The Western Gate

“Explained” ~ Etymology : EX:Out – Plained:to make Level ~ “For I am not on the level but am the promise of balance – I am not on the square but art upon the circle, I travel not from East to west, but hail to the South and yield to north, and the tears for that widows son? as myself have been that very nature, how can I cry for that which I have been.”

That tradition means customary and what through the ages has been done, this term, to denote a brand of witchcraft and delineate it from say; Wicca or other branches professing to be the descendant of the aged old craft should mean it would be perfectly obvious what Traditional Witchcraft is, an inherited system of local wisdom?
‘Tradition’ of course would be known, and not hidden, secret or occult. Traditional Witchcraft would not be some system that seems to have arisen in the last few decades, channelled via dream or automatic writing or wanderers on the astral plane and subsequently drafted into lengthy tomes with all manner of opulent words and elaborate sigils. Traditional Witchcraft has no more to do those strange “Crooked Paths” than it is to the religions taught by one lucky person chosen, apparently, to receive the word of God. If you was God would you rely on one person to reveal your law, or simply tell the whole tribe leaving them in no doubt as to the validity of the message and the deliverer?
It is tradition, celebrated by local and folk ritual. This could be the burning of fires on Nov 5th in Britain, a relic from the Old Samhain fires, the yule log burning at Winter Solstice, the crafting and decoration of eggs at Easter etc.
Ritual is emulation of that which is natural, that throughout the year there are two solstices and two equinoxes, these are then the natural markers of Solar time by which we can establish the four seasons, each season beginning at either the Equinox or Solstice. Within a representation of this, as a circle, we craft it four ways, the crossroads. Three ways represent life;- Spring, Summer and Autumn and the other – The Dark quarter- Winter when all is still and ‘dead’.
Three ways are governed by that which gives birth, sustains birth and thus by its very nature gives rise to its death. The seasons of the Mother and as Maiden and Reflective as the ‘Crone’.
The Dark way is the Shadow. It is Winter. Still, Silent and Cruel. And yet also necessity.

Lunar time in each of the seasons are marked by three moons. Sometimes between an Equinox and a Solstice, or between Solstice and Equinox, there will be four moons, this the true blue moon, and not a moon that appears twice in a month. The names of the moon are dependent on local “Tradition”, a full moon in March may be called a “Daffodil” moon as that is when a daffodil local to your area appears. The Harvest moon as another example is traditionally that which is either closest to the Autumn Equinox or the first full moon after, it is the moon after which all that has grown throughout Spring and Summer is now finally culled and reaped, The Harvest Moon is known by some as the Sickle Moon.
All this is natural, none of this information is hidden in expensive grimoires which entail the reader to fast for a month and abstain from any pleasure the flesh so wishes to enjoy.

The tools of the craft, as has been said in this blog before are those possessions, but few, which carried us in life, in our past, our ancestry. We had a knife, a cup, a stang or prodding stick or fork by which to hold food, and perhaps a plate or board or top upon which to lay out the feast. We may have had a broom/besom, a table/altar, candles, needle and thread, hide or cloth, a cauldron/cooking pot, the hearth and the fire. These are not regalia-fanciful as illuminated in some ‘sworn and secret’ grimoire but the everyday and more importantly only objects one had, and as such coveted and to them we glorified and gave them power.

The Knife is that which gives and takes life, that which symbolises active will, it is life affirming, life sustaining, it is that which divides. It is a symbol of attack. It is likened to our breathe, and the element of Air, the Season of Spring, and alike spring, assigned and raised to the East of the rising sign, of life. In our circle that emulates nature we salute the rising sun with the dagger.
The Stang, the wand, the staff, the fork, these all are of fire, they are the tools of the South where the sun is strongest, where summer reigns, the fork holds aloft our sustenance above the embers of the fire, it neither gives life nor takes but nurtures and fulfils. It casts the shadow of the overhead sun, and marks the solar procession. It is that which both defends and attacks.
The Cup is the vessel of water, It is West, Autumn, it is reflective as we ourselves at old age will reflect upon our life. It neither attacks nor defends but is the offering, the appeasement. It fulfills the meal, It digests that we we have experienced and eaten.
The Pantacle, the shield, the mirror, This the defence, upon which we display our ‘Self’ It holds the symbols and craft of our image, It not only reflects but also defines, and defines beyond which there can be no change. It holds the fruit of our labour.
These are the tools, and yet, they are our practical and historically the only possessions we required. We could continue to talk of the Besom, that which cleanses and renews, the cauldron which regenerates and makes fit all things to sustain us etc

All the herbs and flora local to our dwelling would be known, and taught, we would know of which herbs to eat, which fruits to use, which vegetables to grow, and when to grow them. We would know the medicinal properties of all the herbs and roots and flowers and always at our ‘local’ disposal. Our traditions therefore are different depending on where we are born and raised. The Bees would collect the nectar from all the local flora, There is nothing more pure the honey from the local flora by which you live.

Traditional witchcraft is to follow time and the seasons, to know nature, to dream and to craft. And this is simple Objective witchcraft.

And what of spell craft then? For all that has been spoken here is of natural and social awareness, what gave rise to the thoughts that one can rule destiny, that one can manipulate subtly or otherwise the cruel paths that await us?
The path ultimately, whether we begin indulging in desires for this or that or them, will always eventually lead to wisdom, when paradoxically non-attachment becomes a part of the psyche. This may seem at odds with those whose first steps upon the path are to be great and achieve and covet all the delicious things they want, if they were told, “in the end you will want for nothing”, they would first interpret that this means everything is assuredly received, in fact, nothing is received because for the witch nothing is wanted. All things inherently do not belong to anybody, though we hide them in our houses or clutch them to ourselves, they all are temporal. Likewise, our desire or obsession with another, to emulate them or to marry them is projection. Do love spells work? The truth here is this, just as the devil will promise “you will want for nothing” , and in essence this is both true and wisdom albeit in the devils riddle, the devil will also tell you “You will have any whom you desire, until your desire is fully quenched”. In order to fully enamour somebody to be obsessed with you, one first has to fully absorb and know and be empathetic of that person. Whilst acting in the guise of them, deliberately imaging them to desire you, and in that transgression to being them one realises why they haven’t until then been enamoured with you at all, one sees the faults within you that others see. In their body, or in their shoes -those ruby slippers of desire, one sees their flaws and vulnerabilities and suddenly, the desire is replace with equanimity. In fact, the desire is quenched. Now tell the would be apprentice, “on this path you will seek love, and I will show you how to obtain it, but when you fully understand the process you will not want that attainment”, that apprentice will cry that obstacles are placed and they wish to progress, not understanding the wisdom of the warning. Here then is what the devil means when he promises that, by means and way, all love and lust will be delivered and the desire quenched.

The path of witchcraft true, and traditional, is born from austerity, of knowing not only the limits of ones consciousness in the physical manifest but of the quenching of that great existential angst. What is the purpose? what is the point? what is the reason?
This question is determined by the problem of time. In order that we exist and evolved, obviously there needs to be a past, present and future, without them there is no dynamism. This is obvious. What isn’t obvious to most is the mind of the wise lives in the moment to the extent that the future and the past are one of the same. It is not that the witch imagines a future they so wish, but know the future as it will be and assimilates it into their thought process. The accuser of course will say, and with reason, the witch has merely imagined the future and directly or indirectly created actions in order that it be steered to that finale. The witch merely dances with the tides of the moons and the seasons yet always and to paraphrase somewhat , is of a time that is not a time and of a place that is not a place.

Witchcraft, the wise path, what is wisdom? It will always be reiterated, wisdom does not arise of us but is of itself. We can not, like knowledge and knowing, claim it is the result of our intellect, our evolvement or will, wisdom is of itself. The less you cling to it and claim it is born from you, the more it will arise. But if wisdom is of itself, then where does it arise from? This is the illumination, the singularity of everything. All things known are in a state of dynamism, polarity, chaos or synchronicity. Wisdom is not of any of these but is above all of them, beyond Positive and Negative, Negation and Emulation, creation, destruction. It is born from a Non-Dual nature, and existence is duality, creation is division. If creation were the stone, Wisdom is the sword that cannot be removed lest by the hand that knows the sword does not belong to them.

The witch, each, is both king and queen and pauper, the witch is neither male nor female but dances to the subjective design as so it wishes, if it wants, or retires from the nonsense.

The path of the witch, by whatever road is chosen will always arrive at the same place. (viz: three travellers are heading to London in different ways, on different routes, which of them reaches London?) It doesn’t matter which path is chosen, except what is the determined reason, and it will always be the common reason. The Reason will always be to be perfect, and this is not, in the end, as a result of tending to the ego’s narcissism but is the appeasement of all the negatives we infer upon our life at the outset.

The witch is promised to attain all that they desire and all that they see. In the end, desiring nothing and seeing and knowing all before them was theirs anyway, because everything belongs to nothing. The promise then is true and kept.

In as much as words can elaborate, and the apprentice can read the script yet dismiss it, the path would not be very tempting, and thus, the winding path, to distraction, to experience, to enjoy is preferred. Or else the path would be straight, still and monastic.

Traditional witchcraft can be;- to delve into a dazzling array of remembered rites and rituals and essays, sigils, performance, regalia… but this is simply structure, and theatre. Ultimately it is also distraction, if one so enjoys that distraction then condemn it not. Drama is born from emotion and emotions are there to be played and enjoyed.

The hereditary path is born from knowledge of our ancestors, that which the mind and body inherits, from trauma, loss, gain, from where we lived. Our roots, whether we choose to deny them or not, are a part of us. It is easy, even with the loss of oral knowledge in modern life to research into our ancestors, where we came from. We can root our bloodline, and although this is not in the wise sense of being~ the real self, it is the stream from whence we swam and first opened our senses to the existence.
The objective is to merge the external to the internal, and all things in this manner are achieved by balance and equilibrium. Just as the colour green seen to hold the paths of the rainbow apart, the colour of nature is the compliment of our blood. And there at the sure footing of the devils riddles must I wander, without care or worry.
It will be evident to the witch and manifest to the wayfarer.

The Witch by Albrecht Dürer (1500)