Projective Hand, The:
the hand that is normally used for manual activities such as writing, peeling apples, and dialing telephones is symbolically thought to be the point at which
personal power
is sent from the body. In ritual, personal power is visualized as streaming out from the palm or fingers of the hand for various magical goals. This is also the hand in which tools such as the
athame
and wand are held. Ambidextrous persons simply choose which hand to utilize for this purpose. Compare with
receptive hand.
Psychic Mind:
the subconscious or unconscious mind, in which we receive psychic impulses. The psychic mind is at work when we sleep, dream, and meditate. It is our direct link with the Goddess and God and with the larger, nonphysical world around us. Other related terms:
divination
is a ritual process which utilizes the
conscious
mind
to contact the psychic mind.
Intuition
is a term used to describe psychic information that unexpectedly reaches the conscious mind.
Psychism:
the act of being consciously psychic, in which the
psychic
mind
and
conscious mind
are linked and working in harmony.
Ritual consciousness
is a form of psychism.
Receptive Hand:
the left hand in right-handed persons, the reverse for left-handed persons. This is the hand through which energy is received into the body. Compare with
projective hand.
Reincarnation:
the doctrine of rebirth. The process of repeated incarnations in human form to allow evolution of the sexless, age-less soul.
Ritual:
ceremony. A specific form of movement, manipulation of objects, or inner processes designed to produce desired effects. In religion, ritual is geared toward union with the divine. In
magic
it produces a specific state of consciousness that allows the magician to move energy toward needed goals. A
spell
is a magical ritual.
Ritual Consciousness:
a specific, alternate state of awareness necessary to the successful practice of
magic.
The magician achieves this through the use of
visualization
and
ritual.
It denotes a state in which the
conscious mind
and
psychic mind
are attuned, in which the magician senses energies, gives them purpose, and releases them toward the magical goal. It is a heightening of the senses, an awareness-expansion of the seemingly nonphysical world, a linking with nature and with the forces behind all conceptions of
deity.
Runes:
stick-like figures, some of which are remnants of old Teutonic alphabets. Others are pictographs. These symbols are once again widely being used in
magic
and
divination.
Sabbat:
a Wiccan festival. See
Beltane, Imbolc, Lughnasadh, Mabon,
Midsummer, Ostara, Samhain,
and
Yule
for specific descriptions.
Samhain:
a Wiccan festival celebrated on October 31, also known as November Eve, Hallowmas, Halloween, Feast of Souls, Feast of the Dead, Feast of Apples. Samhain marks the symbolic death of the sun God and his passing into the “land of the young,” where he awaits rebirth of the Mother Goddess at
Yule
. This Celtic word is pronounced by Wiccans as: SOW-wen; SEW wen; SAHM-hain; SAHM-ain; SAV-een, and other ways. The first seems to be the one preferred among most Wiccans.
Scry, To:
to gaze at or into an object (a quartz crystal sphere, pool of water, reflections, a candle flame) to still the
conscious mind
and to contact the
psychic mind.
This allows the scryer to become aware of possible events prior to their actual occurrence, as well as of previous or distant, simultaneous events through other than the normally accepted senses. A form of
divination.
Shaman:
a man or woman who has obtained knowledge of the subtler dimensions of the earth, usually through periods of alternate states of consciousness. Various types of
ritual
allow the shaman to pierce the veil of the physical world and to experience the realm of energies. This knowledge lends the shaman the power to change her or his world through
magic.
Shamanism:
the practice of shamans, usually ritualistic or magical in nature, sometimes religious.
Simple Feast, The:
a
ritual
meal shared with the Goddess and God.
Spell:
a magical
ritual,
usually nonreligious in nature and often accompanied by spoken words.
Spirits of the Stones, The:
the elemental energies naturally inherent at the four directions of the
magic circle,
personified within the
Standing
Stones Tradition
as the “spirits of the stones.”They are linked with the
elements.
Talisman:
an object, such as an amethyst crystal, ritually
charged
with power to attract a specific force or energy to its bearer. Compare with
amulet.
Tradition, Wiccan:
an organized, structured, specific Wiccan subgroup, usually initiatory, with often unique ritual practices. Many traditions have their own
Books of Shadows
and may or may not recognize members of other traditions as Wiccan. Most traditions are composed of a number of
covens
as well as solitary practitioners.
Trilithon:
a stone arch made from two upright slabs with one lying atop these. Trilithons are featured in Stonehenge as well as the circle visualization in
The Standing Stones Book of Shadows
.
Visualization:
the process of forming mental images.Magical visualization consists of forming images of needed goals during
ritual.
Visualization is also used to direct
personal power
and natural energies during
magic
for various purposes, including
charging
and forming the
magic circle.
It is a function of the
conscious mind.
White-Handled Knife:
a normal cutting knife, with a sharp blade and white handle. It is used within
Wicca
to cut herbs and fruits, to slice bread during
The Simple Feast,
and for other functions—but never for sacrifice. Sometimes called the bolline. Compare with
athame.
Wicca:
a contemporary
pagan
religion with spiritual roots in
shamanism
and the earliest expressions of reverence of nature. Among its major motifs are: reverence for the Goddess and the God; reincarnation; magic; ritual observances of the full moon, astronomical and agricultural phenomena; spheroid temples, created with
personal power
, in which rituals occur.
Widdershins:
anticlockwise motion, usually used in the Northern Hemisphere for negative magical purposes or for dispersing negative energies or conditions such as disease. Southern Hemisphere Wiccans may use widdershins motions for exactly the opposite purposes; namely for positive ends, for the reason stated in the entry under
deosil.
In either case, widdershins and deosil motions are
symbolic;
only strict, closed-minded traditionalists believe that accidentally walking around the altar backward, for instance,will raise negativity. Their use in Wicca stems from ancient European rituals practiced by peoples who watched and reverenced the sun and moon in their daily revolutions. Widdershins motion,within ritual contexts, is still shunned by the vast majority of Wiccans, though others use it once in a while, for instance, to disperse the
magic circle
at the end of a rite.
Witch:
anciently, a European practitioner of the remnants of pre-Christian folk magic, particularly that relating to herbs, healing, wells, rivers, and stones. One who practiced
Witchcraft.
Later, this term’s meaning was deliberately altered to denote demented, dangerous, supernatural beings who practiced destructive magic and who threatened Christianity. This change was a political, monetary, and sexist move on the part of organized religion, not a change in the practices of Witches. This later, erroneous meaning is still accepted by many non-Witches. It is also, somewhat surprisingly, used by some members of
Wicca
to describe themselves.
Witchcraft:
the
craft
of the
Witch—magic,
especially magic utilizing
personal power
in conjunction with the energies within stones, herbs, colors and other natural objects. While this may have spiritual overtones, Witchcraft, using this definition, isn’t a religion. Some followers of Wicca use this word to denote their religion, however.
Yule:
a
Wiccan
festival celebrated on or about December 21, marking the rebirth of the sun God from the earth Goddess. A time of joy and celebration during the miseries of winter. Yule occurs on the winter solstice.
*
See Mathers, S. L.MacGregor in the “Magic” section of the bibliography.
THIS IS A WIDE
-ranging list of books related, in some way, to Wicca. A book’s inclusion here doesn’t necessarily indicate that I’m in perfect agreement with its contents. Many of these books were written from far different perspectives than the one you’ve been reading.
All, however, if read with intelligence and discrimination, will deepen your understanding of the Goddess and God, and of the myriad forms of Wicca, magic, and shamanism.
Those asterisked (*) are highly recommended.
Where I felt it important, I have appended short comments concerning the book’s contents,
not
my views on them.
Such a list as this cannot hope to be complete. Books on these subjects are being published every day. Still, this should serve as a starting point for those interested in reading further.
Shamanism
Lynn V.
Medicine Woman.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981.
Bend, Cynthia, and Tayja Wiger.
Birth of a Modern Shaman.
St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1988.
Castaneda, Carlos.
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of
Knowledge.
New York: Ballantine, 1970.
Furst, Peter T.
Hallucinogens and Culture.
Corte Madera (California): Chandler & Sharp Publishers, 1976.
*Harner,Michael J. (editor).
Hallucinogens and Shamanism.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
*Harner, Michael.
The Way of the Shaman.
San Francisco: Harper &Row, 1981. The first “how-to” book on this subject,
The Way of the
Shaman
introduces simple techniques for acquiring alternate states of consciousness, on contacting your power animal, healing rituals, and much else of interest.
*Howells, William.
The Heathens: Primitive Man and His Religions.
Garden City (New York): Doubleday, 1956. Covers the entire range of pre–Christian and pre-technological religion and magic, including totemism, ancestor worship, shamanism, divination, mana, and tabu.
Kilpatrick, Jack Frederick, and Anna Gritts.
Notebook of a Cherokee
Shaman.
Washington D.C.: Smithsonian, 1970.
Deer, John (Fire), and Richard Erdoes.
Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions.
New York: Pocket Books, 1978. A portrait of a contemporary shaman, revealing the essential humanness of the subject.Much Sioux lore.
Lewis, I. M.
Ecstatic Religion: an Anthropological Study of Spirit
Possession and Shamanism.
Baltimore: Penquin, 1976. This is a scholarly sociological investigation into shamanism and alternate states of consciousness.
Rogers, Spencer L.
The Shaman’s Healing Way.
Ramona (California):
Acoma Books, 1976.
*Sharon, Douglas.
Wizard of the Four Winds: A Shaman’s Story.
New York: The Free Press, 1978. A portrait of Eduardo Calderon, a contemporary Peruvian shaman, detailing much of his rites and rituals.
*Torrey, E. Fuller
. The Mind Game: Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists.
New York: Bantam, 1973.
*Wellman, Alice.
Spirit Magic.
New York: Berkeley, 1973. This short paperback is a guide to shamanism as practiced in various parts of the world. One chapter, “The Tools of Wizardry,” is of particular interest.
Goddess Studies
Briffault, Robert.
The Mothers.
(Abridged by Gordon Taylor.) New York: Atheneum, 1977.
Downing, Christine.
The Goddess: Mythological Images of the
Feminine.
New York: Crossroad, 1984.
*Graves, Robert.
The White Goddess.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973. Perhaps the book that has had the greatest effect on modern Wicca. A poetic investigation into the Goddess.
*Harding, Esther.
Women’s Mysteries: Ancient and Modern.
New York: Pantheon, 1955.
James, E. O.
The Cult of the Mother-Goddess.
New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959.
Leland, Charles G.
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.
New York: Buckland Museum, 1968. This work presents a very different view of the Goddess than most others. The material was collected by Mr. Leland in the late 1800s and has had an affect on current Wicca.
*Newmann, Erich.
The Great Mother: an Analysis of the Archetype.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974. A Jungian approach to the Goddess. This book concludes with 185 pages of photographs of Goddess images.
Stone,Merlin.
When God Was a Woman.
New York: Dial Press, 1976.
Walker, Barbara.
The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Mysteries.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.
Folklore, Mythology, Legend and History
*Bord, Janet, and Colin Bord.
Earth Rites: Fertility Practices in Pre-
Industrial Britain.
London: Granada, 1982. An account of pagan rituals of Britain.
Busenbark, Ernest.
Symbols, Sex and the Stars in Popular Beliefs.
New York: Truth Seeker, 1949.
*Campbell, Joseph.
The Masks of God: Creative Mythology.
New York: Viking Press, 1971.