Tag: theology
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The Witches’ Pyramid: The Theory of Making Magick
The Four Words of the Magus — to know, to dare, to will, to keep silence — were first written by Eliphas Levi, a 19th Century French occultist. Aleister Crowley added a fifth word later on — to go — and the basis of the Witches’ Pyramid was formed. The Witches’ Pyramid wasn’t referred to
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Priestess and Priest: Getting Specific About Office
Categories: ArchiveIn my tradition, the titles of priestess and priest refer to offices rather than genders. Each role has specific duties, and every dedicant is expected to be able to perform the basic duties of each office before they are initiated. There is a relationship between office and a person’s natural energy flow, and a lot
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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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Understanding the Planetary Hours: What They Are, How to Calculate Them, and Why to Use Them
The planetary hours are an ancient magickal tool that arises from Hellenistic and Babylonian astrology. It operates on the premise that each magickal hour of the day (that is, one-twelfth the time between sunrise and sunset, or sunset and sunrise) is ruled by one of the seven classical planets, and that the energies of this
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The Wiccan Virtues: Ideals from the Charge of the Goddess
It’s been said that Wicca doesn’t have sacred texts. I disagree. While it’s true that Wicca is an experiential religion, relying on one’s personal experience of Deity to define one’s beliefs, it does have sacred texts: Gardner’s original Book of Shadows, Valiente’s Charge of the Goddess, and the bits of sacred writing of early Gardnerians
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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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Empty Womb and Dead Seed: Reconciling Infertility in a Fertility Religion
So much of Wicca is bound up in the idea of fertility — fertility of the land, of the animals, and of humanity. As a religion, we understand this fertility to mean the ongoing survival of the planet and the life that lives on it, but often the first thing that comes to mind when
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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