Witchcraft - Speaking in Tongues

Witchcraft, speaking in tongues and revivalism: High-energy states cannot be maintained indefinitely without becoming a physical and emotional drain- Therefore you must bob and weave, push people to the brink and bring them back.

The following abstract shows that the methods of witchraft and Christian revivalism are not really different. The same methods of change agentry understand the ancient method of the effeminate principle (male or female) dominating the logical, rational or spiritual nature of God and His Word.

See that Charismatic meant Sodomy and especially pederasty among the "priests" and worshipers.

Book: 1692 Witch Hunt : The Layman's Guide to the Salem Witchcraft Trials by George Malcolm Yool

Christ, Carol; Plaskow, Judith 1979 Womanspirit Rising,
Harper & Row, New York ISBN 0-06-061385-8

NOTE: This extract is included as an essential reading for transforming the world. You are requested to purchase the book yourself as it is, without question, essential reading material.

From: Witchcraft and Women's Culture - STARHAWK

Starhawk (Miriam Simos) is an author, freelance screenwriter, and priestess who has taught through open universities in the San Francisco Bay area. Active in feminist and pagan groups, she was the first national president of the Covenant of the Goddess (a church). Author of two unpublished novels, she is currently writing The Spiral Dance, a book on magic and earth religion. Her articles will appear in The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries and elsewhere. This essay was discussed at the 1977 meetings of the American Academy of Religion.

The unhewn stones are newly risen. Within their circle, an old woman raises a flint knife and points it toward the bright full moon

She cries out, a wail echoed by her clan folk as they begin the dance.

They circle wildly around the central fire, feeling the power rise within them until they unite in ecstatic frenzy.

The priestess cries again, and all drop to the earth, exhausted but filled with a deep sense of peace.

A cup of ale is poured into the fire, and the flames leap up high. "Blessed be the mother of all life," the priestess says, "May She be generous to Her children." The birth is a difficult one, but the midwife has brought many women through worse. Still, she is worried. She has herbs to open the womb and stop the blood, herbs to bring sleep, and others to bring forgetfulness of pain. But now her baskets are almost empty. This year she could not go gathering at the proper times of the moon and sun.

The new priest and his spies are everywhere-if she were to be caught digging simples in the moonlight it would be sure proof of witchcraft, not just against herself but against her daughters and sisters and her daughter's daughters. As she pours out the last of her broth for the laboring woman, the midwife sighs. "Blessed Tana, Mother of mothers," she breathes softly, "When will the old ways return?" The child is in a state of shock. Her memories of the last three days are veiled in a haze of smoke and noise that seem to swirl toward this climax of acrid smells and hoarse shouting. The priest's grip is clawlike as he forces her to watch the cruel drama in the center of the square. The girl's eyes are open, but her mind has flown far away, and what she sees is not the scene before her: her mother, the stake, the flames.

She is running through the open field behind their cottage, smelling only clean wind, seeing only clear sky. The priest looks down at her blank face and crosses himself in fear. "Devil's spawn!" he spits on the ground. "If I had my way, we'd hold to custom and burn you too!" It is the night of the full moon.

Nine women stand in a circle, on a rocky hill above the city. The western sky is rosy with the setting sun; in the east the moon's face begins to peer above the horizon. Below, electric lights wink on the ground like fallen stars. A young woman raises a steel knife and cries out, a wail echoed by the others as they begin the dance.

They circle wildly around a cauldron of smoldering herbs, feeling the power rise within them until they unite in ecstasy. The priestess cries again, and all drop to the earth, exhausted, but filled with an overwhelming sense of peace. The woman pours out a cup of wine onto the earth, refills it and raises it high. "Hail, Tana, Mother of mothers!" she cries. "Awaken from your long sleep, and return to your children again!"

From earliest times, women have been witches, wicce, "wise ones"-priestesses, diviners, midwives, poets, healers, and singers of songs of power.

Woman-centered culture, based on the worship of the Great Goddess, underlies the beginnings of all civilization. Mother Goddess was carved on the walls of paleolithic caves, and painted in the shrines of the earliest cities, those of the Anatolian plateau.

For her were raised the giant stone circles, the henges of the British Isles, the dolmens and cromlechs of the later Celtic countries, and for her the great passage graves of Ireland were dug. In her honor, sacred dancers leaped the bulls in Crete and composed lyric hymns within the colleges of the holy isles of the Mediterranean. Her mysteries were celebrated in secret rites at Eleusis, and her initiates included some of the finest minds of Greece. Her priestesses discovered and tested the healing herbs and learned the secrets of the human mind and body that allowed them to ease the pain of childbirth, to heal wounds and cure diseases, and to explore the realm of dreams and the unconscious.

Their knowledge of nature enabled them to tame sheep and cattle, to breed wheat and corn from grasses and weeds, to forge ceramics from mud and metal from rock, and to track the movements of moon, stars, and sun. Witchcraft, "the craft of the wise," is the last remnant in the west of the time of women's strength and power. Through the dark ages of persecution, the covens of Europe preserved what is left of the mythology, rituals, and knowledge of the ancient matricentric (mother centered) times. The great centers of worship in Anatolia, Malta, Iberia, Brittany, and Sumeria are now only silent stones and works of art we can but dimly understand. Of the mysteries of Eleusis, we have literary hints; the poems of Sappho survive only in fragments. The great collections of early literature and science were destroyed by patriarchal forces-the library of Alexandria burnt by Caesar, Charlemagne's collection of lore burnt by his son Louis "the Pious," who was offended at its "paganism."

See The Zoe concept of the restored feminist "gospel" with ZOE as Lucifer (bi-sexual) and "she is called the beast." Don't let her mark you with music.

But the craft remains, in spite of all efforts to stamp it out, as a living tradition of Goddess-centered worship that traces its roots back to the time before the triumph of patriarchy.

The old religion of witchcraft before the advent of Christianity, was an earth-centered, nature-oriented worship that venerated the Goddess, the source of life, as well as her son-lover-consort, who was seen as the Horned God of the hunt and animal life. Earth, air, water, fire, streams, seas, wells, beasts, trees, grain, the planets, sun, and most of all, the moon, were seen as aspects of deity.

On the great seasonal festivals-the solstices and equinoxes, and the eves of May, August, November, and February,-all the countryside would gather

to light huge bonfires, feast, dance, sing, and perform the rituals

that assured abundance throughout the year.

When Christianity first began to spread, the country people held to the old ways, and for hundreds of years the two faiths coexisted quite peacefully.

Many people followed both religions, and country priests in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

were frequently upbraided by church authorities for dressing in skins and leading the dance at the pagan festivals.

But in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the church began persecution of witches, as well as Jews and "heretical" thinkers. Pope Innocent the VIII, with his Bull of 1484, intensified a campaign of torture and death that would take the lives of an estimated 9 million people, perhaps 80 percent of whom were women.

The vast majority of victims were not coven members or even necessarily witches.

They were old widows whose property was coveted by someone else, young children with "witch blood," midwives who furnished the major competition to the male-dominated medical profession, free-thinkers who asked the wrong questions.

An enormous campaign of propaganda accompanied the witch trials as well. Witches were said to have sold their souls to the devil, to practice obscene and disgusting rites, to blight crops and murder children. In many areas, the witches did worship a Horned God as the spirit of the hunt, of animal life and vitality, a concept far from the power of evil that was the Christian devil. Witches were free and open about sexuality-but their rites were "obscene" only to those who viewed the human body itself as filthy and evil.

Questioning or disbelieving any of the slander was itself considered proof of witchcraft or heresy, and the falsehoods that for hundreds of years could not be openly challenged had their effect. Even today, the word wl'tch is often automatically associated with "evil." With the age of reason in the eighteenth century, belief in witches, as in all things psychic and supernatural, began to fade.

The craft as a religion was forgotten; all that remained were the wild stories of broomstick flights, magic potions, and the summoning of spectral beings. Memory of the true craft faded everywhere except within the hidden covens. With it, went the memory of women's heritage and history, of our ancient roles as leaders, teachers, healers, seers. Lost, also, was the conception of the Great Spirit, as manifest in nature, in life, in woman.

Mother Goddess slept, leaving the world to the less than gentle rule of the God-Father. The Goddess has at last stirred from sleep, and women are reawakening to our ancient power.

The feminist movement, which began as a political, economic, and social struggle, is opening to a spiritual dimension. In the process, many women are discovering the old religion, reclaiming the word wl'tch and, with it, some of our lost culture.

Witchcraft, today, is a kaleidoscope of diverse traditions, rituals, theologies, and structures. But underneath the varying forms is a basic orientation common to all the craft.

The outer forms of religion-the particular words said, the signs made, the names used-are less important to us than the inner forms,

which cannot be defined or described but must be felt and intuited.

The craft is earth religion, and our basic orientation is to the earth, to life, to nature. There is no dichotomy between spirit and flesh, no split between Godhead and the world. The Goddess is manifest in the world; she brings life into being, is nature, is flesh. Union is not sought outside the world in some heavenly sphere or through dissolution of the self into the void beyond the senses. Spiritual union is found in life, within nature, passion, sensuality-through being fully human, fully one's self. Our great symbol for the Goddess is the moon, whose three aspects reflect the three stages in women's lives and whose cycles of waxing and waning coincide with women's menstrual cycles.

As the new moon or crescent, she is the Maiden, the Virgin-not chaste, but belonging to herself alone, not bound to any man. She is the wild child, lady of the woods, the huntress, free and untamed-Artemis, Kore, Aradia, Nimue. White is her color. As the full moon, she is the mature woman, the sexual being, the mother and nurturer, giver of life, fertility, grain, offspring, potency, joy-Tana, Demeter, Diana, Ceres, Mari. Her colors are the red of blood and the green of growth.

As waning or dark moon, she is the old woman, past menopause,

the hag or crone that is ripe with wisdom, patroness of secrets, prophecy, divination, inspiration, power-Hecate, Ceridwen, Kati, Anna. Her color is the black of night. The Goddess is also earth-Mother Earth, who sustains all growing things, who is the body, our bones and cells.

She is air-the winds that move in the trees and over the waves, breath. She is the fire of the hearth, of the blazing bonfire and the fuming volcano; the power of transformation and change. And she is water-the sea, original source of life; the rivers, streams, lakes and wells; the blood that flows in the rivers of our veins. She is mare, cow, cat, owl, crane, flower, tree, apple, seed, lion, sow, stone, woman. She is found in the world around us, in the cycles and seasons of nature, and in mind, body, spirit, and emotions within each of us. Thou art Goddess. I am Goddess. All that lives (and all that is, lives), all that serves life, is Goddess. Because witches are oriented to earth and to life, we value spiritual qualities that I feel are especially important to women, who have for so long been conditioned to be passive, submissive and weak. The craft values independence, personal strength, self-not petty selfishness but that deep core of strength within that makes us each a unique child of the Goddess.

The craft has no dogma to stifle thought, no set of doctrines that have to be believed. Where authority exists, within covens, it is always coupled with the freedom every covener has, to leave at any time.

When self is valued-in ourselves-we can see that self is everywhere. Passion and emotion-that give depth and color and meaning to human life-are also valued.

Witches strive to be in touch with feelings, even if they are sometimes painful,

because the joy and pleasure and ecstasy available to a fully alive person make it worth occasional suffering.

So-called negative emotion-anger-is valued as well, as a sign that something is wrong and that action needs to be taken. Witches prefer to handle anger by taking action and making changes rather than by detaching ourselves from our feelings in order to reach some nebulous, "higher" state. Most of all, the craft values love.

The Goddess' only law is "Love unto all beings."

But the love we value is not the airy flower power of the hippies or the formless, abstracted agape of the early Christians.

It is passionate, sensual, personal love, eros, falling in love, mother-child love, the love of one unique human being for other individuals, with all their personal traits and idiosyncrasies.

Love is not something that can be radiated out in solitary meditation-it manifests itself in relationships and interractions with other people. It is often said "You cannot be a witch alone"-because to be a witch is to be a lover, a lover of the Goddess, and a lover of other human beings.

The coven is still the basic structure of the craft, and generally covens meet at the times of full moons and the major festivals, although some meet also on new moons and a few meet once a week. A coven is a small group, at most of thirteen members-for the thirteen full moons of the year. Its small size is important. Within the coven, a union, a merging of selves in a close bond of love and trust, takes place. A coven becomes an energy pool each member can draw on. But, because the group remains small, there is never the loss of identity and individuality that can happen in a mass. In a coven, each person's individuality is extremely important. Each personality colors and helps create the group identity, and each member's energy is vital to the working of the group.

Covens are separate and autonomous, and no one outside the coven has any authority over its functioning. Some covens may be linked in the same tradition-meaning they share the same rituals and symbology-but there is no hierarchy of rule. Elder witches can and do give advice, but,only those within the coven may actually make decisions.

Covens are extremely diverse. There are covens of hereditary witches who have practiced rites unchanged for hundreds of years, and covens who prefer to make up their own rituals and may never do the same thing twice.

There are covens of "perfect couples"-an even number of women and men permanently paired, and covens of lesbian feminists or of women who simply prefer to explore women's spirituality in a space removed from men. There are covens of gay men and covens that ust don't worry about sexual polarities. A few covens are authoritarian-with a high priestess or high priest who makes most of the decisions. (Coveners, of course, always have the option of leaving.)

Most are democratic, if not anarchic, but usually older or more experienced members-"elders"-assume leadership and responsibility. Actual roles in rituals are often rotated among qualified coveners.

Rituals also vary widely. A craft ritual might involve wild shouting and frenzied dancing, or silent meditation, or both.

A carefully rehearsed drama might be enacted, or a spontaneous poetic chant carried on for an hour. Everyone may enter a deep trance and scry in a crystal ball-or

they may pass around a bottle of wine and laugh uproariously at awful puns. The best rituals combine moments of intense ecstasy and spiritual union, with moments of raucous humor and occasional silliness.

The craft is serious without being dry or solemn. Whether formal or informal, every craft ritual takes place within a circle-a space considered to be "between the worlds," the human world and the realm of the Goddess.

A circle can be cast, or created, in any physical space, from a moonlit hillside to the living room of a modern apartment. It may be outlined in stones, drawn in chalk or paint, or drawn invisibly with the point of a sword or ceremonial wand. It may be consecrated with incense, salt water, and a formal invocation to each of the four quarters of the universe, or created simply by having everyone join hands.

The casting of the circle begins the ritual and serves as a transition into an expanded state of consciousness.

The power raised by the ritual is contained within the circle so that it can reach a higher peak instead of dissipating.

The Goddess, and if desired, the Horned God (not all traditions of the craft relate to the male force) can be invoked once the circle is cast. An invocation may be set beforehand, written out and memorized, but in our coven we find the most effective invocations are those that come to us spontaneously, out of the inspiration of the season, the phase of the moon, and the particular mood and energy of the moment.

Often we invoke the Goddess by chanting together a line or phrase repeated over and over: "Moon mother bright light of all earth sky, we call you" is an example.

As we chant, we find rhythms, notes, melodies, and words seem to flow through us and burst out in complex and beautiful patterns. Chanting, dancing, breathing,

and concentrated will, all contribute to the raising of power, which is the essential part of a craft ritual. Witches conceive of psychic energy as having form and substance that can be perceived and directed by those with a trained awareness.

The power generated within the circle is built into a cone form, and at its peak is released-to the Goddess, to reenergize the members of the coven, or to do a specific work such as a healing. When the cone is released, any scattered energy that is left is grounded, put back into the earth, by falling to the ground, breathing deeply, and relaxing.

High-energy states cannot be maintained indefinitely without becoming a physical and emotional drain-any more than you could stay high on methedrine forever without destroying your body.

After the peak of the cone, it is vital to let go of the power and return to a calm, relaxed state. Silent meditation, trance, or psychic work are often done in this part of the ritual. (Our Note: To see how this has been adopted in neo-paganism Click Here.)

Energy is also shared in tangible form-wine, cakes, fruit, cheesecake, brownies, or whatever people enjoy eating. The Goddess is invited to share with everyone, and a libation is poured to her first. This part of the ritual is relaxed and informally social, devoted to laughing, talking, sharing of news and any business that must be done. At the end, the Goddess is thanked and bid farewell, and the circle is formally opened.

Ending serves as a transition back into ordinary space and time. Rituals finish with a kiss and a greeting of "Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again." (See more on the Zoe Group and the Ceremonial Circle and the "Look to the Hills" use of New Age techniques)

Click here to see the appeal of Zoroastrianism as the "mother" of Christianity?

See Fred Peatross defining the emerging church at the end of the Christendom era.

The underlying forms of craft rituals evolved out of thousands of years of experience and understanding of human needs and the potentials of human consciousness. That understanding, which is part of women's lost heritage, is invaluable, not just in the context of rituals and spiritual growth, but also for those working toward political and social change, because human needs and human energies behave the same in any context. Witches understand that energy, whether it is psychic, emotional, or physical, always flows in cycles. It rises and falls, peaks and drops, and neither end of the cycle can be sustained indefinitely, any more than you could run forever without stopping. Intense levels of energy must be released and then brought down and grounded; otherwise the energy dissipates or even turns destructive.

If, in a ritual, you tried to maintain a peak of frenzy for hours and hours, you would find that after a while the energy loses its joyful quality,

and instead of feeling union and ecstasy, you begin to feel irritated and exhausted. Political groups that try to maintain an unremitting level of anger-a high-energy state also run out of steam in precisely the same way. Releasing the energy and grounding out allows the power itself to work freely.

It clears channels and allows you to rest and recharge and become ready for the next swing into an up cycle.

Releasing energy does not mean losing momentum; rather, real movement, real change, happens in a rhythmic pattern of many beats, not in one unbroken blast of static. Craft rituals also add an element of drama and fantasy to one's life.

They allow us to act out myths and directly experience archetypes of symbolic transformation.

They allow us, as adults, to recapture the joy of childhood make-believe, of dressing up, of pretending, of play. Magic, by Dion Fortune's definition, "the art of changing consciousness at will," is not so far removed from the creative fantasy states we enter so easily as children, when our dolls become alive, our bicycles become wild horses, ourselves arctic explorers or queens. Allowing ourselves, as adults, to play and fantasize with others, puts us in touch with the creative child within, with a deep and rich source of inspiration.

The craft also helps us open our intuitive and psychic abilities. Although witchcraft is commonly associated with magic and the use of extrasensory powers, not all covens put a great deal of stress on psychic training. Worship is more often the main focus of activity. However, any craft ritual involves some level of psychic awareness just in sensing the energy that is raised. Ordinarily, the way into the craft is through initiation into an already established coven. However, because covens are limited in size and depend on some degree of harmony between personalities, it is often difficult to find one that is open to new members and that fits your preferences.

(Seeker Service of the Witchcraft Circles)

In San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, covens often run open study groups and can be found through publications and open universities. In other areas of the country, it may be difficult to locate a practicing coven at all. However, there is nothing to stop you from starting a coven or a cl'rcle-a term I use for a group whose members meet for rituals but are not formally initiated-on your own.

Women, especially, are more and more joining together to explore a Goddess-oriented spirituality and to create rituals and symbols that are meaningful to us today.

Starting your own circle requires imagination, creativity, and experimentation, but it is a tremendously exciting process. You will miss formal psychic training-but you may discover on your own more than anyone else could teach you. Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest.

I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle.

See Lucifer/Sophia-Zoe as the Serpent and Beast as Female Instructing Principle.

The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts-Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be.

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