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CHAPTER 1
WHAT WE KNEW IN THE NIGHT
As to the past, it is because of what is there, that I look back: not because I do not see what is here today, or may be here tomorrow. It is because of what is to be gained that I look back: of what is supremely worth knowing there, of knowing intimately: of what is supremely worth remembering ...
— William Sharp, A Memoir
As mentioned in the introduction, I first encountered the Witchcraft/Wiccan community in the summer of 1969. I think back upon what I learned of Witchcraft in those days of my youth, and my memory is carried upon a mystical scent that reminds me of that distant time: damp moss, and rich earth; night-blooming jasmine, wisteria, and primal forest.
Witchcraft is, among other things, a sentient spirit. It comes to you, if it recognizes and acknowledges you. It resides within you and passes out through you into the world. You, as a Witch, are the in-between place, which is the most magical of all places.
In this chapter I will pass to you many of the things that were passed to me so long ago it seems now. I've had teachers who were human and others who were not. However, one doesn't learn to be a Witch; you either are one or you are not. What we can and do learn is the Arts of Witchcraft; we learn the ways of the Witch. Knowing you are a Witch is a matter of inner discovery. It's recognition and it's acknowledgment. You would not have been drawn to this book if there weren't something of the Witch already inside you.
The word recognize means "to know again," and this is an important element. Many people have been Witches in past lives. The word acknowledge means "to accept or admit the existence or truth of something." This is the inner knowing, the personal gnosis, and it needs no outside validation. Being a Witch is in your blood, even though it may not be in your lineage. Its essence is a beacon, and as a result there are forces that will be drawn to you (and you to them).
Witchcraft has long been associated with the night and with the moon. We can safely say that it is primarily a lunar path. In ancient pre-Christian writings, we find a goddess of Witchcraft but no specific mention of a god of Witchcraft. The god arrives much later in the writings, and his roots are woodland in nature. He is antlered, and then later he is horned. He is a stag, and then a goat, and eventually a bull. The latter arises in the Christian era when we find the image of the devil, who most often sports a pair of bull horns. Later still, in the Victorian era, is a return to goat horn imagery. Here again horns are sported by the devil in the popular art of the period. In any form, the old god remains in the bone memory of the earth.
In those contemporary forms of Witchcraft and Wicca that include a god, he is most often viewed as a solar deity. In his modern mythos, we see a mated pair, the goddess of the moon and the god of the sun. However, in the 1960s, the god was viewed more as an agricultural figure than the direct god of the sun per se. It was inevitable that the Lord of Plants (also known as the Harvest Lord) would eventually become strongly connected with the sun's role in plant life. Over the following decades, the god took on a greater role as the personification of the sun god. With the ongoing development of the wheel of the year theme, his celestial nature dominated his woodland and agricultural foundations. He became the newborn light at the winter solstice. Today, the evergreen decorations of the season seem like a vestige memory of his early forest nature. We'll talk of him more in forthcoming chapters, but for now let's return to the goddess and to the night.
It is popular today to think of Witchcraft as a practice instead of a religion or a spiritual path. In the 1960s, we thought of it as the old religion of Europe. Ancient pre-Christian writings depict the Witch Medea as a priestess of the goddess Hecate. In the tales written of her, Medea performs rituals in a circle traced upon the ground, and within the circle is an altar at which she calls upon Hecate. The seemingly religious undertones of that did not escape us back in the day.
The 1960s was a time of breaking away from social norms; this included religion. Many young people struggled with the concept of god dwelling in heaven and judging the lives of humans by a set of ten laws reportedly given to Moses: if you obeyed the laws, then you entered into Paradise; but if you failed to do so, then you were sent into eternal torment. We found that to be an odd position for divinity to take in general. As a result, a large number of people turned to mysticism, foreign spiritual pursuits, and Witchcraft/Wicca.
In those days, Witchcraft and Wicca were one and the same; we made no distinction between the two. Today, the two seem to be whatever anyone wants them to be at any given time of day or night. While we may have gained some freedom in this view, unfortunately we have equally distanced ourselves from the roots of our origin. This complicates the matter.
The primary goal of this book is to reintroduce the Rooted Ways of Witchcraft. I see this in the same way as rebooting one's computer when something seems to be causing conflicts or hindering the smooth operation of the system. The material in this book is foundational; it is the core of Witchery. Perhaps you wondered about the title, "What We Knew in the Night," and thought it should be "What We Know in the Night." The title I chose indicates something almost forgotten (or of a former state of things). It is intentional because there are things absent in contemporary Witchcraft when compared with earlier times. In the 1980s, the writings on Witchcraft shifted from traditional ways to intuitive ways. The emphasis focused upon doing whatever feels right and customizing things as one goes along. There were both gains and losses in this new approach.
Over the years, I have come to envision the Craft as an old tree. It has it roots, which are the oldest part. The roots provide nourishment for the tree and keep the tree in place so that it does not topple over. The tree also has a trunk, and this is the established presence for all to see its place in the world. Additionally, the tree puts forth new branches and flowers/fruits in each new season. I liken this to the new practitioners and the new systems of Witchcraft that arise over the years. However, if no one (or no thing) tends the roots, if we offer nothing to sustain the tree, it eventually withers and dies. The roots go unseen, but what is unseen truly matters in the ways of Witchcraft.
For the purposes of this book, I will refer to its material and teachings as the Rooted Ways. What I offer here is a system that I have assembled from pieces passed on to me as well as those I've stumbled upon over the decades. I will also include some things I developed on my own. Please note that I am not presenting the material in this book as a surviving tradition or even a preexisting tradition into which I was initiated. It is not; instead, it is an assembled system from the oldest ways of which I have personal knowledge and experience. It is e pluribus unum — the one comprised of many parts.
THE TEACHINGS ON NIGHT
The old teachings of Night arise from what can be called the spirit-mindedness of our forest-dwelling ancestors. Daylight was a time of dealing with survival needs, gathering eatables and hunting animals to sustain the tribe. Night was a time for withdrawing into the tree branches beneath the stars and moon for protection against predators. More importantly, it was a time for contemplation, a time for listening, and a time to slip off into the realms of dreams. It was in the blackness of night that our ancestors formulated the enchanted world comprised of spirits and entities.
The stewards of the night are the stars and the moon. They pass the secret mystical essence into the branches of the trees, which hold this for the Witch to pick the forbidden fruit. The stars look down with countless eyes and watch from on high. The moon sheds its light upon the forest branches, and the wind moves the Witch in the night breeze, calling and beckoning her or him.
The night is conscious and self-aware. It is the time of the Witch. In ancient Greek mythology, night is personified as a goddess. Nox (or Nix) is one of the most common names for night as a deity. She is born of Chaos and she later gives birth to Hypnos (sleep), Death, the Fates, and the Oneiroi (dreams). These are the magical offspring of Night, as well as connections to various long-held beliefs and practices associated with Witchcraft.
In the Rooted Ways, night is the origin. It is the setting that the Witch enters into for magic and ritual. Night is the blackness of procreation, for everything issues forth from blackness into light. We ourselves were born from the blackness of the womb into the world of light.
My use of "blackness" versus "darkness" here is intentional. It is commonplace to say that the night is dark, meaning the absence of the sun's light. However, to the Witch of the Rooted Ways, the sun isnot the defining factor of all things. Night is not the absence of the sun; it is its own realm and its own manifestation. No one defines daylight as the absence of the dark night. Why limit the definition of night to the absence of the bright sun? Certainly, before any suns were created in the universe, there was the blackness of outer space. I cannot say "the darkness of outer space" because no light preexisted to be able to speak of darkness as the absence of light. There was only blackness, and it was first.
As a Witch of the Rooted Ways, I regard darkness as a refusal of light. In this view, darkness is a mentality. It is conducive to evil. There are people with dark hearts and there are dark spirits and entities. They reject light and remain separated from its blessings. It is a choice. Blackness is not a choice; it is the sacred night, just as sunlight reveals the blessed day. Two realms are connected and yet independent.
The birth or the awakening of the Witch takes place in the night. In the blackness, the Witch arises and meets the illumination of the full moon. However, the first immersion is into the essence of the power of night. In the Rooted Ways we call this the "black mist" or the "mystical waft of the night." (This process will be explained more in the next chapter.)
Because Night is viewed as both origin and birther, the color black is significant. In the Rooted Ways, Witches wear black hooded robes. One of the stories passed around in the '60s told us that Witches wore black at their night gatherings in order to be able to seemingly disappear if danger approached. This was accomplished by covering the head and face with the hood and pulling the hands deep inside the sleeves of the robe. In the night, with the skin completely covered within the black robe, and all fires extinguished, the Witch was seemingly rendered invisible.
The power of night is its inherent procreative nature. However, night also receives into itself all things that perish in the material world. Out of blackness all things emerge into the world of light (as previously mentioned, you and I emerged from the blackness of the womb). This principle is symbolized by the black cauldron, which often appears in imagery with a skull set in front of it. In addition, a set of crossbones is sometimes placed with the skull. The skull represents the spirits of the dead and the "bone memory" that resides in it after death. The crossbones symbolize walking the Path of the Witch in the night. In this we are the kindred of the night.
Night, and the theme of Witchcraft, leads us to the ancient goddess known as Hecate, whose festival day in ancient Greece was celebrated on the last day of November. One ancient writer mentions a small altar set to Hecate during the festival of Diana (August 13–15). For some people this has confused the date of Hecate's festival, conflating it with Diana's festival date. But in ancient Greco-Roman times, it was typical to begin rituals and magical work by first evoking Hecate. Therefore, the presence of an altar to Hecate at the celebration of another goddess is not surprising.
The first recorded mention of Hecate is found in the ancient Greek writings of Hesiod, who refers to her as a Titan who fought on the side of the Olympian gods. Hesiod portrays Hecate as a goddess who grants victory, success, and abundance. It is not until the fourth century BCE that Hecate is identified with Witchcraft. She then becomes the Mistress of Witchcraft. It is around this same time that Hecate is associated with the Underworld.
As previously mentioned, ancient writers tell us that Hecate is the first deity to call before doing any magical work or performing a ritual. She, in essence, opens the portals that stand between the human world and the spirit world. This lets the magic in and the magic out, so to speak.
Ancient Roman writers, such as Horace, regard Hecate as a triple goddess comprised of Hecate, Diana, and Proserpina. One example is found in the tale of Medea, where she speaks an evocation:
Diana, who commands silence when secret mysteries are performed, I invoke you.
Hecate of the three faces, who knows all my designs, and comes to help the incantations and the craft of the witches, I invoke you. ...
Proserpina, night-wandering queen, I invoke you.
Hecate, Diana, Proserpina, look kindly now upon this undertaking.
In this text we find the reference to night as the faithful keeper of Witches' secrets. The things Witches came to know in the night were concealed from others by the starry black veil that covered the world from above.
Associated with night is a race of beings known as the Watchers. In the earliest lore, they are said to be the stars (the eyes of night that are ever watchful). In Hebrew writings, we also find a type of angel called a Watcher. This comes from the noncanonical biblical Book of Enoch. In the 1960s we did not readily include concepts from non-European cultures. If memory serves me well, the Hebrew material was added sometime in the 1970s. This same time period drew in the concepts of chakras, mudras, karma, and the Akashic records. This began to obscure the old European roots and foundations. What we knew in the night beneath the full moon started to be dispersed by a different light arriving from Eastern culture.
The oldest idea of the Watchers is rooted in star veneration. There is a fate-related connection here that is tied to astrology, and therefore one's fate can be thought of as something influenced by the Watchers. In chapter 5 on Old Magic this idea is further explored. For now, let us stay with the concept of the Watchers as star-beings.
In my book Wiccan Mysteries, I wrote about the Watchers being linked to specific stars. In the early stellar cults these stars were called "lords," and they marked the common cardinal points in astrology:
• Aldebaran, marking the vernal equinox, held the position Watcher of the East.
• Regulus, marking the summer solstice, held the position Watcher of the South.
• Antares, marking the autumn equinox, held the position Watcher of the West.
• Fomalhaut, marking the winter solstice, held the position Watcher of the North.
In the 1960s, references to the Watchers included such titles as "Dread Lords of the Outer Spaces" and "Old Ones of the Starry Dome," among others. In addition to recording the actions of the Witch, the Watchers were said to be the escorts of the dead, ushering them into another realm. The earliest idea was that souls went to reside in the lunar realm, where they awaited rebirth. This theme is tied to ancient Greek philosophers who connected the gathering of souls to the increasing light of the moon.
The moon was said to travel across the night gathering up the recently dead. The dead were then contained by the moon when it set in the Underworld. As the moon rose each night, it glowed with the light of the collected souls until it was eventually full, a full moon. Afterward, on each subsequent night, the moon gradually released the souls back into life on earth (reincarnation) or to another realm in which the soul required a different experience. As souls were set free, the light of the moon decreased. This was reflected in the waning light of the moon.
Another idea about where the dead traveled to was called the Summerland (a concept some people say was borrowed from nineteenth-century theologians and spirit mediums). Here the dead rested in an earth-like place that was always in the season of summer. In an associated mythos, the Summerland was filled with all the creatures and beings of ancient myth and legend. It was a pleasant and comforting view of the afterlife for many decades within modern Witchcraft. Sometime in the '80s or '90s, the idea of the death experience took on the concept of a "rainbow bridge" leading to a less defined afterlife experience. In its evolution the afterlife came to be about a place where pets and their former owners reunited.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "What We Knew in the Night"
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Copyright © 2019 Raven Grimassi.
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