WINTERSPELLS: Life on the Magical Path

Judika Illes’s Field Guide to Witches

September 21st, 2010

Interview by Kala Ambrose: author, psychic intuitive, wisdom teacher, inspirational speaker, muse, oracle and voice of The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show at www.ExploreYourSpirit.com

Reprinted with her kind permission.

My good friend Judika Illes has written the most sumptuous encyclopedias. Her 5000 Spells, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Encyclopedia of Spirits have been sources of endless inspiration and fascination. They are great reference books for not only magic but history, anthropology, and culture. This is a wonderful interview she did with Kala Ambrose–and she even quotes yours truly.

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Welcome to Kala’s Quick Five, where I chat with fascinating authors, artists, teachers and researchers and ask them five questions about their work. My guest today is Judika Illes, an independent scholar, educator, and author of several books of folklore, folkways, and mythology about the subjects of magic, the occult, divination, diverse spiritual traditions, witchcraft, and the paranormal. She has a certification in therapeutic aromatherapy and taught introductory courses on that subject for the Australasian College of Herbal Studies (2000-2002). She is a practitioner of taromancy, tasseography, and other forms of divination. Her published books include The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, The Encyclopedia of Spirits, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, and the topic of our interview today – The Weiser Field Guide to Witches.

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Kala: Judika, it’s a pleasure to speak with you again. I so enjoyed our conversation on the Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show, where we discussed your work and your book, Magic When You Need It. We’re back again, this time to discuss your new book, The Weiser Field Guide to Witches: From Hexes to Hermione Granger, From Salem to the Land of Oz, which hits the stores on October 1, 2010.   What prompted you to write a field guide about witches?

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Judika: My very earliest encounters with books of magic and metaphysics involved the old Samuel Weiser bookshop in New York City and so it is such a wonderful, marvelous karmic turn of events that I now find myself affiliated with the Weiser publishing house whose historic roots stretch back to that store. Last year, Weiser Publishing initiated a metaphysical field guide series: Raymond Buckland’s The Weiser Field Guide to Ghosts was the first book in the series. When Weiser asked whether I would like to write a field guide to witches, I jumped at the chance. I am honored to be following in Raymond Buckland’s footsteps and I feel so blessed to be working with Weiser Books.

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Kala: The book covers famed historical legends including Aleister Crowley and Marie Laveau to popular cinematic figures such as Harry Potter and the Wicked Witch of the West. I’m excited to see that you included historical figures as well as modern day pop icons. I saw Wicked performed live this year and found it to be a fantastic twist and representation. What did you uncover during your research for this book that you found to be most fascinating?

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Judika: Did you read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the Gregory Maguire novel that the musical is based upon? I loved it.  It addressed a lot of my own personal issues with the MGM movie, The Wizard of Oz. These issues are discussed more fully in one of my other books, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, which has substantial sections devoted to L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wizard of Oz, the movie versions, and Maguire’s novel. I would really like to see the Wicked musical one day.

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I’m always fascinated by twists, always trying to look at old subjects from different or fresh perspectives. I can’t say that there’s one most fascinating thing in The Weiser Field Guide to Witches for me because the entire topic enthralls me. There’s nothing about witches, witchcraft, or even just perceptions about witches and witchcraft that doesn’t interest me. But I am always uncovering new details. Researching is like intellectual archaeology and so you’re always digging up something new, something that will help you re-examine a topic from different angles.  During the researching of The Weiser Field Guide to Witches, I was able to uncover new details about people I’ve written about before- new for me, anyway.

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For example, while writing this book, I read a lot of Sybil Leek’s work: now I’ve loved Sybil Leek since I was a kid and saw her on television, I think on the Mike Douglas show but I did not know she had written a children’s book, The Jackdaw and the Witch. I also hadn’t realized that all of Sybil’s many books, many of which were best-sellers, are now out of print, which I find very distressing.

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For a change, I focused on Franz Bardon’s involvement with folk magic and herbalism, something that is rarely discussed as emphasis tends to be on his work with Hermetics. For those unfamiliar with him, Franz Bardon is an extremely significant figure in the history of witchcraft and magical practice but he was a modest man who lived behind the Iron Curtain and is all too often overlooked.

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Many of the details of Veronica Franco’s life were new and surprising for me. She was a Venetian courtesan who survived Europe’s witch hunts. She was a rarity: a well-educated, very literate and articulate woman who successfully defended herself against witchcraft charges and was freed.  When you write about the history of witches and witchcraft, you inevitably tell a lot of sad stories. Veronica did not have an entirely happy ending—she was quite poor at the end of her life—but it was a nice change to discuss a witchcraft-accusation tale that did not end in complete tragedy.

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Kala: Of all of the titles that women have claimed, the term witch I believe, has been the most misused, misunderstood and misrepresented over the centuries. I have past life memories of practicing the wise woman ways and being condemned for doing so in those past lives. It is so sad at times to still see how misunderstood the term is to this day. Can you define and bring some clarity to our readers on who witches were and who they are today?

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Judika: I have similar past life memories, Kala. My absolute favorite definition of “witch” is from author Aline DeWinter—I quote it in The Weiser Field Guide to Witches: “A Witch is a person who sees everything as alive and powerful. We walk in a sacred manner and all of nature responds.” I can’t possibly say it any better.

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For me, a witch is a person possessing both spiritual freedom and personal power. A witch has a kind of freedom of soul and mind, even if she sometimes finds herself oppressed by life’s circumstances in other ways. A witch is in touch with her own personal spiritual and magical power and makes conscious choices and decisions regarding when and if and how to access and use that power. I think those are eternal definitions that apply now and forever.

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But the word “witch” also gets very carelessly thrown around a lot: it’s evolved into an umbrella term encompassing incredibly diverse, often contradictory definitions. That’s as true now as it was in the past. The word “witch” has historically been applied to healers, priestesses, magical practitioners, shamans, and practitioners of polytheistic faiths. It’s also used as a derogatory term for people interested in the occult, unconventional people, and also as a misogynistic term for women in general, especially uppity women who don’t display sufficient submissiveness.

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I am constantly asked whether I’m a witch and my consistent response is to ask the questioner to define the word “witch” for me, which usually really annoys them.  Now I’m not a particularly confrontational person but it’s crucial that the word “witch” be defined: you have to be careful because one person’s definition is not the same as another’s.  I define “witch” very positively. I have always loved and admired witches: as a child, I perceived Hansel and Gretel as a tragedy because the witch was murdered. Hansel and Gretel was a really stressful story for me to hear but I was worried about the witch, not the kids. However, I am well aware that not everyone shares my perspective. So when someone asks you if you are a witch, for safety’s sake, before you answer, you need to know whether they perceive witches as role models or as servants of Satan.

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>High Priestess by Thomas Dodd

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Kala: In your book, you also explore the ancient goddesses including Isis, Hekate, and Aradia among others. Do you feel that the calling of the high priestess is returning? Many express an awareness that the Divine Feminine energy is rising at this time, how do you feel this will affect the world?

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Judika: Lilith, Kybele, Yemaya, and Oshun are also among those included in The Weiser Field Guide to Witches. And Naamah and Nephthys, too. I can’t overlook my Ladies! I create field guides and encyclopedias and so I try very hard to write from a neutral position. I present a lot of diverse information, I’m not writing only about my own personal experiences but, that said, a lot of what I write about is very personal to me. I write from within the traditions, not merely as an observer.

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I think the calling of the high priestess has never gone away—the difference is that in the 21st century more of us are now in a position to heed that call and to demonstrate our devotion in a public fashion and thus serve as inspiration and encouragement to others. So the response to the calling can expand exponentially whereas previously, for reasons of safety, these practices had to be maintained under deep cover, very discreetly and secretly and on a much smaller scale. If the Divine Feminine energy is nurtured and allowed and encouraged to rise, then that will be humanity’s salvation.  We are in trouble without it.
But it is very much a calling.

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There is a basic shamanic tenet that the Call of the Spirits—or a specific deity or goddess—can only be ignored at your own risk. If you feel that call in your heart, mind, or in your blood or bones, you must respond. The alternative is depression, illness, general frustration and unhappiness. But the wonderful thing is that the spirits—and I use that word as an equalizer, I write about so many of them from so many traditions that I very consciously try not to impose a hierarchy—the spirits do respond. They speak with us and will negotiate methods of veneration and communication that suit each of us. So just as there are many ways to be a witch, there are many ways to be a high priestess. And new paths are being forged all the time. We are blessed to live in a magical and spiritual renaissance and it is crucial that we nurture and protect it.

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Kala: Judika, looking back at your life thus far in review, how has your practice of the metaphysical arts enhanced and affected your life. Have you been surprised by the journey along the way?

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Judika: Kala, it has enhanced and affected every aspect of my life. I cannot even begin to imagine who I would be without it. I do believe in the concept of the witchblood. My fascination and identification with witches, witchcraft, and metaphysics manifested at such an early age: it was just there inside me from the start. I can’t even begin to explain it otherwise. I have personally had a very circuitous spiritual journey, a surprising and unpredictable personal path. For example, what I am working on now is another massive encyclopedia, this one devoted to saints of many spiritual traditions. If you had told me twenty years ago that I’d be working with saints, I would have laughed. I wouldn’t have believed you. And yet here I am.

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Kala: Judika, thank you for joining me here on Kala’s Quick Five. More about Judika and her book The Weiser Field Guide to Witches at www.judikailles.com

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Judika: Thank you so much, Kala! It’s always a pleasure speaking with you!
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Psychic Development, Magick and the Other Stuff

A guest post by Nathan.

Victor Vasnetsov – The Magic Carpet

I was wondering what kind of article I can write for this website. And then it just hit me – there are so many categories and topics here, so many things Aline is talking about, why not merge them all together?

I begun my adventure with the supernatural in 2005. I am definitely young explorer of the paranormal, but I already know a few things. What was it that I begun with? Psionics – a little bit  of a fluffy and childish approach to psychic development. But I wanted more, so from fluffy websites I moved to reading books, from there to occult practices – different systems, from Tai Chi meditation to Norse Runes, from Shamanism to Chaos Magick. With time, all of this merged into one thing. No longer was I talking about different systems, different practices. The terms became worthless, and even troubling as I was talking with people.

Everyone got their own set of terms. I was unable to communicate with Chaos mages, Wiccans thought I was a vampire, vampires thought I was just an asshole, but most people thought I had no idea what I was talking about – while in reality, they were those who had no idea what the occult really is. Not all of them, of course, I’ve met many people who thought like me.

For me, shamanism, psychic abilities, chaos magick, Norse runes, tarot — all of this is the same thing. They are  the same kinds of occult practices – using our will to use some supernatural energies to shape the universe we live in as we want it, or at least -to perceive the universe using extraordinary means – like divination systems (runes, tarot, i ching) or psychic abilities, different forms of clairvoyance.

Needful Things

It is my belief that people who think that ancient shaman and modern Chaos mage perform different occult arts, those people are simple wrong and there are  a lot more for them to learn. Every single occult practice is based on four elements:

The Place:

Needs to be prepared for the practice. Occult orders usually create whole temples, modern psychic vampyres simple cleanse the place of negative energies, Wiccan creates altars, psychics turned one room into simple meditative space. This creates a place where higher energies are created. And these enrages support the occult art process.

The Energy:

There are so many terms: PSI, Ki, Chi, Prana, Kia, Odic Force, Ethers and many more. But these terms represent the very same energy, the energy that cannot be easily defined, but the energy that is used to shape the universe (telekinesis, law of attraction, different forms of occult spells), and transfer information (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, astral projections).

The Goal :

What do you want to achieve? What is your goal? It is something we want, it might be a wish to send a telepathic message to a friend, or attract $10 000 USD within next 24 hours. The goal is what we want to achieve while sitting in specific place, using specific energies, with…

The Will:

The power that shapes the universe and our life. When you have the goal, the will the  I really want this to happen and the power to make it happen.

Those are four primary elements of every occult practice. If you will look closer, you will find all these elements in every magical or psychical system in existence.

Odin: Eric Tesol

Choosing Your Occult System

Everyone of us have to choose the system to follow – some people choose Wicca, some Chaos Magick, some becomes psychics, and some mix all the systems there are. As one wise magus said,  “With time each one of us creates his own practical system.”

If the principles are all the same, there is really no difference which system you will choose.

But you need to  feel the system. That is  where some books come to be – for example, I do not really feel good with modern occult systems, but I read some books about Hebrew occultism, and I was always fascinated with Norse mythology. In my practice I often use Hebrew rites, and I am a big fan of runes, I have implemented some rites from Runic Magick in my own practice.

These are the archetypes, and you should read a lot of books in order to find out which archetype speaks to you. Thor is a god of War, but I prefer Thor over Mars from Roman mythology – although these are the same archetypes, I respond better to Thor – therefore, my occult practices gives me better results, only because I perceive Norse archetypes as more powerful and more real. Someone else would say I’m nuts, because the only real spirits are these from The Goetia. But the reality is – we’re still dealing with the same archetypes.

The same thing relates to divination – I prefer Norse Runes over Tarot cards, but I don’t think either of these systems is better than the other one. Some people prefer Tarot because they feel it – I don’t feel the cards, I feel the Runes.

Terminology is the Source

The source of all problems. I do not say we should create ultimate set of terms for all occult practices, it is impossible. But based on this article, you must understand that you need to keep an open mind. Never assume that someone is lying or have no idea what he’s talking about, or he is just wrong. Discuss the case, try to get to the bottom of things. If I say PSI and someone from India will say Prana, I will simplified things in such manner, so the guy will know that what he calls Prana, I call PSI. You get it?

Because at the source, all things are the same – you say tomato, I say tomato. With hundreds of years, different terms and names has been created to represent the same things. Around different terms, different systems of beliefs has been created. But at the very core, it’s all the same – the place, the energy, the goal and the will to shape the universe. This creates magick, this creates the occult philosophy.

People face problems without understanding this – they practice psychic abilities, and they wonder if they should start practicing some magick system, and vice versa. Let me tell you something: As long as the occult system works for you – stick with it. After all, what matters the most, is the result of your practice. Everything else is just the language that is too limited to explain what we really think…

Nathan is AN energy worker and paranormal investigator based in Poland, Europe.

He IS also non-fiction writer, check out his “Psychic Development Guidebook”

http://astateofmind.eu/how-to-develop-psychic-abilities/

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“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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In folk believe system of Serbian people exist very interesting myths who tell us how some people gained their unusual powers, intelligence, strength etc. Actually, by people believes almost every Serbian hero through history was dragon man. That is how people have explained their heroic acts, wisdom and powers, if they had some.

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The problem is that by witches’ myths, witches explain origin of their powers and their blood lines in same manner. All people know that but no one wants to say that loudly because that is heresy. Witches can not be in same line with cult heroes. This problem could be even bigger because common name for male witches aka warlocks in Serbia is dragon men.
In Serbian mythology we can clearly see that there are at least three different kinds of Dragons. First kind would be dragons who are identified as meteors on night sky and they are considered to be a personifications of fire. Second kind are reptile dragons or serpent dragons who are very similar to those who we can find in Western Europe. By people believes they can be very dangerous. In most cases they are winged serpents but they have intelligence and they behave similar as dragon-people. Actually they share same capabilities. Third kinds are dragon people and they are kinds who interested us here. One old epic song tells us follow:

As many Serbian heroes there is,
All have been brought up by faeries,
And many have the dragons for fathers…

So by myths some of those heroes were Mislos Obilic, Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk, Relja Bosnjanin, Banovic Sekula, Banovic Strahinja, Ljutica Bogdan, Kraljevic Marko…

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The question is how those people had becomes dragon people? That could happen in three ways. First would be that ones mother could sleep with dragon. Second is that ones father could sleep with fairy and third is that fairy has nursed (give her breast milk) one when he was a baby.

Titania—Cowper

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If someone becomes dragon-man because his mother was fairy or fairy has nursed him, we can clearly see that faeries are female dragons! Actually, in Serbian traditions there are several kinds of faeries. We have, lets say “little ones”, fairies from nature, protectors of some springs, lakes, trees and Great Ones about whom we are talking here. By old myths those Great Ones are daughters of Adam and Eve whom God has cursed and they became something like semi women very similar to fallen angels from Book of Enoch. By some stories they even have animal legs which are hidden by their dresses. They have their Queen and her name is Jerisavlja. Very often people consider that queen of faeries is Forest Mother and her nick name is Forest Witch or Great Witch. We can find that in many old incantation by whom people had try to contact her. We must emphasize that those faeries are not some gentle creatures from pagan fairytales but very dangerous ones who have extreme power, magic knowledge, bad temper etc. In many stories we can see how they punish some character just because he has better voice or he has seen them. Beside that they are sexually lustful and they have manner to sleep with young boys, shepherds or warriors. However, they do not like to be in marriage and they do not like family life. Actually, by myths the only Serbian King who was in marriage with fairy was Vukasin so all of his children were dragon people.

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Dragons are sexually lustful too. Even today at the east Serbia people believe that dragons had manner that at night visit beautiful girls. Very often, by people believes, those girls gave birth and their baby was to be dragon man. What nobody tells out loud is that if baby is a boy, people will call him dragon man and if baby is a girl, everybody will call her witch. What those girls and boys have in common is that both will have magic powers, knowledge and what is the most important capability to, by their own will, induct trance. Why? Because they are dragons’ and faeries’ children, so they are just a half human. Maybe they look like humans, but their souls and true beings are totally different. Usually people say that only persons with some capabilities can see how they really look like, until they are in their bodies, but everyone can see that as they leave their bodies. In most cases their souls were described as in animal shape or mythic animal shape. For instance in one old epic song Serbian duke Banovic Sekula lives his body in the shape of dragon with six wings.

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From historic data we can clearly see that dragons do not chose girls perchance. Those girls are witches or they are from witch families. For instance, professor Stevan Dordjevic have founded in city archive of town Zajecar that society accused one young girl that she was sleeping with dragon in village Osljan in 1935. She was a witch and she was famous by fortune telling. Later in year 1946 there was another accusation and then people accused young daughter of famous male witch Krsta that she was sleeping with dragon. We must say that people usually had nothing against dragons and their children but they believed that it was too dangerous if dragon stayed to long in their neighborhood because he could provoke drought. The only reason why dragons stay in one region to long are girls.

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The question is who those dragons are and what is their origin? With regret we must say that Serbian ethnology has failed to give us straight answer to that question. Mainly there are two theories. By first dragons are some animals, usually serpents, fishes or sheep that became dragons because they have lived too long. For instance, if some serpent lives hundred years it will become dragon in one moment, by people believes. Second theory speaks more about mysterious dragons that sleep with women. By it those dragons represents mythical ancestor or ancestors. Reason why scientists consider that those dragons could be ancestors is that because they are in too many blood lines, especially in those with “blue blood”. That tells us about why they are so important in people’s belief system. However, it doesn’t say who those ancestors are.

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We have had the opportunity to speak with several authentic witches in rural regions of the country about that subject and found out what their traditions tell us about those dragons. So from several similar stories we have compiled one which we will tell here.

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By witches’ myths, dragons have fallen all over the Balkan many centuries ago. They have fallen with something which looked like meteors shower. Because of that, even today witches and peasants connect dragons with meteors and that is noted in Serbian ethnology as we already see. Some of those dragons have fallen in rivers Danube, Timok and Pek and other in forests and mountains. Those who had fallen in rivers have continued to live in them under the water. They look like male mermaids, they have their middle long, big circle eyes, wide nose and long canine toots. Those who had fallen in forests inhabited big trees, mainly old beeches with holes. How they look like is hard to say because some witches claim that they are just big lights and other that they are anthropomorphic serpents with wings and that they become big light only when they start to fly. Those who have fallen in mountains inhabited caves and they look like previous dragons. As we can conclude, all of them are same dragons but after they fall in matter they take different shapes depending of their new habitation.

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It is very difficult to explain how witches percept them. Most of them claim that those dragons are material but that they are more like material spirits. They are not “dough” and “firmly” like us. Let’s say that they are more etheric. Because of that only some people can see them. Most often those people are witches, shamans or some similar groups which have extraordinary capabilities. However, dragons can hide themselves even to those groups if they want to, because they are very powerful. As some of my informants have told me dragons reviled themselves only to the woman with whom they wanted to sleep, people with whom they wanted some other kind of contact or people could see them accidentally. One of my informant explained me that very plasticly and described me that if I perchance cought the woman in the moment when she is sleeping with dragon I could see only her and her legs in the air.

Fuseli

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As we can see, after their fall dragons have started to seduce women and sleep with them. That was not hard task for them because they are shape shifters too. So when they want to seduce a woman they take appearance of a handsome man and seduce them. That was how it all stared. Children from these relationships become half human half dragons. What is the most important thing, is that by that process those children have inherited some powers and capabilities of their fathers. That means that they have some basic powers, and those powers were different from person to person but all of them would have one ultimate power, and that power was “different” souls, because of which they would have capabilities to leave their bodies when ever they wanted.
Because of that “power” all of them are capable to be in contact with hidden world and hidden forces which could be visible to them only when they leave their bodies. That contact provides them additional magic knowledge. During their night flyes they can be in contact with faeries, dragons, ancestors etc.

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By witches’ myths that dragon blood line has managed to preserve itself through centuries. It is not necessary that every family has a woman who is in relationship with dragon at present; it is enough that family has a long departed dragon man or witch and that family would have dragon blood in their veins even today. Some members of that family could revile themselves as witches or dragons men but not everyone although they all do have dragon blood. Usually that happens when they are young and when they start spontaneously to fall in trance. That is the time when they get their initiations and when they discover hidden world of faeries, dragons and ancestors.

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As we can see dragons could be mythic ancestor as ethnologists have sad. However, as we can see, those dragons are mythic ancestor only to some people not all. Those people who have dragons as their ancestors will have unusual powers and capabilities. They would be people with witch blood.

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Moreover, it is not unusual that dragons are subject of witch cults. About one of these cults we have already talked in one my previous article (The Cauldron No128, Serbian Witchcraft, p32-33). Shortly told, in east Serbia exists a big tree in witch “Morning Star”(Lucifer) or Danica is Serbian, lives after his fall. That tree is object of cult. All local witches respect that tree or better said what is in that tree. They work with Danica, it is their source of knowledge and power but they do not worship it! What is interesting here is that Lucifer is connected with dragons because he is Star that had fallen and he lives in tree as others dragons do. Other name for meteors in Serbia is falling stars and all dragons are connected with stars. It is very clear that he is a subject of cult because he is more important then the other. So we can see some hierarchy here among dragons.

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When I ask my informants where those dragons have came from, I only got one answer-sky. Because they are connected with stars we can conclude that they have come from space. It is important to say that people don’t see them as aliens but as very old creatures from ancient times. So who are they? It is very hard to say. However, all what we can conclude from all of this is that this stories are very similar to those from Book of Enoch I. We know for sure that the Book of Enoch I(it talk about watchers, fallen angels and how they slept with women and their half angelic offspring) was very important among Balkan Gnostic Bogumils and even more that the Book of Enoch II was found in Serbia in Belgrade. Stories about dragons and witch blood which we have found among Serbian witches are very similar to those from Book of Enoch although they do not talk about fallen angels but dragons.

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The questions is if angels and dragons are the same? It hard to tell but we think that even if these stories are not the same they must have mutual origin. We know that stories about dragons in this region are older then Book of Enoch so our personal opinion is that angels have taken places of dragons after arrival of Christianity and Gnosticism. At the bottom line appearance of fallen angels is very similar to appearance of fallen dragons in the way they behave. It is clear that both of them represent same creatures which have fallen from the sky but that they have different names through different moments in history and through different cultures. What is more important is that those stories explain origin of blood lines of those people who have some powers. In Serbian witch stories we can find out why those people have these powers and what these powers are.

Radomir Ristic

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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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Legacy of the Witchblood and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches

“Lasher, for the wind that you send that lashes the grasslands, for the wind that lashes the leaves from the trees.”

In her classic first volume of the  Chronicles of the Mayfair Witches, The Witching Hour, Anne Rice bases the witchy status of her characters on their relationship to a discarnate spirit called Lasher. Conjured through the veil in the 17th century by Scottish Merry Begot,  Suzanne of the Mayfair, Lasher’s presence is  heralded by the branches of the trees and bushes lashing the wind.

Suzanne’s unwise choice to dabble in magic got her burned in Donnelaith, but not before Lasher fell in love with Suzanne’s beautiful daughter, Deborah. He gave her a bottomless purse of gold and  a large emerald pendant with his name inscribed on the back to be passed down to all the Mayfair witches. For all his gifts, Lasher’s witches suffer tragic untimely deaths and madness. Deborah was burned at the stake for witchcraft in France.

Symbolism of the Emerald

The emerald is the classic stone of Faery and has many occult associations, not the least being the color of the green earth and the favored eye color of Faery beings.The Holy Grail is associated with the emerald that fell from Lucifer’s crown when he fell to earth after the Battle of the Rebel Angels in Heaven. It signifies the Emerald Tablet of Thrice Great Hermes and the philosophers stone.

In each each succeeding generation of Mayfairs, the spirit, Lasher, would attach himself to a female child gifted with the “sight”, granting her the emerald and a bottomless purse in exchange for the energy he needs to gradually acquire a physical body. Sometimes Lasher is referred to as the Devil—-the traditional King of all witches—- Lucifer.

The Question of Witchblood

Though The Witching Hour is a work of fiction, thought by most people to be a fantasy, Anne Rice got me thinking about my own inheritance of the Witchblood.

*In modern witchcraft, Witchblood is usually thought of as bloodline stemming from ancestors who practiced the Craft. It is a formal initiation that is passed down from parent to child. My abilities did not come to down through a line of practicing witches, at least not consciously.

*In Celtic Faery Tradition, Witchblood can be the result of mediating Faery—-the archetypal Realm of the Ancestors. If done long enough, your ancestors “wake up in your blood”. Since the ancestors  of most, if not all peoples of earth, were  pagans, then any cunning craft or magical abilities  they had will come back to life in the Faery Seer’s blood.

*One thing that Anne Rice suggests is that the mark of a witch is the possession of psychic powers and the ability to see spirits. I agree that those abilities are all of a piece. What is it about these abilities that make one a witch? What is a witch anyway?

I think a witch is someone walks on the earth in a sacred manner and all of nature responds. Especially spirits. Like animals, they know who comes from the heart and who doesn’t. But if a spirit is summoned for selfish purposes—well this a realm where indeed you get what you give.

How Do You See Spirits?

I have been seeing spirits for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the woods and most of the spirits I saw were spirits of those woods. I saw the past life of the land roll out like film reels. I saw ghosts. I never feared these beings, rather I thought they were marvelous and they intrigued me. I never questioned why I could see them, I just did. I also knew by instinct that very few other people had these visions.

In The Mayfair Witches, Lasher reveals his agenda to Rowan Mayfair. She is the thirteenth witch in the family line and thus the one who is strong enough to help him to gain what he wants most profoundly, a human form.

This notion of the witch having the strength to assist a spirit to manifest got me re-thinking about how we see spirits.

The spirits exist independently of us, whether we see them or not. Since our age of gross Materialism, very few people see them any more. Some people call the ability to the view the Unseen, a “gift”, or a special dispensation from God or the Devil depending on your view. Most people who think this don’t have it.

(I think Anne Rice has it…)
I always thought this clairvoyance was just part of a package  with a sensitive, nervous temperament and was kind of enhanced power of  creative imagination.
Then I thought it had to do with innate spirituality. Some us are born seers, people who in ancient cultures would have been members of a priest class.
Karma was another explanation, previous lifetimes of spiritual practice that opened the Third Eye.

These were the ideas I played while reading The Witching Hour..

I also thought it might have been a genetic inheritance from my French, Irish and Iroquois ancestors—–natural mediumistic races  all. I also thought of trance mediums oozing ectoplasm and causing spirits to materialize and bump the table up and down.

Now that might have at the back of Anne Rice’s mind when she was writing her book, among other things.

After reading The Mayfair Witches, I have another idea.

Spiritual Frequency as Materializing Force

Anne Rice suggests that Lasher’s ability to materialize is strengthened as each succeeding Mayfair witch grows stronger. The tide of passed-on experience and Lasher’s interference in the gene pool of the Mayfairs by pairing the most psychic family members to conceive the next child, increases the power of the new witch to bring him through.

What this means to me is that my ability to “see” spirits may not be a “sight” based thing at all. Rather,  I emit the right energetic frequency that allows discarnate spirits to densify in my presence.

When the Tuatha deDanaan came through my house back in 1997-98, they came as holograms —-complete and life-sized  3-dimensional light bodies dressed in the clothing of 12th century France. By that time, I had been working as a full time  energy healer in the long wake of a full blown kundalini awakening in 1989. My frequencies were sky rockets.

This level of frequency can only be attained when one is aligned to the vibration of Divine Love and the Soul of the World. It comes from the heart where no malice can be exist because it is instantly neutralized at that vibrational level. This is why I know the Faeries are not evil.

So—-did I simply lend the necessary vibrations to these Faeries that allowed them to take on material substance?
Would they have been coming through my house even if I couldn’t have seen them?
Or were they attracted to my space because of the frequencies, and knew I would be able to lend them form—and see them?

When they ordered me to start painting the Grail Keepers Tarot, I asked them why they chose me. I had lapsed as far as art was concerned and wasn’t good enough for such a project. They told me I was the only one who could do it, because I could see them and they could see me.

Children and the Sight

That still doesn’t explain how I, or anyone, could help them appear when I was a child.
The time of early childhood is a more likely time for these experiences. Is that because the purity of the child’s heart and thus vibration is so much stronger than an adults? Are many more of us born with the Witchblood than we realize?

Part of the lore of Faery is that they love to materialize. They seek to share with us this creation of life on earth. Anne Rice’s Lasher is a trickster figure, not really evil so much as corrupted by desire and ambition learned from his contact with human beings. This is also an interesting idea. The pure spirit is innocent. Physicality exerts it own influences. In Faery Tradition we say that the Faery being takes on the form we project upon it. We have the ability, in creating the conditions that allow them to materialize, to also influence their natures.

It has been my observation that many people who are raised, even today, in cultures where magic is practiced and the spirits are corrupted, flock into Christian churches for protection. They’ve been burned! The trouble with doing spells for worldly things has to do with all the desires and guilts and unclear emotions that human beings bring to the spirits. If the spirits  screw it up and your magic backfires, it is because that is the energy you were exchanging with them. Love begets love, malice begets malice, and even trickier, lust begets lust and all the Seven Deadlies.

Just like Lasher…

My Faeries were never evil, but then I didn’t expect anything of them except that they show me what they wanted all of us to know.

There was a time, I believe, when many many more people, if not all people could bring spirits through. The advent of the Industrial revolution and its rampant destruction and disregard for the natural world have not only closed our inner eyes, our minds, and darkened our knowledge of our origins on planet earth, but has closed the portals to Faery. I think witchblood flows through all of us. I think it is the life force of the earth. The sad part about losing it is that we are out of harmony and taking everything else with us.

For a really great blog post about The Witching Hour by Anne Rice check out Caroline Tully’s blog Necropolis

necropolisnow.blogspot.com

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The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries

The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries comprise an allegory of the fate of the pure soul in the world. The Unicorn has often been referred to as a Christ figure, but its meaning is much older than Christianity, for the image of a Beast, no matter how mythical, would not be used to symbolize the Son of God unless that God existed at the most primal, pre-conscious level, deep in the Soul of the World. When one meditates on the sequence of images in the Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries, it looks more like an ancient Fertility Rite enacting the sexual awakening of the World. This has more to do with the Medieval Courts of Love than the Passion of Christ.

The innocence of the Unicorn is signified, not only by its clean, white coat, but by its single, uncloven, horn. One horn suggests unity,  it  cannot be entered, it wards off intrusion. Dual horns, in this context, suggest that that which was whole is now split. The possessor of two horns lives in the world of opposites, of two sexes, and therefore is concerned with procreation. That which is split then seeks reunion through the birth of the third, mirror image of itself, and so the regenerative cycle goes on.

That is why the Unicorn can only be tamed by a virgin, for the Virgin is undefiled, unitary, and protected. The Men of the World cannot open the Unicorn’s body unless he lies in the lap of the Virgin who comes forward voluntarily with an aura of sacrifice. The symbolism of the single fertilizing horn in a Virgin’s lap is clear. In the case of the Unicorn, there is a divine fertilization. Only when the Soul, (the Virgin) is torn away from her union with the Divine, can she be joined with man. Therefore the men, who seek to re-discover lost innocence, and because they are of the World, cannot value purity as inner possession only, and kill the Virgin’s Divine connection so she will be available for them in the world of duality.

This interpretation suggests that there is an alternate allegory to that of the passion of Christ possible here, something to do with the Virgin as World Soul in union with the Divine, and the Unicorn as the mystic seeking return to the source.It is also a Creation myth that shows the Fall into duality without which earthly life would not be possible.

For me, the quest for the Unicorn, and these beautiful tapestries, evoke great Mystery, so they are part of my Mysterious Domain…which is of course, in my imagination…

A Mystery is Sought

The Hunters represent primal man, crude, blind, and driven by base desires without the light of consciousness. They  enter the forest to hunt, but find themselves on the path of a great Mystery that will  instill a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. Only a powerful encounter with the Otherworld will be shocking enough to awaken them.

They come upon a Unicorn dipping his horn in a fountain.

The  Hunters  break out of the woods and find a garden where all the animals, both hunter and hunted, live in peace and harmony together. It is the Garden of Paradise before the Fall,  before the intrusion of Man.

A beautiful, pure white Unicorn dips his horn into the Waters of Life, both to purify them, and fertilize the Earth with his divine power.

The Waters springing up from the Underworld  let us know we are in the Realm of Faery…

The Unicorn leaps over a stream

The Unicorn sees the Hunters and leaps over the stream that runs from the fountain. In the old traditions, bodies of water, especially rivers and streams, are crossing points between the mortal world and the Otherworld of Faery. It is interesting to note that while the Unicorn was at the fountain, he was safe in Paradise where the Hunters were not able to act against him. By leaping over the stream, is he not, therefore, running toward danger,  straight into the spears and arrows? If that is the case, it would seem his  sacrifice is voluntary, as all true sacrifices must be.
But why?

The Unicorn defends himself

The Unicorn defends himself by attacking the dogs. Is this not a representation of how the most pure, Divine power must seek protection from the defilement of the basest instincts of Man symbolized by the dogs?  In the old fairy stories, animals often stood for the gross sexual appetites, unrefined and undisciplined  by the consciousness of the higher mind. The idea of the tail wagging the dog comes to mind when you think of people who chase after sexual pleasure, or release, irregardless of the consequences.

Rather than defending himself, could the Unicorn be protecting the Virgin? Could he be trying to prevent the primitive Hunters despoiling her with rude weapons and coarse sexuality? For the Unicorn is the Virgin’s lover is he not?

The Ladies know what it means to capture the Unicorn

The Ladies of the Palace know what the mystery is and how it must climax. For they too have been virgins in love with the Unicorn.

A Virgin Tames the Unicorn

This is event is always referred to as the Virgin taming the Unicorn, but it not be seen another way?  It is really an image of the Unicorn laying hos head in the Virgin’s lap. While lying there between her legs, he is killed by the Hunters. Perhaps the Unicorn lays down its life to protect the Virgin from the instinctual, untamed, and unenlightened desires of the Hunters. He is her purity, and her inviolability. Once the unity is cleft, there can be no return to Paradise. Innocence is lost forever.
Interestingly, this piece of the tapestry is damaged and the figure of the virgin torn away. The red gowned  Lady coyly looking on is merely her handmaiden. We see the dog drawing the Unicorn’s blood.

So much for the pure, innocent Soul of the World in our times…

The Hunters slay the Unicorn

The Unicorn is pierced through the heart , both his spiritual heart located below the throat and his physical heart in his breast. The Palace of civilization stands on the other side of a lake. The refined Lords and Ladies stream down from the palace to receive the Hunters who seem changed by their encounter with the Unicorn.They approach the Ladies who appear to instruct them, perhaps on the proper attitude of respect to maintain regarding the Procreative Mysteries.

Indeed, the Lord and Ladies seem to ignore the Unicorn as he is impaled  above them, at the edge of the palace garden.  They seem much more intent on sharing the gifts of civilization with the Hunters. The palace is thus the realm between the higher and lower levels of being.

The Unicorn is restored to life

Often called ‘The Unicorn in Captivity’.

This is an apt title, although it leaves out the impression that the Unicorn has come back to life. Perhaps this is because he never was a mortal creature, but a symbol all along, a representation of innocence and purity too good for the World. Now he is captured, fenced in, and controlled by the forces of civilization that would use him as an example of perfection. Yet he is set apart, no longer part of the whole, rendered, in a sense, useless. He is emptied of the numinous wholeness he once wielded in the lost Paradise. In the  World, duality is all, for without duality, the cloven horn and hoof, the Creation as we know it, would cease to exist.

The Unicorn knows this. That is the nature of his sacrifice. He is at peace.

Go to my Videos for a beautiful Medieval song that goes well with these tapestries

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I want to wish everyone a beautiful Winter Solstice. May the coming of the light bring all your dreams into fruition.

This old song is so mysterious in its evocation of nature and the  birth of the divine Child. By Loreen McKennitt.

I hope you enjoy it!

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My friend Judika Illes brought this to my attention.

I can really relate to this witch living in the woods and being friends with the animals. Can you?

In the story, this engineer comes to this remote village in Sweden  and insists on putting a road through a beloved Troll rock even when the villagers object. Some things never change!

This problem came up recently in Iceland where developers were told they must consider the Elves in their plans. These countries were among the last to be Christianized, and it seems they may still have pockets of sensitivity to, and respect for, Faery.

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Jinochka
May 24, 2008

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The Gathering Dark

In the cycle of the Horned God, there are four Harvests: the Harvest of Grain, the Harvest of Vine and Fruit, the Harvest of Nuts or Acorns, and finally the Harvest of Souls.

In October, as the light glows close upon the earth, and the shadows lengthen towards deep autumn, our natural inclination is to turn within. Deciduous trees turn inward, drawing their life force into the earth with a last fiery display, before they shed the outer trappings of life and stand in their bare bones. The animals move inside of burrows, caves, or hollows, even houses, to get away from the cold. Many birds leave and the atmosphere grows quiet without their songs.

For us, this natural inward turning is a time for reflection. Only by going within can we explore the nature of our souls, find our deepest dreams, and perhaps glimpse our own divinity. In the past, as the darkness  moved over the land, houses also grew dark and silent.  People gathered close to the fire, and in that circle of warmth and light, told stories, sang ballads, perhaps they spun and sewed, and did whatever work they could do  to tide them over the long winter months. Relationships deepened as people spent lots of time together in close quarters…

Astrologically the sign of Scorpio, straddling October and November, is the time to chase the stag into the forest, kill him, and take him home to keep the family fed throughout the winter. In agricultural societies, it was the time to cull the herds, to slaughter the animals that could no longer produce, and use them as food. This why the sign of Scorpio is associated with death, but also with rebirth and, in the old way of looking at change from one form to another, which is from mortality to spirit — Transformation.

All these journeys into personal darkness, all these deaths, comprise the Harvest of Souls. The Horned God, the Stag, rules over this time as Lord of the Hunt, for as we hunt him, he hunts us, luring us into the deep forest where we are confused by be shadows cast my the moon, where the paths end in the trees, or at the side of a lake or stream, where we lose track of where we are going, or even who we are.

Mystery of Eleusis: What Kind of Ritual Was This?

I have been thinking about the Eleusinian Mysteries and Persephone’s abduction into the Underworld in this context.

I may be mistaken, but I think that the Pagans of the ancient Mediterranean practiced human sacrifice. I also think Neo-Pagans have obscured this fact with a lot of psych-babble, Jungian theories of archetypes, etc. But my love of playing with symbols demands indulgence with this. Here goes!

Persephone, or Kore, the virgin child of a powerful matriarch is playing in a field of poppies, when Pluto, or Hades, rises up out of the earth and snatches, or even rapes her. She is taken down into his Kingdom under the Earth, where she is tricked into eating the seeds of the pomegranate. Because she eats the food of the Underworld, she is thought to have agreed to stay in Pluto’s realm forever as his bride.

I don’t know what sacrificial device the ancient Greeks used, but it seems that beautiful Virgins  have often been the sacrificial victims of choice. Poppies are the matrix of narcotics that lull people to into a sleepy, dreamlike state often associated with death.  This suggests that the virgin girl was drugged in preparation for her ravishment and demise. Pluto is the God of Death, and we know only one reason a mortal person would be taken into the Underworld — unless of course they are Faery Witches — is because they are dead.

I also wonder if the rape version ( though I think he words ‘abduction’ and ‘rape’ were synonymous at one time)  of the myth means that the virgin was raped and impregnated — this would strengthen the idea that new life would come out of death. Since the pomegranate is a womb symbol, Persephone’s eating of it could be another way of saying she is pregnant. I definitely think there was something sexual going on, an element practically erased  by a load of Victorian artists and illustrators.

Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds could also indicate her willingness to be sacrificed (sacrifices always had to be willing), but seeds are also symbols of re-birth. Seeds germinate under the soil in the darkness until they rise back up in the Spring. Death and rebirth was the theme of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Demeter, the mother of Persephone. goes mad with grief and blasts the earth with winter. This seems metaphorical because, though the sacrifice of virgins to the Gods, or priests of the Gods,  actually did take place in ancient times, it is hard to believe a woman could have so much power over the earth as to blight it until she got her daughter back. We do know she was assisted by Hekate who witnessed the abduction and strove with Demeter to rescue her daughter from death.

Maybe as the sacrificial killing ritual was taking place in a dark cave, or underground temple,  the mothers of the victims were  weeping and tearing their hair, whether ritually or actually, up on the surface of the earth. Greek poetry is full of women ritually tearing their hair for Adonis, so why not Persephone as well?

Our tender Adonis is dying!
What shall we do?
Rend your hair, girls,
and tear your dresses.

(I think this fragment comes out of Sappho…)

As for the role of Hekate, I wonder if there had to be someone to take the body of the sacrificila victim to the tomb, and if it that task would  fall to the Priestess of Hekate?

The theme of the Harvest of Souls, the Death part of the Death and Rebirth equation, suggests that this Mystery must have taken place at the Agean equivalent of deep autumn on the threshold of winter.

Cave at Eleusis

Initiation at Eleusis

The only thing I have read that scholars seemed to be sure of about the Mysteries of Eleusis was that the initiates were taken on a journey through a temple, blindfolded, and put through some kind of ordeals. At the the end of the ritual, their blindfolds were removed and they were presented with a sheaf of grain. This was a symbolic statement that that which was harvested, or killed, and dragged into the Hades, would return in the spring as new life.

What was that about?

Considering that the ancient Greeks were probably better versed in the  cycles of Death and Rebirth than we are, it seems they would not be surprised, as scholars suggest, that the grain dies and comes back in the spring.  But if the actual sacrifice of children was demanded by the Gods to insure the fertility of the land, then it might be necessary to “initiate” adults into the knowledge that the lives of their children fed the lives of the population. If they really believed that the Gods and the land had to have blood, then this might persuade them that the sacrifice was worth making. Therefore the climax of the Rites of Eleusis would be a kind of comfort for them and help them to accept the way things had to be.

It is also possible that the whole thing was ritually performed as a Mystery Play; that none of it was really happening, but was enacted, and that the gift of emotional energy was enough of a sacrifice to the Gods.

But I think this may have been the case at a later date. Folklore is full of theories that the most primal Mysteries were  real, that the sacrifices were real, and the enactments and plays came about when cultures realized that the Gods and the land did not need blood to be fertile, that devotion was enough. Apparently animals came to be the sacrificial victims as replacements for humans, much as bread figures have become substitute Sacred Kings at Lammas.

Christ has associations with Eleusis and we know what happened to Him.  Could this connection indicate that Christ was pointing out his similarity to Persephone? Wasn’t His purpose to end such rites of sacrifice? Wasn’t he meant to be the Last Sacrifice that would render all future sacrifices unnecessary? He died so we could live…a scapegoat taking al our sins with Him. (Can’t see that it worked.)

The Power of Primal Consciousness

Even though we are long past belief in blood sacrifice, (or think we are, as I feel war is the blood sacrifice on a grand scale), there is a peculiar resonance in the psyche at the idea of the land and the Gods and the need for human blood. It is primal, perhaps stemming from our origins when we were intimately bound up with nature and were part of the economy of tooth and claw, both hunter and hunted. Maybe deep in our DNA, we sense this relationship to the earth is primal.

I heard a story once about a cat and a mouse. The cat brought a mouse into the house, but he had not hurt it yet — maybe just showing off. The mouse was alive , so the cat’s owner took the mouse out of the cat’s jaws and set it out in the yard. Instead of running away, the mouse came back inside the house and sat between the cat’s paws.

This weird story tells me that predator and prey have a kind of contract. I could come up with other examples of this that suggest that agricultural people, who still live close to these cycles, are aware of this contract. Perhaps long, long, long ago, our ancestors were also aware and that this dark time of year, this slide into winter when things must be given up for future life, is why we like such good scare. It is better to control your fear through a bit of Mystery play, than to acknowledge that you must survive the time of darkness and its Harvest of Souls.

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