AIRTS, THE FOUR
This is an old Gaelic term for the four points of the compass, north, south, east and west. They are important in magic, as the magic circle should always be orientated to them. Early Christian churches were also carefully orientated, with the high altar in the east; though in modern days this custom is not invariably observed, probably because present-day scarcity of land compels church architects to build as best they can on the ground available. The Great Pyramid is orientated with remarkable accuracy.
The magic circle usually has a candle or lamp at each of the four quarters. The powers of the Four Elements are naturally connected with the Four Airts. Different exponents of magic have differing attributions of these; but the most usual one in the Western magical tradition is air at the east, fire at the south, water at the west, and earth at the north.
This attribution is based on the quality of the prevailing winds. In Britain the south wind brings heat and dryness, while the west wind usually brings warm rainy conditions. So these quarters are regarded as the places of fire and water respectively. The wind from the east is cold, dry and bracing, so this is the place of the powers of air. The north wind is cold and freezing, coming from the place of eternal snow. It represents the darkness of earth.
In other parts of the world, of course, these conditions will not apply; so the truly talented magician, unlike one who has merely read the subject up in books, will note the prevailing winds of his own country, and invoke the Four Elements accordingly.
The Gaelic Airts had a traditional association of colours attributed to them. The east took the crimson of dawn; the south the white light of high noon; the west the brownish-grey of twilight; and the north the black of midnight.
It is notable in this connection that the song “Black Spirits” referred to in Shakespeare’s Macbeth was not written by him, but occurs in another old play, Middleton’s The Witch, and may well have been an old folk-rhyme. It runs as follows:
“Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may!
Firedrake, Pucky,
make it lucky.
Liard, Robin,
you must bob in,
Round, around, around
about, about!
All ill come running in,
all good keep out!”
In fact, it is calling upon the spirits from the four cardinal points, by the colours of the old Gaelic Airts, and was thus singularly appropriate to the Scottish witches Shakespeare was depicting. Firedrake, Puckey, Liard and Robin were the names of the witches’ familiars.
A present-day witches’ version runs as follows:
“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.”
The magical ideas of dancing or circumambulating deaseil or tuathal, are connected with the Four Airts. Deaseil, or sunwise, is fortunate, and a movement of blessing; but tuathal, or widdershins, is generally a movement of adverse magic and cursing. These names come from the Scots Gaelic words for the cardinal points; tuath, north; airt, east; deas, south; and iar, west. Airt was the starting-point of invocations; so one turned right-handed to deas, or left-handed, literally the sinister side, to tuath.
ALPHABETS, MAGICAL
It is probable that all alphabets were originally magical. Only in later times did they come to be reduced to the more prosaic transactions of mere record and trade.
The names which the letters were given often concealed some religious secret, which they enshrined in an abbreviated form. Also, the number of the letters, and their divisions into consonants and vowels, had an inner and arcane meaning. A frequent proportion found in old alphabets, is that of twenty-two letters, whereof seven are vowels. This conceals, in a rough approximation, the relation of the diameter of a circle to its circumference, which is today mathematically expressed by the Greek letter Π.
ALPHABETS, MAGICAL. Examples of alphabets from The Magus by Francis Barrett.
Moreover, before numeral figures were invented, the letters of the alphabet also served for the figures of numbers, such as A = 1, B = 2, and so on. In this way, a word or a name was also a number. Hence the study of what is today called numerology is a very time-honoured practice.
The Hebrew alphabet in particular contains mystic meanings in this way; and the study of these, and the use of numbers to express transcendental ideas, a kind of spiritual algebra, is called the Qabalah, meaning ‘traditional knowledge’. This word is sometimes spelt Cabala, or Kabbala. It has become an important part of the mystic and magical tradition of the West.
The Arabic alphabet, too, is used in this way, by the Sufis and other arcane brotherhoods of the Near East. The Greek alphabet also lent itself to such use and interpretation, in ancient times.
In Britain, the Celtic Druids made use of the Ogham alphabet, which had several forms. These have been studied extensively in our day by Robert Graves, in his now famous book, The White Goddess (Faber and Faber, London, 1961). He found them to throw a flood of new light upon the religion of Ancient Britain, and to show among other things that Britain was by no means a benighted and savage region, as often previously taught, but a country in touch with the philosophy and religion of the greater part of the ancient world.
When the Angles and Saxons and the rest of the northern invaders settled in these islands, and Celtic Britain became Anglo-Saxon England, another magical alphabet found its way to this country. This was the Runic alphabet, or Futhork (so-called from its first six letters).
This alphabet has given us the word ‘rune’, meaning a magical rhyme. Originally, the Runes were the letters it was written down in. Each of the Runic letters had a magical meaning. Runic inscriptions were cut upon the hilt of a warrior’s sword, to make it powerful and victorious in battle; and this may be the origin of the ‘magical weapons’, knives and swords with mystic sigils and inscriptions upon them, which play such an important part in medieval magic. The magician uses such weapons to draw the magic circle, and to command spirits. (Though the witches of ancient Thessaly also used short swords as magical weapons. See ATHAME.)
It was because of their connection with pagan magic that the old Ogham and Runic alphabets were regarded with disfavour by the Christian Church. With the spread of Christianity, these old alphabets fell into disuse and were replaced by the Latin alphabet, upon which our present-day alphabet is based.
The use of Ogham, however, was continued by the Bards of Wales, in order to write down the traditional knowledge they claimed to have received from the Druids. They also evolved their own Bardic Alphabet, for the same purpose.
The Middle Ages saw the invention of a number of secret alphabets, which were used by magicians and witches exclusively for magical purposes. These were mostly based upon the twenty-two-letter Hebrew alphabet; though there is one, the so-called Theban Alphabet of Honorius, which is based upon the Latin alphabet (i.e. that one in general use). Consequently, this is a favourite magical alphabet of the witches, whose magic generally is not Qabalistic; and the Theban alphabet is often used by them today. It takes its name from a legendary great magician of the past, Honorius the Theban.
To write something down in a magical alphabet, serves two purposes. Firstly, it conceals the secret of what has been written, and hides it from the uninitiated. Secondly, it compels the magician or the witch to concentrate more upon what he or she is writing, because they have to use unfamiliar characters to express it. Hence, more power of concentrated thought goes into an inscription so written, and makes it more magically potent.
The magical alphabets reproduced as an illustration in this book are those given in The Magus, by Francis Barrett (Lackington and Allen, London, 1801, and University Books, New Hyde Park, New York, 1967). He in turn copied them from older books of magic.
AMULETS
An amulet is a magical object the purpose of which is to avert danger and evil influence from its possessor. It is a protection device, as distinct from a talisman. The latter is intended to attract some benefit to its possessor, whereas the amulet acts as an occult shield to repel.
Pliny tells us that amuletum was the country folk’s name for the, cyclamen, which people planted near their homes in the belief that its magical influence prevented any poisonous drug from having power to harm. Amber was anciently called amuletum also, because it was believed to be an averter of evil influence and infection.
The word amulet is probably derived from the Latin amolior, meaning “I repel, or drive away”.
All kinds of things have been, and still are, used as amulets, all over the world. That which they are most called on to drive away is evil influence of an occult nature, bad luck generally, or the much-dreaded Evil Eye. (See EVIL EYE.)
Brightly-polished horse-brasses are amulets for this purpose. So are the bright blue beads popular in the Near East. In fact the colour of pure, bright blue is much esteemed in the East as an averter of evil, perhaps from its connection with heaven.
The charm bracelet, so popular today, was known in Ancient Greece. A beautiful example of such a bracelet, delicately fashioned in solid gold, and over 2,000 years old, was shown in Brighton Museum in 1960 as part of the collection of the late Mr Moyshe Oved. It was of exactly the same type as those worn today, consisting of a number of ‘charms’ hung from a gold chain which fastened round the wrist.
The word ‘charm’ is usually applied to these little amulets of silver or gold; but this word is actually derived from the Latin carmen, a song, and originally meant the incantation which was chanted over an amulet or talisman, to consecrate it and endow it with magical power. The word became transferred to the object itself, which had been ‘charmed’.
The idea that an amulet needs to be consecrated in order to be really effective, is behind the belief that a ‘lucky charm’ which someone gives you is more potent than one which you buy for yourself. The thought of goodwill behind the gift has in a sense consecrated it.
Many of the ancient magical symbols are regarded as being both amulets and talismans, able to attract good fortune as well as repelling bad luck. Such, for instance, are the swastika, the Ankh Cross, the five-pointed star or pentagram, and the six-pointed star or Solomon’s Seal. These symbols are so old that their actual origin is hidden in prehistory, and the changing fortunes of nations have carried them all over the world.
The usual practice of witches, when giving someone an amulet, is to choose some small object which is strange or unusual, which makes a strong impression on the mind of the recipient. They will then charm the object with some ceremony or formula of words, and give it to the person, usually telling them to keep it secret and not show it to anyone else. This involves practical psychology. People can often think themselves into being lucky or unlucky. If they have accepted the idea that nothing they do will ever prosper, that they are doomed to misfortune, then they are in effect beaten before they start in whatever they undertake. Life being what it is, everyone at some time or other encounters adverse conditions, and becomes a prey to depression and negative thinking. Acquiring an amulet can change the direction of their thought, restore their self-confidence, and so really and effectively change their luck.
ANTIQUITY OF WITCHCRAFT
Witchcraft is as old as the human race. It dates from the days when, by the flickering light of a clay lamp, a Stone Age artist worked in the silent depths of a cave sanctuary, drawing upon the walls the great beasts he hunted for his food.
Sometimes he depicted the beasts with arrows and spears in them, in order to gain power over them by sympathetic magic. Sometimes he showed them in sexual union; because unless they mated freely and had abundant young the herds would diminish and he would be hungry.
Fertility of animals and humans was all he knew; farming had not yet been evolved. The mysterious principle of life worked in Nature, and carried on the world; a world of forests and plains, of chasing great beasts more powerful than himself, of the safety of the dark cave and the warmth of the blazing fire; a world where fire, water, the season-changing earth and the wide air, full of stars at night, were indeed the elements of life.
For him the moon waxed and waned, filling the night with ghosts and shadows, and manifestly ruling women in the cycle of their creative life, bringing each month either the magic moon-blood or a waxing of their womb, until a new baby appeared.
Woman was the vessel of fertility, the vessel of life. The first known artistic works of humanity are little figurines representing a nude and pregnant woman. Some of them are carved from mammoth ivory, others from stone. They are beautiful, dignified, remote. Beside them the Pyramids are things of yesterday. They are not portraits. They represent rather the abstract principle of fertility, of life itself; a goddess of fertility, man’s most primeval object of worship.
Because woman contained life, she also contained magic. From Algeria comes a very interesting Paleolithic drawing on stone. One might even call it the earliest known picture of a witch. It depicts a woman standing with upraised arms, in an attitude of invocation. From her genital region a line runs across to the genitals of a man; he is shown half-crouched, and in the act of releasing an arrow from a bow. Around him are animals, and the arrow is being aimed at a large bird which looks like an ostrich.
This is obviously a scene of hunting magic; the woman at home in her cave or hut, practising witchcraft to enable her man to kill game for their food. The drawing, though primitive, is done with a true artist’s hand. The tension in the man’s figure, the cautious hunter closing in for the kill, and the woman’s earnest invocation, are well conveyed. She is depicted rather larger than the man, to give her importance, and seems to be wearing some magical jewellery, a girdle and some dangling amulets on either arm. Upraised arms as an attitude of prayer and invocation are frequently seen in very ancient art.
Another remarkable picture that has come down to us from those twilight centuries of Stone Age time, is the famous ‘Sorcerer’ from the Caverne des Trois Frères, in Ariège, France. This depicts a dancing figure, half-man, half-beast, with the spreading horns of a stag. Some authorities regard this as a masked man, others as a Horned God. Margaret Murray describes this picture as “The earliest known representation of a deity”; but I believe the fertility goddess figurines, referred to above, are now thought to be older.
The naked goddess of life and fertility, and the Horned God, are still the deities worshipped and invoked by witch covens today. Of course, this does not prove a direct inheritance from Stone Age times, except that which we all bear in the deepest levels of our minds. Nevertheless, witchcraft is certainly not the invention of superstitious churchmen in the Middle Ages, as some writers would have us think. (See CAVE-ART, RELIGIOUS AND MAGICAL.)
Witches very like those of the Middle Ages were known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Lucius Apuleius wrote about them. (See APULEIUS, Lucius.) So did Virgil, Pliny, Theocritus, Petronius Arbiter, Horace, Lucan and Tibullus. Medea and Circe were regarded as witches. Ovid describes Medea as using wax images to cause harm to the people they represented, and Diodorus calls her Hecate’s own daughter. (See HECATE.)
Hecate was the Ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft. (How could the Ancient Greeks have had a goddess of something which did not exist until the Middle Ages invented it?)
However, by the time of the classical writers, witchcraft had come to be feared as something rather uncanny, and not respectable to meddle with. It belonged to an older stratum of society, before the polished urban civilisation of Rome; even though the latter, in popular orgiastic rites such as the Floralia and the Lupercalia, retained distinct traces of more primitive times.
Witchcraft belonged to the old half-forgotten days of the primeval matriarchy, when woman who tended the hearth-fire and stirred the cooking-pot was the first ‘wise one’, the seeker of herbs and binder of wounds, the seer of pictures in the fire, the hearer of voices in the wind, the interpreter of dreams and the caster of painted stones for divination, the worker of magic for hunting, and of the greatest magic of all, the magic of life.
Witches were the descendants of the Wild Women who had sacrificed the Divine King, when his term of office was fulfilled, so that his blood might fertilise the land. Their magic was both dark and bright, like the Moon Goddess they served. But the time came when the masculine idea and the male gods began to rise and challenge the supremacy of the Goddess Mother of Nature.
Kings began to insist on ruling in their own right, instead of by favour of the goddess; nor would they accept a sacrificial death. Descent began to be traced through the father, instead of through the mother. Men began to arm themselves with stronger weapons, and war and conquest were glorified. Laws and customs that tended to repress the dangerous powers of the feminine side of things came into existence. Men took over the chief places of the priesthood, and organised religions that exalted the male side of deity.
The older, deeper things of religion found their way into the Mystery Cults. These endured because they appealed to something within the human soul that felt a kinship with magic and mystery; for the same reason that witchcraft and the fascination of the occult endure today.
With the coming of Christianity according to St. Paul, the takeover was complete. Women were told to keep silent in church, that they should be ashamed to be female, that sex was unclean. The pagan Mysteries were forbidden in the fourth century A.D., and their priests and priestesses denounced as sorcerers. From then onwards, the underground organisation of witchcraft began to take shape. So too did the various abominations witches were accused of.
Black witchcraft had always existed. Lucan’s Erichtho, and Horace’s Canidia and Sagana, are terrifying hags who take part in horrible rites involving blood sacrifice and desecrated graves. But now came the complete refusal to recognise any other side of the coin. All witchcraft was declared to be black, because the old gods were devils; so their servants must be devil-worshippers. (One finds the same outlook among some writers today).
The common people, however, tended to cling obstinately to the old ways; and there was a long transition period in Europe before the Christian Church finally gained the upper hand, which it did more by force than by popular vote.
The first English writer to recognise that the witches’ Sabbats were simply the continuation of the old popular Nature worship, more or less clandestinely, into Christian times, was the distinguished antiquarian, Thomas Wright. In 1865 a new edition, privately printed, was published of Richard Payne Knight’s Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, to which was now added another essay, “On the Worship of the Generative Powers during the Middle Ages of Western Europe”.
Owing to Victorian prudery, the book had to be privately printed; and Wright, remembering the storm of denunciation which had broken on the head of Payne Knight when his book first appeared in 1786, prudently refrained from adding his name to the work. The book was for many years classed as something to be sold under the counter, and only recently has it begun to receive the recognition it deserves, as an original piece of research. Meanwhile, all the old fables of hell-fire and devil-worship continued to be told about witchcraft. People did not mind hearing about Satan; but sex was really something terrible!
Briefly, the thesis contained in these two essays is that the worship of the powers and means of fertility by the ancient peoples of the world was in reality neither obscene nor depraved. It was the worship of the fundamental power of Life itself, animating the universe, and bringing forth all the things of Nature in their wonderful beauty and diversity. When the early Christian Church came under the influence of fiercely sex-hating puritans and ascetics, this old worship and its rituals, dear to the common people, were driven underground, and gave rise to the cult of witchcraft as we know of it today.
Historically and psychologically, this theory makes sense. We have to remember that people died because they would not renounce the ‘heresy’ of witchcraft. When people die for a faith, that faith exists. We know that in the full hysteria of witch-hunting that gripped men’s minds in the Dark Ages, many people perished who were not witches at all; but this was not always so.
Nor did people risk persecution and even death to attend the Sabbats, if the Sabbats were the impossible farrago of horrors that official propaganda represented them to be. People went to the Sabbats for a perfectly understandable reason; they enjoyed them. They carried on the witch cult for a perfectly understandable reason; it was a different religion from orthodox Christianity, with a very different outlook, and they preferred it.
Thomas Wright regarded the witches’ Sabbat as being mainly derived from the Roman traditions of the Priapeia and the Liberalia, festivals of orgiastic Nature worship. Today, however, we have a wider knowledge of ancient religions; and we know that in fact the ideas behind the worship of the Life principle are fundamental to them all, in both East and West.
The Chinese formulated their philosophy of the interplay of Yang and Yin, the masculine and feminine principles of Nature. The original Shiva of the Hindus was an ithyphallic horned god, whose representations, found in the prehistoric city of Mohenjo-daro, bear a curious resemblance to the Celtic horned god. Cernunnos. In some of them, he even has something which looks like a candle or torch between his horns, the very attribute of the Devil of the Sabbat.
Margaret Murray, in her famous book The Witch Cult in Western Europe (Oxford Paperbacks, 1962), draws an important distinction between Operative Witchcraft and Ritual Witchcraft. Under Operative Witchcraft she classes charms and spells of all kinds; but Ritual Witchcraft is witchcraft as a system of religious belief and ceremony. The very fact that witchcraft needs to be so divided is another pointer to its great antiquity. In the beginning, religion and magic were two aspects of the same thing, the belief in numinous, unseen powers, both inherent in Nature and transcending Nature. Only slowly and lately did the division between religion and magic take place. The original priest was also a magician; and before the priest was a priestess, who was also a witch.
APULEIUS, LUCIUS
Lucius Apuleius is best known to us as the author of The Golden Ass, one of the most famous romances in the world, containing as it does the story of Cupid and Psyche. His importance to the study of witchcraft rests on the fact that The Golden Ass is a romance of witchcraft, and illustrates the beliefs which were held about witches in the pre-Christian world.
This work of Apuleius proves that witchcraft was not, as some modern writers have claimed, an invention of the Middle Ages, On the contrary, witchcraft was known, feared and respected in Ancient Greece and Rome.
Lucius Apuleius was a priest of Isis, who was born at Madaura, a Roman colony in North Africa, early in the second century A.D. His family was wealthy, and he travelled quite extensively for those times, in search of education and insight into religious mysteries. He was once himself accused of practising black magic. He had married a wealthy widow, older than himself, and the widow’s jealous family brought an accusation against him of having bewitched her into matrimony. However, Apuleius successfully defended himself in court by a brilliant and witty speech, which was later published under the title of A Discourse on Magic (Apulei Apologia sive pro se de Magia Liber, with introduction and commentary by H. E. Butler and A. S. Owen, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1914).
His book The Golden Ass has been translated into English by William Adlington in 1566 (Simpkin Marshall, London, 1930 and AMS Press, New York, 1893), and in our own day by Robert Graves in 1950. It pretends to be an autobiography, telling how Lucius as an adventurous young man found himself in Thessaly, a region in Greece notorious for witchcraft. After hearing from his travelling companions various hair-raising tales about the dark powers of Thessalian witches, he determined to pry into witchcraft himself. His cousin, Byrrhaena, warned him that his host’s wife, Pamphile, was a most dangerous witch; but her words of caution only made his curiosity keener.
He resolved to seduce Pamphile’s maid, Fotis, and thus gain entry into the secrets of Pamphile’s witchcraft. As Fotis was quite willing to be seduced, Lucius’ plan at first appeared to prosper. He persuaded the girl to let him secretly watch her mistress anointing herself with a magic unguent, which transformed her into an owl and enabled her to fly through the night in that shape.
However, when Lucius got the girl to steal a pot of the witch’s unguent for him, it changed him not into an owl, the bird of wisdom, but into an ass. Fotis told him that the counter-magic which would restore him to human shape was to eat roses; but before he was able to do this he passed through one wild adventure after another, until the goddess Isis took pity on him and helped him to regain his humanity.
The witches in The Golden Ass have many of the characteristics attributed to those of the Middle Ages. They can change their shape by means of magic unguents; they steal parts from corpses to use in their spells; they bewitch men by obtaining pieces of their hair; they can cast a glamour over the senses, and charm people asleep; they can pass through a hole in a door by changing themselves into a small animal, or even an insect; and they can transform others into animal shape.
However, Apuleius as a priest of Isis shows both sides of the cult of the moon goddess, the right- and left-hand paths. He recognises Isis as the Queen of Heaven, yet identical in her dark aspect with Hecate and Proserpine, the Queen of the Underworld. The roses which redeem Lucius from the shape of an ass are the symbol of the Mysteries; an idea which in later years was repeated in the occult emblem of the Rosy Cross.
William Adlington, the sixteenth-century translator of Apuleius, recognised that this magical romance had an inner meaning, and that “this booke of Lucius is a figure of man’s life”, conveyed in the form of a picaresque novel.
ARADIA
Aradia: or the Gospel of the Witches is the title given by Charles Godfrey Leland to the important collection of witch-lore that he published in 1899 (David Nutt, London). He tells us that as far back as 1886 he learned from his acquaintances among the witches of Italy that there was a manuscript in existence setting forth the doctrines of La Vecchia Religione, the Old Religion of witchcraft. He urged his friend, Maddalena, to obtain it for him. (See LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY.)
Eventually, at the beginning of 1897, he received a manuscript from her; and this formed the basis of his book Aradia, which was published in London by David Nutt. It is one of the most important pieces of evidence for the survival of the Old Religion into modern times, and also for the fact that the beliefs of the witches do constitute a religion, however fragmented by the passing centuries.
It is the more convincing in that it is, as it stands, obviously muddled and incomplete. In fact, in my own opinion, the text of Aradia has been deliberately ‘pied’, because the witches, although they regarded Leland as one of themselves, indeed as a veritable stregone, or powerful wizard, did not really want their secrets published in plain terms. In order to sort out the text of Aradia, one needs to be a witch oneself, and also to be able to compare Leland’s English translation with the Italian original. It so happens that this writer possesses both these qualifications.
Aradia seems, curiously enough, to have been bypassed by most writers on witchcraft. At the time when Leland published it, most of its contents would undoubtedly have been considered ‘not quite nice’. Its sexual frankness—which Leland has toned down in his translation—its attacks on the Christian Church, its anarchistic attitude towards the social order, all contributed to make it a book that was pushed aside. Moreover, it did not fit in to any recognised category. People simply did not know what to make of it.
In those days, the study of folklore had not progressed very far. Such ideas as those advanced today, of the ancient matriarchal system which preceded the patriarchal society as we know it, of the worship of the Great Mother Goddess throughout ancient Europe and the Near East, even of witchcraft as the remains of an ancient religion, were then something quite novel, and little, if at all, regarded. Sir James Frazer’s famous book, The Golden Bough (Macmillan and Co, London, first published 1890), had started people thinking about the implications of the Sacred Divine King; but such thought had not ventured very far into these implications.
Yet the cosmogony of Aradia, this fragmentary collection of spells and stories received from illiterate Italian peasant women, is of this ancient matriarchal kind. Leland says of it:
To all who are interested in this subject of woman’s influence and capacity, this Evangel of the Witches will be of value as showing that there have been strange thinkers who regarded creation as a feminine development or parthenogenesis from which the masculine principle was born. Lucifer, or Light, lay hidden in the darkness of Diana, as heat is hidden in ice. But the regenerator or Messiah of this strange doctrine is a woman—ARADIA, though the two, mother and daughter, are confused or reflected in the different tales, even as Jahveh is confused with the Elohim.
Because of this feature of the Vangelo delle-Streghe, or Gospel of the Witches, Leland thought that it might have originated in the writings of “some long forgotten heretic or mystic of the dark ages”. Today, however, we know that the ancient matriarchy underlies all the later religions and social structures that have grown above it, as the deep dark earth itself underlies all, whether forest or city.
The actual text of the Vangelo was too short and fragmentary to make a book of. So Leland supplemented it with some similar stories, involving witchcraft and the worship of Diana, which he had gathered during his travels in Italy, and which are additional evidence of his central thesis. This is, that witchcraft was still surviving in his day, as a living though clandestine religion; and that it was not, as the Catholic Church asserted, the invocation of Satan, but something much older, namely the cult of the moon goddess Diana and the semi-religious, semi-magical practices associated with her.
This, then, is the doctrine of the Vangelo delle Streghe: “Diana was the first created before all creation: in her were all things; out of herself, the first darkness, she divided herself; into darkness and light she was divided. Lucifer, her brother and son, herself and her other half, was the light”. (This is a concept paralleled by some of the religious thought of the East, particularly that of the religion of Shiva and Shatki, from which the Tantric beliefs and practices arise.)
The Vangelo goes on to tell how Diana, seeing the beauty of the light, trembled with desire, longing to receive it back again into her darkness. But Lucifer, the light, fled from her, like the mouse which flees before the cat. (This is another echo of very ancient things. One of the titles of the Greek Sun-God was Apollo Smintheus, ‘Apollo the Mouse’; and sacred white mice were kept in some of his temples).
So Diana went in search of counsel, “to the fathers of the Beginning, to the mothers, the spirits who were before the first spirit”. Now, who were these mysterious primeval powers, both male and female? It seems from the foregoing that they were the unmanifest aspects of Diana herself—what C. G. Jung has called the Ouroboros, the male female foundation of Nature.
The counsel Diana received was that “to rise she must fall; to become the chief of goddesses she must become a mortal”. So in the course of the ages, when the world was made, Diana descended to earth, “as did Lucifer, who had fallen”.
Now, as the god of the sun, Lucifer ‘falls’ in the course of every year, as the sun declines into winter. Then he becomes the Lord of the Underworld, as did the Egyptian sun god Osiris. This also has a more esoteric meaning, when the light ‘falls’ by becoming enmeshed in the world of manifestation.
So, continues the Vangelo, Diana prevailed upon Lucifer by the first act of witchcraft. Her brother had a beautiful cat, which slept upon his bed every night. Diana spoke to the cat, because she could perceive that it was really a fairy spirit in the form of a cat; and she persuaded it to change forms with her. So she lay upon her brother’s bed, and in the darkness, while he slept, she resumed her own form, and made love with him in his sleep. Thus she became pregnant by her brother, and eventually gave birth to her daughter Aradia.
When he awoke in the morning, Lucifer was angry to discover how “light had been conquered by darkness”. But Diana sang to him a song of fascination, a powerful spell of enchantment, and Lucifer fell silent and yielded to her. “This was the first fascination; she hummed the song, it was as the buzzing of bees (or a top spinning round), a spinning-wheel spinning life. She spun the lives of all men; all things were spun from the wheel of Diana. Lucifer turned the wheel”. (Once again, we are back in the realms of very ancient myth—the myth of Fate, the spinner, the great goddess who spins human life. The function of the male is merely to “turn her wheel”, after a love-chase in which the female is the pursuer, and he the pursued.)
Then follows the story of how Diana, by an act of witchcraft, created the round heaven above, peopled it with stars, and made rain fall upon the earth. “And having made the heaven and the stars and the rain, Diana became Queen of the Witches; she was the cat who ruled the star-mice, the heaven and the rain”.
The image of the moon as “the cat who rules the star-mice” is a striking and poetic one. It reminds us of Diana’s transformation into a cat in order to seduce Lucifer, and of the way in which cats have long been considered sacred and magical animals, and the companions of witches. As the moon, Diana is the natural ruler of water and rain.
The Vangelo tells of Diana’s daughter. Aradia, born by her to her brother Lucifer. Diana took pity upon the sufferings of the poor, whom she saw oppressed by their rich feudal masters. She observed how they suffered from hunger and constant toil, while the wealthy, supported by the Christian Church, lived well and safely in their castles.
She saw, too, how many of the oppressed were driven by their wrongs to become outlaws, and to take to crime because they had no other resource. She saw the Jews and the gypsies, whom their sufferings made into criminals. She decided to send upon earth her daughter Aradia, to be the first witch, and give to the poor and powerless some refuge and resource against their oppression by Church and State.
So Diana instructed Aradia in witchcraft and told her to found on earth the secret society of witches. She would show the men and women who followed her how to strike secretly at the “great lords” with the weapon of poison, and “make them die in their palaces”, how to conjure up tempests to ruin the crops of those peasants who were rich and mean and would not help their poorer brothers. Moreover, when the priests of the Christian Church threatened her, or tried to convert her, she should tell them, “Your God the Father, Son, and Mary are three devils. The true God the Father is not yours”.
Diana instructed her daughter in all that she knew of witchcraft, and Aradia in her turn went on earth and taught it to her followers, the witches. Then Aradia told them that she was going to leave the world again; but that when she was gone they should assemble every month at the full moon, meeting together in some deserted place, or in a forest. There they should adore the spirit of Diana, and acknowledge her as their queen. In return, Diana would teach them all things as yet unknown.
They should feast and drink, sing and dance; and as the sign that they were truly free, all of them, both men and women, should be naked in their rites. “All shall sit down to the supper all naked, men and women, and, the feast over, they shall dance, sing, make music, and then love in the darkness, with all the lights extinguished for it is the Spirit of Diana who extinguishes them; and so they will dance and make music in her praise.”
Aradia told the witches that at the supper they should eat cakes made from meal, wine, salt and honey, cut into the shape of a crescent moon, and then baked; and when the cakes were made, an incantation should be said over them, to consecrate them to Diana. (In the Vangelo, there are three confused incantations, supposedly given for this purpose, which in my opinion are among the things that have been put in to mislead. The real incantation appears later, if one reads the text carefully: “I do not bake the bread, nor with it salt, nor do I cook the honey with the wine; I bake the body and the blood and soul, the soul of great Diana. . . . ”)
So it came to pass that Diana recalled her daughter Aradia, after the latter’s mission on earth was accomplished; but she gave Aradia the ability to bestow upon the witches who invoked her, certain powers, which the Vangelo proceeds to enumerate:
To grant her or him success in love.
To bless or curse with power friends or enemies.
To converse with spirits.
To find hidden treasures in ancient ruins.
To conjure the spirits of priests who died leaving treasures.
To understand the voice of the wind.
To change water into wine.
To divine with cards.
To know the secrets of the hand.
To cure diseases.
To make those who are ugly beautiful.
To tame wild beasts.
Once again, there is a subtlety in the text; the second in this list is really two powers, to bless and to curse. If one counts the powers with this in mind, they come to thirteen, the witches’ number. These powers may, moreover, be taken literally or symbolically.
The Vangelo continues with incantations to Diana and Aradia (who is really a younger version of Diana herself); spells for various purposes, such as to obtain a familiar spirit—il folletino rosso, the Red Goblin who dwells in a round stone; the conjuration of the lemon stuck with pins, to make either a charm for good fortune or a curse of malediction; a spell to enjoy a girl’s love in a dream: incantations for good luck, to bring good fortune to one’s vineyard, and so on; as well as a number of strangely enchanting stories, not all of them actually from the MS. that Leland received; but, as mentioned above, included by him because they obviously belonged to the same body of myth and legend.
Evidently not all the stories are of the same age. The beginning of the Vangelo, which I have described in detail above, seems to be the oldest part. All, however, will repay study. Leland realised the importance of what he had discovered; but he was aware of his advancing age, and the lack of sympathy in his own day for such ideas. He appeals at the end of his book, for any who possess information confirming what is set forth therein, to communicate it or publish it in some form, so that it may not be lost. However, many years were to pass before the Old Religion could come further out of the darkness.
ARTEMIS
This is the Greek version of the classical moon-goddess, whom the Romans called Diana. Like the moon, she changes her form. Sometimes we see her as the ‘huntress chaste and fair’, the young girl, ever virgin, bearing the silver bow of the new moon. But at Ephesus, which was a leading centre of her worship in ancient times, she appeared as a great mother, many breasted, and surrounded by figures of living creatures.
The Ephesian Artemis wears a necklace of acorns, perhaps to convey her association with forests. Her crown is in the shape of a tower, like that of the great mother goddess Cybele. Altogether, she is very different from the usual conception of the virgin huntress Diana, so beloved of Elizabethan poets. Also, as Artemis Eileithyia, she was the patroness of childbirth, a characteristic which seems strange for an ever-virgin goddess.
In Sparta, an ancient wooden image called Artemis Orthia (Upright Artemis), was worshipped with rites which involved ritual flagellation. The legend of this image stated that it had been found hidden in a thicket of willows, a tree sacred to the moon. One day two young princes entered the thicket, and found the image held upright by the willow branches which had grown around it; the circumstance from which the name of ‘Upright Artemis’ was derived. The boys were so terrified at the sight of this image that they went mad.
Once a year the Spartan boys contended before the image of Artemis Orthia, as to who could bear the most blows of ritual scourging. This is probably connected with the ancient magical idea that scourging was a means of purification, and the driving out of evil spirits, which were long believed to cause madness. It is not so very long ago in historical time that whipping was a regular means of treating ‘lunatics’, so called because their affliction was believed to be connected with the influence of the moon.
However, the legends also state that this image was of the dark form of the goddess, which demanded human sacrifice; and which in the terrible form of Taurian Artemis, she had received. At first, a human sacrifice was made each year to Artemis Orthia, until the more humane King Lycurgus abolished the practice, and substituted ritual flagellation. This is an interesting example of the way in which flagellation became a substitute for the more barbaric forms of sacrifice. (See FLAGELLATION.)
Taurian Artemis was identified with Hecate, who was the goddess of witchcraft. It is not difficult to see in these different forms of the goddess the ancient triplicity of the moon: the young girl of the waxing moon, the fertile bride and mother of the full moon, and the weird and terrifying old crone of the waning moon.
The derivation of the name Artemis is doubtful; but it may mean ‘High Source of Water’, as the moon was anciently supposed to be the source and ruler of all waters. She ruled the tides, not only of the sea, but also the mysterious ebb and flow of psychic power, and the monthly phases of women’s fertility. Hence the moon goddess, by whatever name she was known, was the mistress of magic, enchantment and sorcery.
Upon the original statue of Artemis at Ephesus were engraved certain mysterious writings or characters. These appeared in three places, upon the feet of the statue, upon the girdle, and upon the crown, Their meaning was unknown, but copies of them were carried by people for good luck. They were regarded as containing very potent magic, and were known as Ephesiae Literae, or Ephesian Letters.
The great Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, once numbered among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, has long fallen into ruins, and only the site remains. But a version of the mysterious inscription upon the statue of the goddess has been preserved by Hesychius. It reads:
ASKI. KATASKI. HAIX. TETRAX. DAMNAMENEUS. AISION.
This has been interpreted as: “Darkness-Light-Himself-the Sun-Truth”; but the interpretation is doubtful. These words were used by magicians in ancient days, to cast out evil spirits.
ASTRAL PLANE, THE
Belief in the astral plane is part of the common heritage of occult philosophy which is shared by witch and ceremonial magician alike. The word ‘astral’ is derived from the Latin astrum, a star. It was used by medieval occultists to designate that super-physical medium by means of which the influence of the heavenly bodies was conveyed to the earth, and affected all things upon it.
In brief, the astral plane is part of the super-physical world, a world composed of finer essence or of energy at a higher rate of vibration, than that of the physical world. It is not higher in the sense of being above in heaven. On the contrary, everything in the visible world of matter is surrounded and permeated by its astral counterpart. Occultists see the universe as a great scale of vibrations, of which our physical plane is only one; the one to which our physical senses respond.
Because the writings of such nineteenth-century Theosophical authors as Madame Blavatsky, and the many books on modern Spiritualism, have tended to familiarise readers with the idea of the astral plane, it is not always realised that this is in fact a very old magical concept. Nevertheless, Francis Barrett in The Magus, published in 1801 (one of the classics of ceremonial magic), explains it as one of the fundamental ideas upon which magical practice depends. Eliphas Levi, another great nineteenth-century magus, treats extensively of this concept, which he calls ‘the Astral Light’.
One of the chief claims made by occultists about the substance of the astral plane is that it is responsive to thoughts and emotions. Hence the astral body of man, the double, doppelganger or ‘fetch’, is called by the Hindus the Kama Rupa, or ‘desire body’. It is a remarkable fact that all ancient occult philosophers, even though they lived continents and centuries apart, have had these ideas and beliefs. The Ancient Egyptians, too, believed in the human double, which they called the Ka. Old Norse legends tell of the Scin Laeca, or ‘shining body’, the apparition of the human being surrounded by ghostly light. If the beliefs of occultism are a mere chimera, why does the same mythical beast gallop through the minds of men, from one race and one time to another?
The astral body is the means by which man functions upon the astral plane, and which survives the death of the physical form. He can, however, visit the astral plane, and perceive visions in the astral light, while still incarnate upon this earth. This clairvoyant travel is one of the attainments sought by the witch. It is the reality behind the wild stories of witches flying through the air. The flying witch is not in her physical, but her astral form.
This was realised by Henry More as long ago as 1647. More was a Platonist and a student of occult philosophy. In his Poems (University of Manchester, 1931 and AMS Press, New York, 1878) published in that year, when witchcraft was still a capital offence in Britain, occurs the following significant passage:
And ’tis an art well known to Wizards old
And wily Hags, who oft for fear and shame
Of the coarse halter, do themselves withold
From bodily assisting their night game.
Wherefore their carcasses do home retain,
But with their souls at these bad feasts they are,
And see their friends and call them by their name,
And dance about the Goat, and sing har, har,
And kiss the Devil’s breech, and taste his deadly cheer.
More, as a Christian, regarded the witches’ Sabbat as being diabolical but his occult studies had enabled him to penetrate to the truth behind the tales of popular fantasy, namely that astral projection is one of the secrets of witchcraft.
This is also the explanation of the old belief that a witch or wizard casts no shadow. If one saw them in their astral form, of course the double, not being of physical matter, would cast no shadow; and such was the superstitious terror engendered by the Church’s ban on any use of psychic powers, that a person who could project their astral body was automatically regarded as a witch.
The astral plane and its related phenomena constitute such a vast subject that whole books could be and have been written about it. Any brief sketch such as this must necessarily omit many interesting and important points. Many occultists divide the astral plane into seven gradations, or sub-planes, from the lowest to the highest; though it must be remembered that in this connection the terms ‘lowest’ and ‘highest’ do not refer to position in space, but to different states of being.
The higher gradations of the astral plane are regions of beauty transcending that of earth; they are the ‘Summerland’ of the Spiritualist. The lowest regions of the astral, on the contrary, are the dwellings of spiritual darkness; but this darkness proceeds from the debased and vicious souls of their dwellers. The mind creates its own surroundings; this is even true of the physical world, and still more so of the astral. Like attracts like; and the soul after death is drawn to that region which is its natural affinity.
These ideas are by no means the invention of modern Spiritualists or Theosophists. They are as old as Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt, and probably older. Even Neanderthal Man buried his dead with grave-goods, indicating a belief in a continuing life in the Beyond.
Beside the discarnate human souls who dwell upon the astral plane, there are many orders of other spirits which are not human. There are the souls of animals, some of whom have achieved individuality, while others belong to a group soul of their species. There is the vast kingdom of nature-spirits, which contains many ranks, some lower than humanity and some much higher. The nature spirits were divided by medieval occultists according to that element of Nature with which they had affinity. The earth spirits were called gnomes, the water spirits undines, the air spirits sylphs, and the fire spirits salamanders.
These spirits of the elements should not be confused with the semi-intelligent entities called artificial elementals. The latter are formed from the elemental essence of the astral plane, by the power of human thought and desire acting upon that essence. Hence they may be beautiful or hideous, protective or menacing. Their life depends upon the power of the thought which calls them forth. Most people are quite unconscious of the power of their thought, and what it can do; but the occultist uses this power deliberately, to create artificial elementals and thought-forms. This power of thought is another of the fundamentals of magic, which have been known all over the world, throughout the ages. It is known in the East as Kriyashakti.
Artificial elementals and thought-forms may be perceived by one whose power of astral vision is opened, intentionally or otherwise. They account for many of the fantastic visions seen by people who rashly experiment with so-called ‘psychedelic drugs’.
Beyond the astral plane are still higher and more spiritual levels of being. To attain these is the goal of the true occultist and magician, so that he may master the astral light, instead of being mastered by it.
Astrology, the study of the influence of the stars and planets upon life on this earth, is another of the fundamentals of magic. It is studied by witch and magician alike. In the past, it was as important to the village witch in her lonely cottage, as it was to the wealthy and learned man who practised magic behind the locked doors of his study.
The basic premise of astrology is contained in the famous sentence from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: “Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, ad perpetranda miracula rei unius.” (“That which is below is like unto that which is above, and that which is above is like unto that which is below, for the performing of the miracles of the One Thing.”)
In other words, the universe is a unity. Vibrations thrill throughout it, manifesting upon different planes as different effects, material or non-material. These vibrations basically correspond to the sacred number, seven; hence they are sometimes called the Seven Rays.
In our solar system the planets and luminaries have been named after the gods who rule these Seven Rays, who are known to us as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury and Luna. The actual planets and luminaries visible to us in the sky are the physical manifestations of these influences, and the means whereby they are transmitted to the earth.
Beyond Saturn, the farthest planet visible to the naked eye, are Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. These are regarded generally by astrologers as higher and more spiritual versions of the planetary influences of Mercury, Venus and Mars, rather like a musical note being repeated an octave higher. Paracelsus, the great occultist of the Middle Ages, predicted the discovery of other planets, telling his contemporaries that “there were some stars that had not yet cast their rays”.
It has been objected to astrology that it is founded upon the ancient ideas of astronomy, which pictured the earth as the centre of the universe, and the sun and all the planets and stars as revolving around it. Today, the critics say, these notions are all exploded; so astrology must perish with them.
However, astrology always has been based upon the apparent motions of the heavens, as seen by us on earth. For us as human beings, for our practical purposes, the earth under our feet is the centre of the universe; and the sun does rise in the east and set in the west. Astrology, witchcraft and magic are often most misunderstood precisely when they are most down-to-earth and practical.
A horoscope is a chart of the heavens as they appear to a person on earth at a particular place and a particular time. The so-called ‘horoscopes’ which often appear in the popular press are not really horoscopes at all; they are brief, generalised readings from the current positions of the planets as they affect the twelve different signs of the zodiac.
There are really two zodiacs, the zodiac of the constellations which can be seen in the night sky, and the zodiac which is the plane of the ecliptic. The former is called the Sidereal Zodiac, and the latter the Tropical Zodiac. The astrologers of India and the East generally, still use the Sidereal Zodiac; but those of the West mostly use the Tropical Zodiac.
The latter is the apparent path of the sun in a year, as it appears to circle the earth. Like any other circle, this has 360 degrees. These are divided into twelve signs of 30 degrees each, and these twelve signs are named after the shining constellations of the Sidereal Zodiac.
The Tropical Zodiac commences at the spring equinox, when the sun appears to enter the sign of Aries, the Ram, and day and night are equal. But owing to the phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, this point no longer coincides with the constellation Aries. It is the constellation Pisces, and slowly moving backwards towards Aquarius. It does in fact pass very slowly backwards through all the constellations, in a cyclic movement which is called the Great Year of Twelve Ages, a span of time lasting over 25,000 earthly years.
These Twelve Ages actually reflect the characteristics of each zodiacal sign, and this can be traced in world history, as Vera W. Reid has shown in her book Towards Aquarius (Riders, London, 1944). We are now in the transition period between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius; hence the world unrest and breakdown of the old forms of society, and of old-established ideas, manners and moral codes, which so alarms many of the older generation. But together with this breaking-down process, a building-up is also going on, of the ideas and ideals characteristic of the Aquarian Age which is coming; an age which, occultists believe, will be a happier and more enlightened one than the Age of Pisces, which is now crumbling to decay.
On 5th February 1962 an unusual astrological event occurred. All seven of the oldest-known planets, Mars, Saturn, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, in that order, were gathered in the Sign of Aquarius. Astrologers regarded this as of great significance; some said that it might indicate the birth of some great soul, who would further the ideals of the Age of Aquarius, which is the sign of the brotherhood of man. We can only hope that they might be right.
The twelve signs of the zodiac are ruled by the planets and luminaries, called for convenience the seven planets. (The ancients were perfectly well aware that the sun and the moon are not planets; but it was needlessly awkward to keep making this distinction.) This sacred seven extend their rulership over everything upon earth; the day of the week, the colours of the rainbow, minerals, metals, jewels, plants, trees, animals, fishes, birds; everything in Nature has its astrological correspondence and rulership.
The great importance of these rulerships in practical magic can easily be seen. If, for instance, a witch wants to select a herb to use for a magical purpose, she has to use one whose astrological rulership is correct for the work in hand. Love charms, for instance, will call for herbs ruled by Venus. The moon rules psychic things, and a herb of the moon, mugwort, or Artemisia vulgaris, is used to make an infusion or tea which many believe is an aid to clairvoyance. (See HERBS USED BY WITCHES.) One of the tasks of the would-be magician is learning astrological correspondences, and the signs and symbols relating to them, from such books as Aleister Crowley’s 777 (777 Revised: A Reprint with Much Additional Matter, The Neptune Press, London 1956), or The Magus, by Francis Barrett (London, 1801), (This latter book was a favourite of ‘Cunning’ Murrell, the famous wizard of Hadleigh, in Essex.)
All the older herbals, such as the original seventeenth-century Culpeper’s Herbal (Culpeper’s English Physician and Complete Herbal, Nicholas Culpeper, first published London, 1652, and Wehmann, 1960), contain the astrological rulerships of the herbs they recommend. Old Nicholas Culpeper himself gives many dissertations about the importance of astrology in treating diseases, saying that physic without astrology is like a lamp without oil. His Herbal, together with William Lilly’s Introduction to Astrology (London, 1647), were part of the stock-in-trade of many of the later village witches.
Lilly gives many examples of horary astrology; that is, answering questions, discovering stolen goods, etc, by means of an astrological figure set up for the time of the question or the event inquired about. This was and still is an important branch of magical practice, though often brought into disrepute by charlatans.
At the present day, a witch known to me, who is the leader of a coven, makes practical use of astrology in selecting suitable members. If anyone wants to join her coven, she asks them for their time, place and date of birth, and casts their horoscope. From this she deduces whether or not they will make good witches, and if they will be able to work in harmony with other members of the coven.
ATHAME
The black-handled knife that is the traditional witches’ weapon. It is used for drawing the magic circle and for controlling and banishing spirits.
The use by witches of a magical weapon of this kind is very ancient. A picture upon a Greek vase of circa 200 B.C. shows two naked witches engaged in ‘drawing down the moon’, that is, invoking the powers of the moon to aid in their magic. One holds a wand and the other a short sword. Evidently the magical knife could have evolved from this sword.
An engraved gem from ancient Rome shows Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, in triple form. Her three pairs of arms bear the symbols of a burning torch, a scourge, and a magical dagger; once again, this appears to be a prototype of the Athame.
An early edition of the grimoire called the Clavicle of Solomon, dated 1572 and now in the British Museum, mentions the magical knife by the name Arthana. A woodcut which illustrates Olaus Magnus’ Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (History of the Northern Peoples), published at Rome in 1555, shows a witch controlling a phantasmagoria of demons which she has conjured up, by brandishing an Athame in one hand and a bunch of magical herbs in the other. One of the fantastic witchcraft pictures of the Dutch artist Teniers depicts a similar scene of a witch controlling spirits by means of her Athame.
The use of a consecrated dagger to control spirits is also known in Tibet. These weapons, known to Westerners as ‘devil-daggers’, have a triangular blade and a haft in the shape of the dorje, or thunderbolt. It is curious how such a magical belief should be found in places so far apart.
ATHO, A NAME OF THE HORNED GOD
Atho is the name given to a carved head of the horned god of witchcraft, owned by Mr. Raymond Howard of Norfolk. In 1930, when Mr. Howard was a boy, he lived with relations on a farm in Norfolk. Here he met an old lady called Alicia Franch, who lived with the Gypsies or Romanys. She took an interest in the boy, whom she first met when he was playing by a roadside pond on the day of the summer solstice.
Old Alicia apparently took this meeting as a sign, and she taught him some of the traditions of witchcraft that she knew. She told him that when she died she would leave him a legacy; and she kept her word. In due course, Mr. Howard inherited from Alicia Franch a number of magical objects, among which was the head of Atho.
I have met Mr. Howard and seen this carved head myself. It is a very impressive carving, having a crude strength and power which make it a remarkable work of primitive art. It is fashioned from a solid trunk of dark oak, evidently very old. The head is adorned with two bulls’ horns, and inset in various places with silver and jewels. It is covered with mystic symbols, representing the beliefs of the followers of Atho.
Mr. Howard allowed the head to be photographed by the press, and shown on television. He now feels this was unwise, as in April 1967 the head was stolen from Mr. Howard’s antique shop in Norfolk. Despite police enquiries, the mystery of the theft remains unsolved. The thief evidently came specially for the statue, as other valuables and a cashbox containing money were ignored. We can only hope that this remarkable relic of the witch religion will one day come to light again and be restored to its rightful owner.
ATHO, the Horned God of Witchcraft, as shown in a painting by the author.
It was characteristic of pagan Celtic Britain to carve sacred heads of deities. These were usually of stone, whereas the head of Atho is of oak. Nevertheless, the idea may have survived and been handed down. With widening archaeological discoveries, we know today that the worship of the Celtic horned god Cernunnos was widespread throughout Ancient Britain; many representations of him have been found. The name Cernunnos is really a title, and means ‘The Horned One’. He was one of the many versions of the horned god of the witches.
My own painting of the head of Atho is reproduced as an illustration to this book. It is as precise a copy of the details of the original as the limits of my talent will allow.
The horns are ornamented with the signs of the zodiac. On the forehead are the five rings of witchcraft, the five different circles which are cast by witches. The nose is a wine-cup, which holds the Sabbat wine; it is ornamented with a pentagram, the sign of magic. The mouth is shaped like a bird, the messenger of air. The chin is a triangle, with the various magical meanings of the Triad.
Below are the twin serpents, representing positive and negative forces. The other symbols depicted around the head are actually carved upon the original. The sprouting and twining foliage of the background represents the forces of life and fertility, which Atho personifies.
The name Atho is evidently a Sassenach version of the Old Welsh Arddhu, ‘The Dark One’.
ATLANTIS, TRADITIONS DERIVED FROM
The late Lewis Spence, who was an authority on Ancient Mexico and also on the subject of Atlantis, made an extraordinary discovery, relevant to the history of the witch cult, in a pre-Columbian manuscript. This native Mexican painting, known as the Codex Fejervary-Mayer, shows quite unmistakably, a picture of a naked witch wearing a pointed hat and riding on a broomstick.
Spence stated in his Encyclopaedia of Occultism (George Routledge, London, 1920, and University Books, New Hyde Park, New York, 1959), that he had found good evidence for the existence of a witch cult similar to that of Europe, in pre-Columbian Mexico. He remarks that this seems to indicate a very ancient origin for what he calls “the witch-religion”.
How could the unknown artist of a picture painted in Mexico before Columbus discovered the Americas, have possibly depicted this very distinctive figure? There are witches in Mexico today; but their existence can be accounted for by the beliefs brought to the New World by the Spanish Conquistadores. Nevertheless, before the European conquest of Mexico, followers of a cult that worshipped a lunar goddess and the god of the Underworld, of death and the world of spirits, used to meet at crossroads, as European witches did.
The pointed cap worn by the pre-Columbian witch in the picture mentioned above, is of course the ancient original of the pointed ‘witch’s hat’ worn by the sorceresses of popular fairy tales. It probably represents the ‘Cone of Power’ that witches seek to raise by their ritual It appears also in an even older painting, one in fact dating from the Stone Age, at Cogul in north-eastern Spain.
Robert Graves in The White Goddess (Faber, London, 1961 and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1966), describes this latter picture as “The most ancient surviving record of European religious practice”. It appears to depict a dance of witches, a group of women dancing in a circle round a naked man. The women are wearing pointed caps and the man something that looks very like the ritual garters which are traditionally a mark of rank in the witch cult. (See CAVE-ART, RELIGIOUS AND MAGICAL.)
We may then at least speculate, on the evidence, that the witch-cult is of very ancient origin, and that in some remote period of antiquity there was some contact between its devotees in Europe and Central America. The means of that contact may have been the lost continent of Atlantis.
At least one of the surviving branches of the witch cult in Britain definitely claims to derive its traditions from Atlantis or, as it calls it, ‘The Water City’. Orthodox historians may scoff at the whole idea of the sunken continent, and dismiss it as legendary. For many years, the city of Troy was dismissed in the same way, until Heinrich Schliemann dug it up.
AUSTRALIA, WITCHCRAFT IN PRESENT-DAY
When modern Australia came into being, peopled by emigrants from Europe, it was natural that the old beliefs of witchcraft should have travelled with them.
Nevertheless, a considerable sensation was created when a well-known Australian artist, Rosaleen Norton, publicly admitted to being ‘The Witch of King’s Cross’, the Bohemian quarter of Sydney. Lurid and sensational allegations were made against her and her associates, which led to her arrest in 1956; but at her subsequent trial she was acquitted.
In previous and subsequent interviews with the Press, Rosaleen Norton spoke frankly of her life as a witch. She was born in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her father, a captain in the Merchant Navy, was a cousin of the composer, Vaughan Williams. From her earliest years, she felt herself to be somehow different from most other people. Being a witch came to her naturally. At the age of 13 she took a private and personal “Oath of allegiance to the Horned God”, in a ceremony which involved the burning of a joss stick, and the use of some wine, a little of her own blood and some green leaves. She had never been taught this ritual; it came to her instinctively.
Miss Norton’s own description of herself contains certain small but significant physical peculiarities which in former days would have been regarded as evidence of the Devil’s mark. These include two small blue dots on her left knee, which appeared when she was 7 years old; a pair of unusual muscles down her sides, which are not normally found in the human body; a rare formation of the upper ears, known as ‘Darwin’s Peak’; and the ability to see clearly in semi-darkness, like a cat.
Add to these an extraordinary talent for drawing and painting the fantastic and weird conceptions of her own inner mind, from the beautiful to the horrific, and it is easy to see how she caused consterntion among the respectable bourgeoisie of Australia. An exhibition of her pictures was alleged to be ‘obscene’; but again she fought the case and was acquitted.
She said in 1955 that her coven in Sydney consisted of seven persons; but that it was only one of half a dozen covens in that city, and she knew personally about thirty people, men and women, who were witches. They met at various places, sometimes outdoors.
Witchcraft was known as ‘The Goat Fold’. Her coven invoked the pagan gods, who were sometimes called Pan and Hecate. A splendid mural painting of Pan presided over a little altar in her Sydney flat, with a motto written across the lower part: “I ‘Psi’ with my little ‘I’.” (“Psi” is the psychic researchers’ term for supernormal faculties.)
Like modern witches in Britain, Rosaleen Norton denied being a Satanist or devil-worshipper. For her, she said, the God Pan was the spirit of this planet, Earth and of all aspects of Nature which pertain to it. His name in Greek means ‘All’. His horns and hoofs are emblems of “natural energies and fleet-footed freedom”; his pipes “a symbol of magic and mystery”. Only people who projected on to him their own malice and frustration regarded him as the Devil.
Her coven sometimes worked naked, and sometimes wore robes and hoods. They also made use of masks, representing various animals; a practice that was found in some of the old European covens. Each initiate took an oath of allegiance to the deities of the coven in an old ceremonial posture, kneeling with one hand on the crown of the head and the other beneath the sole of one foot. A new name was given to the initiate, together with a talisman to wear, and a cord known as ‘The Witches’ Garter’.
Incense was used freely in the ceremonies, and sometimes infusions of herbs were prepared and drunk. An invocation of the Four Elements, earth, water, air, and fire, also had a place in the ritual.
Pictures of Pan’s altar in Rosaleen Norton’s flat showed it decorated with stag’s antlers and pine cones, and bearing candles, incense, ritual vessels, and a spray of green leaves in a vase. Miss Norton, slim, dark and attractive, was posed beside it.
Witchcraft was in the Australian news again in 1961, when another coven led by Anton Miles was described and pictured in the press. Miles was stated to be an Englishman, who had come to Australia after travelling in Asia and the Middle East, where he had studied magic and the occult. In 1959, according to Miles, he had been initiated as a witch while on a visit to Britain, in a coven that met in the Watford area, north of London. He returned to Australia, and started his own cult in Sydney.
His coven danced in the nude round a candle-lit altar. Wine and cakes, as symbols of the gifts of Nature, were placed on the altar, and incense was burned. Music was provided by a record player as an accompaniment to the dancing. The object of the rites was to bring the participants into harmony with Nature. The male aspect of Nature was called Pan, and the female Diana.
This coven practised a kind of pagan marriage ceremony, called a ‘pairing rite’, in which a man and a girl, both nude within the magic circle, would leap hand in hand over a broomstick, which was held by two other members of the coven.
Anton Miles admitted that his rites were newly imported into Australia; but Rosaleen Norton and her associates claimed that their basic rituals had come to Australia in the nineteenth century, with early immigrants from the country districts of England.
AVALON, THE ANCIENT BRITISH PARADISE
Avalon, where the dying King Arthur found rest at the end of his epic story, has been identified with the present-day Glastonbury. Many legends cling to this ancient place, among the green hills of Somerset. Even today it is a land of enchantment.
Rumours of witchcraft meetings at midnight on Glastonbury Tor have been current for many years. This was mentioned in Focus on the Unknown, by Alfred Gordon Bennett (Riders, London, 1953). Today, a number of occult societies, quite unconnected with the witch cult, regard the Tor as an ancient sacred place, and occasionally meet there.
Glastonbury is sacred to both pagan and Christian. An old poem called the “Prophecy of Melkin, or Maelgwyn”, tells us that Avalon was the great burial-place of pagans, before Joseph of Arimathea came there and founded the first British Church of Celtic Christianity. Glastonbury Tor was the haunt of Gwyn ap Nudd, the King of the Fairies and an ancient Celtic God of the Dead. Gwyn ap Nudd survives to this day as the Wild Huntsman, who rides on dark windy nights over the hills of Wales and the West Country. (The Saxons called him Woden.)
The presence of the pagan powers is the reason for the church which was built on the summit of the Tor, and dedicated to St. Michael. It was an attempt to counteract their lingering and insidious influence. Some years ago, most of this church was destroyed by a landslide, and today only the tower remains, a conspicuous and dramatic landmark on the Glastonbury scene.
Archaeologists are interested in the curiously terraced appearance of the Tor. It has been suggested that this is the remains of a processional way, by which pilgrims climbed the Tor in a spiral or maze-like ascent, as a ritual of spiritual cleansing and purification.
Chalice Well, at the foot of the Tor, is built inside with massive stones, which the late Sir Flinders Petrie believed to be Neolithic, and fitted together in a way that reminded him of the stones of the Pyramids. Its water has for many years been credited with super-normal properties of healing.
Another local tradition declares that there is a secret cave within the Tor, which long ago was a shrine or sanctuary of some kind.
The names of Chalice Well, and nearby Chalice Hill, recall the association of Glastonbury with the mystical stories of the Holy Grail, which is said to be buried somewhere in the locality. However, some of the oldest Grail legends make it clear that the Grail was not always a chalice. This was only one of its forms; and it has a good deal in common with the Sacred Cauldron of Cerridwen, the goddess of Nature, of the moon, and of poetry, who was invoked by the Druids.
The cauldron so frequently associated with witches as one of their ritual objects, is really another version of the miraculous Cauldron of Cerridwen, as Lewis Spence has pointed out in his book The Mysteries of Britain (Riders, London, 1928). It may be a surprising and even shocking thought to some, that the Holy Grail and the cauldron of the witches have a common origin in ancient Nature worship; but the evidence is strongly indicative of this. (See CAULDRON.)
The name of Avalon means ‘The Place of Apples’. Somerset is still the county “where the cider apples grow”; and real old-fashioned Somerset cider is a very potent drink indeed. It may well have been associated in the past with orgiastic rituals in honour of the pagan gods. Apple trees have been growing in Britain since very early times. According to Stuart Piggott’s Ancient Europe, apples were being cultivated in Britain around 3,000 B.C.
The tree or plant which gives an inebriating, and therefore magical product, has always been regarded as sacred and magical itself. To this day, in the West Country, some people regard strong cider as a witches’ brew.
There is another reason for the fruit of the apple tree being regarded as sacred. It has the magical symbol of the pentagram, or five-pointed star, naturally imprinted within it. If one slices an apple across, the shape made by its core is a five-pointed star.
In witchcraft rituals today, the priestess stands with feet together and arms crossed upon her breast, representing the skull and crossbones, the sign of the God of Death and the Beyond. Then she opens her arms, and stands with arms outstretched and feet apart, representing the pentagram, the sign of the Goddess of Life and Rebirth.
The pagans believed in reincarnation; and so Avalon, the Place of Apples, was the place of death and rebirth. This is borne out by the inscription said to have been placed upon the tomb of King Arthur: “Hic jacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus (“Here lies Arthur, the once and future King”). (See REINCARNATION.)
