slowly-losing-my-grip - Tumblr blog

slowly-losing-my-grip · 4 years

Note

I just want to drop a few ideas for future posts: the devil, Grimoires and witchcraft, flying ointment, practical historical spells, tools in reconstructionist witchcraft Thanks for being there and inspiring my craft :)

.:: Grimoires, the Devil, the Flying Ointment and Tools in Reconstructionist Traditional Witchcraft ::.

1.) Ok, so, let’s start from the Grimoires:I think we have to do a distinguish here between Protestant majority Countries and Catholic majority Countries. Catholic majority Countries had a less grade of alphabetization because they didn’t have the impulse, given by Luther, to translate the bible into the popular language and to use popular language for the mass (in Catholic countries the mass was celebrated until not so long ago in latin, and people didn’t understand anything of it).For example, in Italy, still in 1861 there were the 78% of analphabets, with the 91% in Sardinia and 90% in Calabria and Sicily (while Piedmont and Lombardy - the North - had 57% and 60%).This is directly connected to the possibility to read these grimoires and to have a more or less grade of distinction between high (ceremonial) magic and low (popular) magic. Moreover, there was a gender difference in alphabetization, therefore males were more alphabetized than females.So we can say that in Catholic majority countries there was less possibility to use grimoires by lower class people, especially by women, who were usually the demographics that represented the majority of witches; this is because they didn’t know how to read them, so we find less the use of ceremonial tools like athames, circles, etc. and more popular charms, “segnature” (I don’t know how this translates, in Italian they are movements of the thumb associated with charms, used to remove certain illnesses), etc.However sometimes people used symbols without knowing what they meant.People did something similar even for Christian prayers: in latin, used by Catholic mass until recently, the Lord’s Prayer has a part which says “dona nobis hodie”. People understood this as “donna Bisodia” (”woman/lady Bisodia”), and they though that she was a real person, and constructed an history of this character. They said that she was a very pious woman and that for her purity she was inserted inside of the prayer! People even used to say to more inclined to sin persons: “Ah, you are certainly not like Donna Bisodia!”.So this kind of interpretation was the most likely to be happened in Catholic majority Countries when lower class people who didn’t know how to read met grimoires (when they could because they were forbidden and expensive). In Protestant majority Countries, the lines were more blurred between folk magic and ceremonial magic.However, as I said before, Witchcraft and folk magic didn’t were the same thing. The majority of witches were also folk magicians, but the majority of folk magicians were definitely not witches: the majority of folk magicians were Christians. Therefore only a certain percent of folk magicians internalized the legends about the group of female spirits with the Domina Nocturna who went from house to house to eat and drink food and beverage offerings given for them by inhabitants of the house; only a certain percent of them believed to go with this cortège or with the Procession of the Dead; only a certain percent of them believed to go to the Sabbath (an evolution of the cortège from house to house); and an even more little percent emulated the Sabbath in physical reality.However, even in Grimoires we find a version of the cortège from house to house, even if it’s more Christianized than the ones that we usually find attested in popular culture, folklore and witch trials, where the Domina Nocturna was more a Goddess-like character (here the Dominae Nocturnae seem more a group of simple spirits). I quote from here: http://alexander-cummins.squarespace.com/blog/2016/11/9/the-rain-will-make-a-door-ii-how-to-see-spirits“To have Conference with the fairies In the House where those use when you intend to work be the last up. The night before the new or full of the Moon Then sweep the Hearth very clean And set a bucket of fair water on the Hearth so go to bed. And be you the first that shall come down the next Morning And you shall see as it were a fat or Jelly upon the water. Take it forth with a Silver Spoon and put it into A Silver or Tin vessel and so keep it And when you will work the night before the new or full of the Moon, If there be a Table in the Room Set a new Bowl full of new Ale upon the board And iii [3] new white cloths with iii [3] new knives with white hafts. This done make a fair fire of sweet cloven wood Then sit in a Chair with your face towards the fire Then take your foresaid stuff forth and anoint your Eyes therewith And sit silent And see all the house be quiet and at rest And when you have sitten so a while you shall see iii [3] women come in, But say nothing but nod your head at them as you shall see them do to you And they will go to the Table and eat and drink, when they have done let the first pass And the second But the third you may take and ask what you will of her. Probat. Gauntlet, p. 288-289 There are many obvious lunar themes present in this operation. Silver is the traditional metal of the Moon. The timings are by starts and ends of the lunar cycle. The Moon rules the phlegmatic humour, characterised with the coldness and moisture of elemental Water, which was considered to encourage imaginative reflection, feminine introversion, and both hopeful and fearful fixation upon the past and future. The ‘fat or jelly’ one cultivates and collects is a particularly phlegmatic substance, to be generated atop a ‘bucket of fair water’. This emphasis on fairness and cleanliness is also observable in the prevalence of white objects such as cloths, a colouring both lunar and ‘virginal’. This operation certainly has a very different take from typical ceremonial magic on the uses of white-handled knives! This working also foregrounds the importance of the hearth, the heart of a house; while also emphasising ambient stillness of the ‘quiet and at rest’ of the power of the wee small hours. The object of this experiment in full is to receive a ring of invisibility from one of the fairy ladies. We find the likely source of Gauntlet’s operation in Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft: This is the way to go invisible by these three Sisters of Fairies. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. First go to a fair Parlor or Chamber, and an even ground, and in no loft, and from people nine dayes, for it is the better: and let all thy cloathing be clean and sweet. Then make a Candle of Virgin Wax, and light it, and make a fair fire of Charcoles in a fair place, in the middle of the Parlour or Chamber. Then take fair clean water, that runneth against the East, and set it upon the fire: and if thou washest thy self, say these words, going about the fire three times, holding the Candle in thy right hand † Panthon † Craton † Muriton † Bisecognaton † Siston † Diaton † Maton † Tetragrammaton † Agla † Agarion † Tegra † Pentessaron † Tendicata † Then rehearse these names † Sorthie † Sorthia † Sorthios † Milia † Achilia † Sibylia † In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen. I conjure you three sisters of Fairies, Milia, Achilia, Sibylia; by the Father, by the Son, and by the Holy Ghost, and by their vertues and powers, and by the most merciful and living God, that will command his Angel to blow the trump at the day of Judgment; and he shall say, Come, come, come to judgment; and by all Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominations, Principates, Potestates, Virtutes, Cherubim and Seraphim, and by their vertues and powers; I conjure you thre sisters, by the vertue of all the royal words aforesaid: I charge you that you do appear before me visibly, in form and shape of fair women, in white vestures, and to bring with you to me, the Ring of Invisibility, by the which I may go invisible at mine own will and pleasure, and that in all hours and minutes: In Nomine Patris, & Filii, & Spiritus Sancti, Amen. Being appeared, say this bond following. O blessed Virgins † Milia † Achilia † I conjure you in the Name of the Father, in the Name of the Son, and the Name of the Holy Ghost, and by their vertues I charge you to depart from me in peace for a time. And Sibylia I conjure thee, by the vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the vertue of his flesh and precious blood, that he took of our blessed Lady the Virgin, and by all holy company in Heaven, I charge thee Sibylia, by all the vertues aforesaid, that thou be obedient unto me, in the Name of God; that when, and what time and place I shall call thee by this foresaid Conjuration written in this Book, look thou be ready to come unto me, at all hours and minutes, and to bring unto me the Ring of Invisibility, whereby I may go invisible at my will and pleasure, and that at all hours and minutes; Fiat, fiat, Amen. And if they come not at the first night, then do the same the second night, and so the third night, until they do come: for doubtless they will come, and lie thou in thy bed, in the same Parlor or Chamber; And lay thy right hand out of the bed, and look thou have a fair silken Kercher bound about thy head, and be not afraid, they will do thee no harm: For there will come before thee three fair women, and all in white cloathing, and one of them will put a Ring upon thy finger, wherewith thou shalt go invisible. Then with speed bind them with the bond aforesaid. When thou hast this Ring on thy finger, look in a Glass, and thou shalt not see thy self. And when thou wilt go invisible, put it on thy finger, the same finger that they did put it on, and every new {Moon} renew it again: For after the first time thou shalt ever have it, and ever begin this work in the new of the {Moon} and in the hour of {Jupiter} and the {Cancer}, {Sagittarius}, and {Pisces}. Reginald Scot, Discovery of Witchcraft (London, 1584: 1665), p. 247-48 Finally, these two operations are particularly worthy of comparison with another very similar working from an edition of the Grimoire of Honorius, ‘To make three ladies or three gentlemen come to your room after supper.’ (Honorius, p. 188) Not only is the operation very similar to the working in Gauntlet, it provides key details missing from the former experiment: the visitors eat ‘three loaves of bread made out of wheat’. It also specifies more preparation for the chamber in which the working will be performed: ‘you will clean and prepare your room from the morning, doing everything while fasting. And you will make it so that no one spoil the room for the rest of the day and you will make sure that nothing is hanging or hung up around the bed, such as tapestries, cloths, hats, bird cages, curtains etc, and above all, place white sheets on your bed.’ Once again, the importance of clean white cloth is highlighted. There is also a potential for this Honorian operation to have dream incubation dimensions. One is instructed to ‘place a chair or an armchair next to your bed, then go to bed and say the following words’ – one does not sit in the chair, but leaves one by one’s bed before retiring. Moreover, immediately following the specified incantation we jump to ‘when the three persons have come, they will sit near the fire, drinking, eating, and they will thank the person, man or woman, who has received them’. No specifications are made as to whether they arrive while the operator is waking or dreaming. It is worth noting in passing that the text explicitly mentions men and women performing this working, with the gender of the operator determining the kind of visitors – ‘if it is a lady who did this ceremony, there will come three gentlemen; and if it is a man, there will come three ladies.’”

In fact, in the Complete Grimoire of Pope Honorius ( https://www.scribd.com/doc/300116379/The-Complete-Grimoire-of-Pope-Honorius-nodrm ), we can read:

“To make three ladies or three gentlemen come to your room after supper. Preparation You should go for three days without extracting any mercury[403] and you will retire upstairs. On the fourth day, as soon as you have dressed, you will clean and prepare your room from the morning [onwards], doing everything whilst fasting. And you will make it so that no one will spoil the room for the rest of the day and you will make sure that nothing is hanging or hung up around the bed, such as tapestries, cloths, hats, bird cages, curtains etc. and above all, place white sheets on your bed. (49) Ceremony At the end of supper, retire secretly to your room, prepared as above. Make a roaring fire; place a white cloth on the table and three chairs around it, and in front of each seat, three loaves of bread made out of wheat and three glasses full of clear, fresh water. Then place a chair or an armchair next to your bed, then go to bed and say the following words: Conjuration “ Besticirum consolation veni ad me vertu Creon, Creon, Creon, cantor laudem omnipotentis et non commentur. Star superior carta bient laudem omviestra principiem da montem et inimicos meos ô prostantis vobis et mihi dantes quo passium fieri sui cisibilis. ”[404] When the three persons have come, they will sit near the fire, drinking, eating, and then they will thank the person, man or woman, who has received them: for (50) if it is a lady who did this ceremony, there will come three gentlemen; and if it is a man, there will come three ladies. These three persons will draw lots between them to determine which one of them will stay with you. That person will sit down in the armchair or the chair that you will have intended for them near your bed and they[405] will stay and chat with you until midnight. And at that hour, that person will go with the other companions, without the need for sending that person away. As far as the two others are concerned, they will stand by the fire while the other will engage you in conversation and while that person is with you, you may interrogate them about any art or any science or anything that you wish and that person will give a positive response on the spot. You may also ask them, if they know of any hidden treasure and they will inform you of the place, the location and the convenient time to retrieve it, even if it is amongst their companions, in order to defend yourself against infernal Spirits, who (51) may be in possession of it and in taking their leave of you, they will give you a ring, which will give you luck in games when it is worn on your finger. And if you place it on the finger of a woman or girl, you will enjoy the use of her on the spot. Note, that you must leave the window open, so that she can enter. You may repeat this same ceremony as often as you wish.”

From here we find more details:https://www.grimoire.org/spell/three-ladies-or-gentlemen

“How to cause the appearance of three ladies or gentlemen in ones room after supper (Spell) Alternate names: To make Three young Ladies, or rather three Spirits come into your room after Dinner

In The Book of Oberon, this spell is listed as “Experiment of Invisibility” and the summoner is given a ring of invisibility.

In Grimorium Verum (Recounted in “The Book of Ceremonial Magic” By A.E. Waite):

1. Preparation Abstain for three days from the hidden offices, and then shall your spirit be fortified. On the fourth day, you shall cleanse and prepare your chamber as soon as it is morning, immediately after dressing, the whole fasting. But see you do it in such a way that it will not be liable to disarrangement during the remainder of the day. Note that there must be no hangings, nor anything set crosswise, no tapestries, no hanging clothes, hats, bird-cages, bed curtains, &c. Above all, let the appointments be clean in every respect.

2. Ceremony

After supper pass in secret to your chamber, made ready as above; kindle a good fire; place a white cloth on the table, round which set three chairs, and before each chair, upon the table, let there be a wheaten roll and a glass full of fresh clear water. Lastly, draw up a chair and settee to the side of the bed and retire to rest, uttering the following

CONJURATION

Besticitum consolatio, veni ad me vertat Creon, Creon, Creon, cantor laudem omnipotentis et non commentur. Stat superior carta bient laudem omviestra principiem da montem et inimicos meos ô prostantis vobis et mihi dantes que passium fieri sincisibus.

The three persons, having arrived, will rest themselves near the fire, drinking, eating and finally thanking him or her who has entertained them; for if it be a young lady who performs this ceremony, three gentlemen will come; but if it be a man, three young ladies will appear. The said three persons will draw lots among each other to know which of them shall remain with you. If a man be the operator, she who wins will place herself in the arm-chair which you have set by the bed, and she will remain and commune with you until midnight, at which hour she will depart with her companions, without any need of dismissal. As regards the two others, they will keep themselves by the fire, while the other entertains you. So long as she remains you may question her upon any art or science, or upon what subject soever, and she will immediately give you a positive answer. You may also inquire of her whether she is aware of any hidden treasure, and she will instruct you as to its locality and the precise time suited to its removal. She will even appear there with her companions to defend you against the assaults of the Infernal Spirits who may have it in their possession. At parting, she will present you with a ring, which, worn on the finger, will render you lucky at play, while if it be placed upon the finger of any woman or girl, you shall there and then have your will with them. Observe, however, that you must leave your window open in order that they may enter.

The Grand Grimoire version is very similar.

The grimoires The Book of Oberon Grimorium Verum The Grand Grimoire lists this spell.”

Finally, Dan Harms (https://danharms.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/on-the-three-ladies-at-the-table/) connects this ritual with one, connected to the Dominae, described in “Le jeu de la Feuillee”:

“Many readers will be familiar with the famous ritual in the Grimorium Verum (Peterson or Stratton-Kent editions) to call three spiritual ladies or gentlemen to a table to gain their favor. A similar ritual appears in the Book of Oberon, as well as in Sloane MS. 3853, and we have several other rituals among the literature of ritual magic that are along the same lines. Those who are interested in other such examples might check out my article in The Faerie Queens anthology from Avalonia. Enough links to books! I’ve made a discovery, via Katherine Briggs’ Anatomy of Puck, of another piece with a similar procedure that predates most ritual magic by centuries. In the mid-thirteen century, Adam de la Halle, a playwright of Arras, composed a comedy entitled Le jeu de la Feuillee. It consists of a number of short vignettes surrounding life in the French city – including a visit by three supernatural ladies. We have very little setup for their appearance, but it would appear that Adam – a character in the play as well as the playwright – and his friend Rikeche have put a table out for the fairies. Although they are not present, others watch from the sidelines as three women – Morgan, Arsile, and Maglore – appear and take up their seats at the table. All of them are enchanted by the preparations, save for Maglore, who notices that her knife at the table is missing. The other two fairies engage her in some playful jesting, but Maglore will have none of it. The sisters next talk of how the two should be rewarded. Morgan and Arsile grant Rikeche success at business and riches, and give Adam happiness, fame in love, and a reputation as a poet. Maglore, still put out, grants Rikeche baldness and condemns Adam to spend his time with his wife instead of running away to Paris. The whole matter rapidly descends into farce from here. What is particularly interesting here is one detail from earlier in the poem: a description of the back of Adam’s wife, “Ke manche d’ivoire entailles / A ches coutiaus a demoisele,” which the editor translates as “Sculpted like the ivory handle / Of those knives for noble maidens.” He then draws a parallel between this phrase and the knives on the table of Morgan and the others. It bears noting that some manuscripts, including Sloane 3853 and e.Mus 173, specify that white-handled knives should appear on the table to which the three mysterious women are called.”

2.) The Devil

When we talk about the Devil in Witchcraft we have the tendency to see him from a British perspective. In this way, the Devil is the God of the Witches, while the Fairy Queen is the Goddess of the Witches. However, this is true only in British Islands, because here the Fairy King was demonized and became the Devil, as Emma Wilby demonstrated in her two books “Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits” and “The Visions of Isobel Gowdie”.

However, despite what Brexiteers say, Europe is not only Great Britain!While in Great Britain the Major Spirits were mainly two, a couple of Monarchs of the Fairy Realm, male and female, in the rest of the Continent it was not so.In the rest of the Continent every other Country and even every region of these Countries had its own Major Spirit, which was not always a couple: sometimes they were both male and female, but the majority of times the Major Spirit was a female spirit and a minority of times a male spirit. Let’s take for example Italy: here we find, in different regions, different Major Spirits. We find Richella in Val di Fassa (Trentino), but also Berta in other parts of the same region, we find Madonna Horiente in Milan, the Lady of the Game/Lady of the Good Game in many regions of the North of Italy, we find Herodias and Diana in Tuscany, we find Herodias alone in Rome, we find the Apenninic Sybil in Umbria, we find the King and Queen of Fairies in Sicily, and so on. As we can see, only in one region there was a divine couple. Other regions had very different Spirits as chief of the Cortège of the Dominae Nocturnae, and the majority of them were female.However, if we read the trials, we see that more time passes during the persecution, more the Lady of the Game becomes the Devil.

So the Devil doesn’t necessarily is the Horned God. Sometimes the Devil is, like in Great Britain, a mask for a male God, such as the King of Fairies, sometimes like in Italy and in Basque Countries (where Akerbeltz, the black goat, is a symbol of Mari, a Basque Goddess), it’s a mask for a female Goddess, other times again (the majority of times), it’s just a reflection of the accusations and the belief of the inquisitors or the judges.

In fact we can say what the Devil really is, in a Country, only by looking back at before the demonization. If the trial starts with the person who talks about the Fairy King and at the end of the trial they admit to have gone with the Devil, the Devil was masking this character.If the trial starts with the person which talks about being innocent and at the end of the trial they admit to have gone with the Devil, this person is innocent and never worshiped the Devil and the Devil is just a delusion of inquisitors or judges.Moreover, if we see the Christendom attitude towards Witchcraft, we can distinguish the first phase, after the Canon Episcopi (906 CE), in which the sin was not the act of going with these Pagan spirits, but to believe that these visions were true. After the Malleus Maleficarum (1487), instead, Christianity changed the sin: the sin was not anymore to believe in the visions of the Pagan spirits, but to having gone with these Pagan spirits.So, while in the first phase Christendom used to report exact beliefs in order to eradicate them, in the second phase they used to distort these beliefs because they were just “delusions of the Devil”, therefore while before priests tended to say: “People, if you dream about going forth in the night with Diana, don’t believe in these visions, to believe in them is a sin!”, after they said: “Don’t lie, it wasn’t Diana, it was the Devil!”.So they just stopped caring about what people thought, in the second phase they started imposing their view that it was the Devil and not other entities, silencing the real names of the Gods/Major Spirits.

So we cannot trust the name of the Devil in trials, because trials happened in the second phase, we can trust trials just when they distort the initial character (such as the Fairy King in Great Britain) into the Devil, but we cannot trust trials when they talk about the Devil without connecting it with any previous character, because it maybe just a reflection of the hysteria of judges and inquisitors.

3.) Flying Ointment

First thing: I think that in order to use and make ointments, you have to be a professional herbalist. Please, before using any ointment you see online, check if the maker is a qualified herbalist, and please, don’t make an ointment at your home just reading a book. To be a professional herbalist you have to go to an university for years, you take a degree for that, you cannot improvise.

Said this, historically, there are two positions about Flying Ointment: the ointment as a symbol and the ointment as a reality.I don’t know which one is true, maybe the truth is in the middle as usual.

Éva Pócs supports the symbolic position. I quote from her book “Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Seers and Witches in Early Modern Age”:

“The subject of flying ointment occasionally came up in Hungarian interrogations; nonetheless, it played no real role in precipitating trance. In our trials no evidence underpins the assumption of some European research that witches, including the Hungarian witches, made journeys with the help of drugs. […] References to flying ointment are generally traceable only in responses given to questions of the court and even then principally in confessions following torture. Flying ointment appears in the narratives as a metaphor for creating trance, in the context of flying with wings - that is, “really” flying - or in the legendary motif of turning into an animal. In Hódmezővásárhely, Maria Olah confessed under torture, “if we wish to be dogs, we become dogs … we were in the images of cats, we smeared [ourselves] with certain ointment … and climbed through the window” (1758, in Schram 1970, 1:341).”

Thomas Hatsis, however, in his book “The Witches’ Ointment”, support the opposite theory. We can read, in fact:

“The ointments come from the medical drugs outlined by Alonso Tostado and Abraham of Worms, found in various contemporary medical texts; they are not necessarily a part of the general belief in night flight but were nonetheless used by some people as an element in psyche-magical rites; some, perhaps, might have even been used entheogenically. The act of rubbing them on chairs, brooms, and so forth, most probably belongs to some obscure folk tradition associated with the Germanic goddess Frigg. Diana’s association with the devil probably stretches back to folk beliefs about female fertility and good fortune deities. The worship of the devil comes down to us from ancient stereotypes about heretics. Finally, the pact with the devil comes from the realm of high magic. To summarize: At the dawn of the witch stereotype, first conceived by theologians in the 1430s in a merging maelstrom of magical lore, heretical stereotypes, and folk notions, the ointments finally enter the ecclesiastical record alongside the new definition of the witch. Subsequent writers would weave these folk ointments tightly into the demonological fabric as a way to explain how all these so-called witches could fly to their Sabbats.“

So, according to Hatsis, the ointment was used by witches only after this new definition, that connected witches to devil worshipers, with the Malleus Maleficarum, but it wasn’t used by witches described by Canon Episcopi, who went in spirit with dreams and other techniques.

Moreover, he says in his videos why and how these ointments were real techniques and not just symbols, let’s see for example:

https://youtu.be/AAE6jrrNU3U

However, in most trials ointments appears to be done with “children fat” or things like that, which is not something entheogenic, nor definitely acceptable for today standards. In fact, even Hatsis admits that “we have reason to believe that sometimes people really did seek out the flesh of dead infants for their magical efficacies”. This evidence could support the symbolic position, because even if somebody used real flesh of real dead kids, the only way in which this would have worked, it would have been by mixing this anointment with dreams or other trance techniques.

We know, in fact, that there were formulas to use with the Ointment, so it’s possible that trance was in reality achieved through constant repetition, like it happens with eastern mantras.

So, resuming, I think that:- ointments are not the safest practice;- there is a debate about their use as real practices and not just as symbols in history;- if you want to use them because you believe in the realistic position about ointments in history, it’s important to be a professional herbalist to make them.

4.) The Tools in Reconstructionist Witchcraft

In order to understand the tools, we have to understand the practices. The practices are:

1) The Offerings 2) The Flight3) The Physical Gathering4) Magic and Divination1) The Offerings are towards:- The Patron Major Spirit, with the Table of Offerings;- The Animal Familiar;- The Ancestors;- The Plant Familiar;- Fairies/Spirits of Nature;- Household Spirit/Fairy2) The Flight:- To the Cortège of the Dominae Nocturnae;- To the Wild Hunt/Procession of the Dead;- To the Sabbath “in somniis”;- To the Night Battles;- To the Otherworld / Sybil’s Paradise / Elphame3) The Physical Gathering:- The Sabbath “corporaliter”;- The physical Cortège of the Dominae Nocturnae / the physical Procession of the Wild Hunt

So, as we can understand, the tools for the offerings are:

- A broom: for the cleaning and ordering before the offerings;

- A table or an altar: for the Major Spirit it’s better to use the kitchen table, however another table/altar is useful too. Here we’ll let offerings of food and drink.

- A table cloth, napkins, glasses, cutlery, plates, a chair, etc. for the table: because Major Spirits need to symbolically sit down and eat for the offerings of food and drink.

- Candles and incense: to honor the Major Spirit after we’ll have put in order the food offerings, to please them.

- One or two offering bowls where we’ll pour milk, bread and a drop of blood everyday for our Animal Familiar, or for the Household Spirit (but in this case without the blood) or for the Fairies (but in this case to pour it outside).

- A shelf or a shrine for our Ancestors, with a cloth, a photograph of them, flowers, offering candles or tealights, a match or lighter.

The tools of the Flight are, instead, considering that the main trance techniques are Hydromancy, Repetition of preyers or charms, Music (usually with a drum), Dance, Monotonous Focus and Dreams:

- A candle, a lighter/match and a bowl of water for the hydromancy;

- A drum for music and/or dance trance techniques;

- A grimoire (or a notebook) and a pen for dreams and visions.

The tools of the Sabbath are, considering that the Sabbath is composed by the bowing in front of the Domina Nocturna or the Patron Major Spirit, temporarilyincarnated by the Witches’ Queen chosen randomly between the witches; the discussions and advices about the spells performed; offerings of candles to the Domina; the banquet; dance and music; ritual sex (after having asked with trance techniques or divination if it’s ok for the Spirit).

- A representative candle or statue or image if the ritual is done by solitaries and so there is no Witches’ Queen or King;

- Offering candles;

- A table (or altar),table cloth, napkins, glasses, cutlery, plates, a chair, etc. for the banquet;

- A musical instrument (for example, a drum or a flute).

The tools of the Cortège are the same of the Sabbath’s because what changes is only that the Sabbath is in a single place while the Cortège is done in the house of a practitioner, and the members of the Company but the one who owns the house in which the ritual is done will impersonate the Spirits who will come in, will be welcomed by the owner, they will eat, drink, dance and bless with a wand all the house by touching all the rooms and the persons in it. The sex, in the case of the Cortège, will not be performed.So the only tool which is exclusive of the Cortège is:

- The wand.

For magic and divination, the tools change with the ritual you use, and there is a high variation from Country to Country and from region to region.

328 notes · View notes