Dorothea (Donna) Frances Rosedale and Gerald Gardner married in the 16th of August, 1927. She was related to Gerald’s sister-in-law. As far as Gardnerian lore goes, she’s a shadowy figure, and most people assume she wasn’t around Gerald for his circle activities. She is mentioned by Bracelin and Heselton, within academic studies, but she also is referenced by Lois Bourne.
Gerald himself has been much maligned, probably to the same level as Aleister Crowley. A large part of that is due to the sensationalist press of the era, but even in modern times, Gerald has had to suffer from the slings and arrows of the rumor mill both inside and outside of The Craft. It’s really not hard to see why Donna would have said “to hell with it” and chosen to remain relatively unknown. Most of the rumors, these days, are dismissed easily with some cursory academic research, even from the outside.
Donna was actually active in Geralds life, and was responsible for keeping his immediate family together. In 1935 Gerald’s father passed away and left them £3,000 (£272,972 today), and it was Donna who insisted they return to England after an extended stay in Malaysia. She then rented the original flat at 26 Charing Cross Road. We really don’t hear much about her until 1960 when she dies, but Geralds health suffers greatly when she passes.
Lois Bourne helps us place her around further adventures in Gerald’s life. The grain-of-salt warning about Bourne is that she wrote her books in 1979 (A Witch Amongst Us), 1989 (Conversations with a Witch), and 1998 (Dancing with Witches). Gerald died in 1964. That places Dancing with the Witches, the book where she most discusses Gardner, 34 years after he passes. I was lucky enough to get all three books for under $100, but they should be read as personal remembrances rather than a study of Gerald Gardner. They are quite good through that lens, even if they don’t quite line up with Bracelin and Heselton.
Inside of Dancing with the Witches, she includes two photographs. One she attributed to Donna, and one seems to imply that Donna was the photographer.
Sadly that places the photograph two years before Donna dies, and 6 years before Gerald’s passing. However this also shows us that Donna lives with Gerald, and she is comfortable with his Craft activities. She knows about the workshop and what he’s doing and she is present in his life. This also means that she knows who he is associating with, and what he’s doing with those folks. It really wouldn’t be a leap to say that Donna is very likely participating in the Craft activities, because she has put the effort into caring for her husband.
Again, we have a Gerland Gardner with his wife Donna, who seems to the be the photographer, with Gerald being just out of frame. Lois then says that they were excited to receive her as a guest, and as a witch, Lois would have circled with Gerald. My completely unsubstantiated speculation is that if Donna is this active in the guest activities and the reception, she is probably also active in the circle.
Now for the bit that requires the suspension of disbelief, there are two more photos where we can confidently say that Lois Bourne did not take them, nor did any of Gerald’s well known associates. Given that both him and Donna enjoyed hosting, and that people seemed to want to be seen with Gerald, and that none of the guests are probably going to be imposed upon to take the pictures, we can speculate that they were also taken by Donna. I have reproduced them here with Lois’s captioning.
Who took the photograph? Here is a hint: Gillian and Freddie Lamond are mentioned prominently, as is Lois, and Lois is careful to point out the origins of the candle. She gives us the context that this is a witchcraft ceremony candle, not simply some museum piece or a carelessly left fire hazard.
In 1959, Lamond met his future wife, Gillian, and they moved into a flat together in September of that year. In August 1960 they married, and a party was held by coven member Jack Bracelin at Fiveacres nudist club, where the marriage was blessed by Lois Bourne, the coven’s High Priestess. The historian Ronald Hutton remarked that this was the first known example of a Wiccan marriage ceremony.
In my opinion Donna is the photographer, wanting to capture the soon to be married couple as they guested with them.
Again: Who took the photograph? It very much seems that the photos were taken close to the same time given the date of 1959, but also the clothes haven’t changed at all. It follows that whoever took the first photo also intentionally did not appear in the second photo, and so it is probably someone familiar to the set. While true that Gerald himself doesn’t appear in either photo, it could also easily have been his wife, Donna. The lamp in the bottom left implies an eye for composition, which could imply that Gerland is the photographer as he would have developed that sense from his photography of religious artifacts. We’ll never know!
You can read part 1 here, also this might be a shorter post since I don’t really want to comment on the body of ritual in the second half of the book and my kindle apparently didn’t sync on the airplane wifi so I lost my highlights. First world problems…
I screwed up a bit – I should have been referencing Gardner’s “The Meaning of Witchcraft” which has some overlapping commentary. I remember reading it quite awhile ago and it didn’t stick in my head since I really hated Gardner’s writing voice at the time. “It is said…” and “it is known that…” would get any author the [citation required] tag on wikipedia which is what turned me off to it since I recognized some of the references but he didn’t publish any of the sources. Is it a defense mechanism? Probably not, he’s giving interviews on TV and such and I feel like it’s something by that time the bones of the golden dawn rituals were available and the freemasonry rituals were long since published. However he probably felt some obligation to secrecy from his oaths and that’s fine. I personally chose to omit commentary on passages myself when writing on Masonic/OTO/Golden Dawn topics so I am certainly sympathetic to the idea for Gardner.
The second half of the book isn’t as dense for religious commentary as the first half of the book. He’s got to wrap up a story after all and I won’t spoil the ending. One of the main themes persists where High Magic continues to be theurgic (communion with spirits) and witchcraft deals much more with practical matters. Curiously things like a talisman comes up and both the magicians and the witches seem to know about their operation, so I think Gardner really wanted planetary talismans to serve as the bridge of curiosity for advancement.
Morvan says, for instance:
Some there were who would look into a pool of water or a magic stone, and see visions of what was happening at a distance, and so we would be warned of approaching danger. By these means we escaped for long, though yearly, as we grew weaker, so did the hatred of our enemies increase, so that they came with armed men to our gatherings to take us … but, being forewarned, we would disperse ere they arrived. They said ’twas the Devil who warned us.
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 1592-1596). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
Morvan is used as the mouthpiece for “this is something firmly in the realm of witchcraft” while Thur is usually the magician. To that end Thur himself is some sort of pagan, neither side is quite cleanly delineated in the book as a hard “this not that” and I think this mingling of the disciplines is intentional. Thur is never “only” the magician and Morvan is never “only” the witch. Thur’s name by itself is a saxon derivation of Thor, which leads us to the conclusion that if his parents were Good Christian Folk or something they would certainly have been aware of the “other religious practices” or some such. What would you call Thur’s birthday? Probably Thur’s Day.
’Tis a phallic religion,” said Thur, “and the broomstick symbolises the phallus.
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 1606-1607). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
Thur has a really telling moment when talking about the broom symbolism (and the preceding passage) and this is pretty much straight up theurgic sex magic. Sex magic is older than Crowley but the parallels between the altar at the gnostic mass and the altar in wicca (and the tools involved) are worth a study. As usual, Gardner gives us one sentence acknowledging the source of an idea he’s trying to convey but never directly spells it out. This is a particularly good choice of kit because it’s one of the components from folk religion Gardner has picked to include but he very nicely relates it to higher purposes and religious analogy rather than simply saying “Well witches ride brooms, it’s what they do”. He directly relates it to the phallus, while Crowley warps the entire symbolism up into the wand itself.
To further illustrate the idea that High Magic and Witchcraft are supposed to go together, we find the following passage:
I have been looking at thy books, Thur. Tell me of them. Some have pictures of plants, and I think, tell of their virtues. Wilt thou truly teach me the art of reading them?”.
He laughed, and showed her his small stock, which was a mighty library as things went in those days. There was a Latin work of Apuleius Platonicus with drawings of plants, also a Grateuss, two books on astrology and several classical works, among them the poems of Sappho, with other Greek works. He read a little from a Herbal: “’For colds in the head, or if phlegm will not clear, take Horehound, which the Romans call Marrubium, seathe it in water, and let them take, and it will clear them wonderfully … .
For lung diseases seathe the wort in honey and the patient will heal … ’ For sore teeth take roots of henbane and seathe it in strong wine. Sip it warm and hold it in the mouth, and they will speedily heal. … For dizziness let them run three times, naked, after sunset, through a field of flax, when the flax will take unto itself the dizziness. For ague, eat nine sage leaves fasting, nine mornings in succession and you shall be healed.’“
“Truly thou art a wonderfully clever man…
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 1841-1847). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
That’s about the closest we get to The Golden Bough or the notion of The Golden Thread, Gardner is clearly saying “look all these sources are knowledge that has been in what we call witchcraft since time immemorial and they are worthy of study”. The writing style also changes, and it’s written in a way which would be comfortable with Agrippa in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (please read the Kraig edition, if you feel so inclined). These books, however, are books which would have influenced Gardner, and so to conspicuously place them and the writing style in the hands of characters who lived (at latest) in the 13th century isn’t an accident – it’s a clear nod towards the encouragement to read them. The tell is that warfare had changed in Europe regarding castles and cannons in the late 13th century and the standard tactic for castle siege became mass volley fire both directions rather than bow and arrows. Gardner, being well read and English, would have certainly known this. Furthering the idea of period renaissance magic:
A Pentacle of Saturn will induce his good qualities of steadiness, perseverance and loyalty, but this can only be carried by one born under Saturn; to anyone else it would bring disaster. A soldier born under any sign could wear a Pentacle of Mars, with advantage, which might produce quarrelsomeness in a merchant, while the latter would be well advised to wear one of Mercury. While a medal such as described above is sometimes called a Talisman. This name should more properly be kept for articles made especially for its owner, with the express intention of bringing him success in what particular object he has in view, and are made in accordance with the owner’s horoscope. They are usually made by an expert, in the proper day and hour, with the special object in view, with protection and safety.
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 3421-3426). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
That’s straight up Book of Solomon/Dee/Agrippa right there. The picatrix adds components which require the planet be in the right celestial house and in a fortunate sign and visible, but the emphasis in European sources for this magic at the time were day-and-hour sorts of magic and horoscopes rather than the arabic observations of the heavens. There wasn’t a good copy of the picatrix floating around at the time, it would be quite interesting to ask Gardner were he alive today if he would have included them. Regarding temptation and the era’s emphasis on being free from Christian error…
Here would be no temptation, no distraction for him in this beauty unadorned because a Magus must be immune to such conditions, ere he may become a Magus, for if he cannot at all times prevent his mind from straying, failure in his enterprises would be inevitable; rather was such nudity an added strength to him, for by its presence it signifies the strength of his will and the power of his self-control. For a Magus must ever work with a naked woman till nudity is naught to him, lest an evil or mischevious spirit should appear thus, and distract his mind at the critical moment and so ruin an operation.
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 3438-3443). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
Jan has to fight off the sexual temptations when he’s tested by Mars, and this particular part of the book shows a good amount of philosophy. I would venture that a good portion of “first spells” are love spells, and its probably the most popular selling spellbook on amazon. Is a love spell something “good”? Sure, between a husband a wife, usually. But both sides have to consent or it’s a violation of free will somewhere. Therefor to attack the baser sexual components and redeem the raw sexual desire into the appreciation of beauty, there’s nudity. Crowley went about this in a very different way and embraced each vice to a fault until he was sick of them, I think in this way Gardner is somehow more polite and considerate than Crowley. Gardner isn’t saying we have to lead stoic lives, but rather sees the potential for mischievous temptation in magic and realizes that the strongest, basest desire (lust, sex) is probably going to be the stumbling block to everyone. I think it’s very likely he knew about the whole Dee Kelley wife swapping incident. For the unaware, Kelley is really trying hard to get with Dee’s young wife, and he redesigns the Great Table several times over the course of several days to produce an encrypted message supposedly instructing them to swap wives. It makes no sense whatsoever unless it appeals to each of their lusts – Dee for more contact with the spirits and more knowledge and Kelley to lay with Dee’s wife. There is a similar Kelley style crisis of faith which Gardner deals with:
The Church denounced what Thur was doing, declaring it to be sinful, punishable by death, and forbidden by God. Yet it Was God who was aiding Thur. Jan knew that Thur was not working through the Devil, as the Church said, all sorcerers worked, because one cannot invoke the devil in God’s Sacred Name. That evil would surely blast a man where he stood. No, Thur had worked through God with the uttermost reverence, and God had answered his prayers. So clearly it was God’s Will! In this creation of Bartzebal, Jan saw the hand of God in answer to solemn prayer, and Bartzebal sent by God’s hand was there, though he frowned and so was there unwillingly, and the thought came, he himself was there unwillingly, to gain his own ends. Was this not sin? and God in his infinite Goodness and Compassion, had plainly worked this thing…
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 3786-3791). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
Finally, Gardner also sticks up for us who study “dusty old books” which are decidedly unsexy in pursuit of Dee style theurgy. Spiritual pursuits for the sake of sex and powder are essentially science without morality and we should be ever guarded to ensure we’re actually working for the best amount of good we can as we understand it.
It is the fashion to-day to laugh at the Magus and his pretensions, to picture him as either a charlatan or a doddering old fool, and bearing the slightest resemblance to the men who were in fact, the scientists of the day, who gave us alcohol, but not the Atom Bomb.
Gardner, Gerald B.. High Magic’s Aid (Kindle Locations 3460-3462). Aurinia Books. Kindle Edition.
I got about halfway through High Magic’s Aid again before hitting the “bad writing” wall, I think there’s distinctly a place in the book where Gardner must have hung it up and resumed writing at a later date. I ended up reading it halfway in almost one sitting because I was stuck in an airport. To that end the irony isn’t lost on me from the hecklers around “why didn’t you just ride your broomstick” or “why didn’t you teleport?” Maybe in the next life.
To that end, there’s a few things in the book which really stick out to me this go-round. For one, Gardner acknowledges the presence of freemasonry in the book. He also gets into the solomonic system and he’s clearly familiar with it more than in passing. He also continues what I observed earlier where objects and things take on their roles due to their placement. This becomes important later in the actual system.
The solomonic treatment is easy enough: When constructing the tools they’re made in a certain hour on a certain day. This is taken from the Lesser Key, and it’s pretty standard solomonic stuff. X tool constructed on Y day in Z hour lets you make A tool which is supposed to be constructed on B day in C hour and so on. And before long, you have a complete kit. Planetary influences are curiously enough not acknowledged in the book save for mentioning the ruler of the day and hour. To that end, we’re back to a system of magic which requires the use of one’s five senses and what they can perceive rather then throwing astrological charts. Gardner firmly believes that power comes from the individual, and in the preparation of the tools this is expressed. He acknowledges that making the tools is circular:
Instruments!” gasped the horrified Olaf. Jan gave an impatient half-gesture which bade him to be silent and not-interrupt.
“Without them there is much danger. Firstly I must make a circle with a properly consecrated sword.”
“How may one come by that?” asked Jan.
“It can be made, but the means are lacking, that is the trouble. To make the sword I need the burin, to make the burin I must have the
consecrated white-hilted knife, the witch’s athame. They in turn must be made by the burin.”
Jan drooped hopelessly on his seat, sitting
hunched with bent head. Thur looked compassionately at him. “‘Tis all in a circle, and I know not the way in.
So we learn two things: To properly perform this magic, you need to use the proper tools and they must be properly prepared, and no ordinary tool will do. We also see that power again might reside in things, but the exercising of that power lies in people. Therefor something like an almond wand cut at dawn and so on might have power unto itself, but that power is latent and not expressed until the wand is used properly. Later on in the book we see that our heros sit down and fashion some tools themselves using a set of properly prepared tools, which means that Gardner acknowledges the power inherent in things, and that power can be purposed even by people who don’t identify with a particular cult, but ultimately we’re left in a situation where people either have the mojo or they do not. Even at the very beginning when barbarous names are being used – they’re not merely spoken, but they’re spoken as “resounding as a gong”, which tells us that both the operator and the person perceiving the operation are equally beholden to raising power.
This is evidenced later in the book where a spell is cast with a harp. Morven has implicit power, but a harp isn’t something in the solomonic system. Because Morven has power unto herself, she can use that power. What is Morven’s power? She’s sexy. (Not kidding, read the book). She’s described as quite attractive and in this way can manipulate people. It would be easy to write that she just played people for their wealth like some sort of gold digger, but the fundamental unit of power in Morven is that she’s attractive. When the heros are trying to be discreet, they instruct their women to dress as boys. When Morven is playing the harp, she’s described as attractive. It’s safe to say that being attractive makes someone influential, and this shows up earlier in the story where the question about our heros traveling as husband and wife or uncle and niece comes up. Husband and wife implies a sexual component, whereas uncle and niece implies there is no sexual component. (They pick uncle and niece). This particular bawdy sexual power comes up when one of the soldiers requests a hymn, and she instead chooses her own music. This is to inspire sexual energy, and she then uses it to get the drunken soldiers to fight. The core component here is sexual polarity, something Crowley also went after in the OTO.
Is this the only power? Absolutely not. Gardner also gives a nod to the role of awe in magic. Here we see a friendly treatment of Freemasonry when our company comes upon a city:
From the heights of Hampstead they looked across the fertile valley to the splendours of the great cathedral, revealed sharply by the crystalline air of that clear day, its surface glistening here and there as the sun caught upon some facet in the newly-cut stone. They gazed at it in awe and wonder that man could devise and raise such an edifice, for in grandeur of conception and beauty of craftsmanship it had not its equal anywhere. There it stood, softened by distance and the peculiar English atmosphere to a pearly hue. It rose a mass of piled and carven stone. So solid … yet appearing airily poised as it soared into the intense blue of the sky, so that it indeed looked like the very throne of God himself.
“It is a marvel!” breathed Morven, breaking the silence into which they had fallen as they feasted their eyes. “It is the very symbol of God. Why cannot Mother Church be as holy and gracious in her deeds towards men as she manifests herself in that great temple?”
“‘Tis not Church!” jeered the elder Bonder with supreme scorn. “‘Tis themaster-mason and the men who build under him. ”
“Nay, there is more. ‘Tis the eyes with which we see, and the grandeur, of vision in the mind of the master ere ever he begins to build.”
Jan stared at this, uncomprehending, while Thur smiled in satisfaction and Morven nodded agreement.
I believe the wording choice is intentional and the emphasis is my own. There is a theme in the book where Christianity itself isn’t treated in particular contempt, but the Roman Church is bad at practicing magic. Somehow it’s lost it’s power. Now, the church cannot have sexual modes of power – lust isn’t something it could harness. I have deep seated political speculations that the church did rediscover this power and it manifested itself in some unhealthy ways but I would prefer to avoid the topic. That being said the notion of the Master Mason comes up and the word choice is quite interesting. Freemasonry itself sits upon ritual as it’s backbone, and ritualism in this form is devoid of sexual practice. Garnder, in so choosing to include a reference to Masonry in his book, also hat-tips us to the Masonic influences in Wicca of which there are many. To this end, his commentary on the inspiration in magic – the power of awe – is held here. A lot of my own personal Enochian experience is rooted in the notion of awe, I deeply respect Dee and I think the visions recorded are absolutely beautiful. I also appreciate the masonic temple in my own home town and it’s inspiring grandeur. Here, power comes from the ability to inspire. Not just sexual energy. The company laments that the mother church has squandered this. Surely, if the church used this, it would be accused of idolatry, and a lot of Protestant thought revolves around things like icons of saints and reliquaries being exactly that. However, I think Garnder would be generally accepting of both of these as reliquaries, especially ones properly prepared in the day and hour, would cover both the inherent nobility of the items power and the preparation requirements in the solomonic system. Gardner is – in my mind – extremely open minded when it comes to magic. Less important is the hows and whys, and more important is that the magic itself is respected.
Lets now talk about the depth of that respect. There’s a discussion in the book around the literal nature of magic and the figurative nature of magic. In the book, the discussion is around probably the most talked about charm in the solomonic books which is the one which makes the operator invisible.
Again you mock, but you should make some small spell for Jan’s especial safety … a spell of invisibility.”
“So?” said Thur, amused.
“‘Twill soon be the hour of Venus, and her day, Friday. Make the figure of wax and write the spell on the skin of a toad. Thus do we witches, ever bearing in mind that invisibility is not a lack of sight in all beholders, but lack of observation. Any but the blind may see, but he who carries the spell is not marked by all about him.”
“Your witchcraft, it seems, is very much a thing of the mind … the dominance of the witch’s mind over her surroundings. ”
“Truly. A thing of much accurate observation, and knowledge of what people do, and may do in certain events. The witch holds the mind of those she would influence. ‘Tis simple. An old woman with a load may come and go unnoticed, so long as her behaviour is that of an old woman with a load. ”
“So if she hurry, or stop to glance about her, she would be marked?”
“Yes, always one so disguised wears the charm of the talisman with such confidence that she knows none may note her. As she sees herself in her own mind, so do others see her. But if she trusts not in the powers she wears, and lets fear taint her mind, then does she impart fear to those about her They see her furtiveness, mark her,
remember her, question her, and take her.
Here we have the concepts above wrapped up into one unit: Objects have inherent power and must be prepared to enhance or unlock that power. The operator is the one who actually uses that power – but in Wicca this power is channeled into the operator. This makes quite a bit of sense since the operator would be preparing that power. There is an investment into the object and then a divestment of that power into the operator. Finally we have the power of emotion which is the real dynamo of living power, and the power is the dominance of the mind over the other factors.
Finally how do we know the system is solomonic at all? (Aside of Gardner writing the system into the book explicitly…)
I see,” said Jan, dejectedly. He had based all his hopes on Thur and now found him a broken reed. “But, Thur, is there no way at all? I fear
not to risk my life; must I, as the monks say, sell my soul?”
“That is but a priestly lie,” said Thur. “The God whom the magicians invoke is the same One that the monks pray to, but we are taught to pray differently, that is all, using the methods of King Solomon, of whom the Lord said, ‘I have given thee a wise and understanding heart so that before thee there was none like unto thee, nor, ever shall arise.’
Solomon performed many wonders and great deeds by the use of the knowledge that the Lord had given him,. but when old age came o’er
him’ he wrote to his son, ‘Treasure up, oh my son Roboam, the wisdom of my words, seeing that I, Solomon, did do and perform many
wonders, and I have written a certain Book wherein I have rehearsed the secret of secrets; and in which I have preserved that hidden. I
have concealed also all secrets whatsoever of magical arts of any masters, and I have written them in this key, so that like a key it openeth a treasure house … so this key alone may open the knowledge of the magical arts and sciences.
“‘Therefore, oh my son, let everything be properly prepared; as set down by me both day and hour, and all things necessary, for without
this there will be but falsehood and vanity in the work.
“‘I command thee, my son Roboam, to place this key beside me in the sepulchre.’
“And,” continued Thur, “it was so done, but in time came certain Babylonian philosophers, who dug out the sepulchre, and they. made
copies of the key, and with them worked many marvels.
And so there we have it. Not only do we have a confirmation that elements of the system are in fact solomonic but we also have the freemasonry connection once again that there was a lost word and the word was recovered, and the word may be learned once again.
Part 2 to follow next time I’m stuck in an airport.
Synchronicity is the sign that magic has worked. Magic, if we skip Crowleys succinct “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”, magic is simply the practice of “manufacturing coincidence”. How do we know if magic “took”? We would see coincidences which are meaningful to us.
Right now nature loves me. I was sitting on my back deck and enjoying watching some deer mill around in front of my beehive eating my weeds. This, by itself, isn’t particularly interesting as much as I view it as an affirmation that I have a well kept back yard and that nature, as a whole, is comfortable with my relationship with it. I hunt, so the deer and I have a very good relationship, and I think they’re beautiful animals. I view the hunt as a sort of sacrament in blood unto itself. I love the deer, and they provide for me and my family come winter time. In the eternal chase of the sum of human evolution, I can’t think of an animal which is more deserving of veneration within the european context. For the native americans, that animal was the North American Buffalo. The buffalo, before being hunting almost to extinction because of an unhealthy relationship with nature, were responsible for motivating everything about the local ecosystem that cared for the people who dwelt within it. Their hooves turned over the earth, and acted as a sort of plough for the grasslands. Compared to north american cows, which have flat hooves and compact the earth, the buffalo acted as natures farmers when it came time to till the soil. Similarly, their poop was responsible for re-planting that very same field they walked over, and transporting seeds. Their hides became homes and clothes. Their meat, last but not least, provided sustenance for the people who cared for them. Within the context of the deer, all this very much holds true. Unlike the buffalo, however, the deer have always maintained an independent spirit. They have never been commercially farmed or raised. Even in places like New Zealand where the deer are commercially farmed, they refuse to be penned up and maintain their wild spirits.
As I was sitting on my porch, working remotely, I suddenly took to the notion of being observed. This isn’t entirely out of the ordinary, I happen to live in a wooded area but the neighbors can see into each others yard from the right angle through the trees. I figured it was them or my children. As I went to get some more tobacco and enjoy the deer, my gaze fell upon the darkness of the woods through the misting rain. There! A man! A masculine presence.
I stood there for 10 minutes watching him, astounded that someone would take the time to walk through the woods and take an interest in me. I couldn’t shake the notion of being watched, and I assumed he was a hunter as his dress was a perfect emulation of the pawpaw trees growing in that region of the forest. The likeness of a person was still evident, as if that person were made from the leaves of the woods absolutely perfectly. We stood watching each other for 10 minutes. He remained motionless, and stoic. After some time the sense of being watched started to abate. I went to my door and proceeded down into the yard intending to share some comradely with the fellow hunter and ask how his luck had been.
When I got to his spot, I found he was gone.
The silence was self imposed. It was a pact with Saturnian forces. Why not the Sun or the Moon? There was a lot of work to be done. Saturn at the time was in sagittarius, having just left scorpio. And by “just left” I mean it takes it three years or so to transit a sign so we’re talking about magic that takes three years to work since zodiacal magic tends to spring on the transits. Do you like long games? Saturn is the planet for you! If you happen to enjoy slow-burn sorts of solutions full well knowing this is going to take awhile and understand that Saturn is a slow, underworldly process of alchemical redemption and death, great. There were a lot of times I was tempted to blog about the mess and, frankly, brag, but the goal was to achieve something and the ego ultimately destroys magic. Magic is about doing something, and then letting it cook in it’s own way until you get the result. I think bragging is like opening the oven every five minutes to tell someone you’re baking a cake. I’ve said it before and it bears repeating: “To know, to will, to dare, to shut up“. (Yes I realize the irony of running a blog espousing this).
Since then, I’ve overcome a good amount of organizational resistance and brought order how I see fit to my personal universe. The celebration was a personal one. I don’t think it’s particularly fit to mention the circumstances or the players but the bottom line is that I ended up being initiated into the Gardnerian Coven my wife was presently a member of.
Now, these folks are cool, the high priestess doesn’t say “you can’t study this or that” or “you can’t be friends with these folks or your spouse or tell your spouse anything”, and there’s a good appetite for exploration, which is what got me originally hanging out with them. Its not a feminist cult which is where I think some wicca takes a left hand turn into a barn fire. I’ve written several times before about why wicca can suck on my blog and honestly, none of those things are happening in this group. In fact, the high priestess had to make a hard choice between tradition or postmodern awfulness, and she stuck with the tradition. That makes me extremely happy since I believe that modernism is a trap and compromise erodes things into an unrecognizable mess. There’s the notion of advancement – we have cars which in 100 years are still recognizable as cars – and there’s the notion of pollution, which is when cars suddenly sprout wings and become something else. To have the pure car experience, you’re really looking at “four wheels and moves along the ground”. The same sort of thing is visible here with the solomonic or enochian posts – rather than making “enochian runes” and other claptrap, I’ve really tried to give the systems a fair shake as written in the oldest material I could find. Similar to the previous arc also, things started out solomonic and moved into enochia and seem to be orbiting back to solomonic (or pagan, at least).
Will the blog become a Gardnerian blog? No. I think things are going to take a naturalist twist here. I’ve been extremely specific about ritual before and to contrast that, the Gardnerian ritual and material is only going to be spoken about in the most general of ways (which is to say – whatever Gardner published on Amazon…). On the other hand, I think it’s going to be really quite interesting to compare previous philosophy to where things currently sit. Specifically what strikes me from the last few rituals is the notion of physicality. If we want certain aspects to be presented to things in the circle, we place them in that quarter of the circle. It was an ah-ha moment I wonder why I had missed before. Sympathetic magic! Things assuming virtues of other things! I’ve written about this a hundred times and at no point did I say “lets move things around so they pick up virtues of where they’re placed.” Writing about it seems quite simple. In retrospect it seems quite obvious why a compass rose was never included in the diagrams of the circle of the Lesser Key.
WordPress changed the image paste UI on me and I don’t really like it.
Why then, are there four six rayed stars in each of the cardinal directions and five rayed stars in each of the mutable directions? Well, you’re supposed to move around the mirror, of course, which is why it’s a circle and not an arrow. This bears experimentation later. Gardner was no dummy and was working with some good minds (Crowley) and some good organizations (Masonry). Gardnerian wicca, properly, does not exist in a vacuum and should embrace other sources and operations, and the one group had a really good class on the Thoth tarot, which was also a welcome discussion I enjoyed with the presenter long into that night.
If you’re familiar with the choirs of angels, or the original solomonic material, suddenly it becomes much smarter to place the mirror in the quadrant of the circle you’re interested in summoning from. So and so spirit rules over a particular quarter, the mirror goes there. Talking to a choir of angels from a particular quarter? The mirror goes there. The mirror is the proverbial telephone by which someone’s voice is made manifest. Now suppose you had someone video conferencing you, and you noticed the sun was a particular direction in the video. Wouldn’t you wish to place your phone in such a way that the image had the sun from the correct direction to make communication much more accurate, congruent, and enjoyable? In this way the circle and the articles in the circle lend a passive and practical role to the magical operation. Nifty. This notion also extends to other devices in the initiation circle where it almost seems like Gardner saw this in a very practical light when reading ritual material. Your lionskin belt is fitted to you, and it also happens to be made of lion, so to speak.
That being said, it’s a particularly interesting branch of magic in which the power isn’t like surfing – it’s not generated by observing the positions of the heavens and trying to guide the energy generated by the motion of the universe. It is a personal power, it’s something distinct to the group that raises it and I now believe the cone of power is real. I strongly suspect that Gardner was exposed to magical power (arguments the origin of which aside) and went to make the most practical system he could using the myths and material as he wanted to present them.
Last night I had the strangest dream…
After initiation, my High Priestess asked if I had any peculiar experiences in the circle. To that end, being psychic is a mode I can access when I’m in the right state of intoxication, but I was asked to eat lightly and refrain from substances. At the time, I had a notion of my aura (a white body) being pressed down, and from above a black egg entered me from the head. Beyond that I didn’t get much aside of the normal imagery where I can usually detect a “good” night from a “bad” night when we’re doing that. The lack of alcohol and such kept me firmly in the “here and now” sort of space. I was exhausted and that night I slept like the dead neither having dreams nor a sense of time. I did notice that while the ritual ended much earlier, I was missing about two hours I cannot trace to a particular event. We merely did the initiation and enjoyed each others company. I was thankful my wife drove home, I was beyond tired.
Two days later, I found myself in a thick wood, on a dirt path. Everything was verdant and green and the impression was that it was almost midday. Not hot, but bright in the way the forest gets when the leaves of the trees filter out the sunlight as though they’re so many outstretched hands. Traveling the path, I caught glimpses of a young, youthful, adolescent Pan. He was always just a bit beyond sight, never quite coming forth and never close. As I traveled the path a long distance, I became lost. There was a sense of a disconnect, but not a panic. I didn’t have a map, but I knew where I was roughly. It was akin to hunting in winter having done all the scouting in summer. Everything is familiar, but not readily recognizable in this particular mode. Pan had pipes in his hand, and finally draws me to a grove. The grove itself is huge, a grassy field, well used, and in the middle is a stone table with a fire in it. A blonde woman in blue, also youthful and well endowed takes me into the circle and there’s a sense of eroticism here. Shes wearing particular jewelry and a blue, deep diving robe with silver trim on the borders.
A ritual of a sort takes place with parallels to what I had just experienced but the preparation of the circle is notably absent. Why should there be a circle prepared? This is the native space of the spirits and there would be no circle cast where I scrying the place of any other spirit either. I am a guest here. Names are exchanged, confirming the authenticity of the dream in my mind.