Michael Wynn's Occult Reference Library
FERTILITY

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nd corresponds to the genital chakra on the archetypal man, adam kadmon. on the tree of life, yesod has the function of channeling the energies of the higher down to the earth below, malkuth. occultists associate yesod with the astral plane, because if the sephiroth above malkuth are regarded as a map of the unconscious psyche, yesod is the most accessible area of the mind. yesod is the sphere of fertility and lunar 67 imagery. it is identified with witchcraft and goddess worship. it is also the so-called animal soul, known by qabalists as nephesch. malkuth: the tenth emanation of the tree of life. malkuth is associated with the gods and goddesses of the earth, especially persephone, proserpina, and geb. malkuth is the domain of the manifested universe, the immediate environment, the plane

1 10 INITIATION CEREMONY

beneath the base is one of the duplicated letters of the hebrew alphabet which refer to the seven planets. the seven double letters of the hebrew alphabet have each two sounds associated with them, one hard, and one soft. they are called double, because each letter represents a contrary or permutation, thus: life and death; peace and war; wisdom and folly; riches and poverty; grace and indignity; fertility and solitude; power and servitude. these seven letters point out 7 localities: zenith, nadir, east, west, north, south, and the place of holiness in the midst sustaining all things. the archetypal creator designed, produced, combined and formed with them the planets of the universe, the days of the week, and in man, the gate of the soul. he has loved and blessed the number 7 more than al

18276066 GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 1

the solemn lustration of roads, the beating of bounds, at which in olden times gods' images and priests can hardly have been wanting, are all the same kind of thing. after the conversion, the church permanently sanctioned such processions, except that the madonna and saints' images were carried, particularly when drought, bad crops, pestilence or war had set in, so as to bring back rain (ch. xx, fertility of soil, healing and victory; sacred images were even carried to help in putting out a fire. the indicul. paganiar. xxviii tells' de simulacra quod per camjyos portant' on which eccard 1, 437 gives an important passage from the manuscript vita marcsvidis (not maresvidis: statuimus ut annuatim secunda feria pentecostes patronum ecclesiae in parochiis vestris lo7i(/o amutu circumfcrentes e

r heads. by dppbd[ia^a is understood a covered carriage; is not this exactly the vcmculum veste contectum, in which the goddess, herself unseen, was carried about (tac. germ. 40? is it not the vagn in which freyr and his priestess sat, when in holy days he journeyed round among the swedish people (fornm. sog. 2, 74-5? the people used to carry about covered images of gods over the fields, by which fertility was bestowed upon them^ even the harrdsclien in our poems of the mid. ages, with saracen gods in them, and the carroccio of the lombard cities (ea. 263-5) seem to be nothing but a late reminiscence of these primitive gods'-waggons of heathenism. the eoman, greek and indian gods too were not without such carriages. what gregory of tours tells us (2, 29-31) of the baptism of chlodovich (cl

ized- finn magnusen comes to the same conclusion, lex. myth. 621. 636. 3 the belief, so common in the mid. ages, in a 'furious host' or 'wild hunt' is described in ch. xxxi. trans. wodan. 13^ all-pervading creative and formative pmvcr, who bestows shape and beauty on men and all things, from whom proceeds the gift of song and the management of war and victory, on whom at the same time depends the fertility of the soil, nay wishing, and all highest gifts and blessings, saem. 113^ to the heathen fancy wuotan is not only the world-ruling, wise, ingenious god, he is above all the arrancjer of wars and battles^ adam of bremen cap. 233, ed. 1595 says of the norse god: wodau, id est fortior, bella gerit, hominique ministrat virtutem contra inimicos. wodanem sculpunt (sveones) armatum, sicut nostr

time. man has no wish to keep all his increase to himself; he gratefully leaves a portion to the gods, who will in future also protect his crops. avarice increased when sacrificing ceased. ears of corn are set apart and offered here to avuotan, as elsewhere to kind spirits and elves, e.g, to the brownies of scotland (see suppl. to elves, pixy-hoarding. it was not wuotan exclusively that bestowed fertility on the fields; donar, and his mother the earth, stood in still closer connexion with agriculture. we shall see that goddess put in the place of wuotan in exactly similar harvest-ceremonies. in what countries the worship of the god endured the longest, may be learnt from the names of places which are compounded with his name, because the site was sacred to him. it is very unlikely that th

ove, and good grain within' picker or picken would in modern esthonian be called pitkne, which conies near the finnic piilcdinen= thunder, perhaps even thunder; hiipel's esth. diet, however gives both pikkcnne and pikne simply as thunder (impersonal. the einns usually give their thundergod the name ukko only, the esthonians that of turris as well, evidently from the norse thorr (see suppl^ as the fertility of the land depends on thunderstorms and rains, pitkdinen and zeus appear as the oldest divinity of agricultural nations, to whose bounty they look for the thriving of their cornfields and fruits (see suppl. adam of bremen too attributes thunder and lightning to tlior expressly in connexion with dominion over weather and fruits: thor, inquiunt, praesidet in aere, qui tonitrua et fulmina

he supreme lord and that of a being who brings about love and fruitfulness. he has wuotan's creative quality, but performs no deeds of war; horse and sword he gives away, when consumed with longing for the fair gersr, as is sung in one of the most glorious lays of the edda. snorri says, rain and sunsliine are in the gift of freyr (as elsewhere of avuotan and donar, pp. 157. 175; he is invoked for fertility of the soil and iov peace til drs oc fricfar, sn. 28; conf. yngl. saga cap. 12. the swedes revered him as one of their chief gods, and adam of bremen says that at upsal his statue stood by those of thor and wodan (see suppl. also in stem. 85^ he is named next to osinn and thorr (asabragr) as the third god. adam calls him fricco^ which is precisely parallel to the frequent confusion of th

him by that name, had not tacitus put in for us that happy touch of a goddess js'eiihns, whose identity with the god is as obvious as that of fro with frouwa. the gothic form nairpus would do for either or even for both sexes; possibly fravija was considered the son of the goddess nairj)us, as freyr is of the god niorsr, and in the circuit which the goddess makes in her car, publishing peace and fertility to mortals, we can recognise that of freyr or of his father xiorsr. according to yngl. saga cap. 11, these very blessings were believed to proceed from niorsr also' ausigt seni niorsr (rich as n) was a proverbial saying for a wealtliy man, vatnsd. p. 202. snorri, in formali 10, identifies him with saturn, for he instructed mankind in vine-dressing and husbandry; it would be nearer the ma

otan, and the fruh wod subjoined in the note on p. 156 (see suppl. if one prefer the notion of a female divinity, which, later at all events, was undoubtedly attached to the term fru, we miglit perhaps bring in the ok got (sn, 358. fornald. sog. 2, 17, a mythic maiden, after whom february was named. the greek fala or fi] is, i consider, out of tiie question here. in an as. formulary for restoring fertility to fields that have been bewitched, there occur two remarkable addresses; the first is' ercc, erce, ercc, corpan modor' by which not the earth herself, but her mother seems to be meant; however, the expression is still enigmatical. can there lie disguised in erce a proper name ercc gen. ercan, connected with the ohc. adj. erchau, simplex, genuinus, germanus? it would surely be more corre

lections of an ancient heathen worship, which, though checked and circumscribed for centuries, had never yet been entirely uprooted. i consider this ship, travelling about the isis. 2g3 country, welcomed by streaming multitudes, and honoured with festive song and dance, to be the car of the god, or ratlier of that goddess whom tacitus identifies with isis, and who (like nerthus) brought peace and fertility to mortals. as the car was covered uj, so entrance to the interior of the ship seems to have been denied to men; there need not have been an image of the divinity inside. her name the people had long ago forgotten, it was only the learned monks that still fancied something about neptune or mars, bacchus or venus: but to the externals of the old festivity the l")eople's apjdctite kept ret

,2 the custom of draiving the plough ahont seems to have been the more widely spread, having 1 doe^ the antlior imply that the favour of the peasantry, as oiiposed to iutizaiis, makes it likely that this was a relic of the worship of earth i supposing even that the procession was that of the german isis; tacitus nowhere tells us what the functions of this isis were, or that she 'brought]>eace and fertility. trans" carl jager, trchwiib. stadtewesen des ma]\iid. ages, 1, 525. 264; goddesses. originally no doubt been performed in honour of the divinity from w-hom a fruitful year and the thriving of crops was looked for. like the ship-procession, it was accompanied by dances and bonfires. sebast. frank, p. ol^ of his weltbuch' on the ehine, franconia and divers other places, the young men do g

me wazzerholde? another point of resemblance is, that she drives about in a waggon. she had a linchpin put in it by a peasant whom she met; when he picked up the chips, they were gold* her annual progress, wdiich, like those of herke and berhta, is made to fall between christmas and twelfth-day, when the supernatural has sway^ and wild beasts like the wolf are not mentioned by their names, brings fertility to the land. not otherwise does' derk with the boar' that freyrof the netherlands (p. 214, appear to go his rounds and look after the ploughs. at the same time holda, like wuotau, can also ride on the winds, clothed in terror, and she, like the god, belongs to the' wiitende heer. from this arose the fancy, that witches ride in holla's company (cli. xxxiv, snow- 1 dame holle shakes her be

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO WITCHCRAFT AND MAGICK SPELLS

and nature were seen as inextricably linked. people acknowledged every rock, tree and stream as deities in the life force, and the earth as mother, offering both womb and tomb. prehistoric witchcraft early man used sympathetic, or attracting, magick- in the form of dances, chants and cave paintings of animals- to attract the herds of animals that provided for the needs of the group, and to bring fertility to humans and animals alike. hunters would re-enact the successful outcome of a hunt and would carry these energies into the everyday world. offerings were made to the mistress of the herds and later to the horned god, who was depicted wearing horns or antlers to display his sovereignty over the herds. animal bones would be buried so that they, like humankind, would enjoy rebirth from th

inally with new life on the crescent. because the moon was reborn each month or, as it was thought, gave birth to her daughter each month, it was assumed that human existence followed the same pattern and that the full moon mirrored the mother with her womb full with child. the full moon was also associated in later ages with romance and passion, originally because this coincided with peak female fertility. moon magick for the increase of love and fertility is still practised under the auspices of the waxing moon. it was not until about 3,000 years ago that the male role in conception was fully understood in the west, and only then were the sky father deities able to usurp the mysteries of the divine mother. a trinity of huge, carved stone goddesses, representing the three main cycles of t

tian festivals on to the existing festivals of the solstices and equinoxes. so, easter, for example, was celebrated on the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, which is where it remains today. in the same way, the crosses on the hot cross buns that we eat on good friday were originally the ancient astrological signs for the earth, and were eaten to absorb the power and fertility of mother earth. hot cross buns were still thought to retain their magical qualities until the early decades of the nineteenth century and were said to offer protection against drowning. for this reason, hot cross buns were hung from the roofs of coastal churches where their remains can still be seen. the old ways did not die quickly, however, and so for centuries the two religions co-ex

with the devil. under torture, even the innocent would admit to the vile deeds suggested by their inquisitors. many of the confessions now appear to be remarkably uniform and come straight from the pages of the works on demonology, with which the members of the inquisition would be familiar. simple village circle dances performed at the time of the full moon and the old rituals performed to bring fertility to both fields and people- with a figure dressed as the horned god and couples making love in the fields or leaping over a bonfire- became all too easily translatable into evidence of satanic covens. although the last person executed for witchcraft in england was alice molland at exeter in 1712, it was not until 1951 that the witchcraft act of 1736 was repealed and replaced with the frau

y that i don't think could have happened if i hadn't chosen to become a parent. it has allowed me to experience the mother aspect first-hand; it gave new meaning to the moon cycles of a woman, it allowed me to become the microcosm of the great earth mother as i watched my own body grow and give birth to a new life. it gave me the protective instinct of sekhmet [the lion-headed egyptian goddess of fertility, when i realised that i would fight to the death to protect my child. it showed me the true and profound power of the female body; to create and sustain life within the body, to bring forth that life and nurture it with a perfect food made by the body. all of these are precious gifts to me as they are all a reflection of my deepest spiritual belief and faith. when my daughter skye is old

time and culture. however, i have since found that such symbols do hold a great deal of power and therefore can concentrate specific energies. i have listed in chapter 4 a number of deities that seem to be especially potent in ritual or as a focus for meditation. but if you do not find them helpful, there is no need to use them. most rituals are related to the basic human needs for health, love, fertility and prosperity. in chapter 13, seasons and festivals, i describe the major solar, lunar and agricultural festivals that formed a focus for attracting abundance and increase to the land, animals, crops and people, tapping into the life force that connected them all. in past time, the well-being of the planet was considered to be the responsibility of peasant as well as king through paying

focus for attracting abundance and increase to the land, animals, crops and people, tapping into the life force that connected them all. in past time, the well-being of the planet was considered to be the responsibility of peasant as well as king through paying tributes and enacting age-old ceremonies to invoke the necessary energies for the wheel of the year to turn. so individual prosperity or fertility was attained both through private spells and charms and by sending positive energies to the earth and the cosmos and, in a sense, receiving bounty as those beams were amplified and returned to the sender. folk or domestic magick was an important part of people's everyday lives right up until the nineteenth century. in rural areas, the implements used in and around the home and garden cou

in domesticity and the daily world, these implements could not be safer: fruit, vegetables, salt, sand, seeds, flowers, coins, pots and jars, together with your crystals, candles, incense and oils, and perhaps a few coloured scarves or ribbons to tie knots. whether your spell is small and personal, or vast and universal, whether you are working to attract love, harmony in the home, prosperity or fertility for yourself or loved ones, for people in the wider environment or the planet, these are all you need. thoroughly modern magick not everything you use for magick must be of ancient origin, however. even your computer can be a magical tool, used to draw magick circles. you can draw figures to represent lovers, estranged family members or yourself and a baby you hope to conceive and draw t

ans and amulets; for example, traditionally, hunters might wear the pelt of a lion to bring them the beast's courage and ferocity. so, by the same token, if you wished to become pregnant, you might make love in a newly ripening cornfield (near the edge so as not to damage the crops; alternatively, you might try one of the ancient power sites of earth, close to the phallus of the chalk cerne abbas fertility giant that is carved in the hillside at cerne in dorset. attracting magick this type of magick embraces both sympathetic and contagious magick to bring you something you desire. for example, you could scatter pins across a map between the places you and a lover live and with a magnet collect them, while reciting: come love, come to me, love to me come, if it is right to be. you would the

be the term used for the less formal folk magick that, unlike ceremonial magick, is not so rigid about such things as circle casting and the use of specific tools, though it may be based in forms and use words that date back hundreds of years. our kitchen witch ancestors swept clean their magical areas and danced in circles under the moon or round sacred fires on one of the old festivals to bring fertility to land and people, but most of their magick was done by firelight or the light of smoking tallow candles in a cramped living room or in muddy fields. it is a serious mistake to regard informal spells as inferior to the kind of magick in which the appropriate planetary hour is carefully chosen, incense is burned, the tools laid out in the correct position and the names of all the archang

eir actions. but young children are also incredibly skilled at mind-hopping and reading the thoughts of others. this is precisely because they do not have the adult's strong sense of the individual and private self. in so-called primitive societies, the individual does not have the same importance: it is the collective responsibility that matters. so the rituals that are carried out to ensure the fertility of the crops and animals and the community are performed in a group. in a sense, magick is about using the bicarmel mind, placing the brain's right hemisphere in the driving seat, taking concentration, focus and determination from the more logical side as fuel and a map, and reconnecting our unified self with the undifferentiated universe. you can carry out magick absolutely anywhere as

isis, the sister-wife of osiris, sought and reassembled his body after his murder and dismemberment by his brother seth. in this connection, she took on the role of the goddess of rebirth, the bone goddess, and restored him in a more evolved form. the annual celebrations of this event coincided with the rising of the dog star, sirius, which heralded the flooding of the nile and the restoration of fertility to the land and symbolically to the people. as the sky gods gained supremacy, they married the earth goddesses who slowly evolved into patronesses of women, marriage and childbirth. so, for example, odin the norse all-father married frigg, goddess of women, marriage and motherhood. but in witchcraft, though the sky fathers and their wives are used for the focus of specific rites, the god

ALEISTER CROWLEY ACROSS THE GULF

ch, distressed, went to consult the magus of the well; whose answer was "let the vows of the priestess be taken" now i thought this old man most foolish-obstinate; for i myself was obstinate and foolish. not yet did i at all understand his wisdom or his purpose. it often happens thus. of old, men sent their priests to rebuke nile for rising- until it was known that his rising was the cause of the fertility of their fields. now of the vows which i took upon me and of my service as priestess of the veiled one it shall next be related. chapter iii page 8 gulf.txt it was the equinox of spring, and all my life stirred in me. they led me down cool colonnades of mighty stone clad in robes of white broidered with silver, and veiled with a veil of fine gold web fastened with rubies. they gave me no

ALEISTER CROWLEY BOOK OF LIES

of the element is that of jeheshua. the elements are taken rather as in nature; n is easily fire, since mars is the ruler of scorpio: the virginity of i suits air and water, elements which in magick are closely interwoven: h, the letter of of breath, is suitable for spirit; abrahadabra is called the name of spirit, because it is cheth: l is earth, green and fertile, because venus, the greenness, fertility, and earthiness of things is the lady of libra, lamed. in paragraph 7 we turn to the so-called jetziratic attribution of pentagrammaton, that followed by dr. dee, and by the hindus, tibetans, chinese and japanese. fire is the foundation, the central core, of things; above this forms a crust, tormented from below, and upon this condenses the original steam. around this flows the air, crea

ALEISTER CROWLEY DUTY

medy has become almost inconceivable and the whole structure of society is threatened with ruin. the wise application based on observation and experience of the law of thelema is to work in conscious harmony with evolution. experiments in creation, involving variation from existing types, are lawful and necessary. their value is to be judged by duty get any book for free on: www.abika.com 9 their fertility as bearing witness to their harmony with the course of nature towards perfection--o0oit: liber 777 vel p rolegomena s y m b o l i c a ad s y s t e m am sceptico-mystic vi explicand fundamentum hieroglyphicum sanctissimorum scient summ v a\a\ publication in class b i 777 the following is an attempt to systematise alike the data of mysticism and the results of comparative religion. the sce

ALEISTER CROWLEY MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

neuter. by a rather absurd convention, neuter objects are treated as feminine on account of their superficial resemblance in passivity and inertness with the unfertilized female. but the female produces life by the intervention of the male, while the neuter does so only when impregnated by spirit. thus we find the feminine ama, becoming aima<fertility, of bn, the son, through the operation of the phallic yod, while alim, the congress of dead elements, only fructifies by the brooding of spirit. this being so, how can we describe alim as containing a magical formula? inquiry discloses the fact that this formula is of a very special kind. the word adds up to 81, which is a number of the moon. it is thus the formula of witchcraft, which i

ily commemorate them worthy that were and are and are to come. may their essence be here present, potent, puissant, and paternal to perfect this feast"(at each name the "deacon "signs+ with thumb between index and medius. at ordinary mass it is only necessary to commemorate those whose names are italicised, with wording as is shown" the people. so mote it be. 354 (the earth) the deacon. mother of fertility on whose breast lieth water, whose cheek is caressed by air, and in whose heart is the sun's fire, womb of all life, recurring grace of seasons, answer favourably the prayer of labour, and to pastors and husbandmen be thou propitious. the people. so mote it be (the principles) the deacon. mysterious energy triform, mysterious matter, in fourfold and sevenfold division; the interplay of w

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE OTO GNOSTIC MASS

payne knight, paul gaugin, sir richard francis burton, doctor grard encausse, doctor theodor reuss, and sir aleister crowley--oh sons of the lion and the snake! with all thy saints we worthily commemorate them worthy that were and are and are to come. may their essence be here present, potent, puissant and paternal to perfect this feast! the people: so mote it be. the earth the deacon: mother of fertility on whose breast lieth water, whose cheek is caressed by air, and in whose heart is the sun's fire, womb of all life, recurring grace of seasons, answer favorably the prayer of labour, and to pastors and husbandmen be thou propitious. the people: so mote it be. the principles the deacon: mysterious energy, triform, mysterious matter, in fourfold and sevenfold division, the interplay of wh

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQ I 5

ximated (a vast svastika is shewn unto me behind the angel with the book) rend your garments, o ye clouds! uncover yourselves! for the love of my son! who are they that trouble thee? who are they that slew thee? o light! come thou, who art joined with me to bruise the dragon's head. we, who are wedded, and the earth perceiveth it not! o that our bed were seen of men, that they might rejoice in my fertility: that my sister might partake of my great light. o light of god, when wilt thou find the heart of man- write not! i would not that men know the sorrow of my heart, amen! i turned me to the west, and the archangel bore a flaming book, on which was written an in enochian. within was drawn a fiery scorpion, yet cold withal. until the book of the east be opened! until the hour sound! 5 until

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 6 2

end? have mercy, mother! venus. nay, brother, thou art the chiefest of my chosen. libra. alas. venus. yea, brother: in the end all turn to me, and all return to me. isis am i, and from my life are fed all showers and suns, all moons that wax and wane; all stars and streams, the living and the dead, the mystery of pleasure and of pain. 87 i am the mother! i the speaking sea! i am the earth and its fertility! life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me- to me! hathoor am i, and to my beauty drawn all glories of the universe bow down, the blossom and the mountain and the dawn, fruit's blush, and woman, our creations's crown. i am the priest, the sacrifice, the shrine, i am the love and life of the divine! life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness are surely mine- are mine! venus

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 6

nergy it shall destroy even the memory of all those marsh-lights that came to greet it; and the priest shall bow down in the glory, and grasp the altar with his hands, and strike it with his forehead seven times. now this altar is the earthen altar of demeter. then understanding all things by the light of that love, he shall know that this is love, that this is the soul of the earth, that this is fertility and understanding, the secret of demeter. nay (even) the oracle may speak in his heart and foretell or foreshadow the greater mysteries of persephone, of death the daughter of love. those, too, who are thus reborn will understand that i who write these words am stretched on the wet earth on the day of spring. it is night, but only the sea whispers of persephone, as the stars intimate ura

r body be one again with the mother, and your soul one with the father, as it is written in the book of the law. all this have i been taught by her whose purity and strength are even as earth's, chosen before the foundation of time. lioness with lion, may we walk by night among the ruins of great cities, when, weary with happiness too great even for our immortality, we turn from the fragrance and fertility of earth. and at the sunrise return where the peopled valleys call us; where, bronzed and buoyant, our children sing aloud as they drive home the spade. glory be to the earth and to the sun and to the holy body and soul of man; and glory be to love and to the father of love, the secret unity of things! glory be to the shrine within the temple, and to the god within the shrine, to the wor

ALEX SANDERS THE KING OF THE WITCHES

hands. e. whineray, m.p.s. isalex sanders with his crystal maxine blesses her athame tarot cards the witches' circle. maxine beside the altar alex honours the goddess maxine inside the circle breathing life into the fith-fath the witches' dance walking to covenstead calling down the power the symbolic sex act the witches' altar passing the pentacle around the circle the witches fall to the ground fertility rites the black mass athamll book of shadows coven covens'read esbat esp familiar fith-fath the key of solomon measure pentacle sabbat tarot card voodoo warlock wicca witch wizard the witch's black-hilted knife. with book of rules, written in witch's own handwriting and copied by successive generations, group ofwitches. meeting place of a coven small meeting, not necessarily of a full co

initi t:d male or femalemember ofwitchcraft group. magician, not necessarily a witch. 3lntrobuction since the dawn of history man has believed in miracles. the first tribesmen to discover the healing power of herbs, or to recognize clouds as the forerunners ofrain, were elected magi, or wise men. from this it was but a short step to divining the future and to the formulation of spells to increase fertility or destroy enemies. as long ago as the stone age the wise man of the tribe was dressed in an animal skin; he was called 'devil, which meant 'little god, and was worshipped by his followers as the chief god's representative. the earliest record of this custom is a palaeolithic painting found in a cave in the ariege district of southern france. it depicts a man clad in a stag's skin, with

sexual orgy. it is important to note at this point that although we have few historical records of 'white' witches at this time and must include them under the general term 'witches, modem white witches, who are the subject ofthis book, believe that they are descended from, and adhere to, a separate tradition embracing the worship not of satan, but of the homed god and the earth mother-symbol of fertility, the oldest goddess known to man. certain aspects of white-witch dogma can be traced in ancient religions all over the world, in druidical beliefs, for instance, and the incantations in runic have been passed from generation to generation. white witchcraft is invariably confmed to doing good, restraining evil and promoting fertility. but although some attempt was made in the middle ages*

ping of thirteen witches-six couples and a leader, or eleven priests, a high priest and high priestess. 2 to distinguish between beneficial and harmful magic, it had little effect on the treatment of the witches themselves. from being a joyous religion, witchcraft was changed overnight when, in 1484, pope innocent viii put his seal on e bull.t at condemned witches as heretics for interfering with fertility. from now on terror would invade the life ofanyone suspected of working miracles. in 1486, two members of the inquisition, with the full approval of the pope, wrote an ha publis ed the boo malleus male.ficarum, which described in considerable det 11 methods of discovering and punishing witches and ways m which magic could be harmful. the book, which by. 1520 had run to fourteen editions

erstand .its meaning. uncle louie knew none of this 'look at the view, lad' he pointed out the misty expanse of lancashire round thern 'folks say that witches used to come up here and worship heathen gods, but some folks'll say anything' one by one the long-dead witches flickered across alex's consciousness, indistinct, but with the symbols of their witchhood clearly defmed: the horns-sign of the fertility cultthe broomsticks, the raised athames, he knew he would never be satisfied until he had conjured them up in a circle to hear what they had to tell him. unable to practise his witchcraft properly, for gran had explained time and time again tha only a third-grade w tch could work in a circle, and then with at least one companion, alex had to observe the full-moon rites at his bedroom win

his grandmother's, but he went through the motions, wishing himself back in 24 k.w -3 25 circle, she would tell him all the tales that had been passed from witch to witch through the ages. the true religion, she explained, was the love of life and the love of the giver of life. man must love woman, woman man, and both must love the god that made them. the main tenet of the cult was the belief in fertility. this was something with which alex, as one of a large family, was all too familiar, and he regarded it as a mixed blessing. now he heard that in olden times people without children were as nothing-it was their offspring that gave them a stake in the future-and he learnt of the first fertility ritesheld by white witcheson may eve and november eve when, after honouring their god, they fea

that he was trying. to find means of recognizing real witches so that he could practise his cult with them 'initiate me' urged his companion 'then you would have a. coven of two, and i promise i shall do all you ask of me' alex explained that no male witch may initiate another male, nora female a female. the natural laws of witchcraft, which regard homosexuality as a denial of the basic tenet of fertility, insist on man always being paired with woman, especiallyin a ceremony as personal asinitiation. a few days later the young man returned and asked if alex would accompany him to the home of some friends who might be able to help 'they are devout christians, evangelists, but they are eager to obey the teachings of the old testament and talk with angels, and they might be prepared to use w

en and her guardians had continued .her mother's fight against witchcraft and refused to give their consent to the marriage. it would have to be a handfasting, such as. had not been per. formed in england for centuries. maxine was ecstatic-i-no cathedral wedding could have thrilled her more. the ceremony began with the couple jumping over a broomstick, then over a flaming cauldron, to: ensure the fertility of the marriage. then they had their forearms nicked with a dagger and bound together so that their blood could mingle. normally the third-grade initiation would have been held before this, but for maxine and alex it was already obsolete.they spent their honeymoon in alex'sflat,surrounded by the magical weapons that were so much a part oftheir lives. now that alex spent so much of his ti

country where outdoor rituals can be practised without fear of alarming neighbours. meanwhile he is consolidating the progress witchcraft has made this decade. each year more and more responsible people-many of them middle-aged-join his ranks. as traditional religion wanes and people seek a substitute, many are attracted to the 'back-to-nature' aspects of witchcraft. the simpleworship oflove and fertility canbe immenselyappealing in a materialistic age overshadowed by the achievements-c-and horrors-of science. similarly the upsurge of interest in psychic phenomena-be they flying saucers or esp-is conducive to the revival of witchcraft. man wants to believe in something. alex hopes to direct his belief to the old religion which, he maintains, can become a real power to benefit all mankind

y one god, but they are told to call him by the name of their regional folk-hero who was probably worshipped by their ancestors. q: as well as the black market you ha.ve justmentioned,are there any other abuses of witchcraft practised in covens? a: too many. one coven initiates its members with the use of an artificial phallus. this is nothing new to witchcraft; it. was used centuries. ago during fertility rites when .witches swore they had relations with the devil-as they called.the coven elder. they claimed that his member was cold, which was not .surprising, for the women. demanded' that the elder lie with each one of them to ensure a good harvest, and. the poor man was hard put t? it to satisfy 124 so many. an artificial phallus was used, therefore, similar to the ones inexistence in e

be told of the curse. q: what equipment does a witch require /1: to begin with, nothing more than a, simple robe<\j:ld an athame.-a black-handled knife. before taking the secondgrade initiation he must ha,vethe full regalia of eight weapons. q: why are witches usually depicted as ugly old crones with broomsticks? a: the broomstick is the phallic symbol, and witchcraft has always been primarily a fertility cult; the women were originally shown as being ugly because at first they were feared, and then ridiculed. q: in all the time that witchcraft has been worked, have there been no major victories? a: certainly. when the armada was sighted in july 1588, witches allover britain passed the word calling for a grand sabbath to combine their powers. while drake was fmishing his game of bowls, wi

eryone. those who have .fulfilled .themselves, and all children,returrt to the central reservoir of power; those who have left work undone, have committed suicide or-have had very ufihappylives are reincarnatedon earth for another chance. q. what part do talismans. play in witchcraft? a: only a little. non-witches seem to have more need for them as 'good-iuck'charms. our speciality is the one for fertility, shaped like a tiny phallus. it has been used for hundreds of years; carved with the same.mystic symbols, consecrated in the circle and worn round the petitioner's neck. whether by psychology, luck or witchcraft, there must. be a regiment ofchildren who have beep. conceived while their mothers were wearing this witches' charm, as our fues. of thank-you letters show. 128 q: arenop--witche

ALEXANDRIAN BOOK OF SHADOWS OCCULT

days we must not do so. for our enemies have devised a burning pit of everlasting fire into which they say their god casteth all the people who worship him, except it be the very few who are released by their priest's spells and masses. and this be chiefly by giving monies and rich gifts to receive his favour for their great god is ever in need of money. 101. but as our gods need our aid to make fertility for man and crops, so is the god of the christians ever in need of man's help to search out and destroy us. their priests ever tell them that any who get our help are damned to this hell forever, so men be mad with the terror of it. 102. but they make men believe that they may escape this hell if they give victims to the tormentors. so for this reason all be forever spying, thinking "an

he elements put out by church of the seven arrows. l putting elemental notes into the bos (instead of in a grimoire or in a set of training notes) also appears to be khaled's idea. l water deep body dryness, hotness, mind& body feel seperated, no empathy body puffiness, sinus (etc) flows, mood swings "touchiness, apathy goddess aspect: mother astrological rulers: venus, moon keys: love principle, fertility, gabriel (turns force into form) rules: emotions, love, sorrow, courage, astral planes, clairvoyance, tides, oceans, pools, streams, wells, womb melancholic; feeling; strong, excitatory virtues: compassion, tranquility, tenderness, forgiveness, modesty, fluidity in creativity, receptivity, influence vices: self-indulgence, negligence, cowardice, indifference, instability, moodiness, infa

ALICE A BAILEY04 A TREATISE ON COSMIC FIRE

will be found a similar organ or receiver within its etheric body, the locality of which is not for exoteric publication and cannot therefore be revealed. it is connected with the location of the two poles, north and south, and is the centre around which the globe rotates, and is the source of the legend of a sacred fertile land within the sphere of polar influences. the mythic land of exceeding fertility, of abundant luxuriance, and of phenomenal growth, vegetable, animal and human would naturally lie where prana is received. it is the esoteric garden of eden, the land of physical perfection. surface radiation demonstrates, after distribution, as planetary prana. in man. the organ of reception is the spleen through its etheric counterpart. after distribution over the entire body via the

the wise study of solar radiation upon the surface of the planet in connection with its rotary action, some of the group rules of health may be comprehended and followed. the spirit of the planet (or the planetary entity) likewise has his cycles, and in the- 60- a treatise on cosmic fire copyright 1998 lucis trust absorption of planetary prana, and in its correct distribution, lies the secret of fertility and equable vegetation. much of this is hidden in the fabled story of the war between fire and water, which has its basis in the reaction of the fire latent in matter, to the fire emanating outside of matter, and playing upon it. in the interval that has to elapse while the two are in process of blending, come those periods where, through karmic inheritance, reception is unstable and dis

ALICE A BAILEY09 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME I ESOTERIC PSYCHOLOGY I

silized remains are left to indicate to us a vegetation vastly different to that which we now enjoy. man himself has changed so much that we find it difficult to recognise homo sapiens in the early primitive races of the far distant past. this mutability and obliteration of earlier types is due to a major factor among many. the quality of the light which promotes and nurtures growth, vitality and fertility in the kingdoms of nature has changed several times during the ages, and as it has changed it has produced corresponding mutations in the phenomenal world. from the standpoint of the esotericist, all forms of life on our planet are affected by three types of light substance, and at the present time a fourth type is gradually making its presence felt. these types of light are: 1. the ligh

ALICE A BAILEY10 FROM BETHLEHEM TO CALVARY

orion, called "the three kings" by oriental astronomers, was in proximity; therefore the constellation virgo, the virgin, was rising in the east, and the line of the ecliptic, of the equator and of the horizon all met in that constellation. it is interesting also to note that the brightest and largest star in the constellation virgo is called spica; it is to be found in the "ear of corn (sign of fertility) which the virgin holds. bethlehem means the "house of bread" and there is therefore an obvious connection between these two words. this constellation is also composed of three stars in the shape of a cup. this is the true holy grail, that which contains the life blood, the repository of the sacred and the holy, and that which conceals divinity. these are astronomical facts. the interpre

ALICE A BAILEY12 DISCIPLESHIP IN THE NEW AGE VOLUME I

can be carried into the hearts of men. thus new flowers of ideas bring beauty to the dusty plains of earth" in peace and understanding go your way to the feet of the great ones. july 1935 brother of old. last time i communicated with you i gave you much. this time i need to give you but a little as you have yet to work out that which i have suggested. above everything else aim at simplicity. the fertility of your mind is a great and useful gift, acquired through many lives of achieved knowledge. but a fertile garden and a rank wilderness are both of them expressions of fertility, but the one is beautiful and the other needs attention an attention which has to be initiated by a definite process of destruction. you have been used in the past months to institute a work which can be of real s

ALICE A BAILEY18 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME III ESOTERIC ASTROLOGY

wn on to the emotional or astral plane. eve has no child in her arms; the germ of the christ life is as yet too small to make its presence felt; the involutionary process is yet too close; but in isis the midway point is reached; the quickening of that which is desired (the desire of all nations, as it is called in the bible) has taken place and isis consequently stands in the ancient zodiacs for fertility, for motherhood and as the guardian of the child. mary carries the process down to the plane or place of incarnation, the physical plane, and there gives birth to the christ child. in these three virgins and these three mothers of the christ, you have the history of the formation and the function of the three aspects of the personality through which the christ must find expression. the s

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

of the operation of cyclic law difficult to account for on materialist lines? whence the "destined cycle" and the order here testified to? why does this (karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their "appointed hour? the answer that it is due to a "mental disproportion" between the colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden "checks to fertility" which so frequently supervene. the dying out of the hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize with occultists that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of karma. as lefevre remarks "the time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human types (be

BLUE EQUINOX

sir richard payne knight, sir richard francis burton, doctor g rard encausse, doctor theodor reuss, and sir aleister crowley.oh sons of the lion and the snake! with all thy saints we worthily commemorate them worthy that were and are and are to come. may their essence be here present, potent, puissant and paternal to perfect this feast! the people: so mote it be (the earth) the deacon: mother of fertility on whose breast lieth water, whose cheek is caressed by air, and in whose heart is the sun.s fire, womb of all life, recurring grace of seasons, the equinox 262 answer favorably the prayer of labour, and to pastors and husbandmen be thou propitious. the people: so mote it be (the principles) the deacon: mysterious energy, triform, mysterious matter, in fourfold and sevenfold division, th

BOOK T

e of cups or chalices a white radiant angelic hand, issuing from clouds, and supporting on the palm thereof a cup, resembling that of the stolistes. from it rises a fountain of clear and glistening water: and sprays falling on all sides into clear calm water below, in which grow lotuses and water-lilies. the great letter of the supernal mother is traced in the spray of the fountain. it symbolizes fertility- productiveness, beauty, pleasure, happiness, etc. iii. the root of the powers of the air ace of swords a white radiating angelic hand, issuing from clouds, and grasping the hilt of a sword, which supports a white radiant celestial crown; from which depend, on the right, the olive branch of peace; and on the left, the palm branch of suffering. six vaus fall from its point. it symbolizes

BUCKLAND RAYMOND COMPLETE BOOK OF WITCHCRAFT

es. the penobscot indians, for example, less than a hundred years ago, wore deer masks and horns when performing rituals for the same purpose. the mandan indians' buf-falo dance is another example. along with this god of hunting there was a goddess, though which came first (or whether they evolved together) we do not know, and it is immaterial. if there were to be animals to hunt, there had to be fertility of those animals. if the tribe was to continue (and there was a high mortality rate in those days) then there had to be fertility of wo/man. again sympathetic magick played a part. clay models were made of the animals mating, and in an accompanying ritual the members of the tribe would copulate. there are many carved and modeled representations of the fertility goddess extant. generally

nine attributes of these figures are greatly over-emphasized. they have heavy, pendulous breasts, large buttocks, an oftimes swollen belly as though pregnant and exaggerated genitalia. there is invariably complete lack of identity with the rest of the body. the face is not defined and the arms and legs, if there at all, are barely suggested. the reason is that wo/man was solely concerned with the fertility aspect. woman was the bearer and nurser of the young. the goddess was her representative as the great provider and comforter; mother nature or mother earth. with the development of agriculture there was a further elevating of the goddess. she now watched over the fertility of the crops as well as of tribe and of animal. the year, then, fell naturally into two halves. in the summer food c

rally "the horned one. to the north the same god is known as cerne; a shortened form. and in still another area the name has become herne. by now wo/man had learned not only to grow food but also to store it for the winter. so hunting became less important. the horned god came now to be looked upon more as a god of nature generally, and a god of death and what lies after. the goddess was still of fertility and lesson one: the history and philosophy of witchcraft/ 3 also of rebirth, for wo/man had developed a belief in a life after death. this is evidenced from the burial customs of the period. the gravettians (22,000-18,000 bce) were innovators here. they would bury their deceased with full clothing and ornaments and would sprinkle them with red ochre (haematite, or iron peroxide, to give

not actually set foot outside the cave but at the same time they knew he was not lying. it seemed that the world of sleep was as the material world. there were trees and mountains, animals and people. even the dead were there, seemingly unchanged many years after death. in this other world, then, man must need the same things he needed in this world" with the development of different rituals for fertility, for success in the hunt, for seasonal needs there necessarily developed a priesthood: a'select few more able to bring results when directing the rituals. in some areas of europe (though probably not as generally widespread as murray indicated) these ritual leaders, or priests and priestesses, became known as the wicca* the "wise ones. in fact by the time of the anglo-saxon kings in engl

available to build them were from among the pagans themselves. in decorating the churches these stonemasons and woodcarvers very cleverly incorporated figures of their own deities. in this way, even if they were forced to attend the churches the people could still worship their own gods there. there are many of these figures still in existence today. the goddess is usually depicted as very much a fertility deity, with legs spread wide and with greatly enlarged genitalia. such figures are usually referred to as shiela-na-gigs. the god is shown as a horned head surrounded by foliage; known as a "foliate mask, and also sometimes referred to as "jack of the green" or "robin o' the woods. incidentally, these carvings of the old god should not be confused with gargoyles. the latter are the hideo

ive in the country. the word "heathen" means "one who dwells on the heath. so the terms were appropriate for non-christians at that time, but they bore no connotations of evil and their use today in a derogatory sense is quite incorrect. as the centuries passed, the smear campaign against non-christians continued. what the wiccans did was reversed and used against them. they did magick to promote fertility and increase the crops; the church claimed that they made women and cattle barren and blighted the crops! no one apparently stopped to think that if the witches really did what they were accused of, they would suffer equally themselves. after all, they too had to eat to live. an old ritual act for fertility was for the villagers to go to the fields in the light of the full moon and to da

e or two witches were suspected of living, were put to death with the cry "destroy them all. the lord will know his own" in 1586 the archbishop of treves decided that the local witches had caused the recent severe winter. by dint of frequent torture a "confession" was obtained and one hundred twenty men and women were burned to death on his charge that they had interfered with the elements. since fertility was of great importance fertility of crops and beasts there were certain sexual rites enacted by the wicca, as followers of the nature religion. these sexual rites seem to have been given unnecessary prominence by the christian judges, who seemed to delight in prying into the most minute of details concerning them. the rites of the craft were joyous in essence. it was an extremely happy

nted that if horses and oxen could carve they would probably represent their gods in animal form! about seven hundred fifty years later maximus of tyre said much the same thing: that men worship their gods under whatever form seems intelligible to them. in lesson one you saw how, in their early development, people came to worship two principle deities: the horned god of hunting and the goddess of fertility. these, then, were our representations our understandable forms of the supreme power which actually rules life. in the various areas of wo/man's development we see that these representations became, for the ancient egyptians, isis and osiris; for the hindus, shiva and parvati; for the christians, jesus and mary. in virtually all instances (there were exceptions) the ultimate deity was eq

dess are important and should be equally revered. there should be balance. but balance is as woefully missing in most traditions of the craft as it is in christianity. we are all every single one of us made up of both masculine and feminine attributes. the toughest, most macho man has feminine aspects just as the most traditionally-feminine woman has male aspects. so it is "pan a greek nature and fertility deity, originally native to arcadia. as such he is god of goatherds and flocks and is usually represented as a very sensual creature; a shaggy human to the loins with pointed ears, goat's horns and legs. he wanders among the mountains and valleys, pursuing nymphs or leading them in their dances. he is quite musical and is the inventor of the syrinx, or 'pipes of pan. he is considered to

sexual activity (more specific details later. whenever doing magick, always consider the wiccan rede. will your action harm anyone? if the answer is "yes. don't do it. more later. basically, constructive magick (for growth) is done during the waxing cycle and magick for destruction is done during the waning cycle. constructive magick would include such things as love, success, protection, health, fertility. destructive magick would include such things as binding spells, separation, elimination, now answer the examination questions for this lesson in appendix b 1. this lesson deals with beliefs. examine your present beliefs on reincarnation. do you have any past-life memories? 2. construct/draw an altar table. indicate what will be placed on it, and show their arrangement. altar 3. construc

ow does he turn to face the lady "though apart they are one 'they are both the shadow and the light" then follows an enactment of a seasonal motif (e.g. the midpoint in the sun's winter journey; sweeping out the old and starting anew; the running of the priests of the lupercalia, at the ancient roman festival; the preparation of seed-grain for growing in the spring; the inviting of the goddess of fertility to enter into the house and lodge therein. bell is rung seven times. covener "our lord now has reached mid-journey. ahead he sees the light of our lady, and the start of life anew, after this period of rest. this was the first festival of the keltic year. this is the time when spring lambs are born and ewes come into milk. spring itself is scented in the distance and thoughts are on the

ouch lightly on the subject here, to give you the basic idea of the meanings of individual colors in your dreams. the following list is not inclusive but will give you the primary colors: red strength, health, vigor, sexual love, danger, charity orange encouragement, adaptability, stimulation, attraction, plenty, kindness yellow persuasion, charm, confidence, jealousy, joy, comfort green finance, fertility, luck, energy, charity, growth blue tranquility, understanding, patience, health, truth, devotion, sincerity indigo changeability, impulsiveness, depression, ambition, dignity violet tension, power, sadness, piety, sentimentality cradle: potential for advancement. crossing the river: a fundamental change of attitude. crying: emotion; usually a sad event. crystal: union of matter and spir

CASSANDRA EASON A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC

and nature were seen as inextricably linked. people acknowledged every rock, tree and stream as deities in the life force, and the earth as mother, offering both womb and tomb. prehistoric witchcraft early man used sympathetic, or attracting, magick- in the form of dances, chants and cave paintings of animals- to attract the herds of animals that provided for the needs of the group, and to bring fertility to humans and animals alike. hunters would re-enact the successful outcome of a hunt and would carry these energies into the everyday world. offerings were made to the mistress of the herds and later to the horned god, who was depicted wearing horns or antlers to display his sovereignty over the herds. animal bones would be buried so that they, like humankind, would enjoy rebirth from th

inally with new life on the crescent. because the moon was reborn each month or, as it was thought, gave birth to her daughter each month, it was assumed that human existence followed the same pattern and that the full moon mirrored the mother with her womb full with child. the full moon was also associated in later ages with romance and passion, originally because this coincided with peak female fertility. moon magick for the increase of love and fertility is still practised under the auspices of the waxing moon. it was not until about 3,000 years ago that the male role in conception was seite 6 wicca01.txt fully understood in the west, and only then were the sky father deities able to usurp the mysteries of the divine mother. a trinity of huge, carved stone goddesses, representing the th

tian festivals on to the existing festivals of the solstices and equinoxes. so, easter, for example, was celebrated on the first sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, which is where it remains today. in the same way, the crosses on the hot cross buns that we eat on good friday were originally the ancient astrological signs for the earth, and were eaten to absorb the power and fertility of mother earth. hot cross buns were still thought to retain their magical qualities until the early decades of the nineteenth century and were said to offer protection against drowning. for this reason, hot cross buns were hung from the roofs of coastal churches where their remains can still be seen. the old ways did not die quickly, however, and so for centuries the two religions co-ex

with the devil. under torture, even the innocent would admit to the vile deeds suggested by their inquisitors. many of the confessions now appear to be remarkably uniform and come straight from the pages of the works on demonology, with which the members of the inquisition would be familiar. simple village circle dances performed at the time of the full moon and the old rituals performed to bring fertility to both fields and people- with a figure dressed as the horned god and couples making love in the fields or leaping over a bonfire- became all too easily translatable into evidence of satanic covens. although the last person executed for witchcraft in england was alice molland at exeter in 1712, it was not until 1951 that the witchcraft act of 1736 was repealed and replaced with the frau

y that i don't think could have happened if i hadn't chosen to become a parent. it has allowed me to experience the mother aspect first-hand; it gave new meaning to the moon cycles of a woman, it allowed me to become the microcosm of the great earth mother as i watched my own body grow and give birth to a new life. it gave me the protective instinct of sekhmet [the lion-headed egyptian goddess of fertility, when i realised that i would fight to the death to protect my child. it showed me the true and profound power of the female body; to create and sustain life within the body, to bring forth that life and nurture it with a perfect food made by the body. all of these are precious gifts to me as they are all a reflection of my deepest spiritual belief and faith. when my daughter skye is old

wever, i have since found that such symbols do hold a great deal of power and therefore can concentrate specific energies. i have listed in chapter 4 a number of deities that seem to be seite 16 wicca01.txt especially potent in ritual or as a focus for meditation. but if you do not find them helpful, there is no need to use them. most rituals are related to the basic human needs for health, love, fertility and prosperity. in chapter 13, seasons and festivals, i describe the major solar, lunar and agricultural festivals that formed a focus for attracting abundance and increase to the land, animals, crops and people, tapping into the life force that connected them all. in past time, the well-being of the planet was considered to be the responsibility of peasant as well as king through paying

focus for attracting abundance and increase to the land, animals, crops and people, tapping into the life force that connected them all. in past time, the well-being of the planet was considered to be the responsibility of peasant as well as king through paying tributes and enacting age-old ceremonies to invoke the necessary energies for the wheel of the year to turn. so individual prosperity or fertility was attained both through private spells and charms and by sending positive energies to the earth and the cosmos and, in a sense, receiving bounty as those beams were amplified and returned to the sender. folk or domestic magick was an important part of people's everyday lives right up until the nineteenth century. in rural areas, the implements used in and around the home and garden cou

in domesticity and the daily world, these implements could not be safer: fruit, vegetables, salt, sand, seeds, flowers, coins, pots and jars, together with your crystals, candles, incense and oils, and perhaps a few coloured scarves or ribbons to tie knots. whether your spell is small and personal, or vast and universal, whether you are working to attract love, harmony in the home, prosperity or fertility for yourself or loved ones, for people in the wider environment or the planet, these are all you need [insert pic p034] seite 17 wicca01.txt- thoroughly modern magick not everything you use for magick must be of ancient origin, however. even your computer can be a magical tool, used to draw magick circles. you can draw figures to represent lovers, estranged family members or yourself and

ans and amulets; for example, traditionally, hunters might wear the pelt of a lion to bring them the beast's courage and ferocity. so, by the same token, if you wished to become pregnant, you might make love in a newly ripening cornfield (near the edge so as not to damage the crops; alternatively, you might try one of the ancient power sites of earth, close to the phallus of the chalk cerne abbas fertility giant that is carved in the hillside at cerne in dorset. attracting magick this type of magick embraces both sympathetic and contagious magick to bring you something you desire. for example, you could scatter pins across a map between the places you and a lover live and with a magnet collect them, while reciting: come love, come to me, love to me come, if it is right to be. you would the

ed for the less formal folk magick that, unlike ceremonial magick, is not so rigid about such things as circle casting (see page 49) and the use of specific tools, though it may be based in forms and use words that date back hundreds of years. our kitchen witch ancestors swept clean their magical areas and danced in circles under the moon or round sacred fires on one of the old festivals to bring fertility to land and people, but most of their magick was done by firelight or the light of smoking tallow candles in a cramped living room or in muddy fields. it is a serious mistake to regard informal spells as inferior to the kind of magick in which the appropriate planetary hour is carefully chosen, incense is burned, the tools laid out in the correct position and the names of all the archang

eir actions. but young children are also incredibly skilled at mind-hopping and reading the thoughts of others. this is precisely because they do not have the adult's strong sense of the individual and private self. in so-called primitive societies, the individual does not have the same importance: it is the collective responsibility that matters. so the rituals that are carried out to ensure the fertility of the crops and animals and the community are performed in a group. in a sense, magick is about using the bicarmel mind, placing the brain's right hemisphere in the driving seat, taking concentration, focus and determination from the more logical side as fuel and a map, and reconnecting our unified self with the undifferentiated universe. you can carry out magick absolutely anywhere as

isis, the sister-wife of osiris, sought and reassembled his body after his murder and dismemberment by his brother seth. in this connection, she took on the role of the goddess of rebirth, the bone goddess, and restored him in a more evolved form. the annual celebrations of this event coincided with the rising of the dog star, sirius, which heralded the flooding of the nile and the restoration of fertility to the land and symbolically to the people. as the sky gods gained supremacy, they married the earth goddesses who slowly evolved into patronesses of women, marriage and childbirth. so, for example, odin the norse all-father married frigg, goddess of women, marriage and motherhood. but in witchcraft, though the sky fathers and their wives are used for the focus of specific rites, the god

CHIREAU YVONNE BLACK MAGIC RELIGION AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CONJURING TRADITION

in the early 1900s indicates. conjure was an all-purpose utility, employed for "injuring or destroying enemies, getting rid of rivals or undesirables, softening hearts, winning or holding love c breaking up homes, calling the absent, getting jobs, dodging the law, protecting property, detecting criminals, gambling, collecting debts, disciplining servants, stopping trains and steamboats, producing fertility or barrenness in women, promoting crops, controlling weather, foretelling the future, and locating lost and stolen goods, water, and buried treasure" to believers, these supernatural traditions clearly served multiple purposes, but at the heart of conjuring practices lay a fundamental quest for power, explanation, and control [17] who were the conjurers? colorful, diverse, and enigmatic

DAVID ICKE CHILDREN OF THE MATRIX

us or "mountain man" identified the deity attis with jesus. some montanists were locked in their churches by christians in asia minor and burned alive.7 cybele was the "goddess of the caves, a location where many of the saviour-gods in the jesus mould are said to have been born. the reptilian underground network? the red rose of el the many versions of el are said to be goddesses of sexuality and fertility, and of the moon and venus. the stone baptismal bowls found in every christian church are symbolic of the "magic stone bowl" of the serpent cult or illuminati described in the edda. the gothic "christian" doorways and the ridges around them are depictions of the vulva and many even have a clitoris symbol at the top of the arch. the same is depicted in windows and especially the rose wind

from the white house in washington dc. it is built as an egyptiantype temple and outside are two sphinx-like figures with women's faces. could this be an indication of the truth about the sphinx at giza? one of the "sphinx" figures 174 children of the matrix at the washington temple has a cobra entwined around her neck. on the neck of the other one is the image of a woman, symbolic, says shaw, of fertility and procreation.12 these are some of the gifts associated with goddesses like artemis/diana. behind the row of pillars at the front of the building is a massive depiction of the rising sun- horus or, perhaps, the sun goddess known as sol. around this sun are six large golden snakes and inside this freemasonic holy-ofholies the serpent theme continues. shaw reports..the thing that is most

nt in the form of a lamb. he was worshipped in jerusalem where his exact story would later be re-told using the name "jesus. and, take a deep breath here vicar, the cave in bethlehem where jesus is said to have been born, is the same one where the ancients claimed that tammuz (adonis) was born. the bible "translator, jerome, admitted that bethlehem had been a sacred grove dedicated to tammuz, the fertility god or "spirit of the corn. bethlehem means "house of bread" or "house of corn. horns, the egyptian son of god, was born in the "place of bread" and jesus said he was "the bread of life. the priesthood took the ancient sumer sun religion, esoteric, astrological and astronomical knowledge, and the stories of their reptilian gods, and buried them in symbolic fables. this hid their real mea

DAVID ICKE THE BIGGEST SECRET

forms. the other planets do this as they circlethe sun and affect the magnetic field of the earth: we call this astrology. cotterellbelieves that we are effected by these fields most powerfully at the time we areconceived rather than the time we are born, a point which has much validity. i feel thatboth powerfully affect us. his research established that sunspot activity correspondswith the human fertility cycles and with the emergence and demise of greatcivilisations and empires. scientists have also discovered that humans have an internalclock which is in sync with the sun. in short, the suns effect on human life isfundamental and far beyond its obvious contribution of warmth and light. the56extraterrestrials knew this in these ancient times and the sun was viewed with awe. itis the phys

ependupon to grow? the sun. the vine and the bloodline of jesus weaved in among thatsun symbolism is one of the royal and priestly bloodlines which lead back to thereptilians, the anunnaki. the new testament features the wedding at cana, but thiswas not a real wedding. it is again symbolic of the sun and the earth, the god andgoddess. in the land of canaan every spring, they celebrated sexual and fertility ritesunder the title, the marriage festival of canaan.42 it was at the symbolic wedding atcana in the gospels that jesus turns the water into wine. it is the suns warmth and theearths water which grow the grapes to make wine. bacchus, the greek son of zeus andthe virgin semele, was said to have turned water into wine. also there were esseneritual terms related to water and wine. the esse

me deity, was often depicted to have a greenface. this includes osiris, the husband-brother of isis. the story of robin hood in hislincoln green originated with this green man deity. robin hood began in the originallegend as a species of fairy and he was also known as green robin, robin ofgreenwood and robin goodfellow.31 his shakespearean version, puck, in amidsummer night s dream, presided over fertility and sexual rites at the summer solstice.on may 1st, may day, they had the may pole ceremonies. the may pole is a phallicsymbol dedicated to the goddess of sexuality and fertility and on that day every villagevirgin would be a queen of the may (queen semiramis. many would end up in the greenwood to undergo a sexual initiation with a youth playing the role of robin hood or robingoodfellow

nt of john major making it certain that blair would becomeprime minister in a landslide victory in 1997. when i was on a speaking tour ofaustralia in early 1997, i predicted that not only would blair be elected as primeminister, the election would take place on may 1st because, going back to ancienttimes, that was a very important 4ay to the babylonian brotherhood. examples of thisare the may day fertility rituals and the also may 1st celebrations in the brotherhood-created soviet union. the bavarian illuminati was officially formed on may 1st 1776.tony blair was such an important frontman for the brotherhood that i just knew theywould bring him to power on may 1st. in britain they do not have fixed termgovernments, the prime minister can call the election any time within five years ofcomi

l cain, a descendant of thebiblical cain, who was an anunnaki crossbreed. tubal cains sister, naamah,17 is saidto have been the one who brought human sacrifice and cannibalism into the world.18tubal cain is known as the father of witchcraft and sorcery and thus his name is afreemasonic password.19 the g on the symbol of freemasonry stands forgnosticism (knowledge, knowing) and for generation, the fertility rites of the sexcults of ancient baal and ashtoreth.20 no doubt it is also a symbol connected togeneration and genetics, as in the reptilian bloodlines. y ou see the g in the logo of297the gannett chain which has been buying up newspapers and television stations acrossthe united states and publishes the national daily, usa today.21 the de medicibloodline of the black nobility in v enice

sun by initiates of thebrotherhood network including the knights templar, the knights of malta, the order ofst john of jerusalem, the rosicrucians and the freemasons. as james shelby downardwrites: masonry does not believe in murdering a man in just any old way and in thejfk assassination it went to incredible lengths and took great risks in order to make thisheinous act correspond to the ancient fertility oblation of the killing of the king 16kennedy was shot just after noon when the sun was most high. in ancient times itwas said that when the sun was most high, he was doing his fathers work in thetemple (more symbolism used in the jesus story. kennedy was shot in the back, thehead, and the throat, and they are the same wounds suffered by the mythical hiramabiff according to freemasonic l

ral is on an ancient site of diana worship and theambulance carrying the princesss body passed notre dame during that bizarre journeyto hospital. so diana was married on an ancient sacred site to the goddess diana andshe died on the site of an ancient sacrificial chamber of the goddess diana. she was alsohunted and used by the windsors to produce heirs and diana was the ancient goddess ofhunting, fertility and childbirth.when prince charles and dianas sisters went to paris to escort her body back tolondon, the coffin was draped in the royal standard, the flag of the windsors which iscovered with the sun symbol, the lion. not the flag of the country, youll note, but theflag of the windsors. another strange coincidence happened at the hammersmithmortuary in london. as her coffin arrived, the

DEITUS

nt religions involved the worship of nature. he was referring, of course, to the pre-christian pagan world. this was followed, he said, by the aeon of osirus, a time of restriction in which man rejected the natural world and in its place chose denial of the ego and mortification of the flesh. he believed that a new aeon, the aeon of horus, had begun. in egyptian mythology, isis was the goddess of fertility, osirus was the god of death, and horus was the god of rebirth. the period of restriction, he said, had ended and the life-energies had returned to the world. the pre-christian pagan world was more, however, than simply a time of nature worship. men lived in greater harmony with the natural world than they did during the cycle of restriction which followed, but they also celebrated the c

DEMONIC BIBLE

early christians. in christian mythology, lucifer became the highest of the angels, created in the perfect image of god, who fell from grace because of his pride. during the spread of christianity in europe the devil began to take on the form most often associated with him today. christians gave him the attributes of many of the old pagan gods: horns, tail, and cloven hooves. he became the god of fertility, the god of lust, the god of the dead, and the god of magic. devil worshippers and luciferans to facilitate conversion, pagan holy days became christian holy days. pagan temples were destroyed and became the sites of christian churches. the less demonic looking gods were converted into angels in god s armies as pagans were converted en masse to the new religion. the mass conversion of pa

fire, and water. the hebrew god was a god of physical manifestation who appeared to moses in a burning bush and to the israelites as a pillar of flame by night and cloud of vapor by day. it is likely that the hebrew mystical beliefs (which later formed the cabala) developed during the time the israelites lived among the egyptians. prior to the development of the cabala, the jewish religion was a fertility cult of the god adonai, or el. the israelites were syrian foreigners to egypt, osiris being the egyptian name for the syrian fertility god of the jews. a similar mystical system (to the cabala) developed in egypt centered on the god amen. followers of the egyptian god amen began to teach that there was one god, amen, and that all other gods were manifestations of this one true god. the d

nturies of christian dogma converted the dark goddess/female serpent into a dark god/masculine dragon. while most of the names for the devil are simply titles, some are actual names such as astaroth, kali, and lillith. in studying the names for the devil you will find that most can be traced to ancient goddesses who represented various aspects of tiamat, either as goddess of the earth, goddess of fertility and pleasure, or goddess of death. astaroth is a form of ishtar, the babylonian goddess of pleasure who descends into the underworld to conquer her sister ereshkigal, the goddess of death. in this ancient myth, both ishtar and ereshkigal are forms of tiamat. the dark goddess was also often depicted carrying a phallic object a severed penis. the egyptian god set was originally a female de

e women. it was also said that his penis was unusually large and that his semen was cold. the truth of the witches sabbath is that all of the participants were female. the high priestess wore a large phallus strapped to her waist not to represent herself as the christian devil satan or as the pagan goat-god pan but rather as a form of the dark goddess who severs the penis of god, symbolizing both fertility and death. the dark goddess, tiamat, chooses her lovers from among men. it is for this reason that the greatest magicians and sorcerers of history (as well the prophets of all the major religions) were men. while women are most similar in nature to the dark goddess and may have a more natural affinity for magic (and certainly have practiced witchcraft through the ages, it is men chosen a

ed god of the earth. and in calling upon the lord of the earth i have become the horned god of the earth. i am pan; i am bacchus; i am dionysus; i am kernunnos; i am herne. i sit upon the throne of the infernal empire, as lord of the living and the dead. i take the queen of the earth also as my wife and as my lover. ishtar, inanna, isis, demeter, ceres, queen of the earth, goddess of pleasure and fertility, come forth and manifest thyself. queen of the earth, i invoke thee. queen of the earth, i summon thee. queen of the earth, i conjure thee. come forth, queen of the earth, and manifest thyself within this body, this temple which i have prepared. come forth, queen of the earth, and manifest thyself. for i have crossed the gates of hell and have become the devil incarnate. i am satan; i am

DICTIONARY GLOSSARY OF OCCULT TERMINOLOGY

atharsis of greek tragedy was no more than a pale echo of the original magickal catharsis of the greek eulusian mysteries. ceres: one of four thousand known asteroids, but treated as a very minor planet. in astrology (q.v, the asteroid named after the roman goddess who served as the ruler of the harvest. she is the roman version of the greek goddess demeter. keywords include: mother, abandonment, fertility, alternative parenting- including foster parenting, nurturing, governess, nanny, menopause, ecological, domesticating, animal husbandry, agriculture, survival, compassion, anger. chakras: a sanskrit (hindu) term meaning "wheels" the term is usually pronounced "shah-krah-z" the correct pronunciation is actually "kahk-rahs" these are power centers in the aura (q.v) related to organs or gla

awn upon the earth around the center post in the peristyle (q.v) or ceremonial enclosure, with flour or ashes. also called the v v in voodoo (q.v. vesta: one of four thousand known asteroids, but treated as a very minor planet. in astrology (q.v, the planet named after the greek goddess who served as a comforter, keeper of the sacred hearth, and sacred harlot. keywords include: sister, sexuality, fertility, comforter, charity, sacred chastity, virginity, sacred warrior, sacred harlot, sex as a sacrament, child bearing, diplomacy, legalist, altar, meditation, sanctuaries, rituals, secret societies, safekeeping, hospitality, tradition, prostitution, civil service. veve: a symbol drawn on the ground in voodoo (q.v) ceremonies and used as a talisman (q.v) or device to attract the loas (q.v) or

DION FORTUNE MYSTICAL QABALA

to kether, unity, rather than to the planes of dualistic form. the word splendour, as used here, clearly indicates an emanation, or shining forth, and teaches us to think of chokmah as the emanating influence of pure being rather than as a thing in itself. this again leads us on to a truer apprehension of sex. let it be made quite clear, however, that the sphere of chokmah has nothing to do with fertility cults as such, save that maleness, dynamic force, is the primary life-giver and caller into manifestation. though [page 128] the higher and lower manifestations of dynamic force are the same in essence, they are upon different levels; priapus is not identical with jehovah. nevertheless, the root of priapus is to be found in jehovah, and the manifestation of god the father is to be found

she sitteth upon the throne of binah, the superior mother, the negative counterpart of chokmah. now chokmah is the most abstract form of force, and malkuth is the densest form of matter; so in this statement we have a hint that each of this pair of extreme opposites is the supreme manifestation of its own type; and both are equally holy in their different ways. 17. we must distinguish between the fertility rite, the vitality rite, and the illumination or inspiration rite, which calls down the pentecostal tongues of flame. the fertility cult aims at plain and simple reproduction, whether of flocks, fie]ds, or wives; it belongs to yesod, and has nothing whatever to do with the vitality cult, which belongs to netzacb, the sphere of venus-aphrodite. this concerns certain very important esoteri

cleus of every living soul, is, of course, bisexual, containing the roots of both aspects, as does kether, to which it corresponds. in the more highly evolved souls the compensating aspect is developed in some degree at least. the purely female woman and the purely male man prove to be oversexed as judged by civilised standards, and can only find an appropriate place in primitive societies, where fertility is the primary demand that society makes upon its women, and hunting and fighting are the constant occupation of the men. 30. this does not mean, however, that the physical functions of the sexes are perverted in the initiate, or that the configuration of the body is modified. esoteric science teaches that the physical form and racial type which the soul assumes in each incarnation are d

as it may be to many; and it explains why so many magical enterprises are sterile. 40. these matters are highly recondite secrets of the mysteries, of which we moderns have lost the keys; but the experience of the new psychology, and its allied art of psychiatry, has abundantly proved the soundness of the basis on which the ancients built when they made adoration of the creative principle and of fertility an important part of their religious life. it is a matter of well-established experience that the person who has dissociated his or her sexual feelings from consciousness can never get to grips with life on any level. this fact is the basis of modern psychotherapy. in occult work the inhibited, repressed person tends to unbalanced forms of psychism and mediumship, and is totally useless

symbols of binah are said to be the yoni and the outer robe of concealment, the latter is a gnostic term and the former an indian one, meaning the genitals of the female, the negative correspondence of the phallus of the male. the less well-known term kteis is the european equivalent. in hindu religious symbols the yoni and lingam appear with the greatest frequency, for the idea of life-force and fertility is a prime mover in their faith. 50. the idea of fertility is the main motif in the aspects of binah that manifest in the world of assiah, the material level. life not only enters into matter for discipline, but it also issues thence triumphantly, increased and multiplied. the fertility aspect, balancing the time-death-limitation aspect, is essential to our concept of binab. time-death p

to be dynamic and becomes consolidated [page 160] mystical qabala page 108 54 cups are essentially the female force, for the cup or chalice is one of the symbols of binah and is intimately allied with the yoni in esoteric symbolism. the three of cups is, therefore, at home in binah, for the two sets of symbols reinforce each other. the three of cups, which is aptly named abundance, represents the fertility of binah in her ceres aspect. 55. the three of swords, however, is called sorrow, and its symbol in the tarot pack is a heart pierced by three swords. out readers will recall the reference to the sword-pierced heart of the virgin mary in catholic symbolism, and mary equates with marab, bitter, the sea. ave, maria, stella maris! 56. swords are, of course, geburah cards, and as such repres

e microcosm best if we remember that it is the sphere of venus, with all that that implies. translated from the symbolic language of the qabalah into plain english, it means that we are concerned here with the function of polarity, which is a very great deal more than mere sex as popularly conceived. 18. it is important to note in this respect that venus, or in her greek form, aphrodite, is not a fertility goddess at all, such as are ceres and persephone; she is the goddess of love. now in the greek concept of life, love embraced much more than the relationship between the sexes, it included the comr'deship of fighting men and the relationship of teacher and pupil. the greek hetaira, or woman whose profession is love, was something very different to our modern prostitute. the greek kept th

s-that is to say, the capacity to polarise from the negative pole. the vices are the obvious ones of love abusedunchastity and lust. 34. the correspondence in the microcosm is with the loins, hips, and legs. these, it will be noted, form the setting of the generative organs, but not the generative organs themselves, and bear out the idea previously shadowed forth, that the goddess of love and the fertility goddess are not one and the same thing. 35. the symbols assigned to netzach are the lamp, the girdle, and the rose. the girdle and rose are self-explanatory, for they are traditionally associated with venus. the lamp, however, requires more explanation, for the classical associations afford us no clue on this point. we must turn to alchemy. 36. the four elements are associated with the f

have to be assigned. 23. yesod is essentially the sphere of the moon, and as such comes under the presidency of diana, the moon-goddess of the greeks. now diana was primarily a chaste goddess, ever-virgin, and when the over-presumptive actaeon annoyed [page 262] her he was torn to pieces by his own hunting-hounds. diana, however, was represented at ephesus as the many-breasted, and regarded as a fertility goddess. moreover, isis is also a lunar goddess, as indicated by the lunar crescent upon her brow, which in hathor becomes the cow-horns, the cow being among all peoples the especial symbol of maternity. in the qabalistic symbolism, the generative organs are assigned to yesod. 24. all this is very puzzling at first sight, for the symbols appear to be mutually exclusive. carried a step fu

and enchantments, and also presiding over child-birth. 26. there is also a very important moon-god, none otber than thoth himself, lord of magic. so then, when we find hecate in greece and thoth in egypt both assigned to the moon, we cannot fail to recognise the importance of the moon in matters magical. what thert is the key to the magical moon, who is sometimes a virgin goddess and sometimes a fertility godders? 27. the answer is not very far to seek. it is to be found in the rhythmical nature of the moon, and, in fact, in the rhythmical nature of sex-life in the female. there are times when diana is many-breasted; there are times when her hounds tear the intruder to pieces. 28. in dealing with the rhythms of luna we are dealing with etheric, not physical, conditions. the magnetism of l

DION FORTUNE PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE

magical value has greatly decreased. a dirty handkerchief, too, is an effectual magnetic link, and so are dressings from a wound. anything, in fact, that bears traces of any of the by-products of the body. but apart from any question of psychic attack, there are two substances which are especially prized for purposes of magic, and these are seminal fluid and menstrual blood. the former is used in fertility rites and the latter in certain forms of evocation. these substances are exceedingly hard to come by in primitive lands, because the natives, knowing their significance, guard them most scrupulously; but the mem-sahib has no suspicions, and allows stained garments and bed linen to go into the hands of the washerman to be disposed of at his discretion, satisfied so long as the garments th

EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD PAPYRUS OF ANI MALESTROM

was by the way of its stream as it flowed to the north. others again lived in imagination on the banks of the heavenly nile, whereon they built cities; and it seems as if the egyptians never succeeded in conceiving a heaven without a nile and canals. the nile is depicted in the form of a man, who wears upon his head a clump of papyrus or lotus flowers; his breasts are those of a woman, indicating fertility. lanzone reproduces an interesting scene[1] in which the north and south nile gods are tying a papyrus and a lotus stalk around the emblem of union to indicate the unity of upper and lower egypt, and this emblem is found cut upon the thrones of the kings of egypt to indicate their sovereignty over the regions traversed by the south and north niles. it has already been said that hapi was

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 1

ecame specialized as a god of the deep, anu as a god of the sky, and enlil as an earth god, each also had titles that emphasized that they had attributes overlapping those of the others. thus ea was enki, earth lord, and as aa was a lunar deity; he also had solar attributes. in the legend of etana and the eagle, his heaven is stated to be in the sky. anu and enlil as deities of thunder, rain, and fertility are closely linked to ea, as dagan, of the flooding and fertilizing euphrates. each of these deities was accompanied by demonic groups. the spirits of disease were the beloved sons of bel; the fates were the seven daughters of anu; the seven storm demons, including the dragon and serpent, were of ea s brood. the following description of ea s older monstrous form occurs in one of the magi

tchcraft ceremonies. evidence of the artificiality of claimed copulation with the devil is the frequent reference to the coldness of the phallus. centuries before the great witchcraft manias of europe, the fascinum was used in ancient religious rituals, such as those connected with worship of the god priapus; such phalli were also known in ancient egypt. probably the earliest known is that of the fertility god min at koptos, around 5500 b.c.e. sources: knight, richard payne. a discourse on the worship of priapus. 1786. reprint, secaucus, n.j: university books, 1974. fata morgana a mirage often seen in the strait of messina, sicily, once attributed to the fairies. it took its name from the italian form of morgan le fay, sister of king arthur in arthurian legend. fate (magazine) preeminent a

e sum from his grandfather, which provided him the necessary funds to pursue his various independent intellectual pursuits. by the time of his third trip to italy in 1777, knight had rejected the christianity of his father, which he had come to view as a degenerating force. he had also become interested in exploring a neglected aspect of the ancient world, the worship of priapus, the roman god of fertility, the signs of his cult having survived in a variety of images and statues. sir william hamilton, who at the time headed the british embassy in naples, had begun research into the survivals of priapus worship in the local traditions. knight found himself in a circle of independent scholars who shared a dislike for christianity and whose research had the additional agenda of challenging th

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 2

to their origin. this return occurs through gnosis, occult wisdom. sloane taught that this gnostic form of satanism was the oldest religion, dating to the worship of the horned god pictured in the ancient cave paintings of europe. as developed by sloane, the religion emerged in the context of the neo-pagan revival of the late 1960s. it differed from wicca by refusing to turn the horned god into a fertility god. the coven dissolved following sloane s death in the early 1980s. ouroboros (or uroboros) ancient greek alchemical symbol of a serpent eating his tail. the mystical work the chrysopoeia of kleopatra has a drawing of the serpent ouroboros eating his tail, with the text one is all. another emblem illustrates the symbols of gold, silver, and mercury enclosed in two concentric circles wi

e at a very distant period, but who really placed it there, or for what purpose, it is impossible to discover. however, long before percival travelled to sri lanka, this apparently oversize footprint had been venerated equally by buddhists and hindus, who ascribe it respectively to gautama, buddha, or the god siva. some believed eden represented the whole earth, which was of surprising beauty and fertility before the fall. a curious notion prevailed to a great extent among the various nations that the old world was under a curse and the earth became very barren. this view is reflected in the apostle paul s letter to the romans (8:22) where he refers to the whole of creation groaning in pain. eastern philosophies of paradise some eastern philosophies shared the idea that nature had been con

, 1967. smythies, john raymond, and arthur koestler, ed. beyond reductionism: new perspectives in the science of life. london: hitchinson, 1969. reprint, new york: macmillian, 1970; london: hutchinson, 1972. snake handling snakes played a prominent part in pagan mythologies and religious ceremonies long before the judeo-christian story of the garden of eden. the snake has often been regarded as a fertility symbol. in the mayan scripture popul vuh, the plumed serpent assists in the creation of life, as it does in the beliefs of the aztec and the pueblo indians. the deity dambollah, an african deity most frequently pictured as a serpent, is central to haitian voudou. various american indian tribes have dances in which live snakes are carried, while the yokut shamans of central california han

the stones to translate the book of mormon from what was claimed to be golden tablets with writing in a reformed egyptian text. urine urine has long been credited with magical and medicinal properties. it has been featured in black magic rituals. it has been mixed with wine, herbs, or oils; used as an ointment and in pills; employed in amulets, talismans, and charms; and used in aphrodisiacs and fertility potions. medicinally, urine has unusual properties. it contains ammonia, which can neutralize acids, and is usually free from bacteria, thus has disinfectant properties. women have drunk urine from their husbands to speed up childbirth or have been given their own urine to relieve hysteria. male urine contains androsterone, a male hormone, and it has long been believed that drinking one

s a new religious expression inspired by pre-christian ethnic and tribal religions. the word wiccan as a plural for witch was used in old english; its singular forms were feminine wicce with the masculine form as wicca. pronounced with hard c s instead of the former witch-a, the term wicca was adopted by gerald gardner and other english witches in the 1940s to distinguish their life-affirming and fertility-based pagan religion from satanism or individual sorcery. although wiccan writers are prolific, wicca has no sacred texts as such to guide belief and practice. most wiccans view the divine as dual (male/female) or plural, accept the idea of reincarnation, and see the natural world as a manifestation of divine force rather than as something created by a transcendent god. attunement of the

nd made a positive good of it. medieval witchcraft, he declared in his 1862 book la sorciere, had been an egalitarian rural religion led by female priestesses.a view which was to resonate with later maverick writers on witchcraft such as charles leland and margaret murray. had the witches worshipped satan, as their accusers claimed? indeed they had, michelet wrote, for satan was merely the god of fertility and the patron deity of those persons condemned by kings and bishops and their henchmen. although he did little actual research for la sorciere, michelet succeed in introducing ideas that would be taken up by later generations of non-academic writers and by unconventional academics. one was the idea that witches were healers and midwives persecuted by a maledominated medical establishmen

ld hutton, its evocative power threatened to overwhelm the former academically accepted idea of the medieval and early modern witches as victims of bigotry, social stresses, and mob psychology. many followers of modern witchcraft continue to accept large portions of murray s version of earlier witchcraft. in essence, her version was this. the witch cult was a pre- christian religion centered on a fertility god (somewhat parallel to the greek pan, whom christian theologians deliberately confused with their devil in order to persecute the witches. this god was often depicted with horns, and a man portrayed and embodied him during group rituals (murray had much less to say about goddesses than did leland) covens of witches, ideally consisting of thirteen persons, grouped together at four majo

od was often depicted with horns, and a man portrayed and embodied him during group rituals (murray had much less to say about goddesses than did leland) covens of witches, ideally consisting of thirteen persons, grouped together at four major holidays.candlemas, around 1 february; may day; lammas, around 1 august; and all hallows or hallowe en. these large-group meetings, with their feasting and fertility rituals, alternated with smaller meetings( esbats) for spellcasting and other local witch business. in medieval england, murray claimed, the old religion had been protected by the plantagenet dynasty of kings, beginning with william the conqueror in 1066. these were sacred kings who had to die as sacrificial victims or else find a substitute after they had reigned for seven years, or a m

ed a magical ritual during the summer of 1940 to stop the threatened german inva- witchcraft encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. 1680 sion of england (thus identifying the witches with the patriotic soul of great britain. in 1954 his nonfiction book witchcraft today was published, which he wrote in the voice of a sympathetic outsider describing the modern continuation of an ancient fertility religion. margaret murray supplied an approving introduction. subsequent research suggests that it is more likely that gardner and a female companion whose craft name was dafo, plus possibly other individuals, actually began the coven. they drew inspiration for their practices from ceremonial magic, from classical pagan religions, and from british folklore. what gardner in 1954 described

tation of anything i have ever seen. in other words, gardner denied the reality of burning times witchcraft with its pacts with the devil and parodies of christian ritual. for this he substituted a murray-style old religion, in which the devil was merely the ritual leader with his crown of stag s horns.and often a nobleman in disguise. witchcraft, he alleged, had come down from the stone age as a fertility religion that honored the god of death and what comes after (in other words, rest and reincarnation) and the great mother goddess of nature, love, and pleasure. these new witches celebrated a cycle of eight festivals a year.the solstices and equinoxes and the four cross-quarter days between them: lugnasadh or lammas (loaf-mass) at the beginning of august, a harvest festival; samhain (hal

FRANCIS A YATES GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION

hings, union3 and concepts like these, together with jovial concepts, will be found in the celestial reform of the spaccio replacing the miseries of mars and saturn. as in the spaccio, the sun is of central importance in the de imaginum compositione. the centre of the list of principles is taken up by a group all of which are solar in character. first, there is apollo himself,4 wealth, abundance, fertility, munificence. then there is aesculapius,5 son of apollo, with circe, daughter of the sun, and orpheus and arion.6 this group is all magical, represent' see above, pp. 221-2. 2 op. lat, ii (iii, pp. 207 ff; pp. 221 ff. 3 ibid, pp. 261 ff. 4 ibid, pp. 243 ff. 5 ibid, pp. 247-8. 6 ibid, pp. 248-50. 329 giordano bruno: last published work ing benevolent magic. aesculapius is acceptable heali

FRATER TENEBROUS CULTS OF CTHULHU

titled prose poem. the elemental aspect of nyarlathotep is aether, the communicating medium of interstellar space (or in lovecraft s terminology, the audient void. shub-niggurath is the black goat of the woods with a thousand young a title inferring the geometric proliferation of creatures upon the earth. he is the horned god of the pagan agricultural societies of the ancient world, representing fertility and sexual energy. in greek mythology his archetype is pan, half-man and half-goat. as christianity began to replace paganism, the pan-image became the prototype for the christian devil, and was associated with the practise of satanism, though the worship of the horned god had pre-dated christianity by at least a thousand years. in 1919, aleister crowley published a poem entitled a hymn

FULLER J F C SECRET WISDOM OF THE QABALAH

ssence; for it has always been nature-worship in one form or another. life eternal is but a prolongation of life terrestrial; the soul, of the personality; heaven is but a super-happy home and hell but an infra-abominable gaol. everywhere and in every land we find the same ideas dressed in different garments the same gods and goddesses of chaos and order, of love and death, of hatred and life, of fertility, of dawn, of night, etc, etc. from such is built up the normal religious mood of the masses; nevertheless there is yet another mood, for from time to time in the world's history something happens: a man appears, be he prince or pauper, who throws the masses into such a state of religious fervour that all reason and with it all doubt is obliterated and a spiritual condition is produced wh

GAMBLE ELIZA BURT THE GOD IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS OR SEX IN RELIGION

sible force--female and male. this force, or agency, constituted one god, which, as woman's functions in those ages were accounted of more importance than those of man, was oftener worshipped under the form of a female figure. neith, minerva, athene, and cybele, the most important deities of their respective countries, were adored as perceptive wisdom, or light, while ceres and others represented fertility. with the incoming of male dominion and supremacy, however, we observe the desire to annul the importance of the female and to enthrone one all-powerful male god whose chief attributes were power and might. notwithstanding the efforts which during the historic period have been put forward to magnify the importance of the male both in human affairs and in the god-idea, still, no one, i th

ntinuously called into life, embodied the idea of god; and, as this inner force was regarded as inherent in matter, or as a manifestation of it, in process of time earth and the heavens, body and spirit, came to be worshipped under the form of a mother and her child, this figure being the highest expression of a creator which the human mind was able to conceive. not only did this emblem represent fertility, or the fecundating energies of nature, but with the power to create were combined or correlated all the mental qualities and attributes of the two sexes. in fact the whole universe was contained in the mother idea--the child, which was sometimes female, sometimes male, being a scion or offshoot from the eternal or universal unit. underlying all ancient mythologies may be observed the id

symbolized by the sun. in egyptian hymns the creator is invoked as the being who "dwells concealed in the sun; and greek writers speak of this luminary as the "generator and nourisher of all things, the ruler of the world" it is thought, however, that neither of these nations worshipped the corporeal sun. it was the "centre or body from which the pervading spirit, the original producer of order, fertility, and organization, continued to emanate to preserve the mighty structure which it had formed" it is evident that at an early age, both in egypt and in india, spiritualized conceptions of sun-worship had already been formed. we have seen that netpe, the goddess of light, or heavenly wisdom, conferred spiritual life on all who would accept it. the great mother of the gods in india was not

od-element. it was, perhaps, under the circumstances, a fitting emblem for woman. in the sacred writings of the hindoos there is an account of the moon, soma, having been changed into a female called chandra "the white or silvery one" while speaking of the moon, kalisch says "the whole ritual of the phoenician goddess astarte with whom that queen of heaven is identical, and who was the goddess of fertility seems to have been transferred to her"[36 [36] historical and critical commentary of the old testament. to such an extent, in the earlier ages of the world had the female been regarded as the creator, that in many countries where her worship subsequently became identified with that of the moon, luna was adored as the producer of the sun. according to the babylonian creation tablets, the

n the god-idea. in fact as this third element really embodied the substance of the other two, it finally became the supreme god, little afterward being heard about the creator and preserver. the regenerator or destroyer was of course the sun, which in winter died away and rose again in the spring-time as a beneficent savior or renewer of life. the principle involved in these processes represented fertility, life, reproductive energy. as applied to mortals, it comprehended the power to create combined with perceptive wisdom or knowledge. this idea, portrayed as it was by a mother and her child, linked woman with the stars. it produced the "virgin of the sphere" queen of heaven "isiac controller of the zodiac" at the same time that it made her the mother of all mankind. every year this virgi

t and most restricted sense. although in an age of pure nature-worship the ideas connected with reproduction, like those related to all other natural functions, were wholly unconnected with impurity either of thought or deed, still when an age arrived in which all checks to human passion had been withdrawn, and the lower propensities had gained dominion over the higher faculties, the influence of fertility or passion-worship on human development or growth may in a degree be imagined. the fact must be borne in mind that curing the later ages of passion-worship the creative processes and the reproductive organs were deified, not as an expression or symbol of the operations of nature, but as a means to the stimulation of the lower animal instincts in man. with religion bestialized and its man

s fluid to vernal life and productiveness, when lo! a holy child suddenly appears upon the scene, reminding us that this is everywhere the outcome of the 'wafers of life' in all animal as well as vegetable production. boodha in the garden of loobim through which flowed a holy stream, and christ by the brook at bethlehem, nay, the first pair in the garden of the four rivers, are all the same idea--fertility and creation. the high russian pontiff now slowly and solemnly stooped, and taking up some of the holy water, proceeded to sprinkle the vernal child--jesus, whispered these crowds, but the ancients said horus. the sacred fluid was then sprinkled on the clergy, the czar, and all dignitaries, and finally on the sacred emblems, banners, guns, etc. men and women, aye, wise as well as foolish

or destroyer represented the processes of nature--the dying away of the sun's rays at night only to reappear on the following day, and the withdrawal of its warmth in winter only to be renewed in the spring--so this god portrayed also the beneficent creator and preserver of all things, at the same time that it was the destroyer. it embodied the fundamental idea in all religions, namely, life and fertility. so also did the "lord" of the israelites represent reproductive energy, but as man being spirit had come to be a creator of offspring, while woman being only matter furnished the body, this "lord" was male. connected with it was no hint of the female nature or principle, except the ark or chest in which it was carried about. to those who have acquainted themselves with the significance

race the organs of generation first began to appear as emblems of the deity is not known. within the earliest cave temples, those hewn from the solid rock, sculptured representations of these objects are still to be observed. although until a comparatively recent period their true significance has been unknown, there is little doubt at the present time that they were originally used as symbols of fertility, or as emblems typifying the processes of nature, and that at some remote period of the world's history they were worshipped as the creator, or, at least, as representations of the creative agencies in the universe. concerning the origin and character of the people who executed them there is scarcely a trace in written history. through the unravelling of extinct tongues, however, the mon

onsidered indecent, and before the reproductive energies had become degraded, that these symbols were any more suggestive of impurity than are the easter offerings upon our church altars at the present time. whatever may now be the significance of these offerings to those who present them, sure it is that they once, together with other devices connected with nature-worship, were simply emblems of fertility--symbols of a risen and fructifying sun which by its gladdening rays re-creates and makes all things new again. if we carefully study the religion of past ages we will discover something more than a hint of an age when the generative functions were regarded as a sacred expression of creative power, and when the reproductive organs had not through over-stimulation and abuse been tabooed a

re, or as instruments for the stimulation of passion. we are assured that on the banks of the ganges, the very cradle of religion, are still to be found various remnants of the most ancient form of nature-worship--that there are still to be observed "certain high places sacred to more primitive ideas than those represented by vedic gods" here devout worshippers believe that the androgynous god of fertility, or nature, still manifests itself to the faithful. close beside these more ancient shrines are others representing a somewhat later development of religious faith--shrines, by means of which are indicated some of the processes involved in the earlier growth of the god-idea. not far removed from these are to be found, also, numerous temples or places of worship belonging to a still later

year, still, there can be no doubt that the christmas tree, loaded with gifts, is a remnant of that worship under which the sun was recognized as the source whence all blessings flow. down to a late date, fire was a conspicuous element at the festival of the winter solstice. as the yule-log blazed upon the hearth, our ancestors set up huge stones and danced round them, thus worshipping the god of fertility. on the 20th and 21st of march the sun illumines exactly half the earth. at this time the day has conquered the night. light has dethroned darkness, a complete victory has been gained over typhon and the new god comes forth "with healing in his wings" on lady's day, the 25th of march, the virgin conceives. in phoenicia numerous fetes were instituted to rejoice with astarte in her concept

GILBERT THE MAGICAL MASON

he order of ormuzd, whose word is brought by his messenger the crow or raven. ahriman is represented only by the serpent who is to poison all human life at its source. we may all of us invent some allegorical explanation of these scenes, and no one can be sure of offering the truth, but one point is certain, and that is that the bull has been at all times the symbol of generation, or virility, of fertility and rebirth; and that its death, even as providing food, leads again to life. porphyry tells us that the cave in which the slaying is performed was deemed to represent the universe. other suggestions have been made in explanation of the sculptures, remembering that mithras was a solar diety. in the birth scene, the torch-bearers, with one torch up and the other down, may refer to the ris

GILBERT THE SORCERER AND HIS APPRENTICE

e (same signification, whether reversed ornot),60.fourofswords.solitude, retreat, abandonment,soiw.ary, hermit; r. economy, precaution, regulation of'expend255 iture.61. threeofswords.a nun, separation, removal, rupture, quarrel; r. error, confusion, misrule, disorder.62. deuceofswords.friendship, valour, firmness, cour255 age; r. false friends, treachery, lies.63. aceofswords.triumph, fecundity, fertility, prosper255 ity;r.embarrassment, foolish and hopeless love, obstacle, hindrance.64. kingofpentacles.a dark man, victory, bravery, courage, success; r. an old and vicious man, a dangerous man, doubt, fear, peril, danger.65. queenofpentacles.a dark woman, a generous woman, liberality, greatness of soul, generosity; r. certain evil, a suspicious woman, a woman justly regarded with suspicion

GLOBAL FREEMASONRY

this legend is one of ancient egypt's most important myths the story of osiris and isis. lj materialism revisited an obelisk covered with masonic symbols in new york's central park. global freemasonry remains from ancient egypt: monuments of pharaohs with an obelisk rising in front of them in the valley of the kings. lk ll materialism revisited an ancient egyptian depiction of isis. osiris was a fertility god and isis was his wife. according to the legend, osiris was the victim of a crime of passion by which isis became a widow. so, the masonic widow is isis. an article in mimar sinan explains the matter in the following way: global freemasonry dcc the osiris-isis legend is the topic of many articles and lectures and is the closest of the ancient egyptian myths to masonry. the test to bec

GNOSTIC HANDBOOK

within the great gap, the planes or worlds are formed. this model when examined critically (we will return to it in the next lesson) has a lot in common with the kabbalah and theosophical plane models. together they give us a good overview of the great chain of being. the planes or world below the triune forces of the void, fire and ice are: vanaheim is the world of the vanir. it is the realm of fertility, wealth and fecundity, fields of luscious crops, fruits, wildlife and pastoral beauty. jotunheim is the home of the giants. there are three types of giants, thursar, rises and etins, all children of ymir. ljosalfheim is the home of the light elves or lojosalfar. there are two classes of elves, the light inhabit the lighter realms above midgard, while the dark elves (dwarves) inhabit the

icately connected to the earth, even seen as part of it. in the norse tradition the god is odin or tyr (much earlier) and he is the lord of the upper world (asgard) and hel is the goddess of the underworld and earth. hel and freya are much the same goddess, she simply split into two and was demoted due to strong patriarchal and later christian influences. she was the goddess of death and rebirth, fertility and suffering, she guards the dead and sends them back to life, she compliments and completes the lord or tyr/odin. in celtic mythology she guards the great cauldron and in the norse this cauldron is the seething cauldron from which the drizzle formed from fire and ice coalesces and from which life is formulated. we can see a cross over with sophia, she too is the goddess of the departed

the classes as seen within the divine caste system (which reflected the ages of history) were in balance and creativity and intelligence were rewarded. as the polar age ended and migrations from the arctic were caused by changes in weather patterns, aryan man spread across the globe and mankind entered the silver age. during the silver or lunar epoch, earth cults took ascendancy, the feminine and fertility became of paramount significance and this lead to an emphasis on pagan and gaia oriented traditions. the research of marija gimbutas and others gives a good outline of the worship that occurred in this period. as the ages unfounded, in reaction against this earthly epoch, the dionysian or copper age began. the worship of strength, violence, masculine virtues battle against the feminine v

GNOSTIC STUDIES THE GNOSTIC HANDBOOK II GNOSTIC THEURGY

ge of sexual duality traditions using god and goddess images. while these are fine in their place, it is gnostic theurgy page 120 important to see them as mythological forms only, to worship the sun or the moon is to fall into the greatest error, and comes under the dominion of the demiurge. since reproduction is only a thing of the lower world and resulted from the error of matter, the images of fertility can only with extreme care be related to the logos and sophia. while certainly we can see reproduction as the process of uniting the logos and sophia within ourselves, which gives birth to a child self, in the static kingdom, to allow this imagery to degenerate into nature worship or the idolisation of family is a great aberration. it must always be remembered that the sun being the gate

w is found in the solar mysteries text. gnostic theurgy page 189 preamble the teachings of the gnosis can be traced back to the earliest periods, even before what we now consider as recorded history. if we wish to consider the earliest recorded forms of religion, then we need to consider the finds of archaeology. in the many digs which have occurred around the globe, the oldest finds have been of fertility figures with exaggerated sexual organs and images which give evidence of early forms of star watching and astronomy. since these earliest discoveries all seem to fall cleanly into one of two classes, then it is tempting to evaluate them in the light of the gnostic tradition. it is likely that the fertility symbols represented the worship of earth, the desire to reproduce, the submission

nd to the physical, while the watching of the stars (the sky cult) illustrates the early development of the gnostic desire to go beyond. this contradiction is important for it shows that even during the earliest periods, there was a dividing line- a duality between those of the sky cult who knew, and those of the earth cult who were in ignorance. for the gnostic the earth cults and the worship of fertility represents the loss of individual immortality with the life or essence returning to the spirit of the family, the totems and ancestors with the result that all realisation is lost (at least for that life time. the sky cult with its secret calculations, esoteric astrology and megalithic structures represented the knowledge of the light worlds, a desire to return to whence we came and a re

d into the deserts and developed a unique identity, indeed, the name egypt became synonymous with the fallen world. israel evolved, at first, into a theocratic state firmly entrenched in the mysteries, however, as happens with politics, compromises were made and the state of israel distanced from the old ways. as isreal grew tensions developed between the stellar religion of the mysteries and the fertility rites of surrounding tribes. these conflicts unsettled the homogenous state and brought about internal conflicts and wars. these resulted in israel seperating into two states and further degeneration in political and social structures caused such a lack of cohesion, that israel could be easily invaded and taken into captivity. captivity however did not mark the end of israel. it is an es

GRERALD SCHUELER AN ADVANCED GUIDE TO ENOCHIAN MAGICK

responsibility. his name means 'the elder horus' and he is the counterpart of the child, harpocrates. harpocrates effect, faith, acceptance, innocence. he is horus, the child. he is like the fool of the tarot. he is often shown sitting on a lotus with the first finger of his right hand resting against his closed lips in his role ofthe god of silence. hathor maternal force, protection, sustenance, fertility. hathor is the consort of horas. her name means 'house of horus' she has the form of a cow in role of the eternal mother. sothis initiation (femiriine, evolution, growth sothis is the godde ss of the dog star whose annual rise into the heavens marked 67 the advent of the nile river's inundation and thus assured another year of bounty. she is shown naked to ind cate that she holds no secr

irrational mirad. bast is shown as a cat. like a cat sees in the dark, so bast can see into the past and future. mestha endurance, mental protective force, conscious control. he is the son of horus and is shown with the head of a man. hapi endurance, emotional protective force, abundance. he is the son of horas and is shown with the head of an ape. tuamautef endurance, spiritual protective force, fertility. he is the son of horus and is shown with the head of a jackal. qebhsennuf endurance, physical protective force, physical renewal. he is the son of horus and is shown with the head of a hawk. 68 the following translations frota chapter clia of the book of the dead are included as a further aid in the study of tthese importantdeities: speechof isis (asi "the goddess of the throne "1 have

GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 3

gs the hammer and wuotan the spear, he is god of the sword, as exhibited in the names sahsnot and heru. but here much remains dark to us, because our legend has lost sight of zio altoo-ether. like wuotan, he also seems to rush down from the sky in the form of tempest. two others, though never appearing in the week, must yet be reckoned among the great gpds. froho, a god of hunting, of generation, fertility and summer, had long planted his name in the heart of our language, where he still maintains his ground in the derivatives fron and fronen; his sacred golden-bristled boar survived in helmet- crests, in pastry, and at the festive meal. year by year in kingly state froho journeyed through the lands (p. 213. 7g0. he is the gracious loving deity, in contrast with the two last-mentioned, and

hexe, strahlliexe, blitzhexe, zessenmacherin (from the old zessa, storm, and earlier, wolkengilsse, cloud-gushes, ms. 2, 140b, the ohg. wolchandrut, a woman's name in trad. fuld. 2, 101, need have had none but perfectly innocent associations: the valkyr either rides in the clouds or sprinkles from them fertilizing dew; so even the strewing of ashes on the field may originally have increased their fertility. occasionally feldfrau and feldspinnerin are used of a witch; is it because she passes over field and meadow, or spins magic threads (conf. p. 1099. who knows but that the popular saying, when it snows' the old ivives are shaking their coats out (de aule wiver schiiddet den pels ut, strodtm. p. 336, is, properly understood, identical with that on p. 268 'dame eolle is making her bed? god

GRIMM TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 2 1883 COMPLETE

o meet, as they do the waggon of may, who, over and above mere personification, has from of old his ere and strdze (p. 670 n: in heathen times he must have had an actual worship of his own. all these gods and goddesses appeared at their appointed times in the year, bestowing their several boons; deified summer or may can fairly claim identity with one of the highest divinities to whom the gift of fertility belonged, with .fro, wuotan, nerthus. but if we admit goddesses, then, in addition to nerthus, osfara has the strongest claim to consideration. to what was said on p. 290 i can add some signi ficant facts. the heathen easter had much in common with the may-feast and the reception of spring, particularly in the matter of bonfires. then, through long ages there seem to have lingered among

ropping in the water uttered the sound sambu (majer s myth. wtb. 1, 565; sangpa in tibetian means purified, holy. we gather from all these examples, still far from complete, how under the veil of sensuous images spear, hammer, hat, helmet, cloak, horn, goblet, necklace, ring, ship, wheel, tree, rod, flower, cloth, meat and drink lay hidden the spiritual ones of victory, happiness, peace, healing, fertility, riches, virtue and poetic art. but when several single attributes met in one object, as in sampo and the grail, they still further enhanced its meaning and sacredness (see suppl. from the prologue to the grimnismal, ssem. 39, we learn that osinn and frigg, beside being the chief paternal and maternal deities of antiquity, bestow their protection on special favourites: under the form of

HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

ly recited during the king s funeral or as part of the mortuary cult that continued after his death. others may have been intended to be spoken by the deceased king as he entered the afterlife. in this type of incantation, the king took on the role of many different deities. around 200 deities are mentioned in the pyramid texts. some are the major deities already known from cult temples, such the fertility god min and the creator goddess neith. others are entities such as snake deities and celestial ferrymen who inhabit a complex and intensely imagined realm of the gods. the most frequently mentioned deities are anubis, atum, geb, horus, isis, nephthys, nut, osiris, ra, seth, shu, and thoth (see deities, themes, and concepts. these include most of the deities who make up the ennead of heli

ls, 2d ed (tuscaloosa, al, and london, 2000. 2. kirk, myth, 252 261. 3. for examples, see clyde kluckhohn, myths and rituals: a general theory, harvard theological review 35 (1942: 45 79. 4. kirk, myth, 254 255. 5. it is a feature of etiological myths that, factually speaking, the explanation given is nearly always wrong. 6. in ancient egyptian color symbolism, black was a good color standing for fertility and rebirth, whereas red was a bad color standing for danger and sometimes for evil. 7. because of the nile flood, all permanent settlements had to be built on banks or mounds of high ground within the floodplain or in the desert hills that flank the nile valley. the annual flood is now controlled by the huge aswan dam. 8. kirk, myth, 208 209. 9. for an accessible account of recent disco

unorthodox union resulted in new life. 40. in this story the disk seems to be the solar disk, but in other versions it is a lunar aspect of thoth, who is born from the union of horus and seth. 41. a spell from the harris magical papyrus (bm 10042) refers to isis weeping on the riverbank after horus has had sex with her. this myth may have arisen through the common identification of horus with the fertility god min, the bull of his mother (see min in deities, themes, and concepts) 42. the myth is in the new kingdom papyrus sallier ix. this seems to be the earliest example of a myth devised to explain the animal-headed divine forms common in egyptian art. plutarch angrily dismisses the story that horus beheaded his mother as a ridiculous lie. 43. see the hymns to osiris translated by m. lich

h because he is older than horus. ram gods were particularly renowned for their virility, and one of banebdjedet s epithets was lord of sexual pleasure. a stela from a chapel in the ramesseum complex records that the god ptah took the form of banebdjedet to sleep with a mortal woman. the son that resulted was the future pharaoh, rameses ii. greek writers reported that a male goat was honored as a fertility god at mendes and identified with the greek god pan. a persian king of the fourth century bce is alleged to have gone mad after sacking the temple and eating the sacred goat. the sexual aspect of the cult at mendes made it particularly disliked by early christians. banebdjedet s form as a ram or goat-headed man was reinterpreted as a devil figure who entered western tradition as the horn

ian old wives probably told stories about the antics of bes, but they do not survive in the written record. the evidence for dwarf deities is mainly pictorial. they appear on magical objects, bedroom furniture, and items used to contain or apply makeup. bes amulets and figurines were popular for over 2,000 years. some women even decorated their bodies with bes tattoos to improve their sex life or fertility. 118 handbook of egyptian mythology the masklike face of bes has wide eyes, a flat nose, and a projecting tongue. it is framed by hair that sometimes looks like a lion s mane. originally bes may have been a dwarf wearing the entire skin of a lion or a leopard. by the later second millennium bce he is usually a half-human, half-animal creature, with a furry body, a long tail, and a face a

gs to hathor. oxford: 1993, 175 183. primary sources: pt 317; bd 17, 124, 186; esna calendar mehit (mehyt, mekhit) mehit was a lion goddess worshipped at thinis. see also feline deities; onuris meretseger meretseger was a theban snake goddess. see also snakes meskhenet meskhenet was a goddess associated with birth and fate. see also heqet; shai min min was an ancient god of human and agricultural fertility. the most masculine of gods, min was shown as a cloaked figure with a large erect penis. he wears two tall plumes on his head, and his right arm is raised in a smiting gesture. above his right hand is a flail, which may be a herdsman s whip. these features suggest that min could be an apotropaic deity, driving away evil with his aggressive body language. statues of min were carried out t

ated like people, this archaic ritual becomes the myth of the rape of isis by her son min-horus-nakht (horus the strong. this led to a further identification of min with osiris, the father of the son of isis. when the greeks settled in egypt, they saw min as a form of the virile goat-god pan, the protector of travelers in lonely places. one classical writer claimed that min was promoted to god of fertility after making love to all the women in egypt when the men were away at war. see also amun; horus; isis references and further reading: b. adams. a lettuce for min. studien fur aegyptischen kultur 8 (1980: 9 16. r. h. wilkinson. ancient near eastern raised-arm figures and the iconography of min. bulletin of the egyptology seminar 11 (1991 1992: 109 118. primary sources: pt 667a; ct 335, 64

presenting the power of his eye to osiris. a middle kingdom royal ritual equates the body of osiris with barley and seth with the donkeys who thresh the grain by trampling on it. this is the earliest definite example of the death and resurrection of osiris being linked to the annual cycle of the reaping and sowing of crops. like the virile min, osiris could be worshipped as a god of agricultural fertility. ithyphallic corn mummies were made and buried during festivals of osiris. their magical purpose was to give new life to the dead, just as the seed corn grew into new plants. the body of osiris could also be shown regenerating inside a tree. from at least as early as the new kingdom, all the liquids that came from the body of osiris, such as semen, sweat, and pools of putrefaction, were

solar hymns; true name; h&s; magical statue texts; ankhsheshonq; lwd; eofs. raet-tawy (raiyet) raet-tawy was the female sun of the two lands, a female counterpart of ra. see also horus the child; montu ra-horakhty ra-horakhty was the solar falcon who represented the sun god at the zenith of his power. see also horus; ra renenutet (ernutet, hermouthis, thermouthis) renenutet was a cobra goddess of fertility and luck whose name meant the snake who nourishes. she could be represented by various combinations of snake and woman, including a cobra-headed woman suckling a child. renenutet was associated with the nourishing and healing powers of mother s milk and with food of all kinds. as the deity who controlled the harvest, she was the mother of the corn god, neper. in the rich farmlands of the

tet, and anuket were probably treated as a group because all three were linked to the annual nile flood. 186 handbook of egyptian mythology a rock shrine on the island of elephantine was one of egypt s most ancient holy places. it was often thought of as the source of the inundation. riverworn pebbles in the forms of pregnant or nursing women found in the shrine suggest that it was dedicated to a fertility goddess. in later times the most important nilometer in egypt was situated in the temple of satet on elephantine. this measured the height of the inundation as it reached the egyptian border. satet was associated with the purifying powers of nile water and desert spring water. her sacred animal, the antelope, was renowned for its ability to find water in the desert. the pyramid texts men

INFERNAL SABBAT LIVE

eans of liberation and rebellion through the reversed rites of blasphemy of orthodox thought. in the invocation of satan, this archetype of selfliberation was means of release, of seeking knowledge and freedom within the self to have the choice of free thought, action and deed. this is why the serpent is considered an aspect of satan or lilith, the serpent is long viewed as a symbol of wisdom and fertility. the christian satan was taken from the early mythological folklore of islam, from which satan s (meaning to oppose or the adversary) name was azazel. in the koran and accepted traditions such as the ahadith, azazel is said to be made of fire similar to the djinn, yet not of light as other angels. it is this fire which makes azazel the brightest angel among the others. azazel was the pre

INFERNAL UNION

always been related somewhat to being a goddess/spirit of the night/air whether in sumerian/assyrian/babylonian or cainanite mythology. lilith is the queen of demons and the wife of samael, from whom came the succubi. she is the infernal moon and queen of the infernal sabbat. she does have a lighter side as well, that of being a protectress to mothers and children. her nature is that of feminine fertility,seduction ,the cycles of the moon, and perhaps one of the reasons she is considered evil being her ability to seduce, to take what she wishes, and disregard those who displease her. she is feminine strength and individualized focus. as samael is considered, according to gender, to be the daemon of wizards and warlocks, lilith is the patroness and queen of witches. through lesser black ma

JASMUHEEN THE FOOD OF GODS

e mother. creator and sustainer of all life. the source of divine nutrition. source of pure, unconditional love. the source of mercy and compassion. goddess of one, mother of all gods and goddesses and humanity. the cosmic glue behind creation. the source of grace and joy the divine mother radiates through: the high priestess. directly representing the goddess on earth, the high priestess ensures fertility and ongoing creation. the high priestess is the great goddess herself and is seen universally as kwan yin (asia, isis (egypt, athena (greece) and rhiannon (celts. divine nutrition: the madonna frequency& the food of gods with jasmuheen 79. all wise, all knowing she gives and takes life and reminds us of our innate inner wisdom and of the divine spark within and asks us to radiantly manif

the celtic goddess. the lady of the lake. celtic goddess of consciousness and revelation, emotion, renewal and creativity, gives us the energy to rule our lives. morgan le fay. represents a place of deep healing magic within us, ruler of avalon, noted for her healing powers and prophetic vision, controller of destinies. etain. celtic moon goddess, wife of midir king of the underground, symbol of fertility. teaches us to be shining wherever we are. arianrhod. welsh triple moon goddess, keeper of the heavens and cycles and changes of time. nurtures us thru dark night of soul changes. and some of the egyptian goddesses. ishtar. babylonian creator goddess, the source of all life. queen of heaven, giver of light, represents being active and strong. isis. moon goddess, mother and giver of all l

e earthly. sedna. eskimo goddess who rules the underworld. reminds us of the nourishing gifts that we can find in the darker places that we most fear. pele. hawaiian volcano goddess of creative fire. reminds us that even in the midst of fiery eruption there is creation and new life. regenerates with fire. ix chel. mayan moon goddess married to the sun, is the midwife to creative ideas. goddess of fertility and freedom. patron of childbirth and medicine. hina .polynesian goddess said to be the original creator of the world, of gods and goddess and of humans. represents the ability to be nourished in all situations. brigid. celtic triple goddess of fire and inspiration, healing and divination. oya. african yoruban goddess of weather and brazilian macumba deity of change, women call on her fo

life, to right wrongs and administer lessons that we need. freya. northern european goddess of sexuality of maiden and mother as two aspects of the great goddess. freya assists us in honoring our sexuality and connecting with our vital, primal energy and to be fully present in our body. divine nutrition: the madonna frequency& the food of gods with jasmuheen 82. lilith. middle eastern goddess of fertility and abundance, brings equality, refuses subordination. lilith also represents the lotus and the ability to grow in darkness. she represents the spiritual nature of our folding and the blossoming of our heart of wisdom. one of my favorite goddesses currently is: eurynome. the ecstasy goddess. great goddess of all things, divided the sky from the sea and danced on the waves to create the n

JENNINGS HARGRAVE ROSICRUCIANS RITES MYSTERIES

plain. in the tombs of thebes, belzoni found scarab ei with human heads. there is hardly any symbolical figure which recurs so often in egyptian sculpture or painting as the scarab us, or beetle, and perhaps scarcely any one which it is so difficult to explain. he is often represented with a ball between his fore-legs, which some take for a symbol of the world, or the sun. he may be an emblem of fertility. the crab on the denderah zodiac is by some supposed to be a beetle (egyptian antiquities. it is for some of the preceding reasons that one of the mystic names of lucifer, or the devil, is the lord of flies, for which strange appellation all antiquaries, and other learned decipherers, have found it impossible to account of the figure of the fleur-de-luce, fleur-de-lis, or flowerde- luce

KASAK VEEDE UNDERSTANDING PLANETS IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

kadian .i ir .ame or .i ir bur me. sounds quite homely. esarhaddon, a megalomanic assyrian king, said all the stars to be letters in which his name is written (rainer 1995: 9. subsequently, sumer akkad planet main portfolio of the god in akkadian tradition an anu god of heaven enlil marduk (b l) jupiter main god, god of air and earth enki ea god of waters and wisdom nanna sin moon moongod, god of fertility and prosperity utu .ama. sun sungod, god of justice inanna i.tar venus goddess of love and war (ninurta) nabu mercury god of wisdom and writing (savior, redeemer) ninurta ninurta saturn god of war and hunting? nergal mars god of plague, famine, war, and the underworld 15 we bring an excerpt of a list of witnesses from a pact between the same assyrian king and median king ramataia (672 bc

tive moongods (though there were some in the periphery, e.g. among the hittites and aramaic. sin was depicted as a horned bull (qarnu) and a efruit that grows by itself f (enbu .a ina ram ni.u ibbanu; a reference to the belief that the moon regenerates itself after each waning. gamong the astral deities, the moon-god was considered to be the most gentle and reliable, intimately connected with the fertility and fruitfulness of man and beast h (leick 1998: 152.153. and moon fs moving is really clear and simple to observe. in akkadian, the most widespread form of writing the moongod fs name was dsin (sumerian dnanna(r; dnanna is a rare sumerogram. dsin itself was originally written en.zu elord of wisdom f (later also written as dzu.en, with the earlier reading dsu fen soon shortened to dsin

ly, saturn is sometimes marked dutu and d20, which in parpola fs opinion may be explained by its epithet esun of the night f as saturn fs moving in the night sky is as firm, trustful, and unshakable as the sun fs in daytime (parpola, las ii: 342.343. saturn is often connected to ninurta, god of war and hunt. dnin.urta/dma. ninurta, sumerian god, whose portfolio originally included agriculture and fertility, later war and heroic deeds (leick 1998: 135. of the less important appellations of saturn, later was used dnin.gir2.su (g316) ningirsu elord of girsu f, a local personification of ninurta in the town of girsu. as saturn is one of the dimmest planets, a suitable name for it was genna (g69, akkadian .erru esmall f, etiny f, ewee f. saturn fs connection to the sun is indirectly proved by t

consists of two symbols (ge/inna, which could also be read as tur.di (or tur.ti. 27 mars of all the names of mars, at first glance two gods strike the eye at once: nergal and gibil. nergal was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) of the gods of underworld, whose cult disappeared only when it melt into the cult of hercules in the hellenistic period. nergal, whose portfolio also included some fertility functions, also occurred widely in mythology and absorbed in time many smaller gods. it is interesting that mars is not referred to by nergal fs most widespread designations dgir3.unu.gal and du.gar, although in some later texts we can find dnergal. his name does not seem to be originally sumerian: babylonian theologians constructed a derivation from ne3.eri.gal elord of the underworld f

LEADBEATER CW GLIMPSES OF MASONIC HISTORY

he death and resurrection of tammuz, and is in reality an account of the ritual murder of one of the priest-kings of that religion. he points out that most primitive races enact a drama in which some one, usually a priest or king, represents a god who is slain and comes to life again; that in earlier times at any rate such a representative was really killed and offered up as a sacrifice to ensure fertility; that we first hear of this myth of tammuz in connection with babylon, and that the tribes in the neighbourhood of judaea were all addicted to the worship of that deity. in fact, among the jews themselves we find the prophets blaming the hebrew ladies for taking part in the ritual mourning for him(*ezekiel, viii, 14) 283. solomon himself was by no means definitely monotheistic, and his p

hymn to astarte, for whom he built a temple quite near to that of jehovah. there is considerable uncertainty as to whether balkis, queen of sheba, was a real person, or only a personification of astarte. bro. ward explains that the festivals of the two patron saints of freemasonry, s. john the baptist in summer and s. john the evangelist in winter, are only a perpetuation of the feasts of the old fertility cult at the summer and winter solstices; that similar cultural rites are found in other lands, teutonic, celtic and greek, that they also survived among the essenes, and that the knights templars brought back from syria a story very similar to that of the 3. the tale of jonah, he remarks, has always been understood as a myth of death and resurrection, and he also was sacrificed to appeas

LEWIS JAMES SATANISM TODAY AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION FOLKLORE AND POPULAR CULTURE

cation available to a mass audience: the symbol of baphomet was used by the knights templar to represent satan. through the ages this symbol has been called by many different names. among these are: the goat of mendes, the goat of a thousand young, the black goat, the judas goat, and perhaps most appropriately, the scapegoat. baphomet represents the powers of darkness combined with the generative fertility of the goat. in its pure form the pentagram is shown encompassing the figure of a man in the five points of the star three points up, two points down symbolizing man s spiritual nature. in satanism the pentagram is also used, but since satanism represents the carnal instincts of man, or the opposite of the spiritual nature, the pentagram is inverted to perfectly accommodate the head of t

myth is the story of persephone. persephone was kidnapped by hades. her mother demeter, goddess of grain, mourned the loss of her daughter, which resulted in the death of vegetation and humankind s starvation. the gods eventually agreed that persephone should be returned to her mother. in the meanwhile, however, hades had made persephone eat the fruit of the dead (seeds of pomegranate, symbol of fertility and blood, and thus bound her to the realm of the dead. the final agreement was that, for half of the year, persephone was the ruling queen of hades, and for the other half, she was with her mother demeter. although this myth was originally interpreted as explaining the vegetation cycle, various elements indicate the characteristics of a process of female initiation: her descent to the u

charge against set to the court of deities.when the court seemed unable to act,horus took matters into his own hands and killed set in a monumental battle.horus then went to the land of the dead,where he was recognized as osiris s legitimate successor and crowned the new king of egypt. at that point horus was able to revive osiris, who became ruler of the underworld, symbolic of resurrection and fertility, and judge of the dead for the rest of eternity. originally, the story of osiris seems to have been merely the story of a vegetative cult, where osiris s fate represented the flooding of the nile in the spring and its recession in the fall, and/or the regular agricultural cycle of seed, growth, death, and rebirth. the story began to gain a greater significance when horus became identifie

shed to visit her sister. before embarking, she has the wisdom to inform her chief minister that she is about to undertake a journey to the underworld, and instructs him to appeal to the gods in heaven to intervene should it become necessary to retrieve her from her sister s realm.as it turns out, ishtar is unable to return. because inanna/ishtar is the goddess of sex and therefore the goddess of fertility, her absence from the earth is immediately noticed: no bull mounted a cow, no donkey impregnated a jenny. no young man impregnated a girl. the young man slept in his private room. the girl slept in the company of her friends. in order to reactivate the natural forces of life and reproduction, the gods in heaven are forced to come to inanna/ishtar s aid. the ancient mesopotamians also tol

a witch s purpose by means of flying ointment, a broomstick placed across the threshold of a house was supposed to keep witches out. the notion of demons and witches riding farming implements through the air to diabolical gatherings may derive from the practice of pre- christian pagans who mounted brooms and pitchforks and rode them like hobbyhorses in the fields, dancing and leaping, as part of fertility rites meant to help the crops grow. before witches were recorded as riding on brooms, they were said to have danced with them, sometimes holding the brooms up high in the air and sometimes dancing astride them. in addition to riding brooms and shovels, sixteenth-century art shows witches riding pokers, benches, and animals. sorcerers also flew on brooms, although they were more often dep

ent to accomplish the task and hades relented, but not before persuading kore to eat a pomegranate, symbolic of marriage and a promise of return. this trickery forced zeus into a compromise, by which kore would have to spend one-third (or one-half, depending on the source) of each year in the underworld, the part of the year when demeter is once again sorrowful and nothing grows. thus did kore, a fertility figure by relation to demeter, become identified with persephone, the wife of hades and a figure of death. three platonic dialogues the gorgias, phaedo, and republic include a mythical account of what happens after death. plato does not merely repeat standard stories, but artfully mixes together elements from the cultural heritage, the tragedies, and mystery religions. the myth in the go

and evil spells. the expression hex signs refers to magical symbols and signs used by the pennsylvania dutch.hex signs are usually of circular shape and represent flowers, stars, hearts, swastikas, wheels, and many other symbols. each carries a definite meaning and provides a particular type of protection or enhancement of certain qualities. some hex signs are designed and used to favor courage, fertility, virility.others are placed on cradles, or on the doors of houses and of stables to prevent bewitchment. see also curses for further reading: guiley, rosemary ellen. the encyclopedia ofwitches and witchcraft. new york: facts on file, 1989. valiente, doreen. an abc ofwitchcraft. custer,wa: phoenix publishing, 1973. highway to hell the 1992 story of orpheus in b-movie drag. after a young c

, to buy back; that is, the acknowledgment of the divine sacrifice necessary for human salvation, which calls for repentance and asks for forgiveness on the side of humankind. christ s death especially is viewed as manifestation of the divine scheme of salvation. christ s sacrifice and death on behalf of humanity recalls pre-christian myths of vegetation divinities that, through sacrifice, insure fertility and salvation. a prominent pre-christian example is 238 sammael the slaying and dismembering of osiris, who is brought back to life by his wife isis to become the god and who, by overcoming death, saves humankind from its consequences. salvation can be achieved in different ways in different religious traditions. typically, in the religious traditions based on the worship of or devotion

ntury, the christian philosopher origen fully established the association between satan and the snake. in the following centuries the snake was conceived of as either the tool of satan, or as his incarnation. satan, however, is not only the symbol of death and evil. in judeo-christian and islamic folklore traditions, where he is typically depicted as the horned one, he appears in association with fertility and sexuality cults and in the practice of witchcraft. the devil was held responsible for the healing powers of witches practicing the sabbath rituals for centuries throughout europe. satan has also inspired literature, poetry, art and music throughout history. there are numerous accounts of imaginary trips to the underground kingdom of satan, of pacts with the devil, possessions and exo

medicine, buddhism, hinduism, mormonism, islam, orthodox church, roman catholicism. at law enforcement training conferences, it is witchcraft, santeria, paganism, and the occult that are most often referred to as forms of satanism. it may be a matter of definition, but these things are not necessarily the same as traditional satanism. the worship of lunar goddesses and nature and the practice of fertility rituals are not satanism. santeria is a combination of 17th century roman catholicism and african paganism. occult means simply hidden. all unreported or unsolved crimes might be regarded as occult, but in this context the term refers to the action or influence of supernatural powers, some secret knowledge of them, or an interest in paranormal phenomena, and does not imply satanism, evil

LIBER 141

mathers and his wife, and by e.w. berridge. the ineptitude of the three latter saved them from the fate of the three former) xix of the adept of this art in armour of leaping flame let the adept rage through the universe, majestic and irresistible as the sun. let no eye behold him unblasted; let him strike upon the necks of the ungodly. let him be a mighty light of comfort, and the father of all fertility. let him send forth rain in due season, and the earth grow green at his coming. let his planets whirl upon his wheel; let him send forth his comets as angels unto his brethren; and let him give light to all his realm. let no eye behold him unblasted; let him strike upon the necks of the ungodly. xx of the thesaurus of the o.t.o. remember these chief treasures to be preserved: 1. this sec

LIBER LXXVIII

of cups or chalices a white radiant angelic hand, issuing from clouds, and supporting on the palm thereof a cup, resembling that of the stolistes. from it rises a fountain of clear and glistening water: and sprays falling on all sides into clear calm water below, in which grow lotuses and water-lilies. the great letter h of the supernal mother is traced in the spray of the fountain. it symbolizes fertility.productiveness, beauty, pleasure, happiness, etc. iii the root of the powers of the air ace of swords a white radiating angelic hand, issuing from clouds, and grasping the hilt of a sword, which supports a white radiant celestial crown; from which depend, on the right, the olive branch of peace; and on the left, the palm branch of suffering. six vaus fall from its point. it symbolizes in

LINDOW JOHN NORSE MYTHOLOGY A GUIDE TO THE GODS HEROES RITUALS AND BELIEFS

with the legal, contractual nature that a sovereign was obligated to uphold. the classic split was found in the vedic god varuna and the persian god mithra; in norse mythology, dumezil argued, odin represented the awesome side and ty lr the legal or contractual side of sovereignty. the second function was might or force, and in norse mythology thor fulfilled that function. the third function was fertility, and here the deities are often doubled, as are frey and freyja. at one time dumezil thought these functions represented actual social classes in proto-indo- european society, but later he backed away from this notion and was content to argue for the structure on a purely mythological plane. a second aspect of the dumezilian theory involved the gdisplacement of myth, h that is, the idea

th of snorri fs accounts place more emphasis on the settlement than on the war, and from skaldskaparmal we learn that the tangible symbol of the truth, the mixed spittle, ultimately became one of the greatest tools for wisdom, namely the mead of poetry. ynglinga saga also indicates that the most distinguished of the vanir, njord and frey, were fully incorporated into the asir. since the vanir are fertility deities, the war has often been understood as the reflection of the overrunning of local fertility cults somewhere in the germanic area by a more warlike cult, perhaps that of invading indo-europeans. but georges dumezil argued forcefully that the story of the war need be no more historical than any other myth: it is set before the emigration from the middle east, and it is far more focu

eflect variants in medieval icelandic oral tradition, since saxo learned from icelanders, but he may also be passing along some genuine danish traditions. the story has led to many attempts at interpretation, some of them rather fanciful. the mistletoe remains unexplained, despite sir james frazer fs attempt to build up a grand theory around it. in fact, the story may have far less to do with the fertility exemplified by various gods who die (in the fall) and are reborn (in the spring) than it does with initiation into a hypothetical cult of odin. thus 68 norse mythology hod fs name seems to have meant gbattle, h and his blindness intensifies odin fs sacrifice of a single eye. gautreks saga contains a sham sacrifice to odin that turns real. when starkad throws at king vikar a reed that has

. we have the story in skirnismal and in an abbreviated form in snorri fs gylfaginning. in brief, after frey fs emissary skirnir has cajoled gerd, the giantess with whom frey has fallen in love from afar, she agrees to meet him in nine nights f time at barri (barrey, according to snorri. magnus olsen fs hoary explanation, that barri has to do with barr, gbarley, h ties the story to a hypothetical fertility myth, in which skirnir is understood as the sun fs ray and the ensuing marriage as a holy wedding of a god and the earth. those who are unpersuaded point out that barr can just as well mean gpine needle, h which would fit with the fact that skirnismal explicitly calls barri a grove, that snorri fs barrey (barley-island or grain-island) makes no sense in the context of a fertility myth, a

the cataclysmic demise of gods, giants, and the cosmos that is ragnarok. vali is truly an enduring figure, but bous is a very minor player in saxo fs history. the name bous is ordinarily understood to represent a danish version of the medieval icelandic name bui, and since the name is ultimately related to the verb meaning gto dwell, settle, h earlier scholars associated it with their theories of fertility myth and ritual associated with baldr fs death. but gbui h was an ordinary man fs name, and indeed was not infrequently used in heroic legend: one of the most famous of the jomsvikingar, for example, was bui the stout, and a bui also turns up among the sons of karl in rigsthula. see also baldr; rind; vali, son of odin bracteates small round golden disks, stamped with images on one side a

beyla (according to lokasenna stanza 56, byggvir is mostly understood through the etymology of his name, although the problem is complicated by the competing form in the poem, gbeyggvir. h bygg is the word for barley, and much of what the poem says of byggvir can be imagined to fit barley, which is tiny, ground in a mill, and used in beer. barley would be associated with frey insofar as frey is a fertility god. if byggvir is indeed a personification of barley, he is virtually unique in scandinavian mythology, which otherwise has little to say of such figures. see also beyla references and further reading: georges dumezil, gtwo minor scandinavian gods: byggvir and beyla h (1952, in his gods of the ancient northmen, ed. einar haugen, publications of the ucla center for the study of comparati

faginning that njord had two children, apparently by skadi, he first introduces frey and freyja, saying that they were both good-looking and powerful: frey is the most noble of the asir. he rules over rain and sunshine and with that the growth of the earth, and it is good to call on him for prosperity and peace. he also rules over the wealth of men. this is practically a textbook description of a fertility god. in the warlike culture of the asir, there is little for him to do, and the mythology only grants him three moments: his entry into the asir, his marriage, and his death. frey joined the asir as a result of the asir-vanir war, according to snorri in ynglinga saga. when a settlement was reached, the two groups gexchanged hostages [here understood as men exchanged as pledges of good fa

s funeral, ulf uggason says that frey arrived riding a boar with golden bristles, and snorri understood this to be gullinborsti and added that it was pulling the cart in which frey rode. lokasenna assigns two servants to frey, byggvir and beyla, whom scholars interpret through etymology as associated with barley and either cows, beans, or bees; all of these can be made to fit with the notion of a fertility god. loki fs insult to frey in the poem is a reminder of the sword given up for gerd and the problem that its loss will pose at ragnarok. in snorri fs version of the learned prehistory in chapter 10 of ynglinga saga, frey is one of the important early kings of sweden. he succeeds his father njord, who succeeded odin. he was popular and prosperous like his father. frey erected a large tem

ed sacral marriage, however, animate the literary analysis of ursula dronke, gart deities, themes, and concepts 125 and tradition in skirnismal, h in english and medieval studies, presented to j. r. r. tolkien on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, ed. norman davis and c. l. wrenn (london: allen and unwen, 1962, 250.268, and the comparative analysis of annelise talbot, gthe withdrawal of the fertility god, h folklore 93 (1982: 31.46. the detailed analysis of gro steinsland, det hellige bryllup og norron kongeideologi: en analyse av hierogami-myten i skirnismal, ynglingatal, haleygjatal, og hyndluljod (n.p: solum, 1991, the most recent serious study of the myth as a whole, again departs from the notion of a sacred marriage, but steinsland associates it both with fertility and with king

ain a beautiful necklace, perhaps the brisinga men. in hyndluljod hyndla accuses freyja of being the lover of ottar, the human whose genealogy the poem explores. this sexual history, and her fondness for erotic poetry, make plausible snorri fs assertion that it is to freyja whom one must turn in affairs of the heart. presumably this attachment to human love accords with the notion of the vanir as fertility deities. we might reasonably expect a fertility deity to be associated with the dead, but in this mythology, at least, the evidence all goes in the other direction. odin, the god of wisdom and magic, has the closest association with the dead, and the other vanir, njord and frey, have no such connection. indeed, the word snorri used for the dead whom freyja shares equally with odin refers

osperity, the more he was worshipped than the other gods. interestingly, snorri introduces frodi in the next chapter, calling him gpeace-frodi h and putting him in lejre at the same time that frey fs son fjolnir is in uppsala. perhaps snorri moved the peace from frodi to frey, or perhaps, as some scholars have come to believe, frey and frodi were in effect two versions of the same figure, a local fertility god. that assumption finds strength in the references to frey in stanzas 1 and 2 of skirnismal as gthe frodi, h that is, gthe wise one h or gthe fruitful one. h in vellekla, a poem from the end of the tenth century praising hakon the hladir jarl, the poet einar helgason skalaglamm said that no ruler had brought about such peace and prosperity except frodi. saxo names several kings called

nanna sent a finger ring back to fulla from the world of the dead in snorri fs recounting of the baldr story, and fulla is numbered with other important goddesses among the guests at agir fs party, according to the beginning of skaldskaparmal. fulla is presumably identical to the volla of the second merseburg charm. the etymology of the name appears to have to do with fullness, perhaps therefore fertility. see also merseburg charms galar (yeller) see mead of poetry galdrar magic charms. what we think we know about galdrar we get from the sagas. in the mythology, these are especially associated with odin. in baldrs draumar, stanza 3, odin is called the father of galdrar, and havamal, from about stanza 135 onward, describes his mastery of magic songs. although these are called songs rather

LURQUIN STONE EVOLUTION AND RELIGIOUS CREATION MYTHS

nt. although no evolutionary scientists claim that hot flashes are in any way adaptive or useful for anyone, evolutionary theory does offer an explanation for why menopause (of which hot flashes are a by-product) exists at all. this is known as the grandmother hypothesis. according to this hypothesis, the reproductive success of females is actually facilitated by the timely cessation of a woman s fertility. this is because a woman s investment in her children (a long gestation, birth, nursing, and other infant care) is much higher than that of men, whose investment can be limited to impregnating a woman. if women, like men, could continue to reproduce into older ages, they could not care well for all the many children they could produce. many of their children would die before reaching rep

is not unusual in the plant kingdom. when this happens, two different genomes are united in one plant. a hybrid plant is often sterile because the chromosomes from the two parental species do not match and fertile germ cells (pollen and egg) cannot form. however, accidental chromosome doubling (a type of massive mutation) can occur in hybrids during germ cell formation, a phenomenon that restores fertility. for example, bread wheat, leaf mustard, and oil seed rape are the results of hybrid formation between known ancestors. it has been shown that these fertile new hybrids can no longer mate with their ancestral species because their chromosome numbers do not match. thus, the hybrids are reproductively isolated from their progenitors, although they are fertile among themselves. for example

MANLY P HALL THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

, and at the seventh gate the covering cloak of her body. ishtar remonstrates as each successive article of apparel is taken from her, bur the guardian tells her that this is the experience of all who enter the somber domain of death. enraged upon beholding ishtar, the mistress of hades inflicts upon her all manner of disease and imprisons her in the underworld. as ishtar represents the spirit of fertility, her loss prevents the ripening of the crops and the maturing of all life upon the earth. in this respect the story parallels the legend of persephone. the gods, realizing that the loss of ishtar is disorganizing all nature, send a messenger to the underworld and demand her release. the mistress of hades is forced to comply, and the water of life is poured over ishtar. thus cured of the

d. yet the cross itself is the oldest of phallic emblems, and the lozenge-shaped windows of cathedrals are proof that yonic symbols have survived the destruction of the pagan mysteries. the very structure of the church itself is permeated with phallicism. remove from the christian church all emblems of priapic origin and nothing is left, for even the earth upon which it stands was, because of its fertility, the first yonic symbol. as the presence of these emblems of the generative processes is either unknown or unheeded by the majority, the irony of the situation is not generally appreciated. only those conversant with the secret language of antiquity are capable of understanding the divine significance of these emblems. flowers were chosen as symbols for many reasons. the great variety of

d it, combined it with the other two, and sealed heaven in the universe, heat in the year, and the head of man (male and female. chapter four 1. the seven double letters (b, g, d, k, p, r, th, have a duplicity of pronunciation (two voices, aspirated and unaspirated, namely, they serve as a model of softness and hardness, strength and weakness. 2. the seven double letters symbolize wisdom, riches, fertility life, power, peace, and grace. 3. the seven double letters also signify the antitheses to which human life is exposed. the opposite of wisdom is foolishness; of riches, poverty; of fertility, sterility; of life, death; of power, servitude; of peace, war; and of beauty, deformity. 4. the seven double letters point out the six dimensions, height, depth, east and west, north and south, and

MARS COCIDIUS AND THE REDCAPS IN LANCASHIRE

the first of many. the etruscan deity laran (also called maris later mars) was one of a pair of deities, twins. laran s twin was tages. according to legend laran had the head& neck of a swan in childhood before assuming human shape at maturity, and tages the wings of a swan. laran was a deity of protection, the protector of the flocks and the community, a god of divination and of agriculture and fertility. he was above all a god of the countryside in this form he was often named and represented as picus the red capped green woodpecker (picus viridis. with his sister turan he was the father of faunus the god of the wild forest. faunus also called silvanus is of course the patron of the hunt and as lupercus takes the form of a wolf. tages was sent to earth where he arose from the soil being

MASTERING WITCHCRAFT

e past. otherwise, collectively in their immaterial shape, they constitute the so-called demonic hierarchy with which the modern witch has dealings on occasion. it is the watchers, the mighty ones of the heavenly places, the parents of giants and humans alike as seen in symbolic and archetypal form as the parents of humanity, whether as masters of wisdom and love or simply as benevolent powers of fertility and hunting, that constitute the witch's true deities. diana and lucifer of the above-mentioned witch legend are but figurative forms of these mighty ones. although the legend is overlaid with later gnostic overtones such as the latinized names "diana" and "lucifer" these are not inappropriate, and indeed they preserve many of the seeds of truth "gnostic" itself in its etymological deriv

-christianity, but they are also always bogged down with endless preachy pages of invocation, as you will see if you ever consult one, which, far from awakening the deep mind of the operating witch, will generally tend to send it even more securely to sleep. apropos of religious beliefs, the modern witch tends to "reserve judgement" generally; there are those who devote themselves entirely to the fertility cult of habondia and her horned consort. this is by no means universal, however. the gods are there if and when you need them. but more of this in a later chapter. as a witch, you do not necessarily have to worship any complete and permanent hierarchy of supernatural beings if you don't want to. there simply exists power to be tapped to do good or to do evil, both of which are remarkably

for you to observe. the method of their employment is extremely simple. basically, there are two sides to the moon's character; when she is waxing, the bright moon; and when she is waning, dark of the moon. all spells of a constructive nature should be performed when the moon is bright, that is, waxing to full. these would include love magic of any sort, sorcery designed to bring luck or success, fertility charms, protection, countermagic, and of course divination. an old witch verse goes thus: pray to the moon when she is round luck with you shall then abound what you seek for shall be found in sea or sky or solid ground. as soon as the full moon is passed, we embark upon the dark of the moon, as the light wanes and nights get blacker. during this period you will perform all operations of

on and elijah, merlin, virgilius, roger bacon: the list is extensive. apart from its phallic connotations, the wand is also a pointer, or indicator, a flying arrow in the case of the greek abaris, again connected with occult methods of "finding things out" witches employ two different types of wands in their rituals: the riding staff in the past often disguised as the legendary broomstick used in fertility rites and the smaller goetic rod, sometimes referred to as the verendum or baculum, which is used in the questioning of intelligences during divination. often the riding staff will be carved with a phallic tip to it. the baculum usually is of a more cabalistic composition, often engraved with hebraic divine names. however, as often as not, the two rods are combined as one by many witches

of them around the house for good measure. they can be constructed from any number of substances- animal, vegetable, or mineral. the ones mentioned in this section are all of a mineral or vegetable basis and rely mainly on contact with that third witch power you are about to be introduced to: the earth itself. to the witch, the earth archetype represents the source of all sustenance, healing, and fertility. the magical symbolism of the earth is similar to that surrounding those classical deities concerned with domestic and agrarian affairs, especially the female ones, such as ceres, vesta, egeria, ops, cybele, and rhea; the great earth mothers, in fact. many witches refer to the earth power as hulda, erda, or hertha. our words "earth" and "hearth" are derived from the last two names. herth

y as three leaders to a coven, again recalling dion fortune's dictum about one god, one goddess, and an initiator. the male leader representing the "masculine" power generally takes first place; the female, the "feminine" second; and the second male "executor" or "officer" third. different covens have different titles for their leaders, all equally traditional. in covens which stress the love and fertility aspects of witchcraft and perform their rituals naked, the male leader is known as the high priest, the female as high priestess. on the other hand, in those which stress the knowledge and power aspect, the male is known as the magister, grand master, or "devil (meaning "little god) and the female as the lady or queen of the sabbat. the second male, known as the "officer "executor" or "s

point of view, try to perform your witchcraft on the relevant "planetary day" at the right "planetary hour" failing this, simply the right planetary hour will suffice, always and in every instance observing the correct phase of the moon, of course. the days and hours of the sun should be used for operations concerned with honour, power, glory, and the arts; those of the moon for dreams and female fertility; those of mars for defence and attack; mercury, for divination; jupiter, for wealth, lust, and male fertility; venus, for romantic love; and, finally, those of saturn for works of necromancy, binding, and all works of darkness. appendix 2- glossary of witch words and terms a adept a master of the magic arts alraun talismanic image made from rowan wood altar magical table of practice, usu

amulet magical mascot or "lucky charm" arcana secret formulae or process. also used to denote deck of tarot cards, the major arcana being the "trumps" numbered from 0 to 21, the minor being the 56 "pip" and "court" cards athame witches' black-hilted knife averse black, or evil, usually applied to magical processes b baculum witches' rod, staff, wand, or "broomstick" used in divination and certain fertility spells balefire ritual coven fire ban to curse bane poisonous or destructive thinorthe greater key of solomon including a clear and precise exposition of king solomon s secret procedure, its mysteries and magic rites, original plates, seals, charms and talismans. translated from ancient manuscripts in the british museum, london. by s. liddell macgregor mathers 1999 emperor norton books c

MICHAEL FORD WITCHMOON

at (baphomet) are represented in the female (the moon- witchcraft and sorcery: strength in mind, the dream state, desire initializing belief which manifests towards strength and ultimately attainment) and male (sun, magick: manifestation, strength in flesh and action. without one the other is nothing. the goat aspect equates with the qabalistic number 77, meaning buck/goat/devil thus representing fertility, creation, life and unrestrained sexual force. this is parallel with the basis of desire equaling action, having its basis in a sexually driven subconscious beginning, even though the desire obtained may not be sex related. 70 70 the serpent aspect is represented traditionally as kundalini, the fire snake in the form of a phallus, being a means of infinite manifestation. to awaken kundal

. a skillful presentation of lucifer is given in aleister crowley s poem, hymn to lucifer and kenneth anger s lucifer rising, a film based upon the torch bearer. 2. hel is the norse- pagan goddess of the underworld. 3. see the book of pleasure by austin osman spare. 4. dracula was a woman by raymond macnalley. 5. lord of the forest is a symbol of the devil, the horned god of beasts. lord of life, fertility and strength, who is often connected to capricornus, or pan. 6. the wolf skin holds reference to shaman cultures of germany and scandinavia. man seeking the spirit of a certain beast would dress in the skins of that which they would invoke. such invocations would be conducted in which the sorcerer would anoint his body, decorate it in paints with numerous sigils and then don the skin. to

MICHAEL TSARION ATLANTIS ALIEN VISITATION AND GENETIC MANIPULATION

shakespeare,blake, rousseau, spinoza, schelling, coleridge, wordsworth, shelley, swami aurob-indo, and a host of others, we have vehement promethean remonstrations againstman's nescience and impiety, against mankind's ignominious avoidance of the organic.their impassioned entreaties for restitution and reverence have largely gone unheeded.it is a sin to suppose that nature, endowed with perennial fertility by the creator of the uni-verse, is affected with barrenness, as though with some disease and it is unbecoming to aman of good judgement to believe that earth, to whose lot was assigned a divine and ever-lasting youth, and who is called the common mother of all things and is destined to bringthem forth continually, has grown old in mortal fashion. and, furthermore, i do not believethat s

es are formed, largely by men we have never heard of.bernays represents another connection to germany. 1928 cases of post-vaccination encephalitis force creation of two committees of investigation in brit-ain. 1928 fleming discovers penicillin. 1928 development of the discovery of the eeg machine and brain waves. 1928 american eugenics society sponsors essay contest on causes of decline in nordic fertility. 1928 third international congress of eugenics. at the conference, a dr. robie calls for the sterilizationof 14 million americans with low iq scores. 1928 japan begins experimental production of mustard gas at tandanoumi arsenal. 1928 brown discovers electrogravity. 1928 over $50 billion is invested in tesla's 19th century induction motors and systems of power trans-mission around the wo

MICHAEL WYNN THE SOUL TRAVELERS

in proximity. proposing that, over time, two nearby civilizations will begin to absorb the traditions and gods of the other. this theory does not, however, explain how distant and unacquainted civilizations managed to acquire so many corresponding details in their traditions. easily one of the most common gods who transcend the borders of mythology is venus. venus is the roman goddess of love and fertility. the goddess venus is so closely related to the greek goddess aphrodite that one could hardly pull them apart categorically. aphrodite, from whom came the word aphrodisiac, is also a goddess of love and fertility. aphrodite is also associated with another greek goddess astarte. in mesopotamia, this goddess goes by the names ishtar, ashtoreth, and inanna. ishtar is also a fertility and lo

MORALS AND DOGMA

blem of unity, and thus of good, as the divided or broken line is of duality or evil. near these stars are the hyades _five_ in number, appropriate to the fellow-craft; and close to them the pleiades, of the master's number _seven; and thus these three sacred numbers, consecrated in masonry as they were in the pythagorean philosophy, always appear together in the heavens, when the bull, emblem of fertility and production, glitters among the stars, and aldebaran leads the hosts of heaven(_tsbauth. algenib in perseus and almaach and algol in andromeda form a right-angled triangle, illustrate the 47th problem, and display the grand master's square upon the skies. denebola in leo, arcturus in bo tes, and spica in virgo form an equilateral triangle, universal emblem of perfection, and the deity

nt of the imagination to rouse it into activity, to one monotonous standard of formal propriety? only let the image duly perform its task, and bring the divine idea with vividness and truth before the mental eye; if this be effected, whether by the art of phidias, the poetry of homer, the egyptian hieroglyph, or the persian element, we need not cavil at external differences, or lament the seeming fertility of unfamiliar creeds _so long as the great essential is attained, that men are made to remember, to understand, and to love" certainly, when men regarded light and fire as something spiritual, and above all the corruptions and exempt from all the decay of matter; when they looked upon the sun and stars and planets as composed of this finer element, and as themselves great and mysterious

ents to preserve her virginity and purity inviolable in the general sum of her operations, whose aggregate presents only a majestic calm, rebuking alike man's presumption and his despair. the typical death of the nature-god, osiris, atys, adonis, hiram, was a profound but consolatory mystery: the healing charms of orpheus were connected with his destruction; and his bones, those valued pledges of fertility and victory, were, by a beautiful contrivance, often buried within the sacred precincts of his immortal equivalent. in their doctrines as to the immortality of the soul, the greek philosophers merely stated with more precision ideas long before extant independently among themselves, in the form of symbolical suggestion. egypt and ethiopia in these matters learned from india, where, as ev

y suggested by the arrest of vegetation, when the sun, descending from his altitude, seems deprived of his generating power. osiris is a being analogous to the syrian adoni; and the fable of his history, which we need not here repeat, is a narrative form of the popular religion of egypt, of which the sun is the hero, and the agricultural calendar the moral. the moist valley of the nile, owing its fertility to the annual inundation, appeared, in contrast with the surrounding desert, like life in the midst of death. the inundation was in evident dependence on the sun, and egypt, environed with arid deserts, like a heart within a burning censer, was the female power, dependent on the influences personified in its god. typhon his brother, the type of darkness, drought, and sterility, threw his

old estate; and the poets, in those early days the only historians, commemorated the succession of the ages of gold, silver, brass, and iron. in the lapse of those ages, the sacred tradition followed various courses among each of the most ancient nations; and from its original source, as from a common centre, its various streams flowed downward; some diffusing through favored regions of the world fertility and life; but others soon losing themselves, and being dried up in the sterile sands of human error. after the internal and divine word originally communicated by god to man, had become obscured; after man's connection with his creator had been broken, even outward language necessarily fell into disorder and confusion. the simple and divine truth was overlaid with various and sensual fic

MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS E

ever, to that nomadic life which was now no longer necessary. page 54 page 55 the favour of demeter was believed to bring mankind rich harvests and fruitful crops, whereas her displeasure caused blight, drought, and famine. the island of sicily was supposed to be under her especial protection, and there she was regarded with particular veneration, the sicilians naturally attributing the wonderful fertility of their country to the partiality of the goddess. demeter is usually represented as a woman of noble [52]bearing and majestic appearance, tall, matronly, and dignified, with beautiful golden hair, which falls in rippling curls over her stately shoulders, the yellow locks being emblematical of the ripened ears of corn. sometimes she appears seated in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, at

seus entered upon his expedition to slay the medusa, he repaired to the abode of the graa, in the far [146]west, to inquire the way to the gorgons, and on their refusing to give any information, he deprived them of their one eye, tooth, and wig, and did not restore them until he received the necessary directions. sphinx. the sphinx was an ancient egyptian divinity, who personified wisdom, and the fertility of nature. she is represented as a lion-couchant, with the head and bust of a woman, and wears a peculiar sort of hood, which completely envelops her head, and falls down on either side of the face. transplanted into greece, this sublime and mysterious egyptian deity degenerates into an insignificant, and yet malignant power, page 163 and though she also deals in mysteries, they are, as

was an altar erected at athens in honour of boreas, in commemoration of his having destroyed the persian fleet sent to attack the greeks. on the acropolis at athens there was a celebrated octagonal temple, built by pericles, which was dedicated to the winds, and on its sides were their various representations. the ruins of this temple are still to be seen. pan (faunus. page 199 pan was the god of fertility, and the special patron of shepherds and huntsmen; he presided over all rural occupations, was chief of the satyrs, and head of all rural divinities. according to the common belief, he was the son of hermes and a wood nymph, and came into the world with horns sprouting from his forehead, a goat's beard and a crooked nose, pointed ears, and page 200 the tail and feet of a goat, and presen

NAGEL CARL AMAZING SECRETS OF OCCULT POWER

re is a full moon every month and that summer returns after winter. covens hold great feasts on certain nights each year, february 2 (candlemas, april 30 (walpurgis night, august 1 (lammas, and october 31 (halloween. these four dates are the main witch sabots of the year. special nights on which white witches gather to celebrate their devotion to the moon goddess diana, and the goat-footed god of fertility, pan, indulging in drink, laughter, love, and song. the more interesting covens, on the other hand, indulge in an orgy of< wickedness where all the instincts are given free reign. the dark forces, pleased by the perversions performed for them, then pursue obtaining the tasks asked of them by the participants. welcome to the coven there are various forms of secret initiation ceremonies de

in this book, you ve discovered: the cornerstone of witchcraft is the coven. it is lead by a coven master. the purpose of the coven is to build magic power amongst its members to achieve the coven's common objectives. covens hold great feasts on certain nights each year. special nights on which white witches gather to celebrate their devotion to the moon goddess diana, and the goat-footed god of fertility, pan, indulging in drink, laughter, love, and song. the more interesting covens indulge in an orgy of wickedness where all the instincts are given free reign. there are various forms of secret initiation ceremonies depending on the type of coven one seeks to join. the initiate is led naked to the center of the circle with her hands tied behind her back, and blindfolded. at the center of

PHILIP NEIL MYTHS LEGENDS EXPLAINED

dig for stone! shall i dig under her skin for her bones? then when i die i cannot enter her body to be born again. you ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! but how dare i cut off my mother s hair? an anglo-saxon charm beseeches the favor of erce, erce, erce, mother of earth with similar fervor. yet, despite the obvious connection between agricultural and human fertility, the earth is not always vishnu the preserver vishnu and his wife lakshmi (or shri) are shown riding on their mount, the celestial bird garuda. vishnu, the wide-strider, measured out the cosmos in three strides. he is regarded as the protector of the world, and because of his compassion for humankind, descends to earth in various avatar forms, such as prince rama, to fight evil. whenever

rituals such as mountainway (see pp. 92 93, and its sandpaintings of the holy people, define and express what it means to be navajo. at the end of such a ritual, the world before me is restored in beauty. when jasper blowsnake revealed the sacred winnebago medicine rite to anthropologist paul radin (published under the title neolithic mother goddess the venus of willendorf, a stone figurine of a fertility goddess found at willendorf in austria, dates from the neolithic period. the breasts and belly are deliberately exaggerated in this representation of the great mother goddess. nut, the egyptian all-mother the egyptian sky goddess nut arches over the earth in this ancient tomb painting. she is about to swallow the evening sun, which is shown again on her upper arm as it starts its night j

own holding nut and geb, the sky and the earth, apart. ankh the ankh was the symbol of life and whoever possessed it had the power to give or take life from lesser persons. only gods, kings, and queens had the authority to hold an ankh. god of the western desert ha, the god of the western desert, wears a bull s tail from his waist. this was part of the egyptian royal regalia, signifying power and fertility. symbol of rebirth shu s staff is in the form of a snake. because snakes have the ability to slough off their skins, they became a symbol of rebirth with lifegiving powers. geb s goose geb is sometimes represented as a goose, and one of his names is the great cackler a reference to the cackle he gave when he produced the great egg from which the benu bird emerged at the dawn of time (see

ccount of the creation as nebertcher, lord to the uttermost limit. re, the sun god, represents the creative consciousness of this all-powerful god, and the rest of the gods, brought into being by re, represent other aspects. egyptian gods were also interrelated or merged: amun, the hidden, the chief god worshipped at karnak, was a god of the air, but as amun-re he was a sun god and as amun-min, a fertility god. known by various names, most of the gods could also be depicted in animal as well as human form. mother of the stars nut s union with her brother geb and the birth of her children, the stars (often shown as decoration on her clothing, infuriated her father shu, who cursed her so that she would never again give birth in any month of the year. but nut gambled with thoth, the moon god

reheads; it is often depicted attached to the sun disc. according to one myth, the world was created by the archer goddess neith from the primeval waters of nun. she created the gods by saying their names, and then (in cow form) gave birth to the all-powerful re. re was born in an egg, and when he emerged from the egg he was dazzled by the light, and cried: mankind was formed from his tears. nun, fertility of the nile the god nun, who represents the primeval waters or flood, holds up the barque of the sun. to some extent the mythology of ancient egypt simply reflects the land of egypt itself. egypt was described by the greek historian herodotus as the gift of the nile, and without the annual flooding of the nile, which made a strip either side of the river fertile, egypt could not have sur

, sia (perception, hu (utterance, and hike (magic) as well as such important gods as shu, geb, osiris, horus, and thoth. sometimes there are also goddesses in the barque, especially hathor. barque of the sun re is shown in his solar barque, in which he travels through the sky. horus bastet w hen human beings began to plot against the ageing re, he transformed the goddess hathor (the sacred cow of fertility) into a raging lioness, sekhmet. her bloodlust brought plague and death into existence. this goddess, who could only be appeased by being made drunk, gradually became revered under a more gentle guise as the cat goddess bastet. the domestic cat was regarded as sacred to her, and many cats were mummified in religious rituals. young girls were often nicknamed kitten. but cats were also tra

drew his fiery chariot towards the chasm of the underworld. they were among his most prized possessions, along with his helmet of invisibility, which he once lent to perseus (see pp. 46 47. demeter is shown on this greek blackfigure amphora, together with her daughter persephone and the god apollo in his chariot. snake snakes have many meanings in greek myth depending on the context. a symbol of fertility in earlier religions, the snake had similar connotations as an attribute of persephone s mother, demeter, the earth/grain goddess. the artist may also be referring here to the story of zeus taking the form of a snake and enveloping persephone in his coils. the rape of pers eph one by christoph schwartz (or shwarz (1545 92) the painting shows the early part of the story of persephone, whe

r s edge gazing at his own reflection until he died, and the gods turned him into the narcissus flower. tammuz, the eastern adonis adonis is the phoenician word for lord and the story of adonis death and resurrection reflects aspects of the near-eastern god tammuz (see p. 19. tammuz was the spouse of the goddess ishtar, who descended to the underworld to rescue him from death. he is essentially a fertility god, associated with the miracle of the harvest. his death and rebirth were celebrated each spring and autumn and the spectacle of women weeping for tammuz is mentioned in the bible (ezekiel 8:14. like adonis, he was killed by a boar and while he is in the underworld all vegetation withers. the sumerian innanna s journey to hell is an early version of ishtar and tammuz, under the names i

fter penelope slept with all her suitors while her husband was away (see p. 65. pan was also able to inspire the sudden, groundless fear known as panic. for example, in 490 bce, he is said to have caused the persians to flee in terror from the athenians, in return for the athenians worshiping him and performing ceremonial rites. these later became the roman lupercalia, a festival dedicated to the fertility god faunus. half-goat pan s goat-form inspired the conventional depiction of the christian devil; some writers see the devil-worship of the european witchcult as a continuation of the rites of pan. pan and syrinx by fran ois boucher (1703 70) this painting shows pan, who has fallen in love with the beautiful nymph syrinx, pursuing her to the banks of the river ladon. as he reaches to emb

zeus to woo the princess io by lulling the 100- eyed guard dog argus to sleep with the story of pan s pursuit of syrinx. the messenger of the gods, flying with the aid of his winged sandals, hermes also acted as a guide of souls to the underworld, and invented the lyre, which he gave to his brother apollo in recompense for stealing his cattle (see p. 40. hermes was also the god of travelers and a fertility god, represented by stone statues with erect phalluses called herms. herms were placed on roadsides, in public places, and in the home. one fateful night in athens in 415 bce hundreds of phalluses were broken off; modern scholars suggest this was a women s protest against athenian militarism. although pan boasted that he had seduced all of dionysus maenads, as well as the moon goddess se

s the cherubs here may represent dionysus and ariadne s future sons: oenopion, thoas, staphylus, latromis, euanthes, and tauropolus. pan pipes dionysus and ariadne 59 crown of ivy and vine dionysus was the first to wear a crown, and is rarely seen without his crown of ivy and vine. he usually holds a thyrsus, a rod which is also twined round with vines and ivy, topped with a pine cone (an ancient fertility symbol. sacred grapes vines and grapes were sacred to dionysus, who as god of viticulture was credited with introducing the vine. his original role, however, was god of honey and the mead that was brewed from it. under one of his greek names, bacchus, he became the roman god of wine and shed most of his other roles. worshiping maidens maidens carrying golden baskets filled with fruits ma

nd feelings, and ve gave them hearing and sight. they were given the realm of midgard middle earth to live in (see pp. 70 71. the gods lived in the realm of asgard. there were two races of gods, the aesir and the vanir, who waged war against each other until they agreed to a truce. of the three gods depicted in this tapestry, the battle god odin and his warlike son thor were aesir, and freyr, the fertility god, was one of the vanir. freyr went to live with the aesir to seal the truce. the ride of the valkyries by arthur rackham an 11th-century account of the heathen temple at uppsala tells us that odin, thor, and freyr were the three most important gods, and describes how they were worshiped in the form of statues, and how sacrifices of dogs, horses, and men were made to them. much less is

REGARDIE ISRAEL THE COMPLETE GOLDEN DAWN

eneath the base is one of the duplicated letters of the hebrew alphabet which refer to the seven planets. the seven double letters of the hebrew alphabet have each two sounds associated with them, one hard, and one soft. they are called "double, because each letter represents a contrary or permutation, thus: life and death; peace and war; wisdom and folly; riches and poverty; grade and indignity; fertility and solitude; power and servitude <63> these seven letters point out 7 localities; zenith, nadir, east, west, north, south, and the place of holiness in the midst sustaining all things. the archetypal creator designed, produced, combined and zelator ritual 151 formed with them the planets of the universe, the days of the week, and in man, the gate of the soul. he has loved and blessed th

, represents the divine strength of the eternal gods, the ape represents the elemental strength which is far inferior and blended with cunning. ahephi, however, has other symbology and other attributes. for by reason of the fertilising qualities of the nile and of the fad that what is brought down by the nile as refuse from the land of the sacred lakes is, to egypt, its life and the source of its fertility, so there arises a correspondence between the nile and the lower intestines, and both are under the care of ahephi (hapi) who thus was worshipped as nilus, and in this connection he has for his symbol, a head-dress of lotus flowers. now, further, the alimentary system is under the special guardianship of isis and nephthys. isis who conquers by the power of wisdom and the forces of nature

nd issuing from clouds and supporting on the palm thereof a cup, resembling that of the stolistes. from it rises a fountain of clear and glistening water; and spray falling on all sides into clear calm water below, in which grow lotus and water lilies. the reat letter heh of the productiveness, beauty, pleasure, happiness, etc. supernal mother is traced in the spray of the fountain. ft symbolises fertility, 111. the root of the powers of air. ace of swords a white radiatini ?a ngelic hand, issuing from clouds, and graspinb t he hilt of a sword, whic supports a white radiant celestial crown from w ich depend, on the right, the olive branch of peace, and on the left, the palm branch of suffering. six vaus fall from its point. it symbolises invoked as contrasted with natural force; for it is

REGARDIE TALISMANS

ibutions to these five elements a broad base of meaning into which most projects may be classified. their divinatory meanings as given in the section on tarot provide us with the major materials we need. for example, the following may be used as our foundation: earth: business, money, employment, practical affairs, etc. air: health, sickness, disputations, trouble, etc. water: pleasure, marriage, fertility, happiness, parties, etc. fire: power, dominion, authority, prestige, etc. ether: all matters spiritual, howsoever they are interpreted. the symbols for these five elements may be of several kinds, though for the purpose of this interpretation, i have conveniently selected the tattvic system of the east, as follows- earth: prithivi, a yellow square. heh (final) of tetragrammaton. air: va

ound on the card. it also sets the tone for the entire project, its formal meaning and description being given in the golden dawn documents as a radiant white angelic hand issuing from clouds and supporting a cup. from it rises a fountain of clear calm water below, in which grow lotus and water lilies. the great letter heh of the supernal mother is traced in the spray of the fountain, symbolizing fertility, productiveness, beauty, pleasure, happiness, etc. the next step is to assemble the divine names pertaining to this element, and a sentence or so which will express and formalize my basic intention. instead of selecting a verse from the bible as previously might have been the case, i am reminded of two separate verses which would be considered appropriate. the first one is adapted from o

ROBERT KIRK WALKER BETWEEN WORLDS

flesh and put in a heart of stone' young tam lin: commentary this ballad, found only in scottish tradition is of major importance to a full realization of the underworld tradition. the following elements are particularly significant. 1. maidens with gold in their hair the heroine is a virgin within a collection of virgins. 2. green mantle wearing of green is associated with magic, witchcraft and fertility 'a green gown' is the traditional term for rustic defloration, and overall the wearing of green is associated http//www.dreampower.com/kirk_wbw/pg_126.htm (4 of 13 [10/9/2001 12:36:58 am] robert kirk- walker between worlds with earth-magic thomas the rhymer is given clothing of green by the queen of elfland. the significance within the tradition is that the wearing of green signifies uni

pendix 3: the ballad of tam lin 131 plants and trees are the routes whereby spirits are enabled to return to the womb for rebirth, in primal tradition. 6. janet becomes pregnant despite tam lin's seeming insubstantiality, janet 'goes with child, and will not acknowledge any mortal origin for her condition. this pregnancy is significant in several ways, over and above the obvious allusion to pagan fertility magic. there is a strong parallel between janet's pregnancy 'in a mist' and the actual translation of tam lin from fairyland. the ballads imply that the two processes are possibly united or analogous. folk tradition does not necessarily discriminate between magical location of beings, the spirits of the dead, and the birth of children. from an esoteric viewpoint, within the more subtle t

membered, was no mere diversion, but a magical or cosmological game in celtic culture. the regular appearance of chess-playing maidens in ancient lore, both folk and literary, may suggest that they are oefates' or operative powers of creation and destruction. 8. janet seeks for tam lin in the variant given above, janet seeks to abort her child by pulling a specific herb. the presence of plants of fertility and of abortive power is common in traditional material, for all the obvious reasons; but there is a magical element or correspondence at work in this juxtaposition of herbs which should not be ignored. what is particularly significant in this context is janet s motivation for her actions. she has refused to acknowledge any mortal knight as father of her child, even hinting at a supernat

lin appears to stop her aborting the child. she asks him his identity, his true origin. janet's question is the key to the whole magical process. prior to the question, tam lin is a guardian of the sacred hill, well or roses. he will impregnate maidens, after the http//www.dreampower.com/kirk_wbw/pg_126.htm (7 of 13 [10/9/2001 12:36:58 am] robert kirk- walker between worlds manner of the ancient 'fertility mysteries, and then disappear. note that the result of pulling forbidden roses is pregnancy; but this is not a moralistic or christian warning by any means. pregnancy results from pulling roses without permission from the guardian- in other words, perpetuating the blind powers of procreation without understanding. to gain permission from the guardian, one has to know his name, which in m

ficially christian interpretation of the sequence. it has been customary to rationalize the ballad by suggesting that the fairy folk stole tam lin to keep him as a sacrifice to the devil in order that their paradisical state could be perpetuated. tam lin is actually seeking a way free from the wheel on an inner or magical level he acts as guardian of a power or sacred site (in this case linked to fertility, and despite the timeless and dreamlike quality of the state in which he finds himself it is only a more subtle variant of the outer world. at the end of a given period, he is offered up to the powers of destruction. appendix 3: the ballad of tam lin 134 this is only normal. every entity experiences this power of dissolution upon physical death. in tam lin's case, he is singled out in a

. appendix 3: the ballad of tam lin 134 this is only normal. every entity experiences this power of dissolution upon physical death. in tam lin's case, he is singled out in a magical or intermediate role, so his cycle is not that of regular birth- life- death- rebirth. his entity, his self-awareness, is active in the otherworld, through magical attunement to a function connected with the land and fertility. he is honored in this role by the beings that occupy the otherworld, wherein his dual nature is given special consideration. http//www.dreampower.com/kirk_wbw/pg_126.htm (9 of 13 [10/9/2001 12:36:58 am] robert kirk- walker between worlds 'i tam-a-line, on milk white steed, a gold star in my crown, because i was an earthly knight they gave me this renown' as has been mentioned above, tam

RUBY TABLET OF SET

c medicine. buddhism. hinduism. mormonism. islam. orthodox church. roman catholicism at law enforcement training conferences, it is witchcraft, santeria, paganism, and the occult that are most often referred to as forms of satanism. it may be a matter of definition, but these things are not necessarily the same as traditional satanism. the worship of lunar goddesses and nature and the practice of fertility rituals are not satanism. santeria is a combination of 17th century roman catholicism and african paganism. occult means simply "hidden" all unreported or unsolved crimes might be regarded as occult, but in this context the term refers to the action or influence of supernatural powers, some secret knowledge of them, or an interest in paranormal phenomena, and does not imply satanism, evi

i date: february, xxvi publication: the jormungand oracle html revision: dec 10, 1997 ce subject: aeonic progression reading list: 24j the earliest aeon, that of isis, is most simply understood as represented by those various traditions of nature-worship that manifested themselves before, during, and also since foundation of ancient khem. this would include all of the various goddess-oriented and fertility cults, both known and unknown, that have existed since the dawn of humanity. the namesake of this aeon, the egyptian goddess isis, can be seen in the most simple terms as the personification of nature itself (or herself. as nature provides the essentials needed for the physical existence of humanity, nature is perceived as a conscious organism that is to be worshipped and served, with th

passed the mindless existence of mankind and attained the gate to setamorphosis. amon classification: v2- b50- 1 author: lilith aquino iv date: unknown html revision: dec 14, 1997 ce subject: setianism reading list "ah is an outflow of breath "a creative gesture of sound of speech"1 the breath of life amon (amn) is hidden. secret. not known. a guardian of the order amon is generative and exhibits fertility and fecundity. he is bisexual and is strongly prone to related activities. the ram is protective of family (order) and environment (temple, as the ram/goat regards the order as sacred. yet, amon introduces unpopular theories and judgments, as he is the examiner. foresight and perception are the catalysts for the breathing out of amonian verbiage. beautiful, circular-horned ram. emblemati

mighty mother of the fittest. goddess of savagery, mistress of the wolf brood, i call you forth! savage beauty of the long nights filled with hunger, come, let thy nature and power be revealed. ah, the feral snarl, the burning wolf eyes staring, it is thy strength that i recognize as my own. protection at any cost for the pack- with the female wolf lies the fate of your pack. they depend on your fertility, your cunning, your ability to endure. bold sweeps into human camps to feed. a chilled and bitter night, communing with the moon and all that pulses alive. i am one like thee. we shall run, sister, along the steppes of night. rip apart the invader, the weak not of us. the grace of our limbs, the length of our stride, is no myth. others can only fear what they do not understand: us, the s

three received emphatic impressions of "three" in many triadic forms. the most obvious triad was that of amen (father, abstract thought, the invisible air- bushey, mwt (mother, concrete idea, carrier/ nurturer of the cosmic egg- sarris, and xonsu (child, expression of the two ideas joined, the cosmic egg "hatched- reynolds. indeed, in post-ritual discussion, it became clear that the triangle and fertility had some strong connection with visions and impressions we received: mwt, the eye in the triangle; amen, the great white ovoid/ cosmic egg; xonsu, crystal surrounding the "nameless card/ the "nameless function" first uncovered, then returned beneath stones, shattering when touched by "disruption, then reforming anew. we finally perceived that the crystal was ma'at. in the post-ritual dis

mers, and then the centre post of the cross roads. there the baron pours water, which runs from the central post to represent three rivers, birth, life and death. then he consecrates the bread and rum; all partake of the sacrament. the cross roads: there are four cross quarters, and each altar is dedicated to a different loa: erzulie, goddess of love; baron samedi, loa of death; damballah, loa of fertility; and erzulie ge rouge, loa of rage. the people have their own desire for being there, and are drawn to whatever quarter most serves their need (the invoked loa in this sense represents the spirit of their desire. the loa invoked, the rituals begin. ge rouge rite (this is an example of the ritual side of voudoun) erzulie was invoked on saturns eve. i conjured the power to transcend. to ac

SALMANRUSHDIE THESATANICVERSES

hing their beloved sons into the parade _go, be a martyr, do the needful, die "you see how they love me" says the disembodied voice "no tyranny on earth can withstand the power of this slow, walking love "this isn't love" gibreel, weeping, replies "it's hate. she has driven them into your arms" the explanation sounds thin, superficial "they love me" the imam's voice says "because i am water. i am fertility and she is decay. they love me for my habit of smashing clocks. human beings who turn away from god lose love, and certainty, and also the sense of his boundless time, that encompasses past, present and future; the timeless time, that has no need to move. we long for the eternal, and i am eternity. she is nothing: a tick, or tock. she looks in her mirror every day and is terrorized by th

SATANIC BIBLE

s not until the fourteenth century that he began to be depicted as an evil deity who was part man and part animal, with goat-like horns and hooves. before christianity gave him the names of satan, lucifer, etc, the carnal side of man's nature was governed by the god which was then called dionysus, or pan, depicted as a satyr or faun, by the greeks. pan was originally the "good guy, and symbolized fertility and fecundity. whenever a nation comes under a new form of government, the heroes of the past become villains of the present. so it is with religion. the earliest christians believed that the pagan deities were devils, and to employ them was to use "black magic. miraculous heavenly events they termed "white magic; this was the sole distinction between the two. the old gods did not die, t

of the devil, it is said should not be known to mortals diabolus (greek "flowing downwards" dracula- romanian name for devil emma-o- japanese ruler of hell euronymous- greek prince of death fenriz- son of loki, depicted as a wolf gorgo- dim. of demogorgon, greek name of the devil haborym- hebrew synonym for satan hecate- greek goddess of the underworld and witchcraft ishtar- babylonian goddess of fertility kali (hindu) daughter of shiva, high priestess of the thuggees lilith- hebrew female devil, adam's first wife who taught him the ropes loki- teutonic devil mammon- aramaic god of wealth and profit mania- etruscan goddess of hell mantus- etruscan god of hell marduk- god of the city of babylon mastema- hebrew synonym for satan melek taus- yezidi devil mephistopheles (greek) he who shuns th

f the priest. symbol of baphomet the symbol of baphomet was used by the knights templar to represent satan. through the ages this symbol has been called by many different names. among these are: the goat of mendes, the goat of a thousand young, the black goat, the judas goat, and perhaps the most appropriately, the scapegoat. baphomet represents the powers of darkness combined with the generative fertility of the goat. in its "pure" form the pentagram is shown encompassing the figure of a man in the five points of the star- three points up, two pointing down- symbolizing man's spiritual nature. in satanism the pentagram is also used, but since satanism represents the carnal instincts of man, or the opposite of spiritual nature, the pentagram is inverted to perfectly accomodate the head of

after it has been read aloud; it is then used to hold the parchment while introduced into the candle flame. while hearing the requests of other participants, and while repeating same, the priest places the sword atop their heads (in traditional "knighting" fashion. for private rituals, if a sword cannot be obtained, a long knife, cane, or similar staff may be used. phallus the phallus is a pagan fertility symbol which represents generation, virility, and aggresion. this is yet another device which has been blasphemously converted to fit the guild-ridden ceremonies of christianity. the phallus is a non-hypocritical version of the aspergillim, or "holy water sprinkler" used in catholicism- quite a metamorphosis of the common penis! the phallus is held in both hands of one of the priest's as

SATANIC RITUALS

will be recognized as an illogical sham. it is altogether too easy to dismiss satanism as a total invention of the christian church. it is said that the principles of satanism did not exist before sectarian propaganda invented satan. historically, the word satan did not have a villainous meaning before christianity. the "safe" schools of witchcraft, with their strict adherence to their horned-god-fertility-symbol syndrome, consider the words devil and satan anathema. they disclaim any association. they wish no comparisons to be drawn linking their murrayite- gardnerian-"neo-pagan-"traditional" beliefs with diabolism. they have expunged devil arid satan from their vocabulary, and have waged a tireless campaign to give dignity to the word witch, though that has always been synonymous with ne

SCHLAGER NEIL WORLD RELIGIONS REFERENCE LIBRARY

ontrol the environment by appealing to a higher power, gods and goddesses. the sorcerer, for instance, may represent a god who ruled the hunt, because he is shown with deer and bison. special deities began to develop in three particular classes: from nature, from ancestors, and as guards or protectors. the most common deities represented natural forces, such as the sun, moon, seasons, rivers, and fertility. any force that could either benefit or harm humans was given spirit form so that humankind could pray to it and ask for special favors. the second form of deity to develop distinguishing time the abbreviations bc and ad are christian in origin and refer to a calendar based on the life of jesus christ. when a date is given as bc, it means the year occurred before christ. when the date is

iraq (c. 2,000 bce, many people show respect, or veneration, to their relatives through ancestor shrines and other measures. praying to ancestor spirits for help or protection reassures many that there is something more beyond the physical life. chris lisle/corbis. 6 world religions: almanac what is religion? and knossos in ancient crete (c. 1500 bce. one early example that may indicate an early fertility goddess is the 25,000-year-old venus of willendorf, a small limestone statue discovered in austria in 1908. in these cultures it is believed that the mother goddess was worshipped for her role in promoting the fertility of both the land and the people. over time, the mother goddess was largely displaced by patriarchal, or male-dominated, pantheons, perhaps as a result of a better underst

e ancient minoan civilization has left a graphic and very beautiful record of its female goddess in wall paintings in archaeological ruins found on the island of crete. the mother goddess was not only important in prehistoric europe, but has been found in the traditions of ancient canaan, sumeria, egypt and other african countries, india, native north america, western europe, and australia. these fertility-worshipping religions slowly gave way to more male-oriented belief systems. in europe, invasions from the east in the fourth and third millennia bce by warrior tribes from central asia introduced religions based on patriarchal beliefs. with the development and spread of judaism, christianity, and islam, the earlier pagan religions and their goddess worship were replaced with religions do

ions of christianity, judaism, islam, buddhism, and hinduism, as well as smaller but well-established organized religions such as baha, confucianism, daoism, jainism, shinto, sikhism, and zoroastrianism. sometimes the indigenous (native) religions of the the venus of willendorf statue was discovered in 1908, but was created between c. 28,000 25,000 bce, most likely as a representation of an early fertility goddess. archivo iconografico, s.a./corbis. 8 world religions: almanac what is religion? americas, africa, and oceania are added to these, as well as more recent forms, such as neo-paganism, which worships ancient norse, celtic, egyptian, and other pagan (pre-christian) gods. god has many names as different religions developed over time and geographic regions, they all established one or

oth traditions. many gods and goddesses personified elements of nature. in the mesopotamian pantheon, or collection of gods, the most important were the trio of the sky god, an (or anu; the god of storm and the earth, enlil; and the water god, ea (or enki. these were followed in importance by a second triad comprised of the moon god, nanna (or sin; the sun god, utu (or shamash; and the goddess of fertility and war, inanna 37 (also called ishtar. in the later stages of mesopotamian civilization the local god marduk became head of the pantheon. in egyptian religion the primary god was amen (amon or amun, king of the gods. next in importance was ra (or re, the sun god. these two were eventually joined in the cult of amen-ra. a cult is a religion considered to be outside the mainstream. then c

was divine law. during the middle kingdom (c. 2181 1786 bce, however, the power of the pharaoh weakened and nobles (lesser royalty) began to take on more individual power. the priestly class also grew much larger. though the sun god ra was the official national god and was worshipped at heliopolis, the cult of osiris became stronger as the central government went into decline. osiris was an early fertility god who, when killed by his brother set and cut into pieces, was put back together again by his wife sister isis. he then became god of the underworld. osiris became identified with the dead pharaoh. his son, horus, became associated with the living pharaoh. osiris eventually became a symbol of immortality and resurrection, or returning to life after death, and, as such, symbolized the a

, when killed by his brother set and cut into pieces, was put back together again by his wife sister isis. he then became god of the underworld. osiris became identified with the dead pharaoh. his son, horus, became associated with the living pharaoh. osiris eventually became a symbol of immortality and resurrection, or returning to life after death, and, as such, symbolized the annual renewal of fertility to the soil by the flooding of the nile. a lengthy annual festival was held for him to celebrate this rebirth. the middle kingdom came to an end with the hyksos invasion of lower egypt, with the new invaders adapting egyptian habits and gods. the new kingdom (c. 1570 1085 bce) began when egyptian nobles drove the hyksos out. during this period the god amen came to prominence and was wors

rms, and enki, god of wisdom and the abzu. other important deities included the mother goddess, ninhursag; nanna, god of the moon who helped travelers find their way; utu, sun god and the watchful eye of justice; and inanna, the goddess of love and war and the one who guaranteed the kingship. inanna in particular had a strong and lasting influence on mesopotamian culture. she was featured in many fertility rites, but was also called upon in time of war. over the course of time, with movements of new people into the area, the names of the gods changed. for instance, the sumerian goddess innana received the akkadian name of ishtar, just as nanna later became sin and enki became ea. beliefs in ancient egypt egyptians believed that the world was brought into being by atum or ra, whose descenda

dead, consumed the deceased, destroying the soul forever. if the deceased passed the judgment he or she was led off by horus to meet with osiris and enter the underworld. sacred writings the primary sacred text for the mesopotamian religion was the long epic poem dealing with creation, the enuma elish. the most complete copy that has survived dates from the end of the second millennium bce and is fertility myths throughout the ancient near east there were common myths of fertility, or tales of death and rebirth that can be read as a metaphor (or symbol) of the death and rebirth of vegetation during the seasons of the year. in mesopotamian religion there is the story of ishtar s hunt for her husband, tammuz, the god of the seasons and fertility. she descends to the underworld in search of h

ude the epic of gilgamesh. this text tells of the mythical exploits of gilgamesh, a king of uruk, from about 2700 bce and deals with the behavior of the gods towards him. also important are myths such as the one told in the story descent of ishtar to the underworld. in it, ishtar, the goddess of war, travels down through the seven gates of the underworld to find tammuz, the god of the seasons and fertility. ancient egypt s main religious text seems to have been the book of the dead. the book of the dead is often referred to as the papyrus of ani, after the collection of documents in which it was found. papyrus is an early form of paper made from reeds. the book is a collection of two hundred prayers, spells, and illustrations that provided a guide to the afterlife. the earliest book of the

surplus harvest. in effect, they were banks of deposit for community wealth. daily offerings to the deities were made in the temples, and cleaning and purification rituals took place. offerings were made by royal and commoner alike, and these were taken by the temple personnel. each cult or worship of a deity had special festivals. for example, inanna or ishtar was, among other things, goddess of fertility and protector of the storehouses. each year a ritual marriage took place between the goddess and the ruler at the time of harvest. marduk was the deity at the center for the annual new year s festival, held at the spring equinox. at these times, statues of the gods and goddesses were paraded through the streets for all to see. normally, however, the sacred statues were kept in the temple

h the streets of the city with the king holding the hand of the statue of marduk. some historians suggest that the new year s celebration and the sacred marriage were combined. the sacred marriage brought together the king and the goddess innana, likely represented by a priestess. the ritual recognized the divine authority of the king to rule by marrying him to innana. it also promoted the king s fertility through the symbolic consummation of marriage with the goddess. pilgrimage sites for mesopotamians are not recorded. historians suspect that the nanna ziggurat, a great temple complex at ur to the moon god, was a major center for travelers who devoted that god. similarly, the inanna or ishtar ziggurat at uruk made have been a pilgrimage site for that important goddess. egypt one of the m

SEPHER YETZIRAH WESTCOTT

th mem, shin, aleph. he caused shin to reign in fire, and crowned it, and combining it with the others sealed with it the heavens in the universe, heat in the year and the head in man, male and female (38) chapter iv section 1. the seven double letters, beth, gimel, daleth, kaph, peh, resh, and tau have each two sounds associated with them. they are referred to life, peace, wisdom, riches, grace, fertility and power. the two sounds of each letter are the hard and the soft--the aspirated and the softened. they are called double, because each letter presents a contrast or permutation; thus life and death; peace and war; wisdom and folly; riches and poverty; grace and indignation; fertility and solitude; power and servitude. 2. these seven double letters point out seven localities; above, bel

ies of the "sepher yetzirah" he produced beth, and referred it to wisdom; he crowned it, combined and formed with it the moon in the universe, the first day of the week, and the right eye of man. he produced gimel, and referred it to health; he crowned it, combined and joined with it mars in the universe, the second day of the week, and the right ear of man. he produced daleth, and referred it to fertility; he crowned it, combined and formed with it the sun in the universe, the third day of the week, and the right nostril of man. he produced kaph, and referred it to life; he crowned it, combined and formed with it venus in the universe, the fourth day of the week, and the left eye of man. he produced peh, and referred it to power; he crowned it, combined and formed with it mercury in the u

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON ZANONI A ROSICRUCIAN TALE

ured its restless waves, to become mute and deep and still, the everlasting mirror of the heavens. and is it not through this poetry which lies within her that she may be led into the large poetry of the universe! often i listen to her careless talk, and find oracles in its unconscious beauty, as we find strange virtues in some lonely flower. i see her mind ripening under my eyes; and in its fair fertility what ever-teeming novelties of thought! o mejnour! how many of our tribe have unravelled the laws of the universe, have solved the riddles of the exterior nature, and deduced the light from darkness! and is not the poet, who studies nothing but the human heart, a greater philosopher than all? knowledge and atheism are incompatible. to know nature is to know that there must be a god. but

TEXE MARRS CODEX MAGICA SECRET SIGNS MYSTERIOUS SYMBOLS AND HIDDEN CODES OF THE ILLUMINATI

erfection. it is associated with the female genitalia thumb and forefinger pressed together at the tips with the other three fingers extended. in the practice of tantric yoga (sex rituals, the ok sign is a token of ecstasy, spiritual and physical. in ancient sumeria and persia, charms and amulets have been discovered of fingers and hands in the modern ok position, joined along with horns implying fertility. the three fingers extended outward are symbolic of ecstatic union with the goddess, the third member of the pagan trinity. in satanism, when making this sign the three fingers not used to make the circle are considered symbolic of the unholy trinity horned god, goddess, and offspring (antichrist. some go so far as to adopt the view that the bent three fingers are shaped as three number

THE CANOPIC GODS SYMBOLISM

represents the divine strength of the eternal gods, the ape represents the elemental strength which is far inferior and blended with cunning. ahephi, however, has other symbolism and other attributes. for by reason of the fertilizing qualities of the nile and of the fact that what is brought down by the nile as refuse from the land of the sacred lakes is, to egypt, its life and the source of its fertility, so there arises a correspondence between the nile and the lower intestines, and both are under the care of ahephi (hapi) who thus was worshipped as nilus, and in this connection he has for his symbol, a headdress of lotus flowers. now further, the alimentary system is under the special guardianship of isis and nephthys. isis who conquers by the power of wisdom and the forces of nature

THE CRAFT GRIMOIRE OF ECLECTIC VERSION 2

ing of the yule log is symbolic of welcoming the sun. imbolg, also called lady s day, is a time of renewal. in days past a common fire was lit, and all members of a community would take a brand from the fire home, to rekindle their own hearth fires. today we call it groundhog day. ostara, the spring equinox, a time when daylight and night are in balance. a time of blessing the seed, planting, and fertility. beltain, a hinge day when winter gives way to summer. again the veil is thin between the worlds. dance around a may pole, celebrate the joy and ecstacy of life. litha, the summer solstice, the shortest night of the year. time to rejoice in the warmth of the sun, while the world is full of growing life. lughnassadh, the first of the harvest festivals. in celtic tradition it is the day th

you find in chemistry class, or your back yard, although they are symbolic of each other. it is this symbolic relationship that we employ in the art of magick. the qualities of the physical reflect the power of the occult. as above, so below! earth is the foundation element. it is solid, dependable and stable. in magick its color is green or black, and it is used in spells for employment, money, fertility, and prosperity of any kind. the celtic goddess, dana is associated with earth. in the tarot it is the suit of pantacles, or coins. it is also know as assiah, the material world. page 8 elements and watch towers continued( grimoire of eclectic magick air is the intellectual element. it is clear and uncluttered. in magick its color is bright pale yellow, and it is employed in spells for v

le yellow, and it is employed in spells for visualization, inspiration, learning, and freedom. the celtic god, dagha is associated with air. in the tarot it is the suit of swords (sometimes wands. it is also know as yetzirah, the formative world. water is the creative element. it is emotional, fluid, and forever changing. in magick, its color is deep blue, and it is used in spells for friendship, fertility, creation, and emotional healing or purification. the celtic goddess, cerridwen is associated with water. in the tarot it is the suit of cups or chalices. it is also known as briah, the creative world. fire is the element of change and passion. it is full of energy and is the essence of magick and life. its color in magick, is red, and it is employed in spells of passion, energy, purific

agick the art of magick practice continued page 15 grimoire of eclectic magick the art of magick spells( the colors of magick white purification, truth, monday violet channeling, unity purple ambition, power, wednesday indigo psychic abilities, divination blue, dark impulsiveness, changeability, thursday blue, light tranquility, understanding, patience pink love, friendship, health green finance, fertility, growth, friday green-yellow anger, jealousy, discord yellow intellect, confidence, sunday orange encouragement, energy, attraction brown hearth, home blessing, grounding red strength, vigor, sexual passion, tuesday gold wealth, abundance, prosperity silver discretion, intuition gray neutrality, tranquility black banishing, absorption, protection, saturday you know how to use candles? ya

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i n e d mystery religions and cults 257 egyptian gods and goddesses amen: a creation-deity anubis: god of the dead bast: cat goddess bes: god to guard against evil spirits and misfortune chons: god of the moon dua: protector of the stomach of the dead geb: god of the earth hathor: cow goddess isis: mother goddess ka: god for the vital force of life maat: goddess of truth and justice min: egyptian fertility god mut: wife of amen, mother of khons nephthys: goddess of the dead nut: goddess of the sky and of the heavens osiris: god of the underworld and of vegetation qetesh: goddess of love and beauty ra: god of the sun selket: goddess of childbirth set: god of chaos shu: god of the air sobek: crocodile god taweret: hippopotamus goddess and protective deity of childbirth wepwawet: god of war a

early church fathers because of the fear that their t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d mystery religions and cults 269 practitioners were consciously or unconsciously continuing the old pagan ways. as it was, nearly all of the christian holy days coincided with pagan holidays, from christmas and the roman feast of saturnalia to easter and the fertility rites of the goddess eastre. the church patriarchs were not at all willing to encourage any additional blendings of christianity with the old religions. christianity was a young religion when compared to the worship of the greek, roman, egyptian, and other middle eastern and eastern deities. the mystery schools kept alive the practice of magic and the belief that secret rituals and sacre

ages had become a time of intolerable sexual frustration and sexual obsession. in its attempt to eradicate sin by means of enforced sexual repression, the church inadvertently created fertile ground for the rebirth of the dormant old religion. with the sanctioned state of holy matrimony open to only a few, the stories of the old ways, the old customs, and the old mysteries with their emphasis on fertility and communal sex rites became appealing to the common folk. in the early days of christianity, the church fathers permitted women to preach, cure, exorcise, and baptize. by the middle ages, women had lost all vestiges of any legal rights whatsoever, and the church regarded them as responsible for all sexual guilt. it was woman who had precipitated the fall by tempting man, who would othe

ddle ages, women had lost all vestiges of any legal rights whatsoever, and the church regarded them as responsible for all sexual guilt. it was woman who had precipitated the fall by tempting man, who would otherwise have surely remained pure. women were considered a necessary evil. in the old religion, she would once again be elevated to the status of priestess, healer, and a respected symbol of fertility. the loss of civil rights, the tyranny of the feudal lords, and the imposition of sexual repression by the church provided the fresh fuel for the smoldering sparks of the old religion among the common people. but the church and the feudal establishment would soon move to combat the evil influence of the resurrected pan, god of fertility, nature, and freedom. church scholars would soon co

e x p l a i n e d 292 mystery religions and cults forthe common folk of europe, the middle ages were a time of fear, oppression, and despair. into witches. the traditional gatherings, the druid s festival on the eve of may day, the bacchanals, the diana feasts, became the witches sabbath the broom, symbol of the sacred hearth became an evil tool. the sexual rites of old, destined to stimulate the fertility of nature, were now the manifestations of a forbidden carnal lust. mating at random, a survival of communal customs now [were] an infringement of the most sacred laws. to the church, the devils solidified into one satan, enemy of christ s work here on earth. to the people, who could not really care about the philosophical dualism of an evil adversary for the christ of the feudal lords an

vil in red tights. the idol s torso was human, but its bottom half was that of a goat. its head, too, was more often goat-like than that of a clearly discernible human physiognomy. the entire image was stained black, and in some locales, bore a small torch between its horns. the central feature of all such idols was said to be a prominent penis of exaggerated proportions, emphasizing the rites of fertility in which the ancient rituals originated. the tortures of the inquisition brought forth all manner of obscene versions of the black sabbat, and perhaps the great majority of such testimony is suspect. it must be pointed out that descriptions of the black mass were derived from confessions achieved by torture, as well as from accounts of medieval christians who observed pagan celebrations

horns of four beasts turning a mill or a wheel. perhaps the climax of the traditional witches round came with the priestess becoming the living altar and lying there, naked, to receive the material offerings of the group. token gifts of wheat, fruit, and in some cases, small animals, may have been offered on the human altar. this part of the sabbat seems to have been a most important facet of the fertility rites, which, in primitive times, was probably the primary motivation for the observance. by the time of the middle ages with its grim repression of pleasure and sex, it appears to be a point of general agreement that a mass sexual communion was followed by wild and ecstatic dancing. such accounts must always be evaluated by considering the source: women and men under torture and death a

urface. a black-robed acolyte stepped forward to place a flickering black candle in each of her upturned palms. at this point, abbe guilborg (d. 1680) appeared and positioned himself at the living altar. he wore vestments of an orthodox shape made of white linen. the chasuble (outer vestment worn by celebrant at mass) and the alb were embroidered with black pine cones, the ancient greek symbol of fertility. the priest placed the chalice upon the supplicant s stomach, kissed her body, and officiated the ceremony. the prayer book was bound in human skin; the holy water was urine; and the host was usually a toad, a turnip, or on occasion, true host stolen from a church and desecrated with filth. the rituals completed, it was time for the offering. abbe guilborg stretched out his arms to recei

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hi may have ingested some form of psychedelic drug, along with the fumes the entranced woman inhaled. other cultures have also held the mushroom or the cactus sacred. the mayan indians of central america erected stone monuments to the mushroom earlier than 1000 b.c.e. these monuments have been found in the tombs of the wealthier citizens of the mayan culture, and for many years were thought to be fertility symbols. such drugs as mescaline from the peyote cactus, ibogaine from the root of a rain forest shrub, and the so-called magic mushrooms came to be known as psychedelic, because they cause people to hallucinate, to see and hear things that are not really there. dr. humphrey osmond (1917) began studying hallucinogens at a hospital in saskatchewan in 1952 when he was examining the similar

reat fear of the dark, they observed with awe that the cat, a creature of the night, walked the shadowed streets with confidence. carefully considering the import of the cat s midnight vigils, the egyptian sages decided that the cat was solely responsible for preventing the world from falling into eternal darkness. at the same time, the cat s nocturnal excursions made it a symbol of sexuality and fertility. it seems quite likely that long before cleopatra worked her magic on caesar and antony, the sirens of the nile used makeup that mimicked the hypnotic eyes and facial markings of the cat. bubastis, a city in lower egypt, dedicated itself to the worship of the cat. each may some 700,000 pilgrims journeyed to the city to participate in the festival of the cat. during the persian invasion o

ms, taboos, and urban legends aprofessional guest, quartrozieme, can be called on short notice so a host can avoid having only 13 people at dinner party. death or resurrection of jesus. christian tradition borrowed the symbols of a rabbit and colored eggs for children to hunt on easter morning from an even older religious tradition in northern europe that portrayed the rabbit as the escort of the fertility goddess eastre (easter. as christianity spread through europe, the adaptation and incorporation of the rites and symbols of eastre into the celebration of jesus resurrection transferred to the rabbit the dubious distinction of people attributing good fortune to the act of removing one of his hind legs and carry it on their person. sneezing many people believed that the soul was located i

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uire material wealth and power was in play during the time of the ancient egyptians and persians. the greeks and hebrews adapted many of the rituals and incantations, transforming the gods of the earlier cultures into the demons of their own time. this process of deity transmutation was continued into medieval times when the earlier gods of the middle east became devils, the ancient mysteries and fertility rites became orgies, and the orders of worship for the old hierarchy of gods and goddesses became patterns for sorcery. by the middle ages, belief in black magick and the powers of evil became so intense that the world had become a dark and shadowy place of dread ruled by satan. the sorcerers of the middle ages who practiced black magick followed to the letter the instructions recorded i

ls, charms, and practices of witchcraft from the viewpoint of its ancient practitioners, the book went largely unnoticed by either scholars or the general public. however, a little over 20 years later, dr. margaret alice murray (1863.1963, an egyptologist on staff at the university college in london, began researching the thesis that witchcraft was actually the remnant of an ancient pre-christian fertility religion that had nothing to do with the christian concept of a devil that the witches had allegedly worshipped and brought upon them the wrath of the church during the time of the burning, the inquisition. although murray fs work underscored the research of leland, she seemed to have been unaware of his groundbreaking studies. however, it was her book, the witch cult in western europe (

th horns, as was the altar at the shrine of the ark of the covenant in jerusalem before solomon. most curious of all, however, is michaelangelo fs (1475.1564) famous statue of moses (14th.13th century b.c.e, which depicts him with horns, thereby causing his head and face to bear a remarkable resemblance to cerrnunos, as the celts named the horned god. because of the importance of human and animal fertility, the horned god was soon joined by a goddess, whose purpose it was to ensure the success of all reproductive activities. she was also the goddess who oversaw the birth of human and animal progeny. at a later date, when primitive religious thought had evolved to the point of belief in some form of continuation after death, the goddess oversaw human and animal death as well. with the adven

to ensure the success of all reproductive activities. she was also the goddess who oversaw the birth of human and animal progeny. at a later date, when primitive religious thought had evolved to the point of belief in some form of continuation after death, the goddess oversaw human and animal death as well. with the advent of agriculture, the goddess was called upon to extend her powers to ensure fertility of the crops. from this point on, the figure of the goddess began to overshadow that of the horned god. a population that did not have to keep on the move increased rapidly, and soon a portion of the human tribes began to move out of the tigris- euphrates valley, the so-called cradle of civilization, and spread northward to what is now europe and asia. to the west, the fertile valley of

ivity of orthodox religion, as well as the small size of the gcongregation. h a coven of witches consists of no more than 12 members, the high priest or high priestess bringing the number up to the traditional 13. t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d 94 magic and sorcery with the advent of agriculture, the goddess was called upon to ensure crop fertility. gwitchcraft is very much a religion of participation, h buckland said. grather than being a spectator sitting in a pew at the back of a church, you are right there in the middle of things, participating. h it was in their enjoyment of the excitement and vigor of the old religion that the peasants could allow themselves the luxury of experiencing pleasure without the interference of the

. many of the ancient forms of divination are alive and flourishing in the western world today. many of them will be examined in this chapter along with examples of how they might be experienced. instructions of some of the methods of divination and prophecies are included to encourage understanding of the techniques, not belief in their powers. astrology the earliest humans soon learned that the fertility of the soil was dependent upon the favor of the sun, as well as that of the rains, both of which were bestowed from the heavens. on the other hand were the adverse effects of lightning, wind, and hail, as well as floods. these phenomena were quite mysterious, as well as wonderful or dreadful, as the case might be. then, as now, people felt themselves at the mercy of these powers; and, si

rbara g. the woman fs dictionary of symbols and sacred objects.edison, n.j: castle books, 1988. t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d 168 objects of mystery and power amulets the word gamulet h comes from the latin (amuletum, an indication of the power romans invested in amulets as protection against evil spells. prehistoric amulets representing fertility and animals have been found near some of the oldest known human remains. archaeologists have also unearthed shells, claws, teeth, and crystalline solids dating to 25,000 b.c.e; engraved with symbols and sporting small holes, the objects were probably worn as necklaces. animals have been used as symbols in amulets since the earliest times. modern amulets include a rabbit fs foot; when rub

ks including the bible (christians, vedas (hindu, the koran (muslims, and the avestar (zoroastrians) believed by the faithful to t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d objects of mystery and power 169 ancient amulets of the middle east ancient assyrians, egyptians, babylonians, arabs, and hebrews placed great importance in amulets. frog.protected fertility. ankh.everlasting life. udjat.health. scarab.resurrection after death some of the egyptian amulets are massive.a stone beetle at karnak measures five feet long by three feet wide and weighs more than two tons. source: gamulets history h [online] http//www.paralumun.com/amulet. htm. november 11, 2002. bring good luck and to ward off evil. a favorite contemporary muslim amulet consists of

lker, barbara g. the woman fs dictionary of symbols and sacred objects. edison, n.j: castle books, 1988. cauldron cauldrons were used in various celtic rites. some cauldrons were believed to possess magical qualities: they would not boil the meat of a coward or an unrighteous person; they granted divine inspiration; or they provided great quantities of food. early celts used cauldrons in rites of fertility, and gcauldrons of plenty h were associated with abundance. the mead in t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d 172 objects of mystery and power the cauldron of the celtic goddess cerridwen gave divine wisdom, and that of the goddess branwen promised regeneration. cauldrons in celtic cultures may have also been used in acts of human sacri

f mystery and power 177 a t. h. thomas drawing from the book british goblin (1880) by wirt sikes of a man being pulled back before entering a fairy circle (fortean picture library) darkness grew out of the simple fact that heavy consumption of garlic greatly affects the breath odor of those who have liberally partaken of the herb. in the ancient mystery religions, which emphasized the goddess and fertility rites, those who had eaten heavily of garlic were ostracized from worship. m delving deeper allison, lynn. the magic of garlic. boca raton, fla: cool hand communications, 1993. mintz, ruth finer. auguries, charms, amulets. middle village, n.y: jonathan david publishers, 1983. nelson, felicitas h. talismans& amulets of the world. new york: sterling publishers, 2000. hand of glory one of t

. a dictionary of superstitions. new york: barnes& noble, 1999. steiger, brad, ed. the occult world of john pendragon. new york: ace books, 1968. horseshoes horseshoes have long been popular in folk magic as an instrument of bringing the owner good luck.provided the object is worn out and found, rather than new and purchased. in some countries the horseshoe is hung with the open end downward as a fertility symbol, but in ireland, britain, and the united states it is commonly hung with the open end pointing upward, so luck won ft run out. a great debate rages: should a horseshoe be hung with its ends pointing downward, so luck can pour out in a steady, unending stream, or is it better placed upward, to collect, store, and bestow luck? t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s

1937. mintz, ruth finer. auguries, charms, amulets. middle village, n.y: jonathan david publishers, 1983. nelson, felicitas h. talismans& amulets of the world. new york: sterling publishers, 2000. mistletoe mistletoe is another natural amulet. it is commonly hung in homes during christmastime; the custom of kissing under the mistletoe goes back to ancient europeans, who believed mistletoe brought fertility, healing, and luck. they hung it in homes and barns. mistletoe was sacred as well to celts. it is a parasitic plant that grows on trees without forming roots in the earth. this quality led celts to venerate mistletoe as a divine substance. for many centuries, people around the world have created many folklore beliefs about mistletoe. central australian aborigines believed that the ratapa

THE GOD OF THE WITCHES

of the old faith, and the conquest made littledifference to the relative position of the two religions. therefore though the rulers professed christianity thegreat mass of the people followed the old gods, and even in the highest offices of the church the priests oftenserved the heathen deities as well as the christian god and practised pagan rites. thus in 1282 the priest ofinverkeithing led the fertility dance round the churchyard;[2] in 1303 the bishop of coventry, like othermembers of his diocese, paid homage to a deity in the form of an animal;[3] in 1453, two years before therehabilitation of joan of arc, the prior of saint-germain-en-laye performed the same rites as the bishop ofcoventry.[4] as late as 1613 de lancre can say of the basses pyr351n351es "the greater part of the priest

epresented as a human being with a sheep's head and horizontal horns. but the greatest of allthe horned gods of egypt was osiris, who appears to have been the pharaoh in his aspect as the incarnategod. the crown of osiris, of which the horizontal horns were an important part, was also the crown of themonarch, indicating to all who understood the symbolism that the king as god was the giver of all fertility'in the accounts of the divine birth of the egyptian kings, the future father of the divine child, the pharaoh,visits the queen as the god amon wearing all the insignia of divinity, including the horns. in this connection the god of the witcheschapter i. the horned god7it should also be noted that down to the latest period of pharaonic history the divine father was always thehorned amon.t

5, or the amaimon and barbason of which falstaff says "they are devil'sadditions, the name of fiends" but there is another possible explanation. the early christian fathers refer toa statue to simon set up in rome in the reign of claudius by the roman people. the base of this statue hasbeen found, and on it is a dedication to the ancient sabine god, semo sancus. this important deity was thegod of fertility as his name, semo, implies; and as such the name might well have spread to gaul and britain the god of the witcheschapter i. the horned god13with the roman conquerors. later, when christianity was brought to england by foreign missionaries, thetonsure of the british christian priesthood was stigmatised by the augustinians as "the tonsure of simonmagus. that the biblical simon magus ever

f flying would be felt and the rider would be convinced that she had flown through the air.the original broom, whether for domestic or magical purposes, was a stalk of the broom plant with a tuft ofleaves at the end. the number of beliefs and proverbial sayings connected with the plant show that it wassupposed to possess magical qualities. these qualities had to do with the giving and blasting of fertility. abroomstick marriage was not uncommon in periods when marriage laws were not very strict, it was notalways considered binding by the christians who practised it. jumping over the broomstick is said to haveformed part of the gypsy marriage rites. on the other hand there is still the old saying in use in some parts ofengland, which indicates that the broom-plant had blasting qualities "if

estivals,more particularly may-day and all hallow fen.the origin of these ceremonies was undoubtedly religious, and they were in all probability derived from someform of imitative magic. when any ceremony is performed by several people together it tends to becomerhythmic, and a dance is evolved in which after a time, the actions are so conventionalised as to be almostunrecognisable. the so-called fertility dances are a case in point, for though they were once commonthroughout the world they survive in recognisable form only among the more backward peoples. in europethe details have not always been preserved, and it is often solely by comparison with the dances of savagesthat their original meaning can be seen. in crete the dance of ariadne, performed by youths and maidens,belonged apparent

dances are a case in point, for though they were once commonthroughout the world they survive in recognisable form only among the more backward peoples. in europethe details have not always been preserved, and it is often solely by comparison with the dances of savagesthat their original meaning can be seen. in crete the dance of ariadne, performed by youths and maidens,belonged apparently to the fertility group, so also did the processional dance of the bacchantes. mars inrome was served by dancing priests, and the running step with which moslems go round the ka'aba isperhaps the survival of a sacred dance at mecca.the processional dance might be performed either on foot or on horseback, the essential part being that therewas a leader, whose course was followed and whose actions were imit

iminal already condemned to die in any case, andthe final stage is the sacrifice of an animal. the god of the witcheschapter v. religious and magical ceremonies49when the records of the old religion were made the great sacrifice had reached the last stages. in france agoat was burnt to death at the sabbaths, the creature being called the devil. the ashes were collected for themagical promotion of fertility by strewing them on fields and animals. the gathering up of the ashes in thecase of joan of arc should be remembered in this connection. it is perhaps worth remarking that when in theseventeenth century, the time for the sacrifice had come the god is always said to be in the form of a largegoat or in his "grand array, which means that in the original rite it was the sacrifice of the horn

ite honest in belonging toboth religions, not realising any difference in one of the basic doctrines of the new faith.the orgies.[23] the orgiastic ceremonies excited the interest and curiosity of the christian judges andrecorders to an extent out of all proportion to their importance in the cult. it is certain that in the religion ofthe horned god, as in the cults of bacchus and other deities of fertility, rites were performed which to themodern mind are too gross to be regarded as religious. these rites were openly practised in athens in theheight of its civilisation, the sacred marriage being regarded as the means of promoting and increasingfertility. similar rites are known and have been practised in all parts of the world, but always in what are nowcalled "religions of the lower cultu

e been practised in all parts of the world, but always in what are nowcalled "religions of the lower culture. as the cult of the horned god was also a religion of the lowerculture such rites formed an integral part of the worship. the reason for their use is the same whereverfound; it is the practical application of the theory of sympathetic magic, with the consequent belief that bysuch means the fertility of the whole land would be increased. it was on account of these rites that the witcheswere credited with2424and claimed2424the power of granting fertility. they had therefore also the oppositepower, that of blasting fertility; for, as i have pointed out before, the primitive mind ascribed both good andevil to one power alone; the division into god and devil, priest and witch, belongs to

and took out meat" said the french witches to boguet.[25] nothing suggests morestrongly the primitiveness of the rites and of the people who practised them than the use of the cooking-potwhich was in common to the whole company. the importance of cauldrons in the late bronze-age and earlyiron-age should be noted in this connection.in all the activities of a farm which were directly connected with fertility, witches seem to have been called into perform the rites which would secure the success of the operation. they were also consulted if an animalfell sick. thus at burton-on-trent, in 1597,[26] a certain farmer's cow was ill "elizabeth wright took uponher to help upon condition that she might have a penny to bestow upon her god, and so she came to the man'shouse, kneeled down before the co

stuck into it in theplaces where the pain is acute, and then the figure is destroyed in the fire, in the belief that the pain or diseasehas been put into the figure and will be destroyed by its destruction. it seems, therefore, not unlikely that, likeother magical ceremonies of the witches, the wax images had their good uses as well as bad.a ceremony, which had clearly once been for promoting the fertility of a cornfield, was used atauldearne,[36] but when recorded it had degenerated into a method for destruction "before candlemas wewent be-east kinloss, and there we yoked a plough of toads. the devil held the plough, and john young, ourofficer, did drive the plough. toads did draw the plough as oxen, couch-grass was the harness andtrace-chains, a gelded animal's horn was the coulter, and

candlemas wewent be-east kinloss, and there we yoked a plough of toads. the devil held the plough, and john young, ourofficer, did drive the plough. toads did draw the plough as oxen, couch-grass was the harness andtrace-chains, a gelded animal's horn was the coulter, and a piece of a gelded animal's horn was the sock. inthis everything denoted sterility, but the method was clearly derived from a fertility rite.many of the magical charms and spells were for the healing of the sick or for the prevention of disease. thusbarbara paterson was accused in 1607[37] of getting water from the dow-loch, and "putting the said lochwater into a stoup, and causing the patients lift it up and say 'i lift this stoup in the name of the father, sonand holy ghost, for the health of them for whom it was lifte

THE GOLDEN ESSENCE

you can turn the housle into a more broad expression of other mysteries. and, apropos of that being said, we can move on. the mythology of regeneration there has never been a human religion that has not included a concept of regeneration or renewal. from the earliest of times, the first religions may have arisen from an animistic sense of duty towards crops or animals, and the necessity of their fertility and renewal after hunts or long winters; and perhaps it was thought that humans too were reborn or renewed in some manner at the transformation of death. the basic notion that all things come into being, exist, pass away finally, and experience regeneration or renewal, is the basic and central concept that is behind all indo-european pagan mythology (the same mythological tradition that

ng is separate from fate, nor can they be separate from her. the daughter, tara de rosilea it must be remembered that the dark mother-source of all did produce offspring- as we shall see in the short section below on the father; she birthed a great masculine force or being, who was and is the active presence of nature s life and activity, the all father who would be responsible for her aiding her fertility and generative powers from that time onward. some people see this great being, this father nature, as another side of herself, a hidden, active side, brought into expression from within her dark mystery. this is only a point of speculation, for the father is a real and individual force, insofar as any of the mother s children can be said to be individuals- for all of her children s myste

l embodies his source and bears its power, the fire, which is the essential stream of reality tha t flows through them all. the son of the all father in fact represents an evolution of the all-father s force, a refined child who shows forth the primal divine fire in a more subtle and pure manner than his father, a father who manifests it in a muc h more hoary and primal way, mostly focused around fertility and savage, deep power or impulses, and deep, intuitive layers of wisdom and reality. the son is his father come again in a new form, and yet, still a different being; the old paradox. the horned god, this most ancient of all conceptions of divinity, was the fertilizing force of the ground, the mother, and the sky. the light between his horns showed his power as source of fire and light

craft worldview, as well as those of the ancient mysteries, all the way up to gnosticism, in which the soul was seen as a feminine power. the kore or persephone of hellenic paganism likewise was a symbol of the human soul- this was part of the key to understanding the hallowed eleusinian mysteries. a myth-pattern for the daughter goes like this: the father, in his rather sky based form of worldly fertility mates with the mother, and the daughter is born. the daughter is then abducted or otherwise seduced/taken down into the underworld by a darker brother of her father (who can esoterically be seen as the darker face of her father, the king of the underworld and death) where she passes through the various terrors of the underworld (and her own fear of being taken from the world above) befor

the father, cannot and does not triumph without the force of the feminine to act as his firm basis, his ultimate source, as well as the perfect objects of his love, and finally, as his healer and redeemer, as we shall se. of course, the masculine mysteries have their origin in the primal figure of the horned god, the father; and fatherhood, in its most deep and basic sense, is an important theme. fertility mysteries, linked to the sign of the phallus and even to lightning, rain, and thunder. but these mysteries, that of organic survival and propagation, are only the first layer; the emergence, evolution and entry of fire and light, and therefore cunning and crafting, into mankind and the human world, is the central focus. blacksmithing, a traditionally masculine task and art, was the best

THE MIDDLE PILLAR

first of gentle degree should be felt, increasing in intensity to a powerful heat whch burns and utterly consumes every blemish whch troubled the personality. this purging should be felt as consecrating one to the service of the hgher self. the same technique should be applied to gabriel in the west, except that one is purified with water, while in the north one is invested with the stability and fertility of auriel, archangel of the earth. of course ths sounds a most complex and complicated procedure to pursue. but with practice, the entire exercise will be found to be easy. first of all, the student should recognize that a wise man knows how to limit h s e l f. he will limit himself at the start to obtaining mastery of the mechanical part of the ritual without reference to the initiated

ght angles, as it were. the thrd formula is more akin to the motion of a spiral. having returned on each of the former occasions of circulation to the contemplation of kether, imagine the upright column of brilliance, corresponding to the middle pillar, formulated through the center of the body. pass now to the visualization of malkuth emanating its inherent power of stability and equilibrium and fertility. perhaps the easiest way to conceive of the motion of the thrd formula is to imagine the act of swathing or bandaging a leg. you wrap the gauze tightly around the lower part of the limb, gradually ascending the leg in closely wound spirals. this, simply, is the techruque of the formula under consideration. you should imagine a ray of power coming out from the right side of malkutlz, movi

ter (or nature) in woman. here we are dealing with the primal roots of the psyche of either sex back to its origins, and the ancient god-forms from which they derive. both the "wise old man" and the "great mother" can appear in a multitude of figures from all world mythologies. they are the sky gods, earth mothers, heroes, heroines, magicians, priests, priestesses, prophetesses, harvest gods, and fertility goddesses of all pantheons. these ancient archetypes are transcendent energies that can bring much wisdom and spiritual growth. psychology and magic 119 jung referred to archetypal figures of the psyche as "manazl personalities" this is a particular archetype or group of archetypes that the individual psyche most strongly expresses or manifests. a person who has mana is said to have powe

THE STAR IN THE WEST BY CAPTAIN FULLER A CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE WORKS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY

ollowing: god is the complex as the protoplast: he is the first (not gwas h, and is the last (not gwill be h) c*1. god slips you, he is undefinable. not good! not wise! not anything at all.*2. isis am i, and from my life are fed all stars and suns, all moons that wax and wane, create and uncreate, living and dead, the mystery of pain. i am the mother, i the silent sea, the earth, its travail, its fertility. life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me. to me!*3 *1. tannhauser, vol. i, p. 226 *2. ibid. vol. i, p. 258 *3. ibid. vol. i, p. 262. what god is in himself the agnostic declares is not given man to understand, much less to discuss, and this maxim finds full affirmation in gascension day, h when crowley writes: i deny nothing. at the term it is just nothing i affirm *the

THE TAROT OF C C ZAIN

num xxi is figured by a kneeling young girl playing on a harp of three strings. above is a wreath of twelve flowers, each flower having three blossoms. at each of the four angles of the wreath is a head; the two below being the head of an eagle and the head of a bull, the two above being the head of a lion and the head of a man. the man's head has the sacred serpent at its brow to indicate mental fertility. in the center of the wreath is a phallus and a yoni conjoined. this sacred lingha is soaring upward through the wreath, sustained by two wings. the young girl symbolizes purity of life. she is modestly clothed to indicate simplicity of living and moderation in desires. she kneels as she plays the harp to indicate absolute devotion to the higher laws, and prayerful aspirations to live a

TRUE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT

d. there were many treasures here, but the biggest plum of all, i thought, was not surprisingly, not to be seen. i'd heard all kinds of rumors about the book of shadows over the years, many of them conflicting, all of them intriguing. rumor #1, of course, is that which accompanied the birth (or, depending on how one looked at it, the revival) of modern wicca, the contemporary successor of ancient fertility cults. it revolved around elemental rituals, secret rites of passage and a mythos of goddess and god that seemed attractive to me as a psychologically valid alternative to the austere, antisexual moralism of christianity. the book of shadows, in this context, was the `holy book' of wicca, copied out by hand by new initiates of the cult with a history stretching back at least to the era o

TWO ESSAYS ON THE WORSHIP OF PRIAPUS

le which is now applied to the dramatic dialogues anciently inserted in these odes, to break their uniformity. on a medal, struck in honour of augustus, the goat terminates in the tail of a fish, to show the generative power incorporated with water. under his feet is the globe of the earth, supposed to be fertilised by this union; and upon his back, the cornucopia, representing the result of this fertility.3 mr. d hancarville attributes the origin of all these symbols to the ambiguity of words; the same term being employed in the primitive language to signify god and a bull, the universe and a goat, life and a serpent. but words are only the types and symbols of ideas, and therefore must be posterior to them, in the same manner as ideas are to their objects. the words of a primitive langua

uatic animals, which once adorned the basement.2 the bacchus perikionioj here worshipped, was, as we learn from the orphic hymn above cited, the sun in his character of extinguisher of the fires which once pervaded the earth. this he was supposed to have done by exhaling the waters of the ocean, and scattering them over the land, which was thus supposed to have acquired its proper temperature and fertility. for this reason the sacred fire, the essential image of the god, was surrounded by the element which was principally employed in giving effect to the beneficial exertions of his great attribute. these orphic temples were, without doubt, emblems of that fundamental principle of the mystic faith of the ancients, the solar system; fire, the essence of the deity, occupying the place of the

represented, he appears with expressions of rage and violence, and often in the act of killing and devouring some other animal. on an ancient sarcophagus found in sicily he is represented devouring a horse,2 and on the medals of velia in italy, devouring a deer;3 the former, as sacred to neptune, represented the sea; and the latter, as sacred to diana, the produce of the earth; for diana was the fertility of the earth personified, and therefore is said to have received her nymphs or productive ministers from the ocean, the source of fecundity.4 the lion, therefore, in the former instance, appears as a symbol of the sun exhaling the waters; and in the latter, as whithering and putrifying the produce of the earth. on the frieze of the temple of apollo didym us, near miletus, are monsters co

k name indicates, the goddess of destruction, in which character she is invoked by althaea in the ninth iliad; but nevertheless we often find her on the greek medals crowned with 1 see s. c. marcian, and the medals of gela and agrigentum. 2 as in the word epidoutoj, usually written by him epigdoutoj. 3 see plate viii. 4 georgic. lib. ii, v. 324. of priapus 73 ears of corn, as being the goddess of fertility as well as destruction. 1 she is, in fact, a personification of the heat or fire that pervades the earth, which is at once the cause and effect of fertility and destruction, for it is at once the cause and effect of fermentation, from which both proceed. the libitina, or goddess of death of the romans, was the same as the persiphoneia of the greeks; and yet, as plutarch observes, the mos

rangling about the little intrigues and passions of men. hence too, as the symbols were multiplied, particular ones lost their dignity; and that venerable one which is the subject of this discourse, became degraded from the representative of the god of nature to a subordinate rural deity, a supposed son of the asiatic conqueror bacchus, standing among the nymphs by a fountain,1 and expressing the fertility of a garden, instead of the general creative power of the great active principle of the universe. his degradation did not stop even here; for we find him, in times still more prophane and corrupt, made a subject of raillery and insult, as answering no better purpose than holding up his rubicund snout to frighten the birds and thieves.2 his talents were also perverted from their natural e

ng the forms under which the gods were there represented, tells us that the third of the gods at upsala was fricco [another form of the name, who bestowed on mortals peace and pleasure, and who was represented with an immense priapus, and he adds that, at the celebration of marriages, they offered sacrifice to fricco.1 this god, indeed, like the priapus of the romans, presided over generation and fertility, either of animal life or of the produce of the earth, and was invoked accordingly. ihre, in his glossarium sueco-gothicum, mentions objects of antiquity dug up in the north of europe, which clearly prove the prevalence of phallic rites. to this deity, or to his female representative of the same name, the teutonic venus, friga, the fifth day of the week was dedicated, and on that account

such a point as to engage the attention of ecclesiastical synods. during the previous century facts occurred in our own island illustrating still more curiously the continuous existence of the worship of priapus, and that under circumstances which remind us altogether of the details of the phallic worship under the romans. it will be remembered that one great object of this worship was to obtain fertility either in animals or in the ground, for priapus was the god of the horticulturist and the agriculturist. st. augustine, declaiming against the open obscenities of the roman festival of the liberalia, informs us that an enormous phallus was carried in a 1 d. burchardi decreturum libri, lib. x. c. 49. 2 martene et durand, amplissima collectio veterum scriptorum, tom. vii. col. 1377. si pec

e plant; it has somewhat the form of a forked radish, and was believed to represent exactly the human form below the waist, with, in the male and female plants, the human organs of generation distinctly developed. the mandrake, when it could be obtained, was used in the middle ages in the place of the phallic amulet, and was carefully carried on the person, or preserved in the house. it conferred fertility in more senses than one, for it was believed that as long as you kept it locked up with your money, the latter would become 1 carduus puellarum legitur et ab eisdem centum cruces. generative powers 169 doubled in quantity every year; and it had at the same time all the protective qualities of the phallus. the templars were accused of worshipping the mandrake, or mandragora, which became

TYSON DONALD NEW MILLENNIUM MAGIC

those who direct it ascend to a position of greatest power and impor- tance. in ancient times, wars were directed and fought by men. after these military rulers had seized control, they were naturally reluctant to give it up. they pro- ceeded to fashion gods in their own image. archeological evidence suggests that many stone age societies were ruled by women and worshipped a female supreme deity. fertility fetishes with exaggerated female attributes, such as the famous venus of willendorf, have been unearthed at numerous sites of ancient human habitation. cultures devoted to the goddess tend to be stable and agrarian, inward-seeking and secretive in their rites. they build no empires, but are subject to the empire-building of more aggressive neighbors. cults of female gods, existing away f

ey tend to become demonized by the victors. many of the familiar demons of the middle ages were once gods and goddesses. ashtaroth, the demon of chesed who is associated with a lack of charity, is a degraded form of the ancient phoenician goddess of the moon, astarte. baal, the demon of netzach who is linked with rape and pillage, gets his name from a phoenician word meaning "lord" and is a solar fertility god. beelzebub, the demon of chokmah associated with obstruction, was originally beelzeboul "lord of the earth" however, do not make the error of assuming that these fallen gods can be restored to their former high estate while retaining their altered names and shapes. angels of light, when perverted from their original purpose, become angels of darkness. ashtaroth may once have been a f

ders, just as true oaths never fail from their purpose. magically, it is used as a charm against attack and to give fortitude in psychic com- bat. it can also be used to test the truth of statements and will reveal dishonor in the hearts of men and women. cast with malicious intent, it can cause strife and discord. 18. berkana (beorc: b (b) sound: b [b] english: b literally "birch twig"-symbol of fertility. the bark of the birch has healing virtues. the scent of the burning wood is aromatic. women were lashed with birch twigs to make them fertile. generally it represents healing, health, love, growth, beauty. the powers of spring. magically, it can be used to encourage growth on all levels. it is also used to cause love. cast, it can induce lovesickness, and also promotes the conception of

of life. magically, a force that cleanses, revives, and refreshes. adaptability. accep- tance. love can be drawn from or sent through this sign. cast, it gives spiritual love and peace of heart, a gathering of massive strength. but cast with evil intention, nightmares and hallucinations. madness. general instability. 22. inguz (ing: o (3) sound: ng [ng] english: ng literally another name for the fertility god frey or freyr (yngvi) from whom the ingwine (danes) took their name. frey was the male consort of the fertility god- dess freyja, his sister. thus, carnal or physical love. procreation. this rune is a sign of the family, of pregnancy. god of the hearth. magically, it can be used to bring a project to full term or fruition. to realize an end. cast, it can cause desire in men and women

TYSON DONALD SOUL FLIGHT

she is involved in some occult ritual that pertains to the fecundity and fruitfulness of the land and the water. in the tree visible past her shoulder, a bird sits and watches. the great star is sirius, known as the dog star, which was venerated by the egyptians because it rose above the eastern horizon at the time of the year when the nile river flooded and overflowed its banks. in this way, the fertility of the farmlands of egypt were annually renewed by a fresh deposit of river silt. the bird is the phoenix, which periodically renews itself and rises as a youthful bird from the remains of its former aged body. when we gaze around at the world of this trump, we find that the land is part of a green floodplain beside a river. the remains of ancient stone columns and great statues lie brok

a silent warrior in a long scarlet cloak who carries a drawn sword. his face is covered by a mask of beaten silver that has the shape of a bearded man. around it, his golden hair streams free to his shoulders. he moves across the field, selecting who is to be slain, and those he gestures at with his sword die. 18. berkana literal meaning: birch general sense: sexuality, desire, lovers, virility, fertility, conception, new growth, awakenings, renewal, birth a glade of silver birch trees covers the side of a gentle hillside in the land of berkana. morning sunlight slants through the new spring leaves, and dapples the soft green grass and mosses that cover the ground, making the wildflowers glow as if with an inner radiance. birds sing in the upper branches, which are moved by a gentle sprin

ater. the women of this race have lovely faces, and are sensual by nature, but fickle and apt to lose interest and dart away. their goddess is a mermaid with bluish skin, more human in shape than the others. only her fingers are webbed, and her feet end in small fins instead of toes. she sings haunting wordless melodies that evoke strange illusions and dreamlike vistas. 22. inguz literal meaning: fertility god general sense: home, hearth, family, patriarch, nurture, growth, development, evolution, decency, humanity, homely virtues the world of inguz is a country farm, with a stone farmhouse having a thatched roof and a wattle barn. the trees of the surrounding forest press the cultivated fields on all sides, apart from the rustic track that leads away between the hills. the squawk of chick

WALLIS BUDGE E A LEGENDS OF THE EGYPTIAN GODS

f night, or eclipses, or storms; but in any case the god made a second eye, i.e, the moon, to which he gave some of the splendour of the other eye, i.e, the sun, and he gave it a place in his face, and henceforth it ruled throughout the earth, and had special powers in respect of the production of trees, plants, vegetables, herbs, etc. thus from the earliest times the moon was associated with the fertility of the earth, especially in connection with the production of abundant crops and successful harvests. according to the legend, men and women sprang not from the earth, but directly from the body of the god khepera, or neb-er-tcher, who placed his members together and then wept tears upon them, and men and women, came into being from the tears which had fallen from his eyes. no special me

f thousands, according to the cubit of the year. the people shall be filled, verily to their hearts' desire "and everyone. misery shall pass away, and the emptiness of their store-houses of grain shall come to an end. the land of ta-mert (i.e, egypt) shall come to be a region of cultivated land, the districts [thereof] shall be yellow with grain crops, and the grain [thereof] shall be goodly. and fertility shall come according to the desire [of the people, more than there hath ever been before [fn#191] the goddess of the harvest. then i woke up at [the mention of] crops, my heart (or, courage) came [back, and was equal to my [former] despair, and i made the following decree in the temple of my father khnemu- the king giveth an offering to khnemu[fn#192] the lord of the city of qebhet,[fn#1

WESTERN MANDALAS OF TRANSFORMATION SR AL

twelve of chapter two for the hebrew letters attributions. following figure 3-p are some elemental shapes that can be used in creating personal talismans, as described on page 31. figure 3-k elemental correspondences fire: power, dominion, authority, prestige, expansion air: health, sickness, disputations, intellect earth: business, money, employment, practical affairs water: pleasure, marriage, fertility, happiness, emotions quintessance: all matters spiritual figure 3-l figure 3-m figure 3-n geomantic attributions puer (fire) initial catalyst; active transmission fortune major (fire) reflective, helping, fortunate for transition acquisitio (fire) movement, pure intellect, expansive cauda draconis (fire) life force going out with great energy populus (water) psychic power, catalyst for u

showing again their playful complementarity. i discovered quite by accident a design in waite's book of ceremonial magic (p. 204) called "the seal of astaroth" which looks remarkably like this seal (see figure 9-i. in fact, astaroth, also called astarte and ashtoreth by the ancient hebrews, was the same as the goddess ishtar, the morning star, or venus. she represented the spirit of sexuality and fertility. figure 9-f: agrippa's kamea figure 9-g: alternate kamea the keywords for seven are equilibrium and mastery. on the tree of life, netzach means victory. the pillars on the tree, jahkin-boaz, which represent balanced equilibrium, have a value of 175, one of the magical numbers of the kamea, and the seventh card in most tarot decks is the chariot, or victory (see figure 9-j. furthermore, t

nces, listed in the bibliography. he also has a nice set of tattwas cards available for coloring. here are some of the uses given in his book of correspondences for the seven planetary chakra tattwas: saturn: used to develop understanding and comprehension, thoughtfulness, tolerance and temperance, and the ability to define, limit, and create. sun: develops vitality and optimism, productivity and fertility, a warm and affectionate nature, and dignity and distinction. mars: use for initiative and leadership, strength and courage, determination, willpower, foresight and keen reasoning. jupiter: prosperity, generosity, expansiveness, self-confidence, happiness and fortune, higher comprehension, the ability to reach akashic records. venus: creativity and imagination, ability to visualize, heal

WICCA EIGHT SABBATS OF WITCHCRAFT

s of witchcraft get any book for free on: www.abika.com 7 characters are likely to be interpreted as mother nature, father time, and the baby sun-god. none of this will come as a surprise to anyone who knows the true history of the holiday, of course. in fact, if truth be known, the holiday of christmas has always been more pagan than christian, with it's associations of nordic divination, celtic fertility rites, and roman mithraism. that is why both martin luther and john calvin abhorred it, why the puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it (to them, no day of the year could be more holy than the sabbath, and why it was even made illegal in boston! the holiday was already too closely associated with the birth of older pagan gods and heroes. and many of them (like oedipus

s of yuletide. long before the world had heard of jesus, pagans had been observing the season by bringing in the yule log, wishing on it, and lighting it from the remains of last year's log. riddles were posed and answered, magic and rituals were practiced, wild boars were sacrificed and consumed along with large quantities of liquor, corn dollies were carried from house to house while carolling, fertility rites were practiced (girls standing under a sprig of mistletoe were subject to a bit more than a kiss, and divinations were cast for the coming spring. many of these pagan customs, in an appropriately watered-down form, have entered the mainstream of christian celebration, though most celebrants do not realize (or do not mention it, if they do) their origins. for modern witches, yule (f

boniface the honor, but the custom can demonstrably be traced back through the roman saturnalia all the way to ancient egypt. needless to say, such a tree should be cut down rather than purchased, and should be disposed of by burning, the proper way to dispatch any sacred object. along with the evergreen, the holly and the ivy and the mistletoe were important plants of the season, all symbolizing fertility and everlasting life. mistletoe was especially venerated by the celtic druids, who cut it with a golden sickle on the sixth night of the moon, and believed it to be an aphrodisiac (magically- not medicinally! it's highly toxic) but aphrodisiacs must have been the smallest part of the yuletide menu in ancient times, as contemporary reports indicate that the tables fairly creaked under the

as always found it rather difficult to explain this nebulous saint's connection to the secular pleasures of flirtation and courtly love. for modern witches, candlemas o.s. may then be seen as the pagan version of valentine's day, with a de-emphasis of 'hearts and flowers' and an appropriate re-emphasis of pagan carnal frivolity. this also re-aligns the holiday with the ancient roman lupercalia, a fertility festival held at this time, in which the priests of pan ran through the streets of rome whacking young women with goatskin thongs to make them fertile. the women seemed to enjoy the attention and often stripped in order to afford better targets. one of the nicest folk-customs still practiced in many countries, and especially by witches in the british isles and parts of the u.s, is to pla

aking candles, candlemas day is the day for doing it. some covens hold candle-making parties and try to make and bless all the candles they'll be using for the whole year on this day. other customs of the holiday include weaving 'brigit's crosses' from straw or wheat to hang around the house for protection, performing rites of spiritual cleansing and purification, making 'brigit's beds' to ensure fertility of mind and spirit (and body, if desired, and making crowns of light (i.e. of candles) for the high priestess to wear for the candlemas circle, similar to those worn on st. lucy's day in scandinavian countries. all in all, this pagan festival of lights, sacred to the young maiden goddess, is one of the most beautiful and poetic of the year. eight sabbats of witchcraft get any book for fr

n) the other christian holiday which gets mixed up in this is easter. easter, too, celebrates the victory of a god of light (jesus) over darkness (death, so it makes sense to place it at this season. ironically, the name 'easter' was taken from the name of a teutonic lunar goddess, eostre (from whence we also get the name of the female hormone, estrogen. her chief symbols were the bunny (both for fertility and because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg (symbolic of the cosmic egg of creation, images which christians have been hard pressed to explain. her holiday, the eostara, was held on the vernal equinox full moon. of course, the church doesn't celebrate full moons, even if they do calculate by them, so they planted their easter on the following sunday. thus, easter

y book for free on: www.abika.com 18 markers, processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of may morning to retain their youthful beauty. in the words of witchcraft writers janet and stewart farrar, the beltane celebration was principly a time of..unashamed human sexuality and fertility' such associations include the obvious phallic symbolism of the maypole and riding the hobby horse. even a seemingly innocent children's nursery rhyme 'ride a cock horse to banburry cross' retains such memories. and the next line..to see a fine lady on a white horse' is a reference to the annual ride of 'lady godiva' though coventry. every year for nearly three centuries, a sky-clad vill

WICCA WITCHCRAFT TODAY

the impression that witchcraft is a cult of evil. mr. hughes says (page 128 'as the cult declined, any sort of common practice must have been lost, until by the nineteenth century the indoor practitioners of self-conscious diabolism merely conducted the black mass of inverted catholicism. at the time of the trials there was clearly some sort of formal service quite apart from the crescendo of the fertility dance. it would, in a catholic age, be very like the known pageantry of the church's own celebrations, with candles, vestments and a parody of the sacrament. it might be conducted by an unfrocked priest using hosts with the devil's name stamped on them instead of jesus, and the defiling of the crucifix-to insult christians and please the devil. the devil himself received praise and homag

ogical satisfaction. some were ecstatic "the sabbat" said one "is the true paradise' mr. hughes does not say why he thinks they should have given up their own rites, which were made for a definite purpose and which produced definite results simply to parody those of an alien faith. i have attended many of these cult rites, and i declare that most of what he says is simply not true. there may be a fertility dance, but the other rites are simple, and with a purpose, and in no way resemble those of the roman catholic or any other church that i know. true, sometimes there is a short ceremony when cakes and wine are blessed and eaten (they tell me that in the old days mead or ale was often used) this may be in imitation of the early christian agape, the love feast, but there is no suggestion th

and witches, and that all witches were automatically heretics. as part of this campaign all sorts of false ideas were spread until the popular notion of a witch became that of the common definition 'a witch is an old woman who flies through the air on a broomstick. now no witch ever flew through the air on a broomstick or on anything else, at least not until aeroplanes came in. there is indeed a fertility charm to bring good crops which is performed by riding on a pole, or broom, as a hobby-horse. doubtless ancient witches practised this rite, leaping high to make the crops grow. in early trials witnesses speak of seeing the accused riding on poles, or brooms, across the fields (not through the air, and this was often accepted as the evidence that they were practising fertility magic, whi

, leaping high to make the crops grow. in early trials witnesses speak of seeing the accused riding on poles, or brooms, across the fields (not through the air, and this was often accepted as the evidence that they were practising fertility magic, which became a penal offence. in the castletown museum there is one of these poles for riding, the head being carved in the shape of a phallus to bring fertility. in the isle of man in 1617 a woman was seen trying to obtain a good harvest in this way. she was tried, convicted and burnt to death in the market place. there was plenty of evidence that she was alone in her fertility-making attempt, but her young son was burnt with her, for it was well known that children were usually initiated when they were quite young. this just shows what a myth t

g obstacles in the dark. in the persecution times, at least, they would put them between their legs and ride on them when approaching the meeting place; or if challenged, as a sign that they belonged to the cult. failure to do this might mean an arrow between their ribs, and this would usually be smeared with something of the hogs-blood and hellebore variety. finally, they rode these poles in the fertility dance; but riding them meant they got some grease and soot on them, and a pole so stained could be used in evidence against them; so they often took a stick or broomstick which might reasonably be dirty, and used this for recognition or for the jumping or fertility dances. if the place of meeting was distant, they rode horses. they never flew on broomsticks. nowadays like ordinary people

ten saved their lives; but their warning tales of the dark were not entirely groundless. the men of the heaths always used poisoned arrows. after i had written this i received a letter dated september 29, 1952, telling me of a meeting held in a wood in the south of england about two months before, in the traditional nude (luckily the weather was warm. they cast the circle with the athame, did the fertility dances on broomsticks, performed the proper seasonal as well as other rites, and had some of the old dances. the letter also mentioned three indoor meetings in the last few months where everything had been done very satisfactorily and spells performed which worked! what interests me is the fact that numbers of people meet every year and perform witch rites because they believe in them. a

d years before when rome turned christian. the little people had goddesses who were identified with diana and aphrodite, so it would be only natural for romans who wished to worship their own old gods, who had no temples, to call on and worship these. this influx might have brought about some changes in the cult, but the main objects would i think be unaltered. what they wanted was prosperity and fertility for the tribe, a life after death in happy conditions, and reincarnation into their tribe or nation. slowly these people came to be on speaking and trading terms with the saxons, probably combining together against the various viking invasions. then christianity came back again. the kings and townspeople accepted it, but the country people, the pagans (pagani people dwelling in the count

he heaths were practically exterminated. there were no more big sabbats, as the organisation was crushed and the surviving members were either in the households of nobles or among the secret cult members. the early trials show us what happened. people said 'we are good christians; we have always done these things so as to reap a good harvest' in many cases it was the parish priest who had led the fertility rites, and the people said they had not been told it was wrong; in fact the priest said it was right. at first only penances and fines were imposed, but as the church grew stronger torture and fire were used. the old religion made one great mistake. it had stated that paradise was reserved for the initiates; that the ordinary folk when they died went to a kind of spiritualist heaven, a h

h. templars received a similar kiss. but both were tortured to make them say it was elsewhere. another charge was that the templars worshipped a head, variously described as having sometimes three faces, sometimes simply a human skull or death's-head: that they believed that this head had the power to make them rich, cause the trees to flourish and the earth to become fruitful (we could call it a fertility cult) at initiations templar candidates were stripped nearly or entirely naked; they held their meetings and initiations secretly and by night, as witches do. my books of reference give the official charges made against the templars as follows: 1. denial of christ and the defiling of the cross. 2. the adoration of an idol. 3. a perverted form of the mass. 4. ritual murders. 5. the wearin

ow this secret castle was said to be in a far land and to belong to the templars. to reach it you had to undergo trials or to ask certain questions, know certain secrets and secret words (passwords; in other words 'initiation' into a more or less secret society whose secrets were a magical talisman, which had five forms, or five things which were different but the same; a secret of prosperity and fertility, and a secret of resurrection or regeneration connected with a lance which dripped blood into a cup or cauldron. ah this might be taken to be equivalent to saying that it was possible for man to attain a happy afterlife without the aid of the church, or that you had no need to worship christ in order to obtain salvation. this is exactly what the church charged the templars with believing

god and to do reverence to it, that might be termed adoration of an idol by the church. if another novice were shown the same skull and told it was simply an emblem of mortality or the head of a saint, the most orthodox churchman could not object. there is some evidence that these skulls existed. some were found, one in paris. there is a curious templar story of a skull that brought good luck or fertility. a noble lady of maraclea was loved by a templar, a lord of sidon; but she died and was buried. such was the force of the knight's love that he dug up her body and violated it. when a voice told him to return in nine months' time he did so and found a skull on the leg bones of a skeleton (a skull and cross-bones. the same voice told him to 'guard it well, for it was the giver of all good

had a great meaning for them. also that the number eight had some significance. it is said that this is simply because the templar cross had eight points; but could it not be that they revered the number eight and therefore gave their cross its eight points? another great templar 'hallow' was the chalice, the gup. as i have said, the witch also reveres the gup, which seems to date back to the old fertility cults. it is a curious fact that the church disliked and discouraged the story of the holy grail, though they could not entirely prevent its being popular as a 'romance. the original versions appeared about 1175 to 1225; then the source of supply seems to have been cut off. can it be that the church brought pressure to bear? henceforth writers simply made rehashes of the old materials, a

WILLIAM WESCOTT NUMBERS THEIR OCCULT POWER AND MYSTIC VIRTUES

ature of the evil, the worse it was. goodness alone can define or bound the indefinite. in the human soul exists a certain vestige of divine goodness (buddhi. this bounds and moderates the indefiniteness and inequality of its desires. 20. it may be demonstrated that all inequality arises from equality, so that obtaining, as it were, the power of a mother and a root, she pours forth with exuberant fertility all sorts of inequality; and did space and time allow, it could be also shown that all inequality may be reduced to equality. iamblichus, in his treatise on the arithmetic of nicomachus, throws another light on numbers. he says some numbers--th eir occu lt power an d mys tic vir tu es by w. wyn n wes tcott are like friends, they are amicable numbers, as 284 and 220. pythagoras, being ask

WOLFSON ELLIOT ALEF MEM TAU KABBALISTIC MUSINGS ON TIME TRUTH AND DEATH

binah, the divine mother, cannot give birth, as the zoharic author explicitly declares: this is the mystery of abram, ever mem, this one does not reproduce, for it is the closed mem, and it is not generative. 59 however, when the he is added to abram, his name is changed to abraham, which can be decoded as ever-he-mem, that is, the organ (ever) that turns mem into he, the open womb that signifies fertility and reproductivity. i translate here the section of the homily in which the polemical intent of the messianic explication is rendered overtly in the specific terms of circumcision, a long-standing issue that divided the religious sensibilities of the two liturgical communities: when the he is added [to abram, that final mem opens up. and that organ [ever] produces offspring, and this is

linked historically and emblematically to the figure of abraham. the fecundity of the womb is notionally correlated with the phallocentric rite of circumcision, as it is the blood of the covenant the word for blood is dam, which is composed of dalet and mem that opens the mem, the womb of the mother, and transposes the dalet, the sign of poverty and infertility, into a he, the sign of e uence and fertility. the messiah, according to the jewish tradition, will emerge from a womb that has been impregnated by male seed. in the bahiric text, the fecund womb is demarcated not by the he but by the open mem, the fusion of male and female, the event in the mundane cosmos symbolically homologous with the heteroerotic conjunction in the godhead,61 a theme that is expressed in the zoharic passage by

WORKING CEPHALOEDIUM VERSION 1

ly perfec t as infinite change (see xith aethyr) so construction is only solid if based o n war. 5``i am a god of war' etc. is ra hoor khuit. 6. the word in the mouth is 93: aiwaz is the lord of the fortress or house of god, which is the abbey of thelema. 7. aiwaz is spelt ayin, the eye, i.e. that of shiva or horus, the meatus penis and the anus; yod, the phallus, spermatozoon; and hand, vau, the fertility of the testes and uterus as well as the nail of the mentula, being taurus the cow isis and the bull apis or shiva, the son in tetragrammaton, the redeemer by rep roduction, the mithraic bull of resurrection and initiation in the strength of the body. and lastly zain is the sword of the phallus, and gemini the double se xual nature, the murder-lust between the incestuous twins cain and ab

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