NORTH DOOR, THE
The really old churches of Britain, and indeed throughout Europe, often contain remarkable relics of the pre-Christian pagan faith. Figures occur in their decoration which point to a long transitional period between paganism and Christianity; a period in which the two were intermingled, and much dual allegiance must have existed.
One such figure, already noted, is that of the Green Man, a form of the old god of the woodlands. (See GREEN MAN.) Another is the Sheila-na-Gig, found more often in Ireland, but upon some English churches also. It is a very frank representation of woman’s sexuality, and probably originated as some old goddess of fertility, a primitive Magna Mater. Still another is the charming little figure known as the Lincoln Imp, whose cross-legged posture is very reminiscent of old Gaulish statues of the Celtic horned god, Cernunnos.
The place to look for anything of a pagan nature in an old church or cathedral, is upon the north side. This is because of a strange belief, which connects the north with the Devil.
Why this should be so, is rather shrouded in mystery; but it seems to be yet another instance of the god of the old religion becoming the devil of the new. The north to the pagans was the place of power, the mysterious hub upon which the great wheel of the heavens turns. We may remember how one of the passages in the Great Pyramid in Egypt has been found to be orientated to the star Alpha Draconis, which is not the North Star in these present days, but was once, many centuries ago. The constellation of Draco, the Dragon, which coils about the Pole of the heavens, may have seemed to Christians a representation of the Devil; though to the Celts, as to Eastern people, a dragon was a guardian of wisdom and the Mysteries. Witness the proud Red Dragon which still stands upon the banner of Wales.
Old churchyards showed but few interments upon the north side; and those generally of persons who had only grudgingly been given Christian burial, such as unbaptised children or suicides. Commenting upon this prejudice against the north side of the church, the Reverend George S. Tyack, in his Lore and Legend of the English Church (William Andrews, London, 1899), says: “The north was of old mystically supposed to typify the Devil, and a usage prevailed in some places of opening a door on that side of the church at the administration of Holy Baptism, for the exit of the exorcised demon.”
For this reason, the north door of old churches was known as ‘the Devil’s door’. It is remarkable how often in old churches these days, this door will be found to have been bricked up. Enquiry can seldom elicit any reason for this having been done, or at any rate any convincing reason. Yet traces of such north doors, filled in with masonry, exist in innumerable old churches.
A story which does explain this peculiar fact, says that in olden days, when attendance at church was more or less compulsory, people who secretly adhered to the Old Religion, in other words those who were witches, made a point of coming into the church by the north door, and taking their seats near it.
They dared not absent themselves from the Christian church, especially in a small village where everyone knew everyone else. In fact, at one time attendance at church was actually compulsory by law, and those who failed to attend could be punished. So the pagans adopted this method of secretly distinguishing themselves from the rest of the congregation, by using the Devil’s door. Curious graffiti, embodying pagan magical symbols, can sometimes be found around the north door, or upon the northern side, of old churches. These are usually described in the guide-book as “masons’ marks”; but a little study of this subject will enable an enquirer to distinguish a real mason’s mark from a mark which has quite a different origin.
Eventually, however, the church authorities realised that this custom was being secretly observed by the obstinately pagan element within their congregations. They decided to frustrate it by blocking up the Devil’s door in many instances; and traces of their precautions in this respect may still be seen.
NUDITY, RITUAL
The fact that some present-day witches believe in the old idea of ritual nudity, is one of the things that sensation-mongers have pounced on with delight. Every so often we are regaled by a certain section of the Sunday press with vivid descriptions of “nude orgies of devil-worship” and so on, that are supposed to be happening in Britain today. However, the older covens, which avoid publicity like the plague, in general make no great insistence upon ritual nudity, though they see nothing in it to make a fuss about. For some rites, on a really warm summer night, or indoors by a fire, it is pleasant to be naked. For others, outdoors in the darkness on Halloween, or at midnight of the full moon in some lonely wood, it is reasonable to be warmly clad.
NUDITY, RITUAL. Albrecht Durer’s engraving of four witches.
The idea of nudity as part of a magical or religious rite is found throughout the ancient world. In the famous paintings in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, the young girl who is being initiated starts off clothed and veiled; but at the end of the initiation ceremony she is shown dancing naked, in a state of religious ecstasy. She has cast off all worldly cares, all class distinctions; she is one with Nature and with the vitality of the universe. It was this freedom and beauty which constituted religious ecstasy to the pagan.
It appears from the Old Testament, particularly I Samuel, Chapter 19, verse 24, that the ancient prophets or seers of Israel did their prophesying in a state of ritual nudity. In this, they were like the Gymnosophists, or Naked Wise Men of ancient India. (Greek gymnos, naked, sophos, wise.) Perhaps for this reason, the idea came down to the Greeks and Romans that ritual nudity was favourable for the performance of magical rites. What had started as a religious custom, ended as a magical one.
Charles Godfrey Leland, in his Gypsy Sorcery (reprinted by University Books, Inc., New York, 1962), has noted the frequent appearances of ritual nudity in witch spells, and in magical folklore generally. He remarks on the likeness between the wild naked dances of the old-time Sabbats, as described by Pierre de Lancre, and the festivals of gypsies; and he reminds us that the Romanys come from the East, from whence so much erotic dancing by women in honour of the gods derives. Witches and gypsies have long been closely akin.
Maimonides tells us that the young women of Ancient Persia used to dance at dawn in honour of the sun, naked and singing to music; and we have the account given by Pliny in his Natural History, of how the women of Ancient Britain also performed religious rites in the nude. Pliny regarded Persia of the Magi as being the home of magic; but he says that its rituals were so well performed in Ancient Britain, that we might have taught magic to Persia, instead of the other way about. The custom of ritual nudity was certainly common to both.
Relics of the old belief in the magical power of nakedness may sometimes be found in folklore. For instance, there is an old idea that a woman can be cured of barrenness by walking about naked in her vegetable garden on Midsummer Eve, a date which, it will be remembered, is that of one of the witches’ Sabbats.
Thomas Wright, in his essay which accompanies Payne Knight’s Discourse on the Worship of Priapus (London, privately printed, 1865), has an interesting passage relevant to this matter.
We remember that, we believe in one of the earlier editions of Mother Bunch, maidens who wished to know if their lovers were constant or not were directed to go out exactly at midnight on St. John’s Eve, to strip themselves entirely naked, and in that condition to proceed to a plant or shrub, the name of which was given, and round it they were to form a circle and dance, repeating at the same time certain words which they had been taught by their instructress. Having completed this ceremony, they were to gather leaves of the plant round which they had danced, which they were to carry home and place under their pillows, and what they wished to know would be revealed to them in their dreams. We have seen in some of the medieval treatises on the virtue of plants directions for gathering some plants of especial importance in which it was required that this should be performed by young girls in a similar state of complete nakedness.
In Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, the followers of Diana are commanded to be naked in their rites, in sign that they are truly free. For this reason, many present-day witch covens insist on performing their rites in the nude. However, there is a big difference between the climates of Italy or the Near East, and the climate of the British Isles, as other witches point out. To demand ritual nudity at all times for witch ceremonies in Britain today is simply not practical.
Also, many of the older witches feel that all the publicity about nude witch dances has attracted quite the wrong sort of interest in what is, or ought to be, the Craft of the Wise. People come to it who are just looking for a bit of sexual excitement, without any serious commitment or belief. Too much emphasis, they feel, has been put on this feature of the Old Religion. They think that, along with the other old practice of ritual flagellation, ritual nudity is something that could well fade into the past, without any detriment to the witch cult, but rather the reverse.
Which, of course, leaves us with a question: is the public’s reaction to the idea of witches dancing naked, a criticism of witches—or a criticism of the popular mentality, after nearly 2,000 years of ‘Christian civilisation’?
The real spirit of witchcraft has nothing in common with the banal sexual fantasies of thriller writers and the yellow press. Nor is it anything like the over-intellectualised occultism of both East and West, that takes to itself much importance today, and requires many long words to express itself.
The real secrets cannot be expressed in words. They are much more matters of feeling and intuition, than they are of the intellect. The joy and exhilaration of dancing naked is one way of drawing close to them.
However, present-day ‘exposers’ of witchcraft are not the first to be excited by the idea of naked witches. A number of artists in times past have delighted to represent witches as voluptuous young women, naked and shameless. A notable artist of this genre was Hans Baldung Grun; and it was a picture of his that gave Albrecht Durer the idea for Durer’s famous engraving, The Four Witches.
This wonderful work of art, dated 1497, shows four buxom women stripping for a witch rite. The point of the picture, not always realised, is this: the women have removed all their clothes except their head-dresses, and these head-dresses, all different, show the various classes of society from which they come.
There is the great lady, with an elaborate coif of delicate material upon her head. There is the courtesan, with loose flowing hair, bound only with a garland of leaves. There is the respectable burgess’s wife, with a plain, rather severe head-dress, which covers all her hair closely and modestly. Lastly, there is the peasant woman, with merely the end of a scarf or shawl over her head. The artist is saying that all these are sisters in witchcraft, and that witches come from all classes of society. When they are naked, they meet as equals, and social distinctions are forgotten.
NUMBERS, THEIR OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE
A great deal of magical lore, some of which pertains to witchcraft, is concerned with numbers, and their occult properties and associations. The witches’ number par excellence is thirteen. Its significance goes back far beyond recorded history; so the accusation that witches used the number thirteen to mock Christ and his twelve disciples is untrue. Indeed, it is very possible that the reason Jesus chose twelve disciples was that he knew the mystical significance of twelve plus one. (See COVEN.)
The number seven also has great importance in lore and legend. Traditionally, the seventh son of a seventh son, or the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, is a born witch. In some of the rural parts of Italy, seven months’ children are believed to grow up with similar powers.
The original sacred seven are the seven heavenly bodies, which the ancients called the Seven Sacred Planets, though two of them, the sun and the moon, are strictly speaking not planets but luminaries. The order of the Seven Planets is usually written thus: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. In astrological belief, all things on earth are ruled in some way by these seven powers.
Our seven days of the week derive from this very old concept. The sun rules Sunday, the moon Monday, Mars Tuesday, Mercury Wednesday, Jupiter Thursday, Venus Friday and Saturn Saturday.
The Old Testament is full of allusions to the number seven. In later times, the Christian Church formulated its Seven Sacraments, its Seven Deadly Sins, and so on. The pagan world had its Seven Wonders, and also the Seven Sages of Greece and the Seven Rishis of India. The world-wide and time-honoured sacredness of this number is proved by innumerable mystic groupings and uses of seven.
Another reason for the potency of seven is the most important and well-known constellation of our northern skies, the Plough, which consists of seven bright stars, and acts as a pointer to the Pole Star of the North. In Celtic myth, the North was the place of secret and dangerous powers. Spirits rode the Northern Lights, and dead heroes dwelt at the back of the north wind.
It is easy to understand, therefore, how the age-old magic of the number seven wove itself into witchcraft; as did the equally sacred and potent number three. There is a pre-Christian belief in the potency of odd numbers, which is remarked on by the Roman poet Virgil: Numero Deus impare gaudet, “God delights in odd numbers”. Shakespeare repeated this belief in The Merry Wives of Windsor: “Good luck lies in odd numbers . . . they say, there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.”
The occult philosophers regarded man as a triad: spiritus, anima, and corpus, or spirit, soul and body; though this triad by sub-division was extended into seven principles. In Nature, we have the father, the mother and the child. Also, the three kingdoms, animal, vegetable and mineral. The alchemists recognised three principles in their art, salt, sulphur and mercury, which are closely paralleled by the Indian concepts of sattwas, rajas and tamas.
Three represents the mean between two extremes, and this is the way in which most of the ancient philosophers used it in their symbolic systems. The Druids expressed their lore in triads; and their symbol was the Tribann, or Three Rays of Light. Qabalistic symbolism reveals this ancient idea as the Three Pillars: the Pillar of Mercy, the Pillar of Severity and the Middle Pillar of Mildness, which harmonises the other two; and Masonic ritual retains it under the form of three columns.
No wonder we constantly find the injunction in witchcraft, that the words of charms are to be repeated three times; or that concoctions of magical herbs should be of three, seven or nine different kinds, compounded together.
There is an old belief that certain years in people’s lives are years of destiny, called climacteric years. These are the 7th and the 9th, and their multiples by the odd numbers: 3, 5, 7 and 9. Thus the climacteric years of human life are 7, 9, 21, 27, 35, 45, 49, 63 and 81. Our custom of regarding a person as ‘coming of age’ at 21 is a relic of this belief; it is the third climacteric year.
The mystic symbolism of numbers is an important part of practical magic. Magic squares, that is, numbers so arranged in a square that they add in all directions to the same figure, are powerful talismans, used in many ways in magical rituals. The simplest magic square, or Kamea, is that of the first nine digits, arranged thus:
| 4 | 9 | 2 |
| 3 | 5 | 7 |
| 8 | 1 | 6 |
Whichever way these figures are added, including diagonally, their sum will always be 15.
Many more complicated magic squares than this have been evolved. Strange as it may seem, mathematics is yet another human activity which long ago was linked with magic; and numerology, or divination of numbers, is still popular today. People believe in their ‘lucky number’; and conversely, refuse to live in a house numbered thirteen. Indeed, the fear of the number thirteen is prevalent enough for some local authorities to have discreetly removed it from the numbering of houses; while hotel keepers banish it from the doors of their rooms. Some people carry their avoidance of thirteen to such lengths that psychologists have invented a name for their reaction: triskedekaphobia, a morbid fear of the number thirteen.
When we recollect that thirteen is the number of lunar months in a year, we can see how both this and the number seven are associated with moon magic. This may be the real secret of their magical reputation; as the waxing and waning of the moon are man’s oldest astrological observations.
The old common-law month was twenty-eight days, during which the moon displayed all her phases, and went round the compass of the zodiac. The number twenty-eight is not only four times seven, but also the sum of numbers from one to seven. Each period of seven days in the lunar month was associated with a different phase of the moon, and with a different state of the tides of the sea. There are thirteen lunar months to the solar year, with one day left over, which is why the expression ‘a year and a day’ occurs so often in old Celtic myths.
The number three also associates with moon magic, because of the moon’s three appearances: waxing, full and waning; and again, this is possibly the oldest reason for its importance.
An old magical co-relation of numbers and astrology is as follows: Sun, 1 and 4; Moon, 2 and 7; Jupiter, 3; Mercury, 5; Venus, 6; Saturn, 8; and Mars, 9. Another magical relationship of numbers, based on the Qabalah, is: Saturn, 3; Jupiter, 4; Mars, 5; Sun, 6; Venus, 7; Mercury, 8; Moon, 9. These systems are not contradictory, though they might appear so; because they are used in different ways in magical practice.