Verse 35 from an esoteric Tantric meditation manual called the Saundarya-Lahari, which is the text-accompaniment of a famous Tantric image called Śri Chakra (also, Śri Yantra; the discipline itself is called Śri Vidya), explains it nicely:

You are the mind, you are space, and you also are fire. You are water and earth, too. When you have transformed yourself into the universe in this way, there is nothing that exists in relation to you. To transform yourself into the universe, you assume the aspects of consciousness and bliss in the form of the power of Śiva.

It is important to understand the idea of emanation because this is the rationale for chakra lore and for its Western equivalents, specifically, the Kabalist Tree of Life and the alchemical/hermetic ladder of the planets and similar antique concepts about the archons (planetary rulers discussed in some forms of Gnosticism.)

In Hindu lore (Samkhyan and Tantric/Agamic systems), God becomes the world (macrocosm) and the human being (microcosm) through 24 (or 36) stages in which a series of “elements” (tattvas) evolve from one another in a hierarchal manner. The last 7 elements in descending order are consciousness, intelligence, space, air, fire, water, and earth. These elements are the basis of name and form as are, thus, the basis of the senses and sense objects. Indeed, the idea is that the senses and sense objects (that is, the human or animal nervous system and the world it apprehends) come into being simultaneously and are interdependent. One is a reflection and extension of the other. The seven elements are depicted as psychodynamic centers within the body through which a person operates. These are the chakras (literally, “discs” or “wheels”).

The Internet and bookstores are inundated with information—most of which is parroting and blather—about chakra lore, and so I will spare the reader from too much redundancy on the matter.

The cause and essence of the chakras is personified in Hinduism as the Great Goddess. She represents the manifesting power (Śakti) of “Divine Consciousness” (Śiva; ie “God”). This power residing in the human or other embodied being is called Kundalini, which means “She Who Is Coiled.” It is depicted as a snake curled in on itself to suggest that the creative power in humans is inactive and waiting to be aroused. That is, after evolving the elements such that spirit has completely become matter, the manifesting power of God goes to sleep, hidden in a state of potentiality. The result is that the person apprehends reality as duality, body-consciousness, and the physical world. The person is in a state of imprisonment in the nervous system so-to-speak and understands reality only through it. This process of emanation from spirit to matter is the path of descent. To meditate on it is to contemplate how God becomes the world.

In philosophical alchemy and in some forms of Western occultism, the seven classical planets are the equivalents of the chakras. The seven classical planets are those recognized by medieval scholars and are based on the antique medieval geocentric idea of the universe. They are in order from Earth to the outer rungs of the cosmos: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Beyond these orbs are the fixed stars (the zodiac/constellations); beyond that, the “primum mobilis” and the angelic realms, and beyond that, God.

An image of the Cosmos from the text Utrisque Cosmi, Volume 1, by 16^th-17^th century alchemist and mystic Robert Fludd (1574-1637) depicts circles or shells within shells—22 in all, representing the 22 levels of emanation, beginning with Divine Intelligence (Nous ), going through nine choirs of angels (Seraphim, Cherubim, Dominions, Thrones, Powers, Principalities, Virtues, Archangels, and Angels), followed by the classical planets, and then the elements. The elements in descending order are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. Fludd gives 22 emanations to correspond with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet that, according to the Kabalist text Sefira Yetzirah, are the numinous seeds of phenomenological existence in much the same way that, in Hindu lore, the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet are thought to have profound mystical meaning as the seed vibrations out of which creation is formed.

The latent power is called the Secret Fire in Hermeticism and the Divine Spark in Gnostic and magical Christianity (and the descent of the Holy Spirit in Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity). The process is referred to in western esotericism as working with the Middle Pillar, a reference to Kabbalist Tree of Life. (Ancient Greek esotericists may have called it the spereima—which means serpent or serpent power—but there is scarce surviving information about it.)

The spiritual quest is to awaken the latent power within and lead it back up through a path of ascent from form and limitation (and unbridled unconscious force) to spirit, true volition and creativity, knowledge, awareness, and transcendental liberation. In so doing, the elements, represented by the spheres and the psychodynamic limitations that they embody, must each be “resolved” into the element that hierarchically precedes them through an esoteric process of involution.

Various meditation methods—some quite elaborate and occult—have been developed to “purify” the spheres and resolve them into the next higher on the rung of their hierarchical ladder. For example, in alchemy, the chemical metamorphosis occurring in the laboratory retort is a physical metaphor and contemplation of spiritual transformations taking place in the alchemist. The practitioner essentially goes through a psychological and neurological transformation through meditation and either yogic or ritual exercises and observances whereby subconscious complexes that result in artificial habits and conditioning are purged.

A primary difference between Eastern and Western treatment of the path of ascent and descent is that generally (but not exclusively), meditation on the spheres is performed starting at the base of the spine and proceeding to the “crown” in Eastern systems and from the crown to the base of the spine or lower limbs in Western systems. In Eastern systems, the practitioner brings the essential spiritual energy within up into “higher” centers of consciousness, purging and breaking apart the psychodynamic blocks that suppress its consolidation and its integration into full consciousness. In Western systems, power is brought down from its source in the spiritual realm into the human form to cause a transmutation of that form wherein identification between the human spirit and the divine spirit can be actualized.

Both Eastern and Western systems refer to the symbol of the lightning bolt to describe this power. It is depicted and visualized in mediation as a jagged line following a simple map of the sefira of the Tree of Life and Western forms of occultism that draw on Kabala. In visualization, the line shoots in a zig-zag from the top pole to the root and then proceeds up in a straight line. In eastern Tantra, the core of the śushumna (the equivalent of the middle pillar and the esoteric spine) is likened to a lightening rod (vajra). Within it is said to be a scintillating hair-thin rod (chitra) within which is a hollow that is the pathway (Brahma-nadi) of consolidated energy from the base to the brow and the periphery to the center. Both Tantric Hindu and alchemical systems also use the imagery of serpents to metaphorically refer to that power. The serpent often represents primal or latent power that must be harnessed and transformed.

In the classic Kundalini-rising episode, which seems to have been experienced by such mystics as Jacob Bohme, Plotinus, and many others in the Western mystical and occult traditions, the mystical pathways of ascent and descent become clear. A subjective sensation of heat and energy, originating at the base of the spine or solar plexus and ascending through the body, across the cervical spine, and “flowering” (or “exploding”) in the head, often occurs. (The loop actually occurs physiologically as a neuroelectrical jolt that shoots across the somatosensory cortex of the brain.) It culminates in a profound spiritual reverie. This experience is markedly different from those suggestive of so-called “spiritual emergency crises,” which constitute a controversial topic for another essay.

The Kundalini-rising (or Secret Fire) experience is typically self-limited.  The activated energy seems to filter back down and the person goes back to ordinary life.  After an episode (or after each episode, as the experience is repeatable), the person may have the impression that a change has taken place or that an insight or initiation has spontaneously occurred. More interestingly, the quality of life and encounters in the days, weeks, and even months following more intensive episodes may be marked with peculiar graciousness. This suggests that the experience itself, though coveted, is not the end-goal but is the epiphenomenon of an ongoing transformational process. Ultimately, the states of profound, unobstructed clarity that occur during or in the aftermath of these episodes become constants of the personality and the episodes themselves may become attenuated as the psychodynamic complexes that they are modifying themselves become attenuated.

Selected bibliography:

Bentov Itzhak. Micromotion of the Body as a Factor in the Development of the Nervous System. In: Sannella Lee. The Kundalini Experience. Lower Lake, California: Integral Publishing, 1992.

Chatterjee  Satischandra, Datta Dhirendramohan. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy. Calcutta: The University of Calcutta. 1984.

Churton Tobias. Gnostic Philosophy From Ancient Persia to Modern Times. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. 2005.

Hauck Dennis William. Sorcerer’s Stone A Beginners Guide to Alchemy. New York: Citadel Press. 2004.

MacKenna Stephen (trans.) Plotinus The Enneads.  London: Penguin Books. 1991.

Roob Alexander. Alchemy and Mysticism. Koln, Germany: Taschen. 2006

Silburn Lilian. Kundalini Energy of the Depths. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 1988.

Singh Jaideva (trans.) Siva Sutras The Yoga of Supreme Identity. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1988

Stenring Knut (trans.) The Book of Formation or Sepher Yetzirah Attributed to Rabbi Akiba Ben Joseph. Berwick, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, Inc. 2004.

Tapasyananda (translation and commentary). Saundarya Lahari of Sri Sankacharya. Mylapore, Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math. No publication date given.

Some critics of Chaos Magick –as well as some chaotes themselves –regard the phrase as an anarchist war cry. However, from what I can gather from reading Sherwin, Carroll, Hine, Fries, Frater UD, and less celebrated commentators—and in my own view—the motto Nothing is true; everything is permitted, is simply an affirmation that all belief is provisional, not absolute. Belief shapes perception, which modifies circumstance. Thus, perhaps circumstance can be volitionally modified if belief that modifies perception is deliberately fabricated rather than imposed as unquestioned convention

This is magical Will, it is the mechanism of magick, and the gist of Chaos Magick. Chaos Magick delves into sleight of mind, dispensing with the spiritualism and woo-woo of other systems, but it nevertheless avails itself of those templates as tools for adventures in magick. As Carroll said, “Belief is a tool.”

In this regard, I find parallels between Chaos Magick Theory and Eastern mysticism. Chaoism ala 1980-something, if not Chaos Magick 2009—with its dispersions into everything from quantum theory to cyber technology to magickal terrorism to Luciferianism—seems to draw a little something from eastern Tantric yoga and Dzogchen. (See the widely Web-circulated essay by Mark Defrates [aka Marik from ZCluster] Sigils, Servitors, and God-forms Part I [Google it], which was written back in the 1980s. The essay also will give you insight about how Chaos Magick is different from other forms of magick.) Indeed, exercises about breaking down habits, conditioning, and paradigms—at least as outlined in Liber Null—are straight out of popular yoga manuals and seem to me (at least) nearly plagerized from them.

What you learn when practicing esoteric Tantric disciplines—if your teacher is kind and grounded enough to tell you—is that one of the reasons why a person does so is to ease the burden of content of the “subconscious mind.” The subconscious is now defined by other nomenclature in medical science but nevertheless, it defines the place where habits and conditioning live. This is why “positive thinking,” visualization, and all that nice fluffy, happy-pill stuff ultimately does not work for very many people. It is because a person is a program (programmed by circumstance and experience/nature and nurture). Some folks have a great, self-affirmative, light and lively program going on; most do not, and they struggle.

Thus, the responsibility of magickal and spiritual aspirants alike is to deconstruct the arbitrary character that they were haplessly made to be. Shamanic/Tantric and initiatory techniques are used to bypass the conscious mind and impress the subconscious so that a change in perception leading to a change in consensus reality can take effect. Liberation is the goal. For some (such as, say, adherents of various Eastern spiritual disciplines and Thelemites) this means becoming who/what they really are. For others (ie, adherents of Chaos Magick Theory), this means becoming who they really choose to be at any given moment for any given purpose because, after all, nothing is true; everything is permitted.

What’s the draw of an ideology or practice for which, ostensibly speaking, “nothing is true; everything is permitted”? I’m guessing that Chaotes are mostly in it for sheer experimentation and pure experience. They define themselves as Psychonauts, after all.

In explaining the whys and wherefores, I’d like to quote something expressed by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in a clip of an interview that appears in the video The Song Remains the Same. When Plant and Page were asked what their message was and why they were doing the Led-Zeppelin thing, Plant robustly and Page demurely both made a slight scoffing sound before uttering in unison, “For fun!”

A curiosity to me in relation to Paganism (capitalized here to denote post-modern paganism and not pre-Christian-era culture) is the use of the term “witch.” Many Pagans and Western occultists/esotericists—including myself—blithely self-identify as witches. I thought thinking myself one was “cool’ when my grandfather, after learning that I dabbled in palm and card reading, announced that I was following in the footsteps of his mother. He proudly announced that she was a strega—a witch.

Now, I knew that my maternal great grandmother, who hailed from Bari, Italy, was a wise woman. Like many other people’s provincial Old World great grandmothers, she divined and cast spells and was a living lexicon of folklore, folk healing, and superstition. Her philosophy was that of other Italian cunning folk: maintain a positive mindset and not speak of disease or death lest doing so attract negative influences.

Although not transmitted overtly or at all formally (and presumably lost to all of her progeny except perhaps me), certain affectations were passed down. When I moved into my grandfather’s house after his death, I found it chock-full of talismans that were groupings of Christian paraphernalia and evil-averting objects. They took the form of rosaries, blessed palm and/or devotional scapulars bound up with cornos (“Italian horns”) and similar charms, glass eyes, or horseshoes. Curiously, I found many of these curios dangling from giant, rusted nails driven into the walls in the backs of closets or concrete pillars in the cellar. A bull’s horn affixed with glass amber eyes hung over the main entrance and today still guards the entrance of my present living space.

But my great grandmother was not a strega exactly. Perhaps she was a maga (a lady mage) or a stregona (a sorceress) or a donna di fiori (an outsider), or a myriad other regional names that people gave to local healers, diviners, charmers, and “unbewitchers.” No one in their right mind called him- or herself a witch anywhere in Europe until the latter half of the 19^th century when a romantic pseudo-history about Paganism and the whole Western Occultist scene began to develop.

Connect the Dots

-A group of Scottish masons establish a lodge at the tail end of the 16^th century, which grows in scope especially when it migrates to England and becomes known as Freemasonry. The organization starts out as a fraternal community of craftsmen interested in the sacred geometry of the ancients. It grows into a bureaucracy of hierarchies, ceremonial rites, esoteric secrecy, and makes claims of ancient origins. The word Craft and the term “so mote it be,” co-opted by Wiccans and Pagans, originate here with the early Scottish masons and not in a supposed Old World demimonde of witches.

-A few Freemasons and others interested in newly defined esoterica form the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at the very end of the 19^th century. In addition to Christian mysticism, they draw on an eclectic mix of Gnosticism, Christian Cabala, Renaissance-era (i.e., mid-Modern Era, circa 16^th -17^th centuries) Hermeticism and ceremonial magic, regional folk tradition, and ancient Egyptian and other pagan esoterica and magianism. They effectively are a lodge of ceremonial magicians whose aim is enlightenment. Despite this, interpersonal conflicts cause split-offs of this group.

-A prodigious member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), breaks out and forms a few other lodges and manages to become head of an esoteric offshoot order of Freemasonry, the Ordo Templis Orientis. He totally overhauls it into a front for his new religion Thelema. His ministry draws on his personal revelation; Hermetic ceremonial magic; and his interpretation of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian magic and mysticism, sex magic, and Eastern mysticism.

-Coincident with this occult revival, 19^th Century Romanticist poets and self-styled ethnographers, historians, and adventurers reinvent—or seemingly invent—Paganism against the backdrop of disenchantment with the Industrial Revolution. The vision of the Romanticists is of an idyllic country life full of magic and mystery in which people live naturally, worship nature spirits, and especially revere the minor Greek deity Pan and Mother Nature. Rural folk magic is romantically equated with witchcraft even though most folk magic was practiced to protect against witches when it wasn’t being used to cast love spells or find treasure.

People begin to form small occult enclaves and covens, with some claiming initiatic hereditary know-how, but who were probably simply exposed to the habits of cunning-folk relatives. In tandem with this, the Naturalist movement develops, which encourages sympathy with folk, Native, and earth-based spirituality and stewardship.
Enter Gerald Brousseau Gardner (1884-1964), who had ties with Freemasonry, Co-Masonry, the Ordo Templis Orientis, a local occult circle called the Rosicrucian Order of Crotona Fellowship, an esoteric Christian order called the Ancient British Church, the Ancient Druidic Order, nudist and naturalist organizations, and a myriad other groups. He founds Wicca in about 1954, when he also is ordained as a Christian bishop in the Ancient British Church. The rites and rationale of Wicca draw heavily and conspicuously from Freemasonry, Thelema, the book The Gospel of Aradia by folklorist Charles Leland (1824-1903), and the now academically disparaged but once highly accepted work on witch historicity by the anthropologist Margaret A. Murray (1863-1963).

About a decade earlier, Gardner writes up a charter naming himself head of the then virtually defunct British chapter of the Ordo Templis Orientis. According to high-ranking Thelemite and researcher Tau Allen Greenfield, Gardner pays Aleister Crowley about $1500 to validate the charter. Crowley’s seal and signature are authentic, asserts Greenfield, who now owns the document. Historian Ronald Hutton, however, reports that the entire document is a forgery. This and other evidence leads to the theory that Wicca was intended to be an offshoot of Thelema for the common folk who didn’t have the temperament for high magick.

Circle casting, an affectation of ceremonial magic, becomes central to Wiccan rites as does ritual nudity, the reverence for a goddess associated with the moon and a horned nature god, ecstatic dance, and symbolic or actual hieros gamos (sexual intercourse enacted as a sacrament)—all features that Gardner and colleagues imagined were part of rural pagan culture or a witchcraft demimonde. A grouping of major and minor British, Welsh, Celtic, and Druidic festival days related to the solstices and equinoxes are consolidated into the Wheel of the Year around which Wiccan and Pagan life is suggested to revolve.

-Other people come forward to establish their own versions of Wicca or hereditary witchcraft, leading to increasingly eclectic expressions of Wicca until, by the early 21^st century, traditional Wiccans are distinguished from other practitioners, who increasingly identify simply as Pagans or as non-Wiccan witches. Many also embrace reconstructionist forms of regional pre-Christian religion, such as Druidism, Heathenism/Odinism (Norse religion, e.g., Asatru and Vanatru) and Celtic, Hellenist, or Kemetic (Egyptian) religious customs and spirituality. Distinguished from all these, are large, loose-knit groups of persons who convene for drumming/dance circles and similar expressive events to celebrate community, earth stewardship, moon phase and/or seasonal changes, and interfaith group spirituality. Although some persons in these groups may identify as Pagans, the groups, as a whole, do not identify as such and often take directives from Native and New Age spiritual trends.

In brief, modern Paganism and witchcraft are new forms of spiritual expression that are nevertheless inspired by ancient and long-standing forms. In the context of 21^st century culture, they constitute a new and still evolving paradigm for spiritual expression and the search for meaning.

So What Is a Witch?

In contrast to witch history presented by most high-profile Wiccan and Pagan writers of the recently crossed-over 20^th century, we now know that most of the people who were torched, drowned, etc. were Christian folk who ran afoul of a disgruntled or paranoid husband or neighbor or whose reputation as a healer or witch-doctor cast suspicion on them. Indeed, most people who practiced magic in medieval and Renaissance-era Europe were Christians. Christian clergy practiced high magic, which with its strong focus on theurgy and angelology, ironically included the conjuration of demons. Ordinary provincials who operated as cunning folk engaged in healing through both folk medicinal and shamanic or purely superstitious and pseudo-scientific means, divination (often to find lost or stolen objects or identify a thief, enemy, or bewitcher), casting love and binding spells (particularly in Mediterranean countries), and lifting curses and “unbewitching,” which involved identifying and neutralizing a witch. Their spellcasting—like that of my great grandmother—generally drew on folk superstition, natural magic, and folk expression of Christianity. They often kept spell books and sometimes bequeathed their knowledge and effects to another person, such as a family member, before passing on.

The popular notion that this represents crypto-paganism has largely been debunked by contemporary researchers. It is perhaps better interpreted as simply provincial spiritual expression. Variations are seen across cultures, time, and space and are in contrast to doctrinal religion as well as the spirituality of the intellectual or mystic, which sometimes incorporate aspects of high magic, rather than low (provincial) magic.

Although regional remnants of Old Ways, including reverence of a goddess, totems, and nature spirits, may have existed in medieval and Renaissance Europe, they did not operate as a witchcraft demimonde. These encapsulated pagan clans may have expressed shamanic practices but also had taboos about keeping supernatural negative influences (personified as witches and demons) away.

Although witchcraft covens may have sprung up in relation to the 19^th century occult revival and although marginal diabolist enclaves may have existed, in part in relation to goetia and as a backlash against Christian imposition on culture, cunning folk and practitioners of sorcery, generally speaking, did not organize or fraternize in a supposed demimonde or secret society. They often were persons who lived isolated from their community or lived in one community but were consulted for service by persons in another.

Again, practitioners were labeled or self-identified as sorcerers, wizards (i.e., “wise” or “cunning” folk), healers, magicians, and unbewitchers. Although words such as wicce (“twisted”) in British lands or strega (“screech owl”) in Italian lands were in use, they did not necessarily refer to cunning folk but to someone whose agenda was questionable.

Witches generally were thought to be malignant creatures that caused disease and ruin. They were supernatural, bogey-men, but they could be real people as well. Calling or identifying someone as a witch was referred to as “scolding.” Scolding could lead to accusations and then legal action and violence against the accused. Those accused were generally scapegoats for disease or some other calamity or inconvenience that affected another member of the community. The scolded or accused might be a shrewish wife, an eccentric or difficult neighbor, a beautiful woman that a man couldn’t stop obsessing over, a poor old lady who was a drain on community resources, a skeptic, or the wise woman or man (that is, the healer, midwife, or unbewitcher) who scored low on a proverbial client-satisfaction survey.

Although legend goes that the Catholic Church was at the helm of the Inquisition and was the primary perpetrator during the so-called Burning Times (during the 16^th century), the large majority of witch prosecutions took place in Protestant Swiss and Germanic lands and often were either presided over by local governments or mob rule. In fact, the Church’s early stance on the matter was that it was sinful, superstitious, and “heathenish” to believe that witches and the diabolical witches’ Sabbath were real and not paranoid legends. The Church was more concerned with heretics. Depending on who was the presiding pope at the time, more or less persons were tried for heresy in relation to accusations of witchcraft.

The major problem was that people truly believed that calamity was caused by the diabolical malevolence of witches. They looked for scapegoats to resolve problems such as plague, crop failure, and according to one research team who examined writings of a leading 16^th century French jurist Jean Bodin (1530-1596), birth control efforts in an era of population decline (wherein midwives especially became targets of witchcraft accusations).

Qui scit sanare scit damnare

It is known that witch confessions were obtained through intense torture in which the accused were fed statements and repeatedly abused until they agreed to the accusation. For a taste of what an accused person could be expected to endure, play Professor Pavlac’s interactive narrative of witch persecution in early 17^th century Germany at http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/hunt/index.html. In short, whatever was said, a person was damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.

The reasons for the rise and fall of witchcraft accusations and persecutions in Europe are complex and varied. Although late Modern-era interpreters of the data strongly believed that the European witch hysteria shadowed an alternative culture that competed with the Christian one, the witch hysteria was just that: hysteria in which some persons—who often nevertheless were “true believers”—profited through exploitation and opportunism and others fell in line to save their own skins.

It is the historical equivalent of modern-day waves of Satanic- abuse and alien-abduction scares whose perpetrators generally are fundamentalist clergy, psychologists, and hypnotists who self-aggrandize and foment through book publishing and talk show circuits. Their impact is generally mild, morbidly amusing, and fleeting in First-World societies. In Third World societies, such as those in tribal Africa, the impact remains significant; clans converted to fundamentalist Christianity are apparently solving their unwanted-child problem by accusing children of witchcraft and maiming and ultimately killing them while inquisitors profit and tyrannize.

The terms “witchcraft” and “paganism” in ages past meant something quite different than what they mean today (outside of fundamentalist Christian circles at least). Today these words are increasingly being used as self-identifiers and terms of inclusion; in the past, they were terms of exclusion. Today, they identify those persons who are in sympathy with certain aspects of Old World provincial culture (not “religion”).

This culture included natural and sympathetic magic, folk medicine, and metaphorical as well as animistic sensitivities to the cycles of nature in agrarian milieus. It reflected a continuum that assimilated overriding cultural trends, such as Christianity. This cultural continuum is seen as a hijacking and conspiracy instead of mere change over time by some modern-day witches and Pagans. These persons find solace in persecution complexes, pitting their supposed ancestry against the Christian culture. A new sense of perspective is needed. Besides the facts already presented here about folk practitioners and the historicity of witchcraft and Paganism, it should be understood that practitioners of magic and of non-conventional or non-sanctioned religion in both Christian-era and pre-Christian era milieus came under fire. They were held under great suspicion because, as the subhead above states, “One who knows how to heal knows how to curse.”

Magic has always been an integral part of religion and folk culture although euphemisms are used to differentiate between sanctioned and unsanctioned rites and practices that, technically, are magical. This was so in the pre-Christian era in which persons from other cultures regarded their own practices as religion or custom and those of rival cultures as suspect and smacking of diabolical magic. Indeed, not only did the members of the dominant culture of antiquity persecute early Christians in much the same way that Christians, in turn, persecuted people they believed were “pagan” or involved in heretical or antisocial supernatural endeavors, the members of the dominant culture referred to early Christians as pagans (outsiders, country folk, hillbillies, the dregs of society).

The members of the dominant culture defamed those belonging to the new Christian cult, believing that they engaged in secret and depraved rites having to do with death magic and cannibalism. Because leaders within the dominant culture thought that these diabolical, cannibalistic Christians were a threat, they rounded them up and tortured and killed them. Centuries later, the Roman world became Christianized and a distinct role-reversal ensued. Non-Christians or nonconformists were called pagans, were thought to be quaint and superstitious if not perceived as diabolical threats, and had to be assimilated or gotten rid of. What can be said about this: What goes around comes around or that, human nature being as it is, perpetrates the same nasty, paranoid habits over and again but finds new justifications for them?

Implications for Contemporary Pagans

New conventions in spirituality and thought do not arise in a vacuum but reflect an ever-evolving continuum. Why is it necessary to invent a past to validate new paradigms? Most spiritual movements that become cultural trends develop organically in reaction to or as a reinterpretation (not reassertion) of established structures. Indeed, their true origins are not self-conscious but can only be traced through retrospective analysis. This can be seen, for example, in the examination of spiritual movements within and around Hinduism over time and in the development and evolution of Christianity, Gnosticism, and, now, post-modern paganism. All have a unique signature yet all are diverse to the point of being “umbrella terms.” Complex influences feed their origins and expressions, and all have changed—and continue to change, sometimes quite radically—over time.

I used to disparage eclectism and free-form spirituality, believing that a person had to apply herself to an established tradition and to some sort of expertise and authority. I don’t feel this way anymore. My feelings have changed, in part, because I’ve discovered how specious “tradition” and concepts about “lineage” often are. Hopefully as Paganism continues to evolve, and as information on Paganism based on hard science and legitimate methodology comes into the public domain, people will appreciate its newness and find humor in the relativism of spiritual trends and the labels applied to them.

From my own forays into Western occultism, Paganism, and Earth-based spirituality, I see—and hope for—a trend away from the Pagan revivalism set in motion in the early 20^th century, with its fabrications about witchcraft and pagan history and mystery rites. In its place, I expect to see a greater move toward organic, non-doctrinal, community-based and earth-based spiritual expression that only needs the human spirit itself for validation and credibility.

Selected References

-Bailey, Michael D. Magic and Superstition in Europe A Concise History From Antiquity to the Present. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2007

-de Blecourt, Willem. The Witch, her Victim, the Unwitcher, and the Researcher: The Continued Existence of Traditional Witchcraft. In: Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

-Gibbons, Jenny. Recent Developments in the Study of the Great European Witch Hunt

http://www.tangledmoon.org/witchhunt.htm

-Gijwijt-Hofstra, Marijke. Witchcraft after the Witch Trials. In: Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

-Greenfield, Tau Allen. The Secret History of Modern Witchcraft in: Richard Metzger ed. Book of Lies The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. St. Paul: The Disinformation Company. 2003

-Greer, John Michael. The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. St Paul: Llewellyn Publications. 2005.

- Heinsohn, Gunnar ; Steiger, Otto. Birth Control: The Political-Economic Rationale behind Jean Bodin’s Demonomanie. History of Political Economy 1999;31(3): 423-448.

-Hutton, Ronald. Modern Pagan Witchcraft. In: Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

-La Fontaine, Jean. Satanism and Satanic Mythology. In: Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

-Levak, Brian P. The Decline and End of Witchcraft Prosecutions. In: Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

-Magliocco, Sabina. Spells, Saints, and Streghe: Witchcraft, Folk Magic, and Healing in Italy. The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies. 2000.

-Magliocco, Sabina. Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend.

The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies. Issue 18, Feb. 2002.

-Noble Beyer, Catherine. The Burning Times or the More Persecuted than Thou Syndrome

http://wicca.timerift.net/burning.shtml

-Pavlac, Brian A. Ten Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts, Corrected and Commented, Prof. Pavlac’s Women’s History Resource Site. (June 6, 2006). http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witcherrors.html.

-Porter, Roy. Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment, Romantic and Liberal Thought. In: Ankarloo, Bengt; Clark, Stuart, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.

-Saving Africa’s Witch Children. http://www.strimoo.com/video/15806468/Saving-Africa-s-Witch-Children-Veoh.html.

-Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. London: Robert Hale, 1989.

In the idea of the elemental north is the seed of becoming where the realm of archetype and pure idea intersect with the physical world. This idea is an ancient one known to the pre-Socratic philosophers of the 6^th century BCE, the Hermeticists and Neoplatonists of the ancient world (circa 1^st century BCE to 3^rd century CE), the Hermetic mystics and magicians of the medieval era, and the mystics of the East. It is this: that the physical world is the manifestation of an ideal spiritual world. Therefore, the theme and mystery of the elemental North can be summarized in the Hermetic adage “As above, so below.”

The Emerald Tablet

This is True and certain without doubt.
What is above is from what is below and what is below is from what is above,

From this work comes the miracle of the One from which all things come.
Its father is the Sun, and its mother is the Moon.
It is carried in the belly of Earth and nourished by Wind, becoming Fire.
Therefore, feed the Earth with what is subtle, the greatest power.
It will ascend from the earth to the heavens and become ruler over what is above and below.

Thus says Hermes Trismegistus.

A number of symbolic ritual objects are used to represent Elemental North. They include: The Pentacle or Pentagram, Paten or ritual offering plate, Mirror, and Stone or Crystal. The ritual Shield, Breastplate, or Lamen perhaps can be added to this list. With the exception of the pentagram, these items are reflective objects. What they symbolically reflect is the Higher sphere of Reality: the Macrocosm reflected in the Microcosm.

The Paten used in Wicca and Ceremonial Magick generally is a pentacle—a pentagram in a circle, or in this case, a disc on which a pentagram in engraved. It is related to the paten used in Christian worship: a platter that represents the resting place –that is the womb and tomb—and the body of the Christian dying and resurrecting god. Even Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), in Liber ABA, Book IV, acknowledged this connection, saying about the pentacle: “that which is merely a piece of common bread shall be the body of God.”

Some antique patens are—as the name implies—large platters or bowls, and in fact are related to the grail. In Christian lore, the grail is described as vessel sometimes associated with the chalice used at the Last Supper and sometimes with the platter on which the Pascal lamb was served. The word grail and words like it originally meant something like big bowl or serving dish.  So both the chalice and paten are variations of the Grail that quickly evolved in Christian lore to respectively represent the blood and body of Christ.

In the late 19^th century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn decided that the cup would represent the water element and the west (which was the convention within Freemasonry) and the pentacle paten would represent the element of earth and the north (Freemasons did not address the northern quarter, believing it to be a place of darkness). If we want to trace the chalice and paten to pagan origins, we can look to pagan Celtic grail legend and cauldron mysticism.

The paten in the form of a pentacle or pantacle, as Crowley liked to call it, also has the properties of a coat of arms and has been associated with the breastplate or lamen, although Crowley says that this in error. A lamen among ceremonial magicians is somewhat obsolete now but once referred to a specially engraved metal disc worn over the heart to protect its wearer or else activate a magickal charm that usually had to do with bullying otherworldly entities.  We will see as we go on in this article that the pentacle was used in medieval times as a talisman to ward away supernatural evil, so the relationship between the pentacle and lamen may not be distant.

The mirror also is an appropriate symbol of the elemental North because, as mentioned, the microcosm is a mirror reflection of the macrocosm. Likewise, the stone or crystal symbolizes the Philosopher’s Stone, which is the transformed self that holds and reflects the divine light.

The Pentagram and the Pythagoreans

Although the pentagram/pentacle symbol dates back to at least the ancient Babylonians, its importance in Western occultism probably rests most with the Pythagoreans. It is equated with the Golden Mean, which is the formula of the structure of man and life on earth. It also was a symbol of health and Cosmic wholeness to the Pythagorean mystics who associated the pentagram with the goddess of health and well-being Hygieia—from whom we get the word Hygiene. Indeed, amulets have been found in which the letters υ-γ-ε-ι-α (UGEIA) or SALVS (the Roman equivalent) are inscribed around a pentacle.

Popular Pagan commentators have reported that the Pythagoreans used the pentagram to commemorate Kore, the Maiden form of the Cosmic cycle. They also point out that the word core, which entered the English language in the 14th century to mean the pith of fruit, and Kore, the Greek word for maiden or female child, are the same. I could not find hard evidence to support either claim but did find allusions to the similarities between Orphic and Pythagorean mysticism and about the doctrine of the Pentemychos, a philosophy told as creation mythology and attributed to a 6^th century pre-Socratic philosopher named Pherecydes of Syros.  In the Pentemychos, the interplay between pre-cosmic Time (Chronos), Being (Zas), and “What Lies beneath the Earth” (Chthonie) results in the creation of the Cosmos. In brief, a structure made of five recesses (a pente-mychos) is inseminated, giving rise to the “offspring of the gods.” This event, however, occurs in the midst of an archetypal drama that pits light and dark and order and chaos against each other. Some commentators speculate the Chthonie is the pentemychos and is the prototype of the goddesses Persephone (i.e., Kore) and Hecate.

In addition to sacred geometry, the Pythagorean philosophers wrote a great deal about the role of the elements in the creation and structure of the world. Their ideas strongly influenced medieval esotericists who turned the name Hygieia into a mnemonic for the 5 elements: hudor (water), gaia (earth), heile, (heat/fire), Hieron (idea “a divine thing”) and aer (air). Pentagram-engraved talisman on which the mnemonic was inscribed were worn to ward away evil, including evil thought to originate with witches and demons. This practice was said to be common among the general Christian public, who also associated the symbol with the wounds of Christ and the Christmas star.

The Pentacle as the World

The pentagram is an ancient archetypal geometric form. It is a contemplative image that contains insight about the nature of Self and Reality.

In Crowley’s view, related in Liber ABA (Book IV), the pentacle represented the mages self and universe. The item had to be designed with utmost care and after much contemplation since it represented the values and vision of the mage. The practice of contemplatively and ceremoniously designing one’s own pentagram or paten—as well as one’s other ritual tools—is a primary part of course work for initiates in modern Hermetic forms of ceremonial magick.

In Transcendental Magic, Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant, 1810-1875) likens the pentagram to the morning star. It is the self as deity displaced from the heavens. It also represents the human soul harnessing and deconstructing the elemental sphere such that it realizes its True Nature in deity—a concept that is patently both Hermetic/ Gnostic and Eastern. He writes:

The pentagram is the figure of the microcosm—the magical formula of man. It is the one rising out of the four—the human soul rising from the bondage of animal nature. It is the true light—the “Star of the morning.” It marks the location of the five mysterious centers of force, the awakening of which is the supreme secret of white magic.

It can be said to be the extension of the mystical dimensionless point into the four cardinal directions of space. In this sense, the pentagram symbolizes the one becoming the many through the process of “emanation” in which God doesn’t create the world but becomes the world through a step-wise evolutionary process. The idea of emanation is a principle doctrine in early Greek philosophy, Kabala, ancient and medieval Hermeticism and Gnosticism, and Eastern mysticism.

The pentagram, as a symbol of elemental earth, represents the final step and the totality of creation. Just as all elements are contained in Elemental Earth, all elements and basic directions are contained in the mandala of the pentagram.

The founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn developed a schema that more or less continues to be the template for modern ceremonial magicians and Wiccans/Post-modern Pagans. Some common correspondences, drawn from the Golden Dawn and other sources that are now associated with the vertices of the pentagram and their corresponding directions of space are as follows:

Lower left hand corner of the pentagram represents the northern quarter and its correspondences. In relation to time, these correspondences include winter, night, the new moon, death and germination. Its element is earth, associated with being cold and dry in quality, and representing form, stability, will, as well as scent and the sense of smell. Its representative color is black or green. Its associated ritual tool is the paten, pentacle, or crystal. Its Hebrew double-letter is פ (pe), which hieroglyphically represents a mouth and implies creative expression. Its angelic guardian is Uriel (“God’s light”), and its fairy elemental is the gnome.

Upper left hand corner represents the eastern cardinal point and its correspondences. In relation to time, these correspondences include spring, sunrise, the waxing moon, youth. Its element is air, associated with being hot and moist in quality, and representing knowledge, expression, communication, healing, and the sense of touch. Its representative color is yellow. Its associated ritual tool is the dagger. Its Hebrew double-letter is ד (dalet), which hieroglyphically represents a door and implies a portal to pass through. Its angelic guardian is Raphael (“God heals”), and its fairy elemental is the sylph.

Lower right hand corner represents the southern quarter and its correspondences. In relation to time, these correspondences include summer, midday, the full moon, the prime of life. Its element is fire, associated with being hot and dry in quality, and representing energy, action, courage, self-assertion as well as consumption and combustion, light, and the sense of sight. Its representative color is red. Its associated ritual tool is the wand or staff. Its Hebrew double-letter is ר (resh), which hieroglyphically represents a head and implies the highpoint of the sun’s passage through space. Its angelic guardian is Michael (“Like God”), and its fairy elemental is the salamander.

Upper right hand corner represents the western cardinal point and its correspondences. In relation to time, these correspondences include autumn, sunset, the waning moon, old age. Its element is water, associated with being cold and fluid in quality, and representing intuition, the unconscious, dream states, feeling, and sensation, as well as the sense of taste. Its representative color is blue. Its associated ritual tool is the cup. Its Hebrew double-letter is כ (kaf), which hieroglyphically represents a cupped hand and implies a vessel. Its angelic guardian is Gabriel (“God’s strength”), and its fairy elemental is the undine (mermaid).

The apex represents the Quintessence: That which transcends and is the source of the elements. It is the sacred center and the Void, the dimensionless point that is nowhere and everywhere. Its representative color is white or gold. Its Hebrew double letter is ת (tau), which hieroglyphically represents a mark or seal of ownership and implies the sacred center and identity with deity.

Among numerous other cultures, the pentagram is also important in Tantric Hindu sorcery and mysticism. It is associated with the deity Shiva and is the central geometric shape in an important meditational and talismanic image called the Sri Mrityunjaya Yantra. Mrityunjaya means He Who is Victorious Over Death. The yantra is meant to provide well-being, protection, and redemption from death. It is interesting that in the mantra that goes with this yantra, Shiva is revered as having excellent fragrance, associating Shiva with the Earth element.

Triyambakam Yajamahe                     Oh Three-eyed Lord, we adore you.

Sugandhim Pushti Vardanam             Of excellent fragrance, you nourish all life.

Uruvarukamivabandhanan                 As the cucumber is freed from the stem,

Mrityor Muksheeyamamritat             Liberate us from death and grant the nectar  of Immortality.

In this system, the pentagram represents the five senses, and—the same as in the West—the “tattvas” or elements: Space/hearing, Air/touch, Fire/sight, Water/taste, Earth/smell.  Name and form—that is, material existence—are said to arise out of these elements and sense perceptions.

The Inverted Pentagram

The pentagram of the Pythagoreans may have been inverted and appears this way in ancient seals and also in a comment on the Pythagorean pentagram in the work of the medieval occultist Cornelius Agrippa.

Ironically, the pentagram, and especially the inverted pentagram has taken on sinister meaning in modern times. For this, we can thank 19^th century occultist Eliphas Levi—or at least the interpreters of his work. He associated the inverted pentagram with an esoteric deity called Baphomet—an entity of Levi’s invention, constructed from several sources and firmly based in pseudo-history. The image was meant to be a mandala associated with profound gnosis. He writes:

The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the sign of hermetism, the one pointing up to the white moon of Chesed, the other pointing down to the black one of Geburah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. His one arm is female, the other male like the ones of the androgyn of Khunrath, the attributes of which we had to unite with those of our goat because he is one and the same symbol. The flame of intelligence shining between his horns is the magic light of the universal balance, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, whilst being tied to matter, shines above it. The beast’s head expresses the horror of the sinner, whose materially acting, solely responsible part has to bear the punishment exclusively; because the soul is insensitive according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes. The rod standing instead of genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semi-circle above it the atmosphere, the feathers following above the volatile. Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgyn arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences.

Levi also associated Baphomet with the god Pan and his cultural counterparts (e.g., Cernnunos), who 19^th century Romanticists convinced everyone were the principle deities of pagan pre-Christian cultures—an idea that contemporary historians of witchcraft and paganism have disproved. In addition, Levi also demonized Baphomet by associating it with the Lord of Darkness of both Christian and various non-Christian religions and with the supposed diabolical object of worship of medieval heretics (i.e., alchemists and the Knights of Templar) and accused and mythical witches. He writes in a tract about the 15^th card of the Tarot:

We recur once more to that terrible number fifteen, symbolized in the Tarot by a monster throned upon an altar, mitered and horned, having a woman’s breasts and the generative organs of a man—at chimera, a malformed sphinx, a synthesis of deformities. Below this figure we read a frank and simple inscription—the Devil. Yes, we confront here that phantom of all terrors, the dragon of all theogonies, the Ahriman of the Persians, the Typhon of the Egyptians, the Python of the Greeks, the old serpent of the Hebrews, the fantastic monster, the nightmare, the Croquemitaine, the gargoyle, the great beast of the Middle Ages, and—worse than all of these—the Baphomet of the Templars, the bearded idol of the alchemist, the obscene deity of Mendes, the goat of the Sabbath.

Crowley and later occultists such as some adherents of a form of post-modern sorcery called Chaos Magick (primarily derived from Discordianism, Thelema, and Zos Kia Cultus) adopted Levi’s stance that the Baphomet image represented a Gnostic deity related to man’s connection with earth, primal nature, integration. Crowley and others, such as Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, also adopted it to attest to their disgust with and defiance of Christian-based society.

Ultimately (in the 1960s with the birth of the Church of Satan), Baphomet and the inverted pentagram became the mascot and logo of a new occultist front: Satanists. Although Satanists/Setians, like modern-day witches/Pagans, are actually far removed in philosophy and practice from what was ascribed to them in paranoid medieval lore, the stigma remains and strongly affects how the pentacle—inverted or not—is viewed by society-at-large. Indeed, the use of the inverted pentagram in Wicca is increasingly being discontinued because of its co-opting by Satanists.

The inverted Pentagram otherwise is said to represent the Horned God or the Spirit descending into or hidden in matter. Some oft-quoted Pagan literature says that the Horned God’s was named Pentamorph—or “He of Five Shapes,” (human, bull, ram, goat, and stag), by Neoplatonic philosophers—an idea that I could not find evidence for.  This is not surprising since the idea of a supreme masculine God as a horned nature deity is more of a convention now among Pagans than it probably ever was before. As mentioned, the concept was developed by Romanticist poets of the 19^th century who had a fascination with the Greek deity Pan and disenchantment with the Industrial Revolution. It resulted in the creation of a pseudo-history about nature-based spirituality. This coupled with speculative ethnography and the revival of Western Occultism redefined through such channels as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Thelema, ultimately resulted in Gardnerian Wicca and its offshoots, including the still evolving phenomenon of post-modern Paganism.

The Pentacle as Mandala and Ritual Space

In ritual, we enter into a dimension of consciousness in which we communicate through symbols. This is true of both conventional religion and esoteric and occult spirituality. Symbolic language, gestures, and use of forms, images, and tools are the “language” used to communicate while in another dimension of human reality; the spiritual dimension.  The space within which ritual is conducted is a mandala—a specially constructed spiritual space where the mundane world is eclipsed by a numinous one.

Creating ritual space and also addressing the quarters of space has an ancient and history. For one, it is seen in sacred geometry the world-over, which, in part, is related to ancient astronomy. Consider the ancient Persians who, millennia ago (5000 years), associated the quarters of space with the seasons and regarded giant stars and constellations as the guardians of those quarters and seasons. For them (who, please note, associated the Northern quarter with summer and the Southern quarter with winter) the guardians of the quarters were:

• Fomalhaut, in the mouth of the Southern Fish beneath Aquarius, heralded the winter solstice. (Due to precession, the star’s appearance is now moving toward the spring.)
• Aldebran, in the right eye of Taurus, heralded the spring equinox. (Its appearance is now moving toward summer.)
• Regulus, in the heart of Leo, heralded the summer solstice. (Its appearance is now moving toward the autumn.)
• Antares, in the heart of Scorpio, heralded the autumn equinox. (Its appearance is now moving toward the winter.)

Medieval esotericists, drawing on what they understood about the Pythagorean, Hermetic, and Kabbalistic ideas from ages past, also had lore and about the quarters, sacred space, and the role of the elements in the design of the Cosmos. Much medieval magick had to do with addressing energies related to the quarters, the planets, and angelic realms that governed time and space.

In one of many diagrams developed by the 16^th century mystic and physician, Robert Fludd (1574-1637), illness is attributed to demonic influences that are countered by angelic forces that guard the directions of space.  In the image, the archangels stand in watchtowers and repel fallen angels and archdemons:

• Michael is depicted repelling the fallen angel Samael and the archdemon Oriens in the East, which was associated with elemental fire.
• Uriel is depicted repelling the fallen angel Azazel and the archdemon Amaymon in the South, which was associated with elemental air.
• Raphael is depicted repelling the fallen angel Azael and the archdemon Paymon in the West, which was associated with elemental water.
• Gabriel is depicted repelling the fallen angel Mahazael and the archdemon Egyn in the North, which was associated with elemental earth.

Fludd’s vision was inspired by Jewish mysticism about the Merkabah—the divine vision of Ezekial (Ezekial 1-28) in which the prophet describes a mystical mandala.  He sees four “holy creatures” that each have four heads (man, lion, bull, and eagle). They face the quarters of space, support the throne of God, and are likened to a chariot and the firmament of Cosmos.

With the occult revival in the 19^th century and the establishment of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, whose founders were Freemasons, the medieval scheme about the directions of space and correspondences was reinterpreted and elaborated on such that elements, god-names, symbolic Hebrew letters, colors, archangels, ritual tools, meditations on cyclic time, etc. were assigned to each quarter, as summarized earlier in this article.

In ritual, the apex of the pentagram is the center, or oneself. Besides correspondences mentioned earlier, incense is often the offering associated with the East or air element, candlelight with the south or fire element, water with the west or water element, and a flower or fruit, or (in Wicca) salt with the North or earth element.

Although creating ritual space and circle casting was a part of many ancient religions and remains central to Eastern and native religions and ceremonial magick, it probably was not part of crypto-pagan folk culture or so-called witchcraft traditions until the witchcraft revival and development of Wicca in the early to mid 20^th century. This emerging fact does not invalidate the practice. Circle casting founded around the mysteries of the pentagram and its glorification of earth-based spirituality has become a mainstay of post-modern Pagans who are increasingly owning” their spirituality as a vibrant and evolving contemporary movement distinct from die-hard legends—both good and bad—about their tradition.

Because “tradition” in contemporary Paganism is often based on mere decades-old convention, reinvention and reinterpretation of folkways, and pseudohistory, improvisation and individualization should be and is becoming increasingly acceptable in creating personal or group ritual space. General templates for creating ritual space—whether in the context of ceremonial magick, contemporary Paganism, or Eastern spirituality—include many of the following features:

-Self purification: This may take for form of a ritual bath, engaging in meditations meant to modify and protect one’s energy field (such as the Kabbalist Cross and similar exercises), anointing, or nyasa (consecrating parts of the body by intentionally touching them and uttering an appropriate mantra).

• Atonement: Acknowledging one’s imperfections and being in a state of repentance and forgiveness. In Gardnerian initiatic rites, this takes the form of scourging.
• Banishing/Purification of Space: Gestures and statements, including the ringing of bells or other noise makers or else smudging or asperging,  meant to disperse obstructive influences from the ceremonial space.
• Purification/Consecration of the Elements/Tools/Ritual Offerings: Gestures and statements meant to sanctify the objects and offerings that will be used during the ceremony.
• Addressing the quarters: This may be done to banish or neutralize obstructive energies or to invite energies or entities to the ceremony either as participants or protectors. Correspondences associated with the quarters may be contemplated at this time and/or signs and gestures may be performed to give further shape to the ceremonial space.
• Transubstantiation: Identification with the deity, theme, or aim of the ceremony—or the witnessing of and interaction with transubstantiation. At the least, some sort of commemoration may occur.
• Ritual offering or communion: Various items, including food may be offered to the object of the ceremony and then shared among participants.
• Deconstruction of the ceremonial space: Final salutations or dismissal of evoked energies or else a de-barring of banished energies.
• Grounding: An agreement that the ceremony has ended and that all participants have returned to ordinary time/space and function.

Selected References

• Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark, eds.  Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1999.
• Comrade August, Tani Jantsang. The Pythagorean Pentacle – it is Two Points Up.
• Guardians of Darkness. http://www.geocities.com/go_darkness/god-pythagorean-pentacle.html
• Michael D. Bailey. Magic and Superstition in Europe A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007.
• The Complete Pythagoras. http://www.completepythagoras.net/mainframeset.html
• Aleister Crowley, Mary Destland, and Leila Waddell. Liber IV, Part II, Magick (Elementary Theory).  http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/lib4.htm.
• Julie Gillentine. Persia’s Royal Stars. Atlantis Rising.2001;27.
  http://www.queenofcups.com/AR27article.htm.
• Jenny Gibbons. Recent Developments in the Study of the Great European Witch Hunt.
  http://www.tangledmoon.org/witchhunt.htm.
• Tau Allen Greenfield. The Secret History of Modern Witchcraft in: Richard Metzger ed. Book of Lies The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. St. Paul: The Disinformation Company. 2003.
• John Michael Greer. The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. St Paul: Llewellyn Publications. 2005
• The Holy Grail. New Advent. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06719a.htm.
• Tani Jantsang. Symbols of Satan? -Baphomet –Four Articles. http://www.geocities.com/satanicreds/baph.html
• Peter Kingsley. Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  1995
• GS Kirk, JE Raven, M Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983.
• Eliphas Levi (AE Waite, trans) Transcendental Magic. York Beach, MN Weiser Books 1968
• Linda Malcor. What is a Grail? http://www.chronique.com/Library/Knights/Grail.htm.
• Míchealín Ní Dhochartaigh. The Pentagram. http://irelandsown.net/penta2.html.
• Catherine Noble Beyer. The Burning Times or the More Persecuted than Thou Syndrome. http://wicca.timerift.net/burning.shtml.
• John Opsopaus A Summary of Pythagorean Theology Part II: Goddesses. http://www.cs.utk.edu/~Mclennan/BA/ETP/II.html
• Alexander Roob. Alchemy and Mysticism. Koln: Taschen. 2006.
• The Sanctuary of a Coptic Orthodox Church http://www.coptichymns.net/module-library-viewpub-tid-1-pid-565.html.
• Archbishop Seraphim (Sviazhscky) The Symbolic Meaning of the Liturgy http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/temple.htm.
• Apollonios Sophistes (alias John Opsopaus).  The Pythagorean Pentacle http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PP.html.
• Frater UD. High Magic. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications. 2007.
• Barbara G. Walker. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983.

Swami Vivekananda was a Vedantist monk and Hindu missionary who became a big celebrity in the US among the progressively spiritual and intellectual set at the turn of the 20th century. In the quote above, he is talking about Raja Yoga or “Royal Yoga.” Raja Yoga, also called Classical Yoga, has nothing to do with body work. It is an Indian spiritual philosophy that outlines how to transcend the mind and achieve enlightenment through meditation. The philosophy exists as a book called the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. It was written sometime during third century.

Why should Wiccans, neopagans, and Western occultists care about an ancient Indian document about meditation?  Because it was being translated from Sanskrit to English during the occult revival at the turn of the 20^th century and was studied and adapted by Western esotericists and occultists, such as Blavatsky and, most notably, “Uncle Al” Crowley. The first part of Book IV—which, in total, is meant to be a primer on Thelema—is instruction in Raja Yoga as Crowley understood it.  See: http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/aba/aba1.html. Then forget it and read a good translation of a least the first half of the Yoga Sutras.

I recommend a translation by the Hatha yoga expert BKS Iyengar simply because it is a good, easy-to-read transliteration with explanatory notes.  If you like turn-of-the-20^th century Victorian language, pick up a copy of Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda. He specifically wrote about Hindu spirituality for a Western audience. A good  (free) online transliteration of the Yoga Sutras with Sanskrit-to-English annotations is at www.arlingtoncenter.org/Sanskrit-English.pdf. Other online translations are available but the wording sometimes is overstated or uses complex vocabulary or Sanskrit jargon.

Mindful Mind

A key aspect of meditation practice is to watch your thoughts although this has too often been misunderstood to mean that a person should fight having thoughts. At the beginning of meditation, a person is instructed to watch spontaneously arising thoughts and feelings come and go without attachment, aversion or judgments. Subsequent meditation techniques that proceed from this enhance concentration and contemplation, which themselves are 2 different forms or stages of meditation.

Regular  meditation practice first consists of watching the mind with detachment, then gradually concentrating and quieting the mind  through mantra recitation and/or concentration on a mental or visual image (such as a picture or other object) or a process (such as breathing or feeling your pulse or focusing on a certain part of the body).

When the mind is quieted and keenly focused through concentration, the sense of time and subject and object (ie, yourself and the object of concentration) are overcome. An illuminated sense of “being” or presence remains. This is true meditation, as defined by Raja Yoga.

The moment is experienced in its purity. It is not qualified by judgment, fantasy, or memory. Mental and emotional projection and karmic momentum stops.  In deeper and deeper stages of meditation, the sense of duality becomes thinner and thinner until only a sense of pure awareness –not awareness of any thing—remains. Adepts then say that even this is transcended to another kind of experience.

Mind Stuff

The mind is naturally noisy and much of it runs like static on a TV screen or random code that comes up on a computer screen. It is sometimes like white noise or background noise and sometimes like a parrot or a little yapping dog.

What you are watching when you watch your thoughts is the static and baggage of consciousness. You are watching the subconscious mind come to the surface like soap bubbles. Like soap bubbles, the images of the subconscious are colorful, like the rainbows that form on the skin of bubbles before bursting into nothingness. If you suppress and filter these images and thoughts, which is what we do consciously and subconsciously at every moment, you merely drive them back into the sticky soapy goo of the subconscious where they intensify and evolve into subclinical and sometimes clinical neuroses.

A lot of “stuff” may come up in meditation. Images that seem visionary or like astral travel may emerge at a certain point early on in meditation practice. Some people who meditate without guidance get caught up in this mental imagery instead of truly meditating. Although visualization, astral travel, and trance are valuable methods of consciousness expansion, they need to be coupled with “mindfulness” meditation and engaged in skillfully for greatest benefit.

It is important in meditational and in spiritual and occult practices to know where the content of the mind and subjective experiences are coming from. They are coming from you. Phenomena are not appearing before you or coming into you; they are coming out of you. This is not to say that the mind and senses may not be experiencing occult aspects of reality but whatever is being experienced is being experienced through the limitations set by the body and mind. Thus, it is experienced as a reflection of one’s own mind and not as the thing in itself. But philosophically speaking, this is true of all perception and experience.

In any case, when visions, messages, and other phenomena present themselves, let them, but address the process with awareness and skill. Transformation of consciousness from a conditioned to a more authentic state through spiritual and occult practices can be like walking the proverbial razor’s edge. Examine what is coming up out of your consciousness, but do not get sidetracked and mesmerized by it.

In the words of the well-known mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987):  “All the gods, all the hells, all the heavens are within you. That god is within you. It is not something that happened somewhere else a long time ago. It’s in you.”

In mindfulness meditation, when done correctly, the images and thoughts that waft through consciousness will subside or become somewhat distant, like white noise.  You will feel calmer and more focused in daily life because you simply have more room in consciousness to be present and aware. In fact, physiological changes occur in the brain that have a neuroprotective effect and lead to enhanced thought processes.

Preparing to Meditate

Simple stretching and movement of the joints and also deep breathing or some basic breathing exercises, done briefly, are recommended to prepare for meditation.

• Cover the body with a shawl or blanket to keep warm (body temperature goes down during meditation).
• Keep the back and neck aligned and straight.
• Sit comfortably, even if this means you are sitting on a stool or chair. The value of sitting in a cross-legged posture, particularly a full-lotus posture is that the circulation to the lower extremities is slowed down and the oxygenated blood is more consolidated in the torso and head. It is counterproductive, though, if uncomfortable or if numbness in the lower extremities for lack of circulation results.
• Postpone meditation if you are hungry or full, sleepy, anxious, depressed, or otherwise impaired.
• Meditate in the same place at the same time. That is, make it a routine if you wish to achieve results. The best hours of the day are the morning and evening (sunrise and sunset).  Although certain Buddhists have a taboo against it, other recommended times are noon and midnight.
• Determine how much time you sit for meditation and keep to it even if you become drowsy or restless during that time. Observe rather than “fight” or be discouraged by sensations of noisiness, restlessness, boredom, or drowsiness

Meditation and Magick

As mentioned, when the mind becomes calm, you may want to focus on an ideal or an image or mentally repeat a mantra (a meaningful sound or short prayer or name—or a spell) in rhythm with the breath. For some (not all), this helps focus the mind. Mantra literally means “controlling the mind.” The rhythm and vibration of the spoken, whispered, or mentally recited sound establishes a rhythm in the body, and this can have beneficial effects on the nervous system.           Focus on a mantra, affirmation, or ideal also elevates the meditator, who, through constant focus on an affirmation or ideal, assumes the qualities of that affirmation or ideal. Western New Age adherents practice this through positive-thinking techniques, Creative Visualization, and the “Law of Attraction.” Success, however, depends on the ability to lift out unconscious conflicts and programs that sabotage the achievement of your goal to cause change in accordance with Will. For this reason, traditional meditation should not be overlooked by Western occultists.

Meditation practices as described and also relaxation practices are considered essential and are advocated in magickal training in Western occultism. Mental control and skill in psychological and psychic techniques are essential in magickal operations.

In yoga disciplines this is done to become one with an ideal or achieve self-mastery, enlightenment, liberation, etc. In shamanic yoga, it is also done to gain special powers (siddhis) and cause change according to Will, which is the definition of magick.

Magickal primers recommend that aspiring magicians first practice deep relaxation techniques to lighten up the body and mind so that they become more receptive to energy and wider dimensions of consciousness. Basic meditation and then concentration and visualization exercises are then advocated.

Concentration exercises may take the form of

• Meditating on a symbol that represents one of the five elements to become “one with” that element to intentionally cause changes in one’s mood or energy field for mind-expanding or supernatural purposes.
• Gazing into or past an object to cause a semi-trance in which clairvoyance, remote viewing, “channeling,” or other effects may occur.
• Meditation on energy centers (chakras) or bioelectrophysical energy (ie, meditating on the creation of a “psy-ball”) are other advocated techniques.

Concentration is often needed for visualization exercises, which may take the form of:

• The Kabbalist Cross, Ruby Star,  LRBP or GRH, etc. that visualize the descent and circulation of light in the practitioner or the creation of ritual space in ceremonial magick.
• Creating a magickal space for ritual, as is done when quarter-calling in Wicca.
• Projection of a symbol or imagery for the creation of thought- forms, evocations and invocations, or the manifestation of an intention.
• Guided meditation, neoshamanic journeying, or astral travel.

Discursive Meditation

Guided meditation and neoshamanic/astral journeying are more commonly used in Western occultism than in Eastern disciplines. Guided meditation is a way to encounter archetypes and archetypal forms and so-called spirit guides, elementals, ascended masters, inner adepti, etc.

In these settings, a practitioner goes into the imagery to receive teaching and occasionally gets initiations and empowerments while in a semi-dream or entranced state of consciousness. This also has been called “discursive meditation” because you go into a story in your mind instead of quieting the mind or concentrating on a single idea or image. Ideally, it is another way of harnessing the energy and content of the subconscious and integrating it into consciousness. It is also very useful in intentionally modifying perception and behavior that then influences interactions and circumstance to cause change in accordance with will.  The techniques are best practiced in a disciplined way as an adjunct to other forms of meditation and not as a substitute for them.

Catharsis of Consciousness

Different types of concentration and meditation techniques have different effects. Some will help you be calm, clear, and focused or more aligned with or devoted to an ideal. Some will eventually lead to startling insights about yourself, your interactions and purpose, the world-at-large, and Reality itself. These insights may not always be pleasant, entertaining, or fit typical or expected norms. Sometimes seemingly supernatural phenomena may occur or peculiar physical or perceptual symptoms may emerge. In rare instances, active or latent psychological or neurological diseases, such as depression, psychosomatic disorders, psychosis, and seizures can be aggravated by meditation practices.

With advancement in meditation and in certain states of consciousness, spontaneous movement may occur. This can take the form of speaking or singing “in tongues” (glossolalia ), intoning or making other sounds; compulsive urges to move limbs, flex, thrash, or make dancing movements or hand gestures (kriya); or laughing or crying (pseudobulbar affect). Internally, the person may be in a detached witnessing state, ecstatically enraptured, or experiencing other intensified or luminous effects.

In yoga traditions, this is regarded as catharsis or unblocking of energy and effluvium from the subconscious. It is sometimes considered to be an aspect of Kundalini arousal. It occurs in other mystical, occult, and shamanic traditions, goes by different names, may have slightly different manifestations, and may have different explanations regarding what it is and why it occurs.

Some spiritual lineages encourage practitioners to repress the phenomena if it does occur; others encourage participants to experience it as a meditative discipline.  Clearer guidelines about how to work with such states if they occur can be found in Eastern disciplines. Western occult traditions seem to treat them as shamanic, “psychonautic,” buyer-beware states.

To benefit the most and avoid pitfalls from meditation practice:

Follow the guidelines about a particular meditation practice, including preparation for meditation practice.

• Be disciplined, courageous, and patient.
• Use meditation practice to enhance your daily life, not hide from it.
• Familiarize yourself about what the experience, effects, and outcome typically are.
• Do not become attached or addicted to, obsessed with, judge, or over-interpret your meditation experiences.
• Do not use meditation practices for thrill seeking.
• Do not convince yourself that you’ve become “enlightened.”
• Seek advice and support of more experienced persons if peculiar phenomena or disturbing mood effects occur.

Selected Bibliography

• Peter Carroll. Liber Null. San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser. 1987.
• SC Chakravarty. Swamiji’s Message to a Disciple. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. 1964.
• Pema Chodren. Start Where You Are. Boston: Shambala. 1997
• MD Epstein, J Lieff. Psychiatric complications of meditation practice. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychiatry. 1981;13:137-154.
• Jan Fries.Visual Magick. Oxford: Mandrake, 1992.
• M Harris, S Rochlin. Sukhavati – Place of Bliss: A Mythic Journey with Joseph Campbell. Hither Hills Productions and the Joseph Campbell Foundation. 2007
• BKS Iyengar. Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. London: Thorsons. 1996.
• H Jaseja. Meditation is potentially capable of increasing susceptibility to epilepsy—a follow-up hypothesis. Medical Hypothesis. 2006;66:925-928.
• Donald Michael Kraig. Modern Magick. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn. 2006.
• HJ Kuijpers, FM van der Heijden, S Tuinier, WM Verhoeven. Meditation-induced psychosis. Psychopathology. 2007;40:461-464.
• EP Lansky, EK St Louis. Transcendental meditation: a double-edged sword in epilepsy? Epilepsy and Behavior. 2006;9(3):394-400.
• SW Lazar, CE Kerr, RH Wasserman, et al. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport. 2005;16(17):1893-1897.
• G Pagnoni, M Cekic. Age effects on gray matter volume and attentional performance in Zen meditation. Neurobiology and Aging. 2007;28(10):1623-1627.
• Sheng-yen. Complete Enlightenment. Boston: Shambala Press, 1997.
• Silburn Lilian. Kundalini Energy of the Depths. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 1988.

Like the sword and dagger, the wand may represent the element of air or the element of fire. Whereas the blade is an aggressive magical weapon that penetrates and cuts through space and is traditionally used in banishing operations, the wand commands and moves energy. As a ritual tool representing air, the wand it rests on the eastern side of the altar. As an implement representing fire, it rests on the southern side of the altar. As a meditation on the air element, the wand is associated with space, mind, healing, communication, and intentional movement in space. As fire, it is associated with magical will and qualities such as command, heroism, determination, and efficiency.

The wand also represents the male and solar regenerative principle, and the path of the secret fire and cosmic emanation. This refers to the middle pillar of Qabala and the shushumna of Tantric yoga (the path of Kundalini), and the caduceus of Hermetic mysticism, which itself has both solar (fiery) and mercurial (airy) associations, and refers to the the speirema in Greco-Roman mysticism. Little is known about the mysticism about the speirema but it is presumed to be the Greco-Roman equivalent of Kundalini. Speirema means “serpent” or serpent energy.

In modern magical fantasy, such as the Harry Potter series, wands are depicted as weapons.  However, the wand is a tool that mages uses for concentration and direction of energy. Why does a mage concentrate and direct energy? To cause change in accordance with will; not to duel or attack someone. In other words: the wand is a prop that helps the mind focus and direct energy in relation to a magical intent.

In the second part of Book ABA (Book IV) by Aleister Crowley and a Scarlet Woman or two, the meanings of various magical tools are discussed. The wand was an important tool for Crowley. He referred to it as a symbol of the mages magical oath, being the path and commitment to attainment of True Will.

“This Will is the wand in your hand by which the Great Work is accomplished, by which the Daughter is not merely set upon the Magical throne of the Mother, but assumed into the Highest.”

In a footnote, Crowley et al explain these terms in mystical language that have their roots in Qabala and Gnostic concepts:

“. . . the Absolute is called the Crown, God is called the Father, the Pure Soul is called the Mother, the Holy Guardian Angel is called the Son, and the Natural Soul is called the Daughter. The Son purifies the Daughter by wedding her; she thus becomes the Mother, the uniting of whom with the Father absorbs all into the Crown. See Liber CDXVIII.”

He also says:

“The Magick Wand is thus the principal weapon of the Magus; and the ‘name’ of that wand is the Magical Oath.”

“. . . the real Magical Will must be toward the highest attainment, and this can never be until the flowering of the Magical Understanding. The Wand must be made to grow in length as well as in strength . . .”

History

Just like dinosaurs are thought to have shrunk into birds and small reptiles over the course of evolution, the wand may be a mini-version of the staff or scepter. The staff or scepter is a stylized version of weapons such as the club or pike. The person who held the staff or scepter in a community was the one who held the power.

The wand or staff also may be related to the ancient mysticism related to snakes. Snakes came to be associated with evil in traditional Judaism and Christianity and some forms of Gnosticism. This might have been a backlash to other traditions in which the snake was thought of as a wisdom entity and a symbol of renewal/regeneration, eternity, and the life/death cycle: the ouroboros, which swallows its tale in the act of self-consumption and also symbolically, self-insemination.

The snake may have been equated with the magical staff and used in miracle working feats by ancient spiritual teachers—such as Moses. If you press on a snake’s head in a certain way, you can temporarily paralyze it so that it takes the form of a staff or a pole. When the “staff” was flung onto the ground, the snake would revive and appear to be a snake again. Such an event is described in the Book of Exodus (7:8-13):

Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “If Pharaoh says to you, ‘Produce some marvel,’ you must say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down in front of Pharaoh and let it turn into a serpent. To Pharaoh Moses and Aaron went and did as Yahweh commanded. Aaron threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh and the court, and it turned into a serpent.  Then the Pharaoh called for his sages and sorcerers and with their witchcraft, the magicians of Egypt did the same. Each threw his staff down and these turned into serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up the staffs of the magicians.”

Aaron was Moses’ brother and apparently held political or magical power because Moses often is depicted telling him to use his staff to make magical catastrophic events occur. Like in stories in the New Testament, the magical actions of the protagonists aren’t considered to be “magic” but acts of God, whereas the exact same actions performed by the enemy/rivals/non-believers are labeled “witchcraft.” It is biased and ironic perspective that was carried into medieval times and the present. Indeed historian Michael Bailey conjectures that the New Testament story of the magical sparring between Peter (who like Jesus may have been a legendary character) and Simon Magus (an actual historical person) may have been interjected into the Book of Acts to dissociate early Christians from being thought of as magi (which Jesus’ miracle-working suggests that he was).

Indeed, early Christians may have looked upon Christ as a kind of magician. A third-century fresco discovered in the catacombs of the St. Callisto Chapel in Rome shows Jesus holding a wand in his right hand while raising Lazarus from the dead. In another example, a gold glass plate from the Fourth Century, now housed in the Vatican Library, shows Jesus using a magic wand to raise Lazarus from the dead. In a series of images on Christian sarcophagi dated to the 4th and 5th century, Jesus is depicted using a wand to resurrect Lazarus, turn water to wine, multiply loaves and fish, and heal the widow’s son.

The staff/wand also may have had its origins with the staff of Asclepius, Greek god of healing  It is a single serpent encircling a cypress branch—a reference to a certain benign, tree-climbing snake that was common in the Mediterranean.

The staff represents the power of knowledge and healing and came to be confused and conflated with the caduceus of Hermes. Rather than the art of medicine, the caduceus of Hermes represents the balance and union of opposing or complementary forces and the self-integration, mastery, and transcendence that is achieved by the person who can unite opposites. It is regarded as the western equivalent of the path of Kundalini in Eastern mysticism.

The Wand and Women

The ancient Druids seemed to have regarded the wand as a magical extension of the phallus. They carried wands with acorn tips to suggest fertility and luck. But the first literary reference to a wand, which appears in the Odyssey, does not associate it with male power or sorcery or the male regenerative organ. The wand is wielded by the sorceress Circe (pronounced Kir-key).

Circe was associated with the goddesses Diana and Hecate, which in turn were later associated with the Fate (pronounced like fa-tay)—Italian fairies. Italian fairytales were the first place that fairies appear in literature. They are depicted holding wands, equating them with the sorceress Circe. They were the counterpart to more malignant and threatening idea of female power, which also was related to Diana and Hecate. This was the mythical witch.

The fairies depicted were different from those in Northern European tradition. They were full-sized, elegant, goddess-like women who would protect and perform favors for those mortals that they took a liking to.

They evolved from the idea of the Fates (Roman/latin, Parcae; Greek, Moirae; Teutonic, Norns), who spun, wove, and cut the thread of life; to  whom even the gods bowed; and were forerunners of the idea of the triple goddess

The flipside of the wand-wielding fairy is the mythological witch. The lore drew on myths about Lilith and “Herodias” (aka Herodias’ daughter, Salome, who was responsible for the death of John the Baptist and, according to legend, became a “spirit of the air”). In medieval Italian, Herodias is rendered as “Erodiade,” only a short linguistic step away from “Aradia,” the legendary patron of a popular form of modern Italian witchcraft (Stregharia).

Rather than a wand—the miniature version of a scepter or phallus—the witch was depicted with a bifurcated branch—that is, a bune wand—or else a broom.

Medieval literature on witches—and notes from witch trials—report that witches rode to witch’s Sabbaths on either bune wands, pitchforks, or brooms (also called besoms). Eye witnesses report that persons who went through the motions of “riding” brooms, etc. only wobbled or collapsed.  Why? Because “broom riding” may have been a shamanic ritual. The poles of the pitchforks, brooms, etc. were thought to have been smeared with an ointment made of hallucinogenic and generally toxic substances that, among other psychedelia, gave the rider the idea that he or she was flying.

Although the idea that European folk practitioners pervasively revered a horned nature deity, conducted moon-magic rites, or met for so-called witch’s Sabbaths has been debunked by post-modern historians and ethnographers, commentators on folk paganism and witch lore, such as Doreen Valiente, contend that the bune wand represented the Horned God (eg, Celtic Cernnunos or Grecian Pan) and also the crescent moon. It also may have been a rough version of the distaff: a rod on which spinning material was hung. Very rudimentary distaffs can take the form of a bifurcated tree branch.

Like traditional wands, brooms have sexual connotations but in them, the masculine and feminine become one. The pole and bristles are said to symbolize the phallus in the vagina. Indeed, the part of the handle that was inserted into the broom material supposedly was carved into a phallus. Thus, brooms were not only a kind of wand used in ritual space clearing but also magical objects for fertility luck. Jumping the broom, thus, was—and continues to be—part of the marriage rite within folk culture.

More than Mere Swish and Flick

Although we are traditionally told by ceremonial magicians that the wand is a phallic icon that represents the masculine aspects of thought, command, and will, the wand exists in many guises and disguises. Certainly it can be thought of as an extension, funnel, and concentrator of energy and will. Like the broom, it therefore represents the Whole: the feminine and masculine—the goddess who is the capacity and the god who is intention toward creative acts.

Selected references

• Joe Lantiere. The Magician’s Wand Parts 1-4. http://www.secretartjournal.com/archives/author/joe
• Raffaella Benvenuto. Italian Fairies Fate, Folletti, and Other Creatures of Legend. Journal of Mythic Arts. 2006. http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrItalianF.html
• Heinz Insu Fenkl. Caduceus. Archived on Journal of Mythic Arts, reprinted from Realms of Fantasy. 2000. http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/forcaduc.html
• Sabina Magliocco. Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend. The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies, Issue 18, Feb. 2002
• Aleister Crowley, Mary Destland, and Leila Waddell. Liber IV, Part II, Magick (Elementary Theory).  http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/lib4.htm
• Margaret Alice Murray. The God of the Witches. http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/godwitch.pdf

In Wicca and neopagan traditions, it represents the Goddess. As a representation of the Goddess, it has a prominent place on the pagan altar. That place is left of center, which is the area associated with the moon and the divine feminine. In ancient times, the cup was an item associated with both the sacrifice of the dying and resurrecting god and the potential for ecstatic gnosis in states of liminal consciousness.

In the second part of Book ABA (Book IV), the mage Aleister Crowley refers to the “Magick Cup” as a symbol of the magician’s Understanding. He compares it with one of the sephira of the Kabbalist Tree of Life called Binah. Binah is associated with the feminine/lunar polarity and with the planet Saturn. Simply put, the “Understanding” or “Knowledge” implied by Binah concerns that of duality and limitation in contrast to union in the divine reality. It is the knowledge about the hard realities about life but also the assurance that there is a way to enlightenment in the divine source.

Crowley says: “This Cup is full of bitterness, and of blood, and of intoxication.” On the one hand, the statement refers to the cup’s association with the sephira Binah. On the other, it refers to its association with the unconscious—the place of dreams and unwieldy thought processes. In achieving self-mastery, the magical worker must strive to know the self and master personal consciousness instead of being mastered or led astray by it. In practice, this can be like walking a razor’s edge teetering between self-actualization and insanity. Like in Dionysian rites, the path is initiatic and typically of a “shamanic” or “Tantric” type.

Crowley’s statement also refers to sacrifice wherein life gives of itself for life. This concept is strongly seen in the Christian, Mithraic, Bacchic and other pagan mysteries.

Cauldron and Grail Mysteries

In Gnostic and mystical Greco-Roman/Middle Eastern paganism at the turn of the first millennium CE (the same time as the emergence of early Christianity), the highest idea of God was that of the divine light. The sun was a symbol of this. The vegetation god—that is, the dying and resurrecting god—was a manifestation of this light and sustained life through self-sacrifice, often symbolized by grain and fermented drink. One of the iconic symbols for this concept of life, death, and regeneration was the cup or chalice or the drinking horn/horn of plenty, which, if we travel north, is related to the cauldron.

Although the drinking horn, chalice, or cup were utilitarian and special objects in and unto themselves, they also may be miniaturized versions of the cauldron—which became associated with a “greal” (also spelled “graal” and “greel”) from which we get the word “grail.” We think of the grail as a chalice. In Arthurian legend, it is said to be a vessel that 1) collected the blood of the crucified Christ and 2) was used at the Last Supper either as a chalice that held the wine or a platter on which the pascal lamb was served.

“Greal’ is an archaic French term for the medieval Latin word “gradale.” A gradale is a wide, deep dish used to serve a fancy meal. Gradale, in turn, is related to the Latin word, gradatim, which means “great” and abundant. Some also say that the word grail is derived from the Latin garalis or cratalis—which also mean “crater,” or “big bowl.”

In An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present, Doreen Valiente says of the cauldron:

A cauldron is an all-embracing symbol of Nature, the Great Mother. As a vessel, it represents the feminine principle. Standing upon three legs, it recalls the triple moon goddess. The four elements of life enter into it, as it needs fire to boil it, water to fill it, the green herbs to cook it, and the fragrant steam arises into air.

She goes on to say:

[It] is itself a vessel of transformation, because it takes raw uneatable things and transforms them into food; makes herbs and roots in to medicines and potent drugs; and is the emblem of woman as the greatest form of transformation, who takes the seed of man and transforms it into a child. In a sense, to the pagans all Nature was a cauldron of regeneration, in which all things, men, beasts, plants, the stars of heaven, the lands and waters themselves seethed and were transformed.

Valiente notes that the Rosicrucians, a Hermetic Christian order of occultists, agree. She quotes Hargrave Jennings in The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries which was published in 1870: “We claim the cauldron of the witches as, in the original, the vase or urn of the fiery transmigration, in which all things in the world change.”

But although the cauldron is part of legendary witch lore, it did not originate with “witches.” It was an important item in Druidic and Celtic homes and had religious value because of its life-sustaining properties.

Various Celtic myths, such as those of Cerridwen and Gwion and of Bran-the-Blessed, celebrate the value of the cauldron by referring to it as an instrument of wisdom and regeneration.  In the first myth, the goddess Cerridwen brews wisdom in her cauldron, which she intends to give to her son, Morfran. Some of the brew spills onto the finger of a dwarf-servant named Gwion, who then attains the gift of knowledge. Cerridwen is angered by this. Both characters shapeshift as the one chases the other until Cerridwen, in the form of a hen, swallows Gwion, disguised as an ear of corn. Cerridwen becomes pregnant because of this. Nine months later, she gives birth to Taliesen, the greatest of all the Welsh poets.  In the Celtic legend of Bran-the-Blessed, Bran, a warrior-god, obtains a cauldron of wisdom and rebirth from Cerridwen. The cauldron can resurrect the corpse of dead warriors placed inside it.

Elements from these myths figure into the Arthurian Grail legend, which combines Christian lore about the chalice used at the Last Supper with more ancient Celtic pagan lore about cauldrons.

Rosicrucian writer Manly P. Hall, says:

There is evidence to support the claim that the story of the Grail is an elabortion of an early pagan Nature myth which has been preserved by reason of the subtle manner in which it was engrafted upon the cult of Christianity. From this particular viewpoint, the Holy Grail is undoubtedly a type of the ark or vessel in which the life of the world is preserved and therefore is significant of the body of the Great Mother—Nature. Its green color relates it to Venus and to the mystery of generation . . .

He goes on to say that “The earliest Grail legends describe the cup as a veritable horn of plenty. Its contents were inexhaustible and those who served it never hungered or thirsted.” Here he seems to be referring to the Cauldron of Dagda, the supreme deity of the Celts. Note that Dagda means “shining divinity” (derived from Proto-IndoEuropean “Dhagho [brilliant]-deiwos [deity, divinity, “shining one”],” so we are talking about a transcendent solar deity here.

The cauldron is said to be gifted to the Tuatha de Danaan by the sun-god, Lugh, whose self-sacrifice (although in some early version, the self-sacrifice of his mother) is commemorated during Lughnasadh. In myth, the cauldron of plenty feeds a thousand people and revives warriors after battle.  This regeneration of warriors is believed to be depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron, which is dated to the 1^st century BCE.

Form Is Emptiness

Having pointed out the association between the ritual cup and the womb of the Great Mother, the Holy Grail, the cup of sacrifice and regeneration, I would like you to put it together and think out of the box about the ritual cup.

To summarize:

• To modern pagans and Wiccans, the ritual cup represents the Goddess, named by some simply as The Lady of the Moon, and collectively referring to all goddesses that personify the cycles of Nature, Time, and spiritual or occult mysteries.
• The ritual cup symbolizes water because cups hold fluid. Thus, the cup represents the water element and its meanings and correspondences.
• The cup is associated with the Arthurian legend of the Holy Grail, which is related to both Celtic pagan spirituality and Christian legend and spirituality. In this sense, it is the cup of enlightenment and the cup of self-sacrifice and regeneration.

The cup then not only represents the divine feminine but the divine masculine as well: the divine mother and son, which is also the divine sun reflected in the waters of life.

But to say that the cup represents the divine feminine—or the Goddess—or that it or its contents represent the divine masculine—or the solar deity, which essentially is the god of death and resurrection, is to say that the cup is really Us. It represents our body—our form. What it contains is life and spirit, the containment and limitation of which is only seeming. As the cup, we are the microcosm in which the macrocosm is reflected.

In its association with the West, the realm of the setting sun, the cup symbolizes liminal space—the space between worlds—where the manifest and unmanifest meet.

In ancient times, waterways were considered to be the pathways between the world of form and the spiritual world of formlessness. Indeed, the cup symbolizes the mystical relationship between form and space, perhaps harkening to the famous line from the Tibetan Buddhist scripture Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra (The Heart Sutra of Supreme Wisdom): “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Form is none other than emptiness; emptiness is none other than form.” And again, a passage from the Yoga-Vashishtha , an Advaita Vedantist scripture, says: “The world is in the mind like space in a jar.” These adages speak about the nature of Self and of Reality as well as the relationship between inside and outside, spirit and matter, form and formlessness. In considering this, we can go beyond patent or sentimental ideas about the ritual cup and touch gnosis.

Selected References

• Aleister Crowley. Book ABA. http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/aba2.htm.
• Frater UD. High Magick.   Woodbury, Minn: Llewellyn Publications, 2007, 231-233.
• Charles W. King. Gnostics and Their Remains Ancient and Mediaeval. London: David Nutt , 1887(reissued by Kessinger Publishing).
• The Holy Grail. New Advent. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06719a.htm.
• Doreen Valiente. An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present.  Blaine, Wash: Phoenix Publishing, 1973; 57-58.
• Manly P. Hall. The Secret Teachings of All Ages. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin. 2003; 309.