The Witches' Book of the Dead (3 page)

Among the interesting remnants of ancient beliefs about the dead there is the original Italian version of Cinderella. Folklorist Christine Messina writes that in the early tale of Cinderella, the now popular Fairy Godmother was actually the spirit of her dead mother come to aid her.
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Other tales retain similar themes in which the dead aid the living. However, we equally find beliefs and stories in which the dead can harm the living, and offerings are required to ensure peace.

Our ancestors understood the world to be both light and darkness. It formed their magic as it formed their worldview. Witchcraft is a system that balances light and darkness, and its practitioners know the ways that heal and the ways that harm. The Witch stands between the worlds and acts to restore balance whenever it is disrupted. We need to understand that there was good reason why the Witch was both feared and respected—but this is true of any powerful creature of Nature.

In ancient literature, the Witch is depicted as a commanding figure. She summons the aid of deities in the manner of colleagues, and she holds power over spirits. We do not find the modern sentiment of “Stay if you will, leave if you must” when she releases spirits or bids farewell to a goddess or a god. The Witch in “days of old” was an authoritative presence, and it was her demeanor and reputation that kept her magic vital and effective. Christian Day keeps true to this ancient view in his book.

The use of a human skull in Witchcraft is a very ancient concept, but it is one that some modern Witches no longer approve of even as a symbol. But for our ancestors the skull represented the ancestral spirit as well as an oracle device intimately linked to the Other World. The dead were not relegated to the graveyard and remembered with an occasional visit and the placing of flowers. Witches believed that the dead were still part of life. Through the presence of a skull, the dead could speak and receive messages from the living.

In the ancient tales of the Greek writer Homer, a Witch directs a band of heroes to the Underworld and reveals how to communicate with the dead. This involves offering a drink of blood; it was an ancient belief that when the dead taste blood they remember life and are able to speak. While this can be a squeamish thought for people today, Witchcraft has always involved the vital essences of body fluids. Unfortunately, this aspect of Witchcraft became misunderstood, which led to the distortion of sacred foundational beliefs and practices. In time the ignorant came to view the arts of Witchcraft as evil and the intent of its magic as always harmful in nature.

Christian Day masterfully handles the old art of Witchcraft. It is a refreshing change to find serious scholarship and the absence of sugarcoating in a book of this popular genre. Day went to painstaking measures in his research, and references from both obscure and dominant sources were collected and expertly integrated for the reader. Political correctness is not an issue for the author, and his focus is upon the tried and true. Through this book, I feel that the spirits of the dead have found a voice for all to hear.

—Raven Grimassi

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A Covenant with the Dead

“Witchcraft”—the word evokes images of strange rituals held in forgotten corners of gnarled forests lit only by the moon and perhaps a candle or two. Within a bramble-lined clearing is a stone altar, upon which is spread a gathering of roots, charms, daggers, and other tools of the magical arts. At the center of the altar, the stark presence of a leering human skull presides over the ceremony as a venerated representative of the mighty dead. A lone sorceress, draped in tattered black robes, pricks her finger to draw three drops of her blood as an offering to the spirits as she whispers her dark oaths and secret desires on the wind. As the Witch waits, the dead hearken to her call, rising from their shadowy resting places to serve their mistress's bidding.

This foreboding image of the Witch as necromantic sorceress, working under the guise of moonlight and conjuring spirits, continues to lurk in the unconscious depths of peoples throughout the world despite the hopes of the well-intentioned to turn the ancient arts of Witchcraft into just another mainstream religion, lush with spiritual devotion but nearly devoid of magic.
Something within each of us knows that Witches are creatures of magic; Witches cast spells, heal, and foretell the future; Witches commune with spirits of the dead and otherworldly entities and employ those powers to weave their intentions into the world around them. This book explores the enduring relationship between Witches and the dead, and shares rituals and incantations to help you open doorways to the spirit world.

The Witch in Myth and History

Dig into the past and you will find that Witches have nearly always lived on the fringes of society, casting their spells by candlelight, mixing potions for love and elixirs for healing, and calling on spirits, fairies, and other strange denizens of the unseen worlds to bring about change and to teach the wisdom of arcane secrets. Ordinary people sought out Witches in the dead of night, hoping to divine the future and procure all manner of spells for love, health, and prosperity—or to deal justice to those who deserved it. The Witches were proficient at all of these things.

It is not certain when Witches first walked the Earth, but the arts of magic have been practiced since humans first endeavored to understand the hidden workings of the world around them and to solve the great mystery of death. It is difficult to outline in great detail all of the practices of ancient magical peoples because, aside from the occasionally unearthed curse tablet, amulet, or sacred inscription, early sorcerers rarely wrote down what they did. They passed their knowledge only to family or long-prepared apprentices, and often took their greatest secrets with them to the grave. We discover the Witch among the dusty bones and relics of archeology, in the whispers of folklore, and through direct communication with the spirits of those who lived long ago.

Among early tribal cultures, those individuals who could do magic were often separated out and given roles of recognition and honor. In this way, the earliest shamans and medicine people came to be. These tribal magicians were not that far removed from Witches, with one important exception:
their practices were revered by the people around them, whereas Witches were typically outsiders who did magic according to their own rules.

As humans settled down and civilizations were born, priesthoods evolved from those early shamanic cultures. Priests served an important function in the emerging warrior-based states because they provided spiritual nourishment for the masses—a role they still play today. Magic itself was gradually assimilated into the state as an officially sanctioned practice, but also began to be restricted to those who were authorized to use it. Others, especially those for whom magic was their birthright, refused to bow to these emerging authorities, preferring to practice magic in the ways they understood it. From these early rebels, the idea of the Witch was born.

Those who chose the path of priesthood often had magical and necromantic talents, but their practices grew more and more liturgical and political as time went on, gradually losing the power of spirit and magic. Thus, their people were left with oracles proclaiming the will of the state as “divine prophecy.”

In classical Roman times, Witches often caused much fear; their craft was sometimes even outlawed, but still these magical people carried on in secret. The literature and commentary of the era paints the Witch as a dark and formidable enemy. Roman emperors of the pre-Christian era, for example, welcomed the practice of virtually hundreds of faiths, but not Witchcraft. The reason for this is simple: Witches had the power to affect the tides of reality around them. The Roman leaders of the time feared this power, knowing that, just as they could be stripped of their rule as the result of a few drops of poison in their wine goblets, the Witch's curse, a far more undetectable danger, could bring their reign crashing down around them if they proved to be unjust rulers who abused their people.

Witches were feared in ancient Greece as well. There, they were believed to practice necromancy, summon dark forces, and consult with daemons— spirits good or evil (that would later evolve into the Christian concept of the entirely evil demon) that the Witch employed to perform all manner of tasks. It was this use of spirits that caused the Greeks to associate Witches
with the powers of darkness and the underworld. They were looked upon as strangers in their native land, sometimes to be consulted, always to be feared.

In the fourth century, a new spiritual behemoth arose in the form of the Christian church. It began as a small cult that honored its founder's principles of peace and love, but through the seduction of political power, this young faith merged with the Roman Empire to become one of history's most cruel scourges on humanity. Before long, the Church, one of many competing faiths of the time, could suffer no rival and began persecuting what it deemed to be “heresy” as a means of suppressing any threat to its political might. In doing so, the Christian authorities began to designate other supernatural forces, such as spirits, faeries, and deities, as demons, devils, and evil spirits. In doing so the Church not only set the stage for later persecution of Witches, but of all non-Christian faiths.

Among the deities that the Church of Rome recast as evil were the horned nature gods, such as Herne, who led the wild hunt, a metaphor for the spirits of the dead who maraud the land by night; Kernunnos, lord of animals and the underworld; and Pan, the classic goat-footed god of indulgence and carnality. Because the emerging Church held a fundamental worldview that nature was sinful, the horned gods were considered formidable enemies and were the primary targets of ecclesiastical wrath. The Church created the concept of the Devil from a composite of the Satan, or adversary, in Judaism (who was not originally considered the personification of evil but rather a tester of faith), and the horned gods and spirits throughout the known world, reaching as far as Celtic and Persian lands for inspiration.

The persecution of Witches came to full force during the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, when authorities thoroughly associated Witchcraft with the worship of Satan. According to trial records, the spirits of the dead that Witches worked with were seen as demonic familiars, and sometimes even the Devil himself. The familiar spirit was described as more of an evil assistant—a watchdog from the depths of hell, rather than the spirit of the Witch's beloved grandmother or an old friend.

Much of what we know about the practices of European Witches is gleaned from the records of the countless Witch trials that took place over several hundred years. Most of the records dealt with men in black (and no, not the kind who hunt aliens), queens of the underworld, and, of course, the Devil himself. But recent translations of Hungarian Witch trials records by Hungarian Professor Éva Pócs show possible links to ancient cults of the dead as well as connections to both Nordic and Celtic shamanism hidden within the testimony of the accused. The word
wicca
(pronounced “Witcha”), which is the root of Witch, is a Germanic term, and an increasing number of scholars are looking to the Germanic Norse for the roots of European Witchcraft.
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While the word “Witch” is specifically Germanic, I personally take the route of using the word more broadly, to apply to similar magical peoples throughout the known world.

Ever rebellious, Witches continued to practice their ways in secret, keeping the knowledge underground and passing it only to members of the family. Some hid in Christianity, becoming priests, nuns, and other religious functionaries while continuing to work the arts of magic in the quiet of darkened rooms, midnight chapels, lonely woods, and decrepit tombs.

Witches were magical mercenaries—an elite breed of supernatural power brokers. While they often served the communities they lived in from the edges of the village, the Witch's first loyalty was to herself and her family. For many, Witchcraft was the path of the lone practitioner, seeking wisdom in hidden places.

Witches appear in the myths and legends of almost every culture in history, and are often portrayed as enemies of cultural authorities that disapprove of them, labeling them as potentially dangerous outcasts and heretics. These magic-makers came shrouded in many guises, and did not always use the word “Witch” to describe themselves. Rather, they used the words of sorcery within their own languages. You can recognize Witches by their talent for controlling natural and supernatural forces, their ability to see into the past and future, and their skill at summoning the dead.

The Witch as Necromancer

Many of the great Witches of history, folklore, legend, and literature worked with the dead. These fearsome figures have become part of cultural traditions worldwide, inspiring both honor and fear many centuries after passing into the realm of spirit. Modern Witches aspire to emulate these illustrious enchanters and often call them to be part of present-day magic.

Perhaps no conjurer of spirits is more famous than the Witch of Endor, a woman who practiced her arts in spite of the condemnation of her ways by the authorities of her time. The Witch of Endor makes her first appearance in the Old Testament book of Samuel. The Prophet Samuel has died and King Saul, an insecure and bitter ruler, has begun to harshly impose the scriptural ban on sorcery and necromancy. But when his priests are unable to bring him the truth he seeks, Saul realizes that it's the Witch who is able to conjure truth when all else fails. He goes to the Witch of Endor (disguised and in the dead of night, of course) and beseeches her to raise the spirit of Samuel, who promptly foretells his impending death on the following day. It turns out that the spirit of Samuel was correct in his prediction. Perhaps such bans on Witchcraft by authorities were brought about by their understanding that the Witches could get results, and that these results were not always what the authorities wanted to hear. Because of her mastery of the necromantic arts, this skilled sorceress of Endor is still remembered and called upon by Witches in the present day.