Quotes

The Daemon, as Shaitan, is literally ‘the Adversary’ – the Reverse One. He is the Image of the First God, manifest in double-form, as both the Black Man standing at the Crossroads of all Existence and as Melek Ta’us – the Peacock Angel, Sovereign of the World’s Djinn. As the ‘Black Man’ he is the anthropomorphic ‘Body’ of Darkness, the Lord of the Sabbat, the Overseer of the Primal Rite of Magick. In this form he embodies Death as the Gateway to the Other. In assuming the god-form of Al-Aswad – the Man-in-Black – the Adept places himself upon the interstitial ‘Point’ of the crossroads and thus within ‘Death’: the singular inbetweenness ‘twixt every Stasis of Being. He thus becomes the embodiment of the Gate at the centre of the cross-roads, the Portal where-by Power has ingress to the World of Manifestation and through which the Seeker must pass in order to transcend the ‘Form’ of the Manifest.

Vodou is a healing centered, eco-theological philosophy that provides a basis for sustaining and transmitting the wisdom and intelligence of our ancestors into sacred rites. It form the foundation of the moral and ethical standards we uphold as African descendants. Vodou’s intellectual and ethical framework teaches and advocates a self-sufficient, democratic, equalitarian, and egalitarian way of living in the world, holding every member of the community accountable for his or her actions. It has done so since the first humans appeared on the first continent we have known as home: Africa.

Too often we think of Dionysus as “jolly Bacchus,” whom the Romans in particular portrayed as the god of drinking and sexual orgies. But he was far more, a god of the dark side of humanity, of passions and the life force, companion of the Mother, a dying and rising god of the year cycle, god of the mountain rather than the city, whose followers were mainly male satyrs and female maenads (“the mad women”), who dressed in animal skins, wreathed their hair with ivy, wielded thyrsoi (poles tipped with foliage), hunted their prey on the mountainside, tore it apart, and ate the flesh raw.

Witchcraft is the recourse of the dispossessed, the powerless, the hungry and the abused. It gives heart and tongue to stones and trees. It wears the rough skin of beasts. It turns on a civilization that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

You’re a witch. There’s never been a time when witches were cuddly and embraced by their people, my dear. Every culture has had walkers-between and that frightens people. We’re wild, with fire in our blood, wine in our bellies and the moon in our souls. We’re the frightening people who talk to spirits in the woods.

Prophecy and prescience–How can they be put to the test in the face of unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction … and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What are the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of the knife?

Never put your faith in a Prince. When you require a miracle, trust in a Witch.

Let us come and give thanks to Thoth, the God of Knowledge, the measure which embodies correctness in the scales of justice.
He rejects evil and welcomes the man who turns aside from unjust actions.
He is the judge who weighs the words of men,
Who calms the storm,
Who gives peace,
The official scribe who preserves the hidden texts,
He punishes the criminal,
He welcomes the obedient man,
His arm is strong,
The sage at the heart of the Ennead, the Union of Gods,
He who restores what was forgotten,
He who advises the lost,
He who preserves in the moment,
He who watches over the hours of night,
He whose words last for eternity.

In defining the Devil I have had recourse to say this: /the Devil reveals a narrow path into a dark wood./ Remember that. He is out in all weathers and seasons in his tatty blacks, but the form is not important. Neither is what kind of crown he sports, horn, thorns, flowers, hat or cap. Nor does it matter that at times he seems to be Lord of the World, at others a more intimate, local spirit. It is what he shows us that counts. This definition could be challenged in that the wood has been coppiced and then hacked back to a stand of a few spindled trees. But I will let the phrase stay, as he is the revealer, and the wood is waiting behind all our eyelids. Blink and you might miss him. Walk abroad and you might meet him. His presence is immanent, the path opens before you.

The Devil is protean, he changes as we change, our closest companion from cave to the starry heavens. This is why we cannot leapfrog him to engage with a horned god of our supposed Celtic forebears. Witchcraft is meaningless if we use it to retreat to an imagined past and play at being the very different people who inhabited it. The injunction of the mysteries to know thyself precludes this kind of escapism. The gods of the past came from the soil, the social conditions, and ours must too, none more so than the Devil. He paws his way out of the farrowed fields unsettling even the crows.