Announcing the Release of a New Book; Arts of the Night!

Arts of the Night invites the reader into a history of the practices of witchcraft by focusing on Mesopotamia as the possible cradle for the arts and crafts popularly assigned to what we name as ‘witches’. In this book it is suggested that witchcraft is a poetic reality that pertains to humankind at large. The work had as its working premise the six volumes of ‘Magic and Witchcraft in Europe’ edited by Ankarloo and Clark (published by Penn State University Press) but grew soon enough out from this framework. It is my hope that by tracing the history of witchcraft from Mesopotamia and to modern days to provide a greater sensitivity for what the Craft might be by presenting the various practices and philosophies that molded the wise Arts. It is my hope that this tome will heighten the awareness of the Wise Arts being originally a traditional vestige of the great mysteries. In our corrupted world, marked by all forms of traditional deviations, I present this work in the hope that it can aid a little bit to restoring the Craft to its rightful place and order.

The book can be ordered here.

The Witch of Venus

 Para ler este texto em Português, clique aqui

How can Witchcraft be understood from a Traditional point of view? This question demands a clarification of terms, namely what is witchcraft and what does the term traditional entails. To begin with the latter, tradition, it is given many odd interpretations, quite commonly speaking of its arcane heredity, spoken of in purely linear and modern-historical ways. This means that our modern world view tends to impose hegemony between oppositions aiming towards consensus that are not necessarily true, but rather reflects an alliance generated by contemporary discourse. This should tell us that modern terms do tend to be fragile, as all discourse are by nature fragile and volatile – subject for discursive change as they are. The fragmentation of truth into personal opinion and the social struggle between opposition in order to reach truth testifies to the difficulty of discovering what is really in a name, a term and a concept. Because today truth is signified by agreement, not by a discovery of what is. Truth is as Plato said what is beautiful and good. If we adopt these adjectives as proper it means that the truth must be both beautiful – and good. Plato understood what is good both to be rationally appealing as well as leading to a sensation of what we might call love to flow outwards, being embracing. It is here the beautiful enters. The affirmation of beauty validates the rational idea. The logic is simple; if your truth generates malice it is a lie. There are various kinds of malice, ranging from the born a again Christian who see himself as saved but all other as condemned to the Satanic hedonist who sees himself as the be all and end all of everything are from this perspective on the same scale. This tells us that these avenues of belief can never be traditional due to its level of sourness.

Quite simply, a traditional world view focuses on the One and sees all other as radiations of the One. We speak of a monism that rejects antagonism to be a part of its mystery. In simple words, we are speaking of a certain order, well replicated in the often used metaphor and allegory of the golden chain that stretches from the throne of the One to the murkiest quarters of matter. It means that all there is, IS because of the One. It is the divine essence perforating everything – but along a golden chain that speaks of distance from the throne. This distance tends to be infused with moral judgments, but a moral resting on an ethic that places not man, the generation, but man, the individual in the position of the judge. From this position several acts, drives and preferences turn into a measurement claiming validity greater than its constitution. This distance separates the kingdoms from each other, but this do not speak automatically about quality on a scale measuring good from bad. What we have is a succession of openness that opens for impurities that in last instant speaks of the kingdom above. The kingdom of plants is usually seen as the most inferior. But in every plant rests its star. So, good and bad does not speak of distance, but more of a posture. And in this we find the idea of sin, to forfeit your goal. Again, we see how moral judgments clouded tradition, as today ‘sin’ is understood as something bad we do, no matter who we are and what our destiny might be.

If we see creation as a web of interrelations where the challenge is to realize where the pieces belong we are more close to the truth than any condemnation. This means quite soberly that something traditional is indeed handed down through generations, material or spiritual, but in a spirit of truth, which means it has to be good and beautiful. The goodness and beauty of traditions becomes its mark of being genuine. If we then accept this presentation of tradition, where do we place witchcraft?

Again, the question poses a demand for clarification. The Craft of the Witch; what is a Witch and what is a Craft? Again we are faced with labels imposed upon the subject, but nevertheless what are the contents in the European perception of the Witch? It is of someone secluded from the ‘civilis,' someone considered to have a greater insight into the secret works of nature and the ability to cure and curse. Secrecy and the sensual walks hand in hand with solitude and the ghoulish. We are speaking of the great contrast arising from the mastery of the left hand and the right hand. A mastery impossible to have if one is not aligned with the axis stretching to the Polar North. From this perspective the Witch turns into a votary of Venus, daughter of the Sun, and the Craft is the field of fertility, ranging from the growth of crops to the growth of wisdom. Its terrain is the countryside, the wild kingdoms of woods and lakes, rivers and mountains. In her hands lovely Venus holds a promise of honest ascent and the seeds of corruption, as spoken of in the poetic imagery that has coloured the nocturnal history of mankind. The Art of Venus is the gift of magia naturalis, her venom being the challenge that rests in power and dominion. It is from here we have the roots of the Witch as the vigilant watcher of the course of divine essence and its unfolding in spirit and matter and the counter-productive ‘maleficus’ who rage against world and nature, dislocated and consumed by his own ‘nafs’ and inferior inclinations that invites the illusion of matter being superior to spirit, the manifest being superior to its un-manifest and infinite possibilities. And herein is found the division born by accepting the illusion of matter being essentially different from its origin. This is the first juncture on the path, where we find Janus Bifrons opening for two avenues - and here is found the Craft proper and its pale and atrocious mimic, its inversion. Chose ye well, the steps on the road.

Malakim Veneris Or; the Angels of Venus

Para ler este texto em Português, por favor clique aqui

The Divine Feminine intrigues and mesmerizes the beholder. Women as keeper of Natures Arcana Arconorum are repeatedly vested in green and red, the robes of whores and queens, fairies and gentry of all kinds. She is North and she is Water, she is the cave and the tension of darkness. She is the moment of death and the unfolding of Nature in masks and guises of all forms and fashion.

She is Rowan and she is Willow, the bleeding rose hanging within the wild greenwood. The rune ‘ken’ is at times associated with the power of the Rowan and its reddish wood, speaking of blood and lust, like the willow speaks of the comforting greatness and solace of woman. Woman is mystery, comfort and annihilation, like the three stellar Mary’s (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka) composing the belt of the Great hunter, Orion, speaks of. As such she is the girdle of protection, the secret thread of the warrior’s waist.

As time degenerates and the divine light gets dimmer and more distant so does material mans comprehension of the gateway to the house of God. The divine feminine seen as Schekinah, or “God’s presence” – or women seen as Sophia, “Wisdom” – is often discarded in favor of women as Prunikos or “whore”, viewed in complete profane perspectives. Not only is the perspective profane but the moral mediating this profane perspective rests on biased judgments of a dualist orientation. This in turn leads to misrepresentations of women and her divine image. Axioms like “Woman is All” are approached from carnal motivations and quasi tantric ideas as those presented by for instance Omar Garrison in his 1964 publication of “Tantra – The Yoga of Sex”. In spite of some good insights the sensationalist approach takes the attention and especially when he speaks of ‘she-devils’ the interest is wholly on those lewd and sensual manifestations. To mind springs Inanna, Ishtar, Lilith, Freya, Circe and other daughters of Venus who speaks of the sensual and erotic, strength and oracles. Perhaps the form most intact concerning the divine feminine is found in the Yoruba river deity, Osun where elegance, wit and sharpness walks hand in hand with joyous eroticism and oracular wisdom. From the traditional perspective Osun was the first female Irunmole (house of light) that came to earth with the purpose of sweeten the earth with abundance and joy under the sun. Her night face on the other hand was relegated to the circle of wise women, the IyaMis, representing the cataclysmic potentialities in creation, the nightly dangers and the chaotic wrath and the cold fire of need. This vile and dangerous faces of the divine feminine are commonly met with narrowness in terms of understanding as we see in the Venusian power, Mama Chola, which we meet in Palo, the Pomba Gira in Kimbanda or Erzulie Dantor, if not Marienette in Haitian Vodou.

If we take Pomba Gira as an example, we find here woman as challenger. She is clearly a prototype of the continental witch (as well as much more) as she stands strong in her womanhood, proud of body, mind and her power to attract and repel. Like all feminine powers, all the angels of Venus, she presides over the bane of havoc and blessing in the same breath. Venus is both gluttonous and hedonist, and she is the road of love and devotion towards unification and wisdom. The troubadours and wandering aristocrats that engaged in the practice of courtly love realized the mystery of God, by setting up the dwelling in God’s presence, using woman as the point to draw divine sweetness to their lives. Woman is divine sweetness or divine bitterness. The rage enflaming Mars is a direct consequence of Venus’ bitterness. Few seem to contemplate these factors and instead women is approached as lustful companion and medium for the exaltation of men, while in truth man needs woman due to his imperfection. Through woman man defines his landscape and she is his mirror. In woman each man gets what he deserves…