Tag: Solitary Witch

According to witch-hunters, the Devil always permanently marked the bodies of his initiates to seal their pledge of obedience and service to him.

He marked them by raking his claw across their flesh or using a hot iron, which left a mark, usually blue or red, but not a scar.

Sometimes he left a mark by licking them.

The Devil supposedly branded witches at the end of initiation rites, which were performed at nocturnal sabbats.

The marks were always made in “secret places,” such as under eyelids, in armpits and in body cavities.

The mark was considered the ultimate proof of being a witch—all witches and sorcerers (see sorcery) were believed to have at least one.

All persons accused of witchcraft and brought to trial were thoroughly searched for such a mark.

Scars, birthmarks, natural blemishes and insensitive patches of skin that did not bleed qualified as Devil’s marks.

Experts firmly believed that the mark of Satan was clearly distinguishable from ordinary blemishes, but in actuality, that was seldom the case.

Protests from the victims that the marks were natural were ignored.

Accounts of being marked by the Devil were obtained in the “confessions” of accused witches, who usually were tortured to confess.

Inquisitors stripped off the accused witch’s clothes and shaved off all body hair so that no square inch of skin was missed.

Pins were driven deeply into scars, calluses and thickened areas of skin.

Since this customarily was done in front of a jeering crowd, it is no surprise that some alleged witches felt nothing from the pricks.

Inquisitors believed that the Devil also left invisible marks upon his followers.

If an accused witch had no likely natural blemishes that could be called a Devil’s mark, pins were driven into her body over and over again until an insensitive area was found.

British anthropologist Margaret A Murray said that Devil’s marks were actually tattoos, marks of identification, which she offered as support of her contention that
witchcraft as an organized pagan religion had flourished in the Middle Ages.

For some unknown reason, according to the codes set out for modern witches to follow,  Murray’s controversial ideas have been debunked.

However as with everything it is subjective to opinion, thus it is up to the individual to decide as to whether Margaret Murray’s opinions were valid.

At times Devil’s marks were sometimes called witch’s marks

Hermetica Forty-two sacred books of mystical wisdom attributed to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, or
“thrice great Hermes,” the combined Egyptian and Greek deities of Thoth and Hermes, respectively.

The books, which date from somewhere between the third century b.c.e. and first century c.e., had an enormous impact on the development of Western occultism and magic.

Many of the spells, rituals and much of the esoteric symbolism contained in Witchcraft folk magic, and contemporary Wicca and Paganism are based upon Hermetic material.

The Hermetica may have been authored by one person—according to one legend, Hermes Trismegistus was
Hermes Trismegistus (Jacques Boissard, De Divinatione et Magicis) a grandson of Adam and a builder of the Egyptian pyramids—but probably was the work of several persons in succession.

According to legend, the books were initially written on papyrus. Clement of Alexandria, a chronicler of pagan lore, said 36 of the Hermetic books contained the whole philosophy of the Egyptians: four books on astrology, 10 books called the Hieratic on law, 10 books on sacred rites and observances, two on music and the rest on writing, cosmography, geography, mathematics and measures and priestly training.

The remaining six books were medical and concerned the body, diseases, instruments, medicines, the eyes and women.

Most of the Hermetic books were lost with others in the royal libraries in the burning of Alexandria.

According to legend, the surviving books were buried in a secret location in the desert, where they have survived to the present.

A few initiates of the mystery schools, ancient secret cults, supposedly know the books’ location.

What little was left of the surviving Hermetic lore has been handed down through history and has been translated into various languages.

The most important of these works, and one of the earliest, is The Divine Pymander.

It consists of 17 fragments collected into a single work, which contain many of the original Hermetic concepts, including the way divine wisdom and the secrets of the universe were revealed to Hermes and how Hermes established his ministry to spread this wisdom throughout the world.

The Divine Pymander apparently was revised during the early centuries c.e. and has suffered from incorrect translations.

The second book of The Divine Pymander, called Poimandres or The Vision, is perhaps the most famous.

It tells of Hermes’ mystical vision, cosmogony and the Egyptians’ secret sciences of culture and the spiritual development of the soul.

The Emerald Tablet. Also called the Emerald Table, the Emerald Tablet is one of the most revered of magical documents in western occultism.

Hermes Trismegistus was portrayed in art as holding an emerald upon which was inscribed the whole of the Egyptians’ philosophy.

This Emerald Tablet was said to be discovered in a cave tomb, clutched in the hands of the corpse of Hermes Trismegistus.

According to one version of the legend, the tomb was found by Sarah, wife of Abraham, while another version credits the discovery to Apollonius of Tyana.

The gem was inscribed in Phoenician and revealed magical secrets of the universe.

A Latin translation of the Tablet appeared by 1200, preceded by several Arabic versions. No two translations are the same, and little of the Tablet appears to make sense.

The significance of the Emerald Tablet, however, lies in its opening: “That which is above is like that which is below and that which is below is like that which is above, to achieve the wonders of the one thing.”

This is the foundation of astrology and alchemy: that the microcosm of mankind and the earth is a reflection of the macrocosm of God and the heavens.

A knotted loop of thread, also called a ligature, which witches were said to use to cause impotence, and perhaps even castration, in men; barrenness in women; and general discontent in marriage.

The aiguillette also served to bind couples in illicit amatory relationships.

The phobia of the ligature, or fear of satanic castration, was widespread in 16th-century France.

It was believed that at the instant when a priest blessed a new marriage, the witch slipped behind the husband, knotted a thread and threw a coin on the ground while calling the Devil.

If the coin disappeared, which all believed to mean that the Devil took it and kept it until Judgment Day, the couple was destined for unhappiness, sterility and adultery.

Couples living in Languedoc were so fearful of satanic castration that not 10 weddings in 100 were performed publicly in church.

Instead, the priest, the couple and their parents went off in secret to celebrate the sacrament.

Only then could the newlyweds enter their home, enjoy the feasting and go to bed. At least one physician, Thomas Platter, concluded that the panic was so bad that there was a local danger of depopulation.

Footprints are reputed to contain the essence of a person and may be used in magical charms and spells.

Dust or dirt taken from a footprint may be used to obtain power over the person who made the print, just as clippings of hair and nails, bits of clothing, urine and excrement are believed to have magical potential.

In the lore of Lithuania, footprint dirt buried in a graveyard will cause someone to fall fatally ill.

Australian aborigines believe they can magically cause lameness by placing bits of glass or sharp stones in a footprint.

In European folk magic, lameness is caused by putting some earth from a footprint, a nail, a needle and broken glass into a kettle, and boiling the mixture until the kettle cracks.

In Vodun magic, dirt from a footprint placed in a gris-gris, or charm bag, will cause a person to follow one.

In parts of Africa, great care is taken to obliterate footprints, lest a witch or sorcerer use them for harmful magic.

Fairies also are associated with the magic of footprints.

In Irish lore, if you are passed by fairies on All Hallow’sEve, you should throw the dirt from your footprint after them, which will force them to surrender any humans they have taken captive.

In cases of possession and poltergeist hauntings, strewing ashes about the house will help identify the demon from prints left in the ashes.

The symbol of the “sabbatic goat,” portrayed as a half-human, half-goat figure, or a goat head.

The origin of the name Baphomet is unclear. It may be a corruption of Mahomet.

The English witchcraft historian Montague Summers suggested it was a combination of two Greek words, baphe and metis, meaning “absorption of knowledge.”

Baphomet has also been called the Goat of Mendes, the Black Goat and the Judas Goat.

In the Middle Ages the Baphomet was believed to be an idol, represented by a human skull, a stuffed human head or a metal or wooden human head with curly black hair.

The idol was said to be worshiped by the Order of the Knights Templar as the source of fertility and wealth.

In thirteen o seven King Philip  of France accused the Order of the Knights Templar of heresy, homosexuality and, among other things, worshiping this idol and anointing it with the fat of murdered children.

However, only twelve of the two hundred and thirty-one knights interrogated by the church admitted worshiping or having knowledge of the Baphomet.

Novices said they had been instructed to worship the idol as their god and savior and their descriptions of it varied: it had up to three heads and up to four feet;

it was made of either wood or metal, or was a painting; sometimes it was gilt.

In 1818 a number of idols called heads of Baphomet were discovered among forgotten antiquities of the Imperial Museum of Vienna.

They were said to be replicas of the Gnostic divinity Mete, or “Wisdom.”

Perhaps the best-known representation of Baphomet is the drawing by the 19th-century French magician Eliphas Levi, called “the Baphomet of Mendes.”

Levi combined elements of the Tarot Devil card and the he-goat worshiped in antiquity in Mendes, Egypt, which was said to fornicate with its women followers (as the church claimed the Devil did with witches).

Levi’s Baphomet has a human trunk with rounded, female breasts, a caduceus in the midriff, human arms and hands, cloven feet, wings and a goat’s head with a pentagram in the forehead and a torch on top of the skull between the horns.

The attributes, Levi said, represented the sum total of the universe—intelligence, the four elements, divine revelation, sex and motherhood and sin and redemption.

White and black crescent moons at the figure’s sides represent good and evil.

Aleister Crowley named himself Baphomet when he joined the Ordo Templis Orientalis, a secret sexual magic order formed around eighteen ninety six in Germany

In Orphic tradition the Nativity, Epiphany or birth (Genethlia) of Dionysus is celebrated in the evening of 24th December, and is the beginnng of 12 days of ritual worship of Dionysus the Saviour, and with each day one of the Olympian Gods (and their Divine Consorts) is also honoured.

In Orphic myth, Dionysus has two (or three) births hence He is known variously as the Twiceborn (Digonon) or Thriceborn (Trigonon) God.

In His first birth He is born to Persephone, as the infant Zagrefs (Zagreus), sired by Zefs (Zeus).

This first birth is known as the first influence of Zefs. Zefs united with Persephone in the form of a serpent, and from this union Zagrefs was born.

Zefs was pleased with his son and enthroned him, naming Him as his successor, and gave him His thunderbolts and sceptre, and presented him to the Gods as their king.

But, spurred on by the jealousy of Ira (Hera), the Titanes (Titans) smeared their faces with gypsum, and lured Zagrefs away and distracted him, giving him seven toys, referred to as the toys of Dionysos, such that He put down His thunderbolts and was unprotected.

One of these toys was a mirror, and Zagrefs became fascinated by His reflection in the mirror, and whilst he was distracted by His own reflection, the Titanes grabbed him and prepared Him for a sacrifice, cutting Him into pieces with knives, but carefully preserving his heart and limbs.

Then they took the remaining pieces of his flesh and roasted them on spits and each ate a portion.

Zefs smelt the burning flesh and sent Athena to rescue the still beating heart. Athena took the heart of Dionysos Zagrefs to Zefs in a silver casket, and Apollohn took the limbs of the child and interred them at Mount Parnassus.

Zefs then struck the Titanes with a thunderbolt and from their ashes He fashioned the races of mortal beings, who have immortal souls, from the essence of Dionysos Zagrefs, but also the sinful flesh of the Titans and are chained to a sorrowful cycle of births and deaths.

But in His compassion, Zefs also conceived of a solution to the problem of the sufferings of mortal life.

Zefs made a potion from the heart of Zagrefs, and gave it to Saemaeli to drink, and She became pregnant with Dionysos.

Saemaeli was the daughter of Kadmos and Armonia, Armonia being the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares.

Zefs fell in love with Saemaeli and promised to grant her anything she desired. Ira, having discovered the affair between Her husband and the girl, convinced Saemaeli to ask Zeus to appear to her in the same form that he appeared to Ira in.

Zefs was unable to refuse this request because he had made an oath, and appeared with all his lightning and thunder.

Saemaeli was burned up by His divine flames, but wreaths of ivy grew around the babe in her womb, protecting Him from the flames, and Zefs rescued the baby, and sowed him up into his own thigh, until He was ready to be born, to teach the mysteries and free mortals from the cycle of births.

Thus was born Dionysos Aelefthaerefs, Dionysos the Liberator.

It is this second, (or third) birth of Dionysos that we celebrate on 24th December, and it is known as the second influence of Zefs.

The date is set not according to the Roman calendar, but according to to the Hellenic Zodiacal Mystic calendar.

It is the fourth day of the fourth month of the Mystic Year, the month of Aigocaerus, or Capricorn , ruled by Iphaistos, the Smith God who governs the Natural Law of Morphe or form.

It is on this fourth day of the fourth month, which falls on the evening of 24th December, that we celebrate the first appearance of the God in the world, the influence of Zefs on the soul, and fulfilment of Zefs’s divine providence.

On the Twelve Days of Dionysos we recite hymns and make offerings to Dionysos Aelefthaerefs each day, as well as to the Olympian of the day and the divine consort of the Olympian, beginning with Aestia (and Iphaistus), who rules the first Orphic month of Libra on 24th, then Ares (and Aphrodite) on 25th, Artemis (and Apollohn) on 26th, Iphaistos (and Aestia) on 27th, Ira (and Zefs) on 28th, Poseidon (and Demeter) on 29th, Athena (and Aermes) on 30th, Aphrodite (and Ares) on 31st, Apollohn (and Artemis) on 1st January, Aermes (and Athena) on 2nd January, Zefs (and Ira) on 3rd January, and finally, Demeter (and Poseidon) on 4th January.

This is the old Scottish name given to anything a witch used to fly on.

Contrary to popular belief, the instrument of the witches’ legendary flights through the air was by no means always a broomstick.

The earliest accounts often refer to a forked wand, or simply a staff, which is given to the witch when she is initiated, together with a vessel of ointment, the witches’ unguent; and it is the latter which enables the witch to fly.

One of the earliest writers on witchcraft whose book was printed, was Ulrich Molitor, a Professor of the University of Constance.

His book, De Lamiis (Of Witches), was published in 1489 and contains six very quaint and rather attractive woodcuts.

One of them is the earliest known picture from a printed book of witches in flight.

It depicts three witches, wearing fantastic animal masks, and sharing the same forked staff, on which they are soaring over the countryside.

The incidence of this forked staff as a bune wand is interesting when we remember that Diana and Hecate, the classical moon goddesses of
witchcraft were both given the title Trivia, ‘of the three ways’, and their statues stood at places where three roads met.

The forked staff could well symbolize this and hence be used in witches’ rituals.

It also resembled the horns of the Horned God.

Long-stalked plants were often believed to be bune wands for witches, especially such plants as grew in wild and desolate places.

The yellow ragwort is one such; and there is a saying in the Isle of Man, “As arrant a witch as ever rode a ragwort.”

The Ooser was written about in Doreen Valiente’s ABC’s of Witchcraft and in Margaret Murray’s The God of the Witches.

It was a hollow mask made of painted wood, trimmed with fur, and crowned with bull’s horns.

The lower jaw of the Ooser was movable, and it possessed a strange convex boss on its forehead.

Valiente claims that this boss was representative of the third eye, a seat of psychic power.

The original Ooser mask disappeared in 1897, though a modern replica, made in 1975 by John Byfleet, is held in the Dorset County Museum, where it is taken out as a part of a procession of Morris dancers atop the Cerne Abbas giant on May Day and St George’s Day, though some records indicate that in the 19th century it was paraded at Christmas instead.

It is unknown when the original mask was made, but appeared to be in a tradition of making animal and grotesque masks to be worn in procession; in the 7th century book Liber Poenitentialis by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, he stated:

“whoever at the kalends of January goes about as a stag or bull; that is, making himself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beast, those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this is devilish”.

The etymology of the word “ooser” is of special interest to we Indiana witches, as we Indiana natives are labeled by the strange moniker “hoosier”, which is a variation of ooser.

The Indiana Historian Jacob Piatt Dunn, Jr. found that the word, “hoosier” was used, in the south, to refer to woodsmen and rough hill people.

Mr Piatt traced this word back to England and the word “hoozer,” meaning anything large in the Cumberland dialect.

This was derived from the Anglo-Saxon “hoo” meaning high or hill.

Mr Pratt suggests that this word was brought from England and applied to people who lived in the southern mountains.

This word then migrated north to the southern hills of Indiana.

“Hoosier” is still sometimes used in the southern United States to characterize someone who is less then sophisticated, or more bluntly, an “ignorant rustic.”

Thus, a hoosier is a Pagan!

The Fetch-Beast, also known as the Fetch-Wife, has been dealt with elsewhere in this book, and is the Underworld Self of the Crafter, known in Briar Rose as the Dragon.

The third kind of Fetch, the one used in shape-shifting, is traditionally a piece of skin or fur belonging to the animal into which the Shape-shifter transforms.

In some cases, such as the selkies in Ireland, it is the actual whole skin that the shape-shifter puts on to become the animal.

But when Witches refer to a Fetch, they usually mean the “thought-form” created for a specific purpose, to find something or someone, to bring people together, or carry out some other task.

Ceremonial Magick has a similar technique, the main difference being the status of the Fetch… in the Craft, it is a living entity, whereas CMs tend to see them as servitors, something akin to astral droids.

To create a fetch, you need to start by pulling energy together in a concentrated form.

There are many ways of doing this, but for a solo practitioner the most effective way is to visualize a ball of light between your hands, and pump energy into it from your core, through your hands.

Keep pumping energy into it until it is really full, and you can feel the energy really strongly.

Then you begin to shape it.

You should have chosen an appropriate form before-hand — most Witches work with animal forms, and it is recommended to avoid using human forms unless you know what you are doing.

Once the fetch has its form, you should name it, bind it to its task, and then set its destruction fate.

It is considered bad form to let a fetch exist longer than a year, so traditionally a cut off date is built in, so the fetch ceases to be on a certain date, or when the task is complete, whichever comes first.

A fetch that is allowed to exist for too long, especially after their task is complete, can develop independence and start drawing off the life-force of its creator.

State firmly the fetch’s purpose, its cut off date, and name it, binding all these things together.

Then release it to complete its task.

The castles of our system are based on Grail Lore, but they also have representations in the none world.

These castles are symbolic of the energies inherent in their names and attributed to them by myth and legend.

In the Arthurian cycle, the knights journey to seven castles, but most mythographers interpret this imram as an Otherworldly voyage, akin to the shaman’s journey into the soul, using the World Tree as a ladder.

Robert Graves, in The White Goddess, indicates that each of the seven castles is synonymous with the Spiral Castle, Caer Sidhe (or Caer Arianrhod).

Graves’ interpretation makes good sense to us. Each of the castles is so intimately connected in symbolism and meaning, and it is impossible to separate any one of them from gestalt of Caer Sidhe.

It is based on this concept that, while we talk about the castles as separate places, we ultimately view them each as a tower or turret on the great Spiral Castle.

The Castle of Stone is the home of Cernunnos, in our system.

He is the keeper of the castle and the guardian of its treasure, the Stone Bowl.

Cernunnos is honored at Summer Solstice as the Oak King, and the totems present in his time of honor are the Oak, Stag, and Robin.

One of the names of the Castle of Stone is the “4-cornered castle,” in Welsh Caer Bannawg. This name became Carbonic or Carbonak later.

Graves suggests that this castle is in fact a burial place like a kristvaen (which is formed from four stone slabs that make a stone box). It has also been suggested that “4-cornered” refers to the castle rotating four times, which certainly ties it symbolically to the Spiral Castle.

Carbonak is an important locale in Grail myth, as it is the home of Elaine (the Grail Maiden, wife of Lancelot, and mother of Galahad). It is here that the Grail is revealed in the saga, when Elaine shows it to Lancelot.

The Old French version of this name is cor beneoit, meaning both ‘blessed horn’ (alluding to the Grail as a horn of plenty) and ‘blessed body’ (referring to the Grail as a Eucharistic vessel).

The reference to horn also works nicely as an allusion to the Horned God of this keep.

Carbonak is also heavily associated with ravens and with Bran the Blessed. Corbin, which the castle is called in certain parts of the myth, is the Old French word for “raven.”

Bran means raven in Welsh and Cornish. An extent hill-fort in Penwith, Cornwall is associated with Carbonak, and it is called Caer Bran.

The Brythonic possessive version of this name is Kernowek. Castell Dinas Bran (“Castle of the City of Crows”) in Wales is assumed by scholars to be the most likely site of Carbonak, however.

Bran is inescapably tied to the Grail mythologies in the sense that he, too, went on a voyage in search of a sacred vessel, The Cauldron of Rebirth.

Like the Grail-King, he was pierced by a spear and the land suffered until he was healed. Bran is honored and remembered in the Arthurian cycle as Brons, one of Arthur’s knights, the son-in-law of Joseph of Arimehtea (who, of course, is said to have brought the grail — as cup of Christ — into Celtic lands).

The Stone Castle is no palace, no place of luxury or entertainment. It is a fortress, a place of training and of siege.

It is the Vault of the Mysteries. It is a place of safety, and it is a storehouse.

It is a seat of power and is built at a site of strength (or one with protective needs).

Several castles and forts spring to mind when envisioning Caer Bannawg for oneself.

The Krak de Chevaliers, for instance, is a wonderful example of a medieval fortress. It is a “Mont & Bailey” castle, and it is practically impenetrable.

It is functional and foreboding, and it takes very little manpower to defend it.