The Horn of Evenwood
A Grimoire of Sorcerous Operations, Charms, and Devices of Witchery
Also called The Master's Book of Conjury or The Witchfather's Bloodless Bones
By Ule Heth-Bucca (Robin Artisson) Magister, Coven of Heth Pontifex, Hollow Hill Fellowship
Pendraig Publishing, Los Angeles
© 2007 Robin Artisson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except brief quotations used in a review.
Pendraig Publishing, Sunland, CA 91040 © Robin Artisson 2007. All rights reserved. Published 2007. Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-0-9796168-0-8
Evenwood's Caverns: Key Conjurations and Invocations
Invocation to the Turnskin Master, Opener of Doors 15 Ninefold Conjuration of the Familiar 15 Incantation for the Scattering of White Dust 16
The Preparations of the Three Purities: Preparation of Fire 16 Preparation of Salt 17 Preparation of Water 17
Conjuration for Aspersing with Ensorcelled Water and Earth 18 Conjuration for the Circumambulation of the Faultless Fire 18 Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name 18 Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing 19
Conjurations to the Four Points of the Compass For Workings of Sympathy, Identification, or Bringing to Life 20
Evenwood's Secret Paths: The Keys of Sorcery
The Ten Pillars of Witching or Sorcery: the Keys to the Recondite Art
23
Rudimentary Witchcraft and the Implements of Art 35 Awareness of the Power that Binds 37
Evenwood's Forest: The Witch-Ring or the Ring of Sorcery, the Service of Sigils, And Six Exemplary Sorcerous Workings
Formation of the Witch-Ring 40 The Service of Sigils 42 Biting the Tongues of Serpents 45 Summoning the Witch-Dream by Moth Flight 51 Binding the Lovers One to the Other 53 The Fruitful Working of the Womb-Seed 56 A Pavis from Foul Imprecations 60 The Spell of Oak-Beams 63
Evenwood's Protector: The Mystical Herbology of the Mandrake
The Mandrake 66
Evenwood's Master: The Master of the Craft and the Spell of
Grand invocation of the Hethite Witchfather and Lord of Light: the Father Goat, the Master of the Cunning-lodge and the Endless Feast. The Grand Invocation-Litany of Nineteen Parts 73 Cloven Hoof-Prints of the Lord of Sorcery: Searching for the Witchfather 78
A Meditation on the Path of the Turnskin, the Master of the Witches, And His Secret 78
The Spell of Flight: Second Stream Transvection or the Witch-Rade into Faery via Geomantic Bonding, Fire, and Riding-Pole 89
Evenwood's Hidden Seasons: Charms and Gateways in the Earth and Sky
Threefold Charms 102 The Rites of Spring 121 The Rite of the Tinley Fire 127
Gates of Life and Death: The Nixie and the Moon-Pond 138
For the Lady Ellhorn-Saturnia The Fetch-Magistellus Strix And the Master of Masters Perfectum est
"If this be magic, let it be an art."
-William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale
This grimoire contains a complete system of Witchery or Sorcery. There have been many books, tomes, and grimoires created throughout the ages on precisely this same subject matter, but this grimoire, this book of Art, is different from most of them in two important respects.
It is different in that it is more like a "tool kit" than a recipe book. While I do include the texts of many detailed workings of Witchery between these two covers, full and comprehensive instructions for bringing those pieces of sorcery to life, I only do so to teach the principles of sorcery by demonstration. This book contains all the needed seeds, ingredients, principles, and guidelines for reliably creating your own workings of Art.
The fact is inescapable: real "magic" only blooms fully when you bring yourself to it and engage it; you have to be involved on every level, and in every detail. Your imagination and creativity must awaken and your most authentic will has to become your real "Magister" or teacher. There are no "short cuts" in the world of living sorcery.
This book's system of Sorcery is also different from most others in that it actually works. For too long, the modern occult world has suffered under a dense cloud of complexity and obscurity that has done more harm than good- authors are either afraid of "giving too much away" (in which case one wonders why they took up their pens at all) or they blanket their spiritual understandings and sorcerous techniques under incomprehensible mountains of over-ripe prose. The end result is the same- workings that don't work, and the suffering of interested, worthy people who can intellectually and intuitively embrace the reality of sorcery, but who cannot get even a simple working off the ground without either losing interest or failing outright to achieve their mystical and worldly goals.
What you are reading now is the precious result of years of information gathering, spiritual awareness, and working experience. I have learned from the old masters- Heinrich Cornelius, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Paracelsus, Wierus, Iamblichus, and their company. I have learned from modern masters, sometimes from their writings, and at other times, from hearing words from their own lips. My greatest sources and teachers are not to be found in any library or house in this world; they are my Familiar-powers, the spirits to whom I owe so much. I have no trouble placing them first in my respect and gratitude; as the poet and occultist Andrew Chumbley once said, "If you call upon the Gods and they answer, who is there to oppose or to challenge the integrity of your Path?"
Indeed, it was the Master who gave me the blood and bones of this work. I prayed for his guidance and inspiration; I received of him that which I asked for. This book might well be placed on the bookshelf next to Machiavelli, and all of the other works that have been declared "inspired by the devil", for I have no illusions regarding who and what my Magister is. Anyone who thinks that he is some arch-villain from a Christian cosmological drama has long ago missed the point. The "devil" is a mask worn by a spirit that is intimately involved in every detail of our daily lives, from our dreams, to our computers, our cars, our languages, our industries, our secret hopes and fears, and countless other things. He lurks there, just out of sight, observing the world he created. He is well known by our deceased friends and relatives, for it is his light that greets them when all other lights have faded. Devil? Only to the extent that we trouble ourselves to fight with him, and with the basic reality of our everyday lives- the Truth about ourselves.
Though this is a book of sorcery, of magic, of "making things happen with the help of familiar spirits and channeled occult powers", I cannot help but include bits of hoary and fiery wisdom regarding the deeper matters of human life. For me, the Art of sorcery is inseparable from the search for Truth. Many will disagree with that, and to them, I can only promise that this work does not attempt to force some philosophical worldview onto anyone- it chiefly concerns itself with sorcery, and sorcery alone. It presents a Witchery that is very much pre-Wiccan, traditional and mildly disturbing in places. The more disturbing the better, I say. The modern mind that reads these pages will often bring a battered, idealistic, "white light" notion to matters occult, only to be struck by the gritty reality. What some people call "disturbing", therefore, is really another name for "colliding with reality and finally waking up". It is a sign of power, and as we will see, the magic in these pages works.
This work is the result of a decision I made to share the interior pages of one of my personal grimoires. As I looked through this working tome of mine, I was able to see so many places, places which were the real birth-cradles of this work. I saw the rural backwoods of the Southern United States, the grassy banks of Bayou St. John, and even the most rural and deserted places in Ireland and Northern England that I visited not so long ago. I was able to relive many vibrant spiritual and physical communions, talks I had with local people, even some who were sorcerers and witches, and talks I had with the spirits still dwelling in those places, on the sides of dirt lanes, in old trees and barns, and in lakes and ponds. That is where the real wisdom and power resides.
People want wisdom and power, but they can't bring themselves to believe that it could be closer to us than we imagine. There is so much wisdom and power out there, sitting right before our eyes as we zoom by oblivious in our automobiles and airplanes. People want so much, but few want to give back for it, pay the price, or pay the Piper. One da)7,1 decided to pay the Piper, and I am pleased to report that he gives back much for whatever investment you make on his path.
People want tradition, too. They want to know that they can reach back through the mists of time and join others who came before in similar ideas, ritual actions and customs, all for the purpose of keeping the "red thread" going, the chain of minds and bodies that have encapsulated tradition and handed it down. To feel like you are a part of something older and greater than yourself is a good thing, a desirable thing, but it all falls to pieces if the "chain of tradition" is allowed to dictate to you who and what you are, and what your purpose is. Tradition is meant to be engaged.
Though it remains the same in many ways, every generation stamps subtle changes on traditions. What you are holding now is a book of tradition, traditions handed to me from others, and from me to you- but this book bears the seal of Robin Artisson, the changes he made for the purposes of making this Witchery his own. Your task, if you accept it, is to do what I have done and find results.
Who are the people who can engage this book of Witchery? They are the people who have found their familiar spirit. When I say "familiar", I mean a spiritual power that you have a strong, resonating connection with, and whose existence you do not doubt for a moment. Witchcraft, from every age of the world and from every place, has operated on the principle of the aid given to a human being by a familiar spirit, whether that familiar was a servitor, a guardian, or those powerful spirits that our ancestors rightly called "Gods". Those powers that you have spiritual allegiance to, can and will, help you to achieve your goals and to find what you need in this world. They will help you find safety, peace, health, love, prosperity, and ultimately, the Truth. If they did not, they would not be worth the time it takes to believe in them nor the effort it takes to maintain real bonds of relationship. They have aided human beings from the dawn of time; they still aid them today.
The Unseen world is not silent; it is we who have forgotten how to hear. The powers there are not idle; they are busy every moment trying to reach us, going about their timeless work of realization. If you believe in them, if you have prayed, invoked, asked for help, asked for guidance in dreams, and finally received it, you are ready for the workings and understandings in this book.
Part One of this work, Evenwood's Caverns: Key Conjurations and Invocations, contains fourteen short pieces of invocatory prose and poetry, true sorcerous lines of power, hiding in the unassuming form of words. They will all be given without explanation; read them without trying to divine anything about them. As you move onto the next sections of this work, you will understand what to do with them. When you have mastered them, you will likely create your own equivalents to them. That is growth and power.
Part Two of this work, Evenwood's Secret Paths: The Keys of Sorcery, introduces people to the Ten Pillars of genuine sorcery, or Witchery. Many will have experience in the world of the occult long before they pick up this work, and will no doubt have utilized many of the sciences discussed in the Pillars. Very few will have brought them all together in such a simple, direct way, and added to them what I call the "Awareness of the Power that Binds". Many will say that they have, but in their own hearts, they will know the truth, that we tend to forget the most simple, essential things. If you have never attempted the formal practice of Sorcery before, these Ten Pillars will allow you to enter into this world with a bang, not a whimper. Such a good early morale boost will propel you onward (Fate permitting) to greater attainments.
Part Three of this work, Evenwood's Forest: The Witch-Ring or the Ring of Sorcery, the Service of Sigils, and Five Exemplary Sorcerous Workings, are the heart of this grimoire. It chiefly details six entire workings, perfectly demonstrating how the Ten Pillars of sorcery come together and cause real changes in the world. It is important that you read these workings in the order they are given, and only after you have fully read the previous parts of the book.
Part Four of this work, Evenwood's Protector: The Mystical Herbology of the Mandrake, re-introduces my audience to a woefully neglected aspect of the Western sorcerous world: the proper cultivation and many powerful uses of the Mandrake.
Part five of this work, Evenwood's Master: The Master of the Craft and the Spell of Flight, contains not only the Grand Invocation of the Witch-Master, as used by myself and others, but meditations on the mysteries of the Master, and suggestions regarding what He intends, ultimately, for mankind. The "Spell of Flight" is the Witch-operation par excellence, a means by which any person who fulfills the letter of the working can force their own mind and awareness to enter directly into the condition of the Underworld, or the Faery-World, and go into that final chamber of initiation which is only found in the Netherworld.
The final part of this work, Evenwood's Hidden Seasons: Charms and Gateways in the Earth and Sky, contains four important essays regarding the sorcerous art and inspections revealing some of the deepest mystical secrets buried in seasonal and faery-folklore.
I can think of nothing further that I need to say in this preface. If you are brave, dedicated, ready to get your hands dirty in the fields and woods and gardens gathering the herbs you will doubtlessly need, and if you are ready to obey the hidden Laws, then you are ready to begin the greatest of journeys a person can take. I wish you luck and success, but more than that, I wish you wisdom.
In the Master's Name:
Ule Heth-Bucca (Robin Artisson) Northern Louisiana Litha, MMVII A.D.
Evenwood's Caverns: Key Conjurations and Invocations
Invocation to the Turnskin Master, Opener of Doors
Black-clad Master who walks the pathways of the sun: Staring eye of the Old Man, King at the Crossroads, Open the doors to the great world unseen: Swift-tongued Master, splitfoot horned and twisted, Beautiful and radiant amid the terror of darkness, Open the doors to the great world unseen. Turnskin supreme in Cunning and Artifice, High Priest and Key-holder of the world of spirits, Open the doors to the great world unseen.
Ninefold Conjuration of the Familiar
Familiar spirit given to me, sent to me by the Master Familiar spirit, strength of my art, arise from the depths Familiar spirit, ward and way-shower, magistellus, fly swift unseen Familiar spirit, come down the roads and enter my body Familiar spirit, come now as the Master would have you Familiar spirit, you cannot fail to hear this conjuration Familiar spirit, witchery is before you and the doors are opening Familiar spirit, constrained by the Mystery of Fate, serve now Familiar spirit, nine times conjured and implored; show your face to
Incantation for the Scattering of White Dust
I scatter this white dust in the Master's name Always to the left, poured from my left hand Protective will it a circle be, A trap for the spirits of my conjury An enclosure hallowed for this witchery By the ancient earth who swells with bloom And opens her hills to the spirit gentry, By the dead men who sleep in this ground, Here I make a white ring feigning the hedge Here I make a pale ring feigning ancient stone With the chains of Fate it is bound.
The Preparations of the Three Purities Preparation of Fire
The left hand of the Master spreads over you, fire: His tongue speaks ancient spells:
Old living serpent, shining face in the even, Glimmering and heated by the spirit,
Ancient servant, tamer of night terrors and subduer of metals, Witchery commands your purity and obedience. Giving life and warmth freely, a thousandfold debt reclaim. Creature of faultless flame fierce, patron of mastery, Be prepared for the task at hand.
The left hand of the Master reaches for you, salt: His tongue speaks ancient spells:
Earth that contains a thousand thousand ghosts And powers older than old, you bitter and sharp, pregnant with life Salt of living force, the Word scatters from you all unclean And leaves you bone white, a mineral potent for the task at hand Old Name of God, be you prepared.
The Left hand of the Master reaches for you, water: His tongue speaks ancient spells:
Pool of water dark and still, blood of cave and spring: Whether as rain to earth you fell, Or drawn were you from river, sea, or well, By this utterance be cleansed of taint
And destroy all phantasma and powers contrary to my work. Creature of ancient water, Let this sharp earth And my conjuration draw from you all uncleanness And leave you prepared for the task at hand.
Conjuration for Aspersing with Ensorcelled Water and Earth
You are cast upon tracks of white dust, water and earth, You are cast upon the ground and circle like Styx around. You become four roads that spirits will tread, Hither to the blazing lamp that crowns your head.
Conjuration for the Circumambulation of the Faultless Fire
Three circles are drawn, three rings are made Safe and sealed am I from elf-bolt blast or faery rade But for those I would admit, none shall enter in; But for those I would remit, my words here will bind. This in the Master's name.
Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name
Agency of Ineffable Name and Might, Vast and Mysterious, Old and Dark One, concealing the beginning of things, Unknowable Depth to which all things go to meet their end: You are forever Alone and forever Impenetrable.
All-Power Great and Darksome,
The fateful mystery of my self shimmers unseen
In your trackless spirit.
You are the mighty keeper of judgment and all promises.
Inscriber of Fate, who ties unbreakable threads of consequence,
I turn against you not; I am your creature.
And thus I beg: let my words prove effective!
Let my sorcery be strong and my will resisted by none!
Giver of Life and Bringer of Ruin and Despair, Chainer of the world in adamantine bonds, Hallowed be your empty name; I dread to say more.
Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing
With hands, feet, your breath, or a broom, the dust-border is scattered beginning with the east, and going clockwise around the Ring. As you scatter it, say:
There, scattered to the east, light escapes; There, scattered to the south and west and north. An a servant should remain, he hurries now to his task.
All powers are released and the ring fades to old memory. What sorcery dwells here still on the morrow Shall sink under the sun.
Conjurations to the Four Points of the Compass For Workings of Sympathy, Identification, or Bringing to Life
Milia Achilla Sibylia
Old and fierce, iron-willed and weary
White-Faced Woman who rakes the cursed dead,
Hekate of night-howling grave dogs
Assemble your deathless ministers behind the north wind
And let them be witness to my work.
Stars that glare from the heavens,
Dark dome of sky, awaken your powers
And let them give witness to this work.
Prince of the House of Morning,
Blazing serpent of old, Lord of Watchers,
Great Dragon of Elder times forgotten
Witchfather with an ever-open eye,
Assemble your subjects and bid them witness my work.
Old spirits of artifice and useful crafts
Awaken once more and give heed to this work.
Power of field and bloom, warm earth
From whom we cannot be parted:
Stir the unseen people in your bosom
And let them give witness to my work.
The Lady's bower is surrounded by roses,
Deep crimson and thorns proclaim her majesty.
Let the Queen of Elfland and her sisters witness this work.
Milia Achilia Sibylia.
Groaning powers of the fen mistlands
Regret goes forth, down your many dead roads
Where the sun sinks over the water dividing.
Old Man, stern and weary boatman,
Take these words to your Lord and his Lady.
Old ruler under the mound, Undying King of the Dead,
Hear these words; aid me and I will spill blood for you:
Rouse the pale people to witness this work.
Let the spinning wheel of Fate clatter and turn,
But never against me.
Grey Women, I will spill blood for you.
Milia Achilia Sibylia.
Evenwood's Secret Paths: The Keys of Sorcery
The Ten Pillars of Witching or Sorcery: the Keys to the Recondite Art
There are ten pillars that support the edifice of sorcery. In your workings of Art, you must integrate and include as many of these ten sciences as you can; the more you succeed at including, the more powerful and effective your Art will be.
I. Rightly Prepared Materials of Art
Any material thing that is used in your work must be aspersed or sprinkled lighdy with purified water mingled with purified salt, then passed swiftly through the heat and light of a purified fire. Then it must be laid upon a Triangle of Manifesting and given a charge of task. It must be told "creature of (whatever material), be cleansed, awakened, and prepared to serve the causes of my sorcery in the Master's name." You can be more verbose if you like, but remain focused at all times. It will often be the case that you use paint or inks to create written or drawn talismans and charges and the like. If at all possible, you must create these pigments or inks yourself, in a properly cast Ring of Sorcery, with each of the components cleansed in the before-mentioned way, before they are mixed together by your hands. They should be mixed in a vessel that rests upon the Triangle of Manifesting. As you mix them, you must chant their purpose, in the Master's Name. If you intend to create personal talismans or the like with them, mingle some of your blood directly into the mixture. It should be mentioned that the only two proper colors of ink or paint to be used in works of Sorcery are black and red.
II. Symbolic Actions and Vessels of Symbolism
When working inside a Ring of Sorcery, you must always pay attention to the symbolism of your words and deeds, but also to the symbolism of what objects you bring to bear on your working. Remember that symbolic action within the ring is the equivalent of actual events without it. All workings of power contain strong symbolic links with the desired outcomes. If your work is for the successful sexual union of a man and a woman, the creation of a male poppet and a female poppet, and their union on your Triangle of Manifesting, amid a properly cast Ring, is of great effectiveness and a good example.
III. The Power of the Word used Concisely and Repeatedly
The spoken word is the center of Sorcery; the will of the witch or sorcerer must be embodied in words. What you desire, what you would see come to pass, must be spoken clearly and concisely, and repeated many times as you work and as you finish the work. These words are instructions to the powers who will respond to your working, such as your familiar spirits, or who will be appointed by the Master to respond, if you are successful. The spoken declaration that you make, the charge, must not be too many words, nor too few. Each word of the charge must align with your will perfectly; there is no room for ambiguity or compromise.
IV. The Activity and Power of the Familiar
There is no sorcery or Witchcraft without the power and secret activity of the Familiar spirit. The "Familiar" can be those spirits appointed to you by the Master, or by the powers of the Netherworld, or the term can refer to those same powers, even the Master himself. Before you commit to acts of sorcery or Witchery, you will need to be identified with a Familiar spirit or with the Master, or other powers of the Netherworld that must aid you. Human beings are not the true sources of power that they embody or manifest; they are vessels for powers invoked and influenced by will. No incantation or conjury can go without calling upon the name of Familiar spirits, or other powers that will act in the capacity of a Familiar to you for your work. The Master himself is Familiar to all works of Witchery, and can be called upon by all for any purpose.
V. The Transfer of Hand, Word, and Deed
When you work, as often as you can, do not allow your own hands to work alone. Nor should you allow your words to be spoken only by you, nor your deeds, be your deeds alone. Always appeal to the powers of Familiar spirits or even to the Master or other Great Powers by transferring your hands, words, and deeds to their own. "It is not my hand that does this", the witch says as she shapes the clay that will be the body of a poppet, "but the hand of the Master". This verbal declaration causes a "transfer" of power, joining your hands to the Master or to some Familiar, a true invocation of their power through your mind and body. When making conjurations, remember: "It is not my tongue that makes this incantation, but the tongue of the Master". "It is not my hands that do this deed, but the hands of that power Familiar to me." Thus is your power added to that of the Netherworld, and their power added to yours.
VI. Rightly Gathered and Aligned Herbs, Proper Days, and Observed Moons
Wort or Herbs are very important to workings of the Art of Witchery. Each herb is under the governance of one of the seven chief Heathen powers of old, embodied astrologically in the seven planets. Thus, each herb has alignment with and influence over certain activities, and should be brought to bear on any work if possible. Each of the seven chief powers of old also rules over a certain day, and workings for purposes in sympathy with that power are stronger, if done on said day.
Lunar workings, ruled over by the moon, should be done on Monday. Lunar workings are for the awakening of clairvoyance or divination through such visions and intuitions. The moon likewise rules over all matters concerned with dreams, gaining entrance into the dreams of others or sending through dreams; it has authority over the portals into the unconscious reaches of the human being, aids in the creation of illusions and deceits, and even gives entrance to the underworld and to the dead. It aids in psychic vision and other strange phenomenon. There is a connection between the moon and the power of Fate; its power can used for general sorcery if need be. Lunar workings are also done to unconsciously influence the dreams, actions and thoughts of other people. Aside from being able to cause or help heal mental illnesses, Lunar workings can also be brought to bear on the healing of the systems of the body, especially the reproductive system and the circulatory system. Herbs that serve lunar workings include the leaves and bark of the willow tree, Sandalwood, Lily, Bladderwrack, Adder's Tongue, Grapes, Myrrh, Gardenia, Moonwort, Eucalyptus, Jasmine, the fruit of lemon trees, Fern, and Mugwort.
Martial workings, ruled over by Mars, should be done on Tuesday. Martial workings are chiefly for justice- for triumph in trials and judgments when you are deserving of such an outcome. But Martial workings are also for "red curses"- the swift curses aligned to fire and torment. These are the bloody, fiery, and angrily violent curses, such as curses that cause accidents, conflicts and arguments between people, or injuries, which stand in strong contrast to the cold, deliberate, slow-moving yet adamantine Saturnian curses, which fall under the power of Saturn. If you have to compete with an opponent in some contest, or face a trial, Martial workings for victory are suggested. Martial workings can also be used to protect fields and gardens from pests and diseases, for making men virile, and (like Jupiterian workings) for the warding off and destruction of predatory, wicked spirits. Herbs that serve Martial workings include Vervain, Onion, Pine, Wormwood, Rue, all peppers and maces, Ginger, Peppercorns, Strafe, Chilis, Holly, Stinging Nettles, Garlic, and Wolfsbane.
Mercurial workings, ruled over by Mercury, are under the special patronage of the Master and should be done on Wednesday. Mercurial workings are for all matters of the development of intelligence, cleverness and cunning, and all needs you may have to develop the swift "silver tongue" needed to sway and convince others. These workings are for the development and strengthening of wit, for safety in travel, for luck in business or academia, for compelling others to think and act in certain ways through implanting subtle suggestions in their deep minds, and for creativity and spiritual or artistic inspiration generally. They are also for prophecy, secret knowledge, spiritual vision or insight into the true nature of things, divinatory visions, and divination generally. Workings to see the dead guided safely to their rest are Mercurial, and divinations that require the summoning of the dead or contact with the dead (which are Saturnian workings) must also include the herbs of Mercury. If a person is trying to get away with theft, or if they rely on illusions and deceiving others for their living, a Mercurial talisman or charm or a sachet full of enchanted Mercurial herbs is almost a requirement for their success.
Like lunar workings, Mercurial workings are good for general sorcery or needs that cannot be easily categorized under another power. Herbs that serve Mercurial workings include Peppermint, Flax, Elecampane, Dill, Fennel, Bittersweet, the leaves and bark or any product of the Ash tree, the Fly Agaric mushroom, and most vision-inducing plants or fungi, such as Psilocybin and Morning Glory. Other Mercurial herbs include Cinquefoil, Cinnamon, Spearmint, Pomegranate, Poppy, and Sage.
Jupiterian workings, ruled over by Jupiter, should be done on Thursday. Jupiterian workings are for matters concerning the need to make women fertile, make men virile, and the defeat of evil or wicked spirits and powers. These workings are for the health of fields through the increase of rain and favorable weather. These workings are also for the protection of the home from lightning and storm damage, and from thieves, fires, and other tragedies, and for prosperity in general. Jupiterian workings can be done to create protective charms, to protect people from witchcraft or foul sorcery aimed at them. Herbs which serve Jupiterian workings are the Houseleek, Agrimony, Hyssop, the leaves, nuts, and bark of the Oak tree, Figs, Borage, Chestnuts, Cloves, Meadowsweet, Nutmeg, Anise, Maple, and Sage.
Venusian workings, ruled over by Venus, are under the special patronage of the Lady of Elfhome, the Witch-queen. They are best done on Fridays. Venusian workings are for matters concerning romance, eroticism, physical pleasure, beaut}7, seduction-enchantments, the fertility and health of women, menstrual problems or disorders, the finding of a mate, and the repairing of relationships between lovers. Venusian forces are another grouping of forces that can be used for general sorcery. The Lady of Elfhome, called The Rose-Queen, or Dame Venus, is the traditional patron of Wortcunning or Magical Herbalism. Herbs that serve Venusian workings are the Rose, Rosemary, Blackberry, Marigold, Lady's Mantle, Honeysuckle, Vervain, Maidenhair Fern, Violet, Coriander, Myrtle, Cardamom, Plum, Marjoram, Cowslip, the fruit and other parts of the Apple tree, Basil, the Mandrake,
Periwinkle, the leaves and bark of the Birch tree, Ragwort, Strawberries, and Honey.
Saturnian workings, ruled over by Saturn, are under the special patronage of Old Fate, the dreadful Power whose name is ineffable and who stands beyond all things. They are also under the power of the King of the Underworld, who is a great authority over the dead and chthonic spirits/ faeries and powers, along with the feminine spirit of the Earth itself. Works of this nature are best done on Saturday. Saturnian workings deal chiefly with understanding Fate and the fatal power of that which is necessary, whether through visions or dreams, and with divination, especially divinations with regard to the dead or dying. Saturnian workings are most commonly curses- curses that are deliberate, long-growing, long-lasting and cold. They are the curses that cause long-term illness, nightmares, depression, loss of health and vitality, and the like. This is in contrast to Martial curses, which are swift and violent.
Curses or workings that call upon chthonic powers, or the dead, to fulfill your will are Saturnian, as are all workings that deal with calling upon the power of the Underworld, including attempting to access the portals in the Land for the purpose of entering the Underworld in trance to find deep wisdom. Workings to compel the dead are likewise Saturnian. Curses that intend to bind and restrict the actions of other people, spirits, or beasts are Saturnian in nature as well. Workings (blessings or blights) for the fertility of the Earth can be done in the power of Saturn, though earth-blights require a conjunctional use of Martial force, in most cases. Necromancy and General hexes for almost any purpose fall under Saturn's power, too, including charms to bind and bury hostile spells and powers sent against you.
The earthy Saturnian current has a good measure of protective power, if invoked as a protector and an "earth)7, solid fortress" of dark strength. This would mainly be done to protect your home, or your land, from hostile spells and powers, something that the Great Earth and the Saturnian Mother of the dark ground specializes in. While Jupiterian workings are usually done for protection of the home, Saturnian workings are also done for the same, and some say they are more powerful for it, because they seal up and protect the ground, land, and property itself, "grounding out" negative powers that try to enter. Herbs that serve Saturnian workings include nearly every poisonous plant of dark reputation, such as Nightshade or Belladonna, Henbane, Datura, Hemlock, and Foxglove, and others of that like. Earthy Saturnian herbs also include the bark, berries, and leaves of the Elder tree, the same from Yew, Poplar, and Cypress trees, Mullein, Dodder, Juniper, Hemp, Euphorbia, Amaranth, Ivy, Hellebore, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Skullcap, Solomon's Seal, and Horsetail. It is these latter herbs you would use for earthy or Tellurian workings, saving the more deadly Saturnian plants for curses and operations of initiation, soul-flight, and secret wisdom. Let it be known that you should never, for any reason, use the bark, leaves, roots, blooms or berries of the Elder tree in sorcerous workings for young children, either for their health or protection. The parts of the Birch tree should be used instead.
Solar workings, ruled over by the sun, are done on Sunday. Solar workings are for the acquisition of wealth and for matters pertaining to health, healing, the defeat of gloom and depression, the banishing of spirits of darkness, and for increasing and maintaining joy and good spirits generally. Also, in the power of the sun are workings for awakening spiritual awareness. Herbs that serve solar workings are Hypercium (St. John's Wort), Angelica, Mistletoe, Cinnamon, Heliotrope, Rowan, Chamomile, Sunflowers, Allspice, Saffron, Frankincense, Goldenseal, and the Daisy.
All herbs should be gathered fresh on what day rules over them, cut with a clean knife purified in the usual way, and cut in the Master's name. A small circle should be marked in the soil around them with the blade, never too deeply, just a very shallow furrow, unless of course you are compelled to dig up the entire root, such as in the case of Mandrake, which will be covered later. This gathering should be done under a large moon, if possible, or a waxing one, unless you are gathering herbs for curses, in which case a dark moon or a waning one is more appropriate. You should always avoid killing the plant, if possible. You must offer it a coin or a pouring of milk, your own blood, or honey to pay for what you take, if you would have it preserve the weird power in it that you seek to use in your working. Bear in mind that for all workings, the white of an egg can be used as a replacement for blood, but your own fresh blood is always better in cases like this.
Do not let the cut piece of herb or plant touch the bare ground while you are gathering, unless of course you are digging up or taking roots, in which case, it is good that they were in the soil. Store the herbs properly; good, clean jars and botdes are ideal, or wrapping in cloth and keeping still and dry. Almost all herbs will maintain ritual potency for at least a week, though the sooner used, the better. Dried herbs can be used many weeks later, but not at the same potency. Purchased and botded, dried herbs are weak, but they are better than nothing. Purchasing herbs fresh is better, but not nearly as good as gathering your own.
The use of gathered Herbs is simple, yet powerful. You should sprinkle and scatter the parts of herbs and trees that are in alignment with your working all around your Triangle of Manifesting. This is where they belong. They create the atmosphere of force in sympathy to your work. The other most powerful thing you can do is to crush them together with other oils, or just by themselves, to make incense which is burned in a censer on your table of Art at the time of your working. A few plants take well to being boiled and that infusion sprinkled around the area, and used for anointing. Others can be drunk as teas to help align your whole mind and body to the work, but some of these herbs are deadly poison, and you should consult good sources before you eat or drink any of them. It should also be noted that some of the herbs can be used for channeling different currents of power. Some herbs have "double duty", such as Cinnamon, which is aligned to the Mercurial current as well as the Solar.
The moon's phase is the final thing you should bear in mind for your workings. The waxing moon is the time to work to increase influences that already exist in your life, and which you desire to get stronger. It is also the time to work for the attraction of things into your life that do not exist, but which you would have. The waxing moon is the time to work operations for your benefit or the benefit of others.
The full moon is a time to work for any purpose generally, and for divinations, visions, and psychism especially. The waning moon is the time to dissolve and destroy influences that already exist in your life, and which you desire to be there, no longer. It is also a time for curses, the more slight the moon in the sky, the stronger curses and bindings will be.
The dark moon is the dme for the most baneful and deadly of bindings and curses, and for initiatory works. Even though nearly all works of Art are done at night, all Saturnian workings and curses are certainly and only done at night.
VII. The Laws of Sympathy and Contagion
When one substance touches another, they transform each other; they maintain a lasting connection from that moment onward. This is contagion-When a man or woman drapes themselves in a garment for the first time, it forms a lasting bond with that one which is never really broken. This is why objects once owned by a person or handled by a person can be used to perform workings on them in absentia; there is a link there between the owner and object, and the more emotionally concerned with the object the owner is, the more potent the link. When a man's bare foot touches the earth, for a short while, there is a connection in his print, which can be exploited if the Witch or sorcerer is cunning. Objects touched by many people dilute the connection of any one single person who has made contact with it.
The power of a place is lastingly imprinted on the native soil of the place, on stones or trees or plants growing in that place. A man or woman's hair, nails, spittle, sexual fluids, and blood all contain massive amounts of their own personal power, and a Witch who can obtain these things can easily perform sorcerous works on the subject in absentia, and even over very long distances.
One can never break their connection to their own hair, nails, or bodily fluids, so these things, when cut, trimmed, or spilled, must be carefully disposed of or concealed. If you touch the nail trimmings, hair, or fluids of another, you are creating a minor connection with those things, but such a small connection as your touch cannot overpower the link to the actual owner, so do not fear harming yourself. If you collect those things for purposes of harm, remember that you will purify those items to begin with, before you work with them.
Forms that resemble one another are said to be in sympathy. A photograph, sketch, carving, or a poppet that strongly resembles an enemy is in sympathy with the actual person, but it does not become powerful or capable of harming or helping the person in sympathy, until a true link is established. That link must come from power-items that have suffered contagion at the hands of that person, or been parts of their body, such as hair, nails, or bodily fluids. Buildings, places, and even animals can be ensorcelled through images from a great distance, according to these same principles.
There is no possibility of creating a workable "poppet" or an image, which will through sympathy and contagion, be used to help or harm another without "identification" or first bringing it to life ritually. That image or thing must be "shown" to the four directions of the world, and the powers in those directions awakened with a conjuration, such as the one given in this book. Then that thing, once raised and shown to the powers of the four directions, must be baptized with pure water and named after whomever or whatever it is an image of.
Outside of workings of Sympathy and Contagion the only way to affect a person, place or beast that is distant from you, is to make regular incantations and requests to familiars for your will. This is a less powerful practice than creating forms in sympathy, and gathering items contaminated by the personal power of those you would work your sorcerous will upon.
It is worth noting that if you can, certain magically created objects, including poppets that are made with links to living people, can be "delivered." After your sorcerous rites of sympathy are done, the produced poppets can be hidden close to the intended recipient of your sorcery, to increase their effect. It would be ideal if they could be hidden in that person's home, or buried on their property, but bear in mind that buried poppets, unless you want them to be grounded out and rendered magically ineffective, must be put into boxes or jars of some kind and sealed well, so that earth stays off of them. Hiding poppets and the like in the hollows of trees on the property is also an effective tactic. If you choose to do this (though you do not have to, as poppets and other sympathetically enchanted items, done properly, will work from any distance) make certain that you hide them in such a way that they are not likely to be found.
VIII. The Triangle of Manifesting
All workings that include or require the use of any sort of object that goes towards the goal of the work, such as poppets, cups, knives, cauldrons, petitions, charms, amulets, talismans, or things that will be inscribed, prayed over, chanted over, or such, should be placed upon a Triangle of Manifesting throughout the work, or as much as possible.
A Triangle of Manifesting is ideally a piece of wood inscribed with a circle that contains an equal-sided triangle, whose three points touch the circle's border in three places, but do not penetrate the circle. This is the ancient and traditional symbol by which things are brought into manifestation. Poppets are meant to be laid on them as the Witch makes invocations for the will of her work with the poppet; petitions, charms, or what have you, laid on them as the sorcerer's will is chanted over them, concisely and repeatedly. The Triangle of Manifesting is the centerpiece of any Table of Art, or place of working and conjury. It can be drawn in the ground if you find yourself working on bare ground. It can also be stitched into a cloth, or painted onto purified paper with purified ink or paint.
Like anything else, a Triangle of Manifesting is cleansed with pure water, salt, and fire when it is first made and used, and before any new use, or new working. The cup of wine and bowl of bread or cakes, that will be blessed for and by the Master and the other Familiar powers and consumed by Witches, at some ritual times, are placed on the Triangle as "Red Meal" invocations, or prayers, are made. It is important to remember that the Triangle of Manifesting is that thing that you need to tangibly manifest your will onto something, or allow for the manifestation of some power into a thing. Scrying mirrors can be placed on Triangles if you wish to summon some power into the mirror, to speak to it. For this purpose, some place the triangle outside of the Ring of Sorcery, but this isn't stricdy necessary. Manifesting a vision of divination into a bowl of water, or a spirit of divination, via the Master, into a cartomancy set or the like, is done on a Triangle of Manifesting.
The "Secret Fire" is a threefold force, composed of BELIEF, EMOTION, and IMAGINATION. If you believe that your sorcery can work, if you are emotionally invested in the outcome, and if your imagination is powerful enough to inspire you and allow you to internally experience the expected outcome, as though it had already come to pass, you will have what you need to make your Craft "work" for you. If you do not believe in it, its possibility or its effectiveness, you will receive no return on power. If you are not emotionally involved, on some level, with the outcome, you will not normally achieve any effect. If you are unimaginative, and cannot be inspired by such strange pursuits as these sorcerous works, you have no hope of success.
When you are chanting incantations or invocations, you must feel the fire, must feel alive and energetic for your work, fascinated by it, excited by it. Above all you must believe in it. When you invoke your Familiars, they will bring as much power to you as you are able to receive, and you can receive only if you believe and are open to the possibility. "Receiving" power in this way from Familiars, is crucial to the Sorcery of the mystical Craft; your words, tools, and other implements, as well as your ritual actions, become the means by which you focus this power into your working.
Do not ever speak of your workings until they come to pass. After you have worked, do not speak to another soul about what you have done, unless that person was direcdy involved, and even then, it is good not to speak of it with them over-much, if at all. If what you have worked for does manifest, you may speak of your deeds. If it does not come to pass, you can never speak of it, either the sorcerous methods you used, or the simple fact that you attempted to do anything at all utilizing sorcery. If you break this law of silence, you risk your ability to command sorcery ever again. If you keep this law, your power will grow steadily.
Rudimentary Witchcraft and the Implements of Art
Not all workings will tap into the force of all ten pillars, but every work will integrate at least three. The three pillars that must be tapped into and used in every work are:
The Power of the Word used Concisely and Repeatedly The Activity and Power of the Familiar The Secret Fire
No working of Witchcraft or sorcery is possible without using at least these three things. In short, simply having the "Secret Fire" of Belief, Emotion, and Imagination, focusing that through an incantation, concisely worded and repeated, all in the name of a Familiar power, is the most simple and rudimentary formula for any incantation that will work, and the most basic work of Witchery. Such a basic work doesn't even require a Witch-Ring or a circle to work, though it certainly can be done in one, for greater potency. At any rate, from the starting point of this basic working of only Three Pillars, you can and should integrate as many other aspects of the Ten Pillars as you can, and workings can increase in complexity, depth, and power.
If you are to manifest works of Witchery greater than the basic, rudimentary work just described, then you will need certain Implements of Art. Those you will need for the Art of Witching described by this grimoire include a "Lamp of Art" or a candle, whose holder or cradle can also be shielded somehow, if need be, from the wind; small bowls of wood, stone, earth, or metal to contain water and salt, though cups work well too. A permanent and portable Triangle of Manifesting is suggested, though not totally required; a forked staff of wood, at least four to six feet long and preferably Ash wood; a small portable wooden table and a dark or pleasingly decorated cloth to drape over it. The cloth should never be of bright colors, nor overly modern/flashy decoration. You would also need a bottle or container for pouring flour. These would be the basic implements needed for many works, not counting the other items and objects you will need for each individual work.
Other implements that you should acquire, for you will doubtless need them over time, are clay, an Artavus or a knife, which should be dagger-like and double-edged, and which is purified in the usual way, before its first use, and before each use to follow. Various cords of leather and of other natural materials, which will be used to tie and bind power into objects enchanted in your rites; vellum paper and a good dip-pen or calligraphy pen, as well as the materials to make inks and paints, and some thin paintbrushes, all for the creation of various talismans and petitions and the like; a nice chalice or cup, again (like all vessels of Art) made from wood, stone, earth, or metal, and used only for operations of Craft.
A good cast-iron cauldron is a must, along with a wooden or metal tripod, so that you can boil water during some operations, such as those operations in which you will infuse herbs in boiling water to make potions and philters. Many small pouches, which can be hung from around the neck, for wearing talismans and charms that you create around, are useful. Jars and wooden boxes for storing herbs you will gather are also useful. Bowls used for divination and scrying are nice, as are black mirrors, and decks that can be used for cartomancy. A sturdy incense burner or a censer of metal, earth, or stone will be needful and useful, too. The sorts of incenses you will create by hand will require incense coals, placed inside your censer, that the incense will be burned upon.
Lastly, a plain or gilded/decorated Goat's skull, the emblem of the Master, is the crowning item that can be used to empower any table of Art, or suspended from a forked staff, overlooking the working area. Antlers, human skulls, dog or cat skulls, bits of bone otherwise, toad bones, and the like are useful for lining the table of Art, and especially useful in Martial and Saturnian workings that are intended to curse.
What is most important when you are gathering your Implements of Art is that you select items and objects that fire your imagination, which awaken the Secret Fire in you. They must be evocative, powerful, and even (sometimes) "sinister seeming" things, for that is often how magical items appeal to a person. They must never be too artificial or ridiculous. Simpler tends to be better than more ornate, unless the ornate is very evocative and well done.
Awareness of the Power that Binds
This is the final piece of lore that you must internalize, if you would practice effective Witchery. In some way, this understanding is itself an eleventh pillar, but in other ways, it is not; it is the simple awareness that you must have to bring any of the ten pillars to life.
There is a great power that binds all things to each other- everything is connected. This connection is seen sharply in the actions of the Law of Contagion and Sympathy, but it is seen in countless other ways as well. You must understand, before you raise your voice to make an incantation, or your hand to do anything, that your words or actions will affect the world. You have to realize that you are shaking the strands of the weave of reality.
Take a moment before any ritual action to become mindful, and call this fact to mind- though you cannot see it or sense it often, your every word or deed has a real and far-reaching impact on reality itself, no matter how slight. Realize that as you begin to talk or make incantations, or work. Pause before each and every ritual motion and call the fact of the connection between all things to mind, and speak or act according to the realization that your words and deeds literally change the world, impact the world and the cosmos.
Bear in mind the consequences of your actions, as well as you can. The same connection that carries forth your intentions and spells is the connection that will carry them back if they cannot reach their target. For blessings and gentle works, that isn't such a problem. For curses, it certainly is. Even if a curse is allowed to strike its intended victim, it is also said that "curses, like chickens, come home to roost." Putting a negative blast of power into this world of connection will have some negative affect on you, internally or externally. This is something you must be ready to accept, if you ever make curses. Curses are only rightly done to protect your loved ones or yourself, or to protect sacred places in the Land and (to an extent) innocent people who are suffering injustice.
The question becomes: "What are you willing to sacrifice to protect these things?" What will you suffer or give up for the pleasure and privilege of the curse and its success? Ask yourself this carefully, because the extent of your answer is the extent of the power the curse will have. A person who is willing to give their life for something is therefore the most dangerous person alive, in any capacity, mundane or magical.
Evenwood's Forest: The Witch-Ring or the Ring of Sorcery, the Service of Sigils, And Six Exemplary Sorcerous Workings
Before any act of Witchery or Sorcery, you should fast for several hours, and wash your face and hands with cold water. You must then endeavor to find a lonely place outdoors, or withdraw indoors to a private, uncluttered chamber with a non-carpeted surface. For the purposes of this explanation, it will be assumed that the Witch-operant is working outdoors, but for those who must work in chambers, only the slightest of modifications will be required.
Draw out a good-sized ring or circle on the ground using a forked staff preferably of ash, but oak or some other tree native to your country will work. Draw it counterclockwise. Establish what direction is north, and then, drive your forked staff into the ground a few feet back from the northern rim of the circle, so that it stands facing inwards to the ring. Working indoors, you would lean the forked staff against a wall or set it into a container full of sand and mark out the circle with string or a cord.
You must now establish the table of your work inside the boundaries of the circle. Take a small wooden table, or spread a cloth on the ground in the center, and place upon it the tools and items you will need for your work. The table should face north, and when you stand behind it, your back is to the south, and you are also facing north.
Centrally on the table of Art should be the Triangle of Manifesting and a Lamp of Art (a candle) standing to the north of the Triangle, with an Artavus or knife lying in front of the Lamp, its blade pointing east (assuming you have such a knife). There is a connection between the blade and the flame, the one being born in the other, and both being symbols of the Master.
A bowl or cup of water, and a bowl or cup of salt should be to the left and right of the Lamp of Art, respectively As said before, the table should face north, towards the forked staff. All other items used in the working should be arranged on the table around these central items in an aesthetic way.
When you are ready, call to mind your awareness of the power that binds, light a candle (not the Lamp of Art, but another candle) or take an Artavus (a knife or dagger which should have been purified in rituals before this) and stand before the forked wood and say the "Invocation to the Turnskin Master, Opener of Doors".
Then, light your Lamp of Art, which is sitting centrally on the table of Art. You may discard the original candle now, if you used one. At this point, earnestly pray or invoke, using the "Ninefold Conjuration of the Familiar" that your familiar spirit or spirits come to you. Repeat it many times, or words like it, that command the obedience of your Familiar spirits.
Then take a bottle or some container full of flour in your left hand, and beginning at the north boundary of your circle, walk counterclockwise pouring the flour in a thin border all around the circle. As you do this, say the "Incantation for the Scattering of White Dust". If you were indoors, pick up the cord or string after you have done this, leaving only the border of flour.
When you have done that, go to the center of your circle, to the table of Art, and do the "Preparation of the Three Purities". Say the conjurations given over the candle, salt, and water, beginning with the flame that should be burning on your Lamp of Art first, the salt second, and then, (taking a pinch of the salt in your left hand), the water, dropping the salt into it as you say the final purifying conjuration.
Now you must carry the bowl of pure water (containing the bit of salt you dropped into it) around the circle counterclockwise, sprinkling it over the border of flour that you made, and saying the "Conjuration for Aspersing with Ensorcelled Water and Earth" as you do so. When you are finished, return to the table, take the Lamp of Art, and walk around the circle once more time counterclockwise, saying the "Conjuration for the Circumambulation of the Faultless Fire" as you do so.
When you return and replace your Lamp of Art on the table, you have finished. You are prepared to work. When your work is done, you must say the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name".
Do not leave the circle until you have finished your work. When you do finish and have said the final invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name, and you are prepared to leave the circle, say and perform the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing". To break the boundaries of the circle before you are finished and before you have done the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing" will void your work. If this should happen, re-create the circle and try to work again later.
If you need a fire to be built within the circle, for the purpose of boiling water in some metal or iron vessel suspended over the fire (with a tripod) for the making of sorcerous infusions, potions or philters, then you must make the circle wider and build the fire, or place the fire-containing vessel, in the East of the circle or the Northeast. Ensure that you have a good supply of wood or fuel for the fire in the circle with you, when you cast the ring or form it.
The Witch-Ring's primary use is, of course, for workings of Sorcery and Art, but it can have a religious function, as well, if "religion" may be used to refer to the binding of the Sorcerer to those spiritual powers who support him or her, as Familiars. Within a cast circle, the "Spell of Flight", given in Part Five of this work, should be attempted from within its boundaries, if at all possible. "Red Meals" comprised of chalices of wine and plates of bread or cakes, blessed in the Name of the Master and the Lady of Elfhame while sitting on the Triangle of Manifesting, should be eaten from within the Witch-Ring, and the remains poured onto the bare ground, as a form of communion in which petitions may be made to these great Powers, and the powers of Ancestors and the Underworld, who are always close to any physical location that you may celebrate these rites within.
There are three Grand Sigils included throughout this work, which are intended for use in summoning the attentions and spiritual presence of that being to whom they are dedicated. The reasons for this would be for petitionary workings, whereby these spirits are asked for aid or favors, but the more religiously minded Witch or sorcerer could perform these workings for the joy of communion.
The first sigil given in this work (see page 31) is for The Huntsman, Edric, the Undying King of the Underworld, King of the Pale People or the
Dead. This kingly spirit is the power behind the Jupiterian current of force, and he is detailed further later in this work. His sigil is specifically chthonic or earthly, befitting the essence of the plowed field, forest, and grave. He is of Saturnian character, when summoned through the sigil. The second sigil given in this work (see page 45) is for the "Seventh Sister" Godda, the Witch-queen and Faery-queen and the spirit behind the Venusian current of force. The third (see page 77) is for Master Puck or Bucca, Azael, the Master and Witchfather who is the spirit behind the Mercurial current of force, and in whose name, tutelage, and power all works of Witchcraft are really done.
To utilize these sigils for the purpose of summoning, petition, or communion, one begins at twilight, drawing a counterclockwise ring with the forked staff on bare earth, and then fixing the staff inward-facing to the north of the ring. Holding up a candle, torch, or Artavus, (or a sword), you must say the "Invocation to the Turnskin Master, Opener of Doors", and then fill the circle in (again, counterclockwise, beginning in the north) with flour, poured from the left hand. You can say the "Incantation for the Scattering of White Dust" if you like, but in this sort of operation it isn't strictly necessary.
Once you have made the Ring white with flour, take more flour and begin creating the sigil for the power you will invoke on the ground inside the Ring. You can make the sigil using two hands; you are not restricted to just the use of the left hand in this case.
Normally, you will only summon one of these powers with a Service of Sigils, but the Faery-Lady can be summoned alongside either the King Below, or the Master, if you wish to commune with them or petition them as a pair. You will almost never do a "two sigil" working containing the two male powers, though you may in the case of a funerary working, as the Master is the psychopomp or Guide of the Dead, and the King Below is the power who rules over the Reversed World of the Dead, far below. The one can be petitioned to guide the dead safely and quickly through any dangers to the place appointed them, and the other can be petitioned to see that the dead be given peace and rest during their stay in the Dead Kingdom.
While you are drawing the sigil with the flour, you have to visualize an "axis" running through the center of the ring, extending to the Underworld below, and to the highest heavens above. Once you are done drawing the sigil, take a bottle of water (it doesn't have to be the purified water of the regular Ring casting, but it can be if you had some) and pour four "trickle roads" running from each direction, and ending at the rim of the Ring. Unlike the Ring of Sorcery, you can step outside of this ring, coming and going as you or others will. Use a fire built outside of the Ring to the East or North-East to light your work, or surround it with shielded candles.
When you are ready to begin, you must strike the ground at the center of the sigil three times with your left hand, symbolically "knocking on the mound door", to awaken the attention of the power, and the powers unseen. Then, while fixing your gaze on the sigil, make the invocation:
"(Name of Power)_, whether you be in regions celestial or infernal,
Or whether you wander the dark meadows of this world, Hear my call, and bless this place with your presence. Descend! Rise! Fly here in spirit! Venite,_, Come,_, Venite,_,
In the Master's Name, (or "In your most powerful name", if you are summoning the Master).
Keep repeating this invocation until you feel the atmosphere of the place change, announcing the spiritual presence of your guest of honor. Then, take a chalice or goblet of wine or ale and bless it in their name, and pour it out around their sigil, remembering to splash a bit on the center.
"Receive this drink at my feast table, and be pleased with it! Increase me in your power and in your favor!"
You can do the same with a plate of cakes, bread, fruits, meats, or nuts. Bless it in their name, and scatter it on their sigil.
"Receive this food at my feast table, and be pleased with it! Increase me in your power and in your favor!"
After this, you may bless another cup and drink from it yourself, pouring the rest out around the sigil as before. You may also share whatever food you have with them. After that, your petition can be made, speaking to them as though they were present, ask them for what you will. If you have your petition written, you can burn it there, over their sigil. End this service by saying the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name", but do not refer to what you have just done as "sorcery", as you would normally say in the invocation. Instead, you may call it "communion". Then scatter the dust as usual, without saying the invocation. Take your forked staff and walk away without looking back, leaving the sigils drawn on the ground, and your offerings there.
Biting the Tongues of Serpents
This working illustrates a sorcerous technique for silencing those who make destructive gossip about the Witch. The gossip mongers are called "serpents" in the working, and "biting" their tongues refers to the act of blasting their tongues, representing their capacity for communicating their gossip, with a Saturnian binding to compel them to stop.
On a Saturday night during the waning moon, fast and clean yourself, then retire to the place where your Sorcery will be performed.
Form the Witch-Ring there in the usual way. On the table of Art, you should have enough modeling clay to make a ball and shape it into a head-shaped sculpture for each person whose tongue you wish to "bite" and therefore silence. You will need some material connection to these gossips-the backwash from glasses or containers they have drunk from, scraps of their hair, clothes, or some personal possession that you have made off with unbeknownst to them. You will need a black cord of some natural fiber, or a dark leather cord, which will be large enough to wrap around the clay heads, you will make, at least three times, but nine is better.
You will also need some very long needles or pins, which are quite sharp, three for each tongue you will "bite". You will need seven smaller pins for each head. Lastly, you will need a likeness of each person that you wish to bind, in the form of a clear photograph of their face, which has been blown up and printed onto paper, so that you can cut it out. You'll need scissors for the rite as well, to do the cutting. This entire operation can be performed with some chance of success with only the picture(s), but full power-items of linkage are preferred.
You will also need an incense (previously prepared) of two parts of finely reduced cypress bark, one part chopped up cypress leaves, a bit of hemp, and some ground red pepper.
Smash all these herbs, rightly gathered, hopefully together with a mortar and pestle, then add some drops of honey or oil- a very little bit- and continue to smash the mixture together. Do this for some time, while chanting your purpose over it, and transferring your hand and deed, transferring incantations include the following examples: "It is not my hand that mixes this Saturnian wort, but the Hand of the Master"; "This deed is not my deed, but the deed of the Witchfather himself"; "Be mixed, you dark scent, for the purposes of binding the foul serpents whose tongues offend me."
Sprinkle a little flour on the final sticky mix, and roll that all together between your palms, then store the various little balls you will make in this way until you need diem in this rite. If you want to make this operation even more powerful, create this incense in a separately cast circle, on the Saturday before your operation, and make the entire operation about nothing but creating and charging the incense to your cause, with the mixing bowl and other tools of incense-creation, sitting in your Triangle of Manifesting.
Some raw rasps of bark and cypress leaves should be kept to sprinkle around the Triangle of Manifesting, which you will also need. Sprinkle these herbs when you set up your table of Art.
The addition of ground red pepper, a Martial herb, into this Saturnian mixture, is because this curse requires a touch of the speed and aggressive fire of the Martial current for its act of spiritual chastisement. When you are mixing incenses and potions that contain herbs, you must mix them in such ways- using your intuition, adding together the elements and qualities you need, though never over-doing it. One type of plant (Saturnian, Martial, Venusian, etc) should always be the dominant in any mixture. Minor additions of others help you to round out your intentions for the work.
Once these preparations are made, and you are standing in the prepared Witch-Ring, bring your mind to the awareness of the power that binds, then take a bell and walk to the north, ring it, and say the Northern conjuration from the "Conjurations to the Four Points of the Compass For Workings of Sympathy, Identification, or Bringing to Life." Do this to each direction, with the proper conjuration for each. You are doing this because this work requires that a sympathetic image be "brought to life". This is generally the only time you would use those four invocations to the directions. It is very important that you always use it in these sorts of workings, such as the making of poppets and the like.
When you have done that task, become mindful of the power that binds again (you should always do this before each ritual act) and then purify the clay, the photo-prints or pictures, the incense you made, and the needles and pins with the water/salt mixture and the fire in your Lamp of Art. The formula runs so: "Creature of (whatever material), be cleansed, awakened, and prepared to serve the causes of my sorcery in the Master's name." For your clay, you would say something to the effect of "Creature of clay, be cleansed, awakened, and prepared to serve the causes of my sorcery in the Master's name." For the photographs or images, you would say "Image of X, be cleansed, awakened, and prepared to serve the causes of my sorcery in the Master's name." If you like, you can even purify the scissors you will be using to cut the images; purists would certainly agree that you should. If you had used your Triangle of Manifesting before, it should be one of the things purified as well.
Now begin burning your mixed Saturnian incense, and take some time to invoke the Master and your other Familiar Spirits, if any, and continue to call out to them and invoke them to aid you in your purpose. Do this until you feel that they are near to you, hearing you, ready to aid you. Become mindful, or aware, of the power that binds and take the first lump of clay (or the only lump, if you only have one gossip to bind) and place it on the Triangle of Manifesting. Begin shaping it into a head, male or female, depending on your intended victim. As you do so, transfer your deed. "It is not my hand that shapes the head of X, (name of victim) but the hand of the Master of Witches."
Say that several times, but also state what you are doing- "Clay, I shape you into the head of X, a vicious and insolent gossip, whose tongue wags and offends me. The tongue, in this head, will be bound silently, but not by me alone; it will be bound by the Master of Sorcery." If you have bodily fluids from these people, such as the spittle from a drink-cup, it is important that, at this point in the work, you pour that fluid INTO the clay and knead it in very well, before you start making the final head-shape. Make sure that you sculpt some hair out of clay onto the head, which resembles the hair the person currently has. If you have some strands of their actual hair, stick it in the top of the finished head. If you have nails, push those into the clay head, too. If you have a scrap of clothing or a personal item, lay it under the head after you have finished making it, making them touch as much as possible.
Be certain that these heads are not too large. The most important aspect of this sympathetic working is that when you see the head, you automatically "see" the person whom you are targeting. Thus, we will be using a photorealistic image to add the facial features. The size of the photo prints of their faces will govern how large the clay heads can be.
When the head(s) are prepared, put them aside, and take the photo-images. Cut out the faces of the victims, all but the mouths and lower chins. Get the eyes, nose, forehead and cheeks, and use your seven smaller pins to literally pin this cut-out face to the front of the head, where it belongs.
Then, take your fingers and draw out some of the clay where the mouth would have been, making a good, over-sized tongue. When you've done that, you wave the head through the incense smoke, and set it on the Triangle of Manifesting. Stare at it, building up emotion against the person whose face now stares at you, and then lift it up, walking to the north, and "showing it" to that direction. Bring to mind awareness of the power that binds and say:
"Powers of the North, I hold before you X, (full name of victim). This is X., the serpent, the gossip whose insolent tongue I will bite, forever binding them from their destructive talk about me."
Go to each direction and say this, then return and place the head back on your Triangle, and take your bowl of pure water, and sprinkle a little over the top of the head. This is the baptism, say "I baptize you X In the Master's name, you are X Live now, X" And then pick up the head and wave it through the fire. "The fire of life is given to you, X. You live now. May the watchful powers of the compass points see X, living and breathing here."
When all of these heads are prepared, or if only one was needed, you are ready to finish this work. You must realize that you are standing before the ACTUAL head of the person who is gossiping against you. When you touch it, touch it as though it were really living, a being of life and dignity, that fears being harmed. You must believe that whatever becomes of the head before you, will become of the person.
Now you take the first of your three long needles in your left hand, and prepare yourself. Being aware of the power that binds, and staring at the head with your own force of will and fire burning in your breast, slowly and deliberately slide a needle through the tongue of the victim's head. As you do, say: "X., serpent of gossip, I bite your tongue.
As this creature of sharp metal pierces you,
You cannot offend me with your cowardly words any longer.
You cannot speak against me, without pain and nightmares finding you.
It is not my mouth that speaks this binding, but that of the Master!
Silence, serpent of gossip! Silence, X.! Your tongue is bitten and bound."
Say this as wickedly and savagely, and with as much force as you can muster, for each of the three needles. When the last is in, end with "IT IS DONE!"
Then take the cord you had purified earlier, and wrap it around the head(s), being careful not to crush the clay tongue as you wrap- wrap around it. When the head is bound up, place the head(s) in a box or some container you had waiting for it.
When all of the heads have been prepared this way, say the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name", and then do the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing" to break and banish your Witch-Ring. Take the box with the heads in it, and keep it safe- do not let the heads become damaged, or seen by anyone else. Damaging the heads would be tantamount to trying to kill the person whose image they bear.
This operation, though Saturnian (and devoted to Saturnian restriction) can easily be transformed into a hot and fiery operation of wrath, by changing the herbal incenses and elements from Saturnian ones to Martial ones, and altering the day of practice, and the phase of the moon. With needles, or your Artavus /knife rubbed with Martial herbs and then heated in the Lamp of Art's flame, and finally forcibly stabbed into the living head of clay, any manner of horrendous "blastings" can be sent upon the person, from blastings that cause accidents, burns, headaches or even death. I don't suggest you do this unless the person poses a real threat to your life, and I only explain it like this to illustrate how your imagination is the limit in these workings. Anything is possible if you give a mind to these simple principles.
The Law of Silence always applies to your workings, after you have finished.
If the gossips continue, feel free to create a new Witch-Ring, by taking the cord off their heads, and driving more pins and needles into their tongues, repeating the incantation before re-applying the cord. When their gossiping ceases, you may unbind the heads after one year has passed, remove the tongue-needles, and then purify the heads of your previous binding with pure, consecrated water and salt, but NOT fire, while telling them that they are set free of the binding, and "no longer are they X, but a lump of lifeless clay." Then discard the heads on the bare ground somewhere or bury them.
This "releasing" assumes that you are good-natured and a good winner. If you want, you can choose to NOT unbind them; simply bury the box containing the bound and charged heads (if the box is wood or metal) somewhere for good.
Summoning the Witch-Dream by Moth Flight
This working illustrates a technique of Witchery by which a dream is summoned, a dream by which the summoner can have questions answered by powers from the Netherworld, such as Familiar spirits, a dead friend or relative, another dead person, any of the ancient spirits mentioned in mythologies, or the Master himself. Any power in the Unseen world can be "questioned" in this way. The question is sent to the Netherworld on the wings of moths, and the answer comes, if the operation is successful, on the wings of dream. The Witch-dream can also (more rarely) be summoned to reveal visions of things that have happened in the past, or the location of lost objects. It is often used to see the face of a future lover, but can be used for getting questions of any kind answered.
On a Monday night during the waxing moon, or more preferably on the night of the full moon, fast and clean yourself, then retire to the place where your Sorcery will be performed.
Form the Witch-Ring there in the usual way. On the table of Art, have a glass jar with one to three moths inside it. Make certain that the lid has holes in it so that they can breathe when you capture them in the day or night leading up to the working. You will also need clean white vellum or paper, and a small amount of red or black ink that (ideally) you would have made, in much the same way as you made the incense from the previous working example (Biting the Tongues of Serpents). In the waxing moon days leading up to the operation, you would have formed a Witch-Ring and purified the various ingredients that you would mix together for the ink, and mixed the ink while both transferring the deed of your hand and chanting your purpose, and finally mixing into the ink some well-ground Lunar herbs. Store the ink in a bottle, a bottle which you can even bind or wrap with a cord to "hold in" your purpose for it. All of this is, of course, done in the Master's name.
Have your jar of moths, your paper and ink, a Triangle of Manifesting, some Lunar herbs scattered around the triangle, and (if you like) an incense made of a mixture of at least two Lunar herbs and at least one Mercurial herb, ready to be burned during the operation.
Once these preparations are made, and you are standing in the prepared Witch-Ring, bring your mind to awareness of the power that binds, and invoke the Master and your Familiar spirits strongly. You should be able to easily gaze on the full moon in the sky above you. Undertake at this point to purify everything you will use in this operation with your empowered water and salt, and fire.
Then start burning your incense, place the vellum or paper on the Triangle of Manifesting, and take up your pen or writing tool and ink, and write your question out on it, as concisely as you can. As you write it, transfer the deed of your hand, and chant your purpose:
"It is not my hand that writes this question, but the hand of the Master: And the answering dream that comes from the unknown is not summoned by me,
But by the Master of spirits and powers in the Netherworld. This question shall be answered; moths shall learn it well,
They shall fly into the Unseen world on roads of moonlight,
And whisper my question into the ears of X (spirit or power you are
questioning).
And on the wings of dream, a true answer shall come to me."
When you are done writing out the question, fold the paper up so that it can easily fall into the jar with the moths. Place the jar on the Triangle of Manifesting, open it, drop the paper in, and quickly replace the lid saying "Moths, learn these words well and carry them to the one who can answer it, the one I seek, in the Master's name!"
Stare at the jar sitting on the Triangle, and chant, over and over again, "A dream shall come in response to this question. These creatures shall flit and flitter and carry these questioning words away." Watch and see that the moths touch the parchment or paper at least once. Turn the jar around and upside down to make the touch it if they will not do it on their own. Be careful not to harm the moths.
After you have chanted this second incantation at least nine times, (go as many as you like) end the last line of the chant with "Go, in the Master's name!" and open the jar, holding it up, allowing the moths to flitter out and away.
When all of the moths have flown away, say the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name", and then do the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing" to break and banish your Witch-Ring. Then go await your dream. A cunning Witch can use this method of "Moth sending" to accomplish many other works, for any purpose, in any current- imagination is required.
Binding the Lovers One to the Other
This working illustrates a Venusian technique of Witchery by which a man and a woman are bound together under the power of passionate sexual attraction. It is similar in nature to the "Biting the Tongues of Serpents" working, for this work is also a working of Sympathy. Two images of the intended lovers will be "identified" or "brought to life" through the process of shaping them from some substance (in this case clay) and having power-objects or linkages established in the poppets. The poppets will then be bound together with cords soaked and fumigated with Venusian infusions and incenses.
On a Friday night during the waxing moon, (the time when influences like emotions can be increased), fast and clean yourself, then retire to the place where your Sorcery will be performed.
Form the Witch-Ring there in the usual way. On the table of Art, have the clay you will need, the all-important power-object links (sexual fluids being the most desirable, followed by undergarments and then hair or blood) a photograph of the man and the woman in question, several small pins, some cords, a bottle full of an infusion made of boiled Venusian herbs, and a Venusian incense created by you. The bottle of the infusion and the incense can and should be prepared by you in workings leading up to this one, following all the usual procedures for gathering, creating, working, and the like that have been discussed. If you want to make this working very long, you can create the incense, the infusion, and the poppets all in one great working, which would include a boiling cauldron going alongside your table of art, a mortar and pestle for the incense, and all other items required. Whatever you decide, fresh rose petals- the Venusian herb par excellence- should be an ingredient in your infusion, in the incense, and they should be strewn around the Triangle of Manifesting.
Once these preparations are made, and you are standing in the prepared Witch-Ring, bring your mind to awareness of the power that binds, then take a bell and walk to the north, ring it, and say the Northern conjuration from the "Conjurations to the Four Points of the Compass For Workings of Sympathy, Identification, or Bringing to Life." Do this to each direction, with the proper conjuration for each.
When you have done that task, become mindful of the power that binds again, and purify the clay and all the objects you are using for this working. Be sure to do the transfers of deed, and make all the needed incantations or charges, just as demonstrated in the previous workings.
Strongly invoke the aid of your Familiar powers, but most especially the Rose-Queen, the Witch-Queen or Queen of Elfhame. Ask her in these words:
"Lady Godda, I send words of love for you
Into the dark spaces of the world, attracting your attentions.
By the holy powers of Milia, Achilia, and Sibylia,
I ask for your blessing, Elven Queen.
Your power to bind is irresistible!
So may the power of this work be irresistible!"
Start the incense burning. Pour out the Venusian infusion into a bowl on the Triangle of Manifesting, and drop the cord into it, letting it soak. The infusion should have already been charged with the power of lustful attraction; now charge the cord to "take within itself the force of irresistible lust, the power to bind with attraction." Put the bowl aside and leave the cord soaking as you continue the work.
Then strongly invoke the aid of your Familiar powers again, and set the first lump of clay on your Triangle of Manifesting. Shape it (again, transferring the deed and making charges) into the body of the woman, as closely as you can, making a little doll of her. If you have bodily fluids from her, you must see that they are mixed into the clay, kneaded in, before you begin shaping. If you could get undergarments from the intended subjects of the work, you must soak them in water or simmer them a bit in water, and then use that water just as though it were a bodily fluid- knead it into the clay. You can also cut tiny pieces of the undergarment out and bury them in the clay.
When you have are done with the basic body shape, cut out her face from the picture you have of her. Use your pins to pin the face onto the head of the doll. Call her by her name as you shape her and when you are done, show her to the four directions, just as you did with the heads in the "Biting the Tongues of Serpents" working. Then baptize her, and enliven her in the same way.
Do everything the same with the clay when you make the male doll, and when both dolls are made, join them together like lovers, embracing, on the Triangle of Manifesting. Take the cord from the infusion, squeeze it out, and then begin binding them together in their embrace. As you do this, make your grand charge:
X and X, together you are bound By chains of lust unbreakable. X (woman) you will burn until you lie In the arms of X (man) X (man) you will burn until you lie In the arms of X (woman). Bound together in irresistible want, One for the other, X and X are sealed together.
Thus it is, in the power of the green-clad Faery Lady Dame Venus, beguiler of man and spirit. Thus it is, in the Master's name.
Put the bound together poppets into a box that has Venusian herbs strewn in it. When this is done, say the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name", and then do the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing" to break and banish your Witch-Ring. Change the Venusian herbs in the box every few days- it is important that you never allow rose petals or the parts of Venusian plants to wither and dry while in contact with the poppets, unless you are trying to destroy their feelings for one another. It is important to point out here that dried Venusian herbs- especially dried rose petals-are only used for blasting relationships and causing fractures in love and emotion.
The Fruitful Working of the Womb-Seed
This working illustrates a use of the Jupiterian force, the great force of rain, thunder, and fertilization. Because this working primarily concerns a woman, the Jupiterian force will be mingled with a Venusian element. This will also be done, because this working deals specifically with a woman's fertility. The Jupiterian force may be the "fertilizing" power that comes from the sky in the form of rain and lightning, but it is no less the power that comes from a man's loins and makes a woman conceive. A study of the Jupiterian power reveals its ancient ministry, as the great God of the Pagan world who stands behind the "Horned Men" and "Horned God" icons that are so popular in neo-Paganism.
That same great "fertilizing nature God" rules not only the showery sky, but also the forests and fields of this world and the great, expansive Underworld, as the Straw "Scarecrow" and Corn King, and Undying King of the Dead- sexuality and death are two sides of one coin. The point here is to realize the great and powerful force of fertilizing, lurking in all the realms of nature. The same power that allows souls from the dead world to thrust forth into the living world, before eventually returning. The Great fertilizing force in land and sky is also the thundering force, and oak trees, phallic symbols, and thunder are all symbolic of this power, at least with respect to its presence in the world of the living. The skull, mound, and crossed-bones, as well as reaping instruments and harvest tools, become his symbols when he changes his face to King of the Dead and Hunter of Souls.
In ancient times, symbols of this thundering, fertilizing power were laid in the laps of brides on their wedding days, to consecrate them and make the fertile. The sorcerer calls to the fertilizing force to do the same in this working to make a woman conceive, and brings into play an element of agriculture or plant growth, one of the chief gifts of the fertilizing father-force in nature, which is a powerful means of channeling both his power and the blessings of the fertile earth.
On a Thursday night during the waxing moon, fast and clean yourself, then retire to the place where your Sorcery will be performed.
Form the Witch-Ring there in the usual way. On the table of Art, have a good round bowl- a symbol of the womb- filled with dark, rich, fertile earth. You will need a seed of some kind, preferably of a Venusian plant, but any plant that can be grown in the bowl relatively quickly (in the space of a few weeks) is acceptable. The idea is to have life being planted in the bowl, germinating, and sprouting. It is assumed that you'll be doing this work on behalf of a man and a woman that want to conceive. Thus, you should have no problem getting a bit of his semen, and a few drops of her menstrual blood. These substances vanish quickly; so to preserve them for use in the rite, you have to get them into a small bottle or vial, and add a few drops of water, and then cap the vial tightly. In such a state, these substances will only have their potency for a few days at most, and the sooner they are used, the better. Have them in their bottles on your table. If you can't get those things, spittle from the man and the woman would be acceptable, but much weaker. Their blood would be much, much better.
You should have a good Jupiterian incense made, mostly of oak leaves and bark powder, and coupled with sage and some nutmeg. You should have acorns and oak leaves strewn around your Triangle of Manifesting, along with a few rose petals. Lastly, you will need a piece of phallic-shaped oak wood. A good thick oak twig carved into a reasonably phallic-shaped tool, with a smoothed off top, is fine. This is an act of sympathy and you will be creating a bond between the semen of the would-be father, outside the Witch-Ring and the seed on your table, and the womb of the would-be mother, and the round bowl of earth. You will then plant the seed, and tend it daily until it germinates and sprouts, after which (at the time of germination, and later at the time of sprouting) the power is fully matured and "delivered" to the woman; her womb should be made able to conceive, if the magic is strong enough and Fate is willing.
Once your preparations are made, and you are standing in the prepared Witch-Ring, bring your mind to awareness of the power that binds, then tke a bell and walk to the north, ring it, and say the Northern conjuration from the "Conjurations to the Four Points of the Compass For Workings of Sympathy, Identification, or Bringing to Life." Do this to each direction, with the proper conjuration for each. By this point, after seeing the examples above, it is certain that you will be aware of the lessons and the ritual actions that are in need of repeating or integrating into these workings- do not forget them.
Purify the things you will use; transfer deeds and words; invoke familiar spirits; you know this pattern by now. See that the womb is "identified" and "enlivened" first, by placing it on your Triangle of Manifesting and sprinkling the physical link (hopefully a fluid) that you have from the mother-to-be into the soil, and mixing it well. You have to give the charge to this womb, calling it the womb of X, and charging it to be "fertile and easily able to conceive and give life in abundance." You have to hold it out and show the four directions, calling it "The living womb of X." The bowl is sprinkled with water and waved through fire to baptize and enlighten it with living force.
A similar operation must be done with the seed. It is charged, dipped in or placed in contact with the father-to-be's fluid or substance link, and named and presented to the four directions in the same manner. I keep a small plate on hand for the seed, and two long wooden sticks to handle it with, almost like chopsticks. It is "baptized" and moved over the fire.
The culmination of this rite comes when the womb-bowl, sitting on the Triangle of Manifesting, is impregnated, to your verbal charge. Place the seed on the surface of the earth, then use the oak-phallus you made to force the seed down under the soil. Push it in and out, simulating the act of sex.
"Great force of the Sky, you inseminate the earth with water and fire.
Everywhere under your mighty storms, life grows in abundance.
Living force in man, you rut and penetrate the woman,
Bringing forth new life and new generations in every age.
So this seed is driven into the womb of X.
And that womb receives it, and the seed finds purchase.
The womb of X will give forth new life, life in healthy abundance.
Rut! Driven deeply is the seed! Grow! Live! The womb is fertile! All in the Master's Name,
And the name of Great Sky and Mother Earth."
When the seed is far enough below (and it need not go that far) then fill in the hole, give a final charge, then say the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name", and do the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing" to break and banish your Witch-Ring. Tend the plant after this, giving it sunlight and watering it as much as it needs in "The Master's Name" or "In Our Lady's Name", until the sprout breaks the surface.
Have the mother-to-be, that you did this working for, touch the plant and the soil, and try to keep the plant alive as long as you can- after it dies naturally, press the remains and keep them, never burying them or burning them. Bear in mind that if a child is conceived and born, that the plant you grew is sympathetically "bound" to the child, and so burning or burying the plant is dangerous.
A Pavis from Foul Imprecations
This working illustrates another use of the Jupiterian force, but in its role as protector from inimical forces. This is a protective charm, a strong working that creates a protective talisman, called a pavis. This pavis (the word literally refers to a body-length shield from many centuries ago) deflects hostile spells, sendings, and incantations that may be hurled at you by human practitioners of sorcery, making these things return to them to deliver their wicked sting. This second function of the pavis, that it returns hostility to burn the sender, makes this operation partially Martial as well. Had I decided to write a spell for the creation of a pavis that merely shielded the wearer and grounded out or banished the spell to powerlessness in the ground, it would have been partially Saturnian instead.
On a Thursday night during the waxing or full moon, fast and clean yourself, then retire to the place where your Sorcery will be performed.
Form the Witch-Ring there in the usual way. On the table of Art, have your Triangle of Manifesting, a clean and small piece of Vellum or Parchment, a pen and (preferably) ink mingled with Jupiterian herbs and one Martial herb, and charged with the purpose of forming shapes and symbols to protect you, a small leather or cloth bag that can be hung around your neck, a small cord that you will use to bind the power in the pavis before you place it in the bag, and a Jupiterian incense, preferably created in the proper manner, along with some fresh Jupiterian herb-portions and the parts of one Martial herb to lie around your Triangle. You will also need an acorn.
Once your preparations are made, and you are standing in the prepared Witch-Ring, bring your mind to awareness of the power that binds, and
invoke the Master and your Familiar spirits strongly. Purify all the items you will use for this work, with your charged water, salt, and fire. Set your incense to burning.
Place the parchment or vellum-square on the Triangle of Manifesting, and draw (using that pen and ink) the figure from the image entitled "The Pavis of Protection" on it. As you can see, the image is of three concentric circles. Start with the inside circle, write your full name in it, and then work your way out, drawing the next circle; imagine that you are building fortress walls around yourself as you draw the circles outward around your name. Write in the Theban script, and then draw the "outer defenses", the arrows which direct the hostile powers, stopped by the shield-walls, back to their sender.
As you are creating this image, you should be transferring the deed, of course; "It is not my hand that does this, but the hand of the Master of all Sorcery." You should be focusing on nothing but what you are doing and you should be repeating a protective charge, as well:
"I create this pavis, a shield of protection
These holy lines and symbols will protect me perfectly
In the great Master's name!
No harmful spell or spirit shall strike at me,
For this pavis shall deflect them all,
Sending their wicked intentions back to those who sent them first. They strive against me in vain; they conjure their own destruction! This, in the Master's name!"
Remember, it always helps to transfer the words, too: "It is not I who makes this charge, but the Master himself!"
When you are finished drawing, transferring, and charging, let the finished image sit there on the Triangle, and stare at it, realize what it has the power to do. Realize what the Master has made it capable of doing, through you. Realize what your other Familiar powers have made it capable of. Bear in mind how the Jupiterian force protects perfectly.
Place the acorn onto the pavis, and roll the pavis up, so that it becomes a small scroll containing the acorn. Every acorn contains within itself the potential of a forest of Oak trees, the sacred tree of the protective Jupiterian power, the Great Father-power in nature itself. To place the acorn in the pavis sympathetically gives you the protection of a forest of oaks. Bind the little acorn-containing scroll that you have created closed with your cord. "Bound, bound be you, power that shields me well! Pavis of protection, empowered and bound forever be, or until never again I need thee!"
Then place the tied-up scroll/pavis into the pouch and hang it around your neck. When you wear it or carry it on your person, you are shielded by it. Then say the "Invocation to the Agency of Ineffable Name", and do the "Conjuration of the Wind of Releasing" to break and banish your Witch-Ring.
The pavis is an ideal protection charm, but for those who prefer a charm that doesn't need to be carried around all the time, the ancient charm of the Witch-bottle is ideal. The Witch-botde is a bottle or jar half-filled with nails, pins, and broken, jagged glass, and then filled up the rest of the way with your own urine and a drop of your blood- menstrual blood if you are female. The jar is sealed well and buried somewhere safe and secret, and never dug up again. The Witch-botde is a Martial charm; before the nails, pins, and glass are put into the jar, they must be purified and charged to your defense; charged to shred, stab and mutilate any harmful spell or spirit that tries to harm your body, mind, or soul. Then they are put into the jar, and the power-link to you, your blood and urine, is added. I always seal the jars with much wax before I bury them. If the bottle ever gets broken, its effectiveness ends.
This working again illustrates a use of the Jupiterian force, again in its role as protector from inimical forces. This is a protective working for the home, which involves the creation of oak-beam crosses that will be hung above the doors into the house. It works best after you have fumigated the home with an incense of exorcism, which will drive away wicked powers or presences that may already dwell in the home.
On a Thursday night during the waxing or full moon, fast and clean yourself, then retire to the place where your sorcery will be performed.
Form the Witch-Ring there in the usual way. On the table of Art, have your Triangle of Manifesting, as many oak-twigs as you need to make as many equal-armed crosses as you need, enough red thread, string, or yarn to tie them together, a small bowl of a Jupiterian philter or "quick water" that should be created on a previous night by boiling fresh shredded oak-leaves, crushed acorns, and at least one other Jupiterian herb, along with a single Martial herb. That operation, to make the quick water, should be done like any other operation detailed in this work, proper to the pillars of sorcery and the workings of Craft. While creating that philter, chants that focus the Jupiterian force, all in the name of the great and protective Father, should be especially strong. You should also have prepared a good exorcism incense, preferably of Mandrake leaves and shavings and reduced fresh garlic, primarily. You'll use this to fumigate the home before you hang the Oak-beam crosses.
Once your preparations are made, and you are standing in the prepared Witch-Ring, bring your mind to awareness of the power that binds, and invoke the Master and your Familiar spirits strongly. Purify all the items you will use for this work, with your charged water, salt, and fire. Save the exorcism incense for the time you actually apply the beams, though if you desire a Jupiterian incense to burn during this operation, that is fine, and should be created before in the same way.
Place the oak-twigs on the Triangle of Manifesting, and lay them over one another like equal-armed crosses, one at a time. Lay your hands on them and feel the protective force of the great oak-power. Tell them:
"Crosses of oak-beam, I beg you for your protective power. Be shaped into the sign of protection and forbiddance, And do not yield before any wicked power. Where you are hung, let that place be sealed and safe, And allow no evil thing to pass over you or under you, Nor through any wall or window near to you."
Dip the red threads or strings into the quick-water, and lay them on the Triangle under or above the beams, and chant over them:
"Red threads, made strong by the great power of oak,
Made forceful by the lightning and fire of righteousness,
Bind together these beams, and become a charm of protection."
Tie the beams together, tightly and well. As you tie them, chant:
"Beams of safety and strongest grace, you are mighty like the oak: You will keep closed the ways into any home you touch From all evil spirits or powers that seek entrance."
Yank the final knot or loop on the red thread tight with words such as "Sealed and strong, in the Master's name!"
Remember, it always helps to transfer the words, too- "It is not I who makes this charge, but the Master himself!"
When you are finished tying them together, as many as you will make, they are to be hung over all doors into or out of what dwelling you are trying to protect. It is important that the home or dwelling be exorcised from within before they are hung.
Evenwood's Protector: The Mystical Herbology of the
Mandrake
Works of protection for the home were always sought after by people in older times, as well as by the workers of sorcerous arts from any era. Sorcerers have all the usual reasons for wanting their dwellings kept safe, but they have added weight of purpose , as their homes almost always double as their halls of working, and contain, after years have passed, countless talismans, object links, philters and potions in bottles, and other sorcerous paraphernalia without number. Their working areas become familiar to them, and they fear that an enemy or a wicked power should infiltrate or compromise their sacred places.
Many spells and workings can (and should) be done for the protection of the home. Those who practice the Art of sorcery or Witchcraft will inevitably attract the negative attentions of other sorcerers and vile powers. No one can be so kind or pure of heart as to avoid all negative attention. The world is less than ideal with respect to how others perceive a person and their intentions.
The simplest and yet most powerful of all workings for the protection of the home includes the "Spell of the Eggs and Stones of the Earth Mother"- a Saturnian working of protection that entails charging and empowering chicken eggs or good, fist-sized dark brown or black stones, charging them to the protection of your home and Land in the name of darksome Mother Earth, and burying them along the perimeter of your property in the good soil.
These buried charms create what you might call "sprite traps", blocking powers coming from any direction. Thus, the minimum you should bury, during waxing and full moons, is four, one to each cardinal direction if possible. Conversely, the most you should bury is nine, eight in a circle around your home and one under the front entrance to the house or before it, grounding those powers to nothing. Regardless of whether or not you are charging eggs or stones for the defense of your property and home, make certain that you seal them in small boxes or jars that will keep the earth off them, after they are buried and under the ground. Small wooden boxes whose "cracks" can be sealed with dark wax are perfect for this, or jars. Line the container with soft cloths if you are using an egg.
From down through the mists of time, a much more powerful method of protecting the home has come to us. This method, and its unique vessel of delivery, has sorcerous uses that go far beyond the protection of the home, but protecting the living quarters and home of the sorcerer and his or her family is its primary use. This method is the method of the Creation and Sorcerous Manipulation of the Mandrake or the Mannikin.
The Mandrake or Mandragora plant has been associated with sorcery and Witchcraft since time immemorial. Though it is considered a Venusian plant, how it came to be associated with Dame Venus is an interesting, yet macabre story. The Mandrake was called the "Gallows Man" because it was often observed to grow under gibbets where men were executed by hanging. As most people already know, when a man is hanged, he experiences what is called "angel lust". He ejaculates for a final time. It was believed that this semen fell to the ground, where it became Mandrake plants, and thus their association with lust and the Venusian current. It is easy to see that this Venusian connection is underscored by a powerful Saturnian one as well (sex and death, the eternal pairing) and thus the Mandragora plant is ideally placed to be "awakened" and made into a guardian of the home.
Mandrake has been called many things- its "scientific" name is Mandragora Officinale, though it has been called Aulraun, Mandrake, Anthropomorphon, the Gallows Man, the Herb of Circe, Ladykins, Mannikin, Womandrake, Semihomo, Mandragor, Mandragen, Zauberwurzel, and the Hexenmannchen. As an herb, it can be used for any Venusian or Saturnian purpose.
Traditionally, the Mandrake's primary uses are for workings of love, and for the creation of a magical servitor called a Mannikin. The first uses will be discussed in a moment, but the second require a touch more explanation. As anyone knows who has seen a Mandrake root, they either naturally resemble the shape of a human being, or they can easily be tamed and forced to take such a shape, thus their many folkloric names associating them with mankind.
The Mandrake is protective in nearly any capacity of use or contact. Parts of its leaves, or shavings from its roots burned in incense, prevent wicked spirits from remaining in a place. The mere presence of the empowered root forbids wicked spirits entry to a home. Heated water in which the root has been bathed becomes a powerful water of "exorcising". Beds that have empowered Mandrake roots hung over them will be places of nightmare-free sleep for the occupants. The essence of Mandrake has long been held to make men and women randy, virile, and fertile, though it should be noted that Mandragora is extremely poisonous if taken internally, and should be handled with care.
Before the shaping and enlivening of the Mannikin is discussed, we must discuss the proper method of harvesting the Mandrake. Some writers from the past have it that the Mandrake can kill a person uprooting it with its deadly groan. Some have suggested that a dog be brought along for the harvesting, and after the earth has been cleared away and the top of the roots slightly exposed, a thin rope or cord fastened around the plant and around the dog. As the master of the dog walks away, the dog follows and pulls the Mandrake up. Others believe that it is prudent to fill their ears with something to stop them from hearing as they pull the plant from the ground. While it is true that the Mandrake's groan, the sound it makes coming out of the soil, may not strike you dead on the spot, a "deadly blow of Fate" can be struck on you, unless you gather it respectfully and properly, (a process discussed earlier in this grimoire) and return a bit of the Mandrake root to the ground, so that it will re-grow.
As a Venusian/Saturnian plant, it must be gathered on Friday or Saturday night, and during a waxing moon or full moon if you will use it for romantic or protective purposes. Gather it during a waning moon (never a dark moon) if you will use it for blights or curses on lovers, or for some dark Saturnian purpose. It should be wrapped in a clean cloth and gently carried back to your home. If you are fortunate, the roots should already have a more or less anthropomorphic shape.
From this point, how you will treat the root depends on what your intentions are for it. If you desire simple masses of herbs, like leaves and root shavings, for the creation of philters or incenses, then simply gather what you need, store the rest, and use it normally, as any other fresh herb, though be certain to wash the root well.
If you desire to create a Mannikin, a living servitor that can (among other things) act as a guardian of your home, you will need to form a Witch-Ring and place the root on your Triangle of Manifesting, the same night you gathered it. You will need to chant charges to the Mandrake, asking it to take a human shape and come to life as a Mannikin-servitor for your needs, whatever they may be, all in the Master's name. As you do this, carve the roots into a human shape with a purified Artavus or knife. Carve the features well. If you are male, your mannikin should be female; if you are female, your mannikin should be male.
As soon as you can, you must take the carved-up root and replant it in the earth, but never in the place where you originally took it, you must take it to a Venusian or Saturnian place. The best place is the traditional location where men were hung, the Crossroads, which is also the primary Saturnian place of power. Another good place is in a graveyard, in a place where it will not be disturbed for one month. Any place on the ground where a man and a woman have made love is another place it can be planted. Failing all of this, you can just plant it anywhere you like, so long as it is out of the way and you can get back and forth to the replanted root to water it and tend it for one month.
Every three days for one lunar month, or the time it takes the moon to fade and then re-achieve the shape it had when you first dug up the Mandrake, go to the location where you re-planted it and water it. This pure water should contain a small splash of milk and some of your blood. This is important because the blood will bond the servant growing in the ground to you, its future master.
When it is time to dig up your servant again, go do it, and wrap it again in clean cloth and bring it home. The mannikin should have formed into a new shape based on your carving.
Form a Witch-Ring and wash the Mannikin inside, over your Triangle of Manifesting. Wash it with a cooled-down infusion of herbs that are in alignment with the duties you wish to set to it- if your Mannikin is intended to dwell in your home and help you seduce people that you bring into your home, the infusion should be of Venusian herbs. If your Mannikin is intended to be a protector of the home complete!); then the infusion should be of Jupiterian and Saturnian herbs, or even Jupiterian and Solar, with a single Saturnian herb in the mix. As you wash it, give it a charge of its purpose. Tell it that you are its master, and then name it; tell it what name you are giving it. Tell it what purpose you wish of it.
Then, pass it through an incense smoke, which is created of herbs that are in alignment with the purpose you have for it. Place it back on the Triangle and repeat your charge over and over again to it, in the Master's name. Close your Witch-Ring in the usual way and place the Mannikin on your mantle, or in the greatest place of honor obvious in your home. Put it where no one should touch it.
The final tiling you must do is dry the Mannikin. The next day, either dry your Mannikin in an oven, or keep passing it through the smoke if a fire that is burning herbs proper to its purpose everyday for several months, until it is dry. Always keep it displayed over your mantle or in a good place in the home, or in your place of sorcerous working, if it is meant to be a specific protector/empowerer of those operations. Never let the Mannikin be handled by others if you can help it.
Mannikins will last as long as the root lasts, and no magical protector of a household can be stronger. You should, from time to time (on full moons) "feed" the Mannikin with some of your blood, or some milk and water-just sprinkle it on the Mannikin lightiy, and remind it of the charge given to it at its creadon. The only way to "end" a Mannikin is to burn it or bury it- and you should bury it with many thanks if you are done with it or have no more need for it. Burning would be an insult. Should you need to destroy the Mannikin of an enemy, of course you should burn it if you get the chance.
Evenwood's Master: The Master of the Craft and the Spell of Flight
Grand invocation of the Hethite Witchfather and Lord of Light: the Father Goat, the Master of the Cunning-lodge and the Endless Feast. The Grand Invocation-Litany of Nineteen Parts
1. Mighty and Blessed Witchfather, Lord of seeking introspections and the Secret Gift of the Serpent by which the child of Wisdom is inseminated in the souls of women and men, Hear this invocation:
2. Where the forked tongue of the fire-serpent strikes, there the Arcmardi falls and the earth is consecrated with heavenly flame. Witchfather, double-headed and two-faced Master, whose head is encircled by the savage horns of the fertile goat, all prayers raised by the faithful are known to you. Here, surrounded by white dust, in the presence of holy fire, with blood shed from our left hands and our tongues anointed with salt, we make the grand invocation by which you are praised and worshipped.
3. As this invocation is made, so it is known by you, and you know us as your own. As you are aware of this invocation, so be present to the scions of your secret house. From the birthless and boundless void of darkness beyond darkness, shine with your splendid light. From the threshold of the unseen, glare with your double-gaze and appear in your many forms, great Turnskin God.
4. Called by many names and limited by none, Master, Andras, Bel-Bucca, Lordly, Strong, Handsome, Bestial, Seductive, Cunning, Ancient and Wise One, teacher of the Royal Art to women and men, radiant with the light of the Supernal sphere; Azarach-Theraza, great and princely One, descend and be among us again.
5. Awaken in us the knowledge of you, perpetual one, encircler, serpentine, light-seeding, teacher of the Word, master of all Arts, guide of the plow, beautifier of the face, worker of metal and most powerful in artifice. Terrible to the wicked, consoler of the innocent and the just, liberator, instructor in the arts of sorcery, giver of yourself to sacrifice, first brother and kin to all beings who bear the blessing of consciousness and the great vision of
selfhood, let us know you in every season. We have taken your mark onto our left hands; let us always be aware of your presence.
6. Thrice-Great Master, Orvendale, Archer, praised by us as the Lord of Light and excoriated by foolish men as the devil, Let your horned serpent wrap around us, white and mysterious, from the roots of our bodies to the crowns of our skulls. Let our bodies become the trees of knowledge; let our bodies become the trees of life, in the gardens and meadows of the Goat.
7. May you consecrate us with your eternal hissing, the majestic sound in silence: let it penetrate our minds and awaken us when we are in darkness. Great Divine Sage, lord of ascetics and hedonists, destroy our illusions and carry us to the Deathless. Like stainless and sharp metal, hammered and tortured in flame, thrust into the bosom of waters and made brilliant like morning light, let us undergo your transmutation. Master-Spirit Elkunarsa, Let your sacred Artavus-sceptre be raised over the ruins of the shattered world of darkness, glimmering like a star over the regenerated age, an era of new life.
8. Master of all times, Saturnian witness of all ages, true sovereign of the Aeon, the seven heads of the serpent turn as one to look upon the Land and those who cry out for justice and reason. Ten and four eyes look with unblinking stare upon the wicked and the just, and seven tongues dart and strike, begetting deathless children upon the Maidens of Faery.
9. From the Master-Spirits and the Grey Women come the great lineages of instruction, that the minds of men be made noble and their spirits be enflamed with immortal fire. From the great inheritance of the House of the Satyr springs discovery, and from discovery comes knowledge of the world that is Unseen, that mankind might triumph over death and our spirit endure the grave. By the hands of the cunning and the wise, the Earth gives bounty in great share and all face the endless march of the seasons with new hope.
10. Over each life you appoint one of your deathless ministers to watch and guide, and summon that life to the Secret Inward Path when the Fate of death is finally ordained. Goat-horned, sharply hooved, serpent-eyed, wolf-taloned, beautiful of face, terrifying initiator, we have no allegiance higher than our pledge to you. You have a crown of roses and fire-circled horns, and you protect your faithful.
11. In you is the single image of the triumphant Divine descended to be among man, and in you, all of the misdeeds of human beings are destroyed by the Great Wisdom which recognizes reality, and the revelations of inescapable consequence. Serpent-Magister, Ophion-Lucifer, Spirit of fire mingled in clay, Your crown-stone was forged by immortals, endowed with the highest of powers; by the beauty of that treasure mankind was given knowledge of arts, and knowledge of good and evil.
12. In every time and place your power is known, Triple-Horned world-creating spirit. You go among mankind in the deeps of his winter, when the gate of solstice opens under the northern stars, heralding the time of night, the time of wolf-terror and the season of unforgiven dead who wander. In the white fields of snow and under the frost-hardened boughs of trees you fly to and fro, a spirit of warmth and radiance, the candle-light of the dead, ready to sleep in the bed of holly and reveal the pathway to life eternal.
13. In the heated nights of his summer, when life pulses forth in great abundance, you are witness to every lust-fire lit on every hill, and your spirit is a rushing in the loins of every creature that comes to rut. You are raised in sprigs of oak and mistletoe, prepared to speak a spell of mighty fertility and fortune, which will save man and beast.
14. Master Pouck, Harvester of Souls, You give your blessing to the corn-spirits and circle the court of their Straw-Crowned King, knowing his death and his life, and teaching mortals to be not afraid of the passions and deaths which are their Fated portion. You fly to death, and suffer the spear-wound, the blast of a thousand arrows of stone and steel, and the thick intoxication of hate and death, and yet you are unharmed.
15. By this power we know you, Azael, eternal spirit of wisdom. All realms of elemental power and moving substance are consecrated by your seal and spirit, O Invisible Master: forest and plowland, wide and bitter ocean, sun and moon filled sky You are the lord of the bone-dance, king of corpses, gatherer of the dead, the warden of the forbidden knowledge known only to the shadows in the Underworld. You know the glyphs carved on the tablets of Fate, and you dart along the spine of the world-surrounding serpent.
16. Golden Goat, Your throne is in the eastern sun, and your three-pronged adamantine fork endows the world with the Whiteness of Truth, under whose veil mankind is made like the Gods; the Redness of Blood, in which our spirits are submerged and washed to final purification, and the Black of Midnight, under whose veil your rites are performed. By your masterful art, the Eye That Sees All is revealed. You are the royalty of the stars, the refreshing spirit of the waters, the emperor of those who dwell in the upper airs.
17. O, Earendil, you are the power of your Father, the prince of Faery-Elfhame, and none are more subtle than you, Buck-King. Great Goat Angel, sovereign of the Craft, servant of the Ancient of Days, lover of Old Fate, Lord of Elves, by your eldritch knowledge mankind is purified of ignorance and the door of Xvarenah opens. What is putrid and foul turns to fairest ambrosia in the skull-bowl you offer to your initiates. You are the oracle of oracles, and foresight is numbered among your many names. With deceit you tell the truth, and you are the truth-teller who destroys all deception. In a thousand forms you satisfy those who seek your hidden halls, and in a thousand forms you destroy that which they hold dearest.
18. Under the evening star and over the mound of the dead, you are summoned with ancient signs and gestures, with sacred words you placed on the tongues of the sons and daughters of your Undying House. We shake the bones of our ancestors and call forth the essence of the diamond-body in their dark marrow. We call unto you like the ancients called you, to teach us your wisdom, your faultless lore that saves from hunger, death, and uncertainty. We call to you to guide us through the charnel-grounds wherein illusions are burned away.
19. Take these gifts dark Master, these emblems of your power: a blade without blemish, a goblet of red earth hardened in fire, a horned mask of terrible aspect, a hammer that has beaten hot metal, a skull and crossed bones, a lamp of dancing flame, a triangle in a circle, and a mirror. Take these gifts and breathe your spirit into them. We will circle ourselves with them and stand in your full presence, in preparation for the glories to come. You will hear us; we will speak into your secret heart, enjoying your full attentions. Here we call you finally and ultimately, with words of beauty and power that have no second. Venite, Venite, Great Master, Come Forth.
Cloven Hoof-Prints of the Lord of Sorcery: Searching for the Witchfather
A Meditation on the Path of the Turnskin, the Master of the Witches, And His Secret
I
"Witchfather, double-headed and two-faced Master, whose head is encircled by the savage horns of the fertile goat, all prayers raised by the faithful are known to you. Here, surrounded by white dust, in the presence of holy fire, with blood shed from our left hands and our tongues anointed with salt, we make the grand invocation by which you are praised and worshipped."
In my own experience of Witchcraft, there is no Craft apart from the Master. For those of you who don't know who or what the "Master" is, let me say that I don't really know who or what he is, either. For the longest time I tried to figure it out. I searched the pages of history, the corners of forests, the depths of my mind and the minds of others, and everywhere else I could think of to solve the mystery of it. Once or twice, I found cloven-hooved tracks that disappeared into page margins, into undergrowth, or into dreams that couldn't be remembered. This went on for quite a while before I found what I needed to find the most subtle spirit of all.
The Witchfather has existed in every era of human history, and in the countless eras before that. He's been worshipped as God, feared as a devil, and sought by the wise in thousands of forms and disguises. For all that, he can't rightly be called a God, an angel, a devil, a spirit, or a man. Sure, he is those things, depending on who you ask, but he's also none of those things. If you try to catch him, you'll find that it's impossible.
This is because he's a Turnskin, a master shape-shifter, who has no "native" form which can be caught. One of his greatest tricks is to slip out of any net, any trap, even the traps of death and mortality. Many of those who seek for him hope to learn that trick, so that they can j oin him among the throngs of the deathless who enjoy aperpetual existence in the unseen world, but fewlearnit.
It has nothing to do with the Master not wanting to teach it; he's been teaching the secret to immortality since the dawn of dme. It's his task, his way. It has to do with people not wanting to go the distance they need to go; not wanting to pay the piper, as it were, for his wisdom. It has to do with people not wanting to make the sacrifice demanded. Nothing's free, after all.
But what the Master wants isn't money or property; he wants your cherished beliefs about who and what you are; he wants your soul. If you are any one thing in particular, you can be trapped. He wants you to shed your skin like one of his favorite disguises, the serpent, and slither beyond the snares of delusion. Long ago, under the power of a very real spell of deceit, you decided that you were this way or that, that you were this person or that person, thriving or suffering, living or dying. Whatever you decide about yourself, it will be so. When you make up your mind about the way you are, you cast a net around yourself. When you make up your mind about who the Master is, you cast a net over him. This is no problem to him; his immortal cleverness has long ago seen the way out of any net. He changes his shape and slips away. Things aren't as easy for us.
When you look to see the Master, he'll look like something or someone. Try as you might, you will only seem him one way, because even though you have more than one pair of eyes, you have learned to use only one pair. He has two faces, and if you can only see in front of you, he sees in front, behind, and all around. He looks into the world that we know, and into the world that we don't know, at the same time. He sees beyond the end and the beginning, beyond life and death. Real sight is like that, there's nothing that it excludes. If you saw him with the same sight by which he sees you, then you would know what you most dearly want to know, both about him, and about yourself.
"From the threshold of the unseen, glare with your double-gaze and appear in your many forms, great Turnskin God."
The Turnskin changes his skin, his shape, his form, with the ease of flowing water. The moment you've pinned him down, you find yourself staring at the bare ground, the empty sky, a dim forest, or just handfuls of dust. What you thought was a fleshy body is just bare white bone, and when you grasp for the bones, they turn out to be slivers of light on the ground. No matter where you look or how, he evades you. But even in his evasion, he's never lacking in presence. This is what you need to hear, and why the devil of the witches cannot be expelled by prayers, no matter how pious.
The Master isn't trying to hide from you. He adores worship, and appears to any who gather in his name. In some way, he IS the sound of his name. The very thought of him conjures him. He is not trying to hide; he is trying to reveal himself, in the most powerful way he can. He wants us to realize a secret about him, because if we can have this realization about him, we can realize it about ourselves. And then, the light will shine without end. What's the secret?
The secret is that he has no original or native form, no beastly body, no human form, and no godly or immortal form. That's why he's the Master Shape-Shifter, the immortal, the most clever, the living secret beyond words and ideas, beyond measures of time and vast depths of space. This is how he opens the Eye above the Eyes that sees everything; this is how he is able to be whatever he needs to be, at any given time, when the gaze of any human falls on him.
III.
"Called by many names and limited by none, Master, Andras, Bel-Bucca, Lordly, Strong, Handsome, Bestial, Seductive, Cunning, Ancient and Wise One, teacher of the Royal Art to women and men, radiant with the light of the Supernal sphere; Azarach-Theraza, great and princely One, descend and be among us again."
If you ask the Master his name, he may tell you one. But it's more likely that he'll say he's been called by many names in his long existence. This is true; he has been. And those names, they are all right, all names for him. And they are all wrong, in a way, because no given name can really suffice to label the Master at all times.
If you decide that you have his name at last, you'll feel powerful and happy for about a week; maybe a month. Some poor fools may feel that happiness for the rest of their lives, but all of the Knowers of His Name share the same Fate. One day when they reach into their bag of tricks, looking for his name, they find only fragile, dead leaves. They panic, search harder, and crush the leaves to powder. The gold they found has revealed itself to be fool's gold, lumps of iron or coal.
Your name will abandon you. If you last untill the end of your life with the "secret name" that was revealed, you'll die and walk the Roads of Reversal, like all of the dead. You'll call on that name to spare you from the terrors of the grave, but it will fail. You will feel abandoned, betrayed. The Master will be sorry, but he can not help being what he is. He is wily, he is the hare that no dog can run down and no snare can hope to seize.
The most clever being in any world does not fail. He has no choice but to escape from your traps. He knows what happens in those traps; he can see the pain and suffering of human beings and animals, all of who get caught in traps of some kind, and who even define themselves by their styles of imprisonment. Besides, the Master didn't get the tide "Master" by letting any little poor man or woman who wants to seize at the hems of his robes catch him. He's the Master because he outstrips the cleverness of every other being in the world- unless, of course, that being learns their lesson well, and unseals the secret of true cunning. Then they can rightly claim the title "master" as well, and join the Mercurial Lord in the neverending chase, through day and night.
IV.
"Thrice-Great Master, Orvendale, Archer, praised by us as the Lord of Light and excoriated by foolish men as the devil, Let your horned serpent wrap around us, white and mysterious, from the roots of our bodies to the crowns of our skulls. Let our bodies become the trees of knowledge; let our bodies become the trees of life, in the gardens and meadows of the Goat."
Lord of Light? Devil? Absolutely. His light is the light of realization, and he's quite the Devil to any person who thinks that they have figured out who they are, and who he is. When you know too much about yourself, you are chaining yourself to the rock that will one day drag you down below the water to drown. When you know too much about the Master, he will fail to live up to your expectations, and then you'll hate him. He will not offer you the comfort you seek, and you will curse his name, calling him "betrayer", "traitor", "liar", "father of lies", "most unclean", and "tempter".
At that point, you will not want to hear it, but the truth will not go away; you only ever lied to yourself. The Master makes no statements, no promises, and no oaths save one: "I will show you the light if you will look." Looking is hard, because we've spent a considerable amount of time telling ourselves that we shouldn't look in that direction. But wisdom is there, hiding in plain sight, waiting for us to give up what we've told ourselves and just turn around. Turning around is like dying, like taking a risk for love, or like getting flipped upside down. For a moment, nothing is clear, and then... then life continues on, but no one knows where it's going to go from that moment on.
And not knowing is the greatest blessing of all. What, were you living for some fictional "happy ending"? There is no ending. Life is right here, in that moment of blissful uncertainty, that moment of great possibility, which is every moment of your life, if you want it to be. Anything can be, and everything is. So what were you doing, after all? Where have you been? Did the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge taste good? You didn't act like you enjoyed it; you started weeping and laughing like a madman the moment you tasted it.
The Master told you that the fruit of that tree was the sweetest fruit there was. A lie? You thanked him quite a bit when you were in the midst of passion and pleasure, but began cursing his forked tongue when pain seized you. Maybe he meant something else when he said "sweet". Trickery you say? Double meanings? He can't help being what he is; he can't help it if you weren't sensible or clever enough to read the warning disguised in his words. At any rate, there's no going back now. Remember this lesson, for as long as you exist: words often have two meanings, and you are responsible for both, whatever you decide.
"From the great inheritance of the House of the Satyr springs discovery, and from discovery comes knowledge of the world that is Unseen, that mankind might triumph over death and our spirit endure the grave. By the hands of the cunning and the wise, the Earth gives bounty in great share and all face the endless march of the seasons with new hope."
In the depths of any darkness, hope lives. The Master has been that way, too. He's held a lamp of hope-light out in the deepest pits of darkness, giving us all a star to guide ourselves by. Despite our unfailing ability to stumble into our own traps and become tangled in them for entire lifetimes, we have another gift: the ability to make the best of bad situations.
While still cobwebbed up in our own nonsense, we've managed to make ourselves very comfortable; from the most primitive technologies, to the beating of glowing hot metal, to the modern day with its double-edged wonders. We've been the world's greatest example of defeat in triumph, and triumph in defeat. Not one nor the other, humans are the halfway children of the world.
Maybe that's what being a human is all about. When you're up, you're up, and when you're down, you're down, but when you are only halfway up, you aren't up or down. How long can that tension last? Won't we tilt and finally go one way or the other? I think the Master would say "no, of course not". We'll be halfway until we know the Turnskin's Secret, and then, like him, we won't be any certain "thing" at all. Could there be a greater freedom?
We like to think that moderation must rule the world; that fair, moderate, simple ways of life exist as reflections of some higher truths. We love to say that life is rational, love to believe that we can apply a few simple ideas to our lives and escape most of the pain of living by avoiding extremes. We like to think that if we do this long enough, we can find some real answers.
The Master teaches otherwise; you're either free, or you are plunged into nightmarish traps of nonsense and soul-crushing stupidity. There's no middle ground. When we call ourselves "stuck in the middle", or "evolving to something better" or "between heaven and earth", that's just us trying to make ourselves feel better about our situation. It's more silvery nets of deceit, spun by our own minds and draped around us by our own tongues. It's the words of people buried alive who are trying to convince themselves that being stuck in a suffocating hole in the ground isn't so bad.
VI.
"Over each life you appoint one of your deathless ministers to watch and guide, and summon that life to the Secret Inward Path when the Fate of death is finally ordained. Goat-horned, sharply hooved, serpent-eyed, wolf-taloned, beautiful of face, terrifying initiator, we have no allegiance higher than our pledge to you. You have a crown of roses and fire-circled horns, and you protect your faithful."
The Master might pity us a bit, or maybe he doesn't. Whatever he thinks, which would be impossible to pin down, he is very busy, a hunter of souls. He's going around the world, looking for people who have made it to the crossroads. He wants to initiate people into the essential mystery of life. He's not just a devil, a trickster, who takes things from people, he's a savior, too. The hand that takes is the hand that gives back; the sword that kills a man is the sword that brings him to life. Maybe the Master pities us, or perhaps even an immortal being, such as himself, must finally be moved by the tears of the world. Whatever the reason, he waits for us at the crossroads of this world. He can always be found there.
Most people think of crossroads as physical places only. But this isn't true. While the Master can be found at the actual crossroads out in the fields or wilds, those aren't the only junctures, the only forks in the road that he can be discovered at.
When you stand at the crossroads, you are standing in the realization that you have a serious choice to make. On the left hand, there is a grinding storm of pain and terror, of blind, drunk passions and wonderful imagination and ideas. That is the way of death, though if you were to go that way, you would find yourself very much alive. On the other hand, the right hand, there is a great, mysterious freedom, something you cannot even begin to gaze upon, and which offers no clean assurances. That is the way of life, though if you were to go that way it might mean the death of everything you've known, cherished and loved.
There's no middle ground. It's a true crossroads, a fork in the road, a fork in your mind. The Master is there, standing there, waiting for you to choose. He has a golden stang, blazing with light, and he gazes at you with two faces. One face looks to life, the other to death. What will you do? Who are you? What are you? The question and the choice isn't going to go away.
You have a feeling that going to the left isn't the answer. You've been down that road before, so many times. The right would seem to be the way to go, but the uncertainty that hovers about it checks your will and paralyzes your feet. Maybe you'll follow the left way one more time. Just once more. There IS, after all, pleasure there, and some of the greatest times you have ever had. There are many people there you love, and you don't want them suffering without you. That's what it means to love people, after all, right?
The temptation rises and draws you towards the left, and forgetfulness. The Master merely watches; this is your choice, after all. Suddenly you stop- this is a trick! Nothing is as it seems here! This is a place of great reversal! If you go left, won't you really be going right? Fair is foul and foul is fair. Your eyes dart to the mask of the Master who is still watching you. He's not giving any hints.
Must this choice, this most important of choices, be made with a coin toss? Must you randomly pick a direction and go, not knowing if that road is what you thought or hoped it was? You cannot remain; a choice must be made, even if you don't have the information you need to make the choice. Blind and yet responsible for seeing, you hurl down the road you finally choose, not knowing where it goes. Is this life? Death? Is this the road to paradise? Or hell?
Hopefully, you will have realized something amidst this terrible and wonderful initiatory experience, because if you realize the secret being shown to you here, a miracle will happen. You'll find yourself back at the fork in the road. You never moved. The Master, however, will have changed. His body will fade into light and become a third road. And you will walk it. And that is all that can be said about that
If you didn't realize the secret, you'll also see a light down the road you chose... but where will it lead? Can you guess? I'd tell you, but I don't think you'd believe me. And who knows- Maybe you shouldn't.
VII.
" In every time and place your power is known, Triple-Horned world-creating spirit. You go among mankind in the deeps of his winter when the gate of solstice opens under the northern stars, heralding the time of night, the time of wolf-terror and the season of unforgiven dead who wander. In the white fields of snow and under the frost-hardened boughs of trees you fly to and fro, a spirit of warmth and radiance, the candle-light of the dead, ready to sleep in the bed of holly and reveal the pathway to life eternal."
In every time and place, the Master has been known, worshipped, and feared. He's been sought, loved, hated, and wondered at. You may hate him at some time in your life, but he won't care. He'll like you well enough. You may love him at another time in your life, and he'll really appreciate that, but he won't be playing many favors, because he knows you better than you know yourself. He knows better than to trust emotions, which are as mercurial as he is.
Many modern people seek for the Master in the past, in the pantheons of old, and that's a good place to look, all things considered. You can find hints, find names, find ideas, even find your way. But if you make nets out of the faces of the ancient Gods, the Master will escape you, slip your nets, and leave you wondering if your beliefs and efforts have all been nonsense.
That's not his fault; he doesn't want to leave you in doubt forever; he wants you to stop making nets, and free yourself.
It's madness, but it's true- the still hand captures the bird. If you don't have me, the Master says, you have me. Grasp at me, and I will always escape you. Open your hands and go still, and I will come to settle in your palms, a golden light of perpetual truth, and we will be together forever. But don't miss the irony- I am not a golden light; you are a golden light, and you make me into a golden light. I cannot let that net fall over me, I will have to slide away and vanish, after giving you a moment of warmth.
So let go, the Master says; let the light go out. Do this now, and you will know what I have to tell you, and death will be banished forever. If you don't do this, it will be done to you. One day, you'll be lying on a bed, staring at the ceiling, taking labored breaths, watching the light go out. You'll wish then that you had done it now.
VIII.
"Master Pouck, Harvester of Souls, You give your blessing to the corn-spirits and circle the court of their Straw-Crowned King, knowing his death and his life, and teaching mortals to be not afraid of the passions and deaths which are their Fated portion. You fly to death, and suffer the spear-wound, the blast of a thousand arrows of stone and steel, and the thick intoxication of hate and death, and yet you are unharmed."
"I cannot die", the Master says. "What could possibly kill me, and what would it be killing? I am no thing that can be targeted by blade, bullet, or arrow. Let them cast their stones and swing their scythes! I know what dying is like, and I know what living is like. I have been a lover in the grip of ecstasy, and a disease-ridden dog racked with pain on the side of the road! I have been a prince and a pauper, a king and a beggar.
I have been foolish and clever many times, but only once was I wise. I beg you to be wise now- do not imagine that you are a man or a woman; do not imagine that you are foolish, clever, kind, or cruel; you are not living and you are nothing that dies. The tides, the words, they may comfort you, but they will turn on you; they will be your murderers. Give them up. I know the truth about you- and when I see you as you truly are, I ask: what could possibly kill you, and what would it be killing? You are no thing that can be targeted by blade, bullet, or arrow. Let them cast their stones and swing their scythes! Though you have forgotten much, you know what dying is like, and you know what living is like. You have been a lover in the grip of ecstasy, and a disease-ridden dog racked with pain on the side of the road! You have been a prince and a pauper, a king and a beggar.
You are not your past. You are not those things you have been, and even when you were those things, you weren't those things.
If you make yourself into a hare, you will be chased by hounds. If you make yourself into a fish, a hook will pierce your lip; if you make yourself into a bird, you will fear the blast of hunters below. If you make yourself into a clever man, your mind's failures and jealousy will haunt you. I; if you make yourself into a hateful man, you will long for the love and joy that will be absent from your life.
There is nothing you can make yourself into that won't be pierced by the sharp awl of Hard Fate. If you must be something, be a loving man, able to put himself aside for the well-being of others. The man who can put aside himself is already partially free. He isn't far from the crossroads and I will bring him to truth, if his love holds."
IX.
"O, Earendil, you are the power of your Father, the prince of Faery-Elfhame, and none are more subtle than you, Buck-King. Great Goat Angel, sovereign of the Craft, servant of the Ancient of Days, lover of Old Fate, Lord of Elves, by your eldritch knowledge mankind is purified of ignorance and the door of Xvarenah opens. What is putrid and foul turns to fairest ambrosia in the skull-bowl you offer to your initiates. You are the oracle of oracles, and foresight is numbered among your many names. With deceit you tell the truth, and you are the truth-teller who destroys all deception. In a thousand forms you satisfy those who seek your hidden halls, and in a thousand forms you destroy that which they hold dearest."
The Spell of Flight: Second Stream Transvection or The Witch-Rade into Faery via Geomantic Bonding, Fire, and Riding-Pole.
The Art and Science of Arcane Flight and the Gate of Witchery.
No activity is more associated with Witches from the folklore of nearly every European culture than flight. The aerial "rades" or broom-rides of witches are not merely conceits invented for modern Hollywood and consumers around Halloween time; they are based on a worldwide pattern of shamanic belief wherein animistic specialists are capable of inducing transformations that give them the power of flight. In many primal cultures, the shamanic workers can transform themselves into birds, and in others, they fly through the air on the backs of other creatures, on special magical poles or with special magical cloaks, or they simply fly alone.
The idea of shamanic spirit-flight, universal as it is, has come to be encapsulated in European folklore in the image of the broom-riding witch. In other folklore, as well as the witch-trials and records of clergymen from centuries past, we also hear of Witches taking to the air on the backs of horses, goats, stalks of Ragwort or other plants, pitchforks, and brooms. We hear stories from as far back as ancient Rome of witches using special ointments to turn into Screech-Owls and fly through the air, and so forth.
The "Flight of the Witches" was not just a joyride above the night-time countryside of England or Bavaria, but a special journey whose destination was not in this world at all, but the world Unseen, the Land of the Dead, often accessed through a grave-mound/hill, stone circle, or series of hills or a mountain that was often held by the locals to be an entrance to Hell or the Underworld. Often these hills or mountains frequented by Witches on their Sabbaths were "faery" haunted or spirit-haunted, surrounded by dark or ominous legends, and steadfasdy avoided by the peasantry. This too, accords with the universal pattern of Shamanic practice worldwide: the icon of the Witch gives us an authentic European vision of a lost animistic and shamanic stream of belief and praxis. Shamans worldwide have entered the Underworld or the Unseen World and interacted with both the dead and other spiritual powers, on behalf of tribe or community, sometimes to help, and other times to harm. Shamans of traditional cultures often learn their art from contact with spiritual powers, every bit as much as many Witches were seen, folklorically, to learn their art from "The Devil", from "Faeries", and from "The Queen of the Elves".
The key to Witch-flight is found in the Trance, and the items, ointments, incantations, and other special preparations that allowed for the Witch to experience the condition of mind that was liberated from the head-body complex that traps most people to the gravitational pull of the ground.
This "condition of liberation" is a function of inspired consciousness; it is part and parcel of a spiritual experience, and should not be considered a "state of mind" that can be created using strictly scientific means. This "condition of liberated mind" is not produced by trick hypnosis or by listening to rhythmic beats or noise. It is not the "alpha state" nor any other measure of brain-wave frequency so prized by modern pseudo-pagans and considered the key to "trance states". This "condition" is a gift, a precious secret, something from another reality, bestowed onto human beings by a powerful Spiritual presence, a Spirit who has acted as the Father of Witchery and Shamanism since time immemorial- the Master.
The true "condition of liberation" is found in religious devotion to Him who is the granter of occult inspiration, insight, and spirit-flight. Without a belief in him, and ritual devotion to him, only a weak, materialistic caricature of this condition will ever be produced by the spiritual tourists and "playgans" who seek it. So many people fail to see this simple and hidden fact, the secret to so many of the mythical and magical experiences that we read about in our folklore and stories are not to be re-created or found in the realm that we misapprehend as "the material" alone. The secret is found in faith, in belief, in the world of Spirits, and in a realm that we have excoriated as "superstitious" and "religious" in the modern day.
If you seek Spirit-Flight, and the direct mental experience of an Unseen World, and if it is your Fate to achieve it, then you will. You won't know until you try, and just having the desire to seek it is sign that you are halfway there. Will you go the whole way?
If you will, you will be required to renounce your faith in the tyrants of so-called empiricism and the priests of materialism that rule our world and ruin the minds of our young, they who destroy the possibility of poetic inspiration daily by building their groundless walls between what they call "subjective" and "objective"- a false distinction if ever there was one. It is as false as the myths used by the political and social mill of power-brokers that once controlled the minds of Europeans with their supposed "God" and all the contrived fear of hellfire they invoked.
You are going to have to let go of all your rationalistic assurances and re-embrace the wisdom of uncertainty. You are going to have to let yourself believe again in the unseen and all the possibilities it may contain, and let yourself leave behind the "safe place" you may have created for yourself, based on the assurances of the skeptics and materialists that if something can't be experienced with the five senses, then it isn't "real". Such an idea is spurious nonsense that blinds humankind to the deep resources and regenerating powers that dwell closer to us than we are to ourselves, and which daily interact with us. We could realize them and integrate ourselves with them, if we could overcome the fear and ignorance that we have been cobwebbed in first by the blindly faithful church and then by blindly skeptical sciences.
Would you seek entrance into the path of the Witch-shaman? Would you experience transvection, moving spiritually and mentally from the condition of the above-ground men to the strange and ghostly perpetuity of Elfhame with all its phantasmagoric visions and hidden chambers of wisdom? If so, you will need to swear faith to the Witchfather first and foremost, and then you will need three things for the Spell of Flight: The Land beneath your feet, a fire blessed in the name of the Power that is greater than All, and your mount for the ride.
Let us take the ingredients one at a time, and best of luck to you. If a witch you are to be, a witch you will be, and this was ordained from the time of your birth. What you come to know, however, all that will become your Witchery, is between you and the Master. It may be grand; it may be nothing. All or nothing, to be or not to be... that is the question.
If you would take spirit-flight into the Unseen World, you will have to find a way "in". This portal has to be an actual, physical place in the Land itself. It must be a sacred place, a spiritually active place that can give access to Elfhame or the Inner-world, also known as the Underworld. To call it "Hell" would not be wrong, but bare in mind this isn't a fire-filled pit full of tortured sinners. In reality, Hell or the Underworld, is the great "inner space" that is the basis for all outwardly-expressed phenomenon. It is also the inner space that is the basis of our human bodies, experiences, and personalities. To this great dark mystery we all return in Death, and in that place is the hidden seed of Wisdom, for those who can consciously plunge into its depths and face the guardians there, and the many challenges/ dangers, and seize it.
The experience of "Hell" is different to every person who experiences its condition of depth and mystery, whether that person be dead or a living person, such as a witch, who consciously and intentionally voyages there. For the most wicked of people, it is a deadly, poisonous, painful place and experience; for the innocent, it is bright and open and free; for the average bloke it is a place of dark and light powers and experienced, mixed together, forming a narrow bridge or road between them.
Anyone who can remain conscious enough can experience the Truth of Reality in the deep places of the self and the world, and the Mystic or Shaman's voyage to the Gods or the Unseen world has this as its ultimate and final goal; to know the Truth of things and return to mankind and mediate that truth to them, though the mediation must happen in symbolic terms. Pay attention to myths and folklore, if you would see the arcane language of the Underworld spread out before you, and if you would fathom the Truths they conceal.
You begin your journey by pledging your faith to the two powers who are dominant in the Underworld or the Innerworld- The King and Queen of
Spirits or the Faery King and Queen. Are they the Devil and his Dame? More recent folklore remembers them in that way, yes. To the wise, a rose by any other name is still a rose. You should go out alone, as far from people as you can, and in a lonely place, raise a cup and wooden plate or bowl of red wine or red drink, and dark bread, and pledge your faith to them and to the powers of the Underworld over which they rule.
Bless the cup and the plate/bowl in their most powerful names, as such:
OLD ONE, THIS BREAD WITH YOUR POWER MAKE RED QUEEN ELFHEN, FILL THIS CUP WITH YOUR BLESSING
And drink a bit and eat a bit of it, before casting the remains of the bread and wine or drink onto the ground itself. It would be better to do this at the roots of a very old, large tree, but a body of water is good, too.
You are sending their portion down to them, and as you watch it soak into the ground, ask them to lead you to a portal in the Land, through which you can access the deep world below over which they rule. Tell them you wish to seek wisdom and truth from the hidden places of the earth, so that you can live a better life and help others to do so. If I were you, I'd mean what I say.
Now, you must seek out your portal. After your offering, (which you can repeat as often as you need to) you must become a wanderer on the Land, looking for a "way down". Killing yourself would do the trick, but you don't want to do that, because you wouldn't be able to get back to tell the living about what you experienced in the Netherworld. So, you are looking for a place where you can create an experience that is as close to death as possible without being fatal. Be warned, however, that the Underworldly experience, in its full power, has the same mental impact on you as actual death does, for it is a mystical death in and of itself, and it may cause much discomfort to you, possible mental trauma, before it yields up its wisdom. Nothing is free.
What you are seeking for is a location that contains a door to the Unseen world. Many exist, but they are guarded. You must be allowed through by the powers that guard them, and permission comes from the King and Queen below, and nowhere else. That is the point of pledging faith to them, and convincing them of the purity of your mission, that they might let you in. In your own life, you have to be aware of what you "let in" to yourself daily, and what you deny entrance. It is very important than you let love in, and deny entrance to the foolish passions that dominate your mind's free time and clarity. When I say "love" here, don't be fooled by whatever sentimental notions you may have attached to that word.
Real love is both exhilarating and frightening. Real love demands everything from us. You have to love the Powers in the natural world, hidden and obvious, or you will never gain entrance to their inner reality. This "love" is pure love; it is a desire to be with them through thick and thin, through times of spiritual illumination and abject rejection and boredom. It is a pledge through health and sickness, and I suppose you know the rest.
Above all, it is a desire for all beings- including yourself- to have the best they can have, which is always Wisdom and the Truth. Wisdom and Truth are the two highest gifts and the two highest goods for anyone. Forget all the ideas you've had about roses and chocolate. Romance, as delightful a diversion as it may be, is trite in the face of real love.
I don't suppose it will always be about love; sometimes life demands that we protect ourselves and our loved ones and/or take vengeance on people who have hurt us or our families. Of course, I'm talking about people who truly hurt us, and in that reasoning, you may seek out darker paths and powers in the Great Below, using this spell of flight. Be cautious. It is your decision to make, yours to decide what you do and seek with your life-time, but there is a price that must be paid for our every deed. I'd be sure that I was justified in whatever I did, if I were you.
At any rate, what you seek in the Land is a great tree, a thorn, an oak or an ash, preferably, of advanced age and with a large root-system. That would be an ideal "portal" for your flight. Other features in the Land that will suffice and for which you should be searching are hills, caves, springs or the sources of rivers and streams, natural lakes or ponds, and burial sites, preferably ancient ones, but modern cemeteries of some age will do. You must pay attention to the local lore of your land, especially where concerns stories of "haunted" places and the like, or places that were thought to be gatherings of "witches". Naturally, I'm not talking about recent stories, but old, traditional associations.
You should ask the King and Queen to show you a place in your dreams, every night before you go to sleep, and pay attention to your dreams. After you do your Red Meal to them, let yourself wander aimlessly across your land, but pay attention to your gut-level feeling as you do, to be guided to a suitable place. You will, of course, know it when you see it and feel it.
When you do find a place, you need to do your devotional meal there again, and try to sleep at that area for a few nights, camping out as it were, but very respectfully. You need to "see" in your dreams that this place is powerful and welcoming. When you have located this sacred place, you will be ready to assay the Spell of Flight.
Sacred Days to the Old Ways, often captured in folklore as the feast-days of Saints and as special folk-festivals like Lammas, Candlemas, All Hallows, and the like, are the ideal days to perform this working, and indeed, as Witches from all times have known, the "high and holy days" are the ultimate time of Netherworldly contact. Also, all workings performed in the sub-lunar realm are influenced by the phase of the moon; waxing and full moons make the "trods" or Faery Roads especially illuminated and easy to access. Dark moons are really the best time for working in this world, with the power of Providence, old and hidden Fate herself. Any moon phase will allow you to use the Spell of Flight, but larger moons make it easier.
You should never try this working if you are tired; falling asleep, giving up to unconsciousness will only cause the working to fail, though your dreams may indeed by interesting, if you remember anything at all. Slight intoxication may help as well, but never too much. The use of hallucinogenic plants is not necessary, though in the old days, oftentimes they were used. We avoid them today for several reasons; firstly, most people lack the spiritual relationship between person and plant-spirit required to use them for religious purpose; secondly, we lack the herbological know-how to really use them safely, as most of the Saturnian plants used for "Flight" in the old days are highly toxic.