Musings About End of 2022

 

It was a very interesting year for me, considering my writing endeavors with Witchcraft and ritual magic. I had completed my book “Talismanic Magic for Witches” and started to go through the process of revising it, submitting the final revised form to Llewellyn for production. I also wrote and completed “Sacramental Theurgy for Witches” and I will submit that project to Llewellyn by the end of February, where it will go through its revision process and ultimately into production.

I am presently writing the final book in that series, and that has the working title “Transformative Initiation for Witches,” and I should be done with that manuscript before the end of Spring 2023. There will be, once the last two books go through production and end up in print, five books in the “For Witches” series. The cover colors are related to gem-stone type hues, with the series represented by onyx, amber, amethyst, emerald and garnet. I am looking forward to walking into a lecture or a book signing some day with all five books under my arm. It is quite an achievement, and one that started in 2016.

Why did I write this series of books? I have put seven years of life into researching, developing and writing them, and they are all books with the traditional Witch or Pagan audience in mind. You might ask me the question, aren’t there enough books out in the public for the Witchcraft or Pagan community? Why do we need more of this kind of literature when the publishing world appears to be saturated with this media topic?

To answer this question you have to look at what is out there in the public domain. There are a lot of good books, but none of them cover the kind of advanced magical workings that my series touches on. The areas that I wanted to address in my books has to do with the magical and religious initiative of the individual Witch or Pagan seeking to perform more advanced kinds of magical workings that are just as cutting edge and relevant as what the ceremonial magical community are performing.

These works of mine will allow the Witch or Pagan to either access the work currently occurring in the magical community, such as with newly translated grimoires or historical research in the areas of magic and witchcraft, or to build their own independent comparable magical systems. It was my objective and hope that the reader of my books would work to build up their own magical system extended off of the baseline traditions of modern Witchcraft and Pagan magic. It is the path that I forged back in the late 1970's and early 1980's, and it is very relevant today, because I continued to develop these methodologies over the years. I have not been resting in my imaginary laurels. I have continued to reinvent my magic over the decades so that what I am presenting today is as fresh as it was back 40 years ago.

So, that is the answer to why I worked to write these five books. A deeper reason is that I had the pride and arrogance to believe that what I had started to develop years ago was an important contribution to the practice of Witchcraft magic, despite the absolute plethora of books in print now and for the foreseeable future. It is my legacy to pull together this lore and present it in an organized and accessible media for all other interested parties to examine it, and hopefully, to adopt some of it in their own workings. It is my belief and hope that such a prideful journey is not hopelessly corrupted by my own hubris, as is the case with many human endeavors to capture a lifetime of work in a series of books.

To answer the question of what I wrote, I can elucidate that answer here. There were, in my estimation, five different areas that were missing from the cannon of magical lore in the modern Witchcraft traditions. None of these methodologies are to be found in the traditional Book of Shadows. The five areas are as follows:

1. (Onyx) Spirit Conjuration including the acquiring of a familiar spirit and the mastery of the domain of spirit, ancestor worship, building a shrine of spirits and demigods, communicating with the spirits and accessing the spirit world, appropriating and making use of the old grimoires in one’s magic.

2. (Amber) Advanced Energy Magic - working with the four elements as the 16 Elemental Spirits and 40 Qualified Powers, developing energy structures beyond the cone of power to include the Pyramid of Power, magical Octagon, sigil creation, and other energy model of magic constructs.

3. (Amethyst) Talismanic Magic - working planetary and zodiacal magic, using the septagram to invoke and establish planetary intelligences, developing the mechanism to generate talismans, using the lunar mansions, zodiacal decans and septans, and performing celestial magic within a strict observance of the planetary day, hour and associated astrological auspices.

4. (Emerald) Sacramental Theurgy - enhancing the religious elements of Witchcraft magic to bring them into the ritual workings, godhead assumption reformation and full godhead personification, consecration rites of the mass, the benediction, and the Great Rite, creating sacred magical artifacts, animating statues or paintings with the essence of a godhead, operating within a sacred and magical grove, the assembling and performance of the Grand Sabbat.

5. (Garnet) Transformative Initiation - Differences between the scripted initiation rites and the process of psychological transformation, initiations beyond and below the tradition three, madness and enlightenment, dark night of the soul and its mitigation, the twenty-two stages of the hero’s journey as the cycle of transformative initiation, the stages of the heroine’s journey, harnessing the cycle of initiation to enhance and empower constructive forms of internal and external transformation, the key to spiritual evolution in the Witchcraft tradition.

These are the five areas that I address in the five books that are a part of the “For Witches” series of books. I believe that any Witch from any of the various traditions should be able to make use of the lore in these books and thereby enhance and expand their magical and liturgical work to include areas that are not typically defined in these traditions. The test will be relevancy within the tradition that one is following, the desire for more advanced methodologies and techniques of magic and the need to have a greater magical and liturgical impact within one’s mind, coven or group, or community at large. These books are not for everyone, and of course, some or all of them might not be relevant. However, for the typical magical practitioner who is also a Witch or Pagan, I believe that these books will help to build a more complete tradition, filling in the gaps that may exist in these practices.

While four of the books are under contract by Llewellyn, I believe that the fifth will also be published by them, since it is the last area not covered by the advanced lore that I have learned and mastered over the year. I expect to see all five books together in print by the summer of 2024, and I will then have completed my tasks, as I envisioned them back in 2016. While I did not anticipate five books in total, I knew that this series would fill in the gaps that I had to develop nearly fifty years ago. I am glad that my muse drew me through this intricate maze to help me produce these five books, and I look forward to when I can start writing other books in another series, to build on the legacy that I have established in my literary journey that started in 1992.

Frater Barrabbas

An Essential Witchcraft Tradition

Often, when I have been pondering the materials that I was given after I had been elevated to the priesthood of the Wicca, I have wondered about it’s obvious incompleteness and paucity of lore. All that I have are the Book of Shadows and the various lineage documents, which represent everything that my elders taught me about the specific line of Alexandrian witchcraft that had been initiated into so many years ago. Over the years I have had to add quite a bit of additional material, either carefully researched, or in most cases, invented or created at the moment to fulfill a much needed liturgical or magickal task. At this time of my life and career as a witch, the amount of created or added lore far outweighs the original lore, which is to say that the role of that original lore was to define the boundaries rather than fulfill all of the needs. I have borrowed lore from many sources and invented new ways of doing things, but all along, I have wondered what a complete tradition would look like.

What would a tradition of witchcraft contain if it never required the invention or borrowing of lore from any other sources? I am pondering an essential tradition of witchcraft, one that is complete within in its culture matrix. I would suppose that such a tradition probably doesn’t exist, but still there is a need for knowing what it would look like. The reasons for this supposition is that identifying an essential tradition of witchcraft might aid me in determining what is missing in my own tradition. While I doubt that I would be able to fill in all of the holes (I am not that gifted), at least I might be able to determine the areas that witches today should focus on to help build a tradition that is complete.

In my opinion, a complete witchcraft tradition would contain three areas of knowledge, and these areas would be the Lore, Rituals and the Craft. I would define the Lore as the myths, songs and stories about the Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and Heroines, about the creation of the world, the mysteries of birth and death, light and darkness, and the secret history of the witches. It should also present the laws and guidelines of the witchcraft family or lineage.

Rituals and liturgy would represent the core of the tradition. These are the actual rituals, ceremonies and celebrations that witches would engage in while gathering together or practicing alone. Rituals and liturgy would unlock the doors to the mysteries, revealing the secret lore and knowledge that can’t be written down. The very spirit of witchcraft itself would consist of beliefs and insights that would remain unwritten, representing the powerful inner truths that would have to be rediscovered by each and every witch. Since witchcraft is not a religion of the book, these unwritten beliefs and insights would represent the true center of the witchcraft tradition. Each witch would have their own perspective unique to themselves. The rituals would point the way to acquiring this wisdom, perhaps even reveal the techniques, but the knowledge itself would never be printed or revealed.

Craft are various things that are done to fabricate all of the tools and materials needed to practice the rites and liturgies. These would include the recipes and directions for everything from food and drink to how to set up a temple or grove for worship and practicing magic. Since most of the tools and materials used are unique, there should be directions for producing them.

These three areas of knowledge represent the specific teachings of how one should live, ritualize and build up a continuous and periodic practice based on nature itself, which would be the ultimate source of all of the lore and practices. Nature provides the pattern of what would be called the natural mysteries - the cycle of light and darkness, Day/Night, Lunar and Solar Cycle, the Cycle of the Seasons, of birth and death, place and the mysteries of the deity itself.

Now that I have partitioned this knowledge into three areas, I would now like to make a list of what I believe should be contained in each. This is by no means an in-exhaustive list, yet it should suffice to give an idea of what might included under each area of knowledge in a complete tradition of witchcraft.

Lore -

Songs, dances, trance techniques and methods of inducing ecstasy
Myths and stories about the Goddesses, Gods, Demi-gods and Divine Humans
Adventures about heros and heroines (the sagas) and the mystery of life, death and love
Myths and stories about the Seasons and the Seasonal Full Moons
Cosmogonic Cycle - Creation, Golden Age, Age of Humanity and Final Dissolution
Origin of the Witches - a special and secret history
Stories of the Witch Families and Lineages
Rules, laws and guiding wisdom


Rituals -

Preparation for ritual - opening, cleansing (making sacred space), connecting, closing, grounding and the throwing of lots (dice)

Rituals and liturgy of Alignment:
devotions, service,
sacrifices, oblations, offerings,
invocations, orisens and paeans (talking to the gods)
communion, sacred feasts
oracles and divination (special godhead assumption)
great rite (sacred sexuality)

Lunar ceremonies (full moon gatherings) and lunar magic

Solar ceremonies (seasonal gatherings) and solar magic

Initiation and dedication (induction, dedication, installation as family head)

Rites of passage:
naming rite (occurs twice - after birth and entrance into adulthood),
hand fasting (marriage),
recognition of elder,
rite of passing (death)

Additional ritual workings (magic)

Rites and spells of the moon (eight phases of the moon for thirteen annual full moons)
Rites and spells of the sun (four seasons and vegetative life cycle)
Rites and spells of the stars (magic of the planets, constellations, decans, angels, etc.)
Rites of the underworld, necromancy and ancestor worship (demons, ghosts, lares, penates, genius)

Grand Sabbat (convocation of witch families)


Craft -

Special recipes for food and drink (for moon and sun gatherings),
Potions, incense, herbs, oils, soap
Spell craft - bags, poppets, various constructions
Use of blood and semen
Tools, sacred objects and fetishes
Clothes, costumes, masks, body painting
Instructions for building temple and grove architectures


As you can see, there is a lot of items in these lists. Only some of these items were included in the lore that I received from my elders and teachers. My hope is that someday, someone will come up with a complete and essential tradition of witchcraft. It will probably be the work of many people over a long period of time. Until that time, I will continue to gather or create the rites and lore that I need to use and add it to what I already have.

Frater Barrabbas