ROSALEEN NORTON -- The "WITCH" of KINGS CROSS

Rosaleen Norton was unique in her time, and sadly, would still be unique today. She was a born mystic and visionary artist when to be such things meant being dismissed by most people as either possessed or insane. To the deadening forces of conservatism and conformity she was the epitome of wickedness, but despite the scandals which regularly erupted around her she carried herself with terrific style and a sense of humour. If she was the face of evil, she was a remarkably nice face of evil. Rosaleen Norton, "Roie" to her friends, made a suitably dramatic entry to this world during a thunderstorm on the night of 2 October 1917, in Dunedin, New Zealand. She was born with a sinewy strip of flesh extending from her armpit to her waist, and later took this, along with physical peculiarities such as pointed ears and two dark spots on her knee, as signs that she was destined to be a witch. She was the youngest of three daughters in a solidly Church of England family, her father being an affable merchant seaman named Albert. When she was seven the family moved to Sydney. Rosaleen grew up a solitary child, looking down her nose at other children, preferring spiders. Night was her favourite time, when ghosts were out, and for years she slept in a tent out in the garden. She liked drawing too, ghoulish stuff that got her into trouble with her teachers. When she was 14, the headmistress of her school, Chatswood Girls Grammar, became the first in a long line of people to identify Rosaleen as a corrupting influence on others, and she was expelled. She studied art for a while, and at the age of 15 had several horror stories accepted by Smith's Weekly, a famously irreverent and lively newspaper which seems to have kept almost all of Sydney's bohemian community in gainful employment at one time or another. She preferred to work as an artist, but during her months there she failed to produce anything conventional enough even for Smith's, and was let go. She scraped a living doing odd jobs -- kitchen hand, waitress, postal messenger -- and as an artist's model for, among others, Norman Lindsay, whose work her own was often compared to. He called her "a grubby little girl with great skill who will not discipline herself."

In 1935 she met and married Beresford Lionel Conroy the son of Dr Lionel Bigoe Conroy. He was born in Crookwell in 1914 so in 1935 he would have been 21 when he married Rosaleen Norton. The pair spent some time hitchhiking around the country from Brisbane to Melbourne. [Beresford spent two years as a Commando in the A.I.F. in Northern New Guinea. The marriage lasted until after the war, when he remarried (Patricia Roberts) and sired three children. Beresford was a very private person who died in 1988, and rarely spoke of his first marriage.] In 1949 she scored her first major exhibition, at the Rowden-White Gallery at Melbourne University. She had been experimenting with self hypnosis and automatic drawing for years, devising rituals which would put her into a trance state in which she could explore other dimensions. Her paintings and drawings for the most part were depictions of the myriad of gods, demons and other entities with whom she communicated -- and caroused -- on these journeys. These beings -- with god Pan being her personal favourite -- were as real to her as the people around her. Rosaleen's swirling, flamboyant compositions, full of grotesque detail and writhing, interlocked forms, were at their best extremely powerful. They were certainly strong meat for 1940s Australia, and Constable Plod, turning up at the 1949 exhibition, predictably found them obscene. The police seized four works. Various academics came to Rosaleen's defence in the ensuing trial, and perhaps surprisingly, the charges were dropped and the police ordered to pay costs. Rosaleen's comment on the affair was "This figs leaf morality expresses a very unhealthy attitude." A similar reaction greeted the publication in 1952 of The Art Of Rosaleen Norton, a collection of her illustrations accompanied by poems by her young boyfriend, Gavin Greenlees. The book's publisher, Walter Glover, was charged with obscenity and Rosaleen was back in court defending her art in terms of Jungian archetypes. Such arguments notwithstanding, the magistrate fined Glover five pounds and ordered that two pictures, including one of "Fohat", a cheeky looking demon with a snake for a penis, be obliterated from unsold copies of the book.

Rosaleen was by now firmly ensconced as one of the great characters of Kings Cross, the stamping ground of Sydney's prostitutes, criminals, artists and would-be cosmopolitans. Her paintings adorned the walls of its cafes, and visitors to Sydney, whose first trip was likely to the Cross anyway, began to seek her out. The press had by now come to label her as a witch, and whilst the term never really described what Rosaleen was all about, she revelled in the attention, for a while at least. She certainly looked the part, her eyebrows plucked into high arches, her whole face, framed with jet black hair, a pattern of striking black curves which resembled nothing so much as one of her paintings. She was now being called the leader of a witch cult and whilst the "cult" never seemed to amount to much more than a few friends gathering in her small flat for occult talk and the occasional friendly ritual, this was too good a story for the tabloids to let go. Here is a typical account of a night at Roie's, from the 1965 pot-boiler Kings Cross Black Magic by "Attila Zohar." "There were about eight or nine cult members present. They all wore hideous masks so were quite willing to be photographed, although they pointed out that there were certain rites which could not be performed before outsiders or cameras." Later Rosaleen Norton changed into her witch's outfit. She was nude except for a black apron for and aft from her waist and a black shawl over her shoulders. A cat mask covered her face, but did not prevent her smoking from a long cigarette holder. The reporter noticed that the witches did not seem to walk -- but rather to "drift silently" on bare feet. Later Roie discarded the shawl, leaving herself bare from the waist up. "Miss Norton has modelled in her time, and she was as unselfconscious with the shawl off as with it on" observed the reporter. All the witches denied a somewhat facetious suggestion that they were merely people who liked dressing up. They insisted they were serious minded practitioners of the black arts. The reporter persisted and wanted to know what they got out of the cult. Rosaleen Norton answered for all the witches present when she said "I get a life that holds infinite possibilities and is entirely satisfactory to me on all planes of consciousness." Little outbreaks of scandal kept the legend of "The Witch of Kings Cross" bubbling along nicely. In 1955 the police picked up a homeless adolescent girl, Anna Hoffman, who blamed her sorry state on one of Rosaleen's black masses. She later admitted that she had made all this up, but not before the newspapers had taken the story and run with it. In the same year the Sun was approached by to men offering allegedly pornographic photos of Rosaleen and Gavin Greenlees performing unnatural acts. These, it transpired, had been taken as a joke at one of Rosaleen's birthday parties. All the notoriety had proved too much for Gavin Greenlees, it seems. He had been diagnosed as schizophrenic in 1957 and institutionalised. Juiciest of all was the sage of Sir Eugene Goosens, The British-born conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a friend of Rosaleen's and participant in her rituals. In March 1957 he was caught at Mascot Airport trying to smuggle into the country a whole swag of goodies including banned books, ritual masks and "1,166 pornographic photographs". Sir Eugene was given a hefty fine and returned to England in ignominy. This was not the sort of behaviour expected of a conductor at all. Rosaleen Norton began to drop out of the public eye in the 1960s. Suddenly her behaviour didn't seem so strange anymore --who wasn't into the occult revival? In the June 15, 1967 issue of Australian Post, journalist Dave Barnes gives an account of a visit to the increasingly reclusive witch. He describes how he and a colleague started their search at the flat she had occupied at the height of her fame in the '50s, questioned a few less than helpful locals, and eventually located her front door through which they dropped a request for her to ring their office so an interview could be arranged. The following day they were invited into Rosaleen's dark, 10 foot by 6 foot room, adorned with "giggling masks, a Satan statue, gongs and strikers, snakes and growing creepers". They found her in an apparently cheerful mood, playing up her reputation for all it was worth. As they reported: She produced a little box and said: "Look, these are real bat's feet, there are not many of them about and I wear them for ear-rings, attractive aren't they?" Politely ignoring their more flippant questions, she told them she enjoyed TV shows like The Munsters, The Addams Family and Bewitched, suggesting their makers may know a thing or two about how witches really operate. She was particularly interested in how the journalists tracked her down, and at what time. Puzzled, they told her they left their office just before 4pm and dropped the message through her door at 4.45pm. This made her laugh. Later, back in their office, they found that Rosaleen's call in answer had been logged in at 4pm the previous day - before they had actually delivered it. Game, set and match to Rosaleen. Rosaleen Norton's health began to fail in the '70s. She was diagnosed with colon cancer and in 1979 admitted to the Sacred Heart Hospice for the Dying. One of her friends during her last years was Richard Moir, who published a memoir about her in 1994. Moir draws a distinction between Roie, the private person he knew, and the Rosaleen Norton persona she created for the public, and paints a vivid picture of her final days. "When I arrived at the hospital I was ushered into the visitors lounge room -- strange I thought, as Roie couldn't walk. I waited in the lounge room for some time patiently, suddenly Rosaleen Norton appeared physically standing on both legs, welcoming me, escorted by two sisters. The vision I beheld was, mind blowing. Rosaleen Norton (not Roie) standing there in full garb, her hair flaming back, carefully arranged in her look. Her make-up had been very carefully applied, the face powder, the Rosaleen Norton full eye makeup and eye brows, the red lipstick. It was the Rosaleen Norton as I had always remembered he -- but even more so. She stood for only one minute... The last words Rosaleen Norton ever said to me were: "Darling; I can't stay too long, I just came to say hello. Ah! I must go Darling." And with her head in a proud position Rosaleen Norton was escorted away out of my sight forever." Rosaleen Norton died on 5 December 1979, surrounded by nuns, but needless to say, a pagan to the last.

THE UNIQUE, CONTROVERSIAL AND INFAMOUS ALEISTER CROWLEY

[Written and compiled by George Knowles.] Aleister Crowley was perhaps the most controversial and misunderstood personality to figure in the new era of modern day witchcraft. Known by the popular press of his time as "The Great Beast" and "The Wickedest Man in the World," Crowley was a powerful magician, poet, prophet and famed occultist. He was also a one-time witch, though most of the elders of the craft would discredit him the title. Crowley, like many great men before him, was a man before his time. He lived in a society that could little understand him or appreciated his latent genius. His writings so shocked the peoples of his era that he was robbed of the praise that it merited, and as a poet he never received the recognition he deserved. He was born on the 12th October 1875 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. His parents Edward Crowley and his wife Emily were wealthy brewers and the epitome of respectability. They were also devout Christians and staunch members of the Plymouth Brethren sect. They brought up young Crowley in an atmosphere of pious religious narrow-mindedness, against which he constantly rebelled. His whole life thereafter seems to have been a revolt against his parents and everything they stood for. His father died when he was 11 years old. After the death of his father, Crowley inherited the family fortune and went on to be educated at Trinity College Cambridge. There he wrote and studied poetry. He loved the out-doors life and was a capable mountain climber, in pursuit of which he attempted some of the highest peaks in the Himalayas. In 1898 he published his first book of poetry called "Aceldama, A Place to Bury Strangers In", a philosophical poem by a "Gentleman of the University of Cambridge in 1898." In the preface he describes how God and Satan had fought for his soul and states: "God conquered and now I have only one doubt left -- which of the twain was God”" It was while he was at Trinity that Crowley became interested in the occult and with his roommate Allan Bennett, they began to study whatever they could. Crowley soon discovered that he was excited by descriptions of torture and blood. He liked to fantasise about being degraded and abused by a "Scarlet Women," one who was dominant, wicked and independent. One of the books he read about this time was by the author Arthur Edward Waite, entitled "The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts." It hinted at a secret brotherhood of occultists and Crowley became even more intrigued. He wrote to Waite for more information and was referred to "The Cloud upon the Sanctuary," by Carl von Exkartshausen. This book tells of the "Great White Brotherhood" and Crowley determined he wanted to join this group and advance to its highest levels. Later that year on the 18th November 1898, he and Bennett both joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the elusive Great White Brotherhood. In 1899 Crowley is reported to have become a member of one of Old George Pickingill's hereditary covens situated in the New Forrest, although apparently he was not welcome for long. It is alleged that he obtained his Second Degree before being dismissed due to his contemptuous attitude toward women, failure to attend rituals with regularity, his personal ego and sexual perversion (Crowley had a bias toward homosexuality and the bizarre, shocking during his time even amongst witches). The priestess of his coven later described him as "a dirty-minded, evilly-disposed and vicious little monster!" As well as being dismissed and outcaste by the New Forrest witches, all was not well within the Golden Dawn. By this time Crowley had moved out of Trinity College without earning his degree, and taken a flat in Chancery Lane, London. There he renamed himself "Count Vladimir" and began to pursue his occult studies on a full-time basis. Crowley had a natural aptitude for magic and advanced quickly through the ranks of the Golden Dawn, but the London lodge leaders considered him unsuitable for advancement into the second order. Crowley went to Paris in 1899 to see S.L. MacGregor Mathers, the then head of the Order and insisted that he be initiated into the second Order. Mathers at the time was experiencing growing dissension to his absolute rule from London, and sensed in Crowley an ally. To the consternation of the London lodge he readily agreed to Crowley's request and initiated him into the second order. However their allegiance was an uneasy one, for Mathers, like Crowley was a powerful magician and both were intensely competitive. Mathers taught Crowley "Abra-Melin" magic but neither attained any of the grades of the A\A\. They quarrelled constantly and allegedly engaged in magical warfare. Mathers is said to have sent an astral vampire to attack Crowley who responded with an army of demons led by Beelzebub. In April 1900, Mathers due to problems within the London lodge, dispatched Crowley back to England as his "Special Envoy," where he made an abortive attempt to regain control. Shortly thereafter both Mathers and Crowley were expelled from the order. Crowley began to travel, mostly in the East studying Eastern Occult systems and Tantric Yoga; he also studied Buddhism and the I Ching. Then for a time he lived in an isolated setting near to Loch Ness in Scotland. In 1903 he met and then married Rose Kelly, sister of the well-known artist Sir Gerald Kelly. She bore him one child. While they where on holiday in Egypt the following year, April 1904, he and Rose took part in a magical ritual during which he alleges to have received a message from the Gods. As a result of this communication he wrote down the first three chapters of his most famous book "Liber Legis, the Book of Law." This book contains his oft-quoted dictum: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love under Will," upon which Crowley based the rest of his life and teachings. In 1909 Crowley began to explore levels of the astral plane with his assistant, a poet called Victor Neuberg; they used Enochian magic. Crowley believed he crossed the Abyss and united his consciousness with the universal consciousness. He describes the astral journeys in "The Vision and the Voice," which was first published in his periodical "The Equinox" and then posthumously in 1949. Never far from controversy in 1909 through to 1913, Crowley serialised the secret rituals of the Golden Dawn in his magazine "The Equinox," which he also used as a vehicle for his poetry. Mathers, who had written most of the rituals and who was still his greatest antagonist, tried but failed to get a legal injunction to stop him. His action only served to gained Crowley more press publicity and notoriety. By now Crowley was fast becoming infamous as a Black magician and Satanist. He openly identified himself with the number 666, the Biblical number for the Antichrist. He also kept with him a series of "Scarlet Women," the best known of these was Leah Hirsig, the so-called "Ape of Thoth." Together they would indulge in drinking sessions, drugs and sexual magic. It is believed that Crowley made several attempts with several of these women to beget a 'Magical child', none of which worked and instead he fictionalised his attempts in a book called "Moonchild," published in 1929. In 1912 Crowley became involved with the British section of the O.T.O. (the Ordo Temple Orientis or Order of the Temple of the East), a German occult order practicing magic. He then moved and lived in America from 1915 to 1919, moving again in 1920 to Sicily where he established the notorious Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu. In Sicily he proceeded to involve himself in Italian occultism and in 1922 became the head of the "Ordo Temple Orientis." However (as he routinely did) he began to attract more bad publicity. The press denounced him as "The Wickedest Man in the World" because of the alleged satanic goings on in the Abbey. It has now come to light that many of the allegations were false and were no more than press sensationalism. However their effect had serious repercussions for Crowley. In 1923 Mussolini the then ruler of Italy stepped in and expelled him from Sicily. Crowley wondered around for a while visiting such places as Tunisia and Germany before settling for a time in France. While in France he engaged as his secretary the services of another aspiring magician, Israel Regardie. Regardie would later become famous himself and played a prominent role in exposing the complete rituals of the Golden Dawn. to the public. Crowley continued to travel around Europe, during which time he picked up a growing heroin addiction, a habit he would suffer from for the rest of his life. Back in England in 1929 he met and married his second wife, Maria Ferrari de Miramar. The marriage took place in Leipzig, Germany. In 1932 Crowley met with Sybil Leek, another famous witch and became a frequent visitor to her home. Sybil, a hereditary witch, was only nine years old at the time and later wrote in her autobiography "Diary of a Witch" - (New York: Signet, 1969), that Crowley talked to her about witchcraft. He taught her the words of power and instructed her on the use of certain words for their vibratory qualities when working with magick. Already notorious and well known to the press, Crowley then became involved in a famous and sensational libel case. In 1934 before Mr. Justice Swift, he sued Nina Hamnett, a prominent sculptress. Nina had published a book "Laughing Torso" (Constable and Co., London, 1932) in which Crowley alleged she had libelled him by saying he that he practised black magic. As the case proceeded the other side produced such evidence of Crowley's bizarre life-style and scandalous writings (as they were considered at that time), that the justice was horrified. Crowley lost the case and was forced into bankruptcy, much to the delight of the popular press who again had a field day. In his penultimate year 1946, a mutual friend, Arnold Crowther, introduced Crowley to Gerald B. Gardner. His meetings with Gardner would later lead to controversy over the authenticity of Gardner's original "Book of Shadows." It was alleged that Gardner paid Crowley to write it for him. But this has now been discounted. While it did contain some of Crowley's writings, this was the result of Gardner and Crowley comparing notes on rituals used in Old George Pickingill's covens in the New Forrest area. Doreen Valiente in her book "Witchcraft for Tomorrow" does much to shed light on this controversy. At the time of his meetings with Gerald Gardner, Crowley was a feeble old man living in retirement at a private hotel in Hastings, barely kept alive by the use of drugs. It was here that he passed from this world into the next on the 1st December 1947. Unrepentant and unbowed he left this world with a final snub at the society that had so misunderstood him, he left instructions that he was to be cremated and instead of the usual religious service, his "Hymn to Pan" and other extracts from his writings was to be proclaimed from the pulpit. Finally his ashes were to be sent to his disciples in America. In many ways Aleister Crowley was not a well-liked man, but he influenced and had an effect on the build-up to the new era of modern witchcraft. His knowledge of witchcraft and magick was profound and without question, and he has passed on that knowledge through his books. In today's more liberal society more and more of Crowley's books are being reprinted as we begin to appreciate his strange genius. Indeed some of his books have now gained classical status. These include: "Gnostic Mass and The Book of Law" (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1977) from which portions of the well known "Charge of the Goddess" were written by Doreen Valiente. Other books include: "Magick in Theory and Practice," "777 And Other Qabalistic Writing" and "The Book of Thoth" to mention just a few.

WICCA AND TRADITIONAL WITCHCRAFT

By ROBIN ARTISSON "Wicca", had its inception in the 1940s and 50s, with the writings of Gerald B. Gardner. Gardner claimed to have discovered a traditional coven that met in the south of England, and became inducted into their ranks. His own oaths of secrecy to them, however, prevented him from revealing their practises. When he went public, he was forced to write, embellish, and import occult information, to make up for what he could not reveal, and this is what became "Gardnerian" Wicca. There is no doubt that Gerald was associated with the likes of the infamous Aleister Crowley, and was influenced by ceremonial magic, through the OTO, the Golden Dawn, and Masonry. We know for certain that Gardner was also associated with a group of Occultists called the Fellowship of Crotona, and by his own description of them, they seem to have been a loosely-confederated group of Masons, Hermetics, Rosicrucians, and occultists, not actual "traditional" witches. The record of their activities and beliefs/practices bears witness to this. This organization had ambitions of "reviving" the Old Craft, but this places them in the category of "Reconstructionist Pagans" and not "Traditional Witches". Wicca, in its modern creed and ritual structure, very strongly resembles a de-christianized version of the Order of the Golden Dawn, with many Thelemic and Theosophical imports, as well as obvious loan-material from Aleister Crowley and the OTO. All of these sources, and the personalities involved, flourished in the occult revival of the first half of the twentieth century, and it is to the middle of the twentieth century that Wicca directly dates from. Wicca makes claims to be "spiritually descended" from the Old Pagan religions, but the fact is, their ritual structure and theology does not have any historical resemblance to any Traditional European pagan culture. Witchcraft, on the other hand, refers to the beliefs and practices of Crafter families, individuals, and underground organizations that pre-date Christianity. The lore and practices of Traditional witchcraft have roots in very early times, the farthest back in time that most Traditional organizations can date themselves is 7,000-10,000 years. FORMALITY: Wicca has a very formal structure, based on the "three degrees" model of initiation, a loan from Masonry. The Wiccan religion is very hierarchical, with specific "High Priest/Priestess" titles, a specific initiation ritual, a'degree' system, it works within a formal coven and is normally oriented to the Female. There are only two actual "traditions" of Wicca Gardnerian (the original) and Alexandrian. Since the explosion of occult interest on both sides of the Atlantic, many non-aligned "Eclectic" traditions have sprung up overnight, representing almost every culture or metaphysical bent you can think of. (Celtic Wicca, Faery Wicca, Saxon Wicca, Dianic Wicca, etc. etc.) These eclectic versions do not adhere to most of the formalities found in traditional Wicca, and are therefore not taken seriously. In Witchcraft, a persons progress is MUCH slower than in Wicca, in which a person can be a "third degree High Priest" in the space of a few months to a year or two, or even faster if they get their hands on an "instant witch" book published by Lewellyn. Living life, learning, and experience are crucial for genuine "progress" and "dedications" happen on a person entering the tradition. NEW AGE THEOLOGY: Wicca has many "New Age" concepts that simply have no place in the historical or cultural context of European Witchcraft. Some of these are listed below: KARMA: This Hindu/Buddhist concept was carried into Wicca by Gardner, probably from his visits to Ceylon India. In Witchcraft, "karma" is unheard of. There is no belief in Witchcraft of "karmic debt" or of "karmic weight" to actions. The beliefs of Witchcraft on these matters was and is very different than the eastern concept of "karma". When Wiccans speak of 'Karma', what they are really referring to is the old 'Golden Rule' and not the eastern concept. THREE-FOLD LAW: This strange notion has no basis in history, nor does it hold up to sober reality well. While many peoples in many times and places have threatened other people with ideas of their actions returning to visit them "many times over", Wicca accepts this as a physical law. The truth is, while most wiccans have given up the belief in "hellfire and damnation" as a deterrent to their negative actions, they have replaced it with this "three fold law", which threatens three-times retribution for negativity. No belief such as this exists in historical Witchcraft, or in any surviving native European metaphysical system. DUOTHEISM: The Wiccan belief system states that there are only two divine beings, A "god" and a "goddess". The many different gods and goddesses worshipped by our European ancestors,or anyone else on earth for that matter, are thought to be "aspects" or "manifestations" of these two beings. Thus "All Gods are one God, and All Goddessses one Goddess". This divine reductionism is referred to as "Duotheism", and it is not a Traditional Witchcraft Belief. It is, in fact, a very modern belief. Furthermore, many Wiccans believe this "God" and "Goddess" to be themselves aspects of an unknowable divine unity, or a great being sometimes called "The One"... leading us essentially straight to a new version of Monotheism, well suited to ease the consciences of the usually ex--Christian converts to Wicca. Our European ancestors were Polytheists. They believed in many Gods, or in local Gods. This is true for Traditional Witches. BOOK OF SHADOWS: In Wicca, the term "BOS" came from a fiction magazine in the 1940's. In the Old Days, amongst Traditional practitioners of Witchcraft, to have written evidence of what you were doing was a death sentence if you were caught. Also, most people back then were quite illiterate. Witchcraft was and still is, passed down orally, and if it is written down, it would have been written down sparingly and in some sort of pictographic code. ETHICS: The Wiccan religion has a "Rede" which forms the basis of Wiccan ethics -- it states "As long as you harm none, do as you will". This is a good suggestion, and basically a re-wording of the Judeo-Christian "golden rule". However, Witchcraft has no such rule. Ethics in the Old Craft are completely ambiguous and situational. Wiccans treat this "Rede" as though it is a cosmic law, when in reality, the word "Rede" is Anglo-Saxon for "advice", not "law". But to the Wiccan religion, it is an unmovable piece of dogma. This whole issue turns out to be another New-Age Wiccan (and modern human) denial of a fact inherent in nature. Harming and Hurting, these things exist in nature and we humans are part of nature. Thus, they are part of us. You harm plants and animals to eat them. You harm bacteria in the water you drink. Life feeds on life. Witchcraft is very family oriented, and if someone threatens the family, then stopping that threat is first and foremost. If that means harming someone, that’s what Traditional Witches will do, and there is no ethical injunction against it. Witchcraft, and the power it can invoke, is not "good" or "bad," it is both. There is a time and a place for both. This is hard for New-Agers to understand, but it is simply the way of things. To deny either side of yourself, or of nature, is to move away from the central mystery: that of wholeness and "balance". HOLYDAYS : The Wiccan calendar is divided into eight Sabbats, or Holydays the four Celtic Festivals, the two solstices, and the two equinoxes. Unfortunately, this is a very modern development. The Celts, for instance, did not observe the Solstices or equinoxes in pre-Christian times. They didn't even have four seasons only a Summer and a Winter. Gerald Gardner, again, influenced by other occultists, especially, in this case, by the romantic "revivalist" Druids of England, brought this invented "eight sabbat" concept into Wicca. In Witchcraft, the Holy Days that are celebrated are different from region to region, and from tradition to tradition. An agriculture-based tradition may follow tides of planting and harvesting, and celerate harvest festivals, while another tradition may celebrate more hunting tides. Point is, the holy days are always timed by nature, and are different depending on where you go. The old Celtic dates of Samhain, Beltain, Mabon etc, may still be followed in some places, but if they are, the solstices and equinoxes are not. CULTURAL CONTEXT : This topic is where the subject of seriousness and authenticity gets the most strain. It is so common in Wiccan circles to hear invocations to "Pan and Thor, and Lilith, and Ganesh" or any other assortment of Gods and goddesses that the coven feels like invoking. With no respect to culture or heritage, and with no authenticity or historical context, Eclectic Wiccans belief in the Gods and Goddesses all being "one" makes these wiccans feel as though they have the right to call upon any combination of deities they wish. This is unforgivably New-Agey, and shows complete lack of seriousness, and cultural context. Some traditions of Wicca do try to adhere to one cultures deities and religious concepts. This is an admirable step towards reality. But most do not. In Traditional Craft, the culture of the people of the land, and of the people generations back, determines the cultural context of the tradition. This is because Traditional Craft is part of the land and its people, and its history. Wicca, as a modern invention, and a mix-and-match of eastern and western occult ideas, lacks such a basis. Many Traditional Craft traditions in the Isles have an Anglo-Saxon or Germanic/Norse feel to them, and beneath this, a folk-memory of the Celtic culture. Scottish and Irish Traditions tend to be (obviously) Celtic in strain. GOODNESS AND LIGHT : Wicca, as an entity of the modern day, and with its modern style and mostly urban following, has lost most of its connection to Nature and the Land. Wicca comes off as a "feel good", "goodness and light" religion, usually venerating their Nature Goddess as a very loving, motherly figure, and viewing the unseen world as a place of positive power, and full of helpful spirits. This completely unbalanced view, with its fixation on how "wonderful and "beautiful" Nature and the otherworlds are, is utterly NOT how our ancestors saw the Gods and the universe, and it is NOT how Traditional Witches view things. Nature is both kind and cruel, giving and taking. There is a great darkness inherent in Nature, both the natural world, and in the personal nature of spirits and gods, and humans. Harmful, destructive spirits are facts of life, both in the old times, and now, and the fact that the "goddess" is just as likely to destroy her children as give birth to them, is also obvious. Wicca tends to ignore this darkness, preferring the "goodness and light" approach. WORKING "TOOLS" : Quite true to the Golden-Dawn based system of magic that Wicca espouses, the "tools" used by wiccans are the Cup, Pentacle, Knife, and Wand, representing the four hermetic elements. The "magic circle" drawn is based on Hermetic circles from well-known high magical grimoires, such as the Key of Solomon, also used extensively by the Golden Dawn. The "quarter calling" is based on the Enochian magic of John Dee, also resurrected and used by the Golden Dawn. Traditional Witches do not use this same set of tools, although they do have certain implements, depending on tradition. The four-element system is NOT common, and Traditionals use a very system. By far and large, the tools used by traditional witches do not resemble the wiccan "working tools". They tend to be things like stangs, besoms, cauldrons, cords, skulls, (of people or animals), hammers, mirrors, various stones, horns or bowls some traditions use daggers as well, but without the new-agey symbolism attached. Some Traditions may not use tools at all! Circles are not cast and used to any major extent, at least, not like Wicca. The traditional idea for a drawn circle is to create a sacred space and often enough, certain natural places suffice for working areas, without a need to draw a "circle". When circles must be drawn, they are drawn by traditional ceremonies which bear almost no resemblance to Wiccan circle castings. The spirit of the Land/Earth is invoked to watch over the sacred place, and ritual sacred fires are lit these are the necessary in most traditional workings. Sometimes the spirits of the six "directions" are called, but this varies from place to place. The idea is, that Land is sacred already being the "mother creator" you do not "consecrate" the ground. You simply dwell upon it. THE TERM "WITCH": Some sensationalist (and mostly very young) Wiccans never tire of calling themselves "witches" much to the horror of the public, traditional witches and the delight of the press. Other Wiccans think of "witch" as a dirty word, and say "Wiccan" only. The word "witch" can be found in just about every culture on the planet. Where it first came from, has been lost in time, but there is archeological evidence that points to the area north of the "Cradle of Civilization", the Mesopotamian river valley. (For a Wiccan to casually refer to themself as a 'witch' is as misleading as it is for a Mormon to call themself a Catholic.) Regardless of what it once meant, the Christian church, among others, has blackened the word, and corrupted it into a term of Satanic evil. THE AFTERLIFE : Wicca firmly believes in a very eastern Hindu/Buddhist model of "reincarnation" and of spiritual evolution. Obviously, this is yet another theosophical import brought in by Gardner or any of Wiccas other formative writers. In Witchcraft, there is some notion that the soul or spirit may enter into another phase of existence after death, and this usually heralds a return into the power of the land, to dwell with the ancestors, or become a guardian spirit, or maybe just a return to being a part of the spiritual dimension of Nature. From this state, a re-birth into your extended family or clan may be possible, but it is mysterious. There is a well-defined, though naturalistic notion of spiritual existence for all things, up to and including humans. That time moves in cycles and so does the power of nature is obvious, and life and death are mysteries entangled with this flow. As nature is alive, and so are we, that is immortality. The spirits of the land are also the spirits of the deceased, so Nature is venerated on many levels. Through application of some Old Craft rites, a soul may achieve a higher level of existence, and dwell amongst the "Hidden Company" after death, but this is also a mystery known best to those traditions that teach this. [Additional articles by the same author may be found here: ROBIN ARTISSON

THE DEFINITION AND HISTORY OF MAGIC Magic (from the Magi: Old Persian Magupati, Persian Mobed, Greek Μάγοι) or sorcery (from the French sorcierie) are terms referring to the influence of events and physical phenomenon through supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means. The term magic in its various translations has been used in a number of ways. From the point of view of an established religion, it has often been used as a pejorative term for the pagan rituals of competing ethnic groups, as belonging to an inferior (hence blasphemous or idolatrous) culture. The magic and religion article deals largely with this aspect. Among occultists, magic is a fairly neutral term which has some varied connotations, such as white magic and black magic. The famous occultist Aleister Crowley chose the spelling magick to distinguish "the true science of the Magi from all its "counterfeits," such as stage magic. Today many use that spelling in the same or otherwise similar way, often to connote a pagan or wiccan system of belief rituals, that endow individuals with superphysical abilities.

RELIGION, PAGANISM AND ALCHEMY The conceptual relationship between religion and magic is similar to the relationship between "religion" and paganism, whereas "religion" refers to a system of established beliefs, and "magic" and "pagan" are labels used by people within that system to describe beliefs and practices that conflict with or are outside of that system. From the point of view of adherents of any established religion, the terms "magic" and "wizardry" connote beliefs which are held to be inferior to true belief, and hence are considered "false belief" or heresy. In this sense, the term magic is typically outdated, although in the direct quotation of religious scripture it may have some limited use. The terms "heathen" or "infidel" are common replacements, depending on the context, leaving little ambiguity as to their pejorative meaning. Originally referring to the older Zoroastrian Magi (i.e. sages, priests), the term "magic" became a negative term, and among the followers of the Israelite religion was recorded into Western history with its denegrating meaning. All descendants of the younger Abrahamic faith and its traditional culture of belief inherited this use of the term. In times of antiquity, practioners of other religions were accused of practicing magic, even the adherents of Christianity and Islam, particularly when they were still burgeoning faiths. In the Middle Ages, what we now call "the sciences" began to develop, partially through alchemy. Alchemy attempted to codify specific methodolgy for the mechanical achievement of tasks which most considered to be important, such as the healing of illnesses and the making of wealth (gold etc). Wheras religion advocated a faith-based deference to matters of spirit, alchemy played a significant role in developing human curiosity about the natural world into a systemic structure of beliefs and practices. It is from alchemy that our modern concept of wizardy and magic come from; as a kind of melding of spirituality and methodical and professional investigation into the mysterious or "arcane." HISTORY OF WESTERN EUROPEAN MAGIC Belief in various magical practices has waxed and waned in European and Western history, under pressure from either organised monotheistic religions or from scepticism about the reality of magic, and the ascendancy of scientism. In the world of classical antiquity, much as in the present time, magic was thought to be somewhat exotic. Egypt, home of hermeticism, and Mesopotamia and Persia, original home of the Magi, were lands where expertise in magic was thought to be prevalent. In Egypt, a large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and demotic Egyptian, have been recovered. These sources contain early instances of much of the magical lore that later became part of Western cultural expectations about the practice of magic, especially ceremonial magic. They contain early instances of: * the use of "magic words" said to have the power to command spirits; * the use of wands and other ritual tools; * the use of a magic circle to defend the magician against the spirits he is invoking or evoking; * the use of mysterious symbols or sigils thought useful to invoke or evoke spirits. The use of spirit mediums is also documented in these texts; many of the spells call for a child to be brought to the magic circle to act as a conduit for messages from the spirits. The time of the Emperor Julian of Rome, marked by a reaction against the influence of Christianity, saw a revival of magical practices associated with neo-Platonism under the guise of theurgy. THE MIDDLE AGES Mediæval authors, under the control of the Church, confined their magic to compilations of wonderlore and collections of spells. Albertus Magnus was credited, rightly or wrongly, with a number of such compilations. Specifically Christianised varieties of magic were devised at this period. During the early Middle Ages, the cult of relics as objects not only of veneration but also of supernatural power arose. Miraculous tales were told of the power of relics of the saints to work miracles, not only to heal the sick, but for purposes like swaying the outcome of a battle. The relics had become amulets, and various churches strove to purchase scarce or valuable examples, hoping to become places of pilgrimage. As in any other economic endeavour, demand gave rise to supply. Tales of the miracle-working relics of the saints were compiled later into quite popular collections like the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine or the Dialogus miraculorum of Caesar of Heisterbach. There were other, officially proscribed varieties of Christianised magic. The demonology and angelology contained in the earliest grimoires assume a life surrounded by Christian implements and sacred rituals. The underlying theology in these works of Christian demonology encourages the magician to fortify himself with fasting, prayers, and sacraments, so that by using garbled versions of the holy names of God in foreign languages, he can use divine power to coerce demons into appearing and serving his usually lustful or avaricious magical goals. Not surprisingly, the church disapproved of these rites; they are nonetheless Christianised for all that, and assume a theology of mechanical sacramentalism. MAGIC IN THE RENAISSANCE Renaissance humanism saw a resurgence in hermeticism and other Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of scientism, in such forms as the substitution of chemistry for alchemy, the dethronement of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe assumed by astrology, the development of the germ theory of disease, that restricted the scope of applied magic and threatened the belief systems it relied on. Tensions roused by the Protestant Reformation led to an upswing in witch-hunting, especially in Germany, England, and Scotland; but ultimately, the new theology of Protestantism proved a worse foe to magic by undermining belief in the sort of ritualism that allowed religious rites to be re-purposed towards earthly, magical ends. Scientism, more than religion, proved to be magic's deadliest foe. Alongside the ceremonial magic followed by the better educated were the everyday activities of folk practitioners of magic across Europe, typified by the cunning folk found in Great Britain. In their magical practices astrology, folklore, and distorted versions of Christian ritual magic worked alongside each other to answer customer demand.

MAGIC and ROMANTICISM More recent periods of renewed interest in magic occurred around the end of the nineteenth century, where Symbolism and other offshoots of Romanticism cultivated a renewed interest in exotic spiritualities. European colonialism, which put Westerners in contact with India and Egypt, re-introduced exotic beliefs to Europeans at this time. Hindu and Egyptian mythology frequently feature in nineteenth century magical texts. The late 19th century spawned a large number of magical organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and specifically magical variants on Freemasonry. The Golden Dawn represented perhaps the peak of this wave of magic, attracting cultural celebrities like William Butler Yeats, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Machen to its banner. MAGIC IN THE 20TH CENTURY A further revival of interest in magic was heralded by the repeal, in England, of the last Witchcraft Act in 1951. This was the cue for Gerald Gardner, now recognised as the founder of Wicca, to publish his first non-fiction book Witchcraft Today, in which he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult that dated back to pre-Christian Europe. Gardner's religion combined magic and religion in a way that was later to cause people to question the Enlightenment's boundaries between the two subjects. Gardner's newly publicized religion, and many others, took off in the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, when the counterculture of the hippies also spawned another period of renewed interest in magic, divination, and other occult practices. The various branches of Neopaganism and other earth religions that have been publicized since Gardner's publication tend to follow a pattern in combining the practice of magic and religion. The trend was continued by some heirs to the counterculture; feminists led the way when some launched an independent revival of goddess worship. This brought them into contact with the Gardnerian tradition of magical religion, and deeply influenced that tradition in return. MODERN BELIEVERS IN MAGIC Many people in the West claim to believe in or practise various forms of magic. The forms of magic they adhere to have been reconstructed from secondary or tertiary sources. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and their followers are most often credited with the resurgence of magical tradition in the English speaking world of the 20th century, but in their eagerness to reconstruct the lost traditions of the past, they often included elements of questionable authenticity, or items altogether manufactured. Other, similar movements took place at roughly the same time, centred in France and Germany. Thus, any current tradition which acknowledges the natural elements, the seasons, and the practitioner's relationship with the Earth, Gaia, or the Goddess may be correctly regarded as Neopagan, and few such traditions can be sensibly labelled more authentic than any others. Aleister Crowley preferred the spelling magick, defining it as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will." By this, he included "mundane" acts of will as well as ritual magic. In “Magick in Theory and Practice,” Chapter XIV, Crowley says: What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition. Let us take a very simple example of a Magical Act: that of a man blowing his nose. Although some current practitioners of magic prefer the term pagan, Neopaganism is more precise for scholarly reference to current rituals and traditions (though both are technically correct, as neopaganism is but a particular subset of paganism). Wicca is a more codified form of modern magic than Neopaganism, again owing much to Crowley and his ilk. Although Wicca is different in some ways from Satanism, both groups use magic for the same end--to conform reality to a person's or persons' will. Wiccans and other followers of modern religious Witchcraft use magic extensively. However, they do not all subscribe to Aleister Crowley's definition of what that is, nor use it for the same purposes. Ruickbie (2004:193-209) shows that Wiccans and Witches define magic in many different ways and use it for a number of different purposes. Despite that diversity of opinion, he concludes that the general result upon the practitioner is a positive one.