WINTERSPELLS: Life on the Magical Path

“Abashed the Devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is…”

John Milton

This article was prompted by a pair of short films by a documentary film maker whose work I really enjoy. The films are called Black Magic Kingdoms and can by found on the Enigma Channel of Chris Everard. In these films, Chris pans over the masonry of Narbonne Cathedral and both inside and outside of Cologne Cathedral in Germany. What he says is correct: the stone is carved over with demons from the Goetia of King Solomon. To the modern mind, impacted as it is by skepticism towards the supernatural, atheism, and materialistic science, interpreting these figures as evocations to demons rather than to devotions to Christ is an easy mistake to make. But we have to realize that these magnificent buildings were not designed in modern times by people with a post modern mind set. They are visions from the heart and soul of the Middle Ages, and quite early at that —–the 12th century.

I was born into a French Catholic family. My father’s side was intensely religious having emigrated to Quebec in the 1604 and bringing their 1604 religious practices with them. Going to the cathedral in early childhood where both French and Latin were spoken filled my subconscious with powerful, numinous images and an endless attraction to things Medieval. It also implanted with deep spiritual struggle within. As I grew in the Existentialist 1960s, I was forced to question the basic Christian belief that Jesus Christ IS God.

But people in the Middle Ages in Europe had no such struggle. They believed. Only passionate belief could explain the sacrifices that must have gone into creating these massive and intricate temples, these consciousness transformers that send your spirit soaring.  Chris Everard is right that there is no place in the Bible that talks about these demons, though Satan is the constant underlying adversary of the New Testament, lurking between the lines —just as his minions cling to the walls of the cathedrals.

Medieval Christians really believed that Jesus Christ was God.

I am sure there are people who believe this now, but most  have a hard time with this these days.

Mystical, esoteric Christianity is a doctrine of Immanence—-the awareness that the Divine infuses everything that exists. Everything is alive and has a soul. If you believe in a Creative Intelligence that dreamed the worlds into life,  how could it be otherwise?.

God walked the earth in the form of a man to transform the world, to show  human beings that we too are capable of Higher Consciousness, even of miracles. By taking on human form, God infused His essence directly into humanity,  kindling the Divine Spark. His adversaries were those who ( to this day)  work to reduce humanity to the level of zomboid slaves. This is where the concept that God so loved mankind that He sent his only begotten Son (Himself) to save us comes from, I think: The devil was having a splendid time in the Roman Empire. Corruption, brutality, war, enslavement threatened to devour the world and God took notice.

The story of Paradise Lost by John Milton was based on the old Celtic myths about the War in Heaven that was caused when the archangel, Lucifer, challenged the worthiness of the God’s creation. He didn’t like the human race much and wanted nothing to do with it. Archangel Michael threw him out of Heaven and that was how he came to try to destroy us ever since. So the story goes…

The Cathedrals are Encrusted with Demons.

Most people in the Middle Ages were illiterate but they understood symbols—-pictures that were worth a thousand words. The cathedrals were referred to as Books in Stone. They were carved over with spiritual lessons: The life of Christ, visions of Heaven and Hell and the hierarchies of the worlds  for a few.

Symbolizes resurrection from death

The cathedral is the House of God. Often referred as Mother Church, the cathedral was meant to be the body of Mary, Mother of God. The faithful entered the body as sinners and, after receiving the Eucharist, exit reborn in Christ. For Medieval people this ACTUALLY HAPPENED. They really believed in this powerful supernatural event. Clever modern atheists like to point out that the Eucharist is cannibalistic, a vestige of human sacrifice. What they miss is that, to the believer, Christ/ God gave his life to be the LAST human sacrifice. The Resurrection made His flesh divine, no longer human but something higher that when taken into us transferred its power to us to transform our flesh.  Just as corn dollies replace human sacrifices to Goddess at Harvest, the wafer and wine stand in for the transmuted flesh and life force of Christ. The emphasis on the Scared Heart links the blood to the circulation of love and forgiveness through energy center of the heart by which we connect to the highest spiritual dimensions.

What the cathedrals teach us is that, not only was God’s purpose to redeem humanity, but the entire Creation including the seventy-two demons of the Goetia.

Medieval cathedrals have an area called the tympanum, the half moon area above the door with a depiction of Christ at the Last Judgment. On His right the good people are escorted to Heaven with the angels and on his left the bad ones undergo horrific tortures by the devils in Hell.

Of course the quickest interpretation of why these devils are here is too scare sinners into obeying the Church. I believe that is the role of Last Judgment Hell, though in this depiction from Autun Cathedral there is a touching image of Christ’s mercy as His hands reach down to lift the damned up form the lower depths.

This same compassion must be extended to the seventy-two demons whether they like it or not. Demons have no free will, they are what they are, but are still part of the Creation. This suggests that in order for full redemption to succeed, even they must be transformed to their divine nature. Even the deepest darkness must be returned to God. Indeed some of these grotesques—-for they are not all gargles or gargoyles—- exhibit a kind of longing for the light of understanding, a kind of confused  vulnerability.

I think it is a very beautiful belief that by entering such a place one is transformed form a body of corruption to one of divine fire and that all living things will be brought to that blessed state with you.

Can the Creation be redeemed with any piece of it missing? In Celtic Faery Tradition we learn that even Lucifer himself must be transformed, even he must be brought back to Heaven to sit at the left side of his Father.

Hierarchies of Worlds

“Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.”
— John Milton (Paradise Lost)

We can’t leave the Medieval mind set without taking into account the hierarchical view of the Creation. The above and below notions of Heaven and Hell were far more concrete when people believed that the earth was flat. Hell and the demons were under the plate of the earth. earth was like a flying saucer in space and Heaven was above. So we see in the cathedrals: The demonic figure are usually on the bottom and as the building goes higher, the angels and saints go up until, at the very top is often a Crucifix or a cross or a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Demons are in the roof, as in Notre Dame de Paris, I think reveal an awareness by the designers of the many dimensions that surround the Earth, our Paradise Lost. The limitation of stone, and all concrete images, is that they must SHOW things that are abstract by either anthropomorphizing them — as in the case God the Father as a bearded old man—-or must use space in suggestive ways that may not be understandable without an explanation. The explanation for demons being in the upper levels of the cathedrals could be that it was the only way to show that they are all around us in the fourth dimension. That they can see us through the ethers ( the sky) though we may not see them. This does not “elevate” them in status but does depict their power over us, spurring us on to take refuge with Christ—-inside the cathedral —in the body of his Mother, the Church.

As for gargoyles —many of them are not at all demonic, but rather images of peasants and common people –the only characters seen as fit to spew run off from the roofs, the only beings “low” enough to act as  gutters. Just doing their jobs…..

Freemasonry and the Demonic Cathedrals

The cathedral builders were the first Masons. What was merely the artisans guild of stone cutters has been transformed in modern times to a sinister secret society said, at the very top levels, to worship Lucifer. That being said, it does not mean that the medieval stone masons were into anything of the kind. Of course their emblems and signs are all over the cathedrals just in the way that even today, real silver is stamped Sterling.

Artists, again not readers of words, would have their signs, symbols that stood for their names. That these were co-opted by modern Freemasons does not mean that Medieval masons were worshiping the Devil. An aversion to the Catholic Church does not mean that it is right to interpret some the of the greatest works of art ever created with diabolical intent. These ideas are dangerous. Three-hundred years of the executions of millions of innocent people to such ideas getting out of hand attests to how dangerous these notions can be.

For me, our current escalation into scientific tyranny is far more frightening than the works of the ancient stone-cutters art.

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Interview with Robert Place: Tarot Illustrator & Historian

I was living in London when I bought Robert place’s Alchemical Tarot. I have been interested in Alchemy since discovering Carl Jung’s work on Alchemical Art in the late 1970’s and since been very aware of those forces at work in my life. So I was very excited to find this Tarot deck and even more excited at the idea of combining Tarot and Alchemy. The deck is also extremely beautiful and poetic. Robert Place’s style is so crystal clear and refined; his choices and use of symbolism inspired. But he wasn’t just inspired once—-he has gone on to be create four more decks and has two more in progress. The Alchemical Tarot was followed by Angels Tarot, Tarot of the Saints, Buddha Tarot and The Vampire Tarot. His recent history of Tarot, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination has been described as one of the most important books ever written on the Tarot. Works in progress include Tarot of the Seven-Fold Mystery (looks gorgeous!) and the Facsimile Italian Renaissance Woodcut Tarot.

In my research, I discovered that Robert is also an internationally renowned jeweler. If his jewelry is anything like his Tarot decks it must be amazing. He is a really nice man and we had fun doing this interview by email over several weeks.

All images are copyrighted by Robert M. Place and are used with his permission

Interview

Aline: I bought your Alchemical Tarot shortly after it was published. I love Alchemy, but I was also drawn to the clarity your images and the interesting combination of Alchemy with Tarot.  I would not have taken you for a Vampire fan. Is there an Alchemy of Vampirism?  Does the vampire have a place in the alchemical universe? If so what would it be?

Robert:. The first Tarot I designed was the Alchemical Tarot. The thing that I liked most about it was that it was inspired by a vision of how the alchemical Great Work, the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Tarot trumps were related stories. In fact alchemy seems to have influenced the original designers of the Tarot. So after I completed the Alchemical deck I wanted to find another story that was in sync with the trumps in the same way. My next inspiration was to make a Vampire Tarot because I saw it as a related story but the publishers were not ready for it at that time.

While working on the Alchemical Tarot I teamed up with Rosemary Ellen Guiley on the book for the deck. At that time she was also working on a couple books on vampires and I did some illustrations for her. I had always been enamored with vampire stories and I began to see that the literary vampire was related to alchemy. In fact in the novel, Dracula, alchemy is one of the disciplines that Dracula is supposed to have mastered.

The Philosopher’s Stone is described as a stone but not a stone, sometimes it is a liquid or it is immaterial. But it always described as red in color. The Stone is a mystical substance that can improve any substance that it comes in contact with, It can change lead into gold, it can cure any illness, it can turn an ordinary man into a sage, and it can prolong life indefinitely. This supposedly happened to the 14th century alchemist Nicolas Flamel. According to the stories, he created the Stone in the early 1400s and he and his wife are still alive. So you can see that the how this relates tot he vampire–both are looking for a red liquid that can prolong life indefinitely.

Aline: I had thought vampires might be connected to the nigredo- the shadow as well. You discuss that in your book. I am reading the book to the Vampire Tarot. Its really good.

Robert: This age old preoccupation with immortality seems to be at all time high these days.
That is an interesting topic in itself and how the Vampire mythos plays into that.

Aline: I have another question coming from the artist point of view. I am curious about your artistic path. I see the influence of the medieval woodcuts in your work. I wonder about your inspiration. Was Alchemical art an early influence on
your style and choice of subject matter?

What drew you to Alchemical art, the art or the study of Alchemy?

How did Tarot come into your life? That’s always a good story.

I have more, but I’ll save them. This is fun because we are busy people
and its nice to find a way.

Robert: I have always known that I was an artist since I could first pick up a crayon. As a child, I would look for inspiration wherever I cold find it. My first models for how to draw came from comic books but while in school working on projects I became fascinated with the pictures in encyclopedias and began to develop a delineated style like the ink drawing that illustrated the encyclopedia. I was always the class artist and I spent most of my time in grammar school working on large historic scenes that were stapled on bulletin boards.

When I was in fifth grade, we studied the Classical gods and my interest really peaked. I put together a booklet with drawings of all of the gods and goddesses that we studied. I drew them from pictures of Greek statues and the teachers and other adults were blown away by how realistically I could draw. It was the gods that put me over the edge artistically. I think that I lived another life in ancient Greece–maybe several.

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When I was in college in the 1960s I discovered the occult. I spent a lot of time in the library looking at books on occult subjects and started visiting an occult book store in Hackensack, New Jersey, and another in Greenwich village. I still have books from those shops. The one in the Village also sold powdered incense and I can still smell the incense when I open those books. One of my favorite books from that time is The Picture Museum of Sorcery, Magic, and Alchemy by Emile Grillot de Givry. This book is filled with magical and occult pictures from old woodcuts and engravings and it turned out to be an important book that continues to feed my inspirations. My girlfriend at that time was into the Tarot. She used the Waite-Smith deck, which was about all you could get in the 60s. But in the Picture Museum I saw pictures of antique Tarot’s from the 1400s to the 1700s and I started creating my own deck based on the Tarot of Marseilles. I only completed four cards, though, and then, seeing how much work it was going to be, I lost interest.

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I was not involved with the Tarot again for many years but, in 1982, I had a dream that changed that situation. In the dream, I received a phone call from a dream law firm in England and the ringing of the phone in that dream brought on an intense clarity that makes the dream impossible to forget.  Even now I can easily visualize the dream.  When the phone rang, I remember thinking, “how can someone call you in a dream?  I didn’t know that that could happen.”  When I answered the phone, a dream operator verified that I was Robert Place and then connected me with a woman from the dream law firm.  The second woman told me that I had an inheritance coming from an ancestor in England, and that it had great power.  She said that it was called “the key,” it would come in a box from England, and that I would recognize it when I saw it.  When I woke up the dream had been so vivid that I expected the box to be at the foot of the bed. It wasn’t, but, within a few days, my friend Scott came to my house to show me his new Waite-Smith Deck.  My head turned in his direction of its own will and then my eyes decided to focus on the deck in his hands. I immediately recognized it as my inheritance.  In a few more days my friend Ed gave me a Tarot of Marseilles deck. He said that he just had a feeling that I needed it. After that, I went to New York City to buy my own copy of the Waite-Smith deck.  With these decks, I started on my study of the Tarot and Western mysticism.

Aline: That is an amazing story! It sounds like Fortuna had plans for you—or the Gods were calling again.

Robert: That is how I started my obsessive study of the Tarot. I soon realized that most of the books on Tarot did not make much sense historically and that the occult correlations for the images were not that helpful either. Instead I looked at the pictures themselves and let them talk to me. The pictures soon led me further into the study of alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, mysticism, and magic, which I continued for many years.

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Now, let’s jump ahead to 1987.  By this time my study of mysticism and the occult had become even more obsessive.  Although I was making my living as an art jeweler, I was spending more and more time reading and less and less time on my work.  One day in August, I was looking at my old friend The Picture Museum and I became fascinated by a 17th century alchemical engraving representing the Philosopher’s Stone in an abstract way. The design depicted a heart in the center of a cross with images of the four elements assigned to each corner, an arrangement called a quincunx.  As I looked at this image, I realized that the heart in the center was symbolically interchangeable with the dancing nude in the center of the World card and that the symbols of the elements assigned to the corners were also interchangeable with the symbols of the four evangelists in the corners of the World. Pictures like this hold tremendous power and I had just unlocked the power in this one. It was like a key opening a door in the back of my mind and out of this door came a flood of images. Within seconds, I saw that all of the trumps in the Tarot were interchangeable with alchemical images and that when that interchange was complete it was evident that the Tarot’s trumps were telling the same story as the alchemical great work, the Magnum Opus. The Tarot could be read as a text on the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, the magical transformative substance that could prolong life.

Aline: How remarkable!

Robert: I began working on The Alchemical Tarot to illustrate this revelation and I started writing the book (although I had not considered myself a writer before this) to explain my vision. It took me seven years and the deck was published by Thorsons in England in 1995. Rosemary Ellen Guiley teamed up with me on the book. As for the images, besides The Picture Museum, I relied heavily on Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy, and The Golden Game, which is full of 17th century alchemical engravings. In keeping with the vision of the deck, I made conscious references to images from these engravings. My style of drawing is more like a woodcut than an engraving though. The biggest influence on my style of drawing in The Alchemical Tarot is Albrecht Durer’s woodcuts. I have a Dover book with all of his woodcuts and whenever I was stuck on how to render or shade a form with lines I would look and the book and see how Durer would do it.

Aline: Yes, I can see the influence of Durer in your work. But also the look of Alchemical art itself which is mostly woodcuts.

Maier: Atalanta Fugiens, 1618

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Aline: One more question: You have designed 5 Tarot decks. That is amazing!

Now, I painted a tarot deck in the 1990’s that was never published.
During the four and a half years it took me to do that, many weird things happened.
I began to wonder if the concentration on the cards was effecting my life. I did not paint them in order
but received visions that came when they wanted to an I painted them in that order.

Did you find that working on Tarot caused things to happen in your life?
If so can you share a story about that?

Robert: It is funny that you should ask about the effect designing the cards has on the designer because that is actually part of the reason I stopped when I first started creating a deck in college. I noticed that the card that I drew would manifest in my life. The last one I did was the Tower and after that I had a falling out with my girlfriend. So I stopped. When I started on The Alchemical Tarot though things were different. For one thing I no longer used the cards as a way of making predictions about the future. I came to see the Tarot as a way of conversing with the Higher Self and obtaining wise advice. Every card has wisdom to impart and if that was what manifested after I did the design there was no problem. What started to happen is that I would include details in the picture, guided by my intuition and not really know why I was doing that. It was not until later when I was using the cards that I began to understand some of these details and was able to read them.

For example, when I designed Justice I placed the female figure on a stone base in the center of the picture and placed two columns behind and to either side of her. Her arms extended to either side holding her sword in her left hand and her scales in her right so that each tool lined up with the column in the background. When I did this, I was thinking that this was an odd way to compose the picture. It was not something that I would usually do because I would be afraid that it would look awkward. However, it seemed to work and I went with it. Then I spontaneously added flames and a column of smoke emerging from her crown, like she was a furnace, and I put an eye in the center for the flames. It was not until I was looking at the picture later that I realized what I had done was to relate the figure to the Kabalistic Tree of Life with its three columns. The scales on our left related to the pillar of severity, the sword on our right related to the pillar of mercy, and Justice’s body formed the central pillar with the column of smoke rising toward the divine presence. That the scales were on the side of severity made sense because one has to be severe or unemotional to find the true balance without any prejudice. Also the sword is a symbol of action or punishment and this does need to be tempered with mercy or forgiveness.

Aline: The archetypes are very powerful. They have to well up in your subconscious mind when you dwell on the symbols and then putting them paper “manifests ” them in some way. It is interesting that that was more managable when you stopped using them for divination —-perhaps your approach prevented the dark side being triggered…

Is there anything you would like to add? Are there any new projects you would like us to know about?

Robert Right now I am working on a book about the Tarot exhibition that I curated at the LA Craft and Folk Art Museum. The exhibit was a huge success. It got two articles in the LA Times and record attendance. This book will be a catalog of the show providing examples of important Tarot decks from the earliest 15th century Italian decks to the latest designs by contemporary artists. It also will have additional illustrations comparing the Tarot designs and symbols to other Renaissance and occult art and even to Egyptian art. It features all of the trumps from my Annotated Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery, which I actually completed for the exhibit, and all of the trumps from my Alchemical Tarot with related examples of alchemical art.

People who are interested in finding out when it is complete should watch my web site, link to me on Facebook, or sign up for my email newsletter.

There is information at my web site:
http://www. thealchemicalegg.com

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“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?”

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Saturn and the Nature of Consciousness

Our spiritual growth is dependent on the growth of others. If but one person wakes up, he can pull others up by their roots. — I-Ching

Due to my belated interest in the 2012  scenario, I have only recently paid attention the theorists who predict everything from full planetary destruction, the installation of the dreaded One World Government, and even planetary ascension to a higher vibrational sphere. While the more sensationalistic of these warnings scare me to death, occultist Michael Tsarion holds out the possibility that development of our individual consciousness on a mass level can swing this transformation onto a path of true awakening and with it greater freedom and wisdom.

Michael is an astrologer. If you have read any of my other blog posts you know I often use astrological symbols to look deeper into things such as solstice imagery, folklore, and ritual.

One point Michael Tsarion made has been turning over and over in my mind: The old order of the Age of Pisces was under the rule of Saturn. The new Age of Aquarius is ruled by Uranus in conjunction with Pluto.

The Age of Pisces has been an age of repression. The Age of Aquarius will be a time of mass awakening.

I am an Aquarian with strong Pluto and Saturn aspects. My Capricorn moon is ruled by Saturn—all those rings circling around your emotions means that every time the old bugger moves you feel it. I have suffered a lot with Saturn transits—-as do most people. In conversations with others on this subject, most people will say things like, “Saturn is your teacher.” “We are here to learn.” “We only learn by suffering.” Or even “Earth is prison so you have to do your time because of all your bad karma.”

I never bought any of that.

I prefer the action of Pluto to Saturn. Most people are shocked when I say that because they are scared of Pluto—-God of the Underworld (of the unconscious…). But Pluto is also the God of Wealth who brings transformation. Pluto, the psychologist, brings the soul to light. His action is creative, mythical.

Saturn is a nasty old school teacher who is bitter, hates children and therefore believes corporal punishment is the only way to teach them. The idea that one could learn through beauty, art, nature, etc. doesn’t seem to occur to the old taskmaster. The idea that surrendering to the dark forces of the unconscious—dark only because it is unconscious—is thought by the rigid old blighter to be a descent into chaos—- into the Hell of his unresolved repressions that is.

I beg to differ. The unconscious is a gold mine.

Saturn is Straight out of Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte

This is Saturn from Jane Eyre:

Mr. Brocklehurst -  The cruel, hypocritical master of the Lowood School, Mr. Brocklehurst preaches a doctrine of privation, while stealing from the school to support his luxurious lifestyle. After a typhus epidemic sweeps Lowood, Brocklehurst’s shifty and dishonest practices are brought to light and he is publicly discredited.

Saturn by Peter Paul Rubens — Saturn eating his children

Why did Saturn eat his children? He was afraid they would take away his power.

These Saturnian qualities are so symptomatic of the times we have been living through it can’t be missed.

Things of Beauty Misused

The old father figure, strict and cold of heart, who knows what is good for us, who projects his own inadequacy, unworthiness, and vulnerability onto us and punishes us for it has been the role of church and state for over 2000 years. It wasn’t all bad. Saturn’s rulership over stones has resulted in some of the most magnificent architecture, sculpture, jewels,—Pisces rulership over music, visionary art, storytelling, dance, film have given the world windows into the soul that cannot be surpassed. But like all things of great power and beauty, these sublime gifts were mis-used to seduce the soul into accepting Saturn’s  agenda of control and enslavement to the what astrologer Jeff Green calls “the sado-masochistic axis of Virgo/Pisces”.

I don’t care what Liz Green (author of Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil) says, some of us cannot be taught by Saturn. Punishment is not our learning style. The tragedy is that this Saturnian mindset has made a wreck of our gorgeous planet, combined with Pisces it has used every from of deception, manipulation, imagery and irrational fear verging on hysteria to reduce humanity to be nothing but slaves to our base appetites, degrading us so that those great father figures in their ivory towers—- what Michael calls “Big Daddy”—- can sell us stuff. All the while they look down on us for behaving that way and happily crush us under their all-powerful thumbs  while they hoard all the money (Capricorn) for themselves.

I also recently found out that coal mining in West Virginia has evolved beyond the horrors of strip mining the side of the beautiful Appalachian Mountains. Mining companies now prefer the expedient of blowing off the entire top the mountain! The mountain will NEVER recover from that. In a forum, one kind soul pointed out that people who live in West Virginia should not be blamed because they have to make a living and are afraid to buck the system. THIS IS THE GRIP OF SATURN IN OLD MONEYBAGS CAPRICORN. Saturn keeps you miserable and afraid so you will continue to tow the line —-and this insight has answered all my deepest questions —–Its hard to accept but the UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE put that tyrant in power in the first place. Saturn is inside of us. The great art of the Age of Pisces that was meant to free us and uplift was co-opted by the dark side and turned to their profit. It is no accident that artists get next to nothing for bringing through great works that middle men got rich from.

What does that mean?

We are finally passing out of the Kali Yuga—-the time in the Hindu calendar of the Aeons of greatest darkness and evil. Kali is meant to be a cleansing force, a Plutonian cycle of Death and Rebirth.   God Creator Intelligence put us through this to refine our desires. It’s as if we have to bottom out before we can transcend. The trouble is that each new generation has to start over, but I don’t think that was the divine plan. Parents are meant to hand down consciousness to their children. This has not been happening.

The time of freedom is at hand. We have to choose how we are going to get out form the tyranny of Saturn.

The door is open. There is that whole bit in the Bible about separating the Sheep from the Goats. Well, then your damned if you do and your damned if you don’t because the goat is Capricorn ruled by Saturn and the sheep are what Big Daddy wants us all to be so he can lead us like Pied Piper to our own destruction.

BUT, the sheep is also the creature of Aries —-the sheep is capable of standing on his hind legs and if you have never been stared down by a sheep you don’t know how aggressive they can be. Uranus will soon be moving into Aries —-the sheep is going to demand its freedom from Saturn.

This is excellent. If people would drop their Saturnian fears and see them for the Pisces illusions they are, than waking up will not be so difficult.

As a Lightbody Integration for Ascension practioner, I know that if 7,000 people wake up, we will be able to “lift the rest up by their roots.” This is a call for all those able to grab that Uranian energy in Aries, and take advantage of that Plutonian transformation taking place in Capricorn to expose and dismantle the current social structure of this world. One World Government under the rule of the Old Men, Big Daddy Warbucks will be defeated because we will throw off them off by our sheer refusal to cooperate.  We have to be awake to their agenda in order to do that. We the sheep, empowered by Uranus, can change the vibration of humanity, and save ourselves and the Mother Earth.

The Gods of Our Time

Saturn, God of Time, castrated his father Uranus and seized his power.

Saturn cast the severed genitals of Uranus into the sea. From the foam  the goddess Venus (Aphodite to the Greeks) was born. (Venus is the Morning Star — an inspiring and beneficial planet of love called Lucifer in ancient times. Lucferian Venus has been degraded by those in power who use sex to stimulate our reptilian brains to excite the base appetites  to enslave us.)

From blood from Uranus’s grievous wound dripped onto the Earth. From the union of the blood of Uranus, and the Earth, the Giants leaped into being.

Pluto, or the Greek, Hades, is the son of Unranus and Rhea, the Earth.

Looks like Saturn is caught between his  resurrected father, his son and Mother Earth.

Hades

One more thing: The painting above is a picture of Hades where the god Hades, the Greek equivalent to Pluto, rules over the dead and all the minerals under the Earth.. This is your unconscious mind. This darkness is what certain Saturnian crime bosses and  big shots would love to live in and therefore they want to create this for you by activating the dark side of Pluto.

Pluto rules Scorpio and includes all the power based emotional patterns of that sign. It also takes advantage of other people’s money, underworld secret societies, murder, plots and all of that.

Pluto in Capricorn can thus generate a lethal cocktail for free thinkers everywhere, but it  also gives a clear signal to distrust everything and everyone claiming authority — especially the wolves in sheep’s clothing that they serve up as our saviors.

Our first job should be to clean up our inner world and insist on consciously creating and co-creating the Heaven on Earth we  really want. It is up to us to heal the Wasteland by questioning everything. Uranus in Aries — coming next year — can give us that strength, or deteriorate into violent revolution. It is our choice. I will do my best and I hope you will do yours.

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Babalon Diaries: Appendix Three

Though The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome was the film made by Kenneth Anger most associated with the Babalon Working this film, Lucifer Rising, seems to me to be related to it. Perhaps this is because of its opening shots of seething volcanoes and its  evocation of the Aeon of Horus.

Like most of Kenneth Anger’s films, it is indecipherable without his commentary, but that makes the film no less compelling. Most of Anger’s films are based on his enactments of Thelemic Rituals, and the symbols can be interpreted using Aleister Crowley’s magickal system. I am not a Thelemite, but from my experience playing Marjorie Cameron/Babalon and my studying for the role, I have gained a little knowledge of Crowley’s universe and know a bit about of Egyptian magic.  I have figured a few things out that may help you if you want a way into this stunning little film.

The Aeon of Horus.

After the dark earth erupts with fire and light, Isis wakes. She takes an ankh, symbol of life, off of the wall of an ancient temple and wakes Osiris. As Osiris wakes and communicates with Isis, the crocodiles are hatched. In Egyptian religion, the crocodile is both revered as a symbol of strength and protection for the Pharoah, and reviled for its quick snatching of life with its long jaws. This dichotomy is shared by Devil/ Angel,  Lucifer.

I think what happens next is meant to be a new type of man born under the power of the Age of Horus. He is both fay and violent. He stabs a girl, and washes the blood off in a bathtub. The girl, played by Marianne Faithful,  comes back to life and transports herself back in time to ancient Egypt. She climbs higher and higher by stairs or mountain passes. There is fire, the Sphinx, Stonehenge and Druids carrying torches through the night. The elephant, Ganesha, remover of obstacles, symbolically steps on a rearing cobra, symbol of Pharoah, Divine Kingship, or enlightenment. Hmmm…

Kenneth Anger himself appears performing a ritual inside a Thelemic Circle. My impression is he is raising Lucifer. There is a tiger, a fiery animal, swimming in a sea, Many more water images suggesting emotion and the dramatic collision of the elements. Finally a young man wearing a jacket with the old NBC logo on the back wit the name Lucifer written above it. Some very strange things begin to happen. There are images of Aleister Crowley, juxtaposed with more knives and an atmosphere of  potential violence. At one point Lucifer carries a cake that looks to me like the Pleasure Dome. Marianne Faithful weeps into a scarf the color of Lucifer’s clothes. We see opium poppies, and strange green orgy, more Egyptian gods, spaceships flying over the Great Sphinx.

I am sure this hasn’t been all that informative, but with Anger’s films, every little bit helps. The images are hypnotic, and the music, composed and performed by Bobby Beausoleil, is absolutely mesmerizing and deeply moving.

If you have seen this, please enjoy it again. If not prepare to be both enchanted and disturbed.

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Author and occultist, Sorita D’Este,  posted this on Facebook and I just had to put it on the blog! It is really gorgeous with vocals by Loreena McKennitt and some very cool storytelling. Its also a nice follow up for the Ogham post.
Thanks Sorita! And enjoy!

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Irish / Celtic Gods and Goddesses (Part 1) – The Ever Living Ones The Celtic pantheon is known from a variety of sources, these include written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statu…
Irish / Celtic Gods and Goddesses (Part 1) – The Ever Living Ones

The Celtic pantheon is known from a variety of sources, these include written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names.

It should be understood that there are two main types of Celtic deities: general and local. General deities were known by Celts throughout large regions, and are the gods and goddesses they invoked for protection, healing, luck, honour, and many other needs. The local deities were the spirits of a particular feature of the landscape (such as particular mountains, trees, or rivers) and thus was generally only known by the locals in the surrounding areas.
Category: Education

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Samhain is a time to honor our ancestors.

Time to lay out a feast and invite them to dine, to share their presence with us while the veil is thin.

So, in respect for those who came before, I have made a small Ancestral Gallery of Witches. Give them a smile, tip your hat, light a candle and say thank you for blazing the trail and holding open the gates of Elfhame.  It took a lot of courage, in those old days, to walk between the worlds. My original plan was to give space to thirteen of our forebears in one blog post, but i realized, not everyone would know them, so I shall make a series of posts with three in each — a good magical number. It is amazing to discover these great teachers and mentors all over again and to remember how they kept magic alive for all of us, sometimes at great personal risk.

These three gentlemen were controversial figures even for witches. I was not that aware of Alex Sanders until I lived in England. When a told a friend of my discovery, he  responded with, “Oh, wasn’t he just a television witch?” I had no idea. about that. I just thought he and Maxine were fascinating people. Robert Cochran’s style of witchcraft drew me very strongly. I later found how troubled he was.  The American witch, Leo Martello, was an activist, very outspoken especially about animal cruelty and Gay rights.

Alex Sanders (Orrell Alexander Carter)

Born: June 6, 1926/ Entered Faery: March 30, 1988

The flamboyant Witch King, Alex Sanders, was reputed to have been initiated into witchcraft by his Welsh grandmother, Grandma Bibby, as a child. He had accidentally come upon her sitting stark naked in the middle of a circular cloth upon which curious objects were placed. The image of the classic witch, she swore the terrified Alex to secrecy, cutting him with a knife to mark as “one of us now.” Later on, she initiated him in the “old way”, launching his career as a witch.

The, perhaps apocryphal, biography of Alex Sanders, King of the Witches, by June Johns, 1969, ends with a very interesting interview. This section may put to rest some of the disturbing ritual imagery in films of Alexandrian witches found on youtube. The Questioner is June Johns:

Q: What is the difference between black witchcraft and white?

A: White is used for the good of the penitent and must not harm even his enemies. Black involves harm being done to either the petitioner or his enemies, or the sexual seduction of women.

Q: But doesn’t the use of the fith-fath ( doll) harm enemies?

A: No, it is only a means of silencing or restraining someone.  Suppose we  are asked to restrain a meddlesome mother-in-law. We fashion a doll in wax or plasticine, fasten its lips  together with a safety pin, bind its limbs together and have the High Priestess breathe life into it as we recite the correct incantations. No harm is wished her, beyond the impulse to keep her mouth shut.

Robert Cochran   (Roy Bowen)

Born: Jan. 26, 1931/ Entered Faery: July 3, 1066

I have always thought the Cat’s Cradle was witchy game. Here are the words of Robert Cochran, founder of the Clan of Tubal Cain, a mystical branch of witchcraft begun just after the 1951 repeal of the witchcraft laws in England.

On Cords

by Roy Bowen

Pentagram (3) March 1965

“Cat’s cradle” as a game is interesting enough but as a form of witchery it becomes an interesting indication of the complex nature of the Craft. Each of the fingers on the hands of a witch has a defined meaning and purpose. It would be reasonable to assume that, to the knowing eye, the crosses and planes formed by the strings would tell much of a particular ritual.”

I found a couple of fascinating websites about Robert Cochran and the Clan of Tubal Cain in case you are interested. He had a very deep mind, and his letters are full of profound interpretations of poetry and symbolism.

Check out: http://www.cyberwitch.com/bowers/ and http://www.clanoftubalcain.co.uk/

Robert Cochran was born Roy Bowers in a down at heels area of London. He claimed that members of his family had been practitioners of an ancient pagan Witch-cult since at least the 17th century, and that two of them had been executed for it. He  also claimed his great-grandfather was “the last Grand Master of the Staffordshire witches”, who cursed his grandparents for abandoning the Craft and converting to Methodism. His father had practiced witchcraft, but kept it a secret, and forbade his wife to tell his son, Roy. Despite her oath, his mother did in fact tell him. On finding this out, he immediately embraced his heritage.

“I come from the country of the oak, ash and thorn… I describe myself as a ‘pellar’. The People are formed in clans or families and describe themselves by the local name of the Deity. I am a member of the People of Goda – the Clan of Tubal Cain. We were known locally as ‘witches’, ‘the Good People’, Green gowns (females only), ‘Horsemen’ and finally Wizards.”

Robert Cochran worked as a blacksmith at a foundry, and later on a barge transporting coal along Britain’s network of canals. He would later remark that he saw traces of paganism in the folklore and folk art of both of these professions.

The Clan of Tubal Cain, 1951-1966

Around the time that the British 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951, and it became legal to practice witchcraft in the United Kingdom, Cochrane, who was in his early twenties, founded a coven, and named it the “Clan of Tubal Cain” after the Biblical figure Tubal Cain, the first blacksmith. Blacksmiths have long been associated with wizardry because theyw ork with the four elements and bend iron to their will.  Cochrane initiated his wife Jane and several others into the craft, and they then joined the coven. Among these was Evan John Jones, who would later become an author upon the subject of pagan witchcraft.

Cochrane ingested belladonna and Librium on Midsummer eve 1966, and died nine days later in hospital without recovering consciousness. He left a suicide note expressing his intent to kill himself “while of sound mind”.

Dr. Leo Louis Martello

Born: July 26, 1931/ Entered Faery: June 29. 2000

“In the Craft, there is no hard dogma. Hard drugs are forbidden. Mindless morons can’t be a compliment to our Mother Goddess. Sex is sacred, not something to be exhibited at a peep show. Power is something personal, not to be used over others, which is contrary to Craft ethics. Those who think the Old Religion will make them masters over others are slaves to their own self-delusions. A happy person is always a powerful person and is hated by those who aren’t. A happy person is in many ways selfish; in the Craft we must protect our best interests and ensure that the power that comes from joy remains constant, knowing that none of us are immune from the vicissitudes of life, but that our Old Religion will help us handle adversity. The Craft has survived for thousands of years. After everything else has come and gone, it will remain. And one day, in the coming Age of Aquarius, there will once again be magnificent temples to the Goddess”. from: Witchcraft: The Old Religion, 1973.

A fellow native of Massachusetts, Dr. Leo Louis Martello was  certified hypnotist,  graphologist, and author. During the 1960’s, he was involved in the early spread of Contemporary Witchcraft in America.  Colorful and sometimes controversial, he worked tirelessly in the areas of Civil Rights, Animal Rights, and Gay and Lesbian Rights issues.  He is  famed for his manifesto seeking retribution for the torture and execution of Witches during the Witch hysteria of the 15th – 17th centuries in Europe, going so far as to filing suits of $500 million against the Roman Catholic Church and $100 million against Salem, Massachusetts.

His father was an immigrant Sicilian who owned a small farm, The stress of poverty during the Great Depression., tore his family apart and Leo was sent to a Catholic boarding school. Despite the hardships of his life, before the age of twenty-five Leo had achieved many things. A natural psychic, he studied palmistry and tarot with a Gypsy woman, learned hypnotism and graphology.  By the time he was sixteen, he was making radio appearances, giving handwriting analyses and selling articles to magazines, at the same time continuing his education at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Like Alex Sanders, he also had a powerful grandmother whom he was said to resemble.  Still in Sicily,  Maria Concetta was a well-known Strega Maga (a female Witch) and a High Priestess of a secret coven called ‘Goddess of the Sikels’.  After the sudden death of a local Mafiosi by heart attack, it was rumored that she had caused his death after he had threatened to kill her husband for not paying protection money.

Eventually, Leo’s father told him that his cousins from the old country wished to meet  him.  They had been watching him for years, waiting until he was ready to be brought back into the Old Religion.  On the 26th of September 1951, Leo was initiated into his cousin’s secret Sicilian coven, and thus he became a Stregone Mago (a male Witch).  The initiation involved a “bloodletting Oath”; he was never to reveal the secrets of the coven, its members, or any of their secret teachings.

In 1964, Leo sought the permission from his Sicilian coven to go public as a Witch.  With their consent, he contacted other friends and associates leading to his initiation into Gardnerian, Alexandrian and Traditionalist traditions.  He published his first book,  Weird Ways of Witchcraft in 1969.

That ends my list of 13 witches for Samhain.

I’m sorry to have missed any, I know there are a few more who have passed beyond the veil.

When I describe them a being in Faery I really mean it. Consider what it means for a Faery Witch who can contact any of these Ancestors. I believe they are there to help us on our path in all their different ways — and not just via their many books and articles. So, if you have a Samhain Feast perhaps invite them to share with you by name. And if you do, let me know what happens.

Just click the COMMENTS tab at the top of the blog and you will have lots of room to express yourself and share with all of us.

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Thanks to multi-talented musician,  Brian Butler, we have a brilliant biography of Marjorie Cameron and her role in the obscure Curtis Harrington  film, The Wormwood Star.

After seeing a clip from this film, I was on a mission to find it. and stumbled on this article. I really would love to see the whole thing. It is highly poetic and very beautiful. Marjorie Cameron’s presence was  compelling, deep, and wise.

I asked Brian if I could re-print it, and he seemed to say it was OK, so Brian, thank you!

This article adds so much to the Babalon Diaries and to our knowledge of Marjorie Cameron’s influence on Witchcraft.

Enjoy a fabulous story about an amazing woman.

He has a great website at www.brianbutler.prg

CAMERON: THE WORMWOOD STAR

BRIAN BUTLER

We are Stars and herald alien laws outside the Solar Wheel

invading natural systems of the earth.[1]

The late 1940’s was an interesting time to be in Southern California. World War II had just ended and for the first time atomic weapons had been detonated in warfare. Science and technology were advancing at an alarming pace. Science fiction had become popular, and space travel seemed a possibility. There were UFO sightings; tales of Black Magick and strange new religious cults were formed. For some reason, Los Angeles became the hub for such activity. There, through a chance encounter with an old navy acquaintance, 23-year-old Marjorie Cameron was led to the home of the famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory rocket scientist and master occultist Jack Parsons in Pasadena. This house, also known as the Parsonage, had become a meeting place and boarding house for cutting edge scientists, occultists, cult leaders and science fiction authors. At the time Cameron arrived, Parsons and then science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard were well into one of the most important occult operations of the 20^th century — “The Babalon Working.” Through their invocations, they had set the stage for the arrival of Cameron to assist them as an elemental spirit incarnated in the form of a redhead with green eyes. This meeting was to forever alter the destiny of Marjorie Cameron and set her on a lifelong quest to manifest the Babalon[2] current upon Earth. While much has been documented from her years with Jack Parsons, until now very little has been known publicly about Cameron’s life before or after this five-year period.

Mockery is the punishment of the Gods. What fiendish laughter…[3]

Marjorie Elizabeth Cameron –later known as Cameron – was born on April 23, 1922 in Belle Plain, Iowa, the eldest of four children. Her father, Hill Leslie Cameron, was a Scot from Illinois who worked with the railroad. Her mother, Carrie V. Ridenour, of German and Dutch decent, was a native of Iowa. The night of Cameron’s birth was surrounded by chaos; there was a terrible thunderstorm and her father got drunk and attempted suicide because he thought his wife was dying. Her grandmother, a staunch churchwoman, believed Cameron to be a child of the devil because of her fiery red hair.

As a child, Cameron began to have strange and powerful visions that were so vivid, she could not be sure if they were real or imaginary. One night from her bedroom, she saw a ghostly procession of four white horses float by her window. Later she could recall these dreams in detail and was able to capture this in her artwork and poetry. In a letter to magician and Aleister Crowley associate Jane Wolfe, she mentions finding “a hole to hell” in her grandfather’s backyard:

“I remember always a tree on my grandfather’s property from which hung an old, old swing where my mother had played as a little girl. Near this spot I recall a well which I always believed was the hole to hell. – also the blue Bachelor Button flower grew near this spot. Herein I find again a new concept of the 4 elements and the name of god – the tree, the well, the swing (water’s life) and the flower –which is seed.” [4]

Never quite accepted in her small hometown, Cameron spent most of her childhood alone. In kindergarten, she was placed in a special school for children with above-average abilities and it became apparent that she was very different from other children. In a town dominated by the railroad, Cameron would often venture to the proverbial “wrong side of the tracks.” She was always attracted to the darker side of things and found a kinship with other individualists and loners.

As a teenager, Cameron made a hideout in the attic of her parents’ home and there she began to develop her psychic abilities. She soon established contact with spirits that would tell her detailed accounts of what had occurred at the house in the past. Like a true witch, she collected black cats and would go for late night prowls alone dressed only in a nightgown.

When she was seventeen, the Great Depression was underway and Cameron moved with her family to Davenport, Iowa, a considerably larger town than Belle Plain. Again she had trouble adjusting. After the suicide of a close friend, Cameron attempted to take her own life several times, each time through an overdose of sleeping pills. Though unsuccessful, she found that these near brushes with death had further enhanced her psychic abilities, giving her a glimpse into the realm of the dead.

Mine eyes are terrible and strange but thou knowest me [5]

In 1943, in the midst of World War II, the 21-year-old Cameron joined the Navy -turning down several college scholarships. She was sent along with 3,000 other women to boot camp in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Soon she was soon selected for a high-level job in Washington, DC, where she applied her artistic skills by drawing maps for the war efforts. She was then sent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff were she once met Churchill. She had a drafting table at the head of their conference room. Later, according to the principles of talismanic magic[6] she felt that many men died in the South Pacific as a result of her drawings. She always felt a karmic connection to these men and believed that the later tragic events in her life were the result of her participation in their deaths.

Later, she worked at the photo science lab on the Potomac, also called “The Hollywood Navy.” There she met many Hollywood celebrities such as Gene Kelly. After learning that her brother, a tail gunner in the Air Force, had been shot down and injured, Cameron walked out on her job and returned to Belle Plain to see him. Eventually, Cameron was declared AWOL and was court martialed. She spent the final six months of the war confined to the base.

THE BIRTH OF BABALON

After her release from the Navy, Cameron moved in with her family, which had moved to Pasadena, California. In January of 1946, while waiting at the unemployment office, she saw an old acquaintance from the photo science lab in the Navy. This man, whose identity remains unknown, was living at the Parsonage and told her of a “mad scientist” that she had to meet.  Inviting her to breakfast, he took her to a house at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena, and there she met Jack Parsons for the first time. As she walked in, Parsons was standing in the hallway speaking on the phone dressed only in a black silk robe. They met only briefly but immediately felt a deep connection. Also living there was Jack’s magical scribe, L. Ron Hubbard. After this encounter, Hubbard and Parsons commanded the man to “go find her or we’ll kill you!” On January 19, 1946, at the climax of a magical operation that was begun by Jack and L. Ron Hubbard two weeks previously “to obtain the assistance of an elemental mate,” Cameron returned and in that moment her destiny was changed.

Cameron immediately became romantically involved with Jack and moved into the house with him.[7] Unknowingly, she had become Parsons’ sex magick partner in a ritual designed to incarnate the force of Babalon. Although Cameron was initially uninterested in Aleister Crowley or magick, Jack proceeded to instruct Cameron in the occult arts and told her of her destiny in the world. According to Jack, she was to become the vehicle for the Goddess or force called Babalon to manifest on earth. Years later, Cameron came to believe that she was in fact Babalon incarnate.

In March of 1946, Cameron witnessed a flying saucer over the Orange Grove house. She claimed that it was the “war engine”[8] that was predicted in Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law and the “sign” that Jack was waiting for.

“ The flying saucers – the miracle! – our war machine! I saw the first one in the spring of 1946 at 1003. – Oh – my god. This is the sign (drawing of an inverted triangle within a circle) Flying Saucers – imagine!” [9]

Had she reported it publicly, this would have been known as one of the first UFO sightings in America and would have preceded, by one year, Kenneth Arnold’s infamous sighting on June 24, 1947 – the sighting which propelled the “modern UFO era.”

As the magical current become more intense at the Parsonage, things began to disintegrate. Hubbard had absconded with Jack’s former girlfriend and most of his fortune. In August, Jack resigned from Crowley’s occult order[10] in favor of his own system – “The Witchcraft.”[11] As a result, the occult lodge at the Parsonage was disbanded and guests became fewer and less frequent. Cameron soon found herself spending a lot of time alone painting in the downstairs drawing room. She convinced Jack to get her a German Shepard to keep her company. As yet unfamiliar with the nature of the magical operations going on, Cameron felt that the house was haunted, and Jack would often return to find her and the dogs freezing outside of the house, terrified to return. It is interesting to note that later, in a letter to Cameron, Jack stated that the performance of Aleister Crowley’s “Bornless One” ritual was known to cause “permanent haunting” wherever it was recited:

“I will send you the ritual of the Bornless One…It is a very ancient, potent & dangerous ritual, often used by bold magicians in the Guardian Angel Working. It is useful as a preliminary in almost any sort of work, causing a tremendous concentration of force. It is, however, liable to produce dangerous side phenomena and sometimes permanent haunting in an area where it is repeated, & is for this reason often avoided.”[12]

Finally, after numerous adverse psychic phenomena at the Parsonage, Cameron and Jack consulted the Ouji board and got the message “To Marjorie–Clean Ron’s room and get out!” They immediately did so and moved to Manhattan Beach, California.

THE RED WITCH

In late 1947, Jack sent Cameron to England to meet Aleister Crowley. Although Crowley was skeptical about Jack’s recent experiences with Hubbard and Cameron, Jack believed that if Crowley met Cameron in person his opinion would change. Using her Navy connections, Cameron first sailed to Paris and decided to stay there for a while. She became a regular at a local pub in Paris, and there she was known as the “Red Witch” because of her unusual appearance. On the day she walked into the pub to announce that she was off to London for the weekend to meet Aleister Crowley, the locals informed her that he had just died.[13]

Cameron was heartbroken that she missed the opportunity to meet the Master Therion, and following the advice of a friend in Paris, joined a convent in Lugano, Switzerland. After three weeks at the convent, she had a life changing experience – she bathed, let her hair down on her face, got on her haunches and howled into the mirror like a wild animal. It was in this moment that she realized she was in fact the Scarlet Woman and had no place in a convent. She contacted Jack, who sent her funds to return to America. Cameron remained with Jack for the next year. Jack by this time was experiencing the darker effects of the Babalon Working. From Parsons’ The Book of Antichrist:

“Now it came to pass even as BABALON told me, for after receiving Her Book I fell away from Magick, and put away Her Book and all pertaining thereto. And I was stripped of my fortune (the sum of about $50,000) and my house, and all I Possessed.

Then for a period of two years I worked in the world, recouping my fortune somewhat. But that was also taken from me, and my reputation, and my good name in my worldly work, that was in science.”

In 1948, Cameron separated from Jack and went to study art in Mexico on the GI Bill. She did not see Jack for almost two years, and they corresponded solely by mail. However, it was during this period that she received the most serious instruction in practical magick from him. These letters still exist and are available on the Internet.

While in Mexico, Cameron quickly fell in with the famous artist colony in San Miguel—a group that included the painter David Siqueiros and the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Cameron felt a deep connection to Mexico and later said that San Miguel replaced in her heart her childhood home. She had met a kindred spirit in Carrington. She also met Renate Druks and Paul Matheson who would later co-star with her in Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.” She had a brief romance with a bullfighter named Armando, but when he fell ill and died, Cameron was accused of witchcraft and run out of town.

We dance a geometry of wizardry and wind the threads about our prey…[14]

Cameron returned to America around 1950 and lived with Jack once again as his wife in Manhattan Beach. Jack was then working for Hughes Aircraft and negotiating a deal with Israel to create an explosives plant as well as providing research for “rockets and other armaments.”[15] In September 1950, plainclothes men raided the Parsons’ home and confiscated Jack’s papers. Jack was accused of removing confidential documents from Hughes and was fired. An FBI investigation began, one that would last for over a year. An informant assessed the Parsons as follows:

“…the PARSONS are an odd and unusual pair in that they do not live by the commonly accepted code of married life and are both very fascinated by anything unusual or morbid such as voodooism, cults, homosexuality, and religious practices that are “different.” Subject seems very much in love with his wife but she is not at all affectionate and does not appear to return his affection, [deleted] She is the dominating personality of the two and controls the activities and thinking of subject to very considerable degree. It is the opinion [name withheld] if subject were to have been in any way willfully involved in any activities of an espionage nature, it would probably have been on the instigation of his wife.”15[

Although Parsons was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, on January 17, 1952, he lost his security clearance. This seriously reduced his chances for employment, so Cameron and Jack began to make plans to leave the country. They were first headed for Mexico and from there to either Spain or Israel. Jack ultimately wanted to form a magical school in Israel. Jack and Cameron moved to a carriage house on Orange Grove -a few houses down from the Parsonage.[16]

On June 17, 1952, the evening before they planned to leave for Mexico, Jack was killed in an explosion when he dropped a vial of mercury fulmate in his private laboratory. Cameron was down the street fueling the car when she heard the blast. Jack’s death was ruled an accident by authorities but Cameron always believed that Howard Hughes was somehow behind it.

We traveled Stellar webs to darker Worlds within the Lunar mirrors of Suicide.[17]

After Jack’s death, Cameron moved into friend Renate Druks’s Malibu home for six months. Druks could not withstand the heavy vibe that was Cameron and relates strange tales of Black Magic and astral attacks. Shortly after ejecting Cameron from her household, Druks claims to have been woken by a strange astral figure floating over her bed. Described as a sort of alien creature that appeared as a bright neon-colored brain with a tail that resembled a spinal column, it increased in size as it came at her and then suddenly disappeared. Overcome with terror, she consulted with their mutual friend, Jane Wolfe. Wolfe stated ‘That was Cameron -–how naughty of her!” and instructed Druks in the banishing ritual of the pentagram to protect herself.

Exiled from Druks’s home and still deeply affected by Jack’s death, Cameron withdrew into complete isolation in the desert of Beaumont, California. There she lived in a house in an abandoned canyon that had no water or power.

During this period Cameron found a new magical teacher in Jane Wolfe and their correspondence remains as a sort of magical diary. Cameron began to see her life increasingly from a magical point of view, analyzing her experiences in terms of a life-long magical ritual or initiation. This was also her darkest period, she writes to Jane:

“I am approaching the darkest hour of the abysmal night furthest from the sun. This is the fateful hour in which I drink the cup of poison to its dregs –- eat the tainted apple -– feel the sting of the terrible dart in the core of me. Know the fang of the deadly serpent in my heart. And thereafter I shall plunge down into the abysmal horror of madness and death –- or I shall walk upon the dawn -– golden with the golden kiss upon me. This hour is far beyond the return. The turning back point was Sunset of year. My farewells were made long ago. No –- this is the hour when I approach the terrible rendezvous when all my gods shall declare themselves – when I shall call upon the secret name – open the final door.”[18]

Cameron realized that she must face this ordeal alone:

“If you have tried to contact me you have no doubt found the going hazardous – I seem to be pyramiding a mountain of fear that is closing all doors to me  — now Renee’s[19] –.

It amounts to this – in the case of each they reach a barrier of fear over which they cannot pass to follow me. And since I can show no pity – since to do so is to pity myself – I am rapidly eliminating my companions on the journey to completion. I had not expected this – as you know– the only comfort left me– is the knowledge that I have the courage to do that which no one else seems to have.  This is indeed the luxury of Kings – but I had tried to bring joy and not fear into the hearts of others. What happens from now on – I do not know. I can only remind myself constantly in this period of aloneness and dryness that which I have known from the beginning.”[20]

It is in these letters to Jane that Cameron fully divulges her feelings and candidly describes her own rituals. Most interesting is a magical working which she began shortly after Jack’s death in 1952. This ritual included some of the same people who later appeared in Kenneth Anger’s film of an occult ritual Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. According to Cameron, this working was to bear fruit in the summer of 1953. By this operation, some say that Cameron intended to create a “magical child” or “wormwood star” sired by Jack from beyond the grave.

“This is the star which was calculated for me to give it birth. Jane– Jane– This is the star by which I shall behold him and in that union shall he be born– he whose name shall be wonder. His magnificence cannot be foretold and this is my star the Wormwood Star which will be born this summer Solstice of the year 1953.”[21]

Cameron goes on to explain the technical details of the operation based on the seven pointed star of BABALON:

“The points of the star are seven but it produces eight. It consists of the quadrupled union of four pairs of opposites. The eighth of this is not apparent until the four unions are completed. Now when each union is made the word of god must be uttered. Do you know this word? I asked for this word of Jack in March of 1949. It was given to me with no account of the cost. I carried it with me in great secrecy, not ever daring to dream of the miracle it concealed. This word I will only give to you in great secrecy.[22] With the right combination – which is my star [Star of Babalon drawn here] this great word creates — and since there is death in all birth there are four opposites destroyed – but their destruction is absorption and here again another face of the four square miracle!”[23]

She further elaborates on the formula of the operation:

“This opposite must always be the sublime whole of the opposite of the invoked. Such as in this invocation the opposites all destroyed will be pure aspects. Here is the meaning of debauchery as sacrament – the sublime follows between the six and eight of the Tarot.[24] This is the sacrament. The exquisite edge of growth and decay and this is absorbed like the fruit, the wine of the season on the dying cycle of the year. This destruction or absorption will be done each time to the union of the 8 opposites occur.”2[this footnote seems to have been lost]

She then describes the function of the unknowing participants or “elementals” in this strange working:

“Each male in this invocation is an Elemental god and these five gods will be the five fathers of the god. Each is a perfect revelation of the four represented in the Universe card of the Tarot- the Dance of the Star and the Snake. The holy 22. The kether, the Crown, the god. These four are represented as the Bull, the Lion, the Hawk and man sublime angelic – man revealed as god. I plan to write these into four commentaries – or songs – for each of the Elemental gods in a miraculous revelation. When the star is completed and the god born, these elemental gods will be known to their voices and the whole damned union will be complete and magnificent.” 25

Cameron states that she is pregnant but not with a human child:

“The pregnancy, as you understand — was not the actual growth of a human child — but the spiritual child of a psychic union – and in the case of Cupid and Psyche – this child — was a female — called Pleasure — or the birth of Babylon — which is a symbolical — but most real birth of the age of the Goddess of Pleasure — being the union of the mind and body.”[25]

After her extraordinary experiences in the desert, Cameron moved back in with her parents in Pasadena and was considered catatonic for a time. Still in isolation and confusion, she painted a series of works that she called “the parchments.” These pieces received a lot of attention, including an offer from a psychiatrist to publish them with a commentary (which she refused). She believed that through these works of art, she literally “painted herself out” of her situation. Renewed, she emerged as a “real force” in the artistic and occult communities.

Death has been thy lover. Is there else to fear?[26]

In December of 1953, Cameron walked into another situation that was to alter both her destiny and that of those around her. This time it was the home of the eccentric and warlock, Samson Debreir, on Barton Avenue in Hollywood, California. Underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger had begun casting for his occult film, “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” and the stage was once again set for the Scarlet Woman. The famous erotic writer Anais Nin was to the star until Cameron appeared, upstaging her by the mere power of her presence. The rivalry between the two became a driving force behind the film.

When Anger met Cameron, she introduced herself as “the Scarlet Woman.” And Anger replied “That’s obvious… I have been waiting to meet you for a thousand years.”  By this time, she had developed a very powerful countenance, and it was this that struck Anger. He vividly recalls, “[She had] Flaming Scot red hair…real emerald green eyes that could also turn into sea mist grey according to her mood…and suddenly Anais Nin shrunk…in front of the majesty that is Cameron because Cameron wiped her out.” Cameron had a profound effect on Kenneth Anger and was a sort of mentor to him. Soon, they were living together. Anger relates many strange stories of UFOs, levitation and astral visions, and he still considers Cameron one of the most important women of his life. 

The film, in which Cameron plays herself “The Scarlet Woman,” was well received among both magical initiates and the art world. Cameron believed that this film was proof to the world that she had manifested the force of Babalon on earth.

Up the swirling scarf of smoke rise our invocations.[27]

By the late 1950’s, Cameron was living in Malibu and hanging out with a crowd of Beat artists that included the likes of Dennis Hopper, Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner and assemblage artist George Herms. In 1957, Wallace Berman’s show at the Ferus Gallery was closed by the vice squad for pornography after he displayed one of Cameron’s drawings. This drawing depicted a woman, possibly Cameron, being taken from behind by an alien creature.

That same year, experimental filmmaker and her Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome co-star Curtis Harrington directed a film that featured Cameron and her artwork called The Wormwood Star.  The film opens with titles drawn by Paul Matheson over an extreme close-up of the Seal of Solomon. “Concerning the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel as revealed to: Cameron.”  Introduced through a series of composed still frames, rather surreal in juxtaposition and symbolic props, Cameron is then shown seated, looking into a mirror as if in a trance. After a few minutes of this rather abstract portraiture, the film then shifts to a study of Cameron’s paintings that illustrate a desert procession of angels.  In the background Cameron recites a solemn invocation to her Holy Guardian Angel:

“Dark Star, I seek you in all the endless rooms of the universe

I have entered the maze of chaos and searched the promise of no end and no fulfillment

But I have seen your helmeted head flashing gold from the bloody triumphs and sunsets of the world

I have heard your voice singing lovely songs of desire in the world womb

I remember the artistry of fingers that held the rose in wonder

Your musical flute sounding the hymn of love seeking since the birth in the crashing star nebulae

Singing limbs of muscle and star-foam pursued and pursuing

Radiant Warrior, how long?

Beloved God, how long?

How long, how long?”[28]

Cameron later burned all of the paintings seen in The Wormwood Star while living with her second husband Sherif Kimmil, who was said to be the inspiration for the R. P. McMurphy character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and was by all accounts insane. Kimmel and Cameron had been up for several days on speed and formed what Cameron called a “suicide club.” Kimmel went to the bathroom and slit his wrists.[29] In turn, Cameron symbolically committed suicide by throwing her paintings in the fire. According to Kenneth Anger, Cameron’s paintings were in reality magical talismans and had to be destroyed lest they turn and destroy the creator. He states, “She was doing art for the sake of magick and her soul. She never sold her paintings.”

In this hour I decide between nothingness and creation…[30]

By 1960, Cameron had transcended her darker period and emerged as an individual. She began to have a greater understanding of her life’s pattern. From her diary entry of October 22, 1960, she writes:

“I sense the approaching end to my years of exile. Some inner knowing prepares me for the return to the world in my just position. In the years of exile I compounded a state of mind that philosophically remains balanced regarding the continuity of my present state of existence or to finally win for myself a gracious and rewarding end to life. Ultimatums are impossible for one who has witnessed the broad sweep of existence. Yet I am tempted to sum up the experience for I fear already I have lost the vast majority of my impressions. I have lived frugally but I have squandered dreams and visions as only the spend thrift does – sowing wide golden plains.”

In 1961, Cameron appeared in the film Nite Tide. Directed by Curtis Harrington, this film also featured Dennis Hopper’s first staring role. Cameron played a mysterious figure that is seen prowling the beach in Santa Monica. In the film she has a strange, compelling presence.  On October 3, 1964, the Cinema Theatre in Los Angeles presented “The Transcendental Art of Cameron,” which featured slide projections of her paintings while she read from her journals.

By the late 1960’s Cameron moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. A short experimental film from this period (1969) by John Chamberlain entitled “Thumbsuck” still exists. It shows Cameron as a striking figure with long red hair and piercing eyes. She is applying makeup to her face in a sort of Kabuki style while her daughter Krystal and two other children are seen playing in the background. Cameron ignores them while staring into the mirror, smoking a joint.

And the Hag with lizard eyes embraces shadows…[31]

As Cameron grew older, she took on the image of an old witch or crone with long, straight white hair. She lived in a small house on North Genesee in West Hollywood and could often be seen practicing Tai Chi in Bronson Park. Her last art show “The Pearl of Reprisal” was held at the Barnsdall Art Park on April 8, 1989. Here she exhibited a haunted series of pen and ink drawings titled “Pluto Transiting the Twelfth House.” “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” and “The Wormwood Star” were shown. Cameron also gave a reading of her poems by candlelight. The same year Cameron edited Freedom is a Two Edged Sword –a compilation of the writings of Jack Parsons published by New Falcon.

Cameron died of cancer on July 23, 1995. A magical rite was performed at her bedside at the VA hospital. A wake was held at the Beyond Baroque bookstore in Los Angeles where her poetry was read by friends and her paintings were exhibited, including the “Black Angel” painting of Jack Parsons as an angel with a sword.

[2] Babalon is the companion of the Beast 666 in Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic pantheon. Crowley first wrote extensively about this in Vision and the Voice which documents his experiences with the Enochian system of magic and his own initiation. After the magician crosses the “abyss” that separates the spiritual world from the rational or mental world, he is greeted by the goddess Babalon, the great mother who resides in Binah on the Qabalistic tree of life, which is the spiritual  home of those who have achieved the grade of Magister Templi.

[3]Cameron magical diary June 21, 1964.

[4] Cameron letter to Jane Wolfe December 26, 1952.

[5] Cameron from the film The Wormwood Star 1957.

[6] Cameron considered all of her drawings to be magical talismans that had very real effects on the world.

[7] On October 19, 1946 Cameron and Jack were married.

[8] Liber Al Chap. III v7: I will give you a war-engine.

[9] Letter from Cameron to Jane Wolfe Jan. 22, 1953.

[10] Despite numerous attempts this order has yet to be revived by a competent group of magicians in America.

[11] See Jack Parsons, Freedom is a Two Edged Sword (New Falcon)

[12] Letter from Jack Parsons to Cameron Jan. 10, 1950.

[13] Aleister Crowley died on December 1, 1947.

[14] Cameron magical diary January 21, 1962.

[15] FBI file on Jack Parsons.

[16] Although the Parsonage was destroyed, Cameron believed the house to be eternal on the astral plane like Crowley’s Boleskine in Scotland.

[17] From the book “The Black Pilgrimage” by Cameron 1964. Privately published.

[18] Letter to Jane Wolfe, dated December 6, 1952, 6:00am.

[19] Renate Druks.

[20] Cameron letter to Jane Wolfe April 7, 1953.

[21] Camron letter to Jane Wolfe Dec. 26, 1952.

[22] This word not here revealed. The present writer has however obtained it.

[23] Cameron letter to Jane Wolfe Dec. 26, 1952.

[24] Atu VII of the TARO is the Chariot. The formula contained in this card is one key to understanding this working.

[25] Cameron letter to Jane Wolfe August 23, 1953.

[26] Cameron magical diary March 11, 1962

[27] Cameron magical diary September 1962.

[28] Cameron from the film The Wormwood Star 1957.

[29] While writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey worked as a janitor in the psychiatric ward of the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California (often under the influence of LSD). It is possible that it was there that he encountered Kimmel, who was committed to the VA Hospital for several months as a result of this suicide attempt.

[30] Cameron letter to Jane Wolfe January 22, 1953.

[31] Cameron magical diary June 21, 1964

Brian Butler

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Alexandrian Ritual

Samhain is a time to honor our ancestors.

Time to lay out a feast and invite them to dine, to share their presence with us while the veil is thin.

So, in respect for those who came before, I have made a small Ancestral Gallery of Witches. Give them a smile, tip your hat, light a candle and say thank you for blazing the trail and holding open the gates of Elfhame.  It took a lot of courage, in those old days, to walk between the worlds. My original plan was to give space to thirteen of our forebears in one blog post, but i realized, not everyone would know them, so I shall make a series of posts with three in each — a good magical number. It is amazing to discover these great teachers and mentors all over again and to remember how they kept magic alive for all of us, sometimes at great personal risk.

The three following Witches carried the movement forward each in their different ways.

Stewart Farrar, the journalist, wrote many books that dispelled the negative perception of Witchcraft and made it approachable, almost acceptable.

Sybil Leek — well she was the first Witch I ever knew of. She was a public personality in the 1960’s in America and her book Sybil Leek’s Love Signs or something to that effect was all over the place. I almost didn’t include due to the cheesiness of my her 1960’s PR, but I have discovered in my research, a very interesting person.

Doreen Valiente was the poetess who increased the deep glamor of the Craft with evocative imagery and emotional power. She did not approve of the attention seekers, yet still found herself in the spotlight.

Charm Against an Egg-boat

You must break the shell to bits, for fear

The witches should make it a boat, my dear:

For over the sea, away from home,

Far by night the witches roam.

Anonymous..

.

Stewart Farrar:   Born: June 28, 1916 / Entered Faery: Feb 7, 2000

Stewart Farrar was an unlikely witch.

Farrar was one of the first British officers to enter Auschwitz, an experience that  greatly influenced his personal and political beliefs. It led him to explore philosophies such as Marxism, and at the time he met Alex and Maxine Sanders, he was an agnostic with only a marginal interest in witchcraft.

Farrar was a natural and prolific writer. Back in England after the war, he began a career as a journalist and also wrote detective fiction. It was when he was sent to cover a screening of The Legend of the Witches that he met Alex and Maxine. Though he wasn’t sure of Wicca, she was fascinated by them. The result was one of the most important books on witchcraft, What Witches Do and Farrar’s initiation into the Sanders’ coven. The term Alexandrian Tradition was coined by Stewart Farrar.

While working magic with the Sanders, Farrar met Janet Owen who was to become hos seventh wife. They came to prominence as Alexandrian Witches writing many important books together. The most well know is A Witches Bible.

Witches are practical people;
philosophy to them is not just an intellectual exercise -
they have to put it into practice in their everyday lives,
and in their working,
if philosophy is to have any meaning.

From: A Witches’ Bible, by Janet and Stewart Farrar, published by Phoenix Publishing (1984).

Sybil Leek:   Born: Feb. 22,1917 / Entered Faery: Nov. 26, 1982

All human beings have magic in them. The secret is to know how to use this magic, and astrology is a vital tool for doing just that…

~ Sybil Leek, 1972.

Sybil Leek had an utterly amazing life. Like a character in a romantic novel, she was born into a wealthy Staffordshire family that was fascinated by the magic and the occult, beginning in the 16th century with her ancestor, Molly Leigh. Her father taught her about nature and the power of herbs, talked to her about deep metaphysical subjects on long walks over the hills.  Her grandmother taught her Astrology, psychic arts, and divination. They entertained great thinkers like H.G.Wells, and even Aleister Crowley who encouraged her to become a poet.

She married a concert pianist  at 16 and was widowed at 18. To recover from her grief, her grandmother sent to her to coven in France to be their High Priestess. When she returned to England she lived in the New Forest, the place that Gerald Gardner claimed to have been schooled in Witchcraft. Bored by the place, she ran off with the Gypsies!

Chased out England, she moved to America where she became a regular on talk shows and wrote sixty books on Witchcraft, Magic and Astrology, as well as stories about her extraordinary life.  While in L.A. she met  Israel Regardie with whom she studied Qabbalah and practiced Golden dawn rituals. She is credited with being the one of the  first environmentalist Witches.

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Sybil Leek was an excellent Astologer and this is an amusing quote from one of her many books:

Sometimes astronomers and scientists make dogmatic statements in print that “they have never discovered any truth in the claims of astrology.” What they probably mean is that they have not taken the trouble to study it other than simply reading a three-line version of Sun-sign astrology in their local newspaper. Such dogmatic statements should really open up a whole forum in which the scientist should truthfully answer the question “Have you ever studied astrology?” I can only presume that fear is the basis of all such statements. Why do people become illogical and emotional when they speak of astrology? Are they afraid we may all regress into a primitive state in which their work may not be justified or appreciated? Are they afraid that astrology may be opening doors to new scientific discoveries and new dimensions of reality and may upset their status quo? Of course, anything written in a controversial vein about astrology generally hits the headlines, but it is the idea of controversy, not the validity of an argument, that really makes news…

Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente:

Born: Jan. 4, 1922/ Entered Faery: Sept. 1, 1999

I find this photo above most mysterious. I think its the intensity of her face that does it.

She is the poet of the Craft. Her version of the Charge of the Goddess has come down to us as the primary invocation

to the Queen of Heaven, the Great Goddess in all her forms.

I have posted the Charge of the Goddess here: Wicca: The Charge of the Goddess

You will have to scroll down below the Bluebeard’s Castle stuff to find it.

Doreen Valiente was High Priestess in Gerald Gardner’s  Bricket Wood  coven. While he loved the limelight, she felt the Craft should maintain its age-old  secrecy.  I find it interesting that the Priestesses of two major covens of this period,  Doreen, Maxine Sanders, were very reluctant to go public with their Path, while connected to men who wanted gloried in the attention. Perhaps that is because the history of the Witch Craze suggests that those who ere put to death were predominantly women, or maybe that women enjoy  the  hidden, more subtle, magical  powers  of moonlight.

This wonderful poem by Doreen says it all.

The Witches’ Creed

Hear Now the words of the witches,

The secrets we hid in the night,

When dark was our destiny’s pathway,

That now we bring forth into light.

Mysterious water and fire,

The earth and the wide-ranging air,

By hidden quintessence we know them,

And will and keep silent and dare.

The birth and rebirth of all nature,

The passing of winter and spring,

We share with the life universal,

Rejoice in the magical ring.

Four times in the year the Great Sabbat 
Returns,

and the witches are seen

At Lammas and Candlemas dancing,

On May Eve and old Hallowe’en.

When day-time and night-time are equal,

When sun is at greatest and least,

The four Lesser Sabbats are summoned,

And Witches gather in feast.

Thirteen silver moons in a year are,

Thirteen is the coven’s array.

Thiteen times at Esbat make merry,

For each golden year and a day.

The power that was passed down the age,

Each time between woman and man,

Each century unto the other,

Ere time and the ages began.

When drawn is the magical circle,

By sword or athame of power,

Its compass between two worlds lies,

In land of the shades for that hour.

This world has no right then to know it,

And world of beyond will tell naught.

The oldest of Gods are invoked there,

The Great Work of magic is wrought.

For the two are mystical pillars,

That stand at the gate of the shrine,

And two are the powers of nature,

The forms and the forces divine.

The dark and the light in succession,

The opposites each unto each,

Shown forth as a God and a Goddess:

Of this our ancestors teach.

By night he’s the wild wind’s rider,

The Horn’d One, the Lord of the Shades.

By day he’s the King of the Woodland,

The dweller in green forest glades.

She is youthful or old as she pleases,

She sails the torn clouds in her barque,

The bright silver lady of midnight,

The crone who weaves spells in the dark.

The master and mistress of magic,

Thet dwell in the deeps of the mind,

Immortal and ever-renewing,

With power to free or to bind.

So drink the good wine to the Old Gods,

And Dance and make love in their praise,

Till Elphame’s fair land shall receive us

In peace at the end of our days.

And Do What You Will be the challenge,

So be it Love that harms none,

For this is the only commandment.

By Magic of old, be it done!

Doreen Valiente

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Museum of Witches, Boscastle, Cornwall

Cornwall is the last stronghold of the Witches….

This very interesting video was made in the 1960’s about the Witch Museum in Boscastle, Cornwall, bought by Gerald Gardener in 1952 — the year after the repeal of the witchcraft ban!

This video is very atmospheric, dramatically  sensationalizing the dark side the Magic that has such a hold over people who fear it. I include it here as a reminder of what anyone coming out as a Witch in England was up against at that time. These kind of media portrayals continue, but it was much worse in the 1960’s.

It is also  a nice bit of Halloween spookiness…

*************************************

I pirated a little clip from wikipedia about Gerald Gardener’s involvement with the Museum of Witchcraft.

The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft, 1951-1963

Gardner at the wishing well outside the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft at the Witches’ Mill on the Isle of Man.

In 1951, Gardner travelled to the Isle of Man, where, in the town of Castletown, he became employed by Cecil Williamson at the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft as the director and “resident witch”. On 29 July 1951 The Sunday Pictorial published an article about the museum named “Calling All Covens!”, in which Gardner declared:

Williamson and Gardner later fell out, when Gardner accused Williamson of focusing on sensationalist aspects of witchcraft in his museum exhibits, and Williamson said of Gardner that he was a “vain, self-centered man, tight with his money, and more interested in outlets for his nudist and voyeuristic activities, than in learning anything about authentic witchcraft”.

In 1952, Gardner bought the museum from Williamson, and started running it using his own private collection for the exhibits, including items such as the signed OTO charter issued by Crowley. Williamson meanwhile began his own museum, named the Museum of Witchcraft, across the channel in England.

Youtube channel where I found this video. He has lots of cool stuff!

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Samhain is a time to honor our ancestors.

Time to lay out a feast and invite them to dine, to share their presence with us while the veil is thin.

So, in respect for those who came before, I have made a small Ancestral Gallery of Witches. Give them a smile, tip your hat, light a candle and say thank you for blazing the trail and holding open the gates of Elfhame.  It took a lot of courage, in those old days, to walk between the worlds.

My original plan was to give space to thirteen of our forebears in one blog post, but i realized, not everyone would know them, so I shall make a series of posts with three in each — a good magical number. It is amazing to discover these great teachers and mentors all over again and to remember how they kept magic alive for all of us, sometimes at great personal risk.

We come closer to our time with the Grand Dame of the Witches and the Grandfather of modern Wicca. The last is an inspired poet of the kind Robert Graves spoke of in his pivotal classic The White Goddess. Poets have been and still are some if the most potent interpreters of the witchcraft stream…

They were all born at Midsummer. The uncanny patterns continue…

All Hallow E’en — The Wild Ride

In the hinder end of harvest, on All Hallow E’en,

When the Good Neighbors do ride, if I rede right,

Some buckled on a bane-wand, and some on a bean,

Aye trottand in troops from the twilight;

Some saddled on a she-ape, all graithed into green,

Some hobland on a hemp stalk, hovand to the height,

The King of Pharie and his court, with the Elf-queen,

With many elfish incubus was ridand that night.

Montgomerie (1515)

Margaret Murray:

Born: July 13, 1863/ Entered Faery: Nov. 13, 1963

Margaret Murray, author of The Witch Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches, was an Egyptologist who seems to have become obsessed with the idea of the Sacrificed King as described by James Frazer in The Golden Bough. Her search for evidence for this practice took her all the way back to the Stone Age where cave paintings of dancers masked as stags seemed to justify her thesis that there had once been an Old Religion in Europe, based on fertility rituals, in which dancers dressed as animals, particularly stags, and in which the Rite of the Sacrificed King was practiced to insure the production of crops.

Though her ideas have been proven groundless, her wonderful imaginative re-creation of an Old Religion in harmony with the nature, is frequently cited as the great inspiration behind modern Wicca as many were determined to bring back an ancient and extinct way of life.

Here she reveals what I feel is a true connection:

From The God of the Witches

Descriptions of fairies given by eye witnesses can be found in many accounts of the Middle Ages and slightly later. The sixteenth century was prolific in such accounts. John Walsh, the witch of Netherberry in Dorset, consulted fairies between the hours of twelve and one at noon and at midnight, and always went among the “hills” for the purpose. Besssie Dunlop in Ayrshire saw eight woman and four men, “the men clad in gentleman’s clothing, and the women had all plaids round them and were very seemly-like to see”; she was informed that these were “from the Court of Elfame”; she had previously received a visit from the Queen of Elfhame though without knowing at the time who her visitor was; she described the Queen as “a stout woman who came in to her and sat down on the form beside her and asked a drink at her and she gave it.” Alesoun Peirsoun, in Fifeshire, was ” convict for haunting and repairing with the good neighbors and the Queen of Elphane, and she had many good friends at that court which were of her own blood, who had good acquaintance with the Queen of Elphane.’  In Leith, Christina Livingstone affirmed “that her daughter was taken away with the Fairy folk, and that all the occult knowledge she had was by her daughter who met with the fairy.” Aberdeen was full of people who were well acquainted with fairies….”

The God of the Witches contains many evocative descriptions of these small, dark people of Bronze Age Britain who still walked around in the 17th century. When I first read this book back in 1979, I was totally smitten by it too.

Hail to Margaret Murray for planting the seeds!

Gerald Brousseau Gardener:

Born: June 13, 1884/ Entered Faery: Feb. 12, 1964

Origins of Wicca:

Gerald Gardner launched Wicca, the first religion based on the Old Religion of fertility and witchcraft described by Margaret Murray,  shortly after the end of World War II. He went public with his creation following the repeal of England’s Witchcraft Laws in 1951.  Gardnerian Wicca is a path of initiation, in which one’ s magical progress is marked by the attainment of degrees. Much of their information is secret and bound by oaths, which means it can never be shared with those outside the coven.

Gardnerian Witches identify  with their lineage, which is always traced back to Gardner himself and those he initiated.

The Book of Shadows:

One of Gerald Gardner’s most compelling magical creations was the  Book of Shadows. In reading about the original Book he made, it is clear the man was utterly inspired, for he tried to craft it like a Medieval Illuminated manuscript, filled with paintings and calligraphy — a very magical item like an ancient tome found in some  Medieval ruin charged with sorcery. Within a Gardnerian group, each member copies the coven’s  Book of Shadows and then adds to it with their own information.

His imagination was influenced by Charles Leland, Aleister Crowley, SJ MacGregor Mathers, and the books of Margaret Murray whose Old Religion he intended to re-create. I think he was also affected by the tribal rituals he must have seen when he worked in Malaysia as a civil servant, and a heavy dose of Arthurian Legend.

Gardnerian Wicca in the Public Eye:

Gardner was an educated folklorist and occultist, and claimed to have been initiated as a young man into a coven of New Forest witches by a woman named Dorothy Clutterbuck. When England repealed the last of its witchcraft laws  Gardner went public with his coven, much to the consternation of many other witches in England. His active courting of publicity led to a rift between him and Doreen Valiente, who had been one of his High Priestesses. Gardner formed a series of covens throughout England prior to his death in 1964.

Being initiated into the witch cult does not give a witch supernatural powers as I reckon them, but instructions are given, in rather veiled terms, in processes which develop various clairvoyant and other powers, in those who naturally possess them slightly. Some of these powers are akin to magnetism, mesmerism and suggestion, and depend on the possibility of forming a sort of human battery, as it were, of combined human wills working together to influence persons or events at a distance. they have instructions
on how to do this by practice…

Witchcraft Today — with introduction by Margaret Murray

Kathleen Raine

Born: June 14, 1900/ Entered Faery: July 6, 2003

Is this a lament for the loss of the Faeries?

The Wilderness

I came too late to the hills: they were swept bare
Winters before I was born of song and story,
Of spell or speech with power of oracle or invocation,

The great ash long dead by a roofless house, its branches rotten,
The voice of the crows an inarticulate cry,
And from the wells and springs the holy water ebbed away.

A child I ran in the wind on a withered moor
Crying out after those great presences who were not there,
Long lost in the forgetfulness of the forgotten.

Only the archaic forms themselves could tell!
In sacred speech of hoodie on gray stone, or hawk in air,
Of Eden where the lonely rowan bends over the dark pool.

Yet I have glimpsed the bright mountain behind the mountain,
Knowledge under the leaves, tasted the bitter berries red,
Drunk water cold and clear from an inexhaustible hidden fountain.

Kathleen Raine

I though to include the British poet Katheleen Raine not only because of her beautiful poetry, but because of her sensibilty. She seems to express a natural, even unconscious inclination towards witchcraft.

She is influenced by Yeats, himself a great forefather of magic and the mysteries –  which would alone would count her among our ancestors –  but she has also had a great attachment to the land. I think I may not be alone in sharing this quality with her.

Kathleen  was an independent scholar writing on William Blake and W. B. Yeats.
Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founder member of the Temenos Academy.

The story of her life is told in a three-volume autobiography that is notable for the author’s attempts to impose a mythical  structure on her memories, thus relating her own life to a larger pattern. Creating meaning out of life by the use of mythology and poetic inspiration is a very witchy thing to do.

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