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Relics associated with Jesus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
00:54 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 386
Secondo Pia's 1898 photographic negative of the Shroud of Turin, associated with Holy Face of Jesus devotions.
A number of relics associated with Jesus have been claimed and displayed throughout the history of Christianity. Some people believe in the authenticity of some relics; others doubt the authenticity of various items. For instance, the sixteenth-century Catholic theologian Erasmus wrote sarcastically about the proliferation of relics, and the number of buildings that could have been constructed from the wood claimed to be from the cross used in the Crucifixion of Christ.[1] Similarly, while experts debate whether Christ was crucified with three or with four nails, at least thirty Holy Nails continue to be venerated as relics across Europe.[2]
Some relics, such as purported remnants of the Crown of Thorns, receive only a modest number of pilgrims, while others, such as the Shroud of Turin (which is associated with an approved Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus), receive millions of pilgrims, which in recent years have included Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.[3]
As Christian teaching generally states that Christ was assumed into heaven corporeally, there are few bodily relics, unlike with relics of saints. A notable exception, from long before the ascension, is his legendary foreskin.
Contents [hide]
1 Shrouds and faces
1.1 Shroud of Turin
1.2 Sudarium of Oviedo
1.3 Image of Edessa
1.4 Crown of Thorns
1.5 Veil of Veronica
2 Holy Chalice
3 The True Cross
4 Other relics
4.1 Crucifixion
4.2 Bodily relics
4.3 Miscellaneous
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
Shrouds and faces[edit]
A number of acheiropoieta (i.e. not made by hand) images reported to be of the face of Jesus, or have impressions of his face or body on a piece of cloth have been written about or displayed over the centuries. In most cases these images are subject to intense debate and speculation.
Although various devotions to the face of Jesus have been practiced, the term "Holy Face of Jesus" as used today only relates to the specific devotions approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1895 and Pope Pius XII in 1958 in regards to the image from the Shroud of Turin.[4]
Shroud of Turin[edit]
Main article: Shroud of Turin
A recent photo of the Shroud of Turin face, positive left, negative on the right having been contrast enhanced.
The Shroud of Turin is the best-known relic of Jesus and one of the most studied artifacts in human history.[5]
Various tests have been performed on the shroud, yet both believers and skeptics continue to present arguments for and against the validity of the tests. One of the contentious issues is the radiocarbon dating in 1988 which yielded results indicating that the shroud was made during the Middle Ages.[6] Believers have since presented arguments against the 1988 carbon dating results, ranging from conflicts in the interpretation of the evidence, to samples being taken from a non representative corner, to additional carbon content via fire damage. Heated debate has ensued ever since.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
Believers claim that pollen residues on the Shroud of Turin shows strong evidence that it originated in the Jerusalem area before the 8th century.[13]
Both skeptics and proponents tend to have very entrenched positions on the cause of formation of the shroud image, (at times pitting science versus divine formation) which has made dialogue very difficult. This may prevent the issue from being fully settled to the satisfaction of all sides in the near future.[14][15]
Sudarium of Oviedo[edit]
The ark containing the Sudarium of Oviedo.
The Sudarium of Oviedo is a bloodstained cloth, measuring c. 84 × 53 cm, kept in the Cámara Santa of the Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain.[16] The Sudarium (Latin for sweat cloth) is claimed to be the cloth wrapped around the head of Jesus Christ after he died, as mentioned in the Gospel of John (20:6–7).[17]
The Sudarium is severely soiled and crumpled, with dark flecks that are symmetrically arranged but form no image, unlike the markings on the Shroud of Turin. However, some of those who accept the Shroud as authentic claim that many of the stains on the Sudarium match those on the head portion of the Shroud. Believers (such as Vatican archivist Msgr Giulio Ricci, who studied them in 1995)[18] contend that both cloths covered the same man.
Image of Edessa[edit]
The Holy Face of Genoa.
The Image of Edessa is also known as the Mandylion. Two images claim to be the Mandylion. One is the Holy Face of Genoa at the Church of St. Bartholomew of The Armenians in Genoa, the other is the Holy Face of San Silvestro, kept in the Church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome up to 1870, and now in the Matilda Chapel of the Vatican Palace.[19] The theory that the object venerated as the Mandylion from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries was in fact the Shroud of Turin has been the subject of debate.[20]
Crown of Thorns[edit]
Main article: Crown of Thorns
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2012)
The relics of the Passion presented at Notre-Dame de Paris include a piece of the Cross, which had been kept in Rome and delivered by Saint Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, a nail of the Passion and the Holy Crown of Thorns.
Despite numerous studies and historical and scientific research efforts, its authenticity cannot be certified. It has been the object of more than sixteen centuries of fervent Christian prayer.
Saint John tells that, in the night between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Roman soldiers mocked Christ and his Sovereignty by placing a thorny crown on his head (John 19:12).
The crown housed in the Paris cathedral is a circle of canes bundled together and held by gold threads. The thorns were attached to this braided circle, which measures 21 centimetres in diameter. The thorns were divided up over the centuries by the Byzantine emperors and the Kings of France. There are seventy, all of the same type.
The accounts of 4th century pilgrims to Jerusalem allude to the Crown of Thorns and the instruments of the Passion of Christ. In 409, Saint Paulinus of Nola mentions it as being one of the relics kept in the basilica on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In 570, Anthony the Martyr found it exhibited for veneration in the Basilica of Zion. Around 575, Cassiodorus, in his Exposition on the 75th Psalm, exclaimed, "Jerusalem has the Column, here, there is the Crown of Thorns!" In 870, once again in Jerusalem, Bernard the Monk noted it as well.
Between the 7th and the 10th centuries, the relics were moved progressively to the Byzantine emperors’ chapel in Constantinople, mainly to keep them safe from pillaging, like that suffered by the Holy Sepulchre during the Persian invasions. In 1238, Byzantium was governed by the Latin Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople. As he was in great financial difficulty, he decided to pawn the relics in a Venetian bank to get credit.
Saint Louis, the king of France, took over and paid back the Venetians. On 10 August 1239, the king, followed by a brilliant procession, welcomed twenty-nine relics in Villeneuve-l'Archevêque. On 19 August 1239, the procession arrived in Paris; the king took off his royal garments. Wearing only a simple tunic and with bare feet, assisted by his brother, took the Crown of Thorns to Notre-Dame de Paris before placing the relics in the palace chapel. He built a reliquary worthy of housing these relics, the Sainte-Chapelle.
During the French revolution, the relics were stored in the National Library. After the Concordat in 1801, they were given back to the archbishop of Paris who placed them in the Cathedral treasury on 10 August 1806. They are still housed there today.
Since then, these relics have been conserved by the canons of the Metropolitan Basilica Chapter, who are in charge of venerations, and guarded by the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
Napoleon I and Napoleon III each offered reliquaries for the crown of thorns. They are on display at Notre-Dame Cathedral during scheduled religious ceremonies.[21]
Veil of Veronica[edit]
Veronica holding her veil, Hans Memling, c. 1470
The Veil of Veronica, which according to legend was used to wipe the sweat from Jesus' brow as he carried the cross is also said to bear the likeness of the face of Christ. Today, several images claim to be the Veil of Veronica.
There is an image kept in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome which is purported to be the same Veronica as was revered in the Middle Ages. Very few inspections are recorded in modern times and there are no detailed photographs. The most detailed recorded inspection in the 20th century occurred in 1907 when Jesuit art historian Joseph Wilpert was allowed to remove two plates of glass to inspect the image.[citation needed]
The Hofburg Palace in Vienna has a copy of the Veronica, identified by the signature of the secretary of Pope Paul V, during whose reign a series of six meticulous copies of the veil were made in 1617.[22]
The image at the Monastery of the Holy Face in Alicante, Spain was acquired by Pope Nicholas V from relatives of the Byzantine Emperor in 1453 and was given by a Vatican cardinal to a Spanish priest who took it to Alicante, in 1489.[citation needed]
The Jaén Cathedral in Spain has a copy of the Veronica which probably dates from the 14th century and originates in Siena. It is known as the Santo Rostro and was acquired by Bishop Nicholas de Biedma in the 14th century.[23]
The Manoppello Image.
In 1999, Father Heinnrich Pfeiffer announced at a press conference in Rome that he had found the Veil in a church of the Capuchin monastery, in the small village of Manoppello, Italy, where it had been since 1660. Professor Pfeiffer had in fact been promoting this image for many years before.[24] This theory has since been promoted by the author Paul Badde in his 2010 book The Face of God.[25]
Advocates of the Shroud's authenticity claim that recent research demonstrates that the face of the Manoppello Image corresponds exactly with the face presented on the Shroud of Turin and the blood stains on the Sudarium of Oviedo,[26][unreliable source?] although skeptics dispute this. Also, 3D properties of the Manoppello Image (similar to that claimed for the Shroud, but weaker) have been discovered.[27]
Holy Chalice[edit]
The Holy Chalice is the chalice or vessel which Jesus used at the Last Supper to serve the wine, as in the Gospel of Matthew (26:27-28) which states: "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."[28]
A number of Holy Chalices have been reported and also given rise to the legend of Holy Grail, which is not part of Catholic tradition, but of mythology.[29] Of the existing chalices, only the Santo Càliz de Valencia (English: Holy Chalice of the Cathedral of Valencia) is recognized as a "historical relic" by the Vatican,[30] although not as the actual chalice used at the Last Supper.[31] Although both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have venerated this chalice at the Cathedral of Valencia, neither has formally pronounced it as authentic.[32]
The True Cross[edit]
Discovery of the True Cross, by Tiepolo, 1745.
In the Christian tradition, the True Cross refers to the actual cross used in the Crucifixion of Jesus. Today, many fragments of wood are claimed as True Cross relics, but it is hard to establish their authenticity. The spread of the story of the fourth century discovery of the True Cross was partly due to its inclusion in 1260 in Jacopo de Voragine's very popular book The Golden Legend, which also included other tales such as Saint George and the Dragon.[citation needed]
Tradition and legend attribute the discovery of the True Cross to Saint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great who went to Palestine during the fourth century in search of relics. Eusebius of Caesarea was the only contemporary author to write about Helena's journey in his Life of Constantine. But Eusebius did not mention the finding of the True Cross, although he dwelt heavily on the piety of Helena and the finding of the site of the Holy Sepulchre.[33] Texts that tell (and gradually elaborate) the story of the finding of the True Cross and its identification through a miracle date to the fifth century, and include writings by Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen and Saint Theodoret.[citation needed]
Pieces of the purported True Cross, including the half of the INRI inscription tablet, are preserved at the ancient basilica Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. Very small pieces or particles of the True Cross are reportedly preserved in hundreds of other churches in Europe and inside crucifixes. Their authenticity is not accepted universally by those of the Christian faith and the accuracy of the reports surrounding the discovery of the True Cross is questioned by many Christians. The acceptance and belief of that part of the tradition that pertains to the Early Christian Church is generally restricted to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Medieval legends of its provenance differ between Catholic and Orthodox tradition. These churches honour Helena as a saint, as does also the Anglican Communion.[34]
Other relics[edit]
Crucifixion[edit]
Relic with a holy nail at the Bamberg Cathedral
A large number of other claimed relics of Jesus continue to be displayed throughout the world. A good number of these relics involve the journey of Saint Helena of Constantinople, the mother of Constantine the Great to Palestine in the fourth century to gather relics.[citation needed]
The authenticity of many of these relics is in question. For instance, regarding the Holy Nails brought back by Saint Helena, the Catholic Encyclopedia states that given that the question has long been debated whether Christ was crucified with three or with four nails:[2]
Very little reliance can be placed upon the authenticity of the thirty or more holy nails which are still venerated, or which have been venerated until recent times, in such treasuries as that of Santa Croce in Rome, or those of Venice, Aachen, Escurial, Nuremberg, Prague, etc. Probably the majority began by professing to be facsimiles which had touched or contained filings from some other nail whose claim was more ancient.
Similarly, a large number of churches claim to have relics of the Crown of Thorns which was placed upon the head of Jesus by the soldiers prior to his crucifixion.[citation needed]
The Scala Sancta, the stairs from Pontius Pilate's praetorium, ascended by Jesus during his trial were also reportedly brought to Rome by Saint Helena of Constantinople in the 4th century.[citation needed]
The Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium, claims a specimen of Christ's blood in a phial said to contain a cloth with blood of Jesus Christ, brought to the city by Thierry of Alsace after the 12th century.[citation needed]
Other claimed relics, based on the Crucifixion of Christ include:
The Holy Coat: The possession of the seamless garment of Christ (Latin: Latin tunica inconsultilis; John 19:23), for which the soldiers cast lots at the Crucifixion, is claimed by the cathedral of Trier, Germany, and by the parish church of Argenteuil, France. The seamless robe of Jesus is kept at the cathedral of Trier. The Argenteuil tradition claims that the garment venerated in that city as the Holy Coat was brought there by Charlemagne.[citation needed]
The Calvary of crucifixion, a small rock called Golgotha, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Inside the church is a pile of rock about 7 metres (23 ft) long by 3 metres (9.8 ft) wide by 4.8 metres (16 ft), believed to be what is now visible of Calvary.[citation needed]
The Iron Crown of Lombardy and Bridle of Constantine, said to be made from nails used during the crucifixion.[citation needed]
The Holy Lance (or Spear of Destiny), the spear of Longinus used to pierce Jesus' side when he was on the cross, to ensure that he had died.[citation needed]
The Holy Sponge, in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.[citation needed]
The Column of the Flagellation, which Jesus was tied to during the Flagellation of Christ, kept in the Basilica of Saint Praxedes in Rome.[citation needed]
Bodily relics[edit]
Christian teaching generally states that Christ was assumed into heaven corporeally. Therefore the only parts of his body available for veneration are parts he had lost prior to the Ascension. At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have claimed to possess the Holy Prepuce, Jesus' foreskin from the Circumcision, sometimes at the same time.[35] A section of the Holy Umbilical Cord believed to remain from the birth of Christ, is currently in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.[36]
Miscellaneous[edit]
A number of miscellaneous relics are claimed to exist; there is no proof that any of them are genuine. In many cases, there are contradictory claims of a unique relic existing simultaneously at different locations.
St. Paul's Monastery on Mount Athos claims to have relics of Gifts of the Magi, while Dubrovnik's Cathedral, Croatia, lays claim to the swaddling clothes the baby Jesus wore during the presentation at the Temple.[37] The knife that was claimed to have been used by Jesus during the Last Supper was also a matter of veneration in the Middle Ages, according to the 12th century Guide for Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela.[38] According to French traveler Jules-Léonard Belin the knife used by Jesus to slice bread was permanently exhibited in the Logetta (decorated entrance hall) of St Mark's Campanile in Venice.[39]
See also[edit]
Blood of Christ
List of artifacts significant to the Bible
Jesus in the Christian Bible
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Dillenberger 1999, p. 5
^ Jump up to: a b Wikisource-logo.svg Thurston, Herbert (1913). "Holy Nails". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Jump up ^ Pope John Paul II (1998-05-24), Pope John Paul II's address in Turin Cathedral, Holy See
Jump up ^ Cruz 2003, p. 200
Jump up ^ « The Shroud of Turin is the single, most studied artifact in human history » statement considered as « widely accepted » in Lloyd A Currie, « The Remarkable Metrological History of Radiocarbon Dating [II] », J. Res. Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. 109, 2004, p. 200 Article.
Jump up ^ Damon, P. E.; D. J. Donahue, B. H. Gore, A. L. Hatheway, A. J. T. Jull, T. W. Linick, P. J. Sercel, L. J. Toolin, C. R. Bronk, E. T. Hall, R. E. M. Hedges, R. Housley, I. A. Law, C. Perry, G. Bonani, S. Trumbore, W. Woelfli, J. C. Ambers, S. G. E. Bowman, M. N. Leese, M. S. Tite (February 1989), "Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin", Nature 337 (6208): 611–615, doi:10.1038/337611a0, retrieved 2007-11-18.
Jump up ^ Brendan Whiting, 2006, The Shroud Story, Harbour Publishing, ISBN 0-646-45725-X
Jump up ^ Gove, H E (1990), "Dating the Turin Shroud-An Assessment" (PDF), Radiocarbon (32:1, 87–92), retrieved 2009-06-27.
Jump up ^ Joe Nickell. "Claims of Invalid "Shroud" Radiocarbon Date Cut from Whole Cloth". Skeptical Inquirer. Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
Jump up ^ Daily Telegraph article on Carbon dating http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/25/nshroud125.xml
Jump up ^ Lorenzi, Rossella. "Shroud of Turin's Authenticity Probed Anew". Discovery Channel. Discovery Communications. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
Jump up ^ Shroud mystery refuses to go away: BBC News 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7307646.stm
Jump up ^ XVI International Botanical Congress. "Botanical Evidence Indicates 'Shroud Of Turin' Originated In Jerusalem Area Before 8th Century". ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 August 1999. .
Jump up ^ Colin Evans, 2002 A question of evidence ISBN 0-471-44014-0 page 10
Jump up ^ Paul Vignon, 2002 The Shroud of Christ ISBN 1-885395-96-5 page 3
Jump up ^ Michael McDonnell (2007). Lost Treasures of the Bible. ISBN 1-84753-316-7. page 31.
Jump up ^ John 20:6
Jump up ^ Ruffin 1999, p. 47
Jump up ^ Houlden 2003, vol. 2, p. 66
Jump up ^ Wilson 1991
Jump up ^ Notre Dame de Paris - Veneration of the Crown
Jump up ^ Wilson 1991, p. 157
Jump up ^ Wilson 1991, p. 94
Jump up ^ Ian Wilson, Holy Faces, Secret Places, page 161
Jump up ^ The Face of God: The Rediscovery of the True Face of Jesus, Igantius Press, Paul badde, 2010.
Jump up ^ http://www.sudariumchristi.com/uk/tomb/compare.htm
Jump up ^ [1] J. Jaworski , G. Fanti 3-D PROCESSING TO EVIDENCE CHARACTERISTICS REPRESENTED IN MANOPPELLO VEIL (article)
Jump up ^ Matthew 26:27-28
Jump up ^ Wikisource-logo.svg Thurston, Herbert (1913). "Chalice". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Jump up ^ "The History of the Holy Chalice", Official website of the Valencia cathedral - The Holy Chalice of the Lord Supper
Jump up ^ Griffin 2001, p. 103
Jump up ^ Pope to Venerate Holy Grail, Zenit News, 2006-07-07
Jump up ^ Life of Constantine book 3, chapter 25 - 41
Jump up ^ "Saint Helena Queen and Widow". anglicancatholic.org. Retrieved April 10, 2015.
Jump up ^ "Who stole Jesus' foreskin?" by David Farley. Slate magazine
Jump up ^ http://goitaly.about.com/od/romeattractions/tp/rome-relics.htm
Jump up ^ Janekovic-Romer, Zdenka (1996), Javni rituali u politickom diskursu humanistickog Dubrovnika (in Croatian), Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskog fakulteta Zagreb - Institute of Croatian history, Faculty of Philosophy Zagreb, p. 78
Jump up ^ Snoek, Godefridus (1995), Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist, Leiden: E.J. Brill, p. 248, ISBN 90-04-10263-9
Jump up ^ Belin, Julien-Léonard (1843), Le Simplon et l'Italie septentrionale: promenades et pèlerinages (in French), Belin-Leprieur, p. 218
References[edit]
Cruz, Joan Carroll (October 1984), Relics, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, ISBN 978-0-87973-701-6, retrieved 21 October 2010
Cruz, Joan Carroll (May 2003), Saintly Men of Modern Times, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, ISBN 978-1-931709-77-4, retrieved 21 October 2010
Dillenberger, John (1999), Images and relics: theological perceptions and visual images in sixteenth-century Europe, Oxford University Press US, ISBN 978-0-19-512172-8, retrieved 21 October 2010
Griffin, Justin (July 2001), The Holy Grail: the legend, the history, the evidence, McFarland, ISBN 978-0-7864-0999-0, retrieved 21 October 2010
Houlden, James Leslie (2003), Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture, Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Inc, ISBN 978-1-57607-856-3
Nickell, Joe (2007), Relics of the Christ, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 0-8131-2425-5
Ruffin, Bernard (1999), The Shroud of Turin: the most up-to-date analysis of all the facts regarding the Church's controversial relic, Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, ISBN 978-0-87973-617-0
Wilson, Ian (1991), Holy Faces, Secret Places, London: Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-26105-5
Further reading[edit]
Bella, Francesco; Carlo Azzi (2002). "14C Dating of the 'Titulis Crucis'" (PDF). Radiocarbon (University of Arizona) 44 (3): 685–689. Retrieved 2012-09-10.
Benford, M. Sue; Joseph G. Marino (July–August 2008). "Discrepancies in the radiocarbon dating area of the Turin shroud" (PDF). Chemistry Today 26 (4). Retrieved 2012-09-10.
Fernández Sánchez, José Luis (4–6 May 2010). "The Sudarium of Oviedo and the Shroud of Turin. A question of authenticity" (PDF). Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Scientific approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, ENEA Frascati, Italy.
Klein, Holger A. (2006). "Sacred Relics and Imperial Ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constantinople". In F. A. Bauer (ed.). Visualisierungen von Herrschaft (PDF). BYZAS 5. pp. 79–99. ISBN 9789758071265. OCLC 71787023.
Will this be the first time the world sees the Ark of Covenant? Leaking roof in Ethiopian chapel 'will lead to relic being revealed' Ark contains Ten Commandments God 'gave' to Moses on Mount Sinai One holy monk is the only person allowed to see the h00:51 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 387
A very British problem of a leaky church roof could be about to give the world the chance to glimpse the legendary Ark of the Covenant.
That's because the claimed home of the iconic relic - a small chapel in Ethiopia - has sprung a leak and so the Ark could now be on the move.
The Ark - which The Bible says holds God's Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai - is said to have been kept in Aksum, in the Chapel of the Tablet, adjacent to St Mary of Zion Church, since the 1960s.
According to the Old Testament, it was first kept in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem for centuries until a Babylonian invasion in the 6th century BC.
The Chapel of the Tablet in Ethiopia that has the leaking roof. The St Mary of Zion church can be seen in the foreground
Leaking roof: The Chapel of the Tablet in Ethiopia that holds the Ten Commandments and has the water damage. The St Mary of Zion church, that originally held the tablet, can be seen in the foreground
Since then it's been the goal of many adventurers and archaeologists to find it. Most-famously, but also fictitiously, Indiana Jones was shown in the 1981 Steven Spielberg film Raiders of the Lost Ark.
There has also been a long-running claim from the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia that they have had the Ark for centuries, and since the 1960s it has apparently been kept in the chapel.
This small and curiously-forbiddend building is surrounded by spiked iron railings, and situated between two churches, the old and new, of St Mary of Zion in central Aksum.
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No one has been allowed to see the holy object, described in scripture as being made from acacia wood, plated with gold and topped with two golden angels, except one solitary elderly monk, who must watch over the Ark for the remainder of his life, and is never allowed to leave the chapel grounds.
But now the chapel - which was designed by the Ethiopian leader Emperor Hailie Selassie - has had to be covered in a tarpaulin to stop rain getting in.
The water damage could mean the Ark will be moved for the first time in decades giving religious worshippers and adventurers alike a chance to see it.
British photographer Tim Makins, 54, who is a travel photographer for publications like Lonely Planet, discovered the church had sprung a leak whilst travelling through Ethiopia last September.
Workmen clear the ground adjacent to the Chapel of the Tablet
Paintings in the old church of St Mary of Zion and the covered entrance to the inner chapel
Holy work: Workmen clear the ground adjacent to the Chapel of the Tablet. Right, Paintings in the old church of St Mary of Zion and the covered entrance to the inner chapel
He believes the moving of the Ark could be one of the best ways to discover if there's any truth in the claims of the East African state.
Tim said: 'During my most recent visit to the church, I was surprised to see some ground adjacent to the ''Chapel of the Tablet'' being cleared and levelled by workmen, and some quantities of building stone being assembled nearby.
'Asking around, I managed to discover that a new temporary chapel is due to be built, and the Ark is to be moved into it while the original chapel is repaired.
'It seems that the builders of the 1960s were not as careful as the builders of centuries past, and the roof of the chapel has developed some serious leaks that now need comprehensive repair work.
'To protect the Ark, a tarpaulin now covers the roof of the chapel but this is just a temporary measure.
'To renovate the building thoroughly, the roof must be stripped back to the bare bones and so a replacement chapel is to be built next door providing a temporary home for it.'
Tim said the construction of the new temporary chapel would take about three months according to workers and religious figures at the site, though he suspects that it will probably take much longer.
He added: 'When the work is finished, the Ark of the Covenant will be carried to its new resting place.'
'That this can be done by the one person allowed to see it is unlikely, as The Bible describes the size of the Ark as 2.5 cubits in length, 1.5 in breadth, and 1.5 in height.
'Cubits in today's measurements translate to about 1.31 metres x 0.79m x 0.79m and it is normally carried on two long wooden poles.
'If it really is this size, and still contains the two stone tablets that list God's Ten Commandments, then the elderly monk will no doubt need some help to transport it.'
What is the Ark of the Covenant?00:48 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 388
Question: "What is the Ark of the Covenant?"
Answer: God made a covenant (a conditional covenant) with the children of Israel through His servant Moses. He promised good to them and their children for generations if they obeyed Him and His laws; but He always warned of despair, punishment, and dispersion if they were to disobey. As a sign of His covenant He had the Israelites make a box according to His own design, in which to place the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments. This box, or chest, was called an “ark” and was made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. The Ark was to be housed in the inner sanctum of the tabernacle in the desert and eventually in the Temple when it was built in Jerusalem. This chest is known as the Ark of the Covenant.
The real significance of the Ark of the Covenant was what took place involving the lid of the box, known as the "Mercy Seat." The term ‘mercy seat’ comes from a Hebrew word meaning “to cover, placate, appease, cleanse, cancel or make atonement for.” It was here that the high priest, only once a year (Leviticus 16), entered the Holy of Holies where the Ark was kept and atoned for his sins and the sins of the Israelites. The priest sprinkled blood of a sacrificed animal onto the Mercy Seat to appease the wrath and anger of God for past sins committed. This was the only place in the world where this atonement could take place.
The Mercy Seat on the Ark was a symbolic foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice for all sin—the blood of Christ shed on the cross for the remission of sins. The Apostle Paul, a former Pharisee and one familiar with the Old Testament, knew this concept quite well when he wrote about Christ being our covering for sin in Romans 3:24-25: "…and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." Just as there was only one place for atonement of sins in the Old Testament—the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant—so there is also only one place for atonement in the New Testament and current times—the cross of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we no longer look to the Ark but to the Lord Jesus Himself as the propitiation and atonement for our sins.
Ancient Jewish History:
The Ark of the Convenant
Ancient Jewish History: Table of Contents | The Temple | The Two Kingdoms
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As a general rule, Judaism rejects physical manifestations of spirituality, preferring instead to focus on actions and beliefs. Indeed, the story of Judaism begins with Abraham who, according to ancient sources, shattered the idols that were the conventional method of religious observance at the time. Worship of graven images is harshly condemned throughout the Torah, and perhaps the greatest sin the Israelites collectively committed was the construction of the Golden Calf (in Ex. 32), intended to serve as a physical intermediary between them and God. Today, Jews do not venerate any holy relics or man-made symbols.
But in the history of the Jewish people, there was one exception to this rule. One man-made object was considered intrinsically holy - the Ark of the Covenant.
Constructed during the Israelites' wanderings in the desert and used until the destruction of the First Temple, the Ark was the most important symbol of the Jewish faith, and served as the only physical manifestation of God on earth. The legends associated with this object - and the harsh penalties ascribed for anyone who misuses it - confirm the Ark's centrality to the Jewish faith of that period; the fact that Jews and non-Jews alike continue to study and imitate it confirms its centrality even today.
- Building the Ark
- The Role of the Ark
- History of the Ark
- The Ark's Whereabouts
- The Role of the Ark Today
Building the Ark
The construction of the Ark is commanded by God to Moses while the Jews were still camped at Sinai (Ex. 25:10-22; 37:1-9). The Ark was a box with the dimensions of two-and-a-half cubits in length, by one-and-a-half cubits in heights, by one-and-a-half cubits in width (a cubit is about 18 inches). It was constructed of acacia wood, and was plated with pure gold, inside and out. On the bottom of the box, four gold rings were attached, through which two poles, also made of acacia and coated in gold, were put. The family of Kehath, of the tribe of Levi, would carry the ark on their shoulders using these poles.
Artistic rendering of the Ark of the Covenant
Covering the box was the kapporet, a pure gold covering that was two-and-a-half by one-and-a-half cubits. Attached to the kapporet were two sculpted Cherubs, also made of pure gold. The two Cherubs faced one another, and their wings, which wrapped around their bodies, touched between them.
The contents of the Ark has been debated through the centuries. The general consensus is that the first tablets containing the Ten Commandments, which were broken by Moses, and the second tablets, which remained intact, were contained in the Ark (Bava Batra 14b). According to one opinion in the Talmud, both Tablets were together in the Ark; according to another, there were two Arks, and each contained one set of Tablets (Berakhot 8b).
The Ark was built by Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, who constructed the entire Tabernacle – the portable Temple used in the desert and during the conquest of the land of Israel. The Tabernacle was the resting place for the Ark, and also contained other vessels that were used in the physical worship of God. The Biblical commentators argue over why God commanded Moses to build a Tabernacle in the first place: According to Rashi (Ex. 31:18), God realized after the sin of the Golden Calf that the Israelites needed an outlet for physical worship, and commanded that they build the Tabernacle as a way of expressing their own need for physical representation of God. According to Nachmanides (Ex. 25:1), however, the Jews were commanded to build the Tabernacle even before the sin of the Golden Calf; rather than filling a human need, the Tabernacle was God's method of achieving continuous revelation in the Israelites' camp. These two opinions as to whether the Tabernacles, and the Temples that followed them, were an a priori necessity or a necessary evil demonstrate the controversial role of physical worship in Judaism as a whole.
The Role of the Ark
The Ark was used in the desert and in Israel proper for a number of spiritual and pragmatic purposes. Practically, God used the Ark as an indicator of when he wanted the nation to travel, and when to stop. In the traveling formation in the desert, the Ark was carried 2000 cubits ahead of the nation (Num. R. 2:9). According to one midrash, it would clear the path for the nation by burning snakes, scorpions, and thorns with two jets of flame that shot from its underside (T. VaYakhel, 7); another midrash says that rather than being carried by its bearers, the Ark in fact carried its bearers inches above the ground (Sotah 35a). When the Israelites went to war in the desert and during the conquering of Canaan, the Ark accompanied them; whether its presence was symbolic, to provide motivation for the Jews, or whether it actually aided them in fighting, is debated by commentators.
Spiritually, the Ark was the manifestation of God's physical presence on earth (the shekhina). When God spoke with Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the desert, he did so from between the two Cherubs (Num. 7:89). Once the Ark was moved into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple, it was accessible only once a year, and then, only by one person. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) could enter the Holy of Holies to ask forgiveness for himself and for all the nation of Israel (Lev. 16:2).
The relationship between the Ark and the shekhina is reinforced by the recurring motif of clouds. God's presence is frequently seen in the guise of a cloud in the Bible (Ex. 24:16), and the Ark is constantly accompanied by clouds: When God spoke from between the Cherubs, there was a glowing cloud visible there (Ex. 40:35); when the Jews traveled, they were led by the Ark and a pillar of clouds (Num. 10:34); at night, the pillar of clouds was replaced by a pillar of fire, another common descriptor of God's appearance (Ex. 24:17); and when the High Priest entered presence of the Ark on Yom Kippur, he did so only under the cover of a cloud of incense, perhaps intended to mask the sight of the shekhina in all its glory (Lev. 16:13).
The holiness of the Ark also made it dangerous to those who came in contact with it. When Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, brought a foreign flame to offer a sacrifice in the Tabernacle, they were devoured by a fire that emanated "from the Lord" (Lev. 10:2). During the saga of the capture of the Ark by the Philistines, numerous people, including some who merely looked at the Ark, were killed by its power. Similarly, the Priests who served in the Tabernacle and Temple were told that viewing the Ark at an improper time would result in immediate death (Num. 4:20).
History of the Ark
The Ark accompanied the Jews throughout their time in the desert, traveling with them and accompanying them to their wars with Emor and Midian. When the Jews crossed into the land of Canaan, the waters of the Jordan River miraculously split and the Ark led them through (Josh. 3). Throughout their conquest of the land, the Jews were accompanied by the Ark. The most dramatic demonstration of its power comes when the Jews breached the walls of Jericho merely by circling them, blowing horns and carrying the Ark (Josh. 6).
After the conquest was completed, the Ark, and the entire Tabernacle, were set up in Shiloh (Josh. 18) . There they remained until the battles of the Jews with the Philistines during the Priesthood of Eli. The Jews, after suffering a defeat at the Philistines' hands, took the Ark from Shiloh to Even-Ezer in hopes of winning the next battle. But the Jews were routed, and the Ark was captured by the Philistines. Back in Shiloh, Eli, the High Priest, immediately died upon hearing the news (I Sam. 4).
The Philistines took the Ark back to Ashdod, their capital city in the south of Canaan, where they placed it in the temple of their god Dagon. The next day, however, they found the idol fallen on its face. After replacing the statue, they found it the next day decapitated, with only its trunk remaining, and soon afterward, the entire city of Ashdod was struck with a plague. The Philistines moved the Ark to the city of Gath, and from there to Ekron, but whatever city the Ark was in, the inhabitants were struck with plague. After seven months, the Philistines decided to send the Ark back to the Israelites, and accompanied it with expensive gifts. The Ark was taken back to Beit Shemesh, and, according to midrash, the oxen pulling the Ark burst into song as soon as it was once again in Israel's possession (A.Z. 22b). The actual text of the story, however, tells a much grimmer tale: The men of Beit Shemesh were punished for staring disrespectfully at the Ark, and many were killed with a plague.
The Church of St. Mary. The Treasury that is said to contain the Ark is in the background on the left.
From Beit Shemesh, the Ark was transported to Kiryat Yearim, where it remained for twenty years. From there, King David transported it to Jerusalem. En route, however, the oxen pulling it stumbled, and when Uzzah reached out to steady the Ark, he died immediately. As a result of this tragedy, David decided to leave the Ark at the home of Obed-edom the Gittite. Three months later, he moved it to Jerusalem, the seat of his kingdom, where it remained until the construction of the First Temple by David's son Solomon (I Sam. 5-6). When the Ark was finally placed in the Temple, the midrash reports that the golden tree decorations that adorned the walls blossomed with fruit that grew continuously until the Temple's destruction (Yoma 39b).
The Ark's Whereabouts
The Ark remained in the Temple until its destruction at the hand of the Babylonian empire, led by Nebuchadnezzar. What happened to it afterward is unknown, and has been debated and pondered for centuries. It is unlikely that the Babylonians took it, as they did the other vessels of the Temple, because the detailed lists of what they took make no mention of the Ark. According to some sources, Josiah, one of the final kings to reign in the First Temple period, learned of the impending invasion of the Babylonians and hid the Ark. Where he hid it is also questionable – according to one midrash, he dug a hole under the wood storehouse on the Temple Mount and buried it there (Yoma 53b). Another account says that Solomon foresaw the eventual destruction of the Temple, and set aside a cave near the Dead Sea, in which Josiah eventually hid the Ark (Maimonides, Laws of the Temple, 4:1).
St. Mary Church in Axum, Ethiopia.
One of the most fascinating possibilities is advanced by Ethiopian Christians who claim that they have the Ark today. In Axum, Ethiopia, it is widely believed that the Ark is currently being held in the Church of Saint Mary of Zion, guarded by a monk known as the "Keeper of the Ark," who claims to have it in his possesion. According to the Axum Christian community, they acquired the Ark during the reign of Solomon, when his son Menelik, whose mother was the Queen of Sheba, stole the Ark after a visit to Jerusalem. While in the not-so-distant past the "Ark" has been brought out for Christian holidays, its keeper has not done so for several years due to the tumultuous political situation in the country. The claim has thus been impossible to verify, for no one but the monk is allowed into the tent.
A more plausible claim is that of archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer, who has conducted research on the Temple Mount and inside the Dome of the Rock. He claims to have found the spot on the Mount where the Holy of Holies was located during the First Temple period. In the precise center of that spot is a section of bedrock cut out in dimensions that may match those of the Ark as reported in Exodus. This section of the mount, incidentally, is the one from which the creation of the world began, according to midrash (T. Kedoshim, 10). Based on his findings, Ritmeyer has postulated that the Ark may be buried deep inside the Temple Mount. However, it is unlikely that any excavation will ever be allowed on the Mount by the Muslim or Israeli authorities.
The Role of the Ark Today
The Ark remains a topic of study even today, over 2000 years after it was last seen. A great deal of research has attempted to explain the wonders that are attributed to the Ark in the Bible. One recent study suggests the possibility that the Ark represented man's first harnessing of electricity. The accounts given of peoples' sudden deaths from touching the Ark are consistent with death by a high voltage, lethal electrical charge. Such a charge could have resulted from the constant exposure of the box to static electricity, which builds up quickly in a hot, dry climate like the Middle East. The materials that the Ark was made of further support this theory: gold is one of the most powerful electrical conductors, and wood is an excellent insulator.
The only remnant of the Ark in Jewish life today is the Holy Ark in which Torah scrolls are kept in synagogues. These Arks often are decorated with copies of the Tablets, reminiscent of the contents of the actual Ark of ancient times. The Ark itself plays no role in Jewish life today. Nonetheless, it remains a potent symbol of the Jewish peoples' past, and of the messianic era many believe is waiting in the future.
Ironically, the Ark is most famous today as the subject of the 1981 film "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark." The movie tells of a hero's attempt to prevent the Ark from falling into the hands of the Nazis, who would harness its power for evil. While there is no evidence of Hitler ever having had an interest in the Ark, the movie does an admirable job of capturing the mystique of one of the worlds' most ancient unsolved mysteries.
Sources:Graham Hancock. The Sign and the Seal : The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Touchstone Books, 1993; Encyclopedia Judaica. "Ark of the Covenant."; Ritmeyer, L., 1996. "The Ark of the Covenant: Where it Stood in Solomon's Temple". Biblical Archaeology Review 22/1: 46-55, 70-73; The Discovery Channel Online. "The Lost Ark."
Solomon's knot From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Not to be confused with Sigillum Solomonis, a name for the Polygonatum genus. 00:43 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 389
Solomon's knot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Sigillum Solomonis, a name for the Polygonatum genus.
Basic Solomon's knot
Solomon's knot carving in Almenno San Bartolomeo (Italy)
Ancient Roman mosaic in Aquileia (Italy)
Decorative Solomon's knot.
Solomon's knot (Latin: sigillum Salomonis) is the most common name for a traditional decorative motif used since ancient times, and found in many cultures. Despite the name, it is actually classified as a link, and is not a true knot according to the definitions of mathematical knot theory.
Contents [hide]
1 Structure
2 Occurrences
3 Name
4 Symbolism
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
Structure
The Solomon's knot consists of two closed loops, which are doubly interlinked in an alternating (interlaced) manner. In other words, if laid flat, the Solomon's knot is seen to have four crossings where the two loops interweave under and over each other (as opposed to only two crossings in the simpler Hopf link).
In most artistic representations, the parts of the loops that alternately cross over and under each other become the sides of a central square, while four loopings extend outward in four directions. The four extending loopings may have oval, square, or triangular endings, or may terminate with free-form shapes such as leaves, lobes, blades, wings etc.
Occurrences
The Solomon's knot often occurs in ancient Roman mosaics, usually represented as two interlaced ovals.
Tzippori National Park, Israel, has Solomon's Knots in stone mosaics at the site of an ancient synagogue.
The Treasury, National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology, Dublin, Republic of Ireland displays the twelfth century CE Cross of Cong. In contrast to more elaborate designs usually seen are two very small Solomon's Knots in simple, pure form at the junction of the Cross, one on either side of the Quartz Crystal covered hollow that once held a sliver of the Christian "True Cross."
Across the Middle East, historical Islamic sites show Solomon's knot as part of Muslim tradition. It appears over the doorway of an early twentieth century CE mosque/madrasa in Cairo. Two versions of Solomon's knot are included in the recently excavated Yattir Mosaic in Jordan. To the east, it is woven into an antique Central Asian prayer rug. To the west, Solomon's knot appeared in Moorish Spain, and it shines in leaded glass windows in a late twentieth century CE mosque in the United States. The British Museum, London, England has a fourteenth-century CE Egyptian Qur'an with a Solomon's Knot as its frontispiece.
University of California at Los Angeles Fowler Museum of Cultural History, USA has a large African collection that includes nineteenth and twentieth century CE Yoruba glass beadwork crowns and masks decorated with Solomon's Knots.
Home of Peace Mausoleum, a Jewish Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, USA has multiple images of Solomon's knot in stone and concrete bas reliefs sculpted 1934 CE.
Saint Sophia's Greek Orthodox Cathedral, "Byzantine District" of Los Angeles, California, USA has an olive wood Epitaphios (bier for Christ) with Solomon's knots carved at each corner. The Epitaphios is used in the Greek Easter services.
Powell Library University of California at Los Angeles, USA has ceiling beams in the Main Reading Room covered with Solomon's Knots. Built in 1926 CE, the reading room also features a central Dome of Wisdom bordered by Solomon's knots. [3]
Name
In Latin, this configuration was sometimes known as sigillum Salomonis, meaning literally "seal of Solomon". It was associated with the Biblical monarch Solomon because of his reputation for wisdom and knowledge (and in some legends, his occult powers). This phrase is usually rendered into English as "Solomon's knot", since "seal of Solomon" has other conflicting meanings (often referring to either a Star of David or pentagram). In the study of ancient mosaics, the Solomon's knot is often known as a "guilloche knot" or "duplex knot", while a Solomon's knot in the center of a decorative configuration of four curving arcs is known as a "pelta-swastika" (where pelta is Latin for "shield").
Among other names currently in use are the following:
"Foundation Knot" applies to the interweaving or interlacing which is the basis for many elaborate Celtic designs, and is used in the United States in crochet and macramé patterns.
"Imbolo" describes the knot design on the textiles of the Kuba people of Congo.[1]
"Nodo di Salomone" is the Italian term for Solomon's Knot, and is used to name the Solomon's Knot mosaic found at the ruins of a synagogue at Ostia, the ancient seaport for Rome.[2]
Symbolism
Multiple Solomon's knots in a mosaic in the Church of the Nativity (Bethlehem)
Molecular Solomon's knot
Quadruple Solomon's knot
Since the knot has been used across a number of cultures and historical eras, it can be given a range of symbolic interpretations.
Because there is no visible beginning or ending, it may represent immortality and eternity—as does the more complicated Buddhist Endless Knot.
Because the knot seems to be two entwined figures, it is sometimes interpreted as a Lover's Knot, although that name may indicate another knot.
Because of religious connections, the knot is sometimes designated the all-faith symbol of faith, but, at the same time, it appears in many places as a valued secular symbol of prestige, importance, beauty.
Solomon's Knot appears on tombstones and mausoleums in Jewish graveyards and catacombs in many nations. In this context, Solomon's Knot is currently interpreted to symbolize eternity.
Some seek to connect it with Solomon by translating the Hebrew word peka'im (פקעים) found in the Bible at I Kings 6:18 and I Kings 7:24 as meaning "knobs" or "knots", and interpreting it to refer to Solomon's knot; however, the more accepted modern translation of this word is "gourd-shaped ornaments".
In Africa, Solomon's knot is found on glass beadwork, textiles, and carvings of the Yoruba people. When the knot appears in this culture, it often denotes royal status; thus, it is featured on crowns, tunics, and other ceremonial objects. Also in Africa, the Knot is found on Kasai velvet, the raffia woven cloth of the Kuba people. They attribute mystical meaning to it, as do the Akan People of West Africa who stamp it on their sacred Adinkra cloth. In the Adinkra symbol system, a version of Solomon's knot is the Kramo-bone symbol, interpreted as meaning "one being bad makes all appear to be bad".
In Latvia, when Solomon's knot is used on textiles and metal work, it is associated with time, motion, and the powers of ancient pagan gods.
In modern science, some versions of the conventionalized sign for an atom (electrons orbiting a nucleus) are variations of Solomon's knot. The logo of the Joomla software program is a Solomon's knot.
Key of Solomon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia00:41 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 390
One of the pentacles found in the Key of Solomon manuscripts. This one is identified as "The Great Pentacle" and appears in Bodleian Library Michael MS. 276, a 17th-century Italian manuscript. An equivalent figure also appears in a Latin version, Bodleian Library, Aubrey MS. 24, dated to 1674. The figure is a variant of the Sigillum Aemeth published by Athanasius Kircher in Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Rome, 1652–4, pp. 479–81).
The Key of Solomon (Latin: Clavicula Salomonis, Hebrew: Mafteah Shelomoh [מפתח שלמה]) is a grimoire incorrectly attributed to King Solomon. It probably dates back to the 14th or 15th century Italian Renaissance. It presents a typical example of Renaissance magic.[citation needed]
It is possible that the Key of Solomon inspired later works, particularly the 17th-century grimoire also known as Clavicula Salomonis Regis, The Lesser Key of Solomon or Lemegeton, although there are many differences between the books.[citation needed]
Contents [hide]
1 Manuscripts and textual history
2 Contents
2.1 Summary
2.2 Introduction
2.3 Book I
2.4 Book II
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
Manuscripts and textual history[edit]
Many such grimoires attributed to King Solomon were written in this period, ultimately influenced by earlier (High Medieval) works of Jewish kabbalists and Arab alchemists, which in turn hark back to Greco-Roman magic of Late Antiquity.[citation needed]
Several versions of the Key of Solomon exist, in various translations, and with minor or significant differences. The archetype was probably a Latin or Italian text dating to the 14th or 15th century.[1] Most extant manuscripts date to the late 16th, 17th or 18th centuries, but there is an early Greek manuscript, dating to the 15th century (Harleian MS. 5596) closely associated with the text. The Greek manuscript is referred to as The Magical Treatise of Solomon, and was published by Armand Delatte in Anecdota Atheniensia (Liége, 1927, pp. 397–445.) Its contents are very similar to the Clavicula, and it may in fact be the prototype on which the Italian or Latin text was based.
An important Italian manuscript is Bodleian Library Michael MS 276. An early Latin text survives in printed form, dated to ca. 1600 (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Memorial Library, Special Collections). There is a number of later (17th century) Latin manuscripts. One of the oldest extant manuscripts (besides Harleian 5596) is a text in English translation, entitled The Clavicle of Solomon, revealed by Ptolomy the Grecian and dated to 1572. There are a number of French manuscripts, all dated to the 18th century, with the exception of one dated to 1641 (P1641, ed. Dumas, 1980).
a group of pentacles from the Hebrew manuscript (BL Oriental 14759, fol. 35a)
A Hebrew text survives in two versions, one kept at the British Library, on a parchment manuscript, separated in BL Oriental MSS 6360 and 14759. The BL manuscript was dated to the 16th century by its first editor Greenup (1912), but is now thought to be somewhat younger, dating to the 17th or 18th century.[2] The discovery of a second Hebrew text in the library of Samuel H. Gollancz was published by his son Hermann Gollancz in 1903, who also published a facsimile edition in 1914.[3] Gollancz' manuscript had been copied in Amsterdam, in Sephardic cursive script, and is less legible than the BL text. The Hebrew text is not considered the original. It is rather a late Jewish adaptation of a Latin or Italian Clavicula text. The BL manuscript is probably the archetype of the Hebrew translation, and Gollancz' manuscript a copy of the BL one.[2]
An edition of the Latin manuscripts of the British Library was published by S. L. MacGregor Mathers in 1889. L. W. de Laurence in 1914 published "The Greater Key of Solomon", directly based on Mathers' edition, to which he made alterations in an attempt to advertise his mail-order business (for example by inserting instructions like "after burning one-half teaspoonful of Temple Incense" along with ordering information for the incense).
Contents[edit]
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009)
Summary[edit]
The Key of Solomon is divided into two books. It describes not the appearance or work of any spirit but only the necessary drawings to prepare each "experiment" or, in more modern language, magical operations.
Unlike later grimoires such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (16th century) or the Lemegeton (17th century), the Key of Solomon does not mention the signature of the 72 spirits constrained by King Solomon in a bronze vessel. As in most medieval grimoires, all magical operations are ostensibly performed through the power of God, to whom all the invocations are addressed. Before any of these operations (termed "experiments") are performed, the operator must confess his sins and purge himself of evil, invoking the protection of God.
Elaborate preparations are necessary, and each of the numerous items used in the operator's "experiments" must be constructed of the appropriate materials obtained in the prescribed manner, at the appropriate astrological time, marked with a specific set of magical symbols, and blessed with its own specific words. All substances needed for the magic drawings and amulets are detailed, as well as the means to purify and prepare them. Many of the symbols incorporate the Transitus Fluvii occult alphabet.
Introduction[edit]
According to the mythical history of the document, as recorded in its introduction, Solomon wrote the book for his son Rehoboam, and commanded him to hide the book in his sepulchre upon his death. After many years the book was discovered by a group of Babylonian philosophers repairing Solomon's tomb. None could interpret the text, until one of them, Iohé Grevis, suggested that they should entreat the Lord for understanding. The Angel of the Lord appeared to him and extracted a promise that he would keep the text hidden from the unworthy and the wicked, after which he was able to read it plainly. Iohé Grevis then placed a conjuration on the book that the unworthy, the unwise or those who did not fear God would not attain the desired effect from any of the workings contained therein.
Book I[edit]
The Key of Solomon. Book I contains conjurations, invocations and curses to summon and constrain spirits of the dead and demons in order to compel them to do the operator's will. It also describes how to find stolen items, become invisible, gain favour and love, and so on.
Book II[edit]
Book II describes various purifications which the operator (termed "exorcist") should undergo, how they should clothe themselves, how the magical implements used in their operations should be constructed, and what animal sacrifices should be made to the spirits.
See also[edit]
Testament of Solomon
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ "there is no ground for attributing the Key of Solomon, in its present form, a higher antiquity than the fourteenth or fifteenth century." Arthur Edward Waite The Book of Black Magic p. 70
^ Jump up to: a b Rohrbacher-Sticker, Jewish Studies quarterly, Volume 1, 1993/94 No. 3, with a follow-up article in the British Library Journal, Volume 21, 1995, p. 128-136.
Jump up ^ A more recent facsimile edition of this book, Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh (Book of the Key of Solomon)(2008), was published by Teitan Press in 2008. Introductions by Hermann Gollancz and a Foreword by Stephen Skinner.
References[edit]
Elizabeth Butler, Ritual Magic, ISBN 0-271-01846-1, part II, chapter 1, "The Solomonic Cycle", pp. 47–99.
Arthur E. Waite, The Book of Black Magic, ISBN 0-87728-207-2, Chapter 2, "Composite Rituals", pp. 52
External links[edit]
S.L. Mathers' version of Key of Solomon at Esoteric Archives
Key of Knowledge, two older English versions of Key of Solomon, at Esoteric Archives
Seal of Solomon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
00:38 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 391
One simple form of the Seal
A hexagram on the obverse of Moroccan 4 falus coin, dated AH 1290 (AD 1873/4). The current flag of Morocco, introduced in 1915 (r. Yusef) displays a green pentagram in reference to Solomon.
The "Seal of Solomon" in the 17th-century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon
The Seal of Solomon (or Ring of Solomon; Arabic: Khātim Sulaymāni خاتم_سليمان) is the signet ring attributed to King Solomon in medieval Jewish tradition, later also in Islamic and Western occultism. It was often depicted in either a pentagram or hexagram shape; the latter also known as Shield of David or Star of David in Jewish tradition.
This ring variously gave Solomon the power to command demons, genies (or jinni), or to speak with animals. Due to the proverbial wisdom of Solomon, his signet ring, or its supposed design, came to be seen as an amulet or talisman, or a symbol or character in medieval and Renaissance-era magic, occultism and alchemy.
The legend of the Seal of Solomon was developed primarily by medieval Arabic writers, who related that the ring was engraved by the name of God and was given to the king directly from heaven. The ring was made from brass and iron, and the two parts were used to seal written commands to good and evil spirits, respectively. In one tale, a demon, either Asmodeus, or Sakhr, obtained possession of the ring and ruled in Solomon's stead for forty days. In a variant of the tale of the ring of Polycrates from Herodotus, the demon eventually threw the ring into the sea, where it was swallowed by a fish, caught by a fisherman, and served to Solomon.[1]
In Islamic eschatology, the Beast of the Earth is equipped with both the Staff of Moses and the Seal of Solomon and uses the latter to stamp the nose of the unbelievers.[2]
The date of origin legends surrounding the Seal of Solomon is difficult to establish. It is known that a legend of a magic ring with which the possessor could command demons was already current in the 1st century (Josephus 8.2 telling of one Eleazar who used such a ring in the presence of Vespasian), but the assocociation of the name of Solomon with such a ring is medieval. The Tractate Gittin (fol. 68) of the Mishnah has a story involving Solomon, Asmodeus, and a ring with the divine name engraved.[3]
The specification of the design of the seal as a hexagram seems to arise from a medieval Arab tradition. The name "Solomon's seal" was given to the hexagram engraved on the bottom of drinking-cups in Arab tradition. In the Arabian Nights (chapter 20), Sindbad presented Harun al-Rashid with such a cup, on which the "Table of Solomon" was engraved.[4] Hexagrams feature prominently in Jewish esoteric literature from the early medieval period, and some authors have hypothesized that the tradition of Solomon's Seal may possibly predate Islam and date to early Rabbinical esoteric tradition, or to early alchemy in Hellenistic Judaism in 3rd-century Egypt, but there is no positive evidence for this, and most scholars assume that the symbol entered the Kabbalistic tradition of medieval Spain from Arabic literature.[5] The representation as a pentagram, by contrast, seems to arise in the Western tradition of Renaissance magic (which was in turn strongly influenced by medieval Arab and Jewish occultism); White Kennett (1660–1728) makes reference to a "pentangle of Solomon" with the power of exorcising demons.[6]
The hexagram or "Star of David", which became a symbol of Judaism in the modern period and was placed on the flag of Israel in 1948, has its origins in 14th-century depictions of the Seal of Solomon. In 1354, King of Bohemia Charles IV prescribed for the Jews of Prague a red flag with both David's shield and Solomon's seal, while the red flag with which the Jews met King Matthias of Hungary in the 15th century showed two pentagrams with two golden stars.[7]
Peter de Abano's Heptameron (1496) makes reference to the "Pentacle of Solomon" (actually a hexagram drawn on the floor in which the magician has to stand) to invoke various demons.[8]
Lippmann Moses Büschenthal (d. 1818) wrote a tragedy with the title Der Siegelring Salomonis ("the signet-ring of Solomon"). An "Order of the Seal of Solomon" was established in 1874 in Ethiopia, where the ruling house claimed descent from Solomon.
See also[edit]
Goetia
Key of Solomon
The Lesser Key of Solomon
Solomon's knot
Solomon's Seal (album)
Testament of Solomon
Seal of Muhammad
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "Solomon" , Jewish Encyclopedia: "Solomon is represented as having authority over spirits, animals, wind, and water, all of which obeyed his orders by virtue of a magic ring set with the four jewels given him by the angels that had power over these four realms. [...] It was Solomon's custom to take off the ring when he was about to wash, and to give it to one of his wives, Amina, to hold. On one occasion, when the ring was in Amina's keeping, the rebellious spirit Sakhr took on Solomon's form and obtained the ring. He then seated himself on the throne and ruled for forty days, during which time the real king wandered about the country, poor and forlorn. On the fortieth day Sakhr dropped the ring into the sea; there it was swallowed by a fish, which was caught by a poor fisherman and given to Solomon for his supper. Solomon cut open the fish, found the ring, and returned to power. His forty days' exile had been sent in punishment for the idolatry practised in his house for forty days, although unknown to him, by one of his wives" Baiḍawi, ii. 187; Ṭabri, "Annales," ed. De Goeje, i. 592 et seq.)."
Jump up ^ Sean Anthony, The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Saba' and the Origins of Shi`ism, 2011, p. 220.
Jump up ^ The story involves Solomon giving a ring and a chain to one Benaiahu son of Jehoiada to catch the demon Ashmedai, using the demon's help to build the temple; Ashmedai later tricks Solomon into giving him the ring and swallows it. "Solomon thereupon sent thither Benaiahu son of Jehoiada, giving him a chain on which was graven the [Divine] Name and a ring on which was graven the Name and fleeces of wool and bottles of wine. Benaiahu went and dug a pit lower down the hill and let the water flow into it13 and stopped [the hollow] With the fleeces of wool, and he then dug a pit higher up and poured the wine into it14 and then filled up the pits. He then went and sat on a tree. When Ashmedai came he examined the seal, then opened the pit and found it full of wine. He said, it is written, Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whosoever erreth thereby is not wise,15 and it is also written, Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding.16 I will not drink it. Growing thirsty, however, he could not resist, and he drank till he became drunk, and fell asleep. Benaiahu then came down and threw the chain over him and fastened it. When he awoke he began to struggle, whereupon he [Benaiahu] said, The Name of thy Master is upon thee, the Name of thy Master is upon thee. [...] Solomon kept him [Ashmedai] with him until he had built the Temple. One day when he was alone with him, he said, it is written, He hath as it were to'afoth and re'em ["the strength of a wild ox"], and we explain that to'afoth means the ministering angels and re'em means the demons. What is your superiority over us? He said to him, Take the chain off me and give me your ring, and I will show you. So he took the chain off him and gave him the ring. He then swallowed him, [viz. "it", the ring] and placing one wing on the earth and one on the sky he hurled him four hundred parasangs. In reference to that incident Solomon said, What profit is there to a man in all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun." trans. M. Simon.
Jump up ^ Lane, "Arabian Nights" (1859; 1883), note 93 to chapter 20.
Jump up ^ Leonora Leet , "The Hexagram and Hebraic Sacred Science" in :The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah, 1999, 212-217.
Jump up ^ "Solomon, Seal of", Jewish Encyclopedia
Jump up ^ Schwandtner, Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum, ii. 148. Facsimile in M. Friedmann, Seder Eliyahu Rabbah ve-Seder Eliyahu Ztṭa, Vienna, 1901
Jump up ^ Per Pentaculum Salomonis advocavi, dent mihi responsum verum; Heptameron, ed. Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henrici Cornelii Agrippae liber qvartvs De occvlta philosophia, seu de cerimonijs magicis, 1565. ed: Heinrich Cornelius, Karl Anton Nowotny. De occulta philosophia. Graz: Akademische Druck u. Verlagsanstalt, 1967, digital edition by Joseph H. Peterson, 1998, 2008.
DARKNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU? Posted by Sarah on Tuesday, March 30, 2010
00:31 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 392
The Effects of Light Pollution on Magical Ability
It is said in many different cultures that the great powers of priests, shamans, magicians, and witches of the ancients once had are now lost and no longer found in today’s practitioners. This is lamented from Ireland, to Haiti and Hawaii. If this is so, why? One can’t blame it alone on the spread of Abrahamic religions as many cultures still have Animistic and Pagan beliefs. So what has changed – what exists today that didn’t in all the centuries and millenia before the modern age? One could answer many things but the most obvious is technology and from it artificial light. Imagine a world where when the sun sets, you can’t just flick on a light switch to see or perform tasks, where you are too poor to afford candles let alone precious oil for lamps. Imagine a world when on average twelve hours out of your daily life are in darkness and in winter only six hours out of your day would have natural light.
“This scarcity of artificial lighting meant that a significant proportion of waking and working life would have been spent in darkness or in the semi-darkness of dawn and twilight. Animals could not be left hungry and corn could not be left to rot in the fields because the light was fading or the sun had not yet risen, consequently early modern poor would have lived much of their lives under the powerful thrall of darkness, and their perception of the world and its inhabitants would have been sculpted by its mystery.”
~ Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits
Now what does this have to do with magic? Well, while I was looking up some information on the differing cultural beliefs in the third eye I found scientific information along with it that surprised me and led to my theory that light, especially artificial light, hampers innate magical ability. The third eye is located between one’s eyes and anatomically behind this location outside of the blood brain barrier at the centre of one’s brain is the pineal gland. The pineal gland is still mysterious and still being researched today, but what is known about it is that it may be connected to every system of the body and the gland produces a compound known as melatonin which is found in plants, animals, and microorganisms. Melatonin is photosensitive and its creation is prevented by light and aided by darkness -meaning our bodies need a minimum of eight hours of darkness per day, which is still too little on average, to a maximum of twelve hours per day in order to produce enough melatonin to function properly.
Melatonin regulates sleep cycles, the body’s and the organ’s circadian rhythms, your emotional and physical seasonal cycles, a woman’s fertility cycles, it plays a role in the protection of DNA, and is also a powerful antioxidant helping the immune system function. More interesting for us witches, melatonin is very important to REM sleep and vivid dreaming actually causing extremely vibrant and realistic dreams in elevated (or I should say “normal”) levels. Also interestingly, hallucinogens found in nature actually aid in the production of melatonin and increase its effects allowing for dream-like experiences in an awakened state modern psychologists term “altered mental states”. Melatonin deficiency can lead to seasonal affective disorder, ADHD, mood disorders, sleep disorders, lack of dreams, cancer, infertility, and possibly autism if the parent(s) suffers from the deficiency.
All of this from a tiny little 5-8mm gland behind your third eye! Seventeenth century French philosopher René Descartes believed the pineal gland located deep in the centre of the brain was the seat of the soul in our bodies and was what connected the spirit to the mortal coil. Madame Blavatsky taught much the same thing in the late 1800’s and her writings on the pineal gland and its connection with the third eye can be found in her work The Secret Doctrine:
“If the odd ‘eye’ in man is now atrophied, it is a proof that, as in the lower animal, it has once been active; for nature never creates the smallest, the most insignificant form without some definite purpose and use. It was an active organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. And, as the cycle ran down toward that point when the physiological senses were developed by, and went pari passu with, the growth and consolidation of the physical man, the interminable and complex vissitudes and tribulations of zoological development, that median ‘eye’ ended by atrophying along with the early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics in man.“
~ Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (p.298)
She means that primitive man in his earliest physical development was more spiritually developed then we will ever be today and enlarged pineal glands from fossils examined by modern scientists have shown her words to ring true. Also keep in mind that at the time of early man’s development, the earth was further away from the sun and not only colder, but also received less light from the Sun. For me, this importance of darkness explains the sacredness and ritual use of caves along with the animistic practice of placing an initiate in a place of darkness for a period of days or weeks before they are to meet the spirits to gain their initiation –whether the dark place be a hut, a cave, a room dug into the earth, or a mock grave with an air hole. It definitely puts a different spin on mystic Robert Cochrane’s love for spelunking… It also explains the more common occurrence of visionary experiences by people in the recent past than compared to the people of modern society.
So perhaps if you want to develop your third eye and therefore your psychic or “supernatural” abilities, the best thing you can do is sit in darkness and absorb its very essence into yourself. We may not ever be able to attain the states of awareness, abilities, and spiritual connection our ancestors did, but perhaps with their guidance we can try.
HOW TO SEE IN THE DARK: A PRACTITIONERS’ DIALOGUE ON WORKING WITH DARKNESS IN MAGIC Posted by Sarah on Thursday, March 29, 2012
00:30 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 393
By Goat, Stang and Key - Sarah Lawless
“The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes.”
~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
In the darkness most people will huddle around the fire and look into its warm bright flames, but sometimes there is a person whose face turns away from the light and looks into the dark of night. They know the light blinds so one cannot see what hides in the shadows or see the beauty of the night with its moon, stars, nocturnal creatures, and dusky colours. Such persons who choose to see the unseen are often shamans, witches, spirit workers, and other walkers between worlds. Come with us away from the fire and learn how to see in the dark.
As above so below. As within so without. We are the children of Nature and so our nature’s reflect our progenitor. We are two sides of the same coin; bright and dark inseparably entwined. We are good, kind, compassionate, and helpful, but we are also cruel, selfish, destructive, and wrathful. Each of us is capable of acting in benevolence or malevolence. If you truly know yourself and are able to look into the shadows of your own soul, you can make peace with your darkness and embrace it as a lover. To love oneself, or another, or a deity, or a spirit, one must wholly accept both sides of the coin and love ALL that one is. Cherry-picking will not be permitted if you choose to walk the path of Witchcraft for Nature and the Gods embody life, death, and rebirth – creation and destruction – and you cannot have one without the other. To worship life is to worship death. To worship light is to worship darkness. Too much light can lead to being blinded by reality and lacking in truth, honesty, and balance. Too much dark can lead to madness and ruin.
It is not evil to work with the underworld, the ancestors, the night, the moon, death, and bones. It is dark, but there is goodness in it. We fear the unknown and the unseen. Modern witches call the above and the gods, but they often ignore the underworld and the spirits of the dead in their circle castings and magics. The chthonic deities and ancestors are great allies with their vast store of ancient wisdom and knowledge of the other worlds… but if neglected and ignored they become as the uninvited fairy from Sleeping Beauty and we all know how well that worked out. Ignore the darkness within yourself and expect the same results.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I know when people try to judge me for working with darker magics that they are only acting out of fear of what is within themselves and fear of what they do not know. Because I embrace the darkness and shadows of my own nature, I accept that everyone contains light and shadow. Who am I to judge someone’s beliefs and practices? This is why I am accepting of and consort with darker practitioners alongside healers and white witches.
The wolf does not apologize to its dinner, the lightning to the tree it strikes, or the bee for its sting. As a witch I will not apologize for my nature. There is a reason poison plants are associated with us: they are poison and medicine, witch and witch doctor. There must be balance. Be too light in your measurements and nothing will happen, be to heavy handed and you will kill instead of cure. The witch is the fulcrum and magic is the lever. Accept responsibility for your power and accept there may be consequences for your actions. Complete awareness is key. Be grounded and balanced in your judgements before you perform magic. Be always clear headed and pure in intent whether the magic you will work belongs to the light or dark. In honesty and truth, with yourself and your spirits, you will find the balance.
~ Sarah Lawless, The Witch of Forest Grove
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“…the belief that witches exist and that they can work supernaturally to the injury and even to the destruction of their enemies — is the heritage of the human race. The Englishman of the sixteenth or seventeenth century did not excogitate or dream it for himself, or borrow it from the Continent, or learn it from his spiritual advisers whether before the Reformation or after. He inherited it in an unbroken line from his primeval ancestors.”
~ George Lyman Kittredge, Witchcraft in Old and New England
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At midnight upon my path the moon rides black underfoot and the dusty road sparkles overhead. The whole viridarium of arte lies astride my path, and in accordance with the deathless ones and my spiritus dictatus I make my way down crooked roads towards sabbats sometimes remarked as obscene, deranged, or blasphemous as they often contains sex, blood, bone, chthonic gods, and other items of ill repute amongst the current neopagan world. I oft look to antiquity to inspire my path and note the long and unbroken history of many types of magick which neopagans discard as “black,” and bring them in close to my heart in the silent stillness of night. I incorporate the light as well, I do not judge or discard merely based on what others concern themselves with.
Personally I do not define acts which I do as black nor white, as to do so marks actions themselves as evil, and not the intentions behind them. Doing a love spell for someone who isn’t yet ready for love is considered “evil” to me, but sprinkling some powders to get rid of an abusive boyfriend is not. My gods, spirits, and ancestors do not punish me because I defend another by attacking their aggressor, bind a rapist, blast a bigot, or curse a murderer. After much meditation, then confirmation with divination, these artes are worked; and when done so they are true, just, pure, and in accordance with the highest ethics and code of law I have: that between myself and my gods.
Further, I do not consider all acts of “darkness” as evil. Curses (acts of binding malefic magick onto someone) can often be done to protect others and help the target grow / become better (eg: “you shall feel a burning pain every time you hit another unjustly” and soon they stop hitting others); necromancy can be used to contact the dead and help bring closure to the death of a loved one, or cast out an unruly spirit from a simple couple’s new house; etc.
Many have turned up their nose at my work, or informed me of alternate ways I can accomplish my goals. Frequently these methods do not resonate, are inefficient, or wholly ineffective. I also question why I would wish to alter my path, when I am not feeling consternation over it as they are… and my methods work. Hence, I shall continue to walk my crooked road as it reveals itself to me, without judgements or boundaries (yet always within the confines of the law, naturally). My path, with all of it’s blooms & thorns, continually returns a bountiful harvest, and my life continues to evolve for the better for it.
~ Shivian Balaris, witch and potion-smith of Chicago
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My father would speak of the spirits. He gave me his black bird or the black bird left him upon his death and joined me – I know not which, but I take his magick with my left hand. My black bird, eyes eternal, seer of all things. I stand within, looking out at the wondrous light. For our world is formed by this interplay, this dance of the dark and the light. She calls and he comes.
The black bird sits by my side. The bird informs my magick: For it is only when we stand in a place of darkness can we see what lies within. There is nothing hidden when one lives in this place for one can see what resides in the shadows and dark places, one can look out into the light but much is hidden when one stands in the light and looks into the dark. For in the darkness there is truth, the knowledge of self. For me the dark is closest to divinity itself, the journey of one’s soul toward Oneness. It is a journey of self for no other can make this journey but you.
That all creation begins in this place of darkness. It is a place where the spirits dwell. For within the dark all potential resides in its wonder and promise. For within the dark all that is yet to be and all that has been resides. We spend the formative years of our existence in our mother’s dark womb. Our world is about constant change, about birth, living and dying for despite our yearning for grace we consume other souls to survive. We sleep and spend a large part of our lives in the dark. Our earth is embraced by the deep darkness of space, everything in existence is embraced by her loving embrace. The Dark Lady calls and the Lord of Light comes, he comes to her every dawn, for he is the bringer of the light; her lover, her brother, her son. He stands in his magnificent glory. They dance to the cosmic song. For we ourselves are born from this union, the darkness embracing the light. My magick is a product of this dance, this journey toward the One. For I am as dark as my black bird.
~ Mel Tomlinson, Elder of the Wolven Path
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Freya, beautiful sweet Freya. She enjoys a large following as a patroness of love, sensuality, and beauty, but I have found many of my colleagues do not acknowledge her triplicity. Most I find simply are unaware of her status as a triple goddess. As well received as she certainly is around many a frithgarth, horns held high giving praise to her, some might change their perspective should they truly know her. Most know her from tales such as that of the brisingamen, or when Thor had to dress as her to trick a frost giant who wanted to wed her in order to retrieve his hammer. However, Freya and her brother Freyr, being the timeless “lord” and “lady” of assorted other European traditions (and even enjoying new popularity by ignorant new age practitioners unbeknownst to them, oblivious to their true origins), have much less romantic aspects.
Our lady is the mother, maiden, and crone that is Freya, Heidi, and Gullveig. As Gullveig she, being the “old one”, begat sorcery itself! Our lady also lay with Loki and bore Hel, the world serpent, and Fenrir as Agnriboda the jotun! Her various aspects are a bit alarming perhaps at first, though they are very natural to the milieu of reality. She and her male counterpart Odin both head up the pantheon and have many names and disguises. She is none other than Hecate of the witches trident; Nuit, Babalon, and Lilith! To truly know her is to embrace her for what she truly is. She is still beauty and love and sensual pleasure, however, she is attested to in Voluspa (Benjamin Thorpe translation):
“Heid they called her, whitherso’er she came, the well foreseeing volva, wolves she tamed, magic arts she knew, magic arts she practiced, ever was she the joy of evil people.”
Let this revelation not sway you from her company, as the All Father himself has quite a reputation for a “dark side” being the “stirrer of strife” and a well documented history for the use of brutality, deceit, and generally doing whatever he deemed necessary to accomplish his will. The temple of Set among others recognize, as does myself through my own unverified personal gnosis, that Odin is Set, Pan, Lucifer, Ra-hoor-khuit to name but a few. In Scandinavian satanism, the terms Odin and Satan are used interchangeably. Being Pan, he is everything, the whole of good and evil in nature. Perspective is everything and Odin as well as Freya, being representative of the divine masculine and feminine respectively, are the grace that feed the starving wolf cubs and the diabolical killer of the rabbit to be said meal. All is as it must be.”
~ H.J. Winkleman, the wolf wizard of Warren, Ohio
THE ETHICS OF MALEVOLENCE Posted by Sarah on Wednesday, November 17, 2010
00:27 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 394
Seven black cursing candles
So I totally stole the title from a chapter in Emma Wilby’s Visions of Isobel Gowdie. It was a wonderful chapter covering the moral dilemma of cursing and why there are actually ethics and good reasons behind cursing people. Wilby divides curses into two types: public curses and private curses. Public curses belong more to common non-magical folk and are either verbal, spoken in front of the receiver and/or an audience, or they can be in the form of poppets or cursing sachets left openly on the person’s property or nailed to their front door (dead chicken anyone?). Private curses were usually reserved to magical practitioners and not the ordinary public and involved more complex rituals and spells done alone or with a group. Private curses include the use of poppets, witch bottles, written tablets hidden in the victim’s home, witch’s ladders, or animal sacrifices.
I have known some people who say: “If I don’t believe in curses then they can’t affect me.” I say: “If you don’t believe a bus is going to hit you if you stand in the middle of the road, you’re still going to be roadkill regardless.”
Why do we curse? Witches and ordinary people don’t curse because of enraged hissy fits, petty disagreements, or out of vindictiveness and envy (although it does happen). Most people who actually use curses do so because they have no other way of dealing with a horrible situation which is normally beyond their control. Have a nasty manipulative passive agressive ex partner who won’t let off? In an abusive relationship and can’t figure out how to end it and leave? Have nasty neighbours that shit on everyone’s parade? Have you ever been abused by someone and can’t prove it and so therefore can’t take any legal action (this includes bosses, friends, family, internet stalkers aka trolls, or Pagan community members, etc)? Do you have a crazy ass evil spawn-of-Satan landlord or you are the landlord and believe your tenants somehow managed climbed out of Hell? Has someone hurt your children or other loved ones? Have you had a loved one go missing and no body has been found or anyone brought to justice? Are you in a nasty legal situation and everyone’s believing the bad guy instead of you? Were you in a magical group, coven, or community and feel you have been cursed by the members?
Clay PoppetsClay poppets stuck with nails and hawthorn thorns
Photo from The Boscastle Witchcraft Museum
The list of ethical reasons behind cursing goes on and on. Why would anyone take such offenses and not do anything about it? Even if nothing can be done on a mundane level, I’d sure as hell be doing something about the situation magically. Even better if there is something that can be done on both levels. In Hoodoo, hot foot powder, goofer dust, vinegar, and black salt are a normal part of practice, but in modern witchcraft such concoctions and hexing is still frowned upon by most. Newsflash – some people out there in the world really do have it in for you. If your practice belongs more to folk magic or Traditional Witchcraft, don’t be afraid to break out the family photos, poppets, pins, thorns, a witch ladder, a witch’s hexing bottle, binding herbs or threads, and good ol’ black candles. There is a wonderful history of colourful curses from the ancient Pagan world up to modern day. Cursing tablets and binding spells have been found in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Mediterranean. Scottish curses can be found in the works of ethnologists Alexander Carmichael and John Gregorson Cambpell such as this curse below:
The Wicked Who Would Do Me Harm
The wicked who would do me harm
May he take the [throat] disease,
Globularly, spirally, circularly,
Fluxy, pellety, horny-grim.
Be it harder than the stone,
Be it blacker than the coal,
Be it swifter than the duck,
Be it heavier than the lead.
Be it fiercer, fiercer, sharper, harsher, more malignant,
Than the hard, wound-quivering holly,
Be it sourer than the sained, lustrous, bitter, salt salt,
Seven seven times.
Oscillating thither,
Undulating hither,
Staggering downwards,
Floundering upwards.
Drivelling outwards,
Snivelling inwards,
Oft hurrying out,
Seldom coming in.
A wisp the portion of each hand,
A foot in the base of each pillar,
A leg the prop of each jamb,
A flux driving and dragging him.
A dysentery of blood from heart, from form, from bones,
From the liver, from the lobe, from the lungs,
And a searching of veins, of throat, and of kidneys,
To my contemners and traducers.
In name of the God of might,
Who warded from me every evil,
And who shielded me in strength,
From the net of my breakers
And destroyers.
Carmina Gadelica. Vol.II. T. & A. Constable, Edinburgh: 1900
Icelandic curses have been found in manuscripts from the Middle Ages and one of my favourites is the farting curse from the Galdrabók which is spoken after one has drawn certain symbols onto calfskin with one’s own blood:
I write you eight áss-runes, nine naudh-runes, thirteen thurs-runes — that they will plague thy belly with bad shit and gas, and all of these will plague thy belly with great farting. May it loosen thee from thy place and burst thy guts; may thy farting never stop, neither day or night; thou wilt be as weak as the fiend Loki, who was bound by all the gods; in thy mightiest name Lord, God, Spirit, Shaper, Odhinn, Thorr, Saviour, Frey, Freyja, Oper, Satan, Beezlebub, helpers, mighty god, warding with the companions of Oteos, Mors, Notke, Vitales.
Curses can be found in just about every magical and spiritual tradition across the globe. I’ve even found curses from the Native tribes local to where I live. A favourite seemed to be to put a splinter of lightning-struck wood inside the home of the intended victim so their house and the people within it will be struck with disaster.
My point in writing this post is to make my fellow magicians aware of the history of cursing as well as its ethical and practical applications in our mundane and magical lives. It is better to be informed about how to perform curses and how to remove them then it is to be surprised with a magical or physical attack and be without knowledge and defenses to counteract. After all, even a doctor can’t cure unless they know all about disease. Now I leave you with some reading to arm yourself with knowledge–
THE CURSE COLLECTION Posted by Sarah on Friday, March 13, 2015
00:26 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 395
i dedicate this collection to the cause against the white-washing of witchcraft. It is only in the past few decades that some have tried to reclaim the title of witch to mean a loving, goddess worshipping, tree hugging, non-Christian. I do not view this as a service to witches. Despite the efforts of many this definition is only accepted by a portion of the Neopagan community. The rest of the world still sees witches as dark, mysterious, frightening, alluring, and yes, associated with black magic. The dark definition of Witch stretches so far back into the depths of time that it cannot be unmade. We need to accept this part of what we are or our witchcraft cannot move forward.
Despite the popularity of darker forms of sorcery today, cursing is still taboo to talk about and can result in heated arguments even among friends. There are many who would never curse even when put in unbearable situations, there are those who would only curse defensively to protect themselves or loved ones, there are the ones who are all talk about how dark and scary they are but who have never cursed, and then there are some who would curse you just for looking at them sideways (and you hesitate to wonder what they do to those who have actually wronged them).
Each curse has been collected from a different person and is unique. The purpose of this collection is not to glorify cursing, but to show the many varied reasons why witches curse and the many different ways we put our curses into action. Some curses are almost funny, some are directed towards coworkers, some towards fellow Pagans, some are to gain lawful justice, and others are at a level that may disturb you. My intention and the intention of those who have participated is not to upset the reader, but to educate them. Whether you judge the authors of the curse stories or not is your own business; perhaps instead you will find yourself losing your prejudice against those who curse. This is simply a curated storytelling exhibit showing a reality of the witchcraft people are actually practicing today. It is my sincere hope that it will help to foster intelligent discussion about curses and get you, the reader, really thinking about the black, the white, and the grey of magical ethics.
The Corporate Curse
She had lied about me, demoted me without cause, passed off my work as her own, called me into her office to berate me with no rhyme or reason, and would stop at my cubicle for the sole desire to insult me. For four hellish months belittling abuse was heaped upon me from my new boss. Her last act of cruelty was to fire me. My first was to curse her.
I remember mulling through the curse options. She and her daughter had a strained relationship. Romance had died in her marriage. She was a cancer survivor. She was prone to infection as a result. I could have killed her. But death is too easy. There are worse things in the world than death. Besides, she would miss the opportunity to feel the same scourge of indignity and insults she had gifted to me. Better to curse her with living through all that I had endured for the four months I was under her thumb, and the indignity of seeing her career reverse to the same point I had been when I was hired by the company. I was going to turn a Vice President of Marketing into a Marketing Manager. And I did.
I talked with the egregore of the company I’d worked for five years and it agreed to help me. The company was known for high turnover and I had been there the longest. Then I invoked my Gods. I had already conversed with them about the curse and what I wanted to do. My matron, the Morrigan, assisted too. By the end of the first month her team had quit. By the end of the second, news of her heinous treatment of other employees and who really was doing the work made the rounds at the company and she was barred from hiring replacement employees. Because of Silicon Valley politics, because the CEO had fought the Board of Directors to hire her, he couldn’t fire or demote her in title, but he could in responsibilities. And he did demote her responsibilities: down to marketing manager. The curse is still in effect. I received a call last month from a friend who works there that she has now been barred from travelling for work.
The curse can be a force for justice. I meted justice as I thought fit. I do not regret cursing her. I never will.
– The Fox
A Twisting of Tongues
Sometimes circumstances need to change, and the change needs to be sped along. In this case, there were two people in positions of power at work who had carried out a great deal of emotional abuse and manipulation against the teams they managed. They clung to their power while acting against the best interest of the organization and those it was meant to serve. For the betterment of everyone and everything they touched, they had to go.
Easier said than done. A great deal of effort and time was invested in knowing the organization’s structure and policies like the back of one’s hand, being professional and impeccable with words, and addressing the problem in a less… esoteric capacity. This is most of the work. I would liken it to this: You tee up the ball, you wind up the swing, you work the bat, you connect with the ball, you aim it just right. The curse is just what you use to make sure the wind is just right so that you knock it out of the park (or open a portal in the sky to send the ball straight to Hades).
Changing the winds, in this case, meant using some otherworldly will to help these two individuals incriminate themselves regarding their indefensible deeds. To inspire in them extreme guilt, bad luck, and nightmares. To make their perception of the situation so twisted in their heads that they betray themselves and suffer a just consequence.
In practical terms, it meant gathering two cow tongues, naming them for each of the two people, and storing a photo of the person inside. Fill the tongues with herbs meant to confuse and twist and sour words. Add a number of other curse trappings and then twist the tongue itself (holding it in place with barbs, nails, and wire on a board). With a magnifying glass, the tongues were burned with sunlight so that they would likewise find themselves burned by the truth. The burn ended up looking like a Hagalaz rune, which was likely no coincidence. The tongues were buried just outside their office.
The home run looked like this: the worst of the two was summarily fired, and the other was given a huge demotion and pay cut, and was not allowed to manage anyone. A few months after, the area where the tongues were buried was turned into a children’s playground. Who knows if they were dug up or if they remain.
If there is any advice to glean from this story, it is this: If you are going to dig a hole, make sure it is sufficiently deep. Also cow tongues are huge and unwieldy, try something smaller.
– The Shape-shifter
The Outhouse
Two people in my Pagan community were making my life a living hell and I wasn’t the only one. I was getting pretty tired of it and decided to do something about it magically. I took a photo of them and went for a walk in my favourite park. It is wild and beautiful and I used to go there all the time. I went to an outhouse in the park, crumpled up the photo and threw it down into the toilet. Then I sat down and had a good long shit, concentrating on my intent to turn their lives to shit. Every time I went for a walk in the park I’d stop by the same outhouse and drop a present to keep the curse renewed. I never saw or heard from them again shortly after that.
– The Musician
The Litter Box
Someone was stealing my hard work and trying to pass it off as their own. I tried to deal with the situation though adult communication, but the person refused to play along. I took the legal action I could, but it only went so far. Their actions didn’t justify anything particularly nasty, so I called my mentor for advice and as a fellow cat owner they gave me a perfect suggestion. I wrote down the person’s full name (I had no photo or personal concerns to work with) and put it in my cat’s litter box for a whole week without cleaning it. The person lost all their credibility and I didn’t have an issue with them again.
– The Slightly Pissed Off Witch
The Rapist
“He raped her. He raped her, and so I cursed him.
I would go to his place of employment, stand across from his place of working, and hurl all my intent of hatred into him through my gaze. ‘Rapist.’ I would whisper, ‘All shall know you for what you are.’
I took dirt from his place of employment, from the place where he had stepped. I fashioned a doll from wax drippings and squeezed from him his life. I wrenched away his job. I banished him from my sight. From her sight. “Rapist.” I hissed into his ear, ‘All shall know you for what you are.’
He lost his job. He grew fat, and pale. His hair became filthy. His skin caked with grease. Then he was gone. And I have not seen him since.”
– The Voice
The Child Molester
I feel as though the demons that modern witches fight can be all too real compared to the old wood cuts. Some of the best people are too trusting. A friend of my partner and my coven-mate became romantically involved. There was a lot of unrest in their relationship–he was an alcoholic, he seemed cold at times and hit on other women online–single moms like my friend. But my friend wanted to help him heal.
None of us saw how cold he really was to the core. We felt something off, but perhaps in our naivety having never met real evil we didn’t see it. This man molested her children for a year. Eventually her children found the words to tell her what he did to them and she immediately called the police. Officers came and took evidence, but the man heard her call the police and escaped.
The following hours, days, weeks, months and year my coven and I cast a number of curses and called upon a goddess of war and sovereignty. Firstly I called on my familiar spirit to locate him. It assisted us well and we soon learnt that a family member of his put him in a local motel. Then we cursed for him to be arrested. His family member who we thought was helping him was actually plotting on our behalf and brought him into the police.
More curses were cast and the lab found solid DNA evidence on the child’s bedclothes. Yet another curse allowed me to be there as my friend’s child testified and I was able to tell the prosecutor when the defense had confused the little kid by not using a last name for a witness. The whole case could have been destroyed had I not done the magic to get out of work because there were two people with that first name who played different roles in the events.
And finally, the sentencing, another of many rituals calling upon a dark goddess of justice and protection of children. The child molester is in prison and will be for a long time well after our coven children as well as the man’s own children are grown. Cursing in our coven gave us and the children we protect power to witness in court, paved the clearest route for justice, and avenues to repair and build after evil’s aftermath.
– The Mandrake Witch
The Murders
I was a land-tied witch. I took care of it and it took care of me. It was my business to mediate between the spirits and the humans who shared the land. When I learned two young men had gone missing and then turned up murdered in my territory, I wasn’t about to sit on my hands and do nothing. The police investigations went nowhere, there wasn’t enough evidence for them to go on. One body had not been found, but I performed a divination and talked to my spirits and they confirmed he was dead. The other body had been burned before it was buried, unearthed by a stream flooding in the spring. I talked to the spirit of the young burned man. He was angry and he wanted revenge. I collected the dirt from his grave site in the forest and told him to imbue it with his rage and desire for vengeance. I told him I would use it to do a working to get him and the other boy justice. I soothed him with a cigarette and some whiskey. After he calmed I sent him on his way to the other side and undid his ties to the land that were keeping him there. I burned a purification incense and Old Man showed up. I knew what I was doing was right.
I returned home and kept my promise. I printed out photos of the young men. I folded them, tied them with red string, and placed each one under its own seven-day candle. I tied two justice cards from tarot decks to the candles. Around the candles I sprinkled a homemade cursing dust of the grave site dirt, wasp nest, hot peppers, black pepper, and snail shells. Inside the ring of dust I placed a chicken heart stabbed with eight blackthorns. I invoked Old Man and I invoked justice. I asked that the killers of these young men would be brought to justice by the legal system, and if that wasn’t possible, that vengeance would be satisfied instead (no matter how). I anointed the candles and consecrated them to their purpose. I lit them. “In the Devil’s name I light this flame.” I burned those candles every day for the full seven days until they burned out. They burned hot, steady, and true all the way down. I buried the remains of the spell.
The land felt much lighter after that and the restless spirits had gone. I do not know the results of my working other than it made the family of one of the boys feel better. There was nothing in the news from the police. I only know that I felt compelled to do what was in my power to do for the young men as they could no longer speak for themselves.
– The Steward
Under the Influence
In the early 90s my friend’s brother had broken into his place and stolen $10,000 worth of his property. We were in a Thelemic order together and were having a party that night for a friend’s birthday. They told him I was the one to help him out with a curse. I came over with hash, pot, cocaine, heroine, and a cocoa leaf liqueur and got right down to business and asked him what the situation was. I told him as long as he was one hundred percent certain it was a justified action, I would curse his brother. He promised that he knew it was his brother and I discussed what we could do. I asked him what his brother’s favourite drug was and his answer was heroine. I wanted to use his drug of choice to make a direct connection to him by being under the same influence. The group of us from the order set up circle, smoked the heroine I brought, invoked vengeful spirits, read from the third chapter of Crowley’s Book of the Law, and I incited the conjuration of destruction from The Satanic Bible.
We closed the circle and went back to the party, drank and chatted, forgetting the curse. Within an hour the phone rang. It was his brother. He had been driving in a car with friends high on heroine at the same time we were performing the curse. They had bought the drugs with the stolen money. The car crashed and was completely totalled, beyond saving, and the brother was the only one who had suffered any injuries –multiple broken bones and fractures. My friend told his brother he knew it was him who had stolen from him and to return the property or else things would get even worse. The brother freaked out, cried, and apologized over and over. My friends all stared at me with a “holy fuck” look.
– The Frater
Ouroboros
Someone was creating issues like crazy in my local Pagan community and it kept escalating. They were hurting people and themselves and it got to the point I just wanted to get rid of the person but couldn’t do it physically and didn’t want it to be tied back to me. I thought for a while on how I could deal with it and was reading a book and happened upon a page on poppets. The instructions for baptising a poppet with a person’s name and then doing with it what you will jumped out at me.
I didn’t want to make a poppet and at the same time realized I had to feed my black snake… suddenly it came to me and I knew what I was going to do. During a dark moon on a Tuesday night I took a live pinkie (a newborn mouse), tiny and wriggling in my hand, cast a proper circle, exorcised it with salt, and baptized the pinkie with the offending person’s name. I spoke to it of its crimes and told it why I was doing what I was doing.
I put it down on the floor with the snake inside the circle. As the snake was seeking out the tiny mouse I said: “May your eyes go blind, may you loose your ability to breathe, may you feel fear and panic like you never have before, may all your lies and tricks turn against you as long as you live. You are dead to me now.” And that was when the snake took the pinkie, suffocated it, crushed it, and swallowed it whole.
The person’s life fell apart to the point they left the coven we were in together and disappeared from the community completely, falling deep into drug use.
– The Serpent
Trading Souls
This curse really starts with one of the shamanism students that I used to teach. He was in his early twenties and very interested in spirituality. While at a sweat lodge one day, he prayed to be powerful. Asking for power is a terrible thing to ask for, the power given is rarely yours to keep and can often destroy your life. He found this out the hard way.
He called me up, and told me a terrifying story. He had been out in the woods behind the little cabin that he lived in, and suddenly his vision shifted, it felt like he could see hundreds of miles in each direction and could see the energy of the land, the energy of the spirits. His sight focused on a tall, ancient man with moss in his beard and wearing bark clothes. They locked eyes and the shamanism student was filled with terror. Then the vision was over. He went into his cabin, shaken to his core. Within a day or two, he noticed that it felt like someone else was also in the cabin with him. The presence and energy felt just like the old man he saw in the woods. He avoided his own cabin, and his cat which also lived in the cabin was very uneasy and irritable.
“I don’t know what to do, I must have invited the spirit in by asking for power.” He said.
“Well I’ll come over and see if I can ask the spirit to leave.” I offered.
“That sounds great, when can you come over?”
So I went to his cabin, out in the woods. Even walking down the path I felt the intense gaze of this old forest man, glowering, demanding. Many spirits I can take on in a fight, I can trick them or limit them some way. Some spirits are too large, too powerful to do that. This ancient spirit was too much for me to take on. The only chance to was to use diplomacy. The young man told his story again, going over it in greater detail, and sat down in the cabin.
I went into a trance, and the presence of the ancient man was overwhelming.
“Grandfather (I used this as a term of respect), what do you want from this young man? This is his home, and he is impacted by your presence.” I said to the spirit.
“He asked for power, and I’m here to show him power, and to take it away.” The old man’s voice was old, yet strong, rasping but clear. I trembled a bit to hear it.
“Please forgive him, I know he asked for a foolish thing, I know it is your role to take away the lives of those who seek power. Please, I beg on his behalf.” I pleaded, there was really nothing more I could do in the presence of this powerful spirit.
“Who’s soul will you give me in trade?” The old man’s dark eyes sparked in folds of brown, wrinkled skin.
It fell into place, I had the perfect solution to this.
“I will give you the soul of someone else, but not right now. Tonight. But, you have to swear to not follow this man, not impact his life negatively, and to not tell other spirits that he wished for power.”
The old man nodded, and the deal was made.
I came out of the trance. I told the young man that he shouldn’t have any problems with the old forest man again, but that he should try to move out as soon as possible. He told me he was already looking for a new place to live. A week after he moved out.
That night, in the comfort of my own home I went into a trance again. From the trance state I entered the spirit world and walked into the woods. The old man was waiting. We walked over hills, over streams, and to the door of a house.
“I can not go through the door unless I am invited.” The old man said, annoyed.
“I know. I have permission to be here, and I invite you.” I opened the door, and said “Please come in.” and the old man followed.
We walked through the mud room, past the dining area, through the living room, and into the master bedroom. Two people slept in the bed. I brought the old man up beside the bed, where a man was sleeping.
“This man you can claim, his house you can claim, his soul you can claim, his life you can claim. I give you permission.” I announced to the old man of the forest.
The old man grew in presence, leaning over the resting form of the man. Then he drew back.
“This one, his blood smells like you.” The old man stated, somewhat shocked.
“Yeah, that’s my dad. He’s yours now.” I replied, matter of factly.
The old man of the woods just stared at me for a moment.
“I am serious, he is yours. He is a pedophile, he preys upon children, he pins them down and rapes them. Just because he is related to me does not make him sacred to me.” My words were sharp now, and with anger behind them. The old man of the woods softened a bit, and nodded.
“Thank you so much for accepting this trade.” I bowed to him, and left the house before returning to my body, and coming out of the trance.
I do not know what has happened to my dad since then, I have not talked to him in years for obvious reasons. I have heard that he doesn’t look well from a distance. However, the power of the spirit, the old man of the woods, I have trust in that. It was a good trade, and I have no regrets in my dealings.
– The Green Shaman
FOR FEAR OF FLYING Posted by Sarah on Thursday, April 23, 2015
00:24 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 396
Luis Ricardo Falero, 1878
“Up on their brooms the Witches stream,
Crooked and black in the crescent’s gleam;
One foot high, and one foot low,
Bearded, cloaked, and cowled, they go.”
- Walter de la Mare
The metaphorical witch’s broomstick is forgotten in the back of an old closet, covered in cobwebs and shrouded in darkness. No one has touched it in so long that it has forgotten its purpose. Those who have not touched it have forgotten how to use it, have even forgotten why they would ever want to. You could break your neck after all, falling from a broomstick oh so high in the sabbat-black sky. Thus the broom is often grounded and most of today’s witches no longer fly. Let us open that forgotten closet door a crack and let a beam of light shine in. Let us illuminate a past much more interesting than our present.
If today’s witches no longer leave their bodies in the ecstasy of soul-flight then it is fair to say they also do not believe in the soul, in hosts of spirits, in old gods, in other worlds, or in magic. Without such beliefs and first-hand experience of them, witchcraft becomes a farce of empty rituals with empty words performed in crushed velvet robes. It all becomes a role-playing game no more real or impressive than a group of acne-faced teens rolling dice in their mother’s basement.
Witchcraft is not neoPagan goddess worship, it is not secular weather worship, it is not tree-hugging, and it is not New Age fuckery. Witchcraft is not safe. Witchcraft is not good and kind. Witchcraft is the domain of the trickster, the outcast, the wanderer, and the crooked. It belongs to those who know every light casts a shadow; who have looked into the depths of darkness in their soul and accepted what they’ve seen along with all that is good. Witchcraft requires cunning, manipulation, self-awareness, adaptable morals, and dash of madness. Witchcraft is sharp pins pierced into a waxen image of an enemy, a lover’s hair plaited with one’s own, a Saturnine root harvested at midnight, blood spilled for hungry spirits, magical pacts made with daemons, a handful of dried henbane leaves burned and inhaled to talk to shades, an ancient incantation sung to become a wild hare, and witchcraft is sabbat wine imbibed while dancing wildly, intoxicated in the woods on Walpurgisnacht.
What is a witch without a host of familiar spirits? What is a witch without knowledge and experience of the otherworld? What is a witch who has never changed form? What is a witch who cannot reach ecstasy? What is a witch who cannot fly? Some would say no witch at all.
Luis Ricardo Falero, 1880If you want to be a witch, you first must die. Just like the child you were dies when you become an adult, your human self must die to become Witch. The initiated are half alive, half dead. We are souls stuck in between – not quite spirits and not quite human. We shapeshift between forms – now human, now animal, now spirit, now elemental force, now otherwordly being. We drift between past, present, and future knowing that time is a non-linear illusion and all is accessible. We travel between worlds knowing they are all one and we are present in all of them at all times. We are possessed by spirits and the ones who possess others with our spirits. We are the dream-walkers, shape-shifters, psychopomps, seers, mediums, mystics, visionaries, and miraculous healers. We see the unseen, hear the unheard, travel to unreachable places, and experience the impossible. We dwell in paradoxes within the suspension of disbelief. We dance on the dagger’s edge between life and death, waking and dreaming, magic and insanity. We are unnatural. Supernatural.
So few today achieve such a state with fear being the number two reason, coming after ignorance. We are afraid to fly because magic might be real. We are afraid to fly because it might not be. We are afraid to fly because we think the methods to achieve it are all dangerous. We are afraid to fly because we are afraid to die. Sleep is like death, a slight mimicry of death. Soul-flight is the little death. Your body lies as if dead, dead to this world, while your soul travels to frightening or wondrous places. Have you ever woken from vivid dreams exhausted, unrested? Perhaps you weren’t dreaming at all. I have heard the practice aptly named death walking and have been called death walker myself. I simply call it travelling. I leave my body, each time knowing that there is a chance I may not make it back – that my soul might get lost, stolen, trapped, eaten or collected by something or someone more powerful and dangerous than myself. I do it anyway. Sometimes of my own free will and other times I am taken places by spirits. It is always worth it and the more it is done, the easier it becomes, and the easier it is to remember your adventures and visions.
CROSS YOUR HEART AND HOPE TO DIE
“I shall say sooth, I shall fly
By horse and hattock
Through the Sabbat-black sky.”
- Giles Watson
Where does the soul go and what does it do when it leaves the body in ecstatic rites? Sometimes it visits other witches — seeking individuals for knowledge or groups to celebrate in sabbatic revels of intoxicants and passions. Other times it takes up residence inside another person for a hag ride, or an animal, or a tree – for the experience or to spy or to travel by land, air, or water. Who doesn’t long for flight feathers or an eagle’s far-seeing eyes? Luis Ricardo Falero, 1883Perhaps your soul takes pleasure in riding the wind and the lightning instead or maybe it prefers to journey to the underworld to keep company with the dead and their secrets. Other witch’s souls keep company with stars, some of whom will whisper mysteries while others only respond with cold alien silence.
A seer’s soul will travel into the future and sometimes the past. A healer’s soul will travel inside the body of a patient to find the cause of an illness so it may be removed. A shape-shifter‘s soul will possess the physical forms of animals, insects, and plants or their soul will take their form in the otherworld. A dream-walker will travel into the dreams of others to deliver messages, send blessings or nightmares, or to lay a curse. A psychopomp will traverse the path between our world and the underworld, leading souls to the great below and bringing messages back to the living. There are even dark sorcerers who leave their bodies to steal souls, bring them back and bottle them up, bound into a fetiche to strengthen their own power with black magic. Presently such practices largely exist only in folk and fairy tales, unread by today’s witches.
How does one achieve soul-flight? Some have to work at it for weeks, months, or years. Some do it as naturally as breathing, without aid, and simply can’t help themselves. One witch beats a drum to mimic a fast heartbeat and falls into a waking trance. Another sings an incantation faster and faster to quicken the breath and flood the blood with oxygen. A group of witches rub themselves with a flying ointment and dance and sing all night around a fire more and more intensely until reaching ecstasy. Yet another calls her spirits, whispers her intent, and falls asleep under a bear hide holding a rowan wand, leaving her body through the world of dreams.
Transvection chants:
“Horse and hattock, horse and go, horse and pellatis, ho ho!”
“Thout, tout a tout tout, throughout and about.”
There are words and herbs and postures. There is music and dancing and singing. There is fasting and swaying and praying. Stand on one foot, close one eye, and raise one arm. Eat this mushroom, soak this herb in wine overnight, and infuse this fat with belladonna leaves and mandrake root. Sing these words, scream them, mean them. Beat this drum and shake this rattle until your wrists hurt, until you cannot feel your hands. Dance around the fire until you sweat and sweat, until you forget you are human. Shroud yourself in complete darkness until there is nothing but the world of visions. All these things and more can lead to the little death and transport you to the otherworld’s door.
It all sounds rather romantic until someone loses an eye, or a soul, or their life. Some don’t make it back, some don’t make it back in one piece, but most will never go at all because they fear death above all else. And we should fear it – we should respect death and fear. We should not be fools stumbling in the dark. We should know the danger that lies ahead, the pain that will come, and walk into it knowingly always pure of intent and heart. We should know why we choose to die. Is dying worth gaining power? No, it shouldn’t be about striving for power. We die to serve. Once we die we do not belong to ourselves. Spirit workers are servants to greater spirits than themselves and will always be haunted and hunted. Every spirit serves another and we too are spirits. Erase any romantic notions from your head – this is not about you or being special – you are one of many. Your body is on loan, a temporary vessel. As long as you serve, the vessel is protected from harm and from physical death. If you make it about you or about power there is no guarantee you’ll be safe or come back.
Do you really want this? Is it worth being able to see and hear spirits, to travel between the realms? Why do you want it so badly? Be honest with yourself and the spirits and maybe one day you will die and come back — joining this host of revenants called spirit workers.
Luis Ricardo Falero, 1878
STICK A NEEDLE IN YOUR EYE
“Anything worthwhile is dangerous.”
- Victor Anderson
An important question is not how one can fly, but how does one land? How does the witch protect themself during soul-flight and how do they ensure a safe return? Shamans of old would protect their abandoned body with blessed talismans and with a human or spirit guardian who would watch over their flesh until their soul returned from its journey. If there were signs of danger or they were gone for too long, a human guardian would try to rouse the shaman by burning special herbs such as yarrow flowers, by repeating an incantation, or by stimulating the body in the hope that it would cause the soul to return and the shaman to awake. Shamans and witches of old would also have familiar spirits who would travel with them in the otherworld and serve as various lookouts, protectors, and advisors. Disguise is another protection and one still documented in folk tales and myths: ashes rubbed on the face to mimic the dead’s appearance in the underworld, an animal’s hide worn to blend in among its kin, herbs rubbed on the body to mask the smell of humanity among soul-eaters.
Luis Ricardo Falero, 1881Danger doesn’t just come from outside influences during soul-flight – a major challenge one may face is not wanting to return or forgetting to. If the witch decides they do not like the restriction of corporeal form they may knowingly or unknowingly cut ties with their flesh and lose the chance to return. The witch may get lost or trapped, finally returning to our realm to realize they are too late, a century has gone by and their body and all their loved ones have perished. The witch may lose themselves when shape-shifting and forget altogether that they are human and end up a wild hare in a fox’s mouth. When the soul does not return, the body can be left a vegetable, or worse, something else may take up residence inside it if it was not protected well enough.
Souls may be currency in the otherworld, to be stolen, collected, or eaten by more powerful spirits, but bodies are also much desired by noncorporeal spirits. Imagine a long-dead shade who yearns to taste the sweetness of wine and richness of food once more, who yearns to feel the softness of a woman’s breasts beneath his hands and all her other pleasures. Such a spirit may steal or kill to attain his desires. One must not be too trusting in the otherworld and not take spirits at face value or their word for nothing is as it seems. Trust your familiar spirits who have proven themselves time and time again and no others and they will do their best to keep you out of the lion’s maw.
Protect the room or space you will fly from, no, over-protect it. Weave a barrier with spirit traps, witch balls, witch bottles, mirrors, sigils, bindrunes, runestaves, conjure bags, strung herbs, and animals skulls, teeth, and claws. Paint protective sigils on your body or have them tattooed on if you are one who flies involuntarily, naturally. Always wear one protective talisman even if it is as simple as the innocuous ring, pendant, or earrings you wear every day that you have consecrated. When you wish to fly, call your spirits to you and have their fetiches close if they are not wearable so you can take them with you. Hold a wand or staff in your hand to protect your body and to take with you to the other realms. The Gaels and Norse believed Rowan gave one power over spirits – to enter their homes, to stop them from causing harm, and to blast, banish and bind them if need be.
To return from your adventures of witches’ sabbats, shape-shifting, and travelling sing or speak aloud an incantation that acts as a trigger to pull you back to your body. Tap your wand or staff three times. Stop beating your drum, stop swaying, stop chanting – stop whatever action you perform when straddling the worlds. Have someone watch over you and instruct them to touch you gently or shake you if need be to signal you to return from your spirit’s flight. If you are alone set an alarm to go off or play an album and train yourself to return when the music stops. When you return, eat and drink, touch a plant, touch a tree, touch the earth. Talk, laugh, sing. Do something ordinary and of this world to help ground you in the present and bring you fully back to yourself. If you are worried a spirit may have followed you back or your experience was not pleasant, take a bath with herbs and candles and spiritually cleanse yourself from your toes to your head to the depths of your soul and watch all the worry wash down the bathtub drain afterward. Lavender, rosemary, cloves, mullein, sage or yarrow will aid you. If they are not on hand, the needles from the nearest evergreen tree will do in a pinch whether it be cedar, fir, or pine – especially when combined with salt.
One either flies or one does not. It cannot be forced and can rarely be taught. The secret is in one’s ability to let go; to let go of expectations, of the body, of life, of the world you know and the people you love. Can you jump off the cliff into the unknown abyss with faith in yourself and your spirits? If not you will fail or you will fall. Do not leap until you are sure.
TASSEOMANCY Posted by Sarah on Thursday, April 2, 2015
00:23 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 397
“The first cup moistens my lips and throat.
The second shatters my loneliness.
The third causes the wrongs of life to fade gently from my recollection.
The fourth purifies my soul.
The fifth lifts me to the realms of the unwinking gods”
Chinese Mystic, Tang Dynasty
My Scots-Canadian Grandmother taught me how to read tea leaves. I now possess her tea cup collection of bone china, gold paint, delicate handles, and endless colours and patterns. Sitting at her dining room table, which sits now in my kitchen, she showed me how to brew with just the right size of loose leaf tea. To let it steep and to drink it without eating the leaves, filtering them through your teeth. She taught me how to flip the cup onto the saucer with just enough force to cause patterns. Then she would carefully turn the tea cup upright again, full of spiralling shapes of dark tea leaves from far away lands. With great solemnity she would look at me and say “and now you bullshit.”
At first I thought she was being mischievous, but after years of reading tea leaves I realized that she was indeed quite serious. Tasseomancy, or reading tea leaves, is an act of scrying. There is no book or list of meanings that can truly help you, though they may get you started. You are your own dictionary of symbols and your own interpretations. No two diviners will see or say the same things about the same tea cup of messy wet leaves. Even though the words that fall from your lips may sometimes sound like bullshit to you, you will often be amazed at how those you are reading for react – “how did you know!”
the handle is the present, the future a year ahead in sections of months clockwise around the cup. Leaves close to the rim are things close to the surface, obvious things, things you are or will soon become aware of. Leaves at the bottom of the cup are the unknown, surprises, secrets, your subconscious. You can see anything in the leaves; animals, insects, plants, symbols, objects, letters, numbers… maybe the whole cup is one image with one big meaning or maybe the leaves are broken down into tiny ones with many fortunes to tell.
Tasseomancy is a divinatory art to be practiced in person with the subject in front of your eyes. It is a tactile art. Touch the cup, turn it around in your hands and view it from every angle. Look at the person you are reading for. Are they eager and excited to hear their fortune or are they sad and defeated before you’ve even spoken? Each person’s cup you read for will be completely different. I remember reading tea leaves at the local Pagan Pride Day and having a formidable line-up of people awaiting their fortunes. Each pattern of leaves was completely unique and no two fortunes were the same.
You don’t find too many witches or seers who read tea leaves these days. Maybe it seems too quaint and not authentic or hardcore enough. The funny thing is that tasseomancy is closer to ‘traditional’ than many of our witchcraft practices today. It and reading playing cards rather than tarot cards.
It’s how the back alley folk magicians, East Coast kitchen witches, old snaggled toothed grannies, and the neighbourhood spaewives of the past few centuries would have divined people’s fortunes. Not with fancy tools or elaborate methods, but simply what was on hand: a cup and a teaspoon of tea or coffee, a pack of playing cards, a pot of water and some melted candle wax…
Why not take up reading tea leaves? Practice. Have friends over for a tea party to make it fun. Up the ante. Have friends over for a spiked tea party of hot toddies or fun pairings of loose leaf teas and sweet liqueurs. Sometimes a little booze makes divination come more naturally. What a fun coven night that would be!
Whether you interpret the leaves for friends or strangers, remember that tasseomancy is also a social art which blends well with charm, kindness, empathy, and of course, wit. The best and most practiced tasseomancers will put you at ease, draw you in, sound assured, and relay your fortune like a talented storyteller or poet.
Now come on into the kitchen and I’ll put on a pot of earl grey with lemon and honey.
MAGICAL INK MAKING Posted by Sarah on Wednesday, September 15, 201000:15 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 399
I came up with some recipes for magical inks and then got together with my friend to make a test batch to see if the method would work. We started with the recipe for black ink as my other recipes had more expensive ingredients. I boiled Alder bark for about 5 hours to get a very dark brown. You’d need to boil it forever for the dye from the bark to turn black. Local natives used to use this simple dye to stain their fishing nets black so the fish couldn’t see them. Once we had a concentrated dye from the bark I added it to my smaller dye pot and my friend and I added gum arabic and myrrh resins along with crushed dried spiders and lampblack.
Magical Ink Making
Alder bark Adding the resins to the dye
You can make your own lampblack by collecting it from candle or oil lanterns or buy holding a spoon over a candle and scraping off the black residue (lampblack) that forms on the metal. This takes forever to accumulate enough lampblack for an ink — especially if you are making a large batch. If you’re only making enough for a small vial for yourself, then this method is viable. One way to cheat is to purchase a high quality tube of black watercolour that is purely lampblack and gum arabic — two ingredients you’re going to need anyway. You still need other bases for the colour however (like the Alder bark) or you’ll just be writing with diluted watercolours and it’s not the same as an ink nor is it as strong. I would only recommend this cheat for a black ink though.
Straining the ink
Once the ink was blended and the writing tests showed the right consistency and darkness of colour, we allowed the ink to cool and then strained it through a very fine sieve (handcrafted inks can be pretty gritty). I had to add a little more alcohol at this point to thin it as the ink thickened when cooling. Then I poured the ink in pretty wide-mouthed bottles and had a bit of fun testing it out. And voilà, lovely handmade magical ink!
BANISHING, DEPOSSESSING, AND DEVOURING Posted by Sarah on Sunday, May 10, 2015
00:14 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 400
"The Witch of Endor" by Kunz Meyer-Waldeck, 1902
“Raise no more devils than you can lay down.” – German Proverb
Let us be honest. There are endless ways, spells, and rituals to summon spirits, gods, and demons but when it comes to safeguards or banishing one when things go sour, our collective knowledge as modern witches and pagans is quite lacking. What do you do when a haunting, an escaped spirit, or a possession is out of your ability to handle? When so many of us barely believe any of this is real, it leaves us poorly equipped to help ourselves let alone other people when something wicked this way comes.
Let’s get serious. Let’s assume the supernatural is natural, real, palpable. Let’s admit to ourselves that most spirits, aside from our familiars, do not have our best interest in mind and the intent of most is to deceive or harm us. You’d better believe I’m including deities in there too. “Yes puny human, give me all the offerings and do my bidding without question.” Not such a good idea. You read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, didn’t you? No? Time to head to the library. Pick up some Russian and German fairy tales while you’re there too – they’ll help.
If you are summoning anything, whether it be a god, a spirit, or a shade, do so within protected space. This includes ouija boards. It is the true point of our magic circles, to make sure that when we open the door between worlds, nothing escapes into our world that does not belong there. That nothing comes through the door without being invited. Cast a “real” circle. Make it tight, make it true. Have a weapon on hand whether it is a steel knife or a rowan staff. Have banishing herbs or incense on hand and ready to use (rosemary and salt from the kitchen will do in a pinch). Have offerings at the ready, but never feed a spirit before you first confirm its true identity, for offerings give spirits power –power to hurt you and power to escape. Make sure all you may need is inside your sacred space before you cast the circle.
Keep Out – Only Humans Allowed
Have a closed door policy when it comes to spirits. Nothing comes in or out of your home without your say so. Is the Night Hag bothering you? Is a spirit torturing you in your dreams? Is a pervy ghost spying on you in the shower? Lock them out. Burn a banishing herb or incense first and walk counter clockwise around your entire house getting every nook and cranny, every shelf and closet. Shout: “get out unwanted spirits, you are not welcome here, get out, get out, GET OUT!”
Make some holy water and sprinkle it on every “entry” to your home. This includes mirrors, faucets, drains, laundry vents, bathroom fans, windows, doors, stove hoods… get it all. Dip your finger in the holy water and mark your windows and doors with an equal armed cross. Consecrate everything you have touched with the water as locked. State out loud, loudly and with confidence, that all the entryways are sealed and that nothing may come through without your express permission. If you have any boundaries you would like to set with the spirits or even your familiar spirits, state them now. Think long and hard on them and word them VERY carefully before you speak them.
Make yourself a charm to hang in the house that acts as the lock. This can be an old key strung to a holey stone, a red charm bag with st. john’s wort and rowan in it, protective runes or symbols over your front door, a carved Icelandic runestave nailed over the door, and so on. There are endless ideas for apotropaic devices from history. It is the consecration of the item for its purpose that gives it power. Consecrate it on your altar. Sprinkle it with holy water to cleanse it, cover it with a dark cloth to mimic a womb, lift the cloth and birth it into its new life by naming it to its sole purpose. Anoint it with oil. It is done. Hang it or hide it. Five minutes of magical work for a year or more of protection is more than worth it. Resetting your wards at least once or twice a year is recommended.
Ask For Help From Someone Bigger Than You
Start with common sense. As the proverb says, do not summon anything if you do not first have the knowledge and ability to cast it out, send it home, or trap it. This includes deities, but you won’t have much luck trying to banish them or trap them. They are too old, too big and too powerful for you. Don’t get cocky. They’ll just laugh at you while they suck on the bones of your corpse. However, the deity who acts as bouncer to the realm of the gods can give them a boot back through the door to where they belong and keep them there. Every pantheon usually has one. I call them gatekeepers. If you are going to practice spirit work the first thing you should do is make friends with one, preferably one from the cultural context you already practice within. Some of them include Papa Legba, Hekate, Hermes, and Heimdal. They are usually tricksters themselves; no one’s getting by them. They are also usually the ones other gods are scared of or defer to. And using their names to threaten spirits with often works better than just shouting unpleasantries and waving garlic around. “Baba Yaga’s going to eat you!” sounds so much scarier than “I’m going to burn this incense if you don’t leave.”
Gatekeepers can also do your dirty for you and send back troublesome spirits to where they belong. They can aid in depossession if a benevolent deity or ancestor won’t leave a ritualist’s body. They can also make sure you summon the correct spirit and send the right one through and then back again. Gatekeepers don’t fuck up, we do by using the wrong words in our invocations. Be incredibly specific. Choose a gatekeeper to the right realm. If it is a spirit of the dead, call upon one who guards the entrance of the underworld. Is it an unseelie nature spirit? Call upon the King or Queen of Fairy. You will need to drag the spirit to their door and you will need to pay them handsomely for their services. Each one has their own preferences, you will need to do the research if you are going to build a relationship with a cosmic bouncer.
Summon the gatekeeper, out loud with a strong voice. Give them an offering. Ask them to open the door between worlds. Ask them to take the spirit or other being back to where it belongs and shut the door locked behind them. Leave them another offering and clearly state your thanks for their help. Clearly say your farewell after so they know you no longer need them.
"An Incantation" by John Hamilton Mortimer, 1773
Hold Your Own (aka Stab and Devour)
There will be occasions when a unwanted spirit is “small” enough for you to handle. These you can banish, bind, trap, enslave, or eat. Yes eat. Bigger spirits do it, why not you? Just grab it tight and shove it in your mouth and swallow. Mmm souls are delicious. Not only have you dealt with it, but you’ve absorbed its power as well. Eat a few spirits and it becomes more likely you’ll get left alone when traversing the otherworld, like a man who has shanked a few fellow prisoners and now eats his lunch in peace. Sure, you could bind and enslave those spirits harassing you to do your bidding, but if they ever got free they’d call for backup and gleefully play with your intestines. It’s always better to have willing and happy familiar spirits.
There may be a time when you need to kill a spirit. Yes kill. You can indeed kill something noncorporeal. How? Fairy and folk tales are rife with instructions. If it is too big for you to eat or banish and you are in its own realm rendering a gatekeeper useless, you can try to destroy a spirit. You must find the source of its power –often the trapped souls of its victims or their “heart” (read that as “soul”) hidden somewhere you must find and destroy. What, you thought J.K. Rowling made up the idea of a horcrux? No, she got it from old European folk tales of evil sorcerers and heartless giants. Get your familiars to help you find the evil spirit’s secret stash and destroy it with your magic and your tools. Yes, you can bring your knives, wands, staffs, etc with you to the otherworld –attach them to your body, hold on to them, or put them by you.
Basic Banishing Steps for Hauntings or Possession
To prevent involuntary possession be very specific in your evocations making sure you are requesting the presence of a deity or spirit and not to be ridden by them. In ritual, be very exacting about who you are calling. The ancient Celts and Norse would give a deity or ancestor’s entire lineage using very specific names and titles for them in their evocations. Also, do not attend or perform a ritual where there will be invocations or evocations when you are ill, drunk, high, or emotionally exhausted unless you have taken precautions to protect yourself from possession.
Some precautions one can take from the lore of cultures worldwide include wearing multicoloured clothing consisting of seven colours or more, wearing mirrors sewn into clothing, dusting your bare skin with powdered white eggshell, carry a rowan cross in your pocket or wear a string of the berries around your neck, wear bold red clothing, or wear an amulet consecrated to protect you from possession. If you are someone who frequents graveyards, make yourself a spray or a hand rub you can apply as soon as you leave the gates so no ghosts try to follow you home. Lazy? Just buy some lavender water or Florida water.
Find a banishing or exorcism incantation that works for you. One you like and, more importantly, one you will actually use. If you feel silly saying it, it’s not going to work. You need to come off as confident and scary as fuck. Look in Aradia, in Mastering Witchcraft, in the Carmina Gadelica, or in grimoires old and new. Look through your book collection and those of your occulty friends.
To extract or exorcise a spirit unwilling to leave a person, place, or object different steps may be taken. If incantations, exorcising incenses, or a purification baths do not work then attempt to extract the spirit in the following order:
Ask the spirit to leave, tell it that it is time to go and remove itself from the person/object/place. If it refuses move on to the second step.
With utmost confidence, threaten the spirit with exorcism and banishment and throw around a scary deity’s name or two. If they still refuse to leave move on to the next step.
Make good on your threat and attempt to exorcise the spirit by repeating an incantation firmly and willfully over and over until they leave. If this is not enough also cleanse the person/object/place with holy water, salt, and/or herbs, or fumigate them by burning exorcism herbs or incense while continuing to recite the incantation. Once the spirit has left, do not forget to banish it so it doesn’t return to the person/object/place once you’ve left. This is the mistake many exorcists make.
Banish the spirit. Banishing is the act of sending spirits back though the gate to the underworld and then closing it behind them – do so with force and strength of will. If you do not know how or do not have the ability ask a gatekeeper of the underworld to do so.
If you are unable to banish the spirit you can resort to trapping and binding it – but always keep in mind this is an absolute last resort. Always try banishing first, but if it keeps returning after and causing harm, then it’s time for trapping and binding it.
CATCHING AND BINDING SPIRITS Posted by Sarah on Sunday, May 17, 2015
00:13 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 401
Rowan and Red Thread crosses
“Black spirits and white, red spirits and grey, come ye and come ye, come ye that may! Around and around, throughout and about, the good come in and the ill keep out.”
~ Doreen Valiente (based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth)
t2here are many ways to catch a spirit and many different forbiddens of traps to do it with. What is a spirit trap? It is a device used to trick a spirit into ensnaring itself much like a mouse trap baited with cheese or peanut butter. The idea behind a basic spirit trap is fascination. The trap is meant to distract the spirit from its mischievous or malevolent purpose by tempting them with something they cannot resist.
In the folklore of many cultures, it is believed spirits cannot resist or are compelled to follow a thread from one end to the other with some believing that spirits have to travel in a straight line. This belief results in spirit traps intricately woven with colourful thread such as the ojos de dios or “God’s eyes” of Central America, the elaborate ghost and demon traps of Tibet incorporating ram skulls, the cross charms of Rowan and red thread from Scotland, the spirit traps mimicking spider webs used by hunters in some regions of Africa, and even the dream catchers of North America (before they became items to sell to tourists). The most common colours used are red, blue, and yellow as they each have a very long history of being used for protection across cultural boundaries. The creation of them can be a highly meditative and spiritual act with the intent being protection and blessing –especially when they are made for children. A main rule of such spirit traps is there must be no knots in the thread. These traps are hung on the roof of a house, in trees, or over the bed. The spirit is extracted from the thread by burning it, putting it in a place where the sun’s rays will touch it to symbolically burn away the spirit, or by carefully removing the thread and placing it in a well-sealed bottle, jar, or box which is then either burned, buried, or hidden somewhere safe.
Ghost Protection CharmSome spirit traps are made from hollowed out wood, usually two matching pieces that are placed together (or a box), sealed with wax or resin, and then bound with string or a leather cord like the shamans’ spirit trap of Burma/Myanmar. The bottle trees or “haint” trees of the American South were originally spirit traps based on the belief that the spirit, much like a wasp, could not resist going into the bottle but would not be able to come out again. Blue bottles are the most commonly used which makes sense as blue has been a powerful colour of protection for millennia. Some people place items in the bottles to lure spirits – binding herbs, string or thorns for them to become entangled in, or seeds for them to get distracted counting (in folklore witches and spirits are compelled to count seeds, beans, or grains when laid before them). Bottle spirit traps are believed to have their origins from slaves who came from Northern Africa and the Middle East where blue is a prevalent sacred colour. Bottle trees or bottle spirit traps can be found in Europe as well.
Tsimshian soul catcher, 1879
Tsimshian soul catcher, 1879
Some Native tribes of the Pacific Northwest once used carved hollow bones called “soul catchers” to trap spirits by sucking them into the bone and then sealing the two ends with moss or lichen. These, however, were mainly used to trap human souls stolen by supernatural spirits so they could be returned to their owners in healing ceremonies. The medicine man or woman would blow the soul into the ailing person’s mouth to put it back in their body. Some were made of wood, but bone seems to have been much more common. I am quite enamoured with the idea of using a hollow bone due to a similar tool found in Scotland, but there it is used for cursing by pouring the blood of a sacrificed animal through it (not really the same, but cool).
Another spirit trap is the well known witch bottle of Europe which is used as a decoy and a spiritual alarm system on top of catching spirits. A witch bottle is first filled with the decoy which can be a combination of hair, nail clippings, blood, saliva, or urine. This fools a spirit into thinking it has found its target (you). Then nails and/or bent pins are added to bind the spirit and keep it in the bottle. Lastly, broken glass or broken mirror pieces are added for protection, to reflect away the evil intent. Then the bottle is corked, sealed, and buried under the front step of one’s house. If you live in an apartment it can be hidden in a wall or a forgotten cupboard, or buried in the soil of a potted plant. It is better for the witch bottle to be outside though to keep the spirit from crossing your threshold. If the bottle breaks, it means it has worked, and caught a spirit with the intent of harming the maker. It should then be burned, the ashes buried or released into running water, and then replaced with a new one. Witch bottles were not originally made by witches, but were used by ordinary people to protect from a witch’s magical attack. The spirit caught is often a witch’s familiar.
If you are using a spirit trap not just for protection but to capture a specific spirit or soul, the trap must be consecrated to that purpose and used in a ritual with that intent. If your intent is bind and keep a spirit it must be transferred from the trap to a spirit vessel. If it is a thread trap the thread must carefully be unwoven and placed into a jar, bottle, box, poppet, stone, or skull. If it is inside a bottle, bone, or wood trap it can be sucked out of the trap and blown into the intended spirit vessel. Once in a vessel, a ritual is performed to consecrate the vessel to bind the spirit to it (a basic, customizable consecration ritual for objects is a must have in your magician’s bag of tricks). The spirit vessel can then be well sealed with wax and bound with more thread or covered in sigils or symbols of binding and protection.
Once, I turned an entire hallway into one big spirit trap. It was the entry to my apartment with every doorway coming off of it. I put a mirror on each end along with protective amulets and woven spirit traps above each door. I knew it was time to empty the trap when the talismans or the pictures on the walls fell. Or if the trapped spirits decided to slam someone around in the hallway. The same oak picture frame fell and was broken half a dozen times due to this and scared my friends. I learned if you’re going to turn a hallway or a mudroom into a spirit trap, don’t hang anything of value in the space and clean it more regularly than you think you need to.
Spirit traps hanging from a hazel treeThis practice is often a last ditch effort to get rid of a troublesome spirit for which banishing did not work or for a spirit that is too powerful to handle and too nasty to leave running free. If it is a malignant spirit it is usually buried by running water or a crossroad where it won’t be disturbed. If the spirit vessel is to be buried, it should only ever be done with a container that won’t decay easily or quickly. Glass and ceramic are best, then metal. Wood is not a good idea. If the vessel decays or is destroyed or broken, the spirit is set free. Sometimes bound spirits are kept safe by the magician who trapped it, who don’t trust nature or other people and want to keep a close eye on it. If you are going to keep a particularly nasty spirit I recommend some seriously potent sigils and a ring of salt around the vessel wherever you store it. There have been many instances of family and students going through a dead magician’s house and finding bound boxes and bottles sealed with wax and string – never open them! They should be left as they are and given to another magician to look after or to properly dispose of it they have the knowledge and skill to do so.
Rowan berries, rowan cross, bird foot, and blackthornsAs with most magical practices, trapping and binding spirits is neither good nor evil. It is dependent upon the intent of the magician. They can be used as a preventive measure, as protection, or for healing in the case of PNW medicine men. It can also be dark magic used to bind spirits to steal their collective power to add to one’s own. Other times a dark sorcerer will use this magic to steal and bind the souls of their human enemies to both steal their power and stop the enemies from working against them. There are a very large number of folk tales all over the world where a hero defeats an evil sorcerer or spirit and sets free all the souls they have trapped over years, decades, centuries, or even millennia. If this theme sounds familiar it is because this has carried forward today into horror movies and fantasy TV shows.
Any time you desire to bind a spirit make sure it is the right decision over banishing as if it ever manages to get free you are the first person the evil spirit will attack afterward. Good intent is not enough for this to work. You have to have knowledge, skill, and experience behind it to be certain it is done properly. If you cannot see spirits or tell they are in your traps, it is also unlikely to work. Always think carefully before trapping and binding a spirit and, if you yourself are not an advanced practitioner, it is recommended to have one present when doing so in case anything goes wrong.
If you are new to this, I recommended starting with a witch bottle, rowan cross, or a god’s eye forbidden spirit trap as they can simply be burned. As you burn the thread or the trap, you can ask your familiar spirits or a deity to carry the spirit away back to where it belongs. I also like to burn a purification incense afterward like pine or frankincense resins mixed with cedar or juniper tips. As a maker of rowan crosses and god’s eyes I’ve found they simply and mysteriously start to fall apart when they’ve been overburdened trapping spirits. If your protective trap falls down or breaks, it is time to burn it and make a new one. I recommend checking your traps every dark moon. If they are full, it is the perfect time to get rid of the spirits.
HOW TO MAKE PAGAN HOLY WATER Posted by Sarah on Monday, February 7, 2011
00:10 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 402
Pagan Holy Water
When most people hear the phrase “holy water” they think of either vampires, water blessed by a Catholic priest, or both, but holy water isn’t restricted to the Christian church. The ancient Greeks used holy water to purify people and places as well as to extinguish temple and shrine torches. They and the Romans would also dip sacred herbs or tree branches in holy water to flick on people, around homes, or pieces of land to bless them. The Hindus use holy water for sacred bathing today and Buddhists use blessed water for ceremonies and protection. The followers of Shia Islam drink consecrated water for healing and to connect with the divine. Prayer drinking is also found in the Old Testament. The drinking of blessed water is a very ancient practice and, as you’ll find out, is not restricted to Abrahamic religions. Bathing before ceremonies, spirit work, or even mundane acts like fishing and huntings goes back into Prehistory with animistic practices. To purify yourself before doing anything is to bring yourself luck and blessing in your endevour as well as make yourself pure to be in the presence of gods and spirits.
The rural people of the British Isles also believed in the power and sacredness of water and used holy water in many of their folk magic rites. Even though the British Isles have been Christianized for centuries, it is the farmers, fishermen, and housewives, men and women alike, who consecrate the holy water and not a Catholic priest. This goes against the teachings of the church as well as more modern Christian and Hoodoo superstitions that holy water can only be blessed by man of God. I believe the consecration and use of holy water in the British Isles is a remnant from Paganism as are the magical rites the water is used for.
How to Make Holy Water
The following folk method for creating holy water comes from Scotland, but similar practices can most likely be found in Ireland, Wales, and England, etc with local variants, of course.
Holy water with adder stone and silver ringWater is sacred to the Moon and so a piece of silver is dropped into the water to be blessed. The silver can be a ring, a coin, a bead, or other object made of real silver, not silver-coloured. If the water was to be used for healing or exorcism sometimes gold was dropped in the water instead to call upon the healing and banishing powers of the Sun. Stones with mystical properties were also used in some localities or by specific individuals from witch doctors to lairds. The most common stones used were adder stones (naturally holed stones), lava rocks, or fulgurite (really a glass tube created by lighting striking soil). Sometimes instead of a coin or stone, a cunning person would spit in the water or pass it through their mouth spitting it onto a person or animal they are blessing or treating. This is very similar to the practices of Haitian priest/esses and South American curanderos who spit water or alcohol from their mouths in a spray onto their patients.
Once the coin or stone was dropped in sacred charms were recited over the water (the object isn’t removed until the rite is complete). One can hold their hands, palms spread open, over the water as they bless it or speak so closely to the water that your breath touches the surface of it. What charm was spoken depended on what purpose the holy water would be put toward. Here are some traditional and modern charms:
Water and earth
Where you are cast
No spell or adverse purpose last
Not in complete accord with me.
As my word, so mote it be!
~ Paul Huson (for purification)
Hale fair washing to thee,
Hale washing of the Fians be thine,
Health to thee, health to him–
But not to thy female enemy.
~ Gaelic (used by midwives to sain newborns)
To remove from thee thy sickness
In the pool of health
From the crown of thy head
to the base of thy two heels.
~ Gaelic (bathing charm)
God bless your eye,
A drop of wine about your heart,
The mouse is in the bush
And the bush is on fire.
~ Gaelic (to avert the evil eye)
The type of water used to make holy water is important as differing waters have different magical attributes. Morning dew is collected and blessed for rites of healing, recovery, as well as beauty and longevity. Dew was especially potent if collected before sunrise on Beltuinn, but any holy day in Spring and Summer would be auspicious (also before sunrise). Spring water is best for saining (blessing and purifying for protection) as well as cleansing one from a bad experience, negative emotions, or the evil eye. Sea water is best for exorcism and expelling evil spirits from a person, home, or piece of land — “nothing evil ever came from the sea”. Sea water is not offered to the dead, Full moon harvested rain waternor used in ancestral rites. Salt protects from and exorcises spirits. Rain water is used for fertility, abundance, and, of course, rain-making. Rain water is best for land blessings and for blessing a woman who wants to conceive. Lake water is generally not used, but well and spring waters from underground sources were considered connected to the ancestors and a held great powers of fecundity, blessing, and healing.
Harvest these waters at full moons, new moons (not dark moons), holy days, at dawn, dusk, or even high noon depending on your intended use of the water (sea water collected at high noon is excellent for exorcism and banishing). You can even leave your waters out in bowls to absorb moonlight, sunlight, or starlight. Collect waters in a non-metal container. I like canning jars, but glass or ceramic bottles with corks can be quite lovely and more romantic.
Sometimes herbs were added depending on the rite the water was used for. Leaves of Vervain added to spring water to anoint ritualists before a ceremony, St. John’s Wort to bless a house or a sick person, a branch of yew dipped in well water to sprinkle over a corpse and purify them for their journey to the underworld… It was once a common practice to dip a sprig of a fresh herb or tree branch in the blessed water and then flick it on person, animal, earth, or doorways of a home or farm building to purify and bless them. The Romans did this with the fresh blood of an animal sacrifice. I prefer water as it’s easier to wash off than chicken blood spattered from a juniper twig. When hosting rituals I flick holy water on the attendees using a sprig of Cedar or Hemlock (the tree not the poison) and when I perform rituals alone I first wash my face, hands, and feet with holy water before beginning. I also make pilgrimages to local springs on the mountain and wash my whole body in the water to purify myself on holy days.
In other folk rites the water was drunk. In Scotland, holy water was drunk for healing an illness, for protection from a curse or the evil eye, or as a way to connect with the divine. Water was always left out by a corpse so the spirit need never thirst and water was also left out for the Cailleach in case she stopped by one’s house and needed water for washing or drinking. It was also common for farmers and livestock witch doctors (aka cunning folk) to get their cows, horses, and/or sheep to drink of holy water to protect them from being overlooked or cursed. When a farmer purchased a new animal he would either sprinkle it with or get it to drink holy water before letting it join the rest to purify the beast of any illness or curse that may effect the rest of the farmer’s livestock.
Modern uses of holy water can include the saining and “feeding” of an altar, ritual tools, ritual costume, ritual jewelry, amulets, talismans, sachets, and statuary. Charm makers can use holy water to activate their charms. It can be used to cleanse and bless a house, a sick room, a piece of land, or even any new furniture, items, or animals you bring into your home. If you are having an outdoor ritual, sprinkle the ground, trees, and stones with blessed water using a twig from a sacred tree. Folk healers can use holy water to bathe or sprinkle on their clients or give it to them to drink for an internal cleansing (be sure to boil any wild harvested waters before drinking!). Wild harvested holy waters are also commonly used in spiritual cleansing baths for both physical and metaphysical healing as well as for purification baths taken before rites and ceremonies. To treat someone of a physical or supernatural illness the following runes from the Carmina Gadelica can be used. I’ve used them accompanied by my hand drum with success. They are spoken monotonously and steadily as with a chant.
The first is to gain power over the illness or intrusion. Rain, dew, and sea water can be sprinkled over the patient:
Power of moon I have over it,
Power of sun I have over it,
Power of rain I have over it,
Power of dew I have over it,
Power of sea I have over it,
Power of land I have over it
Power of stars I have over it,
Power of planets I have over it,
Power of universe I have over it,
Power of skies I have over it,
Power of ancestors I have over it,
Power of heaven I have over it,
Power of heaven and God I have over it,
Power of heaven and God I have over it.
To dispose of the illness (or evil spirits) this second rune is spoken, during or after which the patient can either be bathed in sea water, spring water, or instead drink a glass of cold spring water.
A portion of it on the grey stones,
A portion of it on the steep mountains,
A portion of it on the swift cascades,
A portion of it on the gleaming clouds,
A portion of it on the ocean whales,
A portion of it on the meadow beasts,
A portion of it on the fenny swamps,
A portion of it on the cotton-grass moors,
A portion of it on the great pouring sea–
She’s the best one to carry it,
Oh the great pouring sea,
And she’s the best one to carry it.
After the patient has left the practitioner can then repeat this rune to expel any of the illness or intrusion that went into them or effected them during the rite. This rune protects the healer from harm and accumulating too much mire from their patients:
You, healer of my soul,
keep me at evening,
keep me at morning,
keep me at noon,
On rough course faring,
Help and safeguard
My means this night.
I am tired, astray, and stumbling,
Shield me from deceit and harm.
One could even anoint themselves with holy water whenever they come home to wash away the stress of the day and any emotions or metaphysical dirt picked up from other people while out and about in the world. You could keep a small bowl by your front door and dip in your fingertips – rub your hands together with the holy water then wipe your face (don’t miss the third eye) and the back of your neck. This will cleanse the openings to your spirit and allow things that don’t belong to exit your body. Plus it’s better than keeping a shaman at your front door to spit holy water on you as you enter and then you wouldn’t have to worry about feeding him.
To dipose of holy water it must be poured directly back onto the earth. It is not to be dumped down the drain into the sewers like household waste water. If you need to dispose of any extra holy water I recommend using it to water sacred plants or pour it out onto the roots of a tree in offering.
Resources:
Black, Ronald. The Gaelic Otherworld: John Gregorson Campbell’s Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands. Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 2005.
Gamache, Henri. The Master Key to Occult Secrets: A Study of the Survival of Primitive Customs in a Modern World with Sources and Origins. New York: Sheldon Publications, 1945.
Harris-Logan, Stuart A. Singing With Blackbirds: The Survival of Primal Celtic Shamanism in later Folk-Traditions. Grey House in the Woods, 2006.
McNeill, Marian F. The Silver Bough vol.I: Scottish Folklore and Folk-belief. Glasgow: William McLellan, 1957.
Mickaharic, Draja. Spiritual Cleansing: A Handbook of Psychic Protection. Weiser, 1982.
CONSECRATION AND DESECRATION Posted by Sarah on Thursday, June 11, 2015
00:09 Aug 05 2015
Times Read: 404
I am very much a “consecrate all the things” type of magician. I consecrate altars, ritual tools, divinatory tools, fetiches, talismans, charms, idols, candles, holy water, and even herbal preparations. To consecrate simply means “to hallow or to make sacred.” To me, it means to cleanse and bless something and charge it with a purpose. A skull is just a skull, but when consecrated it becomes a spirit house. A statue of Odin is just a statue until you consecrate it to be a vessel for deity. A candle is just a candle until it is anointed with oil and its purpose for a spell stated aloud. A stick is just a stick, but if you carve it, sand it, oil it, sprinkle holy water on it, smudge it with smoke, name it’s purpose as your wand of art, and imbue it with the desired powers of blasting, protection, and blessing then it becomes a potent tool of magic. To further the process of consecration, the more the object is actively used for its named purpose, the more power it will wield and the more it will simply “be” that sacred tool. There are as many ways to consecrate as there are witches. The following are my own practices and thoughts.
Poisoner's Crane Bag
BASIC CONSECRATION GUIDELINES
This can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. It can take five minutes, or it can take an hour. You can do it at midnight on a full moon on your altar with candles lit, incense burning, and chants sung while your loosed long hair cascades over your bared breasts glowing in the candlelight… or you can do it in the morning on your kitchen table with some water, salt, and olive oil and be back to watching Ellen before your blueberry bagel pops out of the toaster.
Step 1: Cleansing
Clean physically if possible with soap, water, and purification herbs (lemon, evergreens, rue, hyssop, mugwort). Then clean spiritually with incense smoke or smudge. If the object cannot be washed, sprinkle it with holy water then smudge with smoke. Move the object around in your hands so the smoke touches every nook and cranny. While cleansing the object think cleansing thoughts, or say out loud “I cleanse you”, or sing a purification or washing chant or song (pagan or from the top 40, it doesn’t matter).
Step 2: Anointing
Oil all the things. You don’t need to have a fancy oil as olive or sunflower oil will do just fine. Essential oils work great too, just dilute them a bit with olive, almond, sunflower, or jojoba oil first. You can use fairy or flying ointments to anoint with too, depending on what you are consecrating and to which purpose. Dip your index finger in oil and from the centre of the object swipe your finger up once. Go back to the centre and swipe your finger down once. You can use an equal armed cross instead. Ta da! Anointed! This works well with candles, jewelry, skulls, bottles, boxes, wands, staffs, statues, chalices, candle holders, etc.
Step 3: Rebirthing
Get a black cloth or piece of leather and wrap up the object. This will serve as tomb and womb. Your ritual goody is about to go through a magical initiation (I got this idea from Nigel Pennick who is awesome). Its old self will die so its new self as your ritual tool or fetish can start. Unwrap the cloth and welcome the object as a new born. Sprinkle earth on it, sprinkle holy water on it, pass it over a candle flame and through a plume of incense smoke –blessing it with the elements of earth, water, fire, and air.
Step 4: Charging
Now you name the object and charge it with its intended purpose. It is best to make it up so it can be completely customized to your needs and the particular purpose of the object. A protective ring and a tarot deck aren’t going to have the same purpose. “I charge you ring with the purpose of protecting my body, mind, and spirit from harm whenever I wear you, that I may be invisible and impenetrable when my enemy sends forth an attack, that I am safe when travelling in this world or in others, and that you send me warning when I am in danger by sending an itch to the finger you sit upon. I charge you to do my will. Let it be so!”
Hekate Ritual Bundles
Simplifying Consecration
Don’t feel the need to do anything so elaborate for a candle, a bottle of sabbat wine, or a herbal sachet? No worries, keep it simple. Sprinkle water on it, anoint it with oil, or just blow on it. Then whisper a prayer of intent so the breath from your prayer touches it. Done. I consecrate my holy water with just a holey stone, a silver ring and then I blow on it three times “by silver and stane may the water be sained”. Boom, it’s instantly ready for me to sprinkle on people who forgot to take their glasses off. I consecrate new altar candles of beeswax by just rubbing some olive oil on them and lighting them while I say: “I consecrate thee in the Devil’s name, by oil and by flame may the candle be sained.” With the new candles quickly in place, I can get down to the business of a rite or a tarot reading.
Aftercare Tips
Well after your sacred objects are consecrated and used for their purposes, you should still clean them now and then. Make a gentle magical wash for items that can get wet and give them a bath – this works well for talismanic jewelry, skulls, swords, knives, stangs, staffs, statuary, and some divinatory tools. Things build up dust and grime over time. About once a year I will wash my altar and everything on it, shaking dust out of animal hides and off of feathers, and cleaning up any candle wax buildup and guck in the incense censer.
Wooden ritual tools that aren’t varnished will need some love throughout the year; altar patens, wands, staffs, stangs, carved statues, cups, boxes, etc. Wipe them down with a damp cloth, let them dry and then oil them with linseed oil or Danish oil. You can also rub them down with some beeswax or a wood balm like Clapham’s beeswax polish. Have any leather goods? Same deal only use a leather dressing or saddle balm after wiping an item down and massage it into the leather like you would with lotion on your skin – this will not work with synthetic leather. For wood or leather, let the oil or balm dry overnight before putting your ritual tool back on your altar or back to use.
For hides, furs, rugs, etc sprinkle a dusting of baking soda over them, let it sit for 15 minutes and then shake our and/or vacuum. This will both clean and deodorize the item. You can mix essential oils into the baking soda before use to make them smell lovely too as well as adding magical cleansing properties from oils like lemon and lavender.
For tarot decks or wooden runes a good smudge of smoke works well. I energetically cleanse mine by pulling out the energies from past divinings and letting it absorb slowly and naturally into the earth. Others place crystals on them and let them rest and charge for a week or a month. Others may even bury them or dig them back up.
Once or twice a year, replace sachets, charms, and talismans that are meant to be temporary. Brighid’s crosses are meant to be burned every year at Imbolc and a new one made and hung up for blessing and protection. Spirit traps can only take so much and are meant to be burned and made anew as well. Keep this in mind when making charms of protection or blessing for a room, house, or person. Don’t make them too nice or elaborate, as you’re going to have to dispose of them and craft another.
A Note of Caution Regarding Spirit Fetiches
I’ve quoted the German proverb “raise no more devils than you can lay down” before, but it also applies to “create no more fetishes than you can responsibly look after.” Fetiches should be kept clean, fed offerings, go with you when you travel away from home, and be honoured and worked with often. One ancestral fetiche plus seven animal familiar fetiches plus four plant familiar fetiches later and suddenly you have a dozen spirit houses to look after and take everywhere with you. It all escalated rather quickly. You might want to create one medicine bundle with a token for each spirit that is not fetishized instead. Or you could create one for ancestors, one for animals, and one for plants. Keep the tokens small, keep the container small and you’re good to go. Hold the token in your hand when you want to call and work with that particular spirit – this way it acts as an aid in spirit alignment rather than creating a permanent spirit house that will take up a lot of your space and time.
Spirit Vessels for Poisonous Plant Familiars
DESECRATION
Consecration is pretty common knowledge. Most of us have our ways. But what do you do when you need to get rid of a fetish, a ritual tool, or a sacred item that has broken or needs to be thrown out? You’ve probably guessed right, the garbage can isn’t really an option. Your sacred items deserve ritual desecration as much as they deserved being consecrated in the first place. Again, there are many ways to accomplish desecration, here are some traditional methods and ones that I was taught.
Salt, Moon and Earth
This method I learned from first teacher who I’ve not-so-affectionately nicknamed Baba Yaga. To undo an unwanted consecration or a spell on an object that is not a curse: place it in a canning jar full of sea salt. Screw on the lid. Let it sit on a windowsill and soak up the light of one full cycle of the moon. Or, bury it in the ground for one full cycle of the moon. This is best for objects you do not wish to destroy, but either repurpose or undo someone’s good or not so good intentions. I’ve done this for a tarot deck that was gifted me with a love spell put on it. It also works for fetiches of skulls, bones, claws etc. which you no longer want to use as spirit houses. It’s also perfect to use for spelled jewelry, keys, or crystals and stones. Maybe you got a better one, maybe you want to use the item for something else, or maybe you want to gift the item to someone else.
Break, Burn and Bury
This is the classic method of desecration and coincidentally of how to leave votive offerings. Prechristian European and Mediterranean cultures believed if you broke and burned an object (including the cremation of the dead), it would go to the otherworld or the underworld. The Chinese still burn all their offerings today believing this sends them to their beloved dead. So, consequently, if you smash and burn a fetiche or spirit house it both destroys the object and sets free the spirit associated with it. Smash the spirit bottle, the spirit trap, the statue… snap in half the wand, the staff, the stang… take apart the knife, the necklace, the herb sachet. “I unmake thee, I unname thee, I set thee free. Bear no ill will against me and be released.” Throw it in a fire and let it burn up. Don’t have access to a fireplace, fire pit, or even a barbeque grill? Try an incense charcoal placed in a large stainless steel bowl which is resting on bare earth or cement. Add some sticks and newspaper to get a flame and then add the object of your desecration. It’s okay if some bits don’t burn up. Glass and metal aren’t going to turn to ash. Simple gather up any remnants as well as the ashes and then bury them –by a crossroad, by a stream or river, in a hollow tree, under a bramble patch where no one will disturb the grave. Are you an animist? Ask the place permission first before you bury your remnants. Ask for a sign that will signal a yes like a crow’s caw or a robin’s whistle.
Go Away / Get Lost Box
This method I found mentioned by Ray T. Marlborough, but haven’t found info on it anywhere else except some folklore of trapping evil spirits in boxes. If you have a ritual tool, talisman, or fetiche you don’t want to destroy or can’t destroy, you can make a go away box. Find any box that will fit the item and on each of the six sides draw a protective talisman. You can make them up, use ones out of old grimoires, or simply draw an equal armed cross on each side. I prefer to use red paint as it protects from spirits or magical interference, but black, blue, and yellow are suitable as well. Consecrate the box on your altar to its purpose: to seal in your ritual tool or fetiche so it no longer has any power and no being can use its power. That when the box starts to decay, so too will the object decay and lose its power. Wrap the item to be desecrated in a natural fabric like silk, linen, cotton, or wool and place it in the box. Seal the lid of the box with wax dripped from a candle (again, red is best) and then wrap thread (also a natural fibre) around and around the box and knot it up tight. Now bury the box by a crossroad, a stream or river, or somewhere it won’t be disturbed (farmlands and development sites are a bad idea).
Self Aftercare
After you perform a desecration rite you should cleanse yourself. Take a bath with sea salt and oils, smudge yourself with smoke, or spritz Florida water on your self and your hands and also clean your altar or work area with it where the rite was performed. Lemon water with salt consecrated as holy water will do in a pinch if you don’t have access to Florida water.
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