~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those illustrations are downright beautiful, but the text seems fairly dense, referentially speaking

@madmonksandmaenads is more familiar with the Sabbatic corpus than I am, and they say to start with Lux Haeresis. I managed to struggle through it on my knowledge of Gnosticism and Sunyata alone, but I know for a fact that I'm not getting the whole picture.

Depends on what you haven’t read

Like it does operate on a baseline assumption that you’re familiar with like /how to do/ things in wicca and ceremonial magic and witchcraft but that doesn’t mean you’ll have to read all of chumbley’s influences from cochrane to shah to spare to kenneth grant (these will illuminate the work but they shouldn’t stop you from starting it).

If you’re seriously confused by a lot of stuff about how to do the rituals don’t worry, it’s confusing, some of the integral parts of the main rituals only appear later in the book, there are terms and blinds that are designed to turn away or distract the unprepared. You’re kind of implicitly supposed to know when to do the sabbats, it’s assumed you’re familiar with the wheel of the year, certain ritual instruments and instructions, etc.

The book has the main rituals of the sabbat, ingress, congress and egress toward the beginning, the rest of this book, the 11 cells (or Aats) explore certain theological realms and formulae of the main rituals. These Aats are divided into sysygies of two letters, each letter has it’s own magical formulae to explore and apply.

There’s a lot deeper stuff but that’s all kind of beyond the scope here

All this said, if you’re struggling to know what to do ritually you’d wanna read Janet and Stewart Farrar’s “The Witches Bible” and Crowley’s “Book 4” maybe regardie’s Golden Dawn. Like if this is your first time practicing magic maybe spend a bit of time on the more straightforward stuff cause that’ll get your feet planted on the ground here and give you an inroad.

If you want to understand the deeper theology of the book let it be first said AZOËTIA ITSELF IS THE BEST TOOL FOR UNDERSTANDING AZOËTIA. Also the illustrations are way more than just illustrations, in some sense they are the book itself. The work of Azoëtia is very much about changing how you sense and experience, it’s better understood in personal phenomenological experience than intellectually because words don’t capture a lot of this sort of thing.

This being the case you will absolutely find some books might help you crack into the whole mystery of the book once you’ve kind of started to grasp how it’s structured and put together (to explain that isn’t hard but it is a long talk especially if you’re completely unfamiliar with it). Chumbley’s writing is always gonna be the first thing you go to to grok this, again Id say dive into Azoëtia, spend a lot of time with it, everyone wants to point you in directions other than the book itself but if you can’t get into the water itself you’re never gonna learn to swim

You don’t NEED anything but yourself to do this work. There’s a lot out there to read if you want it, sure, but if you stop and wait til you’ve got a master’s in chumbley studies til you get to the work you’re never going to even understand what you’re reading

ALL THIS SAID

Recommendations:

Chumbley’s essays and more straightforward works in Opuscula Magica 1 & 2 and “Mysticism Initiation and Dream” will be a godsend

His other magical work will serve as a good guide to fill in some of the gaps, in particular the other major work The Dragon Book Of Essex (the whole thing has important details that can expound upon Azo but of particular interest to someone just trying to get their footing with the first circle work of Azoëtia are the chapters on Exordia, the Draconian Oracle, and the Hendecarch and maybe the Hallowing ) it should be noted that while there’s a lot of structural similarities and important theological expansion on azo in here they are not the same work and some things while parallel are not interchangeable one to one, and there isn’t that much analog for the second circle rites of the DBOE in azo

At some point read Qutub and Psalter of Cain these works are your friend, there is a lot to say about these but I don’t wanna dwell too long on each thing.

Satyr’s Sermon, Khiazmos, ONE, all of these are your friend

You are going to want to read all of the Austin Osman Spare you can get your grubby little hands on. Maybe the single most prevalent individual influence on Azoëtia

Some very very influential-on-Azoëtia works that’ll help you out are gonna be “Call of the Horned Piper”, “Masks of Misrule”, “Pillars of Tubal Cain”, and “The Book of Fallen Angels” if you want to grok a lot of this work these are very much your friend and trusted ally

In general all the works of those guys, Robert Fitzgerald, Michael Howard, Nigel Aldcroft Jackson, Nigel Pennick are very much gonna help you make heads or tails of some of the myths, practices, vocabulary, etc of the sabbatic corpus

The writings of Daniel Schulke are going to be almost indispensable in engaging with sabbatic work. If I was to get into all of it we’d never stop talking. For the purposes of this conversation I’m just going to share my opinion that Schulke’s book Lux Haeresis is deeply intertwined with Azoëtia, you will probably find a lot to use and experience in this. You may also want to look into Viridarium Umbris but that in and of itself is such a massive undertaking I’m going to suggest you don’t push it right away

Imo Mae is very right to say Lux is a good companion for exploring azo, to some extent it is Schulke making these mysteries his own like Chumbley implores the reader to do again and again in his books.

Some works of importance that are good to familiarize yourself with are Carlo Ginzburg’s books “Ecstasies” and “The Night Battles” in particular

Wiccan texts and rituals are gonna help you out immensely, you might want to have a gander at Gardner, Sanders, the Farrars, Doreen Valiente, yada yada

That sorta discredited but influential on occultism stuff like The Golden Bough, the works of Robert Graves “the White Goddess”, “The Witch Cult In Western Europe”, Budge’s Egypt stuff, etc is helpful in understanding a bit of the mythopoetics of all this

Books of Enoch, Gnostic Gospels, Sufi texts (particularly the works of Idries Shah), Shaiva Tantra stuff (particularly Utarra Kaula Trika), works of the Clan Of Tubal Cain, most notably Robert Cochrane and Shani Oates, anything you can find on “The Society of the Horseman’s Word”, the works of Kenneth Grant (in particular the Typhonian Trilogies), the works of Aleister Crowley, Austin Spare, Agrippa, Kircher, Blake, Zevi, Bruno, Paracelsus, the PGM, Plato, Egyptian religion, these are all influences to some degree or another

on and on you’ll find the influences go. These are all amazing, powerful and helpful for your magic but remember not to get too bogged down in the endless words, always return to The Work itself, the thing these words are pointing at. These are things you may or may not read but it’s important to emphasize again that you’re going to want to return to the work itself. Understand it, make it your own, change it in ways you see fit. You don’t need to drown yourself under all the driftwood in this River if you’re getting by on a raft or a log or swimming freely just fine.

It is very nice to check out fellow travelers. Other traditional witchcraft authors like Gemma Gary, Corrine Boyer, Nigel G Pearson, Dale Pendell, Radomir Ristic, Al Cummins, Frisvold, Martin Duffy, basically most atramentous, three hands press or Troy books authors, are going to give you unique things to compare with and incorporate into your work if it interests you.

There are people alive today expanding on the work of chumbley, some who worked with him in his life and some who haven’t who will give you a lot to work with and understand, some I’ve already mentioned, Fitzgerald, Schulke, etc. The writings of Peter Hamilton-Giles, while not for beginners by any stretch of the imagination, are some of the most fascinating expansions on the sabbatic work I have seen. I’m nowhere near being ready to work with them but they’re excellent books all. He was a very close collaborator of Chumbley, his hallmarks can be seen in the dragon book and I believe Azoëtia as well. Gavin Semple, David Hererrias, Daniel Yates, Helen Oliver and Ian C Edwards are all people who work with this magic whose art and writing you will want to pay particular attention to in making your way on this path if you decide to do so.

Anyways I’m no expert, some of what I’ve said may be incorrect. I often feel kind of lost when trying to piece this together myself and I’ve had a lot of help, bless those who’ve had to forge ahead on their own through all this. My final recommendation for you trying to read all this is to ignore basically everything that I’ve said and read through it on your own first with one hand on your thesaurus, take your notes, and to focus on doing magic over talking and reading about it endlessly.

hey, you know that ancient grimoire you’ve been searching for but can’t get shipped to your country, is probably on Anna’s Archives. Yeah… you could download it for free… pretty much any text you can think of regardless of how old it is, it’s probably on there… give it a little searchy search and you’ll probably find the entire book for free… just saying.

Having a hard copy is always nice. But when I’m trying to figure out if a grimoire is worth dumping money on… it’s always nice to have a little free trial,…

I thought this was an appropriate ask to answer on Walpurgis. I know OP is agreeing with me but I wanted to discuss the topic a little.

On the one hand, I understand how this came about, which was a response to the Satanic Panic of the mid 80s and early 90s. People were getting thrown in jail left and right for straight up fabrications of abuse that never happened. There are still cases of people only just now being exonerated of doing life-shatteringly awful things like molesting their own children in intricate Satanic rituals some thirty years ago. Lives were completely ruined. Entire families destroyed. Nobody wanted to be accused in the hysteria and people went out of their way to sanitize witchcraft and paganism in an attempt to shield themselves and their communities. I can’t fault them for that, even if it ended up obscuring the facts of history.

But now? This notion the Devil and the Man in Black has never even once been involved in witchcraft and Western magic is a faulty belief we need to address and it needs to get nipped in the bud. Ironically I think the avoidance of the Devil is a byproduct of a super Protestant, Americanized Christianity on the people that practice magic more than magic itself. “We don’t worship the Devil! We’re just like you!” Is an attempt to appeal to people who don’t want to be Christian, but also don’t feel particularly comfortable stepping out of a Christian ethos and a life heavily structured in Christian culture. (As a side note, I also see this on Tumblr in Tumblr pagans who do really cringey and completely butchered shit like rewrite the Lord’s Prayer and Psalms for their pagan gods.)

Tangentially related, you’ll also never be able to separate Devil worship from the cultural impact Christianity has made on occidental magic. And erasing the Devil isn’t going to make that history magically disappear either. Like I said above, if anything, trying to leave the Witch Father behind is just aligning you more and more with a weird Calvinist nature spirituality.

Look, it’s fine if you just want to be a neowiccan that “worships Nature” or whatever. But beyond worship, if you claim to practice magic, don’t assume with confidence your spiritual foremothers and forefathers weren’t down to pact with the Devil, dance with the shades, sacrifice animals and use corpse parts in their rites just because you personally wouldn’t do those things. Otherwise it is to ignore what they themselves said, and not always under the threat of torture. And what some of their descendants continue to do in long, unbroken lines, be they genetic or cultural.

Like it or not, “real witches harm none,” “real witches don’t curse”, “witches don’t worship the devil”, and my personal favorite, “real witches just worship nature”, is a very, very contemporary take on the matter and does not reflect the actuality of goetic magic, specifically tradcraft. Magic then, as it is now, was for survival. Sometimes that meant doing fucked up, and ethically…grey things.

As one would expect in Christianized settings, people also react strongly to the idea of the Devil and have made excuse after excuse that Sabbatic witches were “just pagans” worshipping their long forgotten gods. I assure you in the context of which I speak here during the period of Early Modern Europe this is pure and fanciful silliness. It is once again erasure.

Understand, I’m not saying you have to be Edgelord McDarkness to be a legitimate practitioner. I’m just saying maybe show your ancestors that paved the way for you a little respect and don’t go out of your way to sanitize their lives and practices just because it makes you feel better, Becky “Starflower” Jones, 25, tarot reader at the Crescent Moon Book Store of Bumblefuck, Minnesota. You…you do you, Becky. But you gotta realize you can only hold on to those value judgements you have because you by compare are so separated from things like animal death, Ecclesiastical feudal law, arranged marriages and the like. You can’t de-claw real magic. You can’t tame it; you can’t pull it from the dark, moaning earth where the dead are buried and make it something it never was. The ugly things come with it, and that includes the Man at the Sabbat.

God it’s like I’m channeling ofwoodandbone…fuck asjfkslsl

Anyway, it’s not just eclectics I’m talking about either that try and paint a picture of something that never was. Arguably scholars are far worse about it because they have agendas to push, like the infamous Margaret Murray. For sure, misogyny had some role to play in the persecution of women during the period of early Modern Europe. But that fear of witches and witchcraft wasn’t for nothing and that is because magic and the power that it brings and its spirits are real. Not every instance, not every victim actually practiced magic. But some of them most assuredly did and were telling the truth because their practices continue today and they work. Why to this day do scholars purposefully leave out symbols when re-publishing and translating magical texts? It’s because it scares them. It makes it real. And probably more often because they aren’t looking for something they think is a relic of the past, or unreal, and don’t speak with living practitioners, either because they think it’s irrelevant or that they don’t exist.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. I’m totally nuts; I’m off my rocker; I’m two fries short of a happy meal, raving like this aren’t I? I’ll play along with you–maybe the demon pact I linked above is fake and a political conspiracy. That doesn’t provide an answer to why it is authentically written to the style of the Verum and uses infernal names familiar only to those familiar with the Verum. Names that don’t appear in religious texts, but only from magical books. Why would herbalists and midwives, experienced in their arts, be foolish enough to carelessly and accidentally ingest datura, or ergot? And not know what they were experiencing, as veteran handlers of psychoactive plants?

Why would someone voluntarily say they met the Devil and gave him gifts in exchange for wonderful things, unless they really believed they did so? In time periods both before and after the witch hysteria of early Modern Europe?

Sometimes the most startling answers are the most obvious, once you can read between the lines.

One of my fondest childhood memories involves the making of dandelion honey, called miel de pissenlit in French, or « cramaillotte » - plucking flowers on a sunny afternoon with my parents and sisters, filling our basket with yellow fluff smelling of pollen, and coming back home to pour everything in a giant copper pot. The whole house smelled of warmth, summer, and liquid sunshine for days. Miel de pissenlit, is gold in a jar. The subtle flavor proves excellent as a stomach disorder remedy and to cure sore throats in the winter. It is a deeply generous and comforting substance, soothing as honey, and with pretty much the same applications.

Dandelion honey makes great offering for land spirits, faes, ancestors, and solar gods alike. In Ireland, dandelion flowers were said to be sacred to Brighid, called breanan Brìde or « the little notched of Brìde ». Here I invoked Her to bless the produce at each and every step of the process, imbuing it with healing qualities. Some jars will be gifted to friends, some will be kept for us, but I made sure to save a full jar just for Her, pouring the honey over some yarrow and juniper.

You will need :

- 500-800 dandelion flowers

- 2,5L of clear water

- 3 oranges

- 2 lemons

- 2,5kg of granulated sugar

Recipe :

1. Fetch a dandelion field sheltered from cars, dogs and children. You want to pick the right time, when the flowers are most open, to pluck your dandelions : between 11am-2pm is best. Keep only the flower heads.

2. Come quickly home, before your flowers start closing. You will need to proceed to the leaf removal : remove the flower petals and leave the green flower crown behind to keep only the yellow part of your flower. Gently brush aside any insect that may be caught still in your harvest. This step is the more tedious, yet the more important : removing the green part ensures the good taste of your honey, with no bitterness.

3. Cast your flowers in a cooker (traditionally, a big copper pot or basin you can heat over fire is in order, but we make do with modern means !). The secret is to not pre-wash your flowers to keep all their pollen in, hence why you wanna be cautious with the place you pick them from. Cover them with the water and the juices from the oranges and lemons. Boil for 45-60min, checking your water and flowers level, and adding more water if necessary. Turn off the heat, and cover for the night to let your flowers infuse. The longer you live it, the better. Aim for at least 12h.

4. The day after, proceed to filter the flowers. You can do that by hand, pressing the petals delicately to draw all juice out, or by putting them in a muslin cloth. You should be left with a clear yellow juice.

5. Add your sugar, and put to a boil. Once your honey starts producing consistent bubbles and foaming, the cooking time varies greatly. Count at least 45min up to 2,5h for your honey to set. The quantity will reduce, leaving you with anything from 1/2 to 2/3 of your initial quantity. You can test the cristallisation of your honey by dropping a bit in a cold dish and holding it vertically above your sink or counter : if your honey runs like water, it is still too liquid. If it sits and moves down slowly, like pearls dripping, it is the right consistency.

6. Bottle in clean, sterilized jars that you will put upside down to cool off : the heat of the produce will kill all bacterias from the lid. It should produce a faint « pop » sound once it’s sealed.

7. Store your honey in a cool, dark place, and keep in the fridge once open. The shelf life depends on the conservation area : in a cellar, it will be OK for a good year. In a cupboard, about 6 months.

The old stories say that a girl once went to the house of a witch. Through the window, she saw three figures. One red, one green, one black. When she finally stepped inside, she was cast into the fire…

This is no simple fairytale warning. The three faces are glimpses of something older, something that stands behind the hedge, at the edge of the hunt, at the mouth of the grave. They are the masks of the one who walks the hidden roads, the spirit who teaches witches their craft. They are the omens of what waits beyond the liminal threshold.

The Red Devil: The Hunter, The Lord of Sacrifice

Red is the Devil of the chase, the hunt, and the bloodied altar. He is the stag-horned pursuer, the one who runs through the woods with hounds at his heels, whose breath is the mist on the fens. Red is the rhythm of hoofbeats on frozen ground, the blade that takes life to feed another. He is the one who teaches that power must be paid for in kind—what is given is given, and what is taken is taken. He is found in the blood-warm earth, in the breaking of bone, in the fire that devours and makes anew. This is the Devil of the hunted and the hunter alike, the one who sets the price and collects it.

The Green Devil: The Wild God, The Forest-King

Green is the Devil of the deep woods, of moss-covered stones and tangled roots. He is the one that the solitary witch meets in the forest, a lord of beasts and the uncanny undergrowth. This is the Devil who grants knowledge of herbs, poisons, and the hidden ways of flora and fauna. He is the hooved one who leads the Wild Hunt, the spirit who walks on the edges of human law. Green is not a devil of words but of instinct—he teaches through the wind, the trees, and the language of animals.

The Black Devil: The Shadow, The Grave-Keeper

Black is the Devil of the unknown, of midnight and burial mounds. He is the one met at the gallows, in the crossroads at dusk, or in the whisper of the dead. This is the Devil of necromancy, divination, and the unseen world. He is not just a spirit of death but of initiation—those who walk into the dark with him may return with sight sharper than before. Black is the Devil of secrets, of silence, of the final step into the Otherworld. Sign his book and know his artes.

This leads up to~ The Witch in True Form

The girl in Frau Trude peers into the house and sees the three faces, but when she steps inside, she is consumed by fire. This is the final revelation—not of the Devil, but of the witch made whole.

The true witch walks with the Hunt, speaks with the trees, and listens to the voices of the dead. They have seen the faces in the spilled blood, the greenwood, and the gallows. They have followed hoofprints into the dark and returned with new eyes. And when they stand in their own power, they do so as flame incarnate—the witch-fire made flesh.

A head of fire, a body of wood, and a soul transformed. This is what it means to step into the dark and come out alight.

So… will you walk into the house?

if there are any oh, say, well-known bastards you'd like to actively work magic against, tuesdays and saturdays are excellent times to speak death upon their image, eviscerate dolls made in their likeness, lay curses upon their tongues to speak rashly and be given to foil their plans out of rage or despair, or perform hexwork to injure and bring ruin to their causes.

sundays are excellent for tarnishing reputations and performing vigils seeking divine punishment, and turning followers away from them.

wednesdays are excellent for curses to foil their inventions, communications, and ideas, as well as to pelt their online presences with ill wishing or the sigils of spirits with which you work.

Mondays are excellent for curses designed to engender paranoia, restlessness, nightmares, foul visions, and curse their sleep to be fitfull and provide no rest from their anguish.

Thursdays are excellent for curses designed to increase red tape, for workings to address civil grievances, and spells cast to turn council chambers against them.

"That remarkable native amphibian, the toad or paddock (Bufo bufo), has a longstanding and celebrated association with witchcraft in the British Isles and Europe, especially as a familiar-spirit. The reasons for the importance of the toad in mediaeval witchlore must ultimately be sought in esoteric folk-symbolism, mythopoetics and the psychopharmacology of rural sorcerers and hexe-wives.

The totemic significance of the toad in witchcraft is primarily due to it's intimacy with the subterranean marshes, caves and dark waters of Annwvyn. Thus the toad is a dweller in the fens of the underworld and is especiall holy to the chthonic divinities. The toad is equally at home in the waters or on solid land, passing at will from one realm to the other just as the witch-shaman crosses the boundaries between this world and the underworld. The toad, therefore is a shamanic creature, considered symbolically, who epitomises passage between the dimensions. In this respect it should be remembered that in the Celtic world-view, marshy pools and linns were entrance points to the lower world, the great below.

At the initiations of Basque witches new devotees were marked by the Devil or Horned God with the sign of the toad or toad's foot. In mediaeval lore the heraldic crest of the Devil was held to consist of three toads emblazoned on a shield, affirming the link with the powers of the netherworld. A toad hopping over a person's foot is an ominous sign of impending death. An old Mantuan name for the toad is 'fada' or 'faery', emphasising it's otherworldly nature. In the Pyrenees it was said that witches could be recognised by an image of a frog's foot in their left eye.

The witch-trials particularly highlight the toad's function as a familiar-spirit. In the Basse-Pyrenees new witches were given toads by the Dark One. At Windsor in 1579 it was reported that "one Mother Dutton dwellyng in Cleworthe Parishe keepeth a Spirite or Feende in the likeness of a Toade, and fedeth the same Feende liyng in a border of greene Hearbes, within her Garden, with blood....." Similarly in Essex a witch in 1582 was held to own "two spirits like Toades, the one called Tom, and the other Robbyn" which she had inherited from her mother. Seventeenth Century French witches were accused of possessing 'petit Diableteaux' in the form of toads. The Italian witch Billia la Castagna in 1365 kept a large toad under her bed whose excrement was used in potions. This last detail is very significant as it is actually a cryptic reference to 'toad-stools' or visionary fungi used in witch-practices, usually of the Fly Agaric species. All across Europe there occur folk-names forcertain mushrooms which link them with toads such as Crapaudin in French.

In Slavic countries inedible mushrooms are called Zabaci Huby - "toad- mushrooms". The folk-affinities between hallucinatory fungi and toads point to an ancient awareness of the presence of psychotropic toxins in the skin of the latter. Toads secrete a fluid from their skin which contains the indole alkaloid bufotenine. Bufotenine was extracted from the glands of toads in ancient China and the traditional witches of Europe were well-acquainted with the propertiesof this batrachian elixir.

The witch-covens of north-western Spain in the 16th Century used toads' blood in their flying ointments. In 1525 Maria of Ituren confessed to having concocted a flying-salve from toad-skins and water-plantain, no doubt mingled in an oily base. Swedish witches compounded their salves with toads' fat and snake-foam along with poisonous herbs. German covens reputedly fried the toads to prepare such ointments and toad-grease salves were also utilised by witches in Hungary and Easter Europe to attain the ecstasy of 'spirit-flight'.

The toad is also famous for bearing within his head the Toadstone, a magical gem which healed all bites and stings and which, when set in a ring, grew paler in the presence of poison. In 'As you Like It' Shakespeare makes his well known reference to the Toadstone:- "the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head".

This casts light on the emblem of the Black Toad in later Hermetic/alchemical literature as a glyph representing the 'earth of the philosophers' or 'first matter' which conceals within itself the wondrous Stone of the Wise.

In rural regions of England, such as Cambridgeshire, there operated a secret guild of men called the Toadmen who were reputed to exert a magical influence over horses. The Toadmen, like the secret society of the Horseman's Word, preserved many of the mysteries of the masculine side of the Craft of the Wise, honouring Old Hornie as the Master of the Beasts. To become a Toadman and gain the power a certain bone had to be obtained from a toad which was fixed to an anthill until the skeleton was entirely clean and devoid of flesh. The initiate then carried the bones in a pocket until they dried. On the stroke of midnight on the night of the full moon he cast the skeleton into a running stream: one bone would screech as it separated and floated downstream and this, when secured, conferred the supernatural powers of the Toadmen upon the bearer. Sometimes the new initiate had to take the bone to a stable or graveyard for three consecutive nights on the third night the Devil (Horned God) would appear and make a last attempt to trick the Toadman into parting with his bone as the final test of his shamanic initiation. According to some reports Charles Walton who was foully murdered in Lower Quinton, Warwickshire in 1945, was reputed by villagers to breed natterjack toads and use them in his magic - his garden was apparently thickly populated by them at the time of his death.

Toadmen were known to be practising their arts in Cambridgeshire as late as 1938 and it is not impossible that the cult may have survived clandestinely into the present day under a close shroud of rural secrecy. The toad's fertility aspects are to be clearly seen in the practices of the Auldearne coven in 1662 who performed a curious ceremony in which toads drew a plough made from the horn of a castrated ram with couch-grass for the harness. The coven went several times round a field with the toads 'praying to the Devil for the fruit of that land'. This seems to be a fragment of an ancient geomantic ritual to enhance telluric fertility. The classical author Pliny described how a toad should be placed in an earthenware pot and buried in a field to magically protect the crops from storms.

The Slavonic vampyre could appear in the guise of a frog and the paddock features heavily in [Romani] lore and tradition as a form of the Devil whose [Romani] name, Beng means “frog-like”. In Transylvanian [Romani] mythology the Queen of the Faeries lives in her remote mountain castle in the shape of a golden toad.

The recondite arcanae of toad-lore can be seen to illuminate the moste esoteric recesses of the Craft of the Wise as one of it's cardinal totemic symbols. It is thus fitting that the contemporary seeker again learns the marshland lore of the paddock as the People of the Toad did in times

past. It would seem prudent to hearken once again to his oracular croaking amidst the reeds at twilight and to pay heed to the chthonic wisdom from the haunted fens of Andumnos."

—

Call of the Horned Piper

Be warned, the original makes liberal use of the g-slur to categorize people able to perform divination. I don't know if this online resource has been edited or not.

A Simple Infusion for Enhanced Oneiric Sensitivity

—

This is a very simple decoction, but it’s one that I’ve had some great success with, and I was recently reminded of it. This infusion works best when the plants are gathered by your own hand, though buying the dried herbs will likely be far easier and will achieve similar results, given that they will still contain the necessary oneirogenic compounds (namely, Aporphine and Thujone.) If you are able to harvest the plants yourself, try and do so on a Monday.

On the evening of the Dark Moon, combine:

1/2 oz dried Mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris)

1/2 oz dried Blue Lotus (Nymphaea Caerulea)

2 Cinnamon sticks (not Cassia)

1 tablespoon of whole Cloves

1 tablespoon of Lemon Balm

& approximately 25 ounces of Mead.

Seal it tightly and leave in a cool, dark place to steep. Uncork it on the following Full Moon, strain as needed, and store it thereafter in a cool, dark place.

So, I have noticed a lot of Tumblr witches of a non-Wiccan persuasion call their magical notebooks “grimoires,” and this weirds me out a little. I don’t think the word grimoire is the right word for what most people are doing on here. If you look at the historical grimoires, they were textbooks of magic. Many of them were thought to be sacred. Some of them have unclear histories and are supposedly “found” mystical documents (such as the Black Pullet), but others, such as the Key of Solomon or the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, were thought to be apocryphal biblical texts. They were holy. Many of them were their own self-contained systems of magic, as well. And the phrase grimoire is connected with High Magic (though not exclusive to it). A lot of the users on here (myself included) are clearly working from a Low Magic perspective.

Gordon White in his article “Counting Witches on Pinheads,” mentions the fortune teller Ann Watts, who, in 1687, was found with several grimoires. She was prosecuted for practicing witchcraft with these texts. Curiously, she may not have even been literate. She and other witches of her day may have used the diagrams, the symbols, and the charts from the grimoires. We have evidence of this because some grimoire tradition magic (planetary squares, talismans, etc.) was appropriated into folk magic traditions. But more importantly for this conversation, practicioners such as Watts may have used grimoires as talismans themselves. The old grimoires, like the Bible, were seen as holy texts that had magic power.

A grimoire is a book of magic, but not all magical books (such as the Bible) are grimoires. So, if someone is writing down instructions on how to do magic (how to draw a circle to hold spirits, how to call up gods, how to mix ointments for magical effects, et cetera), then grimoire is a good word to use for that book which they are writing. Call them Black Books ( svartkonstböcker) if you like. 

Additionally the separation of high and low magick is largely arbitrary. Many grimoires contain spells that are indistinguishable from “low magick” (Verum, Abramelin, 6th and 7th Books of Moses etc) while others consist of nothing but low magick (Long Lost Friend, Le Petite Albert, Aradia, arguably the PGM etc).  If you expand your study of grimoires to those outside the scope of Solomonic magick and those traditionally used in ceremonial magick, it becomes readily apparent that the line between high and low magick is incredibly blurred and this is made evident not only by their contents but their usage in folk magick traditions. 

Like the Witch Father, the Witch Mother is the dual-natured Archetypal Divine Feminine. She is life and death, creation and destruction, She is all. In Traditional Witchcraft, She is an initiator into witchcraft and the being that creates and molds the world to Her whim. The Witch Mother is essentially Witchcraft itself. 

In the same way it is hard to define and pinpoint the Witch Father, the Witch Mother is another enigmatic spirit essential to Traditional Witchcraft. Across cultures and centuries, She has been known by many names. Diana, Herodias, Frau Holle, Baba Yaga, Sa Rejusta, the Queen of Elphame, and Nicnevin are some of the names that She has gone by. 

As it stands, the Witch Mother is the Mother of all Witches. From her, we begin to learn the ways of the Crooked Path. Usually, it is by chance encounter that we meet Her, or one of Her emissaries, and we are put through trials. Through these trials, however, comes the enlightenment of the Path and we find our Witch Fire lit. With Her blessings, we are granted access to the unseen. 

The Witch Mother is a Dark Feminine Great Spirit. She is the primordial womb from which all life emanates. She forms the Earth to Her liking. The Witch Mother holds sway over life and death, the seasons, and even the turning of the day. She is the Magna Mater. She fiercely protects Her children and gives us the knowledge and tools that we need in order to defend ourselves from those wishing us harm. 

Her lore can be dark and sometimes violent. But it’s necessary as a protectress for Her family. When we prove ourselves to Her, She becomes a Great Ally for us in our paths. 

Baba Yaga

In Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga, we come to learn that Baba Yaga has mastery over the world. Through her servants, the days and nights turn over. In the story of Natasha, Baba Yaga has a towel that can create rivers and a comb that can create forests. Baba Yaga occupies the archetype of Witch Mother as the initiator and creatrix of the world. She gives these girls tasks which at first glance seem impossible but by their wit and cunning natures, they overcome them. This leads to Baba Yaga fulfilling her promise and granting them the boon they came to her for. For Vasilisa, the fire she seeks also burns her stepmother and sisters to ashes leaving her free from their oppression and hatred. 

Frau Holle or Mother Hulda

In the story of Mother Hulda, two step-sisters end up in the Otherworld and in service to Her. The first sister is hardworking while the other one is lazy. The hardworking sister drops her spindle into the well while trying to clean it and must figure out a way to get it out. She falls in and comes out in the Otherworld. She meets an apple tree asking for help to get its ripe fruit down from its branches and a loaf of bread asking to be taken from the fire before it burns.  Naturally, she obliges. Coming to a house in the meadow, she meets Mother Hulda who asks her for help around the house. This sister is very hardworking and listens to all of Mother Hulda’s requests, including how to fluff her pillows so the feathers fall so it will snow on Earth. Accomplishing this and asking to return home, she is sent back with gold falling all about her to keep.

The second sister, being lazy and greedy jumps into the well and into the otherworld wanting her own gold. She marches past the apple tree and the bread not stopping to help them, and comes to meet Mother Hulda and agrees to work for her as well. She performs well on the first day and gives way to laziness in the coming days. When she asks to go home, expecting to be showered in gold, she is told to “get lost” and is instead showered in tar. 

In this story, we see Her control over the weather and her home in the Otherworld. She has the power to bless and to curse. She expects those who want to learn witchcraft and the occult arts to hold up their end of the bargain. She grants power to those who are willing to work for it. 

Queen of Elfame

In several witch trials in Scotland, we see the Queen of Elfame make an appearance. In the trial of Bessie Dunlop (1576), she confesses that she has traveled to the Otherworld and has communed with the Queen of Elfame several times. For her kindness when in the guise of an old woman, Bessie is granted a familiar who teaches her natural remedies, knowledge of where to find lost items, and information about prophecies.

Several years later, in 1588, Alison Pearson (also styled as Alesoun Peirsoun) was burned at the stake for communing with the Queen. In Elfame, she learned of medicinal herbs, healing arts, and how to make charms and potions which she sold. 

In 1597, Andro (Andrew) Man confesses that he has lain with the Queen of Elphen and they begot many children together. He further confessed that through her, he would become knowledgeable in all things, help and cure all sicknesses except death. In his confession, Andro Man goes on to explain that “the Queen of Elphen has a grip of all the craft, but Christsonday (the Devil) is the husband and has all power under God.” They also have spirits in their company that are known to Man. 

Aradia: or the Gospel of Witches

In Aradia, it is attested that Diana is the Mother of Witches. She teaches her daughter, Aradia, witchcraft and charges her to go to Earth to teach humans this art. Specifically, Aradia is sent to teach the poor and the slaves witchcraft in order to free themselves from their lot in life. 

An Aqueous Tincture of the Wild

I would like to briefly discuss a form of natural water which, if located and collected, can be used to great effect in a variety of different magical operations. Namely, I want to talk about Hollow Water.

Hollow Water is a naturally occurring liquid, which is closely related to Stump Water, but which can specifically be found within the hollows of living trees. It is amassed over time through precipitation and ambient humidity, and becomes slowly saturated by an array of natural adulterants, such as soil, plant matter, and the putrefied remains of small animals. Such hollows—scientifically referred to as dendrotelmata—also serve as rich microhabitats that ecologically support multiple creatures, from insects, to mollusks, to amphibians.

Over time, I have come to recognize that this water can be used in a number of ways, but it is most powerfully suited to any forms of Wild Magic, including things like charming animals, shifting the weather, or locating needed plants. It also makes an irresistible libation to many sylvan spirits.

As I understand it, however, one must follow certain protocols in order to harness the power of Hollow Water:

One must seek the tree they plan to harvest from in silence—both there and back—and it must be done privately.

The tree in question should be circled thrice, towards the sun, upon meeting.

The water must be gathered by hand. For most people, myself included, the thought of reaching into a damp, dark, cavity is atavistically repellent, but for this very reason, the act of facing down that biological impulse is a very simple, but highly important, way to prove one’s resolve.

No animals present should be harmed or displaced.

And finally, the contents of the gathered water mustn't be strained.

Would you have any collections of fairy tales and folktales? Or articles about their origins?