Tag: mysteries
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Cakes and Wine: The Witches’ Communion
The ritual of Cakes and Wine (also called Cakes and Ale or the Simple Feast) seems like it was ripped directly from the Christian Eucharist. And to a certain extent, it was. The early practitioners of Wicca were brought up in the Church of England, where weekly Communion is a hallmark of the faith. But
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Revealing the Mysteries: Open-Sourcing the Craft
Wicca is an experiential religion. For a long time, this meant that people didn’t talk about the mysteries central to its practice. There are a variety of arguments for this. First, some people believe that talking about the Mysteries, or the experiential truths that practitioners become aware of through practice and initiatory rites, cheapens them
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The Summerland: Understanding the Wiccan Afterlife
Paganism in general isn’t concerned with the afterlife. We know there is a life after death, and another, and another, in the cycle of reincarnation. But Wiccans have the concept of a place of rest between lives, called the Summerland. But what is the Summerland, and how can you rest there and also reincarnate? Body,
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The Three Great Mysteries: Uncovering the Secrets of Magick
The Second Degree Initiation ritual in the Gardnerian Book of Shadows contains a priestly monologue in which the initiate is instructed about the Mysteries of Life: “For there be three great mysteries in the life of man — love, death, and resurrection in a new body — and magic controls them all. To fulfill love
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The Fivefold Kiss: Understanding the Controversial Blessing
The Fivefold Kiss is a blessing ritual first seen in the Gardnerian First Degree Initiation. It involves the priestess or priest (of the opposite gender polarity of the initiate) to kneel and kiss five points on the initiate’s body: the feet, the knees, the groin, the breast, and the lips. He then kneels at her
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The Sacred Fire: Kindling Life in the Circle
n my tradition, we have two different types of fire represented in the Circle: Elemental Fire, which dwells in the South, and Sacred Fire, which dwells in the Center. Elemental Fire is meant to represent the transformative quality of the element. Sacred Fire, on the other hand, is a conjoining of all the Elements: Earth
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Secrets of the Circle Casting: Creating Effective Sacred Space
Ivo Dominguez Jr. wrote in his book Casting Sacred Space: The Core of All Magickal Work that if we lost everything about our religion except the way to cast the magick circle and its symbolism then the religion could be renewed from that single seed. Far from a perfunctory act, to cast the circle is
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Building the Inner Temple: A Witch’s Refuge on the Astral Plane
Categories: ArchiveEach of us has an inner temple waiting to be built. The inner temple is a spiritual refuge and magickal workspace built at the crossroads of the inner realm and the astral realm, where the individual meets the universal. Like a Klein bottle, if you journey far enough inside yourself, you realize you’ve travelled outside
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The Threefold Law: Unraveling the Different Interpretations
The Threefold Law is a point of some contention in Traditional Wicca. Some priestesses, like Phyllis Curott, suggest that the Threefold Law is a remnant of Christianized thinking and amounts to a threat of punishment for doing bad things, which is incompatible with Pagan belief structures and should be rejected. Others, like Raven Grimassi, suggest
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The Three Passwords: Gaining Admission to the Magick Circle
The passwords to the magick circle are seen in the Gardnerian first-degree initiation ritual, when the dedicant is challenged before entering the circle. When the dedicant answers with the two passwords they are given beforehand, Perfect Love and Perfect Trust, the priest (or priestess, depending on who is officiating the initiation) responds with a third