Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen (18 page)

Pernod.
Can be drunk in small quantities for purification.

Pulque.
Pulque was an honored drink in preconquest Mexico. Mayauel was the goddess of pulque.
78
She was once mortal, but the goddesses and gods took her as one of themselves.
10
She was considered to be both the bringer of intoxication as well as the ender of life. Pulque was probably used to stimulate warriors prior to battle,
78
and may have been first made by the Toltecs around 1000
c.e.
The drink was used as an offering to the goddesses and gods by the Aztecs, Toltecs, and other Mesoamerican peoples. Pulque was also a favored offering during weddings and funerals, and was thought to have medicinal qualities.
109

Rum.
Used in contemporary Voodoo rituals for protection and to induce lust. It is a favorite offering to the
Orishas
(deities) in several Afro-Latino religions, such as Yoruba and Santeria. Rum was also used by shamans in Mexico to purify quartz crystals.

Sake
(also spelled
saki
). Made from fermented rice (and technically a beer), sake was originally offered in Japan to deities and to ancestral spirits. Afterward, the worshippers would drink what the deities had not consumed. Sake still plays an important role in contemporary Japanese society.
29
Marriages may be consummated by drinking sake, and bottles of sake are offered at shrines to deities and to revered ancestors, especially on the New Year.
54

Strega.
The label for this Italian liqueur is graced with a picture of a Witch. It is a potent addition to purification diets (in moderation, of course) and is said to have been originally formulated by Italian Witches.

Tequila
. Used to promote the desire for sex. Mixtecs offered tequila to their deities. Tequila and mezcal are made from different types of agave plants.

Whiskey.
Widely used in American folk medicine, whiskey also plays a role in contemporary American folk magic. A piece of agar (a type of seaweed) is put into a jar of whiskey and allowed to soak. This is done to attract “good spirits.” Toadstools are also soaked in whiskey, and the stem is used to rub the bodies of those thought to be hexed.

Afterword

I feel it necessary to reiterate: don't let this chapter compel you to drink. If you do drink, do so in moderation and let someone else drive. If you don't drink, don't start!

You'll receive no power or wisdom from getting drunk. Alcohol doesn't open doors to psychic or magical development—in fact, it closes them. Any substance that takes control of our minds and bodies (such as alcohol) is detrimental to magical mastery.

The information in this chapter is presented for historical interest. I've never drunk many of these beverages and have no intention of so doing!

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Chapter Eighteen

Tea & Coffee

T
ea and coffee are among the world's most popular beverages. Cultivated in many far-ranging locations, these beverages have had a marked effect on contemporary societies.

Tea

(Thea sinensis)

Planet:
Mars

Element:
Fire

Energies:
Conscious mind, money, courage

Lore:
Probably native to northern India,
120
tea was introduced to China before
c.e. 500.
71,76
By that date, tea was already an established Chinese article of trade.
3
In the tenth century, tea was considered the ideal drink; green tea was once called “liquid jade.”

Some tea-growers in China may still worship Lu Yu, who wrote a book known as Tea Classic before his death in
804
c.e.
3, 76
The art of tea-drinking was introduced to Japan during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
3

There are many legends and myths associated with tea. According to one, a holy man who wished to continuously meditate was plagued with sleep. He cut off his eyelids, which fell to the ground and were transformed into the first tea plants.
76

Tea was sacred to Buddha.

The beverage was brought to England fairly early, and by the 1600s tea-drinking had been condemned by English clergy. Why was this innocent drink linked with evil? Because, these ministers felt, it led to a lack of morality and injured the health. As usual, the religious zealots had little effect.
120
Tea is still the most popular nonalcoholic beverage in England, though coffee is gaining.

Tea-leaf reading has been popular since at least the 1600s in England and elsewhere, and it continues to be a delightful act of divination.
82
A cup of tea is drunk. Usually, the drinker leaves a bit of tea, just a few drops or so, in the bottom of the cup. She or he then places the cup upside-down on the saucer, turns it around three times, and turns it right-side up again. The reader uses the symbols created by the randomly scattered tea leaves to contact the psychic mind and to form a link with the drinker. Teabags prevent the reading of the signs; loose tea is necessary.

Magical uses:
Drink tea to stimulate the conscious mind (its high caffeine content will assist you in this). Tea is also drunk to bring money (hold the teabag, or the leaves themselves, in your hands and visualize prior to brewing); it also promotes courage.

Tea is a highly addictive substance. Use it with care and in moderation, as with all drugs.

Coffee

(Coffea arabica)

Planet:
Mars

Element:
Fire

Energies:
Conscious mind, physical energy

Lore:
Millions of Americans start their day with a cup of coffee. This ritual gives them a lift and prepares them to face the coming challenges. It also makes coffee growers, roasters, grinders, whole salers, and retailers happy.

Coffee probably originated in Ethiopia
104
or some other tropical African area.
71
The local people made the berries into wine, and also ate the beans as a stimulant.
71
Around
c.e.
1000, Arabs in Ethiopia began making a hot drink from the beans.
71

Coffee quickly moved across the Mediterranean. The first commercial coffee house was established in Turkey in 1554; England's first coffeehouse was opened in 1650.
104
Coffee became wildly popular in parts of the Middle East (Turkish coffee is one well-known variety), but was never fully accepted among the tea-loving Brits.

Coffee is grown throughout the temperate areas of the world. Much is produced in South America; coffee is also cultivated in the United States, on the Big Island of Hawaii. The coffee produced there—Kona coffee—is thought by many to be the best.

Coffee's wake-up effect has made it quite popular, but there are indications that caffeine alone doesn't lend the beverage its stimulating effect. Once caffeine has been ingested, it takes from thirty or ninety minutes for it to affect our central nervous systems.
41
Why does it seem that a sip or two of coffee will do the trick long before the caffeine can produce any physiological response?

There's speculation that the scent of fresh coffee triggers the conscious mind. Smelling the rich aroma every morning while we're trying to wake up sets a familiar pattern. After our morning routine begins, the smell automatically kicks us into wakefulness. Later, when this effect may have worn off, the caffeine does its work.

Coffee, tea, and caffeine remain controversial subjects. Some claim that caffeine is indeed a major health hazard. Others believe such reports are false. There's no doubt that caffeine is a powerful drug and shouldn't be given to babies or animals, who could suffer heart failure from large doses.
41

Magical uses:
Does coffee have “magical” effects? It can—if we don't drink twelve cups a day. Many become addicted to this bitter brew; but whenever we need a substance to get through the day, it can have no magical effects. Remember: moderation is the key to the successful use of any food or beverage.

However, small amounts of coffee (or tea) can be drunk to stimulate the mind and to energize the body. Brew and drink with visualization.

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Chapter Nineteen

The Mystic Egg

T
hey come in all sizes, from the width of a fingernail to monstrosities nearly a foot long. Their showiest producers, birds, have always been linked with the skies and with the ancient deities that dwell there. As compact objects that contain the essence of life, eggs have been revered, cursed, collected, broken, eaten, buried, filled, and used in innumerable ways by humans desiring to tap their mysterious energies.

The earth itself is an egg. Life was created from a divinely produced egg. Eggs sustain human and animal life—much of which hatched from eggs.

Shiva created an egg out of which the earth and the sky were formed. Osiris, Aphrodite, Venus, and Eostra (whom we still revere today in the “Christian” festival of Easter) were all associated with eggs. Statues of Apollo show piles of eggs beside or beneath him.
79
In mythology throughout the world, eggs are intimately linked with the divine.

According to one belief, eggs are the perfect symbol of creation. Not only do they produce life itself (if they are fertilized), but the shell represents earth; the membrane air; the yolk fire; and the white water.
79
The “Akashic Egg,” thus, contains not only the four elements but also the potential of manifestation.

Eggs once were substituted for humans during ritual sacrifices. Since at least Paleolithic times, eggs have been used in foundation rites to protect the home being built.
79
10,000 years later, this rite is still practiced in India to protect houses and their future inhabitants.
79

The “chicken,” which originated in Asia, is the source of most of the eggs that are eaten today around the world. (The eggs of other birds are also consumed, but most of the folk magical uses included in this chapter refer to chicken eggs.) This mystical object has long been used in magical rituals of all kinds. Here are some of the ways in which people have used eggs.

Healing

In Jamaica, eggs are thrown against a “magic” tree as a sacrifice to the spirits who have brought illness to the sick. This ritual is accompanied by drumming and singing.
79

Once Chinese grandmothers, on finding that their infant grandson or daughter was sick, took a bowl of rice, an egg, and two incense sticks to a street corner. The food was offered and the incense lit while the grandmother repeated the ailing child's name.
79
Some Chinese also attempted to prevent smallpox by eating dove's eggs.
76

In Morocco, ill persons inscribed invocations on to hard boiled eggs and ate them to effect a cure.
79

To maintain health, Germans once made small holes on both ends of an egg, blew out its white and yolk, and filled the egg with thirteen peppercorns and thirteen grains of salt. This egg was interred in the garden as a charm against fever (which is an indication of many types of infectious diseases).
79

Protection

Eggs were thought to give protection, perhaps because so many of them are white—the color long associated with purity and divinity.

In ancient Egypt, eggs were apparently held in the hand while reciting protective invocations. This was done to protect those onboard ship from drowning and from attacks by hostile monsters of all kinds.
79

Until recently, Germans customarily performed a special protective ritual on May Day. A fresh egg was buried under the threshold to guard the home from “evil.”

To break the effects of the “evil eye,” a Moslem living in India would wave salt, the herb turmeric, and an egg at the ailing victim. These three objects would then be thrown down at a crossroads.
79

In Europe, eggs were hung up in homes for protection from hail, to deflect lightning, and to guard against the infestation of pests.
79

Divination

The first egg laid by a hen has long been thought to possess special powers. Placing the first egg produced by a white pullet under the pillow was believed to produce a psychic dream of the sleeper's future mate.
82

Records show that eggs have been used for divination in Europe since at least 1684.
82
One ritual was often performed on Midsummer. The small end of an egg was perforated with a pin. Several drops of the white were allowed to fall into a basin or a glass filled with water. The egg whites spread in the water and, from their shapes, the future was discovered.
82

Similar practices continue throughout the world. For example, in contemporary Mexico, a sick person's body is stroked with a fresh egg, herbs (including rosemary and pepper tree leaves), and a “magical” cologne known as
siete machos.
The egg is broken into a glass of water. If it foams or is “dirty,” the person has been subjected to bewitchment. There are many other ways of reading the egg's message.
121

Another such divination: the healer rubs a sick child with a freshly laid egg while praying. The egg is then placed under the child's bed overnight. If, in the morning, the egg is found to have been “cooked,” the child will surely recover.
42

Simply dreaming of eggs, according to contemporary dream-interpretation folklore, can predict the future. Many eggs presage wealth; a few, its absence.
79
Double-yolked eggs have always been seen as signs of an impending wedding to the lucky finder.

Sex

Lore:
In Morocco, women wouldn't eat eggs while their husbands watched, because it was indecent.
79
Caviar (fish eggs) has long been celebrated as a stimulant of sexual desire, as is a raw egg, drunk or swallowed straight down.

Jewish women once attempted to cure sterility by eating double-yolked eggs. The fertilizing symbolism is quite plain.
79

Various uses:
When a child was thought to be bewitched (and this was a serious consideration three hundred years ago), an egg was thrown into a lake or pond. If the egg sank, the child had been bewitched.
79
In the recent past, Russian peasants made offerings to their dead ancestors by throwing fried eggs over their shoulders.
79

When business is slow and money isn't coming in, shopkeepers in India may rise early in the morning and walk to a crossroads with some salt and an egg. Words are uttered and the two mystic items are waved in the air. After breaking the egg and throwing its yolk and white onto the ground, the shopkeeper takes the shell and the salt back home (and/or to the shop) and burns them in the fire.
79

Magical uses:
Eggs are, indeed, mysterious objects. We eat them. Children still collect bird's eggs and nests. They are a powerful addition to a spirituality diet. They can be eaten in any form for this purpose. They're also fine for protection and grounding diets (due to their high protein content), and to encourage physical fertility.

I remember walking out in the shivering cold of an Oregonian morning with my grandmother. My head barely reached the top of the cloth-covered basket that swung over her arm as we went to the chicken coop. Morning after morning, during those summer weeks spent at my grandparents' farm, I'd find eggs that had mysteriously appeared under the feathered creatures.

The modern world has stripped away much of the magic of this basic food. Eggs, like our politics and morals, now come prepackaged. Many of us have little sense of their origin, and even less of the magic that humans once believed resided in them.

Until we find a double-yolked egg.

Stories occasionally hit the wire services of a chicken that has produced blue, purple, or red eggs. Public interest is often aroused by such seemingly miraculous events, and once more eggs (or at least, a representative few) are seen in all their former Pagan glory as symbols of creation, life, and the hidden forces behind nature.

I've been having breakfast while writing this chapter. What was on the menu?

Scrambled eggs.

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