Why the Restrictions in Norway?

Norway is secretly transphobic.  If there are restrictions here, it doesn't surprise me. You should have seen the gyrations I had to go through to obtain a supply of pueraria mirifica from Thailand.  But eventually they relented and let it come through customs. 

The Three-Storeyed Universe

The Three-Storeyed Universe

Notes on Our Cosmos by Ian Elliott

I am collecting notes about our cosmos which seem suggestive and relevant. 

The first thing to note is that our cosmos is local.  A cosmos is an ordered habitation, and does not mean everything within reach of our telescopes.  It is still under construction and goes through cycles of birth, growth, decay, dissolution and incubation.  We shall understand what these cycles mean when we understand how life, evolution and intelligence fit into the dynamics of a cosmos.

The Sun is the principal deity and world of our local cosmos, while the Earth is its principal ‘field’ of nurture.  The Moon, which is the same apparent size as the Sun, serves as a circuit breaker for solar energies and governs the cycles of reincarnation.

 

The Watchers are the Suns or principal deities of four other cosmoses who provide astral cross-fertilization to the Earth through the agency of elementals: sylphs, salamanders, undines and gnomes, from the stars Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut, respectively.

The astral Earth is a higher dimension of our physical world, where our root souls reside and gradually grow to maturity through many incarnations.  The point of growth of our current incarnation is our everyday identity, where we look out through our eyes at the physical world and inward at the thoughts and feelings in our astral world.  Ordinarily our awareness of the two alternates rapidly, but we can learn to look out and in at the same time, serving as the Threshold Guardian of our inner cosmos. When we succeed in learning to do this, sudden noises will not frighten us.  This was noted by the heathen Ainu of Sakhalin, who warned their anthropologist that sudden fright opens one up to the ingress of malicious spirits.

Records from many ancient civilizations, such as the Hittite, Sumerian, Mongolian and proto-Voodoo (Vodun), indicate that the Sun is the Threshold Guardian of our local cosmos, or that the Threshold Guardian resides in the Sun.

The dissolution phase of our local cosmos does not necessarily involve the destruction of the physical globe itself, but initiates a general dying-off of life on the land and in the sea.  The greatest extinction was in the Permian event, about 252 million years ago, which separated the late Palaeozoic from the Triassic /Mesozoic eras and destroyed about 95% of all species.  Dinosaurs evolved during the latter period.  The great ecological crisis we are currently in may well lead to another such extinction, as predicted in the Volva’s prophecy in the Elder Edda.

A dissolution phase may or may not affect the astral Earth dimension, but incarnation activity would cease until conditions favoring life are re-established.

 

When root souls in the astral Earth have matured sufficiently, they will undergo a transmutation and travel to the Sun to receive bodies of light, as taught by both Italian stregheria and the Hindu Prasna Upanishad.  Thereafter the transmuted soul lives in the solar world, that is, the local starry world, and assists the Gods in their labors.

 

The Caucasian mystic Gurdjieff taught that in order to take account of everything that can be contained in a cosmos, three cosmoses must be considered together.  This fits in with what has been said above about the structure of our local cosmos.  Each of us contains an inner cosmos, with an inner cosmic pillar or tree by which our dream soul [1] can descend to the root soul and then reascend to the physical Earth.  Each of us serves as the Sun of his / her inner cosmos and can become its effective Threshold Guardian by means of maintaining simultaneous awareness of outer perceptions and inner thoughts and feelings, as already mentioned above. This is the first cosmos. 

By means of the sacred household and the offices of household spirits and demigods, including the house’s Threshold Guardian, we are put into contact with the local physical cosmos, and can receive energies from the Sun through the crown chakra, which is open at birth and can be re-opened through special exercises.  This teaching is so widespread it is well-nigh universal. By connecting with the Sun and the root-soul and spirits and elementals in our physical world, we help to construct the second cosmos, or cosmic level.

Finally, by undergoing transmutation in the astral Earth (or more rarely, and formerly, on the physical Earth), we travel to the Sun and are there given a body of light.  Thereafter we dwell in the solar or third level of our local cosmos.

 

The Gods, it would seem, are developing and building the local cosmos on three levels in imitation of a pattern established by higher Gods, perhaps in the galactic world. So they, too, have Gods.

* * *

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[1] The reincarnating bud-soul is dual in nature, with the dream-soul able to travel to the root-soul and back, while the bud-soul proper keeps watch over the body. Only the dream-soul rejoins the root-soul after death.

House Rituals

Purification Rituals  

Purification is important to do on a daily basis, for witches and Pagans alike.  Witchcraft is really not different from Pagan religion in general; it is just a special discipline within that religion, like the ancient mysteries.

It is, first of all, a more efficient use of energy.  Our energy tends to manifest in cycles, and during each cycle we will experience one or more peaks and troughs of available energy.  We have different cycles for different types of energy, but their number is fixed by habit and they tend to operate unobserved by us; we just know when we are ‘up’ or ‘feeling down’.   Witches observe their energy cycles by noting when they have trouble keeping to a regular schedule of exercise, or meditation, or ritual, or anything requiring self-discipline.   They get to know the sequence of their peaks and troughs of available energy by becoming sensitive to the energy itself. 

When our energy becomes old and stale it is called ‘miasma’ in witchcraft, especially when it is connected with a certain place or object.  Miasmic energy is very unpleasant and fastens on us.   In the effort to get free from it, we resort to mechanical patterns of behavior that expend a lot of nervous energy and so send us into a trough.  At last, through some habitual means, we manage to ‘bottom out’ of our trough; by dumping most of our available energy, we get rid of the miasma as well. 

The means employed to bottom out varies from person to person:  we’ll have a temper tantrum, or take a drink or a drug, or overeat, or go to bed and sleep for hours, or engage in some self-destructive behavior, anything to rid ourselves of the deadly embrace of miasma.   Once free again, we slowly recuperate, building up our energy towards the next peak.  In this way we can imagine we are making progress for years and really just be turning in a circle.  

Witches dare to escape from all habitual prisons, and they escape from this one by renewing their energy through daily rites of self-purification.   It’s good to use a number of these so they do not become mechanical habits themselves.   The witch purifies herself  [1] with the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, and must do so in a state of focused attention, because aether or spirit, the fifth element, manifests as attention and the four elements must come into contact with the fifth if they are to serve spirit, as symbolized in the upright pentagram.

Self-purification is also the first step in preparation for spellwork.  First the witch purifies her person, then her other tools.  Once purified, a tool (whether wand or athame or the witch herself) can be consecrated and charged.   These operations correspond to the three visible phases of the Moon, waxing, full and waning; and also to the eastern, southern and western quarters of the Circle.   After a spell is released, it is put out of mind, and this corresponds to the fourth phase, the dark of the Moon, and to the northern quarter of silence. 

Here, then, are a number of purification rituals that can be performed at different times of the day or night.  It’s good when starting out to perform one in the morning, but as you become more sensitive to the quality of your energy you may choose to self-purify whenever you feel your energy getting old and stale.

(1) For earth and water, dissolve salt in water in a special bowl and anoint your forehead, lips, and heart, saying “With the power of the sea that washes the shores, I am purified.”  [2]

     For air and fire, light incense or sage, wave the sacred smoke on the head and chest, then pass it around the body deosil three times, saying “May I be pure; may all my impurities be burned away, carried away on the incense smoke.”  If you have difficulty passing the smudge around your body, a simple expedient would be to place it in a burner close by between you and a fan, then simply turn round three times widdershins (this will send the smoke deosil around your body).  This is an example of the right use of technology.

(2) This is a traditional purification before prayer.  Pour water from an offering bowl over your hands, holding the bowl first in your power hand and pouring it over your palm, then the back of your hand; then switch the bowl to the other hand and repeat.   As you pour the water, say “May I be pure, fit to approach the Gods.” [3]  Dry the hands with a clean ritual towel, used only for that purpose.

(3) After performing (2), you can don a headband and a ceremonial robe. The Greeks wore a ribbon headband while praying. [4]   While tying the headband, say “I am encircled with the sacred, girded about, encompassed, that my actions here today might be within the sacred way.”  While donning the robe, say “The sacred covers me, I am surrounded by the pure.”  [5]

(4) In the same way, praying while donning amulets or other sacred items helps to purify our energy.  While donning an image of Cernunnos, you can say the following:  “My lord Cernunnos, I offer you my worship.  Watch over me today as I go about my affairs: keep me safe, keep me happy, keep me healthy.” [6] 

Donning a pentagram or pentacle (encircled pentagram), you could say something like the following:  “The elements are joined with the power of spirit.  May I be blessed by the four.  May I be blessed by spirit.  May I be blessed by the five.” [7]

(5) The ritual bath.  This has been described before, but it is not out of place here.   Light a candle in the bathroom and turn off the electric light.  Light some incense, not necessarily in the bathroom but somewhere close by so you can smell it burning.  Begin filling the tub and cast salt into it three times with your power hand, holding it over your heart first.  With the first cast, say “I purify by the Maiden.”  With the second, say “I consecrate by the Mother to - ” and name the quality you wish to take into yourself, such as ‘balance’.  With the third cast, say “I charge by the Crone.”  You can also add a fourth cast for the dark phase, saying nothing.  Take the bath by candlelight, staying quiet and aware.  When you are finished, thank the elements and the Lady.

(6) Proto-Indo-European self-purification:  This rite comes from unpublished material sent to the author by Ceisiwr Serith, with written permission to make use of it in ceremony.  It is based on the earliest Indo-European sources available, as supplemented by information from archaeology and anthropology, and attempts to reconstruct religious ritual of the Indo-Europeans before that people separated in their migrations into Hindus, Iranians, Hittites, etc. 

“Purification is an act of sacralization.  It removes anything that does not belong to the object being purified, or to the purpose to which that object will be put.   It thus separates the object from the world.   It also simplifies the object.   A purified bowl is just a bowl.  Everything extraneous has been removed.   It therefore perfectly expresses its part of the artos. [8]  It comes close to godhood.

“Before any ritual each celebrant purifies himself by pouring a small amount of water into his hands.  He allows this to run through his fingers to the ground (or a bowl if indoors).   He pours more, and splashes this against his face.  He pours again, and rinses his mouth.  This is all done in silence, while thinking with each washing “Puros esyem [9] [May I be pure].” 

“Each celebrant then robes himself.” [10]

The Threshold

The sacred household in antiquity corresponded to the human body, and the household familiars corresponded to the internal spirits that accompanied each human soul through life.  The house, therefore, was like a temple and contained elements reflecting both male and female bodies.  As such, it served as an interface between the human body (the temple of the soul and internal spirits) and our local cosmos (that is, the solar system as seen from the Earth).  The solar system is too large for the individual to contact directly, so the sacred household was used as an interface between the two, an instrument amplifying outgoing human energies and de-amplifying incoming cosmic energies from the Earth, Moon, Sun and planets.  In this way the sacred household, like the solar system itself, acts like an electrical transformer; its physical features transform incoming and outgoing energies for the bodies of the residents, while the familiar spirits inhabiting those features do the same for the souls and internal spirits of the residents.

The threshold of a house corresponds to the body’s sense-organs and the organs of breath and speech.  These are our main interfaces with the outer world as we go through the day, and the doors and windows of a house are magically connected to them.  This is especially true of the front door, and Pagans always kept a little shrine there to the threshold guardian.  For the Romans, this was the God Janus, who had two faces, one looking outward and the other inward.  If you hang a God-face close to your front door, you can imagine His head imbedded in the outer wall, with His other face looking outward on the outside world.  Janus is the God of endings and beginnings, and his festival was held on January 9^th, in between the ending/beginning of the solar year (coinciding with the new moon or Kalends of January) and the ending/beginning of the sacral year (1st of March). From that vantage, he is looking at them both.  He was also honored at the Kalends, celebrated at the new moon of each month, as well as at the beginning of every important new undertaking. 

As Jews came to inherit the position of mercantile carriers held in earlier times by the Phoenicians, the empire adopted their seven-day weekly cycle.  As we still follow this custom today, it seems appropriate to celebrate Janus at the beginning of each week as well as at the monthly calends.  Another reason for honoring Janus on the day of the Sun is that the Sun is also a threshold guardian who looks down on us protectively but also looks outward, into the stellar world, keeping vigilant watch against the wild spirits of the outer spaces.

Every God has something to teach, and Janus teaches us to direct our attention outward and inward at the same time, so we can guard the thresholds of our own personal temple and its indwelling spirits.  When we honor our threshold guardian on Sunday or at the beginning of a month, year, or new undertaking, we should ask for his help in learning how to develop the double-face so we can be effective household guardians of our own inner temple.  Looking out and in at the same time means while we watch the outer world we monitor our inner reactions to it, and while we are immersed in our moods and thoughts we keep part of our attention on the outer world.  If we do the former we will prevent spirits of negativity from entering, and if we do the latter it will serve to eject negative spirits who are already inside. 

When entering or leaving our homes, we should touch the doorframe while thinking of the threshold guardian, as a way of acknowledging his presence and of asking him to keep everything safe.  The ancient Hebrews followed this custom when they were Pagans, and later changed it into touching the mezuzah.

My own invocation to the threshold guardian goes like this:

“Honor and thanks to you, Janus,

For guarding the threshold of my home.

May only harmonious beings enter here,

And may the discordant depart !

Open this week [month, etc.] for me on blessings,

And teach me to look out and in as you do,

That I may guard the door to my inner home,

For I too am a threshold guardian.”

The Hearth

As I mentioned in Part 1, ‘sacra privata’ is the term used by the ancient Romans for their household religion; it means ‘the sacred private things’ (as in Greek, there is no word for

‘things’, so literally it means ‘the sacred privates’).

While the threshold is where the home interacts with the outer world, the hearth is the center of the home and corresponds to the human heart, which was regarded as the seat of

memory.  It is therefore the place where the ancestors are contacted, the door down to theUnderworld or Summerland, and the dwelling-place of an important familiar called the Lar familiaris by the Romans. 

In the Italian witchcraft tradition, the lar is the primal ancestor and is responsible for keeping the family together, on occasions when the dead visit the living as well as when loved ones are ready to reincarnate, returning to Earth in the family or clan line.  The stregha therefore prayed to the lar to reunite them with loved ones in future lives so they could meet, know each other, and love again.

The easiest way to understand the concept of a primal ancestor is to think of him or her as

an Adam or Eve for your particular family.  Pagan peoples like the Greeks did not believe that all of mankind was descended from a single human couple.  The Athenians, for instance, believed their first ancestors to have sprung from the soil of Attica; thus, they had always dwelt where they lived.  Many a Latin and Greek noble or royal family traced its descent from a hero and a nymph, themselves children of one or another God or Goddess.  The primal ancestors had great influence over their descendants and long ago evolved into daimones (the rough Celtic equivalent would be the sidhe). 

In ancient Roman religion, on the other hand, the genius of the pater familias (the father-

head of the household) became the lar familiaris after the latter’s death, or possibly he was absorbed into a composite of the genii of all preceding heads of the family.  But whether we think of the lar familiaris as an original ancestor or comprising one or more genii of deceased forefathers, he watches over the vitality of the family line, which includes its virility, fertility and ‘heart’.  Similarly, each man’s genius, assigned at birth, performs the same service for him, as does every woman’s Juno.

As the household seat of memory, the hearth was the place where families gathered on

special occasions to tell tales of the ancestors and the old days, meetings called ‘treguendas’ in the stregheria tradition.  The sacred hearthfire itself was the hearth guardian, and was traditionally tended by the lady of the house, who officiated as her priestess.  This fire Goddess guarded the seat of memory (for without remembrance there is no family and no home) and, as sacred fire, communicated the family’s prayers to the Earth deities.  In the Baltic tradition her name was Gabija, which means ‘the covered one.’  The Celtic equivalent of Gabija would be Brigid, who was also the blacksmith’s fire and presided over crafts.  In Rome she was known as Vesta, and in Greece, Hestia.

I honor the hearth guardian, along with my lar, on Friday, the day commonly used to worship the Earth Goddesses.  When I have a stove but no fireplace, I place her shrine close to the stove and light a candle whenever I am cooking, with the words, “I cook with Brigid’s fire”.  On Fridays I burn a candle and incense to her and offer salt, bread and pure water.

With fireplaces, a more complete cult of the sacred hearthfire can be performed, taken from the Baltic rites of Gabija:

1. While the fire is being built, all present maintain a respectful silence and face towards the hearth.
2. While the fire is going, a large bowl of water is set out by the fire so Gabija can bathe and refresh herself, with the words “Fiery one, bathe, refresh yourself!” 
3. While cooking, the mistress of the household from time to time throws scraps of food into the fire as offerings to Gabija, saying “Gabija, be satisfied.”
4. At night when it is time to retire, the fire on the hearth is banked; that is, more fuel is added and then it is covered with ashes so it will not throw off sparks.  This practice was the reason the hearth Goddess was called ‘the covered one’.  The mistress was naturally concerned to bank the fire correctly so Gabija would not get angry and ‘take a walk’ in the night, burning down the house!  So, while banking the fire, she would pray to the Goddess like this:

Holy Lady,

I loose you skillfully,

lest you be angry !

Holy Gabija,

be peaceful in this place !

Live with us peacefully,

Holy Gabija !

5.      The only respectful way to put the hearthfire out is with pure water.

These rituals could, I believe, be easily adapted to the Celtic tradition, substituting the name of Brigid (‘Breed’) for that of Gabija. 

Holding a Dumb Supper

I recently held my first dumb supper for ancestors for the season.  Following Norse and Baltic traditions, I hold a number of these between Mabon and Samhain, culminating with the great dumb supper on Samhain or Hallowe’en, October 31^st.

Throughout most of the year I keep my photographs of parents, grandparents and other dear dead in a walk-in closet shrine.  The reason I do this is so the photos will stay fresh for me instead of becoming invisible like most of the pictures on the walls of my living room.  When it’s time to hold the first dumb supper, I bring the photos out and arrange them in a semicircle on the hearth (my apartment is blessed with a small fireplace, with a brick hearth in front of it). Next to them is a tall candle holder with a red candle in it, and a statue of my primal ancestor.  This is a somewhat crudely carved shepherd, ithyphallic, pouring wine from a wineskin into a chalice. [11]

As it gets close to sunset, I begin preparing the meal.  For my first dumb supper I chose red foods; that is, they were all red to start with, though only some of them were red after being cooked! 

I began by turning off the kitchen light and lighting the candle in front of my hearth guardian, the Goddess Brighid, who is the spirit of the household fire.   As I lit the candle, I said “Honor to fire, honor to Brighid, honor to the hearth.”

I then put two red potatoes on to boil, sliced and diced two salad tomatoes, and opened a can of red kidney beans.  I took out two lamb blade chops and dusted one side of them with oregano, cloves, pepper and a little garlic powder.

As the light waned, I lit another candle from the hearth guardian’s candle and placed it on the windowsill to serve as a beacon guiding the dead to my home.

After the potatoes had boiled a while, I put the lamb chops in the top of the oven and turned on the overhead broiler to 375 to briefly brown the tops.  I set the kidney beans boiling and prepared the skillet for the diced tomatoes, melting some margarine in it.

These preparations done, I went into the living room and lit the candle on the fireplace hearth, saying the following to the photos:

“Shades of the dead, who still remember this house, honored ancestors, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother [naming them], who are worthy of eternal remembrance, and all your relatives and children whom death has taken from us, I invite you to this annual feast.  May it be as pleasant for you as our memories of you are sweet to us!”

Lighting some aromatic herbs, I said:

“Let us [12] remember those who perished by fire and those who have drowned.  We remember those who have had to die far from their homes, and those who have perished without a trace.”

I now returned to the kitchen and finished preparing the meal, switching the oven dial to baking and turning the heat down to around 325.  When all was ready, I brought the plates into the living room, setting the ancestors’ down inside the curve of the semicircle of photos, and my own on a small table nearby.  According to tradition, no silverware is set out for the ancestors.  I brought in two glasses of cranberry juice (red again) and set one for them and one for myself.  Then I said:

“Shades of the dead, honored ancestors, sit, eat and drink as the Gods allow!”

I sat down myself and ate in silence, looking at the photos of the dead and occasionally raising my glass to one of them.  As I toasted them in turn, I remembered something about each of them, some brief, cherished memory, and I longed for those old times when we were together in the flesh. 

For dessert we had bowls of raspberry sherbet.   Afterwards I lingered a little in their company.  When a polite length of time had passed, I rose and said:

“Shades of the dead, honored ancestors, this dumb supper is over.  Go your ways now where your destiny leads you, and remember to do no harm to anything in the streets or fields.”

Then I extinguished the candle and said

“There is, there is not even a spirit here.”

Finally, I took away the dead’s food and disposed of it.  It cannot be eaten but must be returned somehow to the land.  I poured out the cranberry juice into the earth, saying “return to the elements whence you came.”  I let the sherbet melt down the sink drain, which leads to the sea.  As for the solid fare, I would have liked to dig a hole and bury it, but my apartment managers might not understand, so I was forced to simply throw it away.  This was the only part of the dumb supper that I regretted.

Back inside once again, I extinguished the candle in the window, saying (as ever) “honor to fire,” and then the hearth guardian’s candle by the stove, saying “honor to the hearth, honor to Brighid, honor to fire.” 

The dumb supper was over.

The prayers and basic ritual are derived from Pagan Lithuanian practice, with the name of the Celtic hearth Goddess Brighid substituted for the Baltic Gabija.  Lithuania was the last Pagan country in Europe, and only began to be (forcibly) Christianized at the beginning of the 15^th century.  Consequently, much that has been lost in the pre-Christian traditions of other countries can still be found there, and in the land of their neighbors to the north, Latvia.  For more information check out their website at www.romuva.lt.

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[1] I use ‘her’ for ‘him or her’, etc., in this article.

[2] Serith, p. 31.  See bibliography.

[3] Ibid, p. 32.

[4] For an illustration, see the Magician card in the standard Tarot deck.

[5] Serith, p.32.

[6] Ibid, p. 33.

[7] Ibid.

[8] The ‘artos’ is the pattern of the universe; the wyrd or rta.

[9] Pronounced PUR-os es-YEM.

[10] Serith, unpublished material.  See bibliography.

[11] This is a marvelous scholarly word meaning his penis is erect.

[12] The ancestors and myself.

Inner Home, Outer Home, Cosmic Home

Inner Home, Outer Home, Cosmic Home

by Ian Elliott     Oct. 24^th, 2013

Prof. Allan Anderson, of San Diego State University, once advised his students to “begin building a world for yourself from the inside out.”  The word ‘world’ is often used to translate the Greek kosmos, and refers to the world as it appears to our senses, with a dome overhead and a horizon around us.  Ignorant people unaware of this meaning of the word think that scriptural references to the roundness of the world prove that ancient peoples knew the planet earth to be round.  Until classical times, the concept of the earth as a planet was nonexistent. 

When we use the ancient concept of a cosmos, therefore, we should understand it in the terms in which it was anciently understood.  Our present expanding astronomical knowledge of billions of galaxies lying at unimaginable distances, besides terrifying the ancients, would have seemed to them irrelevant, since the cosmos is a home in which we all live.  It contains the sun and moon, wandering stars called planets (‘wanderers’), and fixed stars, with occasional interlopers like comets and meteorites.  There is earth under our feet and sea roundabout.  Day follows night and the seasons revolve predictably.  All of this goes to make our cosmic home.  We can relate to this cosmic home without denying the wider and deeper knowledge provided by science.  Both concepts have their uses.

Theories of creation from antiquity (including, when it is honestly translated, the account in the first chapter of Genesis) aver that our cosmic home was put back together from a ruined state, and it was expected, in at least the writings of the Hindus, Egyptians and Norse, that it would eventually founder and re-enter the ruined state.  The ruined state was called chaos, and it is a deliberate mistranslation of Genesis 1:2 to think of chaos as a void.  The word tohu in Hebrew means a desolation, as readily illustrated in Mesopotamia by the numerous mounds that once were cities, even in the earliest times, but were left standing isolated in the desert by the shifting of the Euphrates. [1]

The oldest accounts of this cycle of creation and destruction make it occur endlessly.  It was the Persians, as instructed by Zoroaster, who flattened out the cycles into one cycle only.  In so doing they invented history, but lost the ancient sense of involvement in an eternal succession of cycles. [2]

As regards life on land, it began on the supercontinent of Rodinia, between 1.1 billion and 750 million years ago, with the development of the ozone layer.  The ozone layer provides a protective shield (except over Antarctica in the wintertime, at least recently) against ultraviolet radiation.  Before the appearance of the ozone layer, life was possible only in the sea. [3]

This illustrates the primary act necessary in creating a cosmos.  A boundary must be established which keeps out energies which are too volatile and powerful for the entities living within the boundary.  Building boundaries is how the gods fashioned our cosmic home, and it is how we must go about building our outer and inner homes.  Homes that break up due to the alcoholism of one of the residents illustrate how the energy swings of alcohol are too volatile for the needs of an outer home; families require energies which are stabler and more peaceful.  The same is true of the personalities of residents in the family home; the terrible spectacle of the disintegration of a personality due to alcoholism or drug addiction illustrates the same principle of any sort of home anywhere: the principle of limitation.

Limitation is an unpopular term in the New Age.  There are many gurus and mouthpieces of ascended masters, and so forth, who teach people to eschew the idea of limitation and lay claim to their birthright of unlimited abundance. [4] But without limitation there is nothing.  Consider games.  The ancient Egyptian game of Senet was popular for so long in that culture that no one troubled to write down the rules.  We have a number of beautiful Senet boards and pieces, as well as stick dice, but we can only play with them; we cannot play Senet, for Senet consisted of the rules of the game, and these are lost. 

I can make each day into a day-cosmos, but only if I compose a list of rules to follow, involving things to do and things to avoid doing.  If I follow the list, my day will be a cosmos.  To the extent that I welch on the rules, my day-cosmos will be invaded by chaos.

If I make rules for myself and follow them consistently, I shall be building my inner home.  The rules would include excluding those energies, and whatever bears them, which are too volatile or unsettling, and including those energies and their bearers which have proven edifying.  This is what Prof. Anderson meant by building a world for oneself “from the inside out.”

The inner home is reflected in the outer home, the sacred household.  This is what Anderson meant by ‘out’ in his advice.  The inner home grows outward, into the outer home.  The outer home consists of a threshold, a hearth, and a pillar, among other things. 

Our eyes are the threshold of our inner home, as our ears are the windows.  Establishing a shrine to the threshold guardian (in Roman terms, Janus) on a small shelf next to or near the front door will ensure harmonious energy in the outer home, but only if we first establish our inner home’s threshold guardian.  Above the shelf a mask is hung, the face of Janus or another appropriate deity.  This face is conceived as a head penetrating the wall, with another face looking outside.  The ritual to Janus, used both to establish and reinforce his presence, could run thus:

Honor and thanks to you, O Janus,

For guarding the theshold of my home.

May only harmonious beings enter here,

And may the discordant depart!

Open this week (month, year, etc.) for me on blessings,

And teach me to look out and in at once, as you do,

Thus guarding the threshold of my inner home;

For I, too, am a threshold guardian.

Looking out and in at once means perceiving one’s surroundings while observing one’s inner thoughts and feelings.  We may think we do that already, but a little inspection will reveal that we generally alternate between the two.  If we do both together, we shall sense that we are looking out from under an arch, the parts of the head which can be seen without a mirror or other reflecting surface.  The arch was a sacred structure in ancient Italic religion. [5] Because the arch is open in front and back, one retains an active sense of what is occurring behind one’s observation point.  Spirits dwell there.

The deity in the Sun is the threshold guardian of our cosmic home, looking out on interstellar space, while looking inward on his or her children in the solar system.  That the Sun is, or contains, a guardian can be read in the tablets of both the Mesopotamians and the Hittites. [6]

An anthropologist among the Ainu of south Sakhalin Island (transplanted to Japan after WWII) was instructed by them to perceive in this way.  They pointed out that she did not do so as yet, as evinced by the fact that she was easily startled. [7] They warned her that in such moments of being startled, she was vulnerable to the ingress of hostile spirits.  This, then, is a good test of whether or not we have established our inner threshold guardian.  Once we are calm and not easily startled, we can project that calm bi-directional perception into the idol face hanging above our front-door shrine.

If we are so fortunate as to have a fireplace or something resembling a hearth, it is all the easier to establish a hearth shrine.  The hearth corresponds to the heart, but the heart as anciently conceived, the center of thought and feeling.  The goddess of the hearth (Hestia for the Greeks, Vesta for the Romans, Gabija for the ancient Balts, Brighid for the Celts) lives in the fire ignited there, at the very least in a candle.  She is the life of the outer home and provides, besides heat and light, connection with the ancestors and deities in general.  Offerings are made to her, some of which she is asked to pass on to the ancestors and the gods.  Prayers to the gods can be made through her. [8]

When the psychologist C.G. Jung visited the Pueblo Indians in the American Southwest, he had a conversation with the chief Ochwiay Biano (Mountain Lake), who astonished him by saying “The white man’s eyes are always restless.  He is always looking for something.  We think he is mad.”

“Why do you think we are mad?” Jung asked.

“You say you think with your heads,” the chief replied.

“Why of course.  What do you think with?”

“We think here,” he said, indicating his chest, or, possibly, his solar plexus. [9]

When we have established our Janus perception and acquired a sense of standing in an archway, keeping in view our apparent headlessness, [10] we can understand Ochwiay Biano’s statement; for the nearest part of our body in clear view will be the chest area.  Our conditioning to ignore our headlessness, which makes us look out and in alternately, creates an identification with our heads as the location of our mental activity.  This identification is not the same as the anatomical brain.  It is an abstract mental construct which replaces the continual perception of our headlessness, of our arch atop the solar plexus.

When we deal with the world from a sense of location in the chest, we shall have engaged our inner hearth, and from that we can honor and offer to the Hearth Guardian, and, through her, to the ancestors and gods.

The ancestors are contacted through memory.  For a while this is just ordinary memory, but little by little we begin to recover the actual flavor of events in the past, their atmosphere when we lived them.  Then we feel an unusual vigor in our hearts (or thereabouts).  In Ifé or West African religion, it was considered important to contact the ancestors and draw strength from them.  If we drag through the days carrying a weight of depression, we are simply depleted of this energy we can receive from the ancestors.  There is a lovely film about drawing strength from the ancestors, called “Daughters of the Dust.” [11]

A cosmos, then, exists on many levels, like the nested babushkas [12] from Russian folk art, one inside another.  Whatever is capable of evolving contains an inner cosmic home. [13] The outer home, our sacred household, works like an electrical transformer, stepping up the voltage of our prayers and offerings and stepping down the responses from the gods and demigods in our cosmic home.  Naturally we don’t expect our physical home to evolve, but as the sacred household it provides a meeting-place for its inhabitants with cosmic energies promoting their evolution.

In ancient times many homes contained a pillar, generally next to the centrally-located hearth and thus almost directly under the smoke-hole in the roof.  The master of the house had his chair next to the pillar, and in Lapp homes before conversion, he grasped an iron nail driven into the pillar at shoulder height so he could feel the power of Thorr in the storm. [14]

The pillar of the outer home corresponds to the spine of the inner home, or, rather, the astral structures that lie along the spine.  These are described in yoga as a central channel called the sushumna, around which coil two smaller channels called the ida and pingala.  Where the three come together are power centers called chakras.  These are variously described as wheels or lotuses, and serve as portals to other dimensions within the cosmic home.  Many other cultures describe similar structures (for instance, the Hopis), [15] though they may differ as to the number of centers.  For the Norse, the corresponding structure in the cosmic home was the World Ash Tree, called Yggdrasil or Othin’s steed (Ygg was one of Othin’s many names), and nine worlds ranged along it.

Where is this World Tree?  If the cosmos looks different depending on which dimension of it is being viewed, the tree itself could stand for the sequential possibility of different states of consciousness.  The middle power center is the one explored by science, on the large scale by the science of astronomy. 

The pillar of the outer home, whether it is physically present or not, stands for the spiritual aspiration of the residents of the home.  All should be committed to their individual paths to enlightenment or evolution, though no two residents, perhaps, will use the same form of meditation or askesis in its pursuit.  The place where I meditate is in front of my pillar, and as I meditate I move up and down my own inner pillar.

The description of a family collectively dedicated to spiritual growth can be read in Lizelle Reymond’s charming autobiographical sketch, My Life with a Brahmin Family. [16] In the case of the Craft, the coven is such a family, even though the coveners live under separate roofs.

And when the coveners come together in the circle, they share their inner homes, casting the circle as an outer threshold. They invoke the Lady as their hearth guardian, and reaching through her and the Lad to their ancestors, each down his or her inner pillar, together they raise the Cone of Power.

 

* * * * *

Bibliography

Works cited, other than internet addresses:

Dash, Julie, Daughters of the Dust (film), Kino Video, 1991.

Davidson, Hilda Ellis, The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe, New York, Barnes &

         Noble, 1993.

Harding, Douglas Edison, On Having No Head, London and New York, 1981.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, New York, Random House,

         1965.

Le Guin, Ursula, Lavinia, Orlando et al., Harcourt, Inc., 2008.

Ohnuka-Tierney, Emiko, Ainu of the Northwest Coast of Southern Sakhalin,

         Long Grove, IL, Waveland Press, 1984.

Ouspensky, Peter Demianovich, The Fourth Way, New York, Random House,

         1971.

Reymond, Lizelle, My Life with a Brahmin Family, Baltimore, Penguin, 1958.

Trinkunas, Jonas, ed. Of Gods and Holidays, Vilnius, Tvermé, 1999.

Waters, Frank, Book of the Hopi, New York, Penguin, 1963.

 

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[1][1] See Wikipedia article on tohu bohu, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohu_wa-bohu.

[2] There are cycles in Zoroastrianism, but they come to an end at the day of judgment.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodinia.

[4] See for instance the Unlimited Abundance program, http://www.unlimitedabundance.com/#sthash.HJllAVtR.dpbs.

[5] See for instance the recent novel Lavinia, by Ursula le Guin.

[6] The Norse warrior god and guardian of justice Tyr, or Tiwaz, was the Luwian name for the Hattic Sun god Ishtanu.  Luwia was an important part of the Hittite confederacy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_mythology.

[7] See the study Ainu of the Northwest Coast of Southern Sakhalin, by E.O. Tierney.

[8][8] For Gabija, see Of Gods and Holidays, ed. by Jonas Trinkunas.

[9] Jung, C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 247-8.

[10] See On Having No Head, by D.E. Harding.

[11] An independent film directed by Julie Dash, 1991.

[12] As generally misnamed.  They are more correctly called matryoshka dolls.

[13] See Ouspensky, P.D., The Fourth Way, p. 187.

[14] See The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe, by Hilda Ellis Davidson, p. 83.

[15] See Waters, Frank, Book of the Hopi, pp. 222-3.

[16] Reymond, Lizelle, My Life with a Brahmin Family.  See bibliography.

Setting Up Solitary Witchcraft, Part 2

Setting Up Solitary Witchcraft, Part 2: The Altar and the Circle

Ian Elliott    September 19, 2013

 

The Altar

Now that the cardinal directions are marked out in the living room or some other room in your house (perhaps your basement if you have one), and the central spot between them marked, we can turn our attention to the altar.

For an altar I use a low black-lacquered Chinese table, perfectly square, and set it over the central spot with the four sides squared to the cardinal directions.  The altar arrangement I am going to describe is different from most accounts of a modern witchcraft altar, but it is simpler and works well for a solitary, I think.

In the center of the altar is a thick candle, or sometimes two thick candles.  The number, and their colors, depends on the time of year, on the changing character of the solar cycle or ‘wheel of the year.’  The colors for the Lady are white for the Maiden, Red for the Mother, and black for the Crone.  The colors for the Lad or Lord (Cernunnos) are red for the Oak King and green for the Holly King. 

The four cardinal directions correspond to the four lesser or physical Sabbats: east is for Ostara, the spring equinox; south is for Litha, the summer solstice; west is for Mabon, the autumn equinox; and north is for Yule, the winter solstice.  The intercardinal or ordinal directions, northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest, correspond to the four major or spiritual Sabbats: Imbolc for northeast, Beltane for southeast, Lammas or Lughnasadh for southwest, and Samhain for northeast.  The major Sabbats lie on the cusps of the four quarters of the wheel of the year and thus mark important points of transition between the elements and their powers.  These are air for the eastern quarter, fire for the southern, water for the western, and earth for the northern quarter.

The characters of the eight Sabbats and the elements and their powers must be studied elsewhere; here we are only concerned with the setup on the altar.  From Imbolc to Beltane the Maiden rules nature, accompanied by the young Oak King.  Thus, from February 1^st (some traditions celebrate Imbolc on the 2^nd February) to midnight on April 30^th, the center of the altar will hold two candles, side by side as one faces east: the white candle of the Maiden on the left and the red candle of the Oak King on the right. 

From May 1^st to midnight on the eve of the summer solstice (often June 21^st, though it varies from year to year), there will either be two red candles in the center, or these can coalesce as one red candle (which can be seen as two when the eyes are crossed).

From the summer solstice to midnight of July 31^st, the red candle of the Mother will be on the left, and the green candle of the Holly King on the right.

From August 1^st to midnight of October 31^st, the black candle of the Crone will be on the left, with the green candle of the Holly King on the right.  At the end of Samhain (the morning of November 1^st), the Crone goes down to the Summerland and the Holly King reigns alone from that point on the wheel of the year to midnight of the winter solstice, so there is only one green candle; however, it is not centered but is kept in the same place as before, to the right of the center of the altar, leaving a space of commemoration on its left for the departed Crone. 

The morning after the winter solstice, the Oak King is reborn and his red candle replaces the green candle of the Holly King, still placed in the off-center position.  This is the arrangement until the following Imbolc.

At the center of the eastern side of the altar, right along its edge, the incense burner is placed, as the tool of air.  Similarly placed along the southern, western and northern edges of the altar are the fire element candle (a red cup candle), the chalice, and the pentacle.  A flat circular or oval stone can be substituted for the pentacle.  The pentacle is flat and circular; it may be made of wood or some other material, and is painted or engraved with special symbols, as illustrated, for instance, in Doreen Valiente’s Witchcraft for the Future. 

Between the central candle or candles and the incense burner the wand is laid, with its head towards the north.  In a similar position between the central candle or candles and the fire element candle in the south is placed the athame, with its point towards the east.  The chalice and pentacle (or stone) are their own magical weapons. 

Other supplies for the circle ritual can be placed on a tray under the altar table.  A small bowl of salt can be placed at the northwest corner of the altar, and a hand bell, for signaling the beginning and ending of sacred time, can be placed at the southwest corner.  This is handy for the solitary, whose station is on the west of the altar looking east.

Tapers fixed in disk-shaped holders (for catching the melting wax) are placed at the edge of the circle towards the four cardinal directions, and cup candles at the intercardinal or ordinal directions.  The cup candles are only lit between Yule eve and Imbolc, for providing extra light. 

Enough space for circling round the altar should be provided for when setting out the candles on the circumference of the circle.  It is not necessary to make the circle exactly nine feet in diameter, especially as the solitary will generally be celebrating alone. 

The sequence of setting up the temple is as follows: (1) central candle or candles; (2) elemental tools, beginning with the incense burner in the east;    (3) magical weapons, beginning with the wand; (4) accessory items on the altar, beginning with the hand bell and finishing with the salt bowl; (5) items on the tray under the altar, such as cakes and wine, or bread and ale, plus a water ewer; (6) the tapers are set on the cardinal points, beginning in the east; (7) the cup candles are set on the intercardinal or ordinal points, beginning with the southeast. 

The altar and circle are now arranged.  At the conclusion of the rite, all articles are removed in reverse sequence.