The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

So you want to be a witch!



Let's see what's in my Magick Book.

First of all, you have to decided what

kind of witch you want to be?





The Flying Broomstick Witch



Flies on a broom

Casts nasty spells

Has warts - crooked nose

Lives alone with many cats

A parallel life in ancient Egypt -

Sekhmet Personality Disorder

Has an attitude



The Pure Priestess Witch



A parallel life in Egypt as a healer - temple worker

Powerful, sexy, alluring, always slim, gorgeous, long hair

You can feel her power and energy, Wants to help everyone.

Can use Wicca - nature to manipulate what she wants.

There's more to here than meets the 'eye'.



The Garden Variety Halloween Witch



Dressed in black, long dark hair,

Works in the corporate world the other 364 days of the year

Longs for her powers

Says she is spiritual - but one has to wonder

if she knows the meaning of the word!



Elvira: A witch linked with sexual energies and things go bump in the night

she aims to please but has sexual issues from childhood

she gets her man - in the end! (Cackle)



There is much myth and mysticism surrounding the origins of

witchcraft - its true beginnings unknown.



The history of witchcraft - in one form or another - depending on

how you define the word - goes back to the origins of humanity.

People have always attempted to use the powers of the Earth's

energies to manipulate - and hopefully improve - their situations.

Spells were often a form of religious belief that linked the soul of

the person to the 'Other World'.



In ancient Egypt books such as the Pyramid Texts - Coffin Texts -

Litany of Re - Book of Gates - The Book of the Dead - among others -

were magical texts that decorated the tombs of the ancient pharaohs

of Egypt basically provided a detailed roadmap of the what the

Egyptians believed to be the Netherworld. The Pyramid Texts are the

oldest collection of religious spells known to us from ancient

Egypt.



Reverence for the Great Goddess, reverence for the Earth and its

seasons, has been traced successfully through a 25,000 year history,

by Dr. Margaret Murry. This goes back to the Paleolithic period. The

Witchcraft, or sometimes alternatively, Wicca, Witchcraft, or

Paganism, The Craft originated in the ancient past, and has

maintained a more or less unbroken line to the present. The Craft

was born out of the ancient Animistic cults of prehistory, where a

God controlled the wind, rain, hunt, waters, etc. It was in this

time that Magic first mixed with the beginnings of religion. This

early Magic was likely of the sympathetic variety. Actually

Witchcraft and Wicca are not the same; Wicca being a religion, the

Sabbats.



Together with the God, the Goddess evolved, and Fertility was her

domain. The Fertility of the animals and the peoples that hunted

them was important to the continuance of the race. The God has

changed little over the intervening millennia, while the Goddess

changed dramatically with the advent of the agricultural society,

and the Goddess expanded to cover the Fertility of the crops.



The year then fell into two halves, the Summer, when the Goddess and

the crops predominated, and the Winter, when the people had to

revert to hunting and the God predominated. With the Goddess and the

God of hunting growing in power in the society, as the chiefs among

the deities, the other Gods fell into secondary roles, and were

then, finally, forgotten. As the race spread across Europe, the

Goddess and God were carried with them, and as the nations rose, and

languages changed, the Names of the deities changed, but the

essential force of the deities remained the same. The Celts,

Heathens, Nordic, Greek, Latin's, and all the other races have the

same Goddess and God at the center of their religions.



With the development of civilization and the learning of the ability

to store food, hunting became less important, and the God took the

role of God of Nature and the Wild Places in general. The Goddess

grew into both the Goddess of Fertility and the Goddess of Rebirth,

as life after death and reincarnation had evolved in the religion.

As time progressed, and the Rituals became more involved, a Priest

class developed to insure the Rituals were carried out properly and

the knowledge was carried on. These people became known as the

Wicca, the "Wise Ones." The power of the Wicca was such that it

infused the entire religious and political structure of the nations.

The Kings of Anglo-Saxon England would never make any important

decision without consulting the Witan, the Council of Wise Ones.



With the coming of Christianity, there never was the mass

conversions that the Christians claim. While whole nations were

classified as Christian due to the fact that the leaders had

converted, the populace, in general, kept the old ways. The most

important attempt at mass conversion was imposed on the Wicca by

pope Gregory the Great. He ordered the construction of new churches

on the sites of the old temples and the creation of new holy days on

the Wicca Sabbats. In reality, the attempt was only partially

successful, for the only available craftsmen to build these temples

were the Wiccan, and these craftsmen very cleverly hid their own

Goddess and their God in the decorations of these churches.



That way, when the Wicca were forced to worship here, their Goddess

and God images were also present. It was at this time that Lucifer,

became the Horned Satan, the new Christianized image of the Horned

God, and the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, was Sainted, a new

Christianized Image of the Goddess. The charge of Devil Worship is

therefore a contrivance of the Christian church in an attempt to

eradicate its rival for the attentions of the populace.

The contrived god of the new religions is the god of a complex

civilization, developed to control a rebellious people, rather than

the loving embrace of the people, as they are, that the more Human

Old Gods offer. As the influence of the new religion grew, through

force of arms, the Old Ways only survived in the outlying districts

and counties. These people became known as Pagans, from the Latin

Pagani meaning people who live in the country and the Heathens,

which means one who dwells on the heath. The derogatory connotations

are again undeserved and a contrivance of the new religion.



The persecution of the Old Way continued and grew with the advent of

the Papal Bull against Witches of pope Innocent the VIII, in 1484.

Two years later, two infamous German Monks, Hienric Isnstitoris

Krammer and Jacob Sprenger, produced the most baleful contrivance of

anti-Witchery ever produced, the Malleus Maleficarum (the Witch

Hammer). In this book they provided definite instruction for the

persecution of Witches. Although this book was never accepted by the

appointed church censor, the approval was forged by the authors, and

then the hysteria spread like wildfire throughout all of Europe. The

forgery was not discovered until 1898.



Throughout all of Europe, the new religion used Witchcraft as an

excuse to murder any people they felt were an enemy of the church.

The old, invalid, mentally ill, women, healers, and of course, the

true Witches. Since the Witches held fertility as an object of great

importance, the Christian Judges gave these sexual rites unnecessary

prominence and seemed to delight in the prying, often through

torture, the details concerning them from those accused of

participating in them. The religion of Wicca is an extremely happy

and joyous religion that was totally incomprehensible to the dour

and repressed inquisitors and reformers. The total estimated number

of people burned, hung, or tortured to death on the charge of

Witchcraft is nine million.



It was during these times, the burning times that the Craft began

to go underground, for safety. Also the members of the Craft

realized that the Craft was in danger of losing it's knowledge, as

the Craft was being so mercilessly hunted and killed. The High

Priestesses and High Priests began to keep records of the Rites,

Rituals, and esoteric knowledge. These books of the Craft were kept

hidden from the enemies of the Craft, they were kept "in the

shadows" and it was thus that gave rise to the term for the 'Witch's

Book' as the 'Book of Shadows'.



It the 'Burning Times' there was but one such book in a Coven, and

all were contributors, but with the resurgence of above ground

Witchcraft in these modern times, it has become accepted for each

individual member of the Craft to have their own personal Book of

Shadows, which is, in the view of the 'Coven of the Fiery Skies,' a

very good thing, as this will help ensure the dissemination of

reclaimed knowledge, and thereby help insure that it is not lost

again. Modern Witches still use this as the title for their book to

Honor our lost Sisters and Brothers.



The Coven of the Fyrie Skies encourages each of its Witches to both

maintain their own personal Book as well as contribute to the

Coven's Book of Shadows.



By the late seventeenth century, the Craft was well underground, as

it was also illegal to be a Witch, as well as against the Cannons of

the church. In 1951, the last of these laws was repealed, and the

first Witch to speak up in defense of his religion was Gardner, and

through him, all of Witchcraft was able to resurface, in its many forms.

Now there are many Covens out in the open, and many more still in

hiding, fearing a resurgence of the persecutions. In America the

first Witch to come forward was Raymond Buckland. Sybil Leek and

Gavin and Yvonne Frost followed in his footsteps, then a rush as

more and more Covens came out into the open. Now, even the US Army,

with the publication of Army pamphlet 165-13, A Handbook for

Chaplin's, recognizes Witchcraft as a Religion.

Wiccan Viewpoint

We are not evil. We don't harm or seduce people. We are not dangerous. We are ordinary people like you. We have families, jobs, hopes, and dreams. We are not a cult. This religion is not a joke. We are not what you think we are from looking at TV. We are real. We laugh, we cry. We are serious. We have a sense of humor. You don't have to be afraid of us. We don't want to convert you. And please don't try to convert us. Just give us the same right we give you--to live in peace. We are much more similar to you than you think.

When one defines oneself as Pagan, it means she or he follows an earth or nature religion, one that sees the divine manifest in all creation. The cycles of nature are our holy days, the earth is our temple, its plants and creatures our partners and teachers. We worship a deity that is both male and female, a mother Goddess and father God, who together created all that is, was, or will be. We respect life, cherish the free will of sentient beings, and accept the sacredness of all creation.



Wiccan Viewpoint

We are not evil. We don't harm or seduce people. We are not dangerous. We are ordinary people like you. We have families, jobs, hopes, and dreams. We are not a cult. This religion is not a joke. We are not what you think we are from looking at TV. We are real. We laugh, we cry. We are serious. We have a sense of humor. You don't have to be afraid of us. We don't want to convert you. And please don't try to convert us. Just give us the same right we give you--to live in peace. We are much more similar to you than you think.

When one defines oneself as Pagan, it means she or he follows an earth or nature religion, one that sees the divine manifest in all creation. The cycles of nature are our holy days, the earth is our temple, its plants and creatures our partners and teachers. We worship a deity that is both male and female, a mother Goddess and father God, who together created all that is, was, or will be. We respect life, cherish the free will of sentient beings, and accept the sacredness of all creation.

















When most people hear the word Pagan they immediately assume that it means something bad or evil, however, that is not true at all, just many years of assumed negativity from assumed definitions and the influence of many of the major organized religions of the western world.

What exactly do people think Pagan means. Many people think that it means "non-Christian." In fact, this is incorrect, are Muslim's, Hindu's, Taoist's, Buddhist's and others also then all Pagan by definition? I think not! Yes, they follow different religious Paths to the Judo/Christian, but they are not all Pagan!

There are also many people that take the connotation one step further and define Pagan as something "bad." I imagine that images of orgies and demons accompany this particular feeling. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary does, after all, starts off its definition of Pagan as "heathen."

However, neither of these ideas are actually accurate. Their presence in the modern "vocabulary" is a result of the circular nature of word definitions and the dominance of some religions, including Christianity, in today's society.

One of the best sources to examine for a definition of Pagan is the Old Testament. The word Pagan is used numerous times throughout the work to refer to non-Israelites. This is an immediate tip-off that Pagan does not mean "non-Christian," as the concept of "Pagan" is used in the Bible many years before Christ is even born.

We examine a bit farther to find what our disputed word does mean. The Israelites were different from rest of the world in two major ways. The first was their monotheism. Worshipping a single god was an incredibly radical idea during Abraham’s life in Ur. Most people worshipped thousands of gods, from gods of the sun and the rivers and the sky to gods dealing with each individual city, profession, and time of day. Many monotheists were even ostracized, for their refusal to worship the gods of the city could bring downfall to the entire population! The other fundamental difference between the Israelites and their neighbors is not so obvious and takes an above average understanding of the Bible to comprehend. The nature of Yahweh, the god of the Israelites, and the gods of their neighbors were very different. For instance, Baal, the principal God of Abraham's neighbors, was a fertility and harvest god. Worship of him ensured a good harvest and, in turn, survival. Yahweh, however, was never worshipped particularly to ensure a good harvest. When the Israelites followed Yahweh's laws and kept the faith, Yahweh protected them from invasion. However, when they strayed from his laws and broke the covenant, they were conquered and endured hardship. This is the fundamental nature of Yahweh--a god of war and of history, not of fertility and nature. The Pagans were different from the Israelites not simply because they weren't Israelites, but because they worshipped many gods and worshipped directly in nature. We can see this in all of the societies described as Pagan in our well-taught but forgotten high school history classes--the Galls, the Romans, the Greeks, the Norse...

The Biblical evidence is supported by our current English language. Yes, it is true that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary starts off its definition of Pagan with the word "heathen." This word has negative meanings to everyone. However, if we take the time to look up the definition of heathen to which it is referring, we find:

- an unconverted member of a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the Bible

This certainly does not mean "evil"! In fact, all it’s really saying is that a heathen is a person who has not been exposed to the ideas of Judaism or Christianity. The Merriam-Webster definition of Pagan continues as:

- a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)

This supports our finding of Pagans as polytheists from the Old Testament. We can also examine the word origin that Merriam-Webster gives for Pagan:

- Middle English, from Late Latin paganus, country dweller; from Latin pagus, country district

This further supports our sense of Paganism as a nature-based religion. And this is, in fact, what myself and a whole burgeoning world of Pagans (or "neo-Pagans," as we are often called) mean when we present ourselves. The fact that I am Pagan means that I follow one of many religions that are polytheistic and nature-based. I myself am Wiccan (Wicca is a form of Paganism, but not all Pagans are Wiccan's!), a religion that worships both a goddess and a god and does so within a natural, fertility-based framework. Other Pagan religions include Druidism, Astratru (Norse), Native American spirituality, Ancient Egyptian religion, and many others--all of which still have many followers.

It can be difficult for some to understand all the different paths of Paganism that exist today, but if one looks at the various sects of Christianity, Church of England, Catholic, Mormon, Methodist, etc, then one gets the idea that within the blanket term of Christian there are many sub-divisions, much as there are within the Pagan community. The best ways I have ever been told to understand it are by visualizing a great tree, the branches of which are the various Pagan Paths, or to imagine a beautiful Forest with a Glade in the centre, which has many paths leading through the forest, all of which lead to the same place, the central Glade, but by differing routes.



So, where did these Pagan peoples come from originally?

Well, I've recently received the following via email (which comes from Conversations with a Jehovah's Witness by Oberon (Otter) Zell, an article from (the now defunct) Green Egg magazine - back issues can be seen via Green Egg Archives), and uses the Bibles own words (from the original texts)) to show where we Pagan people may have originated from, us being of the Other People, those mentioned by the Bible but not of the nation of Israel.

These point to the Christian God being only one of the Elohim (an original Pantheon perhaps?), and in Genesis of various hints that point to there being 'other people', not of the biblical race (so just who did Cain marry when he was cast out from his tribe?) that would point to the existence of other races that worshipped other Gods in those times, which in itself point to inaccuracies in the Christian story as given by the bible. See what you make of it, I found it amusing and also interesting to say the least! Whether you believe in the Creation story as given by the Bible, in evolution or whatever, this remains a thought provoking piece of work!

I am one of the "Other People"......"Huh? What?" you say. Using your own book for reference: (Genesis 1:26) The [Elohim] said, "Let us make humanity in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth." Elohim is a plural word, including male and female, and should properly be translated "Gods" or "Pantheon." (1: 27) The Gods created humanity in the image of themselves, In the image of the Gods they created them, Male and female they created them. (1:28) The Gods blessed them, saying to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth." Now clearly, here we are talking about the original creation of the human species: male and female. All the animals, plants, etc. have all been created in previous verses. This is before the Garden of Eden, and the Christian god Yahweh is not mentioned as the creator of these people.



The next chapter talks about how Yahweh, an individual member of the Pantheon, goes about assembling his own special little botanical and zoological Garden in Eden, and making his own little man to inhabit it: (Gen 2:7) Yahweh God fashioned a man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus the man became a living being. (2:8) Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. (2:9) Yahweh God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. (2:15) Yahweh God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. Now this next is crucial: note Yahweh's precise words: (2:16) Then Yahweh God gave the man this admonition, "You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. (2:17) Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die." Fateful words, those. We will refer back to this admonition later. Then Yahweh decides to make a woman to go with the man. Now, don't forget that the Pantheon had earlier created a whole population of people, "male and female," who are presumably doing just fine somewhere "outside the gates of Eden." But this set-up in Eden is Yahweh's own little experiment, and will unfold to its own separate destiny. (2:21) So Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. (2:22) Yahweh God built the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. Right. Man gives birth to woman. Sure he does. But that's the way the story is told here. (2:25) Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no shame in front of each other. Well, of course not! Why should they? But take careful note of those words, as they also will prove to be significant...Now this next part is where it starts to get interesting. Enter the Serpent: (Gen. 3:1) The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that Yahweh God had made. It asked the woman, "Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" (3:2) The woman answered the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. (3:3) "But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, 'You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death." (3:4) Then the serpent said to the woman, "No! You will not die! (3:5) "God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." What a remarkable statement! "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." The Serpent directly contradicts Yahweh. Obviously, one of them has to be lying. Which one, do you suppose? And, if the serpent speaks true, wouldn't you wish to eat of the magic fruit? Wouldn't it be a good thing, to become "like gods, knowing good and evil"? Or is it preferable to remain in ignorance?



(Gen. 3:6) The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. (3:7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths. The author makes an interesting assumption here: that if you realize you are naked you will automatically want to cover yourself. Further implications will unfold shortly...



(Gen. 3:8) The man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. (3:9) But Yahweh God called to the man. "Where are you?" he asked. (3:10) "I heard the sound of you in the garden," he replied. "I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." (3:11) "Who told you that you were naked?" he asked. "Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?"



And so the sign of the Fall becomes modesty. Take note of this. The descendants of Adam and Eve will be distinguished throughout history from virtually all other peoples by their obsessive modesty taboos, wherein they will feel ashamed of being naked. It follows that those who feel no shame in being naked are, by definition, not carriers of this spiritual disease of original sin!



(Gen. 3:12) The man replied, "It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it." Right. Blame the woman. What a turkey! (3:13) Then Yahweh God asked the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman replied, "The serpent tempted me and I ate. "So of course she blames the serpent. But just what did the serpent do that was so evil? Why, he called Yahweh a liar! Was he wrong? Let's see... (3:21) Yahweh God made clothes out of skins for the man and his wife, and they put them on. Out of skins? This means that Yahweh had to kill some innocent animals to pander to Adam and Eve's new obsession with modesty!



And now we come to the crux of the Fall. Yahweh had said back there in chapter (2:17), regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that "on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die." The Serpent, on the other hand, had contradicted Yahweh in chapter (3:4-5): "No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." So what actually happened? Who lied and who told the truth about this remarkable fruit? The answer is given in the next verse: (3:22) Then Yahweh God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil. He must not be allowed to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some and live forever."



Get that? Yahweh himself admits that he had lied! In fact, and in Yahweh's own words, the Serpent spoke the absolute truth! And moreover, Yahweh tells the rest of the Pantheon that he intends to evict Adam (and presumably Eve as well) to keep them from gaining immortality to go with their newly-acquired divine knowledge. To prevent them, in other words, from truly becoming gods! So who, in this story, comes off as a benefactor of humanity, and who comes off as a tyrant? THE SERPENT NEVER LIED!



This story, to digress slightly, bears a remarkable resemblance to a contemporary tale from ancient Greece. In that version, the Serpent (later identified as Lucifer, the Light-Bearer) may be equated with the heroic titan Prometheus, who championed humanity against the tyranny of Zeus, who wished for people to be mere slaves of the gods. Prometheus, whose name means "forethought," gave people wisdom, intelligence, and fire stolen from Olympus. Moreover, he ordained the portions of animal sacrifice so that humans got the best parts (the meat and hides) while the portion that was burned to the gods was the bones and fat. In punishment for this defiance of his divine authority, Zeus condemned Prometheus to a terrible punishment for an immortal: to be chained to a mountain in the Caucasus, where Zeus' Gryphon/eagle (actually a Lammergier) would devour his liver each day. It would grow back each night. Zeus promised to relent if Prometheus would reveal his great secret knowledge: Who would succeed Zeus as supreme god? Prometheus refused to tell, but history has revealed the answer... The interesting thing about all this is that the Greeks properly regarded Prometheus as a noble hero in his defiance of unjust tyranny. One may wonder why the Serpent is not so well regarded. On the contrary, snakes are loathed throughout Christendom. (3:23) So Yahweh God expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he had been taken. (3:24) He banished the man, and in front of the garden of Eden he posted the cherubs, and the flame of a flashing sword, to guard the way to the tree of life. So that's it for the Fall. But the story of Adam and Eve doesn't end there. (Gen 4:1) The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain... (4:2) She gave birth to a second child, Abel, the brother of Cain. Now Abel became a shepherd and kept flocks, while Cain tilled the soil. (4:3) Time passed and Cain brought some of the produce of the soil as an offering for Yahweh, (4:4) while Abel, for his part, brought the first-born of his flock and some of their fat as well. Yahweh looked with favor on Abel and his offering. But he did not look with favor on Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and downcast. Well, why shouldn't he be? Both brothers had brought forth their first fruits as offerings, but Yahweh rejected the vegetables and only accepted the blood sacrifice. This was to set a gruesome precedent: (4:8) Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out;" and while they were in the open country, Cain set on his brother Abel and killed him.



Accursed and marked for fratricide, (4:16) Cain left the presence of Yahweh and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. We can assume that the phrase "left the presence of Yahweh" implies that Yahweh is a local deity, and not omnipresent. Cain settled among the people of Nod, and married one of the women of that country. Here, for the first time, is specifically mentioned the "other people" who are not of the lineage of Adam and Eve. i.e.: the Pagans. So let's look at this story from another viewpoint: There we were, around six thousand years ago, living in our little farming communities around the Caspian Sea, in the land of Nod, when this dude with a terrible scar comes stumbling in out of the sunset. He tells us this bizarre story, about how his mother and father had been created by some god named Yahweh, and put in charge of a beautiful garden somewhere out west, and how they had gotten thrown out for disobedience after eating some of the landlord's forbidden magic fruit of enlightenment. He tells us of murdering his brother, as the god of his parents would only accept blood sacrifice, and of receiving that scar as a mark so that all would know him as a fratricide.



The poor guy is really a mess psychologically, obsessed with guilt. He is also obsessively modest, insisting on wearing clothes even in the hottest summer, and he has a hard time with our penchant for skinny-dipping in the warm inland sea. He seems to believe that he is tainted by the "sin" of his parent's disobedience; that it is in his blood, somehow, and will continue to contaminate his children and his children's children.



One of our healing women takes pity on the poor sucker, and marries him... (4:17) Cain had intercourse with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. He became the builder of a town, and he gave the town the name of his son Enoch. With both of their first sons not turning out very well, Adam and Eve decided to try again: (4:25) Adam had intercourse with his wife, and she gave birth to a son whom she named Seth... (4:26) A son was also born to Seth, and he named him Enoch. This man was the first to invoke the name of Yahweh. Now it doesn't mention here where Seth's wife came from. Another woman from Nod, possibly, or maybe someone from another Neolithic community downstream in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. But her folks also, cannot be of the lineage of Adam and Eve, and must also be counted among "the other people." But whatever happened to Adam? After all, way back there in chapter Gen. 2:17, warning Adam about the magic fruit of knowledge, Yahweh had told him that "on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die." So, when did Adam die? (Gen. 5:4) Adam lived for eight hundred years after the birth of Seth and he became the father of sons and daughters. (5:5) In all, Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years; then he died. Hey, that's pretty good! Nine hundred and some odd years isn't bad for a man who's been told he's gonna die the next day!



Suffice it to say that those of us who are not of Semitic descent (i.e., not of the lineage of Adam and Eve) cannot share in the Original Sin that comes with that lineage. Being that the Bible is the story of that lineage, of Adam and Eve's descendants and their special relationship with their particular god, Yahweh, it follows that this is not the story of the rest of us. We may have been Cain's wife's people, or Seth's wife's people, or some other people over the hill and far away, but whichever people the rest of us are, as far as the Bible is concerned, we are the Other People, and so we are continually referred to throughout.



Later books of the Bible are filled with admonitions to the followers of Yahweh to "learn not the ways of the Pagans..." (Jer 10:2) with detailed descriptions of exactly what it is we do, such as erect standing stones and sacred poles, worship in sacred groves and practice divination and magic. And worship the sun, moon, stars and the "Queen of Heaven." "You must not behave as they do in Egypt where once you lived; you must not behave as they do in Canaan where I am taking you. You must not follow their laws." (Lev 18:3) For Yahweh, as he so clearly emphasis, is not the god of the Pagans. We have our own lineage and our own heritage, and our tale is not told in the Bible. We were not "made" like clay figurines by a male deity out of "dust from the soil." We were born of our Mother the Earth, and have evolved over eons in Her nurturing embrace. All of us, in our many and diverse tribes, have creation myths and legends of our origins and history; some of these tales may even be actually true.



Like the descendants of Adam and Eve, many of us also have stories of great floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other cataclysms that wiped out whole communities of our people, wherein "I alone survived to tell the tale." Not being born into sin, we have no need of salvation, and no need of a Messiah to redeem our sinful souls.



Neither heaven nor hell is our destination in the afterlife; we have our own various arrangements with our own various deities. The Bible is not our story; we have our own stories to tell, and they are many and diverse. We are the Other People.

(By Oberon (Otter) Zell Ravenheart, first published in Green Egg.)

It is these 'other peoples' that I believe myself and most of those who live in the UK to have originally belonged to, and that the Christianity that is currently the foremost religion hereabouts is actually an import that is not our original Religion, and therefore doesn't match with our own character as a people!

Whether you believe that man and woman were created whole by the Gods, or evolved over Millennia, (possibly shaped into their new forms by the hands of the Gods) is something of a Moot point, we exist, and by allowing Deity (in whatever form works for yourself) into our daily lives can only enrich us as individual human beings.

Adapted from information courtesy of

"About Wicca" by Lori L. Ceangailte

The Other People, conversation with a Witness by Oberon (Otter) Zell Ravenheart:

And from discussions with other Pagan people.

Other Useful resources concerning Pagan influence in Biblical stories.

Pagan Origins of Christian Myths The Jesus Mystery

Historical Origins of the Bible & Christianity

Spiritwolf & Silver Dove 2001-2004

Hear Now the words of the witches,

The secrets we hid in the night,

When dark was our destiny's pathway,

That now we bring forth into light.

Mysterious water and fire,

The earth and the wide-ranging air,

By hidden quintessence we know them,

And will and keep silent and dare.

The birth and rebirth of all nature,

The passing of winter and spring,

We share with the life universal,

Rejoice in the magical ring.

Four times in the year the Great Sabbat

returns, and the witches are seen

At Lammas and Candlemas dancing,

On May Eve and old Halloween.

When daytime and nighttime are equal,

When sun is at greatest and least,

The four Sabbats are summoned,

and Witches gather in feast.

Thirteen silver moons in a year are,

Thirteen is the coven's array.

Thirteen times at Esbat make merry,

For each golden year and a day.

The power that was passed down the age,

Each time between woman and man,

Each century unto the other,

Ere time and the ages began.

When drawn is the magical circle,

By sword or athame of power,

Its compass between two worlds lies,

In land of the shades for that hour.

The world has no right then to know it,

And world of beyond will tell naught.

The oldest of Gods are invoked there;

The Great Work of magic is wrought.

For the two are mystical pillars,

That stand at the gate of the shrine,

and two are the powers of nature,

The forms and forces divine.

The dark and the light in succession,

The opposites each unto each,

shown forth as a God and a Goddess:

Of this our ancestors teach.

By night he's the wild wind's rider,

The Horned One, the Lord of the Shades.

By day he's the King of the Woodland,

The dweller in green forest glades.

She is youthful or old as she pleases;

She sails the torn clouds in her baroque,

The bright silver lady of midnight,

The crone who weaves spells in the dark.

The master and mistress of magic,

That dwell in the deeps of the mind,

Immortal and ever renewing,

With power to free or to bind.

So drink the good wine to the Old Gods,

And Dance and make love in their praise,

Till Elphame's fair land shall receive us

in peace at the end of our days.

And Do What You Will be the challenge,

So be it Love that harms none,

For this is the only commandment.

By Magic of old, be it done!

What is magick? Forget all the fallacies and stereotypical pre-conceptions taught to you out of fear and ignorance and approach this question with an open mind. You will probably find it is not what you have been taught to think. Magick has been defined as "The art and science of causing change to occur in conformity with will *1" which could be put more simply as making desired change happen; or as "energy tending to change"; a definition I use is "magick is conscious evolution through directing energy". This does not really explain magick though, so I will try to elaborate on these phrases without jargon.



An aim of magick is to train the mind by harnessing and making more consciously accessible such higher faculties as intuition, inspiration and the creative imagination, and by drawing on the power of the unconscious - to try and use more than the 10% of our brain's capacity that we do.



Magick assumes belief in, or rather experience of, subtle energies. We can only see about one seventieth of the light spectrum, yet what we cannot see still affects us - such as x-rays and ultraviolet light. Similarly, magick is about focusing more subtle, non-physical energies, and directing them to create change. To go about this requires experience, and training to improve

the power of the mind, and specifically, the will.



Acts such as meditation, breath control, voice work, body work, visualization, drama, ritual, and others, are all designed to improve our body and mind, to better sharpen us and balance us, and to enable us to perceive and wield more subtle energies.



In the same way, an individual is as strong as their will, and the more balanced and integrated a person is, the stronger their will (note, this is

Probably one of the main reasons why so many magicians have experience of counseling and/or psychology, recognizing the help these processes can give, both through training and experiencing them. This also acts as a removal of farcical social stigma often attached to these processes).



Practicing magick tends to act as a deconditioning mechanism and can be a subtle process, the longer you practice, the more you change and the

Unnecessary inhibitions, stigmas, guilt’s and sin complexes that society builds in are removed. This has the effect of releasing their energy into

the psyche, where it can strengthen the individual.



The more physical side, such as yoga, bodywork, dance and massage, also removes the tension held in the body as body armor, and releases this and

removes energy blockages which impair full efficiency and may result in illness.



Possibly the major difference between magick and many of the religious paths to spiritual growth is that magick is more dynamic, and places the emphasis on you to work for change - there are no gurus in magick, rather there are fellow students with different perspectives and experiences - we learn from each other, as in other areas of life.



Magick tends to work a lot with symbols, as these are the language of the unconscious, and this is an area of tremendous power to tap. Symbols have many functions, and one of these, released through magick, can be the ability to confound the ego and the censor mechanisms, and enabling us to perceive more subtle truths, or experience direct revelations. Although we may not be able to fully explain how symbols work, we know from experience

that certain symbols seem harmonious with certain types of energy.



For example a magician may tell you that if you want to attract love you should wear green, and rose perfume, perhaps wear copper, like a bracelet or necklace, etc. These are all things attributed with Venus, who is associated with love, and so the principal is one of contagion - sympathetic magick, or making something happen by working with items linked to it. This is one of the oldest and most commonly practiced forms of magick. Working with the symbols of a type of energy does seem to attract that energy.



A cautionary word here, magick is often seen as a way to hidden powers, and entered for the wrong reason, the "I want sex, power and lots of money"

Syndrome. Now there is nothing wrong with these things in themselves, but when you do magick you will discover that you tend to get what you need

Rather than necessarily what you want.



When you do magick you generally use techniques to alter your state of consciousness and raise energy, and then direct that energy to create a desired result. The channel that energy takes as directed by your altered state of consciousness is not necessarily the path you might expect in your

normal everyday state. Magick does bring you power, yes, but it is power over yourself, not other people. It is the power that is important, to grow

and to create positive change.



This does not mean there is anything wrong with using magick to gain more physical things, there is nothing wrong with doing a ritual or spell to get

a job, whereas trying to make a specific individual go to bed with you would be wrong. Magick is very much about intent, and if your intent is to get

work, you are not imposing on people, whereas if you were trying to make somebody do something that they would not naturally do, you are imposing on

their will.



If you did a ritual to attract love without specifying a person, but opening yourself to the opportunity to meet someone where love may arise, and to feel more attractive and better about yourself, you are not imposing, you are trying to create positive change.



Magick is a commitment to yourself, and it requires determination, perseverance, strength, openness to change and absence of rigidity, a love of life (including yourself), and a desire to grow and fulfill your potential. It may be that you already have all these qualities and do this already without calling it magick - magick is not about labels, and those who think and talk as if it is unfortunately put some people off. Magick is

learning about the natural flows of energy in the universe, and working in harmony with them to effect positive change, both in yourself and in your environment.



Some people ask why magick is spelt with a 'k' on the end. This is to distinguish it from magic, associated in the popular mind with illusionism

and prestidigitation, stage magic. Magick is not about illusion, it is about creating real change, and the 'k' signifies this. K is the eleventh letter

of the alphabet, i.e. the one beyond ten. Symbolically this is very powerful, as we work in base ten, and eleven represents the unseen, or

Hidden energies - the subtle energies of magick, eleven is considered to be the number of magick.



Magickal training and experience bring forth the energies of the unconscious, and so it is no surprise to see that symbols become more important as you develop, providing not only the language of dream and the unconscious, but also helping create a more flexible perception grid of the universe. To grow spiritually, it is vital that you remain flexible and do not become dogmatic, rather that you are open to experience and willing to question your ideas and beliefs as a result of those experiences.



Magick can be a painful process. It is not easy to maintain the discipline and honest self-critical approach all the time. It can also be hard work dealing with the energy released without being knocked off balance sometimes. The important thing in these cases is to remain honest and keep at it. Nobody said magick was easy! It takes a lot of practice and hard work and pain, but the rewards are spiritual and mental growth, the joy of life

and the beauty of unconditional love. Beyond the limits there are no limits!