Adelphiasophism
Wicce and Magick: What Witches Believe
Abstract
© 1998 The Adelphiasophists and AskWhy! Publications. Freely distribute properly attributed
Contents Updated: Tuesday, 19 March 2002
Learning from Experience
Adelphiasophists are neoPagans but not witches, though they respect witches. Many sincere witches, however, are being tricked by charlatans or at least by people who lack discernment and are uncritical. It is important to know what matters and what does not.
Contemporary American Wicca is not a real Pagan religion but a new religion or set of new religions which espouse elements of pre-Christian Paganism, Native American spirituality and hocus-pocus spiritualism. Some at least of them are scarcely serious in their belief in it. One such group boasts: “Our religion is 100% true, we make it up as we go along,” Glenn Wm Shuck of Rice University tells us. There is nothing wrong with making up rituals. All of them are made up, but the message cannot be accurate if these people are serious Pagans revering Nature, because Nature cannot be made up, and if their religion is based on Nature then the religion too must be based on truth, however novel the ceremonial is.
Shuck admits that any pretence at historical continuity is not necessary for neoPaganism, but he disconcertingly adds that “for many contemporary Wiccans, history is more a laboratory of ideas than a mere chronicle of events,” a distressing thought to those who see as much, if not more importance in the chronicle of the events of the destruction of Paganism and Pagans by Christianity than in schoolboy ideas about magic. What he seems to mean, though, is that lessons for modern times are drawn from the older events. These “Burning Times” “assume greater importance as they reflect contemporary struggles against religious persecution and the oppression of women and give a powerful voice to these concerns.”
The early-modern period in European history, c 1450-1700 AD, witnessed the gradual victory of rationalism over the Dark Age ignorance of the Christian churches. Christian bishops, sensing the changes that were happening tried to find their cause and snuff it out. They failed to see the real cause was their own perpetuation of irrationality and ignorance, and that what was happening was a reaction, and eventually a revolution, against it, and instead they saw it as a resurgence of an enemy thought long defeated—Paganism and belief in the efficacy of Nature deities that Christianity had labelled as demons.
The real revolution was not a revolution against much of Christian belief—that, after a millennium, had been too well indoctrinated by then—but only against the church’s restrictions on individual belief and secular knowledge. The new ethos which came through the Renaissance and the Reformation was built directly on the existing Christian foundations—the world was intrinsically worthless and could be ruthlessly exploited for self-interest. Christians were rewarded at death with an eternal life in a far better place, so why should the new class of bourgoisie bother about the world they lived in except in so far as it offered them a chance to show to God that they deserved to enter the balmy place.
The target the church chose was the witches, mostly solitary practitioners of ancient methods of healing based on herbs and suggestion, but far too rational for the Christian bishops. Shuck tells a story that the witches were hunted down by a rational church participating in the growth of rationality. That is manifestly stupid, except insofar as some of the Renaissance clergy were deeply fascinated by the Pagan values of classical times.
Aligned with witches were the various types of medieval wise men—the sorcerers known as alchemists who were to evolve into chemists, and the bloodletters, physicians and surgeons who evolved into modern doctors, just as the wisdom of the witches led from herbalism to pharmacy and ultimately psychiatry. Wiccan scholar Loretta Orion claims that the medieval alchemist-magician Giordano Bruno was executed for the sin of witches, encouraging mystical and intellectual growth. Orion writes:
Bruno was burned as a witch in the burning times for urging learned gentlemen to hope for more than the constant conflict among contending reformers and to acquire the powers that Starhawk and Hussey encourage witches to reclaim—the creative, visionary capacities—so that they might bring the vision into being.
The part the clergy had in the renaissance was the part they took in eventually exploring the work of these others because the churchmen had pleasant sinecures and plenty of spare time, so a few nuns, some monks and later rural clergymen also played some part in this change, the latter notably at the end of the period. Some of the women who were mystics in the earlier period, such as the now fashionable Hildegard of Bingen, differed not a whit from the witches themselves, and it is obvious where they learnt their skills.
The skills of witches and magicians or alchemists were based on observation and experience. They succeeded where prayer failed because they knew what had effected cures in the past. This is the beginning of scientific observation in the modern period. The Greeks had gone further 2000 years before, but the Christian church had destroyed much that had been learned and more important, the curiosity that allowed it. Practical witches—the wise women at the margins of society in the villages—preserved a little of it, and from their knowledge came the scientific revolution—human experience was empirically verifiable.
Bizarrely, Shuck makes out that witches were burnt because they “refused to speak with this new, more rational voice,” an unadulterated reversal of reality. They were burnt precisely because they had these powers of observation and application—powers that the church disapproved of. The church taught people were sick because they were sinners. It was a punishment, and witches were doing the devil’s work in repairing sick bodies punished by God. The “Burning Times” provide witches with a historical account of their sacrifice in being guardians of practical wisdom and knowledge throughout the thousand years when the churches were trying their utmost to destroy it.
Shuck is doubtless a Christian and carefully writes euphemisms like “oppressive cultural forces” and “mainstream society” when he would more honestly write “the Christian church.” He hopes to deflect any indignation away from the true cause of it on to society as a whole, when the enemies of witches remain specifically the Christian churches. Shuck is writing Christian propaganda, so it is to be hoped that witches do not believe it. It is fiction and Shuck is coming round to telling us so, though he prefers the word, “ficción.” Edith Wyschogrod calls “ficción” an account written in an opposite sense, defying traditional conceptions of “what happened,” at least from the perspective of mainstream historiography. It is in short what Shuck has just been doing on behalf of the witches! Telling lies!
Shuck makes out that there is some benefit in telling such lies, what he calls not “re-presenting” that “which happened in a fact or fiction model, but rather the kernel of contemporary concerns read through a historical lens, enhancing the affective sensibilities that remain hidden in mainstream historical writing.” He insists, following Wyschogrod, the “ficción” is not a lie or a fabrication but an attempt to explore possibilities, discarding that which “could not have been” but retaining that which “could have been” The simple word “fiction” will do for that. Now all of this doubtless has a Christian agenda, because it sounds like a method for justifying the “ficciónes” known as the scriptures, and Shuck wants to see modern Pagan groups doing the what Christians find essential—believing tripe.
Patriarchy, Christianity, capitalism seek to force people to conform through discipline ordered from the top—the authorities—suppressing dissent and individual differences. Pagans want to transform the individual and extend it to society. It is the Stoic approach—self-transformation eschewing punishment, until it is unavoidable, by pointing out lapses and lack of consideration for natural things, which includes others in the community. The person is helped in improving themselves by reference to what is natural and harmonious with Nature. It is a fallacy of ignorance however, that everyone should learn for themselves. The advantage of being human is that we can teach complicated things, building on the accumulated experience of others. That holds more Pagans than for those of conventional religious persuasions, because they build on dogma not on Nature.
Ancient or Recent Tradition?
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Wicca is a revival of the Nature worship of pre-Christian Europe, based on the living Nature worship traditions of people who still venerate Nature. Margaret Murray, Robert Graves and Gerald B Gardner renewed interest in the “Old Religion,” and after the repeal of the anti-Witchcraft laws in Britain in 1951, Gardner publicly declared himself a witch and gathered disciples. In 1962, two of them, Raymond and Rosemary Buckland (Lady Rowen and Robat), emigrated to the United States and taught Gardnerian Witchcraft to the Americans. Others took up the Gardner cult from his books.
According to Taw Allen Greenfield, a Crowleyan magician, most Wiccans have no idea of their origins. They do not know that Gerald Gardner helped by the Great Beast, Aleister Crowley, invented much of modern Wicca ritual about the time that Crowley died in 1947. Gardner admits that much of what he put in his novel, “High Magic’s Aid,” was taken from Jewish High Magic, that practised by such as Crowley in the Ordo Templi Orientis and the various similar synthesized masonic orders.
In 1975, some US covens who wanted to secure the legal protections and benefits of church status formed “Covenant of the Goddess (CoG)” of Berkeley, incorporated in the State of California and recognized by the Internal Revenue Service. CoG is not an official central body for Wiccans. Worthy though this organization is, it has a name which betrays it as reflecting patriarchy.
Covenants with gods are biblical ideas not natural ones. Covenants are treaties that ancient vanquished peoples had to sign with their overlords. It appears throughout the Jewish scriptures because patriarchal Judaism is based on the treaty of suppression used by conquerors in the ancient near east, such as the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Persians. It was the Persians who founded Judaism, not God, but they aimed to make the Jewish people regard the Persian king as God on earth. Pagans have no covenant with the Goddess. There can be no covenants with the Goddess! By using the biblical term “covenant” the founders of this COG show that they are copying the patriarchal religions, and matriarchs should have nothing to do with them. They might have many excellent approaches to veneration of Nature and women, but to use a central patriarchal term is at least demeaning and at worst is risable. Do they want to have Christians accuse them of copying?
Gardner commissioned rituals from his chum, Aleister Crowley, and covens formed using them. The direct evidence is that third degree initiation, which elevates a witch to the highest of its three grades, is copied from Crowley’s composition, the “Gnostic Mass” written about 1920. The priest in the Wiccan initiation says:
O Secret of Secrets, That art hidden in the being of all lives, Not thee do we adore, For that which adoreth is also thou. Thou art That, and That am I. [Kiss] I am the flame that burns in the heart of every man, And in the core of every star. I am life, and the giver of life. Yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge of death. I am alone, the Lord within ourselves, Whose name is Mystery of Mysteries.
This is plainly Gnostic, and, in the “Gnostic Mass,” Crowley had written:
The Priest. O secret of secrets that art hidden in the being of all that lives, not Thee do we adore, for that which adoreth is also Thou. Thou art That, and That am I. I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star. I am Life, and the giver of Life; yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge of death. I am alone; there is no God where I am.Aleister Crowley, “Gnostic Mass,” “The Equinox”
Some Wiccans argue that Crowley had taken the ritual from ancient witch manuscripts that he had access to, but no such ancient manuscripts have come to light, and nor were witches Gnostics, so Crowley, who was a capable poet, has the precedent here.
Gerald Gardner seems to have invented the tradition of each witch keeping a “Book of Shadows,” being the handwritten compilation of rituals and lore of the coven, to which each witch at a mature stage of initiation can add their own experiences.
Witch Trials
Nor was the Goddess particularly significant at first in Gardner’s conception of witchcraft. She became more central in Gardner’s later works. The reason is that she did she not appear in Margaret Murray’s work on the underground Paganism of the Middle Ages, which she wrote in the 1920s, and which Gardner used as a source. The witch trials give no indication that the poor innocents, being tortured by the holy bishops of the God of Love, had any conception of a Goddess. They seemed to worship, if anything, a satanic figure, presumed by Murray to have been a witch priest dressed as the Horned God.
Stewart Farrar, in “What Witches Do,” claims the Christian inquisitors “ignored the Goddess, being preoccupied with this Satan-image of the God.” Even so, it is hard to believe that, of the many records of confessions extracted by torture meticulously kept by the church, the only one that seems to mention a Goddess is this one, cited as are subsequent examples from R Hope Robbins in “The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology:”
A German woman in late 1637 who, after days of agonising torture, during which she would confess under torture then recant when it ceased, was subject again to torture and asked how she altered the weather. Baffled for an answer despite her wretchedness, she could only whisper, “Oh, Heavenly Queen, protect me!”
The poor woman was probably praying to the Christian Virgin Mary, who had the title of Heavenly Queen, rather than the Triple Goddess or any other. It is inadequate as evidence that witches venerated a Goddess. The truth is that witch hunting was brought on by a growing uncertainty in the church, slowly growing aware that rebellion was in the air—the Reformation, not a rebellion of witches. The churches sensed something and sought to stop it, but they victimized the wrong people.
Greenfield says, and Christians ought to note, that the witch mania was unequaled in the annals of mass crimes against humanity until Hitler. Was there anything to justify it? Father Friedrich von Spee, SJ, wrote in 1631:
Previously I never thought of doubting that there were many witches in the world. Now, when I examine the public record, I find myself believing that there are hardly any.
Yet the murder went on and on. Another priest, Rev Michael Stapirius, risking his own life in the 1600s, records this comment from a “confessed witch,” retracting his confession:
I never dreamed that by means of torture a person could be brought to the point of telling such lies as I have told. I am not a witch, and I have never seen the devil, and still I had to plead guilty myself and denounce others.
The Generals of the Chruch destroyed Father Stapirius’s book, and only one copy remained. A letter direct from one of the accused also highlights the inhumanity of the officers of the church in its need to protect the Creator of the Universe. A German burgomaster, Johannes Junius, smuggled it to his daughter in 1628. His hands had been broken to a pulp in the torture, and he wrote only with great agony and no hope.
When at last the executioner led me back to the cell, he said to me, “Sir, I beg you, for God’s sake, confess something, whether it be true or not. Invent something, for you cannot endure the torture which you will be put to. And, even if you bear it all, yet you will not escape, not even if you were an earl, but one torture will follow another until you say you are a witch. Not before that will they let you go, as you may see by all their trials, for one is just like another.”
A few of the Catholic vicars of God knew what they were doing and knew the innocence of the victims but mostly were too scared of the Inquisitors themselves to stand against it. Yet some did. Another priest, Father Cornelius Loos, observed earlier, in 1592:
Wretched creatures are compelled by the severity of the torture to confess things they have never done, and so by cruel butchery innocent lives are taken.
Greenfield concludes that the witch trials confirm neither the Satanism the church would have us believe, nor the Pagan survivals now claimed by modern Wicca. They suggest only fear, greed and human brutality that have few parallels in all of history. The brutality is not that of witches or even of Satanists but is that of the Christian Church. It brands Christianity as Satanic, and no sensitive or pious person could have anything to do with an institution with such a wicked history. They might as well worship Pol Pot or Hitler.
Doreen Valiente, an associate of Gardner, tries to find evidence in the tenth century church document which she says speaks of…
…some wicked women, perverted by the Devil, seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess themselves in the hours of the night to ride upon certain beasts with Diana, the goddess of pagans, or with Herodias, and an innumerable multitude of women, and in the silence of the dead of night to traverse great spaces of earth, and to obey her commands as of their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on certain nights.
It might be a fantasy based on some nocturnal ceremony that the church sometimes heard of but it only seemed to bother them on rare occasions. Recorded evidence extracted under the most horrific, cruel and unremiting tortures gives little support to a continuing Wiccan tradition like that of today. Had there been at the time a religion of the Goddess and God, of seasonal cycles and a “Book of Shadows,” it would have been blurted out by the victims, and the church would have got hold of the hard evidence. The wretches accused, before the torture was done, were compelled to condemn their own parents, spouses, loved ones, and children, but never blurted out their religious belief in a Goddess. No such confessions were forthcoming, though the agonies of the accused were beyond what most of us could bear. They eventually confessed to anything the inquisitors wanted to hear to relieve the ceaseless pain, but did not explicitly mention their Goddess.
So What?
This might seem entirely depressing to those who have to believe that there is indeed a continuous tradition of Goddess worship since the stone age, but does it really matter? In 3000 years of patriarchal religion forced upon the world, it ought not to be surprising that the Goddess tradition did not survive. Matriarchs ought not to be bothered by the lack of continuity. We ought not to be bothered even if there was no stone age Goddess. Why take hostages to fortune? The point is that we must look to the future, and ideas have a tendency to arrive sponaneously before us when their time is ripe. If Gerald Gardner invented modern Wicce and out of that has come modern neoPaganism with the determination that we shall defend our Goddess, then he has done us a service. The world distorted by Christianity for the last 2000 years is at last beginning to see that the real light is out there—real light, not metaphorical and metaphysical light but light that grows things!
Allen Greenfield harks back to a Jewish understanding of humanity’s relationship with Nature when he writes, apparently disparagingly:
Neopaganism, in a now archaic “hippie” misreading of ecology, mistakes responsible stewardship of nature for nature worship.
The point is that the patriarchal God, having given humanity stewardship of Nature then calls it nothing but a Vale of Woe and a trial to be endured until, God willing(!), we reach the balmy place. There can be no respect in the mind of any steward taught that. Consequently there has not been. Greenfield seems to gloat that ancient Pagans did not worship Nature. They were afraid of it, as the origin of the word “panic” reminds us. Their Nature rites were often to stimulate the idle gods, or to palliate them, not always to honour them. It is hard to understand what Greenfield is getting at. We are no longer afraid of it, but realise that it is of the utmost importance to us. Perhaps some witches do not understand these things but most do. Matriarchs recognize that mothers can be angry and that Nature has death on her agenda as well as life, but so what? It is Christians who invent a thumb-sucking God not Pagans, and cracked pots who substitute pseudo-Christianity for Christianity so that they can be ordained a bishop of mumbo-jumbo.
In introducing a goddess element into their theology, Crowley and Gardner both understood the yin/yang, male/female fundamental polarity of the universe, but radical feminist neopagans have taken this balance and altered it, however unintentionally, into a political feminist agenda, centered around a near-monotheistic worship of the female principle, in a bizarre caricature of patriarchal Christianity. Bigotry, I submit, cuts both ways.
Greenfield after a good analysis of some historical points to do with the foundation of Wicce, disappears muttering into the undergrowth. He totally does not understand that the world is not how he wants it to be. Nature is indeed multipolar but the pairing of male and female is a lousy example of it. Why? Simply because it is not fundamental. It is quite impossible to separate the north and south of a bar magnet, but there are many more species on earth that multiply sexlessly than do it sexually. It is not an arbitrary judgement to assert that female is not the “Second Sex.” I submit it is not bigotry to express the truth—it is the “First Sex!” The Rev Greenfield does not get that. His balance of Nature will have to be expressed in some other way than declaring the sexes equal.
Greenfield concludes with this quotation from Charles Hoy Fort:
Witchcraft always has a hard time, until it becomes established and changes its name.
Fort will have been talking about science, implying that it is no better than witchcraft except that it has another name and is established. He is not being complementary to witches, but he is nevertheless right. The Roman Pagans knew for several hundred years that Christianity was odious, but it nevertheless became established and made its absurd inventions the official truth, called God’s Truth, for over a millennium. It was a phony and synthetic religion, but it successfully replaced one based in reality. It is time that reality again became established. And, “pace” Fort, science will have to be central to it because science is the only effective way we have of learning about Nature.
It is fashionable to vilify science, but often the vilification is by people who do not like it because they cannot be bothered to understand it, or because they do not understand who controls it and is responsible for what is done with its discoveries. In truth science is an excellent worldview because it is true. The trouble with it is not in itself, it is in the purposes it is put to, and that is the responsibility of those who own it, not its practitioners.
Witches are fond of saying that witchcraft is never used for evil purposes, but that is like the Christian denying that anyone who commits evil is Christian. We know from history there have been plenty of evil Christians, too many to count, and there have also been people killed by magick when belief in the power of the shaman is strong. Science is no different. Every man has his price, and because science can mean money in our greedy world, someone will pay it. That does not mean that science is evil. Only people can cause evil, not abstract notions like organisations or methods. Science is our modern paradigm, and we must use it properly by bringing it into our religious mainstream, and not allow it to be used by evil people.
It is impossible to de-invent things, and it is impossible therefore to turn the clock back to try to recapture some more innocent time. Only the Goddess can do that,and might yet do! What we have to do is look to the future and take decisions on how we and our children shall live then, and how we might bring a pleasanter world about. Turning to primitivism is not an option. We can learn from simpler societies than our own, and from history, but we have to start here, not there!
NeoPaganism and Wicca
An old (not ancient!) document on the web purports to lay down what witches believe. It is a strange mish-mash of information and bullshit. Because it has been online for many years, many Pagans might by now have taken its precepts as unquestionably true, as if it had really been the accumulated experience of thousands of generations since the Stone Age. Yet, some of it was plainly pseudo-Christianity and could not be accepted by any real Pagan.
Wiccans meet in a coven, a small group of people, or are solitary. Each coven is autonomous. Each has a leader, often called the priestess, though all witches in a coven are equals, and all can take the role of priest or priestess when necessary. Thirteen is the optimum number because it allows each member to preside at one of the monthly covens each year, or assist the priestess at them.
Pagans and Wiccans venerate Nature as sacred. Many claim to be polytheists and adore the Horned God as well as Mother Nature, and various Nature spirits, though Adelphiasophists do not think it necessary and reject masculine deities. It is quite plain that there is no primacy of the masculine in Nature. Males are females modified solely for the purpose of improving the spread of genes. That offers better protection for a species, through variety. The simplest proof of this is that men have nipples. Male and female embryos are identical at first—female ones. The presence of a Y chromosome makes the female embryo change into a male one. It means that the Goddess, as the basis of everything there is, cannot have had a male partner. To imagine the Goddess with a male consort is just pressing on to Nature what humans experience. It also flatters males.
Eclectic covens chose to adore various other Pagan gods and goddesses from different times and countries, but the central figure for all is the Goddess. Essentially the polytheism of witches is an acceptance of the vast variety of Nature, the Goddess being capable of appearing in an infinite number of disguises. One or other of these aspects might be chosen by a coven as their tutelary or their matron spirit.
The Horned God is not Satan. Christians have created the absurd notion that people must choose the Christian God or the Devil, because all deities other than the Christian one are devils. Christians want to perpetuate Satanism, then they always can claim that the Devil is active, and scare people into church. The Judaeao-Christian evil spirit, Satan, was deliberately depicted as the Horned God of the “Old Religion” to deter people from the ancient form of Nature worship. Christians always denigrated Nature spirits as devils and demons to discredit them.
This blackening of Nature worship continues today and is the reason why neoPagans who claim to tolerate Christianity are at least naïve if not foolish and ignorant of their own history. NeoPagans and witches are often oppressed and ridiculed. They are not regarded as proper people to be parents or hold responsibility. Prejudice against Pagans has been fomented through the ages by deliberate Christian policy. It is not accidental and not just the result of ignorance. Ignorant Wiccans regard Christianity as a valid religion deserving toleration and respect. It does not.
Dedicated Pagans celebrate eight festivals, called by witches Sabbats, as a means of attunement to the seasonal rhythms of Nature. These are January 31 (Called Oimelc, Brigit, or February Eve), March 21 (Ostara or Spring Equinox), April 30 (Beltane or May Eve), June 22 (Midsummer, Litha or Summer Solstice), July 31 (Lunasa or Lammas), September 21 (Harvest, Mabon or Autumn Equinox), October 31 (Samhain, Sowyn or Hallows), and December 21 (Yule or Winter Solstice.) These signify the stages of life as well as the passing of the year, and are occasions to show our appreciation of the wonder of Nature and its value to us. The phases of the moon are also important—particularly new moons and full moons, but otherwise ritual occasions can be convened to note any significant passage in the lives of members.
Christians will put their faith in a cross, but Pagans will have any sort of amulet or charm that they consider has some special significance or psychological power. The importance of these are the faith the owner has in them, and that will depend on its significance to them.
The Wiccan Rede
The web text declares the first principle of Wicce is that of love, expressed in the law of the Wicca—which can definitely be learnt while standing on one foot! It is the “Wiccan Rede,” “and it harm none, do what thou wilt.” “Do what you will” was Aleister Crowley’s famous motto, and Gardner seems to have tempered it with a condition. Even so, the Rede is not a principle of love. It is quite possible to hate someone or something and yet to obey this principle, and not harm whatever is hated. That surely is its point! Love does not come into it. The obsession with love is Christian, and Christian love is a totally imaginary quality. No one can be expected to love what they hate. That is typical of a synthetic religion. What a Pagan has is a duty to respect what the Goddess has produced, sufficiently not to harm it, because every such thing has the same right as you have to live. No one could love a crocodile chewing off your leg, but it deserves some respect! It would have made more sense to have shown it sufficient respect before it grabbed your leg, but people brought up to think that animals are stuffed toys do not.
The Adelphiasophists have a different rule: “Do not offend the earth, whether directly ot indirectly,” but in practice it is the same. The earth is the local womb of the Goddess and so it protects and succours the life it holds. What offends it will damage its functioning and since Nature is an interlocking ecology, harm to anything can be harm to many. So, we can do as we please so long as we do not offend the Goddess. That includes not harming ourselves, and self-abuse is not sensible either. Everyone is here to fulfil a role in the vastness of the Natural system, and part of the duty of Pagans is to show to people, who are depressed or despondent or feel no purpose in life, that there are many things they could do to help the Goddess and thereby the future of the world. They have a purpose. In practice Adelphiasophists try to do the Right Thing. Mainly it is up to our own consciences how we judge our actions, but our peers will tell us if we are being insensitive or selfish.
Harming others is defined in the web document as being by “thought, word, or deed,” an admirable sentiment, but the very basis of Zoroastrian morality. Of course, it would be foolish just to reject everything in the patriarchal religions on principle, and there is no need to here, but the formulators of these rules seem not to know that they are regurgitating patriarchy. Aspects of patriarchy must have been taken from the Nature religions that preceded them, as their festivals show, but surely no Pagan wants to copy patriarchy except for want of alternatives. If we have none, we might as well become Christians.
The web text says that harm means “gratuitous harm” but to defend oneself and one’s liberty is acceptable. It is true that, by definition, there is no excuse at all for gratuitous harm, but Nature has no way of knowing whether the harm you do is justified or not. Harm literally means “harm” so that so much as plucking a blade of grass should give pause, even though the millions of blades in the field might immediately give us confidence that it is harmless to pluck one. When industrialized farmers start ripping up the turf, we might think we should have shown that blade more respect.
NeoPagans regard all living things as sacred, and are concerned for ecology. The basic law of neoPagans protects Nature and other people from our anger and selfishness. Both of these are part of Nature but need to be controlled because humans have developed immense power for destruction. We have to take care that defense is merely defense and not an excuse to bully and expropriate what belongs to others. So, yes, naturally anyone would defend themself and their kinfolk and close friends, but to argue, say, that attack is the best form of defence, is not morally defensible. The supposed defender becomes the aggressor. Everyone has to examine their conscience, consider how it looks to an independent onlooker—the Goddess—and consider the situation of the other party.
Who is the One?
The text sensibly highlights that Nature has dimensions of almost everything. Patriarchal religions try to reduce everything to one—God—but Nature is multipolar and multidimensional. Yet immediately, the Christian background of this author emerges again. Having said that Nature is multipolar, everything is then reduced to “the One.” What is “the One?” Do witches really believe in “a One?” The author writes:
Godhead is one unique and transcendant wholeness, beyond any limitations or expressions; thus, it is beyond our human capacity to understand and identify with this principle of Cosmic Oneness, except as It is revealed to us in terms of It’s attributes and operation.
This “One” can be no other than the patriarchal father, surely. It is, for example, described as “transcendant,” a quality that puts it beyond Nature, and therefore out of the gamut of a Nature religion. This author is leaving the back gate open for the patriarchal wreckers to get in and destroy. It is always easier from the inside. Reject it! Nature is supreme. There is nothing beyond! If there is any “One” it is Nature, but it is an infinitely complicated here-and-now “One,” so the intent of calling it a transcendental “One” is questionable.
Like Christians also, the author wants Pagans to worship this “One.” Perhaps some Pagans do still worship, but this too is wrong. Worshipping is what slaves did to their masters and subjects did to eastern potentates and Satanists do. It implies a conscious god and a megalomaniac god! The Goddess is neither. She is not even indifferent to us, although that is a convenient way of describing it. She is simply unaware of us because she has no consciousness. So, worshipping her and attempting to invoke her are just bad habits adopted from patriachy and patriarchal descriptions of black magic respectively.
We can venerate her and honour her, as you can justifiably do to anything beautiful and wise, because they are personal expressions of admiration, but worship and invoking implies a conscious response to the bowing and kneebending. What we will do is to find the Goddess within us, because we are natural offspring of Nature, and so we have our mother inside us as well as outside us. We shall psychologically attune ourselves to her and go as far as we dare in removing the barrier that separates our personal selves from knowing her kinunity.
Having told us that the polarity of Nature is really the “One,” the author now says that “the One” is really two, so that it can be polar—a god and a goddess! Look, let us get some sense into what many Pagans and more witches glibly accept, when it is pure bullshit. This “Two” is the Great Mother and something called the All-Father. You have to suspect that this is written by a man. He is desperate to get back to patriarchy by as many paths as he can, hoping that witches are bigger dunces than Christians. Because it is bull, and the author knows it, he even uses the typical Christian explanation—these are “divine mysteries.” “Ho! Ho!” as we say in the Santa Clause invocation.
The author cites the “Law of Three,” that our deeds are “rewarded” threefold, whether of good or ill. It is fine, but it is not a quantitative law, but merely one that points out that our acts have consequences and we should take them into account. The bible said, “we reap what we sow,” with the same implication. It is not a law that applies individually, otherwise the world would be a wonderfully just place. It means that Nature will retaliate as a whole to what we, as the human race, do to her. Global warming is an example.
The author now brings in astrology: “As Above, So Below.” is another law, he tells us. It might be thought of as a good justifaction for magick, but other than in the sense that Nature, so far as we know, has uniform laws, it does not mean that the arrangements of the stars in heaven tell us anything about particular human personalities, or give us any magickal powers. The seasons of the year can affect the new born child and therefore might affect the personality of the adult, but nothing can be drawn down from the heavens. Moonlight is mystical and therefore a powerful psychological instrument, and that is how it is used. The powers of the gods are these psychological powers, and witches would be better off practising them as such, instead of talking about non-existent gods and forces.
The author makes an important valid point in that reasoning from the known to the unknown, can teach us of the Divine—the Goddess Nature—and thus of ourselves.
Thus the Craft is a natural religion, seeing in Nature the expression and revelation of Divinity.
The author also says:
The Witch knows that there is no true death, only change from one condition to another.
Quite so, but this must not be taken as another way of getting patriarchal ideas in by the back door again. Everything material cycles, but personality depends upon particular arrangements of matter that have evolved, and when they disperse, the personality necessarily dies forever. To pretend otherwise is to use the same scam as Christianity.
It is true that the old Nature religions often took some aspect of the Goddess and worshipped it particularly. They actually worshipped these spirits because they projected into them the human attributes of consciousness and personality. Now, a rock is no more conscious than a toffee wrapper, even if it has more personality, but we can excuse our forbears for their error because they did not have the wealth of knowledge about the Goddess that we now have. It must be, with this knowledge at our disposal, that we are being obtuse to ignore it, and pretend that a toffee wrapper can be a god. What we do is use sacred natural objects as symbols or focuses for our attention, in willing ourselves to the service of Nature. These things are divine in the sense that the whole world is. We should baulk at destroying anything in Nature witout proper consideration.
It is the use of differing godforms, of differing ethnic sources or periods, which is the basis of many of the differences between the various traditions of the Craft.
Yes, we can use whatever is suitable to focus our attention on the Goddess, but Pagans should undoubtedly be clear that these are symbols or aspects of the Goddess, and have no power or personality in themselves. The vast variety of Nature and the variety of regional and historical approaches to Nature religions are reflected in these differences, to the mutual advantage of us all. The basic identity is vital, though, if Paganism is not to spallate into warring factions.
The author rightly says that we should not mock the rituals of other groups, and that is broadly true, but there is a theology to Paganism and it is not arbitrary. It has to be grounded in Nature or we are hypocrites. Those who have wrong ideas should at least have them pointed out. Sadly, it cannot guarantee that falsehood will not prevail. Though Paganism is a natural religion by definition, a large number of practitioners seem to want to make it a supernatural religion, and because those who are religiously inclined prefer the supernatural, we can have no confidence that Paganism will remain a natural religion.
Some witches believe in reincarnation, but properly it is not the delusion that people can live again after death. It symbolises the seasonal cycles and changes within this life—the rites of passage from one stage of maturity to another, denoted as a rebirth. We should be honest and admit that all the Gnostic talk of “divine sparks” has come from Crowley and his Gnostic Mass, and at best refers simply to the phenomenon of life itself just as the soul does too.
Divine spark = soul = life!
The author says that the divine spark “returns to manifestation again and again in order to fully realize and actualize it’s potential, evolving finally to the peak and essence of existence which is pure being.” What is “pure being?” This is bull! It sounds like an adaptation of Buddhist belief in reincarnation until the soul reaches Nirvana and leaves the Cycle of Being. The Buddhist belief is that at last we are relieved of the trial of continuously being reborn and finally die. Is “pure being” death? Why should we have all these lives before we die? Why do we not just die after one life? That, in fact, is what we do, and this reincarnation glub is merely purloining from another religion what some think is an attractive idea. Any believer in a natural religion should know that “pure being” is what we have, and we each have it once in eternity and should be grateful to the Goddess for it.
All of the talk heard in so-called occult circles about the “other world” is plagiarized Christianity. George Knowles who writes some useful concise biographies on the web is fond of saying things like: “sadly, Stewart Farrar passed into the “next” world on the 7th of February 2000,” “she (Doreen Valiente) passed for this world into the “next,”” “it was here that he (Aleister Crowley) passed from this world to the “next,” still unrepentant and unbowed on the 1st December 1947.” This fraud of pandering to the human desire not to die is central to the Christian scam, but is utterly unnatural. No neoPagan should have anything to do with it. Nature has given us a conscious window in eternity. It is up to us to use it for the best. To dream of Disneyland-after-death is to waste the life we have.
Wiccans practice magic. Some disreputable ones pretend, like Harry Potter, they have a supernatural craft based on forces unrecognized by science, but what witches had and some still have is skill in psychology. The author finishes with a poor justification for propagating the supernatural in a Natural religion. He claims the supernatural is superbly natural—it is “laws and applications not as yet recognized by the scientific establishment.” These laws are too difficult for scientists to understand but witch gurus do, though no supernatural Nature worshipper will say how, and nor will they explain why witches with such powers have had such a bad time against a false and malign religion.
The honest Pagan sees magick as the use of psychological and hypnotic methods of suggestion intended to empower. Dancing, chanting, imagining or visualizing, dramatization, lighting, suggestion and other hypnotic effects are directed at empowering, succouring, and sustaining members when they need it. These are indeed powerful, or can be, but they are recognized by science, even if not properly understood. Their use can be dangerous, indeed, especially with credulous subjects, as many religiously inclined people are.
So let us forget the bull and face up to the truth. It is just as mysterious, but can be practiced more effectively in good hands. Ceremony is suggestion. Ritual is resolve. A good witch is a psychologist. Perhaps that is why medical psychologists, called psychialtrists, are sometimes called, admittedly with no compliment intended, witchdoctors.
What Magick Is Not!
Somewhere on the web, a Wiccan explains to us “What is Magick,” and “how it is perceived by witches of today.” He admits that there are many “theories” of what it is, showing that he really hasn’t a clue, but it is not “about wizards throwing around lightning bolts doing battle with evil sorcerers.” It is not Harry Potter. It is not Vincent Price and Peter Lorre. It cannot do the impossible, like growing a new leg, but it can cure an illness. So…
Magick is a forgotten art passed down through aeons of reincarnations and it resides inside us all.
In us it might be, but it has “to be re-learned and trained if it is to be used well, effectively and wisely,” our guide tells us. The forgotten art has to be re-learned, but since it has been forgotten who will do the teaching? Well somebody did, but our guide does not tell us who. Only that:
In modern days, magick is used not only in ritual ceremonies, but also on a daily basis during spiritual communication with the Goddess and God. It is used daily for healing purposes and perhaps more frequently for personal purposes like reducing negativity, protection and improving the self.
So, someone must have remembered how it was done, because it is being used daily! Anyway, even though there seemed to be some doubt about what to do, our guide had no doubt about what he had to use to do it.
There are three basic sources of natural energy or power used: Personal Power, Earth Power and Divine Power.
No atomic power, coal power or hydro-electric power, because who needs them when they have magickal power? Personal power is the life force that sustains us and protects our earthly existence, the power that resides within our own bodies—possibly willpower, he says. This is a bit of a vague theory, because this power might also be just the energies that we use in doing the things we do, like moving about, having sex and being emotional. “This we all do quite naturally,” our guide reveals! Oh?
What, though, of magick? Ah! “In magick, we learn to harness and arouse this personal power, infuse it with a particular purpose, release it and direct it towards its goal.” Apparently, without knowing it, we are all magicians, and so, it seems are cows and bluebottles.
Earth power is the power that resides within our planet and its natural products. Wind, fire, water, oil, trees, all have power! So do stones, crystals, and scents! So here are atomic power and so on, after all? Not really! “You can tell a stone has power by just holding it in your hand. You feel its force tingling.” These “energies” can be harnessed for ritual magick. Our witch guide assures us a “crystal can be charged and then held against the forehead to clear up migraine or headaches with its healing properties.” So too can herbs and oils. Or a piece of liver, or a wet rag, presumably. It is all earth power.
Divine power is spiritual power charged and channelled by the Goddess and the God. Oh, the guide forgot to say that the other powers are also just divine power really, because it is the source of everything. “It is the power of the universe that created existence.” But divine power can only be had when the Goddess and God are invoked. So, that is all clear then?
There is more to magick. The Goddess and God do not just come at any beck and call. Oh, no! “A lot of work is involved.” You have to consider lots of other magick things such as when the magick should be performed. Our guide lists lots of things to help us do our magick, but he is not going to let on how the forgotten art was remembered in such detail. Perhaps astrologers remembered it, because “days have their own magickal associations,” and “days are associated with and influenced by the sun and six of the planets.” The “properties and symbolism of our tools have to be considered to use them properly and correctly,” something else that had to be remembered from the forgotten art.
Our guide goes on to tell us about candle magick and incense magick, so those too were remembered but he will not say how. “We need to understand the colour properties and other associations of candles to make our magick work for best effect… Colours have symbolic associations representing occult powers, and have their own energy frequencies that emanate specific influences.” “Zodiacal associations and planetary associations, even hourly associations can have an effect,” but, asks our guide, “how far would you wish to take it?” He does not want to go overboard! And, after all that, he admits, “the most effective magick is simple magick.”
All this shows that there are witches who are just like Christians in being determined not to use their brains, or being cynical enough to think that there are plenty of dopes out there who will not. Doubtless some witches believe all this guff. If there were anything in all this, it begs the question of why Christianity defeated the witches at all. Because it did, Christian magick must have been more powerful or the witches that had such power should never have lost the struggle with the Church. To believe what this guide says is therefore to run to the nearest Catholic priest and ask for baptism and forgiveness. If this is witchcraft, it is no better than the Christian fantasy. Why does anyone want to believe it? What we need is a believable religion that really empowers people not deceitful gobbledegook.
Yes, there are psychological, hypnotic and Coueist effects that can be practised beneficially, and these are modern names for what was really effective in magick, as opposed to the pretence. To spread all this rubbish about forces and divinity, and to pretend that mumbo-jumbo can call anything down other than madness is madness. NeoPagans do not need or want to believe nonsense. We can get as much nonsense as we need by joining a Christian church. Let us honour Nature properly, not by inventing idiotic theories about non-existent entities and powers, intended only to fool the gullible. Nature is herself, wonderful and powerful enough. Learn to appreciate her, not mock her with flannel and bullshit.
C G Jung knew something about psychological effects and wrote when he was close to death:
The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.C G Jung “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”
Jung was beginning to grasp the true magic of Nature. that is what we should all seek to experience and to protect.
Wiccan Ritual
Naïve magick such as our guide describes is childish and primitive. Thus arose superstition, the supernatural, sacrifice, brutality and inhumanity. The birth of false conscious beings, mere projections of ourselves, is the death of the Goddess, the death of Wisdom, the death of Nature. False psychology and synthesized religions helped murder Nature even before genetic tampering, before herbicides and pesticides, and even before heavy metals. Long before! Someone said we are walking in a cemetary now! The domestication of animals, the false psychology of primitive magic, Iranian patriarchalism, biblical transcendentalism, capitalism and the Industrial Revolution progressively alienated us from the natural world. We can reject all of these and have a better world, and in so doing be progressive not retrogressive.
Adelphiasophists are of the Enlightenment, people of a scientific worldview, not purveyors of superstition and confusion. We are in rebellion against synthesized religion, formulating a true and natural religion, not trying to synthesize new plastic ones. Why synthesise another false one when you did not like the previous false one, and have the chance of creating a true one?
So, let us be clear. There is no psyche in nature, no anima, no soul. Consciousness is a human quality, and, so far as we know, where we live, occurs in Nature only in humans. We are the consciousness of the Goddess. Human consciousness is Nature’s consciousness in fact. But humans project their own consciousness into Nature, into rocks, trees, springs, animals and eventually gods. When we speak to a god, we speak only to ourselves, but now we must do what we were intended to do—speak for the Goddess.
Ours is a religion of Nature, but we do not worship Nature any more than the rabbi would worship a brick. There are no intelligent deities waiting to hear from us. We have the Goddess—Nature—everything there is, but she cannot hear us and we can expect no direct answers when we call her. Even by magick!
Our purpose is to empower ourselves to do the right things, the helpful things and the symbiotic things. The communal purpose of Pagan ritual now is mutual bonding and empowerment to strengthen our joint resolve to prevent gratuitous destruction of the Goddess, and ultimately ourselves. That is the purpose of modern magick.
Ritual occasions are much more occasions of celebration and expressions of our awe at how wonderful Nature is, ways of suggesting what might be, and ways of rejecting outdated conditioning. Solitaries prefer to practice their veneration of the Goddess alone, and teach their particular skills in small groups and workshops. There were probably more Adelphiasophists who were essentially solitary than ones who meet in groups until recently, and perhaps still are. However, they will join with other Pagans to celebrate the festivals, attend protests against exploitation of our environment and participate in traditional entertainments and skills such as gardening, folk song, morris dancing and craft work.
Ceremonial has been prescribed by the founders of modern witchcraft but no one has to follow their prescriptions, and many do not. Covens do not have to be mixed and do not have to meet in the nude, or “sky clad,” they do not have to involve sexual chemistry, though Pagan religions began as fertility magic. Arguably nakedness is our natural state, but anyone from a cold or wet climate might dispute that! Originally, Nature worship was for the purpose of promoting fertility in the soil and in domestic animals, so some witches consider sexuality to be an essential aspect of ritual, but Nature can get on quite well at procreating without us having to show her how. Today, these are personal choices, and the advanced Pagan religions had ceased to be simple fertility religions even before Christianity. If all neoPagan rituals have to be sexual, the grand variety of Nature is being ignored, and that cannot be right.
A magic circle might be drawn to define a sacred space which can be oriented by the cardinal directions and can be symbolically purified with the four ancient elements which symbolize the whole of Nature: fire, air, earth, water. Fire is often provided by candles, air by the scent of incense, water in a bowl, and earth by a bowl of crystals. In the original concept, the priestess stands before the altar, while her attendant or the priest kneels before her then blesses with a kiss her feet, knees, womb, breast and lips. The attendant steps back and addresses her as the Goddess, “I invoke thee and call upon thee, Mighty Mother of us all…” Now the priestess replies as the Goddess, not as herself. She can draw upon standard passages, or she can compose an address of her own:
I am the gracious and grievous Goddess, whose song brings joy, whose scowl brings death. Love life, seek wisdom, for knowledge is theirs who seek, and, at life’s end, thou art mine in peace and freedom, the milk of life to come, a mother’s milk. Love and laugh, play in my skirts, for behold, I am the Mother of all life. My womb is my earth, and ’twill be thy tomb, for tomb is womb and death is life.
Nothing here is prescriptive, and a general ceremony of this type is one for general occasions. All special occasions should have more creative effort put into them. Members want to experience something new and appropriate, except when the occasion itself should not be upstaged, such as a death.
Wine is often blessed as a central element but this is certainly wrong, a mere imitation of the Christian mass. A true religion should avoid taking characteristics of false ones, unless by chance the false religion is right in some respect. People might be used to an old practice, but it should be firmly rejected if its basis is wrong. Jung wrote that we should not try to imitate religious techniques but should find out whether we have a comparable subconscious need or inclination similar to that fulfilled by the approaches we sought to copy. Then we are “in a position to build on our own ground with our own methods.” The pure water of the Goddess fills the Pagan cup, and should be central to Pagan ceremonial. Wine has its own occasions, notably at the vine harvest, and for its plain usage to foster merriment. Beer and cider are the same. Nothing prevents Pagans from using these, but they are all derivatives of the Goddess’s pure water, and that should be on her altar.
The goblet and the knife, “athame,” are crude fertility symbols, and perhaps hint at blood sacrifice, and need not be used by neoPagans. The same is true of the swords that many use. A sword is a triumph of patriarchal religion over natural religion. A sword is a stylized cross, and should be rejected as that. If a cross is to be used as a Pagan symbol, as it was, then it should be clearly Pagan, not a vulgar Christian imitation in the form of a weapon of violence. Make it symmetrical and decorate it with a ring or braids or branches, but not with a tortured body. The ring and cross are even today an official glyph standing for fertility, and therefore for woman. Pagan ritual objects should be taken from Nature or made from natural things when possible—twigs and branches, a pitcher of water, a bowl of salt, rocks and crystals, sweet scents, rings and discs, carvings, statues or artwork, and fire.
Many of the rites are rites of passage, celebrated to give people a sense of growth and maturity, and the passing of time which should not be wasted because there is remarkably little of it before death, as many people learn too late. What we do, we do in life, and a personal after-life is a fraud and a delusion. We live after death only within the being of the Goddess, in the consequences of our deeds and in our children. Recognition of the death of a Pagan takes place within the coven. Ritual tools, materials, or writings found among the effects of the deceased should be preserved and passed on within the coven. Death is not to be mourned, but to be celebrated as the occasion of our own personal sacrifice so that others might live. It is an occasion of joy and a celebration of unselfishness.
Pagans have no objections to any treatment aimed at preventing illness or prolonging life as long as it causes no offense to the earth. The benefits of psychological states are accepted, and attitude and belief in recovery are considered necessary adjuncts to healing. Nature is a unity, and all life is one, so the Goddess will permit spontaneous recovery on occasions. Calling on Nature’s kinunity to help recovery, even from a distance, at worst is harmless, and at best might strengthen a patient’s will to live. Pagans want to live because they love life, but they also do not fear death.
Wiccans do not proselytize and resent those who do, and that is quite right. But it does not stop them from properly criticizing what is plainly wrong and evil. While no one path is necessarily right, some paths are undoubtledly wrong and wicked, and their history is proof enough. Pagans and witches should have no compunction about criticizing patriarchal claptrap. The future of advanced life on earth might depend on it. If witches and modern Pagans wissh to ignore this then they will be doomed to repeat what has already happened—they will be eliminated as soon as here is a patriarchal backlash.
Wiccans tolerate all religions that foster toleration towards others. Christianity has to be discounted in this respect. The first part of the education of a neoPagan ought to be to learn the history of the suppression of Paganism at the hands of Christians. Since many witches will be converts from Christianity, or at least come from a Christianized background, only when they recognize the vile history of their former religion should they be accepted as Pagans.
Real Magick
Here is a wonderful account by Wendy Griffin who was allowed to sit in on a Dianic encampment (August 24, 1991) as a sociological study, and published it in “Sociology of Religion”, Vol 56 No 1, Spring, 1995, pp 35-49 (available on the net).
The second night out was a full moon and we waited impatiently for the moon to crest the tall pines so that the ritual could begin. Finally, we saw two flames winding down the mountain path. As they neared, we saw that these were torches, held by priestesses in silver gowns that caught the light from the flames and glittered like pieces of the moon herself.
The priestesses paused in the south, and then I noticed the enormous shadow thrown against the hill. It is Diana who comes behind them. Rationally, I know it is Hypatia (one of the coven), but I also know it is Diana. A heavy green cape is swept over her shoulders and matches her baggy pants. Her huge breasts are bare, and her chest is crossed with the leather straps that hold her cape and the quiver of arrows on her back. She carries a large bow and her face is hidden behind a mask of fur and dried leaves. Deer horns spring from her head. There is no face, not a human one, anyway.
The Goddess pauses between the torches and fits an arrow to the bow. She draws it back and with a twang shoots it into the darkness. The sound is a catalyst. We are released like the arrow and begin to cheer. Hypatia told me later she neither became nor invoked Diana, phrases which would suggest that the Goddess was external to her priestess. Rather Hypatia manifested that part of her that was Diana.
But this was no fleet-footed, pony-tailed chaste young goddess of the woods and dells. Hypatia is a powerful-looking, obese woman whose presence in her secular life often intimidates people who don’t know her well. As Diana, this sense of power was dramatically enhanced. This was a Diana who looked like she could strangle a boar with her bare hands. But her strength was more than physical—there was a drama in her presence and authority that seemed to stem from within.
A young observer commented: “Other images of Diana are all sexualized from a male point of view, kind of a scantily clad “Playboy” bunny in the woods. But when she came walking up and I realized who she was, it was really different. It was really kind of overwhelming and shocking. But after the initial shock, she was Diana. This was a female who radiated power with her body and costume. Her unselfconsciousness about her body was powerful and the way she walked was almost majestic. I’ll never forget it. This was the Diana I want to relate to.”
Later in the ritual, Diana asked who was “on her Moon Time” or menstruating. On those women who were, she pinned a sprig of herbs tied with a red ribbon. This same young woman found this wonderful. “Moon Time! What a beautiful concept! If you were menstruating you were special. You had this incredible gift that your body has given to you, something to be proud of! And we got to wear red ribbons so that everyone else would know and be proud of you too!”
Before being shot, the arrow had been passed around the circle so that we could touch it and focus our will or do our own magic on it. After ritual, women praised Hypatia for her skill and many of them told me they had seen the arrow hit the bull’s eye and heard the thud as it hit. Some knew that Hypatia’s hobby was archery. But as the target that night was lit only by the full moon and a distant torch and because of the arrow’s symbolic importance, I investigated. Hypatia admitted to me in private the next morning that she had thrust the arrow into the bull’s eye by hand before the group woke up. The arrow hadn’t come anywhere near the target!
This wonderful and inspiring account shows what magick really is. It is all about self-empowerment and engendering confidence through psychology. And who says magic cannot be magick? The admission by the Goddess of simple stage magic at the end to bolster the self-reliance and fortitude of the women is itself instructive. No Christian will even consider that anything in their own religion or the Judaism on which it is based was trickery. All of it was. Lies would be more truthful.
