Hushe and Baloo: Protecting Children from the Weird Otherness

Are children, both the newly-born and toddlers, in some sort of danger from the Unseen world, simply by virtue of surviving their births? The testament of the ancients, as it has passed to us in the fund of folklore, would say "yes". A mountain of folklore from Northern and Western Europe deal with the pervasive fear experienced by mothers and the folk of previous centuries regarding "changelings" and the common theme of "stolen children"- and the many traditional steps taken to shield children from the dangers of the unseen and supernatural.

People have struggled to come to grips with these strange beliefs in many ways. The simplest modern explanation would have us believe that "changeling" stories were vibrant folkloric expressions of a very real sort of loss- the common deaths of children at a very early age, rooted in a time when infant and toddler mortality was very high. Perhaps, it is reasoned, parents might prefer to imagine their dead children were in reality "taken" and still alive in some fashion, while the corpse they were burying was merely a copy.

If this was the case- and I don't believe it was- it certainly wouldn't belong to the realm of superstition, but to the common comfort sought by every Christian mother who ever lost a small child, in any age (including this one): the idea that her lost child lives on in heaven, while the earthly body is only a "shell" to be buried. One cannot look at changeling lore and not see the common themes: another world to which children are taken, and the meaningless or fake wooden copy left behind.

But changeling stories have another, more disturbing element, especially in Irish folklore: the idea that the child has been exchanged with a living being, a faery which takes the form of the child and continues to live as the child. Many charms and rituals exist for forcing the faery-people to return the actual child and take back the changeling. Some of those charms include nothing more than forcing the changeling to reveal its true nature by allowing it to see something it finds amazing or ludicrous, after which it cannot hold back from revealing its preternatural intelligence by expressing its wonder or making a comment- such as the boiling of water or beer inside of egg-shells.

The act of displaying its Otherworldly nature is enough to force it to leave or be banished, with the hopeful instant return of the original child.

This is an element of changeling mythos that brings us into a new realm of mystical speculation. Clearly, we aren't dealing with death in some folkloric way, but with the loss of a child to a supernatural "other". For all practical purposes, the "child" is still there, kicking, eating, squawking, and seeming innocent (even if changeling babies were rumored to eat voraciously and seldom be satisfied, and never gain weight) but the parents suspect that something is "wrong" with their child, to the point of believing that they no longer are in possession of their child.

Sadly, some charms to force the faery-people to return the original child required the "changeling" baby to be tormented or tortured in some way- and I have heard that deaths of the suspected changelings sometimes occurred in the rural places.

These sorts of legends beg for an elucidation that goes beyond the simple dismissal of the modern day researchers who are all too quick to say "ignorant superstition" and leave it at that. It is my contention that the ancients felt that ominous, weird forces did threaten "new" children, and there is a very easy-to-understand reason why. A "new" child isn't a "new" thing at all, but, in line with the ancient beliefs, a continuance of a being or entity of some sort (a spirit) from the unseen that has come into this world through the event of birth.

That "new" child is simultaneously a new member of a human community, but an ageless member of the oldest community of all: the community of spiritual forces that we are all a part of. As we have worn out our lives in this world, we have forgotten our more ancient connections with the powers of the Unseen world; I believe that we will recall those connections, on some level, when we all must return to that state at death.

But the ancients clearly believed that something needed to be done to truly separate a child from the grip of the unseen, as soon as it was born- and the Pagan rites of baptism, the "sprinkling with water" of both the ancient Druids and the ancient Teutons, is the primary example of the use of water to magically separate a newborn from the grip of the unseen, and differentiate it fully into a "worldly" state. That names were bestowed during these sorts of rites is also easy to understand; to name something or someone is to bestow on it a status in this world, in the order of our minds and communities. A "naming" is an act of will that differentiates something from the mysterious background-reality out of which all things come, and gives it an identity.

This sort of naming gives a sort of protection. The ritual of baptism utilizes water, which was itself seen as symbolic of the "primal, watery layers" of the ultimate origins of things- the Bog-Weird, the murk or the "primordial ooze" that some say was the true origin of physical life in this world. The water is a symbol of the dark depths of unconsciousness, the murky depths of the originating unseen, and Fate. If the bright flame of fire is the light of this world, the dark waters are symbols of the other. To sprinkle or baptize a child with water is a symbolic re-exposure to the unseen, so that the child can be then named and re-integrated formally into this world, as the unseen watches.

It is no mistake that so many of the ancients of Europe believed that death was marked by the soul's passage over a watery boundary- it had a correlation to the passage over water into this world in the first place- passage through the physical watery fluid of the womb, and the following "sprinkling" of the consecrating waters over the infant. The Christian rite of baptism neatly replaced the "water sprinkling" rite of the ancients, and continued to uphold this ancient logic.

Apparently, the "connections" we have in the Unseen world are not always so eager to give us up to our fateful journey (through conception and birth) into the world of men and women, and, it was believed, the strange forces that lingered near children might try to steal them back, or cause tragic accidents or sickness to kill them, thereby getting them back again. Alwyn and Brinley Rees, in their indispensable work "Celtic Heritage" report:

"In the west of Ireland to the present day, a newborn child is palpably within the grip of unseen forces, and precautions have to be taken lest it be born away by the fairies. It will be remembered that it was a supernatural claw that snatched Pryderi from his mother's side. The danger of abduction is greatly reduced by baptism, and the child is sometimes given a temporary name, or a lay baptism is resorted to, to protect it until a proper ceremony can be arranged. Baptism is also widely believed to be efficacious in restoring a child to health, that is, in preventing it from slipping back into the unseen world. By being returned through water to the world beyond, and brought back again by the proper ritual, the child is separated more completely from its uncanny associations with the unseen world. From now on, its relations with that world will be channeled through the proper rites" (p. 242-243.)

There is an interesting relationship to the newborn and its unseen "other"- for, as I have covered in great detail in my many writings concerning Witchcraft, the Witch- a human man or woman who intentionally "crosses the boundary" between this world and the unseen, does so through relationship with a familiar power from the "other side" which is precisely that "Other". The Witch cultivates, as an adult, the "uncanny associations" that the Rees mention, and which children come into this world still strongly in the grip of. Baptism rites, either Pagan or Christian, are attempts to "de-witch" or "un-witch" a child, so that it can safely and more easily develop into a worldly life.

It may be strange to imagine the Unseen powers trying to "reclaim" a newborn; but when one examines the opposite extreme, the end of life, it is easy to understand. When our loved ones die, we normally don't want to let them go- if we could do some ritual that would literally pull them back from the Unseen, mysterious condition they have gone into, many would certainly do it. Would we be so different from those mysterious forces that may mourn a friend or comrade of theirs departing from the unseen to become integrated into this world of materiality, and who are using their power to bring that comrade "home"? The point, I think, is that transitions are never easy, on either end of life's spectrum, because the fact of parting is a tearful occasion. But for the order of things to work, we must integrate successfully, and transition successfully, as dignified beings.

The Rees go on to say:

"If we are right in interpreting the changeling as a personification of the otherworldly side of a human child's nature, these tales may refer to a pre-Christian rite analogous to baptism, whereby the human child itself was ritually "expelled" or "exposed" so as to separate it from the supernatural and save it from being possessed by its mysterious "other" self" (p. 243).


The Folklore Society of Great Britain, in 1894, put out their Folk-Lore, A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution and Custom. All of their works are treasure-troves of folkloric insight into the strange metaphysics of the Unseen; this edition contained many treasures, including a Scottish lullaby-poem, discovered in 1801 scrawled on the fly-leaf of a book, in the "thin, sharp-pointed handwriting used by ladies at the beginning of the century", but which probably belonged to the last century.

Some unknown Scottish mother had penned this lullaby for her child. I will give the Lullaby as it was written, and then give a modern transliteration of it, for those who may not be quite so up on their comprehension of the rich local, dialectical terminology and word-usages of that age:

"The Boomen and Maukins are scourin the steep,
The puir wee bit mousie's nae mair at her ease,
For the howlet is scrieghin amang the lane trees,
But ye'll sleep my luvelie, Hushe, Hushe and baloo,
And I'll keep the Boomen frae medlin wi' you.
Wheesh there, Wullie Moolie, Hushe, Hushe noo my pet,
Hear, Hear how he's jinglin the hesp o' the yett,
He'll be here in a jiffie, Hushe, Hushe now my dear,
For queyt sleepin babies he winnae come near,
Gae 'wa ugly Wullie, my bairnie I'll keep,
Ye dinna tak wee yins wha'll cuddle and sleep,
Na! Hushe and baloo babie, Hushe and baloo,
There s nae Wullie Moolie sall ever get you."


"Boomen" are supernatural creatures, like goblins or bogles; Maukins- malkins- are witches in cat or hare form. The "Wullie Moolie" would appear to be a booman of its own, but a very particular type: a "wooly earthy" thing ("mool" means earth)- either a spiritual presence known well in this woman's part of Scotland, or something more ancient/sinister; the devil himself? It would appear to be a chthonic, hairy thing, and the Devil gets that appearance often enough. Whatever it is, it, like the boomen and witches (all representing the powers of the unseen world) are a threat to young children.

In modern English:

"The boomen and maukins are scouring the hills, (or countryside)
The poor, tiny mouse is no more at her ease,
For the owl is screeching among the trees of the lane,
But you'll sleep my lovely, hush, hush and easily sleep,
And I'll keep the boomen from meddling with you.
Shush there, Wullie Moolie, hush, hush now my pet,
Hear, hear how he's jingling the clasp of the gate,
He'll be here in a jiffy, hush, hush now my dear,
For quiet, sleeping babies he won't come near.
Go away, ugly Wullie, my baby I'll keep,
You don't take small babies who'll cuddle and sleep.
Now! Hush and easily sleep, baby, hush and easy sleep,
There's no Wullie Moolie shall ever get you."


I think this rare bit of folklore encompasses more than just a woman's heart-felt lullaby; it can also be read as a protection charm. The dangers of the world around are reflected in the animal kingdom- the night is dangerous even for the poor mouse who is terrified by the screeches of owls. That same night has bogles and witches "scouring"- looking for something? But this child will sleep, and it appears that sleeping and being quiet is the best protection from the "Wullie Moolie"- for it is attracted by cries in the night. One can easily divine one of the earliest kinds of protection for children from this- certainly the earliest pre-cultural humans risked being found by night-predators because of the cries of their infants.

Being quiet in the dangerous darkness would just seem to be common sense. No Scottish woman from the late 1700's would have had any knowledge of pre-cultural humanity cowering in the jungles, hoping that tigers or lions (quite wooly or furry things themselves) didn't find them in the night. But human beings are not designed to be nocturnal; we, like all diurnal creatures who are naturally helpless or less capable in the dark know instinctively how to hide and be quiet. I think it is hard-wired into us to both fear the dark and to not move around or make much noise in it, in the same way that baby chicks come forth from the womb naturally afraid of the shadows of predator birds that they have never seen.

If any of these ancient, instinctual/intuitive impulses had anything to do with this lullaby, they were fully unconscious on the mother's part. But these unconscious powers don't stay down in the dark; they emerge in surprising other ways. I'm not at all suggesting that boomen and maukins are just "folkloric symbols" for unconscious fears born in pre-cultural predation; I know that some people have advanced this theory, but I don't agree. I think that the deep, watery chasm of inherited biological experience that layers deep in our humanity does contain ancient fears, but they are only a part of a bigger story. Entities like Boomen and Maukins are quite real in their own right, and belong to that shadowy, unseen world that the "primal wilderness darkness" is only a single historical manifestation of.

And children, as we have seen, are more vulnerable to them, for many reasons. May the wisdom of the old people help us to understand these mysteries and thereby help our young ones on their journeys through life.

The Village, or, The Pendulum of Souls

Good day, friends:

I have just completed a writing project regarding New England Witchery, which includes a detailed study of the metaphysics of Hedge or Boundary-crossing, and a complete system of Sigil-based sorcery and hexing. I have made the entire project available online, and can be viewed by clicking Here.

I hope that you enjoy this Hallows gift from me to you and yours.

RA

Literary Co-Creation: A tool for rebirthing lost arts

A dear friend of mine and I have begun a new blogspot project- those of you who have delusions of neo-Romanticism and Gothic literary endeavor may enjoy it:

The Literary Co-Creation Company for Wayward Romantics and Gothic Writers

Please read the "Caveat" when you arrive!

I hope to see some of you over there. We're off to a nice start.

The Art Veiled in Shadow

I am happy to report that very soon, my fine publisher will be making available my next work on Traditional Witchcraft.

That work is titled The Art Veiled in Shadow. It is further titled "A Tome of Traditional Witchcraft, also called “Evenwood's Dark Master” and “The Chronicle of the Dusk World."

Here is its description, for those of you who are interested:

"Robin Artisson's third major work on traditional witchcraft, containing a treasury of his most poetic and transformative writings devoted to the subject of trance-work, the metaphysics of the Faery-Otherworld of Perpetual Dusk, and the occult sciences. This essential tome contains the entire text of "The Toad Bone Treatise", alongside unpublished essays like "The Cult of Spirit-Flight and the Witch-Self", and the "Magisterial Testament of Axi-Ilara", a text co-written by the strange powers inhabiting the land upon which Robin lives. Included in this grimoire are essays on a range of topics useful to the cunning sorcerer, such as the Grand Working of Saturnian Effulgence, the Cthonic Mass by which the radiance of the Underworld is transformed through the mind and body to empower and regenerate land-spirits or Weirds; a working to summon and seal a daimonic divination-spirit into decks used for cartomancy, and many philosophical and poetic meditations on the Master of the Hidden Craft, revealing hidden keys of insight."

It will be coming soon from Pendraig Publishing.

WEIKERIE: The True Story of Witchcraft, Then and Now

In the mists of the most ancient of days, our first ancestors lived on broad, expansive grasslands with endless stretches of rivers and dark stands of forest scattered about. Distant mountains rose up to clouds, and frost-bringing winds scoured the ground and trees in winter. We don't know where they came from originally, but when they first expressed their primordial cultural yearnings with invention and imagination, binding themselves together into cohesive and related groups through the powers of language-sorcery and artifice-art, they were east of Europe, in the trans-Eurasian steppes, near the great inland Caspian sea, and in the environs of the Don and Dneiper rivers.

It really doesn't matter where they were; the world at that time was nothing like it is now. No one lived then who had a vision of a blue globe glowing in the black void of space; no one lived then who knew every mountain chain and what lay beyond every ocean. No one had even the first idea of the many different sorts of people or civilizations that might be encountered if they traveled far enough in any direction. What "world" means to us now is nothing like what it meant to them.

These ancestors were wise in other ways; they lived on the soil, under the sky, with an infinite omnidirectional power of multi-faceted life and mystery stretching away from them: the mystery of the ancestral land. It was linked, harmonically, to the mystery of the glowing stars in the freezing night, whose shapes traced out destiny. This was the foretime of our ancestors; animals spoke, all things possessed strange powers, and Gods and demons walked the earth and fought for supremacy amid the majestic forces of nature's great body. The dead were not severed away and gone; they dwelled in the land, as part of it; they interacted with the living in regular ways and following hidden cycles of the dusk-world.

As our people wandered and spread out into the unknown, they came to know of the other peoples they encountered; and they knew, after a course of countless centuries of mystical connection, even deeper lores about the land and sky which they had organically learned through spectral intercourse with the spirit world: that intensely mysterious "other side" of life, reached through extraordinary states of conscious awareness. They knew what they needed to know then about the luminous ruling powers- strange divine entities- that ruled the plains of the heavens, and they knew, from an even earlier date, about the spirits that appeared as plants and animals, and about the spirits of the dead, in the gaping darkness of the world below.

They knew about primal forces that were divine, who were so old as to be nameless, but still potent- the dark female spirit who through the noose of death around the dying and bound all things with Fate beneath the grave, and who drew souls to birth from the black waters below; they knew about the entity who emerged from the deepest places of the soul as a mighty, antlered being, with a potent and erect phallus, master of serpents and beasts; they knew about the whirling, rushing, windy inspirer of rage and ecstasy; they knew the land itself as a feminine entity of titanic, giving and taking power, mother to all that lived.

They knew of malevolent entities, enemies of the bright powers and some, very ancient, dwelling serpent-like in the land and waters, corrupting and consuming, hording and destroying with disease and cold and fire. They saw the struggles of the spirit world, mimicking the struggles of the earthly world, the numinal and phenomenal fully inter-connected, within each realm and between them, across the misty border of twilight-states. They saw the great cycles of space, time, sun, moon, birth, life, season, and death, endlessly whirling within the spindle of unguessable Fate and her pale handmaidens.

Among these men and women, our greatest grandmothers and grandfathers, as among all people in the ancient world, there arose a segment of spiritual workers who had the prerequisite strangeness about them, the cunning or bravery or unexplainable warping of mind, body, or soul which gave them access to the unseen. This special quality made them capable of channeling the mysteries of the unseen world, with all its living powers and bizarre, ancient entities, into the frame of reference of the common man or woman gathered around the night-time fires. They were practitioners of a series of related-though-broad spiritual esoteric sciences and practices, giving them the power to interact with unseen powers, speak to the dead, divine and prophesize, propitiate spirits, and move in spiritual journeys beyond the boundaries of the body, into the whiteness and darkness beyond sense and easy conception.

These men and women- the first sorcerers of these ancients- were parts of a cultural phenomenon captured distantly by the ancient word WEIK- "that which regards sorcery and religious matters". One etymological branch of that old word, WIK, pertains to the "sacred", the "holy", and the act of consecrating and even sacrificing. From WEIK, through its branch of WIH, we gain "guile" and "craftiness"- and seership, the person of the seer or prophet, and the sorcerer. We gain WEID, WID and WIT, "to see" and "to know"- two functions that are always connected in the ancient root-languages; from WEIK, finally, we gain WIKKE and WIKKERIE- and finally, down through the corridors of time's mutations of language, we gain "Witch."

WEIK might be called the "religion of the sorcerers", but to those ancients, religion and sorcery were not yet evolved so far apart as to be seen as radically different or opposed to one another. Today, most see the two institutions of sorcery and religion as diametrically placed across a spectrum from one another; in reality, anciently, a more holistic view likely existed, displaying the mysteries of the holy and terrifying Unseen World as an integral part of what they experienced as "this world"- such that interaction with the unseen powers was as much an interaction with the deep places of the self as with the deep places of the world. Interacting with "them" was both religious and sorcerous- intended to bring about needful ends.

Most of us know where this true story of these ancient people goes: vast gulfs of time rise up and they break apart, migrate, wander, and enter into the group-story of other branches of the human family, always taking their related but mutating languages and sacred cultural root-concepts with them. They begin to take on different surface identities, drawn from changes in language that naturally occur when they integrate foreign languages they discovered, and they changed in response to the different lands they came to inhabit, coming to know new powers, civilizations, and mysteries. Their wise people laid down the seeds that would become what we call "myths" today; in some places, they lifted glittering cities to the sky and tamed the seas, empires rose and conquered and fell, and in others, they lived among forests and valleys in small groups and villages, maintaining a thriving and ancient tradition of storytelling and vibrant expressions of poetic art.

As time passed, "religion" and "sorcery" did drift apart into two separate-seeming phenomena; temples and state religions and priesthoods arose, and practitioners of the far-flung arts of WEIK dwindled into an indistinct group of practitioners of the spirit-art, in dozens of unique local forms, sometimes they were respected, in other places and times were seen with ambivalent eyes, and in others, with some fear or hostility. As ages passed, one thing remained the same: the Unseen World never lost its ability to confuse, frighten, or cause wonder. It was never explained away. It still has not been; and I contend that it never will be.

Ages changed and changed again, and a world like the one we know now began to take shape. The rather flimsy story of "history" became more and more codified as a tool of the powerful, and the spiritual destiny of all people in the west fell into the lap of the conquering monotheistic Catholic faith. With that institution arose a Europe which began to organize itself into the national groupings we know now; and in that recent chapter of civilization's story, the stories of Gods, spirits, witches, and the world of the foretime have all become dim, shallow curiosities to most, and academic stock found on the dusty shelves of libraries and universities. Within those bits and pieces of the cultural past one may find just hints of the great world that once existed; one may also find keys to the doors that lead deep into the past, to the feet of the men and women who practiced WEIKERIE- the elder "craft" of the cunning and wise, those who see and know in ways that others cannot or will not.

Even in this world, this electron-haunted, mass-media linked world of consumers and bright lights, the strange powers that gathered behind the men and women of the WEIK still exist; as old as the desert sands or the steppe winds, as old as the lineage of oaks or ravens, the strangeness of the Unseen is still there.

In the Middle Ages, the potent echoes of Weikerie still glanced about the forests and village corners; to the laps of the healers, herbalists, hedge-sorcerers, craft-keepers and storytellers fell the ancient inheritance of the preternatural legacy of the foretime, though it was not (by this time) received in some directly “transmitted” form from other people; it came in a more profound way, as a part of the natural and innate metaphysic of the souls of people descended from the ancestors who knew WEIK, and from spirits. As the hateful "enlightenment" came, with its new sorcery of science and soul-choking materialistic empiricism, even those final bearers of the wisdom of the ancient world dwindled into caricatures encircled by mocking overtones of "superstition."

Today, the notion of the religions and magical systems of the past as "absurd" and "superstitiously ignorant" still informs the minds of most so-called "educated" people- but the presence of WEIK is far from dead or stamped out. Like the Unseen World of which it is a part, it is forever dynamic and able to morph and transform and hide and appear, revealing itself even today in what times and places it will. The chief "place" it reveals itself, in forms sometimes ancient and sometimes unique to the modern day, is in the minds of men and women who bear the spiritual mark and developmental disposition required to make a fertile manifesting ground for it. Through those minds, minds that become bridges and gates, blade-edge bridges and doors of dream and nightmare, the oldest of stories is still playing out, still shaping the destinies of individuals and groups, and through them, the world, in subtle ways of connection.

WEIK, in its most ancient root-form, was certainly what we might describe as "necromantic", "land-centered", "mantic" in the sense of "divinatory", and even "shamanic", to coin an academic phrase appropriated from a people of distant Siberia. If we are to take the reports of sorcery throughout the ages as partial evidence for the shape of the distant "magical seeds", we can say that WEIK dealt with the transformation of the mind and perceptions into shapes that could perceive the unseen; it dealt with the idea of journey through the skies and through night in a spirit-form or subtle body that could change its shape, and ride with spirits in the liberation of flight; it dealt with communication with the dead and the elfin spirits of the land, the "waihts" or "ansu" or the "people" under the hills- whether they be natural hills or burial mounds.

It dealt with propitiating nature-spirits that inhabited (and still inhabit) the natural world; it dealt with trance-delirium for the purpose of prophecy. It dealt with curses and cures for diseases; it dealt with deception of the senses and control of the faculties of others. It dealt with herb lore and wortcunning, the use of sacred intoxicants, and of mystical influence over the weather and beasts.

Within WEIK was certainly a notion of immortal spirit-bodies that survived the grave, and of transformations that could overcome the living and the dead in the post-mortem state, and how spirits could be bound, released, or accessed. Within it was a notion of rebirth for some, by mysterious means, and a notion of deadly, fatal consequence, binding all beings based on their deeds and Fate. There was a notion, as old as the Ancients themselves, of the birth and death and regeneration of the cosmos, which each individual life microcosmically demonstrated in its own birth, life, and death.

There was a notion of the transformative turning and binding that held all things together, and made all things- entities of any kind, no matter whether they appeared as human, plant, mineral, animal, or otherwise- actually and sympathetically connected and able to affect one another.

What is one to make of such things? What we must concern ourselves with most is the impact of WEIK's undying legacy on the modern world which it exerts through each of us- we who have felt an attraction to the unknown and occult and the religious or spiritual experiences of the very old times. For some of us, that strange fascination will lead them to the altars of the Old Gods; for a small percentage, it will lead to the door of sorcery in the most authentic sense. The map of that journey leads through many houses and countries, and has many dead ends.

Some despair and never finish the journey. Others, however, find their way to the house of the Binding Weird-Lady and her pale women who weave the Fate of the world, and in the forested hollows of the Antler-crowned king. For some, it leads to the subversive, soul-shattering, soul-stealing and soul-reshaping initiations of the Master of Sorcery, who still leads covens here and there through the back roads of our towns and troubled woods. The dance of the "feery folk" is still going on, following the same ring that it followed when our ancestors first challenged the new world with their bravery and grasp for the extraordinary.

What these people find is more than just the timeless houses of ancient Gods or spirits. They find undimensioned reaches of the self "opened" and new capacities of thinking and experiencing unsealed, just as vibrant and alive as they were in ages past. The sorcerer of today and the sorcerer of ages ago both transcend "religion" and "magic" as a false division; they find the fullness of the human metaphysical potential, the true meaning of "spiritual ecology", and they find the true poetry of life.

The path of Weikerie is not about rebirthing "old religions" into the modern day, though that may be an aspect of it; it would be more accurate to describe it as the ongoing relationship of timeless entities and powers with the modern day, through the minds and bodies of living people. Weikerie's touch is melded seamlessly with the modern day, in surprising ways, but it is still different, ancient and new at once, and mystically potent.

The oldest powers- even those once worshiped as Gods- are still here, and by this distant age, their truest and oldest names have all but passed away into myth and forgetfulness; but their images still emerge from within the deepest places of the folk of WEIK; the spinning grand-crone, the blood-drinking woman of skulls, the phallic antlered man, the entity of light and raging force of insight, the spirit of the storm, the bodies of light in the ground, the fruitful and perilous earth-mother, the women in the wells and waters, the serpent-monsters and theriomorphs in the deep places, the hosts of the heavens and hells.

These images are not just phantasmagoria from a forgotten age; they are the avatars of real potencies that forever live in the out-weaving of the universal pattern. We, too, as human beings live in them and interact with them, forever. It matters not how much we have forgotten our place in things, and our place in the ancient tree of spectral inter-relation. The universe whirls on regardless, to our detriment if we remain forgetful. These images and forces live in us- all of us- at the deepest levels, and no matter of a few thousand years of following the creed of an alien religion and metaphysic can spare us the destiny-patterns set down by uncountable millennia of ancestral expression. When we rediscover the power of WEIK, we rediscover who and what we really are- because this story I've been telling isn't fiction. It's reality; it was real; these grandmothers and grandfathers were real, and these beliefs were held by more of our ancestors than not.

We are those grandmothers and grandfathers, living now- spirit-bodies passed down through timeless spheres of experience, swam back to a human experience, all human bloodlines still bound by the patterns of ritual and culture and belief of the past, and shaped by true sorcerous workings of magnitudes that even myths today cannot adequately express. Their poetry was ours; their sorcery is ours, too. What sorcery channeled then is what it channels now- something trans-cultural and far beyond the human range of full comprehension; in real sorcery is a freedom from any limitation imposed by cultural boundary or twist of moral or politics. It is an encounter with the most authentic, timeless forces and powers, as they exist in the bodies and minds of men and women- and when taken far enough, sorcery is the final and ultimate transformation of a person's destiny.

A Sabbatical Hodge Podge

A Sabbatical Hodge Podge: The Problems of the Eightfold Sabbat System

Why Your Eightfold Sabbat System of Worship is Killing the Spirit of Genuine Paganism- and the Witchcraft That Sometimes Lives Inside It.

Copyright © 2009 by Robin Artisson
http://www.robinartisson.com

* * *
Beating a Well-Known Horse

It has become the mainstream currency of neo-Pagans everywhere to follow the calendrical observations of the "eightfold sabbat" year. Even though I feel like I'm beating a well-known horse by saying this, those eight sabbats are (beginning with the darkest) Yule, Imbolg, Eostre, Beltane, Midsummer, Lammas, Mabon (or the Autumn Equinox), and Samhain. Four are equinoxes and solstices; the other four are (today) positioned directly between the four solar events, and called “cross-quarters.”

Ever since my first days being cognizant of neo-Pagan religions, I've had issues with this system, and those issues turned into a full-blown illness when I did the research behind the creation of the Eightfold Sabbat system. I won't do like I normally do and write eighteen paragraphs before I get to my actual point. I'll just say it: the system, as it is, is unforgivably new-agey and invented.

Now, let me unpack what I just said. Let me start by saying "hey guys- if you like your eight sabbats, then by all means, keep celebrating them." But don't walk around thinking that you're doing anything remotely similar to Pagans from pre-christian times. These eight "sabbats" were assembled by Gardner and team for you, about 60 or so years ago. He was inspired by many then-available sources, chiefly his pals in the revivalist Druid movement- a movement that is far more Christian than Pagan, and whose luminary members and founders were always church-attending men.

The eight sabbats, as they stand, are a hodge-podge of Germanic and Celtic holy days. Before I unpack this, let me say that "Germanic" and "Celtic" are not words that refer to unitary, singular cultural traditions, but very, very broad terms that refer to linguistically-related tribes and nations of people which numbered in the hundreds. The chances that all Germanic Pagans, everywhere and at all times, kept some sacred "wheel" of rituals every year are so tiny as to be negligible. The very same thing goes for the many peoples that we now call "Celtic".

The Summer Begins Twice This Year

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that many Germanic peoples saw the Yule-tide as a very sacred time. There is no doubt that Beltaine in Ireland was a sacred time for the peoples of that Island, at least around the time of the visits of the probably fictional "St. Patrick." We do know that, historically, SOME Celtic and Germanic peoples celebrated these seasons: we know that there was a Lugh's Commemoration Fair, a Lughnassadh, in ancient Ireland, and a shadow of a cognate in Christian times. We know that Midsummer stands tall in the folkloric memory of Germanic-descended people. A few other notable nights and seasons stand out. For instance- we know that the Romans, in all places where Roman culture was strongly spread, celebrated Saturnalia around the time of the Winter Solstice- just like the Germanic Yule.

But when you look at history more soberly, you will discover quickly that taking the Celtic Beltaine, and putting it on a calendar with a Germanic Midsummer or Yule leads to the creation of a calendar that is neither historical, culturally accurate, nor very respectful to the broad ancestral metaphysics of either culture-group. Beltaine, the celebration of Bel's summer fire, seen as a great fertility drama by most neo-Pagans today, stands as the crown of the neo-Pagan conception of the "Celtic Summer": to follow it with the equivalent Germanic "First of Summer" festival- Midsummer- is nothing short of redundant.

One culture-group, at certain times and in certain places, had their summer's beginning on Beltaine, and the other, at Midsummer. These were different cultures with many different ideals, different Gods, and different destinies. They blended together eventually, sure- but they maintain, even now, their own unique treasures to offer, and they can't offer those without people who respect them enough to approach them on their own merits. Celebrating Samhain, followed by Yule- two prominent festivals that include the return of the dead kindreds or ancestors to dwell with the living- is also a bit redundant; your ancestral dead are probably annoyed by being moved twice in the space of seven weeks.

Now, if you're an "eight wheeler", and unless you're claiming to follow a "Celtic-Germanic" Pagan reconstructionist path, what are you really doing? And why on earth would you invent a modern "Myth cycle" with oak kings and holly kings and Persephones and Ishtars, to follow the eight hodge-podge sabbats, as though the ancients believed in any way similarly?

People are passing off "Paganism" (and worse yet, "witchcraft") as gleeful talks about "The God" (that annoying nobody-everybody God of Wiccans) getting married on Beltaine, and reaching the "height of his power" on Midsummer, and blah blah snore- people, please- spare my poor heart. We're better than this. We don't have to "invent forward"- we can "go back" and see what is still there, written for us in the sacred seasons and in the land. We can "go into" the land around us, and see more. What we'll see is important because it's what the ancients saw, before they began doing the things that we eagerly seek out ourselves now.

Each of these sacred seasons that people toss around, within the context of its own generalized cultural group, has its own mythology- it does not "link" to others with invented neo-Pagan Godforms. Every season and time contains its own mythology, its own sacred powers, its own moods and forces. They are universes all their own, not just steps on a stone-lined path.

I know some of you have heard this sort of rant before. Many of you have not, or have and don't care. I care about getting to the real treasures that have come down to us from the past, and I know for a fact that over-inventing modern contexts and overlays for the treasures of the past is the fastest way to obscure the power and wisdom that is sitting right there, calmly and simply, waiting for people to live it again.

Lugh’s Festival Has Nothing To Do With Anglo-Saxon Loaves

When we examine the origins of these "solar" holy days and festivals, like Yule and Midsummer, even a fool can see that they were inspired by ancient people watching the sun's apparent motions in the sky, and what impact that had on earthly life and weather. When we examine the origins of agrarian festivals and culturally-encapsulated festivals like Lughnassadh or Beltaine, we can see that they were not solar; they were not timed to equinoxes and solstices; they were cultural relics of the many Celtic peoples- particularly the ancient Irish- and they have their origins in the mythical life of those people.

The very widespread Celtic God Lugus, in his Irish hypostasis of Lugh, declares a time of mourning and of competition and games for his foster-mother, who gave her life for the people of a particular region of Ireland, and thus was the mythical origin of Lughnassadh, the commemoration that was established by Lugh.

This is not a universal Pagan holy day. It belonged (and in a sense, still belongs) to a specific culture. The Anglo-Saxon harvest rites of Lammas are not the same thing as Lughnassadh. They are not a "Germanic equivalent"- the Germanic peoples who came to settle in England had no equivalent to Lugh's ordered commemoration event. And they might have been as confused as I am about people leaping all over a disordered year with all these various "holy days" dragged together and forced on one another, as though there was some secret universal pattern to them.

We have no evidence that all Celts or all Germans in every Celtic or German community followed a "four-fold" year. In fact, we don't have a single historical record saying that anyone in Northern Europe "came together this many times a year on these days" for this or that sacred day or ritual. What we do have, however is the common sense to study the everyday lives of these various peoples, and, by adding an understanding of how central nature and the land were to Pagan religions all over Europe (and the rest of the world) we can reconstruct a more sensible vision of what their years might have been like.

To begin with, when you rely on herds and crops for your very life, weather-cycles become very important. But weather-patterns are not everywhere the same: what is a killing cold in England is a balmy day on the shores of the Mediterranean. It was the cold that may have threatened life in the north, but it was drought and heat that threatened life in the Mediterranean world. Their planting seasons and growing seasons were different. What they grew was different. What they hunted, fished, and herded was different, all over. Gods and spirits associated with these animals, crops, and weather were different. They were not all faces of "one divinity" or even two, or three, or ten. They were countless, and unique to each community. The Goddess of the Land was not even called by the same name everywhere, even within cultural boundaries.

This is the key issue: how unique genuine Pagan religion was to each community, or tribe, or grouping of people. Neo-paganism destroys the very fabric of the traditional Pagan vision by trying to bang together a "sacred year", without recourse to the context of small village and community life in ancient times, and even in recent times. There was no internet; no phones; various practices and customs sprang up all over the world, in response to the unique environmental and spiritual conditions of many places, without the other places even knowing about them or understanding them. We are speaking of a non-standardized, totally decentralized way of approaching the natural spirituality of life.

A Hammer Hallows Our Fields… A Penis Hallows Yours

What genuine Pagan people living in a village somewhere in the middle of the woods and fields in the middle of Ancient Germany would have "done" for their community "calendar" is radically different from what Pagans on the top of Norway would have done, or Pagans in Iceland, or Pagans in Britain, or Pagans in Rome. Their local weather- and thus the start of their "harvest" season, would have been different from Pagans in other parts of Europe. What local land-spirits and powers were unique to their community would have been the ones receiving their harvest or planting sacrifices. What larger "Gods" or "Goddesses" they culturally believed in would have been invoked in various ways, but probably not in the same ways, or at the same times, as the Germanic peoples just a hundred miles away, in another part of that same region.

Iceland is a good example: the God that most of the farmers of Iceland prayed to for the well-being of their crops was Thor. He was the God that sent rain and fertilized fields. In southern Sweden, the God farmers traditionally relied on the most was Frey or Ing, for the same goals: fertility and well-being for the land. And beyond these national Gods, whose names were known generally by all Swedes or Icelanders, were the local divinities and land-spirits that only the people in those communities knew and sacrificed to. Those local powers had every bit of say over what grew in their land. They were a crucial part of the old Heathen religious complexes.

Roman and Greek sacred days and seasons were and are radically different from Northern European ones. I don't need to bother going into the very well-known Roman calendar and pointing out how it bears no resemblance at all to anything the Northern Peoples were doing, with almost one exception: Saturnalia coincides in a general way with the Yule-time, and has similar themes. But this can be explained in various ways. It is not an outgrowth of a universal "Pagan year wheel".

Gerald Gardner and the Wiccans (as said before) working in tandem with their Revivalist Druid friends (those Druids who believed in the Helio-Arkite pseudo-pagan christian mythology) gave us the "eightfold sabbat" system. And before you think I'm just against it full stop, let me say a few things that are good about it.

Gardner, like all of the people of Britain now, was a mix of ancient native British and Germanic bloodlines. One might make a case that all Europeans from Northern and Northwestern Europe (as well as Spain and Italy) have Germanic in them, considering it was the German people who migrated to all these places, conquered them (yes, even conquered Spain and Italy- the Visigoths settled Spain and the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, bringing their Gods, culture, and having sex with the local women) and created the "Europe" we know now.

By making a "half kinda-Celtic and half sorta-Germanic" Calendar for his vision of a new Witchcraft, Gardner was in a way being true to his mixed-blood roots. And, for a time, all over Europe, Celtic peoples did celebrate their own local holidays alongside Germanic settlers who followed their own ways. Thus, the folkloric and historical tradition will mention "Lammas" and "Midsummer" alongside things like "Samhain"- but the chances of some small tradition of "witches", the likes of which Gardner claimed to meet, following a clockwork calendar of four Celtic and four Germanic holidays are nil and none.

The Witch of That Small Village… Somewhere Out There…

The local witch of later times, after the names "Celtic" and "Germanic" meant little and national names like "English" or "French" were in place, would certainly have gone to the harvest festivals or his or her community. That festival may have coincided with some more ancient Pagan festival, but it was no longer the same. Some of the same powers may have been there- some of the same impulses, and even some of the same practices (big bonfires, corn dollies, feasting, or what have you) but this is not an instance of "survival" of Pagan rites. Our fictional witch may, in fact, be the only person at the harvest fair that still senses the older powers and spirits of the time- I would hope they would- but again, we are a very long distance from an ancient "Lugh's Commemoration" to the local "St. Agatha's Harvest Home".

That witch might have recognized the power of these times- for they all have power- and used them, as I do myself in my own life, to assay trance work and wisdom-gaining workings. But then, all times have their own power- not just special days. I think that the folk-calendar, which does in fact contain a hodge-podge of older-rooted holy days from different cultures, has its own unique wisdom. But there was no one "folk calendar" for all of Europe. Not now, and not ever. And it certainly didn't contain a "wrap-around story" that told of the progress of some singular Goddess or God.

This modern attempt to bolster Gardner's calendar with new mythology is forlorn, because it is miles from the Land itself, from the unique spirit of unique places. The "witchcraft"- the native sorcery- of European folk-customs, ancient Pagan spirits, folk-beliefs, and the whole mystical spirit of ancient Europe as it came into the modern day, it will flee before people that automatically ignore the individual sacred lands and places, the subtle messages of individual customs or lores, in favor of some "over-arching" new Pagan calendar that sweeps up the biggest chunks of history, and sweeps away the divine, mystical details.

Gerald was, in his own way (along with those pseudo-Druids) among the first Pagan reconstructionists. And that's good. Without meaning to do so, they certainly inspired a lot of research into the Pagan origins of certain times. But in doing so, they obscured the power of local, land-based rituals, rites, and yearly observations, and how important those are to people today who are fortunate enough to take part in them, and how important they were to the ancients.

Paganism was never meant to be a centralized religion with a liturgical year, like the Catholic year or the Jewish calendar. It was meant to communicate something of the uniqueness of each and every stand of trees, field, or corner of the woods. It was meant to engage every person who lives on a land, grows their own food, or sees their own local wildlife. It was meant to be an expression of each individual's life and land, and their family, and their community. This is what organic religion is. This is why the Gods are not all "one"- they are there, in the land, hills, and mountains of many lands, and in the group-soul of many people, following them on their long migrations. They are in the storms, the skies, and the seas. They are living out their ageless lives alongside human beings, being met by humans everywhere humans go.

Pope Cernunnos

It seems to me that too many neo-Pagans don't see how similar they've become to Christianity or Islam or Judaism: they rush to ram all their Gods into "one", so as to keep some ridiculous claim on a monotheistic-ish seeming religion, in what can be described as nothing short of a fear of true Polytheism- for centuries, Polytheism has been excoriated by Monotheism as ignorant and chaotic, and these lessons have been entrenched in our cultures, in our scholarly fields, and in our basic thinking.

Many of our "New Pagans" don't seem to have the depth or the courage to challenge the Monotheistic claim that Monotheism is just better or "makes more sense". It makes no sense to place all of the rich treasures of human spirituality, all of the unique spirits of places, and all of the unique cultural Gods of the past into an immense blender and make a horrid sludge out of it, all in the name of being able to tell disapproving Christians "well, we all worship the same God, just under different names and facets..." And they've come up with a liturgical calendar, complete with "colors" for the different seasons and precise days of worship, precisely like the Roman Catholic liturgical year.

The more one thinks on it, the more disgusting and shallow it becomes. It is a betrayal of the very essence of organic, traditional Paganism. I don't need Christian approval, and I don't have to be a sorta-monotheist to be taken seriously in a philosophical debate. I don't have to debate at all; I only need to know the closeness of the sacred powers, wherever I am. I need to bond with them and live in peace and harmony with them. That is what Pagans did. That is what "Pagans" worth the name still do.

I don't need a calendar created by Popes to tell me when "Beltaine" is. I can see the bluebells come to the trees, see the bloom of hawthorn, and know that my Summer-fire festival's time is here for me and for mine. They may bloom early one year; they may bloom later- but that's fine. It's the sacred power of the Earth itself telling me that it's time to celebrate. This custom, incidentally- of waiting to see the Hawthorn flowers- is not my invention. I wish I could be so rustic and deep sounding. It was an old custom from some parts of England and Ireland.

Pagans don't need "books on sabbats" to tell them how to worship. They need the sacred book that the ancients had: the Land itself. The Land at YOUR house will show you its own seasons. People need to pay attention to that, if they want to "celebrate the cycles of nature". People claim that the point of "celebrating the cycles of nature" is to gain "balance". I disagree. Balance comes from being part of a place, part of a family, part of a community, part of a vision of life that gives you peace. The seasons cycle around that, through that- but the balance, the "Frith" as many ancient Heathens called it, comes from belonging. You belong to a place, first, then it teaches you about its moods and seasons. By honoring those moods and seasons, you honor it and yourself, because you've become a part of it. The land and the people are one.

Even A Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day: Let’s Go Deeper

I said that I'd say more than one good thing about the neo-Pagan calendar cycle, right? I did... and, well, I suppose I'd rather see people doing something unforgivably new-agey, and getting excited about the moon or the sun or racked-up Pagan holidays, than getting excited about Jesus and the twelve apostles. At least neo-Paganism is a move back to the sober sanity of nature, and away from the invented "triumphalist" linear story of "sin and salvation" with its absurd notion of "time beginning" and "time ending" at the hands of the ancient Hebrew God. I'd rather a modern story that excited people about nature's sacred powers, than an ancient one that excites people about physically crawling out of their graves one day to go to heaven and watch as most everyone else goes to hell forever. There's just no competition in my mind.

So, thanks to Gerald. But we can't stay right where Gerald or anyone else started people off. We have to use our hearts and reason and go deeper. Unless we all want to be content allowing "Paganism" to be perceived as a bunch of new-agers tossing together Greek and Roman Gods alongside caricatures of Norse and Celtic ones, (and a few Hindu divinities tossed in, alongside some Semitic ones, all slammed into a "one god and one goddess" duo-theism/bad monotheism) and ignoring local lands, powers, and folklore, and then worshiping on "Sabbats" that are blends of Germanic and Celtic holy days, all tied up with a big ribbon of radical liberalism and eco-feminism, we have to go deeper.

Trance-Work of the Three Forked Tongues

The Art requires command of extraordinary states of conscious awareness. The head-body complex- that natural state of conscious waking, locked in the head-eye-ear consciousness- is one of three complexes that stand like markers on a road that regresses to totality or wholeness. Three states of conscious awareness concern us here- the common consciousness of the head-body complex; the "feeling consciousness" of the soul which is half-awake in the average man, woman, or child, and the "heart consciousness" of the utter depth, which is dark and hidden in most.

From the perspective of one layer of consciousness, any of those deeper appear to be subtle, irrational, or simply absent or draped in darkness. Thus, from the perspective of the head-body consciousness, the feeling consciousness is wordless and strange, though active in an intuitive manner which grants the conscious person emotional textures, though without a seeming rational pattern or explanation. One merely "feels" a certain way, and sometimes a connection can seem apparent between forces operating in the apparently "objective" world and the feeling; at other times, the feelings simply arise.

From the perspective of the head-body complex, the heart's deep messages are absent. One may speak of "feeling with their heart" or "knowing in their heart", but this is poetic license to describe a decision or way of believing that is in line with no other evidence beyond a deeply held intuition. In this sense, the heart-consciousness may in fact be manifesting something to the feeling consciousness, which is struggling to do its best to transmit that message, and being interpreted in various ways by the most coarse, everyday consciousness, beset as it is with years of rationalizing and perilous, linear "educational" perspectives that have been forced upon it. The explanation that emerges for the entire chain of experience is normally a sad explanation, indeed, as is any explanation of the ultimate "meaning" of the entire experience.

A sublime trance and wisdom-gate exists for the opening in any man or woman who can regress from the head-body complex to the feeling region of the chest, and beyond that, into the boundless deep of the heart-field: a field whose very infinitesimal edge seems to touch the physical organ of the heart in the middle-body, and then extends far beyond the body, reaching out to touch all the invisible.

The process is as simple as it is powerful, and it draws on the tongue of the serpent, and can be increased threefold in strength if the rattle of his tail is used.

Fill a hollow gourd with some pebbles, and, if possible, the vertebrae of a serpent, dried well. Do not kill a serpent to attain them; you must find it deceased already. Seal the gourd and form from it a rattle. Any rattle constructed by you, from any simple material will do. This rattle is not needed for this work, but it increases its strength.

To begin, situate yourself calmly and in a lonely, quiet place. Quietly enter into the full use of your eyes, ears, and senses- the portals of the head-body consciousness. Let yourself fully enter into whatever you are hearing and seeing and feeling on your skin. Spit once and take a deep breath, and assay the serpent's hiss, by releasing the breath slowly and steadily through your teeth, making a faint whistling noise. As you do this, shake the rattle, if you are utilizing one, as though it were the warning-rattle of a serpent about to strike. Shake it sparingly, rapidly, suddenly, alarmingly- but never too much. As you are making this serpentine music, do not neglect the fact that your ears are hearing it, and immerse yourself in the sound fully. If your eyes remain open, immerse yourself in whatever you see. Be as present as you can be with the gifts of your head and body senses.

When the breath runs out, fall silent. If you feel that you have "entered into" your coarse experiences fully, then proceed. If not, undergo another cycle. There is nothing you need do except be fully present with what already effortlessly presents itself.

When you are ready to go one level deeper, bring your mind's focus to your chest, the place where you feel- the chest, and further down, the stomach. In both of these places you feel the swelling of pride, of joy, the gut-wrench of sorrow or hurt, the burn of panic, of humiliation. The chest primarily, and the stomach secondarily, are the houses of the feeling-sense consciousness.

You may give yourself leave now to withdraw from the eyes and ears and focus on the chest and stomach- and as you begin another long hiss, and perhaps rattle, now enter totally into whatever you happen to be feeling.

The final cycle of regression on the back of the sound of the hiss and rattle is from the feeling consciousness-realm to the heart-reality. Just as you gave yourself leave to regress a bit from the eyes and ears to the feeling region, now give a similar leave to sink below the place of feeling, to the purity and aerial-seeming freedom of the heart: an immense space that has no boundaries, somewhere indeterminately "deeper" in you and then beyond you. A hiss and the rattle may flow you deep into it, as well. Release yourself to it.

In that third space, greater than all, you have arrived at a subtle but clear space that is your own interweaving point with every other spiritual power. It is through this strange void that the messages from the boundless approach and begin to move through our three levels, to arrive in the coarse mind quite disfigured by the common man and woman's conscious and unconscious preconcieved notions. It is through this deathless void that spirits swim and dwell, and through this place that they may speak to us, and we to them- with the language of the same void, which is something more essential than feeling. It is, in essence, a wordless communication, a "suddenly knowing all that the spirit was intending to communicate", while "suddenly expressing all that you intended to express back, without words or thoughts, all at once."

This void is the very veil of Fate, the closest approximation that our humanity can create with our minds to the incomprehensible and non-corporeal reality of the grand mystery: a dazzling and sable midnight though without darkness, stretching without effort to all times and places and powers, silent and clear, free and vibrant, darksome and mind-withering, timeless and deathless. It would seem to be what so many people half-sense and call "God".

Our experience of the heart-space is our own personal window into the weird-world of the intangible, that well of potencies that has no bottom or boundaries. It is the source of dreams, though how we experience dreams is skewed and transformed from their original luminous nature, into objects, thoughts, and images that we impute reality and meaning to.

The most cunning will discover that they feel a certain different manner when resting in the third space; most will discover that resting in it for very long is difficult. As one drifts in and out of touch with it's subtle mystery, one may "bring themselves back down" by walking through the three regions quickly: re-immerse oneself in the eye and ear, then the feeling, and then back down and within to the silent, expansive space of heart. One must bend the will to it, but never too hard. To sink within, to the weird-space that borders both the heart and every other reality, is neither easy nor difficult.

When in contact with the heart-consciousness, with the weird-space, one may speak invocations with the mouth, and "feel" their impact rippling out into the unseen and filling up the world around them. Of course, one will hear with the ears, and feel with the chest and belly, and interpret the feelings with the common mind; but some third thing- some deeper aspect of the human man or woman- will know the difference, as a partial experience of the heart-field will echo into the person with a strange "contact" that cannot truly be explained well.

However, the cunning witch or sorcerer will know that they are "there": having an experience that is part place and part placeless; they will know “in their hearts” that they have made this regression and contact, and their feelings and even their outer senses may shift and verify this, in various ways.

One may also speak invocations in the manner of the "ghost language"- speak them with the mouth, but then "regress" them to the chest and belly, "saying" them only with feelings, before regressing them a final time, allowing them to be communicated into the great void-space without words or feelings; merely willing that the essence of the invocation be manifested all at once, fully, perfectly, in the great "totality". The feeling consciousness will report when this has occurred- One will feel, in a wordless way, that the invocatory message has "filled up the seen and the unseen"- the message itself becoming as large as the universe, its essence becoming one with all things. The most powerful invocations are done in this manner.