident.
b. In Neolithic Anatolia (present day Turkey) the Great Goddess
was worshiped in the shrines of Catal Huyuk around 6500 BC.
was worshiped in the shrines of Catal Huyuk around 6500 BC.
c. Anatolia was invaded sometime before 2000 BC by the Indo-
Europeans and a group of them settled in a part of Anatolia known
as Hatti. The invaders and local people came to be known
collectively as the Hittites.
Europeans and a group of them settled in a part of Anatolia known
as Hatti. The invaders and local people came to be known
collectively as the Hittites.
(1) These are the same Hittites who sacked Babylonia in 1600 BC
and suppressed the worship of Ishtar in favor of their god
Marduk.
and suppressed the worship of Ishtar in favor of their god
Marduk.
d. Most of the references to the Goddess in the literature and
texts of Anatolia alluded to the older Hattian deities despite the
fact that the only records allowed to survive were written after
the conquest of Anatolia by the Indo-Europeans.
texts of Anatolia alluded to the older Hattian deities despite the
fact that the only records allowed to survive were written after
the conquest of Anatolia by the Indo-Europeans.
(1) One of the most important female deities to survive was the
Sun Goddess Arinna. After the conquest she was assigned a husband
who was symbolized as a storm god.
Sun Goddess Arinna. After the conquest she was assigned a husband
who was symbolized as a storm god.
(a) At the time of the Hittite invasions of other lands, many
of the people who were Goddess-worshippers may have fled to
the west. The renowned temple of the Goddess in the city of
Ephesus was the target of the apostle Paul's zealous
missionary efforts (Acts 19:27). This temple remained active
until 380 AD.
of the people who were Goddess-worshippers may have fled to
the west. The renowned temple of the Goddess in the city of
Ephesus was the target of the apostle Paul's zealous
missionary efforts (Acts 19:27). This temple remained active
until 380 AD.
4. Crete
a. The Aegean Sea is an area of the Mediterranean, lying between
the mainland of Greece and the western coast of Anatolia. The
Aegean Sea is dotted with a great number of mountainous islands
and the largest of these is Crete, which is just about 60 miles
southeast of Greece.
the mainland of Greece and the western coast of Anatolia. The
Aegean Sea is dotted with a great number of mountainous islands
and the largest of these is Crete, which is just about 60 miles
southeast of Greece.
(1) Crete was the society that is most repeatedly thought to
have been matrilineal and possibly matriarchal from Neolithic
times to the Dorian invasion.
have been matrilineal and possibly matriarchal from Neolithic
times to the Dorian invasion.
(a) Reverance of the double headed ax as a symbol of the
Mother Goddess and a reverence for the sexual vitality of
bulls were two notable aspects of Crete's early culture.
Mother Goddess and a reverence for the sexual vitality of
bulls were two notable aspects of Crete's early culture.
(b) Bull leaping is thought to have been the origin of
Spain's bullfighting, although in Crete the bull was never
harmed.
Spain's bullfighting, although in Crete the bull was never
harmed.
(2) After viewing the artifacts and murals at Knossos, the
Archaeological Museum at Iraklion and other museums in Crete,
there is little doubt that the principal sacred being on Crete
for several millenia was the Goddess and that women acted as Her
clergy.
Archaeological Museum at Iraklion and other museums in Crete,
there is little doubt that the principal sacred being on Crete
for several millenia was the Goddess and that women acted as Her
clergy.
by mewitch (tanks) continued in reply
 | saadly this is a good rite, but it is missing... | by Lux for everyone |
Countless
other have done this classic ritual, that is not more then 54-60 years
old...(and it is a beautiful example of a self ritual or group
rite....but it is still missing the basics of symbolism, and the stuff
that (the witch) of energy needs to charge her gifts, otherwise
your....chanting at the wind....(come see for yourself)
1.
Set up your temporary altar and quarter points. The quarters can be
stones or candles but stones have the advantage of not blowing out if
there is a breeze. (missing info)
2. Cast your circle of protection. (missing info)
3. Undress - remove all jewelry, watches etc and put into a bag. with your purse and other items that are easily lost. (One initiate lost her gold necklace in the woods, it was impossible to find in spite of a thorough search. Luckily it was insured.) (you need not remove the.....................missing stuff)
4. Consecrate the circle. (missing info)
5. Summon the guardians with these words, and don't forget to pause to visualize the element concerned and to think upon the significance of that element for your self dedication:
"Guardians of the North, sacred spirit of Earth. Into the stillness of your cold dark womb shall you accept my death, the death of my former self. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the East, sacred spirit of air. As the sun rises in the east so shall you guide my rebirth into my new life as a Witch. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the South, sacred spirit of Fire. You shall be my protector as I go forth from here along my new path. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the West, sacred spirit of Water. Cleanse my spirit and keep it ever pure from now and into the future." (missing info)
6. Now for your symbolic death:
Lie on the floor on your back. You can lie with your head to the altar (North) if you wish to be close to the Goddess or to the East if the principle of rebirth is more important to you.
Recite again those same words:
"I am entering the stillness before creation
I am entering the ground of the Goddess
May my body be still
May my mind be peaceful
May my heart be ready"
(missing info)
7. Now be at peace; feel the peace of the Goddess flow into you. Feel yourself merge with the cold Earth beneath you. Chant this slowly and quietly:
Hecate, Cerridwin,
Dark Mother take me in
Hecate, Cerridwin,
Let me be reborn."
Keep chanting until you feel yourself melting into the Goddess.
(witches need not chant) only wiccan's/pagan chant
8. When you feel the time is right get up slowly and begin to walk round the circle chanting the Goddess chant:
"We all come from the Goddess,
And to Her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the ocean."
(again cool, but not witch)
Walk gradually faster and chant faster round and round the circle. Faster and faster until you get dizzy. Don't stop even then. After a while you'll get tired but you must not stop. Go on the same time again until you drop exhausted on the floor. Why? because chanting and dancing raise power.
(voodoo mixure, early santeria mix)
9. Lay again on your back as you regain your breath. As soon as you have your breath back stand in front of the altar and annoint yourself thus:
Dip a finger in the oil and mark a cross : 1. on the left breast (male or female), 2. on the right breast, 3. Just above the pubic hair. This is the sigil of the first degree, the downward pointing triangle. Say "I annoint myself priest/ess of the old religion, and I take the name (speak your magical name quietly)." (lol)
Then say:
'I, (real name), in the presence of the forces of Universe and the Divine, do of my own free will and mind most solemnly swear that I will ever abide by the religion and science of the Craft of the Wise.
'I shall neither harm my fellow humans with the secrets that I learn nor shall I flaunt my beliefs or powers before them.
'From this day on I shall be reborn as (magickal name) and shall honor, respect and cherish this oath I have taken.'
10. Kneel up in front of the altar. Pour a little wine into the goblet and place it at the front of the altar. Now take your athame and holding it with both hands, pointing down and arms outstretched plunge the blade into the wine. Say:
"As the cup is to the female so the blade is to the male."
"And so conjoined bring blessedness"
11. Now say to yourself:
"I am reborn. I am a Witch. I am a Priest/ess."
Rise to your feet and and say as loud as is safe bearing in mind that sound carries: "I AM A WITCH!"
12. Now consecrate the wine and cakes as you have already learned. Take some wine and eat a cake. Close the circle and dismiss the quarters
(as i said beautiful, but can't compare to a witch rite or ritual)
but see for yourself......or dance in circles if you wish...
2. Cast your circle of protection. (missing info)
3. Undress - remove all jewelry, watches etc and put into a bag. with your purse and other items that are easily lost. (One initiate lost her gold necklace in the woods, it was impossible to find in spite of a thorough search. Luckily it was insured.) (you need not remove the.....................missing stuff)
4. Consecrate the circle. (missing info)
5. Summon the guardians with these words, and don't forget to pause to visualize the element concerned and to think upon the significance of that element for your self dedication:
"Guardians of the North, sacred spirit of Earth. Into the stillness of your cold dark womb shall you accept my death, the death of my former self. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the East, sacred spirit of air. As the sun rises in the east so shall you guide my rebirth into my new life as a Witch. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the South, sacred spirit of Fire. You shall be my protector as I go forth from here along my new path. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the West, sacred spirit of Water. Cleanse my spirit and keep it ever pure from now and into the future." (missing info)
6. Now for your symbolic death:
Lie on the floor on your back. You can lie with your head to the altar (North) if you wish to be close to the Goddess or to the East if the principle of rebirth is more important to you.
Recite again those same words:
"I am entering the stillness before creation
I am entering the ground of the Goddess
May my body be still
May my mind be peaceful
May my heart be ready"
(missing info)
7. Now be at peace; feel the peace of the Goddess flow into you. Feel yourself merge with the cold Earth beneath you. Chant this slowly and quietly:
Hecate, Cerridwin,
Dark Mother take me in
Hecate, Cerridwin,
Let me be reborn."
Keep chanting until you feel yourself melting into the Goddess.
(witches need not chant) only wiccan's/pagan chant
8. When you feel the time is right get up slowly and begin to walk round the circle chanting the Goddess chant:
"We all come from the Goddess,
And to Her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the ocean."
(again cool, but not witch)
Walk gradually faster and chant faster round and round the circle. Faster and faster until you get dizzy. Don't stop even then. After a while you'll get tired but you must not stop. Go on the same time again until you drop exhausted on the floor. Why? because chanting and dancing raise power.
(voodoo mixure, early santeria mix)
9. Lay again on your back as you regain your breath. As soon as you have your breath back stand in front of the altar and annoint yourself thus:
Dip a finger in the oil and mark a cross : 1. on the left breast (male or female), 2. on the right breast, 3. Just above the pubic hair. This is the sigil of the first degree, the downward pointing triangle. Say "I annoint myself priest/ess of the old religion, and I take the name (speak your magical name quietly)." (lol)
Then say:
'I, (real name), in the presence of the forces of Universe and the Divine, do of my own free will and mind most solemnly swear that I will ever abide by the religion and science of the Craft of the Wise.
'I shall neither harm my fellow humans with the secrets that I learn nor shall I flaunt my beliefs or powers before them.
'From this day on I shall be reborn as (magickal name) and shall honor, respect and cherish this oath I have taken.'
10. Kneel up in front of the altar. Pour a little wine into the goblet and place it at the front of the altar. Now take your athame and holding it with both hands, pointing down and arms outstretched plunge the blade into the wine. Say:
"As the cup is to the female so the blade is to the male."
"And so conjoined bring blessedness"
11. Now say to yourself:
"I am reborn. I am a Witch. I am a Priest/ess."
Rise to your feet and and say as loud as is safe bearing in mind that sound carries: "I AM A WITCH!"
12. Now consecrate the wine and cakes as you have already learned. Take some wine and eat a cake. Close the circle and dismiss the quarters
(as i said beautiful, but can't compare to a witch rite or ritual)
but see for yourself......or dance in circles if you wish...
| celt wording fixed to druid wisdom | by Lux for everyone |
Echtra
"Adventure" lol, Translated it means "to take on, or venture
into..." expeditions and journeys on holy ground. This way of magic
often happens "accidentally" to heroes, warriors, and hunters.
Dra/iocht The word for magic lol,. Literally translated, it means "what Druids do" modern understanding... (truthfully it is by the words of the dragon, or dragon's words/wisdom)
Fi/rinne "Truth", or "Justice" lol, once again it is a simple translation (truthfully it means : the reality, or of theknown) The binding force of nature, the way of nature.
Dra/iocht The word for magic lol,. Literally translated, it means "what Druids do" modern understanding... (truthfully it is by the words of the dragon, or dragon's words/wisdom)
Fi/rinne "Truth", or "Justice" lol, once again it is a simple translation (truthfully it means : the reality, or of theknown) The binding force of nature, the way of nature.
| The grand grims | by Lux for everyone |
The Black Pullet, Red Dragon, and the Black Screech Owlare all examples of magickal texts, grimoires, or instructional books.
Red Dragon is another 'black book' that is also entitled Grand Grimoire and was published in 1822 with was based on not the occult of "magery" but ceremonial rites of the self as a (talisman mage only). It allegedly dates back to 1522, it doesn't...) however there is little evidence to substantiate this. Sources for the information in the various Grimoires include Greek and Egyptian magical texts from 100-400 A.D. and Hebrew & Latin sources.(common tongue of any scroll or script. )
The Mixure of these books of "Mage" create the mixure of the cultural 3 wise languages of symbols....(books of the sand)
| contract of the dark | by Lux for everyone |
"Black Airt" and Devil Contracts
Scotland
"Black Airt" was firmly believed in [in the north-east of Scotland]. If the proficients in this science did not make a compact with Satan, they were very much in communion with him. He was regarded as the fountain from which it sprang. It was looked upon as a kind of wisdom by which men came to be able to know the hidden essence of things, the virtues of herbs for cure or poison, to have power over nature in many of her workings, power to cure disease, to guard against witches and fairies, to remove their spells, to discover thieves, and even to see into the future. Under the teaching they got, some of the students reached a high degree of expertness, and became a match for the devil himself in cunning, and were even able to outwit him.Spain and Italy, particularly Italy, were the countries in which the science was most flourishing, and in which it was taught most efficiently, and thither all, who wished to become adepts in it, went. Its study was carried on in dark rooms under famous teachers; and, on leaving the classrooms, the students had to pass through a long black passage at the end of which stood the prince of darkness watching to catch the last one.
No sooner had the last word of the professor's lecture been spoken than out rushed the students, and made for the light pell-mell through the black passage shouting, "Deel tack the hinmost!"
The devil, on one occasion, clutched at a student. He met one who was more than a match for him. The student called out, "There is another behind me!"
His sable majesty looked first to this side, and then to that. He saw what seemed a man. He rushed upon it and seized it. It was the student's shadow. Ever after the student was shadowless.
thanks mewitch
| ghost of the rene age.... | by Lux for everyone |
When the Whole Earth Was Overrun with Ghosts
England
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.
--Marcellus.
So have I heard and do in part believe it.So says the immortal Shakespeare [Hamlet, act 1, scene 1]; and the truth thereof few nowadays, I hope, will call in question. Grose observes, too, that those born on Christmas Day cannot see spirits; which is another incontrovertible fact.
--Horatio.
What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks [necks], waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins [Gyre-carling], pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost.
Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!
Thanks mewitch
| Invocation, Evocation and Banishment | by lahanna for everyone |
Lahanna wrote:
BASICS OF MAGICK:
Invocation, Evocation and Banishment
Invocation: Invoking is when you bring something "in"
from "without". Any ritual in which something is asked, summoned, or
called to enter a ritual area for the purpose of lending its energy,
influencing the ritual or guarding the ritual area is Invoking
something (it could be a Deity or another Being).
Evocation: Evoking is when you draw something "out" that is "within"
you. Any ritual, for example, in which you work with your Higher
Self, or in which you work with Totems or Power Animals within a
ritual area is Evoking those energies.
Banishment: Banishing is when you release energy you have called
through Invocation from a ritual area, when you remove any unwanted
energy from a ritual area before you work a ritual, or when you
remove an entity from a place or person during an exorcism. Note:
Exorcism is something I recommend be left to experts! I use this as
an example only.
During ritual, all energies other than those" within" you, objects
that you bring into the ritual area or the energy of the immediate
area you are in, are usually considered to be "outside" the circle.
If you wish to work with any other energies, you need to invite
them "into" your ritual area. I suggest they should be called into
the area you are working through Invocation. After they have been
invoked, you can call on them to participate, guard or witness the
Rite you are performing. If you are doing a ritual that invokes
energies like Deity, Elementals, or Watchtowers, a Pentagram can be
used to invoke them with greater ease.
In magickal practice it is generally understood that energies come
when called and leave when they are banished properly. Invoking
something in the wrong way can result in the wrong energy - or no
energy at all - being summoned. Incorrect banishing can lead to the
continued influence (and annoyance at times) of the energy that has
been summoned. If you use an elemental type of circle casting you
can use the pentagram to call these energies into your circle. There
are two uses for drawing the Pentagram on an object:
to bless it (infuse it with divine energy);
to cleanse it (banish unwanted energy).
Just a word or two about energies: research them; learn all you can
about them through legends and literature. If you work with Totems
or Spirit Guides, consult their wisdom too. It is better to know
what you are asking into your circle and safe space. You do not want
to call the wrong thing into a circle and have your ritual fail in
its intent! If you feel uncomfortable at all working with a specific
energy (Deity or Spirit): DON'T!!!!! You should be clear and
centered to perform any ritual, otherwise unease will seep into your
ritual, bringing flaws into it. Magick is a learned art; it is not
something that can be done safely with no knowledge at all.
I suggest you study, learn and develop your own feelings about how
anything should be done. Study different techniques for all things,
find the common links between them and then discover the truth for
yourself. Traditional methods are often effective because they have
already been refined and practiced for some time. After you have
studied traditional methods for a lengthy period of time and after
you have learned the nuances and finite details of "how?" and "why?"
these methods work, then you can try methods that you create
yourself.
By Arwynn Macfeylynnd /|\
aliciabinias@hotmail.com
Used with permission from the author. All rights reserved.
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| Merlyn the side you might know not | by Lux for everyone |
quil11: i have a ?*
Wzdrylmaster: ask?
quil11: a stupid one, but i figure i might as well ask it anyway
Wzdrylmaster: nothing is stupid to me
quil11: was Merlin real, or is all that stuff just myth?
Wzdrylmaster: he is real
quil11: sweet
Wzdrylmaster: merlyn
quil11: sry
quil11: so it is spelled merlyn
quil11: i hate it when ppl mispell important things
Wzdrylmaster: son of mordove, was an orphan that was kicked around for years, before he was picked up by a wizard
quil11: cool
Wzdrylmaster: you spelled it right
quil11: oh, okay then
Wzdrylmaster: that was the old way i have spelled it...
quil11: then lots've things are wrong about him
quil11: i thought he was educated by a bard
quil11: but oh well
Wzdrylmaster: no
quil11: so many conflicting myths
Wzdrylmaster: he was sent to a cavern of crystal there he met another whom was powerful as a witch, maeve
quil11: cool
Wzdrylmaster: and well she hated him
Wzdrylmaster: but wanted him
quil11: well that's a crappy deal
quil11: oooo fun
Wzdrylmaster: and he was nice but only to those that found him social
quil11: awesome
Wzdrylmaster: he spent 22 years in the house of the magi(k) studying and building secrets of the dragons
quil11: oooooooo, funn
Wzdrylmaster: learning of the making of the world
quil11: wow
Wzdrylmaster: (the wizards key begining power is insight and scrying
quil11: *remembering*
quil11: *mental note, need to practice scrying*
Wzdrylmaster: then maeve had plans for his skill
quil11: mmk
Wzdrylmaster: so she created an army, knowing that merlyn would try to bring it to peace
quil11: ok
Wzdrylmaster: and he did, only to gain favor with a king (uther-s father)
quil11: oh joy, and here comes uther, and arthur
quil11: arther later, of course
Wzdrylmaster: and well, maeve loved that
quil11: i bet
Wzdrylmaster: she sent the fates (magic(k) to kill uther's father
quil11: now that i missed
Wzdrylmaster: in his dreams, he felt attacked so he attacked back killing everything
Wzdrylmaster: and merlyn was then kicked about again...
Wzdrylmaster: as the "so called protector of the king"
Wzdrylmaster: and well he returned to the cavern until uther took rein
quil11: mmk
Wzdrylmaster: and maeve happy slept, grooming another in her place
Wzdrylmaster: vivian
quil11: okay
Wzdrylmaster: the future wife of merlyn he had 3 lol...diffrent times
quil11: awesome
quil11: *thinks:"that movie was so wrong...."
quil11: *
Wzdrylmaster: merlyn made her his and well maeve wanted him dead then,
quil11: i guess
Wzdrylmaster: so vivian refused and maeve truned her to stone
quil11: that's crap
Wzdrylmaster: merlyn cured her only to lose her to another
quil11: ouch
Wzdrylmaster: because she wanted this war to stop
Wzdrylmaster: 3 other sorcerors was attacking maeve now... only one survived he was from the east
quil11: that's no reason to run out on the poor guy
Wzdrylmaster: it just happens..lol
Wzdrylmaster: the mist of avalon was nice, but what is real can't compare......
Wzdrylmaster: ask?
quil11: a stupid one, but i figure i might as well ask it anyway
Wzdrylmaster: nothing is stupid to me
quil11: was Merlin real, or is all that stuff just myth?
Wzdrylmaster: he is real
quil11: sweet
Wzdrylmaster: merlyn
quil11: sry
quil11: so it is spelled merlyn
quil11: i hate it when ppl mispell important things
Wzdrylmaster: son of mordove, was an orphan that was kicked around for years, before he was picked up by a wizard
quil11: cool
Wzdrylmaster: you spelled it right
quil11: oh, okay then
Wzdrylmaster: that was the old way i have spelled it...
quil11: then lots've things are wrong about him
quil11: i thought he was educated by a bard
quil11: but oh well
Wzdrylmaster: no
quil11: so many conflicting myths
Wzdrylmaster: he was sent to a cavern of crystal there he met another whom was powerful as a witch, maeve
quil11: cool
Wzdrylmaster: and well she hated him
Wzdrylmaster: but wanted him
quil11: well that's a crappy deal
quil11: oooo fun
Wzdrylmaster: and he was nice but only to those that found him social
quil11: awesome
Wzdrylmaster: he spent 22 years in the house of the magi(k) studying and building secrets of the dragons
quil11: oooooooo, funn
Wzdrylmaster: learning of the making of the world
quil11: wow
Wzdrylmaster: (the wizards key begining power is insight and scrying
quil11: *remembering*
quil11: *mental note, need to practice scrying*
Wzdrylmaster: then maeve had plans for his skill
quil11: mmk
Wzdrylmaster: so she created an army, knowing that merlyn would try to bring it to peace
quil11: ok
Wzdrylmaster: and he did, only to gain favor with a king (uther-s father)
quil11: oh joy, and here comes uther, and arthur
quil11: arther later, of course
Wzdrylmaster: and well, maeve loved that
quil11: i bet
Wzdrylmaster: she sent the fates (magic(k) to kill uther's father
quil11: now that i missed
Wzdrylmaster: in his dreams, he felt attacked so he attacked back killing everything
Wzdrylmaster: and merlyn was then kicked about again...
Wzdrylmaster: as the "so called protector of the king"
Wzdrylmaster: and well he returned to the cavern until uther took rein
quil11: mmk
Wzdrylmaster: and maeve happy slept, grooming another in her place
Wzdrylmaster: vivian
quil11: okay
Wzdrylmaster: the future wife of merlyn he had 3 lol...diffrent times
quil11: awesome
quil11: *thinks:"that movie was so wrong...."
quil11: *
Wzdrylmaster: merlyn made her his and well maeve wanted him dead then,
quil11: i guess
Wzdrylmaster: so vivian refused and maeve truned her to stone
quil11: that's crap
Wzdrylmaster: merlyn cured her only to lose her to another
quil11: ouch
Wzdrylmaster: because she wanted this war to stop
Wzdrylmaster: 3 other sorcerors was attacking maeve now... only one survived he was from the east
quil11: that's no reason to run out on the poor guy
Wzdrylmaster: it just happens..lol
Wzdrylmaster: the mist of avalon was nice, but what is real can't compare......
and that is just a bit look into this man...
| witches..only, is wiccan whatever... saddly | by Lux for everyone |
Witches only Community is a non witches information site,
so don't let the site fool you into thinking
if your into the non label crap and he do as thou will, non help
then by all means visit this location....
sorry to rant, but well the head fluff manager, is sad...
and by all means perhaps a satanist...
because of his/her sn....
I
am not ranting cause i didn't get in, I'm ranting because saddly they
are trapping others into thinking they have anything to offer....
witches, ( so i asked them to prove me wrong, and well i get this everytime, we name ourselves whatever we wish.... )
and what is in a name, truth.....a lease in my book
well sorry....
but i sould have expected that from not the orginal owner.....
perhaps the label should have read moron, not manager
then she/he might qualify....
Owner
| Thanks to thee, the Attic (wicker creme man) | by Lux for everyone |
By LEONORA LaPETERA witches meeting at a Clearwater Krispy Kreme ended when a witch mascot was displayed. The witches say they were tossed out. Krispy Kreme says they were asked only to remove the mascot.
짤 St. Petersburg Times
published December 5, 2002
It was the witches' fourth meeting in as many months at the Krispy Kreme in Clearwater. They lined up for coffee and doughnuts, then pulled eight tables together and sat around them.
Soon, 37 of them had gathered. One set out an 8-inch-high wicker witch on a broom.
Everyone agrees on the story up to that point. What happened next is disputed.
The witches say the Krispy Kreme manager asked them to remove the wicker witch and threw them out.
A Krispy Kreme spokesman says the manager asked the group to remove the wicker witch only after another customer complained.
"This pagan group was not kicked out of Krispy Kreme," said Mark Gauthier, president of a local Krispy Kreme franchise that includes the store on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard. "We don't discriminate against any group. We just asked them to remove their witch models from our shops."
The witches had gathered because of a Web site called Meetup (www.meetup.com), which encourages people with common interests to get out of chat rooms and into coffee shops for face-to-face meetings around the country. Meetup.com, founded in June, hopes to make money by collecting fees from the shops where the meetings take place. The site is trying to build interest in the concept and has not started collecting fees in this area.
Witches meetings have become one of the site's most popular events, particularly in Pinellas County. Members have many beliefs and religious practices. Some are leaders of covens and wear black robes during their rituals; some describe themselves as Pagans but not witches. One witch described their meetings as "a Pagan parent night out" where they don't have to watch what they say.
The witches at Krispy Kreme say they were talking about various things, including one member's efforts to raise money for a Pagan community center in Pinellas County.
Then a store manager came over.
Rick Poppe, 35, who calls himself an occultist, said the manager asked to speak to whomever was in charge. Then she waved dismissively at the wicker witch and said, "That has to go."
Robert L. Webb II, who had signed up as a host of the event, walked outside with the manager. He said she asked him what kind of group it was. He told her it was a gathering sponsored by Meetup.com out of New York and that her corporate office had been notified of the meeting.
The manager told him meetings were not allowed at Krispy Kreme and asked him to end the gathering, Webb said. When he asked her why, Webb said, she told him it was because she had had a complaint from a customer about the wicker witch.
Webb, who says he is a witch, said he walked inside and told the group it had been asked to leave. From there, the group headed over to a Perkins restaurant nearby.
"I feel personally it was because we were Pagan," Webb said. "I feel it was because a lot of us are different, unusual."
Webb said he is considering filing a religious discrimination complaint with the Department of Justice. Poppe said he wants an apology from Krispy Kreme or he will file a complaint.
"I'm not a crusader," said Poppe, who works at a natural food store as a deli clerk. "I'm not one of those people who looks for a cause to fight for. But I was so offended. So many nice, hard-working people were thrown out just because they have different views."
One witch from Clearwater said she would prefer to let the tempest drop. Refering to the incident as the "Krispy Kreme Kaper," she sent an e-mail to many of the witches who were there, saying she thought the group should just move on.
"Sometimes everybody yells discrimination, and it's a war," said Norma Supel, a computer store administrator, who wrote the e-mail. "Okay, if the lady doesn't want you there, you can't tell her 'Witches are okay people' and change her mind. If she has a set attitude, a set opinion toward us, it's her opinion, her right. It's up to Meetup to ensure that it's okay for us to be there."
Myles Weissleder, a spokesman for Meetup, said Krispy Kreme was notified the group would be there.
"As far as I know, it wasn't a problem," he said. "I don't know if that particular manager was aware or if there was a miscommunication."
Gauthier, of Krispy Kreme, said the group was not kicked out and that the Pagans are not telling the truth.
"We want every group in America to eat in our stores," he said. "No one was kicked out of our stores. We don't discriminate. I don't understand what the controversy is about."
Weissleder said Meetup is looking into the witches' claims. Nineteen people had signed up to go to the Meetup, but almost double that number showed up. The 37-person gathering is among the largest witches meetings in the country. Only Port Arthur, Texas, has had a larger gathering, 40. New York City, on the other hand, drew eight witches recently.
Meetup groups must vote on one of three locations for their meetings. The witches had voted for the Krispy Kreme during each of the past four months, but Krispy Kreme will not be one of the options next month, Weissleder said.
"I can't infer what transpired, but I think the manager just got restless when (she) saw 37 people with a witch mascot on the table, and that's a shame," Weissleder said. "If it had been the Girl Scouts or a baseball team, I don't think they would have been kicked out."
LOLOLOLOL
| she and he of the craft | by Lux for everyone |
well if your a guy, then your an adept or mage not a witch,
if your a woman, then you can be by learning witchcraft,
if your a woman, then you can be by learning witchcraft,
as
you have perhaps learned the diffrences in magic(k) come not from the
learning but the frequency or aura if you wish of the practicing witch
to be...
men and women can learn witchcraft, no big deal,
but to natural use it is as the witch (female evolves the energy around
he turns into a powerful shell, and then allows by touch her abuilty to
read the other fields it touches and add that frequency to her own this
is a form of channeling, but quite nature,
however if a male tries this, their field is deflected, because that isn't their form of using magic(k) until after they reach a bit higher level of being as the witch is generally prone to do...( I'm a guy, a teacher of witchcraft, teacher of occult magic(k) of over 17 years...
experience...so i would know... )
however if a male tries this, their field is deflected, because that isn't their form of using magic(k) until after they reach a bit higher level of being as the witch is generally prone to do...( I'm a guy, a teacher of witchcraft, teacher of occult magic(k) of over 17 years...
experience...so i would know... )
wiccan
equality isn't based on this truth but more on the guy, girl eventually
sense of god and goddess balance, and saddly, history of mythology
hasn't ever said that was true.... EVER....
So find out for yourself.....
(everything grows in its own and then gains a new insight...)
| to bury and why not... | by Lux for everyone |
It
is a sad lie that after you do anything as in spell, hex, curse,
healing rite or other that you have to get rid of the stuff or bury
it...
(that is something madeup in the 50's....not
working a form of protective or removal of the magic(k) lol
hope now they can bury that lie.....
Truthfully the essense of temporance, touch or sensitivy to the caster as in tracking the user of.... is the only reason one would try to bury anything...
( voodoo magic ) however is buried, so that the land and nature can take a new shape and give a bigger life to the powers, as they are called...
but thats the only reason,
oh and fires....lol....
ouch,ouch, i'm burning...lol
Wizard Luxas
If you live long enought you learn everything and why it isn't everything.....
--
(that is something madeup in the 50's....not
working a form of protective or removal of the magic(k) lol
hope now they can bury that lie.....
Truthfully the essense of temporance, touch or sensitivy to the caster as in tracking the user of.... is the only reason one would try to bury anything...
( voodoo magic ) however is buried, so that the land and nature can take a new shape and give a bigger life to the powers, as they are called...
but thats the only reason,
oh and fires....lol....
ouch,ouch, i'm burning...lol
Wizard Luxas
If you live long enought you learn everything and why it isn't everything.....
--
| answers for a wiscon wiccan or is she witch? | by Lux for everyone |
I
just want to make sure I am clear on your meaning on some things. Who
gives this woman the power of awareness? Is it something she is born
with in this lifetime or she has to meet someone in this lifetime that
gives her this power of awareness?
Is this something that every woman has with her upon birth or something that only a few women have? Why do you feel it is only a woman?
Is this something that every woman has with her upon birth or something that only a few women have? Why do you feel it is only a woman?
How does one discover the tools
if one has never learned the basic and ceremonial magick? How does one
develop the powers without learning the basic and ceremonial magick? If
one has the awareness doesn't one have to learn about the basic and
ceremonial magick to develop these powers?
ok, let me pick out your questions....
1.Who gives this woman the power of awareness?
As
with all living things, diffrent forms of sensation and spiritual
understanding, can develop a form of awareness to the sides of that
works and that doesn't, as beings of questioning, we tend to use these
as we develop them as a race, to highten the understanding of the world
about us...all
but as my teacher has said "The skills of
witchery are developed in both the heart and the senses for a witch to
be...some are given this skill at birth others are shown it by finding
one who shares the same sensations but on a bit more experienced
stepping....and some are drawn by folklore to seek out the un-know and
try, i say try to tap into its being...
(as for the circle, the true witch in my opinion
is special because at a youthful age or later in their design, they learn that the world is abit more symplistic in its design and has not a mechanical purpose or is empty of the sensations of being...(mythos has proven this)
(as for the circle, the true witch in my opinion
is special because at a youthful age or later in their design, they learn that the world is abit more symplistic in its design and has not a mechanical purpose or is empty of the sensations of being...(mythos has proven this)
2.Does she has to meet someone in this lifetime that gives her this power of awareness?
"yes" they can, and often do but not always of why or when, unless they plan each step, but to be more forward, they see abit of the encounter beforehand....in dream, cold feeling, or silences,
(just like you can thumb through your favorite book, the witches senses well can sort of sense a ponit as it arrives...(most of the lore of witchcraft is that, wise beings like wizards has past the book of learning off to them to teach them to be about the un-seen universe, and a doorway to travel them...(mythology mind you, some summoned demons to appear as them to do away with the one who crossed them,...lol)
"yes" they can, and often do but not always of why or when, unless they plan each step, but to be more forward, they see abit of the encounter beforehand....in dream, cold feeling, or silences,
(just like you can thumb through your favorite book, the witches senses well can sort of sense a ponit as it arrives...(most of the lore of witchcraft is that, wise beings like wizards has past the book of learning off to them to teach them to be about the un-seen universe, and a doorway to travel them...(mythology mind you, some summoned demons to appear as them to do away with the one who crossed them,...lol)
3. Is this something that every woman has with her upon birth or something that only a few women have?
(as i was taught it is in almost every woman to want to tap into the un-seen but only a few can, its it a form of sensationism that is developed, not illusionism but abit higher on the empathic range...
(as i was taught it is in almost every woman to want to tap into the un-seen but only a few can, its it a form of sensationism that is developed, not illusionism but abit higher on the empathic range...
4.Why do you feel it is only a woman?
( as of witch it has always been, not a feeling,)
only the newest books sense the 60's say it was otherwise.... (such as wizards and witches leland)
( the alexandrian design, with sander headed is another) lol but if you want more proof, try touching either energies and you can feel the diffrence......
( as of witch it has always been, not a feeling,)
only the newest books sense the 60's say it was otherwise.... (such as wizards and witches leland)
( the alexandrian design, with sander headed is another) lol but if you want more proof, try touching either energies and you can feel the diffrence......
5.How does one discover the tools if one has never learned the basic and ceremonial magick?
(book copycats tying to use witch tools as ceremonial in books about paganism,) the only thing they don't have is why and how..the rest they copy....) from fokelore or mythos...
(book copycats tying to use witch tools as ceremonial in books about paganism,) the only thing they don't have is why and how..the rest they copy....) from fokelore or mythos...
6. If one has the
awareness doesn't one have to learn about the basic and ceremonial
magick to develop these powers? "yes and no"
"yes" because
they can then tune into the other forms of magic(k) to have what other
witches might not, and that is defense or sensations about any who might
use a diffrent form of magic(k0 on them or others, hazzards of learning
the un-known....
"no" because they will still advance as a
witch because the awareness will bring them t what they are apart of, it
just does to the one that trust in their own....
(ps.) My Teacher who taught me "witchcraft"
whom i will honor until i pass on, and perhaps beyond that, showed me the power, truth, freedom, and the lore and all without the idea of religion or models of trads, she even taught me about thje way it links back into other magic(k)
whom i will honor until i pass on, and perhaps beyond that, showed me the power, truth, freedom, and the lore and all without the idea of religion or models of trads, she even taught me about thje way it links back into other magic(k)
Witchcraft is female magic(k)al form, not feminism
those who want it just to have that one side it just doesn't, never will.......pleasure, to make your own, and to share it with others that will not hurt you because they are like you, thats a club....not witchcraft,
Pain has no place in witchcraft, unless you have created it, or others have and you need to let it not touch you, bondage/sm and stuff thats kink, and thrill, not spiritual transformation....
those who want it just to have that one side it just doesn't, never will.......pleasure, to make your own, and to share it with others that will not hurt you because they are like you, thats a club....not witchcraft,
Pain has no place in witchcraft, unless you have created it, or others have and you need to let it not touch you, bondage/sm and stuff thats kink, and thrill, not spiritual transformation....
to be a witch is to have energy not the perception of, not some psychodrama,
instead to know how to make magic(k) the one thing it will take hundreds of lifetimes to ever
have complete as a definable truth, because of the fear others attach to but still happen to encounter...........
instead to know how to make magic(k) the one thing it will take hundreds of lifetimes to ever
have complete as a definable truth, because of the fear others attach to but still happen to encounter...........
As for if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, in wicca its a bird with a book.....not a duck.....
if it swims like a duck (gets it feet wet) then it is a duck.........you see the tracks after it gets out of the water...
if it swims like a duck (gets it feet wet) then it is a duck.........you see the tracks after it gets out of the water...
(magic(k) the water
| study material on the image and being of witchery | by Lux for everyone |
click on this link, it is one of my oldest websites devoted to witchcraft.....enjoy...
| The salem mythos...(yes, there was a salem) but not in america | by Lux for everyone |
that came later with the new idea's that followed....
---------------------------
"A History of Witches"
by Titania Moonfoster Most people now days think of witches as green, wart-covered hags with a black cat and a flying broom stick. But the true history of the witches is a gruesome and bloody one. Persecuted by religious fanatics, frightened and scared peasants and clergy, and falsely accused by children striking back at their strict elders. Before the worship of male dominated religions and monotheistic religions, there was one called The Old Religion. When Christianity was thought up, many attempts were made to convert to the "new" religion. The popes at the time built their churches on the site of the old temples to discourage the old worship and encourage the new. They called the old worshipers "pagans" and "heathens" which was somewhat accurate since pagan means people who live in the country and heathen means one who dwells on the heath.
The European Trials were one big spread of mass hysteria. This was fueled by guides to "witch-hunting" mainly called maleficariums. The most famous one was the Malleus Maleficarum written in 1486 by two German monks named Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger. There were many others, but none were more widely published. These books were full of religious propaganda and the beliefs of the authors. With the panic increasing, people accused anyone they suspected of "non-religious" behavior and those who used supposed magic to heal. (They really used herbs and other forms of healing.) Over the years in Germany, England, France, Spain, and countries around them, so-called "witches" were burned. Over three centuries nine million people were burned, hung, or otherwise killed, tortured and humiliated. The Church set up a group of special people to deal with the accusations. These people were called Inquisitors. When people were accused, the magistrates of the cities put them in jail and got the Inquisitors to question them. The so-called "questioners" then proceeded to take the person into their room and tortured them to get a confession, since they couldn't kill them without a confession. They tortured them by stripping them naked and either putting pins under their nails, ripping their nails out, putting them on a stretch rack or an iron maiden, pouring scalding hot water on them, putting them on a wheel partially in water and spinning the wheel, using hot rods to burn it out of them and many more disgusting and painful procedures. They burned so many people that in one German village they burned over 600 people at once, and in another village there were almost no women, children or cats left because they were all killed. They burnt cats because they were thought of being familiars of the Devil and the witches. This helped bring on the Black Plague because there were no cats to kill the rats who carried the plague. In 1736, an Act was passed that stated since there was no such thing as witchcraft, the people who claimed to have occult powers were to be charged with fraud. This largely killed the witch accusations and the actual members of the Old Religion went into hiding. The Salem Trials are perhaps the most well known in America. They started on January 20, 1692; with two girls, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams. They were thrown into convulsive seizures, mysterious fits and trance-like states. Later, more girls began to exhibit similar behavior. They started the accusations by accusing three women. Tituba, a slave of Elisabeth's uncle, who was a minister; Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Warrants were immediately issued to bring these women in for questioning. Tituba readily confessed that she was a witch, saying that she had seen the Devil in the shape of a hog and sometimes as a dog. Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good both maintained that they were innocent. After Osborne, Good, and Tituba were examined; the townspeople began to accuse more people. Most of the accused were women whose behavior was bad or if they were poor. In March and April, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Elisabeth Procter, Sarah Cloyce, John Procter, Mary Warren, Bridget Bishop, Abigail Hobbs, Nehemiah Abbott, and many more were accused of being witches. They were all examined and of all of them only Abigail Hobbs confessed and only Nehemiah Abbott was cleared. The main examiners were John Hathorne (whose grandson Nathaniel added a w to the last name, making it Hawthorne), Captain Samuel Sewall, Jonathan Corwin, deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, with occasional help from Increase Mather, and his son, Cotton Mather, both of which were ministers and highly intelligent. The first to die was Sarah Osborne, who died in a Boston prison. The first official death by hanging was Bridget Bishop on June 10, 1692, not as some people think, Sarah Good. Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Wildes, and Sarah Good were all executed on July 19. When they were on the gallows, the Reverend Nicholas Noyes called Sarah Good to speak and confess, when she replied, "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink." This was thoroughly chilling to hear, since this was not what was expected out of a dying Christian, but it was expected out of a witch (or a malevolent old woman). The most important victim out of this trial was not Sarah Good, but Rebecca Nurse. No one wanted to believe that she, a good Christian woman, was a witch. Hathorne's own sister and her husband even testified that she was not a witch, and Hathorne had doubts while examining her. They even found her not-guilty of witchcraft during the preliminary hearings, but when this verdict was announced, all of the young girls who were being afflicted by witchcraft made a hideous outcry, as if being hurt, to the sheer amazement of the court. When she was brought before the grand jury, Amber Putnam, Sr., putting on more theatrics, said that the apparition of Nurse, came to her and started to choke her. After this testimony almost everyone in the room decided that the decision of the lower court was the wrong one. They used a slip of the tongue against Nurse in the final trial. When a fellow prisoner was brought to testify against Nurse, she said, "What, do you bring her? She is one of us,". The person prosecuting Nurse claimed that this was acknowledgment of her membership in a coven of witches. She really meant that the woman was a fellow prisoner and that she was not legally allowed to testify. But the harm was done. The jury reconsidered the previous verdict and this time convicted Rebecca Nurse of witchcraft. On July 19, she was executed along with Sarah Good and the other women, and she was the very model of good Christian behavior. On November 25, 1692, the General Court of the colony of Massachusetts, created the Superior Court to handle the remaining cases of witchcraft. This time no one was convicted. In all, twenty people died in Salem. Thus ended the Salem Witch Hunts. Since the first witch hunts so long ago, to the last of the Colonial Trials, over ten million people have died or been tortured because of fear of the unknown, hysteria, or wild accusations of children. Let this be a lesson to people who hate or fear what they think is different or strange. Fear is a disease which can kill millions of people, some even innocent, to keep safe a very few.
by Titania Moonfoster Most people now days think of witches as green, wart-covered hags with a black cat and a flying broom stick. But the true history of the witches is a gruesome and bloody one. Persecuted by religious fanatics, frightened and scared peasants and clergy, and falsely accused by children striking back at their strict elders. Before the worship of male dominated religions and monotheistic religions, there was one called The Old Religion. When Christianity was thought up, many attempts were made to convert to the "new" religion. The popes at the time built their churches on the site of the old temples to discourage the old worship and encourage the new. They called the old worshipers "pagans" and "heathens" which was somewhat accurate since pagan means people who live in the country and heathen means one who dwells on the heath.
The European Trials were one big spread of mass hysteria. This was fueled by guides to "witch-hunting" mainly called maleficariums. The most famous one was the Malleus Maleficarum written in 1486 by two German monks named Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger. There were many others, but none were more widely published. These books were full of religious propaganda and the beliefs of the authors. With the panic increasing, people accused anyone they suspected of "non-religious" behavior and those who used supposed magic to heal. (They really used herbs and other forms of healing.) Over the years in Germany, England, France, Spain, and countries around them, so-called "witches" were burned. Over three centuries nine million people were burned, hung, or otherwise killed, tortured and humiliated. The Church set up a group of special people to deal with the accusations. These people were called Inquisitors. When people were accused, the magistrates of the cities put them in jail and got the Inquisitors to question them. The so-called "questioners" then proceeded to take the person into their room and tortured them to get a confession, since they couldn't kill them without a confession. They tortured them by stripping them naked and either putting pins under their nails, ripping their nails out, putting them on a stretch rack or an iron maiden, pouring scalding hot water on them, putting them on a wheel partially in water and spinning the wheel, using hot rods to burn it out of them and many more disgusting and painful procedures. They burned so many people that in one German village they burned over 600 people at once, and in another village there were almost no women, children or cats left because they were all killed. They burnt cats because they were thought of being familiars of the Devil and the witches. This helped bring on the Black Plague because there were no cats to kill the rats who carried the plague. In 1736, an Act was passed that stated since there was no such thing as witchcraft, the people who claimed to have occult powers were to be charged with fraud. This largely killed the witch accusations and the actual members of the Old Religion went into hiding. The Salem Trials are perhaps the most well known in America. They started on January 20, 1692; with two girls, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams. They were thrown into convulsive seizures, mysterious fits and trance-like states. Later, more girls began to exhibit similar behavior. They started the accusations by accusing three women. Tituba, a slave of Elisabeth's uncle, who was a minister; Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Warrants were immediately issued to bring these women in for questioning. Tituba readily confessed that she was a witch, saying that she had seen the Devil in the shape of a hog and sometimes as a dog. Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good both maintained that they were innocent. After Osborne, Good, and Tituba were examined; the townspeople began to accuse more people. Most of the accused were women whose behavior was bad or if they were poor. In March and April, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Elisabeth Procter, Sarah Cloyce, John Procter, Mary Warren, Bridget Bishop, Abigail Hobbs, Nehemiah Abbott, and many more were accused of being witches. They were all examined and of all of them only Abigail Hobbs confessed and only Nehemiah Abbott was cleared. The main examiners were John Hathorne (whose grandson Nathaniel added a w to the last name, making it Hawthorne), Captain Samuel Sewall, Jonathan Corwin, deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, with occasional help from Increase Mather, and his son, Cotton Mather, both of which were ministers and highly intelligent. The first to die was Sarah Osborne, who died in a Boston prison. The first official death by hanging was Bridget Bishop on June 10, 1692, not as some people think, Sarah Good. Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Wildes, and Sarah Good were all executed on July 19. When they were on the gallows, the Reverend Nicholas Noyes called Sarah Good to speak and confess, when she replied, "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink." This was thoroughly chilling to hear, since this was not what was expected out of a dying Christian, but it was expected out of a witch (or a malevolent old woman). The most important victim out of this trial was not Sarah Good, but Rebecca Nurse. No one wanted to believe that she, a good Christian woman, was a witch. Hathorne's own sister and her husband even testified that she was not a witch, and Hathorne had doubts while examining her. They even found her not-guilty of witchcraft during the preliminary hearings, but when this verdict was announced, all of the young girls who were being afflicted by witchcraft made a hideous outcry, as if being hurt, to the sheer amazement of the court. When she was brought before the grand jury, Amber Putnam, Sr., putting on more theatrics, said that the apparition of Nurse, came to her and started to choke her. After this testimony almost everyone in the room decided that the decision of the lower court was the wrong one. They used a slip of the tongue against Nurse in the final trial. When a fellow prisoner was brought to testify against Nurse, she said, "What, do you bring her? She is one of us,". The person prosecuting Nurse claimed that this was acknowledgment of her membership in a coven of witches. She really meant that the woman was a fellow prisoner and that she was not legally allowed to testify. But the harm was done. The jury reconsidered the previous verdict and this time convicted Rebecca Nurse of witchcraft. On July 19, she was executed along with Sarah Good and the other women, and she was the very model of good Christian behavior. On November 25, 1692, the General Court of the colony of Massachusetts, created the Superior Court to handle the remaining cases of witchcraft. This time no one was convicted. In all, twenty people died in Salem. Thus ended the Salem Witch Hunts. Since the first witch hunts so long ago, to the last of the Colonial Trials, over ten million people have died or been tortured because of fear of the unknown, hysteria, or wild accusations of children. Let this be a lesson to people who hate or fear what they think is different or strange. Fear is a disease which can kill millions of people, some even innocent, to keep safe a very few.
(it still has yet to be proven, only that the disease, did exist)
(but what about the namesake, and the fact that each did have their odity,
what about the other things that the disease didn't do, or couldn't)
And the messages.......
We
know well it was a structured religionary base, and that any who defied
such base was concidered un-fit, and diseased as well,
a disease of the mind....( not to mention the land that was owned by the elderly and their simple women, as they was called... )
Witches
aren't made by reasons one picks out, they are made by reasons one
understands, much like the idea of faith, but on a level faith can't
touch unless you are forever touched by a being of light or darkness,
and just like the many mythos being flug around, no one can understand the question why?
Thats because it isn't why? that your looking for but How?
(why happened when you was looking in the mirror)
(and how is what you now understand by doing it...lol)
| if witchcraft and magic(k) is perception then see... | by Lux for everyone |
color defines aura, defines self, and defines level of magic(k) and why,
here is the chart, and how it works
first
the color that your eye is set for opon looking is you, meaning where
you stand in magic(k) as truth)... the hardest color image to see is
your goal (what your spirit will finally gain after all other colors are
mastered) and the 2nd one you focus on is what your to gain as your
bridge to the goal ( meaning: the power and emotion you use to gain your
gifts) how the amazing part......
never will two
people see the same magic(k)al pattern, however one in magic(k) (as
using) can track other patterns and even skip or refine their own,
witches can do this as well.....
as set in the body the colors are listed as they show up on the body,
witches can feel out these fields, and do this naturally, mind you this isn't an aura chart... its a life of magic(k) chart
the advanced secrets it would take an hour to teach, but a lifetime to know... (and tune)
consult the matrix chart to learn what field....does what...
having
an ego, teaches you nothing about the world, but using your ego to see
the mirror that is you can teach you more then you ever will know in
books or writings....
end psychobabble....
(be real)
| to see yourself as others might | by Lux for everyone |
(to be naked is this without clothing or having no walls or both..)
please take from my experience....
I myself was scared to be in a ritual let alone, skyclad until i felt
the freedom of not being judged and treated with the dignity and
caring that one who is in ritual and as a person deserves, the self
of the physical isn't why we go skyclad, if that was it why do
ritual...
I learned that all is as we wish if we as individuals wish it, the
body truely hides no secrets unless our mind seeks to hide them...
As far as i have learned the first churches of the romans designed
clothing as a way of mocking others as title, the egyptians and the
sumerians had no problem with going naked in ritual or in life, nor
did the greeks....
the norse had to where furs because of season,
but nudity issues isn't the aim of any but those that fear self image
exposure, and being naked
has no issue but to define a new truth in friendship and trust,
however some walls of personal choices must depend on why....
(natural has nothing to do with nature, it has to do with freedom to
be, repecting, and acceptance of ones self and others....)
(going naked 24/7 is a waste of money, and not going naked is a waste
of spirit...lol)
(but thats my understanding)
the freedom of not being judged and treated with the dignity and
caring that one who is in ritual and as a person deserves, the self
of the physical isn't why we go skyclad, if that was it why do
ritual...
I learned that all is as we wish if we as individuals wish it, the
body truely hides no secrets unless our mind seeks to hide them...
As far as i have learned the first churches of the romans designed
clothing as a way of mocking others as title, the egyptians and the
sumerians had no problem with going naked in ritual or in life, nor
did the greeks....
the norse had to where furs because of season,
but nudity issues isn't the aim of any but those that fear self image
exposure, and being naked
has no issue but to define a new truth in friendship and trust,
however some walls of personal choices must depend on why....
(natural has nothing to do with nature, it has to do with freedom to
be, repecting, and acceptance of ones self and others....)
(going naked 24/7 is a waste of money, and not going naked is a waste
of spirit...lol)
(but thats my understanding)
| Occul-pedia "Druid" modern | by Lux for everyone |
-------------------------------------
Members of the ancient pre-Christian Celtic
priestcraft of Britain and Gaul, a secret order
about which almost nothing is known. The term
'druid' means 'knowing the oak tree' in Gaelic;
the oak tree was sacred to the Celts.
The Romans tell us that the Druids were magicians,
but the nature of their magic is unknown. The
Romans also tell us that they believed in the
transmigration of souls (which may have been
reincarnation). They are said to have conducted
their cult practices in sacred oak groves, where
one of their chief rites was harvesting mistletoe
using a golden sickle. They are also thought to
have offered human sacrifices. It is probable
that they were the representatives of the ancient
Nordic and Christian Mysteries.
The theory that the Druids built Stonehenge or
Avebury, advanced by some antiquarians in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has been
proved by modern archaeological techniques to
be false.
Various Druid groups flourish in Britain and the
United States, but claim no connection with
ancient Druids. They celebrate eight pagan
festivals in outdoor henges and groves, the most
important being the summer solstice. Since 1985
modern Druids have been prevented from gathering
at Stonehenge for the solstice, due to vandalism
by spectators. American druids use a replica of
Stonehenge in Washington State.
Related books:
A Druid's Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year.
By Oak, Ash & Thorn : Modern Celtic Shamanism.
Celtic Bards, Celtic Druids.
Celtic Druids.
Celtic Lore : The History of the Druids and Their Timeless Traditions.
Celtic Magic (Llewellyn's World Magic Series).
Celtic Mythology : The Nature and Influence of Celtic Myth from
Druidism to Arthurian Legend.
Celtic Traditions : Shamans, Druids, Faeries, and Wiccan Rituals.
Clerics and Druids.
Drawing Down the Moon : Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and
Other Pagans in America Today.
Druid-Shaman-Priest : Metaphors of Celtic Paganism.
Druids.
Druids : A Beginner's Guide.
Druids : Gods from Celtic Mythology.
Druids, Gods & Heroes from Celtic Mythology (World Mythology Series).
Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions.
Omens, Oghams & Oracles : Divination in the Druidic Tradition.
Spirits of the Sacred Grove : The World of a Druid Priestess.
The 21 Lessons of Merlyn: A Study in Druid Magic and Lore.
The Book of Druidry : History, Sites and Wisdom.
The Celtic Druids' Year : Seasonal Cycles of the Ancient Celts.
The Druid Animal Oracle : Working With the Sacred Animals of the
Druid Tradition.
The Druid Renaissance : The Voice of Druidry Today.
The Druid Tradition ('Elements of ... ' Series).
The Druid Way.
The Druids (Nora K. Chadwick).
The Druids (Paul R. Lonigan).
The Druids (Peter Berresford Ellis).
The Druids (Ancient Peoples and Places Series).
The Druids : Celtic Priests of Nature.
The Handbook of Celtic Astrology : The 13-Sign Lunar Zodiac of the
Ancient Druids.
The History and Origins of Druidism : A Long-Lost Classic Resurrected.
The Lost Books of Merlyn : Druid Magic from the Age of Arthur.
The Secret World of Cults : From Ancient Druids to Heaven's Gate.
Thorsons Principles of Druidry (Thorsons Principles).
Veil of Isis or Mysteries of the Druids.
What Life Was Like : Among Druids and High Kings : Celtic Ireland Ad
400-1200.
The World of the Druids.
Further info:
Ancient Druid Order.
Celtic Druidism.http://www.religioustolerance.org/druid.htm
Celts and Druidism.http://students.missouri.edu/~sacredw/celts.html
The Druid Archive.http://www.lysator.liu.se/religion/neopagan/druidism.html
priestcraft of Britain and Gaul, a secret order
about which almost nothing is known. The term
'druid' means 'knowing the oak tree' in Gaelic;
the oak tree was sacred to the Celts.
The Romans tell us that the Druids were magicians,
but the nature of their magic is unknown. The
Romans also tell us that they believed in the
transmigration of souls (which may have been
reincarnation). They are said to have conducted
their cult practices in sacred oak groves, where
one of their chief rites was harvesting mistletoe
using a golden sickle. They are also thought to
have offered human sacrifices. It is probable
that they were the representatives of the ancient
Nordic and Christian Mysteries.
The theory that the Druids built Stonehenge or
Avebury, advanced by some antiquarians in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has been
proved by modern archaeological techniques to
be false.
Various Druid groups flourish in Britain and the
United States, but claim no connection with
ancient Druids. They celebrate eight pagan
festivals in outdoor henges and groves, the most
important being the summer solstice. Since 1985
modern Druids have been prevented from gathering
at Stonehenge for the solstice, due to vandalism
by spectators. American druids use a replica of
Stonehenge in Washington State.
Related books:
A Druid's Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year.
By Oak, Ash & Thorn : Modern Celtic Shamanism.
Celtic Bards, Celtic Druids.
Celtic Druids.
Celtic Lore : The History of the Druids and Their Timeless Traditions.
Celtic Magic (Llewellyn's World Magic Series).
Celtic Mythology : The Nature and Influence of Celtic Myth from
Druidism to Arthurian Legend.
Celtic Traditions : Shamans, Druids, Faeries, and Wiccan Rituals.
Clerics and Druids.
Drawing Down the Moon : Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and
Other Pagans in America Today.
Druid-Shaman-Priest : Metaphors of Celtic Paganism.
Druids.
Druids : A Beginner's Guide.
Druids : Gods from Celtic Mythology.
Druids, Gods & Heroes from Celtic Mythology (World Mythology Series).
Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions.
Omens, Oghams & Oracles : Divination in the Druidic Tradition.
Spirits of the Sacred Grove : The World of a Druid Priestess.
The 21 Lessons of Merlyn: A Study in Druid Magic and Lore.
The Book of Druidry : History, Sites and Wisdom.
The Celtic Druids' Year : Seasonal Cycles of the Ancient Celts.
The Druid Animal Oracle : Working With the Sacred Animals of the
Druid Tradition.
The Druid Renaissance : The Voice of Druidry Today.
The Druid Tradition ('Elements of ... ' Series).
The Druid Way.
The Druids (Nora K. Chadwick).
The Druids (Paul R. Lonigan).
The Druids (Peter Berresford Ellis).
The Druids (Ancient Peoples and Places Series).
The Druids : Celtic Priests of Nature.
The Handbook of Celtic Astrology : The 13-Sign Lunar Zodiac of the
Ancient Druids.
The History and Origins of Druidism : A Long-Lost Classic Resurrected.
The Lost Books of Merlyn : Druid Magic from the Age of Arthur.
The Secret World of Cults : From Ancient Druids to Heaven's Gate.
Thorsons Principles of Druidry (Thorsons Principles).
Veil of Isis or Mysteries of the Druids.
What Life Was Like : Among Druids and High Kings : Celtic Ireland Ad
400-1200.
The World of the Druids.
Further info:
Ancient Druid Order.
Celtic Druidism.http://www.religioustolerance.org/druid.htm
Celts and Druidism.http://students.missouri.edu/~sacredw/celts.html
The Druid Archive.http://www.lysator.liu.se/religion/neopagan/druidism.html
| the mystic(k)al circle | by Lux for everyone |
From another list
The Nature Of The Magic Circle
I've been pondering the nature of the Magic Circle, and just how many Pagans, Witches, and what I'll call `eclectic Wiccans' understand and use this concept. I have spent some time trying to formulate exactly how Wicca (basically Alexandrian/Gardnerian Craft) views the circle, and how that differs from a more generically Pagan or loosely Wicca-based perspective.
The Circle is a fairly central element of Wicca, and most systems derived from Wicca. It has a great many layers, and facets of meaning. Perhaps the most obvious is the purely physical/psychological aspect which most people grasp well enough. It is this which tends to receive coverage in the majority of books about Wicca, Witchcraft, or Paganism, and it is this I think that most newcomers initially see.
The Nature Of The Magic Circle
I've been pondering the nature of the Magic Circle, and just how many Pagans, Witches, and what I'll call `eclectic Wiccans' understand and use this concept. I have spent some time trying to formulate exactly how Wicca (basically Alexandrian/Gardnerian Craft) views the circle, and how that differs from a more generically Pagan or loosely Wicca-based perspective.
The Circle is a fairly central element of Wicca, and most systems derived from Wicca. It has a great many layers, and facets of meaning. Perhaps the most obvious is the purely physical/psychological aspect which most people grasp well enough. It is this which tends to receive coverage in the majority of books about Wicca, Witchcraft, or Paganism, and it is this I think that most newcomers initially see.
Basically, this describes the
demarcation of space, to be treated as sacred. The psychological message
to the unconscious that this is now a place of magic, and worship. Most
also understand the symbolism involved in calling the quarters,
incorporating the four elements into the circle, but perhaps there are
fewer who ever stop to look more deeply behind the concept of the Circle
than this.
In shamanic cultures we often find such
constructs as spirit vines, world trees, sacred caves or mountains that
act as a 'Centre of the World' and a path between various levels of
existence - the 'axis mundi', the central axis of the worlds wherein the
shaman is connected to all the spirit worlds and can travel freely
between them and act at will. The Circle is, I believe, a bit like this
for the Witch. It is said to exist 'Between the Worlds' and separate
from ordinary reality, as well as consciousness, and in my own
experience this is indeed the case.
On one level it is a
psychological state we are seeking to achieve, where we are centred
within ourselves, balanced, complete.... The quintessence, the 'spirit'
perhaps, that is the sum of the four elements and more. The circle can
be treated symbolically as a mandala for the Witch, and is an expansion,
or extension of the Witch's psyche and aura, and is personal to the
Witch who cast it. The act of casting the circle, as well as acting as
psychological cues to the correct frame of mind, reverence, etc, is a
'meditation' in a way, to place us at the axis of the worlds... outside
ordinary reality. It is a technique in and of itself, for the changing
of our consciousness to place us at our own 'axis mundi'.
Jungians
talk about this kind of a process as putting us in touch with the
collective unconscious, and of balancing the various psychological
functions via an 'organising archetype'. Mircea Eliade and Joseph
Campbell speak often of 'Mythical Time' and of a 'Mythical Reality'. In
this state the Circle is a glyph for everything, and at this level it
does contain (and can affect) everything that exists.
One
acquaintance recently queried the ability to 'keep something out' of a
Circle which contained everything, and was cause for some deep thinking
for me. As I see it this question is really symptomatic a logic problem
encountered when 'slipping' between these various levels. While the
Circle is 'everything', and does contain and affect everything on one
level, it is also still a small physical space on another (and a
definite spatial construct on the Astral on another) as well as a
psychological/magical state.
It is analogous to think of us
as a part of the whole web of life, just one small cell in a much larger
pattern of life, but still also, simultaneously, a discrete unique
individual. Both these descriptions are valid, depending on one's point
of reference. Or perhaps if we think about the physical properties of
light - some of its behaviour may be modelled by particle theory, others
by wave theory - and they are 'supposed' to be mutually exclusive.
Light doesn't neatly fit into our mental niches as physicists, and when
we start describing alternate states and magical constructs we tend to
experience the same slippage. Especially in magic, one's frame of
reference, and focus, tend to determine one's outcomes.
While
the psychological / magical / spiritual state may indeed encompass
everything, it is still possible to exclude influences from the physical
space where our bodies reside. However, this element of the circle has
never been particularly central to Wiccan practice. Summoning the
quarters to 'guard' or 'protect' is something we have been bequeathed
from Ceremonial magic, where it has far more rationale ... the Witch is a
part of nature, the universe, and working within her schemes has little
need to fear or guard in the way many 'white-lighters' seem to.
However,
the concept of invoking and 'awakening' - both externally and also
internally (spiritually and psychologically) - the various elements to
balance ourselves as 'Witch' and our circle as 'sacred space' is a very
necessary part of the process (in whatever form our casting takes) if we
are to use the circle as our 'axis mundi', that place outside of space
and time where we enter 'mythic reality' and are connected to, and able
to influence 'all'.
Containing and preserving power is an
interesting concept too, and another one which works more on the 'lower'
levels of the circle; the physical, 'simple symbolic' levels, and the
lower astral. It all depends on just how one goes about working magic.
If one works magic immediately, one 'releases' it to its destination as
soon as it is raised. In other cases, however, power is raised within
the Circle, and does stay, quite palpably discernable, in the Circle
until directed to some end or grounded.
Perhaps this is as
much a function of our own 'frameworks' or conceptualisation of the
process we are using in making magic, for the results seem to be the
same regardless. Or using the 'axis mundi' model, one doesn't 'send it'
anywhere, as you are connected to everything, including the target of
your working, and you simply 'change' it. But this concept and the idea
of 'sending power' streaming off to do its work are both ultimately
mental models to assist us in the act of magic, not the magic itself.
They are both different perspectives on the same single magical act, and
equally valid.
That said, at one Wiccan Conference, during
the practice for the ritual (no cast circle, just stage directions as it
were) I was standing pretty much in the centre of a double-spinning
circle of chanting attendees, many of whom were novices, and the energy
raised, the feeling of it was phenomenal. Of course, once the
circling/chanting stopped the power dissipated quickly, and it is here
that I think Gardner et al used the Circle, to stop it just 'leaking
away' until they did something else with it.
It has been
argued that this is merely illusion, that 'power' is everywhere,
omnipresent, and this too is true. It is all a matter of perspective,
and of your state of consciousness at the time. The use of the Circle to
contain and preserve power is linked to the view of the circle as a
place apart, and of energy as something to be stirred into action. It is
directly linked into our state of consciousness in Circle, and works
very well indeed.
by Hiraeth from Shadowplay Magazine
(try again) Hireath.....
-------------
saddly this person doesn't have a clue what the magic(k)al circle is?
(try again) Hireath.....
-------------
saddly this person doesn't have a clue what the magic(k)al circle is?
Its not about a prone design to the psyche or will, its about the bond and connection to pre-axis
powers created and re-fined in a kenetic space for those that know physics (an amplification bubble)
one that on the level of will, static energy and the the mental bridge *( binds all other magic(k)al fields and can even channel them to the host of said field)***
powers created and re-fined in a kenetic space for those that know physics (an amplification bubble)
one that on the level of will, static energy and the the mental bridge *( binds all other magic(k)al fields and can even channel them to the host of said field)***
Saddly it is the only major direct means of connection to bridging energy next to psychic touch....
Go go on with the psychobabble, It saddly means diddly to a person who does "Magica(k)al circles"
Heck even shamans know this.....
| The powers they wish witches didn't have | by Lux for everyone |
(a witch has cool powers)
shall i list them
can feeland track other witches without knowing them
shall i list them
can feeland track other witches without knowing them
can tap into the animals minds and feel their desires, rages and pains
can touch things and make them better, worse or dead
can touch things and make them better, worse or dead
can feel death and the sun and moon in any place
can change the weather and even feel the changes in heat and cold
can erase the mind of others and even re-mix dreams...
modivate fire energies, stop a match or fire from growing
modivate fire energies, stop a match or fire from growing
bend flames of candles in any form
contact and even channel spirit to rest or pass by a rope
walk with demons and even know their sygils and names
lift 1 inch off the grown (the flight)
and a few other things
druid shave almost the same but more empathic and dragon energy
and a few other things
druid shave almost the same but more empathic and dragon energy
oh, witches also have aerial servents beings of shadow that do as they bid given to them at the 5th ritual, "the return"
4rituals are offered, the fifth is your return as a witch...
four corners...
four elements
four natures
four truths
4 basic worlds
four corners...
four elements
four natures
four truths
4 basic worlds
just
a note: the 4 corners was madeup by ceremonial magic(k) mages...to
change the medium from elements to parts or watchtowers...lol
Tags: lessons of witch
| The Penta and the Mages aura | by Lux for everyone |
Now you get to see the diffrences in Mages and Witches
as said before on the outside few if any, but on the inside many you will find....(goodluck)
The Penta of Mage The 3 Tri of mage
----------------------------------------------
and now the Aura of the mage (female can generate this aura by being taught mage design, but it is rare if they do)
now you can say "i know........."
| The Penta and the Witches aura | by Lux for everyone |
The
Penta-gram is the balanced understanding form of the candle workings
based on the head,arms,and feet design of both male and female... even
though the fields are diffrent, they share the same beginning
rituals....(iniational or not....)
The Penta-Formation The 3 Tri Fields
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
aura is the electrical shock created by the friction and built up emotions
(seen only though a minds eye) and all magickal kind can....lol
| The consort of the witch and his 3 triangles | by Lux for everyone |
Though
others would say those of witch can be male or female it would be only
on the outer image and never fully on the inside, and as of the 3
triangles you will most understand.....
air
candle: the power to expand the mind and create the higher energy that
which binds the magic(k) and opens the door to time...
blue candle: the opening of emotions doorway to the sights of dreams
red candle: the power of magic(k) and connections to the sygils of being
(green field is the way, you will learn as with all things it takes time..)
now you know the mages 1st triangle
As opposite your born to be united by a form, the greater power the lesser being and the middle...time....
blue candle: truth of your trust and bond and connection to the witches energy and nature....
green candle: bond within the witches laws as a beginner to adept and a path that you will fully discover in time
yellow candle: A reflection to the energys of your personal but now amplified so as to attract others of your making....(beware)
(welcome to the 2nd triangle of the mage)
red candle: you walk in what was said of witches gift
blue candle: you walk in the emotion as well
green candle and white candle is your chosen road, and now it is time you walk in wisdom as well....(goodluck)
Here you see the 3rd triangle of the mage...enjoy
| the 3 triangles | by Lux for everyone |
In
Witchcraft study, one interested in learning doesn't go by any more
then the basics and this isn't drawn out into a form of social debate
instead it is the basic's that all accept as working meaning that to
understand you do....it... then investigation into why is offered
otherwise the need to study would be more then being but a
bookreport....(here is the beginning)
air candle : the witches psychic walls
fire candle : bridge of the body and connection to healing and hurting
water candle : connection to touch and empathic knowing
As for the 2nd triangle it is to develop the other energy.....and bond with the start to nature and the soul
fire candle ; naming of the witches internal energies and begining to the greater awakening of the soul
earth
candle : The oath of the witch and bond to the un-seen fields of time
and space (to truely use this is to own energy in life) later.....
spirit
candle : the key to the foundation of all magic(k)'s and the powers of
dreams and secrets (the gift of this is greater cause it leaves
memories)
now you know the 2nd triangle.....
air candles : act as a bond to the past but more
it will give you those mystical energies that made the witch famous and
infamous (so be careful)
water candle : completes the two field as set by your earlier bond with fire
and expands your sensory gifts ( to what end? ) ask your grand kids...lol
fire
candle : the internal candle now turned outside the energies of all the
earlier witches that was before will now be around your field, (your
now united in a way that even the blood relitives will not have.....
(you have now seen the 3rd triangle)
Witches of book and Wiccans build a mock version to that which many find the mysteries abit more atuned too....
but see for yourself.....
Folklore and Witchcraft
![[Folkloric witch motif]](http://shanmonster.bla-bla.com/witch/profile.gif) | Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and the filthy air! -- Macbeth |
Disclaimer
This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.- Allison Gross - Scotland
- The Black Dog - Shetland Islands
- The Blacksmith's Wife of Yarrowfoot - Scotland
- Brewery of Eggshells - British Isles
- The Dark Daughter of the Norse King - Scotland
- Edmund Robinson - England
- The Fiend Master - British Isles
- Frau Trude - Germany
- The Girl Who Transformed Herself into a Hare - Germany
- The Golden-Haired Girl of Unst - Shetland
- Hansel and Gretel - Germany
- The Haunted Mill - Germany
- The Lay of the Werewolf - France
- Lutey and the Mermaid - England
- The Miller Boy and the Cat - Austria
- Old Nan's Ghost - England
- Rapunzel - Germany
- Ridden By a Witch - Germany
- The Trip to the Brocken - Germany
- Trudd as Cat - Germany
- Two Eyes Too Many - Germany
- The Witch - Germany
- Witch and Hare - England
- Witch as Fox - Germany
- Witch as Hare - Germany
- The Witches' Excursion - Ireland
- The Witches' Revenge - Germany
- A Witch is Recognized - Germany
- The Witch of Treva - England
| letters of the occult.... | by Lux for everyone |
| Ye Old Witch | by Lux for everyone |
witchcraft isn't wicca those who want to re-introduce the design of it into modern as.....
1. witchcraft is an oral art that was passed down from one witch to another.
2. witchcraft was centered about female learning alone.
3. witchcraft had no trad or existing design on religion (only heretical paganism did)
4. its lore was told as of the way to defend from a witch not how to be one....
5.
It has no design in evil or good and was used as an ecapism for those
that wanted religion to be compact as in centered or ordered...
6. witches did not grow from the primal ways...
7...there is more......much more.
| wands and circles (the beginning) | by Lux for everyone |
As
with all thing the meat and potato's gives balance to the full meal,
and my teacher of witch has said, to know is not just to feel but to do
and understand why ... this is just a simple message with strong
roots...because being a witch is as you stated more then nudity, sex in
the higher levels of getting over them it is required but in a way that
is not need but energy, and that has its own truth...truthful pagans
want to own nothing know everything and be understood...
(wiccan's want a faith like the mist of avalon) or charmed on TV.....
(wiccan's want a faith like the mist of avalon) or charmed on TV.....
And good for them, but the simple fact is it teaches you nothing about everything...
The
reasoning of witch is not just to know yourself and be set free, but to
be a mirror to nature a miniforce in its tuning or changing, the key to
why any wished to be a witch in the first place...and none deny that
this is possible...
(the simple face is lots of book witches
no insight, and this is sad...fun but sad...) I'm a wizard who will
never enjoy the full nature of witchcraft it is after all a female
design, but when in a form of exchange, not sexual it leads to a grand
union ... of wood and stone ... let me explain....)
wood; creating, energy, life and even death
woman of the earth serve the use of a wand, not by cystal enhancement but its nature or beauty and ugliness (it is the beginning the bond between the witch and nature without the commitment, freely used to modify the witches self and even others of her circle with magic(k) or not...(the bond) that even time supports...I know...well
woman of the earth serve the use of a wand, not by cystal enhancement but its nature or beauty and ugliness (it is the beginning the bond between the witch and nature without the commitment, freely used to modify the witches self and even others of her circle with magic(k) or not...(the bond) that even time supports...I know...well
stone; energy drawing, connection to life and even memories and kin to the tree
Man of the earth, in the opposite of energy we have the outer or building of foundation, and that is based on script, wood was second thing that script was written on and why, cause stone lasted longer, stones only for where they are pushed by the earth, but not by their own design, each feed, wood and stone from the river to form but they share the land, the energy of stone comes not from the stone but from the fields and emotions invoked in them......(i could go on and on) but you can see why each is as I stated...) now what you don't know....or perhaps you do....
Man of the earth, in the opposite of energy we have the outer or building of foundation, and that is based on script, wood was second thing that script was written on and why, cause stone lasted longer, stones only for where they are pushed by the earth, but not by their own design, each feed, wood and stone from the river to form but they share the land, the energy of stone comes not from the stone but from the fields and emotions invoked in them......(i could go on and on) but you can see why each is as I stated...) now what you don't know....or perhaps you do....
wood can become a form of stone (petrified)
(now where magic(k) concerned, after the one whomever male or female in magic(k) has reached an advanced (adept or mage level)
and most know cause magic(k) happens without words...
(so the gifts of stone then can be made more then just wood based)
and the connection with the witches gifts can make sone wood as in mage as well.....(the pattern is quite winding)
but complete....
(now where magic(k) concerned, after the one whomever male or female in magic(k) has reached an advanced (adept or mage level)
and most know cause magic(k) happens without words...
(so the gifts of stone then can be made more then just wood based)
and the connection with the witches gifts can make sone wood as in mage as well.....(the pattern is quite winding)
but complete....
| 5 things about being | by Lux for everyone |
5 things on being a witch or beginning in witchcraft
1. a witches senses are never wrong, don't second guess
2. the power of a witches circle is based on the power of the witch,
2. the power of a witches circle is based on the power of the witch,
3. A witch can choose to love freely or hate freely or both
4. the elements support the withes general power that is created and bonded by her oath
4. the elements support the withes general power that is created and bonded by her oath
5.
A witch is first and for-most a master of the way of living, they can
give or take what they desire, if they have done all of the other 4
before...
(otherwise those that have well.....you get the picture)
| magician vs witch self | by Lux for everyone |
MAGICIAN:
One who in the form of study that requires slight of hand and
illusionism, early occult refence yo the idea of a mastering student of
both, illionism, Real magic, now with the k, and now newagy and alter
designing occult mages and one following a system of Ceremonial or High
Magick. To the public it often means the same as a Witch;
WITCH: 1) name of a followers of Wicca that find wicca fluffy or esoteric...( and copied by duids of the modern in wiccan pagan mixed design 2) Ancient, Now European but seen as all over the world (wordly) the a practitioner of folk magick (gypsy and greek) dianic/gia, especially that of herb and 'simple'
magicks (noe called hedge, stone, or forest... NOTE: Saxon for 'wych'. 3) initiated male
or female member of the Old Religion; one skilled
in the ancient wisdom; practitioner of Witchcraft. (and many a celtic use its design in their wording....
Witch: Thiching, from the idea of straw used by the one who weaves it into thread, whom the fates cut...and the idea of a wickerbasket binding the thin strips into one form, now used as a field of burning....ie wickerman/harvest
( my reference... life) before the wording wicca was offered to the idea that witches craft was more then it's own words, and needed a martyr....
WITCH: 1) name of a followers of Wicca that find wicca fluffy or esoteric...( and copied by duids of the modern in wiccan pagan mixed design 2) Ancient, Now European but seen as all over the world (wordly) the a practitioner of folk magick (gypsy and greek) dianic/gia, especially that of herb and 'simple'
magicks (noe called hedge, stone, or forest... NOTE: Saxon for 'wych'. 3) initiated male
or female member of the Old Religion; one skilled
in the ancient wisdom; practitioner of Witchcraft. (and many a celtic use its design in their wording....
Witch: Thiching, from the idea of straw used by the one who weaves it into thread, whom the fates cut...and the idea of a wickerbasket binding the thin strips into one form, now used as a field of burning....ie wickerman/harvest
( my reference... life) before the wording wicca was offered to the idea that witches craft was more then it's own words, and needed a martyr....
| kali and the female image | by Lux for everyone |
================================================
A Kali in Every Woman: Motherhood and the Dark Goddess Archetype
================================================
Wherever there's a woman in any home
doing her work
screening her smiles with her veil,
she is You, Ma;
she is you, Black Goddess.
Carefully rising with the light of dawn
to attend with softened hands
to household chores,
she is You, Ma;
she is You, Black Goddess.
The woman who gives alms, makes vows, does worship, reads
scriptures
all correctly and with a smile
who drapes her sari over the child on her lap
soothing its hunger with a lullaby,
she is You, Ma;
she is You, Black Goddess.
She can't be anyone else;
Mother, sister, housewife
all are You.
- Ramprasad (c.a. 1718-1775)
It is well established in the canons of Indian thought that every
woman mirrors in herself the divine feminine. The above piece of
poetry goes further and specifically informs us that every female
has in herself the Goddess Kali. At first appearances this comes
as a surprising shock, not in the least because of Kali's
horrific demeanor. Envisioned as totally naked, the visual tales
of her terrible form do not end with her dense black color or
with the skirt made up of decapitated hands she adorns in her
middle, making a mockery of all conventional images of
reassurance a goddess is associated with. Further frightening is
the necklace she vulgarly hangs around her neck. This is no
ordinary necklace. It is made up of heads she has severed from
the torsos of beings who were once as much living as you and I
are at this moment. And the horrors of horrors, she stands in an
arrogant gesture of triumph, one leg placed haughtily over the
chest of Shiva, one of the most powerful deities of the Hindu
pantheon, and who also happens to be her husband.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/pc19.jpg
The truth behind the mystery of Kali, it seems, is to not be
found by a conventional appraisal of her physical appearance.
Rather a faithful analysis of the deep symbolism underlying this
mighty Goddess is required to penetrate her innermost essence.
Traditional opinion is unanimous in accepting the figure lying
under Kali's feet as being that of her husband. Here is what the
same poet has to say about this aspect of her iconography:
It's not Shiva
At Mother's feet.
Only liars say that.
The ancients wrote clearly
that
while killing demons,
saving the gods from their fix,
Ma stepped on a demon child
fallen to the ground.
At the touch of Her feet
the demon boy changed;
suddenly he was Shiva
On the battlefield.
As a good wife
would She ever
put Her feet
on Her husband's chest?
No, she wouldn't.
But a servant is different:
Ramprasad pleads-
place those fear-dispelling feet
on my lotus heart.
In this striking example, Ramprasad the greatest of Kali's
devotees ever, saves her against the accusations that she
deviates from the path of a true Hindu wife by subjugating her
spouse. In a glorious moment of poetic imagery he establishes in
the goddess a power that is capable of transforming a villainous
demon into Shiva, the purest of all gods. Why transform this evil
being into her husband? She could have changed him into any 'pure
' soul, why grant him the status of her spouse? Why indeed? This
may lead us to theorize that by meditating upon the benevolent
goddess we, who are the wickedest among all, can achieve this
positive transformation. This suggests that in addition to
approaching the goddess as a child, she can also be courted as a
husband. It must however be stressed here that there is no
sexuality involved in this purely emotional process. Beginning
her worship as a child we may ultimately evolve into her husband.
This process mirrors the rhythmic pattern each of our lives
follow, i.e. starting off as a child to our mother and gradually
developing into husbands to our wives. Accepting that duality
exists in nature, such a hypothesis indeed projects the male in
an extremely positive light. But it is the female of the species
who comes out with honors here, by resolutely establishing that
when they are wives and when they progress to being mothers, Kali
forms an integral part of their characteristic buildup.
This positive affirmation does not however explain Kali's
blackness as complementary to her motherhood. Things fall into
place when we recall how creation manifested itself at the
beginning of the world, when nothing material existed. This
primordial state was dark. As is Kali, as is the womb, dark and
mysterious. Esoterically speaking black is not a color, but the
absence of color. It is what remains when all colors merge into
each other, or in other words the fount which has the
potentiality to give birth to all the colors of life. Another
poet says in this context:
Is my Mother Kali really black?
People say Kali is black,
But my heart doesn't agree.
If She's black,
How can she light up the world?
Sometimes my Mother is white,
Sometimes yellow, blue, and red.
I cannot fathom Her.
My whole life has passed
trying.
She is Matter,
Then Spirit,
Then complete Void.
- Kamalakanta Bhattacharya (1769-1821)
It is interesting to note here that in Egypt too, blackness is
associated with a positive symbolism, standing for the mothering
darkness of germination. Hence every woman by virtue of being a
potential mother and possessing the dark, cavernous womb which
grants her this capability, is a Kali.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/hu05.jpg
Strangely enough, scarcely having crossed one hurdle in the
positive interpretation of the Kali icon as a creative matrix, we
are confronted with another contradictory feature, here namely
the necklace of skulls ornamenting her beautiful neck. Indeed it
is a symbol of death. Believers in reincarnation maintain that
before it is invested with a physical body the soul of a man is
free and fully alive since it exists in the spiritual world,
which is it's true sphere of existence. When it is conceived in
the mother's interior, its death begins. The womb is thus the
symbol of the tomb. Or for those of us, who prefer to be
cremated, there are the fires which surround Kali, our archetypal
mother. Thus our physical birth is in a way our spiritual death.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ht20.jpg
Equally enigmatic is the short skirt encircling her tender waist.
The amputated hands which are strung together to form this
garment represent for her devotees the ultimate act of devotion.
This act consists in severing of all attachment to karma and
meditating upon Kali as the ultimate refuge. The path to
salvation in this belief lies not in following the karmic way but
rather giving up one's complete self in the worship of the
Goddess. As Ramprasad says:
Oh my Mind, worship Kali
any way you want-
just repeat the mantra
given to you
day and night.
Think that you're prostrating
as you lie on your bed,
and meditating on the Mother
while you sleep.
When you go about the town, imagine
you're circumambulating Kali Ma.
Each sound that enters your ears
is one of Kali's mantras,
Each letter of the fifty
around Her neck
bears Her name.
Ramprasad says, astonished,
The Goddess Full of Brahman is in every creature.
When you eat,
think that you're making an offering
to Kali Ma.
Kali contains within herself all our actions and the results
which ensue thereof. Our hands are the instruments through which
we carry out our karma, believing ourselves to be the masters of
our own destinies. The goddess allows no such misconception, as
she is the giver of life and also its terminator. It is in her
that all acts originate and it is into her that they finally
dissolve. This is the symbolism implied behind the carelessly
flaring skirt, hobbling with the dynamic goddess, and arguably
the earliest mini skirt in history.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/be33.jpg
Thus even the humblest acts we perform during the course of our
daily lives is to be viewed as an offering to the Great Mother
who is indeed our sustenance and nourisher, both spiritually and
materially. Rightly then, one of Ramprasad's poems is entitled
'Satisfy Every Level of Our Hunger O Mother!' It runs like this:
O Mother of the Universe!
You who provide basic sustenance
And subtle nourishment of all creatures!
Please feed us, Holy Mother!
Satisfy every level of our hunger!
I know the mother always feeds her hungry child,
Regardless of its foolishness or carelessness.
Goddess Kali, grant the child who sings this song
Your supreme blessing of total illumination.
Today is the most auspicious day!
Please, Mother, do not delay!
Goddess Kali, my pangs of hunger for reality
Are becoming unbearable.
Mother! Mother! Mother!
You are the longing and the longed for!
You cannot refuse your child's earnest prayer!
The question however remains of Kali's nudity. It is Jesus who
points us in the correct direction regarding this issue. In the
'Gospel of Thomas,' he says, in reply to a disciple's question
about when he would come again: "When you strip yourselves
without being ashamed. When you take off clothes and lay them at
your feet like little children and trample on them."
Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-American philosopher, elaborates:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet
they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom
of privacy you may find in them a harness and a
chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the
wind with more of your skin and less of your
raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the
hand of life is in the wind.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against
the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what
were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the
mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel
your bare feet and the winds long to play with
your hair.
(From 'The Prophet')
Ramprasad concedes that ordinary mortals like himself (and us)
could be bedazzled by these stark truths. He expresses similar
sentiments, and at the same time grants them the high ground of
abstract philosophy:
O sublime Goddess! O naked oneness!
What is the meaning of your nakedness?
Are you shameless, Divine Lady?
Yet even when discarding
royal silks, and golden ornaments
for earrings, bracelets, and anklets
fashioned from human bone,
you retain the dignity of bearing
suited to the daughter of a king.
What wild customs you follow, Ma Kali,
trampling on the chest of your noble husband.
You are the naked intensity of divine creativity,
while your consort is naked transcendence.
O Mother of the Universe,
this child is terrified by your naked truth,
your unthinkable blackness, your sheer infinity.
Please cover your reality with a gentle veil.
Why have you thrown away the necklace of pearls
that enhances your divine beauty
Wearing instead this awesome garland of heads,
Freshly severed by the sword of non duality?
Truth is not complicated. An innocent child is untrained in the
manners of the world but this does not deprive him from living a
zestful and complete life, albeit his/her mother forms an
integral part of his unified circle of existence. This is what
prompted Wordsworth to say that 'the child is the father of man.'
A child is imbued with the quality of intuitive wisdom, which is
the undifferentiating intelligence that existed before the world
was created. Kali's nudity exhibits this free state of archetypal
bliss, of which ecstasy is a characterizing attribute.
Conclusion:
Elizabeth U. Harding an intrepid Kali adventurer and fan,
describes in her memoirs how laborious and stressful it is to
reach the inner sanctum of Kali at the Dakshineswar Temple at
Calcutta, owing to the regular galore of devotees who generally
swarm her temple. After having reached the inner hall housing the
sanctum sanctorum this is what she says:
"Out of sheer awe and admiration one's voice automatically turns
into a whisper - yet, there is nothing intimidating about this
place."
Ushered into the presence of the deity our voices automatically
drop to a whisper, as a tribute of respect to the divine
presence. Finally face to face with Kali herself, this is what
transpires in the author's mind:
'But when one finally stands before Kali, time seems to stand
still. Everything stops. The people, the noise - all is
mysteriously gone. One stares with wide eyes, forgetting even to
blink. All one sees is Kali and nothing else. Overwhelmed with
feeling one whispers, "I love you." And from within she replies,
"You do so much more for I am the source of your being!"
This is the spirit in which to approach Kali. The Great Goddess
herself will then reveal her mysteries for all of us, solving in
the process, the eternal questions of life.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/zk39.jpg
===========================================
References and Further Reading:
Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols:
London, 1999.
Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet: New Delhi, 2002.
Harding. Elizabeth U, Kali The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar:
Delhi, 1998.
Hixon, Lee. Mother of the Universe (Visions of the Goddess and
Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment): Wheaton, 1994.
McDermott, Rachel Fell. Mother of My Heart, Daughter of My Dreams
(Kali and Uma in the Devotional Poetry of Bengal): Oxford, 2001.
Mcdermott, Rachel Fell. Singing to the Goddess (Poems to Kali and
Uma from Bengal): Oxford, 2001.
Tresidder, Jack. The Hutchinson Dictionary of Symbols: Oxford,
1997.
Walker, Benjamin. Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man, London, 1977.
------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent as a newsletter from the websitehttp://www.exoticindia.com
thank you :Nitin G
A Kali in Every Woman: Motherhood and the Dark Goddess Archetype
================================================
Wherever there's a woman in any home
doing her work
screening her smiles with her veil,
she is You, Ma;
she is you, Black Goddess.
Carefully rising with the light of dawn
to attend with softened hands
to household chores,
she is You, Ma;
she is You, Black Goddess.
The woman who gives alms, makes vows, does worship, reads
scriptures
all correctly and with a smile
who drapes her sari over the child on her lap
soothing its hunger with a lullaby,
she is You, Ma;
she is You, Black Goddess.
She can't be anyone else;
Mother, sister, housewife
all are You.
- Ramprasad (c.a. 1718-1775)
It is well established in the canons of Indian thought that every
woman mirrors in herself the divine feminine. The above piece of
poetry goes further and specifically informs us that every female
has in herself the Goddess Kali. At first appearances this comes
as a surprising shock, not in the least because of Kali's
horrific demeanor. Envisioned as totally naked, the visual tales
of her terrible form do not end with her dense black color or
with the skirt made up of decapitated hands she adorns in her
middle, making a mockery of all conventional images of
reassurance a goddess is associated with. Further frightening is
the necklace she vulgarly hangs around her neck. This is no
ordinary necklace. It is made up of heads she has severed from
the torsos of beings who were once as much living as you and I
are at this moment. And the horrors of horrors, she stands in an
arrogant gesture of triumph, one leg placed haughtily over the
chest of Shiva, one of the most powerful deities of the Hindu
pantheon, and who also happens to be her husband.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/pc19.jpg
The truth behind the mystery of Kali, it seems, is to not be
found by a conventional appraisal of her physical appearance.
Rather a faithful analysis of the deep symbolism underlying this
mighty Goddess is required to penetrate her innermost essence.
Traditional opinion is unanimous in accepting the figure lying
under Kali's feet as being that of her husband. Here is what the
same poet has to say about this aspect of her iconography:
It's not Shiva
At Mother's feet.
Only liars say that.
The ancients wrote clearly
that
while killing demons,
saving the gods from their fix,
Ma stepped on a demon child
fallen to the ground.
At the touch of Her feet
the demon boy changed;
suddenly he was Shiva
On the battlefield.
As a good wife
would She ever
put Her feet
on Her husband's chest?
No, she wouldn't.
But a servant is different:
Ramprasad pleads-
place those fear-dispelling feet
on my lotus heart.
In this striking example, Ramprasad the greatest of Kali's
devotees ever, saves her against the accusations that she
deviates from the path of a true Hindu wife by subjugating her
spouse. In a glorious moment of poetic imagery he establishes in
the goddess a power that is capable of transforming a villainous
demon into Shiva, the purest of all gods. Why transform this evil
being into her husband? She could have changed him into any 'pure
' soul, why grant him the status of her spouse? Why indeed? This
may lead us to theorize that by meditating upon the benevolent
goddess we, who are the wickedest among all, can achieve this
positive transformation. This suggests that in addition to
approaching the goddess as a child, she can also be courted as a
husband. It must however be stressed here that there is no
sexuality involved in this purely emotional process. Beginning
her worship as a child we may ultimately evolve into her husband.
This process mirrors the rhythmic pattern each of our lives
follow, i.e. starting off as a child to our mother and gradually
developing into husbands to our wives. Accepting that duality
exists in nature, such a hypothesis indeed projects the male in
an extremely positive light. But it is the female of the species
who comes out with honors here, by resolutely establishing that
when they are wives and when they progress to being mothers, Kali
forms an integral part of their characteristic buildup.
This positive affirmation does not however explain Kali's
blackness as complementary to her motherhood. Things fall into
place when we recall how creation manifested itself at the
beginning of the world, when nothing material existed. This
primordial state was dark. As is Kali, as is the womb, dark and
mysterious. Esoterically speaking black is not a color, but the
absence of color. It is what remains when all colors merge into
each other, or in other words the fount which has the
potentiality to give birth to all the colors of life. Another
poet says in this context:
Is my Mother Kali really black?
People say Kali is black,
But my heart doesn't agree.
If She's black,
How can she light up the world?
Sometimes my Mother is white,
Sometimes yellow, blue, and red.
I cannot fathom Her.
My whole life has passed
trying.
She is Matter,
Then Spirit,
Then complete Void.
- Kamalakanta Bhattacharya (1769-1821)
It is interesting to note here that in Egypt too, blackness is
associated with a positive symbolism, standing for the mothering
darkness of germination. Hence every woman by virtue of being a
potential mother and possessing the dark, cavernous womb which
grants her this capability, is a Kali.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/hu05.jpg
Strangely enough, scarcely having crossed one hurdle in the
positive interpretation of the Kali icon as a creative matrix, we
are confronted with another contradictory feature, here namely
the necklace of skulls ornamenting her beautiful neck. Indeed it
is a symbol of death. Believers in reincarnation maintain that
before it is invested with a physical body the soul of a man is
free and fully alive since it exists in the spiritual world,
which is it's true sphere of existence. When it is conceived in
the mother's interior, its death begins. The womb is thus the
symbol of the tomb. Or for those of us, who prefer to be
cremated, there are the fires which surround Kali, our archetypal
mother. Thus our physical birth is in a way our spiritual death.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ht20.jpg
Equally enigmatic is the short skirt encircling her tender waist.
The amputated hands which are strung together to form this
garment represent for her devotees the ultimate act of devotion.
This act consists in severing of all attachment to karma and
meditating upon Kali as the ultimate refuge. The path to
salvation in this belief lies not in following the karmic way but
rather giving up one's complete self in the worship of the
Goddess. As Ramprasad says:
Oh my Mind, worship Kali
any way you want-
just repeat the mantra
given to you
day and night.
Think that you're prostrating
as you lie on your bed,
and meditating on the Mother
while you sleep.
When you go about the town, imagine
you're circumambulating Kali Ma.
Each sound that enters your ears
is one of Kali's mantras,
Each letter of the fifty
around Her neck
bears Her name.
Ramprasad says, astonished,
The Goddess Full of Brahman is in every creature.
When you eat,
think that you're making an offering
to Kali Ma.
Kali contains within herself all our actions and the results
which ensue thereof. Our hands are the instruments through which
we carry out our karma, believing ourselves to be the masters of
our own destinies. The goddess allows no such misconception, as
she is the giver of life and also its terminator. It is in her
that all acts originate and it is into her that they finally
dissolve. This is the symbolism implied behind the carelessly
flaring skirt, hobbling with the dynamic goddess, and arguably
the earliest mini skirt in history.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/be33.jpg
Thus even the humblest acts we perform during the course of our
daily lives is to be viewed as an offering to the Great Mother
who is indeed our sustenance and nourisher, both spiritually and
materially. Rightly then, one of Ramprasad's poems is entitled
'Satisfy Every Level of Our Hunger O Mother!' It runs like this:
O Mother of the Universe!
You who provide basic sustenance
And subtle nourishment of all creatures!
Please feed us, Holy Mother!
Satisfy every level of our hunger!
I know the mother always feeds her hungry child,
Regardless of its foolishness or carelessness.
Goddess Kali, grant the child who sings this song
Your supreme blessing of total illumination.
Today is the most auspicious day!
Please, Mother, do not delay!
Goddess Kali, my pangs of hunger for reality
Are becoming unbearable.
Mother! Mother! Mother!
You are the longing and the longed for!
You cannot refuse your child's earnest prayer!
The question however remains of Kali's nudity. It is Jesus who
points us in the correct direction regarding this issue. In the
'Gospel of Thomas,' he says, in reply to a disciple's question
about when he would come again: "When you strip yourselves
without being ashamed. When you take off clothes and lay them at
your feet like little children and trample on them."
Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-American philosopher, elaborates:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet
they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom
of privacy you may find in them a harness and a
chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the
wind with more of your skin and less of your
raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the
hand of life is in the wind.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against
the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what
were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the
mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel
your bare feet and the winds long to play with
your hair.
(From 'The Prophet')
Ramprasad concedes that ordinary mortals like himself (and us)
could be bedazzled by these stark truths. He expresses similar
sentiments, and at the same time grants them the high ground of
abstract philosophy:
O sublime Goddess! O naked oneness!
What is the meaning of your nakedness?
Are you shameless, Divine Lady?
Yet even when discarding
royal silks, and golden ornaments
for earrings, bracelets, and anklets
fashioned from human bone,
you retain the dignity of bearing
suited to the daughter of a king.
What wild customs you follow, Ma Kali,
trampling on the chest of your noble husband.
You are the naked intensity of divine creativity,
while your consort is naked transcendence.
O Mother of the Universe,
this child is terrified by your naked truth,
your unthinkable blackness, your sheer infinity.
Please cover your reality with a gentle veil.
Why have you thrown away the necklace of pearls
that enhances your divine beauty
Wearing instead this awesome garland of heads,
Freshly severed by the sword of non duality?
Truth is not complicated. An innocent child is untrained in the
manners of the world but this does not deprive him from living a
zestful and complete life, albeit his/her mother forms an
integral part of his unified circle of existence. This is what
prompted Wordsworth to say that 'the child is the father of man.'
A child is imbued with the quality of intuitive wisdom, which is
the undifferentiating intelligence that existed before the world
was created. Kali's nudity exhibits this free state of archetypal
bliss, of which ecstasy is a characterizing attribute.
Conclusion:
Elizabeth U. Harding an intrepid Kali adventurer and fan,
describes in her memoirs how laborious and stressful it is to
reach the inner sanctum of Kali at the Dakshineswar Temple at
Calcutta, owing to the regular galore of devotees who generally
swarm her temple. After having reached the inner hall housing the
sanctum sanctorum this is what she says:
"Out of sheer awe and admiration one's voice automatically turns
into a whisper - yet, there is nothing intimidating about this
place."
Ushered into the presence of the deity our voices automatically
drop to a whisper, as a tribute of respect to the divine
presence. Finally face to face with Kali herself, this is what
transpires in the author's mind:
'But when one finally stands before Kali, time seems to stand
still. Everything stops. The people, the noise - all is
mysteriously gone. One stares with wide eyes, forgetting even to
blink. All one sees is Kali and nothing else. Overwhelmed with
feeling one whispers, "I love you." And from within she replies,
"You do so much more for I am the source of your being!"
This is the spirit in which to approach Kali. The Great Goddess
herself will then reveal her mysteries for all of us, solving in
the process, the eternal questions of life.
Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/zk39.jpg
===========================================
References and Further Reading:
Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols:
London, 1999.
Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet: New Delhi, 2002.
Harding. Elizabeth U, Kali The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar:
Delhi, 1998.
Hixon, Lee. Mother of the Universe (Visions of the Goddess and
Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment): Wheaton, 1994.
McDermott, Rachel Fell. Mother of My Heart, Daughter of My Dreams
(Kali and Uma in the Devotional Poetry of Bengal): Oxford, 2001.
Mcdermott, Rachel Fell. Singing to the Goddess (Poems to Kali and
Uma from Bengal): Oxford, 2001.
Tresidder, Jack. The Hutchinson Dictionary of Symbols: Oxford,
1997.
Walker, Benjamin. Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man, London, 1977.
------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent as a newsletter from the websitehttp://www.exoticindia.com
thank you :Nitin G
| Getae, schoolofsorcery ;thanks | by Lux for everyone |
ZAMOLXIS, THE GOD OF THE GETAE
(Herodotus, "THE PERSIAN WARS" Book 4, MELPOMENE, 93-96)
Zamolxis (Saitnoxis) was the Supreme God of the Getae (or Dacians), a Thracian people inhabiting a territory including today's Romania, but also extending farther cast and northeast. Our only important information concerning this rather enigmatic deity is the text of Herodotus quoted below. The scholars have interpreted Zamolxis as a Sky-god, a god of the dead, a Mystery-god, etc.
[4.93]. But before he came to the Ister, he first subdued the Getae, who pretend to be immortal. The Thracians of Salmydessus and of the country above the towns of Appolonia and Mesambria, who are called Cyrmaianae and Nipsaei, surrendered themselves unresisting to Darius; but the Getae, who are the bravest and most law-abiding of all Thracians, resisted with obstinacy, and were enslaved forthwith.
[4. 94]. As to their claim to be immortal, this is how they show it: they believe that they do not die, but that he who perishes goes to the god Zamolxis of Gebelezis, as some of them call him. Once in every five years they choose by lot one of their people and send him as a messenger to Zamolxis, charged to tell of their needs; and this is their manner of sending: Three lances are held by men thereto appointed; others seize the messenger to Zamolxis by his hands and feet, and swing and hurl him aloft on to the spear-point. If he be killed by the cast, they believe that the gods regard them with favour; but if he be not killed, they blame the messenger himself, deeming him a bad man, and send another messenger in place of him whom they blame. It is while the man yet lives that they charge him with the message. Moreover when there is thunder and lightning these same Thracians shoot arrows skyward as a threat to the god, believing in no other god but their own.
[4. 95]. For myself, I have been told by the Greeks who dwell beside the Hellespont and Pontus that this Zamolxis was a man who was once a slave in Samos, his master being Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus; presently, after being freed and gaining great wealth, he returned to his own country. Now the Thracians were a meanly-living and simple witted folk, but this Zamolxis knew Ionian usages and a fuller way of life than the Thracian; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, Pythagoras; wherefore he made himself a hall, where he entertained and feasted the chief among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants should ever die, but that they should go to a place where they would live for ever and have all good things. While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was all the while making him an underground chamber. When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of! the Thracians, and descended into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years, the Thracians wishing him back and mourning him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Zamolxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him.
[4.96] I for my part neither put entire faith in this story of Zamolxis and his underground chamber, nor do I altogether discredit it: but I believe Zamolxis to have lived long before the time of Pythagoras. Whether there was ever really a man of the name, or whether Zamolxis is nothing but a native god of the Getae, I now bid him farewell. As for the Getae themselves, the people who observe the practices described above, they were now reduced by the Persians, and accompanied the army of Darius.
(Herodotus, "THE PERSIAN WARS" Book 4, MELPOMENE, 93-96)
Zamolxis (Saitnoxis) was the Supreme God of the Getae (or Dacians), a Thracian people inhabiting a territory including today's Romania, but also extending farther cast and northeast. Our only important information concerning this rather enigmatic deity is the text of Herodotus quoted below. The scholars have interpreted Zamolxis as a Sky-god, a god of the dead, a Mystery-god, etc.
[4.93]. But before he came to the Ister, he first subdued the Getae, who pretend to be immortal. The Thracians of Salmydessus and of the country above the towns of Appolonia and Mesambria, who are called Cyrmaianae and Nipsaei, surrendered themselves unresisting to Darius; but the Getae, who are the bravest and most law-abiding of all Thracians, resisted with obstinacy, and were enslaved forthwith.
[4. 94]. As to their claim to be immortal, this is how they show it: they believe that they do not die, but that he who perishes goes to the god Zamolxis of Gebelezis, as some of them call him. Once in every five years they choose by lot one of their people and send him as a messenger to Zamolxis, charged to tell of their needs; and this is their manner of sending: Three lances are held by men thereto appointed; others seize the messenger to Zamolxis by his hands and feet, and swing and hurl him aloft on to the spear-point. If he be killed by the cast, they believe that the gods regard them with favour; but if he be not killed, they blame the messenger himself, deeming him a bad man, and send another messenger in place of him whom they blame. It is while the man yet lives that they charge him with the message. Moreover when there is thunder and lightning these same Thracians shoot arrows skyward as a threat to the god, believing in no other god but their own.
[4. 95]. For myself, I have been told by the Greeks who dwell beside the Hellespont and Pontus that this Zamolxis was a man who was once a slave in Samos, his master being Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus; presently, after being freed and gaining great wealth, he returned to his own country. Now the Thracians were a meanly-living and simple witted folk, but this Zamolxis knew Ionian usages and a fuller way of life than the Thracian; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, Pythagoras; wherefore he made himself a hall, where he entertained and feasted the chief among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants should ever die, but that they should go to a place where they would live for ever and have all good things. While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was all the while making him an underground chamber. When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of! the Thracians, and descended into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years, the Thracians wishing him back and mourning him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Zamolxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him.
[4.96] I for my part neither put entire faith in this story of Zamolxis and his underground chamber, nor do I altogether discredit it: but I believe Zamolxis to have lived long before the time of Pythagoras. Whether there was ever really a man of the name, or whether Zamolxis is nothing but a native god of the Getae, I now bid him farewell. As for the Getae themselves, the people who observe the practices described above, they were now reduced by the Persians, and accompanied the army of Darius.
| written in stone | by Lux for everyone |
Sumerian Tablet of Ereshkigal
"How Ereshkigal chose the Underworld"
Ereshkigal, Enki’’As time went by, Ereshkigal and Enki grew with the blessings of Creation’’s dawn. Curious and sometimes wise beyond their years, brother and sister played especially in the Watery Deep of Nammu the Sea. Enki would float here and there, whereas Ereshkigal swam and dived everywhere.
' Ereshkigal, I can't see you! Come back to the surface, will you? Why do you have to hide within the waters when there is so much to see and do without?’’ asked Enki with a sigh.
'A rhetoric question, young brother, without doubt', countered Enlil amusedly from the shore, where he kept watch over the Duku, the Holy Mound of Creation, and Mother Ki, his eyes gleaming with fond laughter. 'Just let Ereshkigal be for a while. At least I could do without her whys and wherefores for a minute or so!'
' I heard you, Big Brother!' replied Ereshkigal. She came out to the surface riding a wave, and immediately put all her efforts together to raise a mighty wall of splashing water towards the rock where Enlil watched over the Earth and Enki's floating body. Both Enlil and Enki ran for cover. They were going to succeed and escape Ereshkigal’’s watery rage... perhaps this time?
"Not as yet", thought Ereshkigal with a satisfied grin, dripping with water and as fresh as the purest springs of Mother Urash. She sat by Enlil’’s and Enki’’s feet.
' So I ask too many questions, brothers of mine? Of course I do! I want to Know and to Know I must ask first! At least this is what I feel it should be!’’ Ereshkigal ignored the resigned amusement of Enlil and Enki and proceeded with confidence: ‘‘ There is a whole world within the Sea and I suspect in everything there is. Moreover, there must be things beyond and below I feel I should know, and I will, one day. While you, Enlil, devise the Plans of Creation, and you, Enki, busy yourself with forms and shapes these plans may take without, I am concerned with the power within that binds these plans and images together in combinations of all sorts. I don’’t know how to explain it, but I simply feel there is a refulgence within, there is a Pattern that binds words and shapes together, beings and things, and it is this pattern I want to know. I will know. I just need to find out how.‘‘
A fleeting shadow crossed Enlil’’s smiling face. ‘‘I wish I saw things your way, Ereshkigal, just to understand and explain the unexplained. Take Kur, for example, and our dark little brothers and sisters who followed him to the land’’s end. It is true Kur and the others looked different from us. But why did they leave the safety of the Duku, the mound of creation, why did they go beyond the Waters of Mother Nammu.'
‘‘ You are worrying about Kur and the Dark Guardians again, Enlil. Why don’’t you take them and Kur for what they are? Whatever and wherever they are?’’ asked Ereshkigal.
‘‘ Had you laid your eyes on Kur, you’’d understand my concern. He and the others are different from us, from our younger sisters and brothers. '
‘‘ But why should we all be the same, Older Brother? Indeed, I believe we are all very, very different. In Form and Essence, despite some Resemblance in Appearance. I may be very wrong, Enlil, but I feel that if you keep fixing your eyes on but one thing, you’’ll miss out what could be the other side of the same thing. Or person and being,' remarked thoughtfully Ereshkigal.
' Wise words, little sister! The point is that I take my Guardianship over the Earth too serious,' agreed Enlil. 'But there is something odd I cannot understand about Kur. And I for sure wouldn’’t like to visit the place where he chose to dwell either, at the entrance of the Underworld,’’ countered Enlil.
‘‘ I am sort of curious about these unknowable things. And I don’’t fear what I don’’t know. Even this Kur you don’’t understand, Enlil. Indeed, I am curious about Kur,’’ replied Ereshkigal. ‘‘And where is this Underworld, by the way?’’
‘‘ None have gone there yet', answered Enki. ' It is beyond the edge of this world. Mother Nammu says that it spreads itself as deep below as the heights of Father An stretch above.’’
' This sounds really interesting! A whole new realm nobody has been to or knows so much about!’’ exclaimed Ereshkigal.
‘‘ O, sister, sometimes I wish you showed more respect for what you don’’t know. Just for safety’’s sake’’, supplied Enki.
‘‘ I am careful. And Inquisitive and Curious.’’ In her mind, Ereshkigal added silently " even about this mysterious Kur and the Underworld".
And so it was that Ereshkigal, the daughter of Nammu the Sea, born of the bittersweet loss that the Sky father felt for Ki, twin Sister of Enki, grew with the Desire to Know the Unknown and Reveal Patterns Unseen. Everyday she would play with Enki, her Companion and Best of Friends, and pester Enlil with countless questions. Everyday Ereshkigal would dive into the deep waters of the Mother and swim longer distances to resurface energized, with more and more questions in her mind and a deeper resolve forming inside.
One day, Ereshkigal chose not to return to the Middle world. This was the day she had found Kur (or he had found her perhaps?), and the little dark half brothers and sisters of theirs. They looked ugly and threatening, scattered over the edge of the world, at the entrance of the Underworld. They seemed to be lonely too, for all kept to their spaces, alone and isolated, but looking pretty menacing.
Little dark half brothers and sisters ?, So this must be a "wrong" and other creation of her mother Nammu with another God, but maybe a experimental creation of the Gods.
" So much pain and loneliness, such rage and hunger for what they know not what. Such desire to belong, but they know not where or how" , she thought, but didn’’t say a word.
Faithful to herself, Ereshkigal didn’’t flinch at Kur’’s features or at the misshapen faces of the dark little ones. Yes, he did not look like any of the other Anunnaki Ereshkigal knew very well, but this didn’’t make him threatening to her. Kur was... different. Indeed, with his huge scaly body and wings, Primeval Snake and Dragon, Ereshkigal felt he was like the raw power of Mother Ninhursag-Ki. A Beast, but she knew there was beauty within him... Still, Ereshkigal l felt no fear for the Unknown and a longing embrace it and make her it own.
‘‘ I am not afraid of you. Of any of you’’ she said out loud, and she meant it. ‘‘ You are my half brother, Kur, and so are the dark little ones. And somehow I feel there is beauty within you all, even if you and others don’’t have eyes to see. But I have. Dive into your Essence, brother, search for the seed that brought you, me and all into being. I also came from that seed. There you will find what unite us, what make us One of a Kind with the One who is All Kinds.’’
Thus she dived into the immensity of Kur’’s anguish and loss, for she accepted Kur for what he was, ugliness, pain, rage and loneliness to find out his all whys.
‘‘ I vowed to challenge and fight to the very end all who dared to fare to the world’’s end,’’ said Kur.
‘‘ And I take up the Challenge,’’ answered Ereshkigal. ‘‘But I’’ve travelled long and far to come to you. You are a Challenge to me. I need to understand you. And myself along the process.’’
" Why are you doing this?"
Ereshkigal heard the question in her mind, as she held Kur closer and closer to her own self.
" I myself don’’t know very well why, but I simply need to. Perhaps to grow in Understanding of who I am, of who and what you and your own are. To learn and Share, out of a Desire for Love and Healing that comes from the bottom of my heart, mind, body and Soul. And may this way, when I am wise about these things, may I perhaps earn my crown in a brand new Realm, ‘‘ she replied loud and clear.
Kur’’s features must have shown the equivalent to a smile, for his voice sounded also light-hearted and interested.
‘‘ You are strange, half sister. I won’’t fight you... as yet. Tell me about this new realm where you want to conquer your crown,’’ said Kur, his curiosity stirred.
‘‘ How... I still must find out. Where...’’
Ereshkigal turned round pointed at the distance, where the Unknown lied yet unexplored.
‘‘ There,’’ she said, ’’the Unknown, the Underworld, the Depths Within, where Appearances don’’t count, just Essence. Perhaps I’’ll go further by going deeper. Who knows?’’
Kur came closer and closer still. Ereshkigal kept her ground, just waiting. So although he might think he was seizing her, indeed it was she who had captured him. To stretch his and her boundaries of being. Heart pounding, but keeping very still outwards, Ereshkigal felt her awareness grow as she experienced the wounds Kur had inside, his desire to belong anywhere, to fit in. Suddenly, she also realized how different she had always felt. Even from Enki and Enlil, whom she loved with all her heart, mind and soul, but who could never dive into the depths she longed to thread upon.
Ereshkigal sighed deeply, and glanced into the distance for a brief moment, in the direction where Enlil and Enki sure were. Maybe her Quest was another. She turned to Kur.
‘‘ What I will be from now on, I must discover’’, was her cryptic reply to Kur’’s unspoken question, but she knew he understood what she still was unable to say out loud.
‘‘ It may be a long task,’’ Kur replied.
‘‘ Perhaps if I let each day bring what it has to offer, and see what I can do with what it brings, I will be able to accomplish something different. To learn something different and grow likewise. Will you do this with me?’’
Thoughtfully, but with an engaging smile, Ereshkigal stretched her hand to hold Kur’’s scaly paw. Together, they crossed the threshold to the Underworld.
Ereshkigal had always felt the pull to feel and experience the Unknown. Now she chose to go where no one had gone before, to stay in the uncharted realms of the Great Below, to fill up its Emptiness with her Being. Her voice then resonated loud and clear in all worlds of Creation, Heights Above, Middle world, over the edge of the Earth and, for the first time, echoed in the Depths Below: ‘‘ I claim the Realm of the Depths, the Underworld as my domain.’’
She had found her life’’s Quest. Not looking back, Ereshkigal crossed the threshold to the Below, never to come back. http://www.earthhistory.com/Ancienttexts/Sumer/sumer-ereshkigal.htm
(thanks crow keep the silence)
| Gather while ye may | by Lux for everyone |
For
witches charge is their aim and freeing the mind of fear, doubt, and
anst...only then can a witches full powers be realized.
A witch of power will share in both sides of magic(k) the reward and the justice and will gather the secrets to the final of the role of 3 mathematics (spirit) spirit is attained when all senses are alight with only one goal and that is to float in the dream of forever, this can be achieved by many means but the most potent of them is (stress created by the fire of candle one) the sharing of the aura...by sensitive touch, not sexual but that's a dynamic as well
most only want to robe, 3-5 fold kiss and that the blessing or to be scourged by a version of whip and that's more sado then spiritual the concepts all involve what i have said before but without the mirroring, when you study, you study to have, not just know stuff or fit into a group, A witch is her body and it is this body that extends to the grid of being one, truthful the witch is without equal, for once your a witch forever will you be, because of the oath taken in silent or in group or with a teacher it atunes the soul that your no longer one but linked to many, which one is better, ask yourself which color looks better with the room, truthfully you will not be sleeping in any room you care to paint, but those whom call themselves witches are what they make of their surroundings.....Care to paint...
A witch of power will share in both sides of magic(k) the reward and the justice and will gather the secrets to the final of the role of 3 mathematics (spirit) spirit is attained when all senses are alight with only one goal and that is to float in the dream of forever, this can be achieved by many means but the most potent of them is (stress created by the fire of candle one) the sharing of the aura...by sensitive touch, not sexual but that's a dynamic as well
most only want to robe, 3-5 fold kiss and that the blessing or to be scourged by a version of whip and that's more sado then spiritual the concepts all involve what i have said before but without the mirroring, when you study, you study to have, not just know stuff or fit into a group, A witch is her body and it is this body that extends to the grid of being one, truthful the witch is without equal, for once your a witch forever will you be, because of the oath taken in silent or in group or with a teacher it atunes the soul that your no longer one but linked to many, which one is better, ask yourself which color looks better with the room, truthfully you will not be sleeping in any room you care to paint, but those whom call themselves witches are what they make of their surroundings.....Care to paint...
A witches
power comes from her circle, but before you can have a circle or build
one you must know this , the circle acts as a becon to any witches
power, not just your own, and any who have magic(k) can feel them, like
they feel cold air, the only thing is that the circle can only house the
witches power and isn't able to protect anyone from harm, only generate
a form of wall in the spirit and thats what protects or projects,
As
you energy a fully charged circle you will feel as if your being
shifting and when you leave it will haunt your memories because your now
channeled into it, like a lost memory....the full extent can become
greater... now candles control the field, but they only mark the
direction of the energy about...
The dynamics of
a circle are close to impossible to know them all, but your soul will,
and it will when ready become apart of you...
A
pentacle is used only when refering to ones own, and is not used in real
magic(k) of a witch, why...because it is a common and ceremonial design
based on the Occult A's and not the trademark of witch... only during
modern times was it refered to as a marking of "sygil" of witch or
witchcraft......
The pentacle is more of a map and the
elemental chart composes the powers of said fields....(lol) but most
beginner know even this....
lesson 4: spells and rituals
| lesson 2 : the beginning | by Lux for everyone |
As you study, you will gain more but here are the basics......
The
Energy of the witches design is based on the symbols of the ages, and
as a symbol ages it has it's energies.... the witches essense is bith of
all the elements but the key to their re-discovery in most is by the
symbols of the making as in the way of the minds signs....
Each
keys is based on the way it is used and later the grander magic(k) can
be channeled by them, you need not these symbols to be a witch, but they
will re-awaken the secret gifts of the body, as the witches secrets
merged with the druids rites of night and day, they transformed the
natures of the witches shells....but thats....an ancient secret as
well....
Elemental witches, (lol) a witch is
composed, of all the elements and so are basic life, however with the
earlier info, you know why.....
(the nature of witch isn't in
chants and fokelore stories or gypsy tarot, but the heart of witch and
those relating to magic(k)al perks are on the road to witch)
3 stones to give the witch a beginning form of charge
3 incenses to bind the harmonies of spirit in outer and self...
3 sygils each used at the beginning of your oath to the nature of magic(k)
3 keys given at the time of reflecting to the ceremonial design of the witches outer circle........
the
witches language is in the writing, some in code and other in empathic
thought...(phoenican,ceremonial code given by druid scolar, and basic
hand in hambic) is the basic of the beginner witches magic(k)
understanding.....gothic/french/latin/and chinese later....
Fire
is the protector of the witches design and is the 2-3 ritual to grant
the witch a spiritual
protector...(ariel,spectral,astral,temporal,etheral)
Air
is the first design of the witches power, the ability to tap into the
others fields, aura, and even memories of the living or dead, and a
(adept witch, slows time)
Earth is the design
and the 4th ritual work, its design is quite basic the gifts of the
witch starts shaing iher gifts with the other magic(k) fields (calling
the corners, is a non-real magic(k) created to unify the design of
having as in ritual image, and is to most beginners only an emotional
door, but do as you think best) The Real Watchtowers
aren't....Watchtowers but mirrors created to utilize the circle or basic
psychic pattern, which is abit above the witches design as in using,
until she has mastered all her elemental transformations...
(The Dagons of Mythos are here)
Water
the 2-3 depending on your connection to Fires ritual, as each is used
the other then applies, the mythos of water is psychic will, but it is
more then that, and to be a witch of water is to know all things without
knowing why and it is a ritual that frees the mind and body of anything
that they who value as in wanting....(meaning) Waters ritual is the
ritual of connection, and if you value what you say and do, this is your
return, because it will create a bridge to all the other forms of power
and you can be like a kid in the candle store.....(try it and see)
All
who measure the best in witch will have these gifts given even without
the rituals, why? because everything grows and it re-develops itself
(the books can only tell you this) not how it happens......
lesson 3: witch
| lesson 1. The History of Rooting Witchcraft | by Lux for everyone |
Witchcraft
has been past on in manor of story, mythos and legend, however the most
known example is the time frame of the 1100's and 1300's based on the
model of the occult witch and her connection to the energies of the dark
and how the spirit is her domain.....(medium, sorceress, and the gypsy
maiden of birth....
The Patterning of the witches design has been based on the working
of
many a diverse concept of fear and hate as in those who find the
reality of magic(k) not happening in their model of the world, so the
church being the builder of their faith, found anything that was not in
their favor as in the "magic(k) of the churches" they when in search of
the idea, we don't have this, so we must quiet it, because it will mess
with our inner power, and that being the model of most companies, not
'religious truth" is the reasoning of why it was concider evil.... much
like, the fox and the grapes foketale.... he couldn't have them but
they was plenty for anyone but him, so he began to think that they was
sour/sickening/and old...
The Witch as i was
taught share a common bond between the senses and time, as in the
ability to tap into both.....they being alert to these tend to measure
their life by them, most frames of these people from my teacher view
stated that "a witches model of the world and un-seen is structored
about the images and spiritual experiences she encounters....."
Do as ye be asked to by the known
peek not into the pain of being
but know the souring and the will
for thee beith broken as water opon wood
thus taken into the known by sleeping
and found in the heart by the wisdom
of one lost in dream but vision thus arrive
The
Witches Power comes not from the soul nor the gate but links the
messages of the symbols of the 5 truthful directions, if this puzzle
seems difficult then you need to ask yourself...one thing....
Are you ready to see the witches way....
( as my teacher said)
The
witches image isn't what book or what way, it has nothing to do with
wisdom, or spells or ways of acting, it deals directly with the wirtches
magic(k)al powers, and some may have them natural others might grow
them, but if what you do isn't what you say....then your not a witch but
one
lost in it's memories......a witch is a bad student, because they defy
most forms of learning, because of the way they as witches can have the
answer before the question......
The Tools are keys to the witches image but nothing more and now
lesson 2......
| if they only knew | by Lux for everyone |
Ancient Origins
Actually it dates back to 3 areas before the celtic started, Ancient Hawaii, Haiti (all souls day), and the norse (ragnarock)...from hawaii (the volcano god) it was the basics of roman and greek island days of Aries... ( haiti, mexico, and finally america mid lands...voodoo (called the day of the black legba) then from the english mixures of the welsh, irish, the ghost days became Celtic 'sam-sowin' and with the moden view of the per- hanuting mythos,ghostly stories took over as the idea of the Day of the dead (which was more of a week festival) and today's modern All Hallow
The Egyptian, Druid, and occult, got the idea of this day last....because they raised the mythos based on religon not....common fears....
(to know it all takes 30 day before the day of all hallows, goodluck) enjoy your candy.........
(stories of those un-aware of the reality of days) 22-29 the 30-31 is casting..lol) watch the fog......
Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.
Modern traditions
The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as "going a-souling" was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.
The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.
Evolution of a holiday
As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there. It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties," public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or "grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.
By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.
Taken from the History Channel
Actually it dates back to 3 areas before the celtic started, Ancient Hawaii, Haiti (all souls day), and the norse (ragnarock)...from hawaii (the volcano god) it was the basics of roman and greek island days of Aries... ( haiti, mexico, and finally america mid lands...voodoo (called the day of the black legba) then from the english mixures of the welsh, irish, the ghost days became Celtic 'sam-sowin' and with the moden view of the per- hanuting mythos,ghostly stories took over as the idea of the Day of the dead (which was more of a week festival) and today's modern All Hallow
The Egyptian, Druid, and occult, got the idea of this day last....because they raised the mythos based on religon not....common fears....
(to know it all takes 30 day before the day of all hallows, goodluck) enjoy your candy.........
(stories of those un-aware of the reality of days) 22-29 the 30-31 is casting..lol) watch the fog......
Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.
The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as "going a-souling" was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.
The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.
As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there. It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties," public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or "grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.
By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.
Taken from the History Channel
| fired for being yourself...and why | by Lux for everyone |
From another list
~*~*~ EVICTED FROM WITCH'S WOODS ? REAL WITCHES UNWELCOME!!! ~*~*~
OK, I'm a Witch ? A REAL WITCH! NOT A wart-nosed, greenskinned,
broom-
riding
stereotypical Hallowe'en Witch. I don't cackle in high falsetto
while
threatening to cast spells on everyone; my younger daughter just
made
me a
grandmother, my hair is greying, and I have a nasty habit of telling
the
truth about what REAL Witches are all about, no matter how ho-hum
this
might
be ? In fact, magick, for most Witchs is essentially 'prayer-with-
props' ?
This was the reason I was fired from Witch's Woods, a
Hallowe'en "scare
factory" run by the owners of Nashoba Valley Ski Area in Westford, MA
during
the month of October.
I was originally hired with the understanding that I would be
the
good witch who would reassure the smaller children, drawing 'magical'
symbols on
their foreheads or hands to 'protect' them from the vampires, zombies
and
other scary creatures wandering the grounds. I was even instructed
to
be the
storyteller who read stories that WOULDN'T frighten the children and
I
could
talk about what REAL Witches are, so long as I didn't talk religion
or
evangelize. No problem. I spent nearly a hundred dollars at Barnes
and
Noble stocking up on books like those about Strega Nona (a series of
children's stories by Tomie dePaola) to read to them. I spent hours
on
the
internet collecting legends about la Befana, the Italian Christmas
Witch,
Baba Yaga, the Russian witch as well as gods, goddesses and other
magickal folk.
AND, I spent more hours scouring my own computer files for
stories and
poems I've collected through the years (as publisher and editor of a
free
online newsletter that deals with Pagan as well as First Amendment
Freedoms
issues) and printing them out too. I put in a lot of hard work
gathering
books, printing stories and memorizing poems ? even a song.
Witch's Woods opened last week on Thursday, October 3rd. Despite
very
poor attendance that first evening, as instructed, I wandered around
the
grounds, reciting a few humerous and fanciful poems about Witchs (see
below),
told a story or two, and talked with some of the adult attendees
about
what
REAL Witches do and the ancient origins of modern Hallowe'en customs.
The second night was chilly, drizzly and even more poorly
attended
but, I
did pretty much the same as before and even discussed some of the
scientific
principles ? such as quantum physics, chaos theory, the Gaia
Hypothesis, etc
behind the mechanics of Magick with one fascinated couple. But then,
close
to closing time, the WW director took me aside and fired me....
because
I was
"too serious ? not silly enough ? and interfering with the 'real
work'
of the
stereotype 'witches'" ???????
Not only does Witch's Woods persist in caricaturing Witches, not
so
much
evil (thank God/dess for that at least) as empty-headed, vapid and
utterly
rediculous, but they do the same for Native Americans. As part of
their
'story line' they have a 'village' of Peter Pan Never-never Land
Indian
caricatures as well. The only thing missing is a line of bearded
Hassidic
Jews banging heads against a stone wall and wild-eyed Islamics diving
model
planes into miniature cities.
Witch's Woods is privately owned, so I doubt legal action can be
taken
against them ? hopefully, I'm wrong ? BUT they CAN be tried in the
Court of
public opinion.
Seven or eight years ago I was fighting against the then-
hypocritical
exclusivist policies of Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, NH. They
advertized that ALL religions were welcome... except Pagans. They
were
incorporated as a Public Trust, so I was able to get legal help from
the
Human Rights Commission of NH. But it was a concerned public and
even
clergy
calling them and writing in defense of religious equality that won
the
day.
Ironically, as it turned out, the real villain in the plot was the
executive
director, hired by the Cathedral's BOD who was a radical
Fundamentalist
who
had secret plans to turn COP into a sanctuary open only to those his
denomination approved of. When I took him on, It tipped his hand
before he
had time to load the Board of Trustees with his own cronies. He was
fired
and I was actually thanked by the Board Chairman for alerting them as
to what
was going on before it was too late.
We the People have power. When we see an injustice, even where
there is
no available legal redress, we CAN boycott. We can demonstrate our
displeasure by refusing to patronize the offending establishment and
calling
or e-mailing to let them know.
Please, everyone, call, snail or e-mail
Witch's Woods at:
Nashoba Valley Ski Area
Power Road
Westford, MA 01886
(978) 692-3033
e-mail: nvski@aol.com
Everyone, even if you aren't Pagan or Native American and even if
you
don't live in the area, voice your displeasure ? and pass this alert
along to
others on your own lists. Prejudice against one is prejudice against
ALL.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
I would also suggest that a Native American elder living in the
Westford,
MA area check the place out for themself and report back to the
GRIMOIRE as
well as to their own communities.
After being released from a Nazi concentration camp at the end of
World
War II, Pastor Martin Niem철ller, a protestant minister wrote, "First
they
came for the Jews
and I did not speak out ? because I was not a Jew. Then they came
for
the
communists and I did not speak out ? because I was not a communist.
Then
they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out ? because I
was not
a trade unionist. Then they came for me ? and by then there was no
one left
to speak out for me. " Freedom is never free. It is paid for with
constant
vigilance! Question authority and think for yourself ? Before it
becomes
illegal.
(lol) if you was only a customer, then i would agree (speak out) but...
~*~*~ EVICTED FROM WITCH'S WOODS ? REAL WITCHES UNWELCOME!!! ~*~*~
OK, I'm a Witch ? A REAL WITCH! NOT A wart-nosed, greenskinned,
broom-
riding
stereotypical Hallowe'en Witch. I don't cackle in high falsetto
while
threatening to cast spells on everyone; my younger daughter just
made
me a
grandmother, my hair is greying, and I have a nasty habit of telling
the
truth about what REAL Witches are all about, no matter how ho-hum
this
might
be ? In fact, magick, for most Witchs is essentially 'prayer-with-
props' ?
This was the reason I was fired from Witch's Woods, a
Hallowe'en "scare
factory" run by the owners of Nashoba Valley Ski Area in Westford, MA
during
the month of October.
I was originally hired with the understanding that I would be
the
good witch who would reassure the smaller children, drawing 'magical'
symbols on
their foreheads or hands to 'protect' them from the vampires, zombies
and
other scary creatures wandering the grounds. I was even instructed
to
be the
storyteller who read stories that WOULDN'T frighten the children and
I
could
talk about what REAL Witches are, so long as I didn't talk religion
or
evangelize. No problem. I spent nearly a hundred dollars at Barnes
and
Noble stocking up on books like those about Strega Nona (a series of
children's stories by Tomie dePaola) to read to them. I spent hours
on
the
internet collecting legends about la Befana, the Italian Christmas
Witch,
Baba Yaga, the Russian witch as well as gods, goddesses and other
magickal folk.
AND, I spent more hours scouring my own computer files for
stories and
poems I've collected through the years (as publisher and editor of a
free
online newsletter that deals with Pagan as well as First Amendment
Freedoms
issues) and printing them out too. I put in a lot of hard work
gathering
books, printing stories and memorizing poems ? even a song.
Witch's Woods opened last week on Thursday, October 3rd. Despite
very
poor attendance that first evening, as instructed, I wandered around
the
grounds, reciting a few humerous and fanciful poems about Witchs (see
below),
told a story or two, and talked with some of the adult attendees
about
what
REAL Witches do and the ancient origins of modern Hallowe'en customs.
The second night was chilly, drizzly and even more poorly
attended
but, I
did pretty much the same as before and even discussed some of the
scientific
principles ? such as quantum physics, chaos theory, the Gaia
Hypothesis, etc
behind the mechanics of Magick with one fascinated couple. But then,
close
to closing time, the WW director took me aside and fired me....
because
I was
"too serious ? not silly enough ? and interfering with the 'real
work'
of the
stereotype 'witches'" ???????
Not only does Witch's Woods persist in caricaturing Witches, not
so
much
evil (thank God/dess for that at least) as empty-headed, vapid and
utterly
rediculous, but they do the same for Native Americans. As part of
their
'story line' they have a 'village' of Peter Pan Never-never Land
Indian
caricatures as well. The only thing missing is a line of bearded
Hassidic
Jews banging heads against a stone wall and wild-eyed Islamics diving
model
planes into miniature cities.
Witch's Woods is privately owned, so I doubt legal action can be
taken
against them ? hopefully, I'm wrong ? BUT they CAN be tried in the
Court of
public opinion.
Seven or eight years ago I was fighting against the then-
hypocritical
exclusivist policies of Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, NH. They
advertized that ALL religions were welcome... except Pagans. They
were
incorporated as a Public Trust, so I was able to get legal help from
the
Human Rights Commission of NH. But it was a concerned public and
even
clergy
calling them and writing in defense of religious equality that won
the
day.
Ironically, as it turned out, the real villain in the plot was the
executive
director, hired by the Cathedral's BOD who was a radical
Fundamentalist
who
had secret plans to turn COP into a sanctuary open only to those his
denomination approved of. When I took him on, It tipped his hand
before he
had time to load the Board of Trustees with his own cronies. He was
fired
and I was actually thanked by the Board Chairman for alerting them as
to what
was going on before it was too late.
We the People have power. When we see an injustice, even where
there is
no available legal redress, we CAN boycott. We can demonstrate our
displeasure by refusing to patronize the offending establishment and
calling
or e-mailing to let them know.
Please, everyone, call, snail or e-mail
Witch's Woods at:
Nashoba Valley Ski Area
Power Road
Westford, MA 01886
(978) 692-3033
e-mail: nvski@aol.com
Everyone, even if you aren't Pagan or Native American and even if
you
don't live in the area, voice your displeasure ? and pass this alert
along to
others on your own lists. Prejudice against one is prejudice against
ALL.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
I would also suggest that a Native American elder living in the
Westford,
MA area check the place out for themself and report back to the
GRIMOIRE as
well as to their own communities.
After being released from a Nazi concentration camp at the end of
World
War II, Pastor Martin Niem철ller, a protestant minister wrote, "First
they
came for the Jews
and I did not speak out ? because I was not a Jew. Then they came
for
the
communists and I did not speak out ? because I was not a communist.
Then
they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out ? because I
was not
a trade unionist. Then they came for me ? and by then there was no
one left
to speak out for me. " Freedom is never free. It is paid for with
constant
vigilance! Question authority and think for yourself ? Before it
becomes
illegal.
(lol) if you was only a customer, then i would agree (speak out) but...
Diana,
How they have their world is completely up to them, it isn't up to you
no matter how they view it to change it... When you took the job,
money and image they sold, you accepted the view they wished to
push...(religion, small minded, phoney, and non just persons) aren't
your duty to change unless your into the same selling that they offer...
(giving information on the reality of witch, i commend you, my teacher would commend you, but she
would say.......if it is meant to change then it will happen, feel for the time, and know your place in it...)
(giving information on the reality of witch, i commend you, my teacher would commend you, but she
would say.......if it is meant to change then it will happen, feel for the time, and know your place in it...)
I'm a Wizard, and your information, research and personal image is worthy of one of us....
(but a witch as i have learned uses not words but methods... and they can only balance.....
(unless you wish to be the lever of the new balance you create)
(but a witch as i have learned uses not words but methods... and they can only balance.....
(unless you wish to be the lever of the new balance you create)
(As with any job, you accept what you do....)
(they didn't hire you as their teacher or the woods teacher.....(perhaps that is what you wanted) being correct/original is great.....
but they didn't fire you because of your image, you got canned because of your bigger picture they didn't have the guts to share.....forgive them or curse them, but it wasn't your place to challenge them, unless you wanted the "woods" to be your vision and not theirs....
(they didn't hire you as their teacher or the woods teacher.....(perhaps that is what you wanted) being correct/original is great.....
but they didn't fire you because of your image, you got canned because of your bigger picture they didn't have the guts to share.....forgive them or curse them, but it wasn't your place to challenge them, unless you wanted the "woods" to be your vision and not theirs....
Now As a witch don't take it laying down,
and continue to share when you feel you should...
I do.....and my teachers did and do....
and continue to share when you feel you should...
I do.....and my teachers did and do....
To Be A Real Witch, is to be and let others of magic(k) feel you by your aura and energy
the rest is just doing your works.....
the rest is just doing your works.....
Your Spirit is Truely Rich with a Witches Heart...
thanks groton
| necronomicon design | by Lux for everyone |
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon of Alhazred, (literally: 'Book
of Dead Names') is not, as popularly believed, a
grimoire, or sorcerer's spell-book; it was
conceived as a history, and hence "a book of things
now dead and gone", but the author shared with
Madame Blavatsky a magpie-like tendency to garner
and stitch together fact, rumor, speculation, and
complete balderdash, and the result is a vast and
almost unreadable compendium of near-nonsense which
bears more than a superficial resemblance to
Blavatsky's 'Secret Doctrine'. In times past the
book has been referred to guardedly as 'Al Azif',
or 'The Book of the Arab'. It was written in
Damascus in 730 AD by Abdul Alhazred, in seven
volumes, and runs to over 900 pages in the Latin
edition.
The book is best known for its antediluvian
speculations. Alhazred appears to have had access
to many sources now lost, and events which are
only hinted at in the Book of Genesis or the
apocryphal Book of Enoch, or disguised as mythology
in other sources, are explored in great detail.
Alhazred may have used dubious magical techniques
to clarify the past, but he also shared with 5th
century BC Greek writers such as Thucydides a
critical mind and a willingness to explore the
meanings of mythological and sacred stories. His
speculations are remarkably modern, and this may
account for his current popularity: he believed
that many species besides the human race had
inhabited the Earth, and that much knowledge was
passed to mankind in encounters with being from
other "spheres". He shared with some neo-platonists
the belief that stars are like our sun, and have
their own unseen planets with their own lifeforms,
but elaborated this belief with a good deal of
metaphysical speculation in which these beings were
part of a cosmic hierarchy of spiritual evolution.
He was also convinced that he had contacted these
"Old Ones" using magical invocations, and warned
of terrible powers waiting to return to re-claim
the Earth — he interpreted this belief in the light
of the Apocalypse of St. John, but reversed the
ending so that the Beast triumphs after a great
war in which the earth is laid waste.
The famous H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon is a
work of fiction, undoubtedly based on the
Necronomicon of Alhazred, which is believed Lovecraft
never read, but learned of its existence and content
through his wife, Sonia Greene, which had been one of
Aleister Crowley's disciples, and possibly his lover.
There is no question that Crowley read John Dee's
translation of the Necromonicon in the Ashmolean; too
many passages in Crowley's 'The Book of the Law' read
like a transcription of passages in that translation.
Either that, or Crowley, who claimed to remember his
life as Edward Kelly in a previous incarnation, read
it in a previous life! Why doesn't he mention the
Necronomicon in his works? He was surprisingly reticent
about his real sources - there is a strong suspicion
that '777', which Crowley claimed to have written,
was largely plagiarized from Allan Bennet's notes.
His spiritual debt to Nietzsche, which in an unguarded
moment he refers to as "almost an avatar of Thoth, the
god of wisdom" is studiously ignored; likewise the
influence of Richard Burton's 'Kasidah' on his doctrine
of True Will. I suspect that the Necronomicon became
an embarrassment to Crowley when he realized the
extent to which he had unconsciously incorporated
passages from the Necronomicon into 'The Book of the
Law' (from Brief history of the Necronomicon).
The Necronomicon of Alhazred, (literally: 'Book
of Dead Names') is not, as popularly believed, a
grimoire, or sorcerer's spell-book; it was
conceived as a history, and hence "a book of things
now dead and gone", but the author shared with
Madame Blavatsky a magpie-like tendency to garner
and stitch together fact, rumor, speculation, and
complete balderdash, and the result is a vast and
almost unreadable compendium of near-nonsense which
bears more than a superficial resemblance to
Blavatsky's 'Secret Doctrine'. In times past the
book has been referred to guardedly as 'Al Azif',
or 'The Book of the Arab'. It was written in
Damascus in 730 AD by Abdul Alhazred, in seven
volumes, and runs to over 900 pages in the Latin
edition.
The book is best known for its antediluvian
speculations. Alhazred appears to have had access
to many sources now lost, and events which are
only hinted at in the Book of Genesis or the
apocryphal Book of Enoch, or disguised as mythology
in other sources, are explored in great detail.
Alhazred may have used dubious magical techniques
to clarify the past, but he also shared with 5th
century BC Greek writers such as Thucydides a
critical mind and a willingness to explore the
meanings of mythological and sacred stories. His
speculations are remarkably modern, and this may
account for his current popularity: he believed
that many species besides the human race had
inhabited the Earth, and that much knowledge was
passed to mankind in encounters with being from
other "spheres". He shared with some neo-platonists
the belief that stars are like our sun, and have
their own unseen planets with their own lifeforms,
but elaborated this belief with a good deal of
metaphysical speculation in which these beings were
part of a cosmic hierarchy of spiritual evolution.
He was also convinced that he had contacted these
"Old Ones" using magical invocations, and warned
of terrible powers waiting to return to re-claim
the Earth — he interpreted this belief in the light
of the Apocalypse of St. John, but reversed the
ending so that the Beast triumphs after a great
war in which the earth is laid waste.
The famous H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon is a
work of fiction, undoubtedly based on the
Necronomicon of Alhazred, which is believed Lovecraft
never read, but learned of its existence and content
through his wife, Sonia Greene, which had been one of
Aleister Crowley's disciples, and possibly his lover.
There is no question that Crowley read John Dee's
translation of the Necromonicon in the Ashmolean; too
many passages in Crowley's 'The Book of the Law' read
like a transcription of passages in that translation.
Either that, or Crowley, who claimed to remember his
life as Edward Kelly in a previous incarnation, read
it in a previous life! Why doesn't he mention the
Necronomicon in his works? He was surprisingly reticent
about his real sources - there is a strong suspicion
that '777', which Crowley claimed to have written,
was largely plagiarized from Allan Bennet's notes.
His spiritual debt to Nietzsche, which in an unguarded
moment he refers to as "almost an avatar of Thoth, the
god of wisdom" is studiously ignored; likewise the
influence of Richard Burton's 'Kasidah' on his doctrine
of True Will. I suspect that the Necronomicon became
an embarrassment to Crowley when he realized the
extent to which he had unconsciously incorporated
passages from the Necronomicon into 'The Book of the
Law' (from Brief history of the Necronomicon).
(As i totally agree, however the basics of this book is sumerian 'nonsense
to
some who are understaning in the way symbolism is set, it does have a
correct star formation and even a secret naming, however it is off by
just a few things, like linking and the bonding of said calling...
but the "necro-design, has been the model work sence the early 20's'
as i have found out by the idea of cult...s
the secrets of the basic necronomicon is the mixure of the hidden wordings, made visible at 5:00 in the morning... try it...
but as for the text, it is quite worthy of dust....)
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