Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight as I type this, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. This week's classic of Western occultism, since I've been indulging in Ross Nichols' poetry of late, is The Cosmic Shape, published in 1946, which contains his brilliant essay "An Examination of Creative Myth," which discusses the need for nature-myth and ritual as a counterbalance to the artificialities of modern life, and his related Arthurisn poem-cycle "The Cosmic Legend," as well as other poems of his and his fellow poet James Kirkup. He clearly discussed these ideas with his good friend Gerald Gardner; those ideas ended up playing a central role in the creation of Wicca as well as the transformations of 20th-century Druidry. Here's a bit from "The Cosmic Legend": 

I have made my ceremonies; the crisis
comes. None may reproduce, no water flow,
until the sword is from its sheath pulled.
Only I, the medicine-man Gawain, instructing 
at midnight Galahad, the pure one of 
spring -- only I can save you, faithless 
with the fallen leaf. I prove to you,
O my dead people, once again that
I alone am your strength.

In the first ray beating touching on the centre altar-stone
to the eye prepared at vigil-end, the vessel of the sun,
cup and heart, to Galahad. 

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With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed -- and yes, this means you.  See you next week!*** 

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Comments

Re: Leftist Witches and Karma

[ecosophia]

Dear gods. She's literally invoking Satan? I remember when witches scorned the idea that any witch would have anything to do with said being, who is after all part of the Christian tradition. I pity her; what life she's got left won't be worth much.

Re: Leftist Witches and Karma

[(Anonymous)]

Not the OP, but this is one of the reasons I'm not part of the "pagan" movement anymore. Too much satanism these days....

Re: Leftist Witches and Karma

[ecosophia]

Ugh. I get that.

Re: Leftist Witches and Karma

[mo_drui_mac_de]

(I understand this is past the deadline; feel free not to post but it seems rude for me not to reply.)

She’s pitiable indeed, all the more because she’s actually capable of being a very loving and supportive friend (if one is careful enough not to trip any of her wires). Yes, unfortunately, she’s literally invoking Satan—she’s originally from Massachusetts and made it her business to essentially practice the sort of European witchcraft of the early 17th century feared by New England Puritans and described in the Maleus Maleficarum, etc. That, sadly, is becoming insanely popular. She’s the sort of person who bold as brass will declare to total strangers that “The Devil is my boyfriend!” and believes him a completely harmless being of empowering light who is really the Horned God of Neopagan tradition, given a bad rap by what she insists on calling “Xtians”. I first knew her while I was well within the Pagan scene as a practicing Druid; over the past few years, as my long backshelved Christianity began to swell back up and intertwine with my Druidry (inspired in no small part by my time here, oddly enough!), her own deeper dive into diabolic witchcraft seemed to intensify until she was literally posting tirades and witch-hunts (ha) against any Christians lurking in her online forum. That was the point where I decided to back quietly but quickly away.