Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 8 - Sacramental Theurgy For Witches

 

This book, unlike the previous, is still in manuscript form and hasn’t been submitted to Llewellyn for publication. I am pretty certain that they will want to publish once they get it, since it fits into a set of books that are good sellers. (Note: I am signing a contract to publish this book soon.) It makes good business sense to continue a series if it is popular and people are buying the books. Still, I am not in the literary business to make money as much as I am writing books to ensure that my legacy of knowledge and practical experience is shared with a large audience. Perhaps I can even imagine that these books might be getting used and thus changing the way that Witches and Pagans practice their magic. I can only hope that such a process is underway.

I wrote this book last summer and it only took me two months to complete it. A lot of the material used in the book I already had on hand, and I was very keen on sharing that material with my community. Still, one might ask what could sacramental theurgy possibly have to do with Witches and Pagans. The title sounds kind of pretentious and very high-brow, sort of like some book on philosophical magic or some trendy breed of ceremonial magic. Of course, I don’t write high-brow books on Witchcraft magic. I leave that to the academics, whose works on the history of magic and witchcraft are now becoming more numerous and quite fascinating. This book is purely about a kind of Witchcraft praxis that is advanced, but it is actually quite obvious and deals with something that is fundamental to Witchcraft religious magic.

Here is the advertisement that I have written to be used with this book when it is published.

Theurgy is defined as a magical operation that induces the Deity to perform a paranormal operation to benefit an individual or a group or to refrain or block an occurrence that would cause harm. The Greek word ‘theurgy’ is interpreted to mean, “God Work”, so it is a form of high magic that directs the supernatural powers of the Deity to either make something materialize or to block something from happening. A theurgist is someone who has the ability to directly converse with the Gods and Goddesses and to either urge them to act or to abrogate their powers and assume their identity and then perform the desired work.

While this kind of religious magic was considered the ultimate mastery possessed by Neoplatonic philosophers of late antiquity, such a practice and its associated perspective is very relevant today for modern Pagans and Witches. It is, in fact, the natural evolution of our practices of liturgy and magic that the two approaches should become united into an advanced formulation of magic, a kind of Witchcraft Theurgy. This evolution is already occurring today, and in fact it represents the cutting edge of Witchcraft practices that certain select senior members of our community are developing and practicing in private gatherings, covens and groves.
 
Witchcraft Theurgy can be divided into two basic categories: sacramental magic and the mysteries of transformation. In both of these categories the Deities are engaged and their impact enlarged so that the magic performed is done explicitly through them. This would require not only defining the Deities in greater intimate detail than what is typical in a coven or group, but it would also require expanding the scope of Deities so that the world surrounding these Witches would be filled with Deities representing the cosmic, regional and local geographic domain of the covenstead.

The core concept presented in this book is that when someone undergoes the ritualized process of godhead assumption, anything that they bless or imbue with their assumed powers becomes a sacred object, whatever its form. In traditional Witchcraft, the drawing down of the moon is followed with the rite of cakes and wine, which functions as a form of communion between the living Deity and the coven of Witches. It follows that anything else so blessed by that godhead, such as oils, balms, amulets, tools or even initiated members, becomes imbued with the powers and essence of that Deity. What is missing is, of course, the bloody sacrifice, but everything else is there to tie these modern practices to some of what was done in antiquity. This is, then, the basis for the generation of sacraments, and their use in Witchcraft or Pagan magic is a kind of magic defined as theurgy. It is also the foundation through which the mysteries are experienced and heightened. This is because it is through the Deities and our intimate contact with them that this kind of magic is possible.

When pagan religious cults were banned and disappeared in the Roman empire certain practices were absorbed into Christianity. While the obvious animal sacrifices were no longer practiced, other offerings were encouraged. Catholics had replaced the pagan bloody sacrifice with the consecration and offerings of wine and bread and brought into vogue the concept of transubstantiation to justify that such offerings were in reality the blood and body of Christ. Such a replacement in a religious context brought the ancient ideas of magic into the cultic practices of Christian liturgy. This is because the concept of transubstantiation is a magical one, and it has nothing to do with theology or sacred writings - it is a magical substitution.

Those magical ideas also caused the spread of ideas that other sacraments, such as baptism water, consecrated oils and balms, as well as relics, the blessings of bishops, prelates and even anointed kings carried the attributes of godhead within them and could be used to charge and bless both the community and individual possessions and undertakings. These were old magical ideas that had been a part of the religious practices of the pagan era, and now were brought into the religious practices of Christianity. It is ironic that a supposed monotheistic religion became so infused with idolatry and magical practices that both Islam and Judaism found the practices of Christianity liturgy offensive. It is also no wonder that such practices brought about the reformation in the 16th century. By the 20th century, the Catholic church had quietly shelved those ideas that were magical and pagan in origin, and even changed the mass to remove all such “superstitions” from their practices.

Yet to the late 20th century practicing Witches and Pagans, such ideas fit perfectly within their creeds and praxis, so some of those rites were reverse engineered into the rituals that adherents of these new religions practiced. What you had were practices of godhead assumption, as derived from both the Catholic mass rite and the practices of the Golden Dawn, and the rite of communion of cakes and wine consecrated by the hand and breath of the godhead. I saw that appropriation as the first step down a slippery slope, which led into the magical well of full and complete ownership of the magic that was once used by Christian Catholics. What was once used to bolster the faith within a population of recently converted pagans could now be used to enhance the religious magic of a modern Witchcraft and Paganism.

As I have stated, the core of the magical religious practices of these new faiths was the rite of drawing down a targeted Deity into the body and mind of a specialized and trained adherent. In the new faiths of Witchcraft and Paganism, it was not only conceivable that a person could masquerade and personify their chosen Deity, it was an expected part of the praxis. With such a ritual acting as the central feature of this new pagan faith, it would seem a natural evolution that all things that are holy and sacramental would come from this transformed individual through their blessings of touch, blowing of breath and kiss.

While this was something that ancient pagan cults would have allowed, it was not actually part of their regimen. They had beautiful temples, priests and priestesses and grand statues to represent their deities for the state religion, but a lot of religious activity went on in the private sphere, and this is where sacred persons could assume the mantle of a deity on a temporary basis and act as intermediaries for the personalized aspects of the Deities. What actually transpired in these private religious occurrences are not plainly known nor understood, but it is likely that they modeled what passes today as the practices of home-based worship, the giving of offerings and prayers and the making of sacrifices. These rites are practiced in some form in modern day India, and from them we can deduce the practices of ancient pagans in the Greco-Roman world.

Still, this practice of godhead assumption brought the numena of the Deity into the group so that the adherents could commune and worship that Deity directly and intimately. A human personifying a Deity could then also bless substances, such as cakes, wine, oils, anointments and jewelry (as amulets). There could also be requests for aid, healing, prophecy and guidance. This rite was where the worshipers and the godhead met to strengthen the spiritual bonds and empower the members. This practice became the center of cultic practices for both Witchcraft and modern Paganism.

One of the issues that I have with this practice is that it can lead to abuse and coercion, particularly if the person personifying the godhead was also the leader of the group. I have presented suggestions that the rite of godhead assumption be performed by someone who has prepared themselves for this exclusive act, while the leadership of the group be performed by others who not so engaged in the process of godhead assumption. I feel that it is necessary that the leadership of covens should not also be engaged with performing the godhead assumption so that they are not empowered as to become unassailable autocrats of the coven. After all, who would argue with the powers and commandments of the coven Deities? Instead, temporal authority should not be mixed with temporary Deity based empowerment. I believe that the mixture is toxic to the proper governance of a coven or group.

Additionally, I believe that the coven or group should be able to judge the level of manifestation of the Deity that occurs during a godhead assumption. There should be built in mechanisms that can be used to judge the efficacy of the drawing down rite. I present 10 stages that a drawing down rite can be observed to achieve when the godhead manifests through the target medium. First, I believe that there should be three simple questions that are presented to the medium when the godhead is fully manifested. The first two are simply questions that request the godhead to define itself by name and quality, and to describe its nature and character. A third question is secretly determined by the group without the prior knowledge of the medium, and it is requested to the Deity to outline its purpose for that evening’s working. 

The coven, apart from the sequestered medium, has determined the purpose of the evening’s work, and if the medium is able to clairvoyantly and accurately describe that purpose, then the group can be certain that the manifestation of the Deity is truly a powerful one. Other phenomena can also occur when the divine is immanently and tangibly present, and these I outline in the description of the ten stages. I also briefly discuss what a regressive godhead assumption is, and that it should be gently stopped and aid given if the medium should show signs of a seizure or bodily stress. The coven should document each and every godhead assumption and give a grade, based on the ten stages of Deity manifesting.

There is, however, a practice that is above and beyond the coven drawing down rite, and that is the full godhead personification. This is lifetime practice, but it can be immediately approached through an ordeal of devotion and the single minded focus and immersion into the being and persona of a selected Deity. The true regimen is a three month ordeal that starts out in a regular devoted fashion and becomes more intensive and focused as the moon goes through three cycles. A lesser ordeal has only one lunar cycle, but this is the kind of ordeal where a person seeks to be fully engaged and immersed within the spiritual body of the Deity. Some individuals will make this kind of ordeal and work their life’s sole purpose, where all else in life is sacrificed so that the sage is free to occasionally act and function as a full personification of the godhead. What she or he does while in that state of personification becomes the Deity performing blessings, empowerment, generating sacraments and aiding in the magical endeavors of initiated members. This, too, is sacramental theurgy in its most intensive and impressive style.

Other ritual workings are discussed in this book, such as the triple consecration rite of specific cult objects, such as the Stang, Besom, Cauldron, various statues or busts of the Deity, and individual amulets. These are considered sacred place-markers or representations of the Goddesses and Gods and function as both sacred objects as well as magical tools. The rituals of the mass and the benediction, reverse engineered from their Catholic sources and rewritten to celebrate and worship the Deities of the coven or group are presented, with full examples of those rites. The mass generates sacraments in a similar manner to a drawing down rite, and the benediction is used to super-charge a magic temple using the sacraments from the mass rite. These two rites are used to sacralize any magical working so to manifest within such a working the aid and manifestation of the Deity. I also present the methods of consecration of amulets and relics, and even the animation of a statue, bust of picture of a Deity, representing the full spectrum of sacramental theurgy. Still, I also discuss the elements of sacred sexuality and how it can employed in the magical workings of Witches or Pagans.

In the final section of the book, I cover the temporal mysteries of the sun and the moon, and present magical rites to be used for lunar and solar mystery workings. Another important mechanism in this kind of magic is the sacred grove, and I not only define the grove and how it is to be developed and used for working sacramental magic outdoors in the awesome beauty of nature. This brings the reader to the final chapter where I discuss the elements and workings of a Grand Sabbat that bring all of the previously discussed tools, methods and practices together in a powerful that brings to life the material embodiment of the Goddesses and Gods through personification into a temporary sacred community of Witches and Pagans.

I believe that this book will bring together practices and approaches to Witchcraft from a liturgical and magical perspective together into a single powerful practice, where the Deity will be directly engaged and embodied to assist in the magical aspirations of the individual, the group and the greater community. This book will be the capstone to these kinds of practices, and make more obvious the sacramental theurgy that is a natural function of the modern Witchcraft and Pagan practices.

Frater Barrabbas

Magical Sacraments, Relics and Reliquaries

(Reliquary of St. Cyprian and St. Justina)

The topic for this article might sound kind of odd for an author who is supposedly a pagan and a witch. Normally, you’d expect a Catholic to talk about these things, but that is because in the area of magick, there is some overlapping between liturgy and magical rituals. It is also true that I have expropriated the mass and the benediction rites for purely magical as well as liturgical practices, but I have rewritten them to express a purely pagan spiritual perspective. I also used the old Tridentine Mass as the pattern for my magical and pagan masses, and that rite was abolished in the 1960's when the Vatican II reforms were fully adopted. Therefore, what I wish to present here is a discussion about sacraments and other sacramental based tools from a magical and pagan perspective.

So what are pagan sacraments? The word sacrament comes from the Latin “sacramentum,” which means sign of the sacred. A sacrament is a sign of a material offering from the Deity to the devotees. (In the magic symbology that I work with, a sacrament is denoted by the inverted pentagram, showing that the One can be realized directly through the four elements.) In the Catholic church there are seven sacraments, and I would agree that these could be seen as sacraments in paganism as well. Let’s first list them and see how they apply to pagan beliefs.

1. Communion (Eucharist)  - sacral wine and a bread host. This could also be analogous to cakes and wine (in the witch’s sabbat), bread and ale (the red meal), or any food and drink. Substances such as these don’t become sacraments until they are blessed and imbued with the power and presence of the Godhead.

2. Baptism - this sacrament is more problematic because it seems to be wholly within the realm of Christianity. However, sacral ablutions and rites of purification are not unknown in paganism. However, baptism and the use of holy water (or lustral water) is a staple of some various factions of witchcraft and paganism. In these circles the rite is called “Seigning” or it is also more commonly referred to as a Wiccaning. Some pagans don’t bother to use this kind of rite in their work, and instead prefer to use another method. However, the sacrament involved in these works for the magical bath of purification and the purification aspurging of the magic circle is a magical holy water. This holy water can be produced from any number of sources of water (rain, spring, or even tap water), but it is then joined with a few pinches of (charged) salt and blessed, often with the breath of the celebrant and signs are made over it.

3. Confirmation - this sacrament is where a person is formally and publically brought into the church and receives their first communion. In pagan circles this would be known as the rite of naming, where a person assumes a new name and recognition that he or she is a member of that community. It could also be a kind of lay initiation or dedication into an outer court of a coven or grove. In some cases the rite of naming is used instead of the Wiccaning rite for young children, but it might also include a later re-naming when that person becomes an adult within that tradition.

4. Reconciliation - also confession and penance. Since the whole concept of sinfulness and impurity are not readily accepted in most Pagan and Wiccan circles, reconciliation might seem to be completely unnecessary. However, amongst pagan groups in antiquity, there were a number of taboos that if broken required the guilty party to do something to atone for that trespass and be re-admitted to the community. Blood guilt for committing murders even if fully justified was a common theme in Greek pagan spiritual beliefs. Yet how I would see this sacrament purely from the standpoint of modern paganism, witchcraft and magic is to instead use the term “alignment” instead of reconciliation.

Spiritual alignment would therefore be all of the devotional things that a pagan or witch would do to maintain a seamless and powerful religious connection to his or her Deities and ancestral spirits. Often in the course of these practices of devotion, the devotee would be required to give something to the Deities, either to maintain that connection, to redress imbalances or a state of disconnectedness, or to receive a greater share of grace and bounty when needed. Specifically, pagans of old called this a sacrifice, yet I believe that today we are not bound to the ritual killing of animals, although for some, this would be an option. However, giving something up to one’s Deities and making votive offerings is definitely something that would satisfy the need to remain spiritually aligned.  

5. Marriage - the Catholic church considers the union of a man and a woman, called holy matrimony, to be a sacrament. On the lighter side, some might consider it more like a curse, and still others would define it more loosely as the union between two consenting adults. I don’t believe that having a union between two people blessed by some religious institution will make it more successful, stable or long-term. However, hand-fasting as found in Wiccan and Pagan religious groups pretty much seeks to make a formal union between two people. However, I am unaware of any pagan-based group that would agree with the typical inequality of a standard marriage ceremony as found in traditional Christian churches. This is why many individuals, including Christians, want to either write their own marriage ceremony, exchange vows and token rings, all under their own terms. Those terms typically specify that the partners are co-equal and share in the duties and responsibilities for their publically acknowledged union.

Modern pagan themes would seem to indicate that unions between consenting adults are not absolute, eternal or limited to just two people. There is quite a bit of variation to be found in pagan communities, so it would seem to me that traditional marriage ceremonies are all well and good, yet they might not be the pagan version of holy matrimony. To find this in modern paganism we have to examine the role of the hierosgamos in antiquity, and expand the concept of the sacred marriage as that which can occur between a human being and a god. This brings the whole spectrum of sacred sexuality and western sex magick into the religious purview of modern paganism. Since Godhead assumption is not only allowed but even encouraged in many groups, then when a couple assumes their own aspects of Deity and then join together sexually, this certainly represents what is meant by a sacred union in modern paganism. I would then consider that the assumption of Godhead (called by some witches, the Drawing Down) and the sacred sexual union between two who have assumed their Godhead (called the Great Rite) as two distinct but related practices.

6. Holy Orders - these are the ceremonies whereby an individual is vested with the duties and responsibilities of being an anointed intermediary between the Godhead and the congregation. Holy Orders are the initiation ceremonies of the Priest and the Bishop, and they have their analogues in paganism and witchcraft. However, unlike the rites of ordination (priesthood) and consecration (bishopric), there is also a magical transformation included as well as the assumption of certain magical powers and abilities. In the recent past Catholic Priests and Bishops were considered to have certain powers, and amongst some of the faithful, this belief is still active. Still, one of the primary purposes of the typical witch or pagan religious leader (priest or priestess) is to work forms of ritual magick as well as liturgical rites. What this does is make all of the liturgical practices performed by Pagan and Wiccan leaders simultaneously magical, or at least that is what one would assume based on the mixed practices of magick and religious rites.

7. Extreme Unction or Last Rites - this ritual is used to send the shriven and anointed dying adherent into the afterworld, and to console the grieving family members with that immanent loss. Other ceremonies following the Extreme Unction are the Requiem Mass and the grave-side rites of interment. All of these rites have variations and analogues practiced amongst pagans and witches, except perhaps for Extreme Unction, although that could be easily included.

However, pagans and witches have different perspectives on death than Christians, and that the concept of death doesn’t have the same aspect of finality, either. Ancestor veneration, as I have pointed out in a previous article, is an important practice to modern paganism, since it ties the living with the dead and makes for a greater continuity of one’s family and spiritual lineage. That a kind of death and rebirth can be experienced by the living in pagan rituals, particularly the more extreme initiation rites, is something that is also part of the practices of modern paganism. To be able to enter into the domain of spirits and dead ancestors is a true sign of someone who has mastered both the world of the living and the dead.

***

So, it would seem that there are two kinds of sacraments to be found in the practices of pagans and witches. One involves an actual physical substance that is imbued with supernatural force and the other is a practice that brings one into direct contact with the Deity. There is a third item that we haven’t talked about just yet, but let us list the two kinds of sacraments.

Sacraments as transformed substances:

Host and wine - also, bread and beer, cakes and wine (any food and drink to be publically consumed), lustral water, oils, balms, lotions, perfumes, incense, flowers, food and drink, and candles (for devotional offerings - to be consumed by the Deity).

Sacraments as liturgical and magical practices -

Communion, purification, sacrifice and devotional offerings, godhead assumption, Great Rite, initiation ordeals, ancestor veneration, supreme ordeal (death and rebirth)  and the last rites.

Relics and Reliquaries

Additionally, there is another kind of sacramental tool, and that is called a reliquary, or a relic. A reliquary is a special container for a relic, allowing it to be displayed to the public, and thereby transmitting its powers into magical and liturgical workings. Relics are to be found in many different religions, whether Christian, Pagan or Hinduism and Buddhism. A relic is defined as something that is directly associated with a venerated avatar, saint, teacher, ancestor or some miraculous manifestation of the Deity in the material world. 

Sometimes a supposed relic is a forgery, like a splinter from the true cross upon which Jesus died, or dried blood from his wounds, or any number of the bones, skulls or other belongings to the greater hosts of holy and venerated individuals. Sometimes the relic is a purely a thing of legend, like the Holy Grail. What is important is that the religious adherent believes that the item is authentic, and thereby acting as a kind of link, it can channel the power and holiness of the individual that it represents. So, the relic doesn’t have to be an actual piece of human remains (it can be a possession or something associated with the source of the relic). A relic doesn’t even have to be legitimate. It can be a deliberate forgery, a symbolic representation or an erroneous affiliation. Still, the power of a relic is wholly vested in the faith of those who believe it to be authentic, and that belief alone often has the power to make it a fact.

Since I am not a member of any antique religious organization that has a long historical continuity, I don’t have access to what would be considered the actual (or assumed) remains of any avatar, holy person or teacher. I do possess a few practical items from the my departed ancestors, but they would not be something that I could make into a relic. For instance, it would hardly be either acceptable or magically powerful for me to take one of the silverware implements from my great aunt and make it into a relic. Whatever virtues my great aunt might have had when alive (and even beyond as a venerable ancestor), anything having to do with magic and paganism would not have been one of them.

What might be an appropriate relic would be to possess some item from an ancestor who was into the occult or magic, but I don’t have anything like that. It would seem, then, that the whole concept of using relics in magic would be something of a bust for me if I didn’t possess anything associated with anyone magical or spiritually significant in my life. However, there is the third definition of a relic, and that is anything that would represent a miraculous manifestation of the Deity in the material world, this could also be considered a relic. It is within this definition that I can say I do possess relics, and I make it point to manufacture them when and wherever needed. Also, a picture of an avatar, teacher or ancestor, whether a photograph or an illustration, as well as statues and idols can also function as relic-like representations of the actual entity. This leaves quite a lot of room to chose appropriate relics to populate one’s temple or shrine.

One of the most potent (and often used) tropes in my magical work is to enshrine a host or part of a host from a specific magical mass performed to a specific Godhead and spiritual alignment at an auspicious time. I can take the consecrated host and place it into a metallic foil wrapper and then use it as a tool for sanctifying and empowering a temple or shrine environment. I have placed such foil wrapped host fragments at strategic locations, such as the watchtowers and angles, or in front of a statue or upon a trigon to empower whatever is in their proximity. 

If I were a priest in a wealthy church I would use an elaborately decorated monstrance, but metallic foil works quite well because it is a highly conductive material. By placing these kinds of relics at the four watchtowers, angles and the central altar, each point of the magic circle is profoundly charged and sacralized, even before performing the circle consecration ritual. I have my own version of a benediction rite that is used to install those host fragments and sanctify and empower the whole temple. It’s truly marvelous to start out with a temple already fully charged to do the work even before the ritual is performed. If ever a magical construct could function as a kind of battery, then a relic is the logical choice.

Another kind of magical relic is a specially consecrated crystal used to “witness” and thereby absorb the powers and ritual actions associated with a special kind of magical working. Used for this one purpose (and no other), the crystal then contains all of the powers and spiritual intelligences associated with that working. When displayed in a container or placed in a special place, it continues to radiate its power and influences into the magic temple or shrine. I have used such crystals to capture the climax of an important ritual ordeal, and then it becomes an important relic of my magical achievements.

I have already covered the art of animating statues so that they become living repositories of the powers, spiritual essence and intelligence of a Godhead. Such animated statues are yet another form of reliquary, and they can channel the power and majesty of a Deity into the sanctity of one’s own temple or shrine. Having such a sacred object in a temple allows the magician to possess a direct and active link to the Deity itself. You can find my article on animating statues here.

So, that’s my perspective on sacraments, relics and reliquaries as practiced in a pagan magical and liturgical manner. I have covered all seven of these sacraments and their associated mysteries, and I have shown how they can be used to charge and empower any magical working. All of these examples represent practices and techniques that I use in my own magick, so they represent the fruit of many years of experimentation and exploration.

I have taken what are nominally Catholic theological and ritual ideas and expropriated them into a completely pagan and magical context. Some might even say that I have reclaimed them back into a context from which they were originally appropriated by Christians centuries ago. Who really knows what the nature of the original source was, but I feel that the sacraments and their use as relics works quite well within a pagan religious system. I have also never felt any guilt nor have I had any issues with using them as such for more than thirty years. May you find them useful and profitable in your own work, too.

Frater Barrabbas